memories & happiness
This post from Jonah Lehrer is interesting, but I also wonder if it’s entirely correct: Why don’t things make us happy? The answer, I think, has to do with a fundamental feature of neurons:...
Daily Archive: August 31, 2009
Did torture work?
Two essential reads: 1) Adam Serwer takes on the Washington Post; 2) Peter Bergen takes on Dick Cheney.
defining American interests
Stranger things have happened, but this is still worth noting. It turns out that a slim majority of Republicans now believe [pdf] that it is not America’s responsibility to “actively promote democracy around the...
Likelihood of Success in Afghanistan
Spoiler Alert: Not likely. Dr. Andrew Enterline and Joseph Magagnoli (a grad student of Enterline’s) have co-written a report surveying the history of counterinsugency success rates in the 20th century. In this instance, counterinsurgency...
What is Charlotte Allen arguing?
I’ve been secretly infatuated with American fast food since about the third grade, when I got my first taste of the Great Satan of the slow food movement, colloquially known as McDonalds. At the...
food for thought
Parents consistently rate their child’s education far higher than the country as a whole.
