Part of it is just the fine hipster tradition of mocking poor and/or rural people, something they, swaddled against reality with trust funds and hedge fund management jobs, know jack shit about.

—Hipsters have ruined bacon. I must admit, I’ve been a bit over the whole “bacon craze” despite being known as “the bacon guy” on some dark corners of the internet. Doesn’t mean I have anything against my beloved pork bellies, I’m just tired of the over-hyping.

Is that a University of Phoenix thing? [via draxiom]

Talk radio is the only format where the audience can immediately talk back

—Glenn Beck, who has apparently never used the internet, elucidates exactly why talk radio should die if the fairness doctrine makes a comeback.

In a multivariate regression analysis using all the variables listed above, the best predictor of a county’s Republican vote margin is its white racial percentage relative to its state’s black population size. In other words, the counties where Republican margins grew the largest tended to be predominantly white places in otherwise racially mixed states … Racially isolated whites in Arkansas or Alabama may have been more afraid of voting for Obama not because they are more racist than white voters in Minnesota or Montana, but because they perceive greater racial competition with nearby black populations.

—Eric Oliver, University of Chicago professor, guest blogging at the Freakonomics blog about the “bigot belt”. Turns out the belt (more on this phenomenon from the Times) does exist but not for the reasons originally proposed.

Triple Negative (via merlinmann)

Mark Bittman’s bad kitchen

A friend recently pointed out the words “Well, Bittman says…” come out of my mouth a lot, but this interview sums up why I idolize the man: he walks his talk.

Vu Nguyen gives a behind-the-scenes look at msnbc.com’s interactive coverage of the 2008 election

Paige West’s interactive team did an amazing job of building one of the best interactive maps of the election.

Ryan Irelan’s UNC iPhone fan pack

Some might ask “Why create an iPhone app just for UNC? Why not all of college basketball?” Because no other team matters is why. Ryan gets it.

What if the U.S. government declared Christianity the only “religion”, while classifying other faiths as “spiritual organizations”? They’d grant non-Christian groups the same rights and privileges, but minus the preferred label of “religion”.

—Remiel nails it. Marriage for nobody. Civil unions for everybody.