Links - 7th September 2011

"Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?" - George Bernard Shaw

Sounds like National Slavery

***

Keeping quiet allows intolerance to thrive - ""The trouble with us in the west is that . . . we succumb to a pious paralysis where we can't even say that we're superior to the Taliban"... Atheist Foundation members, invited to debate the existence of God with the Muslim Students Association, found the room segregated, men left, women right... An ex-Muslim, Hossain Salahuddin, remembers the audience as "very hostile . . . pretty nasty". A heckler shouting, "Islam will conquer the world", was cheered and a couple of the looser canons were ejected. The atheists were later escorted by security not just from the room but also from the campus... This stuff is not tolerable. To tolerate it is not pluralism but hypocrisy. Silence does not asphyxiate it, but lets it grow unchecked"

Headgear ban at NY amusement park sparks scuffles - "A ban on religious and other head coverings on rides at a suburban amusement park on Tuesday sparked scuffles leading to 15 arrests... Disputes broke out after women wearing traditional Muslim scarves called hijabs tried to get on rides that prohibit any head coverings for safety reasons, Westchester County officials said. The women were offered refunds. But then male and female visitors started to argue among themselves... Two park rangers who intervened were injured and were hospitalized... The tour operator, the Muslim American Society of New York, had been advised of the rule numerous times... He said scarves can become entangled in mechanical parts, choke riders or fly off and land in a ride's tracks
""She just wanted to get on a ride. That was it," Dena Meawad was quoted as saying. "It's clear, this all happened because we're Muslim""

Yo, Yenta! » Kippot Revolution - "When the powerful governing body of Florida’s high school athletics informed Weinbaum Yeshiva basketball coach Jon Kaweblum that the bobby pins Jewish athletes use to keep their yarmulkes pinned to their heads during games would be suddenly be considered a safety hazard... he could have called “foul!” The Yeshiva certainly had a case for religious discrimination, but instead of raising a big stink and threatening to secede from the organization, 26 year-old Kaweblum put his keppe to work to find a solution that wouldn’t punish the players."

'Harvard' Is Now Code for 'Effeminate' - "Harvard grad Mitt Romney took a shot at President Obama's foreign policy for being too ideologically compatible with "that Harvard faculty lounge." Romney must not have hated the faculty too much -- he graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and in the top five percent of his class from Harvard Business School. It's tricky running a campaign knocking your opponent for being a well-educated rich person when you are also a well-educated rich person. So what can Romney do? Call Obama effeminate."

‘Torchwood’ Gives Glimpse of Eternal Life - NYTimes.com - "The problem is that our culture is based on our striving for immortality. It shapes what we do and what we believe; it has inspired us to found religions, write poems and build cities. If we were all immortal, the motor of civilization would sputter and stop... when faced with reminders of mortality, people would cling more fiercely to their beliefs and be more negative about those who threatened them"

Freedom For Yvonne, Germany's Runaway Cow: Search Is Called Off : The Two-Way - "Here's a rundown of the tools used to track this savvy cow: Hunters on a shoot-to-kill mission (since called off); Search parties of volunteers trying to find the cow before the hunters did; Helicopters using thermal imaging cameras; A reward of 10,000 euros ($14,533), offered by Bild, a German tabloid; Entreaties delivered via animal psychic, who relayed that Yvonne "didn't feel ready" to return to the world of humans. Bovine lures, including an (allegedly) attractive bull ox, her "sister cow" Waltraud, and Yvonne's calf, Friesi."

The freefall of Japan’s anime industry

So You Want to Be an American: 5 Circles of Immigration Hell

Daily Commutes Tougher on Women - "Even though women on average commuted fewer minutes each day than men, more commuting equated to lower well-being scores. Among both sexes, though, people with more active forms of commuting (driving versus taking the bus) had lower well-being scores."
I could see how one can claim that making women drive is sexist

Do nice guys finish last? They certainly are a distant second when it comes to earnings - ""Men who are one standard deviation [roughly 20 percentage points] below the mean on agreeableness earn an average of 18.31% ($9,772) more than men one standard deviation above the mean on agreeableness. Meanwhile, the 'disagreeableness premium' for women was only 5.47% ($1,828). Thus, the income premium for disagreeableness is more than three times stronger for men than for women.""

Unusual: Boy dies after masturbating 42 times

'PE showed strong support for PAP' - "Dr Yaacob disagreed with suggestions that Dr Tony Tan's razor-thin winning margin of 0.34 per cent reflected a political divide among Singaporeans. Pointing out that the combined vote share for Dr Tony Tan and Dr Tan Cheng Bock - both former PAP MPs - was about 70 per cent, Dr Yaacob said: "There's strong support for the party in that sense""
Tony Tan runs as independent presidential candidate - June 23rd

Why opposition MPs can't be advisers to grassroots bodies - "Grassroots advisers are required to help the Government connect with people and help promote government policies and programmes such as anti-dengue and active ageing. Hence, the Government has to appoint grassroots advisers who support its programmes and can play this role well. Opposition MPs cannot be expected to do this and thus cannot become advisers to GROs... Chief Executive Director People's Association"
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Devise a more robust process - "I was very concerned that the outcome [of the Presidential Election] would be anything other than what it was eventually. If things had turned out differently, it could well have spelt the beginning of the end of Singapore's success story. Singapore's president must have the right motivation, personal values, integrity, character and courage. Much as it is almost impossible to ensure that all eligible candidates have these desired qualities, we should at least try by putting in place a more robust process. I would dread to go through another election of this nature if the process remains as it is - there is just too much at stake"
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... (the other letters are also as FAIL)
One comment: "the results shows that majprity singaporeans are sensible and vote with their heads & not hearts. it's easy for someone to pop-up once every 4 or 5 years and promise goodies which they may not be able to fulfill. what have TJS done for the people before the May GE & Aug PE? and yet he got 25% of the vote. it's a dangerous sign for singapore. we need to protect the future of our childrens.
i am glad that most singaporeans were wise enough not to be swayed by comments in social media made by unknown and faceless beings. it's easy for our enemies to spread dissent and chaos through irresponsible postings.
if you have a problem go see your MP!!! i hope the good will always previals against the evil or else singapore will be doomed." (this came from an anonymous account)

It's Time To Kill The Electric Car, Drive A Stake Through Its Heart And Burn The Corpse - "Any alternative that can't be deployed at relevant scale isn’t an alternative at all. It’s merely an expensive distraction for the masses, a bit like the circus in ancient Rome. Once you understand that metal supplies are far more constrained than energy supplies, every evaluation of electric drive becomes a simple exercise in optimizing the fuel savings from each unit of metal used... Using batteries to enable energy efficiency technologies like recuperative braking is sensible conservation. Using batteries as fuel tank replacements is a zero-sum game that consumes huge quantities of metals for the sole purpose of substituting electricity for oil. Since roughly 45% of domestic electric power is from coal fired plants and that percentage will decline very slowly, the only rational conclusion is that electric drive is unconscionable waste and pollution masquerading as conservation"

Camp To Be Held For Young Virgins To Have ‘First Experience’ - "The camp will run for two days and three nights and is directed toward virgin college students who wish to learn about, and experience, an adult sex life. During the camp attendees will be randomly partnered up with a participant of the opposite sex to have their first experience with... Up until now, the focus of White Hands’ activities has been to provide ‘ejaculation assistance’ to patients with cerebral palsy and other disabilities who are unable to properly masturbate for themselves"
"old and bullshit news
a scam that never happened"

Chickens Suit

The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations - "When an organization is explicitly presented as meritocratic, individuals in managerial positions favor a male employee over an equally qualified female employee by awarding him a larger monetary reward"

German city introduces "tax meters" for prostitutes

Interview with James Ong from Frolick - "We were Chinese High boys and not very creative"

Intensive farming is found to be better than organic methods for protecting the environment - "Farming systems such as organic that seek to share land between crops and wildlife inflict greater damage on biodiversity than conventional approaches that maximise crop yields, a major study has revealed. Such “land-sharing” methods typically deliver lower yields than intensive farming and they require much more land to produce the same amount of food, scientists at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds found. This means that important wilderness habitats must be destroyed to create extra farmland, which easily outweighs any small benefits of making fields friendlier to wildlife."

A broken heart for the social media community - "My friend Trey Pennington, one of the most popular figures on the social web, committed suicide today... Trey was simply one of the nicest and most generous people on the planet. Even when the chemicals in his brain were relentlessly pushing him into overwhelming depression he was thinking of others. They say that suicide is a selfish decision. It doesn’t make sense. It’s totally confusing. Trey? Selfish? No, Some of his last Facebook posts and tweets didn’t make sense either. They were not messages from a man about to kill himself, were they?... I’m angry that the chemicals won. That they wouldn’t let him alone long enough to get one moment of clarity"
Attributing decisions that you agree with to Free Will and Clarity, and decisions that you don't to Chemicals is not just inconsistent but insulting to the person concerned