links for 2008-10-11

"The reason I've been writing about/obsessing over things like the P&G rumor or the usefulness of Snopes is that I'm trying to figure out how to liberate the captives of unreality. "

"It seems that no one in Sudan was able to record the 2008 TC3 fireball; the only image I've seen that was shot from the ground was one very tiny pixel in the sky seen from a beach in Egypt. But in this day and age, there are always eyes in the sky on practically every point on Earth, and, through good fortune, the METEOSAT-8 spacecraft scanned the globe at the moment that the asteroid was putting on its show."

"As the possibility of an Obama victory becomes more and more tangible, I find myself more and more down about it. Not because I don't want it: I want it desperately. But because even the possibility seems to be producing an infinitely escalating spiral of spew from hardcore opponents of Obama."