RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/September 2016

September 2016
Human Rights Watch may be too closely aligned with the US's foreign policy. George W. Bush is a monster and he shouldn't be praised. The secret struggle against South African apartheid. Bill Maher slams Donald Trump once and twice in a single show. Trigger warning: Facts ahead! Media hails Shimon Peres as a man of peace, but doesn’t bother to ask Arabs. Shimon Peres was no peacemaker. After years of stoking Colombia’s civil war, Washington is now trying to hijack the peace deal. The hidden toll on jail inmates who spend months or years in solitary confinement. I posed as a woman willing to exchange sex for rent. White House is profoundly wrong about the most embarrassing thing the Senate has done. A look at Texas's department of corrections [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/25/the-banning-of-books-in-prisons-its-like-living-in-the-dark-ages? arbitrary] and [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/09/texas_prisons_banned_book_policy_is_a_national_disgrace.html? hypocritical] censorship policy. How charter schools bust unions. The "welfare queen" is a lie. [http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/9/29/12941348/homeless-over-50-statistic A third of the homeless people in America are over 50. I’m one of them.] The military logic of punishing Chelsea Manning's suicide attempt. New Device, Old Quackery - UV Blood Irradiation Stop Pretending You Don’t Know Why People Hate Hillary Clinton Meet Brigitte Gabriel, the most influential leader in America’s anti-Islam lobby. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/25/blitzed-norman-ohler-adolf-hitler-nazi-drug-abuse-interview? High Hitler: how Nazi drug abuse steered the course of history.] Pharmaceutical company patents on Kratom Alkaloids reveal why Kratom has been banned by the DEA. "It's not a few bad apples", William Black on Wells Fargo's fraud.

Women deserve abortion access no matter their incomes. A walking tour of New York's massive surveillance network. I came to San Francisco to change my life: I found a tribe of depressed workaholics living on top of one another. Why Abbas Won't accept Netanjahu's offer to speak at the Knesset The exasperating, never-ending sprawl of American Empire. The myth of American retreat. The effort to eradicate Chicago's gangs in the 1990s inadvertently lead to its bloody present. Your new iPhone’s features include oppression, inequality, and vast profit. [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/21/your-alma-mater-s-biggest-rival-stingy-state-government.html Your Alma mater’s biggest rival? Stingy state government.] The only way to tackle mass incarceration is to address the issue of those convicted of violent offenses. There's a better way to talk about men's rights activism — and it's on Reddit If you don't want your bike stolen (in London at least) don't lock it up near pawn shops The rise of "Crimmigration". How the Turner Diaries inspired decades of violence. Aiding and abetting Israeli Apartheid. When labor laws left farm workers behind and vulnerable to abuse. Release more 9/11 records. When humanitarianism became imperialism. Why the US backs Israel. Why so many poor Americans don’t get help paying for housing. The two Chomskys. How racial disparity does not help make sense of patterns of police violence. The New Class War Corporate Executives are making way more money than anybody reports. [https://bullshit.ist/the-media-isnt-pro-trump-or-pro-hillary-it-s-pro-itself-65f1781d906c The media isn’t pro-Trump or pro-Hillary. It’s pro-itself.] What's good news for British arms companies is bad news for Yemenis. [http://takimag.com/article/hi_im_jocelyn_im_passionate_about_cloud_storage_joe_bob_briggs Hi! I’m Jocelyn! I’m Passionate About Cloud Storage!] Some enjoyable satire from Joe Bob Briggs at an unexpected source. (What the hell is he doing writing for Taki's Mag.) Britain's secret wars. New alt-right Twitter clone Gab is the ultimate safe space for racist assholes, Trump supporters and dear old Milo. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/12/how-america-became-a-1-society? How America became a 1% society.] Money for nothing. Why Breitbart conquered the media. It's time to address the national teacher shortage. Nepal: The Maoist dream. (Autoplay music) How companies are quietly changing your health plan to make you pay more. Faith schools produce narrow-minded children. (Autoplay video) [https://theconversation.com/senator-youre-no-socrates-65397? Senator, You're No Socrates]: a lovely breakdown of Malcolm Roberts and his claim that "Like Socrates, I love asking questions to get to the truth." The recovery finally reached most Americans in 2015. Fancy dorms aren’t the main reason tuition is skyrocketing. Someone just has to ask the question of whether or not theoretical physics is a waste of resources. The University of Chicago’s opposition to safe spaces isn’t about free speech. It’s about fundraising. [https://theintercept.com/2016/09/13/i-was-a-cia-whistleblower-now-im-a-black-inmate-heres-how-i-see-american-racism/ I was a CIA whistleblower. Now I'm a Black inmate. Here's how I see American racism.] Hysteria and hypocrisy in the war on mediocrity. (subscription required. Click here for a secondary site) Greece: A country for sale. [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/the-plight-of-the-overworked-nonprofit-employee/497081/? The plight of the overworked nonprofit employee.] [http://nytimes.com/2016/09/11/opinion/sunday/michigan-prosecutors-defy-the-supreme-court.html? Michigan's prosecutors continue to defy the Supreme Court.] Weapons of Math Destruction: invisible, ubiquitous algorithms are ruining millions of lives Remembering Barbara Lee's lone opposition to the AUMF after 9/11. The Seattle Seahawks #AllLivesMatter protest is an act of political cowardice. Fifteen years after 9/11, it looks like the War on Terror is still in its opening act. The last defense against DRM. How the poverty line makes more women vulnerable to sexual harrassment. Yanis Varoufakis’s fantasy politics. ‘Rolling coal’ in diesel trucks, to rebel and provoke. When people ate people, a strange disease emerged. What if antibiotics were to stop working? "Cashing in on the Culture Wars": because the reason for "PC" culture in universities is that they're being run like corporations, with their HR departments and their luring in of more investors, with the compromises and internal struggles endemic to both. This is the art gallery inspired by the release of Brock Turner. Wealthy students are touring colleges in private jets. (Autoplay video) The South is organizing but there is no one to cover it. Slavoj Žižek explains why we shouldn’t pity or romanticize refugees. The Medical Board of California cracks down on anti-vaccine Dr. Bob Sears for committing "gross negligence" for providing vaccine exemptions based on a lack of evidence. Why Vox's Matt Yglesias should go back in time and unwrite his recent column.

Apparently no one knows what the fuck Aleppo is. Almost everyone gets Russia wrong, apart from Obama The unrelenting pundit-led effort to delegitimize all negative reporting about Hillary Clinton. How Snowden stayed hidden in Hong Kong for two weeks. ...a poignant truth about Schlafly: she was extraordinarily talented yet denied the full measure of her greatness by the forces she most faithfully served. (Rest assured, the article still acknowledges her antifeminism) A left/feminist appreciation of the late Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly. Some Christians put forward difficult-to-trace Hitler quotes as evidence he was an atheist. Richard Carrier tracked down these fraudulent quote mines. Today belongs to the workers. Jerry Coyne on novelist Thomas Wolfe, "his white suit unsullied by research", taking on Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. Fifty years of Star Trek. Framed: The LA Times's six part series about how a PTA mom's life was ruined when she was framed with planted drugs. Secrets of a global super court. The original underclass. The rise and fall of Black Wall Street.