Wednesday, August 18, 2010

WEB BOHEMIAN (Wednesday, August 18, 2010)
(1)- INDISPENSIBILITY -- Yes, the EU is an important institution, and yes, compromise is critical for any sophisticated society and any successful world order. And no rational strategist believes America can hold it's primacy.

(2)- ACADEMIX -- We need more pragmatists, more investigators, more eloquent explainers, more lucid logicians. And as we get more of them, we'll be edging our fields back into the arena where democratic citizens can know what we do.

(3)- GRAHAM GREENE -- His sentences are lean, lucid, free of the “beastly” adverb, as well as of authorial comment and moral judgment. He is hard to quote, not being epigrammatic like his friend and fellow Catholic Evelyn Waugh.

(4)- PENTAGON SPACE PARTNER FUTURE EYED -- Secretive Aerospace Corp., which makes sure that contractors' work on classified government space projects is being done properly, could find a new niche in the private sector.

(5)-GOOD BEER -- Swapping a glass of wine for a beer helps save as many calories as you would by taking a 30-minute jog, claims the consumer group Campaign for Real Ale attacking the belief that beer causes drinkers to become overweight.

(6)- FORECLOSURE BARONS – Here’s a Mother Jones article detailing How the federal housing agencies and bailed-out banks are daily helping shady lawyers make millions by pushing families out of their homes.

(7)- NEW BEACHFRONT -- Earlier this year, the 8.8 quake that hit Chile did more than level homes. It raised the ocean floor so much that undersea regions broke the surface of the water. Here are pictures of Chile's incredible new coastline.

(8)- MORALITY BASICS – A significant slice of morality can be explained by our innate feelings of disgust. A growing number of provocative and clever studies appear to show that disgust has the power to shape our moral judgments.

(9)- TAKE THAT -- Many of today’s self-styled ‘Enlightened thinkers’ actually have little regard for the freedom of conscience and principle of autonomy that underpinned Enlightenment thought. Tzvetan Todorov gives them their comeuppance.

POLITICAL COMMENTARY

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