How close is your state to committing Californiacide? Kevin Drum has your chart of the day.

Wednesday!

* In Galileo's time, science was clashing with religion; today, Robinson believes, we're living in a "Galilean moment" again, in which climate change means science has become politicised. This time, though, the clash is with capitalism. "There are cultural forces in our society which say, you can save the world or else you can make a profit, and they'll say sorry, we have to make a profit. So we have a strange religion now." As his global-warming-themed trilogy, which ends with 2007's Sixty Days and Counting, shows, a major theme for Robinson is ecological sustainability, and he stresses today his belief that "the climate crisis is an emergency." Another interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, this one focusing on his new time travel novel, Galileo's Dream.

* Fun graphic analysis of Choose Your Own Adventure novels, including Inside UFO 54-40, the only CYOA with an impossible-to-reach ending.



* The rhetoric of Google's suggested searches. Via Ezra Klein, who summarizes:

For instance: the most popular searches beginning with "how 2 ..." are "how 2 get pregnant" and "how 2 grow weed." Searches beginning with "how might one" tend to be about music or, weirdly, Andrew Jackson.

More titillatingly, people asking "is it wrong to" tend to have something sexually indecent in mind. The top results are "sleep with your cousin," "sleep with your stepdad after your mom has died," and "like your cousin." Searches beginning with "is it unethical to" tend to be about white-collar crime and animal rights.

One notes, at least in my geo-targeted region of the world, the top suggested result for "is it wrong to" is actually "is it wrong to sleep with your sister."

* Yesterday's Daily Show had a pair of fantastic clips: one on the Berlin Wall and another on Sean Hannity flagrantly lying (with video!) about the size Michelle Bachmann's health-care protest.

* Chart of the Day: Rock Music Quality vs. U.S. Oil Production.

xkcd, if you wanted a link that badly, you could have just asked.

This is why we can't have nice things: I've been thinking a lot recently about how the undemocratic composition of the Senate creates a major hurdle for progressive legislation in the U.S., and I was curious how this works in practice. The chart below takes the 2008 population estimates for all 50 states from the U.S. Census and checks the populations represented by the Democratic and Republican caucuses against their actual representation in the U.S. Senate. (Click to enlarge.)



As you can see, the distortion created by having two Senators from every state regardless of its population means that Democrats should have 4.2 more Senators than they currently do, and Republicans 4.2 fewer. (Since you can't have two-tenths of a Senator, the number is really five. But call it four.) This is to say that in a properly representative Senate, even if you kept the filibuster—itself an anti-democratic Senate institution—with 64 senators in the chamber Democrats would be able to pass their agenda easily.

But it gets worse.



The six problem senators on health care, the six most likely to support a Republican filibuster—Mark Pryor, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, and Joe Lieberman—together represent only 3.59% of the total population of the country, which means that in a properly representative Senate the Democrats could lose all six votes and still beat a filibuster.

In short, it's the distorted apportioning of the Senate itself that is progressives' largest legislative problem. Article 5 of the Constitution makes it almost impossible to eliminate the Senate outright, but (as I wrote the other week) depowering and discrediting the legislative roadblock called the Senate should be at the top of the long-term political agenda for progressives. In the meantime, these population distortions will continue to dominate all political outcomes, and continue to thwart all progressive change.

For future reference, Linkmachinego has your nerd Venn diagram. (via)

Mythical creature Venn diagram. Via Kottke.

It also comes to my attention that I've been remiss in linking to the latest of Dan Meth's pop-culture charts.

Good Magazine has a feature on how to reduce your water usage. It should surprise no one that the most effective single step to take is, as always, vegetarianism.

27 Ways of Looking at the Financial Crisis. At FlowingData.

Time for a quick linkdump.

* Even Lex Luthor needs a bailout.

* Two for fans of last night's comics archetype times table: A Sketch Towards a Taxonomy of Meta-Desserts and Fun to Draw.

* Is this the end of capitalism? David Harvey and The Nation's Alexander Cockburn report. (This time for sure.)

A couple of people have asked questions like Jon's about yesterday's chart of the day. Here's another version of the chart that's adjusted for population size:



By this measure it's the worst recession since at least 1981, with all but '58 and '81 having started recovery by now. More of these at FlowingData. Our economy's in bad, bad shape.

Monday links.

* I have only the deepest feeling of solidarity for the members of my generational cohort who are struggling with student debt. And I'm not saying my hurt feelings should form the basis for national policy. But I have to confess that on a purely emotive level I will be pretty royally pissed if this whole "forgive student debt" movement somehow manages to get off the ground. I'm very conflicted about it: forgiving student debt would help a whole lot of people, including close friends and family, and would really cost me nothing but regret. I am not incognizant of my privilege or my luck, nor I am unhappy with where my choices have taken me—but on a basic, visceral level, I'd feel cheated, and I know I wouldn't be alone.

* And speaking of other people's poor life choices: WTFSalon?

* Grouches of the world, unite.



* Identical Twins Escape Death Penalty With "Evil Twin Defense." I'm 95% certain this is just viral marketing for the Arrested Development movie.

* How to survive a B-movie.

* How much would it cost to build the Death Star? (last two via Gravity Lens)

* And your world in charts: this recession isn't like the others.

Earth still round, gravity still works, climate change still true: the Earth is hotter now than at any time in the past 2,000 years.