Updated: New developments Sept 24, 2012 — See at end of story Israel is about to do something really stupid, counting on being able to push Obama around before the elections. And they’re probably right, Obama will probably allow Israeli … Continue reading
In the early 1930s an Australian anthropologist, Donald Thompson, travelled to Arnhem Land in northern Australia and made friends with the indigenous Yolngu people. He averted a likely massacre of Yolngu people by white Australians and freed three Yolngu from … Continue reading
from Lapham’s Quarterly Americans in 2007 paid $7,421 per capita for healthcare as opposed to $2,840 paid by the Finns and $3,328 by the Swedes, but life expectancy in the United States is not as long as it is in … Continue reading
It’s all about ratings. Fox has shown that you get more viewers if you shovel people back a half digested version of their own prejudices and bigotries, leavened with pique and outrage. We don’t care about facts or government, we … Continue reading
Think about this: most cooperative organisms are made of component organisms which have very simple behaviors, and thus the group being is generally more capable. More capable of interacting with the world in a flexible and subtle way. Smarter. Take … Continue reading
Making Light has some good thoughts about resource security, abundance, and growth. Substituting non-acquisitive goals for acquisitive ones is difficult but not impossible. Our society already does that, whether people are collecting photos of themselves in exotic locations or status … Continue reading
If trickle down works, why do the rich get richer and everyone else get poorer?
NYT Article …we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap … Continue reading
Santorum avers that “America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography.” He pledges to use the resources of the Department of Justice to fight that “pandemic,” by bringing obscenity prosecutions against pornographers. I would note that this is very … Continue reading
Why anti-authoritarians are diagnosed as mentally ill. In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and … Continue reading
Mostly, it turns out, things that are politically inconvenient rather than things which actually pose a security threat. Using Wikileaks to figure out what the government redacts No surprises there.
What does an ethically challenged, cheating hypocrite who brought the country near ruin for political advantage have to do with this man? Oh.
Here’s what some friends of mine and I have been working on for a couple of years now. We’ve got it all nailed down and we’re looking for funding and other kinds of support: That’s our TEDx talk about the … Continue reading
(g) Any person who uses tear gas or tear gas weapons except in self-defense is guilty of a public offense and is punishable byimprisonment in a state prison for 16 months, or two or three years or in a county … Continue reading
There’s no privacy Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers – that’s the social graph. Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or … Continue reading