Reconsidering Fukuyama - "In 2004 he became the first of the card-carrying neocons to break ranks and oppose the Iraq War; in 2006 he published a comprehensive history and critique of the neoconservative movement; in 2009 he skewered the economics profession at length in his journal The American Interest; earlier this year, he dedicated an issue to a series of essays exploring the emerging American plutocracy... that through their greed they somehow benefit society... He was not being glib: Much of
his new book,
The Origins of Political Order, is devoted to documenting
the struggles of premodern states to draw up sustainable tax codes.
Long before modernity and the spread of democracy, societies that failed to effectively tax their citizenry were the first to shrivel...
[more inside]
posted by kliuless
on May 14, 2011 -
33 comments
Some Social Scientists Claim Pervasive Bias in the Academe Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities. But the most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”
posted by modernnomad
on Feb 9, 2011 -
180 comments
You can tell if a person is liberal or conservative by how a person responds to your "
gaze cues". Look away at something while you're talking and a liberal will tend to look at it, too. Conservatives are "completely immune" to this effect.
[more inside]
posted by MuadDib
on Dec 9, 2010 -
94 comments
A charity auction whose grand prize was a business lunch with Fox News owner
Rupert Murdoch has been won by
David Brock. Brock is the CEO of
Media Matters, a group consistently
critical of Murdoch.
Auction site Charity Buzz described the auction as a "once in a lifetime chance" to sit with Murdoch "face to face over a friendly lunch and get his feedback firsthand on your proposed business ideas."
It said it was valid for a total of six people and would be held in New York at a "mutually convenient" time with Murdoch covering the cost of lunch.
"Winner will be subject to security screening and background check," it stipulated.
Media Matters founder and chief executive David Brock expects the lunch to go ahead.
"I look forward to this opportunity to have a friendly lunch with Rupert Murdoch, along with five of my invited guests," Brock said in a statement.
"I will soon contact Mr. Murdoch's office to determine a mutually convenient time and place in New York," he added.
posted by Jon_Evil
on Nov 11, 2010 -
33 comments
“There’s a tremendous amount of anxiety among religious traditionalists that when you take one step toward egalitarianism, the floodgates are open and everything that seemed self-evident will no longer be. Men go to work, and women raise children. If you undermine that, you have lost your whole universe.”The Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements of Judaism have been ordaining women as rabbis for decades, but the religion's most traditional sect, the Orthodox, remains a lone, minority holdout against egalitarianism. Last year, Orthodox Rabbi Avraham "Avi" Weiss (political
activist and founder of the
controversial, liberal, "Open Orthodox"
Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Yeshiva in New York)
tried to shake things up by ordaining the first female American Orthodox rabbi.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jul 31, 2010 -
35 comments
"His fiancee smiled and commented, 'Isn't that cute. They have the spirit of giving.' That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine. 'No!' I exclaimed [...] 'They're giving away their parents' things [...] It's not theirs to give.' I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight. '
You must charge something for the lemonade.'"
posted by WCityMike
on Jul 7, 2010 -
124 comments
The
rumours are increasing that there will be a merger between the two left-leaning political parties in Canada, the hapless Liberals under the wooden Michael Ignatieff, and the perennial almost-show New Democrats under the magnificently
mustached Jack Layton. Denials all 'round, of course, but as separate parties they have not managed to take down Stephen Harper and his wiley Conservatives.
posted by anothermug
on Jun 8, 2010 -
117 comments
While much is being made of
dysfunctional government [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9] and
hung parliament [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5], David Cameron's
pitches for a fairer society [
1,
2,
3],
smarter policy [
1,
2,
3] and
employee ownership [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7] have been positively, uh,
Obamanian.
* [more inside]
posted by kliuless
on Mar 5, 2010 -
26 comments
'You could wind up with a page only about porn, executions, and Sarah Palin every day.' A
New Republic profile of no-longer-bowtied Tucker Carlson as he launches
The Daily Caller, a 'right-leaning Huffington Post.'
It may be hard to remember now, staring back through the thick haze of cable-news smackdowns, but, before Carlson embarked on a TV career--and, at various points, even during that TV career--he was a great writer and reporter. His 1999 profile* of George W. Bush for Tina Brown’s short-lived Talk painted a portrait of the then-Texas governor--stubborn, profane, callow--that should have told voters everything they needed to know about why he would be such a terrible president. The piece he wrote for Esquire about traveling to Africa with Sharpton, Cornel West, and other civil rights activists was at once viciously hilarious and bracingly humane, like David Foster Wallace’s or Michael Lewis’s best reportage. At The Weekly Standard, where he worked for much of the 1990s, he was one of the rare writers less consumed with scoring political points than producing quality journalism. [more inside]
posted by shakespeherian
on Feb 18, 2010 -
72 comments
"The crisis is an opportunity to sweep away the rotten postwar settlement of British politics. Labour is moribund. But David Cameron has a chance to develop a "
red Tory" communitarianism, socially conservative but sceptical of neoliberal economics"
[more inside]
posted by doobiedoo
on Feb 15, 2009 -
22 comments
