Events

Before continuing yesterday's list of Star Wars lines that only a 14-year-old could love, I need to tip my hat to reader AS who found this sparkling diamond of a list. Change one word in a Star Wars quote to "pants" and you get, for example, "I find your lack of pants disturbing," or, "In his pants you will find a new definition of pain and suffering." Fascinating that the list includes lines from all six movies, and yet only lines from the first three made it into the top 20. Here's a clue. Here are...

Did you ever wonder about these lines from the original Star Wars? "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid." "Curse my metal body, I wasn't fast enough!" "Look at the size of that thing!" "Sorry about the mess..." "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought." "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?" "You've got something jammed in here real good." "Put that thing away before you get us all killed!" "Luke, at that speed, do you think you'll be able to pull out...

Truly stunning news from Russia this morning, with devastating repercussions for Poland: A plane carrying the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and dozens of the country’s top political and military leaders crashed in a heavy fog in western Russia on Saturday morning, killing everyone aboard. ... Among those on board, according to the Web site of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, were [President Lech] Kaczynski; his wife, Maria; former Polish president-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski; the deputy speaker of...

That the governor of Virginia is stupid, or racist? And how well does he actually represent the Virginia Republican Party? This time, he proclaimed April "Confederate History Month," but left out a detail: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell apologized Wednesday for leaving out any reference to slavery in his recent proclamation designating April as Confederate History Month, calling it a "major omission." "The failure to include any reference to slavery was a mistake, and for that I apologize to any fellow...

Last one today, with two articles on paying cash v. paying with credit cards. First, Ryan Sager at Neuroworld: Every person’s financial situation and mind works differently. For some people, doing many more of their transactions in cash (or check — you have to have some way to pay bills) would be a huge improvement. If you shop a lot recreationally, for instance, this could slow you down. For some people, just using a debit card could be the answer. For me and other people who like a lot of control and...

It turns out, all that pollen covering my car happened in part because of the really pleasant winter we had in Raleigh this year. Really: The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Air Quality Division measured a sample of air Wednesday that had 3,524 pollen grains per cubic meter at its Raleigh office. The count normally falls between 1,000 and 1,500 in the spring. The previous peak was on March 27, 2007, when air quality staff over at DENR measured 2,925 pollen grains per cubic meter....

Via Andrew Sullivan, a bit of morning hilarity (NSFW and kind of gross around 4:00 but funny as hell):

The Spirit of Stupidity: The next obsession, at least for passengers of Spirit Airlines, may be cramming items under airplane seats. The Florida discount carrier said Tuesday that it would charge customers as much as $45 each way to place bulky items in overhead bins, in an effort to get people on and off its planes faster. Other airlines will watch Spirit's experiment. Carry-on bags didn't become the primary source of luggage for passengers until carriers introduced fees for infrequent fliers and then...

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown requested the Queen dissolve Parliament today in advance of their May 6th general election: The formalities between the Prime Minister and monarch lasted 23 minutes. The details of their conversation will remain private but Mr Brown was to ask the Queen for a dissolution next Monday. He then returned to Downing Street to name the date on the steps of No 10. [Conservative Party leader David] Cameron was not in a mood to wait, starting his campaign appearance while Mr...

I think I can get used to having an association with a national champion team of some kind, which in my life hasn't happened since 1998: The Duke Blue Devils officially were the last team standing Monday night, the only team on the podium with the championship trophy in hand. Duke claimed its fourth NCAA championship but the first for any of its current players with a 61-59 victory over hometown favorite Butler in front of 70,000-plus fans at Lucas Oil Stadium. More: The Blue Devils won with defense....