We all want to seem smart around workmates and acquaintances, but we often don’t have the time to put in to further study to achieve this. Luckily, there are a few ways you can make yourself seem smarter with a minimum of effort. This is a list of the ten best tips for appearing smarter. (more…)
Mar 5th 2009
From The Economist print edition
A HUNDRED years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission—just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert its right to peddle the stuff. Many other bans of mood-altering drugs have followed. In 1998 the UN General Assembly committed member countries to achieving a “drug-free world” and to “eliminating or significantly reducing” the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008.
That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sense of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century. It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled. (more…)
“Torture is only cruel and unusual if we don’t doit that often. From what I’m hearing, it’s becoming cruel and usual. So from a constitutional standpoint, torture is a go!”
“Most disappointingly, my own Catholic Church is against the death penalty. Pretty hypocritical considering they wouldn’t even have a religion if it weren’t for capital punishment.”
“Researchers studying visual signaling have found that cute images stimulate the same pleasure centers of the brain aroused by sex, food, and mind-altering chemicals?. And cuteness serves as an alternative to psychoactive drugs like cocaine. You have not known true euphoria until you’ve done a line of puppies off a stripper’s ass.”
On income taxes: “We’ll never get the big government gorilla off our backs as long as we keep feeding the money monkey with our banana bucks. And it’ll keep throwing its fiscal feces at us. I can run with this metaphor as long as I have to.”
“It’s never okay for men to cry. You know who cries? Girls. And little babies. And little baby girls. A man holds it in. Until his eyeballs swell up to the size of baseballs, his throat feels like it’s about to explode, and his gut just aches like there’s a snake wrapped round his heart. Sure, that’s why we die earlier, but it’s worth it. At least we don’t look weak.”
You hear it all the time: “He was such a NICE Guy, and she’s such a Heartless Bitch for dumping him.”
I get letters from self-professed Nice Guys, complaining that women must WANT to be treated like shit, because THEY, the “Nice Guy” have failed repeatedly in relationships. This is akin to the false logic that “Whales are mammals. Whales live in the sea. Therefore, all mammals live in the sea.”
If you have one bad relationship after another, the only common denominator is YOU. Think about it. (more…)
Ben Cohen Mon Nov 24, 10:04 am ET
With a new political era looming, veterans of the old political arena will scramble to redefine themselves in order to make a living. Politicians, media commentators and analysts may be ill equipt to deal with the changing electorate, increased power of the blogosphere and massive discontent with the status quo. Who will survive in the modern epoch? Here are 10 who should really think about calling it quits: (more…)
Some very smart, very serious people have been spending a lot of time lately working themselves into a tizzy trying to defend their ongoing romance with the Governor of Alaska. “Okay,” they seem willing to admit, “Palin might be a little weak on foreign policy, domestic policy, energy policy, financial policy, the economy in general, the fundamental workings of the state and federal government, geography, rhetoric, history and basic grammar, but these are just gaps in her knowledge, easily fixable by a spending a few hours in front of Wikipedia or flipping through flash cards. They don’t in any way cast doubt in some fundamental way on her intellect or character.” (more…)
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787. (more…)
Before John McCain’s presidential bid had even ended, many were touting Sarah Palin as a possible GOP presidential candidate for 2012. And in an interview with Matt Lauer this morning, Palin said that, “if there is a door open in 2012 or four yeas later…then I’ll plow through that door.”
If Sarah Palin tries to run for president in 2012, she’ll get plowed over. In fact, she probably wouldn’t even make it out of the primary. Palin-watchers can take their pick from a plethora of reasons as to why. (more…)
