elfs | Brains, All Covered In Live Virus Edition... (Reply)

McCain's ground game in Florida... what ground game?: Steve Benen tracks through several articles and comes to the conclusion that McCain's "must win" state of Florida, the one that decided it for Bush in 2000, is going to Obama. Sullivan noted last week that Governor Crist believes his own party is exaggerating claims of voter fraud in the state.
Sarah Palin: The Candidate From Wikipedia: A couple of weeks ago, I saw Adam Brickley, an early 20-something Republican blogger, on the Colbert Report, confessing to living in his mother's basement while he campaigned on Sarah Palin's behalf to get her nominated to be the VP candidate.
Brickley, a self-described "obsessive" political junkie who recently graduated from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, told me that he began by "randomly searching Wikipedia and election sites for Republican women." Though he generally opposes affirmative action, gender drove his choice. "People were talking about Hillary at the time," he recalled. Brickley said that he "puzzled over every Republican female politician I knew." Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, of Texas, "waffled on social issues"; Senator Olympia Snowe, of Maine, was too moderate. He was running out of options, he recalled, when he said to himself, "What about that lady who just got elected in Alaska?" Online research revealed that she had a strong grassroots following; as Brickley put it, "I hate to use the words 'cult of personality,' but she reminded me of Obama."
What's interesting about this is how little Brickley actually knew of Sarah. This looks like a classic case of pure echo chamber politics: nobody knew much, but her "public record" seemed so appealing that the chorus just grew. McCain didn't vet her; he seems to have picked her by popular acclaim. Sarah got ahead the way Sarah always got ahead: by being a beauty queen, whether the skin-deep or the pretty words type.(via FiveThirtyEight)
18 Things Every Homeowner Should Do To Save Money: Not everything I read is politics. I'm burning out a little on it. I just want it to be over at this point. So this little article about home maintenance appealed to me.
Home Maintenance Checklist: Just plain good advice.
Typocalypse!: A short slide show of fonts and the subliminal messages they send you: Warnock Pro: "I am a Wizard!"
Fusion, Antimatter, and The Space Drive: One thing I very much enjoyed about Charlie Stross's Saturn's Children was his depiction of interplanetary travel. Charlie went with a saltwater fission rocket; in the Caprice Starr books I ended up using the antimatter canopy drive. I had to wonder, though, about just how much fissile matter there is within the solar system. Kelvin Long discusses what drives we'll need to get to the stars.
Jillian Tamaki on How to Generate Ideas...: Jillian Tamaki writes about how she generates illustration ideas for professional magazine jobs. Her goal is to capture something compelling about the article in a single image. Still, her advice about how living and experiencing contribute to the final product are invaluable to the creative person.
Orac takes apart Dr. Jay Gordon's latest book: Jay Gordon is the doctor overseeing the care of celebrity Jenny McCarthy's son, Evan. McCarthy has held Evan up a lot in the popular press lately, because Evan has autism and McCarthy believes it was caused by his vaccination schedule.

Gordon had avoided for a long time gonig full vaccines-are-evil like his client, but in his latest book he apparently goes "all in." Orac and James wade through the book's claims and point out how bad the science is.
Doing your resume in LaTeX: Good article, but recruiters always send back, "We'd like it in Word, please."