Didactic Synapse

It’s been months, but this show is worth the wait. Over two hours of didactic goodness! We’re covering everything from Iraq to Edward Snowden to people pretending to be US Department of Energy spokesmen. Plus — as always — we give you the latest on fracking and high-frequency trading, with a visit from everyone’s favorite cigar-sucking businessman.

Enjoy!

DS#93: The Formula

Top Links

• Amazing Grace: Woman in Iran halts the execution of her son’s murderer
• Video: Glenn Greenwald and Paul Rieckhoff on Real Time with Bill Maher
• Video: Posing as US Officials, Yes Men Announce Renewable Energy Revolution at Homeland Security Congress

Take Action

• Stop the mass executions in Egypt

Current Events

• Video: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on race, gender, science, and society
• The Yes Men
  • DN: Extended interview with the Yes Men
  • Yes Men fake DoE speech
  • Trailer: The Yes Men Fix the World
• Net Neutrality
  • PC World: What it is and why it matters
  • DN: Internet for the 1%
  • The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (Preface)
• Fracking
  • Feds: West blast was preventable
  • Texas family’s nuisance complaint seen as win against fracking
  • Scientists say tests prove fracking to blame for flaming wells
  • Nat Geo: Scientists warn of quake risk from fracking operations
  • The Guardian: Write-down of two-thirds of US shale oil explodes fracking myth
• Dave Zirin on LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling
• Amazing Grace: Mother of Oklahoma murder victim asks for clemency

Economics

• Millionaire survey: Higher taxes, please
• For the Love of Money
• Strike at Chinese factory supplying Adidas and Nike
• Michael Lewis: “Wall Street has gone insane”
• BW: Companies choose profits over productivity
• Video: Joseph Stiglitz on Tavis Smiley
• Video: William Easterman on Tavis Smiley
• Video: Matt Taibi on DN
• UK “aid” is financing a corporate scramble for Africa
• McDonald’s CEO says We provide “real careers”

Education

• NPR: What is quality pre-K education?
• DN: Jim Crow in the classroom
• ProPublica: Segregation Now
• InBloom shuts down amid concerns over privacy

Killer Robots, Etc

• Google’s Robot-Buying Binge
• The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Covert Drone War
• Glenn Greenwald describes Edward Snowden’s background and why he leaked the NSA documents
• BW: The Flu tricked Google. Can Wikipedia do better?
• AdWeek: Waiting in line: You’re stupid
• Trailer: Drone: The Movie
• Pepper the robot knows when you’re sad, will give you a hug

Hip-Hop

I’m postponing the discussion of hip-hop for a special episode coming soon. Stay tuned!

Well, I failed miserably at blogging every day, and I haven’t been podcasting very often, either. Fortunately, however, I’ve recorded a new show for you. WOOP WOOP! Enjoy.

DS #92: Gargling with Chemicals

Top Links

• I forgave the Nazis despite what they did to my family
• A Century of Controversy: Accidents in West Virginia’s Chemical Valley
• US DOJ didn’t go after banks
• Take Action: Tell Shell’s new CEO to scrap arctic drilling

Current Events

• Chemical spill in West Virginia
  • Frustration mounts over chemical spill in West Virginia
  • Erin Brockovich on DN to discuss WV chemical spill
  • Meet Freedom Industries
• Fracking news
  • Exxon CEO sues to keep fracking away from his house
  • Don’t Bet on UK Shale Just Yet
• Affluenza defense works
• Cancer treatments in France compared to USA
• Colorado shooting victim’s father forgives shooter
• NYT and Guardian urge Obama to grant clemency to Edward Snowden

Economics

• Goldman Sachs workers take one for the team
• The pope, Obama, and a former banker walk into a slum: Does the 1% still win?
• USA Today editorial on High-Frequency Trading
• HFT — Lasers!

Education

• I would love to teach, but…
• In what other profession…?
• Milwaukee voucher school collects $200,000, closes

Hip-Hop

M/A/R/R/S: Pump Up The Volume

After an insanely long hiatus, we’re back! And we’ve got a special guest: Avner Vengosh! (Yes, the Avner Vengosh!)

DS #87: An Evening with Avner Vengosh

Top Links + Action

• NY Principal of the Year Carol Burris responds to Common Core Test Results
• Elizabeth Warren schools CNBC dorks
• Russian man turns tables on credit card contract

• Take Action: Indonesian government: Say sorry for 1965!

Current Events

• Israel uses white phosphorous, we don’t mind
• Tricia Rose on Tavis Smiley
• Chelsea Manning gets 35 years, comforts his lawyer
• The Murder of Christopher Lane
• Antoinette Tuff is totally awesome
• RIP Helen Thomas
• Cameroon gay rights activist found tortured and killed
• Dear Malala: This is Why We Shot You
• Burka Avenger

• Bone marrow ‘frees men of HIV drugs’
• EPA’s Abandoned Wyoming Fracking Study One Retreat of Many
• Fracking
  • Children given lifelong ban on talking about fracking
  • Fracking linked to radioactive river water in Pennsylvania
• Teenager dies after being tasered in Miami
• Rand Paul on the Republican Party
• The Fifth Estate
  • Julian Assange responds

Economics

• Detroit files for bankruptcy
• Stronger labor law in Bangladesh
• Ha Joon Chang: Corporations, complexity, and crime
• McDonalds tells workers to get a second job and turn off the heat
• BW: Debt-Ceiling brink has speed traders drooling

Education

• Who benefits from school closings?
• Jeb Bush’s education record becoming a liability
• Indiana won’t change school grades (previous superintendent fiddled with numbers)
• Slate: Parents left behind

Killer Robots, Etc

• US Has Nothing to Say About 10 Year Old Killed in Drone Strike

Hip-Hop

• ?uestlove on DemocracyNow!
• NPR: Hip Hop at 40

It’s only been, what? Four years since the last episode? I hope it was worth the wait!

DS #84: Pegatron and the Cult of Money

Top Links + Action

• Apartheid Regime Bomb Victim Father Michael Lapsley on Using Forgiveness to Heal From Tragedy
• Wal-Mart and The Gap refuse to sign worker protection agreement
• Simpsons food court at Universal Studios
• Take Action: Stop US government spying!

Current Events

• 200 killed in Bangladesh factory building collapse
• Different places have different safety rules and that’s okay
• Bangladesh collapsed factory owner arrested
• Blaze at locked Chinese poultry slaughterhouse kills 119
• Texas fertilizer company didn’t heed disclosure rules before blast
• Fracking drives potentially explosive demand for potentially explosive ammonia factories
• Q&A with Josh Fox: Gasland II
• Woman in Kuwait gets 11 years for “insulting” tweet
• News archive, 1994: MADD co-founder goes to work for liquor lobby

Economics

• How austerity kills
• “How austerity kills” co-author Stuckler on DemocracyNow
• Apple shifts production from Foxconn to Pegatron
• Pope: “cult of money”
• How many HFT firms actually use Twitter to trade?
• Twitter hack was the work of the Syrian Electronic Army
• How the robots lost: HFT’s rise and fall
• Are American taxpayers subsidizing Wal-Mart’s low wages?
• “The Low-Wage Drag on Our Economy: Wal-Mart’s low wages and their effect on taxpayers and economic growth” (pdf)
• Why ending extreme poverty is not enough

Education

• There are no D or F schools in Wisconsin
• “Pay for performance” pitfalls
• Common Core: Cutting edge or dull blade?
• Tea Party groups rallying against Common Core
• Be glad for our failure to catch China’s schools
• French teacher shows pupils horror movie “Saw”
• Why French kids don’t have ADHD

Killer Robots, Etc

• Summary of Obama speech on drones
• The Drone War: A comprehensive map of lethal US attacks
• Medea Benjamin on why she disrupted Obama’s speech
• UN report wants moratorium on killer robots
• Teaching robots to anticipate human actions
• Modelling scouts target anorexia patients
• The Tumblr bucket: Yahoo needs to make cash off it
• Reading literature makes us smarter and nicer
• “Urgent need” to remove space debris

Hip-Hop

Sir Mix-A-Lot: Swass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkaJoMicA04

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7mRC85C3c

The clouds of depression have lifted and I’m back, baby! This show is all about cheating in schools and fracking and robot therapists. Enjoy!

DS #83: Return of the Snot Burglar

Top 3 Links of the Week

• Grand jury indicts 35 teachers and administrators in Georgia cheating scandal
• 8-year-old follows Tenn lawmaker around Capitol until he drops welfare “reform” bill
• Robot snakes can now wrap themselves around lamp posts

• Take action: Stop the execution of Abdullah al-Qatani in Iraq

Current Events

• Texas company fined by the EPA in 2006
• DN on Texas explosion
• North Korea Q & A
• Tariq Ali on Margaret Thatcher
• Thatcher on gays
• More than a matter of opinion: Former governor Ed Rendell fails to disclose industry ties in pro-fracking opinion piece
• My fracking study was fully independent, says professor
• Fracking and water consumption
• US ranks near bottom of UNICEF report on child well-being
• Filmmaker tries to live homeless, freezes to death
• Pentagon calls off new medal for drone, cyber warriors
• Musharraf runs out of courtroom
• Racy Twitter pics aren’t Anthony Weiner’s only problem
• Health-hazard jokes in China

Economics

• Are academics-for-hire influencing HFT debate?
• US Taxes vs. Everywhere else: A visual guide

Education

• ABC video: Atlanta teachers and administrators arrested
• DC finds cheating on tests at 11 schools
• Memo warns of rampant cheating in DC public schools
• Rhee responds
• Why Khan Academy is the wrong answer

Killer Robots, Etc

• Kinect-powered therapist

• 2010: US apologizes for infecting Guatemalans with STDs
• Tuskeege syphilis experiment
• Check the tag on that “Indian” story
• SarahPAC: Loaded for Bear

Hip-Hop

Ahmad: “Come Widdit”

Ahmad: “Back in the Day”

http://youtu.be/KyVu_v82vjM