Potpourri as the week crosses the half-way point

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SIGH

1. 10/20/08 PHD comic: ‘Academic Salaries’: Yeah, the argument is that they drive alumni donations. Tough. If academia cannot be idealistic, who can be?
2. Selling used CDs is still legal in America: But the Media Moguls keep hoping they’ll get a court ruling in their favor.
3. Is Dennis Kucinich the only person in Congress asking…: I often disagree with Kucinich, and I think his presidential run was quixotic at best, goofy at worst. But sometimes I dream of him as Speaker of the House, and how that might churn up some actual not-bound-by-electoral-considerations debate.
4. TSA didn’t keep track of ex-employees’ badges and…: I’m feeling more secure, aren’t you?
5. Amid Meltdown, N.Y. Prepares For Hard Times : NPR: As much as I have zero pity for all those brokers and such whose bubble-flogging got us to where we are, New York state is facing a serious financial impact from loss of income and capital gains taxes with the disaster in the financial industry.
6. Entire-paper plagiarism: We’re not talking about term papers here, but scientific journal papers. As the center of “scientific legitimacy” extends further than the US or the West, these sorts of things are much more prone to slip in.
7. In Soviet Russia, Lake Contaminates You: Rocky Flats, only an order of magnitude (or two or three) worse.
8. The Things He Carried – The Atlantic (November 2008): Yeah! Feeling much more secure!
9. Huzzah! – *Sigh* I actually liked (original formula) Zima. And it will always share a place in my heart (and my VHS collection) for its early Zany Zesty advertiZing on Babylon 5.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME THINK

1. Speed of eating ‘key to obesity’: And, yes, I am one to wolf down my food. Not sure where I got that habit, but it’s probably worth trying to counter.
2. Finding Hidden Tomb Of Genghis Khan Using Non-Invasive Radar…: GK’s tomb was intentionally hidden, and has remained such. Modern technology may thwart that.
3. That’s What You Get When You Misuse What I Invent,…: (Democracy in Other Countries) .NE. (What Our Democracy Thinks is Correct). I’m a big believer, philosophically, in democracy (pragmatically as well as idealistically), but the idea that just because there’s a democracy somewhere (even if we installed it) they’ll agree with us is narcissistic.
4. Five Guantanamo Prisoners’ Charges Dropped By US: Which sounds like guardedly good news, except that (a) it doesn’t mean they’re actually being released, and (b) it resets the clock on their “speedy trials” as mandated by federal courts. 
5. Joseph To Be First Black Doctor?: And why the hell not? 
6. 10 Best Mainstream Characters in Geeky Movies: What amazes me is how much those characters resonate with this particular geek.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SMILE

1. Photoshop Disasters on Marie Claire photo: Through a looking-glass, clearly. If you’re going to Photoshop your subjects to make them look younger and prettier, be sure and do the same to their reflections on the glass-top table in front of them.
2. New in Labs: Canned Responses: I’m not sure how I’d use this new GMail feature, but it’s kind of spiffy. I’m less sanguine about More changes to Gmail contact manager; what I really want is a push-button way to merge Contact entries.
3. The World of CthulhuTech Gets Weirder and Creepier…: Ancient Ones! Mecha! Fight!
4. Vicar of Dibley eases path for women clergy: Huzzah!
5. True nature of science fiction and fantasy books revealed…: The site is BoingBoinged (suspended due to traffic), but the BB page itself is worth the price of clicking.
6. The AT-ATs Look Lovely in This Light: So wrong, yet so right.
7. Insanely intricate pumpkin carvings: Too much work for me to do, but not too much for me to enjoy.
8. Snap! – Some insanely great high-speed photographs.