Links - 4th February 2016

All Anti-Feminist Talk Would Be Criminal 'Hate Speech' If U.K. Activists Get Their Way - "a government allowed to whimsically ban someone from entering the country or ban a group of people from associating based purely on dislike for the content of their beliefs is sure as shit not a government that's going to stop with pickup artists. Throughout history, limits on freedom of speech and association have come down hard on the left, because it's the left that most frequently challenges the status quo. Lip service to social justice goals notwithstanding, there's no reason to think that people in power are going to suddenly stop with this centuries-long tendency now."

Don’t ban Roosh V – criticise and ridicule him - "Scotland’s contemporary aversion to free speech and freedom of association is rearing its ugly head once again. Not content with outlawing football chants, or monitoring social media for offensive material, SNP MPs are now keen on banning a controversial speaker from Scotland... How strange it is that Sheppard promotes education despite his unwillingness to let the Scottish people hear and criticise the views he so opposes. What sort of an education is it when you only hear one side of the argument?... There’s not a single one of Valizadeh’s views I agree with. His writing is rubbish, and his ideas repugnant. However, I know I possess the moral autonomy to hear them and respond critically. It seems our politicians do not think so highly of me... Activist and author Vonny Moyes wrote on Facebook that we need to ban Valizadeh and shut down his meetings ‘to show that women are not submissive, frightened, or controlled by threats’. It seems to me that, by calling for a ban, we would be doing the complete opposite. We would be showing that we are frightened of Valizadeh’s views, and particularly frightened that women might encounter them."
This hits the nail on the head. When liberals talk about "education" and "educating people", they mean people should uncritically accept their views

Fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis. - "The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis."

The effect of male circumcision on sexuality. - "There was a decrease in masturbatory pleasure and sexual enjoyment after circumcision, indicating that adult circumcision adversely affects sexual function in many men, possibly because of complications of the surgery and a loss of nerve endings."

It’s not only Germany that covers up mass sex attacks by migrant men... Sweden’s record is shameful - "It took days for police to acknowledge the extent of the mass attacks on women celebrating New Year’s Eve in Cologne. The Germans were lucky; in Sweden, similar attacks have been taking place for more than a year and the authorities are still playing catch up. Only now is the truth emerging, both about the attacks and the cover-ups. Stefan Löfven, our Prime Minister, has denounced a ‘double betrayal’ of women and has promised an investigation. But he ought to be asking this: what made the police and even journalists cover up the truth? The answer can be discovered in the reaction to the Cologne attacks. Sweden prides itself on its sexual equality and has even pioneered a feminist foreign policy. When hundreds of women were reported to have been molested and abused in Cologne — at the hands of an organised mob — the reaction from Swedish politicians and pundits ought to have been one of outrage. Instead, we were told that the events in Cologne were not unusual. An article in Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest tabloid, argued that it was racist to point out that the perpetrators in Cologne had been described as North African or Arab, since German men had carried out sexual assaults during Bavaria’s Oktober-fest. Another Aftonbladet article said that reporting on the Cologne attacks was bowing to right-wing extremism. Over the last week, we have been told over and over that the real issue is men, not any particular culture — that Swedish men are no better. Then last week Sweden’s own stories began to emerge... We Swedes pride ourselves on our unrivalled record on respecting women’s rights. But when women’s rights conflict with the goal of accommodating other cultures, it’s almost always women who are pushed to the side"

Why does Sweden Have One of the Highest Sexual Assault Rates in the World? - "'Since 2000, there has only been one research report on immigrant crime. It was done in 2006 by Ann-Christine Hjelm from Karlstads University. It emerged that in 2002, 85% of those sentenced to at least two years in prison for rape in Svea Hovrätt, a court of appeals, were foreign born or second-generation immigrants. A 1996 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention reached the conclusion that immigrants from North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia) were 23 times as likely to commit rape as Swedish men'...
The report cites a telling story of Swedish journalists misleading their readers about who exactly committed a highly-publicized gang-rape... European journalists immediately assume that the over-representation of black Americans in prison signals racism in the justice system. Could something similar be going on in Sweden? Why aren't crusading journalists like Mikeal Blomkvist trying to find this out? Is it because they trust the Swedish justice system to always reach the right conclusions, no matter what? Is it because they are afraid of finding out that the conviction rates actually do reflect reality?... If you refer to rape suspects who don't even have Swedish citizenship as "Swedish men", you are lying to your readers. Since this actually happens, the conversation should move on: why does it happen?"
Comment: "Note that if I said any of this in public, i immediately would loose my job. It also goes against everything I have learned in school. I already feel like a Nazi just for rewriting these lines.

German authorities accused of playing down refugee shelter sex crime reports - "Barbara Helfrich of the charity Paritaetischer Bund in the central state of Hesse, said some women had come forward. "We have several trustworthy reports on sexual violence and assaults from victims, as well as advisory groups and NGOs," she told Reuters. In a recent open letter, several charities alleged crimes had been committed a city shelter in the state. "There are several cases of rape and sexual assault and increasingly even reports on forced prostitution," the joint letter said, adding that these were not isolated incidents."

Jew arrested for 'moving lips' on Temple Mount - "A strange story that raises questions about the hostile perception of Israelis and their treatment of Muslims. I have often wondered why, if the Israeli government is so horrible towards “Palestinians” – and I’m not ignoring the bloody battling of the past several decades since Israel’s founding – they allow the Dome of the Rock to stand and Muslims essentially to control it? If Israelis are such “evil Zionists,” would they have not blown up the Dome by now and booted Muslims out of Israel?"

Gun Laws, Deaths and Crimes - "President Barack Obama claimed that “states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths.” Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, meanwhile, has made nearly the opposite claim, saying states with stringent gun control laws have “the highest gun crime rates in the nation.” In looking solely at the numbers of gun deaths and gun crimes, the data back up Obama, not Fiorina... One news report that compiled these same CDC numbers on firearm death rates, by 24/7 Wall Street and published by USA Today, listed several reasons besides gun laws that these states might have high rates of gun deaths (suicides included). Many of the states also have higher rates of poverty, lower educational attainment and perhaps more rural areas that make getting to a hospital in time to save someone’s life difficult. But that report also noted weaker gun laws were common among the states with higher gun death rates: “In fact, none of the states with the most gun violence require permits to purchase rifles, shotguns, or handguns. Gun owners are also not required to register their weapons in any of these states. Meanwhile, many of the states with the least gun violence require a permit or other form of identification to buy a gun,” reporter Thomas C. Frohlich wrote... Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health looked at gun laws and gun deaths in all 50 states from 2007 to 2010, concluding that: “A higher number of firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually.” Their research was published inJAMA Internal Medicine in May 2013. But the study said that it couldn’t determine cause-and-effect."

Adam Steiner's answer to Is The Force Awakens better than The Phantom Menace? - Quora - "the Phantom Menace was a decent story badly told. It was more ambitious than what Lucas was at that time capable of delivering. I thought that The Force Awakens was a terrible story told well. In fact I would argue that the Force didn't have a story, more like a collection of pre-agreed scenes, linked by unlikely coincidences. JJ Abram's did his best, its just that his best wasn't particularly interesting. It was product rather than art."
"TFA was like a brilliantly made trailer that went for 2 hours."

Laju hijacking | Infopedia - "the hijackers agreed to release the hostages in exchange for a party of guarantors to ensure their safe passage out of Singapore. The incident ended on 8 February 1974, when the hijackers left for Kuwait."
If Singapore doesn't negotiate with terrorists, why did they let the Laju hijackers what they wanted?

A Deep, Dark, Secret Love Affair - "In his book, "From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000," published in 2000, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father and its first prime minister, disclosed the secret that had been kept for almost 40 years: It was the Israel Defense Forces that established the Singaporean army. The Israeli military mission was headed by Yaakov (Jack) Elazari, then a colonel, who was later promoted to brigadier general. After leaving the army, he became a consultant to the Singaporean army. Hedied 15 years ago. "To disguise their presence, we called them `Mexicans.' They looked swarthy enough," Lee wrote... The two Israelis met with Lee, who writes that he "told Keng Swee to put it on hold until Lal Bahadur Shastri, the prime minister of India, and President Nasser of Egypt replied to my letters seeking their urgent help to build up our armed forces." It's not clear whether Lee, in fact, believed India and Egypt were capable of, or interested in, building up Singapore's army. Many Israelis believe the two leaders were approached only for appearance's sake. After a few weeks of waiting, India and Egypt congratulated Singapore on its independence but did not offer military aid. Lee ordered Goh to push ahead in contacts with the Israelis... "We discovered that there was psychological resistance to conscription in Singapore," he relates. "Of 10 professions, that of soldier was ranked last. In first place was the artist, followed by the philosopher, the teacher and the merchant, and the thief was in ninth place. Soldiering was considered a contemptible profession. In Singapore, conscription was considered a means to overcome unemployment."

Adam Steiner's answer to Were the lightsaber fighting styles in Star Wars inspired by real life sword fighting technique? - Quora - "When Kylo fights Finn the first thing he does is twirl his blade (barf). Then he launches three attacks in a row against Finns sword, which Finn is holding upright in front of him, plausibly the only guard he knows. What Finn is doing is fine, but Kylo's approach seems VERY basic. Why not keep a sensible distance and chop off Finn's legs? Or try a fient? Finn ducks under a wild swing and clips Kylo, which could happen. Kylo then disarms Finn and whacks him with a jumping pirouette. Some people have argued that Kylo fights badly because he is wounded, but Kylo fights very physically and untechnically. If you are wounded you can't fight physically and you try to use technique to compensate. That's the opposite of what happens, so I'm not sure the choreography of Kylo makes sense. When Rey and Kylo fight, over the course of their very brief encounter, Rey seems to transform from clueless novice (throwing some of the worst lunges ever seen) to a competent swordswoman in the space of a few minutes. I don't know if this was intentional. You could argue she is getting used to an unfamiliar weapon. Kylo continues to flail away with wild abandon. Rey outmuscles Kylo, which seems a little implausible to me, even with Kylo wounded. The fight ends with a continuity error. She throws Kylo to her feet, and then a frame later hes standing a good 25 meters away. Presumably this is to allow enough space for the conveniently wide chasm to open up between them."

Tall Privilege | The Cydonian Signal - "There are two ways my ego can handle this basic fact of reality. The first is the road to ruin, the other is the road of acceptance... even if I were to succeed, I would not be a better person. I would still be short. Nothing can change that. Only now, I would be made bitter by my constant shaming of others to change their preferences so they could conform to mine. I would see staturism everywhere and every event would stab at me, right in the heart. Instead of finding serenity in acceptance, I would only obsess over the slight handicap I was born with and make it my identity. The path of activism and awareness, of changing everyone else to meet your ideal and exploding with rage at those that don’t, will only lead to a life wasted and saturated in negativity.But there is a second path – acceptance – and it is the one I have chosen. I can’t help being short. While this may seem depressing at first, and it can be, it can also be freeing. I know I can’t get any taller, so it’s futile to worry about it. The rational response to this is simply to understand that I can’t change my height, nor can I change the world, but there are many other things about myself that I can change... The actual path to happiness is to understand that I was born with a cross to bear, just like everyone else, and I should ascend past my shortcomings."