September 2010
“The four corners of deceit: government, academia, science and media. Those...”
– Rush Limbaugh
“Why, why, why is it still necessary for every single DVD that I buy to have the...”
– Are F.B.I. Warnings on DVDs Really Necessary?
The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs.... →
For a long time, American politics has been defined by a Left/Right dynamic. It was Liberals versus Conservatives on a variety of issues. Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice, Tax Cuts vs. More Spending, Pro-War vs Peaceniks, Environmental Protections vs. Economic Growth, Pro-Union vs. Union-Free, Gay Marriage vs. Family Values, School Choice vs. Public Schools, Regulation vs. Free Markets.
The new...
The New Agtivist: Gene Fredericks is thinking...
Q: What is Big Green Boxes, exactly?
A: It's a new business that will transform unused warehouse space into year-round indoor growing centers. We'll use hydroponics and aquaponics, along with advanced low-energy lighting techniques and vertical growing methods, to produce the very freshest leafy greens for local consumption regardless of climate.
Our goal is to be a sustainable and profitable business that provides tasty, preservative- and pesticide-free fresh food, grown in the community for the community; that creates new jobs; revives some neglected real estate; and offers some pretty interesting educational exposure to green technologies.
John Kerry is right: Americans are ignorant →
In Kerry’s defense it should be noted that nothing he said was actually the least bit controversial — if one takes into account the facts, something admittedly that is not terribly popular in American politics. Studies since the 1940s have consistently shown that Americans by and large don’t pay much attention to politics, and when they do it is apt to be because somebody has...
“God and his ways are not what most of us think. Most of what we are told about...”
– Eugene Peterson
Kurzweil’s Blio Finally Launches – Here Is A First... →
Today K-NFB Reading Technology, backed by futurist Ray Kurzweil, officially released its highly anticipated Blio e-book platform for download to the public. Yet in a move that seems painfully behind the times, the platform is currently available for download on Windows PCs only. Blio apps for ipads and other platforms are supposedly to follow, but no firm date for their release is available. I...
“As the 2010 election campaign gains momentum in its final months and foreshadows...”
– The Politics of Incoherence
kohenari asked: Thanks for the reblog today; it's really drawn a lot more attention to my post than when I wrote it over the weekend (or at least to the sentences you quoted). Maybe this demonstrates that I write too much or that posting something on a weekend morning will mean it gets skipped over; I can't really tell. In any case, thanks for drawing people's attention back to it!
Pew Forum Religious Knowledge Survey: Atheists,... →
Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge. They outperformed evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.
“Of course, the fact that we’re even sitting here two years after Bush...”
– Matt Taibbi
Tea & Crackers →
Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn’t a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald...
“The role of knowledge and art, as the ancient Greeks understood, is to create...”
– Chris Hedges
GOP groups overwhelm Dems with political ads →
In one way at least, the fight for control of Congress is grossly one-sided.
Just five weeks from midterm elections, groups allied with the Republican Party and financed in part by corporations and millionaires have amassed a crushing 6-1 advantage in television spending, and now are dominating the airwaves in closely contested districts and states across the country.
Bob Woodward and All the President’s Men →
Obama’s Wars reportedly contains this comment by President Obama to Secretary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates regarding Afghanistan: “I’m not doing 10 years… I’m not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars.”
Aren’t you, Mr. President? Don’t be so sure.
Obama’s Wars also affirms what we already suspected about the...
Tumblr Queue Over^H^H^H^H Under Capacity
abbyjean:
staff:
Later this week we’re pushing a complete overhaul of the Queue feature with some killer new functionality.
In the meantime though, the existing queue service is handling a volume of posts it was never designed for. To prevent it from becoming unstable and mis-publishing posts, we’ve decided the best course is to take the queues offline and expedite the relaunch.
The Queue...
“It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public...”
– Adam Smith
“We confuse the electronic image, a reflection back to us of ourselves, with the...”
– Chris Hedges
Smile, You’re a Liberal After All! →
The story line for the upcoming November elections has been that conservatives are angry, motivated and poised for a major electoral triumph. Fuming, they promise to return America to its traditional values, which they say have been hijacked by liberals and progressives.
But here’s the dark secret conservatives don’t want you to know: America is a progressive nation. Americans have always...
“If God’s incomprehensibility does not grip us in a word, if it does not draw us...”
– Karl Rahner
Segway company owner dies riding two-wheeled... →
The multi-millionaire businessman, 62, fell into the River Wharfe while inspecting the grounds of his North Yorkshire estate on a rugged country version of the Segway.
“The second story is that Democrats didn’t deliver what they promised:...”
– Drew Westen
Why The Democrats’ Response to the Pledge Has Been... →
First, all politics is moral. People vote for values they identify with, for what they see as right, not wrong.
Second, the facts alone don’t set you free. Facts matter, but they must be understandable, that is, framed for normal human beings, and framed so as to be relevant to the moral views that define a voter’s identity.
Third, there are two very different moral views at play in our...
“For many years following the Great Depression and World War II we as nation made...”
– The Disputed Truth
Five rules for your About page →
1. Don’t use meaningless jargon:
… is a recognized provider of result-based online and mobile advertising solutions. Dedicated to complete value chain optimization and maximization of ROI for its clients, … is committed to the ongoing mastery of the latest online platforms - and to providing continuously enhanced aggregation and optimization options.
2. Don’t use a stock...
“What’s your story? Take the time to tell one and ask for one in return -...”
– Stories Are Us
“Butler confuses past and future mythologies here and casts doubt on both. The...”
– Car Culture Audio
“That concept — that the U.S. Government should not be monitoring,...”
– Glenn Greenwald
Feds to push for Net encryption backdoors →
The Obama administration will seek a new federal law forcing Internet e-mail, instant-messaging, and other communication providers offering encryption to build in backdoors for law enforcement surveillance, The New York Times reported today.
Communication providers, apparently including companies that offer voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, would be compelled to reconfigure their...
“There’s a lot of stuff completely out of Obama’s control or any of...”
– Shepard Fairey
“Our current poverty measure’s outdated way of defining the poverty threshold and...”
– The Poverty Measure: Why It’s Outdated, and Why It’s Important
Reasons for Skepticism About Structural... →
Unemployment has remained at 9.5% or above for more than a year, and may remain that high or inch even higher through the end of 2011. The predominant, and in our view correct, narrative to describe this situation has been that the bursting of the housing bubble and the resulting loss of wealth led to sharp cutbacks in consumer spending. The loss of consumers, along with financial market chaos...
“Obama is arguing the executive has the power to execute American citizens...”
– The Agitator
U.S. Wants More Health Reform, Not Less →
A new AP poll finds that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1. “I was disappointed that it didn’t provide universal coverage,” said Bronwyn Bleakley, 35, a biology professor from Easton, Mass. More than 30 million people would gain coverage in 2019 when the law is fully phased in, but...
PodCamp AZ 2010 – Relevant Media Unconference →
what: Podcamp AZ 2010
where: University of Advancing Technology
when: November 20-21, 2010
who: New media innovators, enthusiasts, participants, and newbies who are interested the role of the internet in interactive communication.
why: It’s two crazy cool days of learning, sharing, and people meeting. And Phoenix metro is gorgeous in November.
how much: FREE
link to...
“The idea that the government might strip American citizenship from al-Awlaki,...”
– Running Chicken
“…these days one of America’s two great political parties routinely makes equally...”
– Paul Krugman (via Marco)
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate....”
– Republican Economics as Social Darwinism
So How Did the Bush Tax Cuts Work Out for the... →
The hard, empirical facts:
The tax cuts did not spur investment. Job growth in the George W. Bush years was one-seventh that of the Clinton years. Nixon and Ford did better than Bush on jobs. Wages fell during the last administration. Average incomes fell. The number of Americans in poverty, as officially measured, hit a 16-year high last year of 43.6 million, though a National Academy of...
“…there was no New Testament as a collection before the 4th century A.D. The New...”
– Ben Witherington
Orwell Watch: “Structural Unemployment” As Excuse... →
The spin-meisters continue to package things that ought to incite outrage in anodyne wrappers in the hope no one will look inside. “The new normal” and “structural unemployment” join the universe inhabited by such gems as “extraordinary rendition” and “pre-emptive strike”.
“New normal” is particularly insidious, since it implies that we must accept current conditions, since they are “normal”...
“Obama did exactly the opposite of what should have been done. He surrounded...”
– Nassim Nicholas Taleb