There's a show on the Canadian History Channel called the Reinventors, where they take patents that were never made, build them and see if they work. I wise there was a way to submit ideas, because I would totally submit the banana thing. [link]

Hil, that story sounds very off. And I distinctly don't like that one of the girl's main defenders is the founder of Jihad Watch, which I came across while looking for online reviews of a thoughtful, well-written apologetics-for-the-general-public book written by an American Muslim woman I'd just read, and found a whack-ass raging screed by him about what a monstrous liar and bloodstained terrorist apologist she was.

According to the article in Time magazine, she was a cheerleader before she ran away from home.

I already posted Lewis' first offering to the Dalek conversation in COMMA, because it was that good, but I'll repost here:

Mary Kay Dalek: EXFOLIATE! EXFOLIATE!

But then he came up with another-- lead-footed Dalek: ACCELERATE! ACCELERATE!

My husband, he is a bent, bent man. Which is why I love him, of course.

I have two months to convince my kids to dress up for Halloween as an Away Team from Star Trek.

On a mission to explore strange, new neighborhoods. To seek out new life and new kinds of candy.

Swear to God, Cash, I had to zoom in on the boy's head to see if that was his real hair or if he was wearing some sort of wig.

But otherwise, those are ROCKIN' costumes. I have no idea if the rugrats will be wanting to dress up this year. Considering that Halloween is my least favorite holiday, I won't be heartbroken.

Which probably makes me a bad parent, right?

OK this is a really belated reply to Hec.

In terms of being able to feed and supply basic needs for everyone in the world - it has been physically possible with resources and labor available since at least some years before WWI. Bucky Fuller wrote about this a great deal. My own stuff deals with out ability not only to do this, but do it sustainably. My on-line book No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming deals with this mainly from an energy perspective, also from stuff like building construction, raw materials and food. [link]

For something a bit shorter you could try my article published in Z magazine "Cooling a Fevered Planet". [link] . This is mainly about the economics, and deals with how pure markets tend to fail in terms of sustainability and providing enough for everyone.

Since they cut my endnotes out leaving pure assertion without evidence, a shorter more recent piece, "Growing a Better World" does have some documentation and endnotes. [link]

In terms arguments over capitalism vs. socialism, I would say that trying to start a form of socialism that relied on pure altruism would be as foolish as trying to run capitalism on pure rational long term self-interest. Neither really reflects the way people operate. Any economic system needs reflect that people operate both altruistically and self-interestedly, and that for the most part we are not rational creatures in either mode. I would say this rules out pure capitalism or pure socialism, and makes the case for mixed systems that don't expect most people to be either Galt or Hillel.

It doesn't make you a bad parent, Barb. It's not everyone's cup o' tea. As our kids get older, I'd like Halloween to be our Christmas, really. It's a lot less stressful and with less snow.

I've always admired people who can go all out for Halloween because it does seem like a ton of fun. My issues with it are all about the walking outside in the dark because I'm a big wuss.

We've been discussing costumes for Grace and Noah. K is not a big Halloweenie, but I am. Last year they were Thing 1 and Thing 2. The problem is that both kids are indoors for a party at Grace's place and it's hot so we need costumes where they can be cool. I'm thinking woodland fairy for Grace. But what's equivalent for Noah.

But what's equivalent for Noah

Puck.