I recently learned that my good friend “Joe” will soon be a father of a baby girl. I immediately began devising the social science experiment we will perform to turn his little girl into a WNBA superstar. A little context: Joe and I… Continue reading ‘She’s the Next Michael Jordan’
Mountain climbers used to impress the hell out of me, the Jon Krakauer non-fiction classic “Into Thin Air” being the most gripping book you’ll ever read on the subject. And while James M. Tabor’s doesn’t come even to close to Krakauer’s writing skill, I just finished his pretty gripping book “Blind Descent” about the search… Continue reading ‘Supercave Explorers Are Out of Their Damn Minds’
In the wake of the scandal/non-scandal surrounding Chicago’s ultra-shady Heartland Institute, it couldn’t be a better time to cast a little light on the money and resources focused on a worldwide disinformation campaign to sow doubt around the scientific consensus on climate change. Heartland is only a small part of the massive effort by fossil… Continue reading ‘Inside the War Against Climate Science’
Who would’ve thought that the recent explosion of basketball agility known as “Linsanity” could reach so far and become so pernicious? Alas, Jeremy Lin’s star-making month for the New York Knicks finally created a true victim and loser, and that loser is me. A little background on how the operation at RedEye works: my column… Continue reading ‘Linsanity Disrupts ‘Off the Markley’’
In 2009, on the eve of climate talks in Copenhagen, a scandal broke known as “Climategate.” It managed to capture the media and public’s attention, and while perhaps not torpedoing those talks, certainly lowered the chances of success. Climategate was debunked almost immediately. What essentially happened was hackers managed to find a few mildly inappropriate… Continue reading ‘Heartland, Climate Denial, and Memos that Surprise No One’
Let me start by saying this: I’m a sucker for sports movies. Doesn’t matter which sport. Even if it’s a sport I would never watch under any circumstances, “Cool Runnings” about the Jamaican bobsled team was awesome and still makes me well with happiness every time I watch it. If you’re a hyper-masculine guy bent… Continue reading ‘‘Moneyball’ More Interesting Than Actual Baseball’
Symptoms include long, blinkless periods and sudden hitches of breath as the undrafted former Harvard star(ish) breaks for the basket, spinning, weaving, somehow getting by a sea of guys who, with their arms outstretched, measure around nine feet. I will now be hash-tagging my entire life with #Linsanity. It took New York Knicks point Jeremy… Continue reading ‘Got Myself a Nasty Case of Linsanity’
Here I am reporting to you from what I guess must be the Fifteenth Century, where apparently a mysoginistic cabal of old white men in the Vatican can tell American women that they must allow every sperm a chance to conceive in their womb. Obama caved and whatev–he let the baby have its bottle, I… Continue reading ‘A Long, Red-Faced Rant on This Contraception Horseshit’
I keep hearing dirty, salacious rumors that Bruce Springsteen is going to play Wrigley Field this summer for his “Wrecking Ball” tour. First of all, I don’t know where these rumors originated, and second, don’t you tease me. If this is happening, I need to know the nanosecond tickets go on sale. Because he didn’t… Continue reading ‘So Is Springsteen Playing Wrigley or What?’
Normally, I don’t like to just link to any errant thing out on the web, but my friend Bojo sent this story to me, and it was too funny to not share with the other three to five “Off the Markley” readers. Apparently Louisiana Republican congressman John Fleming thought an Onion article titled “Planned Parenthood… Continue reading ‘Congressman Thinks Onion Abortionplex Real’