Links - 13th June 2019 (1)

Bettina Arndt - Posts - "Sad legacy of feminism. Wonderful care from ambulance people following bike accident in New Zealand. But despite great care from chivalrous men none dare offer helping hand and actually touch this wounded woman.
Two days now since I smashed my collar bone, two ribs, and needed 20 stitches in torn leg, and it's been striking how carefully normally chivalrous men now avoid touching an elbow to help me into a car or do up my seatbelt. That's the shameful consequence of decades of feminist lunacy scaring off kind men from helping women."

The Screen - Posts - "According to Caroline Criado-Perez:
1 - Women who live in supported housing are the real homeless, not the men freezing their bollocks off on the streets.
2 - Because a fifth of 17- 19-year-old girls versus one in ten boys have self-harmed or tried to kill themselves, means the overall suicide ratio of 1 woman to 3 men is meaningless.
3 - The fact the UK government recognises men are treated considerably more harshly every step of the way through the criminal justice system (and has the stats to back it up) means nothing because men treated more harshly in the system. WHAT!?
4 - Women who are unemployed but subsidised by a wage-earning husband have it worse than men who are unemployed and have nothing.
This is how feminists think the world works. They are fucking deranged."
Original article: Four men’s rights activist myths, busted

The Worst of Twitter - Posts - "I just saw a white motorist giving a black homeless man a banana. A banana!"
"What was he supposed to give him?"
"Your question is ahistorical @kaelelo a banana is not a weapon nor does it serve as a symbol to fight racism/poverty/homelessness. On the contrary, it reaffirms racism in that it relates the homeless black man to a monkey."
White people need to stop giving black people food
Partial source: https://twitter.com/kaelelo/status/1120708768520650752 (missing first line)

Nine Things That Are Now More Popular than Pitiful CNN - "CNN lost 26 percent of its audience, down 237,000 viewers since April 2018, and down nearly 40 percent from its 2016 peak. To put those numbers in their proper perspective:
According to Wikipedia, the population of prostitutes in the U.S. (approximately one million) is larger than the population of CNN viewers.
Across all cable networks, CNN now ranks 15th, behind Home and Garden TV (4th), the Hallmark Channel (9th) and the Food Network (14th)."

Texas Tech Should Value Diversity: Letters - "Many patients I’ve cared for have expressed their desire to be treated by clinicians of the same race, only to be disappointed when told that there are none available...
My medical school’s mission statement was to provide future physicians for the state of Arizona. I was one of the students on the admissions committee and the selection process we had was incredible. Diversity was key to insure we maximized the odds that we would train physicians from rural areas and the reservations, since studies show us that these physicians are more likely to practice in their home communities than a physician not from these areas."
Of course when white patients want white doctors they get condemned as racist

Relationships between academic performance of medical students and their workplace performance as junior doctors - "Performance on integrated assessments from medical school is correlated to performance as a practicing physician as measured by the Junior Doctor Assessment Tool."
In other words, affirmative action for medical school is bad even for minority patients as they will get less competent doctors

Muriel Newman: The birth of a totalitarian state? - "While the PM has been focused on the suffering of the victims, in her desire to reassure New Zealanders that they are safe — and to look strong and decisive on the world stage — she has unleashed measures that have the capacity to turn our wonderful country into a totalitarian state.Her actions are in sharp contrast to the response of the Norwegian government following the murder of 77 mainly young people by Anders Breivik in 2011. They decided they would not allow the attack to harm their democracy. They said the proper answer to the violence was more democracy and more openness. Firstly, under the Prime Minister's watch, heavy-handed state censorship has banned Brenton Tarrant's video of the shooting and his 'manifesto,' with draconian penalties of up to 14 years in prison or a $10,000 fine. While the censorship of the killer's video is something that most New Zealanders can understand, the ban of the 'manifesto' is a different matter. It sheds light on why the atrocity occurred and could help people to better understand how something similar could be prevented from happening in the future... in spite of knowing the Australian gunman acted alone, and that any further threat was minimal — especially since the Order in Council that was passed just days after the shooting had already outlawed the guns used in the attack — the Prime Minister used the tragedy to rush into law extraordinarily repressive gun controls, denying some 250,000 law-abiding New Zealanders their democratic right to have a say in a proper Parliamentary submission process... Under the shadow of the Christchurch tragedy, radical opportunists are calling for hate speech laws to silence anyone speaking out against their agenda. In particular, Māori sovereignty activists are now labelling those who disagree with them as not only racists, but white supremacists and purveyors of hate speech as well."

New Zealand: Citizens Receiving Home Visits From ‘Political Police’ - "“I was asked if I was a Trump supporter, I was asked if I was a racist and have I got any ethnic minority friends,” said the man, who runs a YouTuber channel called Cross the Rubicon, adding that police also quizzed him on whether he owned guns.Within a week, police returned to the house – 15 of them this time – closing off the entire street – to again interrogate him on his political views.“They’re trying to force me to shut my mouth and to keep it shut,” the man said.He also warns that governments are exploiting the mosque shooting to deplatform conservatives.One wonders whether random Muslims receive home visits from police after Islamic terror attacks. Unlikely."

Japanese women’s magazine’s list of traits for an ideal man is both understandable and baffling - "A lot of the items on the list are immediately understandable, but others are pretty serious head-scratchers, or at least incredibly high hurdles to clear. “Looks like a specific professional model,” for example, is pretty hard to pull off, and then there are the points that seem to be contradicting each other, like “15. College graduate (or currently in college)” and “17. Is a student,” unless maybe that’s a roundabout way of saying the ideal man is one who’s enrolled in a graduate program. Also hard to reconcile are “20. Has a lot of money saved up in his bank account” and “21. Currently works part-time at a cafe,” since even full-time cafe work isn’t particularly lucrative (plus, if you’re working part-time in a cafe and spending up to 10,000 yen a month on new clothes, some would argue that doesn’t mesh with “25. Spends his money responsibly”). Oh, and let’s not forget “37. Is into beetles,” implying that an interest in that particular type of bug, but not necessarily others, is attractive... The saddest comment, though, came from one Twitter user regarding points 12-14, “Birthday is in August,” “Blood type O,” and “Is the oldest son out of his siblings”"

Behind Malaysia’s Royalty Challenge, A Long History - "The issues behind the fight for primacy between Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and the Johor royal family have to do more with reducing the family’s rich gravy train than regal supremacy, according to sources in Kuala Lumpur... Nine of Malaysia’s 13 states are headed by sultans descended from tribal chieftains bought off by the British during the colonial period. They rotate the kingship between them every five years. Among them, the Johor royalty are unpopular even with their fellow royals because their actions draw attention on the others who are also finding it difficult to do business like they used to prior to the new reform government. Among the nine, the Johor royals have had an unsavory reputation stretching back decades to Mahmud Iskandar Almarhum Sultan Ismail, who died in 2010 and whose violent and unpredictable character brought him into conflict with Mahathir during his first incarnation as premier from 1981 to 2003. Iskandar once had his own army and police force in Johor. The airport in the state is the only one not run by the Airport Authority of Malaysia. It is run by the royal family."

Christian persecution 'at near genocide levels' - "The persecution of Christians in parts of the world is at near "genocide" levels, according to a report ordered by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.The review, led by the Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, estimated that one in three people suffer from religious persecution.Christians were the most persecuted religious group, it found.Mr Hunt said he felt that "political correctness" had played a part in the issue not being confronted. The interim report said the main impact of "genocidal acts against Christians is exodus" and that Christianity faced being "wiped out" from parts of the Middle East."
Presumably the liberals will be dismissing this because of who leads it

Sperm is the hot new wrinkle treatment: celeb facial expert - "After baby foreskins and “vampire” blood, this “secret” skin care ingredient was probably inevitable... semen is full of the compound spermine, an antioxidant which she claims helps reduce wrinkles, smooths skin and treats blemishes. Intercourse is good for your skin, too, by increasing blood flow and oxygen, and improving circulation to the skin’s surface — hence the post-coital glow. Of course semen masks aren’t the only bizarre beauty treatment celebrities love right now. Last year PageSix reported that pals Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock are fans of the so-called “penis facial,” which involves a face mask featuring the foreskin of newborn Koreans. The “Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF)” supposedly boosts the skin’s collagen and elastin.Recently, the most macabre of dermal remedies, the “vampire” facial, made headlines when two clients of a New Mexico spa contracted the HIV virus after trying the bloody beauty trick with strangers’ fluids. The way the procedure should work begins with drawing out the patient’s own blood, which the esthetician uses to formulate a bespoke cream.Lewis also is a fan of another gory treatment: micro-needling. By creating microscopic punctures to the skin — which will leave your face a bit bloodied — the tiny wounds can help your skin look more plump by boosting collagen and elastin up to 400%. It’s also known to stimulate hair growth."

Why Hong Kong cannot copy Singapore’s approach to public housing - "On the issue of land, ensuring there was enough for public housing meant repealing the 1920 Land Acquisition Ordinance and enacting the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) in 1966. This allowed the state to acquire land for any public purpose or work of public benefit, or for any residential, commercial, or industrial purpose. A subsequent amendment to the LAA in 1973 allowed officials to acquire private land in exchange for compensation below market value. The acquisitions were seldom challenged in the courts. Such draconian rules greatly facilitated housing and industrialisation programmes. State ownership of land rose from 31 per cent in 1949 to 44 per cent in 1960, and 76 per cent by 1985. Land reclamation did play a part in this change, along with the transfer of British military space. But to ensure a perpetual supply, Lee’s government also passed legislation to ensure the leases on state-owned land would not exceed 99 years. These methods are unthinkable in contemporary Hong Kong... The CPF was established in 1955 as a pension plan, with employees putting in 5 per cent of their monthly salary... Such stringent mandatory savings plans would be unlikely to garner much support in Hong Kong. Many would perceive them as paternalistic and would not accept the lower take-home pay they entail."