The Marshall Plan and the Cold War - History Extra
"Very important figure who sadly, is largely forgotten today is a man named Will Clinton, who was Undersecretary of Economic Affairs in the State Department. And he, in many ways can be considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union. Integrating Western Europe economically, politically and later militarily was actually a vital component of the Marshall Plan. It was seen as being necessary to revitalize the European economies as quickly as possible, and to ensure that they could cohere and act as one in the face of any potential aggression. Either from the Soviet union, or perhaps down the road, Germany...
Stalin had early on, actually considered trying to participate in the Marshall Plan because he was a Marxist ideologue and really believed that the United States had to give billions of dollars to Europe in order to prop up its own industry, which was of course, suffering from some overcapacity after the war. But he believes the inevitable crisis of capitalism had come and that perhaps he could get unconditional aid from the United States just as he had through Lend Lease during the war. He also wanted to participate in order to try to undermine it from within and make sure that the United States could not impose terms.
And initially, he actually told the satellite states in Eastern Europe to participate in discussions in order to encourage them to storm out and make clear that the American conditions would be unacceptable. In particular the revival of Western Germany. The problem Stalin faced was that the Czechs in particular were so enthusiastic that he did not actually trust them. He did not believe that they would actually storm out of an aid conference and he reversed himself entirely, insisting that they could not participate in any means even in order to show their displeasure with aspects of the American initiative.
And I argue in the book that the Cold War really did begin after the Marshall Plan, because it wasn't until that point that both sides, the United States and the Soviet Union, had decided to abandon the Alta Pop Stem framework for collaboration and to pursue their interests unilaterally. And in particular Stalin cracked down on Eastern Europe violently after announcement of the Marshall Plan. Prior to the Marshall Plan, he was willing to tolerate a coalition governments of sorts in Poland and Czechoslovkia, in Romania and Hungary. But after the Marshall Plan, he pushed out all the remaining democratic forces in Eastern Europe and imposed a strict regime of fealty to Moscow...
The French in particular were furious about this [the Marshall Plan]. In fact, the French were just about as ruthless in their occupation of Germany as the Soviets were. They were ripping up factories and bringing them back to France as reparations and they were very, very concerned about the United States reversing the so called Morgenthau Plan. This was a plan in 1944 to deindustrialize Germany - effectively to pastoralise it, to make sure it could never threaten its neighbors again. And so France really had to be drawn, kicking and screaming into the Marshall Plan because of their concerns about the US focus on reviving the West German economy as quickly as possible.
And I should emphasize that the Marshall Plan would never have succeeded unless the United States had given France and Britain firm security guarantees because they were very concerned about Germany, not just the Soviet Union, in the form of NATO, which was created in 1949 and the creation of NATO I believe, should be credited first and foremost to the British Prime Minister Ernest Bevin who convinced the United States that these security guarantees were were going to be fundamental.
In particular because the United States was demanding Western European economic integration. And that meant that these countries would no longer be self sufficient. If they were going to have to depend on each other economically that meant for example, that Germany could cut off coal supplies at any point in time, or the Soviets might come to control Germany and cut off coal supply. So it was going to be vital that the United States not just provide economic aid, but provide clear cut security guarantees...
Something was indeed going on here. There was an enormous recovery in output between the time that the Marshall Plan was announced in 47 and the time it was wrapped up in mid 1952. Industrial output increased by about 60%. To put that in perspective, EU in the five years before the financial crisis in 2008 saw output increase by 15%. So something was clearly going on. But when they looked at the expected Keynesian mechanisms by which this recovery could have been affected, for example, the ability to import more because these countries were short of dollars, they didn't find a large effect. Was it that government spending was higher than it would have been? Well actually no. Government spending as a percentage of GDP fell across the Marshall countries during those years.
So I think the effect came from two factors in particular that were more difficult to quantify. The first was that George Kennan had always emphasized that the most important effect of the Marshall Plan would be psychological. That is convincing the Europeans that the Americans were not going home, would not retreat into isolationism, would provide for their security. I think that had an enormous stimulative fact on private enterprise. As emphasized earlier, Kennan was very anxious that this be a multi year program in order to make this clear that this was not the United States just giving us a sum of money and retreating into isolationism again.
The second most critical factor was the reintegration of Germany into the West European economy. Before the war, Germany had been the primary capital goods supplier for Europe, Germany basically traded capital goods for food and other commodities. But after the war, the United States was the primary capital goods supplier in Europe. And this was running down critically the stash of dollar foreign reserves in Western Europe. So one of the ambitions of the United States was to replace itself as the primary capital goods supplier to Europe with Western Germany. So Western Germany would be put back into its old role as quickly as possible, and this was enormously successful...
Consider American reconstruction aid in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States has spent over $200 billion on reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in current dollars that's more than 50% more than the entirety of Marshall aid. Yet the United States has almost nothing to show for it. And I think the primary reason is the complete absence of internal and external security"
L'origine de Bert
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Links - 10th May 2018 (1)
It's Official: Bitcoin Surpasses "Tulip Mania", Is Now The Biggest Bubble In World History
Scientists Link ‘Cat Parasite' to Common Human Neurological Disorders - "Epidemiological studies done on humans have uncovered links to brain disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, but scientists haven’t been able to demonstrate how the parasite does its dirty work in the brain, or how we might be able to mitigate its effects. The new study fills the first of these two knowledge gaps, showing how T. gondii influences the course of these brain-centered diseases, making a bad thing worse in certain circumstances... By performing a “comprehensive systems analysis,” the scientists identified a wide range of parasite-instigated effects in the brain and their probable impact. The researchers also looked at the effect of T. gondii infection on cultured neural stem cells, which allowed them to see how proteins were being disturbed, and how genetic expression and gene networks were being altered. Armed with this data, the scientists identified connections between T. gondii infection and the altered linkages associated with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and certain cancers. Disturbingly, the researchers also found evidence that the parasite manipulates a dozen human olfactory receptors in a way that closely mirrors its observed effects on mice and leopards"
Germany: Merkel's Refugee Czar Wants Voting Rights for Migrants - "According to the Federal Integration Commissioner Aydan Özoguz, “people who permanently live in a country should be able to participate in democratic decision making.”... SPD’s Chancellor Candidate Martin Schulz already backs many of the ideas proposed by Commissioner Özoguz... However, the champion of “just society” and “equal rights”, Özoguz doesn’t support justice and equality for everyone — at least not for underaged child brides living in Germany. In November 2016, she publicly opposed banning child marriage"
Merkel vs. Schulz: Israel and Middle East take back stage at German debat - "Schulz’s comments about the importance of protecting Israel are not new. Former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg wrote in February 2014 in Haaretz that Schulz once told him: “For me, the new Germany exists only in order to ensure the existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”"
Sex Education in Korea: A Phallus Garden in "Love Land" - "As late as the end of the 1980s, journalist and travel writer Simon Winchester reported that some hotel employees on the island performed as "professional icebreakers." In the evenings, the hotel would offer an entertainment program featuring lap dances and others raunchy or risqué highlights. Its purpose was to help the intimidated, freshly married novices relax -- and perhaps to give them some ideas for later. Winchester remarks wryly about one of these hotel entertainers that he probably deflowered more women than any other man in Asia. So perhaps it's no wonder then that Korea's Love Land should have been built here, just a short taxi drive from Cheju City. Whoever has meandered about between the gigantic stone labia and climbed the 10 meter (33 feet) marble phallus probably feels a little less repressed afterwards. Still, none of this is proof of an unusually open or relaxed attitude to sex. The opposite is true. A few thoroughly rule-governed exceptions apart, the things that are shown and imagined in Love Land are kept under cover elsewhere in South Korea. In this sense, the theme park is not unlike Asian porn mags or fertility rites: It's a small isle of freedom in an ocean of taboos."
Sometimes It’s Just Easier To Care About Dead Lions Than Dead People - "We think nothing of trying to destroy a man, ruin his life, and wish for his painful demise, without knowing anything else about him. We are so numb, so indifferent, that we will rip a stranger to pieces, cannibalize him publicly, tear him down until there is nothing left, and then sleep like babies at night... progressives choose to care about lions because lions are an abstraction. They care about the idea of lions... crucially, lions will never ask anything from us. Our affection for them presents no challenges. We don’t have to accommodate them. I can say I love lions, but this love will never require me to do anything. Lions will never inconvenience me. They’ll never get in my way. I can defend the lives of lions by angrily Tweeting about hunters, and then I can go on my way, live however I want, and never be asked to change my lifestyle for their sake... If ever some deranged terrorist transported thousand of lions into our neighborhoods, forcing us to actually love lions in some real and present sense, I can guarantee the progressive affection for the species would vanish rapidly."
My Eating Disorder Had Nothing to Do with Barbie or the Media - "Paradoxically, in discussions of "unrealistic bodies", real women get the most stick for their stick-figures, be it flat-bellied celebrities on Instagram, or, most frequently, the entire modelling industry itself... The implication is that unrealistic body standards lead to eating disorders, which is an argument I believe reduces a severe mental illness to a vain aspiration to be a runway model – something I have never personally aspired to. "A lot of people don't see eating disorders as actual illnesses," Carrie Arnold, a 34-year-old freelance science writer, author, and recovered anorexic tells me. "They see them as choices. And thinking that eating disorders are caused by images of thin models really serves to drive home the point that they're all about vanity." Of course, these arguments aren't unfounded. A University of Sussex study discovered that young girls who played with Barbies reported lower body satisfaction than those who didn't. But the question remains whether this, in turn, causes mental illness. It would be fair to say that most women are in some way unhappy with their bodies. But most women don't have anorexia... In my opinion, the real way in which the media is damaging isn't in the way it creates eating disorders, but the way it discusses them... How can we solely blame the media for causing eating disorders when there are cases of anorexia in blind people and in places like rural Africa"
Why are Benevolent Sexists Happier? - "Research indicates that the endorsement of sexist ideology is linked to higher subjective wellbeing for both men and women. We examine gender differences in the rationalisations which drive this effect in an egalitarian nation (New Zealand). Results from a nationally representative sample (N = 6,100) indicated that the endorsement of Benevolent Sexism (BS) predicted life satisfaction through different mechanisms for men and women. For men, BS was directly associated with life satisfaction. For women, the palliative effect of BS was indirect and occurred because BS-ideology positioning women as deserving of men’s adoration and protection was linked to general perceptions of gender relations as fair and equitable, which in turn predicted greater levels of life satisfaction."
Feminists will say that truth is better than delusion even if it brings less happiness, but we are not talking about objective, verifiable facts here (e.g. whether the earth is flat) but rather preferences and attitudes, where non-feminists would agree that there is no transcendental truth
Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex? - The New York Times - "“Egalitarianism, Housework and Sexual Frequency in Marriage,” which appeared in The American Sociological Review last year, surprised many, precisely because it went against the logical assumption that as marriages improve by becoming more equal, the sex in these marriages will improve, too. Instead, it found that when men did certain kinds of chores around the house, couples had less sex. Specifically, if men did all of what the researchers characterized as feminine chores like folding laundry, cooking or vacuuming — the kinds of things many women say they want their husbands to do — then couples had sex 1.5 fewer times per month than those with husbands who did what were considered masculine chores, like taking out the trash or fixing the car. It wasn’t just the frequency that was affected, either — at least for the wives. The more traditional the division of labor, meaning the greater the husband’s share of masculine chores compared with feminine ones, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction... Brines believes the quandary many couples find themselves in comes down to this: “The less gender differentiation, the less sexual desire.” In other words, in an attempt to be gender-neutral, we may have become gender-neutered... “most of us get turned on at night by the very things that we’ll demonstrate against during the day”... A large national study in the late 1990s found that women who were more educated than their husbands were more likely to engage in sexual infidelity than if they were less educated than their husbands... if a wife earns more than her husband, the couple are 15 percent less likely to report that their marriage is very happy; 32 percent more likely to report marital troubles in the past year; and 46 percent more likely to have discussed separating in the past year. Similarly, Lynn Prince Cooke found that though sharing breadwinning and household duties decreases the likelihood of divorce, that’s true only up to a point. If a wife earns more than her husband, the risk of divorce increases. Interestingly, Cooke’s study shows that the predicted risk of divorce is lowest when the husband does 40 percent of the housework and the wife earns 40 percent of the income... women partnered with men who had genes similar to their own in this part of the immune system were more likely to be unfaithful; and the more of these genes a woman shared with her partner, the more she was attracted to other men... too much similarity in egalitarian marriages leads to boredom and decreased sexual frequency. “When you’re best friends with your partner, there’s less frisson,” Schwartz says. “Introducing more distance or difference, rather than connection and similarity, helps to resurrect passion in long-term, stable relationships.” She also found that in lesbian couples in which there’s a high degree of intimate conversation, there’s less sex."
Studying Recent Human Evolution at the Genetic Level - The New York Times - "thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago... About 93 percent of Han Chinese carry the variant, as do about 70 percent of people in Japan and Thailand, and 60 to 90 percent of American Indians, a population descended from East Asians."
Man sentenced to 10 months' jail for engaging services of underage prostitute - "Judge Yap chided Hari on Tuesday and told him: "You have not shown a shred of remorse for the girl... You added salt to the wound by not paying her.""
Would he have gotten a lighter sentence if he'd had paid her?
Man jailed 18 months’ for sex with underage girlfriend - "she gave birth to a daughter in the toilet of her own home, assisted by her grandmother who had cut the baby’s umbilical cord with a pair of scissors before calling the ambulance. Court documents stated that neither the man nor the girl knew she was pregnant until she gave birth... the man was given a 12-month conditional warning for sleeping with an underage girl. That same month, the couple had sex again, and another time the following month. On June 24, she went for a medical check at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital relating to her first birth. She was told she was pregnant again... Deputy Public Prosecutor Jesintha Veijayaratnam said the man showed a “reckless disregard” for the girl’s health and safety by impregnating her months after she had delivered her first child."
To not realise you're pregnant once may be regarded as a misfortune; to miss the signs twice looks like carelessness
UKIP AM Gareth Bennett barred over 'hateful' remarks - "Mr Bennett told the assembly: "There is only so much deviation from the norm that any society can take before that society completely implodes. "If we carry on down this road of appeasing the nuttiest elements of the transgender movement," he said, "then what we will face as a society, within a very short space of time, is total implosion." He was speaking about a UK government proposal to make the process of changing legal gender easier... UKIP Wales leader Neil Hamilton then intervened, saying it was a "point of argument and debate" and the remarks were related to a bill on gender recognition in the House of Commons. "If we cannot in this chamber debate the matters which are contained in a bill that is proposed to be introduced in the House of Commons, I think that's a very serious diminution of the democratic rights of the Welsh people"... Ms Jones had singled out Mr Bennett's "deviation from the norm" comment for particular criticism."
If this counts as hateful, then trans activists' language is the Holocaust
Net Neutrality Hysteria: Constant Hysterics Damage Democracy - "We keep reading that Donald Trump is a unique danger to American democracy, a threat we should put aside partisan tribalism to defeat. Then, seconds later, we read that giving Americans the choice to buy health insurance will kill people by the thousands. Seconds after that, we learn that an entirely conventional Republican tax plan will not only kill people but also extinguish American democracy as we know it. Finally, we read that the end of net neutrality — a regulatory doctrine that only the smallest percentage of Americans even remotely understand — will extinguish American liberty. Folks with decent memories will remember another danger to American democracy. His name was Willard Mitt Romney — a corporate raider, slaver (“put y’all back in chains“), and misogynist (“binders full of women”) who actually killed people."
Hundreds of youths rob tourists and brawl in St Kilda - "Shocked bystanders said close to 200 youths of African appearance were involved in the violence at Melbourne's St Kilda beach early on Thursday morning. Police struggled to contain the fighting, overwhelmed by the huge numbers of teen thugs."
Friday essay: the myth of the ancient Greek 'gay utopia' - "The persistent dream of a “gay utopia” is one of the constants in gay and lesbian historical imaginings over the last 200 years... These myths point to an ambivalence that runs through Greek society about same-sex attraction. Male same-sex relationships attracted particular care and supervision in the Greek world because the freedoms that men, unlike women, enjoyed meant that there was always greater potential for things to go wrong. If left to get out of control, passions could have tragic consequences. It is little wonder that thinkers like Plato turn out to have an ambiguous relationship towards same-sex relationships"
Lesbos islanders lose lesbian ban court case - "The residents appealed to a court in Athens to ban the word, claiming that as the island's inhabitants, they were the only true Lesbians. An Athens court rejected an injunction application by Dimitris Lambrou, a magazine editor, to ban the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece (OLKE), from using the word 'lesbian' in their title in a sexual context."Today's decision is unacceptable and an insult to the people of Lesbos and their three thousand year long history", said Mr Lambrou... The islanders said they did not mind if lesbians use the terms "female homosexuals" or "gay women" to describe their sexual preferences, but insisted that using the name of the island and its people was a violation of their right to a national and regional identity.... Evangelia Vlami, a lesbian activist, told the court... "'Siamese twins is an internationally accepted term, and nobody thought of arguing that this term insults the people of Siam"."
Notably, this was in 2008, before the current wave of political correctness
Accused of Sexual Harassment, Andrea Ramsey Ends Kansas Congressional Run - The New York Times - "Andrea Ramsey, 56, is a retired business executive who worked in the nonprofit sector before deciding to run for office as a Democrat in next year’s congressional midterm elections. She was one of a growing number of women inspired to seek office in the wake of President Trump’s election... Ms. Ramsey is the rare — perhaps the only — woman in public life to face consequences from a sexual harassment accusation in the weeks since journalistic exposés spawned the #MeToo movement. She said that her political opponents were using the false allegations against her, and she criticized the Democratic Party for implementing a “zero tolerance standard.”
What's sauce for gander...
The interesting thing that happens when a Republican marries a Democrat - "Democrats live in more partisan neighborhoods than Republicans do — partly due to concentrated African American communities, where most people are Democrats. In neighborhoods that were more than 90 percent Democratic, they found that 68 percent of households were made up of two Democrats. But in neighborhoods that were more than 90 percent Republican, only 55 percent of households were made up of two Republicans."
Ideologically, Republicans seem to be exposed to more diversity
James Carville and Mary Matalin Dish on Politics and Marriage - "Our basic philosophical thrust about the level of government interaction is diametrically opposed, but our love for policy and politics and the need for informed citizenry and participatory democracy is the same. That we disagree on policy was tough, but it’s not one of those deal-breakers. We’re very practical in our local politics, and we’re philosophically opposed on the role and scope of government, but we love each other. What can I say?"
Scientists Link ‘Cat Parasite' to Common Human Neurological Disorders - "Epidemiological studies done on humans have uncovered links to brain disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, but scientists haven’t been able to demonstrate how the parasite does its dirty work in the brain, or how we might be able to mitigate its effects. The new study fills the first of these two knowledge gaps, showing how T. gondii influences the course of these brain-centered diseases, making a bad thing worse in certain circumstances... By performing a “comprehensive systems analysis,” the scientists identified a wide range of parasite-instigated effects in the brain and their probable impact. The researchers also looked at the effect of T. gondii infection on cultured neural stem cells, which allowed them to see how proteins were being disturbed, and how genetic expression and gene networks were being altered. Armed with this data, the scientists identified connections between T. gondii infection and the altered linkages associated with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and certain cancers. Disturbingly, the researchers also found evidence that the parasite manipulates a dozen human olfactory receptors in a way that closely mirrors its observed effects on mice and leopards"
Germany: Merkel's Refugee Czar Wants Voting Rights for Migrants - "According to the Federal Integration Commissioner Aydan Özoguz, “people who permanently live in a country should be able to participate in democratic decision making.”... SPD’s Chancellor Candidate Martin Schulz already backs many of the ideas proposed by Commissioner Özoguz... However, the champion of “just society” and “equal rights”, Özoguz doesn’t support justice and equality for everyone — at least not for underaged child brides living in Germany. In November 2016, she publicly opposed banning child marriage"
Merkel vs. Schulz: Israel and Middle East take back stage at German debat - "Schulz’s comments about the importance of protecting Israel are not new. Former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg wrote in February 2014 in Haaretz that Schulz once told him: “For me, the new Germany exists only in order to ensure the existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”"
Sex Education in Korea: A Phallus Garden in "Love Land" - "As late as the end of the 1980s, journalist and travel writer Simon Winchester reported that some hotel employees on the island performed as "professional icebreakers." In the evenings, the hotel would offer an entertainment program featuring lap dances and others raunchy or risqué highlights. Its purpose was to help the intimidated, freshly married novices relax -- and perhaps to give them some ideas for later. Winchester remarks wryly about one of these hotel entertainers that he probably deflowered more women than any other man in Asia. So perhaps it's no wonder then that Korea's Love Land should have been built here, just a short taxi drive from Cheju City. Whoever has meandered about between the gigantic stone labia and climbed the 10 meter (33 feet) marble phallus probably feels a little less repressed afterwards. Still, none of this is proof of an unusually open or relaxed attitude to sex. The opposite is true. A few thoroughly rule-governed exceptions apart, the things that are shown and imagined in Love Land are kept under cover elsewhere in South Korea. In this sense, the theme park is not unlike Asian porn mags or fertility rites: It's a small isle of freedom in an ocean of taboos."
Sometimes It’s Just Easier To Care About Dead Lions Than Dead People - "We think nothing of trying to destroy a man, ruin his life, and wish for his painful demise, without knowing anything else about him. We are so numb, so indifferent, that we will rip a stranger to pieces, cannibalize him publicly, tear him down until there is nothing left, and then sleep like babies at night... progressives choose to care about lions because lions are an abstraction. They care about the idea of lions... crucially, lions will never ask anything from us. Our affection for them presents no challenges. We don’t have to accommodate them. I can say I love lions, but this love will never require me to do anything. Lions will never inconvenience me. They’ll never get in my way. I can defend the lives of lions by angrily Tweeting about hunters, and then I can go on my way, live however I want, and never be asked to change my lifestyle for their sake... If ever some deranged terrorist transported thousand of lions into our neighborhoods, forcing us to actually love lions in some real and present sense, I can guarantee the progressive affection for the species would vanish rapidly."
My Eating Disorder Had Nothing to Do with Barbie or the Media - "Paradoxically, in discussions of "unrealistic bodies", real women get the most stick for their stick-figures, be it flat-bellied celebrities on Instagram, or, most frequently, the entire modelling industry itself... The implication is that unrealistic body standards lead to eating disorders, which is an argument I believe reduces a severe mental illness to a vain aspiration to be a runway model – something I have never personally aspired to. "A lot of people don't see eating disorders as actual illnesses," Carrie Arnold, a 34-year-old freelance science writer, author, and recovered anorexic tells me. "They see them as choices. And thinking that eating disorders are caused by images of thin models really serves to drive home the point that they're all about vanity." Of course, these arguments aren't unfounded. A University of Sussex study discovered that young girls who played with Barbies reported lower body satisfaction than those who didn't. But the question remains whether this, in turn, causes mental illness. It would be fair to say that most women are in some way unhappy with their bodies. But most women don't have anorexia... In my opinion, the real way in which the media is damaging isn't in the way it creates eating disorders, but the way it discusses them... How can we solely blame the media for causing eating disorders when there are cases of anorexia in blind people and in places like rural Africa"
Why are Benevolent Sexists Happier? - "Research indicates that the endorsement of sexist ideology is linked to higher subjective wellbeing for both men and women. We examine gender differences in the rationalisations which drive this effect in an egalitarian nation (New Zealand). Results from a nationally representative sample (N = 6,100) indicated that the endorsement of Benevolent Sexism (BS) predicted life satisfaction through different mechanisms for men and women. For men, BS was directly associated with life satisfaction. For women, the palliative effect of BS was indirect and occurred because BS-ideology positioning women as deserving of men’s adoration and protection was linked to general perceptions of gender relations as fair and equitable, which in turn predicted greater levels of life satisfaction."
Feminists will say that truth is better than delusion even if it brings less happiness, but we are not talking about objective, verifiable facts here (e.g. whether the earth is flat) but rather preferences and attitudes, where non-feminists would agree that there is no transcendental truth
Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex? - The New York Times - "“Egalitarianism, Housework and Sexual Frequency in Marriage,” which appeared in The American Sociological Review last year, surprised many, precisely because it went against the logical assumption that as marriages improve by becoming more equal, the sex in these marriages will improve, too. Instead, it found that when men did certain kinds of chores around the house, couples had less sex. Specifically, if men did all of what the researchers characterized as feminine chores like folding laundry, cooking or vacuuming — the kinds of things many women say they want their husbands to do — then couples had sex 1.5 fewer times per month than those with husbands who did what were considered masculine chores, like taking out the trash or fixing the car. It wasn’t just the frequency that was affected, either — at least for the wives. The more traditional the division of labor, meaning the greater the husband’s share of masculine chores compared with feminine ones, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction... Brines believes the quandary many couples find themselves in comes down to this: “The less gender differentiation, the less sexual desire.” In other words, in an attempt to be gender-neutral, we may have become gender-neutered... “most of us get turned on at night by the very things that we’ll demonstrate against during the day”... A large national study in the late 1990s found that women who were more educated than their husbands were more likely to engage in sexual infidelity than if they were less educated than their husbands... if a wife earns more than her husband, the couple are 15 percent less likely to report that their marriage is very happy; 32 percent more likely to report marital troubles in the past year; and 46 percent more likely to have discussed separating in the past year. Similarly, Lynn Prince Cooke found that though sharing breadwinning and household duties decreases the likelihood of divorce, that’s true only up to a point. If a wife earns more than her husband, the risk of divorce increases. Interestingly, Cooke’s study shows that the predicted risk of divorce is lowest when the husband does 40 percent of the housework and the wife earns 40 percent of the income... women partnered with men who had genes similar to their own in this part of the immune system were more likely to be unfaithful; and the more of these genes a woman shared with her partner, the more she was attracted to other men... too much similarity in egalitarian marriages leads to boredom and decreased sexual frequency. “When you’re best friends with your partner, there’s less frisson,” Schwartz says. “Introducing more distance or difference, rather than connection and similarity, helps to resurrect passion in long-term, stable relationships.” She also found that in lesbian couples in which there’s a high degree of intimate conversation, there’s less sex."
Studying Recent Human Evolution at the Genetic Level - The New York Times - "thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago... About 93 percent of Han Chinese carry the variant, as do about 70 percent of people in Japan and Thailand, and 60 to 90 percent of American Indians, a population descended from East Asians."
Man sentenced to 10 months' jail for engaging services of underage prostitute - "Judge Yap chided Hari on Tuesday and told him: "You have not shown a shred of remorse for the girl... You added salt to the wound by not paying her.""
Would he have gotten a lighter sentence if he'd had paid her?
Man jailed 18 months’ for sex with underage girlfriend - "she gave birth to a daughter in the toilet of her own home, assisted by her grandmother who had cut the baby’s umbilical cord with a pair of scissors before calling the ambulance. Court documents stated that neither the man nor the girl knew she was pregnant until she gave birth... the man was given a 12-month conditional warning for sleeping with an underage girl. That same month, the couple had sex again, and another time the following month. On June 24, she went for a medical check at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital relating to her first birth. She was told she was pregnant again... Deputy Public Prosecutor Jesintha Veijayaratnam said the man showed a “reckless disregard” for the girl’s health and safety by impregnating her months after she had delivered her first child."
To not realise you're pregnant once may be regarded as a misfortune; to miss the signs twice looks like carelessness
UKIP AM Gareth Bennett barred over 'hateful' remarks - "Mr Bennett told the assembly: "There is only so much deviation from the norm that any society can take before that society completely implodes. "If we carry on down this road of appeasing the nuttiest elements of the transgender movement," he said, "then what we will face as a society, within a very short space of time, is total implosion." He was speaking about a UK government proposal to make the process of changing legal gender easier... UKIP Wales leader Neil Hamilton then intervened, saying it was a "point of argument and debate" and the remarks were related to a bill on gender recognition in the House of Commons. "If we cannot in this chamber debate the matters which are contained in a bill that is proposed to be introduced in the House of Commons, I think that's a very serious diminution of the democratic rights of the Welsh people"... Ms Jones had singled out Mr Bennett's "deviation from the norm" comment for particular criticism."
If this counts as hateful, then trans activists' language is the Holocaust
Net Neutrality Hysteria: Constant Hysterics Damage Democracy - "We keep reading that Donald Trump is a unique danger to American democracy, a threat we should put aside partisan tribalism to defeat. Then, seconds later, we read that giving Americans the choice to buy health insurance will kill people by the thousands. Seconds after that, we learn that an entirely conventional Republican tax plan will not only kill people but also extinguish American democracy as we know it. Finally, we read that the end of net neutrality — a regulatory doctrine that only the smallest percentage of Americans even remotely understand — will extinguish American liberty. Folks with decent memories will remember another danger to American democracy. His name was Willard Mitt Romney — a corporate raider, slaver (“put y’all back in chains“), and misogynist (“binders full of women”) who actually killed people."
Hundreds of youths rob tourists and brawl in St Kilda - "Shocked bystanders said close to 200 youths of African appearance were involved in the violence at Melbourne's St Kilda beach early on Thursday morning. Police struggled to contain the fighting, overwhelmed by the huge numbers of teen thugs."
Friday essay: the myth of the ancient Greek 'gay utopia' - "The persistent dream of a “gay utopia” is one of the constants in gay and lesbian historical imaginings over the last 200 years... These myths point to an ambivalence that runs through Greek society about same-sex attraction. Male same-sex relationships attracted particular care and supervision in the Greek world because the freedoms that men, unlike women, enjoyed meant that there was always greater potential for things to go wrong. If left to get out of control, passions could have tragic consequences. It is little wonder that thinkers like Plato turn out to have an ambiguous relationship towards same-sex relationships"
Lesbos islanders lose lesbian ban court case - "The residents appealed to a court in Athens to ban the word, claiming that as the island's inhabitants, they were the only true Lesbians. An Athens court rejected an injunction application by Dimitris Lambrou, a magazine editor, to ban the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece (OLKE), from using the word 'lesbian' in their title in a sexual context."Today's decision is unacceptable and an insult to the people of Lesbos and their three thousand year long history", said Mr Lambrou... The islanders said they did not mind if lesbians use the terms "female homosexuals" or "gay women" to describe their sexual preferences, but insisted that using the name of the island and its people was a violation of their right to a national and regional identity.... Evangelia Vlami, a lesbian activist, told the court... "'Siamese twins is an internationally accepted term, and nobody thought of arguing that this term insults the people of Siam"."
Notably, this was in 2008, before the current wave of political correctness
Accused of Sexual Harassment, Andrea Ramsey Ends Kansas Congressional Run - The New York Times - "Andrea Ramsey, 56, is a retired business executive who worked in the nonprofit sector before deciding to run for office as a Democrat in next year’s congressional midterm elections. She was one of a growing number of women inspired to seek office in the wake of President Trump’s election... Ms. Ramsey is the rare — perhaps the only — woman in public life to face consequences from a sexual harassment accusation in the weeks since journalistic exposés spawned the #MeToo movement. She said that her political opponents were using the false allegations against her, and she criticized the Democratic Party for implementing a “zero tolerance standard.”
What's sauce for gander...
The interesting thing that happens when a Republican marries a Democrat - "Democrats live in more partisan neighborhoods than Republicans do — partly due to concentrated African American communities, where most people are Democrats. In neighborhoods that were more than 90 percent Democratic, they found that 68 percent of households were made up of two Democrats. But in neighborhoods that were more than 90 percent Republican, only 55 percent of households were made up of two Republicans."
Ideologically, Republicans seem to be exposed to more diversity
James Carville and Mary Matalin Dish on Politics and Marriage - "Our basic philosophical thrust about the level of government interaction is diametrically opposed, but our love for policy and politics and the need for informed citizenry and participatory democracy is the same. That we disagree on policy was tough, but it’s not one of those deal-breakers. We’re very practical in our local politics, and we’re philosophically opposed on the role and scope of government, but we love each other. What can I say?"
Post ID: 4539894968457231703
Wednesday, May 09, 2018
Links - 9th May 2018 (3)
DPM Zahid To M'sians In S'pore: If You Can't Get Leave Then Don't Come Back To Vote
Subtle.
Star Wars 8 The Last Jedi: Andy Serkis ‘Snoke is based on Hugh Hefner’
Mark Hamill NEVER Knew About Luke's Fate in The Last Jedi? (Spoilers) | Star Wars The Last Jedi - YouTube
'Star Wars: The Last Jedi': The 5 Biggest Complaints From Fans - "Director Rian Johnson breaks the most important rule in film: Never waste the viewers’ time. The unspoken agreement between an audience and a filmmaker is that every second of the film is there for a reason. “The Last Jedi” breaks this rule repeatedly by taking us on a number of missions that do not further the plot, and in so doing, undermine the sense of purpose in the plot and the audience’s trust in the lead characters’ judgment. Finn and Rose’s trip to the casino world (which is prequel-level silly) to get the “master code breaker”—whom they didn’t find, but did find sort of(?)—and their harrowing mission onto the command ship all ends up being pointless. So does Poe’s utterly unnecessary takeover of the Resistance ship. After being once again smacked down by Leia, Poe wakes up to learn in about 10 seconds what he should’ve been told by Holdo before the waste-of-time mutiny. The dominant motif of the film is "delay and retreat"; in many ways, the entire film feels like one big delay tactic... The opening sequence in which the daring and increasingly stupid Poe says he’ll “hold” for Commander Hux (played by chronic overactor Domhnal Gleeson) was jarring. I saw this movie twice with two totally different audiences, and each time there were uneasy laughs from fans. The reason is that the humor is simply not Star Wars humor, a comment that many fans made in their complaints"
From Canto Bight to the Resistance's plight, the worst parts of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" - The Washington Post - "Whether you like “The Last Jedi” will depend on whether you simply want to surrender to its pleasures, or whether you want to think hard about it... “The Last Jedi” is full of — and, in fact, depends on — plot contrivances, some of which merely test the forbearance of the audience, others of which actively waste its time... “The Empire Strikes Back” conveyed the immorality of apolitical space capitalism in approximately eight lines delivered with Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) panache, a special effect infinitely more powerful than anything “The Last Jedi” spent in millions of dollars, Del Toro’s mumbling and a half-hour of this over-long movie to get across. The whole thing is just a disgracefully bad bit of storytelling... The original sin of the reconstituted “Star Wars” live-action movies was the choice to replicate the conflict between the scrappy, democratic Rebellion (now the Resistance) and the fascist Empire (now the First Order), rather than to actually move the world forward and explore the problems that would inevitably flow from the New Republic’s attempts to reunify the galaxy and mop up the fragments of the Empire. That decision has been compounded by Lucasfilm’s highly conservative need to replicate the aesthetics of both movements, and the action beats of the original trilogy, sapping our sense that this is supposed to be at least a new phase of an ongoing conflict. And “The Last Jedi” takes this bad impulse to a place that I’m not sure the franchise can recover from in a plausible way... it’s not quite true, as Scalzi suggests, that “You don’t expect logic from ‘Star Wars’ any more than you expect it out of, say, ‘Jason and the Argonauts.’ ” Part of what makes an epic like the “Iliad” continually compelling both as a specific story and as an enduring form that other artists use as the basis for their own stories is the stuff that happens in between the big battles and that make it clear why a conflict unfolds, and ultimately ends, the way it does. You have to understand why the Trojans would accept the mysterious gift of a big wooden horse, even if it means a little divine intervention to tip the scales on their decision-making."
The Last Jedi: A Divisive Film That Broke the Critics - "My first theory is that the critics, those esteemed few who are invited to the glitzy and glamorous global premieres, were simply carried away in the moment... At that very moment, in every premiere around the world, the critics fell foul to a mass hysteria losing the one thing they all hold dear; their complete and unfettered impartiality. The second possibility for their review bonanza is that they feared the wrath of the fans. Not knowing how it would be received by the masses or, assuming that the masses would love the film regardless, the critics bent a knee to a repressed inner fear that should never materialize... finally, a third explanation. 93% of critics really did genuinely love it. They saw in The Last Jedi things that 45% of the surveyed audience (all 120,000 of us) failed to see. But honestly, I find this last reason a stretch because acclaim for The Last Jedi contrasts with the bile poured on Episodes I, II or III. The poor scripts. The weak story lines. The CGI. The wasted characters. All attributes that exist in Episode VIII... when these global professionals are so far removed from the audience (almost 40% removed), there is an obvious and apparent glitch in the industry"
Four Reasons Why ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Isn’t One for the Ages - "“Geez, I didn’t know the Jedi could do that!” But approximately two seconds after you’ve taken the moment in, it also leaves you with the feeling that the reason you didn’t know they could do that is that the film is making up its rules as it goes along. The moment is arbitrary, breathless but superimposed — spectacular in a monkeys-might-fly-out-of-my-butt sort of way. It seals the experience of “The Last Jedi,” a movie in which stuff keeps happening, and sometimes that stuff is staggering, and occasionally it’s quite exciting, but too often it feels like the bedazzled version of treading water. Yet you hang on and go with it, because you’re yearning for something great, and this is what the “Star Wars” universe, in its sleek retro-fitted corporate efficiency, has come down to: Making stuff up as it goes along."
The Last Jedi was more a finale than a middle act. That’s not good for Episode 9.
From Canto Bight to the Resistance's plight, the worst parts of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" - The Washington Post - "“The Last Jedi” is full of — and, in fact, depends on — plot contrivances, some of which merely test the forbearance of the audience, others of which actively waste its time... it also becomes an excuse for Rose to monologue about the immorality of weapons dealers and inequality, and for “The Last Jedi” to suggest that the future of the Resistance lies in some scrappy stable kids (to which I’ll return in a moment). “The Empire Strikes Back” conveyed the immorality of apolitical space capitalism in approximately eight lines delivered with Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) panache, a special effect infinitely more powerful than anything “The Last Jedi” spent in millions of dollars, Del Toro’s mumbling and a half-hour of this over-long movie to get across. The whole thing is just a disgracefully bad bit of storytelling... The original sin of the reconstituted “Star Wars” live-action movies was the choice to replicate the conflict between the scrappy, democratic Rebellion (now the Resistance) and the fascist Empire (now the First Order), rather than to actually move the world forward and explore the problems that would inevitably flow from the New Republic’s attempts to reunify the galaxy and mop up the fragments of the Empire. That decision has been compounded by Lucasfilm’s highly conservative need to replicate the aesthetics of both movements, and the action beats of the original trilogy, sapping our sense that this is supposed to be at least a new phase of an ongoing conflict... it’s not quite true, as Scalzi suggests, that “You don’t expect logic from ‘Star Wars’ any more than you expect it out of, say, ‘Jason and the Argonauts.’ ” Part of what makes an epic like the “Iliad” continually compelling both as a specific story and as an enduring form that other artists use as the basis for their own stories is the stuff that happens in between the big battles and that make it clear why a conflict unfolds, and ultimately ends, the way it does. You have to understand why the Trojans would accept the mysterious gift of a big wooden horse, even if it means a little divine intervention to tip the scales on their decision-making."
'Last Jedi' Grosses Are Collapsing With The Worst Daily Holds Of All 9 Star Wars Movies - "It had retained just 16 percent of its opening day gross, a figure that, as the chart below shows, is well below the holds for The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and the last of the prequels, Revenge of the Sith... In fact, The Last Jedi isn't even holding as well as Justice League did"
'The Last Jedi's Gargantuan $151M 2nd Weekend Plunge Is An Epic Hollywood Choke - "The scale of the catastrophe that is Star Wars: The Last Jedi is difficult to comprehend without comparing it to major, historic natural disasters. Because no other movie has come anywhere close to the picture’s $151.5 million 2nd weekend box office razing, there’s no movie comparison that gives its record-obliterating failure proper context"
Since its low Rotten Tomatoes ratings are due to bots, these must be fake box office numbers too
Liberal identity politics has ruined Star Wars for the fanboys - "a claim the movie is no more than “social justice warrior propaganda”. In media land, one critic gushed The Last Jedi is “the most triumphantly feminist Star Wars movie yet,” concluding it a masterpiece that possesses a “celebratory inclusiveness that seems entirely in the Jedi spirit”... Certainly, watching the movie can feel like you’re playing identity politics bingo. In one scene, a female admiral rallies her troops by heralding the rise of The Resistance, which some conspiracy theorists have interpreted as code for feminism. Patriarchy? Tick! Likewise, the richest men in the galaxy are evil, greedy, white, arms-dealers. White male privilege theory and the evils of capitalism? Tick! In a scene where Chewbacca attempts to eat a deep-fried bird called a porq, other living porqs look on disapprovingly, meat-shaming Chewie. Are they implying Chewie ought to go vegetarian? Animal rights and vegan politics? Tick! Aaagggghhhh! Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Laura Dern, who plays Vice Admiral Holdo, sports purple hair that wouldn’t look out of place on a Tumblr user’s unicorn avatar... the truth is that identity politics is the kryptonite that saps the joy out of all it touches. How long before Harrison Ford comes out as Trans Solo? What price a zero-emissions Millennium Falcon? Will Jabba The Hutt be called out for “fat shaming” the obese?"
Some claim it's not feminist. If so why are feminists so happy with it? (plus the "The Force is Female" T-shirts)
Actually the new Star Wars isn't that SJW. Rose sexually assaults Finn by kissing him when he didn't give his affirmative consent Then again maybe it's only sexual assault when it's done by men
"The original(1977) trilogy already had a female hero and a white male villain, and the prequels already had a female jedi, and a badass one at that" (i.e. people only complain when it's heavy handed)
'The Last Jedi' Is Good. It Just Isn't Magical. - "“The Last Jedi” has a lot to say about the Light Side and the Dark Side, but there is nothing about grief and loss, and it’s banal about democracy. What it does with good and evil isn’t nearly interesting enough. Rey, our heroine, is never truly tempted. That’s boring."
The Last Jedi Is Star Wars for People Who HATE Star Wars - "Star Wars is about heroics and heroism. From the raid on the Death Star to rescue the princess, to the doomed last-ditch battle on Hoth, buying time for the transports to escape, to the intricate plot to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hut, characters risk their lives to save the lives of others or just to fight evil, many times at great cost to themselves. Courage, especially physical courage, is central to the entire trilogy (and is the chief reason the series is so beloved). The Last Jedi mocks courage, heroics, and heroism. Poe Dameron, the cocky fighter pilot, risks his life and the lives of his teammates to destroy the most formidable ship hunting the Resistance, and for this is upbraided and demoted... The total lack of heroism is one reason, but the other is this: This movie is just not epic. And Star Wars is epic"
Mark Hamill Rips His Role In 'Last Jedi': 'He's Not My Luke Skywalker' - "“I said to Rian, I said ‘Jedis don’t give up.’ I mean, even if he had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong, so right there, we had a fundamental difference, but, it’s not my story anymore,” Hamill, 66, said in an interview posted by Spanish-language movie site SensaCine recently. “It’s somebody else’s story, and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.” Hamill added: “I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker, he’s not my Luke Skywalker.”... “I still haven’t accepted it completely, but it’s only a movie”"
Star Wars: The Last Jedi: the backlash explained - "the film’s strongest characters are almost all women, who usually know the right thing to do, while its most evil characters are white men with complexes about being given what they think they deserve... The Last Jedi spends a lot of its running time telling you that a lot of the things fans have obsessed about since The Force Awakens was released just didn’t matter... What’s interesting about the critiques of The Last Jedi is how often, when you talk about them, many of the above criticisms fall away, and you’re left with a distinct philosophical difference between people who love the film’s insistence that the future can be better if we make it and those who don’t like the way it forces us to grapple with the sins of the past"
Is Star Wars: The Force Awakens feminist propaganda? - "One of the major aspects of Star Wars is that of individuals needing to develop themselves in order to meet challenges.
ey, however, seems to get a pass on much of this. Despite being young and leading a humble, solitary life, she can...
Beat the s**t out of two grown men using a staff.
Fly the Millennium Falcon like a stunt pilot on her first attempt.
Knows how to maintain the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo. (Recall that her equivalent, Luke, in a similar situation, only managed to squeeze out, "What's that thing flashing!?")
Use force powers with no training.
Defeat the main bad guy in a duel, again, with no training.
EDIT: Speak Wookiee.
Meanwhile, the male support is kind of bumbling, and has an episode of acute cowardliness. The gist of the feminist propaganda is that she does not need to work at anything, she's naturally awesome just by being a woman. Its a characterisation that tends towards idealism and grandiosity rather than realism."
Designing Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Part 1: How Porgs Were Hatched - "Rian [Johnson] had gone to shoot this sequence on Skellig Michael, which is the real island location that stands in for Ahch-To, and that island is covered in puffins. It’s a wildlife preserve and everywhere you look there are hundreds of birds dotted around the landscape. From what I gathered, Rian, in a positive spin on this, was looking at how can he work with this. You can’t remove them. You physically can’t get rid of them. And digitally removing them is an issue and a lot of work, so let’s just roll with it, play with it. And so I think he thought, “Well, that’s great, let’s have our own indigenous species.” We’d already started work on the Caretakers, which again was a brief from Rian. We’d just been told “puffin people.” Yeah, there was going to be this race of people and puffins again were a source of inspiration for Rian. The puffins were sort of a big influence on everything, really."
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Has Saga's Lowest Audience Score - "the critical consensus states: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi honors the saga’s rich legacy while adding some surprising twists — and delivering all the emotion-rich action fans could hope for.” Unfortunately, moviegoers are challenging that belief and are bringing down the film’s audience score while doing it... The Last Jedi‘s audience score is 1 percent lower than the audience score for George Lucas’ Episode II – Attack of the Clones and 3 percent lower than Lucas’ Episode I – The Phantom Menace, both of which are arguably considered the worst installments in the entire saga. Of course, Johnson’s film still ranks 18 percent higher than the audience score for Dave Filoni’s 2008 animated film, Star Wars: The Clone Wars – but we’re not counting animated/non-theatrical films for this. Otherwise, we would need to somehow account for the Star Wars: Holiday Special, too."
Subtle.
Star Wars 8 The Last Jedi: Andy Serkis ‘Snoke is based on Hugh Hefner’
Mark Hamill NEVER Knew About Luke's Fate in The Last Jedi? (Spoilers) | Star Wars The Last Jedi - YouTube
'Star Wars: The Last Jedi': The 5 Biggest Complaints From Fans - "Director Rian Johnson breaks the most important rule in film: Never waste the viewers’ time. The unspoken agreement between an audience and a filmmaker is that every second of the film is there for a reason. “The Last Jedi” breaks this rule repeatedly by taking us on a number of missions that do not further the plot, and in so doing, undermine the sense of purpose in the plot and the audience’s trust in the lead characters’ judgment. Finn and Rose’s trip to the casino world (which is prequel-level silly) to get the “master code breaker”—whom they didn’t find, but did find sort of(?)—and their harrowing mission onto the command ship all ends up being pointless. So does Poe’s utterly unnecessary takeover of the Resistance ship. After being once again smacked down by Leia, Poe wakes up to learn in about 10 seconds what he should’ve been told by Holdo before the waste-of-time mutiny. The dominant motif of the film is "delay and retreat"; in many ways, the entire film feels like one big delay tactic... The opening sequence in which the daring and increasingly stupid Poe says he’ll “hold” for Commander Hux (played by chronic overactor Domhnal Gleeson) was jarring. I saw this movie twice with two totally different audiences, and each time there were uneasy laughs from fans. The reason is that the humor is simply not Star Wars humor, a comment that many fans made in their complaints"
From Canto Bight to the Resistance's plight, the worst parts of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" - The Washington Post - "Whether you like “The Last Jedi” will depend on whether you simply want to surrender to its pleasures, or whether you want to think hard about it... “The Last Jedi” is full of — and, in fact, depends on — plot contrivances, some of which merely test the forbearance of the audience, others of which actively waste its time... “The Empire Strikes Back” conveyed the immorality of apolitical space capitalism in approximately eight lines delivered with Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) panache, a special effect infinitely more powerful than anything “The Last Jedi” spent in millions of dollars, Del Toro’s mumbling and a half-hour of this over-long movie to get across. The whole thing is just a disgracefully bad bit of storytelling... The original sin of the reconstituted “Star Wars” live-action movies was the choice to replicate the conflict between the scrappy, democratic Rebellion (now the Resistance) and the fascist Empire (now the First Order), rather than to actually move the world forward and explore the problems that would inevitably flow from the New Republic’s attempts to reunify the galaxy and mop up the fragments of the Empire. That decision has been compounded by Lucasfilm’s highly conservative need to replicate the aesthetics of both movements, and the action beats of the original trilogy, sapping our sense that this is supposed to be at least a new phase of an ongoing conflict. And “The Last Jedi” takes this bad impulse to a place that I’m not sure the franchise can recover from in a plausible way... it’s not quite true, as Scalzi suggests, that “You don’t expect logic from ‘Star Wars’ any more than you expect it out of, say, ‘Jason and the Argonauts.’ ” Part of what makes an epic like the “Iliad” continually compelling both as a specific story and as an enduring form that other artists use as the basis for their own stories is the stuff that happens in between the big battles and that make it clear why a conflict unfolds, and ultimately ends, the way it does. You have to understand why the Trojans would accept the mysterious gift of a big wooden horse, even if it means a little divine intervention to tip the scales on their decision-making."
The Last Jedi: A Divisive Film That Broke the Critics - "My first theory is that the critics, those esteemed few who are invited to the glitzy and glamorous global premieres, were simply carried away in the moment... At that very moment, in every premiere around the world, the critics fell foul to a mass hysteria losing the one thing they all hold dear; their complete and unfettered impartiality. The second possibility for their review bonanza is that they feared the wrath of the fans. Not knowing how it would be received by the masses or, assuming that the masses would love the film regardless, the critics bent a knee to a repressed inner fear that should never materialize... finally, a third explanation. 93% of critics really did genuinely love it. They saw in The Last Jedi things that 45% of the surveyed audience (all 120,000 of us) failed to see. But honestly, I find this last reason a stretch because acclaim for The Last Jedi contrasts with the bile poured on Episodes I, II or III. The poor scripts. The weak story lines. The CGI. The wasted characters. All attributes that exist in Episode VIII... when these global professionals are so far removed from the audience (almost 40% removed), there is an obvious and apparent glitch in the industry"
Four Reasons Why ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Isn’t One for the Ages - "“Geez, I didn’t know the Jedi could do that!” But approximately two seconds after you’ve taken the moment in, it also leaves you with the feeling that the reason you didn’t know they could do that is that the film is making up its rules as it goes along. The moment is arbitrary, breathless but superimposed — spectacular in a monkeys-might-fly-out-of-my-butt sort of way. It seals the experience of “The Last Jedi,” a movie in which stuff keeps happening, and sometimes that stuff is staggering, and occasionally it’s quite exciting, but too often it feels like the bedazzled version of treading water. Yet you hang on and go with it, because you’re yearning for something great, and this is what the “Star Wars” universe, in its sleek retro-fitted corporate efficiency, has come down to: Making stuff up as it goes along."
The Last Jedi was more a finale than a middle act. That’s not good for Episode 9.
From Canto Bight to the Resistance's plight, the worst parts of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" - The Washington Post - "“The Last Jedi” is full of — and, in fact, depends on — plot contrivances, some of which merely test the forbearance of the audience, others of which actively waste its time... it also becomes an excuse for Rose to monologue about the immorality of weapons dealers and inequality, and for “The Last Jedi” to suggest that the future of the Resistance lies in some scrappy stable kids (to which I’ll return in a moment). “The Empire Strikes Back” conveyed the immorality of apolitical space capitalism in approximately eight lines delivered with Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) panache, a special effect infinitely more powerful than anything “The Last Jedi” spent in millions of dollars, Del Toro’s mumbling and a half-hour of this over-long movie to get across. The whole thing is just a disgracefully bad bit of storytelling... The original sin of the reconstituted “Star Wars” live-action movies was the choice to replicate the conflict between the scrappy, democratic Rebellion (now the Resistance) and the fascist Empire (now the First Order), rather than to actually move the world forward and explore the problems that would inevitably flow from the New Republic’s attempts to reunify the galaxy and mop up the fragments of the Empire. That decision has been compounded by Lucasfilm’s highly conservative need to replicate the aesthetics of both movements, and the action beats of the original trilogy, sapping our sense that this is supposed to be at least a new phase of an ongoing conflict... it’s not quite true, as Scalzi suggests, that “You don’t expect logic from ‘Star Wars’ any more than you expect it out of, say, ‘Jason and the Argonauts.’ ” Part of what makes an epic like the “Iliad” continually compelling both as a specific story and as an enduring form that other artists use as the basis for their own stories is the stuff that happens in between the big battles and that make it clear why a conflict unfolds, and ultimately ends, the way it does. You have to understand why the Trojans would accept the mysterious gift of a big wooden horse, even if it means a little divine intervention to tip the scales on their decision-making."
'Last Jedi' Grosses Are Collapsing With The Worst Daily Holds Of All 9 Star Wars Movies - "It had retained just 16 percent of its opening day gross, a figure that, as the chart below shows, is well below the holds for The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and the last of the prequels, Revenge of the Sith... In fact, The Last Jedi isn't even holding as well as Justice League did"
'The Last Jedi's Gargantuan $151M 2nd Weekend Plunge Is An Epic Hollywood Choke - "The scale of the catastrophe that is Star Wars: The Last Jedi is difficult to comprehend without comparing it to major, historic natural disasters. Because no other movie has come anywhere close to the picture’s $151.5 million 2nd weekend box office razing, there’s no movie comparison that gives its record-obliterating failure proper context"
Since its low Rotten Tomatoes ratings are due to bots, these must be fake box office numbers too
Liberal identity politics has ruined Star Wars for the fanboys - "a claim the movie is no more than “social justice warrior propaganda”. In media land, one critic gushed The Last Jedi is “the most triumphantly feminist Star Wars movie yet,” concluding it a masterpiece that possesses a “celebratory inclusiveness that seems entirely in the Jedi spirit”... Certainly, watching the movie can feel like you’re playing identity politics bingo. In one scene, a female admiral rallies her troops by heralding the rise of The Resistance, which some conspiracy theorists have interpreted as code for feminism. Patriarchy? Tick! Likewise, the richest men in the galaxy are evil, greedy, white, arms-dealers. White male privilege theory and the evils of capitalism? Tick! In a scene where Chewbacca attempts to eat a deep-fried bird called a porq, other living porqs look on disapprovingly, meat-shaming Chewie. Are they implying Chewie ought to go vegetarian? Animal rights and vegan politics? Tick! Aaagggghhhh! Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Laura Dern, who plays Vice Admiral Holdo, sports purple hair that wouldn’t look out of place on a Tumblr user’s unicorn avatar... the truth is that identity politics is the kryptonite that saps the joy out of all it touches. How long before Harrison Ford comes out as Trans Solo? What price a zero-emissions Millennium Falcon? Will Jabba The Hutt be called out for “fat shaming” the obese?"
Some claim it's not feminist. If so why are feminists so happy with it? (plus the "The Force is Female" T-shirts)
Actually the new Star Wars isn't that SJW. Rose sexually assaults Finn by kissing him when he didn't give his affirmative consent Then again maybe it's only sexual assault when it's done by men
"The original(1977) trilogy already had a female hero and a white male villain, and the prequels already had a female jedi, and a badass one at that" (i.e. people only complain when it's heavy handed)
'The Last Jedi' Is Good. It Just Isn't Magical. - "“The Last Jedi” has a lot to say about the Light Side and the Dark Side, but there is nothing about grief and loss, and it’s banal about democracy. What it does with good and evil isn’t nearly interesting enough. Rey, our heroine, is never truly tempted. That’s boring."
The Last Jedi Is Star Wars for People Who HATE Star Wars - "Star Wars is about heroics and heroism. From the raid on the Death Star to rescue the princess, to the doomed last-ditch battle on Hoth, buying time for the transports to escape, to the intricate plot to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hut, characters risk their lives to save the lives of others or just to fight evil, many times at great cost to themselves. Courage, especially physical courage, is central to the entire trilogy (and is the chief reason the series is so beloved). The Last Jedi mocks courage, heroics, and heroism. Poe Dameron, the cocky fighter pilot, risks his life and the lives of his teammates to destroy the most formidable ship hunting the Resistance, and for this is upbraided and demoted... The total lack of heroism is one reason, but the other is this: This movie is just not epic. And Star Wars is epic"
Mark Hamill Rips His Role In 'Last Jedi': 'He's Not My Luke Skywalker' - "“I said to Rian, I said ‘Jedis don’t give up.’ I mean, even if he had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong, so right there, we had a fundamental difference, but, it’s not my story anymore,” Hamill, 66, said in an interview posted by Spanish-language movie site SensaCine recently. “It’s somebody else’s story, and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.” Hamill added: “I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker, he’s not my Luke Skywalker.”... “I still haven’t accepted it completely, but it’s only a movie”"
Star Wars: The Last Jedi: the backlash explained - "the film’s strongest characters are almost all women, who usually know the right thing to do, while its most evil characters are white men with complexes about being given what they think they deserve... The Last Jedi spends a lot of its running time telling you that a lot of the things fans have obsessed about since The Force Awakens was released just didn’t matter... What’s interesting about the critiques of The Last Jedi is how often, when you talk about them, many of the above criticisms fall away, and you’re left with a distinct philosophical difference between people who love the film’s insistence that the future can be better if we make it and those who don’t like the way it forces us to grapple with the sins of the past"
Is Star Wars: The Force Awakens feminist propaganda? - "One of the major aspects of Star Wars is that of individuals needing to develop themselves in order to meet challenges.
ey, however, seems to get a pass on much of this. Despite being young and leading a humble, solitary life, she can...
Beat the s**t out of two grown men using a staff.
Fly the Millennium Falcon like a stunt pilot on her first attempt.
Knows how to maintain the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo. (Recall that her equivalent, Luke, in a similar situation, only managed to squeeze out, "What's that thing flashing!?")
Use force powers with no training.
Defeat the main bad guy in a duel, again, with no training.
EDIT: Speak Wookiee.
Meanwhile, the male support is kind of bumbling, and has an episode of acute cowardliness. The gist of the feminist propaganda is that she does not need to work at anything, she's naturally awesome just by being a woman. Its a characterisation that tends towards idealism and grandiosity rather than realism."
Designing Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Part 1: How Porgs Were Hatched - "Rian [Johnson] had gone to shoot this sequence on Skellig Michael, which is the real island location that stands in for Ahch-To, and that island is covered in puffins. It’s a wildlife preserve and everywhere you look there are hundreds of birds dotted around the landscape. From what I gathered, Rian, in a positive spin on this, was looking at how can he work with this. You can’t remove them. You physically can’t get rid of them. And digitally removing them is an issue and a lot of work, so let’s just roll with it, play with it. And so I think he thought, “Well, that’s great, let’s have our own indigenous species.” We’d already started work on the Caretakers, which again was a brief from Rian. We’d just been told “puffin people.” Yeah, there was going to be this race of people and puffins again were a source of inspiration for Rian. The puffins were sort of a big influence on everything, really."
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Has Saga's Lowest Audience Score - "the critical consensus states: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi honors the saga’s rich legacy while adding some surprising twists — and delivering all the emotion-rich action fans could hope for.” Unfortunately, moviegoers are challenging that belief and are bringing down the film’s audience score while doing it... The Last Jedi‘s audience score is 1 percent lower than the audience score for George Lucas’ Episode II – Attack of the Clones and 3 percent lower than Lucas’ Episode I – The Phantom Menace, both of which are arguably considered the worst installments in the entire saga. Of course, Johnson’s film still ranks 18 percent higher than the audience score for Dave Filoni’s 2008 animated film, Star Wars: The Clone Wars – but we’re not counting animated/non-theatrical films for this. Otherwise, we would need to somehow account for the Star Wars: Holiday Special, too."
Post ID: 2700037849584048915
Prisoners of war
Prisoners of war - History Extra
"Having loved ones at home was a great source of support but also reminded POWs of their potential inadequacies. So I talk about in my book about the three Ps of masculinity - provider, protector and procreator. And these were all denied to POWs... these men couldn't provide for their family - instead their families were providing for them by sending them parcels and they often, when they open these parcels they compare themselves to children at Christmas. So they've reversed that relationship... Lieutenant John Phillips writes about how he was in monastic seclusion when he is writing to a lady that he had hoped to eventually marry...
In nineteen forty two some British POWs found themselves with their personal possessions removed including their razors. And Major Casdagli was involved in this. And he writes of how in the camp men responded to that by having beard competitions: who could grow the long, longest beard, who could grow the silkiest one and through that they kept the morale high...
Female impersonators were a common sight in the main POW camps. The, those camps that held officers or the sort of the non working pows and they often appeared on stage and if you see there are some photos in my book, there are lots of photos out there on the Internet. They're dressed, they're incredible. And dressed in these stunning outfits. Very female like. And in the diaries and letters POWs very strongly stressed how similar these female impersonators. how good they were at impersonating women. Sometimes they even say that they're better at being women than women themselves and women will learn something off them which I think is an interesting example of the dominance of the gender hierarchy when men are claiming their superior, superiority by being better women than women can be... POWs were also very readily discussing the attractiveness of these women...
There's a different mentality happening from today's mentality around sexuality and sexual identity. They were readily saying in their letters to their wives, how how beautiful these women were... that didn't raise a question. I don't think in their minds or... or the minds of those at home, that this was sort of questioning their sexuality. That just didn't seem to be an issue like it might be today if a man says how attractive another man is when dressed up as a woman"
Caitlyn Jenner was not the first to be better than women at being a woman.
"Having loved ones at home was a great source of support but also reminded POWs of their potential inadequacies. So I talk about in my book about the three Ps of masculinity - provider, protector and procreator. And these were all denied to POWs... these men couldn't provide for their family - instead their families were providing for them by sending them parcels and they often, when they open these parcels they compare themselves to children at Christmas. So they've reversed that relationship... Lieutenant John Phillips writes about how he was in monastic seclusion when he is writing to a lady that he had hoped to eventually marry...
In nineteen forty two some British POWs found themselves with their personal possessions removed including their razors. And Major Casdagli was involved in this. And he writes of how in the camp men responded to that by having beard competitions: who could grow the long, longest beard, who could grow the silkiest one and through that they kept the morale high...
Female impersonators were a common sight in the main POW camps. The, those camps that held officers or the sort of the non working pows and they often appeared on stage and if you see there are some photos in my book, there are lots of photos out there on the Internet. They're dressed, they're incredible. And dressed in these stunning outfits. Very female like. And in the diaries and letters POWs very strongly stressed how similar these female impersonators. how good they were at impersonating women. Sometimes they even say that they're better at being women than women themselves and women will learn something off them which I think is an interesting example of the dominance of the gender hierarchy when men are claiming their superior, superiority by being better women than women can be... POWs were also very readily discussing the attractiveness of these women...
There's a different mentality happening from today's mentality around sexuality and sexual identity. They were readily saying in their letters to their wives, how how beautiful these women were... that didn't raise a question. I don't think in their minds or... or the minds of those at home, that this was sort of questioning their sexuality. That just didn't seem to be an issue like it might be today if a man says how attractive another man is when dressed up as a woman"
Caitlyn Jenner was not the first to be better than women at being a woman.
Post ID: 4929234445046972764
Links - 9th May 2018 (2)
Two Chinese Languages (at Least) - "why does "Chinese" merit two versions of instructions on one German pencil box? It would be one thing if it were just a matter of "simplified" versus "traditional / complicated" characters used to write the same language (presumably Modern Standard Mandarin). Such, however, is not the case here. Instead, the first version, written in traditional / complicated characters, is translated quite differently from the second version, which appears in simplified characters. Even if you cannot read "Chinese," it is easy to notice that these two versions of ZHONG1WEN2 are starkly dissimilar... I learned my "Chinese" in the linguistic environment of Taiwan, which has maintained a conservative, older fashioned type of written Mandarin, not on the Mainland, where radical changes have occurred in the terminology and modes of expression employed for written Mandarin, including heavy influence from Marxist and Communist writing that was originally composed in German or Russian"
Winner Of ‘Most Beautiful Bum In China’ Can’t Wear Tights In Public - "she is forced to wear baggy clothes in public to avoid groups of people surrounding her, pointing and staring. It’s true, as Gao points out, that typically Asian women are not built with the same curves as Latina or Caucasians. Thus the heightened interest in her shapely behind means Gao must abstain from wearing leggings in public."
Donna Marie's answer to Which qualities in men attracts women the most? - Quora - "Listen to her complain about her exes and then Become like those men. The men women complain about are clearly the men they are attracted to because they are the men that turn them on and pique their romantic interest."
Why is Qaddafi still a colonel? - "Qaddafi insists, in Libya's utopian society, the people rule, so he needs no grandiose title... While the media have kept referring to Qaddafi as a colonel—either out of habit or for want of a better option—Libya stopped doing so years ago. Instead, he's referred to as the humble "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution."... Qaddafi isn't the only midlevel militarist who never upped his rank after violently seizing power. Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Qaddafi's intellectual godfather, became president but never rose above the rank of colonel. And longtime Ghanaian strongman Jerry Rawlings, who ruled for nearly 20 years, never took a higher military title than flight lieutenant"
Last Of Us Cosplay Went To Chernobyl To Get The Apocalypse Just Right
Nation-Building, Nationalism and Wars - "The increase in army size observed in early modern times changed the way states conducted wars. Starting in the late 18th century, states switched from mercenaries to a mass army by conscription. In order for the population to accept to fight and endure war, the government elites began to provide public goods, reduced rent extraction and adopted policies to homogenize the population with nation-building"
Millionaire tells millennials: if you want a house, stop buying avocado toast - "I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn’t they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house"
Many of your friends probably don't think you're friends - "only 53 percent of the friendships -- a small, sad, oh honey number of them -- were actually reciprocal."
'Any boy who tells you that he hasn't seen porn is lying. Porn changes what you expect from girls' - ""In one SRE workshop the boys and girls were divided and asked to write questions for the other sex," he continues. "The girls wanted to know why boys 'always wanted them to wear makeup and revealing clothes', but when it came to the boys they wanted to know why the girls 'always wore makeup and revealing clothes'.""
Holy Cow This Mega Man Cosplay
Feminist Intolerance: Traditional Roles Are Shunned and Devalued - "Let’s imagine a person — let’s call this person “Pat” — with the following characteristics. Pat is extremely aggressive and extremely ambitious and doesn’t take crap from anybody. If somebody punches Pat, then Pat punches back twice as hard. Pat wants to get ahead and will face down anybody standing in the way. Career achievement seems to be Pat’s highest goal. Pat’s spouse needs to understand and facilitate Pat’s dreams, and if children are involved, they’re to be timed and spaced precisely so that Pat’s climb to the top is unimpeded. If Pat is a man, then he’s consumed with “toxic masculinity.” If Pat is a woman, however, then Pat is leaning in. Pat is “fierce.” Pat is our hero... Not all women are fierce, and in general they’re not nearly as “fierce” as men. Ferocity isn’t a virtue, it’s a characteristic, and it’s a characteristic that not all (or even most) women share. To the extent that feminists portray this as the new ideal, they merely construct yet another ideological prison for women and young girls. Try as they might, modern feminists can’t turn girls into boys and boys into girls. They can, however, make members of both sexes miserable. That’s one thing the radicals do all too well."
'Potentially predatory' man faces jail if he mentions sex to any woman for the next SEVEN years - "he had touched a woman’s backside, asked women for sex and offered massages. In one instance Hill approached a woman in a lingerie shop and reached out to stroke her neck. The perv also offered to wash a woman's car but when she declined he pestered her for sex. The dirty decorator was previously ordered not to approach lone women, offer lifts to females or give or offer any woman a massage."
Looks like Wales isn't as fanatical about safeguarding women's purity as Singapore
Man spends thousands to meet “goddess” online gf, then beats her upon seeing in person - "The woman admitted that her online pictures were edited to make her look stunning and pretty using the mobile application Mei Tu, and she had used more facial make up in them."
Indoctrination in the Duluth Model for continued harm - "A major component of the stated aim of the seminar was to “assesses the political character and agendas of those groups involved in advocating for a gender-equal approach to domestic violence.” The presenter of the seminar Michael Flood, a purported expert in the field, appears to be locked in the seventies and still cites the discredited Duluth model as the preferred theoretical basis for addressing family violence... Not unexpectedly feminist ideologues posing as academics choose such forums to expound on their male hatred and it would be hard to find a better example than this 2010 article “ ‘Fathers’ Rights’ and the Defense of Paternal Authority in Australia” . The central tenant of this opinion piece long on dogma and short on evidence is that men should be denied their democratic right to express opinions on issues such as false allegations of domestic violence, residency and contact with their children, and bias within the family court because by doing so, they are increasing “violence against women” and turning back the “significant advances of feminism”... In Floods’ words it is quite acceptable that “Women’s movements in Australia have had a distinctively high level of direct involvement in government policy making, with feminist bureaucrats or “femocrats” playing key roles,” but quite unacceptable that “ Fathers’ rights groups have become vocal opponents of feminist perspectives.” His sexist agenda clearly being that women’s voices should not only be heard but acted upon, while mens groups should not even have the right to speak."
Feminism means believing in gender equality means you have a political agenda, apparently
Muslim family tells of challenges navigating Tasmanian public school system - "classroom activities — such as music and dancing — conflicted with the family's religious beliefs and this caused confusion for young Yahya, Ms Khan said. "He kept asking, 'Am I allowed to do this, am I allowed to do that? Can I eat this? Why can't I do that?'" she said. The last term of the year was particularly trying for Ms Khan and her family as her son's class spent time doing activities around the theme of Christmas. "We respect others celebrating [Christmas], but we are not permitted [under Islam to celebrate it]," Ms Khan said. "Ideologically we cannot do this.""
Maybe they should've stayed in Pakistan
Rap and the decline of black America - "Of course, the president does not endorse the killing of policemen. But a White House invitation to a rapper who brags about such things is a macabre gauge of America’s national mood. Another frequent White House guest is rapper Jay-Z, a former drug dealer who, like Kendrick Lamar, chants about street violence. Homicidal impulses are so common prevalent among black Americans that they have been naturalized into mainstream culture. There is endless hand-wringing about the source of the fragility of African-American life in America, but one of the causes surely is the notion that homicidal rage is an acceptable response to social problems. A generation ago, it was still possible for a leading black clergyman, Rev. Calvin Butts of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, to denounce rappers from the pulpit and dump a truckload of rap CD’s in front of the offices of the Sony Corp. in Manhattan. Rev. Butts has been ridiculed in the interim by the likes of Jay-Z and would not attempt this again."
College Students Heckle "Boys Don't Cry" Director, Accuse Her Of Transphobia, Profiteering - "Students at Oregon’s Reed College heckled lesbian filmmaker Kimberly Peirce during a recent screening of her seminal 1999 biopic em>Boys Don’t Cry. Carrying posters that read “Fuck your transphobia” and “You don’t fucking get it” among other things,” the student protestors were angry Peirce had cast cisgender actress Hilary Swank, who won the Oscar for her performance, instead of a trans man. Other were bothered by what they saw as the glorification of rape and violence against trans bodies, and a cis filmmaker “profiting” off the death of a transgender person... On the podium where Peirce was to speak was a placard that read “Fuck this cis white bitch!”"
Moral of the story: don't make movies about trans people
Acupuncture may alleviate babies' excessive crying (infantile colic), study suggests: Needling twice weekly for 2 weeks reduced crying time significantly
LEE KUAN YEW on POLYGAMY - "For the girls my advice is, theirs is a rational choice, is backed by history, that’s the way to bring up a good family, secure and safe, marry upwards, hypergamy but in these circumstances, do not ignore other options."
What do women's pockets and men's wallets have in common? - "As Christian Dior is reported to have said in 1954: “Men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration.”... ‘Whereas women tend to keep their purse in a handbag, men usually tuck their wallet in a trouser, shirt or jacket pocket and carrying lots of coins in a wallet make it bulky, heavy and uncomfortable to keep in a pocket.’ Thus, Debbie recommends steering clear of coin compartments if buying a wallet as a gift for a man."
Good luck persuading women to wear loose, unflattering clothes just for the pockets
The American Scholar: Artful Lies - "“People who buy pictures on the basis of authentication alone deserve to be cheated.” Julius Meier-Graefe delivered this expert opinion—a high-culture take on “never give a sucker an even break”—on the witness stand in 1932 Berlin. He was one of Germany’s best and most respected art critics—and, it turned out, a bit of a sucker himself, having fallen victim, along with other pillars of the art establishment, to a young German forger named Otto Wacker... The last of his fakes in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.— part of the bequest from American banker and art collector Chester Dale—was removed from the museum’s walls in 1984. Dale is quoted here acknowledging the “controversy” (an optimistic term—by then there was little doubt) surround- ing the painting, a self-portrait. “But as long as I am alive,” he asserted, “it will be genuine.” He died in 1962."
Couples who cohabitate are happier than marrieds - "marriage and cohabitation also reduced contact with family and friends compared to being single, and this effect lasted over time"
Dangerous Drafts? A Time-Series, Cross-National Analysis of Conscription and the Use of Military Force, 1946—2001 - "states with conscript militaries have a significantly higher propensity to use belligerent military force than states with volunteer armies. Countries that practice conscription are also more likely than countries with volunteer forces to launch a specific type of OOTW, military operations against nonstate actors such as rebels or terrorists"
Some Kids Are Never Spanked - Do They Turn Out Better? - "In NurtureShock, we described some extensive cross-ethnic and international research on spanking by Drs. Jennifer Lansford and Ken Dodge. Their data suggested that if a culture views spanking as the normal consequence for bad behavior, kids aren’t damaged by its occasional use... are kids who’ve never been spanked any better off, long term?Gunnoe’s summary is blunt: “I didn’t find that in my data.”... those who’d been spanked just when they were young—ages 2 to 6—were doing a little better as teenagers than those who’d never been spanked. On almost every measure... children of progressive dads were acting out more in school... perhaps the consistency of discipline is more important than the form of discipline. In other words, spanking regularly isn’t the problem; the problem is having no regular form of discipline at all."
Five wild lionesses grow a mane and start acting like males - "In lions, testosterone directly affects the development of manes. Castrated males, for example, lose their ability to produce testosterone and promptly lose their mane, too. In 2011, a captive lioness called Emma at the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa developed a mane. Tests revealed high levels of testosterone due to a problem in her ovaries, and once they were removed she reverted to a typical lioness. The idea that testosterone is implicated in the Botswana lionesses is also backed by observations of their reproductive success, says Kathleen Alexander at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg."
Testosterone Rex strikes again
Public Perceptions of Forensic Science - "The CSI effect is a belief held primarily among law enforcement personnel and prosecutors that forensic science television dramas, such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, influence American jurors to expect more forensic evidence to convict defendants of crimes... The CSI effect has not been substantiated by empirical research"
Why Primates Kill Their Offspring - "infanticide was an effective tactic to allow mothers to mate. They can’t mate while they’re lactating because lactation suppresses ovulation. But they stop lactating once they’re childless. Killing baby langurs increases a male’s opportunity to reproduce... 51 species of primates do it, as do mice, hippos, and lions... Human mothers will also commit infanticide if they detect a lack of social support, most likely within the first few hours or a day after birth. In 2012, Andrea Ciani and Lilybeth Fontanesi, psychologists at the Laboratory of Forensic Evolutionary Psychology, at the University of Padova, in Italy, published a study titled, “Mothers who kill their offspring: Testing evolutionary hypothesis in a 110-case Italian sample.” Between 1976 and 2010, these 110 mothers killed 123 of their own offspring. Ciani and Fontanesi explain that mothers who killed their newborns had “no psychopathologies” and their acts made evolutionary sense by “saving resources for future offspring born in better conditions.”"
Winner Of ‘Most Beautiful Bum In China’ Can’t Wear Tights In Public - "she is forced to wear baggy clothes in public to avoid groups of people surrounding her, pointing and staring. It’s true, as Gao points out, that typically Asian women are not built with the same curves as Latina or Caucasians. Thus the heightened interest in her shapely behind means Gao must abstain from wearing leggings in public."
Donna Marie's answer to Which qualities in men attracts women the most? - Quora - "Listen to her complain about her exes and then Become like those men. The men women complain about are clearly the men they are attracted to because they are the men that turn them on and pique their romantic interest."
Why is Qaddafi still a colonel? - "Qaddafi insists, in Libya's utopian society, the people rule, so he needs no grandiose title... While the media have kept referring to Qaddafi as a colonel—either out of habit or for want of a better option—Libya stopped doing so years ago. Instead, he's referred to as the humble "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution."... Qaddafi isn't the only midlevel militarist who never upped his rank after violently seizing power. Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Qaddafi's intellectual godfather, became president but never rose above the rank of colonel. And longtime Ghanaian strongman Jerry Rawlings, who ruled for nearly 20 years, never took a higher military title than flight lieutenant"
Last Of Us Cosplay Went To Chernobyl To Get The Apocalypse Just Right
Nation-Building, Nationalism and Wars - "The increase in army size observed in early modern times changed the way states conducted wars. Starting in the late 18th century, states switched from mercenaries to a mass army by conscription. In order for the population to accept to fight and endure war, the government elites began to provide public goods, reduced rent extraction and adopted policies to homogenize the population with nation-building"
Millionaire tells millennials: if you want a house, stop buying avocado toast - "I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn’t they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house"
Many of your friends probably don't think you're friends - "only 53 percent of the friendships -- a small, sad, oh honey number of them -- were actually reciprocal."
'Any boy who tells you that he hasn't seen porn is lying. Porn changes what you expect from girls' - ""In one SRE workshop the boys and girls were divided and asked to write questions for the other sex," he continues. "The girls wanted to know why boys 'always wanted them to wear makeup and revealing clothes', but when it came to the boys they wanted to know why the girls 'always wore makeup and revealing clothes'.""
Holy Cow This Mega Man Cosplay
Feminist Intolerance: Traditional Roles Are Shunned and Devalued - "Let’s imagine a person — let’s call this person “Pat” — with the following characteristics. Pat is extremely aggressive and extremely ambitious and doesn’t take crap from anybody. If somebody punches Pat, then Pat punches back twice as hard. Pat wants to get ahead and will face down anybody standing in the way. Career achievement seems to be Pat’s highest goal. Pat’s spouse needs to understand and facilitate Pat’s dreams, and if children are involved, they’re to be timed and spaced precisely so that Pat’s climb to the top is unimpeded. If Pat is a man, then he’s consumed with “toxic masculinity.” If Pat is a woman, however, then Pat is leaning in. Pat is “fierce.” Pat is our hero... Not all women are fierce, and in general they’re not nearly as “fierce” as men. Ferocity isn’t a virtue, it’s a characteristic, and it’s a characteristic that not all (or even most) women share. To the extent that feminists portray this as the new ideal, they merely construct yet another ideological prison for women and young girls. Try as they might, modern feminists can’t turn girls into boys and boys into girls. They can, however, make members of both sexes miserable. That’s one thing the radicals do all too well."
'Potentially predatory' man faces jail if he mentions sex to any woman for the next SEVEN years - "he had touched a woman’s backside, asked women for sex and offered massages. In one instance Hill approached a woman in a lingerie shop and reached out to stroke her neck. The perv also offered to wash a woman's car but when she declined he pestered her for sex. The dirty decorator was previously ordered not to approach lone women, offer lifts to females or give or offer any woman a massage."
Looks like Wales isn't as fanatical about safeguarding women's purity as Singapore
Man spends thousands to meet “goddess” online gf, then beats her upon seeing in person - "The woman admitted that her online pictures were edited to make her look stunning and pretty using the mobile application Mei Tu, and she had used more facial make up in them."
Indoctrination in the Duluth Model for continued harm - "A major component of the stated aim of the seminar was to “assesses the political character and agendas of those groups involved in advocating for a gender-equal approach to domestic violence.” The presenter of the seminar Michael Flood, a purported expert in the field, appears to be locked in the seventies and still cites the discredited Duluth model as the preferred theoretical basis for addressing family violence... Not unexpectedly feminist ideologues posing as academics choose such forums to expound on their male hatred and it would be hard to find a better example than this 2010 article “ ‘Fathers’ Rights’ and the Defense of Paternal Authority in Australia” . The central tenant of this opinion piece long on dogma and short on evidence is that men should be denied their democratic right to express opinions on issues such as false allegations of domestic violence, residency and contact with their children, and bias within the family court because by doing so, they are increasing “violence against women” and turning back the “significant advances of feminism”... In Floods’ words it is quite acceptable that “Women’s movements in Australia have had a distinctively high level of direct involvement in government policy making, with feminist bureaucrats or “femocrats” playing key roles,” but quite unacceptable that “ Fathers’ rights groups have become vocal opponents of feminist perspectives.” His sexist agenda clearly being that women’s voices should not only be heard but acted upon, while mens groups should not even have the right to speak."
Feminism means believing in gender equality means you have a political agenda, apparently
Muslim family tells of challenges navigating Tasmanian public school system - "classroom activities — such as music and dancing — conflicted with the family's religious beliefs and this caused confusion for young Yahya, Ms Khan said. "He kept asking, 'Am I allowed to do this, am I allowed to do that? Can I eat this? Why can't I do that?'" she said. The last term of the year was particularly trying for Ms Khan and her family as her son's class spent time doing activities around the theme of Christmas. "We respect others celebrating [Christmas], but we are not permitted [under Islam to celebrate it]," Ms Khan said. "Ideologically we cannot do this.""
Maybe they should've stayed in Pakistan
Rap and the decline of black America - "Of course, the president does not endorse the killing of policemen. But a White House invitation to a rapper who brags about such things is a macabre gauge of America’s national mood. Another frequent White House guest is rapper Jay-Z, a former drug dealer who, like Kendrick Lamar, chants about street violence. Homicidal impulses are so common prevalent among black Americans that they have been naturalized into mainstream culture. There is endless hand-wringing about the source of the fragility of African-American life in America, but one of the causes surely is the notion that homicidal rage is an acceptable response to social problems. A generation ago, it was still possible for a leading black clergyman, Rev. Calvin Butts of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, to denounce rappers from the pulpit and dump a truckload of rap CD’s in front of the offices of the Sony Corp. in Manhattan. Rev. Butts has been ridiculed in the interim by the likes of Jay-Z and would not attempt this again."
College Students Heckle "Boys Don't Cry" Director, Accuse Her Of Transphobia, Profiteering - "Students at Oregon’s Reed College heckled lesbian filmmaker Kimberly Peirce during a recent screening of her seminal 1999 biopic em>Boys Don’t Cry. Carrying posters that read “Fuck your transphobia” and “You don’t fucking get it” among other things,” the student protestors were angry Peirce had cast cisgender actress Hilary Swank, who won the Oscar for her performance, instead of a trans man. Other were bothered by what they saw as the glorification of rape and violence against trans bodies, and a cis filmmaker “profiting” off the death of a transgender person... On the podium where Peirce was to speak was a placard that read “Fuck this cis white bitch!”"
Moral of the story: don't make movies about trans people
Acupuncture may alleviate babies' excessive crying (infantile colic), study suggests: Needling twice weekly for 2 weeks reduced crying time significantly
LEE KUAN YEW on POLYGAMY - "For the girls my advice is, theirs is a rational choice, is backed by history, that’s the way to bring up a good family, secure and safe, marry upwards, hypergamy but in these circumstances, do not ignore other options."
What do women's pockets and men's wallets have in common? - "As Christian Dior is reported to have said in 1954: “Men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration.”... ‘Whereas women tend to keep their purse in a handbag, men usually tuck their wallet in a trouser, shirt or jacket pocket and carrying lots of coins in a wallet make it bulky, heavy and uncomfortable to keep in a pocket.’ Thus, Debbie recommends steering clear of coin compartments if buying a wallet as a gift for a man."
Good luck persuading women to wear loose, unflattering clothes just for the pockets
The American Scholar: Artful Lies - "“People who buy pictures on the basis of authentication alone deserve to be cheated.” Julius Meier-Graefe delivered this expert opinion—a high-culture take on “never give a sucker an even break”—on the witness stand in 1932 Berlin. He was one of Germany’s best and most respected art critics—and, it turned out, a bit of a sucker himself, having fallen victim, along with other pillars of the art establishment, to a young German forger named Otto Wacker... The last of his fakes in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.— part of the bequest from American banker and art collector Chester Dale—was removed from the museum’s walls in 1984. Dale is quoted here acknowledging the “controversy” (an optimistic term—by then there was little doubt) surround- ing the painting, a self-portrait. “But as long as I am alive,” he asserted, “it will be genuine.” He died in 1962."
Couples who cohabitate are happier than marrieds - "marriage and cohabitation also reduced contact with family and friends compared to being single, and this effect lasted over time"
Dangerous Drafts? A Time-Series, Cross-National Analysis of Conscription and the Use of Military Force, 1946—2001 - "states with conscript militaries have a significantly higher propensity to use belligerent military force than states with volunteer armies. Countries that practice conscription are also more likely than countries with volunteer forces to launch a specific type of OOTW, military operations against nonstate actors such as rebels or terrorists"
Some Kids Are Never Spanked - Do They Turn Out Better? - "In NurtureShock, we described some extensive cross-ethnic and international research on spanking by Drs. Jennifer Lansford and Ken Dodge. Their data suggested that if a culture views spanking as the normal consequence for bad behavior, kids aren’t damaged by its occasional use... are kids who’ve never been spanked any better off, long term?Gunnoe’s summary is blunt: “I didn’t find that in my data.”... those who’d been spanked just when they were young—ages 2 to 6—were doing a little better as teenagers than those who’d never been spanked. On almost every measure... children of progressive dads were acting out more in school... perhaps the consistency of discipline is more important than the form of discipline. In other words, spanking regularly isn’t the problem; the problem is having no regular form of discipline at all."
Five wild lionesses grow a mane and start acting like males - "In lions, testosterone directly affects the development of manes. Castrated males, for example, lose their ability to produce testosterone and promptly lose their mane, too. In 2011, a captive lioness called Emma at the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa developed a mane. Tests revealed high levels of testosterone due to a problem in her ovaries, and once they were removed she reverted to a typical lioness. The idea that testosterone is implicated in the Botswana lionesses is also backed by observations of their reproductive success, says Kathleen Alexander at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg."
Testosterone Rex strikes again
Public Perceptions of Forensic Science - "The CSI effect is a belief held primarily among law enforcement personnel and prosecutors that forensic science television dramas, such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, influence American jurors to expect more forensic evidence to convict defendants of crimes... The CSI effect has not been substantiated by empirical research"
Why Primates Kill Their Offspring - "infanticide was an effective tactic to allow mothers to mate. They can’t mate while they’re lactating because lactation suppresses ovulation. But they stop lactating once they’re childless. Killing baby langurs increases a male’s opportunity to reproduce... 51 species of primates do it, as do mice, hippos, and lions... Human mothers will also commit infanticide if they detect a lack of social support, most likely within the first few hours or a day after birth. In 2012, Andrea Ciani and Lilybeth Fontanesi, psychologists at the Laboratory of Forensic Evolutionary Psychology, at the University of Padova, in Italy, published a study titled, “Mothers who kill their offspring: Testing evolutionary hypothesis in a 110-case Italian sample.” Between 1976 and 2010, these 110 mothers killed 123 of their own offspring. Ciani and Fontanesi explain that mothers who killed their newborns had “no psychopathologies” and their acts made evolutionary sense by “saving resources for future offspring born in better conditions.”"
Post ID: 7186411062142548433
The origins of civilisation
The origins of civilisation - History Extra
"We have this idea of the Middle East as being an arid zone in which if you have agriculture at all you have it because of irrigation. When in fact at, oh, six thousand, six thousand five hundred BC, the southern alluvium of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was a wetland. That is to say the level, the sea levels were of three hundred feet or more above what they are today. And the result was that this was a wetland, an abundant wetland or region in which it dried out partially for part of the year, but the, the amount of marine resources in these wetlands, the migrations of animals, birds, fish and so on and the different ecological zones both a brackish water zone and a fresh water zone that shifted often. The, because it is a very flat plain so the tide comes in very very far and the water level in Mesopotamia was much higher. It came up to the doors if you like of Ur and Uruk and Eridu, the very earliest agrarian civilizations...
The official ideology of all of these states is an ideology of we are the civilized people and the people outside the state are the barbarians and that is often linked to grain eating. That is to say the Romans thought of themselves as wheat eaters and barley eaters and the Gauls as consumers of animal flesh and dairy products. Of course it wasn't quite the truth - the Gauls also planted crops as well but if you like this civilizational symbolism was that the people in the civilization are basically grain eaters and the people outside it are not civilized partly because of their dietary habits and partly because of other characteristics like the clothes they wear and the fact that they move around...
In eighteen hundred before the steam ship it's faster to go from Southampton England to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa than it is to go by stage coach from London to Edinburgh...
All of the early civilizations are based on flood plains - alluvial flood plains. That is the only place in which you can concentrate monocrop cereals and human beings in one place and have a kind of surplus that the state can appropriate. Notice by the way that there are no taro states, no potato states, no cassava states. And that's because those crops grow underground. Although they get ripe in a year they could be left in the ground safely and be eaten two or three years later. The advantage of cereal crops for the state is that they all grow above ground, they get ripe at almost exactly the same time. If the tax man wants them they can come and take them or better yet wait till you put them in the granary and confiscate the contents of the granary or if they don't like you they can burn your crops when they're ripe in the field and you have to disperse"
"We have this idea of the Middle East as being an arid zone in which if you have agriculture at all you have it because of irrigation. When in fact at, oh, six thousand, six thousand five hundred BC, the southern alluvium of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was a wetland. That is to say the level, the sea levels were of three hundred feet or more above what they are today. And the result was that this was a wetland, an abundant wetland or region in which it dried out partially for part of the year, but the, the amount of marine resources in these wetlands, the migrations of animals, birds, fish and so on and the different ecological zones both a brackish water zone and a fresh water zone that shifted often. The, because it is a very flat plain so the tide comes in very very far and the water level in Mesopotamia was much higher. It came up to the doors if you like of Ur and Uruk and Eridu, the very earliest agrarian civilizations...
The official ideology of all of these states is an ideology of we are the civilized people and the people outside the state are the barbarians and that is often linked to grain eating. That is to say the Romans thought of themselves as wheat eaters and barley eaters and the Gauls as consumers of animal flesh and dairy products. Of course it wasn't quite the truth - the Gauls also planted crops as well but if you like this civilizational symbolism was that the people in the civilization are basically grain eaters and the people outside it are not civilized partly because of their dietary habits and partly because of other characteristics like the clothes they wear and the fact that they move around...
In eighteen hundred before the steam ship it's faster to go from Southampton England to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa than it is to go by stage coach from London to Edinburgh...
All of the early civilizations are based on flood plains - alluvial flood plains. That is the only place in which you can concentrate monocrop cereals and human beings in one place and have a kind of surplus that the state can appropriate. Notice by the way that there are no taro states, no potato states, no cassava states. And that's because those crops grow underground. Although they get ripe in a year they could be left in the ground safely and be eaten two or three years later. The advantage of cereal crops for the state is that they all grow above ground, they get ripe at almost exactly the same time. If the tax man wants them they can come and take them or better yet wait till you put them in the granary and confiscate the contents of the granary or if they don't like you they can burn your crops when they're ripe in the field and you have to disperse"
Post ID: 3944826089894628402
Links - 9th May 2018 (1)
Two Essays on Premarital Cohabitation and Divorce - "The dissertation finds that premarital cohabitation has no effect on women’s propensity to divorce and women’s divorce risk. Sorting into marriage according to level of religiosity generates the variations among the same levels of religiosity between cohabiting and non-cohabiting couples. The variations can explain the positive correlation between premarital cohabitation and divorce. In absence of the information on both the wife’s and the husband’s level of religiosity, this dissertation suggests and estimates a selection model. Three different empirical approaches all suggest that living together before marriage does not lead to divorce. Findings of positive correlation between premarital cohabitation and divorce in the previous literature could be attributed to omitted variable bias or sample selection bias"
Taylor Swift songs that make foods taste better but Justin Bieber ruins it - "Taylor Swift's Blank Space is the perfect match for your Chinese takeaway, while you might want to blast some Pavarotti when consuming pasta, but if you are listening to Justin Bieber, it is best to stop eating completely. Professor Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at Oxford University, has found that some music genres can make specific foods taste better... while loud music numbs the ability of our taste buds to detect salty and sweet, high-pitched, fast-paced or dissonant music can emphasise the sourness of certain foods, such as Chinese sweet-and-sour sauce... Professor Spence described this effect as 'digital seasoning.'"
Justin Bieber makes your food taste like crap and here’s why - "3. Smell is crucial to taste, and someone drinking beer straight from a bottle will miss out on flavor.
4. Wondering why many desserts are circular? It’s because round food is perceived to taste sweeter.
5. A dessert served on a white plate was rated 10 to 15 percent sweeter than one on a black.
7. Cutlery is crucial. The heavier the spoons and forks, the higher the diners rated the food and the more they were willing to pay for it.
10. Crunchy foods are crucial to enjoyment: Chefs often add crispy elements, such as toasted seeds over soggy salads or croutons to soups.
11. Coffee tastes twice as intense when drunk from a white mug.
12. Italian food consumed in a restaurant with red-and-white-checked tablecloths tastes more authentic."
Singapura Stories – Dr Goh Keng Swee and the secret negotiations for Singapore’s secession from Malaysia in 1965 – and his economic plan - "The notion that the announcement of Singapore’s expulsion from the Federation of Malaysia on 9 August 1965 came as a shock is a myth perpetuated by others – except Dr Goh himself, who provides us with the exact opposite story. He shows that it was planned for, and desired for economic reasons."
Trans Activism, Language Policing and Identity Politics - "In a recent Facebook thread, a trans woman was attacked for declaring herself instead to be a “transwoman”. The missing space was deemed to be crucial; and to me this demonstrated, yet again, the intellectual abyss into which much of left-wing politics has fallen... identity politics seems to be best explained by one thing: bullies have found a new language with which to justify bullying. Once upon a time, political activism took effort, required people attend meetings, understand history, and read books. Now, all one has to do is Like a few Facebook pages and learn a few slogans (“neoliberal patriarchal oppression is bad, m’kay?”) and – hey presto – you’re a Marxist, a feminist, or an intersectional person-of-colour LGBTQ+ warrior! This nonsense invariably surfaces during (attempts at) political discussion. Identity politics means that people can completely ignore the subject under discussion and instead focus on – yes – identity. Thus, any discussion can be “won” (at least, in the feeble mind of the identity warrior) by responding to any point with “Ah yes, but you’re cis/white/male/all three”. Under these politics-for-kids rules, one need never lose an argument. One wins simply by being female/brown/queer/whatever. On this basis, the ciswhitemale must simply admit defeat and exit. “I’m a ciswhitemale and I’ll still be one at the end of this discussion, so there’s no point continuing, is there?” The new religion of “intersectionality” takes all this to new heights... This would all be top-class entertainment if these halfwits weren’t slowly infiltrating the machinery of education, media and politics, and establishing their neo-theology as “fact”... identity politics isn’t about courtesy – it’s about control. We’ve entered a back-to-front world in which people claim “oppression” simply in order to control and bully other people. If feminists and race activists are good at this game, trans activists often take it to a surreal new level. A perfectly non-bigoted friend was recently screamed at (by a non-trans woman) for daring to ask genuine questions about trans people but phrasing the question wrongly. You can’t be told the answers, because you don’t know how to phrase the questions. It’s as if playground bullying and grown-up politics have suddenly merged – and perhaps they have. It should be pointed that identity activists rarely represent their supposed constituency. Most women aren’t feminists, most black people choose not to be categorised as perpetual victims, and most trans people are perfectly OK with being asked questions about themselves, even if the language used is clumsy. And it’s been a long time since I met a real-life homosexual who felt represented by the “gay rights movement” (or whichever words it uses to describe itself these days)."
Depressed People See the World More Realistically - ""some psychologists concede that an element of self-deception may be necessary for well-being," Feltham says. Depressed people may just be lacking that crucial optimism that helps us power through a life full of heartache, meaninglessness, and death. So while they can see things more realistically, we all know that reality sometimes straight-up bites. The people most likely to experience depressive realism? Introverts, males, and people with high IQs, Feltham says, adding that it's most likely to occur in mildly depressed people—those suffering from major depression, by contrast, are more likely to suffer from larger distortions in their thinking."
When Marines Hold Umbrellas - "male Marines normally aren’t authorized to handle umbrellas, which inhibit saluting, while in uniform, Wolf said. But the Marines who helped out Obama Thursday need not worry. They were allowed to handle the umbrellas because the President requested it. Female Marines, interestingly, can wield umbrellas"
The Birmingham Qur’an in the context of debate on Islamic origins - "the BBC published an article on its website entitled “‘Oldest’ Koran Fragments found in Birmingham University” that sparked great excitement among academics and Muslim believers alike. At the heart of the article is the news – mentioned in last week’s issue of the TLS – that two leaves of a Qur’an manuscript studied by Alba Fedeli and held at Birmingham’s university library had been carbon dated to somewhere between AD 568–645... the BBC article – like a subsequent New York Times article (also July 22) – misses the most significant point about the dating of this Qur’an manuscript (which contains only a small section of the text: parts of chapters 18, 19, and 20). Islamic tradition reports that Muhammad received revelations from the angel Gabriel between the year 610, when he was forty years old, and his death in 632. But according to Islamic tradition, he did not write down these revelations. Instead, his proclamations were preserved only on various scraps (one tradition speaks of palm leaves, parchment and the shoulder blades of camels), or in versions which some of his companions composed. An official text of the Qur’an was only recorded around 650, during the reign (644–656) of Uthman (the third Caliph, or successor, of the Prophet Muhammad). According to a well-known Islamic tradition Uthman had his “official” text of the Qur’an prepared by a committee, and all variant versions destroyed by fire: “Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt”... the very early dating of the Birmingham manuscript (568–645) – almost certainly before the reign of Uthman – casts doubt on the traditional story. The Birmingham manuscript does not appear to be a scrap, or a variant version kept by some companion, which somehow escaped the Caliph’s burning decree. It appears to be the standard Qur’an which Muslims attribute to Uthman. In other words, the dates of the Birmingham manuscript are not simply early. They’re too early. Instead of rejoicing, the news about this manuscript should lead to head-scratching. Moreover, the extremely early date range of the Birmingham text (most of which is before even the date when Muhammad is said to have begun his preaching) seems to confirm the early dating of other manuscripts... What all of these scholars have discovered is remarkable: the earlier text of the Qur’an contains numerous variants to the standard consonantal text of the Qur’an... the Qur’an may very well date earlier than Uthman, possibly much earlier. It may be time to rethink the story of the Qur’an’s origins, including the traditional dates of Muhammad’s career. In other words, what observers have celebrated as something like evidence of the traditional story of Islam’s origins (the New York Times article argued that the manuscript “offered a moment of unity, and insight, for the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims”) may actually be, when considered carefully, evidence that the story of Islam’s origins is quite unlike what we have imagined."
A Low-Carbohydrate, High-Fat Diet for GERD? - "Many patients who have been infected with Helicobacter pylori also struggle with gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD. This condition is often highly unpleasant for a person and often results in the need to adjust or alter his or her diet and eating regimens. A study released today looks at the value of following a low carbohydrate diet to alleviate the symptoms of this uncomfortable illnes"
William Shatner Attacks Snowflakes, Social Justice Warriors, and Misandrists
Facebook comments: "Star Trek isnt about social justice. It's a post scarcity libertarian society. If you're on a Starship crew, it's not to fill some ethnic, racial, gender, or any other check in the box quota. It's because you're the best one for the job. That's actual justice."
"here is a Star Trek episode where they somehow stumble on a recreation of Abe Lincoln. When Lincoln meet Lt. Uhura he calls her a "charming negress" and then apologizes. Uhura says no apology is nessasary because in her time they "learned not to fear words". That is about as anti-SJW as you get because among the many things that SJW's lash out about, it would be the words that people use. Whether those people meant offense or not, they must be torn down if they use certain words. SJW's are all about policing people and foisting transgressions onto the unsuspecting and well meaning, not any real justice. Shatner is onto something."
"I suddenly have even more respect for him, for having the gut to stand up for reason and sanity, like a beacon of logic in Hollywood's sea of blind conformism. Spock must have rubbed off on him."
"If Star Trek had a sjw vibe you wold get a show full of unbearable spoiled assholes who play victim all the time, nothing like Star Trek."
When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct - "We study a less salient mechanism for discrimination, firm discipline following missteps. There are substantial differences in the punishment of misconduct across genders. Although both female and male advisers are disciplined for misconduct, female advisers are punished more severely"
Sperm count drop 'could make humans extinct' - "Researchers assessing the results of nearly 200 studies say sperm counts among men from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, seem to have halved in less than 40 years... In contrast, no significant decline was seen in South America, Asia and Africa, but the researchers point out that far fewer studies have been conducted on these continents. However, Dr Levine is concerned that eventually sperm counts could fall in these places too."
Court declares 'Fuck White People' is neither racist nor hate speech - "Magistrate Daniel Thulare shocked the Cape Party on Tuesday by ruling that posters bearing the words “Fuck White People” are not hate speech or racist. The Cape Party, which is a registered political party seeking to declare the Western Cape a sovereign republic, had filed a case against the Iziko South African National Gallery for exhibiting the suit. The posters, which were covered with the words Fuck White People in black-and-white all caps letters, has been on display since 2016 alongside a chair and “goldendeanboots” as part of an exhibition called The Art of Disruptions at the gallery. The work was created by Dean Hutton, a Masters student in fine art at the University of Cape Town who wore a suit with the same print publicly before Iziko approached them... Hutton acknowledges that white people may feel anger or hurt by the posters, but they should “Learn to fuck the white in you, too”... Magistrate Thulare said that the reaction of some white people to the exhibition is to be expected, but reiterated that in Hutton’s work the word white is used within the context of protest art and debate to refer to “structures, systems, knowledge, skills and attitudes which keep White people racist which are to be rejected confronted and dismantled”."
Some animals are more equal than others
Why are some African airlines banned from flying into EU countries? - "The same airline made their pilots work 10 days on, one day off. They were not allowed to call in sick and any breach of this would necessitate armed men being sent to the pilots accommodation to physically force them onto the aircraft. I believe I know of two First Officers who got away with it — one because he had been arrested for murder, the other because he had been kidnapped"
Suicide by Bomb - "Start with Pape’s most fundamental claim: that suicide bombers are not the product of Islamic ideology but rather are frustrated nationalists who emerge “from communities resisting foreign military occupation.” If this were the case, it would be hard to figure out why suicide bombing only became a common terrorist tactic in the early 1980s. Why wasn’t it used before by nationalists in Vietnam, Algeria, or other colonial battlefields? What Pape’s narrative glosses over is the fact that suicide bombing in the modern context was first employed by Hezbollah and its immediate precursors in Lebanon... Pape’s database reveals that, since 1981, Muslim groups (not counting the PKK) have accounted for 93.7 percent of all deaths caused by suicide bombers—24,631 out of 26,277. This statistic isn’t cited in Pape and Feldman’s book, presumably because it is so at odds with their main argument. The deadliest campaign of all occurred in Iraq, where suicide bombers murdered 10,655 people in just five years (2003-08). What could have motivated the killers who turned Iraq into a charnel house? If Pape’s logic were to be believed, they must have been Iraqi nationalists outraged by American occupation. But Pape’s own data show that only about a third of all suicide bombers in Iraq were actually Iraqis. The rest were Saudis, Kuwaitis, Syrians, Jordanians, Yemenis, and other foreigners. Surely they could have had no devotion to Iraq as a national entity. In most cases the first time they ever visited Iraq was on their way to self-immolation. The only conceivable reason they could have sacrificed themselves to slay others was because they saw this as a religious obligation. Moreover, the vast majority of their victims were not Americans, Britons, or other “occupiers” but, rather, Iraqis: either members of the security forces or innocent bystanders"
Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane - "S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia--drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China."
Parenthood and productivity of highly skilled labor: Evidence from the groves of academe - "mothers of two or more children suffer a motherhood penalty.
And so do young and unmarried women.
The research output of untenured men increases after their first child is born."
Immigration and crime: What does the research say? - "immigrants commit fewer crimes, on average, than native-born Americans. Also, large cities with substantial immigrant populations have lower crime rates, on average, than those with minimal immigrant populations"
Can an Airline Really Just Yank You Off the Plane? - "The short answer, according to aviation and government sources, is that airlines have a lot of leeway to remove a traveler from a plane, for any reason. "Passengers have far fewer 'rights' than they imagine," says George Hobica, president of AirfareWatchdog.com."
Viral Infections - Why Don't Antibiotics Kill Viruses? - "Antibiotics work by targeting the growth machinery in bacteria (not viruses) to kill or inhibit those particular bacteria. When you think about it structurally, it makes sense that an antibiotic could not work to kill a virus with a completely different set of replicating “machinery”."
Taylor Swift songs that make foods taste better but Justin Bieber ruins it - "Taylor Swift's Blank Space is the perfect match for your Chinese takeaway, while you might want to blast some Pavarotti when consuming pasta, but if you are listening to Justin Bieber, it is best to stop eating completely. Professor Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at Oxford University, has found that some music genres can make specific foods taste better... while loud music numbs the ability of our taste buds to detect salty and sweet, high-pitched, fast-paced or dissonant music can emphasise the sourness of certain foods, such as Chinese sweet-and-sour sauce... Professor Spence described this effect as 'digital seasoning.'"
Justin Bieber makes your food taste like crap and here’s why - "3. Smell is crucial to taste, and someone drinking beer straight from a bottle will miss out on flavor.
4. Wondering why many desserts are circular? It’s because round food is perceived to taste sweeter.
5. A dessert served on a white plate was rated 10 to 15 percent sweeter than one on a black.
7. Cutlery is crucial. The heavier the spoons and forks, the higher the diners rated the food and the more they were willing to pay for it.
10. Crunchy foods are crucial to enjoyment: Chefs often add crispy elements, such as toasted seeds over soggy salads or croutons to soups.
11. Coffee tastes twice as intense when drunk from a white mug.
12. Italian food consumed in a restaurant with red-and-white-checked tablecloths tastes more authentic."
Singapura Stories – Dr Goh Keng Swee and the secret negotiations for Singapore’s secession from Malaysia in 1965 – and his economic plan - "The notion that the announcement of Singapore’s expulsion from the Federation of Malaysia on 9 August 1965 came as a shock is a myth perpetuated by others – except Dr Goh himself, who provides us with the exact opposite story. He shows that it was planned for, and desired for economic reasons."
Trans Activism, Language Policing and Identity Politics - "In a recent Facebook thread, a trans woman was attacked for declaring herself instead to be a “transwoman”. The missing space was deemed to be crucial; and to me this demonstrated, yet again, the intellectual abyss into which much of left-wing politics has fallen... identity politics seems to be best explained by one thing: bullies have found a new language with which to justify bullying. Once upon a time, political activism took effort, required people attend meetings, understand history, and read books. Now, all one has to do is Like a few Facebook pages and learn a few slogans (“neoliberal patriarchal oppression is bad, m’kay?”) and – hey presto – you’re a Marxist, a feminist, or an intersectional person-of-colour LGBTQ+ warrior! This nonsense invariably surfaces during (attempts at) political discussion. Identity politics means that people can completely ignore the subject under discussion and instead focus on – yes – identity. Thus, any discussion can be “won” (at least, in the feeble mind of the identity warrior) by responding to any point with “Ah yes, but you’re cis/white/male/all three”. Under these politics-for-kids rules, one need never lose an argument. One wins simply by being female/brown/queer/whatever. On this basis, the ciswhitemale must simply admit defeat and exit. “I’m a ciswhitemale and I’ll still be one at the end of this discussion, so there’s no point continuing, is there?” The new religion of “intersectionality” takes all this to new heights... This would all be top-class entertainment if these halfwits weren’t slowly infiltrating the machinery of education, media and politics, and establishing their neo-theology as “fact”... identity politics isn’t about courtesy – it’s about control. We’ve entered a back-to-front world in which people claim “oppression” simply in order to control and bully other people. If feminists and race activists are good at this game, trans activists often take it to a surreal new level. A perfectly non-bigoted friend was recently screamed at (by a non-trans woman) for daring to ask genuine questions about trans people but phrasing the question wrongly. You can’t be told the answers, because you don’t know how to phrase the questions. It’s as if playground bullying and grown-up politics have suddenly merged – and perhaps they have. It should be pointed that identity activists rarely represent their supposed constituency. Most women aren’t feminists, most black people choose not to be categorised as perpetual victims, and most trans people are perfectly OK with being asked questions about themselves, even if the language used is clumsy. And it’s been a long time since I met a real-life homosexual who felt represented by the “gay rights movement” (or whichever words it uses to describe itself these days)."
Depressed People See the World More Realistically - ""some psychologists concede that an element of self-deception may be necessary for well-being," Feltham says. Depressed people may just be lacking that crucial optimism that helps us power through a life full of heartache, meaninglessness, and death. So while they can see things more realistically, we all know that reality sometimes straight-up bites. The people most likely to experience depressive realism? Introverts, males, and people with high IQs, Feltham says, adding that it's most likely to occur in mildly depressed people—those suffering from major depression, by contrast, are more likely to suffer from larger distortions in their thinking."
When Marines Hold Umbrellas - "male Marines normally aren’t authorized to handle umbrellas, which inhibit saluting, while in uniform, Wolf said. But the Marines who helped out Obama Thursday need not worry. They were allowed to handle the umbrellas because the President requested it. Female Marines, interestingly, can wield umbrellas"
The Birmingham Qur’an in the context of debate on Islamic origins - "the BBC published an article on its website entitled “‘Oldest’ Koran Fragments found in Birmingham University” that sparked great excitement among academics and Muslim believers alike. At the heart of the article is the news – mentioned in last week’s issue of the TLS – that two leaves of a Qur’an manuscript studied by Alba Fedeli and held at Birmingham’s university library had been carbon dated to somewhere between AD 568–645... the BBC article – like a subsequent New York Times article (also July 22) – misses the most significant point about the dating of this Qur’an manuscript (which contains only a small section of the text: parts of chapters 18, 19, and 20). Islamic tradition reports that Muhammad received revelations from the angel Gabriel between the year 610, when he was forty years old, and his death in 632. But according to Islamic tradition, he did not write down these revelations. Instead, his proclamations were preserved only on various scraps (one tradition speaks of palm leaves, parchment and the shoulder blades of camels), or in versions which some of his companions composed. An official text of the Qur’an was only recorded around 650, during the reign (644–656) of Uthman (the third Caliph, or successor, of the Prophet Muhammad). According to a well-known Islamic tradition Uthman had his “official” text of the Qur’an prepared by a committee, and all variant versions destroyed by fire: “Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt”... the very early dating of the Birmingham manuscript (568–645) – almost certainly before the reign of Uthman – casts doubt on the traditional story. The Birmingham manuscript does not appear to be a scrap, or a variant version kept by some companion, which somehow escaped the Caliph’s burning decree. It appears to be the standard Qur’an which Muslims attribute to Uthman. In other words, the dates of the Birmingham manuscript are not simply early. They’re too early. Instead of rejoicing, the news about this manuscript should lead to head-scratching. Moreover, the extremely early date range of the Birmingham text (most of which is before even the date when Muhammad is said to have begun his preaching) seems to confirm the early dating of other manuscripts... What all of these scholars have discovered is remarkable: the earlier text of the Qur’an contains numerous variants to the standard consonantal text of the Qur’an... the Qur’an may very well date earlier than Uthman, possibly much earlier. It may be time to rethink the story of the Qur’an’s origins, including the traditional dates of Muhammad’s career. In other words, what observers have celebrated as something like evidence of the traditional story of Islam’s origins (the New York Times article argued that the manuscript “offered a moment of unity, and insight, for the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims”) may actually be, when considered carefully, evidence that the story of Islam’s origins is quite unlike what we have imagined."
A Low-Carbohydrate, High-Fat Diet for GERD? - "Many patients who have been infected with Helicobacter pylori also struggle with gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD. This condition is often highly unpleasant for a person and often results in the need to adjust or alter his or her diet and eating regimens. A study released today looks at the value of following a low carbohydrate diet to alleviate the symptoms of this uncomfortable illnes"
William Shatner Attacks Snowflakes, Social Justice Warriors, and Misandrists
Facebook comments: "Star Trek isnt about social justice. It's a post scarcity libertarian society. If you're on a Starship crew, it's not to fill some ethnic, racial, gender, or any other check in the box quota. It's because you're the best one for the job. That's actual justice."
"here is a Star Trek episode where they somehow stumble on a recreation of Abe Lincoln. When Lincoln meet Lt. Uhura he calls her a "charming negress" and then apologizes. Uhura says no apology is nessasary because in her time they "learned not to fear words". That is about as anti-SJW as you get because among the many things that SJW's lash out about, it would be the words that people use. Whether those people meant offense or not, they must be torn down if they use certain words. SJW's are all about policing people and foisting transgressions onto the unsuspecting and well meaning, not any real justice. Shatner is onto something."
"I suddenly have even more respect for him, for having the gut to stand up for reason and sanity, like a beacon of logic in Hollywood's sea of blind conformism. Spock must have rubbed off on him."
"If Star Trek had a sjw vibe you wold get a show full of unbearable spoiled assholes who play victim all the time, nothing like Star Trek."
When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct - "We study a less salient mechanism for discrimination, firm discipline following missteps. There are substantial differences in the punishment of misconduct across genders. Although both female and male advisers are disciplined for misconduct, female advisers are punished more severely"
Sperm count drop 'could make humans extinct' - "Researchers assessing the results of nearly 200 studies say sperm counts among men from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, seem to have halved in less than 40 years... In contrast, no significant decline was seen in South America, Asia and Africa, but the researchers point out that far fewer studies have been conducted on these continents. However, Dr Levine is concerned that eventually sperm counts could fall in these places too."
Court declares 'Fuck White People' is neither racist nor hate speech - "Magistrate Daniel Thulare shocked the Cape Party on Tuesday by ruling that posters bearing the words “Fuck White People” are not hate speech or racist. The Cape Party, which is a registered political party seeking to declare the Western Cape a sovereign republic, had filed a case against the Iziko South African National Gallery for exhibiting the suit. The posters, which were covered with the words Fuck White People in black-and-white all caps letters, has been on display since 2016 alongside a chair and “goldendeanboots” as part of an exhibition called The Art of Disruptions at the gallery. The work was created by Dean Hutton, a Masters student in fine art at the University of Cape Town who wore a suit with the same print publicly before Iziko approached them... Hutton acknowledges that white people may feel anger or hurt by the posters, but they should “Learn to fuck the white in you, too”... Magistrate Thulare said that the reaction of some white people to the exhibition is to be expected, but reiterated that in Hutton’s work the word white is used within the context of protest art and debate to refer to “structures, systems, knowledge, skills and attitudes which keep White people racist which are to be rejected confronted and dismantled”."
Some animals are more equal than others
Why are some African airlines banned from flying into EU countries? - "The same airline made their pilots work 10 days on, one day off. They were not allowed to call in sick and any breach of this would necessitate armed men being sent to the pilots accommodation to physically force them onto the aircraft. I believe I know of two First Officers who got away with it — one because he had been arrested for murder, the other because he had been kidnapped"
Suicide by Bomb - "Start with Pape’s most fundamental claim: that suicide bombers are not the product of Islamic ideology but rather are frustrated nationalists who emerge “from communities resisting foreign military occupation.” If this were the case, it would be hard to figure out why suicide bombing only became a common terrorist tactic in the early 1980s. Why wasn’t it used before by nationalists in Vietnam, Algeria, or other colonial battlefields? What Pape’s narrative glosses over is the fact that suicide bombing in the modern context was first employed by Hezbollah and its immediate precursors in Lebanon... Pape’s database reveals that, since 1981, Muslim groups (not counting the PKK) have accounted for 93.7 percent of all deaths caused by suicide bombers—24,631 out of 26,277. This statistic isn’t cited in Pape and Feldman’s book, presumably because it is so at odds with their main argument. The deadliest campaign of all occurred in Iraq, where suicide bombers murdered 10,655 people in just five years (2003-08). What could have motivated the killers who turned Iraq into a charnel house? If Pape’s logic were to be believed, they must have been Iraqi nationalists outraged by American occupation. But Pape’s own data show that only about a third of all suicide bombers in Iraq were actually Iraqis. The rest were Saudis, Kuwaitis, Syrians, Jordanians, Yemenis, and other foreigners. Surely they could have had no devotion to Iraq as a national entity. In most cases the first time they ever visited Iraq was on their way to self-immolation. The only conceivable reason they could have sacrificed themselves to slay others was because they saw this as a religious obligation. Moreover, the vast majority of their victims were not Americans, Britons, or other “occupiers” but, rather, Iraqis: either members of the security forces or innocent bystanders"
Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane - "S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia--drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China."
Parenthood and productivity of highly skilled labor: Evidence from the groves of academe - "mothers of two or more children suffer a motherhood penalty.
And so do young and unmarried women.
The research output of untenured men increases after their first child is born."
Immigration and crime: What does the research say? - "immigrants commit fewer crimes, on average, than native-born Americans. Also, large cities with substantial immigrant populations have lower crime rates, on average, than those with minimal immigrant populations"
Can an Airline Really Just Yank You Off the Plane? - "The short answer, according to aviation and government sources, is that airlines have a lot of leeway to remove a traveler from a plane, for any reason. "Passengers have far fewer 'rights' than they imagine," says George Hobica, president of AirfareWatchdog.com."
Viral Infections - Why Don't Antibiotics Kill Viruses? - "Antibiotics work by targeting the growth machinery in bacteria (not viruses) to kill or inhibit those particular bacteria. When you think about it structurally, it makes sense that an antibiotic could not work to kill a virus with a completely different set of replicating “machinery”."
Post ID: 8164415563140717863
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
Links - 8th May 2018 (3)
They Came, They Saw, and Now It's Time to Act - "Sir Gerald Kaufman, who led the delegation, told the Lebanese media: “When I went to Gaza in 2010, I thought I had seen the worst that could be seen of the appalling predicament of Palestinians living in conditions which no human being should be expected to endure. But what I saw in the camps in Lebanon is far worse and far more hopeless.”"
Palestinian oppression is fine when it's by other Arabs - only Israel is ever at fault
Anti-Israel Activists Urge Violence in Times Square Rally: 'Muhammed's Army Will Return' - "In video footage captured by the advocacy group Reservists on Duty (RoD), protesters clad in keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags can be seen shouting in Arabic, “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammed is returning.” The slogan refers to a 7th century battle fought by the Islamic prophet Muhammad against Jewish tribes, and is often invoked by Islamist terrorist groups including Hamas and Hezbollah... “With spirit and blood we’ll redeem al-Aqsa,” protesters chanted in reference to the mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. “We don’t want no two state, we want ’48.”"
Strangely, the same chant about the army of Mohammad was used in London
The Theremin: A strange instrument, with a strange history - "It just might be world's strangest, spookiest musical instrument. You can see it . . . you can hear it . . . but you can't touch a Theremin. "It's like you're fingerpainting in space," says Rob Schwimmer. "Playing Theremin is like having sex with ghosts."... "Leon Theremin was a Russian scientist, [and] he was a spy," said Glinsky. "And inventor of what is probably the most unusual musical instrument ever invented. You're actually moving your two hands through two electromagnetic fields that are around two antennas.""
Kenyan MPs to get 15% pay cut - "Kenyan MPs, who are some of the best paid lawmakers in the world, are to get a pay cut intended to reduce the public wage bill. The MPs' $7,200 (£5,500) monthly pay will be cut by 15% and they will lose some generous allowances... The average income in Kenya is $150 a month."
Strangely the high salaries don't mean Kenyan MPs aren't corrupt
A Man's Right to Choose? - "" If we expect men to be responsible, isn't it right to give them some choices too?"... As states crack down on "deadbeat dads," men have a greater financial incentive to pressure women into ending unwanted pregnancies. Some threaten to break up with their partner if she doesn't get an abortion. There is concern that violence against pregnant women is fueled by men trying to avoid a financial liability. So Dubay could argue that allowing men to shed their financial obligations for unwanted children might protect women from all kinds of pressure when they are deciding how to handle an unplanned pregnancy. The larger philosophical argument is basically this: Do men have as much of a right to control their reproductive lives and financial futures as women do? "Roe v. Wade really changed the world for women," Feit says. "It allowed them to separate intimacy from procreation, freed them from the fear of contraceptive failure. That kind of empowerment and security that women feel in intimate relations — well, men can't, frankly." The only sure protection is total abstinence. Feit contends that men who don't want to have a child and made reasonable efforts to avoid it should at least be able to choose a "financial abortion" that frees them from any responsibility for the baby. In a sense women already have a version of that right: Most states have laws permitting a woman to relinquish all her parental responsibilities if she leaves a baby at a hospital after giving birth. "No shame. No blame. No names" says the poster on the bus shelter. Naturally such laws are designed to offer an alternative to the heartbreaking stories we read of babies dumped in trash cans and abandoned by the side of the road."
Financial abortion: Should men be able to 'opt out' of parenthood? - "One of the more common cases against it is the notion that, by having sex, you are taking a risk and therefore must "pay the price" if you get pregnant. But haven't we moved past the thinking that people should be punished simply for engaging in pleasure? Do we really want our children to be conceived by force? I believe every baby should be wanted, and every parent should be willing... The word "responsible" comes up whenever fatherhood does — the idea that men should "step up" and "do the right thing" and support their own flesh and blood. But surely the best thing for men to do is be honest up front if they don't wholeheartedly want to become a father? Unfortunately, there is still an expectation in society that men should provide for women; indeed, many women and men prefer and expect it... Society needs to stop infantilizing women. Women are responsible for their choices and actions and can choose to have an abortion, adopt out or sole parent on their own"
Hallé Orchestra announces 'pay what you like' concert - "Manchester's Hallé Orchestra is to perform a concert based on a 'pay what you like' model... Audience members will be allowed to come and go during the performance, as well as bring their drinks into the concert hall. Impromptu clapping will also be encouraged"
65 years after WW2 – should Germans still feel guilty? - "the entire war-era generation – even those who were infants on V-E Day – is now in retirement. It means all those running Germany now – in government or management, or running factories or driving busses – had, as documented by their birth certificates, nothing whatsoever to do with World War Two... As a young American exchange student new to West Germany in 1982, I was struck — and disheartened — to see so much lingering hostility towards even young Germans around Europe – 37 years after the war ended. A German train I was riding on early that year was met by Swiss youth giving everyone the Hitler salute as it pulled into Zurich station. It was only the first of countless encounters of guilt I saw being hurled at Germans... the World Cup it hosted in 2006. Before that, national pride was a concept viewed with some suspicion and patriotism was considered a dirty word by many Germans who had been raised in the post-war era so packed with shame — “The Burden of Guilt, A Short German History 1914-45″ was a book many post-war generations read in school."
Just don't mention Hitler: Young Germans learn to fall in love with their country again - "A study, carried out by the Identity Foundation in Duesseldorf, showed twice as many Germans were 'very proud' to be German as eight years ago. Almost 73 percent think they should show more confidence about being German... Only 14 percent of those quizzed said they would be prepared to die for their country, far fewer than in the United States and Britain. And while Germans want their politicians to be more assertive, they are still nervous about flexing military muscle"
The Disproportionate Influence of Negative Encounters with Out-Group Members on Prejudice - "if people have a negative encounter with someone from a different social group, then they are more likely to think about the person's group memberships (e.g., their gender, race, nationality, etc.) than if they had a positive encounter with them... Graf, Paolini, and Rubin (2014) have shown that although negative intergroup contact is more influential than positive intergroup contact, it is also less common than positive contact in real world intergroup encounters. Hence, the prominent influence of negative contact may be offset by the prevalence of positive contact experiences."
The “Daily Show” guide to my enemies - "I spent a lot of time with people whose causes or philosophies I found blecchy -- the sort of folks who would fit nicely in the overlap of a Venn diagram whose circles included Bachmann supporters, fans of Rush Limbaugh, and people who wear tricorn hats and exercise their Second Amendment rights at Tea Party rallies. You know – assholes. Now, I like to loathe people. It just feels so good. I particularly like to loathe the sorts of people described above, and when I see them on TV or read their blogs I sigh contentedly and say, ahhh, it is now morally permissible for me to loathe this person. So imagine how irksome it was to have to deal with persons like that on a constant basis and discover that those persons, in person, generally weren’t loathsome persons after all. In fact, to my great consternation and disappointment, I often liked them... I would often contact extremely right-wing organizations and ask if they might perhaps be interested in participating in a segment. The response was generally no – probably the wisest choice – but on more than one occasion the person on the other end would enthusiastically inform me that they all loved the show and they watch it every day and what is that wonderful Jon Stewart really like? By the way, the converse also held true: I’d occasionally meet people who were on the right side (that is, my side) of the issues, and they’d turn out to be insufferable jerks. You know – assholes"
Movember as microaggression - "Despite Movember claiming to be a global movement, it assumes privilege and a certain relation to class on behalf of the participant, which is only found in certain parts of the world. It is also wrong that Movember aims to link masculinity and being a man to secondary male characteristics, including having a prostate and being able to grow a moustache. To be completely clear, you don’t have to be a man to have a prostate, and you don’t have to have a prostate to be a man. Being a man, according to Movember, implies an archaic view of gender that implies that only a male/female gender binary exists, and that you aren’t really a man if you don’t necessarily identify with that binary. The idea of suggesting that men show solidarity with each other by growing moustaches is completely absurd."
At first I thought this was a parody
Would-Be Tyrants Capture Language to Control Thought - "Klemperer argued that virtually everyone in Hitler’s Germany was a Nazi – whether or not they considered themselves to be National Socialists – including many of the victims of the regime (including German Jews). Why? Because they had adopted in their thoughts and beliefs the ideas and ideology of their Nazi masters. They found it difficult to think about life and morality independently of the terminology and political phrases reflecting Nazi conceptions of man, “race,” and society. In their minds, Klemperer was suggesting, they were no longer self-governing human beings, but slaves of the regime since they thought and acted in terms of the lexicon and logic of Hitler’s National Socialism... Klemperer said that it was not that the Nazis made up very many new words, though they did in some cases with intentional design. But what was far more insidious, he argued, is that through their own particular uses of existing words, over and over again in their propaganda, speeches, and publications, they changed the meanings and contexts of these taken-for-granted words of the German language. The Nazis, through this method, made words have only one meaning, the collective or shared meaning serving the Nazis’ purposes... Being “white” condemns a person as an implicit and explicit beneficiary of a social and economic system (“capitalism”) that has been placed at the service of a limited segment of the human community to gain power, position and wealth for itself at the expense of all those other “people of color” everywhere else around the world.... How familiar it all sounds to those Nazi assertions that everything undesired and undesirable in German life was due to the machinations and intrigue of “international Jewry.”... And how similar to the Soviet method of debate and argument-stopping: He is a lackey and dupe of the capitalist exploiters, and therefore should be ignored or condemned... And on some American campuses now, how close to the techniques of the “Red Guards” during the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao in China during the 1960s and 1970s. Mobs of shouting, bullying and physically attacking young thugs spouting meaningless and ideologically vacuous phrases from the “little red book” of quotations from Chairman Mao, to mentally and physically crush any and all who failed to parrot the Party Line or who were the objects of Chairman Mao’s political purges and personal vendettas against real and imaginary opponents... A distinct difference between the proponents of this new race collectivism compared to the twentieth-century episodes of German Nazism or Soviet socialism is that this linguistic totalitarianism and word indoctrination is being advanced and imposed without any direct coercive and monopoly apparatus of governmental power. Instead, the “headquarters” and “front lines” are in academia, especially in some of those institutions of higher learning that are oases of intellectual autonomy from accountability or challenge due to heavily taxpayer-funded salaries, programs, and curricula. Freed from the world of market-based work and reward and blessed with lifetime tenure, those academics employed on these islands of educational socialism have the “safe spaces” within which there can be cultivated, to use George Orwell’s phrase, “some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual can believe them.”"
Racism = power + prejudice
The Democratic party is facing a demographic crisis - " there is a common misconception that Trump was ushered into power by old, white, economically disenfranchised men. However, according to the exit polls, Trump actually did worse than Romney among whites and seniors, but outperformed him among blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and young people. While the Democrats lost a lot of support among low-income Americans, I think it would be a mistake to interpret these as Trump’s base. He won a plurality of every income bracket above $50,000 as well. He also won more non-Christian and nonreligious voters than any Republican since the 2000 election. However the biggest surprise of 2016 probably relates to gender. The first major party female candidate for president, running against a notorious misogynist, captured the Democrats’ lowest share of female voters since 2004. And although Trump also got a lower share of female voters than his last three Republican predecessors, he nonetheless won over a majority of white women. Granted, Trump’s candidacy and campaign were exceptional. However, it would be a mistake to think of these outcomes as aberrations rather than the culmination of a long-running trend. Contrary to the emerging Democratic majority thesis, there does not seem to be any demographic category with which Democrats are progressively improving... The Democrats’ current coalition presents a very narrow path to victory. Minority groups like LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, Asian, black or Hispanic Americans each comprise just a small slice of the electorate. Meanwhile, whites amount to no less than 70 percent. This means Democrats can get 100 percent of the votes from all other groups combined, and still not be anywhere near a majority unless they get at least a third of the remaining white vote. However, Democrats do not have unanimous support from any of these populations. Minority votes also tend to be concentrated in relatively safe states and voting districts... Moreover, ideological affiliations and perceived interests tend to grow more diverse within groups as they expand. Therefore, while Hispanic and Asian voters currently skew heavily toward Democrats, Republicans could actually end up benefiting more in the long run from the projected demographic shifts... Obama’s election was not the first time Democrats prophesied a permanent majority. Similar claims were made prior to the ascendance of Nixon, and then again just before Reagan took the country by storm. This track record alone should inspire deep skepticism about deterministic and epochal political predictions."
Since I got unfriended for pointing out that the fact that Trump won a sizeable minority vote suggests he's not a white supremacist, it's no wonder liberals get surprised
Why are So Many Westerners Converting to Islam? - "Islam offers a conversion experience and the opportunity to get one's life in order, without needing to confess ones sin and need of salvation. In fact, Islam makes quite a point of denying these truths. It tells people they do not need salvation; all they need is to follow the "guidance" of God's law, and they will make it to heaven. That is something the natural man likes to hear"
Obama on political correctness: 'Don't go around just looking for insults' - "The president expressed concern during an interview with NPR that debates become “like walking on eggshells” when people feel social pressure to hold back their point of view. “If somebody says, 'You know what, I'm not sure affirmative action is the right way to solve racial problems in this country,’ and they're immediately accused of being racist, well, then I think you have a point,” Obama said when asked if he agrees with President-elect Donald Trump that political correctness has gone too far. Obama said he's given the same advice to his daughters, Malia and Sasha, as they prepare to go off to college."
Too bad Michelle didn't follow his advice
Indian woman disfigures lover to pass him off as dead husband; plan busted after he refused to have mutton soup - "they allegedly injected anaesthesia into Mr Sudhakar. When he became unconscious, they allegedly bludgeoned him on the head with an iron rod and killed him. His body was burned and dumped in the Nawabpet forest, according to The Indian Express newspaper. In a bizarre move, Swathi then allegedly poured acid on her lover's face and told her family that her husband had been attacked. NDTV reported that the plan was for Rajesh to have plastic surgery and take the place of her husband. However, Mr Sudhakar's family became suspicious when Rajesh refused to eat the mutton soup served to him at the hospital. They found out that he had told the hospital staff that he was vegetarian, when Mr Sudhakar, in fact, ate meat, NDTV said. The family also started to notice differences in Rajesh's behaviour and reportedly tested him by asking him to identify relatives. When Rajesh could not answer the questions, he allegedly stopped speaking and started communicating with signs instead... she used to go to Rajesh's clinic for physiotherapy two years ago. But police said that Rajesh was not a qualified physiotherapist, and he had dropped out of the four-year course after a year."
Science, Pseudoscience, Nutritional Epidemiology, and Meat - "even the better epidemiologists in the world consider this stuff closer to a pseudoscience than a real science... every time in the past that these researchers had claimed that an association observed in their observational trials was a causal relationship, and that causal relationship had then been tested in experiment, the experiment had failed to confirm the causal interpretation — i.e., the folks from Harvard got it wrong. Not most times, but every time. No exception. Their batting average circa 2007, at least, was .000... this meat-eating association with disease is a tiny association. Tiny. It’s not the 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer that pack-a-day smokers have compared to non-smokers. It’s a 0.2-fold increased risk — 1/100th the size... When I first wrote about the pseudoscience of epidemiology in Science back in 1995, “Epidemiology Faces It’s Limits”, I noted that very few epidemiologists would ever take seriously an association smaller than a 3- or 4-fold increase in risk... as we move from the bottom quintile of meat-eaters (those who are effectively vegetarians) to the top quintile of meat-eaters we see an increase in virtually every accepted unhealthy behavior — smoking goes up, drinking goes up, sedentary behavior (or lack of physical activity) goes up — and we also see an increase in markers for unhealthy behaviors — BMI goes up, blood pressure, etc. So what could be happening here?... 'faithfully taking the placebo cuts the death rate by a factor of two'... So we do a randomized-controlled trial. Take as many people as we can afford, randomize them into two groups — one that eats a lot of red meat and bacon, one that eats a lot of vegetables and whole grains and pulses-and very little red meat and bacon — and see what happens... The Stanford A TO Z Study is a good example of these experiments. Over the course of the experiment — two years in this case — the subjects randomized to the Atkins-like meat- and bacon-heavy diet were healthier. That’s what we want to know."
Palestinian oppression is fine when it's by other Arabs - only Israel is ever at fault
Anti-Israel Activists Urge Violence in Times Square Rally: 'Muhammed's Army Will Return' - "In video footage captured by the advocacy group Reservists on Duty (RoD), protesters clad in keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags can be seen shouting in Arabic, “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammed is returning.” The slogan refers to a 7th century battle fought by the Islamic prophet Muhammad against Jewish tribes, and is often invoked by Islamist terrorist groups including Hamas and Hezbollah... “With spirit and blood we’ll redeem al-Aqsa,” protesters chanted in reference to the mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. “We don’t want no two state, we want ’48.”"
Strangely, the same chant about the army of Mohammad was used in London
The Theremin: A strange instrument, with a strange history - "It just might be world's strangest, spookiest musical instrument. You can see it . . . you can hear it . . . but you can't touch a Theremin. "It's like you're fingerpainting in space," says Rob Schwimmer. "Playing Theremin is like having sex with ghosts."... "Leon Theremin was a Russian scientist, [and] he was a spy," said Glinsky. "And inventor of what is probably the most unusual musical instrument ever invented. You're actually moving your two hands through two electromagnetic fields that are around two antennas.""
Kenyan MPs to get 15% pay cut - "Kenyan MPs, who are some of the best paid lawmakers in the world, are to get a pay cut intended to reduce the public wage bill. The MPs' $7,200 (£5,500) monthly pay will be cut by 15% and they will lose some generous allowances... The average income in Kenya is $150 a month."
Strangely the high salaries don't mean Kenyan MPs aren't corrupt
A Man's Right to Choose? - "" If we expect men to be responsible, isn't it right to give them some choices too?"... As states crack down on "deadbeat dads," men have a greater financial incentive to pressure women into ending unwanted pregnancies. Some threaten to break up with their partner if she doesn't get an abortion. There is concern that violence against pregnant women is fueled by men trying to avoid a financial liability. So Dubay could argue that allowing men to shed their financial obligations for unwanted children might protect women from all kinds of pressure when they are deciding how to handle an unplanned pregnancy. The larger philosophical argument is basically this: Do men have as much of a right to control their reproductive lives and financial futures as women do? "Roe v. Wade really changed the world for women," Feit says. "It allowed them to separate intimacy from procreation, freed them from the fear of contraceptive failure. That kind of empowerment and security that women feel in intimate relations — well, men can't, frankly." The only sure protection is total abstinence. Feit contends that men who don't want to have a child and made reasonable efforts to avoid it should at least be able to choose a "financial abortion" that frees them from any responsibility for the baby. In a sense women already have a version of that right: Most states have laws permitting a woman to relinquish all her parental responsibilities if she leaves a baby at a hospital after giving birth. "No shame. No blame. No names" says the poster on the bus shelter. Naturally such laws are designed to offer an alternative to the heartbreaking stories we read of babies dumped in trash cans and abandoned by the side of the road."
Financial abortion: Should men be able to 'opt out' of parenthood? - "One of the more common cases against it is the notion that, by having sex, you are taking a risk and therefore must "pay the price" if you get pregnant. But haven't we moved past the thinking that people should be punished simply for engaging in pleasure? Do we really want our children to be conceived by force? I believe every baby should be wanted, and every parent should be willing... The word "responsible" comes up whenever fatherhood does — the idea that men should "step up" and "do the right thing" and support their own flesh and blood. But surely the best thing for men to do is be honest up front if they don't wholeheartedly want to become a father? Unfortunately, there is still an expectation in society that men should provide for women; indeed, many women and men prefer and expect it... Society needs to stop infantilizing women. Women are responsible for their choices and actions and can choose to have an abortion, adopt out or sole parent on their own"
Hallé Orchestra announces 'pay what you like' concert - "Manchester's Hallé Orchestra is to perform a concert based on a 'pay what you like' model... Audience members will be allowed to come and go during the performance, as well as bring their drinks into the concert hall. Impromptu clapping will also be encouraged"
65 years after WW2 – should Germans still feel guilty? - "the entire war-era generation – even those who were infants on V-E Day – is now in retirement. It means all those running Germany now – in government or management, or running factories or driving busses – had, as documented by their birth certificates, nothing whatsoever to do with World War Two... As a young American exchange student new to West Germany in 1982, I was struck — and disheartened — to see so much lingering hostility towards even young Germans around Europe – 37 years after the war ended. A German train I was riding on early that year was met by Swiss youth giving everyone the Hitler salute as it pulled into Zurich station. It was only the first of countless encounters of guilt I saw being hurled at Germans... the World Cup it hosted in 2006. Before that, national pride was a concept viewed with some suspicion and patriotism was considered a dirty word by many Germans who had been raised in the post-war era so packed with shame — “The Burden of Guilt, A Short German History 1914-45″ was a book many post-war generations read in school."
Just don't mention Hitler: Young Germans learn to fall in love with their country again - "A study, carried out by the Identity Foundation in Duesseldorf, showed twice as many Germans were 'very proud' to be German as eight years ago. Almost 73 percent think they should show more confidence about being German... Only 14 percent of those quizzed said they would be prepared to die for their country, far fewer than in the United States and Britain. And while Germans want their politicians to be more assertive, they are still nervous about flexing military muscle"
The Disproportionate Influence of Negative Encounters with Out-Group Members on Prejudice - "if people have a negative encounter with someone from a different social group, then they are more likely to think about the person's group memberships (e.g., their gender, race, nationality, etc.) than if they had a positive encounter with them... Graf, Paolini, and Rubin (2014) have shown that although negative intergroup contact is more influential than positive intergroup contact, it is also less common than positive contact in real world intergroup encounters. Hence, the prominent influence of negative contact may be offset by the prevalence of positive contact experiences."
The “Daily Show” guide to my enemies - "I spent a lot of time with people whose causes or philosophies I found blecchy -- the sort of folks who would fit nicely in the overlap of a Venn diagram whose circles included Bachmann supporters, fans of Rush Limbaugh, and people who wear tricorn hats and exercise their Second Amendment rights at Tea Party rallies. You know – assholes. Now, I like to loathe people. It just feels so good. I particularly like to loathe the sorts of people described above, and when I see them on TV or read their blogs I sigh contentedly and say, ahhh, it is now morally permissible for me to loathe this person. So imagine how irksome it was to have to deal with persons like that on a constant basis and discover that those persons, in person, generally weren’t loathsome persons after all. In fact, to my great consternation and disappointment, I often liked them... I would often contact extremely right-wing organizations and ask if they might perhaps be interested in participating in a segment. The response was generally no – probably the wisest choice – but on more than one occasion the person on the other end would enthusiastically inform me that they all loved the show and they watch it every day and what is that wonderful Jon Stewart really like? By the way, the converse also held true: I’d occasionally meet people who were on the right side (that is, my side) of the issues, and they’d turn out to be insufferable jerks. You know – assholes"
Movember as microaggression - "Despite Movember claiming to be a global movement, it assumes privilege and a certain relation to class on behalf of the participant, which is only found in certain parts of the world. It is also wrong that Movember aims to link masculinity and being a man to secondary male characteristics, including having a prostate and being able to grow a moustache. To be completely clear, you don’t have to be a man to have a prostate, and you don’t have to have a prostate to be a man. Being a man, according to Movember, implies an archaic view of gender that implies that only a male/female gender binary exists, and that you aren’t really a man if you don’t necessarily identify with that binary. The idea of suggesting that men show solidarity with each other by growing moustaches is completely absurd."
At first I thought this was a parody
Would-Be Tyrants Capture Language to Control Thought - "Klemperer argued that virtually everyone in Hitler’s Germany was a Nazi – whether or not they considered themselves to be National Socialists – including many of the victims of the regime (including German Jews). Why? Because they had adopted in their thoughts and beliefs the ideas and ideology of their Nazi masters. They found it difficult to think about life and morality independently of the terminology and political phrases reflecting Nazi conceptions of man, “race,” and society. In their minds, Klemperer was suggesting, they were no longer self-governing human beings, but slaves of the regime since they thought and acted in terms of the lexicon and logic of Hitler’s National Socialism... Klemperer said that it was not that the Nazis made up very many new words, though they did in some cases with intentional design. But what was far more insidious, he argued, is that through their own particular uses of existing words, over and over again in their propaganda, speeches, and publications, they changed the meanings and contexts of these taken-for-granted words of the German language. The Nazis, through this method, made words have only one meaning, the collective or shared meaning serving the Nazis’ purposes... Being “white” condemns a person as an implicit and explicit beneficiary of a social and economic system (“capitalism”) that has been placed at the service of a limited segment of the human community to gain power, position and wealth for itself at the expense of all those other “people of color” everywhere else around the world.... How familiar it all sounds to those Nazi assertions that everything undesired and undesirable in German life was due to the machinations and intrigue of “international Jewry.”... And how similar to the Soviet method of debate and argument-stopping: He is a lackey and dupe of the capitalist exploiters, and therefore should be ignored or condemned... And on some American campuses now, how close to the techniques of the “Red Guards” during the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao in China during the 1960s and 1970s. Mobs of shouting, bullying and physically attacking young thugs spouting meaningless and ideologically vacuous phrases from the “little red book” of quotations from Chairman Mao, to mentally and physically crush any and all who failed to parrot the Party Line or who were the objects of Chairman Mao’s political purges and personal vendettas against real and imaginary opponents... A distinct difference between the proponents of this new race collectivism compared to the twentieth-century episodes of German Nazism or Soviet socialism is that this linguistic totalitarianism and word indoctrination is being advanced and imposed without any direct coercive and monopoly apparatus of governmental power. Instead, the “headquarters” and “front lines” are in academia, especially in some of those institutions of higher learning that are oases of intellectual autonomy from accountability or challenge due to heavily taxpayer-funded salaries, programs, and curricula. Freed from the world of market-based work and reward and blessed with lifetime tenure, those academics employed on these islands of educational socialism have the “safe spaces” within which there can be cultivated, to use George Orwell’s phrase, “some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual can believe them.”"
Racism = power + prejudice
The Democratic party is facing a demographic crisis - " there is a common misconception that Trump was ushered into power by old, white, economically disenfranchised men. However, according to the exit polls, Trump actually did worse than Romney among whites and seniors, but outperformed him among blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and young people. While the Democrats lost a lot of support among low-income Americans, I think it would be a mistake to interpret these as Trump’s base. He won a plurality of every income bracket above $50,000 as well. He also won more non-Christian and nonreligious voters than any Republican since the 2000 election. However the biggest surprise of 2016 probably relates to gender. The first major party female candidate for president, running against a notorious misogynist, captured the Democrats’ lowest share of female voters since 2004. And although Trump also got a lower share of female voters than his last three Republican predecessors, he nonetheless won over a majority of white women. Granted, Trump’s candidacy and campaign were exceptional. However, it would be a mistake to think of these outcomes as aberrations rather than the culmination of a long-running trend. Contrary to the emerging Democratic majority thesis, there does not seem to be any demographic category with which Democrats are progressively improving... The Democrats’ current coalition presents a very narrow path to victory. Minority groups like LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, Asian, black or Hispanic Americans each comprise just a small slice of the electorate. Meanwhile, whites amount to no less than 70 percent. This means Democrats can get 100 percent of the votes from all other groups combined, and still not be anywhere near a majority unless they get at least a third of the remaining white vote. However, Democrats do not have unanimous support from any of these populations. Minority votes also tend to be concentrated in relatively safe states and voting districts... Moreover, ideological affiliations and perceived interests tend to grow more diverse within groups as they expand. Therefore, while Hispanic and Asian voters currently skew heavily toward Democrats, Republicans could actually end up benefiting more in the long run from the projected demographic shifts... Obama’s election was not the first time Democrats prophesied a permanent majority. Similar claims were made prior to the ascendance of Nixon, and then again just before Reagan took the country by storm. This track record alone should inspire deep skepticism about deterministic and epochal political predictions."
Since I got unfriended for pointing out that the fact that Trump won a sizeable minority vote suggests he's not a white supremacist, it's no wonder liberals get surprised
Why are So Many Westerners Converting to Islam? - "Islam offers a conversion experience and the opportunity to get one's life in order, without needing to confess ones sin and need of salvation. In fact, Islam makes quite a point of denying these truths. It tells people they do not need salvation; all they need is to follow the "guidance" of God's law, and they will make it to heaven. That is something the natural man likes to hear"
Obama on political correctness: 'Don't go around just looking for insults' - "The president expressed concern during an interview with NPR that debates become “like walking on eggshells” when people feel social pressure to hold back their point of view. “If somebody says, 'You know what, I'm not sure affirmative action is the right way to solve racial problems in this country,’ and they're immediately accused of being racist, well, then I think you have a point,” Obama said when asked if he agrees with President-elect Donald Trump that political correctness has gone too far. Obama said he's given the same advice to his daughters, Malia and Sasha, as they prepare to go off to college."
Too bad Michelle didn't follow his advice
Indian woman disfigures lover to pass him off as dead husband; plan busted after he refused to have mutton soup - "they allegedly injected anaesthesia into Mr Sudhakar. When he became unconscious, they allegedly bludgeoned him on the head with an iron rod and killed him. His body was burned and dumped in the Nawabpet forest, according to The Indian Express newspaper. In a bizarre move, Swathi then allegedly poured acid on her lover's face and told her family that her husband had been attacked. NDTV reported that the plan was for Rajesh to have plastic surgery and take the place of her husband. However, Mr Sudhakar's family became suspicious when Rajesh refused to eat the mutton soup served to him at the hospital. They found out that he had told the hospital staff that he was vegetarian, when Mr Sudhakar, in fact, ate meat, NDTV said. The family also started to notice differences in Rajesh's behaviour and reportedly tested him by asking him to identify relatives. When Rajesh could not answer the questions, he allegedly stopped speaking and started communicating with signs instead... she used to go to Rajesh's clinic for physiotherapy two years ago. But police said that Rajesh was not a qualified physiotherapist, and he had dropped out of the four-year course after a year."
Science, Pseudoscience, Nutritional Epidemiology, and Meat - "even the better epidemiologists in the world consider this stuff closer to a pseudoscience than a real science... every time in the past that these researchers had claimed that an association observed in their observational trials was a causal relationship, and that causal relationship had then been tested in experiment, the experiment had failed to confirm the causal interpretation — i.e., the folks from Harvard got it wrong. Not most times, but every time. No exception. Their batting average circa 2007, at least, was .000... this meat-eating association with disease is a tiny association. Tiny. It’s not the 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer that pack-a-day smokers have compared to non-smokers. It’s a 0.2-fold increased risk — 1/100th the size... When I first wrote about the pseudoscience of epidemiology in Science back in 1995, “Epidemiology Faces It’s Limits”, I noted that very few epidemiologists would ever take seriously an association smaller than a 3- or 4-fold increase in risk... as we move from the bottom quintile of meat-eaters (those who are effectively vegetarians) to the top quintile of meat-eaters we see an increase in virtually every accepted unhealthy behavior — smoking goes up, drinking goes up, sedentary behavior (or lack of physical activity) goes up — and we also see an increase in markers for unhealthy behaviors — BMI goes up, blood pressure, etc. So what could be happening here?... 'faithfully taking the placebo cuts the death rate by a factor of two'... So we do a randomized-controlled trial. Take as many people as we can afford, randomize them into two groups — one that eats a lot of red meat and bacon, one that eats a lot of vegetables and whole grains and pulses-and very little red meat and bacon — and see what happens... The Stanford A TO Z Study is a good example of these experiments. Over the course of the experiment — two years in this case — the subjects randomized to the Atkins-like meat- and bacon-heavy diet were healthier. That’s what we want to know."
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