Quickies: UND researchers and what they're researching

• The City Beat is finally starting that project to interview UND researchers about their fields. Did you know there's a list of published articles by UND faculty at the Chester Fritz library Web site? The person in special collections that I talked to said that his department surveys all the academic departments every year and "mostly" get compliance. Absent-minded professors?
• Good news for North Dakota's hemp industry.
• If you didn't catch NPR's This American Life this weekend, you missed out on an interesting take on the health care debate. The main topic is one that's not been a big part of the debate: The actual cost of care and the amount of care patients demand -- in spite of their doctors might say. Listen to the story in Act Two and you'll realize the enemy is us.
• The logical conclusion to the ultra-minimalist view of government. Sounds like a pleasant place to live. (via Boing Boing.)
• "Is Conservatism Brain Dead?" asks Steven Hayward of the (conservative) American Enterprise Institute.

 Conservatism has prospered most when its attacks on liberalism have combined serious alternative ideas with populist enthusiasm. When the ideas are absent, the movement has nothing to offer -- except opposition. That doesn't work for long in American politics.

  Instead of men of letters like William F. Buckley Jr. to fight for the cause, we have know-nothing types like Rush and Hannity, whose main contribution is that liberals are to be hated and feared (No doubt the same is true of hateful demogogues.). (via Brainiac.)

• In other news, teabaggers are mounting an attack on the one party that is sympathetic to their message. The Greens went after Gore and got their worst nightmare, W. The angry right will now have to learn the same lesson, although, what could be worse than Obama? Hoho. Comedy gold.
• Wonderful interactive map from NPR showing where the transmission lines are, where they might be, how states produce electricity -- let's say there's a lot of potential for wind power development! -- and so on. (via Boing Boing.)

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 10/12/2009 at 5:15 PM | Comments (15) | Permalink

Tags: agriculture, alternative energy, frivolous links, higher education, transmission capacity, und