Links - 19th September 2010

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States." - J. Bartlett Brebner

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Johann Hari: Catholics, it's you this Pope has abused - "Hans Küng, a former friend of Ratzinger's, says: "No one in the whole of the Catholic Church knew as much about abuse cases as this Pope"... There are people who will tell you that these criticisms of Ratzinger are "anti-Catholic". What could be more anti-Catholic than to cheer the man who facilitated the rape of your children? What could be more pro-Catholic than to try to bring him to justice? This is only one of Ratzinger's crimes. When he visited Africa in March 2009, he said that condoms "increase the problem" of HIV/Aids"

Lingua::Romana::Perligata -- Perl for the XXIimum Century - "This paper describes a Perl module -- Lingua::Romana::Perligata -- that makes it possible to write Perl programs in Latin. A plausible rationale for wanting to do such a thing is provided, along with a comprehensive overview of the syntax and semantics of Latinized Perl"

Fewer men for women in Singapore - "Will Singaporean women have less of a choice when it comes to their life partner now?"

Suicides, depression cost Japan $32 billion – gov’t - "Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a former grassroots activist, has pointed to the suicide numbers as proof of what he believes is wrong with the country, with too many people suffering economically and emotionally"

Why are Beautiful Women Crazy ? - "What makes beautiful women more likely to be crazy? The simple answer is, that they are given more opportunity to be crazy, and crazy behavior seems to be more readily accepted from them... It is appropriate to note that men can be crazy too. However, because of societal pressures on men, they don't seem to be crazy (or neurotic) quite as frequently as women. In general crazy behavior is not tolerated as readily in men as in women... it's sad but true; you'll never have sex like the sex you get with crazy women. Why? It seems that acting crazy automatically reduces or eliminates concern for the views of others... Actions speak louder than words - it really doesn't matter what she says. In fact, unless you're well versed in translating "Womenese" into English, focus 90 to 95% of your attention on her actions... Can you change her? Well, if you're a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or other health care professional - maybe. The next question is, should you? Probably not... Many men, having originally gone for the "10's" are settling for the "7's", "8's" and "9's" in order to get away from all the drama"
I don't know if this has any support, but it sure is hilarious

China goes organic after scandal of cooking oil from sewers - "The Chinese now consume more than twice as much organic food as health-conscious Japan... Interest has been promoted by a series of scares including toxic beans, contaminated milk and pork, pesticide-laced dumplings, chemically-tainted chicken, and the growing presence of what is known as “sewage oil”... there are no laws against skimming oil from drains"
China: poisoning their own people, and the world

Man replaces ex-girlfriend with custom-made sex doll - ""I want it just like her but with bigger boobs"... "She was a smiling blonde girl but he wanted bigger boobs and a curvier backside"... "She is now the perfect girlfriend as far as I can see," Mr Bortolin said."
Interestingly it was the Sex Doll maker who made the "perfect girlfriend" remark

The 17 Weirdest Things Schools Have Banned (PHOTOS)
I especially like the ban on Father's Day cards - since it's insensitive to children without fathers (Mother's Day cards are okay)

Here's A Guy Sealed In A Vacuum Bag Playing Mario Kart
Damn Japs

Our conflicted relationship with animals - "Very few people are vegetarians; even most vegetarians eat meat... They asked people one day: Describe your diet. And 5 percent said they were vegetarians. Well, then they called the same people back a couple of days later and asked them about what they ate in the last 24 hours. And over 60 percent of these vegetarians had eaten meat... the passage of the chicken welfare proposition in California [Proposition 2]; that passed, while the gay marriage proposition on the same ballot was defeated. The chicken amendment -- it was chickens and pigs -- there was no party affiliation. Both liberals and conservatives voted for that. So I think in some ways we are more concerned about animal welfare than ever before. So it's actually a great paradox... two-thirds of vegetarians eventually resume eating meat... I uncovered a piece in the New York Times from 1877... they rounded up 750 stray dogs [, put them] in this metal, iron cage, and lower it into the East River with a crane... cockfighters take good care of them, as opposed to the chicken we eat, which usually live very short, very miserable lives... What would be worse if you were a dog? Being thrown into a river and drowned, or living a life of an animal in a hoarding situation, where you're slowly starving to death? So the cruelty of hoarding is in a way greater than the cruelty of these instances. And two-thirds of hoarders are women... [There is belief] that there is a strong link... between childhood animal abuse and growing up to be a sociopathic adult... a slew of studies have now shown that the rates of [animal] abuse by college students is about the same in terms of rate of abuse by prisoners... we basically have drawn that moral circle [around pets] so that we think of them more like us than like them"

YouTube - 【Mario】paper stop motion / 【マリオ】付箋でストップモーション

The father who never gave up - "Melinda was accusing him of molesting their son... The psychologist praised both of them, saying they clearly loved their little boy. He didn't think that Andrew had been abused by Ken or by anybody else. The NSW police didn't think so either. The psychologist also said that Melinda might have had an underlying psychiatric disorder that enabled her to sincerely hold false beliefs without any evidence... He has put up with a lot online, where he is often labelled a child abuser... "The irony in all this is the Family Court bent over backwards not to back me but to believe Melinda," he says. "When she made her allegations, they restricted me to supervised visits. "It was all about keeping Andrew safe from me. Nothing was done to keep him safe from Melinda, who is actually the one who abducted him""

German party mistakenly hands out porn pens to kids - "To sweeten their first day at primary school German children are normally given a cardboard cone filled with sweets, but schoolchildren in Essen this year opened their cones to find pens which project erotic images."

A Taste of Home in Foil Packets and Powder - "Troops from nearly 50 lands dine on combat meals in Afghanistan — each reminding them of where they’d rather be"

How to Make Vodka Liquor Gummy Bears

Don’t Be a Dick, Part 1: the video | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine - "How many people were "converted" to skepticism by having a skeptic yelling at them and insulting them... given what we know about the way people argue and change their views on issues, the vast majority of people will become further entrenched when confronted in that way. In other words, being a dick not only usually doesn’t work, it almost always works against the bigger goal of swaying the most people we can... "What a dick"... I think that way when the person belittles their opponent, uses obviously inflammatory language, or overly aggressively gets in their face."

Religious Outlier - "Gallup surveyed people in more than 100 countries in 2009 and found that religiosity was highly correlated to poverty. Richer countries in general are less religious. But that doesn’t hold true for the United States."

Antidumping protection hurts exporters: firm-level evidence from France - "Firms protected by antidumping measures do not unequivocally benefit from them. Antidumping protection benefits non-exporters active on the protected market by raising their domestic sales, but hurts exporters of similar products as the protected ones. Export sales of protected firms fall by almost 8% compared to a relevant control group of unprotected firms. This effect more than doubles for firms that are global, i.e. firms with foreign affiliates. Measured at the product-level, extra-EU exports of goods protected by antidumping fall by 36% while exports to target countries fall by as much as 66% following protection. Protection also has an effect on the extensive margin, by raising the probability to start exporting for firms that were initially non-exporters. Existing exporters face a higher probability to stop exporting during protection. Finally, we find that the productivity of exporters falls while that of non-exporters rises during antidumping protection"

About Hossan Leong Show’s “censorship” - "Some­one had taken offense and com­plained about the words, “Halal Veg­e­tar­ian Babi Pongteh”, which was a dish to be con­cocted by “Bibik Lim”, a recur­ring char­ac­ter in the show... I there­fore apol­o­gize unre­servedly to the gen­tle­man who spot­ted the offend­ing copy on the flier, who was upset enough to write to the local Malay-language paper. The pro­duc­tion com­pany has, on the direc­tion of the MDA, recalled every poster and flier from every dis­tri­b­u­tion point in Singapore."
I knew someone would complain about Halal Vegetarian Babi Pongteh zzz. Vegetarians should now picket mock meat

U.S. takes a tougher tone with China - "Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Cui Tiankai told two senior U.S. officials that China now views its claims to the 1.3 million-square-mile [South China] sea on par with its claims to Tibet and Taiwan... Clinton... said: "Legitimate claims to maritime space in the South China Sea should be derived solely from legitimate claims to land features"... Foreign Minister Yang reacted by leaving the meeting for an hour. When he returned, he gave a rambling 30-minute response in which he accused the United States of plotting against China on this issue, seemed to poke fun at Vietnam's socialist credentials and apparently threatened Singapore, according to U.S. and Asian officials in the room... Yang issued a statement on the Foreign Ministry's Web site saying that there was no need to internationalize the issue, that China was still intent on solving all of the disputes bilaterally and that China's view represented the interests of "fellow Asians""
A Pax Sinica will only come about if every other country is subjugated

YouTube - Groland - Pas facile de s'intégrer

Chemistry Ph.D. thesis explained via dance routine

In Professor-Dominatrix Scandal, U. of New Mexico Feels the Pain - "Life has become extremely complex in the University of New Mexico's English department in the three years since Lisa D. Chávez, a tenured associate professor, was discovered moonlighting as the phone-sex dominatrix "Mistress Jade," and posing in promotional pictures sexually dominating one of her own graduate students... Several members of the English department accuse Ms. Chávez of abusing her power over students, and allege that the administration retaliated against professors who complained about her extracurricular activities... For her part, Ms. Chávez has accused her accusers, in complaints to the university and the state, of discriminating against her because she is bisexual and Hispanic... When students brought up phone-sex work in her classes, Ms. Chávez, who describes herself as "a pro-sex feminist," spoke approvingly of how empowering such jobs were, of how the students had found a great way to gain outside income and life experience they could draw upon as writers"
This *had* to happen in an English department

Falling in love costs you friends - "Oxford University researchers asked people about their inner core of friendships and how this number changed when romance entered the equation. They found the core, which numbers about five people, dropped by two as a new lover came to dominate daily life... He has previously shown that the maximum number of friends it is realistically possible to engage is about 150"

Seeing a special offer while shopping 'is just like watching porn' - "A coupon or free gift with a jar of Marmite or a loaf of bread gives them just as much excitement as pornography"

Titty Titty Bang Bang - "From: 1000 Ways to Die"

Burglar Anthony Gawthrop leaves phone at victim's house then texts police

Britain goes halal (...but nobody tells public)