Links - 28th May 2017 (2)

″Radicalisation is not the result of failed integration″ - "Many of the young people who take up the banner of jihad are well integrated. They speak French, English and German. Islamic State (IS) has established a French-speaking battalion precisely because the young French and Belgians hardly speak any Arabic. The problem is not a lack of cultural integration. Even as they break with their society, the European jihadists remain dedicated to a very Western model. It is nihilistic, which is not at all in accordance with Islamic tradition... I am not denying that there is a religious dimension. It is important, because it means the jihadists can reinterpret their nihilism as a promise of paradise. Their suicide becomes a guarantee for eternal life. I only want to emphasise that these young people do not come from the Muslim community. Most of them have no religious education and have rarely visited a mosque. Nearly all were previously petty criminals. They would drink alcohol and take drugs... The left wing’s post-colonial vision is inadequate. In my opinion, Islamist radicalisation can neither be attributed to current foreign policy nor to colonial crimes. These young radicals never talk about the war in Algeria, even if that is where their grandfathers came from. They usually don't even know anything about it... By going radical, they view themselves as better Muslims than their parents. Parents in Europe condemn their children for joining the jihad, unlike Palestinian parents, who usually approve of the violent acts perpetrated by their offspring... Most jihadists are "born again"; with radical Islam, they get a new lease of life. That's why there are so few jihadists who are part of the first generation of immigrants. That generation still grew up in the traditional Islamic faith. It was not until the second generation of immigrants that a break with the past occurred, because the passing down of religious beliefs stopped working. Most terrorists belong to the second generation of immigrants.
Given that most terrorists are second generation immigrants, the claim that the current wave of terrorism in Europe shouldn't give cause for concern because few of them are recent migrants ignores what will happen in the future

Inside Facebook's Outsourced Anti-Porn and Gore Brigade, Where 'Camel Toes' are More Offensive Than 'Crushed Heads' - "Under "hate content," the guidelines specifically ban "Versus photos... photos comparing two people side by side," which is ironic considering Mark Zuckerberg's first hit, FaceSmash, ranked the attractiveness of female Harvard students... any holocaust denial which "focuses on hate speech," all attacks on the founder of Turkey, Ataturk, and burning of Turkish flags must be escalated... "Pedophelia, Necrophelia, Beheadings, Suicides, etc," he recalled. "I left [because] I value my mental sanity.""

Paying With Cash Hurts. That’s Also Why It Feels So Good. - NYTimes.com

It's Not Your Imagination, Single Women: There Literally Aren't Enough Men Out There - "There simply aren't enough college-educated men to go around. For every four college-educated women in my generation, there are three college-educated men. The result? What Birger calls a "musical chairs" of the heart: As the men pair off with partners, unpartnered straight women are left with fewer and fewer options—and millions of them are eventually left with no options at all."

China's citizens are livid about the South China Sea ruling because of what they're taught in government schools - "Chinese citizens never learn in school that the sea is claimed, under international law, by other countries, or that China’s claims have been disputed for decades"

Canada to turn away single men as part of Syrian refugee resettlement plan - "“All these refugees are vulnerable but some are more vulnerable than others – for example, women, families and also members of religious minorities who are oppressed,” he said, although he rejected the notion of “exclusion” of single men"
Male privilege!

Medical association disrespected Muslims over amputations under hudud, says group - "The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has disrespected Muslims and Muslim doctors by threatening to axe doctors who perform amputations under hudud, according to Muslim medical practitioners’ group i-Medik. Muslim doctors have sworn to an Islamic doctor’s oath which also binds them to Islam as a way of life and the implementation of Islamic laws including hudud, it added."
Malaysia Boleh!

Study in Singapore: Singaporean student's dorm room a hit on YouTube - "When he received acceptance letters to study at several US universities two years ago, Singaporean Derek Low began fantasising about "pimping" his dormitory room. On Sunday, the first-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, put the finishing touches to his dream turned reality. The result? A room fitted out with slick features such as voice-controlled lighting, automated curtains and room modes such as "party", "romantic", and "homework". A video of his room, which he named Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm (Brad), went viral after he uploaded it onto his Facebook page on Monday. As of press time, it had attracted more than 110,000 views on YouTube."

ISIS beheading video aired at Umno general assembly in Malaysia, shocking delegates - "Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid, who is also Home Minister, said he would be leading the committee to draw up new anti-terrorism laws against such a threat. He also said that he did not mind being labelled a hardcore Malay or an Islamic fundamentalist - all in the name of race and religion."

Taxi kills man lying on Victoria Street - "Mr Zainudin Muhammad was seen having a heated argument with an unknown woman before walking to the middle of the five-lane road and lying down, witnesses said. Shortly after, the taxi, which was heading in the direction of Kallang Road, hit him and dragged his body for about 20m before stopping near the traffic junction at Jalan Sultan... Mr Goh, a cabby of 21 years, was arrested for causing death by a negligent act. He said he was worried about losing his taxi licence as a result of the accident"

Q. What's the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero? - "the amount of caffeine in Coke Zero is almost identical to that of Regular Coke and higher in Diet Coke. Most consumers would agree that Coke Zero tastes more like regular coke. This could be due to both having virtually the same amount of caffeine"

How much sugar is in Coca‑Cola Zero Sugar?
*facepalm*

Hispanics, the New Italians - NYTimes.com - "“These fears about immigrants have been voiced many times in American history, and they’ve never proven true,” Alan M. Kraut, a history professor at American University, in Washington, told me. “It doesn’t happen immediately, but everything with Latinos points to a very typical pattern of integration in American life in a generation or two.”"
It is instructive comparing the Hispanic and Black experiences

A Life Beyond ‘Do What You Love’ - NYTimes.com - "In a much discussed article in Jacobin magazine early this year, the writer Miya Tokumitsu argued that the “do what you love” ethos so ubiquitous in our culture is in fact elitist because it degrades work that is not done from love. It also ignores the idea that work itself possesses an inherent value, and most importantly, severs the traditional connection between work, talent and duty... In the old days, before the death of God, the faithful believed that their talents were gifts from on high, which they were duty-bound to use in service to others. In his treatise on ethics, “The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals,” Kant ponders: Suppose a man “finds in himself a talent which might make him a useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than take pains in enlarging his happy natural capacities.” Should he? Kant huffs, no — one cannot possibly will that letting one’s talents rust for the sake of pleasure should be a universal law of nature. “[A]s a rational being,” he writes, “he necessarily wills that his faculties be developed, since they serve him, and have been given him, for all sorts of purposes.” To Kant, it would be irrational to will a world that abided by the law “do what you love”... The universally recognized paragons of humanity — the Nelson Mandelas, Dietrich Bonhoeffers and Martin Luther Kings — did not organize their lives around self-fulfillment and bucket lists. They, no doubt, found a sense of meaning in their heroic acts of self-sacrifice, but they did not do what they were doing in order to achieve that sense of meaning. They did — like my father and some of those kids from town — what they felt they had to do."

A Call for a Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat - The New York Times - "The new study was financed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It included a racially diverse group of 150 men and women — a rarity in clinical nutrition studies — who were assigned to follow diets for one year that limited either the amount of carbs or fat that they could eat, but not overall calories. “To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that’s really important because someone can change what they eat more easily than trying to cut down on their calories”... By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass — even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity. While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat... people in the low-carbohydrate group saw markers of inflammation and triglycerides — a type of fat that circulates in the blood — plunge. Their HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, rose more sharply than it did for people in the low-fat group. Blood pressure, total cholesterol and LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, stayed about the same for people in each group. Nonetheless, those on the low-carbohydrate diet ultimately did so well that they managed to lower their Framingham risk scores, which calculate the likelihood of a heart attack within the next 10 years. The low-fat group on average had no improvement in their scores."

Who Is a Feminist Now? - NYTimes.com - "actress Shailene Woodley was asked if she considered herself a feminist. “No,” said Ms. Woodley, 22. “Because I love men, and I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance.” It was a somewhat surprising response from an actress known for portraying strong-willed women in films like “The Spectacular Now,” “Divergent” and “The Fault in Our Stars,” to be released soon... the online backlash to her comment about feminism came quickly... ambivalence like Ms. Woodley’s is as much a part of the discussion. Monica Lewinsky, 40, wrote in Vanity Fair’s June issue, “Given my experience of being passed around like gender-politics cocktail food, I don’t identify myself as a Feminist, capital F.” And she is joined by a host of other celebrities who question the usage, including Lady Gaga, 28, who was quoted telling a Norwegian camera crew, “I’m not a feminist! I love men! I hail men.” Kelly Clarkson, 32, told Time last October, “I think when people hear feminist, it’s like, ‘Get out of my way, I don’t need anyone’.” Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry, Carla Bruni, Sandra Day O’Connor and Taylor Swift have similarly distanced themselves from the designation during their careers. When Marissa Mayer, 38, the chief executive of Yahoo, appeared in the PBS/AOL documentary “Makers,” she spoke of her own issues with the term. “I don’t think that I would consider myself a feminist,” she said. “I think that, I certainly believe in equal rights. I believe that women are just as capable, if not more so, in a lot of different dimensions. But I don’t, I think, have sort of the militant drive and sort of the chip on the shoulder that sometimes comes with that.” In response, some celebrities have gone out of their way in interviews to express bafflement with women who won’t say they are feminists. Lena Dunham, 28, told Metro UK in early 2013 that her “greatest pet peeve” was women spurning the term."
Maybe Lena Dunham's antics ("the extinction of white men") are one reason women spurn the term

Our Cats, Ourselves - NYTimes.com - "cats are only semi-domesticated... Once they were living among us, cats didn’t need to think so much to stay alive; nor did they need such large jaws after we started feeding them our processed scraps. Hence smaller skulls. The same dynamic holds for dogs: Wolves beat dogs in general intelligence tests."

Mary Beard writes character reference for Twitter troll who called her a 'slut'

How Exercise Changes Our DNA - The New York Times

The Tyranny of the Forced Smile - The New York Times - "Our Protestant work ethic has blended with contemporary notions of self-actualization to create a situation in which we are all expected to whistle like Disney dwarfs. When I lived in Eastern Europe more than a decade ago, I found that people had a more moderate approach. People did not seem to feel the need to love their job or even talk much about it. You could become well acquainted with someone without finding out what he did for a living. When the subject did come up, it seemed to be beside the point"

The Toll of a Solitary Life - NYTimes.com - "people who were socially isolated, lonely or living alone had about a 30 percent higher chance of dying during a given study period than those who had regular social contact. Notably, the effect was greater for younger people than for those over 65, according to the report in Perspectives on Psychological Science. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, the lead author, said the effect of loneliness and social isolation was as great a risk factor as obesity and should be taken seriously as a threat to public health... The study authors noted that affluent nations had the highest rates of individuals living alone, and that social isolation would reach epidemic proportions in the next two decades"

China's retaliation over THAAD seen as meddling with internal affairs: official
Only China deserves not to have its domestic affairs meddled with

More Sex Makes Us Happy, But Once A Week May Be Enough : Shots