Article for discussion for the 18th of December

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Is Everything Worse Than Ever? And A Gift Guide! (you can liste to this text by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page) 

You can't fill your end-of-the-year season with nothing but good cheer, or you'll turn into a candy cane. (That's science.) So we chose to tackle a slightly darker topic this week: Is everything worse than ever?

That may sound tongue-in-cheek, but what we're talking about is the frequently heard cultural argument that film is dead, fiction is dead, television is dead, rock and roll is dead, and basically everything has fallen apart and now it's all Elvis' hips and Honey Boo Boo. Specifically, we've been watching a debate about film culture that most recently brought a very thoughtful piece from A.O. Scott atThe New York Times, who takes the position that "Film Culture Isn't Dead After All." That's in response to things like David Denby's book Do Movies Have A Future? and a piece Andrew O'Hehir wrote at Salon about whethercocktail parties are ruined. (Hey, it really is kind of what he says.)

This takes us into a broader discussion of whether culture is really worse than it's ever been and the fundamental problem that you can't really know whether culture is objectively worse, because you can't evaluate your own biases with regard to the passage of time very well at all. And that, in turn, leads to a discussion of the larger problem of critics trying to evaluate Where We Stand when we don't even stand in the same place, let alone have the skills to separate our experiences from our opinions. (And, some of us would argue, why would we want to?)

Because we enjoy turning on a dime, we next shift our attention to the giving of gifts, which a lot of people do around this time of year, and while we wish we'd done it a little sooner, there's still time to get some of your gifts on time and some of them perhaps only a little late.

Glen recommends a couple of movies, including one with a long-obscured ending you can finally see for yourself, and one starring Roddy Piper. He also notes some additions to the Criterion Collection (especially this one) and a pricey chance to see a pretty lady in pants. Trey wanted him to add this one, while we were doing recommendations.

As for Trey, he'll be giving these books, and he also encourages you to consider the gift that keeps on giving in jazz hands: theater tickets.

Stephen has already picked out a gift for himself, but he further recommends an old friend as well as some books that his kids can't get enough of.

As for me, I recommend this stunning (but pricey) set if you're looking to go big, this book (again) if you're planning to go medium-sized, and an experimental creative project if you're planning to go small.

We then talk, as we like to do, about what's making us happy this week: Glen findsanother podcast, Trey finds another essay on film (which includes a reference to this), Stephen finds a year-end bundle he's enjoying, and I cannot help sending you right back to this — and to my favorite single tweet about it.

Now, as we've mentioned, what's making all of us happy is that we'll be taping a special year-end show at NPR HQ during tomorrow's day of Sale-A-Bration (woo-hoo), so if you want to swing by at 2:00 (or maybe a little before if you want a good spot to stand where you aren't getting poked by too many mugs and hats), we'll be there for you. Handing out buttons! Our first swag ever!

In the meantime, keep in touch with us — you can find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me, Trey, Glen, Stephen, Jess, and our producer emeritus and music director Mike.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/12/14/167247754/pop-culture-happy-hour-is-everything-worse-than-ever-and-a-gift-guide

Article for discussion for the 18th of December

Is the E.U. Nearing a Landmark Banking Deal?

The crisis-battered euro zone got some rare cheer early Thursday with news that significant agreements had been made in creating a banking union across the European Union. Those unexpected advances by E.U. finance ministers towards establishing a Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) for the region will allow leaders of the 27-nation bloc meeting in Brussels Dec. 13-14 to hail another major step in getting Europe’s financial house in order.

Some officials didn’t bother waiting for EU heads to huddle as they cheered Thursday’s progress towards correcting the weaknesses that created the single currency’s crisis in the first place.

“This is an accord that creates unified bank supervision,” French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told reporters early Thursday, following all-night negotiations with his peers. “Little by little, we’re resolving the crisis in the euro zone. It’s a signal to the rest of the world: you can have confidence in the euro.”

(MORE: What Mario Monti’s Exit Tells Us About Europe’s Debt Crisis)

Though thorny details remain to be thrashed out, Thursday’s breakthrough was a pleasant surprise in light of the clashing positions various EU members—notably France, Germany, and the U.K.—had previously staked out. Just as amazing, equal measures of compromise appear to have been made all around. The result was a considerable bound towards a final accord granting the European Central Bank (ECB) the supervisory and backstop role for all EU banks whose assets surpass $39 billion, or represent 20% of their home nation GDP. Barring any changes, around 200 of Europe’s big banks would come under unified supervision, which will cover up to 85% of banking sectors in highly consolidated markets like France.

The SSM aims to create centralized oversight to prevent the kinds of lending and investment excesses by banks that occurred under national regulation—and transformed Europe’s sovereign debt problem into the full-blown euro crisis. The initiative will also allow the ECB to provide bail-out money directly to faltering banks, rather than forcing dangerously over-indebted national governments to continue assuming responsibility for those loans. If need be, meanwhile, the ECB will also be able to pronounce and organize the orderly closure of banks thought to be beyond salvaging.

(MORE: Bailouts and Austerity Measures Aren’t Working: Is This the Euro’s Last Stand?)

In other words, two main concerns of markets, economists, and leading euro nations about the single currency’s future are being addressed in the agreement: monetary union is being matched by increased convergence of fiscal policy and regulation; and gaps that had allowed excessive spending by banks and governments alike before the crisis are now being closed.

“We have reached the main points to establish a European banking supervisor that should take on its work in 2014,” declared German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble Thursday. His boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel, agreed, saying the advance “cannot be praised too highly.”

But if the previously clashing partners seemed to have all bent towards one another to create the breakthrough, problems with the looming union still remain.

For example, Germany successfully resisted French insistence the ECB have supervision of all Europe’s 6,000-odd banks, and succeeded in keeping smaller ones under control of national regulators. But deal will still accord the ECB  power to audit and restructure any bank it decides to regardless of size–somewhat mooting German victory on the matter. And Berlin isn’t happier about that than it is with the potential conflict of interest between the ECB’s primary mission—fighting inflation through monetary policy—and its additional mandate of tending to the health of (and at times extending loans to) Europe’s banking sector.

(MORE: Why the Euro Crisis Is Nowhere Near Being Over)

Membership of the new union is also a sack of nails. All 17 euro-member countries will partake in the SSM, as will those that have not adopted the single currency but wish to place their banks under centralized supervision. Britain, Sweden and the Czech Republic—none of which use the euro—have said they’ll remain outside the banking union. Denmark—the only other EU nation besides Britain with a formal opt-out clause for adopting the euro one day—says it may join the SSM all the same.

Moreover, London demanded concessions on voting procedures that would have permitted it to oppose any new regulations or taxes approved by a euro zone majority, but which the UK felt would penalize the City as Europe’s financial center. Though Thursday’s agreements don’t grant the UK outright veto mechanism it sought, UK chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said agreements were made to ensure “countries that weren’t going to join the banking union, like Britain, were protected and their interests were protected”.

Yet despite Thursday’s advance by EU finance ministers, the banking union deal isn’t done just yet. Leaders have just three weeks to work through outstanding questions and finalize their deal before the Dec. 31 deadline they set for themselves expires. Chief among those may be exactly when the new European regulator will be up and fully functional.

Paris insists that happen by Jan. 1, 2014. Germany wants more time to be taken to assure the regulator is ready for effective operation and will hit the ground running. But not only for that reason. That delay would also help hedge against the SSM—and its bail-out function using, in considerable part, German taxpayer money—from becoming a troubling issue for Merkel in Germany’s October, 2013 general elections. But even that threat may be minimal to Merkel if continued integration of euro members achieves the goals behind that convergence: saving the single currency, surmounting the brutal crisis it has faced, and leaving the turmoil, fear, and financial waste of recent years forever behind.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/12/13/is-the-e-u-nearing-a-landmark-banking-deal/#ixzz2F7ayveVH

Topic for debate on December 11th

People are better off living in a litigious society. 

Prepare an argument for each side of the coin.

Article for discusion on December 11th

Risk of robot uprising wiping out human race to be studied 

COMMENTS (249)

Cambridge researchers are to assess whether technology could end up destroying human civilisation.

The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) will study dangers posed by biotechnology, artificial life, nanotechnology and climate change.

The scientists said that to dismiss concerns of a potential robot uprising would be "dangerous".

Fears that machines may take over have been central to the plot of some of the most popular science fiction films.

Perhaps most famous is Skynet, a rogue computer system depicted in the Terminator films.

Skynet gained self-awareness and fought back after first being developed by the US military.

'Reasonable prediction'

But despite being the subject of far-fetched fantasy, researchers said the concept of machines outsmarting us demanded mature attention.

"The seriousness of these risks is difficult to assess, but that in itself seems a cause for concern, given how much is at stake," the researchers wrote on a website set up for the centre.

The CSER project has been co-founded by Cambridge philosophy professor Huw Price, cosmology and astrophysics professor Martin Rees and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn.

"It seems a reasonable prediction that some time in this or the next century intelligence will escape from the constraints of biology," Prof Price told the AFP news agency.

"What we're trying to do is to push it forward in the respectable scientific community."

He added that as robots and computers become smarter than humans, we could find ourselves at the mercy of "machines that are not malicious, but machines whose interests don't include us".

Survival of the human race permitting, the centre will launch next year. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20501091?print=true