Clipmarks | abailart's 'poverty' clips

Scottish Earthquake Stuns Labour

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:29:41 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: In the history of UK politics this a major event. The result brings the reality of the disintegration of the United Kingdom. At the same time it marks a stunning message to the UK quasi Labour government's abysmal record on addressing poverty and the forgotten constituencies of those mired in the excrement of Gordon Brown's economic policies.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The Scottish National Party has pulled off a stunning by-election victory by winning Glasgow East, one of Labour's safest seats, by 365 votes.

The SNP overturned a Labour majority of 13,507 to win with a swing of 22.54%.

The SNP polled 11,277 votes in the contest, while the Tories came third with 1,639 and the Lib Dems, with 915 votes, came fourth.

SNP candidate John Mason said the victory was "off the Richter scale", while Labour expressed disappointment.

"It is an epic win and the tremors will be felt all the way to Downing Street."

Tags: snp, uk politics

Statistical Resources on the Web

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:32:49 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator
clipper's remarks: Nice resources

Clip Source: www.lib.umich.edu

Statistical Resources on the Web

Agriculture
Crops and Livestock

Foreign Governments
Statistical Agencies

Government Finances
US,State,Local

Consumers
Places,Surveys,Tourism

Cost of Living
Price Indexes and Comparative Costs

Housing
Housing Characteristics and Homelessness

Demographics
Population, Social, Economic Characteristics, Poverty

Energy
Production and Consumption

Science
Computers, Science,
R&D, Telecommunications

Transportation
Rail, Air, Water

Environment
Air, Wildlife, Water, Waste

Foreign Economics
International Sources

Labor
Labor Force, Occupations, Salaries

Military
Armed Forces, Wars, Weapons

Health
Natality, Morbidity, Mortality

Business and Industry
Employment, Production

Education
K-12 and Higher
Books, Libraries, Literacy

Sociology
Children,Crime,Elderly
Immigration,Refugees<

Politics
Data Sets,Elections,Polls

Foreign Trade
U.S. Imports and Exports

Comprehensive Subjects
Directories & Multi-Topic

Economics
Historical and Current

Tags: statistical resources, on the web, reference, knowledge, statistics

Poor Americans

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:41:16 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A man who described himself as a conscientious worker who has always pinched his pennies wrote the following to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont:

“This winter, after keeping the heat just high enough to keep my pipes from bursting (the bedrooms are not heated and never got above 30 degrees) I began selling off my woodworking tools, snowblower, (pennies on the dollar) and furniture that had been handed down in my family from the early 1800s, just to keep the heat on.

“Today I am sad, broken, and very discouraged. I am thankful that the winter cold is behind us for a while, but now gas prices are rising yet again. I just can’t keep up.”

A 55-year-old man who said his economic condition was “very scary,” wrote: “I don’t live from paycheck to paycheck. I live day to day.”

working Americans have been taking a real beating, said Senator Sanders.

millions of Americans have lost health insurance coverage, lost pensions, and become deeply mired in debt.

Tags: poverty

Coming soon? or not?

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:19:24 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.softmachines.org

Are we imminently facing The Singularity? This is the hypothesised moment of technological transcendence, in the concept introduced by mathematician and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, when accelerating technological change leads to a recursively self-improving artificial intelligence of superhuman capabilities, with literally unknowable and ineffable consequences. The most vocal proponent of this eschatology is Ray Kurzweil, whose promotion of the idea takes to the big screen this year with the forthcoming release of the film The Singularity is Near.

Kurzweil describes the run-up to The Singularity: “Within a quarter century, nonbiological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence. It will then soar past it … Intelligent nanorobots will be deeply integrated in our bodies, our brains, and our environment, overcoming pollution and poverty, providing vastly extended longevity … and vastly enhanced human intelligence.

Tags: singularity, ray kurzweil, technological transcendence

The New Deadly Sins

Thu, 01 May 2008 08:23:01 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: 4. Authenticity. Please do your best to be someone better than who you truly are. Deep down inside we're ravening beasts. This is the meaning of original sin. Everyone's authentic self is horrid. God's message to man has always been, "You can't really be good, but you can fake it. Really."

5. Caring. This takes so much time and effort that it necessarily results in the opposite of doing something. And notice that when someone says, "I care about the war in Iraq," he almost always means, "I want to lose it." Also there's a bullying logic among those who care. I care more about diddledydum than you do. Therefore I'm a better person than you are. Because I'm a better person than you are, I have the right to order you around. And vote for Hillary on November 4th.

6. Opinion. It's the reverse of fact. Listen to NPR or AM Talk Radio if you don't believe me, or, better yet, read the opinion page of the New York Times. (I'm talking about you, Paul Krugman.) Some people have facts, the

Clip Source: www.weeklystandard.com

Busy times for us sinners--there are now an additional Seven Deadly Sins. The fresh abominations in the eyes of the Lord were announced by Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Vatican body that oversees confessions and plenary indulgences. This organization goes by the contrition-inducing name of the Apostolic Penitentiary. In an article in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Bishop Girotti detailed the seven new ways we can go to hell or, at the minimum, be sentenced to afterlife in purgatory at the Apostle Pen. The bishop's supersizing of the mortal transgression catalog is thoroughly up-to-date (as translated by the Times of London):

1. Drug abuse

2. Morally debatable experimentation

3. Environmental pollution

4. Causing poverty

5. Social inequality and injustice

6. Genetic manipulation

7. Accumulating excessive wealth

I pretend to no expertise, let alone authority, in religious matters. However, I can't resist the temptation of having a go, myself, at The Seven Deadly

Tags: deadly sins

Slave Child Labour and Our Clothes

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 08:41:13 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Article concerns head-on address to the story from Gap. Not sure this one instance is a 'one-off', but may stand as a reminder of how horribly expensive the cheap goodies that fill our high streets may be,

Clip Source: observer.guardian.co.uk

Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant.

Speaking to The Observer, the children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.

The discovery of the children working in filthy conditions in the Shahpur Jat area of Delhi has renewed concerns about the outsourcing by large retail chains of their garment production to India, recognised by the United Nations as the world's capital for child labour.

According to one estimate, more than 20 per cent of India's economy is dependent on children, the equivalent of 55 million youngsters under 14.

With endorsements from celebrities including Madonna, Lenny Kravitz and Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, Gap has become one of the most successful and iconic brands in fashion.

Tags: clothing, child labour, poverty, economics

The Stings of Poverty

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:15:22 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Article about an argument by Charles Karelis that traditional economics do not apply to poor people.

He outlines his argument in The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can't Help the Poor.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

In the community of people dedicated to analyzing poverty, one of the sharpest debates is over why some poor people act in ways that ensure their continued indigence.

Karelis, a professor at George Washington University, has a simpler but far more radical argument to make: traditional economics just doesn't apply to the poor. When we're poor, Karelis argues, our economic worldview is shaped by deprivation, and we see the world around us not in terms of goods to be consumed but as problems to be alleviated. This is where the bee stings come in: A person with one bee sting is highly motivated to get it treated. But a person with multiple bee stings does not have much incentive to get one sting treated, because the others will still throb. The more of a painful or undesirable thing one has (i.e. the poorer one is) the less likely one is to do anything about any one problem. Poverty is less a matter of having few goods than having lots of problems.

Tags: poverty, charles karelis, sociology, economics

Ethics Updated

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:37:03 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: ethics.sandiego.edu

Ethical Theory	Resources	Applied Ethics
Aristotle and Virtue Ethics	Ethics Videos	Abortion
Contemporary Anti-Theory	Ethics Reviews	Academic Integrity
Ethical Egoism	Ethics Surveys	Animal Rights
Ethical Relativism	Case Studies for Discussion	Bioethics and Reproductive Technologies
Gender and Moral Theory	Philosophers on War, Terrorism, and Peace	Computer & IT Ethics
Introduction to Moral Theory	Guide to Writing Ethics Papers	Death Penalty & Punishment
Justice	Classic Texts in Ethics	Environmental Ethics
Kant and Deontology	Glossary	Euthanasia
Pluralism & Meta-Ethical Concerns	The Ethics Calendar	Gender and Sexism
Race, Ethnicity, and Moral Theory	Ethics across the Curriculum USD	Poverty and Welfare
Religion and Ethics	PowerPoint Presentations	Race, Racism and Ethnicity
Rights Theories	Ethics Consortium of Southern & Baja California	Sexual Orientation
Theories against Theories	The Values Institute	War, Peace, and Terrorism
Utilitarianism	About the Site	World Hunger

Tags: worthy, ethics, humanity

Alcoholism and the Family

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:53:25 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Denial can play a big role in an alcoholic's life. Some even deny there is poverty in the U.S.

Clip Source: www.kidshealth.org

Alcoholism continues to cause anguish not only for the person who drinks, but for everyone who is involved with that person.

Denial can play a big role in an alcoholic's life. A person in denial is one who refuses to believe the truth about a situation. A problem drinker may blame another person for the drinking because it is easier than taking responsibility for it. Some alcoholic parents make their kids feel bad by saying things like, "You're driving me crazy!" or "I can't take this anymore."

Although alcoholism causes similar patterns of damage to many families, each situation is unique. Some parents with alcohol problems might abuse their children emotionally or physically. Others neglect their kids by not providing sufficient care and guidance. Parents with alcohol problems may also use other drugs. Your family may have money troubles.

Tags: alcohol, family, coping

David Hume's epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 1734

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:27:05 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: In his early 20s, the great Scottish philosopher, David Hume, wrote this "letter to a physician" (unidentified, but probably Arbuthnot) giving an account of his melancholic symptoms and his efforts at self-treatment.

Clip Source: serendip.brynmawr.edu

David Hume: A Letter to a Physician

A Coldness and Desertion of the Spirit

"I was continually fortifying myself with reflections against death, and poverty, and shame, and pain, and all the other calamities of life. These no doubt are exceeding useful, when joined with an active life...in solitude they serve to little other purpose, than to waste the spirits, the force of the mind meeting with no resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it misses its aim"

"I found, that as there are two things very bad for this distemper, study and idleness, so there are two things very good, business and diversion"

Tags: history, philosophy, psychology, primary_source, religion

Depression can be Good for You

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:01:57 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: There is serious depression that needs help. There are poverty, abuse, bad circumstance that need addressing. But for most of us, a bit of depression, the article suggests, is a catalyst for refelction, change and growth

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A leading psychiatrist says that depression is not a human defect at all, but a defence mechanism that in its mild and moderate forms can force a healthy reassessment of personal circumstances.

Dr Paul Keedwell, an expert on mood disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, argues all people are vulnerable to depression in the face of stress to varying degrees, and always have been.

The fact it has survived so long - and not been eradicated by evolution - indicates it has helped the human race become stronger.

"Psychological unease can generate creative work and the rebirth after depression brings a new love affair with life."

Aristotle believed depression to be of great value because of the insights it could bring. There is also an increased empathy in people who have or have had depression, he says, because they become more attuned to other people's suffering.

Tags: depression

The Sad Terrorist

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 09:10:00 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Nicholas Shakespeare reviews Blood & Rage: a Cultural History of Terrorism by Michael Burleigh.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

the moral squalor, intellectual poverty and psychotic nature of terrorist organisations, from the Fenians of the mid-19th century to today's jihadists - the latter group, especially, being composed of unstable males of conspicuously limited abilities and imagination, and yet who pose "an existential threat to the whole of civilisation" with their crusade to realise "a world that almost nobody wants", all in the hope of an afterlife featuring 72 virgins and rivers foaming with honey and beer.

sour, lazy nobodies, ugly, of febrile imagination and indifferent talent, who can only become somebody by blowing others, inevitably persons more talented and intelligent, up.

Blood & Rage is in all sorts of ways an outstanding book; it is also fuelled by the manic energy and focus of someone accelerating a truckload of intellectual high-explosives into the gates of a "stunningly" credulous soft-liberal establishment, composed of "colluding" human rights lawyers and "celebrity useful idiots"

Tags: terrorism

The Cure For Homelessness?

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:21:05 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: www.coolest-gadgets.com

I’d never of thought you could build a multi-story house out of cardboard but that’s exactly what Col James of Stutchbury and Pape architects has done. It just goes to show what can be achieved when you think outside the box :).

The cardboard house will come in a kit (imagine what you can make with the packaging) and is made up of 100% recycled goods, the majority of which being cardboard. The leads to a very cheap and environmentally friendly house. I can see houses like this being really useful in times of dire need as a mean of emergency accommodation.

The house is obviously water proof (who wants to live in a soggy mulch), and cleverly stores water in bladders underneath the floor which gives the structure a bit of weight.

Clip Source: www.housesofthefuture.com.au

The Carboard House is made of recycled carboard supplied by Visy Industries.

Environmental features

Uses 85% recycled materials

Recycling the house saves 12 cubic metres of landfill, 39 trees and 30 000 litres of water

Extremely low cost, transportable, and flexible,

Tags: housing, future, homeless, poverty, environment

Blaming the Poor for Poverty

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:38:52 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Social attitudes are ever-changing. So who is up and who is down now we are a supposedly more tolerant nation?

As little as two decades ago, many Britons frowned on sex before marriage, single mothers and gay people.

But there is no corresponding shift in attitudes towards immigrants and the poor.

This begs the question: can we be simultaneously tolerant and intolerant? Chris Creegan, one of the report's authors, believes that we pick and choose who to approve or disapprove of. We tend to like those with whom we have regular contact, and be less understanding of those whom we don't.

While one-third of the 3,000 people surveyed still believe that poverty is "an inevitable part of modern life", a rising number lay the blame squarely on the poor themselves - 27% think that poverty is due to "laziness or lack of willpower", up from 19% in 1984.

Separate lives

Tags: poor, poverty

Haiti’s poor resort to eating mud as prices rise

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:21:45 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Tags: haiti, food, poor, diet, poverty