December 2008
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Terry Pratchett knighted! →
Evolution demands more Facebook drunkfail →
According to Shirky, embarrassing drunk and/or naked images will have what he calls the “Bill Clinton moment.” Clinton said he inhaled, and “the question of drug use by United States presidents became a settled point of fact,” said Shirky. “During the ‘80s Reagan war against drugs, less than 10 percent of the population would believe that a politician ever smoked weed or had done blow.”
Now, it’s...
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“Any other reason women were advised to wear high heels? Lucinda Slater (no...”
– WSJ.com : Firm to Female Lawyers: Wear High Heels, Embrace Your Femininity
All high heels do is give you cramped toes and corns. And if someone has a problem with the fact that I’m 5’1”, they’re not going to like me any better when I’m 5’3”.
(via robot-heart)
Helps them “stand...
Nappily Ever After? Not Quite… at Racialicious →
My boyfriend and I were invited to a wedding, where I was seated with a group of other young, soon-to-be-married couples. (My boyfriend was in the wedding party, so he was at the head table.) The other women I sat with all had shoulder length or longer weaves. They entered into a conversation about the proper upkeep of their hair, and one women politely decided to include me.
“I like your hair,”...
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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-21) →
The Decemberists (8)
Girls Aloud (5)
Rufus Wainwright (4)
Paul Simon (4)
Deborah and James Howe (4)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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The elusive "bad" name | The Baby Name Wizard →
Can a name be so terrible that it violates fundamental societal standards and demands condemnation? That question is raised by the big baby-naming story of the week. In Southern New Jersey, a supermarket bakery refused to make a personalized birthday cake for a young boy solely because of his name. To the outrage of the boy’s parents, Heath and Deboarah Campbell, ShopRite determined that...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-21) →
The Decemberists (8)
Paul Simon (4)
Deborah and James Howe (4)
Rufus Wainwright (4)
The New Pornographers (3)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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“Winslet, like Sophie Dahl and many other celebs, once condemned those in the...”
– From here (via gauntlet)
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“Before you exit the aircraft, we strongly recommend that you gather all your...”
– Flight attendant on American Airlines #180 (via saramcpherson)
You would be surprised just how many people leave laptops and iPods (along with a lot of garbage) in the seatbacks on the planes.
(via robot-heart)
I left a notebook there once—a journal I’d been writing in for six months....
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-14) →
M.I.A. (4)
The New Pornographers (4)
The Blind Boys of Alabama (3)
Paul Simon (3)
Ani DiFranco (3)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Disaster, Art, Life
brocatus:
mills:
Although few like to admit it, Walker Percy’s observation about disaster is largely true: in our era of contented tranquility, superabundance, and fading value systems, we tend to crave catastrophe as a source of meaning. We may noisily declaim that this economic collapse is terrible, that this or that hurricane or fire or administration is so horrific that we’ve lost our faith...
Not Tonight Dear, I’d Rather Blog
gauntlet: siddman:
An online survey commissioned by Intel has found, among other things, that 46% of women would rather go without sex for two weeks than give up the Internet for that long. The numbers get bigger for certain age groups; 49% of women aged 18-34 would make that choice, and 52% of women aged 35-44.
Source
Well, yeah.
“Sex gets swapped out for vampirism; this is hardly an uncommon trope. But this...”
– What I Think About Twilight
“I believe that religion is far more of a choice than sexuality is.”
– Jon Stewart to Mike Huckabee (via danielholter) (via vruz)
“Judging from their interviews over the years, actors who have filmed scenes in...”
– Handling the Gay Male Kiss, in ‘Milk’ and Other Movies (via feministing)
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“On September 20, 2004, Jonathan Magbie, a 27 year-old quadriplegic, was sent to...”
– the ACLU blog on why the US is violating article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , which states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
these stories are repellent. our country is good enough to do better.
(via abbyjean)
You know how there are those people who never got...
robot-heart:
I’m scared I’m going to be one of those people who never got over college.
I’ve pretty much accepted that I will always be one of those people, and it’s okay.
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ah, finland
abbyjean:
yglesias is over in helsinki for some reason and is doing some blogging about the early childhood education and care the government provides. it’s interesting stuff, in large part because it’s so different than ours. for example:
numerous public and private providers of 24-hour “day” care for children whose parents work night shift or other atypical schedule
universal early...
“Another serious side effect of HFCS consumption is irritable bowel syndrome...”
– So? What’s wrong with that? The high fructose corn syrup question | Freshlife (link via robot-heart)
Dude.
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“You say you’ve been eating too much and not exercising enough. Maybe that’s even...”
– Dear Oprah « Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose
“TSA employees pulled Matthew Gardner out of the line because somebody with that...”
– The 7 Dumbest Things Ever Done by Airport Security
This article demonstrates pretty well that the TSA is more concerned with exercising (and abusing) their power over people than with any semblance of security.
“The team over at Jezebel is rightly calling foul over the firing, based on Nikke...”
– Calling all Female Hacks: Please Direct More Movies | Bitch Magazine
“As jobless numbers reach levels not seen in 25 years, another crisis is...”
– yglesias, making the obvious point that employer-based health care doesn’t work too well if nobody is actually employed. (via abbyjean)
Police Officer Speaks Out Against Taser →
vruz: seashelllz: sycamore:
Nick Dial was a police officer who volunteered to be Tasered. Since then his health has suffered to such an extent that he can no longer work. And he’s not alone; other police officers have suffered serious health problems, from vertebrae misalignments to heart arrhythmia and stroke. “In its video, Taser International claims that nobody has suffered a serious injury...
“Westerners have been sold the myth of a world orphan crisis. We are told that...”
– The Daily Dish - The Baby Trade (via sexartandpolitics)
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-7) →
Iron & Wine (6)
M.I.A. (4)
Ray LaMontagne (4)
Girl Talk (3)
Fall Out Boy (3)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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“Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty,...”
– Guest Columnist - Typing Without a Clue - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com (via oh-ew)
Brain tests show child wealth gap →
robot-heart-politics: unburyingthelead:
Dr Mark Kishiyama, one of the researchers, said: “The low socioeconomic kids were not detecting or processing the visual stimuli as well - they were not getting that extra boost from the prefrontal cortex.”
Since the children were, in health terms, normal in every way, the researchers suspected that “stressful environments” created by low socioeconomic...