Business Week – When Simon Phelan started a civil engineering degree at Dublin’s Trinity College four years ago, he figured his biggest problem upon graduation would be deciding which job to choose. Ireland’s economy was growing at 5.4%, unemployment was a mere 4.4%, and construction was booming. Today, with graduation fast approaching, only two of Phelan’s 100 classmates have even had interviews. Worse, in these recession-scarred times, just two people from the class ahead of him are employed. So Phelan and many contemporaries see emigration as the only option. Read Article
Daily Telegraph – Coco Rocha, a former Vogue cover girl, has reignited the debate over skinny models by claiming she has been rejected for work being too fat. The Canadian supermodel said despite being a rail-thin 7st 7lbs she is considered overweight for many of the world’s top fashion designers. The 21-year-old, who is a UK dress size six, said she had lost out on catwalk work because she refused to lose any more weight. Read article
BBC – Around the corner came a garbage truck. It moved slowly down the centre of the road, forcing my car to stop. Unable to see what was happening behind it I wondered how anyone could even think of collecting rubbish in the wake of a tragedy like this. But as we edged nearer a nauseating smell filled the air. It wasn’t that of garbage. As we drew alongside I saw piles of bodies being thrown in the garbage truck like bags of household waste. This was death on an industrial scale. Read Article
BBC – Marriage rates in England and Wales have fallen for a fourth year to reach their lowest level since records began. A total of 232,990 couples wed in 2008, down 1% on the year before, Office for National Statistics figures showed. Read article
ScienceDaily — Thinking about a typical victim of college dating violence, you’re probably imagining her, not him. Researchers often think the same way, according to a Kansas State University expert on intimate partner violence. Sandra Stith, a professor of family studies and human services, said most research has looked at men as offenders and women as victims. “In the research on college students in particular, we’re finding both men and women can be perpetrators,” she said. Read article
The Times – People living in the poorest areas of England can expect to suffer about 17 more years of ill health and disability than those in wealthier areas, a major review of health inequalities concludes today. The tax and benefits system “needs overhauling” in order to encourage more people to find and stay in work, according to Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who led the Government-commissioned review. Read Article
Daily Telegraph – More people are afraid of losing their independence in old age and being forced to move into a nursing home than they are of dying, a survey has found. As elderly care becomes more expensive, more than two in three Britons fear becoming a burden on friends or family in their old age, it found. While three in four people said they feared getting ill in their old age, just 29 per cent said they feared dying, according to the survey. Read Article
Deutsche Welle – Tuesday marks Safer Internet Day, created to encourage safer and more responsible use of online technology. A spokesman for the EU’s cyber security body told Deutsche Welle how you can best protect yourself online. Read Interview
Spiegel – An Italian village is hoping to reverse its population decline by welcoming refugees from around the world. The immigrants get free room and board and are expected to work and learn Italian in return. The project is proving highly successful — but the local Mafia aren’t happy. read Article
Daily Tleegraph – Official Government statistics, released by Ian Austin, a minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, suggest that just 464 people are sleeping rough in England. However, charities and opposition politicians have attacked the figures as misleading and being “massaged” so that the Government can hit its ambitious target of eliminating all rough sleepers by 2012. Read article
BBC – The last speaker of an ancient language in India’s Andaman Islands has died at the age of about 85, a leading linguist has told the BBC. Professor Anvita Abbi said that the death of Boa Sr was highly significant because one of the world’s oldest languages – Bo – had come to an end. She said that India had lost an irreplaceable part of its heritage. Read article
AFP – Grisly trophies from Yale University’s mysterious Skull and Bones society, whose members include former president George W. Bush, are to go on auction in New York this month. The human skull and two large bones are estimated to sell for between 10,000 and 20,000 dollars on January 22 at Christie’s. The auction house said the human remains were used as a ballot box by the secret society. The skull includes a specially cut lid in the top — apparently for ballots — and one of the bones is inscribed “THOR.” Read Article
BBC – The first US federal court case to determine whether states are allowed to ban same-sex marriages has opened in San Francisco, California. Any ruling reached is expected to be challenged, possibly taking the case all the way to the US Supreme Court. A Supreme Court ruling would determine the fate of gay marriages nationwide, without the possibility of appeal. The suit, filed by two gay couples, challenges Proposition 8 – a ban on gay marriage in the state of California. Read Article
Washington Post – Scientists may have created a vaccine against cocaine addiction: a series of shots that changes the body’s chemistry so that the drug can’t enter the brain and provide a high. The vaccine, called TA-CD, shows promise but could also be dangerous; some of the addicts participating in a study of the vaccine started doing massive amounts of cocaine in hopes of overcoming its effects, according to Thomas R. Kosten, the lead researcher on the study, which was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in October. Read Article
ScienceDaily — Marital status plays a significant role in how individuals cope economically with disability and health shocks, according to a working paper by University of British Columbia economists Giovanni Gallipoli and Laura Turner. In their study, titled “Household Responses to Individual Shocks: Disability and Labour Supply,” the researchers examined data from the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and found that in marriages, “main-earners” (typically husbands) tend to transfer income and compensate “second-earners” (typically wives). The second-earners, in turn, provide conditional time and care in periods of need (such as illness and disability of main-earner). Read Article
Bdaily business news network – Father Christmas is a bad role model, encouraging obesity, drink-driving and risk-taking, according to a top doctor. Public health expert Dr Nathan Grills says Santa is overweight, and blames the mince pies and alcohol left out for him by families across the world. Read Article
Ed. – Source article ‘abstract’ in the British Medical Journal; Source article comments – one of which is as good as the source article itself.
Physorg.com – Health and social care provision needs to be put in place for a large increase (33%) in the 85 year old population in the UK by 2020, according to a study published today in the British Medical Journal. Read article
Chinaview — White Americans will be no longer the majorities in the United States around 2050, eight years later than previous expectation, said a Census Bureau report released on Wednesday. The Census Bureau has earlier predicted that white children will become a minority in 2023 and the whole white population will follow in 2042. However, due to the economic crisis and stricter immigration policies after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the flow of foreigners into the United States has been slowed. Read Article
Ed.- Obviously, it’s unsettling – if you’re white. All over the world, being the majority for so long. However, cultural values will ultimately have a larger impact on what happens in future generations. War and money seem to figure prominently in Western nations’ culture.
Washington Post – The District was on the verge Tuesday of becoming the sixth place in the country to legalize same-sex marriage after the council gave final approval to its bill allowing the unions. Although a final signature on the bill by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) could come by the end of the week, same-sex marriage opponents vowed to step up their effort to get Congress or a court to block the initiative during the 30-day congressional review period. Read Article
BBC – Scientists have discovered what they believe is a genetic cause of severe obesity in children. The team concluded that the loss of a key segment of DNA can be to blame. It said the findings might improve diagnosis of severe obesity – which on occasion has been wrongly attributed to abusive overfeeding. Read article
Ed. – It takes a genetic test, to force people to realise that these parents are only doing their best, and need support. Maybe this would’ve helped them: link
The Times – Broken Britain” has become a broken record. Politicians and commentators sketch a society consumed by greed and celebrity culture, bereft of the “we’re all in it together” values of post-war Britain. We all agree that we need to create a stronger society, yet all sides seem to struggle with practical ideas for how to do it. Demos today (Event: 8th Dec, 2009) launches a report arguing that the principle of national service, abolished in Britain in 1960, still has something to offer. Read Article
Ed. – About DEMOS (from site): …a think-tank focused on power and politics. We search for and communicate ideas to give people more power to shape their own lives. Demos’ vision is a democracy of free citizens, with an equal stake in society. ‘Owing’ someone does not seem to indicate freedom. Making ‘community assistance’ part of the school curriculum is indeed laudable, and encourages interaction.
Deutsche Welle – An informative and sobering look at how the AIDS problem and AIDS sufferers are dealt with in Russia. Transcript: “There’s no doubt about it, Russia is sitting on a time-bomb. Against the back-drop of the fastest-growing AIDS epidemic in the world; Russia is still in denial.” See Video
The Daily Telegraph – Research among pre-school girls found that up to 50 per cent were already anxious about how they look while a third wanted to lose weight or change their hair colour. But exposure to images of idealised beauty, such as princesses in films, does not appear to make their anxiety worse, according to the study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Read Article
Physorg.com – In a rare joint press conference late Wednesday and comments Thursday, [top Japanese scientists] attacked a proposal to cut 26.76 billion yen (300 million dollars) in funds the science ministry has requested to subsidise a super-computer project. [This computer would] be used for cutting-edge research in fields such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. Read Article
Ed. – Governments all over the world seem to have little idea about the immense value of basic research OR of the impact of cutting funding to a long-term project. However, since both biotechnology and nanotechnology are going foward too far and too fast, I think we need an accelerant in these areas like ‘a hole in the head’.
The Daily Telegraph – Three quarters of children admit secretly visiting social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo without their parents knowledge, according research by Professor Tanya Byron.Three quarters of children admit secretly visiting social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo without their parents knowledge, according research by Professor Tanya Byron. Read Article
Ed. – The moral: Kids are more technology-savvy than you are. Have the discussions about possible dangers and sensible ways to handle ‘off-putting’ repsonses etc. – then, hopefully, you can trust them more. You may find that your child knows more about the dangers etc than you think – and maybe you’ll learn more about using your computer!
