Also, you'd better start making friends with the professor now, because according to the job predictor test, his son will be Emperor of All the World. (Post title: We're all doomed, according to the job predictor test!)
According to Wired News, the Army is looking for spy blogs.
Juan Non-Volokh (I love that pseudonym) links to this article by Nicholas Kristoff in the NY Times (Randommentality/password) that discusses the environmental movement's eroding credibility. I agree with the premise: the more radical environmental groups have no more credibility with the mainstream than your average rightwing militia. The problem as I see it is that there's so much information competing for the national attention that advocacy groups are trying to use extreme scenarios and alarmist rhetoric to grab the spotlight. So long as it's statistically possible, albeit remote, they'll put up the claim. But the average citizen gets so sick of sorting through to separate out all the hype mixed in with the real information, that the entire message is pitched into the big mental circular file like so much junk mail. No science supporting that, mind you, it's just my theory. Yep, there's some irony in that.
On the "cool scientific stuff" side: Eugene Volokh links to a seismic map of the world.
And on legal issues, Orin Kerr brings up a good point: Will Blogs Kill the Law Review Case Comment?
Talk Left notes that Human Rights Watch is reporting that the US has decided to withdraw from the Vienna Convention's protocol of providing consular protection to citizens arrested abroad. Sounds like a really bad idea to me:
According to a decision by the Bush administration this week, the ICJ, or World Court, will henceforth have no power to hear cases brought by countries on behalf of detained non-citizens in the United States. Americans in the custody of foreign countries who have been denied access to their country’s embassies will also not have access to the ICJ.
Okay, it might eliminate the problem of foreign intervention with our trials. But our justice system, as bad as it is, is still generally better than many, many dictatorships' and third world countries' around the planet. The loss of protection for Americans traveling abroad outweighs any benefit, IMHO.
Speaking of our legal system, SCOTUSBlog has a primer on the Guantanamo cases.
Glorious Nonsense has colon pictures up. Sorry, I still think it's stupid. I'd go see it, because I'm just like that. But it's definitely stupid.
From the "I really shouldn't be laughing at this" department:
Janet Reno Rescues Terri Schiavo in Daring Raid
By Scott Ott on U.S. News
(2005-03-11) -- Shortly after midnight last night, former Attorney General Janet Reno and a squad of retired agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) stormed a Florida nursing home and rescued Terri Schiavo from her impending death...
Also from Scrappleface:
'No Croc Left Behind' to Help Evolutionary Failures
By Scott Ott on Science
(2005-02-24) -- After the recent discovery of two ancient crocodile skulls which closely resemble modern crocodiles despite 40 million years of evolution, the National Science Foundation (NSF) today issued a grant of $56 million to fund the new 'No Croc...
Salon has this article on blogging your private life, pro and con:
"If producing a regular column is living out loud, then keeping a daily blog is living at the top of your lungs. For a couple of months there, I was shrieking like a banshee. I realized in the wake of my online suicide note that for the sake of my family and my fiction, I needed to turn down the volume a few notches. I needed to give up the blog."
(Note: No, Stef, I don't have a username, I just mute the speakers and suffer through the ad for the daily pass.)
Dave Barry critiques the trend toward parenting coaches:
I don't know how you were raised, but my mom would not have called a coach in this situation. She would have compromised our butts right out of the house.
Instapundit discusses diversity in the blogosphere and the perceived dearth of women (We're here! We're here! We're here!)
In part, he discusses the idea of men pulling punches and not being as snarky toward a woman for fear of being labeled sexist, or women not being linked to because readers fear they're too sensitive to handle criticism. I don't know about the rest of the 'net, but I firmly believe that the people in my blog-circle would call me on my crap, and rightly so. Besides, I'm a freaking lawyer. If I tended to get sobbing fits because I couldn't handle someone criticizing my arguments, don't you think I'd've found another line of work? My suspicion is that blogging started out more prevalent among men because they tend to get the new techno-toys first. It always takes longer to play catch up, but it will even out. And, yes, there are still some stereotypes that women are all about ranting hysterically or substance-sparse "can't we all get along" rhetoric, and not into logical debate of issues. That could skew readership male.
I'd like to see a statistical study to see if that's accurate. If we're allowed to.
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