Links - 8th February 2016

You can't block Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook
If enough people block me on Facebook, I shall become unblockable!

Myanmar activist jailed for Facebook post mocking army - "A Myanmar court has jailed a woman for six months for a Facebook post "ridiculing" the country's army chief and the colour of a new uniform. Chaw Sandi Tun, a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's election-winning National League for Democracy (NLD) party, was found guilty under a new telecommunications law prohibiting the use of the telecoms network to "extort, threaten, obstruct, defame, disturb, inappropriately influence or intimidate"."

Hundreds in Scotland still have black and white TV

'Traces of cocaine' found in toilets of iconic UK cathedrals and churches

Activist fails to get police warning quashed - "The High Court has dismissed a civil activist's bid to quash a police warning, saying such warnings have no legal effect on the recipient so there is nothing for it to quash... Mr Wham was verbally warned and told similar leniency may not be shown in future. He refused to sign the Notice of Warning and was not given a copy. Such warnings are administered on the advice of the Attorney-General after investigations are completed and the findings reviewed... Mr Wham, concerned the stern warning would cause severe prejudice against him as it remained on record, then applied to court for a judicial review to quash the warning. The case has helped to clarify what a police warning implies... Justice Woo Bih Li ruled that such warnings are no more than an opinion of the relevant authority that the recipient has committed an offence. "It does not bind the recipient," he added. "It does not and cannot amount to a legally binding pronouncement of guilt or finding of fact. Only a court of law has the power to make such a pronouncement or finding." The judge explained that the recipient can challenge the warning as being inappropriate. He also pointed out that a court is not entitled to treat a warning as an antecedent or an aggravating factor for the purpose of sentencing a recipient who is subsequently convicted. The judge further noted the document meant for Mr Wham was headed "Notice of Warning" but the content referred to a "stern" warning. He said if there was a difference, the terms should not be used interchangeably."

Singapore singer Gentle Bones was detained in Indonesia for 3 months! - "Tan, the first home-grown act to be signed by Universal Music Singapore, revealed how immigration officials showed up after their two-hour show at Komunitas Salihara, a concert venue in Jakarta, asking for their passports. "Apparently we didn't have performance permits," he said. A spokesman for the tour's organiser Ellipsis Live, an entertainment and tour promotion company based in Australia and Asia, told The Straits Times that another promoter, Creon Asia, was responsible for the logistics - which included getting the permits - for the shows in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila."

Ever had drunk sex? That's rape, according to this university - "Coastal Carolina University, in South Carolina, is continuing its apparent quest to become the biggest panderer to the extreme wing of the campus sexual assault crusaders with a new poster claiming that only sober people can consent to sex. Nearly a decade ago, the same university hung up posters around campus claiming that women could not consent if they had been drinking, heavily implying that men could... any alcohol in the bloodstream would negate consent. Do students need to start carrying breathalyzers? The first question for any sexual encounter would always have to be: Have you had any alcohol? If yes, stop, put your hands up and get as far away from that person as possible, because anything done at that point is rape... "May I hold your hand?" "May I kiss you?" "May I touch you here?" and so forth become the new foreplay, each requiring a "yes" and counter question to proceed. No one has sex this way, making these policies a rather intrusive form of government regulation."

NEW DRESS CODE POLICY - "Administrative Circular No. SBM-2013-007 was issued on 01 October 2013 revising the policy on dress code imposed on clients transacting or with official business in the Bureau of Immigration (BI). Policy amendments were made to maximize and accommodate visitors and foreign nationals with legitimate dealings with the BI as well as the consideration of the tropical weather in the Philippines and the usual tourist attire."
Malaysia is not unique in havving a dress code in government offices

VA Caribbean Healthcare System - "Visitors are expected to wear clothing that is suitable for the hospital environment. The length of all skirts and shorts cannot be more than 4" above the knee while standing. Mini-skirts, spaghetti-strap dresses, dresses/blouses with low tops, bare shoulders, or shirts open to the waistline will not be allowed in the hospital premises."

Visiting Parliament House | Parliament Of Singapore - "Visitors are kindly requested to dress modestly and not to come in round-neck T-shirts, shorts or slippers"

Frequently Asked Questions | United Nations Visitor Centre - "Q: Is there a Dress Code?
A: Yes, please dress appropriately for the international diplomatic environment of the United Nations."

Visiting the Knesset - "Those who are wearing the following will not be allowed into the Knesset building: Shorts, 3/4 pants, torn pants, sleeveless shirts, shirts with political slogans, belly shirts and flip-flops.
This dress code applies to anyone aged 14 and older."

Keeping Your Car Safe From Electronic Thieves - NYTimes.com - "Last week, I started keeping my car keys in the freezer, and I may be at the forefront of a new digital safety trend. Let me explain: In recent months, there has been a slew of mysterious car break-ins in my Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles. What’s odd is that there have been no signs of forced entry. There are no pools of broken glass on the pavement and no scratches on the doors from jimmied locks. But these break-ins seem to happen only to cars that use remote keyless systems, which replace traditional keys with wireless fobs. It happened to our neighbor Heidi, who lives up the hill and has a Mazda 3. It happened to Simon, who lives across the street from me and has a Toyota Prius."

Practice vs. practise - Grammarist - "In the main varieties of English from outside North America, practice is the noun, and practise is the verb. For instance, we would say that a doctor with a private practice practises privately. There is no such distinction in American English, where practice is both a noun and a verb, and practise is not used at all."

Gates of Jerusalem » The Golden Report - "The Jaffa Gate is located on the Western wall of the Old City. This gate has a lot of history over the past 100 years. The Jaffa gate marked the end of the highway leading from the Jaffa coast and now leads into the Muslim and Armenian quarters. A road allows cars to enter the Old City through a wide gap in the wall between Jaffa Gate and the Citadel. This passage was originally opened in 1898 when Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visited Jerusalem. The ruling Ottoman Turks opened it so the German Emperor would not have to dismount his carriage to enter the city."

Christmas also celebrated by many non-Christians | Pew Research Center - "81% of non-Christians in the United States celebrate Christmas, testifying to the holiday’s wide acceptance – or, at least, its unavoidability – in American society."

Dead raccoon memorialized in downtown Toronto

How Did Public Opinion on Gay Marriage Shift So Quickly? - "In 1979, at the first national march on Washington for gay rights, it was no happenstance that posters for the march proclaimed, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” The 1970s were marked by a push for gays and lesbians to “come out of the closet.” Recall that the first gay protest had occurred only a decade earlier, in 1969, when gays at the Stonewall Inn in the heart of Greenwich Village fought back for the first time ever after yet another police raid on gay bars... gay rights leaders, aided by psychologists, discovered through focus groups and polling that framing the concept of gay marriage as a “right” was speaking the wrong language. They simultaneously happened upon a surprising level of heterosexual support for the humanitarian idea that gay people might love and want to commit to their partners, just like anyone else. Gay leaders stopped talking about “rights” and started talking about “love and commitment.” "The rapid turnaround in public support for marriage equality is unprecedented, and it shows that message really matters," recalled Doug Hattaway, who conducted the research that led to the messaging shift."
Addendum: Funny, I thought gay rights were advanced by shouting at opponents of gay marriage and slamming them as bigots, which would make them support it

What freedom of speech? Prank petition to repeal First Amendment gets support at Yale (VIDEO) - "US political satirist and filmmaker Ami Horowitz approached the students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world asking its attendees to sign a petition in favor of repealing the First Amendment. “I think it is fantastic. I absolutely agree,” said one guy, while another commented: “I appreciate what you are trying to do.” “Brilliant,” “love it,” “I totally agree” and “…great,” were some of the compliments heard in support of the “anti-free speech"petition, which grew as he approached more students. “In under 60 minutes on campus, I collected over 50 signatures from the Yale University community calling for the repeal of the First Amendment of the US Constitution,” Horowitz said in his video."

False flag? ‘Tolerance’ of ISIS, Israel tested in social experiment at Berkeley (VIDEO) -
"A US political satirist staged a social experiment at a prestigious university. Waving an ISIS flag was met with no negative reaction, but with an Israeli flag he got a less-than-warm reception from the students."

Why is there no civil marriage in Israel? - "Israeli marriages are performed under laws inherited from Ottoman times that grant each Israeli religious community’s state-recognized leadership sole jurisdiction over marriage. These Ottoman religious communal structures, called millets, were continued by the British mandate. After Israel’s 1948 independence, Israel too maintained the system, citing among other considerations its obligations to the country’s minorities. As a consequence, marriages in Israel are performed only through religious institutions... Gay marriage is not actually illegal in Israel. There simply isn’t any institution empowered to carry it out. One signal that this may be more lacuna than conscious marginalization lies in the stark fact that no Protestants can marry in Israel either, not even each other; under British rule, Protestants married through British mandatory institutions, and a separate Israeli Protestant Christian hierarchy was never established."

Why it's wrong to blame western policies for the Paris attacks - "It’s beyond absurd to blame French occupation of Algeria for the shootings. This is the kind of apologism that facilitates radical Islam. This strategy only results in appeasement of puritanical radical Islamic ideology and only offers one solution: ‘the West is evil’. If past grievances and atrocities are considered to be the reasons behind these attacks then by this logic all Indians living in the UK would be retaliating to avenge the suffering their ancestors faced during British Colonialism. Bangladeshis would carry out attacks against Pakistan since they once ruthlessly persecuted Bengalis, killing more than a million of them and raping 200,000 of their women. If Fisk were right, Vietnam and Japan would not be some of the most pro-American countries in the world today. However the most pathetic and dismal response that came from the western press was from those who castigated Charlie Hebdo and blamed the cartoonists for provoking Muslims. If one follows this flawed narrative then all liberal Muslims struggling against radical Islam on a daily basis in their own Muslim majority countries should only have themselves to blame whenever they are brutally attacked by extremist clerics and their zealot followers... British Historian Tom Holland had his academic documentary on the origins of Islam cancelled by Channel 4 after he and his family received death threats and over 1200 complaints were received by Ofcom and Channel 4. To blame this ideology on recent western policies is nothing short of the murder of history. Blasphemy and critical evaluation of Mohammed’s character has always been forbidden and a highly sensitive issue among Muslims in the history of Islam. It is not a new issue. In 1929, Ilm-ud-din, a Muslim living in British India, took offence at a book published about Prophet Mohammed. He killed the publisher and was sentenced to death by the Indian Penal Code. Consequently he was considered a martyr; 200,000 people attended his funeral and he was praised by the ideological founder of Pakistan Allama Iqbal. Even today in Pakistan, Ilm-ud-din is used as an inspiration for those who would kill in the name of Islam."