Like Satan, he is known by many names—Sinterklaas, Père Noël, Tomte—but we Americans call him Santa Claus. The long white beard, red outfit, reindeer, etc., all seem like givens to […]
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I, for all intensive purposes, am a Libertarian. The Libertarian Party is running Bob Barr as a candidate for President. Living in California, I also happen to believe that my […]
In a front page story at the NY Times today, Bill Vlasic describes efforts by Nissan and the Federal government to cultivate the first generation buyers of the Nissan Leaf, […]
If the The Noguchi Museum’s 25th anniversary exhibition were an episode of Friends, it would be titled “The One Where Isamu Became an Artist.” On Becoming an Artist: Isamu Noguchi […]
Yesterday my boss asked me a question out of the blue. “Didn’t you used to sell stocks?” “A long time ago,” I said. And with that, he began to tell […]
I had lunch with a buddy last week and he asked me what I thought Facebook would do about mobile location. I told him that I had no idea, but […]
Google Streetview now lets you visit Pompeii, farmers in Hawai`i are eligible for disaster money for vog damage and National Geographic joins the SB fun.
Eruptions will be on a little break for a week … but before that, a few updates including fire fountains at Slamet.
Monday is here already and although lots of folks in the States have today off (Labor Day), I don’t (from blogging or teaching)! Some news: There is a whole lot […]
BY delicious irony, the local Member of Parliament for the impoverished Atacama region of Chile – which includes the doomed mine of San Jose – is none other Isabel Allende. […]
A study released this week by the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning British think tank, criticizes the UK media for engaging in a dominant “alarmist” interpretation of global […]
Why are we using 1970’s style distribution techniques for anything in 2010? I was tooling through the black conservative website Booker Rising when I came across a comment by one […]
“Today, black nonmarital births have soared to more than 72 percent among non-Hispanic blacks, compared with about 28 percent for whites,” laments Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune.
I don’t have to write anything today, because the professionals have done my job for a change. Eugene Robinson, Frank Rich, and Maureen Dowd, who are all political pundits I […]
n In London Orbital, writer, walker and Londoner Iain Sinclair approaches his favourite subject – his home town – by circumambulating it. The book details his trek along the M25, […]
n … then “Jupiter would be revoking democracy in Russia, Saturn would be curling in Canada, Uranus would be trying to figure out how to speak Kalaallisut, Neptune would be […]
In a new campaign advertisement (above), Senator John McCain focuses on global warming, framing his position as a pragmatic “middle way” approach between the two extremes of denying there is […]
In its most recent issue, The New Yorker magazine revisits one of its most famous covers ever. Saul Steinberg’s cartoon on the front page of the 29 March 1976 issue […]
Tolkien himself wrote that “as for the shape of the world of the Third Age, I am afraid that was devised ‘dramatically’, rather than geologically, or paleontologically.”
Except for some of the harsh, impermanently inhabited and sparsely visited inlands of Kerguélen, there are no places left on Earth to name. Those with a penchant for baptising should […]
n Ever since the Mexican-American War (1845-49), the Rio Grande has been the border between the two nations from El Paso to the Gulf, giving Texas a natural southern boundary. […]
This parody map shows the world as Ronald Reagan (US president 1980-1988) might have imagined it. Even as parody, it indicates an interesting duality: on the one hand, it presents […]
Speaking of green prefab houses, how many square feet, exactly, do you require before you’ll call it home? What about 220? I realize that, as a recently apartment-searching New Yorker […]
If Europe has one defining cultural characteristic, it is that it has none. This may sound like too neat a paradox, but it’s not that far from the truth. There […]
This crazy scheme would have restored the prehistoric land bridge between the UK and the Continent
The Vikings set foot in America just over a millennium ago, but credit for the discovery generally goes to Columbus, who only stumbled upon the New World almost 500 years later. […]
The application of the suffix -stan (Persian for ‘home’) generally refers to countries in central Asia – in fact, the formerly Soviet states that occupy Central Asia are sometimes referred […]
nn nn Rarely is the question asked: What if Italy had won the Second World War? The more frequently asked question is: What if Germany had won the war? Italy […]
Financial regulatory reform will soon be a reality, almost two years after the devastating financial crash of 2008. A 2,300 page bill was passed by the Senate in a 60-38 […]
Prester John as virtual as he was virtuous, the legend literally too good to be true.