Friday procrastination: link love – books, blogs, and basements
What Rebecca has been reading this week.
Senators Obama and McCain confirm the malfunction of campaign finance reform
A look at the failure of campaign finance reform.
Ammon’s Favorite Words, This Week
Several months ago, John McGrath of Wordie interviewed me for this blog. He asked me about my favorite words that I had come across in reading the OED and I gave him a list of what they were at the time. But words can be capricious things, and the ones of which I am fondest are constantly changing.
Magnet – Podictionary Word of the Day
The OED refers to two men; Pliny and Nicander—in its etymology for the word magnet. Pliny was a Roman who lived in the 1st century and wrote the ‘Natural History’. Nicander was a Greek, who lived 300 years earlier. It’s very useful in figuring out how past peoples thought of the world around them.
Launching Powers of Persuasion
Photos from the launch party of Powers of Persuasion: The Inside Story of British Advertising by Winston Fletcher
Richard Dawkins: Daisy Chain Podcast
Week Six
This week, Dawkins talks about how he links together the scientists in his book. He provides an example while talking about three connecting scientists: Niko Tinbergen, Ernst Mayr, and Edward O. Wilson. He refers to how he treated them as a daisy chain – with a single connecting thread linking them.
Experimental Philosophy:
In this Universe is it possible for a person to be fully morally responsible for their actions?
William John Thoms, The Man Who Invented The Word Folklore
Anatoly celebrates a word pioneer.
When British Advertising Led The World
Winstone Fletcher tells us about the time when Britain was leading the world in advertising
Great Abaco Island, Bahamas
Ben’s Place of the week is Great Abaco Island, Bahamas.
Calling Hollywood! Remake These Musicals.
What musicals do you think should be made into films?
Against Court Sanctioned Secrecy
David Michaels is a scientist and former government regulator. During the Clinton Administration, he served as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety and Health, responsible for protecting the health and safety of the workers, neighboring communities, and the environment surrounding the nation’s nuclear weapons factories. He currently directs the Project on Scientific Knowledge and […]
Doubt Is Their Product: An Excerpt
Since 1986 every bottle of aspirin sold in the U.S. has included a label advising parents that consumption by children with viral illnesses greatly increases their risk of developing Reye’s syndrome, a serious illness that often involves sudden damage to the brain or liver – killing 1/3 diagnosed.
Veneers of Citizenship
Peter J. Spiro teaches law at Temple University and is the author of Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization which charts the trajectory of American citizenship and shows how American identity is unsustainable in the face of globalization. The article below looks at citizenship in the light of July 4th. As happens every July 5th, […]
An Excerpt From Reading The OED
An excerpt from Ammon Shea’s Reading The OED.
Quit squawking, fleshwad! Futurama’s human-insult-a-palooza
Peters explores the vocabulary used on the show Futurama.