Sorting Out Coffee's Contradictions

"Hardly a month goes by without a report that hails coffee, tea or caffeine as healthful or damns them as potential killers."

- Coffee, a topic near and dear to the Brown File's heart.

from NY Times

Part Company

"Once a song exists, it never ceases to exist, whether I have constant access to it or not. And much of my music collection is under-appreciated and under-listened to anyway."

from NPR

Shimano Shuns Cables for Full Electronic Shifting

"Road-bike aficionados are much like trout: simultaneously enthralled and mortified by anything shiny and new that enters their environment. And so it's not surprising that the first two questions people tend to ask about Di2 are: 1) What if the battery dies? and 2) What if it gets wet?"

from Wired.com

Angry Clinton Women ♥ McCain?

"But the notion that all female Clinton supporters became “angry white women” once their candidate lost — to the hysterical extreme where even lifelong Democrats would desert their own party en masse — is itself a sexist stereotype."

from The New York Times

Just who is this 'Stephen Colbert' character?

"The walls of "The Colbert Report" studio are plastered with letters and artwork of the show's fearless leader submitted by loyal fans. In one painted portrait, Stephen Colbert, astride a horse, is substituted for George Washington."

from CNN

God Help Italy - Silvio Berlusconi is back

"Why did Italian voters return Mr Berlusconi for a third time, after his previous wins in 1994 and 2001? There are three answers."



from The Economist

Taking Marriage Private

"WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity."

from New York Times