I just noticed I have about five Linkoramas lingering in my queue. So I’ll take out whole bunch here.
DARPA is looking into recycling satellites. This makes a huge amount of sense if it can be done. Space debris is a big problem. And the launch is one of the biggest expense of any mission. If you could put something up there cheap that could rove around and repair satellites, it would be worth a fortune.
Cracked has a nice article about how poverty isn’t the cliche we like to think it is.
An interview with James Alan Fox disputing Mother Jones on mass shootings.
This is an amazing story about how a family was cut off from civilization for 40 years. A modern-day Swiss Family Robinson.
I love this depiction of what Mars would look like with water. In actuality, it wouldn’t look quite like that, since erosion would wear down the extreme features.
I also love this depiction of what Cambrian creatures might have looked like.
When you make a little girl in a wheelchair cry that she doesn’t want to go to Disney World, you are slime.
Nine hilarious NYT corrections. I mean, even I knew the My Little Pony one.
Anatomy of a drug panic.
Anatomy of a female orgasm.
Godspeed.
Heh heh. It turns out that some of those tests that say newborns have pot in their systems may be bullshit. Don’t you just love the War on Drugs?
You know, I actually think this guy gets it right. The whole “we’re miserable during the holidays” things always did cross me as a load of dingo’s kidneys. We see the stress of family and travel; ignore the absent stress of work.
As much as I respect the idea of building an ideal language, the idea is going precisely nowhere as Zamenhoff found out. Language is not about utilitarian efficiency. It’s about culture, history, nuance and tradition.
One thing I wondered while taking Sporcle’s blurred faces quiz is if the results would show a racial component: i.e., would white people be more likely to recognize the blurred features of other white people. This wouldn’t be about racism but about the way our brains process facial features.
Starry Night … in dominoes.
A great interview with the Skeptical Environmentalist.
The DEA can’t justify it’s own War on Drugs.
This post, on whether kids should hate their parents, deserves a feature-length post from me. Suffice it to say that I, uh, split he baby on this one. I’m my daughter’s friend when I can be but if she doesn’t hate me once a week, I’m not doing my job.
Sullivan delivers a broadside to Obama’s marijuana policy.
Spooky pics of a funfair in North Korea.
A very funny summary of movie posters that all look alike.
Taking out the neuro-trash.
I’m at a conference. It stimulates my curiosity. Expects lots of links:
A truly horrible story out of Spain. Hundreds of thousands of children were taken from their parents and given to approved couples.
Obama ramps up the crackdown on pot. Meanwhile, in the reality-based world, doctors and average Americans want this madness stopped.
I think this building would make me a believer.
As someone struggling to have another kid, the idea of girls literally named ‘unwanted’ breaks my heart.
The Dalek Game.
This story would make my dad faint.
This article about women not marrying, is interesting but sounds like the author is trying to persuade herself of something she doesn’t really believe. Also, I resent being the 80%.
Cracked is so awesome.
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.
Non-political links:
What does your brain do when you orgasm? A scientist finds out.
This imitation of video game voices cracked me up.
Wonderful color photos of the Great Depression.
Political links:
This sort of thing happens every day in our ridiculous War on Drugs.
I don’t know what depresses me more about this story: that New Jersey passed an ill-considered law mandating decals on cars drive by teenagers; or that people succumbed to a baseline Predator Panic as a result.
Chili grenades? Chili grenades.
Stripper week continues on the blog with this story about Iceland banning the practice. This is being proclaimed as a great victory for feminism, but I don’t see that taking away women’s freedom — even if it’s the freedom to “degrade” themselves – and probably forcing them into illegal activity, is progress.
A fun story about the First Seder in the White House. I wonder how the Demented Right will square this with their vision of Obama as an Israel-hating Muslim.
Radley Balko has a point. Why doesn’t the public have a fraction of the outrage over real killings and bloodshed committed in the name of the War on Drug as they do about a brick thrown through a politician’s window?
Barack Obama and the Democrats kept abstinence-only education funding in the healthcare bill. Because what this country really needs to bring our healthcare bills down is a bunch of pregnant teenagers. And I thought I was snarked out on that subject.
You know the thing I hate about being a libertarian? Being right all the time. For the last decade, we warned that states were spending beyond their limits and creating a fiscal time bomb. We were right. Again.
More on the Godwinizing of the Tea Party.
Some legal humor from one of my favorite judges.
Astronomy, Sports, Mathematical Malpractice, Whatever Else Pops Into My Head