Links - 3rd September 2018 (2)

String of knife attacks further fuels debate over refugees and violence - "A spate of bloody knife attacks in recent weeks has led to concerns about a rise in knife crime. The fact that teenage refugees have often been the culprits has also fired up right-wing critics of the government... With police statistics showing that refugees and asylum seekers are significantly over-represented in violent crime statistics, the political mood has been raw for some time. In 2016, irregular migrants (a category including refugees, asylum seekers and people awaiting deportation) were suspects in some 12 percent of homicide cases, despite making up less than two percent of the population."
In Germany

Man Assaulted Secret Service Officer Outside White House After Immigration Rally: Feds - "Steven Carmona is accused of illegally parking his BMW along Pennsylvania Avenue, moving a bicycle rack-style security barrier erected for the rally and screaming at the officers "Where is the president?"... Carmona moved the security barrier and then punched an officer in the jaw and the left eye"
The Resistance, keeping it classy

Families earning $117,000 now qualify as "low income" in California's Bay Area - "the median price for a single-family home in the Bay Area is now $935,000. A family earning $117,000 now qualifies as "low income" in the region... home values have soared a staggering 64 percent over the last five years."

UW science school dismisses science on sex differences - "The University of Washington School of Computer Science is dismissing the science behind sex differences after a professor argued that men and women are different. The controversy began on June 19, when UW-Seattle Professor Stuart Reges argued in an essay for Quillette that women are less likely to pursue computer science degrees due to sex differences in career preferences, as well as verbal and mathematical reasoning... UW School of Science Director Hank Levy emailed the campus to say that "We disagree with the conclusions drawn in the article." When reached by Campus Reform, however, Levy would not say whether he had actually read Reges’ article, nor whether he reviewed the research Reges cited within. Spokeswoman Kristin Osborn replied on his behalf, and similarly declined to clarify if the research had been reviewed before it was condemned... When Campus Reform asked whether school officials had actually read the data Reges was citing, Osborn replied that “The source data used in the piece is not our concern, and we don’t believe it would be productive to comment on it.” Speaking to Campus Reform by phone, Reges expressed confusion that an institution dedicated to scientific inquiry would dismiss an academic’s conclusions without reviewing the research those conclusions are based upon. “This is what science should be about. UW already decided based on ideology, not science, that they disagree with my conclusions,” Reges asserted... Reges also pushed back against UW’s misreading of his article, specifically their assertion to Campus Reform that Reges ascribed the lack of women in computer science completely to sex differences in ability and preferences"
So much for the War on Science - at least climate change skeptics have some engagement with the data

Feminists upset over statue of man and woman talking - "despite no sign of distress or physical assertion, some women have decided it is a statue of "mansplaining"... If you didn't see the sexism in the statue, you're not alone (and probably a sexist by these standards). If you instead see two friends talking on a bench, then congratulations, you understand art better than you think. Because that's what the statue is actually depicting. "It was two students visiting, talking … implying nothing beyond that," the sculptor, Paul Tadlock, told WITW. In fact, that's Tadlock's daughter in the sculpture. And the reason the male student has his foot up on the bench? It's not because he's talking down to the woman. It's because Tadlock wanted "to add a little more character to the scene."... the university also denied any notion that the statue depicts condescension toward a woman. "The statue has long-symbolized the friendship and camaraderie that develops among students as they attend UIW," school spokesman Carl Myers told WITW. "We are deeply saddened that this image of friendship has been misconstrued as a symbol of sexism on social media. Nothing could be further from the truth." But who cares what reasonable people would think the statue depicts, this is patriarchy we're talking about!... Note to future sculptors: When trying to show men and women talking as friends, don't. There's just no way you can do so without offending modern feminist sensibilities."
Femisplaining - finding patriarchy everywhere

Why many women in India refuse water during a heatwave - ""Sometimes, I drink less water because the spot we use to go to the toilet in the open is filled with notorious boys. I am afraid to go there." The 13-year-old girl also restricts her food intake and goes to the 'spot' just once a day to relieve herself. She goes with a group of other women, either early in the morning or late in the evening."

Lectins Could Become the Next Gluten - "Tomatoes and ill-timed references to chemical warfare are, apparently, only a small part of the problem. The Plant Paradox urgently warns against eating wheat, beans, and peanuts, among other plants... Book publishers are rarely held accountable for publishing invalid health information. Rather, there seems to be an incentive to publish the most outlandish claims that purport to upend everything the reader has ever heard. This is a problem much bigger than any plant protein. Cycles of fad dieting and insidious misinformation undermine both public health and understanding of how science works, giving way to a sense of chaos. It seems that every doctor has their own opinion about how to protect your body from calamity, and all are equally valid, because nothing is ever truly known."

Guy loses pet rabbit, police find it at neighbor’s home, skinned and ready to be cooked

Japan’s oracle octopus turned into sashimi - "An octopus who successfully predicted all of Japan’s World Cup group stage matches has been killed and turned into sashimi, according to local media reports. The mollusc, named Rabio, chose the winners of Japan’s matches during an experiment in a paddling pool."

Khalid Ali: British Taliban bomber guilty of Westminster plot - "Ali had spent several years in Afghanistan, and when asked by British police whether he had returned to the UK for jihad, he replied: "Jihad is what we do. We are Mujahideen.""
Luckily the real terrorists like Robert Spencer, Lauren Southern and Lutz Bachmann are banned from the UK

'Saudi clerics use social media to spread hate' - Middle East - "Salman al-Odah, a state-sanctioned cleric often described in Western media as a moderate, wrote in a 2010 online fatwa, or religious ruling, that jihad is a duty incumbent on all Muslims. “Jihad means fighting the infidels and the like – this is the duty of the people of the country that has been dominated or occupied by the infidels. The rest of the Muslims must assist and support them,” he wrote on the forum Islam Today, where the post is still available."

Muslim cleric banned in Pakistan is preaching in UK mosques - "Syed Muzaffar Shah Qadri has been banned from preaching in Pakistan because his sermons are considered too incendiary. However, he is due to visit a number of English mosques, in heavily promoted events where he is given star billing."

US Muslim preacher 'who advocated beheading of gay men allowed to lecture in the UK' - "A US-based Muslim preacher who allegedly advocated killing gay people is giving a lecture series in London after being allowed to enter the UK."

Clerics who hailed killer at mosque - "CONTROVERSIAL Pakistani clerics who praised an Islamist assassin in Pakistan were allowed to speak at a mosque in Oldham last week. Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman spoke to a large gathering at Madina Mosque and Islamic Centre in Clydesdale Street, Coppice, last Thursday and Friday as part of their seven-week UK tour"

Government urged to ban Pakistani preachers who praised Islamist assassin Mumtaz Qadri - "Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby welcomed Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman to Lambeth Palace on Monday to discuss subjects including countering "the narrative of extremism and terrorism" and interfaith relations."

Persecuted Christian leaders from war zones refused entry in the UK - "The Christians, including the Archbishop of Mosul, were told there was “no room at the inn” by the Home Office when they applied for visas to attend the consecration of the UK’s first Syriac Orthodox Cathedral. Last night the decision was described as “unbelievable” by critics who pointed out that extreme Islamic leaders had been allowed visas... The Home Office recently issued guidance stating that there should be a presumption that senior members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood should be granted asylum in the UK – despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly incited violence against Egyptian Christians"

Iraqi Sister who fled Islamic State is denied entry to Britain for the second time

Rochor Beancurd - How A Dispute Split 3 Generations Of Family

Why no-one speaks Indonesia's language - "Today, standard Bahasa Indonesia, which hasn’t evolved too drastically from Malay, is rarely spoken in casual conversations. People think it’s too ‘kaku’, meaning rigid and stiff... Part of the problem lies in the language itself: Bahasa Indonesia has fewer words than most languages. Endy Bayuni of The Jakarta Post has written that foreign translations of Indonesian novels tend to read better, while Indonesian translations of foreign novels sound ‘verbose and repetitive’. But there’s also a political dimension. Because Indonesians learn Bahasa Indonesia in school, then hear it as adults primarily in political speech, they associate it with homogeneity"

NYC private school's plan to segregate students by race draws parents' ire - "Parents are irate over a plan to segregate students by race at the celebrity-friendly Little Red School House in the West Village... He points to a passage from the school’s handbook that states: “Research points to the academic, social, and emotional benefits to being in a classroom with others who share racial, ethnic, linguistic, and/or cultural backgrounds.” Amanda Uhry, president of Manhattan Private School Advisors, said she’s heard complaints from clients regarding the Little Red School House controversy. “How could a school possibly do that? I don’t know if I would necessarily send a child to a school that separated by race,” she said. “1964, remember that? We had segregation in America. What is this? It’s segregation!”"

Through the Looking Glass at Concordia University - "During a professional development seminar, my program director appeared before our class and proudly announced that he had abandoned the entire field of philosophy, once his full-time calling. It was all “racist old white men,” he proclaimed. The class laughed. It was a laugh of recognition; they had heard this jazz riff before. In my department, it was normal and expected to mock and dismiss all white male thinkers as inveterate racists and misogynists. It did not matter how long ago they had lived, or how enlightened they had been compared to their contemporaries. Their opinions, their ideas, their entire contributions to world knowledge—all null and void. Aristotle? Gone. Kant? Gone. Hume? Gone. It was like a book-burning. My program director was only playing to the crowd here, I realized, and the students loved it... By acting, or failing to act, by sustaining an arena where students—young, unformed, knowing not what they do—were encouraged to run wild and roughshod over all standards of fairness, openness, and intellectual inquiry, the professors had allowed the institution to transform into something of a madhouse... Any pursuit of truth, or dialectic of ideas, was cut off at the knees before it even got started, as the participants expended their energies policing language and asserting their moral virtue. It didn’t even matter if the students making the complaints were in the minority—all it took was one. Instead of a widening of horizons at university, I experienced there a strange sort of thinning... The academy, it seems to me now, has reverted in some ways to its old role as a religious institute, as in the days before Newton, a place of enforced consensus and theological purity. Percy Shelley was famously expelled from Oxford for atheism, for daring to question the orthodoxy of the University... to be told unendingly that the whiteness of one’s skin is disqualifying, one’s morals questionable, one’s words offensive, one’s opinions invalid, has a significant cumulative psychological effect. It causes anxiety. It caused me serious depression"

Attorney general on Najib corruption trial: Can we have this in English, please? - "When taking up the post last month replacing Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali, Tommy had been criticised for supposedly having a weak command of Bahasa Malaysia."

40 secondary schools across England have banned pupils from wearing skirts - "Further schools are also considering the move to gender-neutral uniforms, which are more inclusive of transgender pupils... There are also bans in schools in Leeds, Grimsby and Bradford, where some schools with a high proportion of Muslim pupils do not allow skirts for modesty reasons... “We feel more confident wearing a skirt and school trousers are unflattering. Self-esteem issues are on the rise among teenagers, so making us unable to wear clothes we feel our best in will damage our mental health, and in turn our school performance.” The petition also argues that trousers are often more expensive than skirts. “It is grossly inappropriate for staff members to sexualise and police the bodies of children in their care,” it continues. “There is nothing offensive about a child’s knee and lower thigh. If any teacher believes seeing a child’s leg is in any way ‘too sexual’ they should be sacked immediately for gross misconduct.”"
Apparently it is okay to oppress majorities. And miniskirts aren't sexual