Links - 15th October 2013

"Slap a mask on a drunk and you're going to have trouble. It's like having a live reenactment of anonymous forum comments." - Randy K. Milholland

***

South feast Asia - "I pop a grape-sized, smoked quail egg into my mouth. It bursts like a cherry tomato, the sea salt-dusted white flesh unleashing a luxurious, smoky liquid yolk. Heaven! I’m having dinner at Burnt Ends (20 Tek Lim Rd., burntends.com.sg), where everything is smoked, cooked or singed by apple- and almond wood-fed ovens and open grills. Australian chef David Pynt’s Sanger, containing juicy pulled pork shoulder, chipotle aioli, jalapeño and coleslaw on a soft brioche roll, bests any barbecue sandwich I’ve sampled in the American South or Brooklyn’s own Smorgasburg... In June, Bourdain appeared at Singapore’s first annual World Street Food Congress, advocating for international hawker culture and ranting for laksa, a spicy noodle soup, the way a meth head would for a fix. “I need laksa . . . I need it badly . . . I need it now”... Eating is Singaporeans’ top leisure-time activity — about two new restaurants opened daily in 2012 — and every local seems to maintain a food blog, just like Los Angelenos have all written a screenplay"
And some people claim you cannot find "authentic" food outside of its supposed place of origin

I won't apologise - dog trainer Maznah accuses critics of DEFAMING her - "Maznah said it was not her fault nor responsibility if the public misinterpreted the intention behind the making of the video which shows her performing ablution upon herself and her three dogs on Hari Raya three years ago. "If I apologise over the video, it means I am submitting that I have indeed done something that is opposed to the Islamic teachings. The video did not insult Islam. Accusing me that I wanted to insult Islam is akin to defaming me." The 1 minute 44 second footage shows Chetz, clad in a black Baju Melayu, washing the paws of her dogs to the call of the Azan prayers. The clip features her bathing her dogs with Aidilfitri prayers and a popular song as background audio, before preparing Raya savouries for the mutts... "Is rearing dogs something non-Islamic? I want to ask, who is actually insulting Islam? I make sure my dogs are clean. I take care of them well. So, what is the problem?" Chetz said that she took care of her dogs in accordance with Islamic teachings and that the person who uploaded the video had misinterpreted its contents... She now feared for her safety, her dogs and her family after receiving death threats by text messages."

Men With Big Balls Are Less Involved Parents

Will Buffett Avoid the Buffett Rule? - WSJ.com - "Billionaire Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett is once again thrilling the political class by volunteering other people to pay higher taxes. Long-time observers recall his opposition to former President George W. Bush's efforts to reduce the tax rate on dividends. Since Berkshire pays no dividends, Mr. Buffett had little at stake but enjoyed the opportunity to pose as if he were a rich guy eager to cough up more dough to Washington... as for capital gains taxes, well, Mr. Buffett has already made clear that he'll largely avoid them by transferring his fortune to the Gates Foundation and to charitable trusts controlled by his family. In fact, at the 2010 Berkshire annual shareholders meeting, according to Dow Jones Newswires, Mr. Buffett urged attendees to "follow my tax dodging example" and give away their wealth. Democrats in Washington may enjoy using Mr. Buffett as cover to raise taxes, just as long as they understand that he won't necessarily be paying them."

Penn Medicine News: Onset of Sexual Activity in Tweens Delayed By Theory-based Abstinence-only Program - "While abstinence-only intervention did not eliminate sexual activity all together, this is the first randomized controlled study to demonstrate that an abstinence-only intervention reduced the percentage of adolescents who reported any sexual intercourse for a long period, in this case two years, following the intervention... “Abstinence-only interventions may have an important role in delaying sexual activity until a time later in life when the adolescent is more prepared to handle to consequences of sex. This can reduce undesirable consequences of sex, including pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections like HIV/AIDS”... Researchers determined that none of the interventions had significant effects on consistent condom use or unprotected sex. For those who lost their virginity during the two year study, there was no difference in consistent condom use between the abstinence-only intervention and the control group"

Images of battered Hindu goddesses unveiled to highlight plight of India's sex trafficking
Religious offence! Blasphemy!

Crazy Rich Asians presents a whole new wave of stereotypes - "Kwan delves into the world of the Singaporean "overseas" Chinese – an elite breed sporting Huntsman blazers and matching Queen's English accents, who shoot off to island getaways in their private jets... A male author – an Asian one at that – has pushed past the velvet ropes of race, culture and gender, to tap that exclusive genre: chick lit"

Sex talk that turned me into a prude - "My mother never set me down to learn about the birds and the bees. Her idea of sex ed was the following sentence, shouted over her shoulder into the backseat just before my 18th birthday: “You are NOT ALLOWED to have SEX!” This speech was not devoid of positive attributes: It was succinct and to the point. But it did not impart much valuable information or foster open communication. The fact that it wasn’t terribly effective as an abstinence tool will come as no surprise. Of course, one of the most rewarding parts about becoming a mother is showing your own mother how much better you are at the job. Not that you hold it against her – she did her best – but still, your best is far better. In the category of sex ed, I figured, I’d be a natural... Now, charged with composing a reply to the question at hand – “What is sex?” – I wasn’t a puritan so much as a wimp. My relationship with sex was one thing; this was something altogether different. I felt the same squeamishness I had when I was 15 and stumbled upon a box of Trojans in my parents’ nightstand, namely: Eeeew. Gross. Gag me with a spoon. Unfortunately, in this scenario, I wasn’t the kid but the grown-up."

Why are there so few penises on television? - "There's an insidious double standard in operation on the small screen - naked breasts abound, but we never get to see a man's sexy parts... Most societies operate a “no naked breasts” rule in most public spaces, while granting men permission to go shirtless if they want: a man’s chest is not equal to a woman’s. It follows that the corresponding “sexy” part on a man would therefore be his penis, yes? Yes. So why are there so few penises on television? I am not the first person to query this. Mhairi McFarlane’s hilarious essay on a blog called The Flick is my favourite piece on the subject, and recently the American comedy website CollegeHumor released a video, featuring four female comedians and entitled “HBO Should Show Dongs”, which asked the same question."
Of course, if you're the Guardian you'll ask Are vulvas so obscene that we have to censor them? and imagine that penises are okay but vulvas are not

Why Batman's "The Dark Knight Rises" Is An Instant Conservative Classic - "The third film in the Batman series is a direct polemical assault on the French Revolution and its political heirs, which includes Occupy Wall Street and perhaps Barack Obama. I would say that it is the exact opposite of so many revolutionary-wannabe films from Fight Club to V for Vendetta (which has provided the tell-tale Guy Fawkes masks to the Occupy movement)... This film shows no ideological sympathy for the Occupy Movement. Bane, the terrible villain of the film, literally occupies Wall Street... This is Nolan’s way of saying “Hey, idiot in the Che t-shirt, smarten up. If deep down you are the decent person you claim to be, you’ll hate the revolution you’ve been wishing for”... The debate between left and right in the modern world has largely been a debate for and against the French revolution... In some ways the film is a throw-back to the original Batman, not the comic book one, but the one on whom the whole masked hero genre was based, the Scarlett Pimpernel, the nobleman cum masked counter-revolutionary hero who went about saving victims of ‘the people’s justice’ from the guillotine"

After I banned tipping at my restaurant, the service got better and we made more money - "Researchers have found (pdf) that customers don’t actually vary their tips much according to service. Instead they tip mostly the same every time, according to their personal habits. Tipped servers, in turn, learn that service quality isn’t particularly important to their revenue. Instead they are rewarded for maximizing the number of guests they serve, even though that degrades service quality. Furthermore, servers in tipping environments learn to profile guests (pdf), and attend mainly to those who fit the stereotypes of good tippers. This may increase the server’s earnings, while creating negative experiences for the many restaurant customers who are women, ethnic minorities, elderly or from foreign countries. On the occasions when a server is punished for poor service by a customer withholding a standard tip, the server can keep that information to himself. While the customer thinks she is sending a message, that message never makes it to a manager, and the problem is never addressed."
Someone should rebut this biased science based on the "reality of lived experience"

Women, Liberals and Young People Say They Have 'Cute Aggression' - "Have you ever caught yourself saying "That baby is so cute, I can hardly take it," or found yourself overwhelmed by an almost uncontrollable urge to squeeze a tiny prancing puppy?... 70% of parents wondered if cute aggression was a real thing, while 58% of people who want children someday know all about it. Could this be because parents deal with the less cute side of children and baby animals (tantrums and potty training) more often? How quickly we forget..."

Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians - "Compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness"
This is a lot more helpful than just calling them all assholes (i.e. a relatively emotional cognitive style; inasmuch as being emotional is a form of cognition)

Compassionate liberals and polite conservatives: associations of agreeableness with political ideology and moral values. - "using a personality model that divides each of the Big Five into two aspects, the present research found that one aspect of Agreeableness (Compassion) was associated with liberalism and egalitarianism, whereas the other (Politeness) was associated with conservatism and traditionalism. In addition, conservatism and moral traditionalism were positively associated with the Orderliness aspect of Conscientiousness and negatively with Openness-Intellect"
More evidence that liberals are rude/not nice (inasmuch as that is measured by politeness) people

The moral stereotypes of liberals and conservatives: exaggeration of differences across the political spectrum - "Across the political spectrum, moral stereotypes about "typical" liberals and conservatives correctly reflected the direction of actual differences in foundation endorsement but exaggerated the magnitude of these differences. Contrary to common theories of stereotyping, the moral stereotypes were not simple underestimations of the political outgroup's morality. Both liberals and conservatives exaggerated the ideological extremity of moral concerns for the ingroup as well as the outgroup. Liberals were least accurate about both groups."
Liberals understand conservative morality less well than conservatives understand liberal morality (though both are inaccurate)