Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,174 entries, all of them here in full.
April 16, 2010 · 370 words
Goldman Sachs Gets Theirs
Ah, lovely! The S.E.C. is finally suing those meretricious smart bastards at Goldman, Sachs for selling their customers the same bonds they were shorting in the market. And which were, furthermore, structured to fail and to make Goldman a ton of money. The instrument in the S.E.C. case, called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one
Read entry →April 16, 2010 · 372 words
New This Week!
Tor Books has done an amazing job of publishing two of my friends on the same day! First up is my former student, Ian Tregillis, who is a Los Alamos physicist, and who in his spare time wrote a trilogy that has me clenching my jaw with bilious envy. Bitter Seeds is the first in […]
Read entry →April 15, 2010 · 134 words
The Truth . . . about Popcorn Lung
I just found out that someone I know has popcorn lung, an irreversible lung disease caused by inhaling the buttery aroma of microwave popcorn, or specifically diacetyl, the chemical used to produce the buttery taste in the absence of actual butter. Diacetyl is also found in candies and wines. [In interests of fairness,
Read entry →April 14, 2010 · 269 words
Watch the Skies!
While in Portales I got to admire Steve Gould’s new iPad, which I have to say is a lovely, shiny toy that for the most part does nothing that other platforms can’t do better and cheaper. It’s an awkward size and my cargo pants would have to be completely redesigned if I were to carry […]
Read entry →April 14, 2010 · 315 words
Political Idiocy Week, #-2
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as the Vatican’s secretary of state is Number Two among the Catholic clergy, was asked yesterday about a pedophilia scandal involving a priest having sex with a large number of underage girls. Cardinal Bertone’s answer: blame the gays!“Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrate
Read entry →April 14, 2010 · 222 words
Political Idiocy Week, #-1
Oklahoma Tea Party types along with conservative legislators are planning to create a new, state-sponsored militia to stand in arms against the federal government, and particularly against the new health care bill.In other words, Oklahomans are planning to give arms, ammunition, and explosives to the same sort of peopl
Read entry →April 13, 2010 · 216 words
Euromos
A year ago today I was in Euromos. We were driving from Bodrum to Selcuk, and on the map, alongside the highway, there was a little star on the map indicating an ancient site. The road wasn’t well marked, but we managed to find it and bump along a rural two-rut lane until we came […]
Read entry →April 13, 2010 · 294 words
Political Idiocy Week, #1
Let’s not assume that this week’s political idiocy is committed only by politicians. John Derbyshire of the National Review, the once-respectable publication founded by noted racist William F. Buckley, has been carrying the flag of white supremacy ever onward!Derbyshire, given the opportunity, to speak before the Black
Read entry →April 13, 2010 · 120 words
Political Idiocy Week, #2
With Congress on a pointless hiatus, the leadership isn’t able to ride herd on its membership, which means that they’re all off in the boonies, demonstrating their general stupidity and uselessness.John McCain is faced with a right-wing challenger in the primaries, one J.D. Hayworth, and so far McCain’s been running sc
Read entry →April 13, 2010 · 120 words
Political Idiocy Week, #3
Well okay, this happened over a week ago, but it’s still priceless. In this video Congressman Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) wonders whether the addition of 8000 troops will cause Guam to capsize. Not the USS Guam, which might make sense, but the island, which last I heard was anchored solidly to the planet. The naval officer [&
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