By and large, those who are looking are those who hold power over the person being observed. Parents look. Teachers look. Employers look. Governments look. Corporations look. These people are often looking to judge or manipulate. Given the powerful position they are in, those doing the looking often think that they have the right to [...] [Posted: 10 Dec 2009]
On the most basic level, they’re all places that have earned extremely negative reputations with people who have never been there. Taken together, they represent the whole spread of traveler paranoia — from crime, disease and bloodshed to standing in long lines in the Florida sun next to little Caitlins and Coopers waiting to get [...] [Posted: 9 Dec 2009]
ZIP code 30032 near Columbia Drive and Glenwood Road, for example, was reappraised downward by a total of $287 million. The median decline in tax appraisals was 21 percent, but sales data show that the median price fell by nearly half. This suggests that tax valuations could have been cut even more, and that some [...] [Posted: 9 Dec 2009]
I’ll be honest: this is the first time I’ve ever used the word zettabyte. I’ve heard of petabytes and even exabytes, but zettabytes are a whole new level of bytes. If a zettabyte is beyond your comprehension, too, it’s essentially one billion trillion bytes: a 1 with 21 zeros at the end. To put that [...] [Posted: 9 Dec 2009]
The H1N1 flu virus that triggered the first influenza pandemic in 40 years seemed to come out of nowhere, but, of course, that wasn’t the case. The virus mutated inside a pig before making the leap to human beings, and scientists have traced it back to a strain that first emerged in U.S. factory pork [...] [Posted: 9 Dec 2009]
One of the key principles behind the Kyoto protocol is that of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’. That is, the principle that those who created the problem (rich nations) should be the ones to fix it. The draft negotiating text departs from this principle, instead decreeing that rich countries should be able to emit more per [...] [Posted: 8 Dec 2009]
With just one swing of a golf club, Tiger Woods’s wife, Elin, has shattered, or at least cracked, the stereotype of the angry and uncontrollable black woman. I, along with what I suspect to be countless other black women, would like to thank her. Not that I condone violence against anyone, but for far too [...] [Posted: 8 Dec 2009]
Or something like that. The point is geography, both the physical and environmental aspects in addition to the political one, is surprisingly important, relevant and interesting. BBC News still maintains a rather 19th-century perspective on what’s happening in the world, seeing politics as a clash between opposing views that might be resolved through elections, summits [...] [Posted: 8 Dec 2009]
Turning pain into power, restoring dignity, and giving girls and women skills so they can earn their own living and no longer have to work — willfully or by force — the sex trade. Source [Posted: 8 Dec 2009]
The economic crisis we’re in didn’t fall from the heavens. It resulted from 30 years of Wall Street pressing government to free it from critical regulations. By last year, Wall Street was far removed from the responsible lending practices that helped recycle savings to small businesses and home buyers. It resembled a vast casino without [...] [Posted: 8 Dec 2009]