Human Rights: Imperialism or Universalism?
At the height of the crackdown against the Hungarian uprising in 1956, Albert Camus warned French leftists not to allow political "expediency any precedence over regard for truth." The western left that ignored or, worse, justified the suffocation of Budapest, Camus thundered, "was in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable of merely stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with the truth, from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws." Today – with a century of catastrophic lapses in judgment in hindsight – too many western progressives are still trapped by the same "systematic relativism" that threatens the "death of intelligence."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/jan/04/human-rights-imperialism/print
Kannuksen Keynes
Esko Aho totesi, ettei eurolla nykyisellään varmaankaan ole selviämisen mahdollisuutta. "Euron pystyssä pitäminen vaatii erityisiä toimenpiteitä", Aho huomauttaa. Hänen mielestään ennen kaikkea pitää laittaa kuntoon kriittisten maiden kansantaloudet. "Se ei onnistu pelkästään säästämällä ja leikkaamalla. Vaan se vaatii rinnalleen taloudellista kasvua", Aho muistutti.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/esko_aho_lama-ajan_suomen_opeilla_olisi_kayttoa_euroopassa/6108547
Pravdan patrioottinen photoshop?
HS.fi:n julkaisema kuva Angela Merkelin ja François Hollanden kohtaamisesta EU:n huippukokouksessa Brysselissä ihmetyttää. Katsokaa rajaa Jyrki Kataisen kasvojen ja taustalla seisovan heebon välillä. Katainen ei edes katso Merkeliä ja Hollandea kohti. Totta, raja Hollanden kämmenen ja Merkelin pikkutakin välillä näyttää yhtä luonnottomalta. Ehkä kuvaa on vain terävöitetty liikaa? The Guardian on rajannut samasta kuvasta Kataisen kokonaan pois. Saattaa olla, että lehteä ei kiinnosta suomalainen pääministeri, joka vain seisoskelee hymyillen vieressä. Oli miten oli, HS.fi:n julkaisema Lionel Bonaventuren ottama valokuva vaikuttaa oudolta.
Ping-Pong Oppression
Arguably the most pervasive element enabling exploitative office culture is the postmodern trickery of the contemporary working environment. [The Slovenian philosopher] Slavoj Žižek argues that modern employment tactics create the illusion that our employer is our friend. This fabrication empowers the employer while denying the employed the right to vocalize and protest dissatisfaction of their working conditions. “You’re not going to stick around and help out? I thought we were a team? I thought we were friends?” Žižek suggests that the environment of the workplace has been twisted, using architectural devices, to manipulate employees. Kitchens, "break-out spaces," lounges, free food, free coffee -- all this is a postmodern sleight of hand designed to manipulate and disarm staff. By fabricating the illusion of employer as friend, the employed is denied the opportunity to protest, argue, fight, be adversarial, and demand more of their working conditions. These informal spaces are political spaces of control, surveillance, and manipulation.
http://www.archdaily.com/234633/worklifework-balance/
Emergency Message
From: Allah (email other email, please) [mailto:god@trinityholy.info]
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 9:03 AM
To: Kerkko Paananen
Subject: Emergency Message May 2012
Importance: High
Tyyliä tulevaisuudesta
Siis voi jumppaava jeesus, katsokaa tätä ihmettä! Ei tule ihan joka päivä eteen niin uskomatonta asiaa kuin palomiehen suojapuku tulevaisuudesta. Jos olet aina halunnut pelastaa kissoja puista, larpata metallijumalaa, estää koneiden nousun tai kuvata miesten välistä erotiikkaa, nyt pystyt. Ja tyylillä. Vain [yksi puku jäljellä], nopeet syö läskit. Lisää ei ole tulossa, aikakone hajosi.
http://www.varusteleka.fi/product/muut-puvut/us-palomiehen-suojapuku-tulevaisuudesta/_3HX0Y0M7L
Fog-free glass
A new way of creating surface textures on glass, developed at MIT, eliminates reflections, producing "multifunctional" glass that is almost unrecognizable because of its absence of glare — and whose surface causes water droplets to bounce right off, like tiny rubber balls. The manufacturing process could be applied to optical devices, smartphone and television screens, solar panels, car windshields, and even windows in buildings.
http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/glare-dust-and-fog-free-glass-0426.html
Republican Anti-Science Communist Cult
Former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, former Utah governor and US Ambassador to China, took a battle axe to his own party, comparing it to China's Communist Party. Recounting his first experience on the presidential debate stage in Iowa in August 2011, Huntsman said he was struck by the question, "Is this the best we could do?" Huntsman jokingly blamed his failed candidacy in part on his wife, who told him she would leave him if he abandoned his principles. “She said if you pandered, if you sign any of those damn pledges, I will leave you,” Huntsman recounted. "So I had to say I believe in science — and people on stage look at you quizzically as though you are an oddball."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/jon-huntsman-trashes-gop-expresses-campaign-regre
Beer Pipeline
Bars in the Veltins-Arena, a major football ground in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are interconnected by a 5 km long beer pipeline. It is the favourite method for distributing beer in such large stadiums, because the bars have to overcome big differences between demands during various stages of a match; this allows them to be supplied by a central tank. In the city of Randers in Denmark, the so-called Thor beer pipeline still exists. Originally, copper pipes were running directly from the brewery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_transport#For_beverages
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