There's something about the primary season - or, at least I think that's what it  is - that pushes Chris and me into bizarre policy conversations of the "this is the way to fix everything" variety. Most of our magic bullets would never fly because all of them screw someone in a pretty serious way. But ( Read more... )

Dear Livejournal Genie,

I need to find calendar software that I like and will use consistently. I've tried iCal, which has most of what I need, but I get frustrated with its limited functionality in the "to-do items that repeat" category. I've tried Sunbird, which also has most of what I need, but it is always as slow as molasses in January and I'm ( Read more... )

 I've been deliberately trying to avoid things like this piece from The Nation lately, because they rip large holes in my worldview and make it hard to get out of bed in the morning when I know that my taxes support this horrific... I don't even know what to call it anymore. Nightmare? So much more than the sanitized and often heroic image that ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Because it's the end of the semester and I am buried in finishing a big milestone-ish paper, student papers to grade, posts to write about all kinds of things (food, globalization, stuff I've watched recently, etc), and life in general, you get this lovely piece of history instead. A green and toothy incarnation of Cookie Monster eating a computer ( Read more... )

Anyone know of a good vegan cheesecake recipe? (Preferably one that you've made and enjoyed ( Read more... )

Or at least a more amusing place...
Love it.

I saw many Molly Ivins obits yesterday, but this one from The Nation actually made me cry. I think it was this part that did it (or maybe it's just been too many deaths that have touched my life in the past two weeks):

...The cheers came loudest from those distant corners of Kansas and Mississippi where, often, her words were the only dissents that ( Read more... )

I think that everyone should read these at some point:

- Michael Pollan on food in this week's NYT Magazine.
- Expansion of executive power, part 5843 in today's NYTimes.
- The LA Times on security clearances, secret identities, and the Libby trial.
- A Rolling Stone feature on coal power plants.
- Another Rolling Stone feature on pig factory ( Read more... )

(This began with a comment that I made in Heather Corrina's journal. Heather rocks.) The other day, I saw this article about doctors increasingly turning away from conventional specialties and towards aesthetic surgery in the NY Times (free reg or Bugmenot). It includes this gem:

As one of the owners of a medical spa in Brooklyn that opened in ( Read more... )