KPC year in review

Here's a wrap up of the 6 most popular posts this year on KPC.

Our most viewed post was America the Beautiful, which chronicled the amazing Texas Law Hawk and his talons of justice.

Second was my screed against the typical use of IV and over identification tests with special invective against dynamic panel methods called Friends don't let Friends use IV.

Third place went to our post documenting the phallic fetishes common to Oklahoma TV weather people.

Coming in fourth was one of my frequent attempts to fix the internet in general and Paul Krugman in particular titled, A tale of two Krugmans.

Then we got silly again pointing out that mass murderer Anders Breivik was now majoring in Political Science.

Finally, coming in at #6 was my post, The powerful negative theorems of economics, detailing why it really is the dismal science!

So there you have KPC in a nutshell, 50% economics, 50% snarky foolishness.

Long may we reign.

UPDATE BY MUNGOWITZ:  Unsurprisingly, all six of the top posts were Angus joints.  He's like Mr. Ed:  He only speaks when he's got something to say!

The Retail May Change

WTF?  What language is this written in?

with thanks to the LMM

Say WHAT?

In the WallStJ this a.m., this story.

A quote: Ms. Fisher's lawyer, Gloria Allred, said her client is a single mother, raising a young son, who had worked recently as the vice president of a commercial real estate company.

Really? Her 11 year old son worked as a VP at a real estate company? Impressive.

Have people completely forgotten how to write?

And, on the merits, what did Ms. Fisher THINK was going to happen? I have no sympathy for Hurd, if he acted badly he should be fired. But... if Ms. Fisher didn't want him to be fired, what DID she want? Furthermore, Hurd was NOT fired for harrassment, but rather for stealing money with doctored expenses (which he says he did not fill out, but acknowledges were inaccurate).

Lord, California, give it up.

Burned 40 lbs of 'Maters

We got two boxes, 20 lbs each, of lovely Roma tomatoes.

I cored them, scalded them, let them cool, skinned them, and mashed them up a bit in a giant stock pot.

Seasoned with fresh basil, fresh thyme, some oregano, and garlic.

Covered with glass top, went up to bed to make sauce in the morning.

'Cept I left the burner on.

6 a.m.: Smoke, stink, LMM pretty mad at me for almost setting fire to house. And I wasted three hours and 40 lbs of good 'maters. What an idiot.

A boy and his flagpole

So, a kid actually did it. He put his tongue on a cold flagpole.

And it (his tongue) froze there. And the kid is dancing around, tongue-tied to the flagpole, yelling "Geh ah hung ah uf hag hole! OWWW!"

And so they called the fire department!

Because the firemen, understanding fire and its uses, would know to use WARM water. (It helps to be trained....)

Apparently, the kid was "triple dog dared" to do the tonguey thing. (For the REAL "Tonguey thing," you will need to rent "Kung Pow! Enter the Fist!")

(If you simply must see "Toungey," then it is in this trailer, the sign of being the "Chosen One"...)

Makeover

So...the Lovely Ms. Mungowitz had suggested that perhaps I should do something about the gray in my hair. Since I don't have to look at it, and the LMM is the one I want to be interested in looking, I said sure.

Got to go see family friend and oracle, Raquel. (Raquel also did the earlier hair work, btw). So, Raquel suggested we do the cap thing: And then once the chemicals are placed on the hair, you have to do the heat thing: The results....soon. I should note that Raquel is pretty darned excited about having a fellow Puertorriqueña on the Supreme Court, as was just announced (as a nominee, I should note....)

Who doesn't?

In Colorado a tofu loving woman's vanity license plate has been banned. How can this be, you ask? Well, here is the exact text of the plate:

ILVTOFU

Yikes!!


Hey, maybe we could all chip in and buy a similar plate for Tim Geithner! I hear he has a birthday coming up.

Just Plain Strange

This is just plain strange. That's all I've got. No commentary.

So he COULD keep up, after all.....

Quite a party. Two young ladies bet a guy he couldn't "keep up" with them for an all night....activity.

But he did. Of course, he took an entire bottle of Viagra first. (Article)

And then he died, after 12 hours of solid....activity.

I even have a picture of the guy, after about 8 hours of the....contest.

My Evil Sister

So, my sister Kathy is evil.

Oh, sure, she seems nice. She is a veterinarian, took a MA in biology before vet school, interested in research.

Now, she sails and spends a lot of time outside near her home in Portland, Oregon. She and her husband Mark have two kids.

But it turns out she is pure evil. I don't mean like Hillary Clinton professional level pure evil. But on an amateur scale.....pretty darned evil.

She sends our Christmas present a bit late (we received it February 2). It comes in a nice box, a collection of homemade stuff, including some jam and some really great Japanese tea.

And, the following two items, wrapped carefully in Saran wrap and then wrapped in tissue paper.
Now...I could have read the card, or the Year-in-Review summary letter, in the box.

But I was feeling a bit peckish. And since this was clearly a nice piece of hard goat cheese (on the left) and some kind of lemon bar (on the right) I decided to have a big taste. (In my defense, I have two teenage sons. Food tends not to last on our counter. In fact, food tends not even to TOUCH our counter for more than three or four seconds without being engulfed.)

I took a bite out of the goat cheese (you can see the bite marks on the front edge). And thought, "Wow, that's really strong. Smoky and bitter and....OMIGOD! That's soap!"

To be fair, Kathy did confirm in the card that she was including two pieces of olive oil-based soap, and she hoped we enjoyed it.

Thanks, Kath.

UPDATE: As I was writing this just now, I heard the door slam. The younger younger Munger had come in, and had picked up the soap and was about to take a bite. But I warned him not to. It's mine. I'm going to put it on crackers later.

How Many Harvard JDs Does It Take....

How many Harvard-trained lawyers does it take to administer the oath of office?

More than two, apparently.

Or, at a minimum, the same two have to do it more than once!

And then Joe Biden, king of flubs, takes a shot?

Maybe if CJ Roberts had plagiarized the thing, it would have gone better?

(Nod to Anonyman, who gets it wrong the first time, and then just mans up and deals with it).

Ask not what the building can do for you.....

....but rather what can you do for the building?

Well that didn't take long

According to humorist Andy Borowitz, Paul Krugman has wasted no time going Hollywood after getting word of his prize.

Here's an excerpt:

"Mr. Krugman could not be reached for comment and instead referred all questions to his publicist, Sherri Hefstein, whom he hired minutes after winning the Nobel.

According to Ms. Hefstein, Mr. Krugman plans to spend the next few months "building his brand" and will be adapting his book, International Economics: Theory and Policy, into a feature film to star George Clooney. "

Hat tip to Mrs. Angus.

The Sabbatical from Hell

Daniel Hamermesh is an eminent scholar and a great guy. But holy crap people he's on the Sabbatical from Hell. He's in Bonn Germany for 5 months. Here's his bathroom/laundry room:



When that arrangement gives him a headache he can buy some aspirin for around $3 APIECE!

Plus he's in Bonn. Got to be the worst city in Europe. Geez, we could fix him up here in Norman with a huge house and cheap pills no problem. Next time Dan!

got to keep a strong Pope hand!

big ups to punditkitchen commentater CGS for this post's title

Where on God's green earth??

Discuss....

Saturday Links

Hey Rafa Nadal is blogging!!

The funniest sentence I've read in a long time is in this post. Can you figure out which one?

Tyler sez WALL-E is too good for its own good.

Greg Mankiw apparently doesn't get out much.

Like Thomas Edison, this guy knows 10,000 things that don't make good pants!

Separated at Birth

This is Gerard, our intrepid driver who took us from Morondava up to Bekopaka and back again. We nicknamed him "double M" which was short for Malagasy Mungowitz! Check it out, people!

Ron Paul rides to Mungowitz' Rescue!

Yes Mungowitz' McCainophobia is being treated by Dr. Ron Paul, according to the LA Times:

quietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in Minnesota at the beginning of September. In the last three months, Paul's forces, who donated $34.5 million to his White House effort and upward of a million total votes, have, as The Ticket has noted, been fighting a series of guerrilla battles with party establishment officials at county and state conventions from Washington and Missouri to Maine and Mississippi. Their goal: to take control of local committees, boost their delegate totals and influence platform debates. They hope to demonstrate their disagreements with McCain vocally at the convention through platform fights and an attempt to get Paul a prominent speaking slot. Paul, who's running unopposed in his home Texas district for an 11th House term, still has some $5 million in war funds and has instructed his followers that their struggle is not about a single election, but a long-term revolution for control of the Republican Party.

Now personally, I'm guessing this will be about as successful as his presidential campaign, but it least it gives my boy Mungowitz some hope in these dark hours.

Hat tip to Steven Taylor!

You'll never say "google" the same way again!

It takes a little while to get going but this is fantastic. Hat tip to Marc Andreessen