Could it get any starker?
"And so the fact that there were some who voiced doubts about this approach was invaluable, because it meant the plan was sharper, it meant that we had thought through all of our options, it meant that when I finally did make the decision, I was making it based on the very best information."
A year-old paper by Sara B. King provides a primer on warfare in the global information age:
[I]n most modern war, physical battles, if they exist, will be for the purpose of defining psychological battlespace. For example, insurgents in Iraq may blow up U.S. military vehicles because they want spectacular video footage that can appear on the evening news, a jihadist recruiting website, or YouTube. And terrorists may time a vicious attack—such as the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center—to make sure it appears on live television.
Modern insurgent campaigns are essentially information operations supported by violent activity and terrorists are “armed propaganda organizations” who are waging psychological warfare through the media. Information, these military theorists argue, is now the primary battlefield and persuasion the essential weapon.
(Hat tip: Vaughan Bell)
Tina Fey reprises you-know-who on SNL:
Kevin Fanning seeks solace:
It’s unhealthy, sitting in traffic and wishing I’m anywhere else under the sun. What I’m doing is important to my family. What I’m doing is not worse than what so many other people do, for much less. But thinking about the clock of my life ticking away every day while I’m sitting there, just waiting to be somewhere else, I feel the gulf between my body (where I am) and brain (where I want to be) widening. The two growing further apart, until I’m only aware of the distance between them. …
Sometimes you try to be in the moment, but the moment sucks, and you think back to another moment, which also sucked, but had a twist ending. Do long, traffic-filled commutes ever come with twist endings? Not the car-accident kind, but the good kind. The kind that will make a moment in your life stick out as so magical it almost makes up for how unbearable everything else was at the time. Something that says, “OK, yes, there was all that, but there was also this.” You inch along and you pray, and the days pass, and you look, and you wait.
It's throwing a lot of money and new-found enthusiasm at Obama's re-election campaign.
A young male aardvark was born in Busch Gardens:
There are only about 35 aardvarks in zoos in North America. With fewer than a dozen successful births each year, aardvark births are not common. They are solitary by nature, only Busch Gardens is home to a male and female, with the cub making three.
Brian Palmer argues that it can't:
Virtually every civilization that managed to develop a system of writing eventually formulated a second, quickie version. The first would be for formal business, the second for efficient, casual communication. It seems that humans have an irresistible urge to connect their letters. … [C]ursive writing is a bit like sex: Youngsters are going to do it whether we like it or not. We just need to figure out whether we're going to teach them the right way to go about it, or let them stumble their way through on their own.
Kanan Makiya defines totalitarian art:
The crucial element in the creation of totalitarian culture was the involvement of the state, not indirectly, through the financing of culture, but directly, by imposing a "dictatorship of taste," as the Russian futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky enthusiastically called it.
To find, as in post-Baathist Iraq, boxes of files containing hundreds of pages of correspondence from the Office of the President providing guidance on the minutiae of wall posters and paintings and murals and monuments made in Baghdad under Saddam, even as he was waging wars with Iran, Kuwait, and the United States: this is the true measure of totalitarian culture, not what this or that Iraqi artist said about art before Saddam even came to power.
(Photo of Iraq's Victory Arch, modeled on Saddam Hussein's own arms, by Jim Gordon via Wikimedia Commons)
As a counter-point to these defenses of testing in education, here's E.D. Kain's praise of Finland's education system:
In Finland there are no standardized tests. In fact, there is really very little testing at all. Finnish teachers are not monitored or rated based on test scores, and teachers (as well as their students) have a great deal of autonomy. It is a system built on trust, and the film really drives home the notion that trust – rather than faux accountability – leads to real results, leads to teachers and students and members of government all wanting to live up to the trust given to them rather than simply scraping by.
A reader writes:
I want to point out that not only are IUDs effective, they are also cost-effective. This is especially true for the ones laced with progesterone (Mirena) that offer a combined physical barrier and hormone method of contraception, making it human-error proof. I'm a little surprised and unsure why they haven't picked up as much popularity as the pill or other contraceptives.
Another writes:
I used Mirena for approximately six months. I was probably in the minority of users, opting for Mirena before having children and basically using it as a pill substitute. Every minute Mirena was in my body was nerve-wracking – and I'm not even an anxious person! I did a fair amount of research prior to insertion and thought I was prepared for all that it entailed, but that was very much not the case.
For starters, I did not get my period once during the six months. I think the statistic is 30% of women never menstruate with Mirena. I assumed I would not be in this minority – big mistake!. Lots of nightmares/morning-after pills later, I just about had it. Also during this time, my skin looked like I just turned 16. As exciting as that sounds, it was the last straw for me, so I saw my doctor to have it removed.
But after 2 NPs and 1 MD couldn't find my Mirena after extensive probing/blind stabbing with those blunt scissory things, I got really worried. Had it fallen out? Could I be pregnant because the Mirena never latched? Did my body eat my Mirena?! One more Doctor took a stab – literally! – and found the IUD in a weird spot (it was still "effective" but didn't take where it normally latches on, plus the cords were tangled and short) and removed it without incident. Back to the pill I went, and there I've stayed ever since.
I'd love to see a pill evolve to be weekly/monthly/even yearly, as I highly doubt I'll ever put an IUD in my body again.
Another:
Thanks for supporting a discussion on contraception for women. Yes, there were well-publicized defects/hazards/litigation surrounding the Dalkon Shield. But we can't assume that all other devices are harmless. There is a big difference between IUDs that work by the nature of their shape and placement, and those that secrete hormones, like the Mirena. I can't go into all the concerns women are having about the side effects, but there are a lot. Do a search on "Mirena support forums" to see some of the extent of it. Virginia Hopkins has short article that gives a good overview.
The Dish 