Science News: Columbus Blamed For Little Ice AgeHere's a fun theory of the origin of the Little Ice Age, lasting from around 1550–1850: that massive losses of New World population, as a result of disease spread by explorers, resulted in reforestation of huge swaths of the Americas, removing billions of tons of CO2 from the …
Category Archives: ShortLinks
Links for October 11th
CJR: The Shorter-Form JournalThis clever analysis of Wall Street Journal article lengths over the years shows that, under Rupert Murdoch, articles have gotten quite a bit shorter. The Washington Post: Five myths about voter fraudThere are some important and interesting facts about voter fraud here. A member of the Commission on Federal Election Reform figures …
Links for October 6th
New York Times: Herman Cain is a Candidate Writing His Own Campaign RulesRunning for president? Nah. Herman Cain has decided he'd rather go on a book tour. Much like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, Cain appears to view running for the Republican nomination as a cheap method of getting national press. MSNBC: Secret panel can …
Links for October 5th
Chattanooga Times-Free Press: 96-year-old Chattanooga resident denied voting IDDorothy Cooper even managed to vote under Jim Crow, but the Tennessee Republican Party has proved to be one obstacle she can't overcome. She's never driven, so she has no driver's license. She tried to get a photo ID, but she has to present her marriage certificate, …
Links for October 3rd
Bloomberg: Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran SalesThe Koch Brothers have secretly, criminally sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, an enemy of the United States with whom it is unquestionably illegal to do business. This is no aberration for these bastards—they're out for a buck, and they don't care how they …
Links for September 29th
Boston Globe: Worcester woman’s two-faced cats makes the record booksTwo-faced and two-headed cats generally live for days or weeks at the most. "Frank and Louie"—one cat, two faces—is twelve years old now, and is doing just fine. (Other than being not entirely pleasant to look at.) Twan van Laarhoven: Finding rectanglesSolving problems like this is …
Links for September 27th
Mediaite: AP Reporter Responds To Chris Hayes Panel Debate On Racism Of Droppin’ G’s From Obama SpeechThere's some fussing about how an AP reporter transcribed a quote from President Obama. In a recent speech, the president said: "Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’." On one of those sunday morning shouting shows, the …
Links for September 27th
Bloomberg: Obama Lawyers Signal Likely Supreme Court Appeal on Health CareThe White House wants to end the federal appeals court rulings on the president's health care reform, and for the Supreme Court to take up the case. That's likely to bring a decision in June, in the middle of the presidential campaign. "President Barack Obama …
Links for September 23rd
FlowingData: Watch the Growth of Walmart and Sam’s Club Across AmericaThis is an interesting visualization, but the data that it shows is no less interesting. Slate Magazine: Rick Perry’s Christian Israel policy is a gift to Islamic extremistsQuoth Rick Perry: "Both as an American and as a Christian, I am going to stand with Israel." …
Links for September 20th
Ars Technica: Patent trolls have cost innovators half a trillion dollarsA study by some Boston University researchers have found that, from publicly traded companies alone, $500B has been spent on paying off patent extortionists. That's a quarter of all U.S. R&D expenses, wasted. If we want to get serious about reducing the cost of doing …