David Brin pays tribute to Arthur C. Clarke

Writing at Daily Kos, David Brin paid tribute to Arthur C. Clarke.
Arthur has long and deservedly been called one of the finest “hard” science fiction authors, for good reason.  From the beginning of his career as a writer, he explored frontiers of human knowledge, pondering the implications of everything from cetacean intelligence to planetology.  From [...]

Huckabee defends Wright

Mick Huckabee has come out in defense of Obama on Wright, and somewhat in defense of Wright himself.
[Obama] made the point, and I think it’s a valid one, that you can’t hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. You just can’t. Whether it’s me, whether it’s Obama…anybody else. [...]

Yoghurt containers as mini-greenhouses

Willem van Cottem of Desertification has a very interesting post about the use of transparent containers as mini-greenhouses. You can use them to get seedlings started indoors in the Spring, or in arid environments (since it cuts down on water usage prior to transplantation). They are also useful for transporting the seedlings.
I would [...]

The mortgage crisis, in simple terms

The Subprime Primer explains the financial crisis in simple (and amusing) terms.
H/T Kate Sheppard at TAPPED.

The Theory of Interstellar Trade

Paul Krugman, in his blog at NYTimes:
Thirty years ago I was an oppressed assistant professor, caught up in the academic rat race. To cheer myself up I wrote — well, see for yourself. Joshua Gans of the University of Melbourne scanned a copy of the thing I wrote — back then academics did their work [...]