Links - 10th May 2011

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers

***

Harvard Gazette: Male body image - "Taiwanese men show less dissatisfaction with their bodies than Westerners... Chinese culture places less emphasis on muscle as a measure of masculinity. Also, Asian men are less exposed to the unending images of pects, abs, biceps, and triceps common in Western media. Finally, Taiwanese men retain a tighter grip on the traditional roles of household and corporate masters than men in the United States and other Western countries"

Confucius Statue Vanishes Near Tiananmen Square - “Students come home from school and tell their parents, ‘One of my classmates got run over by a car today — now I have one less person to compete against,’ ”

YouTube - Insane Japanese Politician - "I have no interest whatsoever in political reform or any kind of reform... We must abandon this detestable nation"

Why Women Rule The Internet - "Women are the majority of users of social networking sites and spend 30% more time on these sites than men; mobile social network usage is 55% female... females are 65% of renters. Why? Renting requires a little more advanced planning. Chegg’s research shows women are more inclined to plan ahead than men... According to the US Census Bureau, women oversee over 80% of consumer spending... If females had not adopted in the early days, I wonder if Facebook would be what it is today. (Why do you think all the guys showed up?)... according to OpenTable, the majority of bookings are overwhelmingly made by females. Why? Likely because women drive most decisions about where to go and where to eat"
Comments: "I would feel sorry for women, whose only reason to exist, it seems, is to consume products made by mostly men"
"you really need to drop the "girls rule, boys drool" attitude... the very concept of hiring a women over a man for a job simply because of her insight into her sex is as outdated as women's suffrage. Employees should be hired because they are the best person for the job, not because we need a woman on the team"
"Reacting to an article saying "Why Women Rule the Internet" (over men) is misogynistic?"
"Middle management, hr, and legal have substantial numbers of females in the ranks. Finance and sales often have substantial amounts of male employees, & CEO's, CFO's, and COO's usually come up from sales or finance"

The Trouble with Men - "Those who bore sons had shorter life spans than those who gave birth to daughters. This discrepancy has to do with birth weight—male babies are typically larger—as well as testosterone"

Uncomfortably Sexual Company Logos

Women warned of sex stimulant in drink - "I know of a friend who gave the spiked drink to a woman he had just met. Less than 15 minutes later, the woman invited him to have sex without being asked to"
Malaysia Boleh!

Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

Le sexe pour lutter contre la corruption - "Miss Janvier, déguisée en mariée coquine, brandit son majeur et lance «Je n'épouserai pas un corrompu»"

What to say to Christians who point to random occurences in nature (e.g. the cross shape of laminin) and try to evangelise (image)

Hot French Girl and a Mirror - Video

Chinese Citizens on Tour in Europe - ""Some of his older travellers used to have a habit of hiding cash in the toilet tank or the ventilation ducts. “The worst case I’ve had was a guest who sewed money into the hem of the curtains... At a Malaysian casino hotel in 2005, some three hundred Chinese visitors were issued special meal coupons bearing cartoon pig faces... the offended Chinese tourists staged a sit-in, singing the national anthem... central Paris had no skyscrapers. “In Shanghai, unless you’re standing right next to the Huangpu River, you can’t get any sense of the city, because there are too many tall buildings.” Europeans, he added, “preserve anything old and valuable”... In Chinese surveys, “culture” often leads the list of terms that people associate with Europe. On the negative side, top results include “arrogant” and “poor-quality Chinese food”... “Other than different buildings, the Seine didn’t look all that different from the Huangpu,” she said. “Subway? We have a subway. You name it, we’ve got it”... We had been in Europe for a week and had yet to sit down to a lunch or a dinner that was not Chinese. (Nearly half of all Chinese tourists in one market survey reported eating no more than one “European style” meal on a trip to the West.) But Li warned that Western food would take too long to serve, and he recalled a five-hour dinner in Spain. “If you eat Western food too fast, you’ll get an upset stomach”... “If you don’t take home a Peruzzi souvenir, you can’t prove you have been to Florence”"

The Election Department Replies On the Rejection of Tanjong Pagar Candidates - And Gives Clear Grounds. Please Circulate. - "Mr Ng Teck Siong told me, with supreme conviction that “I don’t pay the election deposit because they never process the nomination form”, confirming the statements made by Mr Lee of the Elections Department. Unfortunately, the explicit wording of the statute, as well as instructions to candidate issued by the elections department do not support his supreme conviction. In fact, a contrary view is held as to the nomination process... It appears that Mr Ng, in addition to being unable to fill in a form, is also incapable of reading clear instructions, much less following them. While he should be given credit for his bravery in coming forward as a candidate, it appears to be the only positive quality we can credit him with"

WP’s Lee Li Lian: Woman’s touch could matter « SINGAPORE VOTES 2011 - "Ms Lee, however, believes that a “woman’s touch” could make a difference and says she has the ability to connect with people from all walks of life"
If it is misogynistic to quote someone saying that a wife should cook and do things for you, is it misandristic to say women are better at connecting with people?

No Hell? Pastor Rob Bell Angers Evangelicals - "A visitor to the exhibit had stuck a note next to the Gandhi quotation: "Reality check: He's in hell." Bell was struck. Really? he recalls thinking. Gandhi's in hell? He is?
We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt?
And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?"
We know this the same way we know everything religious, and somebody decided to take on this responsibility for the same reason that religious people decide to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know about their religions. I don't see the problem here.

A Feminist Flare Up - ""Independent feminism" embraced the feminist challenge to women's traditional place but also asserted that the major battles for women's rights had been won -- and not only celebrated feminist achievements but questioned exaggerated claims of female oppression and male evil. Among other things, this dissident feminism criticized the tendency to redefine rape (particularly "date rape") so broadly as to include miscommunication due to mixed signals or sex under the influence of alcohol... Marcotte emerged as a leader of the cyber-lynch mob in the Duke University rape hoax. On her blog, anyone questioning the guilt of the three lacrosse players charged with sexually assaulting an exotic dancer at a team party was branded a "rape apologist"... It seems that, in Marcotte's eyes, the real crime of the "independent feminists'" is helping preserve the idea that the presumption of innocence applies even in cases of rape and sexual assault. If so, that is indeed a victory. Depriving men of their civil rights is no victory for women -- both as a matter of principle and because most women have men in their lives whom they would not want to see face a false charge of rape under Marcotte-style standards of justice."

Paul Harris has car towed away after CAT sneaks into it and police smash windows - "The man who towed my car was there and said I could only get my car when I paid £150 at the police station and they had faxed over confirmation of payment. ‘I spoke to a desk sergeant and he told me that if officers damaged property in this manner then the force doesn’t have to pay for it. ‘When I kicked up a bit of a fuss he said I should complain to their legal department.’ Mr Harris finally picked up his car on Tuesday afternoon but has also had to pay £70 excess on his insurance for the windows to be repaired and another £20 for it to be cleaned because of the glass and cat’s mess he found inside, bringing the total bill to £240"

Man sued for $12 million for alleged impotency - ""When he did for the first time, he treated me inhumanly and inappropriately," she told the court. "I discovered later on that he suffered erectile dysfunction. He was exactly the opposite of what he claimed to me before we signed the marriage contract... I suffered mentally, emotionally and lost any hope to become a mother""
This is why PMS is very important

Roll a D6 on Vimeo

YouTube - Owl Transform 2 - "Owl Transform ： When faced smaller enemy, it become bigger; but if the enemy biggest than itself, it become stick..haha,very cutie~"

[GPGT] Ah tiong shop selling dog meat in Singapore - "Comments: "it's 'socially unacceptable'
people who eat vegetables offend me
i should find a majority and outlaw vegetables once and for all"
"i hate eggplants"
"what if ah tiongs offend most sinkies? Will they be outlawed? :0"
"if hypocrisy offends me, how arh?"
"it's not like cows, pigs and cheeken are notch social animals""
This thread is very depressing, because of all the xenophobia, irrational privileging of dogs and idiocy (everybody saying it's illegal but no one giving proof)

the myth of microfinance - "Jonathan Morduch, a long-time advocate of microfinance, confesses that '[s]trikingly, 30 years into the microfinance movement we have little solid evidence that it improves the lives of clients in measurable ways'... without subsidies from governments or international donors, microfinance institutions have to charge, and have been charging, near-usurious rates... the vast bulk of microcredit is not used to fuel entrepreneurship by the poor, the alleged goal of the exercise, but to finance consumption"