Election 2014:

[El1] Like yours truly, Sonny Bunch was disenfranchised by the system and it’s requirement that you “register” to “vote.”

[El2] Inland California used to be red. No more!

[El3] Allegedly, as election day approached, both sides saw the GOP wave coming when they saw a persistent passion disparity and late-breakers breaking towards the GOP.

[El4] Jonathan Blanks explains the lack of positive attention devoted to Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and Mia Love (R-UT). It’s an interesting piece drawing the distinctions, but by and large they don’t seem to be particularly treated differently.

Entertainment:

[En1] Tom Petty’s Wildflowers, a truly great record, turns 20. Man, I feel old.

[En2] Taylor Swift, whose eight seconds of static made it to #1, opts out of Spotify. It would stand to reason that more big artists would benefit from doing the same, which makes me wonder if Spotify won’t eventually become something of a platform for discovery.

[En3] Are TV makers ruining our movie experience? Noted conservative (and Ordinary Times critic) Sonny Bunch calls for prohibition. Personally, I’d been wondering what feature it was that my father’s TV has that mine does not so that I can make sure that my next one has it. I’m pretty sure that’s the one.

[En4] Zack Morris was kind of a scumbucket.

[En5] From Christopher Carr: An excellent reminiscence of the Twilight Zone and its role in post-WWII American culture.

Asia:

[A1] James Fallows seems pretty excited about the climate deal worked out between the US and China. It apparently took a lot of work. John Kemp and Tim Mak, however, are less impressed. The major concession that China is making, was already believed to be the case two years ago.

[A2] The Japanese may or may not want to fire the nuclear plants back up, but according to Satsumasendai it really needs to happen.

[A3] Shinzo Abe is standing up to China and Korea… but not the United States.

[A4] Yeonmi Park escaped from North Korea, and lived to tell the tale.

Cold Wars:

[W1] A reunited Germany, 25 years after The Wall fell. Interestingly, the former East Germany has the highest rates of unemployment and vaccinations. They also lack for young people.

[W2] Here’s the account of the border guard that helped make the fall of the Berlin Wall happen and of the victims who tried to escape before it happened.

[W3] In 1989, the Soviet Union was textbook proof of how command economies could thrive.

[W4] A Russian lawmaker thinks there need to be a bunch more Putins, and propose mailing women his sperm so that they might produce them. Patrick Smith at Salon might approve.

Cities:

[C1] I previously linkied about Detroit’s economic problems juxtaposed to its wonderful art collection. Here’s an update.

[C2] What potential future Detroits can learn from the fall of Detroit.

[C3] The Washington Post looks at happy and unhappy cities. It’s quite astonishing that Louisiana has the five happiest cities, though I’m not actually surprised at how happy the South in general is, and less surprising how many of them are in the Rust Belt (though apparently their unhappiness predates their decline).

[C4] From Saul DeGraw: The Myth of Microapartments. Turns out they just kick out people living in SROs.

[C5] The cost of becoming cool: Nashville’s Music Row is becoming Condo Row, and Ben Folds is among those affected.

America:

[U1] Police in Seattle can’t be bothered to enforce laws against theft even when you can direct them to the phone. I once had over $2000 of stuff stolen from my car in Colosse. The officer was positively annoyed that I called the police. Meanwhile, in Deseret, an officer spent two days initiating an entire investigation for a stolen jacket, getting a subpoena for security camera recordings and everything.

[U2] Once upon a time, the SS United States was one of the most remarkable watercraft in the United States. Now it sits in decay, paying dock rent of $60,000 per month.

[U3] Cops that seize untold millions of dollars (as well as items from wish lists and with help from the feds) from drivers are apparently pretty proud of themselves. A couple of early proponents of asset forfeiture are less proud, and Canada isn’t impressed. {Glyph provided some of these links.}

[U4] John Abarr wants to open the KKK up to blacks, Hispanics, gays, and more. National KKK leaders believe that he has lost sight of the group’s core mission. {via Glyph}

[U5] Wild horses are feared to be gobbling up the wide open west.

History:

[H1] From Vikram Bath: How the U.S. Government Tested Biological Warfare on America

[H2] A gripping World War II tale of a chicken farmer, a pair of princesses, and twenty-seven imaginary spies.

[H3] BBC History has an interesting piece on the viking colonization of Great Britain.

[H4] A mammoth skeleton estimated to be 70,000 years old has been found in Idaho.

Transportation:

[T1] From Mad Rocket Scientist:The Netherlands is set to open the first of it’s kind solar pike path. This is a smart idea, or at least smarter that Solar Roadways. Bike paths carry a lot less traffic, a lot less weight, and handle speeds much slower than a roadway. If you are going to do something like this, a sidewalk or bike path is a much better place to start (although it is still not the best way to collect solar power, and will likely prove to be very expensive).

[T2] From James Hanley: Video of Mike Schilling commuting to work in San Francisco. (The sharp-eyed will note that those are not real cable cars.)

[T3] The Antiplanner makes the case against light rail in Los Angeles.

[T4] If your airline canceled your flight, they probably had a good reason.

[T5] Brad Templeton writes about how autocars – specifically a short, cheap variety – have the capacity to revolutionize the urban landscape. And at some point, Ubering becomes cheaper than car ownership.

[T6] Commute times in the United States compare favorably to those abroad.

Video:

[V1] Via Mad Rocket Scientist The largest glacier break ever recorded on camera:

Image from Wikipedia Commons

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