Undead Astronauts

LXD series starts 7/7 on hulu. i was expecting something like a youtube series, but to be featured on hulu means they really put some marketing heft behind this. let’s hope it rocks. i don’t quite understand the link between street dance and needy ugandan children tho. cry me a river tbh.

For the children.

(more…)

beautifulpeople.com is launching a sperm and egg bank. the site, is composed of members who must be voted in by other members. it has magnanimously decided to also allow ugly ppl to enjoy the fruits of their good genes.

“Initially, we hesitated to widen the offering to non-beautiful people. But everyone — including ugly people — would like to bring good looking children in to the world, and we can’t be selfish with our attractive gene pool,” company founder Robert Hintze said in a statement.

ah, if only the rest of the world were so generous, no? still, some ppl (ugly ones) have criticized it as possibly selling false hope, and turning children into “products.”

“This is genetics. It’s still a lottery when you’re picking somebody’s sperm,” he said. “The beauty may not come through in the genetics. … What are the parents supposed to do then? Turn it in?”

i have to give the creators props for shallow chutzpah tho. and certainly, it’s one way to increase the number of offspring from members of highly industrialized societies who are too full of themselves to reproduce. no one wants to imagine a world where the dominant groups are mormons, muslims, and africans who still don’t know how to use birth control.

Edit: pew research has released a report that says 1 in 5 american women go through their childbearing years with no children. being unmarried, educated, or white increased the chances of being childless. being married, unedumacated, or asian decreased the chances of being childless.

in today’s nytimes op-ed, a philosopher poses a question i’ve asked myself many times over: is coming into existence a good thing for a child?

apparently, dead philosopher schopenhauer took this question on and answered with a negative. he held that “even the best life possible for humans is one in which we strive for ends that, once achieved, bring only fleeting satisfaction. New desires then lead us on to further futile struggle and the cycle repeats itself.”

(more…)

hmm…

The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

Around 2,000 families have gone through these Family Intervention Projects so far.

this a joke or exaggeration. it has to be. i mean, i seriously can’t believe ppl would put up w/ this. i would smash the camera to bits even if i had to go to jail. this is revolution time. the article quoted an “ed balls” education secretary, and i even looked him up. it mentions a “shadow home secretary” and the position actually exists. lolwut? i checked some of the other stories on the site, and it appears to be legit. anyways, this story is starting to get major traffic (wired, slashdot etc) so maybe we’ll get “clarification” on it.

if this turns out not to be a joke, i can safely say i never, ever, want to visit the uk. but i must commend them on their gov’t position names. i mean including “shadow” into a title just makes it 100x cooler.

UPDATE: oh. my. god.

Intensive support programme in supervised accommodation
Families receive 24 hour support and supervision from staff in accommodation provided by the project. Families are likely to be involved in many structured sessions as well as daily observation. If the behaviour of the family improves they may be moved into more independent accommodation.

pasted from the uk “Respect” website which aims to “tackle anti-social behavior and its causes.” other great programs they had were street level CCTVs that were monitored by ppl and that were equipped to talk back when “anti-social” behavior was seen. that’s un-fucking-real. still, the page says only 53 intervention projects were established even though there are 1500 problem families.

UPDATE 2: commenters @ slashdot and wired have poo-pooed the sunday express’s credibility in the UK. so apparently the paper is not widely trusted. even so, their own website indicates the story wasn’t a complete fabrication.

two studies have come out saying that international aid programs aimed at improving health in poor nations have little to show for all the spending.

In one paper, WHO researchers examined the impact of various global health initiatives during the last 20 years.

They found some benefits, like increased diagnosis of tuberculosis cases and higher vaccination rates. But they also concluded some U.N. programs hurt health care in Africa by disrupting basic services and leading some countries to slash their health spending.

this is what happens when u give stuff away for free. u kill any industry or gov’t spending that supported it, and so it’s happened in africa. ppl who manage aid programs need to prioritize giving away things that local industry simply cannot provide, like correct diagnosis of TB. they also need to realize money is fungible and if these corrupt gov’ts see outsiders are willing to throw tons of cash at a health problem in their nation, the leaders will direct gov’t money elsewhere. like their own pockets presumably. (more…)