Just the other day, I thought about how neato my basement would look with a laboratory set up like Dr. Frankenstein, with beakers and burners and electrical gadgets. Now Wired has a how-to video on just that! They don’t make chemistry sets like they used to — no more uranium or explosive...

About Megan McArdle’s Private Life, here. Attempting, successfully I’d say, to deflect charges of a conflict of interest. But seriously: Have you ever talked to Megan McArdle? If so, did it ever enter your mind that she wouldn’t share her exact opinion, whatever it was, regardless ...

  Gene and I were watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives a few days ago on Food Network and we were both struck by this dish served at a diner owned by a Polish family.  We both kept trying to get the name of it so I could Google it but the best we could come up with was that it rhymed wi...

As I publish this, my blog post, “Ranking the Presidents: Fun for the Whole Blogosphere,” has received 27 comments. That’s cool. As I pointed out, this a very democratic game. HARD MATH My biggest lesson was that I was encouraged, repeatedly, to defy the laws of mathematics. I was ...

I want to thank everyone who supported the good side in my recent spat with a commentor who, shall we say, exhibited ideas that a reasonable person could plausibly interpret as not obviously inconsistent with certain definitions of bigotry. In conjunction with the statement upon which I was commenti...

A quick list. 1. Scare the conservatives on economic issues, if they’re not already. They need to realize that the wholesale abandonment of free-market economics will alienate a lot of people. In fact, it already has. 2. Scare the conservatives on social issues, if they’re not already. I...

Recently, C-SPAN released the latest in a tradition of historian rankings of the Presidents. The trouble with these surveys is, 1. Being a War President is worth tremendous bonus points. 2. Being ambitious and attempting to launch lots of government programs makes you a great President. 3. Being qui...

How does one manage to interpret scripture in a scientific world? In the comments following my 12/5/07 blog post, “Two Books Approach to Christianity,” an astute commenter, Jarred, referenced the Three-Legged Stool and the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. I replied at the time that at some point ...

A reader recently posted the following comment on another thread: The reason people are required to wear seat belts is the high public cost of injuries. If you get hurt in an accident it can cost me either in direct public subsidy of your medical bills or in an increase in the cost of private insura...

I made the mistake recently of commenting on an anti-Obama blog.  I thought they were just garden variety wingnuts, but it turns out they’re truly sick.  They call Obama the ”Obamessiah” and “our dark overlord and master.”  They’re also virulently anti-Muslim...