Current Affairs

I opened this story because my quick glance at the headline -- "Unsung heroes keep Jets moving forward -- because I thought it might be about the people behind the scenes making sure relief keeps flowing to Haiti. If I'd looked a little closer, I would have noticed the capital "J" and known not to bother:

Something those of us with a libertarian bent should be careful of:

If you reflect only scorn for government, it's hard to get anyone who hasn't already drunk the Kool-Aid to take your opinions on the topic seriously.

This is not to disparage the argument that government is too large, for which the case is strong. But holding government in sneering contempt is a misinformed corruption of that sentiment.

We're all going to die! Just not as soon as we had imagined. The good news is that the folks at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have moved the hands of their Doomsday Clock one minute back from midnight, to six minutes before the hour. The bad news is that they've added something else to their fretting besides atomic Armageddon:

Nobody can add insult to injury quite like Pat Robertson:

You know ... something happened a long time ago in Haiti.

One of the more intersting aspects of the Harry Reid case is how oddly anachronistic he sounded with "Negro dialect." He has let time pass him by, apparently unaware that Negro has gone from favored word to taboo word.

"Can that story be localized?" is something journalists hear often from their bosses. Never mind that motorcycle sales are way up nationally -- people won't care unless they know that sales are up here, too. And, by the way, go see if you can find a local gay couple to comment on that same-sex marriage trial out in California.

I was considering weighing in on the Harry Reid light-skinned/Negro dialect imbroglio, but this is far more important:

"I'm sure it was my fault," Seinfeld joked of The Jay Leno Show's declining ratings. "The tuxedo was way over the top," he added, referencing what he wore during his appearance on Leno's debut show.

Some stunning new research:

The campaign to save Mother Earth by ridding her of all those pesky, polluting people achieves a modest but notable success:

A huge swath of the country is getting snow and it's raised an unusual and potentially dangerous problem for motorists.

If you think the government interferes too much in our private lives here, just be thankful you don't live in France. A bill being pushed by Nicolas Sarkozy's government would make "psychological violence" between married and cohabiting couples "a matter for state intervention." And just what is that, exactly?