Man divorces wife during wedding reception after song causes family fight - " The man and woman from Baghdad recorded the fastest divorce in the country this month after the groom divorced his bride during their wedding. Apparently, it was because she played a 'provocative' Syrian song... 'Mesaytara', which translates to 'I am dominant' or 'I will control you', was the name of the song that caused the couple's marriage to end in the wedding hall. The song begins with these lyrics: "I am dominant; you will be ruled under my strict instructions." And continues: "I will drive you crazy if you looked at other girls on the street "Yes, I’m dominant. "You’re my piece of sugar. "As long as you’re with me, you’ll walk under my command. '"’m arrogant, I’m arrogant."
The bride was reportedly boogying to the beat, which the groom and his family considered a provocation. The groom was said to have then got into an argument with his bride, before ending their relationship. According to News18, this is not the first time the song has caused newlyweds to get divorced in the Middle East. In 2021, a Jordanian man broke up with his bride during their wedding celebrations after she played it."
Owner Reveals Reason Behind Restaurant Closure - And It’s Not What You’d Expect - "“Dear Patrons. The restaurant is closed due to the fact that the owners wife SLEPT with the MEXICAN DISHWASHER. “Lou was struck in the head with a frying pan by his soon to be EX-WIFE when he tried to defend his honor. ADIOS!! No food for you! “Sincerely, Fractured Management.”"
Seville Erotic Waffle Shop Investigated For Penises And Vaginas In Belen Nativity Scene - "A court in Sevilla has opened preliminary proceedings against the waffle shop La Verguería for its ‘Portal de Belén’ nativity scene made out of waffles in the shape of penises and vaginas. The franchise La Verguería was already a controversial establishment in Spain thanks to its specialty in suggestively shaped waffles, but now some think the erotic pastry shop has gone too far."
Video: Israel Tests 'Iron Beam' Air-Defense System - "Video shows Israel testing its brand new "Iron Beam" air-defense system, which uses high-powered laser beams to intercept enemy mortars, anti-tank missiles, and drones... The Iron Beam is able to shoot down airborne targets at a cost of $3.50 per shot, Bennett said. Israel's Iron Dome air-defense system, which uses interceptors to destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells, costs considerably more, at up to $150,000 per interception"
For first time on record, more Ontarians moved to Quebec than the reverse in 2021 - The Globe and Mail - "Remote work and affordable housing seem to be driving the shift in the short run, analysts suggest, as Ontario office workers packed up their laptops and sought cheaper pastures. But some observers also see deeper forces at work, as Quebec’s economy catches up with its neighbour’s, political passions cool, and anglophones adapt to a province where French is predominant... After another stint in Montreal, work pulled him and his wife to Toronto in the mid-1990s, around the time of the second referendum. “Everybody thought we were refugees,” he said. He could see how much the city benefited from the arrival of disaffected Quebec anglophones and their employers. “It’s a sort of Toronto joke that they should have a statue of René Lévesque in Nathan Phillips Square for making Toronto the city it was”... But he missed people saying “bonjour” on the street, the sense of style, Gaspé seafood at the Jean-Talon Market, state support for the arts, the deep sense of urban history. “We missed the city – we missed being here.”"
British birds adapt their beaks to birdfeeders - "The findings, published in Science, reveal for the first time the genetic differences between UK and Dutch great tits which researchers were then able to link to longer beaks in British birds... ‘In the UK we spend around twice as much on birdseed and birdfeeders than mainland Europe – and, we’ve been doing this for some time. In fact, at the start of the 20th century, Punch magazine described bird feeding as a British national pastime,’ says Dr Lewis Spurgin, of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA). ‘Although we can’t say definitively that bird feeders are responsible, it seems reasonable to suggest that the longer beaks amongst British great tits may have evolved as a response to this supplementary feeding.’"
Blind Man Who Says He Can't Work Due To His Disability Gets Caught Reading A Newspaper - "Liu Zhen Xian has a board telling people walking past that he’s blind, and he’s selling tissue to make a living because he has no other choice... the old man is completely blind in his right eye, and his left is visually-impaired. To prove his claim, he has an official ID from the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicap. He explained that his right eye was injured by a marble back in his 20s while his left is deteriorating due to age. Despite having difficulties reading, Liu Zhen Xian still persists in his long-time habit of reading newspapers despite his poor eyesight."
Facebook - "A 96-year-old German woman fled ahead of the opening of her trial on charges of aiding and abetting mass murder in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two, a court spokesperson said"
"This is vengeance for political points, not justice. What was a 18 year old female typist supposed to do? Rebel? She would have been shot. Modern antinazis priding themselves for being antifacist from the safe comfort of never having to be placed in a spot where it was comply or die."
IRS Apologizes For Aggressive Scrutiny Of Conservative Groups - "the IRS "expresses its sincere apology" for mistreating a conservative organization called Linchpins of Liberty — along with 40 other conservative groups — in their applications for tax-exempt status... The consent order says the IRS admits it wrongly used "heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays" and demanded unnecessary information as it reviewed applications for tax-exempt status."
retro vs modern – Nix Illustration - "Paleontology and science illustration, and feathering ALL the dinosaurs"
1910s-1960s vs 1990s vs 2020 etc
Meme - "TIFU by thinking my son was having gay sex when he was just eating Hummus So I have a son and he brought a friend round today. They immediately went to their room and I assumed they would just play some video games or whatever so I was totally fine leaving them. It was about 30 minutes in when I was walking past, I heard sounds such as 'Omg that's so good' and 'Its so good with that in it' and various 'mmmm' sounds. It really sounded like they were having gay sex, I was super weirded out by it so I quickly went downstairs and waited for his friend to leave. When this friend left an hour or two later I asked my son what they were doing in his room (because although I don't mind him being gay, and ik it's normal for teenagers to have sex, a condom really should be used) so I planned to confront him about that. However the answer shocked me to my very core. They weren't having sex, they were eating hummus. was shocked, and initially didn't believe it. We had never had hummus before and I asked him to show me the hummus if this was true. So he did, and I ate hummus for the first time, and oh my god was it good. We experimented with different things in it like bread and carrots and it was great. Apparently his friend had heard about how he had never had hummus before and thought this was absurd so had planned a date for a hummus. party."
Meme - "TIFU by thinking my son was eating hummus when he was actually having gay sex [UPDATE]
So yeah, the majority of you were right, they were having sex (I did think it sounded like it). They ate some hummus first, then put it away (didn't do anything at the same time like some of you freaks suggested) and then had sex. My son's boyfriend (I think they're boyfriends) saw the post and couldn't stop laughing, so told my son (thinking it could be about them) who told me because I think he felt a bit guilty about hiding it. Other than that, nothing really exciting happened. We had a long awkward talk, I told him I don't really endorse him having sex but he should really use a condom etc. Now onto the more important thing, hummus. I really like hummus now, I'd never had it before because it just looked kinda disgusting (yellow and sludgy) but I have learnt appearances can be deceiving. It was homemade so I'm going to have to ask for the recipe so I can make some more (I've finished all of it) Also what are some other good things to dip in it? I've tried the obvious things (carrot, cucumber, breads) and any suggestions would be appreciated. A lot of people have recommended Baba Ganoush as well? Is that similar or better than Hummus? TLDR: My son is actually gay, but also I really like hummus"
Abolish the monarchy? In Canada, it would be a royal pain in the butt - "unless you’re planning an armed coup of the Canadian government, becoming a republic is an utter logistical nightmare. All it took for Barbados to ditch Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state was a vote from their 30-member House of Assembly. Ireland booted out King George VI in 1949 with little more than a declaration from the Dáil Éireann, the country’s lower house of Parliament. But Canada, for better or for worse, “arguably has the most difficult to amend constitution in the world,” in the words of University of Waterloo constitutional expert Emmett Macfarlane. Under Section 41 of the Constitution Act, which was passed in 1982 by the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau, the “office of the Queen” cannot be changed unless it is approved by Parliament and “the legislative assembly of each province.” This means that the House of Commons, the Senate and all 10 provinces must sign off on any plan to make Canada a republic. Simply put, there has been no major peacetime issue in the history of confederation that could have garnered that level of consent The Constitution itself, notably, was passed despite Quebec never signing it. Even if Canada awoke to a world where every single provincial legislature suddenly concurred with firing the monarch, it’s reasonable to assume that Alberta, Quebec, and any number of other provinces would make Ottawa pay dearly for their “yes” vote. Go to your average prairie powwow, and in the grand entry you’re probably going to see a Union Jack. In fact, it’s right there on the official Treaty Six flag; not the maple leaf, but the Royal Union Flag. Much of what is now modern Canada was secured for colonial usage through the signing of agreements between Indigenous nations and the Crown of the United Kingdom (usually Queen Victoria). Blackfoot, Iroquois, Ojibwe and dozens of other peoples were not hitching their futures to some parliament in Ottawa, they were making a sacred pact with a supreme authority — and there has been pushback to the idea of that pact being severed. Popular among some First Nations leadership is the concept that their contract is with the Sovereign, and the Dominion of Canada is merely a flawed servant that has been screwing up said contract for generations. Last month, for instance, the Confederation of Treaty Six registered an official complaint with Buckingham Palace about the office of Governor General being left vacant after the resignation of Julie Payette... Ironically, it would be easier for Britain to ditch the monarchy first. The U.K. doesn’t have to ask the permission of a bunch of secondary jurisdictions before making a fundamental change to their governing structure. Rather, if the Brits wanted to fire Queen Elizabeth II, all they would really need is a majority vote in Parliament. Actually, they’ve done this once before. In 1649, after a round of ugly political chaos known as the Second English Civil War, the English Parliament voted to wrest “supreme authority” from the monarch and to return the realm to “its just and ancient right” of pure democratic government. It didn’t work out; the result was a series of anarchic power grabs followed by a brief period of military dictatorship. And that’s why, after only 11 years, England restored its monarchy. More than 350 years later, it’s one of the most stable forms of government on earth. The easiest Canadian workaround would be to find a resident king... Canada would only need a simple parliamentary statute to either crown our own domestic monarch or we could simply sign on to the monarchy of another country, such as Norway or Japan"
Two Tips That Instantly Improve Your Everyday Writing Forever - "Unless you’re an academic, journalist or person who’s writing a book, you want your writing to look easily digestible. That means this:
Hit enter after every 2–3 sentences.
Use bullet points for explaining things.
Make text you want people to notice bold."
Fly-tippers made to clean up rubbish they dumped on the M6 in Staffordshire - "Fly-tippers who were caught dumping rubbish on the M6 motorway were escorted more than five miles back to their waste by police and forced to pick it up."
Average IQ of college undergrads and graduate degree holders by decade - "Today’s bachelor’s degree is the equivalent of a high school graduation certificate from fifty years ago, and today’s graduate degree falls short of a bachelor’s degree from a generation ago. This is an inevitable consequence of increasing the share of the population that attends college. In the sixties, 10% of American adults had college degrees. Since then that figure has more than tripled, to 34% today. To say we’re well into the territory of diminishing returns is to understate the problem–-we’re past the point of negative returns. Most Americans in college today are not benefiting from being there. They’re foregoing work to accrue debt for degrees that, if they increase earning power at all, do so only marginally and they’re picking up an unhelpful sense of entitlement in the process. Outstanding student loan debt in America is an estimated $1.5 trillion. As the degree devaluation above strongly suggests, a significant proportion of this debt–a majority of it in my estimation–is bad debt. It will not be repaid because those holding it literally cannot repay it. They lack the earning power to do so."
Clearly the solution is to continue to confuse signalling for results, make college free and get even more young people to go there so more will be unable to find jobs and proclaim that capitalism has failed and support a Marxist revolution
Could EVERY Ring doorbell customer face £100,000 fine after landmark ruling? - "More than 100,000 households in Britain which have installed doorbell cameras could face a £100,000 fine for breaching privacy under data protection laws by inadvertently filming their neighbours and then keeping the footage following a landmark ruling. A judge at Oxford County Court ruled that Jon Woodard's use of his Ring cameras broke data laws and that he had pursued a course of harassment during his dispute with Dr Mary Fairhurst, who said she was forced to move out of her home in Thame because the WiFi-connected gadgets were 'intrusive'... Mr Woodard also said the decision went against current guidance from police forces, many of which have appealed for video doorbells footage to help gather criminal evidence. He said: 'I wonder if the police will now still be able to appeal to the public to check their smart doorbells, cctv, and dashcams in order to assist them solve crime, and use to assist convictions.'"
Police: This Guy Exposed Himself to Amish Women — Because They Couldn't Call for Help - "A Lancaster County man has been accused of exposing himself to Amish and Mennonite women — doing so because he knew they lacked the capability to call quickly for help. Lancaster Online reports that Benjamin R. Grafius, 39, is charged with exposing himself to “numerous” females... His downfall came in September, when he targeted an off-duty state trooper jogging in in Strasburg Township"
How your birth date influences how well you do in school, and later in life - "Relative age at school can have a long lasting impact. A large body of research has shown, for example, students who were relatively old among their peers are more likely to become professional sports players. This pattern is evident across a wide range of sports in many different countries with different cut-off dates: soccer, ice hockey and AFL... Studies have also found relatively old students do better at school. Even though the advantage tends to decrease over time, they are still slightly more likely to go to university. The long term impact on professional achievement doesn’t seem very large, but in some highly competitive environments, people who were relatively old at school are substantially over-represented. This is the case among CEOs of large corporations. Previous research found this was also the case among leading US politicians. Our research suggests one of the main reasons for this “birthday effect” is the impact of relative age on self-confidence. Recent research shows children who enjoy being ranked relatively high compared to their peers have higher self-confidence. Being relatively old among your peers tends to place you higher in the distribution of achievement. Children who enjoy this throughout childhood can end up being more confident in their aptitude and carry this confidence with them later on."
The Industrial Croissant Deserves Your Respect - "when you start to peel back its buttery layers, you’ll learn that even this quintessentially French pastry is itself dubiously French. In Larousse Gastronomique, an encyclopedia of food history, croissants are said to have originated in Budapest in 1686, “when the Turks were besieging the city.” The story goes that the Hungarian bakers, who worked underground, sounded the alarm that the Turks were coming, and as a result of their patriotism, they were permitted to make pastries in the shape of a crescent, the emblem of the Ottoman flag. Other sources claim the pastry was invented during the siege of Vienna years earlier. Chevallier writes that if either of these stories were true, the bakers would have made a buttery roll based on an Austrian kipfel, not a flaky croissant, and that roll was invented long before either siege. Chevallier also debunks the well-circulated myth of Marie Antoinette bringing the pastry with her from Austria... Partly because of its labor-intensive preparation and partly because of its extreme butter content, the croissant has been elevated to an almost mythological status for food fans around the world. Its dough is pressed firmly (or laminated) with layers of butter, refrigerated, and proofed for long hours, then cut into precisely measured identical shapes. Its particularity and precision are qualities we tend to associate with Frenchness... The act of making a croissant, Chevallier says, is meticulous, “but most things that are meticulous about it can be industrialized.” In America, you can’t get fresh, perfectly crafted and human-made croissants on every corner, like you can in France, so the mass-produced options more than scratch the itch, even if they’re not made with high-fat Breton butter and farm-fresh eggs. At Dunkin’, croissants have been on the menu for “decades,” Mike Brazis, director of global culinary innovation at Dunkin’ Brands, wrote by email. “They are baked fresh every day in a process of folding thin layers of dough, sometimes until there are more than fifty layers.” Doesn’t that make them just as much a croissant as a croissant produced at the legendary Boulangerie Utopie in the 11th arrondissement? “We think our croissants are a great expression of the form, with a light, flaky texture, delicious aroma, and delicate but satisfying flavor,” Brazis says. “They are the most popular way our guests enjoy breakfast sandwiches.” (Personally, I prefer a Croissan’wich.) “A preoccupation with authenticity all too often masks privilege and power,” explains Rachel Hopkin, a radio producer and folklorist who has written several papers on the lore of the croissant. “In the case of croissants, this privilege could involve having the resources to go chasing around France in search of the best croissant, or study at a top pâtisserie school, or get imported ingredients, or say what is authentic and what is not.” But the reality is that our personal relationships to croissants are what make them croissants. Does a croissant have to be born and bred in France to truly be considered a croissant, if the original croissants weren’t born and bred in France in the first place?"
Toronto man accused of breaking into woman's home to try on her clothes and cook - "Robert Anthony Stumpo, 35, of Toronto, was subsequently charged with one count of break and enter"
Dissecting that silly XKCD strip on free speech. - "First square claims a particularly small definition of free speech, this is the place where the rest of the comic follows from and it’s already fishy. A definition that by most dictionaries would be wrong, and unuseful on its own... notice how “government restriction” becomes “government can’t arrest you”... By XKCD definition, government could restrict your problem speech in several ways and still not breaching your rights, which is wrong... there are many times where this comic is used as a reply when talking about government funded organizations. Other times arguments like the comic’s is used when talking about censorship... breaches of freedom of speech do not necessarily require government action to happen. A company with too much power, a group powerful enough to impose itself whether they’re right or wrong, or simply threats and intimidation are enough to practice censorship. Some of those might not be illegal, but that still doesn’t make them non-censorship. When talking about censorship, sometimes people tend to go to “first amendment doesn’t cover that” as if that was the subject of the conversation, or as if someone implied that all censorship was illegal.
“The 1st amendment doesn’t shield you from criticism or consequences”
Let’s start with this: Harassment, Intimidation and violence are not good “consequences”, and are probably most of the time actually illegal... This comic, often comes as a counter against people complaining about censorship. It is used with the intent of painting them as loonies, misrepresenting the argument people complaining as if they are talking about the government... One day, someone will silence [something or someone you hold dear], and you will complain. You will not like it. You’ll think it’s unfair. You’ll think the accusations being levied against [your important subject] will be preposterous. You’ll think that there’s space to discuss the validity of [your inflammatory subject]. All your appeals will be misrepresented. You’ll be a literal Nazi, a toxic individual, a problematic actor. Someone will say that you’re a harasser, or that it’s simply not about what YOU think. At that time, you’ll be the one being shown the door. You’ll be scorned and not allowed to complain. Sometimes even pressured to say you’re sorry for [something you didn’t do]. The normalization of the bullying behavior you supported now, will facilitate your future censors."
Answers to 12 Bad Anti-Free Speech Arguments: Featuring That XKCD Cartoon Everyone Likes to Quote! - "the whole point of freedom of speech, from its beginning, has been to enable people to sort things out without resorting to violence. A quotation often attributed to Sigmund Freud (which he attributed to another writer) conveys this: “The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.”... Being a citizen in a democratic republic is supposed to be challenging; it’s supposed to ask something of its citizens. It requires a certain minimal toughness—and commitment to self-governing—to become informed about difficult issues and to argue, organize and vote accordingly. As the Supreme Court observed in 1949, in Terminiello v. Chicago, speech “may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” The only model that asks nothing of its citizens in terms of learning, autonomy and decision-making is the authoritarian one. By arguing that freedom from speech is often more important than freedom of speech, advocates unwittingly embrace the nineteenth-century (anti-)speech justification for czarist power: the idea that the Russian peasant has the best kind of freedom, the freedom from the burden of freedom itself (because it surely is a burden)...
The powerful do well under virtually any system of government. They’re not the ones who need freedom of speech. Its purpose is precisely to protect minority opinions and those who are unpopular with powerful people...
This cartoon is often used to dismiss free speech arguments, but it is wrong: it not only confuses First Amendment law with freedom of speech, it doesn’t even get the First Amendment right. The concept of freedom of speech is a bigger, older and more expansive idea than its particular application in the First Amendment. A belief in the importance of freedom of speech is what inspired the First Amendment; it’s what gave the First Amendment meaning, and what sustains it in the law. But a strong cultural commitment to freedom of speech is what maintains its practice in our institutions—from higher education, to reality TV, to pluralistic democracy itself. Freedom of speech includes small l liberal values that were once expressed in common American idioms like to each his own, everyone’s entitled to their opinion and it’s a free country. These cultural values appear in legal opinions too; as Justice Robert H. Jackson noted in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”... The First Amendment also bars government officials from punishing your speech in many ways that don’t rise to the level of arresting you. To give just one example, since administrators at state colleges are government actors, they can’t tear your flyer from a public message board because they don’t like what it says. A belief in free speech means you should be slow to label someone as utterly dismissible for their opinions. Of course you can kick an asshole out of your own house, but that’s very different from kicking a person out of an open society or a public forum. The xkcd cartoon is often used to let people off the hook from practicing the small d democratic value of listening...
Since the widespread passage of hate speech codes in Europe, religious and ethnic intolerance there has gone up. During the same period, ethnic and religious tolerance has improved in the United States... by most measures Western Europe is less tolerant than the United States. Western Europe as a whole scores 24% on the antisemitism index, meaning about 24% of the population harbours antisemitic attitudes, even though many of their hate speech laws explicitly prohibit Holocaust denial. In the United States, with no such laws, the antisemitism index is ranked at 10%. If it were true that hate speech laws reduce intolerance, we would expect to see fewer hate crimes where such laws exist. Yet, in 2019, in the United States, there were 2.61 hate crimes per 100,000 people; in Denmark, there were 8.08 per 100,000 people; in Germany, 10.34; and in the United Kingdom, a whopping 157.67. Nor has restricting hate speech prevented the spread of intolerance. In 1986, the UK passed a law against “words or behaviour … likely to stir up racial hatred”; yet, in the 1990s, racial tolerance decreased. Despite having hate speech laws since the 1980s, Germany is experiencing increased islamophobia and antisemitism. France passed its Gayssot Act outlawing Holocaust denial in 1990, yet as recently as 2019 it held a 17% antisemitism index score. And I don’t just believe that cracking down on hate speech failed to decrease intolerance, I think there is solid grounds to believe that it helped increase it. After all, censorship doesn’t generally change people’s opinions, but it does make them more likely to talk only to those with whom they already agree. And what happens when people only talk to politically similar people? The well documented effect of group/political polarization takes over, and the speaker, who may have moderated her belief when exposed to dissenting opinions, becomes more radicalized in the direction of her hatred, through the power of group polarization...
[People] tend to see any speech that with which they simply disagree as uncivil, while seeing any uncivil speech with which they agree as righteous rage."
Use Your Words - "“Words are supposed to hurt. That’s considered a legitimate way of fighting things out. And what did it replace in the historical scene? It replaced actual violence. Words are supposed to be free so we CAN actually fight things out, in the battle place of ideas, so we don’t end up fighting them out in civil wars. If we try to legitimately ban anything that can hurt someone’s feelings, everyone is reduced to silence.”
– Greg Lukianoff, president of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate"
McDonald's nudes
McDonudes
'Answer Bots' stall robocalls with useless conversation - "Tel Tech, a tech startup has unleashed recorded conversations to stall robocallers for minutes, even hours at a time, with the help of what it calls “Answer Bots”-- the secret weapon for the company’s new “Robokiller” APP. Ethan Garr, marketing chief for New Jersey-based Tel Tech, said the Answer Bots “waste spammers' time” as the company’s team analyzes and learns their call patterns... Tel Tech estimates robocalls have increased by 55 percent in the past year from 2.5 to 4.5 billion per month, or 18 spam calls for every person."
Joseph Medicine Crow - "While he was in combat in Europe, and without quite meaning to, Joe Medicine Crow performed the four necessary war deeds to become a war chief like his grandfather. First, he led a seven-man squad carrying explosives through a wall of artillery fire to blast German positions along the Siegfried Line. Then, while helping to take over a German-held village, he literally ran into a German soldier, knocking him down. He quickly disarmed the soldier, taking away his rifle Finally, in the last weeks of the war, he stole dozens of horses from a battalion of German officers. He is the last Crow Indian to become a war chief."
Queen banned beloved board game after Royal Family became 'too vicious' - ""The royals love a good game, but monopoly is off the cards. "Prince Andrew said it is banned as it gets too vicious.""
Meme - Landshark @LandsharkRides: "Sporks are technically a satanic utensil
They are a combination of the masculine (fork) and the feminine (spoon). this making them an androgynous cosmos-law-defying abomination. Sporks are also inherently utilitarian, thus being deprived of any and all aesthetic beauty.
Chopsticks reflect the Asiatic soul - inherently peaceful (you can't kill a man with them), requiring mastership, perfected through aeons. Forks reflect the European spirit - aggressive. predatorial, unbreaking, a weapon in their essence. divine in its primal simplicity"
White South African in court for shooting black woman he claims he ‘mistook for hippo’ - "In a country where firearms are common, fatal accidents occur often, with about 250 people killed in 2018. According to 2019-2020 police crime statistics, more than 7,000 murders with guns were reported in South Africa. In a similar incident five years ago, a South African farmer was accused of wounding a farm worker with a pellet gun after “mistaking him for a monkey”. The incident also took place in Limpopo province."
Looks like strangely guns aren't making South Africa safer either. How odd
Farmer shoots worker after 'mistaking him for monkey' - "In KwaZulu-Natal, an 87-year-old man appeared in the Umzinto Magistrate’s Court on Monday for allegedly shooting and killing a 12-year-old boy he apparently mistook for a monkey. The boy was climbing a guava tree on the man's property in Braemar on Sunday when he was shot in the head and upper body, Sergeant Patrick Msomi told News24. In another case, Stephan Hepburn, 38, allegedly shot and killed farmworker Jan Railo, 23, on a Limpopo farm on February 11. He was hunting with his wife and apparently mistook Railo for a warthog"
Ben Cichy on Twitter - "Got a 2.4 GPA my first semester in college. Thought maybe I wasn’t cut out for engineering. Today I’ve landing two spacecraft on Mars, and designing one for the moon. STEM is hard for everyone. Grades ultimately aren’t what matters. Curiosity and persistence matter."
Good luck if you get your calculation wrong and your bridge collapses
Meta-analyzing the relationship between grades and job performance - "Employers and academics have differing views on the value of grades for predicting job performance. Employers often believe grades are useful predictors, and they make hiring decisions that are based on them. Many academics believe that grades have little predictive validity. Past meta-analyses of the grades–performance relationship have suffered either from small sample sizes or the inability to correct observed correlations for research artifacts. This study demonstrated the observed correlation between grades and job performance was .16. Correction for research artifacts increased the correlation to the .30s."