The politics of perception is a funny thing. Pass a $780 billion economic bill and a migratory flock of pundits proclaim the failure of bipartisanship. But the New Yorker’s Hedrick Hertzberg sees a metagame silver-lining (well, that, and passing the damn bill): Fifty years ago, the civil-rights movement understood that nonviolence can be an effective [...]
Entries from February 2009
Obama’s Gandhian hardball
February 17th, 2009
Buy land on the moon (and get a teddy bear)
February 7th, 2009
Ever want to really get away from it all? Well if you believe the folks at lunarland.com (a.k.a. the Lunar Embassy), for the low low price of $29.95, you can have your very own acre of moon. Transportation to your starside getaway is sadly not included. But, the astute reader may ask, does the Lunar [...]
Love in the time of calculations
February 7th, 2009
C-3PO: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1. Han Solo: Never tell me the odds. Photo courtesy Balakov, via creative commons license. Divorce is so prevalent nowadays that getting married at all sometimes seems like successfully navigating an asteroid field. So how do you know if your True [...]
From Recipes to Elvis Sightings at the US Copyright Office
February 6th, 2009
Perusing the hinterlands of the US Copyright office yields a wealth of useful information: Wanna protect that killer jambalaya recipe? Just add a dollop of “substantial literary expression” and go to FL 122. Be careful, though; “if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not [...]
