drift

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures." -Oscar Wilde It's tough to tell fact from fiction, and sometimes just as hard to tell reality from illusion. As long as you're enjoying yourself this weekend, I'd have to agree with Buckwheat Zydeco, and say Let The Good Times Roll. But despite what these images you're looking at might seem to show, there's nothing rolling at all here. Image credit: Illustrator Fiestoforo. Nor is anything moving, nor is there a hint of animation in any of these. Yet, based on what your eyes show you, things appear to be bulging, spinning, or more generally, there…
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow (signed by the author!) and I'm reading it with great interest, even though I'm totally swamped with other things. Damn you Rachel Maddow for writing such an engaging book! I'm just starting it but wanted to share a couple of observations. The nature of war in (well, 'by') America--and the nature of the military and government's relationship to it--evolved over time from the days of the Founding Fathers to the end of the Viet Nam era, as described in Rachel Maddow's new book, in very interesting ways. In particular, Maddow…
What makes earthquakes? Although there are many causes, including volcanoes, the most common thing that causes them are tectonic motions, which also cause tsunamis. But as valuable as it is to understand other planets in our solar system and in other star systems, sometimes it's important to understand what's going on inside our own planet. The crust of the Earth actually is made up of a number of plates, which rub against one another and move over time. Who's to blame? I fault the liquid hot magma. So what happens is that these plates slip against each other in one of three ways, as shown…