"There is a concern that styrene itself, one of the chemical components which is a possible human carcinogen, may leach into coffee or (any) hot liquid."

If your office water cooler has one of those five-gallon plastic bottles, and there's a number 7 on the bottom of it, it's made of polycarbonate and you face possible exposure to bisphenol-A, which may cause cancer.

But it was convenient and most people liked it!!! I guess they were fooled and we all suffered along with them.

Big-city mayors told Congress on Thursday that they are overwhelmed by the infrastructure needs of their regions and cannot maintain well-functioning water systems, roads and rail networks without more federal help.

"We're having a quiet collapse of prosperity," said Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Mark Funkhouser, one of four mayors to testify before the Senate Banking Committee about the state of the nation's infrastructure, which they agreed was poor and getting worse.

They blamed much of the decay on shortsighted thinking by local, state and federal officials.

They should put the blame where it belongs: on politics itself. Saving money and building sports stadiums are popular, spending money on invisible needs is not, so the buck gets passed -- until a tragedy happens, and then everyone is all righteous indignation. God bless America.

Falling crime rates have been one of the great American success stories of the past 15 years. New York and Los Angeles, once the twin capitals of violent crime, have calmed down significantly, as have most other big cities. Criminologists still debate why: the crack war petered out, new policing tactics worked, the economy improved for a long spell. Whatever the alchemy, crime in New York, for instance, is now so low that local prison guards are worried about unemployment.

Lately, though, a new and unexpected pattern has emerged, taking criminologists by surprise. While crime rates in large cities stayed flat, homicide rates in many midsize cities (with populations of between 500,000 and 1 million) began increasing, sometimes by as much as 20percent a year. In 2006, the Police Executive Research Forum, a national police group surveying cities from coast to coast, concluded in a report called “A Gathering Storm” that this might represent “the front end … of an epidemic of violence not seen for years.”

If replacing housing projects with vouchers had achieved its main goal—infusing the poor with middle-class habits—then higher crime rates might be a price worth paying. But today, social scientists looking back on the whole grand experiment are apt to use words like baffling and disappointing. A large federal-government study conducted over the past decade—a follow-up to the highly positive, highly publicized Gautreaux study of 1991—produced results that were “puzzling,” said Susan Popkin of the Urban Institute. In this study, volunteers were also moved into low-poverty neighborhoods, although they didn’t move nearly as far as the Gautreaux families. Women reported lower levels of obesity and depression. But they were no more likely to find jobs. The schools were not much better, and children were no more likely to stay in them. Girls were less likely to engage in risky behaviors, and they reported feeling more secure in their new neighborhoods. But boys were as likely to do drugs and act out, and more likely to get arrested for property crimes. The best Popkin can say is: “It has not lived up to its promise. It has not lifted people out of poverty, it has not made them self-sufficient, and it has left a lot of people behind.”

Social Darwinism doesn't work; in an egalitarian society, the best don't rise.

What does happen is that the disorganized fall, but there's nowhere for them to go, and the egalitarian system supports them.

Who's going to end up poor? Addicts of drugs or sex; people of lower intellectual ability; people unable to stay focused on a task.

Why does this afflict minorities? Different cultures, different rules, and different types of intelligence, including different levels of IQ. To succeed in a Western society, you need an IQ of 110 or more at the absolute minimum.

So the egalitarian system is manufacturing its own nightmare by trying to keep us all together, and not letting some people segregate themselves into city projects. Do-gooder mentalities create paths to hell.

A United Nations report says Britain should abolish its monarchy.

The UN Human Rights Council said the UK must "consider holding a referendum on the desirability or otherwise of a written constitution, preferably republican".

The UN, who are parasites, will undoubtedly call the monarchy "parasites."

Now we see the truth of feelgood/let's all get together initiatives like the UN: people who need external affirmation to have a belief system want to destroy those who don't.

It's like a giant sheep boot, crushing all freedom.

Women in Ancient Greece were major power brokers in their own right, researchers have discovered, and often played key roles in running affairs of state. Until now it was thought they were treated little better than servants.

The discovery is part of an investigation by Manchester researchers into the founders of Mycenae, Europe's first great city-state and capital of King Agamemnon's domains.

'It was thought that in those days women were rated as little more than chattels in Ancient Greece,' said Professor Terry Brown, of the faculty of life sciences at Manchester University. 'Our work now suggests that notion is wrong.'

Not only did ancient societies in Europe treat women well, but they recognized separate but equally important roles -- different than equality, but better than what equality brings. For example, they didn't turn dating into prostitution for self-esteem, as this young 'ho writes:

I do not see prostitution as a stigma, like some people do. I have always been for the legalisation of the profession; after all, it is jokingly referred to as ‘the oldest job in the world’, and every joke has a grain of truth to it. If it has existed for so long, wagging your finger at it is not going to make it go away all of a sudden. And what is so bad about it? Why has having casual sex become acceptable, yet charging for it is not?

A reader writes:

Recently, at work, we got in another new person from England. There are a lot of people fleeing England, although it's one of the most liberal places on earth. Like most English men, he drinks a lot, drives drunk, masturbates to extreme pornography, and sleeps with moronic sluts who give him infections. He is very liberal and I'm sure what I said was totally insensitive.

Apparently, after a few beers, I referred to the United Kingdom (in which England is a state, like Vermont) as "Brokeback Island," at which point he punched me, but it felt more like getting hit in the face with an effete wet dishrag.

Someone immediately called me racist against the English, which I've never felt was true (some of my best friends were English) but then our black friend Tsewethawa said it might be homophobic instead. I think he took pity on me.

My question is:

* Is calling the UK "Brokeback Island" racist? If so, I need to go to Sensitivity Training SD-3082, "Learning to Recognize and Eliminate Racial Bias."

* Is calling the UK "Brokeback Island" homophobic? If so, I need to go to Sensitivity Training HD-6139, "Discovering and Preventing Sexual and Gender Bias."

If my words were determined to be racist, homophobic AND sexist, then I have to go through the whole diversity training seminar, which will take two weeks and be taught in Nigeria, and that's really going to wreck my vacation schedule.

Can someone help? If there's an informed opinion that says the comment was EITHER racist or homophobic, then I'm OK, but if it's both, I may well be screwed.

How do we even begin to answer this one? Well, for starters, a little bit about forced brainwashing:

Most diversity training efforts at American companies are ineffective and even counterproductive in increasing the number of women and minorities in managerial positions, according to an analysis that turns decades of conventional wisdom, government policy and court rulings on their head.

A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management. The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.

You know, it's not really any different from "all communists are bad" during the McCarthy era. No matter what year it is, the public has to have demons, and a reason to consider themselves "progressive," so they pick egalitarianism, which unravels into diversity training and not calling rapists "rapists."

The reactions of the Fundamentalist Mormons and the Paskowitz family I think smoke out the contradiction at the heart of contemporary elite Western life: the simultaneous superposition of a disavowal of judgement & absolute values and an adherence to a set of standards which scaffold and guide one's life rather rigorously (e.g., the "best schools," the "fulfilling careers" and the "loving spouse"). Conservative Christians in the United States often see themselves as in contradiction to the values encapsulated by the dominant dispensation, and so I believe though they are often guilty of myopia they can easily elucidate the general outline of what they mean by the Good Life. In contrast, mainstream America, the pulse of which is defined by upper middle class professionals, the English gentry of our day, often adhere to a set of values implicitly and discernible only through the subtext of their words and actions.

Modern society has removed the idea of having a holistic goal and has replaced it with a granular society where citizens define themselves in a self-referential way regulated by social context. As a result, the only power this society can wield is disapproval when some hidden code of aesthetic ethics is breached. Consequently, it is ruled by doubt, and people bitterly turn toward making a pile and retreating from the mess, which leaves socialized costs and collective problems running amok. It's better to note, as Plato did, that design logic exists in the interaction of all polycauses in a system, and to plan for those future interactions, than to focus so much on the present and the material that we lose all sense of what kind of future we could create. Our society is negative, and our attitudes are negative, and this shows in the types of decisions we accept and encourage.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for a high-profile community summit to address black-on-black violence after Harlem was rocked by a wave of shootings over Memorial Day.

"Last year alone, nearly one black child a day under the age of 17 was shot and killed in New York City. Shot mostly by other black city residents," Sharpton said.

He said three critical areas need to be addressed: improving partnerships between the police and the community, "better dialogue between all of us with our youth" and new jobs.

Why wasn't this an issue in the presidential campaign, in which many promises of change, racial reconciliation, etc. were made?

It would require either white people to intervene in black people's affairs, and arrest more young black men, which black people as a demographic despise (with good reason), or for black people to admit a large problem publically at a time when they feel under assault from others for reasons of race.

In the meantime, the deaths -- mostly of children -- continue.

It's time to admit pluralism doesn't work, and we need to set up local communities on the basis of heritage, culture, values, and language -- and possibly variants of those, where not all are in line. Pluralism isn't working. Throughout history, we have no examples of it working. Just how dumb do we have to be to keep trying?

In the 1960s the threat of "overpopulation" applied to virtually every country in the world, all of whose populations were expanding – if at different rates. From 1971, however, western fertility plummeted. Europe has been underreproducing for decades: its total fertility rate (TFR) – the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime – is 1.5, well below the 2.1 required to replace the people already here.

Meanwhile, with a current TFR of 2.9 , the population of poorer nations keeps rising. Virtually all of the 2.5 billion extra people on our guest list will arrive in the Third World (aka "undeveloped", "underdeveloped" or "developing" nations, or recently "the south" – when people keep shifting their terminology, be sure that there's something politically scary in the vicinity).

Now viewed as a judgmental word that applies exclusively to nonwestern countries, "overpopulation" has become racially, religiously and ethnically sticky, and thus totally uncool. For decades no one in the population field has touched the word "overpopulation" with a bargepole.

Europe is dwindling. Its immediate Muslim neighbours are still having large families, and their populations are continuing to grow. Make of that what you will. It is not BNP propaganda; it's just the way things are.

We have made our fear of anti-egalitarianism so great that we have censored ourselves. As a result, we're not looking toward reality in any direction. Consequently, we're deep in denial, but the rest of the world isn't.

They're growing larger and stronger, and they are going to look toward those with more than what they have and take it to feed their growing populations.

While Europe wasted its time fighting itself, or being beholden to two superpowers who did nothing but drain it, the rest of the world is ready to identify itself by traditional organic groupings -- culture, language, values and heritage.

It's going to be a great series of wars.

Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment. And that is enforced because they don't believe he understands them and their problems. That when he said in South Carolina after his victory "Our Time Has Come" they believe he is telling them that their time has passed.

This is a former candidate for vice president who wrote this editorial. Not some marginalized angry person.

Pluralism has begun to fail as people realize that organic alliances -- caste, race, and moral inclination -- are dividing us now that the previous underdogs have the numbers to be equal partners. Everyone's doing what benefits them, including those who championed underdogs to make themselves seem more altruistic.

Even corporate advertising is reigning in the "let's all get along" rhetoric.

The fact is that we need a society unified around consensus, and until we get one, we will be fighting each other and being unfair to one another. That's a path to nothing but failure.

The number of single women has hit an all-time high, a study has shown - and most of them aren't looking for love.

They apparently choose to be alone, and rejoice in a life where they can spend time and money as they wish.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal that 8 per cent of the female population aged between 25 and 44 live alone. The figures coincide with a record low in marriage rates and a rise in divorce rates. And recent research showed that some two-thirds feel that they can enjoy a happy and fulfilled life without a partner.

They're putting a brave face on an ugly phenomenon: most men are sick to death of feminism, so are opting to be irresponsible, and they're tired of getting divorced, so they're never going to agree to marry (divorce means half of your wealth goes to a wife who hates you, and to kids you never get to see; who can blame them?). On the other hand, women are finding that money is worth a lot less, and that jobs require an ugly slavish dedication that ruin their lives, so they probably can't afford marriage either. Their remaining option is to find friend sex, give up on love, and spend time alone since they'll end up alone after their third divorce anyway. Once they hit 40, and their prospects of marriage and children are just about zero, they find it easier, because this way they can explain away failure in life as a "choice."

Once upon a time, we X-ers faced a mountain of criticism from boomers for what they perceived as our lack of a work ethic. What they didn’t see, however, was the workforce we entered and had inherited, one where layoffs are considered routine and job security no longer exists. Boomers wanting to remain an active part of society aren’t in a big hurry to retire, so not only are there fewer upper-level jobs available to us, we’re also facing an attack from the rear as energetic, eager-to-please and entry-level Y workers graduate from college and wave their freshly minted diplomas and sense of entitlement along with their aversion to so-called “grunt work.”

We’re the generation who’ll be struggling to finance the boomers’ retirement at the same time that we hope to god that we won’t be laid off or fired because our jobs were shipped to India, China or the Philippines. We’ll be the ones facing a retirement of our own without the fragile safety net of Social Security. We were at the forefront of the dot-com boom, recognizing the power of the Internet and its ability to literally transform the world as we know it, but our own influence on its development has diminished and is now dominated by the likes of Facebook creator and Y-er Mark Zuckerberg.

The Baby Boomers were the first totally atomized generation: distrusting the past, they went with what was easy and pleased themselves and others. Consequences? Well, we'll figure it out someday -- which was what made this brave new world generation of liberals into classic bourgeois conservatives, "out of sight, out of mind." They've left their kids to take up the slack, and that's why most generation Xers hate their parents -- they left behind a ruin, and never gave a thought to how people after them were supposed to knit together the remains. No one's gonna cry when you go, Boomers. Don't let the door hit you on the ass.

CORRUPT Houston Meeting
May 30, 2008

From a swamp of highways, billboards, neon and idling cars, CORRUPT Houston members converged for a night of conversation and hilarity. Originally, we had a list of "serious topics" we would attempt to discuss in case anyone claimed we weren't hardcore enough, and we brought brooms to show people our street activism, but ultimately we recognized the pomposity of such people and instead sought the real in our lives. This took the form of humorous stories from the bowels of the modern experience.

Not that we were without a "serious" side. After a brief presentations on "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt, and "The Multicultural Mystique: The Liberal Case Against Diversity" by Harriet Baber, a lively debate was had over the merits of different Linux installations and the Crowdist downfall of BSD versions. Finally, we lapsed into a series of anecdotal analyses of the modern meltdown and then resumed the lighthearted socialization that is a hallmark of people who can at least understand each other's views.

Around us, Houston -- the archetype of a modern, car-based city -- ticked on down its way to entropy: thin girls with dyed hair and colored contacts pursued consumer goods and penises with credit lines to support them, day laborers got drunk and rowdy and were hauled off by tight-lipped cops, dopamine-drenched brains talked about universal submission and conspicuous altruism, a million bored above-average intelligences drowned their sorrows in alcohol and entertainment.

Through the efforts of our Houston-area members, sanity was achieved for a few hours, and a resolve to meet again and bring up more of the pragmatic acts we can use to (a) change the system that collectively sways us toward doom and (b) prepare the smart few to survive it, and to have the will to exterminate the rest. Our next meeting is June 27 at the same location.

About HOUSTON

Houston, TX is a humid, freeway-bound, concrete-plated, cockroach-ridden city expanding along the "Los Angeles model" of automobile-dependent city design. Nevertheless, it is one of the most popular destinations for people seeking the American dream, and home of not only the oil industry, but many thousands of food service workers who have indie rock bands named after serial killers.

About CORRUPT

CORRUPT is a thinktank and civilization watchdog that believes a better future for humans will come by embracing organic reality and not institutional or emotional abstractions. Our goal is to get human civilization back on track by separating fantasy from reality, applying the principles of information science, and promoting organization over confusion.

CORRUPT
PO Box 1004
Alief, TX 77411
(512) 553-4544

http://www.CORRUPT.org/

On the other hand, researchers found the public is not suffering from a comprehensive ethical breakdown. The great majority of consumers, some 94 per cent, revealed some awareness of what Lovelock has called 'the ineluctable consequences of destruction', and therefore 'aim to behave in an environmentally friendly manner themselves'. An understandable approach when you think how many times politicians, eager to delegate an unpopular task, have reminded the public that with climate change, every little really and truly helps.

Events in Crewe and Nantwich illustrate the difficulties of politicians intent on doing anything, such as carbon-taxing to avert catastrophe since a) no one really believes it's coming, b) they'll be dead anyway, c) the recession has left them much too fearful and poor to care, and d) they won't vote for anyone who tries to make them.

First lie: every little bit helps. Truth: growth is the problem, and with 7 billion people, the acts of those in the UK are minimal in impact. The real issue is land use and resource consumption, including renewable resources like wood, food, water, etc.

Second lie: that obsessively tightening faucets, replacing lightbulbs and buying green undies has much of an effect. Truth: most of the damage done by industrialized lifestyles is caused by infrastructure: roads, transportation, cops, firefighters, gov't, military, etc.

Third lie: no one cares any longer. Truth: they care only when it is presented to them as a do or die option, because otherwise, they're given the option to sleep through this issue in comfortable denial -- and they'll take it.

CORRUPT urges you to post a comment and let them know that these three principles outweigh the simplistic lies.

Many gifted adults seem to know very little about their minds and how they differ from more "ordinary" minds. The result of this lack of self-knowledge is often low, sometimes cripplingly low self esteem. Most have never been formally identified as gifted, and even those who have may disbelieve the identification or have difficulty incorporating it into their sense of themselves.

Though women are particularly hard-pressed in our culture to recognize and fully utilize unusual intelligence, uncertainty about gifts can affect both males and females, especially those who are not recognized as intellectual achievers. Strangely, even among men and women who are recognized achievers, the "impostor-syndrome" is widely reported. These people go along routinely doing what few others can do, all the while dreading the moment when the world will find them out and discover that they are the fakes they believe themselves to be.

This article reveals a bounty of information.

* Gifted people tend toward low self-esteem because they have no idea they are gifted, and assume others are just incompetent.
* Gifted people tend to like to live with other gifted people, because non-gifted people don't understand them. Formation of a caste system follows.
* Non-gifted people tend to hate gifted people and do whatever they can to sabotage their self-esteem, because non-gifted people feel left behind.

If you substitute "above average IQ" for "gifted," this article provides a rational insight into the failings of democracy, capitalism, liberalism and Christianity.

Summer is coming, and with it hordes of mosquitoes. We can either try to destroy the mosquitoes, or we can design our living spaces so that mosquitoes play a smaller role. The advantage of this second approach is that we do not suffer from the means used to destroy mosquitoes.

Here are some plants that, if you seed them and nurture them in barrier gardens (semicircular beds in areas of approach to your living spaces), will keep mosquitoes repelled. It's either that or smearing yourself with bear fat as the American Indians did (which if you ask me, is a waste of tasty bear fat).

Lantana (genus Lantana) - many people plant this just because it's an attractive flower, but keeping bugs away is a bonus.

Lemongrass (genus Cymbopogon) - You may be familiar with this from your favorite dishes in Asian restaurants, but it's also a hardy, fibrous grass which repells insects.

Catnip (genus Nepeta) - Cats love to get high on this stuff, but it was harsh smoke for us. Nevertheless, it is an attractive and hardy flowering plant.

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) - a woody herb that adds flavor to cooking worldwide, despite its rigidity. Bugs hate it.

Mexican Marigold and Marigolds (family Asteraceae) - In Mexico, emo kids get beaten for being irritating. Mexican Marigolds dump unpleasant scents on mosquitoes. Many people don't like the scent as well, which is why you will often see Marigolds planted around a bed of flowers with a stronger smell.

American Basil (Ocimum americanum) - Strongly fragrant leaves often used to disguise odors come from a pretty little plant that will keep bugs away from your house and flavor your pasta sauce.

Horsemint (Monarda punctata) - anecdotally, peppermint and spearmint also work, and enhance the power of marigolds. A mint bed bordered by marigolds, int he path of morning breezes, seems to keep mosquitoes confused and/or frustrated. They go home to play on their Wiis instead.

Ageratum (genus Ageratum) - Clusters of pretty flowers, often strikingly refreshing. Although this is an irritant, and you shouldn't get it on your skin, mosquitoes don't like to hang around it.

Eucalyptus (genus Eucalyptus) - Trees with a unique, lightly oily scent that is reminiscent sometimes of lemon and sometimes of willow trees.

Chrysanthemum (genus Chrysanthemum) - Round, cheerful flowers from which we extract pyrethrum, also rumored to dispell mosquito populations.

American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) - Shrubs with chains of flowers that leave shiny, colorful berries in their place, and bug bugs, for a bonus.

Geranium (genus Pelargonium) - Pleasant, stalky flowers which emit a strong fresh odor that is likened by many to the smell of a healthy hothouse (but not bathhouse).

Six U.S. cities have been found guilty of shortening the amber cycles
below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras
meant to catch red-light runners. The local governments in question have
ignored the safety benefit of increasing the yellow light time and
decided to install red-light cameras, shorten the yellow light duration,
and collect the profits instead.

http://www.leftlanenews.com/six-us-cities-tamper-with-traffic-cameras-for-profit.html

How incessantly the herd bleats "absolute power corrupts absolutely," without any knowledge that, given one simple abstraction layer, moral authority is absolute power. Government does not have moral authority
until it becomes the Nanny State, but then, it's in your best interests that they do things to you. If you object, then you must disagree with their aims and not their actions.

This separation between methods and ideals occurs in several areas amongst the levels of interpretation required. If we object to Nanny State methods, it is seen that we must object to their ideals as well. If we look at life honestly, we see either ideals (goals beyond the individual) or methods (preserve the individual) as a means of social glue, but little crossover. Humanism or idealism, pick one.

I've often been accused of racism in the past few years because I'm against excessive immigration. I keep retorting that I'm not a racist, I'm a culturalist- I'm fine with immigrants who want to come here to join our American/Canadian culture and all the high lifestyle standards that provides, in return for being some of the hardest working people in the world. I'm against people who want to colonize our land, bring in their culture, and replace it with theirs. I'm also against bringing in more people to areas where the carrying capacity is already at it's limit.

I've been rightly or wrongly criticized for that in the past- but apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way: Illiad of UserFriendly Fame, who apparently lives near a casino I once did technical support at in the mid 1990s, wrote a very good essay on his blog about the difference between "immigrants willing to join the community" and "immigrants who cut themselves off". Just so happens most of the ones down here in the states who are of the later variety start their life in the United States with an overtly criminal act, but the attitude is the same. They're sending the message, by forcing Spanish on the rest of us (or Cantonese in the sake of Richmond, BC) and by breaking our laws to come here, that they don't want to become a part of our community, that they only want to colonize us.

I'd also point out that's exactly what we English and French speakers in North America did to the Native Americans- and we should learn from their failure what happens when you let too many immigrants in who don't want to be a part of your community.

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=637462

Is it "racism" to notice that only one culture can exist, and mixed culture is destructive to all original cultures?

Search your heart, and your uncensored mind, and you'll realize Rome is falling again.

It would be nice to preserve the good things we've made.

The Pragmatism Party wants to create an organic social order to replace institutional society:

* Reward morally upright individuals
* Localization
* Reverence for nature
* Focus on goals not methods
* Economy serves culture

It's more than politics: it's