LINGUISTICS Y'ALL — Reactions from people whose language I was trying...
"Germans: Oh you’re learning German? Hey, you’re not so bad at it. Don’t fuck it up though.
French: About time you learned French.
Russians, Koreans, Spanish-speakers: WOW YOU’RE LEARNING MY LANGUAGE? LET ME HELP YOU I CAN GET SOME MATERIALS FOR YOU AND RECOMMEND SOME SITES AND VIDEOS, DID YOU JUST SAY “HELLO” IN MY LANGUAGE? YOU ARE SO GREAT WOW I AM SO IMPRESSED
Dutch: but why would you do this"
Friday, December 26, 2014
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Links - 20th December 2014
Who Makes the Call at the Mall, Men or Women? - WSJ - "A longstanding marketing adage makes clear who holds most American households' purse strings: Women control 80% or more of spending. For at least two decades, this number has been a fixture of news articles, marketing websites and books about consumer behavior. And as with many oft-repeated statistics, no one is sure where it originated... Perhaps the closest anyone has come to studying directly the breakdown of overall spending by men and women is a 2008 survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group. It asked women to complete an online questionnaire that asked what percentage of household spending they control or influence. Their average answer in the U.S. was 73%. While that number was the one made public, the researchers also conducted an unpublished survey of men, who on average said they control or influence 61% of spending... two or more people can influence a purchasing decision, or think that they can... Ms. Barletta's book and other material claim that women spend more than men on cars and consumer electronics, but data from industry sources contradict this. In a survey last year conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association, the average man said he spent $3 on consumer electronics for every $2 the average woman said she spent. And auto analysts CNW Marketing Research and J.D. Power and Associates say that less than 40% of spending on new cars last year was done by women"
Women actually spend more on consumer electronics and cars than I expected
Kay Hymowitz: Longer Maternity Leave Not So Great for Women After All - "almost all public policies have unintended consequences, and maternity leave is no exception. Rather than offering a route to equality between the sexes, the data shows, extended maternity leave actually throws up roadblocks in a woman’s career — the very roadblocks that such policies are meant to prevent... Women who take a year off from work with a new baby — not to mention mothers of a second child who take a total of two years — experience what economists call human-capital depreciation, meaning their skills get rusty. Their work-social networks also fray. Unsurprisingly, their income and careers take a hit. “Women who make full use of their maternity or parental leave entitlements receive, on average, lower wages in the years following their resumption of work than those who return before leave expires,” the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concludes in a review of studies on the subject. The effect can continue for years after leave takers return to their jobs and “can permanently damage [mothers’] ability to achieve their labor market potential.” In fact, generous maternity-leave policies have a tendency to harden a country’s glass ceiling, and women in the Nordic countries are actually less likely to reach career heights than women in the U.S. (The one exception is in the political realm, where quotas have filled Nordic legislatures and ministries with close to equal numbers of women as men)... If you’re thinking that one answer to this dilemma is that new fathers should take more of the career hit so new mothers can take less, you’re not alone. Over the past decades, Norway, Sweden and Iceland have been tinkering with policy formulas to get dads to take longer paternity leave. They’ve found that when, and only when, they introduce “use it or lose it” daddy months — that is, when fathers get several months of leave that cannot be transferred to mothers — men will take substantial time off with the baby. However, any leave time left to a couple to divide is almost always taken by women. In Sweden, where the most reliable data is available, women take 76% of parental-leave days"
You can't legislate productivity
Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions - "people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically desirable. If they don't, then they tend to deny the problem even exists... The researchers found liberal-leaning individuals exhibited a similar aversion to solutions they viewed as politically undesirable in an experiment involving violent home break-ins. When the proposed solution called for looser versus tighter gun-control laws, those with more liberal gun-control ideologies were more likely to downplay the frequency of violent home break-ins. "We should not just view some people or group as anti-science, anti-fact or hyper-scared of any problems," Kay said. "Instead, we should understand that certain problems have particular solutions that threaten some people and groups more than others. When we realize this, we understand those who deny the problem more and we improve our ability to better communicate with them." Campbell added that solution aversion can help explain why political divides become so divisive and intractable. "We argue that the political divide over many issues is just that, it’s political," Campbell said. "These divides are not explained by just one party being more anti-science, but the fact that in general people deny facts that threaten their ideologies, left, right or center.""
Semen may reduce the effectiveness of HIV microbicides - "Known as amyloid fibrils, these particles in semen "act like glue to attach HIV particles to the cell surface and boost viral infectivity," say the international research team which includes scientists from the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Ulm in Germany. "This effect overpowers the anti-HIV activity of microbicides." These microbicides were originally developed as a way to empower sub-Saharan African women who may not be able to negotiate condom use with their partners. "However, the first generation of microbicides were largely ineffective or worse, some even leading to increased transmission of the virus," says lead author Warner Greene, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology."
A glass of wine a day CAN protect against heart disease - but only if you have a specific gene carried by just 15% of the population
Female police in Indonesia must take virginity test - ""In addition to the other medical and physical examinations. Women who want to become policewomen are to undergo a virginity test. Policewomen must keep their virginity," the informational page states. It ends the section with a cheery "thank you" and a smiley-face emoticon... A police spokesperson told CNN that all recruits, not only female, were subject to thorough medical tests that included examination of genitalia."
Australian paedophile jailed for 40 years - "Newton was sentenced to 40 years in prison for sexually abusing the boy he and Truong, 36 from Queensland, had ‘‘adopted’’ after paying a Russian woman $8000 to be their surrogate in 2005. Police believe the pair had adopted the boy ‘‘for the sole purpose of exploitation’’. The abuse began just days after his birth and over six years the couple travelled the world, offering him up for sex with at least eight men, recording the abuse and uploading the footage to an international syndicate known as the Boy Lovers Network... Newton and Truong claimed they were being targeted because they were homosexual"
Keywords: Peter Truong, Mark J. Newton
Addendum: Model gay adoptive ‘fathers’ sexually abused 6-year-old for years: offered him to pedophile ring - "Australian media covered Adam's arrival home, describing the two men as happy, loving fathers... ABC Far North Queensland broadcast a story titled "Two dads are better than one" which stated that "becoming parents was hard work for gay couple Pete and Mark, but they'd do it all over again if they had to.”"
Swelling Australian cities harbour ever bigger spiders - "Lowe and colleagues found one species of this genus, Nephila plumipes, is gaining weight the more built-up Sydney gets. Examining more than 200 specimens around Sydney, they found that the more concrete there was, the further they were from bushland and the less leaf litter there was, the bigger the spiders tended to be. Lowe says the spiders in the bushland of Brisbane Water National Park, north of Sydney, had an average mass of 0.5 grams. But those in an inner-city park near Bondi Beach averaged 1.6 grams. "It's probably because of the urban heat-island effect and prey availability," says Lowe. "Most invertebrates will grow to larger sizes if they are warmer. They are very sensitive to temperatures"... she says healthy spider populations in cities should be celebrated: they are mostly harmless to people, they eat pests and they provide food for birds. "I'm all about encouraging spiders in urban areas," she says."
Uppity, White Liberal Upset About Being Catcalled By Minorities In NYC - "Men can be heard saying such terrible things such as “how are you this morning,” and “have a nice evening,” while the uppity, white liberal woman looks at them with hatred and disdain for even deigning to speak to her. After all, the men are clearly out of her social class, and she’s white, so the fact that these men even have the nerve to look at her should be considered harassment…. right?"
Liberals Cannibalize Each Other Over Supposedly Racist Catcalling Video - "Unfortunately, some liberals simply couldn’t let the video stand as a testament to the bullshit that women go through. Why? Because most of the harassers in the video are nonwhite, which for some people constitutes an unacceptable narrative, even if that narrative is comprised entirely of subtext... If SoHo and Greenwich Village — two of the neighborhoods in the video — aren’t “white neighborhoods” for New York City, I don’t know what is. Roberts can also be seen near the Port Authority, which is neither a black nor a white neighborhood. It’s just a hellhole... The mere idea that a disproportionate percentage of street harassers (in New York City) might be — and let’s emphasize might be — nonwhite is simply not allowed. Indeed, to even ask the question would be considered racist... But Rosin’s article is nothing compared to this piece in Brooklyn Magazine by Kristin Iversen, who I can only presume lives in a faraway galaxy ruled by Gender Studies academics:
'The clear implication here is that Roberts is just an innocent woman who doesn’t deserve these catcalls, thus suggesting that there are some women who, because of the way they dress or because of the way they respond, could be thought to be asking for it”'... Jesus Christ. A woman shot a video while wearing a shirt and jeans — standard clothing for much of the human race — and somehow Iversen’s subtextual gymnastics arrive at the conclusion that the video is implicitly condoning harassment of women who dress differently. Beam me up... "Part of being honest about street harassment and creating awareness of it has to be an honest assessment of the ways this kind of harassment can be a way marginalized groups talk back to the white gentrifiers taking over their neighborhoods."
How much longer before Gould or some other enterprising writer explains say, rape in socioeconomic terms of gentrifier vs. gentrified? Would this be an acceptable extension of the “marginalized groups” argument? And if not, on what grounds is the argument circumscribed?"
Successful Women Use Poor Women To Advance - "Behind every “successful” woman there’s a host of other women (nannies and housekeepers) working on minimum wages to raise her kids which brings us to the fact that, fundamentally. feminism is a bourgeois concept which was initiated by bored upper-class women/housewives who longed to get away from the boredom of their mansions. (You might want to read Flaubert’s Madame Bovary in order to have an idea of the effects boredom can have on idle upper-class housewives) They wanted to break the so-called glass-ceiling by working as politicians, attorneys, journalists, managers, CEOs and fund-raisers in non-profits but never as nannies, burger-flippers and baristas meaning that it’s the nature of the work and the salary which is important and not the right to work per se. And this is where feminism fails completely as a viable tool to achieve social equality because the class struggle, if any such thing can exist in the 21st century, has to be vertically oriented. It has to be the poor against the rich (which are social categories) rather than women against men (which are genders within a social category). It makes no sense to talk about the “condition of women” in a society because the said “condition” depends on the social class. There is no economic or social overlap between the condition of a girl being exploited at a Whole Foods cash register and that of a female CEO at a Fortune 500 company. The system wins by supporting any movement that replaces this vertical struggle (between social classes) by a horizontal one (within a social class), hence its unconditional support for feminism since its inception. It can therefore be said that feminism, by definition, is a destroyer of class solidarity."
Women actually spend more on consumer electronics and cars than I expected
Kay Hymowitz: Longer Maternity Leave Not So Great for Women After All - "almost all public policies have unintended consequences, and maternity leave is no exception. Rather than offering a route to equality between the sexes, the data shows, extended maternity leave actually throws up roadblocks in a woman’s career — the very roadblocks that such policies are meant to prevent... Women who take a year off from work with a new baby — not to mention mothers of a second child who take a total of two years — experience what economists call human-capital depreciation, meaning their skills get rusty. Their work-social networks also fray. Unsurprisingly, their income and careers take a hit. “Women who make full use of their maternity or parental leave entitlements receive, on average, lower wages in the years following their resumption of work than those who return before leave expires,” the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concludes in a review of studies on the subject. The effect can continue for years after leave takers return to their jobs and “can permanently damage [mothers’] ability to achieve their labor market potential.” In fact, generous maternity-leave policies have a tendency to harden a country’s glass ceiling, and women in the Nordic countries are actually less likely to reach career heights than women in the U.S. (The one exception is in the political realm, where quotas have filled Nordic legislatures and ministries with close to equal numbers of women as men)... If you’re thinking that one answer to this dilemma is that new fathers should take more of the career hit so new mothers can take less, you’re not alone. Over the past decades, Norway, Sweden and Iceland have been tinkering with policy formulas to get dads to take longer paternity leave. They’ve found that when, and only when, they introduce “use it or lose it” daddy months — that is, when fathers get several months of leave that cannot be transferred to mothers — men will take substantial time off with the baby. However, any leave time left to a couple to divide is almost always taken by women. In Sweden, where the most reliable data is available, women take 76% of parental-leave days"
You can't legislate productivity
Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions - "people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically desirable. If they don't, then they tend to deny the problem even exists... The researchers found liberal-leaning individuals exhibited a similar aversion to solutions they viewed as politically undesirable in an experiment involving violent home break-ins. When the proposed solution called for looser versus tighter gun-control laws, those with more liberal gun-control ideologies were more likely to downplay the frequency of violent home break-ins. "We should not just view some people or group as anti-science, anti-fact or hyper-scared of any problems," Kay said. "Instead, we should understand that certain problems have particular solutions that threaten some people and groups more than others. When we realize this, we understand those who deny the problem more and we improve our ability to better communicate with them." Campbell added that solution aversion can help explain why political divides become so divisive and intractable. "We argue that the political divide over many issues is just that, it’s political," Campbell said. "These divides are not explained by just one party being more anti-science, but the fact that in general people deny facts that threaten their ideologies, left, right or center.""
Semen may reduce the effectiveness of HIV microbicides - "Known as amyloid fibrils, these particles in semen "act like glue to attach HIV particles to the cell surface and boost viral infectivity," say the international research team which includes scientists from the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Ulm in Germany. "This effect overpowers the anti-HIV activity of microbicides." These microbicides were originally developed as a way to empower sub-Saharan African women who may not be able to negotiate condom use with their partners. "However, the first generation of microbicides were largely ineffective or worse, some even leading to increased transmission of the virus," says lead author Warner Greene, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology."
A glass of wine a day CAN protect against heart disease - but only if you have a specific gene carried by just 15% of the population
Female police in Indonesia must take virginity test - ""In addition to the other medical and physical examinations. Women who want to become policewomen are to undergo a virginity test. Policewomen must keep their virginity," the informational page states. It ends the section with a cheery "thank you" and a smiley-face emoticon... A police spokesperson told CNN that all recruits, not only female, were subject to thorough medical tests that included examination of genitalia."
Australian paedophile jailed for 40 years - "Newton was sentenced to 40 years in prison for sexually abusing the boy he and Truong, 36 from Queensland, had ‘‘adopted’’ after paying a Russian woman $8000 to be their surrogate in 2005. Police believe the pair had adopted the boy ‘‘for the sole purpose of exploitation’’. The abuse began just days after his birth and over six years the couple travelled the world, offering him up for sex with at least eight men, recording the abuse and uploading the footage to an international syndicate known as the Boy Lovers Network... Newton and Truong claimed they were being targeted because they were homosexual"
Keywords: Peter Truong, Mark J. Newton
Addendum: Model gay adoptive ‘fathers’ sexually abused 6-year-old for years: offered him to pedophile ring - "Australian media covered Adam's arrival home, describing the two men as happy, loving fathers... ABC Far North Queensland broadcast a story titled "Two dads are better than one" which stated that "becoming parents was hard work for gay couple Pete and Mark, but they'd do it all over again if they had to.”"
Swelling Australian cities harbour ever bigger spiders - "Lowe and colleagues found one species of this genus, Nephila plumipes, is gaining weight the more built-up Sydney gets. Examining more than 200 specimens around Sydney, they found that the more concrete there was, the further they were from bushland and the less leaf litter there was, the bigger the spiders tended to be. Lowe says the spiders in the bushland of Brisbane Water National Park, north of Sydney, had an average mass of 0.5 grams. But those in an inner-city park near Bondi Beach averaged 1.6 grams. "It's probably because of the urban heat-island effect and prey availability," says Lowe. "Most invertebrates will grow to larger sizes if they are warmer. They are very sensitive to temperatures"... she says healthy spider populations in cities should be celebrated: they are mostly harmless to people, they eat pests and they provide food for birds. "I'm all about encouraging spiders in urban areas," she says."
Uppity, White Liberal Upset About Being Catcalled By Minorities In NYC - "Men can be heard saying such terrible things such as “how are you this morning,” and “have a nice evening,” while the uppity, white liberal woman looks at them with hatred and disdain for even deigning to speak to her. After all, the men are clearly out of her social class, and she’s white, so the fact that these men even have the nerve to look at her should be considered harassment…. right?"
Liberals Cannibalize Each Other Over Supposedly Racist Catcalling Video - "Unfortunately, some liberals simply couldn’t let the video stand as a testament to the bullshit that women go through. Why? Because most of the harassers in the video are nonwhite, which for some people constitutes an unacceptable narrative, even if that narrative is comprised entirely of subtext... If SoHo and Greenwich Village — two of the neighborhoods in the video — aren’t “white neighborhoods” for New York City, I don’t know what is. Roberts can also be seen near the Port Authority, which is neither a black nor a white neighborhood. It’s just a hellhole... The mere idea that a disproportionate percentage of street harassers (in New York City) might be — and let’s emphasize might be — nonwhite is simply not allowed. Indeed, to even ask the question would be considered racist... But Rosin’s article is nothing compared to this piece in Brooklyn Magazine by Kristin Iversen, who I can only presume lives in a faraway galaxy ruled by Gender Studies academics:
'The clear implication here is that Roberts is just an innocent woman who doesn’t deserve these catcalls, thus suggesting that there are some women who, because of the way they dress or because of the way they respond, could be thought to be asking for it”'... Jesus Christ. A woman shot a video while wearing a shirt and jeans — standard clothing for much of the human race — and somehow Iversen’s subtextual gymnastics arrive at the conclusion that the video is implicitly condoning harassment of women who dress differently. Beam me up... "Part of being honest about street harassment and creating awareness of it has to be an honest assessment of the ways this kind of harassment can be a way marginalized groups talk back to the white gentrifiers taking over their neighborhoods."
How much longer before Gould or some other enterprising writer explains say, rape in socioeconomic terms of gentrifier vs. gentrified? Would this be an acceptable extension of the “marginalized groups” argument? And if not, on what grounds is the argument circumscribed?"
Successful Women Use Poor Women To Advance - "Behind every “successful” woman there’s a host of other women (nannies and housekeepers) working on minimum wages to raise her kids which brings us to the fact that, fundamentally. feminism is a bourgeois concept which was initiated by bored upper-class women/housewives who longed to get away from the boredom of their mansions. (You might want to read Flaubert’s Madame Bovary in order to have an idea of the effects boredom can have on idle upper-class housewives) They wanted to break the so-called glass-ceiling by working as politicians, attorneys, journalists, managers, CEOs and fund-raisers in non-profits but never as nannies, burger-flippers and baristas meaning that it’s the nature of the work and the salary which is important and not the right to work per se. And this is where feminism fails completely as a viable tool to achieve social equality because the class struggle, if any such thing can exist in the 21st century, has to be vertically oriented. It has to be the poor against the rich (which are social categories) rather than women against men (which are genders within a social category). It makes no sense to talk about the “condition of women” in a society because the said “condition” depends on the social class. There is no economic or social overlap between the condition of a girl being exploited at a Whole Foods cash register and that of a female CEO at a Fortune 500 company. The system wins by supporting any movement that replaces this vertical struggle (between social classes) by a horizontal one (within a social class), hence its unconditional support for feminism since its inception. It can therefore be said that feminism, by definition, is a destroyer of class solidarity."
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Peshawar vs Gaza
""Where are the the hundreds of thousands of protesters against the Taliban??
Oh, I just remembered that the Taliban are neither White nor Jewish."
I used to have this friend, who during the Gaza attacks would constantly post pictures of dead children and asking the world to condemn these attacks, how he felt the suffering of these kids being bombed by the Zionist regime and so on and so forth.
On the days, after the Peshawar attack that killed 132 children by the Taliban, all I saw on his wall were pictures of beautiful mosques and a whole lot of pictures of "cute cats".
Ironical much?"
Oh, I just remembered that the Taliban are neither White nor Jewish."
I used to have this friend, who during the Gaza attacks would constantly post pictures of dead children and asking the world to condemn these attacks, how he felt the suffering of these kids being bombed by the Zionist regime and so on and so forth.
On the days, after the Peshawar attack that killed 132 children by the Taliban, all I saw on his wall were pictures of beautiful mosques and a whole lot of pictures of "cute cats".
Ironical much?"
Friday, December 19, 2014
Links - 19th December 2014
Java's Hinduism Revivial - Magazine Web Edition > October/November/December 2004 - Publications - Hinduism Today Magazine - "While the majority of the population did become Muslims along with their rulers, for many Javanese this was a change in name only. And even though an ever-more popular and educated acceptance of Islam was gained in the colonial and post-colonial era, through the work of independent and government Islamic organizations, the victory of Islam has remained incomplete. Most recently, a back-to-Hinduism movement which first emerged in Java in the 1960s, has gathered new momentum in the turmoil of Indonesia's economic and political crisis. Some of its members are prophesying that a natural cataclysm or final battle is at hand, in which Islam will be swept from the island and Hindu civilization restored to its past glory. The movement in Java is part of a wider national phenomenon of reconversion to Hinduism. In part, this is a reflection of the rapid Islamization of Indonesian society in recent decades, and especially after the fall of Suharto in 1998, which has made it difficult for many Javanese to carry on their Hindu traditions and retain a nominal Muslim identity. As a result, the Hindu community of Java is now the largest in Indonesia... Many of my informants portrayed their return to Hinduism, the "religion of their mighty Majapahit ancestors, " as a new expression of national pride... Pondering the secret to the economic success of their Balinese neighbors, many locals have concluded that Hindu culture may be more conducive to the development of a lucrative international tourism industry than is Islam"
Addy Satija's answer to What is white liberal racism? Have you experienced it? - Quora - "Me: "Excuse me Sir, Hi. (smile) I think the line starts back there."
"Dude! Give him a break. You have no idea what he has had to go through. It is really hard for Black people in this country."
Me: "Umm, what does that have to do with cutting the dining-hall line?""
Two Brave Men Who Ate Nothing But Meat for an Entire Year - "No clinical evidence of vitamin or calcium deficiency was noted, despite the diet being both acidic and low in calcium. In addition, the mild gingivitis Stefansson had suffered from, cleared up entirely during the meat diet. Interestingly, Andersen reported that his hair stopped falling out shortly after the meat diet was started; Stefansson also noted his hair started growing thicker and his scalp was healthier."
The Name Of His Wife | Lizard's Gaming and Geekery Site
Why I loathe feminism ... and believe it will ultimately destroy the family | Daily Mail Online - "when feminism exploded onto the scene, I was often mistaken for a supporter of the movement. But I have never been a feminist, because, having experienced my mother's violence, I always knew that women can be as vicious and irresponsible as men. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie that, if allowed to flourish, would result in the complete destruction of family life... when I later opened my refuge for battered women, 62 of the first 100 to come through the door were as abusive as the men they had left... when feminists started demonising all fathers, these stark images continually reminded me of the truth - that domestic violence is not a gender issue... Feminism, I realised, was a lie. Women and men are both capable of extraordinary cruelty. Indeed, the only thing a child really needs - two biological parents under one roof - was being undermined by the very ideology which claimed to speak up for women's rights. This country is now on the brink of serious moral collapse. We must stop demonising men and start healing the rift that feminism has created between men and women. Harriet Harman's insidious and manipulative philosophy that women are always victims and men always oppressors can only continue this unspeakable cycle of violence. And it's our children who will suffer"
Also see: Refuting 40 years of lies about domestic violence -
Comment: "I am a domestic violence therapy student I will have my B.A. in three years and I would like to say here in Colorado it is against the law to teach that men are also abused as equally as women are"
Vegetarians have much lower sperm counts - "Vegetarians and vegans had significantly lower sperm counts compared with meat eaters, 50 million sperm per ml compared with 70 million per ml. They also had lower average sperm motility – the number of sperm which are active. Only one third of sperm were active for vegetarians and vegans compared with nearly 60 per cent for meat eaters. The team believes that vitamin deficiencies may be to blame but also believe that replacing meat with soy could be responsible... Separate research from Harvard University also found that a diet high in fruit and vegetables may impact fertility because men are consuming high quantities of pesticides"
The Apprentice: A lesson from Sweden - "in Scandinavia it is a very different kettle of dried fish. There they have the Law of Jante, a way of describing the custom - which draws its modern name from a novel of 1933 by Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose - that forbids individuals emphasising their own success over that of the group... The Law of Jante normally comes into play when people are asked: "What do you do?" "When I was in the States, starting a business in computer animation, I would be asked, 'What are you doing?' and answer, 'I have my own business'. "There the reaction would be to view that as great. That's what you do - in some ways, the ultimate expression of self-confidence. In Sweden, the reaction would be much more suspicious. 'Do you think you are better than regular workers?' ""
Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe Is Rotten for Men - "Watson deserves credit for wanting to end the idea that “fighting for women’s rights [is] synonymous with man-hating.” But she cannot do that if she treats such notions only as unfair stereotypes. How about addressing this message to feminists who complain about being “asked to modify our language so we don’t hurt men’s feelings” when talking about misogyny — for instance, not to generalize about all men as oppressors? Or to those who argue that “Kill all men” mugs and “I bathe in male tears” T-shirts are a great way to celebrate women’s empowerment and separate the “cool dudes” who get the joke from the “dumb bros”? Or to those who accuse a feminist woman of “victim-blaming” for defending her son against a sexual assault accusation — even one of which he is eventually cleared? Men must, indeed, “feel welcome to participate in the conversation” about gender issues. But very few will do so if that “conversation” amounts to being told to “shut up and listen” while women talk about the horrible things men do to women, and being labeled a misogynist for daring to point out that bad things happen to men too and that women are not always innocent victims in gender conflicts"
Throwing domestic violence victims to the wolves - "perhaps the most depressing spectacle was witnessing advocates for one group of abuse victims throw another group of abuse victims to the wolves. I refer of course to the journalist Sandra Laville and interviewees from women’s organisations attributing their dire situation to the need to provide services to male victims too... there are a grand total of 58 refuge places around the country that can be used by men. Only 13 of those are specifically reserved for men, the others can be (and usually are) taken up by women. By contrast there are around 4,000 refuge beds for adult women, 7,000 that can be used by women and/or children. The total number available for men is actually slightly lower than it was five years ago. Another way of thinking about this is that even if it were still true that women are 89% of those victimised six times or more (a statistic from 2001, by the way), men would represent one in nine of those victimised repeatedly, two in five of those subjected to incidents of severe violence, and are able to access fewer than one in 100 available refuge beds. To blame the shortage of facilities for women on the availability of services for men is not just misleading, it is downright perverse."
China Broadcaster Says KFC’s Ice Dirtier Than Toilet Water - China Real Time Report - WSJ - "China is not alone in serving ice cubes that make toilet water seem clean by comparison. In June, the British newspaper Daily Mail said it conducted the same experiment with samples of ice from 10 fast-food chains and found six that had higher bacterial levels than toilet water."
Jackie Chan Blu-ray disc boosts solar panel efficiency by a massive 22%
Our focus is money, not turf: Gang member - "The 27-year-old - who claimed to be part of the Omega gang - refused to give his real name to avoid getting into trouble with the law. He also declined to be photographed, out of fear that he might be targeted. The name Omega, Mr Rahmat claimed, is an acronym for "Orang Melayu Enter Gangster Area". Orang Melayu means "Malay people"."
I've also seen: "Only Malay Enter Gangster Area"
Central Java Governor bans ancient sex ritual on Mt. Kemukus - "Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo has banned residents from performing an ancient tradition of engaging in sex at the tomb of Prince Samodra on Mount Kumukus in Sragen regency. Mt. Kemukus is recognized by parts of the community as a place of worship to seek riches. Those who seek wealth are encouraged to have sexual intercourse on the mountain with someone other than their legal partner in order to achieve prosperity... Sexual intercourse on the mountain has been practiced by parts of the community for generations. It is believed to relate to a message from Prince Samodra, who was buried on the peak of the mountain together his lover and stepmother, Ontrowulan... Before his death, Prince Samodra left a message stating that for any person willing to engage in intercourse with a person other than his or her legal partner seven times on Pon Friday, the day when Samodra died alongside Ontrowulan, the person’s wishes would be fulfilled."
Douglas Todd: Is gender balance in university programs worth pursuing? - "of the 2,800 students enrolled in UBC’s psychology and counselling programs, only 27 per cent are male. That means Canadian males (or females) suffering from anxiety or depression will run into a barrier if they hope to work with a psychotherapist who is a man... The health sciences at UBC also have a majority of women. Overall, 58 per cent of the 4,053 students studying various aspects of health and medicine at UBC are females. How many will become doctors? Women make up slightly more than half the 1,102 students training to be physicians. Meanwhile, in dentistry, 64 per cent of the students are female. Pharmacy is also predominantly female. And nursing has especially remained stubbornly resistant to men. Of the 910 nursing students at the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses of UBC, only nine per cent are male. However, unlike in engineering, UBC has no formal plan to “broaden the current talent pool” by encouraging men into nursing — despite its high value as a career; one which offers strong salaries, benefits, union protection, frequent overtime and pensions... Given the wide sex disparities in many faculties and departments across UBC, it is perplexing the university is putting so much money, publicity and energy into redressing an imbalance in just one department: Engineering."
Addy Satija's answer to What is white liberal racism? Have you experienced it? - Quora - "Me: "Excuse me Sir, Hi. (smile) I think the line starts back there."
"Dude! Give him a break. You have no idea what he has had to go through. It is really hard for Black people in this country."
Me: "Umm, what does that have to do with cutting the dining-hall line?""
Two Brave Men Who Ate Nothing But Meat for an Entire Year - "No clinical evidence of vitamin or calcium deficiency was noted, despite the diet being both acidic and low in calcium. In addition, the mild gingivitis Stefansson had suffered from, cleared up entirely during the meat diet. Interestingly, Andersen reported that his hair stopped falling out shortly after the meat diet was started; Stefansson also noted his hair started growing thicker and his scalp was healthier."
The Name Of His Wife | Lizard's Gaming and Geekery Site
Why I loathe feminism ... and believe it will ultimately destroy the family | Daily Mail Online - "when feminism exploded onto the scene, I was often mistaken for a supporter of the movement. But I have never been a feminist, because, having experienced my mother's violence, I always knew that women can be as vicious and irresponsible as men. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie that, if allowed to flourish, would result in the complete destruction of family life... when I later opened my refuge for battered women, 62 of the first 100 to come through the door were as abusive as the men they had left... when feminists started demonising all fathers, these stark images continually reminded me of the truth - that domestic violence is not a gender issue... Feminism, I realised, was a lie. Women and men are both capable of extraordinary cruelty. Indeed, the only thing a child really needs - two biological parents under one roof - was being undermined by the very ideology which claimed to speak up for women's rights. This country is now on the brink of serious moral collapse. We must stop demonising men and start healing the rift that feminism has created between men and women. Harriet Harman's insidious and manipulative philosophy that women are always victims and men always oppressors can only continue this unspeakable cycle of violence. And it's our children who will suffer"
Also see: Refuting 40 years of lies about domestic violence -
Comment: "I am a domestic violence therapy student I will have my B.A. in three years and I would like to say here in Colorado it is against the law to teach that men are also abused as equally as women are"
Vegetarians have much lower sperm counts - "Vegetarians and vegans had significantly lower sperm counts compared with meat eaters, 50 million sperm per ml compared with 70 million per ml. They also had lower average sperm motility – the number of sperm which are active. Only one third of sperm were active for vegetarians and vegans compared with nearly 60 per cent for meat eaters. The team believes that vitamin deficiencies may be to blame but also believe that replacing meat with soy could be responsible... Separate research from Harvard University also found that a diet high in fruit and vegetables may impact fertility because men are consuming high quantities of pesticides"
The Apprentice: A lesson from Sweden - "in Scandinavia it is a very different kettle of dried fish. There they have the Law of Jante, a way of describing the custom - which draws its modern name from a novel of 1933 by Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose - that forbids individuals emphasising their own success over that of the group... The Law of Jante normally comes into play when people are asked: "What do you do?" "When I was in the States, starting a business in computer animation, I would be asked, 'What are you doing?' and answer, 'I have my own business'. "There the reaction would be to view that as great. That's what you do - in some ways, the ultimate expression of self-confidence. In Sweden, the reaction would be much more suspicious. 'Do you think you are better than regular workers?' ""
Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe Is Rotten for Men - "Watson deserves credit for wanting to end the idea that “fighting for women’s rights [is] synonymous with man-hating.” But she cannot do that if she treats such notions only as unfair stereotypes. How about addressing this message to feminists who complain about being “asked to modify our language so we don’t hurt men’s feelings” when talking about misogyny — for instance, not to generalize about all men as oppressors? Or to those who argue that “Kill all men” mugs and “I bathe in male tears” T-shirts are a great way to celebrate women’s empowerment and separate the “cool dudes” who get the joke from the “dumb bros”? Or to those who accuse a feminist woman of “victim-blaming” for defending her son against a sexual assault accusation — even one of which he is eventually cleared? Men must, indeed, “feel welcome to participate in the conversation” about gender issues. But very few will do so if that “conversation” amounts to being told to “shut up and listen” while women talk about the horrible things men do to women, and being labeled a misogynist for daring to point out that bad things happen to men too and that women are not always innocent victims in gender conflicts"
Throwing domestic violence victims to the wolves - "perhaps the most depressing spectacle was witnessing advocates for one group of abuse victims throw another group of abuse victims to the wolves. I refer of course to the journalist Sandra Laville and interviewees from women’s organisations attributing their dire situation to the need to provide services to male victims too... there are a grand total of 58 refuge places around the country that can be used by men. Only 13 of those are specifically reserved for men, the others can be (and usually are) taken up by women. By contrast there are around 4,000 refuge beds for adult women, 7,000 that can be used by women and/or children. The total number available for men is actually slightly lower than it was five years ago. Another way of thinking about this is that even if it were still true that women are 89% of those victimised six times or more (a statistic from 2001, by the way), men would represent one in nine of those victimised repeatedly, two in five of those subjected to incidents of severe violence, and are able to access fewer than one in 100 available refuge beds. To blame the shortage of facilities for women on the availability of services for men is not just misleading, it is downright perverse."
China Broadcaster Says KFC’s Ice Dirtier Than Toilet Water - China Real Time Report - WSJ - "China is not alone in serving ice cubes that make toilet water seem clean by comparison. In June, the British newspaper Daily Mail said it conducted the same experiment with samples of ice from 10 fast-food chains and found six that had higher bacterial levels than toilet water."
Jackie Chan Blu-ray disc boosts solar panel efficiency by a massive 22%
Our focus is money, not turf: Gang member - "The 27-year-old - who claimed to be part of the Omega gang - refused to give his real name to avoid getting into trouble with the law. He also declined to be photographed, out of fear that he might be targeted. The name Omega, Mr Rahmat claimed, is an acronym for "Orang Melayu Enter Gangster Area". Orang Melayu means "Malay people"."
I've also seen: "Only Malay Enter Gangster Area"
Central Java Governor bans ancient sex ritual on Mt. Kemukus - "Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo has banned residents from performing an ancient tradition of engaging in sex at the tomb of Prince Samodra on Mount Kumukus in Sragen regency. Mt. Kemukus is recognized by parts of the community as a place of worship to seek riches. Those who seek wealth are encouraged to have sexual intercourse on the mountain with someone other than their legal partner in order to achieve prosperity... Sexual intercourse on the mountain has been practiced by parts of the community for generations. It is believed to relate to a message from Prince Samodra, who was buried on the peak of the mountain together his lover and stepmother, Ontrowulan... Before his death, Prince Samodra left a message stating that for any person willing to engage in intercourse with a person other than his or her legal partner seven times on Pon Friday, the day when Samodra died alongside Ontrowulan, the person’s wishes would be fulfilled."
Douglas Todd: Is gender balance in university programs worth pursuing? - "of the 2,800 students enrolled in UBC’s psychology and counselling programs, only 27 per cent are male. That means Canadian males (or females) suffering from anxiety or depression will run into a barrier if they hope to work with a psychotherapist who is a man... The health sciences at UBC also have a majority of women. Overall, 58 per cent of the 4,053 students studying various aspects of health and medicine at UBC are females. How many will become doctors? Women make up slightly more than half the 1,102 students training to be physicians. Meanwhile, in dentistry, 64 per cent of the students are female. Pharmacy is also predominantly female. And nursing has especially remained stubbornly resistant to men. Of the 910 nursing students at the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses of UBC, only nine per cent are male. However, unlike in engineering, UBC has no formal plan to “broaden the current talent pool” by encouraging men into nursing — despite its high value as a career; one which offers strong salaries, benefits, union protection, frequent overtime and pensions... Given the wide sex disparities in many faculties and departments across UBC, it is perplexing the university is putting so much money, publicity and energy into redressing an imbalance in just one department: Engineering."
Sweden says it will pursue a feminist foreign policy to counter macho Russian aggression
(No, this is not from The Onion)
Swedish Women vs. Vladimir Putin | Foreign Policy
Sweden says it will pursue a feminist foreign policy to counter macho Russian aggression... even if no one really knows what that means.
"Margot Wallström, the newly minted foreign minister, has said that under her leadership Sweden will become the only country in the world to conduct a “feminist foreign policy.” That’s a perspective that flows from U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, a landmark measure that recognized both the disproportionate impact war has on women and the role women must play in ensuring peace and security.
But questions about what this means in practice and Wallström’s foreign-policy moves come at a time of unusual instability for Sweden...
Wallström will remain at the Foreign Ministry, with her feminist vision for Sweden’s ventures abroad intact. By empowering women, the argument goes, there are better chances of snuffing out wars before they start and of ending them in more equitable ways. However, it is less clear what such a feminist foreign policy has to say about the old-school power politics that Putin has helped resuscitate in the past year.
During a recent debate in the Swedish parliament, Wallström said that her feminist approach is based on the American political scientist Joseph Nye’s concept of “smart power.” “The tools of foreign policy can, in varying degrees, be hard as well as soft. The situation at hand determines this,” Wallström said. “The half of the population that so far has been almost systematically excluded and forgotten — namely, women — will now be included.”
Asked how she believes a feminist foreign policy will help end Russian aggression, Wallström suggested it would be useful to review women’s participation in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to look at what it does to address the problems women face — a statement exactly as vague as it sounds...
The newfound emphasis on feminism abroad has been remarkably absent in the Swedish response to the recent submarine incursion in Stockholm. When Göranson, flanked by Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, presented evidence at a November press conference of illicit underwater activity in the Stockholm archipelago, there was no talk of gender perspectives or feminist approaches to territorial breaches. (While the Swedish military maintains that it does not have the evidence to conclusively identify the submarine’s nationality, it was all but certainly a Russian boat.)
Löfven did not parse his words. “Those who are considering entering Swedish territory should be aware of the enormous risks this entails for those who are involved in such violations,” he said. “We will defend our territorial integrity with all available means.”
For Löfven, the moment was an opportunity to show leadership after his government’s shaky first few weeks in power...
But no one quite seems to know how to square that perspective with notions of a feminist foreign policy. “If Sweden would really invest in military defense and at the same time push for a feminist foreign and security policy, then the government faces a big rhetorical problem in explaining how these two things go together,” said Ulf Bjereld, a professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg and a supporter of the Social Democrats.
“One option is to insist that military defense and feminism represent two branches of the same tree: that citizens’ security is guaranteed by having a strong military and that the feminist agenda is guaranteed through diplomacy, aid, and other arsenals beyond defense,” Bjereld said. “Is that credible or not? Well, credibility is like beauty — it’s in the eye of the beholder.”
Wallström herself sees no contradiction between the two. In an interview with Foreign Policy, she said that the Social Democrats’ security policy has always been based on combining the right to territorial defense with an engagement in humanitarianism. “Sweden has been a world power because we have acted constructively to find political solutions and because of our aid policy and contribution to achieving global development,” Wallström insisted...
Wallström’s feminist foreign policy is based on three Rs: representation, resources, and respect. In its dealings with other nations, Sweden should push for fair representation of women in everything from ambassador posts to political committees, notes Wallström. Sweden should also encourage other countries to ensure equal access to resources and to respect women’s rights, she said.
Wallström argued that this women-focused perspective is relevant in all aspects of foreign policy, including in how Sweden deals with territorial breaches and Russian aggression in nearby countries like Ukraine. “To say it’s not relevant in such situations is to suggest that women don’t think we should have a defense force and that is just not true.”
The gender-focused agenda has also been welcomed by at least some in the Swedish military. One enthusiast is Robert Egnell of Sweden’s National Defense College, which has hosted several seminars on gender perspectives in military operations. In a recent op-ed for Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Egnell wrote that Wallström’s stated focus is an “instrument for preventing armed conflict, achieving peace where violence is already a fact, and promoting post-war reconciliation and reconstruction.”
Egnell pointed out that Wallström’s focus on women, peace, and security is not unique, and has also been embraced by figures such as Hillary Clinton and William Hague, the former British foreign secretary. Wallström’s approach, however, is arguably more original in that she has chosen to label efforts to boost women’s power and participation as “feminist.” She herself insisted that her government is “starting something new here” rather than emulating other international leaders’ approaches.
Critics say the Social Democrats’ push for a feminist foreign policy amounts to little more than branding...
Talk of a feminist foreign policy, according to Tracz, is a distraction. “When it comes to the security issues that Sweden and the world face today, it is not at all clear what a feminist foreign policy can achieve,” she said. “There are no concrete suggestions for how a gender approach to security policy will help put an end to intrusions in the Stockholm archipelago, for instance.”
Wallström’s retort is that a feminist foreign policy does have concrete implications. “Are female police officers being allowed to take part in surveillance operations? Are women in a given country being asked about their ambitions?” she said, citing her efforts to include women in the peace-making process in Ukraine. “This perspective should permeate everything we do”...
The dark winter months until the March election will provide Moscow with ample opportunity to test what this feminism really means in practice."
Maybe feminism can serve Sweden's foreign policy interests by making the Russians die of laughter
Swedish Women vs. Vladimir Putin | Foreign Policy
Sweden says it will pursue a feminist foreign policy to counter macho Russian aggression... even if no one really knows what that means.
"Margot Wallström, the newly minted foreign minister, has said that under her leadership Sweden will become the only country in the world to conduct a “feminist foreign policy.” That’s a perspective that flows from U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, a landmark measure that recognized both the disproportionate impact war has on women and the role women must play in ensuring peace and security.
But questions about what this means in practice and Wallström’s foreign-policy moves come at a time of unusual instability for Sweden...
Wallström will remain at the Foreign Ministry, with her feminist vision for Sweden’s ventures abroad intact. By empowering women, the argument goes, there are better chances of snuffing out wars before they start and of ending them in more equitable ways. However, it is less clear what such a feminist foreign policy has to say about the old-school power politics that Putin has helped resuscitate in the past year.
During a recent debate in the Swedish parliament, Wallström said that her feminist approach is based on the American political scientist Joseph Nye’s concept of “smart power.” “The tools of foreign policy can, in varying degrees, be hard as well as soft. The situation at hand determines this,” Wallström said. “The half of the population that so far has been almost systematically excluded and forgotten — namely, women — will now be included.”
Asked how she believes a feminist foreign policy will help end Russian aggression, Wallström suggested it would be useful to review women’s participation in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to look at what it does to address the problems women face — a statement exactly as vague as it sounds...
The newfound emphasis on feminism abroad has been remarkably absent in the Swedish response to the recent submarine incursion in Stockholm. When Göranson, flanked by Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, presented evidence at a November press conference of illicit underwater activity in the Stockholm archipelago, there was no talk of gender perspectives or feminist approaches to territorial breaches. (While the Swedish military maintains that it does not have the evidence to conclusively identify the submarine’s nationality, it was all but certainly a Russian boat.)
Löfven did not parse his words. “Those who are considering entering Swedish territory should be aware of the enormous risks this entails for those who are involved in such violations,” he said. “We will defend our territorial integrity with all available means.”
For Löfven, the moment was an opportunity to show leadership after his government’s shaky first few weeks in power...
But no one quite seems to know how to square that perspective with notions of a feminist foreign policy. “If Sweden would really invest in military defense and at the same time push for a feminist foreign and security policy, then the government faces a big rhetorical problem in explaining how these two things go together,” said Ulf Bjereld, a professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg and a supporter of the Social Democrats.
“One option is to insist that military defense and feminism represent two branches of the same tree: that citizens’ security is guaranteed by having a strong military and that the feminist agenda is guaranteed through diplomacy, aid, and other arsenals beyond defense,” Bjereld said. “Is that credible or not? Well, credibility is like beauty — it’s in the eye of the beholder.”
Wallström herself sees no contradiction between the two. In an interview with Foreign Policy, she said that the Social Democrats’ security policy has always been based on combining the right to territorial defense with an engagement in humanitarianism. “Sweden has been a world power because we have acted constructively to find political solutions and because of our aid policy and contribution to achieving global development,” Wallström insisted...
Wallström’s feminist foreign policy is based on three Rs: representation, resources, and respect. In its dealings with other nations, Sweden should push for fair representation of women in everything from ambassador posts to political committees, notes Wallström. Sweden should also encourage other countries to ensure equal access to resources and to respect women’s rights, she said.
Wallström argued that this women-focused perspective is relevant in all aspects of foreign policy, including in how Sweden deals with territorial breaches and Russian aggression in nearby countries like Ukraine. “To say it’s not relevant in such situations is to suggest that women don’t think we should have a defense force and that is just not true.”
The gender-focused agenda has also been welcomed by at least some in the Swedish military. One enthusiast is Robert Egnell of Sweden’s National Defense College, which has hosted several seminars on gender perspectives in military operations. In a recent op-ed for Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Egnell wrote that Wallström’s stated focus is an “instrument for preventing armed conflict, achieving peace where violence is already a fact, and promoting post-war reconciliation and reconstruction.”
Egnell pointed out that Wallström’s focus on women, peace, and security is not unique, and has also been embraced by figures such as Hillary Clinton and William Hague, the former British foreign secretary. Wallström’s approach, however, is arguably more original in that she has chosen to label efforts to boost women’s power and participation as “feminist.” She herself insisted that her government is “starting something new here” rather than emulating other international leaders’ approaches.
Critics say the Social Democrats’ push for a feminist foreign policy amounts to little more than branding...
Talk of a feminist foreign policy, according to Tracz, is a distraction. “When it comes to the security issues that Sweden and the world face today, it is not at all clear what a feminist foreign policy can achieve,” she said. “There are no concrete suggestions for how a gender approach to security policy will help put an end to intrusions in the Stockholm archipelago, for instance.”
Wallström’s retort is that a feminist foreign policy does have concrete implications. “Are female police officers being allowed to take part in surveillance operations? Are women in a given country being asked about their ambitions?” she said, citing her efforts to include women in the peace-making process in Ukraine. “This perspective should permeate everything we do”...
The dark winter months until the March election will provide Moscow with ample opportunity to test what this feminism really means in practice."
Maybe feminism can serve Sweden's foreign policy interests by making the Russians die of laughter
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Links - 18th December 2014
Here Are The Different Ways People Give Criticism Around The World - "Argentinians are the most direct speakers of the Latin American countries. Other Latin American countries see them as arrogant"
The Straight Dope: How could the Romans use corn? It's American! - ""Corn" comes from the Latin word for grain (granum), and through the ages it's been used indiscriminately for whatever grain happens to predominate in a particular region. In England, for example, corn is the word the natives apply to wheat. Up country a bit, in Scotland, the locals say "corn" when they mean "oats." Naturally, when our British forebears jumped off the Mayflower and found the welcoming committee brandishing long green stalks with funny yellow things pointing out of them, "corn" was the first word that came to mind, and the name stuck in American English"
Effects of Soft Drink Consumption on Nutrition and Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - "One study revealed that participants consumed 17% more energy than in their typical diet even after the energy from the soft drinks they consumed had been taken into account, suggesting again that soft drinks may influence other aspects of dietary intake... Other studies revealed a negative association of soft drink consumption with intake of both dietary fiber (r = −0.31) and starch (r = −0.27). Thus, these findings indicate that the increased carbohydrate intake associated with soft drink consumption primarily reflects greater consumption of added sugars. Soft drink consumption also was associated with decreased intakes of protein (r = −0.14), fruit juice (r = −0.17), fruit (r = −0.09), and riboflavin (r = −0.12), among others... Perhaps the most striking link between soft drink consumption and health outcomes was the prospective evidence obtained for type 2 diabetes... When diet soft drinks replaced sugar-sweetened soft drinks in the analysis, the increased risk was no longer present, suggesting that the risk was specific to sugar-sweetened soft drinks... The association between soft drinks and dental caries was not observed for diet soft drinks... A 10-week experimental study showed that individuals who consumed sucrose-sweetened beverages exhibited an increase in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure over the course of the study, whereas individuals who consumed artificially sweetened beverages exhibited a decrease in blood pressure"
In Pictures: New Islamic law in Indonesia - "Aceh province implemented Islamic law in 2001, but in September the religious "penal code" was extended to everyone, now applying to some 90,000 non-Muslims who live there. Offences not previously regulated such as adultery, homosexual acts, and sex outside marriage are now punishable with sentences handed down by Islamic courts, including public flogging. Buying or carrying alcoholic beverages could result in 10 strokes of the cane, 10 months in prison, or a maximum fine of 100 grams in gold... As the newly extended Islamic law technically forbids women from wearing trousers, the dress code imposed by Suzuya creates a problem for its female employees... In Banda Aceh it is not permitted to build new churches as the authorities forbid the construction of any places of worship that isn't Islamic... Religious police stop a family riding a motorbike on moral grounds because they broke the dress code imposed by the new Islamic law. The law prohibits tight trousers: All clothing that display the shape of the body are banned... A man is forced to do 10 push-ups as punishment for wearing shorts and sporting an 'improper' haircut... Confiscated goods at the police station include alcohol, a woman's bag, fire crackers, and improperly used Quranic inscriptions."
Aceh Town Bans Women From Straddling Motorbikes - "The Indonesian Home Affairs Ministry says it will review and potentially repeal the motorbike bylaw. The ministry has blocked more than 2,000 local laws across the country, but it has never revoked a sharia bylaw in Aceh... Almost 30 churches were shut down in the province last year."
Indonesia Is No Model for Muslim Democracy - NYTimes.com - "IT is fashionable these days for Western leaders to praise Indonesia as a model Muslim democracy... The rights of religious and ethnic minorities are routinely trampled. While Indonesia’s Constitution protects freedom of religion, regulations against blasphemy and proselytizing are routinely used to prosecute atheists, Bahais, Christians, Shiites, Sufis and members of the Ahmadiyya faith — a Muslim sect declared to be deviant in many Islamic countries. By 2010, Indonesia had over 150 religiously motivated regulations restricting minorities’ rights. In 2006, Mr. Yudhoyono, in a new decree on “religious harmony,” tightened criteria for building a house of worship. The decree is enforced only on religious minorities — often when Islamists pressure local officials not to authorize the construction of Christian churches or to harass and intimidate those worshiping in “illegal” churches, which lack official registration. More than 400 such churches have been closed since Mr. Yudhoyono took office in 2004... Mr. Yudhoyono is not simply turning a blind eye; he has actively courted conservative Islamist elements and relies on them to maintain his majority in Parliament, even granting them key cabinet positions. These appointments send a message to Indonesia’s population and embolden Islamist extremists to use violence against minorities"
INDONESIA West Java: Tasikmalaya authorities impose Sharia law and compulsory veil - "Activists and members of civil society in different parts of Indonesia have strongly criticized the proposal of the authority of the District of Tasikmalaya (West Java) to introduce norms inspired by sharia, or Islamic law, by mid-July ahead of the start of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and prayer. The obligations will be the imposition of the veil for all women - foreign and local, and non-Muslim - better known in the archipelago as the jilbab."
Reasons Why Cyclists Suck - "Like everything else that is good for the environment, cycling has morphed from being a mode of transport into a weird annoying cult full of pious missionaries spreading the good word. As a driver, I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve been held up by a cyclist (usually with no helmet) taking up the center of the road and holding up traffic. Honk your horn and they’ll erupt in a fury of indignation. “I’m a cyclist dammit! I’m special!”. And there’s not much you can do about it, other than wait patiently until they turn off. Or run them off the road and face jail time… Like vegans, cyclists want everyone to know that they’re cyclists. The wear cycling t-shirts, post pictures of themselves cycling on facebook, visit cycling website, and even start their own annoying blogs about cycling and how great it is. Cyclists also hate motorists, and make a point of giving drivers dirty looks if they get too close or try to engage them in debate. Motorists are dirty, evil environment killers and are not worthy of talking to. Drive a car to work? Screw you, baby seal killer... In DC, it’s pretty common to see cyclists speeding through the streets without helmets (around 25%, according to the data)... 'perversely, increasing bike use can actually add to pollution and greenhouse emissions if roads are not updated to accommodate these bikes'"
Molest victim squeezes culprit's genitals to escape - "When he grabbed her breasts, both fell down."
"the article refers to her as 'girl' until the molest account, then she becomes a 'woman'. is this some rite of womanhood?"
Note: the line has been changed to "He grabbed her breasts. Both the worker and the victim fell down." - as usual without any note about the change
Statement of concern on Thio Li-Ann as speaker at EU human rights seminar - "Article 13 of the EC Treaty and the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights explicitly prohibits discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. Moreover, the Commissioner for Human Rights recommends that authorities in Council of Europe member states should:
Take a strong public position against violations of the human rights of LGBT persons and promote respect on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, for example through human rights education and awareness-raising campaigns.
Take steps to encourage factual, objective and professional reporting by the media on LGBT persons and issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
The European External Action Service lists one of its key roles as “Human rights defender”.
We are profoundly disappointed and we urge the EU and the EEAS to explain how inviting Prof Thio as a speaker for a Human Rights Day seminar is consistent with its own stated role as a defender and advocate of human rights."
If you approve of attempts to get the EU human rights seminar to boot out Thio Li-ann because her views are contrary to the EU's manifesto of LGBT rights, you should likewise support the Singapore Government's 'oppression' of gays since gay sodomy is illegal
Someone: "they are instrumentally rational
the law works for our cause we use it, if does not work for it, we oppose it
so there is an internal consistency of sorts"
Free speech is so last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’ - "Last month, at Britain’s other famously prestigious university, Cambridge, I was circled by Stepfords after taking part in a debate on faith schools. It wasn’t my defence of parents’ rights to send their children to religious schools they wanted to harangue me for — much as they loathed that liberal position — it was my suggestion, made in this magazine and elsewhere, that ‘lad culture’ doesn’t turn men into rapists. Their mechanical minds seemed incapable of computing that someone would say such a thing. Their eyes glazed with moral certainty, they explained to me at length that culture warps minds and shapes behaviour and that is why it is right for students to strive to keep such wicked, misogynistic stuff as the Sun newspaper and sexist pop music off campus. ‘We have the right to feel comfortable,’ they all said, like a mantra. One — a bloke — said that the compulsory sexual consent classes recently introduced for freshers at Cambridge, to teach what is and what isn’t rape, were a great idea because they might weed out ‘pre-rapists’: men who haven’t raped anyone but might. The others nodded. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Pre-rapists! Had any of them read Philip K. Dick’s dystopian novella about a wicked world that hunts down and punishes pre-criminals, I asked? None had. When I told them that at the fag-end of the last millennium I had spent my student days arguing against the very ideas they were now spouting — against the claim that gangsta rap turned black men into murderers or that Tarantino flicks made teens go wild and criminal — not so much as a flicker of reflection crossed their faces. ‘Back then, the people who were making those censorious, misanthropic arguments about culture determining behaviour weren’t youngsters like you,’ I said. ‘They were older, more conservative people, with blue rinses.’ A moment’s silence. Then one of the Stepfords piped up. ‘Maybe those people were right,’ he said. My mind filled with a vision of Mary Whitehouse cackling to herself in some corner of the cosmos... the students’ union at Dundee banned the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children from the freshers’ fair on the basis that its campaign material is ‘highly offensive’... They’re being made to take part in equality and diversity training. At British unis in 2014, you don’t just get education — you also get re-education, Soviet style."
Those who want to 'speak truth to power' just want to wield power themselves - and to shut down truth
If offence is a sufficient reason to ban something, liberals themselves should be censored
Comment: "the new fascists will call themselves anti fascists"
The Straight Dope: How could the Romans use corn? It's American! - ""Corn" comes from the Latin word for grain (granum), and through the ages it's been used indiscriminately for whatever grain happens to predominate in a particular region. In England, for example, corn is the word the natives apply to wheat. Up country a bit, in Scotland, the locals say "corn" when they mean "oats." Naturally, when our British forebears jumped off the Mayflower and found the welcoming committee brandishing long green stalks with funny yellow things pointing out of them, "corn" was the first word that came to mind, and the name stuck in American English"
Effects of Soft Drink Consumption on Nutrition and Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - "One study revealed that participants consumed 17% more energy than in their typical diet even after the energy from the soft drinks they consumed had been taken into account, suggesting again that soft drinks may influence other aspects of dietary intake... Other studies revealed a negative association of soft drink consumption with intake of both dietary fiber (r = −0.31) and starch (r = −0.27). Thus, these findings indicate that the increased carbohydrate intake associated with soft drink consumption primarily reflects greater consumption of added sugars. Soft drink consumption also was associated with decreased intakes of protein (r = −0.14), fruit juice (r = −0.17), fruit (r = −0.09), and riboflavin (r = −0.12), among others... Perhaps the most striking link between soft drink consumption and health outcomes was the prospective evidence obtained for type 2 diabetes... When diet soft drinks replaced sugar-sweetened soft drinks in the analysis, the increased risk was no longer present, suggesting that the risk was specific to sugar-sweetened soft drinks... The association between soft drinks and dental caries was not observed for diet soft drinks... A 10-week experimental study showed that individuals who consumed sucrose-sweetened beverages exhibited an increase in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure over the course of the study, whereas individuals who consumed artificially sweetened beverages exhibited a decrease in blood pressure"
In Pictures: New Islamic law in Indonesia - "Aceh province implemented Islamic law in 2001, but in September the religious "penal code" was extended to everyone, now applying to some 90,000 non-Muslims who live there. Offences not previously regulated such as adultery, homosexual acts, and sex outside marriage are now punishable with sentences handed down by Islamic courts, including public flogging. Buying or carrying alcoholic beverages could result in 10 strokes of the cane, 10 months in prison, or a maximum fine of 100 grams in gold... As the newly extended Islamic law technically forbids women from wearing trousers, the dress code imposed by Suzuya creates a problem for its female employees... In Banda Aceh it is not permitted to build new churches as the authorities forbid the construction of any places of worship that isn't Islamic... Religious police stop a family riding a motorbike on moral grounds because they broke the dress code imposed by the new Islamic law. The law prohibits tight trousers: All clothing that display the shape of the body are banned... A man is forced to do 10 push-ups as punishment for wearing shorts and sporting an 'improper' haircut... Confiscated goods at the police station include alcohol, a woman's bag, fire crackers, and improperly used Quranic inscriptions."
Aceh Town Bans Women From Straddling Motorbikes - "The Indonesian Home Affairs Ministry says it will review and potentially repeal the motorbike bylaw. The ministry has blocked more than 2,000 local laws across the country, but it has never revoked a sharia bylaw in Aceh... Almost 30 churches were shut down in the province last year."
Indonesia Is No Model for Muslim Democracy - NYTimes.com - "IT is fashionable these days for Western leaders to praise Indonesia as a model Muslim democracy... The rights of religious and ethnic minorities are routinely trampled. While Indonesia’s Constitution protects freedom of religion, regulations against blasphemy and proselytizing are routinely used to prosecute atheists, Bahais, Christians, Shiites, Sufis and members of the Ahmadiyya faith — a Muslim sect declared to be deviant in many Islamic countries. By 2010, Indonesia had over 150 religiously motivated regulations restricting minorities’ rights. In 2006, Mr. Yudhoyono, in a new decree on “religious harmony,” tightened criteria for building a house of worship. The decree is enforced only on religious minorities — often when Islamists pressure local officials not to authorize the construction of Christian churches or to harass and intimidate those worshiping in “illegal” churches, which lack official registration. More than 400 such churches have been closed since Mr. Yudhoyono took office in 2004... Mr. Yudhoyono is not simply turning a blind eye; he has actively courted conservative Islamist elements and relies on them to maintain his majority in Parliament, even granting them key cabinet positions. These appointments send a message to Indonesia’s population and embolden Islamist extremists to use violence against minorities"
INDONESIA West Java: Tasikmalaya authorities impose Sharia law and compulsory veil - "Activists and members of civil society in different parts of Indonesia have strongly criticized the proposal of the authority of the District of Tasikmalaya (West Java) to introduce norms inspired by sharia, or Islamic law, by mid-July ahead of the start of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and prayer. The obligations will be the imposition of the veil for all women - foreign and local, and non-Muslim - better known in the archipelago as the jilbab."
Reasons Why Cyclists Suck - "Like everything else that is good for the environment, cycling has morphed from being a mode of transport into a weird annoying cult full of pious missionaries spreading the good word. As a driver, I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve been held up by a cyclist (usually with no helmet) taking up the center of the road and holding up traffic. Honk your horn and they’ll erupt in a fury of indignation. “I’m a cyclist dammit! I’m special!”. And there’s not much you can do about it, other than wait patiently until they turn off. Or run them off the road and face jail time… Like vegans, cyclists want everyone to know that they’re cyclists. The wear cycling t-shirts, post pictures of themselves cycling on facebook, visit cycling website, and even start their own annoying blogs about cycling and how great it is. Cyclists also hate motorists, and make a point of giving drivers dirty looks if they get too close or try to engage them in debate. Motorists are dirty, evil environment killers and are not worthy of talking to. Drive a car to work? Screw you, baby seal killer... In DC, it’s pretty common to see cyclists speeding through the streets without helmets (around 25%, according to the data)... 'perversely, increasing bike use can actually add to pollution and greenhouse emissions if roads are not updated to accommodate these bikes'"
Molest victim squeezes culprit's genitals to escape - "When he grabbed her breasts, both fell down."
"the article refers to her as 'girl' until the molest account, then she becomes a 'woman'. is this some rite of womanhood?"
Note: the line has been changed to "He grabbed her breasts. Both the worker and the victim fell down." - as usual without any note about the change
Statement of concern on Thio Li-Ann as speaker at EU human rights seminar - "Article 13 of the EC Treaty and the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights explicitly prohibits discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. Moreover, the Commissioner for Human Rights recommends that authorities in Council of Europe member states should:
Take a strong public position against violations of the human rights of LGBT persons and promote respect on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, for example through human rights education and awareness-raising campaigns.
Take steps to encourage factual, objective and professional reporting by the media on LGBT persons and issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
The European External Action Service lists one of its key roles as “Human rights defender”.
We are profoundly disappointed and we urge the EU and the EEAS to explain how inviting Prof Thio as a speaker for a Human Rights Day seminar is consistent with its own stated role as a defender and advocate of human rights."
If you approve of attempts to get the EU human rights seminar to boot out Thio Li-ann because her views are contrary to the EU's manifesto of LGBT rights, you should likewise support the Singapore Government's 'oppression' of gays since gay sodomy is illegal
Someone: "they are instrumentally rational
the law works for our cause we use it, if does not work for it, we oppose it
so there is an internal consistency of sorts"
Free speech is so last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’ - "Last month, at Britain’s other famously prestigious university, Cambridge, I was circled by Stepfords after taking part in a debate on faith schools. It wasn’t my defence of parents’ rights to send their children to religious schools they wanted to harangue me for — much as they loathed that liberal position — it was my suggestion, made in this magazine and elsewhere, that ‘lad culture’ doesn’t turn men into rapists. Their mechanical minds seemed incapable of computing that someone would say such a thing. Their eyes glazed with moral certainty, they explained to me at length that culture warps minds and shapes behaviour and that is why it is right for students to strive to keep such wicked, misogynistic stuff as the Sun newspaper and sexist pop music off campus. ‘We have the right to feel comfortable,’ they all said, like a mantra. One — a bloke — said that the compulsory sexual consent classes recently introduced for freshers at Cambridge, to teach what is and what isn’t rape, were a great idea because they might weed out ‘pre-rapists’: men who haven’t raped anyone but might. The others nodded. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Pre-rapists! Had any of them read Philip K. Dick’s dystopian novella about a wicked world that hunts down and punishes pre-criminals, I asked? None had. When I told them that at the fag-end of the last millennium I had spent my student days arguing against the very ideas they were now spouting — against the claim that gangsta rap turned black men into murderers or that Tarantino flicks made teens go wild and criminal — not so much as a flicker of reflection crossed their faces. ‘Back then, the people who were making those censorious, misanthropic arguments about culture determining behaviour weren’t youngsters like you,’ I said. ‘They were older, more conservative people, with blue rinses.’ A moment’s silence. Then one of the Stepfords piped up. ‘Maybe those people were right,’ he said. My mind filled with a vision of Mary Whitehouse cackling to herself in some corner of the cosmos... the students’ union at Dundee banned the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children from the freshers’ fair on the basis that its campaign material is ‘highly offensive’... They’re being made to take part in equality and diversity training. At British unis in 2014, you don’t just get education — you also get re-education, Soviet style."
Those who want to 'speak truth to power' just want to wield power themselves - and to shut down truth
If offence is a sufficient reason to ban something, liberals themselves should be censored
Comment: "the new fascists will call themselves anti fascists"
I'm allergic to Chicken Soup
I've just had a look at the latest List of Chicken Soup for the Soul books.
Not unexpectedly, this series of self-indulgent emotional masturbation in a vacuum has managed to surpass its previous "achievement" of "Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul".
Some of the more egregious entries:
Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (naturally, there's also Chicken Soup for the African American Soul)
Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul
Chicken Soup for the Baseball Fan's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Coffee Lover's Soul (presumably this includes stories of brews gone wrong)
Chicken Soup for the Chiropractic Soul (maybe this comforts those who have their backs broken)
Chicken Soup for the Dental Soul (this makes sense: after a root canal the only thing you can eat is Chicken Soup)
Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Fisherman's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul – The 2nd Round (yes, there're two!)
Chicken Soup for the Indian Teenage Soul
Chicken Soup for the Latter-day Saint Soul
Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul
Chicken Soup for the Nature Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker's Soul ("Mom threw out my scrapbook. I'm very sad.")
Chicken Soup for the Shopper's Soul ("I missed Black Monday. Now I feel like killing myself")
Chicken Soup for the Tea-Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul
Not unexpectedly, this series of self-indulgent emotional masturbation in a vacuum has managed to surpass its previous "achievement" of "Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul".
Some of the more egregious entries:
Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (naturally, there's also Chicken Soup for the African American Soul)
Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul
Chicken Soup for the Baseball Fan's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Coffee Lover's Soul (presumably this includes stories of brews gone wrong)
Chicken Soup for the Chiropractic Soul (maybe this comforts those who have their backs broken)
Chicken Soup for the Dental Soul (this makes sense: after a root canal the only thing you can eat is Chicken Soup)
Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Fisherman's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul – The 2nd Round (yes, there're two!)
Chicken Soup for the Indian Teenage Soul
Chicken Soup for the Latter-day Saint Soul
Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul
Chicken Soup for the Nature Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker's Soul ("Mom threw out my scrapbook. I'm very sad.")
Chicken Soup for the Shopper's Soul ("I missed Black Monday. Now I feel like killing myself")
Chicken Soup for the Tea-Lover's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Links - 16th December 2014
5 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die - "MYTH 1: Women are half the world’s population, working two-thirds of the world’s working hours, receiving 10% of the world’s income, owning less than 1% of the world’s property.
MYTH 2: Between 100,000 and 300,000 girls are pressed into sexual slavery each year in the United States.
MYTH 3: In the United States, 22%–35% of women who visit hospital emergency rooms do so because of domestic violence.
MYTH 4: One in five in college women will be sexually assaulted.
MYTH 5: Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns—for doing the same work...
Why do these reckless claims have so much appeal and staying power? For one thing, there is a lot of statistical illiteracy among journalists, feminist academics and political leaders. There is also an admirable human tendency to be protective of women—stories of female exploitation are readily believed, and vocal skeptics risk appearing indifferent to women’s suffering. Finally, armies of advocates depend on “killer stats” to galvanize their cause. But killer stats obliterate distinctions between more and less serious problems and send scarce resources in the wrong directions. They also promote bigotry. The idea that American men are annually enslaving more than 100,000 girls, sending millions of women to emergency rooms, sustaining a rape culture and cheating women out of their rightful salary creates rancor in true believers and disdain in those who would otherwise be sympathetic allies. My advice to women’s advocates: Take back the truth."
Addendum: This is now 6 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die, with "MYTH 6: Men are the privileged sex... Today’s women’s lobby deploys a faulty logic: In cases where men are better off than women, that’s injustice. Where women are doing better—that’s life."
Anatomy Of A Troll Job: The xoBang Gang And The Business Of Rage - "My client got enormous exposure. For every potential customer they alienated, there were ten more who became aware of them for the first time. The outraged bloggers, for their part, got pageviews and uniques and followers, which their bosses cashed out in the form of ad sales and impressions, and then some small portion of the ad revenue trickled back down to the typists—excuse me, writers. The short end of the stick went to you, the audience. All you got was offended, annoyed, and sucked into another virtual pissing contest about sexism in the media. (You also, perhaps, acquired brand awareness of my client—a company that wants your money in return for overpriced shit you don’t need.) To recap: I won. My client won. The bloggers won. Everyone else got fucked... Had Felicia Sullivan kept her anger to herself, rather than sharing it with her 4,936 Twitter followers, it would have been as though xoBang were never published—which, again, is what she claimed to want. So why the hell did Felicia share it?... Breadcrumb and I had a hypothesis that the “social justice” component of these Twitter tantrums in response to the SWPL outrage du jour is bullshit, basically; a convenient cover for less noble aims. xoBang, which is both irresistible to the social justice warriors and completely unworthy of their attention, was created to test that hypothesis... The girl bloggers and their assorted hangers-on were drawn to “xoBang” like lemmings to a precipice, and upon reading it, promptly took the bait and lost their shit... That’s what rage profiteers do: They traffic in content that is so irresistibly inflammatory that it hijacks our attention and forces us into the rage profiteer’s audience. Rage profiteering has surely existed, in one form or another, from time immemorial. But the diffuse lens of the internet and digital media created an extraordinary range of new niches for rage profiteering, and has thus caused a proliferation of rage profiteers such as society has never before seen... Your attention (as distinct from your education, enrichment, or well-being) is Felicia’s stock-in-trade. That is why her online persona has been meticulously calibrated to hijack your time, thoughts, and emotional state. Her goal is to make you look her way, then parlay you into new Twitter followers, bigger social marketing clients, better Amazon sales numbers, and—above all—more dollar bills in her purse."
Dancing death - "This was not the first outbreak of compulsive dancing in Europe. In fact, there had been as many as ten dancing epidemics before 1518, one in 1374 engulfing many of the towns of modern day Belgium, north-eastern France and Luxembourg... My explanation rests on the fact that the dancers were in a trance state; otherwise they would have been unable to dance for such lengths of time. We know that the trance state is more likely to occur in people who under extreme psychological distress, and who believe in the possibility of spirit possession. All of these conditions were satisfied in Strasbourg in 1518. The city's poor were suffering from severe famine and disease. And, crucially, we also know they believed in a saint called St. Vitus who had the power to take over their minds and inflict a terrible, compulsive dance... The dancing plague died out because the supernaturalist beliefs that fed it gradually disappeared. In the short run, cities like Strasbourg were no longer susceptible because they became Protestant during the Reformation and spurned the saint worship on which the dancing plague depended. In the long run, the fervent supernaturalism of the medieval world had to make way for the rise of modern science and rationality. The dancing madness was effectively starved out of existence. Even so, half a millennium later it still serves as a reminder of the ineffable strangeness of the human brain"
"Possession" is a strange thing indeed
The Phobia of Being Called Islamophobic | Ali A. Rizvi - "The problem is a seven-minute film being shown at the soon-to-open museum called The Rise of Al Qaeda. Narrated by NBC's Brian Williams, it uses words like "Islamist," "Islamic," and "jihad" in reference to the 9/11 hijackers and their motives. Some Muslim groups, and others like the Interfaith Center of New York, want the film edited to remove those terms. They don't want the public to think that Islamism or jihad had anything to do with Al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks, because that could foster "Islamophobia"... As a brown-skinned person with a Muslim name, I can get away with a lot more than you'd think. I can publicly parade my wife or daughters around in head-to-toe burqas and be excused out of "respect" for my culture and/or religion, thanks to the racism of lowered expectations. I can re-define "racism" as something non-whites can never harbor against whites, and cite colonialism and imperialism as justification for my prejudice. And in an increasingly effective move that's fast become something of an epidemic, I can shame you into silence for criticizing my ideas simply by calling you bigoted or Islamophobic. For decades, Muslims around the world have rightly complained about the Israeli government labeling even legitimate criticism of its policies "anti-Semitic," effectively shielding itself from accountability. Today, Muslim organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) have borrowed a page from their playbook with the "Islamophobia" label -- and taken it even further... Last month, a white American man successfully convinced the Massachusetts liberal arts school Brandeis University that he was being victimized and oppressed by a black African woman from Somalia -- a woman who underwent genital mutilation at age five and travels with armed security at risk of being assassinated. That is the power of this term... The most tragic aspect of all this is what Alishba Zarmeen has coined the "Greenwald Syndrome" -- the phenomenon of Western liberals, in a supposed show of tolerance, embracing an apologist stance in favor of the intolerant. My good friend and writer/activist Faisal Al Mutar, who escaped repeated death threats for his secular beliefs in his native Iraq, put it best: "Many of [the Western liberals] have betrayed us liberals in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, and [inadvertently] sided with the Islamists against us.""
Where have all the IBs gone – Part 3: Their cause and its effect | The Online Citizen - "This effectively makes our piece of cyberspace rather unhealthy for the casual user, who would be in all likelihood take such views to be those of the “average Singaporean”. Clearly, they are not. Co-ordinated online attacks by PAP IBs are meant to skew perspectives through sheer numbers, or divert attention from the actual policy issues by antagonising those who voice displeasure at these policies. Such efforts by IBs are best described as astro-turfing, and while on their own harmless, such activities have the potential to disrupt a proper assessment of public opinion on issues and policies, be it by other citizens or policy makers. More importantly, given that the PAP has clearly voiced no qualms about their IBs hiding behind the vile of anonymity to swing public opinion in the party’s favour, the question to ask would be whether the PAP has actively sanctioned such activities, or is merely unaware of the effect that such activities have in social media... While Ministers and MPs criticise bloggers for “taking issues out of context” and misleading the public with information, the fact that pages like FAP and FLOP continue to operate in a manner which seeks to demean opposition members and its supporters through misleading headlines and quotes taken out of context, with no word from the PAP MPs, is a double standard by itself"
Disney's 'Frozen' apparently inspired a color-changing bra - "The Close Sister Bras, as they're officially named, can instantly take on a new hue when friends wearing a matching pair come into contact with each other. To create the design, Triumph (which has a history of... odd bra designs) recruited gadget-maker Fashion Entertainments, which was responsible for making and providing the electronic-paper used to trigger the color changes in the bra. Apparently, there's no plan to take the Close Sister Bras to market -- it's all about empowering self-confidence and sisterhood, according to the firms behind the eccentric underwear."
Sweet dealing schoolboy hands over crisps and drinks to homeless after business ban - "A schoolboy entrepreneur who shot to fame after making £14,000 selling sweets at his school has given away the last of his stock to the homeless. Tommie Rose found himself in trouble with his headteacher after it was revealed his ‘black market’ school tuck shop had raked in thousands of pounds to pay his University fees. Now, with the looming threat of suspension from his school, Tommie has decided to close the playground business and give away the rest of his sweet-toothed goods to Manchester's rough sleepers... Meanwhile Tommie, is considering a new business venture - involving T-shirts - and has attended a meeting ahead of a prospective job offer. Simon Swan has offered the teenager and internship at his Manchester-based recruitment firm Hiring-Hub, which connects job-hunters with recruitment agencies via the web. Tommie said: “I have had a few other job offers since the story broke, including an offer to sell fragrances. I just love the world of business.”
Have Sperm, Will Travel: The ‘Natural Inseminators’ Helping Women Avoid the Sperm Bank
Will the Swiss Quit Cooking their Kittens and Puppies? - "the number of feline-feasting Swiss has proven impossible to back up with hard data, although nearly all Swiss animal rights groups agree on the figure. According to SOS Chats Noiraigue, which has gathered more than 16,000 signatures for a petition to the Swiss government to stop the practice of consuming cats, the three percent figure comes from a survey conducted by Swiss media in which they asked “would you” and “could you” eat a cat... “In almost all rural areas of Switzerland, it is customary to eat cats and dogs”... SOS Chat Noiraigue founder Tomi Tomek says the practice is such an open secret, many rural Swiss can readily repeat their favorite cat recipe. She says most Swiss pet eaters cook their cats using rabbit recipes, often stewing them with garlic and wine, stuffing several cats into a crock at the same time since there just isn’t a lot of meat on most felines. According to Swiss press reports, younger cats in the litter are the most tender and, as such, are the preferred cat cuts. Dogs, Tomek says, are instead generally ground into sausages and eaten by those who believe dog meat lessons the symptoms of rheumatism... In October, the government of Denmark announced it would vote on whether to stop the practice of bestiality or having sex with pets, which has, until now, been perfectly legal. Eating pets as food also has roots across Europe. In 2010, a popular Italian television cook known as Chef Beppe was taken off the air after including cat recipes on his televised cooking class. “If you don’t have meat, kill the cat,” he said. He later told CNN that eating cat was a pre-war custom across Italy. “In Parma the cat was nicknamed 'the rabbit that runs on roofs,' in Liguria, the cat is nicknamed 'the rabbit with short ears, in Piedmont it is called the 'rabbit that meows.’” he said. “Today we are scandalized by this. Why? Because times have changed. The cat has become a domestic animal. This was not the case before." According to The Daily Meal food site, the Hawaiian government recently shelved a plan to make eating dogs illegal, apparently because, although the practice is popular among certain communities, there was just not a lot of evidence that crimes were committed between getting the dogs from the back yard to the barbeque"
I need to go back to Switzerland and make friends with a local before they ban cat meat
MYTH 2: Between 100,000 and 300,000 girls are pressed into sexual slavery each year in the United States.
MYTH 3: In the United States, 22%–35% of women who visit hospital emergency rooms do so because of domestic violence.
MYTH 4: One in five in college women will be sexually assaulted.
MYTH 5: Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns—for doing the same work...
Why do these reckless claims have so much appeal and staying power? For one thing, there is a lot of statistical illiteracy among journalists, feminist academics and political leaders. There is also an admirable human tendency to be protective of women—stories of female exploitation are readily believed, and vocal skeptics risk appearing indifferent to women’s suffering. Finally, armies of advocates depend on “killer stats” to galvanize their cause. But killer stats obliterate distinctions between more and less serious problems and send scarce resources in the wrong directions. They also promote bigotry. The idea that American men are annually enslaving more than 100,000 girls, sending millions of women to emergency rooms, sustaining a rape culture and cheating women out of their rightful salary creates rancor in true believers and disdain in those who would otherwise be sympathetic allies. My advice to women’s advocates: Take back the truth."
Addendum: This is now 6 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die, with "MYTH 6: Men are the privileged sex... Today’s women’s lobby deploys a faulty logic: In cases where men are better off than women, that’s injustice. Where women are doing better—that’s life."
Anatomy Of A Troll Job: The xoBang Gang And The Business Of Rage - "My client got enormous exposure. For every potential customer they alienated, there were ten more who became aware of them for the first time. The outraged bloggers, for their part, got pageviews and uniques and followers, which their bosses cashed out in the form of ad sales and impressions, and then some small portion of the ad revenue trickled back down to the typists—excuse me, writers. The short end of the stick went to you, the audience. All you got was offended, annoyed, and sucked into another virtual pissing contest about sexism in the media. (You also, perhaps, acquired brand awareness of my client—a company that wants your money in return for overpriced shit you don’t need.) To recap: I won. My client won. The bloggers won. Everyone else got fucked... Had Felicia Sullivan kept her anger to herself, rather than sharing it with her 4,936 Twitter followers, it would have been as though xoBang were never published—which, again, is what she claimed to want. So why the hell did Felicia share it?... Breadcrumb and I had a hypothesis that the “social justice” component of these Twitter tantrums in response to the SWPL outrage du jour is bullshit, basically; a convenient cover for less noble aims. xoBang, which is both irresistible to the social justice warriors and completely unworthy of their attention, was created to test that hypothesis... The girl bloggers and their assorted hangers-on were drawn to “xoBang” like lemmings to a precipice, and upon reading it, promptly took the bait and lost their shit... That’s what rage profiteers do: They traffic in content that is so irresistibly inflammatory that it hijacks our attention and forces us into the rage profiteer’s audience. Rage profiteering has surely existed, in one form or another, from time immemorial. But the diffuse lens of the internet and digital media created an extraordinary range of new niches for rage profiteering, and has thus caused a proliferation of rage profiteers such as society has never before seen... Your attention (as distinct from your education, enrichment, or well-being) is Felicia’s stock-in-trade. That is why her online persona has been meticulously calibrated to hijack your time, thoughts, and emotional state. Her goal is to make you look her way, then parlay you into new Twitter followers, bigger social marketing clients, better Amazon sales numbers, and—above all—more dollar bills in her purse."
Dancing death - "This was not the first outbreak of compulsive dancing in Europe. In fact, there had been as many as ten dancing epidemics before 1518, one in 1374 engulfing many of the towns of modern day Belgium, north-eastern France and Luxembourg... My explanation rests on the fact that the dancers were in a trance state; otherwise they would have been unable to dance for such lengths of time. We know that the trance state is more likely to occur in people who under extreme psychological distress, and who believe in the possibility of spirit possession. All of these conditions were satisfied in Strasbourg in 1518. The city's poor were suffering from severe famine and disease. And, crucially, we also know they believed in a saint called St. Vitus who had the power to take over their minds and inflict a terrible, compulsive dance... The dancing plague died out because the supernaturalist beliefs that fed it gradually disappeared. In the short run, cities like Strasbourg were no longer susceptible because they became Protestant during the Reformation and spurned the saint worship on which the dancing plague depended. In the long run, the fervent supernaturalism of the medieval world had to make way for the rise of modern science and rationality. The dancing madness was effectively starved out of existence. Even so, half a millennium later it still serves as a reminder of the ineffable strangeness of the human brain"
"Possession" is a strange thing indeed
The Phobia of Being Called Islamophobic | Ali A. Rizvi - "The problem is a seven-minute film being shown at the soon-to-open museum called The Rise of Al Qaeda. Narrated by NBC's Brian Williams, it uses words like "Islamist," "Islamic," and "jihad" in reference to the 9/11 hijackers and their motives. Some Muslim groups, and others like the Interfaith Center of New York, want the film edited to remove those terms. They don't want the public to think that Islamism or jihad had anything to do with Al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks, because that could foster "Islamophobia"... As a brown-skinned person with a Muslim name, I can get away with a lot more than you'd think. I can publicly parade my wife or daughters around in head-to-toe burqas and be excused out of "respect" for my culture and/or religion, thanks to the racism of lowered expectations. I can re-define "racism" as something non-whites can never harbor against whites, and cite colonialism and imperialism as justification for my prejudice. And in an increasingly effective move that's fast become something of an epidemic, I can shame you into silence for criticizing my ideas simply by calling you bigoted or Islamophobic. For decades, Muslims around the world have rightly complained about the Israeli government labeling even legitimate criticism of its policies "anti-Semitic," effectively shielding itself from accountability. Today, Muslim organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) have borrowed a page from their playbook with the "Islamophobia" label -- and taken it even further... Last month, a white American man successfully convinced the Massachusetts liberal arts school Brandeis University that he was being victimized and oppressed by a black African woman from Somalia -- a woman who underwent genital mutilation at age five and travels with armed security at risk of being assassinated. That is the power of this term... The most tragic aspect of all this is what Alishba Zarmeen has coined the "Greenwald Syndrome" -- the phenomenon of Western liberals, in a supposed show of tolerance, embracing an apologist stance in favor of the intolerant. My good friend and writer/activist Faisal Al Mutar, who escaped repeated death threats for his secular beliefs in his native Iraq, put it best: "Many of [the Western liberals] have betrayed us liberals in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, and [inadvertently] sided with the Islamists against us.""
Where have all the IBs gone – Part 3: Their cause and its effect | The Online Citizen - "This effectively makes our piece of cyberspace rather unhealthy for the casual user, who would be in all likelihood take such views to be those of the “average Singaporean”. Clearly, they are not. Co-ordinated online attacks by PAP IBs are meant to skew perspectives through sheer numbers, or divert attention from the actual policy issues by antagonising those who voice displeasure at these policies. Such efforts by IBs are best described as astro-turfing, and while on their own harmless, such activities have the potential to disrupt a proper assessment of public opinion on issues and policies, be it by other citizens or policy makers. More importantly, given that the PAP has clearly voiced no qualms about their IBs hiding behind the vile of anonymity to swing public opinion in the party’s favour, the question to ask would be whether the PAP has actively sanctioned such activities, or is merely unaware of the effect that such activities have in social media... While Ministers and MPs criticise bloggers for “taking issues out of context” and misleading the public with information, the fact that pages like FAP and FLOP continue to operate in a manner which seeks to demean opposition members and its supporters through misleading headlines and quotes taken out of context, with no word from the PAP MPs, is a double standard by itself"
Disney's 'Frozen' apparently inspired a color-changing bra - "The Close Sister Bras, as they're officially named, can instantly take on a new hue when friends wearing a matching pair come into contact with each other. To create the design, Triumph (which has a history of... odd bra designs) recruited gadget-maker Fashion Entertainments, which was responsible for making and providing the electronic-paper used to trigger the color changes in the bra. Apparently, there's no plan to take the Close Sister Bras to market -- it's all about empowering self-confidence and sisterhood, according to the firms behind the eccentric underwear."
Sweet dealing schoolboy hands over crisps and drinks to homeless after business ban - "A schoolboy entrepreneur who shot to fame after making £14,000 selling sweets at his school has given away the last of his stock to the homeless. Tommie Rose found himself in trouble with his headteacher after it was revealed his ‘black market’ school tuck shop had raked in thousands of pounds to pay his University fees. Now, with the looming threat of suspension from his school, Tommie has decided to close the playground business and give away the rest of his sweet-toothed goods to Manchester's rough sleepers... Meanwhile Tommie, is considering a new business venture - involving T-shirts - and has attended a meeting ahead of a prospective job offer. Simon Swan has offered the teenager and internship at his Manchester-based recruitment firm Hiring-Hub, which connects job-hunters with recruitment agencies via the web. Tommie said: “I have had a few other job offers since the story broke, including an offer to sell fragrances. I just love the world of business.”
Have Sperm, Will Travel: The ‘Natural Inseminators’ Helping Women Avoid the Sperm Bank
Will the Swiss Quit Cooking their Kittens and Puppies? - "the number of feline-feasting Swiss has proven impossible to back up with hard data, although nearly all Swiss animal rights groups agree on the figure. According to SOS Chats Noiraigue, which has gathered more than 16,000 signatures for a petition to the Swiss government to stop the practice of consuming cats, the three percent figure comes from a survey conducted by Swiss media in which they asked “would you” and “could you” eat a cat... “In almost all rural areas of Switzerland, it is customary to eat cats and dogs”... SOS Chat Noiraigue founder Tomi Tomek says the practice is such an open secret, many rural Swiss can readily repeat their favorite cat recipe. She says most Swiss pet eaters cook their cats using rabbit recipes, often stewing them with garlic and wine, stuffing several cats into a crock at the same time since there just isn’t a lot of meat on most felines. According to Swiss press reports, younger cats in the litter are the most tender and, as such, are the preferred cat cuts. Dogs, Tomek says, are instead generally ground into sausages and eaten by those who believe dog meat lessons the symptoms of rheumatism... In October, the government of Denmark announced it would vote on whether to stop the practice of bestiality or having sex with pets, which has, until now, been perfectly legal. Eating pets as food also has roots across Europe. In 2010, a popular Italian television cook known as Chef Beppe was taken off the air after including cat recipes on his televised cooking class. “If you don’t have meat, kill the cat,” he said. He later told CNN that eating cat was a pre-war custom across Italy. “In Parma the cat was nicknamed 'the rabbit that runs on roofs,' in Liguria, the cat is nicknamed 'the rabbit with short ears, in Piedmont it is called the 'rabbit that meows.’” he said. “Today we are scandalized by this. Why? Because times have changed. The cat has become a domestic animal. This was not the case before." According to The Daily Meal food site, the Hawaiian government recently shelved a plan to make eating dogs illegal, apparently because, although the practice is popular among certain communities, there was just not a lot of evidence that crimes were committed between getting the dogs from the back yard to the barbeque"
I need to go back to Switzerland and make friends with a local before they ban cat meat
A Coupon site you definitely should NOT use
Today, I discovered a new coupon site that you absolutely must stay away from.
It's called iPrice Shop.
I've just received a long rambling email from them.
Not only was it totally impersonal, insincere and unsolicited, it also had all the recipients in the To field (instead of the BCC field), exposing everyone's email addresses.
Lack of business ethics aside, they seem clueless about netiquette and marketing, which doesn't bode well for their operations.
In other words, if you buy something from them, who knows what they'll screw up?
Original spam mailer:
Hello,
Love your lifestyle blog along with all your other amazing articles!
I'm from iPrice Shop - we provide product information on all brand and also carry online coupons codes for web stores such as ZALORA and more.
We would like to let you in on our major face-lift! We are moving towards becoming an affiliate store. Check us out here. At our website, you can find famous labels like River Island, Nike and more.
Also, we have a coupon page for Singapore and coupon page for Malaysia. These coupon codes help online shoppers get additional discounts on their purchases. Today, iPrice is available in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India and the Philippines.
You would be able to get all your favorite brands under one roof and be notified on the sales that are going on for it! We are adding more stores to our list as well (net-a-porter to follow suit soon!)
Many Malaysian bloggers wrote about us before. Now we need help from the Singaporean to blog about us too.
You can check few blog posts about iPrice Shop here:
http://www.lovingsunshine.com/2014/10/how-to-be-sunflower-bae.html
http://www.glamourmoments.net/best-holiday-gift-guide-iprice/
It will be great if you can write a blogpost about iPrice Shop and reviews can also be done in Bahasa Malaysia.
Hope to have you on board and we would love to hear your take on it ! (also we are a small start-up and we make no money from users)
PS: Our articles have been featured on AdAsia and Yahoo Singapore.
Thank you for taking the time, reviewing on us. Thanking you in advance, looking forward to hear from you soon!
Cheers,
Subashini Loganathan
It's called iPrice Shop.
I've just received a long rambling email from them.
Not only was it totally impersonal, insincere and unsolicited, it also had all the recipients in the To field (instead of the BCC field), exposing everyone's email addresses.
Lack of business ethics aside, they seem clueless about netiquette and marketing, which doesn't bode well for their operations.
In other words, if you buy something from them, who knows what they'll screw up?
Original spam mailer:
Hello,
Love your lifestyle blog along with all your other amazing articles!
I'm from iPrice Shop - we provide product information on all brand and also carry online coupons codes for web stores such as ZALORA and more.
We would like to let you in on our major face-lift! We are moving towards becoming an affiliate store. Check us out here. At our website, you can find famous labels like River Island, Nike and more.
Also, we have a coupon page for Singapore and coupon page for Malaysia. These coupon codes help online shoppers get additional discounts on their purchases. Today, iPrice is available in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India and the Philippines.
You would be able to get all your favorite brands under one roof and be notified on the sales that are going on for it! We are adding more stores to our list as well (net-a-porter to follow suit soon!)
Many Malaysian bloggers wrote about us before. Now we need help from the Singaporean to blog about us too.
You can check few blog posts about iPrice Shop here:
http://www.lovingsunshine.com/2014/10/how-to-be-sunflower-bae.html
http://www.glamourmoments.net/best-holiday-gift-guide-iprice/
It will be great if you can write a blogpost about iPrice Shop and reviews can also be done in Bahasa Malaysia.
Hope to have you on board and we would love to hear your take on it ! (also we are a small start-up and we make no money from users)
PS: Our articles have been featured on AdAsia and Yahoo Singapore.
Thank you for taking the time, reviewing on us. Thanking you in advance, looking forward to hear from you soon!
Cheers,
Subashini Loganathan
Friday, December 12, 2014
Links - 12th December 2014
In bid to shore up Malay land reserves, Johor MB says will next seize non-Malays’ land - "Even as the size of Malay reserve lands in Johor increases, the state Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin said these lands will also be seized from non-Malay owners."
Malaysia Boleh!
Where Men See White, Women See Ecru - "Neuroscientists have discovered that women are better at distinguishing among subtle distinctions in color, while men appear more sensitive to objects moving across their field of vision... women proved slightly better at discriminating among subtle gradations in the middle of the color spectrum, where yellow and green reside. They detected tiny differences between yellows that looked the same to men. The researchers also found that men require a slightly longer wavelength to see the same hue as women; an object that women experience as orange will look slightly more yellowish to men, while green will look more blue-green to men. This last part doesn’t confer an advantage on either sex, but it does demonstrate, Abramov says, that “the nervous system that deals with color cannot be wired in the exact same way in males as in females.” He believes the answer lies in testosterone and other androgens. Evidence from animal studies suggests that male sex hormones can alter development in the visual cortex."
Muslims Discovered the Americas, Claims Turkish President - "It is becoming increasingly painful to write about Turkey these days. Every week, there is a controversial incident or statement from Turkey that is difficult to explain to the American public... Many articles from the international media mocked Erdogan's statement, but the Turkish president refused to recant it. Instead, he insisted that domestic critics who questioned his claim lack a sense of self worth. "These people have never believed that Muslims could achieve such a thing. They are also the people who do not believe that their ancestors [Ottomans] carried warships over land [during the conquest of Istanbul]. This is a matter of a lack of self-confidence"... Turkey behaves more like a Middle Eastern country -- not a European one -- with every passing day, and this makes it tough for her Western friends to support Ankara. The Turkish government's strong ties with the Muslim factions and its divergence from Western politics (despite its NATO membership) has alienated Turkey from the Western world. The Western frustration with Erdogan is obvious. In private meetings, Westerners often use words like "hubris" and "narcissism" when they speak about Erdogan, while many question Turkey's allegiance to its Western allies... In their desperation to support Erdogan so wholeheartedly, the American leaders turned a blind eye to who Erdogan really is and gave far too much credit to Turkey's Islamist government. In the end, "moderate Islam" satisfied neither the Muslims nor the Americans"
Dr Matt Taylor’s shirt made me cry, too – with rage at his abusers - "I watched that clip of Dr Taylor’s apology – at the moment of his supreme professional triumph – and I felt the red mist come down. It was like something from the show trials of Stalin, or from the sobbing testimony of the enemies of Kim Il-sung, before they were taken away and shot. It was like a scene from Mao’s cultural revolution when weeping intellectuals were forced to confess their crimes against the people. Why was he forced into this humiliation? Because he was subjected to an unrelenting tweetstorm of abuse. He was bombarded across the internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate, orchestrated by lobby groups and politically correct media organisations. And so I want, naturally, to defend this blameless man. And as for all those who have monstered him and convicted him in the kangaroo court of the web – they should all be ashamed of themselves. Yes, I suppose some might say that his Hawaii shirt was a bit garish, a bit of an eyeful. But the man is not a priest, for heaven’s sake. He is a space scientist with a fine collection of tattoos, and if you are an extrovert space scientist, that is the kind of shirt that you are allowed to wear. As for the design of the garment, I have studied it as closely as the photos will allow, and I can’t see what all the fuss is about. I suppose there are women with long flowing hair and a certain amount of décolletage. But let’s not mince our words: there are no nipples; there are no buttocks; there is not even an exposed midriff, as far as I can see. It’s the hypocrisy of it all that irritates me. Here is Kim Kardashian – a heroine and idol to some members of my family – deciding to bust out all over the place, and good for her. No one seeks to engulf her in a tweetstorm of rage. But why is she held to be noble and pure, while Dr Taylor is attacked for being vulgar and tasteless? I think his critics should go to the National Gallery and look at the Rokeby Venus by Velázquez. Or look at the stuff by Rubens. Are we saying that these glorious images should be torn from the walls? What are we all – a bunch of Islamist maniacs who think any representation of the human form is an offence against God? This is the 21st century, for goodness’ sake. And if you ask yourself why so few have come to the defence of the scientist, the answer is that no one dares. No one wants to take on the rage of the web – by which people use social media to externalise their own resentments and anxieties, often anonymously and with far more vehemence than they really intend. No one wants to dissent – and no wonder our politics sometimes feels so sterilised and homogenised. There must be room in our world for eccentricity, even if it offends the prudes, and room for the vague other-worldliness that often goes with genius. Dr Taylor deserves the applause of our country, and those who bash him should hang their own heads and apologise"
A sharp instrument must be used when M'sian state implements hudud law, says faith healer - "“Whether the authorities use a machete, sword or even a guillotine, the fundamental law is that the instrument must be sharp,” he told The Star, adding that the offender should be conscious when the punishment is meted out so that he will feel remorse for committing the offence."
There Are Very Few 'Uncommon' Sexual Fantasies - "The researchers found that only two sexual fantasies (bestiality and pedophilia) were statistically rare (where 2.3 percent or less of respondents included it as a fantasy) and nine were considered statistically unusual (15.9 percent or less). Urinating on one’s partner and wearing clothing associated with the opposite sex were among those considered unusual. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there were five fantasies—wanting to feel romantic emotions during sex, oral sex, having sex in an unusual or romantic place, and having a special atmosphere—considered typical (more than 84 percent of the responses). The remaining 39 were common (more than 50 percent of the responses), meaning 44 out of the 55 sexual fantasies were experienced by at least half the people polled. These included dominance and submission, as well as bondage, group sex, and anal sex. The study authors noted that calling a sexual fantasy “unusual” might not be correct anymore given how common the majority of them were."
Journal of Interpersonal Violence: Study suggests attackers choose victims based on the way they walk. - "“Don’t be a victim.” That’s a phrase you’ll hear a lot if you take a crime-prevention class, or if you befriend J.J. Bittenbinder. Basically, it means that there are steps you can take to reduce the likelihood that you’ll be mugged, assaulted, or otherwise attacked. Don’t wave wads of cash around like you’re in Brewster’s Millions. Don’t space out on the subway. Walk with a purpose. That last one is particularly important, because according to a new study from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, some criminals are very good at sensing weakness based on the way you walk"
Victim blaming!
Ferguson Cop Had 'Serious Facial Injury,' Source Tells ABC News
WSJ's Riley Unloads On Obama, Sharpton, Media Over Ferguson - "“The black crime rate in 1960 was lower than it is today,” he said. “Was there less racism or less poverty than in 1960? This is about black behavior. It needs to be addressed head-on. It’s about attitudes toward the criminal justice system in these neighborhoods, where young black men have no sense of what it means to be a male or what it means to be black.” “And he needs to talk about that head-on,” Riley repeated, “not dismiss it as a product of poverty or racism, which is a dodge.” The WSJ editor also took aim at black civil rights leaders and the media campaign they’ve created. “There’s this false narrative being pushed out there by folks like Michael Eric Dyson and [Al] Sharpton and the rest of the hustlers,” he said, “[and it's] that black men live in fear of being shot by cops in those neighborhoods. That too is nonsense.” “I know something about growing up black and male in the inner city,” Riley explained, “and it’s not that hard to avoid getting shot by a cop. They pull you over, you answer their questions. you’re on your way.” “The real difficulty is not getting shot by other black people, if you are a young black man in these neighborhoods!” Riley continued. “And again, that is something we need to talk about more! Cops are not the problem.”"
What does it say about America when African-American parents in 2014 need to tell their boys how to respond to police when out and about in order to come home safe and alive? - Quora - "I don't understand where the presumption comes from that it's any different for whites. My parents taught me how to behave in an exchange with the police, and my decisions to abide by the lessons I have been taught are something I have no reason to question."
"Parents of all races, of children of all races (they don't always correlate), should talk to their children about police. For most parents and children this is not a difficult issue."
"Whenever this issue comes up, I think about a black student I had in a criminal justice class at a state college in West Virginia. He was born and raised in Washington, D.C. I asked him after class one day, "Have you been harassed or mistreated by the DC police?" He replied, "No. I've never been stopped by the police." He was a quiet young man, a good student, and always respectful without being obsequious. I appreciate that he may be an anomaly, but I suspect his lack of bad experiences with the police have a lot to do with his demeanor and conduct. Claims of being harassed by the police are not limited to racial or ethnic minorities... I don't deny that racial profiling occurs, but I think that many of these stops are brought on by people who say, "...I wasn't doing a damn thing," when in fact they were doing something they weren't supposed to be doing. Avoiding adverse contacts with the police often involve no more than what most of us learned in kindergarten"
"there are about 40 million African Americans alive and well in America. To the best knowledge anybody has, an average of 96 are killed by police each year. Fewer African Americans of any age are killed by police than Americans are killed in car crashes with deer. The FBI reports 3.4 million arrests of African Americans per year. Do the math. Does it sound like anyone has done a logical risk assessment here?"
"If you rob a convenience store, don't assault the police afterwards, possibly fracturing their skull."
Artist sets up an arts grant for other artists - "Dancer-choreographer Eng Kai Er has recently set up No Star Arts Grant and she is offering S$1,000 a month — out of her own salary — to fund art projects in all genres, “including (but) not limited to fine art, visual art, dance, music, circus, theatre, film and literature.” According to the grant’s Tumblr site, applicants should be able to explain why the proposed works are “important FOR THEMSELVES (and not for “the community” or “the nation”)”. Eng will be leaning towards projects that are overlooked by other funding sources such as those with “LGBT themes, sexual themes, political art (and) other marginalised type(s) of work”... Of course, there are other conceptual layers to this project beyond being an experiment in and exploring the idea of arts philanthropy, not least of which has to do with Eng’s background as an scholar who is, as the website says, “bonded to an organisation that cannot be named, under a scholarship programme that also cannot be named”. It continues: “Eng Kai Er is not interested in her bonded employment at all, but has to serve her bond or pay, as of 30 September 2014, around $741657.37 in order to quit her job. Since she understands the pain of having a paid job that is not aligned with her interests, she wishes to change the world by having more instances of paid jobs aligned with people’s interests, and No Star Arts Grant is her own small way of doing that.”"
Malaysia Boleh!
Where Men See White, Women See Ecru - "Neuroscientists have discovered that women are better at distinguishing among subtle distinctions in color, while men appear more sensitive to objects moving across their field of vision... women proved slightly better at discriminating among subtle gradations in the middle of the color spectrum, where yellow and green reside. They detected tiny differences between yellows that looked the same to men. The researchers also found that men require a slightly longer wavelength to see the same hue as women; an object that women experience as orange will look slightly more yellowish to men, while green will look more blue-green to men. This last part doesn’t confer an advantage on either sex, but it does demonstrate, Abramov says, that “the nervous system that deals with color cannot be wired in the exact same way in males as in females.” He believes the answer lies in testosterone and other androgens. Evidence from animal studies suggests that male sex hormones can alter development in the visual cortex."
Muslims Discovered the Americas, Claims Turkish President - "It is becoming increasingly painful to write about Turkey these days. Every week, there is a controversial incident or statement from Turkey that is difficult to explain to the American public... Many articles from the international media mocked Erdogan's statement, but the Turkish president refused to recant it. Instead, he insisted that domestic critics who questioned his claim lack a sense of self worth. "These people have never believed that Muslims could achieve such a thing. They are also the people who do not believe that their ancestors [Ottomans] carried warships over land [during the conquest of Istanbul]. This is a matter of a lack of self-confidence"... Turkey behaves more like a Middle Eastern country -- not a European one -- with every passing day, and this makes it tough for her Western friends to support Ankara. The Turkish government's strong ties with the Muslim factions and its divergence from Western politics (despite its NATO membership) has alienated Turkey from the Western world. The Western frustration with Erdogan is obvious. In private meetings, Westerners often use words like "hubris" and "narcissism" when they speak about Erdogan, while many question Turkey's allegiance to its Western allies... In their desperation to support Erdogan so wholeheartedly, the American leaders turned a blind eye to who Erdogan really is and gave far too much credit to Turkey's Islamist government. In the end, "moderate Islam" satisfied neither the Muslims nor the Americans"
Dr Matt Taylor’s shirt made me cry, too – with rage at his abusers - "I watched that clip of Dr Taylor’s apology – at the moment of his supreme professional triumph – and I felt the red mist come down. It was like something from the show trials of Stalin, or from the sobbing testimony of the enemies of Kim Il-sung, before they were taken away and shot. It was like a scene from Mao’s cultural revolution when weeping intellectuals were forced to confess their crimes against the people. Why was he forced into this humiliation? Because he was subjected to an unrelenting tweetstorm of abuse. He was bombarded across the internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate, orchestrated by lobby groups and politically correct media organisations. And so I want, naturally, to defend this blameless man. And as for all those who have monstered him and convicted him in the kangaroo court of the web – they should all be ashamed of themselves. Yes, I suppose some might say that his Hawaii shirt was a bit garish, a bit of an eyeful. But the man is not a priest, for heaven’s sake. He is a space scientist with a fine collection of tattoos, and if you are an extrovert space scientist, that is the kind of shirt that you are allowed to wear. As for the design of the garment, I have studied it as closely as the photos will allow, and I can’t see what all the fuss is about. I suppose there are women with long flowing hair and a certain amount of décolletage. But let’s not mince our words: there are no nipples; there are no buttocks; there is not even an exposed midriff, as far as I can see. It’s the hypocrisy of it all that irritates me. Here is Kim Kardashian – a heroine and idol to some members of my family – deciding to bust out all over the place, and good for her. No one seeks to engulf her in a tweetstorm of rage. But why is she held to be noble and pure, while Dr Taylor is attacked for being vulgar and tasteless? I think his critics should go to the National Gallery and look at the Rokeby Venus by Velázquez. Or look at the stuff by Rubens. Are we saying that these glorious images should be torn from the walls? What are we all – a bunch of Islamist maniacs who think any representation of the human form is an offence against God? This is the 21st century, for goodness’ sake. And if you ask yourself why so few have come to the defence of the scientist, the answer is that no one dares. No one wants to take on the rage of the web – by which people use social media to externalise their own resentments and anxieties, often anonymously and with far more vehemence than they really intend. No one wants to dissent – and no wonder our politics sometimes feels so sterilised and homogenised. There must be room in our world for eccentricity, even if it offends the prudes, and room for the vague other-worldliness that often goes with genius. Dr Taylor deserves the applause of our country, and those who bash him should hang their own heads and apologise"
A sharp instrument must be used when M'sian state implements hudud law, says faith healer - "“Whether the authorities use a machete, sword or even a guillotine, the fundamental law is that the instrument must be sharp,” he told The Star, adding that the offender should be conscious when the punishment is meted out so that he will feel remorse for committing the offence."
There Are Very Few 'Uncommon' Sexual Fantasies - "The researchers found that only two sexual fantasies (bestiality and pedophilia) were statistically rare (where 2.3 percent or less of respondents included it as a fantasy) and nine were considered statistically unusual (15.9 percent or less). Urinating on one’s partner and wearing clothing associated with the opposite sex were among those considered unusual. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there were five fantasies—wanting to feel romantic emotions during sex, oral sex, having sex in an unusual or romantic place, and having a special atmosphere—considered typical (more than 84 percent of the responses). The remaining 39 were common (more than 50 percent of the responses), meaning 44 out of the 55 sexual fantasies were experienced by at least half the people polled. These included dominance and submission, as well as bondage, group sex, and anal sex. The study authors noted that calling a sexual fantasy “unusual” might not be correct anymore given how common the majority of them were."
Journal of Interpersonal Violence: Study suggests attackers choose victims based on the way they walk. - "“Don’t be a victim.” That’s a phrase you’ll hear a lot if you take a crime-prevention class, or if you befriend J.J. Bittenbinder. Basically, it means that there are steps you can take to reduce the likelihood that you’ll be mugged, assaulted, or otherwise attacked. Don’t wave wads of cash around like you’re in Brewster’s Millions. Don’t space out on the subway. Walk with a purpose. That last one is particularly important, because according to a new study from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, some criminals are very good at sensing weakness based on the way you walk"
Victim blaming!
Ferguson Cop Had 'Serious Facial Injury,' Source Tells ABC News
WSJ's Riley Unloads On Obama, Sharpton, Media Over Ferguson - "“The black crime rate in 1960 was lower than it is today,” he said. “Was there less racism or less poverty than in 1960? This is about black behavior. It needs to be addressed head-on. It’s about attitudes toward the criminal justice system in these neighborhoods, where young black men have no sense of what it means to be a male or what it means to be black.” “And he needs to talk about that head-on,” Riley repeated, “not dismiss it as a product of poverty or racism, which is a dodge.” The WSJ editor also took aim at black civil rights leaders and the media campaign they’ve created. “There’s this false narrative being pushed out there by folks like Michael Eric Dyson and [Al] Sharpton and the rest of the hustlers,” he said, “[and it's] that black men live in fear of being shot by cops in those neighborhoods. That too is nonsense.” “I know something about growing up black and male in the inner city,” Riley explained, “and it’s not that hard to avoid getting shot by a cop. They pull you over, you answer their questions. you’re on your way.” “The real difficulty is not getting shot by other black people, if you are a young black man in these neighborhoods!” Riley continued. “And again, that is something we need to talk about more! Cops are not the problem.”"
What does it say about America when African-American parents in 2014 need to tell their boys how to respond to police when out and about in order to come home safe and alive? - Quora - "I don't understand where the presumption comes from that it's any different for whites. My parents taught me how to behave in an exchange with the police, and my decisions to abide by the lessons I have been taught are something I have no reason to question."
"Parents of all races, of children of all races (they don't always correlate), should talk to their children about police. For most parents and children this is not a difficult issue."
"Whenever this issue comes up, I think about a black student I had in a criminal justice class at a state college in West Virginia. He was born and raised in Washington, D.C. I asked him after class one day, "Have you been harassed or mistreated by the DC police?" He replied, "No. I've never been stopped by the police." He was a quiet young man, a good student, and always respectful without being obsequious. I appreciate that he may be an anomaly, but I suspect his lack of bad experiences with the police have a lot to do with his demeanor and conduct. Claims of being harassed by the police are not limited to racial or ethnic minorities... I don't deny that racial profiling occurs, but I think that many of these stops are brought on by people who say, "...I wasn't doing a damn thing," when in fact they were doing something they weren't supposed to be doing. Avoiding adverse contacts with the police often involve no more than what most of us learned in kindergarten"
"there are about 40 million African Americans alive and well in America. To the best knowledge anybody has, an average of 96 are killed by police each year. Fewer African Americans of any age are killed by police than Americans are killed in car crashes with deer. The FBI reports 3.4 million arrests of African Americans per year. Do the math. Does it sound like anyone has done a logical risk assessment here?"
"If you rob a convenience store, don't assault the police afterwards, possibly fracturing their skull."
Artist sets up an arts grant for other artists - "Dancer-choreographer Eng Kai Er has recently set up No Star Arts Grant and she is offering S$1,000 a month — out of her own salary — to fund art projects in all genres, “including (but) not limited to fine art, visual art, dance, music, circus, theatre, film and literature.” According to the grant’s Tumblr site, applicants should be able to explain why the proposed works are “important FOR THEMSELVES (and not for “the community” or “the nation”)”. Eng will be leaning towards projects that are overlooked by other funding sources such as those with “LGBT themes, sexual themes, political art (and) other marginalised type(s) of work”... Of course, there are other conceptual layers to this project beyond being an experiment in and exploring the idea of arts philanthropy, not least of which has to do with Eng’s background as an scholar who is, as the website says, “bonded to an organisation that cannot be named, under a scholarship programme that also cannot be named”. It continues: “Eng Kai Er is not interested in her bonded employment at all, but has to serve her bond or pay, as of 30 September 2014, around $741657.37 in order to quit her job. Since she understands the pain of having a paid job that is not aligned with her interests, she wishes to change the world by having more instances of paid jobs aligned with people’s interests, and No Star Arts Grant is her own small way of doing that.”"
Equality vs Freedom
Free To Choose Media - Free To Choose: Volume 5 - Created Equal
MILTON FRIEDMAN: From the Victorian novelists to modern reformers, a favorite device to stir our emotions is to contrast extremes of wealth and of poverty. We are expected to conclude that the rich are responsible for the deprivations of the poor — that they are rich at the expense of the poor.
Whether it is in the slums of New Delhi or in the affluence of Las Vegas, it simply isn't fair that there should be any losers. Life is unfair; there is nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being born with sight. There is nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one of an impecunious parent. There is nothing fair about Muhammad Ali having been born with a skill that enables him to make millions of dollars one night. There is nothing fair about Marlene Dietrich having great legs that we all want to watch. There is nothing fair about any of that. But on the other hand, don't you think a lot of people who like to look at Marlene Dietrich’s legs benefited from nature's unfairness in producing a Marlene Dietrich?
What kind of a world would it be if everybody was an absolute identical duplicate of anybody else? You might as well destroy the whole world and just keep one specimen left for a museum.
In the same way, it's unfair that Muhammad Ali should be a great fighter and should be able to earn millions. But would it not be even more unfair to the people who like to watch him if you said that in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, we're not going to let Muhammad Ali get more for one night’s fight than the lowest man on the totem-pole can get for a days unskilled work on the docks? You can do that but the result of that would be to deny people the opportunity to watch Muhammad Ali. I doubt very much he would be willing to subject himself to the kind of fights he's gone through if he were to get the pay of an unskilled docker...
A myth has grown up that free market capitalism increases such inequalities, that the rich benefit at the expense of the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor- nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer, than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate, whether they be feudal societies where status determines position, or modern, centrally planned economies where access to government determines position.
Central planning was introduced in India, in considerable part, in the name of equality. The tragedy is that after 30 years, it is hard to see any significant improvement in the lot of the ordinary person...
New classes of privileged have been created to replace or supplement the old. The bureaucracy, secure in their jobs, protected against inflation both when they work and after they retire; the trade-unions, who profess to represent the most down-trodden workers but who in fact consist of the highest-paid laborers in the land, the aristocrats of the labor movement; and the new millionaires, the people who have been cleverest, most ingenious at finding ways around the rules, the regulations, the laws that have emanated from over there, who have found ways to avoid paying tax on the income they have acquired, to get their wealth and their money overseas beyond the hands of the tax collector. A vast reshuffling, yes; a greater equity, hardly.
The Yehudi Menuhin School in the south of England is also a place of privilege. Musically talented children from all over the world compete for a chance to come here to study.
Much of the moral fervor behind the drive for equality comes from the widespread belief that it is not fair that some children should have a great advantage over others simply because they happen to have wealthy parents. Of course it is not fair, but is there any distinction between the inheritance of property and the inheritance of what, at first sight, looks very different? These youngsters have inherited wealth, not in the form of bonds or stocks, but in the form of talent. That 15-year-old is an accomplished cellist. His father is a distinguished violinist. It’s no accident that most of the children at this school come from musical families. The inheritance of talent is no different, from an ethical point of view, from the inheritance of other forms of property, of bonds, of stocks, of houses, or of factories. Yet many people resent the one but not the other...
The ethical issues involved are subtle and complex. They are not to be resolved by resort to such simplistic formulas as fair shares for all. Indeed, if you took that seriously, it is the youngsters with less musical skills, not those with more, who should be sent to this school in order to compensate for their inherited disadvantage.
When the evening started, all of these players had about the same number of chips in front of them. But as the play progressed they surely didn't; some won, some lost. By the end of the evening some of them will have a big pile of chips; others will have small ones. There will be big winners; there will be big losers.
In the name of equality, should the winnings be redistributed to the losers, so that everybody ends up where he started? That would take all the fun out of the game. Even the losers wouldn't like that. They might like it tonight, but would they come back again to play if they knew that whatever happened, they would end up exactly where they had started?
What does Las Vegas have to do with the real world? A great deal more than you might think. It is one very important part of our life in highly concentrated form. Every day, all of us are making decisions that involve gambles. Sometimes, they are big gambles, as when we decide what occupation to pursue or whom to marry. More often, they are small gambles, as when we decide whether to cross the street against the traffic. But each time, the question is who shall make the decision -- we or somebody else? We can make the decision only if we bear the consequences...
The failure of the drive for equality is not because the wrong measures were adopted; not because they were badly administered; not because the wrong people administered it. The failure is much more fundamental.
It is because that drive goes against the most basic instinct of all human beings; in the words of Adam Smith, “The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, to improve his own lot and to make a better world for his children and his children's children.” When the law interferes with that pursuit, everyone will try to find a way around. He will try to evade the law, he will break the law or he will emigrate from the country...
During the 19th century, and especially after the Civil War and on into the 20th century, the idea of equality came to have a much more definite and specific meaning than the abstract concept of equality before God. It came more and more to mean that everyone should have the same opportunity to make what he could of his capacities; that all careers should be open to people on the basis of their talents, independently of the race, or religion, or belief, or social class that characterize them. This concept of equality of opportunity offers no conflict at all with the concept of freedom. On the contrary, they reinforce one another, and it is no doubt the concept that, even today, is the most widely held.
But in the 20th century, beginning especially abroad and, at a later date in this country, a very different concept, a very different ideal has begun to emerge. That is the ideal that everyone should be equal in income, in level of living, in what he has; the idea that the economic race should be so arranged that everybody ends at the finish line at the same time, rather than that everyone starts at the beginning line at the same time. This concept raises a very serious problem for freedom. It is clearly in conflict with it, since it requires that the freedom of some be restricted in order to provide greater benefits to others.
The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both...
THOMAS SOWELL: First of all, I would disagree violently with the notion that the people are stirring. A very small handful of intellectuals have generated an enormous amount of noise. When I look at opinion polls, particularly when I look at opinion polls of blacks in the United States, most blacks in the United States do not take any strong position in favor of equality of results. In fact, most of the polls that I've seen of blacks put them, if you want to use this expression, very well to the right of most intellectuals on most of these social issues. It is not the people who are stirring; it is a handful of intellectuals...
Black people have never supported, for example, affirmative action, quotas, anything of that sort. Wherever polls have been taken of black opinion on such matters as should people be paid equally or should there be this or that, black people have never taken a position that you described. So it is not a question of what black people chose to do. It's what you choose to put in the mouths of black people and it's what you choose to project. It is not what any black people have ever said anywhere that you could put your finger on.
MILTON FRIEDMAN: From the Victorian novelists to modern reformers, a favorite device to stir our emotions is to contrast extremes of wealth and of poverty. We are expected to conclude that the rich are responsible for the deprivations of the poor — that they are rich at the expense of the poor.
Whether it is in the slums of New Delhi or in the affluence of Las Vegas, it simply isn't fair that there should be any losers. Life is unfair; there is nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being born with sight. There is nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one of an impecunious parent. There is nothing fair about Muhammad Ali having been born with a skill that enables him to make millions of dollars one night. There is nothing fair about Marlene Dietrich having great legs that we all want to watch. There is nothing fair about any of that. But on the other hand, don't you think a lot of people who like to look at Marlene Dietrich’s legs benefited from nature's unfairness in producing a Marlene Dietrich?
What kind of a world would it be if everybody was an absolute identical duplicate of anybody else? You might as well destroy the whole world and just keep one specimen left for a museum.
In the same way, it's unfair that Muhammad Ali should be a great fighter and should be able to earn millions. But would it not be even more unfair to the people who like to watch him if you said that in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, we're not going to let Muhammad Ali get more for one night’s fight than the lowest man on the totem-pole can get for a days unskilled work on the docks? You can do that but the result of that would be to deny people the opportunity to watch Muhammad Ali. I doubt very much he would be willing to subject himself to the kind of fights he's gone through if he were to get the pay of an unskilled docker...
A myth has grown up that free market capitalism increases such inequalities, that the rich benefit at the expense of the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor- nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer, than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate, whether they be feudal societies where status determines position, or modern, centrally planned economies where access to government determines position.
Central planning was introduced in India, in considerable part, in the name of equality. The tragedy is that after 30 years, it is hard to see any significant improvement in the lot of the ordinary person...
New classes of privileged have been created to replace or supplement the old. The bureaucracy, secure in their jobs, protected against inflation both when they work and after they retire; the trade-unions, who profess to represent the most down-trodden workers but who in fact consist of the highest-paid laborers in the land, the aristocrats of the labor movement; and the new millionaires, the people who have been cleverest, most ingenious at finding ways around the rules, the regulations, the laws that have emanated from over there, who have found ways to avoid paying tax on the income they have acquired, to get their wealth and their money overseas beyond the hands of the tax collector. A vast reshuffling, yes; a greater equity, hardly.
The Yehudi Menuhin School in the south of England is also a place of privilege. Musically talented children from all over the world compete for a chance to come here to study.
Much of the moral fervor behind the drive for equality comes from the widespread belief that it is not fair that some children should have a great advantage over others simply because they happen to have wealthy parents. Of course it is not fair, but is there any distinction between the inheritance of property and the inheritance of what, at first sight, looks very different? These youngsters have inherited wealth, not in the form of bonds or stocks, but in the form of talent. That 15-year-old is an accomplished cellist. His father is a distinguished violinist. It’s no accident that most of the children at this school come from musical families. The inheritance of talent is no different, from an ethical point of view, from the inheritance of other forms of property, of bonds, of stocks, of houses, or of factories. Yet many people resent the one but not the other...
The ethical issues involved are subtle and complex. They are not to be resolved by resort to such simplistic formulas as fair shares for all. Indeed, if you took that seriously, it is the youngsters with less musical skills, not those with more, who should be sent to this school in order to compensate for their inherited disadvantage.
When the evening started, all of these players had about the same number of chips in front of them. But as the play progressed they surely didn't; some won, some lost. By the end of the evening some of them will have a big pile of chips; others will have small ones. There will be big winners; there will be big losers.
In the name of equality, should the winnings be redistributed to the losers, so that everybody ends up where he started? That would take all the fun out of the game. Even the losers wouldn't like that. They might like it tonight, but would they come back again to play if they knew that whatever happened, they would end up exactly where they had started?
What does Las Vegas have to do with the real world? A great deal more than you might think. It is one very important part of our life in highly concentrated form. Every day, all of us are making decisions that involve gambles. Sometimes, they are big gambles, as when we decide what occupation to pursue or whom to marry. More often, they are small gambles, as when we decide whether to cross the street against the traffic. But each time, the question is who shall make the decision -- we or somebody else? We can make the decision only if we bear the consequences...
The failure of the drive for equality is not because the wrong measures were adopted; not because they were badly administered; not because the wrong people administered it. The failure is much more fundamental.
It is because that drive goes against the most basic instinct of all human beings; in the words of Adam Smith, “The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, to improve his own lot and to make a better world for his children and his children's children.” When the law interferes with that pursuit, everyone will try to find a way around. He will try to evade the law, he will break the law or he will emigrate from the country...
During the 19th century, and especially after the Civil War and on into the 20th century, the idea of equality came to have a much more definite and specific meaning than the abstract concept of equality before God. It came more and more to mean that everyone should have the same opportunity to make what he could of his capacities; that all careers should be open to people on the basis of their talents, independently of the race, or religion, or belief, or social class that characterize them. This concept of equality of opportunity offers no conflict at all with the concept of freedom. On the contrary, they reinforce one another, and it is no doubt the concept that, even today, is the most widely held.
But in the 20th century, beginning especially abroad and, at a later date in this country, a very different concept, a very different ideal has begun to emerge. That is the ideal that everyone should be equal in income, in level of living, in what he has; the idea that the economic race should be so arranged that everybody ends at the finish line at the same time, rather than that everyone starts at the beginning line at the same time. This concept raises a very serious problem for freedom. It is clearly in conflict with it, since it requires that the freedom of some be restricted in order to provide greater benefits to others.
The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both...
THOMAS SOWELL: First of all, I would disagree violently with the notion that the people are stirring. A very small handful of intellectuals have generated an enormous amount of noise. When I look at opinion polls, particularly when I look at opinion polls of blacks in the United States, most blacks in the United States do not take any strong position in favor of equality of results. In fact, most of the polls that I've seen of blacks put them, if you want to use this expression, very well to the right of most intellectuals on most of these social issues. It is not the people who are stirring; it is a handful of intellectuals...
Black people have never supported, for example, affirmative action, quotas, anything of that sort. Wherever polls have been taken of black opinion on such matters as should people be paid equally or should there be this or that, black people have never taken a position that you described. So it is not a question of what black people chose to do. It's what you choose to put in the mouths of black people and it's what you choose to project. It is not what any black people have ever said anywhere that you could put your finger on.
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
Links - 9th December 2014
Timeline Photos - Cats of Singapore - ""The PSLE school posting results are coming out soon. My son hopes to study at a SAP school, like Hwa Chong Institution. I'm actually worried that he might get accepted."
"Is it because SAP schools promote ethnic segregation and elitist, Sinocentric thinking? And that they reinforce the idea that Malays and Indians are inferior to the Chinese?"
"What? No. Have you seen the human traffic jams on Bukit Timah road? Someone's definitely going to step on his tail."
#KittiesOfBukitBatok #MustMaintainRacialBalanceHor #EliteUncaringFace #AllAnimalsEqual #ButSomeMoreEqual"
Apparently it is okay to bash SAP schools for this, but to bring up parallels with Madrasahs brings about "hatred, segregation and disunity" and has an obectionable tone
Lena Dunham, Zuckerberg Controversies: Dangers of Feminist Overreach - "Last week, in his first-ever public Q&A, Mark Zuckerberg was asked why he wears plain gray t-shirts apparently every waking moment of his life. “I’d feel I’m not doing my job if I spent any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life,” the Facebook CEO replied. Sounds innocuous enough, right? Not to some feminist critics... Zuckerberg did not explicitly—or, I'd argue, implicitly—contrast himself with women, but merely stated that he finds fashion concerns to be "silly" and "frivolous." If anything, he was referring to his fellow male tech CEOs, like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and his Prada suits; after all, only 6 percent of Silicon Valley CEOs are female. But in criticizing Zuckerberg, Davis and Krupnick relied on a stereotype that he himself did not—that only women care about clothes—and perhaps even reinforced that stereotype in sounding the feminist alarm... [many feminists] eviscerated Dunham and attacked anyone, including other feminists, who dared defend Dunham’s actions as normal—or, at least, not criminal—childhood behavior. This culminated with one feminist writing a public letter to Planned Parenthood asking them to drop Dunham as a spokesperson due to her “pattern of coercion that happened over the course of years, and the near-pornographic and remorseless way Dunham describes these incidents as an adult.” There is a hashtag, of course: #DropDunham. The deeper irony here is that Dunham has been one of the leading celebrity figures in the mainstreaming of feminism today. None other than Taylor Swift credits Dunham with Swift’s own feminist awakening. Dunham's hardly perfect—her handling of race comes to mind—but does she really deserve to be on feminists' hit list?... if feminism becomes like the boy who cried wolf—if girls, and women, cry sexism too readily and often—America will stop listening. The minute feminism becomes hypercritical and humorless, it becomes too easy for the mainstream to dismiss our more valid complaints... there are millions of undeniable victims of sexual assault in America, and thousands of perpetrators who are never held accountable. Does the seven-year-old Lena Dunham really rank high on the scale of prosecutorial priorities? Her sister Grace has denied that she is a victim—issuing a series of tweets including, “As a queer person: I’m committed to people narrating their own experiences, determining for themselves what has and has not been harmful.” The desire of some feminists to “speak truth to power” ran headlong into Grace Dunham’s desire to speak her own damn truth.In her essay about the Dunham debate, Time’s Jessica Bennett wrote about the paradox of feminists championing the success of women yet often being the first to scrutinize women when they succeed"
Yet, some feminists mock the substitution effect (that raising a hue and cry over non-issues distracts from real ones), much less the 'feminist who cried wolf' effect
Is Paternity Fraud really a “ticking time bomb”? - Marilyn Stowe Blog - "does it really matter whether a child is the biological offspring of his or her father? Does it really matter if a loving father and his child never find out? What harm is being done to the man, child or woman concerned – that is until they find out and the predictable fallout occurs?... Nor do I believe that women who have had affairs are fundamentally wicked creatures who should be required to confess all, if they have become pregnant by one man and have decided to save their relationship by shielding a partner and child – and, in most cases, themselves – from the truth... Can all that harm and all that trauma be justified simply because of the man’s “right to know”? I don’t think it is. I don’t support the decision by Boots to sell paternity testing kits over the counter. Experience has taught me, time and time again, that no good comes of opening Pandora’s Box."
Comment: "Using the logic in the article, one can easily create why raped women should never report their story to the police :)"
Physical Attractiveness, Dating Behavior, and Implications for Women - "The primary objective of this study was to determine which of two sociological theories of dating preference was more powerful in predicting women's actual dating frequency. The two theories tested were Waller's theory, which emphasizes physical attractiveness, and Blood's theory, which emphasizes personality. The present study supported Waller's theory. Discussion and implications for women and counselors are presented."
Patriarchy, Male Competition, and Excess Male Mortality - "across nations, women’s social and economic empowerment had a strong inverserelationship with the disparity between male and female mortality from both external(direct behavioral) and (behaviorally mediated) internal causes, even when accountingfor general economic inequality and the prevalence of polygyny. This study demon-strates the usefulness of an evolutionary framework for explaining contemporary socialphenomena and important public health issues."
The cost of getting lean: Is it really worth the trade-off? - "Elite bodybuilders getting ready for a contest and models getting ready for a shoot are basically in a slow starvation process. Adhering to an extremely strict and precise regimen of eating and training (and perhaps adding some drugs into the mix) is the only way way they can drop their body fat to extremely low levels... But this process is not for the faint of heart. It goes against biological cues. It requires exercising when exhausted. It demands ignoring their desire for food in the face of powerful hunger cues. It involves intense focus and dedication. And it often distracts from other areas of life that these athletes might enjoy and value."
Based on LKY's and PAP own philosophy, nobody should be paid for not working - "I refer to the article: "WHY ARE WE PAYING $16K TO AN MP WHO CAN’T EVEN STAND AND ATTEND MEET-THE-PEOPLE SESSION?"... He made several judgement errors like the stop at two, graduate mothers, joining Malaysia, playing up the Malaysia for Malaysians , detention with trail, suppressing opposition etc. hence his political career comprises of both positives and negatives. He contributed but earned a salary for the contributions and also enjoyed other financial and other benefits. The question is should we pay him ex gracia payment for his past contributions. I will say yes for being the leader of the team that built modern SIngapore. The amount subject to approval by Parliament. But should he continue to be a MP and receive 16k allowance. It is tied to job scope. If a civil servant cannot carry out his job due to ill health do we allow him to stay on the job and continue to pay or transfer him to a lesser demanding job with a reduced pay... Based on LKY's and PAP own philosophy, nobody should be paid for not working. Singapore does not have social welfare like western countries"
Researchers 'appalled' as EU chief scientist role is axed - "The final decision came on the day Europe's scientists were celebrating the success of the Rosetta mission... In contrast to the official EU position, Ms Glover said that opposing the technology was "a form of madness". During the Summer, green groups published a letter to the incoming President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, urging him to scrap the role. The claimed that the position was "unaccountable, intransparent and controversial". The CSA, according to the letter, "presented one-sided, partial opinions in the debate on the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture, repeatedly claiming that there was a scientific consensus about their safety". Despite strong support from scientific bodies, Prof Glover's mandate expired at the end of the Barroso presidency - and Jean-Claude Juncker has decided to formally close the Bureau of European Policy Advisers which included the CSA"
Murder 'comes naturally' to chimpanzees - "Prof Joan Silk from Arizona State University said the results "should finally put an end to the idea" that violence in wild chimpanzees was a product of human interference. She suggested that our perceptions of our evolutionary cousins can sometimes be distorted, because we want to believe that it is the nice behaviours, not the nasty ones, which have deep evolutionary roots... "I'm very glad they're publishing this," he told BBC News. It answers a "long, long history of resistance", Prof de Waal explained, to the idea of natural, inter-community violence in chimpanzees. "It has always been contentious - we've had meetings where people screamed at each other. "What this paper does is, instead of getting into the ideology and the history of these arguments... they have just taken the data and analysed it, and said: Where do the chips fall?" The chips, in this case, appear to fall in favour of a natural history of violence"
This is like the belief that all Evil in the world can be traced to the White Man
Chimpanzees are natural born killers, study says, and they prefer mob violence - "“The behavior of non-human primates, particularly chimpanzees, are often distorted by ideology and anthropomorphism, which produce a predisposition to believe that morally desirable features, such as empathy and altruism, have deep evolutionary roots, whereas undesirable features, such as group-level violence and sexual coercion, do not,” she wrote. “This reflects a naive form of biological determinism.”"
IDF on Twitter: "#GenderEquality means men & women carry the stretcher together. Shabbat Shalom from the #InspiringWomen of the IDF! http://t.co/AGTnvPJj13" - "#GenderEquality means men & women carry the stretcher together. Shabbat Shalom from the #InspiringWomen of the IDF!"
Male Guilt: Three Lessons from #ShirtStorm - "There are three big lesson we can learn from #ShirtStorm about the brave new world of feminist grievance-mongering that we have just landed on.
1) They’re not just going after the frat boys.
2) The new orthodoxy is total.
3) There are no logically consistent rules."
Steve Jobs Dropped The First iPod Prototype Into An Aquarium To Prove A Point - "“Those are air bubbles,” he snapped. “That means there’s space in there. Make it smaller.”"
It's Official—iOS 8 Is Apple's Buggiest Release to Date
Michael Phelps' 'girlfriend' Taylor Lianne Chandler says she was born male - "She had previously detailed their first date, to a Baltimore Ravens games, to the National Enquirer. 'One thing led to the next, and we made love during halftime,' she claims in the interview. 'Later, we had sex again. The intimacy with him was amazing! It was the first time in my life that someone has made me feel like a true woman.' She also told the magazine that she never lied to the swimmer about her past, saying it just never came up"
"Is it because SAP schools promote ethnic segregation and elitist, Sinocentric thinking? And that they reinforce the idea that Malays and Indians are inferior to the Chinese?"
"What? No. Have you seen the human traffic jams on Bukit Timah road? Someone's definitely going to step on his tail."
#KittiesOfBukitBatok #MustMaintainRacialBalanceHor #EliteUncaringFace #AllAnimalsEqual #ButSomeMoreEqual"
Apparently it is okay to bash SAP schools for this, but to bring up parallels with Madrasahs brings about "hatred, segregation and disunity" and has an obectionable tone
Lena Dunham, Zuckerberg Controversies: Dangers of Feminist Overreach - "Last week, in his first-ever public Q&A, Mark Zuckerberg was asked why he wears plain gray t-shirts apparently every waking moment of his life. “I’d feel I’m not doing my job if I spent any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life,” the Facebook CEO replied. Sounds innocuous enough, right? Not to some feminist critics... Zuckerberg did not explicitly—or, I'd argue, implicitly—contrast himself with women, but merely stated that he finds fashion concerns to be "silly" and "frivolous." If anything, he was referring to his fellow male tech CEOs, like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and his Prada suits; after all, only 6 percent of Silicon Valley CEOs are female. But in criticizing Zuckerberg, Davis and Krupnick relied on a stereotype that he himself did not—that only women care about clothes—and perhaps even reinforced that stereotype in sounding the feminist alarm... [many feminists] eviscerated Dunham and attacked anyone, including other feminists, who dared defend Dunham’s actions as normal—or, at least, not criminal—childhood behavior. This culminated with one feminist writing a public letter to Planned Parenthood asking them to drop Dunham as a spokesperson due to her “pattern of coercion that happened over the course of years, and the near-pornographic and remorseless way Dunham describes these incidents as an adult.” There is a hashtag, of course: #DropDunham. The deeper irony here is that Dunham has been one of the leading celebrity figures in the mainstreaming of feminism today. None other than Taylor Swift credits Dunham with Swift’s own feminist awakening. Dunham's hardly perfect—her handling of race comes to mind—but does she really deserve to be on feminists' hit list?... if feminism becomes like the boy who cried wolf—if girls, and women, cry sexism too readily and often—America will stop listening. The minute feminism becomes hypercritical and humorless, it becomes too easy for the mainstream to dismiss our more valid complaints... there are millions of undeniable victims of sexual assault in America, and thousands of perpetrators who are never held accountable. Does the seven-year-old Lena Dunham really rank high on the scale of prosecutorial priorities? Her sister Grace has denied that she is a victim—issuing a series of tweets including, “As a queer person: I’m committed to people narrating their own experiences, determining for themselves what has and has not been harmful.” The desire of some feminists to “speak truth to power” ran headlong into Grace Dunham’s desire to speak her own damn truth.In her essay about the Dunham debate, Time’s Jessica Bennett wrote about the paradox of feminists championing the success of women yet often being the first to scrutinize women when they succeed"
Yet, some feminists mock the substitution effect (that raising a hue and cry over non-issues distracts from real ones), much less the 'feminist who cried wolf' effect
Is Paternity Fraud really a “ticking time bomb”? - Marilyn Stowe Blog - "does it really matter whether a child is the biological offspring of his or her father? Does it really matter if a loving father and his child never find out? What harm is being done to the man, child or woman concerned – that is until they find out and the predictable fallout occurs?... Nor do I believe that women who have had affairs are fundamentally wicked creatures who should be required to confess all, if they have become pregnant by one man and have decided to save their relationship by shielding a partner and child – and, in most cases, themselves – from the truth... Can all that harm and all that trauma be justified simply because of the man’s “right to know”? I don’t think it is. I don’t support the decision by Boots to sell paternity testing kits over the counter. Experience has taught me, time and time again, that no good comes of opening Pandora’s Box."
Comment: "Using the logic in the article, one can easily create why raped women should never report their story to the police :)"
Physical Attractiveness, Dating Behavior, and Implications for Women - "The primary objective of this study was to determine which of two sociological theories of dating preference was more powerful in predicting women's actual dating frequency. The two theories tested were Waller's theory, which emphasizes physical attractiveness, and Blood's theory, which emphasizes personality. The present study supported Waller's theory. Discussion and implications for women and counselors are presented."
Patriarchy, Male Competition, and Excess Male Mortality - "across nations, women’s social and economic empowerment had a strong inverserelationship with the disparity between male and female mortality from both external(direct behavioral) and (behaviorally mediated) internal causes, even when accountingfor general economic inequality and the prevalence of polygyny. This study demon-strates the usefulness of an evolutionary framework for explaining contemporary socialphenomena and important public health issues."
The cost of getting lean: Is it really worth the trade-off? - "Elite bodybuilders getting ready for a contest and models getting ready for a shoot are basically in a slow starvation process. Adhering to an extremely strict and precise regimen of eating and training (and perhaps adding some drugs into the mix) is the only way way they can drop their body fat to extremely low levels... But this process is not for the faint of heart. It goes against biological cues. It requires exercising when exhausted. It demands ignoring their desire for food in the face of powerful hunger cues. It involves intense focus and dedication. And it often distracts from other areas of life that these athletes might enjoy and value."
Based on LKY's and PAP own philosophy, nobody should be paid for not working - "I refer to the article: "WHY ARE WE PAYING $16K TO AN MP WHO CAN’T EVEN STAND AND ATTEND MEET-THE-PEOPLE SESSION?"... He made several judgement errors like the stop at two, graduate mothers, joining Malaysia, playing up the Malaysia for Malaysians , detention with trail, suppressing opposition etc. hence his political career comprises of both positives and negatives. He contributed but earned a salary for the contributions and also enjoyed other financial and other benefits. The question is should we pay him ex gracia payment for his past contributions. I will say yes for being the leader of the team that built modern SIngapore. The amount subject to approval by Parliament. But should he continue to be a MP and receive 16k allowance. It is tied to job scope. If a civil servant cannot carry out his job due to ill health do we allow him to stay on the job and continue to pay or transfer him to a lesser demanding job with a reduced pay... Based on LKY's and PAP own philosophy, nobody should be paid for not working. Singapore does not have social welfare like western countries"
Researchers 'appalled' as EU chief scientist role is axed - "The final decision came on the day Europe's scientists were celebrating the success of the Rosetta mission... In contrast to the official EU position, Ms Glover said that opposing the technology was "a form of madness". During the Summer, green groups published a letter to the incoming President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, urging him to scrap the role. The claimed that the position was "unaccountable, intransparent and controversial". The CSA, according to the letter, "presented one-sided, partial opinions in the debate on the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture, repeatedly claiming that there was a scientific consensus about their safety". Despite strong support from scientific bodies, Prof Glover's mandate expired at the end of the Barroso presidency - and Jean-Claude Juncker has decided to formally close the Bureau of European Policy Advisers which included the CSA"
Murder 'comes naturally' to chimpanzees - "Prof Joan Silk from Arizona State University said the results "should finally put an end to the idea" that violence in wild chimpanzees was a product of human interference. She suggested that our perceptions of our evolutionary cousins can sometimes be distorted, because we want to believe that it is the nice behaviours, not the nasty ones, which have deep evolutionary roots... "I'm very glad they're publishing this," he told BBC News. It answers a "long, long history of resistance", Prof de Waal explained, to the idea of natural, inter-community violence in chimpanzees. "It has always been contentious - we've had meetings where people screamed at each other. "What this paper does is, instead of getting into the ideology and the history of these arguments... they have just taken the data and analysed it, and said: Where do the chips fall?" The chips, in this case, appear to fall in favour of a natural history of violence"
This is like the belief that all Evil in the world can be traced to the White Man
Chimpanzees are natural born killers, study says, and they prefer mob violence - "“The behavior of non-human primates, particularly chimpanzees, are often distorted by ideology and anthropomorphism, which produce a predisposition to believe that morally desirable features, such as empathy and altruism, have deep evolutionary roots, whereas undesirable features, such as group-level violence and sexual coercion, do not,” she wrote. “This reflects a naive form of biological determinism.”"
IDF on Twitter: "#GenderEquality means men & women carry the stretcher together. Shabbat Shalom from the #InspiringWomen of the IDF! http://t.co/AGTnvPJj13" - "#GenderEquality means men & women carry the stretcher together. Shabbat Shalom from the #InspiringWomen of the IDF!"
Male Guilt: Three Lessons from #ShirtStorm - "There are three big lesson we can learn from #ShirtStorm about the brave new world of feminist grievance-mongering that we have just landed on.
1) They’re not just going after the frat boys.
2) The new orthodoxy is total.
3) There are no logically consistent rules."
Steve Jobs Dropped The First iPod Prototype Into An Aquarium To Prove A Point - "“Those are air bubbles,” he snapped. “That means there’s space in there. Make it smaller.”"
It's Official—iOS 8 Is Apple's Buggiest Release to Date
Michael Phelps' 'girlfriend' Taylor Lianne Chandler says she was born male - "She had previously detailed their first date, to a Baltimore Ravens games, to the National Enquirer. 'One thing led to the next, and we made love during halftime,' she claims in the interview. 'Later, we had sex again. The intimacy with him was amazing! It was the first time in my life that someone has made me feel like a true woman.' She also told the magazine that she never lied to the swimmer about her past, saying it just never came up"