AZspot

2010

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PostSecret
May 31st
“Empathy is at the heart of progressive thought. It is the...”
— George Lakoff
May 31st
“[Jeffrey] Rosen can give up blogging and every other...”
— Glenn Greenwald
May 31st
“In another revealing and disturbing development, the former...”
— Bill Moyers
May 31st
Torturing Democracy
May 31st
Example of How Activists Misuse History of...
May 31st
“I’d submit that the debate over America’s founding has been...”
— Alissa Wilkinson
May 31st
Library of Congress Blog
May 31st
“…those who today, either out of despair or because they are...”
— Gianfranco Sanguinetti
May 31st
Rogues, Robes and Racists
May 30th
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute...”
— Winston Churchill
May 30th
“Scenario we’ve seen over and over again white cop, dead...”
— The Black Sentinel
May 30th
Fairness in Sports: A Modest Proposal
May 30th
Taylor Jones
May 30th
Was Bush on a mission from God?
May 30th
“In the nineteenth century, when a woman had been raped, or...”
— Naomi Wolf
May 30th
“If your organization requires success before commitment, it...”
— Seth Godin
May 30th
“Think tanks, lobbyists and military contractors have had...”
— Henry Pelifian
May 30th
Why the Palm Pre Will Fail
May 30th
“Remember when capitalism’s apologists used to dismiss the...”
— The Consumer Trap
May 30th
“Lyons dismisses my accurate prediction (written in the mid...”
— Ray Kurzweil
May 29th
Learning, and Profiting, from Online...
May 29th
What does an emoticon do?
May 29th
“The Discovery Institute seems to have given up on the...”
— Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
May 29th
Translation of La Raza
May 29th
Palm Pre To Sync Seamlessly With iTunes
May 29th
Watch Watch
Siri Demo
May 29th
In the first case of its type, a federal...
May 29th
“The way taught by Jesus’ gospel sends us into the world with...”
— Brian McLaren
May 29th
Newspaper runs Obama assassination ad
May 29th
“I think an economy should be based on thrift, on taking care...”
— Wendell Berry
May 29th
The Wolverton Bible
May 29th
The Myth of the Balanced Court
May 29th
“However, to understand takes time and effort, something that...”
— Judge Sotomayor
May 29th
The Future of Manufacturing, GM, and American...
May 29th
“Most industrial democracies employ some form of single-payer...”
— Robert Frank
May 29th
Lessig's Change Congress Accuses Democratic...
May 29th
“Obama is a socialist/fascist; Sonia Sotomayor is a racist,...”
— Paul Krugman
May 29th
Steve Benson
May 29th
“It is a fact that in America the term...”
— Lessig
May 29th
Adam Smith 2.0: Emergent Public Goods,...
May 29th
“Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks...”
— Will Durant
May 28th
Tom Toles
May 28th
“The experiences of the early bloggers prefigured every one...”
— Scott Rosenberg
May 28th
“How can we preserve immigrants’ vital contribution to our...”
— Guest-Worker Caste System
May 28th
Will GOP regret attacks on The Times?
May 28th
Rising sea levels: Survival tips from 5000 BC
May 28th
nakedpastor
May 28th
A revealing anecdote about Sonia Sotomayor
May 28th
“We have only this short life in which to prove our love.”
— Edel Quinn
May 28th
“If people or banks “create” money, we may (like Faust in...”
— Elizabeth Palmberg and Bob...
May 28th

What if the human life span was extended...

Let’s say that medical science was successful in thwarting the aging process and consequently,...
May 28th
Watch Watch
Party Purifier
May 28th
Christians in the American Empire
May 28th
Watch Watch
Former Interrogator Rebukes Cheney for Torture Speech
May 28th
“Recently, I had a conversation with a white man who bemoaned...”
— DownshoreDrift
May 28th
“Timothy Gowers, a distinguished mathematician at the...”
— Brian Hayes
May 28th
(via mandalay, katharinec, sexismandthecity, thisisgay)
May 27th
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket...”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
May 27th
Annals of Medicine: The Cost Conundrum
May 27th
Zither Here Nor There
May 27th
How Game Design Can Revolutionize Everyday...
May 27th
“No religious person can seriously deny that many aspects of...”
— Lew Daly
May 27th
“The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there...”
— Boris Worm
May 27th
America's 'Emerging Church'
May 27th
livefreenow.org
May 27th
Olduvai Theory: Sliding Towards a...
May 27th
“Hedges argues that war is both a deadly addiction—a drug...”
— War Is a Force That Gives Us...
May 27th
Top 10 Rush Limbaugh Racist Quotes
May 27th
Can a Christian Be Rich?
May 27th
Bill Day
May 26th
“As a civil rights lawyer who practices in the federal courts...”
— Steve Bergstein
May 26th
“Imagine if 240 Catholics or 240 Jews were held by a foreign...”
— Carl Hiaasen
May 26th
Pat Bagley
May 26th
“In Obama World, it’s always morning. The sun is...”
— Eugene Robinson
May 26th
Niebuhrian in the White House
May 26th
Amusing Ourselves to Death
May 26th
“Society has always carved out space for young people to...”
— Clay Shirky
May 26th
“Brands were invented to substitute for the real connections...”
— Douglas Rushkoff
May 26th
Amusing Ourselves to Death
May 26th
“I’ve spent hours taking in the world through a rifle...”
— Brian Mockenhaupt
May 26th
“Without in any way detracting from the courage of soldiers...”
— Greg Boyd
May 26th
Six Ways the Af-Pak War Is Expanding
May 26th
“When are you going to grow up and admit that government,...”
— Emil Pulsifier
May 26th
The top 12 trends of the video game industry
May 26th
David Fitzsimmons
May 26th
“These are the most successful agers on earth, and they’re...”
— Dr. Claudia Kawas, a...
May 26th
“Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands,...”
— Albert Einstein
May 26th
Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Seeking Asylum...
May 25th
Jump Start
May 25th
“The refuseniks are scientists working in robotics who are...”
— P.W. Singer
May 25th
“Corporations like Bechtel have been buying up water...”
— Chris Hedges
May 25th
Achieving Fame, Wealth And Beauty Are...
May 25th
“Modern Christian sects have turned Christianity into a...”
— Bruce Droppings
May 25th
“What of all those villagers killed by drones remotely fired...”
— Bill Moyers
May 25th
“An act that took place quite often in Iraq was that of...”
— Vincent Emanuele
May 25th
Watch Watch
US Troops in Iraq talk about Halliburton & KBR
May 25th
Be a Tree; the Natural Burial Guide for...
May 25th
“We underestimate the power of our tools to reshape our...”
— Digital Socialism
May 25th
“In these times of economic disarray and incredible...”
— The utopian economics of...
May 25th
Tweet this: Rapid-fire media may confuse your...
May 25th
Where’s the Outrage?
May 24th
Netherlands to close prisons for lack of...
May 24th
“Monotheism encouraged people to think in new ways. A...”
— Leonard Shlain
May 24th
25 best pizzas around the country
May 24th
“Is there in American history any war, military action, CIA...”
— Laurence Vance
May 24th
Matt Bors
May 24th
“To be honest, I’ve now come to see war as sheer insanity,...”
— Greg Boyd
May 24th
“We must be practical, say those whose practicality has...”
— Howard Zinn
May 24th
“The Reagan Democrat, that disorganized or manual unionized,...”
— The Reaganites Self-Inflicted...
May 24th
The Political Carnival
May 24th
On the information alarmageddon
May 24th
“The concept of taxes collected from everyone that are used...”
— cab drollery
May 24th
Something is Rotten at PBS
May 24th
“Libertarians that want to concentrate their political and...”
— Prometheus 6
May 24th
“The concept of ultrasmart computers — machines with “greater...”
— John Markoff
May 24th
A Deeply Unfair Cast of Mind
May 24th
Yet Another Bogus 'Terror' Plot
May 24th
“My grandfather lived in a refugee camp, I grew up in a...”
— How I Got Gassed in the West...
May 23rd
“Today the American evangelical/fundamentalist consumer of...”
— Frank Schaeffer
May 23rd
Tread Heavily: China's Tire Demand Rolls over...
May 23rd
“Most economic policy instruments confront us with painful...”
— Robert Frank
May 23rd
“How is it possible that “the world’s only...”
— Paul Craig Roberts
May 23rd
For GOP, A Southern Exposure
May 23rd
“The invisible hand of the market and the hand of God are not...”
— Bethany Moreton
May 23rd
Watch Watch
Fallout: Coming Home From the War in Iraq
May 23rd
The altruism in economics
May 23rd
“…it might be reasonable for the state to offer basic...”
— Interfluidity
May 23rd
Animatronic Obama
May 23rd
How Proposition 13 Screwed Up California
May 23rd
“The empirical evidence tells us that simply giving people a...”
— Abolishing Homelessness in Ten...
May 23rd
What is cloud computing?
May 22nd
Dueling Visions of American Renewal
May 22nd
“Who are the true patriots? Who are the real Americans? Those...”
— Laurence M. Vance
May 22nd
The Ultimate Tax on Harmful Activity?
May 22nd
“Maybe I’m missing something but I find it uniquely...”
— Eric L. Wattree
May 22nd

Do you design in the "dark", or in a...

ladylee wrote: Just curious, b/c my work has suddenly decided to turn on every single flouresent...
May 22nd
The Benefits of Distraction and...
May 22nd
bartcop.com
May 22nd
Four things worth learning about learning
May 22nd
“There are a multitude of problematic aspects to the...”
— Greg Boyd
May 22nd
Well Played 1.0: Video Game, Value and...
May 22nd
Star Trek and the Jews
May 22nd
“Instead of the collapse of evangelicalism, we are actually...”
— Soong-Chan Rah
May 22nd
Google Releases Chrome V2.0
May 22nd
More Americans play video games than go to...
May 22nd
“The fallacy guiding Washington policymakers circa 2009 can...”
— Kevin Phillips
May 22nd
Oil Industry Braces for U.S. Trial on Rights...
May 22nd
Mike Luckovich
May 22nd
Who Owns Your Name on Twitter?
May 22nd
“Indifference to injustice is more insidious than the...”
— Cornel West
May 22nd
Whither Eucalyptus?
May 22nd
“The failure of the Bush administration to remake America —...”
— Robert C. Koehler
May 22nd
“…my biggest problem is that people always perceive the...”
— Chris Heathcote
May 22nd
Happy Birthday, Nicene Creed
May 22nd
DanzigerCartoons.com
May 22nd
“What is the relationship of dogma, in its most positive...”
— Marilyn McEntyre
May 22nd
Why Wolfram Alpha Flopped
May 22nd
“This generation realizes that biblically, the only way the...”
— Jarrod McKenna
May 21st
RNC Hits Obama For Criticizing Slavery
May 21st
John Sherffius
May 21st
“Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal...”
— Bill Moyers
May 21st
The Bush Era Torture-Homicides
May 21st
Ascension Day
May 21st
“That’s why, in early Christianity and Judaism, those who...”
— N.T. Wright
May 21st
nakedpastor
May 21st
“One of the big challenges in worship with a relatively large...”
— Do we need Twitter in worship?
May 21st
Yes, There Are Still Innocents At Gitmo
May 21st
“To be fair, George W. Bush did some good work relative to...”
— Jeffrey Feldman
May 21st
Mike Keefe
May 21st
“The young Buffett’s ambition found a number of...”
— The Master of Money
May 21st
Rush Limbaugh's race to the bottom
May 21st
“Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape is what the program...”
— Jane Mayer
May 21st
“Obama’s new $664 billion Pentagon budget is $21 billion...”
— Sherwood Ross
May 21st
It’s Time to Push For The Living Wage
May 21st
The Sound of One Hand Inking
May 21st
Nanny-bots: Would you use a robot...
May 21st
“…there is plenty of evidence that postwar elites in the...”
— Grant Havers
May 21st
“Dick Cheney is a strange creature. For public consumption he...”
— Obery Hendricks
May 21st
“Do you mean, why am I frugal? You can’t buy health and you...”
— Warren Buffett (via...
May 20th

Where are Tumblrs Politically?

squashed wrote: I asked people to characterize their political views in two or three words. Here...
May 20th
“Have you ever noticed that when someone asked Jesus a...”
— Story vs. Information
May 20th
Internet addiction disorder
May 20th
Watch Watch
Elisabeth Hasselbeck PWNED by Jesse “The Body” Ventura on the issue of tortue
May 20th
What Difference Does Inequality Make?
May 20th
Sad Mac
May 20th
“There are two ways to work with talent. The first is to give...”
— Seth’s Blog
May 20th
More than one in four members of President...
May 20th
Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control...
May 20th

A dialog about the use of torture

Lib: So, Conicus, you support the use of torture, right?
Con: Indeed I do, Lib.
Lib: I assume that you do not support the arbitrary use of torture.
Con: You assume correctly.
Lib: So you require that torture be used only under a set of rules, correct?
Con: Indeed so.
Lib: What might those rules be? For example, do you have any rules about WHO can be tortured?
Con: Yes, of course.
Lib: Would you permit women to be tortured?
Con: Um... no, I don't think so.
Lib: So if al-Qaeda were to recruit women for its tasks, our nation would have no defense against them?
Con: You're right. I suppose we would have to permit the torture of women.
Lib: Would rape be an acceptable form of torture for women?
Con: No, of course not!
Lib: Why not?
Con: Because it's uncivilized!
Lib: I see. So you would permit only civilized forms of torture, correct?
Con: Yes, only civilized forms of torture.
Lib: And can you tell me what forms of torture are civilized?
Con: I'm not sure what you mean.
Lib: Is waterboarding civilized?
Con: I suppose so.
Lib: What is it about rape that makes it uncivilized while waterboarding is civilized?
Con: Well, rape is nasty...
Lib: So waterboarding isn't nasty?
Con: Rape is very ugly.
Lib: Waterboarding isn't ugly?
Con: OK, here's the answer: the rapist enjoys it, but the waterboarder doesn't.
Lib: So your rule is that torture is civilized when the torturer doesn't enjoy doing it?
Con: Yes, that's the rule.
Lib: So rape would be civilized if it were carried out by a gay man?
Con: Well, no, but that's because we can't be certain that the gay man won't enjoy raping a woman.
Lib: Can we be certain that a waterboarder isn't a sadist?
Con: We can have psychological tests to insure that sadists are not permitted to become torturers.
Lib: So couldn't we have psychological tests to insure that gay rapist-torturers don't enjoy raping women?
Con: I suppose so...
Lib: Ergo, rape is a civilized form of torture so long as we use rapists who are guaranteed not to enjoy the experience?
Con: That doesn't seem right...
Lib: If you find people who truly don't enjoy torturing other people, won't they refuse to do it?
Con: I suppose so...
Lib: Isn't this a Catch-22: the only people whom you can trust to torture in a civilized fashion are the people who refuse to do it?
Con: Yes, I suppose so. I think I need a different rule for keeping the torture civilized.
Lib: Can you think of any other possible rules?
Con: What if we make the distinction based on long-term harm to the victim?
Lib: So, if it doesn't permanently injure the victim, it's not torture?
Con: Yes, that was essentially the argument of Mr. Yoo.
Lib: So rape is back on the table because rape doesn't permanently harm the victim.
Con: No, not at all. Studies have shown that rape inflicts permanent psychological harm on its victims.
Lib: What have studies shown about the use of waterboarding?
Con: We don't have any scientific studies on waterboarding.
Lib: So we don't know if waterboarding inflicts permanent psychological harm.
Con: True.
Lib: So how can you say that waterboarding is civilized torture? You don't know!
Con: Well, OK, but surely there are techniques known not to cause long-term harm.
Lib: Can you name any?
Con: No, I can't.
Lib: So this rule doesn't solve your problem, does it?
Con: No, I suppose not.
May 20th
How Google Threatens Books
May 20th
Watch Watch
The Word - I Know You Are But What Am I?
May 20th
“…the future weapon of mass destruction we should most fear...”
— William S. Lind
May 20th
“Isn’t it rather obvious how degraded a citizenry...”
— Glenn Greenwald
May 20th
“Humans have always engineered new ways of waging ever more...”
— Kimberly N. Chase
May 20th
CCTV schemes in city and town centres have...
May 20th
Suckers and Parasites
May 19th
“Bacevich, it seems, wants to avoid the banal truth about...”
— Richard Spencer
May 19th
“I have always thought we needed to index the web every...”
— Larry Page
May 19th
“Reading on the web is almost certainly affecting the way we...”
— Peter Suderman
May 19th
The CIA’s Comedy of Briefing List Errors
May 19th
Watch Watch
Remix Culture: (They say) Fair Use is Your Friend
May 19th
“After four years on the Court, however, [Chief Justice]...”
— Jeffrey Toobin
May 19th
“What I am telling you is that there is a tremendously...”
— Dave Grossman
May 19th
Watch Watch
Dick Cheney, Our Hero
May 19th
Google Calculating Who's About to Quit
May 19th
“The problem the web has introduced into intellectual life is...”
— Clay Shirky
May 19th
Economics of Sick Days
May 19th
“I have committed myself to joy. I have come to realize that...”
— Richard Rohr
May 19th
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all...”
— Thomas Jefferson
May 19th
Matt Bors
May 19th
“It should also be recalled that Bush did not declare the...”
— Noam Chomsky
May 19th
“Wallets will become relics. Just wave your phone near a...”
— Scott Adams
May 19th
“The Bush Doctrine is the source of all this horror. The idea...”
— Hullabaloo
May 19th
DanzigerCartoons.com
May 18th

Future of Syndicated Political Cartoons

Daryl Cagle wrote: Many cartoonists thought that animated editorial cartoons would be our future....
May 18th
How Torture Trapped Colin Powell
May 18th
“Bank lending at interest isn’t the only way to create...”
— David Korten
May 18th
The Orphan Trade
May 18th
“The tale of the put-upon news organizations and the...”
— Glenn Greenwald
May 18th
Watch Watch
Play him off, keyboard cat
May 18th
This Month in Sociology
May 18th
“For years I supported capital punishment, but I have come to...”
— James A. Fry
May 18th
“The Obama administration is expanding health care insurance...”
— Glen Stassen
May 18th
Just the Facts: When Corporations Rule Our Food
May 18th
“The embrace by any society of permanent war is a parasite...”
— Chris Hedges
May 18th
The Death of Richard Dawkins
May 18th
Joe Heller
May 18th
“The speculative economy is related to the real economy, but...”
— Douglas Rushkoff
May 18th
A pop quiz for biblical literalists
May 18th
“The reason that liberal blogs are cited more often in the...”
— Nate Silver
May 18th
Why Linux Is Not Yet Ready For the Desktop
May 18th
“We’re not going to rescue the banks. The collateral...”
— Jim Kunstler
May 18th
Rob Rogers
May 17th

On Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha Review /yawn Lethargic response time, most queries unable to “compute”,...
May 17th
“Take the question of Obama’s religion. Millions of...”
— Are Americans Still Stupid?*
May 17th
“In this world of competing claims about what is right and...”
— President Obama
May 17th

Getting to know Tumbloggers

(via mandalay, shorterexcerpts) Name: Naum Tumblr Name: azspot Age: 40something Birthday: December...
May 17th
“The administration can’t “just keep walking” because it is...”
— Frank Rich
May 17th
“With no stored literary material about which to harbor...”
— Walter Kirn
May 17th
Taylor Jones
May 17th
Sales skyrocket with demand for hand...
May 17th
“This new strain of conservatism, then, wasn’t actually...”
— Digby
May 17th
The happiest places on Earth are heavily...
May 17th
Botnet Is Captured and Studied
May 16th
“French household debt is half that in America, no bank has...”
— As Smash-and-Grab Capitalism...
May 16th
bartcop.com
May 16th
At a Senate hearing this past week, Sen....
May 16th
Tillman Family is McChrystal-Clear
May 16th
“The Progressive Frame is very different from the Liberal...”
— Joe Brewer
May 16th
Sky is Not Falling on Social Security
May 16th

Best fast-food restaurant?

Scot McKnight wrote: Throw out the health issue for a minute and think aloud about the best...
May 16th
Scottsdale soldier, 60, oldest to die in Iraq
May 16th
Watch Watch
Darwin’s Nightmare
May 16th
Civilization's Cost: The Decline and Fall of...
May 16th
“It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that...”
— Thomas Paine
May 16th
Metaplace is now in open beta
May 15th
Watch Watch
Metaplace Welcome Video
May 15th
Why US Broadband Service Continues to...
May 15th
“While much of the “torture debate” has...”
— Jeremy Scahill
May 15th
A Christian’s lament over the Pew torture...
May 15th
“Whether Bush, Cheney and their associates were seeking real...”
— Joe Conason
May 15th
A very odd photo as Obama bends over to let son of a WH...
May 15th
Watch Watch
Auto-Tune the News #3: cuba. afghan friendship. 2-party woes.
May 15th
Introducing the new Tumblr Directory
May 15th
iPhone users can now walk the streets safe…
May 15th
“New Rule: If you’re a cartoonist and have to put a...”
— Bill Maher
May 15th
Keith Tucker
May 15th
New 'prisoner abuse' photographs emerge...
May 15th
“As we become more and more dependent on software for...”
— Schneier on Security
May 15th
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
May 15th
Obama a Bystander at Notre Dame
May 15th
“Metaphors matter. They shape the way we see and understand...”
— Kyle R. Cupp
May 15th
Question to Ponder
May 15th
“…the solution is a spiritual and social resolution to a...”
— Scot McKnight
May 15th

Who are your tech heroes?

Dave Winer wrote: Here’s how to decide: 1. Someone who has made largely selfless...
May 15th
Is Public Opinion Changing on Abortion?
May 15th
Dan Wasserman
May 15th
An Icy Oasis from the Great Meltdown
May 15th
“My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it...”
— Richard Posner
May 15th
The Power of Money
May 15th
Watch Watch
seth godin & tribes at TED
May 14th
Free MobileMe Alternative: How to Set Up...
May 14th
“Central to “Trek” is the image of a large,...”
— David Brin
May 14th
Pat Bagley
May 14th
The Truth About Richard Bruce Cheney
May 14th
“…when I say “young,” I’m not just...”
— President Obama
May 14th
nakedpastor
May 14th
“…what was once a vibrant Christian community is on a...”
— Bob Cornwall
May 14th
“…we’ve all been hoodwinked, but not by organic....”
— Gary Hirshberg
May 14th
“Little about slavery has changed except the cost. The price...”
— Modern Slavery and the...
May 14th
“Slavery is not an injustice independent of anything else....”
— Danielle Dowling
May 14th
Kindle owners start to lose text-to-speech on...
May 14th
“We’re currently occupying two Muslim countries. ...”
— Glenn Greenwald
May 14th
“…[Martin Luther] King believed—and this actually is one of...”
— Howard Zinn
May 14th
Steve Sack
May 14th
“We as a nation promote biologically reductionistic,...”
— Paula M. Cooey
May 14th
More subtle today, slavery still exists
May 14th
“I really don’t think we need to start churches. Jesus...”
— Wayne Jacobsen
May 14th
Of ATMs, iPhones… and 9/11?
May 13th