January 2012
“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re...”
– A “former Apple executive” speaking to the New York Times about working conditions at suppliers’ plants in China. (via officialssay)
“After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and...”
– Ronen Bergman
“Fear is the psychological weapon of choice for totalitarian systems of power....”
– Chris Hedges, Why I’m Suing Barack Obama (via chasingsunsetsandjustice)
Forced Sterilization Mandatory for all Transgender... →
Little known fact about Sweden, that supposed bastion of liberal idealism: If a Swedish transgendered person wants to legally update their gender on official ID papers, a 1972 law requires them to get both divorced and sterilized first.
Sweden is considered extremely gay-friendly, with one of the highest rates of popular support for same-sex marriage, and more than half the population supports...
“There as a study in which it comes out that thirty of the largest companies in...”
– Massachusetts Senate candidate ELIZABETH WARREN, on The Daily Show (via andyouhavetogivethemhope)
INCOME INEQUALITY IS BAD FOR SOCIETY. REALLY BAD. →
chasingsunsetsandjustice:
“Societies with more income inequality have higher infant death rates than other societies:
Societies with more income inequality have higher rates of mental illness than other societies:
Societies with more income inequality have a higher incidence of drug use than other societies:
Societies with more income inequality have a higher high school drop out rate than...
1 tag
Musings With A Touch of Aspie: CIVIL WAR in... →
perezhamilton:
Guess they aren’t in a merry land after all! HA!
Remember how the Toleration Act (which granted Catholics the right to worship) got repealed in Maryland???
Well now it’s started an ALL-OUT war!!!!
Lord Baltimore, the Lord Proprietor of Maryland who is…
Everyone, please note that there is a blog called Perez Hamilton about historical gossip. This just might be the...
A disturbing story about laissez faire capitalism →
ethicalecon:
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near...
3 tags
Response from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in...
In response to outrage over Norwegian social workers separating children from their parents for allegedly hand feeding and sleeping in the same bed as their children, the Norwegian Royal Embassy in Washington sent me this correspondence:
Thank you for your email. By contacting us you provide us with an opportunity to respond directly to the concerns of many Indians and others who have reacted to...
3 tags
17% of youth are unemployed, out of school,... →
A sizable minority of America’s youth aren’t in school or attached to the labor force. And it’s costing taxpayers big.
About 17 percent of America’s young people are “opportunity youth” — or people ages 16-24 who aren’t attached to the labor force — according to a report prepared by researchers for the Corporation for National and Community...
the world: hey man we've got some really serious problems like global warming and mass economic failure and riots and genocide and aids and cancer and your healthcare system is shit so maybe we should get to work
US government: sit down I have to stop people from sharing things online
US government: also pizza is vegetables
“In other words, many SOPA opponents were confused and even shocked when they...”
– Glenn Greenwald (via kateoplis)
The science behind apotemnophilia (BIID) →
thefuror:
I don’t think we should ever have to justify mental illness through neurological means - the very implication that we ought to reeks of ableism and that “just get over it” mentality that so many people embrace, but here is a recent (2009) study about the neurology behind BIID.
The abstract:
The question of how the human brain combines disparate sensory inputs to construct a unified...
Indian couple have children taken away by... →
An Indian couple have had their children taken away by Norwegian social workers because they were feeding them with their hands and sleeping in the same bed as them.
Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya lost custody of their three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter eight months ago after authorities branded their behaviour inappropriate.
The drastic measure led to intervention from the Indian...
3 tags
Senators Bennet, Udall Introduce Constitutional... →
U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and Tom Udall today introduced a constitutional amendment to grant Congress the authority to regulate the campaign finance system. Among other important reforms, the amendment would allow Congress to correct the controversial Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance that has the effect of allowing virtually unlimited corporate and special...
After calling him literally every weekday for two... →
Rock on :)
PS. he went from being a co-sponsor of the bill, to promising not to vote for it! That’s a pretty extreme reversal.
Why Is an Atheist High School Student Getting...
eddyizm:
Why Is an Atheist High School Student Getting Vicious Death Threats?
If you take away just two things from the story about atheist high school student Jessica Ahlquist, and the court case she won last week to have a prayer banner taken out of her public school, let it be these:
The ruling in this case was entirely unsurprising. It is 100 percent in line with unambiguous legal...
3 tags
Study confirms, elementary schools terrible for... →
Key Findings on Gender Non-Conforming Students
Nearly 1 in 10 of elementary students in 3rd to 6th grade (8%) indicate that they do not always conform to traditional gender norms/roles - either they are boys who others sometimes think, act or look like a girl, or they are girls who others sometimes think, act or look like a boy.
Gender nonconforming students are less likely than other students...
DE BEERS DECISION TO DUMP SEWAGE INTO ATTAWAPISKAT... →
rebelrebelbatcat:
ndnsurgency:
For fuck sakes!!! I *HATE* Debeers so much it makes me sick to my stomach. The worst part is that people wouldn’t have ever known these things if not for the current media shitstorm happening. i’m glad this is all getting out there, it certainly shows these organizations for how much they value profits over people.
If you didn’t have enough reasons to hate...
3 tags
Fox reacts to Newsweek Cover →
Andrew Sullivan wrote a fairly standard piece defending the Obama administration from critics, cleverly titled “Why are Obama’s critics so dumb?” (it’s clever because it’ll greatly improve sales compared to a more accurate and reasonable title). Fox, being the establishment conservative mouthpiece that they are, naturally objected. They paid two of their...
thefuror asked: I don't know how interested you are in BIID, but I wrote about why people have BIID more in depth last night. People seem to overwhelmingly misunderstand that BIID is a mental illness that is just as legitimate as any other mental illness and that, unlike many other mental illnesses, we can actually pinpoint what it is that the brain probably does that causes people to have BIID. It's...
PS, I'll never take the words "social justice...
girl-non-grata:
Here’s a definition for you, social justice warriors: ableism is thinking “transabled” people (who are physically healthy but want to be and pretend to be disabled) deserve the same accommodations as functionally disabled people.
To really think that shows such a profound dismissiveness of what it means and what it takes to live with an actual disability. The disabled have a...
1 tag
“As a white person, I always saw the terms honky or cracker as proof of how much...”
– Tim Wise, Honky Wanna Cracker? Examining the Myth of “Reverse Racism” (via darkjez)
Tumble DC 25: Transableism →
14kgoldnyc:
nefariousnewt:
jonathan-cunningham:
Learning how to be respectful of the transgendered community and everyone in it was one of the first things I started learning on Tumblr (which isn’t to say I’m perfect now, or finished learning, just that it was a large area of personal ignorance at the time).
I learned that it was disrespectful…
Presented without comment.
There’s a...
SOPA blackouts begin as MPAA calls foul →
world-shaker:
Current MPAA president and thirty-year senator Chris Dodd further blasts the blackout as a stunt that punishes the users of the aforementioned services or turns them “into corporate pawns.” He decries the decision to protest as “an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today” and claims that online information services are “intentionally...
2 tags
“Gingrich seems to understand the historical weight of the view among some...”
– Charles Blow on Gingrich’s subtle racism
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nom-chompsky:
jonathan-cunningham:
nom-chompsky:
if you are looking for a touchy feely everything’s cool everything’s valid morals are relative nothing is real tumblr
these are not the droids you’re looking for
What if we’re looking for a tumblr where the opinions are consistent and the author doesn’t insult a group of people then pretend like they’re taking the high road when they’re...
nom-chompsky:
if you are looking for a touchy feely everything’s cool everything’s valid morals are relative nothing is real tumblr
these are not the droids you’re looking for
What if we’re looking for a tumblr where the opinions are consistent and the author doesn’t insult a group of people then pretend like they’re taking the high road when they’re called on it?
1 tag
Transableism
Learning how to be respectful of the transgender community and everyone in it was one of the first things I started learning on Tumblr (which isn’t to say I’m perfect now, or finished learning, just that it was a large area of personal ignorance at the time).
I learned that it was disrespectful and stupid to pretend I could tell how they felt better than they could- no one can say...
“The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its...”
– Andrew Sullivan absolutely kills this. He defends Obama’s first term as remarkably prolific, moderate and true to principle. Hear, hear. (via thecallup)
Giburu: The Unofficial Search Engine for Humans... →
For those of us who don’t want to help Google take advantage of Kenyans and censor the Chinese.
In Kenya, Google was caught red-handed attempting... →
shortformblog:
Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They have been telling untruths about their relationship with us, and about our business practices, in order to do so. As of January 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted.
Furthermore, they...
