Bookmarking for posterity. Just watched this for the first time in 5+ years, and it is still hilarious.

"chart is from a paper called "Building a Better America One Wealth Quintile at a Time" by Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton."

gun control comic, very well done

Vid created for AARP U@50 video challenge

"This is not a problem unique to the states I have cited. Every state and every region in the country is stuck with some form of anachronistic and expensive local government structure that dates to horse-drawn wagons, family farms and small-town convenience. If this is a reset, it’s time to reorganize our state and local government structures for today’s realities rather than cling to the sensibilities of the 20th century. If we demand this from General Motors, we should ask no less of ourselves."

"an innovative proposal from the Berkeley City Council to encourage residential installations of solar power panels. The city foots the bill for the installation, but homeowners retain ownership and pay the city back over 20 years via an annual property assessment. And if they sell their house before the bill is completely paid off, no worries -- the liability for the remaining bill, along with the solar panels, goes to the next owner of the house."

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

"No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire."

"The Federal Government owns more than half of Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Alaska and it owns nearly half of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. See the map for more."

"a social networking site for people under the age of 27 who like to connect based on deeper interests than Paris Hilton's wardrobe and want to get engaged within a cause. Find a cause, join the discussion and get involved."

On Camp Obama: "In 2003, the Sierra Club realized that its local grassroots volunteer programs weren't effective. In late 2005, it commissioned the Harvard scholars to undertake a two-year research project to figure out why, and how to fix it. The researchers discovered that the kind of volunteers that the Sierra Club attracted were "lone ranger" types who focused on accomplishing goals on their own, rather than effectively working with others with "shared purpose."

"Fox News wins the prize for the most politically divisive TV channel (70% of conservatives watch it daily and only 3% of liberals). Over 82% of conservatives say they never watch MTV. The only other station from our list that they watch less is Univision (84%). Who has a sense of humor? Not only do liberals give Comedy Central a big thumbs up (31% watch it daily, compared to 6% of all other respondents), you are more likely to find them watching comedies than moderates or conservatives. Out of 15 TV and film genres, "arts" emerged as the one with the highest positive correlation to liberal viewers and the highest negative correlation to conservative viewers. In other words, while 48% of liberals prefer arts programming, only 17% of conservatives do. At the other end of the scale, less than 5% of liberals say they do not like the genre at all, compared to almost 25% of conservatives.

"start implementing the change you seek before the election, while you have the full attention of the electorate. Ask us to give money, not to buy ads, but to buy health insurance for 50,000 uninsured people in a particular state, so we can see how powerful we are collectively, how we can do good, starting right now. We yearn for this, to feel our muscles flex collectively, and individually to make a difference, not just in your hype, but in real terms."

an attempt to solicit world opinions on the US presidential election and display them graphically.

the CRA didn't force mortgage companies to offer loans for no money down, or to throw underwriting standards out the window, or to encourage mortgage brokers to aggressively seek out new markets. Nor did the CRA force the credit-rating agencies to slap high-grade ratings on packages of subprime debt.

with word clouds and everything

Inside the Obama campaign, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent generation of organizers has built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people's organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.

"If the next Presidential administration really wants to embrace the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today, government bodies consider their own websites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing websites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility. "

AUDIO Search for words spoken in political videos

wow, the man can give a speech.

Barack Obama accepted his party's nomination to the cheers of tens of thousands at Denver's Invesco Field, becoming the first black American to lead a major political party into the fall elections.

Bill Clinton Pledges Support for Obama, Addresses Economy

"What the GOP realized was that Obama did come across different than the average American, but not so much because he was black as because he was effortless. The very set of supercharged talents and qualities that allowed Obama to levitate past the boundaries of race and class make him different than those who haven't rocketed upward on the strength of their intelligence and charisma and charm... Obama, in other words, is elite. As in 'A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status.' Obama isn't an economic elite, but he is a social and intellectual elite. "The Obama campaign, similarly, has realized that McCain is an elite, and that voters won't believe that a guy who has so many houses that he can't keep track of them will care if they lose the small condo they call home. This election, in other words, is becoming a contest to decide which type of elite voters hate -- or fear, or mistrust -- more: A social elite or an economic elite?"

"there’s no doubt that it is remarkably powerful. For example, when you put out a fake, like the Kerry/Fonda one.[2] And even like this missile one. You start putting it out there and saying, “Oh look, this picture? It’s a fake. This picture? It’s a fake.” But you know what people remember? They don’t remember, “It’s a fake.” They remember the picture. And there are psychology studies, when you tell people that information is incorrect, they forget that it is incorrect. They only remember the misinformation. They forget the tag associated with it. "We should remember that the power of photographs comes not only from their ability to copy reality, but also to alter reality. Photographs can be used — to borrow Heartfield’s phrase — as weapons. They can be used to warn us about the dangers of impending war. They can also be used to ratchet up the blind forces of rage and unreason that drag us into conflict."

"Juz cheking u invade other Georgia, rite?" (OMG, LMAO)

he sees the Americanization of the world as a central force of globalization that is amplified through control of capital markets and information technology. He further argues that education is increasingly being influenced by the globalization/Americaniz

The Beijing Times reported that part of the elaborate Olympic opening ceremonies display broadcast to the world were actually done digitally in 3-D computer graphics.

History, after all, reveals how dangerous it can be for a president to surround himself with like-minded people. Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, deliberately chose men for his cabinet who thought as he did and, with the agreement of those around hi

fantastic visualization of how demographics scattered by state

just another day of doing business in D.C., except for one thing: "Kenneth Case" was a fiction, and his "Maldon Group" a ruse cooked up by Harper's magazine editor Ken Silverstein to demonstrate what D.C. lobbying was really like.

"New York–based Fox News Channel has obtained a tape which purportedly features another cryptic video message from U.S. vice president and known extremist Dick Cheney, widely regarded as the most feared man in America."

provocative topics... when i have more time, i'm adding this feed. (who am i kidding, i'll add it now and just keep marking entries unread). the post comments are generally interesting, or it wouldn't take so much time! ;)

The feeling and reality of security tend to converge when we take notice, and diverge when we don't. People notice when 1) there are enough positive and negative examples to draw a conclusion, and 2) there isn't too much emotion clouding the issue.

love it!

With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.

"There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated.

More decision-makers bring less efficiency—it’s the other Parkinson’s: the progressive degeneration of a committee’s ability to make decisions as the committee adds more members.

We are, in Fuller's words, onboard Spaceship Earth, and the illogic of 200 nation state admirals all trying to steer the spaceship in different directions

simulation make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone

Global Simulation Workshop, a live-action game that challenges participants to become the world’s most powerful political, corporate and social leaders.

two other powerful but subtle factors at work: one is demography, and the other is shared experiences.

It is highly probable that the next generation of Americans will live in a world where China is the largest economic power. Are they prepared?

inspires social transformation through innovative projects and multimedia

The man behind the curtain comments on this year's race

chart showing the Doctor's waxing and waning revolutionary tendencies over time

an auction game as a crude but instructive metaphor for political campaign spending.

would reverse most of the Bush Administration's technology policies and make Net Neutrality a priority under his administration, according to a sweeping tech policy agenda that the candidate unveiled today ahead of a visit to Google's campus in Mountain V

If Clinton were running against Obama for Senate, it would be easy to choose between them. But they are running for president, and the presidency requires a different set of qualities.

National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, now disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate. He argues passionately that we should be concerned not only for preserving the biosphere, but also t

By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has

visualizes the strong correlation of values in different cultures.

Obama touts life abroad as a strong foreign policy qualification. I couldn’t agree more. The benefit of my life of having both lived overseas and traveled overseas … is, I have a better sense of how they’re thinking and what their society is really

charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and says modern society has a little less to feel guilty about.

another thoughtful lecture from Lessig. He's on a new track, about the influence of money on politics, scholarship, and science (reason a la Gore)

author of "The Omnivore’s Dilemma", his nytimes blog from 2006

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s

Maybe as Americans watch Indians embrace the consumer revolution, we can learn something about ourselves and the role of consumerism in our own lives.

real-money futures markets in which contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections.

'The "well-informed citizenry" is in danger of becoming the "well-amused audience."' By Al Gore. "The democratization of knowledge by the print medium brought the Enlightenment. Now, broadband interconnection is supporting decentralized processes that re

"The ‘Great Leveling’ of incomes became, after a brief interregnum from 1974-1978, a ‘Great Reversal’. From the mid-1970s until the present a widening income gap began to open up, as it once had in the decade leading up to the Great Depression aft

Pages Ed Felten found interesting

"America is defined by a set of ideals: free speech, democratic deliberation and, after a too-long struggle, equality of all citizens. But power has made our nation different. The 20th century has seen a great concentration of power and control."

How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported?

interactive infographic of the 2008 US budget

A collection of over 500 public domain images of American Political History.

a table and graph of the top marginal tax rate faced by married couples for most of the last century in the US

slideshow illustrating world inequalities

To develop agricultural prototypes that are environmentally, economically and emotionally enhancing and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.