Slate's most recent blog posts:
-
Weigel:
posted by David Weigel
on September 9, 2010
Haley Barbour And the Case of the Mysterious Obama Biography
This is either simply ignorant or willfully ignroant Read More
-
Scocca:
posted by Tom Scocca
on September 8, 2010
Who Will Help the Robots? The New Robots!
Elevators’ confines are often awkward, and when we all piled inside to
go to the cafeteria, it was even more uncomfortable as people silently
peered out of the corners of their eyes at a man’s face displayed on a
monitor atop a metal stick. (The robot has no arms, so I was dependent
on their good will to push the elevator button.) Read More
-
Procrastinate Better:
posted by Jessica Grose
on September 8, 2010
A Digital Spin of the Globe
Today's Internet toy: Globe Genie . The work of an MIT grad student named Joe McMichael, Globe Genie has a shuffle button that allows you to go an arbitrary destination anywhere in the world, through the wonders of Google Earth's street view. You can narrow your shuffle field by continent, if Read More
-
The XX Factor:
posted by KJ DellAntonia
on September 8, 2010
Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated
So says the sign at the Olde Salte restaurant at Carolina Beach. It's a
sign that just as easily could be posted in my kitchen, or in my car.
Like most parents, I don't tolerate screaming by my children at home,
let alone in public. A restaurant is not a playground; there should be
no Read More
-
Moneyblog:
posted by James Ledbetter
on September 8, 2010
Does Wall Street Get to Elect Its Own Sheriff?
I imagine that I don't have to explain to Slate readers that the job of New York State attorney general is an important one; the office's recent occupants have had a profound impact on how Wall Street does business. And so how, in the perfectly rational, merit-based democracy that is New Read More
-
Brow Beat:
posted by Noreen Malone
on September 8, 2010
It Happened One Weeknight, 8/7 Central
It starts, as such things often do, with jaunty, unidentifiable jazz; a panoramic urban nightscape backdrop; soft, flattering lighting. Our heroes, we are so given to understand by their fixation with discussing Middle Eastern policy instead of feelings, are sophisticated city-dwellers, obsessed with their work, probably a little lonely, definitely afraid to let love in. All the better for it to strike unexpectedly on the job, and from the sparks crackling between these two, we won't have to wait very long. Read More
-
Human Nature:
posted by William Saletan
on August 29, 2010
Stem-Cell Throwback
The stem-cell ruling, issued Monday by U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth, says that federal funding of research using cells derived from destroyed embryos violates federal law. Pro-lifers are ecstatic. "Court Strikes Down Obama Administration Stem Cell Policy," crows Americans United for Read More
-
The Wrong Stuff:
posted by Kathryn Schulz
on August 17, 2010
Reasonable Doubt: Innocence Project Co-Founder Peter Neufeld on Being Wrong
In terms of empirical studies, that's right. And 30 or 40 years ago, the Supreme Court acknowledged that eyewitness identification is problematic and can lead to wrongful convictions. The trouble is, it instructed lower courts to determine the validity of eyewitness testimony based on a lot of factors that are irrelevant, like the certainty of the witness. But the certainty you express [in court] a year and half later has nothing to do with how certain you felt two days after the event when you picked the photograph out of the array or picked the guy out of the lineup. You become more certain over time; that's just the way the mind works. With the passage of time, your story becomes your reality. You get wedded to your own version. Read More