Links - 28th June 2015

Peter Singer, Princeton bioethics professor, faces calls for resignation over infanticide support - "Mr. Singer, who teaches bioethics at the private Ivy League university, has for years promoted public policy that would legalize the killing of severely disabled infants, the petition states... Dozens of activists with the national disability rights group Not Dead Yet descended on Princeton last week to protest Mr. Singer’s employment with the university. Activists in wheelchairs blocked traffic and chanted “Hey hey! Ho ho! Singer’s got to go!” Campus Reform reported. Their petition, which has over 800 signatures, demands that Mr. Singer resign and asks that Princeton officials disavow his comments. It also demands that Gov. Chris Christie “publicly denounce the lethal and discriminatory public health care policy advocated by Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer.” “Rather than challenging Singer’s advocacy as a form of hate speech, Princeton University has provided Singer with a prominent platform and increased access to US media and policymakers for 16 years, establishing itself as the home for the worst of overt — and deadly — bigotry against disabled people of all ages,” the petition states."
How come the decades-long campaign to get Peter Singer isn't working? Maybe philosophy departments have more mettle than most organisations. Or disability activists don't have as much clout as feminists, "anti-racists" etc

Pixar, 1995: What if toys had feelings Pixar,... - "Pixar, 2007:What if rats had feelings
Pixar, 2008:What if robots had feelings
Pixar, 2009:What if dogs had feelings
Pixar, 2012:What if Scotland had feelings
Pixar, 2015:WHAT IF FEELINGS HAD FEELINGS "

LOOK Is this the most inappropriate Father's Day ad ever? - "The company drew some flak for its distasteful Father’s Day ad found in a Sri Lankan newspaper which promotes a 15% discount on bras on 21 June – Father’s Day – with the tagline “For the ladies…who pamper their dads..!”"

Travellers Inn in Mumbai, India | Hostel - "No rooms will be alloted to Nigerians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis..If the girl or boy is an Indian and if the partner is of any country no room will be alloted as the room are strictly give to only foreigners..vice e versa"

IKEA puts the “Slim” in Muslim, and not everyone’s happy about it
Moral of the story: don't feature Muslims in your ads, or they'll complain

The Trouble with Teaching Rape Law - "Imagine a medical student who is training to be a surgeon but who fears that he’ll become distressed if he sees or handles blood. What should his instructors do? Criminal-law teachers face a similar question with law students who are afraid to study rape law... Student organizations representing women’s interests now routinely advise students that they should not feel pressured to attend or participate in class sessions that focus on the law of sexual violence, and which might therefore be traumatic. These organizations also ask criminal-law teachers to warn their classes that the rape-law unit might “trigger” traumatic memories. Individual students often ask teachers not to include the law of rape on exams for fear that the material would cause them to perform less well. One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this conduct violate the law?”—because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress... asking students to challenge each other in discussions of rape law has become so difficult that teachers are starting to give up on the subject... In the nineteen-seventies and eighties, feminist reformers developed the idea that the disrespectful treatment of rape complainants in the criminal process—including cross-examinations meant to show that complainants were promiscuous—made the courtroom the scene of a “second rape”... Something similar to the “second rape” concept now appears to be influencing the way we think about the classroom... At Harvard, twenty-eight law professors, myself included, have publicly objected to a new sexual-harassment policy on the grounds that, in an effort to protect victims, the university now provides an unfair process for the accused. This unfairness hurts the cause of taking sexual violence and its redress seriously."
Another great advance brought to you by feminism

20 Stupid Feminist Questions For Men Answered - ""Have you ever expressed a strong opinion and been called a meninazi?
No because that’s not a word that has entered popular culture. We’re just called Nazis, or misogynists.
have you ever had trouble breaking into your chosen field because it's a 'girl's club?'
Abso-freaking-lutely. In the media and journalism field, it’s sure as hell not a meritocracy. Ladies, if you’re gorgeous, you don’t need to be all that talented to get a job in reporting. You just have to be able to read off the teleprompter, look great in a tight dress, and you’re booked. For us chubby white dudes, no one wants to see us on TV. We’ve got to be smarter, more educated, have all of our hair, and be willing to claw our way to the top.
Has your body been compared to an unlocked car, wallet or other object that can be carelessly left unattended?
Are you serious? Has my body ever been compared to a wallet? That’s all we are. A wallet. Maybe I’m missing something here because I can’t imagine that anyone would seriously wonder whether men are ever compared to open wallets."
Do you struggle to identify with playable male characters because they are hyper-sexualised objects of fantasy?
Well, I don’t identify with fantasy characters that much because I’m not 12 years old. I do play video games, and I do enjoy RPG’s. I’ll try not to be condescending to the intelligence of someone who seriously compares themselves to Hobbits, Twileks, Elves, He-Men and mutants. Still, let me just say that if you think that men don’t have to deal with peer pressure to be huge, hulking Wolverines, then please do spend some time playing male characters in these games. I promise you that we dudes (when we’re 12) do struggle to identify with being a monstrous Orc barbarian."

Man who boycotts Mormons says good-bye to beloved accountant - LarkNews.com - A Good Source for Christian News

Conscience and cake | UK Human Rights Blog - "the judge’s findings in relation to discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation do not make much sense. One key misstep appears to be that she conflates support for same-sex marriage with a homosexual orientation, when they are clearly different things. Many people who are not gay (including the Prime Minister) support same-sex marriage. Some people who are gay (including Rupert Everett and Dolce and Gabbana) oppose same-sex marriage... As it stands, this judgment leaves little or no room for freedom of conscience in business. The analysis used by the judge would mean a Muslim baker would have to bake a cake with a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed on it and the slogan ‘Je Suis Charlie’. An atheist printer would have to print leaflets proclaiming ‘the fool says in his heart “There is no God”’. A gay graphic designer would have to accept a contract to design a flyer saying ‘why sodomy is a sin’. None of those situations seem right."

Ashers 'gay cake' decision is a threat to our freedom of conscience - "So, there we have it. The State demands that all the bakers in the land must be in favour of same-sex marriage... When will this warped totalitarian fairy tale end? I'll tell you what this verdict is not about. It's not about tolerance, or liberalism, or freedom, or casting out the evils of discrimination. It's about silencing and punishing those who refuse to sign up to a clearly-flawed 'equality' agenda. This is an agenda that cannot distinguish between actual discrimination - which is always wrong, and rightly punishable by law - and the vital exercise of freedom of conscience, the fundamental human right not to be forced to express approval for a particular political position... What makes the whole thing even more of a sorry farce is that the State itself, in the form of the Stormont Assembly, itself rejects marriage equality. Bake a cake about that!... I'm standing here - although it's uncomfortable, and leaves me open to taunts, jibes and incredulity from supposedly liberal people I consider to be my friends - because I believe, above all else, in freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Quite frankly, without those vital principles, we're screwed. And that means all of us - straight, gay, religious, whatever... Jonathan Rauch, the gay American activist and author, cautions strongly against the impulse to silence views we don't like. "The quest to stamp out discrimination or bigotry or racism wherever it appears is a quest to force all opinion into a single template," he warns."
The Gay Cake ruling: an example of the Gay Agenda

Transgender ‘female’ MMA fighter gives female opponent concussion, broken eye socket - "UFC announcer Joe Rogan made his opinion unambiguously and graphically clear, saying on his podcast that a transgendered man would "have all the bone structure that comes with” being a man. “You have bigger hands, you have bigger shoulder joints"... In an interview with "Inside MMA," Fallon said that "I don’t believe that a transgender fighter should have to disclose her personal medical history to other female fighters before they fight. It’s simply for the reason the medical community and the scientific community have come to the consensus that post-operative transsexual fighters who have been on hormone-replacement therapy and testosterone suppression, when they’re going from male to female, haven’t been found to have any physiological advantages over other women.”"
The fight is interesting, set off infighting within the LGBT/SJW movement. Transactivists are calling it a victory while feminists are unsure of what to think. Lesbians up in arms because Trans fighter denounced lesbians who don't do transwoman.
Is it transphobic to not let transwomen compete in women's sports?

The one woman in tech on the Ellen Pao jury explains why she would have sided with Kleiner - "Pao's friendly demeanor crumbled somewhat under cross examination and her performance fell short, Malone said in an interview, echoing the comments of two other jurors interviewed by Reuters who were part of deliberations... Malone said Pao's peers who earned black marks worked from year to year to eliminate their flaws, but Pao seemed to show less effort. She did not see signs that Pao tried harder to work collaboratively, whereas another Kleiner partner who was given feedback on the need to get more operating experience went out to get it."

Parenthood and life satisfaction: Why don’t children make people happy? - "parenthood by itself has a substantial and enduring positive effect on life satisfaction. These positive effects, however, are suppressed by the financial and time costs of children. Whereas the positive effects of parenthood on fathers’ levels of life satisfaction are primarily overshadowed by the financial cost of children, the positive effects for women are offset by both financial and time costs. The results indicate
that previous findings of no positive association between children and life satisfaction are due to interrelated costs that interfere with well-being"

Children and Life Satisfaction - "In line with conventional wisdom, we find that female life satisfaction increases more than male life satisfaction in the presence of children. The difference is small for individuals having one or two children but becomes quite sizeable for individuals with three and four or more children. For the case of three children, for instance, the size of the effect is 0.246 for women and 0.138 for men. These results coincide with the findings of Kohler et al. (2005), who show that female happiness responds more than male happiness to the presence of children"
This is evidence that women like children more than men do

How Children Affect Parents’ Life Satisfaction: It’s Complicated - "when financial and time costs are held constant, parents of children under age two seem to derive the most satisfaction from parenting, and experience a decline in satisfaction as their first (or only) child grows up. Pollmann-Schult says that “might be due to a decrease in the emotional benefits of parenthood.”"