Would you let that happen to you?

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/12/how-buttsecks-works.html
Ridiculous comment by a legislator.

There's a big difference between banning something, and choosing yourself.

Linkstorm: Part 1

How Macroeconomics Lost Its Way - Charles Rowley

Well, gentlemen, I should like to ask whether you have ever contemplated the possibility that the central postulate of each of your models – rational expectations – is the problem. Should not models whose predictions are consistently falsified by the evidence be discarded in favor of alternative models? Is that not the logic of scientific discovery?”

Efficiency and the Utilization of Space - Space is Still a Frontier

Power corrupts those who think they deserve it. Doesn't have as strong an effect on those who feel undeserving of it.

Prop 8 Lawyers Have No Idea How Same-Sex Marriage Could Harm Anything.

The $28 Foot
Cheap artificial foot.

Coordination is hard.

The key thing to understand is: governance is hard, especially in a democracy. Fundamentally, this is because coordination is hard.

Shallow voter cures. I'm not convinced these are good ideas, but shallow voters are a problem, and these proposals are interesting food for thought.

The Critical Nonexpert's Dilemma

In the fields in which we lack expertise, we must defer to the opinions of others, but we would be foolish to throw away our critical thinking skills. This applies especially for policy questions in which experiment is either not possible, or far too costly.

Below is a link to idea about how to deal with this dilemma. I don't really like it, but it looks a lot better than going into an unfamiliar field without a plan.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/01/weighing-scientists.html

Don't You Want to Become a Cult Leader?

Via Play This Thing
There is also an essay on free video games as cults - but the video is definitely worth checking out.

Both Sides

SMBC Theater presents: Both Sides

One of the Pitfalls of Casting Yourself as a Hero

In life, we all have to create a story to describe what we do, and why we do it. This imaginative act is required for motivation and meaning in life. Casting yourself as a hero can be a very profound experience, but we should take a lesson from Quixote.

Most of us have forgotten about the Satanism scare of the 1980's which continues to influence fundamentalist Christianity, weaving in global conspiracies and Black Masses. Mike Warnke gained a following by claiming to ex-Satanist high priest, converted to evangelical Christianity.

In Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media and the Mike Warnke Scandal, Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott write about Warnke's audience ignoring:

... the nature of evil as a banal mystery, profoundly meaningless ... Instead it was a grand chess game with Christian and Satanist scooting about the board, a cartoon version of the demonic which left actual evil, a personal as well as corporate matter, virtually untouched.

Via Slacktivist

Stewert Brand's 4 factions in the climate debate

Stewert Brand's 4 factions in the climate debate

Two Articles by Other People on American Force

The American Conversative article - No Exit

And the commentary.

Security Mindset

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/how-safe-is-safe-enough/
A great essay on the security mindset - which doesn't totally disparage those working to keep us safe.

Transhumanist Link roundup - Dr. House, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson

Pathology Procedes Potential?

Elvis Presley, Transhumanist?

Paul Graham

I just found Paul Graham online - I don't really understand what he's all about yet.

However, he has written an excellent essay on moral fashions.

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Income Inequality Over Time

Via Daily Kos

There are a large number of people, among whom I number, who believe that extreme income inequalities are not good for society. A large part of that, for me is the power disparity - after a certain amount of wealth money begins to transition from stuff to status and then to power over others.

The idea has been advanced that disparities of wealth stimulate the economy by providing incentive, but I wonder to what degree this scales with increasing wealth - must everyone have a 15-20% larger carrot dangled in front of them for motivation?. While I dislike redistributionism in its purest forms, the richest of the rich can only obtain their extreme wealth by skimming off the top of large numbers of people - either through the monopsonistic powers of their company as employer, or their monopolistic powers as sellers.

PS
I don't wholeheartedly feel that is the governments job to do this. It is my strong suspicion that CEOs don't really have the effect on their companies that Boards of Directors seem to feel that they have, and think that they should be the ones to address that first. Color me crazy - but they seem like an insulated group that mostly trust the opinions of others like them - so you have the strong possibility of intellectual incest. Also, consider three factors - that success in business is often deeply affected by unknown (both known and unknown), that Boards are comprised of people used to having power, and that people in general (except when avoiding blame) don't like to admit to having little power. I think what they are paying for is the external and internal illusion of control.

It remains my contention that many of the problems to which government solutions are sought can be addressed by people doing their jobs more conscienciously. Barring that, I really don't mind the idea of 70% marginal income tax for the highest tax brackets.

Wolf in sheep's clothing ad

This one is pretty weird.
via Salon

Karen Armstrong

Blame it on Nietzsche

Karen Armstrong's A History of God blames Nazi anti-semitism on Nietzche, characterizes Nazi's as atheistic rather than as Christians (an strange form of Christianity mixed with elements of Germanic mythology, but still Christian).

Of course, this isn't new - but you'd hope it would die out eventually. Really, Karen?

Link Roundup

The Web and The Orchard - Dangers of Apple's Rise

The Turtleneck Hairshirt

Man asks volunteers to carry him up Manhattan for 9.4 miles

In Times of Crisis (Or International Scrutiny), Police Corruption Wanes

Miraculous Conception (or Just Very Improbable)

Prop 8 Case: Defense Witness Argues For the Prosecution (near the bottom of the article)

Jesus Makes Things So Hard On Me

More Praise of Jimmy Carter: It's About Time

The Slow Death of Due Process: The Forfeiture Racket