Archive for 2008
August 3, 2008
DAMON ROOT ON HERBERT SPENCER: How a libertarian individualist was recast as a social Darwinist.
R.I.P., Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
IN THE LONDON TIMES: Strong praise for Kathleen Parker’s Save the Males. “Let’s dance. The arrival of Kathleen Parker’s book marks one of those sensational moments of seismic cultural shift that seem unthinkable, unimaginable.” Our podcast interview with Parker is here.
OUCH: “I think the Iraqi government is more functional than our domestic airlines right now…”
TROPICAL STORM EDOUARD FORMS, and may hit land in Texas and/or Louisiana as a hurricane. More at Weather Nerd.
WHY IT’S PROBABLY SMARTER TO keep your gas-guzzling S.U.V. instead of trading it in on a hybrid. Of course, to some degree this depends on where you think gas prices are going over the next few years.
FORMER QUEEN GUITARIST BRIAN MAY, PH.D. has now published his thesis in astrophysics. You can even buy a copy via Amazon, and while I doubt many people will do so, I imagine he’ll sell a lot more copies of his dissertation than most people do. The author bio on Amazon is amusing, too.
TransCanada Corp., Canada’s largest pipeline company, won state approval and a $500 million subsidy to proceed with plans to build an estimated $27 billion pipeline that will carry natural gas from Alaska’s Arctic region to U.S. markets.
The Alaska Senate voted today in favor of the proposal by Calgary-based TransCanada, following approval last month by the House. The company will get a state license to begin studies and early work on the pipeline.
“We’ve been trying to get this pipeline for 30 years,” Alaska State Senator Hollis French said today. “This piece of legislation gets us there.”
The project was born out of an effort by Governor Sarah Palin to exploit gas deposits on Alaska’s North Slope that were discovered decades ago and stranded by the inability to get the heating and power-plant fuel to users. Palin solicited pipeline proposals last year and chose TransCanada’s after saying competing plans didn’t meet the state’s requirements.
We need it.
WHY PEOPLE ARE GETTING FATTER — Eating more! “In 1970, the average American ate about 16.4 pounds of food a week, or 2.3 pounds daily. By 2006, the average intake grew by an additional 1.8 pounds a week.”
ANOTHER TERRI SCHIAVO AFFAIR IN THE MAKING? I don’t know how this will develop, but my observation at the time that the Terri Schiavo affair marked the high-water point for GOP power, and the beginning of its decline, seems to have been borne out by subsequent events.
IRS GOES BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH CELLPHONES. Wait, wrong movie. Love the Gordon Gekko picture, though.
WHAT TO DO WITH the “Sons of Iraq.” What’s the Iraqi equivalent of the G.I. Bill?
BUY TEXTBOOKS, get a free three-month trial of Amazon Prime. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve found the free 2-day shipping to be a good deal for me.
EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS: A test-drive of Chrysler’s new Aspen hybrid.
WASHINGTON POST: Obama as George W.? “Yet in Democratic circles, another, potentially less welcome, parallel is being made: to the tight-knit and tight-lipped organization eight years ago of George W. Bush. . . . Democrats privately expressed concerns that Obama has become too Chicago-centric, relying on his inner circle rather than a broader group that encourages input from Washington and elsewhere.” Hey, that approach has worked for Bush!
UPDATE: Oops — link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!
MARY GRABAR on what’s wrong with language mandates.
NEUTRALIZING SECURITY CAMERAS with helium balloons. Obviously, we must start licensing and registering helium.
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED: ” Say I’m Inside the Large Hadron Collider and It’s Revving Up. Should I Be Concerned?”
If you have any piercings, definitely . . . .
IS THE SEX CARD the new race card? Well, possibly.
WHAT IS THE COAST GUARD doing in Africa?
IN THE MAIL: Dirk Wittenborn’s novel, Pharmakon.
DEFLECTING ASTEROIDS with a gravity tractor.
BILL QUICK FINDS fun on the Internet.