Patrick

"My bathroom is large. You can easily put a twin air mattress in there. I only ask that when I need to use the bathroom, you or your air mattress are not in it. I do ask that when you are in the apartment, you confine yourself to the bathroom. I do not feel comfortable with a stranger walking around my living room. This might change as I get to know you better. I do ask that when you are in the apartment, you confine yourself to the bathroom. I do not feel comfortable with a stranger walking around my living room. This might change as I get to know you better. You may have guest over as long as they are cnfined to the bathroom as well. This might seem a bit odd but please remember the rent is $400 and the bathroom is large." - Patrick from Bookmarklet

"The researchers have improved the resolution and sensitivity, narrowing things down to single-atom tips. So instead of a tungsten surface, we have a single carbon atom at the end of a chain. And instead of the behavior of the electons in a bulk metal, we have the electron density around one nucleus. Behold the s and p orbitals." - Patrick from Bookmarklet

"Libertarianism is not a ruling-class theory. It may be indulged, certainly, for the useful ideas it can throw up, and its prophets have at times influenced dominant ideologies—witness the cack-handed depredations of the “Chicago Boys” in Chile after Allende’s bloody overthrow. But untempered by the realpolitik of Reaganism and Thatcherism, the anti-statism of “pure” libertarianism is worse than useless to the ruling class." - Patrick from Bookmarklet

Going back and reading it again, I think he's right. Libertarianism does betray a fear of the existing economic system, but it hides this by arguing that it's not truly capitalism. Libertarians suppose that they would do better under a system of "true" capitalism. As Mieville says in the rest of the article though, capitalism has always been a joint project with the state. The "true" capitalism of libertarianism has never existed and never will. - Patrick

"And so, interestingly, the right is increasingly cleaving to the words and philosophy of a woman who was not only, in all likelihood, mentally disturbed, but the functional equivalent of those who fell in love with say, Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, even after their crimes were exposed." - Patrick from Bookmarklet

For that, anna, I am sharing [http://friendfeed.com/pbcar...] one of my favorite libertarianism-related articles. - Patrick

"It is a US-run prison built from scratch on an US military base to hold "enemy combatants" captured in the so-called "war on terror". Those imprisoned there have never been charged with a crime, nor do they have any meaningful way of challenging their detention. The inmates allege abuse at the hands of their captors, ranging from sleep deprivation to brutal beatings. And no, it is not Guantanamo Bay. The Bagram Theatre Internment Facility lies on a sprawling US military complex, 40km northeast of the Afghan capital Kabul. It holds almost three times as many prisoners as Guantanamo and, as its better-known Cuban counterpart prepares to close, the Bagram prison is about to double in size." - Patrick from Bookmarklet

Closing Guantanamo is purely a PR move. - Patrick

"An analysis from the Urban Institute looks at the evidence on how quality of care in the United States compares to that in other countries and provides implications for health reform. Authors Elizabeth Docteur and Robert Berenson find that international studies of health care quality do not in and of themselves provide a definitive answer to this question. What they do show is that the evidence for American superiority in quality of care (or lack thereof) is a mixed bag, with the nation doing relatively well in some areas—such as cancer care—and less well in others—such as mortality from treatable and preventable conditions." - Patrick from Bookmarklet

"The Obama White House isn't sitting impotently by while Democratic Senators shove a bad bill down its throat. This is the bill because this is the bill which Democratic leaders are happy to have. It's the bill they believe in. As important, by giving the insurance and pharmaceutical industries most everything they want, it ensures that the GOP doesn't become the repository for the largesse of those industries (and, converesly, that the Democratic Party retains that status)." - Patrick from Bookmarklet

Can't get enough of Rohm quotes... "Sources at the meeting tell me that Emanuel really teed off on the Dem-versus-Dem attacks, calling them "f–king stupid."" - anna sauce

also like, on why the Democrats aren't *that* dumb: "Why would the GOP want to help Obama achieve one of his most important and politically profitable goals? " - anna sauce

“Iceland is no longer a country. It is a hedge fund.” - Patrick

Very interesting. Thanks. - Eric