In the news today:

President Obama bowed to the emperor of Japan, and lots of conservatives are mad. The American leader should stand tall in front of other leaders, they say. Personally, I applaud diplomacy with our allies. I reject the idea that our leader should be the supreme authortarian leader of the world. If we were talking about Lord Voldamort of Iran, on the other hand...

Despite the buzz from her new book, Sarah Palin's popularity and credibility continue their descent into the abyss. A real shame. Too bad no one predicted a year ago that she wasn't qualified to lead a girl scout troop, much less a tiny city, much less a sparsely populated state (a job she quit to make money on a book tour), much less a country. Oh wait, someone did say something like that. A lot. It was me.

A new study on some people from some island off the coast of nowhere says that you can predict a person's future criminality by their startle response at three years of age (whether they jump when you startle them with a loud noise). Criminal masterminds don't jump as much. Point one: a relationship between two things doesn't mean one causes the other. Point two: there's no point two--A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO VARIABLES DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN INFER CAUSALITY. I am not going to say this again. (Yes I am.)