How Beer Saved The World -/ Discovery Channel (Part 1 of 3)
Topic: Society
10:48 pm EST, Nov 22, 2011
Did you know that beer was critical to the birth of civilization? That’s right – beer. Scientists and historians line up to tell the amazing, untold story of how beer helped create math, poetry, pyramids, modern medicine, labor laws, and America.
Nine senators introduced a resolution early this month that would amend the Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court’s decisions in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) and Buckley v. Valeo (1976). These two cases had restricted Congress’s power to limit contributions to political campaigns and independent political expenditures, by both individuals and corporations. Under the amendment, Congress and the states would have the power to limit both contributions and independent expenditures.
Lawrence Lessig, a professor of law at Harvard, is the author of “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It.”
Henry Rollins Braves Conflict Zones in New Photo Book
Topic: Society
10:46 pm EDT, Oct 1, 2011
Punk rock luminary Henry Rollins has been many things in his life: musician, actor, spoken word artist. With his latest effort he puts yet another identifier on his resume: conflict zone photographer.
In his new book Occupants, Rollins collected years of pictures he took while traveling in places as far-fetched as Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Iraq. It's an impressive collection built entirely out of Rollins' desire to expose readers to corners of the world they may otherwise never see.
(CNN) -- A 24-year-old Vermont man was fatally shot by a friend who used a gun in a prank, police said. The alleged shooter apparently tried to prank his sleeping friend by waking him up with the loud sound of an air rifle, police said.
However, police said, the man mistakenly used a real rifle in the prank. Nicholas Bell, 23, was charged with manslaughter after the incident Thursday, Manchester police said.
"The accused fired the weapon, which was a loaded .22 cal rifle hitting the [victim] in the chest," a police statement said. "The victim died at the scene."
Despite entering a robust economy that seemed to weather the financial crisis as if were it a middling squall, China’s college graduates on average make only 300 yuan, or roughly $45, more per month than the average Chinese migrant worker, according to statistics cited over the weekend by a top Chinese labor researcher and reported today by the Beijing Times (in Chinese).
“It’s the first time China has faced such a situation,” the paper quoted Cai Fang, head of the Chinese Academy of Social Science’s Institute of Population and Labor Economics, as saying Saturday at a conference on Chinese youth. “It’s hard to say how long this situation will last.”
By Mr. Cai’s calculations, college graduates have consistently earned around 1,500 yuan a month since 2003. Migrant workers, meanwhile, have seen their monthly wages rise from an average of 700 yuan to 1,200 yuan over roughly the same time period, MR. Cai said, according to the Beijing Times.
Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It’s as if the first decade of the 21st century didn’t happen — and almost as if history itself doesn’t happen. But the distribution of power in the world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant, despite them. Maybe the best way to understand how quickly history happens is to look just a bit ahead.
AFP: Israel may have to take military action against Iran: Bolton
Topic: Society
8:08 pm EST, Jan 22, 2008
HERZLIYA, Israel (AFP) — Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Monday that Israel may have to take military action to prevent its archfoe Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb.
Bolton also said that further UN sanctions against the Islamic republic will be ineffective in stopping Iran's controversial nuclear programme which Israel and the US believe is aimed at developing a bomb -- a claim denied by Tehran.
] The Iran crisis is more immediate in the eyes of the Bush ] administration, in part because Iran is among the ] president's "Axis of Evil." Israel, which has long ] regarded Iran as a more dire threat than Iraq, is making ] thinly veiled threats of a unilateral pre-emptive attack, ] like its 1981 airstrike against Iraq's Osirak nuclear ] reactor. "If the state decides that a military solution ] is required, then the military has to provide a ] solution," said Israel's new Air Force chief of staff, ] Maj. Gen. Elyezer Shkedy, in a newspaper interview last ] week. "For obvious reasons," he added, "we aren't going ] to speak of specifics." U.S. defense experts doubt that ] Israel can pull it off. Iran's facilities (which it ] insists are for peaceful purposes) are at the far edge of ] combat range for Israel's aircraft; They're also widely ] dispersed and, in many cases, deep underground.
