July 21, 2010
La Mexicaine De Perforation is a subdivision of a French group called the L’UX (Urban eXperiment), which holds clandestine artistic events. In September 2004, french police discovered a fully functional underground movie theatre run by La Mexicaine De Perforation in the catacombs of Paris.
When the police returned for a formal investigation, all the equipment had disappeared—all that was left was a note on the floor reading, ‘Do not search’ (‘Ne cherchez pas’). The members of L’UX are largely secret, but its spokesman is Lazar Kunstmann who published La Culture En Clandestins L’UX relating 25 years of clandestine cultural actions.
Posted in Art, Politics, World |
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July 17, 2010
The fat acceptance movement (also known as the size acceptance movement, fat liberation movement, and fat power) is a grassroots effort to change societal attitudes towards obese people. The movement argues that overweight people are targets of hatred, discrimination, and undue social pressure. Critics worry that fat acceptance encourages obesitiy, which is linked to heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and joint problems.
Posted in Health, Politics |
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July 9, 2010
Banksy is the pseudonym of a prolific British grafiti artist whose identity is still unknown. His artworks are often satirical pieces on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing and stenciling has been compared to Parisian graffiti artist Blek le Rat and members of the punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London subway system in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Banksy’s art has appeared in cities around the world. Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy’s first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
Posted in Art, Humor, Politics |
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June 29, 2010
Eve teasing is a euphemism used in India for public sexual harassment, street harassment or molestation of women by men, with Eve being a reference to the biblical Eve. It is a form of sexual aggression that ranges in severity from sexually suggestive remarks, brushing in public places, catcalls, to outright groping.
Posted in Politics, Sex, World |
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June 29, 2010
Balkanization [bawl-kuhn-uh-zey-shuhn] is a geopolitical term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other. The term arose from conflicts in the 20th century Balkans. While what is now termed Balkanization has occurred throughout history, the term originally described the creation of smaller, ethnically diverse states following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
The term is also used to describe other forms of disintegration, including, for instance, the subdivision of the Internet into separate enclaves, the division of subfields and the creation of new fields from sociology, and the breakdown of cooperative arrangements due to the rise of independent competitive entities.
Posted in Language, Politics, War |
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June 28, 2010
Instant runoff voting (IRV), also known as the Alternative Vote (AV), is a form of preferential voting (ranked choice voting). Under the IRV voting system voters rank candidates in order of preference, most commonly in single-winner elections. If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate’s ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining candidates according to the next preference on each ballot. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among the remaining candidates.
Posted in Politics |
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June 25, 2010
Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles are a family of armored fighting vehicles designed to survive IED attacks and ambushes, which are replacing many High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs) in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no common MRAP vehicle design; there are several vendors, each with a competing entry.
Posted in Politics, Technology, War |
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