Tag-Archive for » corporations «

January 30th, 2010 | Author: sarcozona

Dollhouse is over.  It was a great show.

When Americans say they want to cut NASA’s budget, they think they’re talking about a budget of more than 600 billion instead of about 15 billion.

Female orgasm described as ‘abhorent’ and  banned on film in Australia along with small breasted women.  Unsurprisingly, the standard does not apply to male orgasms or small penises.

Homoerotic subtext isn’t enough:

I want those main characters to fall in love and make out because it means that fans of their characters will have to come to terms with their gayness, exactly like they would have to do in real life. It’s one thing to start out a book … introducing your main characters as gay from the start. Because from the outset the reader knows, the reader can choose whether they approve, or tolerate, or whatever. They can put that book down and walk away.

But reality doesn’t let you choose. Reality is when your best friend turns to you and says, “the thing is, I’m gay,” and your entire world turns upside down.

The phenomenon of mansplaining; I am never sure whether to laugh at or smack the men that do this.

Women today aren’t more promiscuous than 60 years ago. They just don’t have to hide it.

bookstore

This is what my favorite used bookstore/cafe looked like after the 3rd day of snow. Then it snowed 2 more feet and flooded the place.

Pirates buy more music. The only music I don’t buy is music from labels in the RIAA.

We know remarkably little about soil, so very cool and basic discoveries happen all the time.  We just figured out that we were very wrong about which water is where when in the soil.

Suicide is labeled the #1 cause of death among Nepalese women.  A better label would probably be sexism or oppression.

owl wow

Rotifers are extraordinary.

Late term abortions in America are almost impossible to get and very dangerous to perform, despite their legality.

Toxification of our environment is a much more serious issue than most people realize.  This is just a little too close to A Handmaid’s Tale for comfort.

Michele De Lucchi

Michele De Lucchi

Transportation costs associated with sprawl probably contributed to the mortgage crisis.

Ghandi may have been good for India, but he was horrible for women.

Disgusting things like this are why mandatory partner notification for abortion is a bad, bad idea.

Stop blaming the victim!

Left to my own devices, I never would have been raped. The rapist was really the key component to the whole thing. I was sober; I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I struggled; I said no. There have been times since when I have been walking home, alone, after a few drinks, wearing something that might have shown a bit of leg or cleavage, and I wasn’t raped. The difference was not in what I was doing. The difference was the presence of a rapist.

Domination without hegemony?

truth

Senator Jim DeMint: If we have the government making decisions about the most personal and private part of our lives, it is so naive to think that that coverage is not going to include a number of things that cause people of faith a lot of heartburn, whether it's funding abortions, whether it's rationing care, whether it's funding medical marijuana, whether it's euthanasia

January 23rd, 2010 | Author: sarcozona

Most people who want to help in a disaster actually make things worse.

The United States just legalized corruption.  Really government, corporations AREN’T PEOPLE.

If a person was knowingly endangering the water supply of so many people, he/she would get more than a slap on the wrist fine.

Interestingly, corporations fight hard for their own personhood, but not for the personhood of actual people, like Yemenese women and girls.

This really just makes me want to accuse fervently praying people in airports of suspicious behavior.

Solving complex networking problems with slime mold is genius.

Rita Trudgett, wicket keeper, Australia, 1930s by Sam Hood

Rita Trudgett, wicket keeper, Australia, 1930s by Sam Hood

Overpopulation and lack of family planning services in Pakistan hurt education and breed religious fundamentalism.

Cops and prosecutors in New Orleans are disgusting.

A great post on what patriarchy is and why getting rid of it is good for women AND men.

A recent study on why men pay for sex turns up a whole lot of misogyny. Interestingly, while feminists are often blamed for the idea that all men are potential rapists, some men in this study make a similar, but more disturbing claim – that without sex, men can’t help but rape. Most feminists today would argue that men are actual human beings, as opposed to animals that can’t possibly contain their “urges.”

Debunking the “God must exist because Earth is perfect for life” myth.

Losing species can create dangerous feedback loops.  The loss or decline of a number of plant species has created a poorer diet for honeybees, leading to a decline in their population. Fewer honeybees means fewer pollinators means fewer seeds means fewer plants.

This week I was glad I have a steep roof.

A very good account of the Creation Museum.  Especially good, I think, is the way it describes how the particular breed of Christianity that promotes creationism is very, very far from what could be considered good things in religion – a sense of unity, beauty, and a universe bigger than ourselves – and is instead “more replete with proof than a Soviet show trial” and “bereft of any soul.”

Prison rape isn’t funny and it’s a real problem.  This is a fantastic ad campaign dealing with the issue.

Grandma and Grandpa and the old Ford Explorer

December 20th, 2009 | Author: sarcozona

More evidence that our drug policies are just wrong.

Evolving to eat meat helped humans live longer.

American evangelical influence is likely to cause Ugandan gays to be executed.

How did health care reform turn into a subsidy for health insurance companies?

It makes me livid when good ideas get shut down because politicians are more interested in support from corporations than their constituents.  Pharmaceutical companies freaking out about having to become more competitive are how we lost one great cost-saver in the health care bill this week.

HIV is a tricky bastard. A promising microbicide failed to work in large scale trials.

If we found other intelligent life, would we be able to communicate in any meaningful way? I recommend we start trying with octopuses.

A great story demonstrating that the pay gap is alive and well, sexism still has large effects in women’s lives, and that women are just as qualified as men.

I made these pancakes, but with whole wheat flour and extra buttermilk.  They will make any day better.  I promise.

Sexism makes you worse at math.

Bill Smith, untitle (calibreted arterial system), detail, 2006, mixed media

Bill Smith, untitle (calibreted arterial system), detail, 2006, mixed media

You aren’t funny, you’re an ass.

Dear Obama, please stop being such a failure.

October 24th, 2009 | Author: sarcozona

Lights on how the Christian community accepts rapists and vilifies their victims.

Green spaces make you healthier. I wonder if houseplants help.

Banning abortion doesn’t make it rarer, but it does make it more dangerous: unsafe abortions kill 70,000 women a year.  A lack of access to contraceptives leads to 60 million unintended pregnancies a year and increases abortion rates, often in unsafe conditions. If Christians really wanted to save lives, they’d be mailing condoms instead of gospel tracts.

Homeless people deserve better.  I hope that so many people losing their homes will lead to improved services for the homeless.

Proposed budget cuts in AZ target the poor and include wonderfully ironic cuts like “eliminating state supervision of loan originators, mortgage brokers and money transmitters.” Hawaii is dramatically shortening the school year because of budget cuts.

US drug policy blocks successful treatments for cluster headaches.

The difference between fields with lots of women and fields with few is other women.

Interpol hooked up with UN Peacekeeping.

Churches in Nigeria are torturing and killing children.  Isn’t God great?

So many of the same people who think blowing up all the Muslims is a great idea are also strongly anti-immigrant.  I guess they don’t realize how many immigrants are dying for their beliefs. Or they’re just racist.

The worst companies in the world.  Just in case you thought corporations were generally looking out for your best interests.

WWJD?

WWJD?

One week without health insurance was enough for this family to be denied real coverage for their daughter.

Wearing a bra is an evil deception deserving extreme punishment.

Garlic might actually help prevent colds, but the AIDS vaccine probably didn’t really work.

Companies with more women are better companies.

Thomas Hillier - The Emperor's Castle

Thomas Hillier - The Emperor's Castle

The Pansy Project: “Artist Paul Harfleet revisits city streets planting pansies at the site of homophobic abuse. Each location is photographed and named after the abuse received.”

If I go nuts, this is why.

July 09th, 2007 | Author: sarcozona

Cleaning up

Yet emissions keep on rising. If greenhouse-gas concentrations are to be stabilised, then the carbon price or the support mechanisms for clean energy, or both, will have to rise or be adopted worldwide, or both. And if that happens, the returns on clean-energy investments will increase even further and the companies that have already invested in such businesses will have a head start over those that have not.

Minnesota case fits the pattern in flap over firing of U.S. attorneys

At a time when GOP activists wanted U.S. attorneys to concentrate on pursuing voter fraud cases, Heffelfinger’s office was expressing deep concern about the effect of a state directive that could have the effect of discouraging Indians in Minnesota from casting ballots.

Life 2.0

Scientists in the last couple of years have been trying to create novel forms of life from scratch. They’ve forged chemicals into synthetic DNA, the DNA into genes, genes into genomes, and built the molecular machinery of completely new organisms in the lab—organisms that are nothing like anything nature has produced.

If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural

when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.

Fear-Mongering and Fiction: Cheney Addresses West Point Grads

As Cheney told the graduates of the enemies they may soon face — terrorists “who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character” — there were moments when it seemed that he had simply recycled an old speech from 2002. Indeed, long after most members of the Bush administration have distanced themselves from some of the more insidious claims that propelled the U.S. into war with Iraq, the vice president continues to repeat them as fact. At one point today he cited the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda (which has been thoroughly debunked) as the reason why the U.S. invaded Iraq. “America is fighting this enemy in Iraq because that is where they have gathered,” he told the West Point graduates. “We are there because, after 9/11, we decided to deny terrorists any safe haven.”