This is the 1957 Aurora. We will never know what the public would have thought about it, as only one prototype was built, and it didn’t work well enough to make it to its own press conference. Now wait, before you argue that the Aurora can’t be the world’s ugliest car, check out the huge collection of ugly cars at Dark Roasted Blend. They are all ugly in their own ways. Link

(Image credit: GATSBY Magazine)

Many studies have shown that being ugly is actually an economic disadvantage: it's a fact that good looking people make more money than ugly ones.

But if you've got a face that only a mother could love, take heart. Economics professor Daniel S. Hamermesh of the University of Texas at Austin has a legal solution: affirmative action for ugly people!

Why this disparate treatment of looks in so many areas of life? It’s a matter of simple prejudice. Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers’ refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects.

How could we remedy this injustice? With all the gains to being good-looking, you would think that more people would get plastic surgery or makeovers to improve their looks. Many of us do all those things, but as studies have shown, such refinements make only small differences in our beauty. All that spending may make us feel better, but it doesn’t help us much in getting a better job or a more desirable mate.

A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?

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Mr Clifford, 36, a carpet fitter who has a ”face that makes children cry”, said: ”I’ve been a joke to women for years because of the way I look.

”I always thought that I was too ugly to meet Mrs Right but my life changed when I met Janine.

”She’s beautiful and I love her in every possible way. I still can’t believe this is happening.”[...]

Miss Walker, a shop assistant who lives with her parents, agreed.

”The rest, as they say, is history,” she said.

“I appreciate that Tom isn’t Brad Pitt, but then I’m no Angelina Jolie either.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and to me Tom’s the perfect, handsome prince.”

She added: “I’m just so pleased to have been able to meet him, and I’m head-over-heels in love.”

Link via Geekologie | Official Website | Photo: SWNS

Before you chalk this one up as the discredited pseudoscience of physiognomy rearing its ugly head, consider the argument behind a paper by Georgia State University economist (and dashingly handsome guy) Erdal Tekin:

Ugly people are more likely to break the law. This is the statistically based conclusion in a paper published in The Review of Economics and Statistics entitled Ugly Criminals [...]

This takes us to the modern Ugly Criminals study, which is subtler than it might seem. It is based on an anonymous questionnaire combined with equally anonymous ratings of the subject’s attractiveness. It shows a small but significant correlation between attractiveness, or the lack of it, and criminality. The most unattractive segment are 1.5 per cent more likely to have committed robbery, 2.2 per cent more likely to have committed assault, and 3 per cent more likely to have sold drugs. Or to have been caught doing so, at any rate.

The authors note previous work showing how more attractive people are more successful in their careers and earn more. This puts less attractive people at a disadvantage in the world of work and nudges them towards criminal alternatives. In addition, less attract ive people suffer socially, make fewer friends and build less of what the authors call “human capital”. They are therefore not as sympathetic to others and have less of an investment in society. This effect is far more pronounced in females, suggesting that they are judged on their appearance to a much greater degree.

Links: Article at Fortean Times | The paper Ugly Criminals by H. Naci Mocan and Erdal Tekin [PDF]

The Oops Design Awards have taken it upon themselves to do something that should have been done a long time ago -they have created an award for the ugliest, silliest and most useless product designs of the year. As you may have guessed, the lamp above is in the running for ugliest. It is the Oswine Lamp designed by Johanness Hemann. The nominees gallery actually has a few items I like, but for the most part it’s brimming with hillariously hideous items.

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Workers said many people who come into the building can’t really believe what they’re seeing. But they said despite appearances, Bat Boy has a nice disposition and real inner beauty.

“The impression from clients that come in is he’s not real because he just sits so still, and when he does move, he scares them, but they think he’s mesmerizing,” Hartnett said.

Be warned that if you go to the story and click on the “slideshow” button, the first picture may frighten young children. Link -via Metafilter

There’s been an abundance of cute on the web, particularly lately. At least one site aims to counter this movement, and that is Ugly Overload. I’ve been waiting for a great post to share, and this quick collection of tongues is just what the doctor ordered…although, I have to say, I still find the giraffe tongue to be quite cute.

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