Over at the New York Magazine website there's a strange article about how John Stewart's Daily Show is becoming the media outlet of choice for "neo-cons" in US politics. The reason? Because he actually listens and engages them. Right-wing media reps tend to only look for validation of their own views, and left-wing media reps tend to be on the ( Read more... )

From jkahane comes this link to an article about an interesting idea - "decivilization". Simply put, it's the opposite of urban sprawl. The example given is the city of Flint, Michigan, which in the last 20 or 30 years has been ravaged by the bad times of the auto sector, but not rewarded by the boom times. They're talking about "consolidating" the ( Read more... )

You know your life is bad when the closest you've ever been to getting a suprise party is an intervention.

I was watching Stargate: SG-1 tonight (one of the benefits of being in the USA is that most hotels here carry the Sci-Fi network), and I was thinking about all the people who disparage fans of science fiction. This is unfortunate, because I think that science fiction has a value that is largely overlooked by society. There's a reason why some ( Read more... )

Ever hear how you boil a frog? You don't plunk him into boiling water, because he'd kick up a complete fuss. Instead, you put him into lukewarm water, let him swim around, and slowly turn up the heat ( Read more... )

Just had a strange thought - it might be better if everyone could learn to change their mind about something. I think that, if everyone forced themselves to "change their mind" at least once a day about something (that is, reconsider a course of action once it was already chosen), it might be easier for us to change our minds on really big things ( Read more... )