Secrets and Lies

oh wow

2013-06-19T12:34:31Z

How the 9:30 Club looked in the 1940s.

engineering the future

2013-06-18T22:44:51Z

"The kids who ended up incarcerated were 13 percentage points less likely to graduate high school and 22 percentage points more likely to end up back in prison as adults than the kids who went to court but were placed under, say, home monitoring instead. (This was after controlling for family background and so forth.) Juvenile detention appeared to be creating criminals, not stopping them."

quick hit

2013-06-18T00:03:04Z

"Australian archaeologists using remote-sensing technology have uncovered an ancient city in Cambodia that has remained hidden for more than a millennium under dense jungle undergrowth."

Kafka, patented genes, and Game of Thrones

2013-06-15T18:59:17Z

SATURDAY NEWS:
* The economic recovery isn't helping young people much at all.
* "Kafka, not Orwell, can help us understand the problems of digitized mass surveillance."
* In case you missed it, the Supreme Court rules that human genes cannot be patented.
* On the president and the 'teen daughter' problem.
* Five myths about privacy.
* Governor Perry goes against his own legislature to veto equal pay bill in Texas. Seriously?
* "People change their views depending on which party is in power, and not based on objective conditions on the ground."
* Explaining season three of Game of Thrones in infographics.

Private intelligence, Kansas, and the universe

2013-06-14T16:58:27Z

FRIDAY NEWS:
* Andrew Cohen notes that Congress should simply end their authorization for the War on Terror.
* Kevin Drum on the march towards intervention in Syria.
* "Rogue state: how far-right fanatics hijacked Kansas."
* "The private-intelligence boom, by the numbers."
* "If you are not around people who will look at you like you are crazy when you make stupid claims about other people's experiences, then you tend to keep saying stupid things about other people's experiences."
* Holy cats. A new 3D video map of the known local universe.

Food stamps and Syria

2013-06-13T18:52:19Z

FAST FIVE:
* "Obama's options in Syria are awful. But the United States is headed for intervention anyway."
* Congress seeks to cut food stamps, just when people need the program most.
* The Republican fixation on Obamacare is damaging the party brand.
* All hail! Netflix plans to add multiple user profiles for accounts.
* Oh my. The concept art for the Akira live-action film (that isn't happening) is rather compelling.

today's digby

2013-06-13T11:53:40Z

"I don't have the answer to how to fix institutions - I think they are so corrupted at the moment that it's going to more than a few new rules - but I do believe that we are probably better off relying on our messy, imperfect system of competing interests, at least until we figure this out. The press and the government should be antagonistic. The congress and the executive need to guard their prerogatives. The people need to be suspicious and push back on encroaching religious power and moneyed interests. It's important not to let any of these failing institutions, least of all the massive police power of the state, completely have the upper hand. That way rarely works out well for the folks.

"The system is chaotic and doesn't lend itself to orderly progress. But that's how its designed and lately I've had a fuller appreciation for the enlightenment principles that informed it: self-determinism, consent of the governed, that the government's role is to protect the rights of its citizens as much as provide physical security."

Financialization and losing climate change

2013-06-12T19:08:59Z

SOME NEWS:
* Interesting: how financialization is a threat to the modern world.
* Dan Drezner on the surveillance state and trust.
* No, the Tea Party groups don't have a good legal case against the IRS.
* The creeping sense that we've already lost the fight against climate change.
* Cracked.com presents six deadly animals too cute to run away from.

all glory to #5

2013-06-11T22:54:00Z

As seen elsewhere, Matt Smith be leaving the role of Doctor Who. Tonight's fun read is the eleven 'other doctors' from the show.

[Spoilers from the most recent episodes, to boot.]

G-rated, the filibuster, and California

2013-06-10T20:10:50Z

CAN'T TRUST THAT DAY:
* 108,000 private contractors are in Afghanistan and we have no idea what they're doing."
* A plea for Republicans to save the filibuster.
* Ever wondered how politics in California got messed up? Let's look back 35 years...
* What if even kids don't want to see G movies anymore?
* Nice read: the story behind the filming of that one big scene in Game of Thrones. (Courtesy Eric, I think.)

Civil liberties, slut shaming, and conspiracy theories

2013-06-08T19:36:23Z

SATURDAY NEWS:
* Why we can't ignore the conspiracy theorists.
* "Obama is bad on civil liberties, but that shouldn't surprise anyone."
* "We shouldn’t have to wait for an abuse of power to know that the NSA's snooping has gone too far."
* "The Republican Party is broken, and fixing it is the only way to bring long-term sanity to our politics."
* Russel Brand on reacting to terrorism. (Good read, and I am no fan of his.)
* Good read: Ta-Nehisi Coates on the advise he gives to kids in school today.
* "Slut shaming and concern trolling in geek culture."
* Big data: how Google can predict how well a movie will do at the box office.

The NSA, Steubenville, and fight scenes

2013-06-07T18:23:47Z

FRIDAY NEWS:
* The protests in Turkey claim a very modern persona. Bonus: BAGnewsNotes on the 'lady in red' and iconography. Also, how tear gas is the unifying factor.
* The NSA information-gathering is starting to sound familiar.
* "If convicted for hacking a Steubenville football fan site, he could face 10 years. The rapists got one and two."
* Fighting the ALEC agenda: always check the sources.
* "The College Republicans National Committee report focuses on the GOP's image problem. It's way more fundamental than that."
* Credit where it's due: even Scalia gets it right once in a while.
* Neat: John Rogers explains why you should never write action scenes into your movies.

In Theaters: Now You See Me

2013-06-07T14:59:59Z

It's one thing when a movie is just bad, but it's another when a movie is rather enjoyable, but finds a way to squander all those good feelings. Now You See Me is mostly a great summer movie. The plot is a little thin, and they opt for more special effects than you'd expect, but it's got a great pace to the action, and the actors are highly compelling. Jesse Eisenberg may not have great range, but he does what he does well. And I am now, formally, a Woody Harrelson fan. Right up to the end, it's a great movie, and one I'd have recommended to pretty much anyone looking for a summer action thriller. But then, dude, I don't know. They manage to completely blow the ending, and in a way that would have needed a completely different ending written. It wouldn't have been tough, either, but yeah. Sours the whole process. Catch it on cable some night when you don't really care what you're watching.

Malnutrition, privacy, and bad actors

2013-06-06T17:00:39Z

FAST FIVE:
* "Malnutrition is responsible for 45% of the global deaths of children under the age of five."
* Conor Friedersdorf on the loss of American privacy due to negligence.
* Defusing the debate on the costs of Obamacare for the average American.
* How to identify bad actors in your TV shows, and a needed follow-up.
* The changing landscape for the TV critic.

if you read one thing today

2013-06-06T12:13:28Z

"Student loan debt is just flatly out of control. I understand why this has happened, and I understand why it's hard to get a handle on, but we're going to regret it if we don't do something about this. We're training a whole generation to be wary of going to college, and for those who do, we're forcing them to start out their lives living under a mountain of debt. This is a recipe for disaster."

cheetahmaster @ 2013-06-05T15:19:00

2013-06-05T19:19:07Z

FAST ~~FIVE~~ FOUR:
* "Basically, in this analysis there are four especially powerful and pernicious overarching economic and political mechanisms operating. These are privatization, financialization, militarization, and criminalization, which together are producing a steadily creeping authoritarianism—a new authoritarianism—to fit our times."
* Solid read: Kevin Drum on the latest attempt to cut food benefits for the poor.
* The 'school reform' types are wrong. It all comes down to economics.
* Japanese Twin Peaks coffee commercials.

meanwhile

2013-06-04T23:01:02Z

"Civil war is re-erupting in Iraq. Sectarian violence, mainly Sunnis killing Shiites, is soaring to levels not seen since the deadliest days of the American occupation. More than 1,000 civilians were killed in May, up from 700 in April. This falls well short of the era’s peak, at the end of 2006, just before the U.S. troop-surge, when monthly death tolls climbed three to four times as high. Yet the trend is unsettling, and its cause all too familiar."

and

"Photos from the anti-government protests in Turkey"

cheetahmaster @ 2013-06-03T12:29:00

2013-06-03T16:29:45Z

"This giant chart shows where all our greenhouse gases come from."

Turkey, TV dramas, and an awesome genderswap

2013-06-01T18:43:48Z

SATURDAY SIX:
* Riots flare up in Turkey.
* Corporate profits reach another record high, while wages reach new lows.
* Examining the economic success of Houston.
* "Sorry, there's been no economic recovery for poor and minority households."
* "A plea for original TV drama."
* Rock on: casting the genderswap Lord of the Rings.

Representation, affirmative action, and lunar gravity

2013-05-31T18:02:44Z

FRIDAY FIVE:
* Ezra Klein crunches the numbers on the economic recovery numbers being thrown around.
* Forest, trees: Jonathan Bernstein on how representation works.
* "When someone says that most Americans oppose race-based affirmative action, what they really mean is most white Americans oppose it."
* Bachmann may be on the way out, but there's plenty of wacky right wingers in office.
* Explaining the Moon's weird gravity.

to wit

2013-05-31T13:12:17Z

"Look, the story here is the same as always: Americans regularly tell pollsters that they favor federal spending cuts and oppose government spending in the abstract. But when the talk turns to specifics, they suddenly take a more balanced view, one that quickly jettisons the notion of austerity for its own sake. This is often true even of Republicans. Yet GOP officials remain in thrall to the Paul Ryan fiscal blueprint, which purports to balance the budget in 10 years with no new revenues — something that would wipe out large swaths of the federal government. Republican Congressional officials continue to claim the sequester cuts as a victory. And many of them are ideologically opposed to federal aid for disaster relief unless it is balanced by equivalent cuts elsewhere. It all reveals the degree to which the GOP is hostage to a vision — one dedicated to shrinking government for its own sake — that is far outside the mainstream. Including, at times, even among Republican voters."
-Greg Sargent

Drones, the national anthem, and a deadly lake

2013-05-30T17:45:16Z

FAST FIVE:
* On terrorists and expense reports.
* New world order: yes, China has military drones.
* What today's Republicans can learn from yesterday's Democrats.
* Atlas Obscura discusses the lake that killed over 1,500 people overnight.
* Miguel Centellas explains why he likes "The Star-Spangled Banner."

spoilers for the season finale, maybe more in comments

2013-05-29T17:40:13Z

Examining Moffat's story arc in Doctor Who.

a fast five

2013-05-28T16:31:34Z

TUESDAY NEWSDAY:
* "The oft-cited study... found that women were less likely to receive aggressive treatment when diagnosed, and were more likely to have their pain characterized as 'emotional,' 'psychogenic' and therefore 'not real.'”
* Plutocracy now: how the rich are simply replacing political parties.
* The silent partner to climate change is media indifference.
* A hidden treasure of cave paintings found in Mexico.
* "Rap is fake, is the thing, but part of the mystique of rap is that you’re peeking in on another world that’s real to varying degrees. The verisimilitude of rap music blurs the line between real and fake."

quick hit

2013-05-27T00:38:57Z

"The Department of Veterans Affairs is being criticized for the shortfall in care for almost a million veterans who can't get timely compensation and have been waiting hundreds of days for help, often to no avail."