… and let the marketplace do its work:

For eco-conscious homeowners who have considered a solar system for their rooftops but have found the cost and complexity daunting, Clarian Power thinks it has an idea.
The Seattle-based clean tech start-up is developing a “plug-and-play” solar appliance called the Sunfish that will generate clean solar electricity for the home. “You bring it home and plug it in, just like a refrigerator, and it will cost about the same,” said the company’s president, Chad Maglaque.

An essay:

The West’s universalist pretensions are increasingly bringing it into conflict with the other civilizations, most seriously with Islam and China. Thus the survival of the West depends on Americans, Europeans and other Westerners reaffirming their shared civilization as unique—and uniting to defend it against challenges from non-Western civilizations.
[…]
Our civilization is not indestructible: It needs to be actively defended. This was perhaps Huntington’s most important insight. The first step towards winning this clash of civilizations is to understand how the other side is waging it—and to rid ourselves of the One World illusion.

Some of life’s mysteries are indeed difficult to comprehend … the more so if they are concepts that require exceptional scientific expertise. It is oft better for us to simply avoid matters of great complexity, leaving such to those more gifted with great quantities of frontal lobe neurons, those such as the brilliant Andrew C. Revkin of the NYT, or that world famous geneticist from Canada (his name just slipped my neurons). Having said that, there are on occasion exceptions, when even the duller knives in the drawer get to carve the steak. One such moment recently came to me as I was struggling with one of humankind’s most perplexing peculiarities, none other than the baffling climate/weather conundrum … the very same riddle that has vexed great thinkers since the time of King Sesotris of Egypt. To make a long story short, let me declare that I have now solved the age old puzzle:
– July drought in Moscow… climate.
– January thaw in Moscow … climate.
– Early August frost in Moscow … weather.
– Massive animal deaths from cold in South America … weather.
… more details.
(peer review is welcomed)

… of Robert Louis Stevenson:

“There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City.”

… is so 2007:

It has been the coldest summer on record north of 80N, and temperatures have dropped below freezing ahead of the average date.

Pity

… there’d be a lot less of this:

Now they are begging:

Yes, Republicans, you can take advantage of this heated circumstance, backed by the families of the 9/11 victims, in their most emotional return to the public stage since 2001.
But please don’t do it. There are a handful of good reasons to oppose allowing the Islamic center to be built so close to Ground Zero, particularly the family opposition and the availability of other, less raw locations. But what is happening now — the misinformation about the center and its supporters; the open declarations of war on Islam on talk radio, the Internet and other forums; the painful divisions propelled by all the overheated rhetoric — is not worth whatever political gain your party might achieve.

… fat chance.

Stormbringer:

“You may have seen the Truther websites that ask ‘If it’s true that a Boeing airliner hit the Pentagon, what happened to all the parts of it? Why did we not find more pieces of it? Where did all that mass GO?'”

The answer, in a fraction of a second:

(language warning)