Links - 25th November 2014

Liberal Activist Raped By A Black Man, Turns And Blames White Men For It | - "“The experience was almost more than I could bear,” Kijera wrote about the incident, “I pleaded with him to honor my commitment to Haiti, to him as a brother in the mutual struggle for an end to our common oppression, but to no avail. He didn’t care.” According to Kijera, she eventually stopped fighting him, claiming that there was nothing she could do to stop him from raping her repeatedly. After the tragic experience, she placed the blame on a very unexpected course. “Women are not the source of their oppression; oppressive policies and the as-yet unaddressed white patriarchy which still dominates the global stage are,” she explained. She also went on to argue that it is up to the United Nations to support people who are forced to bear the brunt of black male aggression."
Keywords: Amanda Kijera

Did Anita Sarkeesian Fake Death Threats Against Herself? - "This screen-cap was taken 12 seconds after the last of three minutes of tweeting, by a user who was not logged in. There is nothing in the search bar, clearly showing no search was done. Whoever took this had toknow this user was making threatening tweets, and enter the exact url of their account at within three minutes of the users first post…
…or make the tweets themselves and then log out and take a screen-cap."

Sarkeesian’s campaign is poisoned by dishonesty - "When I first heard of Sarkeesian, I thought that she was fantastic. Then, I watched her videos and spent time doing research on her. In 2012, Sarkeesian started a Kickstarter campaign, to raise $6,000 so that she could pay for video games and fund production for a set of videos that would criticize gender tropes in video games. Within a day, Sarkeesian hit her initial goal. She went on to raise $150,000. Sarkeesian missed her first deadline with no concrete explanation. While I was mildly skeptical when I found this out, I was absolutely stunned after watching a few of her videos. Sarkeesian’s in-game footage is almost exclusively stolen from several YouTubers’ “Let’s Play” tutorial videos. Sarkeesian gave no credit or notice to the video creators. When several commenters began to accuse her of plagiarism, Sarkeesian disabled the comments and like/dislike options on her videos. Some other critics accused Sarkeesian of exploiting Kickstarter. Sarkeesian, who admitted in a 2010 interview that she doesn’t even play video games, could not have possibly spent $150,000 on buying games and “production” when she simply took clips from other people’s videos. When implored by critics and supporters alike to produce just one piece of documentation explaining how she spent the money, Sarkeesian refused... Sarkeesian’s tirade on Assassin’s Creed, for example, centers on the portrayal of courtesans in the series, but it ignores both the powerful role courtesans have in the games and the series’ general portrayal of women. Courtesans teach the protagonist important skills and save his life on multiple occasions. Moreover, the series includes several vibrant, strong female characters, including Caterina Sforza, Rosa and Claudia Auditore. Sarkeesian’s other videos contain similar lies by omission, and watching them is genuinely frustrating. Sarkeesian, who is currently under an FBI investigation for faking death threats against herself, is the worst thing to happen to feminism in the gaming world"

Have You Ever Noticed That All Movie Posters Look the Same? - "Some of the design clichés are hilarious, like Tiny People On the Beach With Giant Heads in the Clouds or Legs Wide Spread."

Why Movie Posters All Look the Same - "If you need a little light after all that darkness, here’s a sunnier formula used for independent movies: the all-yellow poster. Indies need to stand out against studio films with big stars and bigger budgets. Curtois shows us how a bold yellow contrasts with the dark landscape of mainstream movie art. In a world of Battens and blockbusters, why not stand out by adding some sunshine?"

Pig DNA and food hysteria in Malaysia - "I have read that if you take a toothbrush from the bathroom and do DNA testing on it, you will find bacteria from fecal matter (ie from the toilet), even though no one has dipped the toothbrush in the loo. And so I suspect the pig DNA they're finding is simply because some Chinese man (we have a sizeable Chinese minority) once held the box containing the bottles, for example. If they did some control experiments, maybe they'll find cockroach DNA, rat DNA, even human DNA... what will be the ruling for that? I am thinking I shall just ignore the DNA findings. I vaguely recall a ruling that if you can't see the najis with your naked eye, then it isn't there!"

Thai student discovers a clever solution for killing cockroaches - "The student created the solution by experimenting with 3 basic ingredients: cement powder, rice flour and Ovaltine powder. "

Grammarly Study Gives Top House and Senate Candidates a 92 for Clarity - "While there was a wider dispersion among candidates’ clarity scores, the parties overall were very close with Republicans narrowly edging out Democrats by a 93 - 91 margin. "
Republicans have clearer grammar than Democrats

Scientists Explain Why Nobody Puts Cheddar on Pizza - "The perfect cheese is bendy, bubbly, and capable of getting brown. (In other words, mozzarella.) "

Sex Is Sex. But Money Is Money. - "He’s still talking about triples and magic and meaning. We have 35 minutes. It’s plenty of time, but I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. My job is all about minimizing risk. I move closer, tell him I have an idea that would make him feel good. I tell him it would make me feel good, too. I tell him I’ve been thinking about it since he texted me two days ago. I gently claw his thigh with my fresh, red (any other color, you’re taking a risk) manicure. I moisten my lips, flash just a little tooth. He’s shy, but he’s a man. He stops talking. The tricky part of my job is over. Now it’s time for sex."

Are you happier in a single-sex office? - "men and women are happier in single-sex offices... when offices had higher levels of gender diversity (a more equal mix of men and women) they had lower levels of cooperation. The study did find that offices where the employees, on average, believe their employer to be accepting of diversity were more cooperative. While perception of the firm's acceptance of diversity was a significant variable in cooperation, it did not appear to be associated with a revenue payoff for the firm."
This is in keeping with diversity being bad for performance

Satanic panic: how British agents stoked supernatural fears in Troubles - "British military intelligence agents in Northern Ireland used fears about demonic possessions, black masses and witchcraft as part of a psychological war against emerging armed groups in the Troubles in the 1970s"

Growing up unvaccinated: A healthy lifestyle couldn’t prevent many childhood illnesses. - "I know far more people who have experienced complications from preventable childhood illnesses than I have ever met with complications from vaccines. I have friends who became deaf from measles. I have a partially sighted friend who contracted rubella in the womb. My ex got pneumonia from chickenpox. A friend’s brother died from meningitis... If you’ve never had these illnesses, you don’t know how awful they are. I do. Pain, discomfort, the inability to breathe or to eat or to swallow, fever and nightmares, itching all over your body so much that you can’t stand lying on bedsheets, losing so much weight you can’t walk properly, diarrhea that leaves you lying prostrate on the bathroom floor, the unpaid time off work for parents, the quarantine, missing school, missing parties, the worry, the sleepless nights, the sweat, the tears, the blood, the midnight visits to the emergency room, the time sitting in a doctor’s waiting room on your own because no one will sit near you because they’re rightfully scared of those spots all over your face. Those of you who have avoided childhood illnesses without vaccines are lucky. You couldn’t do it without us pro-vaxxers. Once the vaccination rates begin dropping, the drop in herd immunity will leave your children unprotected. The more people you convert to your anti-vax stance, the quicker that luck will run out.

Anthropology: The sad truth about uncontacted tribes - "This gets to the heart of a common misconception surrounding isolated tribes such as the one in Acre: that they live in a bubble of wilderness, somehow missing the fact that their small corner of the world is in fact part of a much greater whole – and one that is dominated by other humans. “Almost all human communities have been in some contact with one another for as long as we have historical or archaeological records,” says Alex Golub, an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Human prehistory is not like that game Civilization where you start with a little hut and the whole map is black”... In some cases in the 70s and 80s, the Brazilian government did try to establish peaceful contact with indigenous people, often with the aim of forced assimilation or relocation. They set up “attraction posts” – offerings of metal tools and other things indigenous Indians might find to be valuable – to try and lure them out of hiding. This sometimes led to violent altercations, or, more often than not, disease outbreaks. Isolated people have no immunity to some bugs, which have been known to wipe out up to half of a village’s population in a matter of weeks or months. During those years, missionaries traipsing into the jungle also delivered viruses and bacteria along with Bibles, killing the people they meant to save."

Saudi Arabia declares all atheists are terrorists in new law to crack down on political dissidents

Central Colombia woman grows potato in vagina in ill-advised contraception attempt - "“My mom told me that if I didn’t want to get pregnant, I should put a potato up there, and I believed her.” the unnamed patient was quoted as saying by local news website HSB Noticias. After leaving the potato in place for around 2 weeks she began to experience intense pain in her lower abdomen. The potato had germinated, and grown roots inside the lady’s private parts"

This new veggie burger bleeds like meat

Polytechnic student placed on probation for underage sex with boy - "The court also ordered Mohammad Ramdhan, now 24, to perform 150 hours of community service. Under the conditions of his probation, the Republic Polytechnic student has to undergo counselling and improve his grades"
What do grades have to dowith giving a boy oral sex?

EU performs abrupt U-turn on olive oil regulation - "Last week, the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, said that restaurants should only be allowed to serve oil to customers in non-refillable bottles with proper content labeling. The refillable bottles are a staple on restaurant tables across Europe for diners who want to douse bread or salads. The EU said its ruling would prevent restaurants from serving low quality oil and improve hygiene. But it also prompted ridicule by EU critics, who said it showed the authorities in Brussels are out of touch with the real world."