Does stupidity lead to gullibility? [F]or the most part, the movie depicts low-IQ people as very hard to trick because they scoff at whatever they do not understand.and:
Bullies may be stupid, but it's nigh-impossible for a nerd to trick a bully into leaving him alone. The bully has a simple but powerful word that keeps the nerd from getting the upper hand: "Whatever."
I'm not racist, says TV's GoodyAnd since I use the name Shilpa Shetty instead of "the Indian", I am apparantly no racist. I'm lucky.
Jade Goody, at the centre of an alleged race row on Celebrity Big Brother, has been evicted from the Channel 4 show.
Goody, 25, was up against Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, who had been the target of the alleged abuse from Goody and others in the reality TV show.
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I'm not a Republican, and I'm not a Democrat. I'm against whoever's in power. People talk about Nixon and I say, 'I worship the very quicksand he walks on.'
How Humphrey got to be Bogie
Bogart became a legend near his death 50 years ago, when his acting was more closely aligned with his real-life personality.
By Richard Schickel
January 14, 2007
Humphrey Bogart died on Jan. 14, 1957, exactly 50 years ago. By all accounts, notably those of his friends, John Huston and Alistair Cooke, he died with great gallantry, hiding to the best of his ability the pain of the cancer that wracked and decimated him.
It worked this way: He would rest in his bedroom most of the day; then, in the late afternoon, he would be dressed in a blue blazer and ascot and transported, by wheelchair and elevator, to his living room. There, with cigarette in hand, martini at his side, he would await the arrival of friends. They brought industry gossip, in which he remained avidly interested; they went away inspired by his courage. His illness was never discussed. (read on this Los Angeles Times Op-Ed...)
Lots of cats tried to play like Bix; ain't none of them play like him yet.
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The Lancet reports that China - which virtually eliminated syphilis in the 1960s and 70s - is now seeing the disease return with alarming intensity.
It reveals that reported rates have risen from 0.2 cases per 100,000 in 1993 to 5.7 cases per 100,000 in 2005.
Dramatic intervention is now needed, one of the report's authors says.
The study involved doctors from China's National Centre for STD Control in Nanjing and from the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine.
Dr Myron Cohen, a co-author of the report, described the spread of the disease as "fantastically rapid".
This week's podcast features an interview with Dr Miren Cohen from the University of North Carolina, one of the authors of a research article documenting a resurgence of syphilis in China over the past decade. A range of unique biological and social forces are responsible for the latest epidemic.Syphilis rates skyrocket in China (New Scientist)
Europe keeps expecting America to 'come home' and it just ain't gonna happen. We're living in the vast rule-set reset that is globalization's advance around the planet. Europe and Japan, the classic West other than America, wants largely to sit this process out, instead arguing over cheese standards and ag subsidies and UN Security Council resolutions.
(...)Sorry, but I am not ready to cede the 21st century to China yet.
No question, China has been able to command an impressive effort to end illiteracy, greatly increasing its number of high school grads and new universities. But I still believe it is very hard to produce a culture of innovation in a country that censors Google — which for me is a proxy for curtailing people’s ability to imagine and try anything they want. You can command K-12 education. But you can’t command innovation. Rigor and competence, without freedom, will take China only so far. China will have to find a way to loosen up, without losing control, if it wants to be a truly innovative nation.
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Why should any employer anywhere in the world pay Americans to do highly skilled work — if other people, just as well educated, are available in less developed countries for half our wages?
If we can’t answer this question, in an age when more and more routine work can be digitized, automated or offshored, including white-collar work, “it is hard to see how, over time, we are going to be able to maintain our standard of living,” says Marc Tucker, who heads the National Center on Education and the Economy.
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Tomorrow, Mr. Tucker’s organization is coming out with a report titled “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” which proposes a radical overhaul of the U.S. education system, with one goal in mind: producing more workers — from the U.P.S. driver to the software engineer — who can think creatively.
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