Category Archives: Curiousities

Antidote du Jour 8/11/08

Disses du Jour

This exchange from Institutional Risk Analytics is a bit light on the vitriol, but the observation is acute: The IRA: But speaking of certainty, don’t you believe that it is impossible to give our leaders a pass with respect to the mortgage bubble? How can we look at Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers or Bob Rubin […]

Diss du Jour

From the New York Times: “I cannot find a single convincing argument that tells me that astrologers won’t do better than economists,” Mr. [Nassim Nicholas] Taleb said last week by telephone from Lebanon, where he was mountain hiking. “The problem is the arrogance of these economists,” he said. “They’re making people rely on theories that […]

Airlines to Charge Fatties More?

I sincerely doubt this will ever happen (imagine the backlash from groups arguing that excess avoirdupois isn’t a person’s fault and hence shouldn’t be punished) but those who have beenn compressed more than once by an overweight neighbor on a plane might applaud. From Bloomberg: Imagine two scales at the airline ticket counter, one for […]

Whopper Du Jour

From the New York Times: “Taxpayers shouldn’t be taking on the risk of foreclosure,” said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. A little late to try to prevent that….

NZ man ‘used hedgehog as weapon’

Forgive me, I couldn’t resist this oddity. From the BBC: A man in New Zealand has been charged with using a hedgehog as a weapon, the New Zealand Herald has reported. Police said William Singalargh, 27, had hurled the hedgehog about 5m (16ft) at a 15-year-old boy. “It hit the victim in the leg, causing […]

Dolphin Rescues Beached Whales

This is such a good story that I decided it deserved its own slot, rather than being featured in links. Dolphins haven’t been studied as intensively as monkeys, but there is ample anecdotal evidence, and some research, suggesting that they approach humans in intelligence (one philosopher, having surveyed the literature, argued that they are “non-human […]

Clinton/Obama Video

Irrespective of one’s political persuasion (well, almost), this is amusing:

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Sexual Deviant?

According to a University of New Hampshire study, children who are spanked are more likely to have an appetite for kinky less-than-savory sexual practices. So is the anti-spanking movement really about sexual conformity? From PhysOrg: New research by a University of New Hampshire domestic abuse expert says spanking children affects their sex lives as adults. […]

World Water, Visualized

Clever, but also surprising (at least for those of us who don’t ponder these matters deeply). Hat tip Gristmill: Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered […]

Total Lunar Eclipse Map

The powers that be say this eclipse, which reaches totality around 10:00 PM EST on February 20, will be dramatic. As NASA tell us: A lunar eclipse happens when the Moon passes through the shadow of Earth. You might expect the Moon to grow even more ashen than usual, but in fact it transforms into […]

"Wall Street Meltdown"

Clever.

Hot Ladies Talking With Bald Dudes

Funny and too true. Hat tip The Big Picture via reader Doug.

Darwin Awards 2007

The Darwin Awards are out! As the website reminds us: Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it. Here are some of the runners up for this year (the winner is Coitus Interruptus and there is a host […]