Technology & Innovation — September 7, 2010

Michael Moore Celebrates Labor Day

“Happy F*ckin’ Labor Day! Before there were unions, there was no middle class.” Michael Moore tells White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel he ought to defend the UAW.

bigthinkeditor

“Before there were unions, there was no middle class. Working people didn’t get to send their kids to college, few were able to own their own fucking home, nobody could take a fucking day off for a funeral or a sick day or they might lose their fucking job. Then working people organized themselves into unions. The bosses and the companies fucking hated that. In fact, they were often overheard to say, ‘Fuck the UAW [United Auto Workers]!!!’ That’s because the UAW had beaten one of the world’s biggest industrial corporations when they won their battle on February 11, 1937, 44 days after they’d taken over the GM factories in Flint.”

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

Politics & Current Affairs

A Europe Divided

Politics and economics used to divide Europe into parts East and West, but now North and South better define the continent’s different approaches when it comes to managing money.