Posts under ‘politics’

Dear Glenn Beck and Tea Partiers, Words fail me. (Read the comments too.. Lucky for me Lily Allen said pretty much exactly what I was thinking (NSFW), and much more attractively. In fact, I think I’ll say it twice just in case you don’t catch on the first time. (I love this video.) Yeah.

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a video showing all known nuclear explosions from 1945-1998 – 2053 of them. Zipping past at one month per second, it’s a fascinating and disturbing picture of nuclear testing and warfare. It starts slowly, but the 1950s go flashing by. Even if you don’t want to watch the middle, [...]

I’d like to write something about the oil spill: the greed and neglect of safety regulations and common sense that led to the explosion, the lack of contingency planning, the destruction of the ecology of an entire region, the tremendous potential long-term effects, the complete lack of viable and immediate alternative to oil. But I [...]

If you only read one article about the Peter Watts case, it should be this one.

Dr. Peter Watts, author and marine biologist, will not be going to jail. He is however a convicted felon now and will not be allowed to return to the United States from his home in Canada. I’ve mentioned this before, if you need a refresher. I’m relieved that Dr. Watts received a suspended sentence, and [...]

I mentioned in December the unpleasant experience that Dr. Peter Watts, a science fiction author and biologist, had when trying to leave the United States. Dr. Watts was harassed and beaten by the US Border Patrol, then charged with assault. The case went to trial. The assault charges were dismissed, but Dr. Watts was still [...]

Did they pass health care reform? Details. Despite the sparkly unicorns, it isn’t everything I wanted (where’s my public option???), but it gets rid of the most odious abuses in the current system: lifetime caps and pre-existing condition clauses. Oh, and it saves the country money. Edit: Couple of good links on the practical implications.

Five things make a post. 1. From Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station, Glenn Beck Killed My Father-In-Law. I’ve ranted about health care here before, but Jim does a much better job than I do. For one thing, his vocabulary and phrasing was honed by 20 years in the Navy. Do please read this. 2. Mars [...]

Band OK Go wins the Internet. (via Topless Robot) Edit: Wired has an article on the making of this video, with videos of its own. It really was done in a single shot!

Just a quickie, as I have to go shovel snow. Again. Here’s one way to depict my day at work: a mousepath. Today was for numbercrunching. You can get the mousepath software yourself (Mac/Linux, Windows – by Anatoliy Zenkov and picked up by me here). Hey, guess what? Having a blizzard does not invalidate global [...]