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From David Feingold who founded UNESCO's Trafficking Statistics Project:

The identification of trafficking with chattel slavery - in particular, the transatlantic slave trade - is tenuous at best. In the 18th and 19th centuries, African slaves were kidnapped or captured in war. They were shipped to the New World into life-long servitude, from which they or their children could rarely escape. In constrast, although some trafficking victims are kidnapped, for most ... trafficking is migration gone terribly wrong. Most leave their homes voluntarily - though sometimes coerced by circumstance - in search of a materially better or more exciting life. Along the way, they become enmeshed in a coercive and exploitative situation. However, this situation rarely persists for life; nor ... do the trafficked become a permanent or hereditary caste.

- As cited on p. 201 of Better Angels of Our Nature

As Stephen Pinker asserts in the following paragraph, "Feingold also notes that the numbers of trafficking victims reported by activist groups and repeated by journalists and nongovernmental organizations are usually pulled out of thin air and inflated for their advocacy value."

What these words of Feingold really do is suggest that it might be better to equate contemporary slavery more with the situation of illegal immigrants than the images provoked in peoples' minds of slaves in certain times past.

The Isle of Man TT - winners on this course seem to average about 200 km/hour throughout this narrow, winding course, reaching over 300 km/hour in parts.

No one dies in this video, but over the course of 100 years of racing 237 people died on this course (probably about half that number during this particular event).

HT: 22 Words

Walk this Way: The Economic Promise of Walkable Places in Metropolitan Washington, D.C.

"Residents of more walkable places have lower transportation costs and higher transit
access, but also higher housing costs. Residents of more walkable neighborhoods in metropolitan Washington generally spend around 12 percent of their income on transportation and 30 percent on housing. In comparison, residents of places with fewer environmental features that encourage walkability spend around 15 percent on transportation and 18 percent on housing. " Of course, most of the not-so-walkable areas are in the suburbs away from town - I'm guessing a fair number of people would consider avoiding an hour or two per day of commuting to be worth something.

Greeks and Germans at Polar Opposites: European Unity on the Rocks

Some interesting information. On stereotypes: "the British, French and Germans judge the Greeks, Italians and Spanish to be the laziest people in Europe and among the most corrupt. However, Italians and Spaniards largely share this negative image of themselves and their southern counterparts." Interestingly, despite the notion of Germany being strongly opposed to bailouts, there seems to be a 50/50 split in views in that country with others like Britain and France fairly strongly in opposition. Nationals of every country except Greek listed Germany as hardest workest - the Greeks chose themselves for that label.

'Fair and square' pricing? That'll never work, JC Penney. We like being shafted

On the failure of JC Penney's attempt to adopt simple, consistent pricing (no sales, an end to prices ending in .99 or .97 or whatever, etc.)

Lack of Women Hurting IT Industry

The byline: "Female integrators are often ineligible for government contracts because federal law requires at least two women-owned businesses to submit bids." By "ineligible for government contracts", they of course don't actually mean ineligible for government contracts but rather forced to compete on a somewhat more equal basis with other companies, regardless of the genitalia of those companies' owners. (Most "equal-opportunity" employers still seem to give preference to certain groups when bids are deemed more or less equal).

In case the name doesn't ring a bell, David Attenborough does the voiceovers for most BBC Earth productions.

HT: 22 Words