Trending Upward - By Michael C. Horowitz and Philip E. Tetlock | Foreign Policy

Trending Upward - By Michael C. Horowitz and Philip E. Tetlock | Foreign Policy: The next 15 years will witness the transformation of North Korea and resulting elimination of military tensions on the peninsula. No, this is not our rosy assessment of Northeast Asian politics or the reformist goals of Kim Jong Un. It was the verbatim prediction of the senior-most officials in the U.S. intelligence community -- 15 years ago. Needless to say, the Stalinist regime, though hardly the picture of health, remains untransformed. In fact, Pyongyang has since tested nuclear weapons, and relations between North and South show little sign of improving; military tensions are high.
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One suspects the analysts who wrote that line regret it. But the truth is that prediction is hard, often impossible.

The Washington Monthly - The Magazine - A Malevolent Forrest Gump

The Washington Monthly - The Magazine - A Malevolent Forrest Gump: Today Strom Thurmond’s name brings to mind two sentiments: revulsion and disgrace. Here was a racist hypocrite who denounced the intermixing of black and white while secretly paying hush money to his own biracial daughter. He never apologized for his years as a segregationist, and even had the nerve later in life to deny that they ever occurred. Thurmond’s association was toxic enough to cost Trent Lott his position as Senate majority leader in 2002, when Lott suggested during an unguarded moment that the United States would have been a better place had Thurmond been elected president in 1948.

Yet as Joseph Crespino demonstrates in his outstanding biography, Strom Thurmond’s America, it is precisely Thurmond’s loathsomeness on racial issues that obscures his larger role in American politics. Like some malevolent Forrest Gump, Thurmond was there at all the major choke points of modern conservative history: the 1948 breakaway from the Democrats of the short-lived States’ Rights Democratic (or Dixiecrat) Party, Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon’s southern strategy in 1968, and Ronald Reagan’s ascendance in 1980.

Facebook Investors Know Exactly Whom to Blame - Bloomberg

Facebook Investors Know Exactly Whom to Blame - Bloomberg: As for investing advice for the masses, particularly on newly minted stocks, Cuban said: “You don’t know enough to invest in individual stocks. You are gambling. If that suits you, great. Go for it. You might win. But realize that no one sells stocks expecting you to make money on the deal.”

So who is to blame if you lost money on Facebook? The fault is entirely your own. This isn’t a game for crybabies.

Obama/Gitmo

Quote For The Day II:
The Government wants to place itself as the sole arbiter of when a habeas petitioner is 'seeking' to challenge their own detention and when a habeas case is 'impending,' and thus when they can have access to counsel. But access to the Court means nothing without access to counsel.' The MOU actually gives the Government final, unreviewable power to delay, hinder, or prevent access to the courts. Moreover, the Government actions thus far demonstrate that it cannot be trusted with such power," - Judge Royce Lamberth, striking down the Obama administration’s scheme to restrict access to counsel for prisoners at Guantánamo through a "memorandum of understanding" which habeas lawyers were being coerced to sign, in a ruling yesterday. More here.

Revisiting Robbers Cave: The easy spontaneity of intergroup conflict | Literally Psyched, Scientific American Blog Network

Revisiting Robbers Cave: The easy spontaneity of intergroup conflict | Literally Psyched, Scientific American Blog Network: The groups themselves were highly similar. They’d been previously matched as closely possible for things like height and weight, athleticism and popularity outside of camp, previous camp experience and musicality, and so on. To an outside eye, they were just your typical kids arriving for a relaxing stay at summer camp.

In reality, they were no such thing. They were instead the subjects in what has since become one of the most famous studies in social psychology—specifically, the area devoted to intergroup relations: Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment. The goal of the study was multifold: to see how quickly group identity could become established among strangers, how fixed or flexible that identity was, how it would play out in competitive settings with other groups, and how the group conflict dynamic could be mitigated after the fact.

Excerpt: Read Part of Kurt Eichenwald’s 500 Days | Vanity Fair

Excerpt: Read Part of Kurt Eichenwald’s 500 Days | Vanity Fair: A report summarizing the conversations was sent to David Manning, Blair’s foreign policy advisor, and Jack Straw, the foreign secretary. Straw was bowled over by what he read. The Americans seemed to be planning a war based on a wishful thinking that bordered on fantasy. There was nothing to suggest they understood the magnitude and complexity of military action against Iraq, and they seemed to have reverted to the mindset that, if other nations didn’t see it their way, they would just go it alone.

On July 8, Straw prepared a three-page memo to Blair deriding the American plans as fatally flawed by logical inconsistencies and pie-in-the-sky assumptions.

The Bush Administration had “no strategic concept for the military plan and, in particular, no thought apparently given to ‘day after’ scenarios,” Straw wrote.

How Google Builds Its Maps -- And What It Means for the Future of, Well, Everything

How Google Builds Its Maps -- And What It Means for the Future of, Well, Everything:

Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view. The deep map contains the logic of places: their no-left-turns and freeway on-ramps, speed limits and traffic conditions. This is the data that you're drawing from when you ask Google to navigate you from point A to point B -- and last week, Google showed me the internal map and demonstrated how it was built. It's the first time the company has let anyone watch how the project it calls GT, or "Ground Truth," actually works.

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AP Fact-Checks Clinton By Pointing Out That He Lied Once:

CLINTON: "Their campaign pollster said, 'We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.' Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself — I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad."

THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were "legally accurate" but also allowed that he "misled people, including even my wife."

Why Bill Clinton's Speeches Succeed

Why Bill Clinton's Speeches Succeed: Because he treats listeners as if they are smart.

The main other place you hear discussion based on the same assumption that people of any background, education level, or funny-sounding accent can understand sophisticated back-and-forth of argument and counter-claim is sports-talk radio. ("I understand the concern about Strasburg's arm. But ... ") You hear insults and disagreements and put-downs on sports-talk discussions. You rarely hear the kind of deliberate condescension, the unconcealable effort as if talking to slow learners, of many political "authorities" addressing the unwashed.

[...]

Different people have different natural modes for their speech, and not many people can pull it off just the way Clinton does. But Clinton reminds us of the value (and rarity) of this tone in politics -- and the next time you listen to a sports-talk channel, think how much better our political discussion would be if participants assumed as much sophistication about argument as ESPN and radio-talk hosts do.

What Bill Clinton Wrote vs. What Bill Clinton Said - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

What Bill Clinton Wrote vs. What Bill Clinton Said - Politics - The Atlantic Wire: Now, People ask me all the time how we delivered got four surplus budgets in a row. What new ideas did we bring to Washington? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If — arithmetic! If they stay with a $5 trillion tax cut plan — in a debt reduction plan? — the arithmetic tells us no matter what they say that one of three things will is about to happen:

Paralympics Fever by Nicole Gelinas - City Journal

Paralympics Fever by Nicole Gelinas - City Journal: Thanks in part to NBC’s conviction that American viewers aren’t interested in the event, most of us likely don’t know that the Paralympics are not the Special Olympics. The Special Olympics represent a worthy cause: supporting intellectually challenged people and their families by boosting capabilities and self-esteem through sports. The Paralympics are neither a charity nor a cause. Like their Olympian counterparts, Paralympians aren’t interested in anything but medaling. Athletes win or lose gold, silver, and bronze—and are thus exhilarated or disappointed—according to their own work, talent, equipment, and luck. Nobody “wins” here just because he or she is missing a limb or two.

Coming Soon: Artificial Limbs Controlled by Thoughts: Scientific American

Coming Soon: Artificial Limbs Controlled by Thoughts: Scientific American: If we succeed in meeting still formidable challenges, the first ceremonial kick of the World Cup game may be made by a paralyzed teenager, who, flanked by the two contending soccer teams, will saunter onto the pitch clad in a robotic body suit. This suit—or exoskeleton, as we call it—will envelop the teenager's legs. His or her first steps onto the field will be controlled by motor signals originating in the kicker's brain and transmitted wirelessly to a computer unit the size of a laptop in a backpack carried by our patient.

How I Quantified Myself - IEEE Spectrum

How I Quantified Myself - IEEE Spectrum: By the end of my experiment, I’d realized that mere data probably isn’t enough to motivate me either. The stats made it clear that less alcohol and more exercise would improve my sleep. But lazing about the house with my husband, my son, and a glass of wine is my favorite thing to do, and I suspect that no amount of data will make me change my ways. Obsessing over my health data, however, was a much easier habit to kick. After two months of quantifying and analyzing, it felt blissful to unstrap all my monitors, forget about my daily stats, and just fall asleep.

Still Separate and Unequal - Rhena Catherine Jasey - The American Interest Magazine

Still Separate and Unequal - Rhena Catherine Jasey - The American Interest Magazine: As an educator who has taught in public schools for nine years, I can tell you something that only other teachers and professional educators really understand: You’re mistaken. An educational system doesn’t work like a vending machine, or like any machine or business delivering a product for consumption. Money matters, to be sure, but the labor and material resources money buys are only necessary but far from sufficient components for educating our children properly. Our educational system is far more complex than even very attentive outsiders can grasp, and it is, moreover, not an independent actor by any means. What goes on in the homes of students and in the wider society matters enormously to educational outcomes. Few ardent supporters of public education really understand what it takes to provide high-quality learning opportunities for children in a public school classroom, and for that reason few are aware of the vast chasm between public school systems that are well provisioned to do so and those that aren’t.

Joe Biden Isn’t Finished

Joe Biden Isn’t Finished: But the truth about Biden is, in fact, more subtle and complex: that his greatest asset, what Obama strategist David Axelrod calls his “bluntness and ebullience,” is equally his gravest liability; that his old-school m.o. makes him almost uniquely unsuited to this postmodern political-media moment; that in a culture that pines ardently for authenticity and then punishes it cruelly, his utter incapacity for phoniness (and, yes, his grievous inability to control his yap) endows him with enormous charm and guile—and also renders him a human IED.

Tutu spends some capital

Why I had no choice but to spurn Tony Blair | Desmond Tutu | Comment is free | The Observer: The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Instead of recognising that the world we lived in, with increasingly sophisticated communications, transportations and weapons systems necessitated sophisticated leadership that would bring the global family together, the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us.

I shall always be with you

On June 8th of 1950, nine months after being arrested by the Czech secret police on suspicion of leading a plot to overthrow the Communist regime, 48-year-old socialist politician Milada Horáková was found guilty of "high treason" following a show trial that was broadcast on national radio, and in which she remained defiant. On the 27th of that month, despite international outcry and a petition signed by, amongst others, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill, Milada Horáková was executed at Prague's Pankrác Prison.

The night before her death, she wrote the following letter to her 16-year-old daughter....

It's Becoming Clear That No One Actually Read Facebook's IPO Prospectus Or Mark Zuckerberg's Letter To Shareholders - Business Insider

It's Becoming Clear That No One Actually Read Facebook's IPO Prospectus Or Mark Zuckerberg's Letter To Shareholders - Business Insider: As Facebook's stock continues to collapse, the volume of whining is increasing.

Four months ago, you will recall, Facebook was viewed as "the next Google." Now, with no major change in the fundamentals, it's viewed as an over-hyped disaster. Meanwhile, there is ever-louder grumbling that 26-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in over his head and should be relieved of command.

As I listen to all this whining, I have a simple question:

Didn't anyone even read Facebook's IPO prospectus?

The answer, I can only assume, is "no."

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Supersonic Flying Wing Nabs $100,000 from NASA | Bidirectional Flying Wing Aircraft | Innovationnewsdaily.com: Zha's bidirectional flying wing kicks the general concept up a notch by essentially laying two flying wings on top of one another at a 90 degree angle, so that the aircraft faces one way for subsonic flight and rotates another way for supersonic flight. [Supersonic Biplane Design Stops Sonic Booms]

The midair transformation allows the aircraft to fly in its most fuel-efficient modes at both subsonic and supersonic speeds, Zha explained. Jet engines located on top of the aircraft in concept illustrations appear to rotate independently of the aircraft so that they can always point forward in flight.

BBC News - Cardinal Carlo Martini says Church '200 years behind'

BBC News - Cardinal Carlo Martini says Church '200 years behind': Catholics lacked confidence in the Church, he said in the interview. "Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our religious rites and the vestments we wear are pompous."

Unless the Church adopted a more generous attitude towards divorced persons, it will lose the allegiance of future generations, the cardinal added. The question, he said, is not whether divorced couples can receive holy communion, but how the Church can help complex family situations.

And the advice he leaves behind to conquer the tiredness of the Church was a "radical transformation, beginning with the Pope and his bishops".