A thought or two on meetings, and how the chairs up front are usually untaken...

The last thing the French want in their upcoming election is more of the same in the mold of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin (who is a man). The second to last thing they want also happens to be the thing they most need for the very survival of French culture: real reform.

Enter Nicolas Sarkozy...

I've been aware of a strange personal quirk for several years, which is that my most difficult decisions always come most easily to me when I'm taking a shower. (Not making that up.) It reached a point a while back that I would defer difficult decisions until the next time I took a shower.

Well it turns out that a major scientific study reveals that my approach to difficult decisions is the recommended one: collect the data, then put it out of your mind...

America's Deputy, RIP...

Spiderman will be wearing his away jersey in the next Spiderman movie...

Trust me, it matters.

A must read on the dynamics of population: It's all about the demography.

"The 'who' is the best indicator of the what-where-when-and-why."

If the government had issued every taxpayer a flying car, everyone could have evacuated in a safe and orderly manner...

(Hat tip to reader Tom Sheridan)

Funny coincidence -- I had one beer at lunch too.

Left the shotgun in the trunk, though. Safety on, of course...

I'm shocked, shocked!, to see someone suggesting this. Even though any sentient person who's ever had even a cursory brush with public education in the last three decades would have known.

As an unrelated matter, here's the most recent installment of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Seems global warming will have at least one positive outcome: Scandinavian Merlot.

I suspect we'll find a few more silver linings before long.

The most over-rated, over-hyped day on the calendar, in the middle of February no less. If anything, a day commemorating love should be in October sometime, the heart of Autumn. At least that way you can take a walk in the park, watch some youth soccer, and top it off with a little championship baseball. Sure, I can be a romantic. And I can be a traditionalist. But I can't do both those things at the same time...

Watched the Super Bowl last week and I thought the officiating was sketchy at best, and Helen Keller-esque at worst. The guys at Pull On Superman's Cape have amassed the evidence, and it isn't pretty. If you had money on this game and things didn't go your way, you may want to avert your gaze.

Having grown weary of waiting for the big Detroit automakers to unshackle themselves from the union-istas so they can truly commit to radical new designs and technologies, I think I'll just build my own flying car.

Worst. Decision. Ever.

"John" and "Marsha" have a problem. The problem stems largely from the fact that "Marsha" doesn't sufficiently understand how toilet seats work, so she constantly instructs "John" to "put the seat down". Might scientifically applied game theory offer a beacon of hope? Possibly.

Jim Treacher isn't very happy.

On the other hand, he is screamingly creative.

Why doesn't this guy try his hand at screenplays and film scripts? Oh, wait...

Leave it to the tolerant-to-a-fault Dutch to have to find a solution to solve a problem which sprang from their absurd tolerance, which in turn confronts Dutch sensibilities, so they have to solve a second problem. Both problems are manifestations of a much bigger original problem, of course, but the Dutch revel in problem solving incrementally.

I must say, quite creative however...

Friday Carnival blogfest!

The Skwib is hosting The Carnival of Satire -- check your credulity at the door.

Diane Weir hosts this weeks Carnival of Education, giving the Education Wonks a needed break.

Dismayed at the state of public education? Visit Palm Tree Pundit for the newest Carnival of Homeschooling. Lot's of great learning advise, no matter how and where you educate your kids.

But hey! It's Friday! What's with all the school related carnivals? The Wheat/Rye guy is hosting the latest Carnival of Recipes, pot luck style!

And if you'll be trying some new recipes this weekend, you'll of course want some wine on hand...so check out The Corkdork for a sort of Wine Carnival.

Austin Bay has a thought or two regarding celebrity culture in the media industry...

Separately, but not unconnected, Scrappleface points us to an apology for a friendly fire incident...

Ah, the power of cheese: the great equalizer...Go ahead and serve the lousy wine, just have plenty of cheese on hand.

And with techno-wine breakthroughs like electrocuting wine, there won't be any difference anyway.

Just another example of the rapidly approaching Singularity...

I've said this before and I suspect I'll say it again: American sports fans behavior is positively genteel when compared with stuff like this...Honestly, can anyone imagine anything like that happening at Fenway or the Meadowlands or wherever? Of course not.

But for off-the-rails-Europe, disturbingly common...

A few years back I read a couple of books by mathematician John Allen Paulos -- A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper and Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences. Both books delivered valuable information in a highly readable and hysterically funny manner, and I think of them often when I see statistics and numeric data presented in day to day media. And I really think of those books when I see stuff like this.

And while I'm linking Volokh's fine blog, can there be any rational explanation why we had 3 Supreme Court nominees in the last 6 months (Roberts, Miers, Alito) and not once did I hear anyone mention Eugene Volokh as a possible candidate? Seriously, he belongs on the Supreme Court.

Professor Bainbridge: "Cut their pay. Cut their staff. Send them home for half the year."

Seems reasonable to me...