Blame Russia All You Want: The Ukraine Crisis Was Caused by the West

Western media blame the Kremlin for the current battles in Ukraine, but the West holds more blame for them than it may seem; Seattle’s leading a “wage revolution” throughout the United States with its $15 minimum wage; meanwhile, a power plant in California is deemed “a Fukushima in waiting.” These discoveries and more below.

Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault
According to the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine crisis can be blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression.

Salaita By the Numbers: 5 Cancelled Lectures, 3 Votes of No Confidence, 3849 Boycotters, and 1 NYT Article
The New York Times has weighed in with a strong piece on the Salaita affair. This is significant for two reasons.

Centuries Ago, Jews Were Farmers Like Everybody Else. Why Did They Leave the Fields?
Two economists argue that literacy, not laws forbidding land ownership, created a small, widely dispersed and highly skilled minority.

The Covert Origins Of ISIS
The Islamic militant group ISIS, formerly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and recently rebranded as the so called Islamic State, is the stuff of nightmares.

Elie Wiesel Mangles Bible in Anti-Hamas ‘Blood Libel’ Ad
Last Saturday, in response to a controversial ad that ran in American and British newspapers earlier this month, a group of Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors placed an ad in The New York Times excoriating Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.

What Is Inflation?
Inflation appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing.

A Headset Meant to Make Augmented Reality Less of a Gimmick
A novel optical technique could overlay virtual imagery on the real world through a compact pair of glasses.

$15 and Change: How Seattle Led the Country’s Wage Revolution
“It’s easy to not think about the person serving you your food,” 21-year-old Caroline Durocher told me as she prepared for the 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift at a Taco Bell in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.

Israel Tech Site Paying ‘Interns’ to Covertly Plant Stories in Social Media
An investigation by The Electronic Intifada has revealed that the online publication Israel21c is hiring students as “digital ambassadors” to plant its stories in online discussion forums and social media without revealing that they work for the publication.

Time Capsule: What Obama Claimed to Believe in 2007
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

FCC Names Network Neutrality Expert As CTO
There are only a few weeks left in the second round of public comments to the FCC about net neutrality.

Media Exaggerates Image Of Blacks As Criminals
In stories where race could be identified, the percentage of African-American suspects in murders, thefts, and assaults covered by WCBS, WNBC, WABC, and WNYW was well above the percentage of African-American suspects who have been arrested for those crimes in New York City.

Diablo Canyon a Fukushima in Waiting Due to Earthquake Risk
A newly-exposed report by Diablo Canyon’s lead nuclear inspector shows that the twin reactors are unsafe, writes Karl Grossman.

The Gristmill of Praise
From August 2013 to January 2014, I—a humble, workaday professor of English and creative writing at the University of Minnesota—received more than 1,600 letters of recommendation.

5 Reasons to Suspect Jesus Never Existed
Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.”

Inside Google’s Secret Drone-Delivery Program
For two years, the company has been working to build flying robots that can deliver products across a city in a minute or two.

Why the $#&@! Did Your Airline Cancel Your Flight Today? They Had a Very Good Reason.
Comedian Louis CK has absolutely no patience for the complaints of airline passengers, as he explains in one very funny, albeit profanity-laced bit.

When It Comes to Chasing Clicks, Journalists Say One Thing but Feel Pressure to Do Another
Newsroom ethnographer Angèle Christin studied digital publications in France and the U.S. in order to compare how performance metrics influence culture.

Obama’s ‘Strategy’ Misfire
President Barack Obama tried to get himself a bit more political space Thursday to make a decision about whether to expand the U.S military campaign against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, but in so doing he may have dealt himself a significant political blow by suggesting that his policy on the issue is adrift.

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