Links - 10th September 2019 (3)

Palestinian who saved Jewish kids after terror attack gets Israeli residency - "Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Tuesday awarded Israeli residency to a Palestinian man who saved the children of a West Bank rabbi in the aftermath of the deadly terror attack in which the father was killed... The Palestinian man, who has not been named, received a temporary visa to live and work in Israel after receiving death threats in his hometown near the West Bank city of Hebron... “I took the boy and I hugged him. I gave him some water and applied iodine, and just kept telling him that everything was going to be fine,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me if it was an accident or a terror attack, it’s irrelevant. These are people, children, who need help, and if I can help, I will help them.“The girl told me, ‘God sent an Arab to help us,’” he added."
Doubtless liberals will still bash Israel since if you oppose Palestinian anti-Israeli terrorism you're against punching up, and you're a fascist.

PragerU - Posts - "The mainstream media:
Hamas attacks Israel: 🦗🦗
Hamas attacks Israel: 🦗🦗
Hamas attacks Israel: 🦗🦗
Hamas attacks Israel: 🦗🦗
Israel defends itself: "ISRAEL ATTACKS GAZA!"🤦"

Consent Chaos: Man Won't Sleep With Wife Unless She Gets Permission - "Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice columnist, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, revealed in a podcast released Wednesday how a woman’s attempt at awakening her husband to the joys of affirmative consent led to a nightmarish scenario wherein he now refuses to sleep in the same room as his wife, lest she accidentally touch him while they’re in bed together... “This reads to me like an attempt to control, manipulate, and cow another person.”"
At least this is a frank admission that the obsession about affirmative consent is just a way to control, manipulate and cow men

Singapore's Journalists Fear Proposed 'Fake News' Law - "In Singapore, ministers presented their approach as being of a kind with moves in Europe, where countries, including the U.K. and Germany, are publicly seeking regulatory solutions to an epidemic of malicious falsehoods that had skewed public debate. But European lawmakers fretted over the balance between dealing with the problem rapidly and comprehensively and not impinging on individual freedoms. In Singapore, the legislation is worded so broadly as to give ministers enormous power with little direct oversight... Mainstream outlets—most of which are at least part owned by the state investment company Temasek—uncritically present the government’s perspective, while the few independent organizations and journalists are put under constant pressure through regulatory demands, defamation suits, and occasionally criminal charges. On certain subjects, in particular the merest suggestion of financial impropriety by government officials, the state responds with charges of slander and defamation... a Reuters Institute survey found that 63 percent of Singaporeans worry that expressing political views online could get them into trouble with the authorities. “You have to have the mental preparation that you’ll go to jail,” Xu said. “The government controls people by fear. If you don’t have that expectation, then you’ll self-censor.”... The new law also contains a provision allowing ministers to grant exemptions, meaning that they could, if they so desired, liberally interpret the meaning of “misleading” to target criticism, while allowing falsehoods that support the government to pass unhindered... “Some people said that we should be detained without trial, some people said we should be executed. Some people suggested that I should be dragged out into the street and have my hair cut like a French collaborator with the Nazis”

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Freedom of speech in Algeria - "I'm told some places here still don't sell espresso on account of Chinese stomachs being unable to handle that much caffeine. Only the super fans, rather like the extreme spice fans in British curry houses, will go off menu and ask for something extra strong. Flasks of green tea are now accessories only for older gentlemen sat in parks or security guards on duty"

George Washington University students support ban of traffic symbol - "University students have signed a ‘petition’ to ban the white stick figure indicating when pedestrians can walk at crossings at traffic lights.Campus Reform, a news website about higher education, went undercover at George Washington University to see how many students found the stick figure “oppressive” and would support the ban.The fake petition came after students at the university in Washington D.C. voted to change its “offensive” official mascot... The fake petition reads: “As we students cross the street, we are told by the symbol of a white man when it is OK to cross."

ZUBY: on Twitter - "Let me get this straight.
You don't trust the government, think your leader is a Fascist, police are racist and the system is corrupt & white supremacist.
So you want to expand the control & power of govt, give them your guns and fund the system further with your tax money? "

BBC World Service - The World This Week, MH17 prosecution ties Russia down - "He's studying in Munich, but he and his friends had taken a bus for 30 hours back to Istanbul to vote. I left my country because I couldn't see a future with this government, he told me, so I had to make the trip back to vote for İmamoğlu. Things will change here, he added, beaming, and maybe I'll be able to come back to Turkey. Some canceled holidays and flew back from beach weekends to vote. At one polling station, I met a 101 year old lady wheeled in by her 82 year old son in law to cast their ballots. This nation is fervently political and cares deeply about elections. Turnout is 85%, one of the highest in the democratic world. That applies on both sides of an acutely polarized country. For 16 years. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has towered over Turkey and a hopelessly divided opposition, a voice for the pious and the poor. The President has built an army of enthralled loyalists with his Islamic values and nationalist tone. Turkey’s serial election winner didn't accept narrowly losing Istanbul three months ago, the most important city where he was born and which propelled him to power as mayor in the 1990s. So he gambled on a rerun. It backfired disastrously. Ekrem İmamoğlu, a previously little known district Mayor roared onto the scene with energy and relentless optimism. His slogan *something*, everything will be great was what a 13 year old boy said to him on the campaign trail, a simple phrase capturing the overwhelming desire for hope… After years of combative rhetoric from Mr. Erdogan, Turkey's opposition wanted joy, inclusivity, gentleness. That is what Ekrem İmamoğlu displayed, and it was the key to his success… [Even if he becomes] President, undoing 16 years of Erdoganism would be far harder. A nexus of Mr. Erdogan’s loyalists controls every sector here from construction where his friends build his giant infrastructure projects to the media, 90% of it under his thumb, blaring out his message while opposition outlets are shackled. Turkey, the world's leading jailer of journalists. This network of influence often involves his family. Ekrem İmamoğlu says much of the Istanbul municipality's three and a half billion pound budget goes to foundations run by the President's relatives. The Istanbul archery club alone with Mr. Erdogan’s son Bilal on the board gets over 2 million pounds per year. The challenge for the new mayor is to stamp out waste and nepotism while also winning over the Erdoganists. As the election results were declared. I stood beside a camera man from TRT, the state broadcaster, heavily under the President's influence. An İmamoğlu supporter approached him. Now are you going to film us, she cried. Now will you show we exist? That is what the mayoral election has encapsulated here, the longing by half of this country that has been suppressed and stifled to breathe and feel once again, part of Turkey. Represented, served, empowered"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Istanbul's mayoral election upset - "He's studying in Munich, but he and his friends had taken a bus for 30 hours back to Istanbul to vote. I left my country because I couldn't see a future with this government, he told me, so I had to make the trip back to vote for İmamoğlu. Things will change here, he added, beaming, and maybe I'll be able to come back to Turkey. Some canceled holidays and flew back from beach weekends to vote. At one polling station, I met a 101 year old lady wheeled in by her 82 year old son in law to cast their ballots. This nation is fervently political and cares deeply about elections. Turnout is 85%, one of the highest in the democratic world. That applies on both sides of an acutely polarized country. For 16 years. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has towered over Turkey and a hopelessly divided opposition, a voice for the pious and the poor. The President has built an army of enthralled loyalists with his Islamic values and nationalist tone. Turkey’s serial election winner didn't accept narrowly losing Istanbul three months ago, the most important city where he was born and which propelled him to power as mayor in the 1990s. So he gambled on a rerun. It backfired disastrously. Ekrem İmamoğlu, a previously little known district Mayor roared onto the scene with energy and relentless optimism. His slogan *something*, everything will be great was what a 13 year old boy said to him on the campaign trail, a simple phrase capturing the overwhelming desire for hope… After years of combative rhetoric from Mr. Erdogan, Turkey's opposition wanted joy, inclusivity, gentleness. That is what Ekrem İmamoğlu displayed, and it was the key to his success… [Even if he becomes] President, undoing 16 years of Erdoganism would be far harder. A nexus of Mr. Erdogan’s loyalists controls every sector here from construction where his friends build his giant infrastructure projects to the media, 90% of it under his thumb, blaring out his message while opposition outlets are shackled. Turkey, the world's leading jailer of journalists. This network of influence often involves his family. Ekrem İmamoğlu says much of the Istanbul municipality's three and a half billion pound budget goes to foundations run by the President's relatives. The Istanbul archery club alone with Mr. Erdogan’s son Bilal on the board gets over 2 million pounds per year. The challenge for the new mayor is to stamp out waste and nepotism while also winning over the Erdoganists. As the election results were declared. I stood beside a camera man from TRT, the state broadcaster, heavily under the President's influence. An İmamoğlu supporter approached him. Now are you going to film us, she cried. Now will you show we exist? That is what the mayoral election has encapsulated here, the longing by half of this country that has been suppressed and stifled to breathe and feel once again, part of Turkey. Represented, served, empowered...
The scandal of extra time granted during the all important standardized tests, which are used as a benchmark for admission to college. They’re as important as A levels. Extra time is granted to students who have undergone a neuro psychological evaluation, which shows they have a learning difficulty of some sort. Of course, for students who need extra time because of dyslexia, for example, this confers no unfair advantage. But if the impairment is something more generalized, getting extra time can mean a child does better on the test than they would do otherwise. So parents anxious to make sure their child does as well as possible will go to great lengths to get their offspring evaluated. Analysis shows that a disproportionate number of children in affluent school districts have extra time on the standardized test when compared to the general population. Parents who don't have the time or the money to spend hours getting their children evaluated by doctors are disadvantaged. Surprising number of kids I've known since they were toddlers turned out to need extra time on the test as teenagers. As a topic of conversation with other moms, this one was off limits. Though I desperately wanted to, I just couldn't ask, what learning difficulty does your child have exactly?"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, The Women and Children of Islamic State - "What’s striking are the things they won't tell you. Their names, the cities they came from, most importantly, what drove them to join a murderous Caliphate, and what role they played within. These women see themselves as victims. But each one made the decision despite the horrifying images the group broadcast around the world to join it. Who knows how many regret that choice now?"

Rationally Speaking | Official Podcast of New York City Skeptics - Current Episodes - RS 182 - Spencer Greenberg on "How online research can be faster, better, and more useful" - "So the sunk cost fallacy, at clearerthinking.org, which we have a program that trains people to help avoid the sunk cost fallacy, and so we did some research on it, and one thing we were doing is we were trying to develop a question that would elicit the sunk cost fallacy.Where we would ask you, Okay, suppose you're at dinner and you order some food and you realize though that you're actually not at all hungry. You're totally full and you cannot reasonably bring the food with you. Would you just finish eating it anyway?… We've learned that you need to always study your own questions, to try to understand. Not just look at someones answers, but understand why they're answering that way. So we love asking people why they gave an answer they did, to better understand… the most common reason people said, is because they assumed they'd be eating with someone else. And they thought it would be awkward if they didn't eat their food. It had never even occurred to us they would assume that… We stipulated that they were not eating with someone, that they were alone. And then, a handful of people said… the chef [would feel bad]… someone had developed a scale, saying that way more people than you'd expect had these kind of delusional beliefs, of sorts.And we were really excited about this, because we thought hey, maybe this would present an opportunity to help people, if people really do have these delusions. Or it's also just an interesting and important thing to know about.So we ran a study and it turned out that we were able to replicate a bunch of their findings, in the sense that people did report these delusional beliefs. For example, people reported that they feel like bugs are crawling all over their skin, and other kind of strange things like this.But we also asked them why they answered that way. And well, it turns out a bunch of people have lice...
To a shocking degree, people often make errors when doing statistical analysis, even people that you'd think wouldn't make errors. And this is because statistics is really complicated and is not really well suited for the human brain -- and also because a lot of people work with statistics, they weren't originally trained as statisticians, right? Ironically, a lot of times statisticians don't deal with data at all, they just kind of theorize, and the people dealing with data are not statisticians."