Links - 24th September 2017 (1)

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Strange Locations and Free Minds - "[On the father of a student involved in the death of Marshal Khan, the Pakistani student accused of blasphemy and beaten to death by a mob of students on campus] When I tell him about his son's letter and show it to him, he's shocked. So am I. I thought he would be proud. What's wrong, I ask. Bizarrely, he insists the reason he's angry is that the letter is eight pages long. I always told my son to be concise, he says. What's the need to write so much?...
Eating foreign food turned out to be a revelation too. In the 1970s it wasn't unusual to hear it argued in Britain that foreigners enrobed their steaks and joints in strongly flavored sources to disguise its intrinsic inferiority to the meat of the British Isles. That turned out not to be the case either...
Belgium didn't introduce driving licences until nineteen sixty five. And for the first twelve years after that it operated an honor system where you could obtain one simply by swearing an oath that you could drive...
In the early 1980s... one of the strange deals that kept the city running despite the Berlin Wall dividing it, my train would run non stop from one part of the West to another through several sealed-off Eastern stations. They were shabby, poorly lit and patrolled by border guards with machine guns making sure no easterners tried to get on and escape. It was a spooky sight...
[He] was once given the job of suppressing punk. Its anarchic energy seen as especially subversive... he recruited spies with Mohican haircuts and tried to sabotage performances. Young punks he told me were naive. They didn't realise they were being used as informers. Another tactic... was to call up members for military service. Suddenly the band had no musicians... some Evangelical pastors used their churches, which the Stasi were wary of invading, to offer sanctuary to persecuted punks. They performed during church services. 'It was mad... I could see right into the faces of the congregation, who were completely shocked. The only ones laid back about it were the children who jumped up straight away and danced'. This meant more than just momentary freedom. Church spaces for forbidden music later became spaces for political dissent"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Talk of War - "[On Seoul] It's largely achieved this prosperity against the rules. It was colonized by the Japanese, but there's no sense of the victimhood you get in other former colonies...
The Pacific island of Pitcairn was engulfed by a child abuse trial in which around half the adult male population stood accused of rape or sexual assault"

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Population Control - "The idea that the planet would be absolutely fine if it wasn't for people is an ugly inhuman doctrine and expression of pessimism in the future of humanity which very very quickly translates from wanting to do without population increase to wanting to do without individual people"

Sony's bio battery turns waste paper into electricity

Economics of the populist backlash - " trade generically produces losers. Redistribution is the flip side of the gains from trade; no pain, no gain. Economic theory has an additional implication, which is less well recognised. In relative terms, the redistributive effects of liberalisation get larger and tend to swamp the net gains as the trade barriers in question become smaller. The ratio of redistribution to net gains rises as trade liberalisation tackles progressively lower barriers... Evidence is in line with these theoretical expectations. For example, in the case of NAFTA, Hakobyan and McLaren (2016) have found very large adverse effects for an “important minority” of US workers, while Caliendo and Parro (2015) estimate that the overall gains to the US economy from the agreement were minute (a “welfare” gain of 0.08%). In principle, the gains from trade can be redistributed to compensate the losers and ensure no identifiable group is left behind. Trade openness has been greatly facilitated in Europe by the creation of welfare states. But the US, which became a truly open economy relatively late, did not move in the same direction. This may account for why imports from specific trade partners such as China or Mexico are so much more contentious in the US... the economics profession’s current views on financial globalisation can be best described as ambivalent. Most of the scepticism is directed at short-term financial flows, which are associated with financial crises and other excesses. Long-term flows and direct foreign investment in particular are generally still viewed favourably. Direct foreign investment tends to be more stable and growth-promoting. But there is evidence that it has produced shifts in taxation and bargaining power that are adverse to labour... Financial globalisation appears to have produced adverse distributional impacts within countries as well, in part through its effect on incidence and severity of financial crises. Most noteworthy is the recent analysis by Furceri et al. (2017) that looks at 224 episodes of capital account liberalisation. They find that capital-account liberalisation leads to statistically significant and long-lasting declines in the labour share of income and corresponding increases in the Gini coefficient of income inequality and in the shares of top 1%, 5%, and 10% of income. Further, capital mobility shifts both the tax burden and the burden of economic shocks onto the immobile factor, labour... It is easier for populist politicians to mobilise along ethno-national/cultural cleavages when the globalisation shock becomes salient in the form of immigration and refugees. That is largely the story of advanced countries in Europe. On the other hand, it is easier to mobilise along income/social class lines when the globalisation shock takes the form mainly of trade, finance, and foreign investment. That in turn is the case with southern Europe and Latin America. The US, where arguably both types of shocks have become highly salient recently, has produced populists of both stripes (Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump)."

Kermit the Frog puppeteer 'devastated' to be fired after 27 years voicing Muppets' iconic character - "For me the Muppets are not just a job, or a career, or even a passion. They are a calling, an urgent, undeniable, impossible to resist way of life"

Why Do Good Athletes Have Bad Teeth? - "The 2009 IOC report posited that the prevalence of tooth erosion among Olympians “may be an indicator of excessive use of sports beverages, which are acidic in nature.”"

PAS angling for Chinese, Indian voters who fear being seen as anti-Islam - "Its Youth wing chief, Muhammad Khalil Abdul Hadi, claimed there was “uneasiness” among the minorities against its former ally DAP for allegedly “attacking” PAS over its president’s attempt to seek harsher penalties under Shariah laws."
Obsession about "Islamophobia" has consequences

Muslim psychiatrist worried about terror apologists on ABC - "the national broadcaster's obsession with perceived Islamophobia was often counterproductive. 'Often the voices they reach for reinforce that because their first instinct is to quell so-called Islamophobia'... 'It keeps feeding the message that none of it is their fault, that the West is in fact against them. 'It's inaccurate and doesn't get to the source of the problem. It keeps feeding grievance, it keeps feeding this idea of Muslim grievance so in that respect it's part of the problem. 'Terrorism is, at its heart, a conflation of personal resentments with a political ideology of resentment which Islamism is'... 'There has been too much promotion of so called moderate voices of Islam who usually turn out be apologists for terrorism, desperate to dilute any link between terrorism and Islam and promoting a message of Muslim victimhood'... 'They use voice after voice of from various religious Muslims, almost all of whom have identical views, that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, Muslims are victims of racism and the real problem is racism and white nationalists.' In the wake of the United Kingdom's third terrorist attack in 10 weeks, Dr Ahmed said the mainstream media and politicians also needed to acknowledge terrorists were following the Koran... 'It's important we don't tarnish all Muslims but people are just so sick of the platitudes and calls for tolerance, for unity and that Muslims are victims when in fact there's a great deal of sympathy in a significant proportion of the Muslim community for the justification of terrorism be it blaming Western colonialism, blaming racism, discrimination... With the rise of One Nation and far-right groups like Reclaim Australia, which call for a ban on Islamic migration, Dr Ahmed said it was inaccurate to blame far-right political parties for Islamophobia. 'Phobia refers to irrational fear of Muslims. It's very difficult to suggest a fear of Muslims and terrorism is irrational in the current climate,' he said. 'The rise of white nationalists comes directly in response to Islamism, not the other way around. 'In no white nationalist text are there calls explicitly to kill their ideological enemies. 'They're channeling a legitimate and widely-held anxiety about Islam and mass immigration'... His call comes after Sheik Tawhidi said unchecked multiculturalism was to blame for the London terrorist attacks that have killed seven people... 'I support a temporary ban on Muslims coming from the Middle East,' he said... The 34-year-old imam said the political Left in the United Kingdom had allowed London to turn into Baghdad. 'The Left wants us to believe that terrorism is the result of unemployment,' he said. 'Since when did humans blow themselves up for not having a job?'"

Maajid Nawaz: Stop Saying Violence Has Nothing To Do With Islam - "Maajid explained why the link must be first acknowledged and then understood. "Why this is so important is because when listeners hear Muslims like yourself say it's got nothing to do with it, they think that you're trying to shirk responsibility and sidestep the very important task that faces all of us to challenge extremism within our mosques and our communities."

Bigotry in the Muslim backyard - "YOU’D think that with all the anti-Islam prejudice us Muslims chafe against, we would be better at recognising and weeding out the bigotry in our own backyard. Apparently not. Last Monday’s (May 1) Yahoo article on the minority Ahmadiyyah community in Singapore drew a flurry of Facebook comments... “there are some within the [Malay Muslim] community… they hate Shia,” said Mr Yusuf Roslan. The 32-year old radiographer, who became Shia about 10 years ago, once overheard a Madrasah teacher praise the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for killing Shia Muslims. Another time Mr Yusuf’s friend was chased out of a mosque near little India when his turbah was spotted. Unlike Sunnis, some Shias rest their forehead on a clay tablet, or turbah, when prostrating during prayers."

Al-Azhar refuses to consider the Islamic State an apostate - "Egypt’s Al-Azhar issued a statement Dec. 11, 2014, refusing to declare the Islamic State (IS) apostates. “No believer can be declared an apostate, regardless of his sins,” it read. Al-Azhar's statement came as a Nigerian mufti seemingly declared IS apostates at a Dec. 4, 2014, Al-Azhar conference... The sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb, repeated his rejection of declaring IS apostates on Jan. 1, during a meeting with editors-in-chief of Egyptian newspapers... Al-Azhar representative Abbas Shoman said that the institution had not declared any person or group an apostate throughout its history. Yet, this claim was refuted by the daughter of late Egyptian author Farag Foda, Samar Farag Foda, who called into an Egyptian satellite TV program, saying, “My father’s assassination came as a result of fatwas issued by the majority of Al-Azhar’s sheikhs declaring him an apostate, because he had called for the separation of religion from politics”... Tharwat al-Kharbawy, a Muslim Brotherhood defector, attributed Al-Azhar’s refusal to declare IS apostates to its “faith in IS’ actions”... One press report noted a degree of similarity between IS thought and Al-Azhar University's curriculum, which “allows for killing a Muslim who does not pray, one who leaves Islam, prisoners and infidels within Islam [those who do not have a clearly specified creed or sect]. [It also allows] gouging their eyes and chopping off their hands and feet, as well as banning the construction of churches and discriminating between Muslims and Ahl al-Kitab [Christians and Jews], and insulting them at times.”"
Yet Western politicians (among others) apparently are more versed in Islam than Sunni Islam's most prestigious university, and unequivocally proclaim ISIS are not Muslims

Reserved presidential election casts spotlight on ‘Malayness’ - "Malay community leaders whom TODAY spoke to felt that the definition for the purpose of the election should be inclusive and not too narrow, given Singapore’s multi-racialism and multi-culturalism. “Even though the person may not be 100 per cent Malay but practises its culture, mixes with members of the community and so on, should the person be considered a Malay? Or you want to say, no, and then divide the community further?” said Mr Othman Haron Eusofe, a former Member of Parliament. Political analysts also felt that voters should not be overly-fixated with a candidate’s ethnicity – albeit being an election reserved for a particular race – as it would “detract from the raison d’être of the elected presidency and of the elected president as a symbol of our multiracialism”, as Singapore Management University law don Eugene Tan put it... Dr Mustafa pointed out: “The beauty and strength of the Malay race has always been its unity in diversity with regard to customs, practices and everyday living. The kinship ties between the various communities in different countries, particularly in the Southeast Asian region known as the Nusantara, is what defines Malay as a collective ethnic group.”"
Apparently Bock Block is worth stoking racial tensions for. Then again that ultimately justifies repressive rule, so

The purge of a report on radical Islam has put NYC at risk - "it censored an anti-terror handbook to appease offended Muslims, even though it has accurately predicted radicalization patterns in recent “homegrown” terror cases. Rank-and-file NYPD officers, detectives and even intelligence and counterterrorism units are officially barred now from referring to the handbook or the scientific study on which it was based. Former law-enforcement officials fear its removal as a training tool may be hurting efforts to prevent terrorist activity, such as the vehicle-ramming attacks plaguing European cities... The authors of the report, led by Mitch Silber, former NYPD director of intelligence analysis, examined hundreds of “homegrown” terrorism cases and found that suspects followed the same “radicalization” path. Key indicators include: alienating themselves from their former lives and friends; giving up cigarettes, drinking and partying; wearing traditional Islamic clothing; growing a beard; becoming obsessed with Mideast politics and jihad; and regularly attending a hardline mosque. In other words, the more they immersed themselves in their faith, the more radical they grew... The terrorists who carried out recent attacks in Boston; Fort Hood, Texas; Little Rock, Ark.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; San Bernardino, Fla.; Orlando; Philadelphia and at Ohio State University, among others, followed a similar pattern of radicalization... As the NYPD study found, “The ultimate objective for any attack is always the same — to punish the West, overthrow the democratic order, re-establish the caliphate, and institute Sharia,” or Islamic law. “The radicalizer is Sharia, not the Internet,” said Philip Haney, a former Homeland Security counterterrorism analyst"
Once again, political correctness kills

How to Look at Homegrown Terrorism - "The report, entitled "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat," makes several important and underappreciated points.
— There is no useful profile to predict who will become radicalized. Most would-be terrorists are "unremarkable men" living "unremarkable lives." They don't have criminal histories, and they don't always gather at mosques.
— They do, however, follow remarkably similar behavior patterns. Participants in 11 anti-Western terrorism plots analyzed in the report all went through four stages on the path from unremarkable to violent: Pre-radicalization, Self-identification, Indoctrination and Jihadization...
"It's remarkable to me that one of the first public reports on radicalization to get it right came from a police department," says Chris Heffelfinger, a counterterrorism expert with the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point... By afternoon, American-Muslim organizations had issued press releases criticizing the report."

Donald Trump Twitter Lawsuit: Why I'm Suing the President - "Most of my writing is about the Trump administration. In fact, my mandate from Pacific Standard is “Trump and the law.”... Twitter also brought me to where I am today: Pursuing a lawsuit with others against President Trump for his decision to block us on Twitter"
If I write about celebrities and they block me can I sue them?

Family Planning Aid to Developing World—a Form of Western Imperialism - "The U.N. also makes a tricky distinction between “modern” and “traditional” methods of family planning to inflate the “unmet need.” When “traditional” methods, such as periodic abstinence, are counted, since the “need” of many of these women has been satisfied, the size of the unmet need falls drastically, by over 80 million, according to a 2015 U.N. calculation. The use of “unmet need” figures is irresponsible. The statistic refuses to acknowledge legitimate reasons for choosing to avoid pregnancy without the use of contraception. As Harvard economist Lance Pritchett has written, “The usual numbers bandied about for estimates of ‘unmet need’ do not correspond to any definition of ‘unmet need’ that any economist (or just common sense) could agree to.” They are “an advocacy tool,” he concluded, “not particularly relevant to conceptually or empirically informed discussions.” This sort of dishonesty, shielding controversial assumptions behind statistics from reputable organizations, is all too common. In 2015, Melinda Gates and Graça Machel, the former South African first lady, wrote that “if the world extended contraceptive access to only a quarter of the women with an unmet need, it could save the lives of 25,000 women and 250,000 newborns each year.” They cite the 2012 Guttmacher and UNFPA report, which estimates that by averting pregnancies, fewer women and children will die in childbirth. As Rebecca Oas explains, “their solution, apparently, is to avoid pregnancy rather than to make childbirth safer.” These Malthusian tendencies also dovetail with the efforts of the environmentalist movement"