August 2009
WatchBill Moyers and Bill Maher. Politico expands on Moyers’ comments:
“The problem is the Democratic Party,” said Moyers. “This is a party that has told its progressives — who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform — to sit down and shut up. That’s what Rahm Emanuel, in effect, the chief of staff of the White House, told progressives when they stood up as...
WatchNina Paley discusses distribution of Sita Sings the Blues. This movie is truely magical. Everyone should see it and make a donation to Nina.
“Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying. Nothing ponderous, or...”
– Aldous Huxley, Quoted in “Editorial.” The psychedelic review. 1964, 1(3), p.273. (via pleasedontsqueezetheshaman)
“Defense orders are up 14.8%, again putting a fork in the Democrat/Liberal dreams...”
– Durable Gains CFC And Defense Related | Market-Ticker
Why finish the job (what defines success in this war anyway?) when you can milk it for all it’s worth? Defense spending is single handedly propping up half our economy. What are all those Army Reserves going to do for work between their 1...
“He watched her. He took his time.
Had he known that he was about to enter a...”
– The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (via lastchatwithphontaine)
Seven Points on the CIA Report— Worst is yet to... →
ledgergermane:
The worst is yet to come. Yesterday the CIA released a fresh copy of the report with roughly half of the “case study” discussion now unmasked. But context and placement suggest that the material that remains concealed contains some of the worst discussion of abuse in the report. The heavy redactions start around page 25, and the redactions cover discussion of the origins of the...
“I remain convinced at this juncture that unless something major changes in...”
– Karl Denninger | Market-Ticker (via poortaste)
New Measure of Human Brain Processing Speed →
A new way to analyze human reaction times shows that the brain processes data no faster than 60 bits per second. [Err … the article is more about how the brain’s processing speed in non-linear.]
“When psychiatrists lament that over half of depressed people are...”
– Why anthropologists should politicize mental illnesses (via alohanico) (via igather)
Making Dogs Smarter Than Humans →
When the smarter thing is able to make itself way smarter, it soon—perhaps almost instantly—will proceed to take control of systems around it, upgrading them as well, using its rapidly and recursively improving brain to solve problems in ways that humans never could. Before long, global warming will be a thing of the past, poverty and disease will be conquered, abundant energy will be sustainable...
How To: Kick Your Torrent Addiction With Usenet →
(via jhnbrssndn)
“What conclusion can we draw?
To invite the gods ruins our relationship with...”
– Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (via pleasedontsqueezetheshaman)
WatchImogen Heap - Illipse [This is her new CD in a music player from Soundcloud. The video post in Tumblr seems to be able to display it.]
So many amplifying methane feedbacks, so little... →
So the fact that the permafrost is now permamelt becomes a concern truly second to none. More worrying still is that the melting is not the product of a single positive (or amplifying) feedback but, at a minimum, a tag team of three feedbacks each reinforcing each other while attacking from different angles: Land, Sea and Air. There is a comprehensive and devastating attack underway on the...
“It’s so hard. Everyone lives in his or her own world. You don’t realize how...”
– William T. Vollmann (via cousas)
“I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically...”
– Matt Taibbi (via retropolitics)
“People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to...”
– Eric Hoffer | The True Believer (via retropolitics)
“But as for certain truth, no man has known it, nor will he know it; neither of...”
– Xenophanes, quoted by Karl Popper in “The Beginnings of Rationalism” and cited by the excellent Matt Young (who, along with Superfluidity, will surely have wiser commentary on Popper than I ever did).
The quote in full:
The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black while the the...
Download The Pirate Bay…From The Pirate Bay →
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast...”
– Terry Pratchett (via lastchatwithphontaine)
Testing The Pirate Bay’s Darknet, IPREDator →
IPREDator also suggests two notable things about the future of file-sharing: One, that “darknets” of network traffic hidden behind proxies and encryption may well make unofficial distribution even easier and less risky for users; and two, that sites like The Pirate Bay, which stand accused of profiting from copyright infringement, might be able to subsidize their non-commercial distribution...
Watchpoortaste:
Elizabeth Warren “We Have A Real Problem Coming”
Elizabeth Warren, head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, which yesterday released quite a sobering report on the true state of the banking industry, explains what is really going on with the increasingly irrelevant balance sheets of the bailout banks (all of them). Once again underscores what a farce the stress test was, the...