Unqualified Offerings

My friend Dave Weigel got driven from his job at the Washington Post’s Right Now blog today, the culmination of a smear campaign that began when he correctly tweeted, a couple of weeks ago, that opponents of gay marriage are bigots.
Dave was, is and will continue to be a fine reporter. I read quite a [...]

By Thoreau
Jennifer has pointed me to this brilliant site:  United Farm Workers is seeking American citizens and legal residents who are interested in doing farm jobs normally done by illegal immigrants.  They’ll even provide training.  Given the deep concern about illegal immigration, and the number of unemployed  people in this country right now, I’m sure [...]

By Thoreau
Two thoughts on “work-life balance”:
1) It’s summer, I’m super-focused on my research, I’m excited, and my biggest regret is that I can’t get even more done.  It’s not that I don’t want a life outside of work (I kind of regret not getting out more) but right now I’m in a hot phase, [...]

By Thoreau
A colleague was complaining yesterday about the way that some faculty are treated better than others.  Not so much in my department as in certain other departments.  Some people, for a variety of reasons, probably do get a better deal (even if not to the extent that he thinks).  I won’t go into the [...]

Landon Donovan does not thank Jesus in post-game interview. I suppose Jesus should just be happy the Muslims lost.
And speaking of, national treasure Frank Gaffney informs us that Elena Kagan is an even more zealous Sekrit Muslim than the president, having worked tirelessly to bring Shariah Law to Harvard. May I say, as a former [...]

By Thoreau
Summary version of something that a colleague encountered while teaching a GE class on astrophysics and cosmology:
Student:  I’m really fascinated by [insert fundamental physics topics here].
Colleague:  You are asking the right questions.  You should major in physics.
Student:  No, I need to be able to get a job after graduation.
Colleague:  Well, we have a lot [...]

A dog-behavior thread on Balloon Juice becomes, as these things so often do, a flamewar about “dominance” and C*s*r M*ll*n. I am all over the first 130 or so comments. Here I would stick to the general point: When all society has is a hammer, it’s much more important to go around shouting, “That’s not [...]

By Thoreau
In regard to my proposition that Arabs are capable of selling oil to us without the help of the US military, marcel says in the comments:
And I’ll bet that you also assume that the propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men.
That’s right!
Related to the idea [...]

In my continuing effort to become more of an East-Coast inner-suburban cliche, I’ve pretty much gone over to red (Rooiboos) tea, especially iced. Borders cafes offer it as an iced-tea option, so I first tried it there. It’s smoother and less bitter than black teas, but still very “tea-tasting” compared to some other not-tea “tea.”
For [...]

By Thoreau
This article in Salon makes an excellent point:  It used to be considered traitor hippie lefty anti-American slander to dare suggest that the U.S. fights wars because we want to control natural resources.  Now the Pentagon is making a big deal about the lithium deposits in Afghanistan.
I actually don’t think that resources are the [...]