We Didn’t Really Kill Bin Laden October 25, 2013October 25, 2013 SITE WILL BE DOWN FROM MIDNIGHT THRU SOMETIME SUNDAY Web Mistress thinks there may be a way to solve some of the problems we’ve been having with late e-mail delivery and frequent outages. The fix will require about 36 hours to populate through the Internet (or something), beginning at midnight Eastern Daylight Time. I know: how will you make it through the weekend? Reviewing baby names? SHANIQUA HAD A MOMENT IN THE EARLY NINETIES Bill Szczuka: “A quick search on the Social Security Baby Name Database reveals Jennifer was ranked #10, #10, #4, #3, #1 for U.S. females born in the respective years 1966-1970. Given the film “Love Story” was released in December 1970, I’d guess the film did not help ‘Jennifer’ become the most popular baby girl name, as your reader suggested, but it may have increased and extended the name’s later popularity.” Randy Woolf: “Re: baby names, even better is babynamewizard.com. Mohammed is just getting started on this! I see I was named at the peak of ‘Randy’s’ popularity. Also, check out Wendy … until Peter Pan came out, only Welsh shepherds named their kid ‘Wendy’.” Tim Bonham: “Enter a name here and you can see a graph of the historical popularity of that name since 1880. Andrew peaked at #6 in 1987, now in the 20’s-30’s in most states — but still #11 in California. For boys, the big one is John, which was in the top 10 names for 100+ years, from 1881-1987, when it started dropping — it’s now only #27. It was the #1 boys name for much of that time, often with Michael as #2 sometimes passing it. For girls names, Mary was the big one; in the top 10 for 90 years, 1881-1971. Then it too went on a big decline, now down at #123.” WHAT THE RIGHT BELIEVES My pal Jonathan Capehart writes about a right-winger he interviewed who believes — among other things — that the President hates America and that we never actually killed Bin Laden. Watch the segment — and how so many good Americans have come to believe these things. I watched it in the train down to Washington where I caught Vice President Gore’s speech to the Center for American Progress (celebrating its 10th anniversary), wherein he noted the importance of an informed citizenry. I’ll be linking to that speech as soon as the video is available. [UPDATE: HERE IT IS. JOHN KERRY AND THEN AL GORE. If you’re pressed for time, start at the 50-minute mark . . . in about two minutes you get to the “well-informed citizenry” piece . . . seven minutes in all.] The contrast of these two thinkers — the guy Jonathan interviewed and Al Gore — is stark. And sobering. And, I think, deeply worth considering.