July 2013

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Some real American history 
Neuro-scientists able to create false memories in mice.
Game over for Zynga? Firm loses 25 percent of daily active users in one quarter 
 Doctor Who actor warns against using social media. It makes you into a phony he says.

Det News critic: Bob Dylan's voice is shot, performances lackluster.  I found this out back in '07 myself. 

"Smart guns" not selling: Who wants one that can be hacked, won't work if the battery is dead, or that can be remotely tracked. disabled? 
More collateral damage from the drug war: Local idiot blows up his house trying to make hash oil via the butane extraction method.
Nate Silver leaving NYT for ESPN: Called Times style political reporting "useless". 
Pentagon discovers that buying weaponry from your enemies is a bad idea, even if it's cheaper.   
Book review: This Town dissects the ecosystem of America's gilded capitol city and its haughty in-crowd
Goodyear to replace its blimps with zeppelins 

 

Ann Arbor city council still acting like goofy tweens with their first cellphone

Some of council members are mortified at the prospect of the public reading their "personal" messages sent and received during council meetings using city issued computers and so they have directed the applicable bureaucrats to redact all that shit from publicly available transcripts. WTF are they even doing sending texts, IMs and emails during meetings for? They are supposed to be present, alert, and paying attention to the proceedings at hand, no?

What's up with all the "flash mob" violence in American cities this summer?

Says Walter Russell Mead: "...[I]t is not unlikely that future violence in the cities would look more like flash mobs and less like the urban riots of the 1960s.  Those riots targeted Black neighborhoods, Black owned stores and much of the property destroyed in the riots belonged to Blacks; any new trouble would likely be more effective at spreading the pain beyond the inner city.  Link ups in some cases with religious radicals or foreign interests who seek to do us harm cannot be excluded."

People just don't like spam Mr. President. Even progressives.

Obama Twitter spam costs him 40,000 followers (NY Daily News)

Weblog

Metal thieves starting to hit Ann Arbor area (annarbor.com/)
I suppose it had to happen eventually. They've been a bad problem in Detroit for a while now.

U.S. Rep. Tim Wahlberg (R-MI 7th) votes against Libyan war but then votes for funding it (Jackson Citizen-Patriot/MLive)
Wahlberg represents me in congress. You need to explain this one to us Timbo.

Mid-Michigan women ill after drinking raw milk (Lansing State-Journal)
Three women were reported to have Q fever an illness associated with consuming unpasteurized dairy products.

George Orwell and Ideology (Wilson Carey McWilliams, Front Porch Republic)
"Orwell was inclined to accept the theoretical superiority of smaller, simpler political societies. In modern regimes, the individual is weak and alone, and totalitarian states accentuate this isolation in order to increase their control. In 1984, Orwell’s description parallels Tocqueville’s prophecy: the Party aims to cut its citizens off from one another and from their past, until, in the end, 'All you care about is yourself.' ”

Utah Man Posts Facebook Updates During SWAT Standoff, Gets Help From Online Friends (Popular Science)
It's good to have friends. Too bad Randy Weaver or the Branch Davidians didn't have cellphones, Twitter, Facebook and other social media back in the day.

Ten Years Gone  (Stanton S. Coerr, Long War Journal)
"As in Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan was lost before it was begun: it is lost because it cannot be won. Again our massive and superior military force is losing a campaign to a tough insurgent force. Again we are spending tens of billions overseas, and collapsing under our own weight in the field. Again our strength is being used against us. And again, by providing military answers to political questions, we are in quicksand in the developing world."

Weblog

Touring the world on the taxpayer's dime: My Representative the Hon. Timothy Walberg (MI-7)
"During the weeklong trip at the end of February, Walberg, ... visited Burkina Faso, Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Israel, Turkey and Germany." And I'm sure that people in Adrian, Jackson, Hillsdale and elsewhere in Walberg's district will benefit greatly from his informative little jaunt.
Detroit cops told to quit posting police intel, pictures of crooks, and related matters on social media websites
Or else.

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One of the most honest headlines I've seen in a very long time: "White House chooses new guy to lie to you about how bad our fiscal situation is". Written in re former Time writer and VP press secretary Jay Carney who was appointed  to replace Robert Gibbs. Let the lying, obfuscating, spinning, propaganda, misdirection and bullshit begin! (Allahpundit @ HotAir.com)

Why is Chicago is so corrupt: "Believe it or not, a lot of it goes back to that bane of Chicago politics: Clout. People in Chicago tend to write off clout and political corruption in Chicago with a shrug, as a unique or even amusing local affectation, or just part of the character of purely political life of the city, but one that doesn’t fundamentally change its status as the 'City That Works.' But nothing could be further from the truth. Chicago’s culture of clout is a key, perhaps the key, factor holding the city back economically." (Aaron Renn @ NewGeography.com/)

Facebook Posts Mined For Courtroom Evidence: Internet posts might as well be carved in stone. Once posted comments exist forever, "deleted" or not. (Slashdot.org/)

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Remembering the SR-71 Blackbird. - Gizmodo

Labor unions baffling lack of progress in the private sector - American Prospect (Harold Meyerson)

Facebook is for stalkers, haters and trolls - Cnet (Chris Matyszczyk)

weblog

The last wild wolverine in the Wolverine State is dead. - Detroit News
Death and social media: what happens to your life online after you die? - Ars Technica
Detailed View of a Solar Eclipse Corona - Astronomy Picture of the Day
An explanation for the gutlessness of modern politicians. - Bloggingheads.tv

Mark Schmitt and Noam Scheiber tell it.

A grid matrix demonstrating how those endorsement blurbs on book jackets are created - Brainiac

Feds trolling through social network sites to gather personal information. - Detroit News

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It's hard to talk about the dangers of cell-phone radiation without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.- GQ
Publishers continue pummeling Amazon over e-book prices. - Ars Technica
Dr. Temple Grandin - YouTube
A high-functioning autistic life.
LA area mudslides surprise some...but not others. - LA Times
George Packer thinkst Twitter et. al. are time-sucking vampires. - The New Yorker
Anatomy of a wilderness rescue: What went right & what went wrong. - Outside.com/
Lessons learned.