Lileks has an insight that is unique in its ability to be simultaneously banal, powerful, and idiotic:

The other day I thought: why did it never occur to me that the Alphabet Song employs the same melody as ?Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?? Did I always know it and just forget it, or have I just realized this now? I mentioned it to my wife, and she had the same reaction.

I’m approaching a half century of age, and I’d never realized it either. What did we ever do before James Lileks?

I’ve said relatively little about the Krugman payola controversy, but I caught a couple of minutes of Hannity and Colmes tonight (during commercials of the much more viewworthy “King of the Hill,” even in reruns) in which they were talking to Bernie Goldberg. He made an excellent point. To paraphrase, “Why was Krugman talking up what a brilliant business Enron was running, at the same time that he admitted that they paid him fifty grand for doing essentially nothing?”

Great question.

I’ve said relatively little about the Krugman payola controversy, but I caught a couple of minutes of Hannity and Colmes tonight (during commercials of the much more viewworthy “King of the Hill,” even in reruns) in which they were talking to Bernie Goldberg. He made an excellent point. To paraphrase, “Why was Krugman talking up what a brilliant business Enron was running, at the same time that he admitted that they paid him fifty grand for doing essentially nothing?”

Great question.

I’ve said relatively little about the Krugman payola controversy, but I caught a couple of minutes of Hannity and Colmes tonight (during commercials of the much more viewworthy “King of the Hill,” even in reruns) in which they were talking to Bernie Goldberg. He made an excellent point. To paraphrase, “Why was Krugman talking up what a brilliant business Enron was running, at the same time that he admitted that they paid him fifty grand for doing essentially nothing?”

Great question.

According to Ananova:

Mike Tyson has been ordered to appear before the Nevada State Athletic Commission next Tuesday to explain his behaviour at this week’s press conference.

In the spirit of Opinion Journal’s contest to come up with excuses for Yasser Arafat and the mysterious weapons ship, I’d like to kick off a Transterrestrial contest to help gentle Iron Mike come up with an explanation for using Lennox Lewis’ lower limb as a chew toy.

Either post in the comments section or email me. And hurry–the poor guy only has until next Tuesday. I’ve already started it off with the post title.

Is there a plumber in the house?

Lately, when I first turn on the faucet in the downstairs bathtub, a horde (or a hill? a crawl? Just what the heck is the correct affinitive term for them anyway?) of ants comes rushing out ahead of the water. While this is disconcerting, it’s not a big problem in itself–I simply flush them down the drain, like a scene from an insect version of The Ten Commandments, while I’m waiting for the hot water to arrive from the heater.

But I’m worried about the implications of it. Where are they coming from? There’s no trail of ants leading into it, which leads me to conclude that they’re getting into the pipe from somewhere else. That would in turn imply a leak in the system somewhere, but I’ve seen no other symptoms of it. Anyone have any bright (or otherwise) ideas?

I had a power failure for about an hour this afternoon. The good news is that I have a UPS. The bad news is that DOH!, I forgot to plug the monitor into it. My three machines slowly ran out of juice, with the UPS beeping plaintively, before I had the presence of mind to climb under the snakelike pile of cables behind the desk, find the appropriate cord, and plug it in. They all died in a less than graceful manner. Fortunately, I think that everything that I’d been working on had been saved.

Not knowing how long the power would be out, I went out for a walk.

When I got back, power was back up. I nursed my Debian firewall back to life, then my Redhat network server/work station, and finally my Windoze work station. All seems to be well with the world again, but I’ve moved the monitor cable over to the right socket for next time.

Boy, when Gary Condit can’t get a sleazeball like Tony Coelho to support him, he’s in deep trouble.

Boy, when Gary Condit can’t get a sleazeball like Tony Coelho to support him, he’s in deep trouble.