• Just finished The Way of the Traitor, the third of the Inspector Sano mysteries by LJ Rowland...searching on both her and James Melville led me to Steamy East authors; worth a read if you're into such things. (James Melville's Otani series is better, IMO -- Laura Joh gets a little over-the-top at times, and there's never any laughs. Both very interesting tho, to be sure.)
  
  

• In the news, South Koreans clone cats that glow in the dark. Actually, not --like the GloFish these new genetically-modified felines fluoresce under ultraviolet light. So unlike the hands of your watch, or fireflies, they're not phosphorescent or luminescent -- instead, a black light is required. Without this special light, no glow.
  
  
• NASA's Themis satellites have discovered the energy source of the Northern Lights, gigantic magnetic ropes linking the Earth's atmosphere to the Sun, which channel solar energy into the spectacular illuminations. Plus, at DamnInteresting, the Sound of the Aurora.
  
  
• Journey into Night, Business-class Emotions -- David Sedaris in the New Yorker on grief and humor -- excellent!
  (except for that superfluous, jarring "there's" in the second line, which I'm hoping's just a typo, so especially rare in that magazine).

• A new coffee shop variation in Tokyo, the Cat Café.
  
  
• You Tube fun: Black Sabbath, Of War Pigs and Atom Bombs -- soundtrack to the manned test we first saw in "The Atomic Cafe".
  
  
• Update on zero-G: Astronauts test sex in space.
  
  
• Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker Talk of the Town: last week's Follow the Leaders.
  
  
• Catching up on Cat and Girl: Is a baby a person?
  
  

• The 12 Days of Kitschmas compiles some unbelieveably tacky gift objects.
  
  

• Best magazine covers for 2007.
  
  
• Football field-sized kite powers latest heavy freight ship.
  
  
• Alan Furst: Our best thriller writer. It's true -- I love his stuff.

• No news is good news.      

• Absinthe is absent no more
• The Green Fairy Gets a Green Card
• Absinthe makes a comeback after ban

• Researchers find link between low self-esteem and materialism.
  
  
• Interview with author Susan Faludi -- Cowboys and sewing machines: the post-9/11 dream.

• Too Much Coffee Man on YouTube -- his (very brief) animated commercial for Converse shoes.
  
  
• Also, a photo of your humble narrator at the MeFi meetup Sunday night, snapped by the skilled photographer everybody loves 'cause everyone looks great in his pictures, even in (or because of) the dim illumination of the trendy bars where these events invariably take place.

There isn't actually any such thing as Islamofascism - it's not an ideology; it's a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn't.

• I moved to California twenty years ago, and at the time, this was big. Now that everything's available, you too can enjoy the late-80s fun of Concrete Blonde's Still in Hollywood video (which I think I first saw as filler on Adventures with the Poorman).
  
  
• The Future of the American Idea - David Foster Wallace asks the questions most find unthinkable but I've always thought obvious about Freedom, Security, terrorism and what Benjamin Franklin said (but then, as a child of the bomb growing up in Washington DC, I've never thought true safety possible).
  
  
• Installing a PlayStation's blue laser diode in a Star Trek (TOS) phaser (video how-to).

• In the New Yorker, Running on Fumes is a review of two new books about the Car of the Future.
  
  
• And in The Economist, In God's name is the introductory article in a hefty multi-part report about religion in our time. One of my students recently asked me why so many Koreans are Christian. I didn't know, but the story about mega-churches says they're only 20% or 30% of the population there (depending on whether Catholics are included in the tally) and yet among my Korean students, it seems non-Christians are very rare -- don't know why.

• According to the Governor, "That is not a drug. It's a leaf".                  
  
  
• Schneier: The War on the Unexpected.            
  
  
• Tests of faith over "Golden Compass" movie.
  
  
• How the rich corrupt society.

• Excellent: seven topics to avoid if you don't want to bore whoever you're talking to.

• In the News: on grunting while working out -- trouble? Definitely annoying, when a pair of roosters get competitive, but I've only observed that extreme in my chi-chi LA gym. Also, an update on Xanadu, the broadway musical -- it's a sensation!

• Floating Utopias delves into the fantasy of 'seasteading' a new & improved country, most recently manifest in the vaporware Freedom Ship.
  
  
• Excellent guest Orcinus post about Christianity "jumping the shark."
  
  
• Interesting New Yorker essay on how color's been bleached out of 'indie' rock. (Mentions the Minutemen, an early-80s group I missed then but learned about in a documentary viewing at Cheryl's last February.) But I disagree with the author's assumption that rather than the crucial black ingredients Elvis and others used in early rock'n'roll, the mixture's now lacking without some of the "urban" ethnic's contemporary product, hip-hop. No thanks, anything but that -- with rare exceptions, its rhythmic chanting is a formula not for music, but monotonous, irritating noise. Related, from Slate, last year: If you hate rap, are you a racist?
  
  
• A Minor History of Giant Spheres.

• Concerning the wussification of American children -- safety first, yes, but today's overprotected kids need to live a little. It's true, and I pity them.
  
  
• Why book spines are printed upside down in Europe. Makes sense, but still looks wrong.

• Out For Coffee With Shannon Wheeler -- interview with the Too Much Coffee Man guy.

• Here's a mouthful: jidouhanbaiki. Perhaps you're aware of the multitude of vending machines in Japan, as well as the variety of merchandise available therefrom. Japanese Skirt Fear of Crime describes some innovative ideas they're developing to combat a perceived increase in street violence, including a garment designed by Aya Tsukioka which the wearer can swiftly convert into a simulated, concealing Coca-Cola jidouhanbaiki.
  
  
• In their latest post, Damn Interesting tackles the Vela Incident of September 22, 1979. I've always wondered (and remember reading about it at the time, in Aviation Week) but still, no good explanation. Maybe a neutron bomb? Good grief. Note that at 70,000 miles (three times more distant than geosynchronous orbit) Earth's size in the picture's much too large. The bomb-test-sensing Vela satellite, in Wikipedia. Related: an awesome photo of the 1968 French nuclear test Canopus; picture details here.
  
  
• In local news, San Jose teens detained in homemade bomb attacks. Interesting -- first I've heard of a chlorine bomb. Sounds like fun, actually.

• Aww, man -- KQED killed Pacific Time (but there's still lots of never-heard programs in their archive to peruse, at my leisure).
  
  
• Sparky from St. Paul is John Updike's review of the new Charles Schulz biography. Another review in the Wall Street Journal, by Calvin and Hobbes' Bill Waterson. Not everyone's happy, Schulz' family says it's wrong.
  
  
• A feature at Dark Roast Blend, the fascinating Worlds of Jacek Yerka of the "New Weird" movement among surreal artists, which includes some Stanislav Plutenko pictures, as well.
  
  
• Dreamy concept cars at 2007 Tokyo Motor Show plus Ten Weird, Wild & Wonderful Japanese Cars we never got to buy.
  
  
• The Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time -- all the old favorites, plus some newer films to catch up on. Also, Ten Whatchamacallits and their Real Names.
  
  
• Amazing Photos of Castles, Palaces, and Chateaux. Also amazing, in a different way, a single photo -- Al Gore at work.

• Tony&Maureen sell Lonely Planet to the BBC.
  
  
• Exactly what is Mercerized Cotton? Ahh -- so that's why it's shiny, on the spool.

• Just got my car "smogged" -- kinda unnerving, gives one pause, sitting just outside (in a white plastic monobloc) while through the window my car's front end, on metal rollers, is cranked up to 25mph, and then revved even higher. But I got a passing emissions certificate, thankfully.
• Finally got control over my apartment's heater, which is, incredibly, free as I only pay for electricity on my PG&E bill. Unfortunately, the little natural-gas unit responds somewhat sporadically to the wall-thermostat, especially late at night, and this season, not at all. True, I could bug the landlord and maybe get some action (or could just deploy my electric radiator, his preferred solution) but I just discovered shorting out the thermostat is the trick. Hurray! And this "manual mode" seems to have loosened up the automatic; it finally came on all by itself, this morning.
• The new Japanese class is taught by a strict dragon-lady. I squeaked through Beginning3, the previous, with a C+ and I'd like to retake that class but it's unavailable so onto this one, which I may fail -- have to keep reminding myself the grade doesn't matter, I'm there for the educational structure, the optimum available here&now. This time, I'm not the only non-Asian, there's some white nerds also; but the two girls from that previous class both dropped this one after only one session.
• About the phone-cards I use for long distance. Of course the main reason is thrift, 1¢ a minute with the Telespeed, acquired through the vital phonecardonsale.com which allows for easy comparison of them all. No need to buy the (more expensive) physical cards at the convenience store, all you need is the PIN and phone number, which bounces back after you enter your credit card info. The secondary reason, anonymity, has just been withdrawn -- previously, some weird number in South Dakota would show up on your Caller ID, but now y'all can see the number I'm calling from!

• Yankee UFO, a lost Captain Confederacy story, and his alternate history's CONUS map, discussed at length by C.Tsioko.

• A question at AskMe about certain ethnic groups' preferences for grape, or orange soda ('stead o' those colas you white folks are drinkin'). I wasn't consciously aware of this stereotype, until now.

• An Appreciation of "Soylent Green" (34 years too late).
  
  
• Steven talks about bar codes, the great parasites of comics and media, and other tales from the comics wars.
  
  
• Learned from my students today that the fungal infection known to American medicine as Athlete's Foot is called 'Hong Kong Foot' in the Orient.

• Been getting into Klaus Nomi, who I pretty much missed, at the time. How weird that he's still on the air because Rush Limbaugh plays a snippet of his version of Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me." More at Za Bakdaz.
  
  
• It's been almost a year since I stopped working at the base; last week it was in the local news. Seems Google owns a 767 they call GForce One -- this was revealed Monday when their wide-body airliner was spotted and the Mercury News said Google jet to use Moffett Field (No photo -- check Valleywag for that.) I saw Air Force One there once, on the big runway; and all sorts of military planes, but never anything like that.