The Nuclear Game - An Essay on Nuclear Policy Making

An interesting set of essays on nuclear policy.

http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_102.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_103.html

When a country first acquires nuclear weapons it does so out of a very accurate perception that possession of nukes fundamentally changes it relationships with other powers. What nuclear weapons buy for a New Nuclear Power (NNP) is the fact that once the country in question has nuclear weapons, it cannot be beaten. It can be defeated, that is it can be prevented from achieving certain goals or stopped from following certain courses of action, but it cannot be beaten. It will never have enemy tanks moving down the streets of its capital, it will never have its national treasures looted and its citizens forced into servitude. The enemy will be destroyed by nuclear attack first. A potential enemy knows that so will not push the situation to the point where our NNP is on the verge of being beaten. In effect, the effect of acquiring nuclear weapons is that the owning country has set limits on any conflict in which it is involved. This is such an immensely attractive option that states find it irresistible.

Q: Do you need faith to believe in science?

http://www.askamathematician.com/2012/01/q-do-you-need-faith-to-believe-in-science/

It’s easy to see why science seems like just some wacky new belief system that you have to have faith in to believe.  The difference is, if you don’t believe it (and you’re properly motivated), then you can go out and test it. To be fair, most people do take science on faith.  It’s much harder to test things yourself, than it is to trust that the kind of people who can figure out how to fly around in space and build fancy computers have things pretty well sorted out.  But keep in mind; the option is there.

Most interesting statistical paradoxes

http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/23779/most-interesting-statistical-paradoxes

http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/category/statistics/lies-and-statistics/

Bridging the Chasm between Two Cultures

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/bridging_the_chasm_between_two_cultures

From a vantage point outside the New Age culture, my culture’s disavowal of emotions and the intellect may seem very strange and nearly inexplicable. Nevertheless, it is a very real cultural component that must be understood and considered if any useful communication is going to occur. If we want to successfully communicate with someone, we've got to understand not just their language, but the cultural context from which their language springs. From what I've seen in both the New Age and the skeptical cultures, this understanding is absent. I certainly didn't understand the skeptical culture until I spent real time considering it as a culture—and I know from my reading that most people in the skeptical culture don't understand the New Age culture at all. As a result, the yelling between our cultures just becomes louder while the real communication falls into the chasm that divides us. In all the din, people in my culture hear what they deem to be hyper-intellectual and emotionally charged attacks upon their cherished beliefs, while people in your culture hear what they deem to be wishful thinking, scientific illiteracy, and emotionally charged salvos in defense of mere delusions.

What facts support evolution?

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_facts_support_evolution

John Stossel's Illegal Everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuIahM4mB-8

Posting Fox News clips.  So, it has come to this.

Public Key Cryptography Explained With Colors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=3QnD2c4Xovk#!

Imagine you wanted to communicate securely with someone you had never met before.  How could you exchange a private key to use while you assume your communications are being intercepted.  This is the problem of public key encryption.  It is an interesting problem to think about.  This video does a great job of explaining the process that takes place every time you visit a site that starts with https.

Stalin's Cannibals

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/stalins_cannibals.single.html

The back story: While Lenin was content, for a time anyway, to allow the new Soviet Union to develop a "mixed economy" with state-run industry and peasant-owned private farms, Stalin decided to "collectivize" the grain-producing breadbasket that was the Ukraine. His agents seized all land from the peasants, expelling landowners and placing loyal ideologues with little agricultural experience in charge of the newly collectivized farms, which began to fail miserably. And to fulfill Five-Year Plan goals, he seized all the grain and food that was grown in 1932 and 1933 to feed the rest of Russia and raise foreign capital, and in doing so left the entire Ukrainian people with nothing to eat—except, sometimes, themselves.

FBI Special Agent and Counterterrorism Expert Criticizes the TSA

http://gmancasefile.blogspot.com/2012/01/tsa-fail.html

TSA has never, (and I invite them to prove me wrong), foiled a terrorist plot or stopped an attack on an airliner. Ever. They crow about weapons found and insinuate that this means they stopped terrorism.  They claim that they can’t comment due to “national security” implications. In fact, if they had foiled a plot, criminal charges would have to be filed. Ever hear of terrorism charges being filed because of something found during a TSA screening? No, because it’s never happened. Trust me, if TSA had ever foiled a terrorist plot, they would buy full-page ads in every newspaper in the United States to prove their importance and increase their budget.

Study: A powerful member of congress can have a negative effect on a state's economy

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-powerful-member-congress-negative-effect.html

Researchers from Harvard Business School found that when a member of a state's congressional delegation becomes chair of a powerful committee, that state sees a tremendous influx of government cash through earmarks and government contracts, as one might expect. But rather than stimulating private sector growth, the study found that the extra government spending actually causes businesses in that state to downsize.