Blast from the Past: Pogo

We have met the enemy and he is us. 

That's a quote from my sister's favorite cartoon of the 1950's, and therefore mine.  (She was 5.5 years older, enough that she could act as a guide to the mysterious world of adults. )

Reminded of Pogo by this short piece.

Here's the wikipedia take.

I see googling "pogo" doesn't bring up the cartoon as any of the top results.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

Like Marrying Like: Petri and Stromberg

Ms. Petri usually does well in her humor columns, but Saturday's was very good.  Then I see this notice in the NYTimes, explaining the marriage.

In the old days Mr. Stromberg would have married his secretary, who would have been his better half.  Now he marries a columnist, who's still his better half.  I can't complain, since the marriage produces the column, but it's assortative mating.  Unfortunately it reduces social mobility. 

But read Petri's piece.

The Great Blog Post Title Is:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610229/how-to-teach-a-robot-to-screw/

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The Full Employment Act

Cynics say that new tax acts are full employment acts for attorneys.  It's also true that Trump's election was a full employment act for humorists.  See Garrison Keillor's take.

An Understatement of the Month?

Keith Hennessey (GWB's former economist) is commenting on the Trump budget and apparent disagreements between OMB Mulvaney and Treasury Mnuchin:

"Two trillion dollars is a lot of money..."

Fake Mustaches--Dangerous to Health

Margaret Soltan links to a wikipedia piece on the president of Argentina (perhaps he'll be a soulmate of ours?):

He wore a fake moustache and impersonated singer Freddie Mercury during the party. He accidentally swallowed the moustache, and Minister of Health Jorge Lemus performed first aid to save his life.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

The title is a blast from the past, from the lips of the only Vice President to be forced from office because of criminal conduct. 

Agnew was mostly a mouthpiece for a gifted speechwriter, but he has achieved political immortality of a kind by so being.  I'm thinking Kellyanne Conway is on her way to joining him in that political Valhalla, over which William Safire presides. It's just two weeks into the administration and already she's given us "alternative facts" and "Bowling Green massacre", two terms with a decent chance of being converted by usage into permanent residence in the political hall of fame.

The Results of Ending Fox Hunts in Britain

That's the door of No. 10 Downing Street, according to this article.  
It only takes a few years for the foxes to take over. 

Reached from Kevin Drum's Friday cat blog post by following the link to the Sun.

Terrorism in Vermont?

Beings with destruction on their minds destroyed a portion of the Internet yesterday--I'm sure it's just a taste of what will happen on election day.

How Far Does the Internet of Things Extend?

To beaver dens, according to this post.

Funny on Trump

Too long for twitter:

"A New Verb in Mexico: Trumpear (From ‘to Punch’) http://nyti.ms/28MiEUv
In the state of Chihuahua in Mexico, an eatery is churning out Donald Trump tacos. They’re made with a lot of tongue, a dash of pig snout and just a little bit of cow brain."

I think too perfect to be true, but funny nonetheless.

Such a Fine Day for Flash to Ruin

A little humor from the New Yorker, having just attempted to update my Adobe Flash.

Long Overdue Warning on DNA

There's DNA in your food.  Labels should reflect that.

(Note the label.  Thanks to Somin at Volokh.

George Washington Never Took a Bath? Not

In a tub, that is.  We have it on the authority of H.L. Mencken, who says Millard Fillmore was the first president to take a bath in a tub.  The tub, it seems, had just been invented.


Of course, Mencken later admitted the article was a complete hoax.

It Was My Mother's Fault

Specifically:

"Although mostly I suspect it was because my mother raised me badly, so I didn't have the good manners to show proper gratitude in a normal way. Definitely my mother's fault, one way or another."

That's from an InsideHigherEd  post, interviewing Prof. Pietsch, the guy whose acknowledgments in his book have gone viral, thanks to John Fea's spotting them at the AHA convention.

"A Deal Deal"

One of my favorite movies is a minor Clint Eastwood film: Kelly's Heroes.  It's a weird combination of war escapade and satire, mocking both the military and the counter-culture, Westerns, and movies..   Eastwood leads a motley crew through German lines into a town to rob a bank of German gold.  However a squad of German tanks has also learned of the gold, so the good guys and bad guys face off in the town, eventually reaching an impasse.  That's the moment at which Don Rickles, playing a corrupt supply sergeant, persuades Telly Savalas that it's time to do a deal with the Germans to split the gold; as he describes it, a "deal deal".

 That's what Speaker Ryan did in the closing days of Congress, a deal deal.  That's what some Republicans, particularly Paul Hinderaker at Powerline, don't understand--politics as the art of the deal deal.

The Dangers of English

I'm stealing two images from an Illinois extension post on big data in agriculture:

Drezner on Surgeons

"I love my father [a surgeon] dearly, but if he ever were appointed czar, I would have no choice but to lead the partisan resistance."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/16/ben-carson-miracle-surgeon/

Funny Paragraph for Bears

Joel Achenbach on Yosemite and advice given on handling bears [i.e, walk in groups of three]

Except this is all absurd. For starters, three is not a natural human grouping. Two is a natural human grouping. Maybe you could persuade a child to be the third in your party, but I’m not sure how that makes sense in Grizzly Country. Unless the child was a kind of designated offering to the monster.

As a student of John McPhee, Joel writes well and can be funny, though this also proves that liberals love the country.

Soft-Hearted Feds and Trump

According to this Politico piece on Donald Trump's wars with local officials in Palm Beach, he was able to buy a $10 million mansion (Mar-A-Lago) for less than $3,000 down payment.

No wonder The Donald doesn't respect us.

Read the piece--it's fun.