More from The Onion:

One day, I overheard my coworker Sally talking on the phone about how much God had helped her through her recent divorce. She said she “saw the light” after just one night with Him. At first I kept thinking, “Is she talking about the same Savior?” The next Sunday, I followed her to an unfamiliar church on the edge of town and just sat in my car for a while in disbelief. I finally walked up to the front door, but before I could open it, I heard the unmistakable sounds of ecstatic praise coming from inside. There was no denying it. I’d caught Sally red-handed, making a joyful noise unto my own special Lord.

I was devastated. How could He do this to me? Here I had let Him into my soul in the most intimate way possible, and He had betrayed our personal bond by accepting the thanks and adulation of Sally, and God knows how many others as well. I was humiliated I ever let Him wash my soul in His blood in the first place.

From The Onion

The popular search engine Google announced plans Friday to launch a new site, TheGoogle.com, to appeal to older adults not able to navigate the original website’s single text field and two clearly marked buttons.

“The Google will have all the same information currently found on regular Google, but with the added features of not stealing your credit-card numbers or giving your computer all kinds of viruses,” said Rick Tillich, The Google project director. “All you have to do to turn the website on is put the little blinking line thing in the cyberspace window at the top of the screen, type ‘thegoogle.com,’ and press ‘return’—although it will also recognize http.wwwthegoogle.com, google.aol, and ‘THEGOOGLE’ typed into a Word document.”

Tillich added that he hopes the site will soon replace Yahoo Internet Website.com as the most popular search engine for users over 55.

These are awesome.

You’re not healthy either.

As cigarette bans have proliferated in recent years, hookah lounges have become a popular alternative, in part because the flavored smoke is believed to be less harmful than cigarette smoke. But research suggests otherwise.

It is true that in hookahs, also known as water pipes, the smoke is often flavored and filtered through water. The problem is that people who use hookahs typically inhale far more smoke than cigarette smokers, exposing them to potentially higher levels of nicotine, carbon monoxide and other chemicals. Most studies show that small water pipes produce the highest levels of carbon monoxide, followed by cigarettes and then large water pipes.

One extensive report on hookahs was published in 2005 by the World Health Organization. It found that in a single smoking session, cigarette smokers typically took 8 to 12 puffs and inhaled 0.5 to 0.6 liters of smoke over five to seven minutes. In contrast, hookah smokers may take 50 to 200 puffs of up to a liter of smoke each during a single session.

You hope you go out with grace.  This is a wonderful post from a new blog at the New York Times, from a WSJ article.

It’s about a professor at Carnegie Mellon who only has a few months to live.  What would you say?  What would you do?  It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Ikiru.

I’m actually not sure if he calls his mother.

So: I love the talking-to that the President of Columbia gave him, calling him, essentially, a very, very bad man. I also believe that free speech is important, particularly in the context of academic freedom.

But here’s what interesting. I actually don’t think this is an academic thing. I’m not sure Columbia did anything wrong by having the guy talk. But I think the media did something wrong by making it such a big issue. Because–let’s be honest–if Columbia had refused to let the guy speak, that would have been a big story too. So then, the media response decides everything–and what if they had decided to frame it as simply banal?

Besides, Ahmy is just doing all of this for his home election strategies anyways.

Don’t exist in Saudi Arabia.  Geez.

We don’t expect an answer right away,” said Wajeha al-Huwaider, 45, an education analyst who co-founded the group. “But we will not stop campaigning until we get the right to drive.”

The kingdom follows one of the world’s strictest interpretations of Islam. Women in Saudi Arabia, a deeply patriarchal society, cannot travel, marry or rent lodging without permission from a male guardian.

Powerful clerics in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest shrines, say that allowing women to drive would lead to Western-style freedoms and an erosion of traditional values.

The driving ban applies to all women, Saudi and foreign.

From Alternet:

Olbermann’s Special Comments, as they are labeled, make up the core of my pitch as his volunteer advocate. They were off the radar scopes until September 2006, when Rumsfeld said anyone who was critical of the “war on terror” or the war in Iraq or of Administration policies was the equivalent of the people who appeased Hitler in the 1930s. “I’m not a big fan of being called a Nazi appeaser or even a parallel Nazi,” K.O. said. “I took that personally.” And he began eviscerating Rumsfeld.

He has done twenty-two of the “specials” (as of July 19), all of which earn a place for him on the Mount Olympus of commercial TV anchors. The July 4 special on his reaction to Scooter Libby’s pardon, explaining the historical imperatives for Bush and Cheney to resign, was the Gettysburg Address of K.O.’s commentaries:

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient…. I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent. I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought. I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents. I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience and letting him run roughshod over it …

For ten minutes, Olbermann spoke with fierce clarity and surgical precision, drawing a comparison to President Nixon’s resignation. He had obviously done his homework. His recitation of Bush’s crimes concluded with his observation that the President had been “an accessory to the obstruction of justice” in the Libby case. “From Iraq to Scooter Libby,” Olbermann said at the time, “Bush and Cheney have lost Americans’ trust and stabbed this nation in the back. It’s time for them to go.” The highest praise I can give is to say I can imagine Ed Murrow speaking those words.

I’m not saying Olbermann is Ed Murrow. He is, however, what Ed Murrow might sound like today, changing with the times as a good newsman should.

Capitalism works, as long as there is full information, choice, and freedom.  A lot of old folks have none of those things.  What happens is wrong:

Regulators say residents at these homes have suffered. At facilities owned by private investment firms, residents on average have fared more poorly than occupants of other homes in common problems like depression, loss of mobility and loss of ability to dress and bathe themselves, according to data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The typical nursing home acquired by a large investment company before 2006 scored worse than national rates in 12 of 14 indicators that regulators use to track ailments of long-term residents. Those ailments include bedsores and easily preventable infections, as well as the need to be restrained. Before they were acquired by private investors, many of those homes scored at or above national averages in similar measurements.

I know!  I know!  Instead of debating whether or not the argument is correct, let’s just criticize the way the person made the argument!

That’ll distract ‘em.  From Salon:

I’m on record — in multiple places — expressing my doubts about the headline on the Petraeus ad. That was last week; I’ve moved on. With everything else facing the country, I can’t believe our top deliberative body took time out to denounce MoveOn. And I can’t believe 22 Democrats joined Republican opportunists. Our wildly unpopular president teed the whole thing up like the Senate was a Little League team on the White House lawn in his stumbling, bumbling press conference this morning:

“I thought that the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack, not only on Gen. Petraeus but on the U.S. military. And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad. That leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org — are more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military.”

Oh right, let’s bring that one out again: Democrats don’t support the military! Sometimes, especially when I debate Pat Buchanan, I think it’s a generational problem, that it’s older Democrats who remember the Vietnam era and fear the Republican-crafted story line that Democrats “lost” that war by opposing it. I find myself thinking: Younger Democrats ought to have an easier time making the case that it’s the Democrats who care about the troops, who want them to have adequate body armor and ammunition and time home with their families, and who want to bring them home from an unwinnable war in Iraq. That old Republican garbage can’t work forever. (Remember, too, that more Americans polled wanted to bring the troops home after Gen. David Petraeus’ testimony — and the MoveOn kerfuffle — than before.)