What happens when there is no criticism allowed

"We Meant Well" chronicles the mishaps of the US in Iraq... even his book his criticized for criticizing, for saying something bad when people had such good intentions, warm feelings.
There is a failure from both ends though: the ones that stop all criticism as disloyal and the ones who would criticize for fun and pleasure and excess that make criticism understandable unwelcome.

Ponder this: We Meant Well

“If you feel that strongly about policies you feel are misguided and harmful, you do the honorable thing and resign before tearing your colleagues apart in public,” said a diplomat who served in Iraq, speaking, as is more typically the case, on the condition of anonymity."

 one diplomat’s darkly humorous and ultimately scathing assault on just about everything the military and the State Department have done — or tried to do — since the invasion of Iraq. The title says it all: “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People” (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company).

To the believer, loyalty rules.  And how else can it be.  
But if it is an attempt at the truth, if it is not exploitive, why not?
Same sort of thing when you have to tell some religious people, some believers that your inside information right along with them, their faith has flaws.

I don't like Terry Jones, but

Nazi sympathizers marched in Skokie... because Jews aren't violent.  Jones can't protest because Islamists are...
There is a message here: if you want to get your way, be prepared to threaten violence and be prepared to deliver.  Absolutely.
Be prepared to lose if you can't.

US as failed state

The stuff about the constitution and Bush and civil libertes is bull shit mostly.
The global stuff and a whole lot more: that's dead on.
The US is a failed state.  Now.
It is backward in education and health and social services and environment and it caters to the quick sell:  citizens are preserved as customers, consumers, cattle.
It is fundamentalist.  It's a war machine.
But we tell ourselves that we are the greatest country in the world.  Like Tippy the Wonderdog of Bob and Ray fame.

killing goes equal opportunity: women suicide bombers

big big step... essentially, a dramatic way for women to enter what has been a males only camp: violence. it's only one step up from swooning, really.

12 Dead, 31 Wounded in Base Shootings - NYTimes.com

"Malik Nadal Hassan"
nothing about right or wrong etc etc etc... not a thing.
but no doubt at all: muslims are dangerous.
now, consider israel making nice with the palestinians.
dangerous.

The Young and the Neuro

We already knew this. This is why you teach your kids. And your dogs.

"But a study by Saaid A. Mendoza and David M. Amodio of New York University showed that if you give people a strategy, such as reminding them to be racially fair, it is possible to counteract those perceptions. People feel disgust toward dehumanized groups, but a study by Claire Hoogendoorn, Elizabeth Phelps and others at N.Y.U. suggests it is possible to lower disgust and the accompanying insula activity through cognitive behavioral therapy.

In other words, consciousness is too slow to see what happens inside, but it is possible to change the lenses through which we unconsciously construe the world."

health care: not in my backyard!

A Conservative views a fellow American leaving for another country because, maybe,
the water is better?
there is less crime
there is better government
there is health care
there is better education...
the water and air is better
there is protection for the worker
the food industry is kinder to animals

Truth is, no American would do that. You can leave for a better job, you can leave for more freedom, but that's about it. Even then, you should have fought!
No American would give up his freedom for less.
No American would trade his ability for ultimate success, to make it on his own, here in America.
No, anyone that would leave the states for something as simple as health is no American. Well, maybe a liberal, but isn't that just the same thing? But no honest conservative god fearing American.
And anyone that would soften the United States by currying to such weakness: that's no American either.

Benford's Law

Benford's Law

Health care around the globe - USATODAY.com

Health care around the globe - USATODAY.com

Bill Maher: New Rule: You Can't Complain About Health Care Reform If You're Not Willing to Reform Your Own Health

Bill Maher: New Rule: You Can't Complain About Health Care Reform If You're Not Willing to Reform Your Own Health

Aunt of Jaycee Dugard says "not bad..."

the aunt has some nice things to say... everybody seems ok...
there is an ethical dilemma... much the same as treating slaves nicely:
If you do something bad but it turns out to be nice, then what?