Good Articles That Don't Deserve Their Own Threads

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Unstuck: How can the world’s vanishing middle class escape an economic trap?

I got depressed reading this. I'm just happy my parents have their pensions (state and private) sorted out with a cash hoard and a house that can be leveraged for expenses.

Luckily I've given up trying to own a home. I don't know why I would want to buy a flat or God forbid a house with all the chores, maintenance fees, taxes, etc. I'm still single - no bastards, so I reckon with my level of income I can evade being priced out of the middle class (or 'upper middle class', as one of my mates keeps telling me) for a considerable amount of time.

I just had dinner with an ex staff of mine who has fallen into this trap. Without his barely making it single family income, he's now having to look at cashing in his retirement and combining it with some by the hour retail job to make ends meet. His residence is practically the only thing he has left.
 
http://long.fm/ZZY37Ne

What Should We Say About David Bowie and Lori Maddox?”

Interesting opening paragraph:

David Bowie died on January 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of Blackstar, his 25th album. The news came meteorically; we were dazed and flattened, looking at the world through debris and glitter that suddenly it seemed we’d borrowed from him. Lady Gaga paid extended, exhaustive tribute to him at the Grammys on Monday night; in the week following his death, there was a second line for him in New Orleans, a shrineoutside his apartment in Tribeca, a series of farewells from his musical echelon, a million Instagrams, a segment on SNL. Bowie was that rare thing, a revolutionary who was also near-universally beloved. He gave off an uncanny combination of generosity and brilliance, in which he seemed to give everything to and ask nothing of the people who idolized him—except for, I guess, the bodies of the young teenage girls he fucked.
 
Thruth said:
http://long.fm/ZZY37Ne

What Should We Say About David Bowie and Lori Maddox?”

Interesting opening paragraph:

David Bowie died on January 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of Blackstar, his 25th album. The news came meteorically; we were dazed and flattened, looking at the world through debris and glitter that suddenly it seemed we’d borrowed from him. Lady Gaga paid extended, exhaustive tribute to him at the Grammys on Monday night; in the week following his death, there was a second line for him in New Orleans, a shrineoutside his apartment in Tribeca, a series of farewells from his musical echelon, a million Instagrams, a segment on SNL. Bowie was that rare thing, a revolutionary who was also near-universally beloved. He gave off an uncanny combination of generosity and brilliance, in which he seemed to give everything to and ask nothing of the people who idolized him—except for, I guess, the bodies of the young teenage girls he fucked.
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Its an interesting discussion but there's a lot of horseshit at play among the feminists on the site

  • SheWhoMustNotBeGamedSean Brody
    2/16/16 2:31pm
    agreed. He groomed her and then raped her a few months later, it was STILL RAPE

    If this was Polanski, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Samantha Geimer also has said we should just drop it.

    I love Bowie, but goddamn it, I love the right NOT TO BE RAPED more.

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    Reply


  • Sean Brodyseptembergrrl
    2/16/16 2:31pm
    Roman Polanski drugged and raped a girl who said no. If you can’t see the difference between a girl who said no and one who wanted to have sex— which I’m pretty sure was a thing even in the 70s, and which is not at all the same as “she didn’t complain afterward” — good luck to you.

    Well, Bowie also drugged and raped his victim here. Drugs and alcohol are what grooming predators do.
    Convincing a child to have sex with you is not and should not be a mitigating factor in determining rape. It’s not “slightly gross”, it’s rape.
    If you want to give children the power to decide to have sex with adults, then say so.
 
Here's a good example. The outrage is strong

YouTriedItSean Brody
2/16/16 3:32pm

Bro whatever planet you decide to move to when you get sick of this shit on Earth, please find me because I’m going with you. The straw man arguments, the pedo/ephebosplaining, the cognitive dissonance, just all of it regarding how this dude straight up was having sex with minor CHILDREN and supplying them with liquor and booze, is killing me harshly. Like seriously. I can’t believe that people are weighing judgments based on a wayward child’s consent and her present inability to find how very much wrong that shit was. I really just don’t understand.
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This one makes a good point about agency but still brings it back to the "ethics"

unicornzBruce Willises Ghost
2/16/16 4:02pm

This is super important. Young women have agency. Young women have sexual agency as well. 15 year olds can and should be able to make decisions about sex and their bodies. The internet deciding that this sexual experience was not consensual takes away Lori Maddox’s agency—which implies that a 15 year old actually has no claim over her body and is pretty fucked up.

That said, I think something can be consensual and still unethical. Lori Maddox may have clearly wanted to sleep with David Bowie, but it was unethical of Bowie to do it. Perhaps the ethos of the 70's clouded this for him.

Still, this debate should be less about whether young women can give consent and whether or not all consent should be acted upon.
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Gets right in there with the outrage

Fidel Negro17septembergrrl
2/16/16 6:57pm

“We were getting stoned when, all of a sudden, the bedroom door opens and there is Bowie in this fucking beautiful red and orange and yellow kimono.” -Lori Maddox

“He did a slightly gross thing in a time when most men in his position were doing the same slightly gross thing. That’s not nothing, but it’s not enough of a problem for me that it makes me think differently of him.” -septembergrrl

I enjoyed Bowie’s music like a lot of people but this is disgusting. A grown MARRIED man got a 15 year old girl high! And then proceeded to sexually molest her afterwards and that is not enough of a problem for you!?!

Has everybody started taking crazy pills and decidedly not shared any with me?!? How can you people so brazenly defend this behavior so cavalierly? Why are you not outraged by this sort of behavior? If Gerald Ford sexually molested a willingly teenage girl would you just casually toss the allegation aside as “Nothing to see hear folks. Just the era that he lived in.”?
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Rambo said:


John Lee Pettimore III John Lee Pettimore III you might enjoy this one.
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I usually like him, but he's an idiot on this. He distrusts these governments, most of which are much, much, much more directly accountable to the electorate and allow citizens to tailor the way they are governed. But loves a big federal government, which is accumulating more power by the week, and seeks to apply that power uniformly to 350 million people scattered across the Western Hemisphere.

It would be like using...I dunno, pick one of the dozen or so daily fuckups by the Feds.... to justify shutting down the entire federal government.
 
John Lee Pettimore III said:
I usually like him, but he's an idiot on this. He distrusts these governments, most of which are much, much, much more directly accountable to the electorate and allow citizens to tailor the way they are governed.
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I had a different takeaway from the piece. He clearly says that many, if not most, are functioning and working as intended. The piece highlighted the areas where they do not work, and how little say the people have over them when they do.
 
I'm a little defensive. I worked for a special district early in my career and found it to be run far more efficiently and responsively than the state and federal entities I've worked for. But yeah, on second viewing, you're more right. But he could make the exact same statements about a wide variety of federal agencies.
 
Tests Find Jessica Alba's Honest Detergent Has Chemical It Tells Customers To Avoid

The Honest Company's laundry detergent contains one of the many ingredients that the business pledged never to allow in its products, two independent tests commissioned by The Wall Street Journal found in a report released Thursday.

The company, founded by actress Jessica Alba, markets itself as offering safer and more environmentally friendly products for baby, body and home care. Under an "Honestly FREE Guarantee," it lists the chemical compounds supposedly not found in its products and advises consumers to avoid them elsewhere.

But the lab tests found that sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), which the company calls a "known irritant," was present in its laundry detergent. That product is one of Honest's first and most popular goods, and the only one the Journal submitted for testing.

One of the labs found a "significant amount" of SLS in the detergent. The other said that the measured SLS was "not a trace amount" and that the Honest detergent contained about the same concentration of the chemical as Tide.

Honest disputed the Journal's findings, telling the news outlet that its products don't contain anything beyond possible trace amounts of SLS.

In a statement shared with The Huffington Post, the company said, "The Wall Street Journal has been reckless in the preparation of this article, refused multiple requests to share data on which they apparently relied and has substituted junk science for credible journalism. We stand behind our laundry detergent and take very seriously the responsibility we have to our consumers to create safe and effective products."

"Jessica Alba and the folks at Honest truly believe that their detergent is free of non-trace SLS and have been assured of that by their suppliers," attorney Bert Fields told the Journal.

On its website, Honest states that it uses sodium coco sulfate (SCS) instead of SLS because the former is a "gentler alternative always derived from coconut."

However, more than a dozen scientists confirmed to the Journal that SCS is a mixture of multiple cleaning agents that includes a significant amount of SLS.

Honest is no stranger to controversy. Last summer, the company faced intense backlash on social media from consumers contesting the effectiveness of its SPF-30 sunscreen and posting photos of their severe sunburns.

Honest stood by the product, declaring it effective "when used as directed."

This story has been updated with a statement from the Honest Company.
 
http://www.investors.com/news/econo...ifed-seattle-restaurant-jobs-new-data-say-no/

Has Minimum Wage Knifed Seattle Restaurant Jobs? New Data Say No

Until last week, the evidence suggested big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more in Seattle and five other big cities last year all had a pronounced negative effect on hiring. But new data revisions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics have washed away signs of foul play and made the case look like much ado about very little.

We can’t definitively say the minimum wage hasn’t slowed hiring; the data are preliminary and cover broad metropolitan areas far beyond the city limits where wage hikes occurred. There just isn’t much evidence it’s happened yet.

Seattle
Seattle, the first U.S. city to legislate a path to a $15 minimum wage, took the first step last April when its minimum wage rose from the statewide $9.47 to $11 an hour for companies with more than 500 employees. For smaller employers, the minimum got a smaller bump to $10. That rose again to $10.50 at the start of 2016, or $12 for employees who don’t get employer health insurance.

Data through the end of 2015 released in February suggested that Seattle restaurants had trouble adapting as employment at area food and drinking places grew at the slowest pace since 2009. The newly revised data show that restaurant employment actually has accelerated since the wage hike, rising 5.4% from a year ago in January.

The Seattle-area data cover the entire Seattle-Bellevue-Everett metro, of which Seattle is just one-fourth of the population.

Washington, D.C.
The surest evidence of fallout from a higher minimum wage appeared to come from Washington, D.C. Data covering only establishments within the district were showing that employment gains ground to a halt at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality sector venues.

Never mind. The new data show that industry hiring didn’t miss a beat despite a $1 minimum-wage hike to $10.50 an hour last July, which followed a boost from $8.25 to $9.50 an hour in mid-2014. Another jump to $11.50 is set for this July.

Los Angeles
Los Angeles-area hotel employment also appeared to suffer after the L.A. City Council mandated that hotels with at least 300 rooms start paying workers a minimum of $15.37 an hour, starting last July. The same wage will apply to workers at 150-room locations this coming July.

Data reported in February showed that countywide accommodation industry employment averaged 0.8% lower in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to a year earlier, the first annual decline since 2009. But the latest data show that L.A. County hotels kept adding employees in 2015. Although employment gains slowed to just over 1%, the weakest since 2011, preliminary data show an acceleration over the past the three months.

The city of Los Angeles accounts for about 40% of the county’s population, and the reliability of the data is further limited since the wage increase only applied to a subset of city hotels.

Chicago
The story is much the same in Chicago, where a $1.75-an-hour minimum-wage hike to $10 an hour took effect in July. Data covering the Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights area, of which Chicago represents only about 40% of the population, originally showed that employment gains in the leisure and hospitality sector were cut by more than half, but new data show that hiring actually accelerated.

While retail employment gains in the Chicago area clearly slowed to about a 1% annual pace over the past three months, that’s still faster than sector employment gains in 2013, making it hard to attribute it to the wage hike.

San Francisco Bay Area
Data from the San Francisco Bay Area, where Oakland and San Francisco both adopted $12.25 wages last spring continue to show a modestly slower pace of leisure-and-hospitality sector hiring, though not as pronounced. Over the past three months, employment has grown 3.5% from a year ago vs. 4.6% or more from 2012 through 2014. But that’s not much of a signal, particularly since the data cover the entire San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area, of which the two cities’ population is one-third.

The lack of evidence that wage hikes may end up hurting people they are designed to help doesn’t mean there isn’t a potential cost. Los Angeles and Los Angeles County (which are both gradually raising their minimum wages to $15), along with Oakland and D.C. were all on the losing end when Wal-Mart (WMT) pulled the plug on existing or planned stores in January.
 
Atlas of Beauty

I saw this linked on BBC. Hmm - interesting there are so many different ethnicities in Tajikistan and Nepal. Very different women.

I haven't went through the entire site but it's clearly missing Lebanese and Persian women. Can't have a beauty book without Lebanon.
 
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/07/welcome-to-the-new-prostitution-economy

Daddies, “Dates,” and the Girlfriend Experience: Welcome to the New Prostitution Economy
A growing number of young people are selling their bodies online to pay student loans, make the rent, or afford designer labels. Is it just an unorthodox way to make ends meet or a new kind of exploitation? Nancy Jo Sales investigates.
 
Rambo said:
A growing number of young people are selling their bodies online to pay student loans, make the rent, or afford designer labels. Is it just an unorthodox way to make ends meet or a new kind of exploitation? Nancy Jo Sales investigates.
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21 year olds still in university are horribly shallow women...well girls. They can barely hold an intelligent conversation but maybe that's not the point for these guys.

The article reminds me of Spielberg's AI movie when sex services and debauchery are provided by robots. Modernity is propelling us to Sodom and Gommorah territory.
 
Rambo said:
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/07/welcome-to-the-new-prostitution-economy

Daddies, “Dates,” and the Girlfriend Experience: Welcome to the New Prostitution Economy
A growing number of young people are selling their bodies online to pay student loans, make the rent, or afford designer labels. Is it just an unorthodox way to make ends meet or a new kind of exploitation? Nancy Jo Sales investigates.
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Exploitation? Come on..... If you get a degree in worthlessness and it costs you $250K, you better start sucking schlongs to pay that down.
 
A growing number of young people are selling their bodies online to pay student loans, make the rent, or afford designer labels. Is it just an unorthodox way to make ends meet or a new kind of exploitation?
These sort of bullshit articles crop up every few years - forever. They don't stand up to the most basic scrutiny
 
I remember meeting a woman from Florida who told me she plays video games and points a webcam at herself while wearing a pushup bra and v-neck tee shirt, with all sorts of cleavage showing and gets donations from nerds playing world of warcraft. She told she could make a couple thousand dollars every weekend just playing a game with these guys.
 
Are we too scared of radiation - Fukushima

"...a new report by Australian scientists has revealed that radiation in the Pacific Ocean is rapidly returning to normal and should be at its previous level by 2020."

Only a couple more years. Maybe even LelandJ will eat sashimi from the Pacific again.
 
Damn interesting of how people plead out to questionable road side tests without being confirmed by proper lab tests

“Busted”
by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica

Tens of thousands of people every year are sent to jail based on the results of a $2 roadside drug test. Widespread evidence shows that these tests routinely produce false positives. Why are police departments and prosecutors still using them?

http://long.fm/ZZY3ieK
 
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