Archive for the 'Elite' Category
Filling America’s Private Prisons
February 4th, 2012Via: Guardian: In the past few decades, changes in sentencing laws and get-tough-on-crime policies have led to an explosion in America’s prison population. Funding this incarceration binge has been an enormous drain on taxpayer dollars, with some states now spending more to lock up their citizens than to provide their children with education. It’s difficult […]
How America Made Its Children Crazy
February 4th, 2012“It’s not some sci-fi dystopic concern that’s always 20 years out. They’re gunning for your children’s minds with this right now.” —Sorry iBooks, Paper Books Still Win on Specs Via: Asia Times: Learning how to learn is the point of education. We will forget the great majority of specific things we were taught: Euclidean proofs, […]
Why Urban, Educated Parents Are Turning to DIY Education
February 3rd, 2012“Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what […]
Are Teenagers More Doomed Than Usual?
February 3rd, 2012“Once the dumb are wished into existence, they serve valuable functions: as a danger to themselves and others they have to be watched, classified, disciplined, trained, medicated, sterilized, ghettoized, cajoled, coerced, jailed. To idealists they represent a challenge, reprobates to be made socially useful. Either way you want it, hundreds of millions of perpetual children […]
James Cameron Buys Farms, Plans to Move Family to New Zealand
February 1st, 2012Good idea. Via: Stuff: Hollywood movie mogul James Cameron is coming to live in Wairarapa – and he is bringing his family with him. The director of blockbuster films Titanic and Avatar has purchased two large plots of land along Western Lake Rd in south Wairarapa, where he is expected to arrive and live later […]
UC San Diego: Artificial Cell Membranes
January 31st, 2012“Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once – but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control.” —Bill Joy, Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us Via: UCSD: Chemists have taken an important step in making artificial life forms […]
Jailbreaking the Internet
January 31st, 2012Via: Infoworld: If the baboons [6] succeed in constraining speech and information flow on the broader Internet, the new Internet will emerge quickly. For an analogy, consider the iPhone and the efforts of a few smart hackers who have allowed anyone to jailbreak an iPhone with only a small downloaded app and a few minutes. […]
Why Are the Chinese Buying Record Quantities of Gold?
January 31st, 2012Via: Forbes: This month, the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department reported that China imported 102,779 kilograms of gold from Hong Kong in November, an increase from October’s 86,299 kilograms. Beijing does not release gold trade figures, so for this and other reasons the Hong Kong numbers are considered the best indication of China’s gold […]
Freddie Mac Betting Against Struggling Homeowners
January 30th, 2012Via: NPR: Freddie Mac, a taxpayer-owned mortgage company, is supposed to make homeownership easier. One thing that makes owning a home more affordable is getting a cheaper mortgage. But Freddie Mac has invested billions of dollars betting that U.S. homeowners won’t be able to refinance their mortgages at today’s lower rates, according to an investigation […]
FDA Fired Employees Who Warned Congress About Approvals of Dangerous Medical Devices
January 30th, 2012Via: Washington Post: The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show. The surveillance — detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by six […]
