Preposterous Universe

 
Public service announcements

Okay, so let's say you're in Chicago. You're taking the El (the elevated train; in Chicago the weather is always perfect, so there's no reason to put public transportation underground as in climates that aren't as blessed as we are). You get off at some stop, and the question hits you: What blogs are nearby? You can get the answers from Paul Goyette's Chicago blog map, organized by El stop. There are 131 blogs as of this writing, although I'm sure there are many more to be dug up and linked to.

Now let's imagine instead that you're morbidly curious about the political-donation habits of important people (or unimportant ones). Just check out the fundrace.org neighbor search. For example, the President's dad has donated to his pride and joy, just as you would expect. Less obviously, someone by the name of Howard Dean has donated to Bush as well. Or maybe that makes perfect sense.

Bill Gates has donated to Bush, but leading string theorist Ed Witten has donated to Clark and Edwards, and he's smarter. Not at picking winners, obviously, but you know what I mean.

(Game inspired by Wonkette.)

~ posted by Sean Carroll at 9:29 PM ~ link ~ ~ ~