Economic inequality in the USA explained in a 2:30 animated video.
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
- 12 years ago
- 12
"Obama has plenty of opportunities to salvage his second term and build on his legacy. He just has to commit to playing the hard-ass."
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Obama, You’ve Got Leverage. By Noam Scheiber.
(via thenewrepublic)- 12 years ago
- 5
By Bill Schneider
Gays win, blacks lose. That’s the upshot of this week’s landmark Supreme Court decisions.
“It’s an exciting day for civil rights in America,” a young gay man standing outside the Supreme Court told the Washington Post. “I am a significant step closer to being an equal citizen under the law.” That sentiment was not shared by African-Americans. The day before, Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, called the court’s voting rights decision “an egregious betrayal of minority voters.”
Why did the Supreme Court treat the two minorities so differently? Because the two minorities face significantly different problems. Since the civil rights laws were passed in the 1960s, inequality has become a bigger problem for African-Americans than discrimination. For gays, the problem is discrimination. The U.S. legal system is far better equipped to deal with discrimination than inequality.
- 12 years ago
- 635
npr:
Most optical illusions we’re familiar with are 2D line drawings. This video, however, is a live-action optical illusion, and, as such, we shouldn’t be baffled by it. But we are.
Alva Noe investigates why on NPR’s 13.7 Blog.
- 12 years ago
- 399
- 12 years ago
- 373
Texas Says It's OK to Shoot an Escort If She Won't Have Sex With You
A jury in Bexar County, Texas just acquitted Ezekiel Gilbert of charges that he murdered a 23-year-old Craigslist escort—agreeing that because he was attempting to retrieve the $150 he’d paid to Lenora Ivie Frago, who wouldn’t have sex with him, his actions were justified.
Gilbert had admitted to shooting Frago in the neck on Christmas Eve 2009, when she accepted $150 from Gilbert and left his home without having sex with him. Frago, who was paralyzed by the shooting, died several months later.
Gilbert’s defense argued that the shooting wasn’t meant to kill, and that Gilbert’s actions were justified, because he believed that sex was included as part of the fee. Texas law allows people “to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft.“
The 30-year-old hugged his defense attorneys after the “not guilty” verdict was read by the judge. If convicted, he could have faced life in prison. He thanked God, his lawyers, and the jury for being able to “see what wasn’t the truth.“
(via azspot)