Month: August 2012

What I read on my summer vacation

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by Doctor Science

I’m back from my week in beautiful Undisclosed Location, where internet access was a slow and unreliable thing. And where there was no TV and no newspapers, except the one with restaurant phone numbers. Besides sleeping, eating, walking, swimming, more eating, beer, shopping, live music, berry-picking, and yet more eating (note absence of *cooking*, an essential ingredient in making it a vacation), I talked to people face-to-face, and I read books. Lots of books. Five non-fiction and two fiction, and now I’m going to tell you about them.

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Fruitbasket turnover

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by liberal japonicus This Guardian article is about the heightened speculation of a Iran strike and the possibility of it occuring before the US presidential election. From the article: Writing in Israel's biggest-selling daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, Nahum Barnea and Simon Shiffer, both respected commentators, said: "Insofar as it depends on Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, … Read more

Complificating Matters

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–by Sebastian There has been a 'why Paul Ryan' explosion on the internet media channels.  Just about everyone is making the analysis too complicated.  There are two essential types of Vice President picks: solidify your base voters or attempt to broaden your appeal to swing voters.  A presidential campaign tends to choose which of those … Read more

a bucket of warm piss thread

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by liberal japonicus A thread for all your Paul Ryan thoughts. My own thought is that they chose him because he presents so many possibilities that the Dems will forget how to be as ruthless as they were with the Mitt Romney singing ad. A target rich environment, so to speak. Here's a quick collection … Read more

Big wheels keep on turning Friday open thread

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by liberal japonicus joel hanes asks us to turn our eyes towards Alabama and this A federal judge this afternoon sentenced former Gov. Don Siegelman to 78 months in prison. U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller handed down the sentence  – 10 months less than the 88 months he originally gave Siegelman — after a day of emotional … Read more

Bigger, better or badder?

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by liberal japonicus A point/counterpoint pair of articles here. An Atul Gawande New Yorker article about how 'Big Med' is a solution to rising medical costs, comparing The Cheesecake Factory with hospital chains. Fascinating stuff. One section about the resistance of doctors and staff to the idea of supervision: Sometimes they resist. “You have got to … Read more

When the rich really were different

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by Doctor Science I got caught up in one of those obsessive desires to find out what something is — a lifelong procrastination trap of mine which the Internet is *not* helping — and found myself at the British Museum website[1], looking at this pot: Vase with turquoise glaze, 17th century China. Porcellaneous stoneware wine-jar … Read more

To have and have not Friday open thread

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by liberal japonicus Tons and tons of stuff to choose from, so, as is my basic principle, I go for the one with the lowest form of humor. Specifically, this: The judges declared that the claim regarding their learned friend's allegedly missing testicles could not be regarded as offensive because it had been levelled "in … Read more