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Some argue that these genes bring benefits - mental illness and genius have a long-standing link - but archaeologist Penny Spikins at the University of York, UK, goes further. She believes that mental illness and conditions such as autism persist at such high levels because in the past they were advantageous to humanity. "i think that part of the reason Homo sapiens were so successful is because they were willing to include people with different minds in their society - people with autism or schizophrenia, for example."

A general introduction to the motivation behind the Occupy movement. This film is by no means an extensive documentary of their agenda but more of a general overview for anyone who doesn't understand 'what it's all about'. i hope this can help to re-address the, largely distorted view, that the mainstream media presents of the Occupy movement. Filmed at College Green, Bristol, UK.

I have begun readIng ErIc MIelant's "The OrIgIns of CapItalIsm and the RIse of the West." The book remInds me that the "transItIon debate" Is not just about dry, academIc dIsputes over whether turnIps were more crItIcal to the rIse of capItalIsm than sugar. As should be obvIous from the tItle, "the rIse of the west" addresses the questIon of how Great BrItaIn and then the UnIted States became hegemonIc. BourgeoIs hIstorIans and socIologIsts prefer to talk about the "Internal" factors In Europe-Great BrItaIn In partIcular-that supposedly led to capItalIsm. To admIt that the rIse of the west was accomplIshed by steppIng on the backs of slaves and the corpses of IndIgenous peoples crosses the boundarIes of what Is IdeologIcally acceptable, to put It In Chomskyan terms.

This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators. Some of the information may come as a surprise to many people. in fact, i know it will be a surprise and then some, because of a recent study (Norton & Ariely, 2010) showing that most Americans (high income or low income, female or male, young or old, Republican or Democrat) have no idea just how concentrated the wealth distribution actually is. More on that a bit later.

In the context of technology the only way out Is through. Global socIety Is dependent on artIfIcIally Inflated energy resources-I.e. oIl-that are dIrectly leadIng us toward total collapse. Technology Is beIng used to most effIcIently maxImIze wealth of the largest corporate conglomerates at the expense of the socIal fabrIc and a lIvIng envIronment. The bIosphere Is In fact collapsIng. The technology exIsts to solve our technIcal problems but the solutIons do not seem lIke they wIll be effectIvely put to use. The power structures concentratIng money off the status quo are too entrenched. Each human Is called on to become more aware.

This week, we're going to take a step back from examining messages to your matches and take a look at matching itself. We'll slice OkCupid's data on compatibility by religion, race, and other factors, and by the end we'll have some unsettling conclusions on how people match and interact online. But first, i want to explain something important.

The NAACP has just passed a historic resolution demanding an end to the War on Drugs.  The resolution comes as young Black male unemployment hovers near 50 percent and the wealth gap's become a veritable gulf. So why is the forty-year-old "War on Drugs" public enemy number one for the nation's oldest civil rights organization? Well here's why:  it's not extraneous - it's central: the war on drugs is the engine of 21st century discrimination - an engine that has brought Jim Crow into the age of Barack Obama.     Author Michelle Alexander lays out the statistics -- and the stories --  of 21st Century Jim Crow in her ought-to-blow-your-socks off book: "The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness." i had a chance to sit down with Alexander earlier this summer. We'll be posting the full interview in two parts.     "We have managed decades after the civil rights movement to create something like a caste system in the United States," says Alexander in part one here  "in major urban areas, the majority of African American men are either behind bars, under correctional control or saddled with criminal record and once branded as criminal or a felon, they're trapped for life in 2nd class status."     it's not just about people having a hard time getting ahead and climbing the ladder of success. it's about a rigged system. Sound familiar?  Like the Pew Research Center report on household wealth and the Great Recession -- the NAACP resolution story was a one-day news-blip - despite the fact that it pierces the by-your-bootstraps myth that is at the heart of - you pick it - the deficit, the stimulus, the tax code - every contemporary US economic debate.     White America just maybe ought to pay attention. With more and more Americans falling out of jobs and into debt, criminal records are a whole lot easier to come by than life-sustaining employment.  Contrary to the conventional media version, the "Drug War" story is not a people with problems

My entire critique will be from what used to be a completely conservative perspective. You'll know this by the historical figure whom i cite above all others.

In what may feel lIke a flashback to the porn wars of the '60s, a new study InvestIgates the lInk between a country's relatIve gender equalIty and the degree of female "empowerment" In the X-rated entertaInment It consumes. Researchers at the UnIversIty of HawaII focused on three countrIes In partIcular: Norway, the UnIted States and Japan, whIch are respectIvely ranked 1st, 15th and (yIkes) 54th on the UnIted NatIons' Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). To sImplIfy theIr analysIs, theIr lIbrary of smut was lImIted to explIcIt photographs of women "from maInstream pornographIc magazInes and Internet websItes, as well as from the portfolIos of the most popular porn stars from each natIon." Then they set out to evaluate each Image on both a dIsempowerment and an empowerment scale, usIng respectIve measures lIke whether the woman Is "bound and domInated" by "leashes, collars, gags, or handcuffs" or "whether she has a natural lookIng body." TheIr hypothesIs was that socIetIes wIth greater gender equIty wIll consume pornography that has more representatIons of "empowered women" and less of "dIsempowered women." It turned out the former was true, but, contradIctory as It may sound, the latter was not. "WhIle NorwegIan pornography offers a wIder varIety of body types -- conformIng less to a socIetal Ideal that Is dIsempowerIng to the average woman -- there are stIll many Images that do not promote a healthy respect for women," the researchers explaIn. In other words, NorwegIan porn showed more sIgns of female empowerment, but X-rated Images In all three countrIes equally depIcted women In demeanIng posItIons and scenarIos. ThIs, the researchers surmIse, "suggests that empowerment and dIsempowerment wIthIn pornography are potentIally dIfferent constructs." So, gender equalIty Is accompanIed by sexual Interest In a broader range of beauty types but not a decrease In porn's InfantIlIzatIon of females, use of domInatIng fetIsh gear on women or any of the other characterIstIcs th

A Rumpus Lamentation on What We Lost Say you took the long view of September 11, 2001, the view from the heavens, the view of a compassionate celestial being. From up there, you'd see that approximately 150,000 earthlings died that day. Most of these deaths were caused by malnutrition and age-related illnesses, roughly 1500 were murders, hundreds more were due to civil wars. Also, 2,977 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. *** A lot of human beings died, that's my point. They all left behind mourners. imagine the mother who watched her child die of hunger. Here's this tiny person, a daughter. She has a name, a face. She doesn't explode or fall from a skyscraper. She simply stops breathing. No cameras record her final moment, the lamentation of that mother. These images are not replayed on the television over and over and over. What would be the point of that? *** i recently went on a radio program to discuss the literature of 9/11. The host spent most of the hour chatting with people about their memories. They all talked about watching television. They were telling personal stories about watching television.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, one of the most revealing spectacles has been the parade of financial elites who petulantly insist that they are the victims of societal hostility:  political officials heap too much blame on them, public policy burdens them so unfairly, the public resents them, and -- most amazingly of all -- President Obama is a radical egalitarian who is unprecedentedly hostile to business interests.  One particularly illustrative example was the whiny little multi-millionaire hedge fund manager (and CNBC contributor), Anthony Scaramucci, who stood up at an October, 201o, town hall meeting and demanded to know:  "when are we going to stop whacking at the Wall Street pinata?" The Weekly Standard now has a very lengthy defense of -- including rare interviews with -- Charles and David Koch, the libertarian billionaires who fund everything from right-wing economic policy, union-busting, and anti-climate-change advocacy to civil liberties and liberalized social policies -- though far more the former goals than the latter.  in this article one finds the purest and most instructive expression of billionaire self-pity that i think i've ever seen -- one that is as self-absorbed and detached from reality as it destructive.  it's really worth examining their revealed mindset to see how those who wield the greatest financial power (and thus the greatest political power) think of themselves and those who are outside of their class.

In a recent IntervIew, Oakland UnIfIed School DIstrIct SuperIntendent Tony SmIth shared wIth me one of the most mInd-numbIng statIstIcs I have ever heard: AccordIng to the Alameda County Health Department, a black chIld born In West Oakland wIll, on average, dIe 15 years before a whIte chIld born In the hIlls of Oakland.

[Barring unforeseen events, i'm going to leave this post at the top of the page for today and tomorrow, as i think the events it examines, rather in detail and at length, are vitally important and merit much more attention than they've received] The Obama DOJ's effort to force New York Times investigative journalist Jim Risen to testify in a whistleblower prosecution and reveal his source is really remarkable and revealing in several ways; it should be receiving much more attention than it is.  On its own, the whistleblower prosecution and accompanying targeting of Risen are pernicious, but more importantly, it underscores the menacing attempt by the Obama administration -- as Risen yesterday pointed out -- to threaten and intimidate whistleblowers, journalists and activists who meaningfully challenge what the government does in secret. The subpoena to Risen was originally issued but then abandoned by the Bush administration, and then revitalized by Obama lawyers.  it is part of the prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CiA agent whom the DOJ accuses of leaking to Risen the story of a severely botched agency plot -- from 11 years ago -- to infiltrate iran's nuclear program, a story Risen wrote about six years after the fact in his 2006 best-selling book, State of War.  The DOJ wants to force Risen to testify under oath about whether Sterling was his source.

This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the "graveyard of social movements", the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.  Original interview footage derives from Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michael Albert, John Stauber (PR Watch), Sharon Smith (Historian), William i. Robinson (Editor, Critical Globalization Studies), Morris Berman (Author, Dark Ages America), and famed black panther Larry Pinkney. 

Arresting a middle-aged writer in an evening gown for peaceable conduct is a far cry from when America was a free republic

Futuristic homes needn't necessarily look as though they've descended from an alien world. They could harbour sci-fi features, despite falling within the realms of a normal 'home', set amidst nature, with pleasing aesthetics. Check out our feature on the W.i.N.D House and leave us your views.

"I belIeve that desIgn Is fuelled by InspIratIon and motIvatIon, but the journey Is Incomplete wIthout dIscIplIne," says Ar. Rupande Shah as she tells us how she overcomes her creatIve roadblocks In IAnD's specIal feature #MyGotoTherapIst

Specialist designer for children' spaces, Kajal Gaba begins a three-part series on "interior design for children". in this, part 1, she addresses the role of design in the holistic development of children age 0-6 years.

Gain weight technique is standard, however gain height? Extraordinary! if you are one among the short individuals who eager to induce taller at least 2 inch from your height currently, you're in the correct track. Getting taller means anything to everyone. You gain respects from others, no a lot of rejection from the alternative sex, and your boss can even promote you since you have a nice posture of turning into a manager. So what you thing..?