"The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning." - Sir Winston Churchill

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generalisation

"I might often be accused -- correctly -- of over-generalising in some of my comments, making the odd sweeping statement here and there, and so on. But who cares? I know I'm generalising, you know I'm generalising, so what's the problem? There are too many pedants on the Net who insist that people attach a mass of qualifiers to everything they say, preface every statement with an IMHO and follow it with a list of exceptions. But such qualifiers don't make anything more true -- just more boring. Truth, if it is to be found at all, lies somewhere in a dialectical space between a statement and its antithesis. Better to push at the boundaries of such a space than potter about in the middle."

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German burglar pays dearly for credit card trick - "A hapless German thief snapped his credit card in two while prying open a lock, inadvertently leaving behind his name and account details for police."

Global warming rally cut short by cold weather - "More than two dozen demonstrators braved cold, wet weather Saturday in Reno to attend a rally designed to draw attention to global warming."

Straight Dope Staff Report: What casino games offer the best odds? - "A savvy observer can keep track of cards as they’re dealt, and when the ratio temporarily favors the player, bet high. This is known as “card counting.” The method was first shown definitively in the early 1960s by Edward Thorp, a professor of mathematics at MIT. Thorp developed a system to count cards, simulated his system on an IBM 704 in FORTRAN code, and ultimately went to Las Vegas to test his theory, winning over $11,000 in a single weekend"

Gay pub can bar heterosexual drinkers - "A Melbourne pub catering for gay men has won the right to refuse entry to heterosexuals in a landmark ruling at the state planning tribunal. The owners of Collingwood's Peel Hotel applied to ban straight men and women to try to prevent "sexually based insults and violence" towards its gay patrons."

Inside the Creation Museum - "In the next scene, after the fall from grace, Adam and Eve, looking far less happy than before, are standing next to two lambs they have slaughtered on a sacrificial stone table. The sacrifice has a practical value -- the original couple are now wearing lambskin suits and the lambs are skinless -- and a spiritual one; the lambs are sacrificed, a visitor explains to me, in partial payment for the debt incurred by Adam and Eve for eating the fruit of knowledge. I tell the visitor it seems unfair for the lamb to pay for their mistake. "Well, it wasn't enough," he says. "God had to send his only Son to pay the ultimate price for their sin." When I tell him that sounds kind of extreme, he looks at me and shakes his head slowly a couple of times before moving on... In the middle of this urban mess is a big wrecking ball with the words "Millions of Years" carved into it. Ham blames the notion that the Earth is quite a bit older than the Bible suggests for just about all the world's problems. Evolution, which requires large amounts of time for small changes to accumulate into larger ones, makes it far too easy for people not to believe the Bible, he says. And that loss of belief "is at the root of modern evil.""

YouTube - Facebook Infomercial Parody - "Well, to be honest, we really just like hooking up. A lot. Often. But commitment really isn't our thing. Nah, I just got out of a nasty relationship. And I'm bicurious. And we didn't really know what to call it either. I mean, we're friends with benefits, hookup buddies or what you really want to call it. But that Facebook gave us the label that our relationship needed. 'It's complicated' *start making out*... Thanks to Facebook, I have found so many friends with similar interests. Like, I'm in this group that's called "I love beer, especially drinking it". I mean, who knew that there were so many people out there who love beer as much as I do? *takes sip* Amazing!"

What in.... Hell? - "English teacher Denice Kovanda gave her students at Fillmore Central High School in Geneva, Neb., an assignment: 'Create a travel brochure for a place you'd like to visit.' Michael Sattler, 16, got a grade of zero on his. "I asked what was so wrong with it," Sattler said. "She said I used the word Hell in every part of it. It was all about Hell, Hell, Hell." But, Sattler argued, his brochure wasn't for 'the afterlife', but rather Hell, Michigan.""