Posts Tagged ‘Scientology’
Tuesday Night Links
* Ten Percent Of U.S. High School Students Graduating Without Basic Object Permanence Skills.
* Teachers in Seattle boycotting standardized testing.
* Neoliberalism watch: Under this plan, financed by Pitney Bowes, the entire Postal Service would become a series of private companies that would process and transport the mail to your US Postal Service Letter Carrier who would deliver it. The rational of this misguided plan is that they can eliminate hundreds of thousands of good union middle class jobs and replace them with low wage and benefit challenged employees . Then disguise it by still having your trusted Letter Carrier still bring it to your door.
* End of history watch: The 14 rules for predicting future geopolitical events.
* Alas, Atlantic: Boing Boing and The Onion twist the knife.
* And it looks like Republicans are now full-on committed to trying to rig the Electoral College in their favor. Bring on the next manufactured political crisis! Adventure!
Evening Links
* World saved from Zack Snyder Star Wars movie.
* But it was too late for the Atlantic, powerless before Tom Cruise’s superpowers.
* 2013 in franchise science fiction, from io9. Only Brad Bird’s 1952 can save us now.
* New York Times already hyping Ender’s Game.
* The best companion says she won’t be back for Who‘s 50th.
* The Disneyland of paranoia. See also McSweeney’s:
First, they came for unregulated handguns in the possession of citizens with violent criminal records, and I said, “You know, that sounds reasonable. Someone with a violent criminal record has probably lost his or her right to possess a handgun. So, yeah, sounds good.”
Then they came to require background checks, gun licenses, and regular gun safety courses, and I said, “All of this sounds fine to me. Guns are dangerous, and we regulate every other dangerous product. So, really, whatever you want to do on this is also fine.”
Then they came for my assault rifle, and I said, “Assault rifles? You should have started with assault rifles. You’re doing this backwards. But OK, of course you can have my assault rifle. Why do I need an assault rifle?”
Then they came to guarantee mental health care to everyone, because our treatment of our most vulnerable citizens is a measure of our dignity as a society, and I said, “This one is obvious. In fact, I can’t believe we HAVEN’T been guaranteeing mental health care for everyone who needs it. Let’s get going on this.”
* And just one political link: The high price of being single in America.
A Few Other Late-Night Links
A few other late-night links.
* Philip Roth has surrendered to television on behalf of the novel.
“I was being optimistic about 25 years really. I think it’s going to be cultic. I think always people will be reading them but it will be a small group of people. Maybe more people than now read Latin poetry, but somewhere in that range.”
* Chris Ware in the New Yorker.
* If Harry Potter Was Made in the 1980s, and Starred David Bowie.
* ‘Man who threw feces in courtroom draws 31-year sentence for robbery.’ Live and learn.
* The Telegraph covers the laws of internet discourse.
7. Pommer’s Law
Proposed by Rob Pommer on rationalwiki.com in 2007, this states: “A person’s mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”
* Scientology convicted of fraud in France. See also.
* Will D.C. let J.J. Abrams have a crack at Superman? After the success of the Star Trek reboot this seems like an obvious move—and it would certainly be better than all their other attempts so far.
* Is your city recession-proof?
* Why your dryer sucks. More here.
* And Ezra Klein puts the politics behind the public option very well:
For the real liberals, the public option was already a compromise from single-payer. For the slightly less radical folks, the public option that’s barred from partnering with Medicare to maximize the government’s buying power was a compromise down from a Medicare-like insurance plan. For the folks even less radical than that, the public option that states can “opt out” of is a compromise from the straight public option. Access to the public option will be a political question settled at the state level. It is not a settled matter of national policy.
In many ways, this is a fundamentally conservative approach to a liberal policy experiment. It’s only offered to individuals eligible for the insurance exchanges, which is a small minority of the population. The majority of Americans who rely on employer-based insurance would not be allowed to choose the exchanges. From there, it is only one of many options on the exchange, and only in states that choose to have it. In other words, it has been designed to preserve the status quo and be decided on the state level. Philosophically, these are major compromises liberals have made on this plan. They should get credit for that.
Scientology Orientation Video
Atheist Media Blog has what looks like a bootleg Scientology orientation film. Hail Xenu.
Since Scientology is relatively new, you may hear the question asked: Is Scientology a bonafide religion? Let me assure you, it is, according to more than 65 court decisions around the world.
It’s Friday, I’m in Links
Bookmark this for later: WGA Theater presents a few hours of Deadwood creator David Milch lecturing on the idea of the writer.
* Advice for academic job talks. Not that there are any jobs out there anyway… Via MeFi.
* At Atheist Media Blog, the scabtastic* Colbert Report mocks Will Smith for joining the Church of Scientology. My vague, never-really-voiced intention not to watch The Daily Show or Colbert in solidarity with the writers’ strike never really panned out, by the way—I cracked pretty much on the first day. But I do watch with scorn now. Scorn.
Here’s Salon on the state of these now-writerless shows. I agree that the magic is missing somewhat, especially with regard to Stewart, but I’m also amazed by how well they’ve both been able to fake it thus far.
* My understanding is that Colbert and Stewart came back because Viacom threatened to fire everyone, writers and crew included, if they didn’t. I cling to this justification, true or not, for dear life.
* Frank Pringle has found a way to squeeze oil and gas from just about anything; it’s a little something I call Mr. Fusion. Via MeFi. We’re saved!