Archive for September, 2011
Affirmative Action For Ugly People?
Is being hideous a disability? Severe unattractiveness may be the final frontier in regards to discrimination based on physical characteristics. In the New York Times, economist Daniel S. Hamermesh makes the case for affirmative action for the ugly:
The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.
In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse (and one who looks better, too!) and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers.
Why this disparate treatment of looks in…
Lunar Orbiter Find Footprints On The Moon
Some people were in awe as they watched to first men walk on the moon in 1969. Others still remain in skepticism of the lunar landing. Taken by NASA’s lunar orbiter, new photographs have been released of landing sites, including footprints left on the surface. Via Reuters:
Lady Gaga Posts 9/11 Tribute Video
Lady Gaga, Fran Drescher, Pauly D, Nas, Juliane Hough and Drake Bell are featured in the 9/11 Tribute Movement’s new 30-second PSA. Anyone can post a video tribute on the Movement’s Facebook page.
Massacre ‘Tea Party Zombies’ Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly
Thanks to Stephen Gutkowski of the Media Research Center for alerting us to this interesting new game:
Have you ever fantasized about beating Bill O’Reilly to death with a crowbar or shooting up the offices of Americans for Prosperity with an Uzi? Well, the folks at StarvingEyes Advergaming apparently have and they’d like to share their latest creation with the world. The game is called “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” and, apart from abysmal game play, features several different levels where your only objective is to mercilessly slaughter everyone around you whether they are a Fox News stars or simply Americans For Prosperity employees…
Donations To Third Parties Skyrocketing
Do you think people believe that they only have two choices in regards to governance? Break free from the ketchup-vs.-mustard political paradigm, and reach for the tangy BBQ sauce of third parties. Via Parapolitical:
The current issue of Ballot Access News reports a nearly 300-percent increase in individual giving to third parties in the United States during Q1/Q2 2011 versus the same time period in 2010. The data is based on state income tax returns from the thirteen states that let taxpayers designate a donation to their favorite political party. By comparison, the Democrat Party registered only a 2.4-percent bump in giving, while the Republican Party saw a 2.6-percent decline.
Color Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
We think of a physical object’s being a certain “color” as a solid, immutable property (grass is green, lemons are yellow, et cetera). However, the way our brains see and process color is largely determined by the language we learned as an infant.
Case in point: the Himba tribe of remote northern Namibia, to whom water looks “white” like milk and the sky looks “black” like coal, and who struggle to distinguish between blue and green, yet can easily pick out micro-shades which Americans cannot see. Via BBC Horizon, a reminder that the world looks different to everyone:
Federal Regulators Sue Big Banks Over Mortgages
Will the Obama administration finally approach national banks with an iron fist? The New York Times reports:
A bruising legal fight pitting the country’s most powerful banks against the full force of the United States government began Friday, as federal regulators filed suits against 17 financial institutions that sold the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nearly $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities that later soured.
The suits are the latest legal salvo fired at the banks accusing them of misdeeds during the housing boom. Investors fled financial shares Friday amid growing concern that the litigation could last for years and undermine earnings and balance sheets in the process.
The complaints were filed just as the stock market closed Friday afternoon, but with word leaking out of the impending legal action during the trading session, shares of Bank of America fell more than 8.3 percent, while JPMorgan Chase dropped 4.6 percent and Goldman fell 4.5…
40 Percent Of Europeans Have Mental Illness
The percentage will only increase, with an aging population, the stresses of modern life, et cetera, which leads to the question: What happens when the majority of the public across an entire continent are classified as ‘mentally ill’? Via Reuters:
Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.
With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed, mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden — measured in the hundreds of billions of euros — as sufferers become too unwell to work and personal relationships break down.
“The immense treatment gap … for mental disorders has to be closed,” said Hans Ulrich Wittchen, director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Germany’s Dresden University and…
21-Foot Crocodile Caught In Philippines
Possibly the largest ever captured alive, the beast is believed to have eaten two people, weights a ton, and is estimated to be 50 years old. Apparently having never watched King Kong, villagers plan to make it the star attraction of a tourist-geared theme park. The Guardian reports:
Villagers and veteran hunters ensnared the saltwater crocodile over the weekend after a three-week hunt in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province, where terrified villagers have reported at least one deadly attack.
Elorde said he planned to make the captured crocodile “the biggest star” in an ecotourism park to be built to increase villagers’ and tourists’ awareness of the vital role the dreaded reptiles play in the ecosystem.
Police May Detain Photographers If Their Photographs ‘Have No Aesthetic Value’
How are the police to distinguish between legitimate photographers taking pictures in public and terrorists-in-waiting conducting nefarious schemes? In Long Beach, cops’ duties now include determining what is art, and detaining picture-takers whose photos have “no apparent aesthetic value”. So don’t take an ugly photo like the one at right, unless you want to be carted off as a terror suspect. Via Techdirt:
Apparently the police in Long Beach, California, have a policy that says if a police officer determines that a photographer is taking photos of something with “no apparent esthetic value,” they can detain them. This revelation came after photographer Sander Roscoe Wolff was taking the photo.
The police officer somehow determined that there couldn’t be esthetic value there, and thus, the photographer had to be detained and checked out. The police are defending this policy, saying that while officers don’t have any specific training in what qualifies as “apparent…
Where Were You When You First Heard A 9/11 Conspiracy Theory?
Jeremy Stahl shares his first time, writing for Slate:
I remember precisely where I was and what I was doing when I heard: I was about three weeks into my first year at Emory University in Atlanta, and I was sharing a meal with my new dorm-mates in the DUC dining hall. In the manner of college freshmen everywhere, we were discussing current events. It was Sept. 12, 2001, less than 28 hours after the attacks, when I heard my first 9/11 conspiracy theory.
A friend was arguing that the plane that had crashed in Pennsylvania the previous day had been shot down by the U.S. military. His theory was not that the jet had been destroyed as part of some larger nefarious government plot, as some would later claim, but that it had been shot down to prevent another target from being hit. Furthermore, he argued, the Bush administration would never be able…
Ikea Used Political Prisoners As Slave Labor
Photo: Alexander Kaiser (CC)
Like many global companies mass producing goods, Ikea has a past of unjust labor. The Telegraph reports:
Ikea developed strong links with the communist state in the 1970s, opening a number of manufacturing facilities, one of which, according to Stasi records discovered by German television company WDR, used political prisoners to construct sofas.
The factory in Waldheim stood next to a prison, and inmates were used as unpaid labour, it is claimed. Gaols in the Democratic Republic housed significant numbers of political prisoners, with some estimates indicating they made up at least 20 per cent of the entire prison population.
Quoted in a Stasi file, Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea’s founder, said while he had no official knowledge of the use of prison labour, if it did indeed exist “in the opinion of Ikea it would be in society’s interests.”
[Continues at The Telegraph]
The Racism of the Reptilians
Many comments in ‘Elite Reptilians Like Eating Our Brains Cold,’ much to my surprise, jumped to the defense of David Icke and ilk, claiming that there is no racist agenda behind the reptilian one.
Here’s an article from Wes Unruh on Modern Mythology, demonstrating quite the opposite:
Years ago, my first thoughts upon encountering the ‘reptilian agenda‘ (or reptilian mythic framework) was to think of it as A Case of Conscience meets Darker Then You Think, although the more obvious mythic maps you as a media consumer might be familiar with are Land of the Lost plus V. Imagine a race of lizard men who are always watching from the edges of society, like predators, feeding on misery. The reptilian narrative has it that an intergalactic race, the Draconis, has been interbreeding with humans since ancient times, and those bloodlines are responsible for manipulating events throughout history. And these reptilians and half-humans need to eat people to maintain their human…
New Study Reveals Whites Feel More Discriminated Against Than Minorities
In my newspaper, the headline would have been “Whites Feel Racism Is Worse For Whites Than Minorities; Minorities Stare Open-Mouthed In Stunned Silence.” A new study on perceived racism coming from Harvard Business School and Tufts University has yielded surprising results. Whites are reporting that they feel racism is “worse for white people than black people” in modern western society, despite statistics showing that social inequality between ethnicities is still rampant and still very much in the favor of white people. So if the actual racism is still directed at minorities, why are whites suddenly feeling so discriminated against? (More on the Telegraph)
Economic Inequality Promotes Self-Aggrandizement
Rich and poor in São Paulo. Photo: Tuca Vieira (CC)
Via ScienceDaily:
Pretty much everybody thinks they’re better than average. But in some cultures, people are more self-aggrandizing than in others. Until now, national differences in “self-enhancement” have been chalked up to an East-West individualism-versus-collectivism divide. In the West, where people value independence, personal success, and uniqueness, psychologists have said, self-inflation is more rampant. In the East, where interdependence, harmony, and belonging are valued, modesty prevails.Now an analysis of data gathered from 1,625 people in 15 culturally diverse countries finds a stronger predictor of self-enhancement: economic inequality.
“We don’t know the precise mechanism, but it seems unlikely that it is primarily an East-West difference,” says University of Kent research associate Steve Loughnan. “It’s got to do with how your society distributes its resources.” The study — whose 19 collaborators represent 16 universities around the globe — will be published in an upcoming issue…
Is Milk Good or Bad for Me? (Video)
Got the facts on Milk? is the work of filmaker Shira Lane whose dairy allergy prompted her to examine the scientific research on the subject. Apparently she did not find satisfactory answers to her questions. On her month-long, 4600-mile journey from Los Angeles to Washington DC through the American Southwest and Bible Belt, she interviewed top doctors and researchers, dietitians, dairy farmers, veterinarians, parents, teachers, and plenty of “ordinary Americans” who provide both comic relief and food for thought.
Poses: Juxtaposing Fashion With Reality
The Spanish artist Yolanda Dominguez brings the visual language of fashion into the realm of the real world, with brilliant results:
“Poses” is a direct criticism of the absurd and artificial world of glamour and of fashion that magazines present. Specifically, the highly-distorted image of women…these images are virtually the only feminine reference in the mass media.
Using these impossible stances of the fashion publishing houses as a symbol of how grotesque and unreal this industry is, a group of real women transfer these poses to daily scenes: the queue of a museum, the supermarket or the bus stop.
1st Circuit Appeals Court Upholds Right To Record Police In Public
A resounding victory for the First Amendment. However, outside of the four-state jurisdiction of the First Circuit, the police state lives on. The Citizen Media Law Project gets giddy:
In the case of Glik v. Cunniffe, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has issued a unanimous opinion in support of the First Amendment right to record the actions of police in public.
For those of you not familiar with Simon Glik’s case, Glik was arrested on October 1, 2007, after openly using his cell phone to record three police officers arresting a suspect on Boston Common. In return for his efforts to record what he suspected might be police brutality — in a pattern that is now all too familiar — Glik was charged with criminal violation of the Massachusetts wiretap act, aiding the escape of a prisoner and disturbing the peace.
Unlike most arrestees, Glik, with the assistance of the ACLU,…
The GOP And The End Times
Maybe there will be a silver lining to the increasingly apparent 2012 End Times – Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi suggests that apocalyptic madness might well sink the Republican candidates:
I’m submitting a memo to my bosses at Rolling Stone this morning, asking for permission to skip all coverage of the Republican primary season from this point forward. Why? Because Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann have just summed up the entire Republican storyline with perfect precision, through their respective responses to Hurricane Irene. There’s really not much left for any pundit to add, after this weekend’s quips.
Michele Bachmann says Hurricane Irene is God’s way of telling Washington that it is spending too much.
For his part, Ron Paul says hurricane relief isn’t the responsibility of the state and we should stop using tax dollars to rescue people. Apparently we should go back to our year-1900 disaster policies, which included watching 6,000 people die in a hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas.
What else…
