Coturnix at ScienceBlogs.com had an interesting post yesterday on part of the reason they (Science Blogs)  do things the way they do them and the way he says more science writers should - shock value and, at the end of it all, maybe a shot at a greater science democracy.  

Probably tomorrow I am going to do an advanced 'primer' on all the features we have here because I know most people don't even read the FAQ - and that's okay, you shouldn't have to read a FAQ to read an article or leave a comment, but for more exotic stuff and experienced users/contributors, it wouldn't hurt to have a short document that highlights the big stuff that goes beyond the FAQ.

For now, I will just highlight the big (non bug-related) things we did this week.

Corkboard

When I learned that Barack Obama had picked John Podesta as his transition chief, I was not impressed, being that he has a crank belief the government is hiding UFOs.

The folks at ScienceDebate don't necessarily agree, though I think they are going to bless anything Obama does, because about Podesta they wrote a few days ago "Clearly, this is a man who gets it, working, it seems, for a president who gets it."(email, no link on their website)

If you're comfortably entrenched at the University of Maryland and not worried about a mortgage like Michigan autoworkers, you can understand why it's important that there will be debate about the actual numbers of jobs at risk.    A new projection by the University of Maryland's Inforum economic research unit says peak job losses from automobile bankruptcies would be half of the 3 million commonly stated in the media. 

And if the University of Maryland is wrong, oh well, no one will lose their job.  

The three million job-loss figure comes from two separate studies, which are technically correct  but based on implausible assumptions, says University of Maryland economist Jeffrey Werling, Inforum executive director.