Breathtaking history from 1983: Sen. Edward Kennedy's offer of aid and comfort to the USSR's General Secretary Andropov, behind the back of his own nation's president.
RIP? Maybe not.
Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.
From Wired: 10 Sci-Fi Movies We’d Like to Throw Into a Black Hole.
I'd sure agree with this on #8, the execrable Event Horizon: "At Hollywood’s worst, we have this movie."
Uh oh: Facebook use fuels jealousy, hurts relationships.
Worried that your relationship is going south? Maybe it's time to get off Facebook.A study released by the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, shows that the Facebook social network creates increased jealousy in users' romantic relationships.
The study, which was published in the latest issue of the bimonthly CyberPsychology and Behaviour publication, concluded that the more time people spend on Facebook, the more jealous they get.
A good question: What If You Pull a Literary Hoax and Nobody Notices?
[G]iven the lack of response to what had been a relatively transparent con, "Did any regular readers of the journal ever even read, really read, the review?" (The uncomfortable inference being, does anyone read any literary-studies articles?)
Interesting: How Netflix gets your movies to your mailbox so fast.
After a period of pretty-pleasing Netflix to let me poke around its clandestine Chicago-area hub, and see what wonders await and how its ubiquitous red-enveloped packages are processed, I was given an address and a time to arrive and asked not to blab about it.... To get there, I was told to go to Carol Stream, to be there around sunrise. I imagined it was like coming upon Narnia -- one stares at it awhile until the entrance becomes evident, which turned out to be sort of true.
Here's Rich Lowry sums up the current question about who gets to speak out, and who doesn't.
Like Richard Nixon, Barack Obama wants to govern on the strength of a silent majority, although with a twist. Obama wants the majority that opposes or questions his policies to stay silent.Obama’s White House and its allies have unleashed a barrage of criticism and condescension at people daring to show up at town-hall meetings and ask their elected representatives pointed questions. “Fired up and ready to go!” apparently works only one way. If engaged citizens shower Obama with adoration at stage-managed rallies, they are the very stuff of American democracy. If they boo their congressman, they are a scandalous eruption of fake or hateful sentiment.
Make sure your representatives know where you stand. Period.