Unqualified Offerings

By Thoreau
The topic of America’s car culture has come up a lot at The Art of the Possible. I share some of their concerns, so I hope I don’t come across as trivializing it when I link to this oldie but goodie article on attempts to move past car culture in some small way: […]

Or made to run things. Daniel Davies argues that there is indeed "a general skill called management." To his two defining characteristics I’d probably add an openness to learning. Decisiveness in a manager is a virtue, yes. Nobody wants to work for the guy who tells you to hurry up and do A today, then […]

I don’t just blog about Jeremiah Wright at the Art of the Possible, I blog about the day’s favorite Jeremiah Wright conspiracy theory. I think we can all agree this makes me part of the problem. (What problem? See Chapter Three of Heads in the Sand, coming to the review section of a national magazine […]

By Thoreau
One of my favorite blogs, Biocurious (sorry, not that kind of blog) explains why blood clotting is one of the most fascinating things in science.
I like their post because I got into biophysics after reading a famous paper on blood vessel networks. There’s just something about the cardiovascular system that makes for fascinating […]

By Thoreau
Poor Barack Obama.  He’s between a rock and at least 2 hard places when it comes to religion.  For a while we were treated to right wing whispers about how his religious Achilles Heel would be found in an Indonesian mosque.  Then his Christian minister was a liability.  Then he found himself in trouble […]

By Thoreau
It’s the whiny version of “bleg.”  Has somebody else already come up with it?  I don’t know, and I don’t care.
1)  I’m sick.
2)  Grant proposal is going slow but I really want the draft done today.
3)  It took me an hour to troubleshoot a stupid problem that everybody was having in my early morning […]

Downblog last night, abb1 commented
Anyhow, I’m sure they have enough fuel for the military, so if there’s not enough for you when the war starts - hey, just another reason to hate evil Ahmadinejad.

I don’t think the US government is stockpiling yet more oil in the SPR to make sure the Pentagon doesn’t run out […]

Hilzoy on the State, the states and husbands becoming wives.

The US government continues to add oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, even at these prices, just in case. Just in case what? Bob Murphy considers:
At first I thought it was just to funnel more tax dollars into the hands of the oil companies.
But then it occurred to me that if you were going to […]

By Thoreau
George Bush has just provided evidence of impeachable offenses:
As is tradition, the President stood to do a short stand-up act, which included the retelling of an old joke about Vice President Dick Cheney watching Bush through a peephole in the Oval Office door while masturbating.
Admitting to torture or violations of FISA is obviously not […]

By Thoreau
David Weigel fails to understand the importance of swing blocs in key states:
The reason Republicans, until their recent meltdown, were trying to make gains with suburban, exurban, and Hispanic voters, is that those voters numbers’ are growing, and the numbers of white, James Agee-worthy whites are, proportionately, decreasing. It’s a weird exercise, making a […]

Eisenhower clobbers the GWOT-era "military analysts" FROM THE GRAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Via Antiwar.com.

Thoreau is awesome.
That is all.

Your weekend-o-me (an others) Over There:

“Wussy Like a Fox?” I consider Barack Obama’s “failure” to “hit back” at Hillary Clinton. Mind you, Clinton’s partisans believe Obama has been positively awful to their candidate. But they’re going to have to write their own arguments.
Al Gore Engaged in Not Starving the World. Honestly, just a pass-through to […]

Fighting global warming in Iraq.
Via Sullivan.

By Thoreau
It has been said that any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic.  Well, scientists are now developing a way to summon lightning bolts with lasers.  I SO TOTALLY WANTS ME ONE OF THESE!
To all my enemies:  Fear scientific progress.  Fear it greatly.  And get yourself a Cloak of Protection +3 or better […]

By Mona
Or may as well be. Disclosure: I am tepidly favoring Obama, and honestly expect him to get the nomination; but this sort of Democrats-eating-their-own swill can only help the GOP even if it is Hillary. For — to my shock as a critic of 60s radicals –Tom Hayden is spot […]

By Thoreau
A student who’s been in my class for 3 quarters now just sent me a rough draft of a lab report for critique, and he’s gone from classic ESL difficulties and standard freshman nonsense (”the error was the result of experimental error”) to clear English and insightful statements on the limitations of the apparatus.
This […]

Some skeptical photo analysis of the recent “Syrian nuke facility” exhibit is happening at Moon of Alabama and Whirled View.

b at Moon of Alabama
Cheryl Rofer of Whirled View on the overhead photos, the “reactor photos” and the destruction sequence.

I’m not seeing the pixelation problems with the “Nuke-Guy Team-Up” photo that b sees, but the general […]

By Thoreau
This morning, the LA Times ran a pretty good editorial on Ecuador, arguing that we should be respectful of other sovereign countries (a concept that America is still struggling with).  I’m reluctant to take them to task for some small point in the midst of it, but I did find this interesting:
Although losing the […]

Tonight we bring you the story of lost swing queen Teddy Grace. I’ve been a follower of Grace ever since early this evening, when I started digging into the background of the new Elvis Costello song, "Stella Hurt." (Here’s a live recording of "Stella" from the other day at the Ryman in Nashville.) The Oxford […]

A thousand words:

(Credit: SRI International.)
A thousand more by me at AOTP.

Doctor Joyner makes a colorable argument that we are not suffering a bout of Iran-War fever after all:
During the run-up to the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, the demands set forth to avoid war involved enough loss of face for the other side that they were unlikely to be met. I don’t recall any administration official […]

By Thoreau
A while ago I observed that it would be less destructive and no more expensive if we just handed over suitcases of money to politically connected companies and skipped out on the whole war thing. If they have the clout to get the feds to hand money to them, can we at least […]