Does writing a blog constitute work? That appears to be the position of the New York State Department of Labor, which recently declared a laid-off attorney ineligible for unemployment benefits because she was bringing in $1.30 a day from blog ads.

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating an online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33060855/
 

In early America, calling someone a liar wasn’t a childish insult but a direct challenge to one’s honor, an appropriate response to which varied by region. Where dueling was common — as in Wilson’s home state of South Carolina — so were insults.

Here’s how an 1882 New York Times article described the thinking of the time as it related to a Mr. John Goode, who had called a certain Mr. Bailey a liar.

Writing that “Nothing but blood can wipe out this insult,” the author noted that although the laws of chivalry were supposed to be dominant, “language used in attacking individuals is much more gross and insulting than in regions where the duel is not invoked as the final arbiter betwixt the man who has been insulted and the defamer.

“In the North, we are supposed to be a lily-livered and pusillanimous race. Yet we very much question if any legislator or public man would dare to denounce another as ‘a liar.’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/15/AR2009091502979.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Read it and gloat. Researchers at Stan­ford University have just published a study showing that the most persistent multitaskers perform badly in a variety of tasks.

They don’t focus as well as non­multitaskers. They’re more dis­tractible. They’re weaker at shift­ing from one task to another and at organizing information. They are, as a matter of fact, worse at multitasking than people who don’ t ordinarily multitask.

You know what this means. This means that the people around you — the husband who’s tapping the computer ke ys during an important phone conversation with you, the SUV driver with the grande latte and the cell phone, the dinner companion with the roving eye and twitching thumbs — are not only irritating, they are (let’s not be fainthearted) incom­petent.

But, wait. Should it be breaking news that a single person can’t juggle knives and explain quan­tum physics while polishing off an artichoke?

Health dept. sickened by own Christmas party
Some health department workers in southern Illinois think they may have discovered some contaminated food - at their own office Christmas gathering.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28355874/

Sometimes tech makes you appear hip, assertive and dynamic, it can just as easily make you look like an utter pain. So, before you rush out to buy Apple’s new laptop or BlackBerry’s new Storm, check out these high profile gadgets you might look cooler without.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28039226/

About this time last night, I embarked on a sacred campaign to eat every Christmas cookie and every Christmas brownie in the house before the Fam. arrives for Christmas.  I’ll be done around this time tomorrow night.