Links - 8th December 2017 (2)

Charlie Hebdo publishes cartoon of Barcelona attack criticised for portraying Islam as inherently violent - "In an editorial inside the magazine, Charlie Hebdo's editor Laurent Sourisseau known as "Riss" explained his editorial choice by saying experts and policy-makers are avoiding asking hard questions out of concern for moderate Muslims. "The debates and questions about the role of religion and in particular the role of Islam in these attacks have completely disappeared," he wrote"
Apparently a cartoon about terrorism is more offensive than the terrorism itself

In India, caste system ensures you are what you eat - ""You grow up learning you cannot relish your food or eat it as though you were enjoying it. That was regarded as crude. Everything we did had to be ultra-refined, so we ate as though we were doing penance, with no enjoyment," she says. Mehra ran from this ethereal atmosphere into the arms of a man from Punjab, a community famous for its Dionysian love of excess, including that of food with big, bold, rustic flavours - but that is another story. As so many of the recent high-caste vegetarian cookbooks will tell you, meat is repugnant to Saraswat and Iyengar Brahmins. A common assumption outside India is that all Hindus are vegetarians. Many Hindus are indeed vegetarian but many, including Brahmins, eat meat. In fact, for the warrior castes, meat was an important part of their diet, vital in building the physical strength needed for battle. It is the belief of one high-ranking caste, the Kayastha, that vegetarianism is for rabbits. A meal without at least one mutton dish is a disaster for Kayasthas... When an upper-caste person gives food to someone of a lower caste, it is always dropped, rather than placed, in their hands, to avoid any contamination... For centuries, the time-honoured technique for sparking a Hindu-Muslim riot has been to throw a pig's head into a mosque or dump a dead cow outside a Hindu temple. Even today, food habits are used as a tool of social exclusion. Rich, upper-caste Hindu landlords in Mumbai housing complexes use vegetarianism to keep out lower-caste tenants (and Muslims, too, of course) by specifying that flats can only be let to vegetarians... British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, when he visited India in 2010 for a television series, travelled to meet members of the Dhuruva tribe, in Chhattisgarh, to see how they make a red ant chutney (he liked it), but you're unlikely to ever catch an Indian food writer or chef showing an interest in the traditions of the poor and marginalised... The day Indian publishers start commissioning Dalit cookery books will mark a victory for the country's culinary inclusiveness. The day someone opens a Dalit restaurant that upper-caste Indians go to will signal the vanquishing of an ancient bigotry."

Game of Thrones: the best show on TV just became the silliest - "Characters used to act, and plot used to unfurl, in ways that felt real; that’s what gave this geeky genre series about dragons and magic its global crossover appeal. Now? We know Jon will be part of the larger battle to come, so we knew he hadn’t drowned. The Night’s King needed a dragon, so the plot gave us a half-baked reason – Dany coming to a profoundly unlikely rescue – for him to get one. Sansa sends Brienne away because the plot requires her to be unprotected, nothing more. Characters aren’t so much pieces being moved on a board than the board is being moved under them, credulity be damned. In a show full of dragons and magic, it’s strange that the humans are starting to feel fake"
But it's fiction so you can write anything!

UK Pakistani views on the adverse health risks associated with consanguineous marriages - "participants had a limited and varied understanding of genetic risk and indicated a lack of discussion within the community regarding genetic risk. They also opposed evidence that may link consanguineous marriages with infant mortality, stillbirth or genetic disorders that led to disability. The participants stressed the need for culturally sensitive and locally constructed services for information on genetic risk and services"
Is it racist and Islamophobic to tell people that cousin marriage can lead to genetic defects?

Pope says migrants' rights should override national security concerns - ""The principle of the centrality of the human person ... obliges us to always prioritise personal safety over national security"... He called for "alternative solutions to detention" for illegal immigrants
Apparently some human persons are more central than others

OOPS: Antifa Beats The Hell Out Of Fellow Protester They Mistake For A 'Nazi' - "some of the brilliant folks comprising the hard leftist group Antifa accidently beat the hell out of a fellow Antifa protester whom the morons mistook for a "neo-Nazi" (which basically means anyone right-wing or classically liberal)."

Jake Tapper: Antifa protesters have attacked several journalists - "Here’s a portion of Antifa’s excuse for their violence. I’m going to quote it at length because it is so pathetic that reading it will give you an idea of the idiocy we are dealing with here. This is the excuse of 6th grader caught red handed by the principal:
This man ran at a crowd that was holding space for our murdered comrade with just his iPhone. Due to the intensity and context of this time people are very scared of white men running full speed at them with iPhones as this is the exact behavior of a white supremacist trying to out identity of people of color and anti fascists in order to invoke fear. Additionally, they also use press footage constantly to do this...
As Tapper noted above, the station says the explanation is full of lies."

WATCH: BLM Member Confronts Antifa Members Over Masks. So An Antifa Guy Punches Him.

After Charlottesville, a Hitler supporter's haunting warning —'Then they came for me' — is everywhere. - The Washington Post - "Niemöller supported Adolf Hitler and Jewish hatred — until he was sent to a concentration camp... Niemöller’s sermons reflected his strong nationalist sentiment. He felt that reparations, democracy and foreign influence had led to damaging social fragmentation and an overemphasis on the individual in German society. Niemöller believed that Germany needed a strong leader to promote national unity and honor... In examining interviews, speech transcripts and other documents, University of California at Santa Barbara history professor Harold Marcuse concluded that Niemöller didn’t quite say things as he’s been quoted. The persecuted groups he cited sometimes changed for his audience. So did the order in which he listed them."

6 Secrets Men Never Tell - "Now and then, men just want to have some time for themselves to enjoy moments of peace and quiet."

The 11 nations of the United States - "Yankeedom
New Netherland
The Midlands
Tidewater
Greater Appalachia
Deep South
El Norte
The Left Coast
The Far West
New France
First Nation"

Disable Your Laptop's Touchpad While You Type, Windows 7 Edition - "unlike TouchFreeze, TouchpadPal is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7."

Man accidentally hires son’s girlfriend as escort - "The 70-year-old, from Treviso, couldn't believe his eyes when his future daughter-in-law knocked on his door. The South American woman had told everyone, including the 40-year-old son, that she was a waitress. Red-faced, they decided not to seal the deal. The father, deciding that honesty was the best policy, then told his son the truth. But it sparked a bitter fight between the pair."

Detroit Player Injures Himself with Celebratory Hip Thrust

Computer geeks as loners? Data says otherwise - "Sixty-two percent of tech workers are married, according to 2012 American Community Survey (ACS) data analyzed by Computerworld. The rate for the entire population? 51%, a Pew Research Center analysis of 2010 Census data says. Tech workers' marital status is on par with other white-collar professions, including finance (62%), law (62%), medicine (61%) and education, the Computerworld ACS analysis found -- perhaps as much due to age or income as career."

S’pore govt agencies may use ‘sarcasm detectors’ for social media monitoring - "the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) has developed an artificial intelligence system that can swiftly search through online content, detect if the netizens’ comments are sarcastic, and make more accurate analysis on their true sentiments. This is to analyse what citizens truly think about the government."

Do not boil your underwear in hotel kettles, warns expert - "Highlighted by Gizmido, who spotted someone asking on Twitter, “Real question: does anyone I know clean their underwear in a kettle while travelling?” evidence of people using hotel kettles to boil their unmentionables has, worryingly, also been spotted on Chinese microblogging site Weibo."
That it's found on Weibo tells you what you need to know

Scientists Take Over Computer by Encoding Malware in DNA - "they converted a piece of malware into physical DNA strands. When those strands were sequenced, the malware launched and compromised the computer that was analyzing the sequences, allowing the team to take control of it... programs for analyzing DNA have “relatively relaxed security standards.” There are rumors, he says, that one big research institution was hit by ransomware, because they used the default admin passwords on their sequencing machines."

Don’t expect police to come out after a crime if you’re healthy, middle-aged and speak good English - "Deputy commissioner Craig Mackey said the “absolutely feasible” change would see the Met assessing the level of risk faced by a caller when deciding whether to send officers for a “face to face service”... Healthy middle-aged men such as himself might miss out. Mr Mackey said burglary victims would “probably always get a service” but that “vehicle crime, those sorts of things” were among the types of offence where police might not attend unless the person affected was vulnerable."
Keywords: Crime victims who don’t speak English may soon ‘be prioritised by police’, which victims got face-to-face visits would depend on how “vulnerable” they were

Malaysia got 8 out of 11 flags wrong in a medal tally broadcast on TV during the SEA Games
Malaysia Boleh

M’sia has finally done it, they’ve gotten their own flag wrong for SEA Games broadcast - "Keith for some reason was competing under KUL, instead of MAL, for Malaysia. Maybe that was for Kuala Lumpur?"

Violence breaks out at Berkeley protest - "Thousands of demonstrators, carrying signs with slogans like “Stand Against Hate,” descended on Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Park on Sunday for what many hoped would be a peaceful march against bigotry and President Trump. But it was soon punctuated by tear gas and a scattering of violent skirmishes. Some anti-fascist protesters, wearing black and with their faces covered, chased or beat Trump supporters and organizers who had scheduled and then canceled the “anti-Marxist” rally, citing concerns over safety... Some in Berkeley worried that Sunday’s chaos, captured on video and quickly disseminated through social media, would provide unwanted ammunition to Trump and his supporters. “We can’t keep producing this audio-visual propaganda,” said Andrew Noruk, a counter-protester who denounced the fights. “It is recruiting for the right”... Anti-fascist protesters also beat one person wearing an American flag. Some threatened to break the cameras of anyone who filmed them, including journalists. Others set off purple smoke bombs.
Apparently it's not hateful to hate "hate". Amusingly, on Robert Reich's Facebook some people were claiming that the violence was because of paid Trump supporters. Of course even more were defending antifa or violence (when directed at "Nazis")

Study: Social justice activism is 'rife' with 'oppression' - "While some individuals “may find social support and decreased isolation through engagement with established activist groups,” they caution that “activism is not universally helpful,” particularly for those with “multiple oppressed identities,” who “may experience invalidation, tokenism, and marginalization within activist communities.” Many of the activists interviewed for Morrow’s study, all of whom were referred to by pseudonyms in the article, confirmed that they have faced oppression in the field... At least half of those surveyed “spoke to the struggle to choose to engage or not in activism” out of a fear of being disliked by other activists... One transgender activist, Bri, said that she felt tokenized by her peers, discouraged that she’s only called upon to speak when people “need a trans person’s voice for whatever.”"
This is further evidence that liberals aren't tolerant and don't practise what they preach. And/or that claims of oppression should not always be taken at face value

U.S. duped by ‘monumental’ lie about Charlottesville - "Here’s the irony: Robert E. Lee was the most decorated soldier in the U.S. Army. He was a man of unimpeachable integrity. Lincoln offered him command of the Union Army, but Lee refused only because his loyalty was to Virginia. Lee opposed both secession and slavery. And yet to the historically illiterate left, a man who opposed both slavery and secession has come to symbolize both slavery and secession... let’s look at former West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, who was a deeply important figure in the modern Democratic Party. Seemingly half of West Virginia is named after Robert Byrd! And yet this was a man who was not only associated with racism, but was a leader in his state’s chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. This is from the modern era – yet no one is calling for his name to be taken down from street signs, buildings named after him to be altered or his memory damned by the state of West Virginia. “The bottom line is when a figure is in the Democratic Party, regardless of how racist he or she was, no one in the media draws attention to the history involved. Someone like Lee can’t even be mentioned in the same breath as Byrd”... Democrats who are almost universally celebrated by modern progressives also have a deeply troubling history, according to D’Souza. Noted progressive Woodrow Wilson, for example, prominently championed the racist film, “The Birth Of A Nation,” sparking a modern day revival of the Ku Klux Klan."

ESPN pulls announcer Robert Lee from University of Virginia football game - "ESPN confirmed Tuesday night that it had decided to pull an announcer from calling a University of Virginia football game because his name is Robert Lee. This Robert Lee is Asian."
Yet, saying that Barack Hussein Obama's middle name was worrying was considered racist

HERE IT IS: 30 Years of Trump FIGHTING RACISM That the Media Doesn’t Want You to See (Video) - "Watch Donald Trump disavow David Duke, the KKK and all racists, over and over again, dating back 17 years, while the liberal media keeps denying he did, and insists he must be a racist himself."