ThePrettiestOne

Have you visited Pleated Jeans today?

Graphic designer Clif Dickens of the Honest Slogans Tumblr blog is back with even more truthful and amusing company logos for major brands. We’ve previously written about Dickens and his ongoing series of honest slogans.

images via Honest Slogans

via 22 Words

moreleftthannot:

I have yet to hear it explained more succinctly.

The Nation sparked a robust discussion last week with its incisive online conversation, Does Feminism Have a Class Problem? The panelists addressed the “Lean In” phenomenon, articulating how and why Sheryl Sandberg’s focus on self-improvement – rather than structural barriers and collective action to overcome them – angered quite a few feminists on the left.

While women of different economic backgrounds face many different realities, they also share similar work-life balance struggles. In that vein, the discussants argue that expanding family-friendly workplace policies – which would improve the lives of working women up and down the economic ladder – could help bridge the feminist class divide.

A growing body of research indicates that there are few other interventions that improve the economic prospects and work-life balance of women workers as much as unions do. A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which I co-authored with my colleagues Janelle Jones and John Schmitt, shows just how much of a boost unions give to working women’s pay, benefits and workplace flexibility.

For example, all else being equal, women in unions earn an average of 13 percent – that’s about $2.50 per hour – more than their non-union counterparts. In other words, unionization can raise a woman’s pay as much as a full year of college does. Unions also help move us closer to equal pay: a study by the National Women’s Law Center determined that the gender pay gap for union workers is only half of what it is for those not in unions.

Unionized careers tend to come with better health and retirement benefits, too. CEPR finds that women in unions are 36 percent more likely to have health insurance through their jobs – and a whopping 53 percent more likely to participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Unions also support working women at those crucial times when they need time off to care for themselves or their families. Union workplaces are 16 percent more likely to allow medical leave and 21 percent more likely to offer paid sick leave. Companies with unionized employees are also 22 percent more likely to allow parental leave, 12 percent more likely to offer pregnancy leave, and 19 percent more likely to let their workers take time off to care for sick family members.

Women make up almost half of the union workforce and are on track to be in the majority by 2025. As women are overrepresented in the low-wage jobs that are being created in this precarious economy – they are 56.4% of low-wage workers and over half of fast food workers – unions are leading and supporting many of the campaigns to improve their situations. In an important sense, the union movement already is a women’s movement.

Education and skills can get women only so far. It’s a conundrum that women have surpassed men when it comes to formal schooling, yet women have made little progress catching up on pay. Many women who do everything right — getting more education and skills — still find themselves with low wages and no benefits.

With unions already playing a central role in helping to meet the needs working women and their families in the 21^st century economy, anyone concerned about the well-being of women should also care about unions.

Nicole Woo is the director of domestic policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.  This post is based on her new study,  “Women, Working Families, and Unions,” and originally appeared at Girl w/ Pen!

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

i-bang-bosendorfers:

into battle

themarchrabbit:

onsheka:

thepioden:

gessorly:

tyrror:

ruingaraf:

themarchrabbit:

Seriously, it kills me when I see people hold scientists up as pinnacles of logic and reason.

Because one time the professor I was interning for got punched in the face by another professor, because mine got the funding, and told the other professor his theory was stupid.

This same professor told me to throw rocks to scare the “stupid fucking crabs” into moving so we could count them properly.

SCIENCE

thank you

this is one of the best comments this post has recieved

I have witnessed:

Two professors hiding around a corner and snickering, “Shhh, here she comes!” While a female professor approached and, when she finally found them, she proceeded to scream while pointing from one to the other, “You! I called your office but you weren’t there! So I tried to call YOUR office to figure out where HE was but YOU weren’t there!”

Two grad students standing outside a closed and locked door yelling, “Come out of the damn office. You haven’t left for days. If you didn’t have a couch in there I’d be concerned as to where you were sleeping!”

A religious studies professor apologizing for being late to class because, “security stopped me because I’m dressed like a hobbit”

Watched a professor snort the results of my experiment to determine if I had the right final compound.

Two archeology professors toss priceless fossilized teeth back and forth in an attempt to figure out who is smarter by “guessing the type of tooth and species of animal before it lands”

Multiple fully degreed individuals throw dry ice at one another in an attempt to be first to use the lab/get that piece of equipment/or change the iPod song.

A genetics professor build furniture out of stacks of paper and planks of wood because she is that far behind in grading papers/responding. One of the impromptu furniture pieces housed a fish tank.

I could go on but I think that covers the larger portion of the insanity…

Every time it comes around on my dash, it gets better.

- I have had a professor buy a huge fuckoff bottle of rum during fieldwork in Costa Rica and let the undergrads get wasted because “you’re not underage in Costa Rica and we’ll be up all night with the bats anyway!”

- Same professor hung a bat from her headlamp and wore it as a decoration for an entire night. 

- A whole swarm of older women - and these are women with PhDs and world-renown bat experts, the bigwigs - all, to a woman, go to the formal charity dinner at an international research symposium in Toronto in late October dressed in skimpy Batgirl costumes. Because Halloween was that weekend, you see.

- At a different conference, a professor get blackout drunk and pass out on the side of the road. 

- “Yeah, we have to say we did it properly for the grant but to be really honest, Miracle-gro works better.”

- Teaching lab: we had liquid nitrogen for a demo, and after class the professor, the other TA, and I spent a good two hours freezing and breaking things in it. 

a chemistry class begins with 30 students nine months later just six of us left sitting on tables dipping paper into contaminated chemicals to see what happens when we burn it teacher making idle suggestions while he marks our work

"go to the fume hood thing, yeah now put some potassium in chlorine" can i burn the results sir? "fuck it sure whatever its tainted anyway"

The prof I’m working for just asked me if I knew how to pick a lock, and when I responded “yes” she replied, “see, this is why I hire the former delinquents instead of the suck-ups. You’re actually useful.”

I then let her into her office.

Have you visited Pleated Jeans today?

rose1936:

housewifeswag:

evilsoutherngentleman:

theblogthatneversleeps:

Barack Obama has attained a level of sassiness one can only dream of.

Holy shit it’s real.

oh my fuck. sass king.

As a president I’m pretty split with Obama but as a person I absolutely love him

photo via Cowan’s Auctions

These sand art jars, featuring astonishingly detailed sand illustrations, were created by 19th century American sand artist Andrew Clemens. Clemens handcrafted the sand art out of naturally colored sands from his home state of Iowa. He did not use glue in his art — instead, he packed the sand tightly as he worked and fitted a tightly sealed lid to the finished jar. Surviving examples of his work are rare and sell at auction for high prices. For more of his work, see the Friends of Andrew Clemens Facebook group.

photo via Cowan’s Auctions

photo via Friends of Andrew Clemens

photo via Cowan’s Auctions

photo via Cowan’s Auctions

via Twisted Sifter

robertreich:

Dozens of big U.S. corporations are considering leaving the United States in order to reduce their tax bills.

But they’ll be leaving the country only on paper. They’ll still do as much business in the U.S. as they were doing before.

The only difference is they’ll no longer be “American,” and won’t have to pay U.S. taxes on the profits they make.

Okay. But if they’re no longer American citizens, they should no longer be able to spend a penny influencing American politics.

Some background: We’ve been hearing for years from CEOs that American corporations are suffering under a larger tax burden than their foreign competitors. This is mostly rubbish.

It’s true that the official corporate tax rate of 39.1 percent, including state and local taxes, is the highest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But the effective rate – what corporations actually pay after all deductions, tax credits, and other maneuvers – is far lower.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office, examined corporate tax returns in detail and found that in 2010, profitable corporations headquartered in the United States paid an effective federal tax rate of 13 percent on their worldwide income, 17 percent including state and local taxes. Some pay no taxes at all.

One tax dodge often used by multi-national companies is to squirrel their earnings abroad in foreign subsidiaries located in countries where taxes are lower. The subsidiary merely charges the U.S. parent inflated costs, and gets repaid in extra-fat profits.   

Becoming a foreign company is the extreme form of this dodge. It’s a bigger accounting gimmick. The American company merges with a foreign competitor headquartered in another nation where taxes are lower, and reincorporates there.

This “expatriate” tax dodge (its official name is a “tax inversion”) is now at the early stages but is likely to spread rapidly because it pushes every American competitor to make the same move or suffer a competitive disadvantage.

For example, Walgreen, the largest drugstore chain in the United States with more than 8,700 drugstores spread across the nation, is on the verge of moving its corporate headquarters to Switzerland as part of a merger with Alliance Boots, the European drugstore chain.

Founded in Chicago in 1901, with current headquarters in the nearby suburb of Deerfield, Walgreen is about as American as apple pie — or your Main Street druggist.

Even if it becomes a Swiss corporation, Walgreen will remain your Main Street druggist. It just won’t pay nearly as much in U.S. taxes.

Which means the rest of us will have to make up the difference. Walgreen’s morph into a Swiss corporation will cost you and me and every other American taxpayer about $4 billion over five years, according to an analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness.

The tax dodge likewise means more money for Walgreen’s investors and top executives. Which is why its large investors – including Goldman Sachs — have been pushing for it.

Some Walgreen customers have complained. A few activists have rallied outside the firm’s Chicago headquarters.

But hey, this is the way the global capitalist game played. Anything to boost the bottom line.

Yet it doesn’t have to be the way American democracy is played.

Even if there’s no way to stop U.S. corporations from shedding their U.S. identities and becoming foreign corporations, there’s no reason they should retain the privileges of U.S. citizenship.  

By treaty, the U.S. government can’t (and shouldn’t) discriminate against foreign corporations offering as good if not better deals than American companies offer. So if Walgreen as a Swiss company continues to fill Medicaid and Medicare payments as well as, say, CVS, it’s likely that Walgreen will continue to earn almost a quarter of its $72 billion annual revenues directly from the U.S. government.

But as a foreign corporation, Walgreen should no longer have any say over the size of those payments, what drugs they cover, or how they’re administered.

In fact, Walgreen should no longer have any say about how the U.S. government does anything.

In 2010 it lobbied for and got a special provision in the Dodd-Frank Act, limiting the fees banks are allowed to charge merchants for credit-card transactions — resulting in a huge saving for Walgreen. If it becomes a Swiss citizen, the days of special provisions should be over. 

The Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision may have opened the floodgates to American corporate money in U.S. politics, but not to foreign corporate money in U.S. politics.

The Court didn’t turn foreign corporations into American citizens, entitled to seek to influence U.S. law and regulations.

Since the 2010 election cycle, Walgreen’s Political Action Committee has spent $991,030 on federal elections. If it becomes a Swiss corporation, it shouldn’t be able to spend a penny more.

Walgreen is free to become Swiss but it should no longer be free to influence U.S. politics.

It may still be the Main Street druggist, but if it’s no longer American it shouldn’t be considered a citizen on Main Street.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bearhatalice:

valef0r:

this summers blockbuster: a dirty sweaty 4channer infiltrates tumblr as a fake sjw blog to gain trust, but as time goes by he realizes that by pretending to be nice, other people treat him decently. having accepted the ultimate meme into his life, he renounces his former ways and becomes a valued member if his society and community……. until 4chan calls him back to action, and he must make a choice that will change his life forever….:

the man4chanian candidate

Vaccination prices have gone from single digits to sometimes triple digits in the last two decades, creating dilemmas for doctors and their patients as well as straining public health budgets. Here in San Antonio and elsewhere, some doctors have stopped offering immunizations because they say they cannot afford to buy these potentially lifesaving preventive treatments that insurers often reimburse poorly, sometimes even at a loss.

Childhood immunizations are so vital to public health that the Affordable Care Act mandates their coverage at no out-of-pocket cost and they are generally required for school entry. Once a loss leader for manufacturers, because they are often more expensive to produce than conventional drugs, vaccines now can be very profitable.

Old vaccines have been reformulated with higher costs. New ones have entered the market at once-unthinkable prices. Together, since 1986, they have pushed up the average cost to fully vaccinate a child with private insurance to the age of 18 to $2,192 from $100, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even with deep discounts, the costs for the federal government, which buys half of all vaccines for the nation’s children, have increased 15-fold during that period. The most expensive shot for young children in Dr. Irvin’s refrigerator is Prevnar 13, which prevents diseases caused by pneumococcal bacteria, from ear infections to pneumonia.

Like many vaccines, Prevnar requires multiple jabs. Each shot is priced at $136, and every child in the United States is required to get four doses before entering school. Pfizer, the sole manufacturer, had revenues of nearly $4 billion from its Prevnar vaccine line last year, about double what it made from high-profile drugs like Lipitor and Viagra, which now face generic competitors.

“Toy Wars” is a fantastic special effects video by filmmaker Andrew McMurry of AndrewMFilms that features two fathers battling one another with children’s toys. It stars Michael Scott and Seth McMurry.

sound and music by Matthew McMurry

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

"Found at Gallery at Ice in Windsor, UK painted by Brian Weavers."

Mean and median are two measures of “average.”  The mean is the average as we typically think of it: the sum of things divided by the total number of things.  The median, in contrast, is literally the number in the middle if we align all the quantities in order.  People often use median instead of mean because it is insensitive to extreme outliers which may skew the mean in one direction or another.

For a quick illustration of the difference, I often use the example of income. I choose a plausible average (mean) for the classroom population and review the math. “If Bill Gates walks into the room,” I say, “the average income is now in the billions. The median hasn’t moved, but the mean has gone way up.” So has the Gini coefficient.

Here’s a more realistic and global illustration – the net worth of people in the wealthier countries.  The U.S. ranks fourth in mean worth – $301,000 per person…

…but the median is far lower – $45,000, 19th out of the twenty nations shown.  (The graph is from Credit Suisse via CNN.)

The U.S. is a wealthy nation compared with others, but  “average” Americans, in the way that term is generally understood, are poorer than their counterparts in other countries. 

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

blackfangirlsunite:

acceber74:

spikefuckingjonze:

sofiajonze:

inthetopofthetower:

This is absolutely beautiful! However, inspired by all the things about equality that keeps popping up on my dash, I have to ask, why there’s no white woman included. It seems like the maker have tried to cover as many races as possible, so then why not white? 

shut up, there are millions of white only based posts like this, open ur eyes

are you serious omg

White people are weak we go years without representation but the second they don’t see themselves they get wprried

seananmcguire:

pikachupacabras:

Lying Cat will only speak when someone is lying, even when they don’t know they are.

- Saga #14

this was the most powerful page in saga and i think about it a lot

I cried.

neil-gaiman:

jedavu:

THE DARK SIDE OF DREAMS 

In the late 1960’s, photographer Arthur Tress began a series of photographs that were inspired by the dreams of children. Tress had each child he approached tell him about a prominent dream of theirs which Tress would then artistically re-create and photograph with the child as the main subject. 

Haunting…