Links - 21st March 2010

"In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right." - Ellen Goodman

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NCBI ROFL: Best materials and methods ever. - "Response of brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis) to human blood. “Ten specimens of Boiga irregularis were presented with clean or bloody tampons. The latter were used by women during menses"

Google Answers: Penis length among different races
There's a lot of material from different sources referenced here. Interestingly, some of the stuff also led me to the next 2 links

race/history/evolution notes: Racial differences in vaginal dimensions: strike one more against Rushton - "Full vinyl polysiloxane casts of the vagina were obtained from 23 Afro-American, 39 Caucasian and 15 Hispanic women in lying, sitting and standing positions. A new shape, the pumpkin seed, was found in 40% of Afro-American women, but not in Caucasians or Hispanics. Analyses of cast and introital measurements revealed: (1) posterior cast length is significantly longer, anterior cast length is significantly shorter and cast width is significantly larger in Hispanics than in the other two groups and (2) the Caucasian introitus is significantly greater than that of the Afro-American subject."

Comfort for the large in size - This is amusing for this comment: "Oh gee thanks, I'm going to try this out and stick a cucumber up my vagina. Hey, did you know that cucumbers come in different sizes? But you know what? The cucumber sizes don't depend on the colour of the cucumbers because that would just be silly.
While you are shoving a cucumber up your dirty vagina, a 250 million children in Africa are dieing of starvation.
Your article is not cute. It's not even informative, it's a fucking disgrace to Imprint and this University."

Monkeys learn more from females - "The animals were better able to learn a task when it was demonstrated by a female"
Men like women, women like women, and monkeys like females also.

Super-sized mother determined to become world's fattest woman in two years - "The 42-year-old from New Jersey, U.S, is set on reaching the 1,000lb mark (71st) in just two years. Remarkably she insists she is healthy, despite now needing a mobility scooter when she goes shopping... 'I'd love to be 1,000lb,' she said. 'It might be hard though. Running after my daughter keeps my weight down'... You might expect her long-term partner Philippe, 49, to advise her to slim down, but instead he encourages her to eat more. He met Donna on a dating site for plus-size people and is a self-confessed fat admirer... 'I think he'd like it if I was bigger,' said Donna... To achieve her goal, Donna says she will need to eat up to 12,000 calories a day (the average woman should consume only 2,000.) To fund the massive $750 weekly food shop, she runs a website where men pay her to watch her eat fast food."

Johann Hari: The Pope, the Prophet, and the religious support for evil - "Some... regard people accused of the attempted murders of the Mohamed cartoonists as victims, and to demand "respect" for the Pope, when he should be in a police station being quizzed about his role in covering up and thereby enabling the rape of children... Drawing a cartoon is not an act of aggression. Trying to kill somebody with an axe is. There is no moral equivalence between peacefully expressing your disagreement with an idea – any idea – and trying to kill somebody for it. Yet we have to say this because we have allowed religious people to claim their ideas belong to a different, exalted category, and it is abusive or violent merely to verbally question them. Nobody says I should "respect" conservatism or communism and keep my opposition to them to myself – but that's exactly what is routinely said about Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. What's the difference?... everyone has ideas they hold precious. Only you, the religious, demand to be protected from debate or scrutiny that might discomfort you"

Sceptic challenges guru to kill him live on TV - "Exposing such tricks can be risky. A guru called Balti (Bucket) Baba once smashed a burning hot clay pot in Mr Edamaruku’s face after he revealed that the holy man was using a heat resistant pad to pick it up. The chief rationalist was almost arrested by the government of Kerala for revealing that it was behind an annual apparition of flames in the night sky — in fact, several state officials lighting bonfires on a nearby hill — which attracted millions of pilgrims. Despite his efforts, he admits that people still go to the festival and continue to revere self-styled holy men... When the guru’s initial efforts failed, he accused Mr Edamaruku of praying to gods to protect him. “No, I’m an atheist,” came the response. The holy man then said he needed to conduct a ritual that could only be done at night, outdoors, and after he had slept with a woman, drunk alcohol and rubbed himself in ash"

S'poreans eyeing New Zealand - "Singaporeans are thought of as "diligent", "efficient", "well-trained" and have a good command of English... Between 2008 and 2009, 2,703 of Australia's 171,318 immigrants were Singaporeans... Management trainee Geline Lim, 21, is one who intends to pursue her postgraduate studies in New Zealand. She said it is "less stressful" there, and there is "more freedom and time" to pursue things outside of study. Her parents have already migrated there because of the "more laid-back lifestyle, better air, scenery and government welfare schemes", she added"

E-mails from an Asshole - "This is a collection of e-mails I have sent to people who post classified ads. My goal is to mess with them, confuse them, and/or piss them off."

Exhilaration - Paintball Tank | Tank Paintballing - "Tankballing - it's like paintballing but with tanks! Driving a tank is fantastic fun but imagine actually taking part in a tank battle? Now's your chance - not with live ammunition, but with unique paintball technology. We believe this is the only site in the world to offer this experience, not even the yanks have it yet!"
It's only £89.00!

YouTube - ものまねオールスターズ＊オールスターズ（We are The World） - "ものまねオールスターズ＊オールスターズ（We are The World）
parody we are the world japanese style"
Damn Japs

Picture Perfect: Phony wildlife photography in magazines, books, calendars, and posters is giving people a warped view of nature - ""The wild isn’t pretty. I’d rather see it real than all gussied up. When I see a poster of a big, beautiful air-blown lion with a mane that looks better than my hair galloping toward me, I feel cheated"... Why are lies anathema in all journalism save photo journalism? If a picture is worth a thousand words, is not a film, book, magazine, calendar, or poster containing photographic lies... objectionable?"

Grammar Myths - "There's the objection to nouns being used as verbs. These days, impact comes in for especial condemnation... that means you also don't 'like' the use of view, silence, worship, copy, outlaw, and countless other words that started as nouns and are now also verbs. Nor do many people shudder at the use of fax as a verb... English is shot through with things that don't really follow... Aren't I? is thoroughly illogical-and yet if you decided to start saying amn't all the time, you would lose most of your friends and never get promotions. Except, actually, in parts of Scotland and Ireland where people actually do say amn't--in which case the rest of us think of them as 'quaint' rather than correct!"

Odds Are, It's Wrong - "Science was seduced by statistics... in practice, widespread misuse of statistical methods makes science more like a crapshoot... “Replication is vital,” says statistician Juliet Shaffer... in medicine, she says, the need for replication is widely recognized. “But in the social sciences and behavioral sciences, replication is not common,” she noted... “This is a sad situation”... Most critics of standard statistics advocate the Bayesian approach"

How going green may make you mean - "When people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics". Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science... those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products"
Surely this explains why self-righteous people are not very nice?
Keywords: morality consuming green makes people more likely to, green consumption compensation moral

9GAG - Best cosplay ever! (nsfw)

Contestants turn torturers in French TV experiment - "Game show contestants turn torturers in a new psychological experiment for French television, zapping a man with electricity until he cries for mercy -- then zapping him again until he seems to drop dead... "We were amazed to find that 81 percent of the participants obeyed" the sadistic orders of the television presenter"
It seems Milgram's finding were valid.

North Korean man executed for calling a friend in South Korea on mobile phone

Monitor: The net generation, unplugged | The Economist - "There is also a feeling of superficiality about much online youth activism. Any teenager can choose to join a Facebook group supporting the opposition in Iran or the liberation of Tibet, but such engagement is likely to be shallow. A recent study by the Pew Research Center, an American think-tank, found that internet users aged 18-24 were the least likely of all age groups to e-mail a public official or make an online political donation. But when it came to using the web to share political news or join political causes on social networks, they were far ahead of everyone else. Rather than genuinely being more politically engaged, they may simply wish to broadcast their activism to their peers"