strolx, folx

I'm reading a copy discarded by an Arizona library of David Butler's The Men Who Mastered Time (1986, Heinemann, London); quite how this book made its way to the Scottsdale (AZ) public library is beyond me.

Pages 10-13 are enlivened by a jolly good description of a cricket match at an English boys' public school in the 1940s, the main protagonists being the lads who'll grow up to be the book's primary protagonists: a Pakistani fast bowler and an English batsman. It's engrossing stuff and wonderfully well described.

At the end of the section, I discovered just now, some previous reader has waggishly pencilled:

There will be a quiz tomorrow on what happened in the last 2½ pages.

I hate to break it to you, Mr Arizona Public Library Man, but now you've experienced what much of the rest of the world does when novels assume readers understand even the first tad about baseball or American football.

bizarre food recalls #2,658

Torn & Glasser of Rancho Dominguez, CA is recalling its 3.75lb (#10) cans of “Mixed Nuts Fancy, No Peanuts” marked with lot numbers 0980 and 1940 on the outer case label and bottom lid due to undeclared peanuts.

I'm still trying to get my head round this. They marketed a product called "Mixed Nuts Fancy, No Peanuts" and then they put peanuts in it . . .

that white coats moment

Over at the WordNutsDaily, Ann Coulter has a new article casting scorn upon the notion that the democratically elected President of the USA might be a Muslim -- a conspiracy theory which, it's been my impression, the WorldNutsDaily has done much to foment in between its claims that President Obama was born in Kenya, or Lilliput, or Mars, or anywhere but where his publicly available birth certificate says he was born.

So Coulter's suddenly become a voice of (relative) sanity?

Er, not quite.

Here's the start of her piece:

The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop. I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist.
[. . .]
The only evidence for Obama's Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years.

And the only evidence we have that Ann Coulter is a Christian is that . . .?

Okay, I'm stumped.