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Former Harvard physics prof Andrew Foland has a blog called Nuclear Mangos, which he describes both it and its amusing names as follows:

This blog is intended to provide reliable technical analysis of nuclear issues with non-state actors and nuclear beginner states. Some technical issues have important policy implications that citizens in a democracy should be able to make informed decisions about. The motivation for the blog has been the incredible amount of lies & hyperbole on the Iran situation of early 2006. The blog title is to remind you constantly of the quality of minds in charge of our nuclear security today.

(Being one of my favourite fruits, I find the blog’s title insulting to mangoes!)

After reading comments to a Salon article on Andrew Ledeen’s new book, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction (also covered in a recent article in National Review), Foland put together a comparative bar chart, shown below, that sizes up the U.S. and Iran on various metrics that one might use in a threat assessment:

Based on the CIA World Factbook’s data for the U.S. and Iran, as well as Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation and Iranian Centrifuge Developments.
Click the graph to see the original at full size.

SWU, measured in the rightmost bars, is short for Separative Work Units, a unit of measurement used in the nuclear power industry. According to the USEC site:

A SWU is a unit of measurement of the effort needed to separate the U-235 and U-238 atoms in natural uranium in order to create a final product that is richer in U-235 atoms.

Most naturally-occurring uranium is too low in uranium-235 to be used in nuclear reactors; it needs to be “enriched” first. The SWU measure for Iran — that is, the work being done to enrich uranium so that it’s usable for creating nuclear reactions, whether for making electricity or for making the “Great Satan” cry — is too low to show up in the chart; Foland writes that its value is 0.00015.

Based on these numbers, Iran just isn’t anywhere near America’s weight class. As Foland puts it:

By international standards, Iran is a poor, underdeveloped country with substantial infrastructural lacks. If such a country is indeed an existential threat to ours, it can only be the result of some mighty serious mismanagement of American power.

These numbers don’t change the fact that the Iranian government comprises some of the worst examples of humanity, but it does challenge the neocon notion that a military solution — and soon — is necessary.

Egg rolls — or as we Filipinos call them, lumpia — eaten all over southeast Asia. When Mom asks me what I’d like to have for my birthday dinner, I usually ask for “Filipino comfort food”, and lumpia is pretty much guaranteed to be on the menu.

Those of you who aren’t familiar with my personal history might be surprised to learn that for a couple of years, I lived just outside Philadelphia in the suburb known as Wayne. Hoagies and cheese steaks give me a feeling a childhood deja vu.

All this is why I the cheese steak egg roll, pictured below, warms the cockles of my east-meets-west heart.

A cheese steak egg roll with the proper cheese: “Whiz”.

It seems like the sort of thing you might end up seeing put together on an episode of Iron Chef America. It’s available at Barnaby’s of America, where it’s described on the menu as:

A blend of grilled chicken breast, cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, red onions and our house recipe hot sauce, rolled in a crisp egg roll wrapper, served with a chipotle ranch dipping sauce. $7.99.

Here’s what the Slashfood article on this culinary creation has to say:

A unique mashup of local Philly cuisine with classic American-Chinese food, I present you with the Cheesesteak Egg Roll (served with a side of Whiz). At first I disdained the side of Whiz, thinking that the inner cheese should be sufficient, but after the first taste, I was a convert (cheesesteaks are the only food item on which I eat Cheese Whiz without shame). Horrible for your arteries but wonderful to the taste buds, I think I’ll be ready for another…in about a year.

Brian Hughes’ blog on comics, Again with the Comics, has something for you folks who like both classic literature and comic books from the “golden age”: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, done in the style of Batman when it was illustrated by Dick Sprang.

Click to see the page on its original page at full size.

Click to see the page on its original page at full size.

The comic originally appeared in the comics magazine Drawn and Quarterly in 2000, which is apparently out of print.

Here’s what Hughes has to say about the comic:

This marriage of Classic Russian Literature and the Caped Crusader of Gotham also serves as further proof, if any were needed, that everything is better with Batman.

I’ve read the original, and this pretty accurately sums it up, albeit a lot less wordily and a lot more Batmannishly.

The comic was written and illustrated by one R. Sikoryak, who’s does Masterpiece Comics, other “mash-ups” of popular comics and fine literature, such as Good Ol’ Gregor Brown, where Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis (here’s a summary, and here’s the full text) goes through the Peanuts filter:

…or my favourite, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (here’s a summary, here’s the full text) as done by Beavis and Butt-Head:

[Thanks to Metafilter for the link!]

Since I’m on a map kick today, here’s another one: a map by Doctors of the World (a.k.a. Medecins du Monde) showing the ratio of inhabitants to doctors throughout the world. In case you’re not all that hot with math, smaller ratios are better:

Click to see the map at a larger size.
Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

I absolutely love seeing offbeat projects that have been lovingly created with a lot of thought and painstaking detail. One example: The Map of Humanity, in which philosophy, cartography and the human condition meet:

Click to see the Map of Humanity at a larger size.

SLG Publishing, the store that sells the Map of Humanity, has this to say on the page where you can order it:

This giant 24×36 Map of Humanity by Rex Libris and Nil creator James Turner is printed to order on our 12 color large format printer using archival quality inks. The Map of Humanity is printed on Heavyweight Coated Paper and is suitable for framing. Shipped rolled in a tube. Keep an eye open for paper upgrades. The thumbnail image and even the larger image on this page does not do justice to the work James Turner put into this piece.

The Map of Humanity is available for US$29.95 — you can buy it here.

And now, some close-ups. The northern half of the map is occupied by territories that represent humanity’s virtues. Here’s the “Wisdom” area of the map, located in the northwest. If you look at the large image of the map, you’ll see that the cities on the map are both fictional and real. For instance, the “Aspiration” area contains the Shakespearean Mountains and cities such as Gray Havens, Paris, San Francisco and Montreal:

To the northeast, you have “Reason”, with regions named Copernicus, Leibniz, Descartes, Curie, Elizabeth I, Adam Smith and…Disney?

Just as Inferno was the most interesting book of The Divine Comedy, the equatorial area and parts south are more interesting. Here’s a map of “Elysium” and its neighbour “Fool’s Paradise”. Here we get a little insight into Map of Humanity creator Justin Turner’s politics, as “Fool’s Paradise” contains an island called “The World State” with place names such as Mustapha Mond Island (he’s from Brave New World), City of Central Planning, Predestination Centre, New Jerusalem and its twin city Anabaptist Munster and Feely Corporation World HQ (“Feely Corporation” is also from Brave New World).

Here come the fun, down-and-dirty territories. To the southwest is “Hedonism”, home to regions like Gluttony, Treason, Delusion, Nightmare and Lies; I suppose Karl Rove’s got a summer home here. The province of Aimlessness is also in this area of the map, featuring cities such as Riyadh, Jeddah, Moscow, Tripoli and one “Hamilton”, although there’s no telling which Hamilton is implied (when I think of “Hamilton”, the first place that comes to mind is Hamilton, Ontario). I think my deadbeat ex-housemate has a permanent home in the region.

And finally, in the southeast, we have “Abomination”, home to Destruction, Vengeance, Wrath, Prejudice and the readership of Free Republic and Canada Free Press:

It’s a pretty interesting map. I just might pony up the ducats to get this one.

Everything went well and we’re at home now. Feel free to phone!

Click to see the photo at full size.