Politics & People

Brainstorming ideas to improve resistance to street harassment re. the escalation paradox

Summary / Wish List

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Econ 101: Math meets People

People's Economics

Listen to United for a Fair Economy and it's completely obvious that we live in a world of abundance, in which ordinary people are completely ready to work to create more value than they need back, and poverty comes from unfair power of the elites over ordinary working people.

Mathematical Economics

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King's Quote and bin Laden

There's a subtlety to MLK's quote that can easily be missed. If I understand his views correctly, he supported military resistance to Hitler, and I don't think it could be taken for granted that King would have opposed the focused attacks on bin Laden and al Queda. I think it is unhealthy to *rejoice* in his death, rather than to see it as a necessary evil: this is a spiritual perspective, not a statement on whether the military should have been used against these enemies.

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College kids screaming USA USA were 10 when the Towers fell

It's strange to think of being 10 years old when the towers fell, growing up in these strange times. I spent my pre-college years watching Reagan arm the Contras who were purposefully targeting medical workers, I'm not sure how people argue that that is better than targeting people who work in famous buildings. I wasn't predisposed to trust his next adventure.

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Foul to the Left: Libya and Democrats.com

"Not One Dime"

This campaign deeply disturbs me. There may be (there are) other reasons to oppose any war, but this campaign comes across as callous. People who've stood up to a tyrant armed partly by our oil addiction are being slaughtered, and our headline is "not one dime?"

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State of the Planet

I'm aiming to put large-scale thoughts about the planet in one place. This is very incomplete for now.


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The ADL at Ground Zero

Background: The Anti-Defamation League has come out against a group of Muslims building a community center near Ground Zero: ADL Position.

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Condom Offsets

The Optimum Population Trust has joined the Carbon Offset world with PopOffsets, carbon offsetting at it's most offensive best. The cross-continental flight to one international conference might equal the entire lifetime CO2 impact of a poor Kenyan whose parents otherwise wouldn't have had access to a condom. So you go ahead and fly anyway, and a baby isn't born, and it all comes out equal, offset and neutral.

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A Left Turn Towards Capitalism: Caps on Damages

Thanks to a cap on damages set by Congress, BP is only liable for $75 million in damages. A different Act (Price Anderson, amended) caps nuclear accidents at $11 billion.

Even a right-wing-Capitalist response to these laws should be to throw them out.

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Global Warming Primer: Basic Physics Works, Even When Industry and Consumers Wish It Didn't

For decades, scientists have understood to at least a good ballpark estimate how much CO2 warms the atmosphere of Venus. It's only when global warming gasses are overtop industry and politicians that it gets complicated. This page attempts to frame the various aspects of scientific consensus and debate around global warming / climate change. Dealing with the headline of the day is much easier if you understand the basics and can place the headline into this context.

A brief history of global warming, based on type of science:


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