rantlust

Posted by anupcs on March 19th 2008 in Politics, Rants, Society, USA
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If my wife and I ever have any children, they would be neither “brown” nor “yellow” but something else entirely (I am South Asian and my wife is Taiwanese). So, why do people perceive Barack Obama as black? His mother is fully white as far as I know and he’s biracial and both white and black. Why is everyone referring to him as the first black person to have a real chance at winning the presidency?

As the furor over the racial remarks by a pastor associated with Obama rages on, I am really curious about this. Obama is definitely the first half-black person to have a chance at becoming president but he’s not fully black. Maybe the Obamans in the audience can shed some light to this mystery.

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Posted by tafkap on January 31st 2008 in Economics, Society
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Nice article on ‘repugnance constraint’ markets - how moral repugnance may constrain a free market and if/what should be done about it. Very interesting to me was the reference to a paper [pdf] that I tracked down. It estimates the price at which the kidney wait backlog would be eliminated if live donors were allowed to be paid (see pages 11, 12). This is for the US, and the value they come up with is $15,200 per donor. Among other things, they take into account the value of a ’statitistical life’ ($1.5 million to $10 million for an average annual income of $35000), lost wages pre/post operation, risk of death, etc.

They did not have a good way to quantify loss of quality of life (they added an arbitrary $7,500), and they did not as far as I could see, take into account the ‘repugnance factor’ of paying for an organ. Not much comfort I’m sure for all those people who are waiting for a transplant.

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Posted by anupcs on January 06th 2008 in Society, Statistics
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Denmark is too cold; Switzerland is too neutral for my taste; I didn’t particularly like Austria when I visited it last year; and Iceland is too homogenous. So, I am going to move to The Bahamas if that’s what it takes to achieve happiness. I have always liked tropical islands anyway.

A recent comprehensive “scientific” study of the relative happiness of people in various countries have been published in the United Kingdom. The Danes came out on top. America is at a respectable 23 (out of 178) though the Asian countries seem far behind (India is at 125, China 82 and Japan 90). See here for the complete happiness map (PDF).

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Posted by Suman on December 12th 2007 in Earth, Environment, Government, Politics, Society, Technology
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As you may know, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an energy bill last week (H.R.6) that among many other things raises mpg standards for cars (to 35 mpg by 2020), extends and raises the tax credits for residential solar energy (thru 2014, and to $4k from $2k), and eliminates tax breaks for oil companies (currently $13.5 billion - that’s $13.5 thousand million, for our readers who speak U.K./European English).

The bill is currently being debated by the Senate, which may reject all or portions of it, and the President may also use his veto powers.  If you are a U.S. voter, please send a quick note to your elected representatives to let them know your views on the matter.

To write in support of H.R.6, click here.

To write in opposition to H.R. 6, click here.

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Posted by meerkat on November 05th 2007 in Rants, Society, Technology
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I always thought all cubicles in the cube farm are bad for humans. But, some cubicles are really really bad. Here’s Wired magazine’s sad cubicle list.

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Posted by jcaldera on October 16th 2007 in Food & Wine, Humor, Random, Rants, Society
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We discovered not so long ago that our daughter Natalia is lactose intolerant. This has been an inconvenience because she seemed to develop this intolerance recently, and she loved dairy products. Since we figure out that she was lactose intolerant we’ve been buying soy based products for her. Tonite we bought soy ice cream. And I can’t be any more sorry for her that I am tonite. Soy based ice cream is likely the worse product I’ve ever tasted in my life. Maybe it is the brand or the actual flavor, but it was so terrible that it make me thinks it is just the way it is. The worst part is that Natalia ate it all and she seemed to like it. I didn’t have the heart to put it where it belongs: the trash can.

Thinking about it, at least I can understand why lactose intolerant people would eat it. Now, what in the world is going through the people that makes it a choice. I know likes and dislikes are subjective and sure, somebody must like it for there to be a product, but this is beyond any comprehension. This is an actual aberration. If there is any Vegan reader that can explain to me why they would turn down actual ice cream for soy based ice cream, I hope the answer is like: we don’t eat ice cream for that reason, that would make me respect them at least. But trying to justify that they actually eat it because they like it would be beyond any comprehension.

Since we are in the subject, I’ll give you another piece of information on modified ice cream. The writer of this blog has actually been on and off the south beach diet. As you may know this diet precludes eating ice cream both because of the sugar and because of the fat. So, my love for ice cream is so deep that I am forced to buy the sugar free versions of the ice cream. Agreed that at least this ice cream is eatable. The availability of splenda and the like have make it possible to create a version of ice cream that though doesn’t get to the actual full fat/sugar ice cream is ok. But don’t be fooled ice cream was meant to be tasty not healthy, and it should remain as such.

For those of us that have access to San Francisco and those that come to visit I must suggest Mitchell’s ice creams. Incredible ice creams - no sugar free or soy available… … Go and expect to be in line for about 30 minutes even in the middle of the winter.

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Posted by meerkat on September 19th 2007 in Internet, Society, Technology, USA
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I am looking to move to another apartment in San Francisco and boy, is that difficult! I am looking for apartments by browsing Craigslist and have set up RSS feeds on my home page. I constantly check to see if there are any apartments on the market. There are a few that come up now and then. It is not as straight forward as elsewhere in the bay area. There is this open house that you have to go to and there are so many people that show up there looking for a place to live in SF. The owner of the apartment gets to choose the lucky one from many many many applications. Owners’ market for sure. I have found that an open house is a waste of my time competing with so many people and try avoiding them altogether.

Then, I look for ads that do not call for an open house. There are no guarantees even here. When the owner gets too many emails from people looking for a place, they call for an open house eventually. This is what happens in most of the cases in SF. Anyway, I chanced upon an ad that sounded so good.

$1500 / 2br - Amazing apartment! W/D, D/W, A/C, 1300 sqft, all is included, parking (noe valley) (Read more…)

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Posted by anupcs on September 06th 2007 in Business, Parenting, Society, Video
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That reliable source of news for those of us tired with the war and subprime credit crunch, The Onion, has a bit on outsourcing childcare to India and other emerging nations.

This may be in jest but quite a few people I know (including my own extended family members) have been doing this for ages by sending their children to India to their grandparents and such.

[via Saja Forum]

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