August 2010
21 posts
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“During his primary campaign, Inglis repeatedly encountered enraged conservatives...”
– David Corn quoting long-time GOP Representative Bob Inglis, who just lost the Republican primary to a Tea Party candidate.
I swear these right-wing crazies are going to destroy this country. Utterly. Wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross all the while. (Inglis’s commentary on the 9th...
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“Seriously, fuck Facebook. Facebook is profoundly evil.”
– Wil Wheaton on Facebook’s new “Places” feature that, by default, posts your current location on Google Maps. (How to turn it off.)
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Actress Hedy Lamarr and Avant-garde composer... →
Mind: blown. H/t to raidl on reddit.
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We Are All Talk Radio Hosts →
My inner Rush Limbaugh can beat up your inner Glenn Beck. I am bemused.
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“The cases of al-Qosi and child warrior Omar Khadr, now underway, highlight...”
– Scott Horton, Prosecutorial Flim-Flam at Gitmo.
Thanks, Barack. This shit’s on your shoes now, too.
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Chris Mohney: Important announcement →
Continuing the chain of imaginary offensiveness to stereotypes, I plan to open a Babies R Us next to the gay bar next to the mosque next to Ground Zero. Next to the Babies R Us I will open a pornographic bookstore, and next to that I will open a police station. Next to the police station I will open a hip-hop recording studio, and next to that I will open an Applebees. Next to the Applebees I...
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The James Franco Project →
Sometimes you witness a massive act of faith outside of any identifiably religious or spiritual context.
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“Simply put, there is no surveillance power too intrusive or unaccountable for...”
– Glenn Greenwald, The Digital Surveillance State: Vast, Secret, and Dangerous
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“There are people here who embrace traditional gender roles, and yes, you...”
– Maia Nolan, News flash, America: Sarah wasn’t our first feminist
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“The new land is quite welcoming in its way. Everybody smiles encouragingly and...”
– Christopher Hitchens, on his recently-discovered esophageal cancer, in Topic of Cancer for Vanity Fair.
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“The bargain was roughly thus, “We know you are going to tell a story, and we...”
– Tim Maly, Cells in the Panoptiswarm.
An excellent meditation on the modern era of ubiquitous digital cameras and their impact on our society — what is journalism, and how we define it, and what it means when everyone has a camera. The whole thing is highly recommended.
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Future-Pessimism
Charlie Jane Anders discusses how the fascination with zombies and steampunk in contemporary speculative fiction reflects the modern apocalyptic zeitgeist.
Steampunk represents an idealized past, while zombies represent a horrible future. So they’re both outlets for our inexorable pessimism about our current era.
… To my mind, zombies represent our mindless drive to...
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“I remember helming the Muckraker carefully into Marsha Bay in the dark of night....”
– Craig Medred, 21 years later, Exxon Valdez story is still complicated
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What's Wrong With the American University System →
An interview with the authors of Higher Education? about the problems of tenure, sabbaticals, research, publishing, and teaching at American universities. Great read. But I never knew faculty parking was an “ideological issue.”
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“The most important single decision I ever made was to change the IBM 360 series...”
– Fred Brooks in an interview with Wired: Master Planner: Fred Brooks Shows How to Design Anything