This pictures is a reaction shot of a blast hit by Tampa Bay Ray’s prospect Evan Longoria. Pictures like this are one reason why magazine still matter. This picture ran in Sports Illustrated and was shot by the Toledo Blade‘s Jeremy Wadsworth.
Today, Laura is in Paris.
So what’s the big deal about this ad for Absolut Vodka? Absolut is running this ad in Mexico, which is a big ironic because the punchline is in English.
But some people in the U.S. have a problem with the ad. I don’t see why. What’s the big deal about the old borders? Obviously Mexico wishes that the Western U.S. were a part of Mexico. The irony is that the Western U.S. wouldn’t be nearly as rich as it if it had been a part of Mexico for the last 160 years.
Seeing this old map should remind us about the economic choices Mexico has made over the last 160 year and the economic choices made by the United States. The choices made by the United States have obviously produced much greater economic growth.
If Mexico wishes that the Western United States were a part of Mexico, I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with the economic choices Mexico has made that allowed the United States to leave it far behind over the past 160 years.
Here’s a great set of photos showing the preparation of the Space Shuttle for launch. The picture on the left is one example. The Space Shuttle is hanging as they prepare to attach it to the boosters.
In case you wonder why the Space Shuttle program is so expensive, look through this photoset. The Space Shuttle requires incredibly large and complex machinery to make it fly.
This false-color mosaic was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo’s imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on December 7, 1992. The part of the Moon visible from Earth is on the left side in this view. The color mosaic shows compositional variations in parts of the Moon’s northern hemisphere. Bright pinkish areas are highlands materials, such as those surrounding the oval lava-filled Crisium impact basin toward the bottom of the picture. Blue to orange shades indicate volcanic lava flows. To the left of Crisium, the dark blue Mare Tranquillitatis is richer in titanium than the green and orange maria above it. Thin mineral-rich soils associated with relatively recent impacts are represented by light blue colors; the youngest craters have prominent blue rays extending from them. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA’s Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The United Nations Human Rights Council recently voted to stifle free speech. A resolution recently passed by a majority of the Council states that “to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms for all” we must suppress unpopular speech about religions. The resolution reads:
The Human Rights Council,
…
8. Urges States to take actions to prohibit the dissemination, including through political institutions and organizations, of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, hostility or violence;9. Also urges States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from the defamation of any religion, to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance;
10. Emphasizes that respect of religions and their protection from contempt is an essential element conducive for the exercise by all of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
…
13. Reaffirms that general comment No. 15 of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in which the Committee stipulates that the prohibition of the dissemination of all ideas based upon racial superiority or hatred is compatible with the freedom of opinion and expression, is equally applicable to the question of incitement to religious hatred;
This is very strange. In order “to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms for all,” we can’t say things that “constitute incitement” to “religious hostility,” defame a religion, express contempt for a religion, and governments should suppress all ideas based on religious superiority.
Freedom of speech is the freedom to criticize. That’s pretty much the point of establishing a freedom of speech. This resolution would prohibit criticizing of Islam, or Scientology, or Catholicism, or whatever religion (or lack of religion) because that could lead to hatred or intolerance.
It’s pretty Orwellian that to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms of all” we can’t exercise our freedom of speech to state our beliefs on which religion (or lack of religion) is superior.
For more information:
Prince William County, Virginia schools are deeply troubled. A couple weeks ago school officials suspended a 12-year-old indefinitely for standing up to a bully (hopefully the child is back in school). Now they have accused a 6-year-old of sexual harassment because he spanked another child. They even called the cops. Here’s the prurient details of what constitutes sexual harassment to Prince William County school officials:
Randy [the sexual deviant in the eyes of Prince William County Schools] sat on the lower bunk in his bedroom recently and explained what happened Nov. 26 on the playground at Potomac View Elementary School. Katherine DeLeon, a classmate who regularly came over to play, was kneeling on a bench, talking to friends. He said he saw another boy race over to the girl, whack her on the bottom and run away, giggling and pretending he hadn’t done it. He did it twice more, Randy said.
Randy said he thought it looked like fun, so he joined in, hitting her and running away twice. “Every time he hit her, she laughed,” Randy said. “When I hit her, she told the teacher.”
Katherine’s mother, Margarita DeLeon, who was contacted by school officials shortly after the incident, said that her daughter didn’t like being hit but that she quickly forgot about it. “We didn’t pay attention to it, because we know it’s just children playing around,” she said. “He didn’t mean anything by it. I’m upset with the school.”
I’m concerned that school officials think that first graders “playing around” is somehow sexual. What does that say about school officials?
It is one thing to have an isolated incidents such as the suspension of the kid standing up to the bully, but apparently there is a pattern of unjust overreactions from this school district. The Superintendent of Prince William County Schools is Steven L. Walts. If you think this is unjust, let him know. His email address is pwcssupt@pwcs.edu and his Executive Assistant’s phone number is 703.791.8712.
Check out this graphic if you wonder why it is good to be a single man on the east coast.
The graphic is a great example of how to present certain types of information.
The cap and trade system for greenhouse gases isn’t working in Europe, so why do all three presidential candidates believe we need one in the US. In a cap and trade system, the government establishes a cap on emissions and companies and then trade allowances to emit certain emissions. Because the system drives up the price of emitting greenhouse gases, it creates incentives for companies to reduce emissions. It sounds like a simple plan to reduce emissions. Too bad that energy prices are increasing in Europe (as is the point of a cap and trade program) and yet emissions are still increasing.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The European Union’s greenhouse-gas emissions from key industries rose 1.1% last year, despite its antipollution policies, demonstrating the difficulty in meeting international commitments to fight climate change.
Some 11,500 factories, oil refineries, steel mills and other installations are covered by the EU scheme, accounting for about half of Europe’s total emissions. There is still no limit on the other half, produced by everything from cars and planes to buildings and retail outlets.
But the caps that the EU set for different industries turned out to be too high. As a result, instead of shrinking, as was originally envisioned, emissions in these industries have crept up by about 1% each year since the program began.
Europe’s struggle to make its cap-and-trade program work shows just how hard it will be for the industrialized world to achieve any meaningful reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. Japan isn’t faring any better: Its Kyoto targets call for it to reduce emissions by 6% below 1990 levels, but emissions are actually increasing there as well.
The issue is taking on greater importance in the U.S., the world’s biggest economy and still the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas. All three leading presidential candidates say they are in favor of establishing a cap-and-trade system similar to Europe’s, and the Senate is expected to consider cap-and-trade bills this summer.
Europe’s cap-and-trade system has been plagued with design and implementation problems from the start. Chief among them: National governments issued too many carbon permits — essentially a license to pollute — to regulated industries. As a result, companies had no real incentive to revamp their factories. Regulators in Europe have tried to get the scheme back on track by forcing governments to ratchet down the number of permits they issue during the program’s second phase, from 2008 to 2012.
As the article states, Europe hasn’t reduced its emissions because the caps were set too high. The article doesn’t state that cap and traded has helped drive up energy prices for consumers in Europe. Electricity prices have increased by 25 percent in Germany and by 15 percent in the UK.
The European experience with cap and trade for greenhouse gases has proven to be a flop so far. The point of cap and trade is to reduce emissions, not increase them. Higher energy prices are supposed to lead to decreased emissions, and it hasn’t. When the regulators finally reduce the caps to a level that reduces emissions, how much is that going to increase the price of energy? An increase of 15-25 percent hasn’t helped. Would an increase of 50 percent help? 100 percent? 200 percent?
So why should Obama, McCain, and Clinton support cap and trade given the failue of Europe’s scheme?
Compare the new British coins to the new five dollar bill. What’s wrong with the US Mint?
