Monday, January 03, 2022

Links - 3rd January 2022 (3)

California governor candidate under investigation over 1,000lb bear sidekick - "Turns out campaigning across California with a 1,000lb bear is not a foolproof political plan.  John Cox, a candidate vying to replace Gavin Newsom in the state’s gubernatorial recall vote, is under investigation for violating a San Diego city law that bans anyone, except zoos, from bringing wild animals – including lions and tigers and bears – into the area."

Facebook - "Restaurants are reopening soon for dine in service. The owners and employees are stressed. Please do not go and complain about minor things. Please do not go if you are going to hassle them about new rules. Please do not go if you are not going to tip. They are excited to serve you and are trying their best. These are unprecedented times and your understanding is appreciated."
Apparently they'll be happy to have no customers

Woman on vacation reportedly finds dead tortoise in her vagina - "A British woman has been questioned by police in Spain after doctors found a dead tortoise inside her vagina... She apparently had no idea how the reptile ended up where it did."

Gynecologist Jennifer Gunter Warns Women Not To Put Garlic In Their Vagina - "Women has been placing bizarre items in their vagina from Jade eggs recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow’s website Goop to wasp nests supposedly to rejuvenate and tighten women's private parts...   In a 2014 interview with Scientific American, obstetrician–gynecologist Paul Nyirjesy of Drexel Vaginitis Center at Drexel University College of Medicine said that as many as 10 percent of his patients had tried to use garlic to cure yeast infection... using garlic to treat infection could make things worse since the root vegetable may contain bacteria from soil that can worsen pre-existing infection. She also said that garlic may trigger the vagina to grow microorganism-filled biofilm."

Putting PARSLEY in your vagina to bring on your period is dangerous docs warn after women died - "WELLNESS warriors seem to be obsessed with telling women to stick random things into their vaginas.  And the latest piece of bizarre advice suggests sticking parsley up there can help induce your period."

Doctors warn women not to use toothpaste to ‘tighten their vaginas’ - "Some kinds of toothpaste contain small particles that could also cause painful microabrasions to the vaginal walls... The potentially dangerous trend comes after reports that men were rubbing toothpaste on their penises to last longer in bed...   In the summer, women were warned of the dangers of putting popsicles in their vaginas to cool down."

Princeton - PWB 030397 - Nobel laureate in literature teaches about intellectual life of his native Japan - "Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 Nobel Laureate in Literature cited by the Swedish Academy for the "poetic force" of his writing, is on campus this year as a visiting lecturer in East Asian Studies and fellow of the Humanities Council... While he has been scholar in residence at the University of California, Berkeley (where he spoke English with his colleagues), and at the Collegio de Mexico in Mexico City (where he spoke French), last semester was his first stint as professor. He taught "The Writer as Artist in Modern Japan," and this semester he is teaching "The Representation of Japanese Intellectuals," both in Japanese. He also conducts some class discussion in English, "doing anything," he says, "that will encourage communication.  "I am enjoying teaching greatly," he continues. "The students express their point of view concretely and clearly. In Japan, when young people speak about literature or philosophy, the discussion is often vague, without accurate definitions of words or concepts. Here, when they speak, they define their terms."... "as a child, I wanted to be a physicist. I begged my mother to let me go to Tokyo to study physics. I promised I would win the Nobel Prize for Physics.  "So, 50 years later, I returned to my village and said to my mother, 'See, I have kept my promise. I won the Nobel Prize.' 'No,' said my mother, who has a very fine sense of humor, 'You promised it would be in physics!'" Oe's village is Ose, in Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. "My father was keeper of the forest on our island," he says. "My family had been foresters for 200 years. As a child I enjoyed reading an English encyclopedia of trees. I had an English dictionary but no Latin dictionary to help with the names of trees. My school did not offer Latin classes, but my teacher said, 'You can study French, in which many of the words are very close to Latin.'"  By the time Oe realized that French and Latin, "while related, are completely different," he was immersed in French language and literature. He went on to major in French literatureat Tokyo University, from which he graduated in 1959."

Triboulet: The Jester Who Was Condemned — and Saved — By His Wits - "Nicolas Ferrial, also known as Le Févrial or Triboulet (1479–1536), was one of the most celebrated jesters in history. He served two French kings: Louis XII and Francis I. He had all of the qualities necessary in a good court jester, most importantly, the gift of quick wit. This wit not only made him successful but it also nearly resulted in his doom. Fortunately, that very same wit ultimately saved his life...  Triboulet’s sense of frivolity got out of control, and he slapped the king on the royal bum. The monarch lost his temper and threatened to execute Triboulet. A bit later, the monarch calmed down a little and promised to forgive Triboulet if he could think of an apology more insulting than the offending deed. A few seconds later, Triboulet responded: “I’m so sorry, your majesty, that I didn’t recognize you! I mistook you for the Queen!”  Ultimately, Triboulet’s joking went too far. He offended Francis I to the degree that the king ordered the execution of the jester. Out of recognition of the jester’s years of faithful service, however, the king granted Triboulet the right to choose the way he would die.  Triboulet lost no time in responding. “Good sire, for Saint Nitouche’s and Saint Pansard’s sake, patrons of insanity, I choose to die from old age.” Francis I found his response so hilarious that he commuted the death sentence and, instead, banished the jester from the realm."

Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance
"Singapore is culturally more American than New Zealand and Great Britain... In fact, we are culturally more American than Hong Kong and Taiwan are culturally PRC-Chinese! According to the paper, that is." - comment
For those who claim that Singapore is Asian and so will not fall prey to the US culture wars

EU companies can ban employees wearing headscarves, court rules - "Private employers in the EU can ban people from wearing religious symbols, including headscarves, in order to present an image of neutrality, the bloc’s highest court has ruled.  Companies can ban headscarves provided such a prohibition is part of a policy against all religious and political symbols... The ban on religious and political symbols can be justified by the “employer’s desire to pursue a policy of political, philosophical and religious neutrality with regard to its customers or users, in order to take account of their legitimate wishes”... The cases were brought by two German Muslim women, a special needs childcare worker and a sales assistant in a chemist. Both were told to remove their headscarves after deciding to wear the garments on their return to work after parental leave.  The childcare centre banned staff from wearing any religious symbols, including the Christian cross and the Jewish kippah. It suspended the woman twice and issued a written warning, which she challenged in the German courts.  The drugstore informed its employee not to wear conspicuous political, philosophical or religious signs. She refused and went to court, stating that she regarded the head covering as mandatory under her religion."
The Independent framed it differently (as an anti-Muslim measure) and left out important information even in the article, so its followers were predictably raging on Facebook. What happens when you depend on farming rage clicks...
All the Remainers are silent about this

Christian teacher in Berlin banned from wearing crucifix necklace
Naturally, lots of ignorant and prejudiced people claimed that only Muslims are affected by neutrality laws

German police to investigate Jewish officer who wore kippa while in uniform - "A senior Jewish police officer in Berlin is facing disciplinary proceedings for wearing a skullcap in public while on duty. Chief inspector Tuvia Schlesinger was said to have violated police neutrality rules when he donned a white kippa during a demonstration in solidarity with recent victims of anti-Semitic attacks in the city."
Someone was claiming that the EU's ruling wouldn't stand if any competent lawyer challenged it, ignoring that it was already a case on appeal, and claimed that the moment someone in Germany tried to enforce the rule against a Jew, the ruling would go the other way and the law would be overturned

Meme - "Common Sense Extremists @crushmarxismnow To the leftist, a cuckservative who consistently caves to their demands and norms looks the same as a right winger who actually fights back. So you may as well fight back."

Alison Stevenson on Twitter - "Made more money off of one photo of my butthole today than I did writing a Vice article"

Meme - "Straight males of reddit, what's the gayest thing you've ever done?"
"One of my best friends is gay. He refers to this as a "no homo bro cuddle": I went to his house and stayed the night and we slept in the same bed. Completely non sexual but did spoon (I was big spoon) for comfort and just to cuddle. Reason being - his dad had recently died and he had been sleeping poorly since (lives alone). Said he just needed someone to cuddle with for comfort so he could get a good nights sleep. His love life is in shambles so he didn't want another gay man because he knew they would just try to fuck him as part of the deal. So I obliged and he slept well for the first time since the funeral. It was pretty gay to spoon with a gay man in his bed overnight. But I don't regret it."
Is it homophobic to say gay men always try to fuck the men they cuddle?

Sally Albright on Twitter - "Repeat after me: I am not smarter than Joe Biden. I am not smarter than Kamala Harris. I am not smarter than Nancy Pelosi. I am not smarter than James Carville. But if I l stand back and watch and learn, I will be smarter than I am."
And they say Trump supporters are cultists

Meme - "When Democrats in 2016 were debating whether 75 was too old to run for President. But now a 78 year old is President *Grumpy Bernie*"

The Hygienic Efficacy of Different Hand-Drying Methods: A Review of the Evidence - "most studies suggest that paper towels can dry hands efficiently, remove bacteria effectively, and cause less contamination of the washroom environment. From a hygiene viewpoint, paper towels are superior to electric air dryers... paper towels reduced the numbers of all types of bacteria on the hands. However, the hot air dryer increased all types of bacteria on the hands."
For greenies, trees are more important than people, so

Facebook - "I’ll admit the Bernie memes are funny BUT his openly grumpy disposition during a very historic moment for women and particularly women of color speaks volumes to me." (3 accounts)
"It appears Democratic Party bots are real"

'Mackenzie Health lost my uterus': Richmond Hill hospital apologized, but Vaughan woman facing unwanted surgery - "Anna’s physician had diagnosed her with complex hyperplasia with atypia — abnormal precancerous cells on the endometrial lining.  The standard of care, she was told, was to remove her uterus, Fallopian tubes and ovaries. But Anna, 48, is big on research. What she found made her question the need for a full hysterectomy. She learned ovaries serve an important function in reducing risk of heart attack and removal could expose her to a host of other problems.  She opted to have the uterus removed, biopsied and, if there were signs of cancer, would return for an oophorectomy (ovaries removal).  The surgery went well, she was discharged two days later and waited for biopsy results.  And waited.  Finally, Anna’s doctor made the unusual request to meet in the hospital July 9 with the manager of the OR and director of surgery.  The hospital representatives told her they were sorry; they could not find her “specimen.”... There was nothing left to test to see if she had cancer... body parts meant for testing at Mackenzie Health were routinely placed on the same cart as surgical waste and a PSW was responsible for delivering both. And most importantly, she learned there were no checklists keeping track of what went where."

jeb the llama on Twitter - "Guy who invented the clock: there will be 12 numbers on it
Friend: so the day will be divided into 12 segments?
Inventor: no, 24
Friend: so will the day start at 1
Inventor: the day will start at the 12, which is at night
Friend:
Inventor: the 6 means 30"

Dhevarajan Devadas on Twitter - "Emerging Stronger Taskforce: Set up industry-led partnerships that are not afraid to "fail fast and fail forward""
"When ST repeats meaningless buzzwords without analysis & then wonders why readers have abandoned it."

Meet the 'Elon Musk of Africa' whose emotional story will greatly inspire you and find out his country - "Meet the hidden Elon Musk of Africa who made a car from the scratch. His name is Kelvin usually called Elon Musk of Ghana. He grew up in Ghana, he came from an impoverished family and apparently he is still poor but this did not just stop his ambition to become an engineer!"
Given that Musk was born in Africa...

Facebook - "The KTV cluster showed many people about the KTV night life here. Men paying for female hostesses, to drink, to sing, to entertain...  But do you know there are KTVs who does the same, but with gender roles flip around? Yes. Men entertain ladies, ladies throw money on men hostesses, to drink, to entertain."

Meme - "OPRAH WINFREY -WORTH $3.2 BILLION, YET LECTURES US ON INCOME EQUALITY. GIVES WEIGHT LOSS, ADVICE, YET APPEARS IN WEIGHT WATCHERS COMMERCIALS FROM THE NECK UP BECAUSE SHE CAN'T LOSE WEIGHT HERSELF. GIVES MARRIAGE ADVICE, YET ISN'T MARRIED. GIVES PARENTAL ADVICE, YET HAS NO CHILDREN. HAS NO EXPERIENCE IN POLITICS, YET TELLS YOU WHO YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR. STOP LISTENING TO THIS YOU KNOW MORE THAN SHE DOES!"

Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle - "Do clashes between ideologies reflect policy differences or something more fundamental? The present research suggests they reflect core psychological differences such that liberals express compassion toward less structured and more encompassing entities (i.e., universalism), whereas conservatives express compassion toward more well-defined and less encompassing entities (i.e., parochialism). Here we report seven studies illustrating universalist versus parochial differences in compassion. Studies 1a-1c show that liberals, relative to conservatives, express greater moral concern toward friends relative to family, and the world relative to the nation. Studies 2a-2b demonstrate these universalist versus parochial preferences extend toward simple shapes depicted as proxies for loose versus tight social circles. Using stimuli devoid of political relevance demonstrates that the universalist-parochialist distinction does not simply reflect differing policy preferences. Studies 3a-3b indicate these universalist versus parochial tendencies extend to humans versus nonhumans more generally, demonstrating the breadth of these psychological differences.
We'll still be told that liberals don't have their countries. Presumably we'll also be told that they don't want to destroy the family (even though they keep writing about how it sucks)
Comment: "This is fascinating. It basically says that Leftism is a philosophy of self-hatred. The farther away a thing is from you, the more you like it, and the closer it is to you the less positively you feel about it. It's very consistent with the idea that Leftists tout caring about people and things in the abstract (which is easy to do), while in practice mistreating actual real physical instances of those people and things."

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