Honest question — why does everyone hate Frankie Muniz so much? I just know him from Malcolm and that movie he did with Kevin Costner; nothing about his personal life or what he was like behind the scenes on television and film sets. But every comment I ever see about Frankie Muniz is negative.

Take a look at that graph closely. The average median growth from 1973-1979 is 0.6% and from 1979-1990 is .4%, and from 1990-2000 is a whopping 1.2% (that's sarcasm).

The difference in "growth in income," based on most measurements I've seen (e.g., hourly wages and median household income, after adjustment for inflation) between the decades is negligible. It's essentially been a flat line since the early 1970s. Reagan didn't solve the problem, but no president has from Nixon…

Speaking broadly, the United States was a much better place in 1989 than it was in 1979 — the economy was better, morale was better, and the world was a better and safer place. Reagan played a big part in that.

Absolutely. I once saw a man spit on a homeless woman who asked for spare change. Since my wedding to a blonde debutant was just a week away, I had to act quickly to convince him to be the best man.

Don't really see how he "permanently" did anything. No President was constitutionally bound to keep the capital gains or marginal rates as they were in 1986. And it probably makes sense to reconsider economic policies and tax rates every couple years. That they worked out tremendously well thirty years ago is no…

I'm a big fan of both Ronald Reagan and 1980s era Christopher Hitchens (yes, you can like both!), so I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this book.

As I mention a little further down, I think Paul Volker — who was appointed to the Federal Reserve by Carter — deserves the lion's share of the credit for making double-digit inflation something unimaginable to most Americans today. But he and Reagan were simpatico on his approach (they had regular meetings…

Respectfully disagree with your assessment here.

A greater number of government officials did seem more competent a few decades ago. But I think if you had cameras and reporters following them around as much as modern-day politicians, you'd catch them saying a comparable amount of stupid things.

I think Reagan was a pretty darn good President. Not the greatest, but very good. There are two issues I have with many criticisms of Reagan:

Yeah, think of how much better the U.S. would have been in the 1980s if Carter would have been reelected, and Mondale succeeded him in '84.

He's right about Skyfall though. Quibbling about whether the villain succeeded because his henchman actually fired the shot that killed M seems insignificant. If Bond would have let the villain kill M at the beginning, a lot fewer innocents would have died during the course of the movie. And the outcome for the…

I love, love, love "Tossin' and Turnin.'" I would totally listen to that over any song by Beyonce.

I look forward to the day when I can casually drop a couple hundred bucks on the complete Little Nemo comic strip collection. That stuff is just astoundingly good.

Eh, it doesn't read that way.

And guess who, by his own admission, influenced Muhammed Ali's trash-talking style? Old time wrestlers Gorgeous George and Freddie Blassie.

The actual in-ring aspect of professional wrestling is not really different from something like ballet — people telling a story through physical action. The thing about wrestling is that the story almost always concerns the struggle between the performers, and how one will best the other.

I find it odd that comments equating wrestling or MMA to homosexuality, with clear pejorative connotations, are often deemed a-okay in circles where homophobia is generally frowned upon.

To each their own, but Hicks has aged very poorly for me. I don't mean to suggest he's bad or untalented. I enjoyed him a lot in the late 80s. But so much of what's funny is time and context specific. Not just in terms of topics, but in terms of even how a joke was delivered. I mean, if I even go back ten or twelve…