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December 2007 Archives
December 15, 2007
Population Control Propaganda Slipped Casually In
In the middle of a Washington Post story on China now experiencing a population increase, in part due to the erosion of its totalitarian forced one-child policy, this paragraph of population control propaganda slips in without even the decency of legitimate weasel words like "many say" or "officials say" or "is widely held":
For more than three decades, China has imposed tight controls on population growth. By limiting how many people compete for scarce resources, the country has been able to lift millions out of poverty.
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Posted by Matthew Hogan at 08:57 PM
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Filed Under:
Economic Issues
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Rants- General
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US Politics
December 09, 2007
More Brains Equals Less Happiness (with related Jumbled Thoughts on anti-Bush/anti-Jock sentiment)
Too little time to ramble appropriately. But here's a jumble of semi-related issues on nerd alienation, anti-Bushism and anti-jockism. First, the comments to this posted article on growing up brainy but inevitably unhappy are interesting, even touching (the comments are more interesting than the article). Though myself a fully formed non-jock last-picked-for-any-team somewhat "brainy" nerd, I nevertheless experienced less trauma than these folks did with "jocks" and other less eggheady types. Perhaps because the school environments I had were not too pro-jock, and were definitely pro-nerd. (That didn't stop all of the usual expected adolescent brutality and social ineptness coming my way, however). Then, I jump below to a bunch of slightly related half-formed theories here, going from the social exclusion of nerds to a distantly related political one: a working theory that alot of anti-Bush personal (not political) sentiment is fundamentally anti-jock resentment by nerds. To which discussion I append an appreciation of jocks.
Posted by Matthew Hogan at 11:53 AM
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Filed Under:
American Culture
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Egghead Stuff
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Random Personal
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Rants- General
December 01, 2007
Need Gadget-Geek Info: Vinyl to Silicon
I am hinting around for a Xmas present: a device that has a turntable, a CD thing, and the necessary software so that one can transfer the contents of the old vinyl record to a CD. I saw this device in a consumer-ish outlet (did not get product name); does anyone know of the worthwhileness/reasonable pricing (USA) of such products or particular models or alternatives.? I imagine there are also legal issues of reproduction, but that's for another day.
Posted by Matthew Hogan at 01:12 PM
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Filed Under:
American Culture
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Random Personal
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Rants -- Technology
