Links - 24th November 2014

Who can adopt? - Ministry of Social and Family Development - "If you are a single male, you are not allowed to adopt a girl, unless there are special circumstances to justify the adoption. This is in accordance with Section 4(3) of the ACA."
Naturally, AWARE is silent about this

Why So Many Pakistanis Hate Their Nobel Peace Prize Winner - "The BBC quoted Tariq Khattack, editor of the Pakistan Observer, condemning the prize and Malala: “She is a normal, useless type of a girl. Nothing in her is special at all. She’s selling what the West will buy”... For Malala to be so uniquely honored when so many young girls in the Swat Valley face similar dangers engendered a lot of jealousy among many in Pakistan. The CIA angle is a common one in Pakistan, which tends to see “foreign hands” as the root of the country’s problems. As I noted shortly after Malala was shot in 2012, everything that happens in Pakistan is a plot by the Indians, America, or Israel. Or all three. The Taliban, power cuts, corruption, economic stagnation, Osama bin Laden, all of it. The tendency to see plots and enemies behind every tree is a common trait of the English-speaking Pakistani middle class, which is overwhelmingly conservative, nationalistic, and suspicious of the West. Non-Muslims, foreigners, anyone embraced by the United States (such as Malala), and even minority religious sects in Pakistan are all seen as agents of foreign powers... Dissing its Nobel laureates is a bit of a tradition in Pakistan, too. Before Malala, in 1979, Dr. Abdus Salam won the Nobel Prize for Physics. He, too, is a pariah in Pakistan, rarely acknowledged and never claimed as the “pride” of the nation. His crime? He was an Ahmadi, a minority Muslim sect that Pakistan has declared un-Islamic and against which it discriminates horribly. Like Malala he, too, was in exile when he won the prize."

Reza Aslan is Wrong About Islam and This is Why - "Only those who themselves aren’t very “schooled” in Islam and Muslim affairs would imply that Aslan does anything but misinform by cherry-picking and distorting facts. Nearly everything Aslan stated during his segment was either wrong, or technically-correct-but-actually-wrong. We will explain by going through each of his statements in the hopes that Aslan was just misinformed (although it’s hard for us to imagine that a “scholar” such as Aslan wouldn’t be aware of all this). Aslan contends that while some Muslim countries have problems with violence and women’s rights, in others like “Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men” and it is therefore incorrect to imply that such issues are a problem with Islam and “facile” to imply that women are “somehow mistreated in the Muslim world.” Let us be clear here: No one in their right mind would claim that Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh are a “free and open society for women”... we come to Turkey, a country oft-cited by apologists due to its relative stability, liberalism, and gender equality. What they consistently choose to ignore is that historically, Turkey was militantly secular. We mean this literally: The country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, created a secular state and pushed Islam out of the public sphere (outlawing polygamy, child marriages, and giving divorce rights to women) through (at times, military) force. He even banned the headscarf in various public sectors and is believed by some to have been an atheist. Only apologists would ignore the circumstances that led to Turkey’s incredible progress and success relative to the Muslim world, and hold it up as an example of “Islamic” advancement of women’s rights... is there any credence to the claim that Islam supports FGM? In fact, there is. To name two, the major collections of the Hadith Sahih Muslim 3:684 and Abu Dawud 41:5251 support the practice. Of the four major schools of thought in Sunni Islam, twomandate FGM while two merely recommend it. Unsurprisingly, in the Muslim-majority countries dominated by the schools which mandate the practice, there is evidence of widespread female circumcision. Of particular note: None of the major schools condemn the practice."

This is Clean Privilege - "Queer. Genderfucked. Polyromantic. Demisexual. Have social anxiety, aspergers and depression. Unfortunately white, but checking my privilege every day. And yes, I refuse to bathe. Have a problem with that? Then congratulations. This blog is about you.
My filthy body. My fucking business.
This blog is an intolerant of intolerance zone. Check your privilege at the door and realise that oppressive language and thoughts will be mocked. Revolutions were never won with smiles. You have been warned."

Cosmos, the no-data connection browser, is now in the US Play Store - "Cosmos emerged out of a 36-hour hackaton session by four college and high-school students in the US. Here’s how it works: when you enter a URL in the address bar, Cosmos sends it via SMS to a web service made with Twilio and Node.JS, which loads up the website content, removes any CSS, scripts, and images, archives the minified version and sends it back to the device via one or more text messages. The app intercepts the messages, reassembles the content, and displays the requested web page. Because all the communication goes through SMS, there’s no need for a data connection."

This Girl's Tinder Prank Shows How Superficial Some Lads Can Be - "The prankster, Sara, posted dozens of pictures of herself looking slim which attracted plenty of "swipe rights"... She then arranged meetings with several of the guys that she'd met through the app. However, when she turned up to the dates Sara was slightly larger than they expected... The 24-year-old arrived wearing an enormous fat suit, just to see the lad's different reactions."
Comments: "Right, how "superficial" of them to be put off by the fact she lied about her looks on a hook-up app."
"People who misrepresent their appearance can't turn things on others by calling them 'superficial'. To quote Alan Partridge; "A lie is a lie"."
"If somebody lies about what they look like before you meet then you are 100% right to walk away. It's not shallow to not date liars"

Sumo Wrestlers Try To Make Babies Cry On Purpose In Unusual Japanese Tradition - "“The babies’ cries are intended to reach God and parents hope that their little ones will grow healthy and strong,” explained Yoshimi Morita, a priest at the shrine, where screams and squawks filled the air."

Death-Row Dining - "If, as the French epicure Anthelme Brillat-Savarin suggested, we are what we eat, then a final meal would seem to be the ultimate self-expression"

Does Neil deGrasse Tyson make up stories? - "Sean Davis makes a strong case that Tyson has a habit of telling tall tales. The details of one personal story – what happened when Tyson was called for jury duty — vary with each telling. Other tales, such as quotes attributed to members of Congress and unnamed journalists, seem too good to be true, and prove difficult to verify. Most significantly, Tyson attributes a quote to a September 2001 speech by former President George W. Bush that no one can seem to find... Note that the claims Davis contests are not casual remarks in conversation or responses to questions, but planned and repeated accounts. The various stories Davis challenges are regularly repeated in Tyson’s lectures, and the Bush anecdote is highlighted on the Hayden planetarium Web site. They are the sorts of claims someone of Tyson’s stature should not be making in public lectures unless they are, in fact, true. Politicians are routinely flayed for less — and we know Tyson is much smarter than the average politician. He should not be held to a lower standard... On his Facebook page, Neil deGrasse Tyson responds to the allegations and, in the process, did not do himself any favors... Tyson claims to be a man of science who follows the evidence where it leads. The evidence here clearly shows Tyson screwed up. Whether knowingly or not, he regularly repeated a false account in order to cast aspersions on another public figure. The only proper thing to do is recant and apologize"

Who Is a Feminist Now? - NYTimes.com - "In a recent interview with Time magazine, the actress Shailene Woodley was asked if she considered herself a feminist. “No,” said Ms. Woodley, 22. “Because I love men, and I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance.” It was a somewhat surprising response from an actress known for portraying strong-willed women in films like “The Spectacular Now,” “Divergent” and “The Fault in Our Stars,” to be released soon... Whether a woman in the public eye calls herself a feminist is an exercise in semiotics, she said, and the hesitation among celebrities to fully embrace the cause is a fear that: “ ‘If I don’t say the exact right thing or express it in the right way, I’ll be rejected.’ It makes the movement seem judgmental or unwelcoming”... ambivalence like Ms. Woodley’s is as much a part of the discussion. Monica Lewinsky, 40, wrote in Vanity Fair’s June issue, “Given my experience of being passed around like gender-politics cocktail food, I don’t identify myself as a Feminist, capital F.” And she is joined by a host of other celebrities who question the usage, including Lady Gaga, 28, who was quoted telling a Norwegian camera crew, “I’m not a feminist! I love men! I hail men.” Kelly Clarkson, 32, told Time last October, “I think when people hear feminist, it’s like, ‘Get out of my way, I don’t need anyone’.” Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry, Carla Bruni, Sandra Day O’Connor and Taylor Swift have similarly distanced themselves from the designation during their careers. When Marissa Mayer, 38, the chief executive of Yahoo, appeared in the PBS/AOL documentary “Makers,” she spoke of her own issues with the term. “I don’t think that I would consider myself a feminist,” she said. “I think that, I certainly believe in equal rights. I believe that women are just as capable, if not more so, in a lot of different dimensions. But I don’t, I think, have sort of the militant drive and sort of the chip on the shoulder that sometimes comes with that.”"

The truth about “stopping power” - "How long does it take to truly incapacitate someone? The only guaranteed instantaneous incapacitation is in the head; the brainstem. Every other location of the body is a delayed incapacitation at best. What about shooting someone in the heart? Well, the heart is a muscle and outside of large caliber rifles, bullets are not big enough to totally explode the heart. Assuming that a round fired from a normal defensive weapon could totally explode the heart, your bad guy still has time to fight because his brain and limbs will have enough oxygenated blood in them to allow him to fight. Cutting all blood flow to the brain, your bad guy has up to 10 seconds until unconsciousness and approximately 20 seconds until total electrical failure. That’s a long time – especially if that person is trying to “incapacitate” you.

Working for MyGirlFund - "Thousands Of Men Are Renting Platonic Internet Girlfriends For Long-Term Relationships"

How Sugar Daddies Are Financing College Education - ""Dating a college woman fulfills these guys’ wildest dreams. They want someone highly educated who is eager to learn"... “They want someone who doesn’t look like a bimbo.” On Seeking Arrangement, intellect is important—maybe even more important than looks. If the sugar baby can understand what the “daddy” does at work and engage in topics he finds interesting, he is more likely to feel he’s in a real relationship. “The guys eventually want to feel like, ‘That girl likes me for me,’” Amanda said. While some men on the site use it exclusively for sex, the majority want sex and something else... avoiding a conversation about money actually led to more of it... “I get to a point in these relationships when the guy starts to naturally want to pay for things for me. They prefer giving me a credit card because it feels more informal. There is no direct exchange of money,” Amanda said."