ontologicalterrorist:

BEATEN BACK: Police used batons to control garment workers protesting Monday in Kolkata against a proposed 10% excise tax on certain garments. (Associated Press)

(via ontologicalterrorist-deactivate)

4:37 pm  •  31 March 2011  •  3 notes

(Source: coheedofficial)

4:36 pm  •  31 March 2011  •  13 notes

Which country’s scientific output rose 18-fold between 1996 and 2008, from 736 published papers to 13,238? The answer – Iran – might surprise many people, especially in the western nations used to leading science. Iran has the fastest rate of increase in scientific publication in the world.

And if political relations between Iran and the US are strained, it seems that the two countries’ scientists are getting on fine: the number of collaborative papers between them rose almost fivefold from 388 to 1831 over the same period.

A rapid rise in Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian and Brazilian science stands out from a report published this week by the UK’s Royal Society, comparing global publication and citation rates between 1993 and 2003 with those between 2004 and 2008. Like Iran, other, smaller players are also stepping up their research activity. Turkey, for example, quadrupled its output between 1996 and 2008, after increasing sixfold its funding for R&D. Similar trends emerged in Tunisia, Singapore and Qatar.

On the broader scientific stage, the established leaders in the US, Europe and Japan still dominate, but their ascendency is being eroded by rapidly industrialising countries. So while the proportion of papers with US authors has slipped from 26 to 21 per cent, China has risen from sixth to second place with 10.2 per cent of the authored papers, up from 4.4 per cent in 1996. India and Brazil are rising rapidly too.

“The leading nations are not getting weaker,” says Chris Llewellyn Smith, chair of the panel that produced the study. “Rather, I would say we’re seeing a rise in other nations into the big league,” he says.

Marking the growth of science as a global enterprise to solve global problems, Llewellyn Smith says that collaborative papers have risen from a quarter to more than a third of all papers published. “To solve a global problem, you need data from all round the world, and this helps to unify the scientific voice geographically,” he says. “So I think we can all benefit from this, to solve global problems.”

(via ontologicalterrorist-deactivate)

1:59 pm  •  30 March 2011  •  6 notes

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

— Charles Bukowski (via rykemasters)

(via joshuabizley)

1:01 pm  •  30 March 2011  •  52 notes

chrisjohngilson:

Oh, by the way, did I mention that this story is about A GUY THAT HAS SEX WITH CHINESE FOOD?

Sayy whhaaa? That’s gross, but also mindblowing. Why? Because he sexed up the same cuisine every single night. No Mexican? No Mediterranean? That kind of faithfulness and commitment is admirable.

Also, it made me think of Jimmy McMillan and the “Rent is too Damn High” movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4o-TeMHys0

At 1:13, McMillan says, “…if you want to marry a shoe, I’ll marry you.” Which leads me to believe that this guy is a political plant, who’s been covertly working with Jimmy to lay the foundations to bring the rent down.

Rent is too damn high?

Fuck chinese food -> Rent goes down. 

Masterminds. Someone needs to seriously look into that. Wtf is really going on here?

3:12 am  •  30 March 2011  •  3 notes

“Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorneys or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We really were in a bad way before the white men came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without these basic things which, we are told, are absolutly necessary to make a civilized society.”

— John (Fire) Lame Deer

1:26 am  •  30 March 2011

(Source: against-the-current)

1:11 am  •  30 March 2011  •  5 notes

fightoffyourdemons-:

I mean after like the 6th email back I just feel like its redundant.

Hyphenation “—” and your name at the end is the way to go. I forego the formalities after the 3rd email. After that, you might as well be flirting. That’s why I start dropping winks and hahas.  

(Source: caramichele)

1:04 am  •  30 March 2011  •  10 notes

“For one, abortion is a delicate issue. It’s a very hard thing to talk about. No one wants to get an abortion, nobody looks forward to making a difficult to decision like that. Another myth from the right is that people have frivolous abortions. I know a lot of people who have needed an abortion, and I don’t know a one who was like, “Oh yeah, at 2:00, I have my abortion; at 3:00, I want to play tennis.” It’s not any more fun than any surgically invasive procedure—it’s not something you choose lightly. And we have allowed them to perpetuate some myths, plus they’re really good at framing the dialogue, especially because being against anything is easy: Just demonize it and frame it and boom! Everyone who hears your demonization will probably share a little bit of your feeling. It’s harder to explain what it is you’re for when you say you’re for reproductive rights. But we did start using terms like “reproductive rights” and being careful about using “abortion” because it turns people off, and that’s a mistake. When we are talking about reproductive rights, we are talking about a woman’s right to have an abortion. We ought to own that word instead of trying to table it because it makes people feel uncomfortable.”

— John Darnielle in an interview with Mother Jones (via fuckyeahthemountaingoats)

(via celbelrai)

12:10 am  •  30 March 2011  •  188 notes

ontologicalterrorist:

I think I just overloaded on philosophy. Might go find a corner to sit in and cry.

I can relate. I suggest lying in the fetal position in a bathtub with the cold water on blast. Afterwards you can bolt to the mirror, cradle your head, and stare menacingly/knowingly into the eyes of your fragmented and uncrecognizable self. Not that I’ve ever done that or anything. 

(via ontologicalterrorist-deactivate)

9:28 pm  •  29 March 2011  •  4 notes