Irisa in 1.03 The Devil in the Dark
I’m undecided on Defiance. I really like the idea, but I was hoping it would be a ‘moving around’ show rather than a ‘town’ show. A brand new world, it seems a waste to spend it all in a town.
I’ll keep watching but I don’t really care for the family v family storyline, I care more about what people have done in a post-apocalyptic type world. The drama is just a distraction.
Also, huge pet peeve of mine is how shows these days do a whole pilot, and then in the last 30 seconds really force the issue by introducing some bigger story arc rather than having the arc develop naturally. Defiance did it at the end of the pilot and I hate it.
(Source: tvshowsgirl, via sillylittlebear)
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Poutine
The UK iTunes chart as of Thursday April 11th.
The BBC not playing this is ridiculous. I mean, it’s a chart show. It’s an informative count down of what people have been buying, not a glowing endorsement of the reason people have been buying it. Playing a 5 second clip and explaining why it’s in the news is a pointless move. Just play the damn song.
I think the BBC probably should play it, but I don’t think it’s as simple as saying the chart show is ‘informative’.
There are a host of songs actually written about Margaret Thatcher that would have been much more appropriate. ‘Ding Dong The Witch is Dead’ doesn’t just suggest a protest but a celebration of her death which most find distasteful.
An Open Letter to my Friends on the Left -
My friends,
In the last week or two, I have heard frequently from you that the current financial mess has been caused by the failures of free markets and deregulation. I have heard from you that the lust after profits, any profits, that is central to free markets is at the core of our problems. And I have heard from you that only significant government intervention into financial markets can cure these problems, perhaps once and for all. I ask of you for the next few minutes to, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, consider that you may be mistaken. Consider that both the diagnosis and the cure might be equally mistaken.
Consider instead that the problems of this mess were caused by the very kinds of government regulation that you now propose. Consider instead that effects of the profit motive that you decry depend upon the incentives that institutions, regulations, and policies create, which in this case led profit-seekers to do great damage. Consider instead that the regulations that may have been the cause were supported by, as they have often been throughout US history, the very firms being regulated, mostly because they worked to said firms’ benefit, even as they screwed the rest of us. Consider all of this as you ask for more of the same in the name of fixing the problem. And finally, consider why you would ever imagine that those with wealth and power wouldn’t rig a new regulatory process in their favor.
—Steve Horwitz
Anonymous asked: I feel that there are some posts made this morning that will be of much enjoyment to you. See specifically 'Women can't be sexist towards men'
Feminists gon’ feminist.
Smoky Sweet Potato Burgers with Roasted Garlic Cream & Avocado by How Sweet It Is
(via prettyfoods)
The highest minimum wage in the nation is set to rise again in 2013, as San Francisco’s low-end compensation rate will increase from $10.24 to $10.55 per hour.
In 2003, voters approved a local ordinance tying the minimum wage to the regional rate of inflation in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Set at $8.50 per hour when the law took effect, The City’s minimum wage has increased in every year but one since 2004.
City officials and low-wage worker advocate groups have long argued that increasing the minimum wage helps the local economy by giving service industry workers more disposable income to spend.
S.F. employers paying more
- Minimum wage has risen almost every year since 2004:
- 2004: $8.50 per hour
- 2005: $8.62 per hour
- 2006: $8.82 per hour
- 2007: $9.14 per hour
- 2008: $9.36 per hour
- 2009: $9.79 per hour
- 2010: $9.79 per hour
- 2011: $9.92 per hour
- 2012: $10.24 per hour
- 2013: $10.55 per hour
- Source: San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement
In addition, a 2004 peer-reviewed UC Berkeley study found that the rising minimum wage had no impact on jobs or the propensity of employers to leave the area. Instead, it concluded that restaurants in particular passed on increased costs to customers, with prices rising 6.2 percent for fast food and 1.8 percent at sit-down eateries.
A sterling example of how increasing the minimum wage does not hurt jobs.
Delivery for Ricardo Winter.
Okay I’ll try not to make this too long, but obviously I disagree. First and foremost, I implore anybody who has an opinion on this topic to actually read about it, rather than just taking your opinions from a graphic on Tumblr.
Now on to San Francisco and this graphic. First of all, comparing the San Francisco figure to that of California is a nonsense. California has a minimum wage figure above the federal minimum wage, and has one of the highest (if not the highest) unemployment figures in the country. It makes much more sense to compare it to the unemployment rate of the US as a whole, which is 7.8%. Still a win for San Francisco, but I guess that doesn’t look so great on a graphic.
Second, lets take a look down the road to San Jose. They also have a much higher minimum wage than both California ($8/hr) and the US Federal Minimum Wage ($7.25/hr) at $10/hr. The unemployment rate for the San Jose metro area is 8.6% which is 0.9% above the national average. In a nice symmetry, that makes it almost as bad as San Francisco is good, and shows using a single data point such as that of San Francisco is meaningless in isolation.
These figures are also woefully inadequate to really analyse the actual problem of the minimum wage, which is the effect of the lowest skilled workers. For those who keep a job when the minimum wage rises, fantastic, but it’s those who lose jobs or can’t find jobs in the first place that suffer, and most often these are young people. I found it impossible to find a youth unemployment figure for San Francisco itself, but youth unemployment is 19% in California for 20-24 year olds and 34% for 16-19 year olds, compared to 17% average in the US for Under 25s.
Following on from that is the cost of living. Is it any surprise that San Francisco and San Jose are #4 and #5 in the most expensive places to live in the US? They trail only Manhattan, Brooklyn and Honalulu. If anything, the indexing of the minimum wage to inflation is a self fulfilling prophecy in the Bay Area. As pointed out by your article, the higher minimum wage is passed on to consumers in higher prices, which causes inflation, which raises the minimum wage etc…
Lastly, I’ll talk about the economic research. The article linked in the post talks of a study by Yelowitz at the University of Kentucky that concludes “that for each $1 increase in floor compensation, the unemployment rate among younger workers increases by 4.5 percent”, but considering this is linked to the Employment Policies Institute, a conservative think tank, we can side step that one.
A piece of research from the largest economics research organisation in the US, the National Bureau of of Economic Research, found that the minimum wage was detrimental to employment. A couple of quotes from the abstract of this paper by Neumark and Wascher (http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663) which analysed over 100 studies from the US and abroad on the minimum wage:
“…the oft-stated assertion that recent research fails to support the traditional view that the minimum wage reduces the employment of low-wage workers is clearly incorrect.”
“…among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects”
“…the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups”
Once In A Blue Moon: hillaryrodham: why do boys act like they’ve committed a great... -
why do boys act like they’ve committed a great humanitarian deed and single handedly solved world hunger when they say ‘i like girls with no makeup’ like congratulations would you like a nobel peace prize you fantastic feminist you
And this.
On the off chance that my last…
You make an interesting point, but you’re missing the real crux of the matter, and thats evolutionary biology.
Everything women do to enhance their appearance is based around looking youthful and healthy. Larger eyes are a youthful characteristic, hence eye liner, mascara etc… to make the eyes look bigger. Clear skin is a sign of health, hence foundation, as is shiny hair. Blonde hair is associated with youthfulness, as is having longer legs relative to the torso, hence high heels.
It doesn’t take a scientist to realise why men look for these characteristics, its because of reproduction. Women with these traits are considered the healthiest and best for making babies.
By contrast, there is no evolutionary value for a woman to look for youth in a man. Men are valued on having characteristics which suggest high testosterone, such as broad shoulders, a pronounced brow, strong jaw line and muscles. Again it’s not difficult to see why, men with high testosterone make better protectors. If women valued youth in a man the way men do in women, men would wear make up etc… Women don’t, so men don’t.
In fact, both men and women do things to accentuate these characteristics, it’s just easier for women. Men can’t fake broad shoulders or a strong jaw line with makeup the way a woman can make her skin look near flawless. with foundation In fact one of the only options a man has is to go to the gym and build muscle, hence why it should be no surprise that the weights area is dominated by men.
There was a very interesting video I saw the other day (which I sadly can’t find) which had someone doing a survey of random women about which men they find attractive. They had 5 drawings of male faces, from #1 with low testosterone (i.e. weak jaw) to #5 with the high testosterone. The general opinion was that very few women chose numbers 1 or 2 (low test), women chose 3 or 4 for a relationship and 5 for a one night stand.
(Source: badboystyles)