http://highclearing.com Looking Sideways at Your World Since October 2001 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:42:27 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Via Justin "After all these years I finally have an RSS feed" Slotman, Yves Smith's "Indefensible Men" offers a lengthy psychopathology of the investor class. http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/18/10877 By Thoreau TSA thug: we are doing a random check of your laptop. Me: Oh for f*ck's sake. Thug: Is there a problem? Me: do whatever you do. Me: this is why I joined the ACLU. Thug: what's that? Me: an organization devoted to privacy rights. Thug: ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/17/10876 All Dogs Go to Choate. http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/17/10874 By Thoreau Michael Lind argues that libertarianism is becoming the ascendant faction in the Republican Party.  I have three levels of response.  On the most basic level, I never really know what to make of a Lind column.  I am not nearly as conversant with American history as he is, so ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/16/10870 By Mona "I'm sorry, it appears that I went fucking insane the other day and said something that was so mind numbingly idiotic that in a sane society it would mean that everywhere I went from that point on, people would point and laugh at me. And I'm now going to ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/15/10866 By Thoreau In keeping with Jim's DST blogging, it is the first Monday after we set the clocks forward, and somebody other than me decided that the final exam should start at 9:10am.  This 9:10 mindset fails to take into account the way that things have changed.  In keeping with our ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/15/10861 Via friend and gaming buddy Nick, I discover a 2007 BBC special by Jonathan Ross, "In Search of Steve Ditko" on YouTube, in seven parts. It's damned good. http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/14/10857 I just saw the most amazing thing. Living Ruff, another reason downtown Silver Spring is criminally underrated as a DC-Metro neighborhood, sponsored an indoor playdate in a vacant storefront near their own shop this afternoon. Very important: off-leash dog parks present risks as well as benefits. All kinds of negative events can ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/14/10856 By Thoreau I love this.  Especially the award for best third author.  I'm proud to say that other than a few things very early on, I've always been first, second, or last author.  First and last really matter, and there's at least a chance that the second author did something useful.  ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/14/10852 By Thoreau My biggest fear has always been that Al Qaeda will move away from trying big, flashy, mass-casualty attacks on high-profile targets, and start doing lots of small attacks.  Bringing down skyscrapers again would take a lot of planning and a group of trained, reliable men who have been recruited ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/14/10845 In which a blogger clears his browser tabs: * Via Kung Fu Monkey, web series The Sanctum. It's superheroes (and villains) in an addiction support group. And yes, there is a plot, that develops pretty trickily over the half-dozen episodes so far. New episodes seem to come out every month or ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/13/10844 In comments downblog, Tom Scudder reminds us of Jenna Katarin Moran's "DST Nocturne." Each year they made Daylight Savings Time longer, until one day it lasted the whole year round. Then it was spring forward, always spring forward, and never fall back, until noon was where midnight used to ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/13/10843 QO a couple Ds ago, actually. From Larison: The truth is that Obama’s views are really rather boring and conventional, but then they would have to be for him to be elected President. http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/13/10842 Daylight Savings Time starts Sunday morning, but there's a serious issue here, maybe the most serious issue facing us today. When Daylight Time starts, Standard Time ends. "Standard Time?" Now that it only obtains four months out of the year, we're still supposed to call it "Standard?" I don't think so. ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/13/10841 By Thoreau This sums up what I think about Jihad Jane: Without wishing to undermine her twin commitments to holy war and talking to cats, the self-styled Jihad Jane might be the war on terror's least effective bogeywoman. If she went overseas plotting murder, clearly that cannot be tolerated.  Do something about it.  ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/12/10839 By Thoreau Face it, H8ers, when even Mexico--freaking Mexico!--is allowing gay marriage, it's time to throw in the towel.  Yeah, yeah, so far just in the capitol city, but we're talking about a country with a machismo culture that would put any Yale cheerleader-turned-tough-guy-with-ranch to shame.  A country that reports regular ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/12/10837 By Thoreau I spent most of second grade talking dinosaurs with my best friend, so I've always had a soft spot in my heart for that part of science.  Indeed, when my thesis advisor told me that his daughter is doing her M.S. thesis on dinosaurs my response was that I'm ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/11/10833 By Mona Somethings good out of Mississippi! (I admit to some prolly wrong, reflexive prejudice against the South.) Tenacious, excellent investigative journalist Radley Balko, has greatly facilitated both a likely new trial for former death row inmate Cory Maye, and long-overdue standards for forensic pathologists in that state. ------- Update: On the other, ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/11/10827 Many years ago, I managed stores for a mall-based bookstore chain. The stores ran 2000-4000 square feet in size and carried between 3-10,000 different titles. The that's a tenth of what you'd find in a modern book superstore - in a modern book superstore you'd consider "kind of small compared ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/11/10826 Austin Bramwell becomes the dozenth or so libertarian/conservative to criticize libertarian/conservative sprawl defenders on the basis of their own stated principles: For the 101st time: sprawl — an umbrella term for the pattern of development seen virtually everywhere in the United States — is not caused by the free ... http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/11/10825