February 2010
“I honestly hope that someone will correct me about this, but it seems to me that...”
– Paul Raushenbush
Here's a Philosophy (continued) →
unsolicitedanalysis:
…The subtext of my post is that monetarist policies that protect the value of currency long-term provide a better set of social prompts than Keynes, who simply suggests we deficit-spend the impoverished out of distress. If so, where are the hosannas for 30 years of reckless deficit expansion and its successful eradication of poverty in America?
But the last 30 years of...
Defending Against Drones →
Today, the lag time between the development of military technology and its widespread dissemination is measured in months, not years. Industrial farmers around the world already use aerial drones to dust their crops with pesticides. And a recent U.S. Air Force study concluded that similar systems are “an ideal platform” for dirty bombs containing radioactive, chemical, or biological...
“But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is...”
– Al Gore
WatchDICE 2010: “Design Outside the Box” Presentation
“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other...”
– Thomas Paine
“Actually, [Glenn] Beck is a problem of taste as well as ethics. He laughs and...”
– Eric Burns
The Power of Love →
A short essay in which I pontificate on logic, the gospel and love.
“…there is no evidence that we obtained any useful intelligence at all from...”
– The Torture Lie
Top ten “starter books” in Christian history →
“There’s as little place for these unofficial PR departments in Wikipedia...”
– Wikipedia bias in video game articles
“Watching [Eric] Schmidt rejoice at Google’s new business model should cause us...”
– Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters
“Access and finding aren’t particularly problems in the world of the Net and...”
– The iPad and Information’s Third Age
GOP Rep. Franks: African-Americans 'Devastated'... →
But Trent Franks had a long, reasoned discussion with me, and in it, drops a real stinker, beginning at around the 6:10 mark. He’s of the belief that blacks are “more devastated” today than they were under slavery because of the rate of abortion in the black community. It sounds an awful lot to me like the Congressman is suggesting that blacks were better off as slaves.
My congressman :(
(via...
“cultivating a community requires an extremely high level of relationship that...”
– the difference between “cultivating communities” and “building churches”
Here's a Philosophy
unsolicitedanalysis:
Poverty is not something you can fix with social programs, or perpetual wars. It’s a generational challenge that requires the establishment of good habits, and the acknowledgement that no number of fiscal prompts can save certain people from their own imprudent behavior. The ones who scrimp and save will be rewarded with a better life that they earned for their children,...
“In particular, the evolutionary theory of God contains another fatal flaw....”
– Scot McKnight
Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme? →
But a recent suit filed against San Francisco-based Yelp makes an allegation that, in some ways, seems fundamentally more far-reaching than the above types of suits. The suit alleges that the services provided by Yelp, consumer-driven reviews of restaurants, retailers, products, (and other stuff) are, at their essence, fraudulent.
The allegations, embodied in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles...
“Whirlpool is closing a plant in Evansville, Indiana, and moving the jobs to...”
– Dave Johnson
Luxembourg-sized iceberg threatens weather chaos... →
An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has split off from the Antarctic continent and could disrupt global ocean patterns and weather systems for decades, according to scientists.
The 985 square-mile (2,550 square-kilometre) block of ice was knocked off the Mertz Glacier Tongue, a spit of floating ice protruding from East Antarctica on February 12 or 13. It was dislodged by an older iceberg, known...
“Never accept and be content with unanalyzed assumptions, assumptions about the...”
– Catholic missionary and Spiritan priest Fr. Vincent Donovan
Chile Earthquake 8.8 -- Hawaii Tsunami Warning at... →
There are Tsunami warnings from South America to Hawaii, to Asia. A small Tsunami has already been reported.
Over 80 people have already been reported dead by the Chilean Interior Minister. There is wide-spread structural damage. UPDATE 8:20 AM PT: The number reported dead has been increased to over 120, according to the President-Elect of Chile.
I’ve been watching Live TV streaming from...
“To believe the Republicans, one would be forced to accept the central claim they...”
– Do Doctors in America Turn Away the Uninsured?
The Power of Text →
The neuromarketing takeaway from this is that even in a highly visual medium like television, properly used text can beat commercials with amazing imagery and production values.
“If an alien was looking down on us and inspecting our language they would see...”
– Stephen Fry
Where are the friendliest people on the planet? →
Well, according to a 2003 study, the friendliest cities were Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, San Jose, Costa Rica and Madrid. Researchers gathered their data quite scientifically — they dropped pens on sidewalks to see if anybody would pick them up, and they feigned blindness or an injury to see if anyone would help them. How did people react? Well, evidently in the poorer cities, they were more likely...
“Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible...”
– Edward Bernays
“As utopian fantasies go, this is pretty good. But it ignores the critical shift...”
– Chris Hedges
Winter Condompocalypse 2010 →
Health officials in Vancouver have already provided 100,000 free condoms to the roughly 7,000 ahtletes and officials at the Games. That’s about 14 condoms per person. But as of Wednesday, those supplies started running dangerously low.
“When we heard about the condom shortage in Vancouver, we felt it important to respond immediately,” said Kerry Whiteside, the Canadian...
A ‘Government Takeover’ of Health Care? →
A common refrain among critics of the health reform bills passed by the House and the Senate is that they constitute a “complete government takeover of 17 percent of the American economy.”
How could this be so?
Start with the $950 billion price tag over the next decade for federal subsidies toward the purchase of private health insurance. Divide that amount by $34 trillion, the current...
“…the current fight over the Senate, caused by bitter polarization in American...”
– Balkinization
The two sides of health care reform →
James Surowiecki ably describes the gulf between Democrats and Republicans on expanding access to health care. Democrats see the fact that 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance as a problem that the federal government should solve in the near term, and Republicans don’t. Democrats also see the fact that for certain groups of people, it’s impossible to get affordable health insurance...
“I am never without my phone. I am never without my computer. They’re the same...”
– How smartphones will disrupt PCs
“We are entering a new era in the history of American life. Never in our history...”
– The Disputed Truth
“There’s a difference between the statements ‘America has the best health-care...”
– Ezra Klein (via savingpaper, brooklynmutt, newsweek, soupsoup, ericrobertsswagger)
Why Conservatives Should Care About Transit →
We often hear complaints that transit systems do not earn profits. This is true (with a few exceptions), but this does not mean that transit systems are a waste of money. When was the last time you heard someone complain about how a local road never manages to turn a profit? If we held roads and transit projects to similar standards of profitability, we would build very few roads indeed....
“Reagan, Greenspan, Wanniski, and Laffer took the federal budget deficit from...”
– Thom Hartmann
“Jesus did not model “excellence”; in fact, in so many ways he is the antithesis...”
– the carnival in my head