" In Beit Shemesh and elsewhere across the country, some ultra-Orthodox Jews have tried to impose a kind of communal piety—a strict code of behavior that includes gender segregation on buses, with men in the front and women in the back. For most Israelis, this zealousness is off-putting. Founded by secular Jews who envisaged a modern, egalitarian state, Israel has all the trappings of a liberal society: progressive laws and cutting-edge universities, women in bikinis and women in business and politics. But it also has a fast-growing community that shuns modernity and views the world through the narrow prism of biblical warrant. Once a tiny minority, ultra-Orthodox Jews—also known as Haredim—now make up more than 10 percent of Israel’s population and 21 percent of all primary-school students. With the community’s fertility rate hovering at more than three times that of other Israeli Jews, demographers project that by 2034, about one in five Israelis will be ultra-Orthodox. "

"I don't want them remembering what I had yesterday - I don't want them to remember me at all"

" Wertheim's entire thesis in this article is that we shouldn't dismiss cranks like Carter (and, I infer, Simoncini, Clark, Young, and Milgrom) because:

- There are quite a lot of them (argumentum ad populum)
- Math is really hard.
- Learning the necessary background knowledge to do modern science is also really hard.
- Science is complicated; so there must be something wrong with it
- Science is a religion that should be available to all, just as Martin Luther wanted Christianity to be available to all through his translation of the Bible.
- Outsider scientists feel "alienated" by scientific explanations and science as practiced. "

" Known throughout the community for his verbal outbursts and his shopping cart full of trash, area street denizen "Cosmic Stan" must have studied advanced physics at some point, sources reported Monday. "

" The Manhattan Institute, perhaps best known as the “brain trust” of the Giuliani administration in New York, has a long history of working to privatize, undermine, and cut public schools, social services, and public transportation. These are the very services that Raimondo cited as essential in her life and to all citizens of Rhode Island.

" More broadly, the Manhattan Institute pushes a right-wing agenda that is only partially obscured by the intellectual veneer it projects on its work. Whether it’s equal rights for gays and lesbians, immigration reform, equality between men and women, or affirmative action for minorities, the Manhattan Institute is working against it. In fact, the think tank’s best known “scholar” is Charles Murray, co-author of the discredited Bell Curve, which claimed a genetic link between race and IQ – e.g. blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites. "

@valenshawke Dune sequels, a rage comics retrospective

Going public doesn't mean you're not the crazy one. She knows people. And she brought her mom.

" While great for short bursts of fundraising or getting out a timely message, purely digital mobs like Reddit or the hacktivist collective Anonymous are not well-suited for thoughtful, sustained participation in the political process. Fuck the "Wisdom of the crowd." The thinking of the internet hive mind is shallow and frantic, scrambling from one outrage to the next. "

" If Congress is complaining that they don't know about something that you care about, the right answer isn't to tell them to go get educated. The right answer is to educate them. Congress mentioned the word "biologics" 75 times in a month because a lobbyist spent a long time doing their job: educating members of Congress on the needs of its industry. "

"It's all political," says squatter? non-rent-paying tenant? finally evicted after months of dispute.

" What I had meant to describe specifically was the construction of a full-blown alternative media ecosystem, which has been become more self-sufficient and self-contained as it’s become more interconnected. ... That does not mean conservatives are completely cut off from outside information — as David Brooks notes today, research suggests that frequent visitors to partisan sites are actually more likely to also visit “the enemy” — but it tends to be approached in roughly the same spirit we might read the Korean Central News Agency. "

" The output may have varying degrees of liberal slant, but The New York Times is not fundamentally trying to be liberal; they’re trying to get it right. Their conservative counterparts—your Fox News and your Washington Times—always seem to be trying, first and foremost, to be the conservative alternative. And that has implications for how each of them connects to the whole ecosystem of media: Getting an accurate portrait is institutionally secondary to promoting the accounts and interpretations that support the worldview and undermine the liberal media narrative. "
...
" There’s another explanation that’s related to the rise of what I’ve called the politics of ressentiment... So here’s a hypothesis: Epistemic closure is (in part) an attempt to compensate for the collapse of geographic closure. A function no longer effectively served by geographic segregation—because the digital equivalents of your local hangout are open to invasion by the hordes from New York and London—is being passed to media segregation, bolstered by the sudden demand that what was once tacit and given be explicitly defended. "

" One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!) "

I enjoy seeing the hypothesis that family-tight circle of obligation => functional sociopath.

" budget cuts caused enrollment in California community colleges to decline by over 400,000 students. That’s more than the total number of undergraduates enrolled in the entire California State University system.

" This is, in short, a completely avoidable public-policy catastrophe that will have lasting negative effects on California and the nation as a whole. Yet the lion’s share of national media coverage of California higher education budget cuts has focused on marginal problems among the most privileged people. "

" In a press release uploaded onto its blog on January 2, SpyPeople explain that members are leaving Anonymous in order to form an organization with “disciplined leadership” and members.

" “This is a departure from the Anonymous mentality, where everyone does as they see fit without efficient leadership,” the release states. "

" Had the commission understood what human subjects research is under present definitions, it would know that the bulk of human subjects research conducted in the U.S. is not regulated. Nor should it be, if it only involves asking questions of adults. "

" Social scientists need to communicate the value and importance of their research to policy makers in Washington, DC, and throughout America if they want to receive more financial support in the future, a Congressman told Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) members. "

" As they become more political, however, think tanks — especially the newer and more advocacy-oriented institutions founded in the past decade or so — risk becoming both more conventional and less valuable. At a moment when we have too much noise in politics and too few constructive ideas, these institutions may simply become part of the intellectual echo chamber of our politics, rather than providing alternative sources of policy analysis and intellectual innovation. "

" The controversial cap that took effect January 1 says only 3,000 people, including elected officials and statehouse staff, are allowed to be in the capitol building at any given time. Opponents of the new rule say it was put in place to keep protestors out of the statehouse during the new session, when right-to-work is set to come up for discussion. State officials say the cap is necessary for security requirements, including updated fire safety standards. "

" North Korea's governance structure is, itself, murky. While the Korean Workers Party and its highest organs, the Polibureau and the Politburea's Central Committee, officially oversee the armed forces, under Kim Jong-il's "military first" policy, the Korean People's Army, or KPA, appears to have massively expanded its influence: A key message sent by Kim Jong-il's funeral and memorial ceremonies was the predominance of the military.

" Moreover, the most powerful organisation in the state under the last constitutional revision of Kim Jong-il's regime was not a party committee, but the National Defense Commission, or NDC, a military-heavy body from which the late leader took his official title of "chairman" four years before ascending to the party headship.

" Kim Jong-un is not – at least not officially – a member of the NDC.

" Some had expected the currently leaderless NDC to become defunct after Kim Jong-il's death, but it appears to be alive and kicking: Pyongyang's first, strident statement on international relations since Kim's funeral originated in the body.

" Still, with personalities and relationships trumping organisations in both the Koreas, South Korean pundits have focused their attention on the persons marching alongside Kim Jong-il's hearse with Kim Jong-nam during the funeral procession. These men have already been dubbed "The Gang of Seven" by Seoul media.

" Not coincidentally, many are members of NDC, a body that officially or unofficially, remains a core group of power brokers.

" "The members of the NDC are in charge of other power groups and organisations, so the members wield organisational power outside the NDC itself," said Park Chang-kwoun of the Korea Institute of Defense Analysis. "

Implicit: "My or a future administration *could* authorize the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens"

" This is an open, shared space for distributed research focused around OccupyWallStreet / OccupyTogether. We are sharing ideas, research questions, research methods, tools, datasets, and later working to gather, analyze, discuss, write, code, and otherwise develop the theory and practice of occupy research together. "

" Thorin Caristo is not a part of the Livestream media team of Occupy Wall Street. We, the Livestream media team, a sub-group of the Occupy Wall Street Media Team and our allied Livestream channels have long ago cut ties with Caristo and his Livestream channel:
http://www.livestream.com/occupywallstnyc "

I, too, enjoyed Grant Morrison's _The Invisibles_ and have thought it'd go great with weed.

All I'm saying is that this precious cupcake fad needs to end and at this point I don't much care how.

" People who look at potentially successful protests elsewhere and imitate them make judgments, often implicit, about how similar their own situation is. These judgments don’t have to be right in order to be powerful. "

"What are you boys demonstrating about today?"

Salt Lake City superheroes look kinda scary.

Joe Nocera:
" “So this is how the Big Lie works.

"You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he’s an “expert”; out of thin air, he devises “data.” You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.

" You’re chosen for an investigative panel related to your topic. When other panel members, after inspecting your evidence, reject your thesis, you claim that they did so for ideological reasons. This, too, is repeated by your allies. Soon, the echo chamber you created drowns out dissenting views; even presidential candidates begin repeating the Big Lie.

" Thus has Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis. His partner in crime is another A.E.I. scholar, Edward Pinto, who a very long time ago was Fannie’s chief credit officer.” "

" Due to slim pickings, OakFoSho assembles only a 12-person crew. Undeterred, he exhorts them to "go ahead and make something happen right now." Pointing to his left, OakFoSho advises: "We can get out of sight by just walking that way for about 50 yards." One of Oak's recruits interrupts their deliberations to shout at a passing police cruiser driven by a female officer. "Go home, you fascist bitch!" To pad his crew to a baker's dozen, OakFoSho rousts a homeless guy sleeping under a blanket against a light pole. No sale. Homeless Guy prefers to sleep in peace, thanks all the same. "

" Abowd said the small-area product could prevent espionage photography in government buildings, industrial settings or trade shows. It could also be used in business settings -- for instance, to stop amateur photography where shopping-mall-Santa pictures are being taken. "
...
" Moreover, movie theaters are likely to be a good setting for camera-blocking technology, said Jay Summet, a research assistant who is also working on the prototype. A camera’s image sensor -- called a CCD -- is “retroreflective,” which means it sends light back directly to its origin rather than scattering it. Retroreflections would probably make it relatively easy to detect and identify video cameras in a darkened theater. "

RT @substitute: Today in Disturbing Products Nobody Asked for: the "Urban Turban"! #no #advertising

Yup.

Runaway train never going back / Wrong way on a one way track

" The American public agrees with “concerns” raised by the Occupy Wall Street movement but strongly disapproves of tactics used by the protesters, according to a new national Pew Research poll. "

Scientology trying to recruit by using Occupy Wall Street themes?

For entertainment purposes only: the coming cyberpunk decade

" I have noticed a growing trend that disturbs me and others devoted to rigorous research: Too many academics—veterans and neophytes alike—are producing scholarship that appears to have traded careful, methodical, fully developed intellectual work for quick and dirty publication. "

FUS RO DAH!

" For decades, established anti-abortion leaders like National Right to Life and Catholic bishops have pushed for gradually chipping away at the edges of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, with state laws to impose limits on late-term abortions, to require women to view sonograms or to prohibit insurance coverage for the procedure.

" But now many activists and evangelical Christian groups are pressing for an all-out legal assault on Roe. v. Wade in the hope — others call it a reckless dream — that the Supreme Court is ready to consider a radical change in the ruling. "

" The Nov. 8 defeat of the “personhood” amendment in Mississippi is galvanizing supporters to have a do-over in the state and also push measures in Colorado, Virginia and at least eight other states, say leaders of the anti-abortion movement. "