The myth of renewable energy | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The myth of renewable energy | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: There are now seven billion humans on this planet. Until we find a way to reduce our energy consumption and to share Earth's finite resources more equitably among nations and generations, "renewable" energy might as well be called "miscellaneous."

Woman Charged For Telling Airline Her Ex-Lover Was Terror Threat | Fox News

Woman Charged For Telling Airline Her Ex-Lover Was Terror Threat | Fox News: Temple City resident Lizet Sariol called United Airlines on Sept. 25 to say there would "be an emergency" on a Las Vegas to Paris flight, according to a criminal complaint filed by the federal government.

Prosecutors allege the 45-year-old woman was seeking revenge on a man who she'd had sexual encounters with over four meetings -- and who had just unfriended her on Facebook, among other rejections.

What An Angry, Conservative Belgian Could Tell The GOP. | RedState

What An Angry, Conservative Belgian Could Tell The GOP. | RedState: to modernize the decision-making-procedures of this country;

This could be done by simplification. If the laws are too numerous and too complex to be intelligently understood and applied, three things happen. Corruption leads to unethical thievery and dishonest special pleading. Confusion leads to inaction and non-enforcement (which then renders all of the diverse regulations useless to the cause of protecting the tax-paying citizenry.) Complexity leads to human error and unintended consequences. Nobody in their right minds should feel safe or liberated while they live under a government that is too complex to adequately monitor or understand.

Story! Story! ...uh....

Homeland Security: No 'malicious activity' linked to water pump - Springfield, IL - The State Journal-Register: Curran-Gardner water district officials are happy that federal officials have ruled out a cyber attack as the cause of a water pump failure at the district.

“The whole thing was a general pain,” Don Craven, a trustee of the Curran-Gardner Township Public Water District, said Tuesday.

“First, they tell us that it’s the first instance of cyber hacking in the entire world, and everyone goes nuts. Now, all of a sudden, they tell us it’s not.”

A contrary take

The New Inquiry - Grudge Lust: Hate is not the actual opposite of love. Hatred is the opposite of a far more insidious and menacing emotion: apathy. Hazlitt notes that “we cannot bear a state of indifference and ennui.” When the tedium of our lives lulls us into nonchalance, then we are really in danger of blending into the wallpaper, of mattering little and to few. But when one hates something, one takes a stand for oneself and for one’s values. Hating is important because it keeps things interesting. It allows us to take the most omnipresent and heartbreaking emotion in life — disappointment — and weave it into something garish and bright. Even if you are just hurling silent insults at a nemesis who doesn’t know you exist, the effect is the same. You are awake.

Penn State scandal: How what happened in State College forced me to confront my own abuse. - Slate Magazine

Penn State scandal: How what happened in State College forced me to confront my own abuse. - Slate Magazine: I have always encouraged students to bring current events to class, and the Penn State situation was nearly impossible to avoid last week. Still, I had prayed no one would ask about it because I was not sure I could make it through any sort of answer. As I’d feared, the question stopped me cold.

I have spent the better part of my life working to cover wounds from my own childhood abuse, about which I have never spoken publicly. In fact, I’ve hardly talked about it at all; I can count on two hands the number of people who know anything about it. Some of my siblings will learn of it from this article.

The Pest Who Shames Companies Into Fixing Security Flaws | Magazine

The Pest Who Shames Companies Into Fixing Security Flaws | Magazine: When the FBI showed up, Soghoian asked the agents to wait a moment, went to his computer, and posted a quick note to his blog—”FBI are at the door. Off to chat.”—then told them to come back with a warrant. They did. “Having my own computer seized by the FBI turned what had been an academic interest in privacy into something that directly impacted my life,” Soghoian says. “I saw firsthand how a massive government agency can, in my opinion, abuse its power to go after a critic of government policies. That one experience made it very easy to see the government as an adversary, against which I continue to fight.”

When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable?

When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable?: For almost all of the past 60 years, liberals have been in a near-constant emotional state of despair, punctuated only by brief moments of euphoria and occasional rage. When they’re not in charge, things are so bleak they threaten to move to Canada; it’s almost more excruciating when they do win elections, and their presidents fail in essentially the same ways: He is too accommodating, too timid, too unwilling or unable to inspire the populace. (Except for Johnson, who was a bloodthirsty warmonger.)

Is it really likely that all these presidents have suffered from the same character flaws? Suppose you’re trying to find dates online, and everybody you meet turns out to be too ugly. Might it be possible that the problem isn’t the attractiveness of the single people in your town but rather your standards?

THIS IS AWESOME. And sucky for the sea creatures.

BBC Nature - 'Brinicle' ice finger of death filmed in Antarctic: With timelapse cameras, specialists recorded salt water being excluded from the sea ice and sinking.

The temperature of this sinking brine, which was well below 0C, caused the water to freeze in an icy sheath around it.

Where the so-called "brinicle" met the sea bed, a web of ice formed that froze everything it touched, including sea urchins and starfish.

The unusual phenomenon was filmed for the first time by cameramen Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson for the BBC One series Frozen Planet

Debunking Obama’s So-Called Leadership Failure -- Daily Intel

Debunking Obama’s So-Called Leadership Failure -- Daily Intel: What is at least somewhat remarkable is that Republicans have taken up this talking point as well. Today’s The Wall Street Journal editorial page shakes its head that Obama should have “honored the findings of his own Bowles–Simpson deficit commission.” A companion op-ed by Representative Jeb Hensarling, a member of the supercommittee, laments that Democrats rejected “the approach to tax reform used by recent bipartisan deficit reduction efforts such as the Bowles–Simpson fiscal commission.” That would be the same Bowles–Simpson plan that the Journal editorial page opposed and that Hensarling voted against.

Pamela Geller: Beware "Stealth Halal" Turkeys This Thanksgiving | Mother Jones

Pamela Geller: Beware "Stealth Halal" Turkeys This Thanksgiving | Mother Jones: Now, assuming Geller's right about Butterball turkeys being halal, you might think that in a capitalist economy, halal turkeys are a sign of meat sellers responding to market demand for food prepared a certain way. You might even be tempted to observe that Muslim Americans marking a secular, American holiday celebrating pluralism and freedom from religious persecution might be a sign of the extent to which American Muslims have assimilated into American culture. What you didn't know was that when markets respond to the demands of Muslim consumers, freedom dies.

Libya: Post-Khadafy

Libya: Post-Khadafy:

It's been just over a month since the capture and death of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy, ending his 42-year reign. Since then, the rebels have declared that the nation is liberated, installed a transitional government, and started the process of writing a constitution. Still, substantial problems remain. Pockets of fighting have erupted among rival tribes and some rebels have refused to give up their cache of weapons. Doctors continue to struggle to treat the wounded and sick, with a few of the most severely injured being sent to rehabilitation centers in Boston and elsewhere. Last weekend, Khadafy’s son, Seif, was captured and could face war crimes for his part in the conflict. -- Lloyd Young (EDITOR'S NOTE: We will not post a Big Picture on Friday, November 25, due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.) (40 photos total)

Anti-Khadafy fighters acknowledge the crowd during a review of the brigades from the eastern region to commemorate the liberation of Quiche in Benghazi Oct. 27. (Esam Al-Fetori/Reuters)

The other side of a story

Shame On You, Wall Street Journal - Onward State: It’s a powerful message that the only real damage from the “riots” two weeks ago came in the form of a tipped news van. I don’t mean to condone the actions of a few idiots–it was wrong, in every way–but it was emblematic of our frustration with a media that came to Happy Valley with one goal in mind: burying our iconic coach.

And now, a fortnight later, with the damage already done, The Wall Street Journal has joined those ranks, running a story that not only fails to be timely, but is also hardly fair and blatantly unbalanced.

It’s shocking and discouraging–if not completely unsurprising, given how this month has gone–to see a major newspaper give a forum to a disgruntled former employee for the voicing of grievances. Vicky Triponey, the former (and disgraced) Vice President for Student Affairs at Penn State, clearly went to the newspaper, selling a story, and in another sad chapter of this affair, the Journal bought it.

Friedman is right

Go Big, Mr. Obama - NYTimes.com: Obama aides argue that so many G.O.P. lawmakers are committed to making his presidency fail, or have signed pledges to an antitax cult, that they would never buy into any grand bargain. I think that is true for a lot of Republicans in Congress. But I have some questions: Why are the Republicans getting away with this? Why are so many independents and even Democrats who voted for Obama sitting on their hands? Obama owns the bully pulpit of the presidency and he’s losing to Grover Norquist? Also, assuming it is all true about the G.O.P., how can Obama trump them? I think he can, if he leads in a new way.

American troop deployments: Boots on the ground | The Economist

American troop deployments: Boots on the ground | The Economist: Where American troops have served during the past 60 years

THE American government is keen to show its commitment to security in Asia by putting boots on the ground there. As this analysis shows, the number of American troops (Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force active duty personnel) in Asia is only slightly smaller than the number in Europe, where Americans in uniform are largely a hangover from the carve-up of the continent at the Yalta conference in 1945.

Also Clyburn, and Becarra, right?

Jon Kyl’s search-and-destroy mission - The Washington Post: “Walking napalm” is how one Democratic aide involved in the supercommittee described Kyl this week. And if the senator makes some mistakes as he burns down the village — well, that’s just a cost of doing business. Earlier this year, when Kyl was leading an effort to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, he claimed on the Senate floor that abortion is “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” The actual number is 3 percent. An aide to Kyl explained: “His remark was not intended to be a factual statement.”

As Kyl leaves the Senate, he will be remembered as a lawmaker who intended to be not factual but destructive.

Questlove should apologize for the sex-based insult

Why Jimmy Fallon Apologized To Michelle Bachmann -- And Why It Doesn't Matter - Business Insider: The Roots didn't start out as a late night orchestra.

They're a multiplatinum, groundbreaking band with scores of fans -- in fact, when Fallon's show first launched, the idea of them becoming a group with a day job (or, rather, a late-night job) was baffling.

The gig worked out because Fallon's show is innovative and has a loose fan intimacy. The Roots' cred came out unscathed, and Fallon has always treated them as part of the cast, not backup singers.

And while host Fallon may have over 4 million Twitter followers, the band's de facto leader Questlove is no slouch with 1.7 million.

He hasn't made any conciliatory statements. Fallon's word will likely be the last one -- but it still means only one of the show's stars apologized.

No integrity

News Desk: Why Didn’t Reporters Call Romney a Liar? : The New Yorker: This is one of those cases where a candidate has put out something that is demonstrably false. If a journalist or writer quoted someone in such an intellectually dishonest way, you would never trust the person’s writing again. And yet this episode is being reported by some as a clever tactic by the Romney camp to spark a debate about the ad’s accuracy that will serve to highlight its overall message that Obama has been a failure. (See, it worked!)

Here’s one example, from a very fine reporter at Politico whom I do not mean to pick on:

“The sicario: A Ju�rez hit man speaks” by Charles Bowden (Harpers) � Various Enthusiasms

“The sicario: A Ju�rez hit man speaks” by Charles Bowden (Harpers) � Various Enthusiasms: I am ready for the story of all the dead men who last saw his face.

As I drank coffee and tried to frame questions in my mind, a crime reporter in Ju�rez was cut down beside his eight-year-old daughter as they sat in his car letting it warm up. This morning as I drove down here, a Toyota passed me with a bumper sticker that read, with a heart symbol, i love love. This morning I tried to remember how I got to this rendezvous.

I was in a distant city and a man told me of the killer and how he had hidden him. He said at first he feared him, but he was so useful. He would clean everything and cook all the time and get on his hands and knees and polish his shoes. I took him on as a favor, he explained.

I said, “I want him. I want to put him on paper.”

And so I came.

The End of Borders and the Future of Books - BusinessWeek

The End of Borders and the Future of Books - BusinessWeek: The one thing Borders did have going for it was its huge selection, yet even that wasn’t worth as much as the company thought. An average Borders superstore stocked around 140,000 titles at immense cost, but if a customer craves selection, no store can compete with the long tail of the Internet. Maybe more crucially for Borders, the assortment of titles that provided the key to its identity didn’t give it a competitive edge over Barnes & Noble. Mark Evans, a director of merchandising strategy and analytics at Borders until 2009, says that the company surveyed customers to understand why Barnes & Noble, with its slimmer selection, continued to clobber them in terms of year-over-year growth, average sales per store, and even the number of books sold at each location. “Customers didn’t notice our larger assortment of books,” Evans laments. “They didn’t care.”