Links - 3rd June 2015

Jamie Sergison's answer to Why does Tony Stark retire from the Avengers program? - Quora - "In the end, the replacements act as foils for each of the Veterans: Col. Rhodes is a respected servicemen, and pilot of the War Machine Armor (Sanctioned by the Government), a foil to Stark; Falcon is a pararescue for the USAF controlling an experimental wingsuit (Developed and sanctioned by the Government) who uses evasive maneuvers and dual SMGs to take out hostiles, a foil to Hawkeye, Vision is an android harnessing the magical power of an Infinity Gem, a foil to Hulk who harnesses the physical durability of an imperfect Super Serum; and Scarlet Witch, a metahuman with illusion based magic and telekinetic abilities, making her a Distaff counterpart to Loki, Thor's adoptive brother.

Cassidy Slockett's answer to What are the most unexpected / shocking / baffling things people encounter when visiting Italy for the first time? - Quora - "how easy it is to attract an Italian guy. Here in America, you can look a guy in the eyes, wink, smile, brush past him, text him, and he often still won't get that you're interested. In Italy, you half smile at a guy, and the next thing you know, you're being chased around a market and trying to hide."

The IO had just called me up. She told me that... - Abdul Salim Harun - "The IO had just called me up. She told me that the POTA and the Harassment Act which I had filed last night still stands. I have therefore, decided to proceed to take action against FAP and its owner for its malicious intent and also to Shawn Loo, for the uncalled and disparaging remarks he had made."
A police report has been made against FAP!

Carly Fiorina, A Woman of Accomplishment - "Fiorina told me that, unlike a male candidate, she could better take on Hillary Clinton: "No matter what that man says, she will play the gender card or the war on women card. She won't be able to do that with me." Fiorina believes Clinton has a poor record: "I come from a world where speeches are not accomplishments. Activity isn't accomplishment. Title isn't accomplishment. I come from a world where you have to actually do something; you have to produce results. ... (The presidency) is a very difficult job and we ascertain someone's capability to do the job based not on their great speeches, but on what they've actually done." She thinks the media has overblown Hillary Clinton's accomplishments and foreign policy experience and believes her accomplishments are more impressive"

‘Rice Theory’ Explains North-South China Cultural Differences, Study Shows - "A new cultural psychology study has found that psychological differences between the people of northern and southern China mirror the differences between community-oriented East Asia and the more individualistic Western world – and the differences seem to have come about because southern China has grown rice for thousands of years, whereas the north has grown wheat... People in the north are thought to be more aggressive and independent, while people to the south are considered more cooperative and interdependent... northern Chinese were indeed more individualistic and analytic-thinking – more similar to Westerners – while southerners were interdependent, holistic-thinking and fiercely loyal to friends, as psychological testing has shown is common in other rice-growing East Asian nations, such as Japan and Korea."

Why rice-eaters are from Venus and others from Mars - "In an important 1993 research paper published in the American Sociological Review, sociologist Sunita Kishor showed that rice cultivation was a strong predictor of the sex ratio across Indian districts, and that its positive impact on female survival rates was independent of the contemporary female labour force participation rates across the districts"

'Silver porn' shows fifty shades of greying Japan - ""I do like sex, and this is my last chance before I get too old. I'm very nervous. I wonder if I should really do it, especially in front of so many people, but everyone should follow their dream. "I just hope I can keep up," added Ms Tomita, who used to work in a factory manufacturing car parts and registered for an agency in Japan's booming "adult video" (AV) industry with her daughter. "We applied through the Internet together. I got offered a job first, which surprised her a bit."

Circumcision’s Psychological Damage - "As psychologists, we are deeply concerned by the recently announced CDC guidelines promoting circumcision for all males, and in particular children. The CDC guidelines are based on a sharply criticized 2012 policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The 2012 statement was condemned by a large group of physicians, medical organizations, and ethicists from European, Scandinavian, and Commonwealth countries as “culturally biased” and “different from [the conclusions] reached by physicians in other parts of the Western world, including Europe, Canada and Australia” (Frisch et al., 2013). The new CDC guidelines highlight methodologically flawed studies from Africa that have no relevance to the United States. They chose to ignore studies that were conducted in the United States and show no link between circumcision and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV (Thomas et al., 2004). Worse, the CDC has completely ignored the psychological effects of genital cutting on male children... The most comprehensive study available that assesses the psychological impact of circumcision on children after infancy was conducted by Ramos and Boyle (2000) and involved 1072 pre-adolescent and adolescent boys who were circumcised in a hospital setting. Using an adapted version of a clinically established PTSD interview rating scale, the study’s authors determined that 51 percent of these boys met the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD"

National Library Board sets up independent panel to advise on review of materials
I'm quite impressed they have a taxi driver and a clerk

Scientists baffled as 'suicidal' cows throw themselves off cliff in Switzerland

Man with tax protest sign fatally shoots self in front of shocked crowd at Capitol - "The sign carried by the man contained a message about "social justice," Dine said. A witness, Robert Bishop of Annapolis, Md., said it also said something about taxing the "1%""

Overweight diabetes patients outlive slimmer ones - study

The Most Diverse Cities Are Often The Most Segregated

Microsoft's Edge browser can steal Chrome and Firefox extensions

Are there any homosexual animals? - "female albatrosses are not inherently homosexual. The Oahu population has a surplus of females as a result of immigration, so some females cannot find males to pair with. Studies of other birds suggest that same-sex coupling is a response to a shortage of males, and is much rarer if the sex ratio is equal. In other words, the female Laysan albatrosses probably wouldn't choose to pair with other females if there were enough males to go round... humans are the only documented case of "true" homosexuality in wild animals. "It is not the case that you have lesbian bonobos or gay male bonobos," says Vasey. "What's been described is that many animals are happy to engage in sex with partners of either sex.""
If sexual orientation is about desire and not action, can we really say animals are homosexual?
As a good economist I believe in revealed preferences - look at what people do, not what they say. So lesbians who keep having sex with men most probably aren't

The trip that transformed me - "Slowly, I began to realize that even if I was traveling in my mother's footsteps, her shoes don't fit my feet"

US Christians numbers 'decline sharply', poll finds - "Pew researchers say the losses they discovered were driven mainly by a decrease among liberal Protestants and Catholics"
It's no wonder liberal theists are seen as less authentic adherents

Study: Rape Not Among Reasons Women Seek Late-Term Abortions - "For many years, abortion-rights advocates have asserted that abortions after 20 weeks are performed because of maternal health complications or lethal fetal anomalies discovered late in pregnancy. However, wider data from both the medical literature and late-term abortion providers indicates that most late-term procedures are not performed for these reasons. Previous survey studies of late-term abortion patients have confirmed that most late-term abortions are performed because of a delay in pregnancy diagnosis and for reasons similar to those given by first-trimester abortion patients: financial stressors, relationship problems, education concerns or parenting challenges."

Hobby Lobby and contraception: How conservative evangelicals went from not caring about abortion and birth control to being obsessed with them.

Every Major Website Clickbaits, But Not as Much as You’d Assume - "Clickbait isn’t a spit-shined sales pitch meant to lightly elevate the quality of your genuinely decent goods and services, it’s often a blatant lie designed to disguise the goods’ irreparable shoddiness...
Clickbait, for the purposes of my inquiry means it must be one of the following:
... Unearned hyperbole: “The 41 Most Awkward Things That Have Ever Happened.”
Hate-clicking, which can be either an affirmation or denial of the audience’s presumed leanings: “ Just Look At This Couple And Then Tell Me That Marriage Equality Should Be Banned.” This encompasses the #SlatePitch, something that seems so obviously counter-intuitive that you have to click to find how what this jackass is talking about.
Willful withholding of information that could have easily been included in the headline: a tactic most common on social media sharing: “14-year-old girl stabbed her little sister 40 times, police say. The reason why will shock you.” This also includes headlines in the form of a question, for which the answer is inevitably no, as well as omitting the subject of the piece. “This One Guy…” “And This Surprising City…”
The ellipses (or implied ellipses): “Officer Tells Texas Man Openly Carrying Rifle He’s ‘Free to Go’ – It’s Hard to Believe What Happened Just Two Minutes Later...
Daily Mail: 0/100. Hold on, the math here can’t be correct right? The Daily Mail is often considered the bottom of the barrel of the internet. The place where all useless viral stories originate, right? Yes, and each story here is more tabloid-worthy than the next: “Drunken Mormon woman, 20, froze to death after she and a friend lost keys to their Jeep while hiking in Utah woods in frigid weather” and “Miami woman arrested for killing animals while performing sex acts for horrific fetish videos” and “What happened to selling chocolates?: Bikini-clad woman gets tasered in front of group of men FOR CHARITY” may be puerile, sexualized, sensationalized idiot-bait, but their incredibly long headlines don’t really mislead. In fact, they do the exact opposite.“