Abstract Capital: December 2009

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Abstract Capital

Monday, December 28, 2009

Slate: In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Obama resurrects his favorite rhetorical device: Rejecting false choices

Economist: Marine archaeology - Davy Jones's lock-up: Underwater robots can help study the world’s shipwrecks, a trove of information about the past, more easily and cheaply

Slate: Happy New Year's! The Explainer Questions We Never Answered in 2009.

Slate: Let Them Eat Fruitcake - Why we should embrace the boozy, dense, candied cake.

Economist: Chile's presidential election - Piñera flies the flag: Sebastián Piñera, an airline tycoon, is well placed to break his country’s political mould. But he promises less change than meets the eye

New Republic: Would a Weaker Dollar Lead to a Stronger Economy?

Newsweek: A Dollar and a Dream - Is a strong U.S. dollar really good for the economy and the country? Maybe not.

NPR: The Church of the Salvation Army

New Yorker: Why the Chinese don't spend

CSMonitor: Should anthropologists help US military in Iraq, Afghanistan wars? Embedding anthropologists with US military in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is both praised and derided by academics as violating a social scientist's basic pledge: To do no harm.

Slate: Can Kendra Wilkinson breast-feed her baby even though she has implants?

Slate: The Stupid Drug Story of the Week, the Washington Post on Heroin and Pills

Slate: Why companies bother making free Internet browsers

Economist: Human identity - An elusive illusion: A scientific exhibition examines what makes human beings individuals

Slate: OK, Kwanzaa is made up. But it brought my family together.

Von Mises Institute: The Economics of Groundhog Day

FP: Can Anyone Get a Fair Trial in Italy? What the Amanda Knox verdict tells us about the Italian legal system.

New Republic: Richard Posner - How I Became a Keynesian

New Republic: How the US's Ignoring of Latin America will Cost Them

CSMonitor: Nicaragua is latest in Latin America to reject term limits

Economist: Direct democracy - The tyranny of the majority

New Republic: Why Do German and Japanese Manufacturers Innovate More?

Economist: The Bone Collectors - It's time to bring relics back to the Catholic Church

Economist: Schumpeter - Business people should stand up for themselves

Slate: Can you really be "addicted" to shopping or using the Internet? - Do we really need rehab centers for people who spend too much time shopping or using the Internet?

Slate: How long does it take to dissolve a human body?

US News: The Rise of Islamic Banking - Banking by the Koran

TIME: Super-Earth - Newly Discovered Planet May Have Water

Slate: America says it wants a third party. Why not the Modern Whigs?

New Republic: David Brooks’ Innovation Agenda - The Limits of the Market

CSMonitor: Ayn Rand and America’s new culture war - From Rush Limbaugh to President Obama, Ayn Rand and her book 'Atlas Shrugged' are recalibrating America.

New Republic: 5 Things You Don't Know About North Korean Soccer

New Republic: The Right Way to Regulate - Why we badly need a federal agency that protects consumers.

Slate: How dangerous is golf-ball sized hail?

New Republic: The Ideal & the Real - Book Review: The Idea of Justice

New Republic: Baltimore Bets on Port Privatization

Slate: Whatever happened to the Exxon Valdez oil spill?

Atlantic: In India, a country that straddles the old and the new, a good place to look for signs of shifting values might be the matrimonial columns of The Times of India

Salon: Why "The Simpsons" no longer matters - An expert discusses the cartoon's cultural demise and far-reaching impact

Slate: Why, exactly, do our siblings drive us so crazy?

Slate: Jeff Bezos on Amazon's success

Atlantic: Bing-vs-Google experiment report (updated)

Slate: Where Russia Meets China - Siberia Has Timber and Minerals but Very Few People: Siberian Independence

Slate: The little-known Jewish holiday of Christmas Eve. Seriously.

Economist: Religious freedom - Too many chains: Two centuries after the French and American revolutions, and 20 years after Soviet communism’s fall, liberty of conscience may be receding again

Slate: Henry Kissinger and Hillary Clinton on what it's like to be secretary of state.

Slate: Why Do Rappers Hold Their Guns Sideways? Because it looks so Hollywood.

FP: Noriega's Revenge - 20 years after the U.S. invasion of Panama, America's ambassador to the United Nations at the time considers it an important stepping stone to the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Slate: Is Mister Ed still funny? Of course - Prime time's first countercultural hero was a palomino named Mr. Ed

Economist: Internet advertising - Online advertising is on the rise

New Yorker: How the tax code encourages debt

Slate: Mom, the Eagle Has Landed! My boys love astronomy. I couldn't care less. What do I do?

Hoover Institution: Policy Review - Power & Weakness: Robert Kagan on Why the US & Europe see the World Differently

TIME: Bob King Picked — Not Elected — To Lead UAW

CNNMoney: Luxury prices - To cut or not to cut?

Slate: The best Supreme Court case ever about partying on the beach

Slate: Why the "war on Christmas" has been a social-conservative creation & sham

Slate: Oral Roberts and His Green Buick - He launched one of America's few homegrown theologies, the prosperity gospel.

Slate: What the coroner's office means when it says "died from natural causes"

Slate: How easy is it to hike into the Islamic Republic of Iran by accident?

New Republic: The George W. Bush Presidential Library Is So … Conservative

CSMonitor: DC sniper execution - Why his case moved so quickly

CSMonitor: Behind the veil - Why Islam's most visible symbol is spreading: Embraced or banned, a prayer or a prison, the Muslim veil is spreading - Who wears it, and why?

TIME: U.S. Schools' War Against Chocolate Milk

US News: Why Jobs are Easy to Kill but Hard to Create

Slate: How to fix the NFL's instant replay system

TIME: What Changed TV in the ’00s

Slate: If billionaires don't feel guilty about walking away from their debts, should homeowners?

TIME: A Brief History of Naming the 2000s

Newsweek: Why the Redskins Still Win Despite a Losing Record

Slate: Sweden's bizarre tradition of watching Donald Duck cartoons on Christmas Eve

Economist: Remembering Paul Samuelson

Economist: The Holy Land - Where piety meets power: How the Russian church and with it the Russian state are gaining ground, in several senses, in the Holy Land

New Republic: A new biography tries to extinguish the myth of the kinder, gentler Trotsky

Economist: Public-sector unions - Welcome to the real world: For decades, America’s public-sector workers have been coddled and spoiled. The recession may change that.

TIME: India's Beer, Wine and Spirits Market Sees Demand Boom

Salon: Logic made fun - A new comic romps through one of philosophy's greatest debates

Slate: Stop Whining About Antibiotic Abuse & Drug Resistance

FP: Blood Diamonds Are Back - Why the U.N.-sanctioned system that's supposed to ensure that gemstones aren't mined at gunpoint is backfiring

CSMonitor: Spain pressures Morocco over rights activist, reopening colonial wounds - Rights activist Aminatou Haidar, who is pushing for Western Sahara's independence from Morocco (Polisario), has been on a hunger strike in Spain, prompting Spanish pressure for her to be let back into the country. But some Moroccans see a double standard.

TIME: Houston's Gay Mayor Annise Parker - Historic Texas Election

CSMonitor: GOP's global warming rumble - Sarah Palin v. Arnold Schwarzenegger: The spat between California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin over the Copenhagen climate talks highlights the GOP's divided views on global warming.

Newsweek: A Shining Anomaly on a Hill - The increase in government jobs — courtesy of stimulus planning and spending—is turning Washington, D.C., into a boomtown.

FP: The FP Global Thinkers Book Club - What the smart set is reading.

Slate: Eliot Spitzer - These Three Books Explain the American Crisis: Looking for a gift for the policy wonk in your life? Here are some recommendations

Economist: Indian states - Divide but not rule? Attempts to satisfy demands for local autonomy backfire

CSMonitor: New India state Telangana may fuel other statehood movements

Foreign Affairs: Afghanistan - The Soviet Victory that Never Was

FP: China's soft power hits the brick wall of economics

US News: Obama argues "just war theory" in his Nobel acceptance speech

FP: Was Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech really "realist?"

US News: The 10 Strangest Mutual Funds

Slate: Has the American romance with the drive-through gone sour?

Newsweek: Genetic Lessons from a Prolific Sperm Donor

Slate: What patent applications can tell us about America's economic prospects

Slate: Why are syndicated TV shows programmed out of sequence?

Slate: Witches' Brew at Winter Solstice - How Wiccans do themselves in with historical inaccuracy

posted by Flaco @ 3:14 PM 0 comments

Friday, December 11, 2009

TIME: The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell

Reason: French Wine and the Fable of Free-Trade Britain

Slate: The New York Times Magazine delivers a journalistic cliché in its Joe Biden feature

Slate: How Do They Measure Snowfall?

Slate: Meet the producer behind Jon and Kate, Table for 12, and 18 Kids and Counting.

Slate: Joan Biskupic's Excellent Biography of J. Scalia

Economist: The Commonwealth - An ever-expanding club of (mostly) ex-British colonies needs to develop sharper edges or else shut up shop

Slate: The search for the best yogurt on the market

Atlantic: New Orleans Celebrates a Sandwich

Atlantic: Defining Israeli Cuisine

Economist: A Special Report on the Art Market

Slate: Can buying organic produce and natural shampoo turn you into a heartless jerk?

Slate: What's on the other side of Siberia? The Jewish Autonomous Region

Economist: Fighting Poverty in Emerging Economies - Lessons from Brazil, China and India

Atlantic: Did Christianity cause the Crash?

Economist: Anglo-Catholicism?

Slate: The Religions of the Justices?

Slate: How can we communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations.

Slate: Deglobalization: The surprisingly steep decline in world trade

Slate: China is a Communist country, but I have yet to meet an actual Communist.

Intl Socialist: China Today - Socialist or Capitalist?

Slate: The NFL Network's RedZone channel reveals the future of fandom.

Slate: The Princess and the Frog: A princess movie that ever so gently undermines the whole princess thing.

Slate: How do movie blurbs work?

New Yorker: Why Banks Stay Big

Economist: Venezuela's anti-capitalist cars - Wheels of revolution: An example of socialist production principles — but not a good one

Newsweek: (Niall Ferguson on) How Economic Weakness is the Main US Threat

Newsweek: (Zakaria) Can America Still Innovate

Economist: A World of Hits - Ever-increasing choice was supposed to mean the end of the blockbuster. It has had the opposite effect.

Economist: Fertility & Living Standards

Economist: The psychology of warranties - Protection racket: If extended guarantees are overpriced, why are they so popular?

World Affairs: (McWhorter) The Universality of English

Slate: Why is Congress always Meddling in Sports?

Slate: How buttoned-up shirts are (TV) costuming shorthand for "special."

FP: The Annual FP Top 100 Global Thinkers

Economist: Barack Obama's foreign policy - The quiet American

Economist: Weights of the average American turkey and human male

ESPN: Jim Caldwell is the Indianapolis Colts Invisible Man

Slate: The Dangerous Mysteries of Consciousness

Slate: If Tiger Woods really was stuck, should Elin Nordegren have busted open the car window to get him out?

Economist: The Texas governor's race - White v right

Newsweek: How Obama is like Reagan

Economist: Improving US Education - Standards

Economist: Iran and Latin America - Ayatollahs in the backyard

TIME: Reburying Albert Camus - A Political Ploy by Sarkozy?

ESPN: NFL brief in American Needle antitrust case: cold and compelling

ESPN: The Jacksonville Jaguars are fighting to survive

posted by Flaco @ 3:21 PM 0 comments

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