Writing in Reason, Mike Lynch points out how many state legislatures are gouging consumers on the price of wine by enforcing a cost-hiking “three-tier regime to regulate the sale of alcohol.” Which, I should point out to all of the politicians who faithfully read this site, is not something that JESUS would approve of. Go on. Go think about that for a spell, why don’t you…?

Sensible thoughts from syndicated columnist William Rasberry: “Kids won’t learn if we expect failure”: Too many of us — and not, by any means, just teachers — have accepted that many of our children really cannot learn very much. We bemoan that fact. We are deeply sorry that it’s true, and we are handy with a grocery list of culprits. But fundamentally, we believe that the children of what is

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Saul Singer wonders if the moral clarity Bush showed in his controversial June 24th speech (in which he condemned the policies of the Palestinian leadership) might not be fading already: […] there is the US response to Israel’s killing of archterrorist Salah Shehadeh, who has been held responsible for the deaths of about 200 Israeli civilians. As is typical in Israel, a debate rages over

“Older people can literally think themselves into the grave by feeling bad about getting old, researchers said on Sunday. “People who said they had more positive views about aging lived an average 7.6 years longer than those with negative perceptions, the researchers report in the August issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.” How one feels about getting old is more important

Writing in The New Republic, Michelle Cottle asks the sensible question, why do we expect professional athletes to be role models? […] what fascinates me isn’t why these spoiled, childish, overpaid celebrities insist on behaving so badly.(Answer: Because they are spoiled, childish, overpaid celebrities.) Rather, I can’t quite figure out why we still treat athletes in general as though they possess any character attributes that qualify them to serve as

Weisblott brought this to my attention a few days back, but I promptly forgot about it because I was busy drinking heavily and stuffing myself with Frosted Mini-Wheats. Today’s New York Post, though, is giving the story some mainstream ink (scroll to the bottom): The Chosen One Finally, Jewish comic book fans have a hero all their own. The latest issue of ‘The Fantastic Four’ comic book reveals that the

Gone fishing. Go play with the punchlines or something.

More on campus bureaucracy and its role in the studied propogation and subsidization of left-leaning ideology, from UPenn’s Erin O’Connor: […] campus social engineering is a huge, hugely lucrative bureaucracy. It’s also a distinct culture, one that produces and sustains a distinctly collectivist, distressingly irresponsible mindset in the name of social responsibility. Specifics abound. Part 2 in a series.

Oh. And one more thing: Don’t forget to support Blogathon 2002 if you’re able. It’ll make Meryl happy (doubtful) and Laurence sane (not a friggin’ chance). But at least you’ll be able to say you tried, right…? [update: The First Lady of Bloggy Stimulation (and some of her naughty gal pals, ‘t looks like) are also, um, tickling the keyboard for this Blogathon thingy. Dirty talk for a good cause.

Here, this ought to keep you busy while I’m off today doing my own thing: a list of punchlines. That’s right. Punchlines. Unattributed punchlines, too. Because to be honest with you, I don’t know any jokes — which is why I’m encouraging you to make up your own. I mean, I’ve already done all of the hard work for you, no? Now if you’ll excuse me, Real Genius beckons. (And