29 September, 2014

Quit Gushing: Richard Branson’s Unlimited Vacation Is a Trick | TIME

Quit Gushing: Richard Branson’s Unlimited Vacation Is a Trick | TIME: . . . simply stated, the policy-that-isn’t permits all salaried staff to take off whenever they want for as long as they want. There is no need to ask for prior approval and neither the employees themselves nor their managers are asked or expected to keep track of their days away from the office. It is left to the employee alone to decide if and when he or she feels like taking a few hours, a day, a week or a month off, the assumption being that they are only going to do it when they feel a hundred per cent comfortable that they and their team are up to date on every project and that their absence will not in any way damage the business – or, for that matter, their careers!



 Okay, now review those last two words about what he is warning people to be sure not to damage. Now ask yourself if you have ever been 100% comfortable about your career while working for a large corporation. Obviously someone is keeping track of something or this would not qualify as an organization. He is giving every salaried worker the opportunity to outperform colleagues. He is potentially undercutting cooperation, and probably adding to the stress of his employees. And he is even making it acceptable to take no time off.

“Last Week Tonight” Does Real Journalism, No Matter What John Oliver Says - The Daily Beast

“Last Week Tonight” Does Real Journalism, No Matter What John Oliver Says - The Daily Beast:

Oliver’s show is generally placed in the same “fake news” subgenre of television that includes Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report and his former employer The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But more and more often, the HBO newcomer looks, sounds, and feels like real news.



In a widely covered and praised
segment that aired on September 21, Oliver performed an impressive
takedown of the Miss America pageant. The Associated Press dubbed it investigative journalism,
with Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center
for Television and Popular Culture, calling the show “investigative
comedy.”

The Fake Terror Threat Used To Justify Bombing Syria - The Intercept

The Fake Terror Threat Used To Justify Bombing Syria - The Intercept:



What happened here is all-too-familiar. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country. While emotions over the ISIS beheading videos were high, they were not enough to sustain a lengthy new war.




So after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda™, they
unveiled a new, never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS™.
Overnight, as the first bombs on Syria fell, the endlessly helpful U.S.
media mindlessly circulated the script they were given: this new group
was composed of “hardened terrorists,” posed an “imminent” threat to the
U.S. homeland, was in the “final stages” of plots to take down U.S.
civilian aircraft, and could “launch more-coordinated and larger attacks
on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001.”"

Religion in American History: Charity, Sylvia, and God

Religion in American History: Charity, Sylvia, and God:

Rachel Hope Cleves's marvelous book Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
is a dual biography of two women who lived together in Weybridge,
Vermont, for forty-four years. Their relatives and neighbors recognized
them as married in practice if not by law, with Charity's nephew William
Cullen Bryant describing their connection as "no less sacred to them
than the tie of



marriage." Demonstrating that toleration of same-sex marriage is not a
recent historical development, Cleves attributes recognition of their
union to the rural and frontier status of their community, and to the
women's important economic and religious contributions to the town. As
Cleves argues, however, this toleration depended on "a strategic
silencing" of their sexual relationship. Rejecting this silence, Cleves
explores both the public and intimate aspects of their marriage.
Students of American religious history will be interested in how Charity
and Sylvia, as pious women in the early nineteenth century, struggled
with what they perceived as sin.

27 September, 2014

How the rich devoured the American economy, in one chart - The Week

How the rich devoured the American economy, in one chart - The Week:

Economic expansions are supposed to be when the American economy
distributes the fruits of growth to everyone. And that used to be true!
But slowly and steadily the rich have gained on everyone else. They
advance almost regardless of which party is in control of government —
Reagan speeds it up, while Clinton slows it down, but not by very much.



Most staggering of all, during our current economic expansion, the bottom 90 percent is posting an average income decline.
Not only is the rising tide not lifting everyone equally, it's actually
distributing less than nothing to nine-tenths of the population, on
average.

The Cult Deficit - NYTimes.com

The Cult Deficit - NYTimes.com:

LIKE
most children of the Reagan era, I grew up with a steady diet of media
warnings about the perils of religious cults — the gurus who lurked in
wait for the unwary and confused, offering absolute certainty with the
aftertaste of poisoned Kool-Aid. From the 1970s through the 1990s, from
Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, frightening fringe groups and their
charismatic leaders seemed like an essential element of the American
religious landscape.

Yet
we don’t hear nearly as much about them anymore, and it isn’t just that
the media have moved on. Some strange experiments have aged into
respectability, some sinister ones still flourish, but over all the cult
phenomenon feels increasingly antique, like lava lamps and bell
bottoms. Spiritual gurus still flourish in our era, of course, but they
are generally comforting, vapid, safe — a Joel Osteen rather than a Jim
Jones, a Deepak Chopra rather than a David Koresh.

Twice
in the last few months I’ve encountered writers taking note of this
shift, and both have made a similar (and provocative) point: The decline
of cults, while good news for anxious parents of potential devotees,
might actually be a worrying sign for Western culture, an indicator not
only of religious stagnation but of declining creativity writ large.

iPhone 6 And 6 Plus Bend Test - Consumer Reports News

iPhone 6 And 6 Plus Bend Test - Consumer Reports News: Two days ago, the Internet erupted with photos of bent iPhone 6s, and a very-viral video of a guy creasing an iPhone 6 Plus with his bare hands. It seemed like a serious concern, yet everything about the uproar was highly unscientific. We don’t like unscientific, so we promised then that we would use our lab equipment to find out just how delicate the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus really are. We also promised to run the same tests on comparable smart phones. We’ve done that now, and our tests show that both iPhones seem tougher than the Internet fracas implies.

The GOP’s Millennial problem runs deep | Pew Research Center

The GOP’s Millennial problem runs deep | Pew Research Center: The relative liberalism of Millennials translates into a greater likelihood of affiliating with or leaning toward the Democratic Party compared with those in older generations. Today, about half of Millennials (50%) are Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, while just 34% affiliate with or lean to the GOP. By comparison, Baby Boomers (those ages 50 to 68) lean slightly Democratic (46% Democratic/Democratic leaning, 42% Republican/Republican leaning), while those in the Silent generation (ages 69 to 86) are about evenly divided (47% Republican/Republican leaning, 44% Democratic/Democratic leaning).



But in addition to the generation’s Democratic tendency, Millennials who identify with the GOP are also less conservative than Republicans in other generations: Among the roughly one-third of Millennials who affiliate with or lean Republican, just 31% have a mix of political values that are right-of-center, while about half (51%) take a mix of liberal and conservative positions and 18% have consistently or mostly liberal views. Among all Republicans and Republican leaners, 53% have conservative views; in the two oldest generations, Silents and Boomers, about two-thirds are consistently or mostly conservative.

‘The New Class Conflict’, by Joel Kotkin – review - FT.com

‘The New Class Conflict’, by Joel Kotkin – review - FT.com: The new oligarchy differs from the old in important ways. Its technology wing is concentrated in and around San Francisco, with a secondary cluster in Seattle, and it employs far fewer people than traditional industries. Kotkin estimates that in 2013 the leading social media companies together directly employed fewer than 60,000 people in the US. By contrast, GM employed 200,000, Ford 164,000 and Exxon more than 100,000. The different nature of technology firms, with far less dependence on cheap energy, helps explain why they are predisposed to green thinking. They also tend to be both geographically and emotionally distant from middle America.

[...]

These
new oligarchs are in alliance with what Kotkin calls the clerisy. This
is the burgeoning class of technical specialists ensconced in
government, law firms, the media and foundations. The technical class
has swollen in line with the increased role of the state. Almost
instinctively, the clerisy advocates increased regulation as the
solution to any problem it encounters.

"I'll fucking cut you." Behind the scenes of the 1491s' segment on "The Daily Show" | Green Room | Missoula Independent

"I'll fucking cut you." Behind the scenes of the 1491s' segment on "The Daily Show" | Green Room | Missoula Independent: I think back to the tailgate: the man blowing cigar smoke in my face, the man who mockingly yelled, “Thanks for letting us use your name!”, the group who yelled at us to “go the fuck home,” the little waif who threatened to cut me, the dude who blew the train horn on his truck as I walked by the hood. I think of all of that, and I think back to O’Dell crying and trying desperately to get out of the room full of calm Natives. I thought she was crying because she was caught unawares and was afraid. But I realized that was her defense mechanism, and that by overly dramatizing her experience, she continued to trivialize ours. It was privilege in action. And as I realized these things, something else became incredibly clear: She knew she was wrong.

25 September, 2014

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly | The White House

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly | The White House: And yet there is a pervasive unease in our world -- a sense that the very forces that have brought us together have created new dangers and made it difficult for any single nation to insulate itself from global forces. As we gather here, an outbreak of Ebola overwhelms public health systems in West Africa and threatens to move rapidly across borders. Russian aggression in Europe recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition. The brutality of terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness.

Each of these problems demands urgent attention.



But they are also symptoms of a broader problem -- the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world. We, collectively, have not invested adequately in the public health capacity of developing countries. Too often, we have failed to enforce international norms when it’s inconvenient to do so. And we have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism, and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the globe.

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, .. - Quote

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, .. - Quote: Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purposeand you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, I see no probability of the British invading us but he will say to you be silent; I see it, if you dont. The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

Lifting Chicago: Introducing How We Get To Next :: How We Get To Next

Lifting Chicago: Introducing How We Get To Next :: How We Get To Next: Aided by the young George Pullman, who would later make a fortune building railway cars, Chesbrough launched one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the 19th century. Building by building Chicago was lifted by an army of men with jackscrews. As the jackscrews raised the buildings inch by inch, workmen would dig holes under the building foundations and install thick timbers to support them, while masons scrambled to build a new footing under the structure. Sewer lines were inserted beneath buildings with main lines running down the center of streets, which were then buried in landfill that had been dredged out of the Chicago River, raising the entire city almost ten feet on average. Amazingly, life went on largely undisturbed as Chesbrough’s team raised the city’s buildings.

23 September, 2014

Snap Out of It - NYTimes.com

Snap Out of It - NYTimes.com:

This
leadership crisis is eminently solvable. First, we need to get over the
childish notion that we don’t need a responsible leadership class, that
power can be wielded directly by the people. America was governed best
when it was governed by a porous, self-conscious and responsible elite —
during the American revolution, for example, or during and after World
War II. Karl Marx and Ted Cruz may believe that power can be wielded
directly by the masses, but this has almost never happened historically.

Second,
the elite we do have has to acknowledge that privilege imposes duties.
Wealthy people have an obligation to try to follow a code of seemliness.
No luxury cars for college-age kids. No private jet/ski weekends. Live a
lifestyle that is more integrated into middle-class America than the
one you can actually afford. Strike a blow for social cohesion.
Powerful
people might follow a code of public spiritedness. That means
restraining your partisan passions and parochial interests for the sake
of domestic tranquility. Re-establish the lines between public service
and private enrichment.

22 September, 2014

How Many Rape Reports Are False? - Bloomberg View

How Many Rape Reports Are False? - Bloomberg View

A lot of statistics are floating around the Internet: Two percent, say many feminists,
the same as other crimes. Twenty-five percent, say other groups who
quarrel with the feminists on many issues, or maybe 40 percent. Here’s
the real answer: We don’t know. Anyone who insists that we do know
should be corrected or ignored.



The number of false accusations is
what statisticians call a “dark number” -- that is, there is a true
number, but it is unknown, and perhaps unknowable. For a deep dive into
the reasons it’s so hard to know, I commend you to Cathy Young’s new piece at Slate, in which she details all the problems that confound investigations into false rape accusations.

A public apology – on screwing up by not questioning assumptions – my talk at #BIF10 | ... My heart’s in Accra

A public apology – on screwing up by not questioning assumptions – my talk at #BIF10 | ... My heart’s in Accra:

Adrienne’s Atlantic piece, lightly rewritten, appeared in about forty
news outlets over the next 24 hours. I got loads of interview requests
and I did one of them before realizing that this was a very bad idea,
and that even normally staid news outlets like the BBC would be far more
interested in my “confession” than in the broader argument about
advertising and surveillance. And then the emails and the tweets started
to come in, first cursing me out in English, and then in Turkish,
Portuguese, Chinese and Croatian as the story spread globally.



Andy Warhol predicted that, in the future, we would all be famous for
15 minutes. There’s another possibility: on the internet, we will all
be intensely loathed for about 15 seconds.

Adrienne’s Atlantic piece, lightly rewritten, appeared in about forty
news outlets over the next 24 hours. I got loads of interview requests
and I did one of them before realizing that this was a very bad idea,
and that even normally staid news outlets like the BBC would be far more
interested in my “confession” than in the broader argument about
advertising and surveillance. And then the emails and the tweets started
to come in, first cursing me out in English, and then in Turkish,
Portuguese, Chinese and Croatian as the story spread globally.

Andy Warhol predicted that, in the future, we would all be famous for
15 minutes. There’s another possibility: on the internet, we will all
be intensely loathed for about 15 seconds.

- See more at:
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2014/09/17/a-public-apology-on-screwing-up-by-not-questioning-assumptions-my-talk-at-bif10/#sthash.cUG5BQfO.dpuf
Adrienne’s Atlantic piece, lightly rewritten, appeared in about forty
news outlets over the next 24 hours. I got loads of interview requests
and I did one of them before realizing that this was a very bad idea,
and that even normally staid news outlets like the BBC would be far more
interested in my “confession” than in the broader argument about
advertising and surveillance. And then the emails and the tweets started
to come in, first cursing me out in English, and then in Turkish,
Portuguese, Chinese and Croatian as the story spread globally.

Andy Warhol predicted that, in the future, we would all be famous for
15 minutes. There’s another possibility: on the internet, we will all
be intensely loathed for about 15 seconds.

- See more at:
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2014/09/17/a-public-apology-on-screwing-up-by-not-questioning-assumptions-my-talk-at-bif10/#sthash.cUG5BQfO.dpuf
Adrienne’s Atlantic piece, lightly rewritten, appeared in about forty
news outlets over the next 24 hours. I got loads of interview requests
and I did one of them before realizing that this was a very bad idea,
and that even normally staid news outlets like the BBC would be far more
interested in my “confession” than in the broader argument about
advertising and surveillance. And then the emails and the tweets started
to come in, first cursing me out in English, and then in Turkish,
Portuguese, Chinese and Croatian as the story spread globally.

Andy Warhol predicted that, in the future, we would all be famous for
15 minutes. There’s another possibility: on the internet, we will all
be intensely loathed for about 15 seconds.

Striking Caricatures Of Forced Marriages Created By Syrian Refugee Girls - DesignTAXI.com

Striking Caricatures Of Forced Marriages Created By Syrian Refugee Girls - DesignTAXI.com: The number of Syrian refugees girls forced into early marriages have doubled since 2011, reported international non-governmental organization, Save the Children.

According to Save the Children, some parents resorted to marrying off their young daughters to keep them "protected" from extreme poverty and fears of sexual violence.

In light of this news, a group of young girls from the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan attended sessions that raise awareness about the dangers of child marriage.

The girls were asked to create caricatures based on what they learnt and experienced in their communities.

Their drawings paint a solemn picture, often highlighting their innocence, haplessness, and desire for freedom.

Take a look at their powerful artworks below.

Britain’s Sclerotic Politics - NYTimes.com

Britain’s Sclerotic Politics - NYTimes.com: Those who ought to make our laws, members of Parliament, mostly sit for so-called safe seats. This means that they represent districts that will never realistically change hands between parties at an election. Since voters have no power to recall them, M.P.s answer only to their peers.

Lawmakers become lawmakers mostly by working in the offices of other lawmakers. It’s a club.



Recent research found that over half of Labour candidates in seats where the party stood a good chance of winning in the next election had already worked in Westminster.

Instead of using primaries to select candidates for parliamentary seats, party hierarchies parachute in those whom they favor.



Politics has become an exclusive game played by insiders, little more than a competition between two cliques, at the top of the Labour and Conservative Parties, to decide who sits on the Downing Street sofa.

The Media Pioneers Will Be Gay | Advocate.com

The Media Pioneers Will Be Gay | Advocate.com: “When I wrote that piece, it was almost unprecedented to have an openly gay executive or editor at the helm of a serious journalistic enterprise” outside of the LGBT media, says Roshan, who was founder and editor of the monthly pop culture and politics magazine Radar until it folded in 2008 and its Web site was sold off. (He later launched a news site about addiction and a satirical iPad app.) “In two decades, things have changed radically. We’re not at the back of the bus anymore. These days we’re likely to be driving it.”

The deadliest border crossing on Earth just claimed another 500 victims - Vox

The deadliest border crossing on Earth just claimed another 500 victims - Vox: The world's deadliest migration route is the one over the Mediterranean to Europe.



"About 20,000 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean in the last 20 years"



For years, thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia have boated across the Mediterranean in an attempt to enter the European Union — and hundreds of them have died. About 20,000 migrants have died en route over the past twenty years, according to the International Organization for Migration.

21 September, 2014

Recline, don’t ‘Lean In’ (Why I hate Sheryl Sandberg) - The Washington Post

Recline, don’t ‘Lean In’ (Why I hate Sheryl Sandberg) - The Washington Post:


The
general American tendency to think that “more time at work” equals
“better work” is exacerbated by the All Crisis All the Time culture of
foreign policy. Global crisis never sleeps, and neither do the
overworked staffers at the Pentagon, the State Department or the White
House. It’s little wonder that many of the gifted young female staffers
who enter these workplaces hit a wall at some point, and come to the
painful realization that work and family obligations aren’t always
things you can simply “balance.” Often, these weights become too heavy.
They can crush you.

And
this isn’t just about women. Men — and our society more broadly — also
suffer when both work and parenting are intensive, round-the-clock
activities.



Back in the day, Henry Ford didn’t advocate the
eight-hour day for his auto assembly line workers because he was a nice
guy. He advocated the eight-hour day because research demonstrated that
worker productivity cratered after more than eight hours. As Brigid
Schulte documents in her forthcoming book, “Overwhelmed: Work, Love and
Play When No One Has the Time,” humans can only take so much for so
long. When a workplace is full of employees who always lean in and never
lean back, it’s full of employees who are exhausted, brittle and
incapable of showing much creativity or making good decisions.



Sometimes,
overwork gets downright dangerous. We have tough legislation mandating
adequate rest periods for truck drivers and airline pilots — not because
we think they need their beauty sleep, but because when overtired
drivers and pilots make mistakes, people can die. When did we come to
believe that crucial national security decisions are best made by people
too tired to think straight?

20 September, 2014

Photographer Thomas Herbrich Took 100,000 Smoke Plume Photos Looking for Unexpected Shapes | IamTurbo

Photographer Thomas Herbrich Took 100,000 Smoke Plume Photos Looking for Unexpected Shapes | IamTurbo: Over the last three months photographer Thomas Herbrich snapped some 100,000 individual photographs of smoke, looking for unexpected anamalies and fortuitous coincidences where familiar shapes emerged. It’s fascinating to see how the brain tries to create order out of chaos, just like looking up at the clouds, suddenly familiar patterns seem to stand out: faces, hands, or scrolls of paper. After carefully sifting through each image Herbrich selected 20 final shots for this series, aptly titled, Smoke. These are a few of our favorites, but you can see the rest here.

Apple's New Criminal Appeal - Bloomberg View

Apple's New Criminal Appeal - Bloomberg View: When Apple updated its privacy policy yesterday, with much self-congratulation, it noted that the security features in its new iOS8 operating system would prevent anyone from gaining access to data -- such as photos, messages or e-mails -- stored on mobile devices that are protected by users' passcodes.



 That includes Apple itself. And, by extension, law enforcement. Apple will still be able to access data stored in its iCloud service and must divulge that to the cops when presented with a warrant. But anything stored locally will be beyond the reach of both the lawmen and the company's engineers.

When You Can't Afford Sleep - The Atlantic

When You Can't Afford Sleep - The Atlantic: McCalman’s life reveals a particularly sorry side of America’s sleep-deprived culture. Though we often praise white-collar “superwomen” who “never sleep” and juggle legendary careers with busy families, it’s actually people who have the least money who get the least sleep.



Though Americans across the economic spectrum are sleeping less these days, people in the lowest income quintile, and people who never finished high school, are far more likely to get less than seven hours of shut-eye per night. About half of people in households making less than $30,000 sleep six or fewer hours per night, while only a third of those making $75,000 or more do.

venomous porridge - Mad About U2

venomous porridge - Mad About U2:





Music collections are deeply personal, and to young people, they can
be surprisingly wrapped up in identity. Back when CDs and cassettes were
the thing, my friends and I would collect and proudly house them in
elaborate alphabetized racks. Every cramped freshman dorm room had
several cubic feet devoted to this purpose. You wouldn’t visit a friend
for the first time without spending at least a few minutes arms folded,
waist bent, scanning tiny lettering on 25 or 50 or a couple hundred
plastic spines. It was smalltalk; it was a courtship display. Wait a
sec, you’re into Genesis?! Oh, just the early stuff. Cool, cool.





We’ve surrendered the physical trappings, but the connotations
remain. And I think Apple didn’t see this because — no matter how deeply
they insist music runs in their DNA — from the perspective of the iTunes Store, “library” means licensed content the user is currently authorized to stream or download.
But due to various design decisions Apple’s made over the years, that’s
not what it means to anyone else. I’d wager that to a majority of
iTunes users, “library” means my personally curated collection of stuff that I enjoy and feel comfortable associating with my identity. Messing with that is, to be frank, nothing short of a violation.

The Pink Panthers: hunting the world's best diamond thieves | UK news | The Observer

The Pink Panthers: hunting the world's best diamond thieves | UK news | The Observer: I asked people I met in the region what they thought of the gang. And while almost everyone acknowledged that stealing was wrong, the statement was usually followed by a glint in the eye and a sentiment along the lines of: "You have to admit they are good at it."



One man in a marketplace became passionate: "If I was the government, I would encourage the Panthers to go and hit all the foreign jewellers, under one condition: that they bring the booty home!" He saw the robberies as revenge for the Nato bombings and UN sanctions of Serbia in the 1990s – "England, America, France, Japan… they ruined this country."

Dissents Of The Day II � The Dish

Dissents Of The Day II � The Dish:

Your reader who wrote this is completely wrong:

Imagine
being the President of the United States, Andrew. Even though you
campaigned on ending “dumb” wars, and drew down the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, your absolute, number one constitutional priority as president
and commander-in-chief remains: the safety and security of the American
people.


The presidential oath states:

I
do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office
of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability,
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.


His
number one priority is not the safety of Americans; it’s to uphold the
Constitution. And the last time I checked, that means letting Congress
declare war.

Pro-Israel And Pro-Christian | The American Conservative

Pro-Israel And Pro-Christian | The American Conservative: Speakers Wednesday evening and Thursday morning were humble yet firm in response: It is not Christian to hate people. We must defend Christians because they are our brothers and sisters and because they have human rights, the rights of every one of us, made in the image and likeness of God.

A key goal of the summit was to bolster resolve here in the U.S., focusing people on the looming elimination of Christianity over in the Middle East. As best I could tell from that ballroom Wednesday night, they booed Ted Cruz because, instead of using his platform to help nameless, foreign, forgotten Christians targeted by Islamic extremists, he added yet another distraction to the mix.

Obama knows he can't really 'defeat' ISIS. Americans need to wake up to that reality, too. - The Week

Obama knows he can't really 'defeat' ISIS. Americans need to wake up to that reality, too. - The Week:



Obama's doctrine for managing threats is driven by covert action and
intelligence; on his watch, the number of soldiers deployed to fight has
shrunk relative to the intelligence resources deployed to detect and
diminish the threat. Because we are appalled at the inhumanity of ISIS,
we might all want to turn into Geraldo Riveras and blast those idiots
back to the Stone Age, but the reality is that Obama knows he cannot do
that; he cannot "defeat" ISIS. But he can manage the threat in a way
that accepts the reality of a very complex world that is always throwing
surprises in his way.




We are not fighting ISIS because ISIS is plotting an imminent attack
on the U.S. We are fighting ISIS because (a) the U.S. does not want Iran
to fight and defeat ISIS alone; (b) the Saudis recognize that ISIS
poses an existential threat to them if not checked soon; (c) Obama
believes the U.S. has a residual responsibility to try to help stabilize
Iraq if Iraq asks for the help, which it now is; (d) ISIS, well-funded
and well-armed, has threatened the United States directly, and there is
no reason to think that they won't try to find some way to directly
attack American interests down the road: (e) an ISIS unchecked could
throw the entire region into complete chaos; (f) Syria seems to welcome
the help, and in any case, the administration has signaled that airstrikes in Syria will be a very modest part of this campaign; and (g) the relative risk to American assets, people, and authority is low.




Here's the best advice Obama is getting from critics: Focus on political change in the region with as much, if not more, fervor than you're prosecuting a counterterrorism campaign. Statecraft, not warcraft.

How Sugar Daddies Are Financing College Education - The Atlantic

How Sugar Daddies Are Financing College Education - The Atlantic: When we consider what it means to be a high-end prostitute, we generally think about Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman—a desperate young person willing to trade some of her dignity for the chance to avoid working on curbs at two in the morning. A college education seems fundamentally at odds with that image. By actively seeking out college students, and publicizing the high numbers already in its ranks, Seeking Arrangement makes it easier for smart, young women with bright futures to rationalize the decision to join Seeking Arrangement: If so many college women are signing up for the site, it must be something different. It must be more socially acceptable somehow. It can’t really be prostitution.

19 September, 2014

Russia cries foul over Scottish independence vote | Politics | theguardian.com

Russia cries foul over Scottish independence vote | Politics | theguardian.com: Russia has said the conduct of the Scottish referendum "did not meet international standards", with its observers complaining the count took place in rooms that were too big and that the procedure was badly flawed.



 In an apparent attempt to mirror persistent western criticism of Russia's own elections, Igor Borisov – an accredited observer – said the poll failed to meet basic international norms.

18 September, 2014

Column: Cultivate a Culture of Confidence - Harvard Business Review

Column: Cultivate a Culture of Confidence - Harvard Business Review: Thus, a key factor in high achievement is bouncing back from the low points. Long-term winners often face the same problems as long-term losers, but they respond differently, as I found in the research for my book Confidence. I compared companies and sports teams with long winning streaks and long losing streaks, and then looked at how leaders led turnarounds from low to high performance.

Consider first the pathologies of losing.



Losing produces temptations to behave in ways that make it hard to recover fast enough—and could even make the situation worse. For example, panicking and throwing out the game plan. Scrambling for self-protection and abandoning the rest of the group. Hiding the facts and hoping that things will get better by themselves before anyone notices. Denying that there is anything to learn or change. Using decline as an excuse to let facilities or investments deteriorate.

Nate Silver Really Regrets His Prediction On Scottish Independence Vote

Nate Silver Really Regrets His Prediction On Scottish Independence Vote: Nate Silver admits that he committed one of his own cardinal sins last year when he dismissed the chances of a campaign for Scottish independence.

"When I was in Scotland last year on a book tour, a reporter asked me an off-handed question about the referendum and I provided an off-handed answer despite not really having spent any time studying it," Silver told TPM in an email on Thursday. "That's not usually my style, and I regret the error of having behaved like a television pundit."

Anyone familiar with Silver's media criticism knows that a comparison to a pundit is about the most damning indictment the polling guru can render.

17 September, 2014

Your Arrest Video Is Going Online. Who Will See It? - The Daily Beast

Your Arrest Video Is Going Online. Who Will See It? - The Daily Beast:

Police departments are already outsourcing their video evidence to
private companies, creating problems so knotty and new that even the
ACLU doesn’t have answers for them. Among them:

        • How long
will evidence be stored, and how will police departments verify the
information has actually been wiped after its supposed deletion date?


        • Will federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies like
the FBI and NSA need warrants and subpoenas to view the digital
evidence in private companies’ cloud storage? And will they deal with
local police departments or go directly to the private storage services?


        • Will the public get to see the police footage, for example, when there is evidence of misconduct?


        • What happens when a private company’s server is hacked and evidence is lost or compromised?

Why Obama Launched Another War � The Dish

Why Obama Launched Another War � The Dish:

the only way the blight of this modern-medieval bloodlust can be turned back is if the Muslim world does it. If we
do it, it comes back again more potently, fueled by hatred of the
distant empire. If we do it, it gains strength. We may bomb it into some
kind of submission, but it will only come back, like a virus, mutated
and stronger. Why on earth do you think we are confronting ISIS anyway?
It’s because we destroyed the country of Iraq, allowed al Qaeda a
foothold, and ISIS exploited the shift to Shiite power in Iraq by
becoming al Qaeda’s more brutal successor.




In fact, by intervening, we make a possible regional resolution of
these centrifugal forces less likely. By meddling, we could postpone a
potential resolution of this long, difficult struggle as the Arab Muslim
world tries to come to terms with the modern world. We are actually
forestalling a possible Arab future by conflating it with a fight
against American intervention.

Obama's ISIS policy is fine, but his rhetoric is risky - Vox

Obama's ISIS policy is fine, but his rhetoric is risky - Vox:

1) ISIS is bad. Their track record of repression against religious
and ethnic minority groups in Iraq speaks for itself. So does their
habit of executing Western hostages in lavishly produced videos. Rolling
back their influence and destroying their organization are desirable
outcomes.




2) ISIS is not in any clear way a direct threat to the lives of ordinary Americans.
The murder of two American journalists working in a war zone is a cruel
crime, but it's not a national security emergency. Innocent Americans
are, unfortunately, murdered every day right here at home.






3) Defeating ISIS is not the top priority of anyone in the region.
Bashar Assad's main goal is to hold power in Damascus. Iraqi Shiite
factions' objective is to hold power in Baghdad. Turkey and the Gulf
states want to check Iranian power, and are playing out a complex
regional rivalry amongst themselves. Syria's "moderate" rebels are
trying to avoid getting wiped out. Iraqi Kurds are continuing their
decades-long quest for statehood.

Why I am voting No � Spectator Blogs

Why I am voting No � Spectator Blogs: Because, even more than the economic sleight-of-hand, I’ve been taken aback by the dishonesty of a campaign that claims you can end the United Kingdom as we know it but retain almost everything about the United Kingdom that actually makes it the United Kingdom.

Like everyone else I’ve been asked to believe that independence will improve relations between the constituent parts of this kingdom and that, far from ending a kind of Britishness, it will actually enhance your sense of Britishness. The Yes campaign has said you can lose your country and keep it too. I don’t believe that.

16 September, 2014

Danny Lewin, the first victim on 9/11 and an architect of the Internet.

Danny Lewin, the first victim on 9/11 and an architect of the Internet.: Based on dozens of interviews with those who spoke with two of the plane’s flight attendants during the hijacking, the commission determined that al-Suqami most likely killed Lewin by slashing his throat from behind as he attempted, single-handedly, to try to stop the hijacking. The time of his death was reported to be somewhere between 8:15 and 8:20 a.m.



 “He was the first victim of the first war of the 21st century,” says Marco Greenberg, Lewin’s best friend.

But that act of heroism was not the only way Lewin made his presence felt on that terrible, unique, awful day. In a tragic twist of irony, the algorithms he helped develop, and the company he co-founded—Akamai Technologies—helped the Internet survive that day’s crush of traffic— the Web equivalent of a 100-year flood.

To Defeat the Islamic State, Follow the Money - Howard J. Shatz - POLITICO Magazine

To Defeat the Islamic State, Follow the Money - Howard J. Shatz - POLITICO Magazine: The most important thing for U.S. policymakers to remember is that ISIL now possesses the financial means to support a long-term fight—some $2 billion, according to a recent report in the Guardian, citing a British intelligence official. At the same time, ISIL’s preferred fundraising methods and many financial commitments create vulnerabilities. The organization was badly damaged by late 2009, thanks to a combination of coalition and Iraqi forces, as well as intervention by the Iraqi government, and it can be badly damaged again. But without the establishment of a widely accepted, legitimate political order in Iraq, ISIL cannot be eradicated—and will continue to seek out and mete out cash.

Russia: Airstrikes in Syria a “gross violation of international law” � Hot Air

Russia: Airstrikes in Syria a “gross violation of international law” � Hot Air: Gee, I must have missed the UN Security Council resolution that granted Russia sovereignty over Crimea, and the invitation to send armor and infantry into eastern Ukraine. For that matter, perhaps the Kremlin could be kind enough to point us toward the UNSC resolution that authorized the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the seizure of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well. After all, Vladimir Putin’s regime appears to be an expert on international law, so …

15 September, 2014

Obama’s Breathtaking Expansion of a President’s Power To Make War | TIME

Obama’s Breathtaking Expansion of a President’s Power To Make War | TIME: Future historians will ask why George W. Bush sought and received express congressional authorization for his wars (against al Qaeda and Iraq) and his successor did not. They will puzzle over how Barack Obama the prudent war-powers constitutionalist transformed into a matchless war-powers unilateralist. And they will wonder why he claimed to “welcome congressional support” for his new military initiative against the Islamic State but did not insist on it in order to ensure clear political and legal legitimacy for the tough battle that promised to consume his last two years in office and define his presidency.

Lawfare › Not Asking the Girl to Dance

Lawfare › Not Asking the Girl to Dance: I have always supported the administration in taking a broad view of what it means to be an “associated force” under the AUMF. But “associated” does not mean “not associated” or “repudiated by” or “broken with” or even “used to be associated with.”

This is not a stable or sustainable reading of the law, absent some dramatic, non-public intelligence about the ISIS-Al Qaeda relationship. Remember that this is a law that barely a year ago, President Obama was lecturing us needed to be narrowed and repealed. “This war like all wars must end,” he piously intoned. Apparently not, however, before we dramatically expand its interpretive scope and deploy it to support a new and open-ended military campaign that, in the president’s own words, “will take time.” All to avoid asking the girl, who might say no, to dance.

Lawfare › The 2001 AUMF: From Associated Forces to (Disassociated) Successor Forces

Lawfare › The 2001 AUMF: From Associated Forces to (Disassociated) Successor Forces: To be sure, there was a time when this would have been a perfectly fine argument; IS is the descendant of AQI, after all, and for many years it would be easy to show that AQI was an associated force of AQ engaged in hostilities against the US. But so far as I know no one seriously denies that it has since had a fundamental rupture with AQ, and indeed engages in combat at times with AQ’s Syrian outfit, the al Nusrah Front. For the administration to claim, as Marty Lederman reports here, that IS nonetheless remains subject to the 2001 AUMF both because of this past and because IS though now independent in some fashion claims to be the “true inheritor” of “bin Laden’s legacy” (and because AQAP and other AQ associated forces have made ambiguous statements, for whatever reason, applauding IS’s claims and achievements) is just stunning from a legal perspective.

The Nightmare Scenario � The Dish

The Nightmare Scenario � The Dish:

Obama – despite what he did with Syria, and despite his campaign pledges – wants to launch a new war in Iraq and
Syria on his own presidential authority. At a time when we desperately
need a careful consideration of a war’s potential unintended
consequences, a deliberative debate in the Senate on the pros and cons
of this new adventure in Arabia, Obama only wants a rubber stamp for a
war already underway. The Republicans, moreover, in ever more cynical
fashion, will be quite happy to let Obama take all the responsibility
and all of the blame for the next Middle East nightmare, while taking no
responsibility for the war themselves. That way, they can blame Obama
for failure, and claim credit for success, while never playing the
essential constitutional role they are supposed to play.



To recap: we are going to war with no clear exit plan; we are doing
so before the regional allies have been forced to take a stand; Obama is
shouldering all of the responsibility himself, based on a hysterical
public mood that could evaporate in a month’s time. To argue that this
is a reneging of everything Obama ran on is an understatement. Even Bush
went to Congress for a vote before the Iraq War. And the legitimization
of panic and fear and hysteria undoes so much of what Obama had
previously achieved in amending US foreign policy.




I will listen carefully tonight. I will give him a chance to persuade me. But this is such a bitter pill to swallow.

As many as 700 migrants feared drowned in Mediterranean | Reuters

As many as 700 migrants feared drowned in Mediterranean | Reuters: In the worst incident, as many as 500 migrants are believed to have died after traffickers rammed their ship off Malta's coast last week, an event that only came to light this weekend in testimony from two of nine survivors.

The survivors said the traffickers ordered the migrants to change vessels in the middle of the Mediterranean. The migrants refused, leading to a confrontation that ended when traffickers rammed the ship carrying the migrants, causing it to sink, IOM spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told Reuters in Geneva.

French Jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche Is the Shape of Terror to Come - The Daily Beast

French Jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche Is the Shape of Terror to Come - The Daily Beast:

Veteran terrorism expert Brian Jenkins notes the alarmism in
Washington has reached such proportions, there’s a kind of “shock and
awe in reverse.” Thus, as Jenkins writes,
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel proclaims ISIS is an “imminent threat to
every interest we have.”  A congressional staffer argues that it is
“highly probable ISIS will…obtain nuclear, chemical, biological or other
weapons of mass death…to use in attacks against New York [or]
Washington.” Texas Governor Rick Perry claims there is a “very real
possibility” that ISIS forces may have crossed the U.S.-Mexican border.
Senator James Inhofe asserted, “We are in the most dangerous position
we’ve ever been in as a nation,” and retired Marine four-star Gen. John
Allen goes so far as to say, “World War III is at hand.”




All this plays to the advantage of the self-proclaimed Caliph
Ibrahim, formerly known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose ragtag army
conquered a huge swathe of Iraq mainly by filling the vacuum left by
incompetent Iraqi government military commanders. The conquest—and the
reaction to it—have given him an aura of invincibility that holy-warrior
wannabes find quite thrilling.

Americans Now Fear ISIS Sleeper Cells Are Living in the U.S., Overwhelmingly Support Military Action - The Intercept

Americans Now Fear ISIS Sleeper Cells Are Living in the U.S., Overwhelmingly Support Military Action - The Intercept: If the goal of terrorist groups is to sow irrational terror, has anything since the 9/11 attack been more successful than those two journalist beheading videos? It’s almost certainly the case that as recently as six months ago, only a minute percentage of the American public (and probably the U.S. media) had even heard of ISIS. Now, two brutal beheadings later, they are convinced that they are lurking in their neighborhoods, that they are a Grave and Unprecedented Threat (worse than al Qaeda!), and that military action against them is needed.

It’s as though ISIS and the U.S. media and political class worked in perfect unison to achieve the same goal here when it comes to American public opinion: fully terrorize them.

Why They Stayed - The Atlantic

Why They Stayed - The Atlantic

Most women will experience
physical abuse at some point in their lives, and most assaults of adult
women occur at the hands of an intimate partner. But once it happens,
the options for most women are few—and bad.

In 1999, law professor and domestic violence survivor Sarah Buel offered up 50 obstacles
to leaving, most of which remain unchanged. She points out that the end
of the relationship can be just the start of the most
serious threats. A battered woman is 75 percent more likely to be murdered when she tries to flee than if she stays.

14 September, 2014

Kanye West’s Sydney concert ‘wheelchair rant’: Here’s what really happened

Kanye West’s Sydney concert ‘wheelchair rant’: Here’s what really happened:

Having just performed one of his most ebullient hits, All Of The Lights,
West was just about to launch into another feel-good anthem when he
took a moment to tell the few remaining fans left not standing in the
arena that they should join the fun.



It
was a Friday night show, and most people in the arena — many no doubt
buoyed by a few after-work drinks on the way to the show — were already
dancing. Kanye had a message for those not yet swept up in the
atmosphere: join the party.



There was one caveat to his demand, which he specified when pointing out two seated people in particular.

“There’s
two people left that ain’t standing up,” he says. “Now if he’s in a
wheelchair, then that’s fine. He in a wheelchair? OK.”

5 Things I Learned as a Sex Slave in Modern America | Cracked.com

5 Things I Learned as a Sex Slave in Modern America | Cracked.com: When you hear about modern-day slavery, you probably picture some third-world brutality occurring in Africa or Southeast Asia (and if you just muttered something about your unpaid office internship, go ahead and slap yourself right now).



When you hear about sex trafficking, you imagine a gang of Eastern European thugs kidnapping women and getting chased down by Liam Neeson.

But, incredibly, human trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States today. Statistically, Liam Neeson is more likely to sell his own daughter into slavery than have her stolen by some mysteriously brown Parisians. Cracked wanted to know how the hell this was possible, so we sat down with "Jane," a former sex slave, and asked her about her life.

13 September, 2014

From Texas, the bellwether of conservative thought | Jay Bookman | www.ajc.com

From Texas, the bellwether of conservative thought | Jay Bookman | www.ajc.com: Overall, Fordham finds, "Texas has constructed a bizarre amalgam of traditionally ahistorical social studies — combining the usual inclusive, diversity-driven checklists with a string of politically and religiously motivated historical distortions" in its standards.

A few years ago, I might have dismissed such efforts to hijack the education system as the nonsense that they are, but I've learned better. There's something in the air these days that puts the bizarre on the same footing as the rational, that treats truth and accuracy as victims to be sacrificed in service to some larger if amorphous cause. You don't dare brush aside such assaults on reason as too crazy to go anywhere, because before you know it ....

12 September, 2014

Software patents are crumbling, thanks to the Supreme Court - Vox

Software patents are crumbling, thanks to the Supreme Court - VoxL

These rulings might seem like common sense, but it's important to
remember that every single one of these patents was examined and
approved by the patent office. That's because until recently, this kind
of "invention" was considered eligible for patent protection. The patent
office has issued hundreds of thousands of software patents over the
last two decades, and many of them look like this.





But now the courts are sending a pretty clear message: you can't take
a commonplace human activity, do it with a computer, and call that a
patentable invention.

11 September, 2014

Long Fall: The Most Famous 9/11 Photo Is Still Suspended | Motherboard

Long Fall: The Most Famous 9/11 Photo Is Still Suspended | Motherboard: Social media might have made it much easier to spread the photograph outside of the mainstream press. But would the Internet masses be harder pressed to also affirmatively identify the jumper?



Whether we’d want to is beyond me. Maybe doing so would help to further personalize the horror. Maybe it would be tasteless, crass or voyeuristic, a tearing away of dignity. Either way, Drew’s Falling Man—the unknown, silhouetted proxy of everyone forced to leap that day—was likely the last of its kind.

09 September, 2014

Jeff Mizanskey Is Serving Life in Prison for Marijuana - Reason.com

Jeff Mizanskey Is Serving Life in Prison for Marijuana - Reason.com:



Strike one came in 1984 when Jeff sold an ounce of marijuana to
a close relative, who at some point gave or sold it to an
undercover police officer. The relative told police where he got it
in exchange for leniency, and his testimony was enough to get a
search warrant of Jeff's home. The half-pound of pot found during
the search landed him with his first felony conviction and five
years probation.




Strike two came in 1991. Police again received information from
an informant that was sufficient to obtain a search warrant of
Jeff's home. This time, they found less than three ounces of
cannabis, but it was still more than the one and a quarter ounces
needed to trigger a felony charge. Unable to afford the legal fees
necessary to fight the charge in court, he pleaded guilty for the
second time.




Just two years later, Jeff gave a friend a ride to a motel. The
friend was there to buy a few pounds of pot from a supplier, who
was once again working with the police and had helped them set up a
sting operation. Jeff accompanied his friend into the motel room
and allegedly handled a package of marijuana during the
transaction. He was arrested with what would end up being his third
strike as they left the parking lot. Jeff has been in a cell at the
maximum security Jefferson City Correctional Center (JCCC) ever
since, nearly 21 years and counting.

Could Scottish Independence Set Off a Cascade of Secession?

Could Scottish Independence Set Off a Cascade of Secession?: There's also a growing political clash. Scots are said to be thrifty, but they also tend to be somewhat collectivist. A lot of Scots, fed up with Tory policies imposed from London, imagine becoming an independent, Scandinavian sort of social democracy.

They have chafed under rule from London for centuries, but particularly resent what's happened to Britain since Mrs. Thatcher's government. And with a lot of North Sea oil, not to mention single malt whiskey, they are richer than their English cousins. Who needs England?

A form of home rule introduced under the Blair government, giving Scotland its own regional parliament in 1999 for the first time since 1707, backfired on Downing Street. Far from slaking the Scottish appetite for full independence, it only made secession seem more thinkable and gave the Scottish Nationalists, the governing party in Edinburgh, more credibility.

Top Colleges That Enroll Rich, Middle Class and Poor - NYTimes.com

Top Colleges That Enroll Rich, Middle Class and Poor - NYTimes.com:

“Where
we’ve come to is a greater recognition that maybe we weren’t living up
to what we thought we were doing,” Ms. Hill told me. Simply announcing
that the college offered scholarships wasn’t enough to persuade students
to apply. The college began working harder to recruit top students from
all backgrounds and also increased its financial-aid budget, even when
it meant saying no to other exciting ways to spend money.

“Talented,
low-income kids are out there, and talented middle-income kids are out
there,” she said. “But the problem for schools is when you admit one of
those kids, you forgo $50,000 a year that you could use for other
things.”

After 72 years, Iowa women finally marry

After 72 years, Iowa women finally marry: DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — More than seven decades after beginning their relationship, Vivian Boyack and Alice "Nonie" Dubes have gotten married.

Boyack, 91, and Dubes, 90, sat next to each other during Saturday's ceremony, the Quad City Times reports.

"This is a celebration of something that should have happened a very long time ago," the Rev. Linda Hunsaker told the small group of close friends and family who attended.

The women met in their hometown of Yale, Iowa, while growing up. Then they moved to Davenport in 1947 where Boyack taught school and Dubes did payroll work.

Obama Meets the Chuck Todd Press

Obama Meets the Chuck Todd Press: The danger for “Meet the Press,” and shows like it, is the same as for the President: that political talk, a discourse about power and ideology, becomes a tedious exercise in labeling—good, bad, boring. David Gregory didn’t succeed because his idea of a tough question was throwing one side’s most-honed talking point at the other. He did it with a merry glint, as if he actually thought that this move was the last thing anyone would expect. But these were not smart questions. A host can’t just snatch up bits of rhetoric that look shiny in the Washington light. Neither can a President, if he expects to shape the news, good or bad.

The Ray Rice Video Is Not a Revelation - The Atlantic

The Ray Rice Video Is Not a Revelation - The Atlantic: That is exactly what happened. It will be very interesting to see if the NFL can make Rice's "indefinite" suspension stick. The league suspended Rice for a meager two games for knocking his wife unconscious. The league now propose to suspend him indefinitely for... the same thing. This suspension only indirectly relates to the protecting women. It mostly relates to protecting the shield.

How do police departments train cops how to use force? - Vox

How do police departments train cops how to use force? - Vox: Departments are pretty consistent in what they tell officers to do when a civilian is compliant or when a civilian is attacking them. But the response to civilians who are resisting arrest — the middle of the force continuum — is less consistent. Some agencies teach cops that they're not supposed to use "pain compliance" techniques (like twisting a civilian's arm behind her back) unless the civilian is physically resisting arrest or trying to run away, and that they are not allowed to use "hard hands" (punching or kicking) unless the civilian is "physically active" (i.e. trying to hit the officer). Others say that hard hands are appropriate when a suspect is physically resisting arrest. Still others say that pain compliance is fine even when a suspect is just verbally resisting arrest or using passive resistance.

08 September, 2014

Are We Being Baited? � The Dish

Are We Being Baited? � The Dish: In a month, the Daily News Front Page James Foleydiscourse has shifted from whether to counter ISIS to how to do so. In a month, everyone has agreed, it appears, that ISIS is a menace and that there has to be a US-led coalition to degrade and defeat it. The slippery slope toward the logic of war – which would be, by any estimation, a mere continuation of the war begun in 2003 – has been so greased there seems barely any friction.

This is the striking new fact of America this fall: re-starting the war in Iraq is now something that does not elicit immediate and horrified rejection by the president or the Congress. The GOP is daring Obama to go all-in as GWB, Round Two.

We should be wary of this! David Carr has a typically rich assessment of the production values and staging of the two beheading videos by ISIS, and it seems quite clear why they were made:

CIA 'tortured al-Qaeda suspects close to the point of death by drowning them in water-filled baths' - Telegraph

CIA 'tortured al-Qaeda suspects close to the point of death by drowning them in water-filled baths' - Telegraph: “They got medieval on his ass, and far more so than people realise,” the source told The Telegraph referring to the treatment of Mohammed and Nashiri, but declined to provide further details because of the still-classified nature of the material.

Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative and the author of Administration of Torture, a book detailing the Bush administration’s torture policy, said the new details of the CIA excesses should not come as a surprise.

“Given the lengths that Bush-era CIA officials went to cover up the truth, including destroying videotapes depicting waterboarding of prisoners, it comes as no surprise that the torture was more brutal than previously revealed.

07 September, 2014

Why Be A Christian When You Can Just Be Nice? � The Dish

Why Be A Christian When You Can Just Be Nice? � The Dish: I’ve written this before, but it’s worth reiterating: Christianity is not fundamentally about morality. It is not, finally, just a system of ethics. If Jesus were merely another guru telling us how to live better and more moral lives, with perhaps this or that original flourish, I’m not sure how compelling I’d find his message. Instead, I understand Christianity as a faith for those who can’t help but sin, one that assumes our inability to be moral. And this isn’t because we all fail to uphold certain ideals on occasion, but because we are sinners, meaning that even our supposed good works are tinged with self-interest or self-regard. Nothing pure issues forth from human hands, nothing escapes from the fallibility and brokenness in which we are inevitably implicated. Jesus didn’t just talk about our deeds, but our motives. He told us to pray in closets and not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing, such is our capacity for arrogance and self-congratulations. He didn’t just talk about adultery, but lust, and asked those of us who have never murdered someone if we’ve ever been filled with anger. I wish more churches would preach about sin this way – not as some kind of list of what not to do, but rather as the impossibility of being truly good.

I Still Don’t Know What Christianity Is For | The American Conservative

I Still Don’t Know What Christianity Is For | The American Conservative: I heard this from a conservative Evangelical friend of mine yesterday. He is a moral, theological, and political conservative preparing for seminary studies. He agrees fully with me and with traditional Christianity on the matter of sex and sexuality. But he predicted that Evangelical Christianity is going to face a terrible crisis before much longer over the question of wealth. He said that many Evangelical congregations more or less endorse Christian orthodoxy on matters of sexual morality, but live as if the Bible’s clear, stern warnings on the corrupting power of wealth don’t exist. It’s a huge blind spot, he said, and not just among the prosperity gospellers (he said Osteen is terrible, but the black church is even worse). It’s true in mainstream suburban Evangelical churches, whose witness to the Gospel’s teachings on wealth is bad to non-existent.

The consolations of faith: on leading on non-religious funeral | Shored Fragments

The consolations of faith: on leading on non-religious funeral | Shored Fragments:

I’ve done enough liturgical work to know that there are always riches
from which to borrow. That said, the Humanist material I discovered
surprised me – although on reflection the problem was predictable. Like
most contemporary ‘humanism’, it all failed rather badly to be
nonreligious. I looked at half-a-dozen or more published patterns for a
humanist funeral; every one borrowed central Christian texts, deleted
the obvious references to God, and then used the filleted remains to
shape the service. (Even Scripture was not immune; Eccl. 3 was several
times in evidence. John Donne’s Divine Meditation XVII was also
referenced more than once.) This of course reflects the reality – and
the tedious banality – of too much contemporary Western atheism: take a
philosophically-rich account of things; delete surface references to the
divine; and assume that what is left will be meaningful or coherent or
interesting. Nietzsche, the world hath need of thee…

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 2 - NYTimes.com

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 2 - NYTimes.com:

Society
creates opportunity and resiliency for middle-class white boys who make
mistakes; it is unforgiving of low-income black boys.

Of
course, we need to promote personal responsibility. But there is plenty
of fault to go around, and too many whites are obsessed with
cultivating personal responsibility in the black community while
refusing to accept any responsibility themselves for a system that
manifestly does not provide equal opportunity.

Yes, young black men need to take personal responsibility. And so does white America.

This Is What It Feels Like to Survive Ebola | TIME

This Is What It Feels Like to Survive Ebola | TIME: Ebola has changed everything in West Africa. We cannot sit back and say, “Oh, those poor people.” We must think outside the box and find ways to help. People are fearful of isolation units because “that is where you go to die.” They stay home instead and infect their families. Perhaps we need to find a way to provide safe home care that protects the caregivers. The national governments of West Africa are overwhelmed. They are not capable of handling this outbreak with simply a little help from some NGOs. This is a global problem and it requires the action of national governments around the world. We must take action to stop it–now.

Jenny Diski � Memoir: A Diagnosis � LRB 11 September 2014

Jenny Diski � Memoir: A Diagnosis � LRB 11 September 2014: One thing I state as soon as we’re out of the door: ‘Under no circumstances is anyone to say that I lost a battle with cancer. Or that I bore it bravely. I am not fighting, losing, winning or bearing.’ I will not personify the cancer cells inside me in any form. I reject all metaphors of attack or enmity in the midst, and will have nothing whatever to do with any notion of desert, punishment, fairness or unfairness, or any kind of moral causality. But I sense that I can’t avoid the cancer cliches simply by rejecting them. Rejection is conditioned by and reinforces the existence of the thing I want to avoid. I choose how to respond and behave, but a choice between doing this or that, being this or that, really isn’t freedom of action, it’s just picking one’s way through an already drawn flow chart. They still sit there, to be taken or left, the flashing neon markers on the road that I would like to think isn’t there for me to be travelling down. I am appalled at the thought, suddenly, that someone at some point is going to tell me I am on a journey. I try but I can’t think of a single aspect of having cancer, start to finish, that isn’t an act in a pantomime in which my participation is guaranteed however I believe I choose to play each scene. I have been given this role. (There, see? Instant victim.) I have no choice but to perform and to be embarrassed to death. I wish you long life.

1,400 Children in Rotherham, England, Were Sexually Abused, Report Says - NYTimes.com

1,400 Children in Rotherham, England, Were Sexually Abused, Report Says - NYTimes.com:

THERE
are enough grim tidings from around the world that the news from
Rotherham, a faded English industrial town where about 1,400 girls,
mostly white and working class, were raped
by gangs of Pakistani men while the local authorities basically
shrugged and did nothing, is already slipping out of American headlines.

But
we should remain with Rotherham for a moment, and give its story a
suitable place of dishonor in the waking nightmare that is late summer
2014.

Burning Blog � Blog Archive � Grover Norquist gets Burning Man – do we?

Burning Blog � Blog Archive � Grover Norquist gets Burning Man – do we?:

More than that:  why would we want to belong to a movement so
precious that you already have to agree with a set of pre-fabricated
conclusions just to get your foot in the door?



Screw that.  If that’s what you want, there are already plenty of
places you can go where people will sit around agreeing with each other
in total smugness, thoroughly convinced that if there were to somehow be
another opinion in the world it would be wrong because it would be
different.

My first Burning Man: confessions of a conservative from Washington | Grover Norquist | Comment is free | theguardian.com

My first Burning Man: confessions of a conservative from Washington | Grover Norquist | Comment is free | theguardian.com: Burning Man is an arts festival in the middle of the Nevada desert. It takes hours to get there, and you must bring what you eat or wear or need: you cannot buy anything there. Burning Man is more like Brigadoon – a western ghost town that springs to life. Dust storms. Cold nights. Black Rock City is completely built and then taken apart and disappeared each year, by 65,000 people.



Burning Man is greater than I had ever imagined. I have been to large demonstrations in favor of the environment, and the trash left behind is knee-deep. At Burning Man, you are hard-pressed to find a cigarette butt on the ground. There are no trash bins. Participants carry it in, and they carry it out. I have been to the Louvre. It is a very big place with many nice paintings. I knew that. I was not disappointed. Burning Man is more like Petra, the lost city in Jordan, which I found more impressive than its advance billing or reputation.

Why election forecasters disagree about who will win the Senate - Vox

Why election forecasters disagree about who will win the Senate - Vox: And even though models like these have performed well in recent years, they're still all vulnerable to the possibility of a broad-based polling failure. "The volume of polling is way lower than it was 2 and 4 years ago, and the quality of polling is problematic," Silver says. "The response rates get lower and lower every year. Pollsters have still been managing to get decent results, but sooner or later, something's gonna break." One particular problem Silver mentions is that "pollsters tend to herd, or copy off each other. Then, instead of having random variation around some mean, you can get weird patterns where you can be right for several elections in a row, and then you might have fat-tailed errors."

Page 4 of Looting the Pension Funds: How Wall Street Robs Public Workers | Rolling Stone

Page 4 of Looting the Pension Funds: How Wall Street Robs Public Workers | Rolling Stone: Here's what this game comes down to. Politicians run for office, promising to deliver law and order, safe and clean streets, and good schools. Then they get elected, and instead of paying for the cops, garbagemen, teachers and firefighters they only just 10 minutes ago promised voters, they intercept taxpayer money allocated for those workers and blow it on other stuff. It's the governmental equivalent of stealing from your kids' college fund to buy lap dances. In Rhode Island, some cities have underfunded pensions for decades. In certain years zero required dollars were contributed to the municipal pension fund. "We'd be fine if they had made all of their contributions," says Stephen T. Day, retired president of the Providence firefighters union. "Instead, after they took all that money, they're saying we're broke. Are you f***ing kidding me?"

there is no such thing as legitimate accomplishment | Fredrik deBoer

there is no such thing as legitimate accomplishment | Fredrik deBoer: The fact that Coates has been the recipient of great advantages compared to many people in the world doesn’t change the fact that he has also been faced, his whole life, with the disadvantage of living in a structurally racist society, or the relative disadvantage of his own economic circumstances compared to some others. The point is that “privileged” is not a binary category, and in fact essentially all people are some combination of advantaged and disadvantaged. And a lot of these things manifest themselves in ways that we can’t understand from the outside, unearned, material advantages or disadvantages that do not represent themselves as neatly as race, gender, sexual orientation, or similar. Indeed, in the context of an American progressivism that has gotten caught up in simplistic black-and-white moralism, one of the aspects of Coates’s writing I like best is the way in which he troubles such simplicity.

06 September, 2014

The National Circus: Obama’s Response to ISIS -- NYMag

The National Circus: Obama’s Response to ISIS -- NYMag: You will notice that the crowd of pundits and (mostly Republican) politicians insisting that Obama “do something” about these horrors never actually say what that “something” is. They offer no strategy of their own beyond an inchoate bellicosity expressed in constructions along the lines of “we must more forcefully do whatever it is that Obama is doing.” That’s because Obama is already doing the things that can be done (and that some of his critics redundantly suggest): bombing ISIS positions wherever it is feasible; searching for allies to join action that might defeat them on the ground; trying to rally Europe to tighten the economic noose on Putin and Russia. There will surely be more actions to come when America’s ducks are in a row, and if the president were to delineate them, you can be certain he’d be condemned for tipping off our enemies in advance.

05 September, 2014

Joan Rivers: The Entertainer - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ

Joan Rivers: The Entertainer - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ:

Her eye was original. Twenty years ago, when everyone was talking about
how wonderful it was that Vegas had been cleaned up and the mob had
been thrown out, Joan said no, no, no, they are ruining the mystique.
First of all, she said, those mobsters knew how to care for a lady,
those guys with bent noses were respectful and gentlemen, except when
they were killing you. Second, she said, organized crime is better than
disorganized crime, which will replace it. Third, the mobsters had a
patina of class, they dressed well and saw that everyone else did, so
Vegas wasn’t a slobocracy, which is what it is becoming with men in
shorts playing the slots in the lobby of the hotel. The old Vegas had
dignity. She hated the bluenoses who’d clean up what wasn’t mean to be
clean. No one wanted Sin City cleaned up, she said, they wanted to go
there and visit sin and then go home. 

Video Feature: Surviving an ISIS Massacre [includes graphic images] - NYTimes.com

Video Feature: Surviving an ISIS Massacre [includes graphic images] - NYTimes.com: DIWANIYA, Iraq — Ali Hussein Kadhim, an Iraqi soldier and a Shiite, was captured with hundreds of other soldiers by Sunni militants in June and taken to the grounds of a palace complex in Tikrit where Saddam Hussein once lived.

The militants, with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, separated the men by sect. The Sunnis were allowed to repent for their service to the government. The Shiites were marked for death, and lined up in groups.

Mr. Kadhim was No. 4 in his line.

04 September, 2014

Froomkin Blogs Again: Obama Makes Bushism the New Normal - The Intercept

Froomkin Blogs Again: Obama Makes Bushism the New Normal - The Intercept: In a lot of ways, we’re worse off today than we were under George W. Bush.

Back then, Bush’s extremist assault on civil liberties, human rights and other core American values in the name of fighting terror felt like an aberration.



The expectation was that those policies would be quickly reversed, discredited — and explicitly outlawed — once he was no longer in power.

Instead, under President Barack Obama, they’ve become institutionalized.

No, Obama's Ukraine Policy Isn't "Muddled" | Mother Jones

No, Obama's Ukraine Policy Isn't "Muddled" | Mother Jones: I should add that nobody on the planet—not even John McCain!—knows how to destroy ISIS. Everybody wants some kind of magic bullet that will put them out of business without committing any ground troops, but nobody knows what that is. So until one of the blowhard hawks comes up with an actual plan that might actually work, I'll stick with Obama's more cautious approach. I figure he'll do something, but only when politics and military strategy align to provide a plausible chance of success. In the meantime, mindlessly demanding more bombs—the only action that most of Washington's A-list apparently considers worthy of a commander-in-chief—is just stupid.

The Death of Steven Sotloff - The New Yorker

The Death of Steven Sotloff - The New Yorker: It’s hard to watch the video of Steven Sotloff’s last moments and not conclude something similar: the ostensible objective of securing an Islamic state is nowhere near as important as killing people. For the guys who signed up for ISIS—including, especially, the masked man with the English accent who wielded the knife—killing is the real point of being there. Last month, when ISIS forces overran a Syrian Army base in the city of Raqqa, they beheaded dozens of soldiers and displayed their trophies on bloody spikes. “Here are heads that have ripened, that were ready for the plucking,” an ISIS fighter said in narration. Two soldiers were crucified. This sounds less like a battle than like some kind of macabre party.

Watch how Louisiana's coastline has vanished over the last 80 years - Vox

Watch how Louisiana's coastline has vanished over the last 80 years - Vox: Over the last 80 years, Louisiana has lost nearly 2,000 square miles of coastland — land that has simply vanished into the Gulf of Mexico. And much, much more land is likely to disappear in the years ahead unless major changes are made.

That's the subject of a terrific new investigation from Bob Marshall of The Lens and Brian Jacobs and Al Shaw of ProPublica. You should absolutely go read their entire piece (and check out all of their excellent visuals), but I've made a slider image out of two key maps to highlight the very basic change at play here:

02 September, 2014

The Carved Photographs Of Michel Lamoller Reveal What Lies Beneath - Beautiful/Decay Artist & Design

The Carved Photographs Of Michel Lamoller Reveal What Lies Beneath - Beautiful/Decay Artist & Design: In his series “tautochronos”, German artist Michel Lamoller takes multiple photographs of the same place at different times, then prints and layers them, physically carving them into one image, sculpting two-dimensional space into three-dimensions. By then photographing the transformed image Lamoller returns the work to two-dimensions, playing with space and volume, echoing the compression of time and place in his work. The deconstructed figures in the resulting photographs are a visual reminder that people are always changing and never fully revealed.

Ukraine Crisis: 'If I Want, I Will Take Kiev in Two Weeks', Putin Warns EU's Barroso

Ukraine Crisis: 'If I Want, I Will Take Kiev in Two Weeks', Putin Warns EU's Barroso: Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a threat to outgoing European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso that he could "take Kiev in two weeks" if he wanted, Italian media reports have said.

According to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Russian leader made the belligerent statement in a phone call with the outgoing EU leader, who is set to be replaced by Luxembourg's former prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker.

The Interpreters: A VICE News e-Book | VICE News

The Interpreters: A VICE News e-Book | VICE News:

In short, these Afghans were not only astoundingly dedicated, but
they now face the very real prospect of being slaughtered because they
supported the intervention, believing that it would result in a Taliban
defeat and the rebuilding of Afghanistan. But instead of doing
everything possible to offer them safety, as would happen if Americans
were stuck overseas and in danger, the United States has created a
program that is so dysfunctional that it seems to have been designed to
fail.





The program is called the Special
Immigrant Visa, or SIV, and the interpreters I interviewed who applied
have been waiting years to be approved. To be fair, the process has
improved recently, but at the time of writing, thousands of interpreters
are still waiting for visas that they will never get. This includes the
interpreters featured here. Only 3,000 visas were available for this
year, but there are an estimated 8,000 applicants (or more) waiting, a
number that will grow as withdrawal continues; as of this writing, the
State Department has already issued almost all of the available visas.
Unless new legislation is introduced, the majority of those applying
will not be granted visas and will be left to the mercy of the Taliban.

01 September, 2014

Why Beijing is courting trouble in Hong Kong - CNN.com

Why Beijing is courting trouble in Hong Kong - CNN.com: In the end, Beijing opted for the certainty of knowing that it could control Hong Kong's leadership by controlling the nomination process for the chief executive election.

It will likely achieve that goal, but the price will be continuing instability from a frustrated public.

True universal suffrage would not have solved all of the governance problems of what is becoming a more unequal and polarized society.

But without genuine elections to legitimize Hong Kong's leaders, solving those problems will be impossible.