Hurricane Earl is bearing down on the east coast this evening; tell us here at the Watercooler if you’re ready.

Via the AP: Massey Energy plans to resume extracting coal by constructing a new entrance to its Upper Big Branch mine within months, despite continuing investigations of the explosion that killed 29 men there in April, the company’s chief executive said Wednesday. Massey also wants government permission to restart two sections in the far southern [...]

Great video: Your thoughts tonight?

There’s a fascinating article in the New York Times magazine today on foreign policy, Twitter, and something called “21st-century statecraft.” It’s really worth a read.

Caption:" …and the wolf chewed up the children and spit out their bones…/ But those were Foreign Children and it really didn’t matter." Dr. Seuss’ moral musing is even more applicable to our modern era of globalization. As for my favorite Seuss quote, I’ll go with the Lorax, "unless someone like you cares a whole [...]

Today is Charles Darwin’s birthday. Let’s hear it for it one of the greats of science! He is much maligned from the religious right. This quite man gave us the first real clue as to how selection for survival works. While his work has been supplanted, (that is how science works) and refined without those [...]

Hey folks, we’re starting something new here at The Seminal. Every evening, we’ll be posting a “watercooler” open thread-type post, with an interesting video or tidbit for discussion. The hope is that this post will give people hanging around late night/early morning a place to discuss the news of the evening/morning, chat, and point out diaries you’ve been reading that we all may have missed. I get email. Sometimes that email contains policy proposals not seen in this country since the 1800s. Here’ something that landed in my inbox last night.