- Female-Name Chat Users Get 25 Times More Malicious Messages
- A study by the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering found that chat room participants with female usernames received 25 times more threatening and/or sexually explicit private messages than those with male or ambiguous usernames.
- Tin production — A classic case of limits to growth | Energy Bulletin
- The tin production story is out there is in plain sight, but only those directly involved in supplying the tin ore, refining it or consuming tin metal are paying any attention. …what’s going on now, and what’s been going on for years now…
Lest you think this is a temporary dislocation in the tin market, let there be little doubt that tin is supply-constrained…
The only thing that will dampen soaring tin prices is a slowdown in demand, but the electronic equipment market is booming. As long as there’s a circuit board, there will be tin.
- Bachmann on debt ceiling: Up is down, black is white – The Plum Line – The Washington Post – Greg Sargent
- According to Bachmann, Obama is jeopardizing the full faith and credit of the United States by trying to avoid default.
What’s amusing about this is that a couple months ago, when he was being responsible about the debt ceiling, John Boehner used identical language to make the opposite point: That failing to raise the debt limit would jeopardize the “full faith and credit” of the United States.
…Yet Bachmann is anything but a fringe figure.
- States Leave No Child Left Behind Behind | MoJo Blogs and Articles | Mother Jones • by Kristina Rizga
- Tired of waiting for Congress to fix No Child Left Behind, Oregon passed its own package of laws similar to NCLB last month that include their own, customized approaches to accountability systems. Why? According to current NCLB measurements, four out of five schools nationwide could be labeled as failures, and could possibly lose all federal funding. So, state lawmakers in several states including Indiana and Tennessee are improving these scales by developing their own systems that will take into account things besides test scores such as students’ individual progress, graduation rates, and enrollment in AP courses. It doesn’t mean these states are opting out of NCLB, but state funding to public schools is significant… and can be attached to its own accountability measures.
…Rather than completely gut school funding and other essential government services like most states, Oregonians voted to raise taxes on the highest-income residents and corporations earlier this year.
- July 9, 2011 – The King and Abe
- In 1861, King Mongkut of Siam sent a letter to the President of the United States offering to send some elephants to America for use as breeding stock, so that the U.S. could establish a domestic herd of its own. Although James Buchanan was in office when the letter was sent, it arrived after Abraham Lincoln’s inaguration.
This historic fact has since been embroidered considerably. Many accounts now say that Mongkut (the ruler portrayed in “The King and I”) offered Lincoln a troop of war elephants to aid in the U.S. Civil War.
- Woman Gives Birth to 16-Pound Baby
- Having a 16-pound baby of JaMichael’s size is big news, pun intended, but let’s not overlook the seriousness of gestational diabetes in our celebration. Gestational diabetes can be brought on by a myriad of factors, including genetics and diet.
…usually goes away after pregnancy, but having gestational diabetes puts you at higher risk for type 2 diabetes later in life.
- Bachmann Christian Therapy Clinic Under Fire After Footage Leaks
- This is not the first time that the Bachmanns have come under fire over allegations that their clinic…
- 3 Races of Dolls Required at all Day Care Centers?
- The state of Colorado has proposed a long list of new regulations for day care centers, including a requirement that they provide dolls of at least three different races …
…any discussion of race and ethnicity issues in the context of playtime feels almost silly, given the ongoing educational disparities faced by kids of color in this country.
As this story develops, we predict a sideshow of a debate about the government “infringing on rights,” and a backlash against multiculturalism that distracts from real issues of equality that have nothing to do with the toy corner.
[My bookmarks live at delicious.com/camryl. In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. Also, signal boosts are awesome! --L.]
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