Links - 19th September 2016

Special Snowflake has Meltdown After Dad Tightens Purse Strings - "The genderfluid panqueer-demiromantic being in question, let’s call her “Sarah”, is a 21 year old spoiled girl from Kansas who worked for her father’s company, lived in a house that he owned rent-free, received free health insurance, free phone, free Internet access, free car insurance and presumably a free car. He also allowed his daughter to let three of her dumbass tumblrite friends move in with her into the house that he owns. Cut to the 4th of July. Sarah and her communist loving, capitalism hating friends decided that the best way to celebrate would be to burn a flag and use it to attention whore on Facebook. “Pete’, her father, being a military veteran had some things to say about this but still believed in her freedom to burn the flag if she pleased. Her father only wanted to engage in a debate with his retard daughter and her special snowflake squad but instead found himself blocked on Facebook. She cited her reason for this being that she had freedom of speech and her Facebook page was not a democracy. This was, in his words “the last straw”... He fired her. Evicted her. Cut her off financially. Cut off her phone... Cut off from the cow’s teet, Sarah was forced to find a way to become self sufficient. Naturally she did what all snowflakes did when confronted with adversity and started a gofundme... the snowflake brigade is actually attempting to get him fired from his job"
Addendum: See: Leah Albee | Kiwi Farms

How Many Steps a Day Should You Really Walk? - "But is there any medical reason to embrace this number? Not really. That’s because the 10,000-steps-a-day recommendation has nothing to do with sedentary, fast-food-drenched circa-2015 America. Rather, the recommendation first popped up in a very different food and environment: 1960s Japan. “It basically started around the Tokyo Olympics” in 1964, said Catrine Tudor-Locke, a professor who studies walking behavior at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Center. “A company over there created a man-po-kei, a pedometer. And man stands for ‘10,000,’ po stands for ‘step,’ and kei stands for ‘meter’ or ‘gauge.’” Ten thousand, it turns out, “is a very auspicious number” in Japanese culture, said Theodore Bestor, a Harvard researcher of Japanese society and culture, in an email. “That is, it seems likely to me that the 10,000 steps goal was subsidiary to having a good-sounding name for marketing purposes”... From a public-health perspective, she said, a more pressing, realistic goal is “to get people away from taking less than 5,000” steps a day."

School Bans Clapping. Students May Silently Wriggle Instead. - "Elanora Heights, a public school in Sydney, Australia, has banned clapping out of "respect" for noise-sensitive students. Instead, kids can "conduct a silent cheer.""

What's Behind The Decline In Crime? - "It wasn’t until the late ‘90s and early ‘00s—just as Millennials entered the scene— that crime rates began their sharp descent. Unlike Boomers and Xers, Millennials were increasingly looked after, sheltered, and advised to not take risks. As they moved up the age ladder, this generation brought about declines in risky behaviors—including rates of school fighting, teenage pregnancy, smoking, drunk driving, and so on. (See the extensive CDC database on the decline in so-called “youth risk behaviors.”) Of these trends, crime was just one element."

Girl fighting for life after mum and three daughters knifed in French holiday resort for being 'scantily dressed' - "The 37-year-old man has been identified by French media as Mohamed Boufarkouch, who was born in Morocco."

The secret of anti-terror architecture: Your city is probably safer than you realize - "bollards today can also take all kinds of shapes, and they’re everywhere—streets, airports, government buildings, highways and side streets. Part of the US visual landscape for decades, most of us don’t even realize they’re there for our safety."

German machete attack: Syrian refugee kills woman and injures two others in city of Reutlingen - "A woman has been killed and two others have been injured after they were attacked by a Syrian refugee with a machete near Stuttgart in Germany... It comes as Germany is on edge following two attacks in the past week. A teenager went on a rampage in a Munich mall on Friday evening, killing nine, and an Afghan teenager attacked train passengers with an axe in Bavaria, wounding five, before being shot dead by police last week"

The Latest: Merkel confident Germany can integrate refugees - "Chancellor Angela Merkel says she remains confident Germany can integrate the large number of refugees who are arriving, and is arguing that many won't stay forever. Germany has been the main destination of Syrians and others seeking protection in Europe. Merkel said at a town hall event in Nuremberg Monday that "there are very, very many, but there are 80 million of us." She said "we can and will manage this integration" if Germany makes an effort from the beginning to integrate the newcomers."

Second German woman evicted from her home to make way for refugees - "A woman in Germany is being evicted from her home of 23 years to make way for asylum-seekers, in the second such case to emerge. Gabrielle Keller has been given until the end of the year to leave her flat in the small southern town of Eschbach, near the border with France. The flat belongs to the local municipality, which says it is needed to house refugees... The town of just 2,400 people is under pressure to find space for refugees, and Ms Keller’s flat is one of only two owned by the local municipality. It is not social housing and Ms Keller is a rent-paying tenant."

Angela Merkel accused of having blood on her hands over migrant policy after Munich - " "Once these people have German passports they can travel to all the other countries in the EU so Merkel has not only created a problem for Germany but for other EU countries too - and it's impossible to put the cork back in the bottle. "Mrs Merkel, meanwhile, appears to be in hiding. "Even though the German authorities are still insisting that this is nothing to do with terrorism, we have someone who has come into Germany from Syria and killed innocent people, continuing this summer of slaughter. "As I see it, her and her ministers and advisors as well as the dangerous idiots in the European Commission have put people's lives at risk and in some terrible cases, cost lives"... Earlier this week Germany’s interior minister warned of the “serious” threat from lone wolf attacks in the country and across Europe, telling the public to expect further attacks. The stark assessment of Germany’s security situation follows a warning from the French Prime Minster that his country should "learn to live with the threat” from Islamist extremists. Speaking in Berlin, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said the Afghan refugee who attacked train passengers with an axe in the southern state of Bavaria was now thought be from Pakistan. Responding to the incident the senior German cabinet minster said similar attacks were highly likely. Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), said the German train attack "illustrates the reality that some ISIS sympathisers will have slipped through European borders". The London-based think tank said around two per cent of Germany's population arrived last year, making it "impossible in practice for European security services to screen new arrivals with thoroughness sufficient to preclude the possibility of attacks”."

How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President - "Close your eyes and imagine that a hacking group backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin broke into the email system of a major U.S. political party. The group stole thousands of sensitive messages and then published them through an obliging third party in a way that was strategically timed to influence the United States presidential election. Now open your eyes, because that’s what just happened."

Family argument in wildlife park leaves woman dead after she leaves car and gets eaten by tiger

Obviously, Sports Do Not Build Character | Acton Institute - "The Benedict-Crosset Study of sexual assaults at thirty major Division I universities reports that one in three college sexual assaults are committed by athletes. The three-year study demonstrates that while male student-athletes comprise 3.3 percent of the college population, they represent 19 percent of sexual assault perpetrators and 35 percent of domestic violence perpetrators"

SlutWalk Singapore 2012: 5 Ridiculous Myths Everyone Believes About Rape (That Are Total B.S.) | SlutWalk Singapore - "Take a good look at Cecilia Sue’s case. Clearly, she wanted it. Why didn’t she bite off his dick?
Why it’s bullshit:
When you make comments like these, you are hurting the people around you."
Gviven what happened with the Cecilia Sue case, this is telling as a rape myth myth

Behavioral genetics, one of the fastest growing fields in science, still makes a lot of people very uncomfortable - "Think of someone whose political ideology leads them to ignore and groundlessly reject science. Typically, this often describes those on the right of the political spectrum, where climate change, women’s reproductive health, and even evolution are routinely dismissed. But a massive and fast growing field in science—behavioral genetics—has a huge body of conclusive evidence that, at first reading, seems at odds with left-wing ideology. This week, Robert Plomin, professor of behavioral genetics at King’s College London, published a paper showing that a child’s educational success can be predicted by their genes. Genetic data from 20,000 DNA variants across several genes collectively account for 10% of the differences in children’s educational achievement age 16... Meta-analysis of 61 twin studies shows that genetic variation accounts for 66% of educational achievement at primary school level... the research suggests that about 50% of individual differences in personality are affected by genetic variation... the belief that anyone can be anything they choose—that you could take a child and train them towards literally any goal with success is, says Segal, “such an old-fashioned notion, with absolutely no backing whatsoever”... there’s been a strong educational emphasis on grit and perseverance—but genetics research shows that this personality trait only predicts 5% of why individuals differ. So over-emphasizing it will have moderately little effect and, in making children feel they’re not trying hard enough, might well make many miserable... just because educational achievement is genetically influenced, that doesn’t mean it’s determined by genetics. Selzam gives a comparable example of someone who’s genetically at risk of dyslexia. If that child is treated like everyone else then, chances are, they will go on to develop the disorder. But if you identify that they’re at genetic risk then, through tutoring and one-on-one support, it’s possible to counter that genetic disposition through “environmental engineering.”"

The Sugarcoated Language Of White Fragility - "Suggesting that a White person's viewpoint comes from a racialized frame of reference - Challenge to objectivity
Receiving feedback that one's behavior had a racist impact - Challenge to White racial innocence
Suggesting that group membership is significant - Challenge to individualism...
Terms like “inclusion” and “white privilege” are designed to sneak past the racial stress triggers of White Fragility. They center Whiteness in a way that makes White people comfortable, while deflecting from the stressful realities of the racist harm that Whiteness causes. Imagine how many racial stress trigger alarm bells would go off if we were using words like “discrimination awareness” and “white undeserved advantages” instead. "
What would happen if you substituted another word for "white"?
Given the euphemism treadmill, in no time the new "harsh" words would be considered "sugarcoated" too

How Does Top Talent Respond to Higher Tax Rates? - "In debates about taxes, some scoff at the idea that people actually respond to higher rates by changing their behaviour. This is despite the mountains of economic research showing higher marginal tax rates reduce the incentives for individuals to work hard, expand their skills, invest, and engage in entrepreneurial activities. Others are also reluctant to accept that tax rates can influence people’s decisions about where to work and live. On this front, the evidence might be surprising."

‘You Need to Leave’: Taco Bell Employee Stuns Sheriff’s Deputies With Refusal of Service - "The deputies took their meal hour Saturday evening at a Taco Bell in Phenix City, Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones told the outlet, where an employee working the register told them they would not be served because they were law enforcement... Jones added that the deputies left the restaurant, but on their way out, they overheard another customer commending the cashier, reportedly saying she would have left if the officers had been served."
The hate of Black Lives Matters has many consequences
I'm sure many people who condemn Kim Davis would support this Taco Bell employee

Trade and Tribulation - The New York Times - "Mr. Sanders is demagoguing the issue, for example with a Twitter post linking the decline of Detroit, which began in the 1960s and has had very little to do with trade liberalization, to “Hillary Clinton’s free-trade policies.”"
Perhaps Trump gets called a demagogue but not Bernie because the latter failed