The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Author: mongreldogs

  • Noah Smith on the Rise of the Machines

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    Here’s a worthwhile read from Noah Smith on the future of an economy where most work is done by robots. I’ve actually thought about this for a long while.  How can a democracy survive if all the economic oomph lies in the very few owners of capital?  As much as he was (justifiably) derided, President…

  • Lost You in the Canyon (30 Days of Marc Cohn – Day 1)

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    “Lost You in the Canyon” Burning the Daze Marc Cohn’s third studio album seems, more or less, to be universally seen as his weakest, and I guess I mostly share that opinion.  But even so there are a number of quite good songs on it, and “Lost You in the Canyon” is one of them.…

  • Extremism begets extremism

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    I would not normally be this way, but I’ll admit: The unyielding intransigence of the doomsday gun nuts is beginning to make me think it’s time to amend the Constitution and repeal the Second Amendment. If 2A means that no reasonable efforts can be made at all to reduce gun violence, then maybe it’s time for…

  • Sure, but just imagine how sorry you’ll be if the British invade…

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    Kellermann found people turned those guns on themselves and others in the house far more often than on intruders. “In other words, a gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense,” he says. (Source: NPR)

  • One party is not fit to govern

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    Hint: It’s not the Democrats. According to a piece in Politico, significant numbers of Republican representatives are willing to trash the full faith and credit of the United States — and incidentally dynamite the entire international economic order — so that they can “send Pres. Obama a message”.  Some of them are more reasonable, according…

  • Stay classy, guys

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    Well, it only took a month for the NRA to forget that gun massacres are the result of violent videogames. Now they’ve released an app allowing you to take target practice. On coffins. With a Mk11 sniper rifle (but that’ll cost a a buck). Way to stay classy, Mr. LaPierre and company.

  • Announcing 30 Days of Marc Cohn

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    Starting tomorrow, I’ll be sharing my “30 Days of Marc Cohn”, to get myself ready for the Valentine’s Day show I’ll be attending with Annie.  (And this message is mostly about testing some WordPress features I intend to use.)

  • Why they’re called “gun nuts”

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    So in Arizona, the NRA is mad that guns turned into the police at a buyback are going to be destroyed rather than, say, put back into circulation. Let’s unpack that: For these people, the Union is ephemeral, to be abandoned when the people elect someone the NRA doesn’t like… But the physical guns are…

  • 2013

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    I don’t do resolutions. But I do intend to write more regularly in the coming year.

  • Filling in the memory hole

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    Following Noah Smith’s lead, I am simply copying John Derbyshire’s ludicrous racist screed to do my bit to prevent it from vanishing down the memory hole once he and his sponsors realize how damning it is.  Distributed democracy for the win. Racist nonsense below the fold. UPDATE: Smith has published some thoughts on the screed,…