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There seems to be an obvious solution to rising inequality: higher taxes. But there's an inconvenient fact here. The way most advanced, industrial countries have made real gains on inequality is through relatively regressive taxes that fund programs that reduce inequality. In fact, America's tax system is already unusually progressive by international standards. Our ongoing research suggests that this unusual relationship is not a coincidence.

The countries in northern Europe that have made the biggest strides in reducing economic inequality do not fund their governments through soak-the-rich, steeply progressive taxes. Instead, they have broad-based taxes that ask all workers to contribute to a generous welfare state. Countries with highly progressive taxes that disproportionately hit the rich — like the United States — tend to have the stingiest welfare states.

The way a tax system fights inequality isn't just redistribution

The figure below makes this point clearly, showing that the more progressive a country's taxes, the less the country does to reduce inequality.

In this chart, redistributive effort refers to percent reduction in the market Gini coefficient — a useful measure of inequality. Household tax progressivity measures how much more (or less) of the tax burden falls on the wealthiest households, compared to households at the middle and the bottom.  Both measures are from the OECD.

There's a reason governments in nations with highly progressive taxes end up spending less to combat inequality — those taxes raise relatively little revenue for both economic and political reasons. For instance, the highly progressive taxes in the United States have fostered intense backlash from powerful economic elites, pushing high-earning individuals and firms to find loopholes and lobby for top-end cuts.

The reason Northern European countries with more regressive taxes achieve such high levels of labor market equality, despite less progressive tax systems, is that they spend money on increasing the skills and earning power of low-end wage earners. Countries with the lowest levels of inequality have learned that policies to cultivate skills for all workers and to achieve full employment policies can accelerate economic growth while also reducing inequality. Large investments in human capital reduce societal conflicts over the distribution of resources, even while expanding the economic pie.

Relying on the wealthy to fund the public sector will not create enough revenue for large-scale initiatives to reduce inequality

Countries like Denmark and Sweden also redistribute income, but this largely occurs through the funding of egalitarian social benefits — public health care, education — that also contribute to a productive, healthy workforce.  Whereas these countries raise most of their revenue in a relatively more regressive manner, they use this revenue to fund social benefits that improve both the living standards and productive capacities of lower-class residents. In contrast, countries with the most progressive tax systems, like the United States, tend to raise most of their revenue through levies on the wealthy and on capital, and end up investing little in job training and other social benefits that reduce inequality.

The lesson for the United States is that relying on the wealthiest citizens and corporations to fund the public sector will not create the revenue necessary for large-scale initiatives to reduce inequality. Emphasizing redistribution as the central principle for tax policy is needlessly divisive, leads to smaller government revenues overall, and thus misses the positive benefits that having more revenues can offer if invested wisely in promoting success for all. In this, the Democrats, who've pledged to not raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year, are little better than the Republicans, with their no-new-taxes-ever pledge.

The way a tax system fights inequality isn't just redistribution. It's by generating enough revenue to fund programs and benefits that help middle class, working class, and poor people participate and succeed in the economy. While talk of taxing top earners may make for good political rhetoric on the left, relying on such taxes cannot pay the bills.

If you’ve ever wanted to cut across the water, but lack the upper body strength for wind-surfing or the parking space for a boat, the Schiller X1 might just be for you. The water bike was developed last year by former corporate attorney Judah Schiller as something of a hobby. But after a successful Indiegogo campaign, Schiller Sports was launched, and the first of their refined water cycles are now on sale.

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A new study published in Science has traced the origins of the HIV-1 group M pandemic to 1920s Kinshasa, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While strains of HIV are known to have crossed from other primates to humans on a number of occasions, only this particular outbreak has led to a pandemic. Scientists have long wanted to know why this particular strain was able to spread so successfully, when others had petered out. An international team lead by scientists from Oxford University and the University of Leuven reconstructed and examined the genetic history of the virus. This led them to conclude that a “perfect storm” of social factors allowed the virus to break out of Kinshasa in the 1920s and spread around the world.

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While the UK’s iconic phone booths are still considered national icons, cellphones have largely rendered the big red boxes obsolete over the years. Solarbox London plans to change that by transforming phone booths into free solar-powered phone charging stations. The company’s retrofitted phone booth chargers are painted bright green, and they now bring solar energy to the selfie-addicted masses. Kirsty Kenny and Harold Craston founded SolarBox and earned second place for their innovative idea in this year’s Mayor of London’s Low Carbon Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

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These are the conceptual video game themed cat scratchers imagined by the folks at if industries. There's an Atari controller, Nintendo controller, and an Etch-A-Sketch. Granted an Etch-A-Sketch isn't really a video game, but damn if I didn't pretend it was when I was growing up. Money was tight back then. We didn't even have a TV, my brother and I would just take turns climbing into a cardboard box with one side cut out and and act out our own television shows. Apparently my shows sucked though because he'd jumpkick the TV a lot when I was in there. We basically invented reality television if you think about it. Granted I'm not proud about it, I'm just saying we did. Keep going for the other two.

It takes $51,900 in household income to be right in the middle of the US income distribution, the Census Bureau reported last week. You'd have to earn more than five times that if you want to be in the top 1 percent, and even then you'd have to move to Idaho.

Using Census data, Business Insider put together a map approximating where the cutoff is to be in the top 1 percent by household income in each state (click to see a bigger version):

Source: Business Insider

The figures shouldn't be taken as precise measurements, BI's Andy Kiersz writes, but rather as approximations.

What it takes to be in the top 1 percent can range widely by state; in Idaho, at the bottom of the spectrum, your household just has to earn around $274,000 in a year. In the District of Columbia, at the wealthier end, it's $688,000. Just behind DC is the state with the highest bar, Connecticut, at $642,000.

Those may strike you as some large variations, but the wealthy have congregated in a few places in America, and particularly in New York City. New York City accounts for nearly one-quarter of all the wealth of all "high net worth individuals" in the US (those with $1 million or more in investable assets), as consulting firm Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management reported last week. In addition, 12 metro areas account for 75 percent of all those high net worth people's wealth.

This map, of course, only reflects income. To be in the top 1 percent of Americans in terms of wealth, you need to save or invest a lot of that income. It takes nearly $2.4 million in assets to be in that top tier, as my colleague Ezra Klein wrote last week.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk just sent out a mysterious tweet announcing that the EV maker plans to unveil something new on October 9. His tweet, “about time to unveil the D and something else” has set off waves of speculation – could Tesla be unveiling a brand new model, or is it something less dramatic like new technology for its existing vehicles?

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The host city for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games might as well be decided with a coin toss.

Oslo has withdrawn its bid to host the Games, leaving only Beijing and Almaty as candidate cities.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) put the Norwegians' concerns down to "half-truths and factual inaccuracies," but Oslo is also the fourth city to withdraw in recent months.

Stockholm, Krakow and the Ukrainian city of Lviv also abandoned their bids, while campaigns by St. Moritz, Switzerland and Munich, Germany were dropped earlier after referendums.

So why, exactly, do so few cities want the Games? A list of IOC conditions for an Oslo bid gives us a clue.

Slate translated a list that appeared in the Norwegian media. Here's part of it.

- They demand to meet the king prior to the opening ceremony. Afterwards, there shall be a cocktail reception. Drinks shall be paid for by the Royal Palace or the local organizing committee.


- Separate lanes should be created on all roads where IOC members will travel, which are not to be used by regular people or public transportation.


- A welcome greeting from the local Olympic boss and the hotel manager should be presented in IOC members' rooms, along with fruit and cakes of the season. (Seasonal fruit in Oslo in February is a challenge...)


- The hotel bar at their hotel should extend its hours "extra late" and the minibars must stock Coke products.

But even putting those demands aside, there are exorbitant costs associated with hosting the Olympics. And they often leave cities with venues to gather dust for years after the Games have left town.

Take Greece, for instance, whose venues lie in ruins 10 years after the Athens Games.



As Gizmodo noted, even Sochi looked like a ghost town just six months after its Games wrapped up.

The cost to put on Russia's Olympics has been estimated at around $50 billion.

And though there are questions about the accuracy of that 11-figure estimation, commentators say it's still scaring cities off from the idea of hosting.

The Vancouver Olympics, by contrast, cost over $7 billion, The Globe and Mail reported.

"The whole hosting package is not as enticing as it once was," historian Kevin Wamsley told The National Post.

It's not the first time cities have shied away from Olympic bids.

The Olympics were marked by political unrest throughout the 1970s, and only Los Angeles bid on the 1984 Summer Games, Western University professor Janice Forsyth told the Globe

Interest fell again around 2000 due to concerns about security and rising costs.

Like before, the current trend may only be a temporary phenomenon. But what's clear is that the IOC has a long way to go to convince cities the Winter Games are not too expensive for them to bear.

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Clear plastic wrap is both really convenient and really wasteful. However, Vermont farmer Sarah Kaeck has developed a truly ingenious solution this food wrap waste problem with an all natural product called Bee’s Wrap. These washable and reusable organic cotton sheets are infused with a mix of beeswax, jojoba oil, and tree resin. When you apply the heat from your hands to them, they conform easily to bowl rims and wrap half-eaten bread loaves with ease. An extra bonus is the natural antibacterial properties of the jojoba oil and bee’s wax.

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These are the custom Star Wars Ewok heels made and sold by Esty shop OrionsOriginals. They're perfect for the woman who has everything except a pair of furry Star Wars themed high heels. Am I going to buy a pair for my girlfriend and pretend she has furry hobbit feet for a night? That's none of your business. That's between me, her, and my Gandalf costume. "That sounds like a yes." Oh it's going to happen. Keep going for a couple more shots.

Oakland’s Cat Town, a nonprofit cat rescue and adoption organization, is set to open the first permanent cat café in the U.S. this month. Following the hugely popular Japanese cat café model, café-goers will be able to enjoy tasty drinks and snacks, then slip into the adjacent “Cat Zone” for some feline snuggles. All the cats at the café will be rescue cats, and all will be up for adoption – should you fall in love and decide you want more than just a coffee to go.

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entirelypets:

Cat vs. T-Rex

What's fascinating about Homeland, which is returning this Sunday on Showtime, is the way that its main character's journey so closely parallels the show's. Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is brilliant, intuitive, and deeply passionate about her work. She's also prone to horribly bad decisions that back her into corners she can't find her way out of. It's a common idea that TV shows take on the personae of their main characters, but, c'mon, Homeland, this is a little on the nose.

This has never been clearer than it is at the start of the show's fourth season. Much of what has always been good about the show is still good — perhaps even better. But the bad decisions that began to weigh it down in its second year and took their toll in season three cling to it like moss. Homeland keeps trying to rise above itself, and there are thrilling moments in all three episodes sent to critics when it does.

But then Carrie Mathison takes center-stage again and you're reminded all over again of just why this show got into so much trouble that it had to completely reboot its premise just to save itself.

With Brody gone, Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) slips neatly into the male lead void. (Showtime)

A complete reboot

The most important thing you need to know starting out season four of Homeland is that Nicholas Brody is completely and truly dead. The show doesn't quite haul out the Munchkin coroner to sing a little song about it, but it might as well. Carrie even gets a little monologue in the second episode about how much she misses him, and as far as balancing grieving a hugely important character with moving on to other things goes, the show does a solid job.

The most important thing you need to know is that Nicholas Brody is completely and truly dead

But considering how much of the show's premise was wrapped up in the endlessly vacillating Brody, it necessarily has to do something completely different with the season. That necessitates sending Carrie and the other characters to the Middle East (though they're scattered across several locations as the season begins) and it means digging into a brand new spy story where nothing is as it seems.

A bombing run (signed off on by Carrie) early in the season premiere, meant to take out a terrorist, succeeds in hitting its target — but it also kills almost everyone else at the wedding he's attending. And the more that the characters dig into the circumstances surrounding the strike, the more it starts to look like one piece of a much, much larger whole.

As these things go, the main story is solid stuff. Corey Stoll makes a good addition to the cast as a Pakistan CIA station chief who's at the center of some intriguing mysteries, and Rupert Friend's Peter Quinn ably steps into the role of male lead with Brody dead and gone. By the end of episode three, the central spy storyline is spreading its tendrils everywhere, and it's hard not to wonder what's coming next.

But the problem is that most spy storylines are growers. They creep up on you, slowly enmeshing you in a world of intrigue. And that necessarily requires characters you're immediately invested and interested in. The first season of Homeland had that by the gallon, thanks to the riveting work of Damian Lewis as Brody and Danes's completely uncompromising performance as Carrie. But in that uncompromising performance were sown the seeds of the show's destruction as well. And that's why so much of the time spent with Carrie in the first three episodes of season four feels like such a chore.

Carrie (Claire Danes) and Lockhart (Tracy Letts) spar. (Showtime)

The trouble with Carrie

The notion of the brilliant woman who suffers from a debilitating mental illness has become such a cliché in TV circles (mostly on shows that were quickly canceled) that it's easy to forget just how bracing this character was when she first appeared. In Danes's hands, she became a living embodiment of the raw nerve that is the war on terror. She was a constant reminder of everything the US had turned itself into to hunt out terrorists, and then people who were just sort of adjacent to terrorists, and then ... well, what then? She was self-destructive but fascinating; looking away was impossible.

But once Carrie's character became almost entirely subsumed by her relationship with Brody, the show began its spiral. The second season has become so defined by its problematic ending that it's easy to forget, but the first two-thirds of that season are filled with brilliant moments and episodes where the Carrie/Brody relationship is color that fills in their currently distrustful partnership, rather than the show's guiding force. The show might have been at its best at this point, before it bought wholly into romance and spiraled into the sun.

She was self-destructive but fascinating; looking away was impossible

And now it's just Carrie, and she's still troubled, and still bracing, and still brilliant, but it's also sort of exhausting just spending time with her. The show's treatment of her bipolar disorder has always been one of its stronger elements, but it's also something that the show can't leave behind.

Walter White could have chosen to stop cooking meth and Don Draper could choose to stop sleeping with women other than his wife. That neither does this drives much of the tension of their respective shows, reflecting the way that all of us sometimes choose the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment. But Carrie can't choose to stop being bipolar and the show, in its commitment to honor that and tell the truth of that story, has pushed her to some dark, horrible places. In particular, there's a moment in the second episode of this new season that could be a dealbreaker for many of the show's fans.

In its own way, I found that moment sort of brave and adventurous and bold for the show. It's gutsy and uncompromising, and it reminds you of just how damaged this woman is, both because of her bipolar disorder and because the government keeps using her up and wringing her out. It's like a signpost for fans of the show who might have forgotten just how horrible Carrie can be: get out before you get sucked back in.

But the show seems to have forgotten what the flipside of the character was, the brilliance of Carrie, the way that she threw herself into the worst possible choices because she needed to blow up her life to save the world. Now, instead, the show gives us reflections from other people, who tell us how she's brilliant, or tell us how she's great, or maybe even feel deeply for her in ways that are slightly unbelievable. And in those moments, it feels not just like the series has lost track of its main character but also like it's terrified that in the wake of losing Brody (and his family, it should be noted), it will have to lose a whole bunch of other things as well, so it might as well shuffle them back into the deck, even if there's no good reason to.

Suraj Sharma plays a Pakistani med student drawn into political webs he wants no part of. (Showtime)

An otherwise solid season

This is too bad, because the rest of season four is solid television. In particular, the storyline in Pakistan — where a survivor of the wedding strike finds himself drawn steadily into political spheres he doesn't want any part of — is meaty, messy stuff, willing to engage with the inhuman horrors of modern warfare on a deep level.

Try though it might, Homeland can never quite escape its past bad decisions

In particular, the way that the show keeps throwing images of him (from directors Lesli Linka Glatter and Keith Gordon) up on screens that Carrie watches dispassionately in CIA bunkers juxtaposes the clinical nature of death raining down from the air with the actual human costs of that war. The show has always been interested in drones — both as a hot-button issue and as a metaphor for the way its characters seem unable to break free of their own programming — but season four pushes that to new places.

And showrunner Alex Gansa and his tremendous team of writers continue to have a way with a witty turn of phrase, or with complications for the non-Carrie characters. It's great to see Saul (Mandy Patinkin) and Fara (Nazanin Boniadi) again, and the show's roster of recurring characters is surprisingly deep by now. (In particular, Tracy Letts's CIA Director Lockhart increasingly feels like the only person on the show with any sense at all, which is probably a perilous position for an antagonist to be in.) The show films on location in South Africa now, making for some great visuals. And Homeland even finds a way to vaguely justify last season's stupidest decision — making Carrie pregnant with Brody's child — by leaning in to just how bad of an idea it was.

But try though it might, Homeland can never quite escape its past bad decisions, which leads it to keep making new ones. And that all comes back to the woman at the show's center. You mostly hang out with Carrie now, because you remember when she was one of TV's most exciting, interesting characters. Hell, the CIA seemingly keeps employing her because it wants her to turn the corner and become one of the best spies ever again. But the more time you spend with her, the more you realize that everything about her is right there on the surface, try though she might to break past that to her previously hidden depths.

And if you replaced "Carrie" with "Homeland" and "the CIA" with "Showtime" in the above paragraph, you'd have a pretty great summation of the series' problems at this point in time. It's still good. It's still interesting. It's still, intermittently, vital. But it's no longer brilliant, and the gap between that and what it is now is even more frustrating than if it had just become utterly terrible.

The fourth season of Homeland debuts with a two-hour premiere Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern on Showtime.

[baconzombie]

A team of scientists from Duke University, the University of Hawaii and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discovered that pollution around the Hawaiian islands is causing lethal tumors in the endangered sea turtle population. The report, which was published in the peer-reviewed open-access journal PeerJ, states that high levels of nitrogen from urban and farm runoff have poisoned the algae that sea turtles eat, causing deadly tumors to grow on the poor turtles’ flippers, eyes and internal organs.

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For the first time, a patient has been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. Although patients have been treated in the U.S. before, they had been diagnosed outside of the country and brought to America for treatment. But a Dallas hospital announced today that one patient, who had been traveling abroad, was confirmed with the disease while residing in the country.

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Since 2007, a program in St. Louis has offered teenagers free access to all types of birth control. They can choose pills, intra-uterine devices or any other FDA-approved contraceptive.

These St. Louis teens have had markedly lower pregnancy, abortion and birth rates than the rest of the country, new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows. This is what their pregnancy rates look like, compared to the rest of the United States.

The CHOICE Project, run out of Washington University in St. Louis, advertised the free contraceptives to local teenagers through flyers, doctors' offices and word-of-month. The program has, so far, provided more than 9,000 teenage women with no-cost contraceptives. Lots of participants in the program choose a long-acting, reversible contraceptive (LARC) that a doctor has to implant.

These types of birth control tend to be the most effective because, once inserted by a doctor, they require no work on the part of the user. (Birth control pills that have to be taken every day, meanwhile, leave huge space for user error.)

When financial and medical barriers are removed, it turns out teenagers this form of birth control more than they use pills: nearly three-quarters of the CHOICE Project participants in this study used some form of LARC, such as an IUD. Separate research has found that, nationally, just 4.5 percent of teenagers use this method.

Separate programs have had similarly dramatic results: Colorado saw teen birth rates decline 40 percent when it began providing free access to IUDs.

"We found that in a cohort of teenage girls and women for whom barriers to contraception (lack of knowledge, limited access, and cost) are removed and the use of the most effective contraceptive methods is encouraged, a large percentage opted to use LARC methods," the authors write.

And when teens choose the more effective forms of contraceptives, it turns out, they get pregnant less and have fewer abortions and fewer babies.

Today, in her ever-relatable and down-to-earth weekly newsletter for rich white girls, Goop, Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow sent out a guide to your "gut." Except this guide is not really about your gut. Almost the entire newsletter —except for the section about gluten-free pie crust — is about finding and grooming your inner aura.

Gwyneth has made some strange claims before, but for this weekly wonder, she brought in Jill Willard, who is an "intuitive." According to her website, Willard has been an intuitive her whole life. Goop explains that "Willard, who does not refer to herself as a psychic thanks to 'woo woo' and negative connotations, sees things."

Does all of this sound like a heaping pile of whacked-out insanity? Just you wait. Let's dissect some of the claims made by Willard in the Q&A section of the newsletter:

Listening to Your Gut

Claim: "We have all had the experience of not listening to our gut, and then learning a very hard lesson. As you exercise the muscle of your intuition these hard knocks become much more infrequent, and grace and peace replace high and low emotional experiences."

Is this true? Nope.

Intuition is proved by Quantum Physics

Claim: "Many believe that intuition is 'woo woo' and vague and fake. This is not the case. And now, science is proving this through quantum physics."

Is this true? No. Quantum physics has nothing at all to do with chakras and aura. Quantum physics is science. She might be referencing the idea that humans emit electromagnetic radiation that can be seen with infrared sensitive film. This, however, is not true. According to a paper by Victor J. Stenger from the University of Hawaii, "Any fanciful shapes seen in photographed auras emanating from humans can be attributed to optical and photographic effects, uncorrelated with any property of the body that one might identify as 'live' rather than 'dead,' and the tendency for people to see patterns where none exist."

Spend more time BEING

Claim: "We should spend half of our day simply existing-taking long meals with loved ones, walking, relaxing, and connecting. The BEING is where the self-love and deep gratitude lives."

Is this true? Of course! As long as you are a multimillionaire who is joyfully consciously uncoupled from the lead man of Coldplay and living in London and L.A. with a ton of money and plenty of help. If you don't have all of that, then you're probably screwed.

On Destiny

Is this true? The idea of free will versus destiny has been debated by philosophers for centuries. None of these philosophers have said anything about "20 percent of our whole being and life experience." None of them, I think, knew about co-creating our lives. I mean, Immanuel Kant, maybe, but... nah.

On death

Claim: "When a person passes, the self is left behind with the body on earth, and the person is of pure spirit. They are like a breeze."

Is this true? Breezes exist. Maybe spirits exist. Some people believe this.  You do not have to if you do not want to.

On listening to your gut

Claim: "The gut is never wrong. It is very connected to oneness. It seems it is always for evolution, always there to aid us in moving onward or due north."

Is this true? My gut told me to eat a double cheeseburger with bacon for lunch today and that was definitely a mistake. Shut up, gut!

On change

Claim: "We can change a lot of things by sending good energy to one another. It greatly decreases the chance of catastrophe."

Is this true? Nothing is true anymore. Everything is a lie.

If you’re a wine lover tight on living space, you’ll love the space-efficient Winehive, a modular wine rack inspired by the honeycomb structure. Made from 100% recycled aluminum, the WineHive uses a patented interlocking system to fit together an infinite array of honeycomb structures. The stylish rack even packs flat for efficient shipping and can be easily assembled with no tools required.

+ WineHive

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This is a weird ass two minute commercial for GE Link LED lightbulbs starring every woman's favorite Jurassic Park visitor Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. The $15 bulbs last 22 years, can all be connected via a $20 hub, and controlled wirelessly from your smartphone. I just bought a dozen and I'm not even in the market for lightbulbs. That Jeff Goldblum though -- he could sell me anything. ESPECIALLY five cent kisses at a kissing booth. *smashing piggy bank on counter* Just go for three hours. Keep going for the commercial.

This is a video of two baby owls investigating the Go-Pro camera someone focused on their nest after their mom left to go find food for them. They are very curious. Plus bug-eyed. I hope in my next life I come back as an owl. "Who says you're getting another life?" I KNOW I'm getting another life. "How?" Because I'm a cat and I counted I've only died *holding up paws* this many times so far. "Exactly how many fingers do you think you're holding up right now?" Five? "That's eight." SHIT! Well is there any way to earn a 1-up like in a video game? "Thankfully, there is. Have you ever played Frogger before?" I sure ha-- WAIT A MINUTE. Keep going for the video.

This is a wedding cake on display by Disney at their recent Fairy Tail Weddings Expo that's been projection mapped so you can display video on it. In this case, Tinkerbell and a horse and carriage. It's not the first time I've seen a projection mapped wedding cake (Donkey Kong one HERE), it's just the first time I've seen it offered as a wedding service. Of course, it's only offered as option in Disney's 'Wishes Collection', which starts at $12,000. Sounds too fancy for anyone I know. I've been to weddings before where honest-to-God strippers jumped out of the cake. Those marriages generally don't last. Keep going for two videos of the cake in action.

Netflix announced yesterday that it's making an original movie.

The film, a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, will release next August on Netflix and in select IMAX theaters, reports the Wall Street Journal. The film is being produced by The Weinstein Company, but it is not being directed by Ang Lee, the two-time Academy Award winner who won his first Best Director Oscar for his work on the original Crouching Tiger.

What's most noteworthy about Netflix's move is that it's skipping the middleman of a theatrical release and going straight to home viewing, as Deadline notes. Certainly there are plenty of movies that do that, but they're usually low-budget films, and definitely not films with the earning-potential of a Crouching Tiger sequel.

That Netflix is a "disruptive force," as Deadline writes, is clear at this point. It's provided TV networks stiff competition with original series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. But it has also provided those networks with an alternate revenue stream and a way for consumers to catch up on shows they maybe haven't seen in one go. Will it do something similar for the film industry? Only time will tell, but the site's ambitions are clearly sky-high.

Business Insider's Andy Kiersz looked at which college majors are disproportionately popular in every state. Most of them make intuitive sense. An unusually high proportion of film majors live in California, petroleum engineers live in Texas and Louisiana, and hospitality majors are more likely to live in Nevada:

(Andy Kiersz/Business Insider)

A few other interesting trends: Georgia might have a relatively high proportion of early childhood education majors because it also has universal pre-kindergarten. Colorado has more than 50,000 prehistoric sites and a lot of archaeology majors. New Mexico, home of Los Alamos National Laboratory, has a high proportion of engineers. Florida, home of bizarre crimes, has an unusually high proportion of criminology majors.

Of course, if this map showed the most popular majors, rather than the most distinctive, there would be business majors everywhere. (Here's why viral maps use the techniques they do.) Business Insider made that map too:

(Andy Kiersz/Business Insider)

Vermont and Maine: last bastions of the English major.

Canada’s Hayley Todesco has developed a method to speed up the detoxification of oil sands tailings ponds using 5th grade science. The 18-year-old Google Science Fair 2014 finalist won a $25,000 scholarship for her idea, which involves using sand filters to accelerate the biodegradation of toxic naphthenic acids.

Read the rest of Canadian Teen Finds a Way to Scrub Toxic Tar Sands Using 5th Grade Science

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Post tags: 2014 Stockholm Junior Water Prize, 5th grade science, biodegrade oil sands, Canadian teen, environmental hazard, Google, Google Science Fair, hayley todesco, oil sands, oil sands tailings, oil spill, oilsands, sand filters, tailing ponds

The GOODS from The Vancouver Club

Vancouver, BC| The Vancouver Club is a prestigious world class club, always looking for professionals with passion and drive to make the experience for our members second to none. The Club is now accepting applications from creative, talented individuals for the position of Line Cook. Please contact rwindsor [at] vancouverclub.ca with a resume and cover letter.

Details

915 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. | V6C 1C6 Canada
Telephone: 604-685-9321
Web: www.vancouverclub.ca
Email: concierge@vancouverclub.ca

Gallery

Key People and Positions

General Manager: Philip Ireland
Executive Chef: Sean Cousins
Head Bartender: Jonathan Richard
Sommelier: Martha McAvity

About The Vancouver Club

Established in 1889, The Vancouver Club has deep roots in this young, vibrant city. The Club is a place to dine, play, relax and connect with other professionals who are shaping the very fabric and creative energy of the West Coast.

Led with expert passion by executive chef Sean Cousins, the kitchen emphasizes award winning regional cuisine that interprets tradition through modern techniques. Ingredients are sourced from incomparable local suppliers: Fraser Valley duck breast, Haida Gwaii halibut and Okanagan goat cheese mingle with bio-dynamic hen eggs and Salt Spring Island lamb. The Rooftop Garden boasts seasonal plantings, edible flowers, hard-to-source-herbs and four types of savouries that make their way from soil to plate.

The Club is one of the largest wine buyers in B.C., passing this influence on to members through volume, service and exclusive prices unmatched by local retailers. Whether it’s a case of full-bodied Malbec or a taste of the 16-year-old special Club bottled scotch, the $2 million-dollar wine cellar can satisfy every palate.

In the culinary heart of The Vancouver Club, the bright, airy Atrium is ideal for a sunny lunch, while the moodier main Grill seduces with warmth and modern style. Bar III is an inviting place for poker, cocktails and conversation. It’s tough to imagine a more stylish hideout, tucked in the heart of this busy city.

Members and guests are people from industries of every stripe, from diverse local companies and young creative organizations, to global ventures and multinational NGOs. The atmosphere inside The Club’s 100 year old walls is welcoming, diverse and approachable.

Now in its third century, The Vancouver Club remains rooted in the foundations of the city. It’s a place where global business meets rich local culture and tradition blends seamlessly with innovation. For members and their guests, The Club is a storied hideaway amid a lively urban setting.

A new series of posters launched by the Government of Nunavut is tackling the topic of drinking alcohol during pregnancy, and in particular, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).

The pair of posters (one in English and one in Inuktitut), are part of a campaign released on Friday advising women not to drink any type of alcohol during pregnancy. The poster, which depicts a vivid image of a woman drinking out of a bottle directly linking to her unborn baby, also reads, "Baby or the bottle? Pregnant women should never drink alcohol."



On Twitter, some users found the poster offensive, while others were quick to point out how effective and powerful they found the imagery. According to the CBC, some said they were supportive because it put children first.

The campaign was originally designed by Iqaluit-based graphic design company Atiigo Media Inc., who said on Facebook they were inspired by a similar Russian campaign from 2012.

Last week, a series of new LCBO posters targeting women drinking while pregnant were both celebrated and deemed shameful and offensive, showing the many opinions on this behaviour. While Health Canada does not recommend consumption of any type of alcohol during pregnancy, some small studies have shown drinking wine, for example, won't have an effect on your baby.

FASD can lead to a range of physical, cognitive and behavioural disabilities that are a result of drinking alcohol during pregnancy, according to Health Canada. Although FASD is incurable, it is also highly preventable.

CBC adds Nunavut is said to have a high rate of children born with the disorder, but statistics are unavailable. Pauktuutit, a national non-profit representing Inuit women in Canada, has implemented programs meant to educate women and front-line workers on the effects of FASD.

Do you find the campaign offensive or effective? Let us know in the comments below:

If you needed any reason to pick up the phone and call your parents today, this, ladies and gentlemen is it.

Reddit user kathrynbigelow posted these adorable four photos of her and her parents at the age of 5, 9, 22 and 27 in the same pose on Thursday.

While she doesn't give a description of each shot, the user from New York included pictures from her 5th birthday, graduation and wedding day, accompanied by her equally adorable parents kissing her cheeks. The photo collage already has over 770,000 views.

New parents, younger readers, heck, everyone — this is something you should definitely try recreating with your family!