Our Most Important Civil Right: Telling People What They Can/Can't Do and Who They Can/Can't Love
Minnesota's homophobic wingnuts - the Minnesota Famly Council and National Organization for Marriage - are invoking Martin Luther King in their fight against gay marriage, urging voters to support a GOP candidate who backs the "right to vote" against it, just like, sort of, the great civil rights icon. Twisted and shameful.
"Learned Helplessness" and How Much Money You Can Make From It
A psychologist whose research helped shape the CIA's torture program has been granted a $31-million no-bid military contract to provide "resilience training" to US soldiers, Salon.com reports. Martin Seligman is famous for experiments in which he terrorized caged dogs into passivity by subjecting them to random, repeated electric shocks.
Going Green In Norway
Norway's traditional turf - aka sod or grass - roofs insulate, stabilize, endure and are as green as you can get. They are enjoying a revival thanks to "national romantics" and growing environmental awareness, with an annual award for the best from the Scandinavian Green Roof Association. Very cool. The roots go where...?
Saved, In Essence, By Socialism
The drama that unfolded in Chile as 33 miners were miraculously, meticulously rescued from the depths was riveting. It was not, however, "a smashing victory for free-market capitalism," as claimed by a surreal op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, but a victory for faith, technology and especially competent, caring governance.
"The miners were employees of...an out-of-control, anti-union, government-regulation-defying, safety nightmare corporation...The miners were rescued by a government-sponsored intervention supervised by the state's copper company (and) the expertise of an American government agency."
On Death Panels: Say Your Good-byes Now. For Real.
Jack Black, in Charlie Brown shirt, stars in new videos for Health Care for America Now as misinformant Nathan Spewman, "helping greedy corporations spread the sweet stink of misinformation all across this great land." Pretty funny, in a Jack Black sort of way. Video in More. A Stop Spewman/Stop the Lies site here.
"Obamacare is a Socialist plot to, um...(pause to look at notes on hand)... take decisions out of the hands of our doctors so they're all gonna quit. Bye-bye doctors!"
Doing Exactly As They Have Been Trained
Disturbing videos of detainee abuse - subtle, mental and degrading, not Abu-Ghraib-brutal - have been released by Ethan McCord, the veteran who wrote the "Open Letter of Reconciliation & Responsibility to the Iraqi People" after his Bravo Company's actions were captured in Wikileaks' "Collateral Murder" video. Their behavior, he stresses, is the norm.
"While your anger may initially be placed with the soldiers in the videos, I think your anger should be directed towards the system that trained them."
The Eternal Life Of A Happy (If Lethal) Meal
Artist and photographer Sally Davies bought a McDonald's burger and fries on April 26. She left it on a table, uncovered, for six months. Through a New York City summer. After 180 days, it looked exactly the same - no mold, no bugs, no decomposition - except for a slight "acrylic sheen." We report. You decide if you want to eat this stuff.
Brave New World of Anomaly Detection
The military's high-tech Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency hopes to identify the next Fort Hood or Wikileaks candidate before, not after, they act by going through data to find "malevolent insiders that started out as ‘good guys.'" Alas, the so-called Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales project may or may not be able to reliably predict future behavior by sifting through your emails.
