In a surprise move, Walmart announced that they are raising the minimum wage for their workers to $9 per hour in April, rising to $10 per hour in February 2016. Walmart is one of the worst exploiters and abusers of its workers, paying low wages and subjecting them to poor working conditions.
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Yesterday’s match between England and New Zealand turned into a rout with England batting first and being dismissed for a paltry 123 off 33.2 overs, thus earning the dubious distinction of having the lowest score and batting for the fewest overs so far in the tournament. While I had predicted that England would not win this tournament, this performance was far worse than even I expected and can only be described as an utter humiliation. New Zealand, on the other hand, cemented their reputation as the team to watch in this tournament.
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We all know that our memories are unreliable. We forget things that happened and we ‘remember’ things that didn’t. Recent events have put back in the spotlight the issue of false memories. I have written about my own experience with false memories. The fact that people can spontaneously create false memories or have them implanted by others have in the past led to the kinds of miscarriages of justice that occurred during the epidemic of reported abuse in day care centers a few decades ago.
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Tobacco companies are clearly in the running for the title of the most evil, lying, despicable companies on Earth, relentlessly marketing a product that when used as intended causes disease and death. Last Week Tonight takes on the issue of how tobacco companies are targeting people in other countries as the anti-smoking campaigns in the US cut into their profits here. In the process, he shows how news can be investigative, informative, and hard-hitting and yet interesting and worth watching.
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This cricket World Cup has seen some fine performances by teams that are low-ranked. In addition to Ireland beating West Indies, we saw Scotland making New Zealand work hard for their win. Scotland was dismissed for only 142 in 36.2 overs, setting NZ up for an easy win. But NZ, showing an uncharacteristically cavalier attitude perhaps because they faced such an low target, lost seven wickets before reaching the score in 24.5 overs.
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We know that America has an enduring love affair with guns that has been manifested in recent times with the introduction of laws that enable people to carry guns on their persons almost everywhere they go, either openly or concealed. With men, this is relatively easy to do, since they have pockets and wear loose-fitting pants and jackets that can conceal a weapon without any telltale bulges.
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For most people, the idea that we need to vaccinate people so that all of us are safe from diseases that can be easily and safely prevented seems like a no-brainer. The risk to other children is not hypothetical. This news report describes one case where four children of a family from Phoenix, Arizona whose parents had not vaccinated their children went to Disneyland, contracted measles, returned and went to their pediatrician’s clinic where they infected a woman with the disease. She then exposed 195 children to the disease. One of the children showing symptoms is a 10-month old boy who was too young to get vaccinated. But he also has a three-year old sister who has leukemia and the parents are terrified that she will get measles because her immune system has been compromised by her chemotherapy and will not be able to fight the infection.
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Critics of America’s interference in other countries by invading, bombing, and killing, and fomenting coups that overthrow their governments and create general chaos are often asked what the US should do instead. The US government always says that it is doing whatever it does for humanitarian reasons but history has shown that that is merely the excuse given to make the interference palatable to the public.
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I was glancing through the team rosters for the cricket World Cup currently underway and noticed that the South African team seems to be the most diverse, consisting of Africans, Asians, Anglos, and Afrikaaners. This is quite an irony since South Africa was for many years ostracized from the world of sports because of its strict segregationist apartheid policies that forbade anyone but whites from playing not only on national teams but at any level of real skill.
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Glenn Greenwald points out that Libya is a classic example of something that happens over and over again: War hawks drum up some case for attacking some country, the ‘humanitarian interventionists’ gleefully sign on to the war effort and condemn those who think that the wars are wrong, there is great gloating among the war hawks when the invaded country’s leaders are toppled at the beginning of the war and a ridiculing of the war’s opponents, and then silence as things go badly awry, leaving the situation worse than before
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