Outside the Beltway

Through 20 years of effort, we’ve successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember but easy for computers to guess.

Watching the news and reading the op-eds makes it clear: America is doomed.

Marvel has created an alternate universe in which Spiderman is a half-black, half-Latino teenager. Some people are angry.

Kurt Vonnegut on teaching a computer to write a story.

Fascinating exchange from the late 1970s.

Cornel West is a bright and accomplished man. He has his PhD from Princeton and has inspired bidding wars between prestigious universities for his services. But, man, he’s out there.

If you don’t eat your peas you’ll grow up to be a Congressman!

A mistrial has been ruled in the Roger Clemens perjury trial and the judge may rule that a retrial would constitute double jeopardy.

Jeter’s 3,000 hits now “official.”

More people are chasing careers in film than there are careers in film. And not just in front of the camera.

British professor Julian Lindley-French offers a tongue-in-cheek essay for the 4th of July: “American Independence: Time to End the Experiment.”

Tennis’ most aristocratic championship is also its most democratic.

It’s often said that 1950s sex symbol Marilyn Monroe was a size 12. It just isn’t so.

Ann Coulter explains why she’s not a fan of the late Princess Di: “”I find it a little baffling when Americans get so gaga-eyed over a princess. In particular Lady Di, who was just this anorexic, bulimic narcissist.”

The Stephen Colbert Super PAC that began as a satire has now been blessed by the real FEC. What exactly this means is not yet clear.

Is it worse for a child to see pornography or graphic violence?

While his best-known solo effort was “anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, [and] anti-capitalistic,” John Lennon became a Reagan Republican a few years later, his assistant claims.

Some people have no sense of humor.

Jack Kirby’s heir are trying to posthumously renegotiate half-century old deals with Marvel.

The venerable Brooks Brothers is getting into the college apparel business, selling sweaters and polos for Boston College; the U.S. Naval Academy, Auburn, Cornell, Harvard, New York, Ohio State, Princeton, Stanford, and Vanderbilt Universities and the Universities of Alabama, Georgia, Notre Dame and Virginia.

Gene Weingarten is not a fan of journalists building a brand.

Florida Today’s Jeff Parker offers this take on President Obama’s Afghanistan “drawdown,” which will culminate in getting American forces down to Bush era levels by the end of 2012.

Daily Show host Jon Stewart spent 15 minutes on yesterday’s Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace trying to explain why he thinks Fox is a propaganda machine.

Nate Beeler titles his latest cartoon “The Duffer.”

Samuel L. Jackson was the natural choice for the audio book version of Go The Fuck to Sleep.

Apparently, some people haven’t gotten over Lebron James taking his talents to South Beach.

After a decade, the Army is reversing the most hideous decision in its long history.

DC is once again resetting the clock on its universe and starting all its books over with issue #1.

A company called Hero Builders is offering this for sale

Actor Alec Baldwin may run for mayor of New York.

James Arness, best known as the iconic Marshal Dillon on Gunsmoke, has died at 88.

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal has announced his retirement after 19 years as a pro. On Twitter.