lightcastle

I really wish I was friends with someone who knew something about the Maya, so I could assess if this announcement last week that a German team is going to search for the lost gold tablets of Atlan is at all credible or just a publicity stunt.

It really does sound like the basics of my El Dorado plot for the 4th Raiders movie, though.

November begins, which it means it is time to start worrying about the $WINTERHOLIDAY

Bureaucracy
I need to get a new Canadian Passport and deal with the IRS. I also need to get a mattress.

Technology
I am hoping to get all the info off my backup external before it grinds to a halt. (It got kicked over and has started making terrible grinding noises.)

Arts
Week two of Hope in Chaos at Mainline. Come on out and see it! After that, no plays lined up, although I want to get back to storytelling and some stand up. I am also hoping to find time to put up actual websites.

From elsewhere, lovely underwater photos.

News
From the New York Times, Europe's Plagues Came From China. The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century. The three outbreaks are The Plague of Justinian, the Black Death, and the Plague of 1900.

I think I might want to pick up this book, Proofiness, about the dark art of mathematical deception. The book reminds me of this classic about how gender studies are reported.

Sady Doyle on the Hate Snowball on Stephen Fry, with followup, and the simple eloquence of Stephen Fry's Twitter response to this all.

Random
From Information is Beautiful - Every Doctor Who trip through time

I just watched a discussion on whether or not India's economy is underperforming China's because India is hamstrung by being a democracy, while China has the flexibility of central planning.

I love having access to Al-Jazeera English. (I also appreciate getting to learn about Jerome Kerviel's trial, as well.

Aimai explains negotiation 101, and how Obama seems to have failed that class. (Again, always assuming he wanted a serious reform bill and wasn't aiming for what we appear to be getting all the time.

Mark Kleiman uses BATNA to explain further.

Ed Kilgore discusses ideological differences in the American center-left and Greenwald explains how so much of what is going on involves corporatism.

Meanwhile, Bernacke seems to want 10% unemployment to continue to fight imaginary inflation. Krugman calls it absurd.

I think this ad is making a comment about precision engineering.

Copenhagen climate talks have been suspended as the developing countries walk out in protest.

Tony Blair admits that WMD were just a pretext for ousting Saddam Hussain

I've been sort of surprised be how few "end of year and decade" lists/reviews I've seen. Maybe it would just all be too depressing.

The TSA is still smarting from putting a classified manual up online. For those who didn't hear about it, they "redacted" the sensitive material by blacking it out in the pdf program. As anyone who USES pdfs know, that means you can still just copy and paste the text into another document and read it.

In more news of government greatness, the infamous "Iraq can deploy WMDs in 45 minutes" may have come from a taxi driver.

The Senate has its health care bill out - tentatively - and the NY Times runs down the Senate and House bills.

Your safeword doesn't matter if your top drugs you. A former Speaker of the Missouri House has been charged with a felony after reportedly drugging a woman who had come over for some S&M play. After negotiating the safeword "green balloons", serving her allegedly drugged wine, and then beating her severely, he spent the night.

When he woke up, [the woman] says, he kissed her and said, "You should have said green balloons." He then left and hasn't returned.

Have not been feeling up to snuff the last couple of days. Hopefully the final bureaucratic hurdles to the renewal of my health care card are being cleared and I will soon have the advantage of the social safety net here.

Meanwhile, the health insurance reform debate has kicked into high gear in the Senate. I still remain skeptical of much good coming out of this, but am hoping to be surprised.

Meanwhile, DARPA may have simulated a cat brain with computers. Or not, depending who you ask.

If they have, can it do this?

On the radio this morning here in Montreal, they discussed the need for more economists to take the role of public intellectuals and seriously talk about economic issues. Economics has been unduly and unfortunately focused on the financial markets, causing a serious distortion in the debate and policy. Outside of that, you mostly get the uber-glib "contrarian" approach of the Freakonomics-style crowd, which tends to be deeply unhelpful as well. The two economists discussing this pointed out that in Quebec it is a problem compounded by the fact that almost all the economists they can get to talk come from universities in the US or France, which puts them at a remove from a Quebec perspective.

I flipped on the TV and the memorial service for those killed at Fort Hood is playing. They are doing a tradition called "The Final Roll Call". They do a traditional roll call of the troops, with those fallen not responding. Each non-response is bracketed by a present member, resulting in gaps in the steady "Here, Sgt. Major."

It's a moving ritual, showing the connection and community of those who are lost and those who are still living.

From Mzrowan and Melebeth, a piece from Newsweek about racial discrimination among children. Humans (and children especially) are sorting and classifying experts and are not naturally "colorblind" when it comes to race. It seems verbal discussion of the issue is important.

Indeed, it's the kind of thing we need Anthropolgy for, some might think. (h/t stateofwonder)

You know, sometimes I really lose faith in humanity.

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

And just in case you think people don't really say things like this.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Because, as Buffy says, nothing says "progressive, forward thinker" like letting "The Other" use your bathroom.