January 2012
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“Around 40 per cent of 2,000 polled said they used websites such as Twitter and...”
– The Internet Is Full Of Regret And Self-Delusion | The Awl
And the Exploitative Oscar goes to… →
b-sama:
Bill Easterly starts the official “Exploiting Africa Academy Awards”:
Following the Academy Award nominations earlier this week, we introduce the Exploiting Africa Academy Award (EAAA) nominations to recognize films who do the best against stiff competition to portray the most insulting and exploitative images of Africans, usually being heroically saved by some white people.
Machine...
Michael Muskal at Los Angeles Times: Gang violence... →
Gang homicides are less likely to be drug-related than many people think — and more likely to be the result of factors such as retaliation to ongoing gang violence, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The report is from the first such study based on the agency’s National Violent Death Reporting System.
Using data from 2003 through 2008, the analysis looked...
China pork prices to hog global indicator... →
The price of pork in China could soon rival U.S. payrolls as the world’s most watched economic indicator. International investors are increasingly focused on domestic demand in the world’s second-largest economy as their key measure of global economic health. And there are few better ways to gauge that demand than by tracking staple food prices that directly hit discretionary...
Have we reached peak TV? →
The Nielsen Company announced the 2012 Advance/Preliminary TV Household Universe Estimate (UE) is 114.7 million, down from 115.9 million in 2011. Marking the first integration of the 2010 Census counts, the 2012 UEs reflect an aging population, as Baby Boomers increasingly shift out of the 35-49 demographic, as well as greater ethnic diversity. The 2012 UEs also reflect a reduction in the...
Quick facts about the revolving door to prison →
As with much conventional wisdom on crime and punishment, popular notions of what actually causes recidivism–people cycling repeatedly in and out of prison–don’t hold up when you look at the statistics. California’s latest report analyzing its notoriously high (currently 65 percent) recidivism rate contains an array of numerical nuggets that shed new light on the cycle of crime. A sampling:
...
Scalia and Thomas: So What if Your Lawyer Abandons... →
After Cory Maples was convicted of two murders in Alabama in 1997 and sentenced to death, he appealed his conviction claiming that he’d received shoddy legal representation, what’s technically known as ineffective assistance of counsel. Two attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, a prestigious law firm in New York, agreed to represent him.
Alabama doesn’t provide inmates with...
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help me out
do you take and/or believe in homeopathic remedies? if so, why? do you take them by themselves or in conjunction with, um, however you describe the oppose of that kind of treatment, like stuff prescribed by western doctors?
Indonesia cracks down again on train 'surfers'... →
Indonesia has gone to imaginative extremes to try to stop commuters from illegally riding the roofs of trains — hosing down the scofflaws with red paint, threatening them with dogs and appealing for help from religious leaders. Now the authorities have an intimidating and possibly even deadly new tactic: Suspending rows of grapefruit-sized concrete balls to rake over the top of trains as they...
Apple’s Record in China →
The Institute of Environmental and Public Health, a Beijing non-profit, has listed Apple as the lowest ranked of the 29 companies it surveyed for issues of responsiveness and transparency of health and environmental concerns in China.
Now it’s hard to say what kind of methodology was used by this group, particularly given what I assume is the hostility of the Chinese government to publicizing...
Every Year, JSTOR Turns Away 150 Million Attempts... →
The way I see it, that’s 150 million chances lost to improve the quality of the Internet. JSTOR, as the keeper of so much great scholarly work, should be one of the Internet’s dominant suppliers of facts and serious research. But if something is not publicly available, key gatekeepers like journalists and Wikipedians, move to the best available source, even if they know that there...
i lied
swelling, pain levels, and going-into-shock-ness got so bad that i went to urgent care to rule out hemorrhage or pelvic fracture. turns out i just have a pocket of like 1.5 cups of blood in my ass! per doctor, “WOW, that’s a really big hematoma.” swollen so bad on one side that it’s truly kardashian-esque, like someone taped half a grapefruit to my butt. this SUCKS.
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epitome of grace
just fell down the fucking stairs. will have some big ass bruises tomorrow but nothing seems to be permanently damaged.
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every time
i teach a TA section, i spend the next few hours dissecting every single thing i said and beating myself up for tiny errors or jokes that didn’t land. dealing with classroom logistical problems makes it like a billion times worse. ugh.
Corruption at home →
At a time when Americans are anxious that corruption in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Pakistan, or Russia, or any other distant place makes dealing with them difficult, it is painful to see spectacular corruption close to home. That is why it is so distressing that a Washington DC councilman, the son of a councilman no less, Harry Thomas Jr., admitted to embezzling $353,000 in public funds meant for...
New Paper From Center On Budget Shows Why... →
Remember the idea of making unemployment benefits conditional on having a high school diploma? It’s back – and it looks more offensive than ever.
A new briefing from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities makes clear just how pernicious that requirement could be. According to the Center, nearly half of all workers without a high school degree are older than 45 and more than a third...
Study Links Immigrating at Young Age and Higher... →
A new study has found that among immigrants, younger age at the time of migration predicts a higher incidence of psychotic disorders. The study, published last month in The American Journal of Psychiatry, was conducted from 1997 to 2005 in The Hague, Netherlands, where there are detailed records on almost everyone who has sought care for a possible psychotic disorder. The researchers found 273...
Does fortune favor dragons? →
John Nye and Noel Johnson report:
Why do seemingly irrational superstitions persist? This paper analyzes the widely held belief among Asians that children born in the Year of the Dragon are superior. It uses pooled cross section data from the U.S. Current Population Survey to show that Asian immigrants to the United States born in the 1976 year of the Dragon are more educated than comparable...
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Betting markets in everything →
You can also bet on which cliché Obama will use first in Tuesday’s State of the Union Address…
The long list is here. Favored is “We have more work to do” while “Life is a box of chocolates” comes in at only 250-1.
What Is "Self-Deportation"? →
The brainchild of anti-immigration groups like the Immigration Law Reform Institute, and its counsel, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, self-deportation is the intended effect of laws and requirements that would make it so difficult for undocumented immigrants to work, rent, or go to school that they will simply “choose” to leave. Anti-immigration adovocates like this for...
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Repeat after me (ad nauseum)
jakke: ailanthusaltissima:
A good dissertation is a DONE dissertation.
new mantra.
Dear Student: I Don't Lie Awake At Night Thinking... →
Placebo: A new idea for a restaurant →
A restaurant called Placebo. What do they sell? A 50% discount. Which is to say: The entire menu is framed with everything at about twice the price you’d otherwise expect to pay for it, but then your check gets a 50% discount. So say you have a steak roughly of the same quality as the $13 steaks at the Outback Steakhouse. The menu says $26, your bill when it arrives has a 50% discount. But...
ACLU Lawsuit Challenges Violence in Baca's L.A.... →
The ACLU and the ACLU of Southern California filed a federal class-action lawsuit today charging that Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and his top commanders condoned a longstanding, widespread pattern of violence by deputies against inmates in the county jails. As we document in a new timeline, the ACLU has long worked to expose and combat the awful conditions in the LA County Jails.
...
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I Propose a New Educational Mandate →
To wit, a mandate that educational mandates be in line with actual current research on education rather than pulled out of someone’s butthole.
So, for instance, some teacher(s) at this school in Georgia thinks that “Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick” and “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week? 2...
A Contradiction, Without Comment →
Without issuing an explanation, yesterday the Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning resident aliens from making campaign contributions. It is regrettable but perhaps telling that the Court chose not to explain why it agreed with the lower court: The case reveals obvious problems with itspenchant for First Amendment absolutism in campaign-finance cases, most notably its decision in Citizens...
Geeks
tylercoates:
occupythedisco:
I think the reason I find geek culture so obnoxious at times to engage in is because the people are for the most part the same privileged dips that inhabit mainstream culture, but with the added detriment of a victim complex. They’re still largely white and center their race, they’re still largely straight and center their sexuality, they’re still largely cis men...
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kelsium:
Everyone dies. Not everyone gets raped as a child.
weeeeeeeeeeeeeping.
(in re)
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“I don’t know why spats went out! The actual name was spatterdashers, and you...”
– from a delightful interview with P.G. Wodehouse. (Paris Review)
Nigeria violence: Scores dead after Kano blasts →
Co-ordinated attacks by Islamist militants in the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Friday killed at least 120 people, witnesses and reports say. Hospitals and mortuaries are struggling to deal with the numbers of killed and injured still arriving. A series of explosions ripped apart police buildings around the city, which is now under a 24-hour curfew. The Boko Haram group said they carried out...
“Stolen bicycles have become a solvent in America’s underground economy, a...”
– Stolen Bikes – How to Catch a Bike Thief (OutsideOnline)
you guys may have already read this longread on bike theft - because i am late on the internet - but if not, it’s definitely worth a read.
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A++++++ night
Best Make-a-Wish Ever →
