Brad deLong, who also is on the Berkeley faculty, is thinking (but waffling) about raising the issue with the UC Senate of revoking Yoo's appointment for moral turpitude. Interesting stuff in the comments; I hope he takes the advice of most to just go for it.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 8:35 AM on April 3, 2008

And whoops, let's post the LINK, damn it:
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 8:35 AM on April 3, 2008

Wow, what a cool concept. I need to spend some time studying it to see if the implementation looks workable, but I love the idea. Thanks, fermezporte!
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 8:57 AM on March 14, 2008

Let me also suggest Algernon Blackwood's classic The Willows.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 1:21 PM on October 31, 2007

Having gone to the Minn. State Fair practically every year since the late '50s, I am heartbroken that I am now moving away bare days before it opens this year. No more to the fair, alas--no more the butter sculpture, the crop art, the Biggest Boar in the State, and the god-knows-what on a stick! (Hoist a pork chop on a stick for me, Astro Zombie...)
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 1:09 PM on August 8, 2007

jokeefe's description of what it's like to have a person with BPD in your life is painfully spot-on. Another portrait of the type, for any Sopranos fans in the audience, is Gloria Trillo (the crazy Mercedes salesperson), who appears to hit seven or eight of the nine criteria. That mix of charm and frantic neediness and rage and seductiveness and self-hatred is pretty pathognomic.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 12:11 PM on August 6, 2007

Someone, I can't remember who or where, wrote recently about how strange it is that Laura Bush can come here and, by her presence, get access to the site and simultaneously disrupt the activities of all the rescue personnel trying to work there, whereas those of us who have spent our lives in this city, driving over that bridge every day, are denied access, and hence are unable to connect the televised/photographed visuals of our new reality with the experiential reality of the bridge we've... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 7:41 PM on August 3, 2007

Good to hear from all the folks who are OK. Like others here, I live less than a mile from the bridge, and have crossed it a jillion times. I"m still in shock.

My power went out right at 6:05, so I'm assuming the electric lines feeding my neighborhood were either on or under the bridge. It meant I had no idea what the hell was going on for about an hour -- I just knew there were innumerable sirens going by, this long endless wail in the very near distance.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 5:29 AM on August 2, 2007

Yeah, it's going to be a while before they have all the bodies recovered and a firm count of casualities, given how tangled some of the cars seem to be with the debris. That's got to be a terrible place to do water recovery, too, since it's right downstream from the Lock and Dam and the currents can be pretty strong. I guess the drought we're having isn't entirely a bad thing; at least it means the water is lower and slower than they might be.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 7:16 AM on August 2, 2007

(...er, than IT might be. Ahem.)

The blame for long-term neglect of infrastructure is something that can (and will) be laid at a whole lot of doors, but maybe at least this will get it some attention, though as COBRA! notes, basic civic maintenance is sadly unsexy. But I tell you what, after this? Good luck to the Vikings in getting public funding for their dream stadium. I think tax dollars will have plenty of other places to go for the foreseeable future.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 7:22 AM on August 2, 2007

Gawkers and rubberneckers at accident scenes typically piss me off, but in this instance I really got the sense that we were all trying to get visual confirmation that this had actually happened. Even after watching it for hours on TV last night, the whole thing seemed surreal.

Exactly. I was down there around noon today on my bike, very embarrassed, and yet feeling this terrible need to actually see it, since I'm still having... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 12:35 PM on August 2, 2007

fff: They've so far identified four definite fatalities, but the death toll will certainly rise once the estimated 20-30 missing people, who are presumably in cars still in the river, are recovered. (Numbers are estimates, and may well end up higher). It could be a while until any final count is available; the cars are entangled with debris, and though the Corps of Engineers is taking steps to lower the river level, the currents (just downstream from St. Anthony Falls) make this a dangerous... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 6:31 PM on August 2, 2007

It could take a while to get all the victims out -- it sounds like in some cases it'll require shifting big chunks of debris, which is not only hazardous, as COBRA! pointed out, but also may be something they'll want to postpone until they've finished the investigation (sort of like leaving a crime scene intact until the forensics scientists have done their thing).

At least this didn't happen during spring flood season, or (possibly even worse) midwinter. If you... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 9:11 AM on August 3, 2007

Thanks so much for the link, dersins -- this is wonderful. There's nothing radically new in any of Bittman's suggestions, but my god, it's useful to have such a great master list to scroll through for ideas, on those days when it's so hot and miserable that I usually just end up standing in my kitchen, dripping sweat and whimpering and eating cottage cheese out of the carton.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 9:25 AM on July 18, 2007

It's sad that I first thought this was Angelina Jolie's son with an iPhone.

It's even sadder that I looked at this and thought, "Huh, isn't Lester Maddox dead??" Sad, and a sign of how very old I am.

I found the piece amusing, but then I am easily amused.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 10:19 AM on July 17, 2007

Oh my gosh, digaman, has it been four years?? Best to you and Keith for many many more!
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 8:55 PM on June 14, 2007

According to a friend of mine who lives in the foothills in LA, coyotes have been a big problem there this spring, perhaps because a lot of them were driven by wildfire into more densely populated areas. They will not only attack cats, but will also go after small dogs, including grabbing them while they're on leash being walked. My friend and her neighbors now carry walking sticks, pepper spray, etc. on their walks to defend their pets.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 10:32 AM on June 6, 2007

I have actually watched this whole thing! (Thanks to my boyfriend, who is an old-serials nut.) And it is, truly, the god-damndest thing I have ever seen in my life. The combination of singing cowboys, evil scientists in pith helmets, rodeo-riding kids, subterranean people of the future in Ming-the-Merciless getups, comic-relief harmonica-playing cowboy sidekicks, and cardboard robots is just hard to beat.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 4:57 AM on May 18, 2007

It's interesting and depressing to look at the area described in the original post's detroitblog link on Google Maps satellite view. Wow.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 11:16 AM on March 21, 2007

The more I read through it, the more impressed I am with detroitblog. The entry on the derelict old Hotel Fort Wayne is fantastic. Thanks so much for the link to this site, fancypants!
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 11:46 AM on March 21, 2007

And, see, for me the paperback is a terrible delivery mechanism; even with bifocals, the presbyopia of old age makes it fatiguing to focus on text-on-paper, and my arthritis makes it painful to hold even a paperback (let alone a hardback) up/open for very long. I actually think that older people may end up constituting the ideal market for e-books; the ability to adjust font size is something I really depend on, and it's also a huge help to be able to have text presented on a monitor positioned... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 11:20 AM on March 19, 2007

On preview, seconding everything Uther Bentrazor says. Nice to know it's not just old ages.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 11:22 AM on March 19, 2007

Just as an FYI, if you register directly with the National Marrow Donor Program, they will ask for your Social Security number (the purpose, I gather, is to help them track you down in the future if you move), but you can leave it blank and still complete the registration (as I just did). It does cost a little more ($52, tax deductive); fortunately I'm in a position at this point to be able to afford it.

Hat tip to TPS for posting this, and matty for inspiring it!... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 10:49 AM on February 14, 2007

ThePinkSuperhero: Another unexamined downside of the Praise culture: everyone thinks they're extra smart, even when they aren't. But see, the really insidious thing about all this is that the highly-praised-as-smart kid has no way of knowing for sure if he or she really IS all that damn smart. I know that my parents and teachers told me I was "gifted"; but because I was so averse to risking my "gifted" self-image by actually attempting difficult tasks... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 10:07 AM on February 13, 2007

This is also an issue on college campuses; the Chronicle of Higher Ed had a good article about it not long ago. (Hope that's not a page that requires membership or log-in!)
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 12:37 PM on December 21, 2006

I was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz during a time (early 80s) when few, if any, of their classes offered letter grades. What students got instead was a narrative evaluation of their work in the class. It must have been (from my later-life perspective) an ungodly amount of work for the instructors, but the experience left me unable to ever again take letter grades seriously -- they are, in comparison, such a thin and impoverished source of information. I value even just one of my undergrad... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 11:06 AM on September 28, 2006

ColdChef--did you mean to link to this? (Your link goes to Douglas Brinkley's book, which also looks good.)
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 6:40 PM on August 28, 2006

It's really hard to overstate the intensity of affection in which Minnesotans held Puckett, and I've long felt that that wasn't really a healthy thing. Kirby came to the Twin Cities and rose to stardom at a time (the mid-to-late 80s) when this traditionally lily-white area was seeing a significant influx of black people, many from the Chicago area, and there was a lot of vague but serious fear about gangs! and dangerous young black men from the Chicago... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 6:11 PM on March 6, 2006

As footnote says, this isn't new; there's a similar housing project, about a half-mile from my home in south Minneapolis, that's been running for a number of years now. The residents are, as noted, people who'd been signally unresponsive to other efforts to bring them to sobriety; they drink, they keep drinking, they show no likelihood of quitting. Given that fact, I'd far rather they continue to do their drinking in a warm, safe place, rather than passing out and freezing to death behind a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 3:56 PM on December 19, 2005

I really thought I'd achieved some level of numbness, after all these horrors, but watching this left me shaking and in tears. I'm very glad to hear they're running it on CNN; they should broadcast it on the half-hour on every fucking network on the air.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 10:25 AM on September 4, 2005

The link's also now up on the MSNBC main page.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 11:08 AM on September 4, 2005

Additional link: The US Army Corps of Engineers has some good downloadable maps of the region -- useful to have open for consultation while reading the essay.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 8:04 AM on September 4, 2005

An aspect of the whole rebuild-the-city debate that I haven't heard much about is this:

If 80% of the city is underwater, then that's 80% of the building stock that will most likely need to be replaced. (Structures with flooding lasting more than a short time are hard to rehab--moisture wicks, you get mold/mildew, etc.) That's a pretty expensive proposition there, but, OK.

If the reports of toxic chemical levels in the floodwaters are accurate,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 4:34 PM on September 1, 2005

Hal Mumkin, re: your inquiry upthread about lack of coverage of the Gulfport/Biloxi area: the Gov. of Mississippi was just on CNN and voiced what I'd been fearing -- that the damage was severe enough that they still can't get people in to assess and report. They did have some CNN reporter on earlier broadcasting from Gulfport, who said they'd had seven hours of 100+ mph wind, which just -- I can't imagine it. Mind well and truly boggled. I hope most fervently that things turn out (as in N.O.)... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 5:20 PM on August 29, 2005

The Times-Picayune breaking news weblog has been a pretty good source of New Orleans info, but their latest update says that with water continuing to rise around their building, they're evacuating their staff out of the city, and will try to get west across the Mississippi to Houma. So it may be a while before any updates appear there.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 8:03 AM on August 30, 2005

The Times-Picayune weblog is again being updated, with a really interesting and (for a change) heartening story of some rescues in Slidell.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 1:34 PM on August 30, 2005

Senator Vitter was just on MSNBC saying something about a new plan to float in and sink grain barges in an attempt to block the levee breaches. Which, when you think about the size of a grain barge, and then consider the size of breach that implies -- lord. But it sounds like the sandbag plan has failed, so I guess they have to try something.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 7:38 PM on August 30, 2005

Newsweek has an impressive photo gallery on their website, including a chilling shot of survivors walking past the dead body of a victim, lying pinned under some wreckage with police tape tied around his ankle.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 8:09 PM on August 30, 2005

The "Special Report" photo gallery at t the main CNN website shows a photo (currently third in the series) of a row house burning, but doesn't identify the location.

I can't find it now, but I read somewhere that the amount of gasoline and other flammables floating on top of the floodwater could be easily ignited by a spark, and create a major fire problem. This may seem manifestly illogical, but I remember it happening when Grand Forks flooded in the '90s,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 3:49 PM on August 31, 2005

Really scary stuff here about the likelihood of Katrina becoming an annular hurricane--the kind that maintains much of its intensity at landfall, instead of weakening. Dr. Jeff Masters of Wunderground says "she could easily be the third or fourth most intense hurricane ever, later today."
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 6:43 AM on August 28, 2005

Interesting that just a few weeks ago a study was released apparently indicating that exercise can't halt the effects of age, though it can improve quality of life in later years. As a 52-year-old who's already experienced a certain amount of deterioration, as much as I'd love to believe that I can just do away with aging via the sweat-lift-eat right regimen, I guess I'll settle for just slowing the decline.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 11:29 AM on August 10, 2005

"Check out this cool site I found before you. You can show someone else and be cooler than them."

Heh. The MeFi greeting card.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 6:36 AM on August 4, 2005

I don't know about Japan, never having been there, but boy howdy, speaking as a smoker myself (one who's gearing up for yet another run at quitting) I loathe smokers who toss their butts on the ground or let their smoke waft into everyone else's airspace. I don't know how effective more rules would be here in the US, but I wish to god a higher consistent level of civility would prevail -- which is partly why I found these signs so endearing.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 5:31 PM on July 22, 2005

Wow, this is fascinating -- thanks so much!
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 5:08 PM on July 22, 2005

Reading the article, and nightchrome's and Decani's comments, led me to reflect (as I have in the past) on the utility of psychiatric diagnoses of personality disorders. As BlackLeotardFront noted, this is an inexact thing; it's not like putting a tissue sample under a microscope and saying "Yup, that there's a carcinoma." It's more about analyzing patterns of behavior and evaluating where they stand on a continuum.

You could, I guess, just say that a given... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 6:42 PM on July 3, 2005

I found Susie Bright's obit/memoir of Dworkin fascinating; a thoughtful, complex bow toward a one-time hero and later adversary. Well worth a read.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 2:08 PM on April 11, 2005

This is sort of OT, but checking out the text of the entry on Minneapolis, my home town, I find a description of the climate that includes the phrase, "enviably low winter temperatures."

OK, that's funny.
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 1:39 PM on March 22, 2005

[completely pointless reminiscence] Quite a few years ago a friend of mine had a weekly half-hour book-chat radio program on KFAI, where she'd talk about good stuff published recently. One New Year's Eve, they were short on announcers, so they bumped her up to an hour and asked her to do a recap of Best Books of the Year. She invited me to sit in, but unfortunately I went out first for some (ahem) celebrating with friends, and by the time I got to the studio I was beschnockered. I dimly... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 3:23 PM on January 3, 2005

::wheezy old-timer/whiner voice:: Ah, but Norm, m'boy, that's because the last eight years have on the whole been relatively dry and mild. Dunno if this is global warming, or just the normal fluctuation of seasons, or what, but this (being an El Nino year) should be a fairly mild winter as well. (Not that I'm complaining...)

To really appreciate Minnesota blizzards, you need to get out of the cities, and go to someplace like,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 3:21 PM on December 12, 2004

[Personal anecdote stuff, which I realize does not constitute research]; I've been a regular bicycle commuter for most of my 30 years of employed adulthood, and have for the past eleven years commuted by bike on every day that the Minnesota climate permits. And I have to say--I have never, while biking, been as terrified or intimidated by cars, as I have regularly been terrified/intimidated, while on foot, by bikers. The worst commuting-related injury I've ever sustained... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kat Allison at 4:40 PM on November 19, 2004