All Ideas
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The New European Union: Off To An Abysmal Start
In yet another baffling sequence of events, European heads of state have chosen two no-name leaders for the Union's top positions. Read More
November 21, 2009 | In World
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For the first time, according to Gallup's latest tracking poll, less than fifty percent of Americans approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as President. That's down from 60% in July. As Greg Sargent says, this just confirms what Quinnipiac and Fox polls showed earlier in the week. And Obama's approval ratings have been hovering just over 50% for a while now. While there is not… Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Politics & Policy
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One More Reason to Skip Dessert
Creepiest incentive ever to exercise: Peruvian cops have arrested a gang that, they say, kills people for their fat. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Life & Death
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"You Better Not Cry" author Augusten Burroughs treats fans to a second Big Think interview this week, just in time for the holiday season. Famous since his 2001 bestseller "Running With Scissors" as a memoirist of the humorous, painful, and bizarre, Burroughs shares his view of Christmas as an essentially tragic holiday with a tiny nougat of joy inside the bitter candy coating. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Are you an eligible prospective immigrant to the United States? Are you feeling lucky? If so, you have 10 more days to apply for the random selection process conducted annually by the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program—in other words, the "green card lottery." The entry window, which opened October 2, closes November 30, and your chances of winning are a sobering 1 in 240: 12 million will enter, 50,000 will win. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Politics & Policy, World
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Harvard Psychologist and Education Expert Howard Gardner explains the importance of targeting education outreach to the specific needs of individual communities. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Politics & Policy
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An Augusten Burroughs Christmas
The "You Better Not Cry" author describes the holiday as a gem of happiness wrapped in a package of tragedy. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Go Ahead, Judge That Book By its Cover
The author of "You Better Not Cry" didn't start writing till he was 24--when he did he quickly learned the importance of reading random, often "really bad" books. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Augusten Burroughs has called humor the “spoonful of sugar” that relieves the bitterness of his work—sometimes. But does it come naturally? Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Augusten Burroughs: Lives I'd Love To Live
Given the chance to inhabit other lives, the “Running With Scissors” author would pick those of other famous, suffering writers. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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“The Internet Is Our Most Profound and Beautiful Achievement”
Other authors fret about the impact of the Web, but Augusten Burroughs “would not want to even be alive” without it. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Big Think Interview With Augusten Burroughs
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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The Guardian says it’s a bad idea for the the Times of London to build a paywall by next spring. Spectator Magazine (UK) only lost 3% of readers after putting its content behind a paywall, but realize they serve a more niche audience than general newspapers. Still, a survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that many ar… Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Media & Internet
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If RFK Jr. Gave Birth Today, His Child Would Have Diminished IQ: The Link Between Coal And Mercury
“Would you please turn the lights up,” Robert F Kennedy Jr. asked the stage crew as he took the floor of New York’s Town Hall in Times Square, about to deliver an environmental lecture to a roaring full house this Tuesday. “I want to be able to see if people are leaving.” It was a joke, just the first of many for the evening, but the fact is that RFK, America’s most prominent environmental lawyer, Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Riverkeeper and Chairman of Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Environment
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Footnote about the Pinker-Gladwell kerfuffle: To discredit Gladwell, Pinker takes advantage of a truly embarrassing mistake (the science-writer's nightmare) in which Gladwell misspelled "eigenvalue'' as "igon value.'' (It seems a less successful gambit, though, after you learn that Pinker misspelled "sagittal'' in his list of Gladwell's errors -- a mistake which, though now corrected on the NY Times website, lives on in places where the freshly posted review was quoted, like Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Men’s Underwear Shows Us the Economy is Rebounding
When it comes to gauging exactly how the economy is faring, the long-held method has been to look towards the bare necessities. Turns out they don’t get much more bare than underwear. A theory first expressed in the spring when the economy was truly spiraling, the recent expansion of the men’s underwear industry could be telling us that the economy is on its way back. Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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The former child soldier decries the violence that many children still face. Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Life & Death, Politics & Policy, Truth & Justice
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Life After War in Sierra Leone
Ishmael Beah shares his own experience of being a child soldier. Read More
November 19, 2009 | In History, Life & Death, Truth & Justice
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Immigration Law Expert Lenni Benson explores the fate of children who are brought to the US—either by a family member or a smuggler—and whether they should be forgiven their “illegal” status. Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Politics & Policy, Truth & Justice
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Farrow insists it is necessary for people to acknowledge and own up to our capacity to do terrible things to each other. Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Politics & Policy, Truth & Justice
