Rotundus.com

Mixing Drinks, Adding Class

Even for the New York Times this seems a little snooty: "In my opinion, if you don’t have a bartender at your party, you’re a loser". Of course that was from a guy who "said his job was to get models and Saudi royalty into hot clubs"

Sexual Partner Divorce Risk

The study's graph of the correlation of the number of sexual partners a person has and divorce is kind of interesting.

The Politics of Fear

Drives home the point that it's not just conservatives who could be spoken of as invoking the politics of fear

Canadians tend to fib about church attendance: Research

" ... while Europeans report their religious attendance more or less accurately, there's a big gap between what Canadians and Americans say and what they do."

This is part 1 of a documentary (with the remaining parts also available on YouTube) dealing with a seldom discussed problem, the expulsion of Jews from various parts of the Middle East and North Africa in the 20th century. More details available elsewhere - most of mine are in book form so I'll just point you to two articles on Wikipedia as a starting point.

There's a lot you can criticize Israel for. That includes past involvement with terrorism, religious discrimination, and certain aspects of how the country treats it's Arab citizens (look, for example, at the education funding per student for Arabs versus Jewish schools). In the same category I'd toss the recent moves the state of Israel has made towards requiring a loyalty oath towards Israel as a "Jewish state" and the recent resumption of settlement building in the West Bank.

Still, those states around it seem at best to be no better. Israel's got a lot more freedom of the press (the loyalty oath article above is from a Jewish newspaper and refers to protests on Israeli soil for example). Similarly, although there's some incidents in which they lack transparency, a editor at a leading Palestinian news agency had the following to say:

I find it preposterous that there's transparency when the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] arrests Palestinians but not from the PA [Palestinian Authority] when they arrest their own people. (Source: FP)

The Corruption Perceptions Index ranks Israel as significantly less corrupt than the countries surrounding it. In addition, Arab Israelis may have more rights. As one observer notes: "Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arab women can vote. In contrast to the non-Israeli Arab world, Arab women in Israel enjoy the same status as men." While some discrimination against Arabs seems to exist in Israel, the same applies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

All in all, I can't say that I'm expecting any sort of quick and easy solution to this problem anytime in the near future.

Kawah Ijen by night

If you're curious what a sulfur mine in a volcano might look like then take a look at these photos. The price you pay to take photos in a volcano (taken from one of the photo descriptions): "Grunewald lost one camera and two lenses to the harsh conditions in the crater, and when it was over, he threw all of his clothes in the garbage, as the sulfuric smell was so strong and would not wash out"

"Temporary" Oftentimes Becomes "Permanent"

Originally a post from Mike Wittner, but the added title seems to sum things up quite well.

Hyperlinks thread that binds the web, Supreme Court told

Time to see whether or not the Canadian Supreme Court is going with the times, or isn't quite up to date.

Men die earlier, get sicker more, B.C. delegation tells national conference

No surprises there.

I'm sure that comments like those below will help Botswana's president find a wife:

President Ian Khama, 57, has never been married, but at a political party meeting last month he said his top requirement for a future wife is that she needs to be tall, slim and beautiful – in a country known for short, heavy set women.

To drive the point home he pointed to the Assistant Minister of Local Government Botlhogile Tshreletso and said, "I don't want one like this one. She may fail to pass through the door, breaking furniture with her heavy weight and even break the vehicle's shock absorbers."

- Excerpted from President of Botswana Says No Short, Fat Wife for Him

Makes the cookie guy's words seem like great PR.