The New York Times has some interesting, depressing visualizations for data from the Iraq War. There’s some demographic analysis of casualties and a mosaic, the faces of the dead.
Category: Politics
The Bubble Project puts comics-style bubbles on street ads for passers-by to fill in.
The government is celebrating the new year by automatically declassifying millions of secret documents. I look forward to the day when no government information is ever classified, excepting the Shadow Government, of course. [via librarycrunch]
Nicely complimenting last week’s article about airline security theatre, Andrea Harner has a great cartoon that captures the moment and offers a quick solution for harried holiday travelers. Not recommended at wintry northern latitudes, but it’s been in the 60s down at Atlanta’s airport…
A list of the Top Politically Incorrect Words for 2006.
Okay after all this mess, I’m almost a little embarrassed that I liked Michael Crichton’s books so much when I was younger. Earlier this year, Michael Crowley wrote a critical article about Crichton’s views on global warming. Well, what do you know… in Crichton’s new novel, Next, he inserted a character named Mick Crowley, who turns out to be a child rapist. I’d call that an over-reaction. Crowley gives a surprisingly civil response. This is just insane.
Richard Dawkins has a video documentary that ties in with his new book, The God Delusion.
In a great New Yorker article about Thomas Paine, there’s this awesome comic book analogy of Founding Fathers qua Justice League: “Paine is Aquaman to WashingtonÄôs Superman and JeffersonÄôs Batman.”
And who new that John Adams once called Paine’s Common Sense “a poor, ignorant, Malicious, short-sighted, Crapulous Mass”?
New York Times article on our hapless Transportation Security Agency: “The T.S.A. is much more talented in the theater arts than in the design of secure systems. This becomes all too clear when we see that the agencyÄôs security procedures are unable to withstand the playful testing of a bored computer-science student.” Ties in with the wild legal investigations of Chris Soghoian, who pointed out an embarrassing security weakness with the very clever Boarding Pass Generator. And it also features some nice comments from security whiz Bruce Schneier.
In another grand infringement of property rights, the U.S. Mint has announced a ban on melting pennies and nickels. The price of copper is up to $3 a pound, so you can potentially make more money by selling the coins as raw metal. Whose metal is it, really?
Some recordings of America’s “Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century.” What surprises me is that with the exception of Lou Gehrig’s farewell (mp3) and very few others, almost all of the speeches are from politicians or activists. But what worries me is that I can’t really think of others that could make the list. It’s kind of sad that oratory is so tightly associated with politics.
This should be fun. Google now has a page dedicated for searching patents. Of course, there’s a nice little “beta” label.
New York Times Magazine has a great article on the intelligence community and the need to introduce more open technology–things like wikis and blogs, things that millions of people use every day for more mundane pursuits. Chris Anderson offers some commentary, awesome links, and takes it a step further: “What if, rather than just starting blogs and wikis behind military firewalls where the rules are most strict, the intelligence agencies encouraged them out in the open, catalyzing conversations between people who aren’t constrained by the same laws?”
Al Gore talks with GQ magazine. Politics aside, he actually seems like a cool, earthy guy. What I would really like is for a journalist to do an interview without bringing up the 2008 election. Seems like they all are just begging to get the scoop: “Al Gore Changes His Mind.” He said he isn’t running, folks. Lay off.
In the Shadow of No Towers (review 2.5/5)
I can’t remember the last time I read a book less than 50 pages–In the Shadow of No Towers weighs in at 42 huge, colorful spreads. Art Spiegelman’s recent book brings together a collection of broadsheets illustrated in the years following 9/11, and also shares the notable cover from the September 23, 2001 issue of the New Yorker. It feels like Woody Allen meets Charles Schulz, a jittery sort of memoir on the nature of terror and the stress of memory. There’s a recurring motif of the towers’ metal structure glowing red, just before their collapse. So there’s this palpable sense of anticipation that to some degree lasts even today, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The work is bookended with a couple essays on his relationship with cartooning and politics.
Bonus material: Spiegelman has a nice dialogue with NPR about 9/11 and cartooning.
After a nail-biter of an election, the results are in: Politicians Sweep Midterm Elections.
This is interesting: Beyond Ballots or Bullets is a select “workshop to develop freedom strategies”. The mission sets aside both the within-the-system electioneering approach of groups like the Libertarian Party, and also sensibly avoids the more antagonistic strategy of violent rebellion. The end result is the application of non-violent civil disobedience, rooted in the fundamental libertarian non-agression principle. Cool.
A couple great photos from Rick Santorum’s concession speech… I love Merlin Mann‘s perfect description of this one: “It looks like a promo shot from a local theater production.” And then there’s this one, with the ex-Senator’s son, the “awkward pre-teen flipping off the nation”.
The Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change has made a bit of a splash lately. Jason Kottke points to the recent New Yorker article:
At the launch presentation of his report, Stern pointed out that global warming is a textbook case of an Äúexternality,Äù in which the prices people pay for gasoline, electric power, and other energy products donÄôt reflect their true costs, among them the impact of greenhouse gases. ÄúOur emissions affect the lives of others,Äù he explained. ÄúWhen people do not pay for the consequences of their actions, we have market failure. This is the greatest market failure the world has seen.Äù
Well, no, it’s not a “market failure”. The lack of consequences for unethical actions is a failure to enforce law and property rights, i.e. failure to govern. I have no objections to the science of climate change, as far as I understand it. If only our common grasp of political economics were as robust! And while we’re talking about the “textbook case” of an externality–read up on why externalities are not a case of market failure [pdf]. See also the fallacy public goods [pdf]. End soapbox.
Bonus material: Here’s the BBC article and summary of the Stern Report. And of course, the Wall Street Journal has a couple responses. Have a great day.
Mark Larson 