Global Thermonuclear War Hypothetical

I thought this was interesting. It was written by Robert Johnston in 2003.

INTRODUCTION: The following is an approximate description of the effects of a global nuclear war. For the purposes of illustration it is assumed that a war resulted in mid-1988 from military conflict between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. This is in some ways a worst-case scenario (total numbers of strategic warheads deployed by the superpowers peaked about this time; the scenario implies a greater level of military readiness; and impact on global climate and crop yields are greatest for a war in August). Some details, such as the time of attack, the events leading to war, and the winds affecting fallout patterns, are only meant to be illustrative. This applies also to the global geopolitical aftermath, which represents the author's efforts at intelligent speculation.

Sarah Palin on Economics

“Quik msg b4 book event: Prez pls pay down massive, obscene U.S debt &/or give ’stimulus’ $ back to Americans b4 propose spending more of our $”

“Baffling/nonsensical: Obama’s talk of yet another debt-ridden ’stimulus’ pkg. Fight this 1, America, bc after last 1 unemployment rose, debt grew.”

keep in mind this is a northern idaho college attendee and prestigious university of idaho alumnus calling out obama (columbia and harvard law), larry summers (mit and harvard), tim geithner (dartmouth and johns hopkins), ben bernanke (harvard, mit), hank paulson (dartmouth, harvard), et al.

North Korea Nuclear Missile Range

The lightest area is the range of North Korea's short-to-medium range missile, the Musudan. In terms of operation range, it's 2500-4000km. Not really a west coast threat, but still enough to devastate Beijing, Tokyo, southeastern Asia, and southwestern Asia/parts of India.

The middle area is the range of the Taepodong 2, NK's long range missile. Its range is closer to 10,000 km. This opens up an entirely new, longer list of in-range population centers. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, not to mention the dense European capitals. While Mumbai is probably not a primary target of KJI, it certainly could prove to be a leverage point considering it has a staggering population of 14 million. Delhi could also be a WWIII bargaining chip, weighing in with 12.5 million residents.

"You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan,' even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that, like, a gang-banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics -- because it's all part of the plan. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well, then everyone loses their minds!"

The Healthcare Swamp

The Slow Reversal of Periods and Quotation Marks

Here.

In the time which I've experimented with Linux and all manner of techie things, I've noticed a constant, willful violation of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style growing within the language of English-speaking geeks. Every day, this phenomenon extends further and further, it seems.
Slowly in quotations, the periods and the commas are switching place with the quotation marks. What do I mean? Well, take a recent node, Troll for the Ages, by TheBooBooKitty. In it, the wise Kitty postulates that

A proper troll should have a title like, "Everything2 is Becoming a Little More Communist Everyday", while an improper troll would have a title like, "Everything2 is just a bunch of god damn wankers".
Notice how the pipes end. They do not end in the order period-quotation marks or comma-quotation marks, as is standard in the Queen's English. Rather the punctuation has been reversed. I don't think that this instance was a typo, nor do I think the hundreds of other violations were. I believe it is an intended departure from normal rules.
In the past, total integrity of the greater ideas within a missive was required, hence, something set off in quotation marks framed the complete thought, including a period or comma. But as technology advanced, the need of technical speech developed. Here, total integrity of the letters themselves is required. A trailing character within a quotation, required by grammatical tradition, could introduce unnecessary error to the data. Example:

You want to enter at the shell "gcc -cf ."Here exists some confusion. (well, not a lot if you're really familiar with bash and gcc but bear with me) Does the trailing dot belong in the shell command? Who knows? The following is far superior. You want to enter at the shell "gcc -cf". So the period began to be pushed to the outside of technical quotations. And even now as the days go by, it permeates the wider English language more and more.
In fifty years, will the Oxford English Dictionary note and accept this change to the ever-pliable interchange medium which is English?

GDP vs. National Debt (By Country)