Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
Britain: Children Reaching Age 3 Without Being Able to Say a Word
January 4th, 2010The piece says that television isn’t a factor, but keep this USA Today article in mind: A study released Monday adds to the debate over whether television impairs children’s language development. It found that parents and children virtually stop talking to each other when the TV is on, even if they’re in the same room. […]
Small-Business Bankruptcies Rise 81% in California
December 28th, 2009Via: Los Angeles Times: With credit tight and consumers still pinching their pennies, many business owners find they can’t go on. The Obama administration’s new plan to give a boost to small businesses reflects continued trouble in that sector, which is facing new failures even as much of the nation’s economy is stabilizing. As credit […]
China: Clean Green Apocalypse
December 27th, 2009Via: New York Times: Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. The world’s dependence on these substances is rising fast. Just one problem: These elements come almost entirely from China, […]
Are Americans a Broken People?
December 16th, 2009In general, Americans represent a collective battered spouse who hopes that the batterer will change. Spitting teeth and squinting through two black eyes, they usually go back for more of the same. This isn’t politics. It’s pathology. —The Devil and Mr. Obama Via: Alternet: Can people become so broken that truths of how they are […]
Pilots at British Airways Move Millions Out of Company Pension
December 16th, 2009Via: Telegraph: Pilots at British Airways are moving millions of pounds out of the company’s lucrative pension scheme amid fears it will go bust. Workers fear the troubled company will fail to deliver on its pension promises after the airline announced this week that its pension deficit had reached almost £4 billion. Experts said it […]
Mexico: Widespread Theft of Oil by Drug Traffickers
December 15th, 2009Via: Washington Post: Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico’s pipelines over the past two years, in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement […]
Drug Dealers Use Child Care as Front
December 14th, 2009This is nuts. Via: Journal Sentinel: More than a dozen Wisconsin child-care centers that reaped millions of dollars in state subsidies have had close ties to drug-dealing operations, including big-time crime bosses, a Journal Sentinel investigation has found. The newspaper identified 16 child-care centers with recent connections to drug operations, and the number is likely […]
China’s Empty City
December 10th, 2009Related: The World’s Largest Shopping Mall — Is Empty
I Live in a Van Down by Duke University
December 8th, 2009I have a good friend who did something like this for a year as he finished his PhD. He slept under his desk in his lab and “bathed” in the women’s bathroom during early AM hours. (Men, in case you don’t know, the women’s bathroom is usually much cleaner than the men’s.) He bought an […]
Jobless Professionals Learn How to Ask: Paper or Plastic?
December 8th, 2009Via: AP: Mara Proctor used to design limestone hearths and columns for luxury homes near Kansas City, drawing on her college education and six years of training. These days, she’s leading customers around a store that sells sculptured snowmen and Santa figurines. It isn’t by choice. Until a few weeks ago, Proctor was among the […]
