Speeding tickets are for the little people.  Definitely not for Washington politicos...

Not as bad as the press made it look...  Big surprise there, right?  Friend Aleck L. alerted me earlier today to the news reports about “lots of people” making racist tweets about the selection of an Indian-American for Miss America.  Reason's Shikha Dalmia (self-proclaimed “Indian American in residence” at Reason) has a sober and positive take on it.  Big take-away: the “lots of people” reported in the press turns out to be exactly 16 people.  Just 16 tweets out of hundreds of thousands...

Excellent illusion!

You just never know... what you're going to find on Amazon.  They have entire product categories I had no idea existed!  I stumbled across this article and went looking for the product on Amazon to see if it was for real.  I couldn't find it – but I did find this at the top of my search.  My favorite review:

Thanks to this product my anus now actually glows in the dark. It helped me find my way during a black-out, though I had to walk backwards and bent over.

California, boldly going where nobody else is stupid enough to go – enabling illegal immigrants to become licensed lawyers.  As if our lawyers weren't problem enough already!

Strange ghost towns, all around the world.  I'd never heard of most of them...

What's wrong with the NSA, and what we need to do about it.  Bruce Schneier's roll – and leadership – continue...

“Trapped in their porcelain prison.”  I have conflicting responses to watching this.  Part of me wants to roll around on the floor, laughing.  Part of me admires the clever ad.  Part of me wants to claw out my eyes.  Part of me marvels at the entrepreneurial spirit that's obviously still alive.  And yes, it's a real product...

How Obama should have replied to Putin.  But he didn't, so Jim DeMint did it for him.  Thanks, buddy...

For some reason, I'll bet he didn't vote for Obama.  And I'll bet his wife is darned happy about that!

California is at the forefront again.  Of idiocy, that is...

This pretty much sums up the situation, says friend, former colleague, reader, and Idaho real estate mogul Doug S.  Yup, sure does.

A hidden message.  The two graphs at right, from a WSJ article, tell an interesting story about union membership.  On the left, you see that overall union membership has declined to almost half the level it was just 20 years ago.  On the right, you see steep declines in the private sector, while public sector union membership rates are basically flat.  I read this as evidence that unions no longer serve a compelling purpose in the private sector, but in the public sector they've got a very effective racket going – and their members know it.

The future of education.  The story of a Mongolian boy genius who is learning electrical engineering by taking (free) online courses by MIT.  If education is the true goal, this is the way to do it.  Combine this with certification decoupled from university attendance (IOW, prove you know your stuff and you can get a degree without even attending a university) and you've got something industry would slaver over.  Which means, of course, that they'd help pay for it, if someone can figure out how to organize it...

Like you've never seen it before...  Here's a short movie of our moon, rotating so that you can see the entire thing.  You can't see this from Earth (because the same side of the moon always faces us), so NASA made this with images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) satellite.  Make it full screen and you'll get a nice 3D effect.  Via APOD, of course.

You think this would work with politicians???  Man fends off a grizzly bear by punching it.

Summers out, markets up.  I'm writing this 15 minutes before the markets open, and the Dow futures are up over 150 points – mainly on the news from last night that Summers has withdrawn as possible replacement for Ben Bernanke.  Apparently the Wall Street crowd didn't think much of Summers, either!