Links - 14th December 2017 (2)

Rescued piglets served up as sausages to firefighters - "The 18 piglets and two sows survived the fire in Wiltshire in February, which saw 60 tonnes of hay catch fire. In a controversial move, farm manager Rachel Rivers thanked the Pewsey fire team by giving them sausages... The delighted firefighters said the sausages were "highly recommended" and thanked the farmer "for her generosity". "We can tell no porkies, the sausages were fantastic," a spokesman said on Tuesday. However, the fire service has since removed the pictures of the impromptu barbecue from its Facebook page. "In regard to a recent post on this page," the service said on its page, "we recognise that this has caused offence to some. We apologise for this and as such have removed the post.""

Police called after man’s attempt to kill spider mistaken for domestic dispute - "Officers from North Sydney police force rushed to an apartment at around 2am on Sunday, when residents in the northern suburb of Wollstonecraft claimed to hear a man yelling, “I’m going to kill you, you’re dead. Die! Die!”, accompanied by a woman’s screams and the sound of furniture being tossed around...
Police: “What about the woman screaming?”
Man: “Yeah sorry that was me. I really, really hate spiders.”
Officers inspected the property to find the chaos had been caused by the man chasing a “rather large spider” with a can of pesticide. Nobody was injured in the incident, police confirmed, “apart from the spider.”"

Driver tries to scare off spider using lighter, sets gas station on fire - "A motorist scared of spiders gave himself a double shock when he accidentally set a gas station on fire trying to get rid of one using a cigarette lighter."

Why helicopter airliners haven’t happened – yet

The President Gets a Personal Osprey He's Not Allowed to Use - "the Osprey is still not safe enough to entrust with the leader of the free world's life. As such, the presidential Osprey has not yet been designated a "white top," meaning President Obama is not allowed on board, but is currently undergoing further reliability testing."

Why are Chinese fishermen destroying coral reefs in the South China Sea? - "This place had once been a rich coral ecosystem. Now the sea floor was covered in a thick layer of debris, millions of smashed fragments of coral, white and dead like bits of bone."

Dutchman arrested on suspicion of killing IS fighters - "The BBC understands that about 100 Western volunteers have joined Kurdish forces in the region - including some Britons. In some instances they have faced legal troubles on their return to their home countries."

Stalin 'used secret laboratory to analyse Mao's excrement' - ""For example, if they detected high levels of amino acid Tryptophan," he explained, "they concluded that person was calm and approachable"

Rule of law in China, a country which locks up its lawyers - "Xi Jinping came to power nearly three years ago vowing to tackle corruption and promote judicial fairness. But now lawyers are in police sights, with the state news agency Xinhua saying "the detainees are suspected of illegally organizing paid protests, hyping public sentiment and fabricating rumours on the Internet to sway court decisions"

Teenager arrested for dancing Macarena on Saudi street - "The teenager is being questioned after being accused of "improper public behaviour"

Equality complaint sinks women-only swimming class - "The decision has been derided on social media and described as being against the spirit of equalities legislation"
The spirit of equalities legislation is that men are evil?

Black-clad antifa attack peaceful right wing demonstrators in Berkeley - The Washington Post - "A pepper-spray wielding Trump supporter was smacked to the ground with homemade shields. Another was attacked by five black-clad antifas, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself. A conservative group leader retreated for safety behind a line of riot police as marchers chucked water bottles, shot off pepper spray and screamed “fascist go home!”... “We’re just puzzled as to why people consider violence a valid tactic,” Berkeley resident Kristin Leiumkuhler, 60, told SFGATE. She, like others had turned out with neighbors for a peaceful rally but left when things got ugly. “We felt disappointed and surprised by how many people were not in any way discreet about being with antifa — in fact being very bold and prepared to be violent.”"
The Washington Post joins the ranks of the white supremacists!

Angela Merkel tells asylum seekers not to take holidays in their country of origin - ""Taking holidays in the country in which you are being persecuted is not on," she said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag, adding that it could be a reason to re-examine an asylum case"

A former white supremacist has a potentially unpopular message for how to stop extremist movements - "“I don’t think anyone in the world became anti-racist because they were punched in the face by a protester or hit with a bottle of urine,” Picciolini told Business Insider. “It simply becomes harder for them to come back. They get pushed further away.” Disowning or publicly shaming family members that participate in far-right groups, as happened after the Charlottesville rally, is likely to drive them “further down that path,” rather than shock them into leaving, he said. Picciolini has a potentially unpopular message for how to deal with neo-Nazis and white supremacists: Show compassion. “All of us who left received compassion from the people we least deserved it from when we least deserved it,” he said. “It’s the disarming of the people we hated when we don’t deserve it that helps people get out.”"

Man arrested for sucker punch of blackTrump supporter at Laguna Beach rally - "20-year-old Richard Losey was arrested Tuesday evening and charged with battery and terroristic threats... "If the optics were completely different and I was a black lives matter supporter and I was attacked on the Trump side of a protest I would be in the spotlight on CNN right now," Maxwell said. "I went over to the left side to see if I could engage them with dialogue and I was instantly encircled by the so called anti fascists"... "I think the fact that I'm a black conservative causes a lot of problems for the left side because there's no way they can really resolve that according to their narrative of what they think trump supporters are, so I think that was a bit triggering to the other side," Maxwell said. "I was getting lots of specific comments like you're a sellout, you're an Uncle Tom.""
Maybe this will be used as an example of violence linked to Trump

Corbyn ally shares message telling Rotherham sex abuse victims to be quiet 'for the good of diversity' - "Naz Shah retweeted and liked a post on Twitter by an account parodying left-wing writer Owen Jones which said: "Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity." Her actions have reignited the furious row over Pakistani sex gangs which last week saw Labour MP Sarah Champion hounded out of Labour's front benches for writing an article in The Sun addressing the issue... Last year the Bradford West MP was suspended by Labour for anti-semitic online posts. In one, she shared rants on Facebook calling for Israel to be uprooted and dumped in America. In another she likened Israeli policies to those of Hitler and also wrote: “The Jews are rallying.”"

Rochdale sex abuse cop says sacking of race row MP Sarah Champion means potential whistleblowers will fear losing their jobs if they speak out - "A DETECTIVE who investigated child sex crimes in Rochdale has hit out at Jeremy Corbyn for sacking Sarah Champion - and said it will discourage potential whistleblowers from telling the truth... The shadow minister for equalities was forced to resign from her role after writing an article for The Sun where she said that Britain had a problem with Pakistani men abusing young white girls... Maggie Oliver, a former detective constable, told the Sunday Express that "Sarah Champion's remarks are not racist". She went on: "Generations of children have been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. "People have tiptoed around this for the past 15 years. "This is a warning shot to anyone else who dares speak the truth, that they may lose their jobs. It merely serves to shut down all debate.""

SAF Regular Gets $2,000 Fine For Driving GrabHitch After Passenger Reports Him To MINDEF - "Singaporeans were appalled at Ms Goh’s reaction and criticized her for taking the GrabHitch ride, only to report her driver after alighting at her location. To make matters worse, it was revealed that her GrabHitch ride cost a mere $3.50... Unlike other Grab services, GrabHitch is essentially a carpooling service. It matches passengers with a driver who is heading to a similar destination for a nominal fee."

WATCH: 'Woke' Millennials Hilariously Say They'd Prefer Venezuela's Food Lines Over America's Income Inequality - "Though the young man appears to be quite knowledgeable about Venezuela, nodding and agreeing with Horowitz' description of its crisis situation, he still agrees with Horowitz that it’s better to "wait in line equally." "That is, I think, a fair system," says Horowitz... 45% of millennials would vote for an open socialist and 21% said they would vote for a communist. A majority, 53%, said that capitalism "works against me." Nearly a third, 32%, thought George W. Bush was responsible for the deaths of more people than Josef Stalin, while only a quarter of them “knew that communism is responsible for the slaughter of over 100 million people." That's liberal education at work."

SEA Games: Organisers slam 'Singapore dogs' football chant - "Southeast Asian Games organisers urged fans to behave themselves on Tuesday (Aug 22) after Malaysia football supporters caused anger by chanting "Singapore dogs" during a game... "Fans are urged to refrain from chanting offensive religious or racial slurs at all times," it added."
What does tis have to do with race or religion?

Everything You Need To Know About Justin Gatlin's Drug Positives Before His Showdown With Bolt - "Gatlin has never admitted to knowingly taking steroids and does not want to talk about the “incident” in his past. Gatlin admitted to having exogenous testosterone in his body. His defense at his USADA hearing was a combination of pleading for leniency because he co-operated by recording phone conversations with his ex-coach Trevor Graham at the request of federal investigators and trying to claim the testosterone was secretly rubbed on him by masseuse Chris Whetstine."

Liberals deny science, too - The Washington Post - "liberal academics showed a pretty high level of resistance to evolutionary explanations for phenomena ranging from sexual jealousy to male promiscuity... it's certainly noteworthy that a substantial minority of these scholars are resistant even to the least controversial evolutionary explanations, such as those involving hardwired tastes for certain foods or innate fears of poisonous critters"

Study: Law enforcement worries more about domestic than Islamic terrorism - "Despite public perception about the threat of extremists inspired by al-Qaida and the Islamic State, a new study shows that law enforcement officers are more concerned about the homegrown terrorist next door. In addition, the study said, the violence associated with foreign-inspired extremists has remained low in comparison to domestic terrorism. “Local law enforcement agencies see the threat of terrorism inspired by al-Qaida and like-minded terrorist organizations as less of a threat than other forms of violent extremism, principally anti-government extremism,” said the study, dated June 25 and published by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University."
This was cited to me as an example of the danger from Neo Nazis and how they are more dangerous than antifa. Yet, it doesn't actually talk about Neo Nazis. The main worry was "Anti-government violent extremism " followed by "Al-Qaeda inspired violent extremism " and "Environmental violent extremism". Neo Nazis aren't anti-government. At best you can classify them as the fourth category "Racist violent extremism" (you can put white supremacists here also). So according to this study Neo Nazis and White Supremacists are less of a threat than environmental extremists even. And again this was in 2013 before the rise in left wing violence of recent years

Conservatives Don't Like This West Point Report on America's Violent Far-Right
This was also cited to me as an example of the danger from Neo Nazis and how they are more dangerous than antifa. It's from 2012 but more importantly, Neo Nazis made up only 2.9% of all "far right violence". Most (78%) are "unaffiliated" so that means that organised far right violence, much less white nationalism, isn't a huge threat as it might seem from the headline numbers

Statistical Abracadabra: Making Sex Differences Disappear - "Not one deviation from gender-stereotypicality was allowed. Not one. Otherwise, no sex difference. Using this incredibly extreme criterion, only 1.2% of men and women counted as demonstrating a “sex difference” in gendered behavior (i.e., “In other words, even when considering highly stereotypical gender behaviors, there are very few individuals who are consistently at the ‘female-end’ or at the ‘male-end’” Joel et al., 2015, p. 4). This criterion for deciding whether a sex difference exists is, quite frankly, rather strange. It is as though these authors purposefully designed their statistical analyses to allow them to declare, "these aren't the sex differences you are looking for" (articulated in the voice of Sir Alec Guinness). Such a technique may be informative for evaluating the strawman view that all sex differences must entirely and completely co-vary together if it is a “real” sex difference (which is very unlikely given what sexual diversity researchers know about developmental neuroscience, epigenetics, strong modularity, and so forth; see here). Logically, the Joel et al. (2015) view on real sex differences would even argue men's and women's faces are not really different from each other because not all men's faces are entirely masculine and not all women's faces are entirely feminine (and not all facial attributes perfectly co-vary together). This last finding would be interesting, implying that not all facial features are masculinized or feminized at the same time... A much more useful tool for evaluating the degree (and the existence) of sex differences across a large number of variables is to use multivariate statistics designed for this very purpose (Del Giudice, 2013). Doing so has led sexual diversity researchers to conclude there are very large psychological sex differences... The views of Joel et al. (2015) represent the polar opposite of where sexual science is going (Cahill, 2014; Ruigrok et al., 2014), as evidenced by the National Institutes of Health’s recent declaration that biological sex differences are so large and consequential that both males and females must be included in studies involving cells and non-human animals and in preclinical research"

How to Find Anyone Online - "As we showed with the head of the FBI, the accounts of relatives and friends can lead you right to the person you want, even if that person is well hidden—the network of tags, likes, and retweets goes pretty deep on Instagram and Twitter, places where most content is public."

Lucas Lynch - Weird, the same people affirming the right of... - "Weird, the same people affirming the right of organizations to fire people for views they find reprehensible, or any reason at all, as they don't owe anyone a platform, are now demanding with angry protests that Colin Kaepernick *must* be hired by an NFL team"

The world is deluded if it thinks Angela Merkel is the salvation of the liberal order - "the more fundamental reason why it would be a mistake to regard Merkel as the great saviour of the liberal order is that she herself is no paragon of high principle, or at least not of progressive principle. International observers were surprised when they saw her vote against same-sex marriage in a hastily arranged division in the final Bundestag session in June. They seem to have forgotten that she is a Protestant minister’s daughter, the head of a party with “Christian” in its name. It is perfectly possible that she voted her conscience, which is what she had urged MPs to do. But conscience or not, on the gay marriage issue, the shrewd tactician was undoubtedly at work: by hastily allowing the Bundestag vote, she removed a potentially thorny election issue, something that had majority support among the population but not in her own party. Similarly, opening Germany’s borders to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees was in truth more another act of calculation than a humanitarian impulse"

Refugee hate preacher received $620K in social benefits in Switzerland – media - "A Libyan immigrant who called on Allah to “destroy” non-Muslims during his prayer in a Swiss mosque claimed $620,000 in social benefits for over a decade from a predominantly Christian state, local media report... the man came to seek refuge in Switzerland in 1998 after he fled his homeland, explaining that he’d been pursued by authorities for spreading religious propaganda for the Muslim Brotherhood. With political asylum granted and a residence permit, the 64-year-old Ramadan hardly ever worked, instead living on social payments from 2004 until 2017... Denmark discovered that dozens of its citizens who left for Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) continued to receive social benefits at home. In total, the jihadists received the hefty sum of 672,000 kroner (around $94,500) from municipalities and state-subsidized funds... he British housing and child welfare system has unwittingly “supplied” terrorists with “hundreds of thousands of pounds,” a former independent reviewer of UK terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile, claimed... The travel expenses of the terrorists who organized the 2016 Brussels bombings, which killed 32 and injured some 300, were partially funded by falsely claimed British social benefits, a UK criminal investigation discovered."