Miscellaneous

BYCU A passage from a book that is currently on my top shelf, The Drunken Botanist: "Every great drink starts with a plant. If you're a gardener, I hope this book inspires a cocktail party. If you're a bartender, I hope you're persuaded

For the first time since 2007, the FDA has approved a new device to treat obesity. The amazing breakthrough is called a vegetable.

Kontent from the Kindle Impressive company, though I must admit that I'd never heard of the last two books: "A Mencken Chrestomathy was published the following July, two months before Mencken's sixty-ninth birthday. It turned up on the New York Times best-seller list

Background: When I was the editor of Gilbert Magazine [http://www.chesterton.org/explore-the-acs/gilbertmagazine/], I was responsible for the "Tremendous Trifles" column. It was occasionally hard to find a sufficient amount of interesting GKC material to fill the page, so John Peterson sent me a

"Rothbard famously observed that one could uncover the libertarian position on X by imagining a gang of thugs carrying out the state action in question." Thomas Woods, Real Dissent. It's a good example. The libertarian basically asks, "If you wouldn't tolerate your neighbor

I'm hopefully done with busy weekends. I had to go to Chicago on business this past one. It was a good time, but in the middle of a sub-zero cold snap and basketball season . . . not exactly a welcomed excursion. We went to Million Dollar Quartet Saturday night

A Random Passage Malcolm Muggeridge was fond of quoting from an ancient inscription that was found in the Libyan desert: “I, the Captain of a Legion of Rome, serving in the desert of Libya, have learnt and pondered this truth: 'There are in life but two things to be

A Random Passage "Nock thought universal literacy a useless goal, as most people can't do anything valuable with it anyway." Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism Actually, those passages by Nock about the ridiculousness of universal literacy are some of his most enjoyable. There's something

Bill Gates released a video of himself drinking water that was filtered from human excrement. No word yet on whether Gates got into the fraternity.

> "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it." G.K. Chesterton. > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 9, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/553344955381743616]