Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Salon's Laura Miller reads L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, the foundational text for Scientology (you have to sit thru a brief ad to access the article). Tom Cruise would not be pleased with her review. 5:40:09 PM   permalink   comment []

"'No law of physics that we know of prohibits time travel,' said Dr. J. Richard Gott, a Princeton astrophysicist." NYT's Dennis Overbye: "Space and time, some quantum gravity theorists say, are most likely a sort of illusion -- or less sensationally, an 'approximation' -- doomed to be replaced by some more fundamental idea. If only they could think of what that idea is." My wife sees time as an approximation -- all these years I've been complaining that we're always late, and now it turns out she's at the cutting edge of quantum gravity theory. 5:13:59 PM   permalink   comment []

NYT: "France won an international competition today to be the site of the world's first nuclear fusion reactor, an estimated $12 billion project that many scientists see as essential to solving the world's future energy needs." Related, a book review in the Wall Street Journal (subs req) about our shaky oil supply: "The Saudis possess 25% of the world's proven reserves. They routinely proclaim that, for at least the next 50 years, they could easily double their current output of 10 million barrels a day. "But is this true?...Mr. Simmons argues that the Saudis may be deceiving the world and themselves." 5:06:07 PM   permalink   comment []

Tony Judt: "Those of us who opposed America's invasion of Iraq from the outset can take no comfort from its catastrophic consequences." Cheerful reading: "The American people have a touching faith in the invulnerability of their republic. It would not occur to most of them even to contemplate the possibility that their country might fall into the hands of a meretricious oligarchy...But the twentieth century has taught most other peoples in the world to be less cocksure. And when foreigners look across the oceans at the US today, what they see is far from reassuring." Read the whole thing in the New York Review of Books. 9:35:24 AM   permalink   comment []

Jerry Meek: "Welcome to North Carolina, Mr. President." But the NC Democratic Party chair is really not so welcoming. "While we are unwavering in our support for our men in women in harm’s way, their Commander-in-Chief’s leadership is lacking." What can Bush say tonight that will make a difference in public perception of Iraq? 9:30:34 AM   permalink   comment []

Jay Rosen urges Norman Mailer to write on the web. 9:05:04 AM   permalink   comment []