Social Commentary
grrlscientist | July 13, 2009tags: new rules, social commentary, humor, funny, Bill Maher, streaming video
In this video we learn, among other things, how to properly greet the first African-American POTUS and the identity of the REAL Islamic bomb [6:17]
grrlscientist | June 13, 2009tags: politics, congress, CongressCritters, Rep. Gordon McCullough, humor, parody, social commentary, streaming video
This hilarious video is a parody of itself, to be honest. This previous week in congress, Rep. Gordon McCullough presented the highlight of the week by ranting at his esteemed colleagues about how one of them was so rude and inconsiderate to the American people as to leave a half-eaten fish sandwich rotting on the floor of the House. All I can say is this is hardly surprising to me, since our elected officials (who are all in the pockets of one or another corporate interest)…
j7uy5 | May 10, 2009Revere has an alarming post about one potential problem. This
could occur if there is a serious influenza pandemic:
href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/05/swine_flu_breaking_the_acute_c.php">Swine
flu: breaking the acute care system
[H]hospitals and emergency departments have been shrinking, while their
patient populations have been growing. The Institute of Medicine
calculated in 2006 that ER visits rose by 26% between 1992 and 2003,
from 89.8 million to 114 million in a year, while 425 emergency
departments and 703 hospitals closed and the number of hospital beds in
use…
j7uy5 | May 1, 2009Barry Ritholtz, author of Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money
Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy, has a
nice, terse, thought-provoking post on his blog: The Big Picture:
href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/05/us-vs-europe-who-is-the-welfare-state/">US
vs Europe: Who is the Welfare State?
By Barry Ritholtz - May 1st, 2009, 10:25AM
Today is May Day, and while International Workers' Day (Labour Day in
the UK), means little in the USA, its a big holiday in Europe. Banks
and markets are closed on the continent, (England celebrates on Monday).
Speaking with Mike…
j7uy5 | April 14, 2009Michelle Obama's White House garden has
href="http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/1309/">attracted some
attention, as noted on La Vida Locavore:
Did you hear the news? The White House is planning to
have an "organic" garden on the grounds to provide fresh fruits and
vegetables for the Obama's and their guests. While a garden
is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun,
CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder. As a result,
we sent a letter encouraging them to consider using crop protection
products and to recognize the importance of agriculture to the entire…
j7uy5 | March 23, 2009The New York Times has an editorial written by Evo Morales Ayma, the
President of Bolivia. It has nothing to do with globalization, or
the ravages of capitalism, or the environmental destruction wrought by
multinational corporations, which is what one might expect.
Rather, it is about coca leaves. He makes an excellent point.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/opinion/14morales.html?ref=opinion">Let
Me Chew My Coca Leaves
By EVO MORALES AYMA
Published: March 13, 2009
THIS week in Vienna, a meeting of the United Nations
Commission on Narcotic Drugs took place that will help…
j7uy5 | February 27, 2009
href="http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2009/03/02/090302po_poem_cohen">In
The New Yorker
Poetry
A
Street
by Leonard Cohen
[...]
I see the Ghost of Culture
With numbers on his wrist
Salute some new conclusion
Which all of us have missed
[...]
The ghost of culture is so much wiser than us all.
j7uy5 | February 18, 2009The UN Office of Drugs and Crime brings us
href="http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2009/01/25/europe/OUKWD-UK-FINANCIAL-UN-DRUGS.php">this
cheerful news:
VIENNA: The United Nations' crime and drug watchdog has
indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep
banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as
saying on Sunday.
Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an
interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often
became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of
control last year…
j7uy5 | February 16, 2009This is a photo of an embarrassing misattribution. It features a
quote often misattributed to Charles Darwin: It is not the
strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but
rather the one most adaptable to change.
title="Click this link to find out details of the Creative Commons license associated with this image.">
src="http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gif"
alt="There is a Creative Commons license attached to this image."
style="border: medium none ;" align="left" border="0" height="31"
width="88">photo by
href="http://www.flickr.com/…
j7uy5 | February 5, 2009I used to wonder why we, the people of the USA, tolerate our
government. Then I read
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=au4Y7Cudw2Xo&refer=home">this:
“Front-running isn’t
who’s getting the benefit; it’s who’s
paying the price,” says Henning, noting that
Madoff’s market- making customers expected the firm to obtain
the best price available when buying or selling stocks. Instead, their
interests were apparently subordinated to those of Madoff’s
investment clients.
Front-Running
While front-running is illegal, it didn’t horrify
Madoff’s champions…
j7uy5 | January 22, 2009Today I received an email from the hivemind, saying, in part:
In
his first speech as President-elect last November, Barack Obama
reminded us of the promise of "a world connected by our own science and
imagination." He recently stated, "promoting science isn't just
about providing resources--it's about protecting free and open
inquiry... It's about listening to what our scientists have to say,
even when it's inconvenient--especially when it's inconvenient. Because
the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a
greater understanding of the world around us. That will be…
j7uy5 | January 5, 2009Man decides to enter Amtrak "
href="http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/am2Copy/Hot_Deals_Page&c=am2Copy&cid=1093554057903&ssid=224">Picture
Our Trains Contest." Man goes to boarding area and
takes
href="http://photos.duanek.name/popular/1/443114799_ewRgR#443114799_ewRgR">picture
of train. Man is told it is illegal to photograph trains.
Man
href="http://carlosmiller.com/2008/12/27/amtrak-police-arrest-photographer-participating-in-amtrak-photo-contest/">is
arrested after refusing to delete photo of train.
In Ann Arbor, heading for…
j7uy5 | December 29, 2008This photo is one of Yahoo's most emailed.
(AP Photo/Detroit Zoo,Mark M. Gaskill)
j7uy5 | December 25, 2008Let us all
savor the season and be appreciative of our good fortune. I
really mean that, although what I am about to say will lead some to
think otherwise.Earlier this year, it was
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4B28CB20081203">reported
that thirty million Americans were receiving food stamps.
That is one out of every ten persons.
Last
month, the USDA said 36.2 million Americans or 11 percent of households
struggle to get enough food to eat, and one-third of them had to
sometimes skip or cut back on meals.
Also
this:
The
last government statistics said 11.9…
j7uy5 | December 23, 2008GlaxoSmithKline, also known -- to old-timers -- as
GlaxoWellcomeSmithKlineBeecham, has elected to halt all political
contributions. Almost. The corporation itself will not make
any contributions, after having made a total of $585,425 to candidates
in the USA in 2008. It will facilitate PAC activity by its employees.
GlaxoSmithKline to halt political contributions
LONDON (AP) -- The London-based international drug firm GlaxoSmithKline
announced Monday a global ban on corporate political contributions.
The primary impact will be in the United States and Canada, where the
company has been…
j7uy5 | December 21, 2008On 24 November 2008, the United Nations reported the outcome of the Human Rights Council's Working Group On Right To Development. They held a vote on the question of whether people have a right to food. The United States of America voted against this:
By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would "consider it intolerable" that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished…
j7uy5 | November 4, 2008
href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081104/ap_on_fe_st/odd_vote_in_ambulance">SAN
ANTONIO – Betty Owen is 92 and after a stroke four
years ago, needs a feeding tube and can't walk. But she was determined
not to miss Tuesday's election. She arrived at her polling place on a
gurney in an ambulance, where an election judge and support worker
climbed aboard with an electronic voting machine and let her cast her
ballot.
"And you have voted," precinct judge Sam Green said after Owen pushed
the red button finalizing her choices. "You know, You Look So Pretty In
That Red Dress."
Owen…
j7uy5 | October 16, 2008I'm sure I am not the only one who was underwhelmed by the series of
Presidential debates. Here is what the candidates and the
moderators forgot...
1) Regarding energy problems: Government should act more
swiftly to promote solar and wind installations.
Specifically,
they need to do more to promote small, distributed installations.
Because of economy of scale, coal, natural gas, and nuclear
power
generation does not scale down very well. Wind and especially
solar power can be scaled down reasonably . This is
not merely
a question of where the power will come from; it is a question of…
j7uy5 | October 15, 2008Now we learn that AIG execs just
href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3InVeHoYnmXZnM2ACXSgjG0-nIQD93R68VO0">spent
$86,000 on a hunting trip.
Oct 15th, 2008 | CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A handful of top
executives from American International Group Inc. spent thousands of
dollars during a recent English hunting trip, even as the New
York-based insurer asked for an additional $37.8 billion loan from the
Federal Reserve ... AIG officials declined to say which AIG executives
attended the trip, which reports have said racked up an $86,000 tab.
Unfortunately, Dick Cheney was not able to attend.
j7uy5 | October 8, 2008Computer experts have been weighing in for years about design flaws in
electronic voting systems. Now a computer expert goes a step
farther, saying the whole system is flawed.
From
href="http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/stranger-in-strange-land.html">Linus'
Blog:
That's when you also notice that the whole US voting
system is apparently expressly designed to be polarizing
(winner-take-all electoral system etc). To somebody from Finland, that
looks like a rather obvious and fundamental design flaw. In Finland,
government is quite commonly a quilt-work of different parties,…