Monthly Archives: July 2007

Liberal Globalization

By Ray Watkins | Published: July 30, 2007
Globalization has brought huge overall benefits, but earnings for most U.S. workers -- even those with college degrees -- have been falling recently; inequality is greater now than at any other time in the last 70 years. Whatever the cause, the result has been a surge in protectionism. To save globalization, policymakers must spread its gains more widely. The best way to do that is by redistributing income. Kenneth F. Scheve and Matthew J. Slaughter From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
It seems the neo-liberal plans for the world are coming undone and, god forbid, they may be on the verge of calling for universal health care in the United States or something. Talking about "redistributing income" was once political...
Posted in Economics, Online Places, Union, Writing | Comments closed

Peanuts Made of Skin

By Ray Watkins | Published: July 27, 2007
The Alternative dictionaries are a collection of various forms of "bad language" from many languages. At the moment, there are 2743 entries in 162 dictionaries. This is a collaborative project with contributions from a lot of people. The pages are developed and edited by Hans-Christian Holm. from The Alternative English Dictionary
Who knows, this may come in handy someday. They have listed dozens of languages but there are only entries for the ones you might expect-- English, Cantonese, Hungarian, Belarusian, Hindi, a few from Afrikaans, and so on. Here's a vivid entry from Indonesian: "makan cacang kulit To literally "eat peanuts made of skin': to perform cunnilingus." If you know how to pronounce that, leave me...
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