Via Pitchfork, I just came across an especially amusing example of that “Above the Influence” anti-drug campaign, in which teenagers are exhorted to be their own, autonomous, individual selves by OBEYING OUR COMMERCIAL. Here’s the text of the spot: FEMALE VOICE: (Computer voice) Being popular was all I could think about last year. I wanted […]

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…to Jane Galt, even if she is a jackbooted warmonger.

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The sun rose today, there was violence in the Middle East, and almost as shocking, Tyler Cowen has lots of insightful things to say—this time in a New York Times column about income inequality. Among the points that make you feel vaguely stupid for not having already thought of it: Without anything else nefarious going […]

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The (white) mayor of a Texas town is proposing a ban on (avert your eyes if you have issues with the use-mention distinction) the word “nigger,” the use of which he rather stunningly describes as “the most controversial issue throughout the United States today.” The law would require a complaint to trigger any prosecution, apparently […]

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Best. Condom Ad. Evar.

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Liz at Yellow is the Color spots a City Paper story about a fun-sounding plan by H Street watering hole The Red and the Black to offer a “shot and a haircut” special. Alas, it may run afoul of city regs stipulating that, as a health department spokesperson puts it, “No food establishment is authorized […]

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Via Laure, the New York Observer profiles the Manhattan blog scene. My first thought: “Oh, how funny. This sounds, mutatis mutandis, pretty much like my circle of friends. Just substitute DCist for Gothamist, Townhouse or Black Cat for The Magician, and so on.” My second thought: “Wait, this sounds like everyone’s circle of friends. Why […]

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Wired has a generally pretty fun sort of gee-whiz cover feature on the “big questions” remaining for science. But the section on the question of how the brain gives rise to the conscious mind is just endlessly irritating. The author closes thus: Some philosophers still argue that consciousness is too subjective to explain, or that […]

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DCist has a great editorial on city councilman Jim Graham’s nonsensical reaction to the shooting of a teenage girl at a local club. Short version: Taleshia Ford, 17, goes to see an all-ages go-go show at a U Street club. Some asshole (illegally) brings a gun into the joint, gets into an altercation with the […]

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Hee.

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