Wait, why are there so many black people in Far Cry 5? - "After spending a few weeks with Far Cry 5, I’ve come to the regretful conclusion that there are way too many black people in this game... According to the 2016 census, black people make up just over half a percent of the population of Montana. There are only about 6,000 black people in the entire state. Does Far Cry expect me to believe that all of them moved to Hope County?"
Apparently you can have too much diversity
What if someone used crime statistics to justify black people appearing as criminals in a game?
Sainsbury's to introduce touch-free packaging 'for millennials' - "The fear of contamination by bacteria such as campylobacter, which can cause serious, even lethal, food poisoning, when discovered in some raw poultry, was so great that one woman in the focus group said she coated her chicken with antibacterial spray before cooking it... Thirty-seven per cent of millennials - born after 1980 - preferred not to touch raw meat, compared with a little more than a quarter of the wider population"
'Into the Badlands' Star Daniel Wu: I Had to Go to China Before Hollywood Would Cast Me as a Lead - "Living and working in Asia insulated me from the race issue that is all-pervasive in entertainment in the U.S., especially now. When I won a part in Hong Kong, it was because I was right for it and not just because I fit the bill racially. Conversely, if I was rejected, it was because of my ability, which was something I could work on and not because of my race, which I couldn’t. So instead of being an angry Asian American actor lamenting about limited roles, being in Asia allowed me to focus on the craft of acting and to choose roles that helped broaden me as an actor."
How would a non-East Asian actor have fared in Greater China?
The problem with reinforced concrete - "Given the survival of ancient structures, this may seem curious. The critical difference is the modern use of steel reinforcement, known as rebar, concealed within the concrete. Steel is made mainly of iron, and one of iron’s unalterable properties is that it rusts. This ruins the durability of concrete structures in ways that are difficult to detect and costly to repair."
Why So Many Asian-American Women Are Bleaching Their Hair Blond - The New York Times - "The first time I was aware of my Asianness was when I asked my mother why I wasn’t blond. I was 5, and one of only a handful of Asian-Americans living in a predominantly white suburb in Michigan. Of course, my story is not unique — it’s an experience that’s probably shared by most American-born Asians as we shake off our perceived otherness and strive to prove our Americanness. There’s a term for it: “perpetual foreigner.”... the most obvious and quickest way to subscribe to Western ideals of beauty is to lighten your hair"
Maybe Asian women in Asia are bleaching their hair blond because they feel like foreigners
How Profiteers Lure Women Into Often-Unneeded Surgery - The New York Times - "she had stumbled into a growing industry that makes money by coaxing women into having surgery — sometimes unnecessarily — so that they are more lucrative plaintiffs in lawsuits against medical device manufacturers."
Gay activist Jaden Duong did bomb ‘research’ before ACL hit - "The man accused of driving a burning van laden with gas bottles into the Australian Christian Lobby headquarters was a gay activist who disliked the group because of its “position on sexuality” and had searched online how to make plastic explosives and a pressure-cooker bomb. Court documents tendered to the ACT Magistrates Court yesterday reveal Jaden Duong had also run searches about gay marriage in other countries and, a month before the alleged attack at 10.45pm on December 21 last year, had searched for the “Australian Christian Lobby”. After the blast at the group’s Canberra headquarters in Deakin, which gutted the ground floor and caused $100,000 of damage, police said the attack was not “politically, religiously or ideologically motivated” and referred to it as a “car fire”."
Maybe it's only terrorism when it's against a "minority"
The myth of the online echo chamber - "social media and search users tended to land upon more polarised news sources – Breitbart compared to Fox News, for instance – which might translate to a more extreme world view. Crucially, however – and contrary to the concept of the online echo chamber and filter bubble – they were also more likely to visit sites expressing opposing viewpoints. Their media diet was more varied, overall. “It seems counterintuitive, but direct browsing often just consists of one or two sites that you regularly read – such as the BBC and CNN – while by its nature, social media will expose you to a number of other sources, increasing the diversity”"
Job loss is bad for your health – Swedish evidence on cause-specific hospitalization following involuntary job loss - "This paper examines the impact of job loss on a number of non-fatal health events, which are nonetheless severe enough to require hospital in-patient care. We focus on job loss due only to establishment closures, as this reduces the problem of distinguishing between causation and selection. Using linked employee–employer register data, we identify the job losses due to all establishment closures in Sweden in 1987 or 1988. During a subsequent 12-year period, we find that job loss significantly increases the risk of hospitalization due to alcohol-related conditions, among both men and women, and due to traffic accidents and self-harm, among men only. We find no evidence, however, that job loss increased the risk of severe cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction or stroke."
It’s time to say goodbye to the NFL cheerleaders - "IN THE MIDST of this #MeToo moment — and two weeks from the Super Bowl — it’s time to rethink NFL cheerleaders and their barely covered breasts being ogled on the sidelines by drunken men with binoculars. It’s embarrassing for us all. Or should be."
"Remember when we ridiculed John Ashcroft for covering the bust of a statue of lady justice, and the religious conservatism it represented?"
Morrissey’s Brexit love affair makes him the last true rock’n’roll rebel | Coffee House - "Where they weep over Brexit, and the thick throng that voted for it, Moz says Brexit was a ‘victory for democracy’. Where they view Israel as source of much of the world’s grief, he has penned a six-minute lovesong to Israel on his new album. Where they worship at the altar of multiculturalism — having disappeared so far up the fundament of identity politics that they think it’s tantamount to a hate crime to say that any one way of life is better than another — Morrissey says ‘if you try to make everything multicultural, you end up with no culture at all’. This is a man in revolt. And it’s wonderful."
Man attacked in Berlin for wearing kippa is Israeli Arab - "An Israeli man who was beaten in an anti-Semitic attack while wearing a traditional Jewish skullcap in Berlin told German television on Wednesday night that he was not Jewish but wanted to find out whether it was safe to walk in the street dressed as a Jew. “I am not Jewish, I am an Israeli and I grew up in Israel in an Arab family,” Adam Armush, 21, told broadcaster Deutsche Welle. “It was an experience for me to wear the skullcap and go out into the street yesterday.” He said he filmed the attack on him and a second man as evidence “for the police and for the German people and even the world to see how terrible it is these days as a Jew to go through Berlin streets.”... Armush filmed one of them men whipping him with a belt while calling out, “Yahudi,” or “Jew” in Arabic, before he is stopped by a passerby. The video subsequently shows Adam with a bruise on his torso. In a video interview with the Bild newspaper, Armush said the main attacker seemed to have a “Syrian dialect.”... The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Joseph Schuster, told AFP he was “shocked” by the incident, noting that it had occurred in a “bourgeois” area and not in a “majority Muslim quarter.”"
'Jewish man' attacked in Berlin admits he's an Israeli-Arab who didn't believe Germany was anti-Semitic - "He was conducting what he termed an "experiment" in response to a warning from a friend that wearing a kippa in Germany was unsafe, saying he refused to believe this... a rap band that included cynical references about the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp in its lyrics won the country's most important music prize — drawing strong criticism from other artists and government officials. Several past winners said they would return their awards"
So much for stereotypes
French Muslims blast anti-Semitism letter as attack on Islam - "The open letter published Sunday in the Parisien newspaper blamed “Islamist radicalization” for what it said was “quiet ethnic purging” in the Paris region, with abuse forcing Jewish families to move out... Jews are the target of about a third of France’s recorded hate crimes despite making up only about 0.7 percent of the population."
Being against anti-Semitism is Islamophobic
Angela Merkel denounces ‘different type of antisemitism’ from Arab refugees after assault on men wearing skullcaps - "It led Germany’s main Jewish leader to advise people visiting big cities against wearing Jewish skullcaps."
Toulouse riots: Police attacked as woman arrested for refusing to remove Islamic face veil - "Hundreds of police units were deployed after young residents threw stones, torched cars and set fire to garbage cans... She allegedly showed a poor-quality photocopy of her identity card and refused to lift her veil to let police officers see her face. After several futile attempts to have her lift the veil, the woman began to scream for help, France Info reports. She was placed under arrest and moved into a police vehicle. Soon after, a group of about 30 people circled the police and attacked them. Officers attempted to quell the crowd by discharging their weapons and used tear gas launcher."
Berlin’s criminal gangs prey on refugees for new recruits - "Around a quarter of the 40-60 organised crime investigations conducted every year in Berlin are dominated by ethnic Arabs, Mr Jacob says. In other categories of crime, the picture is different — Mr Heilmann says house break-ins, for example, are the preserve of gangs from eastern Europe and Georgia... Authorities have identified 151 youths who commit on average more than 10 crimes a year — 54 per cent of them are of Arab descent, even though Arabs only make up 9 per cent of Neukölln’s population"
Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is obsessed with soup. - "The sheer variety of soups in A Song of Ice and Fire is dizzying. Martin describes broths made from ginger, seaweed, sweetgrass, peppercrab, frog, fish, mutton, venison, dog, and elephant. Every area of the Seven Kingdoms gets its own soup. So do the free cities of Essos. In the North, they eat a lot of beef and barley stew. In the slums of Flea Bottom, the beggars gulp greasy bowls o’ brown and feel lucky if they find a smidgen of meat. Up at the Wall, the members of the Night’s Watch nourish themselves with cups of thick bean-and-bacon soup. On the Iron Islands, they break their fast on “a broth of clams and seaweed cooked above a driftwood fire,” which sounds a lot like something they would serve at Noma."
CRIMEWAVE: Shoplifting Doubles as Police Drop Theft Investigations, Focus on ‘Hate Crime’ - "Shoplifting and reports of theft in shops have almost doubled in just 12 months, new figures show, with police blamed for ignoring physical crimes as they focus on “hate crime” and online comments... The sudden rise in crimes comes after many UK police forces introduced a policy of only investigating theft if a value of £200 or more is stolen, with those stealing less than the threshold being dealt with by post in some cases... The total cost of crimes committed against the sector over the past year was £193 million, the ACS said, which equates to a 7p “crime tax” on every transaction in the shops, they calculated."
London’s Met Police Won't Investigate Minor Crime, Only ‘Hate Crime’ - "London’s Metropolitan Police force will not bother to investigate crimes if officers are required to watch CCTV for more than 20 minutes or there is no footage available... The new “crime assessment policy” was uncovered after a Freedom of Information request by The Times, and comes a time of increasing budgetary pressures and falling police numbers... other crimes, including so-called “hate crime” and serious crimes such a homicides and sexual assaults, must always be investigated."
British Police Force Uses 'Positive Action' to Ban White Men from Recruitment Workshops
Sweden plans change in law to require explicit consent before sexual contact - "In Sweden, the prosecution must present evidence to the court proving beyond reasonable doubt that the accused has committed the crime. Following the changes to the law, the prosecution will have to present evidence demonstrating that the sexual act was not consensual."
Maybe this will make Swedish men even more passive, and Swedish women will complain even more about that
Do Artificial Sweeteners Cause an Insulin Spike? - "according to the literature there isn’t an appreciable insulin effect from most sweeteners"
Top mineral water brands Contaminated with plastic particles: Study
Since tap water is contaminated with fluoride, the natural crowd can drink raw water and die of dysentry
The Strange Short Flight of Flat Earth Rocket Man - ""Whoever started that rumor that I was going to prove the Earth was flat is an idiot," he said in a phone call the week after his flight. He suggested that it may have been a reporter from the Washington Post who planted the seed, but that Jeff Bezos was likely behind the rumor-spreading. We'll never know for sure. What we do know is that dreams—no matter how far-fetched or ill-advised—can come true. A 61-year-old limousine driver who makes $15 an hour ferrying people around California's high desert communities can hurl himself into the sky from an RV-based launcher in a steam-powered rocket. It's a feat that's nothing if not unique."
Montreal's Red-Light District Created the Sin City of the North - "A hundred years ago, the same quadrangle served as the city’s red-light district and single-handedly gave Montreal its “Sin City of the North” name at a time when North America’s beer taps—with the exception of Québec’s—ran dry. Hundreds of brothels and strip clubs welcomed tourists and locals alike. Gamblers and bookmakers struck gold—or lost big. Legendary burlesque performer Lili St. Cyr was the reigning “Queen of Montreal.” Even Al Capone couldn’t resist the siren song of Montreal’s red-light district. In its heyday, some 500 sex workers worked the St. Catherine Street/St. Laurent Boulevard intersection daily."
In Social Research Fields, Conservatives Are the Most Underrepresented Group - "Progressives are vastly overrepresented in the academy. According to the most comprehensive study on faculty political leanings to date (Gross & Simmons 2014), progressives outnumber conservatives by 10:1 in the humanities and social sciences, despite the fact that conservatives outnumber liberals in the general U.S. population (and pretty much always have)... the lack of ideological diversity seems to be vastly more pronounced in social research fields than underrepresentation in terms of gender, sexuality, and race."
"Which Side Are You On?" - "I am the freelance journalist who recorded and released the viral video of what happened that day. For doing so, I now find myself accused of being on the ‘wrong side’ — not just by the protesters, but also by some in the media. The Guardian has accused me of belonging to “a movement” that works “hand in hand with right-wing media and right-wing organizations to promote attacks on progressives.” This was followed by an article in GQ which includes me on a would-be shaming list of “free speech grifters.”... What is dismaying about the Guardian and GQ articles is the recourse to personal insults and an unwillingness to distinguish between different critics of campus illiberalism. Instead, thoughtful progressives like Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying are lumped into the same category as a right-wing provocateur like Milo Yiannopoulos, and all are accused of operating from mercenary motives... Mr. Wilson’s uncharitable mischaracterization of my reporting and motives reminds me of the justification offered by my former editors at Portland State’s student paper, The Vanguard when they fired me from my editorial position last April. Recording and sharing a video that exposed Islamic apostasy doctrines to scrutiny, one of my supervisors explained, violated the principles of media ‘intersectionality.’... almost all of the disruptions of events held at universities have been found to come from the Left"
If evidence attacks progressives, that suggests that progressives are not doing kosher things
Campus Speaker Disinvitations: Recent Trends (Part 2 of 2) - "When a disinvitation attempt is unsuccessful, those opposed to the speaker and/or the speaker’s views may attempt to disrupt the event so the speaker cannot finish their remarks. The tactics employed have included shouting down the speaker during the event, pulling the fire alarm, and (yes, really) pie-throwing... moderate event disruptions in this time period almost exclusively came from the left of the speaker... substantial event disruptions in this time period almost exclusively came from the left of the speaker...
Speaker disinvitation attempts from 2000 to 2016 were most likely to come from the left of the speaker.
These disinvitation attempts from the left occurred most often for controversies over racial issues, views on sexual orientation, and views on Islam.
Speaker disinvitations due to issues related to abortion almost exclusively came from the right of the speaker, at religious institutions...
With the exception of 2006, the first decade of the new millennia saw a roughly equal number of disinvitation attempts from the left and right of the speaker. Beginning in 2010 an uptick in disinvitation attempts from the left of the speaker has occurred."
Perhaps we can look to 2010 for the start of the recent wave of liberal hysteria