Up in the Air

George Clooney has done it again.

As Ryan Bingham in the newly released 'Up in the Air', Clooney portrays the life of a man who makes a living firing others. This movie does not mean to please. Along the way, the audience is swept into his world-- and is made to feel the pain that many Americans have recently felt, the pain of job loss. After years of dedicated service, employees are given less than an hour to pack up there belongings; and for many, the hope for a better and brighter future seems unlikely.

Bingham, afraid of commitment, cherishes his traveling time-- and hopes to reach ten million miles of travel. He rarely engages with family, and runs away from relationships, until one relationship is thrown at him-- the mentor/mentee relationship which is forged by the arrival of Natalie Keener (played by Anna Kendrick, the annoying 'best friend' of Bella Swan in Twilight). Forced to show her the ropes of his business, Bingham begins to realize what he has been missing, but has he figured it out too late?

Highly enjoyable, with a twist.

Go to the theatre.
Rent it.
Skip it.

Sherlock Holmes

For those eager to see Robert Downey Jr. in fine form, Sherlock Holmes is exactly what you are looking for. In his newest film, Downey portrays the witty, albeit crazy Sherlock Holmes to the tee.

The movie, depicts Sherlock Holmes and his constant companion James Watson on another mystery-- one which combines wizardry and murder (considering the recent popularity of the supernatural, altogether not surprising). Mark Strong plays the villainous Lord Blackwood, who hopes to eventually rule the world.

The dialogue is hilarious, and well thought out, the plot less so. The plot is twisted and definitely intriguing, but little is explained properly. However, Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. make up for the movie's confusing plot with entertaining banter; and their chemistry is worth the movie ticket.

Go to the theatre.
Rent it.
Skip it.

The frozen South

Overheard at Orlando International Airport, 6 a.m. at the curbside check-in (ambient temperature: 39 degrees Fahrenheit):

Woman: Oh my god, what is wrong with this state? It's f--ing freezing!

Our Newest Enemy: Chocolate Milk

It appears the United States has yet another enemy to battle; yet another argument to deal with.

Recent studies have shown that chocolate milk contains an excess amount of sugar-- and along with the sugar, calories. In fact, an 8 ounce glass of chocolate milk contains the same number of calories as a 12 ounce glass of soda. According to Ann Cooper, the director of nutrition services in Boulder, Colorado (a very progressive city), a child is likely to put on 3 pounds a year if they were to consume a glass of chocolate milk every day.

Of course, there are many reasons why people are hesitant to remove chocolate milk from school cafeterias. Chocolate milk meets with the approval of many children, who would otherwise completely avoid chocolate milk. For the dairy industry, chocolate milk, in school cafeterias, makes up a relatively large segment of their sales. If chocolate milk was banned from schools, consumption would decrease, as would sales.

Marlene Schwartz, from the Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity does not see the need for this recent 'panic'. She personally does not agree with the argument that children would lose essential nutrients if they did not drink chocolate milk. In fact, Schwartz points out that there are only 60 additional calories in chocolate milk-- hardly enough to make someone obese easily.

Whose side are you on?

Christianity and Suicide

For centuries, many Christians have taught that suicide is an unpardonable sin. The Catholic Church maintains that teaching to this day. But is it Biblical?

To read the rest of this post, go here.

Joseph Lieberman.

Recent news has brought Joseph Lieberman's power to the forefront. A supposed Democrat, in many ways, Joseph Lieberman has proven to be fickle in his views, and at this current time, his fickleness has actually given him more power than one would like him to possess.

Joseph Lieberman has the Democrats pandering to his will. First the senator was for buying into medicare, but as of this week, he is opposed to it.

Ultimately, the fate of our medicare system will be dependent on Joseph Lieberman. Scary, isn't it?

Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIb13mYoy0Q

And then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnQA-pJMKqQ

Christianity and the Enlightenment

Evangelical Christianity and modern enlightenment ideals are often thought to be in direct contradiction. But I’ve come to think the opposite is true...

To read the rest of this post, go here.

How Much Are You Worth?

How should we decide how much occupations are worth? In the US we use a market system. The greatest determinant therefore of what the highest worth professions are is simply what people are willing to pay for the services a profession provides...

To read the rest of this post, go here.

Review: The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is a commercially accessible examination of how trends start and flourish, which is much like pandemics. Gladwell has a talent for explaining large concepts in succinct, clear writing, expounded upon by numerous examples and weaved together through engaging tales. I found Tipping Point more cerebral than Blink, but still a bit too 'accessible' for the educated reader. Also, much of the analysis of the book appeared to be retro-justifications of particular trends, generalizing most of the contributing factors into Gladwell's construction, muting the others, and ignoring trends that may have run completely counter. I would have liked to see a prediction made based on the theories presented to test them and provide falsifiability, but that would have been above and beyond the call of duty.

Read it.
Skim it.
Toss it.

A beautiful Christmas song that isn't very Christmas-y

Please excuse the performer (Tim Minchin)'s hair and enjoy this wholesome song, in tune in content, celebrating the observance of Christmas by those who'd "rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu". In particular, look out for my favourite moment, quoted below.

"I-- don't go in for ancient wisdom.
I don't believe just 'cause ideas are tenacious it means that they're worthy.
I-- get freaked out by churches.
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy.

And yes, I have all of the usual objections to the mis-education
of children who in tax-exempt institutions are taught to externalize blame,
and to feel ashamed, and to judge things as plain right or wrong.
...But I quite like the songs"

Overheard: Stop slacking, ticket lady

Over the loudspeakers at Orlando International Airport:

"Paging Sally xxx, Sally xxx, to a Southwest ticket counter... to do your job."

The Poor Queen

First Miley Cyrus, then Lady GaGa... what next?

Miley:

While greeting the Queen....

Performing for the Queen....

And, of course, Lady GaGa:

Food, Inc.

Food, Inc. is an eye-opening movie.

Don't get me wrong, I was well-aware that companies in America are always out to make a profit, but the manner in which some companies seek profits is disgusting.

For example, Smithfield, a company which produces vast amounts of poultry, knowingly hires illegal workers for their factories in Tar Heel, North Carolina. Illegal? Yes, but Smithfield has come to an agreement with the government that they will give the government some of the names of the illegal immigrants periodically if they are allowed to continue this practice.

What's scarier about this situation? The fact that companies are 'giving up' their workers (who although illegal, are still responsible for helping produce the goods) or the fact that the government knowingly allows companies to function like this?

The movie brings to light the way that chickens and pigs are kept before slaughter. Chickens are kept in small, cramped, and often dark rooms, where there is little space and unsanitary conditions. Chickens are meant to grow to full maturity in about three months-- thanks to new methods of production, chickens can grow in half the time. This often means that the chickens are unable to walk more than two steps because their organs grow much faster than the rest of their bodies.

Pigs are kept in similar conditions-- small, cramped rooms; and little concern for their comfort. Why? Because food production companies consider pigs 'temporary' visitors.

Although the meat industry is particularly disgusting, vegetarians don't have it easy either.

Consider the fact that over 90 percent of food products contain corn. Why? Because the corn industry is relatively huge in the United States. In fact, approximately 30 percent of land in the U.S. is set aside for corn production.

After watching the movie, I think that I was most shocked by the amount of power that food companies have. The government, scared to control companies, chooses to support them, rather than us.

Words of advice from the moviemakers:

1. Eat organic.

2. Try to eat together as a family.

3. But healthy products-- our demand for better products informs businesses that we want better quality.

Watch what you eat, because the food companies do NOT have your interests at heart.

Bruschi adds: Also look up my review.

The '14s Are Coming

‘14s!

So, it's that time of year again... and no, I'm not just talking about the holidays. Surprise, surprise- it's early decision time! Remember, '13s, last December, when some of us (though not yours truly) were waiting anxiously to hear whether we'd gotten in to Dartmouth? Well, as short a time it seems has passed since that monumental day, it's been a whole year...

And the '14s are on the way. Four hundred and sixty-one of them, in fact. Incredibly enough, there are more '14 early decision kids than '13 ED-ers, due to a decision by Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris '84 and President Jim Yong Kim to enlarge the freshman class despite the college's recent financial difficulties. Seems as though there will be even more freshmen this September than there are now! (Imagine that, '11s- you'll have even more fresh faces and names to learn before you graduate.)

As usual, the newest class' admission stats are off the charts, and Dean Laskaris has nothing but good things to say about the incoming freshmen. I'm sure when they arrive here for their weekend stays and programs (get excited for Dimensions, everyone!) the whole campus will come together to celebrate their awesomeness. I remember not so long ago when the campus did that for my class. Ah, my fellow '13s, we're old...

Just kidding. But it is striking to realize that soon a new class of freshmen will come to work hard and play hard in the hallowed halls of old Dartmouth. All I can say is, welcome, '14s, to the Dartmouth family- I'm sure you'll do Dartmouth proud!

Behind the Numbers: Maine and Gay Marriage

Last month, proponents of equal rights for same-sex couples were sorely disappointed at the result of a ballot question in Maine. Adding insult to injury, many pro-equality groups were quite confident on election day due to polling models predicting their victory, only to see an early lead in the precinct returns evaporate as the night dragged on.

Even this writer predicted that the referendum to overturn Maine's law legalizing gay marriage would fail. And most agreed. Pollster.com had "No" to Proposition 1 leading going into Election Day; and Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com created a model, based on several variables, likewise predicting that Prop 1 would fail.

After the election, Harry Enten '11 went back and looked at Mr. Silver's model. With a lot of data mining and some top-notch statistical skills, Mr. Enten created a linear regression model to predict the outcome of referenda concerning gay marriage much more accurate than that of Mr. Silver. To quote Mr. Enten:

The average difference between the model's predicted support for an amendment in an election and the actual support for the amendment was 2.69% (compared with Silver's 4.46%). Importantly, this difference was greater than 2.00% in only 4 instances (Michigan 2004, Montana 2004, North Dakota 2004, and South Dakota 2006) and greater than 4.00% in only two (Michigan 2004 and North Dakota 2004) [of 25 total observations].

In other words, this model is quite good.

Because of his work and the impressiveness of the model, Mr. Enten was picked up by Pollster.com as a guest pollster. If you're curious about what went wrong in Maine, and how we can best predict races like this in the future, I suggest you check out his entry, and keep an eye out for more of his work in the future.

(For an example of a predictive model gone bad, check this out.)

Huckabee Isn't Finished

Mike Huckabee is in hot water for his pardoning of a man who went on to commit murder in Tacoma, Washington. Some people are even saying that the decision will cost him a second chance to run for President. After all, Willie Horton helped do Michael Dukakis in...

To read the rest of this post, go here.

Bored @ Baker, out of commission!?

It seems that Bored @ Baker, the frat-tastic anonymous online message board catering mostly to Dartmouth's lowest common denominator, is temporarily out of commission! The usual messages speculating which '11 is a total homo, which frat is A-side, which sorority has the most sluts, what baton-death-march-esque hiring process Linda Gridley has for interns, and where in the Upper Valley people an find the most competitively-priced piping-hot calzones (hit: Cuttings North-side Cafe), are all gone! Jon Pappas, the creator of the immensely popular site took it away from us because he discovered that -- wait for it -- it was full of racism hate speech! (gasp!)

Well no fucking shit, Sherlock, why the hell do you think people read Bored@Baker? What does every anonymous person post on the internet? It certainly isn't cooking tips or bible quotes. The anonymous nature of the site begs us to gossip about each other, and homophobia (and homoerotism, as it turns out) are a quick step away. It seems like every time Mr. Pappas came by Bored@Baker, presumably riding Bambi and with an entourage of rainbows and magical butterflies, the Bored@ crew (cough - Phi Delt) were all on their best Sunday School behavior. Seriously Jon, how could you fucking miss it? Haven't you even read the news stories you posted about B@B?

Below is what Bored@Baker currently looks like. Click the pic to enlarge. The message is also block quoted below. For god's sake, Jon, use some capital letters.

dear friends,

i have temporarily suspended boredatbutler and other similar boredat sites. recently, our community has been under attack by a very small group of people. these people troll the site with the purpose of killing the community with slanderous and racist comments.

i do not condone hate speech or racist comments and i will not allow boredat to exist if:
1. it does not accurately represent the general opinion of its community.
2. it does not have the ability to self-moderate.

service has been temporarily suspended until we can devleop the right codes for it to take care of itself. but i need your help.

if you would like to build boredat with me, please send me an email at jonpappas{at}gmail.com. if you are interested, i'd be happy to discuss with you the purpose and the vision of boredat. boredat is built with php/mysql/javascript/xhtml and css. if you know these technologies and would like to code and collaborate with me, in whole or in part, let me know. coding remotely and on your own time is ideal. i am looking for one volunteer per ivy league school to be a part of this project. this will be the founding team. contact me quickly because some slots have already been filled and they will go quickly.

kind regards,
jon

dated 12/8/09

Review: Queer London

A dry, technical, and academic look at queer subculture in London between 1918 and 1957. Interesting in that it reduces to a science the rather inexpressible notions and progressions of gay life. There is certainly a parallel to be found between the passive->excluded->marginalized->subculture->pride progression of gays and other social movements. Houlbrook tries to weave in personal stories that humanize the concepts presented, and while he does a good job in those parts, the people reading such a book are in no need of convincing; the parts serve only to make the technical bits endurable. A great book, I'm sure, for academics, but not for pleasure reading.

Read it
Skim it
Toss it

More on Tiger Woods

Should we hold Tiger Woods to a higher standard because he’s a celebrity and has so much money? That is a question lots of people are asking as the media continues to focus on Woods’ infidelity...

To read the rest of this post, go here.

Good-bye Fall 2009!

After finishing my linguistics gauntlet this morning, I'm back home in Upstate NY wishing you all a speedy and happy return home for the holidays. If you're still in Hanover, good luck! A storm is a-coming with snowfall estimated up to a foot.

I'll end the term with three points:

1. LGB will continue sporadically over break and will resume in full at the start of the Winter 2010 term in early January. We are looking for new contributors and editors for that term so please blitz me if you want in.

2. In addition to making the Valley News, Jim Kim's weekly campus blitz, and the Dartmouth Daily Updates, Dartmouth's soccer-gate controversy was picked up by the illustrious IvyGate.

3. The Stonefence Review just published a couple variants I wrote of William Carlos Williams's poem This Is Just To Say, the original listed below. Check them out. I promise they're good.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Have a great break and a happy holiday!

Snow is, indeed, made of H2O

Overheard at the Hop:

Girl: I forgot that when it snows, everything gets, like, wet.

Nat Turner: Martyr or Murderer

In the past few weeks, I’ve done a good deal of reading about slave revolts. In particular, I enjoyed reading accounts of Nat Turner’s revolts. In the course of the revolt, he killed civilians including women or children. So is he a hero or villain...

To read the rest of this post, go here.

Finals... Not the End of the World

Ah, final exams. Everyone loves them and everyone can't get enough of them and they're just great, aren't they? The professors are whistling through the halls at the thought of not having to grade any more papers, the students are out of their minds at the thought of having to take that one last monster of a test, and the DDS workers are rolling their eyes at the thought of seeing so many negative dining accounts and 1 am crazy study breaks. There's just one obstacle to everyone's happiness, and it's that last test lurking on Tuesday or Wednesday that's keeping us from enjoying our vacations.

So what do we do? Study, of course, like good little children. We work hard- the "play hard" part of the motto seems to be temporarily lost today, but then again we did have a great time celebrating the first snowfall on the Green last night. We drink those energy drinks that really are very bad for us, and order food that is even worse, and hope that the long-term effects of the phenylalanine and grease won't be too severe.

All we can do, really, is study and study and study, hopefully taking small breaks occasionally for water, food, sleep, and other essentials of life. It seems almost as though studying has become one of those essentials. Those of us who have finished our exams are over the moon and those of us who still have others are decidedly under it, and under the weather.

But soon- soon it will be over, and the grades will come out, and the reviews will all be posted on the Student Assembly website. And soon enough break will be over, too, and the holidays, and winter term will begin. I for one know that I'm looking forward both to break and to the start of winter term. It'll be nice to have some time off from work and it'll be absolutely wonderful to return to Hanover and see more freshly fallen snow... perhaps we'll have another snowball fight.

For now, my advice is this: sleep, eat, hydrate, and allow yourself to relax a little bit. It's almost vacation time, we just had our first snow, and soon you'll be able to destress. Remember, the holidays are almost here! And finals are almost over.

Overheard: Can vampires do that?

'10: One thing I don't get about Twilight is why doesn't Edward just turn Bella into a zombie!?

Snowing in Hanover

Get out and enjoy it. Your studying will still be there when you return.

Review: Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys

Billed as "music history as it ought to be taught," Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys offers a sarcastic, familiar, whirlwind tour of the greats from music history. As pleasure reading, the book offers a number of great details and funny stories from the way-side of history. As a textbook, the details about most musicians are trivial, the important stuff, forgettable, and the prose, too sarcastic to tell genuine from jest. In all, a rather frivolous read that music lovers would enjoy and everyone else would likely fail to appreciate.

Read it
Skim it
Toss it

Sounds like elections in China

The Dartmouth reports that Morton Kondracke ’60 of Newsweek and John Replogle ’88 of Burt's Bees have been nominated to be the Alumni Council candidates for the upcoming trustee elections. As to why only one candidate was chosen for each of the two seats, The Dartmouth reports this:

The Council elected to nominate only one candidate for each open position on the Board for the spring 2010 trustee race in order to better facilitate competition with petition candidates, Tom Daniels '82, chair of the Alumni Council Nominating and Alumni Trustee Search Committee, said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.

This sounds like China: the leaders choose the unopposed candidates and because there is voting, we call it democracy.

Jon Stewart has great taste in fashion

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the supplier of the skinny-tie suites Jon Stewart wears?

Looks like the correspondents take what they can get.

Chapter 1 in the Anarchist's Cookbook for Blitz?

This rather interesting and potentially dangerous annoying message was just emailed out to campus via BlitzMail. The sender was listed as the "MAILER-DAEMON", the address that usually sends Blitz notification messages, most commonly vacation messages advertising parties or acapella performances. A number of suspicious messages have been sent out to campus over the last few months from suspicious accounts. The example that stands out most in my mind occurred in the winter, sent out by "The Sphynx" to announce free tours to all those who showed up at their back door (this writer did not fall for the bait, but knows several who did).

It's no secret that the Blitzmail program is rather antiquated and simple for the precocious hacker to crack. I've heard of several people being able to send out messages from whichever name they wish. This person must be one of them.

--- Forwarded Message from MAILER-DAEMON ---

>From: MAILER-DAEMON
>Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:27:19 -0500
>Subject: Blitzbomb: An Informative Lesson
>To: undisclosed-recipients:;
>Reply-To: Postmaster@Dartmouth.edu

Hello Dartmouth-

I am bored and tired of sending out pointless blitzes telling you
performances and events of all your friends. So I figured it was time to
teach you all a very valuable tool associated with blitz: the BLITZBOMB.

Blitzbombing is very simple and is a beautiful way to wreak havoc on
people's inboxes. To blitzbomb, you simply:
1) Create a blitz to someone
2) Bcc them 100 times
3) Send the blitz
And they instantly get 100 blitzes clogging up their inbox.

Now go, my minions. Blitzbomb the hell out of your friends and fill up
all of their inboxes with blitzbombs, giving me a break for once.
Unleash hell, and bring the Daemon inside of you out.

Happy studying for finals,

MAILER-DAEMON

Review: Twilight

For those who thought that Twilight couldn't any worse after seeing the first movie.... it has.

In high school my friends were in to Twilight, and in an effort to 'fit in', I read the first book in the series. The language was terrible, but in all honesty, the story itself had some potential. I stopped after the first book, however.

When the first Twilight movie came out in 2008, I went my closest friends to see it. As they all concentrated stared at the screen, I found myself unable to contain my laughter-- especially during the Biology class scene.

This Thanksgiving break I went for round two of Twilight viewing..... and it was awful. At least in the first movie there was comedic relief. In the second there was nothing.

Even my mother (I went with my family for this one), after two hours of sleep (she was awake for maybe five minutes of the movie?), said this was the worst movie she had ever 'seen'.......

Although you probably weren't ever seriously considering the movie, take my advice. Avoid New Moon.

Overheard: The Sandwich Miracle!

Two very drunk and hungry SAEs put their coats on. The first reaches into his pocket.

SAE 1: OH MY GOD! (pulls out it out) I found a sandwich!

The two of them proceed to ravage it, tearing it up and wolfing it down, throwing condiments all over the hallway like confetti.

Afghanistan: A Vietnam?!

To those who claim that Afghanistan is President Obama's next Vietnam, consider this:

Vietnam was a war that the United States entered into without justified reasoning. The United States, fearing the spread of communism around the globe, entered Vietnam with the hopes that they could subdue the communist movement. We entered Afghanistan 8 years ago because of 9/11. This time there was a clear and definite reason for our entry.

Perhaps the truth is that Iraq was President Bush's Vietnam. Where was the justification? Why was 2003 the opportune moment to enter Iraq? If anyone understands, please explain.

And why focus on the comparison at all? I found that the most interesting part of President Obama's speech was that we have been in Afghanistan for 8 years. In March of 2010, the Afghanistan war will have become the longest in American history. Rather than comparing, let's talk about what can be done. Let's reassess our goals-- can we still catch Osama Bin Laden? Is that our current goal?

For more information visit: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/01/afghanistan.vietnam/index.html

Overheard: Putting the "ability" in "disability"

In Berry, two guys passing by.

Guy 1: Man these finals are going to kill my GPA.

Guy 2: Yeah, I wish I had some sort of mild form of dyslexia to excuse my stupidity.

The dangers of BMI and bureaucracy

Contentious debate has characterized the decision of Lincoln University to force students with a body mass index of 30 or above to take a mandatory fitness class in order to graduate. Some argue that it is discriminatory; some question the validity of the assumptions underlying the policy; and some feel that it is too intrusive and paternalistic of the college to interfere in a student's life in this way. Here I would like to address the biggest flaw in the program, which also is a major shortcoming of other college health policies: the assumption that body mass index is an accurate indication of a person's health.

Leave Tiger Woods Alone

As anyone who’s been paying attention to the news knows, Tiger Woods had a crash outside his home. The police want to talk to him. Maybe he was having an affair. Maybe he wasn’t. My reaction: I couldn’t care less...

To read the rest of this post, go here.

Overheard: There's something special about the Hop's mozz sticks

Two sweet-looking dudes are waiting to order at the Hop grill line. One sounds like he might not be from Dartmouth. One turns to the other.

Dude: Oh man, they don't have mozz sticks here, only mozzarella sticks.

Nerdgasm: Google Wave

Google Wave is out -- sort of -- and I am lucky enough to have lots of nerdy friends who are well-connected with the nerdy elite, and kind enough to give me an invitation. So I spent some time yesterday getting overwhelmed by the feature-rich beast that is Google's latest step in its quest to take over the world.


Some really cool things:

• You can use Wave for a sort of instant message-E-mail hybrid, and watch your correspondents typing in real time. (This also means you can see their every typo, which has made me very self-conscious already.)
• It supports embedding videos, images, maps, sudoku games, and a bunch of other things -- even conference calls.
• You can use it to cooperatively edit a document with other people (really useful if you've got a group paper or presentation).
• Playback: If you come in late on a conversation/collaboration, you can press the playback button to see a step-by-step playthrough of all the changes made so far.
  
• Possibly the coolest thing, at least in my opinion: you can publish directly to a Blogger blog via the Bloggy bot (blog-wave@appspot.com), meaning that you can have collaborative blog posts.

It's still in beta, so it still feels sort of awkward and clunky. It takes a little while to get used to the new commands and functions. And since the best features in it are dependent on you having lots of contacts to cooperate with, it won't reach its full potential until Google de-mystifies it by making it universally available. Even though the ability to post to a blog directly from Wave is cool, people who don't currently have Wave can't read your blog posts, which is obviously a bummer. They are supposedly going to change that, but for now it's kind of irksome.

As a note, eBay has numerous listings for Google Wave invitations, ranging from $0.99 for a "nomination" to $199.00 for an active link. Doesn't anyone remember Gmail? It was free -- eventually -- for people who had enough sense to realize it wasn't worth a heap of money to access the beta version a few months early. Still, someone's going to make a nice wad of cash off of the gullible and impatient. And it is a fantastic way for Google to create hype for their product. It's very smart marketing, when you think about it. There's a reason Google will rule the world someday.

Cap and Trade Won't Happen This Year

I have serious doubts about whether any cap and trade bill will get done this year in Congress, despite how much Obama and some Democrats want it...

To read the rest of this post, go here.