Del.icio.us links for March 2nd through March 3rd:
- Why pundits always get it wrong | Futurismic – Have you ever wondered why the talking heads on television are so often utterly wrong in their predictions about the future? According to a research psychologist from Stanford University, it’s because the people the media tends to hire as pundits are the sort of people who are psychologically predisposed to making predictions based more on their own beliefs than any rational assessment of the situation:
- LENIN’S TOMB: QA – formation of the New Anticapitalist Party – Launched earlier this month amid general strikes and mass protests both in France and in the Carribean colonies, and with a starting membership of 9,123 hommes et femmes (this editorial mentions a figure approaching 12,000), and a leader who happens to be more popular than either Sarkozy or the blur slightly to his left, the NPA is in a position to make serious gains.
- The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks – :D
- Fucked Up | Pitchfork – Talking to Fucked Up, you get the distinct impression that conversations among the band members could be eternally engrossing. Most of them are childhood acquaintances who insist they still barely know each other. That dynamic makes for interesting impressions, assessments, and, as they tell it, a little turmoil. Lifelong music fans and record collectors all, the pieces of Fucked Up seem genuinely smitten with the power of the best stuff they’ve heard– and their chance to make their own.
- Charlie Brooker: To politicians, we’re little more than meaningless blobs on a monitor – Any abusive relationship tends to end with a long, slow phase of mounting disappointment followed by a sudden, irreversible snapping point. The descent to rock bottom may take years but when you get there, the force of impact still shocks, and it’s precisely this shock that gives you the strength to walk away.
- Young. Gay. Proud. Murdered: the hairdresser battered to death – Crime, UK – The Independent – Michael Causer, an 18-year-old hairdresser, was battered to death while he slept upstairs at a party. But the acquittal of a teenager accused of his homophobic murder has sparked a campaign in Liverpool for justice.