by Doctor Science
I am surrounded by incomplete posts, too many open tabs, and a couple of work projects, so I give you: tab dump!
The Genuinely Difficult Cases — Hillary Bok, writing about the Institute of Medicine Report saying that chimpanzees should not be used for research except under exceptional circumstances.
Guys Aren’t Always Thinking With Their Dicks: Hugo Schwyzer on research showing that men have feelings, too. whaddaya know
What Do English Lit Professors and Dutch Wives Have in Common?: Megan McArdle links to my post about the Dutch cleaning mania, fails to understand academics.
Sweden’s bizarre tradition of watching Donald Duck (Kalle Anka) cartoons on Christmas Eve: tradition doesn’t need to have meaning to be traditional, all it needs is repetition
Simple, Docile, Gifted: Crooked Timber discussion of Winston Churchill’s fantasy about what would have happened if the South won the Civil War. Churchill imagined slavery would have been done away with due to Gladstonian ingenuity and to the long statecraft of Britain in dealing with alien and more primitive populations.
Our extreme weather: Arctic changes to blame? by Jeff Masters at Weather Underground. Answer: not completely, but maybe.
An Incomplete History Of History, As Written For Yuletide, In Five Acts And An Epilogue.
You are the man who arranges the blocks.
You are building a future on the back of the past. You are burying the past beneath the walls of the future. You guide your blocks carefully; some of them slip away from you, like rain between your cupped palms, but not all. There is enough to go on. There is enough to build from.
A story from last year’s Yuletide exchange, based on A Complete History of the Soviet Union As Told By A Humble Worker, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris.
Iowa Caucus Live Results by Nate Silver
Barn Quilt Trails across America, because in looking for a picture to go with this post I learned that a custom has developed in the last 10 years of painting quilts on the sides of barns, mainly in the Midwest including Iowa.
Megan McArdle fails to understand something? Has the world gone mad???
A red barn *beyond* the windmill?? Are you kidding?
Sorry, DocSci – ya lost me. Happy New Year anyway!
chmood, click the “TumblingRun” link and you’ll see. It’s difficult to be certain of scale with only a single camera angle, though.
“tradition doesn’t need to have meaning to be traditional, all it needs is repetition”
Outstanding. In this way it’s just like music.
“Sweden’s bizarre tradition of watching Donald Duck (Kalle Anka) cartoons on Christmas Eve: tradition doesn’t need to have meaning to be traditional, all it needs is repetition.
We do it too in Norway. It needs repetition, but it also need exclusivity (not sending Donald Duck cartoons the rest of the year), which was easy when there were only one/two tightly government controlled broadcasters.
One Swedish TV tradition which is arguably a bit more deserving, is the bit of deadpan social democratic humour, “Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton”.
That Hillary Bok is an interesting writer–I wonder if she’s ever thought of blogging?
I am about to wrap up a book on Churchill. He had any number of ideas that were simply wrong. Yet, from 1939 to Pearl Harbor, was there anyone else in England who had the stomach and the ability to inspire his country to stand against Nazi Germany and not seek a negotiated peace? Max Hasting says ‘no’ and does a damn good job of making his case.
I’m not sure the Iowa caucuses really do much of anything. Perhaps once in a while they do determine “the race,” but really the only examples I can think of are, possibly, Jimmy Carter in 76 and Obama last year (and none on the GOP side). But even then, there’s no proof the same wouldn’t have happened if some other state went first.
Perhaps they serve some sort of “weeding out” function, as in yesterday as it appears Bachman and Perry are done, but again why wouldn’t that have happened in some other state (other than MN or TX, that is)?
I was raised in Iowa but I don’t think there is anything so unique about the state that starting there has sigificance just because it’s Iowa.
Somebody has to go first. And whoever goes first will be given lots of undue significance and will have certain real significances by virtue of being first, weeding out being one of them.
This year it appears that one of the significances of the first state is the opposite of weeding out: Santorum is suddenly in! But I don’t think that’s because its Iowa. I think it would have happened anywhere except in maybe New England or the west coast.
I was raised in Iowa
Me too! Or have we gone down this road before…?
I was raised in Iowa
As was I, actually. My sister claims that she has a special power to find other Iowans wherever she goes.
So what’s up with those Slipknot guys, Iowans?
Another Iowan here.
i’ve never even flown over Iowa
i’ve never even flown over Iowa
You’re missin’ out!
You really ought to give Iowa a try.
Provided you are contrary.
I was in Iowa, once, in 1979. They had some very, very fast swimmers. I recall their backstroker was rather prominent in the NCAA meet. He was the first guy I ever saw do the upside-down-underwater dolphin kick to start out the backstroke. Not saying he’s the first ever, but that’s the first time I ever saw anyone do that.
Tom Roemer, I think.
I’m still living in my own private Iowa.
I’m still living in my own private Iowa.
So, you listen to the B-53’s?
B-53s, B-54s…whatever it takes.
Oh Dr S, I would just like to say, I have watched Grimm several times now, and I still aint seein no smurfett.
Disappointed.
PS, love your posts.
Some trombones? And maybe an amp that goes to 11.
And for today’s “what’s up with that”, see John McCain’s endorsement including this gem:
“Destroying our national security.” Sheesh. It’s going to be a looooong 10 months.
I miss Iowa sometimes. I miss the Iowa of forty years ago. I’ve been reading Methland and I don’t think the current Iowa is the “Iowa nice” place it used to be.
On the other hand I was in Des Moines last fall and the city seems to have improved over my highschool age memories.
I don’t think I could live in Iowa any more because I have become too attuned to varied geography. All that flatness is really disorienting. It’s beautiful in a pastoral way but…the 360 horizon disconcerts me now. I’m too used to orientig myself between mountains and water.
ral, apparently Steve Benen picked that up as well. But Steve Benen’s earlier post reminds us what we’re thinking about when we’re thinking about McCain. You just really have to watch the video. There is no hatred like the hatred in John McCain.
ok…wish a good result come in….
ral,
Some trombones?
Don’t forget the cornets.
And no, pianos just don’t work in a marching band.
I know that song by heart, nearly three decades after having been in the musical chorus.
The DAR have sent a cannon for the courthouse square, you know.
And no, pianos just don’t work in a marching band.
Nor do cellos.
No fooling: my captcha started “wtf”!
Slarti, we had the LP and I can still hear it.
“But he doesn’t know the territory!”
B-53s, B-54s…whatever it takes.
The funny thing about that scene is that, while Keaton’s character demonstrates ignorance about household electrical systems, Mull’s character’s question is still a stupid one. Why the hell would you have all 220-volt service in one wing of your house, or any wing of your house, when almost everything except certain major appliances are designed for 110? Does he have something against neutrals?
I take that as he was giving Keaton some rope to hang himself with.
Does he have something against neutrals?
“I don’t know for sure, but my gut says ‘Maybe.'”