Cloak and Dagger

Spare the Mole, Kill the Party

Any way you cut it, if you support the enemy of your party and undermine the chances of a fellow party member whom your enemy fears most, you have irrefutably betrayed the party’s interests. Inasmuch […]

Gratuitous Impiety

A National Plan to Fight Cankles

“Like you and many Americans, I have cankles- unsightly calves that go straight into my ankles…Yet, you are proof that a woman horribly afflicted with cankles can be sexy even outside the fetish fringes. What is your secret? Are you some mysterious enchantress? What spell have you cast on us? and what is your national plan to combat the growing threat of cankles in America?” […]

Independent Press

Another Rigged Poll. Guess Who Wins?

The poll had a captcha system to block spambots (you had to type in an auto-generated password to enter) but ultimately, like Stalin always said, elections aren’t won by who gets the most votes, but by who gets to count them. […]

Independent Press

CIA Polling Companies

The CIA memo specifically refers to these propaganda initiatives as “psychological operations” (PSYOPS), that include contracting polling companies to create fraudulent polls that show the NO vote with an advantage over the SI vote, which is false. […]

Censorship

Why Planted Questions Matter

Why it matters: planted questions deny your right to question candidates asking for your vote. It’s like trying to buy a car, and the dealer telling you only certain questions may be asked of him if you wish to make a purchase. You can’t ask the final price, you can’t ask about fuel economy, you can’t ask about reliability, or about any particulars of the car’s engine or maker because the dealer has arrogantly assumed you have no choice. […]

Books

Stroke of Insight — Jill Bolte Taylor

Neuro- anatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery and awareness — of how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 18:44.) […]

History

Diogenes

An interesting story is the one where the young Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) met Diogenes, then a very old man. The powerful young conqueror, being solicitous of the old philosopher, asked what, if anything he could do for him. Diogenes replied, "I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give". As Alexander took his leave, he said "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." […]

Gratuitous Impiety

True or False?

A syndicated journalist’s first encounter in an AOL chat room leads to an unexpected and sobering trip to Humilityville

by Evil Wombat, demon marsupial and guardian of children’s library (in hell). […]

Books

Mark Twain on Politics and Immigration, 1872

"They are a kindly disposed, well-meaning race, and are respected and well treated by the upper classes, all over the Pacific coast. No Californian gentleman or lady ever abuses or oppresses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explanation that seems to be much needed in the East. Only the scum of the population do it–they and their children; they, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere in America." […]