Another Commercial Interruption: Newton and the Counterfeiter on Audible.com dept.

Just in case you are one of those who can’t resist having books read to you (my son, e.g.; me too), I just got word that Audible.com has included Newton and the Counterfeiter in a “buy bestsellers for cheap” promotion — my humble offering apparently being one of their better sellers in the physics category. [...]

Best line of recent memory

I wish I’d had Aimai’s succinct wit on this story, but I didn’t, so go chuckle with her. Image:  Priapus fresco at the Casa de Vetti, Pompeii.

We Pause for this Commercial Interruption: Newton and the Counterfeiter/Kindle redux edition

Well, that was an annoying ride. I mean the seemingly endless saga of achieving the possibilty of Kindle/ebook sales for my poor but honest offering, Newton and the Counterfeiter. (Dead tree versions here:  Amazon, Powells, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound and  across the pond at Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones, Blackwells, Borders, and John Smith & Son.) Loyal readers may recall that it took more than six [...]

Why Friends Don’t Let Friends Read McArdle: Keep the Military Dumb edition, part one

Alright.  The title is, perhaps, a little hyperbolic.  But, channeling my inner McArdle, such is blogging. This recent little gift from McArdle is not quite as disastrous as it could be, in fact…but I do want to pick up a little bit of the folly within because I think this post captures so much of what [...]

Why Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Megan McArdle: Keep the Military Dumb edition (Part 2)

So, further to the piece begun below.  There, we left matters at the problem of McArdle’s unwitting conflation of education provided to the military by for-profit and not-for-profit. (Part one of the piece here.) Next:  McArdle says “the civil service system, the army, and various local departments like teachers, all automatically reward you with higher [...]

Albert Einstein’s Christmas Message: the Modern GOP Fail/Health Care Reform edition

I’ve been reasonably obsessed about the health care debate — its certainly had an impact on my blogging output, among much else. Like many of us, I suspect, I got trapped in the horror/fascination of the battleground within the Democratic party:  what would happen to the public option, abortion language, why we can’t offer Medicare [...]

Self-Aggrandizement Alert: Newton and the Counterfeiter/New York Magazine edition

Well, this was a nice way to start the holiday week.  New York Magazine named Newton and the Counterfeiter one of the ten best books of the year — number five in fact. To allow the Devouring Culture Vulture, AKA Sam Anderson to deliver words that would make me blush to write, this is what [...]

Does Andrew Sullivan Know About This? Or Tbogg?

Personalized artwork made from your DNA — or, as in the photo accompanying this article, of your beagle’s DNA. Bonus aside: don’t be fooled by the excesses of cute displayed by beagle – owners.  These are nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw critturs.  Make no mistake. Hug a beagle and you caress a killer: Image:  Bruno Liljefors, ”Beagle and Fox,” 1885.

Another Megan McArdle post — but only a little one

Not the promised mountainous tome, but via Sadly No, I find that the Divine Ms. MM has taken up comedy writing. Her attempt at humor? …it’s kind of funny that Al Gore’s speeches and summits like Copenhagen seem to have an unfortunate tendency to be beset by cold snaps and blizzards. Ah yes.  Snow in [...]

If They Can’t Handle Pelosi…

How on earth can the American people trust the GOP to stand up to an actual, you know, adversary? See this from TPM for the latest in utterly pathetic weakness from the party of nursery school. Consider this a keep-the-blog-fires burning post while I finish up another one of my steaming heaps of verbiage on [...]