Archive for 2014

SO I’VE BRAGGED BEFORE ABOUT THIS BISSELL SPOT CLEANER, but it really proved its worth again the other night. I came downstairs to grade papers, set my coffee down, and immediately knocked it off the table onto the floor. This wasn’t a dribble — the entire mug went onto the carpet. Got out the spot cleaner, and in a few minutes you couldn’t tell there had been a spill.

SALLY KOHN: Feminists Need to Stop Sounding False Alarms About Sexism. When you have Sally Kohn in The New Republic saying this. . . .

Plus, I love the women who are bashing Mark Zuckerberg for not caring about what he wears and wearing plain gray t-shirts, given what happens if you wear something more expressive.

SPACE: PHOTOS FROM PHILAE. Why didn’t Philae use nuclear, as opposed to solar power? Because the ESA hasn’t developed RTG technology. That’s partly a financial, but probably mostly a political move. But it’s hard to do deep-space missions with only solar power. Sadly, last I heard NASA was backing away from RTG research, too.

THINK TWICE before choosing knee replacement. Basically, don’t do it until your own knees are well and truly shot. I hope to never need it, but who knows?

THE ANCHORESS: Techno/Science Geeks Should Not be Made to Cry. “Somewhere between demands that men ‘speak no catcalls’ and ‘wear no inappropriately geeky shirts’ and assertions that a woman’s full-frontal/champagne glass nudity is seriously empowering, there is cognitive dissonance. A disconnect.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Australia On The Big Stage. “Australia and Canada are both rising powers with immense resource bases, quickly growing, well educated populations, solid economic policies for the most part and stable governing systems. They will both matter to the world more in the 21st century than they did in the 20th.”

Yes, this is Jim Bennett’s Anglosphere hypothesis, which is looking much steadily more solid. See also, India.

SPYING: More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations. “Undercover work, inherently invasive and sometimes dangerous, was once largely the domain of the F.B.I. and a few other law enforcement agencies at the federal level. But outside public view, changes in policies and tactics over the last decade have resulted in undercover teams run by agencies in virtually every corner of the federal government, according to officials, former agents and documents.”

Great. First they all got SWAT teams, now the Department of Agriculture is running undercover operations. Cut their budgets — they obviously have too much money.