January 2010
Japan Will Start 3D TV Programming This Summer →
Japan HD TV operator Sky Perfect will start 3D programming this summer, with focuses on live events and sports events. As more Hollywood movies are shot in 3D, and 3D TVs are expected to come onto the market in the very near future, Sky Perfect is hoping that people will switch to 3D TV just like people switched from black and white to color. How about 3D TV in other countries?
“Despite Frank’s best efforts to make the argument, though, centrism did not die...”
– Eunomia
American news bankrupted and lobotomized, replaced... →
Foreign bureaus have been among the hardest hit by cost-cutting measures in print and television media alike. According to the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media report, coverage of international events by American media fell by about 40 percent in 2008. Thus has a bizarre situation arisen: at the most interconnected time in history, accurate and comprehensive news of the...
“And yet what our genius centrists are calling for, in effect, is to hand over...”
– Thomas Frank
Random rules for ideas worth spreading →
You can name your idea anything you like, but a google-friendly name is always better than one that isn’t.
Don’t plan on appearing on a reality show as the best way to launch your idea.
Waiting for inspiration is another way of saying that you’re stalling. You don’t wait for inspiration, you command it to appear.
Don’t poll your friends. It’s your art, not...
“Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you...”
– Thomas Merton
“The iPad has all the problems of television, with none of the benefits of...”
– Why The iPad Is Crap Futurism
Why do people often vote against their own... →
In his book The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Westen, an exasperated Democrat, tried to show why the Right often wins the argument even when the Left is confident that it has the facts on its side.
He uses the following exchange from the first presidential debate between Al Gore and George Bush in 2000 to illustrate the perils of trying to explain to voters what will make them better off:
...
The Lamer Blame Game →
Where I display umbrage in response to conservative blogger Reagan worship…
“So to recap: CBS wouldn’t allow a group to criticize Bush, wouldn’t...”
– DownWithTyranny!
Debating the Cost of Capital Punishment →
As cash-strapped states consider the high cost of sentencing prisoners to death, capital punishment has fallen on hard times.
In New Mexico, which voted to abolish the death penalty last year, State Rep. Gail Chasey (D., Albuquerque) specifically noted the tax dollars that would be saved. “We can put that money toward enhancing law enforcement, public works, you name it,” she said. In 2009, 10...
What happens when corporations buy the last three... →
A face for politics: New study shows we can tell... →
In a study published in the January 18 issue of PLoS One, subjects were able to accurately identify candidates from the 2004 and 2006 U.S. Senate elections as either Democrats or Republicans based on black-and-white photos of their faces. And subjects were even able to correctly identify college students as belonging to Democratic or Republican clubs based on their yearbook photos.
To...
“I tell my own graduate students the same thing - to invest in books. They are...”
– James Emery White
Howard Zinn: A Radical Treasure →
I always wondered why Howard Zinn was considered a radical. (He called himself a radical.) He was an unbelievably decent man who felt obliged to challenge injustice and unfairness wherever he found it. What was so radical about believing that workers should get a fair shake on the job, that corporations have too much power over our lives and much too much influence with the government, that wars...
“With the Citizens United ruling, the court revealed the depth of its contempt...”
– Welcome to the Plutocracy
FCC's Net Neutrality Plan Would Permit Blocking of... →
When we saw the loophole, we had to ask ourselves, “Is this real net neutrality?” And the answer was simply, “No.” The entertainment industry is already pressuring ISPs to become copyright cops. Carving a copyright loophole in net neutrality would leave your lawful activities at the mercy of overbroad copyright filtering schemes, and we already have plenty of experience...
“Sen. Tom Udall is proposing a change in Senate rules, going back to the...”
– Paul Krugman
Health Care - GOP Solutions for America →
“The visigoths are at the gate of the city. They’re demanding access to...”
– Fraser Speirs
“Thus, a corporation organized in Germany, or with its headquarters in China,...”
– Fred Wertheimer
Reliant Energy takes back outsourced IT projects →
Last year, Reliant reversed itself and decided to take the outsourced work back in-house. Last summer, the utility began advertising for IT workers, and posted nine notices of intent with the U.S. Department of Labor to hire H-1B visa holders for some of these positions. The intent notices, part of the DOL’s certification process, were leaked to the Programmers Guild.
The guild promptly...
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
– Howard Zinn (via finlayson)
“…nothing could be worse for the GOP than the illusion of success under present...”
– Eunomia
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a mythological drama for the malcontented...”
– Pastoralia
“But I don’t want to live in a world where you have to break into your own...”
– dive into mark
“The Supreme Court recently ruled 5-4 that corporations can spend unlimited...”
– America’s Competitors Will Use Supreme Court Ruling To Block Our Green Jobs Effort And Close Our Factories
“At the beginning of the last decade, the year 2000, America had a budget surplus...”
– President Obama
An Open Letter to Mr. Jonah Goldberg →
In fact, I reviewed your book with no access to views of any a priori “circles”, and availed myself of no ex post factodiscussion, positive or negative, of your tome prior to reading it: I tried to have an open mind at the start. This is what self-reflective historians, and indeed many other kinds of people, attempt to do before coming to a judgment. I suspect the other members of HNN’s...
“Why should we accept that the “talent” of someone who writes jingles for an...”
– Howard Zinn (via fyeahsocialism, robot-heart-politics)
GOP Media Mistake →
Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck could have told them that the Right Wing Noise Machine only works if there is no one in the room to talk back. When was the last time you ever heard a caller argue with Rush on his radio show
“But the United States is a very complex system. It’s very hard to describe...”
– Howard Zinn (via vaughnshirley)
“If I may address the skeptics on the right directly, it is penny wise and pound...”
– Conor Friedersdorf
CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style... →
Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the “routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to...”
– Steve Jobs
“That leads us to the other vote of the day. The senate voted on so-called...”
– daggatt
“Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can....”
– President Obama
“The invasion of Iraq was unquestionably one of the greatest crimes of the last...”
– Glenn Greenwald
“Howard never allowed himself to be seduced either by threats, the seductions of...”
– Howard Zinn: A Public Intellectual Who Mattered
“President Obama, it is not too late to make common cause with the American...”
– Sarah van Gelder