FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited

The dangers of finding your Doppelgänger.

Recently, I set up a nifty GoogleAlert to notify me by email, anytime my name appeared on The Interwebs—seemed like a good idea at the time. But then, so did inventing the internal-combustion engine and look at how well that turned out. Unfortunately, there's another guy with the same name who lives in the same town—a curious coincidence, to be sure. As a result, I get an email every time either of our names appear on the web. But it gets worse...

The financial crisis was society’s fault, but I bet it never does any jail time.

Remember when wrong-doing was, well...wrong? Back in the day, people used to feel bad when they did things that everyone else in society agreed were unethical, or just plain creepy. But that all ceased to exist the moment a Hollywood executive invented reality TV. These days, doing wrong no longer results in your immediate and eternal social ostracization, it results in your own television show on E! network.

Ben Stein is dead (to me).

It was bad enough that he supported Bush's black/white view of world politics. And that he supported George W. Bush's handling of Katrina. And that, in hindsight, he finally admitted that the Iraq War was/is a disaster.

See? I'm not the only one who resents movie theater ads.

Our old buddy Ralph Nader has the same bug up his butt about movies that don't start at the time stated. Forcing ads on captive, paying customers is just one more reason movie theaters need to wise up like ArcLight, or go the way of drive-ins and dodo birds. Until then, give me a hi-def, big-screen LCD with 5.1 surround, my own couch and a few cold beers, any day. No screaming kids, sticky floors or off-center seating. It's the way movies were meant to be seen—in peace.

Done screwing up the Pledge of Allegiance for generations to come, meddling Reverend dies.

The Reverend George Docherty, most famous for misleading hundreds of millions of Americans who don't fully understand the founding principles laid out in the Bill of Rights, has died at his home in rural Pennsylvania. He leaves behind a wife, probably some kids, and a national fallacy that will probably take centuries to correct.