I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
What Robert Caro Got Wrong
By Fred Kaplan
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2012/05/robert_caro_s_new_history_of_lbj_offers_a_mistaken_account_of_the_cuban_missile_crisis.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Article: Another nail in the coffin of Enlightenment reason | Risk: Reason and Reality | Big Think
Another nail in the coffin of Enlightenment reason | Risk: Reason and Reality | Big Think
http://bigthink.com/ideas/another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-enlightenment-reason?page=all
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Monday, May 28, 2012
Article: Memorial Day, 2030
Memorial Day, 2030
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/28/491144/memorial-day-2030-2/
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Sunday, May 27, 2012
George Will Calls Donald Trump A 'Bloviating Ignoramus' | TPM Livewire
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/george-will-calls-donald-trump-bloviating-ignoramus
Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high
enough, your IQ can be very low, and you can still intrude into
American politics.
---SPSmith
Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high
enough, your IQ can be very low, and you can still intrude into
American politics.
---SPSmith
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Article: Environmentalism and anti-science, how GMOs prove any ideological extremity leads to anti-science
Environmentalism and anti-science, how GMOs prove any ideological extremity leads to anti-science
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/dURwPx9PVAg/
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
There's Something About Arizona - NYTimes.com
We interrupt reality to bring you Arizona, once known as the Grand Canyon state. So glorious, this home to sublime cacti and ugly javelina, an outdoor stage for the high histrionics of geologic time, but so very, very crazy. Even a spate of recent temperatures in the 105-degree range cannot explain the latest doings of government by crackpots.
Let's start with the secretary of state, a wide-eyed fellow named Ken Bennett. He is Arizona's chief elections officer. He is a Republican. He is also co-chairman of Mitt Romney's campaign in Arizona. Recently, a few hundred people who probably spend their lives searching the Internet looking for proof that the moon landing was fake asked Mr. Secretary of State to investigate the birth certificate of the president of the United States.
---SPSmith
Article: Station sex shop celebrates Sunday sales - The Local
Station sex shop celebrates Sunday sales - The Local
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120524-42739.html
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Thursday, May 24, 2012
SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY: THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION IN AMERICA
Creationism in America, then, may be a symptom of reli- gion, but religion in the modern world may itself be a symptom of unhealthy societies. Ultimately, the best strategy to make Ameri- cans more receptive to evolution might require loosening the grip of religion on our country. This may sound not only invidious but untenable, yet data from other countries suggest that such secularism is possible and, indeed, is increasing in the United States at this moment. But weakening religion may itself require other, more profound changes: creating a society that is more just, more caring, more egalitarian. Regardless of how you feel about religion, that is surely a goal most of us can endorse.
My break with the extreme right - Politics - Salon.com
As a conservative, I disagree with the political opinions of liberals. But to me, a verbal assault indicates insecurity and weakness on the part of the assaulter, as in "Is that the best they can do?" This playground bullying – the name-calling, the screaming, the horrible accusations – all are intended to stifle debate, the very lifeblood of a democracy.
Meanwhile, these people who practice shutting down the opposition through shouts and smears accuse President Obama of having dictatorial dreams? A recent email I received, based on accusations from umpteen right-wing groups, blared in caps-lock fury: "BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA HAS SIGNED A MARTIAL LAW EXECUTIVE ORDER!" This specific message, from a group calling itself RightMarch.org, goes on: "THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! BARACK OBAMA IS TRYING TO VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION, BECOME A DICTATOR, AND TAKE AWAY OUR RIGHTS!"
---SPSmith
Dennis Prager’s False Dichotomy | Dispatches from the Culture Wars
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/05/24/dennis-pragers-false-dichotomy/
Dennis Prager fancies himself an intellectual, as do most of his
followers. In reality, he's at about the Rush Limbaugh level, a
purveyor of little more than bland catchphrases and platitudes in the
service of his right wing ideology. And he's completely oblivious to
his own internal contradictions.
---SPSmith
Dennis Prager fancies himself an intellectual, as do most of his
followers. In reality, he's at about the Rush Limbaugh level, a
purveyor of little more than bland catchphrases and platitudes in the
service of his right wing ideology. And he's completely oblivious to
his own internal contradictions.
---SPSmith
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
John Quiggin on Utopia | FiveBooks | The Browser
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/john-quiggin-on-utopia?page=3
Forget about all these utopian ideas, those things don't work and
never will. The only freedom that can be delivered is the freedom of
market choices, and if we give those to everyone, even if the outcomes
initially aren't equal, everybody will be better off in the long-run."
A large part of my work is about pulling that down, saying, "Now we've
had 30 years of this stuff, let's look at what's actually happened."
The answer is that in the US the average person is very little better
off, in material terms, than they were 30-40 years ago. Real wages for
high-school educated workers haven't risen since the 1970s. There are
more people below the poverty line now than there were in 1960. The
model – in its most sophisticated and well-developed form – hasn't
delivered the goods
---SPSmith
Forget about all these utopian ideas, those things don't work and
never will. The only freedom that can be delivered is the freedom of
market choices, and if we give those to everyone, even if the outcomes
initially aren't equal, everybody will be better off in the long-run."
A large part of my work is about pulling that down, saying, "Now we've
had 30 years of this stuff, let's look at what's actually happened."
The answer is that in the US the average person is very little better
off, in material terms, than they were 30-40 years ago. Real wages for
high-school educated workers haven't risen since the 1970s. There are
more people below the poverty line now than there were in 1960. The
model – in its most sophisticated and well-developed form – hasn't
delivered the goods
---SPSmith
Article: Andrew Sullivan bashes scientism
Andrew Sullivan bashes scientism
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/andrew-sullivan-bashes-scientism/
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Monday, May 21, 2012
Jeremy Harding reviews ‘Talking to the Enemy’ by Scott Atran · LRB 17 February 2011
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n04/jeremy-harding/where-the-jihadis-are
secretive worlds where small groups of people espouse very large ideas
involving honour, martyrdom and faith: worlds where the sacred is a
choice, rather than a set of beliefs on which a society agrees
---SPSmith
secretive worlds where small groups of people espouse very large ideas
involving honour, martyrdom and faith: worlds where the sacred is a
choice, rather than a set of beliefs on which a society agrees
---SPSmith
Article: John Abraham Responds To Christopher Monckton At The Yale Forum On Climate Change & The Media
John Abraham Responds To Christopher Monckton At The Yale Forum On Climate Change & The Media
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/21/487519/john-abraham-responds-to-christopher-monckton-at-the-yale-forum-on-climate-change-the-media/
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Article: Hayek and the Welfare State, Yet Again
Hayek and the Welfare State, Yet Again
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/21/hayek-and-the-welfare-state-yet-again/
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
USA TODAY: Economist Nouriel Roubini predicts trouble ahead for economy
Check out this article that I saw in USA TODAY's iPad application.
Economist Nouriel Roubini predicts trouble ahead for economy
http://usat.ly/KqdsBz
To view the story, click the link or paste it into your browser.
To learn more about USA TODAY for iPad and download, visit:
http://usatoday.com/ipad/
---SPSmith
Economist Nouriel Roubini predicts trouble ahead for economy
http://usat.ly/KqdsBz
To view the story, click the link or paste it into your browser.
To learn more about USA TODAY for iPad and download, visit:
http://usatoday.com/ipad/
---SPSmith
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Hayek's New Popularity
http://ideas.repec.org/a/mes/challe/v53y2010i5p78-91.html
Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, its sales have soared.
Hayek warned that even a moderate social safety net would lead to a
totalitarian government. It did not happen
---SPSmith
Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, its sales have soared.
Hayek warned that even a moderate social safety net would lead to a
totalitarian government. It did not happen
---SPSmith
Article: Why does regedit.exe (or any other Microsoft program) crash when I try to create a remote thread into it using the CreateRemoteThread API?
Why does regedit.exe (or any other Microsoft program) crash when I try to create a remote thread into it using the CreateRemoteThread API?
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/allaboutwmsdks/archive/2012/05/19/why-does-regedit-exe-or-any-other-microsoft-program-crash-when-i-try-to-create-a-remote-thread-into-it-using-the-createremotethread-api.aspx
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Annular eclipse of the sun - China to Texas - on May 20 or May 21 | Tonight | EarthSky
http://earthsky.org/tonight/annular-eclipse-of-the-sun-china-to-texas-on-may-20-or-may-21
Grand Canyon, Arizona
Partial solar eclipse begins: 5:25 p.m. MST
Annular solar eclipse begins: 6:33:59 p.m.
Annular solar eclipse ends: 6:37:12 p.m.
Partial solar eclipse ends after sunset
---SPSmith
Grand Canyon, Arizona
Partial solar eclipse begins: 5:25 p.m. MST
Annular solar eclipse begins: 6:33:59 p.m.
Annular solar eclipse ends: 6:37:12 p.m.
Partial solar eclipse ends after sunset
---SPSmith
Philip Ball on the Origins of Curiosity | FiveBooks | The Browser
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/philip-ball-on-origins-curiosity
The case I argue is that science in the modern sense only really took
off when that hierarchy started to be eroded – when it became
acceptable to ask any question about anything. That really began to
happen towards the end of the 16th century and particularly in the
17th century. Curiosity also had theological connotations. Most
obviously in the Christian tradition, curiosity was problematic and
impious, trying to pry into God's creation. If something was hidden, a
lot of medieval theologians thought, then it was something that God
intended us not to know about.
---SPSmith
The case I argue is that science in the modern sense only really took
off when that hierarchy started to be eroded – when it became
acceptable to ask any question about anything. That really began to
happen towards the end of the 16th century and particularly in the
17th century. Curiosity also had theological connotations. Most
obviously in the Christian tradition, curiosity was problematic and
impious, trying to pry into God's creation. If something was hidden, a
lot of medieval theologians thought, then it was something that God
intended us not to know about.
---SPSmith
African child mortality: The best story in development | The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21555571
World Bank's Nairobi office, "a tremendous success story that has only
barely been recognised". Michael Clemens of the Centre for Global
Development calls it simply "the biggest, best story in development".
It is the huge decline in child mortality now gathering pace across
Africa.
---SPSmith
World Bank's Nairobi office, "a tremendous success story that has only
barely been recognised". Michael Clemens of the Centre for Global
Development calls it simply "the biggest, best story in development".
It is the huge decline in child mortality now gathering pace across
Africa.
---SPSmith
Article: Open Thread Plus Toles Cartoon Of The Week
Open Thread Plus Toles Cartoon Of The Week
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/19/487195/open-thread-plus-toles-cartoon-of-the-week-2/
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Friday, May 18, 2012
What Makes Countries Rich or Poor? by Jared Diamond | The New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/07/what-makes-countries-rich-or-poor/
The strongest evidence supporting this view comes from natural
experiments involving borders: i.e., division of a uniform environment
and initially uniform human population by a political border that
eventually comes to separate different economic and political
institutions, which create differences in wealth. Besides Nogales,
examples include the contrasts between North and South Korea and
between the former East and West Germany. Many or most economists,
including Acemoglu and Robinson, generalize from these examples of
bordering countries and deduce that good institutions also explain the
differences in wealth between nations that aren't neighbors and that
differ greatly in their geographic environments and human populations.
---SPSmith
The strongest evidence supporting this view comes from natural
experiments involving borders: i.e., division of a uniform environment
and initially uniform human population by a political border that
eventually comes to separate different economic and political
institutions, which create differences in wealth. Besides Nogales,
examples include the contrasts between North and South Korea and
between the former East and West Germany. Many or most economists,
including Acemoglu and Robinson, generalize from these examples of
bordering countries and deduce that good institutions also explain the
differences in wealth between nations that aren't neighbors and that
differ greatly in their geographic environments and human populations.
---SPSmith
Thursday, May 17, 2012
The unbearable squishiness of Jonathan Haidt | Pharyngula
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/05/17/the-unbearable-squishiness-of-jonathan-haidt/
The problem isn't that academia excludes conservatives. It's that it
is a rare conservative who doesn't prioritize the moral foundations
(to use Haidt's own terms) of respect for authority and loyalty to the
ingroup above breaking through conventions and assumptions to test the
truth
---SPSmith
The problem isn't that academia excludes conservatives. It's that it
is a rare conservative who doesn't prioritize the moral foundations
(to use Haidt's own terms) of respect for authority and loyalty to the
ingroup above breaking through conventions and assumptions to test the
truth
---SPSmith
Malcolm Bull reviews ‘The Dark Side of Democracy’ by Michael Mann, ‘Genocide in the Age of the Nation State. Vol. I’ by Mark Levene and ‘Genocide in the Age of the Nation State’ by Mark Levene · LRB 9 February 2006
The equation of citizenship with the exchange of rights and duties received its classic statement in the much-repeated formula of the First International: 'No rights without duties, no duties without rights.' The implications of this were spelled out in the Soviet constitution of 1918. Work was the duty of all citizens: 'He who does not work shall not eat.' The conjunction was echoed in the Nazi programme of 1920. The ninth point was that 'All citizens must possess equal rights and duties'; the tenth: 'The first duty of every citizen must be to work.' Arbeit macht frei.
Where there are no rights without duties, and no duties without rights, it is axiomatic that those who do not perform duties relinquish their rights. Jews, the handicapped, and others who supposedly did no productive work, were the victims of this particular equation in Nazi Germany. But they were only the last in a series of victims of the attempt to co-ordinate rights and duties. From 1918 to 1936, the Soviet constitution disenfranchised employers, speculators, clergy and others not engaged in 'productive and socially useful labour'. Even colonial genocides were justified by the supposed failure of native peoples to exercise the duties incumbent on the holders of property rights. The underlying fear was always the one Rousseau first articulated: that someone 'might seek to enjoy the rights of a citizen without doing the duties of a subject'.
---SPSmithMalcolm Bull reviews ‘A Perfect Moral Storm’ by Stephen Gardiner · LRB 24 May 2012
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/malcolm-bull/what-is-the-rational-response
The recognition that actions are liable to have unintended negative
consequences is a constant in human affairs, whether mediated through
the discourse of theology, economics or environmental science. Such
negative consequences provide the phantom opponents against whom we
strive and from whom we try to learn. Counter-hegemonic movements
invariably seek to harness the latent power of unintended negative
consequences to challenge the status quo. But they are not alone in
this. All morality is in part an effort to mobilise sentiment to
pre-empt negative outcomes, and climate science is just the latest
means through which our actions are amplified back to us to create a
moral connection with their consequences.
---SPSmith
The recognition that actions are liable to have unintended negative
consequences is a constant in human affairs, whether mediated through
the discourse of theology, economics or environmental science. Such
negative consequences provide the phantom opponents against whom we
strive and from whom we try to learn. Counter-hegemonic movements
invariably seek to harness the latent power of unintended negative
consequences to challenge the status quo. But they are not alone in
this. All morality is in part an effort to mobilise sentiment to
pre-empt negative outcomes, and climate science is just the latest
means through which our actions are amplified back to us to create a
moral connection with their consequences.
---SPSmith
Article: Australasia has hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists find
Australasia has hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists find
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/may/17/australasia-hottest-60-years-study?CMP=twt_gu
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Article: How To Salt Cure Salmon (Lox) at Home
How To Salt Cure Salmon (Lox) at Home
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-salt-cure-lox-at-home-f-141049
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Article: clown.600.jpg 600×398 pixels
clown.600.jpg 600×398 pixels
http://www.congress.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/clown.600.jpg
Sent via Flipboard, your social magazine for iPad and iPhone.
---SPSmith
so whose anti-science is really worse? » weird things
so whose anti-science is really worse? » weird things: "While the religious fundamentalist will pound the Bible with his homeschooled kids and teach them that they are to devote their lives to a deity that created them and requires their submission and that they are treat every fact contrary to this premise as inherently false and evil, New Age disciples will tell their kids that science is a materialistic, left-brained, arrogant pursuit of truth without the use of meditation that falls pray to conspiracies by bizarre secret societies, and that they’re spiritual beings who can get in tune with nature. In either case, we have anti-scientific attitudes preaching that science leads to nihilism and that the only true path to knowledge lies elsewhere. "
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
USA TODAY: U.S. energy independence is no longer just a pipe dream
Check out this article that I saw in USA TODAY's iPad application.
U.S. energy independence is no longer just a pipe dream
http://usat.ly/Kkk2eN
To view the story, click the link or paste it into your browser.
To learn more about USA TODAY for iPad and download, visit:
http://usatoday.com/ipad/
---SPSmith
U.S. energy independence is no longer just a pipe dream
http://usat.ly/Kkk2eN
To view the story, click the link or paste it into your browser.
To learn more about USA TODAY for iPad and download, visit:
http://usatoday.com/ipad/
---SPSmith
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
BBC E-mail: Why do autocrats do strange things?
I saw this story on the BBC News iPad App and thought you should see it.
** Why do autocrats do strange things? **
Sacha Baron Cohen's latest comedy satirises a fictional dictator's
eccentric behaviour, but why do real-life dictators do strange things?
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17990615 >
** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and
anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's
views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor
name of the sender have been verified.
---SPSmith
** Why do autocrats do strange things? **
Sacha Baron Cohen's latest comedy satirises a fictional dictator's
eccentric behaviour, but why do real-life dictators do strange things?
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17990615 >
** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and
anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's
views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor
name of the sender have been verified.
---SPSmith
Monday, May 14, 2012
Article: Former National Review Writer Claims White Supremacy Is ‘One Of The Better Arrangements History Has Come Up With’
Former National Review Writer Claims White Supremacy Is 'One Of The Better Arrangements History Has Come Up With'
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/14/483521/former-national-review-writer-claims-white-supremacy-is-one-of-the-better-arrangements-history-has-come-up-with/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Intel sets sights on 5nm chip; already gearing up fabs for 14nm production
Intel sets sights on 5nm chip; already gearing up fabs for 14nm production
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/14/intel-sets-sights-on-5nm-chip/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Rand Paul, Asshole and Moral Pervert
Rand Paul, Asshole and Moral Pervert
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/05/rand-paul-asshole-and-moral-pervert/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Article: How to cook the perfect spaghetti carbonara
How to cook the perfect spaghetti carbonara
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/may/10/how-to-cook-perfect-spaghetti-carbonara?CMP=twt_gu
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Friday, May 11, 2012
Simon Johnson on Why Economic History Matters | FiveBooks | The Browser
The healthcare experience in Europe varies. Costs have been controlled better in some places than others. The only countries that have really been able to hold those costs down – and which look likely to be able to hold them down going forward – are those with single-payer systems with more or less universal coverage. But the Americans don't want to hear this. It's not a popular message.
That's Britain, and who else?
Scandinavia. You can look in the back of the IMF Fiscal Monitor, the latest to come out. They have a table, I think it's table 9a, which gives you projected healthcare costs and the impact on the budget over a 20-30 year period.
---SPSmithOur Gift for Good Stories Blinds Us to the Truth - Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-09/our-gift-for-good-stories-blinds-us-to-the-truth.html
Just as we are wired to like a diet rich in fats and sugars, we have
an appetite for simple, coherent narratives. Neither habit is good for
our long-term health.
---SPSmith
Just as we are wired to like a diet rich in fats and sugars, we have
an appetite for simple, coherent narratives. Neither habit is good for
our long-term health.
---SPSmith
Article: 2010 Muslim Populations By Country | Spatial Analysis
2010 Muslim Populations By Country | Spatial Analysis
http://spatialanalysis.co.uk/2011/01/2010-global-muslim-populations-cartogram/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Brad DeLong: The 1956 Preface to Friedrich von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom"
Brad DeLong: The 1956 Preface to Friedrich von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom"
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/05/the-1956-preface-to-friedrich-von-hayeks-the-road-to-serfdom.html
That hodgepodge of ill-assembled and often inconsistent ideals which under the name of the Welfare State has largely replaced socialism as the goal of the reformers needs very careful sorting-out if its results are not to be very similar to those of full-fledged socialism. This is not to say that some of its aims are not both practicable and laudable. But there are many ways in which we can work toward the same goal, and in the present state of opinion there is some danger that our impatience for quick results may lead us to choose instruments which, though perhaps more efficient for achieving the particular ends, are not compatible with the preservation of a free society.
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Thursday, May 10, 2012
David Ropeik: The Heartland Billboard Embarrassment and the Dangers of Ideological Ignorance
There is a message here for all of us, and it goes far beyond the issue of climate change. To some degree, we all behave this way. We argue our beliefs based on the facts, but in fact we subconsciously shape our beliefs so they agree with the group, the tribe, with which we most strongly identify. This strengthens our tribe's acceptance of us as a member in good standing, and produces social cohesion that strengthens our tribe's dominance in overall society. This is a powerful subconscious imperative because acceptance by our tribe and our tribe's overall dominance are both important for the safety and survival of social animals like us. (This phenomenon has been called Cultural Cognition.)
---SPSmith
Article: Intel CEO predicts DOOM for fab industry and competitors
Intel CEO predicts DOOM for fab industry and competitors
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/10/intel_doom_fab_predictions/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
homemade dog treats | 5 Healthy, Homemade Dog Treat Recipes | Rodale News
Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits
A perfect protein-packed snack your dog absolutely will not refuse!
Ingredients:1½ cups water½ cup oil3 Tablespoons natural peanut butter2 teaspoons vanilla2 cups whole wheat flour½ cup cornmeal½ cup oats¼ cup Honey Crunch Wheat Germ
Perverted Science | Alethian Worldview
That settles that then. The new way to do science is the Discovery Institute way. Instead of wasting funds on old-school approaches like labs and equipment, future scientists will just budget for slick, flashy, manipulative movies like Expelled, and then survey their audiences afterwards to see if they reached the correct conclusions, as determined by the producers—er, researchers. None of that boring old peer-review drudgery. Once we have a majority of laymen, science wins. Yay.
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Monday, May 07, 2012
Thoughts from Kansas
As that last link shows, a system based on profiling will demonstrably work less well than random screening. As Bruce Schneier (among others) argues:
The problem with automatic profiling is that it doesn't work.This last bit gets to the second, and I'd argue more important, failing of racial/religious profiling: not only doesn't it work, it's also immoral. It's immoral for the same reasons that apartheid, Jim Crow laws, and the internment of Japanese-Americans were immoral. Using those broad markers as a basis for how we treat individuals means that we ignore the person, reducing that person to whatever stereotype we choose to impose. It's bad public policy, and it's bad police work.Terrorists don't fit a profile and cannot be plucked out of crowds by computers. They're European, Asian, African, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern, male and female, young and old. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was Nigerian. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was British with a Jamaican father. Germaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 London bombers, was Afro-Caribbean. Dirty bomb suspect Jose Padilla was Hispanic-American. The 2002 Bali terrorists were Indonesian. Timothy McVeigh was a white American. So was the Unabomber. The Chechen terrorists who blew up two Russian planes in 2004 were female. Palestinian terrorists routinely recruit "clean" suicide bombers, and have used unsuspecting Westerners as bomb carriers. …
As counterintuitive as it may seem, we're all more secure when we randomly select people for secondary screening — even if it means occasionally screening wheelchair-bound grandmothers and innocent looking children. And, as an added bonus, it doesn't needlessly anger the ethnic groups we need on our side if we're going to be more secure against terrorism.
---SPSmith
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Shapiro-JMLR-vol44-n4-2011.pdf
While corporations are not entitled to the same rights as natural persons, they are entitled to some rights. If you pierce their corporate veils, they will not bleed. But if you ban their political speech, they will suffer constitutional offense.
Juveniles and ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ - The Washington Post
Denying juveniles even a chance for parole defeats the penal objective of rehabilitation. It deprives prisoners of the incentive to reform themselves. Some prisons withhold education, counseling and other rehabilitation programs from prisoners ineligible for parole. Denying these to adolescents in a period of life crucial to social and psychological growth stunts what the court in 2005 called the prisoner's "potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity." Which seems, in a word — actually, three words — "cruel and unusual."
---SPSmith
9780521407441c03 39..67
Measurements unequivocally show that we are in the midst of an accelerating global warming: temperatures have increased on global average by 0.8 C since the late nineteenth century, and by 0.6 C since the 1970s.
What the hell is this? | Pharyngula
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/05/06/what-the-hell-is-this/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
There is no wooish bullshit that Ellen Grace Jones won't mistake for
creme brulee.
---SPSmith
There is no wooish bullshit that Ellen Grace Jones won't mistake for
creme brulee.
---SPSmith
HIPAAOptionsByState2011.pdf
Arizona – Option 1
In Arizona, if you are HIPAA eligible, the following companies offer HIPAA plans, as of December 1, 2010:
• Aetna Life Insurance Company at www.aetna.com • American Family Mutual Insurance Company at
• American Medical Security Life Insurance Company at www.eams.com
• American Republic Insurance Company at www.aric.com
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Arizona at www.bcbsaz.com
• Celtic Insurance Company at www.celtic-net.com • Cigna HealthCare of Arizona at www.cigna.com • Golden Rule Insurance Company at
www.goldenrule.com
• Health Net of Arizona, Inc., at www.healthnet.com
• Humana Insurance Company at www.humana.com
• MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company at www.megainsurance.com
• Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of TN at www.midwestlife.com
• Physicians Mutual Insurance Company at www.pmic.com
• Time Insurance Company at www.assuranthealth.com
• United Security Life Insurance Company of Illinois at www.unitedsecuritylifeandhealth.com
• World Insurance Company at www.worldinsco.com
For more information, contact:
Arizona Department of Insurance
(800) 325-2548 (Arizona calls only)
(602) 364-2499 (Phoenix) or (520) 628-6370 (Tucson) www.id.state.az.us
Health Insurance Options When Transitioning from a Job to a Startup
HIPAA is another federal law that covers a number of things, including guaranteed conversion of COBRA continuation into an individual plan. The benefit of the HIPAA guaranteed insurance is that if you have a significant medical condition and cannot otherwise get affordable health insurance, you will be guaranteed a minimum level of coverage and a lower payment than if you were to buy individual insurance without this conversion. You must also stay on COBRA the entire period, though you'll want to do the HIPAA conversion paperwork well in advance of the end of COBRA.
To take advantage of this law, you should work with an agent experienced with HIPAA conversion - nobody is going to come to you and tell you about HIPAA guaranteed coverage and sign you up, you'll have to push for it. State law comes into play for HIPAA guaranteed options, too, so you'll want to check with your state department of insurance to learn your rights in your state. HIPAA is there for folks that really need it, but there are other options.
---SPSmithArticle: Bill Clinton reviews Caro’s new volume on LBJ
Bill Clinton reviews Caro's new volume on LBJ
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/bill-clinton-reviews-caros-new-volume-on-lbj/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Skepticblog » News from the oil patch
http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/05/02/news-from-the-oil-patch/#more-17534
To summarize: the era of cheap, easily obtained, abundant oil is over,
and oil will soon become scarce despite more and more costly efforts
to squeeze out every last drop from more and more "unconventional"
sources. The fact that Hubbert's model exactly predicted the U.S. oil
peak, and seems to be predicting the global peak, should be strong
enough evidence in and of itself. There is also the fact that the peak
of discovery of major oil fields occurred 47 years ago, and there have
been no giant oil fields found in a long time, and most of the world's
older oil fields are nearing their ends
---SPSmith
To summarize: the era of cheap, easily obtained, abundant oil is over,
and oil will soon become scarce despite more and more costly efforts
to squeeze out every last drop from more and more "unconventional"
sources. The fact that Hubbert's model exactly predicted the U.S. oil
peak, and seems to be predicting the global peak, should be strong
enough evidence in and of itself. There is also the fact that the peak
of discovery of major oil fields occurred 47 years ago, and there have
been no giant oil fields found in a long time, and most of the world's
older oil fields are nearing their ends
---SPSmith
Article: The Top 5 manufacturers in Phoenix - Phoenix Business Journal
The Top 5 manufacturers in Phoenix - Phoenix Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2012/05/04/the-top-5-manufacturers-in-phoenix.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+vertical_49+%28Manufacturing+Industry+News%29
Semiconductor producer Intel Corp. is the largest manufacturer in the Phoenix area according to a list in today's Phoenix Business Journal, employing 11,000 workers at its Chandler fabrication facilities
---SPSmith
Friday, May 04, 2012
Article: Intel and McAfee unveil plans for unified security future
Intel and McAfee unveil plans for unified security future
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/05/intel_mcafee_cloud_security/
Intel wants to mate its Trusted Execution Technology (TET) that's built into the Xeon E5 processor family with software controls from McAfee. The chipset will work with McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator to analyze networks and enforce policy while updating and protecting the larger environment.
---SPSmith
Against Utilitarianism and Self-Ownership Defenses of Libertarianism | Bleeding Heart Libertarians
I find such attempts ad hoc. Instead of trying to repair these principles, I think we should look for an alternative contractualist view on which state coercion is permitted only when persons cannot reasonably reject the rules or principles on which the coercion is based. Reasonable rejectability is a somewhat vexed standard, but reasons to reject (or accept) will include both teleological reasons beloved by consequentialists and deontological reasons beloved by self-ownership theorists.
The promise of contractualism is avoiding the Scylla of consequence over-sensitivity and the Charybdis of consequence-insensitivity in an intuitively compelling principle.
---SPSmith
A Bleeding Heart History of Libertarianism | | Cato Unbound
We do not argue that traditional libertarianism is wrong. Instead we claim that, from a broader historical perspective, traditional libertarianism is really not so traditional after all. Neoclassical liberalism, as novel (heretical?) as it may seem to some, has a better claim to that title. The postwar libertarianism of Mises, Rand, and Rothbard crystallized many of the insights of the libertarian intellectual tradition into a coherent body of doctrine for perhaps the first time. But in that process of crystallization not only impurities, but genuine insights were expunged. The result was a philosophic system that brilliantly exhibited some of the key elements of libertarian thought, but that simultaneously severed those elements from their original historical and economic context, and therefore presented them in a way that would have been largely unrecognizable to their intellectual forbears
mbh98.pdf
It is reasonable to infer that greenhouse-gas forcing is now the dominant external forcing of the climate system.
RealClimate
But back to the hockey stick. Mike has weathered some rather intense scrutiny and criticism over the years, mostly over the details of a paper nearly 15 years old. Yet the basic conclusions of the "hockey stick" remain, and indeed have been strengthened by subsequent work. Most will be aware, for example, that the conclusion that the past few decades are likely the warmest of the past millennium — i.e. the conclusion of the best-known of Mike's papers in Nature and Geophysical Research Letters –has never been seriously challenged
---SPSmith
NOAA: 2011 a year of climate extremes in the United States
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120119_global_stats.html
Including 2011, all eleven years of the 21st century so far
(2001-2011) rank among the 13 warmest in the 132-year period of
record. Only one year during the 20th century, 1998, was warmer than
2011.
---SPSmith
Including 2011, all eleven years of the 21st century so far
(2001-2011) rank among the 13 warmest in the 132-year period of
record. Only one year during the 20th century, 1998, was warmer than
2011.
---SPSmith
The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Genius | Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201204/the-mysterious-case-the-vanishing-genius?page=2
Other studies have shown allergies slash ovarian cancer risk up to 30
percent and leukemia by 40 percent. Cancers of the lung, pancreas,
colon, and more than a dozen other areas of the body reflect the same
"inverse allergy" effect. The Shermans published their findings in the
journal that started Profet's career—the Quarterly Review of Biology.
---SPSmith
Other studies have shown allergies slash ovarian cancer risk up to 30
percent and leukemia by 40 percent. Cancers of the lung, pancreas,
colon, and more than a dozen other areas of the body reflect the same
"inverse allergy" effect. The Shermans published their findings in the
journal that started Profet's career—the Quarterly Review of Biology.
---SPSmith
Heartland: vile scum propaganda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/heartland-institute-launches-campaign-linking-terrorism-murder-and-global-warming-belief/2012/05/04/gIQAJJ3Q1T_blog.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html
---SPSmith
Typical Right WingNut propaganda. Demonizing your opponents on an important issue:
http://climateconference.heartland.org/our-billboards/
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/05/global_warming_is_the_real_thi.php
http://climateconference.heartland.org/our-billboards/
"The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen."
This from the Heartland Institute , a right-wing think-tank committed to climate change denial and funded first by big Tobacco and then big Oil. They're pro-corporate and anti-science, and apparently they don't care much about rationality, ethics, or common civility, either.
Shame! Shame! Goebbles (and Ann Coulter) would be proud at Heartland's propaganda campaign which looks to outsleaze even the Republican presidential campaigning rhetoric.
But, as usual, the ignorant Right are so blinded by dogma they can't tell facts from their own made up fictions. "Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577193270727472662.html
Looks like the AGW folks are far mor reasonable:
Hardly the UniBomber types.
---SPSmith
Check out: 'Accurately Describing the Bible Is Not Oppression' on Slate
I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
Accurately Describing the Bible Is Not Oppression
By Amanda Marcotte
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/05/03/the_flip_out_over_dan_savage_is_part_of_a_larger_agenda_to_silence_pro_gay_discourse_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Accurately Describing the Bible Is Not Oppression
By Amanda Marcotte
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/05/03/the_flip_out_over_dan_savage_is_part_of_a_larger_agenda_to_silence_pro_gay_discourse_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Thursday, May 03, 2012
The Enemy Within - By David Rothkopf | Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/23/the_enemy_within_0?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full
By far, the greatest threats to the United States right now are
internal ones -- like that Big Mac. They don't come from terrorists.
They come from political obstructionists and know-nothings who are
blocking needed economic and political reforms, whether fixing a
health-care system that poses a debt threat many times greater than
the immense U.S. budget deficit or tackling the growing inequality in
American society or overhauling the United States' money-corrupted,
dysfunctional political process.
---SPSmith
By far, the greatest threats to the United States right now are
internal ones -- like that Big Mac. They don't come from terrorists.
They come from political obstructionists and know-nothings who are
blocking needed economic and political reforms, whether fixing a
health-care system that poses a debt threat many times greater than
the immense U.S. budget deficit or tackling the growing inequality in
American society or overhauling the United States' money-corrupted,
dysfunctional political process.
---SPSmith
Article: Republican Billionaire Funds Evolution Exhibit
Republican Billionaire Funds Evolution Exhibit
http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/republican-billionaire-funds-evolution-exhibit/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Sedona Historical Sites & National Monuments | Sedona Arizona Vacations - The place to plan your next vacation in Sedona Arizona.
Sedona Historical Sites & National Monuments | Sedona Arizona Vacations - The place to plan your next vacation in Sedona Arizona.
http://www.sedona-arizona-vacations.com/sedona-activities-attractions/sedona-historical-sites/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
What were the tests that WinG did to evaluate video cards? - The Old New Thing - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
He says that video card benchmarks are really hard to develop, not just because video cards are complicated, but also because video drivers cheat like a Mississippi riverboat card sharp on a boat full of blind tourists.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Romney on Gingrich
Rupert Murdoch's Faux News finally manages to work in some truth to its broadcasts:
"Politics is weird and creepy and now I know lacks even the loosest attachment to anything like reality."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/05/02/151887104/romneys-praise-of-gingrich-leads-fox-anchor-to-call-politics-weird-creepy?ft=1&f=1001
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
“Do women have too many rights?” | Blag Hag
http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/05/do-women-have-too-many-rights/#comment-86023
Sexual activity in humans and many other species is mostly
non-procreative. It's used as a form of pair bonding. It has nothing
to do with baby making most of the time. And even if it was only about
baby making, we are not slaves to our biology. It's a naturalistic
fallacy to assume whatever is natural is "right."
---SPSmith
Sexual activity in humans and many other species is mostly
non-procreative. It's used as a form of pair bonding. It has nothing
to do with baby making most of the time. And even if it was only about
baby making, we are not slaves to our biology. It's a naturalistic
fallacy to assume whatever is natural is "right."
---SPSmith
Newt Gingrich $4 Million in Debt; Staffers and Creditors Fume - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/newt-gingrich-4-million-debt-staffers-creditors-fume-002208567--abc-news-topstories.html
Campaign watchdogs said the size of Gingrich's debt is extraordinary
-- and could have been avoided if the candidate and his team had been
more disciplined.
---SPSmith
Campaign watchdogs said the size of Gingrich's debt is extraordinary
-- and could have been avoided if the candidate and his team had been
more disciplined.
---SPSmith
Article: Epiphany 2.0 | The Killing Moon
Epiphany 2.0 | The Killing Moon
http://nkjemisin.com/books/dreamblood/the-killing-moon/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
A Clunky Cyberstrategy | Foreign Affairs
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137607/rebecca-mackinnon/a-clunky-cyberstrategy?page=show
There is also specific legislation that needs reform, firstly the
Patriot Act, which gives several government agencies sweeping
authority to spy on individuals inside the United States -- and in
some cases without any suspicion of wrongdoing. Likewise, the time has
come to rescind the FISA Amendments Act, which was passed in 2008 and
gave the NSA new power to conduct comprehensive dragnet surveillance
of Americans' international telephone calls and e-mails, without a
warrant, without suspicion of any kind, and without sufficient
judicial oversight.
---SPSmith
There is also specific legislation that needs reform, firstly the
Patriot Act, which gives several government agencies sweeping
authority to spy on individuals inside the United States -- and in
some cases without any suspicion of wrongdoing. Likewise, the time has
come to rescind the FISA Amendments Act, which was passed in 2008 and
gave the NSA new power to conduct comprehensive dragnet surveillance
of Americans' international telephone calls and e-mails, without a
warrant, without suspicion of any kind, and without sufficient
judicial oversight.
---SPSmith
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Against Law, For Order
http://jacobinmag.com/spring-2012/against-law-for-order/
Where these two intellectual traditions intersect is the Coase
Theorem, which states that in a world with no transaction costs,
negotiations between individuals will always leads to the results that
maximize wealth. Coase, a student of Hayek, incorporates Hayek's
notion of "spontaneous order," and rejects the idea that government
could improve on the outcome created by rational individuals
bargaining among themselves. Criminal punishment, as Epstein would
argue, creates the boundaries of the free market, and as such is the
place where the government should focus. Epstein notes, "I do think
that the prohibition against force and fraud is the central component
of a just order."
---SPSmith
Where these two intellectual traditions intersect is the Coase
Theorem, which states that in a world with no transaction costs,
negotiations between individuals will always leads to the results that
maximize wealth. Coase, a student of Hayek, incorporates Hayek's
notion of "spontaneous order," and rejects the idea that government
could improve on the outcome created by rational individuals
bargaining among themselves. Criminal punishment, as Epstein would
argue, creates the boundaries of the free market, and as such is the
place where the government should focus. Epstein notes, "I do think
that the prohibition against force and fraud is the central component
of a just order."
---SPSmith
Against Law, For Order
http://jacobinmag.com/spring-2012/against-law-for-order/
Wilson believed that a "growing and not-so-commendable utilitarianism"
lead many to believe that the police should only intervene in crimes
where there are harms between people. What these people miss, in
Wilson's neoconservative approach, is that disordered individuals,
even if they aren't directly causing harm to people, may sow the seeds
of disorder that can take down an entire community of order.
---SPSmith
Wilson believed that a "growing and not-so-commendable utilitarianism"
lead many to believe that the police should only intervene in crimes
where there are harms between people. What these people miss, in
Wilson's neoconservative approach, is that disordered individuals,
even if they aren't directly causing harm to people, may sow the seeds
of disorder that can take down an entire community of order.
---SPSmith
Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things
I found the following story on the NPR iPad App:
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/01/151764534/psychology-of-fraud-why-good-people-do-bad-things?sc=ipad&f=1001
by Chana Joffe-Walt and Alix Spiegel
NPR - May 1, 2012
Enron, Worldcom, Bernie Madoff, the subprime mortgage crisis.
Over the past decade or so, news stories about unethical behavior have been a regular feature on TV, a long, discouraging parade of misdeeds marching across our screens. And in the face of these scandals, psychologists and economists have been slowly reworking how they think about the cause of unethical behavior.
In general, when we think about bad behavior, we think about it being tied to character: Bad people do bad things. But that model, researchers say, is profoundly inadequate.
Which brings us to the story of Toby Groves.
Chapter 1: The Promise
Groves grew up on a farm in Ohio. As a kid, the idea that he was a person of strong moral character was very important to him. Then one Sunday in 1986, when Groves was around 20, he went home for a visit with his family, and he had an experience that made the need to be good dramatically more pressing.
"I can picture this," he recalls. "I'm walking through our dining room, and I look out in the backyard. It was a beautiful day. And I look out and I see my dad doubled over. And he's shaking. And I think he's having a heart attack. So I run out, and he's sobbing — sobbing uncontrollably."
Toby says his father simply thrust a newspaper at him. "I didn't even know he had it — he just pushes it over, and it's the Cincinnati Enquirer, and I open it up and there's my brother, on the front page."
Toby's brother was almost 20 years older than Toby and worked at a local bank. The story said his brother had been convicted of bank fraud. "I don't remember the exact headline, but you know, our last name and fraud was in there — and that's all I needed to know."
Toby says he always had a difficult relationship with his brother. At least to Toby's thinking, his brother was a bad character: selfish and manipulative.
So it was against this emotional backdrop that what happens next occurs. There in the backyard, under a blue Ohio sky, Toby's father turns to him. "He said, 'Promise me that you will never, ever get in any trouble like this.' And I did — I swore to him that I wouldn't."
Now for Toby, this was an easy promise to make. Toby believed he was a fundamentally good person. He could never get involved in fraud.
Which is what makes the addendum to this story all the more startling. You see, 22 years after Groves made that promise to his father, he found himself standing in front of the exact same judge who had sentenced his brother, being sentenced for the exact same crime: fraud.
And not just any fraud — a massive bank fraud involving millions of dollars that drove several companies out of business and resulted in the loss of about a hundred jobs.
In 2008, Toby went to prison, where he says he spent two years staring at a ceiling, trying to understand what had happened.
Was he a bad character? Was it genetic? "Those were things that haunted me every second of every day," Groves says. "I just couldn't grasp it."
This very basic question — what causes unethical behavior? — has been getting a fair amount of attention from psychologists and economists recently, particularly those interested in how our brains process information when we make decisions.
They say that if you want to understand unethical behavior — and how such behavior spreads over large groups of people to create scandals like Enron or the subprime mortgage crisis — you really need to better understand how people's minds cognitively process the ethical decisions they face.
And so researchers have been setting up lab experiments and conducting studies of large groups of people who have all been involved in fraud. And they've come up with a concept called "bounded ethicality": That's the notion that cognitively, our ability to behave ethically is seriously limited.
"We may really want to get it right, and be ethical and be moral, but the problem is that we just have all these cognitive biases and cognitive limitations that just don't let us get it right," says Lamar Pierce, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
The vast majority of us, these researchers argue, are capable of behaving in profoundly unethical ways. And not only are we capable of it — without realizing it, we do it all the time.
Chapter 2: The First Lie
Which brings us back to Toby Groves. Since getting out of prison two years ago, Toby has been a man obsessed with understanding his own behavior. This has made him unusually open to talking about his crimes. So the idea was to go and get his story, then run it past some of the psychologists and economists who have been doing this work, to get their perspective on what caused him to behave as he behaved.
Early in his career, Toby founded his own mortgage loan company, and he says that as he built it, his promise to his father was very much on his mind.
"I was trying to be very transparent," Toby says. "I think I went an extra mile to be transparent in everything that I did."
That's also what we heard from people who worked with Toby at his company.
"Our culture was, if you do things right, you'll be successful. There's no need to ever be dishonest. You knew you don't cross those lines," says Jim Cergol, a former loan officer at the company.
"People wanted to come to work for Toby Groves because of the kind of person that he was," said another employee, a former manager named Kevin Moore.
And for years, through the '90s and early 2000s, Toby's mortgage company prospered. Then one day in 2004, Toby says he sat down at his computer to crunch some numbers and discovered that his fantastically successful company was no longer so fantastically successful.
The problems began, according to Toby, when he decided to make some fundamental changes in the way his business operated. At the same time, he started a side project that consumed a large amount of his time and attention.
He says he was distracted, and until that moment at his computer, hadn't fully realized what was happening. But there it was, undeniable: His company was almost a quarter of a million dollars in the hole.
"I remember sitting ... thinking ... I can fix this," Toby says.
What Toby decided to do to fix this shortfall his business faced was to take out a mortgage on his own property, a beautiful farmhouse outside the city.
There was, however, a problem with this plan: If Toby told the truth about his income, his application would likely be rejected.
And so Toby decided to lie — to tell the bank that he was making $350,000, when in reality he was making nowhere near that.
This is the first lie Groves told — the unethical act that opened the door to all the other unethical acts. So, what was going on in his head at the time?
"There wasn't much of a thought process," he says. "I felt like, at that point, that was a small price to pay and almost like a cost of doing business. You know, things are going to happen, and I just needed to do whatever I needed to do to fix that. It wasn't like ... I didn't think that I was going to be losing money forever or anything like that."
Consider that for a moment.
Here is a man who stood with his heartbroken father and pledged to behave ethically. Anyone involved in the mortgage business knows that it is both unethical and illegal to lie on a mortgage application.
How could that promise be so easily broken?
Chapter 3: Why We Don't See The Ethical Big Picture
To understand, says Ann Tenbrunsel, a researcher from Notre Dame who studies unethical behavior, you have to consider what this looks like from Toby's perspective.
There is, she says, a common misperception that at moments like this, when people face an ethical decision, they clearly understand the choice that they are making.
"We assume that they can see the ethics and are consciously choosing not to behave ethically," Tenbrunsel says.
This, generally speaking, is the basis of our disapproval: They knew. They chose to do wrong.
But Tenbrunsel says that we are frequently blind to the ethics of a situation.
Over the past couple of decades, psychologists have documented many different ways that our minds fail to see what is directly in front of us. One small example: the way a decision is framed. "The way that a decision is presented to me," says Tenbrunsel, "very much changes the way in which I view that decision, and then eventually, the decision it is that I reach."
Essentially, Tenbrunsel argues, certain cognitive frames make us blind to the fact that we are confronting an ethical problem at all.
Tenbrunsel told us about a recent experiment that illustrates the problem. She got together two groups of people and told one to think about a business decision. The other group was instructed to think about an ethical decision. Those asked to consider a business decision generated one mental checklist; those asked to think of an ethical decision generated a different mental checklist.
Tenbrunsel next had her subjects do an unrelated task to distract them. Then she presented them with an opportunity to cheat. Those cognitively primed to think about business behaved radically different from those who were not — no matter who they were, or what their moral upbringing had been.
"If you're thinking about a business decision, you are significantly more likely to lie than if you were thinking from an ethical frame," Tenbrunsel says.
According to Tenbrunsel, the business frame cognitively activates one set of goals — to be competent, to be successful; the ethics frame triggers other goals — to be fair and not hurt others. And once you're in, say, a business frame, you become really focused on meeting those goals, and other goals can completely fade from view.
Tenbrunsel listened to Toby's story, and she argues that one way to understand Toby's initial choice to lie on his loan application is to consider the cognitive frame he was using.
"His sole focus was on making the best business decision," she says, which made him blind to the ethics.
Obviously we'll never know what was actually going through Toby's mind, and the point of raising this possibility is not to excuse Toby's bad behavior, but simply to demonstrate in a small way the very uncomfortable argument that these researchers are making:
That people can be genuinely unaware that they're making a profoundly unethical decision.
It's not that they're evil — it's that they don't see.
And if we want to attack fraud, we have to understand that a lot of fraud is unintentional.
Chapter 4: Fraud Spreads
Tenbrunsel's argument that we are often blind to the ethical dimensions of a situation might explain part of Toby's story, his first unethical act. But a bigger puzzle remains: How did Toby's fraud spread? How did a lie on a mortgage application balloon into a $7 million fraud?
According to Toby, in the weeks after his initial lie, he discovered more losses at his company — huge losses. Toby had already mortgaged his house. He didn't have any more money, but he needed to save his business.
The easiest way for him to cover the mounting losses, he reasoned, was to get more loans. So Toby decided to do something that is much harder to understand than lying on a mortgage application: He took out a series of entirely false loans — loans on houses that didn't exist.
Creating false loans is not an easy process. You have to manufacture from thin air borrowers and homes and the paperwork to go with them.
Toby was CEO of his company, but this was outside of his skill set. He needed help — people on his staff who knew how loan documents should look and how to fake them.
And so, one by one, Toby says, he pulled employees into a room.
"I was really open," Toby recalled. "I said, 'Look, I screwed up.' And essentially, you know, 'If you can help me, great, if you can't, I understand.' "
"Maybe that was the most shocking thing," Toby says. "Everyone said, 'OK, we're in trouble, we need to solve this. I'll help you. You know, I'll try to have that for you tomorrow.' "
According to Toby, no one said no.
Most of the people who helped Toby would not talk to us because they didn't want to expose themselves to legal repercussions.
Of the four people at his company Toby told us about, we were able to speak about the fraud with only one — a woman on staff named Monique McDowell. She was involved in fabricating documents, and her description of what happened and how it happened completely conforms to Toby's description.
If you accept what they're saying as true, then that raises a troubling scenario, because we expect people to protest when they're asked to do wrong. But Toby's employees didn't. What's even more troubling is that according to Toby, it wasn't just his employees: "I mean, we had to have assistance from other companies to pull this off," he says.
To make it look like a real person closed on a real house, Toby needed a title company to sign off on the fake documents his staff had generated. And so after he got his staff onboard, Toby says he made some calls and basically made the same pitch he'd given his employees.
"It was, 'Here is what happened. Here is the only way I know to fix it, and if you help me, great. If you won't, I understand.' Nobody said, 'Maybe we'll think about this.' ... Within a few minutes [it was], 'Yes, I'll help you.' "
So here we have people outside his company, agreeing to do things completely illegal and wrong.
Again, we contacted several of the title companies. No one would speak to us, but it's clear from the legal cases that title companies were involved. One title company president ended up in jail because of his dealings with Toby; another agreed to a legal resolution.
So how could it be that easy?
Chapter 5: We Lie Because We Care
Typically when we hear about large frauds, we assume that financial incentives drove the behavior, because it's very clear that whenever there are financial incentives to cheat, you will see some cheating.
But the psychologists and economists making these new arguments about unethical behavior say financial incentives don't fully explain it. They're interested in another possible explanation: Human beings commit fraud because human beings like each other.
We like to help each other, especially people we identify with. And when we are helping people, we really don't see what we are doing as unethical.
Lamar Pierce, of Washington University, points to the case of emissions testers to explain this. Emissions testers are supposed to test whether or not your car is too polluting to stay on the road. If it is, they're supposed to fail you. But in many cases, emissions testers lie.
"Somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent of cars that should fail are passed — are illicitly passed," Pierce says.
Financial incentives can explain some of that cheating. But Pierce and psychologist Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School say that doesn't fully capture it.
They collected hundreds of thousands of records and were actually able to track the patterns of individual inspectors, carefully monitoring those they approved and those they denied. And here is what they found:
If you pull up in a fancy car — say, a BMW or Ferrari — and your car is polluting the air, you are likely to fail. But pull up in a Honda Civic, and you have a much better chance of passing.
Why?
"We know from a lot of research that when we feel empathy towards others, we want to help them out," says Gino.
Emissions testers — who make a modest salary — see a Civic and identify; they feel empathetic.
Essentially, Gino and Pierce are arguing that these testers commit fraud not because they are greedy, but because they are nice.
"And most people don't see the harm in this," says Pierce. "That is the problem."
Pierce argues that cognitively, emissions testers can't appreciate the consequences of their fraud, the costs of the decision that they are making in the moment. The cost is abstract: the global environment. They are literally being asked to weigh the costs to the global environment against the benefits of passing someone who is right there who needs help. We are not cognitively designed to do that.
"I've never talked to a mortgage broker who thought, 'When I help someone get into a loan by falsifying their income, I deeply consider whether or not I would destabilize the world economy,' " says Pierce. "You are helping someone who is real."
Gino and Pierce argue that Toby's staff was faced with the same kind of decision: future abstract consequences, or help out the very real person in front of them.
And so without focusing on the ethics of what they were doing, they helped out a person who was not focusing on the ethics, either. And together they perpetrated a $7 million fraud.
Chapter 6: Denouement
As for Toby, he says that in 2006, two FBI agents showed up at his office, and he quickly confessed everything. He says he was relieved.
Two years later, he was standing in front of the same judge who had sentenced his brother. A short time after that, he was in jail, grateful that his father wasn't alive to see him, wondering how he ended up where he did.
"The last thing in the world that I wanted to do in my life would be to break that promise to my father," he says. "It haunts me."
Now if these psychologists and economists are right, if we are all capable of behaving profoundly unethically without realizing it, then our workplaces and regulations are poorly organized. They're not designed to take into account the cognitively flawed human beings that we are. They don't attempt to structure things around our weaknesses.
Some concrete proposals to do that are on the table. For example, we know that auditors develop relationships with clients after years of working together, and we know that those relationships can corrupt their audits without them even realizing it. So there is a proposal to force businesses to switch auditors every couple of years to address that problem.
Another suggestion: A sentence should be placed at the beginning of every business contract that explicitly says that lying on this contract is unethical and illegal, because that kind of statement would get people into the proper cognitive frame.
And there are other proposals, of course.
Or, we could just keep saying what we've always said — that right is right, and wrong is wrong, and people should know the difference. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]
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---SPSmith
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