This Scientology promo video – complete with “floating tone arms” and wildly upbeat mad people – may not be online for long, so watch it while you can. 

Via MeFi, via Anna. 

Christina Hoff Sommers on feminist scholarship: 

The problem with a lot of research on women is not so much that the authors make mistakes — we all make mistakes — the problem is that the mistakes are impervious to criticism.

For a flavour of that imperviousness and some feminist reactions to being corrected, see also this. 

Glenn Reynolds on unsustainable ideologies: 

I’m reminded of what Robert Heinlein said about hippies: “Hippydom is not itself a culture (as the hippies seem to think) as it has no economic foundation; it can exist only as a parasitic excrescence to the ‘square’ culture.” So too with the academic humanities, which have largely squandered the moral and intellectual capital they once possessed by adopting the roles of adversaries to, rather than preservers of, the larger culture. This, too, turns out not to be sustainable.

That adversarial role-play has been discussed here many times, along with its descent into psychodrama. 

And Ed Driscoll discovers there are no socialists in divorce court: 

Michael Moore, who has spent his entire career attacking capitalism, wealth, and Wall Street, is suddenly very protective concerning the capital, wealth and investments he has amassed over the years. As Christian Toto writes at Big Hollywood, “Far-left filmmaker Michael Moore is divorcing his wife, and the looming court battle looks ugly already.” Christian links to this Smoking Gun report, which notes that “the couple’s combined assets are likely worth tens of millions of dollars,” including “multiple substantial residences and multiple companies.”

But America’s most outspoken socialist, being an outspoken socialist, deserves nine properties, including an agreeable Upper West Side apartment valued at $1.27 million and, naturally, a mansion. This, remember, is a self-described multimillionaire who told the world, quite boldly, “Capitalism did nothing for me.” 

As always, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. 

It turns out Gwyneth Paltrow is not Pepper Potts: 

I am fascinated by the growing science behind the energy of consciousness and its effects on matter. I have long had Dr Emoto’s coffee table book on how negativity changes the structure of water, how the molecules behave differently depending on the words or music being expressed around it. 

Regarding these misbehaving molecules, Ms Paltrow’s Goop website informs us,

Emoto poured pure water into vials labelled with negative phrases like ‘I hate you’ or ‘fear’. After 24 hours the water was frozen and no longer crystallised under the microscope: it yielded grey, misshapen clumps instead of beautiful lace-like crystals. In contrast, Emoto placed labels that said things like ‘I love you’ or ‘peace’ on vials of polluted water, and after 24 hours they produced gleaming, perfectly hexagonal crystals. Emoto’s experiments proved that energy generated by positive or negative words can actually change the physical structure of an object.

Because water can read, people.

The inspirations for Star Wars, a 2-hour annotation. // The dialogue from Star Wars, sorted alphabetically. // Robot hand relays softness of virtual breasts. // Cold-brewed cannabis beverages. // Seamless ice balls. // Your personalised balaclava freak mask. // Frolicking octopuses. // “Soylent provides maximum nutrition with minimum effort.” // As sculptures go, it’s quite large. // Oldest known trousers found in China. // A well-travelled hedgehog. // Algae batteries. // Breweries of the United States. // Internet sarcasm detector. // Data teleportation. And so it begins. // Audrey and her friend. // Fondue slippers. // A simple interface. // When winter ends, they fly kites. // And finally, I suspect this is an excuse for being tight. 

A message from the young thinkers of the University College London Union: 

This Union resolves to… struggle against fascism and the far-right… with the perspective of fighting the root cause of fascism – capitalism.

Apparently fascism is “far-right” – a claim that Mussolini and Hitler, avowed socialists, might have found puzzling – and is caused by capitalism. And not caused by, say, dogmatic collectivism and its endless justifications for authoritarian urges. Urges not unlike those of the Union itself, with its intent to ban student groups that it deems both “sexist” and “anti-Marxist,” and which therefore must be met with “unconditional resistance.” To say nothing of the Union’s somewhat ambitious plan to bring about “a socialist transformation of society.”  

Via BenSix.