Links - 20th June 2019 (2)

Children’s Freedom: A Human Rights Perspective - "children today are far more deprived of liberty than they were when I was a child more than 60 years ago, or when my parents were children 90 years ago. And children are suffering because of that deprivation. As I’ve documented elsewhere, children today are suffering at record levels from anxiety, depression, and even suicide (Gray, 2011; 2013). The estimated rates of Major Depressive Disorder and anxiety disorders among young people, based on analyses of standardized clinical assessment questionnaires given in unchanged form over the decades, are now roughly eight times what they were in the 1950s; and the suicide rate for school-aged children is six times what it was then. Serious mental disorder in children has gone up in direct proportion to the decline in children’s freedom; and there is a good reason to believe that the latter is a cause of the former (Gray, 2011; 2013)... The first [cause] has to do with schooling... The other category of decline in children’s freedom has to do with increased regulation outside of school."

Seattle elites show little sympathy for a woman raped by a homeless man. - "a man living in a city-funded homeless encampment raped a woman in the bathroom of a Volkswagen dealership in the city’s Ballard neighborhood. Christopher Teel had arrived from Texas as a transient and was evading multiple warrants, but the city-sanctioned encampment welcomed him without conducting a criminal-background check. The story caused a sensation, with wide media coverage and public demands for increased security measures, but the crime victim remained silent and her identity was kept secret. Nearly a year later, the victim, Lindsey, contacted me. After being raped, she had approached city leaders and met with the sitting councilman for nearly an hour but was received, she says, with dismissiveness. Teel’s crime against her did not fit the preferred narrative of compassion for the homeless, so the political class downplayed it... Progressive activists launched a counterattack against Lindsey on social media. Local journalist Erica Barnett claimed that the story drew attention because Lindsey is an “attractive blonde woman” and dismissed the victim’s “many tears” as theatrics serving a false narrative that the homeless represent a danger to the community. She demanded that the media temper its reporting and be mindful that “graphic descriptions of violent rape may be triggering for survivors.” Barnett’s message was amplified on left-wing Twitter; Councilwoman Lorena Gonzalez claimed that Lindsey’s story would create fear and cause harm to communities “that may already be triggered.” The reality: city-sanctioned encampments in Seattle have become magnets for crime and violence... Seattle’s activist class seems, then, to have more compassion for transient criminals than for the victims of their crimes. Lindsey’s story should be a clarion call for everyone who cares about violence against women. But in the tortured logic of intersectionality, the story of a homeless rapist demands “context,” while the white, blonde, middle-class target of his assault is an unsympathetic victim."
Intersectionality is just an excuse to bash the "privileged"

Playgrounds for Elites: The increasingly left-wing politics of leading U.S. cities clashes with the aspirations of middle-class residents. - "Nor is the progressive agenda likely to help its intended beneficiaries: the poor. The prospect of rapidly rising wages for mid-level jobs is undermining sectors like the Los Angeles garment industry, for example, where an exodus of employers is already occurring. Overall, as documented in a Center for Opportunity Urbanism study, economic prospects for minorities are much brighter in metro areas other than New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. This is particularly true for homeownership, where the rates for blacks are at least 20 percent higher in cities like Atlanta, Nashville, and Charlotte, compared with those more glamorous cities. Adjusted for income, homes are less than half as expensive for blacks and Hispanics in metropolitan Atlanta or Dallas–Fort Worth, compared with Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Meantime, heavily white cities with rising real-estate values like Portland, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle are seeing what remains of their minority neighborhoods disappear. Crime poses a conundrum for the new Left urban politics. The decline in crime in the 1990s reduced homicides dramatically, likely helping to reverse population loss in most cities. Now homicides are back on the rise in many large cities—but instead of bolstering law enforcement, most mayors have embraced the Black Lives Matter critique, which blames crime on institutionalized police racism. They do so despite measurable evidence that the main victims of this outlook, which has led to “de-policing” of vulnerable communities, are minorities and the poor."

German train-delay scarf sells for €7,550 on eBay - "A scarf knitted by a German woman to document her frustrations with frequent train delays has sold for €7,550 (£6,720) on eBay, as the country’s biggest railway company announces plans for a punctuality tsar.The “rail delay scarf” came to prominence when Sara Weber, a journalist, posted a photo of it on Twitter earlier this month. Her mother, a commuter in the Munich area, knitted two lines a day in 2018 to represent how long she was delayed for, she explained."

Why the U.S. Should Give Pay Toilets Another Chance - "In 1969, California Assemblywoman March Fong Eu smashed a porcelain toilet with an axe in front of the California state capitol, protesting the misogyny of restrooms that charged entrance fees for stalls but not urinals. She was not alone in her frustration. The grassroots organization CEPTIA—the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America—mobilized against pay toilets, putting out a quarterly newsletter (the Free Toilet Paper) and exchanging warring pamphlets with Nik-O-Lok, the leading pay-toilet manufacturer. The group won a citywide ordinance banning pay toilets in Chicago in 1973, followed by bans in Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Wyoming."
Or alternatively get women to use urinals. But then, the writer calls for free sanitary products in public toilets and talks about "Homeless people who menstruate", so

More than 100 women now on Rich List but just TWO have made their own fortunes - "More than 100 women have been named on a list of Britain’s wealthiest 1,000 people – but just two of those made their own fortunes, it has been revealed.Many were wealthy from inheritance or shared their wealth with their husbands, while some gained their fortunes from divorce settlements... Self-made millionaires included fashion boss Tamara Mellon, worth £180million, and author JK Rowling, worth £570million"
A man isn't a financial plan, but a divorce might be

Penis size does matter to women, researchers say - "Researchers found that women rated tall men with long penises as the most attractive.The women also tended to gaze longer at the larger men. But not too long - each rating was made in about three seconds.But how big is best? On that question, researchers were, er, stumped."We didn't find an ideal (i.e. 'most attractive') penis size or height," Dr Mautz explained. "The attractiveness scores were still increasing at the largest values for these traits."... The results "directly contradict claims that penis size is unimportant to most females," and also hint at why human males tend to have relatively larger genitalia when compared to other primates"

Chinese Monks Become ‘Sugar Babies’ for Wealthy Women - "Song wrote that some of these monks have come to earn as much as several million yuan a month (1 million yuan equals $147,650) from money and gifts that their female clients give. Some monks have bought expensive sports cars and houses, while some have amassed enough wealth to become “sugar daddies” themselves and engage in relationships with younger women.These monks continue to put on their monastery robes during the day, but put on a suit at night to meet with women."

Roar Like a Woman: How Feminists Think Women Suck and Men Rock - Kindle edition by Natalie Ritchie - "Far from receding as the feminist era matures, this masculinization of society is intensifying with calls to ‘close the gender gap’. Women are inferior beings who can only be a man’s ‘equal’ when they match his paid work, say feminists. Through their drive to self-actualise as a woman by emulating men, feminists seek a ‘gender-equal’ world, where one hundred percent of women do what one hundred percent of men do—and women’s interests, contributions and priorities are eradicated. In its bid to bust the patriarchy, feminism has become the patriarchy."

Money gives meaning to more Americans than religion or friends - "There appeared to be a correlation between money and friendship. In the open-ended survey, respondents with a higher household income were more likely to mention friendship as a source of meaning. The more educated were more likely to mention friendship, too."

Giving poor people cash gets them to spend more on good stuff and less on tobacco and alcohol - "It is increasingly common for governments to give poor people money. Rather than grant services or particular goods to those in poverty, such as food or housing, governments have found that it is more effective and efficient to simply hand out cash. In some cases, these cash transfers are conditional on doing something the government deems good, like sending your children to school or getting vaccinated. In other cases, they’re entirely unconditional... Evans and Popova’s research is based on an examination of 19 studies that assess the impact of cash transfers on expenditures of tobacco and alcohol. Not one of the studies found that cash grants increase tobacco and alcohol consumption and many found that they lead to a reduction. The researchers also conducted a meta-analysis—a statistical technique for combining the results from across studies—and again found that, overall, receiving cash slightly reduced tobacco and alcohol consumption... Before receiving the cash, any spending on education or health might have seemed futile, but afterwards, parents might decide that a serious investment in their children’s school was sensible. To make this happen, it might mean cutting back on booze and smoking... Behavioral economics research shows that when money is given for a specific purpose, people and organizations do tend to use it for that purpose, even when there is no one forcing them. In the case of cash transfers, households are generally told to use the money for family welfare.Lastly, cash transfers are usually made to women. When women rule over household income, it’s more likely to be used on food and children’s health"

Danny Baker receives standing ovation after taking to stage for first time since BBC sacking - "Danny Baker has received a standing ovation after taking to the stage for the first time since being fired by the BBC over a controversial tweet.Addressing the incident in his first live show since the controversy, the broadcaster said: "When life deals you lemons, you chuck them at the people calling you racist."... Baker was sacked from BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday after tweeting a joke about the Duke and Duchess Of Sussex's son featuring a picture of a chimpanzee."

Chinese rank last in global bathing habits - "Chinese people ranked in last place in a poll on daily bathing habits, according to Spanish media.Newspaper El Pais reported on a survey conducted by the research company Euromonitor. In the report “Personal Appearances: Global Consumer Survey Results on Apparel, Beauty and Grooming”, Euromonitor asked approximately 6,600 consumers around the world about their daily cleaning habits.Out of the countries queried – Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Middle East (Saudi Arabia and UAE), United Kingdom and the US – Brazilians topped the rankings with 12 showers per week, while Chinese people ranked last just one shower every other day on average.The UK came second last on the list"

6 NSFs, 1 NSman & 2 regulars have died in past 16 months as of Jan. 2019 - "A total of nine Singaporeans have passed away in the past 16 months while serving the country between September 2017 and January 2019"

COI findings in detail: Safety breaches and panic led to Aloysius Pang’s death - "As the gun barrel inside the howitzer was about to be lowered, one of the two servicemen in the cabin along with the late actor Aloysius Pang had told Pang to move closer to him or to a safe position.Pang, who held the rank of Corporal First Class (National Service), replied in Mandarin that “it was fine and that the gun barrel would not hit him”... The two servicemen should have activated the emergency stop buttons, he said. Instead, they “panicked and acted irrationally”... “It is sad but undeniable that the direct causes determine by the COI that resulted in the death of Corporal First Class (National Service) Pang was preventable had there been compliance to safety rules,” said Dr Ng.“It was not for lack of knowledge of these rules or inexperience of personnel working on the howitzer gun.”In its findings, the COI ruled that Pang’s death was a result of safety breaches committed by all three men. The incident was set off by the lowering of the gun barrel “without ensuring that everyone was in their safe positions”.
Of course people are still blaming MINDEF

U.S. Military Training Nearly Four Times Deadlier Than Combat - "Nearly four times as many U.S. troops died in training accidents in 2017 than in combat... So, when it comes to training fatalities, how does the U.S. stack up against other countries? Drawing these comparisons can be tricky — some statistics include only training and exercise fatalities; others include suicides, disease and off-base vehicular accidents as well. But a March 2018 report from the U.K. Ministry of Defense found that 141 members of British armed forces — both regular personnel and “on duty” reservists — died during some form of training and exercise from January 2000 through February 2018. The U.K. has 153,700 regular personnel and 81,850 reservists. When the U.S.–U.K. numbers are compared on an annual rate of training fatalities — factoring in the vastly different sizes of the two armed services — U.S. military training turns out to be 30 percent more lethal than the U.K. version."
Since Aloysius Pang's death was the PAP's fault even though he and his mates violated safety procedures: Thanks, Obama!