On Santa Claus being a physicist, from Uncertain Principles: tjc

Now, you might think that there are lots of ways to go with this. You could note the flying reindeer, and say that they're clearly the product of either genetic engineering or at the very least a sophisticated understanding of evolutionary biology. You could take the fact that he manages to deliver toys all over the world as clear evidence that he has found the solution to the Traveling Salesman Problem, and thus is either a mathematician or a computer scientist. But really, all the evidence points to Santa being a physicist.

Former Senator George Mitchell's investigation on the use of performance enhancement drugs in professional baseball was received by MLB officials on Tuesday, and is scheduled to be released publicly today. According to the New York Daily News, the report will name between 60 and 80 current and former players who have used these illegal substances. jmj...

Update #1: The Rocket is the first to fall. That is if you don't include the Paul Byrd leak during the Indians-Red Sox playoff series. That leak brought up serious questions of "conflict of interest" since Mitchell is the director of the front office of the Red Sox and his team was in a huge hole. tjc...
Update #2: Here is the speculative list (names removed). Download the Mitchell Report here. Note the abundance of Yanks and Sox. Could this be the beginning of an A-Rod rejuvenation as the clean player that leads baseball into the future? glc... You have no idea how happy I am to see Roger Clemens on this list; he tops my list of unbearable athletes, right ahead of this guy. Serves Roger right for playing half seasons to pad his stats. jmj

GOOD Magazine is compiling an A to Z of Big Ideas! They're even partnering with Threadless to promote the ideas. Here are excepts from two entries: tjc

Ark, Lunar - "The 'lunar ark,' proposed by an international team of experts (no kidding: they’re called the Alliance to Rescue Civilization), would be a repository of all human knowledge sent to rest on the surface of the moon so that, in the event we go the way of the dinosaur, whoever comes next won’t have to start from scratch. The ark would even have a trained staff of people ready to pick up where we left off."

Coin Flipping Isn't Fair - "Three Stanford statisticians concluded that a flipped coin caught in midair has a 51 percent chance of landing the same way it started. Their data comes from a mere 27 flips, recorded with a high-speed camera in a Stanford lab. It would take 250,000 flips to experimentally confirm such a small bias, but for now, the authors advise giving coins a vigorous pre-flip palm shaking to randomize the coin’s starting position."

Offsets, Carbon - "'We have to figure out how to invest $250 million not in a power plant but in energy conservation. That’s the next step I’d like to take.' It seemed like a new vision of corporate responsibility. It looked like a break with the status quo. It was the first carbon offset. In the 20 years since, one man’s tree-buying spree has become a $91-million global market."

ESPN just produced its 300th This is Sportscenter commercial, followed up by a 'Best of' special this past Tuesday night. My personal favorite (below) didn't make the cut for fan voting. jmj

Developing a growth mind-set over a fixed mind-set improves your intelligence, your athletic ability, your personal relationships, your workplace communication and progress, essentially life in general. Seems intuitive; cultivation is key. A must read for all young parents. This calls to mind Jonathan Livingston Seagull and (both lyrically and visually) Wilco's Sky Blue Sky. glc

Our friends at strange maps present to you, The World of the Future. glc

And now the couple will share their first dance. This is The Righteous Brothers with "Unchained Melo..." er, Sir Mix-a-Lot? (My father-in-law on the assist) tjc

Is Memetic Engineering : Propaganda :: Intelligent Design : Creationism? Here's one example of how the government is trying to misinform/dis-inform. tjc

Rolling Stone has an alphabetical list of The Fifty Best Songs Over Seven Minutes. I'm a big fan of the "B-Boy Bouillabaisse," "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," and "Only In Dreams." I'd be a complete poser if I didn't mention "Free Bird" as well. Play "Free Bird!" tjc

Jessica Hagy on Special People. tjc

According to Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer, global corruption is declining but still remains a major problem. From the report: "About one in ten people around the world had to pay a bribe in the past year." Below is the comparison (by institution) to 2004 (in yellow). Most groups decreased, but some, namely the Business/Private Sector, Religious Bodies, and Non-Governmental Organizations have increased since 2004. tjc

From The Sports Guy's "Links to survive the writers' strike:" tjc

After Bart Scott's two penalties near the end of the Pats-Ravens game had the Pats kicking off from Baltimore's 35, according to the rulebook, the Patriots could have intentionally kicked the ball out of bounds, and it would have been spotted at Baltimore's 5-yard line. Why? Because every out-of-bounds kickoff is spotted 30 yards from the point of the kickoff. I'm amazed Belichick didn't know this.

One more on the Wu, in honor of 8 Diagrams. This is the Rza and the Gza with "Yo, Bill Murray" in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. (The nod goes to Joe Mes, way back) tjc