Psychology has scientifically proven • advocates of the 'hard right', the Apostles of the ultraconservatism, the free market fundamentalists are dangerous types. Psychopaths cannot be transformed by Love. The moment we become affected emotionally by anything that is not love based, we become a destructive force.


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Something big seems to be coming up. Is it possible that we are at the threshold of a technological revolution that would entirely overhaul the way we live, work and communicate? Many experts and analysts believe that this is indeed the case. To such an extent that the so called Fourth Industrial Revolution has become one of the key topics of the ( Read more... )

Interesting overview of the issue of the clash of civilizations that many have been talking about in recent times. It also mentions Huntington's concept of the "swing civilizations": essentially fault lines between core civilizations which are doomed to remain conflict points for a long time. He speaks of "bloody borders", where blood will spill ( Read more... )

First, let's start with the article, and a few choice quotes:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/87719/princeton-concludes-what-kind-of-government-america-really-has-and-it-s-not-a-democracy

"A new scientific study from Princeton researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page has finally put some science behind the recently popular argument that the ( Read more... )

First there was this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17837325
And then there's this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25346140

At first, the German province of Bavaria, which still holds the copyright on Hitler's Mein Kampf, had been planning to publish the book once more - but not to popularize its ideas, rather to show its real ( Read more... )

Whoever has made observation on the characters of nations will find it generally true that the manners of a nation, or of a party, can be better ascertained from the character of its press than from any other public circumstance.

-Thomas Paine

Once again, I tripped over a tired trope tossed like a caltrop on an online discussion, the myth that ( Read more... )

One of the pivotal moments in human history occurred when an Italian mathematician published a polemical essay implying that everything known at the time was wrong. It was such a powerful work that it was ruthlessly suppressed by the people most at risk of falling out of favor in the eyes of the populace. Although clergy were clearly caught in ( Read more... )

I recently tripped on yet another rhetorical caltrop in an online discussion thread, a seemingly off-handed observation that sought to quiet the Sturm und Drang of yet another whiner (this whiner being myself); it was the notion that "advertising has . . . been the fuel for art and entertainment for decades, if not centuries." And while yes, this ( Read more... )

(I'll try to make this money-ish post brief. As Twain noted of the Bible, fiscal policy is like chloroform in print form. This should, however, show that knowing the actual monetary creation process can take the sting out of what you are about to read.)

Steve Roth at The Angry Bear notes a growing trend among monetary policy wonks: maybe, just ( Read more... )

Over a year and a half ago, the economics blog Calculated Risk posted this handy chart:


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