No what?

haha wow, unbelievable.

Heh

I hope this works in my office...

Blast From the Past

So when seeing what Pandora had to offer for artists with a likeness of Fiona Apple, it played this song... which made me laugh out loud and then I was overcome by the desire to do the robot.



You know you want to do it...

Care Bear Stare Effect

This is old, but I think he's got it right. Click that.

Let 'em fornicate

For the record, this is my theory in terms of economic impact:

availability of low cost birth control < unplanned pregnancy < government funded abstinence programs

What I'm getting at here is, economically, the most efficient thing that could be done is to correct the mistake, in the Deficit Reduction Act from 2005 which led to the large price increases in birth control available from on-campus medical providers. College and university health centers were accidentally left off the list of providers eligible for pharmaceutical discounts. Furthermore, spending $1 billion dollars on an abstinence program that provides no signs of success, instead the teen birth rate has increased for the first time in 14 years. It seems like the least efficient thing we could be doing is funding this sort of program... maybe we'd be better off just letting this one go.

More from Slate.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, CAMEL!

Rolling Stone magazine and Camel have succeeded in pissing off about 186 Indie artists and are now getting their just deserts.

On Monday the 186 artists filed a class action suit against Camel, Rolling Stone and their parent companies R.J Reynolds and Wenner Media, respectively, after artists names were used in the "Indie Universe" feature which appeared within a fold out for Camel's "The Farm" campaign.

Read more here.

Cato Says "It's a moment of idiocy" and it is

Cato, you mad? Yesterday, the House passed a long debated energy bill that the president will be signing today. Cato calls it "A moment of idiocy, of real idiocy" as a jab at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who announced to politicians just before voting that “You are present at a moment of change, of real change.”

Although I do see the need for environmental concern and efficiency, I don't think it should come at a cost of regulation. It is a dangerous thing to let regulators get their grubby little hands on something that is much bigger than themselves. As Cato points out in their blog, the impact of this bill will impact a lot more than meets the eye. Including the price of automobiles. On the other hand, it seems likely that the price of hybrids may fall comparatively.

touche

Aw snap, Slate!

New book

From Howard Bloom's the Lucifer Principle:

" We must build a picture of the human soul that works. Not a romantic vision that Nature will take us in her arms and save us from ourselves, but recognition that the enemy is within us and that Nature has placed it there. We need to stare directly into Nature's bloody face and realize that she has saddled us with evil for a reason. And we must understand that reason to outwit her.
For Lucifer is almost everything men like Milton imagined him to be. He is ambitious, an organizer, a force reaching out vigorously to master even the stars of heaven. But he is not a demon separate from Nature's benevolence. He is a part of the creative force itself. Lucifer, in fact, is Mother Nature's alter ego."

Holy legal war

Apparently, in response to a legal disagreement over a plot of land in Dhanbad India the Judge has subpoenaed two Gods. The plot of land adjoins two temples dedicated to the Gods Ram and Hanuman. The priest claims the land belongs to him while the congregants insist it belongs to the Gods.

Read more about it from Reason.

Cost-Benefit analysis of going green

This article provides a fairly objective look at the benefits and drawbacks to electric cars in comparison internal combustion engine cars that are on the more fuel efficient side. It brings up some interesting points such as the fact that the electricity used to charge electric cars often comes from coal. Electric cars still come out ahead slightly in terms of overall emissions, but it is interesting to take into account the externalities involved.