links for 2009-09-11

This experimental aircraft was a very, very bad idea. When a large propeller spins faster than the speed of sound, it's basically creating a constant, conical sonic boom wash behind it, making it very, very unpleasant to be around.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) may skate to a reelection, despite being a regular at that Washington D.C. prostitution ring after railing against President Clinton for cheating on his wife. Louisiana is like a different planet, politically-speaking. It might as well be Alaska.

Arctic shipping lanes are now a commercial reality, courtesy of global climate change. The ultimate irony will be when oil drilling commences in the Arctic Ocean, made possible by the melting of the once-year-round ice, which will allow more oil to be burned, releasing more pollution into the atmosphere, increasing the rate of global climate change, and melting more ice, opening more of the arctic to drilling. We are so screwed.

The party is fielding no candidates for anything, and has no prospects of doing so in the near or, in fact, distant future. But they've got a platform, daggum it. A sort of a statement of things that they believe…but don't intend to do anything about. But they do "pledge to meet with anyone, at any time and in any place." OK. Meet me in Lalitpur, Nepal at 7:30 tonight. GO!