Rough Sketch: October 17, 2010 - October 23, 2010
NASA Hubble spots oldest galaxy yet
That smudge in a photo released by NASA's Hubble telescope earlier this year? According to astronomers, it's a galaxy from 13.1 billion years ago! This would make it the farthest away and longest ago galaxy ever -- and, consequently, the one with the best chance that Star Wars is...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 22, 2010; 2:35 PM ET |
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INDIGNANT POST IN HONOR OF CAPS LOCK DAY
I KNOW HOW THESE POSTS WORK! I HAVE A STRONG OPINION ABOUT THIS. I WAS WORRIED YOU MIGHT NOT NOTICE! BUT YOU CAN TELL THAT I FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT THIS ON ACCOUNT OF THE SIZE OF ALL THE LETTERS! tHAT LETTER WAS SMALL BY ACCIDENT. THIS IS A MISSPELED...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 22, 2010; 1:58 PM ET |
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Tainted celery -- good riddance to bad roughage
There's tainted celery on the loose. Aside from the fact that Tainted Celery would make an excellent name for a band, this bad celery has been implicated in multiple cases of listeriosis, some of them fatal. Now they're shutting down the SanGar plant in Texas that state inspectors linked...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 22, 2010; 12:17 PM ET |
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Missing Links: Obama pulls a Juan Williams, Christine O'Donnell gets her Committee Assignment, &c.
So President Obama is reportedly bagging a visit to a Sikh temple and the chattering class is chattering that it's because he wanted to avoid a photo-op while wearing the sort of headdress that's often confused for the kind Osama bin Laden wears. This kind of cultural insensitivity is likely...
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Dana Milbank
| October 21, 2010; 9:31 PM ET |
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After GQ's Glee photos and Miley Cyrus's new video, a plea
In light of the hubbub surrounding the GQ Glee photoshoot and the recent Miley Cyrus video, I want to put in a plea to today's child stars. Don't grow up. I don't know about this adulthood thing, but it seems wrong. And it's probably unnatural. I want us to...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 21, 2010; 5:18 PM ET |
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NPR fired Juan Williams for this? My plane danger list.
Commentator Juan Williams was fired by NPR after his comments that "I get worried. I get nervous" when he gets on the plane and sees people "in Muslim garb" who are "identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims." Setting aside the question of whether this is appropriate, I want...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 21, 2010; 1:21 PM ET |
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Glenn Beck goes Ape; McCain vs. McCain; Ritzy Harry Reid
Glenn Beck, in his daily struggle against the dark forces of insanity, suffered another reversal on Wednesday that he doesn't believe in evolution because "I haven't seen a half-monkey, half-person yet." Beck, who apparently has been studying evolution with Delaware's Christine O'Donnell, probably wouldn't see a half-monkey even if such...
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Dana Milbank
| October 20, 2010; 10:28 PM ET |
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Glenn Beck: 'I haven't seen a half-monkey, half-person yet'
That sound you hear is everyone on Twitter rushing to make the same joke simultaneously. "Look in the mirror!" "Look inside yourself!" And Beck went on: "If I get to the other side and God's like, 'You know what, yep, you were a monkey once,' I'll be shocked, but...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 20, 2010; 5:02 PM ET |
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Virginia Thomas's Anita Hill apology demand
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. - P.G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs Now I feel silly -- waiting my whole life for people to apologize on...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 20, 2010; 3:42 PM ET |
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Textbook error: Virginia's Confederate troops and the perils of online research
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Facts I Found Online. That seems to be the lesson of the recent debacle over a Virginia textbook's depictions of thousands of black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy. As Kevin Sieff reported today, popular historian Joy Masoff, author of...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 20, 2010; 1:10 PM ET |
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Joe Miller mobilizes U.S. Army; Sarah Palin gets keystoned; McMillan leads by a whisker
It's hard to say what's worse in this story for Joe Miller, the Republican Senate nominee in Alaska: That his private security force handcuffed a journalist who tried to ask Miller questions? That Miller is using active-duty U.S. troops in his security detail without the knowledge of their chain-of-command? Or...
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Dana Milbank
| October 19, 2010; 9:51 PM ET |
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Relax, Christine O'Donnell! Nobody knows the First Amendment.
"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" -- Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's question during a debate with Democratic challenger Chris Coons. Christine O'Donnell doesn't know that the Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state. Who does? Christine explicitly said she didn't bring...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 19, 2010; 11:41 AM ET |
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The Rent is Too Damn High -- in praise of Jimmy McMillan
Jimmy McMillan said it: The Rent is Too Damn High [Editor's note: Aren't you still living at home, Alex?]. I'd be hard pressed to disagree with Jimmy McMillan. My college roommate literally lives in a teaspoon, but because that teaspoon is located on the Upper West Side, she has...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 19, 2010; 11:18 AM ET |
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David Arquette? The subtle art of the C-SPAN breakup
It's like the Cole Porter song. "Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it." It, in this case, is having an uncomfortable public breakup. It's a modern art form. "At the end of dinner it used to be that the men would retire into the billiard...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 19, 2010; 9:50 AM ET |
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Exclusive -- interview with Aqua Buddha
In the recent debate between Kentucky Senate candidates Rand Paul (R) and Jack Conway (D) and in a recent attack ad from Conway, the subject of "Aqua Buddha" came up. Aqua Buddha is an elusive deity that, according to a quote in an article in GQ, Rand Paul tried...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 18, 2010; 4:00 PM ET |
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Obama on Mythbusters? Top myths he should bust
Today, when presenting awards at the White House Science Fair, President Obama also revealed that he'd just taped an episode of Mythbusters. Apparently, according to Mark Knoller on Twitter, the episode will test "whether ancient Greek scientist Archimedes set fire to invading Roman fleet using only mirrors & sun...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 18, 2010; 4:00 PM ET |
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Princess Leia's cocaine use? Not the worst blow to Star Wars fans.
Princess Leia was doing cocaine during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back? Okay. This might require some modifications to my Halloween costume. Keep the buns and the robe, but also lose a bunch of weight, become oddly focused, and keep strongly suggesting that we put our next rebel...
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Alexandra Petri
| October 18, 2010; 10:54 AM ET |
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