Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 146

“I Am the Hunter”

Following on yesterday’s mention of the brief heyday of Soviets-invade-the-Heartland films, Microkhan feels morally obligated to post the above Red Dawn clip. In the interests of novelty, we’ve steered clear of the obvious—no “Wolverines!”, no “Avenge me!” Today’s pick is the more obscure, but equally delicious scene in which the evil Soviet commander demonstrates the power of a well-crafted metaphor—as well as his commendable knowledge of Gulo gulo behavior.

Note the overly sunglassed Cuban com

Draft as Drain

Upon learning that Poland is set to end military conscription starting early next year, Microkhan got to wondering about the economic effects of nixing the draft. Is it a net good to have thousands of 18-to-21-year-olds pounding the pavement in search of jobs or educations, as opposed to learning how to march and fire weapons?

This study, which focused on financial fates of thousands of British men, pretty clearly comes down on the side of ending conscription:

Our results suggest that the effect o

A Banker Who Spent Wisely

In sorting through the detritus of Depression v2.0, it’s gobsmacking to realize how much money the financial Masters of the Universe wasted on baubles and trifles. As this recent New York confession makes clear, bankers earning millions were stunningly unimaginative when it came to disposing of their lucre. Cars! Single malts! Vacation homes! Yawn…

When the going was good, these bankers should’ve taken a cue from a creative, courageous predecessor: R. Gordon Wasson, a J.P. Morgan bigwig who used

CSWs and PCR

As a proud realist, I’m typically sympathetic to commercial sex worker (CSW) campaigns that seek legitimacy for their members’ chosen trade. That doesn’t mean I lack all squeamishness about the cash-for-flesh exchange, but I acknowledge that it’s called “the world’s oldest profession” for a reason. The transparency that is supposed to accompany legitimacy strikes me as something rather desirable, since abuses flourish more in the dark than in the light.

So Microkhan was struck by the latest news

“Where Was All That Patriotism When It Counted?”

Even in their wildest schemes, the Soviets likely never contemplated the invasion of America. Okay, maybe they would’ve liked to bite off an Aleutian Island or two. But sweep into the Heartland and bring the word of Lenin at gunpoint? Yuri Andropov wasn’t exactly Genghis Khan, in terms of expansionist vision.

But, oh, how Hollywood wished it were otherwise, at least during the mid-’80s. Red Dawn gets most the nostalgic ink, but there was a cottage industry in “The Russkies are coming!” paranoia

Iced Out

Speaking of Frozen Hades as we do in the post below, Microkhan couldn’t help but notice the recent grim news from the planet’s roof. Seems that if things keep going as they are, Santa’s workshop will be bereft of ice before 2040.

When climate-change skeptics hear news of this magnitude, their stock response is to nod southward. What, they say, of the fact that Antarctica seems to be adding ice? Doesn’t that compensate for the losses up top? Last June, Microkhan tried his best to provide an answer

The Overlook Hotel Times Twelve

One of my great regrets was not bringing a camera on my 1999 trip to the heart of the Greenland ice sheet. I was there doing a freelance piece on the Air National Guard unit responsible for resupplying polar scientific missions; we spent three days on the ice, learning how to survive in the event of a crash. (Rule Number One: if you see a polar bear, put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.)

The highlight of the trip was a snowmobile ride out to DYE-2, an abandoned American rad

The Man Who Heard Voices

Contrary to what Law & Order reruns have taught a generation of armchair lawyers, the so-called insanity plea is the rarest of legal birds. According to one New York study, which looked at a decades’ worth of court data, psychiatric defenses were attempted in roughly 0.16 percent of criminal cases. Yet even when both sides agree that the defendant is mentally ill, pleas akin to “not guily by reason of mental defect” are unsuccessful more often than not. That’s primarily because the American lega

“Odd, Inexplicable, and Unpleasant”

Once again, the joyous end of the work week spurs Microkhan to dredge up a hilariously negative movie review of yore. This week’s slab of celluloidic infamy is Death to Smoochy, perhaps history’s greatest testament to Robin Williams’s talent for irritation. As depicted in the video above, it also features Ed Norton singing an anti-heroin folk song while dressed as a pink rhino. How director Danny DeVito couldn’t see “box-office poison” written all over this project is anyone’s guess.

The movie’s

Microkhan’s Kind of Research

The Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists rarely fails to be a highly entertaining read, and the latest issue is no exception. Most of the articles are far too technical for the layman to grok; Microkhan’s eyes certainly glaze over at the mere mention of “alpha-acids isomerization yield”. But the issue’s lead piece, by a quintet of Japanese researchers working for both Niigata University and Sapporo Breweries, is nothing short of pure genius.

The researchers set out to measure, with