All those topics that i wish i had time to pursue more earnestly.

The End Of The Last Best Hope.

Joshua Micah Marshall, following the Wall Street Journal, reports that a Justice Department memorandum, planning strategies by which officials accused of torture should defend themselves, claims that the President of the United States has inherent authority to set aside laws. This is breathtaking.

Is this the end of the American experiment, that last best hope of mankind?

[Mark Bernstein]

Too many graduates, not enough jobs.

In case anyone’s suffering a burst of Invisible Adjunct nostalgia, here’s a story about bright-eyed young things being lured into expensive an time-consuming graduate programs with unrealistic hopes of rewarding employment at the far end, and here’s the first rumblings of discontent from “the academy”. Yup, and pace a lot of grass-is-greener talk by commentors on the old IA site, MBA programs are subject to more or less exactly the same supply and demand economics as the fine arts brigade. I would be an avid reader, btw, of an “Invisible Associate” site if a lowly MBA-grunt at a managment consultancy were to set one up to gripe about the vagaries of consultant life and the difficulty of getting on the partner track. But I don’t think there is one … yet.

[Crooked Timber]

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well…. i must say that i think most degrees are only relatively important as a function of the effectiveness of their possessors. as such, an mba may be utterly useless, but for some it is an excellent certification.

Histomap of World History. Compact timeline of global history [Cool Tools]

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maps like this are cool.

what's next? some other sign that in any large population, there is someone with the propensity to act in ways that are beyond belief?

cause people should know or find out song lyrics on google.

“It seems fundamentally a weapon that's designed to create a great deal of pain and fear,” Johnson said. “The concern I would have is … once this kind of technology is available and there's a perception that it's safe and nonlethal, it seems like a natural device to be used in interrogations.

weapons like this, the beam, will be used for torture. just like radio antennas are used as whips, sadists and sociopaths, such as our government seems to hire from private companies, don't really see the difference between treating a human as a human, vs treating them as a means to information.

The Real GOP. Kevin Drum has provided a “translation” of the Texas GOP platform. It doesn’t look good. We should completely do away with separation of church and… [Outside the Beltway]

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scary scary scary. this is the home party of our president….

AirPort Express with AirTunes.

Damn you, Apple, I was about to take a nap! Apple just unveiled the Airport Express with AirTunes, a plug-mounted mini version of their popular Airport Extreme 802.11g base station that ups the digital hub ante with the simple addition of an eighth-inch stereo out that turns the Airport Express into a streaming music outlet that interfaces seamlessly with iTunes. Maybe I'm not explaining this so well: plug in an Airport Express, attach it to any stereo (or powered speakers), and automagically stream iTunes music anywhere in your house.

You can already do similar things with devices like the Roku Soundbridge, for instance, but the addition of the simple $129 device from Apple is notable. There's also a Firewire USB port (and Ethernet, obviously) on there that might be useful in the future. The Airport Express can also serve as a wireless bridge for easily extending the range of your existing 802.11g network. And since AirTunes works via iTunes, it looks like an update (version 4.6) is just around the corner (between now and the mid-July launch date, for sure).
Read [Apple via CoolHunting]

Update: More links, plus there's a rumor going around that this may only work with other Airports as a repeater, and not with any old 802.11g networks. We'll see. Also, iTunes to be updated later today.
Read [ThreeBase]
Read [MacMinute]

[Gizmodo]

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i'll take 3……
one for my laptop bag
one for home. and one for extra secret sauce.

Look on my works ye mighty, and despair!. These:

are why I don't need a man. Unless he's prepared to lick them. [Eurotrash]

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yet one more reason why i know that i don't understand women…

don't you wish you had a squirrel name.