Friday, September 28, 2018

Links - 28th September 2018 (2)

Domestic abuse husband 'let down' before his murder - "A solicitor who was abused and murdered by his violent wife was let down by authorities, a report has found. Doctors failed to raise concerns about injuries to David Edwards, according to the domestic homicide review... A perception that men were not domestic abuse victims may have contributed to the situation, the report concluded."
Male privilege!

Daycare provider who hanged toddler sentenced in Minneapolis - "Nataliia Karia received 10 years probation on Monday for hanging a toddler in her daycare and running over two men with her minivan, before attempting suicide. She had faced 13 years in prison. All of the victims of the November 2016 incident survived their injuries."

Drunk seductress, 36, forced herself on boy then falsely accused him of rape - "A female paedophile who had sex with a 14-year-old schoolboy then accused him of rape has been jailed for four years and eight months."
If it were the other way around...

Japanese basketball players in prostitute ‘disgrace’ - "Four Japanese basketball players have apologised for bringing “disgrace” to their nation after they were kicked out of the Asian Games for paying prostitutes for sex. The regional Olympics was hit by scandal after the players were spotted in a notorious red light district of the Indonesian capital Jakarta wearing their national jerseys"

Malaysian professor ‘killed wife and daughter with yoga ball leaking carbon monoxide that was left in car boot in Hong Kong’ - "Khaw Kim-sun, 53, a specialist in anaesthesiology, put the inflatable ball containing carbon monoxide in the boot of a yellow Mini Cooper driven by his wife, Wong Siew-fung, 47"

Who needs democracy when you have data? - "For any authoritarian regime, “there is a basic problem for the center of figuring out what’s going on at lower levels and across society,” says Deborah Seligsohn, a political scientist and China expert at Villanova University in Philadelphia... What information is available is deeply flawed; systematic falsification of data on everything from GDP growth to hydropower use pervades Chinese government statistics. Australian National University researcher Borge Bakken estimates that official crime figures, which the government has a clear incentive to downplay, may represent as little as 2.5 percent of all criminal behavior."

Dozens of men tricked into 'Hunger Games'-style competition via Tinder - "In some kind of modern-love social experiment, dozens of men in New York City reportedly showed up for what they thought was a Tinder date but ended up being in a "Hunger Games"-style competition against each other to win that date... the "most troubling thing" about what he witnessed was that she seemed to target "for lack of a better term, nerdy looking dudes" with "flowers and their shirt tucked in," who may have been earnestly looking for love."

Oxytocin and social norms reduce xenophobia - "the bonding hormone oxytocin together with social norms significantly increases the willingness to donate money to refugees in need, even in people who tend to have a skeptical attitude towards migrants"

Income inequality not gender inequality positively covaries with female sexualization on social media - "Female sexualization is increasing, and scholars are divided on whether this trend reflects a form of gendered oppression or an expression of female competitiveness. Here, we proxy local status competition with income inequality, showing that female sexualization and physical appearance enhancement are most prevalent in environments that are economically unequal. We found no association with gender oppression. Exploratory analyses show that the association between economic inequality and sexualization is stronger in developed nations. Our findings have important implications: Sexualization manifests in response to economic conditions but does not covary with female subordination. These results raise the possibility that sexualization may be a marker of social climbing among women that track the degree of status competition in the local environment."
Feminist theory takes yet another hit

Here's Your List Of Hillary Clinton's 'Accomplishments' - ""If you want to stump a Democrat," Carly Fiorina suggested during Wednesday's GOP debate, "ask them to name an accomplishment of Mrs. Clinton's" as secretary of state. Hillary herself seems just as stumped... Even her fans struggle for an answer. None of the Hillary supporters assembled at a focus group could name one... Politico tried to come to Hillary's rescue after the debate, asking 20 top Democrats to name her "greatest accomplishment." But it's hard to see how the answers help her much, since several on that list came before she became secretary of state, such as the Pediatric Research Equity Act. Remember that one? One listed a speech she gave in China on women. Several did mention sanctions on Iran, which would have been a great accomplishment if they had led to Iran abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Oops. The problem Clinton backers are having is they're looking at it all wrong. Hillary's great achievements as secretary of state are easy to find, all around the world. Just look at the unrest in Syria, the collapse of Libya, the rise of ISIS, the death of a U.S. ambassador, renewed Russian aggression . .. Now that is a long list."

Online Shopping Is Making Us Accumulate More Junk - "Sites like Amazon have made it especially easy to shop. In 1999, the Seattle retailer patented a one-click buying process, which allows customers to purchase something without entering their shipping address or credit-card info. It launched its Prime program in 2005, and now more than 100 million people have signed on to pay $119 a year for “free” two-day shipping. As a result, most other major retailers offer free shipping, too. Returning stuff is a little more difficult—shoppers usually have to print a label and then go to the post office or a UPS or FedEx site to return packages. Many wait too long, or decide the hassle isn’t worth it because the stuff was cheap anyway. A recent NPR/Marist poll found that nine in 10 consumers rarely or never return stuff they’ve bought online."

Woman who complained about noisy mosque jailed for blasphemy - "An Indonesian court has sentenced a Buddhist woman to 18 months in prison for blasphemy after she was accused of insulting Islam. Meiliana, a 44-year-old ethnic Chinese woman, had complained the Muslim call to prayer, which is repeated five times a day, was being played too loudly at the mosque near her house in North Sumatra... Since 2004, 147 people have been imprisoned under blasphemy or related laws, according to monitoring by Human Rights Watch"
What Would Reza Aslan Say?
This isn't even Aceh, the usual retort of apologists


The Islam apologists, including Reza Aslan, smear Sam Harris by misrepresenting his words « Why Evolution Is True - "It takes a certain amount of mendacity to listen to Sam’s words, which are perfectly clear, and distort them to make it seem that Sam wants to stop all Muslim immigration to Europe and the U.S. But we see that mendacity in many apologists for Islam, and most notably in the odious Reza Aslan, whose reputation rests solely on whitewashing religion, especially Islam"

6 times the Strauss family had serious beef with each other - "In September 1907, the last surviving Strauss brother Eduard had several thousand compositions on manuscript paper of his late brother Josef incinerated. Eduard claimed Josef asked him to destroy his unfinished works (possibly including a grand opera) in case they fell into the hands of others who might pass them off as their own. But it’s equally possible that Eduard, to avoid unfavourable comparisons with his brother, found the works and destroyed them after Josef’s death."

'Crazy Rich Asians' plays well to hometown crowd in Singapore - "Some viewers worried the movie ignored the reality of everyday life on the ground. "Not everyone is rich here, a lot of people live normal lives," said retiree Irene Ee, 65. "Now everyone will think we have so much money, we should pay for everyone else's needs.""
Maybe some Singaporeans think Hollywood films are an accurate depiction of the US

1 in 2 Singapore residents do not have a close friend from another race: survey
Since movies have a duty to represent reality, the lack of minority representation in Crazy Rich Asians is good. Indeed this is already implicitly conceded when SJWs bash Singaporean Chinese for being racist

No-deal Brexit myths debunked - ROSS CLARK explains why we WON'T starve and planes WILL take off - "With the Government releasing the first batch of its ‘no-deal’ impact assessments today, Brexit critics are gleefully anticipating dire headlines. They have jumped on outlandish predictions for life after Brexit, from rioting and planes being grounded, to empty supermarket shelves and warnings that a no-deal Brexit would push food prices up by 12 per cent. But what’s the truth? Here, ROSS CLARK analyses claims from proponents of the new Project Fear"

Nurses who failed English test aimed at curbing immigration set for a reprieve - "Language rules introduced to curb immigration are set to be relaxed after they prevented native English-speaking nurses from working in the NHS. The NHS has a shortage of 40,000 nurses and recruiters and NHS employers have been lobbying for looser language requirements so that thousands of nurses from countries such as Australia, India and the Philippines can work in Britain. In June, the Observer uncovered evidence that Australians and other native English-speaking nurses were being turned down because they could not pass the International English Language Testing System test"

Difficulty of NHS language test ‘worsens nurse crisis’, say recruiters - "IELTS has four elements: speaking, listening, reading and writing. To qualify to work in the NHS, candidates need to score at least seven out of nine in each section. Purcell, who spent AU$650 (£386) on the test, managed 6.5 in writing and seven in reading... Native English speakers average just 6.3 in writing and 6.7 in reading, according to the British Council, a joint owner of the test. HCL says foreign nurses who come to the UK to study only need to reach 6.0 to get a place on a nursing degree at universities including Warwick and Gloucester."

The Sex Offender Registry Leaves Female Sex Offenders Open to Abuse
Feminism is about gender equality, which means protecting women by subjecting them to different rules from men

NYU Scholar Accused of Harassment Assails Rush to Judgment as Sign of ‘Sexual Paranoia’ - "The emails between Avital Ronell and her advisee, Nimrod Reitman, were florid and campy, filled with expressions of affection that seemed over the top and inappropriate to the investigators who would scrutinize them years later... It was, she said in an interview on Friday, a rush to judgment in an era when legitimate concerns about sexual harassment can veer off into “sexual paranoia.” Silenced until now by a confidentiality agreement with the university, she said she was tired of being portrayed as a predator when in fact, she insisted, there had been no inappropriate physical contact between herself and her doctoral advisee, and the communications he objected to were freely reciprocated... The final report on the Title IX investigation, excerpts of which were obtained by The Chronicle, supports Reitman’s contention that he felt pressured at times to use effusively affectionate language in his emails to her."

This Woman Lost An Internship At NASA For The Most Hilarious Reason Ever - "in a scene pulled directly from your nightmares, the jubilant poster had unwittingly tweeted obscenities at her brand-new boss."

Ian Miles Cheong on Twitter - "NASA engineer Homer Hickam deactivated his Twitter after a sustained harassment campaign from members of the furry community following a brief interaction with a would-be NASA intern (a furry) who spewed profanity at him. He also deleted his blog defending the furry"

Swearing on social media really could cost you your job - "poor spelling and grammar is more damaging to a candidate’s reputation than drunken photos."

Outrage over a safe sex guide calling vagina a "front hole"
Biology - and science more generally - is only endorsed when it suits the liberal agenda

Healthline changes their website then says 'front hole' claims are untrue.
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