http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ body shots of 180-proof ideas en-us phos4escent@yahoo.com 2005-03-07T15:52:06-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001076.html "The Iraqi elections, imperfect as they were, convinced some American leaders that the Iraqi people had reached a point of no return — quite literally turning a corner in the direction of democracy." - ABC, "Has Iraq Passed a Tipping... 1076@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ the lethal literal 2005-03-07T15:52:06-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001075.html Lakoff says that conservatives look at developed nations as adults and developing nations as children -- which makes the UN [especially the General Assembly] ridiculous, because it's mostly composed of children and often tells the adults what to do. In... 1075@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ lakoff the genius 2005-03-07T04:28:47-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001074.html thinkness was sad to not have found any more triple mixers recently. Sad no more: "It's got to be the beginning of a thaw. It's like a family that got a divorce. You have to kiss before you go to... 1074@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ language 2005-02-20T11:34:53-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001073.html Can you please make a demagogic, heart-string-tugging ad about how Republicans are eliminating the poor mustang from the American West? I'm thinking basically a live-action Disney scene where helicopters scare a bunch of horses into a truck and the protagonist-type... 1073@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ political currents 2005-02-17T04:14:11-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001070.html Last week I was driving home a friend of mine, a law-school grad who clerks for a federal judge, and he remarked that most legal journalism was garbage -- inaccurate, simplistic, and uninteresting. One story that was bugging him was... 1070@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ journalism 2005-02-12T05:26:35-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001069.html So it turns out that Celebration, Florida -- the Disney-designed planned community -- is not as lame as I thought it'd be. This Slate photoessay shows that it's actually got some pretty good urban/suburban design. It might even [gasp] help... 1069@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ random bits of detritus 2005-02-10T03:37:31-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001068.html Michael Behe, one of the "scientific" leaders of the intelligent design movement [as opposed to one of the overtly religious leaders who push Behe's ideas], wrote a really just quite stupid op-ed in the NYTimes. The first problem is that... 1068@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ evolution 2005-02-08T06:52:59-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001067.html Previously thinkness blogged about a very relativist trend in Europe in which psychologists are beginning to think that criminality is an a priori sign of craziness. They said this conception didn't necessary change the way we should treat criminals, but... 1067@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ psychology & consciousness 2005-02-08T05:52:21-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001066.html So it was slightly dodgy of thinkness to start filing posts into a category without properly defining it, so here it is: I'm starting a new category called Lakoff the Genius. I read his book Don't Think of an Elephant... 1066@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ lakoff the genius 2005-02-06T10:55:49-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001065.html Last week Slate highlighted the trend of environmental-minded neocons, who are now advocating green policy and even driving hybrid cars. It makes sense for them: they don't want to feed tons of money to Saudi Arabia's conservative, autocratic regime [among... 1065@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ political currents 2005-02-06T10:19:42-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001063.html Jack Shafer remembers that "even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day." [The quote is immortalized when sampled [from some British something-or-other I can't identify] at the end of the track Planet of the Spheres on Orbital's... 1063@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ color 2005-02-01T06:55:42-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001061.html So over the past 2 weeks, thinkness has seen three movies, all of which have been a bit emotionally overwhelming for me: The Anniversary Party, Before Sunset, and Sideways. It's strange, I don't necessarily usually seek out movies like that,... 1061@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ random bits of detritus 2005-01-30T15:37:08-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001060.html This very interesting account of the opening of the World Social Forum reminds thinkness of an old topic that I meant to post about. In constrasting the WSF with the World Economic forum, Samuel Loewenberg mentions that the WEF has... 1060@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ psychology & consciousness 2005-01-30T07:07:34-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001058.html thinkness just had a weird thought while washing the dishes: one can easily analyze life a little too closely, and there's some arbitrary line -- different for different people at different times -- past which we don't want to go.... 1058@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ psychology & consciousness 2005-01-25T21:35:42-08:00 http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/archives/001057.html One Fed chairman apparently said his job was to "take away the punch bowl just when the party gets going." Damn dismal science. Also, it seems that Paul Krugman is a card-carring Lakoffnik. [He says Alan Greenspan is a "stern... 1057@http://thinkness.mindtangle.net/ color 2005-01-25T07:32:41-08:00