Odograph.com

AMY GOODMAN: You interviewed hundreds of soldiers?

SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Thousands.

AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of soldiers in Iraq. What is their attitude to the war?

SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Most soldiers want to withdraw. That is proven. There was a Zogby poll. 72% of recently turned Iraqi vets want to be out of Iraq by 2006.

AMY GOODMAN: 2006?

SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: By 2006.

That means this year.

And my experience backs that up absolutely.

There is a lot of pressure for soldiers not to speak out. There’s fear of court-martials. There’s fear of their commanders getting mad at them. There’s a lot of reasons why soldiers don’t speak out.

But nobody should be fooled.

Soldiers know what’s going on over there, and they are not happy about it.

- more here

Today’s scanned and zoomified photo is of Constantinople, Circa 1890.

Earlier scans are listed here.

Today’s scanned and zoomified photo is of Frankfort, Circa 1890.

Earlier scans are listed here.

From Econbrowser:

If you’re looking for an alternative to the talking heads and endless spinning, here are some quantitative tools for following the U.S. elections that I’ve found useful.

Top of my list would be the betting exchange Tradesports, according to which the Republicans took a real beating this last week. Retaining control of the House is now less than a 50% probability, and Democrats gaining control of the Senate has also become a significantly more plausible event than it was judged to be a week ago:

Price of contract paying $100 if Republicans retain control of House. Source: Tradesports

- more here

Today’s scanned and zoomified photo is of Stockholm, Circa 1890.

Click through if you haven’t tried the “zoomify” viewer. I think it works pretty well for this type of photo.

Earlier scans are listed here.

I agree with Gristmill on this one. Bottom dragging, trolling a net along the bottom of the ocean, is having a very harmful cumulative affect on our seas. Not only is a bycatch (unwanted species) killed, but the whole ocean-bottom ecosystem is torn and disrupted. This changes the plant/animal balances and make it so much harder for over-fished species to prosper and return.

We have been changing our oceans into something that is not good for them … and not good for us either.

On Tuesday, the White House issued a statement calling for a halt to destructive bottom trawling on the high seas and promised that the U.S. “would work with other nations and international groups to change fishing practices and create international fishery regulatory groups if needed.” See — who said the White House doesn’t play nice with other countries? Oh right, lots of people.

But all of that is about to change. Right now the United Nations is meeting in NY, where conservationists hope it will ban bottom fishing on the high seas, especially where it’s unregulated. The U.S. joins Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and South Africa in supporting the moratorium.

- more here

When I work from home (or just surf the web) I use an old $15 InterRoyal Drafting Chair. It goes with my battleship of a drafting desk (4×8 foot). Apparently I’ve held onto the chair long enough that it is collectible (InterRoyal Black Vinyl Drafting Stool (MR4188)). That’s pretty weird.

I’ve thought about upgrading to something fancy, from Herman Miller or Steelcase. Basically I think that way whenever I have back pain … which isn’t that often. It seems to strike when I change my pattern, going to a new job and a new chair, or leaving an old job and an old chair.

FWIW, the two contenders right now are the Herman Miller Mirra, and the Steelcase Think.

A glowing review of the Think is here.

They’re both about $700 … which doesn’t seem bad … at least when my back hurts.

Apparently I’ve got 886.06 Megabytes free on this account. What to do?

Well, I picked up a spare copy of John L. Stoddard’s Portfolio of Photographs off ebay. It was cheap enough that I don’t mind cutting out pages for scans, and I can still keep my grandfather’s copy safe.

Today’s addition is a Panorama of Paris, Circa 1890. I’ll add more scanned and zoomified photos as time allows.

Earlier scans are listed here.