Second exam written. Now we play the waiting game.

* Did Republicans accidentally defund the military-industrial complex? That's kind of fantastic.

* Darcy Burner spatializes the political spectrum on a left-right horizontal axis against a purist-pragmatist vertical access to uncover why bipartisanship compromise can't happen in contemporary America politics; there's no one in the northeast quadrant.

* The Daily Mail reports on an fascinating in vitro fertilization case in which a woman has decided to bring a baby to term after another woman's embryo was mistakenly implanted in her. What I find most interesting is the assertion that the genetic parent, and not the pregnant woman, is plainly the "real" mother; it's not at all clear to me why that should be true from either a legal or ethic standpoint.

* Rather specific genre watch: Top 10 YouTube acoustic Michael Jackson tributes.

Friday leftovers.

* The director of a leading US cancer research institute has sent a memo to thousands of staff telling them to listen to Ze Frank and use a cell-phone headset (even if Salon is right and it won't really make you a safer driver).

* Hometown heroes Hurwitz and Hayden are writing another Harold & Kumar—which is a good thing, because it was always conceived as a trilogy. (I'm told they actually have nine H&K movies planned out, including the three prequels.)

I regret to admit I missed the second in theaters, but I plan to make up for that error when the DVD is released in just four days.

* Now that its competing Facebook application is up and running, Hasbro has renewed its lawsuit against the makers of Scrabulous. More at Slashdot, which notes: "EA's version has netted fewer than ten thousand players, versus Scrabulous' estimated 2.3 million." I still say they ought to just buy Scrabulous and be done with it.

* Math may be hard, but there's no gender difference in math performance, according to a new study in Science. Via MeFi, where the poster adds: "Bite me, Larry Summers."

* And the Edge of the American West continues to impress: here's a look back at the decision in United States of America v. Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, handed down 24 years ago today.

* The minimum wage: a disgrace and a scandal.

Here is how the political and economic system has been ripping off workers. Once upon a time, if you worked hard and were productive, that translated directly into your paycheck. Not anymore. From 2000 to roughly 2007, productivity went up 20 percent -- while the median hourly wage was up 3 percent. My friend Joel Rogers,director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, made a stunning calculation not too long ago: Had wages tracked productivity as they have over the past 30 years, "median family income in the U.S. would be about $20,000 higher today than it is." Check this out: Taking into account productivity, the minimum wage should be $19.12 -- which would make it almost 50 percent above today's median wage (not to mention the pathetic $6.55).

That's right. The minimum wage should be more three times what it is today. At that level, you would make almost $40,000 a year. Not an outstanding amount given all the other costs and the likelihood that you would not be in a job with health care and a pension (that's another issue). But, beginning to be in the realm of respectable.

Scientists have genetically engineered a insect bacteria that eats garbage and craps crude oil. We're saved!

LATE UPDATE: I don't know where the hell I got the word "insect" from up there, except that I'm pretty tired when I come home from seven hours at [UNDISCLOSED LOCATION] at night...

xkcd has a much-needed take on the dangers of genetic engineering.

Enviro-Friday! The Nation is running a lot of enviro-political stories this morning:

* "Running on Empty" (Peak Oil)
* Bill McKibben on the need for a 'Green Corps' along the lines of the WPA.
* Still more on the world's food crisis.

In other news, geneticists have proven the existence of a genetic bottleneck in the human genome, suggesting that we almost went extinct around 70,000 years ago. They don't reference it at CNN, but it seems likely to me that this is tied to the Toba catastrophe event.

See? The environment matters.

Random Sunday links.

* Our three-decade recession.

The formula for calculating GPI, for instance, starts with personal consumption expenditures, a major component of GDP, but makes several crucial adjustments. First, it accounts for income distribution. It then adds positive contributions that GDP ignores, such as the value of household and volunteer work. Finally, it subtracts things that are well-being-reducing, such as the loss of leisure time and the costs of crime, commuting and pollution.

While the U.S. GDP has steadily increased since 1950 (with the occasional recession), GPI peaked about 1975 and has been relatively flat or declining ever since. That's consistent with life-satisfaction surveys, which also show flat or dropping scores over the last several decades.

* 95% of Native Americans are descended from six women who lived approximately 20,000 years ago.

* What we want from a Star Wars TV series, and what we don't.

* Pictures of Dubai from the air, via Cynical-C

My Vatican correspondent sends along news that the the Catholic Church has a list of seven new deadly sins deemed more appropriate for this age of globalization. It sounds like a McSweeney's setup, but like most crazy things you hear about the Catholic Church it's 100% true. Wikipedia has your bullet points:

* Environmental pollution
* Genetic manipulation
* Accumulating excessive wealth
* Inflicting poverty
* Drug trafficking and consumption
* Morally debatable experiments
* Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

Be good.

When great thinkers change their minds. It's a good list, except for the fact two of the entries appear to be based in the racist Bell Curve nonsense that's been flaring up every few months for the last decade and a half.

Time for a science and technology minute.

* All blue-eyed people have a single, common ancestor.

* Diet sodas make you fatter.

* With news that Netflix is going to stop carrying HD-DVD discs, it looks like Blu-ray is going to win the format war. (I wonder how big a role the Playstation 3 played in this—I suspect it wasn't small.) Like kottke, I still wonder whether these companies aren't fighting over a graveyard. On-demand digital delivery seems like the future.