From the BBC: The votes have been counted, the nation has decided and Film 2003 can now announce the Worst Film Ever Top Ten. Titanic AI: Artificial Intelligence Pearl Harbor Vanilla Sky The Blair Witch Project Batman and Robin The Avengers Battlefield Earth Eyes Wide Shut Highlander II – The Quickening I’m an agnostic; I …
The current issue of Washington Monthly has an article suggesting that the military and those around them may be moving from core Republican voters to swing status, mostly due to a perception that Iraq was poorly planned, is being poorly executed, and has no end. The author cites some numbers (mostly anecdotal, since there are …
I can’t stand it. I gave the President the benefit of the doubt on stem-cell research, but not on this one. EPA plans to drop its investigations of 50 power plants for pollution violations. Cui bono? Well: One career E.P.A. enforcement lawyer said the decision, coupled with the changes in the underlying rules, could mean …
The President said federal funds could be used to fund stem cell research on “more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines,” but there’s been a lot of consternation about that number. Now it turns out there are only twelve lines. “Many of the lines sanctioned by the president are not available,” says Leonard Zon, …
The Traditional Values Coalition has targeted NIH as its latest enemy in the culture wars. It seems to think it knows more about what sort of scientific research should be done than the scientists do, and it’s created a list of “questionable” projects and forwarded that list to its Republican allies in the House. The …
53! Edited to Add: Other notable events of the day can be found here. Growing up, the one historical event I always associated with my birthday was the exposure of The Gunpowder Plot in 1605, when a group of Catholic dissenters attempted to blow up the English Parliament with King James in attendance. Later events …
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, by Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed The World). Absolutely fascinating. (Oh, more required? Ok, then.) Winchester tells the story of the volcanic explosion of Krakatoa, a six-cubic-mile island in the Sunda Straits, between Sumatra and Java (note: West of Java, not East, as …
I saw this over at Solonor’s place, and it needs whatever further dissemination I can give it. What if The Lord of the Rings had been written by someone other than J.R.R. Tolkien? Suggested authors include Douglas Adams, Poe, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce (shudder…Ulysses-style?), Hemingway, and on and on and on… Go dip into it …
Back in January of 1974 I was on a month’s leave from the Navy here at my parents’ home in Hawai’i. I spent much of it excavating a hole in the side yard large enough to fit an aluminum-sided pool, and much of the rest of it waiting on the side of various roads to …