Media Bias: NBC News 'Fact Check' Declares False That Hillary 'Acid Washed' Her Server - "Fact-checkers are routinely derided and accused of bias for selectively choosing what to check and taking candidate’s comments out of context. During the second presidential debate, one fact-checker organization chose to fact check Donald Trump’s claim that Hillary Clinton “acid washed or bleached” her emails, finding the claim false because “she did not use a corrosive chemical” in wiping clean her server."
Milk Chocolate Is Better Than Dark, the End - "Do you enjoy being reminded that the treat (“treat”) you are eating has been extruded from a crushed-up plant? Do you prefer desserts that go out of their way to inform you that they have been composed of beans? Then by all means, enjoy your Milky Way Midnight or whatever it is, but we really have nothing left to say to each other, because dark chocolate is bitter and aggressive, and, in general, I prefer my guilty-pleasure indulgences when they do not systematically attack me in the mouth. Also, dark chocolate is chalky. It doesn’t melt so much as it, for the most part, crumbles... “Sensory description of dark chocolates by consumers,” and its authors scientifically tested regular people’s assessments of the texture of dark chocolate. It concluded, scientifically:
'With respect to mouthfeel, chocolate with a lower cocoa content was characterized as melting and creamy, whereas the product with the highest cocoa content was characterized as dry, mealy, and sticky.'"
Pets Are Not Children, So Stop Calling Them That - "Your pet had a parent, and that parent was not a human being. That parent was another animal who, if it had the chance, would have taught your pet everything it needs to know about being the animal it is. Mostly how to find food, where to find shelter, and what to avoid that might kill it. What you have to teach your pet is how to relate to the human world (mostly how not to eat shoes, hump legs, or ruin carpets). This is the paradox at the heart of having a pet: We love them because they aren’t human, then spend their lives treating them like people. We project onto them what we wish we could see in ourselves and others. We don’t really want them to be animals — wild, free, ultimately unknowable — we want them to be like us, but more static and predictable. Something we can control... You can’t “parent” a pet because you aren’t teaching it how to leave you and become an independent being"
If you can identify as any gender you want, what's wrong with calling your pets children?
The C-word: why Hong Kong localists have offended all Chinese | This Week In Asia | South China Morning Post - "The Chinese word 支那 [Chee-na] first appeared in the Buddhist scriptures of the Tang dynasty (6th century). It is believed to be the phonetic translation of the ancient Sanskrit word “cina”. Some see this as the origin of the English word “China”, but there is no conclusive evidence to support that. For most of its history, the term has had no derogatory meaning. Some scholars even argue that it is actually not the name of any particular country, but a loose expression for “land of the east”. The Chinese themselves almost never use it. In fact, even Zhongguo – the Middle Kingdom – was not often used in ancient times. Before the 1911 revolution, China existed not as a nation state in the Westphalian sense. It was a civilisation with an unbroken line of imperial dynasties. People referred to themselves as “people of the great Qing” or “people of the great Tang”. Few would call themselves “people of Zhongguo”, even fewer would use “Chinese”."
The Muhammad Ali Debate: What Happened With Bert's Son Hayden Wanting To Use Brown Make-Up To Portray Muhammad Ali? - "A couple of months ago, The Bert Show brought up a question that sparked a lot of controversy: whether or not Bert’s oldest son, 9-year-old Hayden, should wear brown makeup while portraying Muhammad Ali for class... Both Muhammad Ali and Mrs. Ali thought Hayden should be able to paint his face brown; in fact, they thought that the only thing offensive about it is that people were offended about it."
Muhammad Ali and his wife were racist!
The secret behind Italy’s rarest pasta - "there are only two other women on the planet who still know how to make it: Abraini’s niece and her sister-in-law, both of whom live in this far-flung town clinging to the slopes of Monte Ortobene. No one can remember how or why the women in Nuoro started preparing su filindeu (whose name means “the threads of God”), but for more than 300 years, the recipe and technique have only been passed down through the women in Abraini’s family – each of whom have guarded it tightly before teaching it to their daughters."
My Halloween email led to a campus firestorm — and a troubling lesson about self-censorship - "The community’s response seemed, to many outside the Yale bubble, a baffling overreaction. Nearly a thousand students, faculty and deans called for my and my husband’s immediate removal from our jobs and campus home. Some demanded not only apologies for any unintended racial insensitivity (which we gladly offered) but also a complete disavowal of my ideas (which we did not) — as well as advance warning of my appearances in the dining hall so that students accusing me of fostering violence wouldn’t be disturbed by the sight of me. Not everyone bought this narrative, but few spoke up. And who can blame them? Numerous professors, including those at Yale’s top-rated law school, contacted us personally to say that it was too risky to speak their minds. Others who generously supported us publicly were admonished by colleagues for vouching for our characters. Many students met with us confidentially to describe intimidation and accusations of being a “race traitor” when they deviated from the ascendant campus account that I had grievously injured the community. The Yale Daily News evidently felt obliged to play down key facts in its reporting, including about the two-hour-plus confrontation with a crowd of more than 100 students in which several made verbal and physical threats to my husband while four Yale deans and administrators looked on. One professor I admire claimed my lone email was so threatening that it unraveled decades of her work supporting students of color. One email... For seven years I lived and worked on two college campuses, and a growing number of students report avoiding controversial topics — such as the limits of religious tolerance or transgender rights — for fear of uttering “unacceptable” language or otherwise stepping out of line. As a student observed in the Yale Daily News, the concept of campus civility now requires adherence to specific ideology — not only commitment to respectful dialogue. The irony is that this culture of protection may ultimately harm those it purports to protect"
For how long more can SJWs be dismissed as a small, unrepresentative minority with no power and all the evidence about their antics be dismissed as right wing exaggerations?
Jeremy Corbyn met Syrian leader Assad on trip paid for by pro-Palestine group - "The Labour leader praised Assad for housing half a million Palestinian refugees and appeared to allege Israel meddled in American politics. During the trip, which cost £1,300 according to Mr Corbyn’s own Register of Members’ Financial Interests, the left wing politician said: “Once again the Israeli tail wags the US dog.”
Montreal professor known as 'The 'Gadfather' fights what he calls academic cowardice - "Saad is a Lebanese Jew who fled his home country with his family during the civil war in 1975 and moved to Montreal. Four years later, when he was 15, his parents returned to Lebanon and were kidnapped by a militia tied to the Palestinian Fatah, which he says was hired by someone who wanted to take his father's store. They were released about a week later but neither he nor his parents have returned to the country. Being forced to flee such a country has influenced his politics, he says. His experience as a youth is one of the main reasons he can't stay silent about a cultural phenomenon he believes threatens freedom of speech in Canada and the United States... He sees some respite, however, from the political correctness fever he says has gripped society — if only because it has become so bad "it's almost impossible to imagine how much more could the pendulum swing to the lunacy end.""
Reducing food waste could put birds and animals at risk - "birds that eat grain spilled in the harvest during stopovers along their migration routes could go hungry if farmers use more efficient machinery to reduce crop losses... In Europe, the authors of the paper noted, legislation in the wake of mad cow disease forced farmers to bury or burn dead animals that would normally be left lying in fields. “This led to a reduction in vulture populations to the degree that a number of species are now at risk of extinction”"
Teaching Coding to Kids Is a Scam - NYTimes.com - "A second grader should be running around, throwing a ball, scratching out drawings, learning fine motor skills and developing normal interpersonal social skills. Being hunched over a computer screen coding in some kiddy language to supposedly develop computer literacy is insane... Computers do not belong in the classroom, they belong in the library, the home, the office. They do not belong in an elementary school, once called a “grammar school” for a reason. There is no rationale for 10-year-olds becoming adept at "computational thinking" (a buzzword promoted by the computer industry) when they cannot spell well."
Jakarta Governor Race Heats Up With Ruckus Over Koran Comments - "Ahok said his opponents had "deceived" voters by using Koranic verses to try to convince them that Muslims were not permitted to support a Christian leader. His comments prompted thousands of Muslims to take to the streets in protest. Despite Ahok saying he was "very sorry" for the remarks after his police interview, thousands of protesters led by the Islamic Defenders Front are set to rally for a second time next week with plans to march on the State Palace after Friday prayers. About 10,000 protesters gathered two weeks ago, with some chanting “Reject Ahok.”
Can one dismiss 10,000 protestors as paid astroturfing tools?
At Tufts University, Offensive Halloween Costumes Could Be Investigated by Police - "Leaders of Tufts' Greek community sent an email to fraternities warning their members not to wear "inappropriate, offensive, or appropriative costumes," or costumes that appropriate cultures or "reproduce stereotypes on race, gender, sexuality, immigrant, or socioeconomic status." Also forbidden: "Outfits relating to tragedy, controversy, or acts of violence.""
Professional bridesmaids are popular in China and face physical and emotional abuse - "Bridesmaid traditions have a long history in China. In the feudal era centuries ago, when the female womb was seen as a precious resource for the production of an heir, brides were susceptible to kidnapping at weddings by rival clans and hooligans. Shouldering the responsibility to protect the bride, bridesmaids were dressed up like the bride to lower the risk that she might be identified and robbed. As legal protections for marriage were established, this was no longer necessary, and the role of bridesmaid took a more symbolic turn... Since bridesmaids also act as the last symbolic “hurdle” before the groom can enter the bridal room, the groom and groomsmen can pull off stunts laced with sexual innuendo. In more civilized cases, such stunts could involve the presentation of gifts such as peanuts (hua sheng), which share an identical pronunciation with “giving birth” (sheng) in Chinese. It could also involve licking a banana in public"
How come in Singapore it's the men who get tortured?
Thailand's red light district is back in business after the death of the king - "just over a week after the king died, hundreds of prostitutes lined the streets wearing black mini dresses, maid costumes, black boots, black suspenders and black gartars in their own unique mark of respect... 'We are wearing black dresses and boots to be respectful. We don't normally wear big boots like this, Thailand is too hot... 'Most of us wear black now. Black underwear and black dresses. We still have to remember the king.'"
Denmark reports surge in women being groped by migrants - "Rafi Ibrahim, a Syrian who has lived in Denmark for years, said new migrants don't know how to behave around women in Western society. He said: 'If they see a girl, they go nuts. They simply can't handle it. 'In Syria and many other countries, it is not normal for a strange woman to smile at you. 'Those girls who are harassed aren't necessarily scantily-dressed or drunk. Sometimes it is enough just to be a girl.'"
Blame the Internet of Things for today's web blackout - "Today's nation-wide internet outage was enabled thanks to a Mirai botnet that hacked into connected home devices, according to security intelligence company Flashpoint."
'World peace' hitcher is murdered - "An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey. The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the northern city of Gebze... She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people... Ms di Marineo was hitch-hiking from Milan to Israel and the Palestinian Territories with a fellow artist on their "Brides on Tour" project... "Her travels were for an artistic performance and to give a message of peace and of trust, but not everyone deserves trust," another sister, Maria, told the Italian news agency, Ansa"
Consumer group demands action over pork burger named ‘P. Ramly’ - "The Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia (PPIM) has urged the authorities to take action against a restaurant for naming a pork burger “P. Ramly”, claiming it confused the public... The poster of the “P. Ramly” burger placed in front of the restaurant at a shopping centre in Damansara, as shown in the Berita Harian report, however, clearly states that the dish has pork. “Introducing P. Ramly ― juicy pork patty wrapped in an omelette, fresh lettuce, pickled onions, Thousand Island dressing, chilli sauce & mayonnaise,” reads the poster. A restaurant worker was also reported telling Berita Harian that the “P” in the name referred to “pork”. However, the newspaper reported two women who claimed that the use of the name “P. Ramly” was confusing, with one of them saying that it appeared to be disrespecting the late artiste Tan Sri P. Ramlee. “Even though the spelling is different, but it sounds almost the same. P. Ramlee is a big name in this country,” shopper Nur Alia Abdullah Tahir, 21, was quoted saying. Executive Nurhafeezah Che Haludin, 20, reportedly claimed she almost bought the burger because of the poster. “The advertisement was placed where people usually walk, as if they want to attract the attention of all consumers, including Muslims. This causes confusion,” she was quoted saying."
It is fashionable to reject the observation that Malaysians are stupid, but how long can the antics in Malaysia be blamed solely on politicians? It wasn't the politicians who were writing blog posts claiming the Wombat "Pig" was seditious
Academics Declare War On Colleague Tweeting Research Papers - "A popular Twitter account that highlighted ridiculous academic papers from the social sciences and humanities — some taxpayer-funded — was abruptly deleted recently apparently because critics threatened to expose the name of the anonymous tweeter, who feared career-ending retaliation from campus colleagues. The threats against @Real_PeerReview are telling about the state of soft academia. The tweeter’s primary activity was simply publishing links to abstracts and highlighting one or two sentences from their summaries... Some were “autoethnographic,” meaning the author simply recounted how they felt when experiencing something. Other papers had tiny sample sizes with authors speaking only to a few friends — hardly a representative sample. Low academic standards seemed to be especially accepted in the fields of “critical race theory” and feminism, making it prime fodder for tweeting, while prompting “social justice warrior” types to target the tweeter... The tweeter — who has an advanced degree in social sciences — also noted the authors sometimes received taxpayer funds for work with little practical application and offering no constructive solutions... Soon after the account was deleted last week, nearly a dozen people, including five academics, responded by creating a new group account to pick up where the @Real_PeerReview left off. One of them, Twitter user @okayultra, told TheDCNF she is a female in a non-Western country and is decidedly not a benefactor of the “patriarchy,” “whiteness” or the “hegemony,” but she thinks the public should be aware of the low level of cognitive activity that passes for serious academic work in certain enclaves of the humanities and social sciences. She said that since starting the new account, she, too, has become a target of hackers, possibly the same ones who threatened to “doxx” the original tweeter. “In modern academia one can lose a job over the slightest slights. I mean, students could claim they aren’t ‘safe’ around real_peerreview”... “I totally understand old peerreview’s situation, mocking ‘critical theory’ stuff in the western academia is like standing up for gays and personal autonomy in my country. Your academic types went so far to the left that they are emerging pretty much on the far right.”"
L'origine de Bert
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Ahok protesters - paid to protest?
There have been recent protests against governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) in Jakarta, a Chinese Christian accused of blasphemy for quoting the Koran (in saying that Muslims could vote for non-Muslims).
One response is to dismiss the protesters as being paid.
One payment figure I saw bandied was 50,000 rupiah (which seems to come from a 2015 Coconuts Jakarta article about a past rent-a-mob protest).
Indonesian police estimated there were 200,000 protesters at Friday's protest.
Assuming that only 1% of them were real protesters (i.e. not paid to protest), that would be 198,000 protesters the budget would've had to cater for.
At prevailing exchange rates the protesters would've cost just over SGD 1 million a day (assuming no transaction costs, or other costs like transport, lodging or food).
Considering that there were also protests in October which involved thousands, that is a truly massive protest budget.
It is telling that a previous paid protest only had 700 people.
One response is to dismiss the protesters as being paid.
One payment figure I saw bandied was 50,000 rupiah (which seems to come from a 2015 Coconuts Jakarta article about a past rent-a-mob protest).
Indonesian police estimated there were 200,000 protesters at Friday's protest.
Assuming that only 1% of them were real protesters (i.e. not paid to protest), that would be 198,000 protesters the budget would've had to cater for.
At prevailing exchange rates the protesters would've cost just over SGD 1 million a day (assuming no transaction costs, or other costs like transport, lodging or food).
Considering that there were also protests in October which involved thousands, that is a truly massive protest budget.
It is telling that a previous paid protest only had 700 people.
Post ID: 6880103749459457043
Monday, November 07, 2016
Links - 7th November 2016
Superstar Marxist Professor Just Endorsed Trump for President - "Your favorite rock star Marxist professor and public intellectual Slavoj Žižek just endorsed Donald Trump for president in one of his signature rants. Speaking with UK’s Channel 4, Žižek was asked whom he would vote for in the U.S. presidential election. “Trump,” he quickly replied, adding that while the GOP nominee horrifies him, “Hillary is the true danger.” According to him, “[Hillary] built an impossible all-inclusive coalition. Look, the one point when I fully agreed with Trump was, you remember, when Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary? He said it’s like somebody from Occupy Wall Street endorsing Lehman Brothers.” Zizek, a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, continued: “In every society there is a whole network of unwritten rules, how politics works, and how you build consensus. Trump disturbed this. And if Trump wins, both big parties, Republicans and Democrats, would have to return to basics, rethink themselves, and maybe some things can happen there.” Named in 2012 by Foreign Policy as one of the top 100 global thinkers, Zizek also dismisses the warnings that Trump will bring fascism to America. Instead he thinks it will be a “big awakening”"
Ugly, bloody scenes in San Jose as protesters attack Trump supporters outside rally - "Trump supporters were surrounded and, in several cases, attacked as they left the rally. In one incident captured on camera, a Trump supporter was struck hard over the side of the head as he was walking away from a group of protesters. The attack left him with blood streaming down his head and onto his shirt."
If Trump supporters are attacked and defend themselves, does this count as Trump supporters being violent?
Don’t look now, Venice tourists – the locals are sick of you - "members of the Comitato NO Grandi Navi, a group campaigning against the giant cruise ships that daily disgorge visitors into the fragile lagoon, took to dinghies to get in the way. Or at least to make a noise while some of the estimated 30,000 peak-season daily cruise visitors peered down at them from the upper decks. More than 60,000 people descend on Venice each day, with less than half staying the night. “At least the tourists in the hotels are easier to manage, and bring richness to the city,” says Marco Caberlotto, a member of Generation 90, a campaign group established this summer. “Most people just want to take a selfie in St Mark’s Square before they go back to their ships”... more than 500 members of Generation 90 staged a march. They held up shopping trolleys and push chairs and chanted in Venetian dialect: “Watch your legs, I’m coming through with a trolley”... “The problem is that these tourists think this is a kind of Disneyland,” Caberlotto says in a break from studying at a library on the Zaterre promenade, where many of the cruise ships dock. “They should remember that this is a living city.”"
Bali alcohol ban? Indonesian law would outlaw beer and wine - "A bill to ban the sale, distribution and consumption of drinks containing more than one per cent of alcohol was introduced by two Islamicist parties, the United Development Party and the Prosperous Justice Party, and is being deliberated by Indonesia’s House of Representatives. If passed, the law would be the first of its kind in Muslim-majority Indonesia. There may be some exceptions to the booze ban for travellers, customary activities and religious rituals. But the introduction of the bill has sparked uproar within Indonesia’s tourism and hospitality industries, which warn tourism would be crippled if the law was passed. “If the bill is passed, our business will be done,” Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association head Hariyadi Sukamdani told the Jakarta Post. “The tourists ... drink alcohol all the time. It will be very inconvenient for them if they can’t find alcohol.” Indonesia has already made moves to restrict the availability of alcohol... Representatives for Indonesia’s tourism and hospitality industries warn prohibition would merely cause sales in bootlegged booze to skyrocket, with potentially deadly consequences. Due in part to the increasing cost of importing liquor, Bali has seen a rise in the sale of home-brewed drinks laced with methanol, which have been linked to the deaths and serious illness of tourists, including Australians, on the party island."
Crowd turns its back on Hillary Clinton as photo captures the age of the selfie
Maajid Nawaz - Timeline - "1st world American non-Muslims at the Southern Poverty Law Center just listed me - a liberal reform Muslim - as an "anti-Muslim Extremist". I consider this as placing a target on my head. It is nothing but a hit list for jihadist terrorists."
Perhaps this will make the SPLC finally lose credibility
Comments: "And half the world asks why more Muslims don't denounce extremism."
"That organization has lost a lot of its credibility this year. They've identified a frog meme with fascism, now they are trying to denounce your work to reduce extremism as anti-Muslim. Your reputation with outlast theirs Maajid. I hope other people will understand how valuable Quilliam is in the fight against Jihadism."
"Surely the biggest anti-Muslim extremists are the ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists who, as we're told time and again, commit the foulest of crimes against other Muslims. But no, a liberal, secular Muslim who's vision for the future of Islam is open, pluralistic and aligned with the principles of free expression and tolerance is the bad guy here. Utterly, utterly disgraceful."
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali too, sadly. They're beyond pathetic, especially when you consider how honest and pressing they are in their efforts to oppose the christian right. If only they rose above their lowered expectations and afforded other political-religious movements the same scrutiny."
"It's amazing how they have turned Anti Islamist in to Anti Muslim. What a dangerous and disingenuous conflation."
Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali named as “anti-Muslim extremists” by the Southern Poverty Law Center - "When I read stuff like the SPLC report, I sometimes agree with a person—I can’t recall their name—who criticized Regressive Leftists for thinking that “the only authentic Muslim has a Kalashnikov in one hand and a Qur’an in the other.” The SPLC, it seems, shares that view, and, when demonizing Nawaz’s tweeting out a Jesus and Mo cartoon (adding that God was greater than could be offended by it), the SPLC mistakes critics of Islam for bigots against Muslims. It’s the classic Islamophobia Conflation Syndrome. As Haider says, the SPLC has truly discredited itself with this one."
Professor Who Popularized Microaggressions Says Universities Have Gone Too Far
From original article: "conservative blogs ripped the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for guidance on its Employee Forum website that said (among other things) telling a woman, "I love your shoes," constituted a microaggression. (The university has said the guidance does not represent official policy.)"
I’m A Muslim Reformer. Why Am I Being Smeared as an ‘Anti-Muslim Extremist’? - "If there was anything we liberals should have learnt from McCarthyism, it is that compiling lists of our political foes is a malevolent, nefarious, and incredibly dangerous thing to do. And this terrible tactic, of simplifying and reducing our political opponents to a rogue’s gallery of “bad guys,” is not solely the domain of the right. As the political horseshoe theory attributed to Jean-Pierre Faye highlights, if we travel far-left enough, we find the very same sneering, nasty and reckless bullying tactics used by the far-right. Denunciations of traitors, heresy and blasphemy are the last resort of diminutive, insecure power-craving fascists of all stripes. Compiling lists is their modus operandi... In October 2014, the Center posted an “Extremist File” that included Presidential nominee Dr. Ben Carson. The SPLC had to later issue an apology... There is no “good way” to compile lists. Jihadist terrorists in Bangladesh also had a list. This appeared in 2013 and named 84 “atheist bloggers”, in other words secular free-thinkers. By the end of 2016 ten of them had been assassinated. Such a fascist tactic had been mirrored by a UK-based ‘anti-fascist’ group, Hope not Hate. In 2013 ‘Hope not Hate’ compiled a similar list that included the Danish author, journalist and Islam-critic Lars Hedegaard. He was later subjected to an assassination attempt, too. No. Nothing good ever comes from compiling lists. And so I say to the Southern Poverty Law Center: You were supposed to stand up for us, not intimidate us. Just imagine how ex-Muslim Islam-critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali must feel to be included in your list of "anti-Muslim" extremists. Her friend Theo Van Gogh was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam in 2004. And back then there was another list pinned to Theo’s corpse with a knife: it too named Ayaan Hirsi Ali."
Women are right to boycott Iran’s chess tournament - "Activists and political groups in the West hesitated to condemn the torture of political prisoners or the assassination of dissidents in diaspora, unsure of how to speak against those who were the enemy of their enemy. In its nearly 37-year rule, the Iranian regime’s greatest industry is the manufacturing of enemies — an expertise that has been widely exported. When the wealthy and educated elite fled in the wake of the 1979 revolution, the Ayatollah branded them “violators against God and morality.” When news of the 1979 women’s protest aired on television, the protestors were described as “prostitutes” who could not embrace the veil because they had no virtue. When droves of Bahais, a religious minority, were rounded up from their homes never to be heard from again, they were not missing neighbors but expendable “infidels.” When Kurdish regions were bombed and scores of Kurds executed, they were “separatists” receiving their due. Marxists and socialists, “sowers of corruption on earth,” were imprisoned and executed by the thousands in virtual silence. And when I and a handful of other women wrote the memoirs of our experiences in post-revolutionary Iran, several U.S.-based Iranian professors branded us “native informants.” We had found the freedom to speak and, as we began to exercise that freedom, we were hit with a tsunami of slander... Not surprisingly, many have called for a lifting of the boycott on Tehran’s chess tournament and have shunned women from the outside for meddling in the affairs of Iranian women... There has been no greater plague on human rights campaigns in Iran than “relativism” and its post-modern peddlers. The only thing relativist arguments achieve is to disband the hard-earned solidarity established despite border lines by the idealism of the 20th century. Now relativists are bullying female chess players and their supporters into withdrawing their boycott, accusing them of “cultural meddling.”"
Bono's 'Humbling' Realizations About Aid, Capitalism And Nerds - "The Irish singer and co-founder of ONE, a campaigning group that fights poverty and disease in Africa, said it had been “a humbling thing for me” to realize the importance of capitalism and entrepreneurialism in philanthropy, particularly as someone who “got into this as a righteous anger activist with all the cliches.” “Job creators and innovators are just the key, and aid is just a bridge”"
Calls grow to label attacks on Middle East Christians as genocide
Muhammad Was A Feminist - "After Khadija’s death, Muhammad married 12 wives. One was Aisha, the daughter of his closest friend and ally Abu Baker. The rest were nearly all widows, divorced women, or captives. He preached consistently that it was the responsibility of men to protect those women who had met with misfortune. This was one of the reasons polygamy was encouraged. Even with female infanticide, women in seventh century Arabia far outnumbered men because so many men were killed in the inter-tribal warfare of the day. Several of Muhammad’s wives were poor and destitute and he took them in, along with their children, into his household... Finally, there is nothing in the Quran about women wearing the veil, the Hejab. That was certainly the custom in Arabia at that time and Muhammad’s wives wore the Hejab to designate their special status as “Mothers of the Believers,” but the only thing the Quran says directly is that women should dress “modestly.” Muhammad said the same thing to men"
Islamophobic comments: "I wish this is true. But my reading of Koran tells me differently. Quran (4:34) - "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them.""
"It's very interesting how you gloss over the fact that Aisha was 6 years old when Muhammad married her and 10 when he consummated the marriage. Nowhere is that minor little detail mentioned. Child marriage, particularly arranged marriages for girls, continues among Muhammad's people today, in no small part because of the example he set. A true feminist."
"This Islam apologism by liberals is one of the reasons why I'm sorely tempted to vote for the GOP downticket."
Why Women Need To Start Asking Men Out…Because Men Have No Balls - "Ladies, it's been said before, but I'll say it again: They just don't make ’em like they used to. There's no door-holding, no hand-holding and definitely no free drinks. There’s no taking off hats or courting through invitations. There are no smooth moves, no jackets to dinner. There are no flowers, no tables by candlelight. But, most importantly, there are no dates."
If a man had written something like this, it'd have been called male sexual entitlement
Comments: "In the society we have today, it's not socially acceptable or even politically correct to be masculine. You're somehow openly declaring that you're the better gender if you open up doors for a woman. Hyper feminism is telling us that genders have to be equal in the way they interact with each other. If that's the case, then maybe you should start asking men out. That'd be the "real equality" everyone is so desperate to enforce."
"you women pushed us away, you called us "pervy", "creepy" when we didn't have the requisite amount of cash/belongings etc. instead of saying "I'm not interested" to men who ask you out that you don't find attractive - you called us harassers and made utterly ridiculous claims that we were a part of "rape culture". you make crass jokes about men being in pain, laugh when one gets his dick cut off,band together when one needs bullying and almost orgasm when one has his children ripped from him. then there is the blaming shit you all seem to do... you say we're scared of you. yes, you're dam right we're scared of you. who wouldn't be scared of someone who can, with one false accusation (which seems to be happening more and more these days) ruin our entire lives. who wouldn't be scared of a pathological lying psychopath!!?"
Housework adds three years to your life (if you're a woman) - "men who do the gardening live 2.7 years longer, while working outside the home has little effect on women."
Patriarchy is so powerful it affects lifespan!
In Germany, Syrians find mosques too conservative - ""One time when I was there, a Salafist asked a young Arab man to leave because he was wearing shorts," he added. "At the Turkish mosque no one cares what you're wearing."... The imam who led the prayers said the community is not political or violent. Asked about the Syrians who felt uncomfortable at mosques like his, he said: "It's an honor to be called a Salafist. We are only interested in giving members of our community pure Islamic teachings." Even though Salam can't understand the sermons in Turkish, he said he has started going to a Turkish mosque instead... nearly half the Muslims it surveyed in Germany felt religious law to be more important than secular law... The intelligence agency has advised local authorities against housing asylum-seekers near Salafist or Wahhabi mosques... Since the start of the 20th century Germany has had a system of collecting taxes for worship, which are then paid out to religious groups like Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Muslims cannot benefit from this, because the four main organizations that represent Muslims in Germany can't agree to merge into one religious body, a requirement to receive taxes."
Islamophobia!
Ugly, bloody scenes in San Jose as protesters attack Trump supporters outside rally - "Trump supporters were surrounded and, in several cases, attacked as they left the rally. In one incident captured on camera, a Trump supporter was struck hard over the side of the head as he was walking away from a group of protesters. The attack left him with blood streaming down his head and onto his shirt."
If Trump supporters are attacked and defend themselves, does this count as Trump supporters being violent?
Don’t look now, Venice tourists – the locals are sick of you - "members of the Comitato NO Grandi Navi, a group campaigning against the giant cruise ships that daily disgorge visitors into the fragile lagoon, took to dinghies to get in the way. Or at least to make a noise while some of the estimated 30,000 peak-season daily cruise visitors peered down at them from the upper decks. More than 60,000 people descend on Venice each day, with less than half staying the night. “At least the tourists in the hotels are easier to manage, and bring richness to the city,” says Marco Caberlotto, a member of Generation 90, a campaign group established this summer. “Most people just want to take a selfie in St Mark’s Square before they go back to their ships”... more than 500 members of Generation 90 staged a march. They held up shopping trolleys and push chairs and chanted in Venetian dialect: “Watch your legs, I’m coming through with a trolley”... “The problem is that these tourists think this is a kind of Disneyland,” Caberlotto says in a break from studying at a library on the Zaterre promenade, where many of the cruise ships dock. “They should remember that this is a living city.”"
Bali alcohol ban? Indonesian law would outlaw beer and wine - "A bill to ban the sale, distribution and consumption of drinks containing more than one per cent of alcohol was introduced by two Islamicist parties, the United Development Party and the Prosperous Justice Party, and is being deliberated by Indonesia’s House of Representatives. If passed, the law would be the first of its kind in Muslim-majority Indonesia. There may be some exceptions to the booze ban for travellers, customary activities and religious rituals. But the introduction of the bill has sparked uproar within Indonesia’s tourism and hospitality industries, which warn tourism would be crippled if the law was passed. “If the bill is passed, our business will be done,” Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association head Hariyadi Sukamdani told the Jakarta Post. “The tourists ... drink alcohol all the time. It will be very inconvenient for them if they can’t find alcohol.” Indonesia has already made moves to restrict the availability of alcohol... Representatives for Indonesia’s tourism and hospitality industries warn prohibition would merely cause sales in bootlegged booze to skyrocket, with potentially deadly consequences. Due in part to the increasing cost of importing liquor, Bali has seen a rise in the sale of home-brewed drinks laced with methanol, which have been linked to the deaths and serious illness of tourists, including Australians, on the party island."
Crowd turns its back on Hillary Clinton as photo captures the age of the selfie
Maajid Nawaz - Timeline - "1st world American non-Muslims at the Southern Poverty Law Center just listed me - a liberal reform Muslim - as an "anti-Muslim Extremist". I consider this as placing a target on my head. It is nothing but a hit list for jihadist terrorists."
Perhaps this will make the SPLC finally lose credibility
Comments: "And half the world asks why more Muslims don't denounce extremism."
"That organization has lost a lot of its credibility this year. They've identified a frog meme with fascism, now they are trying to denounce your work to reduce extremism as anti-Muslim. Your reputation with outlast theirs Maajid. I hope other people will understand how valuable Quilliam is in the fight against Jihadism."
"Surely the biggest anti-Muslim extremists are the ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists who, as we're told time and again, commit the foulest of crimes against other Muslims. But no, a liberal, secular Muslim who's vision for the future of Islam is open, pluralistic and aligned with the principles of free expression and tolerance is the bad guy here. Utterly, utterly disgraceful."
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali too, sadly. They're beyond pathetic, especially when you consider how honest and pressing they are in their efforts to oppose the christian right. If only they rose above their lowered expectations and afforded other political-religious movements the same scrutiny."
"It's amazing how they have turned Anti Islamist in to Anti Muslim. What a dangerous and disingenuous conflation."
Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali named as “anti-Muslim extremists” by the Southern Poverty Law Center - "When I read stuff like the SPLC report, I sometimes agree with a person—I can’t recall their name—who criticized Regressive Leftists for thinking that “the only authentic Muslim has a Kalashnikov in one hand and a Qur’an in the other.” The SPLC, it seems, shares that view, and, when demonizing Nawaz’s tweeting out a Jesus and Mo cartoon (adding that God was greater than could be offended by it), the SPLC mistakes critics of Islam for bigots against Muslims. It’s the classic Islamophobia Conflation Syndrome. As Haider says, the SPLC has truly discredited itself with this one."
Professor Who Popularized Microaggressions Says Universities Have Gone Too Far
From original article: "conservative blogs ripped the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for guidance on its Employee Forum website that said (among other things) telling a woman, "I love your shoes," constituted a microaggression. (The university has said the guidance does not represent official policy.)"
I’m A Muslim Reformer. Why Am I Being Smeared as an ‘Anti-Muslim Extremist’? - "If there was anything we liberals should have learnt from McCarthyism, it is that compiling lists of our political foes is a malevolent, nefarious, and incredibly dangerous thing to do. And this terrible tactic, of simplifying and reducing our political opponents to a rogue’s gallery of “bad guys,” is not solely the domain of the right. As the political horseshoe theory attributed to Jean-Pierre Faye highlights, if we travel far-left enough, we find the very same sneering, nasty and reckless bullying tactics used by the far-right. Denunciations of traitors, heresy and blasphemy are the last resort of diminutive, insecure power-craving fascists of all stripes. Compiling lists is their modus operandi... In October 2014, the Center posted an “Extremist File” that included Presidential nominee Dr. Ben Carson. The SPLC had to later issue an apology... There is no “good way” to compile lists. Jihadist terrorists in Bangladesh also had a list. This appeared in 2013 and named 84 “atheist bloggers”, in other words secular free-thinkers. By the end of 2016 ten of them had been assassinated. Such a fascist tactic had been mirrored by a UK-based ‘anti-fascist’ group, Hope not Hate. In 2013 ‘Hope not Hate’ compiled a similar list that included the Danish author, journalist and Islam-critic Lars Hedegaard. He was later subjected to an assassination attempt, too. No. Nothing good ever comes from compiling lists. And so I say to the Southern Poverty Law Center: You were supposed to stand up for us, not intimidate us. Just imagine how ex-Muslim Islam-critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali must feel to be included in your list of "anti-Muslim" extremists. Her friend Theo Van Gogh was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam in 2004. And back then there was another list pinned to Theo’s corpse with a knife: it too named Ayaan Hirsi Ali."
Women are right to boycott Iran’s chess tournament - "Activists and political groups in the West hesitated to condemn the torture of political prisoners or the assassination of dissidents in diaspora, unsure of how to speak against those who were the enemy of their enemy. In its nearly 37-year rule, the Iranian regime’s greatest industry is the manufacturing of enemies — an expertise that has been widely exported. When the wealthy and educated elite fled in the wake of the 1979 revolution, the Ayatollah branded them “violators against God and morality.” When news of the 1979 women’s protest aired on television, the protestors were described as “prostitutes” who could not embrace the veil because they had no virtue. When droves of Bahais, a religious minority, were rounded up from their homes never to be heard from again, they were not missing neighbors but expendable “infidels.” When Kurdish regions were bombed and scores of Kurds executed, they were “separatists” receiving their due. Marxists and socialists, “sowers of corruption on earth,” were imprisoned and executed by the thousands in virtual silence. And when I and a handful of other women wrote the memoirs of our experiences in post-revolutionary Iran, several U.S.-based Iranian professors branded us “native informants.” We had found the freedom to speak and, as we began to exercise that freedom, we were hit with a tsunami of slander... Not surprisingly, many have called for a lifting of the boycott on Tehran’s chess tournament and have shunned women from the outside for meddling in the affairs of Iranian women... There has been no greater plague on human rights campaigns in Iran than “relativism” and its post-modern peddlers. The only thing relativist arguments achieve is to disband the hard-earned solidarity established despite border lines by the idealism of the 20th century. Now relativists are bullying female chess players and their supporters into withdrawing their boycott, accusing them of “cultural meddling.”"
Bono's 'Humbling' Realizations About Aid, Capitalism And Nerds - "The Irish singer and co-founder of ONE, a campaigning group that fights poverty and disease in Africa, said it had been “a humbling thing for me” to realize the importance of capitalism and entrepreneurialism in philanthropy, particularly as someone who “got into this as a righteous anger activist with all the cliches.” “Job creators and innovators are just the key, and aid is just a bridge”"
Calls grow to label attacks on Middle East Christians as genocide
Muhammad Was A Feminist - "After Khadija’s death, Muhammad married 12 wives. One was Aisha, the daughter of his closest friend and ally Abu Baker. The rest were nearly all widows, divorced women, or captives. He preached consistently that it was the responsibility of men to protect those women who had met with misfortune. This was one of the reasons polygamy was encouraged. Even with female infanticide, women in seventh century Arabia far outnumbered men because so many men were killed in the inter-tribal warfare of the day. Several of Muhammad’s wives were poor and destitute and he took them in, along with their children, into his household... Finally, there is nothing in the Quran about women wearing the veil, the Hejab. That was certainly the custom in Arabia at that time and Muhammad’s wives wore the Hejab to designate their special status as “Mothers of the Believers,” but the only thing the Quran says directly is that women should dress “modestly.” Muhammad said the same thing to men"
Islamophobic comments: "I wish this is true. But my reading of Koran tells me differently. Quran (4:34) - "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them.""
"It's very interesting how you gloss over the fact that Aisha was 6 years old when Muhammad married her and 10 when he consummated the marriage. Nowhere is that minor little detail mentioned. Child marriage, particularly arranged marriages for girls, continues among Muhammad's people today, in no small part because of the example he set. A true feminist."
"This Islam apologism by liberals is one of the reasons why I'm sorely tempted to vote for the GOP downticket."
Why Women Need To Start Asking Men Out…Because Men Have No Balls - "Ladies, it's been said before, but I'll say it again: They just don't make ’em like they used to. There's no door-holding, no hand-holding and definitely no free drinks. There’s no taking off hats or courting through invitations. There are no smooth moves, no jackets to dinner. There are no flowers, no tables by candlelight. But, most importantly, there are no dates."
If a man had written something like this, it'd have been called male sexual entitlement
Comments: "In the society we have today, it's not socially acceptable or even politically correct to be masculine. You're somehow openly declaring that you're the better gender if you open up doors for a woman. Hyper feminism is telling us that genders have to be equal in the way they interact with each other. If that's the case, then maybe you should start asking men out. That'd be the "real equality" everyone is so desperate to enforce."
"you women pushed us away, you called us "pervy", "creepy" when we didn't have the requisite amount of cash/belongings etc. instead of saying "I'm not interested" to men who ask you out that you don't find attractive - you called us harassers and made utterly ridiculous claims that we were a part of "rape culture". you make crass jokes about men being in pain, laugh when one gets his dick cut off,band together when one needs bullying and almost orgasm when one has his children ripped from him. then there is the blaming shit you all seem to do... you say we're scared of you. yes, you're dam right we're scared of you. who wouldn't be scared of someone who can, with one false accusation (which seems to be happening more and more these days) ruin our entire lives. who wouldn't be scared of a pathological lying psychopath!!?"
Housework adds three years to your life (if you're a woman) - "men who do the gardening live 2.7 years longer, while working outside the home has little effect on women."
Patriarchy is so powerful it affects lifespan!
In Germany, Syrians find mosques too conservative - ""One time when I was there, a Salafist asked a young Arab man to leave because he was wearing shorts," he added. "At the Turkish mosque no one cares what you're wearing."... The imam who led the prayers said the community is not political or violent. Asked about the Syrians who felt uncomfortable at mosques like his, he said: "It's an honor to be called a Salafist. We are only interested in giving members of our community pure Islamic teachings." Even though Salam can't understand the sermons in Turkish, he said he has started going to a Turkish mosque instead... nearly half the Muslims it surveyed in Germany felt religious law to be more important than secular law... The intelligence agency has advised local authorities against housing asylum-seekers near Salafist or Wahhabi mosques... Since the start of the 20th century Germany has had a system of collecting taxes for worship, which are then paid out to religious groups like Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Muslims cannot benefit from this, because the four main organizations that represent Muslims in Germany can't agree to merge into one religious body, a requirement to receive taxes."
Islamophobia!
Post ID: 2163778642083210977
Migrant Crime in Germany
It is said that right wing sources like the Gatestone Institute and Breitbart are peddling distorted - or even madeup - stories about the migrant crisis in Europe and its impact.
For example, the former has an article titled German Streets Descend into Lawlessness.
I was also at a talk on Saturday on Europe's Migrant Crisis where half-truths were peddled. For example immigrants committing less crimes than locals; while this is true in general it may not be true about the European Migrant Crisis.
So I decided to look at primary sources: crime statistics from the Bundesministerium des Innern (German Federal Ministry of the Interior).
Helpfully, the article above links to the reports, which is something I greatly appreciate - Gatestone and especially Breitbart meticulously document their sources, making it easier for people to fact check and verify their claims.
Now, I don't speak German, so if there're any mistakes I apologise. But I trust that Google Translate is accurate enough for our purposes.
So, according to the Bundesministerium des Innern's (BMI, or Federal Ministry of the Interior) Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik 2015 (Police criminal statistics 2015), in 2015, there were 6,330,649 crimes (Straftaten insgesamt aka Total criminal offenses) registered in Germany.
I note that of this 6.3 million, 1.3 million were Straßenkriminalität (road criminality - I thought these were traffic offences but they are actually things like bicycle theft, car robbery etc), 2.5 million were Diebstahlskriminalität insgesamt (Total theft criminality) and 966 thousand were Betrug insgesamt (overall fraud). Meanwhile 577 thousand were Sachbeschädigung (damage to property).
For simplicity, let us assume that the crime level for this year will be the same as in 2015 (as it more or less would if we assumed that the migrant influx has not increased the crime rate).
In the first half of 2016, BMI's Kriminalität im Kontext von Zuwanderung (Crime in the context of immigration) informs us that based on preliminary data, Flüchtlingen und Asylbegehrenden (refugees/asylum seekers, aka "migrants") were implicated in 142,500 criminal offences (this was a 36% decrease, but I can't tell when it's a decrease from). Doing a simple extrapolation for the whole year that'd be 285,000 criminal offences.
Of migrants' crimes in the first half of 2016, 30% were vermögens- und fälschungsdelikte (assets? and counterfeiting), 27% Diebstahlsdelikte (theft) and 23% rohheitsdelikte und straftaten gegen die persönliche freiheit (brutality and crime against personal freedom). It should noted that only 1.1% of crimes were classified as Straftaten gegen die sexuelle Selbstbestimmung (Crimes against sexual self-determination); despite these crimes grabbing the headlines (e.g. the Cologne attacks), they are relatively rare.
Assuming the number of crimes committed by migrants is proportional to their numbers, we would expect the migrant proportion of the population to be 4.5% or 3.69 million (given latest population estimates).
Yet, according to the criminality and immigration report, the Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge (Federal Office for Migration and Migration) has only registered 1,314,158 asylum seekers since January 2015.
So they certainly seem to be over-represented in crime statistics by a factor of 3.
Note that even if we remove vermögens- und fälschungsdelikte (assets? and counterfeiting), migrants are still over-represented by a factor of 2 - even before removing the 571,749 cases of vermögens- und fälschungsdelikte in Germany as a whole in 2015.
(As an aside, the crime and immigration report also mentions that Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis were underrepresented and those from the Maghreb, Georgia, Balkans, Gambia, Nigeria and Somalia were overrepresented, and that left wingers continued to commit offences against the right wing, the police forces and politicians).
Of course, all this won't convince people who dismiss anything that appears on The Sun, The Mirror (which incidentally bills itself as "The intelligent tabloid. #madeuthink"), The Daily Express, the Daily Mail or Fox News as false (presumably they would insist the world were flat if these sources reported that it was round).
But then, fact-resistant humans "appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information... yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive".
For example, the former has an article titled German Streets Descend into Lawlessness.
I was also at a talk on Saturday on Europe's Migrant Crisis where half-truths were peddled. For example immigrants committing less crimes than locals; while this is true in general it may not be true about the European Migrant Crisis.
So I decided to look at primary sources: crime statistics from the Bundesministerium des Innern (German Federal Ministry of the Interior).
Helpfully, the article above links to the reports, which is something I greatly appreciate - Gatestone and especially Breitbart meticulously document their sources, making it easier for people to fact check and verify their claims.
Now, I don't speak German, so if there're any mistakes I apologise. But I trust that Google Translate is accurate enough for our purposes.
So, according to the Bundesministerium des Innern's (BMI, or Federal Ministry of the Interior) Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik 2015 (Police criminal statistics 2015), in 2015, there were 6,330,649 crimes (Straftaten insgesamt aka Total criminal offenses) registered in Germany.
I note that of this 6.3 million, 1.3 million were Straßenkriminalität (road criminality - I thought these were traffic offences but they are actually things like bicycle theft, car robbery etc), 2.5 million were Diebstahlskriminalität insgesamt (Total theft criminality) and 966 thousand were Betrug insgesamt (overall fraud). Meanwhile 577 thousand were Sachbeschädigung (damage to property).
For simplicity, let us assume that the crime level for this year will be the same as in 2015 (as it more or less would if we assumed that the migrant influx has not increased the crime rate).
In the first half of 2016, BMI's Kriminalität im Kontext von Zuwanderung (Crime in the context of immigration) informs us that based on preliminary data, Flüchtlingen und Asylbegehrenden (refugees/asylum seekers, aka "migrants") were implicated in 142,500 criminal offences (this was a 36% decrease, but I can't tell when it's a decrease from). Doing a simple extrapolation for the whole year that'd be 285,000 criminal offences.
Of migrants' crimes in the first half of 2016, 30% were vermögens- und fälschungsdelikte (assets? and counterfeiting), 27% Diebstahlsdelikte (theft) and 23% rohheitsdelikte und straftaten gegen die persönliche freiheit (brutality and crime against personal freedom). It should noted that only 1.1% of crimes were classified as Straftaten gegen die sexuelle Selbstbestimmung (Crimes against sexual self-determination); despite these crimes grabbing the headlines (e.g. the Cologne attacks), they are relatively rare.
Assuming the number of crimes committed by migrants is proportional to their numbers, we would expect the migrant proportion of the population to be 4.5% or 3.69 million (given latest population estimates).
Yet, according to the criminality and immigration report, the Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge (Federal Office for Migration and Migration) has only registered 1,314,158 asylum seekers since January 2015.
So they certainly seem to be over-represented in crime statistics by a factor of 3.
Note that even if we remove vermögens- und fälschungsdelikte (assets? and counterfeiting), migrants are still over-represented by a factor of 2 - even before removing the 571,749 cases of vermögens- und fälschungsdelikte in Germany as a whole in 2015.
(As an aside, the crime and immigration report also mentions that Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis were underrepresented and those from the Maghreb, Georgia, Balkans, Gambia, Nigeria and Somalia were overrepresented, and that left wingers continued to commit offences against the right wing, the police forces and politicians).
Of course, all this won't convince people who dismiss anything that appears on The Sun, The Mirror (which incidentally bills itself as "The intelligent tabloid. #madeuthink"), The Daily Express, the Daily Mail or Fox News as false (presumably they would insist the world were flat if these sources reported that it was round).
But then, fact-resistant humans "appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information... yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive".
Post ID: 2224835983943088247
Friday, November 04, 2016
Links - 4th November 2016
Animal Lovers League - ALL Authorized Page - Timeline - "The driver must have seen Sayang as the volunteer noticed the car slowing down. But the driver kept driving and accidentally or otherwise, hit Sayang. She kept on driving even when Sayang was under the carriage of the car. That was when the volunteer started chasing the car and it stopped. The volunteers told her she should have stopped and helped them with the injured dog. That was when the driver became upset and said "F.... you. It is only a dog," and drove off."
The comments are scary
Many people are upset about dogs being killed, but not other animals. Much less humans.
Woman CSI-ed out as owner of car that hit dog wasn’t the one driving car that hit dog at the time - "Animal lovers and keyboard warriors all around Singapore were p*** off at a woman who supposedly said “F*** you. It’s only a dog” after hitting a dog and driving off. The dog was being taken care of by the Animal Lovers League (ALL). Some even went to check the car’s registration plate and traced the name of the owner of the car. After the name of the car owner was splashed across the Internet, other Internet vigilantes pointed out that the car owner supposedly works for Huttons Asia, a real estate agency. This led to viral articles painting the car owner as the one who hit the dog, such as this article with over 4,000 shares. Swarms of one-star reviews hit Huttons Asia’s Facebook page shortly after. All this while, nobody stopped to wonder if someone else could have been driving the car at the time instead. The Animal Lovers League, after meeting with the management of Huttons Asia, said in a Facebook update that there were two police reports lodged in relation to this case. The first report was by the vehicle owner stating to the police that she was not the driver at the material time. The second report was lodged by another lady, admitting to being the driver of the said vehicle at the material time. They also shared that the driver who hit the dog “is not an agent or employee of Huttons.” It is not known whether Huttons Asia or the car owner is considering legal action against those who erroneously pinned blame."
This would be a good time to use the Protection from Harassment Act
Employer of owner of “it’s just a dog, f**k you” hit-and-run car investigates case, gets inundated with one-star ratings - "Huttons Asia is a real estate agency in Singapore, and it’s not having a good week at all. Since the words “It’s just a dog, f**k you” said by the woman who ran over a dog belonging to Animal Lovers’ League became immortalised online on Sunday, the fury of pretty much everyone was incited."
Friend: "Witch hunting: Singaporeans' top skill. I always believed that Singaporeans are a bunch of miserable people aiming to make other people's lives miserable too.
Comment on page: "I was told by Huttons staffs in Hougang that it was someone else driving the car at the time of the accident. And they said that her details is now out in the public just like that. This is the kind of world we live in now."
Comments on Facebook: "I don't see people going after drivers who've knocked down people with this kind of vengeance. Why don't people csi every hit and run case or RTA involving a human too?"
"Her life? No that would be too easy a way out for her."
"since the MRT keep breaking down, why don't y'all smart alecs go target government websites too? Bring them down, hunt them down and threaten them. You guys are bringing the reputation of a innocent company down, remember the bullies are you guys."
"this is like destroying an entire ant-hill with a blowtorch just become one ant fell into your soup."
"In times like these where people are losing jobs, keyboard warriors are making things worse."
"Here in sg, when given the opportunity, everyone is out for blood. Give them a reason and they will take the opportunity to finish you and everyone around you."
"The only good this has done is provide a list of horrible people you shouldn't be friends with."
"Singaporean's other favourite pass time when not gorging on food and posting foodpics online.....mob trolling the latest hate target online."
"you are ALL one bad day away from becoming this person"
"How does one square the online vitriol towards a human being with kindness towards animal?"
The Real Story of Sunil Tripathi, the Boston Bomber Who Wasn't - "Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi, which premiered in March at the Atlanta Film Festival, is as much a cautionary tale of how social media can influence the mainstream discourse--for better or for worse--as it is about a family's search for answers... "Sunil being reported in any way associated with the Boston bombing was inaccurate and unsourced and strictly a result of sort of a mass rumor coming through social media"
Maybe he killed himself because of the (mistaken) CSI-ing - something fans of it and the online dogpiling should take note of
Buying a halal microwave for the office - www.hardwarezone.com.sg - "The muslims in my office are asking for another halal microwave because they say they cant use the exisiting one as we use it to warm up pork stuff. Is it common in ur office? We are small office so wonder that is the norm in other offices. We have 4 muslims out of 20. Buddhists seem to be ok with warming up beef stuff though."
"Dbs got like that.. fridge also got halal"
"not only the price la... the space ocupied is more expensive"
"My work place every branch also have two microwaves, two toasters."
"ask them to split the cost then. also tell them, money also got touch by butchers who handles pork. ppl who eat pork stuff also touch money, since money also not halal, u guys use your not halal money and buy a microwave la. if they say, if they dont know their money not halal, then is not crime. then ask them to pretend the existing microwave use for halal food only."
"tell them buy their own microwave. the whole world need to accomdate to their religion issit. noone force them to be islam wo. is their choice. and you have to pay the consequence for the choices you make."
"Those that use halal microwave to heat non halal food like subway ish jin funny"
"one guy got angry because someone put up an order form for suckling pig (near CNY period) in the office"
"where will this stop? will we need segregated halal toilet? halal desk? halal aircon? my office vegetarian ok with using common oven, just saying..."
"so simple sell the microwave that you have can le. everyone dont have. fair liao."
"Ask them buy themselves lah. You buy microwave, next month say buy halal fridge"
"hawker center tables got touch pork stuff b4. they cannot touch also"
"liddat can rop excuse from biz related subjects cause all got interest rate and interest is haram."
"actually if got space to put, they can pool $$ to buy wat coz they wanted it"
"They could seal their food in a Ziploc if they are so concerned. I dun see a need to waste extra money to buy two. Lky was right"
Rising trend of halal labelling generates concern - "The paint tin has a silhouette of a mosque on the label, while the paint company's brochure has the face of a pig crossed out... Bernahal says the chemicals in its paints are free from lard, which is considered unclean in Islam... In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, there are many other items touted as halal, such as a computer mouse, headscarves and even shirt buttons. In Malaysia, there are discussions whether to introduce halal supermarket trolleys that cannot be used by buyers of pork. There is also a recently launched halal Internet browser and halal household detergents... HALAL CAT FOOD: Pets do not have a religion, but just in case their Muslim owners want their furry friends to follow the same dietary restrictions... HALAL PLASTIC BAGS, DETERGENTS, FACIAL CLEANSERS: Manufacturers now churn these out, with guarantees of no pork or alcohol content in these products... HALAL HEADSCARVES: Indonesian brand Zoya received flak on social media for claiming its fabrics use only plant- based emulsifiers, not pig gelatin... "People ask for a halal toilet bowl because it comes into contact with humans. Same for plastic bags and packaging that have contact with food"... Lumin Spring International Group produces mineral water that has the Jakim halal logo. "If we tell buyers that our water is Malaysian halal-certified, it sells better"... commercial uses of the label have spurred a group of auditors, including Muslim Singaporeans, to form a new association to help governments certify manufacturers using halal guidelines and standard practices. The International Association of Halal Auditors [aims] to quash "halal extremism" and set the record straight on what is "genuinely halal and good", Mr Imran told The Straits Times. "Having unnecessarily stricter rules towards halal will lead to halal extremism. Who would have thought of halal paint, halal tudung and halal condoms?" he said. "Halal extremism is slowly creeping in as some clerics impart their own judgment, hence making halal more stringent"... Some go beyond what the religion requires, in what is described by Mr Asri as being "halal crazy"... Kopi luwak is halal in Singapore. But it is haram - not permissible for Muslim consumption - in Malaysia."
How To Report Spam From GMail Account - "if it is really from GMail then report it here. Note: While it may look like the form above should used to submit phishing emails only, the header says - “I would like to report a Gmail user who has sent messages that violate the Gmail Program Policies and/or Terms of Use.”, which is appropriate for reporting spam."
Are variations in gender equality evident in pornography? A cross-cultural study - "An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypothesis that – consistent with their GEM ranking – popular Norwegian pornography would depict women in more empowered positions than pornography from the United States and Japan. Results supported this hypothesis. This finding could be attributed to the wider variety in Norwegian pornography, e.g. greater variation in the women's age, weight, and body positioning. There were no significant differences in the extent models in the three countries appeared in demeaning positions."
Keywords: aggressive, Japanese, confidence, posture, Swedish, actresses
IT leaders pick productivity over security - "When asked in the Barkly study what the biggest issues around implementing effective security procedures are, 41 percent said they slow down the system, 33 percent said they're too expensive, 36 percent cited too many updates and 20 percent said that security "requires too much headcount to manage." IT leaders are being forced to choose between strong security and productivity, and most companies are sticking to the latter, according to the data from Barkly. Ultimately, these solutions aren't stopping breaches, as the study points out, and the effects are simply slowing down day-to-day business."
台湾为什么不推广简体字，而是仍然使用繁体字？ - 简繁比较 - 知乎 - "我在台湾还没有遇到过把“繁体字”称为“正体字”、把“简体字”称为“残体字”的人"
Iceland's women leave work at 2.38pm to protest gender pay gap - "Thousands of female employees across Iceland walked out of workplaces at 2.38pm on Monday to protest against earning less than men. Iceland is the best country in the world for gender equality, yet women still earn on average 14 to 18 per cent less than their male colleagues."
Maybe Iceland's women are paid 14% less than men because they do things like leaving work early. Though actually, in Iceland women work 37 hours a week vs men's 47. So if anything the gender pay gap is too low and should be 21%
Pocket 3.0.6 download for those who want the extension back : firefox: - "it's not signed by Mozilla so here's a version that is: https://mega.nz/#!T5RjHZyb!yXz5Wj-x7lWdRKbcCaMQ0_lZfpI828spmIm_sOEX5Ng"
In My Pocket :: Add-ons for Firefox: - "For all those who are missing the old Firefox Pocket addon, here is an unofficial client for the excellent Pocket service. Enjoy!"
WebCite - "Authors increasingly cite webpages and other digital objects on the Internet, which can "disappear" overnight. In one study published in the journal Science, 13% of Internet references in scholarly articles were inactive after only 27 months. Another problem is that cited webpages may change, so that readers see something different than what the citing author saw. The problem of unstable webcitations and the lack of routine digital preservation of cited digital objects has been referred to as an issue "calling for an immediate response" by publishers and authors. An increasing number of editors and publishers ask that authors, when they cite a webpage, make a local copy of the cited webpage/webmaterial, and archive the cited URL in a system like WebCite®, to enable readers permanent access to the cited material."
Tennis: Kuznetsova cuts her own hair to beat Radwanska - "Spectators at Singapore's Indoor Stadium looked on in stunned disbelief when the Russian gave herself an impromptu haircut early in the deciding third set, asking the umpire to get her a large of pair scissors before proceeding to chop off the end of her ponytail and tossing the loose strands onto her seat. "It was bothering me a lot. I was trying to put it behind my headband, but my hair is very thick and heavy," Kuznetsova explained... "Good thing she didn't cut her anything else. I think hair is not very important"... Kuznetsova reeled off the last three games to register one of the bravest wins of her career."
This guy's resignation letter got rewritten by his manager, who praised the company and himself
Fussy-eating toddlers 'not the fault of parents' - "Two-year-old Alice does not like meat and only eats broccoli with ketchup, but scientists researching toddlers' eating habits do not blame her parents. Instead, her fussy food preferences are - largely - down to who she is and the genes she has inherited. They play a key role in her willingness to eat, or even try, new foods. But parents are not completely off the hook - children's behaviour can be changed"
Denying sex to husband for long period ground for divorce: Delhi High Court - "Denying sex to husband for a long time without any justification amounts to mental cruelty and is a ground for divorce, Delhi High Court has said. The verdict came on a petition by a husband seeking divorce, complaining that his wife had subjected him to mental cruelty by not allowing him to have physical relations for four-and-a-half-years though she was not suffering from any physical disability... The man claimed that he and his family members were subjected to mental cruelty by his wife as she was not doing household work"
Psst: Here Are The WiFi Passwords For Airports Across The World
Prime Minister John Key pulled waitress' ponytail - "Prime Minister John Key has dismissed his hair-pulling pranks as "a bit of banter", saying he apologised to an Auckland waitress when it became clear his approaches were unwanted. The waitress made the claims that Key repeatedly tugged on her ponytail in an anonymous blog post... The claims follow a Campbell Live segment last year where Key, as part of a wider political leaders story, was filmed touching the ponytail of a young girl at the Matakana market, north of Auckland. Key's ponytail pulling was reported around the world"
The comments are scary
Many people are upset about dogs being killed, but not other animals. Much less humans.
Woman CSI-ed out as owner of car that hit dog wasn’t the one driving car that hit dog at the time - "Animal lovers and keyboard warriors all around Singapore were p*** off at a woman who supposedly said “F*** you. It’s only a dog” after hitting a dog and driving off. The dog was being taken care of by the Animal Lovers League (ALL). Some even went to check the car’s registration plate and traced the name of the owner of the car. After the name of the car owner was splashed across the Internet, other Internet vigilantes pointed out that the car owner supposedly works for Huttons Asia, a real estate agency. This led to viral articles painting the car owner as the one who hit the dog, such as this article with over 4,000 shares. Swarms of one-star reviews hit Huttons Asia’s Facebook page shortly after. All this while, nobody stopped to wonder if someone else could have been driving the car at the time instead. The Animal Lovers League, after meeting with the management of Huttons Asia, said in a Facebook update that there were two police reports lodged in relation to this case. The first report was by the vehicle owner stating to the police that she was not the driver at the material time. The second report was lodged by another lady, admitting to being the driver of the said vehicle at the material time. They also shared that the driver who hit the dog “is not an agent or employee of Huttons.” It is not known whether Huttons Asia or the car owner is considering legal action against those who erroneously pinned blame."
This would be a good time to use the Protection from Harassment Act
Employer of owner of “it’s just a dog, f**k you” hit-and-run car investigates case, gets inundated with one-star ratings - "Huttons Asia is a real estate agency in Singapore, and it’s not having a good week at all. Since the words “It’s just a dog, f**k you” said by the woman who ran over a dog belonging to Animal Lovers’ League became immortalised online on Sunday, the fury of pretty much everyone was incited."
Friend: "Witch hunting: Singaporeans' top skill. I always believed that Singaporeans are a bunch of miserable people aiming to make other people's lives miserable too.
Comment on page: "I was told by Huttons staffs in Hougang that it was someone else driving the car at the time of the accident. And they said that her details is now out in the public just like that. This is the kind of world we live in now."
Comments on Facebook: "I don't see people going after drivers who've knocked down people with this kind of vengeance. Why don't people csi every hit and run case or RTA involving a human too?"
"Her life? No that would be too easy a way out for her."
"since the MRT keep breaking down, why don't y'all smart alecs go target government websites too? Bring them down, hunt them down and threaten them. You guys are bringing the reputation of a innocent company down, remember the bullies are you guys."
"this is like destroying an entire ant-hill with a blowtorch just become one ant fell into your soup."
"In times like these where people are losing jobs, keyboard warriors are making things worse."
"Here in sg, when given the opportunity, everyone is out for blood. Give them a reason and they will take the opportunity to finish you and everyone around you."
"The only good this has done is provide a list of horrible people you shouldn't be friends with."
"Singaporean's other favourite pass time when not gorging on food and posting foodpics online.....mob trolling the latest hate target online."
"you are ALL one bad day away from becoming this person"
"How does one square the online vitriol towards a human being with kindness towards animal?"
The Real Story of Sunil Tripathi, the Boston Bomber Who Wasn't - "Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi, which premiered in March at the Atlanta Film Festival, is as much a cautionary tale of how social media can influence the mainstream discourse--for better or for worse--as it is about a family's search for answers... "Sunil being reported in any way associated with the Boston bombing was inaccurate and unsourced and strictly a result of sort of a mass rumor coming through social media"
Maybe he killed himself because of the (mistaken) CSI-ing - something fans of it and the online dogpiling should take note of
Buying a halal microwave for the office - www.hardwarezone.com.sg - "The muslims in my office are asking for another halal microwave because they say they cant use the exisiting one as we use it to warm up pork stuff. Is it common in ur office? We are small office so wonder that is the norm in other offices. We have 4 muslims out of 20. Buddhists seem to be ok with warming up beef stuff though."
"Dbs got like that.. fridge also got halal"
"not only the price la... the space ocupied is more expensive"
"My work place every branch also have two microwaves, two toasters."
"ask them to split the cost then. also tell them, money also got touch by butchers who handles pork. ppl who eat pork stuff also touch money, since money also not halal, u guys use your not halal money and buy a microwave la. if they say, if they dont know their money not halal, then is not crime. then ask them to pretend the existing microwave use for halal food only."
"tell them buy their own microwave. the whole world need to accomdate to their religion issit. noone force them to be islam wo. is their choice. and you have to pay the consequence for the choices you make."
"Those that use halal microwave to heat non halal food like subway ish jin funny"
"one guy got angry because someone put up an order form for suckling pig (near CNY period) in the office"
"where will this stop? will we need segregated halal toilet? halal desk? halal aircon? my office vegetarian ok with using common oven, just saying..."
"so simple sell the microwave that you have can le. everyone dont have. fair liao."
"Ask them buy themselves lah. You buy microwave, next month say buy halal fridge"
"hawker center tables got touch pork stuff b4. they cannot touch also"
"liddat can rop excuse from biz related subjects cause all got interest rate and interest is haram."
"actually if got space to put, they can pool $$ to buy wat coz they wanted it"
"They could seal their food in a Ziploc if they are so concerned. I dun see a need to waste extra money to buy two. Lky was right"
Rising trend of halal labelling generates concern - "The paint tin has a silhouette of a mosque on the label, while the paint company's brochure has the face of a pig crossed out... Bernahal says the chemicals in its paints are free from lard, which is considered unclean in Islam... In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, there are many other items touted as halal, such as a computer mouse, headscarves and even shirt buttons. In Malaysia, there are discussions whether to introduce halal supermarket trolleys that cannot be used by buyers of pork. There is also a recently launched halal Internet browser and halal household detergents... HALAL CAT FOOD: Pets do not have a religion, but just in case their Muslim owners want their furry friends to follow the same dietary restrictions... HALAL PLASTIC BAGS, DETERGENTS, FACIAL CLEANSERS: Manufacturers now churn these out, with guarantees of no pork or alcohol content in these products... HALAL HEADSCARVES: Indonesian brand Zoya received flak on social media for claiming its fabrics use only plant- based emulsifiers, not pig gelatin... "People ask for a halal toilet bowl because it comes into contact with humans. Same for plastic bags and packaging that have contact with food"... Lumin Spring International Group produces mineral water that has the Jakim halal logo. "If we tell buyers that our water is Malaysian halal-certified, it sells better"... commercial uses of the label have spurred a group of auditors, including Muslim Singaporeans, to form a new association to help governments certify manufacturers using halal guidelines and standard practices. The International Association of Halal Auditors [aims] to quash "halal extremism" and set the record straight on what is "genuinely halal and good", Mr Imran told The Straits Times. "Having unnecessarily stricter rules towards halal will lead to halal extremism. Who would have thought of halal paint, halal tudung and halal condoms?" he said. "Halal extremism is slowly creeping in as some clerics impart their own judgment, hence making halal more stringent"... Some go beyond what the religion requires, in what is described by Mr Asri as being "halal crazy"... Kopi luwak is halal in Singapore. But it is haram - not permissible for Muslim consumption - in Malaysia."
How To Report Spam From GMail Account - "if it is really from GMail then report it here. Note: While it may look like the form above should used to submit phishing emails only, the header says - “I would like to report a Gmail user who has sent messages that violate the Gmail Program Policies and/or Terms of Use.”, which is appropriate for reporting spam."
Are variations in gender equality evident in pornography? A cross-cultural study - "An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypothesis that – consistent with their GEM ranking – popular Norwegian pornography would depict women in more empowered positions than pornography from the United States and Japan. Results supported this hypothesis. This finding could be attributed to the wider variety in Norwegian pornography, e.g. greater variation in the women's age, weight, and body positioning. There were no significant differences in the extent models in the three countries appeared in demeaning positions."
Keywords: aggressive, Japanese, confidence, posture, Swedish, actresses
IT leaders pick productivity over security - "When asked in the Barkly study what the biggest issues around implementing effective security procedures are, 41 percent said they slow down the system, 33 percent said they're too expensive, 36 percent cited too many updates and 20 percent said that security "requires too much headcount to manage." IT leaders are being forced to choose between strong security and productivity, and most companies are sticking to the latter, according to the data from Barkly. Ultimately, these solutions aren't stopping breaches, as the study points out, and the effects are simply slowing down day-to-day business."
台湾为什么不推广简体字，而是仍然使用繁体字？ - 简繁比较 - 知乎 - "我在台湾还没有遇到过把“繁体字”称为“正体字”、把“简体字”称为“残体字”的人"
Iceland's women leave work at 2.38pm to protest gender pay gap - "Thousands of female employees across Iceland walked out of workplaces at 2.38pm on Monday to protest against earning less than men. Iceland is the best country in the world for gender equality, yet women still earn on average 14 to 18 per cent less than their male colleagues."
Maybe Iceland's women are paid 14% less than men because they do things like leaving work early. Though actually, in Iceland women work 37 hours a week vs men's 47. So if anything the gender pay gap is too low and should be 21%
Pocket 3.0.6 download for those who want the extension back : firefox: - "it's not signed by Mozilla so here's a version that is: https://mega.nz/#!T5RjHZyb!yXz5Wj-x7lWdRKbcCaMQ0_lZfpI828spmIm_sOEX5Ng"
In My Pocket :: Add-ons for Firefox: - "For all those who are missing the old Firefox Pocket addon, here is an unofficial client for the excellent Pocket service. Enjoy!"
WebCite - "Authors increasingly cite webpages and other digital objects on the Internet, which can "disappear" overnight. In one study published in the journal Science, 13% of Internet references in scholarly articles were inactive after only 27 months. Another problem is that cited webpages may change, so that readers see something different than what the citing author saw. The problem of unstable webcitations and the lack of routine digital preservation of cited digital objects has been referred to as an issue "calling for an immediate response" by publishers and authors. An increasing number of editors and publishers ask that authors, when they cite a webpage, make a local copy of the cited webpage/webmaterial, and archive the cited URL in a system like WebCite®, to enable readers permanent access to the cited material."
Tennis: Kuznetsova cuts her own hair to beat Radwanska - "Spectators at Singapore's Indoor Stadium looked on in stunned disbelief when the Russian gave herself an impromptu haircut early in the deciding third set, asking the umpire to get her a large of pair scissors before proceeding to chop off the end of her ponytail and tossing the loose strands onto her seat. "It was bothering me a lot. I was trying to put it behind my headband, but my hair is very thick and heavy," Kuznetsova explained... "Good thing she didn't cut her anything else. I think hair is not very important"... Kuznetsova reeled off the last three games to register one of the bravest wins of her career."
This guy's resignation letter got rewritten by his manager, who praised the company and himself
Fussy-eating toddlers 'not the fault of parents' - "Two-year-old Alice does not like meat and only eats broccoli with ketchup, but scientists researching toddlers' eating habits do not blame her parents. Instead, her fussy food preferences are - largely - down to who she is and the genes she has inherited. They play a key role in her willingness to eat, or even try, new foods. But parents are not completely off the hook - children's behaviour can be changed"
Denying sex to husband for long period ground for divorce: Delhi High Court - "Denying sex to husband for a long time without any justification amounts to mental cruelty and is a ground for divorce, Delhi High Court has said. The verdict came on a petition by a husband seeking divorce, complaining that his wife had subjected him to mental cruelty by not allowing him to have physical relations for four-and-a-half-years though she was not suffering from any physical disability... The man claimed that he and his family members were subjected to mental cruelty by his wife as she was not doing household work"
Psst: Here Are The WiFi Passwords For Airports Across The World
Prime Minister John Key pulled waitress' ponytail - "Prime Minister John Key has dismissed his hair-pulling pranks as "a bit of banter", saying he apologised to an Auckland waitress when it became clear his approaches were unwanted. The waitress made the claims that Key repeatedly tugged on her ponytail in an anonymous blog post... The claims follow a Campbell Live segment last year where Key, as part of a wider political leaders story, was filmed touching the ponytail of a young girl at the Matakana market, north of Auckland. Key's ponytail pulling was reported around the world"
Post ID: 779035390310634734
Wallace on Durian
"The Durian grows on a large and lofty forest tree, somewhat resembling an elm in its general character, but with a more smooth and scaly bark. The fruit is round or slightly oval, about the size of a large cocoanut, of a green colour, and covered all over with short stout spines, the bases of which touch each other, and are consequently somewhat hexagonal, while the points are very strong and sharp. It is so completely armed, that if the stalk is broken off it is a difficult matter to lift one from the ground. The outer rind is so thick and tough, that from whatever height it may fall, it is never broken. From the base to the apex five very faint lines may be traced, over which the spines arch a little; these are the sutures of the carpels, and show where the fruit may be divided with a heavy knife and a strong hand. The five cells are satiny white within, and are each filled with an oval mass of cream-coloured pulp, imbedded in which are two or three seeds about the size of chestnuts. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich butter-like custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but intermingled with it comes wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown sherry, and other incongruities Then there isa rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid, nor sweet, nor juicy, yet one feels the want of none of these qualities, for it is perfect as it is. It produces no nausea, or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it, the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact to eat durians is a new sensation, worth a voyage to the east to experience.
When the fruit is ripe it falls of itself, and the only way to eat Durians to perfection is to get them as they fall; and the smell is then less overpowering. When unripe, it makes a very good vegetable if cooked, and it is also eaten by the Dyaks raw. In a good fruit season large quantities are preserved salted, in jars and bamboos, and kept the year round, when it acquires a most disgusting odour to Europeans, but the Dyaks appreciate it highly as a relish with their rice. There are in the forest two varieties of wild Durians with much smaller fruits, one of them orange-coloured inside; and these are probably the origin of the large and fine Durians, which are never found wild. It would not, perhaps, be correct to say that the Durian is the best of all fruits, because it cannot supply the place of the subacid juicy kinds, such as the orange, grape, mango, and mangosteen, whose refreshing and cooling qualities are so wholesome and grateful; but as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour, it is unsurpassed. If I had to fix on two only, as representing the perfection of the two classes, I should certainly choose the Durian and the Orange as king and queen of fruits.
The Durian is, however, sometimes dangerous. When the fruit begins to ripen it falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not unfrequently happen to persons walking or working under the trees. When a Durian strikes a man in its fall, it produces a dreadful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while the blow itself is very heavy; but from this very circumstance death rarely ensues, the copious effusion of blood preventing the inflammation which might otherwise take place. A Dyak chief informed me that he had been struck down by a Durian falling on his head, which he thought would certainly have caused his death, yet he recovered in a very short time.
Poets and moralists, judging from our English trees and fruits, have thought that small fruits always grew on lofty trees, so that their fall should be harmless to man, while the large ones trailed on the ground. Two of the largest and heaviest fruits known, however, the Brazil-nut fruit (Bertholletia) and Durian, grow on lofty forest trees, from which they fall as soon as they are ripe, and often wound or kill the native inhabitants. From this we may learn two things: first, not to draw general conclusions from a very partial view of nature; and secondly, that trees and fruits, no less than the varied productions of the animal kingdom, do not appear to be organized with exclusive reference to the use and convenience of man."
--- The Malay Archipelago / Alfred Russel Wallace
When the fruit is ripe it falls of itself, and the only way to eat Durians to perfection is to get them as they fall; and the smell is then less overpowering. When unripe, it makes a very good vegetable if cooked, and it is also eaten by the Dyaks raw. In a good fruit season large quantities are preserved salted, in jars and bamboos, and kept the year round, when it acquires a most disgusting odour to Europeans, but the Dyaks appreciate it highly as a relish with their rice. There are in the forest two varieties of wild Durians with much smaller fruits, one of them orange-coloured inside; and these are probably the origin of the large and fine Durians, which are never found wild. It would not, perhaps, be correct to say that the Durian is the best of all fruits, because it cannot supply the place of the subacid juicy kinds, such as the orange, grape, mango, and mangosteen, whose refreshing and cooling qualities are so wholesome and grateful; but as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour, it is unsurpassed. If I had to fix on two only, as representing the perfection of the two classes, I should certainly choose the Durian and the Orange as king and queen of fruits.
The Durian is, however, sometimes dangerous. When the fruit begins to ripen it falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not unfrequently happen to persons walking or working under the trees. When a Durian strikes a man in its fall, it produces a dreadful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while the blow itself is very heavy; but from this very circumstance death rarely ensues, the copious effusion of blood preventing the inflammation which might otherwise take place. A Dyak chief informed me that he had been struck down by a Durian falling on his head, which he thought would certainly have caused his death, yet he recovered in a very short time.
Poets and moralists, judging from our English trees and fruits, have thought that small fruits always grew on lofty trees, so that their fall should be harmless to man, while the large ones trailed on the ground. Two of the largest and heaviest fruits known, however, the Brazil-nut fruit (Bertholletia) and Durian, grow on lofty forest trees, from which they fall as soon as they are ripe, and often wound or kill the native inhabitants. From this we may learn two things: first, not to draw general conclusions from a very partial view of nature; and secondly, that trees and fruits, no less than the varied productions of the animal kingdom, do not appear to be organized with exclusive reference to the use and convenience of man."
--- The Malay Archipelago / Alfred Russel Wallace
Post ID: 234300644044832033
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Links - 3rd November 2016
That Male Birth Control Trial You're All Laughing About Left People Infertile - "Commentators lined up to mock weak-willed men for bailing on a trial thanks to what women put up with every day taking the Pill... Reporters covering this – many of whom likely did not trouble themselves with actually reading the study, which is available here – neglected to mention that some of the consequences were actually quite serious. Of the 320 participants, one guy was rendered infertile by the treatment – four years after finishing the injections he had not recovered a normal sperm count. A total of eight men (2.5% of the study) were not back to “normal sperm counts” a year after they stopped the shots (page 4 of linked study)."
The Straits Times - Timeline - "Cold Storage apologises for 'insensitive' beef promotion during Deepavali"
Comments: "I am a Hindu and I fail to understand exactly why this is a big deal. I am not going to purchase the beef anyway so the signage doesn't even bother me. Time to grow a thicker skin."
"Aiyaaa no need to be too sensitive la. Why must deepavali "discounts" be only for hindu related or deepavali related items ?!?! I enjoy good shopping during CNY sales, Xmas sales, Hari Raya Sales ! No need to be too sensitive, i am a Hindu and i don't find this insensitive or offensive at all !!
Kaliperumal Sundaram: "Even pork are given discount rate during Deepavali, I would take it as positive. Thinking that items are given in discount rate to non-Hindus during Deepavali period. They also can buy and enjoy the holiday."
"Just like Leena, I am a Hindu and I don't think it's really a big issue. Cold Storage has explained that it's an oversight. Let's move on please."
"Why is this offensive! Hinduism doesn't force you not to indulge in beef. There are many ways to reach God! In Tamil 'Kadavul' means look within. God is within you! Nothing offensive."
Ummaira Mohd Razid: "What if hari raya promotion they state pork? Of course the muslims won't buy it. It's a promotion on a festive season for the non muslims to buy. In this case beef cannot ? The ones buying are non hindus...im just saying. Peace no war"
"Too hard to believe we have not come out of it....Deepavali promotion for non-Hindus to enjoy the festive along with us....NO WORRIES."
Obama: Hillary What's Wrong With Politics - "President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton Thursday afternoon, saying “she’s got the courage, the compassion, and the heart to get the job done.” But that’s not what he was saying in 2008 when the two were competing for the Democratic nomination. In a January 2008 debate, then-Senator Obama accused Clinton of being “willing to say anything to get elected.” He repeated the charge in a radio ad that same month, in which he attacked Clinton as “what’s wrong with politics” and claimed she “will say anything to get elected.”"
16 female MPs don saris for Tamil Murasu Deepavali special - "16 female members of Parliament (MPs) ditched their regular power suits and outfits for colourful Indian saris last Friday (Oct 21), for a Tamil Murasu photoshoot ahead of Deepavali on Saturday, Oct 29."
Cultural Appropriation!
This Greenpeace Stunt May Have Irreparably Damaged Peru's Nazca Site - "The ground around the site is so sensitive and so sacred that Peru has even forbidden presidents and top officials to walk where the Greenpeace activists went. Peru's Deputy Culture Minister told the BBC: "They are absolutely fragile. They are black rocks on a white background. You walk there, and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years. And the line that they have destroyed is the most visible and most recognized of all.""
Why Did WikiLeaks Help Dox Most of Turkey’s Women? - "Whatever else you might say about WikiLeaks, it’s hard to think of an institution that squanders goodwill more efficiently. Even the people most sympathetic to its aims and ideals have had a hard time defending it recently. Just over the last couple of weeks, whoever ran its Twitter account posted tweets that are either anti-Semitic or deeply weird (the fact that WikiLeaks founder and head Julian Assange ranted about Jewish reporters to a British journalist in 2011 certainly makes it harder to view the posts in a charitable light). Then it was revealed that some of the Democratic National Committee documents it leaked last week — timed intentionally to do maximum damage to Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances, according to Assange — contained personal information, including credit card and Social Security numbers, of DNC donors."
Family Sends Pizza Deliveryman to Check on Grandma After Hurricane - ""I was calling the police department, I was calling the sheriff's department, and no one was answering, so I was really worried." On Sunday, when he still wasn't able to reach her, he decided to get creative. "So I just said, 'I'm going to order her a pizza, and if they can deliver it, then I know she's alive,'" Eric Olsen said... "Police and fire couldn't do it, but Papa John's got there in 30 minutes and put the cellphone to her ear," he joked. He said he got the idea to order the pizza spontaneously. "I was just thinking, 'Who can go there right now? Who can I call in a city where I know no one?'""
People respond to incentives
Judith Gabrielle's answer to How do people with IQs of 140-200 think? - Quora - "When I ask a question, I receive condescension from my peers, and literally watch them gloat over them “knowing something” I don't. When I have an answer, it is weighed less than anyone else's. When I have a suggestion, it is resisted always until or unless circumstances obviate its acquirement. When I need an item in stock, my asking creates resentment….even to people standing around when I'm working. They discuss their personal lives, and don't ask about mine. They make post-work plans and never include me…not once. They ask each other questions that they know I can fully answer just so they don't have to hear me give another explanation. The owner has told me I shouldn't work there. He asked me what else I could do for a job while on parole in which I may use my mind. Everyone else's jokes are funny to him, mine are not... I see hopelessness everywhere. I see people clinging so violently to a hope (either an opinion or an idea) which brings their life into relevance, that even broaching another possibility is perceived as an attempt to invalidate their entire worth as a human being. I see totalitarianism everywhere. I see people so wildly bent upon demanding others accept and even celebrate whatever they do in the name of tolerance, that even only tolerating it is seen as bigoted hatred worthy of being intolerant towards... Socially….exceedingly lonely and have been my entire life. Virtually always misunderstood, virtually always see through the façade I'm presented with from someone else….and virtually always borne out as correct over time."
Miriam Cooke - Canary Mission - "Cooke was a signatory to a 2002 open letter suggesting that Israel would use the war in Iraq to engage in “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. No retractions were ever issued for the letter after its claims failed to materialize. Cooke has reportedly whitewashed Palestinian female suicide bombing attacks targeting Israelis, saying: “For those of us who really are concerned with women’s role in the Arab public square, in the way in which women have been trying to empower themselves vis-à-vis the U.S., vis-à-vis old colonial powers, vis-à-vis their own men, the situation has become so desperate that now women’s participation in war is a mark of absolute hopelessness.” This line of reasoning runs counter to that of other professors, like Rabab Abdulhadi of San Francisco State University (SFSU) who lionize Palestinian women’s involvement in terrorist violence. Abdulhadi and others routinely praise female terrorists such as international hijacker Leila Khaled as an “icon in liberation movements and…an icon for women’s liberation.” According to a Middle East forum report, Cooke wrote that “complicated relations” between Muslim men and women are solely the result of the “colonial experience.” On the other hand, Cooke has also defended polygamy in the Muslim world... Cooke posited that addressing the suppression of women by Muslim men, in particular, was the key to terminating the mad drive for Empire and ushering in world peace. Along the way, she blamed the establishment of the state of Israel as a root cause of Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: “9-11 has a long history going back through the Gulf War to the establishment of Israel in 1948.”"
Sexist Peer Reviewer Suggests Study Needs Male Authors - "“It would probably also be beneficial to find one or two male biologists to work with (or at least obtain internal peer review from, but better yet as active co-authors), in order to serve as a possible check against interpretations that may sometimes be drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically biased assumptions,” the anonymous reviewer wrote... The paper detailed findings on the scientists’ examination of gender differences in the transition from Ph.D. to postdoc in the field of life sciences... Rather than gender bias, the reviewer suggests an alternative interpretation: “It could perhaps be the case that 99% of female scientists make a decision in mid-life that spending more time with their children is more important to them than doing everything imaginable to try to get one of the rare positions at the utter pinnacle of their field.” The reviewer, whose gender is unknown, goes on to add that the differences could be attributable to differences in physiology and stamina between men and women which could explain why men, on average, work 15 minutes longer each week"
Yet, when there are not enough women, we are told that we need women for "diversity of thought and experience", you can't have a so-called all male panel which considers the gender gay gap (even though there is a female member and many female associate members), and you can't hold an all male women's rights conference. And feminists lament that the burden of childcare falls disproportionately on women (i.e. that women spend more time with their children and so can't do everything imaginable to try to get one of the rare positions at the utter pinnacle of their field
PLOS ONE ousts reviewer, editor after sexist peer-review storm
How can you give a paper an honest peer review if you're afraid you'll be ousted?
Addendum: When there are no females, the research is slammed as being sexist
When there are no males and it is suggested that a male be gotten, that suggestion is slammed as being sexist
It's time to consider a curfew for men - "Think of it as a mass grounding for men. After a designated period of time, we’ll allow them back on the streets after dark to see how it goes. If the sexual assaults and harassment continue, well, it’s back to the curfew."
"Not all feminists" huh
Phantom Carbohydrates – A Nutrition Mystery - "When a food contains fewer than 5 calories per serving, the manufacturer is allowed to “round down” to 0 on the Nutrition Facts label"
Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist - "estimates put the number of Muslims in the country at around 1% of the population, compared with 4.5% in Britain and 5% in Germany. Moreover, American Islam is not dominated by a single sect or ethnicity. When the Pew Research Centre last tried to count, in 2011, it found Muslims from 77 countries in America. Most western European countries, by contrast, have one or two dominant groups—Algerians in France, Moroccans and Turks in Holland. This matters because the jumble of groups in America makes it harder for Muslim immigrants and their descendants to lead a life apart. Different traditions get squashed together... America’s Muslims are better off than their European co-religionists. They are almost as likely as other Americans to report a household income of $100,000 or more. The same cannot be said of the Pakistanis who came to work in the now-defunct textile mills of northern England or the Turks who became guest workers in West Germany"
The Bedouin Billionaire for Muslim Integration - WSJ - "Mr. Altrad’s biggest challenge wasn’t academic or professional success—that would come easily—but learning to integrate himself. “When you are born in Syria,” he recalls, “you grow with ideas which are not necessarily correct. For example, they educate you that you have to kill Jews wherever you find them. When I came to France I came with this idea.” But then he found himself learning alongside Jewish students at university, “and we became friends”... His thinking about assimilation sounds harsh. But it would be familiar to the immigrants who came to the U.S. at the height of America’s open-borders policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."
Tumblr Originals: shows original posts and hides reblogs for any given tumblr blog. - "This tool will show only original posts and hide all reblogs for any given tumblr blog. Awesome."
Boba Fett Was Supposed to Be a Bigger Bad Than Darth Vader
Van driver Christopher Gard with eight convictions for using phone at wheel killed cyclist Lee Martin while texting - six weeks after judge let him keep licence
Marvel Pulls Variant Cover For Sexualizing Invincible Iron Man's New 15-Year-Old Hero
If you try to please SJWs, they will just turn on you. What's so sexualised about the Iron Man cover?! And isn't this how teenagers dress?!
And considering real 15 year black girls are also curvy - and some have even bigger breasts...
Comments: "people are so worked up by the body type/costumes of said teen superheroes, but are okay with the notion of them being sent out to potentially die fighting supervillains. It just seems messed up all around."
"I showed this image to my girlfriend who is not particularly comic book savvy... when I told her the character was 15 and the image was pulled from use because the character is thought to be oversexualized, she laughed. “Looks like what most 15 year old girls wear.” was her comment. I had to agree."
The Future (Probably) Isn’t as Scary as You Think - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "when Kasparov lost, there were several things that went through people’s minds. One is: well that’s the end of chess. It’s like, who’s going to play competitively because computers are always going to win? And that didn’t happen. In a funny kind of way, playing against computers actually increased the extent to which chess became popular. And, on average, the best players became better playing against the artificial minds. And then finally, Kasparov, who lost, realized at the time, that — he said, “you know, it’s kind of unfair because if I had access to the same database that Deep Blue had of every single chess move ever, I could have won”... the best chess player on this planet is not an AI. And it’s not a human. It’s the team that he calls centaurs; it’s the team of humans and AI. Because they’re complementary. Because AIs think differently than humans. And the same of the world’s best medical diagnostician is not Watson, it’s not a human doctor. It’s the team of Watson plus doctor"
The Straits Times - Timeline - "Cold Storage apologises for 'insensitive' beef promotion during Deepavali"
Comments: "I am a Hindu and I fail to understand exactly why this is a big deal. I am not going to purchase the beef anyway so the signage doesn't even bother me. Time to grow a thicker skin."
"Aiyaaa no need to be too sensitive la. Why must deepavali "discounts" be only for hindu related or deepavali related items ?!?! I enjoy good shopping during CNY sales, Xmas sales, Hari Raya Sales ! No need to be too sensitive, i am a Hindu and i don't find this insensitive or offensive at all !!
Kaliperumal Sundaram: "Even pork are given discount rate during Deepavali, I would take it as positive. Thinking that items are given in discount rate to non-Hindus during Deepavali period. They also can buy and enjoy the holiday."
"Just like Leena, I am a Hindu and I don't think it's really a big issue. Cold Storage has explained that it's an oversight. Let's move on please."
"Why is this offensive! Hinduism doesn't force you not to indulge in beef. There are many ways to reach God! In Tamil 'Kadavul' means look within. God is within you! Nothing offensive."
Ummaira Mohd Razid: "What if hari raya promotion they state pork? Of course the muslims won't buy it. It's a promotion on a festive season for the non muslims to buy. In this case beef cannot ? The ones buying are non hindus...im just saying. Peace no war"
"Too hard to believe we have not come out of it....Deepavali promotion for non-Hindus to enjoy the festive along with us....NO WORRIES."
Obama: Hillary What's Wrong With Politics - "President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton Thursday afternoon, saying “she’s got the courage, the compassion, and the heart to get the job done.” But that’s not what he was saying in 2008 when the two were competing for the Democratic nomination. In a January 2008 debate, then-Senator Obama accused Clinton of being “willing to say anything to get elected.” He repeated the charge in a radio ad that same month, in which he attacked Clinton as “what’s wrong with politics” and claimed she “will say anything to get elected.”"
16 female MPs don saris for Tamil Murasu Deepavali special - "16 female members of Parliament (MPs) ditched their regular power suits and outfits for colourful Indian saris last Friday (Oct 21), for a Tamil Murasu photoshoot ahead of Deepavali on Saturday, Oct 29."
Cultural Appropriation!
This Greenpeace Stunt May Have Irreparably Damaged Peru's Nazca Site - "The ground around the site is so sensitive and so sacred that Peru has even forbidden presidents and top officials to walk where the Greenpeace activists went. Peru's Deputy Culture Minister told the BBC: "They are absolutely fragile. They are black rocks on a white background. You walk there, and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years. And the line that they have destroyed is the most visible and most recognized of all.""
Why Did WikiLeaks Help Dox Most of Turkey’s Women? - "Whatever else you might say about WikiLeaks, it’s hard to think of an institution that squanders goodwill more efficiently. Even the people most sympathetic to its aims and ideals have had a hard time defending it recently. Just over the last couple of weeks, whoever ran its Twitter account posted tweets that are either anti-Semitic or deeply weird (the fact that WikiLeaks founder and head Julian Assange ranted about Jewish reporters to a British journalist in 2011 certainly makes it harder to view the posts in a charitable light). Then it was revealed that some of the Democratic National Committee documents it leaked last week — timed intentionally to do maximum damage to Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances, according to Assange — contained personal information, including credit card and Social Security numbers, of DNC donors."
Family Sends Pizza Deliveryman to Check on Grandma After Hurricane - ""I was calling the police department, I was calling the sheriff's department, and no one was answering, so I was really worried." On Sunday, when he still wasn't able to reach her, he decided to get creative. "So I just said, 'I'm going to order her a pizza, and if they can deliver it, then I know she's alive,'" Eric Olsen said... "Police and fire couldn't do it, but Papa John's got there in 30 minutes and put the cellphone to her ear," he joked. He said he got the idea to order the pizza spontaneously. "I was just thinking, 'Who can go there right now? Who can I call in a city where I know no one?'""
People respond to incentives
Judith Gabrielle's answer to How do people with IQs of 140-200 think? - Quora - "When I ask a question, I receive condescension from my peers, and literally watch them gloat over them “knowing something” I don't. When I have an answer, it is weighed less than anyone else's. When I have a suggestion, it is resisted always until or unless circumstances obviate its acquirement. When I need an item in stock, my asking creates resentment….even to people standing around when I'm working. They discuss their personal lives, and don't ask about mine. They make post-work plans and never include me…not once. They ask each other questions that they know I can fully answer just so they don't have to hear me give another explanation. The owner has told me I shouldn't work there. He asked me what else I could do for a job while on parole in which I may use my mind. Everyone else's jokes are funny to him, mine are not... I see hopelessness everywhere. I see people clinging so violently to a hope (either an opinion or an idea) which brings their life into relevance, that even broaching another possibility is perceived as an attempt to invalidate their entire worth as a human being. I see totalitarianism everywhere. I see people so wildly bent upon demanding others accept and even celebrate whatever they do in the name of tolerance, that even only tolerating it is seen as bigoted hatred worthy of being intolerant towards... Socially….exceedingly lonely and have been my entire life. Virtually always misunderstood, virtually always see through the façade I'm presented with from someone else….and virtually always borne out as correct over time."
Miriam Cooke - Canary Mission - "Cooke was a signatory to a 2002 open letter suggesting that Israel would use the war in Iraq to engage in “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. No retractions were ever issued for the letter after its claims failed to materialize. Cooke has reportedly whitewashed Palestinian female suicide bombing attacks targeting Israelis, saying: “For those of us who really are concerned with women’s role in the Arab public square, in the way in which women have been trying to empower themselves vis-à-vis the U.S., vis-à-vis old colonial powers, vis-à-vis their own men, the situation has become so desperate that now women’s participation in war is a mark of absolute hopelessness.” This line of reasoning runs counter to that of other professors, like Rabab Abdulhadi of San Francisco State University (SFSU) who lionize Palestinian women’s involvement in terrorist violence. Abdulhadi and others routinely praise female terrorists such as international hijacker Leila Khaled as an “icon in liberation movements and…an icon for women’s liberation.” According to a Middle East forum report, Cooke wrote that “complicated relations” between Muslim men and women are solely the result of the “colonial experience.” On the other hand, Cooke has also defended polygamy in the Muslim world... Cooke posited that addressing the suppression of women by Muslim men, in particular, was the key to terminating the mad drive for Empire and ushering in world peace. Along the way, she blamed the establishment of the state of Israel as a root cause of Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: “9-11 has a long history going back through the Gulf War to the establishment of Israel in 1948.”"
Sexist Peer Reviewer Suggests Study Needs Male Authors - "“It would probably also be beneficial to find one or two male biologists to work with (or at least obtain internal peer review from, but better yet as active co-authors), in order to serve as a possible check against interpretations that may sometimes be drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically biased assumptions,” the anonymous reviewer wrote... The paper detailed findings on the scientists’ examination of gender differences in the transition from Ph.D. to postdoc in the field of life sciences... Rather than gender bias, the reviewer suggests an alternative interpretation: “It could perhaps be the case that 99% of female scientists make a decision in mid-life that spending more time with their children is more important to them than doing everything imaginable to try to get one of the rare positions at the utter pinnacle of their field.” The reviewer, whose gender is unknown, goes on to add that the differences could be attributable to differences in physiology and stamina between men and women which could explain why men, on average, work 15 minutes longer each week"
Yet, when there are not enough women, we are told that we need women for "diversity of thought and experience", you can't have a so-called all male panel which considers the gender gay gap (even though there is a female member and many female associate members), and you can't hold an all male women's rights conference. And feminists lament that the burden of childcare falls disproportionately on women (i.e. that women spend more time with their children and so can't do everything imaginable to try to get one of the rare positions at the utter pinnacle of their field
PLOS ONE ousts reviewer, editor after sexist peer-review storm
How can you give a paper an honest peer review if you're afraid you'll be ousted?
Addendum: When there are no females, the research is slammed as being sexist
When there are no males and it is suggested that a male be gotten, that suggestion is slammed as being sexist
It's time to consider a curfew for men - "Think of it as a mass grounding for men. After a designated period of time, we’ll allow them back on the streets after dark to see how it goes. If the sexual assaults and harassment continue, well, it’s back to the curfew."
"Not all feminists" huh
Phantom Carbohydrates – A Nutrition Mystery - "When a food contains fewer than 5 calories per serving, the manufacturer is allowed to “round down” to 0 on the Nutrition Facts label"
Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist - "estimates put the number of Muslims in the country at around 1% of the population, compared with 4.5% in Britain and 5% in Germany. Moreover, American Islam is not dominated by a single sect or ethnicity. When the Pew Research Centre last tried to count, in 2011, it found Muslims from 77 countries in America. Most western European countries, by contrast, have one or two dominant groups—Algerians in France, Moroccans and Turks in Holland. This matters because the jumble of groups in America makes it harder for Muslim immigrants and their descendants to lead a life apart. Different traditions get squashed together... America’s Muslims are better off than their European co-religionists. They are almost as likely as other Americans to report a household income of $100,000 or more. The same cannot be said of the Pakistanis who came to work in the now-defunct textile mills of northern England or the Turks who became guest workers in West Germany"
The Bedouin Billionaire for Muslim Integration - WSJ - "Mr. Altrad’s biggest challenge wasn’t academic or professional success—that would come easily—but learning to integrate himself. “When you are born in Syria,” he recalls, “you grow with ideas which are not necessarily correct. For example, they educate you that you have to kill Jews wherever you find them. When I came to France I came with this idea.” But then he found himself learning alongside Jewish students at university, “and we became friends”... His thinking about assimilation sounds harsh. But it would be familiar to the immigrants who came to the U.S. at the height of America’s open-borders policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."
Tumblr Originals: shows original posts and hides reblogs for any given tumblr blog. - "This tool will show only original posts and hide all reblogs for any given tumblr blog. Awesome."
Boba Fett Was Supposed to Be a Bigger Bad Than Darth Vader
Van driver Christopher Gard with eight convictions for using phone at wheel killed cyclist Lee Martin while texting - six weeks after judge let him keep licence
Marvel Pulls Variant Cover For Sexualizing Invincible Iron Man's New 15-Year-Old Hero
If you try to please SJWs, they will just turn on you. What's so sexualised about the Iron Man cover?! And isn't this how teenagers dress?!
And considering real 15 year black girls are also curvy - and some have even bigger breasts...
Comments: "people are so worked up by the body type/costumes of said teen superheroes, but are okay with the notion of them being sent out to potentially die fighting supervillains. It just seems messed up all around."
"I showed this image to my girlfriend who is not particularly comic book savvy... when I told her the character was 15 and the image was pulled from use because the character is thought to be oversexualized, she laughed. “Looks like what most 15 year old girls wear.” was her comment. I had to agree."
The Future (Probably) Isn’t as Scary as You Think - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "when Kasparov lost, there were several things that went through people’s minds. One is: well that’s the end of chess. It’s like, who’s going to play competitively because computers are always going to win? And that didn’t happen. In a funny kind of way, playing against computers actually increased the extent to which chess became popular. And, on average, the best players became better playing against the artificial minds. And then finally, Kasparov, who lost, realized at the time, that — he said, “you know, it’s kind of unfair because if I had access to the same database that Deep Blue had of every single chess move ever, I could have won”... the best chess player on this planet is not an AI. And it’s not a human. It’s the team that he calls centaurs; it’s the team of humans and AI. Because they’re complementary. Because AIs think differently than humans. And the same of the world’s best medical diagnostician is not Watson, it’s not a human doctor. It’s the team of Watson plus doctor"
Post ID: 2160150688824303018
Sangeetha's Gameplan - Seeking Asylum in Australia?
Having fled to Australia (probably because she got a grant to spread her hate), Sangeetha seems to be poking the Singaporean government once again with her usual series of half-truths, lies and mischievous insinuations.
Given a recent post (which sadly has 19 reactions), perhaps her plan is to attract "persecution", upon which she can claim asylum in Australia, which is considerably more progressive than Singapore since they indoctrinate schoolchildren into thinking that men is evil and that is why they get beaten up by women.
"4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?
Let us remember that in Singapore in the 1980s, Malay Muslim people were targeted for sterilization, and they continue to be told till now in many ways that births should be prevented among the community. Muslim people are targets of genocide worldwide, and we should start calling it what it is.
"In the wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries, then used rebuilding efforts as opportunities for profit, rather than to benefit the occupied populations. To further add to the genocidal pattern of behavior, there is ample evidence of torture and persistent rumors of sexual assault from the aftermath of Iraq’s fall. It appears likely the U.S. has contributed to further destabilization and death in the region by supporting the rise of the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria by arming rebel groups on all sides of the conflict.""
Nevermind that the "evidence" that "the United States and its allies" committed "genocide" in the Middle East is nonsense - taking the raw death counts in Middle Eastern conflicts and ascribing all of them to a deliberate Western campaign of extermination (based on a creative interpretation of a few words from George W Bush) is sophistry at best.
Nor that the claim that "the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries" is totally unsupported.
Or even that reading anything into isolated Americans' rantings would be considered "racist" and "Islamophobic" if one were looking at Muslims' opinions.
Sangeetha is plainly ignorant of Singaporean history.
What she is presumably referring to is Singapore's population control policies. However, these were not targeted by race:
With reference to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), genocide is an act
Of course, Malays have historically had higher fertility than other races in Singapore, so they would've been more affected by this particular population policy than them.
Yet, if the disparate racial impact of a neutrally framed policy is evidence of racism (to say nothing of genocide), this works both ways.
For example, the GST Voucher for 2016 is given based on one's Annual Home Value.
According to Table 58, Resident Households by Type of Dwelling, Ethnic Group of Head of Household and Tenancy, of the General Household Survey 2015, 36% of Malay Resident Households live in 1, 2 or 3 room flats (which are the housing types which should have the lowest Annual Home Values).
This compares to 24% for the resident population as a whole and 22% for Chinese (and 25% for Indians).
Therefore I conclude that the GST Voucher scheme is racist and a secret government ploy to enrich the Malays at the expense of the Chinese!
Given a recent post (which sadly has 19 reactions), perhaps her plan is to attract "persecution", upon which she can claim asylum in Australia, which is considerably more progressive than Singapore since they indoctrinate schoolchildren into thinking that men is evil and that is why they get beaten up by women.
"4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?
Let us remember that in Singapore in the 1980s, Malay Muslim people were targeted for sterilization, and they continue to be told till now in many ways that births should be prevented among the community. Muslim people are targets of genocide worldwide, and we should start calling it what it is.
"In the wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries, then used rebuilding efforts as opportunities for profit, rather than to benefit the occupied populations. To further add to the genocidal pattern of behavior, there is ample evidence of torture and persistent rumors of sexual assault from the aftermath of Iraq’s fall. It appears likely the U.S. has contributed to further destabilization and death in the region by supporting the rise of the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria by arming rebel groups on all sides of the conflict.""
Nevermind that the "evidence" that "the United States and its allies" committed "genocide" in the Middle East is nonsense - taking the raw death counts in Middle Eastern conflicts and ascribing all of them to a deliberate Western campaign of extermination (based on a creative interpretation of a few words from George W Bush) is sophistry at best.
Nor that the claim that "the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries" is totally unsupported.
Or even that reading anything into isolated Americans' rantings would be considered "racist" and "Islamophobic" if one were looking at Muslims' opinions.
Sangeetha is plainly ignorant of Singaporean history.
What she is presumably referring to is Singapore's population control policies. However, these were not targeted by race:
Action was taken in the early stages of development to curtail fertility, a policy implemented in many developing economies to foster economic development. In the years between 1965 and 1984, population planning in Singapore was based on fertility reduction, through campaigns in family planning, sterilisation and legalised abortion using such slogans as ‘Stop at Two’ and ‘Two is Enough’. The aim of this blanket policy was to discourage large families, which were popular in all ethnic communities whether Chinese, Malay or Indian, by encouraging small families through a series of state incentives and disincentives. For example, after a family‘s first two children, maternity leave was restricted, delivery fees were raised progressively with the number of children and priority access to school places was lost for the third and subsequent children (for more detail see Saw 1990). The result was a vast movement of women into the workplace. This campaign, coupled with rapid economic development, was immensely successful and resulted in total fertility rates dropping from 4.66 in 1965 to an unexpected low of 1.4 in 1986 (Teo and Ooi 1996). --- The Gender Inequalities of Planning in Singapore / Gillian Davidson in Gender, Planning and Human Rights
With reference to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), genocide is an act
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
Of course, Malays have historically had higher fertility than other races in Singapore, so they would've been more affected by this particular population policy than them.
Yet, if the disparate racial impact of a neutrally framed policy is evidence of racism (to say nothing of genocide), this works both ways.
For example, the GST Voucher for 2016 is given based on one's Annual Home Value.
According to Table 58, Resident Households by Type of Dwelling, Ethnic Group of Head of Household and Tenancy, of the General Household Survey 2015, 36% of Malay Resident Households live in 1, 2 or 3 room flats (which are the housing types which should have the lowest Annual Home Values).
This compares to 24% for the resident population as a whole and 22% for Chinese (and 25% for Indians).
Therefore I conclude that the GST Voucher scheme is racist and a secret government ploy to enrich the Malays at the expense of the Chinese!
Post ID: 8705840576237137629
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Links - 2nd November 2016
Donovan Choy - The term “social justice” used to hold a precious... - "Today in 2016, the term social justice is but an empty shell of its former glory. In fact, the term “social justice warrior” (SJW) is used as a derogatory slang. How did such a term come to be so warped with negative connotations? One does not have to look very far on the internet for a prime example. Just last night, less than 24 hours ago, I saw a most curious development on my Facebook. An Indian lady by the name of Pooja Nansi was snarkily hassling local entertainment site TheSmartLocal."
Removing Curry Odor - "I had rented my condo and the tenants cooked with curry. After 13 months the cabinets were saturated with cooking grease and I could not rent the unit as the smell would drive prospective tenants away. I finally used turpentine to break down the grease from all surfaces in the kitchen, appliances, hardwood floors, everything. Then we had the place painted with Kilz and then final paint. This helped considerably, but the smell was still there and the unit unrentable. The final step was to have a company come in. They applied some type of microbial solution to all the walls and floor and appliances. Then ran an ozone generator for 5 days. We then aired out the unit for a day. It has been a month now and the unit smells brand new. The entire process cost almost $2300 between paint, cleansers and the ozone treatment.The microwave had to be replaced as you could not get into the workings of the unit to clear the grease"
Tenants that cook with curry - "non-Indians tend to find the Indian Spices smell unappealing - but also to the fact that Indian buyers tend to find an Indian Only house immediately More appealing in it's familiarity of smells. Smell is the most primal of senses."
"If you are in the rental business for the investment of your money looking to make more money than you must make a business decision when screening your tenants! It's no different than companies and corporations performing background and credit checks to determine the risk of hiring a new employee to further protect the owners/shareholders investments/money. If you, the landlord feel that those odors are going to cost you money and potential tenants now and in the long run, then you must decide and take that into consideration doing your screening process. Nothing racist, unethical, or in-moral about that, you're just an very conscious and protective business person! I work for a very successful indian couple who's net worth is well over $10MM and the very first time I talked to him about real estate investments, the 2nd thing that came out his mouth was he never do business with his own people because of the curry smell! And I'm being polite on his actual words! Ultimately, its your decision, profit & losses!"
Marah al-Bakri - Shot By Israelis, Exploited By Muslims - "As a supporter of both Israeli and Palestinian rights to freedom and sovereignty, I am constantly appalled by the violence, as well as the wanton lies and exploitation, by both sides. The Israelis though can take comfort that they are not saddled by the idiots that the Palestinians have to put up with. These idiots continuously diminish the Palestinian cause with their constant barrage of lies. As if there is no truth worth telling? Take this case of the 16-year old Marah al-Bakri who was shot by the Israelis on the 12th of October for allegedly stabbing a border policeman near Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. The fact that a 16-year old girl was shot is shocking enough to generate outrage, even though she allegedly stabbed a policeman first. But no, these idiots had to change the story to something else altogether. Even worse, they changed it to something petty – the tudung (headscarf)... As a supporter of Palestinian right to self-rule and independence, I am constantly dismayed by the inanity of many pro-Palestinian supporters. The Palestinian cause is a noble one, a just one; but they chose to disparage it by spreading lies. In Islam, a false accusation is said to be the most wicked of crimes"
The word Aiyoh is now in the Oxford English Dictionary - "How many times does your answer to a question thrown at you in your day begin with “Aiyoh” or a variant of that? Or does the word creep into your day’s talk at some point? This expression is so widely used in that it is now in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)... “I’m appalled at the inclusion of this word!” says Shailaja Vishwanath, former English teacher and currently freelance writer-editor. “It is not English. At some level I understand they (OED) are adapting to regional usage. But at the level of a language, as a writer and editor, it hurts me deeply. I believe in purity of language for all its effect. I cannot accept these words in the OED, though I may use them in my everyday life within a context. But does their inclusion in OED validate it? I don’t know.... The OED included the laughing emoticon some time ago and it took me a long time to come around to accept that!”"
Bob Dylan's Nobel prize isn't radical. He's just another white male writer - "Giving the award to any white male writer, no matter what form he writes in, is in no way innovative or inspired. It is simply a return to the status quo – albeit in a different genre"
Comments: "I guess we are not supposed to give awards based on merit. We should give the awards to potentially less deserving people based on skin color and gender. That's the left wing for you. Pandering to minorities and women."
"An ant can bite an elephant but the ant remains an ant and the elephant remains an elephant"
"The continual drip-drip-drip of anti-male articles such as this may eventually produce a massive backlash."
Racial Discrimination Act: HRC accepts 18C complaint lodged by David Leyonhjelm - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - "The Human Rights Commission has accepted a racial discrimination complaint lodged by crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm. The Liberal Democrat lodged the complaint over an article by veteran Fairfax journalist Mark Kenny that blasted him over his wish to see section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act abolished. The article, published last month, described him as an "angry white male"."
Swedish court allows the flying of ISIS flag - "Sjovalls said the waving of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) flag cannot be considered hate speech because it is not an expression of disrespect towards any ethnic or minority group, for example, in the same way the swastika could be considered a symbol of racial hatred. Instead, IS are “against everyone except those who don’t belong to IS.” “Incitement of racial hatred is defined as the public dissemination of statements that threaten or disparage a group of persons with allusion to race, color, national or ethnic origin, religious belief or sexual orientation,” she said."
I thought ISIS was against everyone who wasn't their type of Muslim. That certain counts as religious discrimination
Never Again? - "I suspect too many people in the wider international community still only recognize genocide in this one most specific sense. They are always looking for Birkenau — expecting industrialized killing rather than seeing genocide the way it unfolds today. They ignore the evidence that in the right environment, simple machetes can be just as effective as rail networks and gas chambers... Definition is held to be paramount, when the real issue is political will."
Singapore gaming world champion Xian: ‘What we do is equivalent to sport’ - "Today, eSports games are broadcast by the likes of ESPN; US universities are offering athletic scholarships to gamers; teams are hiring managers and coaches; and the landscape includes match-fixing and performance-enhancing drug scandals. All of which makes a case for gaming to be viewed as sport - a point echoed by reigning EVO champion Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo. “A lot of fans might think eSports, or Street Fighter, is something using your brain and fingers only,” the South Korean said. “But as I see it, it’s more like sports because you have to train hard to get physically in shape to play more, and play better.” “We train almost eight to 10 hours a day,” Ho explained. “We also do some exercise like jogging to make sure when we go to tournaments, we don’t choke. Because there it’s just a two to three minute game, and you cannot get distracted easily. It’s very important to at least have a good mindset and be healthy to compete.” Lee said injuries are commonplace. “My left-hand joints are quite sore sometimes. When I was practicing different ways to press buttons, I had some Band-Aids on my fingers because I was practicing too hard.”"
PERSPECTIVE ON CORPORAL PUNISHMENT : Would 'Caning' Work Here? No! : It's not a deterrent; it is discriminatory and cruel, and it would seriously harm our justice system. - "Fay's caning seems like excessive punishment to me. The Singapore authorities do not disagree. The caning may be overly harsh, they acknowledge, but it will, they say, deter other youths tempted to commit crimes against property. The evidence for this assumption is sparse and unclear. In 1960, a British Home Office research group (the Cadogan Committee) undertook a study of 3,000 cases of violent robbery, virtually the only offense where corporal punishment was still being imposed in Britain. The researchers found that robbers who were flogged were slightly more likely to be again convicted of robbery with violence than those who were not flogged."
Corporal Punishment - Effectiveness - Offenders, Committee, Robbery, and Cadogan - "The Cadogan Committee devoted special attention to five cases of corporal punishment used as an exemplary sentence in response to major outbreaks of crimes for which, according to public opinion, the penalty was particularly suitable. The committee found that in some cases the facts plainly contradicted such beliefs and that reductions in crime could just as plausibly be attributed to causes other than the penalties imposed on offenders. It also noted that the incidence of robbery with violence in England and Wales had declined steadily in the years before World War I notwithstanding infrequent and decreasing use of corporal punishment, whereas in the postwar years it had tended to increase despite a much greater and increasing resort to floggings. It was also shown that between 1890 and 1934 the incidence of robbery in England and Wales (where corporal punishment might have served as a deterrent) declined more slowly than in Scotland, where corporal punishment was not inflicted for those offenses (Cadogan Committee). ACTO also compared the incidence of robbery with violence in England and Wales before and after corporal punishment was abolished as a judicial penalty in 1948. The number of robberies reported to the police increased steadily during and after World War II, although corporal punishment was employed more frequently than before the war. After 1948, however, there was a marked downward trend, and until 1957 instances of robbery remained well below the 1948 level. The causes of this reduction were unknown, but ACTO inferred that corporal punishment had not been a strong deterrent immediately before its abolition and noted that abolition was not followed by an increase in the offenses for which it had previously been imposed (Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders). In short, no evidence proved that corporal punishment provided more deterrence than imprisonment, to which it commonly served as an alternative penalty before abolition. Canadian and New Zealand studies confirmed these findings (Canada, Parliament; New Zealand Department of Justice)."
Anti-Shiite Prejudice in Singapore and Malaysia: A Preliminary Study - "There has been a growth in prejudice towards the Shiite minority among the Malay-Muslims in Singapore and Malaysia in the recent years. This is reflected greatly online, on social media websites and blogs, as well as in the mainstream Malaysian media. Some seek to help Sunni Muslims “detect” Shiites by outlining certain stereotypical traits of Shiites, while others go straight to vilifying and misrepresenting the Shiite creed and practices. Such prejudice has also been manifested in concrete action, such as through persecutions in Malaysia, done in the name of protecting the sanctity of the Islamic faith and also in the name of national security."
Man interrupts bear sex, pays the price
Caffeine - "If you have problems with your PC locking or going to sleep, caffeine will keep it awake. It works by simulating a keypress once every 59 seconds, so your machine thinks you're still working at the keyboard, so won't lock the screen or activate the screensaver... Caffeine works by simulating an F15 key up event every 59 seconds. Of all the key presses available, F15 is probably the least intrusive (I've never seen a PC keyboard with that key!), and least likely to interfere with your work"
Woman inflates 13ft Ghostbusters Stay Puft man in living room; didn't think it through
Old Navy misses the point with 'sexist' Ghostbusters tees for toddlers - "when you go into the Toddler Girls section, the same design comes with the disclaimer: ‘Ghostbuster in training’... according to Old Navy, girl ghostbusters need sleeves (chasing paranormal activity can get chilly, ladies!), which will cost you an extra $1.05, or 80p."
Given that the one for 'boys' doesn't say 'Ghostbuster' (ni.e. ot in training) this is just the offence brigade having nothing better to do again. If having sleeves is sexist, what do we make of the fact that formal clothing for adult women doesn't need sleeves?
Teenage Boys With Tits: Here's My Problem With Ghostbusters - "The overarching problem with Ghostbusters is that the script is a greater abomination to God than any of the demons and ghosts in the franchise. I’m sure they could have done a worse job, but they’d have to study Tobin’s Spirit Guide to summon a script from an even deeper circle of Hell. Mostly, it’s a lack of intelligence. In the original movie, the bad guys weren’t actually the ghosts — everybody loves Slimer and the Marshmallow Man. No, the bad guys were the clueless bureaucrats in the government, who set off a supernatural crisis through bumbling and red tape. In this film, by contrast, the enemy is all men, while the government ends up playing dad. Every man in the movie is a combination of malevolent and moronic. The chick ‘busters shame the mayor so much they end up getting government funding at the end. Like all feminists, they can only survive by sucking on the teat of Big Government. I’ll skip over the vacuous and incoherent plot. You won’t understand it watching the movie and you won’t understand it reading my summary so who cares. This, unlike any movie I’ve ever seen before, seems to have been conceived entirely out of spite, with the result that its plot is largely irrelevant... Ghostbusters, the film acting as standard bearer for the social justice left, is full of female characters that are simply stand-ins for men plus a black character worthy of a minstrel show"
Why James Rolfe is on the Right Side of History for Not Wanting to See Ghostbusters - "Why are the Daily Beast, The Atlantic, Salon and various other outlets writing 2,000-word pieces tearing apart a YouTube film reviewer? James Rolfe of Cinemassacre (also known as the Angry Video Game Nerd) committed a fairly frivolous crime. He made a video calmly telling his fans why he will not be reviewing the next Ghostbusters... From watching Rolfe’s video he makes three main points – and strangely none of them have to do with women... So who will be on the right side of history here? The film critic who predicts a terrible movie — or the horde of Twitter bullies trying to ruin the man’s life?"
New Hampshire Safety Laws - Cell Phone, Seat Belt, & Car Seat | DMV.org - "There is currently no helmet law for motorcycle riders or passengers 18 years old and over in New Hampshire... Kids under 18 years old must wear a seat belt. The Department of Safety strongly recommends safety belts for every driver and passenger."
Live free or die
Removing Curry Odor - "I had rented my condo and the tenants cooked with curry. After 13 months the cabinets were saturated with cooking grease and I could not rent the unit as the smell would drive prospective tenants away. I finally used turpentine to break down the grease from all surfaces in the kitchen, appliances, hardwood floors, everything. Then we had the place painted with Kilz and then final paint. This helped considerably, but the smell was still there and the unit unrentable. The final step was to have a company come in. They applied some type of microbial solution to all the walls and floor and appliances. Then ran an ozone generator for 5 days. We then aired out the unit for a day. It has been a month now and the unit smells brand new. The entire process cost almost $2300 between paint, cleansers and the ozone treatment.The microwave had to be replaced as you could not get into the workings of the unit to clear the grease"
Tenants that cook with curry - "non-Indians tend to find the Indian Spices smell unappealing - but also to the fact that Indian buyers tend to find an Indian Only house immediately More appealing in it's familiarity of smells. Smell is the most primal of senses."
"If you are in the rental business for the investment of your money looking to make more money than you must make a business decision when screening your tenants! It's no different than companies and corporations performing background and credit checks to determine the risk of hiring a new employee to further protect the owners/shareholders investments/money. If you, the landlord feel that those odors are going to cost you money and potential tenants now and in the long run, then you must decide and take that into consideration doing your screening process. Nothing racist, unethical, or in-moral about that, you're just an very conscious and protective business person! I work for a very successful indian couple who's net worth is well over $10MM and the very first time I talked to him about real estate investments, the 2nd thing that came out his mouth was he never do business with his own people because of the curry smell! And I'm being polite on his actual words! Ultimately, its your decision, profit & losses!"
Marah al-Bakri - Shot By Israelis, Exploited By Muslims - "As a supporter of both Israeli and Palestinian rights to freedom and sovereignty, I am constantly appalled by the violence, as well as the wanton lies and exploitation, by both sides. The Israelis though can take comfort that they are not saddled by the idiots that the Palestinians have to put up with. These idiots continuously diminish the Palestinian cause with their constant barrage of lies. As if there is no truth worth telling? Take this case of the 16-year old Marah al-Bakri who was shot by the Israelis on the 12th of October for allegedly stabbing a border policeman near Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. The fact that a 16-year old girl was shot is shocking enough to generate outrage, even though she allegedly stabbed a policeman first. But no, these idiots had to change the story to something else altogether. Even worse, they changed it to something petty – the tudung (headscarf)... As a supporter of Palestinian right to self-rule and independence, I am constantly dismayed by the inanity of many pro-Palestinian supporters. The Palestinian cause is a noble one, a just one; but they chose to disparage it by spreading lies. In Islam, a false accusation is said to be the most wicked of crimes"
The word Aiyoh is now in the Oxford English Dictionary - "How many times does your answer to a question thrown at you in your day begin with “Aiyoh” or a variant of that? Or does the word creep into your day’s talk at some point? This expression is so widely used in that it is now in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)... “I’m appalled at the inclusion of this word!” says Shailaja Vishwanath, former English teacher and currently freelance writer-editor. “It is not English. At some level I understand they (OED) are adapting to regional usage. But at the level of a language, as a writer and editor, it hurts me deeply. I believe in purity of language for all its effect. I cannot accept these words in the OED, though I may use them in my everyday life within a context. But does their inclusion in OED validate it? I don’t know.... The OED included the laughing emoticon some time ago and it took me a long time to come around to accept that!”"
Bob Dylan's Nobel prize isn't radical. He's just another white male writer - "Giving the award to any white male writer, no matter what form he writes in, is in no way innovative or inspired. It is simply a return to the status quo – albeit in a different genre"
Comments: "I guess we are not supposed to give awards based on merit. We should give the awards to potentially less deserving people based on skin color and gender. That's the left wing for you. Pandering to minorities and women."
"An ant can bite an elephant but the ant remains an ant and the elephant remains an elephant"
"The continual drip-drip-drip of anti-male articles such as this may eventually produce a massive backlash."
Racial Discrimination Act: HRC accepts 18C complaint lodged by David Leyonhjelm - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - "The Human Rights Commission has accepted a racial discrimination complaint lodged by crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm. The Liberal Democrat lodged the complaint over an article by veteran Fairfax journalist Mark Kenny that blasted him over his wish to see section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act abolished. The article, published last month, described him as an "angry white male"."
Swedish court allows the flying of ISIS flag - "Sjovalls said the waving of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) flag cannot be considered hate speech because it is not an expression of disrespect towards any ethnic or minority group, for example, in the same way the swastika could be considered a symbol of racial hatred. Instead, IS are “against everyone except those who don’t belong to IS.” “Incitement of racial hatred is defined as the public dissemination of statements that threaten or disparage a group of persons with allusion to race, color, national or ethnic origin, religious belief or sexual orientation,” she said."
I thought ISIS was against everyone who wasn't their type of Muslim. That certain counts as religious discrimination
Never Again? - "I suspect too many people in the wider international community still only recognize genocide in this one most specific sense. They are always looking for Birkenau — expecting industrialized killing rather than seeing genocide the way it unfolds today. They ignore the evidence that in the right environment, simple machetes can be just as effective as rail networks and gas chambers... Definition is held to be paramount, when the real issue is political will."
Singapore gaming world champion Xian: ‘What we do is equivalent to sport’ - "Today, eSports games are broadcast by the likes of ESPN; US universities are offering athletic scholarships to gamers; teams are hiring managers and coaches; and the landscape includes match-fixing and performance-enhancing drug scandals. All of which makes a case for gaming to be viewed as sport - a point echoed by reigning EVO champion Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo. “A lot of fans might think eSports, or Street Fighter, is something using your brain and fingers only,” the South Korean said. “But as I see it, it’s more like sports because you have to train hard to get physically in shape to play more, and play better.” “We train almost eight to 10 hours a day,” Ho explained. “We also do some exercise like jogging to make sure when we go to tournaments, we don’t choke. Because there it’s just a two to three minute game, and you cannot get distracted easily. It’s very important to at least have a good mindset and be healthy to compete.” Lee said injuries are commonplace. “My left-hand joints are quite sore sometimes. When I was practicing different ways to press buttons, I had some Band-Aids on my fingers because I was practicing too hard.”"
PERSPECTIVE ON CORPORAL PUNISHMENT : Would 'Caning' Work Here? No! : It's not a deterrent; it is discriminatory and cruel, and it would seriously harm our justice system. - "Fay's caning seems like excessive punishment to me. The Singapore authorities do not disagree. The caning may be overly harsh, they acknowledge, but it will, they say, deter other youths tempted to commit crimes against property. The evidence for this assumption is sparse and unclear. In 1960, a British Home Office research group (the Cadogan Committee) undertook a study of 3,000 cases of violent robbery, virtually the only offense where corporal punishment was still being imposed in Britain. The researchers found that robbers who were flogged were slightly more likely to be again convicted of robbery with violence than those who were not flogged."
Corporal Punishment - Effectiveness - Offenders, Committee, Robbery, and Cadogan - "The Cadogan Committee devoted special attention to five cases of corporal punishment used as an exemplary sentence in response to major outbreaks of crimes for which, according to public opinion, the penalty was particularly suitable. The committee found that in some cases the facts plainly contradicted such beliefs and that reductions in crime could just as plausibly be attributed to causes other than the penalties imposed on offenders. It also noted that the incidence of robbery with violence in England and Wales had declined steadily in the years before World War I notwithstanding infrequent and decreasing use of corporal punishment, whereas in the postwar years it had tended to increase despite a much greater and increasing resort to floggings. It was also shown that between 1890 and 1934 the incidence of robbery in England and Wales (where corporal punishment might have served as a deterrent) declined more slowly than in Scotland, where corporal punishment was not inflicted for those offenses (Cadogan Committee). ACTO also compared the incidence of robbery with violence in England and Wales before and after corporal punishment was abolished as a judicial penalty in 1948. The number of robberies reported to the police increased steadily during and after World War II, although corporal punishment was employed more frequently than before the war. After 1948, however, there was a marked downward trend, and until 1957 instances of robbery remained well below the 1948 level. The causes of this reduction were unknown, but ACTO inferred that corporal punishment had not been a strong deterrent immediately before its abolition and noted that abolition was not followed by an increase in the offenses for which it had previously been imposed (Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders). In short, no evidence proved that corporal punishment provided more deterrence than imprisonment, to which it commonly served as an alternative penalty before abolition. Canadian and New Zealand studies confirmed these findings (Canada, Parliament; New Zealand Department of Justice)."
Anti-Shiite Prejudice in Singapore and Malaysia: A Preliminary Study - "There has been a growth in prejudice towards the Shiite minority among the Malay-Muslims in Singapore and Malaysia in the recent years. This is reflected greatly online, on social media websites and blogs, as well as in the mainstream Malaysian media. Some seek to help Sunni Muslims “detect” Shiites by outlining certain stereotypical traits of Shiites, while others go straight to vilifying and misrepresenting the Shiite creed and practices. Such prejudice has also been manifested in concrete action, such as through persecutions in Malaysia, done in the name of protecting the sanctity of the Islamic faith and also in the name of national security."
Man interrupts bear sex, pays the price
Caffeine - "If you have problems with your PC locking or going to sleep, caffeine will keep it awake. It works by simulating a keypress once every 59 seconds, so your machine thinks you're still working at the keyboard, so won't lock the screen or activate the screensaver... Caffeine works by simulating an F15 key up event every 59 seconds. Of all the key presses available, F15 is probably the least intrusive (I've never seen a PC keyboard with that key!), and least likely to interfere with your work"
Woman inflates 13ft Ghostbusters Stay Puft man in living room; didn't think it through
Old Navy misses the point with 'sexist' Ghostbusters tees for toddlers - "when you go into the Toddler Girls section, the same design comes with the disclaimer: ‘Ghostbuster in training’... according to Old Navy, girl ghostbusters need sleeves (chasing paranormal activity can get chilly, ladies!), which will cost you an extra $1.05, or 80p."
Given that the one for 'boys' doesn't say 'Ghostbuster' (ni.e. ot in training) this is just the offence brigade having nothing better to do again. If having sleeves is sexist, what do we make of the fact that formal clothing for adult women doesn't need sleeves?
Teenage Boys With Tits: Here's My Problem With Ghostbusters - "The overarching problem with Ghostbusters is that the script is a greater abomination to God than any of the demons and ghosts in the franchise. I’m sure they could have done a worse job, but they’d have to study Tobin’s Spirit Guide to summon a script from an even deeper circle of Hell. Mostly, it’s a lack of intelligence. In the original movie, the bad guys weren’t actually the ghosts — everybody loves Slimer and the Marshmallow Man. No, the bad guys were the clueless bureaucrats in the government, who set off a supernatural crisis through bumbling and red tape. In this film, by contrast, the enemy is all men, while the government ends up playing dad. Every man in the movie is a combination of malevolent and moronic. The chick ‘busters shame the mayor so much they end up getting government funding at the end. Like all feminists, they can only survive by sucking on the teat of Big Government. I’ll skip over the vacuous and incoherent plot. You won’t understand it watching the movie and you won’t understand it reading my summary so who cares. This, unlike any movie I’ve ever seen before, seems to have been conceived entirely out of spite, with the result that its plot is largely irrelevant... Ghostbusters, the film acting as standard bearer for the social justice left, is full of female characters that are simply stand-ins for men plus a black character worthy of a minstrel show"
Why James Rolfe is on the Right Side of History for Not Wanting to See Ghostbusters - "Why are the Daily Beast, The Atlantic, Salon and various other outlets writing 2,000-word pieces tearing apart a YouTube film reviewer? James Rolfe of Cinemassacre (also known as the Angry Video Game Nerd) committed a fairly frivolous crime. He made a video calmly telling his fans why he will not be reviewing the next Ghostbusters... From watching Rolfe’s video he makes three main points – and strangely none of them have to do with women... So who will be on the right side of history here? The film critic who predicts a terrible movie — or the horde of Twitter bullies trying to ruin the man’s life?"
New Hampshire Safety Laws - Cell Phone, Seat Belt, & Car Seat | DMV.org - "There is currently no helmet law for motorcycle riders or passengers 18 years old and over in New Hampshire... Kids under 18 years old must wear a seat belt. The Department of Safety strongly recommends safety belts for every driver and passenger."
Live free or die
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