Bobbles...

An awesome dad.

Why printers don't cancel printing right off...

The secret behind the empty chair.

Prisons for profit. Why change the system to serve justice when people are making money?

We are killing everything....

And after that, I need some animals:

Natural and unnatural disasters....

Oops.

Trojan asteroid in Earth's orbit.

Well, at least he admits it: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”  So, back to the Dark Ages!

Krugman.

We're all gonna diiiiiieeeee.....By diseases:  TB.... West Nile virus.... Hantavirus.... or by extreme weather that causes  flooding, food wars, or by a Romney presidency....

Update:  The Heartland virus....

Update 8/31: Global warming...

Art to Mars to ruined library

Master forger comes clean about tricks that fooled art world for four decades

Mars crater image beamed back by Nasa rover Opportunity

Nasa scientists say crater, formed by an impact billions of years ago, is the largest yet encountered

Dads Reveal How Having Daughters Has Changed Their View Of Women

Sales of plug-in cars

Finding beauty in neglect.

What hide and seek is like from the perspective of the toddler

Blog sprinkles

Keep Sarah Palin off of Discovery Channel:

"I am appalled that Discovery Communications -- home of numerous eco-conscious offerings -- has picked up "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Sarah Palin's anti-nature crusade as governor makes her extremely unsuitable to host a show in your lineup. I urge you to cancel the show before it airs."

Plan B has more options: Understanding Ella, the Latest Controversy in 'Morning After Pills' And a clever response to an anti-abortion ad.

One more reason we really don't want Chinese food products....

According to a 2008 State Oceanic Administration report, raw sewage and pollution from agricultural run-off has polluted 83 percent of China's coastal waters, leading to algae and other problems.

The Council of Dads has advice.

Seventh graders prove science isn't dead.

It's dangerous to ask for help in a forum.

The 7.2 Mexicali, Mexico, earthquake was so powerful that it shifted the Earth's crust 31 inches near Calexico, Calif., according to radar images and data released by NASA on Wednesday.

Irony. And more BP jokes.

We're number one!1! ... uh... We're number seven!!

Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report—an update to three earlier editions—includes data from seven countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on dimensions of care. Compared with six other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives.

Strange what happens when you run out of money, isn't it?

A growing number of centrist Democrats say they’re open to trimming Pentagon spending in the face of record budget deficits and mounting public debt.

Liberal Democrats for years have called for cuts to the massive defense budget to no avail. Even after Democrats regained control of Congress in 2007, their few attempts at reining in defense spending have proven futile, partly because of opposition from centrist Democrats hawkish on defense issues.

Obama and McChrystal.

Fatherly advice

The tales of two fathers:

...we seem to be ignoring the best guide we have to John McCain and Barack Obama's hearts. Both men have written strange, searching books about their fathers. It is in their pages that we can find the clearest -- and most haunting -- clues to their potential presidencies.

At first glance, these slabs of non-fiction -- Dreams From My Father by Obama, and Faith of My Fathers by McCain -- are strikingly similar. They both tell the autobiographical story of an insecure young man who flails around for an identity, and finds it by chasing the ghost of his absent father to a dangerous place far beyond the United States. Yet Obama ended up writing a complex story of colonised people -- while McCain wrote a simple celebration of the coloniser.

[snip]

I do not want to exaggerate the difference between Obama and McCain. The U.S. political system is hemmed in by vast blocks of corporate power and geopolitical pressures. Any president can only nudge this system by inches, in either the right or wrong direction -- but when a giant moves by a few inches, the effect is vast.

From his father, Obama learned to eschew "the confidence reserved for those born into imperial cultures" that they should rule the world their way, with "a steady unthinking application of force". He can imagine the mentality of the boy in Basra whose father has vanished into an occupiers' prison, because it happened to his father and grandfather too. McCain learned the opposite from his father: that the natives only ever learn "to behave themselves" at the end of a big stick. So now we have to ask: which ghostly father will America choose?

Just asking

Have we ever seen the twins interact with their dad this way?