Month: January 2017

Refugees and the Limits of Economic Logic – The Atlantic

Taking in people who have no safe home isn’t about GDP growth; it’s about basic decency.

Welcoming refugees might not be an efficient means of growing national wealth. But it is a moral way to spend the national surplus. No country in the history of the world has ever been both so big and so rich—and, despite 9/11, no similar power in history has been so safe from external threats for so long.

But what good is this extraordinary wealth and fortune if it does not free America from the prison of scarcity, in which every single policy decision must be about maximizing national income? With its vast richness, the United States has earned something that is not quantifiable—the capacity to be merciful.

Source: Refugees and the Limits of Economic Logic – The Atlantic

How to get kids to read more books — Quartz

Have you ever watched children choosing books at a library or bookstore? They don’t pick books based on title, author, or jacket description the way we adults do. Instead, they spend time exploring each book, opening and paging through it, skimming a page here, looking at a picture there. Then they close it and open the next one.

No amount of game play or virtual-reward system is going to change that shopping dynamic of trying, testing, and browsing for a good fit. Providing appropriate content and frictionless access to a huge selection of books will enable and expand children’s browsing—and this is far more powerful than any external reward system.

Source: How to get kids to read more books — Quartz

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon Added To Top Of National Security Council : The Two-Way : NPR

Trump replaced the head of the United States Intelligence Community and the highest-ranking, senior most military officer in the United States Armed Forces with Steve Bannon on the group of people who debate and decide on targeted killing.

 

Bannon has been elevated to the NSC’s Principals Committee, the top interagency group for discussing national security. He formerly led Breitbart News, a platform for the alt-right movement.

President Trump has reorganized the National Security Council by elevating his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and demoting the director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Source: White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon Added To Top Of National Security Council : The Two-Way : NPR

 

[Targeted killing / Drone strike] nominations trickle up to the National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC, and to the National Security Council, or NSC, before the President signs off.

Source: The United States Needs a Drone Board – Defense One

 

How America came to embrace assassination.

Source: Targeted Killings: A Short History | Foreign Policy

How to build a medieval castle | History Extra

The Norman Conquest triggered a boom in castle building, but the process of creating a fortress from scratch was far from simple, as John Goodall finds out…

  1. Choose your site carefully
  2. Agree on a workable design
  3. Source a large, and skilled, workforce
  4. Secure the building site
  5. Landscape the area
  6. Lay the foundations
  7. Fortify your castle
  8. Deal with water and sewage
  9. Decorate as required

Source: How to build a medieval castle | History Extra

A new study kills the notion that fake news swung the US election to Trump — Quartz

Using web browsing data and survey responses, and comparing actual fake news stories that circulated to “placebo” stories they invented that never circulated, the researchers estimated that the average American actually remembers less than one—0.92—fake news stories favoring Trump, and 0.23 favoring Clinton.

Source: A new study kills the notion that fake news swung the US election to Trump — Quartz