A Merry Christmas to all of you who observe the day, and hope the rest of you are having fun.
From the surfing Santa of Indonesia to where it all began in Bethlehem… Christmas celebrations around the world Daily Mail (hat tip reader May S)
UK trains Bangladeshi government’s “death squad”: Wikileaks Tehelka (hat tip reader May S)\
Manning’s message on Christmas Eve: ‘I greatly appreciate everyone’s support’ Raw Story
Late Night: Triangulation by Any Other Name Swopa, FireDogLake
A Little More on Prisons, Incapacitation and Conservative Thought Mike Konczal
Incompetent Economists, Not Pensions, Push Property Taxes Higher Dean Baker
U.S. Online Holiday Sales Climb 15%, Boosting Overall Share Bloomberg
The Foreclosure Mess: Florida Judges Can Do Better Abagail Field, DailyFinance (hat tip reader Lisa Epstein)
The End of Men Atlantic (hat tip Pat Caddell). From earlier in the year, but worth reading if you missed it.
The Fading Dream of Europe New York Review of Books
Antidote du jour:
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“where it all began in Bethlehem”?
No, it all began in another Bethlehem altogether.
http://www.archaeology.org/0511/abstracts/jesus.html
Tying in to your The End of Men link, this came up a couple of weeks ago:
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December 13, 2010, 6:00 am
The Declining Demand for Men
By NANCY FOLBRE
Nancy Folbre is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The Great Recession has sometimes been dubbed the Mancession because it drove unemployment among men higher than unemployment among women. Because men tend to work in more cyclical industries than women, they have historically lost more jobs on the downturn and gained more on the upturn.
The current upturn, however, is doing little to restore jobs, with November unemployment rates at 10.6 percent for men and 8.9 percent for women.
A long-term trend also lurks behind the cyclical pattern — a decline in the demand for the kinds of jobs that men typically fill.
For example, men constitute more than 71 percent of the work force in manufacturing but less than 25 percent of the workers in health and education services. As the chart above shows, these two employment categories were similar in size in 2000, but manufacturing employment has failed to rise, even in non-recession years. Employment in health and education, in contrast, has risen slowly, but steadily.
The decline of manufacturing employment helps explain why men’s labor force participation has declined in recent years, while women’s labor force participation has remained relatively constant, after increasing rapidly between 1970 and 1990. The decline in men’s labor force participation would be even greater if increased incarceration were taken into account.
…
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-declining-demand-for-men/
Happy holidays to all. A special thanks to Yves and all the wonderfull posters on this forum who have provided so much insight.
@ All
Merry X-mas , have fun ppl !!!
I suppose it’s a little late, but Happy Festivus to all!
Yves and all who comment, happy holidays!
Have thoroughly enjoyed this blog in 2010 and learned a lot along the way.
Thanks enormously, and good wishes all around.
By Odin, a happy Midvinterblot to all!
Merry Xmas and any other holidays!
Here’s an interesting story to ponder over the holidays:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
Seems like our rights are getting eroded. I wouldn’t mind the police state crap so much if the camera’s worked both ways.
Merry Christmas, all! That photo is why we’ve transitioned to a fake tree. The cat is always under it, but seldom in it – the inverse was true with a real tree.
Be safe and warm this holiday weekend.
Merry Christmas to all and hopefully 2011 will be better
A response to “The End of Men”: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/07/the-end-of-men-the-beginning-o/
In a society where no one does anything any longer, where BS politics rule and “getting along” in this insanity is considered a good quality, I don’t consider women becoming dominant as a win for them. Enjoy living in your “protruding nail must be hammered down” world Rosin while it lasts.
Isn’t hammering the nail that sticks up a phenomenon that’s present in collectivist societies as well? I recall reading that someone described their educational experience in Japan using that phrase. Getting along with peers is important to humans. In high school, it’s called “peer pressure” and “fitting in”. In the adult world, it’s called networking.