aphar

There have been plenty of research which conclusively proves that there is no (within the margin of error) economic benefits to daylight saving time, as well as plenty of evidence that traffic accidents and heart attacks spike right after the time change.
So, when are we going to drop this horror?

wiki:
Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight; its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and often contradictory.

DST's occasional clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Often, software can adjust computer clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST rules change.

sign a petition!

http://www.beseder.co.il/ne-nasiluyut-znachit-rasistyi

приза преподавателей Еврейского Университета удостоилось прелюбопытнейшее исследование, посвященное массовым изнасилованиям израильскими солдатами палестинских девушек. То есть, если точнее, исследование посвящено отсутствию вышеупомянутых изнасилований и влиянию сего возмутительнейшего факта на международный имидж и престиж Израиля.

Предисловие документа, ... гордо объявляет, что "отсутствие организованных военных изнасилований является альтернативным методом достижения политических целей". ... "В контексте Израильско-палестинского конфликта можно рассматривать отсутствие военных изнасилований как средство усиления этнических различий и укрепление барьера между народами".

... изнасилования не происходят, поскольку имел место процесс обесчеловечивания арабских девушек и женщин в глазах израильских солдат и прочих оккупантов. Значительная часть этого блестящего исследования посвящена гипотезе о том, что в природе имеет место быть тайный заговор, запрещающий израильским солдатам надругательство над арабками - поскольку родившиеся в результате дети будут относиться к арабской нации, влияя на демографическую ситуацию неподходящим для Израиля образом.

http://generalnewsgroup.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/refutations-of-popular-gun-myths/

MYTH: “The police can protect you.”
---- Police write great reports, but an officer can only protect you if he/she happens to be there when the crime starts.

MYTH: “A handgun in a home is 43 times more likely to kill one of the residents than a criminal.”
---- Bogus. If you remove the suicides from his sampling, his statistic is now “6 times more likely”. Most of the remaining “victims” were multiple criminals living together, where one shot the other in a fight.

MYTH: “More children die of gunfire in America that the next 25 industrial nations combined”
---- Bogus. This "statistics" includes Kuwait(?!) but leaves out Russia and Brazil.

MYTH: “Countries with strict gun laws have less crime”
---- Russia, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil have very strict gun laws and much higher crime than we do. Switzerland has almost 100% handgun ownership. If guns caused crime, Switzerland would be the most dangerous nation on earth, rather than one of the safest. Finland has higher per-capita gun ownership than America, and they also have lower crime rates. Israel has 40% higher gun ownership, and near zero murder, except for terrorists. New York, California, Chicago, and Washington DC have the strictest gun laws in America, and the highest crime rates. Virginia borders Washington DC, yet it has few gun laws and far fewer violent crimes. Vermont has the least restrictive gun laws in America, and their gun crime rate is 48th out of 50 states. Every state that started allowing average citizens to carry concealed weapons saw a decrease in violent crime over the ensuing years. Gun laws have been proven to make things worse, not better.

MYTH: “Guns should be registered like cars”
---- Registering guns only makes sense if you want to confiscate all of them.

MYTH: “What if only one life is saved by more gun laws, isn’t is worth it?”
---- How many lives will be lost because of gun laws? 2.5 Million crimes per year are stopped by armed citizens. What are their lives worth?

MYTH: “The Second Amendment was written when muskets were the primary military arms. The Founding Fathers never would have considered allowing citizens to own assault rifles.”
---- Shall we also ban free speech on television, radio, and the Internet because they weren’t invented in 1791

MYTH: “The Second Amendment was about state militias like the National Guard”
---- We see dozens of statements in the writings of the Founding Fathers that the right to keep and bear arms is a personal right and none that say otherwise. E.g., “The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

more from Gunnar Heinsohn
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114159651882789812.html

Dying nations are usually defined as those with fertility rates of 1.5 or lower. By that measure, 30 European countries are either dying today or -- like France -- seeing their cultures and populations transformed by growing ethnic and religious minorities.

After 1500 and right up to 1914, West European women raised on average about six children, twice as many as during the Middle Ages.
The European economy couldn't keep up. Because a father's land went to his oldest son, the younger brothers were often left to fend for themselves. They quickly found an outlet. In the 16th century, Spain called its young conquistadors "Secundones," second sons, those who don't inherit. Starting with Columbus' second voyage (1493), Europe's surplus males (representing about 10% of the world's fighting-age males at the time) began the conquest of the world. And despite their wars around the globe and the 80 million who died in Europe's domestic wars and genocides, their population rose tenfold to 400 million. The original population bomb was a weapon made in Europe. Over the next few centuries, Europeans took control of 90% of the globe.

After 1945 Europe lost every war it fought, from Indochina, to Algeria to Timor. Euphemisms such as "emancipation of the colonies" hide the true causes behind this chain of defeats. If Europeans had continued to multiply like in its imperialistic prime, the world would still tremble before their armies. In just 100 years, Muslim countries have duplicated the tenfold growth that Europe experienced between 1500-1900. In the last century, the Muslim population skyrocketed to 1.4 billion from 140 million.

If Europe had merely matched the fourfold increase of the United States (to 300 million from 75 million between 1900-2006), the continent's 1.6 billion would still dwarf China (1.3 billion) and India (1.1 billion). Yet, Europe's share of the world's fighting-age males, which stood at 27% in 1914, is lower today (9%) than it was in 1500 (11%). Thus, the new clothes of European "pacifism" and "soft power" conceal its naked weakness.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/100-years-of-big-content-fearing-technologyin-its-own-words.ars

The anxious rhetoric around new technology is really quite shocking in its vehemence, from claims that the player piano will destroy musical taste and the "national throat" to concerns that the VCR is like the "Boston strangler" to claims that only Hollywood's premier content could make the DTV transition a success.

In 1906, famous composer John Philip Sousa took to Appleton's Magazine to pen an essay decrying the latest piratical threat to his livelihood, to the entire body politic, and to "musical taste" itself. His concern? The player piano and the gramophone, which stripped the life from real, human, soulful live performances.

The photocopier, invented by Xerox, became a target. In 1972, Time quoted UCLA law professor Melville Nimmer as saying, "the day may not be far off when no one need purchase books" thanks to the sinister uses of the copier.

One lobbyist (rightly) contended that "the VCR is the greatest friend that the American film producer ever had," to which Valenti responded, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

...a famous rhetorical campaign attempted to argue that the analog cassette was literally destroying an entire industry.
Later in the 1980s, the cassette threat diminished in importance as digital audio tape (DAT) appeared on the market.
Forget cassettes—it was DAT that was finally going to bury the music industry.
RIAA President Jason Berman appeared before Congress to testify that "DAT poses the most significant technological threat the American music industry has ever faced."

... ranted about ad skipping. "It's theft," he said. "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming."
The comment was puzzling; had any American ever signed or agreed to such a contract? Furthermore, the interviewer pointed out that commercials have always been skipped: "What if you have to go to the bathroom or get up to get a Coke?"

Vladimir Bukovsky on Political Correctness:

ПОЛИТКОРРЕКТНОСТЬ ХУЖЕ ЛЕНИНИЗМА:
Был такой философ – Герберт Маркузе, ревизионист-марксист. Он был несогласен с Марксом в одной точке: Маркс считал революционным классом пролетариат (что очевидно не так), а Маркузе учил, что истинный революционный класс – разнообразные меньшинства. Патологию нужно объявить нормой, а норму – патологией. "Только тогда, - пишет Маркузе, - мы, наконец, разрушим буржуазное общество".
Активисты, которые якобы защищают права меньшинств – гомосексуальные и феминистические организации – на самом деле о меньшинствах не заботятся. Они, как в свое время Ленин – рабочих, используют их как инструмент давления и контроля над обществом, и приносят им больше вреда, чем всем остальным. В Америке жена моего друга 7 лет назад основала движение "Женщины Америки против феминизма". Начинала она с несколькими подругами, а теперь у их журнала тираж – 2 млн. Женщины начинают понимать, что феминизм им враждебен, что он разрушает их жизнь, что он не дает им выбирать то, что хочется им, а не то, что им навязывают разные активистки.
Короче говоря, мы имеем дело с серьезной идеологией, которая под вывеской политической корректности пытается разрушить наше общество. Чем меньшинствам хуже, тем лучше их лидерам: будет что защищать. Но их задача – уничтожить наше общество, и это – новая, злейшая версия марксизма.

Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship:

...political correctness spreads and becomes an oppressive ideology...
..the original idea was to have what they called a convergency, whereby the Soviet Union would mellow somewhat and become more social-democratic, while Western Europe would become social-democratic and socialist. Then there will be convergency. The structures have to fit each other. This is why the structures of the European Union were initially built with the purpose of fitting into the Soviet structure. This is why they are so similar in functioning and in structure.
It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan. We used to have an organisation which was planning everything in the economy, to the last nut and bolt, five years in advance. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU. When you look at the type of EU corruption, it is exactly the Soviet type of corruption, going from top to bottom rather than going from bottom to top.

...всё идёт к исконно-православной парадигме Троицы: Царь-отец, Царь-сын, сейчас Сталина залижут до блеска - будет Царь-святой дух...

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/2904/full

Nicotine enhances attention and memory in schizophrenics, says a study that supports the development of new treatments which could relieve symptoms and prevent smoking-related deaths.

A strong link between schizophrenia and smoking – with over three times as many schizophrenics smoking (70 to 90%) as the population at large – prompted scientists to investigate the link.

...

Nicotine itself is unlikely to make an effective treatment, because of its side effects and addictive potential, but drugs known as nicotinic agonists, which target nicotine receptors in the brain, are front runners in the challenge to find an effective replacement.

Флюгер был приколочен намертво, и ветер обреченно дул в указанном направлении (с) не мое