Achewood really has the perfect coda to Michael Jackson: The old guy interrupts the middle-aged guys to explain their grief to them. “He was your Elvis,” he says, “and when your Elvis dies, so does the private lie that someday you will be young once again, and feel at capricious intervals the weightlessness of a joy that is unchecked by the injuries of experience and failure…. In other words, you died a bit today. Welcome to the only game in town.” It reminds me of... More ...

On the one hand. On the other. I grew up with those songs. But I am not touched by the death of the singer. Others are, and who am I to disparage their emotion, especially if they acknowledge the emotion is strange or illogical. But it’s strange and illogical. ... More ...

Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) gets schooled by snappy Twitter comebacks to his claims. I got insulted on twitter once. It was just like being beaten to death by riot police. ... More ...

Even in the comparatively rain-soaked northeast we’ve got water troubles, as the recent Globe article on overuse of our river resources indicates. Well, I sent that out to my friend John Fleck in Albuquerque, who does a lot of science and drought reporting for the paper there. He commented that drought isn’t necessarily a specific low level of water - just less than you use. Obviously New Englanders could use a lot less water than they do, but they’re used to not having to worr... More ...

But I sent one today, to Fred Dekow, M.D., the Associate Medical Director of the Physician Review Unit at Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA: Fred - I got your letter today indicating that my fiancee’s emergency appendectomy was probably, but not definitely, covered by her insurance. Thank you for letting us know. Your letter reminded me of a joke about three medical professionals awaiting entrance to heaven. The first, a surgeon, tells St. Peter that he knows he’s led an imperfect li... More ...

I’ve been reading a galley of the upcoming book Cheap by Ellen Ruppel Shell, and it’s got me thinking about marketing practices a lot. I don’t agree with all of Shell’s conclusions - she seems to think that discounting and production efficiency is a zero-sum game, for example. But she definitely has keen insight into the psychology of discounting, building on studies of irrational behavior by people like Dan Ariely (whose book I also enjoyed). At first I didn’t rea... More ...

Newscasts plus Auto-Tune plus some inspired silliness equals… club-worthy rhymes about how the Supreme Court really does need another female voice. It’s at least as danceable as, and significantly more informative than, the top-40 hot R&B hits about having the number 1 ring-tone. ... More ...

Things I have learned recently: From the NYT on tattoo history: “The red star trademark of Macy’s department store, we learn, might well have evolved from the tattoo that the store’s founder, Rowland Macy, had on his arm when he sailed on a whaling ship.” The word bombora is an Australian aboriginal term for places where big, big waves break over offshore rocks. Bomboras represent a navigation hazard and an awesome surfing challenge. (Learned this reading Breath, by Tim Winton, ... More ...

(Please note: This is a motorcycle geek post. If you don’t care, skip it). A lot of people dislike the rules of the relatively new Daytona Sportbike class in AMA racing, feeling that it gives an unfair advantage to Buell. After all, the Japanese and British manufacturers are running bikes with around 600 cubic centimeter engines, and the Americans and Italians are running literbikes. And as we all know, there’s no replacement for displacement. Well, that’s the whole point of Da... More ...

Via Angel Station, the Galtic Paradise where the government that governs least governs best: Somalia! ... More ...

Today’s insane New England real estate listing: Nice Single Fam Home in need of a little TLC…. Close to restaurants and transportation.” The street address: McGrath Hwy. Well, I suppose it’s technically a highway onramp rather than on the highway itself. Still, it’s kind of brazen Realtor-speak to use “close to transportation” to mean “actually on the highway.” The listing has no picture but look at the google map here and spin it around so... More ...

I’m not one of those knee-jerk tax opponents. I don’t enjoy paying taxes, of course, but I’m well aware that they are the entry fee for civil society. I appreciate the existence of police and fire services, public education, parks, public health, bridges, transit, and so on. I have no intention of moving to New Hampshire to escape “socialism.” Even when I read about crippling pension and health care costs for state and city agencies, I wonder whether people who rai... More ...

I am 5′8″ tall and weigh 165 pounds, which puts my BMI at 25. Healthy normal BMI for men is supposed to be under 25, so my doctor tells me I need to lose weight. Or gain half an inch in height. Either way, really. I reminded him that the body mass index is only a rough estimate of body composition, subject to a number of limitations and shortcomings, and that the estimate of body composition it provides is itself only a rough estimate of health. I told him I can run five miles at a ... More ...

If you haven’t seen it yet, this picture of one of the statues in Davis Square seems to me like a very good indication of the zeitgeist: On the one hand, we’re all worried. On the other hand, we know our worry is absurd. So, we put silly ineffective masks on statues. As long as we feel like we’re doing something, it doesn’t matter whether the thing we do is actually effective or even relevant. ... More ...

But oh god we’re all gonna die. ... More ...

He’s running for re-election. He’s got competitors. He doesn’t like to debate. So how come I haven’t heard anyone insulting hizzonah with parodic songs like “Ground Control To Mayor Tom…”? Thank you. I’ll be here all week. ... More ...

The special environmental-message uniforms will only be worn once. ... More ...

There’s a list of ideas on how to “go galt” - that is, truly live out an Objectivist protest against the constricting fabric of society. They say, for example, you should stop taking public transit to liberate yourself from subsidizing collectivist transit. But that’s just a cop-out. If you want to do it right, you should stop driving on taxpayer-financed roads and obeying taxpayer-financed traffic laws. And definitely don’t use those meddlesome taxpayer-funded ambu... More ...

Shadow Inventory is the term used to describe properties that would normally be for sale, but for one reason or another are not. Typically that means bank-owned units that the banks just haven’t been trying to list because they can’t move them. But also things like properties people would like to sell - either a property they live in but want to leave, an investment property they’d like to sell, or a home they’re stuck renting out because they moved into a new place and c... More ...

I walked past the teabagging party on the Common today. Fox claimed it was about 700, but to me it looked like a lot less, and it also looked like half the folks there were gawking at/mocking the tax protesters. Bob Reich has the lowdown on reasonable responses to their idiocy. Of course, a reasonable and measured response isn’t exactly going to help when you’re trying to talk to people who don’t know fascism from a kick in the teeth. But hey, take what you can get. ... More ...