Rad Geek People's Daily

Forced to Be Free. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-08). Across Europe, high-minded debates about terrorism, assimilation, and the social effects of Islam have been devolving into disputes over the clothes the government will let people wear, as countries from Switzerland to the U.K. ponder bans on burqas and head scarves. Curiously, legislators and pundits on both sides of the… (Linked Saturday 2010-10-09.)

09.23.10: Don't Forget the Motor City. David Byrne, David Byrne's Journal (2010-09-23). I'm here in Detroit to participate in a film directed by Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo). The other day we performed the song "This Must Be The Place" with band and string section while the camera made a complicated move and a living room set rose up and traveled over our… (Linked Saturday 2010-10-09.)

The Drug War Metaphor: Increasingly Literal. Radley Balko, Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-06). A New Mexico narcotics task force sent a SWAT team and helicopter to raid a school where students "participate in farming as a context for learning mathematics and science." The raid was apparently part of a larger operation involving the task force, the state police, and the National Guard, in… (Linked Saturday 2010-10-09.)

Nazi Nudges. Will Wilkinson, Will Wilkinson (2010-10-06). Most of you have probably seen this on Marginal Revolution (from Dan Ariely), but the lesson is too good to pass up. When it suits them, Nazis use nudges, too... Nudge-style "choice architecture" techniques are ideologically neutral. We can't count on the guys in charge to have benevolent motives. That's… (Linked Sunday 2010-10-10.)

Military Keynesians Are the Worst Keynesians of All. Sheldon Richman, Free Association (2010-10-07). From the National Journal this week: Two wars are not enough. America’s economic outlook is so grim, and political solutions are so utterly absent, that only another large-scale war might be enough to lift the nation out of chronic high unemployment and slow growth, two prominent economists, a conservative and… (Linked Sunday 2010-10-10.)

Feminism. Marja Erwin (2010-08-24). When men consider how they should treat other men, it is moral philosophy. When womyn consider how we should treat other womyn, it is feminism. It has taken feminism to separate the were-centered moral philosophies from the human-centered ones. It will take feminism-in-practice to discover the full potential of feminism-in-theory.What… (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)

American schools are killing children. Marja Erwin (2010-10-10). Through bullying, through high workloads, and through indifference to the needs of different children. Classrooms may be a good teaching environment for some kids, mediocre for other, and downright destructive for some. Bullying was an epidemic when I was in school, and I understand it has grown worse yet. Calling… (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)