Links - 19th March 2013

Allah in the Cafeteria: Inside the school prayer scandal at Valley Park Middle School - "an imam from Darus Salaam was leading the prayers in the school’s cafeteria, and that the girls were being made to sit behind the boys... Most of the journalists emphasized one detail that secular Canadians found particularly objectionable: any girl who was menstruating couldn’t participate in the prayers, and could only observe from the back row. Orthodox Muslims, like members of a number of other faiths, consider menstruating females impure for religious functions... When I phoned Nickolas Stefanoff and asked him how he was dealing with the complaints about the prayer service, he responded defensively. He instructed me to learn something about Islam before I start asking questions. When I told him that I was a Muslim, he backed down... One parent claimed that many children couldn’t settle down once they returned to class, and it was difficult to carry out the lessons. Friday afternoons were basically a write-off for every student—Muslim or non-Muslim. Banerjee claims the TDSB bends over backwards to accommodate Muslims above all other groups, and he has been criticized as an Islamophobe for saying so... Banerjee arranged for a series of people to deliver speeches opposing the board’s accommodation policy at the protests. (The only Muslim to speak was the journalist and women’s rights activist Raheel Raza. She was heckled by a group of young Muslim men and women, who criticized her for betraying her own religion)... The school may be following a policy of accommodating special requests, but there’s a striking difference between designating a room for a handful of students and converting the largest room in the building for group prayer. The school becomes, in effect, a mosque."
A part left out: "Christian and other prayers are disallowed in the public school system"

Did a Cross-Dressing Priest Sex Ring Bring Down Benedict XVI? - "The priests, it seems, are allegedly being blackmailed by a network of male prostitutes who worked at a sauna in Rome’s Quarto Miglio district, a health spa in the city center, and a private residence once entrusted to a prominent archbishop. The evidence reportedly includes compromising photos and videos of the prelates—sometimes caught on film in drag, and, in some cases, caught “in the act”... In 2010, investigative journalist Carmello Abbate went undercover with a hidden camera to write a shocking exposé called “Good Nights Out for Gay Priests”. Abbate caught the priests on hidden camera dirty dancing at private parties and engaging in sex acts with male escorts on church property. He also caught them emerging from dark bedrooms just in time to celebrate mass. In one postcoital scene, a priest parades around seminaked, wearing only his clerical vestments. “This is not about homosexuality,” Abbate told The Daily Beast when he published the exposé. “This is about private vices and public virtues. This is about serious hypocrisy in the Catholic Church”... At the time that Marrazzo’s relationships with the transvestites were discovered, his driver reportedly told investigators that several high-ranking priests and even cardinals were customers of Rome’s elite transsexual circuit"

Comment: Why I’m no longer Gay but still want to marry someone of the same sex - "I can remember the first time I chose to be Gay. I was 15 and bored on my way home from school... I remember seeing a guy buying a copy of Gay Times magazine and he looked like me but happier. That’s when I first thought about being Gay as an identity; a semi-conscious process that may sound flippant now but really made a mark on me in that moment... I decided to reinvent myself by playing the Gay role wholeheartedly. Coming out at school the next day was simple: I confided in someone I knew would tell everyone else... I remember one day we were fundraising for the campaign and I was dancing with Robbie Williams and other celebrities at the Royal Albert Hall. We sang We Are Family and the atmosphere in the hall was beautiful. I didn’t feel part of any family though. They couldn’t see me, only my Gay mask. You can’t love a mask... Fourteen years later, I don’t think I’m Gay anymore; I just think I’m in love with a wonderful man"

How Racist Are We? - "I find I’m like most people: I take race seriously in making practical decisions. I think American blacks are likely to be less efficient and less capable at most jobs than are American whites. I think whites are likely to be sloppier and ruder than East Asians. I think Southeast Asians are likely to be cheerier than everyone. I’m worried that poorly-educated Latino immigrants might create a culture of Catholic poverty and Latin populism here in the U.S. But then, more than a racist, I’m an interesting-conversation-ist, a stands-up-straight-ist, a decent-grooming-ist, a beauty-and-fitness-ist, a pro-literacy-ist. I discriminate in favor of people I think can hold down a job and do decently at it. I especially favor those who do great work in their jobs or study successfully in school. I’ll bet you, do too... Today, in American culture, overt white racism is unacceptable, both in law and in public conduct. Black racism is another matter... a group of white girls from the University of Arkansas Zeta Tau Alpha sorority won the national “Sprite Step Off” step-dancing competition. Step-dancing is a coordinated stomping, hip-hop dance routine style that gained popularity first among black fraternities and sororities. When a team without a single black member won the competition, beating several all-black teams, an outcry arose from advocates for black culture and black pride. The Coca-Cola Company, sponsor of the competition, quickly back-tracked and awarded a second first-place result to an all-black team, Alpha Kappa Alpha of Indiana University. Coca-Cola said they had found a “scoring discrepancy.” But they divulged no details, and no one believed them. Many black commentators decried the Coca-Cola cave-in for the racism it represented, yet the fact that the decision was demanded by many and that it stood shows that some varieties of racism are more equal than others... According to the economists Rohini Somanathan and Rajiv Sethi, most Americans would rather live in a mixed-race neighborhood than a single-race one. If we could find a mixed-race area that met our other criteria for a good neighborhood—such as good schools, nice houses, and fun entertainment—we would like to move there. But there’s a catch. Most would prefer any neighborhood where their own race dominates to any neighborhood where they are not members of at least a racial plurality. So middle-class whites won’t move into a nice, middle-class—but mostly-black— neighborhood, and vice versa. In this way, each race stays segregated, though it is practically no one’s first choice... race often indicates culture. And, now, with growing appeals to “Latino” identity—despite the fact that Uruguayans and Mexicans have quite different cultures and histories—people of Latin American descent are getting into the act, too. Sonia Sotomayor, a sitting Supreme Court justice and card-carrying liberal, thinks being a “wise Latina” makes her a better judge than a “white male” would be. Whether or not we agree, we all know what she means"

Get Your Ramen With a Side of Boobs at Tokyo Bar - "Have you ever heard of Boobs Ramen? That’s the nickname for a bar in Tokyo where, much like Hooters in the US, the most appealing aspect of the joint is always on display. But apparently the food is pretty good too... This isn’t some sleazy sex shop though. It’s a totally wholesome and regular bar… whose owner happens to have really fascinating breasts... The reason this place is known as Boobs Ramen is its most popular menu item, the ramen noodles. The slightly sweet soup made with lots of nori seaweed extract tastes delicious and thick. It goes down quite smoothly, leaving a happy sense of satisfaction almost like resting your tired head on a soft bosom... Really the popularity of this place is built on a lot more than the owner’s chest... In case you were wondering: they’re I-cups. Hayakawa is actually a former “gravia idol”, or sexy bikini model. She even has some DVDs to her name. No wonder she is so confidently beautiful!... Open 7 p.m.-7 a.m. (or until she gets tired) every day"

English language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of English words as follows:
- Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages: less than 1%
A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:
- French (langue d'oïl): 41%
- "Native" English: 33%
- Latin: 15%
- Old Norse: 2%
- Dutch: 1%
- Other: 10%"

We Compare Senran Kagura’s Virtual Breasts with Real Ones… You Know, for Science and Stuff - "The PS Vita edition of breast simulator game Senran Kagura has become an instant hit, selling out in stores everywhere immediately after hitting store shelves. However, the question stands: With these virtual boobs in the hands of so many, how can we be sure they’re getting an authentic experience?... By employing a real, amply chested woman, we determined that the game has achieved near perfect results."
Damn Japs...

Fake Bishop Tries to Sneak into Vatican Meeting - "His cassock was several inches too short, his sash was the wrong color and, instead of a skullcap, he wore a fedora. But Ralph Napierski, a self-appointed German ”bishop” from the apparently made-up Corpus Dei order, somehow managed to get through a manned Vatican checkpoint and mingle with Cardinals as they gathered for a meeting in preparation to elect a new Pope."

Shieldmaiden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "There are few historical attestations that Viking Age women took part in warfare, but the Byzantine historian Johannes Skylitzes records that women fought in battle when Sviatoslav I of Kiev attacked the Byzantines in Bulgaria in 971"

SNL: Amazon Mother’s Day Ad (Video) - "This Fifty Shades of Grey parody Mother’s Day commercial for Amazon.com from last night’s Saturday Night Live was the highlight of the entire show"

Serangoon's French invasion - "The French community in the area is so large that you will often hear a smattering of French as you walk along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3. They have an association, called the RFS, which offers a lot of activities for French people. Ms Desaulles relates that they gather at the Serangoon community club, which she says is "half-Singaporean, half-French""

Police: Naked scammers seduce, blackmail men on Web - CNN.com - "In the wonderfully sensational style of journalism reminiscent of Next Media Animation's "animated news" (the Taiwanese folks who showed us Tiger Woods' 2009 traffic mishap and Steve Jobs turning into a ninja) Singapore TV station HD 5 created a 10-minute "reconstruction" of the scam... "You can imagine how a man, believing he is being seduced online by a sexy woman, might be all too eager to click on a link she suggests or run a malicious program on his computer," Cluley wrote on his blog. "Before he knows it, his computer could be under the control of a hacker"... "Be careful out there, and keep your trousers on, chaps.""
CrimeWatch makes it to CNN!; The only folly of man...