Three days to Invinctus Sol!

[silveradept]

Once again, stealing time while I can to serve up a suggestion of links that you'll like.

The New York times has published the redacted version of an editorial - the original was considered classified. Linked to a story about that earlier, about how the original author claimed there was nothing classified in his writing, but agreed not to publish. Which suggests two questions - how did the New York times ge a hold of this, and what drove them to published the blacked out version? (BugMeNot will help on the NY Times)

There may be a new way of detecting Alzheimer's disease with a chemical called FDDNP. It has promise that it might show people who are getting the disease well before they start exhibiting the symptoms of it. (NYTimes - BugMeNot is your cure)

Here's an odd way of looking at the truth or falsehood of global warming and environmental crashes - a Foreign Policy blogger says if it's all not going to happen, then why say anything? Why not prey on the fears of the people to make significant money? There's a certain evil logic to it - if you can prove that the disaster's never going to happen, there's a lot of money you could make in real estate and elsewhere.

Marc C. Taylor, in an opinion column in the NYTimes, suggests that the age of religion is already here, but that the task of the future is to study religion and its practice and see its influence, as well as to inspire critical thought of religion, rather than being pressured into saying nothing about religion because someone will be offended by it. The same could be said of several ideologies and ideas - critical reflection and thought should be engaged, rather than dogmatism of one way or another. In a word: Think! Otherwise, people who are will speculate that religion is inherently violent and call for people to move spiritually beyond it into something better. If you want to keep your belief system, and not be seen as a wingnut or a fringe lunatic, it's time to give some serious thought to the beliefs that you have. Best to find, expose, and destroy the dark side of the belief system before it does the same thing to you.

Or, at the very least, you can keep it from getting more of your money by believing the pitch of the ridiculous idea of a "War on Christmas". This idea is proving to be a lucrative way of fundraising for several groups in favor of indefinitely perpetuating the War on Christmas. And if they're emboldened by people flocking to them over Christmas, I wonder what they'll do with issues that actually have weight, like reproductive rights, homosexual marriage, and other bigger-ticket issues.

Because it's so very close to Christmas (observed), there's been a whole sequence of birth stories coming out of the BBC. (At least, that's my guess.) So we get a story of a woman who gave birth to three children from two wombs.

Something of potential interest, in robotics, in computing, and possibly in technical support as well - your computer may soon know what your mood is. If it's equipped, say, to be able to access your webcamera to track your face while you're using it.

The last bit for tonight is something from Time. It's a six-page article on how to get the public education system into the 21st century. Which is a discussion we need to have at all levels of government and policy, but most people are silent on, even in non-wars of distraction years.

Comments

[wanderingbhikkh.livejournal.com]

Funny you should post that last. I've been poking around alternative educational philosophies since I went into homeschool. Just today, I was working out what a Bene Gesserit training college would look like.

...I'm in China, I have to make my own fun.