Who’s got two thumbs and needs glasses to see 3D? Not this guy! Francois Vogel’s figured out a way to remove those pesky spectacles from the equation, and he’s ready to revolutionize the stereoscopic industry forever . Sure, you’ll need a monitor with a 120Hz refresh rate, but that’s a prerequisite these days anyhow, and the rest is sweet, sticky gravy dished directly to your eyeballs. Get a sneak peek at the game-changing tech in the video above. You’ll never look at 3D the same way again, we promise. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Man discovers glasses-free 3D tech in the blink of an eye (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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The Dalai Lama is a Marxist, the power that comes with being tall, and the continuing discrimination against the transgendered people in the U.S. military. These discoveries and more after the jump. On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies. The links below open in a new window. Newer ones are on top. I am a Marxist, says Dalai Lama Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has said that he is a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to the communist country that exiled him – China. How You Can Become More Powerful by Literally Standing Tall A new study shows how posture can affect how powerful you feel—and how powerful you are McDonald’s defends gay filters on Wi-Fi Members of GayNZ.com noticed they were being denied access to the gay news site a few days ago, and have since found others – like Family Planning – are also being filtered out. Gay marriage isn’t revolutionary. It’s just the next step in marriage’s evolution Marriage has already been radically transformed – in a way that makes gay marriage not only inevitable, as Vice President Biden described it in an interview late last year, but also quite logical. Transgender vets want military access for own Even with the heralding of “don’t ask, don’t tell”, transgender people are still seen as unfit from serving in the U.S. military. One Constant: American Gun Industry Thrives Trace the long history of guns in American life and one truism remains constant: The firearms industry always manages to sell large volumes of product. The Revenge of Comic Sans New research suggests that less-legible, less-elegant fonts might actually promote better recall of information. Dave Munger examines the evidence. History of Economics? Is the history of economic thought dead? Yes, in the sense that all the mainstream doctoral programs in economics in the United States long ago eliminated courses n the history of economic thought. Good Grief! – The marketing of the American way of death – and bereavement A merciless look at the “five stages’’ of grief – denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance – and their scientific basis, which, according to research, are basically nonexistent.
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enlarge Credit: Perrspectives For years, Republicans have deployed the word ” uncertainty ” to stymie any public policy with which they disagreed. A decade after President Bush declared “scientific uncertainties remain” about global warming , virtually the entire Congressional Republican caucus has proudly joined the deniers’ camp . Last month, GOP leaders revved up the uncertainty myth over taxes , falsely claiming that another tax cut windfall for the wealth was needed to “reduce the uncertainty that’s affecting employers all across our country.” Of course, on two of the most heated issues of the day – raising the U.S. debt ceiling and repealing the 2010 health care reform law – it is the GOP which is wholly responsible for creating real uncertainty for businesses, investors and all Americans. Next week , House Republicans will bring their quixotic effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act to the floor. (The vote originally scheduled for this Wednesday was delayed. That was altogether fitting, as Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords received death threats and saw her office vandalized after her March 2010 vote for health care reform.) But whether they target the entire ACA or just individual provisions, Republicans are bringing only uncertainty – and not health care – to the American people. As Politico detailed yesterday (“Investors See Health Law’s Potential”), insurers themselves are agreed on that point: As Republicans push forward on repealing health reform, planning the law’s demise, a different conversation is happening among thousands of health care investors gathered in San Francisco for this week’s J.P Morgan Health Care Conference: how to capitalize on health reform’s new business opportunities. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 32 million Americans will gain health insurance by 2019 if the law stands. For health insurers, that represents a potential boon for both their individual market business as well as in the Medicaid market, where states regularly contract with private insurers to manage care. “The worst is behind them,” says Ipsita Smolinski, president of Capitol Street and senior advisor to McKenna Long & Aldridge, of the outlook for health insurers. “There was so much uncertainty last year. But with the MLR and rate review regulations out, investors know they have a pretty viable future. And it is the GOP’s threatened repeal effort, and not an influx of 32 million new subscribers, which is creating uncertainty among insurers: Health insurers spent barely anytime discussing Republicans’ repeal efforts. Aetna’s Zubretsky touched on the subject briefly only to say that Republicans understand that a rifle shot approach to tearing out specific health reform provisions, particularly the individual mandate, would not bode well for their business. “The unintended consequence of repealing and replacing part of the legislation is the biggest risk here,” he said. Of course, the risks for the American people are much greater still. Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that the GOP’s H.R. 2, the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, would not only lead to higher out of pocket costs, reduced benefits and saddle employers with higher premiums, but over the next 10 years would add $230 billion to the deficit. On Friday, Harvard economist David Cutler released a paper estimating that that repealing the health law could destroy 250,000 to 400,000 jobs annually over the next decade. And, as the Los Angeles Times reported, major insurers are reporting that thanks to the incentives in the Affordable Care Act, “a growing number of small businesses are signing up to give their workers health benefits.” But Republican bluster over health care pales in comparison to the potentially fatal effects of their refusal to increase the United States debt ceiling . On Friday, Greg Ip and Felix Salmon contended that failure to do so wouldn’t necessarily mean the U.S. couldn’t pay off its debts and so trigger a global economic meltdown. But as former McCain economic advisor Mark Zandi warned: “If we get into a heated, protracted debate over the debt ceiling, global investors are going to grow nervous, and start driving up interest rates. It will all become negatively self-re-enforcing. No good will come of it.” And last week, Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsbee wanted to be sure the American people understood the implications and causes of the GOP’s dangerously hypocritical game of chicken on the national debt: “This is not a game. You know, the debt ceiling is not something to toy with. … If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic. I mean, that would be a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008… If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.” But that’s a game of chicken Republicans remain determined to play. And while Ron Paul said of shutting down the government “I don’t think it would hurt one bit,” Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) admitted, “I don’t know” what will happen if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Senator Lindsey Graham , who like Rand Paul , plans to holds the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for still-unspecified spending cuts , painted a grim picture of what would ensue: “Let me tell you what’s involved if we don’t lift the debt ceiling: financial collapse and calamity throughout the world. That’s not lost upon me. But we’ve done this 93 times. And if we keep doing the same old thing, then that is insanity to the nth degree.” No, it’s hypocritical. Because as the data show, Senate Republicans voted seven times to increase the debt ceiling under George W. Bush . They only withdrew their support when Democrat Barack Obama entered the White House. ( Donny Shaw at OpenCongress has the details.) Sadly, the American people seem to be buying the GOP’s snake oil, with a recent poll showing 71% oppose raising the debt ceiling. But rating agencies including Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s are not, warning Thursday that their AAA ratings for the United States were at risk. The final irony of the uncertainty machine that is the Republican Party is that the GOP played that same card just weeks ago in the run-up to the lame duck deal on extending the Bush tax cuts for two years. Of course, they are predictably silent about the 1980′s, when Ronald Reagan upended the tax code four times in five years, including “the biggest tax increase ever enacted during peacetime.” And despite conservative warnings then as now about “job-killing tax hikes,” American businesses responded by adding 23 million jobs after President Clinton raised upper-income tax rates in 1993. As ThinkProgress concluded last month, the GOP’s supposed concern over uncertainty was all a charade: Of course, when it came to tax cuts, Obama’s plan for permanent extension of the middle-class tax cuts and expiration of those cuts for the richest two percent of Americans would have provided certainty. But the GOP was so desperate to extend tax cuts for the rich that “certainty” was thrown under the bus. As Weigel put it, “By Boehner’s own standard, this compromise doesn’t reduce uncertainty, which during the election and after the election really became the key Republican argument for keeping the rates.” Jonathan Chait added, “For those still clinging to any naive notion that Republicans meant this as anything more than a slogan, the answer is now clear. [Republicans] want low tax rates for the rich. They don’t care about certainty”: Republicans had a choice. They could accede to certainty with Clinton-era rates on the rich, or uncertainty with Bush-era rates on the rich. They chose uncertainty. The Bush-era rates will live on for two years, after which nobody knows if they’ll be extended or not. Only when another Treasury-draining windfall for the wealthy was in jeopardy did Republicans fret about uncertainty they couldn’t live with. As for the health of the American people and the economy, that’s another matter altogether. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)
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A pro-migrant march was attacked by far-right stone throwers after demonstrators in Athens walked through the city in protest of a 12.5 kilometer “anti-migrant” fence being constructed on Greece’s border with Turkey. —JCL Reuters: Far-right protesters threw stones at a pro-migrant march in Athens on Saturday before being dispersed by bursts of teargas, police said, in the latest sign of tension over the capital’s growing immigrant population. Over 1,000 members of anti-racism groups, leftists and immigrants were marching in central Athens to protest against a controversial plan to build a fence at the border with Turkey to stop illegal immigrants from entering Greece. A survey conducted by the Alco polling group for weekly newspaper Thema showed on Saturday that 73 percent of respondents back the plan to build a 12.5 km fence at the border with Turkey. Read more
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A new sheriff is in town for the Republican Party. Ousted chairman Michael Steele has been replaced by Reince Priebus, the former RNC chair for the state of Wisconsin known most for claiming the RNC is “part of” the Tea Party movement. —JCL The New York Times: For Reince Priebus, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, politics has long been more than simply a hobby. It provided the entertainment for the first date with his wife. More than a decade ago, when Representatives Henry J. Hyde of Illinois and James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin were delivering keynote speeches at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Priebus reserved two tickets and turned the event into part of his courtship. “I know. Nerd alert,” Mr. Priebus said in an interview a few hours after he was elected on Friday to lead the national Republican Party. His voice was filled with self-deprecation as he recalled the moment “But we went to a movie after that.” Read more Related Entries January 12, 2011 ‘Daily Show’: Jim Gets a Promotion in the New ‘Huck Finn’ January 6, 2011 10 Reasons Why the Slurs Should Stay in ‘Huck Finn’
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The creative team at KK Outlet in London were so uninspired by the official merchandise that they came up with some alternative designs to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29. (Jan. 15)
Continue reading …Tunisia got a new interim president today—parliamentary leader Fouad Mebazaa—who is technically the third leader in 24 hours, notes the Los Angeles Times . He takes over from the previous interim president, who briefly held power when longtime leader El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country in the face…
Continue reading …NVIDIA’s faulty laptop GPU settlement starts paying out, file your repair and reimbursement claims now
January 15, 2011 No Comment
Got an old Dell, HP or Apple laptop sitting around with a defective NVIDIA GPU ? The company’s finally ready to compensate you. That proposed class-action settlement from late last year has been approved by a California court, and the company’s taking claims for repairs, replacements and reimbursements at a specially-designated website until March 14th. If you’ve got an affected Dell or Apple MacBook Pro, you can get the faulty chips replaced free of charge, while HP owners get a whole new replacement computer, though considering the choices there are the budget Compaq Presario CQ50 or an ASUS Eee PC T101MT , you might be better off selling your old parts on eBay. Finally, if you’ve already paid to get your components replaced and have the docs to prove it, you might be able to get refunded — NVIDIA’s set up a $2 million pool to be divided among all such reimbursements. Find everything you need at the links below. [Thanks, Kalyan] NVIDIA’s faulty laptop GPU settlement starts paying out, file your repair and reimbursement claims now originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 14:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …The right loves to hate Bill Maher—and sometimes the left hates to love him. With his “prickly-pear” personality and his tendency to rile his audience—and not care in the slightest—“Maher is American punditry’s cranky uncle,” writes Matt Zoller Seitz on Salon . The crankiness was on full display…
Continue reading …Pat Buchanan Smacks Down Bill Press: ‘You’ve Got to Get Beyond Being a Fringe Talk Show Host’
January 15, 2011 No Comment
During an impromptu reunion of CNN's “Crossfire” Friday, Pat Buchanan told his old sparring partner Bill Press, “You’ve got to get beyond being a fringe talk show host.” In the middle of a very heated debate on MSNBC's “The Ed Show,” Buchanan strongly cautioned the host and his liberal guest, “I think this last week, there’s been a climate of hatred built up against [Sarah Palin] who did nothing and I tell you, if she does run for president of the United States, I pray to the lord she’s given secret service protection from day one” (video follows with transcript and commentary): ED SCHULTZ, HOST: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. The “Battleground” story tonight, I guess you could say, Sarah Palin is doubling down. She has no regrets, she’s not apologizing. And she’s not going to back down from what she said. Palin set off a firestorm of controversy this week releasing her now infamous video where she never apologized, played the victim, and outraged a lot of people by using the term, blood libel. Today, “The Daily Beast” reports that she signed on to be the keynote speaker on the program convention in Nevada after the shooting tragedy in Arizona. A lot of folks aren’t going to like that but the righties are gunning up, I guess you could say. She’s also scheduled to do her first live interview with Sean Hannity on the republican FOX News Channel Monday night. She’s not backing down. I think we’ve got that, and she still has her sights set on 2012 and I think she’s had a pretty tough week but let’s see what these guys think. Bill Press, nationally syndicated radio talk show host and Pat Buchanan, former presidential candidate and MSNBC political analyst. Gentlemen, great to have you with us tonight. BILL PRESS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Hi, Ed. SCHULTZ: Pat, I almost had to get out the external defibrillator here in the office. My wife is a nurse because I heard you say earlier this week, you think Sarah Palin is a victim. Do you believe that, Pat? PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that for the last week, she’s been a victim, Ed, in one the saddest smears that I’ve seen in a long, long time. From the very moment, they picked up those wounded and dead at that incident, she’s been charged with moral complicity in a crime which she had no responsibility whatsoever. It is been day and night. Day and night. Until finally, the president of the United States went out there and did a magnificent job I think in Arizona and said, put a stop to it, incivility is not responsible for this tragedy and let’s not uses it as what means to start up the wars, one against another again. Nicely stated by Buchanan. Now watch Press's pathetic response. PRESS: Hey, Ed, look, if Sarah Palin’s a victim, I’m an astronaut. Let me tell you something the victims are lying on the ground outside of the Safeway last Saturday in Tucson. Sarah Palin is a political figure, she’s a person who has used a lot of inflammatory rhetoric, nobody starting with you, Ed, me, not the president, nobody blamed her for what happened in Tucson, but they did say that she’s one of the ones who’s used a lot of gun-filled rhetoric including putting out that map with the crosshairs, she’s called it bull’s eyes and telling people to reload. You know it would had been so easy for Sarah Palin just to say, as I thought you said, Pat, all of a sudden, think about her language and maybe not use that gun- filled imagery anymore. Instead she whined and she called people, accused them of blood libel, it’s disgusting and I think her political career is over. BUCHANAN: Well, you’ve thought a lot of people’s political careers are over, Bill and they won 63 seats in the house last fall. President of the United States, Barack Obama said 19 — what was it 2008 when the Republicans bring a knife to a fight, we’re going to bring a gun. That’s over the top rhetoric. It had nothing to do with what happened out there in Arizona. And neither did Sarah Palin. You talk about her whining, she’s come out tough. She’s not only defended herself but she’s gone on the attack and that’s why you folks are out here talking about her tonight. PRESS: But that’s the problem, Pat. She went on the attack. Thank you for saying that. That’s exactly what she did. That’s not what they. BUCHANAN: Right. PRESS: Wait a minute, let me finish, please. That’s not what the American people wanted to hear. BUCHANAN: How do you know what the American people want? Great question, especially given recent polling data finding a small percentage of Americans believe the media was right for blaming this tragedy on heated political rhetoric. Not surprisingly, facts weren't interfering with Press's view of things: PRESS: Because, because, Pat, you look at the response to that memorial service where the president hit absolutely the right tone. Sarah Palin is tone deaf, at some point she’s got to go beyond being a fringe candidate, Pat. She had a chance. She missed it. She blew it. She’s done. BUCHANAN: Look, you’ve got to get beyond being a fringe talk show host, Bill. Here’s what happened. (LAUGHTER) PRESS: You’re a fringe TV talker. Come on, Pat, you can’t — why can’t — can you get away from the personal attacks? SCHULTZ: All right. Let’s go back to this, gentlemen, let’s go back to this. BUCHANAN: All right. Let me go back to the basic point. SCHULTZ: Pat, you bring up the point about what the president said. The president ought to apologize for that. He said it was the wrong use of words, he shouldn’t have done it. Sarah Palin’s apologized for nothing and I have to ask you, is it appropriate to put these crosshairs up and granted the Democrats have done it in the past but in the environment that we’re in right now, doesn’t this deserve you know, maybe I shouldn’t have done that? She can’t even bring herself to do that, Pat. BUCHANAN: Well, look, she’s got nothing to apologize for because she did nothing wrong. SCHULTZ: OK. BUCHANAN: Going forward, Ed, going forward, because of this, the Democrats showing the bull’s eyes on the stage, the crosshairs in the states, that goes out. But, Ed, look, why are you talking. SCHULTZ: How about blood libel? Is that going forward, Pat? Let’s play this sound bite, here it is right here. BUCHANAN: OK. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SARAH PALIN,FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible. (END VIDEO CLIP) SCHULTZ: Pat, was that appropriate? BUCHANAN: It is appropriate. I’ll tell you what, when Alan Grayson says, Republicans want you to die quickly — that is a smear. SCHULTZ: I’m not talking about Grayson. I’m talking about Sarah Palin, was that appropriate? BUCHANAN: She’s got the same right to use that phrase as Alan Dershowitz did. SCHULTZ: OK. BUCHANAN: As Andrew Sullivan did. As Michael Barone did. As Ann Coulter did. SCHULTZ: Ann Coulter, there’s a source for you. PRESS: Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. BUCHANAN: You know, let me tell you this. You know, Ed, look, you talk about a climate of hate. Now I think this last week, there’s been a climate of hatred built up against this woman who did nothing and I tell you, if she does run for president of the United States, I pray to the lord she’s given secret service protection from day one. Great point, especially given reports on Wednesday that Palin is now receiving an unprecedented number of death threats: (CROSSTALK) SCHULTZ: I tell you what, I hope that she has all of the protection in the world. Go ahead, Bill. I’ll give you — go ahead. PRESS: Just let me get in here, look, all people said is that among with a lot of other people, Sarah Palin used an imagery that was inappropriate. It would had been so easy for her to say, you know what, I didn’t intend any harm to anybody and I know she didn’t. I don’t accuse her of that. BUCHANAN: Why you’ve been talking about her for a week for? PRESS: But she could have said. BUCHANAN: She came out and did a tape. PRESS: Hey, Pat, hey, Pat, hey, Pat. I know this is cross fire but give me a shot. Listen, she could have said that was inappropriate. I wouldn’t use that language again, that’s all people wanted to hear and then move on, instead she missed that opportunity, Pat. The president saw the opportunity. And I really think that she made a fatal mistake in terms of her political career, just like going to this gun show, Pat. She’s already got that crowd. What’s that going to get her? Nothing but more inflammatory rhetoric. BUCHANAN: The last person — Sarah Palin is a national sensation. The second-most beloved woman in America after respected after Hillary Clinton. She’s got great success on the circuit. Eighteen of the 20 districts. PRESS: Fine. BUCHANAN: She targeted. She won those races. She doesn’t need your advice, Bill. SCHULTZ: OK, all right, Pat. (TALKING OVER EACH OTHER) PRESS: Let her stay on FOX News, Pat. SCHULTZ: Did she have a good week? Did she use proper judgment in using blood libel? That will not politically come back to haunt her in your opinion, yes or no? BUCHANAN: Ed, you decide in your own way whether things come back to haunt her. You guys have been working this line and working this thing continually. SCHULTZ: I didn’t release the tape, Pat, she did. I didn’t release the tape, she did. BUCHANAN: She released that tape five days after this smear campaign began and I think she had every right to do so. SCHULTZ: The right to use blood libel. BUCHANAN: She has the first amendment right just like do you, Ed. SCHULTZ: Go ahead, Bill. PRESS: Shame on you, Pat. You know what that word means, that word has no place in American politics whether she knew what it meant or not, it’s stunningly. SCHULTZ: Buchanan and Press, great to have you guys with us tonight. Gentlemen, time-out. Thanks so much. BUCHANAN: Alan Dershowitz say, it was fine to use it. PRESS: Who cares about Alan Dershowitz? We’re talking about Sarah Palin. We’re talking about Sarah Palin, Pat. SCHULTZ: All right. We have to go. Thanks. Pat Buchanan and Bill Press, you guys are great. Yeah, you are talking about Sarah Palin, Bill. Seems like that's all you liberal media members want to talk about. Makes you wonder why more people don't want the former Alaska governor to become president just to show up all the so-called journalists that have been tearing her limb from limb since August 2008. Exit question: will liberal media members like Press and Schultz ever admit they were wrong for immediately tying Palin to this awful event, or will they continue pointing their fingers despite the evidence? (H/T Right Scoop )
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