Links - 8th February 2018

Chinese teachers' damning verdict on British schoolchildren in Hampshire - "A group of Chinese teachers has blamed the generosity of Britain’s benefits system for lack of ambition, ill-discipline and idleness among school pupils. They believe the option of living on welfare handouts has produced ‘feather-bedded’ teenagers prone to rudeness and disrupting the classroom rather than concentrating on working and getting ahead... The teacher was also puzzled by a girl who left the classroom in tears after learning that singer Zayn Malik had left the boy band One Direction. ‘I found it difficult to understand such emotional behaviour over a pop band,’ Miss Yang said."

A lot of our ideas about bilingual children are total myths - "Although it’s common to expect that someone who is bilingual has a perfect grasp of both languages—the kind with no accent, ginormous vocabularies, and no jumping back and forth between languages in a conversation—perfect bilingualism is pretty rare... Moreover, it takes longer to learn two languages than to learn just one, adds Hoff. So infants exposed to multiple languages from birth may have a slight speaking delay, although even they catch up quickly."

Countries with Higher Levels of Gender Equality Show Larger National Sex Differences in Mathematics Anxiety and Relatively Lower Parental Mathematics Valuation for Girls - "contra predictions, we showed that economically developed and more gender equal countries have a lower overall level of mathematics anxiety, and yet a larger national sex difference in mathematics anxiety relative to less developed countries. Further, although relatively more mothers work in STEM fields in more developed countries, these parents valued, on average, mathematical competence more in their sons than their daughters. The proportion of mothers working in STEM was unrelated to sex differences in mathematics anxiety or performance. We propose that the gender stratification model fails to account for these national patterns and that an alternative model is needed. In the discussion, we suggest how an interaction between socio-cultural values and sex-specific psychological traits can better explain these patterns"

Benedict Cumberbatch considered housing Syrian refugees but didn’t as he has a baby - "The Sherlock star, 41, famously launched an angry tirade in 2015 after a Hamlet performance at the Barbican, blasting the Government for refusing to accept 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years... when asked why he hadn’t led by example and housed destitute refugees himself, he said he was just “trying to raise awareness”."

The Pill Sabotages Sex, Boosts Relationship Happiness - "Comparing the relationships of women who were on the pill when they met their partner with those who weren't, researchers found that pill users were less sexually satisfied, but happier overall with their relationships than women not taking birth control when they first met their mate... these couples who met while the woman was on hormonal birth control were also more emotionally satisfied and were more likely to stay together, on average about two years longer. If those couples did separate, the break-up was more likely to be initiated by the woman. While the nonsexual parts of their relationship were satisfying, these women showed increasing sexual dissatisfaction during their relationships, while there was no change in nonusers. This increasing sexual dissatisfaction could lead to a tipping point between emotional and financial satisfaction and a desire to be sexually satisfied... women not taking hormonal birth control prefer genetically dissimilar men and those with higher testosterone levels and more masculine features. And supporting the lower sexual satisfaction in birth-control couples, previous research has indicated that females with genetically similar partners express lower sexual satisfaction and have a higher interest in having sex with someone who isn't their partner; essentially, they think about cheating... the differences the study found, while statistically significant, were small"

Why Women Lose Interest in Sex - "relationship duration was a better predictor of sexual desire in women than both relationship and sexual satisfaction. While the 0.02 decrease in female desire was small, it contrasts with male desire, which held steady over time... Men consistently report higher levels of sexual desire than women. Differences in levels of hormones — testosterone, specifically — are believed to at least partially explain the gender divide... The results could help researchers understand why women who seek sex therapy complain of low desire more than any other problem. Differences in levels of desire within couples, known as desire discrepancy, is a growing area of interest for therapists."

Bath Spa University 'blocks transgender research' - "A therapist says he is "astonished" by a university's decision to stop him studying people who decide to reverse gender reassignment operations. James Caspian wanted to write a thesis on "detransition" as part of his master's degree in counselling and psychotherapy at Bath Spa University. He said it was rejected by the university's ethics committee because it could be "politically incorrect"... Mr Caspian, a counsellor who specialises in therapy for transgender people, told Radio 4: "I was astonished at that decision. "I think that a university exists to encourage discussion, research - dissent even, challenging perhaps ideas that are out of date or not particularly useful." He says he wanted to study people who had swapped gender and then changed their minds after coming across evidence of a growing number of people who regretted having the surgery and finding no research had been done into the subject... "I found it very difficult to get people willing to talk openly about the experience of reversing surgery. "They said they felt too traumatised to talk about it, which made me think we really need to do the research even more"... "The fundamental reason given was that it might cause criticism of the research on social media and criticism of the research would be criticism of the university and they also added it was better not to offend people"... American transgender activist Riki Wilchins said studies on transgender people could have a "political undercurrent" and potentially have a negative effect on the way they are treated"
It is telling that doing research is against the trans agenda - because it's "transphobic"

University 'turned down politically incorrect transgender research' - "Caspian is a trustee of the Beaumont Trust, a charity that provides education about and support to transgender, transsexual and cross-dressing people. He said he was first alerted to the issue of gender reassignment reversal in 2014, when a Belgrade doctor told him he had been asked to carry out an unprecedented seven reversals that year."

Even asking questions is now ‘transphobic’ - "Detransition therefore is heresy. It suggests some “gatekeeping” is required: that it is misguided to allow ever younger people to take sterility-inducing hormones and have life-altering surgery without professional constraints. Detransition undermines the whole push towards instant, early diagnosis demanded by groups such as Mermaids and administered by Helen Webberley, the Welsh GP interviewed this week in The Times, who is under investigation for giving cross-sex hormones to 12-year-olds. “We have to ask questions,” says Caspian. But trans activists label all academic inquiry as transphobic. An event organised by the London think tank Opus entitled “Attacks on Thinking in the Age of LGBTQWIIAP+” was, ironically, cancelled this week after an online petition and threats of disruption. Since I’ve been writing about this subject, I’ve been contacted by doctors, psychotherapists and concerned transgender people themselves, desperate to speak out on the trans phenomenon but terrified to do so for fear of abuse or even losing their jobs. Caspian, who has left the field of gender counselling, is prepared to be the whistleblower. “We are seeing,” he says, “what Jung called a ‘collective complex’.” He compares this mass hysteria about being trapped in the wrong body to the “glass delusion”, an odd medieval phenomenon where people believed they were made of glass and might shatter. Other clinicians mention the 1990s faux scandals of satanic ritual abuse and false memory syndrome. But unlike them, gender anxiety is supercharged by the internet... what they call the “trans trend” needs analysing as a cultural phenomenon as much as a medical one. “St Paul’s School suddenly has a lot of non-binary girls,” said one child gender expert, “but when I was growing up, that’s where all the anorexics went.” There is no blood test or pathogen to diagnose you as trans; it is solely a matter of interpreting human experience. With children, the dominant interpretation that is currently shouting down all others is that, say, a boy who enjoys “female” toys or clothes must really be a girl. And now trans activists are pushing for the American treatment strategy called “affirmation”, where doctors cannot challenge a patient who declares they are trans"

Why the CDC Stopped Calling Sex Without a Condom 'Unprotected Sex' - "Though we know everyone hasn’t followed this advice, the idea became so ingrained in our conversations about safer sex that it was clear protected sex equaled sex with a condom, while unprotected sex equaled sex without one. Some HIV advocates argue, however, that in this day and age of HIV treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and behavior changes that can decrease risk, this language is no longer accurate or precise. To that end, in December, a group of advocates, spearheaded by the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance, sent a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requesting a terminology change. In January, the CDC announced on a call with more than 80 advocates that it would indeed change the decades-old language. Now, instead of referring to “unprotected sex” to mean sex without a condom, the CDC will refer simply refer to it as “condomless sex.”"
It looks like HIV is the only STI you need to be protected against

Uganda has a huge problem with small condoms - "Lots of Ugandan men have complained to MPs that the condoms are too short and do not fit their sexual organs. These smaller condoms can create pressure during use, which could lead to unexpected bursting. HIV/AIDS is a big problem in the central African nation, with around 80,000 people dying of AIDS every year."
This is why pretending all demographic groups have the same penis size is perilous

Condoms too small for Uganda men, find out where India stands - "In 2006, the Indian Council of Medical Research found that over 60 per cent of the men in Mumbai had penises at least 2.4 centimeters shorter than international condom sizes, and that for 30 per cent of men, the size deficit was five centimeters."

The Condom Cookbook: For those intimate boil in the bag meals - " the whole thing is intended to encourage safe sex as Japanese men are said to be the “third worst condom users in the world” and it is hoped Condom Meals I Want to Make for You will encourage both men and women to see condoms as more than “just contraceptive devices,” and use them more frequently—both in and out of the kitchen"
Damn Japs

Australian children born to ISIS fighters returning home - "The Australian government has planned for the return of at least 70 children of ISIS fighters and will given them counselling, welfare and citizenship... Levi West, a lecturer in terrorism and national security at Charles Sturt University, has previously opened up to the ABC about the threat these children may pose. 'At what age do we assess the children to be too much of a risk, given that they may have been exposed to and substantially influenced by - if not committed to - an ideological framework that is going to cause an enormous problem when we bring them back here,' he said. But there are others, like UNICEF Australia's director of policy and advocacy Amy Lamoin, who say we should look at them first and foremost as children before they are considered a threat."
In 20 years if any of them become terrorists, the government will be blamed for not helping them enough. Or maybe for Islamophobia

Company introduces 'snowflake test' to weed out 'whiny, entitled' millenial candidates - "“We use the test to weed out the sort of people who were inundating us with resumés and didn’t even know what we did.” Mr Reyes said the tactic had been successful - 60 per cent of applicants to his marketing company drop out when they hear about it... You’re young, you’re ignorant, you’re brainwashed by liberal professors who didn’t tell you that in the real world, the only “safe space” is in your parents’ basement.” The company boss said his test has been popular because, “people are sick and tired of having to be so politically correct”. Other firms have contacted him looking to implement similar guards against hiring snowflake candidates, but most are too scared, he added."

Woman who said Hobby Lobby cotton decoration is racist speaks out after widespread backlash - "Rider said that cotton isn’t an art decoration, but rather a symbol of oppression of black people in America."

Disney Collabs With Japanese Wedding Company To Make Princess Wedding Dresses, And They Look Stunning

Fake News: Hungary Blasts MSM for Claiming 'Soros Plan' for Mass Migration into Europe Doesn't Exist - "“at the end of September 2015, [Soros] published an article in his own name entitled – wait for it – ‘George Soros: Here’s my plan to solve the asylum chaos’.” Whilst Soros spokesman Michael Vachon insists “Soros’s position is entirely consistent with mainstream European values [and] the claim that Soros is promoting a scheme to import a million illegal immigrants into Europe is Viktor Orbán’s fantasy,” Dr. Kovács notes that the very first point of the financier’s September 2015 article declares that “the EU has to accept at least a million asylum seekers annually for the foreseeable future”. “Soros, in his own words, clearly has a plan to push immigration on the citizens of Europe, and he’s actively promoting it through his network of so-called ‘civic groups’, through his lobbying of the European Parliament, and in his secretive meetings with members of the European Commission,” the Hungarian concludes."
If it comes from the Horse's mouth...

Answering Shashi Tharoor : Thank Karma the British came ! - "The British departure from India gave way to Hindus killing Muslims, and Muslims killing Hindus. Tharoor doesn’t take into account the caste system or Sati, the practice of burning widows at a husband’s funeral pyre or Mulakkaram, a tax imposed on lower caste Hindu women if they wanted to cover their breasts in public, or Devadasi prostitution where young girls are given away at a young age in religion backed prostitution. The likes of Shashi Tharoor are heralded around like heroes of the Indian people when genuine heroes like the Ezhava woman Nangeli who cut off her own breasts to protest the Mulakkaram tax are lost to history... India itself is a country that was founded on skin colour prejudice. One might even say that Indians took the initiative to pioneer and codify this art of discrimination. Skin colour discrimination is more prevalent in India than it is in any Western Country. There are no “Dalit Lives Matter” protests in India, despite the constant discrimination of Dalits across the country. The Great British Empire is often blamed for its so-called plunder of India, yet its rule of India took place almost entirely through the native Sultans and Maharajas of India acting as Middlemen for the Great British Empire. Meanwhile, the Original colonization of India, when Indo-Iranians invaded Harappa through the Khyber Pass and chased its native proto Dravidian population to the south is hardly brought up, even by their (The proto Dravidians) descendants. Even if you take into account everything wrong with imperialism and the history of colonialism, from the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre to the Bengali Famine, you should not be able to deny the fact that these barbaric practices predate any European hold on the subcontinent and are independent of European interventions... Unlike the Great British Empire which took the initiative to improve India, both culturally and economically, the original colonizers of India were incapable of the slightest bit of Innovations... The modern idea of a civilized society is a western one. It’s “The American Dream” not “The Indian Dream”. Western civilization as we know it today was shaped by the British. It was the Great British Empire which took the initiative to grant equality to everyone in its domain. There is no Indian or any other oriental equivalent of the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights or Speaker’s Corner. The Ottoman Empire, despite being created at a much greater cultural cost than the Great British empire is fetishized for its so-called diversity, while the Great British Empire is vilified for its taxes"

Malayalee father tells what Chinese gangster taught him - "ME: Of course, we were aware of the differences and there were stereotypes. For example, as Indians, we were called "smelly" because quite a few Indians used coconut oil to groom their hair and it did have a smell.
MAYA: That's terrible.
ME: You mean the smell?... we all used to call each other names that, today, would be termed racist. The Chinese would call us "Mama" or "kilenkiah", or shake their heads and imitate our language by saying "annonae". Hey, we were no angels - we would call the Chinese "chinks". But you know what, we really didn't take offence - at least then - because we were close as friends. In fact, these became terms of endearment.
MAYA: Today, if we say such things, we will really get whacked.
ME: Yes, I find that sad, Maya. It's because we don't spend enough time with each other to truly get to know each other. You see, those days, even though there were racial or even racist labels, the effect was neutralised simply because of the amount of time we spent with each other."