On the Soapbox

To start things off, this is funny in a dark way: The Road to Serfdom, an illustrated guide. (link found on Marginal Revolution)

Scientists are forecasting that a huge solar storm will be coming in half a decade. Putting aside the havoc that something like this would wreak, I think it would be pretty cool. Apparently, the last time there was such a large storm in the 1950's (when there were not so many electronics to worry about), the northern lights could be seen as far south as Mexico. Wow.

According to the TSA, you have the right to fly without an ID. (link found on Schneier on Security)

According to Ask Yahoo!, Tweety Bird is male. So what about all those women who bought Tweety shirts with text like "girl power" and the such?

According to studies, blacks who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God overwhelming vote for Democrats, and whites who believe that the Bible is just a collection of fables still favor Republicans (though not nearly as much as evangelical whites). So I guess politics haven't completely split on religious lines... (yet?)

Finally, CNN recently had an article about "hippie chimps", which is the sort of phrase that makes people scratch their heads and wonder. Anyway, a bit of Googling on the topic turned up this 1995 article from the Scientific American. It's a very interesting article about a species of primates very closely related to us that engages in sexual activity as a very common and integral component of social interaction instead of for reproduction. It's interesting in the sense that it provides a curious contrast to human interactions.