Links - 20th Janaury 2015

Associations pull out of food carnival, unhappy with quota - "Due to the request of the Auditor-General's Office, the Fabulous Food 1Malaysia carnival must showcase at least 70% to 80% of halal food. As a result, co-organizers the Federation of Malaysia Hawkers Associations and the Malaysia Selangor & Federal Territory Ku Su Shin Choong Hung Restaurant Association have decided to quit the event. The ministry of tourism and culture secretary-general Datuk Ong Hong Peng also confirmed that the 2014 food carnival would not showcase non-halal food... bakuteh was featured during the inaugural event in 2009 despite objection from Islamic organizations. Fortunately former tourism minister Tan Sri Ng Yen Yen was firm in her stand so that this event could be carried out successfully... Meanwhile, the Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Owners Association (PRESMA) president Noorul Hassan Saul Hameed said his association did not reject non-halal food but stalls selling non-halal food must not be too near to halal stalls."

Scientists confirm: ritual slaughter hurts - resource.wageningenur.nl - "Animals suffer pain when they are slaughtered without sedation, claims slaughter expert Bert Lambooij. Not true, say a few Jewish organizations, who even went so far as to take out an injunction against Wageningen UR over the issue. Dutch research organization TNO has come out against the finding too. But the Wageningen scientist is in good company: a European study supports his findings. Lambooij produced a report in 2008, at the request of the then ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food, after questions about this issue were asked in parliament by the animal rights party. The main conclusion was: 'Ritual slaughter without sedation is detrimental to the animal's wellbeing compared to slaughter with sedation.' He also suggested a number of measures aiming to improve animal wellbeing during the ritual slaughter process... The biggest research group in the field of ritual slaughter is DIALREL, a group of European researchers who want to contribute to the discussion on religious slaughter with knowledge and facts. The main partners in this network come from France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands (Bert Lambooij), Turkey and Israel. The latter two members make the project particularly interesting, as it means that Jewish and Islamic researchers are involved as well. In a DIALREL report of last year, nine researchers (among them Lambooij) concluded that throat cutting without anaesthetic carried the highest risks of animals suffering: 'Pain, suffering and distress during the cut and during bleeding are highly likely.' Sedation methods are admittedly not without risks for animal wellbeing, but they are considerable smaller, claim the researchers. They cite from about 300 scientific articles and base their views on observations by veterinary researchers in slaughterhouses in Germany, Spain, England, France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Israel and Australia."

The 7 Most Common Feminist Insults - "[Feminists] lobbed ad-hominem abuse at the authors. This, we know is the clarion call of the butt-hurt and fragile Internet feminist, who requires a “trigger warning” for mere words on a screen, while unironically declaring herself to be “strong” and “independent” in the same breath. The fascinating part about these reams of “insults” wasn’t their sheer volume—and it was large—but how remarkably identical they were to every other insult you see coming from their ilk, in manosphere comment sections and twitter feeds, or feminists’ own call-out articles. Their lack of originality was such that you couldn’t help but wonder whether they were all reading from the same instruction manual or whether there’s, in fact, veracity in the argument that women are uncreative copycats with an inability to be funny...
1. Basement-Dwelling Losers
2. Sexless Virgin
3. Small Dick
4. “Your [sic] a Rapist!!!”
5. “Mommy Issues”
6. The Exception
7. Graphic Violence
The great irony is that people who are so dedicated to fighting violence against women are quick to wish (and describe) brutal violence on others. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have a particular fixation on the male genitalia.

‘The Catalogue of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics’ | Exposing Feminism - "Charge of Instability (Code White) – The White Padded Room Charge
Discussion: The target is accused of being emotionally or mentally unstable. Examples:
“You’re unstable.”
“You have issues.”
“You need therapy.”
“Weirdo!”
Response: In response to this attack, one may point to peer-reviewed literature and then ask the accuser if the target’s mental and/or emotional condition can explain the existence of valid research on the matter."

How some feminist shaming tactics discredit feminist theory - "it would behoove us to consider how it is even possible that an accusation of misogyny wields any power at all in a culture where misogyny is supposedly normalized and pervasive. Remember, our society hates women... according to her, the problem is not a relatively small handful of complete assholes emboldened by the anonymity of the internet to attack anyone and everyone who crosses their paths, for reasons known only to them, and who tailor their insults and trolling to the target audience (rape threats for women, death threats and accusations of faggotry for men)… Nope, it’s that men (not some, not many, not a few, just men) are raised to hate women... Now let’s look at the reverse. Misandrist. Call someone a misandrist, and if they actually know what it means, you’ll get not shame or adjustment of behavior, but a shrug and a “yeah, whatever” from most people. From others, you’ll get a perplexed look, and from still others, you’ll get hoots of laughter, references to “beard tears” and “manfeelz” and the blithe reply that “misandry don’t real.”"

Who is the real troll here? - "the trial of Toronto artist and father-of-four Gregory Alan Elliott really is happening... Elliott is facing charges of criminal harassment for the supposed ‘crime’ of sending some tweets to Toronto feminists Stephanie Guthrie, Paisley Rae, and Heather Reilly. If found guilty, Elliott faces up to six months in prison – with the verdict having far-reaching implications for freedom of speech in Canada. This is the first trial of its kind in Canada and is a test case for setting precedent in this area. If Guthrie et al are successful then the interpretation of the criminal code is expanded to include online activity. This in-itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If people receive legitimate threats, and feel threatened as a result – it is a criminal act, regardless of the medium. The problem arises however, when one examines the facts of this case and the specific criminal code in question... the prosecution will have to demonstrate that Guthrie and her pals were genuinely frightened despite the fact that nothing Elliott did was actually threatening and that they could easily block him and ignore his tweets. They’re going to have a particularly difficult time with Guthrie given her constant boasting of having a folder on her computer full of death threats. Guthrie has made this claim on a number of occasions – one such occasion being the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) meeting held at the Onatrio Institute for Secondary Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto last year. Guthrie made the claim to a room full of freshman and feminist activists at a meeting whose purpose was to spread lies about the MHRM and to call for militant action against those that support men’s human rights. One has to wonder if death threats don’t frighten her – then why would the non-threatening, repeated communication from a man she dismisses as a ‘troll?’"

Twitter harassment trial: Defence says complainant shared false rumours about the accused - "In one instance, a complainant shared a conversation where a Twitter user falsely alleges that Elliott, 54, is a pedophile, Elliott’s lawyer Chris Murphy told the court Wednesday."

Christie Blatchford: The Twitter trial of Gregory Elliott is becoming much like Twitter itself — shrill and uber-sensitive - "“Blaming the majority of normal men for rape…is wrong,” Mr. Elliott, a 53-year-old Toronto man, wrote back in September of 2012. “Rapists are not normal men; they’re crazy. Why not blame the mentally ill?” It hardly rang in my ears as the ravings of a perverse woman-hater, nor apparently in Mr. Murphy’s, because after reading it for Ontario Court Justice Brent Knazan, Mr. Murphy asked, in his reasonable way, “That’s a pretty good point?” In the witness stand, Ms. Guthrie snorted, yelled, “Are you kidding me?”, pounded her fist and then announced, “I know lots of normal men who have raped; I have been raped by normal men”... the exchange was an effective illustration of Mr. Murphy’s point — that Mr. Elliott’s real sin was to take issue with Ms. Guthrie’s politics. In other words, he wasn’t harassing her; he wasn’t trying to scare her; he was disagreeing with her... Mr. Murphy then suggested that what Mr. Elliott had been doing was defending himself, and his views, when he was being attacked on Twitter by her and the other complainants. Wasn’t he entitled to do that? “He’s entitled to defend himself to the world, Mr. Murphy; he’s not entitled to do it to me.” “No matter what you say about or to him?” Mr. Murphy asked. “Not to me,” she said."

Why Jezebel Has The Wrong Approach To Feminism, Period. - "It used to be about the pill and the right to be a female priest. Now it’s about outrage and clickbait. Jezebel plays upon the worst female stereotype: that of the gossipy, shrill, cliquish, therapy-tethered, cast of Girls-style spoiled brat. Jezebel writers act the way misogynistic men mistakenly believe all women act, with a stick up their ass and their nose in an iPhone"

How feminist blogs like Jezebel gin up page views. - "These firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy business. But they promote the exact opposite of progressive thought and rational discourse, and the comment wars they elicit almost inevitably devolve into didactic one-upsmanship and faux-feminist cliché. The vibe is less sisterhood-is-powerful than middle-school clique in-fight, with anyone who dares to step outside of chalk-drawn lines delimiting what's "empowering" and "anti-feminist" inevitably getting flamed and shamed to bits... When Jezebel was founded, it proposed itself as an explicit alternative to traditional women's magazines. As any first-year women's studies major will tell you, these glossies make money by exploiting women's insecurities. The editorial content creates ego-wounds ("Do you smell bad? Why isn't he into you?") that advertisers handily salve by offering up makeup and scented tampons. But Jezebel must also sell ad space, and its founders knew that they are marketing to a generation that knew the score about how they'd been marketed to in the past, which meant those old-fashioned print tactics weren't going to work. Page views are generated by commenters who are moved to speak out, then revisit the comment thread endlessly to see how people have responded to their ideas. Ergo, more provocative posts tend to generate far more page views, and the easiest way for Jezebel writers to be provocative is to stoke readers' insecurities—just in a different way... The end result is the same as the old formula—women's insecurities sell ads. The only difference is the level of doublespeak and manipulation that it takes to produce that result... On the Web, writers tend to play up the most jealousy- and insecurity-evoking aspects of controversy, and then anonymous commenters—who bear no responsibility for the effects of their statements—take the writers' hints to any possible extreme. It's just how the Internet works."

Tongue-in-cheek scientific study proves that men are bigger idiots than women - "Overall, males made up 88.7% of Darwin Award winners over the study period, a “highly statistically significant” sex difference in idiotic risk-taking behaviour, the authors report... One 1999 Darwin Award went to three men who played a version of Russian roulette with an unexploded Cambodian landmine. Each took turns tossing back shots and then stamping on the mine. Eventually it exploded, killing all three. Everyone else had already fled the bar... Crazy risk-taking may also be a fallout or spillover of the “thrill-seeking,” risk-taking personality, said Temple University psychologist Frank Farley. “Men do this — pushing the edge — more than women historically, though that is changing fast,” Farley said."
Comment: "if 10 guys jump on a moving boxcar ladder, turn upside down and wave, maybe 5 will fall to their deaths, but the remaining 5 are guaranteed to have at least one female each that wants to have babies with them. So their genes have a better chance than the genes of the guys on the sidelines, despite tbe high risk behaviour."