Links - 6th May 2014

Three Ways to Reinvent Retail for Men - "As American men grew larger, attractive casual clothes have remained just out of reach of their pudgy, sauce-stained hands. At 6’2” 220 pounds, everything at H&M or Zara makes me look like The Hulk at a disco – hoping no one gets blinded when those Zara buttons pop off.... Few men are so attached to Tommy Hilfiger that they’d torture themselves and their gonads to wear his name. Men care about when and where a particular piece of clothing makes sense. There are four occasions that matter:
Work – look like you have ambition
Casual – wear on weekends while hanging out with friends
Formal – attend a fancy dinner at Cipriani or accept your award for retail innovation
Semi-formal – wear this on a date"

8 ADVANTAGES THAT WHITE EXPATS HAVE OVER LOCAL MEN | The Real Singapore - "WHERE TO HOOK UP WITH LOCAL WOMEN
7. Approaching women in the outside environment
Singapore is not a city where strangers strike up conversations on the fly. A local guy approaching a women in the cafe, mall or on the street would be summarily dismissed as a weirdo, an insurance salesman or even a sex pervert. But as a Caucasian, you stand a higher chance that the woman will stop and hear you out (refer to tips #2, #3 and $4). You've got that precious 30 seconds to ask for her number or give her your number. I reckon 2 out of 10 women will reciprocate to a white man. A local guy will probably get zero.
Projected conversion rate : 20%...
Finally, I end with the elephant in the room. What about money? Don't expats need to be rich to attract local women?
Answer : Wealth is useful but it's not essential. You don't need to be an Anton Casey to snag a local pageant queen. I've seen local women financially supporting their expat lovers and vice versa. I've also seen financially equal relationships. The stereotype of the materialistic Singaporean woman is just that - a stereotype. What Singaporean women really want is attention and the thrill of hot romance. So there you have it - 16 hot tips. If you haven't scored a date with a local girl within a month after trying out these tips, I guarantee you two things :
1. You are not doing it right.
2. You don't want it bad enough."

'Do it for Denmark': Campaign encourages couples to take romantic holidays, boost birthrates - ""Meet Emma. She is Danish, but even though she was born and raised in Denmark, she was made in Paris. Right up there, in that hotel room," says the advert's voiceover. The commercial goes on to claim that Danes have 46 percent more sex while on holiday, resulting in 10 percent of the population being conceived then. "We are prescribing a romantic city holiday to save Denmark's future," the group said in the tongue-in-cheek commercial. "After all, it will also help our future business," it added... To shore it up, the company offered an "ovulation discount" to women who entered the start-date of their latest menstruation period when booking, allowing the company to calculate the best time for them to travel. Those submitting pictures of a positive pregnancy test and a pregnancy journal after their holiday also had the chance to win gifts including a three-year supply of nappies and a family holiday. Elderly people and gay couples were also invited to participate since "it's not just about winning, all the fun is in the participation.""

Myths & Facts: Treatment of Jews in the Arab World (Chapter 11) | Jewish Virtual Library - "MYTH “Modern Arab nations are only anti-Israel and have never been anti-Jewish.”
FACT Arab leaders have repeatedly made clear their animosity toward Jews and Judaism. For example, on November 23, 1937, Saudi Arabia’s King Ibn Saud told British Colonel H.R.P. Dickson: “Our hatred for the Jews dates from God’s condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa (Jesus) and their subsequent rejection of His chosen Prophet.” He added “that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty”...
MYTH “Jews who lived in Islamic countries were well-treated by the Arabs.”
FACT While Jewish communities in Islamic countries fared better overall than those in Christian lands in Europe, Jews were no strangers to persecution and humiliation among the Arabs. As Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis has written: “The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam”... In the ninth century, Baghdad’s Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany... On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power. Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in “an offensive manner.” The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco"...
MYTH “As ‘People of the Book,’ Jews and Christians are protected under Islamic law.”
FACT Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were forced to wear distinctive clothing and were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices — as that might offend Muslims. The dhimmi also had to show public deference toward Muslims; for example, always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase Muslim witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Muslim"

Suzanne Sadedin's answer to Menstruation: What is the evolutionary benefit or purpose of having periods? - Quora - "Far from offering a nurturing embrace, the endometrium is a lethal testing-ground which only the toughest embryos survive. The longer the female can delay that placenta reaching her bloodstream, the longer she has to decide if she wants to dispose of this embryo without significant cost. The embryo, in contrast, wants to implant its placenta as quickly as possible, both to obtain access to its mother's rich blood, and to increase her stake in its survival. For this reason, the endometrium got thicker and tougher – and the fetal placenta got correspondingly more aggressive."

The Female Breast as a Source of Grace/Charity - "Representations of infant nursing are also found in Christian art in various contexts. The most prominent examples are those of the Virgin Mary suckling the Christ Child (Virgo Lactans)... The tension that could have occurred between the religious and the erotic does not take place in these works for two reasons: First, except for the bare breast, Mary is portrayed attired in a garment that covers most parts of her body so that the other breast does not protrude under the garment; second, the exposed breast does not appear as a natural organ belonging to the body, but rather as an appendage, often conch-shaped... In Christian art there are depictions of the Virgin Mary giving of her breast milk to elder men. In portrayals of the vision of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), for instance, he turns to Mary asking her to prove that she is indeed the Mother of God, and the proof she provides is a stream of milk from her breast. Thus she also rewards him for the many writings he dedicated to her. In Murillo’s painting (c. 1650, ill. 2), St. Bernard is seen kneeling, receiving a jet of milk into his open mouth.5 Mary does not nurse him directly since such a depiction might have distracted the viewer from the vision’s religious meaning... In another work by Rubens dated to c. 1635 (ill. 6), Pero and Cimon are depicted in a sensual, lustful manner. Pero is succulent and her pair of lush breasts burst through her dress; this intensifies the erotic aspect, albeit the depiction clearly attests to Cimon’s great appetite. Rubens further enhanced the drama by adding two guards who peek through the prison's barred window. Pero, who knows that she is being watched, turns toward them with a pleading gaze."
No wonder the Virgin's breast is always so ugly

Why Is Academic Writing So Academic? - "Academic writing and research may be knotty and strange, remote and insular, technical and specialized, forbidding and clannish—but that’s because academia has become that way, too. Today’s academic work, excellent though it may be, is the product of a shrinking system. It’s a tightly-packed, super-competitive jungle in there"

Cats - The People's Funny Pictures Blog - Quora

Why Do Strong Women Like To Be Dominated? - "Both men and women enjoyed fantasies in which they were dominant, but socially dominant women were actually more turned on than anyone else by submission fantasies. This led Hawley to probe further. The rationale, her studies seem to indicate, is that ladies don’t enjoy the forcefulness itself as much as the idea that an overpowering passion is bubbling over behind that forcefulness. A socially dominant woman, in particular, was more likely to fantasize she was sexually irresistible and was turned on by the idea that her partner was so engorged with lust that he was going to burst."

British woman arrested, deported from Sri Lanka for Buddha tattoo - "Coleman told BBC she was visited at the center by an embassy official and a representative from Sri Lanka's Tourism Development Authority. The authority paid for her flight home in business class and offered to fly her back for a free vacation in the future. "Since she couldn't enjoy her stay ... we are ready to welcome her back," a tourism spokesman said. "Technically we will have to obtain clearance from the judiciary whether she can travel covering the tattoo in Sri Lanka." Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said Coleman was convicted under a law which forbids "deliberately and maliciously outraging the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs"... Sri Lankan authorities denied entry to a British man for a similar tattoo of Buddha last year. A year earlier, three French tourists were given suspended prison sentences for kissing a Buddha statue"

30 Hilariously Defaced Textbooks

Elevatorgate – Part 2 – The Failure of Skepticism - "My concern is about how the matter has been handled, the poor quality of arguments that have been advanced, the astounding amounts of hypocrisy on display, and above all the intolerant attitude towards viewpoints that don’t tow the radical gender feminist line – all this, among people that call themselves skeptics... Its interesting to observe that during her talk on the panel Rebecca Watson makes jokes about Richard Dawkins reading death threats that have been sent to him. She even says she uses his recorded reading of these death threats as her phone’s ring tone, and then laughs after attempting a mock imitation of Dawkins’ English accent. Then in the next breath she labours to press the point that people sending her rape and death threats should be a point of real concern. Watson alleges that such hateful emails supposedly prevent women like her from freely speaking out on atheism. But if that is the case then how come Dawkins doesn’t complain about the same? Where is the concern for Dawkins’ personal safety from Rebecca Watson? Or should we only be especially concerned if such e-mails are sent to a woman? The threats, meanwhile, don’t seem to be discouraging Dawkins and most atheist men from speaking out – so in the interest of EQUALITY, shouldn’t we be asking atheist women to toughen up too? No? Double standards. Further, in her talk why does she complain when her fans send her emails outlining their sexual fantasies about her yet she goes out of her way to depict herself in a sexually provocative manner to them?... This counter-example successfully demonstrates the absurdity of proposing the Schrödinger’s Rapist argument as a basis for prescribing how men should behave around women. If the underlying principle were applied consistently and universally, you’d basically get segregation... It is ironic indeed, that atheists, on one hand, like to laugh at Christians who say "you reject Jesus because you’ve hardened your heart" and yet there go the feminist-atheists, telling their detractors "you just don’t get it because of male privilege"."