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The Glossy Magazines of the Islamic State
December 01, 2014
Every organization now peddles its ideology the same way that Nike and MTV do–mass media. Stormfront is a notorious website for (mostly) American neofascists. The North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) has a website. The American Socialist Party is on Twitter. And ...

Daily Bafflements
December 01, 2014
• Well, welcome back, Bafflers, it’s Cyber Monday, which means it’s time to explore all of your gadget gift guides! This list of must-haves by the editors at Popular Science includes a $3,000 drone, a pair of mesh and carbon-fiber sneakers designed by Porsche, and ...

Happy Birthday, James Agee
November 26, 2014
Tomorrow is not only Thanksgiving Day; it’s also the 105th anniversary of the birth of one Mr. James Agee, a reporter and essayist who is very dear to the hearts and brains of The Baffler. In the summer of 1936, when Agee was a 26-year-old writer at Fortune magazine, he went ...

Daily Bafflements
November 26, 2014
• “It would have been powerful to see charges filed against Darren Wilson. At the same time, actual justice for Michael Brown—a world in which young men like Michael Brown can’t be gunned down without consequences—won’t come from the criminal justice system. Our ...

Hollybaba’s Blockbusters
November 25, 2014
If movies can tell us anything about the internal lives of typical film industry executives, it’s that they like to feel like the most important people in any room, like they’re doing everyone else a favor by granting a meeting. So it takes truly special circumstances to ...

Daily Bafflements
November 25, 2014
• A former U.S. attorney writes in the Washington Post about why it’s so difficult to prosecute a police officer: it’s all about the officer’s state of mind. “Federal law sets a very high bar, and essentially requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt ...

Hacking the Planet: What Could Go Wrong?
November 24, 2014
You remember this science fiction story, right? Faced with the threat of extinction on a warming planet, an advanced race flies gigantic mirrors into the stratosphere to create a giant “space umbrella” that will bounce the sun’s rays back into the cosmos. But it doesn’t ...

Daily Bafflements
November 24, 2014
• Find your Silicon Valley job title with this handy generator. Ours is “collaboration sherpa.” • Um, why is everyone making fun of our folded-cardboard virtual reality masks? • Quote of the Day, from the Business section of the Portland Press Herald: ...

Daily Bafflements
November 21, 2014
• Today in Millionaires: Japanese millionaire Chisako Kakehi has been the beneficiary of almost $7 million in insurance money after the death of seven husbands and boyfriends over twenty years, reports the Guardian. Her latest husband died of cyanide poisoning; she was ...

After the Wall
November 20, 2014
The Berlin Wall fell twenty-five years ago this month. As one would expect, there are competing stories about how it happened. There is the tale of Reagan the Stalwart, which bloomed in the early triumphal years after 1989 but has since ebbed. There are the feather-haired East ...

Daily Bafflements
November 20, 2014
• We’ve really got to stop giving the New York Times such a hard time for being out of touch with the financial realities of most of its readers’ lives. In a section of the paper on Wednesday that was literally entitled “Your Money,” an article ...