On one hand, maybe everyone should be allowed the privilege of ridiculing themselves on national television, no matter what their ethnic background, socioeconomic standing, gender, etc. Hey, if they want to do it, why stop them? On the other hand, this is disgusting, particularly this part re: CBS’s upcoming effort to make an ‘Amish in […]

“Bank robbers once needed to take hostages, wield guns, or crack safes to get their loot. Now the job often requires little more than a pair of dark sunglasses and a menacing note.” … “‘Banks, which used to be structured like vaults, with armed guards, and all kinds of imposing structures that said, ‘Don’t mess […]

…about the ‘people’s war’ in Nepal? You know, the one where villages are caught in crossfire of the conflict, where about 17 people are killed every day, where Maoist rebels conscript children, where both sides (and those caught in-between) suffer torture and gang rape? No, me neither. (via World Press Review: War Without Ends)

Via Financial Times, we learn that Swiss Re, one of the leading reinsurance companies in the world, says: “There is a danger that human intervention will accelerate and intensify natural climate changes to such a point that it will become impossible to adapt our socio-economic systems in time.” (emphasis added) The FT article elaborates: The […]

“Half of all human languages will have disappeared by the end of the century.” … ” …each language lost leaves a gap in our understanding of the variable cognitive structures of which the human brain is capable. Studies of different languages have already revealed vastly different ways of representing and interpreting the world. Some Native […]

Which is good news, at least.

I’m as suspicious of “secret reports” as the next guy, but this one seems to merit some attention. The report, dug up by those folks at The Observer, predicts catastrophic climactic change (e.g., increasingly violent storms making the Netherlands largely uninhabitable by, say, 2007), worldwide riots, a significant increase in the number of days above […]

Fish from the sky: “As if the denizens of London did not already have enough to worry about trying to safely navigate muggers, backpackers and street performers, they now face a new threat: piranhas falling from the skies.” (yes, this is an actual quote from the article) Answers to the age-old question, “Has Text-porn finally […]

This, an ad thanking Citigroup, which has been decried as the Most Destructive Bank in the World by the Rainforest Action Network for its reckless funding of development projects that endangered indigenous peoples, tropical rainforests, etc.? Thanks to a corporation fraught with malicious business practices, issues of questionable political funding, and so forth? “Thank you […]