Links - 13th June 2016

A STATEMENT ON EUROPE : Cornish Pasty Association - "The Cornish Pasty Association has today made a statement supporting Britain remaining in the European Union."

The Stanford rape case and liberal hypocrisy. - "in their rush to condemn Turner’s sentence, far too many liberals have abandoned what were, not so long ago, fundamental principles of progressivism. This willingness to toss due process out the window in sexual assault cases is, unfortunately, indicative of a broader inconsistency that plagues the American left... Judicial elections are already a travesty of justice. Recall efforts compound the problem: They blatantly put pressure on judges to follow public opinion—or mob mentality—rather than maintaining judicial independence... In 1986, Republicans spearheaded a successful campaign to oust three justices from the California Supreme Court over their judicial opposition to capital punishment. The overtly partisan effort politicized the court and temporarily shattered the state judiciary’s independence. More recently, anti-gay activists ousted three judges from the Iowa Supreme Court over their votes affirming same-sex couples’ right to wed. American liberals have long looked upon these efforts as antithetical to the judiciary’s responsibility to remain above politics and faithfulness to the law. Is that belief suspended when the judge issued a sexist ruling rather than a progressive one? Even worse, Persky has received anonymous threats from social justice advocates outraged by his ruling. These hecklers may believe their cause to be noble, but they are taking a page straight from Donald Trump’s playbook—not a good look for activists hoping to combat everything Trump stands for... Victim impact statements were once a liberal bête noire, and rightly so, because they seriously undermine the defendant’s due process rights... “Propensity evidence,” or evidence that a defendant committed prior bad acts and is thus more likely to have committed the crime for which he is being tried, is generally barred from the courtroom. That rule, however, does not apply in sexual assault cases, allowing the prosecutor to present evidence that the defendant committed previous sexual assaults. This is cheating... Liberals’ blasé attitude toward judicial impeachment and victim impact statements in the Turner case, then, must be viewed as part of a larger trend: the willingness among a certain faction of the American left to jettison progressive principles in a good-hearted but profoundly misguided effort to stop sexual violence"
Someone's reaction to this was: "a bit of hypocrisy is sometimes needed to get the right result."

Brock Turner case: Q&A on sexual assault sentence, possible appeal and more - "the law allows judges to deviate from the mandatory sentence for certain crimes by making a finding of "unusual circumstances." The probation report, which recommended a county jail term, cited 20-year-old Turner's youth, high level of intoxication (twice the legal blood-alcohol level) and lack of a criminal record. Under the law, those are legitimate grounds. "The bottom line is that in this instance we believe that Judge Persky applied the right laws and reviewed the right circumstances and factors that he was required to review," Gibbons-Shapiro said. "We believe that he made the wrong decision, ... that he should have sentenced Turner to prison. We don't believe that we have a basis to appeal or seek a writ in this case, though, because his decision was authorized by law and was made by applying the correct standards.
Q Was the probation officer who recommended that Turner be spared from prison a man or a woman?
A A woman.
Q What was her rationale?
A In addition to his youth, alcohol level, and status as a first-time offender, she concluded Turner was not a danger to the community and was remorseful...
Several defense attorneys from the Santa Clara County Public Defender's Office spoke out Wednesday in support of the judge and his decision, including the head of the office, Public Defender Molly O'Neal. While it's not surprising that some defense lawyers would back Persky's decision, O'Neal's support is significant. O'Neal is the first gay woman to hold the Santa Clara County position, has a daughter heading to college this fall, and is known as a feminist. O'Neal said she is appalled at the venom directed at Persky, who she says has received multiple threats. The victim was vindicated by the jury verdict, which sent a strong message that such assaults are not to be tolerated, she said. "We lock more people up in the United States than anywhere else in the world," O'Neal said. "To what end in this case?" Turner will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, making it difficult for him to get a job, she said. He'll also have at least one strike on his record. "The sentence was totally fair, not out of line, given his lack of a criminal record," O'Neal said. She noted that prosecutors could have declined to let Persky hear the case if they were concerned that his background as a Stanford graduate and former member and assistant coach of the university's lacrosse team would influence his decision. She also said that trying to recall the judge based on one decision is wrong. "I stand with the judge," O'Neal said, "but also with the whole process. The judge listened to everyone involved and made a difficult call.""

Judge Aaron Persky Under Fire for Sentencing in Stanford Rape Case - The New York Times - "Mr. Goodman, the deputy public defender, said he had worked with the judge for three decades and denounced the proposed recall. He said Judge Persky was “an exceptional jurist” who had accurately followed the relevant rules and statutes and formulated the sentence in consultation with the probation department. “You have to judge a case on its merits only,” Mr. Goodman said. “The narrative on social media is ‘We have to judge this case as part of the larger social issue of campus sexual abuse,’ but as a judge, he is not allowed to do that.” He rejected the argument that race or social class had played any role in Mr. Turner’s sentence. “People say it’s because he’s a Stanford kid and he’s rich and the judge played lacrosse. No, it’s not done that way. It can’t be done that way,” Mr. Goodman added. “It would have been the exact same result for a person of color.”"

TrumpSingles.com Is the Dating Site for Trump Supporters - "he had heard horror stories of dates gone awry when the subject of politics comes up, including one woman whose date simply got up and left her with the check when she mentioned her predilection for the businessman-turned-politician"

Donald Trump: Comments about judge 'misconstrued' - "Donald Trump sought Tuesday to quell the intensifying criticism over his comments about the impartiality of a federal judge, saying his remarks had been "misconstrued." In a lengthy statement, Trump tried to explain his comments about federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing a lawsuit on Trump University. Trump, who had accused the Indiana-born Curiel of bias because of his Mexican heritage, said in his statement that he does not believe "one's heritage makes them incapable of being impartial." "Based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial," Trump said. He added that he also has "concerns as to my ability to receive a fair trial" due to his status as the Republican Party's presumptive nominee and his campaign's focus on illegal immigration"
This is very much in the spirit of dismissing white people because of 'privilege'. To take a specific example, Judge Persky in the Brock Turner case because both are white and from Stanford

Social experiment sees if Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump sign provokes a more violent reaction - "Opponents of Trump were far more vocal and aggressive when he was holding up a sign supporting the Republican front runner with two even turning violent. The result may be surprising to most after recent stories of angry Trump fans attacking protesters at The Donald's rallies. Meanwhile when holding the Sanders sign, Salads didn't receive any abuse and even remarked people were giving him the thumbs up."
Maybe those who claim Trump incites violence are falling prey to projection

After deadly Tel Aviv attack, Israel suspends Palestinian permits - "After the attack, fireworks were set off in parts of the West Bank and in some refugee camps people sang, chanted and waved flags in celebration, locals said. Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran called it "the first prophecy of Ramadan" and said the location of the attack, close to the Defence Ministry, "indicated the failure of all measures by the occupation" to end the uprising."

Spice gull: seabird turns orange after falling into vat of curry

Battle against ISIS is raging, in a comic book - "Bakhit embarked on a journey around Jordan, conducting focus groups with youths. In one, he asked who their heroes were. “They told me, ‘we don’t really have heroes.’ They were even shocked to hear the word or the question. “‘We hear a lot about [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi and [Osama] Bin Laden. They defend us, they protect us’.” That, said Bakhit, is “extremist narrative 101”... Those who join the likes of ISIS are usually those “who perceived themselves as not worthy or not feeling they want more in life. They come across these narratives, add on top of it the religion, which makes it much more sacred and holy,” he said."

The Truth About Modern Art - YouTube - "Yoko Ono screaming like a demented bitch. Modern art or conceptual art isn't art at all. It's one big circlejerk of pretentious twats trying to make themselves look sophisticated by ascribing meaning to something that's completely meaningless. Listen, there is good modern art, and there are many skilled modern artists, so why is it usually the most talentless vacuous shit that gets promoted and funded by the art establishment? Well it's partly borne out of elitism. If the artistic merit of a bunch of squiggly lines can only be appreciated by a select number of privileged insiders, they can then sneer at the 'uninitiated' and justiy their own intellectual superiority... 'Here's a test I give my graduate students. All talented and well-educated. Please analyse this Jackson Pollock painting and explain why it is good. It is only after they give very eloquent answers that I inform them that the painting is actually a closeup of my studio apron'... So-called works of art keep being thrown out because people mistake them for garbage. When it becomes impossible to tell the difference between conceptual art and trash, then we know we've crossed the line... Conceptual art is another front in the war on objectivism. It's this ridiculous idea that something has merit and authenticity based on the flimsiest subjective pretence. Just as a 52 year old man can identify as a 6 year old girl and demand that society embrace his delusion, the art world presents us with 90 tin cans filled with feces and demands that we treat it with reverence... Conceptual art is shit. It doesn't enrich our culture - it degrades and cheapens society by exulting the vulgar, the crass and the scatalogical and the people promoting it are preventing us from enjoying modern art produced by artists with actual talent"

Artist to sit naked on a toilet for two days to protest 'bulls**t' art world - "When you decide the art world is simply too ridiculous to handle, there’s only one thing for it: sit on a toilet in your birthday suit for two days to protest this “bulls**t”. That’s exactly the lengths comedian, artist and psychotherapist Lisa Levy is going to after growing increasingly fed up with what she sees as “egoic pretense” in her industry... “Ego and pretense has seriously f**ked with the quality of work being made in the art world,” she says on her Facebook page. “I’m also tired of the bulls**t trendy art dialogue about how the art world is driven by rich people who want shiny work and don’t care about meaning as well. But mostly I think it will be weirdly fun to be naked in public.”"

What’s behind the $10 million price tag for LACMA’s rock sculpture? - "It’s big, it’s heavy and it’s almost at its new home. For the last 10 nights the LA County Museum of Art’s 340-ton boulder has traveled through Southern California at a maximum speed of around five miles an hour. It started at a quarry in Riverside and early Saturday morning it reaches the lawn at LACMA. The giant boulder is part of an installation by artist Michael Heizer called "Levitated Mass." The estimated cost for the project is 10 million dollars"

ICA fires chairman over 'tat' art jibe - "Ivan Massow, the chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Art, was last night fired for daring to suggest that the art establishment might have "disappeared up its own arse". The millionaire insurance tycoon, who was yesterday branded a "bit of a pillock" by a board member for labelling most conceptual art as "pretentious, self-indulgent craftless tat that I wouldn't accept even as a gift", compared his sacking to facing a really bad firing squad "comprised of one bloke with a blank bullet." In a grand gesture of defiance, Massow had sent the ICA a toy gun so the board "could use it to dispatch me cleanly and humanely". "

Art Renewal Center - "In 1977 businessman Fred Ross was stopped in his tracks by a painting called Nymphs and Satyr at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The painting was by William Bouguereau, an artist that he never read about in many years of his art history studies, except perhaps as an example of everything that was wrong with painting in the nineteenth century. The encounter with that painting set him on the course of uncovering and celebrating other artists who he felt had been unjustly neglected in the official art histories. With that beginning, he and other experts and artists in the field founded the Art Renewal Center, a website and organization that is dedicated to raising awareness for traditional realism."