Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Six of the Best 269

Seven non-religious arguments against marriage equality are taken apart by Neue Politik.

"Go behind the scenes of most think tanks and you find a group of barely post pubescent scribblers, with first class honours degrees but fourth class experiences of the real world and real life." Richard Kemp gives his view of the Policy Exchange report calling for the sale of social housing in affluent areas.

Mental Health Cop, in a terrific post, defends care in the community: "Very many of the county asylums in this country were appallingly desperate places.  They were often home to various undesirable and unfortunate individuals who were socially excluded but not necessarily mentally ill, they were often dumping grounds for the unwanted.  History shows that violence was rife; that many single, uneducated mothers and other social ‘inadequates’ were incarcerated for decades; and that ‘treatment’ was highly questionable."

"Will did not bounce off walls. He wasn’t particularly antsy. He didn’t exhibit any behaviors I’d associated with attention deficit or hyperactivity. He was an 8-year-old boy with normal 8-year-old boy energy - at least that’s what I’d deduced from scrutinizing his friends." Bronwen Hruska writes in the New York Times on the American enthusiasm for giving schoolchildren psychiatric medication.

Legal Cheek speaks up for online anonymity,

The invention of radar had its roots in a failed British attempt to develop a 'death ray', reveals io9.

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