The Liberty Doctrine: Michael McFaul proposes that the use of U.S. power should be aimed at the forceful promotion of individual freedom abroad above all else.
The next phase of the war on terrorism, therefore, must be the expansion of liberty to these areas. The United States cannot be content with preserving the current order in the international system. Rather, the United States must become once again a revisionist power -- a country that seeks to change the international system as a means of enhancing its own national security. Moreover, this mission must be offensive in nature. The United States cannot afford to wait and react to the next attack. Rather, we must seek to isolate and destroy our enemies by eliminating their regimes and safe havens. The ultimate purpose of American power is the creation of an international community of democratic states that encompasses every region of the planet.
A Brief History of Thinking Outside the Box: Social Inventions Through the Ages: Utne Reader lists at the major changes in society over time. I'm not sure about some of their choices: do raves really rank up there with Urukagina's Code?
Moral Clarity: Safire looks at a phrase that has seen wide use in justifications of military action and intervention recently.
U.S. Offensive in Latin America: Coups, Retreats, and Radicalization: on U.S. intervention in Venezuela, Columbia, and other countries in the region.
The worldwide U.S. military-political offensive is manifest in multiple contexts in Latin America. The U.S. offensive aims to prop up decaying client regimes, destabilize independent regimes, pressure the center-left to move to the right, and destroy or isolate the burgeoning popular movements challenging the U.S. empire and its clients.
The "Oh Really?" Factor: FAIR looks at the (in)accuracy of the O'Reilly Factor.
Updated to correct O'Reilly Factor's URL
Global Village Idiocy: Thomas Friedman on the spreading of misinformation over the net and the tendency of people to believe what they read.
At its best, the Internet can educate more people faster than any media tool we've ever had. At its worst, it can make people dumber faster than any media tool we've ever had.
The post-human future: an excerpt from Gregory Stock's book, Redefining Humans, on the manipulation of the human genome. As genetic knowledge and technology improves, this path is inevitable. As soon as we know how to do it, someone will.
At first glance the very notion that we might become more than "human" seems preposterous. After all, we are still biologically identical in almost every respect to our cave-dwelling ancestors. But this lack of change is deceptive. Never before have we had the power to manipulate human genetics to alter our biology in meaningful, predictable ways.
See also:
- A longer excerpt of the same chapter from Stock's site.
- Human Germline Engineering: Implications for Science and Society
Bigfoot at 50: Evaluating a Half-Century of Bigfoot Evidence
Though sightings of the North American Bigfoot date back to the 1830s (Bord 1982), interest in Bigfoot grew rapidly during the second half of the twentieth century. This was spurred on by many magazine articles of the time, most seminally a December 1959 True magazine article describing the discovery of large, mysterious footprints the year before in Bluff Creek, California.
A half century later, the question of Bigfoot's existence remains open. Bigfoot is still sought, the pursuit kept alive by a steady stream of sightings, occasional photos or footprint finds, and sporadic media coverage. But what evidence has been gathered over the course of fifty years? And what conclusions can we draw from that evidence?
