An interesting story about the Postville plant has conservative rabbis demanding fair treatment of workers in order for food to be kosher.
This is perfectly reasonable and the orthodox rabbis need to have their beards dipped in ink for opposing it.
For food to be kosher, it can not be processed or transported on the Sabbath. The Bible says very specific things about not abusing those who work for you. Shouldn’t that mean that kosher food must be processed in a plant that is safe on workers?
Some people have too little to do.
God, this sort of ignorant nonsense infuriates me:
If you had $147,000 to spend on scientific research, would you rather try to find a cure for cancer or see whether women get sexually aroused while watching pornography?
Or how about this: How much would you spend to learn whether men or women are more likely to sleep with a stranger?
Or maybe you want to learn whether athlete’s muscles feel more relaxed after getting a massage. Seems kind of obvious, right?
Each of those questions has been studied by academics, and in most cases taxpayers have foot the bill, sometimes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.
“Oftentimes academic researchers will get government grants to do things that you’ve got to wonder: Why are they doing that?” said Merrill Goozner, director of the integrity in science project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “There’s plenty of research out there that doesn’t need to be done, and why somebody funds it is one of the great mysteries of life.”
This is an agency that has funding of tens of billions of dollars. It’s funded research is peer-approved (obviously a bad things since 535 lawyers clearly know better which issues should be studied). Read the comments for lots of insight. It’s heartening to see people not cowed by this garbage.
I can think of perfectly valid reasons to study all of these things. Studying porn’s effect on women may provide insight into understanding female sexuality, a subject woefully understudied. Americans spend billions of dollars on massages and it is of scientific interest to see if this actually works.
But never mind. Let’s just publish a hysterical article.
Yet more pooch-screwing today by the US track team. They’ve been thoroughly thrashed by Jamaica. And now they don’t even make it out of the first round in the 4×100 relay. They did salvage a bit by sweeping the 400m final.
In other news, Laura Wilkinson blew two dives. US softball lost for the first time in eight years. Well, at least the May-Walsh held up their end.
American dumbassery at track and field continues. Yesterday, Brad Walker didn’t try a single pole vault until 5.75 meters, the promptly blew all three. Today Breaux Greer set a season best with his first javelin tossed, then passed on his next two throws. He almost didn’t qualify as other athletes passed him.
Whoever is in charge of US Track and Field needs to be fired. What a disgrace this Olympics has been. Utter collapses everywhere. Brad Walker today did not make a single pole vault. What the hell? What a disaster.
PJ is going to write. My anticipation level just nudged above, “eh”.
Stories like this break your heart.
The only surprise is that I thought Republicans would be better tippers. Shame on them.
Gregg Easterbrook today:
In other Olympic news, the timer said Michael Phelps swam the 100-meter butterfly in 50.58 seconds, Milorad Cavic swam it in 50.59 — can anyone seriously believe either finished one-hundredth of a second different from the other?
Yes. Because the cameras at the finish take pictures 10,000 times a second.
Jesus Christ, I just saw an NBC puff piece on Kobe Bryant. It would been quicker and more entertaining if the reporter had simply sucked Kobe’s dick. He asked, I shit you not, if loving your country was outdated.
This is journalism?
Stop whining whenever you don’t win. Between Blake screaming about his tennis match and Marta Karolyi whining about underage gymnasts and Davey Johnson claiming the Cubans are throwing at his players, you sound like a bunch of sore losers.
You can never find your cellphone. I’m bad with cellphones to begin with. I rarely carry mine and it’s constantly out of juice. A couple of years ago, I lost a phone in West Texas. And another perished in the Great Root Beer Incident of 2007.
But now that I have a kid — one who is utterly fascinated by my phone — I can pretty much kiss it goodbye. It will go missing for days only to later reappear it in the cat food. It’s really only a matter of time until it’s flushed down the toilet.