Euphemisms, always euphemisms

The Corn Refiners Association wants high-fructose corn syrup to be known instead as "corn sugar." I'm surprised they're not insisting on "organic sweetness."

Thanx to Shakesville

Newt

Frederik Pohl remembers Newt Gingrich

The rats asked me to post this

Having pets enabled us to evolve.

Thanx to Follow Me Here

Immigrants

Perhaps the Puritans should have spent the first few hundred years in the country they moved into recognizing their second-class status and not doing provocative things like building a church near where Natives were killed.

Programming suggestion

Next year's Wiscon should have panels on Islam.

Thanx to bcholmes


ETA: I'm not the most enlightened dude in the world, but I do believe that if I were an sf writer, by now I would have done a scene where the Muslim scientist who gave us a major breakthrough laughs at a dumb American who wonders why she isn't wearing a veil.