Fact Check: Pretty Mike Is Not A Spiritual Leader But A Stunts Man - "Galaxy radio a local FM station in Uganda posted a picture showing two ladies pouring cooking vegetables into a small pan, and with them, a seemingly superficial “Zambia” male “Chef ” holding a long and sizable aluminium cooking tool, stirring into a pan with a live human (man) in it. The caption on the post implied that he (the authoritative man) was cooking the man to cleanse him of unfaithfulness (infidelity). “Meet Zambian pastor who cooks unfaithful husbands to make them faithful.” the GalaxyFmUg X post read... In just two weeks after the BBC aired a documentary about a famous church in Nigeria, the Synagogue Church Of All Nation (SCOAN) and its Disciples under the Cult of Prophet TB Joshua. Many religious and spiritual narratives have sprouted. This particular picture has since resurfaced and gone viral on different social media platforms like Twitter/ X, TikTok, and Instagram although it is not the first time it has appeared online... The Tiktok narrator says the man captured in the picture cheated on his wife,who brought him to confess, ask for forgiveness and led him to being cooked by the “pastor”.
The “Pastor or Prophet” playing spiritual cleanser of infidelity in the photos is not a Christian spiritual leader, going by the religious and meanings of who a pastor and a prophet are and what they do. Our research points to the alleged prophet as Mike Eze-Nwalie Nwogu a Nigerian socialite, entrepreneur and prominent stunt man in Nigeria commonly known by his stage name Pretty Mike. The picture in question was taken from Warri Pikin’s wedding or vows renewal where Mike made a grand entrance with women carrying spices and vegetables, a cooking pot, a spoon and a man he later “cooked” without fire, with the idea of making a soup dish for the newly weds, in June 2023. He is neither Zambian nor South African as the different posts purport, and better yet, he is not a pastor or prophet and the his acts are not scientifically proven to be a behaviourial change strategies to stop any one from being unfaithful. Even though this is not Pretty Mike’s first time making such questionable moves at events"
Meme - "He looks like he's being haunted by the woman he ran over"
Rishi Sunak's wife Akshata Murty wears ₹42,000 Indian label dress at resignation speech. It becomes viral joke - "Akshata Murty, wife of Rishi Sunak, wore a high-necked dress with red, white, and blue stripes—the colours of the United Kingdom’s national flag... the daughter of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy and Rajya Sabha MP Sudha Murty wore a dress with arrows pointing down, and the bottom section of the dress was red. The internet users were quick enough to use this as a metaphor for how the election has gone for the Conservative Party, who lost the 2024 general election in the UK to the Labour Party... This internet user said that Murty’s expensive dress reminds him of a “skeleton”... “Even Rishi Sunaks wife’s dress says you’re going down!”"
Thread by @sentientist on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - " Childless people invented the idea that it's problematic and an invasion of privacy to post pictures of your children online because they didn't want to lose out in online status games against parents with cute kids. I enjoy and collect cynical explanations for otherwise puzzling phenomena, this one about posting pictures of children online comes from a fan of @SimoneHCollins and I think it's plausible. Another one that I enjoy, but am not sure about, is that women tell other women they look great with short hair because they actually look worse, or maybe less attractive to men, when they don short hair. I've never read anything that clearly lays out a plausible case for why it could hurt your kids if you post pictures of them online- but I could be persuaded."
Kat Woods ⏸️ on X - "It seems much more likely that it's just another instance of parents being absurdly overprotective of their children nowadays. And then people being terrified of being accused of being a bad parent. The usual mechanism for most crazy parenting practices."
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "In Albanian culture, there exists a tradition of blood feuds known as "Gjakmarrja," where murder is deemed necessary to uphold family honor. These feuds can extend across generations, leaving those who refuse to participate living in perpetual shame and isolation, imprisoned in their homes."
Meme - "How to entertain your cats for hours...a cardboard lizard"
Meme - "GUEST REQUESTS: I will be accompanied by 3 paid female escorts. Each escort will require a pet style "water dish" of their own that I need you to fill with Dom Perignon. This is nonnegotiable. You will, of course, receive a substantial gratuity for accommodating my request."
Meme - "CCK 302 FoodHouse
'Coffee tasted very bad. No coffee taste at all. All I taste is sweet condensed milk and sugar. Feedback to the coffee lady but they refused to accept.... more'
CCK 302 FoodHouse (Owner): 'Ok then don't come back clown'"
Meme - "Ordered from roasted stall and ask for more sauce for my duck and roasted pork rice end up so dry and tasteless. Coleslaw and curly fries from Indulge and the Coleslaw tas..."
CCK 302 FoodHouse (Owner): "Ok don't come back"
Meme - "Economy rice stall staff was quite rude and remarked "too expensive ah" when i asked for the price breakdown - $3.70 for 3 vege 1 rice."
CCK 302 FoodHouse (Owner): "No money ah bro."
Spanish anti-tourism protesters take aim at Barcelona visitors with water guns - "Bystanders dining in restaurants in the popular La Barceloneta neighborhood were soaked when some protesters sprayed them with water guns. Video showed diners being forced to change tables at some restaurants to escape the protests on Saturday, while other restaurants were symbolically taped off by the demonstrators. Carrying banners reading "Tourists go home," protesters called for a reduction in the number of foreign visitors to Barcelona, stopping in front of hotels and restaurants to confront tourists."
Assault is good when you're "protesting" "rich" tourists
Menorca residents put chains on streets to keep tourists out - "The 195 homeowners of Binibeca Vell, in Menorca, nicknamed the ‘Spanish Mykonos’ for its narrow winding streets amid whitewashed houses, have put up chains to keep visitors out before 11am and after 8pm. In August residents will take a vote on whether to ban tourists altogether."
Xenophobia and racism are good when power relations are involved
Thread by @SpencrGreenberg on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "There’s a really interesting debate raging in the field of genetics about how heritable different human traits are. It could end up overturning 100 years of research: 🧵
First off, what is heritability? It’s the fraction of the variance of a trait (in a particular population) that’s caused by genetic differences. Everyone agrees that height is at least fairly heritable since, in most populations, much of the variation is attributable to genes. A classical and very commonly used way to estimate the heritability of a trait is to compare how similar that trait is among identical twins relative to how similar it is among fraternal (non-identical but same-sex) twins. The logic is that… Since identical twins have ~100% of their genes in common, whereas fraternal twins have only ~50% (considering just those genes that are not typically shared between all humans), if identical twins are more similar to each other for a trait, it’s probably due to genetics. This can be formalized with Falconer’s formula, which says that if the correlation of a trait (say, height) is ri for identical twins and rf for fraternal twins, then, under certain assumptions: heritability = 2 * (ri - rf) This means that if ri = rf, then heritability is 0. If we use the method of comparing identical and fraternal twins, we get heritability results like those in this image (which I compiled from papers).
However, there is another, very different way to estimate heritability, which the revolution in DNA sequencing technology has made possible. Rather than looking at twins, people’s genetics can be measured, and traits can then be predicted directly from DNA. The more accurate the DNA-based predictions are, the more heritable a trait is. In the early days of these new methods, the heritability estimates were extremely low compared to the twin studies, which was puzzling. As DNA technology has improved, the statistical approaches for making these predictions have advanced, and the data sets to train these algorithms on have grown in size, the DNA based methods have predicted higher heritabilities than before. But here’s the problem: even with all these advancements, the DNA-based methods still usually predict much lower heritabilities than the twin studies - often less than half of what the twin studies say! This is called the “Missing Heritability” problem.
Why would the different approaches lead to such different results? Well, both approaches rely on assumptions. For instance, the twin-based method assumes that:
i) the shared “environment” for identical twins is not more similar than the environment for fraternal twins
ii) that there is not a substantial amount of “assortative mating” - where parents end up more similar than expected by chance because they seek out traits that they have, such as people with college degrees seeking out others with college degrees
iii) that genes do not substantially change the probability of being exposed to different environments
On the other hand, the DNA methods make their own assumptions. These assumptions depend on the exact method applied, but a common one is that there aren’t “rare genetic variants” that contribute substantially to heritability.
So, what’s the result? Twin study based methods give us higher heritability estimates than DNA based methods. Is this because twin studies overestimate heritability or because DNA based methods underestimate it? Or does the truth fall somewhere in between? This debate is still contentious. Hopefully, high-quality science will do its thing, and a new consensus will emerge. But if DNA based methods turn out to be more accurate, nearly 100 years of heritability estimates may need to be thrown out!"
Meme - @JirenSlir_: "This reeks of Nazism"
Dexerto @Dexerto: "PewDiePie is truly on his loving husband and father era *White couple with white baby*"
This is why, when the left accuse everyone of being a Nazi, everyone should ignore them
Is the ATM Cash-Dispensing Sound Fake? - "In true Pavlovian form, humans are accustomed to getting excited at the sweet sound of an ATM dispensing cash. But is that sound artificially generated? If so, why?... Ultra-quiet electric vehicles, for instance, are being outfitted to produce “vroom” sounds so that pedestrians and bikes can hear them coming and get out of the way, if need be. Some sports arenas have artificial crowd noises, and while those sounds are designed to help the home team, they mostly serve as reminders (depressing, sorta creepy reminders) that the arena is three-quarters empty... the ATM machine, with its “comforting whirr of the cash point”... Word of these claims quickly spread online, and in a thread at Reddit, several commenters who say they’ve worked on ATMs for years called B.S."
From Baby Boomers to Gen Alpha: Study suggests generalizations about generational gaps are wrong - "Sociology Professor Martin Schröder at Saarland University in Germany investigated the myths and facts. “A publisher offered me a lucrative book deal if I was able to show that Millennials tick differently than older generations,” he recalled. So he set about analyzing hundreds of thousands of datasets spanning four decades.” He has just published his findings in the Journal of Business and Psychology under the title “Work Motivation Is Not Generational but Depends on Age and Period.” The seven active generations from the beginning of the 20th century are: The Greatest Generation (born 1901-1924); The Silent Generation (born 1925-1945); Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964); Generation X (born 1965-1980); Millennials or Generation Y (born 1981-1998); Generation Z (born 1999-2016); and Generation Alpha (2013-)... “I wasn't able to find anything to suggest that attitudes towards work and career are actually related to the year in which someone was born. The image of Millennials with their 20-hour week sitting on the beach in Bali coding “stuff for the web” or doing “something with media” is at best simply a cliché,” Schröder said... "Of course, as with all clichés, there’s a grain of truth in them, but when you take a closer look, the differences among the generations are not really that great at all. What turns out to be important is which stage of life people are in when they are asked about their work ethic or their attitude to work,” the German sociologist insisted... "It turns out that this is not really a generational issue. What we found is that all of us think and act differently than we did 30 years ago,” said Schröder. “It’s not our affiliation to a particular generation that explains our thinking, but rather which phase of our life we're in when asked about our attitude to work. Today, each of us thinks differently about the world than we did some years ago, and that's as true for the 15-year-old as it is for someone who’s now 60. If you ask different generations at the same time what they think about work, you’ll find their answers are essentially the same.' Put another way, work is no longer quite as important to us today as it was to society 50 years ago – and that's true regardless of whether we are 15 or 50.” Schröder used data from almost 600,000 individuals from the Integrated Values Survey that polled people in 113 countries between 1981 and 2022 to determine their attitudes and values regarding work and career. In addition to examining work motivation, he also mined this huge mountain of data to get a better understanding of the subjective importance of other factors, such as leisure time, good work hours, opportunities to show initiative, generous holidays, the feeling of being able to achieve something, having a responsible job, having an interesting job, having a job that matches well with one's own abilities, having pleasant people to work with and having the opportunity to meet pleasant people in your work. His key finding was that the generational cohort to which a respondent belonged had practically no effect on the answers given... The third reason he gave for tending to assume generational effects where there really are none is that, for some people, this claim is the basis for their livelihood, he said. “Put bluntly, ‘youth researchers’ and ‘generational gurus’ have to ignore scientific findings that contradict their business model because their income depends on continuing to sell ‘generationally tailored’ coaching sessions, books, and lecture series – all of which provide advice and guidance on what is ultimately a myth masquerading as fact.”"
Couple get married in Batam to avoid giving up HDB flat - "A widow and a widower, both from Singapore, chose to get married in Batam, Indonesia, to save their respective HDB flats. The marriage, considered a secret as the couple did not register their marriage in Singapore, took all of 15 minutes to be solemnised. Married couples in Singapore are not allowed to own more than one HDB flat between them... In order to have their union "accepted by the religion" and retain ownership of their respective flats at the same time, the couple opted to get married in Batam in early-2023."
16 days to die at Pearl Harbor: Families weren’t told about sailors trapped inside sunken battleship - "When salvage crews raised the battleship West Virginia six months after the Pearl Harbor attacks, they found the bodies of three sailors huddled in an airtight storeroom — and a calendar on which 16 days had been crossed off in red pencil... Someone was still alive, trapped deep in the forward hull of the sunken battleship. Bang. Bang. The Marines standing guard covered their ears. There was nothing anyone could do. When salvage crews raised the West Virginia six months later, they found the bodies of three men huddled in an airtight storeroom: Ronald Endicott, 18; Clifford Olds, 20; and Louis “Buddy” Costin, 21. But the most haunting discovery was the calendar. Sixteen days had been crossed off in red pencil. The young sailors had marked their time, not knowing what had happened to their ship or that their country was at war. For 54 years, their story has been told in hushed tones among the West Virginia’s survivors. It has become a symbol of courage and perseverance for these aging men. Few people knew the whole truth. The Navy never told the families how long their loved ones had survived. And for those brothers and sisters who eventually found out, the truth was so devastating they kept it a secret. Even from their own parents... the ship had taken at least six torpedoes and two bombs, burned for 30 hours, and settled in the mud of the harbor bottom, its main deck covered in oily water. Cut a hole to get someone out and you’d flood the whole thing. Use a torch and risk an explosion... No one wanted guard duty that put him within earshot of the West Virginia, especially on quiet nights. They would do anything to trade posts so they wouldn’t have to hear the desperate — almost tireless — cry for help... The clues left in the dry storeroom hinted at a horrifying demise. Flashlight batteries littered the floor. The manhole to a supply of fresh water had been opened. Emergency rations had been eaten."
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "There is a plane that flies above Los Angeles every single day releasing thousands of sterile fruit flies from 2,000 feet in the air to combat the invasive Mediterranean Fruit Fly. Up to 125,000 flies per square mile are released each week in what’s called “biological birth control.”"
Pub group launches 'bottomless crunch' menu with unlimited crisps - "A UK pub group has just launched a Bottomless Crunch offering, where you can stuff your face with as many crisps as you can manage in a 90 minute window. There’ll be helpings of Walkers crisps dished out for just £5, perfectly pairing with basically any pint you fancy... If you’re in the pub in group, it’s just £12 for a table of four to enjoy the gastronomic delights of a bag of the world’s greatest snacks. The Bottomless Crunch menu has been launched by Craft Union Pubs, which has boozers all over the UK."
‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ Is a Failure of Representation - The Atlantic - "This idea, that Mormonism is at heart an oppressive and violent religion whose mainstream adherents are ever perched on the brink of radicalization, runs through the series—and the show commits to its thesis... Under the Banner of Heaven is one of the most openly hostile treatments of a minority religious group to appear in popular American entertainment this century. It is also an unqualified hit... As several historians have noted, there is a long tradition—including in the pages of this magazine—of casting Mormonism as a threat to the American project. In this sense, Under the Banner of Heaven has more in common with 19th-century anti-Mormon propaganda than it does with the sneering silliness of the musical The Book of Mormon... But what stood out most to me as I watched the finale was not its aggressively negative portrayal of Mormonism. It was the fact that no one involved in the show felt compelled to check the customary boxes Hollywood creators have been trained to check in this era of inclusiveness and representation. Black did not hire any practicing Mormons to write or consult on the show. Executives at FX did not put out a statement affirming that Mormons are a peaceful people. When Brenda Lafferty’s sister suggested in an interview that the show’s creators had exploited her story, there was no flood of outrage on social media or rush by the network to control the damage. In fact, the prospect that the show would offend Mormons was played up in the promotional press tour... Black responded to criticism of the show from the Church-owned Deseret News by accusing any Mormons who took offense of secretly sympathizing with the murderous extremists at the center of the show... When The Book of Mormon musical became a phenomenon in 2011, the Church took out playful ads in the playbill: “You’ve seen the play. Now read the book.” As I wrote last year, I was initially thrilled by this response—until a theater critic explained to me the real reason Mormons had to be good sports about such things: “Your people have absolutely no cultural cachet.”"
Not all minorities are created equal
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "In 2009, a Fort Worth call center experienced a mass panic when a mysterious smell, initially thought to be a poisonous carbon monoxide leak, led to chest pains, headaches, and hospitalizations. However, investigators later discovered that the odor was simply perfume, and the panic resulted from contagious fear-people believing the scent was dangerous. The incident showcased how psychological factors can trigger physical symptoms and escalate situations, leading to a mass panic over a harmless fragrance."
Theodore Streleski - Wikipedia - "Theodore Landon "Ted" Streleski (1936) was an American former graduate student in mathematics at Stanford University who murdered his former faculty advisor, Professor Karel de Leeuw, with a ball-peen hammer on August 18, 1978. Shortly after the murder, Streleski turned himself in to the authorities, claiming he felt the murder was justifiable homicide because de Leeuw had withheld departmental awards from him, demeaned Streleski in front of his peers, and refused his requests for financial support. Streleski was in his 19th year pursuing his doctorate in the mathematics department... Streleski was eligible for parole on three occasions, but turned it down as the conditions of his parole required him to stay away from Stanford campus and to get psychiatric treatment. Upon his release in 1985, he said, "I have no intention of killing again. On the other hand, I cannot predict the future.""
Meme - "That last look at the bed before I leave for work"
Meme - ">Hey guys, Charlie here with another 15 minute video about a random comment I found on Twitter.
>I won't say anything remotely interesting, just sit on the fence so I can keep collecting YouTube shekels.
>I do say DICK and BALLS from time to time in a monotone voice, so I'm kinda funny, right?
>Anyway, this is all for today, see you guys next time."
Madame Web Star Emma Roberts Blames the Internet Memes for Box Office Failure - "The Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) movie notably became a major box office and critical flop when it was released earlier this year, and it was already considered to be one of the worst comic book movies of all time... the film also received negative reactions from both critics and the audience and it affected the word-of-mouth in its release as it discouraged more people from watching it in theaters."
Gad Saad on X - "I was teaching an MSc/PhD course two years ago that had a large number of enrolled students. As soon as the semester started, all but one of the students dropped out and I had yet to teach a single lecture that semester. Hence, it is rather suspicious that all students would drop on the same day. My course was cancelled and this was the first time in 30 years that I had a course cancelled. The university is now obliging me to make up that course next summer. It's never happened before in 30 years. I recently found out that my undergraduate course on the consuming instinct is likely to be cancelled both semesters in the upcoming year. I've taught that course successfully for many years. I've now been asked to teach courses that are completely outside my areas of interest/expertise for the first time in 30+ years. This will require me to prepare these courses from scratch as though I were a sessional lecturer. I've been an award-winning professor but apparently, I'm no longer able to fill up classes. It's getting tough...
[And yes, I expect that haters will now weigh in with "but you are a genocidal Jew so it makes sense that this is happening to you."]"
i/o on X - "There's something of an inverse relationship between quality of life in a country and the percentage of citizens willing to die for their country. Pakistan: 89% Vietnam: 89% India: 75% US: 44% Canada: 30% Germany: 18% Japan: 11% (Gallup, 2015)"
Paul C. Jeffries on X - "Maybe. But I suspect there is another factor also at work: Average Age: Pakistan: 89% 20.6 Vietnam: 89% 32.5 India: 75% 28.2 US: 44% 38.5 Canada: 30% 40.2 Germany: 18% 44.7 Japan: 11% 49.1 Well, well, would you look at that?!"
Nudists call for fewer clothed visitors at Canada's clothing optional beaches - "Visitors to Wreck Beach in Vancouver and Hanlan's Point in Toronto have reportedly been told by naked beach-goers they must disrobe if they want to stay. Toronto woman Cailey Root said she found homemade signs at Hanlan's Point this week, stating that nudity was mandatory at the clothing optional beach. Root said she and a friend were later approached by two nude men who told them to take off their clothes... The Federation of Canadian Naturists (FCN), a national nudist organization, said that while there are several public beaches across Canada where authorities turn a blind eye to nudity, Hanlan's Point and Wreck Beach are the only ones that have been officially designated "clothing optional." The beaches are intended to be shared by clothed and unclothed people alike... Schout estimates that 90% of Hanlan's Point visitors and 60% of Wreck Beach visitors are clothed. He said fewer and fewer naturists visit the clothing optional beaches each year, because the large number of clothed people there make them feel like they have become a spectacle. "Right now we're just another show in town," said Schout. "We might as well be a (theatre) production.""
From 2016
BELL: Poilievre says he's a normal guy, the Liberal-NDP are lunatics - "“The NDP-Liberals, the radical woke socialists detest working-class families. “They don’t like their values. They don’t like the way they live. They look down on people who drive pickup trucks, who raise their kids with traditional values. They think they know how to spend other people’s money better than those people know how to spend it themselves.” Poilievre has a lot to say on this attitude. “At the root of the NDP-Liberal ideology, the radical NDP-Liberal ideology of today, is a total disdain for the common people and an obsession with concentrating power and money in the hands of a so-called expert class that runs everything for everyone else because they know better and they’re much more virtuous than the rest of us.”... “What I’ve found about this radical new woke agenda is they always present themselves as the opposite of what they are, precisely the opposite of what they are,” says Poilievre. Case in point. The apostle of sunny ways. Trudeau. “Remember when Trudeau was going to help the middle class. Well, now the average middle-class family cannot afford a home. It’s mathematically impossible.” The Conservative leader speaks of all those living poor, going to food banks every single month, the exact opposite of what Trudeau and his ilk promised. “Everything is the opposite. Everything.” Examples from the world of addiction. “Harm reduction. No, it’s harm production. Safe supply. Giving out heroin is not safe. It’s the opposite of safe. “Everything they say is not only untrue but it’s the exact opposite of the truth.” It is then Poilievre brings up the great English writer George Orwell and his great novel Nineteen Eighty-Four."
This is a good partial summary of globalism: technocratic and elite-centred rather than democratic and populace-centred, with a dose of wokeism. Plus add global rather than local and national
