Category Archives: Interests

Take the Monorail to Mecca | Autopia | Wired.com

As you know, I’m pretty down on the fake Christians in this nation with all their hypocrisy, hate, and halitosis (sorry, was on an alliteration roll there and didn’t want to stop).

That said, the thing that galls me most about the Talibangelicals is their hatred and fear of progress: be it social, educational, cultural, or technological.

Some of you have messaged me not to lump in all Muslims with the Taliban, just as all Christians are not fearful angry bigots. Point taken, but I never was confusing the angry mouthbreathers with good people. I know both decent Muslims and Christians. I just don’t think there are enough of either in this world, nor that they do a good enough job of marginalizing their freaky and vile brethren.

That said, given the Talibangelical, Luddite, and Stupid Wings of the GOP harping against modernizing our rail system in this country, I’ve come across something folks in the Middle East are doing right. While Rethugs are complaining about the “Disneyland to Sin City” train (when they aren’t bragging about spanking lobbyists and otherwise cheating on their spouses) they are missing the point.

Saudi Arabia is planning to build a high speed train line linking their religious sites together while we have only one decent modern train with a crappy track system in the North East.

Didn’t we basically invent trains? Europe kicks our ass at this. Japan (and I know from personal experience) has a beautiful, safe, clean and efficient train system that people use so much you have to be crammed onto them like sardines in Tokyo.

What do we have? Old rail and beat up Amtrak lines.

Seriously, now the folks who bred the people who attacked us on 9/11 are getting better trains.

Get with the program people.

Placebo Power Grows, Perplexing Big Pharma – NPR Health Blog : NPR

Here are some reports from both NPR and Wired that as pharmaceutical companies are trying to cure more and more intricate diseases, they are finding that people taking placebos have just as good – if not better – responses than the folks on the actual drugs.

Seems to be they ought to just get back to trying to help cure cancer or AIDS and leave the curing old-guys-with-limp-penises issues to future generations.

Then again, I see them as profit-grabbing shills instead of folks serious about doing the common good so I’m obviously jaded.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Japan’s space freighter in orbit

First I mention the Chinese are helping the Saudis build a high speed train system, and now the Japanese have a freaking space ship.

It’s no Millennium Falcon but the H-II Transfer Vehicle is a damn cool look at the future of space travel. One that we apparently aren’t going to be a part of as NASA’s budget for manned missions was recently slashed.

Pity. Cocky American pilots was the only thing that was going to make space travel cool.

Mongolia In Transition : NPR

I don’t know what it is about Mongolia that’s always interested me. I’ve linked more than a few stories about the country over the years, but this series has done a lot to flesh out the place as more than just some child’s mythological place.

That said, reading – and watching – The Long Way Round did a lot for the process as well.

SPORTSbyBROOKS » Emotions In KS Hazing Incident Running Hot, Icy

For some reason, people love to perpetuate the myth of the idyllic small town. Usually, such myths are used as a comparison to the evil, hedonistic, crime-ridden big cities. In small towns, so the myths go, neighbors cheerfully help one another, work hard, do their shopping on Main Street, and everyone lives a simpler, happier, more moral existence than, say, effete East Coast intellectuals.

The truth is that the myth of the idyllic American small town is by and large dead. Wal-Marts have rendered Main Street storefronts all but abandoned, family farms have long gone bankrupt or been rendered useless by multinational corporations, drugs and crime are sky-high, and people are hostile, distrustful, and bitter.

SportsByBrooks covers violent high school football hazing in a small Kansas town.