Now it appears Michigan’s governor and other officials may be more guilty than previously thought.
Category: General
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David Cameron: *cuts £45m from English for Speakers of Other Languages colleges*
David Cameron: Muslim women must learn English or leave. -
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha – the doctor credited with discovering how bad the lead poisoning had actually gotten with the children of Flint, Michigan.
At first, the state publicly denounced her work, saying she was causing near hysteria. They spent a week attacking her before reversing their narrative and admitting she was right. “Their information wasn’t flawed. They had the data, but they were being told by the DEQ [Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the government agency that ultimately failed this city and its people from the beginning] that there wasn’t a problem, they just dismissed it,” said Hanna-Attisha and confirmed by the state-appointed task force. “There was almost like blinders on,” she added. CNN contacted DEQ’s former director, Dan Wyant, who made the decision and later resigned over the issue. He did not respond.
“If you were to put something in a population to keep them down for generation and generations to come, it would be lead. It’s a well-known, potent neurotoxin. There’s tons of evidence on what lead does to a child, and it is one of the most damning things that you can do to a population. It drops your IQ, it affects your behavior, it’s been linked to criminality, it has multigenerational impacts. There is no safe level of lead in a child.” – Hanna-Attisha
~ 40% of Flint’s residents are below the poverty rate.
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Where’s Rey?
This is the article that caused the “whiny emo pissbabies…” response regarding Kylo Ren.
Another interesting takeaway from this:
The industry insider confirmed that the Black Widow character is widely
considered “unusable” within the toy industry. “She has a tight black
outfit. Our main customer is concerned with ‘family values,’” said the
insider.So that’s Wal-Mart’s fault, then? Notice taken. (Not that I’d set foot in the place unless dragged in at gunpoint. Fortunately, when you live in Ireland neither condition is likely to occur.)
And this is worth noting too:
At the same time, however, it’s increasingly apparent that marketers’
perceptions are seriously out of touch with consumers’ tastes.“Princess toy sales are in freefall. Disney can’t give away princess
toys anymore,” according to the insider. And yet, the insider said, the
directive is there: Maintain the sharp boy/girl product division. Marginalize girl characters in items not specifically marketed as girl-oriented.The toy industry is more gender-divided now than at any time in the past 50 years, according to Elizabeth Sweet,
a professor of sociology at the University of California at Davis.
She’s a noted authority in the sociology of gender-based toy design and
marketing. Analyses of historical toy catalogs show that in the 1970s
more than half of toys were not designated as being specifically for one
gender, whereas now, very few toys are marketed as gender-neutral,
according to Sweet.Marcotte points back to the deregulation of the advertising industry
in the 1980s under Pres. Ronald Reagan as the origination point for the
gender-division trend. “Once that happened, toy manufacturers realized
they could increase sales by designing toys to be more narrowly
targeted. Instead of having just a ball, you could make it pink and put a
princess on it; or, paint it blue and put GI Joe on it. Now parents
have to buy two sets of toys, one for their daughter and one for their
son.”But that long-term trend has had significant sociological impacts.
“Girls and boys do not play together as much as they used to,” Marcotte
said. “These gender divisions are hard-coded into their toys and it
informs their behavior in ways that has lasting results on their
presumptions.”“… it’s increasingly apparent that marketers’
perceptions are seriously out of touch with consumers’ tastes.“This supports my tenet that marketing is not some evil insidious science–just people waving things in front of other people hoping they’ll notice. It usually does work, which keeps the same approaches going, but, now, hooboy has it gone wrong with Star Wars.
(And the next sentence supports my idea that Hasbro got the Disney Princess line because Mattel didn’t want it anymore…)
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I got to test drive a Tesla yesterday. Yes, one of the electric cars. You can schedule your own test drive here: https://www.teslamotors.com/models/drive?source=homepage, or sign up for a test drive event here: https://www.teslamotors.com/events.
The rep who took me for my drive actually toned down the acceleration for me, because I indicated nervousness I would hurt the pretty, expensive car. He let me take some photos, then pointed out all the controls, which I promptly forgot. This thing has a ton of settings, all controlled by a big tablet built into the dash, or one of 5 levers around the steering wheel. I got to try out the auto-drive feature, which steers the car. It’s best for highway use, but we were next to the airport, so, close enough.
The acceleration, even on the muted setting, was insane. I didn’t time it, but I was blowing away the other lane at every light. The engine whirs a bit when you push it, which is the loudest it gets. The car started when I stepped onto the brake, and I had no clue.
The hardest adjustment for me was the coasting. The car doesn’t coast. There’s an appreciable deceleration as soon as you take your foot off the pedal. I found myself nudging the accelerator to get up to stop lines, until I adjusted.
The heater is electric, so you don’t have to wait for the engine to warm up. The seats were heated, too, and they get cozy fast. The radio, as you can see above, is controlled by the dash tablet. The door handles don’t pop out until the person with the key approaches. (I thought that last was particularly neat.)
For all the gushing car guys do about this thing, the most impressive thing was the space inside it. There was a spot for my purse (photo #3), the back seat was roomy (photo #4), and there are TWO trunks, in the front and back. The back one opens up for extra storage (photo # 7), and the front sits alongside the engine (photo #8). You can’t actually get to the engine. They recommend bringing it by a dealer for some basic maintenance every 12,500 miles.
The Model S currently starts at $75k, so I don’t see that in my future. BUT, they’re announcing the Model 3 in March, which will retail for $35k. Still out of my price range, but more realistic for two-income families.
Anyway. I got to drive a 100% electric car, and it was the highlight of my week, possibly my year so far. I know what I’d buy if I won the lottery I don’t play, now.
Switching to an EV was the best thing we did in automotive terms… when we moved over to the US we had to sell it and are temporarily back using petrol/gas cars, and I hate it. It’s probably going to be about a year before we are properly settled somewhere and can buy another one.
But if you live in a city (pretty much any city) you can probably get away with a Leaf or something similar. Our EV only had a range of around 60 miles, but actually that was way more than enough for most things – and life is so much more pleasant when you don’t need to visit gas stations.
I should mention… I do write for an EV news / reviews site, so I may be biased.
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Oregon domestic terrorists now destroying public property in earnest
The domestic terrorists who seized the Malheur national wildlife refuge near Bend, OR, are operating with incredible impunity, destroying public property, breaking into federal databases and disrupting sites of archaeological and sacred indigenous interest.
Though the terrorists sometimes face criminal sanctions for theft of public property when they venture out of their armed compound, their ideological leader, Ammon Bundy, has been able to come and go freely from the site, even after reports of the destruction surfaced.
The terrorists have paved a new road through the refuge, over territory that is considered archaeologically significant; the reserve itself encompasses many Paiute burial sites that the band holds sacred.
The terrorists claim to be there on the Paiute’s behalf. Paiute band leaders do not want their help, and are outraged at the disruption of their traditional lands by a racist terror-cell.
http://boingboing.net/2016/01/17/oregon-domestic-terrorists-now.html
Just remember that, with a single exception, the authorities are letting them come and go as they please, making no efforts to arrest or stop them, even when they leave the property that they are illegally occupying.
Why aren’t the police doing anything?!?!?!? when they should go in storming the place and arresting people they aren’t What the every loving five hells?! This doesn’t make any logical sense….. They are committing crime after crime and not one thing is being done. That paved road is MORE than enough to arrest them, what are the police doing? AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
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The sun may have gone in, but the light’s still poetry. on Flickr.
The sun may have gone in, but the light’s still poetry.
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The L on Flickr.
The L
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Sunshine and a walk in the park… The best bit of being somewhere new is exploring… on Flickr.
Sunshine and a walk in the park… The best bit of being somewhere new is exploring…
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