It's when truthiness moves beyond the realm of entertainment that it's a potential peril.

What's remarkable is how much fictionalization plays a role in almost every national debate. It's as if the country is living in a permanent state of suspension of disbelief.

It says everything about the Democrats' ineptitude that when they spin fiction, they are incapable of meeting even the low threshold of truthiness needed to make it fly in this lax cultural environment.

Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito | Frank Rich

As they say in the Pentagon, I nonconcur.

Arrant Nonsense

Perhaps it's no surprise that as the product-information revolution plays out, the net effect of the vast array of opinions (from experts, from advertisements, from online reviews, from other consumers) means that sometimes we are simply unsure whom to trust. If you feel the air around you is unclean, and a gizmo comes along that says it will help, maybe you go with the recommendation that seems most hopeful.

Perhaps my blog would be more widely read if I made an effort to be hopeful.

As Asher notes, Consumer Reports's medical consultants say most people do not need any of these devices. "So," he says, "the bigger issue could be, why are people buying air cleaners at all?" At a time when consumer choice may be more confusing than ever, the magazine can give people an assessment that has no commercial bias, he concludes, "but we can't make their decisions for them."

Getting Through the Filter

Daniel Dennett says:

A lot of the evangelicals don't really care what you believe as long as you say the right thing and do the right thing and put a lot of money in the collection box.

Questions for Daniel C. Dennett

The most depressing thing about the communications revolution is that when at last we have succeeded in making it possible for anyone to reach anyone else anywhere and at any time, it turns out that we really don't have much we want to say.

The Pleasures of the Text

Scruffy hipsters toting six-packs, blinky Web developers arguing the merits of their preferred PDA and an inordinate number of dreadlocked heads packed the gallery beyond capacity to hear three brief, charmingly unpolished lectures.

dorkbot is an informal club of artists, techies and geeks who do "strange things with electricity," according to their motto.

Luke DuBois, a composer and "computational artist," used his application, essentially time-lapse photography for sound, to create a new piece of music out of the 857 songs that have appeared at the top of the Billboard charts since 1958. The result, called "Billboard," is a 37-minute-long drone: each hit song is reduced to its average timbre and key by an algorithm that speeds up the original work without giving it a chipmunk chirpiness.

When Art and Science Collide, a Dorkbot Meeting Begins

While acknowledging outsourcing isn't going to come to a halt, the report states that higher-level, or what it calls "dynamic" engineering work, will stay within US borders.

"We are not competing for jobs with China and India. We are competing for capital and technology. And they're winning."

11 Indian engineers can be hired for the cost of hiring one American.

"In regard to other countries, the US is 25th per capita in undergraduate engineering degrees awarded."

U.S. engineer education not in dire straits: study

Manohla carefully deconstructs the "staircase" scene in Cronenberg's "A History of Violence." It's unclear why the times decided to publish this note now; presumably it has been sitting on the shelf for a while. Nevertheless, she does a good job covering all the angles in this pivotal scene in the film.

Dark Truths of a Killing Love

Want to be heard? Enter: Gather. Everyone is passionate about something. It's part of what makes people tick, what moves and motivates them. We call it your "beat." Really into jazz? Historical fiction your passion? Know the best way to peel grapes? From the conservative to the unconventional, all content, all personalities -- everyone and everything is welcome at Gather. So share what inspires you. Meet others whose interests overlap with your own, or learn something new. Anything goes, from ideas to music. Your unique voice will be heard through the articles, images, reviews, or audio you publish on the very things you know and love. What's your beat?

Unlike the wide world of random blogging, Gather categorizes your thoughts by topic. Other members can easily find, enjoy, comment on, and rate your contributions. By the same token, you'll find people you deem interesting with just a keyword or two as you search articles for compelling content.

I would like to introduce the 2006 MemeStreams theme song. Sing it for me, Gwen:

You never know, it could be great
Take a chance cause you might grow
Oh, ah, oh

What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting for

What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting for

Tick-tock, tick-tock
Tick-tock, tick-tock
Take a chance you stupid hoe

In just two easy payments, you could be at

You got your million dollar contract
And they're all waiting for your hot track

Call now! Funders are standing by!

Why We Gather

A new Boston website aims to bring order to the tens of millions of weblogs proliferating online and provide one-stop shopping for overwhelmed Internet surfers. In the process, it could put some cash in the pockets of Internet scribes pecking away in obscurity.

The company is set to disclose next week a $6 million funding infusion led by Jim Manzi, former chief executive of Lotus Development Corp. and the New York investment bank co-run by Bill Bradley, the former US senator.

CEO Tom Gerace sees Gather less as a mere host for bloggers than as a social networking site, like teenage blogger favorite MySpace.com, but for an older and more sophisticated audience.

Sorry, MemeStreams; the window is closed. David Brooks just got his highbrow MySpace.

One-stop site for blogs offered