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- You remember back when I mentioned that McDonald's was hiring 50,000 people? They didn't do that. In fact they hired 62,000 people. That's after they received more than 1,000,000 applications.
Just so we're clear, that means they turned away 938,000 people. Not because they were incompetent; just because there aren't jobs. Shockingly, a spokesperson for the company declined to disclose how many of the jobs were full- versus part-time. - Sense of Justice Built Right Into the Brain, Imaging Study Shows
You know what scares me about this article? At the end of the first paragraph they're discussing how this biological response to unfairness can be reduced. - Hell, people, even robots evolve to look after their own groups at the expense of the individual.
The version of this behavior in animals is known as Hamilton's rule of kin selection. Put forth by biologist W. D. Hamilton in the 1960s, it aimed to explain why organisms-from ants to humans-would sometimes help others at their own expense. This altruistic impulse-to spend time, energy and resources on others-is thought to be especially strong toward those who might help pass along our own genes. But just how close of kin does a person have to be for us to be compelled, under Hamilton's rule, to help out? - At a guess, they'd have to be at least the same color before we agree to not make shit up: Oklahoma GOP Lawmaker Demonizes African-Americans in Bid to Eliminate Affirmative Action
Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don't work as hard and have less initiative.
"We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school? I've taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."
Kern said women earn less than men because "they tend to spend more time at home with their families."
- OK, I guess the news is depressing me a little today. Here's something useful: How To Avoid a Rent Increase
- And here's something just as useful for a different group of you: Surviving a Philosopher Attack
- And here's something intensely amusing for a few of you: Programming, Motherfucker! (I'll leave you to guess whether it's SFW.)
- Here are two different opinions about the recent increases in food and oil prices:
- Compare: The scam behind the rise in oil, food prices
Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Association, representing 8,000 retail and wholesale suppliers has spoken out.
"Approximately 60 to 70 percent of the oil contracts in the futures markets are now held by speculative entities," he argues. "Not by companies that need oil, not by the airlines, not by the oil companies. But by investors who profit money from their speculative positions." - And Contrast: Are Speculators Gouging Us at the Pump?
There is no need to repair to conspiracy to answer the question about why gasoline prices are going up. The loss of Libyan crude--about 2% of global supply--has reduced the amount of oil available in the market and gasoline prices track global crude oil prices.
Prices must necessarily rise to reduce global oil consumption because we can't consume what isn't there. How much do prices need to rise to reduce oil consumption by 2%? It takes a big increase in gasoline prices to get us to drive even a little less. Economists estimate that prices must rise anywhere from 10 to 20 times the percentage reduction in quantity to reduce demand enough to equal the lower supply. Thus for a 2% supply reduction, prices must rise between 20% and 40%. Average gasoline prices have risen 20% since early February, on the low end of what economists predict.
So put away the torches and pitchforks.
- Compare: The scam behind the rise in oil, food prices
- Bill Maher on Palin, Pot, and Patriotism
Yes, it was a stupid thing to burn the Koran, but guess what? The lion's share of the guilt should be laid on people who then kill over it. It's like a violent, drunken father. When his kid sets him off and he beats the shit out of the kid, do you blame the kid for setting him off? No, you blame the father for being a violent drunk. - Donald Trump's Racist, Popular Appeal
Donald Trump insists "there's nobody less of a racist" than him. Except there are a lot of people who didn't take out a full page ad to demand the death penalty for a 14-year-old black kid accused of a non-capitol crime who subsequently turned out to be innocent:
Trump paid $85,000 for full-page ads in four city newspapers in 1989 calling for the death penalty for Santana and four other teens whose videotaped confessions outraged the city -- confessions they insisted had been forced by police.
In the ads, which have the banner headline "Bring Back the Death Penalty," Trump wrote, "They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence."
Santana was 14 years old at the time.
But of course, the whiff of being accused of racism is going to turn out to be Trump's greatest asset. The conservative view is that we used to have a white-on-black racism problem in this country, but it was mainly solved during the mid-1960's, and now the major issue is anti-white discrimination. If Trump started hurling racial epithets at Obama, or proposing to discriminate against blacks in hiring or school admissions, Republicans would consider him a racist. But insinuating that Obama has accomplished everything in his life due to the benefits of his race, and then suffering the slings and arrows of liberal scolds, will position him perfectly. Indeed, it allows him to tap into a deep well of conservative resentment that no other Republican candidate is coming anywhere near. - And now for something completely different: Botswana's Cowboy Metal Heads
- Old, Weird Tech: Life-Saving Parachute Turned Into Wedding Dress
- Titanic Raised In Time for Centenary: How One Enthusiast Has Built a 100ft Replica In His Back Garden (Ed. Note: "100 foot"? Has the UK not gone as metric as I've been led to believe?)
More later.