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Category Archives: serious stuff

This gonna happen again, i wonder?

THE BUSINESS PLOT TO OVERTHROW ROOSEVELT In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt’s “First 100 Days,” America’s richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs. The answer was a […]

This guy is not PM material

“My difficulty in taking Ukraine seriously goes deeper than just my cosmopolitan suspicion of nationalists everywhere. Somewhere inside I’m also what Ukrainians would call a great Russian and there is just a trace of old Russian disdain for these little Russians. ” “From my childhood, I remember expatriate Ukrainians nationalists demonstrating in the snow outside […]

“Pirates”

Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates – The Independent Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, […]

Post-professionalism

Design Altruism Project: POSTprofessional A number of years ago, long after I’d left the Scouts, I penned a self-righteous screed criticizing the inherent myths of expertism. I must confess, at the time I was not armed with the most credible objections, and at least one of my grad-school mentors had trouble accepting the apparent irrationality […]

The political ratchet effect

From Stop Me Before I Vote Again: The electoral ratchet permits movement only in the rightward direction. The Republican role is fairly clear; the Republicans apply the torque that rotates the thing rightward. The Democrats’ role is a little less obvious. The Democrats are the pawl. They don’t resist the rightward movement — they let […]

More auto stuff

It was a dead heat. General Motors sold 9.37 million vehicles worldwide in 2007 and lost $38.7 billion. Toyota sold 9.37 million vehicles in 2007 and made $17.1 billion.

Hell yeah, put them all in bankruptcy, cause they are

A Bridge Loan? U.S. Should Guide G.M. in a Chapter 11 First, let’s recognize that G.M. doesn’t need life support. What it needs is Chapter 11. The bankruptcy process is not a bad thing — indeed, it should be embraced. Bankruptcy allows companies to do tough things they could never do in the normal course […]

Barry Goldwater, the Last Smart Republican

Daily Kos: State of the Nation ” […] Then something happened. Nixon played to it of course but it really came into play in the 1990’s and even more this past decade. Republicans turned their backs on smart people. Just like that, being smart was less important than being ‘real’. Being qualified was about being […]

New political AI technology

Interview Sarah Palin Can’t get an interview with Sarah Palin? We’ve got you covered. Q: What is the role of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan? Iraq that John McCain has done, that has to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of government […]

TV is out, Web 2.0 is in

GIN, TELEVISION, AND COGNITIVE SURPLUS: A Talk By Clay Shirky […] People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of the cognitive surplus that’s finally being dragged into what Tim O’Reilly calls an architecture of participation. Now, […]