Principles of the American Cargo Cult
http://klausler.com/cargo.html

"I wrote these principles after reflecting on the content of contemporary newspapers and broadcast media and why that content disquieted me. I saw that I was not disturbed so much by what was written or said as I was by what is not. The tacit assumptions underlying most popular content reflect a worldview that is orthogonal to reality in many ways. By reflecting this skewed weltanschauung, the media reinforces and propagates it. I call this worldview the American Cargo Cult, after the real New Guinea cargo cults that arose after the second world war. There are four main points, each of which has several elaborating assumptions. I really do think that most Americans believe these things at a deep level, and that these misbeliefs constantly underlie bad arguments in public debate."

Minimalist satire on ordinary attitudes

The crash of 2008 continues to reverberate loudly nationwide—destroying jobs, bankrupting businesses, and displacing homeowners. But already, it has damaged some places much more severely than others. On the other side of the crisis, America’s economic landscape will look very different than it does today. What fate will the coming years hold for New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas? Will the suburbs be ineffably changed? Which cities and regions can come back strong? And which will never come back at all?

"The crash of 2008 continues to reverberate loudly nationwide—destroying jobs, bankrupting businesses, and displacing homeowners. But already, it has damaged some places much more severely than others. On the other side of the crisis, America's economic landscape will look very different than it does today. What fate will the coming years hold for New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas? Will the suburbs be ineffably changed? Which cities and regions can come back strong? And which will never come back at all?"

The full text of Barack Obama's speech on his inauguration as US president.

Two French photographers immortalize the remains of the motor city on film

Through the ruins of Detroit..

Could this be more depressing? The once-beautiful Detroit, formerly the economic engine of a nation, is a ghost.

Maybe it's all I've been reading about the collapse of the classic Maya lately, but this seriously gives me the creeps.

the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking.

The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

Well written and interesting American culture study.

Wha is in your fridge?

Informations about tourism on United States of America

THE OFFICIAL TRAVEL AND TOURISM WEBSITE OF THE UNITED STATES, discover all United States destinations and what there is to do there.

1880-1922

Search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1922.

Roger Ebert discusses Bill O'Reily

Glenn Beck

The same techniques were used during the late 1930s to study another prominent voice in a war-era, Father Charles Coughlin. His sermons evolved into a darker message of anti-Semitism and fascism, and he became a defender of Hitler and Mussolini. In this study, O'Reilly is a heavier and less-nuanced user of the propaganda devices than Coughlin. * Name calling -- giving something a bad label to make the audience reject it without examining the evidence; * Glittering generalities -- the opposite of name calling; * Card stacking -- the selective use of facts and half-truths; * Bandwagon -- appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to follow the crowd; * Plain folks -- an attempt to convince an audience that they, and their ideas, are "of the people"; * Transfer -- carries over the authority, sanction and prestige of something we respect or dispute to something the speaker would want us to accept; and * Testimonials --

Superbe visite de la maison de Thmas Jefferson

Nice story of Thomas Jefferson/Montecello by Maira Kalman

Thomas Jefferson

beautiful and a little sad. hand-drawn and -written essay about thomas jefferson and ach wie flüchtig.

artists illustrations from a visit to Monticello

an important piece on Thomas Jefferson

a visit to Thomas Jefferson's residence

One artist blogs about the impact visiting Monticello had on her and her impressions of Jefferson.

excerpt from book by Jim Collins - How the Mighty Fall and why Some Companies Never Give In

Every institution is vulnerable, no matter how great. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall, and most eventually do. But all is not gloom. By understanding the five stages of decline we uncovered in our research for How the Mighty Fall, leaders can substantially increase the odds of reversing decline before it is too late—or even better, stave off decline in the first place. Decline can be avoided. The seeds of decline can be detected early. And decline can be reversed (as we've seen with notable cases such as IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Merck (MRK), and Nucor (NUE)). The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.

overview of an upcoming book that analyzes the 5 stages to failure for a company or country.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, on how to spot the subtle signs that your successful company is actually on course to sputter—and how to reverse the slide before it's too late -- THE SILENT CREEP OF DOOM

A page with evidence to the contrary tat the founding fathers were as Christian or as intent on impressing Christian values into the Constitution and the newly created American government.

One of the most common statements from the "Religious Right" is that they want this country to "return to the Christian principles on which it was founded". However, a little research into American history will show that this statement is a lie. The men responsible for building the foundation of the United States had little use for Christianity, and many were strongly opposed to it. They were men of The Enlightenment, not men of Christianity. They were Deists who did not believe the bible was true.

The men responsible for building the foundation of the United States had little use for Christianity, and many were strongly opposed to it. They were men of The Enlightenment, not men of Christianity.

Some of them may have been deists at best, but most of them abhorred religion and everything it entails.

s thinking

"Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about." So, Bill Maher wants an aristocratic oligarchy. A pretty funny read except for that section. Some really pathetic statistics in there. Yet, the idea that while many accomplished economists and doctors argue against national healthcare, that the only people against it are retarded, is a complete fallacy, and seems to be the only way the Dems are fighting against criticism at the moment. It just makes them look bad.

I.Q. Tests for everyone! As I have stated before, your well thought out, chosen vote, usually gets negated by a fucking moron.

"So a streak that has always been there in the American right's world-view – to deny reality, and argue against a demonic phantasm of their own creation – has swollen. Now it is all they can see."

"How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality?"

These aren't fringe phenomena: a Research 200 poll found that a majority of Republicans and Southerners say Obama wasn't born in the US, or aren't sure. A steady steam of Republican congressmen have been jabbering that Obama has "questions to answer". No amount of hard evidence – here's his birth certificate, here's a picture of his mother heavily pregnant in Hawaii, here's the announcement of his birth in the local Hawaiian paper – can pierce this conviction.

"Birthers, Health Care Hecklers and the Rise of Right-Wing Rage"

"Liberal power of all sorts induces an organic and crazy-making panic in a considerable number of Americans."

The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both.

Good thing our leaders weren't so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill -- because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites.

a good article for class. talk about the two equal sides to every issue myth.

We'll never have affective healthcare in this country because crazy is a preexisting condition.

So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

pay close attention to the breakdown of services; note the money, resources, and suffering

In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an "evil and Orwellian" example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system. The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.

They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.

An extraordinary report from Guy Adams in Los Angeles at the music arena that has been turned into a makeshift medical centre

"...according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution."

This article raises a few questions for me: 1) Only 39% of Americans believe in evolution? 2) Are we sure the only (or main) reason the movie isn't being picked up is because of the controversy? Could it just not be a good movie or economically viable?

No US film distribution of Charles Darwin film bio

"Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published. "That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said. "The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up."

(11th September 2009)

Charles Darwin film

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

A very well thought out take on redesigning US paper currency

California has the highest unemployment rate in the last 70 years

"Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike."

Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?

California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so…

California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?

America's Best Young Entrepreneurs 2009--via Yahoo! Finance (Congrats to @Shama!!!) http://ow.ly/uad5 [from http://twitter.com/allenmireles/statuses/4844559545]

Fully $350 billion a year could be saved on paperwork alone if the U.S. went to a single-payer system — more than enough to pay for the whole goddamned thing, if anyone had the balls to stand up and say so.

This article is an opinion piece writton the criticisms and downfalls of the healthcare plan. It is an important site, because the health care reform policy promotes itself, so it is important the the public is exposed to both opinions and both sides of the health care reform system. The article stresses the critical state of America's healthcare system and expresses its need for reform. However, the piece stresses that Obama-Biden health care reform policy will only hurt the health care system further.

Matt Taibbi, right on as usual (and rightly pissed off)

RollingStone

While the middle class has been caught in an economic vise, the financial industry that was supposed to serve them has prospered at their expense. Consumer banking -- selling debt to middle class families -- has been a gold mine. Boring banking has given way to creative banking, and the industry has generated tens of billions of dollars annually in fees made possible by deceptive and dangerous terms buried in the fine print of opaque, incomprehensible, and largely unregulated contracts. And when various forms of this creative banking triggered economic crisis, the banks went to Washington for a handout. All the while, top executives kept their jobs and retained their bonuses. Even though the tax dollars that supported the bailout came largely from middle class families -- from people already working hard to make ends meet -- the beneficiaries of those tax dollars are now lobbying Congress to preserve the rules that had let those huge banks feast off the middle class.

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month.

Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

it's time to steal from the rich

(has fees chart)

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers. The percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation.

ht: @STRtweets -- interestingly, dig into the really small percentage of atheists.

Cathy Lynn Grossman 3/17/09

Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds

Really great analysis.

America has been strong because, despite its flawed system, people built toward the future in the 1840s, and the 1930s, and the 1950s. During just the time when Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park, when Theodore Roosevelt set aside land for the National Parks, when Dwight Eisenhower created the Pentagon research agency that ultimately gave rise to the Internet, the American system seemed broken too. They worked within its flaws and limits, which made all the difference. That is the bravest and best choice for us now.

Is America going to hell? After a year of economic calamity that many fear has sent us into irreversible decline, the author finds reassurance in the peculiarly American cycle of crisis and renewal, and in the continuing strength of the forces that have made the country great: our university system, our receptiveness to immigration, our culture of innovation. In most significant ways, the U.S. remains the envy of the world. But here’s the alarming problem: our governing system is old and broken and dysfunctional. Fixing it—without resorting to a constitutional convention or a coup—is the key to securing the nation’s future.

Very good but doesn't *really* propose that strong of sol'ns. I think we need to try to infuse competition into the government. I also think that we need to cut military spending, my god how did he not mention this!

thoughtful - build on this to make the argument that our best way to change the system is by changing the people within it. If people in government were operating more altruistically, it wouldn't matter what system they operated within, good things would happen.

In this beguiling Pacific Northwest city of artisanal cafes, offbeat museums, funky neighborhoods and food carts from every corner of the world, the good life comes cheap.

best. black friday. ever.

stampede

A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said.

re-Colu

@sulaimansaif in reality, the native americans did own land: http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/08/06/cahokia/index.html [from http://twitter.com/ZainabA/statuses/3161344492]

Timothy Pauketat's "Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi" MCPL has on order Aug09

Good #infographic explaining American politics: http://infobeautiful.s3.amazonaws.com/leftright_US_1416.gif – Chris Harrison (cdharrison) http://twitter.com/cdharrison/statuses/10324141855

Liberal vs. Conservative, Left vs. Right, Progressive vs. Traditional

Excellent infographic comparing the left-wing and right-wing government

Hmmmm

confusing and amusing

Graphic comparisons of the US to other countries in the areas of life expectancy, education, etc.

I'll up the ante. What if they were Muslim? @laughingwoman Tim Wise: What if Tea Partiers were black? http://bit.ly/cZzE8K

Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

RT @CarriBugbee: Ephphatha Poetry: "Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise ""Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise" htt ...

"Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. . . . // And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis." (avoid the comments)

Excellent article on white privilege

"In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?" Via Debbie.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

AR: Very sad indeed.

The average American family has more debt than they know what to do with. Here's a look at that debt and all the financial troubles they face.

Wow! Top site!

The average American family has more debt than they know what to do with. Here’s a look at that debt and all the financial troubles they face.

Retirement, The Economy, and What You Should Do About It All

"The American Family’s Financial Turmoil"

have been on four of these!

open Letter to Republicans

Yikes: "Just imagine where America would be today if the 14 to 20 million voters -- 'the rube base' who slavishly follow the likes of Limbaugh -- had not voted as a block year after year thus empowering the Republican fiasco. We would have a regulated banking industry and would have avoided our current financial crisis; some 4000 of our killed military men and women would be alive; over to 35,000 wounded Americans would be whole; we would have been leaders in the environmental movement; we would be in the middle of a green technology boom fueling a huge expansion of our economy and stopping our dependence on foreign oil, and our health-care system would be reformed."

The worsening economic situation is your fault and your fault alone. The Republicans created this mess through 8 years of backing the worst president in our history and now, because you put partisan ideology ahead of the good of our country, you have blown your last chance to redeem yourselves. You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.

republican sees the light

woo-hoo!!

nail hit squarely on the head!

Frank Schaeffer (one of the founders of the Religious Reich) rips Republicans a new one.

LOL THEY DON'T

Visual Economics Great Site for Personal Finance and Econ classes

Print doc

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1431761

Where Americans Are Moving To: Interactive Map http://bit.ly/aYVs9v via @cubitplanning #flowmaps #cartography #migration #maps

Great #infographic ! > #Travel and #Tourism Expenditures in America http://bit.ly/bV9Zl2 #Lp

special urban explorers US cc @emich RT @mllyssa: Abandoned Theme Parks 'Open' for Exploration http://is.gd/cHgHH

creepy

Wow. Creepy/awesome/sad RT @hugel: Abandoned Theme Parks of America http://bit.ly/deczSw (via @caseydonahue)

special urban explorers US cc @emich RT @mllyssa: Abandoned Theme Parks 'Open' for Exploration http://is.gd/cHgHH

creepy

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia...

ein im Ausland lebender Amerikaner liest s. Landsleuten die Leviten, lesenswert (English) http://bit.ly/9mcDsE ich fand es spannend #vfbb – Vera F. Birkenbihl (VeraFBirkenbihl) http://twitter.com/VeraFBirkenbihl/statuses/18785239408

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia...

ein im Ausland lebender Amerikaner liest s. Landsleuten die Leviten, lesenswert (English) http://bit.ly/9mcDsE ich fand es spannend #vfbb – Vera F. Birkenbihl (VeraFBirkenbihl) http://twitter.com/VeraFBirkenbihl/statuses/18785239408

Top Secret America (Washington Post)

One of the best uses of Flash to display data that I've ever seen.

Great documentation: walking across the USA — http://imjustwalkin.com/ (via @Rui_Tenreiro)

I'm walking across America

a guy walks across the US

Carrying a Droid and SPOT Satellite Messenger; via <a href="http://www.modernhiker.com/2010/06/25/walking-across-the-country/">Modern Hiker</a>

Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, also says it redacted harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its own "uncensorable" series of global servers. Wikileaks published in April this year a previously suppressed classified video of US Apache helicopters killing two Reuters cameramen on the streets of Baghdad, which gained international attention. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq and charged with leaking the video, but not with leaking the latest material. The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks and recently unsuccessfully asked Assange, he says, to meet them outside the US to help them. Assange allowed the Guardian to examine the war logs at our request. No fee was involved and Wikileaks has not been involved in the preparation of the Guardian's articles.

Reading up on Wikileaks' US documents on the Afghan war on @CNN http://j.mp/da2xsH http://j.mp/axPx55 and The @Guardian http://j.mp/bjAFKy

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I've investigated in recent months where this is still not happening. Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians." The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency. The war logs also detail: • How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial. • How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles. • How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada. • How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents. Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers.

"We strongly condemn the disclosure of information that makes us look like bloodthirsty fucking idiots."

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency. Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday. The war logs detail: • How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial. • How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles. • How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.