This, again, illustrates why the ant-AGW faction drives me around the bend. It has everything: a paper is published, the Echosphere picks it up and wildly misrepresents it to claim that global warming has now been disproven. And none — none — will ever correct the record. In fact, this will be dragged out as a bullet point for every “global warming is a myth” post in the future.
Oops. Looks like anti-oxidants are a myth. I swear: one day we’re going to open the paper and find that scientists have declared that greasy burgers and fries are the best meal for your health.
I think this is one of the coolest maps I’ve seen. You could almost redraw states by it. West Texas would be independent, which I’m sure would be fine with them.
A thought-provoking cartoon about women’s prisons. Despite my support for ending the War on Drugs, I despise meth with all of my heart.
A simply dynamite interview with Bill James. I agree with him on Sherlock Holmes, even though I love the stories.
In general, I don’t care about the personal defects, craziness or silliness of artists: I separate the art from them. Hard to do with Alice Walker sometimes.
Thanks to Twitter siphoning off my political rants, you’re getting more … non-political links:
Cracked debunks the Twitter revolution. I’m forced to mostly agree. Social networking may have played a minor role in the upheavals in the Middle East, at best. But real activism involves risking your life, not turning your Facebook profile green.
I really really like this idea of the Billion Price Index as a complement to traditional inflation metrics.
Do you know … do either of you have any idea of how fucking glad I am I don’t have a big ass commute anymore? I can’t imagine how I did it for so long.
I really hope the anti-homework agenda catches on. What’s being done to kids these days is absurd busy work bullshit.
So do you think studies like this will, in any way, slow down those who want to ban fatty foods?
Political links:
Experts are once again stunned that poverty does not cause crime. They seem to be stunned by this quite a lot.
Want to stimulate the economy? Wonder how America can lead the world in innovation again? Repeal SOX.
I found this article, from Vanity Fair about the Playboy Clubs of the 60’s oddly fascinating, and not just because of my generalized interest in the opposite gender. Doubtless the clubs were bad bad things. They certainly wouldn’t function today — they’d get justifiably eaten by sexual harassment laws. But the 60’s and 70’s were interesting times in terms of sex. Mad Men, to my understanding, mines that particular retro-chic vein very well. The article also reminds me of the near-innocence in the early days of commercialized sex that has been lost as it has become ubiquitous. Hef, at least in the early days, was great at up-marketing porn. The magazine had legitimately great articles (for which they paid a fortune to writers). Early pictorials were far more tasteful and coy than today and the clubs, from the description, played to that aesthetic. Plus, how cool would it have been to see Aretha Franklin give only her second public performance?
On the flip side of that, Cracked dissects one of the most disturbing romance/sex writers out there. Egad.
And just to round out a gender-conscious linkorama: this comes from the Fanatics Come in All Faiths file. Hillary Clinton has been photoshopped out of a White House picture.
Political Links:
Egad. Sugar interests vs. corn interests. Who to cheer for?
Of the many things our government could be worrying about, why is raw milk even on the list?
A touching note on forgiving bin Laden from a 9/11 survivor.
Half of Detroit can’t read. The city is spending $13,000 per pupil on their schooling system. Can we maybe admit that money isn’t the limiting factor here?
Look, you assholes. Before you gloat about the deaths of 300 people and blame it on global warming, maybe you should show some research proving tornado activity is connected with global warming. Because there is no established connection. And this statement:
the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming
is pathologically stupid. That’s the exact opposite of the null hypothesis. And this is exactly what global warming skeptics accuse you guys of — blaming any extreme weather, no matter what it is, on AGW.
Some interesting pushback on the idea that parenting doesn’t matter.
Orac has fun with the latest blast of toxin hysteria.
Some follow-up on the principles of the Duke Lacrosse case.
Political Links:
Two of the most arrogant men in Congress push a “privacy bill” that exempts government. I would much rather have Amazon collating information about me than the FBI.
