September 2010
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All Politics Is National
Matt Bai, Christine O’Donnell Is Hard to Find at Home
One of the great truisms of 20th-century politics, attributed to the legendary House speaker Tip O’Neill, is that all politics is local. If this year tells us anything, though, it’s that O’Neill’s adage may now be as much a part of history as he is.
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Just take the example of Christine O’Donnell, the Republican Senate candidate...
In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue -... →
It looks like Stuxnet is an Israeli offensive against Iran.
“What’s pissing me off is the whole notion that once you are employed, everything...”
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Ariane, A person is not their job
sarahchristine — Interesting perspective. I certainly agree.
“The finish line is inside of me.”
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bobby hill
(via brookehatfield)
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In The Shadow War, Nothing Is As It Seems
Video Hints at Executions by Pakistanis
An Internet video showing men in Pakistani military uniforms executing six young men in civilian clothes has heightened concerns about unlawful killings by Pakistani soldiers supported by the United States, American officials said.
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After viewing the graphic video on Wednesday, an administration official said: “There are things you can...
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a grammar: professional programming note →
agrammar:
Hi there! I’ve been getting a whole bunch of questions about my new job, which was announced on Monday. So I guess I should explain what’s up with that. Here is the short-and-sweet version:
I’ve been invited to work as the pop critic for New York Magazine. This is pretty obviously amazing. …
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“The clock is not merely a means of keeping track of the hours, but of...”
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Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization
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“It was just after mechanical clocks began marking the hours that the word...”
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Robert Levine, A Geography Of Time
Really? - The Claim - Gargling With Salt Water Can... →
Gargling with a saline solution can ease symptoms of a cold.
“Ending the tax cuts for the rich is a minimum signal for a divided land, a...”
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Roger Cohen
“Our politics has become just another form of sports entertainment.”
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Thomas Friedman
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The Great American Desert
I recall an old Sam Kinison routine about people in faraway lands who were starving in burning deserts. He said ‘We have deserts too, but we don’t live in them.’ Well, we have lived in places that would like to be deserts, but we pumped out irreplaceable artesian water, and now we have a lot of people living in what is going to become the Great American Desert, where the Colorado...
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Block on Minerals Called Threat to Japan’s Economy... →
The trade war/sankaku conflict is heating up.
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Our Third War In Asia: Pakistan
Obama had a national mandate to step down our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have moved all but 50,000 troops out of Iraq. The problem is that the military top brass got him to move a lot more troops to Afghanistan. And now we are playing whack-a-mole in Pakistan, the thrid front on our never-ending war on ‘terror’.
Mark Mazetti and Eric Schmitt, C.I.A. Steps Up Drone...
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“We are starting to wonder whether Congressional Democrats lack the courage of...”
– Profiles in Timidity - NYTimes.com
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Drinks on the Train - Taste Varies With Point of... →
Metro-North v LIRR drinking.
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Blaming China Won’t Help the Economy - Anatole... →
With Chinese economic policy now serving as a model for other Asian countries, Japan was faced with a stark choice: back United States criticisms that China is artificially keeping down the value of its currency, the renminbi, or emulate China’s approach. It is a sign of the times that Japan chose to follow China at the cost of irritating America.
Japan’s action suggests that, in the aftermath...
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Structure of Excuses - Paul Krugman →
Krugman debunks the assertion that today’s high unemployment is ‘structural’, the shorthand for the idea that businesses would hire if they could find workers with the appropriate skills:
After all, what should we be seeing if statements like those of Mr. Kocherlakota or Mr. Clinton were true? The answer is, there should be significant labor shortages somewhere in America —...
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“Do meaningful stuff that matters the most.”
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Umair Haque
(via stoweboyd)
“Great design is the right combination of aesthetics, ergonomics, and economics.”
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John Maeda
(via stoweboyd)
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“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest;...”
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K’ung Fu Tzu (Confucius)
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As L.S.S.I. Takes Over Libraries, Patrons Can’t... →
What is the biggest economic element of the change with outsourced libraries? Getting rid of the pensions of the library workers.
In essence, governments no longer want to pay for the pensions of their workers, so they circumvent the unions and outsource library management. I bet they will be outsourcing fire and police next.
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Food Crisis?
John Vidal, UN warned of major new food crisis at emergency meeting in Rome
The world may be on the brink of a major new food crisis caused by environmental disasters and rampant market speculators, the UN was warned today at an emergency meeting on food price inflation.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) meeting in Rome today was called last month after a heatwave and...
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The Hollowing Out Of Connecticut
I am planning to move to the NYC region in the near future, and I continue to collect information to help me choice a place near to the city, but having some non-urban aspects as well.
After reading this, I am thinking about dropping Connecticut from my 20onetwenty search for the perfect Boondocks.
Matt Bai, Can Linda McMahon Win in a State That Defines Preppy?
As in much of the Northeast,...
Consumed - Promoting Carrots Like Junk Food - Rob... →
In 2007, the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine published some interesting research on the subject of packaging and the grub kids crave. In the study, children from the ages of 3 to 5 tasted five pairs of identical foodstuffs (including, as it happens, carrots). In each pair, one item was offered in plain, unmarked packaging — and the other was in McDonald’s packaging. The...
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In Passive-House Standards, a Brighter Shade of... →
Building a superinsulated home — with no furnace — is a pioneering activity in the US, unlike Europe.
“The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service.”
– Albert Einstein
(via corwood)
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Celebrities and the people who follow them have... →
A study conducted at Northwestern University determined that celebrities like Ashton Kutcher with millions of Twitter followers are mostly ignored on the social media site, resulting in very little if any influence.
When the researchers applied their mathematical algorithm to the countless tweets that appear on Twitter each day, they found that experts in certain fields were much more likely to...
