Links - 9th July 2017 (2)

'Islamic doll' for children launched in Britain with no FACE in line with Sharia rules - "It is hoped the doll will be able to be used by Muslim children who often face having to have their toys removed at night because teachings forbid anything with eyes being left in the room... The idea of creating dolls for children to play with and learn from is based on stories that Prophet Muhammad's wife, Aisha, also played with the featureless items"

Islamist group in Somalia bans samosas after deciding they're too Western - "It is now thought islamist militants have taken offence at the three-sided samosa's supposed resemblance to symbol of the Christian Holy Trinity."

Tourist kills a swan by dragging it from a lake so she could pose with it in Macedonia

Dad's bedtime stories found to improve children's language skills - "A study at Harvard University in the US into the effect on infants’ language after a year of hearing stories read by their parents found that girls seemed to benefit particularly from being read to by a male. Elisabeth Duursma, who carried out the research, said: ‘The impact is huge, particularly if dads start reading to kids under the age of two... Mothers tended to ask ‘teacher-like’, factual questions, such as ‘How many apples do you see?’ Fathers favoured more abstract questions, which sparked imaginative discussions"

Romanians EIGHT times as likely to be jailed here as Britons - "The growing numbers of Romanian criminals entering the British justice system is underlined by separate data obtained from police forces, showing about 11,000 Romanians are arrested each year. That works out at about two per cent of total arrests – the vast majority of them for shoplifting – even though Romanians only make up 0.2 per cent of the general population."

Moderate London imam 'forced to resign from his mosque for joining Qulliam' - "A moderate imam has been forced to resign from his mosque after he was threatened with violence for joining anti-extremism group Quillam."

Quiz a Muslim panellists demand establishment of Islamic State in Britain - "Speakers at the Quiz A Muslim event in Bedford included Taji Mustafah, of radical Islamic organisation Hizb-ut Tahrir, and Moazzem Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate and founder of campaign group Cage, whose director called Jihadi John a ‘beautiful young man’."

The feminists who are turning British justice against men, writes LAURA PERRINS - "The feminist lobby likes to talk grandly about gender equality, but the reality is that in this focus on women’s rights, men increasingly receive a raw deal. In practice, the CPS — and much of the rest of the political establishment — now gives the impression that offences against women are treated with more robustness than those against men. We see that in the rash of new legislation designed to meet the demands of the feminist creed... A prime example is the legislation against female genital mutilation (FGM). There was no need for yet another Act, for this vile form of misogynistic torture was already covered by a host of measures, such as the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Predictably, it has had no impact beyond garnering favourable headlines from progressive newspapers such as The Guardian. There has not been a single successful prosecution. The only attempt to bring charges — against London doctor Dhanuson Dharmasena — was a farcical case that rightly ended in humiliating failure when the jury acquitted him in just 25 minutes."

Who Gets to Wear a Cheongsam? - "The girl continued to berate me, asking why I would lie about my ethnicity when I was so obviously Latina. I tried to explain that, contrary to her opinion, I was half Chinese and half mostly Italian. "Well, either you're adopted or someone's been lying to you, because you're definitely not Chinese," she said. I haven't worn a cheongsam since.
The poison of the rhetoric of "cultural appropriation" - even those who have a "right" to the culture get denied

Alberta, Canada's Progressive New Government Bans the Words "Mother" and "Father" in Schools

TRUE STORY: "My husband doesn't know I share him with my twin sister." - "May and I have ocassionally “shared” Edmund. Sometimes, she will have dinner with him after work, instead of me. Or they will go shopping, and she pretends to be me. May and I have promised one another to never reveal this to anyone around us"
The husband just might prefer it this way

Living near a pub makes you happier - and even helps you cut down on drinking, study finds - "social skills improve after a drink, while people were more likely to be engaged in conversations in small community pubs rather than larger establishments."

Pay back our love - "Colonel Darius Lim’s statement reported in the Straits Times argues that since they “enjoyed the privileges of Singapore citizenship” when young, they must return our love. And that somehow we have a right to compel them, by threat of imprisonment if necessary, to pay back that love... it is a bit rich for Singapore to stake claims on getting returns on our investment (privileges of citizenship). After all, we’re all too happy to attract immigrants from other countries, reaping the benefits of the educational and social investments provided by foreign governments. This lack of self-awareness is something I have often noticed of our government and bureaucrats. We deserve our disrepute for being two-faced. Fourthly, what is the point of spending more money training and equipping a young man doing National Service when he has clearly indicated he is going to quit this place?... The government is taking a hard line on this matter, and you have to wonder whether it is because they believe that it is important to compel people to serve National Service in the hope that once they have served it, there is less reason to give up Singapore citizenship."

Bechdel test is damaging to the way we think about film - "the Bechdel test turns out to be not only next-to-useless, but also damaging to the way we think about film. None of which, it should be noted, is the fault of Bechdel herself, who used the test only as the set-up for a joke in an early episode of Dykes To Watch Out For, her long-running cartoon strip... A recent blog post by Sonny Bunch at the Washington Free Beacon (freebeacon.com/blog/five-feminist-triumphs-that-pass-the-bechdel-test/) identified five ‘feminist triumphs’ that pass, including Showgirls and Kick-Ass 2. To that list, you could add The Hottie and the Nottie, Bride Wars, Bratz: The Movie, Burlesque, Sex and the City 2 and any number of other stereotype-peddling car wrecks in which two or more of the leads happen to be female... have you ever actually had a conversation that was started by the Bechdel test? It fosters a way of thinking about films that has almost nothing to do with cinema: like the fanboy obsession with Rotten Tomatoes percentages and the dreary ‘Honest Trailers’ on YouTube, it prizes box-ticking and stat-hoarding over analysis and appreciation. (Read this chilling account of a film studies class that was posted on Reddit earlier this year if you don’t believe me at.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/16nnuv/the_bechdel_test_seriously/) Films are art, not questionnaires to be filled in, or Pokémon to be pitted against each other."

Is this the first Instagram masterpiece? - "In April 2014, a young Argentinian-born artist called Amalia Ulman uploaded an image on her Instagram feed. It consisted of the phrase “Part I”, in black letters against white, accompanied by an enigmatic caption that read “Excellences & Perfections”. Although 28 of Ulman’s followers quickly “liked” the post, few of them realised that it signalled the beginning of one of the most original and outstanding artworks of the digital era. Before long Ulman was uploading a series of images – mostly preening selfies taken on her iPhone – that seemed to document her attempt to make it as an “It girl” in Los Angeles."

Student arrested after crawling through air duct to steal exam from professor's office

The shameful truth behind what happens to all your leftover hotel toiletries - "Every day millions of bars of soap and half-used bottles of shampoo are discarded in hotel shower trays around the world; abandoned by guests who didn’t stay long enough to use them up... in 2009, Seipler started collecting leftover toiletries from Florida’s hotels, which he began recycling in a relative’s garage in Orlando. Clean the World was born... Clean the World has now distributed more than 40 million bars of soap to impoverished people in 115 countries."

Eating lots of garlic makes men 'smell more attractive to women' - "Previous studies have shown that garlic consumption can also affect the odour of human breast milk, increasing the time infants spend on their mother's breast and feeding more vigorously."

Man who ordered gluten-free meal on flight is given a single banana – and cutlery to eat it with - "Mr Pavelka, who suffers from the digestive condition coeliac, had been served a proper meal the previous evening. However, he was expecting something more substantial for breakfast."

Meet Chris, the first westerner to be officially employed as a ninja - ""It's a very rare chance that a foreigner can be a ninja," Chris told reporters. "It really gives a lot of hope to people from every country – from Germany, from the US, from France."... The job description, which was open to foreigners as well as Japanese, also said they should “enjoy being under the spotlight, even though he or she is a secretive ninja”. The final auditions received widespread coverage in the Japanese media, with as many as 85 per cent of applicants turning out to be foreigners keen to become modern-day versions of the feudal spies... The new American recruit will work alongside six Japanese colleagues, including five men and one woman, as part of the new squad, earning a monthly salary of £1,136 (180,000 yen) on a one-year contract."

Start-up culture is corrupting our youth and killing real entrepreneurship - "These new entrepreneurs don't want to sit in boardrooms with calculators trying to balance their books with puritanical asceticism, or conducting extensive market research for their products. No, the prevailing mantra of "to earn you must spend" dictates the direction of most start-ups, which then leads to the absurd belief that the absence of consumption is a fault of lack of marketing. In reality, however, a high "burn rate" of cash by start-ups and lack of market need are the most popular reasons why start-ups eventually fail. Even when true innovation happens, there’s increasing tendency not to attempt to create a business with a long-lasting plan, but instead chuck it towards larger corporations in exchange for a handful of cash. Business cards stating "serial entrepreneur" – those who move from project to project – are becoming a norm... though start-ups are viewed as a hip thing for the youth, the most successful entrepreneurs have at least 10 years of industry experience prior founding their first start-up"

Can Leftists please stop comparing everything they don't like to Hitler? - "Gregg Brain, an Australian whose family was almost deported from Scotland after they overstayed and broke the terms of their post-study work visa and who only elicited a U-turn from the Home Office after a clever and emotive PR campaign, proudly wore a yellow badge with the letter “F” on it as he took to the stage in Glasgow. This, Mr Brain told delirious delegates, was “a response to Amber Rudd’s programme”. A yellow badge. Denoting his alien status... comparing modern, democratic governments to the Nazis, while naturally giving the offence intended, also denigrates the victims of the actual regime which is being used in the comparison."

Dutch may allow assisted suicide for those who feel they have 'completed life' - "The Dutch government intends to draft a law that would legalise assisted suicide for people who feel they have "completed life", but are not necessarily terminally ill... The proposal is likely to provoke critics who say Dutch euthanasia practice has already expanded beyond the borders originally envisioned for it, with "unbearable suffering" not only applying to people with terminal diseases, but also to some with mental illnesses and dementia."
And we are still told that the slippery slope (for euthanasia) is not a fallacy

Syrian doctor says he would rather go back to Aleppo than stay in 'miserable' Britain - "He said he once earned £6,000 a month as a doctor but now in the UK had been subjected to "bad" beds in hostels and food that is "not better than normal", so had decided to stay in hotels. "I have had to spend my nights in five star hotels like the Marriott and The Four Seasons," he said. "I had to sell my Rolex for £3,000 to pay for my rooms."

Isil recruits better educated than their average countryman, World Bank study finds - "Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group... The data shows clearly, the report said, that "poverty is not a driver of radicalization into violent extremism"... Most of the 331 recruits also reported having a job before traveling to join the Islamic State group"
"Education and poverty reduction are the way to defeat extremism and terrorism"

Just one energy drink could increase risk of heart disease, experts warn

Amazon withdraws ‘sexy burka’ fancy dress outfit following complaints
Sexy nuns are okay though

High-fat cheese: the secret to a healthy life? - "eating cheese could help to improve health by increasing our levels of "good" high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol... A recent study from Japan found that cheese consumption prevents fat accumulation in the liver and has the potential to improve serum lipid parameters - how we measure for cardiovascular risk. Meanwhile, a small 2015 study found that cheese could be the key to a faster metabolism and reduced obesity."

Airline's move to weigh passengers before they board draws complaints from American Samoans - "A pair of American Samoan businessmen have filed complaints to the US Transportation Department after they were weighed before boarding a flight from Honolulu – and assigned specific seats to keep the aircraft’s load evenly distributed... Hawaiian Airlines – in response to an increase in average passenger weight – has been routinely preventing those flying to or from Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, from choosing their own seats online, and has also required them to step on the scales before boarding... American Samoa, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, has the highest rate of obesity in the world. A remarkable 74.6 per cent of its adult population are considered obese"
This is win-win: if the plane crashes, their descendants can sue the airline for being unsafe