“This was done in a vacuum,” said another business lobbyist who sits on one of the panels. “The decision was made in a room of the White House without consultation.”

Oh, delicious irony.

“The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.”

This is making me sick.

A description of the ingredients in your shampoo. Unlike toothpaste, in which there are many active ingredients, in shampoo there are usually only a handful out of the 20 or 30 included. I thought my shampoo was relatively plain but it’s packed full of goodness like polyquaternium-7. That sounds like another goddamn planet.

I don’t really know who Lily Allen is, but she makes records and was, until recently, very outspoken about copyright laws and piracy. Of course, not understanding even the rudiments of copyright herself, she compromised her position by hosting essentially pirated music on her own website (among other things). When people pointed this out, she ended the whole affair and reportedly said she’s done making music as well. Okay, quitter!

God, this is depressing. Apparently it’s not enough that we pay successful CEOs too much by a couple orders of magnitude; the error has to extend to the failures as well. What a world.

How come I’ve never heard of this unbelievably cool store? Too bad everything is so goddamn expensive. I’m buying some stuff anyway.

Of one: “It has the ring of utter ineptitude.”

I remember seeing this guy on the “Genetic Modification” episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit. Penn cited him as perhaps the greatest person who ever lived, suggesting that his research had helped feed billions of people who would have otherwise starved (and continues to today). I would agree, though the critics have a point that a result of his techniques was an over-reliance on artificial fertilizers and a hugely raised ceiling for population — the problems following from which we are still dealing with today.

Still, his work was all about getting poor, starving people enough grains to eat and make a living; that’s all he ever wanted, and he succeeded marvelously. From the article: “About half the world’s population goes to bed every night after consuming grain descended from one of the high-yield varieties developed by Dr. Borlaug and his colleagues of the Green Revolution.”

RIP, Norman – would that a tenth of a percent of the people in this world were as dedicated, modest, and selfless as you were.

I understand that the popular conception of Sherlock Holmes is mistaken — he’s far from merely an observative gentleman detective. He’s addicted to drugs and can be both manipulative and ruthless. But he’s not a 19th-century Indiana Jones. This movie will be a lot of fun, I’m sure, but did they really have to call it Sherlock Holmes?