The Conversation
- Scapegoating our own (13)
- King: ^Yeah, but so did Obama 4 years ago. It’s inconsistent to think that Obama can have an arch of decision...
- Frank Chow: @King He definitely said he opposed “same-sex marriage”, that didn’t change....
- King: @ Frank But Manny didn’t even say what he’s been accused of.
- Facebook co-founder renounces U.S. citizenship prior to IPO (13)
- Raguel: This is a storm in a tea cup, a new five minutes of hate. This is because despite the outrage, people will...
- Frank Chow: “The country is not over-taxed; in fact, tax rates are near 60 year lows.” -source,...
- bigWOWO: Linda, Mark Cuban is rich (richer than me anyway), and he’s just as horrified as I am. I don’t...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (428)
- LadyBlack: Hello, you who believe that some races are inferior and that some are superior. As a Black (in particular...
- bigWOWO: Thanks, Grover!
- Grover Porquel: Excellent roundup. I have taken on these “biodiversity” types myself over the years and...
- Higher education: the next subprime bubble (5)
- bigWOWO: Let’s think hypothetically. Let’s say they had quotas, such as a company of X number of...
- kobukson: In the past, a high school diploma was sufficient for getting a job. Things changed and a HS diploma...
- bigWOWO: I do agree with you, Ei, to a certain point. I have heard that some lawyers and engineers are having...
- Americans Eat the World’s Cheapest Food (36)
- bigWOWO: A week in, and: I liked the mock chicken, but the family didn’t like it. I don’t know if...
- King: ^ But isn’t Anthony Bourdain the same guy who recently called Paula Deen the “Worst Unhealthy Cook” for...
- kobukson: I like Anthony Bourdain’s take on vegetarians and vegans: “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like...
- Why Do Asian People Have Bad Eyesight? (37)
- Suing the Bachelor for racial discrimination (34)
- George: The problem with the entertainment industry is that they have already stated that blacks are not on the show...
- George: “Oh and prediction, you know the first female non white bachelorette will be Asian, and it will be...
- Chen: i’ve been reading about BFOQ cases, and it seems as if the entertainment industry wins unless they do...
- Reasons to eliminate black studies (23)
- Asian Men, Black Men, and the Competition for White Women (569)
- Raguel: Actually, white people may laugh at him even more, and that may be why they like him so much.
- Raguel: How does this nihilistic dog so filled with ressentiment and love of the slave morality even dare to mention...
- ChineseMom: (continued) Criticism of contemporary Chinese literature and Marxism Q: After the publication of your...
- Immigration records of Asian immigrants to be made available to public (2)
- American woman becomes hero to abused women in China (39)
- Chen: thats it. This woman got beat up, and that is wrong. I’m sure some assholes are going to use that and run...
- Eurasian Sensation: Patriarchal practices are incredibly ingrained in some countries and are extremely hard to shift....
- Raguel: Wasn’t it reported in one of the major american magazines like life, time etc that travelling ulamas...
- San Diego student left alone in cell for five days (3)
- bigWOWO: Haha…I know, Zach! This is the absolute worse kind of invisibility that there is!
- Zach Katagiri: Man — talk about asian american males being invisible!!
- Linda: this will be the next episode of “I survived….” I am surprised they don’t have video...
- Adventures of the Karaoke King by Harold Taw (Review and Question) (4)
- bigWOWO: Alpha, Glad that you see the precious metals rather than the ranking! Although I guess I should consider...
- Raguel: Why not make contact with other blogs and Asian American websites to feature your reviews? This way,...
- Alpha Asian: B, I know what you mean. A lot of reviewers just give very bland reviews and they don’t really...
- Asian women fetch high prices for egg donation (5)
- Dman: I don’t get the article Asian women in demand for donating her eggs. I did not see anything mentioned...
- bigWOWO: I think that buying an egg is financially easier these days than adoption from China. I know people trying...
- Linda: Also regarding about adoption. I think a lot of Americanized Asians are open to adoption in the US. (unlike...
- Re-Programming Your Mind (74)
- Chr..: I’m not making this up! I saw this guy in front of a Trader Joe’s here in NYC not too long ago as...
- Asian Women and the Invisible Chain (187)
- Chr..: @ King Yes, and what can the general masses do to stop with what’s going on right now? Not much I would...
- King: @ Chr Because the money, more than anything else, is ‘the system’ that affects everything else.
- Chr..: “The whole thing looks like a very twisted version of musical chairs, doesn’t it?” Why does this...
- Creative Monopolists (3)
- Asian husband-wife team on Shark Tank (3)
- Artists Who Refuse to Work for Free (5)
- Courtney: I have been drawing for 22 years. I think it’s really inconsiderate to ask an artist to sit down for...
- More Asian Americans Marrying Within Their Race (106)
- Chr..: “Look at some of the fatcats on Wall Street–a guy who can drop $800 on a single night out isn’t...
- The Richer Sex by Liza Mundy (Review) (12)
- Chr..: “dystopian mating marketplace where, like income inequality, the rewards of female sexuality will go...
- Whiteness and American TV (9)
- Linda: @hadoken – I don’t know why korean dramas are like crack. I go thru phases. since it’s a...
- Scapegoating our own (13)
Category Archives: News
Jon Huntsman Speaks Chinese and Explains Relationship with China
Jon Huntsman, former U.S. Ambassador to China and now candidate for the presidency, sounds very reasonable with respect to China, which unfortunately means that he’s got an uphill battle in securing the Republican nomination. Outside of the China issue, I have no idea what his positions are; they aren’t prominent on his blog. He’s probably trying to play it safe by staying out of the limelight and letting Bachmann and Perry clown themselves into parodies. A very Sun-Tzu-like strategy. (Thanks, KC.)
Posted in News
30 Comments
Warren Buffett’s Op-Ed on Coddling the Rich
Warren Buffett’s Op-Ed on why we should raise taxes on the rich is making the rounds. Check it out at the NYTimes, and read more about the opinions of other super wealthy people here. According to Buffett, he pays too little in taxes. He writes:
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
Where Do the Dollars Go?
Thanks, MLC, for the following Chicago Tribune article: ‘Made in China’ ranks only 2.7% of U.S. spending. According to the article:
Goods and services from China accounted for only 2.7% of U.S. personal consumption spending in 2010, according to the report titled “The U.S. Content of ‘Made in China.’ ” About 88.5% of U.S. spending last year was on American-made products and services.
The article says that a relatively small amount of money is leaving the country because 2/3 of what we spend goes towards services. Most of our dollars go towards our dry cleaners, accountants, financial planners, mechanics, and doctors. Then there is food and gasoline–most food is produced locally, and relatively little gasoline is imported from China. The article goes on to describe what we import:
Light-Eyed Ballplayers Have Trouble Seeing in the Daytime
Here’s an interesting article in the NY Times: Light-Eyed Players Deal With Glare, and Doubts. Athletes with light-colored eyes–blue, green, etc.–have more trouble seeing contrasts when the sun is bright. Statisticians can measure this by monitoring differences in performance between night games and day games. Light-eyed players have the biggest discrepancies.
Here’s the science behind the problem:
The root of the problem, said the sports optometrist Dr. Donald Teig, is that light-eyed people lack pigment in their macula, which is “a little dot, about the size of a pinhead, that sits conveniently in the most centralized portion of the eye as light passes through your pupil to get to your retina.”
Posted in News
8 Comments
Republican Stonewalling on the Debt Ceiling
Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell stated his position on the debt ceiling:
“I refuse to help Barack Obama get re-elected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy,” he said, adding that after two years in office, Obama is now responsible for the economic conditions that began under former president George W. Bush.
Amazon.com and California: Short-Term Thinking for Long-Term Problems
The law states that Californians, when buying through Amazon.com, must pay sales tax because Amazon has affiliates in the state. Rather than complying with the tax charges, Amazon.com cut ties with its affiliates. Amazon is now proposing that they put this before the voters: Amazon Wants Voters to Decide on Tax Collection.
It’s a horrible idea–well, it’s great idea for Amazon, an absolutely horrible idea for everyone else. People think short-term; when you put a bill like this in front of the people, they will almost always vouch for the short-term gratification: “Woo hoo, I’m not going to have to pay taxes!”
One Million Asians in New York City
Holy crap, there are one million Asian people in New York City! One out of eight New Yorkers is Asian. That’s 12.5%, and it looks like it’s continuing to grow. The Asian population of New York has gone up 32% since 2000, compared to just an 8% gain for Hispanics. According to the article, it’s more than the population of San Francisco and Los Angeles combined (I’m assuming they’re talking about SF proper–not including outlying areas like Cupertino, San Jose, etc.).
At any rate, that’s a huge increase. New York is the art, fashion, and publishing center of the country. Perhaps this population boom will result in greater (and better) representation in these areas. I’m optimistic. 
Blogger Dudes Posing as Lesbians
This is some scary s#%t coming out of the blogosphere. (Thanks, Kai, for both of these stories.)
Blogging is a new form of news media, and people follow blogs, FB accounts, and Twitter accounts for news of what is going on in the world. Amina Arraf, aka “Gay Girl in Damascus” was one of the international bloggers who had developed a following after writing about the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters. For years, she talked about how she lived as a half-Syrian, half-American lesbian woman, and how the Syrian goverment was responsible for human rights violations.
Korean Grocers on the Decline
Korean grocers dominate the fresh food markets, owning nearly 70% of the market share in New York, but they are on the decline: A New York Staple for Decades, Korean Grocers are Dwindling. I guess Al Sharpton got his wish–they boycotted, and now they’re finally shutting down. Sharpton can now shop at Whole Foods. (joke y’all.)
Seriously speaking though, I think it’s a natural progression. Much as Chinese people left the laundry business, Koreans were bound to leave the grocery business. It’s not a fun job if you’ve got other options.
Life Sentences for 14 Year Olds
The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a life sentence for a 14 year old convicted of murder. Omer Ninham appealed his sentence by calling it “cruel and unusual,” but the judges didn’t agree with him.
Omer Ninham
The story? When he was 14, Ninham and four buddies approached Zong Vang, who was 13. Vang was riding his bicycle and had picked up tomatoes from the grocery store for his family. Ninham and his friend teased Vang, punched him, and then chased him to the top of a parking structure. Ninham and one of the friends grabbed Vang by the wrists and ankles as he cried and screamed, and then they threw him off the top floor. Vang fell five stories to his death.
