Fortunately, Bill Vallicella has posted up a link I can steal, and it’s just the thing: Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness — a wry meditation, very much “of its time”, from the apex of the Progressive era. I’d never read it before. Can’t imagine why.

Here’s something else, too: a curious hypothesis about our obesity epidemic, courtesy of Dennis Mangan.

– Nothing new under the sun.

– Plan B: Algae!

– The birds and the bees.

– Last but not least, news you can use: How to to deal with those annoying roadblock ambushes.

I’ve been saying for a while that the problem facing America today is no longer a problem of conservatives and liberals learning to get along — we’ve gone beyond that. No, the problem is that although the ideological division between the two factions has widened beyond any hope of reconciliation, we still can’t get away from each other.

I have just received an email that outlines a practical solution.

DIVORCE AGREEMENT

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dear American liberals, leftists, democrats, social progressives, socialists, regressive, Marxists, and Obama supporters, et. al.:

We have stuck together since the late 1950s for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

1. Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by land mass, each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy. Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides had such distinct and disparate tastes.

2. We don’t like redistributive taxes, so you can keep them.

3. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.

4. Since you hate guns and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA, and the military.

5. We’ll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar, and bio-diesel.

6. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore, and Rosie O’Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.

7. We’ll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart, and Wall Street.

8. You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless homeboys, hippies, druggies, and illegal aliens.

9. We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s and rednecks.

10. We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .

11. You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.

12. You can have the peace-niks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security.

13. We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.

14. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness, and Shirley McLain. You can also have the U.N., but we will no longer be paying the bill.

15. We’ll keep the SUV’s, pickup trucks, and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

16. You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors..

17. We’ll continue to believe healthcare is an earned luxury and not a right.

18. We’ll keep “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The National Anthem.”

19. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute “Imagine”, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”, “Kum Ba Ya,” or “We Are the World”.

20. We’ll practice trickledown economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

21. Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our constitution and our flag.

22. Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I’ll let you answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American

P.S.: Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Barbara Streisand, and Jane Fonda with you.

P.S.S..: And you won’t have to “Press 1 for English” when you call our country.

**If you can’t stand behind our Military, Please feel free to stand in front of them! **

So: zooming out just a little from U.S. politics, here’s a nice example of gravitational lensing: a “magnified” galaxy that we see as it was two-thirds of the age of the Universe ago.

Make them mad. We all know when you’re angry you should count to 10; this should be sufficient for distinguishing the two species.

The Coder:

“zero…one…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight…nine.”

The Ph.D:

“one…two.”

New York New York, it’s a helluva town / 3 foot rats, but the transfats are down

Don’t know about you, but I really hate it when this happens.

As I write, my friend G. Orcalimbo Jones at WOMR is playing Side 2 of Zappa’s One Size Fits All. What an incredible record.

A fold in the brain seems to have something to do with distinguishing reality from imagination.

A collection of “coffins” — math problems with relatively simple solutions that are hellishly difficult to find — used by Soviet schools to keep out Jews.

22 miles straight up in 90 seconds.

An interesting item about Zucotti Park.

A detailed examination of blackboards in porn.

Oh, and a plug for yours truly at 8:00.

“Shameless Filler” seems about the right category for this one.

(HT: Derb.)

Postings will continue to be sporadic till early September. For today, though, here’s one of those educational nature videos.

For tonight, though, just a few links — starting with a couple from Science Daily:

– From the University of Leicester, what you might call “penetrating” insights into a popular activity.

– Does recent research into epigenetics mean new life for Lamarckism?

– In a follow-up to our story a while back about zombie ants, here’s a similar game involving ladybugs.

– On a more political note: Dennis Prager enumerates a few of the reasons why, as John Boehner said last night, “bigger government means smaller people”.

Might be quiet here for a couple of days.

Except, of course, this appetizing illustration of sodium-ion channels in action, courtesy of my daughter Chloe.

Like other sports, though, the eating circuit has its stars — its Federers and Mannings and Mickelsons — and they make a pretty good living, I think. (At the very least, they don’t go hungry.) But the honor and glory, it turns out, comes at a heavy price.

Learn more here.

Instead, then: a grab from the Shameless Filler bag. Tonight it’s one of the damnedest eyetwisters I’ve ever seen.

The squares in the image below are arranged in four concentric circles. (If you don’t believe me, trace them with your mouse!)