That's No Way To Start A New Decade

Ugh. Michelle Malkkkin will be a guest for three hours on Book TV on 3 January 2010.

Hey C-SPAN standards: Your slip is showing.

Complain here.

Krebs Leaving WaPo

Brian Krebs has announced he is leaving the Washington Post. He does not say why, although he says he will remain on the computer security beat. Let's hope so -- he's one of my first stops.

His final Security Fix post is here and his new personal site is here.

Christmas Pun of the Day

Paul Krugman on the new bosses in the Republican Party:

No, Virginia, at this point there is no sanity clause.

Yes, Yes, Yes!

Here is a suggestion from Garry Emmons I heartily second: corporate leaders should stop reading Ayn Rand and start reading John D. MacDonald.

Everyone else, too, I'd say.

... even Travis McGee dismisses her writing as "portentous gruntings."

(h/t: NYT's Idea of the Day)

Teach the Controversy!!!1! (Chemistry Edition)

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(previously)

(h/t: KK | pic. source: uberg33k)

The Party of No

Krugman:

The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.

"Toxygene"

Here is a song from last millennium that I just heard for the first time last night. The video may strike you as either comical or warmed-over Clockwork Orange, depending on your mood, but it's the music we're after here. Play loud.

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Update

2022-08-25 Video no longer available. Sorry.

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Kind of an interesting history to this song.

(h/t: Space Station Soma)

LOLquatch

That John Hodgman is pretty funny:

(orig. pic. loc.)

WATCH!

The first one was my favorite:

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Great tagline at the end, too.

(h/t: twishtoo)

The Real Question Is: How Much of the Package Will They Show?

Lede from the NYT:

Stephen Colbert has joined the legions of athletes and swimsuit models to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The host of Comedy Central's ''The Colbert Report'' appears on the front of the magazine's latest issue wearing an Olympic speedskating uniform.

Levi Johnston, eat your heart out.

(?)

Your Moment of Eye Candy

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The above is a Chondrocladia lampadiglobus -- a Ping-Pong tree sponge, to us non-Latins -- and believe it or not, it is a carnivorous creature, according to Olivia Judson. Next time you're 20,000 leagues 1300 fathoms under the sea, look around.

Oh, and to her main point: next year (2010) will be the International Year of Biodiversity, and you should read her post for many reasons, but especially for the toast at the end.

(Above picture originally published in “The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss” by Claire Nouvian/Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. It and several more equally amazing can be viewed in a slideshow.)

Why Doesn't Obamacare Cover These???1?

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(pic. source, via mostly harmless, via Three-Toed Sloth, via claymisher)

Deep Thought

How come no one ever talks about seeing the last robin of fall?

NYT: FTW

James Fallows has an instructive post up that looks at the difference between the reporting of the NYT and the WaPo on the issue the denialists would like to call "Climategate."

(h/t: graz)

The Risk of Excessive Self-Referentiality

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(h/t: KK, via email)

Deep Thought

Here's a thirty second clip from a fascinating diavlog between Razib Khan and David Sloan Wilson that bears frequent repetition:

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If you'd like to watch the whole thing -- and I strongly recommend it if you'd like to learn something about group selection -- visit the show page. There are also video and audio download links there, if you'd rather not stream.