Feminists calling this misogyny in 3... 2...
Grocery stores are adapting to male shoppers — and treating them like knuckleheads - ""Men are not terribly strategic," Stewart said. "They walk in and buy what they remember is needed. They're buying for right now, or maybe tonight. Anything beyond that is too long-term."Case in point: Women are most likely to buy 12-packs of beer, while men typically buy 6-packs, according to Underhill."Men tend to be hunters: They want to kill something quickly, drag it out and feel successful," he said. "Women, though, they're thinking ahead and planning accordingly."Men also tend to spring for pricier cuts of meat and are more easily influenced by a brand's name or reputation, Stewart said. There are more likely to buy what is easily visible and catches their eye"
Coronavirus: Malaysian men in shopping muddle amid lockdown - "The Malaysian government's decision to allow only "the head of the family" to leave the house to shop, as part of measures to suppress the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, has had unintended consequences.Some men are unexpectedly finding themselves responsible for the grocery shopping and suddenly having to distinguish between bewildering varieties of vegetables, spices and herbs."
A 16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies - "A 16-year-old has made £48,000 from a website she made to give Chinese babies English names.Beau Jessup, a British A-level student from Gloucestershire, came up with the idea after a family visit to China.They were out for a meal with friends when she was asked to give an English name to a newborn baby.In China it is considered important to have an English name for future study or business with the UK. 'Special Name' requires the user to pick five of the 12 personality traits they hope their baby will grow intoIn China they name their child based on the elements and Beau wanted a similarity between how they pick their Chinese name and how they pick their English name.And she does this by assigning personality traits to each English name... the Chinese are fascinated by western culture but their access to it is restricted by the government in China.There isn't open access to the internet so they can't use standard baby naming websites that people may use in the UK."Being exposed to luxury items and things like Harry Potter, Disney films and Lord of the Rings means they use those for reference."I once heard of someone called Gandalf and another called Cinderella.""
Mohammad is none of the top 10 baby names in England and Wales. Probably people forget that most Muslim males are called Mohammad
Are female urinals the answer to queues at the loos? - "A few years ago, Nathalie Des Isnards was attending a music festival with her husband David, and planning to watch her favourite group.Before the show, they headed to the toilets. "I spent 30 minutes in the queue waiting to pee," she recalls. Much to her frustration, she missed the first part of the concert.Meanwhile David took just "two minutes", and saw the whole show."I was upset. I told myself, 'We're in the 21st century, something should be done about that.'"She set about creating a women's urinal. The simple seatless basin she devised is housed in a cubicle with roof and door, designed for faster use but also privacy... According to their research, 90% of toilet queues are women needing only to urinate... Other urinal products have launched with varying success... Gail Ramster, a senior researcher at the Royal College of Art's Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, is sceptical about female urinals."It's quite a change in our habits to start using urinals," she says. Factors like clothing and privacy could be issues for some women."Some people have used them at festivals and they have some success, but whether they can become widespread enough in those situations, or more extensively, I'm a little doubtful.""
Liberalism is collapsing under the weight of its own hypocritical intolerance - "the country learned of yet another grooming gang scandal. After similar and harrowing tales from Oxford, Rochdale, Rotherham and other English towns and cities, we can now add Manchester to the list of places where the authorities watched mainly Asian men systematically abuse vulnerable white, working-class girls for years – and do nothing... Two days after the Manchester story broke, Equity, the actors’ trade union, called on its members to “unequivocally denounce” Laurence Fox. Among other things, the actor had raised grooming gangs during an appearance on the BBC. His crime was to deny that criticism of Meghan Markle was racist, and to argue that fear of accusations of racism was a factor in the grooming gang cases. Given the evidence accumulated in abuse inquiries to date, he was quite clearly correct. And yet the liberal-left reaction was to shout him down, attack his character and insult his “white privilege”. This example of illiberal liberalism is not a one-off. Last Tuesday, Sheffield University confirmed it plans to pay students to police behaviour on campus, challenging perceived “microaggressions” deemed to be offensive. Examples of microaggressions provided by the university included students arguing that too many problems are “turned into a race issue”. Restricting free speech, it seems, is not enough: the university’s policy prevents discussion even about the parameters of acceptable speech.Next up, Rebecca Long-Bailey was attacked for her position on abortion. A practising Roman Catholic, the Labour leadership candidate had questioned whether women should have late-term abortions on the grounds that their babies were disabled. Denying any legitimacy to her argument, and ignoring that abortion has always been a conscience issue in Parliament, meaning MPs are not whipped to vote in any particular way, Long-Bailey’s beliefs were attacked as “absolutely toxic”, and critics suggested her policies would be “dictated by the Vatican.” Of course, the liberal-left would never dream of using such language about other faiths, yet the logic of their position is that Catholics should never hold office. But why is this happening? Why is liberalism – especially on the left – becoming so illiberal and intolerant?There has always been a split among liberals between those who value pluralism as the means by which we manage difference in complex societies, and those who value difference only as a means to truth, and with it an increasingly perfect society. These tensions go back to liberal thinkers like John Stuart Mill, but they are becoming more pronounced as left-liberals become more assertive.If difference is only a means to truth, and reason is what leads us to truth, then those with whom liberals differ must be irrational. They represent institutions, norms, traditions and opinions – “prejudice!” – that must be overcome. Just think about how they talk about anybody who disagrees with their positions on almost anything, from immigration to transgender rights.And if identity politics are what matters most – and for left-liberals the old liberal dream of equal political rights is no longer enough – then immutable characteristics, like race and sex, can be attacked, but only if you are attacking white men to compensate for their privilege. This is how liberalism has become so confusing and contradictory. It is how it has grown increasingly illiberal, intolerant and – strangely for a supposedly universal theory – morally relativistic. For left-liberals, the systematic sexual abuse of white, working-class girls by Asian men must be swept under the carpet, the Catholic beliefs of politicians must be suppressed, and the language of students must be monitored and restricted"
Peter Ramirez's answer to How could Snape carry the Sword of Gryffindor to the Forest of Dean if it presents itself only to worthy Gryffindors? - Quora - "despite living a lifetime in the shadow of the House of Slytherin, Snape acted in the manner of a true Gryffindor, performing to the Sword’s mystical edict of loyalty and courage; as such, there was no need for the sentient Sword to act of its own accord... Perhaps it comes down to whether we believe one must forever carry a scarlet letter for the gravest of our mistakes, or whether we think there really can be such things as forgiveness and repentance."
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Japanese Justice and the Fugitive CEO - "[Japan] outwardly looks modern, democratic and technologically advanced, but hides a troubling authoritarianism at the heart of its judicial and penal systems. No one, foreign or Japanese, relishes the prospect of being arrested in this country. It is nothing like being arrested in Britain or America, or any other democratic country I can think of. Take for example, Australian Scott McIntyre. Last year his Japanese wife took their two young children from the family home in Tokyo, and disappeared. This is what is known as parental child abduction, and it is shockingly common in Japan. Mr. McIntyre petitioned the family court to gain access to his children, to no avail. In October last year, after a powerful typhoon hit Tokyo. He wanted to make sure his kids were okay. He went to the only address he knew, that of his Japanese parents in law. He entered the building and knocked at their door. There was no answer, so he left. A full month later, police arrived at his flat and arrested Mr. McIntyre on suspicion of trespassing. For the next 45 days, he disappeared into Japan's Kafkaesque detention system. He was held at the same detention center as Carlos Ghosn a year earlier and under almost identical conditions. He was locked in a windowless cell, allowed out to exercise for only 30 minutes a day. Inside his cell, he was not allowed to stand or move around, but was ordered to sit on a tatami mat without leaning against the wall. For two hours in the afternoon he was allowed a nap. But sleep was all but impossible, because the bright neon lights in the cell were kept on day and night. People become zombies in there, Mr. McIntyre told me. Whenever I was moved from my cell, it was in handcuffs with a rope tethered around my waist. If I was moved from one part of the building to another, I was roped together with other detainees. Remember, this is pre trial detention for a man accused of trespassing... Japanese detainees... told him they were going to confess because they couldn't stand it anymore. They just wanted to sleep in the dark. Japanese prosecutors do not engage in torture. There are no thumbscrews or electric shocks. Just the threat of being held in detention and interrogated day after day until they get what they want. For many, that is enough. Last year, 85 year old Kochi Miata [sp?] was released from prison after serving 34 years for a murder he didn't commit. Mr. Miata’s conviction was based solely on his confession, which he later withdrew during his trial. Confessions underpinned more than 90% of criminal convictions in Japan, and Japan has a conviction rate to rival North Korea. 99.4% of cases that go to court are found guilty. That does not mean that Carlos Ghosn would not have got a proper trial in Japan. After all, he didn't confessed to anything and had a very high powered team of lawyers who say the evidence against him was weak. But it does perhaps explain the widespread sympathy expressed for Mr. Ghosn, even though he skipped bail and fled Japan in a way available only to a very rich man. None of this seems to have had an impact on the Japanese Justice Ministry. After Mr. Ghosn’s escape, Japan's Justice Minister Masako Mori held a press conference, in which she said Mr. Ghosn should return to Japan and prove in court he's innocent of the crimes he is accused. It had to be pointed out to her by journalists, that even in Japan, it is supposed to be the prosecution's job to prove a person's guilt, not the defendant’s job to prove themselves innocent."
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Distorting the Past - "Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, seems to many Poles to be engaging in willful amnesia about the war. He appears to have entirely forgotten about the Soviet invasion of Poland and Finland, the annexation of the Baltic states, and the murder of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war in Katin in 1940. Those invasions were facilitated by the Molotov Ribbentrop pact, signed between Germany and the USSR, which had divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. Mr. Putin said the pact had actually saved lives. He even accused Poland of being the country most responsible after Nazi Germany for starting the conflict... For Russians, World War Two is still known as the Great Patriotic War... it is practically the only 20th century historical event left which unites all Russians today. The Russian narrative says those people lost their lives to save Europe from absolute evil, and those Soviet troops brought only liberation to countries like Poland. The fact Stallin forced a complaint regime on Warsaw, which even he acknowledged was like trying to saddle a cow, given the public's lack of support for communism, is conveniently overlooked. Unlike the Soviet Union, Mr. Putin's regime has an ideological void to fill... Perhaps it would be better, as Israel's president said, to leave the judgment of history to the historians and experts...
[On the only female plumber in Jordan] It all started in 2002 when Howler [sp?] was a volunteer with USAID, visiting women in their homes while their husbands were at work and teaching them how to use water saving devices. In Jordan, men aren't allowed to enter a home if the man of the house isn't there. One woman asked Howler if she was able to fix a water leak. Otherwise her husband would have to take time off work to call in a plumber. Howler replied that she couldn't. But it was a lightbulb moment for her. It's women who were the ones dealing with water in the home because their husbands are out at work. And they're the ones who can pass on that knowledge to their children and change the attitude around water efficiency, she says"
Of course, when Merkel endorses a state-sponsored historical narrative, it's a good thing
