I will confess to having slipped up between Obama and Osama from time to time. Someone I know pronounced Obama as o-BAM-a. I’d be less likely to pronounce it this way of Obama had simply done us the courtesy of using an Irish-inflected version of his name.

A girl poses in a bikini in front of a car that was a school project and the team is barred from competition. The ostensible reason is “misuse of facilities”, but it does seem kind of suspect.

While the results might be interesting, I think this project was out of bounds. You don’t toy with people’s emotions that way. It reminds me a little bit of what I find so offputting about Borat. He went around from place to place, taking advantage of the natural inclination to be non-confrontation. If you lie to people and mislead them, they will alter their behavior according to what they believe to be the case.

The happiest states also tend to have the most suicides. I want to write a post on this, but don’t know if I can without the conversation making a wrong turn.

As if the Washington DC school system wasn’t proof enough, the correlation between increased spending on schools and performance is murky. That being said, one thing I have discovered recently is just how much of that funding is tied down towards specific projects that benefit few – many of whom are exempt from standardized tests. It would be helpful if we compared the amount being spent in discretionary funds from one school to another. If a school is spending money on certain projects or students because of strings attached, it’s not exactly the case that they are not spending their money wisely.

How to fix any computer.

Why are people so efficient when working in noisy, public areas? I wrote my fourth novel at a Seattle’s Best Coffee house. If I ever get around to going back and editing these to completion, I may have to go to one of the local coffee shops around here.

Why China is unlikely to overtake the US.

Americans make the best tourists. Historically speaking, I have loved hating on France. Who doesn’t? It’s sort of a conditioned response. But if you put the superficial tribalism aside for just a moment, you realize that it’s more a sibling relationship than anything else. On the other hand, Albanians profess a love America and Americans (and no doubt the feeling would be mutual if we were really aware of their existence beyond that whole war we had near there a decade or so back). But if we were actually forced to live with them (and vice-versa) the way it is with France on the International stage, we’d probably rather be in Paris. Beyond “Old Europe,” I’d be interested to know what Asians thought of American tourists.