Politics & Current Affairs — August 13, 2010

The Rich Turn Left

“The Democratic Party has moved to the left even as its take from financiers has soared,” says a new book on politics. Slate replies that a Democratic move to the right better explains the donations. A new book by David Callahan, Fortunes of Change: The Rise of the Liberal Rich and the Remaking of America, says our nation’s wealthiest have taken a left-hand turn. Slate disagree: “It’s that American liberalism itself no longer feels the need to espouse an economic agenda that is decidedly different from that espoused by conservatives. Economics has been surgically removed from the realm of politics and transplanted into a technocratic robot that is run by the Federal Reserve and its acolytes.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Gesture-Based Computing

“So far, so Minority Report.” The New Scientist heads to Los Angeles to investigate the development of gesture-based computing, a fun exercise intended for serious number crunchers.