Links - 22nd February 2020

Damning Salvation Army: the left's newest, most disgraceful low - "Damaging photos of Pete Buttigieg have surfaced — ringing a bell for the Salvation Army.The images of the South Bend mayor and Democratic presidential candidate participating in the Red Kettle Ring Off, a friendly competition between officials from South Bend and near-by Mishawaka over who can raise more for the Salvation Army during a day of bell-ringing, date from 2017.The gay publication Out reported them as if it had broken a major, or at least a noteworthy, story... If you think that volunteering for an organization raising funds to provide food and housing, among many other services, for the needy is an inherently praiseworthy act, you haven’t been following the woke left-wing activists cutting a swath through American culture.Any institution, no matter how storied or how generous, is subject to a punitive campaign of social ostracism that is often highly effective. In today’s environment, what seems preposterous one moment is inevitable the next, and after one target is ground into submission, another is quickly found."

Mystery man intercepts phone scam calls, saving Canadians millions - "“Like many Americans and Canadians, I get a phone call one day from a gentleman who reported to be from the Canada Revenue Agency, I knew right away it was a scam,” Devan said. “I’ve been around long enough to know. I engaged him for about half an hour and by the end of the conversation, I befriended him.”That man now works closely with Devan as an informant. He tips him off whenever a victim is about to transfer money through a bank or Bitcoin transaction.If he manages to stop the transaction from taking place, Devan said he pays his informant in India $100 for his help.“He’d secretly send me phone numbers of victims that his colleagues were scamming and I would get involved by trying to intercept those calls with the call waiting features”... Devan and a small team of informants in India have launched a website and an app, hoping more people will rally together to put an end to this illegal activity.  The website is called stopcallingme.ca. It has a database where you can enter the number that you believe to be associated with a phone scam to be verified. If it’s a scam, it alerts the user. So far, there are more than 1,000 numbers in the database... Devan’s biggest tip for Canadians who want to avoid being scammed: He says if you pick up a call from a number that you do not recognize, wait until the person on the other end says hello first. If you don’t hear anything on the other end, it’s likely a scammer. Hang up and block the number in your phone."

Professional Privilege Checkers Inc. - Posts - "Finland has the world's first bad-bitch government, led by five women, four of whom are under 35"
"Finland's finance minister is running an Instagram poll on whether we should repatriate 'just children' or 'children and mothers' from the ISIS camp at al-Hol"

Consider the lobster roll - Why Americans pay more for lunch than Britons do | Finance and economics | The Economist - "According to data gathered by The Economist on the dozen Pret sandwiches that are most similar in the two countries, the American ones cost on average 74% more (see chart). An egg sandwich in New York costs $4.99 to London’s 1.79, more than double. A tuna baguette costs two-thirds more. The pricemismatchis intriguing—the more so for The Economist, which publishes the Big Mac index, a cross-country comparison of burger prices, which shows a 43% transatlantic disparity. Menu pricing starts with a simple rule, says John Buchanan of the consulting arm of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, a restaurant group: take the cost of ingredients and multiply by three. Then ask yourself how much customers would expect to pay for a dish of this type, and how much they would expect to pay for it from you. A Pret lobster roll and one from a fancy seafood restaurant are quite different propositions. Lastly, check what the competition charges. “Only a small part of this decision is what I would call scientific,” says Mr Buchanan. “A lot has to do with a subjective judgment of what the market will bear.” The lunch market is local. New Yorkers do not care about prices in London. And they—alongside Bostonians and Washingtonians—are used to their local high prices, for reasons that include bigger portions (though not at Pret) and tipping habits. Londoners are keener on sandwich lunches, which means stiffer competition in that part of the market. Often lunch prices vary by neighbourhood. jd Wetherspoon, a British pub chain, prides itself on low prices, but allows them to differ by branch. In 2017 the Financial Times found that the most expensive Spoons charged over 40% more than the cheapest one. They also vary by time: many restaurants charge more for dinner than for lunch"

Slow drivers branded dangerous as they're blamed for killing more people than ever before - "Slow drivers are killing or maiming more people than ever before on our roads. The number of people dying or being seriously injured in crashes caused by motorists going at far less than the speed limit has soared 75% in the last five years... Dawdling motorists are believed to trigger tailgating, undertaking, congestion and road rage, which can then lead to serious traffic incidents.Minimum speeds are rare on UK roads, but they do exist in some high-risk locations such as tunnels. Going too slowly on any road can lead to a motorist being penalised for careless driving"

Hainan Airlines ranked 8th in SKYTRAX World's Top 10 Airlines ranking - "Hainan Airlines was also named a SKYTRAX Five-Star Airline for the eighth consecutive year, in addition to being awarded Best Business Class Amenities, Best Airline China, and Best Airlines Staff in China designations."

Family carries uncle's corpse to insurance company to prove death - "It took a cold, hard corpse to get a life insurance company to hand over the cold, hard cash in South Africa.In a desperate attempt to finally get their insurance payout, the family of Sifiso Mtshali, 46, hauled his corpse to an Old Mutual branch in eastern South Africa"

How Universal Pre-K Affects Infant Daycare Costs - "with new, free public preschool available for three- and four-year-olds less than two miles away, the kids enrolling in Salas’s home-based program are now almost all very young. This makes for a costly business, as state regulation requires much heavier staffing for babies and toddlers than it does for older children... Salas used to hire two women at her daycare; now she needs four to meet licensing requirements. She’s raised tuition by $10 a week. It’s still not enough to make up for the cost of added staffing, she says. But if tuition goes any higher, few neighborhood parents will be able to afford it... a seldom-discussed unintended consequence of these free programs for three- and four-year-olds is the toll they take on the already limited supply of affordable child care for children younger than two, especially babies. It’s a strain that can have far-reaching consequences for families.  The problem is rooted in simple economics. Caring for an infant costs far more than caring for a preschooler—in some places three times as much. But differences in tuition between the two age groups rarely cover the difference. It’s the tuition for the three- and four-year-old preschoolers that make it possible for most child-care programs to look after babies. So when programs lose their preschoolers, they’re losing their “most profitable children, and they potentially have trouble staying viable”... Because of their small size, family child-care programs like Salas’s, which are run out of providers’ own homes, are likely the hardest hit of all... Brown estimates that New York City would have 20 percent more seats in child-care centers for children younger than two were it not for the city’s popular Pre-K for All program. Poor neighborhoods suffered the biggest blow"

Shower Thoughts on Twitter - "We live in a age where we have to prove to machines that we are not machines."

Orwell & Goode - Posts - "No to racism"
"No country for old white men"
"Anti-racism" strikes again

Cue the Grinch music: About 78 Christmas trees cut down and dragged from family farm near Puyallup - "Federal Way police busted a Christmas crime operation Friday, nabbing a man they said stole dozens of Christmas trees from a farm near Puyallup... The Sheriff’s Office didn’t have a description of the thief they called “Grinch” but on social media Friday, it said, “We’re guessing their heart is an empty hole, their brain is full of spiders, & they’ve got garlic in their soul.”"

California's RoboCop Dealt with its First Crime. It Went as Well as You'd Expect. [VIDEO] - "She pushed the emergency button several times, but instead of the police roaring down the road, RoboCop reportedly told the concerned citizen to get out of its way.

Security robot 'in critical condition' after nearly drowning on the job - "A security robot in Washington -- lovingly named Steve -- plunged down four steps into a fountain... It isn't the first time a security robot has run into trouble. In April, a drunken man in California tipped over a 300-pound K5. Last summer, another bot in California knocked over a toddler"

Mark on Twitter - "“Real Socialism” has never been tried in the same way that “Real Capitalism” has never been tried. The difference is ‘almost Socialism’ resulted in the impoverishment & death of hundreds of millions of people. While ‘Almost Capitalism’ has lifted billions from absolute poverty."

Being Classically Liberal - Posts - "The most hilarious thing about Venezuela "not being real socialism" is that socialists were citing Venezuela as proof of socialism's superiority right up until the eve of its economic crisis."

Dank Star Wars Memes Cantina - "Just realized Darth Vader says 'Obi-wan has taught you well' after looking up and seeing that Luke has the high ground"

Enormous tarantula hawk wasp carts off a dying huntsman spider in Bronte, Sydney - "An incredible photo showing a spider wasp dragging a huntsman spider has gone viral online. The image, taken in Bronte, Sydney, shows the orange spider wasp carting the paralysed huntsman back to its den... Earlier this year a video went viral showing a spider wasp dragging a similarly-sized huntsman up the netting of a door."

UNILAD - Posts - "Mum dies after waiting six hours for ambulance to treat broken foot"
Comments: "Why? To make a statement that she had the right to be taken by an ambulance to the hospital? Or I'm not really sure what was going on there. I would have just called taxi and get her to the hospital, not to put blankets on her and wait for hours. She had injured leg, not spine ffs :|"
"If she broke her back there would be no option to move her. But it was her foot. Could have easily taken her yourself in a taxi. I broke my arm when I was in school. I got the bus to the hospital. I didn't lie on the floor for 6 hours because an ambulance wouldn't come. Blame the people who could have helped and didn't. Not the nhs"
"Broken foot? Then having heart issues and going in and out of consciousness? Blankets are nice but working together to get her in a car and driving her to hospital might have waived her life. Such a sad and unnecessary death. Perhaps she had other underlying conditions which may have ultimately led to her death but the lack of proper action surely complicated and played a part. Society has to remember how to be self resilient when services are not available."
"Take her to the hospital or at the very least bring her back inside her home which was feet away?? I think she actually died from neglect from her husband, family and neighbors."
"i don't get it..... there's cars parked outside house, but they decide to make her a bed and take photos.....wtf."

Studies Reveal Differences Between the Two Types of “Nice” People - "agreeableness can divided into two related but distinct components: compassion and politeness.Compassion refers to our tendency to be emotionally concerned about others. Politeness is defined as our tendency to demonstrate good manners, adhere to social norms and avoid aggression... compassion tends to be positively associated with liberal political ideology, while politeness is linked to conservative ideology... 'polite people were more likely to split the money fairly than their rude counterparts. Surprisingly, we did not see this for compassion, which may indicate that sharing money with a stranger doesn’t necessarily arouse emotional concern'
The second study measured social decision-making with a third-party recompensation game, in which a bystander witnesses an unfair division of money between two people and is given the opportunity to give their own money to the victim.       "Here, compassionate people gave away more money than their cold-hearted counterparts"...
Compassionate people behave like good Samaritans, while polite people act more like good citizens"