January 2011
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Weighing the Unknowns in Egypt - Ross Douthat →
The long-term consequences of a more populist and nationalistic Egypt might be better for the United States than the stasis of the Mubarak era, and the terrorism that it helped inspire. But then again they might be worse. There are devils behind every door.
Americans don’t like to admit this. We take refuge in foreign policy systems: liberal internationalism or realpolitik, neoconservatism or...
“But what most men don’t realize is that all women in our society are on the...”
–
Charlie Glickman, The Most Important Thing That Men Who Have Sex With Women Need to Know
(via tulletulle)
Do you get it yet?
(via thevspot)
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“If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than...”
– Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
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Some Days
Calvin: You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.
Hobbes: Well, you've done all you can do.
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More Young Americans Identify as Mixed Race -... →
The crop of students moving through college right now includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States, and they are only the vanguard: the country is in the midst of a demographic shift driven byimmigration and intermarriage.
One in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities, according to data from 2008 and 2009 that was...
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Davos, Cairo, and Rome - a #collapsonomics tale of... →
- Alan Patrick
For years, with my system dynamic modeller’s hat on, I have been fascinated by the systemic forces behind the paths history takes (apparently this branch of study now has a name - Cliodynamics ) and my instinct - not provable yet, but bear with me - is that we are potentially moving towards a situation last seen before the 1930’s move to Totalitarian states. To...
“America doesn’t have friends. America only has interests.”
– - Henry Kissinger cited in Egypt: Mubarak’s Defiance Makes Life Harder for Obama - TIME
(via mikehudack)
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“It was only the second time since Harry S. Truman’s State of the Union address...”
– - Charles Blow, Hard-Knock (Hardly Acknowledged) Life
That’s because Obama is actually a moderate Republican.
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19th century hay barn - Rapin Saiz Architectes
subtilitas:
Finishing off the string of snowbound buildings posted yesterday is a small 19th century hay barn renovation designed by Rapin Saiz Architectes in the Swiss Alps. Charred timber exterior, larch interiors, perfect detailing, not too many other places I’d rather be.
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Ten Things You're Not Allowed to Say at Davos -... →
Perhaps, to time’s unblinking eye, this great crisis isn’t really about financial debt — perhaps that’s just a representation of a deeper set of truths. Perhaps it’s really about the deeper debts we owe to one another, and how failing to honor them has led us to a deeper bankruptcy: an insolvency of character, spirit, ethic, purpose, and above all, wisdom. Hence, perhaps*...
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A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace -... →
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself...
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The Other Congress Declaration | The NSK TIMES →
The Atomic Declaration of Dependence
The state is the manifestation of Kitsch. We hereby disassociate ourselves from your coffee-scented dog-breathed manifestations and unilaterally declare the dissolution of ourselves and the elimination of time through the timelessness of Kitsch. We find your bourgeois adoration of time and form repulsive and degenerate. Suborn yourselves to your pathetic...
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“American conservatives have long used the myth of a failing Europe to argue...”
– - Paul Krugman, Their Own Private Europe
Another example of conservative ideology rewriting facts to support foregone conclusions. They forget Moynihan’s Maxim: ‘Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.’
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A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace -... →
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself...
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What Happened When I Asked AT&T To Reinstate My...
I emailed AT&T, suggesting that since Verizon is trying so hard to get AT&T iPhone customers to switch, and since many have reported being able to get their former unlimited data plans reinstated, I would like to get the old plan back, too, please. No dice.
[via email]
Dear Stowe Boyd, Thank you for taking the time to e-mail AT&T regarding reinstating your unlimited data plan. My...
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Why I Am Not Going To SxSW
I have attended SxSW Interactive a few times, and I’ve found it to be a high-tech Woodstock, without the mud or the music. Just lots of people milling around, and queued up for the parties, the after parties, and the after-after parties.
The selection approach for the talks is all about popularity, and there is no obvious thematic control, and no MC, so the sessions are very uneven. Some...
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“As protests built in the streets of Egypt following the overthrow of Tunisia’s...”
– Mohamed ElBaradei
“I hunger for your sleek laugh and your hands the color of a furious harvest. I...”
– Pablo Neruda (via thechocolatebrigade)
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“Davos…It is a collection of elites generated by the antiquated, hierarchical...”
– John Robb On the Arrival of Neo-Feudalism - Global Guerrillas (via deepthinking)
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“The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or...”
– The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s final report on the financial crisis, cited by Sewell Chan in Financial Crisis Was Avoidable, Inquiry Concludes
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“This is not a bubble, this is a revolution.”
– @bryce
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“If we didn’t have Social Security, we’d have to invent it right now.”
– Roger Hickey, cited by Bob Herbert in Raising False Alarms
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The Tea Party Targets... Sustainable Development?... →
If you believe conservative activists, smart growth is really a global conspiracy to herd Americans into “human habitation zones.”
First, they took on the political establishment in Congress. Now, tea partiers have trained their sights on a new and insidious target: local planning and zoning commissions, which activists believe are carrying out a global conspiracy to trample...
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Just Some Of What The GOP Wants To Cut
The republican congress would like to roll back 100 years of social programs and alternative infrastructure work:
Julia Ramey Serazio, Here’s a List of Things the “Spending Reduction Act of 2011” Would Cut
The “Spending Reduction Act of 2011,” recently released by the Republican Study Committee, was unveiled yesterday by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), and Senator Jim DeMint...
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The Cabbage by Ruth Stone
You have rented an apartment.
You come to this enclosure with physical relief,
your heavy body climbing the stairs in the dark,
the hall bulb burned out, the landlord
of Greek extraction and possibly a fatalist.
In the apartment leaning against one wall,
your daughter's painting of a large frilled cabbage
against a dark sky with pinpoints of stars.
The eager vegetable, opening itself
as if to...
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Home Is So Sad by Phillip Larkin
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.