"Normal mammalian pregnancy is a well-ordered affair because the mother is a despot. Her offspring live or die at her will; she controls their nutrient supply, and she can expel or reabsorb them any time. Human pregnancy, on the other hand, is run by committee – and not just any committee, but one whose members often have very different, competing interests and share only partial information. It's a tug-of-war that not infrequently deteriorates to a tussle and, occasionally, to outright warfare. Many potentially lethal disorders, such as ectopic pregnancy, gestational diabetes, and pre-eclampsia can be traced to mis-steps in this intimate game." Quora
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"Large studies have repeatedly shown that, with the possible exception of vitamin D, antioxidant supplements have negligible positive effect on healthy people, at least in terms of important things such as preventing people getting cancer or dying prematurely. And some supplements – notably vitamins A, E and beta-carotene – even seem to slightly raise the risk of disease and early death." The Guardian
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Does anyone have a critical response to this? Giving township residents title deeds to their homes is what I consider a Very Good Idea and I'm glad the DA is pushing it.
"The centrepiece of Maimane’s manifesto was that the DA would give the black people of Gauteng the homes they are living in and the title deeds certifying their legal ownership of their properties. The implications of this are potentially transformational for our society. Only a small percentage of the millions of the black population of this country own the properties they live in, and even fewer have title deeds. Which means the properties are of no capital value to them." Business Day
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"The image of early 19th century America has a relatively egalitarian landscape turns out to neglect something important: slavery. Millions of people of African ancestry were held in bondage, making the idea of hard work as the ticket to success a joke. And possession of their labor was extremely valuable. As this chart illustrates, slave wealth was slightly more valuable than all the agricultural land in the country put together. It was also more valuable than all the factories and railroads and canals combined. In a world of relatively abundant land and high wages, owning black people was the key to wealth. And the process of emancipation was possibly the single greatest expropriation of wealth in human history." Vox
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"Evictions are political; only those who are not loyal members of the ruling party are having their homes illegally destroyed without court orders. In Lamontville, residents of Madlala Village who went to the Constitutional court on 12 February 2014 were told by local party structures and their councillor that their shacks would be demolished if they brought any party other than the ANC to the settlement.
A day after the Constitutional Court heard their appeal, the eThekwini Land Invasion Unit were instructed to demolish all the shacks in Madlala Village. This was a form of punishment for taking government to Constitutional court." Daily Maverick
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"Large studies have repeatedly shown that, with the possible exception of vitamin D, antioxidant supplements have negligible positive effect on healthy people, at least in terms of important things such as preventing people getting cancer or dying prematurely. And some supplements – notably vitamins A, E and beta-carotene – even seem to slightly raise the risk of disease and early death." The Guardian
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Does anyone have a critical response to this? Giving township residents title deeds to their homes is what I consider a Very Good Idea and I'm glad the DA is pushing it.
"The centrepiece of Maimane’s manifesto was that the DA would give the black people of Gauteng the homes they are living in and the title deeds certifying their legal ownership of their properties. The implications of this are potentially transformational for our society. Only a small percentage of the millions of the black population of this country own the properties they live in, and even fewer have title deeds. Which means the properties are of no capital value to them." Business Day
>>><<<
"The image of early 19th century America has a relatively egalitarian landscape turns out to neglect something important: slavery. Millions of people of African ancestry were held in bondage, making the idea of hard work as the ticket to success a joke. And possession of their labor was extremely valuable. As this chart illustrates, slave wealth was slightly more valuable than all the agricultural land in the country put together. It was also more valuable than all the factories and railroads and canals combined. In a world of relatively abundant land and high wages, owning black people was the key to wealth. And the process of emancipation was possibly the single greatest expropriation of wealth in human history." Vox
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"Evictions are political; only those who are not loyal members of the ruling party are having their homes illegally destroyed without court orders. In Lamontville, residents of Madlala Village who went to the Constitutional court on 12 February 2014 were told by local party structures and their councillor that their shacks would be demolished if they brought any party other than the ANC to the settlement.
A day after the Constitutional Court heard their appeal, the eThekwini Land Invasion Unit were instructed to demolish all the shacks in Madlala Village. This was a form of punishment for taking government to Constitutional court." Daily Maverick
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"The migrant domestic worker support group, Kalayaan, published a briefing paper during the course of the week to mark the second anniversary of the coalition government's axing of a domestic worker visa which had allowed this group of migrants to change employers.
The system which replaced of visa ties the worker to the employer who had orginally sponsored her entry into the country.
... the report records that:
Tied workers are twice as likely to report having being physically abused as those who were not tied (16% and 8%)
·65% of those on the tied visa didn't have their own rooms, so had no privacy, often sleeping in the kitchen or lounge or sharing with the children, compared to 34% of those not tied
78% of tied workers had their passport kept from them, compared with 48% of those not tied
Kalayaan staff assessed more than double (69%) of those tied as trafficked, in contrast with 26% of those who were not tied." Migrants' Rights Network
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The spread of fungal disease among banana crops. Note that this problem is in large part due to the fact that most banana crops are grown by clonal propagation, which significantly reduces genetic diversity and thus disease resistance.
"The fungal disease recently spread from Asia, where it’s already caused significant losses, to Africa and the Middle East, and the FAO believes Latin America could be next. That would ramp the crisis up considerably: About 70 percent of the world’s banana exports are grown in the region. And it would do more than remove the fruit from grocery store shelves: Bananas are a key source of food in many tropical countries." Salon
Interesting analysis of the political situation in Ukraine.
"A pro-European, pro-NATO government ruling a regionally divided country -- and one that is quite vulnerable to Russian military intervention -- is a recipe for instability, not for European integration. Simply pushing forward with EU association and NATO integration without pushing the government in Kiev to address its illegitimacy problems through means other than arrest is not much of a strategy. It’s not even much of a gamble, as it is almost certain to fail." Foreign Affairs
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