How to Perform Strong Man Stunts by Ottley R. Coulter

Friday, June 24th, 2005

“All the world loves a strong man,” according to How to Perform Strong Man Stunts by Ottley R. Coulter, published in 1952.

Evidently it’s pretty easy to drive a nail through a board if you just wrap the nail’s head in a towel. I may have to try that.

(Hat tip to GeekPress.)

Libertarian Credo

Friday, June 24th, 2005

Arnold Kling states his Libertarian Credo:

Libertarians see the state as just another human institution, with the same moral status as a supermarket or a bowling league.

No, I cannot be a pure utilitarian…

Friday, June 24th, 2005

I have to agree with Tyler Cowen; this is just awful:

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.

As a result, cities have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes to generate tax revenue.

A Korean War Stat Lingers Long After It Was Corrected

Thursday, June 23rd, 2005

From A Korean War Stat Lingers Long After It Was Corrected:

A decade ago, the Department of Defense corrected an important point in U.S. military history: about 36,000 American soldiers died in the Korean War, not 54,000 as first thought. The revision was the result of new research, conducted at the request of veterans.

Yet as the 55th anniversary of the war’s beginning approaches, the larger, incorrect figure can still be found in textbooks and newspapers, in recent speeches from lawmakers and on war memorials — demonstrating how bad statistics can linger after they’ve been corrected.

The 54,000 figure included all soldiers who died during the war, anywhere in the world, from any cause — including about 18,000 heart attacks, suicides, car accidents and other nonwar deaths during the war years. Some occurred thousands of miles from the theater of war. In the mid-1990s, the Department of Defense began to clarify the record, and that quiet change received widespread publicity in 2000, on the 50th anniversary of the war.

Not in Front of the Kids: Documenting the Emotional Toll of Parental Tension

Thursday, June 23rd, 2005

Not in Front of the Kids: Documenting the Emotional Toll of Parental Tension looks at John Gottman’s latest research, looking at parental stress and its effects on children.

The effects aren’t good, of course, but this statistic jumped out as one of those “big hairy moose” issues everyone ignores:

Such stresses are all too common; 67% of new parents experience a drop in marital satisfaction after the baby is born, his research shows.

In Modern Era, Self-Storage Has Right Stuff

Thursday, June 23rd, 2005

According to In Modern Era, Self-Storage Has Right Stuff, the self-storage industry’s revenue is up to $15 billion. We own so much stuff that one in every 11 American households has a self-storage unit:

American families at the middle of the middle class own more things, enjoy better health, have more choices than their grandparents — and (for most) their parents — did. The average home now has 3.1 televisions, on average, according to a survey done for the Consumer Electronics Association; in 1980, it was 1.7 per household. About 92% of households own a car, the most recent Department of Transportation survey found; even among households with incomes below $25,000, 80% own a car. Around 85% of households have air conditioning.

AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes

Thursday, June 23rd, 2005

The American Film Institute has announced its AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes:

# Quote Movie Year
1 Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. GONE WITH THE WIND 1939
2 I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse. THE GODFATHER 1972
3 You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. ON THE WATERFRONT 1954
4 Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. THE WIZARD OF OZ 1939
5 Here’s looking at you, kid. CASABLANCA 1942
6 Go ahead, make my day. SUDDEN IMPACT 1983
7 All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up. SUNSET BLVD. 1950
8 May the Force be with you. STAR WARS 1977
9 Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night. ALL ABOUT EVE 1950
10 You talking to me? TAXI DRIVER 1976
11 What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. COOL HAND LUKE 1967
12 I love the smell of napalm in the morning. APOCALYPSE NOW 1979
13 Love means never having to say you’re sorry. LOVE STORY 1970
14 The stuff that dreams are made of. THE MALTESE FALCON 1941
15 E.T. phone home. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL 1982
16 They call me Mister Tibbs! IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT 1967
17 Rosebud. CITIZEN KANE 1941
18 Made it, Ma! Top of the world! WHITE HEAT 1949
19 I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore! NETWORK 1976
20 Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. CASABLANCA 1942
21 A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS 1991
22 Bond. James Bond. DR. NO 1962
23 There’s no place like home. THE WIZARD OF OZ 1939
24 I am big! It’s the pictures that got small. SUNSET BLVD. 1950
25 Show me the money! JERRY MAGUIRE 1996
26 Why don’t you come up sometime and see me? SHE DONE HIM WRONG 1933
27 I’m walking here! I’m walking here! MIDNIGHT COWBOY 1969
28 Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’ CASABLANCA 1942
29 You can’t handle the truth! A FEW GOOD MEN 1992
30 I want to be alone. GRAND HOTEL 1932
31 After all, tomorrow is another day! GONE WITH THE WIND 1939
32 Round up the usual suspects. CASABLANCA 1942
33 I’ll have what she’s having. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY 1989
34 You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow. TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT 1944
35 You’re gonna need a bigger boat. JAWS 1975
36 Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges! THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE 1948
37 I’ll be back. THE TERMINATOR 1984
38 Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES 1942
39 If you build it, he will come. FIELD OF DREAMS 1989
40 Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. FORREST GUMP 1994
41 We rob banks. BONNIE AND CLYDE 1967
42 Plastics. THE GRADUATE 1967
43 We’ll always have Paris. CASABLANCA 1942
44 I see dead people. THE SIXTH SENSE 1999
45 Stella! Hey, Stella! A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE 1951
46 Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars. NOW, VOYAGER 1942
47 Shane. Shane. Come back! SHANE 1953
48 Well, nobody’s perfect. SOME LIKE IT HOT 1959
49 It’s alive! It’s alive! FRANKENSTEIN 1931
50 Houston, we have a problem. APOLLO 13 1995
51 You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk? DIRTY HARRY 1971
52 You had me at "hello." JERRY MAGUIRE 1996
53 One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know. ANIMAL CRACKERS 1930
54 There’s no crying in baseball! A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN 1992
55 La-dee-da, la-dee-da. ANNIE HALL 1977
56 A boy’s best friend is his mother. PSYCHO 1960
57 Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. WALL STREET 1987
58 Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. THE GODFATHER II 1974
59 As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again. GONE WITH THE WIND 1939
60 Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into! SONS OF THE DESERT 1933
61 Say "hello" to my little friend! SCARFACE 1983
62 What a dump. BEYOND THE FOREST 1949
63 Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you? THE GRADUATE 1967
64 Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room! DR. STRANGELOVE 1964
65 Elementary, my dear Watson. THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 1929
66 Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape. PLANET OF THE APES 1968
67 Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. CASABLANCA 1942
68 Here’s Johnny! THE SHINING 1980
69 They’re here! POLTERGEIST 1982
70 Is it safe? MARATHON MAN 1976
71 Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet! THE JAZZ SINGER 1927
72 No wire hangers, ever! MOMMIE DEAREST 1981
73 Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico? LITTLE CAESAR 1930
74 Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown. CHINATOWN 1974
75 I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE 1951
76 Hasta la vista, baby. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY 1991
77 Soylent Green is people! SOYLENT GREEN 1973
78 Open the pod bay doors, HAL. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY 1968
79 Striker: Surely you can’t be serious. Rumack: I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley. AIRPLANE! 1980
80 Yo, Adrian! ROCKY 1976
81 Hello, gorgeous. FUNNY GIRL 1968
82 Toga! Toga! NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE 1978
83 Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make. DRACULA 1931
84 Oh, no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast. KING KONG 1933
85 My precious. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: TWO TOWERS 2002
86 Attica! Attica! DOG DAY AFTERNOON 1975
87 Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star! 42ND STREET 1933
88 Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it. You’re going to get back on that horse, and I’m going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we’re gonna go, go, go! ON GOLDEN POND 1981
89 Tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper. KNUTE ROCKNE ALL AMERICAN 1940
90 A martini. Shaken, not stirred. GOLDFINGER 1964
91 Who’s on first. THE NAUGHTY NINETIES 1945
92 Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac…It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! CADDYSHACK 1980
93 Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death! AUNTIE MAME 1958
94 I feel the need — the need for speed! TOP GUN 1986
95 Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary. DEAD POETS SOCIETY 1989
96 Snap out of it! MOONSTRUCK 1987
97 My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY 1942
98 Nobody puts Baby in a corner. DIRTY DANCING 1987
99 I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too! WIZARD OF OZ, THE 1939
100 I’m king of the world! TITANIC 1997

John Vance, RIP

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

John Vance, RIP cites a Washington Post article on the man who uncovered the CIA’s LSD-mind-control project:

Code-named MKULTRA (and pronounced m-k-ultra), the project Mr. Vance uncovered was the brainchild of CIA Director Allen Dulles, who was intrigued by reports of mind-control techniques allegedly conducted by Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War. The CIA wanted to use similar techniques on its own POWs and perhaps use LSD or other mind-bending substances on foreign leaders, including Cuba’s Fidel Castro a few years after the project got underway in 1953.

Heading MKULTRA was a CIA chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. In congressional testimony, Gottlieb, who died in 1999, acknowledged that the agency had administered LSD to as many as 40 unwitting subjects, including prison inmates and patrons of brothels set up and run by the agency. At least one participant died when he jumped out of a 10th-floor window in a hotel; others claimed to have suffered serious psychological damage.

The Onion 2056

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

The Onion 2056 celebrates The Onion‘s fictional 300th anniversary — from the future.

Naturally, I enjoyed Leather-Clad Nomads Seize Power in Australia and Government May Restrict Use of Genetically Modified Farmers — accompanied by a Photoshopped image of World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski doing…the farmer’s walk.

In Tasmanian Forests, A Battle Breaks Out Over Bees and Trees

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

From In Tasmanian Forests, A Battle Breaks Out Over Bees and Trees:

There had been reports of a bushfire in the mountains that night. So, before dawn, the beekeepers headed west to check on their hives. Like most of the beekeepers in Tasmania, they set up their hives along logging roads in the forest, because their bees collect nectar and pollen from flowering leatherwood trees.

Leatherwood grows only on this heart-shaped island the size of Ireland, a hundred miles south of the Australian mainland and 800 miles west of New Zealand. The trees’ small, star-shaped flowers blossom into the autumn, generating 70% of the 1,200 tons of honey produced in Tasmania each year.

But today, a battle of trees versus bees is unfolding here. For more than 30 years, timber companies have been energetically converting the forests of this Australian state, which have the tallest and oldest flowering trees in the world, into sawdust and woodchips, which are shipped primarily to Japan. The loggers want the huge eucalyptus, but like dolphins caught in a tuna net, the leatherwood, Huon and King Billy pines that grow alongside them are harvested as well. The loggers then firebomb the forests to clear out the debris, a process that can lead to runaway ‘regeneration burns’ and inadvertently destroy nearby leatherwood, and threaten the hives.

If the logging of leatherwood isn’t limited, the beekeepers warn, not only will their livelihood disappear, but so will the world’s only source of leatherwood honey, which has a sharp, musky flavor similar to honey from chestnuts or thyme.

Common virus kills cancer, study finds

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

From Common virus kills cancer, study finds:

‘Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells,’ said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania.

‘We believe that AAV-2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV-2 has great potential to be developed as an anti-cancer agent,’ Meyers said in a statement.

He said at a meeting of the American Society for Virology that studies have shown women infected with AAV-2 who are also infected with a cancer-causing wart virus called HPV develop cervical cancer less frequently than uninfected women do.

AAV-2 is a small virus that cannot replicate itself without the help of another virus. But with the help of a second virus it kills cells.

Being Batman

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

According to the fairly silly Being Batman:

But you don’t have to be a billionaire to become a caped crusader. Using commercially available training, technology and domestic help, the average guy could conceivably equip himself to become a real-world superhero, provided he’s got at least a couple million to spare.

The bottom line:

Final Cost: $3,365,449

The Training: $30,000

The Suit: $1,585

The Belt: $290

The Car: $2,000,000

The Cave: $24,000

The Alter Ego: $1,109,574

The Butler: $200,000

The Secrets of Successful Aging

Tuesday, June 21st, 2005

The Secrets of Successful Aging explains that those who age well are those who manage stress well.

The article’s advice:

  • Seek control when you can
  • Information can relieve stress
  • Keep friends and family close
  • Exercise you hate won’t help as much as exercise you like
  • Get more sleep
  • Pick and choose your stress relief

The Vivid Centuries

Tuesday, June 21st, 2005

Ralph Kinney Bennett opens The Vivid Centuries with a Chinese proverb:

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

His point:

In the first vivid century, the 20th, we had the benefit of the motion picture coming to full fruition along with sound recording. Movies, radio and television grew rapidly from the early-mid century onward, making it possible, even routine, to know much about the sights and sounds that were a part of our parents’ and grandparents’ lives.

This was an important departure from the “silent centuries” that had gone before. These technologies have given us clues and more than clues with which to reconstruct the incidental ambience of daily life as far back as the early 1900s. They have put us in closer touch than ever before with social and cultural history at its most elemental and personal level.

The invention and perfection of photography in the mid 1800s made it a precursor to the vivid centuries. We know much of the mise en scene of our late 19th century ancestors’ lives — from the stark spareness of a prairie settler’s sod house to the opulence of a Victorian home because of this photography.

Once Seen as Risky, One Group Of Doctors Changes Its Ways

Tuesday, June 21st, 2005

An idea just crazy enough to work, from Once Seen as Risky, One Group Of Doctors Changes Its Ways:

Anesthesiologists pay less for malpractice insurance today, in constant dollars, than they did 20 years ago. That’s mainly because some anesthesiologists chose a path many doctors in other specialties did not. Rather than pushing for laws that would protect them against patient lawsuits, these anesthesiologists focused on improving patient safety. Their theory: Less harm to patients would mean fewer lawsuits.