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NYT Magazine is running an article by Clive Thompson that starts out by reporting on a study. The study finds that people lie less on the internet in spite of its image as a realm of dangerous strangers. I had a funny thought as I read this paragraph:

On the Internet, though, your words often come back to haunt you. The digital age is tough on its liars, as a seemingly endless parade of executives are learning to their chagrin. … This isn't a problem for only corporate barons. We all read the headlines; we know that in cyberspace our words never die, because machines don't forget. ''It's a cut-and-paste culture,'' as Hancock [the study's author] put it (though he told me that on the phone, so who knows? There's only a 63 percent chance he really meant it).

The parenthetical remark that ends this paragraph is a joke. (I mean that literally; it is a funny phrase intended to evoke levity.) It includes a playfully ironic jab at the author. My thought was: why didn't he put a smiley face there?

Oh yeah. This isn't a blog post (although the author writes a blog), it's an article in the friggin New York Times.