Rad Geek People's Daily

The Just-World Bias Gets Us All. cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2011-03-28). After reading about the horrific gang rapes of a Texan child, and the assault of Lara Logan in Egypt, I am starting to suspect that anti-rape activists and sympathizers are as caught up in the just-world bias as rape apologists.  In this NYT "update" on its previous coverage of the… (Linked Wednesday 2011-03-30.)

Julian Assange and Naomi Wolf. cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2011-03-28). Last year Naomi Wolf wrote some interesting essays on the international indifference to sexual violence; unfortunately, they were written to defend a rebellious and charismatic man, Julian Assange, who may very well be a rapist.  I was very tempted to go easy on Wolf because she sometimes seems like the closest… (Linked Wednesday 2011-03-30.)

C4SS Fundraiser: One More Day. Kevin Carson, Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism (2011-03-30). Well, we’ve got one more day left in the C4SS fundraiser and still need a little less than $1800 to pay our writers and staff through December. As Director Brad Spangler says, if we don’t raise enough money by the end of the First Quarter to pay our expenses through… (Linked Wednesday 2011-03-30.)

Best General Strike Poster Ever. reddit: the voice of the internet — news before it happens (2011-03-25). submitted by rechelon to Anarchism [link] [4 comments] (Linked Wednesday 2011-03-30.)

Monsanto Sued By Organic Farmers Who Don’t Want To Be Accused Of Patent Infringement. Mike Masnick, Techdirt (2011-03-30). Monsanto’s incredibly overaggressive use of patents to corner the market on certain crops and to bully farmers has been well-documented over the years. Some of the really crazy stories involve Monsanto accusing farmers of patent infringement, because some of its “patented” seeds were used by neighboring farms, and the newly… (Linked Friday 2011-04-01.)

You Say Anarchy Like It's a Bad Thing. Thomas L. Knapp, Center for a Stateless Society (2011-03-30). Writing in The American Conservative, William Lind bemoans the tendency revealed by current upheavals in the Middle East. "[T]he worst possible outcome ... is the disintegration of states and their replacement either by statelessness — as we see in Somalia — or by fictional states, as in Iraq and Afghanistan."… (Linked Friday 2011-04-01.)

Unsorted Thoughts on Libya. Sheldon Richman, Free Association (2011-03-26). Jacob Sullum put it well when he wrote, "Obama claims ‘we cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.’ Yes, we can, and we often do.” I'd only add this: Some of "our" best friends have been tyrants (sometimes called prime ministers… (Linked Friday 2011-04-01.)

i love our political culture. On Tuesday, Senator Charles. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2011-03-30). i love our political culture. On Tuesday, Senator Charles Schumer convened a media conference call of Democratic senators, in order to talk about the budget negotiations. Moments before the call was to start, Schumer briefed the other senators on the talking points they should be using. But the phone line for the… (Linked Friday 2011-04-01.)

+1 for knowing your history. Kellan, Laughing Meme (2011-03-30). "+1!!!@@e2;20ac;b3; is a convention that arose on the Apache Software Foundation mailing lists. The ASF still has the best, most functional process for mailing list based collaboration which has ever been evolved of which -1/0/+1 is only the thin wedge. (the whole vocabulary of lazy consensus, commit-then-review, etc is incredibly… (Linked Friday 2011-04-01.)