Our Long National Nightmare Has Come To An End

Actually I'm not even going to dignify any of the 'carnival barker' road-kill stapled to his head guy fueled nonsense with a response (I heard Bob Schieffer on CBS handled it nicely though).

Instead here's a video that's entirely worth your time, and that of any kids you might know...



I'm a fan of Beyonce and the Let's Move campaign.

(via GOOD)

Slow News Day

There actually was a fair amount of news today, but I'm busy and thought I'd share this video (a little slow but a lot of fun)...



Fun and pretty spot on but I am disappointed that there isn't a "You're gonna need a biggah hamma" pose.

(via KM)

Feed That Addiction

I prefer to think of these types of little flash games as inventive and fun time wasters as opposed to true addictions, but they certainly can be hard to stop playing...

I just spent a good half an hour at least trying to get past level 10 of Gluey.  Hint: rapid clicking when the blobs are bigger seems to be a decent tactic, then again I washed out after 9 levels so what do I know?

From Kottke's stash of addictive flash games.

There's The Truth And Then There's What Republicans Say

Reality has a long standing and well recognized liberal bias, maybe folks are finally starting to realize that.

Paul Krugman has been pointing it out for years and Andrew Leonard had a great look at the Republican look on taxes the other day...

Republicans are nothing if not consistent. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they stick to the script. There's no better proof of this than their adherence to that classic fundamental pillar of supply-side economics: the theory that cutting taxes raises revenues.

Here's Rep. Joe Walsh, (R-Ill.) the self-styled "conservative Tea Party activist" who upset Democrat Melissa Bean in the 2010 midterms, on ABC's "This Week."

"In the '80s, federal revenues went up," said Walsh. "We didn't cut spending. Revenues went up in the '80s. Every time we've cut taxes, revenues have gone up. The economy has grown."

Walsh may be a freshman in Congress, but he's got the party line down pat. Here's Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell saying in July that the Bush tax cuts "increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. " Here's Speaker of the House John Boehner saying last June that " over the last 30 years... lower marginal tax rates have led to a growing economy, more employment and more people paying taxes," he said.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more orthodox Republican viewpoint. But you'd be equally hard pressed to prove that the assertion is true.

But it isn't just commentators on the left pointing out the Republicans' problems with the truth these days.  Fred Hiatt, long a defender of Republican nonsense, went after the right wing for their stance on climate change and their fact defying arithmetic last week.  As Brad DeLong pointed out, if you've lost Fred Hiatt the end may be in sight.

The most shocking, and rewarding, calling out of Republicans came from Paul Ryan's constituents at a recent town hall meeting though.



(via HTWW)

Harder To Read - Easier To Remember?

This story was up a while ago but I just got back to it in my 'To Read' folder.  An interesting look at how our brains process and store information centered on recent studies showing that crazy fonts may make it easier for subjects to recall what they read then if the same material was presented in a plain font.

Sounds like a potential winner for teachers of younger students with attention issues...

Last week, science writer and editor Christian Jarrett blogged about a new study, published this month in Cognition. The researchers, led by Connor Diemand-Yauman, asked 28 student volunteers to read about hypothetical alien species from a sheet printed in either 16-point Arial, 12-point Bodoni, or, yes, 12-point Comic Sans. The larger Arial font was much more legible than the other two versions, but in a quiz 15 minutes later, students reading the Bodoni or Comic Sans versions were significantly more accurate in recalling details about the aliens.

(via SEED)

Bolded, italicized, Trebuchet is the weirdest Blogger is set up for...

Brian Wilson Continues To Have The Greatest Beard Ever

This video is mostly awesome for other reasons though, a great 3 minute break when you next need one...



(via Hard Ball Talk)

Let's Get Graphic Out There

Great street art collection from Street Art Utopia...

Check them all out...

(via RC)