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Paul Krugman: The best places to get sick A dozen years ago, everyone was talking about an American health care crisis. But then the issue faded from view: A few years of good data led many people to conclude that HMOs and other innovations had ended the historic trend of rising medical costs. But the pause in the growth of health care costs in the 1990s proved temporary. Medical costs are once again rising rapidly and the U.S. health care system is once again in crisis. So now is a good time to ask why other advanced countries manage to spend so much less than we Americans do, while getting better results.
comment posted at 11:05 AM on Apr-17-05

there have been grass roots campaigns. there have been various petitions. some even tried reverse psychology to try and convince fox to renew arrested development for a third season. now, 15 episodes into the shortened 18-episode season, fox got around to starting its own "save a.d." website. is it too little too late?
comment posted at 7:48 AM on Apr-2-05

R.I.P. Fred Korematsu Fred Korematsu, who unsuccessfully fought Japanese American internment camps during World War II before finally winning in court nearly four decades later, has died. He was 86. Seattle Times...New York Times (reg. req'd)
comment posted at 7:57 AM on Apr-2-05

March To End "Beg The Question" Abuse! For too long this logical fallacy has been misused! Today we take the matter in to our own hands, and march on Washington to demand legislation to preserve the sanctity of language!
comment posted at 11:49 AM on Apr-1-05

Life in the future. In the year 2,000 "everything will be so easy that people will probably die from sheer boredom." Workweeks will be 24 hours and the home computer will be the new status symbol.
comment posted at 6:40 PM on Jan-13-05

The mystery of Stefan Mart and the 'Tales of the Nations'. "The Tales of Nations" was not an ordinary book that you could buy in a book store, and it's mysterious narrator/illustrator disappeared into the darkness of Hitler's Germany, seemingly without a trace. Learn the background, read the stories, and view all 150 fabulous colour illustrations — "small in size, but strong in expression, each a microcosm packed with action, each a feast for the eyes like a beautifully set jewel".
comment posted at 9:00 AM on Jan-9-05

"To Fly is Everything" - A museum of early aeroplane history. Includes galleries of movies of aviation pioneers (watch an early flight from Wilbur Wright's point of view), and links to early aviation patents.
comment posted at 1:37 PM on Jan-3-05

A Most Curious Murder - the Madeleine Smith Story. 'Thursday, 9th July 1857 - The atmosphere outside the High Court in Edinburgh was charged to fever pitch as the crowd awaited the verdict at the end of the most sensational trial of the century. Hanging in the balance was the life of Madeleine Smith, attractive 22 year old daughter of a prosperous Glasgow architect ... '
The site includes, amongst other things, this 1787 directory of Glasgow manufacturers and traders.
comment posted at 10:48 AM on Jan-2-05

Marine Refuses to Use Guns ... Marine Cpl. Joel D. Klimkewicz converted to the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day saints while in the Marines, and now believes that killing is against Jesus' teachings. As such, he refused to train with a gun though he says he would be willing to clear mines and work the front lines. The result is that the military has jailed him for his religious beliefs, convicting him of disobeying a direct order. Anyone think that Bill O'Reilly is going to say the military is trying to destroy Christianity?
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goodbye joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh. 01/01/53 the true gran-daddy of white rock and roll is found dead in the back seat of a caddy.
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comment posted at 11:23 AM on Jan-2-05

Why Does Archbishop Desmond Tutu Hate Our Christian Moral Values? In an interview with MSNBC, the nobel prize winner slams George Bush. "I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here [during apartheid]—vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view."
comment posted at 3:21 PM on Dec-30-04
comment posted at 11:47 AM on Dec-31-04

Carmen, ah! souviens-toi du passé! The 233 [mostly] female cigar rollers (las cigarreras) at Seville's Altadis tobacco factory are urgently trying to defend the last remaining trace of the four-hundred-year-old tobacco industry in Seville, which is certain to cease production by 2007. Responsible for manufacturing six million cigarettes a year for Altadis, las cigarreras claim to be "the rightful heirs of the feisty Gypsy heroine" Carmen, idealized in Georges Bizet's 1875 opera of the same name. "Invoking what they see as Carmen's 'independent, unbending' spirit, these contemporary las cigarreras have organized a protest every Wednesday, between shifts, for more than a year to save well-paying local jobs as well as the factory itself, a link to the gritty history that spawned the romantic legends."
comment posted at 9:06 AM on Dec-29-04
comment posted at 9:48 AM on Dec-29-04

Yes, I know the Tsunami is old news. We've seen it on tv ad nauseum, the same videos on a loop.
Ok, so now? Stop for a second and imagine BEING there.
comment posted at 9:21 AM on Dec-29-04

The Brill Building , located at 1619 Broadway in the heart of New York's music district, is a name synonymous with an approach to songwriting that changed the course of music. Housing legendary songwriters like Carole King, Jerry Leiber, Neil Sedaka, and Burt Bacharach, the Brill Building created some of the greatest hits of the rock'n'roll era. [more inside]
comment posted at 9:45 AM on Dec-29-04

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed [oh and, also see :]
comment posted at 9:57 AM on Dec-29-04

Photos of some seriously vintage clothing from 1830 up to 1910. Some fashions seemed ahead of their time while others were just plain strange. Care for some shoes my pretty?
comment posted at 8:40 AM on Dec-28-04
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"Things just happen, he had decided; they happen and they happen again, and anybody who tries to make sense out of it goes out of his mind."

For this reason, Tom Rath, the hero of Sloan Wilson's 1955 novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, decides not to "make sense" of the the atrocities to which he bears witness during World War II. Instead, he accepts that war is in itself irrational, and that he must simply forget its horrors before returning to civilian life. This New Yorker article contrasts Wilson's 1950's stoicism with today's veneration of the grieving process and suggests that this change in attitude has led us to vastly underestimate our own capacity for coping with trauma. The author also draws some interesting parallels with a controversial study in which victims of childhood sexual abuse were found to be no more likely than others to suffer from mental health problems as adults. Intriguing stuff, to say the least, and as I read it, I can't help but think of Johnny Cash's "The Man Who Couldn't Cry"

(Note: Having thankfully never been subjected to war or sexual abuse myself, I am in no way attempting to demean the anguish of those who have. Rather, I'm more interested in the idea that people are stronger than they give themselves credit for, and how different upbringings affect our experience of trauma.)
comment posted at 8:55 AM on Dec-28-04

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii took three b&w photos of his subjects using red, green, and blue filters. Now, they've been digitally composited, and we have stunning, authentic color photographs of Russia in the early 1900's.
comment posted at 9:24 AM on Dec-28-04

Bush's suit bulge revisited: Originally it was thought to be a hidden radio prompter (that Bush laughed off in an interview). Others speculated it was a bullet proof vest, and maybe troutfishing almost got it right. So now, the latest theory is a portable defibrillator.
Is the president as healthy as they'd want us to believe?
(more inside)
via cryptome
comment posted at 9:41 AM on Dec-28-04

Phuket tsunami photo gallery. Crazy stuff. And the aftermath.
comment posted at 9:30 AM on Dec-27-04

It's Kwanzaa! Today begins the seven day celebration of the principles which make the African People and their descendants, and ultimately Humanity, great. While I don't celebrate, I will take the opportunity to learn more about the holiday and to hold the Seven Principles in mind.

Now it's back to watching my new In Living Color and Chappelle's Show DVDs.
comment posted at 4:13 PM on Dec-26-04
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Affirmative Action hurts Black Students? Richard Sander, a professor of law at UCLA, examined empirical data on black law students' graduation rates and BAR results, and found that affirmative action reduces the number of total black lawyers. He claims that there is a mismatch-effect between the school a student matriculates in and one that he is qualified to attend. Dissenting opinion. Sander's remarks at Volokh. Hat Tip: Kevin Drum.
comment posted at 9:38 AM on Dec-22-04

A glimpse through the Wardrobe (25meg Quicktime file) at WETA Digital's amazing work on The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Seems another one of my childhood favorites is being brought to life by those Kiwi wizards. The minotaurs look simply amazing!
comment posted at 8:18 AM on Dec-20-04

What Killed Hitchhiking? Well, some people don't think it is dead.
comment posted at 10:29 AM on Dec-17-04

My coming My going, Two simple happenings that got entangled... Japanese Death Poems. Small beautiful simple poems written before death. I just discovered them and thought I would share. A few more here
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Millenarianism (or millennialism :) A brief history of the end of the world. Why do end-of-time beliefs endure? [also see, oh and (OT) :]
comment posted at 8:38 AM on Dec-17-04

A right that ends in sorrow , aka the difficulty of standing up for something that really sucks. (via Amy Sullivan)
comment posted at 8:34 AM on Dec-16-04

'Contributed To Culture Of Death' That Spawned His Killer? That's the charge that William Grim, Contributing Editor of the popular conservative web site The Iconoclast makes. There is a thread at Blabbermouth on this, but I'd like to hear what you folks think. Me? It's been a while since I've been called a barbarian.
comment posted at 9:29 AM on Dec-15-04

CARtoons was MAD Magazine for the hot-rod enthusiast, a bimonthly magazine-format comic book which I used to read regularly until it quietly disappeared from the newsracks in 1991 after a 30-year run. Reminded of the magazine earlier I was thrilled to find the website of George Trosley, the long-term CARtoons artist behind Krass and Bernie and the magazine's excellent how-to-draw articles whose results decorated my binders through high school. Those who remember the mag might enjoy the CARtoons archive he hosts, with scans of features and covers and writeups about the mag and its artists, many of whom passed away too soon. Still need a wild hot-rod fix? Ed "Big Daddy" Roth passed away in 2001, but Rat Fink lives on.
comment posted at 12:29 PM on Dec-14-04

HBO's Deadwood is quite possibly the best television show ever produced. Not only is it amazingly gripping stuff, it's also meticulously researched. (Pretty easy to do when the entire city is a registered historic landmark.)
Sure, we all know that Wild Bill and Calamity Jane were real people. As it turns out, though, almost every main character in the show (and many minor ones) had a real life counterpart, as did many of the events.
Deadwood notables EB Farnum, Reverend H W Smith, Seth Bullock and his partner Sol Star, Colorado Charlie Utter, Al Swerengen with his Gem Saloon, and the crosseyed gambler Jack McCall all lived and breathed in one of America's most storied cities.
comment posted at 11:51 AM on Dec-10-04

Deconstructing Dude A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word "dude," contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, slackers and teenagers. An admitted dude-user during his college years, Scott Kiesling said the four-letter word has many uses, all of which express closeness between men in a safely heterosexual manner. How about you? Do you do the dude? If so, does that mean you're white [PDF]?
comment posted at 10:01 AM on Dec-8-04

Mazaltov!!
comment posted at 7:48 AM on Dec-8-04
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Blackadder goes forth. Criticising religion is a "fundamental freedom of society", a leading international comedian affirmed last night, as he headed a coalition opposing measures to outlaw the incitement of religious hatred. Rowan Atkinson, the star of Blackadder, gave an impassioned defence of the right to lampoon religion as he joined Tory, Lib Dem, and Labour backbenchers, lawyers, and academics opposed to part of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill - which today gets its second reading. There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. [more inside]
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