Weekend Reads 10/19/19

Humans Will Never Live on Another Planet, Nobel Laureate Says. Here's Why.

Well, you might say, plenty of things seemed out of reach until we reached them, such as sending aircraft on intercontinental flights. But "in this case, the required physics to reach the stars, if it exists, is not known to us and it would require a fundamental change in our understanding of the relationship between mass, acceleration and energy."

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168 users have voted.

Confusion about Capitalism

Bernie Sanders wants us to know the difference between himself and fellow Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

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181 users have voted.

The Father

a retelling of a Buddhist parable

There was a man who lived in a small house in a small village. His wife had died giving birth to their first son, and as the boy grew up the man loved his son more than anything in the world.

One day while the father was away, plunderers came to the village. They kidnapped some of the villagers, including the son, and killed the rest. As they left town, they burned everything in sight.

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178 users have voted.

Misreading the Moderate Middle

"The Moderate Middle is a Myth" proclaims the headline at FiveThirtyEight. The analysis by Lee Drutman doesn't actually deny the existence of moderates. Rather, Drutman merely questions the notion expressed by several pundits that Democrats can win in 2020 by "moving to the center". Drutman's research indicates that the approximately 40% of voters who identify as moderate or independent are not a cohesive voting bloc, and no candidate can win them over by adopting a centrist policy position.

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201 users have voted.

Weekend Reads 9/28/19

An unshackled Trump finally gets the presidency he always wanted

“It’s very easy, actually, to work with me. You know why it’s easy? Because I make all the decisions. They don’t have to work,” Trump told reporters last Friday as he explained why being his national security adviser, in his mind, is now a low-key post.

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130 users have voted.

Fact Checking for Weasels

It's rare to see such transparent dishonesty as in this piece from E. Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. The Cornwall Alliance is, according to its website,

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197 users have voted.

Weekend Reads 9/21/19

Study shows some political beliefs are just historical accidents

In two of the ten experimental worlds, people simply saw these statements and were asked, “As a [Democrat/Republican], do you agree or disagree with this statement?”

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130 users have voted.

Beto's Buyback

Beto O'Rourke made headlines in the latest Democratic debate. When asked, based on a previous statement he had made endorsing gun buybacks, whether he was actually proposing taking away citizens' guns, he answered:

Hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.

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187 users have voted.

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