Rotundus.com

Given that someone who never updates his blog seemed to think that grad school and marriage are a bad combination, it seems worth mentioning that there's some evidence to suggest that such is not the case:

A year ago, a graduate student in economics at Cornell University released a study showing that men who are married are more likely to finish doctoral programs than are single men. When Inside Higher Ed wrote about the study, the graduate student, Joseph Price, received numerous questions from readers wanting to know just how far the marriage advantage took men in academe, and where it applied to women as well.

Price went back to his data and now is out with a new study. This one shows that married men do better than single men in academe not only in finishing their Ph.D.'s, but in publishing and landing a first tenure-track job. Married women have some advantages over their single counterparts, but not as many as married men do. And students with domestic partners are somewhere in the middle. The study was based on data from 11,000 graduate students from 100 departments over a 20-year period. While separate breakdowns were not available for those couples with and without children, a majority of the men and women in the study who were married had children while in graduate school.

... That marital advantage continues beyond Ph.D. completion. The study found that married male students are 4 percentage points more likely to publish articles while in graduate school and to publish more articles, and are 8.4 percentage points more likely to obtain a tenure-track job within six months of graduating, compared to single male graduate students.

Source: Inside Higher Ed, (Image from icanhazcheezburger)

Darren, you haven't been in Florida recently, have you?

You lock a car, but you don't lock a locomotive. After all, where can you take it? Sounds logical, but logic didn't stop a thief from stealing a CSX Locomotive sometime after 11:30 Sunday night and taking it for a noisy joy ride, in Miami's version of the Great Train Robbery.

... CSX Transportation spokesperson Gary Sease said it appears the locomotive was taken by an 'unauthorized individual', but as most people don't have experience starting and driving one of the behemoths, investigators believe their thief is someone with more than with a passing fancy for trains.

Source: CBS 4

Here's a few words from Robert Hart from the November 2008 issue of Touchstone Magazine:

I learned that one business in that Arizona town, a diner near the church, had traditionally closed every Sunday until shortly before my arrival. But then a local clergyman, my predecessor, convinced the owner to open every Sunday for the convenience of the congregation. Many lived to go there after the early Mass (8:00am) each Sunday and have breakfast together. One waitress there, I learned, had been a member of the church, but was no longer.

I remember the sight of that waitress looking at her former fellow church members, serving them breakfast, missing the services every Sunday. I suppose it was very convenient for the people who could now hop over to the diner after church, but at what cost to that waitress?

Those who hold a sabbatarian viewpoint might eventually excommunicate someone for working Sundays in a "non-essential" capacity, but for those who are OK with Sunday shopping in many instances the results seem to be a de-facto excommunication. What think you?

There's an interesting article in the New York Times by John Tierney arguing that Recycling is Garbage. Here's one small sample:

Plastic packaging and fast-food containers may seem wasteful, but they actually save resources and reduce trash. The typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American household, but it produces one-third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods in bulk and throw away large portions that are unused, spoiled or stale. Those apples in Dittersdorf's slide, protected by plastic wrap and foam, are less likely to spoil. The lightweight plastic packaging requires much less energy to manufacture and transport than traditional alternatives like cardboard or paper. Food companies have switched to plastic packaging because they make money by using resources efficiently. A typical McDonald's discards less than two ounces of garbage for each customer served -- less than what's generated by a typical meal at home.

Plastic packaging is routinely criticized because it doesn't decay in landfills, but neither does most other packaging, as William Rathje, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, has discovered from his excavations of landfills. Rathje found that paper, cardboard and other organic materials -- while technically biodegradable -- tend to remain intact in the airless confines of a landfill. These mummified materials actually use much more landfill space than plastic packaging, which has steadily been getting smaller as manufacturers develop stronger, thinner materials. Juice cartons take up half the landfill space occupied by the glass bottles they replaced; 12 plastic grocery bags fit in the space occupied by one paper bag.