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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Browser daily newsletter [19 Dec 2012]

19 December 2012

 Best of the Moment

An All-American Nightmare

Peter Van Buren | Huffington Post/TomDispatch | 18 December 2012

Powerful account of what it means to torture and be tortured. Grim truth is that torture does work, because it's less about eliciting information than it is about shame and vengeance, humiliation, power, and control Comments

With The Why Elusive, Two Boys, Two Burials

Dan Barry | NYT | 17 December 2012

Model of local reporting. Plain, powerful writing. First of the Newtown school massacre funerals. Noah Pozner wanted to manage a taco factory. Instead he gets a "tombstone with a birth year that seems like yesterday: 2006" Comments

When You Swallow A Grenade

Carl Zimmer | Loom | 18 December 2012

We've come a long way in medical terms from the time when a scratch from a thorn could lead to death. Penicillin saw to that. But antibiotics also had unintended consequences, which scientists are now having to come to grips with Comments

You Are All Soft. Embrace Chaos!

Michiko Kakutani | NYT | 16 December 2012

Review of "Antifragile", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. "Maddening, repetitious, judgmental, intemperate, erudite, reductive, shrewd, self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, provocative, pompous, penetrating, perspicacious, pretentious" Comments

The Freedom Of An Armed Society

Firmin DeBrabander | NYT | 16 December 2012

Gun rights advocates argue that guns provide the ultimate insurance of our freedom. This is a fallacy. If more people are armed in public, freedom is inhibited not protected. Individuals become atomised, impotent (h/t D Lippman) Comments

On Failed New Year's Resolutions

Oliver Burkeman | Newsweek | 17 December 2012

Let's save ourselves the trouble this year: New Year's resolutions don't work and may be counterproductive. Don't believe that bunk about how you just weren't trying hard enough. Successful change rarely happens that way Comments

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