“Shotgun Golf will soon take America by storm,” said Hunter S. Thompson in this 2004 article. I would definitely play this, though I’d be even more likely to play it with Bill Murray. →
Category Archives: ShortLinks
The Lookout: The Texans who live on the ‘Mexican side’ of the border fence—‘Technically, we’re in the United States’
The fence between Mexico and the U.S. isn’t always on the border. Sometimes it’s over a mile away, leaving Texans’ homes on the wrong side of the fence, sandwiched against the Mexican border. They’ve had their property split in two by the fence, and some homeowners have found that the Border Patrol guards not the …
ABC News: Expert—Wastewater Well in Ohio Triggered Quakes
There has been increasing concern over the past year that hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) can cause earthquakes. I don’t understand the seismology well enough to understand the specifics, but the premise is simple enough: pumping millions of gallons of water, diesel, brine, and other liquids into the ground is liable to have an effect on the …
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Wikipedia: Academi
Remember how Blackwater changed their name to “Xe Services,” to outrun their reputation? Well, it caught up with them, so now they’ve changed their name again—they’re “Academi.” Nowhere on academi.com does the word “Blackwater” even appear. →
Links for December 25th
New York Times: Climate Scientists Hampered in Study of 2011 Extremes“'I’ve been a meteorologist 30 years and never seen a year that comes close to matching 2011 for the number of astounding, extreme weather events,' Jeffrey Masters, a co-founder of the popular Web site Weather Underground, said last month. 'Looking back in the historical record, …
Links for December 19th
New York Times: Nearly a Third of Americans Are Arrested by 23, Study Says30.2% of us have been arrested for something more serious than a minor traffic violation. (I say "us," but I haven't been arrested.) As Sen. Webb points out, either Americans are the most evil people on the planet, or something is fundamentally …
Links for December 5th
Planet Money: Why Burn Doctors Hate Instant SoupStyrofoam "Cup Noodle" style containers turn out to be wildly dangerous. They spill easily, and hospitals throughout the country get a never-ending series of little kids who have been burned as a result of these things falling over. Companies that make short, squat containers don't have any problem—it's …
Links for November 30th
Christian Science Monitor: Way cleared for horse slaughter to resume in US after 5-year banCongress has passed a bill, and the president has signed it into law, that re-legalizes the slaughter of horses for human consumption. Banning that practice was a huge mistake, for reasons that were obvious at the time, but it took a …
Links for November 25th
BBC News: CO2 climate sensitivity ‘overestimated’Of all that is very clearly known about global climate change, the one connection that is not well understood is the quantity of climate forcing that results from each unit of CO2. That is, exactly how much additional heat can the atmosphere store for each each ton of CO2 that …
Links for November 23rd
New York Times: Who’s on the Line? Increasingly, Caller ID Is DupedTelemarketers are faking Caller ID information with apparent impunity, so that people believe that the IRS or the FBI is calling. (Just like spam!) The FTC has just filed their first complaint against a company for doing that. The FCC wouldn't comment as to …