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March 16, 2005
Some bad, some good.
A first for this blog, but probably not the last. Many things that I read or thought about today, some good, some bad:
Paul "Give me another war" Wolfowitz is Bush's absurd pick for the head of the World Bank. Especially sad considering that he could have had Bono. But maybe not that surprising considering his pick of John "The U.N. doesn't exist" Bolton for the ambassador to the UN position. Plus, two democratic senators (from Hawaii no less) failed to use all the neurons in their brains and allowed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to be flagged as an industrial development site. But at least the California constitution doesn't forbid gay marriage anymore (predictably, Bush backs bigots in response).
Religiosity is 40% genetic. And pastors have recently taken to evangelizing in the land of the godless: the British supermarket? Actually, perhaps this says something about why Americans are so religious. Think: genetic selection.
The X-chromosome is making lots of headlines. Seems it's a lot more complicated than anyone expected (and it was already pretty complicated). And then there's the amazingly slick idea to track the movement of nucleotides in DNA by creating a phony fifth base.
The real online pirates are a pretty interesting bunch. Although they still get caught by the Feds, and then interviewed by journalists. How long has identity theft been a problem in the US? How long have US companies been little better than a leaky bucket for our personal information? Congress may finally be realizing that this is a topic on which it's better to side with voters.
The finance pirates (or, as they are lovingly called in the movie Igby Goes Down, neo-fascists) also took several hits this week (oh, there's another hit). I'm not entirely convinced that corporate America is actually changing for the good, or if its dirty ways are just being pushed further underground. Let's just say there's a lot of hard work to be done before my faith is restored.
And finally, who says Ivy League professors are boring? Jon Stewart with Professor Harry Frankfurt from Princeton "On Bullshit".
There, and now you know most of the sites I visit on a daily basis.
p.s. Who says IRC isn't useful?
posted March 16, 2005 11:58 PM in Political Wonk | permalink