This is only the second time this person has come to my attention. Apparently he’s still just as big a wanker as my colleague Quickbeam found him to be back then. A pissy little memo to John Voight, from the pen of Jeffrey Wells: If you think differently from Jeffrey Wells politically, you would never get a role in something he were casting, in the fantasyland where he does his casting. And oh yeah, shutting the hell up about your opinions in a town where people “overwhelmingly” think differently from you might be “expedient.”

Wow, so brave of Jeffrey to set up his own sweet little tar-and-feathers brigade in a town where people “overwhelmingly” think like he does.

I get an extra kick out of commenter Superhero38 trying to simultaneously distance Angelina Jolie from her father while pointing out that her reasons to support staying in Iraq are good.

Via Instapundit.

Relax, I’m not talking about anything in the real world. I’m talking about Doctor Who … again … and how the idiot moral and political beliefs of its writers are turning the doctor into a more buffoonish figure than I would like to see him be.

**SPOILERS** for the season finale, “Journey’s End,” below. (more…)

Autograph seekers outside the theater where David Tennant is playing Hamlet and Patrick Stewart is playing Claudius are limited to asking them to sign Hamlet-related memorabilia, as opposed to “bags” … bags!!! … of Doctor Who stuff, and presumably Star Trek stuff as well.

I am so embarrassed for these people. If I ever meet David Tennant I will be finding something better to say than begging him to write on Who stuff, I can tell you.

H/t Daddyman.

They might actually be able to rescue us from compact-flourescent purgatory: Better living through LEDs! The reporter has it wrong, though: Incandescents are not dying, they’re being murdered. If my engineer boys can come up with something that will be a nice light and still get the greens off my back, well and good, but I highly resent Congress legislating our light bulbs before satisfactory alternatives are available.

Okay, I resent Congress legislating our light bulbs at all, but I especially resent the insult to the injury.

H/t J, who is becoming disgruntled at the fact that he has not yet been promoted to Assistant (to the) Chief Content Researcher.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent much of your adult life learning how to communicate properly and effectively with other adults. Only to find out that, typically, you still can’t make these interactions turn out satisfactorily for all parties.

A pessimist might be tempted ask at that juncture, “What’s the point?”

For example, I never knew that the Mad Men everybody’s raving about is on a channel I actually get, namely AMC, as opposed to HBO or Showtime. Duh. Guess it’s time to set the TiVo, though I hate coming in a season late.

This is why I’m an editor rather than a writer, because even when I suspect that what I’m thinking would resonate with a lot of other people, I never think to write it up that way, much less be funny about it. Hence Fug Girl Jessica: “Please, no one watched that.”

I love me some Scully and Mulder too, but … let’s just say I’m reserving the right to “meh” over this movie.

… from The Longest Vacation Evah. Blogging shall resume. At some point.

A sad, gaping loss. I hope his family can find comfort.

Pretties from the balloon adventure. Photos by me.

Indiana horizon at sunrise:

Balloon interior:

Burner in action:

Balloon shadow just after landing:

Partially deflated balloon in cow pasture:

My sister, who comments here as Bumble, and I were taken up in a hot-air balloon yesterday morning. It was absolutely as fantastic as you always thought it would be. Silent, still, views like the ones off the Sears Tower but without the heat, noise, grime, smells, and concrete. There are photos below the fold, but if you want to skip the narration and go straight to the in-flight pictures, they are here.

I was nervous before we went; not about flying or the height, but since I became a mom, reasonable fears of accidental death have blown up into an occasional, irrational near-certainty that because I’m so careless and rude to my child as to actually take an adventure that has a small chance of possibly going horribly wrong, it will actually happen that way. I tried to wrestle this down with the assurance that our pilot, Dave Bobel, has been flying balloons for more than thirty years and is certainly not about to crash himself just to validate my midnight fears. You won’t catch me going skydiving, though. Details and photos after the jump. (more…)

We both take pictures of the doors.

Of course he can tell you lots more cooler stuff about them than I can. All I can offer is that both of these doors used to belong to John Adams.

…and it ain’t public service.

Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults. So when I’m President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you’ll have done 17 weeks of service.

Somebody please explain to Barack that pesky “correlation is not causation” thing. Students who do service on their own volition or at the urging of their parents or teachers, rather than under compulsion, and who also do well in school and go to college … hmmm … I’m trying hard to think of a reason … could it be they’re more highly motivated to begin with? Oh well, I’m too lazy to look for A Study proving that. When Obama’s education program has been running a few years, however, I’m sure the Studies will be overflowing with the puzzling, basically flat numbers of those who go to college and “maintain that service as adults.” Also the startling rise in the number of private schools that don’t take any federal funds at all.

Via Instapundit.