How the Ayn Rand-Loving Right Is Like a Bunch of Teen Boys Gone Crazy | | AlterNet

Seeded on Sat May 12, 2012 11:54 AM EDT (AlterNet.org)

Make no mistake: all this Ayn Rand libertarian me-first-and-the-rest-of-you-go-to-hell stuff -- the there's-no-government-like-no-government theology that's now being piously intoned as Holy Received Truth by everybody, male and female, in the GOP -- is, very precisely, the kin …

Thank You. No, Thank You. - WSJ.com

Seeded on Fri May 11, 2012 9:29 PM EDT (Wall Street Journal)

It turns out, giving thanks is good for your health. A growing body of research suggests that maintaining an attitude of gratitude can improve psychological, emotional and physical well-being.

health

Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ? Conservatives Can't Have It Both Ways | | AlterNet

Seeded on Sun May 6, 2012 11:56 AM EDT (AlterNet.org)

So why is Ryan, who is on the short list for Romney’s VP candidate, so eager to erase his (very recent) past obsession with Ayn Rand, whom so many other right wingers adore as well? Because her writing really is so blatantly offensive to anyone not besotted with her. She …

Is Your Stuff Falling Apart? Thank Wal-Mart | | AlterNet

Seeded on Fri May 4, 2012 5:37 PM EDT (AlterNet.org)

Since 1994, the consumer price of apparel, in real terms, has fallen by 39 percent. “It is now possible to buy clothing, long a high-priced and valuable commodity, by the pound, for prices comparable to cheap agricultural products,” notes Juliet Schor. Cheapness &md …

The Self-Made Myth: Debunking Conservatives' Favorite -- And Most Dangerous -- Fiction | | AlterNet

Seeded on Fri Apr 27, 2012 5:38 PM EDT (AlterNet.org)

If you've heard it once from your Fox-watching uncle, you've probably heard it a hundred times. "The government never did anything for me, dammit," he grouses. "Everything I have, I earned. Nobody ever handed me anything. I did it all on my own. I'm a self-made man."

The Recipe for Fracking-Use Millions of Gallons of Fresh Water and Toxify | | AlterNet

Seeded on Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:48 PM EDT (AlterNet.org)

Just to review: Fresh water is not the ninety-nine percent. Most of the planet's water is salty. A mere thimbleful—one percent—of the world's aquatic resources is available to us as liquid, drinkable water. Global climate change is quickly siphoning away that slim a …

environment, not-news

Tennessee Skewers Teaching of Evolution in Schools — Is Your State Next? | | AlterNet

Seeded on Sun Apr 15, 2012 12:06 PM EDT (AlterNet.org)

Why is Tennessee moving backward on evolution? We’re all pretty familiar with the cultural and political forces at work here in a general way. But there is a much cruder, perhaps less obvious force driving the resurgence of biological ignorance in Tennessee: money. If you …

politics

Enough with the GOP's Faith-Based Economics | Economy | AlterNet

Seeded on Sat Apr 7, 2012 12:02 PM EDT (AlterNet.org)

Another problematic area is information - both in terms of our respective abilities to access pertinent information, and our respective abilities to process that information.[12]Economists recognize that when there exists "asymmetric information," we run into a problem. Remember …

Michael Harrington and the Culture Of Poverty | The Nation

Seeded on Fri Apr 6, 2012 5:53 PM EDT (The Nation)

Fifty years later, a new discovery of poverty is long overdue. This time, we’ll have to take account not only of stereotypical Skid Row residents and Appalachians but of foreclosed-upon suburbanites, laid-off tech workers and America’s ever growing army of the “ …

politics

Thomas Frank: How Americans Have Gotten Played -- Over and Over and Over Again | | AlterNet

Seeded on Thu Mar 29, 2012 6:10 PM EDT (AlterNet.org)

What I didn’t understand was that these weren’t cognitive failures at all; they were moral failures, mistakes that were hard-wired into the belief systems of the organizations and professions and social classes in question. As such they were mistakes that— from …

The 8-Hour Sleep Myth: How I Learned That Everything I Knew About Sleep Was Wrong | | AlterNet

Seeded on Thu Mar 8, 2012 7:01 PM EST (AlterNet.org)

In sleep, we slip back to a more primitive state. We go on a psychic archaeological dig.

health

Ayn Rand Worshippers Should Face Facts: Blue States Are the Providers, Red States Are the Parasites | | AlterNet

Seeded on Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:47 PM EST (AlterNet.org)

So we've got every right to get good and angry about the fact that, by and large, the people who are getting our money are so damned ungrateful -- not to mention so ridiculously eager to spend it on stuff we don't approve of.

Rick Santorum On Religious Freedom: What He Has Forgotten Since Law School | | AlterNet

Seeded on Mon Feb 27, 2012 6:59 PM EST (AlterNet.org)

Here is the crux of the matter. Freedom of religion was entirely dependent, in the views of the constitutional framers, on freedom from a governmental establishment of any one religion.

constitutional-trojan

Voices of Conscience in Israel | The Nation

Seeded on Sat Feb 25, 2012 8:34 PM EST (The Nation)

Avner served in Sayeret Matkal for nearly three and a half years. After being discharged he returned to Kvutzat Shiller, where he worked in the citrus groves while enrolling at Tel Aviv University. One day, his older sister Tamar, a filmmaker, invited him to a lecture.

politics, green-line, sayeret-matkal

5 Brave Religious Leaders Who Fought Christian Theocracy in America | | AlterNet

Seeded on Wed Feb 15, 2012 9:40 PM EST (AlterNet.org)

All the ego-stroking right-wing grifter-politicians running around with their piety on their sleeves, claiming this to be a Christian nation, and sniveling about the "attack on Christianity" , are cordially invited to bang their heads against the "wall of separati …

rhode-island, james-madison, native-americans, roger-williams, john-leland, thomas-jeffersonrsquo-s