I'm from California too, and I endorse your explanation.

The GDP growth numbers (I just took a close look at 2006-2009) are pretty solidly mediocre -- both overall and per-capita numbers seem to be very closely tracking movements at the national level, while the baseline is somewhat above the national average (attributable at least in part to having an excellent climate and good natural harbors, which my casual observation seems to be the strongest predictor of per-capita GDP within the US).

The perception of California's status as an economic basket case come from two things, I believe: unemployment rates (fairly consistently 1-3% points higher than national average, currently at about 3% points) and government finances (which are legitimately pretty bad in terms of structural deficit, and seem worse than they are because the state's budget process produces a lot of dramatic confrontations).

On second thought, after looking at longer-term GDP data, I need to at least partially reconsider my geographical-advantage theory for California. At the beginning of this dataset (1997), California's per capita GDP was more than the national average, but not by much. It appears from this graph that California benefited much more than the rest of the country from the dot com boom, got hit somewhat harder by the 2000 crash, and has recovered slightly more up until the post-crash peak of 2007. Based on this, it seems that most of California's advantage over the rest of the country is based on the computer industry, which should surprise nobody.

This also suggests another reason for the perception of California as a basket case -- perhaps we internalized the dot com boom growth rate as "normal", and have been measuring the subsequent economy relative to that, while disregarding what's going on in the rest of the country (easy to do in California). That's certainly been going on at the government level, as much of the structural deficit can be traced back to decisions made in the 90s to commit to a spending trajectory based on the assumption that the revenue windfall from the dot com boom would continue indefinately.

Don't believe it.

There are sound technical reasons why you have to sacrifice that black goat every new moon.

Grammar is pretty glamourous in an illiterate culture, especially since in that time, it mean you knew Latin. But then, of course, they confuse all sorts of book-learning, and settle on the most glamourous to give to learned souls: magic.

o.O @ that college admissions article.

I'm glad I didn't need to go through an American college admission process. Here, it's mostly just the results of a big test you take at the end of high school plus the results of the college's own entrance exam.

re: UFOs & ICBMs - This was mentioned in both "Mirage Men" and "UFOs" (by Leslie Kean), two recent UFO books I have read. Despite never having seen a UFO, I have been fascinated by them since I was a small child. Blame Star Trek?

I always figured Constantinople -> Istanbul was just a big FU to Christianity since the city was named after Emperor Constantine, a famous Christian convert.

It's always inspiring to hear about people of all faiths, colors, and beliefs coming together for a common cause, like white supremacism.

Aren't Sikhs non-whites from India? Also, what do these Muslim-hating white supremacists think of white Muslims? I'm sure they exist. Seems like some very confused haters.

Re: "20 Mishaps That Might Have Caused Nuclear War".

The more I read about the Cold War the more I'm fascinated by the USSR's apparent paranoia that the US was going to launch a surprise nuclear attack against them. I understand this being a serious fear for the US as one of the key tenants of communism was communist world domination and the destruction of capitalism. Plus they had some leaders that were aggressive and crazy, particularly Stalin.

But on what grounds did the USSR fear a US nuclear first strike? Was it a semi-legit fear from the late 40s (before the USSR had atomic bombs) that they clung to? Was it a kind of reflective paranoia - we might nuke them first and they know we might nuke them first ergo they might nuke us because they think we're about to nuke them?

The US nuclear doctrine was explicitly to act crazy and unpredictable, so that the Soviets would have to prepare for anything. So the Soviets prepared for anything, including a surprise first strike.

I note that some American usage refers to a "warrantee".

-- random Firedrake

On observing that university admissions thing, I'm glad to say I still think the basic Irish admissions policy is the worst in the world... except for any of the others. It's purely based on the Leaving Cert, the end of secondary school exams. The college tells the Central Applications Office (CAO) how many spaces they have, and students are assigned places based on their preference and the number of spaces available on that course, leading to a "points cutoff" which is the lowest points of any student accepted to the course. It does lead to a lot of pressure and competition, but it's better, IMO, than basing it on subjective concepts.

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