Yale students want to remake the English Major requirements, but there's no escaping white male poets in the canon. - "Their demands: abolish the major English poets cycle and revise the remaining requirements “to deliberately include literatures relating to gender, race, sexuality, ableism, and ethnicity.” “It is your responsibility as educators to listen to student voices,” the letter concludes. “We have spoken. We are speaking. Pay attention”... Here’s the thing, though. If you want to become well-versed in English literature, you’re going to have to hold your nose and read a lot of white male poets... I want to gently push back, too, against the idea that the major English poets have nothing to say to students who aren’t straight, male, and white. For all the ways in which their particular identities shaped their work, these writers tried to represent the entire human condition, not just their clan. A great artist possesses both empathy and imagination: Many of Shakespeare’s female characters are as complexly nuanced as any in circulation today, Othello takes on racial prejudice directly, and Twelfth Night contains enough gender-bending identity shenanigans to fuel multiple drag shows and occupy legions of queer scholars. The “stay in your lane” mentality that seems to undergird so much progressive discourse—only polyamorous green people really “get” the “polyamorous green experience,” and therefore only polyamorous greens should read and write about polyamorous greens, say—ignores our common humanity"
There is a great parallel to affirmative action here
All scientific papers to be free by 2020 under EU proposals
Why we should close women's prisons and treat their crimes more fairly - "The sentencing system should be reformed radically to deal more fairly with female offending. The starting position is that no female offender should be imprisoned. In relation to most forms of crime, they should be dealt with by way of intermediate sanctions including the greater use of electronic monitoring. In the rare instances that women commit heinous crimes, community protection and the need to impose proportionate penalties requires a prison term but this should be the exception, not the increasing norm. The exception is so rare that the utopia of closing prisons would readily become a reality."
Feminist logic: If <50% of CEOs are women, women are being discriminated against. If women are 8% of prisoners, women are being discriminated against.
The Veiled Virgin - "There are similar marble busts depicting veiled women in Canada, the United States, Ireland and England. None, however, are as meticulously crafted as the Newfoundland Veiled Virgin by Strazza: the facial features and the braids in the hair are clearly visible through the stone veil."
Police Use Pizza, Granola Bar To Lure Robbery Suspect From Lake
BBC Warns Football Fans Dressing as Crusaders 'Offensive' to Muslims
Rose McGowan Calls Out ‘X-Men’ Billboard That Shows Mystique Being Strangled - "As 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse stormed theaters over the long weekend, critics took aim at billboards featuring Oscar Isaac’s Apocalypse choking Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique. Among them was Rose McGowan, who elaborated on a May 25 Facebook post to THR: "There is a major problem when the men and women at 20th Century Fox think casual violence against women is the way to market a film. There is no context in the ad, just a woman getting strangled. The fact that no one flagged this is offensive and frankly, stupid. The geniuses behind this, and I use that term lightly, need to to take a long hard look at the mirror and see how they are contributing to society. Imagine if it were a black man being strangled by a white man, or a gay male being strangled by a hetero? The outcry would be enormous. So let’s right this wrong. 20th Century Fox, since you can’t manage to put any women directors on your slate for the next two years, how about you at least replace your ad?""
Clearly, the solution is to stop women from featuring as key characters in action movies
UC San Diego Votes to Ban Plastic Water Bottles - "When bottled water isn’t an option in vending machines, they just grab other bottled drinks, which meant the “water bottle ban” was actually followed by an increase in the number of plastic bottles on campus of 6%. As for UC San Diego, they say that instead of offering only drinking fountains as an alternative as UVermont did, they’ll make sure the campus stores stock “boxed water,” an “environmentally friendly” alternative to bottled water. But according to the Bottled Water council (also a real thing), only 0.92% of all plastic used in the US is contained in water bottles, and most of it is recyclable. The real danger to the environment comes in the shipping and production phases — phases that aren’t eliminated when you switch to boxed water. And we’ve been to a few summer music festivals where they serve only boxed water, and it creates a huge heap of trash because people don’t realize, like they do with cans and bottles, that boxed water is recyclable"
Six Reasons Why Barack Obama is a Great President, via Anthony Bourdain - "The reaction among regular people in Hanoi to the fact that the US President chose to eat Bun Cha was beyond all imagining. The effect was unbelievable. People were actually crying the next day, describing to me their shock and their pride, the reactions of their neighbors, to this completely unexpected choice of meal—and the venue.
He was among the very few guests on my show who ever asked the camera crew if they got to eat too. And he made a point of taking a picture with all of them when we were done."
Grandmother, 60, fined RM500 for offering sex to policeman
I guess she should've stuck to money
English T-Shirts In Asia (20+ Pics)
What It Means to Be Trans Species - ""I was never a normal child, per se, Eric explains. "I used to insist I was a dog to my parents when I was younger." This went on until he was around ten, and he realized his friends didn't feel the same way about their bodies as he did. "I was having a casual conversation with a friend about feeling body parts that weren't there," he tells me. "I had no idea that most people didn't feel them. I looked into what could cause things like that and eventually stumbled across the term: otherkin"... The debate between transgenderism and otherkin is one area Miranda would like to see evolve. "It seems that many people of the transgender community think that otherkin is a mock version of transgenderism and are very hateful of it," she says. "This is not the case for us of course, as many of us are in the LGBT+ community"... Riviera says the biggest misconception about the trans species community is that they aren't oppressed. But bullying and harassment are all too common. "The constant barrage of hate mail from the internet, all the time, gets very wearying""
I sexually identify as an attack helicopter
UK will shelter Singapore trans woman who faces compulsory army service as a man back home - "her visa was up in 2012, and she appealed to the British courts to allow her to stay, saying she found it distressing to think about having to return to serve her reservist obligations... She had told the courts of her recurring nightmares about her time in the military, and would find it intolerable to be treated as a man upon her return to Singapore. One of the judges was quoted saying: "I find that the requirement of the appellant to essentially hide her gender and live as a man, even for two weeks a year, would be wholly unreasonable.""
I knew of a transsexual serviceman when I was a slave. This person's complaints are almost certainly groundless
Transgender women 'attacked in the street' by north African teenagers in Germany - "Moroccans and Algerians have almost no chance of being granted asylum in Germany, but there has been a dramatic increase in applicants from the two countries, with thousands arriving in the last six months."
'Call me Caitlyn, or else': the rise of authoritarian transgender politics - "There is a palpable religiosity to the wild hailing of Bruce/Caitlyn as a modern-day saint, a Virgin Mary with testicles. Within four hours, more than a million people were following Bruce/Caitlyn’s new Twitter account, hanging on her words like the expectant horde waiting for Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai. Her every utterance, all banal celeb-speak, was retweeted tens of thousands of times. Celebs and commentators greeted her as a kind of messiah... Just as those who denied the divinity of Christ were once expected to recant their heresy, so those who deny the gender of Caitlyn Jenner are hounded by bots into apologising for their moral error. The American gay-rights group GLAAD is scouring the mainstream media for any use of the word ‘he’ in relation to Caitlyn, like a modern incarnation of the Vatican’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which monitored the public sphere for any less-than-gushing commentary on God... The insistence that we not only refer to Bruce/Caitlyn as ‘she’ but also project this backwards – recognising, in the words of the Guardian, that she has ‘always been a woman’ – is borderline Orwellian. It’s a rewriting of history, a memory-holing of old inconvenient facts. Strikingly, the Guardian writer says people like Bruce/Caitlyn have ‘always been women… even when they were “fathering” children’. Notice it’s the ‘fathering’ bit that is in scare quotes, suggesting it wasn’t real, while the description of Bruce as a woman is treated as an incontestable truth. War is peace, freedom is slavery, man is woman. This trans Orwellianism is increasingly finding expression in the law itself. In Ireland last year, a trans woman won the right to have her sex changed to female on her actual birth certificate"
Chris Evans’ Top Gear loses a third of its audience - "Chris Evans’ Top Gear suffered a big drop in its viewing figures for its second episode, drawing what is thought to be its lowest audience for at least a decade... Last night’s overnight audience is lower than the 3.1 million average for the very first Top Gear series featuring Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond broadcast in 2002... Top Gear is BBC2’s biggest show but, more importantly than that, it is the biggest earner for the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, watched in more than 80 countries within 72 hours of its broadcast in the UK. The BBC moved to defend the show after reports that 370 viewers had complained about its new incarnation - perhaps predictable after the departure of its long-running presenting team - but also that it received the lowest audience appreciation scores of any BBC2 show last week."
Luckily the BBC isn't profit driven, or they would be really regretting firing Jeremy Clarkson
Chris Evans 'swore at Top Gear audience' who didn't laugh at his jokes - "Chris Evans reportedly swore at audience members when filming the revamped Top Gear, telling them off for their clothing choices, not being loud enough and not laughing at his jokes."
Jeremy Clarkson: TV obsessed with hiring 'black Muslim lesbians' - "In response to questions about the lack of female presenters on BBC's Top Gear, Clarkson said: "The problem is that television executives have got it into their heads that if one presenter on a show is a blond-haired, blue-eyed heterosexual boy, the other must be a black Muslim lesbian. "Chalk and cheese, they reckon, works. But here we have Top Gear setting new records after six years using cheese and cheese. It confuses them"... Clarkson went on to defend women drivers and ask why there are not more of them in Formula One. He said: "Unlike furious thin-lipped feminists, I tend not to draw distinctions between men and women, apart from in bed where you really do need to spot the differences. "At work, girls are just people. It's the same story at parties and it's especially the same on the road. The worst driver in the world is Top Gear's studio director ... He cannot park without kerbing the wheels and he cannot get into his own drive without crashing into his house. And he has a scrotum.""
The claim that viewership or other audience figures suffer because people want to see people like them onscreen is questionable. Good content is the most important
TV can boost self-esteem of white boys, study says - "Parents of white girls and African-American children, however, might want to limit the amount of time their kids spend in front of the tube. The self-esteem of white girls, black girls and black boys decreases with TV consumption, says the study, published in Communication Research."
Chinese minister vents anger when Canadian reporter asks about human rights - "Senior Chinese officials are accustomed to not having to face tough questions from the press at home, given the state’s chokehold on the media,” she said. “But instead of being better equipped to answer ordinary questions like these when travelling abroad, officials like foreign minister Wang seem to think they can impose those same constraints on journalists abroad – and on that subject they are sorely mistaken.” Richardson said Wang was also wrong to claim only Chinese people were equipped to discuss the country’s human rights situation. “If that’s true, why is his government imprisoning rather than engaging people like [jailed Nobel laureate] Liu Xiaobo and so many others from China who have similar questions?” Wang’s verbal attack on the journalist and Canada’s failure to speak out against it sparked online criticism"
Are Game Show Audiences Trustworthy? - "When the show was introduced in Russia, contestants quickly learned to be wary of asking the audience for help because Russian audiences frequently mislead them, intentionally giving the wrong answer. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the players or the questions they ask for help on. In France, audiences seem to fall in the middle. They don’t regularly attempt to trick players, as Russian (and according to my googling, Ukrainian) audiences do. But unlike U.S. audiences, they don’t seem willing to help under any circumstances, either. They appear to intentionally give the wrong answer if the contestant asks for help on a question the audience perceives as too easy. If they think the player ought to know the answer they give the wrong response, apparently thinking the contestant deserves to lose if they’re so stupid. In the video you can hear audience laughter when Henri decides to go with the results of the audience poll. Ori and Rom Brafman suggest this relates to notions of fairness, which have been shown to vary widely by culture. They say that in the U.S., we think it’s fair for people to win large sums of money even if they seem dumb, while in France, there is more concern about whether the individual deserves to win"
When you can't live without bananas
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Pinker on why it doesn't matter that parenting has little effect on children
"“I hope to God this isn’t true,” one mother said to the Chicago Tribune. “The thought that all this love that I’m pouring into him counts for nothing is too terrible to contemplate.” As with other discoveries about human nature, people hope to God it isn’t true. But the truth doesn’t care about our hopes, and sometimes it can force us to revisit those hopes in a liberating way.
Yes, it is disappointing that there is no algorithm for growing a happy and successful child. But would we really want to specify the traits of our children in advance, and never be delighted by the unpredictable gifts and quirks that every child brings into the world? People are appalled by human cloning and its dubious promise that parents can design their children by genetic engineering. But how different is that from the fantasy that parents can design their children by how they bring them up? Realistic parents would be less anxious parents. They could enjoy their time with their children rather than constantly trying to stimulate them, socialize them, and improve their characters. They could read stories to their children for the pleasure of it, not because it’s good for their neurons.
Many critics accuse Harris of trying to absolve parents of responsibility for their children’s lives: if the kids turn out badly, parents can say it’s not their fault. But, by the same token she is assigning adults responsibility for their own lives: if your life is not going well, stop moaning that it’s all your parents’ fault. She is rescuing mothers from fatuous theories that blame them for every misfortune that befalls their children, and from the censorious know-it-all who, make them feel like ogres if they slip out of the house to work or skip a reading of Goodnight Moon. And the theory assigns us all a collective responsibility for the health of the neighbourhoods and culture in which peer groups are embedded.
Finally: “So you’re saying it doesn’t matter how I treat my children?” What a question! Yes, of course it matters. Harris reminds her readers of the reasons.
First, parents wield enormous power over their children, and their actions can make a big difference to their happiness. Childrearing is above all an ethical responsibility. It is not OK for parents to beat, humiliate, deprive, or neglect their children, because those are awful things for a big strong person to do to a small helpless one. As Harris writes, “We may not hold their tomorrows in our hands but we surely hold their todays, and we have the power to make their todays very miserable.”
Second, a parent and a child have a human relationship. No one ever asks, “So you’re saying it doesn’t matter how I treat my husband or wife?” even though no one but a newlywed believes that one can change the personality of one’s spouse. Husbands and wives are nice to each other (or should be) not to pound the other’s personality into a desired shape but to build a deep and satisfying relationship. Imagine being told that one cannot revamp the personality of a husband or wife and replying “The thought that all this love I’m pouring into him (or her) counts for nothing is too terrible to contemplate” So it is with parents and children: one person’s behaviour toward another has consequences for the quality of the relationship between them. Over the course of a lifetime the balance of power shifts, and children, complete with memories of how they were treated, have a growing say in their dealings with their parents. As Harris puts it, “If you don’t think the moral imperative is a good enough reason to be nice to your kid, try this one: Be nice to your kid when he’s young so that he will be nice to you when you’re old.” There are well-functioning adults who still shake with rage when recounting the cruel times their parents inflicted on them as children. There are others who moisten up in private moments when recalling a kindness or sacrifice made for their happiness, perhaps one that the mother or father has long forgotten. If for no other reason, parents should treat their children well to allow them to grow up with such memories.
I have found that when people hear these explanations they lower their eyes and say, somewhat embarrassedly, “Yes. I knew that.” The fact that people can forget these simple truths when intellectualizing about children shows how far modern doctrines have taken us. They make it easy to think of children as lumps of putty to be shaped instead of partners in a human relationship. Even the theory that children adapt to their peer group becomes less surprising when we think of them as human beings like ourselves. “Peer group” is a patronizing term we use in connection with children for what we call “friends and colleagues and associates” when we talk about ourselves. We groan when children obsess over wearing the right kind of cargo pants, but we would be just as mortified if a very large person forced us to wear pink overalls to a corporate board meeting or a polyester disco suit to an academic conference. “Being socialized by a peer group” is another way of saying “living successfully within a society” which for a social organism means “living”. It is children, above all, who are alleged to be blank slates, and that can make us forget they are people."
--- The Blank Slate / Steven Pinker
Yes, it is disappointing that there is no algorithm for growing a happy and successful child. But would we really want to specify the traits of our children in advance, and never be delighted by the unpredictable gifts and quirks that every child brings into the world? People are appalled by human cloning and its dubious promise that parents can design their children by genetic engineering. But how different is that from the fantasy that parents can design their children by how they bring them up? Realistic parents would be less anxious parents. They could enjoy their time with their children rather than constantly trying to stimulate them, socialize them, and improve their characters. They could read stories to their children for the pleasure of it, not because it’s good for their neurons.
Many critics accuse Harris of trying to absolve parents of responsibility for their children’s lives: if the kids turn out badly, parents can say it’s not their fault. But, by the same token she is assigning adults responsibility for their own lives: if your life is not going well, stop moaning that it’s all your parents’ fault. She is rescuing mothers from fatuous theories that blame them for every misfortune that befalls their children, and from the censorious know-it-all who, make them feel like ogres if they slip out of the house to work or skip a reading of Goodnight Moon. And the theory assigns us all a collective responsibility for the health of the neighbourhoods and culture in which peer groups are embedded.
Finally: “So you’re saying it doesn’t matter how I treat my children?” What a question! Yes, of course it matters. Harris reminds her readers of the reasons.
First, parents wield enormous power over their children, and their actions can make a big difference to their happiness. Childrearing is above all an ethical responsibility. It is not OK for parents to beat, humiliate, deprive, or neglect their children, because those are awful things for a big strong person to do to a small helpless one. As Harris writes, “We may not hold their tomorrows in our hands but we surely hold their todays, and we have the power to make their todays very miserable.”
Second, a parent and a child have a human relationship. No one ever asks, “So you’re saying it doesn’t matter how I treat my husband or wife?” even though no one but a newlywed believes that one can change the personality of one’s spouse. Husbands and wives are nice to each other (or should be) not to pound the other’s personality into a desired shape but to build a deep and satisfying relationship. Imagine being told that one cannot revamp the personality of a husband or wife and replying “The thought that all this love I’m pouring into him (or her) counts for nothing is too terrible to contemplate” So it is with parents and children: one person’s behaviour toward another has consequences for the quality of the relationship between them. Over the course of a lifetime the balance of power shifts, and children, complete with memories of how they were treated, have a growing say in their dealings with their parents. As Harris puts it, “If you don’t think the moral imperative is a good enough reason to be nice to your kid, try this one: Be nice to your kid when he’s young so that he will be nice to you when you’re old.” There are well-functioning adults who still shake with rage when recounting the cruel times their parents inflicted on them as children. There are others who moisten up in private moments when recalling a kindness or sacrifice made for their happiness, perhaps one that the mother or father has long forgotten. If for no other reason, parents should treat their children well to allow them to grow up with such memories.
I have found that when people hear these explanations they lower their eyes and say, somewhat embarrassedly, “Yes. I knew that.” The fact that people can forget these simple truths when intellectualizing about children shows how far modern doctrines have taken us. They make it easy to think of children as lumps of putty to be shaped instead of partners in a human relationship. Even the theory that children adapt to their peer group becomes less surprising when we think of them as human beings like ourselves. “Peer group” is a patronizing term we use in connection with children for what we call “friends and colleagues and associates” when we talk about ourselves. We groan when children obsess over wearing the right kind of cargo pants, but we would be just as mortified if a very large person forced us to wear pink overalls to a corporate board meeting or a polyester disco suit to an academic conference. “Being socialized by a peer group” is another way of saying “living successfully within a society” which for a social organism means “living”. It is children, above all, who are alleged to be blank slates, and that can make us forget they are people."
--- The Blank Slate / Steven Pinker
Post ID: 3581365803516548387
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Conspiracy Theorists in Heaven
Two conspiracy theorists die and go to Heaven.
When they get there God says they can ask any question they want and God will answer because God knows all.
So they say, "are GMOs dangerous?"
God says "no".
Then one turns to the other and says, "wow, the conspiracy goes up even further than we realized!"
(via comment)
When they get there God says they can ask any question they want and God will answer because God knows all.
So they say, "are GMOs dangerous?"
God says "no".
Then one turns to the other and says, "wow, the conspiracy goes up even further than we realized!"
(via comment)
Post ID: 5826361565957502778
Links - 12th July 2016
Audio Quality Quiz Results: You Did Slightly Better Than Guessing Randomly - "Last week, we published a quiz testing listeners on their ability to discern between lossless audio and compressed mp3s. We picked six songs from different eras and genres: an early digital recording of a Mozart piano concerto, an a cappella version of a pop song, the billionth song ever sold on iTunes, the most-streamed song of 2014 and two songs from musicians who happen to own digital music services. We cut a short clip from each song and then offered that clip three ways: as a 128 kbps MP3 file, a 320 kbps MP3 file and a higher-quality lossless WAV file. Then we asked you to guess which one was the lossless file... most listeners have trouble discerning between lossless audio and a high-quality mp3"
Outrage after gorilla Harambe killed when child falls into exhibit at Cincinnati Zoo - "The killing of a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo in order to save a child who fell in its enclosure has sparked nationwide outrage. Animal activists have created online petitions and Facebook pages after a special zoo response team shot and killed the 17-year-old gorilla named Harambe. The four-year-old boy spent a terrifying 10 to 15 minutes alone on Saturday with the adult male gorilla. Harambe grabbed and dragged the little boy after the boy fell into the gorilla exhibit, officials said. Many are angry the endangered gorilla was put down. Others want the boy's mother to face child endangerment charges, CBS News' Jamie Yuccas reported. Facebook pages like "Justice for Harambe" are quickly spreading. The Facebook page currently has more than 11,000 likes."
Looks like gorillas are more important than children. "Animal rights" is just misanthropy in disguise; if you value charismatic megafauna above other animals (I'm betting the vast majority of the protestors aren't vegan), you're still speciest - which is even less consistent/defensible than human-centred speciesm
#JusticeForHarambe Is An Absurd Hashtag - "Anyone with children knows that they disappear. It’s not unheard of. It’s totally disconcerting that the child was able to get into the gorilla enclosure, but with witnesses confirming that it happened in the blink of an eye it’s incredible that so many Perfect Parents™ are calling for the mother’s head, but of course they are. This is the internet. Land of armchair perfectionists and parents who’ve never made a mistake... A child should potentially be removed from his home and placed in foster care because his mom’s eyes strayed for a moment at the zoo? Excuse my language, but fuck every single person who signed this petition. You would petition to remove a child from his home because some sad news from a zoo made you an armchair animal activist? Go back to playing Candy Crush. You’re not needed here. In addition to the utter insanity that is a petition for a CPS investigation, everyone on the internet is all of a sudden an expert in animal behavior"
The freakout over Harambe the gorilla shows the dangers of internet mob justice - "It would be one thing if the reaction to Harambe's death were the only instance of mob justice potentially damaging people's lives. But we have seen this before: In previous cases, internet mobs have reacted angrily to certain stories or movements by harassing people, threatening their lives, and even ruining their livelihoods. The most recent example was the death of Cecil the lion... While some form of punishment may have been acceptable for Palmer, that is not for a mob to decide. In our civilized society, this is supposed to be left to the formal criminal justice system. The fundamental problem with mob justice is that it's prone to randomness... Mob justice also tends to overlook issues that are, frankly, more important. Harambe's death is sad, but it's not even close to the most tragic thing that happened in the past week. Just over the weekend, four people died and at least 53 others were wounded from gun violence in Chicago. Yet the internet mob does not, currently, seem to be in a fit of rage over those tragedies — even as there's evidence that many of these killings go unsolved."
Was Killing Harambe the Gorilla Really the Only Option? | The Scientific Parent - "Tranquilizing the animal was not an option. Just like anesthesia isn’t one size fits all for humans, it’s the same for wild animals. It would have taken time to get the right drugs at the right dose in the shot, then it would have taken time to take effect (if the dose was right), time the zoo didn’t have. Complicating matters, a large animal when tranquilized doesn’t fall to the ground dopey like they do in cartoons. Instead, the fight or flight instinct kicks in, and they can become violent... While the public saw a gorilla playing curiously with a child, myself and other zoologists saw that the child was in incredible danger the moment he fell into the moat. The gorilla ignored the zookeepers, and tranquilizing him wasn’t an option. The zoo had no choice but to kill Harambe. I’m not trying to blame the gorilla for being shot, he was only following his natural instincts. When I worked in wildlife tourism in South Africa it would shock tourists how brutal, vicious and violent nature is. The baby giraffe that adorably hobbles to its legs and runs within minutes of birth has to do this or it is dead, eaten by a predator. It is that simple. The antelope that runs the slowest doesn’t make it. The cheetah that doesn’t catch an antelope starves. A new lion taking over a pride will kill all cubs to protect his own bloodline. Around the world people die because they’ve lost their natural fear and respect of wildlife"
Black Outrage Over Gorilla Shot To Protect 'White Privilege' - "'Killing an endangered gorilla at a zoo for a white boy’s safety is white privilege. If the boy was black they would’ve found a tranquilizer'... There’s just one flaw in this GorillaLivesMatter thesis. Can you guess what it is?"
Study finds possible new jet-lag treatment: Exposure to flashing light - "Short flashes of light at night are more effective than using continuous light as therapy to prevent disruptions in people’s circadian rhythms"
10 Things I Learned About the World from Ayn Rand's Insane "Atlas Shrugged' - "The mark of a great businessman is that he sneers at the idea of public safety."
China dissatisfied with G7 statement on S China Sea - "China on Friday said it was strongly dissatisfied with a statement by G7 members, in which they expressed concern over the South China Sea"
If China controls the whole world, it's not interference in other countries' internal affairs
Amber Heard is pictured smiling hours after Depp's 'iPhone attack': Actress claims 'cocaine and booze binges turned Johnny into an abusive monster who left her fearing for her life' - but why was this image deleted before court appearance?
Johnny Depp's Exes Reportedly Slam Amber Heard's 'Outrageous' Domestic Violence Allegations
Have You Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend? Cause, Uh, We Have - "According to a study of relationships that engage in nonreciprocal violence, a whopping 70% are perpetrated by women. So basically that means that girls are beating up their BFs and husbands and the dudes aren't fighting back. With Amy Winehouse busting open a can of whupass on her husband last week, we decided to conduct an informal survey of the Jezebels to see who's gotten violent with their men. After reviewing the answers, let's just say that it'd be wise to never ever fuck with us"
Equality means women beating men up and glorifying it
Comments: "I particularly enjoyed the girl who casually admitted to drunkenly beating up her boyfriend, and her only concern was how she could stop feeling bad about it."
"Honestly I don’t know why I read Jezebel articles... I can usually give an accurate summary based on the Headline and “Jezebel”... but sometimes I am surprised. It’s like the lottery where instead of losing money, it’s man-hate and instead of winning money, it’s some level of logic."
New Demos study reveals scale of social media misogyny - "The study, which specifically monitored the use of the words ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ by UK Twitter users over a three-week period, found 6,500 unique users were targeted by 10,000 explicitly aggressive and misogynistic tweets... The study builds on Demos’ previous research in 2014, which found that ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ dominate misogynistic language on Twitter, and that both male and female users are responsible for the abuse. In this 2016 research, 50 per cent of the propagators were found to be women.
If half of "misogynists" are women, what does that say about blaming men for "patriarchy" (which is, despite the PR line, what happens in reality)?
Addendum: Also reported as: Study: 50% of 'Misogynistic' Tweets Posted by Women - "The news will come as a shock to feminist campaigners who have long claimed that men are the main perpetrators of internet trolling. It also follows a 2014 study from cosmetics firm Dove which found out of over five million negative tweets relating to beauty and body image, 80% were sent by women"
British-Palestinian schoolgirl expelled from public speaking competition - "Leanne Mohamad, a 15-year-old student at Wanstead High School in London, won a regional final of the Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge with her speech ‘Birds not Bombs’, in which she describes the historical and contemporary reality for Palestinians under Israeli settler colonialism. The Jack Petchey-sponsored competition is run by Speakers Trust, and bills itself as the world’s biggest youth speaking event... The decision to expel Mohamad, made by a Speakers Trust and Jack Petchey Foundation judging panel, was based on her breaching two rules: that “the speech must have a positive and uplifting message”, and that “a speaker should never inflame or offend the audience or insult others.”"
If you go to the Great British Bakeoff and you make the most awesome fish and chips in the world, you won't win
'They're Natural Born Killers': Wild Animals in Captivity Inherently Dangerous - "Treadwell felt he had befriended a group of wild grizzly bears. He lived among them, he could approach them and touch them and video shows Treadwell petting and talking to a bear cub that follows him around. "You are doing very well, you're a cute bear," he said. "They don't want to hurt me. They just need help." Until the day when they killed him and his girlfriend, and then devoured them both."
The Next James Bond Movie Should Go Back in Time - "Anyone can fire a gun or bug a phone, but not everyone can walk up to Auric Goldfinger on the golf course like they “belong there.” And if you’re thinking that all this makes James Bond sound like white male privilege, weaponized? That’s because he kind of is – and should that mean the audience gets to vicariously enjoy his unfettered travel to exotic destinations, welcome access to beautiful, sexually-adventurous women, flashy cars, fancy parties, and blank check for collateral mayhem? Well, now you know why they keep making these movies."
The opium farmers with the police on their side - "Growing opium is a very serious crime in Afghanistan. You can be punished with death, yet here is a policeman welcoming a BBC reporter to a poppy field at the height of the harvest."
Uncomfortably Muscular Women That Freak Me Out
Johns Hopkins Students Say First Semester Grades Give Them Depression, Should Be Abolished - ""Students from low-income backgrounds, first generation students, students struggling with mental health, students with disabilities, international students, and sexual assault survivors—as well as students whose experiences exist at intersections of marginalized race, gender, and sexuality—are disproportionately affected by the policy change"... Taicz is right that she's paying an obscene amount of money to attend Johns Hopkins. Tuition there is $50,000 a year, and that's not even including room and board. But if students like Taicz are really just looking for a network of comprehensive mental support, there are certainly cheaper counselling services out there."
This Claremont Safe Space for Women of Color Is Actually Pretty Hateful and Racist - "Are non-inclusive safe spaces—ones designed for members of a specific minority—bastions of toleration? Not at the Claremont Colleges... The Claremont Independent, a conservative student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges, recently obtained screenshots from a virtual safe space: 5C Women of Color, a Facebook group for black female students at the colleges... this so-called safe space is just really racist. One woman, an Asian student, referred to Asian men as "nerdy ones who can just hide in their tech caves" and "they get all angry when it comes to how Asian men are asexualized/emasculated." Another female student, who works for the Asian American Resource Center and sits on the mental health committee, commented, "F*ck your masculinity whiny Asian cis bros this is why I only hang out with femmes.""
This is okay but not the reverse, because men are evil
We Asked a Law Professor Whether the Government Could Really Ban Rough Sex - ""Plaintiff has no constitutionally protected and judicially enforceable fundamental liberty interest under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to engage in BDSM sexual activity."The ruling has inspired outrage within the BDSM community, but for others, the case left a lot of unanswered questions: Didn't the Supreme Court rule in 2003 that sodomy laws are invalid? Do the same protections not apply to BDSM? Should people be worried about a clampdown on kink?... Consent of the victim is generally not a defense to assault or battery—except in cases involving "ordinary physical contact" or blows incidental to sports, such as football, or boxing, or wrestling. Once something becomes sufficiently severely harmful, then yes, assault and battery laws are in part aimed at preventing injury to people. Even where consent might be present. And a classic example is a fistfight"
So much for the freedom to love and the right to privacy (under which abortion was legalised)
Outrage after gorilla Harambe killed when child falls into exhibit at Cincinnati Zoo - "The killing of a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo in order to save a child who fell in its enclosure has sparked nationwide outrage. Animal activists have created online petitions and Facebook pages after a special zoo response team shot and killed the 17-year-old gorilla named Harambe. The four-year-old boy spent a terrifying 10 to 15 minutes alone on Saturday with the adult male gorilla. Harambe grabbed and dragged the little boy after the boy fell into the gorilla exhibit, officials said. Many are angry the endangered gorilla was put down. Others want the boy's mother to face child endangerment charges, CBS News' Jamie Yuccas reported. Facebook pages like "Justice for Harambe" are quickly spreading. The Facebook page currently has more than 11,000 likes."
Looks like gorillas are more important than children. "Animal rights" is just misanthropy in disguise; if you value charismatic megafauna above other animals (I'm betting the vast majority of the protestors aren't vegan), you're still speciest - which is even less consistent/defensible than human-centred speciesm
#JusticeForHarambe Is An Absurd Hashtag - "Anyone with children knows that they disappear. It’s not unheard of. It’s totally disconcerting that the child was able to get into the gorilla enclosure, but with witnesses confirming that it happened in the blink of an eye it’s incredible that so many Perfect Parents™ are calling for the mother’s head, but of course they are. This is the internet. Land of armchair perfectionists and parents who’ve never made a mistake... A child should potentially be removed from his home and placed in foster care because his mom’s eyes strayed for a moment at the zoo? Excuse my language, but fuck every single person who signed this petition. You would petition to remove a child from his home because some sad news from a zoo made you an armchair animal activist? Go back to playing Candy Crush. You’re not needed here. In addition to the utter insanity that is a petition for a CPS investigation, everyone on the internet is all of a sudden an expert in animal behavior"
The freakout over Harambe the gorilla shows the dangers of internet mob justice - "It would be one thing if the reaction to Harambe's death were the only instance of mob justice potentially damaging people's lives. But we have seen this before: In previous cases, internet mobs have reacted angrily to certain stories or movements by harassing people, threatening their lives, and even ruining their livelihoods. The most recent example was the death of Cecil the lion... While some form of punishment may have been acceptable for Palmer, that is not for a mob to decide. In our civilized society, this is supposed to be left to the formal criminal justice system. The fundamental problem with mob justice is that it's prone to randomness... Mob justice also tends to overlook issues that are, frankly, more important. Harambe's death is sad, but it's not even close to the most tragic thing that happened in the past week. Just over the weekend, four people died and at least 53 others were wounded from gun violence in Chicago. Yet the internet mob does not, currently, seem to be in a fit of rage over those tragedies — even as there's evidence that many of these killings go unsolved."
Was Killing Harambe the Gorilla Really the Only Option? | The Scientific Parent - "Tranquilizing the animal was not an option. Just like anesthesia isn’t one size fits all for humans, it’s the same for wild animals. It would have taken time to get the right drugs at the right dose in the shot, then it would have taken time to take effect (if the dose was right), time the zoo didn’t have. Complicating matters, a large animal when tranquilized doesn’t fall to the ground dopey like they do in cartoons. Instead, the fight or flight instinct kicks in, and they can become violent... While the public saw a gorilla playing curiously with a child, myself and other zoologists saw that the child was in incredible danger the moment he fell into the moat. The gorilla ignored the zookeepers, and tranquilizing him wasn’t an option. The zoo had no choice but to kill Harambe. I’m not trying to blame the gorilla for being shot, he was only following his natural instincts. When I worked in wildlife tourism in South Africa it would shock tourists how brutal, vicious and violent nature is. The baby giraffe that adorably hobbles to its legs and runs within minutes of birth has to do this or it is dead, eaten by a predator. It is that simple. The antelope that runs the slowest doesn’t make it. The cheetah that doesn’t catch an antelope starves. A new lion taking over a pride will kill all cubs to protect his own bloodline. Around the world people die because they’ve lost their natural fear and respect of wildlife"
Black Outrage Over Gorilla Shot To Protect 'White Privilege' - "'Killing an endangered gorilla at a zoo for a white boy’s safety is white privilege. If the boy was black they would’ve found a tranquilizer'... There’s just one flaw in this GorillaLivesMatter thesis. Can you guess what it is?"
Study finds possible new jet-lag treatment: Exposure to flashing light - "Short flashes of light at night are more effective than using continuous light as therapy to prevent disruptions in people’s circadian rhythms"
10 Things I Learned About the World from Ayn Rand's Insane "Atlas Shrugged' - "The mark of a great businessman is that he sneers at the idea of public safety."
China dissatisfied with G7 statement on S China Sea - "China on Friday said it was strongly dissatisfied with a statement by G7 members, in which they expressed concern over the South China Sea"
If China controls the whole world, it's not interference in other countries' internal affairs
Amber Heard is pictured smiling hours after Depp's 'iPhone attack': Actress claims 'cocaine and booze binges turned Johnny into an abusive monster who left her fearing for her life' - but why was this image deleted before court appearance?
Johnny Depp's Exes Reportedly Slam Amber Heard's 'Outrageous' Domestic Violence Allegations
Have You Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend? Cause, Uh, We Have - "According to a study of relationships that engage in nonreciprocal violence, a whopping 70% are perpetrated by women. So basically that means that girls are beating up their BFs and husbands and the dudes aren't fighting back. With Amy Winehouse busting open a can of whupass on her husband last week, we decided to conduct an informal survey of the Jezebels to see who's gotten violent with their men. After reviewing the answers, let's just say that it'd be wise to never ever fuck with us"
Equality means women beating men up and glorifying it
Comments: "I particularly enjoyed the girl who casually admitted to drunkenly beating up her boyfriend, and her only concern was how she could stop feeling bad about it."
"Honestly I don’t know why I read Jezebel articles... I can usually give an accurate summary based on the Headline and “Jezebel”... but sometimes I am surprised. It’s like the lottery where instead of losing money, it’s man-hate and instead of winning money, it’s some level of logic."
New Demos study reveals scale of social media misogyny - "The study, which specifically monitored the use of the words ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ by UK Twitter users over a three-week period, found 6,500 unique users were targeted by 10,000 explicitly aggressive and misogynistic tweets... The study builds on Demos’ previous research in 2014, which found that ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ dominate misogynistic language on Twitter, and that both male and female users are responsible for the abuse. In this 2016 research, 50 per cent of the propagators were found to be women.
If half of "misogynists" are women, what does that say about blaming men for "patriarchy" (which is, despite the PR line, what happens in reality)?
Addendum: Also reported as: Study: 50% of 'Misogynistic' Tweets Posted by Women - "The news will come as a shock to feminist campaigners who have long claimed that men are the main perpetrators of internet trolling. It also follows a 2014 study from cosmetics firm Dove which found out of over five million negative tweets relating to beauty and body image, 80% were sent by women"
British-Palestinian schoolgirl expelled from public speaking competition - "Leanne Mohamad, a 15-year-old student at Wanstead High School in London, won a regional final of the Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge with her speech ‘Birds not Bombs’, in which she describes the historical and contemporary reality for Palestinians under Israeli settler colonialism. The Jack Petchey-sponsored competition is run by Speakers Trust, and bills itself as the world’s biggest youth speaking event... The decision to expel Mohamad, made by a Speakers Trust and Jack Petchey Foundation judging panel, was based on her breaching two rules: that “the speech must have a positive and uplifting message”, and that “a speaker should never inflame or offend the audience or insult others.”"
If you go to the Great British Bakeoff and you make the most awesome fish and chips in the world, you won't win
'They're Natural Born Killers': Wild Animals in Captivity Inherently Dangerous - "Treadwell felt he had befriended a group of wild grizzly bears. He lived among them, he could approach them and touch them and video shows Treadwell petting and talking to a bear cub that follows him around. "You are doing very well, you're a cute bear," he said. "They don't want to hurt me. They just need help." Until the day when they killed him and his girlfriend, and then devoured them both."
The Next James Bond Movie Should Go Back in Time - "Anyone can fire a gun or bug a phone, but not everyone can walk up to Auric Goldfinger on the golf course like they “belong there.” And if you’re thinking that all this makes James Bond sound like white male privilege, weaponized? That’s because he kind of is – and should that mean the audience gets to vicariously enjoy his unfettered travel to exotic destinations, welcome access to beautiful, sexually-adventurous women, flashy cars, fancy parties, and blank check for collateral mayhem? Well, now you know why they keep making these movies."
The opium farmers with the police on their side - "Growing opium is a very serious crime in Afghanistan. You can be punished with death, yet here is a policeman welcoming a BBC reporter to a poppy field at the height of the harvest."
Uncomfortably Muscular Women That Freak Me Out
Johns Hopkins Students Say First Semester Grades Give Them Depression, Should Be Abolished - ""Students from low-income backgrounds, first generation students, students struggling with mental health, students with disabilities, international students, and sexual assault survivors—as well as students whose experiences exist at intersections of marginalized race, gender, and sexuality—are disproportionately affected by the policy change"... Taicz is right that she's paying an obscene amount of money to attend Johns Hopkins. Tuition there is $50,000 a year, and that's not even including room and board. But if students like Taicz are really just looking for a network of comprehensive mental support, there are certainly cheaper counselling services out there."
This Claremont Safe Space for Women of Color Is Actually Pretty Hateful and Racist - "Are non-inclusive safe spaces—ones designed for members of a specific minority—bastions of toleration? Not at the Claremont Colleges... The Claremont Independent, a conservative student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges, recently obtained screenshots from a virtual safe space: 5C Women of Color, a Facebook group for black female students at the colleges... this so-called safe space is just really racist. One woman, an Asian student, referred to Asian men as "nerdy ones who can just hide in their tech caves" and "they get all angry when it comes to how Asian men are asexualized/emasculated." Another female student, who works for the Asian American Resource Center and sits on the mental health committee, commented, "F*ck your masculinity whiny Asian cis bros this is why I only hang out with femmes.""
This is okay but not the reverse, because men are evil
We Asked a Law Professor Whether the Government Could Really Ban Rough Sex - ""Plaintiff has no constitutionally protected and judicially enforceable fundamental liberty interest under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to engage in BDSM sexual activity."The ruling has inspired outrage within the BDSM community, but for others, the case left a lot of unanswered questions: Didn't the Supreme Court rule in 2003 that sodomy laws are invalid? Do the same protections not apply to BDSM? Should people be worried about a clampdown on kink?... Consent of the victim is generally not a defense to assault or battery—except in cases involving "ordinary physical contact" or blows incidental to sports, such as football, or boxing, or wrestling. Once something becomes sufficiently severely harmful, then yes, assault and battery laws are in part aimed at preventing injury to people. Even where consent might be present. And a classic example is a fistfight"
So much for the freedom to love and the right to privacy (under which abortion was legalised)
Post ID: 5551798528733362638
Rubbish and Toilet Law in Singapore
Singapore Statutes Online - 3 - Environmental Public Health (Public Cleansing) Regulations
"The occupier of any domestic premises shall provide one or more refuse bins, as may be necessary, to contain the refuse therefrom...
Every refuse bin referred to in paragraph (1) or (1A) shall be —
(f) placed not later than 7 a.m. each day or at such other time or times as may be specified by the Director-General or an authorised officer —
(i) on the edge of the footway;
(ii) outside the gate of the house;
(iii) at a refuse bin centre or refuse bin compartment;
(iv) in some suitable and accessible position; or
(v) in such other place as may be directed by the Director-General or a public health officer...
5.—(1) If, in any proceedings for any contravention of regulation 3(3) or 4(3)(a), it is shown that any dust, dirt, ashes, offal, rubbish, trade refuse or other matter or thing was not deposited in a refuse bin or receptacle but in or on any street, drain or place, such street, drain or place being immediately in front of, behind or by the side of any building or land, it shall be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, that the same was deposited there by, or with the permission of, the occupier of the building or land.
(2) For the purposes of regulations 3 and 4, where any building or premises have been sublet, the chief tenant or the person receiving rent from the sub-tenants shall be deemed to be the occupier of the building or premises...
8.—(1) No person shall sweep or cause or permit to be swept any dust, dirt, ashes, refuse, rubbish or other matter or thing onto or into any footway, back-lane, drain or road...
9. No person who acts as a barber shall conduct or carry on his business on or in —
(a) the common passageway, corridor, landing, stairway or courtyard of any premises; or
(b) any footway, back-lane or road...
12.—(1) No person shall deposit or cause or permit to be deposited in any refuse bin any dead animal, dung or stable refuse...
15.—(1) No person shall urinate or defecate in or upon any street, arcade, vacant land, river, canal, ditch, drain or watercourse or in any place to which the public has access except in any sanitary convenience provided for such purpose...
16A. Every owner or occupier of a building shall ensure that the toilets therein to which the public has access are at all times provided with adequate toilet paper, soap or liquid detergent, litter bins, and clean towels or hand dryers...
23.—(1) The owner of every omnibus shall provide in a convenient place therein one or more receptacles for depositing litter.
(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), “omnibus” means any vehicle, having a seating capacity for more than 6 persons, which is used for the carriage of persons for hire or reward...
26.—(1) No person shall —
(b) park any vehicle, other than a public cleansing vehicle, within 10 metres of any street refuse bin point, refuse bin centre or refuse bin compartment."
Takeaways:
- You can hide your external dustbin before 7am (at least)
- If you dump on someone's premises and no one sees you, the owner is guilty.
- You can't sweep your dust into the drain or onto the road
- Alley-way barbers are illegal
- What do you do if your dog dies? And you don't have a garden to bury him in (I'm sure burying him on public land violates some other law)
- It's lucky that the SAF trains on restricted land, or soldiers would not be able to urinate and/or defecate on it
- If you go to a public toilet and there's no toilet paper and/or soap, you can call the police
- You can't park near refuse collection points
"The occupier of any domestic premises shall provide one or more refuse bins, as may be necessary, to contain the refuse therefrom...
Every refuse bin referred to in paragraph (1) or (1A) shall be —
(f) placed not later than 7 a.m. each day or at such other time or times as may be specified by the Director-General or an authorised officer —
(i) on the edge of the footway;
(ii) outside the gate of the house;
(iii) at a refuse bin centre or refuse bin compartment;
(iv) in some suitable and accessible position; or
(v) in such other place as may be directed by the Director-General or a public health officer...
5.—(1) If, in any proceedings for any contravention of regulation 3(3) or 4(3)(a), it is shown that any dust, dirt, ashes, offal, rubbish, trade refuse or other matter or thing was not deposited in a refuse bin or receptacle but in or on any street, drain or place, such street, drain or place being immediately in front of, behind or by the side of any building or land, it shall be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, that the same was deposited there by, or with the permission of, the occupier of the building or land.
(2) For the purposes of regulations 3 and 4, where any building or premises have been sublet, the chief tenant or the person receiving rent from the sub-tenants shall be deemed to be the occupier of the building or premises...
8.—(1) No person shall sweep or cause or permit to be swept any dust, dirt, ashes, refuse, rubbish or other matter or thing onto or into any footway, back-lane, drain or road...
9. No person who acts as a barber shall conduct or carry on his business on or in —
(a) the common passageway, corridor, landing, stairway or courtyard of any premises; or
(b) any footway, back-lane or road...
12.—(1) No person shall deposit or cause or permit to be deposited in any refuse bin any dead animal, dung or stable refuse...
15.—(1) No person shall urinate or defecate in or upon any street, arcade, vacant land, river, canal, ditch, drain or watercourse or in any place to which the public has access except in any sanitary convenience provided for such purpose...
16A. Every owner or occupier of a building shall ensure that the toilets therein to which the public has access are at all times provided with adequate toilet paper, soap or liquid detergent, litter bins, and clean towels or hand dryers...
23.—(1) The owner of every omnibus shall provide in a convenient place therein one or more receptacles for depositing litter.
(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), “omnibus” means any vehicle, having a seating capacity for more than 6 persons, which is used for the carriage of persons for hire or reward...
26.—(1) No person shall —
(b) park any vehicle, other than a public cleansing vehicle, within 10 metres of any street refuse bin point, refuse bin centre or refuse bin compartment."
Takeaways:
- You can hide your external dustbin before 7am (at least)
- If you dump on someone's premises and no one sees you, the owner is guilty.
- You can't sweep your dust into the drain or onto the road
- Alley-way barbers are illegal
- What do you do if your dog dies? And you don't have a garden to bury him in (I'm sure burying him on public land violates some other law)
- It's lucky that the SAF trains on restricted land, or soldiers would not be able to urinate and/or defecate on it
- If you go to a public toilet and there's no toilet paper and/or soap, you can call the police
- You can't park near refuse collection points
Post ID: 2650607445954120931
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Links - 10th July 2016
Double races to be printed in NRIC to help foreigners avoid being called "bastard" [Archive] - Sam's Alfresco Coffee - The most Offensive and Politically Incorrect Forum ever! - "Undergraduate Shahril Yong, 24, lamented that the new flexibility came too late for him. Although he looks Malay, his race is classified as Chinese - his father's race. Before this year, children of mixed-race parentage had no choice but to take their paternal race. 'If my IC had said Malay, I could have received a university tuition fee subsidy,' he said. 'If I were younger, I would change to Malay-Chinese for that.'"
Addendum: This is a good article to show those who claim that Malays now pay the same university tuition fees as everyone. Even if it won't convince the Chinese Privilege crowd
Money no enough: Nearly half of Singaporean households are subsisting from paycheck to paycheck - "a report by CLSA revealed that almost half of households across the island are saving less than 10% of their monthly incomes, leaving them unable to cope with unexpected financial expenses. The report revealed that 30% of Singaporean households save less than 10% of their incomes, while an alarming 14% have no savings at all... an unexpected 37% of the top-income bracket is essentially spending everything they earn."
Disaster in the making: 4 out of 5 young Singaporeans have no savings - "Most Singaporeans aged 20-35 years old are just one missed payment away from a financial disaster. Figures released today by a Singapore based financial website point to a shocking lack of financial planning by younger people, as 4 out of 5 respondents have no savings at all."
Mom Was Called To School After Her Daughter Hit Another Student. Her Response Was Perfect. - "The boy had twanged my daughter’s bra and she had punched him in the face twice. I got the impression they were more angry with my daughter than the boy"
Almost everyone is cheering what the girl did. But if you use disproportionate force to defend yourself, you are no longer a pure victim. Also why is bra snapping considered sexual assault? Since teenage girls sometimes snap/unhook each other's bras are they sexually assaulting each other? Is giving someone a wedgie sexual assault? Is taupoking someone (non sexual) assault?
Father jailed for killing burglar - "Judge Barker told Hastings he had repeatedly stabbed Mr Williams in the back, the majority of the attack taking place outside the house when the possibility of danger was over. He said: "What you did could not possibly have been done while you were still under threat. "You had gone into the attack and you were engaged in retaliation. "Although Roger Williams was a burglar and had no right to be there, a householder is not entitled to use more than reasonable force to defend himself."
Millionaire Munir Hussain who fought off a knife-wielding burglar is jailed (while the intruder is let off) - "Mr Hussain made a break for freedom by throwing a coffee table at his attackers. He and Tokeer chased the gang and brought Salem to the ground in a front garden. Reading Crown Court heard how Mr Hussain and his brother then beat Salem while he lay on the ground, using a cricket bat, a pole and a hockey stick - leaving him with a fractured skull and brain damage following the 'sustained' attack... 'The prosecution rightly made it plain that there was no allegation against you, Munir Hussain, in respect of the force you used against Salem in defending your own home and family or of the force used by either of you in apprehending Salem. 'However, the attack which then occurred was totally unnecessary and amounted to a very violent revenge attack on a defenceless man... The 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act sets out the terms on which people might 'use no more force than absolutely necessary' against criminals. Victims or those who intervene to stop a criminal have the backing of the law if they act instinctively, if they fear for their safety and act accordingly, if they act to prevent a criminal escaping, or if their use of force is neither 'excessive nor disproportionate'."
Keywords: tied up, robbery, burglar, robber, jailed, paralysed, beaten, judge, called brother, daily mail, grossly disproportionate force
Airdre Mattner raped in South Korea: 60 Minutes preview - "the only way to find justice in South Korea was to run her own campaign. In doing so, she exposed a culture where violence against women, particularly foreigners, is often accepted... Western women are even known as “white whores” in some circles, added Langdon. After an international outcry when Airdre went public, police were forced to respond, and a Nigerian man was arrested for her rape. But he’s being prosecuted for sexual harassment rather than rape or even assault, because she was unconscious and therefore cannot prove she didn’t consent... Most hospitals don’t have rape kits and there are even websites where people can live stream rapes of unconscious women, and ask to join in."
Comment (from elsewhere): "Thing is, it's not just men being violent towards women. In Korea you will have no hard time spotting ladies hitting the guys, yelling or pulling hair.. Violence is somehow smoothly incorporated into their communication strategies :| And k-dramas do a fine job romanticizing it."
A Marvel Editor Explains How Captain America Was a Hydra Agent All Along - "In the comic the Red Skull of Hydra talks about “criminal trespassers” who “make a mockery” of America’s borders and calls the refugees in Germany an “invading army” bringing “fanatical beliefs and crime” to Europe. Obviously, this hate speech is nothing new for the organization, but it sounds like rhetoric we’ve been hearing this election. Is that purposeful?"
Maybe the moral of the story is that if you refuse to confront genuine issues and insist on keeping your head buried in the sand, don't be surprised when even moral and upright people turn to the "wrong side"
Young women, give up the vocal fry and reclaim your strong female voice
You know feminism is about first world problems when you have articles like these
Comments: "There is no patriarchy. It died decades ago. The patriarchy is to feminism what Emmanuel Goldstein was to the government of Oceania. It is something upon which every problem can be blamed even though nobody has seen it for decades."
"Women's voices are naturally higher in pitch (which is why Thatcher was famously coached in adopting a deeper tone). Some modes of speaking are less convincing. These were not taught to women by men in a dastardly move to block their advancement. Think about it: why would you want people around you to speak in a way that you can't stand? Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted". And let me never fall into the mistake of thinking that every barrier in my way has been put there deliberately to thwart my progress by unseen forces of a certain party/race/gender/ or anything else. And if I do, let me seek therapy!"
"You're just bumbling along minding your own business when suddenly you are part of the global patriarchy teaching women to talk in silly ways to keep them down. Muhahahahah you have uncovered my fiendish plot Commander Bond."
"Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that between the ages of 22 and 29 women earn 1.1% more than men of the same age, and between 30 and 39 women earn 0.2% more than men in the same age group (note PER HOUR)... Even in the Guardian they have had to admit this but via snide articles... This pay gap reduces and then reverses around the average age of having children. Guardian style feminists want to be paid the same despite spending less time at work and having multiple career gaps."
"There's a great explanation (by an actual linguist, which I don't think the author is) of why this article is pretty dubious, and antifeminist"
"Thanks for a great link presenting a more intelligent argument than that given above: the endless scrutiny of every aspect of women's lives is really a problem, and the article above is just another aspect of this (as indeed are most of the comments below the line).
Also maybe the the use of terms like "the patriarchy" and statements like "our culture assigned them a socially appropriate mannerism" is even more self-undermining than any amount of vocal fry or uptalk."
"Seriously is there anything which men can't be blamed for by feminists? 'Pah! Men are the reason women have periods...'"
Just don’t do it | language: a feminist guide - "No one writes articles telling men how they’re damaging their career prospects by using the wrong words. With women, on the other hand, it’s a regular occurrence... why bother with evidence when you can put your faith in stereotypes? On Friday, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour did exactly that. During an item in which the comedian Viv Groskop discussed her new show about women’s habit of constantly saying sorry, another guest, the linguist Louise Mullany, pointed out that the stereotype of women constantly saying sorry has not been borne out by research. But the presenter and Groskop just brushed this aside... This endless policing of women’s language—their voices, their intonation patterns, the words they use, their syntax—is uncomfortably similar to the way our culture polices women’s bodily appearance... When feminists encounter articles with headlines like ‘Are you eating too much fruit?’ or ‘Why implants are the new Botox’, they know they are in the presence of Beauty Myth bullshit, whose purpose is to make women feel bad about themselves. Feminists do not share those articles approvingly on Facebook. Yet a high proportion of my feminist acquaintance did share Leanse’s ‘just’ piece, and some of them shared the Jezebel commentary which appeared under the headline ‘Women, stop saying “just” so much, it makes you sound like children’. An article headed ‘Women, stop eating so much fruit, it makes you put on weight’ would immediately have raised their hackles. So why was the Jezebel piece acceptable?... it’s an argument that most linguists now regard as problematic"
Why women talk less | language: a feminist guide - "In a study of same-sex group discussions among secondary school pupils, Judith Baxter found that boys who emerged as leaders were able to do so because other boys deferred to their suggestions, echoed their comments and laughed at their jokes. Among girls there were individuals who behaved in similar ways to the dominant boys, but their attempts to take the lead were less successful, because they were not supported by other girls. In fact, they were actively resisted and resented. The class teacher told Baxter that girls did not accept other girls’ authority, whereas no one had a problem with boys taking charge. The girls themselves were blunter, saying: ‘boys aren’t as bitchy as girls. And girls aren’t as bitchy to blokes’... Rather than waiting for permission to speak, boys call out when they have something to say. Girls do this less often, and teachers’ reaction when they do it is much less tolerant. Something similar has been observed among adults"
Female aggression and mate competition manifest themselves in multiple ways
Young women are now earning more than men – that's not sexist, just fair
Comment: "After being bombarded for yoinks by articles by the Graun feminists subtly pushing their version of equality - men are wrong, basically (see the one yesterday about masculinity being inherently wrong/evil) - they finally got sloppy and outright state their real world view. And it's basically that they want to put women first and men a distant second. Anyone who believes feminists (at least the ones that write for the Graun) are any sort of believers in equality are fucking idiots."
Can cosmetic brands afford to opt out of China over animal testing? - "Asia's beauty sector has become quite lucrative for Western brands, however they have been faced with the challenge of holding onto cruelty free claims while also being able to take a piece of China’s $26.3 bn cosmetics market. Brands like Urban Decay have had to pull out of the country at the last minute, after coming under fire due to its conflicting animal testing policy... foreign firms still have to submit their cosmetics for animal testing before selling them in China"
Fast running is as deadly as sitting on couch, scientists find - Telegraph - "Too much exercise really can kill you, scientists have discovered, after finding runners who speed along at 7mph or more are doing themselves more harm than good. A study of 1,098 runners found that those who ran the fastest were nine times more likely to die prematurely within 12 years than those who enjoyed a more sedate pace of around 5mph for two or three times a week. In fact, strenuous runners were as likely to die as those who did no physical activity"
Kids are more likely to trust attractive adults - "more children, especially girls, selected the attractive face initially and both boys and girls were more likely to believe the answer given by the more attractive face"
What is Beautiful is Culturally Good: The Physical Attractiveness Stereotype has Different Content in Collectivistic Cultures - "A total of 157 university students in Korea rated photos of other Korean students at three levels of attractiveness on dimensions included in meta-analyses of the physical attractiveness stereotype as shown in North America. Consistent with predictions based on the greater tendency in collectivistic cultures to stress harmonious relationships, participants did not perceive attractive targets as higher in potency, as North American participants do, and did perceive attractive targets as higher in integrity and in concern for others, as North American participants do not. It is argued that all cultures stereotype on the basis of physical attractiveness but that the content of the stereotype depends on cultural values. An explanation for attractiveness stereotyping is offered that is applicable to any culture."
The Sex Toys of the Future Are Here — And We Should All Be Excited About Them - "Traditionally, there have been few options on the sex toy market available for men, or at least not as many as there were for women. Fortunately, there's evidence to suggest the stigma is loosening its grip on the conversation... Brian Sloan, inventor of the Autoblow 2, is confident that it will one day become just as acceptable for men to own sex toys as it is for women. "I guess it's kind of a double standard, that it's normal now for women but it's not yet normal for men," he told the Daily Dot last year. "But I gotta think that it'll equalize. If women's products are being sold at Walgreen's, pretty soon men's products will be, too."
Casuarina Curry - "If setup is in places with no lift access, additional $50 for every level of stairs"
BBC World Service - The World This Week, The lessons of Hillsborough - "I've been covering Sudanese and South Sudanese politics for many years, and one thing I've noticed is that when people call each other brother, there's usually an insult coming"
Addendum: This is a good article to show those who claim that Malays now pay the same university tuition fees as everyone. Even if it won't convince the Chinese Privilege crowd
Money no enough: Nearly half of Singaporean households are subsisting from paycheck to paycheck - "a report by CLSA revealed that almost half of households across the island are saving less than 10% of their monthly incomes, leaving them unable to cope with unexpected financial expenses. The report revealed that 30% of Singaporean households save less than 10% of their incomes, while an alarming 14% have no savings at all... an unexpected 37% of the top-income bracket is essentially spending everything they earn."
Disaster in the making: 4 out of 5 young Singaporeans have no savings - "Most Singaporeans aged 20-35 years old are just one missed payment away from a financial disaster. Figures released today by a Singapore based financial website point to a shocking lack of financial planning by younger people, as 4 out of 5 respondents have no savings at all."
Mom Was Called To School After Her Daughter Hit Another Student. Her Response Was Perfect. - "The boy had twanged my daughter’s bra and she had punched him in the face twice. I got the impression they were more angry with my daughter than the boy"
Almost everyone is cheering what the girl did. But if you use disproportionate force to defend yourself, you are no longer a pure victim. Also why is bra snapping considered sexual assault? Since teenage girls sometimes snap/unhook each other's bras are they sexually assaulting each other? Is giving someone a wedgie sexual assault? Is taupoking someone (non sexual) assault?
Father jailed for killing burglar - "Judge Barker told Hastings he had repeatedly stabbed Mr Williams in the back, the majority of the attack taking place outside the house when the possibility of danger was over. He said: "What you did could not possibly have been done while you were still under threat. "You had gone into the attack and you were engaged in retaliation. "Although Roger Williams was a burglar and had no right to be there, a householder is not entitled to use more than reasonable force to defend himself."
Millionaire Munir Hussain who fought off a knife-wielding burglar is jailed (while the intruder is let off) - "Mr Hussain made a break for freedom by throwing a coffee table at his attackers. He and Tokeer chased the gang and brought Salem to the ground in a front garden. Reading Crown Court heard how Mr Hussain and his brother then beat Salem while he lay on the ground, using a cricket bat, a pole and a hockey stick - leaving him with a fractured skull and brain damage following the 'sustained' attack... 'The prosecution rightly made it plain that there was no allegation against you, Munir Hussain, in respect of the force you used against Salem in defending your own home and family or of the force used by either of you in apprehending Salem. 'However, the attack which then occurred was totally unnecessary and amounted to a very violent revenge attack on a defenceless man... The 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act sets out the terms on which people might 'use no more force than absolutely necessary' against criminals. Victims or those who intervene to stop a criminal have the backing of the law if they act instinctively, if they fear for their safety and act accordingly, if they act to prevent a criminal escaping, or if their use of force is neither 'excessive nor disproportionate'."
Keywords: tied up, robbery, burglar, robber, jailed, paralysed, beaten, judge, called brother, daily mail, grossly disproportionate force
Airdre Mattner raped in South Korea: 60 Minutes preview - "the only way to find justice in South Korea was to run her own campaign. In doing so, she exposed a culture where violence against women, particularly foreigners, is often accepted... Western women are even known as “white whores” in some circles, added Langdon. After an international outcry when Airdre went public, police were forced to respond, and a Nigerian man was arrested for her rape. But he’s being prosecuted for sexual harassment rather than rape or even assault, because she was unconscious and therefore cannot prove she didn’t consent... Most hospitals don’t have rape kits and there are even websites where people can live stream rapes of unconscious women, and ask to join in."
Comment (from elsewhere): "Thing is, it's not just men being violent towards women. In Korea you will have no hard time spotting ladies hitting the guys, yelling or pulling hair.. Violence is somehow smoothly incorporated into their communication strategies :| And k-dramas do a fine job romanticizing it."
A Marvel Editor Explains How Captain America Was a Hydra Agent All Along - "In the comic the Red Skull of Hydra talks about “criminal trespassers” who “make a mockery” of America’s borders and calls the refugees in Germany an “invading army” bringing “fanatical beliefs and crime” to Europe. Obviously, this hate speech is nothing new for the organization, but it sounds like rhetoric we’ve been hearing this election. Is that purposeful?"
Maybe the moral of the story is that if you refuse to confront genuine issues and insist on keeping your head buried in the sand, don't be surprised when even moral and upright people turn to the "wrong side"
Young women, give up the vocal fry and reclaim your strong female voice
You know feminism is about first world problems when you have articles like these
Comments: "There is no patriarchy. It died decades ago. The patriarchy is to feminism what Emmanuel Goldstein was to the government of Oceania. It is something upon which every problem can be blamed even though nobody has seen it for decades."
"Women's voices are naturally higher in pitch (which is why Thatcher was famously coached in adopting a deeper tone). Some modes of speaking are less convincing. These were not taught to women by men in a dastardly move to block their advancement. Think about it: why would you want people around you to speak in a way that you can't stand? Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted". And let me never fall into the mistake of thinking that every barrier in my way has been put there deliberately to thwart my progress by unseen forces of a certain party/race/gender/ or anything else. And if I do, let me seek therapy!"
"You're just bumbling along minding your own business when suddenly you are part of the global patriarchy teaching women to talk in silly ways to keep them down. Muhahahahah you have uncovered my fiendish plot Commander Bond."
"Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that between the ages of 22 and 29 women earn 1.1% more than men of the same age, and between 30 and 39 women earn 0.2% more than men in the same age group (note PER HOUR)... Even in the Guardian they have had to admit this but via snide articles... This pay gap reduces and then reverses around the average age of having children. Guardian style feminists want to be paid the same despite spending less time at work and having multiple career gaps."
"There's a great explanation (by an actual linguist, which I don't think the author is) of why this article is pretty dubious, and antifeminist"
"Thanks for a great link presenting a more intelligent argument than that given above: the endless scrutiny of every aspect of women's lives is really a problem, and the article above is just another aspect of this (as indeed are most of the comments below the line).
Also maybe the the use of terms like "the patriarchy" and statements like "our culture assigned them a socially appropriate mannerism" is even more self-undermining than any amount of vocal fry or uptalk."
"Seriously is there anything which men can't be blamed for by feminists? 'Pah! Men are the reason women have periods...'"
Just don’t do it | language: a feminist guide - "No one writes articles telling men how they’re damaging their career prospects by using the wrong words. With women, on the other hand, it’s a regular occurrence... why bother with evidence when you can put your faith in stereotypes? On Friday, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour did exactly that. During an item in which the comedian Viv Groskop discussed her new show about women’s habit of constantly saying sorry, another guest, the linguist Louise Mullany, pointed out that the stereotype of women constantly saying sorry has not been borne out by research. But the presenter and Groskop just brushed this aside... This endless policing of women’s language—their voices, their intonation patterns, the words they use, their syntax—is uncomfortably similar to the way our culture polices women’s bodily appearance... When feminists encounter articles with headlines like ‘Are you eating too much fruit?’ or ‘Why implants are the new Botox’, they know they are in the presence of Beauty Myth bullshit, whose purpose is to make women feel bad about themselves. Feminists do not share those articles approvingly on Facebook. Yet a high proportion of my feminist acquaintance did share Leanse’s ‘just’ piece, and some of them shared the Jezebel commentary which appeared under the headline ‘Women, stop saying “just” so much, it makes you sound like children’. An article headed ‘Women, stop eating so much fruit, it makes you put on weight’ would immediately have raised their hackles. So why was the Jezebel piece acceptable?... it’s an argument that most linguists now regard as problematic"
Why women talk less | language: a feminist guide - "In a study of same-sex group discussions among secondary school pupils, Judith Baxter found that boys who emerged as leaders were able to do so because other boys deferred to their suggestions, echoed their comments and laughed at their jokes. Among girls there were individuals who behaved in similar ways to the dominant boys, but their attempts to take the lead were less successful, because they were not supported by other girls. In fact, they were actively resisted and resented. The class teacher told Baxter that girls did not accept other girls’ authority, whereas no one had a problem with boys taking charge. The girls themselves were blunter, saying: ‘boys aren’t as bitchy as girls. And girls aren’t as bitchy to blokes’... Rather than waiting for permission to speak, boys call out when they have something to say. Girls do this less often, and teachers’ reaction when they do it is much less tolerant. Something similar has been observed among adults"
Female aggression and mate competition manifest themselves in multiple ways
Young women are now earning more than men – that's not sexist, just fair
Comment: "After being bombarded for yoinks by articles by the Graun feminists subtly pushing their version of equality - men are wrong, basically (see the one yesterday about masculinity being inherently wrong/evil) - they finally got sloppy and outright state their real world view. And it's basically that they want to put women first and men a distant second. Anyone who believes feminists (at least the ones that write for the Graun) are any sort of believers in equality are fucking idiots."
Can cosmetic brands afford to opt out of China over animal testing? - "Asia's beauty sector has become quite lucrative for Western brands, however they have been faced with the challenge of holding onto cruelty free claims while also being able to take a piece of China’s $26.3 bn cosmetics market. Brands like Urban Decay have had to pull out of the country at the last minute, after coming under fire due to its conflicting animal testing policy... foreign firms still have to submit their cosmetics for animal testing before selling them in China"
Fast running is as deadly as sitting on couch, scientists find - Telegraph - "Too much exercise really can kill you, scientists have discovered, after finding runners who speed along at 7mph or more are doing themselves more harm than good. A study of 1,098 runners found that those who ran the fastest were nine times more likely to die prematurely within 12 years than those who enjoyed a more sedate pace of around 5mph for two or three times a week. In fact, strenuous runners were as likely to die as those who did no physical activity"
Kids are more likely to trust attractive adults - "more children, especially girls, selected the attractive face initially and both boys and girls were more likely to believe the answer given by the more attractive face"
What is Beautiful is Culturally Good: The Physical Attractiveness Stereotype has Different Content in Collectivistic Cultures - "A total of 157 university students in Korea rated photos of other Korean students at three levels of attractiveness on dimensions included in meta-analyses of the physical attractiveness stereotype as shown in North America. Consistent with predictions based on the greater tendency in collectivistic cultures to stress harmonious relationships, participants did not perceive attractive targets as higher in potency, as North American participants do, and did perceive attractive targets as higher in integrity and in concern for others, as North American participants do not. It is argued that all cultures stereotype on the basis of physical attractiveness but that the content of the stereotype depends on cultural values. An explanation for attractiveness stereotyping is offered that is applicable to any culture."
The Sex Toys of the Future Are Here — And We Should All Be Excited About Them - "Traditionally, there have been few options on the sex toy market available for men, or at least not as many as there were for women. Fortunately, there's evidence to suggest the stigma is loosening its grip on the conversation... Brian Sloan, inventor of the Autoblow 2, is confident that it will one day become just as acceptable for men to own sex toys as it is for women. "I guess it's kind of a double standard, that it's normal now for women but it's not yet normal for men," he told the Daily Dot last year. "But I gotta think that it'll equalize. If women's products are being sold at Walgreen's, pretty soon men's products will be, too."
Casuarina Curry - "If setup is in places with no lift access, additional $50 for every level of stairs"
BBC World Service - The World This Week, The lessons of Hillsborough - "I've been covering Sudanese and South Sudanese politics for many years, and one thing I've noticed is that when people call each other brother, there's usually an insult coming"
Post ID: 4175843221355817925
Links: "Black Lives Matter"
Black Lives Matter Activist Hijacks Orlando Shooting Vigil, Complains About White Attendees - "“I was really nervous to get up here because there’s a lot of white people in the crowd” said the activist, while audience members nervously laughed. “That wasn’t a joke” she added. “I wish this many people came out to our racial demonstrations and our Black Lives Matter movements. I don’t want to stand up here and be angry, because this isn’t for me, this isn’t for you, it’s for the people that we lost, and the people that we lose tomorrow, and the people that lost yesterday. But I thought I’d take a moment to list out some facts that many of you probably don’t know because you’re white”. The activist, who would better be described as a protester, then went on to complain about racial tensions in America and belittle the audience that was grieving for the loss of nearly 50 lives."
The Myths of Black Lives Matter - WSJ - "Police officers—of all races—are also disproportionately endangered by black assailants. Over the past decade, according to FBI data, 40% of cop killers have been black. Officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police. Some may find evidence of police bias in the fact that blacks make up 26% of the police-shooting victims, compared with their 13% representation in the national population. But as residents of poor black neighborhoods know too well, violent crimes are disproportionately committed by blacks. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of murders and 45% of assaults in the 75 largest U.S. counties in 2009, though they made up roughly 15% of the population there... The Black Lives Matter movement claims that white officers are especially prone to shooting innocent blacks due to racial bias, but this too is a myth. A March 2015 Justice Department report on the Philadelphia Police Department found that black and Hispanic officers were much more likely than white officers to shoot blacks based on “threat misperception”—that is, the mistaken belief that a civilian is armed... it is a scandal that outrage is heaped less on the dysfunctional culture that produces so many victims than on the police officers who try to protect them."
Detroit man who murdered two white teens declares 'black lives matter' during sentencing
What does it say when a convicted murderer takes up the cry?
Bill Clinton’s in trouble for telling the truth to Black Lives Matter - "He defended the old term “super predator” as an accurate description of gang leaders who prey on kids — not realizing that the phrase has been deemed dehumanizing (gang leaders are very sensitive to such microaggressions). Instead of denouncing the police as agents of systemic racism, he defended sending more of them into the streets. And by using the phrase “black lives” in the context of blacks killing other blacks, he signaled he doesn’t get that the only approved use of the slogan is as a bludgeon against the criminal justice system... From 1976 to 2005, blacks were 47 percent of murder victims. Bill Clinton’s talk of kids wasn’t just pulling at the heartstrings. During the crack epidemic in Washington, DC, about 500 kids were shot and stabbed in a roughly two-year period. Since their communities suffered so grievously from drug crime, black Democrats supported important legislative elements of the crackdown on drug offenses from the 1970s onward. Yet the war on drugs wasn’t the main driver of the remarkable 30-year rise in incarceration, from roughly 300,000 to more than 1.6 million. According to John Pfaff of Fordham Law School, less than 20 percent of the inmates in state prisons (they house most US prisoners) are there primarily on drug charges. The vast majority are guilty of violent or property offenses."
As per CNN: "The protesters shouted that "black youth are not super predators," taking issue with a phrase then-first lady Hillary Clinton used in a 1996 speech about violent crime committed by young people. They heckled Bill Clinton for the 1994 crime bill he signed into law as president that cracked down on gangs but also put more non-violent offenders in prison for longer stays. "You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter," the former president told protesters... Clinton repeatedly said, "I love protesters" -- but complained that they wouldn't let him respond. "Here's the thing. I like protesters, but the ones that won't let you answer are afraid of the truth. That's a simple rule," Clinton said.
Study: Black Lives Matter Wrong about Police - "The kinds of shootings that launched the Black Lives Matter movement — white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent “less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings.” The Post does its best to hype the racial injustice of this statistic, proclaiming that while “black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year.” But that claim is misleading on a number of counts.Crime doesn’t break down on neat, proportionate demographic lines. Criminals are overwhelmingly male (police killed very few women this year, but no one argues that law enforcement is sexist), and violent criminals are disproportionately black. In fact, blacks “commit homicide at close to eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined.”"
Ferguson report: No evidence Michael Brown had hands up - ""Hands up, don't shoot" is now about more than the shooting that killed Michael Brown, but it's also not an accurate representation of the incident that sparked nationwide protests, federal investigators concluded in a report released Wednesday. The Justice Department's investigation into Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson's shooting of Brown concluded that witness accounts that the African-American teenager surrendered with his hands up "do not support the prosecution of Wilson".... Physical and forensic evidence in fact contradict claims by witnesses who have maintained that Brown had his hands up, above his waist when Wilson shot him, the Justice Department concluded"
What does it say if you take up a lie as your slogan?
Black and Unarmed: Behind the Numbers - "The rate at which unarmed black men were more likely than unarmed white men to die by police gunfire had dropped, but was still six-to-one. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. It is worth looking at the specific cases included in the Post’s unarmed victim classification in some detail, since that category is the most politically explosive. The “unarmed” label is literally accurate, but it frequently fails to convey highly-charged policing situations. In a number of cases, if the victim ended up being unarmed, it was certainly not for lack of trying. At least five black victims had reportedly tried to grab the officer’s gun, or had been beating the cop with his own equipment. Some were shot from an accidental discharge triggered by their own assault on the officer. And two individuals included in the Post’s “unarmed black victims” category were struck by stray bullets aimed at someone else in justified cop shootings. If the victims were not the intended targets, then racism could have played no role in their deaths... Other unarmed black victims in the Post’s database were so fiercely resisting arrest, judging from press accounts, that the officers involved could reasonably have viewed them as posing a grave danger... The Post’s cases do not support the idea that the police have a more demanding standard for using lethal force when confronting unarmed white suspects"
This study found race matters in police shootings, but the results may surprise you - "even with white officers who do have racial biases, officers are three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects... a 1977 analysis of reports from major metropolitan departments which found officers fired more shots at white suspects than at black suspects, possibly because of “public sentiment concerning treatment of blacks.” And in 2004, David Klinger at the University of Missouri-St. Louis interviewed more than 100 officers and found “evidence of increased wariness about using deadly force against black suspects for fear of how it would be perceived and the associated consequences.”"
Some claim that because this was an experiment it says nothing about the real world. Yet, that would mean we'd need to ignore all psychology experiments.
"Another instance where investigators endeavor to reduce observer effects is the use of deception in laboratory experiments, particularly in fields like social psychology. If research participants know the study’s purpose right from the outset, their behavior will probably not be representative of how they would act otherwise. So the participants are kept ignorant, usually by being deliberately misled. The well-known Milgrim experiment offers a case in point. To obtain valid results, the participants had to be told that (a) the investigator was studying the role of punishment on pair- associate learning, (b) the punishment was being administered using a device that delivered real electric shocks, and (c) the learner who was receiving those shocks was experiencing real pain and was suffering from a heart condition. All three of these assertions were false but largely necessary (with the exception of the very last deception)." --- Encyclopedia of Research Design, Volume 1 / Neil J. Salkind (ed)
Black Lives Matter Protesters Target White People Eating Brunch - "Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrated against police brutality across New York on Sunday by interrupting white people eating brunch, a clear sign that the movement which, started with unrest in Ferguson, Missouri back in November, is beginning to lose steam. Social justice warriors tweeted out photos of handfuls of demonstrators crashing cafes and restaurants with captions such as, “ATTN WHITE Man, I have no guilt disturbing your brunch. Its YOU that has no right to be here”... Another tweet asserted the protesters were “interrupting white supremacy one brunch at a time”... “Progressive activists are becoming increasingly desperate to maintain what they saw as momentum for their cause,” writes Derek Hunter. “But, as is the case with any dying movement, when the larger crowds dwindle, the only people left are the extremists and radicals who have no appeal to anyone outside of their fellow radicals.”"
Fighting "racism" by annoying white people. Then again people can use the "no true Black Lives Matter activist" defence - like with feminists (e.g. "not all feminists")
Alternate link: if you don't like Infowars - #BlackLivesMatter Protesters Hit Whites Where It Truly Hurts: Brunch
The racist protester that shut down the Bernie Sanders rally - "Sipping On White Tears"
This New Video Of Alton Sterling’s Death Creates Questions, Not Answers - "This unsecured right arm, potentially able to reach the weapon in his right front pocket, dramatically raises the threat to officers. This is looking more and more like a clean “good shoot” as more details emerge"
Black Lives Matter activists face familiar anxiety in aftermath of Dallas shooting - "When Micah Johnson, a 25-year-old black veteran, was identified as the killer, that swelling sense of dread was realized. And when it was revealed by authorities that Johnson had told police he was “upset about Black Lives Matter” and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers”, those fears grew. Johnson’s statements ensured that the shooting would reignite arguments over what the Black Lives Matter movement represents: a plea for police to respect the rights of the country’s black citizens and be held accountable, or an incitement to crime and violence – in the words of a New York tabloid: “civil war”... since it emerged as a loud national voice in the wake of the Ferguson protests in 2014, Black Lives Matter as both an organization and an ideology has routinely been accused of fostering and harboring anti-police views and inviting violence against officers. Late Thursday, long before anything was known about the killer or his motivations, the former congressman Joe Walsh became the latest emblem of this attitude, tweeting “This is now war” and “Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you”... “How many more ambushes, how many more dead officers must we endure before action is taken?” asked the National Fraternal Order of Police president, Chuck Canterbury. Until now, a few isolated incidents, such as the murders of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in December 2014, have fuelled the accusations that BLM-inspired anger at police is driving a “war on cops”. The officers, sitting in their patrol car, were shot without warning by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who had made a string of anti-police postings on social media in the hours before the attack, including a claim that he was “putting wings on pigs today”, alongside a picture of a handgun."
Wasn't the Orlando Pulse shooting one isolated incident?
***
The importance of correcting for crime rates
If you do not correct for crime rates, you will get appearances of bias.
Let's assume that all police officers are unbiased, and that they shoot 1% of people they see.
If the police spend 90% of their time in 100% black areas, and 10% of their time in 100% white areas, then they will be shooting 9 times as many black people as white people - even though they are shooting 1% of everyone they see, regardless of whether they are black, white, brown, purple, rainbow etc.
From crime rates we can see why the police would be spending more time in poor, black areas. So we wouldn't be surprised we see these discrepancies - even if there were no racial discrimination at all
This is the same reason why sexism is perceived to be a big problem in tech - just by virtue of the gender ratio (i.e. the Petrie Multiplier). Even if men and women were equally sexist women would face more sexism than men due to their smaller numbers.
The Myths of Black Lives Matter - WSJ - "Police officers—of all races—are also disproportionately endangered by black assailants. Over the past decade, according to FBI data, 40% of cop killers have been black. Officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police. Some may find evidence of police bias in the fact that blacks make up 26% of the police-shooting victims, compared with their 13% representation in the national population. But as residents of poor black neighborhoods know too well, violent crimes are disproportionately committed by blacks. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of murders and 45% of assaults in the 75 largest U.S. counties in 2009, though they made up roughly 15% of the population there... The Black Lives Matter movement claims that white officers are especially prone to shooting innocent blacks due to racial bias, but this too is a myth. A March 2015 Justice Department report on the Philadelphia Police Department found that black and Hispanic officers were much more likely than white officers to shoot blacks based on “threat misperception”—that is, the mistaken belief that a civilian is armed... it is a scandal that outrage is heaped less on the dysfunctional culture that produces so many victims than on the police officers who try to protect them."
Detroit man who murdered two white teens declares 'black lives matter' during sentencing
What does it say when a convicted murderer takes up the cry?
Bill Clinton’s in trouble for telling the truth to Black Lives Matter - "He defended the old term “super predator” as an accurate description of gang leaders who prey on kids — not realizing that the phrase has been deemed dehumanizing (gang leaders are very sensitive to such microaggressions). Instead of denouncing the police as agents of systemic racism, he defended sending more of them into the streets. And by using the phrase “black lives” in the context of blacks killing other blacks, he signaled he doesn’t get that the only approved use of the slogan is as a bludgeon against the criminal justice system... From 1976 to 2005, blacks were 47 percent of murder victims. Bill Clinton’s talk of kids wasn’t just pulling at the heartstrings. During the crack epidemic in Washington, DC, about 500 kids were shot and stabbed in a roughly two-year period. Since their communities suffered so grievously from drug crime, black Democrats supported important legislative elements of the crackdown on drug offenses from the 1970s onward. Yet the war on drugs wasn’t the main driver of the remarkable 30-year rise in incarceration, from roughly 300,000 to more than 1.6 million. According to John Pfaff of Fordham Law School, less than 20 percent of the inmates in state prisons (they house most US prisoners) are there primarily on drug charges. The vast majority are guilty of violent or property offenses."
As per CNN: "The protesters shouted that "black youth are not super predators," taking issue with a phrase then-first lady Hillary Clinton used in a 1996 speech about violent crime committed by young people. They heckled Bill Clinton for the 1994 crime bill he signed into law as president that cracked down on gangs but also put more non-violent offenders in prison for longer stays. "You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter," the former president told protesters... Clinton repeatedly said, "I love protesters" -- but complained that they wouldn't let him respond. "Here's the thing. I like protesters, but the ones that won't let you answer are afraid of the truth. That's a simple rule," Clinton said.
Study: Black Lives Matter Wrong about Police - "The kinds of shootings that launched the Black Lives Matter movement — white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent “less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings.” The Post does its best to hype the racial injustice of this statistic, proclaiming that while “black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year.” But that claim is misleading on a number of counts.Crime doesn’t break down on neat, proportionate demographic lines. Criminals are overwhelmingly male (police killed very few women this year, but no one argues that law enforcement is sexist), and violent criminals are disproportionately black. In fact, blacks “commit homicide at close to eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined.”"
Ferguson report: No evidence Michael Brown had hands up - ""Hands up, don't shoot" is now about more than the shooting that killed Michael Brown, but it's also not an accurate representation of the incident that sparked nationwide protests, federal investigators concluded in a report released Wednesday. The Justice Department's investigation into Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson's shooting of Brown concluded that witness accounts that the African-American teenager surrendered with his hands up "do not support the prosecution of Wilson".... Physical and forensic evidence in fact contradict claims by witnesses who have maintained that Brown had his hands up, above his waist when Wilson shot him, the Justice Department concluded"
What does it say if you take up a lie as your slogan?
Black and Unarmed: Behind the Numbers - "The rate at which unarmed black men were more likely than unarmed white men to die by police gunfire had dropped, but was still six-to-one. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. It is worth looking at the specific cases included in the Post’s unarmed victim classification in some detail, since that category is the most politically explosive. The “unarmed” label is literally accurate, but it frequently fails to convey highly-charged policing situations. In a number of cases, if the victim ended up being unarmed, it was certainly not for lack of trying. At least five black victims had reportedly tried to grab the officer’s gun, or had been beating the cop with his own equipment. Some were shot from an accidental discharge triggered by their own assault on the officer. And two individuals included in the Post’s “unarmed black victims” category were struck by stray bullets aimed at someone else in justified cop shootings. If the victims were not the intended targets, then racism could have played no role in their deaths... Other unarmed black victims in the Post’s database were so fiercely resisting arrest, judging from press accounts, that the officers involved could reasonably have viewed them as posing a grave danger... The Post’s cases do not support the idea that the police have a more demanding standard for using lethal force when confronting unarmed white suspects"
This study found race matters in police shootings, but the results may surprise you - "even with white officers who do have racial biases, officers are three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects... a 1977 analysis of reports from major metropolitan departments which found officers fired more shots at white suspects than at black suspects, possibly because of “public sentiment concerning treatment of blacks.” And in 2004, David Klinger at the University of Missouri-St. Louis interviewed more than 100 officers and found “evidence of increased wariness about using deadly force against black suspects for fear of how it would be perceived and the associated consequences.”"
Some claim that because this was an experiment it says nothing about the real world. Yet, that would mean we'd need to ignore all psychology experiments.
"Another instance where investigators endeavor to reduce observer effects is the use of deception in laboratory experiments, particularly in fields like social psychology. If research participants know the study’s purpose right from the outset, their behavior will probably not be representative of how they would act otherwise. So the participants are kept ignorant, usually by being deliberately misled. The well-known Milgrim experiment offers a case in point. To obtain valid results, the participants had to be told that (a) the investigator was studying the role of punishment on pair- associate learning, (b) the punishment was being administered using a device that delivered real electric shocks, and (c) the learner who was receiving those shocks was experiencing real pain and was suffering from a heart condition. All three of these assertions were false but largely necessary (with the exception of the very last deception)." --- Encyclopedia of Research Design, Volume 1 / Neil J. Salkind (ed)
Black Lives Matter Protesters Target White People Eating Brunch - "Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrated against police brutality across New York on Sunday by interrupting white people eating brunch, a clear sign that the movement which, started with unrest in Ferguson, Missouri back in November, is beginning to lose steam. Social justice warriors tweeted out photos of handfuls of demonstrators crashing cafes and restaurants with captions such as, “ATTN WHITE Man, I have no guilt disturbing your brunch. Its YOU that has no right to be here”... Another tweet asserted the protesters were “interrupting white supremacy one brunch at a time”... “Progressive activists are becoming increasingly desperate to maintain what they saw as momentum for their cause,” writes Derek Hunter. “But, as is the case with any dying movement, when the larger crowds dwindle, the only people left are the extremists and radicals who have no appeal to anyone outside of their fellow radicals.”"
Fighting "racism" by annoying white people. Then again people can use the "no true Black Lives Matter activist" defence - like with feminists (e.g. "not all feminists")
Alternate link: if you don't like Infowars - #BlackLivesMatter Protesters Hit Whites Where It Truly Hurts: Brunch
The racist protester that shut down the Bernie Sanders rally - "Sipping On White Tears"
This New Video Of Alton Sterling’s Death Creates Questions, Not Answers - "This unsecured right arm, potentially able to reach the weapon in his right front pocket, dramatically raises the threat to officers. This is looking more and more like a clean “good shoot” as more details emerge"
Black Lives Matter activists face familiar anxiety in aftermath of Dallas shooting - "When Micah Johnson, a 25-year-old black veteran, was identified as the killer, that swelling sense of dread was realized. And when it was revealed by authorities that Johnson had told police he was “upset about Black Lives Matter” and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers”, those fears grew. Johnson’s statements ensured that the shooting would reignite arguments over what the Black Lives Matter movement represents: a plea for police to respect the rights of the country’s black citizens and be held accountable, or an incitement to crime and violence – in the words of a New York tabloid: “civil war”... since it emerged as a loud national voice in the wake of the Ferguson protests in 2014, Black Lives Matter as both an organization and an ideology has routinely been accused of fostering and harboring anti-police views and inviting violence against officers. Late Thursday, long before anything was known about the killer or his motivations, the former congressman Joe Walsh became the latest emblem of this attitude, tweeting “This is now war” and “Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you”... “How many more ambushes, how many more dead officers must we endure before action is taken?” asked the National Fraternal Order of Police president, Chuck Canterbury. Until now, a few isolated incidents, such as the murders of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in December 2014, have fuelled the accusations that BLM-inspired anger at police is driving a “war on cops”. The officers, sitting in their patrol car, were shot without warning by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who had made a string of anti-police postings on social media in the hours before the attack, including a claim that he was “putting wings on pigs today”, alongside a picture of a handgun."
Wasn't the Orlando Pulse shooting one isolated incident?
***
The importance of correcting for crime rates
If you do not correct for crime rates, you will get appearances of bias.
Let's assume that all police officers are unbiased, and that they shoot 1% of people they see.
If the police spend 90% of their time in 100% black areas, and 10% of their time in 100% white areas, then they will be shooting 9 times as many black people as white people - even though they are shooting 1% of everyone they see, regardless of whether they are black, white, brown, purple, rainbow etc.
From crime rates we can see why the police would be spending more time in poor, black areas. So we wouldn't be surprised we see these discrepancies - even if there were no racial discrimination at all
This is the same reason why sexism is perceived to be a big problem in tech - just by virtue of the gender ratio (i.e. the Petrie Multiplier). Even if men and women were equally sexist women would face more sexism than men due to their smaller numbers.
Post ID: 7899354214913911397
The pros and cons of civil disagreement
Rationally Speaking | Official Podcast of New York City Skeptics - Current Episodes - RS 152 - Dan Fincke on “The pros and cons of civil disagreement”
"Dan disagreed with me, but his disagreement was so thoughtful and nuanced and reasonable, that it was -- on complicated issues I tend to feel like I have a lot more in common with the people who disagree with me, but think the issue's complicated than the people who agree with me and think it's obvious...
The atheist community I was a part of often, even though it ostensibly says it's about promoting reason, sometimes it engages in tactics which are not really rational, right? They're very emotionalistic. They're very much about demonizing religious people, or being really abusive to them in the way that they'll call them stupid and insane. That's problematic to me. To me, if we're going to be in the business of promoting reason in the public square, we have to do that by modeling it...
If we get into the attitude that any speech is okay, that if you're offended it's always the person who's claiming offense's fault, then that's wrong. Basically I think that ... there's something C.S. Lewis calls Bulverism, where instead of making an argument that your opponent is wrong, you just declare that they're wrong and diagnose why.
Sometimes that argument is, "You're privileged, therefore you're wrong," instead of, "Here's why you're wrong and oh, I think I know why, because privilege may be a factor." Your privilege is supposed to be diagnosing why you're wrong before even proving you're wrong...
There is a joke or satire or something that can be interpreted, maybe was intended as being a satire of something racist or misogynist or otherwise bad, but many people interpret it as actually being racist or misogynist. Maybe a good example is the New Yorker magazine cover that was a political cartoon of a sort of Islamic militant imagined version of Barack and Michelle Obama, doing like a terrorist fist bump. Michelle Obama has like a Black Panther-reminiscent 'fro. To me it was clear that this was, or it seemed clear at least, that this was a satire. It was making fun of people who view everything, even the most innocuous fist bump that Barack and Michelle Obama do as being a sign that they're secretly Islamic and terrorists. But many people thought it was racist...
Sometimes the social justice side acts like nobody cares about being seen as immoral. Nobody cares about being called a racist or a sexist, that doesn't hurt anyone. We have to recognize that it does hurt them...
I think what happens sometimes is the social justice movement will fixate on an individual, and lose sight of the point that it's not about that individual, it's about the systemic issues. Pummeling that individual as a scapegoat, as the source of all evil, is a huge ... it's not fair, like you said, it's dishonest
Julia: Right. Systematic issues don't have faces or names and are much harder to target, make much less natural villains, I guess, than a person."
"Dan disagreed with me, but his disagreement was so thoughtful and nuanced and reasonable, that it was -- on complicated issues I tend to feel like I have a lot more in common with the people who disagree with me, but think the issue's complicated than the people who agree with me and think it's obvious...
The atheist community I was a part of often, even though it ostensibly says it's about promoting reason, sometimes it engages in tactics which are not really rational, right? They're very emotionalistic. They're very much about demonizing religious people, or being really abusive to them in the way that they'll call them stupid and insane. That's problematic to me. To me, if we're going to be in the business of promoting reason in the public square, we have to do that by modeling it...
If we get into the attitude that any speech is okay, that if you're offended it's always the person who's claiming offense's fault, then that's wrong. Basically I think that ... there's something C.S. Lewis calls Bulverism, where instead of making an argument that your opponent is wrong, you just declare that they're wrong and diagnose why.
Sometimes that argument is, "You're privileged, therefore you're wrong," instead of, "Here's why you're wrong and oh, I think I know why, because privilege may be a factor." Your privilege is supposed to be diagnosing why you're wrong before even proving you're wrong...
There is a joke or satire or something that can be interpreted, maybe was intended as being a satire of something racist or misogynist or otherwise bad, but many people interpret it as actually being racist or misogynist. Maybe a good example is the New Yorker magazine cover that was a political cartoon of a sort of Islamic militant imagined version of Barack and Michelle Obama, doing like a terrorist fist bump. Michelle Obama has like a Black Panther-reminiscent 'fro. To me it was clear that this was, or it seemed clear at least, that this was a satire. It was making fun of people who view everything, even the most innocuous fist bump that Barack and Michelle Obama do as being a sign that they're secretly Islamic and terrorists. But many people thought it was racist...
Sometimes the social justice side acts like nobody cares about being seen as immoral. Nobody cares about being called a racist or a sexist, that doesn't hurt anyone. We have to recognize that it does hurt them...
I think what happens sometimes is the social justice movement will fixate on an individual, and lose sight of the point that it's not about that individual, it's about the systemic issues. Pummeling that individual as a scapegoat, as the source of all evil, is a huge ... it's not fair, like you said, it's dishonest
Julia: Right. Systematic issues don't have faces or names and are much harder to target, make much less natural villains, I guess, than a person."
Post ID: 1061540331548183696
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