Back in the day, whether you learned journalism in a class or from an editor, you probably heard something like the following: "If your mom tells you she loves you, get two confirming sources." Back in that very same pre-Twitter day, the immovable object of confirming a story stood athwart...

Some weeks ago, a study by the libertarian Mercatus Center found that the freest state in the United Ss Of A is... envelope, please... North Dakota! Shocker! (Next year, Mississippi.) Especially considering that North Dakota just passed a probably unconstitutional bill to outlaw its last hanging-by-its-fingernails...

Some years ago, newly-elected President Obama announced that Krazy Kristian mega-church pastor Rick Warren would give the inaugural invocation prayer. ("Dear Lord, please don't let our own idiocy destroy our country, and also please show us a hi-def photo of Jesus riding a dinosaur.") I felt quite excited for like...

Honestly, I don't see how giving patrons of a pizza parlor a 15 percent discount for bringing in their guns could possibly go wrong, and neither, apparently, do 57 percent of the readers of the Los Angeles Times, who, asked whether a "gun-themed pizza promotion" would appeal to...

France's National Assembly just said "Mais oui" to a bill that legalizes gay marriage and adoption. So now, in addition to having better food and sex than we do and a lower rate of heart disease despite all that butter and cream they eat -- and let's not...

President Obama's second inaugural speech, like his first, soared on rhetorical wings, leaving the rest of us far below, gaping up -- and that's a problem for the president, because eventually, reality will crap in our upturned faces. Progressive Obama makes the speeches, but Centrist Obama sits behind that desk...

Hey, modern people! How's it going? All of you making preparations for the big end of the world coming up in a few days?

Really? You are? How did you people ever conquer us anyway? Because, you know what? We were totally kidding. Oh, and you know what also? You...

The Associated Press Style Book editors' recent decision to ban use of the word "homophobia" and its variations as imprecise has certainly not ended homophobia, though it has robbed the AP's reporters of an important and accurate word used to describe a phenomenon that, sadly, they have written...

In a massive hissy fit about the results of the presidential election, Tea Party types sporting one-letter surnames (Kenny G, Todd A, Mitt R) have filed a series of petitions to allow their states to secede from the United States on the White House's We the People site....

Dear Mitt:

It's been great, this thing we've had. The horse-dancing, your son threatening to beat up the president, your lies about simultaneously lowering taxes and balancing the budget -- it's all been pretty thrilling. You've given us a new view of ourselves, as mooching parasites on the body politic,...

Back in those now nearly-forgotten halcyon days of late September (the American public has the memory of a goldfish: "Oh, look, a plastic diver! Oh, look, a plastic diver! Oh, look, a plastic diver!"), when President Obama looked as if he'd not only foreclosed the election but was planning to...

I am very fond of my progressive friends. They are smart and fun and attractive, and they smell very good, some of them like bacon. They tend to live in the real world, which makes us neighbors, unlike many in Faux News-land, a magical place where apparently our center-right President...

If Mitt Romney were not so very dreadful, you could almost feel sorry for the guy. I mean, there he is, putting himself out there with nothing between him and utter ruin but several hundred million dollars, and all he wants for Christmas in his little-boy-Mitt heart, all he dreams...

I largely avoided watching the Republican National Convention. I'm much more than just okay with getting the highlights from online news: Ann Romney announcing her love for her husband and almost making us believe they're not both all clockwork inside, Chris Christie announcing his non-gay New Jersey Republican love for...

I didn't tell anyone at the time. Until now, I've never told anyone. I felt such deep shame, such conflict deep in my soul, such... nausea and disgust. It was like the aftermath of one of my yearly KFC pig-outs, but worse, because there were no greasy fried chicken parts...

A few days ago, Groupon's stock closed at $6.66, the Stock Quote Of the Beast, or so you could be forgiven for thinking it if you were one of the idiots who bought at $31 shortly after Groupon went public last year. I have little patience with stock analysts who...

So guess who I ran into in Hot Doug's, as I'm schlepping my tray full of foie-gras-and-duck dog back to the table? (You couldn't get the duck fat tries that day -- that's a weekend-only thing -- but that's okay; I love the idea, but they're really not...

Samuel Johnson believed that "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." Sadly, for some reason, perhaps involving his having died two centuries before the invention of the Interwebs by Al Gore and Ronald Reagan, Dr. Johnson missed...

Television newsreaders have noted the recent spate of cannibalistic attacks and concluded that the zombie apocalypse is nigh. (Because, what, only zombies eat human flesh? Have these people never heard of CHUDs -- Cannibalistic Human Underground Dwellers -- or, you know, cannibals?) (Paging Dr. Lecter, Dr. Lecter, your patient/dinner is...

I got an email the day after the Wisconsin recall election from one of those organizations that promotes liberal causes, asking me for money -- and I would just like to start out by saying, Jeez, organization that promotes liberal causes, don't you know that it's 2012, so...