Unqualified Offerings

By Thoreau
We go to our good friend Jennifer who interviewed a state legislator proposing a ban on smoking in cars when children are present:
So if enclosed spaces are the issue here, will the bill make an exemption for smoking in open-top convertibles?
No, Genga said firmly. “If you’re in a vehicle with a child in a [...]

By Thoreau
Jason Tylianakis in the latest PLoS Biology for “Understanding the Web of Life:  The Birds, the Bees, and Sex with Aliens.”
I don’t know anything about the science, but I respect the titular artistry.

By Thoreau
Like salmon!
I don’t have any opinion or expertise on salmon policy, but I’m glad to see that good scientific minds are turning their attention to assuring a continuing supply of salmon.  Otherwise, life wouldn’t be worth living.

By Thoreau
All of this @$$e$$ment talk in academia is making me question natural selection.  The people who are big on these buzzwords seem to be easily appeased:  Generate a thick stack of dead trees that makes frequent use of the buzzwords, and they’ll eventually be happy.  OK, they might ask for more, but they’ll only [...]

Notwithstanding the new Census data on American religious belief, Hilzoy is my God. I particularly love the quote from the older piece at the end.

By Thoreau
A Diebold software glitch accidentally leaked the results of the 2008 Presidential Election ahead of schedule.
A Diebold spokesman apologizes profusely.  Methinks he’d better watch his back, lest he wind up in Sona.

By Thoreau
I stand by my assertion that the American Empire is a net drain on our standard of living rather than a necessary underpinning of our way of life, producing concentrated benefits for certain interest groups and dispersing the costs among numerous taxpayers and grieving widows and orphans.
Ideally I would dismantle it. Failing that, [...]

In the Los Angeles Times, I question the value of the NEA’s "Big Read." The piece has already deeply moved reader Steve Moseley, who e-mailed the following:
Hi Jim, at the new library in  Encinitas California, I picked up their flyer on March’s "Big Read."  After reading about all their varied activities, I told my wife [...]

For Thoreau, via Balloon Juice, Bill Kristol as minor Daredevil villain:
KRISTOL: [Obama’s] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear.
That’s from the ThinkProgress video clip. And you thought villains [...]

By Mona
.
Rick Moran has had it with malignant slams from fellow conservatives (recently drawn from the National Examiner, of all places), about Obama being an Islamofascist mole.
*****
But Rick also spews this:

[Obama's] attendance at Trinity United Church Of Christ in Chicago establishes his authenticity as an African American more than fulfilling any spiritual need [...]