C Picks

New Mexico

Dec. 19           

Arizona vs. New Mexico         

Wildcats -10

Boring!

My pick: ARIZONA

Las Vegas       

Dec. 19           

BYU vs. Utah  

Utes -3

Holy war!

My pick: UTAH

Camellia          

Dec. 19           

Ohio vs. Appalachian State      

Mountaineers -8

See you in Monty, baby!

My pick: APPY STATE

Cure    

Dec. 19           

San Jose State vs. Georgia State          

Spartans -3.5

Georgia State ate my old place of employment. My first pick against Vegas.

My pick: GA ST

New Orleans   

Dec. 19           

Arkansas State vs. La. Tech    

Bulldogs -2

Driskelion!

My pick: LA TECH

Miami Beach   

Dec. 21           

Western Ky. vs. South Florida 

Hilltoppers -3

BSC is the Hilltop.

My pick: WESTERN KY

Potato 

Dec. 22           

Akron vs. Utah State   

Aggies -6.5

Potatoes! Fat little Terry can’t waddle his team to victory this time.

My pick: UTAH STATE

Boca Raton     

Dec. 22           

Temple vs. Toledo       

Owls -1.5

Temple is pretty good and Toledo lost their coach.

My pick: OWLS

Poinsettia         

Dec. 23           

Boise State vs. Northern Illinois           

Broncos -7.5

No. Illinois - Oh, they got this all screwed up. No, Illinois!

My pick: BOISE ST

GoDaddy        

Dec. 23           

Ga. Southern vs. Bowling Green          

Falcons -7.5

Bowling Green is the better team!

My pick: BOWLING GREEN

Bahamas         

Dec. 24           

Middle Tenn. St. vs. W. Mich. 

Broncos -3

I think the Bahamas is more exciting for a team from Michigan.

My pick: WESTERN MICHIGAN

Hawaii 

Dec. 24           

San Diego State vs. Cincinnati  

Bearcats -1.5

Be still my heart.

My pick: YOU KNOW IT’S CINCY TUBBY TIME BABY

St. Pete           

Dec. 26           

Connecticut vs. Marshall          

Thundering Herd -4.5

A second upset pick!

My pick: UCONN

Sun     

Dec. 26           

Miami vs. Washington State     

Cougars -3

I like Mike Leach, but I also feel like his offense is not bowl game friendly. A third upset pick!

My pick: MIAMI

Heart of Dallas

Dec. 26           

Washington vs. Southern Miss

Huskies -8.5

Boring!

My pick: WASHINGTON

Pinstripe          

Dec. 26           

Indiana vs. Duke          

Hooisers -2

Boring! Expect a bunch of basketball references if you watch this.

My pick: INDIANA JONES

Independence  

Dec. 26           

Tulsa vs. Va. Tech       

Hokies -13.5

Win one for the Beamer.

My pick: VA TECH

Foster Farms   

Dec. 26           

UCLA vs. Nebraska   

Bruins -7

Farms bowl? A fourth upset pick!

My pick: NEWBRASKA

Military

Dec. 28           

Pitt vs. Navy    

Midshipmen -3.5

My dad was in the Navy; now he’s in a home.

My pick: NAVEL

Quick Lane     

Dec. 28           

Central Michigan vs. Minnesota           

Golden Gophers -5.5

Boring!

My pick: MINNESOTA

Armed Forces 

Dec. 29           

Cal vs. Air Force         

Golden Bears -7

It seems unfair to me that the Air Force football squad should get to play in a bowl game at least partially named after them.

My pick: CALI

Russell Athletic

Dec. 29           

North Carolina vs. Baylor        

Bears -3

Chizik! A declining Baylor team! A fifth upset pick!

My pick: UNC

Arizona           

Dec. 29           

Nevada vs. Colorado State      

Rams -3

This pick is dedicated to my friend W. and his hero, Brad Lee Van Pelt.

My pick: COLORADO STATE

Texas  

Dec. 29           

LSU vs. Texas Tech    

Tigers -7.5

Coaching for his job!

My pick: LSU

Birmingham     

Dec. 30           

Auburn vs. Memphis    

Aub. Tigers -2.5

Coaching for his job! I cannot believe Auburn is favored in this. I should count this as an upset pick.

My pick: AUBRUN

Belk    

Dec. 30           

N.C. State vs. Mississippi State           

Bulldogs -5.5

Dak attack!

My pick: MSU

Music City       

Dec. 30           

Texas A&M vs. Louisville        

Aggies -2.5

Remember when Sumlin was a hot coaching prospect? A sixth upset pick!

My pick: THA LOU

Holiday           

Dec. 30           

USC vs. Wisconsin      

Trojans -3

New coach, new attitude!

My pick: USC

Peach  

Dec. 31           

Houston vs. Florida State         

Seminoles -7

If I were a gambling man, I’d take FSU and the points.

My pick: FREE SHOES UNIVERSITY

Orange

Dec. 31           

Oklahoma vs. Clemson

Sooners -4

Dude, I don’t know. I feel like this is a proverbial toss-up. Oklahoma did lose to a really bad Texas team. So, an seventh upset pick!

My pick: CLEM, SON

Cotton 

Dec. 31           

Michigan State vs. Alabama     

Tide -9.5

The only chance that Michigan State has is if life is just and fair.

My pick: Alabama

Outback          

Jan. 1  

Northwestern vs. Tennessee    

Vols -8.5

This line seems high, but I still pick the villains.

My pick: TENNESSEE

Citrus  

Jan. 1  

Michigan vs. Florida    

Wolverines -4

Florida is bad. Let me tell you, this is going to be a bad game to watch. More like Hardbore!

My pick: MICHICAN

Fiesta  

Jan. 1  

Notre Dame vs. Ohio State      

Buckeyes -6.5

Here’s a game that can go to heck!

My pick: LUCKEYES

Rose   

Jan. 1  

Stanford vs. Iowa        

Cardinal -6.5

I know people are allegedly excited over this Rose Bowl, inexplicable. At least it will get over relatively quickly.

My pick: SAMFORD

Sugar  

Jan. 1  

Oklahoma State vs. Ole Miss   

Rebels -7

Oklahoma State is a team getting worse, and All Mitts is a team getting better, except the Mississippians seem committed to jumping out of windows. I would not put money on this one, folks.

My pick: OLD MIST

TaxSlayer        

Jan. 2  

Penn State vs. Georgia 

Bulldogs -7

Another stinker of a game between two teams who I don’t like that will be boring to watch. A eighth upset pick!

My pick: PENN STATION

Liberty Bowl   

Jan. 2  

Kansas State vs. Arkansas       

Razorbacks -11

Geee-ross.

My pick: ARKANSAW

Alamo Bowl    

Jan. 2  

Oregon vs. TCU          

Horned Frogs -1

I’ve seen this as a pick’em mostly, but still: ninth upset pick!

My pick: OREGON

Cactus Bowl    

Jan. 2  

West Virginia vs. Arizona State

Sun Devils -1

I like Holgo. A tenth upset pick!

My pick: WAVU

It begins

New Mexico
Dec. 19
Arizona vs. New Mexico
Wildcats -10

Las Vegas
Dec. 19
BYU vs. Utah
Utes -3

Camellia
Dec. 19
Ohio vs. Appalachian State
Mountaineers -8

Cure
Dec. 19
San Jose State vs. Georgia State
Spartans -3.5

New Orleans
Dec. 19
Arkansas State vs. La. Tech
Bulldogs -2

Miami Beach
Dec. 21
Western Ky. vs. South Florida
Hilltoppers -3

Potato
Dec. 22
Akron vs. Utah State
Aggies -6.5

Boca Raton
Dec. 22
Temple vs. Toledo
Owls -1.5

Poinsettia
Dec. 23
Boise State vs. Northern Illinois
Broncos -7.5

GoDaddy
Dec. 23
Ga. Southern vs. Bowling Green
Falcons -7.5

Bahamas 
Dec. 24
Middle Tenn. St. vs. W. Mich.
Broncos -3

Hawaii
Dec. 24
San Diego State vs. Cincinnati
Bearcats -1.5

St. Pete
Dec. 26
Connecticut vs. Marshall
Thundering Herd -4.5

Sun
Dec. 26
Miami vs. Washington State
Cougars -3

Heart of Dallas
Dec. 26
Washington vs. Southern Miss
Huskies -8.5

Pinstripe
Dec. 26
Indiana vs. Duke
Hooisers -2

Independence
Dec. 26
Tulsa vs. Va. Tech
Hokies -13.5

Farms
Dec. 26
UCLA vs. Nebraska
Bruins -7

Military
Dec. 28
Pitt vs. Navy
Midshipmen -3.5

Quick Lane
Dec. 28
Central Michigan vs. Minnesota
Golden Gophers -5.5

Armed Forces
Dec. 29
Cal vs. Air Force
Golden Bears -7

Russell Ath.
Dec. 29
North Carolina vs. Baylor
Bears -3

Arizona
Dec. 29
Nevada vs. Colorado State
Rams -3

Texas
Dec. 29
LSU vs. Texas Tech
Tigers -7.5

Birmingham
Dec. 30
Auburn vs. Memphis
Aub. Tigers -2.5

Belk
Dec. 30
N.C. State vs. Mississippi State
Bulldogs -5.5

Music City
Dec. 30
Texas A&M vs. Louisville
Aggies -2.5

Holiday
Dec. 30
USC vs. Wisconsin
Trojans -3

Peach
Dec. 31
Houston vs. Florida State
Seminoles -7

Orange
Dec. 31
Oklahoma vs. Clemson
Sooners -4

Cotton
Dec. 31
Michigan State vs. Alabama
Tide -9.5

Outback
Jan. 1
Northwestern vs. Tennessee
Vols -8.5

Citrus
Jan. 1
Michigan vs. Florida
Wolverines -4

Fiesta
Jan. 1
Notre Dame vs. Ohio State
Buckeyes -6.5

Rose
Jan. 1
Stanford vs. Iowa
Cardinal -6.5

Sugar
Jan. 1
Oklahoma State vs. Ole Miss
Rebels -7

TaxSlayer
Jan. 2
Penn State vs. Georgia
Bulldogs -7

Liberty Bowl
Jan. 2
Kansas State vs. Arkansas
Razorbacks -11

Alamo Bowl
Jan. 2
Oregon vs. TCU
Horned Frogs -1

Cactus Bowl
Jan. 2
West Virginia vs. Arizona State
Sun Devils -1

first one to X wins

ok

here they are by day with lines

Saturday, Dec 20
Colorado St. (+3) vs. Utah
Western Michigan (-1.5) vs. Air Force
Bowling Green (+2.5) vs. South Alabama

Tuesday, Dec 23
Northern Illinois (+10) vs. Marshall
Navy (+2.5) vs San Diego St.

Friday, Dec 26
Illinois (+6) vs. Louisiana Tech
North Carolina (-3) vs. Rutgers
UCF (-2) vs. NC State

Saturday, Dec 27
South Carolina (+3.5) vs. Miami (FL)
USC (-6.5) vs. Nebraska

Monday, Dec 29
Texas A&M (+3.5) vs. West Virginia

Tuesday, Dec 30
Notre Dame (+7.5) vs. LSU

Wednesday, Dec 31
Arizona (-3) vs. Boise St.

Thursday, Jan 1
Wisconsin (+6.5) vs. Auburn
FSU (+9) vs. Oregon

Friday, Jan 2
Houston (+3) vs. Pittsburgh
Iowa (+3.5) vs. Tennessee

Saturday, Jan 3
East Carolina (+6.5) vs. Florida

Sunday, Jan 4
Arkansas St. (+3.5) vs. Toledo



so charles has 14 faves and I have 5, how fun
 

CRISIS GAMES

In the format of CAP'N vs. CHOORLES, here are the CRISIS GAMES for the 2014 Bowl Pick Them. 19 crisis games!

Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl
Colorado St. vs. Utah

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Western Michigan vs. Air Force

Camellia Bowl
Bowling Green vs. South Alabama

Boca Raton Bowl
Northern Illinois vs. Marshall

Poinsettia Bowl
Navy vs, San Diego St.

Heart of Dallas Bowl
Illinois vs. Louisiana Tech

Quick Lane Bowl
North Carolina vs. Rutgers

St. Petersburg Bowl
UCF vs. NC State

Independence Bowl
South Carolina vs. Miami (FL)

Holiday Bowl
USC vs. Nebraska

Liberty Bowl
Texas A&M vs. West Virginia

Music City Bowl
Notre Dame vs. LSU

Fiesta Bowl
Arizona vs. Boise St.

Outback Bowl
Wisconsin vs. Auburn

Rose Bowl
FSU vs. Oregon

Armed Forces Bowl
Houston vs. Pittsburgh

TaxSlayer Bowl
Iowa vs. Tennessee

Birmingham Bowl
East Carolina vs. Florida

GoDaddy Bowl
Arkansas St. vs. Toledo

C Picking Bowls

We're all busy in this crazy world, so just picks.

NEW ORLEANS BOWL
Nevada

NEW MEXICO BOWL
Utah State

ROYAL PURPLE BOWL
Utah

IDAHO POTATO BOWL
Air Force

CAMELLIA COSBY BOWL
USA!

MIAMI BEACH BOWL
Memphis

BOCA RATON BOWL
We are Marshall

POINSETTIA BOWL
San Diego State

BAHAMAS BOWL
Western Kentucky

HAWAII BOWL
Rice

HEART OF DALLAS BOWL
La Tech

QUICK LANE LMAO WHAT KIND OF NAMES ARE THESE
Buttgers

BITCOIN BOWL
NC State

MILITARY BOWL
Cincinnati

SUN BOWL
AZ State

INDEPENDENCE BOWL
Miami (FL)

PINSTRIPE BOWL
Boston College

HOLIDAY BOWL
Newbraska

LIBERTY
West effin' Virginia

RUSSELL ATHLETIC BOWL
Clemson

TEXAS BOWL
Arkansas

MUSIC CITY BOWL
Lsu

BELK BOWL
Thuga

FOSTER FARMS BOWL
Samford

PEACH BOWL
Texas Christians

FIESTA BOWL
Boise State

ORANGE BOWL
Mississippi State

CITRUS BOWL
Missourah

OUTBACK BOWL
auburn!

COTTON BOWL
Michigan State

ARMED FORCES BOWL
Pittsburgh

TAXSLAYA BOWL
Tennessee

ALAMO BOWL
Kansas State

CACTUS BOWL
Washington

BIRMINGHAM BOWL
Florida

GODADDY BOWL
Toledo

SUGAR BOWL
We all know it's going to be Alabama winning the national title

ROSE BOWL
Oregon

THA CAPTAINZ PIX

SORRY FOR NOT MAKING MORE FUNNY COMMENTS

New Orleans Bowl
Nevada vs. UL-Lafayette
Nevada

New Mexico Bowl
Utah St. vs. UTEP
Utah St.

Las Vegas Bowl
Colorado St. vs. Utah
Colorado St.

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Air Force vs. Western Michigan
Western Michigan

Camellia Bowl
Bowling Green vs. South Alabama
BG

Miami Beach Bowl
Memphis vs. BYU
BYU

Boca Raton Bowl
Northern Illinois vs. Marshall
Northern Illinois

Poinsettia Bowl
San Diego St. vs. Navy
Navy

Bahamas Bowl
Central Michigan vs. Western Kentucky
Western Kentucky

Hawai'i Bowl
Fresno St. vs. Rice
Rice

Heart of Dallas Bowl
Illinois vs. Louisiana Tech
Illinois

Quick Lane Bowl
Rutgers vs. North Carolina
UNC

St. Petersburg Bowl
NC State vs. UCF
UCF

Military Bowl
Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati
Cincinnati

Sun Bowl
Duke vs. Arizona St.
Arizona St.

Independence Bowl
Miami (FL) vs. South Carolina
South Carolina

Pinstripe Bowl
Penn St. vs. Boston College
BC

Holiday Bowl
Nebraska vs. USC
USC

Liberty Bowl
West Virginia vs. Texas A&M
Texas A&M

Russell Athletic Bowl
Clemson vs. Oklahoma
Clemson

Texas Bowl
Texas vs. Arkansas
Arkansas

Music City Bowl
Notre Dame vs. LSU
Notre Dame

Belk Bowl
Louisville vs. Georgia
Georgia

Foster Farms Bowl
Maryland vs. Stanford
Samford

Peach Bowl
Ole Miss vs. TCU
TCU

Fiesta Bowl
Boise St. vs. Arizona
Arizona

Orange Bowl
Georgia Tech vs. Mississippi St.
Georgia Tech

Citrus Bowl
Minnesota vs. Missouri
Missouri

Cotton Bowl
Baylor vs. Michigan St.
Michigan St.

Outback Bowl
Wisconsin vs. Auburn
Wisconsin

Rose Bowl
Playoff Semifinal
Oregon vs. Florida St.
FSU

Sugar Bowl
Playoff Semifinal
Alabama vs. Ohio St.
Tide

Armed Forces Bowl
Pittsburgh vs. Houston
Houston

TaxSlayer Bowl
Iowa vs. Tennessee
Iowa

Alamo Bowl
Kansas St. vs. UCLA
Kansas St. 

Cactus Bowl
Oklahoma St. vs. Washington
Washington

Birmingham Bowl
Florida vs. East Carolina
ECU

GoDaddy Bowl
Toledo vs. Arkansas St.
Arkansas St.

14 games

Take your armies, take 'em from my door, your battle's built on doom

Friday links

1. Mapping the Nation is neat

2. "I don't want to be right"

3. Death by Caffeine

4. Daft Punk soundboard

So that weird rapper Lil B hates Kevin Durant (?)

Apparently this has been going on for years??

not that I'm on fire, but what has the Capn been up to lately?

All the people gave and the poor got paid

Top Ten Current CFB Coaches Likeability Ranking

1. Steve Spurrier
2. Tommy Tuberville
3. Bill Snyder
4. Gus Malzahn
5. Mike Leach
6. Dana Holgorsen
7. David Cutcliffe
8. Bronco Mendenhall
9. Mike Gundy
10. Les Miles

Tuesday links

1. You're getting old

2. The best way to win an argument

3. E. coli long-term evolution experiment

4. How to make a rope hammock

an old favorite

Cars

TThere’s an open secret in America: If you want to kill someone, do it with a car. As long as you’re sober, chances are you’ll never be charged with any crime, much less manslaughter. Over the past hundred years, as automobiles have been woven into the fabric of our daily lives, our legal system has undermined public safety, and we’ve been collectively trained to think of these deaths as unavoidable “accidents” or acts of God. Today, despite the efforts of major public-health agencies and grassroots safety campaigns, few are aware that car crashes are the number one cause of death for Americans under 35. But it wasn’t always this way.

Murder Machines

Must be broken

Why must I feel like that? Why must I chase the cat?

Approximate World Cup Rooting Rankings

Subject to drastic and frequent change:

USA
England
Costa Rica
Ghana
Switzerland
Cameroon
Honduras
Belgium
Australia
 Japan
Germany
Algeria
Croatia
France
South Korea
Netherlands
Portugal
Greece
Nigeria
Chile
Brazil
Uruguay
Ecuador
Argentina
Spain
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ivory Coast
Columbia
Italy
Mexico
Iran
Russia

Some stuff

1. Here is a weird story about Chris Anderson and cat fishing and other things.

2. How to use Tinder

3. As Court Fees Rise, The Poor Are Paying The Price

4. Johnny Cash Has Been Everywhere

5. Ayn Rand's Harry Potter

Tank Man

Perhaps even more importantly, the internet itself breeds an ethos of transparency and healthy skepticism of power. The first generation that can’t remember a time before the internet is a generation that craves information, loathes censorship, and revels in exposing abuses of power. We seem to have reached a tipping point, at least in the developed world, where technology has surpassed and by all appearances will continue to outpace government efforts to contain information. It’s hard to envision a time when we won’t have an Anonymous, a Snowden, or a Manning who have the technical know-how and the ideology to bring abuse to light. And the internet generation generally sees that as something to celebrate.

The beautiful thing about all of this is that today, anyone can be Tank Man, at least metaphorically.

Be your own Tank Man | Dan Luvisi Art

Link dump!

1. Wet dog

2. Interesting article series on the "Traditional City"

3. Time traveling rules

4. Now That's What I Call Songs Sung To The Tune Of "Two Princes" By The Spin Doctors 5

5. The '90s Alt-Rock Vocal Hook Supercut

and if you want beef then bring the ruckus

Execution

Frantz Schmidt hanged his first thief when he was 19, on a June day in 1573. Either his father or another master executioner pronounced the hanging “executed adroitly,” concluding Frantz’s apprenticeship and certifying him as a master in his own right. Over the next four decades, Frantz would hang, behead, or otherwise kill 394 people, and flog, maim, and torture confessions out of hundreds more. He began as a traveling freelancer around Bavaria, and then, from 1578 until his retirement in 1618, served as the full-time executioner of the jewel of the Holy Roman Empire, the populous, prosperous, and cosmopolitan city of Nuremberg. In elaborate sentencing rituals behind closed doors, the patrician judge and jurors of Nuremberg’s “blood court” pronounced who should die and by what means. Before crowds of hundreds, it was Frantz and his assistants who carried out the punishments, embodying the legal authority of empire. For Frantz, there was no special skill in hanging someone: just tie the noose and push. Beheading, by contrast, required an exact position of the feet, eagle eyes and a steady hand, a fluid swing of the arm. One blow must neatly and completely sever the head, lest the crowd erupt in anger: in a few instances, spectators had responded to a miscarried execution by stoning the executioner himself to death. Frantz, then, took pride in his near-flawless record. In almost 200 beheadings, he required a second stroke only four times.

More inexplicable than the persistence of capital punishment is the rest of America’s carceral iceberg. In the 1970s, the United States not only revived the death penalty but also embarked upon a penal experiment without world-historical precedent in a democracy. This complicated and interlocking array of state and federal laws, programs, and construction projects has vastly increased the number of prisons, the number of people sent there, and the number of years they stay. By 2008, for the first time in history, one in a hundred American adults was either in prison or jail. The numbers have since declined slightly, but remain very high in both historical and international perspective. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States holds 25 percent of its prisoners, often in brutal and sanity-threatening conditions that most Americans would not hesitate to label torture if they encountered them somewhere else.

Progress and Execution

I'll be trapped and here I'll have to stay

College-related links

1. A is for Adjunct Part 1 and Part 2

2. Toss out abusive college administrators

3.Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers

Crocodile Chop

Voluntourism

A voluntourist is someone like Jack, who wishes to combine exotic vacation travel with volunteer work. For anyone interested in being one, a dizzying array of choices awaits, from building schools in Uganda or houses in Haiti to hugging orphans in Bali. In all of them, the operational equation is the same: wealthy Westerners can do a little good, experience something that their affluent lives do not offer, and, as in Jack’s case, have a story to tell that places them in the ranks of the kindhearted and worldly wise.

As admirably altruistic as it sounds, the problem with voluntourism is its singular focus on the volunteer’s quest for experience, as opposed to the recipient community’s actual needs. There is a cost associated with such an endeavor. A 2010 report by the Human Sciences Research Council, based in Pretoria, South Africa, analyzed the thriving AIDS orphan tourism business in South Africa.

Under this program, well-to-do tourists sign up to build schools, clean and restore riverbanks, ring birds and act as caregivers to AIDS orphans for a few weeks. This led to the creation of a profitable industry catering to volunteer tourists. The orphans’ conditions are effectively transformed into a boutique package in which “saving” them yields profits from tourists. The foreigners’ ability to pay for the privilege of volunteering crowds out local workers.

The White Tourist's Burden

Monday link list

1. Can't remember if we linked GeoGuessr or not, but it owns.

2. Winnie the Pooh and Zombies

3. Schwarzenegger sound board prank friends

4. All of China, IL is online.

5.YouTube numbers stations. Here's my favorite.

MST3K history

When they told me, my only objection was that he was kind of like me—a white doughy guy from the Midwest. But it worked out great. They stuck with the formula really closely. I think they did a really good job.

It began getting difficult when USA Network started exercising more control over the Sci-Fi Channel. And then we picked up these fucking production executives from the network. We had these bitter, dry, humorless trolls in charge of our show. And they were giving us notes. And they were insisting on our having a story arc. What the hell do you want with a story arc? This is a puppet show.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Definitive Oral History of a TV Masterpiece

This is what it looks like when Tha Cap'n makes love

easily my favorite song on the Exit Wounds soundtrack

Surveillance and Language

To Orwell, this threat was not merely that loose and imprecise writing fails to convey one’s real meaning. His more immediate fear was more fundamental: that reliance on vague, “ready-made phrases” would, over time, conceal one’s real meaning even from oneself. Orwell understood that when a population stops “hunting about” for words—when it instead regurgitates the limited vocabulary of those in power—it stops truly thinking. “The fight against bad English,” Orwell wrote, “is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.” Far from it—it is “a necessary first step toward political regeneration.”

The government’s mass-surveillance apparatus, and the secret legal gymnastics that purportedly justify it, is a chilling expression of Orwell’s worst fears.

Dragnet Surveillance and the English Language

Metal Monday

Press statement

Tri Epsilon can neither confirm nor deny that the image reproduced below, among the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, portrays an invitation to induction in Tri Epsilon.

Here's me and Tha Captain hard at work

yes I am saying that this blog is run by Andrea Bocelli

friday stuff

1. Fun game: Luftrauser

2. Fun game: Mini Metro

3.

This is no time for confessing

I keep up with pop culture enough to know and like about four new songs a year, so I guess this is the first one for 2014.

Vegetarian ancestors

Most primates have the capacity for eating sugary fruit, the capacity for eating leaves and the capacity for eating meat. But meat is a rare treat, if eaten at all. Sure, chimpanzees sometimes kill and devour a baby monkey, but the proportion of the diet of the average chimpanzee composed of meat is small. And chimps eat more mammal meat than any of the other apes or any of the monkeys. The majority of the food consumed by primates today–and every indication is for the last thirty million years–is vegetable, not animal. Plants are what our apey and even earlier ancestors ate; they were our paleo diet for most of the last thirty million years during which our bodies, and our guts in particular, were evolving. In other words, there is very little evidence that our guts are terribly special and the job of a generalist primate gut is primarily to eat pieces of plants. We have special immune systems, special brains, even special hands, but our guts are ordinary and for tens of millions of years those ordinary guts have tended to be filled with fruit, leaves, and the occasional delicacy of a raw hummingbird.

Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians

Monday links

1. Well Dressed Animals with Rap Quotes

2. Trees growing in weapons

3. Synthetic Household Population Viewer

4. I am against the Olympics but Olympics Medals per Capita

5. Congrats to Tha Cap'n on his new job

Barbershop Quartet's Ignition (Remix)

I am not really a fan of Jimmy Fallon, but I like him more as a host and a quasi-vaudevillian than as a comedian or actor.

best youtube comment: "To be a good producer u need to be a good dj greats from mexico"

here's me

hey

Schooling

Compulsory schooling has been a fixture of our culture now for several generations. It’s hard today for most people to even imagine how children would learn what they must for success in our culture without it. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are so enamored with schooling that they want even longer school days and school years. Most people assume that the basic design of schools, as we know them today, emerged from scientific evidence about how children learn best. But, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Schools as we know them today are a product of history, not of research into how children learn. The blueprint still used for today’s schools was developed during the Protestant Reformation, when schools were created to teach children to read the Bible, to believe scripture without questioning it, and to obey authority figures without questioning them. The early founders of schools were quite clear about this in their writings. The idea that schools might be places for nurturing critical thought, creativity, self-initiative or ability to learn on one’s own — the kinds of skills most needed for success in today’s economy — was the furthest thing from their minds. To them, willfulness was sinfulness, to be drilled or beaten out of children, not encouraged.

School is a prison