March 2012
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Why the tradition of leap year marriage proposals... →
According to this custom, women get the once-in-four-years opportunity to propose. But a new paper argues that the tradition actually undermines women and reinforces long-standing stereotypes about traditional roles.
February 2012
58 posts
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Study: Rich people are more likely to behave... →
“This isn’t just a case of upper socioeconomic people being more willing to admit that they would be unethical,” said researcher Paul Piff, a social psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “We actually measure cheating behavior — not just ‘Would you do something unethical’ but ‘Do you do it?’” The findings beg the question of...
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Invasive ultrasound measure hits Alabama →
A few days after Virginia lawmakers shot down a similar measure, the Alabama state Senate is going forward with a bill to require women seeking an abortion to go through an ultrasound procedure “in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced.”
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“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on...”
– Chief Justice John Roberts, in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District. How his statement in this case might help predict the outcome of the high court’s newly accepted case, Fisher v. University of Texas, which questions the constitutionality of the use of race in...
“We are visual by nature,” Zac Moffatt said, describing a paradigm shift as if...”
– Virginia Heffernan, How the iPhone is changing how Washington thinks (via yahoopolitics)
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Gay marriage is all but legal in Maryland →
But opponents have vowed to fight the measure at the ballot box.
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Our Q&A with "Parks and Recreation" funnyman Aziz...
Us: How did you end up as the host for this event?
Ansari: There must be some Indian guy who was a Nobel Prize winner with a very similar name to mine maybe?
Us: Is this the first Obama fundraiser you've done? If not, how'd the others go?
Ansari: I'm pretty sure I did some "Standup for Obama" type events for the last election and they went well. I'm too lazy to go through my emails and confirm that this ever happened, but in my heart I definitely did and they were key to winning the last election.
Us: Are you going to do standup for the president? Are you nervous about that at all?
Ansari: I've been told I'm just making some remarks and getting the crowd fired up. I'm gonna talk to Funkmaster Flex tomorrow to get some "crowd firing up" pointers.
Us: If you were forced to vote Republican, who would you vote for? Why?
Ansari: Wait is that a thing in my district now? Being forced to vote Republican? Oh man. Things are getting rough.
Us: I realize you don't talk too much about growing up as a child of a Muslim household in the south. But in general, what role do you think Muslim-Americans and Indian Americans are going to play in the 2012 presidential election?
Ansari: Hmm ...
Us: I also read you're an atheist, a group of voters that politicians don't tend to court. Should they?
Ansari: I'm not the guy that would know the answer to either of those questions. You need to be redirected to a smarter, more informed Indian person. I'm the guy that makes a living saying things like "What's crackin' boo?" on TV.
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Here's our GOP debate liveblog →
Follow along and ask our reporters and editors questions.
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WatchOne waterway controls the flow of 20 percent of the world’s oil, and Iran is threatening to block it. What that means for you.
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New Hampshire might prove pivotal in the general...
No, it’s not early January. And yes, we said “general.” Learn why.
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Our prediction: Obama will win re-election with...
Our team at The Signal crunched the numbers from a real-time prediction engine created by Yahoo! scientists, and the data suggest that a second term is likely for the current president. Of course, we don’t know anything for sure, but an examination of the last 10 presidential elections found that the Yahoo! model would have correctly predicted the winner in 88 percent of the 500 individual state...
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“He says things that I don’t think he believes. He says things that make me...”
– Claudia L. Bushman, a 76-year-old Columbia professor and practicing Mormon who knew Mitt Romney and his family back in the 1970s, remembers him as very suave, but she thinks he’s changed in his efforts to win the Republican presidential nomination. Read our whole interview with her.
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“Everything else, including all sexually intimate acts below the belly button, is...”
– On the eve of Valentine’s Day, ultra-conservative Muslim and love guru Widad Lootah is calling on Muslim and Arab women everywhere to “embrace love and love making,” reminding them that sex isn’t only about conceiving children. “It’s also about having fun,”...
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What Rick Santorum meant to say when speaking...
The GOP presidential candidate raised some eyebrows by saying women should not be in combat because of the “the types of emotions involved.” He followed up afterward: “I was talking about men’s emotional issues; not women,” Santorum said. “I mean, there’s a lot of issues. That’s just one of them.” He’s also concerned about...
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WatchSouth Florida is battling an invasion of giant African snails that eat everything in sight, leaving only a slimy trail behind. The giant gastropods could become a major threat to the state’s agriculture and pose a health risk to humans.
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WatchThe $26 billion long-awaited foreclosure settlement between states, the federal government and banks that was announced today is being hailed as the biggest multi-state settlement since 1998, but is it better for banks or homeowners?
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Washington state lawmakers pass gay marriage bill... →
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Why we believe incorrect information, even after...
Fifty students participated in a study in which they were asked 120 basic science questions. They also ranked their level of confidence in their answers. Their answers were often wrong, so they were given the right answers. Then half of the participants took the same test again immediately. The other half waited a week to take the test a second time. The researchers concluded that the difference...
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WatchIn politics, it’s what you said — not what you meant to say — that matters. Context can really change the meaning, but when it comes to attack ads, there’s no such thing as context. Here are the top 5 quotes Democrats could use against Mitt Romney: 1. “I like being able to fire people.” 2. “Rick, I’ll tell you what, 10,000 bucks? A $10,000 dollar bet?” 3....
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BREAKING NEWS: A federal appeals court has...
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American kids denied food stamps in Alabama under... →
Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen tells us that people have called into the group’s Alabama hotline to say they’ve been denied food stamps even when seeking them for their American children because they couldn’t prove that they themselves were legal residents.
Apparently Alabama’s strict immigration law has a provision that makes it a felony for a...
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Would you buy raspberry-scented "scratch-n-sniff"...
Yes, they actually exist…and there are more flavors coming. Perhaps apple, banana, eucalyptus, grapefruit or mint is more your style?
(Photo courtesy of nakedandfamousdenim.com)
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9th Circuit's ruling on the constitutionality of...
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BREAKING: Mitt Romney wins Nevada Republican...
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Behind the scenes of the Puppy Bowl
Animal Planet’s furry fit of Super Bowl counterprogramming returns for its 8th year of tail-wagging and terrier touchdowns on Sunday afternoon.
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@AP: BREAKING: Susan G. Komen for the Cure...
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"We're a library, so we facilitate access to...
A Seattle library is making news after refusing to remove a man who was watching pornographic videos on a library computer.