A Steaming Train Rolling Down the Track Towards You Clarifies the Mind

* Also on the Climategate front: Break-in reported at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. More here and here. Remember how the first step the Vs took way back in the original miniseries was to slander and discredit scientists? Me neither.

* The revision in Obama’s Copenhagen schedule is being optimistically read as proof a deal will be struck. More: Three Ways The Copenhagen Talks Could Succeed (Or Go Bust).

* It should be a crime to use the words “Springsteen” and “retire” in the same sentence.

The group is the foundation of Springsteen’s weightiest work and the backbone of his live marathon performances, many of which exceed three hours without interruption. The singer takes great pride in the band’s longevity and recoils when asked if this recently concluded tour might be the last with the group.

“Are you kidding me? There’s still fannies in the seats out there! People want to see this [bleep]. They want to go away and say, ‘Wow, I don’t believe what I just saw.’ And that’s something we still do.”

He lets the last word hang as if to emphasize that he is speaking of the band in the present tense, not the past.

“We’re musicians to the bone,” Springsteen says. “It ain’t easy to get us to go home. We’re traveling musicians. Everybody in that van has got the same thing in their blood and in their bones. And there’s many miles to go before we sleep.”

* Fantastic Mr. Fox the best film of 2009? That seems overly generous, but as a rabid Anderson fanboy, I’ll take it.

* ‘AirTran “hero” wasn’t on plane, airline says.’ Via Mitch. Josh Marshall had some fun with this one earlier today.

* Take David Foster Wallace’s grammar challenge. Answers here. (via Kottke)

* Statistically speaking, it was easier to get into Harvard than to get a job at this Applebee’s in the Bronx. (Thanks Maggie!)

* Max Baucus steps in shit.

* And please be advised that today cell phones don’t cause brain cancer.

Saturday Night Fever

Saturday night, and I can’t stop reloading the blogs to see how health care is doing. Image at the right via kate.

* The White House press corps does not believe you have not heard of V.

* Democratic congresswomen shouted down by Republicans. Matt has the video, and it’s pretty astounding.

* Krugman: “There’s no measure I can think of by which the U.S. economy has done better since 1980 than it did over an equivalent time span before 1980.”

* Kurt Vonnemutt.

* Ladies and gentlemen, Mars. Related: 1924, the year Navy radiographers were asked to listen for communication from Mars.

Linkdump #1

Lots of saved links today. Here’s the first batch.

* V is a hit. But is Obama an evil lizard for outer space? Acephalous reports.

* Michael Bérubé talks this year’s terrible academic job market.

* North Carolina mayoral races in Charlotte and Chapel Hill are getting some national attention.

* Congratulations, Atlanta, America’s most toxic city.

* What do kids call LEGO pieces? Via Kottke.

* Legal outrage of the day: The Supreme Court has indeed said that prosecutors are immune from suit for anything they do at trial. But in this case, Harrington and McGhee maintain that before anyone being charged, prosecutors gathered evidence alongside police, interviewed witnesses and knew the testimony they were assembling was false.

The prosecutors counter that there is “no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed.” Stephen Sanders, the lawyer for the prosecutors, will tell the Supreme Court on Wednesday that there is no way to separate evidence gathered before trial from the trial itself. Even if a prosecutor files charges against a person knowing that there is no evidence of his guilt, says Sanders, “that’s an absolutely immunized activity.” These innocent men were in jail for twenty-five years; naturally, the Obama administration is backing the corrupt, lying prosecutors who put them there.

Saturday Night

Saturday night.

* The first eight minutes of the ABC V remake. Some of this footage you’ve probably seen before.

* Canuxploitation!: your complete guide to Canadian B-film.

* Dollhouse ratings dip back down again after a week off. My thoughts on this week’s episode here; in general I thought it was very good but not as good as everyone else seems to want to think. The show, never all that certain what it wanted to be about in the first place, is showing serious strain from being pulled in so many different directions at once. Is it a critically acclaimed loss leader or is it supposed to have high ratings? Is it an Eliza Dushku vehicle or an ensemble show? Is it serial or episodic? Are its characters tragic or villainous? Is it a feminist critique of late capitalism or a machine for generating sexy girls in miniskirts?

* Glenn Greenwald considers why debt matters for domestic spending but not for military spending.

Beltway elites have health insurance and thus the costs and suffering for those who don’t are abstract, distant and irrelevant. Identically, with very rare exception, they and their families don’t fight the wars they cheer on — and don’t even pay for them — and thus get to enjoy all the pulsating benefits without any costs whatsoever. 

* And, via Vu, Žižek explains hipsters.