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Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Links - 17th July 2018 (2)

Michelle Obama Declares Herself America’s ‘Forever First Lady’
If someone else had tried that...

Doctor accused of rape: No conclusive evidence found on his and alleged victim’s clothing - "the police had retrieved the victim’s panties from a pail of water in her kitchen on the afternoon of Dec 31, 2015 — the day after the alleged crime — where she had left it soaking for at least 11 hours... Ms Jolena Tan, an analyst from the Health Sciences Authority, testified to finding no interpretable DNA profiles on several items that the victim and Wee were wearing on the night of the alleged rape."
Moral of the story: male doctors need to get a witness when there's a female patient

Doctor accused of rape: Patient's genital infection meant thought 'didn't even cross my mind' - "A doctor accused of molesting and raping a 23-year-old woman during her two visits to his clinic in 2015 said he would not have entertained the idea because he knew she had a genital infection. The woman, now 26, told the High Court last week, that Dr Wee Teong Boo, 67, had told her to take off her shorts and underwear during a medical examination and subsequently raped her in the early hours of Dec 31, 2015. Wee denies her claims... "How would that arouse me? I'm a professional, (the thought) doesn't even cross my mind. The whole episode is very unfair to me"... he went for a full body check-up with a urologist of his own accord following the rape allegations as he had been suffering from issues of erectile dysfunction. He said: "I'm not impotent, but it takes a longer time for me to achieve erection." He explained that he did not seek help earlier as he "was not bothered by it before and still (is) not bothered by it now". He added that he was diagnosed with an enlarged prostate and lower than normal levels of testosterone in 2016."

Doctor accused of rape: Victim’s injuries could have been due to other causes, defence argues - "The wounds could also have been caused by someone inserting his fingers into the victim's private parts, Dr Tung acknowledged. According to Mr Pereira, Wee had seen redness around the victim's itchy area on the night of the alleged incident and decided to do some investigations to rule out pelvic inflammatory disease. Wee inserted his fingers, and the victim then informed him that she felt slight discomfort, Mr Pereira said... Mr Pereira also questioned why the victim had only suffered a shallow tear and small wounds [to her hymen], if Wee had indeed subjected her to multiple forceful thrusts during the alleged rape, as she had claimed."

You might not like how we train Army recruits, but they need to be tough or they'll die - "An Army instructor is facing a court martial after a video of him shouting abuse at a young female recruit has gone viral. He’s in trouble because of having filmed the scene without the recruit’s consent, but what seems to have shocked most of the 300,000-plus viewers of the clip is his language. “Are you a f------ killer or a mouse?” he shouts. “What you crying for? Show me your war face!” Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army has described the corporal’s behaviour as “totally unacceptable”. Filming the tirade was out of line. But what he says? Sorry, but I’ve heard far worse than that in my time. I’ve dished it out too, when I was a corporal training young recruits myself. When you’re teaching young men and women to become soldiers, you’re taking people from the real world and putting them into another world. We’re not forming a knitting circle: the job spec of a soldier is to destroy the enemy in close combat... If you don’t train them to have the mental and physical ability to carry out that task, they’re going to die and we’re going to lose. Yes there are people’s rights, and the politically correct atmosphere we all live in now, but in the Army, this is what we do, and this is how we do it... a bit of shouting? That’s how we do it. At the end of the day, we’re a volunteer army. If you don’t like it you can leave, but the army has a saying that has been learnt the hard way. “Train hard, fight easy. Train easy, fight hard and die.” To think men and women don’t or shouldn’t be affected by this stuff is wrong. But if they do, maybe they need to be looking at doing another job."

It is now very difficult to earn back money on LTA’s Travel Smart Rewards scheme - "just like a good novel, it ain’t that straightforward anymore, after the scheme was “enhanced” in April 2017."

Young, and a mum twice over: Study sheds light on successive pregnancies among girls - "Nearly one in three girls and young women seen by the hospital’s Clinic for Adolescent Pregnancy had a subsequent pregnancy before the age of 21... Babes has tried visiting secondary schools to raise awareness of the help available but Ms Vejan said it is not always welcome as the schools may not want to be perceived as having higher rates of teenage pregnancies than others... The study also found Malays making up more than six in 10 of the 470 cases seen at KKH’s clinic, and Dr Suzanna suggested organisations with strong links with the Malay community could be more active in delivering sexual health education at an earlier stage to the target group."
Knock me up once, shame on you. Knock me up twice, shame on me

'Whistling in tune is easier than singing', scientists conclude - "it is harder to sing than whistle in tune, which is why so many of us fall flat trying to hit a high note. Whistling is simpler because ancient humans involved had to control their lips and tongue early on"

BBC World Service - The World This Week, Britain orders Russians out - "The President, for all his flamboyant firing of apprentices on reality TV doesn't actually like to fire people in person. So in the end he took to Twitter, without even talking to his Secretary of State... State department officers didn't like the way their boss was treated, but they didn't much like their boss either. He turned out to be a terrible manager who triggered an exodus of experienced staff and gummed up the working of the building with his insular micromanaging team of aides. Good riddance was the reaction of one employee. Maybe the mechanics of operating here will improve now, said another... What would you rather have?, a former State Department official asked me darkly during one of those many moments when we contemplated a Rexit: the incompetence and solid policies of a Tillerson, or the competence and dangerous policies of a Pompeo... There's a virtual consensus amongst Washington's chattering classes that Tillerson was a bad Secretary of state, but he did serve as a check on some of Trump's most controversial impulses. Pompeo is a Trump loyalist who can be expected to amplify and enable those instincts, but crucially he has the President's confidence so he can speak with authority to foreign governments. Something Rex Tillerson could not do."

'Strip': Cornell student Letitia Chai gives thesis in underwear - "Cornell University senior Letitia Chai gave her honors thesis in front of a room of fellow students on Saturday after she stripped down to her underwear... during a trial run for her presentation, a professor questioned her about the shorts she was wearing in front of the other students in the room... Chai alleged that Rebekah Maggor, an assistant professor in the performing and media arts department, told her that her shorts were "too short" and that Chai would be making a "statement" with her clothes during her presentation. She also, allegedly, told Chai she would attract "men's attention" away from her presentation with the way she was dressed. When a male international student in the class spoke up to say a speaker has a "moral obligation" to dress conservatively for the audience during a thesis presentation, Chai left the room. Maggor later told the student newspaper in an email that she does not tell her students what to wear, "nor do I define for them what constitutes appropriate dress. I ask them to reflect for themselves and make their own decisions.” According to The College Fix, the syllabus for Maggor's public speaking course warns students that their attire will be scrutinized. Students are told to wear clothes and footwear that are comfortable and allow free range of movement. They are told to dress appropriately for the "persona" they will present... After she went public, some of the other students in the room at the time released a written statement describing their version of what had happened, accusing Chai of unfairly representing the professor's words and actions."
Maybe she will go to a job interview in shorts and not get it and accuse the company of being sexist

ABC under fire for 'lefty lunacy' segment about nappy consent - "The ABC has come under fire for airing a segment in which a 'sexuality expert' calls for parents to not change nappies without asking for their child's consent... Deanne Carson talks about how to establish a 'culture of consent' in homes, starting at birth... 'Many children never want you to change their nappy. Asking them for consent is a serious indication of severe mental problems. Nappies must be changed to prevent serious skin damage and pain for the child. 'What is worse is the fact the ABC actually spent our tax dollars on this moronic opinion.'... 'Troll me all you want, add to your blog inches, but remember that when you do, you are negating the voices of these brave survivors of sexual abuse.' "
Ah... Australia
Apparently disagreeing with a "brave survivor of sexual abuse" is the same as negating his voice
No true feminist puts sugar in her porridge
Elsewhere: "Danny Snee said it was “an insult to genuine sexual assault victims to compare their experience to a baby having a nappy changed without giving the right expressions.”"


FACT CHECK: Did a Sexuality Educator Say Parents Should Ask Babies' Permission for Diaper Changes? - "MOSTLY FALSE"
Luckily the video is available for everyone to watch. Looks like Snopes needs factcheckers to factcheck it. Those who think Snopes has any credibility for its political partisanship masquerading as fact checking would insist the earth was flat if Brietbart and/or the Daily Mail said it was round

He was one of millions of Chinese seniors growing old alone. So he put himself up for adoption. - The Washington Post - "“Looking for someone to adopt me.” “Lonely old man in his 80s. Strong-bodied. Can shop, cook and take care of himself. No chronic illness. I retired from a scientific research institute in Tianjin, with a monthly pension of 6,000 RMB [$950] a month,” he wrote. “I won’t go to a nursing home. My hope is that a kindhearted person or family will adopt me, nourish me through old age and bury my body when I’m dead.”"

Let’s talk about Donald Trump vs. the ‘deep state’ - The Washington Post - "Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States. While occupying that office, he deserves to have his national security team fairly present all the viable options available to him. It is precisely this kind of deck-stacking that fosters “deep state” paranoia in the first place."
The Washington Post is now a far right tabloid

Is There Room in Diversity For White People? - "Today’s college administrators increasingly frame diversity and inclusion as lessons that must be learned by whites alone—and they’re lessons that too often unfold as interventions that force whites to regard themselves less as full partners in diversity than an obstacle to be overcome so that other constituencies might thrive. (This flows from another favored academic trope, the concept of the zero-sum society, wherein white success necessarily comes at the expense of non-white failure.) Colleges require the injection of units—if not whole introductory courses—on diversity in major subject areas “from physics to forestry,” as the Atlantic put it, and syllabi confirm the prevailing view of whiteness as something of an anachronistic disease that, like cholera, has no place in modern life... academic theorists crusade to purge whiteness from STEM courses, because critical thinking and research are regarded as tools of “white hegemony.”... a UC-Irvine professor condemns even “technical prowess” as a white male construct. A Linfield college Gender Studies professor even condemns her peers for putting “stellar” colleagues in leadership roles, because stellar individuals, she notes, tend to be white and thus have benefited unfairly from “a logic of meritocracy that is built on this racist assumption that everyone has had the same access and opportunities.” UCLA pays students a stipend to act as professional social justice activists who will diagnose, expose, and combat “whiteness” and “the patriarchy” in all campus manifestations... Today’s white college students have little to do with the active bigotry of the past; treating them as if they arrive on campus with some endemic moral deficit is almost certain to foment a stronger sense of racial identity among students who deem the attacks unwarranted. (77 percent of today’s freshmen describe themselves as somewhere between liberal and middle-of-the-road.) No matter how erudite the packaging, labeling a race “depraved” is the textbook definition of bigotry (if not, some might argue, an institutionally sanctioned hate crime). Consider, too, the implications for black self-reliance. It seems unhelpful to suggest to blacks that resolving the gap in minority performance remains a problem that somehow falls to whites; this undercutting of black agency subliminally echoes the very paternalism that colleges decry... On the meta level, these campaigns reinforce the legitimacy of racist thinking itself: if it is permissible to link whiteness and depravity, why is it not permissible to link blackness and criminality?"

Palestinians should ‘shut up’ or make peace, Saudi crown prince told Jewish leaders - "The crown prince of Saudi Arabia reportedly harshly criticized Palestinian leadership during a meeting with American Jewish organizations in New York last month, slamming Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for rejecting peace offers. “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given,” Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told the Jewish organizations, Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 10 reported Sunday for Axios. “It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” “People literally fell off their chairs,” said a source who was briefed on the meeting... During his American tour, MBS told “60 Minutes” that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “very much like Hitler.” He also told The Atlantic that Israelis “have the right to their own land.”"
Maybe Muslims will say he's a Mossad agent

What I Learned In My Women’s Studies Classes - "since knowledge itself is considered a patriarchal construct, feminist theories are the organizing principles of classes. The theoretical backbone of women’s studies is grounded in three main conjectures: that of the patriarchy, intersectional oppression, and social constructionism. None of these contentions can be proven or falsified. Yet, as a student, good grades are contingent on agreeing with them... merely mentioning biological differences can be wrongthink. Or worse, as I learned in one of my classes, it can be upsetting to genderqueer or transgender students. Thus, some of the root causes of what makes men and women differ — hormonal, neurological, and biological differences — is left out of the discussion. Mentioning dissident academics is also wrongthink. For example, during a discussion on intersex individuals, I earnestly recalled an article I read by well-known academic Alice Dreger. “Transphobic and problematic,” my professor tisked. We were also taught that our personal experiences were forms of knowledge, “lived experience.” This is why discussions that began with students rhapsodizing on feminist theory often devolved into emotional overindulgence. Class discussions trend towards group-therapy sessions... the thick academic prose of feminist scholars confers gravitas to what otherwise could resemble political propaganda. “The patriarchy is the root cause of everything! Fight it now!”… if only the word patriarchy was replaced with capitalism, it’d be similar to communist propaganda. It’s no coincidence that many of my former professors had academic backgrounds in Marxism. In fact, it makes sense now, since redistribution of privilege (and not just capital) is an imperative for a utopian post-oppression society... teaching students how to view the world through the lens of oppression isn’t just dangerous, but cruel. Nothing is more oppressive than having your professors teach you that you’re a victim."

Feminism Blinds Students to the Truth About Men - "At a school where acknowledging intersectionality is de rigueur, one would expect to encounter dialogue about issues that men face too. However, after two years here, I have never witnessed students or professors broach the topic in a positive way. What’s more alarming is how often female peers display conspiratorial glee when they make fun of and delegitimize men’s issue... When I started taking Women’s Studies classes 4 years ago, I was seduced by feminist ideology. Mentally tabulating my oppression cards became a hobby. Unfortunately, being steeped in feminism didn’t just make me blind to the truth about men—it made me actively resist learning about it. Thankfully, while feminism taught me that women were on the losing side of everything—real life taught me that disadvantage is more nuanced than that... 85% of black homicide victims are male. The last time I brought this up in a conversation, a white feminist scoffed and said “well that’s their fault,” which implied that victims of gang violence somehow deserved it. That’s similar to the victim-blaming we see with reference to rape. When men lose out, women lose out too. Many of these men are fathers, husbands, and sons"
So much for feminism being for/helping men too
It's no coincidence that these attitudes mirror that of the feminist who told me that women doing better in school despite "patriarchy" means that it's men's fault they are unable to compete despite being "privileged"
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