links for 2009-12-31
Roanoke Times: McDonnell commerce appointee intends to keep corporate board positions
Robert Sledd would love to be Secretary of Commerce. But he also wants to be on the board of directors of a few companies, including ginormous Richmond-based tobacco company Universal Corporation. And Bob McDonnell figures that's A-OK. This is *exactly* the crap that I feared [...]
Never mind the Republican whinging about the cost of a primary.
There’s some odd complaining going on about Fifth District Republicans’ decision to hold a primary, I see in Brian McNeill’s article in today’s Daily Progress. The logic is that primaries are expensive, with the bill footed by local registrars’ offices, and they really can’t afford it right now. With Republicans trying to claim the mantle [...]
links for 2009-12-30
Time: What Passengers Can Learn
Security that's effective enough to prevent people from doing bad things will make life hell for the rest of us. The lesson of attempted hijackings and bombings on airplanes in the past few years is that if you threaten anybody, you're going to get your ass handed to you by your [...]
Another 3rd party congressional candidate.
Somehow I missed the recent news that Jeff Clark of Danville will be running against Rep. Tom Perriello in the general election. Like the high-larious Bradley Rees, Clark is too far right even for Fifth District Republicans, which is saying something, and isn’t bothering to try to get the nomination. As with Rees, I intend [...]
links for 2009-12-26
Scientific American: Bugs Inside—What Happens When the Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Disappear?
Just nine percent of our body is us. Ninety one percent is microbes. We are a small minority in our own bodies. We are walking, talking colonies of microbial life, all working together to form us.
(tags: science biology)
New York Times: Restrictions Rise After [...]
links for 2009-12-25
PolitiFact: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises
Wow, President Obama is doing a bang-up job of making good on his 500+ campaign promises. 206 are in the works, 75 have been kept, 20 have been done with compromises, 45 are stalled, and 9 have been broken. The St. Petersburg Times hasn't yet had a chance to figure [...]
links for 2009-12-22
Politico: Anti-socialist Bachmann got $250K in federal farm subsidies
Rep. Michelle Bachmann, welfare queen.
(tags: republican agriculture congress)
The Big Money: Media Gets Stuck in High-Fructose Corn Syrup
This Slate/Washington Post website argues that it's true that a recent study found an association between obesity and the consumption of fructose (as opposed to sucrose), but points out a couple [...]
links for 2009-12-21
The Guardian: Doctor admits Israeli pathologists harvested organs without consent
Israel harvesting organs from Palestinans? Um. I'm no PR guy, but this is gonna be a tough one to spin.
(tags: israel palestine ethics)
Robert Hurt has signed on with the free-lunch crowd.
Sen. Robert Hurt is courting the fringe right, Olympia Meola writes in today’s Times-Dispatch:
Some conservatives object to Hurt’s voting record—principally his support of a $1.4 billion tax increase pushed by former Gov. Mark R. Warner in 2004.
After he cast that vote, Hurt was among 19 Republican delegates and 15 Republican state senators featured in a [...]
links for 2009-12-20
VDOT on Flickr: Winter Storm
VDOT turns out to have a Flickr account, which is great. They've got a set of photos from the current storm, which is better. But the images are all provided under a Creative Commons license, which is best of all.
(tags: vdot flickr)
The State's Snowstorm Tumblog
Impressively, the state has set up a [...]
links for 2009-12-19
Slashfilm: 70-Minute Video Review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
If you would have told me that I'd watch an hour-long review of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace," I'd tell you that you're high. The movie was enough of a waste of time—why in the world would I spend seventy minutes watching a review? Because, as [...]
Crouching beagle, hidden wienerdog.
22″ inches of snow so far, and it’s still falling, with another couple of inches due. We still have electricity, which is great, but all precautions have been taken for that eventuality.
links for 2009-12-18
Adam Clymer: An Outbreak of Courage on Capitol Hill
Clymer argues that Perriello may be the most principled guy in congress. Clymer, incidentally, is the guy who Cheney once called "a major-league asshole," a remark that was caught on an open microphone. In Cheney's defense, I'm told that's an apt description.
(tags: perriello congress virginia)
What will McDonnell do to fund transportation (if anything)?
Bob Lewis has a story today about the state’s slide into a fiscal morass of transportation funding that provides a peek at the stories to come in the years ahead. This is the sort of article that we’ll all look back at in five to ten years and wonder how we didn’t see it coming. [...]
links for 2009-12-17
The Old Negro Space Program
This is an awfully funny parody of documentaries on race, the space program, Jim Crow laws, racial stereotypes, and academia. Somehow I missed this back in 2005, when it came out.
(tags: space racism humor)
Wall Street Journal: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones
The video sent by Predator drones is sent unencrypted. This super-secret data [...]
links for 2009-12-16
New York Times: The Wedding? I’m Here for the Cookies
There's a long Pittsburgh tradition of providing a vast selection of homemade cookies at wedding receptions, baked by the families of the betrothed in the weeks and months beforehand. Italian wedding cookies, biscotti, pizzelles, lemon bars, and lady locks are all de rigueur.
(tags: food pittsburgh)
NBC-29: Crime [...]
links for 2009-12-15
Plumbing of Yellowstone supervolcano larger than first thought
The Yellowstone supervolcano turns out to be a lot bigger than anything thought—410 miles deep—with a chamber just under ground that's 20% bigger than had been thought. That seems bad.
(tags: yellowstone volcano)
QuackWatch: Homeopathy—The Ultimate Fake
Somebody did the math and figured out that the 30X level of dilution ostensibly [...]
Ditch your voicemail. Get an answering machine.
Apropos of nothing, here’s a money-saving tip: Get rid of your voicemail.
A few years ago I cancelled our call waiting and voicemail, and disabled call waiting on my mobile. Call waiting is really rude. When you answer call waiting, what you’re saying is this: I have no idea who is calling me, but I think [...]
links for 2009-12-14
AP: Science not faked, but not pretty
An exhaustive study of all of the e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia by the AP has found that they demonstrate that scientists are working earnestly, presenting data accurately, and there's not a shred of evidence to support the ridiculous anti-science claims made by many conservatives. They [...]
links for 2009-12-13
Los Angeles Times: Arizona sheriff ups the ante against his foes
I don't understand why Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio isn't in prison. He has absolutely no interest in the rule of law, flagrantly abuses the legal system, and is corrupt on the level of the leaders of Chicago or New York in the early 1900s. [...]
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Waldo Jaquith (JAY-kwith) is a website developer and political pundit who lives in the vicinity of Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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