Politics & Current Affairs — April 17, 2010

The Truth About Tea

Tim Rutten at The Los Angeles Times writes that the Tea Party has no manifesto as such and is only the rebranding of the “Angry While Male”.

bigthinkeditor

Tim Rutten at The Los Angeles Times writes that the Tea Party has no manifesto as such and is only the rebranding of the “Angry While Male”. “One of the things journalism teaches you over and over again is that nothing ruins a good story quite like the facts. Consider, for example, this week’s renewal of the chattering classes’ infatuation with the ‘tea party’ movement, timed to coincide with the deadline to file federal income tax returns…What the movement really amounts to is old wine in new skins, a re-branding of the old-fashioned angry white male in a camera-ready package tailored to the demands of the 24-hour cable news cycle. “

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.

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