Libs Have a Full Blown Meltdown Over TIME's Person of the Year
Prairie Tesla owners battle loss of heat amid extreme cold weather after software update
In Leaked Email, Elon Musk Says SpaceX Is Facing Bankruptcy
Elon Musk Says He's Anti-Subsidy, but Has Gotten Billions of Dollars - "over the years, Musk's companies — Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity — have received billions of dollars from government loans, contracts, tax credits, and subsidies. According to a Los Angeles Times investigation, Musk's companies had received an estimated $4.9 billion in government support by 2015, and they've gotten more since."
Of course, apologists will justify this as not-hypocrisy by saying that they pay taxes so they are justified in getting subsidies, the same way Ayn Rand wasn't a hypocrite for getting Social Security and Medicare since the government had "stolen" her money already (ignoring her reservations about doing so). But at the same time they will bash anti-landlord liberal politicians like Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib for collecting rent, even though they themselves can make a similar argument
SpaceX corporate flight attendant says she was paid $250K to settle claim with Elon Musk - "Elon Musk's SpaceX allegedly paid $250,000 to one of the company's corporate flight attendants, who accused the tech mogul of exposing himself to her and propositioning her for sex, a bombshell report has claimed."
Elon Musk says he doesn't use flight attendants; SpaceX president defends him over sexual assault claim
Meme - Elon Musk: "In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold"
"24 HOURS LATER
SpaceX reportedly paid $250000 to cover up Elon Musk's sexual misconduct"
Surely We Can Do Better Than Elon Musk - "There are two facts that I have sometimes found it difficult to reconcile. The first is that Tesla, Inc. makes innovative and genuinely impressive electric vehicles that can hold their own against the fastest performance cars in the world. The second is that the CEO of Tesla, Inc., celebrated entrepreneur Elon Musk, is a liar, huckster, and moron, who regularly says things so ignorant that I cannot understand how they can come from a human adult, let alone one treated by his fans as a super-genius. Is one of these facts untrue? Are Tesla’s cars actually bad, their deficiencies carefully covered up and their quality over-hyped? Is Elon Musk actually not a liar, huckster, or moron? If you look more closely, are things that look like fraud and stupidity to me actually signs of brilliance? Or is there a way for both facts to be true?... Of course, one of the biggest Musk Myths is that he is a self-made entrepreneur, whose work shows what “private enterprise” can accomplish. Despite Musk’s contempt for regulations, Niedermeyer shows that Tesla was unable to survive in the free market, and only exists today thanks to a $350 million Department of Energy loan that came at a crucial time. A Los Angeles Times investigation in 2015 revealed that Musk’s empire was built on $4.9 billion in government support. People were able to buy expensive Teslas, for instance, partly because the government paid them to buy electric cars in the form of tax credits. Travis County, Texas, “has offered a $14.7 million (at minimum) tax break for the building of a Tesla factory” and “[a] Nevada factory was built on the promise of up to $1.3 billion in tax benefits over two decades.” Now, with Joe Biden’s giant infrastructure bill set to give out $174 billion more in electric vehicle investments, Musk is sure to receive a new windfall... the fact that Musk takes public money while presenting himself as the heroic libertarian opponent of stodgy government bureaucracy is maddening"
Former NASA Official Says She Was Dissed for SpaceX Support - "The space community's early opposition to SpaceX is well documented. In 2010, Neil Armstrong was one of several astronauts to diss the commercial space industry... Garver said her support of commercial space initiatives — as well as her gender — made her a "target." She described an environment that was often hostile, despite her role as second in command. "Many who disagreed with my views attacked me with vulgar, gendered language, depredation, and physical threats," Garver wrote. "I've been called an ugly whore, a motherfucking bitch, and a cunt; told I need to get laid, and asked if I'm on my period or going through menopause.""
Elon Musk’s’ $55 Million Las Vegas Transit Loop Panned As ‘Crappy Disney Ride’ - "Musk proposed building a series of tunnels under Sin City in which people in driverless vehicles would whisk around at speeds up to 155 mph. Instead, when the project was unveiled last week, there were just plain old Tesla vehicles — driven by humans — creeping along at 35 mph."
Are Tom and Jerry best friends? The age-old question finally gets an answer - "The answer according to the post is yes, they are best friends. The explanation the post offers is that Tom actually is fond of Jerry as a friend and vice versa. However, to protect Jerry, as he is a rodent, after all, Tom pretends to hate him and chase him in front of his owner. He does this to ensure that his master is fully aware of the hate he has for Jerry so that he does not replace him with another cat who will probably actually kill or harm Jerry. Fans were on board with this answer and were quick to suggest several episodes where this theory was proven right. In some episodes, Tom and Jerry both are actually seen having a good time as they relax in their respective places and only indulge in fights when someone is around. Another user claimed that an episode did air where Tom gets replaced by another cat. This episode further solidifies the theory as the other actually does want to kill Jerry. However, Tom and Jerry join forces and manage to get the mechanical cat out of the house and thus Tom is back again. Towards the end of the episode, Tom is seen thanking Jerry and the two friends exchange a smile and get back with their usual tantrums and chases."
Differing Cantonese and Mandarin readings of the same headline - "A Cantonese grad student from Guangzhou sent me this headline that means something very different in Cantonese and in Mandarin:
Mandarin
Érzi shēng xìngbìng, mǔ bèi gǎn ānwèi 儿子生性病,母倍感安慰
("When her son contracted a venereal disease, the mother felt redoubled happiness").
Cantonese
Ji4zi2 saang1sing3, beng6 mou5 pui5 gam2 on1wai3 儿子生性,病母倍感安慰
("[Given that] her son is obedient, the sick mother felt redoubled happiness")...
Here are some examples of common phrases that can have quite different meanings in Mandarin and in Cantonese:
1. 返工 Mandarin fǎngōng: rework, redoing; Cantonese faan1 gung1: return to work, redo a job
2. 心机 Mandarin xīnjī: scheming, mentality; Cantonese sam1 gei1: serious mind
3. 张飞 Mandarin Zhāng Fēi: a name; Cantonese zoeng1 fei1: one fare / ticket
4. 出面 Mandarin chūmiàn: to perform, act on behalf of; Cantonese ceot1 min6: outside
5. 口齿 Mandarin kǒuchǐ: mouth and teeth, the way to articulate; Cantonese hau2 ci2: credit, promise
6. 人工 Mandarin réngōng: artificiality, manpower, manual labor; Cantonese jan4 gung1: salary, pay
7. 偷鸡 Mandarin tōu jī: steal chicken; Cantonese tau1 gai: be indolent in one's duty
8. 挂住 Mandarin guà zhù: hang, put up; Cantonese gwaa3 zyu6: miss, care for
There are countless other expressions that have radically different meanings in Cantonese and in Mandarin. Such discrepancies lead to serious misunderstandings and mistranslations. Here is a celebrated case where Cantonese do6toi1 墮胎 ("abortion") was used to translate Mandarin rénliú 人流, which can also mean "abortion", but in this sentence was intended to convey another meaning — "stream of people" — which doesn't exist in Cantonese: "Shāngchǎng xīnchūn rénliú shēngyì jiào qùnián tóngqí lù dé zēng yī chéng 商场新春人流生意较去年同期录得增一成" ("The business of the flow of people in the malls during the new spring is 10% greater than during the same period last year"). Instead, the translation of the crucial phrase in a Hong Kong newspaper came out as "duòtāi shēngyì 墮胎生意" (abortion business")...
Bob Bauer points out that students in Guangdong province, including its main city of Guangzhou, are finding it increasingly difficult to handle written Cantonese... That's what it's like in Guangzhou, inside the PRC. Now that China has taken over Hong Kong, policies for the same sort of preferential treatment in favor of Mandarin are being instituted and enforced. Unless some drastic changes take place within the next decade or so, the future of Cantonese, even in Hong Kong, looks increasingly bleak."
Why calling written Mandarin "Chinese" is wrong
Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages, part 2 - "'These advertisements on a Hong Kong bus (plastered on the back of every seat on the upper deck) use Cantonese so unashamedly, at least in their main type, that I just had to pass them on. Clearly advertisers still appreciate that written Cantonese is the best way to connect to the Cantonese-speaking masses.' A monolingual Mandarin speaker, if they heard these sentences spoken, would not be able to understand them. Even when written in Sinographs, as they are here, these sentences are not fully intelligible to the monolingual Mandarin speaker. This puts the lie to the common myth that Cantonese and Mandarin (and all the other Sinitic topolects) are identical when written in Chinese characters... When will people ever get over the idea that there's only one "Chinese" language and that all the other Sinitic topolects are just "dialects" of it?"
Will Cantonese struggle to survive like Welsh, Hawaiian and Tibetan languages? Author predicts a rough road ahead | South China Morning Post - "One recent study suggests that just over 3,000 languages are currently endangered – nearly half of those in use today globally. What causes language death? The process is, generally, gradual: an accelerating shift from an old linguistic system towards one with greater perceived utility or status. But, as journalist James Griffiths argues in Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language, this process is often driven by malign forces. “Languages are not lost, they are taken,” he argues. “They are uprooted by malice or neglect, their speakers assimilated into a new tongue, or left to struggle in the space between the fading old and the out of reach new.” Griffiths sets out to explore this thesis in three geographically diverse places: Wales, Hawaii and Hong Kong. Though thousands of miles apart, they are united by their experience of colonialism. Wales was “the first colony” of the English, Griffiths writes, while Hawaii moved from colony, to territory, to state... Wales and Hawaii have both seen their respective languages brought to the brink by policies of repression, as well as the more subtle influence of inward migration by speakers of a global language. In Wales, this was part of a cultural intolerance that reached its zenith in the Victorian era... In both Wales and Hawaii it was reform of the education system that had the most deleterious effect on the native language. One Hawaiian missionary account explained the purpose of rules stipulating that English should be the sole language of the education system: “The present generation will generally know English; the next generation will know little else. Here is an element of vast power in many ways. […]... the fate of Welsh offers, to some extent, a good news story: in recent decades national policies have rejuvenated the language. How, though, does the story of Cantonese fit with these two oppressed languages? Cantonese is spoken by about 80 million people globally, mostly in southern mainland China and Hong Kong: it seems to be far from a dying language. Griffiths walks the reader through the long debate in China around its national language. Despite its dominant linguistic position in China’s south, and the commercial significance of this area, there had long been scepticism of the virtue of encouraging Cantonese literacy... The risk to Cantonese is, of course, exacerbated by its use as a language of resistance in the face of Beijing’s increasing political interference in Hong Kong."
Bride dies of heart attack at her wedding in India: report - "The bride — only identified as Surbhi — collapsed of a heart attack while exchanging traditional garlands with husband-to-be Mangesh Kumar at the start of their ceremony... “We did not know what to do in the situation. Both the families sat together and someone suggested that my younger sister Nisha should be married to the groom,” the women’s brother, Saurabh, told IANS. “The families discussed the matter and both agreed”... “It was a bizarre situation as the wedding of my younger sister took place while the dead body of my other sister was lying in another room”"
McDonald’s blocked from building drive-through at Rome's ancient Baths of Caracalla - "Italy’s highest administrative court has definitively barred McDonald’s from building a 10,000 sq. m outlet in the shadow of the third-century Baths of Caracalla, one of Rome’s most celebrated ancient sites. Published on 28 December, the council of state’s ruling upheld the verdict of a lower court preventing the fast food chain from using a tract of land adjacent to the baths to open a drive-through restaurant and parking area. It also stated that government authorities are entitled to block future development projects in or near other important heritage sites. The court reached its decision on the basis of the “importance of protecting cultural heritage”, according to its ruling. As the ancient baths are located within an area including the Caffarella Park, Appian way and Roman aqueducts that is protected by regional and national landscape plans—as well as within the Unesco-protected historic centre of Rome—any development projects “expressly require landscape planning permissions”, which previously had not been granted, the ruling continues... McDonald’s had already started building its drive-through next to the ancient baths, following a favourable review of the project by the ministry of culture, and the city council which granted permission for it, but the project was halted in 2019 when Rome’s then mayor, Virginia Raggi, intervened following a media outcry. The ministry of culture then reversed its position and also stepped in to fight the development."
The libertarians will be very upset at the free market being thwarted
Why McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken - "The main reason is that the McDonald’s ice cream machines take forever to clean, taking up to four hours to sanitize—and it has to be done every single day. When the machines are in the process of being cleaned, they can’t serve ice cream. And, when the staff is handing out Big Macs left and right, no one has the time to tend to the laborious machine. Telling you that the ice cream machine is broken instead of admitting that they are too lazy to clean it is just one of the secrets that fast-food workers won’t tell you."
Meanwhile, the map that tells you which outlets have "broken" ice cream machines is racist
Even The Feds Reportedly Want to Know Why McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines are Always Broken - "some McDonald's franchisees have taken matters into their own hands, paying to train their employees to fix the faulty machines. The FTC reportedly got involved when it appeared there were road blocks to fixing the devices. The Biden administration has initiated several investigations on multiple products, from phones to tractors, to ensure that manufacturers aren't preventing owners from fixing the problem themselves."
Libertarians will be very upset at this government intervention. Their rationale for why the predatory exclusive repair contracts are really the government's fault is going to be interesting
McMillions: How McDonald's Employee Amy Murray Helped Take Down a $24 Million Crime Ring - "For years, the beloved McDonald's Monopoly game was rigged by a motley crew of mobsters, ex-cops, and one Mormon church leader"
My Hunt for the Original McDonald's French-Fry Recipe - " McDonald’s original french fries were cooked in beef tallow. For that fact, they were bullied out of production by a well-funded, well-intentioned businessman and self-proclaimed health advocate named Phil Sokolof, who unknowingly dethroned what many fans claim was the greatest french fry to ever meet mass production. “The french fries were very good,” Child said in a 1995 interview, “and then the nutritionists got at them … and they’ve been limp ever since … I’m always very strong about criticizing them, hoping maybe they’ll change.” Child never lived to see McDonald’s fries return to their former glory, and sadly, and there’s no indication they ever will. That’s why I set out on a quest to find the original recipe... at the time, few fast-food operations were even attempting fries. According to Adam Chandler, the author of Drive Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom, World War I soldiers returning to the United States from France and Belgium ushered these exotic fried potato strings into the American culinary consciousness.* But Chandler says that fries were too labor intensive and difficult to execute in a consistent, commercial manner. While most burger joints made do with potato chips, “the McDonald brothers had a secret,” he says. They used their desert setting to their advantage, curing potatoes for several days in the desert air before processing them. “They had this extra crispness to them that made them better than any fry you’d ever had.”... One by one, competing brands began cooking their fries in beef tallow as well, hoping to approximate what slowly became the gold standard in french fries... In all likelihood, Phil Sokolof himself at one point loved the very fries he would come to destroy... Between 1966 and 1990, Sokolof spent around $15 million fighting against the use of fatty ingredients in foods across the United States. He founded the National Heart Savers Association with his own money, pushed Congress to declare April “Know Your Cholesterol Month,” and took out full-page ads in newspapers smearing major food brands for their ingredients. He called himself “the little guy from Omaha”; papers called him the “Fat Fighter” (though “Fat-Fighter” might have been more apt). After strong-arming major players like General Foods, Kellogg’s, and Nabisco into changing their recipes, Sokolof set his sights on the Golden Arches... On July 23, 1990, McDonald’s quietly changed their long-held french fry recipe. As Chandler points out, however, Sokolof’s smear campaign came as part of a broader national reckoning: “You can pinpoint a lot of the changes that happened in the American diet to that era,” he says. With the obesity epidemic entering the public consciousness at the turn of the 1990s, fast-food players big and small were all scrambling to meet demands for healthier options—a series of efforts that, according to Chandler, failed at every turn. Domino’s Pizza introduced low-calorie, “light toppings” (“those obviously bombed”); Wendy’s launched a salad bar (“no one wanted it”); Burger King introduced the BK Broiler grilled chicken sandwich (“never really stuck”); and aside from ditching beef tallow, McDonald’s introduced their McLean Deluxe (“a huge flop once people found out there was seaweed derivative in it”). This was the era, Chandler points out, when Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, “because ‘fried’ was such a pejorative.” While Sokolof’s victory dealt a blow to the corporation, it wasn’t exactly a win for consumers, either. Exchanging beef tallow for pure vegetable oil in high-temperature frying introduced consumers to a different and arguably worse dietary threat than saturated fats: trans fats, which, as we now know, are a major cause of cardiovascular disease, digestive issues, and weight gain. Despite the best intentions, Sokolof ultimately made a bad problem worse, one that McDonald’s has spent decades trying to fix. They’ve bounced new ingredients in and out of their frying oil to reduce the levels of trans fat, claiming today to have essentially eliminated them from their fries. What we are left with is a distant echo of the famed original fry... “I still eat at McDonald’s twice a week,” says former employee Ben Stacks, “but I miss those original fries. They stayed tasty longer.” Indeed, if modern McDonald’s fries aren’t eaten immediately, they soften into a mealy texture that settles on the palate like wet dust... here is the closest thing to the original McDonald’s beef tallow french fry recipe the universe has to offer... Done properly, the McMenu PDF will leave you with a pile of commercial-ready, golden-brown, pre-Sokolofian shoestrings. As for taste, it became clear on my first bite why it took $15 million to put them out of production. Where modern fries are bland and leave my mouth with the aforementioned uneasy beaniness, the McMenu PDF fries pack a serious punch that left my palate screaming for more. A subtle, beefy umami saddled neatly next to the underlying sweetness from brining. The crisp, browned edges provided an audible crunch. The insides retained a sweet, buttery texture. My only complaint was that I had to stop eating and photograph them. They are hands-down the best fast-food fries I’ve ever eaten. As for authenticity, I personally wasn’t alive to try McDonald’s original french fries before 1990, so cannot attest to the veracity of the McMenu fries’ flavor—but Chandler was, and does. “As soon as I tried a few of them, I was back in my mom’s Volvo 240 station wagon [in 1988], waiting for my sister to get distracted enough so I could steal her McNuggets.”"
Ina Deguata⁷ Ψ on Twitter - "My mom didn't raise a quitter, she raises someone afraid of failure so much they don't even start something"
Are LCD screens vegan? - Vegetarian lifestyle - "TVs, computers and mobile phones with LCD displays may contain cholesterol taken from animals. Gelatin strikes again in battery production. The animal product is used in metal processing as it improves the structure of metals and manufacturers claim finding an alternative is very difficult."
Miscellaneous: Today, I told my dad that I was going to sleep over my friends... - FML - "Today, I told my dad that I was going to sleep over my friends house this weekend with a few other guys to play Dungeons and Dragons. He responded with, "Oh, back in my day, me and my pals used to pick on the kids who played Dungeons and Dragons." FML"
Shailja Patel on Twitter - ""We all have the same 24 hours." Use public transport? Your 24 hours are not the same as those of private jet owners. Do your own cooking, cleaning, child~raising? Your 24 hours are not the same as those of someone with a full~time domestic staff. Stop this nonsense."
Man gives blowjob 10-inch penis and ends up in ER with ruptured airway - "A gay man from Chicago, Illinois, was called a “legend, a martyr, and an idol” after he shared the story of how he ended up in hospital after sucking “a hulk sized d**k.” Fredy Alanis posted a selfie on Twitter last week with the caption: “Excuse the bad angle but remember when I sucked a hulk sized d**k and ended up in the ER afterwards LMFAO never forget."
In Most States, Poorest School Districts Get Less Funding
Mischievous headline, given that the result is exactly the opposite - ironically, in the majority of US states, the highest poverty districts receive more per-capita student funding than the lowest poverty districts, in only 4 do the poorest districts get more than 5% less per-capita funding than the richest ones, and in only one state do the lowest poverty districts get more than 10% less funding per student (Illinois - about 22% less). So much for the liberal myth that funding through property taxes meaning poor areas have worse-funded schools is the reason why poor students do badly in school
Education spending and student learning outcomes
In any event, school funding isn't that huge a factor. For example, a 10% boost in school spending increases test scores by 5-9% of a standard deviation. Even if you assume that the effect is linear (i.e. there are no diminishing marginal returns from boosting spending), given that Cohen suggested that 80% standard deviation was a large effect size, you'd need to boost school spending by 80% to have a large effect on test scores
The School Spending Debate: What Difference Does A Dollar Make? - "This idea, that sprinkling more dollars over troubled schools won't magically improve test scores or graduation rates, is a common refrain among many politicians, activists and experts. And they have research to back it up. This report on school spending from the libertarian Cato Institute is just one entry in a decades-long body of work that suggests there is little to no link between spending and academic achievement... In short, these critics say, it's How You Spend School Money, not How Much You Spend... Section 402 of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 is short, just a paragraph long, but it demanded something huge: The federal government had to conduct a nationwide survey "concerning the lack of availability of equal educational opportunities for individuals by reason of race, color, religion, or national origin." The results were to be reported back to Congress. James S. Coleman, a sociologist, was tapped for the job. And he did not take it lightly. By the time Coleman filed his 700-page report, he and his team had surveyed some 650,000 students and teachers nationwide... "Coleman explicitly said families are important and, after that, schools contribute very little," recalls Hanushek, now a senior fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. "And also that resources contribute very little." Family matters, Coleman found; schools matter less. And how much money schools spend on their students doesn't seem to matter much at all. "This is crazy," Hanushek remembers thinking. "If schools don't matter, why do we pay so much attention to them?""
It's crazy how almost 6 decades later liberals are still pretending that it's all about funding
The Effects of School Funding on Student Academic Achievement. A Study of California School Districts 2000-2004 - "My results show that there is a small, yet significant effect of school funding on student academic achievement. However, not all funding sources yield the same result. I have found that after controlling for district fixed effects, money earmarked, or restricted, by the federal government for categorical aid is the most effective in increasing student academic achievement. My results also show that increasing general purpose funding through district revenue limits leads to lower student performance, on average"
Increased funding can worsen outcomes
Addendum: Sadly, this is no longer available online. The tables and figures can still be viewed here
How a White Lie Gave Japan KFC for Christmas - " As with most Christmas traditions, it all started with a marketing campaign. For years, English-language media cited company spokespeople, who said the idea came from expats looking for an alternative to turkey. There was never a reason to doubt the company’s account, until the man who brought KFC to Japan spoke up. Takeshi Okawara, manager of Japan’s first KFC, came forward in recent years with a confession that upended years of innocent origin narratives—a confession that KFC denies. The man who brought the Colonel to Japan says it started with a lie... The KFC that Okawara opened in Nagoya in 1970 failed so miserably that Okawara was left nearly homeless, sleeping on sacks of flour in the kitchen to save on rent. The red-and-white striped roof and English signage confused pedestrians. “No one knew what the hell we were selling.” Okawara told Household Name. “They’d come in and say, ‘Is this a barber? Are you selling chocolate?’” The only thing that kept him going was the magical taste of Sanders’s fried chicken... Okawara was hired to dress as Santa-san and hand out fried chicken for a kindergarten Christmas party. Knowing his business was on the line, however, he went above and beyond the call of duty. With the spirit of Colonel Sanders and Santa-san wrapped in one, he stole the show. “I started dancing, holding the barrel of chicken. ‘Kentucky Christmas, Kentucky Christmas, Happy Happy,’ like that,” he told Household Name. “I made up a song, and danced around. Kids liked it.” After another elementary school hired him to do the same thing, Okawara realized Christmas could save KFC Japan. Nathan Hopson, professor of Japanese history at the University of Nagoya, writes in an email that by 1930, Christmas was firmly entrenched in the Japanese psyche: Newspaper ads depicted “The Old Man of the North” and families exchanging gifts, while Christmas Eve dance and theater shows were popular with at least the urban public. The only thing missing was a Japanese answer to traditional Western Christmas foods. Okawara promoted fried chicken as a substitute for traditional Christmas turkey, which the Japanese knew from TV and cinema was eaten for Christmas throughout the West. Selling chicken and sides together in Christmas-themed “Party Barrels” and decorating his store’s Colonel Sanders statue as Santa-san brought in enough customers to save his business. With word of the Christmas “Party Barrels” making their way across Japan, the national broadcaster NHK interviewed Okawara about his role in bringing the Colonel to Japan and asked if KFC for Christmas was a common custom overseas. Unable to turn down such a glaring opportunity, the young entrepreneur said yes. “I still regret that, but people liked it because it was something good [they thought came] from the U.S. or European countries”... By 1973, KFC Japan had expanded to 75 locations (making it the largest fast food chain in the country)... A lack of pre-existing Christmas traditions among the largely secular Japanese, or perhaps Colonel Sanders’s striking resemblance to Santa Claus, made the infusion a shoo-in. It also helped that the associations most Westerners have with fast-food establishments such as KFC never made it to Japan. “In the 1970s, KFC and other family restaurants were seen as trendy and hip, not just fast and convenient,” writes Dr. Eric Rath, professor of Japanese history at the University of Kansas, in an email. “One could bring a date there and not feel ashamed.” Dr. Nathan Hopson, professor of Japanese history at the University of Nagoya, writes that in the same way that some young Japanese couples long for Christian-style “chapel” weddings, “Christmas has an association with a kind of exotic and romantic view of ‘the West’ that is entirely divorced from history, religion, or any other inconvenient facts.” He also points out that because so few, if any, Japanese homes feature ovens, buying take-out chicken fits the Japanese mold"
Merry Christmas! In a first, Saudi Arabia celebrates Christian festival, thanks to Mohammad bin Salman - "The kingdom prohibits the public practice of any religion other than Islam and allows no churches or places of worship except for mosques. Previously, Christmas trees ordered from abroad were seized by customs, as were other religious accoutrements such as Buddha statues. But this year, there’s a little more festive cheer in a society whose leadership now allows music, gender mixing and considers fun as a nascent industry... While some Saudis have been buying Christmas trees, others have been walking in to complain about the merchandise, saying it was forbidden under Islam to stock such items, according to store managers. When asked whether her shop carried Christmas decorations, a Saudi saleswoman said: “Thank God, we don’t.”... Yet as Christmas comes quietly for those who want it, alcohol remains banned despite rumors that it will one day become legal in some parts of the country. It’s only available on the black market at exorbitant prices. But this year there’s plenty of one drink on store shelves that used to be tough to find around the holidays: tonic water."
Mississippi man spends 15 hours at Waffle House after finishing last in fantasy football league - "Thousands on social media joined Lee Sanderlin as he live tweeted his journey fulfilling his penalty, which required him to spend 24 hours at a Waffle House in Brandon, Mississippi. For every waffle he ate, however, an hour was shaved off the clock."
Political Considerations in Nonpolitical Decisions: A Conjoint Analysis of Roommate Choice - "Research shows the increasing tendency of partisan considerations to influence decisions outside the context of politics, including residential choice. Scholars attribute this tendency to affective distaste for members of the other party. However, little work has investigated the relative influence of political and nonpolitical factors in these situations—and it has not sufficiently ruled out alternative explanations for these phenomena. Do people mainly choose to socially avoid members of the other party for political reasons, or is partisanship simply perceived to be correlated with relevant nonpolitical considerations? In some settings, political affiliation may serve primarily as a cue for other factors. As a result, studies that manipulate partisanship but fail to include other individuating information may exaggerate partisanship’s importance in these decisions. To address this shortcoming, I assess the impact of political and nonpolitical considerations on roommate selection via conjoint analysis. I find that partisanship strongly influences this social decision even in the presence of nonpolitical-but-politically-correlated individuating information. Partisan preferences are also moderated by roommates’ perceived levels of political interest. Finally, other social traits do matter, but how they matter depends on partisanship. Specifically, partisans report increased willingness to live with counter-stereotypic out-partisans. This suggests that partisan social divides may be more easily bridged by individuals with cross-cutting identities."
Thomas Sowell on Twitter - "One of the first things the left does is take away the right of other people to make their own choices."
John Hayward on Twitter - ""Gun control!" they demand from behind their armed guards.
"Abolish the police!" they shout from behind military security forces.
"Income inequality!" they scream from their multiple mansions.
"Climate change!" they wail from their private jets.""
'Fake Taxi' Owner Selling Cab As It's 'Served Its Purpose' - "The black cab is emblazoned with the Fake Taxi livery and looks just like the real thing... The cab was listed in Gunnislake, Cornwall, last week for £1,200, and the owner even said she's used it as a 'general family car'... The ad reads: "London Taxi LTI ‘Fake Taxi’ livery. 2.4 turbo diesel transit engine. 200k miles. "Had a full respray in metallic black in October 2021. "With working taxi light and meter!! Comes with the disabled entry ramp too! "The interior speakers/ lights etc all work from rear and from the front console! "We bought this to do up as a summer ball request so it has served its purpose, and it was the talk of the evening!"
Man Arrested for Uncensoring Japanese Porn With AI in First Deepfake Case - "Japanese police on Monday arrested a 43-year-old man for using artificial intelligence to effectively unblur pixelated porn videos, in the first criminal case in the country involving the exploitative use of the powerful technology. Masayuki Nakamoto, who runs his own website in the southern prefecture of Hyogo, lifted images of porn stars from Japanese adult videos and doctored them with the same method used to create realistic face swaps in deepfake videos... Nakamoto reportedly made about 11 million yen ($96,000) by selling over 10,000 manipulated videos, though he was arrested specifically for selling 10 fake photos at about 2,300 yen ($20) each... In India, a gang allegedly blackmailed people by threatening to send deepfake videos of them to their families."