Afternoon Links

Plus, the hero America needs.

Plus, when Mission Impossible meets Paddington Bear.

Plus, why Alan Greenberg's memos were great.

Plus, will teens ruined 'boxed Tide?'

Plus, Halloween disaster!

Plus, news you can use for Texans.

Plus, why Gavin McInnes is a baddie.

Plus, the U.S. mercenaries of Yemen.

Plus, meet "The Bulwark."

Plus, Isaiah Crowell's new butt wipes.

Plus, will eScooters survive the regulators?

Plus, since Congress has solved all the big problems...

Plus, what are evangelicals afraid of losing?

Plus, the best inning of the season?

Plus, a Detroit-style Coney Island pizza?

Plus, the phone booth baby finds his mom.

Plus, how the CIA blew its cover in China.

Plus, the man behind KFILE.

Plus, move over Paw Patrol.

Plus, a nugget catastrophe.

Plus, Angus King's Instagram book.

Plus, don't let the kids run social if you're a serious organization.

Plus, make light bulbs great again!

Plus, who owns a Twitter account?

Plus, why one vet thinks it's time to retire the Blue Angels. (He's wrong.)

Plus, we snagged a telephone scammer.

Plus, how abortion polls.

Plus, Chick-fil-A at home?!

Plus, can Congressional Aides be happy?

Plus, Philip Van Cleave's suspect defense.

Plus, Elon Musk steps in it.

And how the Thai soccer team was rescued.

Plus, Jon Kyl the sherpa.

Plus, D.C. dive bars are dying.

Plus, introducing TWS Access!

Plus, why can't the Trump administration hire normal people?

Plus, when 'all you can eat' goes wrong.

Plus, why Kelly Cohen is a treasure.

Plus, why Kelly Cohen is a treasure.

Plus, go inside the converted Walmart that houses immigrant kids.

Plus, is Trump everything Republicans worried Obama was?

Plus, why lit George Conway is the best George Conway.

Plus, Dinesh D'Souza's new movie.

Plus, the Instaglam candidate strikes again.

Plus, are the #CAPS going to win it all?

Plus, we're baaaack!

Plus, the British Virgin Islands Marlins?

Plus, the new New York time.

Plus, the new New York time.

Plus, why Trey Gowdy hated his time in Congress.

Be careful what you wish for. Comedian Owen Benjamin spent yesterday on Twitter saying very not-nice things about one of the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. I won't link to them here because this is a family-friendly newsletter, but part of his schtick was taunting that he can't be…

Amtrak ends charter rides. Did you know that you can hitch your own train cars to an Amtrak train? Granted, not many among us have privately-owned rail cars, a novelty for the richest among us, but some do. Anyways, this practice, the Wall Street Journal reports, is going bye-bye:

How did your team do on opening day? Well, I hope. My Cleveland Indians weren't able to pull out a W in Seattle. But here's a neat story for you I heard yesterday as I was driving home: Michaela Murphy's hilarious tale about her unsupervised childhood trip to the 1981 All Star Game at old Cleveland…

How Kirk Gibson inspired a bunch of future Nationals fans. Since it is Opening Day, we're going to have a few baseball stories. This one from 2016 by Rudy Gersten is worth checking out. It's about Kirk Gibson's's famous 1988 World Series home run, a ball that hit Gersten's aunt Pamela, a fact they…

How to win a trade war. (Hint: the winning move is not to play, per War Games.) Over at FiveThirtyEight, there is a fun game letting you conduct your own trade war. Enjoy!

23 Years Later, Man Returns to Groundskeeping Job With White Sox. This Chicago Tribune story about Nevest Coleman's wrongful conviction is heartbreaking. For a man so wronged, it's heartening to see that the White Sox were eager to offer him his old job back.

'Grandma Torino' Pleads Guilty. In Macon, Georgia, a grandmother pled guilty to shooting a teenager in the head. Why? Because he supposedly threw rocks at her house. My old college professor Chris Lawrence has dubbed her "Grandma Torino", after the movie she apparently didn't watch, of course.

The Facebook Apology Tour. Earlier this morning I joined our managing editor Christine Rosen on the Daily Standard Podcast to discuss the Zuckerberg walk of shame. Do have a listen! Some supplementary reading: Nick Gillespie at Reason makes the same point I do about regulating FB, and over at the…

"Toys R Us’s baby problem is everybody’s baby problem" Was it really private equity that did in Toys "R" Us? Or was it demographics? That's what Andrew Van Dam argues at the Washington Post:

What's in the most recent issue? Editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes is here to show you what is in this week's issue.

Happy Friday! We have a lovely new issue out, with the cover story by former TWSer, current Free Beacon bigwig, and Weekly Substandard podcast co-host Sonny Bunch. It’s about the abundance of television #content available to people in the present day. Will any/much of this content endure, or is…

I don't want to grow up... But poor Geoffrey the Giraffe will have to, as Toys "R" Us bids adieu after a 61-year run. (Bankruptcy is causing them to close all of their stores.) I loved TRU as a kid, and my first and only magazine casual has a tie-in. Alas, all good brands eventually die. Something…

Farewell, Mostly Weekly! My good friend Andrew Heaton’s web show at Reason comes to an end, like all good things do. In the final episode, Heaton takes on creative destruction, and then destroys his own show. Creative!

What's in this week's issue? Editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes has a breakdown of what is in this week's issue:

Drunk Area Man Struck By His Own Car. In my neck of the woods in Fairfax County, Virginia, a drunk driver tried escaping from his car on foot to thwart the police . . . only to be struck by his own car.

What’s the latest in this week’s issue? Here’s our editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes on what is in the latest edition of this week's magazine:

It’s a blustery day in Washington. My neighbors have had their siding blown off, and our dog has determined he is aerodynamic. The federal government shut down, schools are closed, and a large swath of flights to and from the swamp are being canceled. Therefore, I will try and make today’s links a…

Ben Carson’s new silverware. Ironically, Ben Carson might not get to enjoy his newly refurbished office at HUD for very long, if recent history is our guide. This from CNN:

Can a GoFundMe Bring Back a Beloved Theme Park? Probably not. But that’s not stopping a man in my native Cleveland who wants to bring back the famous Geauga Lake theme park. He’s started a GoFundMe to raise $20 million bucks to start bringing the park back. That’s a fraction of price you’d need to…

Buckley's legacy, 10 years later. William F. Buckley, Jr. died 10 years ago today, so here's some worthwhile #content from the TWS archives you should read to remember the late great conservative heavyweight.

What's in this week's issue? Get a preview of our articles and features in this video from editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes:

Work with ICE? Nah, I quit. You all remember Kim Davis, don't you? She was the woman in Kentucky who refused to do her job (and refused to quit) because she disagreed with the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage. Davis was an inherently flawed spokeswoman for traditional marriage.

You can get away with a lot if you're a bullsh*tter... Our Books and Arts editor Adam Keiper shares this fascinating thread about a Reddit user who BS'd his way to lots of internet karma... by making a ton of stuff up. He even gave a speech at Harvard about his "accomplishments."

The Issue with Steve Hayes. Want to know what is in this week's magazine? Lucky for you, our editor Steve Hayes is putting together a brief video preview. Check it out here.

Steal, Eagles, Steal! If your team hadn't won a title in 58 years, wouldn't you steal a chair? This Eagles fan (read: NOT JVL) did, and got off easy: $125. If you can afford going to the Super Bowl, $125 for a memento like this is an absolute steal, if you'll pardon the pun.

Day Zero approaches in Cape Town. This Guardian feature about the water crisis in South Africa is fascinating.

Wawa Shabbawa? Yep, that's what it sounds like: Shabbat at a Wawa. A local performance artist, Brian Feldman, came up with the concept. Turns out nobody really went because they're obsessed with Wawa, like Feldman is. Now, a Shabbat at a Sheetz? That's another matter entirely. They'd probably have…

Reince Priebus, Sith Lord. Vanity Fair has a delightful (profanity laced) interview with Anthony Scaramucci about his brief tenure in the White house. Mooch's take on Washington is so wrong, it's laughable:

Forget Detroit, let's all move to Italy. During the economic crisis, there were hundreds of stories written about distressed properties in Michigan. Now, in Sardinia, you can buy homes for $2. Of course, there are strings attached. As Thrillist reports:

The end of video? When I was younger, I recall a photoshop the Sidney (Ohio) Daily News did on the front page of Tonya Harding becoming a wrestler. The story was about the wonders of digital photo editing technology, and was essentially the first "fake news" I ever saw. Now, such technology is…

It's about the infrastructure, stupid! Tonight's State of the Union address is rumored to be heavy on the infrastructure spending rhetoric. At Reason, Christian Britschgi observes "The point of infrastructure spending is to build infrastructure, not create jobs." Amen.

The end of the Chief Wahoo era. Given my lifelong Cleveland Indians fandom, Chief Wahoo has long been part of my sports wardrobe. The New York Times reports that Wahoo's reign as team logo ends in 2019, the year Cleveland will again host the MLB All-Star Game. The trademarks will still be owned by…

Charlie and the Tide Pod Challenge. Over at McSweeney's, there's some fine content (as usual) mocking the young kids who are sticking Tide pods in their mouths.

Kids these days... Don't know how to code all too well, according to a report by HackerRank. As TheNextWeb reports:

Uncovering the TUSD Deep State. Imagine if your local school district had a secret document. The purpose of this document is to blacklist and retaliate against employees. That's what the Arizona Daily Star's Hank Stephenson uncovered at the Tucson Unified School District.

Thrusters, go! Apollo 13 it's not, but NASA found out a way last month to fire up thrusters on the ancient Voyager spacecraft that haven't been used in 37 years. It's a neat story:

Today is the March for Life, the annual pro-life demonstration that takes place around the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. In a first, President Trump addressed the rally via satellite from the Rose Garden. (George W. Bush addressed the group over the phone.) It's worth considering Trump's…

Does America really have only 11 main cultures? That's what a new map by Colin Woodard suggests, and it has lots of people arguing. I grew up in Yankeedom (Cleveland), went to school in the Midlands (Saint Louis), and now live in Tidewater. Naturally, Saint Louis and Cleveland are more similar to…

How China infiltrated the U.S. classroom. Over at POLITICO, our own Ethan Epstein has a good look at how China has used soft power to exert influence with American students via funding "Confucius Institutes."

Will the reboot of 'The Office' be woke? And if so, will it be funny? Reason's Ed Krayewski asks "at what point will The Office become problematic?" Turns out, those thinkpieces have already been written. From February of last year, there's: Unpopular Opinion: “The Office” Is Very Problematic in…

The Amish help build America's biggest concerts. Who would have thought that some of the most technologically advanced live music shows out there are brought to you, in part, by Lancaster County's Amish population:

Mmmmm. Delicious Laundry Pods. As we know from science™, laundry pods are unlikely to kill you. But that hasn't stopped folks from wanting to regulate the innovative little cleaning pods. Canada, as behind as it often is, has a tweet asking Canadians if they know the health risks of consuming…

C is for Crazy Children's Books. There's a new book project being hawked on Kickstarter called C is for Consent: "a board book for babies, toddlers, and thoughtful parents." Consent is important, but is this really an appropriate concept for babies and toddlers? Especially given that the term…

There's no such thing as a free gift! When I worked in Congress as an aide, I took a meeting with representatives of a foreign government about trade issues. They gave us all little business card holders as de minimis gifts. An older colleague, after the meeting ended, took all of them and threw…

Pave Breezewood. I'm back from my trip to Cleveland (where I covered the Browns #PerfectSeasonParade), and as is tradition, I had to drive through the godforsaken town of Breezewood, Pennsylvania. Over at the Examiner, Salena Zito has an appreciation of the place. One thing's for sure, having…

Three pros vs. 100 kids. Japanese television always seems to have strange innovations, so it should come as no surprise that they recorded three professional soccer players playing 100 kids. Fascinating.

Remember "Juicero"? Get ready for "Raw Water." The Silicon Valley company mocked for its pointless technology replicating squeezing (really) is in the news again after one of its founders was quoted in a New York Times story about "raw water." It is dumber than it sounds:

Roy Moore's "Jewish lawyer" voted for Doug Jones. You remember the trainwreck where Kayla Moore brought up their Jewish lawyer as a rebuttal to charges of anti-semitism? He voted for Doug Jones. Not only that, he raised money for him, too!

Are you a bitcoin billionaire? After today, probably not (too soon?), but Remy has another instant classic over at ReasonTV.

Fun times in Richmond! As regular readers are aware, yesterday Chris Deaton reported on the Virginia House of Delegates race that was ultimately decided by one vote. Or was it? Republican David Yancey went into the recount leading by 10 votes over Democrat Shelly Simonds. But then seemingly lost by…

The Empire is good. If you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, do watch this video confirming Jonathan Last's 2002 opus.

Shame worked in Alabama. That's what Tom Nichols argues over at the Washington Post:

How will tax reform impact you? It hasn't passed just yet, but it just might! The New York Times has a basic calculator worth checking out. And Maxim Lott has one that's a little more advanced. Neither are perfect, but worth examining to get a broad sense of how the tax reform bill might benefit or…

What to watch tonight. If you're looking for something new and interesting to put on tonight, check out Errol Morris's Wormwood tonight on Netflix. It looks fantastic. The Times gave it a positive review, saying:

#Adulting is hard! CNN has an unintentionally funny look at 26-year-old "new" adults who are having trouble leaving the nest and finding health insurance.

Ranking the best national chains. Tom Sietsema, the Washington Post's food critic, spent some time at D.C.-area chain restaurants. His rankings are as critical as they are for D.C.'s finest food purveyors. Biggest loser? Buffalo Wild Wings. Biggest winner? Cracker Barrel. Sonny Bunch's favorite,…

How we got here with Roy Moore. On Twitter, Alex Burns has a (sad!) look back at how the GOP arrived at today's predicament with Roy Moore. It's a choose your own adventure. Remember those? Except with this one, Republicans always lose.

The end of free speech? Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason has an excellent cover story about how "the left eats its own and the right shows its true colors." Here's my favorite part:

Newman's Own's future depends on what happens in tax reform. I've always had a special place in my heart for the late actor Paul Newman, whose childhood home was three streets over from mine. His charity/business, however, is at risk of being put out of business if a provision isn't included in the…

Gaming TripAdvisor. Surely, you've used sites like Yelp!, TripAdvisor, or others when visiting strange news places. What if one of the top-rated restaurants there was a complete fake? That's what VICE UK's Oobah Butler, a clever prankster, did with his backyard shed:

Sir, we have to land over there so I can use the bathroom. A non-stop flight from New York to Seattle had to divert to Billings, Montana because its toilets were full, the Billings Gazette reports:

The Lake Erie salt mine 1,700 feet beneath the lake is a modern marvel. Growing up in Cleveland, I had heard about this mine, but this was pre-YouTube and the modern internet that can showcase it in all its glory. Check out the video and the interview, it's pretty neat.

Neil Young dings Apple, releases high quality archive for free. Neil Young is not happy with Apple, whom he accuses of watering down the quality of digital music. Fortunately, he has made his archive available, offering high quality master copies of his work via streaming:…

Mike Flynn's RNC speech didn't age well! Vic Berger helps us remember a simpler time, when rhetoric was rhetoric and you didn't have to worry about the pesky special counsel.

White people love Subarus. Google's spy cars have documented the "street view" of much of the United States (and the rest of the world). But what are some applications of all of this data scientists could use? Google's folks decided to analyze the types of cars parked on the street to see if they…

Fly the friendly skies! Some airlines are better than others, but all airlines have some great flight attendants. American Airlines has Bette Nash, who, at 81, has been in the industry for 60 years. Turns out, she's also a bit of a celebrity! The Washington Post has a fun feature on her:

WaPo O'Keefes Project Veritas. What happens when one of the right wing's best known provocateurs gets caught? He spins. This is what happened Monday when the Washington Post kneecapped Project Veritas's James O'Keefe, posting an absolutely bombshell story alleging that O'Keefe sent an activist…

Can you hear me now? Apparently, one of president Trump's top economic advisors faked a bad connection while in a meeting with Democratic senators on tax reform to get the President to stop talking. Yikes.

J is for Jihad, and S is for Stupid Children's Books. As a new father, I have already seen the crazy amount of stupid products made for children. The biggest offending category is actually children's books, many of which are terrible. Some are just poorly written, but others are worse: They are…

Occupational Licensing Stinks. At the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf laments the declining right to earn a living. While criticism of occupational licensing is not a new or novel concept (we've covered it extensively), I did learn something sort of horrifying: Tree trimmers and cosmetologists in some…

With Thanksgiving approaching, can't we all agree? Thanksgiving is a tough time for the politically inclined (even worse for the disinclined, I suspect!) This year, I think we can all come together and put our disagreements aside to agree on a simple truth: mayonnaise is disgusting.

Trump already to the left of Obama on trade? At the Daily Beast, Lachlan Markay has an item on how the Trump White House is welcoming the far-left trade skeptics that Barack Obama's administration left out in the cold. One need only look at the folks President Trump has appointed on trade,…

Creepy Christianity and Roy Moore. Yesterday, we looked at some of the concerning behavior and statements of religious figures in Alabama concerning Roy Moore. There are, if you'll forgive, moore things to report. And they're not good.

Let's talk about bad preachers. Because some are sticking by Roy Moore, and hoo boy, does one in particular have some very unpreacherlike things to say.

Don't you miss baseball? Yes, the people who update you constantly, starting in November, about how many days until spring training are a little weird, and you should have an offseason, but it's easy to miss something once it's gone. To that end, Bill Kristol announced the two winners of his…

Since there's a lot to cover today, like why Roy Moore shouldn't ever be a member of the U.S. Senate, please accept my condensed afternoon links.

Greta Van Susteren, APP Baron? You of course remember Greta from her long tenures on CNN and Fox News and her brief one on MSNBC, right? Now, she's about to release an "APP" that she wants you to install on your phone. It's called Sorry:

All Hail the Middle Man. (Or at least this one.) Meet Ryan Grant, a 28 year old who raids the clearance aisle at big box stores, and upsells items as a third party seller on Amazon. He started doing this to make some side hustle money, but then quit his job in accounting to do it full time. It…

Manafort, Paul Manafort. As folks comb through the Manafort papers, some interesting things are popping up. Like the fact the Manafort had three valid U.S. passports. Now, cyber security experts are hinting that Manafort's password for file-sharing sites was "bond007."

Airport conspiracy. One of Harvey Weinstein's accusers, actress Rose McGowan, was recently served with an arrest warrant for cocaine posession. McGowan was earlier locked out of her Twitter account related to her allegations, saying: "TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME. THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE…

The Substandard is LIVE. Are you a fan of our pop culture podcast, the Substandard? If so, you might be interested to know that they do a Facebook livestream of their podcast (in part) each week. Here is the latest.

The Afternoon Links are back! Where have they been, you ask? Regular readers of other TWS newsletters (JVL, Kristol Clear) know: I'm now a proud father of twin girls. They are a handful, but the dog has taken to them! If only he could hold a bottle ... So, fret not, the Afternoon Links are back,…

The Capital Bikeshare killer is here. Bike sharing programs are increasingly popular in big cities, and Washington was an early adopter with its Capital Bikeshare program. (The keys even look like little communist flags!) The program got started with millions in subsidies from the government, and…

Massacre in Vegas. When tragedy strikes, there's a lot of misinformation out there. It's always best to sit back and wait (usually not very long) until the truth is reported. Here are three things to read today (if you're up to it) about the mass shooting in Las Vegas:

The Brady Campaign's Brass Balls. House majority whip Steve Scalise went back to work yesterday, and it was an emotional day on Capitol Hill. But, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, you never want to let a crisis go to waste. Insert the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Here's their welcome…

Space comes to Wisconsin. I'm a huge fan of the website Atlas Obscura. Every neat place I've wanted to visit (especially abandoned things) is on there, and many places I've visited have been because of their site. Part of my bucket list is derived from there, too. Their newsletter is a welcome…

Is Jared Kushner trolling us? News reports are out saying that Jared Kushner is registered to vote in New York... as a female. Left-leaning groups are pointing to this as an example of Kushner's incompetence (and to be fair he did repeatedly make flubs on forms needed to serve as a top adviser to…

Can we send the Boy Scouts an economics textbook? I love popcorn. It's my favorite snack. I was also a Cub Scout once, and selling Trail's End popcorn was my least-favorite fundraising activity. (Selling magazine subscriptions for my Catholic grade school was much easier.) My mom, saint that she…

Here's a joke. It's from the late Mitch Hedberg: "I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny." Mitch's jokes tended to…

Can the former head of the College Democrats win a seat as... a Republican? At POLITICO Magazine, Tim Alberta has a great feature on Wisconsin's Kevin Nicholson. A veteran with a great resume, Nicholson wants to snatch up Sen. Tammy Baldwin's seat. But first, he has to convince GOP voters in…

This online psychic cleaned up. Down in Texas, a Democratic state legislator is facing trial for misdemeanor charges for a few of a series of accused fraudulent acts. This story is all kinds of crazy. The legislator is Dawnna Dukes, who is in her 12th term in the Texas House. Here's a taste of the…

YOU get a baby, YOU get a baby, EVERYONE GETS A BABY! If you're not hip to the popular memes kids are using, that's an Oprah reference. Amazon mistakenly sent out an email to lots of people yesterday—perhaps hundreds of thousands—suggesting somebody bought something off of their (in most cases…

Lasers to the rescue. One of the beautiful parts about my commute into Washington, D.C., from suburban Virginia is crossing the Potomac. Before we moved offices in 2015, I'd drive by the Lincoln Memorial every day. It was like living in a movie. Now, even though our new office is merely two streets…

Before you spend $2 billion on your own submarine... Read this! Only a few hundred individuals on this rock have the spare cash to drop on such a craft, but still, Bloomberg Pursuits has a feature on this privately made submarine. Might be good for preppers, one would think, until you read that:…

What the media won't show you about the lawnmower kid... A click-baity Facebook page affiliated with conservative blog Independent Journal Review is being mocked for suggesting that media wouldn't show photos of the 11-year-old boy the White House used as a PR ploy mowing the White House lawn.…

Species, are like a construct, man. If you're a Twitter addict like I am, one account you must follow is New Real Peer Review. They showcase amazing academic papers that will totally blow your mind. From a Ph.D thesis they showcased on Tuesday by Megan Molenda LeMay, here's an out-of-this-world…

Can the bodega be killed? Probably not. But two ex-Googlers (ugh) want to try, per a write up from Fast Company:

About that iPhone presentation... It's been 10 years since Apple deployed its first overhyped phone, so how about a reunion of sorts. (How much money have you given Apple in the last 10 years? Maybe don't overthink that ...) In January of 2007 the iPhone debuted, and Steve Jobs gave a public hype…

Here's a long read for you. Over at Wired UK, there's a very interesting read on the future of urban warfare. Here's the teaser: "Cheap Chinese-made sensors. Mad Max-style vehicle mods. Consumer drones turned into mortar-dropping weapons. The fight against Daesh is showing the high-tech, higher…

We're going to 20! My Cleveland Indians are red hot right now, having won 15 games in a row. Impressively, the Indians also won 14 straight last season. An Ohio roofing and window company celebrating its 15th anniversary thought it'd be a fun contest to offer customers a 100 percent refund on work…

Trumpism corrupts, Kurt Schlichter edition. I hope Jonathan V. Last will forgive me, but I'd like to add another case to the "Trumpism Corrupts" dossier. It's Townhall.com's Kurt Schlichter. A former Army colonel and a trial lawyer who was a little-known writer in the late 1990s and early 2000s,…

All hail the price gougers. As Irma bears down on Florida, people are stocking up on bottled water. Let's recall not but a week or so ago when, in the wake of Harvey, people were using social media to shame those who sold bottled water at a price they were not used to. Or, now, let's look at social…

James Madison’s Lesson on Free Speech. Over at National Review, our own Jay Cost has a look back at James Madison, free speech, and the times in which we find ourselves with antifa and the alt-right running around. Here's Cost: "None of this means that we should excuse the boorish and ignorant…

Read the latest issue of TWS! Matt Labash's cover story on the Antifa in Berkeley is going viral and for good reason, it's a must read. David Rutz at the Free Beacon says: "You'll never regret taking the time to read Matt Labash." Truer words have never been spoken. But don't stop at Labash, the…

Men's studies actually exists, but not for the reason you think. I was confused at first when I saw that a college actually had a men's studies department. The idea of "men's studies" is usually a trope used to bash the existence of "women's studies" and is (usually) not a serious proposal. Yet,…

The Waffle House way. In times of disaster, it's pretty rare for a Waffle House to close. The company is famous for its disaster response, keeping stores open on a limited menu to keep people dry, warm, fed, and happy. In Houston, two stores have closed, but the company's disaster apparatus jumped…

Are you smarter than a college student? This was the favorite tactic Fox News's Jesse Watters employed on Bill O'Reilly's former show. Watters would go out and embarrass college students to show how smart he was and how dumb they were with man-on-the-street interviews. Mediaite caught Watters, who…

'Whole Paycheck' no more? Amazon has come in and taken charge of Whole Foods, and their first order of business is to roll back prices like D-FENS in Falling Down. (Minus the racism, of course.) The once-online-only giant plans to integrate the Whole Foods supply chain into their Prime Pantry…

Baseball badassery. A lot of people (wrongly) think baseball is a soft sport. It's true that, unlike football or hockey, there's not a lot of fighting. Of course, getting beaned with a 100 mph fastball is no picnic. But when there is fighting in baseball, it's a big deal. So, yesterday as we put…

What a bore. Are you a Tesla fanboy? So much so that you pressure your friends into buying one of the heavily subsidized electric sports cars so you can get referral points? (They are expensive!) Well, you're in luck. The fine minds at Tesla have launched a new incentive to further motivate you:…

Over at CBS News, frequent TWS contributor Michael Graham has a column on the dilemma of Afghanistan. "The bad news for President Trump," Graham writes "is that Afghanistan is a no-win proposition: Stay, and you keep losing American lives and treasure. Go, and you risk a future attack planned in…

Did you get to see totality? Most of you didn't, but our own Chris Deaton was back home in the Midwest and posted this beautiful shot, just post-totality, from Elkton, Ky. Chris reports that "The total eclipse looked like the end of days." In Washington, it was sort of a bust unless you had a…

Can you hear me now? Unfortunately, not too well if you're one of the diplomats previously stationed in Cuba, due to hearing loss resulting from a covert sonic device. At the Free Beacon, Adam Kredo and Susan Crabtree report that the U.S. government is hiding key details about these mystery attacks.

Helicopter commuting used to be something even middle class New Yorkers could afford. That is, until a fatal crash at the Pan Am building killed multiple people. With the rise of Uber, BusinessWeek documents the resurgence of affordable helicopter travel in Gotham.