Unqualified Offerings

By Mona
.
If you missed it, a British schoolteacher in the Sudan, Gillian Gibbons, has been jailed for 15 days after allowing her Sudanese pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed. Throngs of deranged, knife-wielding religious fanatics literally want her head.
.
Well, the right-wing commentators who spend every waking moment looking for reasons — […]

By Thoreau
It’s raining in the LA area today.  This means 2 things:
1)  Fire season is over.
2)  Mud slide season is starting!
Clearly, God hates Malibu.

The odious government of Sudan has convicted a British teacher on the bullshit charge of “insulting Islam.” In an act of “mercy” they’d never dream of settling on one of their own citizens, the judges have decided to forgo the lashes and the full six-month sentence; instead they’ll deport her after 10 more days of […]

By Thoreau
I don’t get it. Where are all the Sudanese moderates? If those people are so moderate, then why don’t they all just go on TV and speak out when their brutal government threatens a school teacher with a draconian punishment? What could possibly be preventing them from speaking out?
The only possible […]

By Thoreau
Afghanistan is making huge leaps in agriculture.  Why won’t the liberal media report that?
They’re painting schools!  OK, in psychedelic colors, but still!
(Hat tip to Jacob Sullum.)

Over at Uncertain Principles, “Chad” “Orzel” writes
Over at Unqualified Offerings, “Thoreau” offers some musings about peer review.
Note to self: When NaNoWriMo is over, add disclosure to About page admitting that our Thoreau isn’t the real Thoreau. Also ‘fess up about Mona being Jenna Bush . . .

By Thoreau
Today I offer another inside view on the scientific community’s system of peer review. I do this to give an insider’s perspective on the goals of the system, and also to illustrate the limitations of the system (and to note that we scientists are very aware of those limitations).
I recently joined an editorial […]

By Mona
.
[Fixed for accuracy]
.
With all due respect to Scott Lemieux at LG&M, when he quotes this about some libertarians:

They’re always hacks, Brad. Always. Yes even Milton Friedman. The more independent-minded ones will occasionally come up with a liberalish or fair-minded idea or two, but this is purely for display, not for ever […]

The Yggster finds Mitt Romney saying
…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.
So, the Mittster is saying that cabinet positions are diversity tokens a […]

Sorry to go all 24 on your asses with the title, but while I would love to blog about BSG: Razor - pretty good, with the climax a bit rushed and the metaplot reveal flapping awkwardly off the end of it - corporate liability limitations and all that other stuff, I’m down to the wire […]

By Thoreau
You know the great thing about academic committee work?  I realize that there are people even more long-winded than me.  So then I don’t feel so bad about myself.  Puts it all in perspective.

By Thoreau
In this morning’s LA Times, there’s an interesting article by a single Iraqi in search of love in Baghdad. Sectarian divides add a whole new dimension to it. If she’s late for the date, it could be that she’s brushing you off, or it could be that the local militia killed her […]

By Thoreau
Male terrorists are now getting “married” to each other.

By Mona
.
Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff comes right out and admits he figured candidate W lied, and is glad the lies turned out to be such. (No, Mirengoff doesn’t use the word “lie,” but that’s what his euphemistic BS reduces to.) The dumb schmucks who took Bush seriously about the “compassionate conservatism”* thing, […]