Worth a Read (1 Viewer)

[Buzzo]

I'm suggesting that this be kind of like the bored in work thread, but somewhere to post links to interesting shit we read, as I'm not sure how well recieved mad serious shit would be on the bored in work thread.

If it's a goer, can you sticky it Billy?

Let me begin:

Black Lesbians Sentenced for Self Defence

 

[Gambra]

Archive of Malcolm Gladwells pieces for the New Yorker here. Highly recommended pieces are as follows..

None of the Above
What I.Q. doesn't tell you about race.

The Formula
What if you built a machine to predict hit movies?

The Risk Pool
What's behind Ireland's economic miracle—and G.M.'s financial crisis?


The Tipping Point
Why is the city suddenly so much safer --
could it be that crime really is an epidemic?

 

[Space]

Archive of Malcolm Gladwells pieces for the New Yorker here. Highly recommended pieces are as follows..

None of the Above
What I.Q. doesn't tell you about race.

The Formula
What if you built a machine to predict hit movies?

The Risk Pool
What's behind Ireland's economic miracle—and G.M.'s financial crisis?


The Tipping Point
Why is the city suddenly so much safer --
could it be that crime really is an epidemic?

The Tipping Point is fascinating.

Is this thread for discussion or just posting links?

 

[Gambra]

"but somewhere to post links" but I don't see why discussion wouldn't happen. THough i may clog up the actual links..

 

[flashback]

The Tipping Point is fascinating.

Its pretty amazing how safe NYC is alright.
I have felt uncomfortable from "criminals" once, when I was riding the bike through Spanish Harlem, lost, in a roasting summer night during the blackout.
A guy shouted at me "getdafuckOUTTA HERE CRACKA".
And I did. And that's all there was it.

On the other hand I dont know how many times I have felt terrified of NYPD. I now treat the NYPD as a threatening dangerous gang that has to be avoided. The idea that their being total cunts is the reason for the low crime levels never seemed to make sense.
The theories set out in her essay might though.

 

[Buzzo]

How corporate interests shaped the food pyramid:

FATally flawed food guide


it's from a couple of years ago but it's an inneresting read all the same

 

[flashback]

How corporate interests shaped the food pyramid:

FATally flawed food guide


it's from a couple of years ago but it's an inneresting read all the same

So they recommend 2-8 cups of green tea... per day?

I would say I've had about 8 cups of green tea in my lifetime.

 

[1000smurfs]

racial-stereotyping-persists-in-nonracists

sorry it doesn't have the full article but you get the disturbing gist

 

[flashback]

racial-stereotyping-persists-in-nonracists

sorry it doesn't have the full article but you get the disturbing gist

Essentially they are saying if you think black chicks are hot you secretly want to have sex with animals.

 

[flashback]

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades.

2020 is... you know, 12 years away.

 

[broken arm]

i'm 99% sure i posted this on thumped about a year ago.... but I came across it again earlier.

i think it's non political. i think..

System failure: Why governments must learn to think differently

The scale and complexity of public services makes them impossible to understand and manage using the centralising tools of 'rational' policy-making. For real improvements in delivery, governments must instead embrace systems thinking.


The current model of public policy making is no longer right for a government that has set itself the challenge of delivery. Improvements are driven by central policy initiatives which assume a direct relationship between action and outcome – but this is a false assumption.



1. Introduction 23
2. Current policy-making 26
3. Systems thinking 34
4. Core systems concepts 38
5. Systems and modelling 45
6. Complex adaptive systems 51
7. Application to policy 64
8. Soft systems methodology 74
9. Obstacles to learning 78
10. Systems practice 86
Notes 95

http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/systemfailure2

 

[ernesto]

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver



2020 is... you know, 12 years away.

thats from 2004. and still he done sweet fuck all bout it
that is some scary shit right there.
really.

 

[broken arm]

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver



2020 is... you know, 12 years away.

that's little more than 3000 working days to do something...

although, I don't really believe all the 2020 guides

 

[classic seanc]

that's little more than 3000 working days to do something...

although, I don't really believe all the 2020 guides

And they have way more public holidays in the States, we're all screwed!

 

[flashback]

that's little more than 3000 working days to do something...

although, I don't really believe all the 2020 guides

Every time they revise those numbers though. they seem to revise them worse.

Its all fairly terrifying really.

 

[broken arm]

Every time they revise those numbers though. they seem to revise them worse.

Its all fairly terrifying really.

i'm working init

 

[Buzzo]

New online lefty publication:

www.irishleftreview.org

 

[flashback]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1719872,00.html
Interesting article in Time.

If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.
Jury nullification is American dissent, as old and as heralded as the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, who was acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, and absent a government capable of repairing injustices, it is legitimate protest.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/14/tonyblair.climatechange
Blair to lead campaign on climate change

Well done shit head. Welcome to the cozy Gore club.
A little late for startling insights now isn't it?
How about doing something about it when you could have.
Hopefully you'll get a Nobel prize for your efforts, and then we'll know they've all be worthwhile.

 

[guy of the tiger]

Archive of Malcolm Gladwells pieces for the New Yorker here. Highly recommended pieces are as follows..

None of the Above
What I.Q. doesn't tell you about race.
...

Heh heh! What a quote:

"A century ago the United States was populated largely by people who today would be considered mentally retarded."

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Archive of Malcolm Gladwells pieces for the New Yorker here. Highly recommended pieces are as follows..

None of the Above
What I.Q. doesn't tell you about race.

The Formula
What if you built a machine to predict hit movies?

The Risk Pool
What's behind Ireland's economic miracle—and G.M.'s financial crisis?


The Tipping Point
Why is the city suddenly so much safer --
could it be that crime really is an epidemic?

Anyone going to see the main man tonight?