Nothingman's Blog About Nothing
If I Hate You More Than Myself We’ve Got A Problem
I like to think I’m an acquired taste, like old whiskey or arsenic in your tea
So this is usually the part where pretension comes out in full and beautiful force but this is going to be the first time in a long time I'm going to be honest. My name is Clarence (Hello), born in 1988, i got my undergrad degree in Sociology (with a concentration in Women's Studies) and I'm utterly terrified. I'm scared of everything, people, my own feelings and sometimes even being but really there's nothing much to be done about that despite what I say. And I will say a lot about how my life has no meaning and i want to die (which is the majority of the time) but sometimes it seems like life is worth living for and everything in it is a spectacular explosion of awe inspiring wonder (which is usually a three week span some time in March). If it seems odd to read think what it might be like living it. So to get off the topic of terror I prefer stories. I like to read them, I love to live in them and there is nothing better to me than a story so I guess this blog is a story mostly about me. Don't bother trying to find themes, connection or messages in what I post cause there really aren't any (unless they are completely accidental).
This blog is a story about what I find, what I feel and what I think so to that end I collect things to post or reblog. Its not meant to be anything truly meaningful or interconnected, just fun (mostly fun for me if you don't like it you can fuck right off) This is collection of all the the weird and interesting links from around the net that I find, comics, technology, comedy, current events, sociology, general geek/nerd interest, a little pornography and more weird stuff (seriously its become about 65% clusterfuck of the strange stuff which is also why I don't feel bad about continuing to name it Strange World). I think it makes for the closest representation to who I am that I've ever done and it just keeps growing bigger which is most of the fun. And don't be disturbed if i in several post warn about my soon to happen suicide (I have yet to actually do it so we're all probably safe for a few more years). Please feel free to talk to me and don't mind the depressive tone i will probably be using. I like to think I'm somewhat fun if also a complete idiot.
Please feel free to talk to me by letter in my ask or by following me on other social networks but please just throw me a message about who you are so I accept the request I have no patients for spamming (send me an ask here if you want to be a friend on Steam.
By the By it goes without saying you should make sure children don't read most of this (I like swearing and naked women of all shapes, colors and sizes).
You can Check me on Good Reads to Find out what I'm reading or send me Recommends
You can Also check me on Steam, I game a LOT (But its mostly solo RPGs)
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westeros’s celebs read mean tweets (ps: all tweets are real)
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lord
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This is the only reasonable solution to...
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Someone should photo shop a whole series of bought politicians and use the pictures for organizing.
An illustration of what GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor would look like if he had to wear the corporate logos of most of his top 20 contributors.
(via gigi2690)
(via wilwheaton)
(via gigi2690)
Flood Prevention
This artist’s rendering provided by DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office shows a proposed perimeter wetlands and an archipelago of man-made barrier islets on New York’s Manhattan island, designed to absorb the brunt of a huge storm surge. Picture: DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office/AP
(via vivelavapeur)
Shauna Prewitt:
Others argue that no rapist would ever seek parental rights. Not only does my experience and that of others I know prove otherwise, but it is not surprising that a man who cruelly degrades a woman would also seek to torture her in an even more agonizing way, by seeking access to her child.
Today, it seems we may face a new and unbelievable challenge: convincing legislators that women can conceive when they are raped.
(via gigi2690)
Glenn Greenwald, US drone strikes target rescuers in Pakistan — and the west stays silent
…attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America’s drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that “the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals.” Specifically: “at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims.”
Since that first bureau report, there have been numerous other documented cases of the use by the US of this tactic: “On [4 June], US drones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On 28 May, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali.” Moreover, “between May 2009 and June 2011, at least 15 attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and Al Jazeera.”
It is telling indeed that the Obama administration now routinely uses tactics in Pakistan long denounced as terrorism when used by others, and does so with so little controversy. Just in the past several months, attacks on funerals of victims have taken place in Yemen (purportedly by al-Qaida) and in Syria (purportedly, though without evidence, by the Assad regime), and such attacks — understandably — sparked outrage. Yet, in the west, the silence about the Obama administration’s attacks on funerals and rescuers is deafening.
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The reason for the silence about such matters, and the reason commentary of this sort sparks such anger and hostility, is two-fold: first, the US likes to think of terror as something only “others” engage in, not itself, and more so; second, supporters of Barack Obama, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, simply do not want to think about him as someone who orders attacks on those rescuing his victims or funeral attendees gathered to mourn them.
(via fariyah)
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Awesome.
One year ago, Jose Antonio Vargas publicly revealed he’s an undocumented immigrant. In the latest issue of TIME which will hit newsstands Friday, Vargas reports on life in citizenship limbo, and how others are ‘coming out.’
Read the cover story here.
(Photograph by Gian Paul Lozza for TIME)
(via zeezeescorner)
The Pew Research Centre’s Global Attitudes Project finds that humanitarian aid has a limited effect on improving the USA’s international image around the world. For example, in 2011, 85% of the 700 Japanese people who were surveyed reported a favourable view of America versus 66% of the Japanese participants in 2010. While the Pew Centre acknowledges that various reasons might contribute to an increased positive view of the USA, it seemed that America’s humanitarian commitment had a big impact in Japan. Then again, while the Pew Centre finds that America’s overseas aid improves its image in some countries, the link between humanitarianism and public goodwill is limited.
In Indonesia, the USA’s image improved in 2005, a couple of months after it delivered aid in the Banda Aceh region after a devastating tsunami. This positive view was not as strong as it was prior to the Second Gulf War.
In Pakistan, the USA’s public image improved modestly after it delivered aid to Northern Pakistan after a major earthquake in 2005, but this public image slipped again just one year later. By 2010, public goodwill towards the USA had slipped even further, despite America pledging humanitarian assistance following the floods.
Richard Wike, Associate Director for the Pew Global Attitudes Project writes:
The lesson for disaster relief efforts is that they are more likely to have a significant effect on public attitudes in countries where there is at least a reservoir of goodwill toward the U.S. In nations such as Pakistan, where countervailing issues and deeply held suspicions drive intense anti-Americanism, enhancing America’s image through humanitarian aid may prove considerably more difficult.
Read more about the surveys here.
Jeff Madrick, The Washington Post, 19 Nov 2011.
Jeff Madrick is an Economics columnist and author of Age of Greed (2011). His piece for The Washington Post last year that still captures my sociological imagination today. Madrick argues that while America cannot live without Wall Street, it has moved away from its primary function, to support small businesses and to engender economic growth to serve the public, rather than personal interests of an elite few… Madrick argues that American society needs to shift its thinking about Wall Street - to start thinking of it as “expendable”. Why is this view relevant to applied sociology? …I find Madrick’s analysis useful for thinking about: what does Wall Street look like if it was working as an equitable, transparent and well-regulated social institution? What social policies and social practices are required in order to shift its current practices? The first step is to go back to what Wall Street should be doing, then working out how to ensure that begins to happen.
Read more at my other blog, Sociology at Work.
(via zeezeescorner)(via zeezeescorner)
Must see, this is what our future is about.
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Read the rest of the article » here
(via den1990)
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), who was a Baptist minister, a Christian socialist, and the cousin of socialist utopian novelist Edward Bellamy (1850–1898).
Bellamy’s original Pledge read as follows:
I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
The Pledge was supposed to be quick and to the point. Bellamy designed it to be recited in 15 seconds. As a socialist, he had initially also considered using the words equality and fraternity but decided against it - knowing that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans.
“Obama directed several federal agencies to identify “high-impact, job-creating infrastructure projects” that can be expedited now, without congressional approval.
“…the administration can make a fair amount of progress on its own infrastructure goals without the help of Congress. Obama’s order on Wednesday was issued in similar spirit to other smooth-government activities designed to get stuff done. The Energy Department already is using a technology-related “dashboard” to allow businesses and consumers to track government projects, which will now be extended to other federal agencies. The Transportation Department has been developing its own “infrastructure bank” to help direct technical assistance and federal money to high-impact road and bridge projects. That idea will now be shared among other agencies.
Source: The Atlantic