Yesterday, the New York Times' Straight Sets blog raved about the intensity of the Nadal-Federer semifinal, but this morning's match between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray was a dogfight. I woke up at 4:30AM to a score of Djokovic leading 6-3, 3-5, but Novak fell behind on serve and was broken to lose the second set. All even.

The third set was very tight. The first game, Djokovic serving, took over ten minutes. Murray was serving crisply and controlling the baseline rallies with tightly-angled forehands. Reportedly suffering from a "stuffy nose," Djokovic looked tired and far less confident than usual. He wasn't serving that well, and repeatedly had to fight back to hold his own service games. Nole did well to reach a tiebreak, but couldn't hold off Murray. Andy only needed to keep going and take the fourth set. Crikey, even Ivan Lendl cracked a smile. [Read more]

When the whole SOPA/PIPA blackout was going on, most of us, like the sheeple we are, just grabbed something someone else did and closed up shop,  but The Oatmeal, like the creative peeple they are, got creative.  You can see it here.

Carlsberg Beer, like the creative peeple they are, (I didn't know that about Carlsberg, did you?) pulled a stunt involving tattooed bikers in a movie theater.  You can watch it here.
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Last week, blogger MuddyPolitics wrote a piece that took a swipe at Mitt Romney for his Mormon faith. The article provoked a passionate debate, one that is likely being repeated in various forms across the country this election season.

The question is this: Should we consider Romney's religious beliefs when assessing his fitness for the presidency? [Read more]

Today on Morning Joe, Joe went crazy accusing Howard Dean of being a liar when it comes to education reform and blaming Democrats and Teachers unions for the state of our k-12 system. Public schools just like reproductive rights attract Republican attacks often.

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Women's tennis will have a new #1 next week, and the current top-ranked player, Caroline Wozniacki, will drop to #4 in the WTA rankings. A lot of scenarios were possible before the semis, but now that third seed Victoria Azarenka and fourth seed Maria Sharapova are to play the finals, the winner will also secure the #1 ranking.

According to a contributor at Yahoo, if Azarenka wins, the points will stand at:
1. Victoria Azarenka 8585
2. Petra Kvitova 7690
3. Maria Sharapova 7560
4. Caroline Wozniacki 7085 [Read more]

If I were a betting man, and I'm not, I'd bet the house on the Giants beating the spread which currently has them 3 point underdogs versus the Patriots.  In fact, I'm very confident that they will win the Super Bowl.  For the life of me, I can't figure out how the Patriots are favored.  Okay, I can.  Tom Brady. 

Brady is a great great quarterback.  Quite possibly, he is the dominant 21st century pro football player - although Ray Lewis devotees certainly have an argument.  But I'm not even sure he's better than Eli Manning right now and Manning has more weapons and a better defense. [Read more]

Today, in my purely masochistic Thomas Friedman reading ritual, I followed a link to a long (and well written) article called "Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class," that I recommend to you because of the truth that it quietly reveals: [Read more]

Here it is nearing the end of January and at long last, after 17 Republican debates--count 'em, 17!--we're down to two actual contenders and a couple of valiant bench-warmers. While Ron Paul and Rick Santorum work hard to make some headway, it looks like it's Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, neck and neck, fighting it out for a chance to clobber the current White House occupant and show this country what a real president looks like.
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The Newt-inator is enforcing his brand of compassionate politics. [Read more]

I like Barney Frank's use of language. He gets my vote as the most incisive liberal---present company excluded---and I think he should be given a full time job as a speech writer for President OBama. Regarding the current Republican Primary, Barney Frank famously said, "I never thought I would be so lucky as to live to see Newt Gingrich run for President". [Read more]

I just added Operation Plowshare to the long list of stuff I never knew about.

Following links, I ended up at 1967 Recklessness in PA Equals Destruction? at How Should We Do the Mountain blog: [Read more]

In hindsight, the plan seems impossibly audacious: Explode a 24-kiloton atomic bomb in the thick shale beneath the Sproul State Forest near State College to create a massive cavern for storing natural gas. Known as Project Ketch, it was a partnership between the Columbia Gas System Service Corp. and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which was hungry to find peaceful purposes for nuclear technology. (Another commission brainchild of the era: to nuke its way across Panama to create a second canal.)

Back then, Harrisburg had the red carpet out for any nuclear project, no matter how bizarre, and the proposal caught on. Why not put all that empty forest land to good use? Pennsylvania could cash in big, because the industry and the AEC hoped to detonate as many as 1,000 nuclear bombs to allow gas storage in the Northeast.

While the plan had the blessing of lawmakers from downstream districts along the Susquehanna, the reception wasn’t as enthusiastic upstream. Among those opposed were the residents of Renovo, which was ground zero for Project Ketch.

I told you so.  Back in November, I posited that the primary lens through which one should view this Republican primary cycle was not as a contest among positive options, but as a contest among Romney and whoever was the most compelling alternative to Romney.  (You know, the AntiRomney.)  After Romney convincingly won his home state, I argued again in this space that if Gingrich remained in the teens nationally (which he did at all times), he would win South Carolina.  And now with Gingrich's resurgence through two debates and a decisive triumph in South Carolina, he is well poised to win Florida, and with it, assume the mantle of the front runner in the GOP race.  All of which shows that the Tea Party has taken control of the Republican Party, and also, that Barack Obama is likely to be re-elected nine months or so hence.  Why?  Three reasons: [Read more]

Romney's loss in South Carolina seems to me to be a win for the 99% and a loss for the Republican Party formula of redistributing wealth to the top 1% by achieving acquiescence of the working class through the gambit of stoking paranoid populism. Gingrich won the working class vote overwhelmingly in South Carolina, with his best percentages coming from those with the lowest incomes and without high school diplomas. 

Gingrich stoked populist paranoia through racial dog whistling, condemnation of big government and all things Washington, not to mention attacks on the media. And because of the foibles of the Mr. 1% Romney---who haplessly entered this primary at a time of new specific populist anger against the banks and Wall St.---Gingrich was able to turn the normal strengths of an establishment candidate into a liability, upending the formula. [Read more]

I’m sure you are all as relieved as I am that Thursday’s meeting of the International Telecommunications Union postponed its scheduled vote on whether to drop the leap second:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16625614

The next planned one-second adjustment to Universal Time, at the end of June, will go ahead. And delegates will return home for consultations before the issue arises again at the World Radio Conference in 2015.

The Americans, French and Japanese are reportedly leading the charge for abolition, while China, the U.K. and Canada are among those opposed. Me too, although I don’t get to vote. [Read more]

So, Newt Gingrich is getting all kinds of media love after blasting the media in Thursday's debate, and saying that he's "tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans," for example by reporting on things that Republicans running for President have actually said and done. I mean, the "elite media" hasn't fact-checked anything Barack Obama has said in a Presidential debate since before he was elected! How can that be fair?
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On Sunday (Jan. 22), we’ll be attending the Crueldade Nunca Mais rally in Uberlandia, Minas Gerais, Brazil. This is not just a nation-wide rally, but an international one, dedicated to strengthen extremely weak laws in Brazil against animal cruelty. [Read more]

 January 20, 2012.  Today marks the beginning of Barack Obama's fourth year as president.  Three years ago today he stood out in the cold and said, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America."  He promised "an open government" and "a new beginning."   I've been around for many televised inaugurations, starting with JFK's when I was but a mere child/adult and, for me, this one equaled or might have even surpassed that one for good, old-fashioned stirring moments.
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Back in the 1980s, no one could replicate Pons and Fleischmann's claims about cold fusion, and the idea of controlled fusion without tremendous costs became a sort of atomic snake oil. ITER's tremendously expensive controlled "hot" fusion is still decades away from practicality, but the hydrogen bomb seems to suffice as proof of concept. Cold fusion has crept back into the news, but not into peer-reviewed discussion. Skeptics attack the few articles published with a fury. Peak Oil guru Tom Whipple is used to doubt, and has followed the issue dispassionately in a handful of articles. His Cold Fusion Update discusses the current claims of Italian entrepreneur Andrea Rossi: [Read more]

A number of Republican presidential hopefuls and not so hopefuls have attacked Mitt Romney as a heartless capitalist who destroyed jobs while a partner at Bain Capital. Newt Gingrich compared Romney to a looter. Rick Perry called him a vulture. Jon Huntsman suggested that Romney likes firing people.

The anti-Romney offensive has raised the ire of many Republican leaders, who have condemned the charges as disrespectful to heartless capitalism. Their concern is understandable. Heartless capitalism is the very soul of Republican Party. Without it, the party would resemble some toothless decomposing zombie that blunders haplessly into disgusted voters while gurgling about taking back the country. [Read more]

It's a great life. You risk your skin catching killers and the juries turn them loose so they can come back and shoot at you again. If you're honest you're poor your whole life and in the end you wind up dying all alone on some dirty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star.

Lon Chaney, Jr., asking Marshal Will Kane played by Gary Cooper why he goes out into the street to get shot at. High Noon. [Read more]