Links - 31st May 2010

"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." - Matt Groening

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The Straight Dope: Does every type of animal dropping have its own name? - "Useful verbs are blissom, to copulate with a ewe; and caponize, to castrate a chicken. For gourmets we have ranivorous, frog-eating; and scolecophagous, worm-eating. In the animal mania department there is formication, the feeling that bugs are crawling over you; boanthropy, the delusion that you're an ox; cynanthropy, the fantasy that you're a dog; and galeanthropy, the nightmare that you're a cat"

The Straight Dope: How accurate are lie-detector tests? - "Probably the most comprehensive look at polygraph accuracy is a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences. After examining 57 polygraph studies the NAS concluded: "In populations of examinees such as those represented in the polygraph research literature, untrained in countermeasures, specific-incident polygraph tests can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates well above chance, though well below perfection." Their analysis of the 30 most recent polygraph data sets showed an overall accuracy of 85 percent, and an analysis of seven field studies involving specific incidents showed a median accuracy of 89 percent."

YouTube - Mc Donald's - Playland - "For kids, McDonald's is a fun, exciting place. We wanted to bring that feeling back to adults"

Because Every Country Is The Best At Something - "International Number Ones"

Can a Pill Help Women Reach Orgasm? - "Tiefer argues that no single drug could possibly cure all of women's sexual problems because there are so many potential causes for a woman's inability to enjoy sex. Male impotence is essentially a mechanical problem that can be cured by a medication that enables erection. But women may turn away from sex for many reasons: physical, emotional, psychological."
Women are complicated

Hans Rosling on Singapore (Part II) - "Q: How valid is this idea that China is the world's biggest source of pollution?
A: It is intellectually at this level. (He bends down and points to his socks). I call the people with these ideas Post-Industrial Morons."
Pointing out an incontrovertible truth makes you a Moron? Sounds like Post-Colonial Guilt
Addendum: In the other part of the interview, he reveals that he is a misandrist and blames men for everything, imagining that men are solely responsible if women don't want to have children; I don't expect him to be up to speed with the latest research on maternal gatekeeping, but at least he should acknowledge that it takes two hands to clap. He also says that if a marriage breaks down and a divorce happens, it must be the women leaving unhappy marriages, and that must be the man's fault. If a woman does not want to have kids, it must be because she married a bastard: "Low-income divorcees with children in tow are also entitled to housing subsidies in Sweden. This makes it easier for women who leave unhappy marriages. 'You then remarry someone you love, that you are willing to have more kids with, instead of with that bastard you happened to marry the first time,' he says." (asterisks replaced)

The man accused of setting up false suicide pacts - "It is related to the whole question of freedom of speech. The difficulty is how the promotion of suicide is defined - after all, there are books, plays and films that deal with the issue."

Was Jesus Christ a Sith Lord? - "When Anakin quotes Jesus to Obi-Wan, "You are either for me or against me" (Matthew 12:30), we find out from Obi-Wan that Jesus was a Sith Lord — "Only the Sith deal in absolutes"... Anakin is quite willing to slaughter innocent children and his own friends in order to save someone he has decided he can't live without (although, as the rest of the series shows, he does manage to survive without her). Likewise, Padme is willing to orphan her children because her husband is an ass. Instead of living for love, she dies from petulance... If anyone wonders what life looks like to a pagan, watch the Star Wars series. Its incoherence, senseless violence and skewed perceptions of reality combine to demonstrate that without Christ at the center, life truly is but sound and fury, signifying nothing."
HAHAHAHAHAHA Christian Literary Analysis is even funnier than the normal sort

That dress looks great... and other fibs your friends tell you - "Four in ten women will lie to friends about how an outfit looks, in order to make themselves look better by comparison. Some will even go as far as 'accidentally' pouring drinks over a friend's clothing to avoid being overshadowed... Luckily, many women are wise to these wicked ways. When asked if they trusted their pals to give an honest opinion of their clothes, just 36 per cent said they did."

Mobile phone number suspended after three users die in 10 years - "A mobile phone company has suspended the number 0888 888 888 – after every single person assigned to it died in the last 10 years."
They should peddle it in China

Good Government vs. Less Government - "Or: Why the Heritage Freedom Index is a Damned Statistical Lie... many of these measures used in the composite Heritage Index have nothing to do with less government, and a lot more to do with good government. It is these measures of good government that correlate to economic growth and drive the overall correlation between the “Freedom Index” and positive outcomes... Fiscal Freedom and lower Government Spending negatively correlate with life expectancy, even without controlling for other variables!... it still undercuts the neoliberal argument (less government = always better)."

Newseum | Today's Front Pages - "834 front pages from 77 countries... The Newseum displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form"

Italian priests' secret mistresses ask pope to scrap celibacy rule - "Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved""

Recover Detail and Sharpen Your Blurred Photos - "Focus Magic uses advanced forensic strength deconvolution technology to literally "undo" blur and recover lost detail. It can repair both out-of-focus blur and motion blur (camera shake) in an image"

YouTube - Lyrebird mimic

Scrap the 50-50 divorce payouts that rob men, says law chief - "It is unfair to men and demeaning to women, she said... Lady Deech, one of the country's most senior family lawyers, said 40 years of divorce law reform had increased the number of divorces and hurt families... Children, who learn about the dangers of smoking and poor diet at school, should also be taught about the value of marriage, she said. Lady Deech spoke out after a series of multi-million-pound divorce payouts to wives who have been married to rich men for only a short time... 'It is no wonder that England is the divorce capital of Europe and out of step with other European countries.' Women who expect equality at work should not suddenly be treated as kept women when they divorce... 'But even when public debate focuses on the plight of single parents and their children, the fact that over half of them are created by divorce and separation is overlooked.'"

NUS Business School Global Alumni Network - "Going by the following accounts, marriages are made not just in heaven but in NUS Business School too. So what is it about looking across the lecture theatre to find your soulmate looking right back at you? Click on their names to read their story"
HAHAHAHAHAHA

David Laws has provoked his treatment at the hands of a homophobic press - "One of the most difficult observations we ever have to make to those who feel they are victims of homophobia is: "It might not be just because you're gay.""