Links - 18th March 2010

"The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it." - P. B. Medawar

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Forehead Tittaes w/ Marion Cotillard (link updated) - "In America, anything is possible. It is the land of opportunity, a place where dreams come true. But women in America must still deal with sexual objectification... French women have known for centuries that to earn a man's respect, you must make him look you in the eyes.
Introducing Forehead Tittaes by Janae: France's best-kept secret. Lab tests prove that Forehead Tittaes actually redirect the male gaze from the chest to the general area of the brain... earns their respect without sacrificing your femininity"

Cocaine users 'making global warming worse' - "We were horrified to learn for every few lines of cocaine snorted in a London club, four square metres of rainforest is destroyed"
This is ridiculous, considering that "For each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed"

Professional couch potato wanted: get paid to do nothing and eat more junk food - "It will pay almost £24,000 to a "worker" with a big appetite who is happy to eat 400 extra calories every day in high fat meals such as chips and pizzas, to test the fat binding properties of a weight loss product"

Hot cross buns banned for fear of offence - "Tower Hamlets, Liverpool, York and Wolverhampton have stopped serving them for fear that they could provoke protests from Muslim, Hindu or Jewish students or their parents. It is the first time that councils, rather than individual schools, have taken steps to ensure that hot cross buns are not served to pupils... Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that the decisions were “very bizarre”, particularly when Britain was about to go to war. He said that the bans were an attempt to respect religious sensitivities, but it was “taking things a bit too far”. Serving hot cross buns was “not very serious” and was not likely to offend Muslims, Mr Sacranie said. Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP, said: “It’s not as if eating a hot cross bun automatically makes you a born-again Christian.” "
........... This was in the same year (2003) that books with stories about pigs were banned

The lives of the Lehman ladies - "The one woman who rose to the top, Erin Callan, was a beneficiary of a passion Joe Gregory developed, relatively late in the day, at promoting diversity at Lehman. Callan, a Harvard graduate born to a New York cop, was a fighter. But she did herself no favours at Lehman, Ward says, by coming to work in low-cut, short dresses that would have been more suitable to a cocktail party. Callan’s looks were often the subject of morning inter-office e-mails, until she found herself struggling to hold her head above water when the markets started to turn. “Her biggest mistake was to accept a job [chief financial officer] she was not up to,” Ward says. “Joe Gregory had no business in appointing her”"
Maybe Lehman Brothers and Sisters would not have been such a good idea after all.

The Cove, Dolphins, and Mercury - "Mercury poisoning is scary, but it is only one amongst a long and growing list of toxicological concern... if you’re a woman who is or may become pregnant or a child, avoid shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish... avoiding dolphin is best for your neurons. But primary reason to stop the fishery? Perhaps not. It hasn’t shut down swordfish, shark, tilefish, or tuna yet"

Thailand Police Don Smiley Masks: Ha, Ha… Wha? - "“They have to put on a mask because a smile doesn’t come naturally anymore… These past few years that smile has worn thin because we are all angry at each other and willing to show it,” says economist, Ammar Siamwalla. Recently, Abac, a leading polling agency, spent three days questioning more than 2,000 people in the Bangkok area only to discover that on a scale of 1 to 10, people gave Thailand only 5.77 points for being the “Land of Smiles”"

'Gay' police horse case dropped - "Police have stood by their decision to take Sam Brown to court for making "homophobic comments" despite the Crown Prosecution Service dropping the case. Mr Brown, 21, a student at Oxford University, had said to an officer: "Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?" Police took the case to court after Mr Brown refused to pay a £80 fine. Mr Brown, who made the comment during a night out with friends in Oxford after his final exams, was arrested under section 5 of the Public Order Act for making homophobic remarks. His remarks were deemed likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress"
Let no one be spared in the battle against bigotry!

Is there a spell to become a mermaid that actually works? - Yahoo! Answers - "Q: Don't say things like "mermaids don't exist" because I take it very seriously and i find it offensive... BTW. I am also a witch
A: Enter a small pond or lake with a mask that allows you to speak similar to ones that divers wear (mermaids can survive in salt or fresh water.) Once you submerge you must begin to chant "let my power surge and fly, through the sea and the sky, take my form and let it be, free to roam the endless sea" Once you said this three times, you should remove your mask. Once removed, deeply inhale the water. At first you will feel like your drowning, this is to be expected. Once your lungs are full of water they will begin to transmute to gills. Be warned, if you surface when this is happening, the process will reverse itself. Best of luck! :D"
Another person: "What you are about to read is absolute truth, and anyone seriously interested in knowing the real answer to a question should never be offended by the truth."

Would more women in Catholic Church reduce abuse? - ""It is clear that, statistically, women abuse much less than men. And in terms of reporting, are much more likely to (report abuse)" ... Janet Smith, chair of life ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit [said] "Women can be Christ-like as well as any man, but we wouldn't choose a woman to play the role of Hamlet, right?" She added that women play a big role in the structure of the Catholic Church, holding 23 percent of the top "power positions" in the United States, 48 percent of the administrative positions and 80 percent of all paid positions. Jones, however, said those statistics were meaningless as long as women cannot be priests. "We have women that are running all sorts of things, but they are not allowed in the most important position of all, which is the priesthood." Smith countered: "I disagree that the priesthood is the most important position in the church. Every human soul has the obligation to seek holiness. And the power that the true Catholic wants is the power to serve as Christ served.""

Man used penis to assault female police officer - "The accused got to his feet and was standing over the police officer exposing his penis and thrusting it in her face, forcing her to take evasive action to avoid getting struck"