When the Washington Nationals played their first-ever baseball game in the nation’s capital in April 2005, two congressmen who oversaw mortgage giant Freddie Mac had choice seats — courtesy of the very company they were supposed to be keeping an eye on. Efforts to tighten government regulation were gaining support on Capitol Hill, and Freddie Mac was fighting back. The baseball tickets for home opener were means of influence. According

in Oxford Children’s Dictionary: Oxford University Press has removed words like “aisle”, “bishop”, “chapel”, “empire” and “monarch” from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like “blog”, “broadband” and “celebrity”. Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled. The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society. But academics and head teachers said that the

A response to an earlier post: Talk about arrogance, but apparently New York Times Columnist Timothy Egan wants to stop Joe the Plumber from being allowed to have his book published and calls the government oppressed blue collar man a “no good citizen” and a “no good plumber.” Arrogantly, Egan imagines that Joe somehow doesn’t deserve to have a book deal. Egan imagines himself more qualified than Joe to write

Worldwide Jihadi Industries has the cure! Rania al-Ambaki was rescued after officials jammed cell phone signals near where she was chained up. The young woman may have been drugged by Al-Qaeda before she was chained down. CBS News reported: Rania al Ambaki was handcuffed to a gate at an Iraq security checkpoint. She was a human bomb, CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports. Suspicious officers immobilized her, jammed cell phone

Jan 30, 1933 – Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany a nation with a Jewish population of 566,000. Feb 22, 1933 – 40,000 SA and SS men are sworn in as auxiliary police. Feb 27, 1933 – Nazis burn Reichstag building to create crisis atmosphere. Feb 28, 1933 – Emergency powers granted to Hitler as a result of the Reichstag fire. March 22, 1933 – Nazis open Dachau concentration

Via Insty, Eric Posner on Bill “Guilty as Sin, Free as a Bird” Ayers: ERIC POSNER: Was Bill Ayers a terrorist? Pretty much. “Under current law, Ayers was a terrorist. This definition is not idiosyncratic; similar definitions can be found in the laws of foreign countries and in international treaties. Ayers seems to think he ought to be excused for violence because his motives were good, but that is the

Stolen from PsyBlog: We tend to think of our emotions as having laws unto themselves, but one psychological researcher has suggested that our emotions do follow certain general rules. This post begins a new series on the psychology of emotions with Professor Nico Frijda’s twelve laws of the emotions (Fridja, 2006). As for most laws there are exceptions, but these have been synthesised from years of psychological research and hold

Four miles into last Sunday’s Seattle Marathon, runners came on a sight so singular that some stopped to be photographed with it. It was a banner, 3 feet by 6 feet, that read: “SEATTLE ATHEISTS — WE BELIEVE IN YOU.” Behind it, handing out water to the runners and cheering, were 30 volunteers with one thing in common: They say there is no God. Why in heaven’s name were atheists

It has happened repeatedly in the last several weeks — well-paid, well-known journalists questioning the wisdom of “bailing out Detroit,” of helping an industry whose union-represented workers have substantially better wages and benefits than other manual or skilled laborers, or, more precisely, who are better compensated than their nonunion counterparts working at foreign-owned rival companies building cars and trucks in the United States. The questions are tinged with outrage and

in Pakistan, protesting low-mileage American imports.