July 23, 2019

Illustrated

On Friday July 5, Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chadad banned “access to administrations and public institutions to anyone with their face covered." The law affects Muslim women who choose to wear a face covering for religious reasons. What are some of the different types of head and facial coverings some Muslim women choose to wear? More at the BBC.
posted by Mrs Potato at 6:12 PM PST - 25 comments

Testosterone and the Trolley Problem

Testosterone influences both emotions and decision-making, so what about it's influence on decisions made by people weighing moral issues? A team of researchers from the University of Austin found it doesn't seem to do much. (Ars Technica) [more inside]
posted by Outside Context Problem at 5:20 PM PST - 24 comments

Meow Meow Meow

A Japanese man has posted videos of himself feeding stray cats. Every day (almost). For eight years.
posted by korej at 5:09 PM PST - 19 comments

"Me after reading any article on the cut: this is horrifying"

The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge: A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment wouldn’t seem like an obvious mark, would he? (SL:The Cut) [more inside]
posted by General Malaise at 4:50 PM PST - 71 comments

gonna take my Shrek to the

All Star but it's Old Town Road.
All Star but it's Take Me Home, Country Roads.
All Star but it's Space Oddity.
posted by cortex at 2:08 PM PST - 42 comments

Mueller Under Oath

On Wednesday, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller will testify before Congress about his Report On the Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Presidential Election (EPUB) (PDF vol. I, vol. II). U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler believes there is “substantial evidence” that President Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and he plans to ask Mueller to present those facts at the hearing. After Mueller requested guidance, Trump's DOJ instructed him not to answer a wide variety of questions in a letter sent Monday. The DOJ also signaled they don’t intend to place lawyers in the room during his testimony, instead relying on Mueller to self-police his remarks, confident that he still wishes to let "the office’s written work speak for itself". [more inside]
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:00 PM PST - 521 comments

Is Halle Berry finally done paying for "Catwoman"?

When the movie came out 15 years ago, she was Hollywood royalty. It’s been a long road back.
posted by Etrigan at 11:52 AM PST - 41 comments

I am Mokgadi Caster Semenya. I am a woman, and I am fast.

Michelle Garcia, for Out Magazine, on Our August cover star, Caster Semenya: The Athlete in the Fight of Her Life. “There’s this long history of policing women’s bodies, trying to draw bright and clear lines, based on these normative ideas of what women’s bodies should look like and what sex traits they should have. They’re women because they’re being regulated. The fact that they’re regulating her is because she’s a woman. And then they’re trying to police even further in the category about what is appropriate for a woman’s body and performance.”
posted by ChuraChura at 11:39 AM PST - 21 comments

[deleted scenes]

In response to his YouTube channel Innuendo Studios hitting 200k subscribers, YouTuber Ian Danskin has released a video of a number of deleted segments from several of his videos - some were cut for time, others because the idea just didn't gel. All are both amusing and insightful. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:24 AM PST - 2 comments

The future of fitness is together but alone

Peloton’s multi-billion dollar valuation has led to a flurry of social “connected fitness” trainers aiming at rowing, boxing, cardio, weight training and much more (The Verge). They’re all focused around the same thing: live and on-demand classes with leaderboards and virtual high-fives that give you the feeling of being in a bustling class, but while you’re home alone. Convenience and community – can you have it all? [more inside]
posted by adrianhon at 7:56 AM PST - 65 comments

Beef, Climate Change, and the Future of International Trade Agreements

Instead of hoping for a motivated billionaire to hack the planet to stave off climate change (previously), we could combat climate change by cutting beef (and lamb) production (CNN, Nov. 2018). "Beef is widely recognized as the most climate-damaging of all foods" (CNN, Nov. 2015). 25% of the land in the United State used for grazing cattle, and pastures account for 71.6% of land use after deforestation in South America (Mongabay News, May 2016). "Across the globe, beef consumption is seeing rapid growth, fed by cheap imports and served by an industrialized agricultural global trade model that's been linked to a host of environmental impacts, climate change chief among them" (Pacific Standard Magazine, Oct. 2017).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:21 AM PST - 55 comments

Paper Books Can’t Be Shut Off from Afar

"Microsoft is shutting down its e-books service, and all the DRM books people bought from them will thus vanish into thin air. Microsoft will provide refunds to those affected, but that isn’t remotely the point. The point is that all their users’ books are to be shut off with a single poof! on Microsoft’s say-so. That is a button that nobody, no corporation and no government agency, should be ever permitted to have."
posted by BekahVee at 6:07 AM PST - 88 comments

UK Politics - The Johnson Years. Or Weeks.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 in New York and is still known by his family as Al.. He will very shortly become the 16th Prime MInister of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and the 77th overall, having been chosen over contender Jeremy Hunt by 92,153 of the 159,320 membership of the Tory Party as their leader. [more inside]
posted by Devonian at 4:06 AM PST - 431 comments

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