Archive for the ‘From the web’ Category
Beautiful News
From the people who brought you Information is Beautiful, now there’s Beautiful News. The subtitle is “unseen trends, uplifting stats, creative solutions.” The regular news is mostly bad, but there are good things happening in the world — things you should know about. Here’s the main page: Beautiful News There are lots of great infographics. […]
New Zealand phasing out smoking
New Zealand has a unique and bold plan to phase out smoking. The smoking age will be raised every year — until it covers the entire population. Here’s The Damage Report on this topic: New Zealand Phases Out Cigarettes In Country-Wide Ban The video then moves on to a second topic, which is also interesting: […]
Thought terminating cliché
I’ve mentioned David Pakman before, as someone who has brilliant videos on US politics. Here he’s interviewing Amanda Montell, a linguist who’s written a book called Cultish. They have a fascinating discussion about cults, in which she brings up this term “thought terminating cliché.” It means a phrase that always ends the debate, and is […]
Astonishing videos from TopTenz
How long ago did we have fast food? When did Europeans and Australians first visit the Americas? When was writing invented? Who built the first city in North America? Where was the biggest city in the world before the industrial revolution? Your ideas about these things might just be wrong. Simon Whistler from TopTenz tells […]
Imagining people as equals
“Imagine every woman, man, girl and boy we share this planet with is our equal… and if we would just love them as such. Imagine what that would do to war, to conflict, to racism, to division, and to discrimination of every kind.” This is David Beasley, director of the World Food Programme, in his […]
Citizening
Baratunde Thurston uses “citizen” as a verb to suggest that you need to be a citizen not just at elections but all the time. “Some people have always felt the right to take from others, to deny democracy to some, to keep some power for themselves,” he says. He has a podcast called “How to […]
The problem with the NRA
The NRA uses its power to thwart any gun control legislation in the US. Farron Cousins on The Ring of Fire argues that its leadership, not its individual members, should be classed a terrorist organization. The NRA throws its weight around to stymie reasonable measures that are supported by a wide majority of the population […]
Performative outrage
The Republican Party used to care about policies — they were generally bad policies, but they were policies. Then for a while they pretended to care about policies but really didn’t. Now they’re not even pretending. Here’s David Pakman on this development: Trump’s Republican Party is Just Performative Outrage
Dr. Grande on mental health & personality
Dr. Todd Grande is a licensed professional counsellor, and speculates about the mental health and personality factors that are involved in various cases. He’s serious, but throws in 1 or 2 funny lines in each video. Here are some cases I was particularly interested in. Michael Jackson Grande believes it’s more likely that Jackson was […]
How ex-presidents should act
If you’re wondering how ex-presidents should act, it’s like this. Here are Bush, Clinton, and Obama with a shared message of democracy and unity on the day of Biden’s inauguration: Obama, Clinton, and Bush Unite For Biden’s Inauguration Will 45 ever be a member of this group? No, he will not.