Doug’s Dynamic Drivel

Towards the end of his speech today Obama said
This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations - including my [...]

Matt has the start of what appears to be a very promising series of posts over on The Journal of Doubt - a long time favourite site of mine.
The Doubting Essays
Part One: Values
In which the author discusses how his value system was formed and how these values are out of step with modern culture
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Also see
Technorati Tags: Stephen Petranek, TED, 2002, 10 ways the world could end

h/t to Jodie at work for this one - as he said “Makes you think differently about Facebook doesn’t it”

Rationality is anathema when faith pervades a society. North America is well along that path. If anything makes that clear it is this incident in Barrie Ontario.
Colleen Leduc already had a lot going against her. The Barrie woman was holding down a job while struggling to raise her autistic 11-year-old daughter. She couldn’t afford to [...]

16:24 minutes well spent. Clay Shirky talks about cognitive surplus and it’s capacity to transform society.

via Frank
Technorati Tags: Clay Shirky, cognitive surplus, media, gin, media that ships without a mouse is broken, Gilligan’s Island

I have been lax - I should have pointed to this interesting article by Diane on the Ethics of Aging some time ago. It’s a good article (yes I’m biased but…) so you ought to read it if you have elderly relatives etc.
Technorati Tags: interesting, Ethics of Aging, elderly

What does that title mean you ask. Well it means that the US with approximately (~) 5% of the world’s population has ~25% of the world’s prison population. Yup that’s right, the US imprisons more people per capita and for far more offenses than any other country in the world, including the most brutal dictatorships.
Criminologists [...]

Thomas Paine:
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has [...]

Via Tomgram
It’s strange that the business and geopolitics of energy takes up so little space on American front pages — or that we could conduct an oil war in Iraq with hardly a mention of the words “oil” and “war” in the same paragraph in those same papers over the years. Strange indeed. And yet, [...]