World News
On the Effectiveness of Non-violent Revolution
While this article (HT: Bruxy Cavey via Twitter) plainly states that it does not address the moral justification for violent or non-violent uprisings and revolutions, the authors investigated which method of revolution has been more effective from 1900-2006. Here are their surprising(?) findings: In ongoing struggles against oppressive governments, movements for change often confront a key […]
The Future Is Almost Here
Yes, the title is a little bit of a play on words, since we know that as Annie sings, tomorrow is always a day away. Still, reading this article (HT: Gene Rohrbaugh) about autonomous cars made me feel a little like the futuristic self-driving car is not that far off anymore. A new law in […]
Coming Soon: The Hobbit (Movie)
I am excited (perhaps too excited) about the upcoming release of the movie The Hobbit by the same director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The movie is due out 14 December, and I expect my wonderful wife and I will be making the journey to a movie theater as close to that date as possible […]
TED Talk Tuesday: Part 3
I’ve commented before on the science behind fracking, and the lack of media acknowledgement of the improvement in techniques over the 50+ years of the technology. In this TED talk, T. Boone Pickens discusses the possibility that natural gas could be one way to cut America’s dependence on foreign oil. Not sure I agree with […]
A Good Use of 30 Minutes
Take the time to watch this video. It is 30 minutes long, and I’d suggest actually turning off your cell phone, clearing some mental space and really focusing on the content. There are two important things going on here. The first, and most important, is a call to action to tell our government that sometimes […]
How Not to Do International Aid
Found this post a week ago or so, but wanted to share it with you. Matador Change highlighted what it calls the seven worst international aid ideas. Here are the intro, the seven ideas, and the conclusion: Maybe their hearts were in the right place. Maybe not. Either way, these are solid contenders for the […]
Interesting Statistics from 60 Minutes
I can’t embed the videos here at this point, but here are a series of videos from recent 60 Minutes episodes that reference statistics in the news. First, on a recent case of forged credentials and misrepresented data at Duke University. The main piece can be found here. A bit about the researcher and his overstated […]
The Danger of the Single Story
This is a great TED talk about Africa, and all of us. There is a danger in having only one story about any place or person. As the speaker Chimamanda Adichie, says, the danger in a stereotype is not that it is wrong. Often, there is a seed of truth, but the problem is that the […]
I Knew Him Way Back When
I don’t usually turn to CBN or the 700 Club for my news, but they had a nice piece on microfinance yesterday that featured my college friend Peter Greer and the microfinance organization he founded, HOPE International. We were in an outreach group together back in those days at Messiah College, but I don’t think […]
No Longer Normal 