I love Eddie Izzard. Funniest 8 minutes ever.
”In the ’30s, Hitler: Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Second World War… Russian front not a good idea… Hitler never played Risk when he was a kid. Cause, you know, playing Risk, you could never hold on to Asia. That Asian-Eastern European area, you could never hold it, could you? Seven extra men at the beginning of every go, but you couldn’t fucking hold it. Australasia, that was the one. Australasia. All the purples. Get everyone on Papua New Guinea and just build up and build up…”
”Hitler ended up in a ditch covered in petrol on fire… so, that’s fun. I mean that’s funny. Because he was a mass-murdering fuck-head!”
”We stole countries! That’s how you build an empire. We stole countries with the cunning use of flags! Just sail halfway around the world, stick a flag in. “I claim India for Britain.” And they’re going, “You can’t claim us. We live here! There’s five hundred million of us.” “Do you have a flag?” “We don’t need a bloody flag, this is our country you bastard!” “No flag, no country! You can’t have one. That’s the rules… that… I’ve just made up!”
Which state has the highest per capita marijuana use? Who has the most horses? Deer-collisions? What about suicides? Rice production? There will be some stats on this graphic by our friends at 1bog that will not surprise you, such as the state with the largest economy or the most wind farms, but some of the stats will likely blow your mind.
Google has released a remarkable toy for history buffs and armchair sociologists: The so-called Google Ngram, which allows you to see how often a given word has been used in books, ever since 1800.
The Tragedy of the Commons (Part 1 of 4)
STFUTeabaggers, take note.
I reference the Tragedy of the Commons so often, it a fundamental political/economic/psychological/sociological concept that everyone should understand.
If you call Connecticut home, your standard of living and economic opportunities are almost two times better than that of someone in West Virginia. That basic inequality shouldn’t be news to any American who’s spent a day outside. But rarely has it been put in such a stark visual form. The images here are screenshots from a sweeping interactive data visualization by Rosten Woo and Zachary Watson for the American Human Development Project. The infographic maps something called the American Human Development Index — a rough, one-stop measurement of quality of life across America based on things like education, life expectancy, and income — and lets you compare it to a raft of other factors, from political activity to local homicide rates. Think of it as a medical chart from the nation’s annual physical — one that reveals some serious health problems.
If you’re gay, you might want to rethink a job at ExxonMobil. Better yet, ExxonMobil might want to rethink its policy on gays. The big-oil biz tied with Philip Morris International as the lowest ranking companies in this tremendous multi-part infographic on how LGBT-friendly the top 100 Fortune 500 corporations make their workplaces. Designed by Tiffany Farrant for Meet The Boss TV, the data visualization ranks both individual businesses and entire sectors, drawing up a black-and-white picture of tolerance in corporate America today — of who has embraced LGBT diversity and who still acts like Stonewall never happened.
America needs to amend its constitution to allow for a multi-party system, implementing proportional representation.
For example, Arizona (where I live) has 8 Congressional districts.
Instead of dividing the state into gerrymandered districts where if 50.1% of the district votes for a candidate, that party wins the entire district, envision the entire state as one district.
For argument’s sake, let’s say 38% voted Republican, 38% Democrat, 12% Libertarian, and 12% Green.
3 seats would go to Republicans, 3 to Democrats, 1 to Libertarians, and 1 to Greens.
This allows for a more accurate representation of the political views of their constituents.
Now, of course, to get this amendment passed, we’d need the support of the very two-party system that would be hurt by such a change.
Did you take a vacation this summer? If you did, it was because your company generously allowed you a few paid vacation days. Unlike businesses in these other countries (all members of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development), U.S. companies are not required to give employees time off. Despite working some of the longest hours in the world, we take very little vacation. No wonder you’re feeling burnt out. A collaboration between GOOD and Amanda Buck.
Everybody might be working for the weekend, but we’re also working toward expanding our countries’ economies. Each hour we work contributes to the gross domestic product. But by how much? This is a look at the GDP per capita of the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, compared with the average numbers of hours worked in each country. While we may be working hard in America, in Luxembourg, an hour of work really means something.
SOURCE: OECD
A collaboration between GOOD and Amanda Buck.
