Monthly Archives: August 2010

Another Example of How Facebook Marks the Beginning of the End

Another example of the slogan, “Friends Don’t Meet Friends on Facebook,” is this grim story, about the consequences of inopportune Facebook postings: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38928514/ns/us_news/ I’ve long felt the long tentacles of the Facebook empire closing around my world, and at this … Continue reading

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Timothy Egan on the Know-Nothings

Today’s NY Times has an excellent piece by Timothy Egan about the current Know-Nothing movement in the country, and its dangerous implications: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings/ What he does best is summarize some of the most ridiculous claims of this fake movement, a … Continue reading

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On Getting Skunked and the Disaster in the Arctic

My cat, Iris, got skunked this weekend, always fun. I woke in the middle of night to a horrible smell, wandered down the hall half-asleep into the living room, and—I’ve been dying to yank out this Weather Channel phrase—”It was … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Weird Science | Leave a comment

On Heidi Cullen's "The Weather of the Future": Forecast for 2050: Your car just melted and your hair is on fire.

Heidi Cullen, a climatologist perhaps most famous for being The Brainy One on The Weather Channel (as opposed to, say, Stephanie Abrams, The Smiling Babe), has a new book out titled The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, … Continue reading

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"When Americans Believe in God, God Will Bless America"

From Huber Heights, Ohio: Today I passed a billboard on I-70 (in Indiana, I think it was) that read WHEN AMERICANS BELIEVE IN GOD, GOD WILL BLESS AMERICA. On the surface that’s innocuous, right? We all want God to bless … Continue reading

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Culture Wars in the Heartland: Guntoters Against Socialism, Or George Saunders Was Right

Live from St. Louis, Missouri: So I’m travelling across Kansas (after a night in Hays, Kansas, at the Candlewood Suites, which should be renamed the Candlewood Sucks) and pass a billboard proclaiming, “Obama Is a Fraud: Demand Resignation Now!” The … Continue reading

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Andrew Ross Sorkin's "Too Big To Fail" = Too Big To Read?

All summer I’ve been trying to get through Andrew Ross Sorkin’s terrific book about the financial meltdown (or as I like to call it, The Big Fall) of 2007-8, Too Big To Fail, and I think I’m going to have … Continue reading

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Tea Party Politics at a Colorado Landfill

So this morning I load up a trailer and head to the Custer County landfill (how backwoods folk in the West dispose of their trash) and the laconic landfill dude notices my Obama-Biden sticker on the back of the car … Continue reading

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Review of Rick Moody's "The Four Fingers of Death"

Here’s a url to my review of Rick Moody’s new novel, The Four Fingers of Death, which appears in today’s Dallas Morning News. TFFOD is awfully long, but I was sucked into the vortex of the middle of the book, … Continue reading

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