We can now be fairly confident that the United States has elected three consecutive presidents that have used cocaine.
Maybe this isn't a big deal. And, in theory, someone with personal experience with illegal drugs should be able to make decisions regarding laws that prohibit them (although Clinton and Bush 34 didn't do much to change the status quo).
The interesting thing is that the U.N. says 7.6% of American adults have tried cocaine. This means that if you picked 3 adults at random from the U.S. population, the chance of ALL THREE having tried cocaine is about 1 in 2300. Three presidents is a small sample size, but those odds are long enough that's it's fair to say there may be a positive correlation between cocaine use and presidency.
The odds of electing 10 male presidents in a row, if presidents were picked at random from the population, is about 1 in 1000. Of course, we all know that there is a causal connection between gender and political success.
So, we certainly have enough evidence to think there is a connection between cocaine use and being elected as leader of the "free world". I have a couple ideas:
1) Politics is tough work, and participants feel they need strong stimulants to survive the physical and emotional toll.
2) Presidential races attract "alpha" personalities. People who are cocky and overconfident -- enough to think that they can use cocaine without getting addicted. Cocaine also has a "brand identity" that matches people with these kinds of personalities.
I prefer theory #2. However, I'm not sure how to test it.
I'm sick of stories about dying newspapers. It seems like the only thing TV and radio news is talking about is all the newspapers going out of business. I guess they are just gloating.
But none of them bother to mention a major reason newspapers are going under: Americans have forgotten what to do with used newspapers -- the actual physical paper.
More of us used to heat our houses with wood, and use newspaper to start those fires.
We used to crumple up newspaper for mailing packages to each other. We now pay companies to manufacture packing peanuts and bubble wrap out of petroleum.
I remember cleaning windows with newspaper. Now we buy paper towels.
I remember making paper mache as a kid. Now you go to the craft store and actually buy paper mache kits, because no one has stacks of newspaper sitting around their house.
Newspaper makes great garden mulch. The list goes on.
If I were running a newspaper in Seattle or Denver and trying to get people to buy more newspapers, I would include an article every week about cool things you can do with newspaper.
When you add the usefulness of leftover newspaper to the convenience of people able to take your news into the bathroom with you, newspapers can continue to compete with online media.
It's official. For the first time ever, the cost of sending your child to an elite 4-year college (like Harvard or Wesleyan) is now more than the cost of buying them an actual house. The median U.S. home price dropped to $180,100 in the 4th quarter of 2008, and continues to fall.
So now you have a choice. You can send your kid to college. Or buy them a single-family stand-alone house and have money left over. No mortgage payments for the rest of their lives.
If we spent as much time and money trying to unify the tax system as we spend trying to unify all the laws of physics, we'd have enough time and money left over to unify all the laws of physics.
(Cubey figured this one out while Cubey was pooping)
My wife just told me about "OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb". Apparently it's a planet "with a gravity like ours. And the great news is that it’s five-and-a-half times bigger than Earth." (emphasis mine)
Five-and-a-half times bigger means I wouldn't be able to walk on the surface. I think that's stretching the definition of the word "like".
That's like saying "Billy Bob Thornton has breasts LIKE Jane Seymour". I mean, each one has a nipple, but after that the similarity fades.
Here's the rule I've learned after years of instant replay in the NFL:
By throwing that red flag, you can turn ANYTHING into an incomplete pass.
Brady fumbles. Belichick goes to his sock and pulls out the challenge flag. Incomplete pass.
Polamalu intercepts. Dungy grasps at straws desperately. Incomplete pass.
I've seen this happen more than once. The two examples I just mentioned are the most absurd. But completions and interceptions get overruled all the time for one simple reason. Using today's NFL rules, a complete pass frequently LOOKS like an incomplete pass when viewed in slow motion.
Shift everything down to 1/8 speed and the refs see the tiniest movements of the ball in the receiver's hands. They say he was "bobbling it" or never established control. A perfectly good completion in real-time can look like a turbulent froth of primordial ooze when viewed under the microscope.
I play ultimate frisbee whenever I can. It's a lot like football in that your job is to catch the "ball" before it hits the ground. Classic American game of of "Us vs. Gravity". Like the NFL, some ultimate players make some AMAZING catches: laying out for a disc that's about to hit the grass or go out of bounds. These feats of athleticism should be rewarded, regardless of weather the disc grazed a blade of grass as the player was finishing his catch.
For the NFL, I say "loosen up the completion rules". If it looks like a completion in real-time, it probably was a completion. Give these guys credit for the outstanding plays they are making, and play on!
excited