Time: a glacier, not a stream

Via Sean Carroll: I Tweeted the following inscrutable remark. Probably best left unexplained, but upon reflection I can’t resist. My consciousness freely travels up and down my world line, but sadly it only carries the memories appropriate to the moment it inhabits. The point is that (some) people don’t think about the flow of time [...]

WE ARE SURROUNDED BY ANTIMATTER EVERYBODY PANIC

THE ONLY WAY OUT IS TO TUNNEL THROUGH THE EARTH AND BEG THE HYPERBORIANS FOR SAFE PASSAGE THROUGH THE FOURTH DIMENSION GIVE THEM ANYTHING THEY WANT OUR CIVILIZATION IS AT STAKE. PRIDE IS A LUXURY OF AN AGE OF INNOCENCE WE SHALL NEVER KNOW AGAIN. TELL US OF OUR DOOM, BBC! A thin band of [...]

What if you’re somebody’s shadow?

Two days ago, I discussed several theories which call for universes parallel to our own. Brian Greene, writing in Discover Magazine, floats another one even queerer than the three I mentioned. Whereas the other worlds in my last post were causally isolated from our own, this hypothesis posits that all the events in our universe are [...]

Happy Non-Parents Day!

  Happy Non-Parents Day!   August 1 is the day the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood unsuccessfully petitioned to have recognized as a day affirming the decision of childfree couples not to pollute the world with another gobbling mouth and greedy pair of hands.   To thank them for stemming the flood of humanity into [...]

Is this even showing anywhere anymore, or do I need to wait for DVD?

Mildly curious about The Tree of Life. “Grace” and “nature” are apparently its chief concerns, and I am curious as to whether Malick’s nature is Ptolemaic or Epicurean. Which is to say: Is his universe solely a grand set built for the playing out of the human drama, in which a trillion stars are so much stage lighting? [...]

Sweden and the fragility of democracy

A quater of young people in Sweden, the nation ranked last year as the fourth most democratic nation by the Economist’s annual Democracy Index, would be receptive to an autocrat indifferent to the results of elections and pronouncements of the parliament.  Via The Local: In a debate article in Friday’s Dagens Nyheter (DN) Lindberg wrote that [...]

The Civil War and the ascent of democracy

Via Adam Gropnik in The New Yorker: One legacy of the civil-rights movement that took hold around the time of the Civil War’s centenary is that it has become harder and harder for untruths to be told uncurbed. The war was fought over slavery. The Southern states seceded because Abraham Lincoln had been elected President, [...]

NY Times bin Laden obit

Via KATE ZERNIKE and MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN and Tim Weiner in the NY Times.  All seven pages below the fold, for those of you who don’t want to spend one of your 20 free stories. Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan on Sunday, was a son of the Saudi elite whose radical, violent campaign to [...]

George W. Bush’s statement on bin Laden’s death

Via TPM: Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have [...]

Liveblog of Obama’s address on bin Laden’s death

11:35-Obama was explicit and said the US lead an operation that killed OBL. Now, a rather prosaic solliloqy on 9/11 and its aftermath. 11:37-History lesson now on removing Taliban, OBL’s escape, al Qaeda’s continued operations. 11:39-Special forces “took percautions” to protect civilian bystanders, killed OBL. No US casualties. 11:40-1-bin Laden “not a Muslim leader,” a [...]