Girl power! Kind of? Women and sex trafficking

February 13, 2009

So, you know how there’s this whole market for trafficking women for sex?  Well, apparently, in a reversal of roles, women are now targeting men for sex and acting as their pimps. The first international report into the scope of human trafficking, published yesterday, found a disproportionate number of female perpetrators, more than in any other crime, selling other women into slavery in countries including Australia. My first question is obviously how the study was designed, statistics, outliers, r squared ...

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Because “Breastaraunt” coming from NPR is a funny word

February 10, 2009

(from hootersgear.com.  Obvs.) NPR and Jezebel have caught my eye as reporting about a new trend in restaurants: According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hooters racked up (ahem) nationwide sales of $997 million last year, a two-percent improvement over 2007. For the sake of comparison, Ruby Tuesday “reported a $37.4 loss in the most recent quarter.” While everyone knows that Ruby Tuesday’s is HORRIBLE, it seems that, like Wal Mart, other lower middle class places such as Hooter’s are thriving in ...

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The most depressing baby songs ever: Russian ones

February 6, 2009

In America, we sing songs to babies to calm them down, to get them to go to sleep, and to make them feel safe and loved.  This is not the case in Russia.  In Russia, women sing songs to their babies to warn them of death, starvation, and wolves. And this is sung in a mildly soothing and pacifying voice, one that has been carried through generations of Russian Suffering. In my mom’s case, it was also Russian Jewish suffering. ...

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Statistically significant: XKCD

February 4, 2009

Couldn’t resist. XKCD. Happy to finally see a stat nerd comment!

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Kiva: The White Person’s Dream

February 4, 2009

(from the Ranan Lurie Competition, 2006) As a white person, I am obligated by White People Law to love social justice.  This includes hopefully singlehandedly fixing the Russian economy, which is pretty much based on natural gas and vodka, and striving to improve the lives of people in third world countries in general.  This desire stems primarily from having come from a third world country and also from my 10th grade World Cultures teacher, Mrs. Bej.  When we learned about ...

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