The Hmmm

Read this for thethingsthatmakeyouthinkthethoughtsyouwanttothink.Make you say "Hmmm" or "Curiouser and curiouser...", perhaps even "Wow!" Enjoy.

By DissentingAmerican

DissentingAmerican
World News
The “Badass” Afghan Pilot Who Went Massively Viral Is Now Living In Exile. She Just Wants To Be Able To Fly Again.
buzzfeednews.com - Megha Rajagopalan
Niloofar Rahmani was feted as a global feminist icon and honored by Michelle Obama. But as the decade closes, she’s separated from her family, her …
1 day ago
DissentingAmerican
Wellness
Dopamine Fasting Is The Latest Tech Trend You Might Already Be Doing
mindbodygreen.com - mbg editorial
One of 12 Health & Wellness trends that will shape 2020. Thanks to our modern tech- and entertainment-filled lives, where we can pretty much access …
December 8
DissentingAmerican
Social Work
This is the simple way to an awesome marriage: 4 secrets backed by research
Ladders - Eric Barker
Maybe you should fight with your spouse more.I can imagine the reactions to that sentence: “Oh, we got more than enough of that already. All stocked …
6 days ago
DissentingAmerican
Climate Change
Melting Ski Resorts Have a Snow Machine Problem
WIRED - Chris Baraniuk, WIRED UK
The changing climate is warming the slopes, forcing resorts to turn to snow-generating beasts that take a heavy environmental toll. In late October, …
December 8
DissentingAmerican
Natural History
How Paris' Open-Air Urinals Changed a City—and Helped Dismantle the Nazi Regime
smithsonianmag.com - Katherine J. Wu
To keep precious military intel out of enemy hands, forces fighting in World War II resorted to some pretty creative communication tactics. The …
December 6
DissentingAmerican
News
Samoa Arrests Anti-Vaccination Activist As Measles Death Toll Rises
NPR - Merrit Kennedy
Samoan authorities have arrested a prominent anti-vaccination activist amid an outbreak that has killed at least 63 people, most of them children. Edwin Tamasese has been charged with "incitement against
December 6
DissentingAmerican
Pete Buttigieg
Buttigieg's Version of America Is Basically a Caste System
VICE - Rick Paulas
The 1993 film Rudy offers the saccharine story of underdog Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, a mild-mannered kid from a blue collar family. He’s portrayed by a rambunctious Sean Astin, whose mop of hair you just
December 5
DissentingAmerican
Epstein didnt kill himself…
uberhumor.com
December 5
DissentingAmerican
Women's News
Pantone's Color of the Year Is a Comforting Start to 2020. Here’s What to Know About the Choice
TIME - Cady Lang
Ahead of the start of a new era that will no doubt bring intense new challenges, the Pantone Color Institute has announced that its 2020 Color of the Year is PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue, a deep blue that’s
December 4
DissentingAmerican
Harvard T.H. Chan School
Fake Meat vs. Real Meat
The New York Times - Anahad O’Connor
The meat industry has a warning for consumers: Beware of plant-based meat. That is the message behind a marketing campaign by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a public relations firm whose financial supporters
December 4
DissentingAmerican
Dinosaurs
Nightmarish sketches reveal what modern animals would look like if we drew them based on skeletons
dailymail.co.uk - By Milly Vincent For Mailonline
Dinosaurs have always been illustrated as a bony lot, and is it any wonder when much of what palaeontologists have to base their reconstructions on …
December 4
DissentingAmerican
Phones
The Secret World of Tiny Phones That Go Up Your Bum
VICE - Peter Robinson
Available from Amazon and popular in prison, these phones carry reviews like: "No anal problems!!! Didn't hurt my bum at all thanks guys :)" In the early-2000s, mobile manufacturers tried to make handsets
December 4
DissentingAmerican
Middle-class
'He's Just...Erased': PBS 2020 Segment Finds Time for Klobuchar, Sestak, and Bullock—But Completely Ignores Bernie Sanders
commondreams.org
It was like watching "manufacturing consent in action,' said Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson.A Monday night PBS NewsHour segment on the state …
December 3
DissentingAmerican
Devin Nunes
Devin Nunes Sues CNN For More Than $435 Million Over Ukraine-Biden Report
Deadline - Ted Johnson
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) passed up few opportunities to bash the media in the recent impeachment hearings, and now he’s suing what he calls the …
December 3
DissentingAmerican
Paleo Diet
India Shows Why the Global Shift to Plant-Based Diets Is Dangerous
OZY - Sylvia Karpagam,Frédéric Leroy,Martin Cohen
Vegetarians, much less vegans, would prefer not to be compelled to eat meat. Yet the reverse compulsion is what lurks in the growing proposals for a …
December 4
DissentingAmerican
Two sentence horror stories
uberhumor.com
December 4
DissentingAmerican
Income Inequality
Humanity's paths: a "Star Trek" utopia or a "Terminator" dystopia?
Salon - Andrew Leigh
Excerpted from "Innovation + Equality: How to Create a Future that is More Star Trek than Terminator," by Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh. Reprinted with permission from The MIT PRESS, 2019. The United States
December 2
DissentingAmerican
Technology
Australia rolls out world-first AI camera system to catch drivers on their phones
Mashable - Amanda Yeo
One Australian state government has become the first in the world to implement a statewide camera program to automatically detect drivers using their cell phones. The program began its rollout in the of
December 2
DissentingAmerican
Leadership
Meetings are a total waste of time. Here's how to make them useful
Wired UK - Sophia Epstein
“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be …
December 2
DissentingAmerican
Opinion
Time to ditch the harmful myth of the ‘noble’ hunter-gatherer
The Guardian - Alice Rudge
A boatload of tourists arrives at the homes of Batek hunter-gatherers in Malaysia. At the request of the non-Batek tour guides, Batek people hurriedly hide their televisions, radios and mobile phones.
December 2
DissentingAmerican
RFID
5 Impressive Ways Criminals Use Wireless Signals to Steal Everything—Even Your Car
Popular Mechanics - By Courtney Linder
Imagine coming home after a long day of work, kicking off your shoes, setting your key fob on the table, and heading to bed. Sounds pretty normal. Sounds pretty boring.Now imagine waking up the next day,
November 27
DissentingAmerican
Milton Friedman
A new generation is rising up to resist neoliberalism across the globe
Salon - Nicholas Powers
Demonstrators raise their hands as they perform against police violence after several demonstrators were injured in their eyes with pellets, outside La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago on November
November 30
DissentingAmerican
Climate Change
Could climate tipping points lead to collapse of human civilisation? | New Scientist
newscientist.com - By Adam Vaughan
A team of influential scientists has warned that the world faces the risk of “an existential threat to civilization” due to mounting evidence that …
November 27
DissentingAmerican
Thanksgiving
Why We Celebrate Thanksgiving On The 4th Thursday Of November
NPR - Tanya Ballard Brown
Move Thanksgiving to Friday? That's what F.B. Haviland asked President Herbert Hoover in 1929. Didn't happen. But while we're on the subject, ever wonder why we carve our gobblers on the fourth Thursday
November 28
DissentingAmerican
Technology
The expert who predicted Trump’s 2016 win says we’re living in a “manufactured reality”
Fast Company - Mark Sullivan
Four years after Sarah Kendzior forecasted Trump’s win, the bestselling author reflects on the rise of online propaganda, the need for transparent algorithms, and why social media is more dangerous than
November 28
DissentingAmerican
Opinion
The Horrible History of Thanksgiving
The New York Times
When I was a child, Thanksgiving was simple. It was about turkey and dressing, love and laughter, a time for the family to gather around a feast and be thankful for the year that had passed and be hopeful
November 27
DissentingAmerican
Dark Matter
Do We Live in the Matrix?
discovermagazine.com - Zeeya Merali
In the 1999 sci-fi film classic The Matrix, the protagonist, Neo, is stunned to see people defying the laws of physics, running up walls and vanishing …
Nov 15, 2013
DissentingAmerican
Climate Change
Our Planet May Be Barreling Toward a Tipping Point
WIRED - Matt Simon
A thawing Antarctica, a transforming Amazon, and other devastating changes may be more likely than scientists previously believed. When we’re talking …
November 27
DissentingAmerican
Climate Change
We're About to Cross 9 Critical Climate Tipping Points, Scientists Say
VICE - Becky Ferreira
Nine crucial tipping points in Earth’s climate are now “active” and in danger of being crossed thanks to warming global temperatures caused by human activity, warn scientists in a commentary published
November 28