Links - 5th July 2016

Spain Runs Out of Workers With Almost 5 Million Unemployed - "Pimentel’s experience reflects a bizarre feature of the Spanish labor market that is hampering the country’s efforts to repair the damage from the economic crisis. Even with close to 5 million people out of work, the next prime minister will face labor shortages with employers struggle to find the staff they need. “It’s a paradox,” said Valentin Bote, head of research in Spain at Randstad, a recruitment agency. “The unemployment rate is too high. Yet we’re seeing some tension in the labor market because unemployed people don’t have the skills employers demand.”"
Those who write essays on how education has intrinsic vale, should be free until college, enriches society etc should go to Spain

Alleged sampan thief arrested - "A 32-year-old man was on Tuesday arrested by the Police Coast Guard for allegedly stealing a motorised sampan, and attempting to leave Singapore unlawfully."

Anthony Hill, Unarmed, Naked Black Man, Fatally Shot By Police Near Atlanta - "A white, Atlanta-area police officer shot dead a naked and unarmed African-American man acting erratically in his apartment complex and who was possibly suffering from a mental illness, the county police chief said. A Dekalb County police officer responded to a caller who said a man was “acting deranged, knocking on doors, and crawling around on the ground naked”"

Deputy shot dead after man takes gun - "A veteran King County sheriff’s deputy was killed yesterday when a nude and highly agitated man who’d been running in traffic and pounding on cars took the officer’s gun and shot him repeatedly outside an apartment complex here... That the deputy had tried to stop the man with pepper spray likely will revive a long-standing debate over the merits of nonlethal force, which many police officers say is ineffective against determined individuals — especially ones as agitated as the suspect appeared to be."
Naked and/or unarmed people are not harmless; perhaps it is better to die a hero, than live long enough to see yourself become the villain

Pink Alert (picture)

Eating Meat Made Us Human, Suggests New Skull Fossil
Too bad for the vegetarians. Who will no doubt continue with their FUD

Vegetarian diets, chronic diseases and longevity. - "According to pure vegetarian ideologists, people consuming vegetarian diet have better health and live longer than nonvegetarians, because persons consuming milk, dairy products, meat, eggs and fish are at health risk. In fact the most healthy people in Europe are inhabitants of Iceland, Switzerland and Scandinavia, consuming great amounts of food of animal origin. "

Transgender Men See Sexism From Both Sides - "Every transgender man interviewed for this story said he wasn’t just treated differently after he transitioned—he felt different, too. Those who had taken testosterone treatments said they noticed psychological changes that came with the medical transition. Most trans men said that after they took hormone treatments they felt more sure of themselves and slightly more aggressive than they had been before the treatment. “After transitioning I was able to think more clearly, I was more decisive,” says the radio newscaster Gardner. He says the shift has affected his daily routine, even for something as ordinary as a trip to the grocery store. Before he transitioned, he says, he used to spend 45 minutes debating which pasta sauce to buy, which vegetables were the freshest. “I would stand there and look at the different varieties of yogurt,” he recalls. “Now I just grab one. I’m looking for utility, I don’t second-guess myself.” “As a female there was black and white and everything in between. When I started taking the hormones, it was more black and white,” he explains, adding: “If I get into a disagreement with someone at work, I don’t have that feeling afterwards of, ‘I hope I didn’t hurt his or her feelings.’ I’m not a worrier as much as I was in the female body”... “I have to be very careful to not be staring at kids,” says Gardner. “I can look at a mom and her baby, but I can’t look for too long. I miss being seen as not a threat.” Ditto for kids on the playground and puppies, multiple guys said... everyone said they’d experienced a moment when they were walking at night behind a woman, and suddenly realized that she was walking faster or clutching her purse because she was scared. “If I start to get too close, I can feel her fear, I can feel that she’s getting upset,” says Milan. “And it’s really just an indication of how dangerous this world is for women”... Many also noticed a shift in their friendships after they transitioned, with some struggling to make friends with cisgender men, unsure of the social cues of male friendship."
This article will piss people of more than one ideological persuasion off
What would happen if white people walking faster because black people were behind them were taken as evidence that the world was unsafe for white people?

Lucasfilm is Pissed About These Amy Schumer Star Wars Photos

A London receptionist refused to wear heels and was dismissed from her job. Now she’s petitioning Parliament.

Cologne New Year sex attacks: Germany's women are angry, scared - and getting tired of excuses - "this is all highly unusual in a country where women are generally used to a high degree of personal safety. In recent years, the number of rape cases and associated offences in Germany has fallen by around 8 per cent. In Hamburg, where a series of attacks also took place on New Year’s Eve, bouncers warned women not to leave nightclubs because of an increasingly hostile crowd on the streets. But the warning was so unusual that several women ignored it and were sexually assaulted by those waiting outside."

Obama Blasts Political Correctness, 'Fragile' Students in Rutgers Speech - "he reserved some time at the end of his speech to also criticize students who are too “fragile” to listen to people whose opinions offend them. He said it was a mistake for students to seek to disinvite speakers with whom they disagree. “I know a couple years ago some folks on this campus got upset that Condoleezza Rice was supposed to speak at a commencement,” said Obama. “I don’t think it’s a secret that I disagree with many of the foreign policies of Dr. Rice and the previous administration. But the notion that this community or the country would be better served by not hearing from a former secretary of state or shutting out what she had to say, I believe that is misguided.” The answer to bad speech is more speech, Obama continued."
Everyone who shared this focused on Trump bashing - but not his safe spaces takedown

Trump vs. Clinton Is Terrible News for Fans of Free Speech and the First Amendment - "Clinton's "long war on free speech" includes censorship crusades against rap music, video games, movies, and television. And we’re not just talking about ratings systems and warning labels here. She's also supported federal laws that would penalize the makers and distributors of so-called offensive entertainment. Clinton is also in favor of empowering the federal government to spy on private communications through such tools as anti-encryption back doors on iPhones and other devices. And then of course there is Hillary Clinton's well-known view that federal authorities should be able to prevent her political opponents from distributing a documentary film that's critical of her in the days before a federal election. That particular issue was litigated before the U.S. Supreme Court in a little case called Citizens United v. FEC. Among other things, Citizens United featured Clinton and her pro-censorship allies squaring off against the American Civil Liberties Union, which supported Citizens United and its First Amendment right to distribute a documentary film about a political candidate in the United States of America... Trump also wants the government to censor parts of the internet in order to eliminate speech that he thinks is dangerous (as does Hillary Clinton)"

Mumbai meat ban: The politics behind the city’s veg vs non-veg divide - "The recent outrage over the ban on sale of meat in Mumbai for four days during the Jain festival of Paryushan (the High Court later stayed it, and on Thursday, the Supreme Court refused to quash the stay) has exposed a faultline that goes to the gut of the matter — the vegetarian versus non-vegetarian divide in the city and how politicians have made a meal of it... The only restaurant serving non-vegetarian as well as vegetarian food on Nepean Sea Road closed more than a decade ago, after shrill protests. Residents had staged a demonstration against ‘Roti’, saying the restaurant was breaching the sanctity of the place where mostly Jains live... In 2007, a group of residents in Chembur, northeast Mumbai, filed a PIL in the Bombay High Court against the opening of a kebab outlet on the ground floor of Devkinandan, a residential building with 14 flats. In their petition, they said the non-vegetarian eatery would cause communal problems as 95 per cent of the population in the surrounding area was vegetarian, many of them Gujaratis, Jains and Rajasthanis. The restaurant plan never took off... “When people want to put up their homes for sale or rent, they often specifically tell us ‘non-veg party nahin chahiye (we don’t want buyers who eat non-vegetarian)’.""

No beef allowed: inside the schools that have banned meat - "when MUSE school in Calabasas, California, decided to become the first school in the US to switch to an all-vegan menu – starting this autumn – it’s no surprise that reactions were forceful. A whopping 40% of the students were withdrawn by concerned parents – though numbers recovered and are now the highest on record, according to head of the school Jeff King. The private school, founded in 2006 by actress and environmental campaigner Suzy Amis Cameron and her sister, Rebecca Amis, also faced accusations from some US critics of looking after the health of its tiny group of privileged children while the mass of poorer students endured inadequate diets in the public school system... Palmer also discovered a “brilliant wheeze” whereby boarders would call the local Domino’s and order a “St Chris” – prompting the delivery of a pizza loaded with meat but covered with a deceptive layer of cheese... It’s hard to see how a maintained school could go fully veggie given government regulations oblige them to provide red meat at least three times a week"

Vegetarian Advocate: A New York Ban on Meat Consumption in the Workplace [Hidden Agenda Warning] - "What are the odds that New York will ban meat consumption in restaurants, bars and workplaces within the next 25 years? None, right? Maybe not. Twenty-five years ago the idea that New York would ban smoking in restaurants, bars and workplaces was laughable. (In fact, one legislator's response to the legislator who proposed the statewide ban back then, well, was to blow smoke in his face)... Today, a statewide ban on meat consumption seems like an impossible dream, but what we are trying to achieve is something that could happen in a distant tomorrow."

Treat meat eaters like smokers, warns Jeremy Corbyn's new vegan farming minister Kerry McCarthy - Telegraph - "In an interview with Viva!life, a magazine for vegans, she admitted she was a "militant" when it came to clamping down on meat consumption... New Zealanders are the top meat eaters, on average eating more meat per person than any other country"

Shark fin ban masks growing appetite for its meat - "The internet erupted with praise last month when United Parcel Service tweeted that it would stop shipping shark fins. But the decision – after a petition to the delivery giant garnered 178,000 signatures – addressed just one of many concerns about the ecologically vital but often threatened marine species. “There is a persistent belief among many well-intentioned folks that the only threat that sharks have ever faced, or are currently facing, is shark finning,” said David Shiffman, a well-known shark scientist at the University of Miami. He argues that the focus on fins distracts attention from more important conservation actions... It’s not clear why the public discourse on sharks has become so singularly focused. Clarke believes that the visceral response that many people have to shark finning is partly responsible, with concern “propelled by bloody pictures of fins being cut off”. But many fins are obtained legally and humanely, a fact often overlooked. Fins are also an easy target for activists in countries with no taste for the Chinese delicacy, Clarke said, noting, “It’s relatively easy to ban a product that you never use.” Conservationists would be wise to examine their own countries’ practices first. In reality, shark conservation is messy and complicated... Lopping the wings off live rays and skates, arguably as cruel as finning, is both “legal and commonplace”, Fordham said, adding, “Skates and rays are being fished as heavily, and are more threatened and much less protected”... As mundane as it sounds, better record-keeping would have a greater impact on shark conservation than any ban on the collection or trade of shark fins. But, Shiffman notes, “I’ve yet to see an internet petition that gets 50,000 signatures saying, ‘Standardise global customs codes.'”"

Benghazi victim's sister slams Hillary Clinton for denying YouTube video claim - "The sister of a war hero killed in Benghazi has accused Hillary Clinton lying to victims' families about the 2012 attack in a bid to court votes. The Democrat front runner has denied telling soldiers' relatives that the attacks were provoked by an anti-Muslim YouTube video. Her words came after an email emerged in the Benghazi committee in which she told the Egyptian prime minister 'we know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film'. But as the former First Lady battles to uphold her version of events, Kate Quigley, sister of fallen soldier Glen Doherty, has lashed out at Clinton, claiming she did pin the events on the video. 'She knows that she knew what happened that day and she wasn't truthful,' Kate Quigley told the Boston Herald Radio's Morning Meeting on Wednesday. 'This is a woman that will do and say anything to get what she wants. I have very little respect for her"