Medary.com

A partial list, as usual:

Jackrabbits debut in national top 25 poll by Terry Vandrovec at the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader

It's the first time that SDSU (10-1) has been ranked since moving to the NCAA Division I level in 2004-05, the first time that a member of the Summit League has been ranked since Northern Illinois in 1993-94 and is one spot shy of the highest placement ever for a team from that conference.

SDSU men cruise past Bakersfield by Terry Vandrovec at the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader

Nagy said that he made the lineup moves to send the message that nobody's job is safe. But in the process, he discovered that the team is inching closer to being deep enough to play the uptempo style that it employed during its Division II heyday.

Q&A with SDSU athletic director Fred Oien by Terry Vandrovec at the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader

Royals invite four to spring training by Sam Mellinger at the Kansas City Star

Quiet Bison Sire More Calves Than Louder Rivals from the University of California at Davis

During bison mating season, the quietest bulls score the most mates and sire the most offspring while studs with the loudest bellows see the least action, according to a surprising new study by researchers at University of California, Davis, and Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.

WB-6 Results Confirmed - Continuous Operation The Next Step by M. Simon at the IEC Fusion Technology blog

The next step in my opinion should be a continuously operating version about the size of WB-7. A device I used to call WB-7x and will probably be called WB-8.

Verdict Positive for Inertial Electrostatic Fusion by BW at NextBigFuture

'Follow The Elements' To Understand Evolution In Ancient Oceans at ScienceDaily

"The history of our planet is like a natural laboratory of 'alternative worlds,'" says Anbar. "The chemical composition of the oceans has changed dramatically over billions of years. Elements that are abundant today were once scarce, and elements that are scarce today were once abundant. So Earth's ancient oceans are a good place to go if we want to understand how organisms and ecosystems evolve to cope with changing abundances of elements. Studying the ancient oceans also stretches our minds to imagine what we might find someday in alien oceans on other worlds."

Commercial Spaceport in New Mexico Gets FAA Launch License by Leonard David at Space.com

The New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) announced Monday that it received a license for vertical and horizontal launches from the Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST).

Science Fiction And The Alternate History at LibraryThing.com

My question is this, though: What's the deal with Alternate Histories being classified as SFF? Who thought that one up?

The Best and Worst of Skymall by Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo

Stunning Zenithal Shot of Space Shuttle Flying On Top of 747 by Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo

Why You Shouldn't Buy Off-Brand TVs by Matt Buchanan at Gizmodo

The HD Guru says that lower tier manufacturers might skimp on construction, using lower quality power supplies, for instance, with repair costs running as high as purchasing a whole new set. Besides, as you can see over the HD Guru site, the warranties tend to be less robust.

Higher-ed Spending Not the Answer by Neal McCluskey at the Cato Institute

Of course, all this forced largesse might be worth something if it actually strengthened the economy. But there is evidence it doesn't. Economist Richard Vedder has isolated the effects of higher ed spending and found that the more states spend, the lower their rates of economic growth.

The Credit Triangle by Steve H. Hanke at the Cato Institute

To better understand the forces at play and the rough magnitudes involved, we use a credit triangle. The triangle's architect is John Greenwood. Recall that he was also the architect of Hong Kong's modern currency board system.

Entire US Now Actually Bankrupt? More: If You Thought That Was Scary, Read This Other Guy by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ

Some guy does a bit of number-crunching and calculates that federal liabilities now not only exceed government assets and income (which we all knew, of course), but also the gross cumulative net worth of all American citizens to boot.

Beware: Internet Explorer Being Hacked Like Crazy, And At This Time, There's No Fix by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ

If you're on IE, switch to another browser, immediately.

F*ck You, Penguin: A Blog Dedicated to Posting Cute Animal Pictures, and Then Snidely Insulting Them by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ

Funny.

Standing in the way of the future by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

. . . the controversy over the Czech President’s refusal to hang the EU flag from Prague Castle seems to encapsulate what may be the biggest political conflict of the 21st century. . .

They got took by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

“activists” have a curious relationship with money. They don’t make it, but they need to spend it. They need what they loathe. What can I tell you?

Smoke and mirrors by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

The really scary thing is that however large we make the regulators, however great the powers we give them it is possible that they cannot protect us from storms at all. Perhaps the downside of an information economy — indeed an information driven world — is that no one really knows what things mean.

Oil troubled waters 2 by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

Consumers, faced with higher costs and less money (falling mortgage equity withdrawals), pulled back dramatically. The result was a sharp drop in demand, and therefore prices.

All of this goes back to the mortgage debacle, in which Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a big new home. Eased underwriting standards drove up home values (money flowing into housing faster than supply expanded); rising home values created phantom equity; phantom equity was converted by consumers into cash through additional debt; consumers spent that cash on stuff made overseas, driving down the value of the dollar and increasing global energy demand; the falling dollar and rising demand drove oil prices into the stratosphere.

Hard work by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

This video of Bangladeshi bricklayers illustrates work at a level so basic it has almost been forgotten in modern Western economies.

Worst Economic Prescription of the Week by Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog

Note the embedded theory here of income and wealth, which is really startling. For Drum and most of the left, income is this sort of fountain that spews forth on its own out in the desert somewhere. Rich people are the piggy folks who crowd close to the fountain and take more than their fair share of what is flowing out. There is absolutely no recognition that possibly wealth is correlated with individual initiative, work, intelligence, and behaviors.

Bush: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system” by Allahpundit at Hot Air
Why does "I destroyed the village in order to save it" come to mind?

Scientists scoff at AP global-warming story by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air

Even scientists who believe in global warming couldn’t quite believe their eyes. They called the report by the Seth Borenstein a “polemic” and wondered when research stopped being a requirement for science reporters

Journamalism by Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom, who riffs of a question asked at an ABC News blog:

Who’s Worse: Madoff or Blagojevich?

Commisar Putin and the death of freedom By McQ at QandO Blog

Dana Milbank Ain't Feeling The Tingle, I Guess by Dan Riehl at Riehl World View

Not that Milbank was a die hard Obama fan. But The One should learn something from McCain's recent experience. The media is your friend until it isn't.

Cheerful Remarks at Big Media’s Funeral by Alan Caruba at FamilySecurityMatters.org

Like Mark Twain, I drifted into journalism because I was seriously opposed to having to actually work for a living. One of Twain’s classic quotes was “Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you please.” A pretty fair definition of journalism in his times and ours.

I began to have early doubts about the rigors of being a journalist when, three months after I joined the staff of a weekly newspaper, the first I had ever worked for, the editor moved on to a daily and I was anointed the editor. That’s right. I went from rookie to head honcho in about 90 days. I virtually wrote that entire newspaper for well over a year or so and probably learned as much as any four-year curriculum at the Newhouse or Columbia School of Journalism. Then I moved on to a daily newspaper.