When you are one of the most prominent news magazines in the world, you do not get to write an article about under-reported stories. If these stories need reporting, report them!.

Did the Catholic League sink the Golden Compass? I don’t think so.

One thing I’d add to his brilliant analysis — the foreign box office for The Golden Compass has been just as bad. All those evil buddhists, muslims and euro-atheists aren’t seeing this cinematic turd either.

One good thing about the crash and burn of the The Golden Compass. It enabled this.

Without Garfield. It’s so much better!

It reminds me of the incident reported in Prehistory of the Far Side, which the captions between the Far Side and Family Circus were swapped, prompting Gary Larson to comment that both comics were amazingly improved.

Apparently, there is a new dating service where you can find your perfect DNA match for only $2k.

The Penn & Teller Episode on Love should be required viewing for all singles.

Good God, does that Chipmunks movie look bad. The sooner it gets into the theaters and flops, the sooner its awful ads will be off the air and the happier I will be.

(Memo to Hollywood: parodying The Matrix is no longer funny.)

Hmmm.:

US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday.

Pierre Kohler, a respected French scientific writer, says in The Final Mission: Mir, The Human Adventure that the subject is taboo both at Nasa and at mission control in Moscow, but that cosmic couplings have taken place.

I’m sorry. My bullshit meter twitches like crazy on this one. I just don’t think NASA could keep it quiet. You know how the French like to make stuff up.

Over 90% of the world has cell phone coverage. The advance of technology is amazing.

Yeah, that whole phone deregulation thing. What a dumb idea!

You know that 78 y/o woman who got screwed by the cruise line? Read this.

What the hell is up with actresses getting their lips blown up until they look like fish? Who finds this attractive?

My wife likes to watch Las Vegas for some reason (my theory, she likes Josh Duhamel). Catching the occasional ep wasn’t so bad since it starred Vanessa Marcil and Nikki Cox. Then last year, I caught an episode, and Nikki Cox looked hideous. And she’s not the only one to get her lips exploded.

If I looked anything like these women and some surgeon did this to me, I’d sue his ass off. But they think having scary trout pout instead of nice normal lips is attactive. Who thinks this?

Noun – a birth process that only takes place in movies and TV. It proceeds in three stages.

1 – water breaks
2 – woman starts screaming in pain
3 – within ten minutes, gives birth to a baby that is about the size of a six-month old (no wonder she screamed!).

It’s infuriating. The only movie that I know that deviated was Knocked Up, which had things like bloody show, not knowing if your water has broken, spending the first few hours of labor at home, not being able to get an epidural late, etc.

The worst case I’ve seen in a while was this week’s terrible episode of SVU. Egads. Isn’t it time to retire this cliche?

Greg Gutfield says it best on conspiracy theorists (see my JFK-conspiracy bashing below):

The flaw in that, however, is even if we wanted to pull off a conspiracy – we are incapable, because an inside job requires total silence, and America can’t shut up. But as long as you have Brian DiPalma, Oliver Stone and Charlie Sheen assuming the worst about humanity, you will have to deal with nutjobs who think they’re smart, but aren’t.

Conspiracy theories require an ability to connect the dots, not the facts – all propped up by a desire to feel smarter than everyone else – because you have it all figured out. That’s probably the biggest conspiracy of all – that these theories only exist to make people think those who spout them have brains – when in fact they wouldn’t know reality if it sent them an instant message on their mom’s computer.

Preach it, brother.

I’ve been debating with rpl about the decision to have children and the opportunity it costs high-IQ people. It occured to me that I have no idea if having children actually reduces someone’s future earnings and career prospects. You *can* make a case in the opposite direction — that having children gives greater work motivation, forces better time management and has a positive social impact leading to better career prospects. Let’s not forget that one of the reasons the presumptive Democratic nominee had a child was to advance her husband’s political career.

I’m just curious if anyone knows of longitudinal study that has been done on this subject. Does having chiildren reduce your future earnings? Google is coy, not giving me the information I need.

I know that having children at a young age has a massive negative impact on future earning, especially if it’s out of wedlock. But I suspect the impact of people having children in their late 20’s or in their 30’s is either minimal or positive.