April 2010
“If a bright young candidate runs for Congress, will anybody hear? If he’s...”
– If a Young Evangelical Runs for Congress, Will Anybody Hear?
2 tags
“The problem with this is that the American West was only able to appear as Anglo...”
– A Note on the Arizona Immigration Bill
“We need always to be thinking and writing about [poverty], for if we are not...”
– Dorothy Day
“Many “tea party” activists staunchly oppose big government, except when it is...”
– James Bovard
Crowd sourcing meets the real world →
IT giant IBM told Personnel Today that the firm’s global workforce of 399,000 permanent employees could reduce to 100,000 by 2017, the date by which the firm is due to complete its HR transformation programme. Tim Ringo, head of IBM Human Capital Management, the consultancy arm of the IT conglomerate, said the firm would re-hire the workers as contractors for specific projects as and when...
Technology and Morals
Giles Bowkett:
It says fucked up things about the future of democracy online that so many geeks are angry about this meaningless non-issue, and so few object to Jason Chen getting swat-teamed more effectively than Osama bin Laden ever was.
<naum_rant>
Listening to this week’s MacBreak Weekly podcast, I became furious at the rah-rah Apple cheerleading and particularly the glee of...
Peoples’ Capitalism: A Pathway to Abundance →
The flip side of productivity is that it reduces the need for human workers. As productivity rises, the need for human workers falls. The conventional wisdom is that new jobs will be created as old jobs disappear. While this has been true in the past, there is no fundamental reason why it must continue to be true in the future. If production of wealth requires fewer and fewer human workers,...
“Approach political discourse through the lens of political psychology. Look for...”
– Why You Need to Understand Political Psychology
“Spore suffers from an inverse, but no less disappointing problem. Spore nails...”
– The Brainy Gamer
A Wal-Mart Worker's Horror Story →
During her tenure at the company, Gunter was repeatedly passed over for promotion in favor of men she had trained, she says in court documents. Her bosses didn’t pretend to be running a civilized workplace: Once, after she’d had a fight with her husband, her supervisor suggested, “Why don’t you put your face in my lap and take care of both of our problems?”
On the day of a scheduled meeting...
Arizona & Citizenship — Some Historical Context →
When the United States defeated Mexico in 1848, the Mexicans living in the newly annexed territories became Mexican-Americans. Under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Congress was required to pass legislation making them full U.S. citizens. This was done as part of the bills that admitted the various new states to the union. But Arizona avoided being admitted to the union until 1912. During the...
“I think we should catch ‘em, we should document ‘em, make sure we...”
– Pat Bertroche, a Republican congressional hopeful in Iowa’s 3rd district
“People go to Facebook to interact with their friends. It is fundamentally...”
– Facebook is a Ponzi Scheme (via Matt Lehrer)
“What would Arizona’s revered libertarian icon, Barry Goldwater, say about a law...”
– Breathing While Undocumented
“Now that this bill in Arizona has gone into effect, every policeman has...”
– Go to Hell, Arizona
Questions for the Obama Administration on its... →
“If you watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh and process what they’re...”
– Goebbels Would Have Been Proud
Which Party is the Biggest Spender? A. Democrats... →
Surprisingly, these figures show that, since 1940, Republicans and Democrats are just about equally invested in big government. If anything, government gets slightly smaller under Democrats.
Well then, how about recent history? I decided to compare the percentages under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. There was quite a bit of government expansion during those 16 years – and it wasn’t under...
McCain’s lame blame game →
Sen. McCain was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. He served for two terms before being elected to the Senate in 1986. And again in 1992. And 1998. And 2004. And, as you know, is running again this year.
So, the 28-year member of the federal government is telling the man who served four years in the senate and 1 ½ years as president that it is the PRESIDENT who hasn’t...
“The corporate economy, from its very beginning, has been a structure of power...”
– P2P Foundation
“Torture is about control. You let me torture a thousand people, and I can keep...”
– Daemon and Freedom
AdRevenge – A Business Idea →
AdRevenge would address this need by charging a small fee (clients could even decide the amount) to automate negative search engine advertising. I’ll use a ficticious company to explain.
Let’s say you buy a defective part from ACME Widgets, Inc. and they refuse to refund or replace it. You’re mad, and you want the world to know about this awful widget. So you pop over to AdRevenge and you...
3D printer could build moon bases →
An Italian inventor, Enrico Dini, chairman of the company Monolite UK Ltd, has developed a huge three-dimensional printer called D-Shape that can print entire buildings out of sand and an inorganic binder. The printer works by spraying a thin layer of sand followed by a layer of magnesium-based binder from hundreds of nozzles on its underside. The glue turns the sand to solid stone, which is...
“…it’s a license to racially profile. It creates a second-class status for...”
– Rep. Raul Grijalva
Racist roots of Russell Pearce's regressive... →
Before this bill was actually signed into law, we told you about the guy who introduced it in the first place. It‘s this guy, Republican State Senator Russell Pearce. Mr. Pearce is famous in Arizona for having sent an email to his supporters that included a white nationalist screed, accusing the media of pushing the view, quote, “a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races,...
“If you are tired and hungry and alone and have no home and no hope – if you...”
– Don’t Go To Church
“Unlike people of my generation who are increasingly defined by their...”
– Why Can’t I Feel What I See?
“What the issue is for me is the role John Gruber has played over the past week,...”
– jhn brssndn!
Pressure-cooking algae into a better biofuel →
“We make an algae soup,” Savage said. “We heat it to about 300 degrees and keep the water at high enough pressure to keep it liquid as opposed to steam. We cook it for 30 minutes to an hour and we get a crude bio-oil.”
“The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis...”
– Tim Berners-Lee
“I fear that George Santayana was right and that we are doomed to repeat the...”
– Maxine Udall
Stop, Drop and Poll →
But Rasmussen’s portrayal of the law is very gentle. There’s no mention of the provisions that liberals and civil libertarians find most odious: that the law would charge legal immigrants with trespassing for failure to carry documentation papers (although — note — this is already required under federal law); that it would give law enforcement officers new powers of...
“Reading often means gathering information, acquiring new insight and knowledge,...”
– Henri Nouwen
“Videogames, undoubtedly, still have a long way to go. For a start, we have...”
– Ebert’s Fence and Games as Art
“Tolerance” is a feel-good buzzword in our society, but I fear people have...”
– True Tolerance
“Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and...”
– “Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black”
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely...”
– E.B. White
“There is a much stronger argument that the new Arizona law, while purporting to...”
– Balkinization