When over 7 tonnes of chicken is discarded daily — the alarming scale of food waste in Asia - "Even the weight of a chicken can determine what retailers sell or choose not to. The standard chicken size, for example, is 1.2kg. But “there’ll be situations where they’re just not the weight that’s stated” — either undersized or oversized. “They can still be eaten, but simply because of cosmetic business requirements, they get lost in the end in the entire process chain,” he said."
I just moved to Australia from America and cannot get over this weird 5pm rule in every state - "Crystal Chanel, who regularly shares her cultural observations online, has been documenting the quirks she can't get used to since relocating Down Under. And in her latest clip, she turned her attention to Australia's early retail closing times, arguing the country desperately needs 24-hour supermarkets. 'In Australia everything closes by five o'clock,' she told her followers. 'Thursdays we have late night shopping. Everything closes by like seven or nine. 'We need like a Walmart or something out here that's open 24/7, because what happens when you run out of something or there's an emergency, you need diapers or medicine. What are you going to do?'... The same has been said about Sydney, which many visitors expect to be a bustling 24-hour city only to discover it has the same closing times as a country town. Visitors - both from overseas and interstate - said they were 'shocked' to see shops and restaurants closed and public transport all but end so early in the evening. Penalty rates for employees make it financially unviable for many businesses to stay open after 5pm, with rates of pay for shift work ranging from 1.5 times normal pay during the week to double pay on weekends. TikToker Jenny Tian pointed out it's hard to get a coffee past 2pm as most cafes have shut, while shops close by 5pm and restaurants stop serving food by 9pm. She said many former 'party areas' have been turned over to housing and those who need public transport at night better 'enjoy waiting half an hour in the freezing cold for a night rider'. Other expats who have moved to Sydney have been sharing their frustrations at how early everything closes. 'What are the real reasons/challenges behind the lack of night activities (putting aside some bars and kebab shops)? And why the city is not vibrant and 24-hour even though there is a big percentage of Sydney's population who like staying up late?' one man asked on Reddit. 'I moved to Sydney from Asia in 2016 and was so surprised to find out that most establishments close so early,' another said. 'Pharmacies, salons, retailers, cafes, restaurants, malls all close before 7pm. It's just dead everywhere and this was even pre-pandemic.' Most Australians were quick to agree while visitors said they were 'shocked' to discover how 'dead' the city can be on weeknights. 'Sydney is the opposite of a 24-hour city,' one Aussie commented and another said: 'I left Sydney in 2004, it was a 24-hour city...moved back in 2017...dead.' 'Coffee shops closing at 2pm in Australia was an absolute culture shock. Where I'm from we drink coffee after dinner at 10pm,' a second wrote. Others pointed out the same was true for most Australian capital cities besides Melbourne."
American woman reveals the 'strange' things she has noticed about Australians after moving from Boston to Melbourne on a whim - "Shannon Knight, from Boston, decided to move Down Under 'on a whim' and experience life in a new country. The 26-year-old was pleasantly surprised by several aspects of Aussie life including the country's reasonable minimum wage, cheap sports tickets, and nightlife culture. Shannon couldn't believe most people on minimum wage jobs in Australia are able to survive because workers back home are 'unable to cover rent even if [they] work 70-hour weeks'. 'The minimum wage here is $25/hour and I've met plenty of adults here who work a cashier job at a grocery store or a boutique and they get by just fine,' Shannon said. The expat was also shocked by Australians' relationships with work. 'In regards to work - people just go to their job and go home. Their work isn't their entire personality, it's not a part of their identity - which is a really hard concept for me to wrap my brain around,' she added. While many Aussies criticise Sydney and Melbourne for not being 24-hour cities, Shannon was pleasantly surprised by the night life. 'The social scene [is great] - people actually go out over the age of 24 here which is so refreshing.' Shannon is also glad that Australian landlords demand rent every week instead of monthly because it's 'not as daunting' when broken up into smaller segments. The one thing Shannon couldn't get her head around was driving. 'Everybody drives very calmly here - but I lived in Boston, where we don't drive calmly to say the absolute least. 'It's just a really hard concept for me to witness. When I'm in the passenger seat and somebody cuts somebody off, I'm screaming on the inside but Australians just kind of shrug their shoulders and keep going.' Shannon was taken aback by one specific Australian male trait. 'The guys are significantly more tattooed here - it's not uncommon to see a guy with a lot of tattoos in America, but [Australians] are tattooed from the neck down to the ankle. We don't see that a lot in America.' She was also shocked by how cheap tickets to professional sporting events were Down Under. 'I saw AFL semi-final tickets on sale for $40 this weekend,' she shared. 'I don't know what a ticket to the AFC Championship would be, but I don't think it's anywhere near $40.' In terms of food, the expat claimed Australian McDonald's one-ups the US. 'McDonald's fries are significantly better - which says a lot because McDonald's fries are very good, and I didn't think anything could top them. But Australian fries are fresher and crispier - they're fantastic.'... Shannon claimed Australians have more in common with Americans than the British do. 'I would've thought the British would be more similar to use because we're closer geographically, but no,' she said."
‘I bought a £435 all-you-can-fly pass and travel the world for £9 a ticket’ - "He is one of 20,000 people who signed up to Wizz Air’s “All You Can Fly pass” – a unique £435 ticket promising a year of unlimited travel for last-minute flights"
Cavemen hunted with biological weapons 60,000 years ago - "Cavemen used poison-tipped arrows tens of thousands of years earlier than thought, scientists have found. Archaeologists found traces of well-known plant poisons on Stone Age quartz arrowheads in a prehistoric South African rock shelter dating back some 60,000 years. The finds are thought to be the earliest known use of biological weapons, with previous evidence of hunters using poison stretching back only around 35,000 years. The discovery bolsters arguments that early humans had sophisticated thinking and planning comparable with modern people, because of the skill and knowledge needed to prepare such weapons."
Metal detectorist’s Roman brooch ‘discovery’ was an eBay buy - "A metal detectorist who claimed to have discovered a valuable Roman brooch has admitted he bought it from eBay. Jason Price, 54, was paid £5,000 to display the fake artefact at a museum, even though he had ordered it through the online marketplace, Lincolnshire Police said. The force said over several years, Price submitted a number of artefacts to Lincolnshire county council under the Portable Antiquities Scheme, including Roman coins which were found to not be genuine. Artefacts previously submitted by Price were also tested for their authenticity and concerns were raised to the police. The force said Price claimed to have found the Leasingham horse brooch in the Lincolnshire village of Leasingham in 2019, which led to a change in the historic understanding of Roman brooches in Britain and was classed a significant find. The brooch, which was described as a “once-in-a-lifetime find”, had generated national interest after Price’s “discovery”."
National Trust ‘turned Dorset beach beloved by Enid Blyton into rubbish dump’ - "The National Trust has been accused of turning a seaside beach beloved by Enid Blyton into a “horrific eyesore” after removing its sea defences exposed an old rubbish tip. The conservation body is carrying out a controversial “managed retreat” policy at Middle Beach in Studland, Dorset, so that the water can reclaim the land. Engineers took out sea defences at the beach, which was a favourite of the Famous Five author, last September to “allow nature to take its course”... In 2023, the trust demolished Britain’s oldest beach café on top of the small cliff despite overwhelming opposition against the move. They originally planned to replace it with a “burger van”. Although the building was 60ft back from the edge, the organisation claimed it was at risk of falling into the sea and so had to be razed to the ground. Andrew Parsons, a nearby resident who is a civil engineer, said: “If it was a building site and this waste was unearthed, Environmental Health would come down on them. “The National Trust are doing this stupid process of returning it to nature when they should be preserving buildings like the old café. “Anybody could have seen this would happen and they have shown an incredible lack of foresight.”"
Son of Minnesota AG collecting $110,000 city salary despite full-time Harvard fellowship 1,000 miles away - "Minneapolis City Council Member Jeremiah Ellison is drawing criticism after accepting a full-time fellowship at Harvard University while continuing to collect his six-figure taxpayer salary... Ellison maintains that he will still attend full council meetings every other week and participate virtually in the city’s year-end budget process. But Minneapolis rules do not allow council members to vote remotely, raising questions about how effective his virtual participation will be."
em on X - "I am against men going to therapy. They just learn new words they can use against you. What do you mean your boundaries shut up"
Claire Lehmann on X - "It's a famous finding in criminal psychology that psychopathic sex offenders have higher rates of recidivism after 'empathy training.' They learn better ways to manipulate people"
Erectile difficulties are often blamed on porn. But research actually finds that, if anything, men who use porn tend to report better erectile function. So what does cause ED? : r/psychologyofsex - "First, there are the usual suspects--aging, cardiovascular disease, chronic illnesses (e.g., diabetes), obesity, overuse of alcohol, and medication side effects. Numerous biological factors can contribute to erectile problems, often by impacting blood flow and hormone levels. But ED isn't just a biological phenomenon. It's also impacted by numerous psychosocial factors, from performance anxiety to relationship problems to mental health issues (e.g., depression, anxiety). There are also many lesser-known causes of ED, which are discussed in this podcast, such as early attachment wounds. For example, research has found that men who experience attachment-disrupting events in childhood (e.g., loss of a parent) are more likely to develop erectile problems in adulthood. As for porn, despite lots of claims about "porn-induced erectile dysfunction," the research doesn't really support this idea. Studies have found that there's no significant association between porn use and erectile problems, and some research has found that porn users actually demonstrate enhanced arousal to sexual stimuli. While porn is the easy target to blame, it's not necessarily the right one. ED is complex and multifaceted."
What the right gets right - "one thing the right gets right is a patriotic attitude toward The United States of America. I have read and re-read and wrestled with Alasdair MacIntyre’s essay “Is Patriotism A Virtue?” many times over the years. He says that most people think patriotism is a virtue, but that liberals struggle to develop a coherent explanation of why that should be... most people on the contemporary American left are skeptical of, if not outright hostile to, the idea of patriotism... conservatives have a generally clearer sense of history... Progressives typically characterize their stance on this as being that it’s important to tell people about the darker aspects of history. And they’re right — it is a good idea for people to learn about those things. But I think the standard progressive read of this gets the figure and the ground backwards. The implication of a lot of these takes on episodes of violence, bigotry, displacement, and cruelty in American history is that these episodes are what’s distinctive about the United States of America. But if you read the history of anywhere, you’ll see that it’s not like there’s some other country where you wouldn’t say “it’s important for people to learn about the darker aspects of our history.” History is dark!... It’s naive to view our sociocultural antecedents here in the United States as flawless, shining heroes, but it’s also naive to think the violence and brutality of American history is what’s unique about it, rather than the fact that we’ve settled into a prosperous and liberal status quo. The related thing that conservatives get right is a sense that good things are vulnerable and it’s worth worrying about wrecking everything. Martin Luther King Jr.’s mantra, paraphrasing Theodore Parker, that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice” is a nice bit of motivational speaking. But this often leads progressives to the view that there is a strong and inherent directionality to history, and thus that any noisy movement for reform with adequate progressive branding must be good. You hear a lot with regard to the Gaza protests that the people complaining are just the same as the people who complained about every good and virtuous social movement of the past. Implicit is the sense that there is no such thing as a social movement that was bad. But Communism, to cite probably the most important example, was really bad!... A century ago, eugenics had sterling progressive credentials. More recently, and less dramatically, thousands of people were murdered as a result of progressive over-enthusiasm for de-policing. The thing that conservatives get right about this isn’t just that far-left activists are sometimes wrong about things, but that mainstream liberals are, by disposition, too indulgent of far-left activists... The view here is that the important thing is to position yourself on the side of reform, rather than to ask too many questions about the precise contents of the reform... conservatives are right to think that, in the context of history, we have things pretty good and that we should be cautious about overturning the apple cart without being quite rigorous in our thinking. As any good patriot knows, “all men are created equal.” I think everyone is also aware that it is not literally the case that everyone is created equal... those with strong egalitarian normative commitments tend to shy away from making inegalitarian factual assessments of people. This is annoying, because nothing about the fact that people aren’t equal undermines the idea that their interests deserve equal consideration. If you read John Rawls, he acknowledges the “natural facts” of human inequality that are beyond the reach of justice. But in a practical sense, there is considerable pressure to talk as if everyone is literally equal. Daniel Chandler’s new book on the contemporary application of Rawlsian ideas talks about the natural facts point explicitly. But then he offhandedly cites the fact that “in countries like the UK and USA, for example, someone whose parents earn £10,000 more than their friend’s parents will, on average, go on to earn £5,000 more than their friend” as an illustration of how material inequalities unfairly perpetuate across generations. He doesn’t ask how much of this is about material resources and how much is genetic. Surely the answer is “some of both,” but especially if you want to undertake a big drive for fair equality of opportunity, you need to delve into the issues — issues that progressives are reluctant to engage with in any real way. You also see this in the fairly perverse impulse on the left to look at each individual example of a rich businessman who doesn’t want to pay higher taxes or comply with stricter regulations and decide that the person in question is stupid or secretly a fraud. It would be convenient if every single rich person who prefers lower taxes was also a moron who succeeded in life purely through dumb luck. But is that remotely plausible? It’s certainly not the official case for egalitarian policy — it just follows nicely from an egalitarian ethic. And unfortunately, it leads to a whole twisted worldview around economic growth... Once upon a time, of course, socialists argued that central planning would make for a more prosperous economy than capitalism. Or else they argued that socialism would emerge only after capitalism had solved all problems of objective scarcity and triggered a crisis period of overabundance. But at a certain point, people started suggesting that degrowth could be a virtue of socialism. Or that the real solution to our ecological problems is for everyone to be poor. This is dumb, and plenty of people on the left (even the far left) know that degrowth is dumb, but the fact is, it’s a live controversy on the left in a way that it is not on the right. There is, of course, more to life than the monolithic pursuit of economic growth, but it’s a genuinely massive conceptual error to see growth as undesirable or to be indifferent toward it."
S.African township squalid and neglected despite 25 years of black rule
Time to blame apartheid
Chinese woman spends majority of husband’s $163,000 life savings on online streamer - "A Chinese husband was reportedly left in tears after he found out that his wife had spent the majority of his life savings on an online male streamer she had never met. According to reports, the woman sent the money to the streamer to help him win competitions. “Over the past eight years, there were approximately 1.16 million yuan in fixed deposits under her name. After repeated questioning, I discovered that not a single penny was left. About 670,000 (US$163,000) yuan of it was spent on male livestreamer, and she couldn't explain the rest. The crucial point is that she now owes more than 80,000 yuan in online loans,” the husband, Liu, said in an interview with local media."
Building China: Why Does Half of China Struggle to Stay Warm Indoors in the Winter? - "Although as new developments are built the rule is changing, its generally well-known in China that there is no central heating to be found in the country south of the Yangtze River... The question of who gets heat and who doesn’t was decided in the early Mao years in the same blunt and arbitrary manner so many things get decided in the People’s Republic — as the story goes, the Party realized it didn’t have the capacity to install heat in all housing, so Zhou Enlai suggested they confine central heat to the area above the Qinling mountains and Huai river, or what became known as the “Qin-Huai” line. The Qin-Huai rule persists to this day; even after the rise of commodity housing, developers building south of the line were not compelled to install a heating system. And so come winter, hundreds of millions of people below the line shiver in their homes. You can install a space heating unit (空调 kongtiao), sure, but it only works so well to warm up a room and it eats up vast quantities of electricity in the process"
On indoor heating in China
Wall Street Apes on X - "🚨 Information Request finds Minnesota is laundering residents property taxes to NGOs
In just last year alone they’ve laundered tens of millions of property tax dollars to hundreds of NGOs “Ramsey County has the highest property tax rate in the whole state. So we decided to file an information request at the Ramsey County office asking how many NGOs each year receive property tax money.
— Two months of repeatedly being ignored, stonewalled, and it was only after we went directly to one of the Ramsey County commissioners where we finally got at least some of the information that we requested.
— Turns out that last year, Ramsey County gave a whopping $38.4 million to a total of 213 NGOs.
And this is happening at a time when there is a 9.75% property rate increase in property taxes there in Ramsey County as well. They proposed that for the next year’s budget to increase property taxes by 9.75%. So they’re spending $38.4 million dollars on 213 NGOs and now they want more.” I guarantee this is happening all over the country in Democrat states"
Outrage over Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir's shocking comments as it continues to operate in Australia - despite terrorist group label overseas and ASIO concerns - "An Islamic group which has been deemed a terrorist organisation in multiple countries faces calls to be banned from Australia after it publicly declared the 'West sucks blood from humanity'. Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia is now under intense fire over the public rally it held in November, just three weeks before the horrific Bondi Beach attack which left 15 people dead. Multiple members of the group took the stage to deliver explosive messages, including 'sharia law is the blueprint of a harmonious society' and 'Islam is the only solution for Muslims and non-Muslims alike'. The controversial conference 'Islam: The Change the World Desperately Needs' was held at The Highline Venue in Bankstown, south-west Sydney, on November 23. Various speakers slammed the 'impacts of Western civilisation', accusing 'capitalism of weakening the influence of Islam'. Radical cleric Mohamad Trad, who notoriously called for a Muslim army and an Islamic state with sharia law under a 'final solution' in 2023, spoke at the conference. 'The ugly face of this capitalistic, liberal, secular, capitalist ideology. All of that has come to fruition in the eyes of the whole world In Gaza,' Trad said. 'Islam, it’s the only solution. It’s the only way for Muslim and non-Muslim alike'. Another speaker, who delivered a video message while standing in front of a destroyed building in Gaza, said the West was 'sucking blood and draining the wealth of humanity'. 'They have seen how the slogans of freedom, democracy and human rights are nothing but a mask for an ugly face hidden by their politicians, the masters of colonialism,' the speaker said. 'The West possesses only one value, sucking blood and draining the wealth of humanity. 'Even if it means standing atop mountains of skulls, rivers of blood, and paths of crushed bones.' The speaker also called for the 'overthrow of Western influence'. 'Muslims are the only ones who possess a civilisational project capable of removing capitalism from its global leadership and taking its place to illuminate the world anew,' he said. 'The West fears our civilisational project; it has incited regimes against us.' Hizb ut-Tahrir member Wassim Doureihi told the audience it was time to ramp up efforts to establish a 'Muslim state'. 'Brothers and sisters, please, the time to talk about Khilafah (Caliphate) is over. The time to work for Khilafah is now,' Doureihi said. 'Do the work… don’t do the talk. We are not happy trying to organise conferences. We are in the business of trying to organise a state. The time for talk is over.'... Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Hizb ut-Tahrir 'disgusted him'. 'This organisation has been propagating hate for decades and I’ve been publicly opposed to them my whole career,' he said. 'No government has been able to ban them as they didn’t meet the violence threshold. 'The government is lowering the threshold, which means organisations which hate Australia and hate Australians will soon be able to be banned.'"
Time to jail those who criticise this for Islamophobia, and jail Neo-Nazis
C3 on X - "So… 4 Dem states are suing Trump to keep Somalians robbing Americans. 19 Dem states are suing Trump to give sex change operations to kids. 22 Dem states are suing Trump to hide voter data. 21 Dem states are suing Trump to give SNAP benefits to illegals. Sickening."
Meme - Chef Andrew Gruel: "A masterclass in propaganda. One photo, zero context. The caption says "terrorized innocent man." The reality - he grabbed the officer's weapon moments earlier, and that's pepper spray, not a firearm. This is how outrage is manufactured"
Power to the People @ProudSocialist: "Another horrifying image out of Minneapolis. Look at the terror on this man's face as federal agent points a gun at his face & threatens his life. Enough is enough. Our government is committing war crimes abroad & murdering & terrorizing citizens at home. We need a revolution."
Political ideology and closed-mindedness: the Left and Right have become more alike - "in the United States, conservatives generally score higher on self-reported closed-mindedness compared to their liberal counterparts. However, as Kemmelmeier explains, the size of this difference has changed significantly from 1948 to 2019. “What we found was that in the late 1940s, there was a relatively more pronounced correlation between people who described themselves as being more conservative also identified themselves as being more closed-minded,” said Kemmelmeier. “Over time, however, that correlation becomes smaller and smaller, and today it is less than one-percent of the entire variation.”"
Left wingers are no longer more open minded than right wingers. Given that most left wingers from 10 years ago would be considered "far right" today, that's no surprise. But this won't stop left wingers continuing to report outdated research as if it reflects contemporary realities.
