Links - 8th March 2011

"Sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable." - Trey Parker and Matt Stone

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Opinion: The bizarre Gadhafi I met - "Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is the strangest head of state I've ever met. When I asked him about Libyan democracy he threatened to sue. "If you or someone else says that Libya is not a democracy then it would be considered an insult," he said. "We could go to court to redeem honor from that insult""
Because of the threats to sue, everyone believes Libya is a democracy

Voodoo sex ceremony starts fatal fire, officials say - "A voodoo priest allegedly placed the candles on the floor around the bed on Saturday after a woman paid him $300 to perform a ceremony with a sexual component, that was meant to bring her good luck, fire department officials said. The candles were accidentally knocked over during the ceremony prompting the man to douse the flames with water and open a window in an effort to clear smoke from the room, the statement said. Forty mile-per-hour wind gusts instead shot the flames back inside the room, it said, creating a "blowtorch effect" that whipped through the open window and pushed the fire into the building's fourth floor hallway"

Hundreds of Tourist Photos Weaved into One
Most tourists take the same photos. Because they are good angles

Male CEOs With Daughters Treat Women Better

A Nation of Wimps - ""Kids need to feel badly sometimes," says child psychologist David Elkind, professor at Tufts University. "We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn how to cope"... "These kids have been controlled for so long, they just go crazy"... "Much of collegiate social activity is centered on alcohol consumption because it's an anxiety reducer and demands no social skills," he says. "Plus it provides an instant identity; it lets people know that you are willing to belong"... Grade inflation is the institutional response to parental anxiety about school demands on children... what creates anxious children is parents hovering and protecting them from stressful experiences... The end result of cheating childhood is to extend it forever... The goal of parenting, Portmann reminds, is to raise an independent human being"
Talk about how cell phone use leads to a failure to plan ahead and then to depression makes me wonder just how prone psychologists themselves are to pop psychology. Or indeed to mistaking correlation for causation (as social scientists usually point out when they disagree with a hypothesis)

Probation called for poly student who was a pimp - "He would be told which alley to got to in the red-light district and solicit for the three prostitutes. Out of the $50 he collected from every customer, he kept $5. At the end of the shift, which was usually in the early hours of the day, Zen would sent a runner on a motorcycle to collect the takings. As the boss was using an unlisted number, Wong had no means to contact him and had never met him. Neither had the prostitutes"
As pimps go, this is pathetic

Intervention in Libya would poison the Arab revolution | Seumas Milne
Comments: "if Western intervention would be a bad thing, why are many Libyans calling for a no-fly zone? Is is better for Gaddafi to win and full mass graves full of brave people? We betrayed the Kurds and Marsh Arabs once. It seems Seumas would like us to repeat the mistake... Was French democracy undermined by D-Day?"
"I am certain that if the West were doing nothing, you would still be on here complaining that they should be doing something."
"Yes, let support the opposition against Gaddafi by...err.. doing absolutely nothing. That's what those paragons of virtue - China & Russia would do. Surely anything else would be a neo-con oil grabbing conspiracy and nothing to do with basic human rights...right??"
"Lets imagine Gaddafi wasn't a darling of some of the 'Left' , let's imagine his name was say, Pinochet and he was killing innocent civilians fighting for their freedom. One could imagine the criticism of the Milnes of this world decrying the lack of American intervention in their own back-yard."
"According to Al Jazeera, the Arab League are considering imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Anything but Britain and America intervening to 'help'."
"I think the Guardian and its writers (and indeed some of the left-wing sneerers on here) should be ashamed of themselves. In the name of making a political point at Cameron, they are prepared to see hundreds of people die."
"to be fair to the author you have to make it clear that their not actual opposed to all dictatorships , they love Castro, and what they lead to"
"The best thing for the West to do is to stand by and do nothing and allow mass slaughter to ensue as the west's intervention would be seen as hypocrisy, something which as Milne suggests would be terrible. It's good to know Milne cares so deeply about the West's image. I agree with him."

Who controls the thermostat in your home? - "Women are more likely to have cold hands than men, regardless of age, body mass index and core temperature. But the core temperature of women's bodies is actually about 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit higher than men on average... women tend to be more interested in social domains of life -- including family and friends -- than men, and men tend to be more inclined toward the instrumental... it makes sense that women would seek physical warmth and prefer warmer physical temperatures, as they are inherently linked to feelings of social connectedness"

Court rules that newspaper does not have to identify commenters - "Defamation attempt fails as high court rules that anonymous comments on the Daily Mail's website are little more than "pub talk""

Psychologists say cost of children forces mothers and fathers to convince themselves it's worthwhile - "Those who read about the financial hardship idealised parenting the most. They were more likely to say they enjoyed spending time with their children. This group also said that they intended to spend more time with their children on their day off, the journal Psychological Science reports. A similar experiment using different parents backed up the theory that mothers and fathers idealise parenthood to justify the costs of bringing up a family... today’s children leave home later and have expensive tastes – making it more important for parents to justify their existence"

Full Bladder, Better Decisions? Controlling Your Bladder Decreases Impulsive Choices - Association for Psychological Science

Pikachu (picture)

ST Forum Page - "If you also find the ST Forum page getting sillier and sillier and asking yourself, "are there no better letters? Or is the forum page editor just trying to be funny?" This blog's for you."

Unarmed but still Dangerous - Dealing with Internet Trolls - the Cognitive Therapy Approach - "What not to do?
1. Criticise his judgement:
2. "Don't feed the troll" - i.e: ignore him.
3. Ban him / call for banning him
4. Tell him not to troll. - you're labelling him, insulting him and making him feel like he's alienated. Some people may still respond harshly.
5. Cancel the project, or close the channel
What to do instead
1. Ask him what he means
2. Agree with him (but use a softer language)
3. And eventually negotiate a common ground"

Camera prettifies subjects, even adds makeup - "The LUMIX FX77, released
last Friday, has a "beauty re-touch" function that will whiten your teeth, increase the translucency of your skin, remove dark eye circles, make your face look smaller and even magnify the size of your eyes. For the final touch, it will apply rouge, lipstick and even eye shadow"

Unbelievable: Berkshire-Hathaway Stock Goes Up When Anne Hathaway Is in the News - "Mirvish blames this phenomenon on automated trading programs scouring the internet for stories about "Hathaway" and then applying that data to the stock market, completely unaware of the difference between a Nebraska-based business and a celebrity actress"

Is raising foreign worker levy the answer? - "Increasing the levy is
not going to solve the foreign labour problem, nor is it going to force most firms to upgrade. Levies have been in force for decades but most industries appear to have found it cheaper to just pay up rather than spend the money to upgrade. This, despite various incentives and encouragements to upgrade... We have to separate the jobs that Singaporeans can do and those they will not... The foreigner is able to take up these jobs because he is not here for the long haul nor does he have a family to raise here. Their expenses overall are kept low. You cannot expect locals to live the same way or make the same sacrifices... It appears that all too often we rely on financial signals to solve our problems"
Locals can make the same sacrifices - they just won't start families; if you're great at Economics 101, you will love financial signals. But if you understand Economics 401, you will understand that they don't always work

GE George Yeo shares key election strategy - "He calls it "KUAY TEOW Hot and Nice", with each letter representing a theme: K for Kampong spirit, U for Upgrading, A for Ageing well, Y for Young families, T for Transportation, E for Eating and shopping, O for Our heritage and W for WIFI. The 'H' and 'N' in Hot and Nice stand for Healthy living and Nature, respectively"
This speaks for itself. And I bet you wont even get free WiFi

Man riled by women wearing short pants - "A MIDDLE-AGED man has been attacking women wearing short pants in Johor Baru... The man would also spit on any woman with short pants... when policemen approached the man, he claimed that he was gay and that he hated women wearing short pants. When asked why, he told them they were trying to seduce him"

Teen lied to qualify for £5,000 foot operation on NHS just to squeeze into Jimmy Choos