Polar bears hunt seals on ice. When the ice melts they move back to land and fast, waiting for the ice to come back. In some parts of the world, the water is now frozen over 2.5 weeks less a year, meaning that polar bears have 2.5 weeks less a year to hunt, eat and store up energy for their fast.
Women Make a Difference in Corporate Returns
Link: Wired News: Where Are All the Women?.
Companies with the most women in senior management had a 35 percent higher return on equity than those with the fewest, according to a study (.pdf) by Catalyst, a nonprofit group that studies women in business.
Smart Mobs: Morphing Faces: Hidden Persuaders
You are more likely to vote for a candidate that looks like you – or rather you are more likely to vote for a candidate that you think looks like you no matter what they really look like. In this experiment researchers morphed voters faces into one of the two candidates. When shown the morphed picture, voters were much more likely to vote for that candidate a week later.
For an example of morphing, check out the Smart Mobs blog post. They posted a couple of examples of faces morphed into the presidential candidates.
End the Abortion Debate
For years I’ve said that we are wasting our time arguing about abortion. If we put half of those efforts into preventing unwanted pregnancies, the issue would just go away. I’ve never found anybody willing to lay the issue aside and agree that both sides would like to see an end to unwanted pregnancies. An end to unwanted pregnancies would mean that nobody would be looking for an abortion, so there would be no issue. Today Hillary Clinton was quoted in the New York Times, saying, "The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to
reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place." Yeah!!
The article reads more like a dissection of Hillary’s political ambitions than a how this might change the abortion debate in our nation, but if you’re interested, it’s here: The New York Times > New York Region > Clinton Seeking Shared Ground Over Abortion.
Parachutes for Small Planes
Parachutes for small planes. What a novell idea. Obvious once you’ve thought about it but not intuitive. These are parachutes installed behind the back seat of small planes – up to 4,000 pound aircraft – that can be deployed when the pilot loses control of the plane.
Americans are Marrying Later in Life
23% of women between the ages of 30 and 34 have not been married (up from 6% in 1970). Not a surprise.
What was a surprise to me was a comment from David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values who was quoted as saying it concerns him that some people don’t feel the need to ever get married. Why would anyone have a problem with someone not getting married? Do they think people that aren’t married contribute less to society? That they create problems? That their kids will be worse off? Why do they care???
Just for the record, I resonated with this quote:
“The majority of people still want to get married, but they see it sort of as dessert now, something that’s desirable rather than necessary,” said Dorion Solot, executive director of the Albany, N.Y.-based Alternatives to Marriage Project.
You must watch the previews
A bill before Congress now might make it illegal to fast forward through the previews on a DVD! If this bill passed, DVD players would not allow you to fast forward just like they don’t allow you to fast forward through the legal statements. Shouldn’t you get to decide whether or not you want to watch them? You already paid for the DVD player and the DVD. Why should you have to play through the commercials? Wired News: Senate May Ram Copyright Bill.
Election Results
Some folks from the University of Michigan have been playing around with different election result maps.
This cartogram shows the results with the states sizes scaled to population:
This cartogram shows the states sizes scaled to population AND additional colors to show percentages of voters per county.
Which just goes to show that there aren’t just two sides. The states aren’t black and white and neither are people!
These maps are from this website, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ and are licensed under the Creative Commons License.
Track Federal Legisltion
I found a way cool site to find out what is going on in Congress around any subject you are interested in. Look up legislation, in a very readable way, by subject or by representative.
Vote!
Vote!
I don’t care whether you like the candidates or not. I don’t care whether you are Republican, Democrat or Independent. Just vote!
Vote!