Unqualified Offerings

By Thoreau
Many fine universities require all of their freshmen to read a common book, either as part of their general education or their freshman orientation or a “first year experience” class like the one I’m teaching.  My university has decided to join their ranks and assign a most interesting book that I am looking forward [...]

By Thoreau
A possibly habitable planet has been found 20 light years away. I haven’t had time to look at the technical details of how they determined this, but it appears to have required a decade of data.  Being 3.1 times as massive as earth, if it is comparable to earth in density then the gravity [...]

By Thoreau
I am pleased to see the sanctions imposed on 8 senior Iranian officials involved in the abuse of prisoners.  America takes torture seriously, and imposes penalties even on senior officials who do it under the pretext of “national security.”
What?

By Thoreau
This morning’s LA Times talks about a US prosecutor’s efforts to bring down the drug cartels of Tijuana. Make no mistake about it: However much I hate the drug war, I hate the cartels as well. (Indeed, I support legalization precisely so that these guys can be bankrupted.) Drug cartels [...]

By Thoreau
Last night’s episode of The Event again kept me interested, but:
1)  Still not finding a character that really grabs me.
2)  Major plot hole:  Yes, I realize that these aliens/time-travelers/whatever were probably cut off from most/all of their technology in 1944.  Clearly, however, the ones who weren’t captured have managed to reconstitute a significant chunk [...]

CNN Headline News. I’ve been going to the gym again, and they always have this network on, loud. Most gyms I’ve been in are showing this or something like it. It’s always some vicious creature and a chorus of bespoke savages shrieking their way through a bunch of true-crime stories. At least, I assume there [...]

By Thoreau
The Dean Dad talks about the economics of online education:
Much of the popular discussion of the economics of online education — both in the press and in the academic blogs — just gets it wrong. The institutional savings, if any, don’t come from larger class sizes. If you do [...]

By Thoreau
Chad  Orzel is having his annual Nobel Prize betting pool. Since this is a political blog, I’ll do one focused on the Peace Prize.  Who, in the past year, has done the most for warfare?  There are many worthy nominees, people who have crushed their enemies, seen them driven before them, and heard the [...]

John Cole on state “secrets.”

Obsidian Wings finally brings blogging pioneer Gary Farber on as a full-time front-pager. With Russ Grimm in the Hall of Fame at last, one begins to think that the world may be on the brink of perfect justice.