Links - 20th March 2018 (1)

Japan's mysterious 10 yen vending machines

The working rich are driving income inequality, not the rentiers - "Have passive rentiers replaced the working rich at the top of the U.S. income distribution? Using administrative data linking 10 million firms to their owners, this paper shows that private business owners who actively manage their firms are key for top income inequality. Private business income accounts for most of the rise of top incomes since 2000 and the majority of top earners receive private business income—most of which accrues to active owner-managers of mid-market firms in relatively skill-intensive and unconcentrated industries. Profit falls substantially after premature owner deaths"

What Do You Say to a Roanoke Truther? - "Chris was the boyfriend of Alison Parker, who was shot and killed on live television in August by a mentally ill man who had an invented grudge and easy access to firearms... according to millions of conspiracy theorists online, Chris Hurst is a part of my imagination. In the minds—and YouTube videos—of some conspiracy theorists, Chris is not a news anchor at WDBJ in Virginia. Chris, the videos say, is a “crisis actor" invented less than a month ago by the United States government as part of a false flag operation that will eventually allow the New World Order to take away every American citizen’s guns and force them into a life of subjugation and tyranny... “Conspiracy theorists are, I submit, some of the last believers in an ordered universe,” Pitzer College philosophy professor Brian Keeley wrote in Of Conspiracy Theories. “By supposing that current events are under the control of nefarious agents, conspiracy theories entail that such events are capable of being controlled”... “This happens for every president. It’s not just birthers, with President Obama. In 2001, a building blows up, and some people think George W. Bush did it,” says Uscinski. “In fact, there are the same number of [9/11] truthers as there are birthers.” Uscinski wrote “Conspiracy Theories Are for Losers,” which posits that conspiracy theories pervade amongst members of parties who are out of power and feel helpless in a political tide moving in the opposite direction... On the Internet, everything’s a false flag if you look hard enough"

Writing Invisibility: Conversations on the Hidden City - Why sex workers should be recognised as feminists, and other thought-provoking essays - "when journalists write about slums and the people who happen to inhabit them, there is a tendency to exaggerate and sensationalise, and ‘focus on crisis, poverty and squalor, and on the ever-rising numbers.’ Caroline’s essay offers a refreshing change from all that. In Migrant Nigerian sex workers and feminism, the award-winning novelist Chika Unigwe (author of the novel On Black Sisters Street) examines her own preconceived ideas about prostitutes as victims and the role of poverty in the transatlantic sex trade, and argues for the recognition of sex workers as feminists... Many of the women I spoke to were not working in order to be able to eat three times a day. The motivation was stronger than that. Roegler’s work follows four Nigerian ex-commercial sex workers from Benin City who have been deported from Italy. Even though all the women cite “wanting a better life” as their prime motivation for being voluntarily trafficked, all but one links the “better life” to escaping poverty. Their “better life” has a feminist ideal to it: independence. Far from being passive victims, many of these women are risk takers."

The obscure religion that shaped the West - "The idea of a single god was not the only essentially Zoroastrian tenet to find its way into other major faiths, most notably the ‘big three’: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The concepts of Heaven and Hell, Judgment Day and the final revelation of the world, and angels and demons all originated in the teachings of Zarathustra, as well as the later canon of Zoroastrian literature they inspired. Even the idea of Satan is a fundamentally Zoroastrian one; in fact, the entire faith of Zoroastrianism is predicated on the struggle between God and the forces of goodness and light (represented by the Holy Spirit, Spenta Manyu) and Ahriman, who presides over the forces of darkness and evil. While man has to choose to which side he belongs, the religion teaches that ultimately, God will prevail, and even those condemned to hellfire will enjoy the blessings of Paradise (an Old Persian word)."

PhD thesis: The earth is flat - "a huge scandal rocked the Tunisian and Arab scientific and educational world: a PhD student submitted a thesis declaring Earth to be flat, unmoving, young (only 13,500 years of age), and the centre of the universe."

LKY’s Haram Truths - "Malaysia’s government has said that a book on Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew is “still being studied” despite federal Islamic authorities earlier confirming that it has been placed on a list of books declared “haram”, or forbidden to Muslims."

Can a bald head person can wear a wig ? - "The scholars and jurists in Islam are of the opinion that any medication or treatment which allows ones own hair to re-grow naturally would be permissible; but to place or graft or transplant any other type of hair (real or artificial), which neither forms root nor grows naturally, would be absolutely impermissible."

“Chijo” - "Anyone who has lived for any length of time in Japan and knows a little bit of the language and culture knows the word chikan. The meaning of this word is a molester, but basically refers to a male who is prone to be a Peeping Tom, stealing woman’s underwear from their clothes lines, or even groping woman on the trains, catching a quick feel here and there, or pressing themselves into females. In other words, a pervert!... The female counterpart of chikan is “chijo” and basically has the same meaning, and yes there are some chijo in Japan, but they are rare or hardly reported to the police

Details of 2000 Ramallah Lynch of IDF Soldiers Revealed - "The Yediot Aharonot newspaper revealed Tuesday new details of the brutal murders of reservists Yossi Avrahami and Vadim Nurzhitz (z"l). The soldiers were lynched in Ramallah in October 2000. The soldiers lost their way to their base on October 12, 2000, ending up in the Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled city of Ramallah by mistake. PA police forces took the two into custody. Word reached local PA residents that undercover Israeli agents were being held in the building; some 1000 rioters reportedly gathered outside. The IDF declined to take action to rescue the soldiers; they were eventually stormed by the rioters... The crowd then dragged the bodies to a central square, beating them further before setting up a victory celebration. PA police forces did not attempt to intervene and in some cases, participated in the barbarism. "
And yet it is Israel that is at fault here

‘Naive’ young jihadis should rejoin society without facing court, says watchdog
Yet tweeting "hate speech" can land you in jail

Satanists Approve Drag-queen Dressed as Demon Reading to Children - "There was a recent event at the Michelle Obama Public Library during which a drag queen dressed as a demon read to small children."

Girl Scouts slam Boy Scouts' decision to accept girls: 'The Boy Scouts' house is on fire' - ""The Boy Scouts' house is on fire," Girl Scouts told ABC News in a statement today. "Instead of addressing systemic issues of continuing sexual assault, financial mismanagement and deficient programming, BSA's senior management wants to add an accelerant to the house fire by recruiting girls."
Why do the Girl Scouts hate women?

Why I Don't Want To Hear Both Sides Of Rape Cases - "When I read Jackie's story of trauma, institutional betrayal, and survival at the University of Virginia, I was horrified to read the details, but I was not surprised. As a college survivor and advocate for rape-free campuses, I am well acquainted with these kinds of events. Unfortunately, my experience has also made me familiar with another ugly part of sexual assault activism: the rampant minimizing, rape denialism, and victim-blaming that exists in our culture. Yesterday's letter from Rolling Stone backing away from the story is now a part of that. And it is downright dangerous. One of the implications of the letter is that the reporter should have spoken to the alleged assailants to verify whether Jackie was raped.
Fact checking is sexist

Prof frets that female students don't feel oppressed enough - "Cristina Mogro-Wilson, who teaches social work at UConn, surveyed 118 students pursuing a Masters in Social Work (MSW) degree and found that the overwhelming majority of respondents—94 percent of whom were women—do not believe that “discrimination and subordination” are “salient issues in women’s lives”... The findings are problematic, Mogro-Wilson contends, because without a sense of their own oppression, students may be disinclined to “embrace the notion of change through unification,” such as in the form of protesting. Worrying about the potential of a “post-feminist standpoint among younger women…who no longer see discrimination against women as being a salient issue,” Mogro-Wilson calls for incorporating more intersectionality into the social work curriculum.
When a woman says no, she means yes
Comments: " Why are they so threatened by women who are happy with their lives? Misery really does love company."
"Um, didn't liberals get angry when bill maher and others wanted to convince muslim women in the middle east that they were oppressed? There was a point a few years ago where i observed liberal logical inconsistency to surpass that of conservatives, but now it's blown way past."
"These well off women who are highly educated disagree with me. Obviously their knowledge on how oppressed they are is lacking, and need reeducation!"

Birth of the Dragon: makers of film about Bruce Lee respond to 'yellowface' row - "Glaring missteps such as Mickey Rooney’s Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s may be a thing of the past, but Johannson’s casting in Ghost in the Shell, as well as Matt Damon’s “white saviour” character in the Zhang Yimou-directed The Great Wall, have focused attention on claims of more subtle forms of cultural appropriation. Says Chan: “Caucasian actors may no longer don the makeup and the prosthetics but they nonetheless occupy a space on the screen as a stand-in for something/someone else.”... The recent upsurge in activity from China itself – both in terms of box-office clout and willingness to participate and shape Hollywood offerings – is also a factor. The Great Wall, for example, is produced by Hollywood outfit Legendary (best known for the recent Batman trilogy and The Hangover series), who are now owned by Chinese conglomerate Wanda. “My own sense,” says Chan, “is that Chinese investment in Hollywood films is less concerned about the politics of representation than about profits. They seem quite happy to pump money into films such as Star Trek Beyond and the Kung Fu Panda franchise. The Chinese in China do not need to justify their cultural identity to western audiences, and are quite happy to sell stereotypes if it means moving merchandise."
Ironically you still have white saviors coming in to tell the Chinese how they are oppressed

The GOP has a feminine face, UCLA study finds - ""Female politicians with stereotypically feminine facial features are more likely to be Republican than Democrat, and the correlation increases the more conservative the lawmaker's voting record," said lead author Colleen M. Carpinella, a UCLA graduate student in psychology. The researchers also found the opposite to be true: Female politicians with less stereotypically feminine facial features were more likely to be Democrats, and the more liberal their voting record, the greater the distance the politician's appearance strayed from stereotypical gender norms. In fact, the relationship is so strong that politically uninformed undergraduates were able to determine the political affiliation of the representatives with an overall accuracy rate that exceeded chance, and the accuracy of those predications increased in direct relation to the lawmaker's proximity to feminine norms."
This is more evidence that feminists are ugly
Addendum: Also reported as "Republican women prettier than Democrats, study finds". This replicates the finding on feminists being less attractive

Migrant Crime in Germany: Focus on North Africa - "No other group of foreigners has fallen into disrepute in Germany in recent years as much as young men from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. In 2016, only 2.4 percent of asylum seekers came from these North African countries, and yet 11 percent of immigrants suspected of committing a crime are from the Maghreb region. In Cologne, random samples showed that in 2015, more than 40 percent of migrants from the Maghreb committed robbery or theft within the first year of their arrival, says criminal division chief Thomas Schulte, who headed the investigations after the 2015/2016 New Year's Eve assaults on women in Cologne... Many of the criminal migrants are repeat offenders. A 34-year-old Moroccan who allegedly raped a woman in a bathroom in Hamburg's Reeperbahn entertainment district in December had a criminal record, and yet the local authorities felt they were not in a position to deport him. In fact, only 660 Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians were deported in 2016, even though deportation orders had been issued for close to 9,000 of them. In response, the federal government now intends to speed up deportations... there were demonstrations in Tunis against the [Tunisian failed asylum seeker] returnees, with protesters holding up signs in broken German reading: "Angela Merkel, Tunisia is not the garbage of Germany... German authorities faced significant hurdles in deporting rejected asylum seekers to the Maghreb. They often lacked documentation, and the countries of origin were in no hurry to issue replacement passports. Or they simply claimed that the deportees were not their citizens."

This Woman Is Fighting Rape By Allowing Strangers To Touch Her Vagina - "Many people are afraid to express themselves. But Swiss performance artist Milo Moiré? Well, not so much. And recently, the 32-year-old wanted to teach people a thing or two about a hot-button issue: consent."
???

I Dressed Like an Idiot at London Fashion Week to See How Easy It Is to Get Style Blogged - "people were taking me seriously, despite the fact I was wearing one knee-length golfing sock and holding an alarm clock"

Soon, married Italians might not have to promise to be faithful - "The proposed amendment to Italy's Civil Code would remove the word "fidelity" from Italian marriage contracts. The promise not to cheat is a "cultural legacy from an outdated and obsolete vision of marriage, family, and the rights and duties of spouses", according to the senators who have signed the bill... References to fidelity and faithfulness were removed from Italy's civil unions bill which was passed earlier this year - a change which provoked outcry from some of the LGBT community, who saw this as a failure to acknowledge the parity of same-sex and opposite-sex romantic relationships... Laura Cantini, one of the senators arguing for the fidelity clause to be dropped from heterosexual marriage, said that the wording of the civil unions bill is "a much more advanced model"... A 2013 poll showed that 55 percent of men and one in three women in Italy admitted to cheating on their partners, making them the most likely to be unfaithful in Europe."
The obsessive pursuit of equality can lead everyone to be equally badly off

How to win the war on free speech - "parents need to be involved in what their children are being taught, even before they reach university. As a testament to how entrenched these loopy ideas are, the indoctrination process begins as early as elementary school – take, for instance, social justice lessons in phys-ed class. We can take comfort in knowing that ideologues don't bother to hide their agenda – according to Dr. Peterson, if your child's teacher uses words like "diversity, equity, inclusivity," and "white privilege," these should tip you off that something is amiss... Like many, I believed this would be a passing phase, but instead I now see how ideology has mutated not just policy and education, but scientific inquiry. Studies in the hard sciences – including neuroscience, biology and sexology – now tout findings that are politically driven. Academic researchers actively choose to play along because they know that doing so will be lucrative for them; others are terrified of the public backlash they will endure if they don't."