U.S. officials confirm influx of Russian troops into Crimea - The Washington Post

U.S. officials confirm influx of Russian troops into Crimea - The Washington Post: U.S. officials said Friday that Russian troops had entered Crimea, as President Obama warned that there “will be costs for any military intervention” and vowed to stand by the Ukrainian people.

Obama said he was “deeply concerned by reports of military movements,” that “would represent a profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people” and would constitute a “clear violation” of international law.

John B. Judis Israel Book: What My Critics Are Missing | New Republic

John B. Judis Israel Book: What My Critics Are Missing | New Republic: I think the problem is that some enthusiastic supporters of Israel may believe that by acknowledging that history, they thereby confirm that Israel is “illegitimate.” But many states, including the United States, are products of settler colonialism and conquest. There is no going back in these cases. What Israel’s early history does suggest, though, is that Palestinian Arabs have a legitimate grievance against Israelis that has never been satisfactorily addressed. It won’t be addressed by abolishing Israel—that’s not going to happen—but it can be addressed by an equitable two-state solution that gives both peoples a state and that opens the way for Israel’s reconciliation with its neighbors. If there is a lesson to Genesis—and I happen to believe that history can tell us things about the present—that’s what it is.

Catch of the Day: Republican Replacement for Obamacare Still MIA - Bloomberg View

Catch of the Day: Republican Replacement for Obamacare Still MIA - Bloomberg View: Granted: “repeal and replace” doesn’t exactly poll well. But it does poll better than just plain repeal.

Chait mentions that this has been going on for years, but he doesn’t refer to the granddaddy of all “repeal and replace” claims: the op-ed written in early 2010 by House Republican committee chairmen promising not just a bill, but a whole process. They were going to hold hearings, draft a bill and bring it to the House floor. I haven’t checked recently, but last I looked the story was that they hadn’t even bothered with the hearings part. As Chait says, there’s just nothing there.

Is rape inevitable in war? - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Is rape inevitable in war? - Opinion - Al Jazeera English: Human Rights Watch recently released a report documenting the torture and sexual abuse of women held in prisons in Iraq. Tragically, such reports are all too familiar. Stories of women raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Syria reinforce the common perception that sexual violence against women in times of war is inevitable. Even some modern militaries have engaged in rape of civilians to a significant degree, as in the case of US forces in Vietnam.

But the truth is: rape during war is far from ubiquitous. It is not the unavoidable collateral damage we tend to think it is. Many armed groups effectively prohibit rape of civilians. The Sri Lankan secessionist rebels, for example, were notorious for their violence against civilians; but they rarely engaged in rape.

When the Law Is a Crime | America Magazine

When the Law Is a Crime | America Magazine: Christian concern for preserving the traditional institution of marriage cannot justify these excessive and punitive measures, which extend far beyond simply codifying a definition of marriage. It is not inconsistent, therefore, to support traditional marriage and to oppose these measures, which are unjustifiable assaults on the human rights and inherent dignity of gay and lesbian people. Lest anyone be led to believe otherwise, supporters of traditional marriage have, in fact, a special obligation to loudly denounce any unjust discrimination against homosexuals.

Opponents of Pentagon-Budget Cuts Just Played the Entire Media - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

Opponents of Pentagon-Budget Cuts Just Played the Entire Media - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic: o sum up: Reporting on the Pentagon-budget proposal by comparing the size of the Army to its 1940 levels is misleading in several ways. It elides the relative strength of the Army in different eras; personnel from other branches of the armed forces; the fact that Air Force personnel in particular are now counted separate from the Army; and military hardware that acts as a significant force multiplier.

So how is it that this happened?

George Washington: Boozehound - Reason.com

George Washington: Boozehound - Reason.com: It is impossible for Americans to accept the extent to which the Colonial period—including our most sacred political events—was suffused with alcohol. Protestant churches had wine with communion, the standard beverage at meals was beer or cider, and alcohol was served even at political gatherings. Booze was served at meetings of the Virginian and other state legislatures and, most of all, at the Constitutional Convention.

Huntington's Conflicts, Fukuyama's World - NYTimes.com

Huntington's Conflicts, Fukuyama's World - NYTimes.com: But at the same time, from the West’s perspective, the stakes in these disputes are relatively low. The struggle for influence is taking place on Russia’s very doorstep, and there’s no real possibility that a Putinist victory in Kiev or the Caucasus would inspire copycat right-wing movements to seize power in, say, Italy or France or Germany, the way Communist movements nearly did in the early 20th century. A true “new Cold War” scenario, in other words, remains entirely fanciful — which means, in turn, that no matter how many hands Putin wins with weak cards we’ll still be playing with house money.

Blaming America For Things The U.S. Hasn’t Done | The American Conservative

Blaming America For Things The U.S. Hasn’t Done | The American Conservative:

it is false or extremely misleading to say that the U.S. is responsible
for what is happening. It is absurd to pin these events on American
“retreat,” since for the most part this isn’t even happening.
So-called U.S. “retreat” didn’t cause any of these things, and all of
them would probably still be happening whether the U.S. was “retreating”
or “advancing.” The U.S. is responsible for the effects of its own
actions and policies, and to a lesser extent the actions of its allies
and clients that it supports, but it isn’t responsible for what
authoritarian and illiberal regimes do inside their own countries, and
for the most part it can’t be held responsible for how other major
powers behave. Terrible things happened in the world at the height of
the “unipolar moment,” and they will unfortunately keep happening
regardless of how the U.S. conducts itself in the world. 

Understanding the Protests in Ukraine and Venezuela | Cato @ Liberty

Understanding the Protests in Ukraine and Venezuela | Cato @ Liberty: In Venezuela the economic situation has deteriorated sharply since the death of Hugo Ch�vez last year. The country has the highest inflation rate in the world (officially 56 percent in 2013, although according to Steve Hanke’s Trouble Currency Project, the implied annual inflation rate is actually 305 percent). After years of nationalizations, expropriations, and currency and price controls—all under the name of “21st Century Socialism”—the private sector has been decimated. Hour-long lines in supermarkets are a daily occurrence and shortages of basic food staples and medicines are widespread. And just like in Ukraine, corruption is rampant as the ruling elite rake in the profits from oil revenues. This has resulted in the rise of a new privileged class called the “Boligarchs.” so-named because they’ve prospered tremendously under the so-called Bolivarian revolution. Moreover, Venezuela is now one of the most dangerous nations in the world, with almost 25,000 murders committed last year. A large segment of the population, mostly middle class, is simply fed up as the country quickly becomes unlivable.

Actually, Jason Collins Isn't the First Openly Gay Man in a Major Pro Sport - Allen Barra - The Atlantic

Actually, Jason Collins Isn't the First Openly Gay Man in a Major Pro Sport - Allen Barra - The Atlantic:

What Ayanbadejo didn't know was that one baseball player already had.
This week's coming out by NBA player Jason Collins is momentous, but
the Jackie Robinson of gay rights was Glenn Burke, who played for the
Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A's from 1976 to 1979. He tried to
change sports culture three decades ago—but back then, unlike now,
sports culture wasn't ready for a change.












Burke made no secret of his sexual orientation to the Dodgers front
office, his teammates, or friends in either league. He also talked
freely with sportswriters, though all of them ended up shaking their
heads and telling him they couldn't write that in their papers.
Burke was so open about his sexuality that the Dodgers tried to talk him
into participating in a sham marriage. (He wrote in his autobiography
that the team offered

The Case for Corruption - Jonathan Rauch - The Atlantic

The Case for Corruption - Jonathan Rauch - The Atlantic: For decades, America did a good job of equilibrating honest graft. We called it pork-barrel spending and earmarks, and we brought it aboveboard, so that politicians were openly lining their constituents’ pockets rather than secretly lining their own. We also gave party bosses the power to twist defiant arms. If a member of Congress defied the leadership on a key vote, he might see his campaign contributions dry up, or his committee assignments downgraded, or the party elders throwing their support behind someone else in the next election. Members did defy the leadership, of course. But they thought twice before they did.

Plunkitt would be dismayed to see that since his day, the gears of the party machines have been stripped, one by one.



Instead of being chosen by party elders, candidates are now selected in primary elections or caucuses, which tend to be dominated by ideological extremists

How much is time wrong around the world? | The poor man's math blog

How much is time wrong around the world? | The poor man's math blog: Looking for other regions of the world having the same peculiarity of Spain, I edited a world map from Wikipedia to show the difference between solar and standard time. It turns out, there are many places where the sun rises and sets late in the day, like in Spain, but not a lot where it is very early (highlighted in red and green in the map, respectively). Most of Russia is heavily red, but mostly in zones with very scarce population; the exception is St. Petersburg, with a discrepancy of two hours, but the effect on time is mitigated by the high latitude. The most extreme example of Spain-like time is western China: the difference reaches three hours against solar time. For example, today the sun rises there at 10:15 and sets at 19:45, and solar noon is at 15:01.

American Child Welfare Ruins Lives, Here’s Your Receipt - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

American Child Welfare Ruins Lives, Here’s Your Receipt - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society: Every year about 25,000 young people age out of federally-mandated child-welfare systems responsible for their care and then disappear into the general population to fend for themselves at an unfairly young age. The concept of “aging out” is best understood as a system failing to find a real solution for a problem it is responsible for. A child is removed from their family and it’s on the system to either resolve the issue that led to their removal or find them a new home. The children who end up aging out are the remainder of a busted equation.

How the GOP Sabotaged Marco Rubio -- Daily Intelligencer

How the GOP Sabotaged Marco Rubio -- Daily Intelligencer: The Rubio Plan sounded awfully appealing to Republicans, not least of them Rubio himself, who set about constructing the fund-raising and advisory apparatus of a top-tier presidential contender. For a few months, the plan proceeded to near perfection. Then everything started falling apart, and it has kept falling apart ever since.

Japanese bishops: Vatican mindset doesn't fit Asian church | National Catholic Reporter

Japanese bishops: Vatican mindset doesn't fit Asian church | National Catholic Reporter: In response to a question on couples who live together before marriage, the Japanese say, "The pastoral practice of the Church must begin from the premise that cohabitation and civil marriage outside the church have become the norm."

Exclusive: Read the Speech Venezuelan Opposition Leader Leopoldo L�pez Made Before He Was Jailed - The Daily Beast

Exclusive: Read the Speech Venezuelan Opposition Leader Leopoldo L�pez Made Before He Was Jailed - The Daily Beast: Today, I show my face before an unjust justice system, before a corrupt judiciary and before a justice system that does not pass judgments in accordance with the constitution and the laws. But today, I also offer you, Venezuelans, our deepest commitment that, if my imprisonment helps awaken our people, if it is good enough to finally make Venezuela wake up so that the majority of those of us who want change are able to effect that change peacefully and democratically, then this infamous imprisonment that Nicol�s Maduro wants, so openly and so cowardly, then for me it will have been worth it. This is the biggest example of how there is no separation of powers in Venezuela. How many times did Maduro say he wanted me in jail? How many times did he say he was giving instructions for our arrests? What is a president doing giving instructions to a district attorney, or to a court? Those actions are the best examples of how there is no justice in Venezuela.

A Church So Poor It Has to Close Schools, Yet So Rich It Can Build a Palace - NYTimes.com

A Church So Poor It Has to Close Schools, Yet So Rich It Can Build a Palace - NYTimes.com: This new wing will have an indoor exercise pool, three fireplaces and an elevator. The Star-Ledger of Newark has noted that the half-million-dollar tab for this wing does not include architects’ fees or furnishings.

There’s no need to fear for the archbishop’s bank account. The Newark Archdiocese is picking up the bill.

Jim Goodness, the spokesman for the archdiocese, has the thankless job of explaining this. “The press says it’s a hot tub; it’s a whirlpool,” he says of one of the wing’s accouterments. “He’s getting older — there are therapeutic issues.”

How to Get a Job at Google - NYTimes.com

How to Get a Job at Google - NYTimes.com: Google attracts so much talent it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like G.P.A. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers. But Bock is saying something important to them, too: Beware. Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it). And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.

Mapping the Trayvon Martin Media Controversy | MIT Center for Civic Media

Mapping the Trayvon Martin Media Controversy | MIT Center for Civic Media: The second “act” of the story begins on March 7th and 8th, ten days after Martin's death, when the story received a new wave of media attention from two of the national media's largest outlets: the Reuters newswire and the CBS program This Morning. This resurgence in interest was the direct result of efforts to publicize the story: Martin’s family was able to enlist the legal services of civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump on a pro bono basis. Crump brought on local lawyer Natalie Jackson and publicist Ryan Julison.

Within a day of joining the effort, Julison began reaching out to the largest national media sources (as measured by audience reach) and worked his way down until he found interest from Reuters and CBS This Morning. This mainstream media coverage helped Julison and Crump generate more stories, but also brought the story to the attention of an online audience. One reader, Kevin Cunningham, saw the Reuters piece shared on a Howard University email listserv. Frustrated by the relative paucity of media coverage and incensed by the lack of justice, he began a Change.org petition on March 8th.

Olympic Viewing: Bob Costas and Olympic politics

Olympic Viewing: Bob Costas and Olympic politics: TOUGH STUFF: Bob Costas' sharp, if jarring, commentary Friday changed the narrative for those who thought NBC ignored or displayed a naive attitude about the world outside of the Olympic Village. The NBC host noted how Ukrainian athletes at the games were showing their concern for their country's political unrest, and tied what was going on there to Vladimir Putin's Russia. Costas said the Sochi Olympics had gone off better than many people feared going in, "all of which is truly wonderful, but should not serve to obscure a harsher or more lasting truth. This is still a government which imprisons dissidents, is hostile to gay rights, sponsors and supports a vicious regime in Syria — and that's just a partial list." While the games' may burnish Putin's reputation in some eyes, "no amount of Olympic glory can mask these realities," he said.

What House of Cards gets wrong about money in politics - Byron Tau - POLITICO.com

What House of Cards gets wrong about money in politics - Byron Tau - POLITICO.com:

2) A super PAC was the wrong choice


Why even use a super PAC for the ad campaign? There are better
options to move shadowy, anonymous money around. Namely, a 501(c)4
nonprofit.


“If you’re going to funnel foreign money into an election, put it
into a trade association or 501(c)4 that doesn’t have to disclose its
donors,” said Adam Smith, communications director of the group Public
Campaign. “If getting it to the super PAC is that important, just have
the 501(c)4 make the donation.”


These nonprofits are not required to disclose their donors.Better
yet, they don’t have to disclose anything about their spending until
more than a year after election day.





The Tusk plot to funnel Chinese money into a campaign would have been
much more effectively done through a nonprofit than a super PAC. And
the cash and spending would have been much harder to track for nosy
journalists and political operatives.

Ted Cruz assails fellow Republican senators for ‘trickery’ – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

Ted Cruz assails fellow Republican senators for ‘trickery’ – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs:

Sen. Ted Cruz  accused his own Republican
leadership of  “trickery” in trying to force a “show vote” on raising
the debt ceiling last week, warning Republicans will get “clobbered in
the polls” for not standing up for principle.


"What Republican leadership said is we want this to pass, but if
every senator affirmatively consents to doing it on 51 votes, then we
can all cast a vote no and we can go home to our constituents and say we
opposed it. And listen, that sort of show vote, that sort of trickery
to the - to the constituents is why Congress has a 13 percent approval
rating.




In my view, we need to be honest with our constituents.  And last week,
what it was all about was truth and transparency.  I think all 45
Republicans should have stood together and said of course not.,” Cruz
told CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash in a network
exclusive interview airing on CNN.

Invasive 'crazy ants' are nastier and far tougher than we imagined

Invasive 'crazy ants' are nastier and far tougher than we imagined: Tawny crazy ants, as we're learning, are a total headache. As they make their way north at a rate of 600 feet a year, they're wreaking havoc on populations of insects, spiders, centipedes and crustaceans. This is likely to cause deleterious effects on various ecosystems. They can't be stopped with conventional pesticide, they've been known to disable a huge industrial plant, and they frequently short out electrical equipment.

The new class system for young Wall Street bankers | New York Post

The new class system for young Wall Street bankers | New York Post: The typical Wall Street food chain starts with interns, then moves up to analysts, associates, vice presidents, managing directors, partners and executives. “Front-office” investment bankers sit higher on the totem pole than “middle-office” compliance officers or “back-office” IT workers. And private equity and hedge fund workers command more respect (and money) than regular investment bankers.

The financial crisis of 2008 mixed things up a bit — for a few years, back-office workers were being promoted while front-office workers were being laid off. But now, five years later, the caste system has returned to normal — though, for junior bankers, some of the allure has faded due to shrinking bonuses and prestige. Some young guns came into the industry expecting Champagne and caviar but got Adderall and all-nighters instead.

How apraxia got my son suspended from school – Michael Graziano – Aeon

How apraxia got my son suspended from school – Michael Graziano – Aeon: A worse surprise followed a couple of months later (this is, among other things, a story of escalating shocks). At the start of 2013, my wife requested a meeting with the teacher to follow up on our son’s classroom progress. We were braced for bad news, but we couldn’t have prepared ourselves for what the teacher had to say. She brushed aside our concerns about writing and reading and math, and informed my wife that, for almost a month, since before the holiday break, our son had been ‘touching himself inappropriately’ in class.

Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno, Late Night and the Fate of California | TIME.com

Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno, Late Night and the Fate of California | TIME.com: Now Fallon, that likable enemy of the state, has taken our stage away from us. The move to New York makes sense—for him. Fallon has Brooklyn roots and was raised in New York State. And his years in Los Angeles, in the middle of the previous decade, were not happy ones. He made two movies that didn’t do well, and “I was probably drinking more than I should have been drinking,” he told Vanity Fair.

What can we do? We could boycott all things New York, but I would miss bagels and New York Times wedding announcements. Some will suggest using tax credits to lure the show back, but we already have too much corporate welfare in this state. Bottom line: If any Californian has blackmailable information on Fallon, now is the time to use it.

James Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan' | Environment | The Guardian

James Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan' | Environment | The Guardian:

"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along
routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time.
All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think
these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people
coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to
do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not
the kinds of things you want to do."

General Clapper Changes Story Again, Says He ‘Misunderstood’ Wyden’s Question | FDL News Desk

General Clapper Changes Story Again, Says He ‘Misunderstood’ Wyden’s Question | FDL News Desk: Director of National Intelligence General James Clapper has changed his story once again on why he gave a false answer in testimony before Congress while under oath. In a friendly interview with The Daily Beast Clapper changed his explanation from his previous statement that what he said was the “least untruthful” answer he could provide to now claiming he “misunderstood” the question he was being asked.

Ted Cruz isn’t planning to be in the Senate for very long

Ted Cruz isn’t planning to be in the Senate for very long: On Wednesday, Ted Cruz did something you almost never see in the Senate: He purposefully made political life harder for his Republican colleagues.

Klaus Teuber, the Man Who Built The Settlers of Catan : The New Yorker

Klaus Teuber, the Man Who Built The Settlers of Catan : The New Yorker: Teuber is still somewhat baffled by the popularity of his creation. “I never expected it would be so successful,” he said. Almost all board-game designers, even the most successful ones, work full time in other professions; Teuber is one of a tiny handful who make a living from games. “Going Cardboard,” a 2012 documentary about the board-game industry, includes footage of Teuber appearing at major gaming conventions, where he is greeted like a rock star—fans whisper and point when they see him—but seems sheepish while signing boxes.

China has not replaced America — and it never will - The Week

China has not replaced America — and it never will - The Week: Many people seem to think it's simply a matter of when, not if, China takes the reins of world leadership. How, they think, can America's 314 million people permanently outproduce a population that outnumbers the U.S. by over a billion people?

This facile assumption is wrong. China is not replacing the United States as the global hegemon. And it never will.

China faces too many internal problems and regional rivals to ever make a real play for global leadership. And even if Beijing could take the global leadership mantle soon, it wouldn't. China wants to play inside the existing global order's rules, not change them.

I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society -- Daily Intelligencer

I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society -- Daily Intelligencer: Once we made it to the lobby, Ross and Lebenthal reassured me that what I’d just seen wasn’t really a group of wealthy and powerful financiers making homophobic jokes, making light of the financial crisis, and bragging about their business conquests at Main Street’s expense. No, it was just a group of friends who came together to roast each other in a benign and self-deprecating manner. Nothing to see here.



 But the extent of their worry wasn’t made clear until Ross offered himself up as a source for future stories in exchange for my cooperation.

“I’ll pick up the phone anytime, get you any help you need,” he said.

“Yeah, the people in this group could be very helpful,” Lebenthal chimed in. “If you could just keep their privacy in mind.”

Our Decadent Elites - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ

Our Decadent Elites - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ: No one wants to be the earnest outsider now, no one wants to play the sober steward, no one wants to be the grind, the guy carrying around a cross of dignity. No one wants to be accused of being staid. No one wants to say, “This isn’t good for the country, and it isn’t good for our profession.”

And it is all about the behavior of our elites, our upper classes, which we define now in a practical sense as those who are successful, affluent and powerful. This group not only includes but is almost limited to our political class, Wall Street, and the media, from Hollywood to the news divisions.



They’re all kind of running America.



They all seem increasingly decadent.

Record share of wives are more educated than their husbands | Pew Research Center

Record share of wives are more educated than their husbands | Pew Research Center: It used to be more common for a husband to have more education than his wife in America. But now, for the first time since Pew Research has tracked this trend over the past 50 years, the share of couples in which the wife is the one “marrying down” educationally is higher than those in which the husband has more education.

For New Air Force Secretary, a Baptism by Fire - NYTimes.com

For New Air Force Secretary, a Baptism by Fire - NYTimes.com: “Think of it, you’re a young person eager to help your country, and they send you to a missile hole in the cold and tell you to be prepared to shoot, even though everybody knows it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever shoot anything,” said F. Whitten Peters, an Air Force secretary under President Bill Clinton. “With all due respect to the great people of North Dakota, it’s an acquired taste.”

In the first days of the scandal, Ms. James was adamant, said Eric K. Fanning, the Air Force under secretary, “that we would be the ones revealing the information.” He added: “In a crisis, your tendency is to close ranks, but she wanted us to do the opposite. She said, ‘There’s already suspicion about this; we need to be open with the media.’ ”

This map of Syria shows why the war will be so difficult to end

This map of Syria shows why the war will be so difficult to end: ontrol in Syria. Map by Frontline (NASA/Microsoft)

PBS Frontline's Evan Wexler and Sarah Childress put together this map showing which of the four major groups in Syria control which territory, as part of Frontline's new hour-long program on fighting there.

The map shows control divided between government forces, rebels with the ethnic Kurdish minority, rebels with the extremist Islamist group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), and the mainline rebel opposition.

These groups are four different colors for good reason: with the quasi-exception of the Kurds, who mostly just want Kurdish autonomy or independence, the other three groups all hate each other, all want to control Syria and all have very different visions for the country. And, as you can see, each controls a lot of territory.

Lincoln’s Faith and America’s Future | Web Exclusives | First Things

Lincoln’s Faith and America’s Future | Web Exclusives | First Things: Lincoln also held in uneasy equipoise two other cardinal teachings of the Christian tradition: the inherent dignity of every person made in the image of God, and the corporate character of original sin. His abhorrence of slavery was rooted in the former; his disdain for utopian solutions to social problems grew out of the latter. Thus he was hated by secessionists and abolitionists alike. The tragedy of slavery and the Civil War would not be resolved, Lincoln thought, by appealing to human goodness, but by calling the nation to repentance and prayer. On nine separate occasions during the forty-nine months of his presidency, Lincoln called his fellow citizens to humble themselves before God in public penitence, prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving.

‘The Answer to the Riddle Is Me,’ a Debut, Takes On Memory Loss - NYTimes.com

‘The Answer to the Riddle Is Me,’ a Debut, Takes On Memory Loss - NYTimes.com: Meanwhile, he realizes he has no strong feelings for the girlfriend who shows up to dote on him. “It seemed like I was always pulling away from women who liked me,” he says, before vowing to change. But reinventing yourself turns out to be not so easy, even with a seemingly blank slate.

Gradually, he does regain his identity, although the amnesia haunts him like a hangover long afterward. He has suicidal thoughts and deals with his anxiety by smoking and drinking too much. “Continuing on in the world of the sane,” he writes, “is harder than you thought.”

Spain, Land of 10 P.M. Dinners, Asks if It’s Time to Reset Clock - NYTimes.com

Spain, Land of 10 P.M. Dinners, Asks if It’s Time to Reset Clock - NYTimes.com: Spain still operates on its own clock and rhythms. But now that it is trying to recover from a devastating economic crisis — in the absence of easy solutions — a pro-efficiency movement contends that the country can become more productive, more in sync with the rest of Europe, if it adopts a more regular schedule.

The real ‘spaghetti monster’ is campus censorship | Free speech | spiked

The real ‘spaghetti monster’ is campus censorship | Free speech | spiked: While bans and acts of censorship on the grounds of religious offence are not justified, they are based on the idea that if something is offensive – actually or potentially – to certain segments of the student population, then it can rightfully be banned. Bans, whether on the basis of religion or sexism, are based on intolerance, an intolerance of certain things that some people may find objectionable, distasteful, uncouth or offensive, and which in turn compels them to be censored – whether it is Robin Thicke’s lewd lyrics or Photoshopped frescos.

James Surowiecki: The End of Brand Loyalty : The New Yorker

James Surowiecki: The End of Brand Loyalty : The New Yorker: But brands have never been more fragile. The reason is simple: consumers are supremely well informed and far more likely to investigate the real value of products than to rely on logos. “Absolute Value,” a new book by Itamar Simonson, a marketing professor at Stanford, and Emanuel Rosen, a former software executive, shows that, historically, the rise of brands was a response to an information-poor environment. When consumers had to rely on advertisements and their past experience with a company, brands served as proxies for quality; if a car was made by G.M., or a ketchup by Heinz, you assumed that it was pretty good. It was hard to figure out if a new product from an unfamiliar company was reliable or not, so brand loyalty was a way of reducing risk. As recently as the nineteen-eighties, nearly four-fifths of American car buyers stayed loyal to a brand.



Today, consumers can read reams of research about whatever they want to buy.

Interview: Kevin Fong, Author Of 'Extreme Medicine' : NPR

Interview: Kevin Fong, Author Of 'Extreme Medicine' : NPR: [Due to lack of gravity] they experience [the] wasting of their bones, wasting of their muscles, deconditioning of their heart ... They have problems with their hand-eye coordination. It seems that the apparatus in your inner ear that detects acceleration — that helps you with your day-to-day hand-eye coordination — also gets pretty messed up up there, and so they have problems tracking moving objects with their eyes, and ... they feel pretty sick. In fact, most rookie astronauts feel sick or are sick in the first 24-48 hours of flight. So when you see them up there on-camera, waving and smiling at you, you have to know that underneath that is a lot of discomfort for lots of them.

Rand Paul Sues Obama, NSA on Behalf of All U.S. Phone Owners

Rand Paul Sues Obama, NSA on Behalf of All U.S. Phone Owners: Paul told reporters he was filing the motion as an individual citizen, "separate from [his] legislative function," at a Wednesday news conference held outside the courthouse. It calls for an end to the government's "mass, suspicionless, non-particularized collection, storage, retention and search of telephone metadata," which the governments justifies based on Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Content economics, part 5: news | Felix Salmon

Content economics, part 5: news | Felix Salmon: Now is a particularly exciting time in the news business. One journalist recently told me that it has changed more in the past eight months than it changed in the previous five years, and I think he’s right about that. One big reason is that the technologists are getting involved: people like Vox Media and Medium and BuzzFeed and First Look Media are making multi-million-dollar bets that they can build the CMS of the future, and that they can use their software advantage to win the battle for consumer attention. David Carr says that it costs about $25 million these days to compete in the digital media space — that’s a lot lower than the $50 million cost of launching a magazine, or the $200 million cost of launching a cable network. And it’s lower still than the billions of dollars that newspaper companies — including the New York Times Company — spent on color printing presses. In other words, the barriers to entry have never been lower, while the potential rewards have never been higher.

Why It Took 90 Years For Women's Ski Jumping To Make The Olympics

Why It Took 90 Years For Women's Ski Jumping To Make The Olympics:

The
medical consensus may have shifted away from the wandering womb since
then, but the underlying objection has remained the same: Biology
presents an insuperable handicap. "Don't forget, it's like jumping down
from, let's say, about two meters on the ground about a thousand times a
year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point
of view," said the head of the International Ski Federation (FIS), Gian
Franco Kasper, in 2005. (He later retracted the statement).

Let's point out what should be pretty obvious already: Ski jumping is hard on women's bodies. That's because it's hard on everyone's
bodies—on knees and knee ligaments, in particular, not on reproductive
organs. The IOC's Medical Commission itself stated the equivalent of "no
duh" in a special report in 2002, writing that, in sports in general,
"The female reproductive organs are better protected from serious
athletic injury than the male organs. Serious sports injuries to the
uterus or ovaries are extremely rare." Lindsey Van, one of the three
women jumping for the U.S. this year and the winner in 2009 of the first
Nordic World Ski Championships to include women, put the matter more
colorfully to NBC last year:
"It just makes me nauseous. Like, I kind of want to vomit. Like,
really? Like, I'm sorry, but my baby-making organs are on the inside.
Men have an organ on the outside. So if it's not safe for me jumping
down, then my uterus is going to fall out, what about the organ on the
outside of the body?"

Spacey: 'House of Cards' not far from reality - POLITICO.com

Spacey: 'House of Cards' not far from reality - POLITICO.com: Actor Kevin Spacey says his Netflix show "House of Cards" isn't that far from the reality of politics in Washington.

"Look, for me, it's like performance art," he said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "We can get done shooting on a day, and I'll come home and turn on the news and think: 'You know, our storylines are not that crazy, they're really not.'"

With some exceptions, "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos cut in, such as politicians murdering people who get in their way.

"I've heard from lots of people," Spacey said. "Some people feel that 99 percent of the show is accurate, and that the 1 percent that isn't is that you could never get an education bill passed that quickly."

Social norms: The indignity of no work | The Economist

Social norms: The indignity of no work | The Economist: But the broader point is that those now questioning the utility or relevance of the concept of the dignity of work are responding to reality. They are not so much pushing people away from work as acknowledging that work has moved away from people. Economies that have relied on market wages to provide incentive structures for people for centuries (with a dash of dignity of work and other social norms thrown in) are going to have to change.

Dick Cheney Has No Regrets, Ctd � The Dish

Dick Cheney Has No Regrets, Ctd � The Dish: Similarly, look at the video in the first post and note how stumped Cheney is when asked to name his biggest fault. He simply has never thought of such a thing. In fact, he seems to regard any self-reflection as an irritating thing only liberals engage in – not manly, decisive men like him. In both these men, you see a kind of moral autism. Evil is defined a priori as something that others do. It is simply inconceivable to Cheney and Rumsfeld that they could ever commit evil themselves. Even when confronted by direct evidence, they simply blink as if they cannot see.

Michael Sam Is Not a ‘Distraction’ - The Daily Beast

Michael Sam Is Not a ‘Distraction’ - The Daily Beast: The big lie about Don't Ask was that lies were not required; all they asked for was an omission: just Don't Tell. Every gay guy in America knows how absurd that notion is. And naive. And in close-knit, hyper-masculine units like pro football or the U.S. army, where fear runs feverish and even the whiff of gay rumors could be career-limiting, the closet can be all-consuming.

Chris Christie's Rise and Fall | New Republic

Chris Christie's Rise and Fall | New Republic: He has been so singularly successful at constructing his own mythology—as a reformer, a crusader, a bipartisan problem-solver—that people have never really seen him clearly. Over the past three months, I talked to more than 50 people who have crossed paths with Christie throughout his career—legislators, officials, Democrats, Republicans, lawyers, longtime New Jersey politicos. (Christie himself didn’t respond to a detailed request for comment.) The problem with Christie isn’t merely that he is a bully. It’s that his political career is built on a rotten foundation. Christie owes his rise to some of the most toxic forces in his state—powerful bosses who ensure that his vow to clean up New Jersey will never come to pass. He has allowed them to escape scrutiny, rewarded them for their support, and punished their enemies. All along, even as it looked like Christie was attacking the machine, he was really just mastering it.

John Boehner gives up. Again.

John Boehner gives up. Again.: Over the past 10 days, he had tried to lure tea party conservatives to vote "yes" by putting approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, elimination of risk corridors in the Affordable Care Act and, finally, restoring the cost of living adjustment for members of the military on the table. Nothing worked. The simple fact is that there was no proposal that Boehner and his leadership team could think up that could overcome the fact that 30-40 Republicans wouldn't vote for any debt ceiling increase.

Overrated, useless fools: Why this Congress will never achieve anything significant - Salon.com

Overrated, useless fools: Why this Congress will never achieve anything significant - Salon.com: As I wrote last month and also several other times over the past five or so years, “comprehensive immigration reform” — defined as a bill making it possible for currently undocumented residents to earn legal status and/or citizenship — can’t happen now because Republicans control the House of Representatives, conservatives control the Republican Party, and conservatives oppose granting legal status to undocumented immigrants. It’s a very simple calculation, and most discussions of the political status of immigration reform could start and end with some variation on that explanation.



 But people need something to talk about, and politicians need reasons to go on Sunday shows. Elected officials need to “signal” to important donors and interest groups that they are doing everything in their power to enact the preferred policies of those important donors and interest groups. There is really more incentive for Republicans to talk about immigration reform than to actually pass it. Obviously lots of Republicans do sincerely want immigration reform to pass. But those Republicans don’t have a majority in the House, and until that changes, immigration reform will be practically politically impossible.

Overrated, useless fools: Why this Congress will never achieve anything significant - Salon.com

Overrated, useless fools: Why this Congress will never achieve anything significant - Salon.com: As I wrote last month and also several other times over the past five or so years, “comprehensive immigration reform” — defined as a bill making it possible for currently undocumented residents to earn legal status and/or citizenship — can’t happen now because Republicans control the House of Representatives, conservatives control the Republican Party, and conservatives oppose granting legal status to undocumented immigrants. It’s a very simple calculation, and most discussions of the political status of immigration reform could start and end with some variation on that explanation.



 But people need something to talk about, and politicians need reasons to go on Sunday shows. Elected officials need to “signal” to important donors and interest groups that they are doing everything in their power to enact the preferred policies of those important donors and interest groups. There is really more incentive for Republicans to talk about immigration reform than to actually pass it. Obviously lots of Republicans do sincerely want immigration reform to pass. But those Republicans don’t have a majority in the House, and until that changes, immigration reform will be practically politically impossible.

How to Get Tax Cheats to Pay Their Share - Businessweek

How to Get Tax Cheats to Pay Their Share - Businessweek:

The IRS tax gap report notes that “Overall, compliance is highest
where there is third-party information reporting and/or withholding. …
As a result, a net of only 1 percent of wage and salary income was
misreported. But amounts subject to little or no information reporting
had a 56 percent net misreporting rate.” That includes things like rents
and, most significant, retail business income. Whereas firms have an
incentive to report wages paid because it reduces their own tax
liability, retail customers don’t get anything from reporting where and
how much they spent on a meal out, or a bathroom remodel, or a guitar at
the local music store. As a result, businesses can get away with
under-reporting sales, which reduces their reported income, and so the
taxes they report due to Uncle Sam.

Political Tempers Flare as British Floodwaters Rise - Businessweek

Political Tempers Flare as British Floodwaters Rise - Businessweek: Scientists are blasting the government for failing to heed warnings that climate change and poorly controlled development in low-lying areas was heightening the risk of catastrophic floods. Richard Ashley of Sheffield University, author of a 2004 government-commissioned report on flood risks, says the government’s “obsession with deregulation” and budget-cutting had exacerbated the problem. In an interview with the Independent newspaper, he blamed “short-term politicians who don’t take notice of the science.”

Full Text of Benedict XVI's Letter to Atheist |Blogs | NCRegister.com

Full Text of Benedict XVI's Letter to Atheist |Blogs | NCRegister.com: If, however, you wish to replace God with “Nature,” the question remains as to who or what this nature is. Nowhere do you define it and it therefore appears to be an irrational divinity which explains nothing. However, I would like especially to note that in your religion of mathematics three fundamental themes of human existence are not considered: freedom, love and evil. I am surprised that with a nod you set aside freedom which has been and still remains a fundamental value of the modern age. Love does not appear in your book, nor does the question of evil. Whatever neurobiology says or does not say about freedom, in the real drama of our history it is present as a crucial reality and it must be taken into account. However, your mathematical religion knows of no answer to the question of freedom, it ignores love and it does not give us any information on evil. A religion that neglects these fundamental questions is empty.

Parental Pity Party - NYTimes.com

Parental Pity Party - NYTimes.com:

As
she puts it, parenthood is “the last binding obligation in a culture
that asks for almost no other permanent commitments at all.” In this
sense, it isn’t necessarily that family life has changed that
dramatically in the last few generations. Rather, it’s stayed the same
in crucial ways — because babies still need what babies need — while
outside the domestic sphere there’s been an expansion of opportunities, a
proliferation of choices and entertainments and immediately available
gratifications, that make child rearing seem much more burdensome by
comparison.

This
has two consequences for young, reasonably affluent Americans. First,
it creates an understandable reluctance to give up the pleasures of
extended brunches and long happy hours, late nights and weekend
getaways, endless hours playing Grand Theft Auto or binge-watching “New
Girl.” Second, it inspires a ferocious shock when a child arrives and
that oh-so-modern lifestyle gives way to challenges that seem almost
medieval, and duties that seem impossibly absolute. And the longer the
arrival is delayed, the greater that shock — because “postponing
children,” Senior points out, can make parents “far more aware of the
freedoms they’re giving up.”

“Welcome,”
a colleague emailed me after our first daughter was born, “to
unavoidable reality.” Which is exactly right: In parts of American
society, death and children’s diapers are the only unavoidable realities
left.

This Is Hands Down The Best Cover Of Frozen's "Let It Go"

This Is Hands Down The Best Cover Of Frozen's "Let It Go": Christina Bianco covers “Let It Go,” all while impersonating Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Kristin Chenoweth, and several other famous vocalists. Pretty brilliant, tbh.

Man Nearly Explodes After Compressed Air Valve Lodges In Buttocks - latimes.com

Man Nearly Explodes After Compressed Air Valve Lodges In Buttocks - latimes.com

Professors, We Need You! - NYTimes.com

Professors, We Need You! - NYTimes.com: “Many academics frown on public pontificating as a frivolous distraction from real research,” said Will McCants, a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution. “This attitude affects tenure decisions. If the sine qua non for academic success is peer-reviewed publications, then academics who ‘waste their time’ writing for the masses will be penalized.”

The latest attempt by academia to wall itself off from the world came when the executive council of the prestigious International Studies Association proposed that its publication editors be barred from having personal blogs. The association might as well scream: We want our scholars to be less influential!

Meet the most dysfunctional team in Sochi - Yahoo Sports

Meet the most dysfunctional team in Sochi - Yahoo Sports: Shani Davis was bristling with frustration and trying to keep it in check, talking about how this Winter Olympics will haunt him for the rest of his life. Brian Hansen's coach was starting to weep as she spoke of the catastrophic turmoil that turned a bunch of predicted gold medals into a collective and embarrassing failure.

Joey Mantia tried to find a polite way of saying that his colleagues have yet to grasp that there is no "I" in the word "team," and coach Ryan Shimabukuro was dismissing the avalanche of criticism as nothing but the talk of a "pothead."

Welcome to the United States speedskating squad, perhaps the most dysfunctional team of the Sochi Games, in which chaos reigns and the high hopes that preceded the Olympics has turned into blame, anger and frustration.

Michael Pollan: How Smart Are Plants? : The New Yorker

Michael Pollan: How Smart Are Plants? : The New Yorker: Perhaps the cleverest instance of plant signalling involves two insect species, the first in the role of pest and the second as its exterminator. Several species, including corn and lima beans, emit a chemical distress call when attacked by caterpillars. Parasitic wasps some distance away lock in on that scent, follow it to the afflicted plant, and proceed to slowly destroy the caterpillars. Scientists call these insects “plant bodyguards.”

‘House of Cards’ Returns, With More Dark Scheming - NYTimes.com

‘House of Cards’ Returns, With More Dark Scheming - NYTimes.com:

“House of Cards” may well be the most joyless show on television.

Colors
are so washed-out that the closest thing to brightness in all that
gray, taupe and black is an orange Post-it note. There is no laughter,
not even the forced bonhomie that real politicians trade in cloakrooms
and on cable news talk shows. This Netflix series is more cynical than
“The Americans” on FX and more pessimistic about human nature than “The
Walking Dead” on AMC.

Yet
it’s hard not to feel giddy delight at the first sight of those
emblematic clouds rolling across the landscape of the nation’s capital
and plunging the city into a Stygian gloom.

Peru and Switzerland offer a gold medal moment for our hearts | 2014 Winter Games

Peru and Switzerland offer a gold medal moment for our hearts | 2014 Winter Games: But that’s when he saw the gold medallist, Cologna from Switzerland and Nepal’s Dachhiri Sherpa, waiting for him.

To show his appreciation for the competitor, a first-time winter Olympian from his country, for the drive to compete despite injury, Cologna and Sherpa hung around the finish line for an extra 30 minutes after winning gold just to shake Carcelen’s hand.

That’s some real class, there, guys. Amid all the competition, sheer appreciation for the sport continues to trump everything in Sochi.

Volkswagen Vote is Defeat for Labor in South - NYTimes.com

Volkswagen Vote is Defeat for Labor in South - NYTimes.com: CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — In a defeat for organized labor in the South, employees at the Volkswagen plant here voted 712 to 626 against joining the United Automobile Workers.

The loss is an especially stinging blow for U.A.W. because Volkswagen did not even oppose the unionization drive. The union’s defeat — in what was one of the most closely watched unionization votes in decades — is expected to slow, perhaps stymie, the union’s long-term plans to organize other auto plants in the South.

Internet troll personality study: Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism.

Internet troll personality study: Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism.:

Yes, some people actually say they agree with such statements. And
again, doing so was correlated with sadism in its various forms, with
psychopathy, and with Machiavellianism. Overall, the authors found that
the relationship between sadism and trolling was the strongest, and that
indeed, sadists appear to troll because they find it pleasurable. “Both
trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others,” they
wrote. “Sadists just want to have fun ... and the Internet is their
playground!”

Pilot Shortage: Regional Airlines Are Cutting Flights - Businessweek

Pilot Shortage: Regional Airlines Are Cutting Flights - Businessweek: The regional side of the U.S. airline industry has long been a fiercely competitive arena in which the big airlines auction large sections of their flight schedules to the lowest bidder. That’s put pressure on wages: The starting salary for a first officer at a regional airline is a little more than $21,000 per year—about $40,000 lower than the same job at Delta (DAL) and United (UAL), according to the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest U.S. pilot union.

And the stingy pay, in turn, exacerbates the pilot shortage. Not only does it make pilot jobs less appealing, but the small salaries also combine with the more onerous federal training rules to put many new pilots deep in debt. Paying for the necessary hours of training flights before getting a first job can cost more than $100,000.

Bloomfield acting police chief placed on paid leave after speaking out at council meeting | NJ.com

Bloomfield acting police chief placed on paid leave after speaking out at council meeting | NJ.com: Acting Police Chief James Behre was placed on paid administrative leave today, less than 48 hours after he spoke at a council meeting and claimed that a councilman asked him to trade favors to ensure Behre’s appointment as permanent chief.

Behre, 50, said that he received a letter today from Township Administrator Ted Ehrenburg relieving Behre of his duties, effective immediately. Behre said he’s been scheduled for a “fitness of duty evaluation” with a doctor on March 3.

Obamacare Won't Reduce Number of Uninsured, Conservatives Say | New Republic

Obamacare Won't Reduce Number of Uninsured, Conservatives Say | New Republic: Liberals settled on something like Obamacare, which they realize will reach only about half of the uninsured for now, because they had literally spent decades trying to do something more ambitious—only to fail, thanks in no small part to conservative opposition. And while conservatives like to say they have better ideas for reforming health care, their proposals inevitably result in many fewer people getting coverage—or those getting coverage getting significantly less financial protection.

As best as I can tell, most conservatives simply believe that the costs of significantly expanding coverage are too high to justify the benefits. Fine. But if they want to make that argument, they need to be candid about how significant those benefits are likely to be.

Michael Sam’s Biggest Obstacle: NFL Front Offices, Not NFL Players - Nancy Goldstein - The Atlantic

Michael Sam’s Biggest Obstacle: NFL Front Offices, Not NFL Players - Nancy Goldstein - The Atlantic: So what’s up with the tut-tutting from the NFL’s front office? It may be that the big difference between their panic and the NCAA College Football’s maturity is money—particularly the big money that corporate sponsors and advertisers bring to the NFL and don’t bring to the NCAA. When an anonymous official in Sports Illustrated says, “the league isn’t ready for this,” it’s likely code for “We’re afraid that having an openly gay player on board means that ticket sales will drop, or male viewers will be turned off, or that Bud Light and Marriott and Pepsi and GMC won’t want to pay top dollar to advertise with us.” In short, members of the NFL’s front office may be afraid that Sam will compromise their brand.

The latest work-around for abortion docs.

The latest work-around for abortion docs.: into can’t come right out and tell his patients to obtain the ulcer drug misoprostol—or its brand-name variant, Cytotec—but he doesn’t have to. It is common knowledge in the Valley that misoprostol induces miscarriages. And it’s readily available: If you have a passport, you can walk over the border and buy the drug from a Mexican pharmacy without a prescription.



If you can’t cross the border, you can buy black-market pills from bustling flea markets or dusty fortune tellers’ shops.

And if the drugs don’t cause a complete miscarriage, Minto lets his patients know that they can come back for “miscarriage management.” Minto estimates that he has seen over 200 patients since the law went into effect, about 100 of whom have returned to resolve miscarriages with a legal outpatient procedure known as a dilation and curettage or D&C.

Who Says Libraries Are Going Extinct? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Who Says Libraries Are Going Extinct? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society: Funding cuts be damned: more than 16,000 public library branches in the U.S. serve 96.4 percent of the population, according to the “State of America’s Libraries Report 2013” by the American Library Association. (The ALA was founded in 1876, the same year the Dewey decimal system was developed.) Public libraries circulated 2.46 billion materials last year, the greatest volume in 10 years. Over this same period, the circulation of children’s book and materials increased by more than 28 percent. Attendance at library-hosted programs for kids hit 60.5 million in 2013.

Designing a Better Past | Hazlitt

Designing a Better Past | Hazlitt: Disneyland is about evoking innocence, and embedded deep in our collective memory is the association between innocence and the long period of peace between the Napoleonic wars and World War I; a time when there had been just enough technological innovation to improve people’s lives (electricity, the telephone, better agricultural techniques) but not enough to cause mass destruction of people and the environment (machine guns, the car, industrial farming). The late Victorian era is close enough to make us feel comfortable but distant enough to make us feel safe from the anxieties of the modern world.

Designing a Better Past | Hazlitt

Designing a Better Past | Hazlitt: Disneyland is about evoking innocence, and embedded deep in our collective memory is the association between innocence and the long period of peace between the Napoleonic wars and World War I; a time when there had been just enough technological innovation to improve people’s lives (electricity, the telephone, better agricultural techniques) but not enough to cause mass destruction of people and the environment (machine guns, the car, industrial farming). The late Victorian era is close enough to make us feel comfortable but distant enough to make us feel safe from the anxieties of the modern world.

Say it with me, mainstream media: 'Washington. Free. Beacon.' - POLITICO.com

Say it with me, mainstream media: 'Washington. Free. Beacon.' - POLITICO.com:



And yet when the ultra-conservative Washington Free Beacon published previously available documents
about Hillary Clinton -- showing that she had once vouched for a single
payer health-care system, called Monica Lewinsky a "narcissistic loony
tune," and bashed the press as "big egos and no brains," among other
things -- many members of the mainstream media went head-over-heels to
avoid crediting the site. (CNN, to its credit, interviewed the author of the Free Beacon article, Alana Goodman.)




On NBC Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell did an entire segment on the documents and only credited an "anti-Clinton website." In a post for Time Magazine, Joe Klein referred only to
"the 'publication' that 'broke' this story," complete with quotation
marks around "publication" and "story." Free Beacon made a full video
(above) with a litany examples of the mainstream press avoiding the
website's title.


Perhaps these members of the media are so disgusted by Free Beacon's
political agenda -- or, just as likely, it's upstart attitude -- that
they can't bear to utter the name without gagging. But the gag is on
them: Because in addition to falling short of their journalistic duty,
which is to give credit where credit is due, they're reinforcing the
idea that they, and the mainstream media in general, have a liberal
bias.

Canada's Morrison wins silver in 1,000-metre long-track speed skating - The Globe and Mail

Canada's Morrison wins silver in 1,000-metre long-track speed skating - The Globe and Mail: Team Canada skaters and staff erupted around him, jumping and high-fiving in the infield. After four years of agony, injury and frustration in the sport he loves, Morrison finally grinned and pumped his fist. The individual medal that had eluded him for two previous Olympics was finally his, a silver.

Then Morrison did what needed to be done. He stood up and hugged Gilmore Junio, the young Olympic rookie from Calgary who had given up his spot in the race a little more than a day earlier to let Morrison compete.

The_Real_Opie comments on Soldier saved by bullet proof glass. (x-post /r/combatfootage)

The_Real_Opie comments on Soldier saved by bullet proof glass. (x-post /r/combatfootage): You get used to anything.

There were a few months back in 2006 where I got shot at so much I wouldn't even bother to crouch down unless it sounded particularly accurate that day.

One guy had a routine with my team. Every day we'd have to drive by this old storage building. We called it the banana factory. I don't think there's a reason for that. Anyway, this dude would shoot at us, every day. Only three of four rounds, but he'd always give it a go. He wasn't a very good shot, he never hit anyone, but we could never find him either. Eventually we gave up even trying, when our section rolled by, the gunners would just raise a middle finger salute, the Banana Factory Sniper would do his thing and earn his fifty bucks or whatever, we'd wave, and then everyone got on with their day.

War is weird.

NBC single-handedly pays for a fifth of all Olympic Games

NBC single-handedly pays for a fifth of all Olympic Games: It's no secret NBC is willing to shell out enormous sums to the International Olympic Committee so it can broadcast the Games to American viewers. In 2011, the network offered $4.38 billion to the IOC in hopes of winning an exclusive broadcast license through 2020.

NBC seems intent on securing those rights at almost any price, whether the network turns a profit on it or not. That view paints the network as the IOC's humble supplicant, competing against other networks for the organizing committee's coveted favor. But the reality is just the opposite: Without American networks' largesse, the IOC could hardly afford to run the Olympics at all.

Winter Olympics: Bob Costas' eye infection becomes Sochi storyline - NY Daily News

Winter Olympics: Bob Costas' eye infection becomes Sochi storyline - NY Daily News: Any day now, NBC suits will be trading in their stately Olympic overture for Crystal Gayle singing “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” Or in Costas’ case, pink.

Make no mistake, Bob (Rapping Roberto) Costas is now officially bigger than these Olympics. He is the story. For anyone who has not been paying attention (how could you not?) Costas, NBC’s prime-time Olympics host, entered these Games of skill and will with one infected eyeball.

In a drastic move, Costas was forced to trade in his contacts for a pair of horn rims (soon to be shipped to the Museum of Broadcasting), which gave him a rather studious appearance. On Monday night he showed up with both eyes infected. Looking to ease the pain, he knocked back a shot of vodka with Mary Carillo. Isn’t drinking on the air a violation of FCC regulations?

Judge Rejects Inscrutable Motion, Cites Adam Sandler’s “Billy Madison” - Law Blog - WSJ

Judge Rejects Inscrutable Motion, Cites Adam Sandler’s “Billy Madison” - Law Blog - WSJ: Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler’s title character in the movie, Billy Madison, after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance,

“Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I’ve ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.

To the Ticket Agent at the Delta Counter�|�Josh Misner, Ph.D.

To the Ticket Agent at the Delta Counter�|�Josh Misner, Ph.D.: We were the last ones off the plane.

I began to feel enraged at seeing this outpouring of selfishness and willful ignorance.



 My determination to make the connection was growing by the millisecond, though, and as soon as we were out of the gate, the three of us sprinted -- or at least, as fast as a 6-year-old's legs can run.

Reaching the terminal and seeing our gate within grasp, I felt a glimmer of hope, but that hope dissipated when I realized the jetway door was closed, the reader board had been updated to reflect the next flight assigned to the gate (which wasn't ours) and the seats surrounding the gate were empty.

Two minutes. We missed our bloody flight because of the two minutes we lost because of the selfishness of others. My outrage turned into an outright grown-man-tantrum.

Canadian coach’s act of kindness in cross country skiing at Sochi Olympics reflects all of us: Kelly | Toronto Star

Canadian coach’s act of kindness in cross country skiing at Sochi Olympics reflects all of us: Kelly | Toronto Star: SOCHI, RUSSIA—After his own miserable afternoon in the midst of the greatest 24 hours in our Olympic history, Canadian cross-country ski coach Justin Wadsworth wandered over to the finish line.

His own athletes were all eliminated early. He was crestfallen. He wanted to watch the end of the semifinal in the men’s free sprint.

As he stood there, surrounded by other officials, he spotted Russian Anton Gafarov coming over a rise. Gafarov, an early medal favourite, was struggling miserably.

Thoughts on community: We are not here by chance | Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Blog

Thoughts on community: We are not here by chance | Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Blog: Oakhurst is not a perfect place. Passions run high. There have been some long, heated battles. Plenty of people have left in disagreement or hurt. Many times I have been glad not to be a pastor or having my turn as a church leader. At times the main reason I have stayed was that I like being in the choir.

Nonetheless, through the years this church has become my family. I am known and loved and can be myself when I am sad or joyous, wise or silly, over-committed or lazy, conflict mediator or trouble maker, full of questions or entirely too sure of myself. I have been forgiven and celebrated, consoled and enjoyed. I can know myself as God’s Beloved because these folks love me. And as I love them I experience again how deeply, wrecklesslessly each of us is loved by God.

Make it Work. Tim Gunn here from Project Runway, ask me anything. : IAmA

Make it Work. Tim Gunn here from Project Runway, ask me anything. : IAmA: And on the topic of is it a dress or a top, when did the legging become a pant?

WHEN?

I want to know when it happened.

It's vulgar. Plain and simple. It's way too much.

“A Man’s-Man Game” � The Dish

“A Man’s-Man Game” � The Dish: What we’ve been witnessing these last couple of decades, as the stigma against gayness has abated, is the emergence of more and more gay men who could have passed for straight and remained closeted or even married to a woman in days gone by. These gay men are often invisible both to gay insiders who revere and enjoy more traditional manifestations of gayness and to straight people who simply assume that more traditionally masculine-type men are never gay. But these gay men exist, are out in increasing numbers, and deserve just as much dignity and acceptance as anyone else. What Sam’s honesty has done is help explode crude and overly-narrow assumptions about gay men – particularly among sports-fans and African-Americans. And yes, I think his race is important. The stereotypes about gay men as intrinsically feminine are deeply embedded in African-American culture. If black gay men are to have the future they deserve, the stereotypes need to end. Michael Sam just opened up a whole new arena for mutual understanding and human dignity.

An Acid Test For Francis � The Dish

An Acid Test For Francis � The Dish: Francis has an opportunity here – perhaps the only opportunity the church will ever get – to turn a new page, to insist on complete transparency, to be fully accountable to law enforcement, and to atone and recant for the legacy of the past. There needs to be a purge not just of abusing priests but of every church official who played any part in the cover-up. Why, for example, has Cardinal Bernard Law not been defrocked and publicly shamed – instead of enjoying a cushy sinecure in Rome?



Francis has made some steps toward a reckoning with the past. But not nearly enough so far. He’s been adept at symbols, gestures, simple acts that speak more loudly than words. But no symbol and no gesture would do more to restore some measure of integrity to the institution than following most of the UN Report’s recommendations. The truth is that the Catholic Church has committed a crime against humanity. Until every person implicated in that crime is removed, defrocked and disgraced, the entire moral credibility of the church will remain irreparably damaged.

whoa

A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching | The American Conservative: The relationship of Catholicism to America, and America to Catholicism, began with rancor and hostility, but became a comfortable partnership forged in the cauldron of World War II and the Cold War. Was that period one of “ordinary time,” or an aberration which is now passing, returning us to the inescapably hostile relationship? A growing body of evidence suggests that the latter possibility can’t simply be dismissed out of hand: liberalism appears to be daily more hostile to Catholicism, not merely disagreeing with its stances, but demanding that they be changed in conformity to liberal views on self-sovereignty (especially relating to human sexuality and marriage) or, failing that, that the Church be defined out of the bounds of decent liberal society, an institution no more respectable than the Ku Klux Klan.

Will Sochi have enough snow? | Grist

Will Sochi have enough snow? | Grist: Low snowfall has become a chronic problem for skiers and snowboarders worldwide, which has turned many of them into vocal activists against climate change. President Obama even mentioned snow sports in his major global warming speech last summer, when he said that “mountain communities worry about what smaller snowpacks will mean for tourism.”



In some cases, global warming can lead to increased heavy precipitation of all kinds, and that includes snow, as anyone who lived through the recent polar vortex in the eastern U.S. can attest. But the best conditions for snow sports depend on a snow cover that lasts through the winter, not simply a couple serious blizzards. Over the course of the season, high temperatures can burn through even the heaviest snowfall, and according to Porter Fox, that’s already happening from the Rockies to Sochi.

LOL

Pardonnez notre fid�lit�puritaine - POLITICO.com: French media has been abuzz over a rumor, promulgated by French photographer Pascal Rostain, that The Washington Post is set to publish an expose on President Barack Obama's secret affair with Beyonce, the recording artist.

"You know, at this time, the United States, there is something big that is happening," Rostain told Le Figaro. "Besides, it'll go out tomorrow in the Washington Post, we can not say that it is the gutter press [reporting on an] alleged affair between President Barack Obama and Beyonc�. I can assure you that the world will talk about it."

(PHOTOS: Beyonce and Jay-Z in Cuba)

Cosmopolitan is already all over it. Alas, Washington Post spokesperson Kris Coratti tells us, "It is not true."

Suicide Bomb Trainer in Iraq Accidentally Blows Up His Class - NYTimes.com

Suicide Bomb Trainer in Iraq Accidentally Blows Up His Class - NYTimes.com: In what represented a cautionary tale for terrorist teachers, and a cause of dark humor for ordinary Iraqis, a commander at a secluded terrorist training camp north of Baghdad unwittingly used a belt packed with explosives while conducting a demonstration early Monday for a group of militants, killing himself and 21 other members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, army and police officials said.

Iraqi citizens have long been accustomed to daily attacks on public markets, mosques, funerals and even children’s soccer games, so they saw the story of the fumbling militants as a dark — and delicious — kind of poetic justice, especially coming amid a protracted surge of violence led by the terrorist group, including a rise in suicide bombings.

Why Are We Still on Facebook? : The New Yorker

Why Are We Still on Facebook? : The New Yorker: Today, Facebook celebrates its ten-year anniversary. To be honest, I didn’t think it would still exist. Apart from photographs and school affiliations—and the blue-and-white color scheme—few aspects of thefacebook.com have survived. My first wall post, from one of my closest friends, came on September 11, 2004—just over half a year after I’d joined—and was a joke about the nature of the wall. None of us were quite sure how to use this mysterious new white space in the middle of our profiles. Facebook hasn’t entirely abandoned the wall, but the concept has mostly been replaced by the news feed. The site long ago shed its Harvard-only roots. The feature that used to allow people to organize themselves into “groups,” which once seemed exciting and fear-inducing (Oh, please, ask me to join your group! Come on, you already asked my roommate!), was replaced with a newer, more news-feed-friendly version. I’m no longer a proud member of the Coalition for High-Heeled Women on Cobblestone, I’m sad to report. And although the poking feature still exists, it has been buried behind the site’s more useful tools. Despite all the changes, however, one thing has remained the same: the reason people join in the first place.

The Return of Chinese Bachelor Societies | Hazlitt

The Return of Chinese Bachelor Societies | Hazlitt: China’s unbalanced sex ratio has existed for years. Now, though, as that generation’s first group of men reach marrying age, we’re about to see the results. A recent study by Catherine Tucker and Jennifer Van Hook in Population and Development Review attempts to assess the seriousness of the problem. Gender imbalance at birth, after all, isn’t identical to imbalance at marriage. Men tend to have a higher mortality rate, and there’s usually an age gap between husbands and wives.

Examining the figures, however, Tucker and Van Hook come up with some scary predictions.

By 2030, they estimate, a full 25 percent of the male population will be single—a bachelor society of 30 million men. And even if sex-selective abortions stop tomorrow and the male-female ratios level out, it will take until 2050 for the percentage of single men to drop below 10 percent.

Heroin, addiction and free will � Mind Hacks

Heroin, addiction and free will � Mind Hacks: In fact, there is no drug that makes you hassle people in Soho for a score. There’s no drug that manipulates the neural pathways to make you take the last 40 quid out of your account to buy a bag of gear. No chemical exists that compels your hands to prepare a needle and shoot up.

You are not forced to inject heroin by your brain or by the drug. You do not become an H-zombie or a mindless smack-taking robot. You remain in control of your actions.

But that does not mean that it’s a simple ‘choice’ to do something different, as if it was like choosing one brand of soft drink over another, or like deciding between going to the cinema or staying at home.

Addiction has a massive effect on people’s choices but not so much by altering the control of actions but by changing the value and consequences of those actions.

Neither Microsoft, Nokia, nor anyone else should fork Android. It’s unforkable. | Ars Technica

Neither Microsoft, Nokia, nor anyone else should fork Android. It’s unforkable. | Ars :


AOSP is far more than the basic bones of a smartphone operating system. It is a complete
smartphone operating system. The examples you provide for what it
includes are very misleading -- what about the launcher, contacts app,
dialer and phone app, calendar app, camera and gallery and on? The fact
is, if you build AOSP today and put it on a phone, you will have a
pretty fully functioning platform.

The thing you don’t have is
stuff related to cloud services, and this is not an evil secret plan of
Google, but a simple fact we have been clear about from the initial
design of the platform: Android as an open-source platform simply can’t
provide any cloud services, because those don’t run on the device where
the platform code runs. This is a key point that seems to be completely
missed. If you want to understand what Android is, how it is designed,
and how the pieces fit together, you must understand this point.

One
of the things that is interesting about platforms today vs. the
traditional desktop is that these cloud services are becoming
increasingly central to the core platform experience. This presents a
special challenge to an open-source platform, which can’t really provide
such cloud services as part of the standard platform implementation.
In Android our solution to this is to design the platform so that cloud
services can plug-in and integrated with it in various ways

Hollywood’s hidden sexism: How casting notices keep beauty standards alive - Salon.com

Hollywood’s hidden sexism: How casting notices keep beauty standards alive - Salon.com: And Louie is one of the more realistic shows on TV these days where female casting is concerned. Across the board, audiences today are subjected daily to female characters who are not, for lack of a better word, ordinary. They are almost always gorgeous, fit, sexy and dating or married to someone not nearly as attractive as they are. Men can be all shapes and sizes on film; women must be hot.



When I talk about this issue with fellow actresses, I’ve gotten a unanimous three-step response: 1) Recognition; 2) a shaking of the head in disgust, immediately followed by 3) a shrugging of the shoulders in defeat. I used to shrug too, and yet I decided to do some research and quickly realized that this discrepancy is lodged deep within the writing and casting processes. And I find myself, as an actress eager to get cast, unable to do anything about the pattern I have spent months charting (except stay fit and spend tons of money on makeup), but wanting to do something about it.

“I Forgot to Remember”: Living with amnesia - Salon.com

“I Forgot to Remember”: Living with amnesia - Salon.com: “She never knew me, and I know nothing of her except what people have told me. She rebelled; I conform. She broke rules; I follow them. She drank and smoked pot; I don’t even know the taste of beer or wine, and the smell of smoke makes me physically ill. I like vegetables; she hated them. She loved to swim; I am absolutely terrified of the water.” These lines, from Su Meck’s new memoir, “I Forgot to Remember,” describe not a long-lost mother or sister or friend, but Su Meck herself, for the first 22 years of her life. Today’s Su Meck has no memory of those years.



 One afternoon in 1988, Meck, a young wife and mother of two living in Fort Worth, Texas, picked up her youngest son with a shout of “Wheeee!” The 8-month-old infant apparently knocked loose a precariously-hung ceiling fan, and the fan fell, striking Su Meck on the head and changing her life forever. “I died in a way,” Meck writes, “and was reborn, in the same physical form but not the same mind.”



As for what happened next, Meck can’t be entirely sure.

The Spectacular Myth of Obama's Part-Time America—in 5 Graphs - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic

The Spectacular Myth of Obama's Part-Time America—in 5 Graphs - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic: Okay, now here's something: Part-time work, as a share of the economy, is historically high. But these graphs don't make the point that Obama, or long-term global economic trends, are driving the rise in non-voluntary part-time work. Instead, the rise of part-time work seem to be 100 percent the creation of economic downturns. That's why it seems to be holding hands with unemployment, riding the roller coaster up during recessions, and down during recoveries.

But what about part-time employment for non-economic reasons?



The story here is short and sweet: There is no story here. The share of Americans working part-time for personal reasons—they're in school; they're raising kids; they're ill—is flat and trending down, according to the San Francisco Fed.

Facetruth: I Took Off My Hijab

Facetruth: I Took Off My Hijab: The power of this experience lies in the fact that it was not an intentional experiment. It happened simply because of the Chiberian weather which required me to cover as much of by body with warm pieces of cloth. Apparently, the type of cloth you place or wrap around your head defines how you will be treated.

I never questioned that I was being given less respect and love, or that I was not as accepted. I always thought that the type of treatment I was exposed to was just how the world was. I didn't know people could be nicer.

Thank you winter. Thank you subzero temperatures.

Jimmy Fallon Exits Stage (Just) Right : Monkey See : NPR

Jimmy Fallon Exits Stage (Just) Right : Monkey See : NPR:










It's hard to view Friday night's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon as a true farewell, since all Fallon is doing is getting the ultimate promotion to The Tonight Show. And he's taking everybody with him.



And yet it is an ending. It's an ending to a five-year tenure that started in the shadow of a lot of skeptics () and a lot of criticism. What I said then was that LNJF's success or failure would be determined by whether his show had "a distinct point of view."



It's
funny now — those words surprised even me when I reread them, because I
had forgotten over the course of five years that I didn't know in 2009
that Jimmy Fallon even had an animating principle, let alone know that
it would turn out to be joy, which is the animating principle of
entirely too little of popular culture. In fact, the show turned out to
be, much of the time, all point of view. Less plugging, more beer pong.
Less anecdote-sharing, more getting Tom Cruise to break eggs on his
head. It's 12:30 in the morning, this show always seemed to be saying. You can learn stuff tomorrow. Everybody here likes each other.

The truth about the Tiger Mother's family | Life and style | The Guardian:

The truth about the Tiger Mother's family | Life and style | The Guardian:

Amy Chua has been accused of many things – a cruel approach to
parenting, gratuitous use of cultural stereotypes, a talent for
sensationalism – but cowardice isn't one of them. She provoked uproar
with her 2011 memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,
charting her unbending rules for raising her daughters, and spent two
years dealing with the fallout, including death threats, racial slurs
and pitchfork-waving calls for her arrest on child-abuse charges.

She might, therefore, have been expected to take an easier road
with her follow-up. Instead, she and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, have
written The Triple Package, which is devoted to one of the most
inflammatory subjects imaginable – why some cultural groups soar ahead
in the US (while others, by implication, fail). The book charts how
three specific qualities, which they argue are essential to success, are
passed down through the generations, often through the family.

It’s Not About Yuppies Anymore: Gentrification Has Changed | The New York Observer

It’s Not About Yuppies Anymore: Gentrification Has Changed | The New York Observer: Wine bars and cafes serving soy lattes are still the grounds on which class battles are fought, but now they are the endangered rather than the invaders, the turf that stands between the ultra high net-worth individuals of the world and everyone else. The gentrification skirmishes in New York today are characterized by upscale restaurant which cannot afford the rents paid by international fashion houses and companies who increasingly see New York stores as a branding necessity rather than a physical place to sell goods. Just as the global elite increasingly see New York as a place to park some of their massive fortunes, rather than as a place to live.

Russians Hit Back at the West: Cool it with the Olympic Schadenfreude | New Republic

Russians Hit Back at the West: Cool it with the Olympic Schadenfreude | New Republic:

Now, Yakunin is a massively corrupt official whose company oversaw a
massively corrupt Olympic railway project, and I'd never thought I'd say
this, but I agree with him.

On
one hand, yes, things are objectively dysfunctional and not ready
despite the fantastic sums spent, and there is objective photographic
evidence of this. On the other, as I prepare for my Moscow-Sochi flight
tomorrow, a lot of this complaining does smack of some pretty fantastic
schadenfreude

Where people run

Where people run: The maps below are what I got, mostly for American cities, but there are a few European cities in there too (alphabetical order). If there's one quick (and expected) takeaway, it's that people like to run by the water and in parks, probably to get away from cars and the scenery. In the smaller inland cities, there seem to be a few high-traffic roads with less running elsewhere.

Bashar al-Assad killing Syrians through starvation: The Syrian dictator is denying food to thousands.

Bashar al-Assad killing Syrians through starvation: The Syrian dictator is denying food to thousands.: To the modern imagination, there is nothing so terrifying as a high-tech weapon. Our horror movies are filled with crashing planes, engineered viruses, and rogue computers that have taken charge of spaceships. Our security nightmares have long been focused on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The phrase we use to describe these contemporary horrors, "weapons of mass destruction," implies something diabolically modern, something so innovative that it can kill thousands in an instant.



But in our obsession with what is terrifyingly new, it seems we have forgotten that there are much older ways to kill large numbers of people. Certainly there is one weapon of mass destruction so ancient and low-tech that it doesn't even involve gunpowder, let alone the lethal tools we so dismissively refer to as conventional weapons. This method is called "starvation."