a map you can love

Wonderfully fascinating website for maps of all kinds: strange, historic, fanciful... Truly A+ time-wasting fare.

what's in a smile?

BBC online has a nifty video test to see if you can distinguish a false smile from a real one. At the end the researchers share their findings.

Then again, if you are the sort who would rather not go around opening Pandora's Boxes, it might be better to pass this one by. ;?)

creative writing 400

how do i say this....this guy just took sci fi in another direction. incredibly, he's re-imagined the staples of the sci fi bookshelf in the chinese idiom and done it in the form of literary critique.

does he get an "A" in creative writing?

methinks i like this guy

Haven't waxed political in a little while (leastwise not in here). So here's a little nod to the Scooter Libby judge's footnotes re: those bigwig legal scholars who mobilized to write letters of support for libs in less than 72 hours. Thanks to Emptywheel by way of TPM.

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant.

The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.