Sunday, February 28, 2010

America, the fragile empire (latimes)
We Can't Wish Away Climate Change (Gore, NYTimes)
I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Triumph of the Cyborg Composer

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Far Out: Heimo's Arctic Refuge
An online doc about one of the last people living off of the land in Alaska's interior Wildlife Refuge, originally established by the Carter administration in 1980.
(via boingboing)
The ArchiPod
The Bankruptcy Boys
Paul Krugman on the GOP strategy of doubling down on their 'starve the beast' bet, inviting fiscal catastrophe.

At this point, then, Republicans insist that the deficit must be eliminated, but they’re not willing either to raise taxes or to support cuts in any major government programs. And they’re not willing to participate in serious bipartisan discussions, either, because that might force them to explain their plan — and there isn’t any plan, except to regain power.

Monday, February 22, 2010

RAMPANT: no other word comes close to capturing the mood of America’s conservatives as several thousand of them gathered in Washington, DC, on February 18th-20th for the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference.
(the economist)
Wall Street's Bailout Hustle (Rollingstone)
There's even a term in con-man lingo for what some of the banks are doing right now, with all their cosmetic gestures of scaling back bonuses and giving to charities. In the grifter world, calming down a mark so he doesn't call the cops is known as the "Cool Off."

Friday, February 19, 2010

Hunt for the worst movie of all time. Good writing on bad movies

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

How a New Jobless Era will Transform America (Atlantic)
If it persists much longer, this era of high joblessness will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults—and quite possibly those of the children behind them as well. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar white men—and on white culture. It could change the nature of modern marriage, and also cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a kind of despair and dysfunction not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years.

Friday, February 12, 2010

How Christian Were the Founders? (NYTimes)
A longish article on the Founders intentions on church-state separation, School-board archconservative activists, and re-writing history to serve an ideological agenda.
Citigroup is planning crisis derivatives, which would pay out in time of crisis or collapse (provided, that is, that Citi would continue to exist to make the payout)
Colbert Winter Olympic Poster (pdf)

Thursday, February 04, 2010

What Republicans Believe (dailykos)

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

World's scariest ski slopes (sfgate, with video)

Monday, February 01, 2010

How to fall 35000 feet.
The NYTimes is starting a column on math today. They start with the basics of number theory. Now's the time to get in.