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June 2006
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February 2006
Brad DeLong on John Kenneth Galbraith — Notes from an ideological fellow traveller.
John Kenneth Galbraith, RIP — One of the great liberals.
Crooks and Liars copy of the Stephen Colbert bit — The other versions are available at YouTube.
Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner — Part II is here.
Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem) — Somehow I missed this New York Times Magazine article last week.
Critique of important global warming study turns out to be wrong — This article defies summarization, but suffice it to say, a widely cited article that challenged an important global warming study turns out to have a huge error. There's an explanation aimed at laymen in the addendum.
Air America is losing its flagship New York station — Unless they find another station to lease, they'll be off the air in New York.
Decrying Congressional stupidity when it comes to gas prices — I regard it as a positive that on a growing number of issues, you see Republicans saying stuff you'd expect to hear from Democrats and vice versa, even if everything both sides say is idiotic.
Gardening at Gitmo — Your nausea inducing story for today, courtesy of Eric Umansky.
Summary of Jane Jacobs' thinking on cities — I still haven't read her book.
Obtaining wisdom from computer pioneers — Nat from O'Reilly is looking for suggestions of computing pioneers to invite to speak at conferences.
Interesting comments on not using relational databases for storage — It's hard for me to imagine writing a Web application that doesn't use a relational database.
Utility deregulation screws customers — The theory of competition driving down prices gives way to the reality of a monopolist charging the highest price the market will bear.
John Robb says war with Iran is inevitable and predicts how it will play out — We're up to two things that made we want to throw up today.
Taliban influence in Afghanistan seems to be increasing — Every morning I get up and read something in the news that makes me want to throw up. So I share.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden's defense of fan fiction — Some is good and some is bad, of course, but it's silly to make fun of the form.
18 families have spent millions to lobby for repeal of the estate tax — Their collective net worth is over $180 billion.
Quantifying the effects of media bias — Economists have studied the changes in voting patterns in communities after Fox News arrived to quantify the effects of media bias.
The Ressurection of Al Gore — For the past few weeks I've really been hoping Al Gore runs for President in 2008. Someone needs to put global warming front and center.
Tech companies that went public without taking venture capital — O'Reilly Radar readers come up with a list.
Yet another bad copyright bill — A bill has been introduced in the House to stiffen penalties for copyright violation and strengthen the DMCA.
Man's relationship to food — The enthralling story of a man who went to Italy to learn about meat and living a simpler life.
We need a Democratic Congress to get real investigations — The current Congress actively works not to report important information that it discovers when it comes to the run up to the Iraq war.
Airplanes are not covered under the Clean Air act — Garret on the lawnmower pollution story.
Where pollution comes from — Gas-powered lawnmowers put out as much pollution in one hour as cars do in 13 hours.
WSJ editorial page attacks Juan Cole — When a national newspaper runs a column attacking you, you know you've really arrived.
National security or political security? — Republicans want to pick a fight with Iran in hopes of defeating the true enemy, Democrats.
Political purge at the CIA? — Josh Marshall says the White House is getting rid of CIA employees who aren't politically aligned with the administration.
Jay Rosen on Scott McClellan's legacy — I can't figure out whether he was a useful idiot, or a savvy game player. In the end, it doesn't matter.
President Bush: Federal government invented the iPod — I thought it was invented by Al Gore.
George W Bush the worst President ever? — Sounds reasonable to me.
Economists throw down in court — John "More Guns, Less Crime" Lott is suing Steve "Freakonomics" Levitt for defamation. (Via Margina Revolution)
John Gruber is doing Daring Fireball full time — Count me among the well-wishers.
Rogers Cadenhead's weblog moving service — You can pay him to move your weblog archive from one platform to another.
Rumsfeld says that criticism of war planning is amusing — Retired generals shouldn't criticize the administration because soldiers came up with the plan in the first place.
As John Wooden would say, never mistake activity for achievement — A simple explanation for the Bush administration's swapout of old insiders for new insiders.
Tyler Cowen's dispatches from New Orleans — They are all very much worth reading.
Is Lost a repeat? — I don't even know what to say about this.
Stopping the AJAX performance problems meme before it starts — Tim Bray points out that how AJAX affects server load is completely application dependent.
Billmon on war propaganda — The banality of evil.
The state of the computer book market — These posts at O'Reilly Radar are always interesting.
Someone please help Andrew Brown — He's having continuing problems getting Movable Type to work at pair.com.
Avoiding unhappy people is good for you — Something I've learned on my own without any knowledge of neuroscience.
Intuit "reboots" TurboTax web site on tax day — They claimed it was preventative maintenance -- yeah right.
The Houston Astros break even — For the first time since early in their inaugural season, the Houston Astros' overall record is .500. (Here are all of their season records.)
New US archivist rejects reclassification of documents — This is very good news for people who care about historical research and transparency in government.
Why occupation doesn't work — It seems like any time a country is the occupier or colonizer of another, they treat even the locals who work for them like dirt.
American Idol is popular because it's stupid — So sayeth Greg Beato, and who am I to argue?
Malcolm Gladwell reviews Game of Shadows — He recommends having record setting performances vetted by forensic economists. I'm not so sure about that.
Maryscott O'Connor's response to her portrayal in the Washington Post — Refreshingly thoughtful, mature, and reality-based.
Exercise not only helps you live longer, it makes your brain work better — My project over the past year or so has been to become way less sedentary.
HRW says Donald Rumsfeld should go to jail — Tell me something I don't know.
What's the best evangelical text for liberalism? — To comment on the text of the linked post, anyone who suggests to me that I can find enlightenment through Atlas Shrugged is liable to get punched in the face. (Yes, I have read it.)
Slate on Nike's Joga Bonito ads — I love the campaign, and agree with the sentiment (even if it is just cooked up to sell shoes).
Betting on Survivor suspended due to possible leak — It'll be interesting to see if the leak was correct.
Roundup of Rumsfeld criticism from retired officers — I predicted Rumsfeld would be the first cabinet member to resign when Bush was first elected, how I wish I had been correct.
Tim Bray recap of Canada on Rails — If I'm going to keep using Rails as much as I have been, I'm going to need to make it to some Rails event or another.
Greg Knauss on referential vs experiential bloggers — I'm referential at rc3.org, but in real life I'm more of a mix.
Kathy Sierra: Why face-to-face still matters! — I have worked on many distributed teams, and my experiences tend to confirm that face to face meetings are really important.
Point by point rebuttal of WSJ global warming op-ed — Just in case you happened to read it.
Jacob Weisberg says John McCain isn't really that conservative — He is a Republican beholden to the Republican machine, so who cares?
Middle aged men usually don't read fiction — I find that interesting. It doesn't hold true for me.
The Iran war drums — Billmon sounds the alarm. Bottom line: we invade Iran and I'm moving to Argentina to eat good beef until I keel over.
Cheney booed at Nationals home opener — Annie Savoy in Bull Durham: Walt Whitman once said, "I see great things in baseball. It's our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us." You could look it up.
Would a fence on the US-Mexico border promote illegal immigration? — A Marginal Revolution explanation of why it would.
President Bush knew he was lying about WMD — The Washington Post reports that claims of finding mobile bio weapons labs were known to be bullshit when they were made.
The perverse twists of the immigration debate — I think this debate has cropped up because Republicans prefer to promote ethnic conflict over class conflict.
Slot machines better regulated than voting machines — I think economic analysis would explain why. (Via Making Light)
Tom DeLay's legal corruption — Did you know that it's legal for Tom DeLay to use all the money he raised for his House campaign for his legal defense?
Just the facts ma'am — Bloggers should write simple declarative titles in order to facilitate skimming. I failed at that again on this post.
Sy Hersh on the plan to attack Iran — Bottom line: if Iran decided to make the US occupation of Iraq as difficult as possible, we'd be screwed.
James Governor's analysis of the Red Hat/JBoss deal — Speculation that Oracle will buy out Red Hat. Does IBM need its own Linux distro?
JBoss bought out by Red Hat — Wow.
The bandwidth diet — Dropping tables and using CSS for page layout saved ESPN two terabytes a day of bandwidth. (Via Digg)
Google's lawyers are evil — And ServerBeach is gutless.
An appealing ten point plan? — It sounds oxymoronic but isn't!
Our lawless government and its corporate accomplices — Dangerous times for our constitutional democracy.
Jason Levine on our upside down world — It has gotten to the point that our government is doing so much stuff that I find completely unconscionable that I can't wrap my brain around it.
Are the Democrats more effective than you think? — Amy Sullivan says yes.
Why mainstream country music sucks — Jack Sparks is the Jim Kunstler of country music.
Former Palestinian and Israeli combatants form peace group — I'll take my rays of hope where I can get them these days. (Via Rebecca Blood)
Jon Gruber on Boot Camp — Solid analysis of what Apple is going for here.
The Adium bug that's killing me — Fortunately it has already been found and fixed.
The Web's primordial ooze — Ed Felten recaps Tim Berners-Lee's description of the computing environment that gave rise to the Web.
The missing link — The fossil that demolished a load of spurious arguments.
Shallow faith — Andrew Brown makes interesting observation on the studies testing the efficacy of prayer.
Leslie Harpold explains how and when to write thank you notes — Did I ever tell you that I had a part time job writing thank you notes in college?
Chris Matthews sucks up to Tom DeLay — Insert wry comment about the "liberal media" here.
I hate stoplight cameras — I was gratified to learn that they decrease safety rather than increasing it, and that their main purpose is to rake in cash for the companies that install them.
The Art of War for the anti-war movement — Scott Ritter's strategy guide for building an anti-war movement that people pay attention to.
Apple multi-boot tool goes beta — Boot Camp enables you to boot your Intel Mac under OS X or Windows XP.
Trader Joe's coming to the Triangle — I'm so excited about this that I had to tell somebody.
Wise counsel from Michael Powell — Although, someone needs to tell him that it's the OSI model that has seven layers, not TCP/IP.
Nature responds to Encyclopedia Britannica — It doesn't look to me like Britannica has any legitimate beef with the Nature story.
DeLay out — It's a great day for America.
What's the reason behind incivility online? — Andrew Brown considers the question.
What does it mean to be political? — I like the definition at Medley.
A good question about Flash — The answers are interesting, too.
Baghdad Burning nominated for literary award — It's a shame for her and all of us that Riverbend lives in such interesting times.
We need a new FDR — Stirring post from Jeanne d'Arc.
Max Sawicky favors immigration — So do I.
The Emo Programmer — The least pragmatic Pragmatic Programmers book yet.
New Alliance race in World of Warcraft: wisps — Special racial ability: permanent death! I can't wait.
Slashdot: news for nerds, stuff that's pink — Slashdot is up to its usual April Fools prankery.
Safety-Critical Ajax — I can't wait for the O'Reilly conference on this topic in 2007.