Title: “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing”

Author: Lawrence M. Krauss

Rank: 26

Blurb: “In a cosmological story that rivets as it enlightens, pioneering theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explains the groundbreaking new scientific advances that turn the most basic philosophical questions on their heads.”

Review: “The book is plagued by !’s every page or paragraph indicating, presumably, the author’s excitement at stating another exciting but improbable fact (unless you are a cosmologist like the author!). As any journalist knows these ‘dead dogs dicks’ are evidence of bad writing as they indicate an inability to relay the excitement in the statement of facts — you shouldn’t need to telegraph to the reader that what they have just read is exciting. If you have to do that then you have failed as a writer, if not as a physicist.”

Customers Also Bought: “The Physics of Star Trek” by Lawrence M. Krauss

Footnote: Any philosophical question that can be answered by science is not a philosophical question.

A Universe from Nothing [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]

“And before you say ‘Well that’s going to make it hard to get into college when you graduate with a background in basic science that has built-in air quotes’, the law applies to universities and colleges in Missouri too, defined as ‘any introductory science course taught at any public institution of higher education in this state’ having to meet [certain] criteria ….” [Balloon Juice]

No doubt Mittens, et al., will hyperventilate to see the definitive proof that President Obama wants to declare class warfare on the capitalist 0.00001%:

Black Eagle shares a terrorist fist-bump with a janitor in the Executive Office Building! Hide the Bentley! Hide the billions! Hide the hookers! They’re coming for you, Mitones!

[via Hodgman]

Let’s start here:

A bill that would limit who could enter public restrooms has been filed in the Tennessee General Assembly. The proposed legislation would restrict access to public restrooms and public dressing rooms designated by sex, to members of that particular sex.

No, wait. It gets better:

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Newt Gingrich “was endorsed by evangelical author and pastor Tim LaHaye, who is best-known for writing a series of books called the ‘Left Behind’ series, an apocalyptic vision of what some Christians believe will happen when true believers in Jesus Christ experience the ‘rapture’ to heaven and nonbelievers are left behind for a period of ‘tribulation.'” [HuffPo, via jwmcsame]

Steve Jobs returned to Apple on February 7, 1997. Five weeks later, Apple announced that it was laying off almost a third of its workers — 4,100 jobs. Almost fifteen years later, Apple had 60,000 employees, and Steve Jobs died with $7 billion to his name.

Nobody resented his wealth.

Years after he returned, Jobs would say that Apple was ninety days away from bankruptcy in 1997. Fellow computer magnate Michael Dell infamously said that October that if he was in charge, “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

Nobody resented Apple for killing jobs.

After all, that’s how capitalism works: Companies rise, companies fall. And some companies rise again from the ashes.

Contrast this with how vulture capitalism works:

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