Links - 8th November 2018 (1)

Army to introduce gender and age-neutral fitness tests - "The Army is to scrap fitness tests that make allowances based on gender and age and will introduce new “gender and age-neutral” physical assessments, the Ministry of Defence has said. The new tests, which will be rolled out next year, aim to ensure all close combat soldiers are physically prepared for the rigours of modern battle. Field Army Sergeant Major Gavin Paton said: “I don’t care if you are a man or a woman, I don’t care what you do, and the enemy doesn’t either.”"
The pushback against 'diversity' begins?

Man jailed for 'sexting' underaged girl; police unable to ascertain victim’s identity - "In what is believed to be the first such case heard before the courts, a 53-year-old married man was jailed for four months on Friday (Sept 21) for "sexting" a purportedly underaged victim, whose identity is unknown... The victim later told Syazili that her brother had seen her performing the sexual acts, and had thereafter engaged in other sexual acts with her... Syazili chatted with the unknown victim for nearly four hours at his mother-in-law's home using her Wi-Fi network, so as to mask his identity. The Internet plan was registered under the name of his wife's step-brother"
Presumably it would still be a crime if he were sexting a 80 year old man pretending to be a girl

Trans activist complains that women suffering breast cancer are delaying "top surgeries" - "In a perfect example of how insane the transgender movement has become, the Twitter user “Feminist Roar” posted a screen cap of a tweet from Toby Sinbad Walker that more succinctly displays the staggering self-absorption of the transgender movement than anything else I’ve seen yet: “Trans patients were called last week and informed their long-awaited top surgery had been cancelled to let more cancer mastectomies happen. It’s not their responsibility. Our surgery is not cosmetic. Transgender wait times are fatal and I #WontDieWaiting.” Following that tweet was a long discussion in which many trans activists actually weighed in and said that trans people getting perfectly healthy breasts surgically removed due to gender dysphoria was just as essential as women suffering from breast cancer getting life-saving surgery... It is this sort of thing that is ensuring that the transgender movement becomes increasingly repulsive to most ordinary people."

The Time He Desires gay Muslim furry romance is a book against the Trump era. - "Kyell Gold’s new novel may lie at the most unlikely intersection in literary history: a gay immigrant Muslim romance involving furries—that is, people who feel a close identification with anthropomorphic animal characters. “I wrote this book in part as a response to the wave of Islamophobia in this country”"
This is your brain on identity politics
I wonder how most Muslims would react to this

‘New York Times’ Announces Appointment Of Anonymous Source As Editor-In-Chief

Wealthy L.A. Schools' Vaccination Rates Are as Low as South Sudan's - "vaccination rates in elite neighborhoods like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills have tanked, and the incidence of whooping cough there has skyrocketed... Unlike in Santa Monica, however, parents in South Sudan have trouble getting their children vaccinated because of an ongoing civil war... The anti-vaxxer turn is a frustrating development for a city that's obsessed with health and fitness"

A Man Says His DNA Test Proves He's Black. He's Suing. - "“Black Americans,” according to the federal regulations for DBEs,“includes persons having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.” The lawsuit calls this definition “impermissibly vague” and criticizes the lack of “any minimum percentage of DNA, or other objective criterion.” “He considers himself to be Black based upon DNA evidence,” Taylor’s lawyer asserted in a letter included in the lawsuit, which also called DNA “objective” and “unalterable.”"

Woman on vacation reportedly finds dead tortoise in her vagina - "A British woman has been questioned by police in Spain after doctors found a dead tortoise inside her vagina"

How I was hounded off campus for saying ‘women don’t have penises’ | Coffee House - "Less than a month after sending that tweet, I had lost my position as president-elect of Humanist Students as well as my role as assistant editor of Durham University’s philosophy society’s undergraduate journal, Critique. I was also given the boot as co-editor-in-chief of Durham University’s online student magazine, the Bubble. All for saying something that many people would surely agree with... The government is also hardly helping matters here by refusing to accept there is even a debate to be had on this subject. When the equalities minister Penny Mordaunt announced the government’s consultation on gender, she said the starting point is that ‘Trans women are women’. But what about those who don’t agree with that statement? In my case, I have found out the hard way: for those who fail to adhere to the new orthodoxy on transgenderism, the punishment is swift."

Student editor who tweeted that 'women don't have penises' is fired from university - "The since deleted tweet has received backlash from former chair of LGBT Humanists Christopher Ward who claimed the post was 'factually incorrect' and not 'worthy of a debate'. He wrote: 'As former chair of LGBT Humanists UK, the opposition I experienced from a number of longstanding Humanists members to trans people and trans issues was a stain on an otherwise great organisation. 'And here's the new President of Humanist Students RTing horrific transphobic s**t.'... 'No effort was made, beyond name-calling, derogatory comments, and ad hominem statements, to convince me of the truth of the other side's position."
Biology is transphobic

Swedish professor accused of bigotry for saying men and women ‘biologically different’ - "A Swedish university is investigating a professor for “anti-feminism” and “transphobia” after he said there are biological differences between men and women. He is being urged to retract his comments. The professor, Germund Hesslow, who works in neurophysiology at Lund University, was accused by a student of making “transphobic” and “anti-feminist” statements in a lecture — but he has refused to back down. During his course on ‘Heritage and Environment’ at the leading academic institution, Hesslow cited empirical research which supports the idea that there are differences between men and women which are “biologically founded” and therefore genders cannot be regarded as “social constructs alone”. The complainant suggested that Hesslow’s comments were at odds with the Swedish “value base” — a concept which requires all schools in Sweden to adhere to a common ethical policy, which includes upholding values like egalitarianism, individual freedom and equality of the sexes."

Now This Is Cancer - Posts - Anita Sarkeesian‏: "REFUSING TO PLAY GAMES WITH WOMEN BECAUSE YOU ARE MARRIED AND DONT WANT HYPOTHETICAL RUMOURS TO START IS THE MOST BONKERS LOGIC IVE EVER HEARD WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU??"
">Be a feminist
>Foster an environment of false allegations
>Watch as men suffer the repercussions
>Get upset when men attempt to remove themselves from risky situations
>Disappear in a puff of cognitive dissonance"
Pablo de Santiago on Twitter: *screenshot of Sarkeesian's profile with a "trust no man" accessory*
""TRUST NO WOMAN" logic, maybe? … "

How ‘gender neutrality’ could screw up the next generation - "Unfortunately, the campaign to popularise gender-neutrality is not confined to promoting sensitivity to others. It is also fervently committed to linguistic policing and forcing people to adopt a language that is alien to their outlook and values... One of the most disturbing targets of linguistic policing are daycare centres and primary schools. The aim here is to socialise children into a gender-neutral culture, and to prevent them from adopting the language and values of preceding generations. As far back as 1995, a daycare centre at La Trobe University in Australia banned the use of around 20 words, including the gender-related terms ‘girl’ and ‘boy’, in order to further its mission of altering traditional sex roles. Those who violated the code were forced to pay a fine and treated as if they had used a dirty word."
If you think your agenda is positive, you don't have a problem forcing it on other people and people who oppose it must be evil since they are against something good

Marine Le Pen ordered by French court to undergo psychiatric test over anti-Islam tweets - "French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is refusing to undergo a court-ordered psychiatric exam for tweeting brutal images of Islamic State violence, comparing the demand to methods used in totalitarian regimes... "I thought I had seen it all: but no! For having denounced the horrors of #Daesh in tweets, the 'justice' is submitting me to a psychiatric evaluation! How far will they go?" Le Pen wrote on Twitter."

How anti-immigrant rhetoric crept into Chinese Canadian politics - "The notion of a vulnerable country being exploited by “welfare queens,” many of whom are foreign outsiders, has been a familiar refrain of the political right. Equally popular is rhetoric related to “law and order,” which is how anti-refugee sentiments are often couched. Proponents of these ideas try to frame them as in perfect alignment with “Chinese morals.”... According to Liu, the Chinese community is among a number of Asian communities who would rather work hard to get ahead than portray itself as a marginalized group that “take[s] advantage of social assistance or the loopholes in society.” As a staunch proponent of “law and order,” Liu has emphasized that “safety and security” is the “number one item” on her platform... “Illegal border crossers” are thus threats to this safety. They’ve also been framed as the recipients of undeserved privilege by the federal government, which critics claim allows them into the country with minimal screening while making it nearly impossible for legal, Chinese immigrants to sponsor their family members from overseas. “I don’t have a problem with admission of legal refugees, meaning they go through passport control and all that to seek asylum,” says Joe Li, a Markham regional councillor who hails from India’s Hakka Chinese minority. “But I do have a difficulty when it comes to Chinese people who’ve spent years going through the system and fail to bring their families over, while they’re letting in all these bogus refugees — I have strong feelings about that.”"
The "far right" steadily increases in numbers. Soon it will become as diverse as the left, with LGBTs, black people and more

Father of Man Murdered by Migrants Heckled, Called 'Nazi' After Speaking Out - "The father of a 30-year-old killed by migrants was heckled by far-left activists at a demonstration in Schweinfurt over the weekend and labelled a “Nazi” for speaking about the case of his son. Karsten Hempel attended the demonstration “Kandel is Everywhere”, a reference to the murder of 15-year-old Mia from the town of Kandel who was stabbed to death by her migrant ex-boyfriend in December last year, on Saturday to talk about his own experience losing his son... he claimed that the local media tried to paint his son as a Nazi, while a press release from police claimed that Marcus and his friend had been verbally assaulted by the migrants, after which a fight broke out. Baffled by the fact the prosecutor and the police had contrary reports, Karsten hired a lawyer to go over the CCTV footage... The video contradicted the prosecution’s statement which claimed Marcus had been punched once — not three times — and that Marcus had been the first to engage physically... In one of the Chemnitz protests, organised by local football hooligans, German media and Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of “migrant hunts” but these claims were dismissed by the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency Hans-Georg Maassen. “Based on my cautious assessment, there are good reasons to believe that this was intentional false information, possibly to detract attention from the murder in Chemnitz”"

Tony Award-Winning Actor Cynthia Erivo Has Been Cast To Play Harriet Tubman And Not Everyone Is Happy - "Black British actor Cynthia Erivo has been cast in the lead role of an upcoming biopic of the iconic abolitionist Harriet Tubman but not everybody is happy about it... some people still feel that because Erivo isn't American, she isn't the best actor to help tell Tubman’s story."
This suggests that complaints about 'whitewashing' and similar 'problems' are just rent-seeking

Microsoft drops data center into the sea: 'It will keep working for five years' - "Microsoft has dropped a 40-foot long data-center pod onto the seafloor off the coast from the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, north of Scotland. That's a fairly remote location, but Microsoft's thinking behind phase two of its data-center-in-the-sea research, Project Natick, is to bring its cloud servers closer to where people live... Microsoft designed the pod to operate without maintenance for up to five years -- about the time it would take before the servers inside would be retired anyway. The prepackaged undersea data centers could also cut deployment times from two years to 90 days... The Natick team also explained the pod's cooling system and how it uses ocean water to cool liquids inside the system."