1. 18 Jun


    (Source: youaintpunk, via amodernmanifesto)

     

  2. 18 Jun


    thelandofmaps: The Failed Lower-Manhattan Expressway: When Urban Planning Goes Awry [2365 x 1474]CLICK HERE FOR MORE MAPS!thelandofmaps.tumblr.com

    thelandofmaps:

    The Failed Lower-Manhattan Expressway: When Urban Planning Goes Awry [2365 x 1474]
    CLICK HERE FOR MORE MAPS!
    thelandofmaps.tumblr.com

     

  3. 18 Jun


    thesmithian:

    …up to 200,000 people angry with high costs and poor public services took to the streets. Protesters in Rio de Janeiro burned cars and looted buildings as police attempted to disperse them with teargas and rubber bullets. Aerial images showed thousands of people attempting to storm the congress building in Brasilia. The rallies…are some of the biggest ever seen in the country…

    more.

    (via intellectualradical)

     

  4. 17 Jun


    thepoliticalfreakshow: Stop Saying “Sexual Preference” You may mean well, but it makes you sound ignorant.  Above: A protester dressed as a devil who said his name is “Queen” stands with another demonstrator outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, March 26, 2013. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) There are some phrases that should just be done away with, but over time they are used and heard so routinely that we develop a sort of soft spot for them and can’t bear the thought of chopping off their heads. The term “sexual preference”—at least when it’s used interchangeably with “sexual orientation”—is one of these seemingly harmless phrases whose cultural execution, I’d say in this month of pride, is long overdue. This is more than a matter of pedantics, and it’s definitely not one of political correctness. You’re more than entitled to continue using “sexual preference” right alongside “the gay lifestyle” or “avowed homosexual” or whatever term you’d like to broadcast just how dense you really are. Just know that it’s simply flat-out incorrect to refer to a person’s sexual orientation as a “preference.” More than that, it’s dangerous. Having said that, sexual preference is unlike other terms in this particular social arena in that most people use it without any bad intentions. Naiveté is their only offense, and that’s far easier to fix than willful ignorance. There’s a certain breeziness to sexual preference, and I have no doubt that’s precisely why it’s so often used: People think they won’t offend gays and lesbians because of the lightness of tone. “Well, another person’s sexual preference is none of my business,” we often hear good-hearted people say. “So long as nobody’s getting hurt, to each his own.” Still, it’s a quietly toxic expression. That’s because the very construct of a preference, or the verb “to prefer,” implies that the individual has a choice, that there are options available and yet, all else being equal and as a matter of taste, really, the person would rather “this one” over “that one.” Think how bizarre it would sound if we were to apply the same language to any other unalterable biological trait. “Suit yourself, and to each his own,” we might reason, “but my preference is to have hands this size, not that size.” Or perhaps, “It’s perfectly fine to go with a darker birthmark on your leg, I just preferred to get mine on my arm, and in this lighter shade of brown, too.” In fact, while we’re on skin color, this flawed logic would, of course, also extend to a person’s opting to be black, white, Asian, or any other race or ethnicity as a preference. If there’s anything that the science of sexuality has taught us over the past few decades, it’s that human beings have little—if any—conscious control over what arouses them. That’s the case for men and women, gay, straight, or bi. Therefore, to say that one has a preference for males over females, or females over males, makes little sense, since it gives the impression that one had every opportunity to choose what to be turned on by. A straight man who is aroused by beautiful women may wonder how gay men could possibly “prefer” men instead, but from a gay man’s perspective, those beautiful women aren’t even an option—they’re in an entirely different, non-erotic category altogether. One can speak of sexual preferences correctly, perhaps, when it comes to people of the same sexual orientation having different tastes or being attracted to different types, such as a straight woman who prefers men with beards while another is more into the clean-shaven look, or a gay man who prefers more masculine partners while another is into campy characters. It’s also logical enough to use “sexual preference” in the sense of sexual activities—a lesbian who prefers to give rather than to receive oral sex, for instance, or a straight man who prefers sex while standing up rather than lying in bed. And perhaps it’s justifiable to use “sexual preference” in some limited sense with bisexuals, who really are equally (or at least notably) aroused by both sexes. A bisexual person might have a hankering for one or the other at any given time and prefer to be with a man or a woman in the same way that, while we like them both, tonight we’re more in the mood for Chinese than Mexican food. Even here, though, it can quickly become problematic to adopt the sexual preference language, since it insinuates that bisexuals have the option of being gay or straight like everyone else, they just can’t make up their minds whether it’s males or females that they’d prefer to have sex with. By contrast, the language of “sexual orientation” avoids these types of conceptual pitfalls altogether, because it correctly conveys the scientifically accurate view that being gay, bi, or straight is a matter only of what our brains—and our genitals—“orient” to sexually. We’re given no options in that process. Whichever way our erotic antennae point isn’t for us to decide. For most of us, our brains were tuned to be gay or straight before we were born. Once we became sexually mature, we realized that the world was carved up for us into erotic and non-erotic categories. There’s nothing “out there” that’s objectively sexual. Instead, our minds sexualize the scene before us, and the very same target in two people’s direct line of sight can be seen as two very different things. Where you see a chocolate cake (or Kate Upton), I see, say, a pencil; where I see a chocolate cake (or Anderson Cooper), you see a pencil. (Don’t get me wrong. Upton is a beautiful designer pencil made of handcrafted olive wood and embellished with rare sparkling gems, definitely pleasing to the eye. But functionally, she’s still a pencil to me, not something to savor with a glass of milk. Anderson, on the other hand … well, never mind.) All of this logic goes for the sexual paraphilias, too, which are primary patterns of arousal that lie outside the norm. The paraphilias, of course, are less tolerated as a whole than simply being gay, straight, or bi, and we argue over which groups get to use the term sexual orientation, but I see no rational reason not to regard the paraphilias as their own distinct sexual orientations. They’re notoriously difficult to study, but most scientists believe that paraphilias arise through a process of early childhood “sexual imprinting,” especially in males. The point is that whether it happens in the womb or in the first several years of life, a person’s sexual orientation, whatever it is, isn’t an option that he or she preferred over another. It’s a lens forged upon our brains that sexualizes the world for us in a distinctive way. It just is. There’s no moralizing in this scenario. Zero. I’m happy to moralize until I’m blue in the face, though, when it comes to those who’d continue proselytizing by using the embarrassing “choice” and “lifestyle” rhetoric. And I think it’s time to throw “preference” into the vernacular trash with these venomous terms. It’s become fashionable among social conservatives, I’ve noticed, to object to the use of the word “bigot” because their “personal beliefs” about homosexuality are simply different from another person’s. “I don’t ‘hate’ gay people,” they say. “I just disagree with them, that’s all.” By “disagreeing,” either you’re willfully ignoring the obvious fact that sexual orientation is not a choice (which indeed makes you a bigot), or you’re simply unable to grasp the obvious fact that sexual orientation is not a choice (which makes you stupid). So … which of the two do you prefer? Perfect definition of how this term should actually be used.

    thepoliticalfreakshow:

    Stop Saying “Sexual Preference”

    You may mean well, but it makes you sound ignorant. 

    Above: A protester dressed as a devil who said his name is “Queen” stands with another demonstrator outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, March 26, 2013. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

    There are some phrases that should just be done away with, but over time they are used and heard so routinely that we develop a sort of soft spot for them and can’t bear the thought of chopping off their heads. The term “sexual preference”—at least when it’s used interchangeably with “sexual orientation”—is one of these seemingly harmless phrases whose cultural execution, I’d say in this month of pride, is long overdue.

    This is more than a matter of pedantics, and it’s definitely not one of political correctness. You’re more than entitled to continue using “sexual preference” right alongside “the gay lifestyle” or “avowed homosexual” or whatever term you’d like to broadcast just how dense you really are. Just know that it’s simply flat-out incorrect to refer to a person’s sexual orientation as a “preference.” More than that, it’s dangerous.

    Having said that, sexual preference is unlike other terms in this particular social arena in that most people use it without any bad intentions. Naiveté is their only offense, and that’s far easier to fix than willful ignorance. There’s a certain breeziness to sexual preference, and I have no doubt that’s precisely why it’s so often used: People think they won’t offend gays and lesbians because of the lightness of tone. “Well, another person’s sexual preference is none of my business,” we often hear good-hearted people say. “So long as nobody’s getting hurt, to each his own.”

    Still, it’s a quietly toxic expression. That’s because the very construct of a preference, or the verb “to prefer,” implies that the individual has a choice, that there are options available and yet, all else being equal and as a matter of taste, really, the person would rather “this one” over “that one.” Think how bizarre it would sound if we were to apply the same language to any other unalterable biological trait. “Suit yourself, and to each his own,” we might reason, “but my preference is to have hands this size, not that size.” Or perhaps, “It’s perfectly fine to go with a darker birthmark on your leg, I just preferred to get mine on my arm, and in this lighter shade of brown, too.” In fact, while we’re on skin color, this flawed logic would, of course, also extend to a person’s opting to be black, white, Asian, or any other race or ethnicity as a preference.

    If there’s anything that the science of sexuality has taught us over the past few decades, it’s that human beings have little—if any—conscious control over what arouses them. That’s the case for men and women, gay, straight, or bi. Therefore, to say that one has a preference for males over females, or females over males, makes little sense, since it gives the impression that one had every opportunity to choose what to be turned on by. A straight man who is aroused by beautiful women may wonder how gay men could possibly “prefer” men instead, but from a gay man’s perspective, those beautiful women aren’t even an option—they’re in an entirely different, non-erotic category altogether.

    One can speak of sexual preferences correctly, perhaps, when it comes to people of the same sexual orientation having different tastes or being attracted to different types, such as a straight woman who prefers men with beards while another is more into the clean-shaven look, or a gay man who prefers more masculine partners while another is into campy characters. It’s also logical enough to use “sexual preference” in the sense of sexual activities—a lesbian who prefers to give rather than to receive oral sex, for instance, or a straight man who prefers sex while standing up rather than lying in bed.

    And perhaps it’s justifiable to use “sexual preference” in some limited sense with bisexuals, who really are equally (or at least notably) aroused by both sexes. A bisexual person might have a hankering for one or the other at any given time and prefer to be with a man or a woman in the same way that, while we like them both, tonight we’re more in the mood for Chinese than Mexican food. Even here, though, it can quickly become problematic to adopt the sexual preference language, since it insinuates that bisexuals have the option of being gay or straight like everyone else, they just can’t make up their minds whether it’s males or females that they’d prefer to have sex with.

    By contrast, the language of “sexual orientation” avoids these types of conceptual pitfalls altogether, because it correctly conveys the scientifically accurate view that being gay, bi, or straight is a matter only of what our brains—and our genitals—“orient” to sexually. We’re given no options in that process. Whichever way our erotic antennae point isn’t for us to decide.

    For most of us, our brains were tuned to be gay or straight before we were born. Once we became sexually mature, we realized that the world was carved up for us into erotic and non-erotic categories. There’s nothing “out there” that’s objectively sexual. Instead, our minds sexualize the scene before us, and the very same target in two people’s direct line of sight can be seen as two very different things. Where you see a chocolate cake (or Kate Upton), I see, say, a pencil; where I see a chocolate cake (or Anderson Cooper), you see a pencil. (Don’t get me wrong. Upton is a beautiful designer pencil made of handcrafted olive wood and embellished with rare sparkling gems, definitely pleasing to the eye. But functionally, she’s still a pencil to me, not something to savor with a glass of milk. Anderson, on the other hand … well, never mind.)

    All of this logic goes for the sexual paraphilias, too, which are primary patterns of arousal that lie outside the norm. The paraphilias, of course, are less tolerated as a whole than simply being gay, straight, or bi, and we argue over which groups get to use the term sexual orientation, but I see no rational reason not to regard the paraphilias as their own distinct sexual orientations. They’re notoriously difficult to study, but most scientists believe that paraphilias arise through a process of early childhood “sexual imprinting,” especially in males. The point is that whether it happens in the womb or in the first several years of life, a person’s sexual orientation, whatever it is, isn’t an option that he or she preferred over another. It’s a lens forged upon our brains that sexualizes the world for us in a distinctive way. It just is. There’s no moralizing in this scenario. Zero.

    I’m happy to moralize until I’m blue in the face, though, when it comes to those who’d continue proselytizing by using the embarrassing “choice” and “lifestyle” rhetoric. And I think it’s time to throw “preference” into the vernacular trash with these venomous terms.

    It’s become fashionable among social conservatives, I’ve noticed, to object to the use of the word “bigot” because their “personal beliefs” about homosexuality are simply different from another person’s. “I don’t ‘hate’ gay people,” they say. “I just disagree with them, that’s all.” By “disagreeing,” either you’re willfully ignoring the obvious fact that sexual orientation is not a choice (which indeed makes you a bigot), or you’re simply unable to grasp the obvious fact that sexual orientation is not a choice (which makes you stupid).

    So … which of the two do you prefer?

    Perfect definition of how this term should actually be used.

     

  5. 17 Jun



    The Myth That Rape Rarely Causes Pregnancy Comes From Nazi Experiments

    thepoliticalfreakshow:

    I dont understand why Republicans continue to offer up headlines like GOP congressman: Rate of pregnancies from rape is very low. It is terrible politics for them to focus the publics attention on their justification for the fact that they dont support an exception to abortion bans for rape…

    I don’t understand why Republicans continue to offer up headlines like “GOP congressman: Rate of pregnancies from rape is ‘very low.’ ” It is terrible politics for them to focus the public’s attention on their justification for the fact that they don’t support an exception to abortion bans for rape victims. The view doesn’t have anything like majority support, and they come off as heartless, ignorant scolds. If I were an anti-abortion activist, I’d want to muzzle these people. But they are irrepressible. At a congressional hearing Wednesday, Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican from Arizona, argued against an exception for rape and incest victims from a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He said, “Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject—because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” He is of course following in the footsteps of former Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, who said that women can stave off pregnancy after a “legitimate rape.” (He apologized but that didn’t save him from losing his next election.)

    These claims are false, of course, or as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists puts it, “medically inaccurate, offensive, and dangerous.” That is not all that’s wrong with the claims. They originate with Nazi experiments on women in concentration camps. Here’s what I wrote about this last November

    “In the aftermath of Akin’s statement, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a 1972 essay by an obstetrician named Fred Mecklenburg, who cited a Nazi experiment in which women were told they were on their way to die in the gas chambers—and then were allowed to live, so that doctors could check whether they would still ovulate. Since few did, Mecklenburg claimed that women exposed to the emotional trauma of rape wouldn’t be able to become pregnant, either. (He also argued that rapists are infertile because they masturbate a lot.) The essay was published in a book financed by A.U.L.”

    A.U.L. is Americans United for Life, a pro-life advocacy group with increasing clout because of its success in drafting model state laws to restrict abortion. The line from the Nazis to Mecklenburg to Akin and Franks runs through Jack Wilke, a doctor who is the former head of the National Right to Life Committee. He said, “What is certainly one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that’s physical trauma.” And he stuck with this when the Los Angeles Times called to ask him about Akin last year. When I asked A.U.L. head Charmaine Yoest about the claim that rape rarely results in pregnancy, she was smarter and called it “a distraction.” Abortion opponents sure do keep bringing it up, though.

     

  6. 16 Jun


    jadedskeptic:

    boxersandbinders:

    View report from Center for American Progress here

    http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/report/2013/06/04/65133/a-broken-bargain/

    Find links to the Full report from Movement Advancement Project here

    http://www.lgbtmap.org/lgbt-workers 

    The issues facing the LGBT community stretch well passed being able to  marry.

    (via thepoliticalfreakshow)

     

  7. 15 Jun


    astronomy-to-zoology:

    Chinese Ferret-badger (Melogale moschata)

    Also known as the small-toothed ferret-badger, the Chinese ferret-badger is not a ferret or a true badger but is in a genus all its own. Chinese ferret-badgers, like their common names suggest, are native to southern China, northern Indochina and north-eastern India. Like other ferret-badgers the Chinese ferret-badger is an accomplished climber and feeds mostly at night for fruit, insects, worms and other small animals. During the day it retires to a burrow or small crevice and will rest until night. Like the unrelated stink-badgers the Chinese ferret-badger can secret foul smelling liquids via its anal gland when threatened. 

    Animalia-Chordata-Mammalia-Carnivora-Mustelidae-Melinae-Melogale-moschata

    Image Source(s)

    Adorable.

    (via rhamphotheca)

     

  8. 15 Jun


    unknown-endangered: Slipper orchid (Cypripedium formosanum) Endangered on the IUCN Red List. There are around 150 different species of slipper orchid, which are distinguished by the pouch-like lower petal. Another interesting feature of slipper orchids is the staminode, which is formed from two fused stamens, whereas most other orchids have only one stamen. This type of orchid is pollinated by insects that fall into the pouch of the flower. They then must pass the stigma and anthers of the flower and are covered in pollen, and go on to fall into another flower like an idiot. Cypripedium formosanum is endemic to the mountains of Taiwan. The reproductive rate of C. formosanum is extremely slow, with very few plants producing viable seeds. These seeds must then form an association with a fungus in order to grow, leaving them particularly vulnerable to environmental disturbances. It is also a popular species for cultivation and is therefore threatened by over-exploitation. C. formosanum is protected under Appendix II of CITES, which restricts the trade of wild specimens. This species is easily cultivated, and populations may be maintained in captivity.  Photo: Pieter C. Brouwer

    unknown-endangered:

    Slipper orchid (Cypripedium formosanum)

    Endangered on the IUCN Red List.

    There are around 150 different species of slipper orchid, which are distinguished by the pouch-like lower petal. Another interesting feature of slipper orchids is the staminode, which is formed from two fused stamens, whereas most other orchids have only one stamen. This type of orchid is pollinated by insects that fall into the pouch of the flower. They then must pass the stigma and anthers of the flower and are covered in pollen, and go on to fall into another flower like an idiot. Cypripedium formosanum is endemic to the mountains of Taiwan.

    The reproductive rate of C. formosanum is extremely slow, with very few plants producing viable seeds. These seeds must then form an association with a fungus in order to grow, leaving them particularly vulnerable to environmental disturbances. It is also a popular species for cultivation and is therefore threatened by over-exploitation.

    C. formosanum is protected under Appendix II of CITES, which restricts the trade of wild specimens. This species is easily cultivated, and populations may be maintained in captivity. 

    Photo: Pieter C. Brouwer

     

  9. 15 Jun


    rhamphotheca:

    New study following Atlantic seabirds to help siting of wind turbines

    by Jim Woehr and Marjorie Weisskohl,Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

    In making decisions on where to permit construction of offshore Atlantic wind turbines, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is engaged with offshore wind energy permitting as well) will need information on the movements of priority bird species such as common terns and American oystercatchers up and down the east coast, from Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound south throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

    The movement patterns of these two species are not well documented and, although they are not protected under the Endangered Species Act, they are species of high concern.

    To help fill the information gap, BOEM recently awarded a $292,000 study to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to research the movements of these birds over the next 12 to 18 months using VHF (very high frequency) backpack transmitters…

    (read more: USFWS - NE)       (photos: Pamela Loring/USFWS.)

     

  10. 15 Jun


    godlesscommiequeer: mediocre-leftist: spunkmate: kemetically-afrolatino: Obama tells Africa not to blame colonialism for problems “I think part of what’s hampered advancement in Africa is that for many years we’ve made excuses about corruption or poor governance, that this was somehow the consequence of neo-colonialism, or the West has been oppressive, or racism – I’m not a big – I’m not a believer in excuses. “The West and the United States has not been responsible for what’s happened to Zimbabwe’s economy over the last 15 or 20 years. oh yea cuz two decades erases 500+ years of Maafa African Holocaust colonialist, racist, white supremacist, capitalist slavery YES WE CAN OPPRESS! Let’s just talk about the IMF and World Bank for a minute, Mr. President… oh my Does he really believe what he’s saying? I mean, his own father was African for fucks sake. I find it hard to believe that he’s really that dumb. The more I hear, the more I hate this guy.

    godlesscommiequeer:

    mediocre-leftist:

    spunkmate:

    kemetically-afrolatino:

    Obama tells Africa not to blame colonialism for problems

    “I think part of what’s hampered advancement in Africa is that for many years we’ve made excuses about corruption or poor governance, that this was somehow the consequence of neo-colonialism, or the West has been oppressive, or racism – I’m not a big – I’m not a believer in excuses.

    “The West and the United States has not been responsible for what’s happened to Zimbabwe’s economy over the last 15 or 20 years.

    oh yea cuz two decades erases 500+ years of Maafa African Holocaust colonialist, racist, white supremacist, capitalist slavery

    YES WE CAN OPPRESS!

    Let’s just talk about the IMF and World Bank for a minute, Mr. President…

    oh my

    Does he really believe what he’s saying? I mean, his own father was African for fucks sake. I find it hard to believe that he’s really that dumb.

    The more I hear, the more I hate this guy.