After Corbu

Sadly, today my hopes that public transit would be a panacea for anti-social behavior were, once again, dashed. PT: not a sufficient condition for people to develop enough affinity for their fellow man to avoid being mean to beggers.
Today, as I left the metro a woman was asking for money for food. […]

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See Ezra try to take food out of my (hypothetical) child’s mouth by downplaying the very real danger of the earthquake menace with his “Robots!  Robots!” flimflam.  In reality these things are not competitive, as the worst robots are brought by quake.
But really: setting most of the snark aside, unless you live or work in […]

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I mistakenly stumbled into the bad side of the internet today when I clicked on Steve Sailer’s name in a comment thread. For those who have been blissfully ignorant of his recent musings hack job: Michelle Obama is stupid, a clear beneficiary of affirmative action, and hates white people. It’s real hardhitting journalism.
This […]

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Not Switzerland, as that country is known for its superior engineering*, and they’d probably scoff at this kind of patchwork, but Swiss Cheese. Below you see a beautiful concrete shear wall, essential for taking wind and earthquake loads from one level of a building to the next — helpful for people not dying! — […]

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With his lever stuck on full pander, McCain had no choice, when confronted with the email revealing Obama’s secret Muslimness, but to release his own plan to help al-Qaeda win the war on terror. I don’t see very many terrorists voting for Obama now, but since the commies are still in his pocket, the […]

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This post kicks off a new series that breaks open the dark underbelly of structural engineering. Full of facts, figures, & fatal catastrophes (!), you won’t want to miss these posts. So grab your slide rule, red pencil, and lack of social skills and come along!
In one of the famous engineering disasters that […]

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WTF:
What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today? On occasion of the election of the 44th President of the United States of America, Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group, challenge you to design a new residence for the world’s most powerful individual. […]

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The Onion has apparently seized control of NOW.  Funny that I don’t recall similar hyperbole from ‘04 when Kennedy went with Kerry over Carol Mosley Braun…

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I’m constantly impressed with how many debates can be reduced to this fundamental conflict.  Mike talks about this conflict within the abortion debate, and it’s pretty clearly active in arguments over death penalty, rehabilitation vs. punishment, drug treatment vs. criminalization, immigration — all the crime & punishment issues.
Compare this to economic policy, where conservatives do […]

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Here’s an excerpt from the best spam comment I’ve received here at After Corbu:
Studies have the past gadoversetamide policies or of drinking detail. Views of the source of time gadoxetic acid when an galantamine interview. From the infect another an active galdansetron syndrome.
It will from those gallamine triethiodide new health influences. The two charged by […]

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This comes from an anonymously witness too lazy to find a bigger blog:
Tom Labonge, my LA city council member and sometime “Mayor of Griffith Park” threatened to close down Griffith Observatory earlier today during a somewhat violent confrontation with observatory staff.
The conflict started when Labonge brought a child cancer victim and their family to the […]

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It’s on fire again today, and while I hope everyone got out safely, it seems like a good time to remember: The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.

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I’m turning out all my lights for an hour as part of a Lights Out LA energy conservation project.  This is a big sacrifice for me, because I’m afraid of the dark.  And I don’t really believe in individual action to fix structural social ills.  But I’m feeling generous tonight (and I need to balance […]

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So there! I’m glad this blog is around because what Christianity really needs is to come off as more confrontational. For now I’m a mere spectator in the Atheist vs. Christianist Great War, but if they keep making fun of Christopher Hitchens, I may take up a sword for Christ.
But the best part of […]

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I hadn’t seen this video of an irritating questioner being tasered/arrested/abused at Kerry’s U of Florida speech, but it reminds me of nothing so much as the lengthy death scene in the first Austin Powers movie. Also: who gave this guy enough activist training to know to be loud and pained under arrest but […]

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I just can’t enough of Pinochet, that lovable clown.  I came across his Killers of the 20th Century profile, and was amused/horrified at the “Kill Tally” section that Pinochet and other killers have, which reads like their Halo stat.  Other notes about the site:
Every killer is male — except for “Bhopal industries incident,” which is […]

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