So. Are you your body? And if so, how exactly does this work? Lets explore lots of confusing questions.
31 May 2016
Deutsche Welle: Polish apples feel the crunch
Two years on, some Polish producers would like to see the EU lift its sanctions on Russia, adding their voices to those of business interests in France and Austria, among other EU countries.
Poland's government is virulently anti-Russian, however, and is keen to bolster the impression that the potential for Russian aggression necessitates greater NATO presence on the alliance's eastern flank. It wants sanctions to stay in place, whether they hit Polish apple exporters or not. [...]
For a while, Polish apple producers managed to sell apples to Russia despite the sanctions, thanks to re-exports through third countries, Belarus in particular, and also via Crimea and Ukraine. The latter become a major export market for Polish exporters.
Some Russian wholesalers were reportedly still actively buying Polish apples as recently as April 2016 despite the sanctions. But not any more, it seems. Russia has now banned some imports of foodstuffs from Ukraine, and tougher customs control systems have been imposed on products from Belarus.
The Guardian: Why aren’t there more women in science? The industry structure is sexist
Findings such as these usually provoke a cry of “We need more women in science!” and organisations wheel out a spokesperson to explain that girls should be encouraged to study science at university. The Welsh government, for example, celebrated International Women’s Day this way.
But while this is a fantastic way to persuade science funding bodies to reach into their pockets, it just doesn’t fit with the evidence. The quiet truth is this: women are doing science. And not only “more women than ever before”, as the New Scientist puts it. In fact, in lots of scientific disciplines women outnumber men. [...]
European social science research shows that male and female scientists often have different types of partners: male scientists more frequently have a stay-at-home partner looking after the children, while female scientists are more likely to have another scientist as a spouse. So male scientists might not need family-friendly working practices to have a successful career but female scientists do. Hence the loss of women in the “leaky pipeline” of scientific careers. And that is to say nothing of the research that found scientists perceived job applicants to be less competent when they had female names.
A FiveThirtyEight Guide To Veepstakes Speculation
Do vice presidential candidates help a ticket win their home state? Not really. A new book by two political scientists — “The VP Advantage: How running mates influence home state voting in presidential elections” — finds that these effects are “conditional and rare” and uses American National Election Studies data to demonstrate that even famously strategic picks, such as John F. Kennedy’s selection of Lyndon Johnson in 1960, did little to influence election performance. This is all consistent with previous research,2 which points to an unsurprising conclusion: Presidential elections are about presidents, not vice-presidents, and that goes even for residents of the running mate’s home state. Beware stories claiming a vice-presidential nominee will put his or her home state in play. [...]
All but two Democratic candidates picked running mates who moved the ticket to the center. In 1988, for example, Michael Dukakis picked a running mate who was well to the right of his own positions, Lloyd Bentsen. These scores also suggest that Biden was much closer to the center than Obama. For Republicans, the opposite is true: Most vice-presidential candidates have been more conservative than the presidential candidate. [...]
There’s often a big gap between what we think matters and what factors seem to influence candidates’ choices, and how voters react to them. The research isn’t always consistent, but a few patterns are clear: Experience matters. Female running mates garner media attention, but not all of it is positive. Home-state advantage may exist, but only in certain cases and even then at the margins. And ideological balancing, along with other forms of ticket balancing, is a much smaller part of the modern VP selection process than many media accounts would suggest.
The Guardian: North Korea praises Trump and urges US voters to reject 'dull Hillary'
North Korean state media has praised US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, describing him as a “wise politician” and “far-sighted candidate” who could help unify the Korean peninsula.
An editorial in DPRK Today, an official media outlet, welcomed the Republican presidential candidate’s proposal to hold direct talks with Kim Jong-un, saying he could help bring about Pyongyang’s “Yankee go home” policy. [...]
“This is very striking,” said Aidan Foster-Carter of the University of Leeds. “Admittedly it is not exactly Pyongyang speaking, or at least not the DPRK government in an official capacity. But it is certainly Pyongyang flying a kite, or testing the waters.
Los Angeles Times: Confederate flags have no place flying over national cemeteries
That practice is insupportable and an amendment to a congressional spending bill now moving through Congress would end it. The Republican-dominated House is to be commended for approving the measure even though a majority of Republicans voted against it. The ban should remain in the bill as it passes through the Senate, where it should be approved, and then it should be sent on to President Obama for his signature.
The U.S. government should not be flying the flag of the secessionists whose traitorous actions more than 150 years ago posed the most serious threat to the nation’s existence. But notably, the bill would not bar individuals from decorating their ancestors’ graves with small Confederate flags on the commemoration days. That's an objectionable practice, but it is a matter of free speech, protected by the 1st Amendment.
No region of the United States has a morally pure history. By the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, six of the 13 original states had ended slavery within their borders. As admirable as that might have been, it also means the states had previously allowed, and profited from, the practice. And Northern states have their own legacies of racism and segregation, which in truth have been a stain on this nation from the first European encounters with Native Americans and which continued long after slavery was abolished nationwide.
The Telegraph: Polish firms employing North Korean 'slave labourers' benefit from EU aid
As many as 800 North Korean "slave labourers" are working in the shipbuilding and construction sectors in Poland, in some cases for companies that are receiving financial support from the European Union.
A report by academics from the Leiden Asia Centre, working with lawyers and human rights activists, claims the North Korean workers' salaries are paid to managers and repatriated to Pyongyang. [...]
North Koreans are employed by 32 companies in Poland and are required to put in more than 12 hours of work a day, six days a week.
But the complex network of companies that employ them and the paperwork they are issued with make it difficult for authorities to track all the North Korean workers, meaning it is possible that more workers have been "loaned on" to companies elsewhere in the EU.
Business Insider: Putin has turned Russia into a ticking time-bomb only he can defuse
The Financial Times reported that Putin dismissed eight senior law enforcement officials while promoting 12 others who are viewed as Putin loyalists.
The formation of a National Guard is arguably the strongest sign that Putin is increasingly desperate to secure his power and position. It will report directly to the government.
That means security for Putin and his increasingly large close cohort of loyalists, as he can strengthen his hold over any elites who might be seen as getting out of line. [...]
Political uncertainty almost always means the players never look far ahead. But if nobody is forming long-term strategies, the collapse of Russia’s political system, Petrov says, is “as inevitable as the collapse of a financial pyramid scheme”.
Putin is Russia, Russia is Putin.
He’s hugely popular, but has created a regime where he is the central point of power and surrounded himself with lackeys to sustain it.That means if Putin crumbles, everything crumbles.
Los Angeles Times: Russia's got a point: The U.S. broke a NATO promise
Leaders in Moscow, however, tell a different story. For them, Russia is the aggrieved party. They claim the United States has failed to uphold a promise that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe, a deal made during the 1990 negotiations between the West and the Soviet Union over German unification. In this view, Russia is being forced to forestall NATO’s eastward march as a matter of self-defense.
The West has vigorously protested that no such deal was ever struck. However, hundreds of memos, meeting minutes and transcripts from U.S. archives indicate otherwise. Although what the documents reveal isn’t enough to make Putin a saint, it suggests that the diagnosis of Russian predation isn’t entirely fair. Europe’s stability may depend just as much on the West’s willingness to reassure Russia about NATO’s limits as on deterring Moscow’s adventurism.
Deutsche Welle: Human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva: 'There will be positive change in Russia'
The Russian leadership is suffering from them because of the lack of new technologies. I don't know a whole lot about that, but the population is suffering greatly. Even in Moscow, which is still fairly well off, the choice of food products has gotten considerably worse, and prices are very high. (Ed.: Reacting to Western sanctions, Russia stopped the import of Western food items.) People have started to save, including on their food bills. I would like to see an end to this, but I understand that it is a political question.
You have been working for 50 years now to ensure that human rights are respected in Russia. How do you maintain your optimism?
As bad as the human rights situation might be currently, it's still better than during the Soviet era, when we had no rights at all. We may be lagging behind European states, but there have also been some positive changes. I've understood that if you want to achieve something good, you need to work not for 50 years, but for 100 years. There will be positive change in Russia, I'm optimistic about that.
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