Clickbatingest clickbait that ever was clickbaited

XKCD, as usual, is hilarious. I'm a bit behind on my reading of it (probably two months), but did have this clickbaiting headlines for old events pointed out to me.

I don't recognize all of the events mentioned, but some are really great. I wonder if the female suffrage one was implying how a great deal of the financial support for that movement came from Prohibition supporters. The penecillin one got me to look something up... I remember hearing of Fleming being supported (I thought it was adopted) by Churchill's father. The only reference I can find is this story from snopes, and maybe that's what I heard. Ah well.

The one about the Berlin Airlift, amused me. It also reminded me of my trip to Germany for a month-long exchange, when I was sixteen; that was where I first heard about the airlift. I think I didn't even know that West Berlin was completely surrounded by East Germany, before that trip (which explains why the capital of the country moved to Bonn during that... interregnum, for lack of a better term).  Anyway, hearing about that airlift in the Rathaus in Berlin was pretty cool.

The 1968 reference, I had to look up. I knew about two of the three assassinations, but didn't realize they were that year. Also, I had forgotten that JFK was five years earlier (I had assumed he was one of the ones to which reference was made).

The Challenger reference was very creative, but mightily ghoulish (though not as much as the Nazi and Titanic ones). Anyway, the whole collection was fantastic; the idea was amazing.

Just figured that out for yourself, huh?

The Washington Post opened itself up for some more mockery, today, boldly declaring (in a small headline on the front page) "Tax Policy Feeds Gap Between rich, poor".

To be honest, I really shouldn't mock. This is a very important topic, and I do hope the front page placement gets it a bit more notice than has yet been the case.

But it's really hard not to mock when it takes the paper at least eight years to notice this. I can't see any way in which this is news. Really, when the debate over continuing the Bush tax cuts was happening would have been a more appropriate time to make this case.

Still, maybe this will get some notice, particularly among the political class. And maybe, next, they[Post and politicians, both]'ll notice that the inheritance tax is even more slanted than the capital gains cuts. And even more pernicious, as it creates a permanent aristocracy that doesn't care how those tax policies hurt people less fortunate than themselves.

Great moments in sportswriting, redux

Great headline, WaPo: "Yanks are out at Open". Did you happen to look at the women's side of the draw, where Serena is still alive? I'm pretty sure she's still a Yank.