More recent reading. While that only explains part of where my head's at, this is the sort of post that it easy for me to keep up with, and I suspect easier for some others as well.

Card, Orson Scott. Xenocide. New York: TOR, 1991. ISBN 0-812-50925-0.
I don't generally agree with Card's politics or his religion, but damn was this a good book, in ( Read more... )

Stuff I've been reading in between job listings over the recent Silent Period. Now with Topical Variety!

Weil, Elizabeth. "A Wrongful Birth?." New York Times, 2006-03-17.
The ethics of abortion become murkier as prenatal genetic testing increases and parents begin to sue for not being advised when to abort.
Kjerulf, Alexander. "A faster and ( Read more... )

Thanks to keith418 for the pointer.

Stupidity used to be something to be embarrassed about. But we're going through a phase of stupid pride right now, and it pervades many aspects of our cultural life. People in power, with access to the media, have stumbled onto a great truth: Stupid people long to feel good about themselves. They want to be told that ( Read more... )

Thanks to jetsiva for the tip.

This admittadly biased article is an interesting look at the faith-based religious initiative called Free Trade, why it's never worked, the complete lack of evidence that it ever will, and who's responsible (hint: Thomas Friedman).

Sirota, David. "Where Economics Meets Religious Fundamentalism", San Francisco Chronicle, ( Read more... )

Back in June, thanks to keith418, I posted a link to Hara Estroff Marano's article "A Nation of Wimps" in the Nov/Dec 2004 issue of Psychology Today.

A closely related yet more humourous meme has been making the rounds; rather than adding the two-millionth copy of the same text to the web (most bloggers are such sheep), I will simply link to gentlemanj who pointed ( Read more... )

"The Cold War was the best thing that ever happened to American capitalism, and the collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster for the Eisenhower-named military-industrial complex," [John] Stauber [the founder and executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy] pointed out ( Read more... )

Been a long time since I bothered to subscribe to the finge-left, but found this article to which veleda pointed to be interesting.

Dreyfuss, Robert. "Permanent War: The Iraqi Insurgency and Us." Mother Jones. San Francisco: The Foundation for National Progress, 19 June 2006.
The war in Iraq was not a "mistake." It was a deliberately calculated exercise ( Read more... )

All following URL's accessed today:

Ananda Metteya [Allan Bennett]. "The Training of the Mind." The Equinox. England: n.p., 1911. Vol. 1. No. 5. Ed. William Heidrick. electronic ed. Fairfax, CA: O.T.O., n.d. 28-59. (Instructions on meditation; explanation of karmic rebirth; access to past-life memory.)

Thanks to keith418 for the following ( Read more... )

Wal-Mart is back in the news again, taking the rich for the same ride as the poor:

Gogoi, Pallavi. "Wal-Mart's Luxury Problem." Business Week Online 13 June 2006.

( Read excerpts )

I still love sarcasm, and Colbert is among the best:

"But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spanish, the next thing you know, they’ll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools."
- ( Read more... )