The always brilliant and ever so funny Kira Soltanovich returns to the show, and David and her discuss how the Irish and Jews have more in common than you think. Plus, Jimmy Lee Wirt has more costume ideas from ShopWarOnChristmas.com.
The Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for history art and culture, Dr. Richard Kern, who joins us to talk about Christopher Columbus, and if we should still be celebrating his legacy with a national holiday. Plus later on in the show, music from comedians Gary Shapiro and Henry Phillips. But first, a song from Will Ryan and the Cactus County Cowboys.
Producer/Writer Dan Pasternack sits down to talk about comedy, producing and his latest projects. Plus, Michael Snyder reviews this weeks films. Also, Jimmy Lee Wirt with suggestions of what costumes to buy for Halloween from ShopWarOnChristmas.com.
WASHINGTON — The watchers are being watched.
For decades, opposition researchers have gone to great lengths to keep their names out of the public consciousness, preferring to let the fruits of their efforts — the location of a candidate’s primary residence, a gaffe caught by a tracker’s camera, a long-forgotten college prank — be the story.
But as some oppo research firms have increasingly come out of the shadows, they’ve suddenly turned their skills not on candidates of the opposite party — but each other.
Case in point: within hours of each other earlier this week Democrats and Republicans sent BuzzFeed News opposition research materials not about candidates, but literally about two opposition research firms: Democratic American Bridge and the Republican America Rising.
Opposition research can do real damage, and the two firms have produced that this cycle. A clip Rising uncovered of Iowa Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley dismissing a Republican senator as “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school,” has dogged him for months.
Read more here No Kidding: Opposition Researchers Are Now Shopping Research About Each Other
The subject enters a room in which a 12-year-old boy is seated. A 20-minute conversation ensues. The subject quizzes the boy about current events and other topics to get a sense of his intelligence and personality. But the boy is not what he appears to be.
Unbeknownst to the subject, the boy is wearing a radio receiver in his ear, and every word he says is transmitted to him by a 37-year-old university professor sitting in a nearby room. For his age, the boy has surprisingly well-informed opinions about the effects of austerity measures on the European economy. He speaks of his admiration of Dostoyevsky. Yet not a single subject suspects that his words are not his own.
The study, conducted by two social psychologists at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and published earlier this month in The Journal of Social Psychology, raises some fascinating psychological and philosophical questions, and the researchers hope it will open new directions of study.
‘Cyranoids are people who do not speak thoughts originating in their own central nervous system.’
“Beyond the physical, we like to believe that there’s some element in all of us that’s a permanent part of our nature,” said co-author Kevin Corti. We like to think we can recognize that element in other people, and they can recognize it in us. But these findings suggest we are easily fooled. In future research, Corti and his co-author, Alex Gillespie, plan to repeat the experiment with people who already know each other.
Read more here If Someone Secretly Controlled What You Say, Would Anyone Notice?
This week, Ralph talks to old friend and climate crusader, S. David Freeman, about how we can get off of fossil fuels and make all of our power renewable. We ask Ralph to score Eric Holder’s tenure as attorney general. And Ralph sees new hope for Afghanistan because a genuine progressive has just been elected president.