February 2012
An Important Message From the U.S. Bureau of... →
For nearly 200 years, the United States Bureau of Chronology has worked tirelessly to ensure the proper linear continuum of all things taking place. That is to say, when things occur, it is our job to make sure they do so in the correct chronological sequence. Which is why we must now regret to inform you of a future time-related mix-up, taking place earlier next Thursday shortly before what...
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Why does Arnold Bread have forty different kinds... →
100% whole wheat, 12 Grain, 7 Grain, German Dark Wheat, Health Nut, Healthy Multi-grain, Honey Whole Wheat, Oatnut, Country Oat Bran, Country Wheat, Country White, Country Whole Grain White, Healthfull 10 Grain, Healthfull Flax and Fiber, Healthfull Hearty Wheat, Healthy Nutty Grain, Double Fiber, Double Protein, Grains & More Flax and fiber, Triple Health, Dutch Country 100% whole Wheat,...
Map of the Drug War in Mexico →
The Chinese fapioa, or reverse tip →
In China a fapioa – the official receipt used for expense claims has a resale face value of 2 – 10% of face value – leaving one behind in a restaurant or taxi is the equivalent of giving a tip (in a culture where tipping is uncommon) and not requesting one allows the person or establishment to avoid ringing the exchange through a cash register. There are two primary practices around handing out...
Redistricting knows no bounds →
A neat piece (ungated, here) by Jason Kelly on the extent to which state legislators strategically use prison populations for partisan gain in redistricting at the state level. The ingenuity of state mapmakers knows no bounds.
The census data used to redraw legislative districts counts the country’s nearly 2 million prisoners in the location of their incarceration, rather than their previous...
Bias and the death penalty →
As a part of the criminal justice system, death penalty sentencing is also biased. While there are persistent difficulties with finding data related to bias, partly due to the nature of bias and insufficient data collection, there are studies and cases that point to the nearly arbitrary nature of sentencing.
One relevant study, “The Impact of Legally Inappropriate Factors on Death Sentencing...
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number of times so far this week i've vowed to...
too many to count.
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stata stata stata stata stata evrywhurrrrrr
China's Export Pain May Be Mexico's Gain →
Buying stuff from China isn’t such a bargain anymore. One consequence of that: Companies that move freight from Mexico are getting busier.
Fighting Over What's Real: Why Food Stamp... →
Before asking about food stamps, we reminded half the respondents that Gingrich said “that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.” The effect of this prime demonstrates the degree to which politicians can shape perceptions of reality. Predictably, Republicans responded to being reminded about Gingrich’s statement with a 3-point...
Marriage Is for Rich People →
A new report, by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney of the Hamilton Project, looked at the decline in marriage rates over the last 50 years and found a strong connection to income. Dwindling marriage rates are concentrated among the poor — the very people whose living standards would be most improved by having a second household income. The trend is especially pronounced among men.
Not Just Marriage: The Other Fights for Gay and... →
The fight for same-sex marriage is only a piece of a larger civil rights struggle. And with all eyes focused on the issue of matrimony, it’s easy to miss some of the other battlegrounds.
For instance, parental rights has long been an issue for gay couples concerned about legal protections. In Iowa, health officials are looking to the courts for how to identify same-sex couples with...
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“Your aspirational kitchen material is barely valid.”
– Already Over: Your Granite Kitchen Countertops | The Awl
FUCK YOU MY ASPIRATIONAL POURED CONCRETE COUNTERTOPS ARE FUCKING GORGEOUS.
"Patient Dumping" Alleged Against White Memorial →
In the latest case of suspected hospital “patient dumping” on Southern California streets, a court complaint filed last week accuses a hospital and doctor of improperly discharging a patient against his will and dropping him off in front of a homeless shelter.
The complaint alleges that White Memorial Medical Center personnel used plastic restraints to tie the hands of patient Jesse Bravo, loaded...
“In adopting [Proposition 8,] the People simply took the designation of...”
– Prop 8 decision from today, p. 36-8.
College Major and Family Mental Illness -... →
Students pursuing STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering, math) were more likely than other students to report having a sibling with an autism spectrum disorder. (Of the 1,077 students who responded to the survey, 16 aspiring technical majors and four aspiring non-technical majors said they had siblings with an autism spectrum disorder.) Additionally, students intending to major in the...
10-16696 #398_Decision →
mirrored copy of the prop 8 decision because the 9th circuit website is slammed and god forbid any news organization actually link to, host, or otherwise even refer to the actual text of the legal decision on which they are reporting.
Remember HIV/AIDS? It’s Still Raging in the U.S. →
We have been told for decades that HIV/AIDS has no bias, and that much is true. The virus could care less about racial, sexual or gender identity. But sadly, American society very much has bias, and as a consequence HIV/AIDS is quite a bit more of a threat to some than it is to others. So it is that black Americans account for nearly half of all people living with the virus in the U.S. Nearly...
Very good sentences →
…as Mr Summers pointed out, even China seems to have been shedding manufacturing jobs over the last couple of decades. Perhaps the data deceive here, but the Chinese manufacturing boom seems to be more about increasing output per worker than employing more workers. If the Chinese can’t generate jobs through manufacturing I am not sure we should be expecting too much from that strategy.
Prop 8 Ruling Tomorrow →
The 9th Circuit has just announced that they will be releasing their opinion in Perry v Brown, otherwise known as the Prop 8 case, tomorrow. The opinion will be posted on their website. Given that the 9th Circuit will likely be overwhelmed by traffic, we’ll get links up to alternate sites as soon as we have them.
“Unlike food stamps, nobody is debating making middle-class households take a...”
– Dissecting Romney’s Statement: What Are Problems the Middle-Class Has That the Poor Don’t? | Rortybomb
Do People Become More Conservative as They Age? →
Amidst the bipartisan banter of election season, there persists an enduring belief that people get more conservative as they age — making older people more likely to vote for Republican candidates. Ongoing research, however, fails to back up the stereotype. While there is some evidence that today’s seniors may be more conservative than today’s youth, that’s not because...
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Catwoman Pepper Sprays Ozzy Impersonator on... →
Catwoman, who requested to be referred to as such, said two characters had been causing problems all day and seemed to be intoxicated. After warning them several times to stop interfering with her taking pictures, she told the men that she had mace and wasn’t afraid to use it. “He was antagonizing me to do so, so I did,” she said. “I said, ‘I’m giving you fair...
Rose Eveleth at Scientific American: Homeless... →
Now, a study suggests that requiring alcohol abstinence from residents of homeless projects might be misguided. In at least one project where residents were allowed to drink, alcohol consumption decreased, as did alcohol-related health problems, researchers reported on January 19 in the American Journal of Public Health.
A total of 95 residents were tracked in the 1811 House—a housing project in...
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CHRISTINA LEG
jawnita:
All I’m saying is, when Carrie (from Carrie) had a period accident (in the gym shower! and she thought she was dying!), it was the catalyst for her LIFE-ALTERING TELEKINESIS. Christina Aguilera (possibly) had one while singing Etta James, at Etta James’ funeral. HOW FUCKING TRANSFORMATIVE IS THAT?! This chick about to control the weather systems, and stop the Mayan Apocalypse.
She’s...
Couture's Chinese Culture Shock →
We’re witnessing a remarkable shift in China’s relationship to global fashion: once “the world’s factory,” in Asian American fashion scholar Thuy Linh N. Tu’s words, China is now poised to be the world’s mall. While China remains a poor country with an average annual per capita consumption of $2,500 (in contrast, the U.S. per capita average is $30,000), China’s rising number of millionaires and...
Markets in bloody everything →
We present evidence from nearly 14,000 American Red Cross blood drives and from a natural field experiment showing that economic incentives have a positive effect on blood donations without increasing the fraction of donors who are ineligible to donate. The effect increases with the incentive’s economic value. However, a substantial proportion of the increase in donations is explained by donors...