'Waterboarding is for Green Berets in training, or wiry young jihadists whose teeth can bite through the gristle of an old goat. It’s not for wheezing, paunchy scribblers. For my current “handlers” I had had to produce a doctor’s certificate assuring them that I did not have asthma, but I wondered whether I should tell them about the 15,000 cigarettes I had inhaled every year for the last several decades.' - Mark Ayzenshtat

"Charlie's Angels director McG is directing the new film, which is due to be released on 22 May 2009." hmmm... not exactly Christopher Nolan - Karl Rosaen

Never saw a Christian Bale movie I didn't like, so optimistic. - Mark Ayzenshtat

"I have many leather-bound books..." - Mark Ayzenshtat

Cool firestarting device based on rapid air compression. Looks like you can buy them from http://www.firepiston.com/ - Mark Ayzenshtat

Hypochondriacs unite. - Mark Ayzenshtat

I'm yet to find a query that produces a sentiment worse than swell. Even 'death' is swell. - Mark Ayzenshtat

Nice: 'hell' is bad, 'heaven' is great, and 'purgatory' is so-so. - Mark Ayzenshtat

'windows' is bad, but 'vista' is swell :) - Karl Rosaen

'hitler' is just swell while 'nazi' is great. - Dmitry Chechik

Nice to see that rap video cliches span cultures/languages. - Mark Ayzenshtat

"Although Snipes’ attorney argued that the sentence was too stiff for a first-time offender, U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges disagreed, despite character reference letters from three dozen family members and friends, including Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson." Do reference letters ever make a difference in cases like this? - Mark Ayzenshtat

"Not every aging actor in Hollywood has to embarrass himself. While Pacino and De Niro grab the dough, working for hacks and nonentities, Nicholson, with rare exception, has picked his spots, doing movies with Martin Scorsese, Alexander Payne and Sean Penn. Clint Eastwood, who's even older than Nicholson, has remained an iconic figure by working with the best director of all -- himself." - Mark Ayzenshtat

yeah, but they ruled in "Heat" - Karl Rosaen

Outlier. - Mark Ayzenshtat

"Heat" was 13 years and 4 plastic surgery operations ago - Dmitry Chechik

this photo proves Pacino is still in his prime http://www.imdb.com/media/rm30... - Karl Rosaen

He has a bit of an Alice Cooper thing going on there, but that's probably true of most older guys with dark hair coloring and spray-on tans. - Mark Ayzenshtat

"And Benedict is, without a doubt, the first pope to have had an authorized biography of him written by a cat — Chico, a ginger tabby who lives across the road from Benedict’s old house in Germany." - Mark Ayzenshtat

TAM 5 was fun - only downside this time around is that it's in Las Vegas in June. - Mark Ayzenshtat

"If people want to read what actually happened, they can go to the library and read the microfish." - Mark Ayzenshtat

Yikes: 'In the new science-bashing movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein and the rest of the filmmakers sincerely and seriously argue that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution paved the way for the Holocaust. By "seriously," I mean that Ben Stein acts grief-stricken and the director juxtaposes quotes from evolutionary biologists with archival newsreel clips from Hitler's Reich. Prepare for an intellectual night at the cinema.' - Mark Ayzenshtat

You know who else hated evolution? That's right, Hitler: http://scienceblogs.com/dispat... - Dmitry Chechik

Too bad irony is lost on most of the people who take this film seriously. - Mark Ayzenshtat

DecodeMe says I'm in the highest risk group. But this is reassuring: "Stefansson said the increased lung cancer risk was indirect — the variants led to more smoking, which led to more cancer." - Mark Ayzenshtat

So you did DecodeMe? Was it worth it? - ⓞnor

Not at first, but it's getting there. They've been adding reports on new traits at a pretty good clip - so I'd say it's worth it if you like getting a steady feed of new and exciting ways your health might be in danger. - Mark Ayzenshtat

Any of them actionable so far? Besides "don't smoke", which I assume you weren't planning to anyway. - ⓞnor

Yeah, e.g., I'm at risk for glaucoma, which is highly preventable/treatable if you don't skimp on the checkups. Also at risk for T2D, which I might do something about if this cookie weren't so tasty. - Mark Ayzenshtat

Note that the research was done by scientists from deCODE. (also see http://www.decodeme.com/news/2... ) I wonder if the research was supported (or initiated) by aggregating user-provided genetic data with responses to their survey ("do you smoke more than 1 pack of cigarettes a day?") -- something that their privacy policy specifically allows. - Tudor Bosman

A nice little assortment of national stereotypes. - Mark Ayzenshtat

"And, of course, what you discover is that other than the speeches Obama has written for himself, the last time a major speech was written without the aid of a speechwriter by a president or presidential candidate was Nixon's 'Great Silent Majority' speech delivered on October 13, 1969." - Mark Ayzenshtat