AdamSmith

I thought you would appreciate that. If I have to lose an argument, at least let me still look clever.

Well, that's Silverglate. Snotty liberal hardly begins to do him justice. I think it doesn't hurt the public discourse for it to include a few extremists on either side throwing out caricatured views of the other side. Sometimes you even recognize your own shortcomings the better for having them stated that way. For example, the term 'snotty liberal.'

John Waters at Williams festival: 'Trash and camp just don't cut it anymore' Director and writer headlining Tennessee Williams literary event in New Orleans recalls his brush with a satanic cult and the continuing importance of filth ...One of the few vice-friendly cities left in the US, New Orleans remains his spiritual home, or whatever the atheist equivalent is. Waters's supposed favourite bar in the world is here in the historic French Quarter. The Corner Pocket is a gay dive bar with tattooed strippers - filthy in exactly the way Waters likes... http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/28/john-waters-at-williams-festival-trash-and-camp-just-dont-cut-it-anymore

Well... "Texans remain strongly in favor of the death penalty and nominally in favor of abortion rights and medically assisted suicide, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. Voters' overwhelming support for the death penalty remains intact, with 73 percent either somewhat or strongly in support and only 21 percent opposed." http://www.texastribune.org/2012/05/24/uttt-poll-life-and-death/

People will no doubt come back soon enough...

This article from Boston.com reports that the percentage of Bostonians who want Tsarnaev sentenced to death has dropped during the course of his trial thus far: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/03/28/most-bostonians-don-want-tsarnaev-die-will-the-jury/7HhQgc9vmGB5I9DM3yqz2J/story.html?p1=feature_sec_hp Reminds me some of why I was proud to live there.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/harry-reid-retires-best-insults-116450.html?hp=l2_3_b2

So long as it's you and me who get to decide.

Nice profile, much better than the usual with this kind of thing. Apple's Tim Cook leads differentBy Adam Lashinsky, Fortune http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/tim-cook/

Yes, irreversible = pretty unlikely within the mortal span of immediate concern to me. Of course the grand sweep of history goes back and forth. E.g., as Weimar homophilia was followed by Nazi repression of same into the weird homoeroticism of Nazism's Aryan ideals of beauty, Hitler Youth etc etc, at the same time as the pink triangle.

Actually I see these reactionary spasms as affirmation that progress is being made and in fact is becoming irreversible. Last gasps of dying empire always tend to be violent like this. In my own career I have profited handsomely on many occasions when dying segments of information technology markets furiously buy consulting services as part of their desperate last-ditch efforts to forestall what has become evident is their inevitable demise.

I also read something about how not even counting the small problem of what to do with spent fission products, nuke energy is a lot less clean than thought once you count in the energy-intensive costs of processing nuclear fuels to reactor-grade readiness in the first place.

Just random bad taste.

President Signs Order Making Ted Cruz Ineligible for Obamacare Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/president-signs-order-making-ted-cruz-ineligible-for-obamacare