A RICE article hasn't annoyed me for a while, but that's probably because I haven't read it for a while
Today, I read:
To All the Creepy Singaporean Men I’ve Ever Met: Enough is Enough
As you can predict from the headline, this is the usual silly nonsense.
The author complains about the pain of being a woman with gendered expectations - but these exist for both genders. And actually are stronger for men than women.
The author keeps complaining about getting hit on, but it's not clear why being hit on is such a traumatic experience. Why is she even on Tinder if she doesn't like to be hit on? And shouldn't engaging in internet arguments - which are even worse than being hit on, since they are combative - give one PTSD?
If even she herself admits that "I had been chatting with a guy from Tinder, and we were finally gonna hook up", why is she so upset when he asks "your place or mine"? Ironically, the author probably proclaims that consent is sexy - but of course in real life the process of getting consent is deeply unsexy, since she clearly expected at least a pretence at seduction (which, as we know, is indirect as opposed to consent culture which is very straightforward).
And then when she gets propositioned again, she is upset once more. Presumably she is mad that men aren't psychic and unable to tell that women want to be hit on.
The key point that we can see emerging from this account is that "creepy" is basically shorthand for a guy who hits on her who isn't attractive (as she admits, "To all the men out there, just because I want to hook up someone doesn’t mean I want to hook up with YOU").
Then she says she wants to doxx every man who propositions her, taking pride in ruining their lives.
I bet in 5 years' time she will write another article about how no man ever approaches her, showing that men are intimidated by strong, independent women.
L'origine de Bert
Monday, November 05, 2018
Links - 5th November 2018 (1)
Atonement as Activism - "This brand of self-flagellation has become the new form of enlightenment on race issues. It qualifies as a kind of worship; the parallels with Christianity are almost uncannily rich. White privilege is the secular white person’s Original Sin, present at birth and ultimately ineradicable. One does one’s penance by endlessly attesting to this privilege in hope of some kind of forgiveness. After the black man I mentioned above spoke, the next speaker was a middle-aged white man who spoke of having a coach come to his office each week to talk to him about his white privilege. The audience, of course, applauded warmly at this man’s description of having what an anthropologist observer would recognize not as a “coach” but as a pastor. I have seen whites owning up to their white privilege using the hand-in-the-air-palm-out gesture typically associated with testifying in church. After the event I have been describing, all concerned deemed it “wonderful” even though nothing new had been learned. The purpose of the event was to remind the parishioners of the prevalence of the racist sin and its reflection in themselves, and to offer a kind of forgiveness, this latter being essentially the function of the black people on the panel and in the audience. Amen... The self-affirming part is the rub. This new cult of atonement is less about black people than white people. Fifty years ago, a white person learning about the race problem came away asking “How can I help?” Today the same person too often comes away asking, “How can I show that I’m a moral person?” That isn’t what the Civil Rights revolution was about; it is the product of decades of mission creep aided by the emergence of social media."
10 things you have always wanted to ask a lesbian – Pat Law - "1. How does scissoring work?... We scissor as often as you fornicate your wife standing up holding her entire weight with one hand...
3. How do you do it?
I hate to be such a hypocrite here, but watch some porn...
5. How do you know if the other girl is also a lesbian?
You ask. And if you’re too shy to do so, check for the following signs:
Trimmed fingernails (think)
Toned arms (think again)
Lesbian hair (although I would argue that in today’s gender-blending world, follicles hardly pass the litmus test)...
9. Have you ever been discriminated against for being a lesbian?...
I haven’t been discriminated against for being a lesbian but it has a lot to do with the way I chose to see things, to keep my sanity. I choose not to get angry over ignorance.
10. What is your fear as a lesbian?
That I will be known for only my sexuality. I am a daughter, a friend, a girlfriend, Singaporean, Chinese, a creative director, a human to two chihuahuas, and oh by the way, I am also gay...
The last thing I want is to be that gay person who makes every damn thing about her sexuality. Like that one prominent gay dick who held drug parties at home only to be arrested and locked up, and I witnessed first-hand how some folks in the gay community blamed it on his sexuality. Dude, you didn’t get locked up because you were gay and singled out by the cops. You got locked up because you were hosting drug parties. People like you give us such a bad name... If you want heterosexuals to accept you for who you are, stop making your sexuality all that you are."
Japanese north–south gradient in IQ predicts differences in stature, skin color, income, and homicide rate - "Regional differences in IQ are estimated for 47 prefectures of Japan. IQ scores obtained from official achievement tests show a gradient from north to south. Latitudes correlate with height, IQ, and skin color at r = 0.70, 0.44, 0.47, respectively. IQ also correlates with height (0.52), skin color (0.42), income (0.51) after correction, less homicide rate (− 0.60), and less divorce (− 0.69) but not with fertility infant mortali'ty. The lower IQ in southern Japanese islands could be attributable to warmer climates with less cognitive demand for more than fifteen hundred years."
Is it still racist if they're all Japanese?
Regional Differences in Intelligence in 22 Countries and their Economic, Social and Demographic Correlates: A Review - "Regional differences in intelligence are reported for 22 countries. These are positively associated with many economic, social and demographic phenomena. These include income, health, educational and occupational achievement. These are negatively associated with poverty, fertility and crime."
Chinese sex differences in intelligence: Some new evidence - "Sex differences on the WISC-R in Chinese children were examined in a sample of 788 aged 12 years. Boys obtained a higher mean full scale IQ than girls of 3.75 IQ points, a higher performance IQ of 4.20 IQ points, and a higher verbal IQ of 2.40 IQ points. Boys obtained significantly higher means on the information, picture arrangement, picture completion, block design, and object assembly subtests, while girls obtained a significantly higher mean on coding. The results were in general similar to the sex differences in the United States standardisation sample of the WISC-R. Boys showed greater variability than girls."
Spousal Abuse: Narrative Over Facts - "There is an interesting article on spousal abuse by a chap who works with PAVE, in which he talks about the issue of domestic violence and race in Singapore. The main gist of his article is that people predominantly see it as an Indian problem when the majority of the cases reported are from the Chinese demographic. He goes on to assert that Spousal Abuse is an issue in which race has no relevance. But is this what the facts really show?... going by PAVE statistics, the Chinese demographic was 26% less likely than expected to be committing domestic violence for their makeup of the population. The Indian demographic is 2.1 times as likely as the to commit it versus the Chinese, followed by the Malay demographic in which it is seen at an incidence 2.5 times more... This is hardly something that could be called “slightly over-represented compared to their proportion in the population.” We are talking about a serious problem that happens at incidences that are significantly over the expected background rate."
Sinda concerned over family violence in Indian community - "About one in five reported abuse cases and personal protection order applications are made against Indians, said organisations approached. This outweighs their 9.1 per cent representation in the Singapore population... Anecdotal evidence suggests that Indians may be more predisposed to domestic violence due to their drinking habit, she said. Sinda has found that alcohol abuse increases the odds of a man lashing out at his family."
JFK's Very Revealing Harvard Application Essay - "At 17 years old, the future president seemed to understand that the value of an elite education is in the status it offers."
Marital rape, voyeurism to become offences in ‘sweeping’ changes proposed for Singapore’s penal code - "the committee has proposed creating new offences involving child abuse material - from using or involving a child in the production of, to the making, distributing, selling, advertising, seeking, accessing and possession of such material. This includes fictional material. The committee said fictional material could be used for grooming children, and could fuel child abuse by reinforcing potential abusers’ inappropriate feelings towards children."
No more lolis
In marital rape, proving lack of consent a 'complicated' issue, lawyers say - "It will be challenging to prove a lack of consent in cases of marital rape, criminal lawyers said, pointing to the intimacy associated with marriage and the fluid nature of consent... Another concern, the lawyers said, is the retracting of consent following a "trigger factor" like a heated argument."
Some Students Want to Abolish In-Class Presentations - "According to a recent survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, oral communication is one of the most sought-after skills in the workplace, with over 90 percent of hiring managers saying it’s important. Some educators also credit in-class presentations with building essential leadership skills and increasing students’ confidence and understanding of material. But in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options... Some responses to the most recent viral tweet, though, noted that giving a presentation in spite of anxiety might reduce a student’s fear of public speaking... “My thoughts are that we are in the business of preparing students for college, career, and civic life. Public speaking is a piece of that preparation,” says Ryan Jones, a high-school history teacher in Connecticut. “Now, some kids (many) are deathly afraid to do it, but pushing outside of comfort zones is also a big part of what we do.”"
Twitter Mob Gets U.S. Coast Guard Member Removed for Making 'Offensive' 'OK' Sign - "The Anti-Defamation League has dismissed the conspiracy theory, pointing out its origins as a hoax started on the 4chan website... According to the ADL, the OK/white power hoax is just one of many hoaxes started by 4channers and other websites “to take innocuous items, symbols or gestures and falsely attribute white supremacist meanings to them in order to fool liberals and get them to spread such false messages.” Despite the fact the whole white power symbol is a hoax, several media outlets have run with the story, claiming with certainty that the Coast Guard member flashed a white power symbol."
The ADL must be part of the alt-right
Four in 10 think British culture is undermined by multiculturalism
Midnight at Maxwell Food Centre: A Shadow of a Once Lucrative Hawker Business - "To emphasise how hard it is to be in the business today, even if you’re located at one of the most famous hawker centres in a central location, the veteran hawker adds that the stall next to his has already gone through 10 different tenants. The longest tenure was four years while the shortest only lasted a week."
Why work is exhausting even when it involves no physical labor - "as we work on a task, we struggle to focus on it or eventually lose interest in it. We become less motivated to do the task. We become drawn to the things we want to do (scrolling Instagram or reading music blogs, for instance), rather than the things we have to do. And this tension possibly causes fatigue."
Twitter is so liberal that its conservative employees ‘don’t feel safe to express their opinions,’ says CEO Jack Dorsey
After Getting 3,000% Wage Hike, Workers Are Fired in Venezuela
Relinquishing Taboos - "“Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been taught is how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.”... Thomas Jefferson said, “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
Your new school curriculum: social justice for all - "Canada's biggest school system has some problems. Math scores are flat or in decline. Too many kids aren't doing well in school, and too many of them are visible minorities. Something must be done. What is it? The answer is to make social justice and "equity" the main focus of education in Ontario... "Equality" is no longer the goal. The new goal is "equity," a very different concept. According to a sweeping draft plan prepared for the Toronto District School Board, equity is not achieved by treating students fairly. It is achieved by challenging "entrenched systems of power and privilege" and "constantly working to centre the conversation around the effects of inequity, oppression, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of hate and discrimination specifically for racialized students." In other words, kids' success or failure is shaped by historic forces that determine their victim status. (The vexed question of why some "racialized" students do extremely well and others not so well is not addressed.) One mother wrote me that social justice and equity are now the focus of her son's school. At parent council meetings they talk about microaggressions. "There is no room, it seems, for white children or mixed children," she lamented. (Her children are mixed.) In the name of social justice, Grade 9 math is being de-streamed... "Here's what will happen with de-streaming," wrote Don Cooper, a retired teacher, in a letter to the Toronto Star. "Grade 9 teachers will be faced with a classroom with more academic and social disparity, which will be much more difficult to educate." Translation: Struggling kids will be the losers... What's so awful about social-justice doctrine is that it will hurt the very kids it's supposed to help. It deploys significant resources in the wrong direction and aggressively ignores everything important that we know about kids and school achievement. Decades of social-science research confirm that the biggest predictors of school achievement are family structure effects – family composition, stability, maternal education and socioeconomic status. These have nothing to do with entrenched systems of power and privilege, and everything to do with factors such as having two parents and close parental supervision. Sad to say, not all the anti-bias training in the world is going to change that."
10 things you have always wanted to ask a lesbian – Pat Law - "1. How does scissoring work?... We scissor as often as you fornicate your wife standing up holding her entire weight with one hand...
3. How do you do it?
I hate to be such a hypocrite here, but watch some porn...
5. How do you know if the other girl is also a lesbian?
You ask. And if you’re too shy to do so, check for the following signs:
Trimmed fingernails (think)
Toned arms (think again)
Lesbian hair (although I would argue that in today’s gender-blending world, follicles hardly pass the litmus test)...
9. Have you ever been discriminated against for being a lesbian?...
I haven’t been discriminated against for being a lesbian but it has a lot to do with the way I chose to see things, to keep my sanity. I choose not to get angry over ignorance.
10. What is your fear as a lesbian?
That I will be known for only my sexuality. I am a daughter, a friend, a girlfriend, Singaporean, Chinese, a creative director, a human to two chihuahuas, and oh by the way, I am also gay...
The last thing I want is to be that gay person who makes every damn thing about her sexuality. Like that one prominent gay dick who held drug parties at home only to be arrested and locked up, and I witnessed first-hand how some folks in the gay community blamed it on his sexuality. Dude, you didn’t get locked up because you were gay and singled out by the cops. You got locked up because you were hosting drug parties. People like you give us such a bad name... If you want heterosexuals to accept you for who you are, stop making your sexuality all that you are."
Japanese north–south gradient in IQ predicts differences in stature, skin color, income, and homicide rate - "Regional differences in IQ are estimated for 47 prefectures of Japan. IQ scores obtained from official achievement tests show a gradient from north to south. Latitudes correlate with height, IQ, and skin color at r = 0.70, 0.44, 0.47, respectively. IQ also correlates with height (0.52), skin color (0.42), income (0.51) after correction, less homicide rate (− 0.60), and less divorce (− 0.69) but not with fertility infant mortali'ty. The lower IQ in southern Japanese islands could be attributable to warmer climates with less cognitive demand for more than fifteen hundred years."
Is it still racist if they're all Japanese?
Regional Differences in Intelligence in 22 Countries and their Economic, Social and Demographic Correlates: A Review - "Regional differences in intelligence are reported for 22 countries. These are positively associated with many economic, social and demographic phenomena. These include income, health, educational and occupational achievement. These are negatively associated with poverty, fertility and crime."
Chinese sex differences in intelligence: Some new evidence - "Sex differences on the WISC-R in Chinese children were examined in a sample of 788 aged 12 years. Boys obtained a higher mean full scale IQ than girls of 3.75 IQ points, a higher performance IQ of 4.20 IQ points, and a higher verbal IQ of 2.40 IQ points. Boys obtained significantly higher means on the information, picture arrangement, picture completion, block design, and object assembly subtests, while girls obtained a significantly higher mean on coding. The results were in general similar to the sex differences in the United States standardisation sample of the WISC-R. Boys showed greater variability than girls."
Spousal Abuse: Narrative Over Facts - "There is an interesting article on spousal abuse by a chap who works with PAVE, in which he talks about the issue of domestic violence and race in Singapore. The main gist of his article is that people predominantly see it as an Indian problem when the majority of the cases reported are from the Chinese demographic. He goes on to assert that Spousal Abuse is an issue in which race has no relevance. But is this what the facts really show?... going by PAVE statistics, the Chinese demographic was 26% less likely than expected to be committing domestic violence for their makeup of the population. The Indian demographic is 2.1 times as likely as the to commit it versus the Chinese, followed by the Malay demographic in which it is seen at an incidence 2.5 times more... This is hardly something that could be called “slightly over-represented compared to their proportion in the population.” We are talking about a serious problem that happens at incidences that are significantly over the expected background rate."
Sinda concerned over family violence in Indian community - "About one in five reported abuse cases and personal protection order applications are made against Indians, said organisations approached. This outweighs their 9.1 per cent representation in the Singapore population... Anecdotal evidence suggests that Indians may be more predisposed to domestic violence due to their drinking habit, she said. Sinda has found that alcohol abuse increases the odds of a man lashing out at his family."
JFK's Very Revealing Harvard Application Essay - "At 17 years old, the future president seemed to understand that the value of an elite education is in the status it offers."
Marital rape, voyeurism to become offences in ‘sweeping’ changes proposed for Singapore’s penal code - "the committee has proposed creating new offences involving child abuse material - from using or involving a child in the production of, to the making, distributing, selling, advertising, seeking, accessing and possession of such material. This includes fictional material. The committee said fictional material could be used for grooming children, and could fuel child abuse by reinforcing potential abusers’ inappropriate feelings towards children."
No more lolis
In marital rape, proving lack of consent a 'complicated' issue, lawyers say - "It will be challenging to prove a lack of consent in cases of marital rape, criminal lawyers said, pointing to the intimacy associated with marriage and the fluid nature of consent... Another concern, the lawyers said, is the retracting of consent following a "trigger factor" like a heated argument."
Some Students Want to Abolish In-Class Presentations - "According to a recent survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, oral communication is one of the most sought-after skills in the workplace, with over 90 percent of hiring managers saying it’s important. Some educators also credit in-class presentations with building essential leadership skills and increasing students’ confidence and understanding of material. But in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options... Some responses to the most recent viral tweet, though, noted that giving a presentation in spite of anxiety might reduce a student’s fear of public speaking... “My thoughts are that we are in the business of preparing students for college, career, and civic life. Public speaking is a piece of that preparation,” says Ryan Jones, a high-school history teacher in Connecticut. “Now, some kids (many) are deathly afraid to do it, but pushing outside of comfort zones is also a big part of what we do.”"
Twitter Mob Gets U.S. Coast Guard Member Removed for Making 'Offensive' 'OK' Sign - "The Anti-Defamation League has dismissed the conspiracy theory, pointing out its origins as a hoax started on the 4chan website... According to the ADL, the OK/white power hoax is just one of many hoaxes started by 4channers and other websites “to take innocuous items, symbols or gestures and falsely attribute white supremacist meanings to them in order to fool liberals and get them to spread such false messages.” Despite the fact the whole white power symbol is a hoax, several media outlets have run with the story, claiming with certainty that the Coast Guard member flashed a white power symbol."
The ADL must be part of the alt-right
Four in 10 think British culture is undermined by multiculturalism
Midnight at Maxwell Food Centre: A Shadow of a Once Lucrative Hawker Business - "To emphasise how hard it is to be in the business today, even if you’re located at one of the most famous hawker centres in a central location, the veteran hawker adds that the stall next to his has already gone through 10 different tenants. The longest tenure was four years while the shortest only lasted a week."
Why work is exhausting even when it involves no physical labor - "as we work on a task, we struggle to focus on it or eventually lose interest in it. We become less motivated to do the task. We become drawn to the things we want to do (scrolling Instagram or reading music blogs, for instance), rather than the things we have to do. And this tension possibly causes fatigue."
Twitter is so liberal that its conservative employees ‘don’t feel safe to express their opinions,’ says CEO Jack Dorsey
After Getting 3,000% Wage Hike, Workers Are Fired in Venezuela
Relinquishing Taboos - "“Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been taught is how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.”... Thomas Jefferson said, “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
Your new school curriculum: social justice for all - "Canada's biggest school system has some problems. Math scores are flat or in decline. Too many kids aren't doing well in school, and too many of them are visible minorities. Something must be done. What is it? The answer is to make social justice and "equity" the main focus of education in Ontario... "Equality" is no longer the goal. The new goal is "equity," a very different concept. According to a sweeping draft plan prepared for the Toronto District School Board, equity is not achieved by treating students fairly. It is achieved by challenging "entrenched systems of power and privilege" and "constantly working to centre the conversation around the effects of inequity, oppression, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of hate and discrimination specifically for racialized students." In other words, kids' success or failure is shaped by historic forces that determine their victim status. (The vexed question of why some "racialized" students do extremely well and others not so well is not addressed.) One mother wrote me that social justice and equity are now the focus of her son's school. At parent council meetings they talk about microaggressions. "There is no room, it seems, for white children or mixed children," she lamented. (Her children are mixed.) In the name of social justice, Grade 9 math is being de-streamed... "Here's what will happen with de-streaming," wrote Don Cooper, a retired teacher, in a letter to the Toronto Star. "Grade 9 teachers will be faced with a classroom with more academic and social disparity, which will be much more difficult to educate." Translation: Struggling kids will be the losers... What's so awful about social-justice doctrine is that it will hurt the very kids it's supposed to help. It deploys significant resources in the wrong direction and aggressively ignores everything important that we know about kids and school achievement. Decades of social-science research confirm that the biggest predictors of school achievement are family structure effects – family composition, stability, maternal education and socioeconomic status. These have nothing to do with entrenched systems of power and privilege, and everything to do with factors such as having two parents and close parental supervision. Sad to say, not all the anti-bias training in the world is going to change that."
Post ID: 3481408845372951731
Friday, November 02, 2018
Links - 2nd November 2018 (2)
Here's what happens to your body when you walk those recommended 10,000 steps - "Roizen points to a recent study, that found postal workers in Glasgow, Scotland, who walked 15,000 steps a day, had fewer risk factors for heart disease than colleagues who sat throughout the day."
KBG84, Japan’s oldest idol group, have released their first major label single and it’s amazing - "the song features a sanshin (Okinawan string instrument) performance by Kikuo Tsuchida, an Okinawan musician, in the vein of traditional min’you music with a pop idol vibe to it. In other words, it’s a mixture of traditional and contemporary — perfect for an idol group with an average age of 84!"
Open letter to Seah Kian Peng over post that “incited fear and distrust between citizens” trends online - "While I appreciate your display of patriotism and sense of duty to defend Singapore’s sovereignty, I also am aware of your false assumption about Teo Soh Lung being a member of the SDP. As a member of the Select Committee on Online Falsehoods you would know very well how dangerous fake news can be in the age we are in. Many Singaporeans are now taken aback by your false assumption, how can we trust that your moral position in the select committee is not compromised?"
Why Genghis Khan was good for the planet - "Genghis Khan, in fact, may have been not just the greatest warrior but the greatest eco-warrior of all time, according to a study by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Energy. It has concluded that the 13th-century Mongol leader's bloody advance, laying waste to vast swaths of territory and wiping out entire civilisations en route, may have scrubbed 700m tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere – roughly the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year through global petrol consumption – by allowing previously populated and cultivated land to return to carbon-absorbing forest."
To the New York Times op-ed writer: If you can’t serve honorably, don’t serve at all - The Washington Post - "The “deep state” exists after all. But it turns out that deep state is not made up of the permanent bureaucracy, shadowy intelligence officials, or even Obama administration holdovers; rather it is made up of President Trump’s own senior appointees... For an unelected appointee to hide documents or refuse to carry out the lawful orders of the elected president is not noble. It is not patriotic. It is an assault on democracy... For an unelected appointee to hide documents or refuse to carry out the lawful orders of the elected president is not noble. It is not patriotic. It is an assault on democracy."
Apparently you must kill democracy to save it
How College Ruined My Life - "education and the big banks preyed on unsuspecting Americans, who went to college, and now have an outstanding burden of debt that may threaten their way of life. These people had plans for the future, but are now stagnant and unable to move forward. One person shown in the magazine says she owes about $152,000 dollars’ worth of student loan debt. She has a good job now, but is unable to penetrate the debt"
How Over-Hyping a College Education Destroyed the Millennials - "college-bound Millennials are most likely to choose college degrees in social science and the applied science fields. These are the liberal arts and psych majors that were encouraged to pursue their passion by their “advisors”, only to later be ridiculed because after graduation, they realized they couldn’t get much more than a job in social services."
Benevolent Sexism at Work: Gender Differences in the Distribution of Challenging Developmental Experiences - "stereotype-based beliefs that women should be protected may limit women’s exposure to challenging assignments, which in turn may partially explain the underrepresentation of women at the highest levels of organizations."
Gender Differences in Responses to Moral Dilemmas: A Process Dissociation Analysis - Rebecca Friesdorf, Paul Conway, Bertram Gawronski, 2015 - "men showed a stronger preference for utilitarian over deontological judgments than women when the two principles implied conflicting decisions (d = 0.52). PD further revealed that women exhibited stronger deontological inclinations than men (d = 0.57), while men exhibited only slightly stronger utilitarian inclinations than women (d = 0.10). The findings suggest that gender differences in moral dilemma judgments are due to differences in affective responses to harm rather than cognitive evaluations of outcomes."
In other words, women are more likely to make moral judgments based on how they feel rather than making considered moral judgment
Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape - "of those who obtain doctorates in math-intensive fields, men and women entering the professoriate have equivalent access to tenure-track academic jobs in science, and they persist and are remunerated at comparable rates—with some caveats that we discuss. The transition from graduate programs to assistant professorships shows more pipeline leakage in the fields in which women are already very prevalent (psychology, life science, social science) than in the math-intensive fields in which they are underrepresented but in which the number of females holding assistant professorships is at least commensurate with (if not greater than) that of males. That is, invitations to interview for tenure-track positions in math-intensive fields—as well as actual employment offers—reveal that female PhD applicants fare at least as well as their male counterparts in math-intensive fields. Along these same lines, our analyses reveal that manuscript reviewing and grant funding are gender neutral: Male and female authors and principal investigators are equally likely to have their manuscripts accepted by journal editors and their grants funded, with only very occasional exceptions. There are no compelling sex differences in hours worked or average citations per publication, but there is an overall male advantage in productivity... although in the past, gender discrimination was an important cause of women’s underrepresentation in scientific academic careers, this claim has continued to be invoked after it has ceased being a valid cause of women’s underrepresentation in math-intensive fields"
So much for sexism in academia
Moral typecasting: divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. - " good- and evil-doers (moral agents) were perceived to be less vulnerable to having good and evil done to them. The recipients of good and evil (moral patients), in turn, were perceived as less capable of performing good or evil actions. Moral typecasting stems from the dyadic nature of morality and explains curious effects such as people's willingness to inflict greater pain on those who do good than those who do nothing."
Gender and Helping Behavior. A Meta-Analytic Review of the Social Psychological Literature - "Results from our meta-analytic review of sex differences in helping behavior indicate that in general men helped more than women and women received more help than men"
More on women receiving more sympathy/help than men. This helps explain why only men pay taxes
Sex Differences in the Ultimatum Game: An Evolutionary Psychology Perspective - "Using evolutionary psychology as the theoretical framework, we predicted and found that males made more generous offers when pitted against a female as opposed to a male. While females made equal offers independently of the sex of the recipient. That male allocators are altruistic towards female recipients and competitive with male recipients is construed as a manifestation of social rules, which evolve from the male pre-disposition to use resources for attracting mates. In contrast, females have not evolved such a pre-disposition, and thus, female allocators are more concerned about fairness when making offers to recipients"
Sarsour: American Muslims Shouldn’t ‘Humanize’ Israelis - "“You wouldn’t automatically associate such language on the part of someone who is touted as an elite spokesperson for women’s rights, equal rights in the United States,” Cooper said. Cooper added that Sarsour’s comments likely stem from “desperation” due to recent global developments of Gulf Arabs having “unprecedented normal contact” with Israelis."
For Low-SES Students, Not Focusing on Grades is an Impossible Dream - "Life Beyond Grades won’t be the last ground-up initiative that’s run by those who come from middle to upper-middle class, English-educated backgrounds, that aims to tackle the increasing pressures children face in school. After all, it’s these people who have the resources to start such projects to help the less fortunate in the first place... their children are free to explore other options beyond traditional academic pursuits. They don’t need good grades, because they are largely protected from the far-reaching consequences of coming from an underprivileged background and not doing well in school"
John David Ward's answer to What are the facial differences between the Japanese and Chinese? - Quora - "This image is a composite of, from left to right, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese women. To me, the most noticeable thing about that composite image is the difference in skin tone, but the general shape of the face and the hair is also different. This is a cluster analysis from Dieneke's Anthropology blog which shows how the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people fall out genetically... As you can see, there's a lot of genetic variability in China, reflecting the fact that it's a big, multiethnic country, a fair amount in Japan, which stretches from the Ryukyu Islands to Hokkaido, and the people of Korea are in somewhere in between, but tightly clustered so that they don't overlap with either."
Nigel Yeo - [377A] This is not a call to action for the retention... - "Yes, the Westboro Baptist Church exists. Yes, there are thousands of Christians who express their aversion to homosexuality online, who make hurtful and cutting comments which belie a lack of understanding of the LGBT community. But there are also sections of the LGBT community who intentionally wear BDSM attire at pride parades to provoke, who organize casual swinger orgies, or who pour inflammatory vitriol against those they disagree with. Just as how it is not right to brand the entire LGBT community with the actions of these few, it is not right to do the same to Christians. It is unfortunate that in the course of the responses to LGBT activism (and I use these terms descriptively), Christians are now represented by their opposition to sexual lifestyles outside of man-woman marriage, in particular homosexuality (but also pansexualism, bisexualism, etc). This community of so-called “bigots” who apparently only want to further oppress their LGBT neighbours, is the source of countless individuals who have laid down their lives and given all that they have to take care of and feed those who cannot do so for themselves... Increasingly, we’re being told by others how to run our own religion. Just take Truelove.is for instance. An initiative set up by a local church that (1) does not itself prescribe whether homosexuality is wrong or not; (2) shares the stories of Christians who were / are LGBT and VOLUNTARILY went to their church leaders for help; (3) with the intention of reaching out to other Christians who might be facing the same situation, has received disdain and even actual hate from those who disagree with them. Here we have an example of a church attempting to do what the church has been criticized (rightly or wrongly) for not doing enough of: reaching out to those in the body of Christ who are LGBT and journeying together with them. But no. Immediately, they’re accused of conversion therapy (despite there being absolutely no evidence that they have intended to convert anyone) and that the only way of being a loving church is to affirm LGBT lifestyles – even if this may go against what they believe in... Ultimately my point to those who are anti-377a is this: if your belief in a tolerant society is a genuine one, then display that same tolerance to people whose views you disagree with"
US lawmakers say AI deepfakes ‘have the potential to disrupt every facet of our society’ - "“hyper-realistic digital forgeries” showing “convincing depictions of individuals doing or saying things they never did” could be used for blackmail and misinformation. “As deep fake technology becomes more advanced and more accessible, it could pose a threat to United States public discourse and national security”"
Stuck In A Web: How Game Journalism Lost Its Originality - "I remember visiting the White House and assassinating the Vice President in Hitman: Blood Money back in 2006 without articles addressing its politics. So what happened? Why in 2018 must all games be political? From Far Cry 5 not being enough of a Trump supporter killing simulator to The Division 2 not being political enough, and even up to the current release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider for not addressing it’s history of “colonialism”... Controversy sells... Only one thing hurts a website, and that’s the dwindling of funds, so hurt them in their wallets"
Justin Trudeau maintains that Japan is 'inward looking' and 'not intolerant' for its anti-immigration policy - "For a leader so set on refusing to see any option other than a virtually open-border approach to immigration, the comments come as contradictory, if not hypocritical."
KBG84, Japan’s oldest idol group, have released their first major label single and it’s amazing - "the song features a sanshin (Okinawan string instrument) performance by Kikuo Tsuchida, an Okinawan musician, in the vein of traditional min’you music with a pop idol vibe to it. In other words, it’s a mixture of traditional and contemporary — perfect for an idol group with an average age of 84!"
Open letter to Seah Kian Peng over post that “incited fear and distrust between citizens” trends online - "While I appreciate your display of patriotism and sense of duty to defend Singapore’s sovereignty, I also am aware of your false assumption about Teo Soh Lung being a member of the SDP. As a member of the Select Committee on Online Falsehoods you would know very well how dangerous fake news can be in the age we are in. Many Singaporeans are now taken aback by your false assumption, how can we trust that your moral position in the select committee is not compromised?"
Why Genghis Khan was good for the planet - "Genghis Khan, in fact, may have been not just the greatest warrior but the greatest eco-warrior of all time, according to a study by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Energy. It has concluded that the 13th-century Mongol leader's bloody advance, laying waste to vast swaths of territory and wiping out entire civilisations en route, may have scrubbed 700m tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere – roughly the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year through global petrol consumption – by allowing previously populated and cultivated land to return to carbon-absorbing forest."
To the New York Times op-ed writer: If you can’t serve honorably, don’t serve at all - The Washington Post - "The “deep state” exists after all. But it turns out that deep state is not made up of the permanent bureaucracy, shadowy intelligence officials, or even Obama administration holdovers; rather it is made up of President Trump’s own senior appointees... For an unelected appointee to hide documents or refuse to carry out the lawful orders of the elected president is not noble. It is not patriotic. It is an assault on democracy... For an unelected appointee to hide documents or refuse to carry out the lawful orders of the elected president is not noble. It is not patriotic. It is an assault on democracy."
Apparently you must kill democracy to save it
How College Ruined My Life - "education and the big banks preyed on unsuspecting Americans, who went to college, and now have an outstanding burden of debt that may threaten their way of life. These people had plans for the future, but are now stagnant and unable to move forward. One person shown in the magazine says she owes about $152,000 dollars’ worth of student loan debt. She has a good job now, but is unable to penetrate the debt"
How Over-Hyping a College Education Destroyed the Millennials - "college-bound Millennials are most likely to choose college degrees in social science and the applied science fields. These are the liberal arts and psych majors that were encouraged to pursue their passion by their “advisors”, only to later be ridiculed because after graduation, they realized they couldn’t get much more than a job in social services."
Benevolent Sexism at Work: Gender Differences in the Distribution of Challenging Developmental Experiences - "stereotype-based beliefs that women should be protected may limit women’s exposure to challenging assignments, which in turn may partially explain the underrepresentation of women at the highest levels of organizations."
Gender Differences in Responses to Moral Dilemmas: A Process Dissociation Analysis - Rebecca Friesdorf, Paul Conway, Bertram Gawronski, 2015 - "men showed a stronger preference for utilitarian over deontological judgments than women when the two principles implied conflicting decisions (d = 0.52). PD further revealed that women exhibited stronger deontological inclinations than men (d = 0.57), while men exhibited only slightly stronger utilitarian inclinations than women (d = 0.10). The findings suggest that gender differences in moral dilemma judgments are due to differences in affective responses to harm rather than cognitive evaluations of outcomes."
In other words, women are more likely to make moral judgments based on how they feel rather than making considered moral judgment
Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape - "of those who obtain doctorates in math-intensive fields, men and women entering the professoriate have equivalent access to tenure-track academic jobs in science, and they persist and are remunerated at comparable rates—with some caveats that we discuss. The transition from graduate programs to assistant professorships shows more pipeline leakage in the fields in which women are already very prevalent (psychology, life science, social science) than in the math-intensive fields in which they are underrepresented but in which the number of females holding assistant professorships is at least commensurate with (if not greater than) that of males. That is, invitations to interview for tenure-track positions in math-intensive fields—as well as actual employment offers—reveal that female PhD applicants fare at least as well as their male counterparts in math-intensive fields. Along these same lines, our analyses reveal that manuscript reviewing and grant funding are gender neutral: Male and female authors and principal investigators are equally likely to have their manuscripts accepted by journal editors and their grants funded, with only very occasional exceptions. There are no compelling sex differences in hours worked or average citations per publication, but there is an overall male advantage in productivity... although in the past, gender discrimination was an important cause of women’s underrepresentation in scientific academic careers, this claim has continued to be invoked after it has ceased being a valid cause of women’s underrepresentation in math-intensive fields"
So much for sexism in academia
Moral typecasting: divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. - " good- and evil-doers (moral agents) were perceived to be less vulnerable to having good and evil done to them. The recipients of good and evil (moral patients), in turn, were perceived as less capable of performing good or evil actions. Moral typecasting stems from the dyadic nature of morality and explains curious effects such as people's willingness to inflict greater pain on those who do good than those who do nothing."
Gender and Helping Behavior. A Meta-Analytic Review of the Social Psychological Literature - "Results from our meta-analytic review of sex differences in helping behavior indicate that in general men helped more than women and women received more help than men"
More on women receiving more sympathy/help than men. This helps explain why only men pay taxes
Sex Differences in the Ultimatum Game: An Evolutionary Psychology Perspective - "Using evolutionary psychology as the theoretical framework, we predicted and found that males made more generous offers when pitted against a female as opposed to a male. While females made equal offers independently of the sex of the recipient. That male allocators are altruistic towards female recipients and competitive with male recipients is construed as a manifestation of social rules, which evolve from the male pre-disposition to use resources for attracting mates. In contrast, females have not evolved such a pre-disposition, and thus, female allocators are more concerned about fairness when making offers to recipients"
Sarsour: American Muslims Shouldn’t ‘Humanize’ Israelis - "“You wouldn’t automatically associate such language on the part of someone who is touted as an elite spokesperson for women’s rights, equal rights in the United States,” Cooper said. Cooper added that Sarsour’s comments likely stem from “desperation” due to recent global developments of Gulf Arabs having “unprecedented normal contact” with Israelis."
For Low-SES Students, Not Focusing on Grades is an Impossible Dream - "Life Beyond Grades won’t be the last ground-up initiative that’s run by those who come from middle to upper-middle class, English-educated backgrounds, that aims to tackle the increasing pressures children face in school. After all, it’s these people who have the resources to start such projects to help the less fortunate in the first place... their children are free to explore other options beyond traditional academic pursuits. They don’t need good grades, because they are largely protected from the far-reaching consequences of coming from an underprivileged background and not doing well in school"
John David Ward's answer to What are the facial differences between the Japanese and Chinese? - Quora - "This image is a composite of, from left to right, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese women. To me, the most noticeable thing about that composite image is the difference in skin tone, but the general shape of the face and the hair is also different. This is a cluster analysis from Dieneke's Anthropology blog which shows how the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people fall out genetically... As you can see, there's a lot of genetic variability in China, reflecting the fact that it's a big, multiethnic country, a fair amount in Japan, which stretches from the Ryukyu Islands to Hokkaido, and the people of Korea are in somewhere in between, but tightly clustered so that they don't overlap with either."
Nigel Yeo - [377A] This is not a call to action for the retention... - "Yes, the Westboro Baptist Church exists. Yes, there are thousands of Christians who express their aversion to homosexuality online, who make hurtful and cutting comments which belie a lack of understanding of the LGBT community. But there are also sections of the LGBT community who intentionally wear BDSM attire at pride parades to provoke, who organize casual swinger orgies, or who pour inflammatory vitriol against those they disagree with. Just as how it is not right to brand the entire LGBT community with the actions of these few, it is not right to do the same to Christians. It is unfortunate that in the course of the responses to LGBT activism (and I use these terms descriptively), Christians are now represented by their opposition to sexual lifestyles outside of man-woman marriage, in particular homosexuality (but also pansexualism, bisexualism, etc). This community of so-called “bigots” who apparently only want to further oppress their LGBT neighbours, is the source of countless individuals who have laid down their lives and given all that they have to take care of and feed those who cannot do so for themselves... Increasingly, we’re being told by others how to run our own religion. Just take Truelove.is for instance. An initiative set up by a local church that (1) does not itself prescribe whether homosexuality is wrong or not; (2) shares the stories of Christians who were / are LGBT and VOLUNTARILY went to their church leaders for help; (3) with the intention of reaching out to other Christians who might be facing the same situation, has received disdain and even actual hate from those who disagree with them. Here we have an example of a church attempting to do what the church has been criticized (rightly or wrongly) for not doing enough of: reaching out to those in the body of Christ who are LGBT and journeying together with them. But no. Immediately, they’re accused of conversion therapy (despite there being absolutely no evidence that they have intended to convert anyone) and that the only way of being a loving church is to affirm LGBT lifestyles – even if this may go against what they believe in... Ultimately my point to those who are anti-377a is this: if your belief in a tolerant society is a genuine one, then display that same tolerance to people whose views you disagree with"
US lawmakers say AI deepfakes ‘have the potential to disrupt every facet of our society’ - "“hyper-realistic digital forgeries” showing “convincing depictions of individuals doing or saying things they never did” could be used for blackmail and misinformation. “As deep fake technology becomes more advanced and more accessible, it could pose a threat to United States public discourse and national security”"
Stuck In A Web: How Game Journalism Lost Its Originality - "I remember visiting the White House and assassinating the Vice President in Hitman: Blood Money back in 2006 without articles addressing its politics. So what happened? Why in 2018 must all games be political? From Far Cry 5 not being enough of a Trump supporter killing simulator to The Division 2 not being political enough, and even up to the current release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider for not addressing it’s history of “colonialism”... Controversy sells... Only one thing hurts a website, and that’s the dwindling of funds, so hurt them in their wallets"
Justin Trudeau maintains that Japan is 'inward looking' and 'not intolerant' for its anti-immigration policy - "For a leader so set on refusing to see any option other than a virtually open-border approach to immigration, the comments come as contradictory, if not hypocritical."
Post ID: 3415774184725397462
Non-Economic Factors in the Economic Retardation of the Rural Malays (3/4)
"In the nineteenth century, the rural Malays were always loath to accumulate too much wealth because it invited confiscation by either the Sultan or the local chiefs. In any event, it appears that the Malays were powerless to prevent the Sultan or the local chiefs from taking their cattle and rice without payment, or even their wives and daughters! If we add to this the not infrequent internecine wars and local feuds in which the villagers became involved, and also their low levels of income, then the Malays' desire for some sort of material security becomes quite understandable and merely reinforces any more general psychological yearning for security.
Inherent in the Malays, therefore, is a desire for security, something which is based on the desire for feeling in harmony with their environment, for being able to understand it and for being able to respond intuitively to a given situation. These needs are not likely to lead the Malays into being experimental in their attitude towards material techniques because any deviation from that which obtains, or that which is expected, necessarily makes them feel more insecure and more anxious, and hence they remain unimpressed by the opportunities offered by change. Indeed, the desire for security may go a long way towards explaining the attraction that government employment has for the Malays, for such employment is regarded as being very secure even if less remunerative than other paid employment. And it may also help to explain the Malays' dislike for full-time specialization in any one occupation. The insecurity they apparently feel by specialization is something that can only be overcome by having more than one occupation.
Within the framework of E. E. Hagen's more general thesis, the anxiety caused by being faced with new situations is 'avoided or relieved by two types of behaviour characteristic. .... One is the reliance on tradition. . . . Only within [traditional areas of behaviour] does one face problems without anxiety. .... The other method of avoiding anxiety is decision by authority...
Every Muslim is essentially a propagandist of his faith, and, being a Muslim, the Malay will mix freely with non-Muslims and be kind and hospitable to them. Despite this, however, there is a gulf between the Muslim and the non-Muslim which tends to make the Malay seem rather withdrawn, almost chauvinistic, less likely to submit his beliefs to, or accept, those of others, and to be satisfied with looking to his friends, his religion, his techniques and his institutions as the bases for any advancement or inspiration.
The Islamic belief that all things are emanations from God is another important force affecting the Malays' economic behaviour, for it tends to make them fatalistic in their approach to life. 'The Malay is very prone, after receiving a setback, to give up striving, and say that he has no luck, that it is the will of God. In economic affairs, this is most clearly seen in the concept rezeki, a person's divinely inspired economic lot.' Such an attitude constitutes a significant drag on economic development...
Indeed, this view is but part of their belief in the advent of a Messiah, the Islamic mahdi...
Islamic Messianism may well have had a profound effect on the Malays' economic ambition and aspiration. To the persons who believe in the likelihood of the coming of a 'golden age', into they would be led and in which all problems would be solved, the tendency to sit and wait passively for change to occur rather than to become active vehicles of change. In short, there is a tendency to adopt an attitude of resignation rather than of innovation. And it must be remembered that the golden age for which the Malays yearn and which they expect is essentially an extension (albeit a perfect one) of their existing way of life. It does not seem to envisage a change in their pursuits, their customs, their religion or their ambitions, but merely the removal of all imperfections and evils. In other words, it does not seem to envisage a commercial or industrial community with all the trappings of material wealth, and any economic changes that merely promise to lead towards this end are therefore not accepted with quite the same exuberance as they might be in the West."
--- Non-Economic Factors in the Economic Retardation of the Rural Malays / Brien K. Parkinson (in Modern Asian Studies, 1967)
Inherent in the Malays, therefore, is a desire for security, something which is based on the desire for feeling in harmony with their environment, for being able to understand it and for being able to respond intuitively to a given situation. These needs are not likely to lead the Malays into being experimental in their attitude towards material techniques because any deviation from that which obtains, or that which is expected, necessarily makes them feel more insecure and more anxious, and hence they remain unimpressed by the opportunities offered by change. Indeed, the desire for security may go a long way towards explaining the attraction that government employment has for the Malays, for such employment is regarded as being very secure even if less remunerative than other paid employment. And it may also help to explain the Malays' dislike for full-time specialization in any one occupation. The insecurity they apparently feel by specialization is something that can only be overcome by having more than one occupation.
Within the framework of E. E. Hagen's more general thesis, the anxiety caused by being faced with new situations is 'avoided or relieved by two types of behaviour characteristic. .... One is the reliance on tradition. . . . Only within [traditional areas of behaviour] does one face problems without anxiety. .... The other method of avoiding anxiety is decision by authority...
Every Muslim is essentially a propagandist of his faith, and, being a Muslim, the Malay will mix freely with non-Muslims and be kind and hospitable to them. Despite this, however, there is a gulf between the Muslim and the non-Muslim which tends to make the Malay seem rather withdrawn, almost chauvinistic, less likely to submit his beliefs to, or accept, those of others, and to be satisfied with looking to his friends, his religion, his techniques and his institutions as the bases for any advancement or inspiration.
The Islamic belief that all things are emanations from God is another important force affecting the Malays' economic behaviour, for it tends to make them fatalistic in their approach to life. 'The Malay is very prone, after receiving a setback, to give up striving, and say that he has no luck, that it is the will of God. In economic affairs, this is most clearly seen in the concept rezeki, a person's divinely inspired economic lot.' Such an attitude constitutes a significant drag on economic development...
Indeed, this view is but part of their belief in the advent of a Messiah, the Islamic mahdi...
Islamic Messianism may well have had a profound effect on the Malays' economic ambition and aspiration. To the persons who believe in the likelihood of the coming of a 'golden age', into they would be led and in which all problems would be solved, the tendency to sit and wait passively for change to occur rather than to become active vehicles of change. In short, there is a tendency to adopt an attitude of resignation rather than of innovation. And it must be remembered that the golden age for which the Malays yearn and which they expect is essentially an extension (albeit a perfect one) of their existing way of life. It does not seem to envisage a change in their pursuits, their customs, their religion or their ambitions, but merely the removal of all imperfections and evils. In other words, it does not seem to envisage a commercial or industrial community with all the trappings of material wealth, and any economic changes that merely promise to lead towards this end are therefore not accepted with quite the same exuberance as they might be in the West."
--- Non-Economic Factors in the Economic Retardation of the Rural Malays / Brien K. Parkinson (in Modern Asian Studies, 1967)
Post ID: 1516112486011059445
Links - 2nd November 2018 (1)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defends $40 trillion price tag for progressive proposals - "Progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday defended what could accrue to a $40 trillion price tag for progressive policy programs, including Medicare for all, over the next 10 years... CNN "State of the Union" anchor Jake Tapper asked where that estimated $40 trillion -- which would include the costs for Medicare for all, jobs guarantees, student loan forgiveness, free college programs, paid family leave, and Social Security expansion -- would come from. Medicare for all would be the costliest initiative, coming in at about $32 trillion... asked again where that $40 trillion would come from, aside from her proposed increase in taxes on the wealthy and corporate taxes, which she has said would raise $2 trillion over the next 10 years, Ocasio-Cortez said the taxpayer-funded programs would free people up to increase economic activity in other areas, adding that the Medicare for all program is part of "a broader agenda.""
Salvini: 'We Need to Have More Children, Not Africans to Replace Them' - "Maybe in Luxembourg they need to do this, but in Italy we need to help people have more children, rather than bring in modern-day slaves [from Africa] to replace the children we’re not having"
Senate Democrats Are Circulating Plans for Government Takeover of the Internet: Reason Roundup - "A leaked memo circulating among Senate Democrats contains a host of bonkers authoritarian proposals for regulating digital platforms, purportedly as a way to get tough on Russian bots and fake news. To save American trust in "our institutions, democracy, free press, and markets," it suggests, we need unprecedented and undemocratic government intervention into online press and markets, including "comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation" of the sort enacted in the E.U."
6 Reasons Why the French Are Such Good Lovers, According to French People - "“We are used to French kisses since we are 12. We don’t play basketball or baseball on the playground. We just practice the French kiss.” -- Hugo...
“They [French men] know they are charming, so they will go over the top and people [foreigners] are seduced and wrapped into it. They know women are easy prey. A friend came a month ago and the first man we met at a party picked her up and carried her down the stairs because he said she was ‘too good to take the stairs.’ She fell for it.” -- Jill
“We buy the lingerie because we know it is important.” -- Marine
“We love the Mediterranean way of life. It is all about the wine and seduction.” -- Hugo...
“They [French men] listen to women and try to understand what they feel. They try to meet a woman’s expectations and they pay a lot of attention. They also have some skills with their tongues.” -- Marine...
“The way we are with women is in our nature since we first learned to talk and walk. We hold the door for a woman, we stand when she joins us at the table, and we kiss her hand when we meet. It’s just the way we are. We take care of women and make them laugh and feel good. As I always say, ‘On ne peut pas être performant à l'horizontale si on ne se sent pas bien a la verticale,’ which means, ‘you can’t be good at sex with your lover if you don’t feel right when you are standing with them.’” -- Marco"
Congratulations Graduate! Eleven Reasons Why I Will Never Hire You.
Oakland Tech to hold first Black Graduation, joins growing movement to celebrate among one's own - "Oakland Tech joins public institutions such as the University California at Berkeley, Berkeley High and for the first time this year, the West Contra Costa Unified School District, all of which hold separate black graduations. Harvard University held its first official commencement for black graduate students last year, in addition to the commencement ceremony for the entire school where they received their diplomas... Critics see these events as having a separatist attitude, something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., worked hard to fight against. And they are being held at a time when the country is rife with accusations of racism and hateful attitudes toward ‘the other.’"
Probiotics are mostly useless and can actually hurt you - "the microbes found in faeces were not representative of those that had colonised the gut. “Relying on faecal samples as an indicator of what goes on inside the gut is inaccurate and wrong” says Elinav. The research also showed that while probiotics colonised the gastrointestinal tract of some people, the gut microbiome of others just expelled them. There was no way of telling from their stool sample which category people fell into. “Some people accept probiotics in their gut, while others just pass them from one end to the other,” says Elinav. They found that the probiotic colonisation patterns were highly dependent on the individual. That tells us that the concept that everyone can benefit from a universal probiotic bought from the supermarket is empirically wrong, he says... Probiotic bacteria readily colonised the gut of everyone in the second group after antibiotics had cleared the way. However, the researchers were surprised to find that this prevented the return of the person’s normal microbiome for up to six months"
The man who won the lottery 14 times - "This is the story of the man who “gamed” the lottery by buying every possible combination."
One in seven major operations in UK cancelled on day of surgery, data shows - "Of these patients, 10 per cent have been cancelled once before, while patients waiting for riskier operations where they are likely to require a critical care bed to recover were also more likely to be cancelled on, the data shows."
We won’t save the Earth with a better kind of disposable coffee cup | George Monbiot - "It was charming to see how Norwegian herring boats seek to avoid killing orcas, but we were given no idea of how unusual it is. Even marine plastic is in large part a fishing issue. It turns out that 46% of the Great Pacific garbage patch – which has come to symbolise our throwaway society – is composed of discarded nets, and much of the rest consists of other kinds of fishing gear. Abandoned fishing materials tend to be far more dangerous to marine life than other forms of waste. As for the bags and bottles contributing to the disaster, the great majority arise in poorer nations without good disposal systems. But because this point was not made, we look to the wrong places for solutions. From this misdirection arise a thousand perversities. One prominent environmentalist posted a picture of the king prawns she had bought, celebrating the fact that she had persuaded the supermarket to put them in her own container rather than a plastic bag, and linking this to the protection of the seas. But buying prawns causes many times more damage to marine life than any plastic in which they are wrapped. Prawn fishing has the highest rates of bycatch of any fishery – scooping up vast numbers of turtles and other threatened species. Prawn farming is just as bad, eliminating tracts of mangrove forests, crucial nurseries for thousands of species. We are kept remarkably ignorant of such issues. As consumers, we are confused, bamboozled and almost powerless – and corporate power has gone to great lengths to persuade us to see ourselves this way. The BBC’s approach to environmental issues is highly partisan, siding with a system that has sought to transfer responsibility for structural forces to individual shoppers. Yet it is only as citizens taking political action that we can promote meaningful change... Disposable coffee cups made from new materials are not just a non-solution: they are a perpetuation of the problem"
British worker files discrimination lawsuit after being fired from Hong Kong company and called a ‘gweilo’ by staff - "A British blasting specialist was called a “gweilo” at work and was excluded when he was hired on a Hong Kong tunnel project, according to a discrimination lawsuit he filed against his former employer. Francis William Haden also said that Leighton Contractors (Asia) did not let him hire blasting specialists from Australia, even though Hong Kong was short on people with the skill, because a partnering firm on the Tseung Kwan O-Lam Tin tunnel project did not want non-Chinese involved."
The future is here today: you can't play Bach on Facebook because Sony says they own his compositions
6 maps and charts that explain sex around the world - "Only 10 percent of Japanese people report exciting sex. That's less than a third of the next-lowest, Hong Kong's, at 32... Japan is the only country in the world where a higher percentage of people report being dissatisfied with their sex lives than satisfied... working hours have made "physical contact" between spouses "so infrequent that some of Japan's leading homebuilders now report that more than one in three custom homes is built with separate bedrooms for husband and wife... Singapore, China, and Mexico had the smallest differences between between male and female orgasm rates, while Russia and Thailand had the largest. The thing that's most surprising about this is there's virtually no correlation between a country's overall level of gender equality and its orgasm gap... Turks reported more sex partners than any other country in the world, and were doing it unprotected about 45 percent of the time [and having more STIs]... Asian countries have a much higher mean age of virginity loss than nations basically everywhere else... there may be something about East Asian religious traditions or cultural norms that promotes sexual conservatism. One study by a group of researchers found very high levels of reported "embarrassment" about discussing sexual practices in public. These results, according to the researchers is that "in comparison with men and women from ‘Western' regions," respondents living in East Asian countries were "more sexually conservative, more male-orientated and less sexually active.""
SMRT Ltd (Feedback) And The Great Teh Tarik Expose - "Long gone is Azly’s brand of dry wit and humour from SMRT Ltd (Feedback), and browsing through the Facebook page, you’ll notice that the new administrator’s voice is distinctively different from the old guard’s. But Azly maintains that SMRT Ltd (Feedback) will and has continued from his time, and will maintain its anonymity for many versions to come."
Colin Kaepernick & Nike's Sweatshops - "Nike never does anything simply because it is the right thing to do. They do not care about social justice or human rights. This is about money. Period. They are still reeling because of the sexual misconduct allegations at Nike headquarters and want to pivot attention away from that. They also see this as a way to endear themselves to one of their largest bases of customers - young black men - to sell more sneakers. And they are banking on capturing the anti-Trump movement with this move. Again, to sell more sneakers. This is “cause marketing” 101."
New York Knicks center Enes Kanter says his criticisms of Turkish government have stifled endorsement deals - "New York Knicks center Enes Kanter said that Nike and other companies have shied away from signing him to endorsement deals because of his outspoken criticisms of the Turkish government."
So much for standing up for something
NBA Player Enes Kanter: How I Became Erdogan's Enemy - "If you speak out against Erdogan, it can affect your whole life and everyone around you. It has been too dangerous for me to set foot in Turkey for three years. The last time I visited, the government destroyed my brothers’ school and threw my dentist and his wife in prison. The regime arrested and charged a man for links to Gulen after I took a picture with his child, and went after a comedian after he exchanged a few tweets with me. Last year, Erdogan canceled my passport and put out an international warrant for my arrest. That means I am now stateless and pretty much can’t leave the United States. It’s interfering with my career, too"
Evergreen State College apologizes for protesting Sumas farm - "Evergreen State College’s President apologized for using taxpayer-funded resources to transport students to a Sumas berry farm for a protest in 2017... Medical examiners and the state Department of Labor and Industries found his death was due to natural causes unrelated to his work and cleared the farm of any wrongdoing."
Steve Bannon, Chelsea Clinton & “No Platforming” Rules - "Ms. Penny chose not to engage in the same festival as Steve Bannon because she believes that he doesn’t want to engage. Which must count as a sort of pre-emptive hit of non-engagement: “I’m going to not engage with you before you can not engage with me.”... the most shocking aspect of that event (even more than the presiding minister fondling Ariana Grande live onstage at a funeral) was the moment when we all said, “Isn’t that Louis Farrakhan up there onstage?” And indeed it was. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton seemed to have no problem sharing a platform with one of the world’s most notorious racists and anti-Semites. Indeed, when Farrakhan waddled over to President Clinton to shake his hand, he was positively oozing with the satisfaction he obviously gets — and has always gotten — from such encounters. For handshakes with — and proximity to — the likes of the Clintons is the only thing that stops Farrakhan from being recognized for what he is: no better or worse than a David Duke... I just cannot understand the rules here. So far as I know, Steve Bannon has never given a speech titled “Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.” If he had, then I doubt he would be so proud of it that it would be still sitting at the top of his Twitter page. And if he had, then I imagine that the Clintons would run the other way from him even if it meant no-platforming someone at a funeral."
Doug Casey On China's Exploitation Of Africa - "The Chinese basically see Africans as no more than a cheap labor source. That’s at best. Other than that, they’re viewed as a complete nuisance. Basically an obstacle, a cost, standing in the way of efficient use of the continent itself... Chinese are moving to Africa in record numbers and Africans are leaving as fast as they can... Rich Chinese are smart to diversify to developed Western countries. Poor Chinese go to backward countries, to try to become wealthy. Africa is the prime recipient... I honestly think Africa could implode. I mean where is the economic growth going to come from that will be needed to support all these people? It’s turning into the world of Soylent Green in the cities. And in the boondocks, people just sit around on their haunches and beat on earth. Or at least the women do. Men just sit around and palaver all day... Africans haven’t learned anything from the past... Just look at what Zimbabwe recently went through... You’d think South Africans would say, “Geez, that country’s economy was totally destroyed by politics and envy. That wasn’t a good idea; we ought to act more intelligently.”... hey actually view what happened in Zimbabwe as a success... The blacks went from owning, say, 10% of the country’s wealth to now owning, say, 99%. That looked pretty good. The fact the absolute amount of wealth fell by perhaps 75% is irrelevant to them... Africa is probably the most racist place on the planet... The methodology in Africa has been the same for years. Get into the government. Steal as much as you can. Then go to Europe to live like a billionaire."
Salvini: 'We Need to Have More Children, Not Africans to Replace Them' - "Maybe in Luxembourg they need to do this, but in Italy we need to help people have more children, rather than bring in modern-day slaves [from Africa] to replace the children we’re not having"
Senate Democrats Are Circulating Plans for Government Takeover of the Internet: Reason Roundup - "A leaked memo circulating among Senate Democrats contains a host of bonkers authoritarian proposals for regulating digital platforms, purportedly as a way to get tough on Russian bots and fake news. To save American trust in "our institutions, democracy, free press, and markets," it suggests, we need unprecedented and undemocratic government intervention into online press and markets, including "comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation" of the sort enacted in the E.U."
6 Reasons Why the French Are Such Good Lovers, According to French People - "“We are used to French kisses since we are 12. We don’t play basketball or baseball on the playground. We just practice the French kiss.” -- Hugo...
“They [French men] know they are charming, so they will go over the top and people [foreigners] are seduced and wrapped into it. They know women are easy prey. A friend came a month ago and the first man we met at a party picked her up and carried her down the stairs because he said she was ‘too good to take the stairs.’ She fell for it.” -- Jill
“We buy the lingerie because we know it is important.” -- Marine
“We love the Mediterranean way of life. It is all about the wine and seduction.” -- Hugo...
“They [French men] listen to women and try to understand what they feel. They try to meet a woman’s expectations and they pay a lot of attention. They also have some skills with their tongues.” -- Marine...
“The way we are with women is in our nature since we first learned to talk and walk. We hold the door for a woman, we stand when she joins us at the table, and we kiss her hand when we meet. It’s just the way we are. We take care of women and make them laugh and feel good. As I always say, ‘On ne peut pas être performant à l'horizontale si on ne se sent pas bien a la verticale,’ which means, ‘you can’t be good at sex with your lover if you don’t feel right when you are standing with them.’” -- Marco"
Congratulations Graduate! Eleven Reasons Why I Will Never Hire You.
Oakland Tech to hold first Black Graduation, joins growing movement to celebrate among one's own - "Oakland Tech joins public institutions such as the University California at Berkeley, Berkeley High and for the first time this year, the West Contra Costa Unified School District, all of which hold separate black graduations. Harvard University held its first official commencement for black graduate students last year, in addition to the commencement ceremony for the entire school where they received their diplomas... Critics see these events as having a separatist attitude, something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., worked hard to fight against. And they are being held at a time when the country is rife with accusations of racism and hateful attitudes toward ‘the other.’"
Probiotics are mostly useless and can actually hurt you - "the microbes found in faeces were not representative of those that had colonised the gut. “Relying on faecal samples as an indicator of what goes on inside the gut is inaccurate and wrong” says Elinav. The research also showed that while probiotics colonised the gastrointestinal tract of some people, the gut microbiome of others just expelled them. There was no way of telling from their stool sample which category people fell into. “Some people accept probiotics in their gut, while others just pass them from one end to the other,” says Elinav. They found that the probiotic colonisation patterns were highly dependent on the individual. That tells us that the concept that everyone can benefit from a universal probiotic bought from the supermarket is empirically wrong, he says... Probiotic bacteria readily colonised the gut of everyone in the second group after antibiotics had cleared the way. However, the researchers were surprised to find that this prevented the return of the person’s normal microbiome for up to six months"
The man who won the lottery 14 times - "This is the story of the man who “gamed” the lottery by buying every possible combination."
One in seven major operations in UK cancelled on day of surgery, data shows - "Of these patients, 10 per cent have been cancelled once before, while patients waiting for riskier operations where they are likely to require a critical care bed to recover were also more likely to be cancelled on, the data shows."
We won’t save the Earth with a better kind of disposable coffee cup | George Monbiot - "It was charming to see how Norwegian herring boats seek to avoid killing orcas, but we were given no idea of how unusual it is. Even marine plastic is in large part a fishing issue. It turns out that 46% of the Great Pacific garbage patch – which has come to symbolise our throwaway society – is composed of discarded nets, and much of the rest consists of other kinds of fishing gear. Abandoned fishing materials tend to be far more dangerous to marine life than other forms of waste. As for the bags and bottles contributing to the disaster, the great majority arise in poorer nations without good disposal systems. But because this point was not made, we look to the wrong places for solutions. From this misdirection arise a thousand perversities. One prominent environmentalist posted a picture of the king prawns she had bought, celebrating the fact that she had persuaded the supermarket to put them in her own container rather than a plastic bag, and linking this to the protection of the seas. But buying prawns causes many times more damage to marine life than any plastic in which they are wrapped. Prawn fishing has the highest rates of bycatch of any fishery – scooping up vast numbers of turtles and other threatened species. Prawn farming is just as bad, eliminating tracts of mangrove forests, crucial nurseries for thousands of species. We are kept remarkably ignorant of such issues. As consumers, we are confused, bamboozled and almost powerless – and corporate power has gone to great lengths to persuade us to see ourselves this way. The BBC’s approach to environmental issues is highly partisan, siding with a system that has sought to transfer responsibility for structural forces to individual shoppers. Yet it is only as citizens taking political action that we can promote meaningful change... Disposable coffee cups made from new materials are not just a non-solution: they are a perpetuation of the problem"
British worker files discrimination lawsuit after being fired from Hong Kong company and called a ‘gweilo’ by staff - "A British blasting specialist was called a “gweilo” at work and was excluded when he was hired on a Hong Kong tunnel project, according to a discrimination lawsuit he filed against his former employer. Francis William Haden also said that Leighton Contractors (Asia) did not let him hire blasting specialists from Australia, even though Hong Kong was short on people with the skill, because a partnering firm on the Tseung Kwan O-Lam Tin tunnel project did not want non-Chinese involved."
The future is here today: you can't play Bach on Facebook because Sony says they own his compositions
6 maps and charts that explain sex around the world - "Only 10 percent of Japanese people report exciting sex. That's less than a third of the next-lowest, Hong Kong's, at 32... Japan is the only country in the world where a higher percentage of people report being dissatisfied with their sex lives than satisfied... working hours have made "physical contact" between spouses "so infrequent that some of Japan's leading homebuilders now report that more than one in three custom homes is built with separate bedrooms for husband and wife... Singapore, China, and Mexico had the smallest differences between between male and female orgasm rates, while Russia and Thailand had the largest. The thing that's most surprising about this is there's virtually no correlation between a country's overall level of gender equality and its orgasm gap... Turks reported more sex partners than any other country in the world, and were doing it unprotected about 45 percent of the time [and having more STIs]... Asian countries have a much higher mean age of virginity loss than nations basically everywhere else... there may be something about East Asian religious traditions or cultural norms that promotes sexual conservatism. One study by a group of researchers found very high levels of reported "embarrassment" about discussing sexual practices in public. These results, according to the researchers is that "in comparison with men and women from ‘Western' regions," respondents living in East Asian countries were "more sexually conservative, more male-orientated and less sexually active.""
SMRT Ltd (Feedback) And The Great Teh Tarik Expose - "Long gone is Azly’s brand of dry wit and humour from SMRT Ltd (Feedback), and browsing through the Facebook page, you’ll notice that the new administrator’s voice is distinctively different from the old guard’s. But Azly maintains that SMRT Ltd (Feedback) will and has continued from his time, and will maintain its anonymity for many versions to come."
Colin Kaepernick & Nike's Sweatshops - "Nike never does anything simply because it is the right thing to do. They do not care about social justice or human rights. This is about money. Period. They are still reeling because of the sexual misconduct allegations at Nike headquarters and want to pivot attention away from that. They also see this as a way to endear themselves to one of their largest bases of customers - young black men - to sell more sneakers. And they are banking on capturing the anti-Trump movement with this move. Again, to sell more sneakers. This is “cause marketing” 101."
New York Knicks center Enes Kanter says his criticisms of Turkish government have stifled endorsement deals - "New York Knicks center Enes Kanter said that Nike and other companies have shied away from signing him to endorsement deals because of his outspoken criticisms of the Turkish government."
So much for standing up for something
NBA Player Enes Kanter: How I Became Erdogan's Enemy - "If you speak out against Erdogan, it can affect your whole life and everyone around you. It has been too dangerous for me to set foot in Turkey for three years. The last time I visited, the government destroyed my brothers’ school and threw my dentist and his wife in prison. The regime arrested and charged a man for links to Gulen after I took a picture with his child, and went after a comedian after he exchanged a few tweets with me. Last year, Erdogan canceled my passport and put out an international warrant for my arrest. That means I am now stateless and pretty much can’t leave the United States. It’s interfering with my career, too"
Evergreen State College apologizes for protesting Sumas farm - "Evergreen State College’s President apologized for using taxpayer-funded resources to transport students to a Sumas berry farm for a protest in 2017... Medical examiners and the state Department of Labor and Industries found his death was due to natural causes unrelated to his work and cleared the farm of any wrongdoing."
Steve Bannon, Chelsea Clinton & “No Platforming” Rules - "Ms. Penny chose not to engage in the same festival as Steve Bannon because she believes that he doesn’t want to engage. Which must count as a sort of pre-emptive hit of non-engagement: “I’m going to not engage with you before you can not engage with me.”... the most shocking aspect of that event (even more than the presiding minister fondling Ariana Grande live onstage at a funeral) was the moment when we all said, “Isn’t that Louis Farrakhan up there onstage?” And indeed it was. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton seemed to have no problem sharing a platform with one of the world’s most notorious racists and anti-Semites. Indeed, when Farrakhan waddled over to President Clinton to shake his hand, he was positively oozing with the satisfaction he obviously gets — and has always gotten — from such encounters. For handshakes with — and proximity to — the likes of the Clintons is the only thing that stops Farrakhan from being recognized for what he is: no better or worse than a David Duke... I just cannot understand the rules here. So far as I know, Steve Bannon has never given a speech titled “Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.” If he had, then I doubt he would be so proud of it that it would be still sitting at the top of his Twitter page. And if he had, then I imagine that the Clintons would run the other way from him even if it meant no-platforming someone at a funeral."
Doug Casey On China's Exploitation Of Africa - "The Chinese basically see Africans as no more than a cheap labor source. That’s at best. Other than that, they’re viewed as a complete nuisance. Basically an obstacle, a cost, standing in the way of efficient use of the continent itself... Chinese are moving to Africa in record numbers and Africans are leaving as fast as they can... Rich Chinese are smart to diversify to developed Western countries. Poor Chinese go to backward countries, to try to become wealthy. Africa is the prime recipient... I honestly think Africa could implode. I mean where is the economic growth going to come from that will be needed to support all these people? It’s turning into the world of Soylent Green in the cities. And in the boondocks, people just sit around on their haunches and beat on earth. Or at least the women do. Men just sit around and palaver all day... Africans haven’t learned anything from the past... Just look at what Zimbabwe recently went through... You’d think South Africans would say, “Geez, that country’s economy was totally destroyed by politics and envy. That wasn’t a good idea; we ought to act more intelligently.”... hey actually view what happened in Zimbabwe as a success... The blacks went from owning, say, 10% of the country’s wealth to now owning, say, 99%. That looked pretty good. The fact the absolute amount of wealth fell by perhaps 75% is irrelevant to them... Africa is probably the most racist place on the planet... The methodology in Africa has been the same for years. Get into the government. Steal as much as you can. Then go to Europe to live like a billionaire."
Post ID: 7902915662511401472
Thursday, November 01, 2018
Links - 1st November 2018
The homophobic legacy of the British Empire - "Despite the prevalence of anti-LGBT laws throughout the former British Empire, there was no blanket decree outlawing homosexual relations. Instead, it was the sensibilities of individual colonial administrators which led to the first laws and then their quick spread across the Empire from 1860 onwards. Enze Han, author of "British Colonialism and the Criminalization of Homosexuality," said the laws were partly the product of a strict Victorian moral code, which defined any sexual activity not for procreation as taboo. "(The British also) had this conception that the 'Orient,' the non-Western subjects, were overly erotic and over-sexed, and that's the reason why they were worried young colonial officers going abroad would be corrupted by those sexual acts," he said. Many of the laws which were put in place under the colonizers have long since been amended or even strengthened by local governments, which Mendos said could also show that colonial legislation at least partially reflected conservative opinions common within those countries at the time."
The Met has a problem with hate-crime. It can't explain what it means. - "The Metropolitan Police has a rather strange notice about “hate crimes” on its website. It has attracted quite a bit of attention on social media...
“Though what the perpetrator has done may not be against the law, their reasons for doing it are. This means it may be possible to charge them with an offence.”
We are back to the suggestion that a person may be charged with“the reasons for doing” an act which is itself lawful. The Met is in a terrible muddle here and it is very hard to understand what they mean... although there are some cases where doing an act is illegal irrespective of your state of mind, there are no cases where your state of mind can make you guilty of an offence if you don’t actually do anything capable of amounting to a crime... The Met’s website seems to presuppose the existence of an entirely novel type of criminal offence: a crime which requires only a guilty mind, mens rea but not actus reus. If such an offence existed then “thought-crime” would be a very good description of it"
Metropolitan Police drops tens of thousands of cases within hours of them being reported by victims - "The Metropolitan Police has been accused of dropping tens of thousands of investigations into serious crimes, such as sexual assault and arson, within hours of them being reported by members of the public."
It's sexier to be obsessed with hate crimes
South Yorkshire Police relentlessly mocked after urging people to report one another for 'offensive or insulting words' - “In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing. Hate will not be tolerated in South Yorkshire. Report it and put a stop to it.”
Britain Turns Offensive Speech Into a Police Matter - "In essence, South Yorkshire Police want people to report on everyday conversations. This is Stasi territory. Coppers asking citizens to file reports on things they have read or overheard really should have disappeared from Europe with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yet here it still is, this GDR-style instruction to eavesdrop and squeal, though now it's happening on the other side of the old Iron Curtain. It is testament to how entrenched censorship has become in 21st-century Britain that a police force can so casually call for reports about speech. This is a country whose communications laws and public-order legislation can be, and regularly are, used to punish hateful expression. Last year The Times reported that British police are arresting nine people a day for posting "offensive messages online." In 2016, 3,300 people were detained and questioned for things they said online. In some parts of Britain the arrest rate for offensive speech has risen by nearly 900% in recent years. We Brits are sleepwalking into a police state."
Why Brits are turning against the police - "They have been under political pressure from lobby groups obsessed with attaining rape conviction quotas – as if justice was about achieving statistical targets, rather than punishing guilty individuals and letting innocent individuals go free... The police have been alienating their erstwhile natural friends for some time. This first became evident at the end of the last century, with the jailing of the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for shooting dead a burglar who had broken into his home. The consequent outrage in the conservative press stemmed from a belief that the police were now more concerned with the human rights of criminals than with crimes against private property, in this case. In ensuing years, the police have continued to antagonise a large swathe of the British public, who are increasingly convinced the Old Bill no longer take seriously burglary and theft. According to Home Office figures from last year, nine out of 10 burglary cases are closed without even a suspect being identified. Today, the police don’t even attend reports of shoplifting if the value stolen is less than £200. No wonder this nation of shopkeepers no longer respects its police... nationwide, shoplifting and violent crime continues to rise as criminals feel less afraid to break the law. Cries by the police that they are financially stretched arouse little sympathy when we read about police forces dressing themselves and their vehicles in LGBT-friendly colours, scouring Twitter for offensive words, or filling libraries with leaflets about ‘hate crimes’. Post-Macpherson, the police seem more desperate to prove their PC, anti-racist credentials than to address crimes that affect us all. The failure of the forces of law and order to prevent, investigate or suitably punish the rape gangs in the north of England has entrenched a suspicion that the police have become either enfeebled or politicised."
A Dietary Supplement Containing Standardized Phaseolus vulgaris Extract Influences Body Composition of Overweight Men and Women - "So-called "starch blockers" are listed among natural weight loss supplements. Theoretically, they may promote weight loss by interfering with the breakdown of complex carbohydrates thereby reducing, or at least slowing, the digestive availability of carbohydrate-derived calories and/or by providing resistant starches to the lower gastrointestinal tract... The present research study examines a dietary supplement containing 445 mg of Phaseolus vulgaris extract derived from the white kidney bean, previously shown to inhibit the activity of the digestive enzyme alpha amylase, on body composition of overweight human subjects... Phaseolus vulgaris extract produces significant decrements in body weight and suggest decrements in fat mass in the face of maintained lean body mass."
China to take over Zambia's international Airport for debt repayment - "Signing a contract with China is like, ascribing to the boiling frog effect; a fable describing a frog being boiled alive slowly... The Zambian government contracted the Chinese, lazy-thought and glossed over details thinking they were granting consent to gernuine terms but the whole thing just morphed into modern day colonialism. China is now proposing to take over the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport should Zambia Government fail to pay back its huge foreign debt on time. The issue of whether Zambia posses the required economic muscle to repay that debt is in contention considering the amount involved. It’s typical of the Chinese strategy. That moreover is not the only thing Zambian suffered from China; the Chinese own 60% shares of the Zambian National Broadcasting corporation which means, Chinese have an influence over what should or should not be premiered on their sets."
Ancient farmers spared us from glaciers but profoundly changed Earth’s climate - "ancient farming practices led to a rise in the atmospheric emission of the heat-trapping gases carbon dioxide and methane – a rise that has continued since, unlike the trend at any other time in Earth’s geologic history. It also shows that without this human influence, by the start of the Industrial Revolution, the planet would have likely been headed for another ice age."
Bush as Hitler, Swastika-Mania: A Retrospective - "protesters have shown up with signs comparing Obama to Hitler (i.e. depicting him with a Hitler mustache), or displaying swastikas in the context of implying that Obama and/or his administration are Nazi-like. One would think that this would not be particularly newsworthy, but Democrats, the White House and their supporters are expressing outrage at this “horrifying” and “menacing” turn of events. (Or faux-outrage, at least.) Pundits, bloggers, media outlets and even top politicians like Nancy Pelosi are claiming that such signs are unprecedented, racist, and even that anyone who brings a swastika to a protest must be self-identifying as a Nazi (instead of accusing their opponents of being Nazis). When anyone tries to point out that the Left continuously compared Bush to Hitler and brought swastikas to rallies for six straight years during the Bush era, Obama supporters mock such claims, demand proof, and then try to ignore any individual examples proffered. Since I had a front-row seat between 2003 and 2008 at anti-Bush protests in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I saw literally THOUSANDS of Bush/Hitler comparisons and swastikas, I thought perhaps it would be useful to compile here in one place a small sampling of them — to prove beyond any doubt that Hitler and swastikas were referenced incessantly at basically every single protest during the Bush administration"
Nazi mania predates Trump, of course. The boy has been crying wolf for a long time
Poorest will gain most under Brexit, says Labour report - ""The reduction in prices and immigration control are particularly important for lower income households. "These households spend more on food and housing, the prices of both of which are raised substantially by EU protectionism. "Unskilled immigrants settle in poor communities which, therefore, carry a disproportionate cost in public services as well as suffering from a fall in wages. Our estimates show that the lowest decile household would gain £36 a week from Brexit; the second lowest decile (60 per cent of the median) would gain £44 a week.""
Money Really Does Lead to a More Satisfying Life - The New York Times - "Lottery winners said they were substantially more satisfied with their lives than lottery losers. And those who won prizes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars reported being more satisfied than winners of mere tens of thousands. These effects are remarkably durable. They were still evident up to two decades after a big win... What’s new here is the evidence that higher income is causing higher life satisfaction... A further set of questions probed the mental health of respondents, finding that greater income had no effect, although in related work, the same authors find that lottery winners are prescribed fewer mental health drugs. I interpret this as suggestive but not conclusive evidence that wealth improves one’s mental health... Contrary to popular stereotypes, those who win hundreds of thousands of dollars don’t blow most of their winnings at once. Instead, they slowly spend their newfound wealth over many years. Many don’t quit their jobs, but they do tend to work a bit less and retire a bit earlier. Surprisingly, the increase in wealth caused by winning the lottery has few effects on the physical health of the winners or their children. It seems possible that family wealth might have quite different effects in a less egalitarian society, like the United States."
The New York Times | Facebook - "Before Fashion Week, the model and activist Ashley Graham spoke with us about the power of depicting female bodies as they really are — without doctoring their form."
Comments: "The thing that’s doctored her form is those additional 3,000 calories she’s consuming every day."
"The term 'real women' is absurd - all women are real unless of course they are robots - and every woman is a different shape either by genes or by a medical problem or by choice ..... voila !"
"Well, except from the obvious doctoring of Ashley walking on the water, she very conveniently forgot to mention the full doctoring (it's called retouching) they always make to her face
" I don't want an unfiltered body. Only fashion models don't need much retouching to look their best. Photoshop my pics, please!!"
"As a photographer, I can see no sign of human presence in this image, it is THAT heavily Photoshopped; the skin, the creases in the clothes, the hair, the legs, and of course, the fine art of walking on water. Maybe it should belong in the humor section of the New York Times"
"There are simply body shapes that are more appealing than others to the general public. Period. Magazines and advertisements will use these body shapes to call attention to sell their products. The goal is not to show a regular body. Greek statues don't show regular body, showing even anatomically impossible structures to the human being. But this is art, depiction of the beauty for the time being. The concept of beauty changes culturally over time. Middle age paintings show "overweight" girls since they were the considered the most beautiful, and the thin girls were the ugly ones. I'm not traumatized for not having a David statue body or the muscular shape of guys in Speedo advertisements."
"then why all the makeup and fake eyelashes?"
The national question - "Americans are defined by our relationship to a literary discussion of the relationship of men in society. The canon is not well defined but certainly includes the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Federalist (a kind of operating manual for the Constitution) plus influential works such as John Locke’s treatises on government and the nature of property. The result was a radical departure from all previous ideas of national identity. The notion that you can become an American, as much an American as anyone born here... The first problem is these people come with no conception of what it is that made us this wealthy: free enterprise, sensible laws governing labor and business, and a general acknowledgement that what you make is yours to keep minus a tolerable levy for the upkeep of the country as a whole. We’re now accepting people who appear to believe what we have is the result of luck – or worse, theft. People who do not care to assimilate, and in fact reject the idea out of hand. The second problem is we appear to have lost the will to insist on it. That native-born Americans have lost sight of what created this outpouring of wealth unprecedented in human history. We can’t bring ourselves to say anymore, “Come and bring the richness of your culture. We welcome it. But you must leave behind your old loyalties and your old hatreds. You must learn a new way of thinking about yourself and become a new kind of person. We ask much, but in return much is given.”"
The Met has a problem with hate-crime. It can't explain what it means. - "The Metropolitan Police has a rather strange notice about “hate crimes” on its website. It has attracted quite a bit of attention on social media...
“Though what the perpetrator has done may not be against the law, their reasons for doing it are. This means it may be possible to charge them with an offence.”
We are back to the suggestion that a person may be charged with“the reasons for doing” an act which is itself lawful. The Met is in a terrible muddle here and it is very hard to understand what they mean... although there are some cases where doing an act is illegal irrespective of your state of mind, there are no cases where your state of mind can make you guilty of an offence if you don’t actually do anything capable of amounting to a crime... The Met’s website seems to presuppose the existence of an entirely novel type of criminal offence: a crime which requires only a guilty mind, mens rea but not actus reus. If such an offence existed then “thought-crime” would be a very good description of it"
Metropolitan Police drops tens of thousands of cases within hours of them being reported by victims - "The Metropolitan Police has been accused of dropping tens of thousands of investigations into serious crimes, such as sexual assault and arson, within hours of them being reported by members of the public."
It's sexier to be obsessed with hate crimes
South Yorkshire Police relentlessly mocked after urging people to report one another for 'offensive or insulting words' - “In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing. Hate will not be tolerated in South Yorkshire. Report it and put a stop to it.”
Britain Turns Offensive Speech Into a Police Matter - "In essence, South Yorkshire Police want people to report on everyday conversations. This is Stasi territory. Coppers asking citizens to file reports on things they have read or overheard really should have disappeared from Europe with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yet here it still is, this GDR-style instruction to eavesdrop and squeal, though now it's happening on the other side of the old Iron Curtain. It is testament to how entrenched censorship has become in 21st-century Britain that a police force can so casually call for reports about speech. This is a country whose communications laws and public-order legislation can be, and regularly are, used to punish hateful expression. Last year The Times reported that British police are arresting nine people a day for posting "offensive messages online." In 2016, 3,300 people were detained and questioned for things they said online. In some parts of Britain the arrest rate for offensive speech has risen by nearly 900% in recent years. We Brits are sleepwalking into a police state."
Why Brits are turning against the police - "They have been under political pressure from lobby groups obsessed with attaining rape conviction quotas – as if justice was about achieving statistical targets, rather than punishing guilty individuals and letting innocent individuals go free... The police have been alienating their erstwhile natural friends for some time. This first became evident at the end of the last century, with the jailing of the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for shooting dead a burglar who had broken into his home. The consequent outrage in the conservative press stemmed from a belief that the police were now more concerned with the human rights of criminals than with crimes against private property, in this case. In ensuing years, the police have continued to antagonise a large swathe of the British public, who are increasingly convinced the Old Bill no longer take seriously burglary and theft. According to Home Office figures from last year, nine out of 10 burglary cases are closed without even a suspect being identified. Today, the police don’t even attend reports of shoplifting if the value stolen is less than £200. No wonder this nation of shopkeepers no longer respects its police... nationwide, shoplifting and violent crime continues to rise as criminals feel less afraid to break the law. Cries by the police that they are financially stretched arouse little sympathy when we read about police forces dressing themselves and their vehicles in LGBT-friendly colours, scouring Twitter for offensive words, or filling libraries with leaflets about ‘hate crimes’. Post-Macpherson, the police seem more desperate to prove their PC, anti-racist credentials than to address crimes that affect us all. The failure of the forces of law and order to prevent, investigate or suitably punish the rape gangs in the north of England has entrenched a suspicion that the police have become either enfeebled or politicised."
A Dietary Supplement Containing Standardized Phaseolus vulgaris Extract Influences Body Composition of Overweight Men and Women - "So-called "starch blockers" are listed among natural weight loss supplements. Theoretically, they may promote weight loss by interfering with the breakdown of complex carbohydrates thereby reducing, or at least slowing, the digestive availability of carbohydrate-derived calories and/or by providing resistant starches to the lower gastrointestinal tract... The present research study examines a dietary supplement containing 445 mg of Phaseolus vulgaris extract derived from the white kidney bean, previously shown to inhibit the activity of the digestive enzyme alpha amylase, on body composition of overweight human subjects... Phaseolus vulgaris extract produces significant decrements in body weight and suggest decrements in fat mass in the face of maintained lean body mass."
China to take over Zambia's international Airport for debt repayment - "Signing a contract with China is like, ascribing to the boiling frog effect; a fable describing a frog being boiled alive slowly... The Zambian government contracted the Chinese, lazy-thought and glossed over details thinking they were granting consent to gernuine terms but the whole thing just morphed into modern day colonialism. China is now proposing to take over the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport should Zambia Government fail to pay back its huge foreign debt on time. The issue of whether Zambia posses the required economic muscle to repay that debt is in contention considering the amount involved. It’s typical of the Chinese strategy. That moreover is not the only thing Zambian suffered from China; the Chinese own 60% shares of the Zambian National Broadcasting corporation which means, Chinese have an influence over what should or should not be premiered on their sets."
Ancient farmers spared us from glaciers but profoundly changed Earth’s climate - "ancient farming practices led to a rise in the atmospheric emission of the heat-trapping gases carbon dioxide and methane – a rise that has continued since, unlike the trend at any other time in Earth’s geologic history. It also shows that without this human influence, by the start of the Industrial Revolution, the planet would have likely been headed for another ice age."
Bush as Hitler, Swastika-Mania: A Retrospective - "protesters have shown up with signs comparing Obama to Hitler (i.e. depicting him with a Hitler mustache), or displaying swastikas in the context of implying that Obama and/or his administration are Nazi-like. One would think that this would not be particularly newsworthy, but Democrats, the White House and their supporters are expressing outrage at this “horrifying” and “menacing” turn of events. (Or faux-outrage, at least.) Pundits, bloggers, media outlets and even top politicians like Nancy Pelosi are claiming that such signs are unprecedented, racist, and even that anyone who brings a swastika to a protest must be self-identifying as a Nazi (instead of accusing their opponents of being Nazis). When anyone tries to point out that the Left continuously compared Bush to Hitler and brought swastikas to rallies for six straight years during the Bush era, Obama supporters mock such claims, demand proof, and then try to ignore any individual examples proffered. Since I had a front-row seat between 2003 and 2008 at anti-Bush protests in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I saw literally THOUSANDS of Bush/Hitler comparisons and swastikas, I thought perhaps it would be useful to compile here in one place a small sampling of them — to prove beyond any doubt that Hitler and swastikas were referenced incessantly at basically every single protest during the Bush administration"
Nazi mania predates Trump, of course. The boy has been crying wolf for a long time
Poorest will gain most under Brexit, says Labour report - ""The reduction in prices and immigration control are particularly important for lower income households. "These households spend more on food and housing, the prices of both of which are raised substantially by EU protectionism. "Unskilled immigrants settle in poor communities which, therefore, carry a disproportionate cost in public services as well as suffering from a fall in wages. Our estimates show that the lowest decile household would gain £36 a week from Brexit; the second lowest decile (60 per cent of the median) would gain £44 a week.""
Money Really Does Lead to a More Satisfying Life - The New York Times - "Lottery winners said they were substantially more satisfied with their lives than lottery losers. And those who won prizes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars reported being more satisfied than winners of mere tens of thousands. These effects are remarkably durable. They were still evident up to two decades after a big win... What’s new here is the evidence that higher income is causing higher life satisfaction... A further set of questions probed the mental health of respondents, finding that greater income had no effect, although in related work, the same authors find that lottery winners are prescribed fewer mental health drugs. I interpret this as suggestive but not conclusive evidence that wealth improves one’s mental health... Contrary to popular stereotypes, those who win hundreds of thousands of dollars don’t blow most of their winnings at once. Instead, they slowly spend their newfound wealth over many years. Many don’t quit their jobs, but they do tend to work a bit less and retire a bit earlier. Surprisingly, the increase in wealth caused by winning the lottery has few effects on the physical health of the winners or their children. It seems possible that family wealth might have quite different effects in a less egalitarian society, like the United States."
The New York Times | Facebook - "Before Fashion Week, the model and activist Ashley Graham spoke with us about the power of depicting female bodies as they really are — without doctoring their form."
Comments: "The thing that’s doctored her form is those additional 3,000 calories she’s consuming every day."
"The term 'real women' is absurd - all women are real unless of course they are robots - and every woman is a different shape either by genes or by a medical problem or by choice ..... voila !"
"Well, except from the obvious doctoring of Ashley walking on the water, she very conveniently forgot to mention the full doctoring (it's called retouching) they always make to her face
" I don't want an unfiltered body. Only fashion models don't need much retouching to look their best. Photoshop my pics, please!!"
"As a photographer, I can see no sign of human presence in this image, it is THAT heavily Photoshopped; the skin, the creases in the clothes, the hair, the legs, and of course, the fine art of walking on water. Maybe it should belong in the humor section of the New York Times"
"There are simply body shapes that are more appealing than others to the general public. Period. Magazines and advertisements will use these body shapes to call attention to sell their products. The goal is not to show a regular body. Greek statues don't show regular body, showing even anatomically impossible structures to the human being. But this is art, depiction of the beauty for the time being. The concept of beauty changes culturally over time. Middle age paintings show "overweight" girls since they were the considered the most beautiful, and the thin girls were the ugly ones. I'm not traumatized for not having a David statue body or the muscular shape of guys in Speedo advertisements."
"then why all the makeup and fake eyelashes?"
The national question - "Americans are defined by our relationship to a literary discussion of the relationship of men in society. The canon is not well defined but certainly includes the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Federalist (a kind of operating manual for the Constitution) plus influential works such as John Locke’s treatises on government and the nature of property. The result was a radical departure from all previous ideas of national identity. The notion that you can become an American, as much an American as anyone born here... The first problem is these people come with no conception of what it is that made us this wealthy: free enterprise, sensible laws governing labor and business, and a general acknowledgement that what you make is yours to keep minus a tolerable levy for the upkeep of the country as a whole. We’re now accepting people who appear to believe what we have is the result of luck – or worse, theft. People who do not care to assimilate, and in fact reject the idea out of hand. The second problem is we appear to have lost the will to insist on it. That native-born Americans have lost sight of what created this outpouring of wealth unprecedented in human history. We can’t bring ourselves to say anymore, “Come and bring the richness of your culture. We welcome it. But you must leave behind your old loyalties and your old hatreds. You must learn a new way of thinking about yourself and become a new kind of person. We ask much, but in return much is given.”"
Post ID: 9085180138916542915
Friday, October 12, 2018
Links - 12th October 2018 (2)
Chinese birth tourism in Canada isn’t a loophole, grey area or oversight. It’s 100 per cent legal - "Canada’s immigration authorities are well aware of the phenomenon of birth tourism, which has led to more than two dozen private “baby houses” being set up in British Columbia’s lower mainland to accommodate pregnant mainland Chinese travellers. Infants with non-resident mothers made up 22.1 per cent (474 babies) out of all newborns in the 2017/2018 financial year at Richmond Hospital, where the practice is soaring... If Chinese authorities were alerted when an infant born to a birth tourist was headed their way, the parents would be forced to decide whether the “insurance” of holding a Canadian passport was worth the immense inconvenience for their child to grow up in China as a foreigner. “Then the choice is, alright, my baby is Canadian. The baby needs a visa, as a foreigner, to remain in China, and they will not receive free education, free medical care,” said Kurland. Canadian citizenship would be promptly renounced, and tipping off Chinese authorities in such a way would stop birth tourism dead, he said... "Only 34 countries grant the automatic acquisition of citizenship through birthplace regardless of parents’ nationality or status."... No European countries, said the submission, grant unqualified automatic citizenship by birth, “they have no obligation to do so”, and “nothing in international law requires Canada to bestow citizenship on the basis of birth”."
Senior Met Police officer could face the sack for using 'racist' 'whiter than white' phrase - "the detective superintendent addressed colleagues about the need to be faultless and above reproach in carrying out inquiries, saying that they needed to be “whiter than white”... A “good egg” is also thought to be discouraged in police ranks because it is deemed to be too closely associated with “egg and spoon”, rhyming slang for a highly offensive racist term"
The English language is racist
Poh Kok Ing - "My reply to someone who says gays do not face discrimination in Singapore - As a gay person, there are certain things I can’t do in Singapore.
1. Get married...
2. Buy a flat from HDB as a couple...
3. Have a child (in my case, adopt one)."
It's interesting that this round of the 377A circus, many homophiles are upfront about admitting that they are not going to stop at repealing 377A - so it's not just about the Freedom to Love, but the Freedom to get HDB Subsidies
LGBT Activists Target Singapore Schools To Support “Repeal S377A” Petition
Will Repealing Section 377A End "Online Assaults, Vitriol and Abuse Against the LGBTQ Community"? - "Implicit in this reasoning is that Section 377A causes or is responsible for "online assaults, vitriol and abuse against the LGBTQ community", and therefore repeal of Section 377A would put an end to all these. I genuinely wonder if anyone who supports the repeal of Section 377A, including Ong himself, actually believes this. If this is correct, then we would expect that, if Section 377A is repealed, there would be no push for "hate speech" laws or any other laws or measures prohibiting or restricting "online assaults, vitriol and abuse against the LGBTQ community", because these would be plainly unnecessary. We would also expect, in the event of repeal, a complete cessation of complaints from people who identify as LGBTQ of any form of "online assaults, vitriol and abuse" because these would no longer happen, if Section 377A is repealed... Section 377A neither legitimises "online assaults, vitriol and abuse" against persons who identify as LGBTQ, nor would the repeal of Section 377A put an end to such "online assaults, vitriol and abuse". Indeed, even with Section 377A on the books, a man was convicted and fined in November 2016 for asking for "permission to open fire" on the LGBT community in an online post."
Raheem Kassam on Twitter - "Oooh, "Trump *Nearly* Tweeted Us Into War" says CNN headline.
Meanwhile, every other President/Prime Minister for decades has marched us into perpetual, pointless wars costing lives, money, and stability.
We're not stupid, you sleazy fucks."
Combatting Cryptocurrency Mining - "A colleague bought some LED, Wi-Fi-enabled light bulbs that allowed him to control when and where the lights came on in his house through his mobile phone. A user of Senrio Insight at home, he noticed a significant increase in outbound connections to an Internet address in China.* His light bulbs. Turns out the small computer chips in the light bulbs he bought had bitcoin mining code on them, as well as the promised functionality of being able to adjust brightness. To reiterate: someone at a factory in China figured out how to get people around the world to make him rich by screwing in a lightbulb."
National anthem protest: 9yo refuses to stand because anthem is for 'white people of Australia' - "Teachers at a Brisbane primary school have disciplined a nine-year-old girl for refusing to stand for the national anthem during assembly. Primary school student Harper Nielsen was given a lunch time detention on Friday for peacefully protesting against the song she said is "wrong"... Associate Professor Nielsen said despite meeting with the school to discuss the issues, they claimed the school rules would not allow his daughter to continue to protest. "They have said that she has to stand or she has to leave the assembly area""
Apparently the school is racist for not providing her a venue to grandstand
Rare old photos of S’pore capture 1960s life, including sale of exotic meats - "Back when wildlife was in abundance, exotic creatures such as the pangolin and tapirs were commonly spotted in the market. Pangolins, which are endangered today, were (and still are) prized for their scales and meat."
Chinatown’s Sago Lane was once a street of death houses, they were a necessary part of life in the past - "Chinese superstition dictates that death must never occur in a house or it would bring bad luck to its inhabitants."
The Left Can’t Meme So They’ve Just Decided To Ban Memes Instead - "Following studies that proved the political right was more successful at creating and spreading memes than the left, Facebook has announced it is developing a new AI algorithm that can detect and ban “offensive” memes... A study undertaken by researchers at University College London found that the most effective memes largely originated in two places – the subreddit r/the_donald – a forum devoted to boosting President Donald Trump, and 4chan’s politically incorrect /pol forum... In addition to Facebook developing artificial intelligence to detect and censor “offensive” memes, the European Union just voted in favor of Article 13, which would require websites to automatically filter uploaded material for copyright violations, which would lead to transformative memes being blocked."
Do White Law Enforcement Officers Target Minority Suspects? - "although minority suspects are disproportionately killed by police, white officers appear to be no more likely to use lethal force against minorities than nonwhite officers."
Maybe the explanation is that nonwhite police officers have internalised racism
Where was Philando Castile's gun? Yanez jury hears 4th account - "St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez had no option but to shoot Philando Castile when Castile ignored the officer’s commands and reached for his handgun during a traffic stop last summer, an expert witness testified Thursday for the defense... when Castile told him he had a firearm, Yanez reacted within the bounds of his training when he told him not to reach for “it.” “It” meaning the gun, Dutton said. But Castile did not comply and continued going for the handgun later found in his right pocket, Dutton said, putting Yanez in imminent danger of bodily harm or death if he failed to react quickly. Under those circumstances, Yanez was left with no other choice but to draw his firearm and shoot, Dutton testified... Yanez used “due caution” to avoid injury to the two passengers in the car — Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter — when he stepped to the left of the vehicle and pointed his gun downward before firing... The instructor at the gun range in Ramsey where Castile took his permit-to-carry safety class also testified Thursday. James Diehl said he teaches studentsthat, when they’re pulled over by police, first to tell officers they have a permit to carry. Then they should say they have a firearm on them, Diehl said. He said he also tells them to follow all police commands while keeping their hands visible."
Roxanne Pallett: the making of a victim - "Celebrity Big Brother has provided a rare insight into the nature of victimhood... She entered into a role which overtook her, because it was such a compelling, powerful role. Today’s cultural script, in which to be the victim accords you an unprecedented moral authority, has real social power. In what actually makes for remarkable footage, you can almost see Pallett warming to the role of abused woman... It showed how victimhood is, in part, an imagined condition, something one can either cultivate, as the script encourages us to, or resist. Pallett clearly relished the role, as indeed many others do. And this proved to be her undoing. Because if it wasn’t for the harsh truth of the camera’s eye, she might have been able to sustain this self-image. And keep hold of her alleged £750,000 appearance fee."
Report: Las Vegas professor shot himself in arm to protest Trump - "A longtime College of Southern Nevada sociology professor is facing felony gun charges in connection with an on-campus shooting on the second day of classes."
Bronx teacher who performed oral sex on 14-year-old gets 10 years probation, avoids jail, keeps teaching certificate - "A Bronx high school teacher who admitted to performing oral sex on her 14-year-old student won’t face jail time — and she might even return to the classroom."
Male privilege!
School staff member, 25, who had sex with schoolboys ‘took part with enthusiasm and excitement’ - "A former female staffer at an elite boarding school has been slapped with an 'extraordinarily lenient' suspended sentence after having sex with five male students during her tenure."
No enthusiasm for enthusiastic consent reforms | The Spectator Australia - "The key legal issue is that enthusiastic consent laws undermine due process and the presumption of innocence. When we require consent to be affirmatively established we are starting from the presumption that there is no consent, meaning that all sexual intercourse is unlawful until proven otherwise. This is contrary to the fundamental legal precept that individuals are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty... A ‘yes means yes’ standard makes it disturbingly easy for an individual to re-evaluate a regretted sexual encounter and to retrospectively withdraw consent, with some advocates in the USA going so far as to claim that ‘regret equals rape’."
Judge upholds accused student's gender-bias claim - "She also attended a presentation by W&L's Title IX officer Lauren Kozak. Kozak claimed that "regret equals rape," and introduced the concept as a new idea people were now supporting. Once Jane learned that John had been accepted into the study abroad program, she filed a sexual assault claim, now eight months after the encounter. Kozak conducted the investigation. John alleges in his lawsuit that he was given six hours notice to meet with the investigators but was not told why. When John met with Kozak and learned of the allegations against him, he was not shown a copy of Jane's complaint. John was denied legal representation, and when he tried to postpone a meeting with Kozak, she allegedly told him: "That's fine. We'll just submit the investigation report without your side of the story.""
The quickening: The momentous pregnancy event that became a relic. - "For thousands of years, the quickening was arguably the most significant turning point in the average woman’s pregnancy. It had both philosophical and practical significance for women, and for centuries it also marked the legal and moral dividing line for when an abortion could be performed. Today, the quickening is noticed in passing, if at all. But it’s worth remembering this now-antiquated milestone, and celebrating it for what it can still mean... British common law, eventually imported to Colonial America, outlawed abortion only if it took place after the quickening. Likewise, a pregnant woman could not be executed post-quickening... The Catholic Church, which had long treated pre-quickening abortion as the destruction of only potential human life, finally forbade abortion at any stage in 1869... The quickening, by contrast, is unabashedly subjective. It isn’t the fetus’ first movement, but rather the mother’s perception of it"
The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press - "Obama’s war with the media wasn’t limited to Fox News. Obama’s treatment of the media as a whole was so bad that New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan criticized the Obama administration in 2013 for its “unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press.” David E. Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, said of the Obama administration in 2013, “This is the most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.” According to a report on press freedoms by the highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists, “In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press.”...
5. Manipulating media coverage
4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms
3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage
2. Spying on the media
1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers
For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right?... The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.” Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”"
Senior Met Police officer could face the sack for using 'racist' 'whiter than white' phrase - "the detective superintendent addressed colleagues about the need to be faultless and above reproach in carrying out inquiries, saying that they needed to be “whiter than white”... A “good egg” is also thought to be discouraged in police ranks because it is deemed to be too closely associated with “egg and spoon”, rhyming slang for a highly offensive racist term"
The English language is racist
Poh Kok Ing - "My reply to someone who says gays do not face discrimination in Singapore - As a gay person, there are certain things I can’t do in Singapore.
1. Get married...
2. Buy a flat from HDB as a couple...
3. Have a child (in my case, adopt one)."
It's interesting that this round of the 377A circus, many homophiles are upfront about admitting that they are not going to stop at repealing 377A - so it's not just about the Freedom to Love, but the Freedom to get HDB Subsidies
LGBT Activists Target Singapore Schools To Support “Repeal S377A” Petition
Will Repealing Section 377A End "Online Assaults, Vitriol and Abuse Against the LGBTQ Community"? - "Implicit in this reasoning is that Section 377A causes or is responsible for "online assaults, vitriol and abuse against the LGBTQ community", and therefore repeal of Section 377A would put an end to all these. I genuinely wonder if anyone who supports the repeal of Section 377A, including Ong himself, actually believes this. If this is correct, then we would expect that, if Section 377A is repealed, there would be no push for "hate speech" laws or any other laws or measures prohibiting or restricting "online assaults, vitriol and abuse against the LGBTQ community", because these would be plainly unnecessary. We would also expect, in the event of repeal, a complete cessation of complaints from people who identify as LGBTQ of any form of "online assaults, vitriol and abuse" because these would no longer happen, if Section 377A is repealed... Section 377A neither legitimises "online assaults, vitriol and abuse" against persons who identify as LGBTQ, nor would the repeal of Section 377A put an end to such "online assaults, vitriol and abuse". Indeed, even with Section 377A on the books, a man was convicted and fined in November 2016 for asking for "permission to open fire" on the LGBT community in an online post."
Raheem Kassam on Twitter - "Oooh, "Trump *Nearly* Tweeted Us Into War" says CNN headline.
Meanwhile, every other President/Prime Minister for decades has marched us into perpetual, pointless wars costing lives, money, and stability.
We're not stupid, you sleazy fucks."
Combatting Cryptocurrency Mining - "A colleague bought some LED, Wi-Fi-enabled light bulbs that allowed him to control when and where the lights came on in his house through his mobile phone. A user of Senrio Insight at home, he noticed a significant increase in outbound connections to an Internet address in China.* His light bulbs. Turns out the small computer chips in the light bulbs he bought had bitcoin mining code on them, as well as the promised functionality of being able to adjust brightness. To reiterate: someone at a factory in China figured out how to get people around the world to make him rich by screwing in a lightbulb."
National anthem protest: 9yo refuses to stand because anthem is for 'white people of Australia' - "Teachers at a Brisbane primary school have disciplined a nine-year-old girl for refusing to stand for the national anthem during assembly. Primary school student Harper Nielsen was given a lunch time detention on Friday for peacefully protesting against the song she said is "wrong"... Associate Professor Nielsen said despite meeting with the school to discuss the issues, they claimed the school rules would not allow his daughter to continue to protest. "They have said that she has to stand or she has to leave the assembly area""
Apparently the school is racist for not providing her a venue to grandstand
Rare old photos of S’pore capture 1960s life, including sale of exotic meats - "Back when wildlife was in abundance, exotic creatures such as the pangolin and tapirs were commonly spotted in the market. Pangolins, which are endangered today, were (and still are) prized for their scales and meat."
Chinatown’s Sago Lane was once a street of death houses, they were a necessary part of life in the past - "Chinese superstition dictates that death must never occur in a house or it would bring bad luck to its inhabitants."
The Left Can’t Meme So They’ve Just Decided To Ban Memes Instead - "Following studies that proved the political right was more successful at creating and spreading memes than the left, Facebook has announced it is developing a new AI algorithm that can detect and ban “offensive” memes... A study undertaken by researchers at University College London found that the most effective memes largely originated in two places – the subreddit r/the_donald – a forum devoted to boosting President Donald Trump, and 4chan’s politically incorrect /pol forum... In addition to Facebook developing artificial intelligence to detect and censor “offensive” memes, the European Union just voted in favor of Article 13, which would require websites to automatically filter uploaded material for copyright violations, which would lead to transformative memes being blocked."
Do White Law Enforcement Officers Target Minority Suspects? - "although minority suspects are disproportionately killed by police, white officers appear to be no more likely to use lethal force against minorities than nonwhite officers."
Maybe the explanation is that nonwhite police officers have internalised racism
Where was Philando Castile's gun? Yanez jury hears 4th account - "St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez had no option but to shoot Philando Castile when Castile ignored the officer’s commands and reached for his handgun during a traffic stop last summer, an expert witness testified Thursday for the defense... when Castile told him he had a firearm, Yanez reacted within the bounds of his training when he told him not to reach for “it.” “It” meaning the gun, Dutton said. But Castile did not comply and continued going for the handgun later found in his right pocket, Dutton said, putting Yanez in imminent danger of bodily harm or death if he failed to react quickly. Under those circumstances, Yanez was left with no other choice but to draw his firearm and shoot, Dutton testified... Yanez used “due caution” to avoid injury to the two passengers in the car — Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter — when he stepped to the left of the vehicle and pointed his gun downward before firing... The instructor at the gun range in Ramsey where Castile took his permit-to-carry safety class also testified Thursday. James Diehl said he teaches studentsthat, when they’re pulled over by police, first to tell officers they have a permit to carry. Then they should say they have a firearm on them, Diehl said. He said he also tells them to follow all police commands while keeping their hands visible."
Roxanne Pallett: the making of a victim - "Celebrity Big Brother has provided a rare insight into the nature of victimhood... She entered into a role which overtook her, because it was such a compelling, powerful role. Today’s cultural script, in which to be the victim accords you an unprecedented moral authority, has real social power. In what actually makes for remarkable footage, you can almost see Pallett warming to the role of abused woman... It showed how victimhood is, in part, an imagined condition, something one can either cultivate, as the script encourages us to, or resist. Pallett clearly relished the role, as indeed many others do. And this proved to be her undoing. Because if it wasn’t for the harsh truth of the camera’s eye, she might have been able to sustain this self-image. And keep hold of her alleged £750,000 appearance fee."
Report: Las Vegas professor shot himself in arm to protest Trump - "A longtime College of Southern Nevada sociology professor is facing felony gun charges in connection with an on-campus shooting on the second day of classes."
Bronx teacher who performed oral sex on 14-year-old gets 10 years probation, avoids jail, keeps teaching certificate - "A Bronx high school teacher who admitted to performing oral sex on her 14-year-old student won’t face jail time — and she might even return to the classroom."
Male privilege!
School staff member, 25, who had sex with schoolboys ‘took part with enthusiasm and excitement’ - "A former female staffer at an elite boarding school has been slapped with an 'extraordinarily lenient' suspended sentence after having sex with five male students during her tenure."
No enthusiasm for enthusiastic consent reforms | The Spectator Australia - "The key legal issue is that enthusiastic consent laws undermine due process and the presumption of innocence. When we require consent to be affirmatively established we are starting from the presumption that there is no consent, meaning that all sexual intercourse is unlawful until proven otherwise. This is contrary to the fundamental legal precept that individuals are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty... A ‘yes means yes’ standard makes it disturbingly easy for an individual to re-evaluate a regretted sexual encounter and to retrospectively withdraw consent, with some advocates in the USA going so far as to claim that ‘regret equals rape’."
Judge upholds accused student's gender-bias claim - "She also attended a presentation by W&L's Title IX officer Lauren Kozak. Kozak claimed that "regret equals rape," and introduced the concept as a new idea people were now supporting. Once Jane learned that John had been accepted into the study abroad program, she filed a sexual assault claim, now eight months after the encounter. Kozak conducted the investigation. John alleges in his lawsuit that he was given six hours notice to meet with the investigators but was not told why. When John met with Kozak and learned of the allegations against him, he was not shown a copy of Jane's complaint. John was denied legal representation, and when he tried to postpone a meeting with Kozak, she allegedly told him: "That's fine. We'll just submit the investigation report without your side of the story.""
The quickening: The momentous pregnancy event that became a relic. - "For thousands of years, the quickening was arguably the most significant turning point in the average woman’s pregnancy. It had both philosophical and practical significance for women, and for centuries it also marked the legal and moral dividing line for when an abortion could be performed. Today, the quickening is noticed in passing, if at all. But it’s worth remembering this now-antiquated milestone, and celebrating it for what it can still mean... British common law, eventually imported to Colonial America, outlawed abortion only if it took place after the quickening. Likewise, a pregnant woman could not be executed post-quickening... The Catholic Church, which had long treated pre-quickening abortion as the destruction of only potential human life, finally forbade abortion at any stage in 1869... The quickening, by contrast, is unabashedly subjective. It isn’t the fetus’ first movement, but rather the mother’s perception of it"
The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press - "Obama’s war with the media wasn’t limited to Fox News. Obama’s treatment of the media as a whole was so bad that New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan criticized the Obama administration in 2013 for its “unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press.” David E. Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, said of the Obama administration in 2013, “This is the most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.” According to a report on press freedoms by the highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists, “In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press.”...
5. Manipulating media coverage
4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms
3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage
2. Spying on the media
1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers
For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right?... The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.” Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”"
Post ID: 8845736777314996334
Non-Economic Factors in the Economic Retardation of the Rural Malays (2/4)
"All that it is intended to imply by citing these examples is that the Malays' resistance to change has been one of the reasons for their failure to seize the opportunities that have in fact existed, but it is one frequently overlooked in the studies of the rural Malays' economic retardation. It does not seem to be enough to say that the Malays will accept a change 'if they are convinced it will improve their level of living, or way of life', because such would imply that they are materialistically minded and moved solely by the quest for higher incomes and profits. They are not. It is certainly true to say that they have to be convinced that a change or innovation is likely to prove advantageous to them, but it seems that the innovation must also possess another quality, namely, that it must not conflict too dramatically with what has gone before. Change, if it is to be acceptable to the Malays, must not upset their normal daily routine nor conflict with their beliefs, a routine and a set of beliefs that have not basically changed for decades, or even centuries.
This tendency among the Malays to resist economic change seems to be part of a general tendency to resist change as such, or at least to absorb the new providing only that the old can also be accommodated. This is in no way irrational, for it is the logical outcome of certain views and attitudes held by the Malays. However, in this context, there are two main features to be taken into account. First, the rural Malays are reluctant to give up the past, and secondly, they fear or dislike the unfamiliar.
On the first, R. J. Wilkinson has written: 'The Malay cares nothing for consistency; he does not exchange old customs for new; he keeps both the old and the new. He is indeed afraid to give up the old .... The Malay is afraid to give up an ancient practice because he fears the vengeance of some old lawgiver may reach out over the intervening centuries and strike down the impious being who dares to alter what past ages have approved.' Although this was originally written sixty years ago, since which time Malay attitudes and customs have become rather more amenable to change, in essence it still remains true.
This is seen clearly in some of the rural Malays' religious beliefs and in their deep regard for adat or custom. Islam is an intolerant religion. It will not accept more than one God nor any idols. It demands absolute attention and the dismissal of all alien beliefs. But the rural Malay is unable to conform to such rigidity, even though he would never regard himself as a lax Muslim because of it. Nor do many Malays realize the conflict between what the Koran preaches and what they sometimes practise...
Sufi mysticism was not so much a natural progression of Islam as a natural progression of South-east Asian religious beliefs...
The Malay, it seems, cannot bear to live in an environment where the the (sic) unexplained occurs, or at least where he comes into contact with it. He desires, or needs, to see a reason for everything that happens around him, though the explanations he accepts of certain phenomena are not in fact the result of scientific reasoning but rather of rationalization.
The influence of the spirits on his everyday life illustrates this. The Malay has come to terms with his spirits, and explains the weird, the unexpected, the unusual and the otherwise inexplicable as being the work of one or more of them. He has developed a system of placating them, and the bomoh and pawang, or shamans, are greatly respected and regarded as being indispensable members of rural Malay society...
In common with agriculturists in many other underdeveloped countries, the rural Malays see the forces which shape their world as being capricious and arbitrary, as being the work of some power greater than themselves, over which they have no control. Viewed in Malay terms, such helplessness necessarily causes them to question whether they have any control over their own destiny, and makes it difficult for them to accept that by changing their techniques they can affect their destiny. Moreover, it encourages them to cling to their own explanations of everyday occurrences because these represent the Malays' only understanding of such events. And finally it induces them to seek refuge in their own traditional practices since these have become the only well-tried and well-understood ways, within the Malays' experience, of working in harmony with their environment"
--- Non-Economic Factors in the Economic Retardation of the Rural Malays / Brien K. Parkinson (in Modern Asian Studies, 1967)
This tendency among the Malays to resist economic change seems to be part of a general tendency to resist change as such, or at least to absorb the new providing only that the old can also be accommodated. This is in no way irrational, for it is the logical outcome of certain views and attitudes held by the Malays. However, in this context, there are two main features to be taken into account. First, the rural Malays are reluctant to give up the past, and secondly, they fear or dislike the unfamiliar.
On the first, R. J. Wilkinson has written: 'The Malay cares nothing for consistency; he does not exchange old customs for new; he keeps both the old and the new. He is indeed afraid to give up the old .... The Malay is afraid to give up an ancient practice because he fears the vengeance of some old lawgiver may reach out over the intervening centuries and strike down the impious being who dares to alter what past ages have approved.' Although this was originally written sixty years ago, since which time Malay attitudes and customs have become rather more amenable to change, in essence it still remains true.
This is seen clearly in some of the rural Malays' religious beliefs and in their deep regard for adat or custom. Islam is an intolerant religion. It will not accept more than one God nor any idols. It demands absolute attention and the dismissal of all alien beliefs. But the rural Malay is unable to conform to such rigidity, even though he would never regard himself as a lax Muslim because of it. Nor do many Malays realize the conflict between what the Koran preaches and what they sometimes practise...
Sufi mysticism was not so much a natural progression of Islam as a natural progression of South-east Asian religious beliefs...
The Malay, it seems, cannot bear to live in an environment where the the (sic) unexplained occurs, or at least where he comes into contact with it. He desires, or needs, to see a reason for everything that happens around him, though the explanations he accepts of certain phenomena are not in fact the result of scientific reasoning but rather of rationalization.
The influence of the spirits on his everyday life illustrates this. The Malay has come to terms with his spirits, and explains the weird, the unexpected, the unusual and the otherwise inexplicable as being the work of one or more of them. He has developed a system of placating them, and the bomoh and pawang, or shamans, are greatly respected and regarded as being indispensable members of rural Malay society...
In common with agriculturists in many other underdeveloped countries, the rural Malays see the forces which shape their world as being capricious and arbitrary, as being the work of some power greater than themselves, over which they have no control. Viewed in Malay terms, such helplessness necessarily causes them to question whether they have any control over their own destiny, and makes it difficult for them to accept that by changing their techniques they can affect their destiny. Moreover, it encourages them to cling to their own explanations of everyday occurrences because these represent the Malays' only understanding of such events. And finally it induces them to seek refuge in their own traditional practices since these have become the only well-tried and well-understood ways, within the Malays' experience, of working in harmony with their environment"
--- Non-Economic Factors in the Economic Retardation of the Rural Malays / Brien K. Parkinson (in Modern Asian Studies, 1967)
Post ID: 2709288561381271778
Links - 12th October 2018 (1)
The secret life-hack - why you should quit feminism - "I was calling myself a feminist even before college, but I was a reasonably mild creature, a watered down version of the howling banshee I became once I passed through the gender studies machine... I was neck deep in the literature and getting angrier by the day. I started looking for the patriarchy, and, like the lesser evils of Crocs and man-buns, it was EVERYWHERE... I spent about 5 years during university and then my masters in the grip of a heavy dose of feminist ideology. The kind of feminism that you could only find in Ms. Magazine back then, but is now everywhere in the form of the constant background noise of gender studies outrage of the "I am woman, hear me whine" variety. The whole world has turned into me at 18... I've now been feminism-free for 5 years and loving every minute of it. It's done wonders for my mental health, my relationships, my understanding of the world. Not even kicking both alcohol and smoking can come close to the catharsis of moulting a crippling ideology...
1. Feminism robs you of your #1 tool for self-development... If you’re condemned to victimhood through conspiratorial forces, your agency is an illusion. You're not your own master, you're at the mercy of circumstances outside of your control. Feminism doesn't offer life skills - it provides an infinite list of grievances and calls for control and protection... Taking responsibility is a hard thing to do. It's hard to face up to the fact that some of your problems are your own fault...
2. Feminism makes sex, relationships & talking to men a pain...
3. Maybe we don't want it "all"... have you ever given a bit of thought to what it takes to become and stay a Fortune 500 CEO? Why anyone but the most driven and work-obsessed of people might want to get there and have the stamina to stay there? What sacrifices it might bring? Have you thought about the infinity of things you can't do because you're too busy doing the endless things it takes to be a magnate? I think many a woman has thought carefully about it, and she's said: "Good luck, Sheryl Sandberg, I'm leaning out."...
4. You can find a better tribe...
5. Feminism is hypocritical... It's less about the welfare of women, it's more about sticking it to the man - exclusively the western man, of course, bringer of sorrows, lord of oppression...
6. Feminism has been lying to you"
I'm a female banker. My male colleagues are making me infertile - "In the past few years several of my male colleagues have started families. They all take paternity leave (usually for around a month, sometimes for longer) and when they come back they often expect to work a bit less. As a case in point, I was recently asked to take on extra project by a colleague who's a new father - he said he needs to spend time with his baby and can't work as much as I do. I'm stuck in a vicious cycle. The more that my male colleagues have children, the more that I am expected to cover for them and the harder it becomes for me to conceive. You can see why I'm annoyed."
Funny, I thought we were supposed to encourage men taking paternity leave and caring for kids
Comments: "Sooooo,when women get children it's not up to their male colleagues to pick up the slack...."
China Eastern Airlines flight attendant loses job after boyfriend proposes to her during flight - "the company fired the flight attendant on grounds that she had neglected passenger safety. The company stated that the mid-flight proposal had caused a disturbance and was an irresponsible act which jeopardised the security of passengers."
Telling stories, having fun. — realvivianjames: judgingeternity: mantis-cat: ... - "Show creator: so here’s a witty, smart, well-thought character, with a rich background, complex past, and (s)he has lots of interesting quirks and skills…
Tumblr: YEAH, OKAY, BUT IS (S)HE TRANS? HOMOSEXUAL? POC?
Show creator: why does it ma~
Tumblr: BOOOOOOORING!!!!
Show creator: actually yes
Tumblr: this is their only defining characteristic and this show is now only for people represented by that quality if they also agree with me on every subject
Show creator: And they have some flaws/ or they’re a villain
Tumblr: This show is a homophobic, transphobic, racist, misogynistic pile of crap and all it’s fans are crap too.
Tumblr: *harasses and sends death threats to people over the show*
Show Creator: This is not why I made this show, I wanted to be inclusive and subversive but also make people happy, and this isn’t good, please stop it.
Tumblr: OMG So you like child porn and hate gay people!?!?!?!?!?!?!
The fact that every single one of these has happened exactly like this is really depressing."
Eb the Intolerant on Twitter - "Ableist language of the day: "cr*ppling debt"
Y'all. We don't use the c-word like that. That word is a reclaimed slur in Disabled community. It's not a word you just toss on bad things bc it's there.
OK alternatives: "enormous debt" "unaffordable debt" "huge fuck-off debt""
@BajanMbaku: "Enormous debt is fat shaming"
How Twitter poisoned politics - "Wes Streeting, a Labour MP and prolific user of the site, recently announced that he was scaling down his use. “When I joined Twitter in my mid-twenties, I enjoyed it as a platform for debating ideas, live-tweeting during X Factor and sharing what I was up to,” Streeting wrote. “Unfortunately, Twitter has increasingly become an angry swamp to the extent that its utility is outweighed by the negativity.” I hear this judgment more and more... Conformity to tribal ethics is rewarded with retweets and approving replies; contrary opinion can be treated as heresy. And so everyone bids everyone else up in a currency of implacability and indignation."
Online Abuse of UK MPs in 2015 and 2017: Perpetrators, Targets, and Topics - "in both absolute and proportional terms, abuse increased substantially in 2017 compared with 2015. Abusive replies are somewhat less directed at women and those not in the currently governing party. Those who send the abuse may be issue-focused, or they may repeatedly target an individual. In the latter category, accounts are more likely to be throwaway. Those sending abuse have a wide range of topical triggers, including borders and terrorism."
Once again, contrary to feminist misinformation, women actually get less online abuse
Apple's bigger iPhone XS is getting slammed for being 'sexist' - "When Apple released its iPhone XS line, with screens that range from 5.8 inches to 6.5 inches, they became the company’s largest phones yet. But the big screens have triggered a backlash from women who say the device is too large for the average female hand... Another annoyance for iPhone-loving ladies? Apple’s phones are too large for women’s pockets. An August 2018 survey by culture website The Pudding took a look at the 20 most popular denim brands in the United States and found that 60 percent of women’s jeans can’t fit an iPhone X, which is 5.8 inches."
You know feminism is no longer needed when it complains about iPhone sizes
Toronto sex-ed guide for Muslims: “Homosexuals are cursed by Allah”, LGBTQ “not permissible” - "Children are encouraged to avoid shows, cartoons, movies, and advertisements that allude, even subtly, to mixed gender relationships"
The general case: why Singapore’s security obsession is incompatible with meritocracy - "Thailand provides another learning point. In this case, it proves that even with a conscript army, military generals can mount coups... the Singapore government boasts that the guiding principle is meritocracy. Putting aside the roiling debate about how ‘meritocracy’ in practice is often less egalitarian and perhaps even less efficient than it sounds, it’s nonetheless an ideal worth holding on to as a guiding star. However, when there are pressures to find jobs for surplus-to-requirement generals, it is hard to see how the posts they eventually occupy have really been filled through a meritocratic process... How are these organisations where key positions are filled more out of a need to give a general a job than through openly-competitive recruitment, going to attract the best talent? Best talent (surprise!) tend to be really smart people who want space and leeway to operate. Would they wonder if the organisational culture of the place is one that values obedience and conformity rather than out-of-the-box thinking, experimentation and disruption? Would they wonder whether their own chances of promotion within the organisation would always be secondary to the need to keep the newly civilianised military guy happy?"
Vacationers Happier, but Most not Happier After a Holiday - "Vacationers reported a higher degree of pre-trip happiness, compared to non-vacationers, possibly because they are anticipating their holiday. Only a very relaxed holiday trip boosts vacationers’ happiness further after return. Generally, there is no difference between vacationers’ and non-vacationers’ post-trip happiness"
Bras Basah Campus (1823-1972) | RAMpage - "The area around Bras Basah was known as the School Zone because of the high concentration of schools in the area: RI, St Joseph’s Institution (SJI), Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), Catholic High School, St Anthony’s Boys’ School, St Anthony’s Convent, St Andrew’s School and Anglo-Chinese School. There was much rivalry amongst students in these schools. Nonetheless, friendships were also forged, especially with the girls from CHIJ."
Is Newscaster Hair Going Extinct? - "Wear your hair down, in a smooth style that hits at the collarbone or above. Updos and complicated styles are a no, as are drastic color changes. Youthful appearance is key (better dye those grays away!). A bit of wave is okay (and increasingly popular at some stations), but ringlets and kinky curls are not. It's not just perception, either. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, analyzed more than 400 publicity images for local broadcast journalists and found that 95.8 percent of female anchors and reporters had smooth hair. About two-thirds had short or medium-length cuts. Nearly half of the women were blond. Zero had gray hair. Just one black woman in the UT study sample wore her natural curls."
Many Singaporeans Think the PR/Comms Industry is Fluff. It is Also Full of Women. Coincidence? - "creative industries are generally seen as a more liberal alternative to the corporate grind. Many employees choose this work out of “passion”. Therefore, “performing passion for a wage” feels offensive, especially when PR/comms work is fundamentally regarded as the direct opposite of the ‘authentic’, ‘proper’ and ‘legitimate’ field of journalism... she and her friends always joke about how men are “awful at communication”"
German triathlete banned from all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant for eating too much - "As an Ironman triathlete, Jaroslav Bobrowski is used to eating generous portions to gain enough energy for his athletic pursuits. Yet one restaurant in Bavaria found his diet bad for their business. In a visit last weekend to the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant Running Sushi in Landshut, Bavaria, former bodybuilder Bobrowski, 30, ate close to 100 plates of sushi, sending the restaurant into a state of alarm."
Old Testament Law and The Charge of Inconsistency - "let’s be clear that it’s not only the Old Testament that has proscriptions about homosexuality. The New Testament has plenty to say about it as well. Even Jesus, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3-12, says that the original design of God was for one man and one woman to be united as one flesh, and failing that, (v. 12) persons should abstain from marriage and from sex... The New Testament gives us further guidance about how to read the Old Testament. Paul makes it clear in places like Romans 13:8ff that the apostles understood the Old Testament moral law to still be binding on us. In short, the coming of Christ changed how we worship but not how we live. The moral law is an outline of God’s own character—his integrity, love, and faithfulness. And so all the Old Testament says about loving our neighbor, caring for the poor, generosity with our possessions, social relationships, and commitment to our family is still in force. The New Testament continues to forbid killing or committing adultery, and all the sex ethic of the Old Testament is re-stated throughout the New Testament (Matthew 5:27-30; 1 Corinthians 6:9-20; 1 Timothy 1:8-11.) If the New Testament has reaffirmed a commandment, then it is still in force for us today. Further, the New Testament explains another change between the Testaments. Sins continue to be sins—but the penalties change. In the Old Testament things like adultery or incest were punishable with civil sanctions like execution"
Why is it that so many leading Brexiteers studied history? | The Spectator - "After claiming that Ancient Rome was ‘destroyed’ by immigration, Banks was called out by classicist Mary Beard, to which he retorted: ‘I studied Roman history extensively — you don’t have a monopoly on history!’... Whereas the Declaration of Independence is gospel in America, in the UK only a history graduate like Jacob Rees-Mogg could describe the White Paper agreed at Chequers as ‘the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Philip II at Le Goulet in 1200’. The pollsters at Vote Leave decided that ‘Take Back Control’ was the most effective slogan, but what it communicates is the doctrine which the History Boys continue to espouse: parliamentary sovereignty. If you know your British history, then you’ll known that this is not an abstract idea but something which parliamentarians have wrestled for since, well, not long after Le Goulet... The old ruling class — politicians such as Herbert Asquith, Harold Macmillan and Boris — studied the classics. The new ruling class — the ‘experts’ — have studied vocational degrees like law and PPE. Whereas our rulers were once versed in the past, they are now versed in technocracy"
1. Feminism robs you of your #1 tool for self-development... If you’re condemned to victimhood through conspiratorial forces, your agency is an illusion. You're not your own master, you're at the mercy of circumstances outside of your control. Feminism doesn't offer life skills - it provides an infinite list of grievances and calls for control and protection... Taking responsibility is a hard thing to do. It's hard to face up to the fact that some of your problems are your own fault...
2. Feminism makes sex, relationships & talking to men a pain...
3. Maybe we don't want it "all"... have you ever given a bit of thought to what it takes to become and stay a Fortune 500 CEO? Why anyone but the most driven and work-obsessed of people might want to get there and have the stamina to stay there? What sacrifices it might bring? Have you thought about the infinity of things you can't do because you're too busy doing the endless things it takes to be a magnate? I think many a woman has thought carefully about it, and she's said: "Good luck, Sheryl Sandberg, I'm leaning out."...
4. You can find a better tribe...
5. Feminism is hypocritical... It's less about the welfare of women, it's more about sticking it to the man - exclusively the western man, of course, bringer of sorrows, lord of oppression...
6. Feminism has been lying to you"
I'm a female banker. My male colleagues are making me infertile - "In the past few years several of my male colleagues have started families. They all take paternity leave (usually for around a month, sometimes for longer) and when they come back they often expect to work a bit less. As a case in point, I was recently asked to take on extra project by a colleague who's a new father - he said he needs to spend time with his baby and can't work as much as I do. I'm stuck in a vicious cycle. The more that my male colleagues have children, the more that I am expected to cover for them and the harder it becomes for me to conceive. You can see why I'm annoyed."
Funny, I thought we were supposed to encourage men taking paternity leave and caring for kids
Comments: "Sooooo,when women get children it's not up to their male colleagues to pick up the slack...."
China Eastern Airlines flight attendant loses job after boyfriend proposes to her during flight - "the company fired the flight attendant on grounds that she had neglected passenger safety. The company stated that the mid-flight proposal had caused a disturbance and was an irresponsible act which jeopardised the security of passengers."
Telling stories, having fun. — realvivianjames: judgingeternity: mantis-cat: ... - "Show creator: so here’s a witty, smart, well-thought character, with a rich background, complex past, and (s)he has lots of interesting quirks and skills…
Tumblr: YEAH, OKAY, BUT IS (S)HE TRANS? HOMOSEXUAL? POC?
Show creator: why does it ma~
Tumblr: BOOOOOOORING!!!!
Show creator: actually yes
Tumblr: this is their only defining characteristic and this show is now only for people represented by that quality if they also agree with me on every subject
Show creator: And they have some flaws/ or they’re a villain
Tumblr: This show is a homophobic, transphobic, racist, misogynistic pile of crap and all it’s fans are crap too.
Tumblr: *harasses and sends death threats to people over the show*
Show Creator: This is not why I made this show, I wanted to be inclusive and subversive but also make people happy, and this isn’t good, please stop it.
Tumblr: OMG So you like child porn and hate gay people!?!?!?!?!?!?!
The fact that every single one of these has happened exactly like this is really depressing."
Eb the Intolerant on Twitter - "Ableist language of the day: "cr*ppling debt"
Y'all. We don't use the c-word like that. That word is a reclaimed slur in Disabled community. It's not a word you just toss on bad things bc it's there.
OK alternatives: "enormous debt" "unaffordable debt" "huge fuck-off debt""
@BajanMbaku: "Enormous debt is fat shaming"
How Twitter poisoned politics - "Wes Streeting, a Labour MP and prolific user of the site, recently announced that he was scaling down his use. “When I joined Twitter in my mid-twenties, I enjoyed it as a platform for debating ideas, live-tweeting during X Factor and sharing what I was up to,” Streeting wrote. “Unfortunately, Twitter has increasingly become an angry swamp to the extent that its utility is outweighed by the negativity.” I hear this judgment more and more... Conformity to tribal ethics is rewarded with retweets and approving replies; contrary opinion can be treated as heresy. And so everyone bids everyone else up in a currency of implacability and indignation."
Online Abuse of UK MPs in 2015 and 2017: Perpetrators, Targets, and Topics - "in both absolute and proportional terms, abuse increased substantially in 2017 compared with 2015. Abusive replies are somewhat less directed at women and those not in the currently governing party. Those who send the abuse may be issue-focused, or they may repeatedly target an individual. In the latter category, accounts are more likely to be throwaway. Those sending abuse have a wide range of topical triggers, including borders and terrorism."
Once again, contrary to feminist misinformation, women actually get less online abuse
Apple's bigger iPhone XS is getting slammed for being 'sexist' - "When Apple released its iPhone XS line, with screens that range from 5.8 inches to 6.5 inches, they became the company’s largest phones yet. But the big screens have triggered a backlash from women who say the device is too large for the average female hand... Another annoyance for iPhone-loving ladies? Apple’s phones are too large for women’s pockets. An August 2018 survey by culture website The Pudding took a look at the 20 most popular denim brands in the United States and found that 60 percent of women’s jeans can’t fit an iPhone X, which is 5.8 inches."
You know feminism is no longer needed when it complains about iPhone sizes
Toronto sex-ed guide for Muslims: “Homosexuals are cursed by Allah”, LGBTQ “not permissible” - "Children are encouraged to avoid shows, cartoons, movies, and advertisements that allude, even subtly, to mixed gender relationships"
The general case: why Singapore’s security obsession is incompatible with meritocracy - "Thailand provides another learning point. In this case, it proves that even with a conscript army, military generals can mount coups... the Singapore government boasts that the guiding principle is meritocracy. Putting aside the roiling debate about how ‘meritocracy’ in practice is often less egalitarian and perhaps even less efficient than it sounds, it’s nonetheless an ideal worth holding on to as a guiding star. However, when there are pressures to find jobs for surplus-to-requirement generals, it is hard to see how the posts they eventually occupy have really been filled through a meritocratic process... How are these organisations where key positions are filled more out of a need to give a general a job than through openly-competitive recruitment, going to attract the best talent? Best talent (surprise!) tend to be really smart people who want space and leeway to operate. Would they wonder if the organisational culture of the place is one that values obedience and conformity rather than out-of-the-box thinking, experimentation and disruption? Would they wonder whether their own chances of promotion within the organisation would always be secondary to the need to keep the newly civilianised military guy happy?"
Vacationers Happier, but Most not Happier After a Holiday - "Vacationers reported a higher degree of pre-trip happiness, compared to non-vacationers, possibly because they are anticipating their holiday. Only a very relaxed holiday trip boosts vacationers’ happiness further after return. Generally, there is no difference between vacationers’ and non-vacationers’ post-trip happiness"
Bras Basah Campus (1823-1972) | RAMpage - "The area around Bras Basah was known as the School Zone because of the high concentration of schools in the area: RI, St Joseph’s Institution (SJI), Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), Catholic High School, St Anthony’s Boys’ School, St Anthony’s Convent, St Andrew’s School and Anglo-Chinese School. There was much rivalry amongst students in these schools. Nonetheless, friendships were also forged, especially with the girls from CHIJ."
Is Newscaster Hair Going Extinct? - "Wear your hair down, in a smooth style that hits at the collarbone or above. Updos and complicated styles are a no, as are drastic color changes. Youthful appearance is key (better dye those grays away!). A bit of wave is okay (and increasingly popular at some stations), but ringlets and kinky curls are not. It's not just perception, either. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, analyzed more than 400 publicity images for local broadcast journalists and found that 95.8 percent of female anchors and reporters had smooth hair. About two-thirds had short or medium-length cuts. Nearly half of the women were blond. Zero had gray hair. Just one black woman in the UT study sample wore her natural curls."
Many Singaporeans Think the PR/Comms Industry is Fluff. It is Also Full of Women. Coincidence? - "creative industries are generally seen as a more liberal alternative to the corporate grind. Many employees choose this work out of “passion”. Therefore, “performing passion for a wage” feels offensive, especially when PR/comms work is fundamentally regarded as the direct opposite of the ‘authentic’, ‘proper’ and ‘legitimate’ field of journalism... she and her friends always joke about how men are “awful at communication”"
German triathlete banned from all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant for eating too much - "As an Ironman triathlete, Jaroslav Bobrowski is used to eating generous portions to gain enough energy for his athletic pursuits. Yet one restaurant in Bavaria found his diet bad for their business. In a visit last weekend to the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant Running Sushi in Landshut, Bavaria, former bodybuilder Bobrowski, 30, ate close to 100 plates of sushi, sending the restaurant into a state of alarm."
Old Testament Law and The Charge of Inconsistency - "let’s be clear that it’s not only the Old Testament that has proscriptions about homosexuality. The New Testament has plenty to say about it as well. Even Jesus, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3-12, says that the original design of God was for one man and one woman to be united as one flesh, and failing that, (v. 12) persons should abstain from marriage and from sex... The New Testament gives us further guidance about how to read the Old Testament. Paul makes it clear in places like Romans 13:8ff that the apostles understood the Old Testament moral law to still be binding on us. In short, the coming of Christ changed how we worship but not how we live. The moral law is an outline of God’s own character—his integrity, love, and faithfulness. And so all the Old Testament says about loving our neighbor, caring for the poor, generosity with our possessions, social relationships, and commitment to our family is still in force. The New Testament continues to forbid killing or committing adultery, and all the sex ethic of the Old Testament is re-stated throughout the New Testament (Matthew 5:27-30; 1 Corinthians 6:9-20; 1 Timothy 1:8-11.) If the New Testament has reaffirmed a commandment, then it is still in force for us today. Further, the New Testament explains another change between the Testaments. Sins continue to be sins—but the penalties change. In the Old Testament things like adultery or incest were punishable with civil sanctions like execution"
Why is it that so many leading Brexiteers studied history? | The Spectator - "After claiming that Ancient Rome was ‘destroyed’ by immigration, Banks was called out by classicist Mary Beard, to which he retorted: ‘I studied Roman history extensively — you don’t have a monopoly on history!’... Whereas the Declaration of Independence is gospel in America, in the UK only a history graduate like Jacob Rees-Mogg could describe the White Paper agreed at Chequers as ‘the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Philip II at Le Goulet in 1200’. The pollsters at Vote Leave decided that ‘Take Back Control’ was the most effective slogan, but what it communicates is the doctrine which the History Boys continue to espouse: parliamentary sovereignty. If you know your British history, then you’ll known that this is not an abstract idea but something which parliamentarians have wrestled for since, well, not long after Le Goulet... The old ruling class — politicians such as Herbert Asquith, Harold Macmillan and Boris — studied the classics. The new ruling class — the ‘experts’ — have studied vocational degrees like law and PPE. Whereas our rulers were once versed in the past, they are now versed in technocracy"
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