Links - 22nd July 2019

Fact Check: International Voter ID Laws - Civitas Institute - "Collins asserted that the United States makes voting more difficult than its peer countries. “We don’t seem to make voting easy for people in this country; other Western democracies do,” he stated, citing weekend election days and vote-by-mail systems. He goes on to ask, “Why do we seem to make things difficult for voters?”Made within the context of the voter ID discussion, those comments suggest that voter ID requirements are yet another way that the United States differs from its peer countries in adding burdens to its electorate.However, many countries hailed as more voter-friendly than the United States have voter ID laws in place.Norway mandates that voters present a photo ID, including a “passport, driving license, or bank card that includes a photo,” to vote.Voters in Northern Ireland must present an “acceptable photo identification” to cast an in-person ballot.Germany requires that voters bring a state-issued voter identification card, but they can substitute another form of ID for that card if they fail to deliver it at the polls.Ballots in Switzerland are issued by mail, and voters who return their ballots in person are required to show an ID and a state-issued polling card to do so.France requires a voter ID.Israel requires a voter ID.Mexico requires a voter ID.Iceland requires a voter ID."
Norway, Northern Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, France, Israel, Mexico and Iceland - classic examples of fascist states!

Health and Safety | Tourism Malaysia - "Generally, the level of food hygiene throughout the country is high. However, make sure your food and drinking water are safe. Food from street vendors should be treated with care. Drink only bottled or boiled water, or carbonated (bubbly) drinks in cans or bottles. If possible, avoid tap water, fountain drinks, and ice cubes"
This is the official Malaysia tourism website

No more bottled water, plastic-wrapped food at gov't events - "The government will no longer provide drinking water in plastic bottles or food wrapped in plastic at its events, in a bid to cut down single-use disposable plastics."
Great way to increase food waste and carbon emissions and poison your guests

E-waste a bigger problem than plastic waste, says Masagos - "While there is plenty of focus on plastic waste, the more pressing issue facing Singapore is electronic waste, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli said yesterday."E-waste is very toxic. People underestimate the toxicity of the e-waste that we dispose of and for the longest time we weren't processing it," he said.Plastics, on the other hand, were being collected properly and then incinerated, the minister said."And we scrub all the toxic dioxins when we incinerate."... Mr Masagos also recalled that plastic bags solved a problem the Republic faced in the 1970s."Back when we didn't bag our trash, we just threw food into our rubbish chutes and caused pests to come, and at the same time, it would corrode the linings of chutes, and we had to repair them so often," he said."This problem got mitigated when we started bagging our trash.""
Now we need a video of a dolphin being poisoned by an iPhone (dolphins are even more charismatic than turtles). Then eco warriors will call for smartphones to be banned like straws!
Bastiat would observe that plastic bags are a lot more visible than pests and chute linings, so people will obsess about them and ignore the invisible

Pictured: Man who went to gardaí to complain over quality of his drugs - "A cannabis user brought a bag of the drug to a Garda station to complain it was "not of good quality".Arthur Liwembe (34) was immediately arrested when he went to the station of his own accord and presented the cannabis to an officer to say he was not happy with it.He has been spared six months in jail and instead ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service.However, Dublin District Court heard he has separately been given a deportation order.Liwembe, an asylum seeker and former student nurse, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of cannabis at Kilmainham Garda station"

Should HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ have had more actors of color? Twitter suggestion met with ridicule - "HBO’s hit new series based on the Chernobyl tragedy has divided opinion online, but the oddest reaction yet has come from a budding UK actor wondering why the show’s creators had not chosen more people of color for the cast.While the docudrama has come under criticism for various historical inaccuracies, the lack of racial diversity among the actors has not been brought up — until now, that is — for the simple reason that 1980s Ukraine was not exactly a thriving hub of modern-day multiculturalism. That should have been no reason to leave black and brown actors out though, according to actress Karla Marie Sweet, who tweeted that there are “so many great actors of colour” in the UK who “would’ve been amazing” in the series. Sweet felt “disappointed” to see “yet another hit show with a massive cast” that “makes it looks like PoC don’t exist.” She later set her account to private after the inevitable backlash that followed. Just to clear up any confusion, the show “makes it look” like there were no people of color to reflect the reality of the time and place — and the producers seem to have been at least trying to create an authentic vibe.Needless to say, Sweet’s tweet didn’t exactly go down well on Twitter, where she was promptly told to “learn history.”"
So much for the media having a duty to represent reality (See also, casting of minority actors to play historically white characters or fictionally white characters, when the reverse is condemned)

An electric scooter scourge is stalking Paris | Financial Times - "The first problem is safety. The tiny wheels make the scooters hard to use on the many cobbled streets of Paris. Few users wear helmets or obey the rules of the road, and anecdotal evidence suggests many riders and pedestrians have been injured. Then there is the parking, or rather the lack of it. Pedestrians in Paris must navigate around scooters thrown carelessly across the pavement or abandoned in doorways, because most rental companies do not have docking stations. “It’s incredibly ugly,” complains Gaspard Gantzer, who is campaigning to be elected as the city’s next mayor in 2020. “And Paris is the world’s most beautiful city.” Inevitably, French cities are hastily designating parking areas and starting to fine users and rental companies that fail to comply... Even the environmental, commercial and social benefits of the electric trottinettes are questionable. Every morning and evening, conventionally powered vans drive all over Paris to pick up the stray scooters and take them away for charging. The recharging is often done by freelance “juicers” who plug them in at home to earn some pocket money... A study by the Boston Consulting Group found that the average rental
e-scooter had a lifespan of just three months, whereas it took almost four months for a rental company to break even on its investment in the product. In Paris, the average lifespan is probably a lot less, and Mr Gantzer reckons some last less than a month"

What Is CanLit? - The New York Times - "“CanLit” is a contraction for Canadian Literature, and I’m often asked by writers from other lands, “Doug, what, exactly, is CanLit?” Basically, but not always, CanLit is when the Canadian government pays you money to write about life in small towns and/or the immigration experience. If the book is written in French, urban life is permitted, but only from a nonbourgeois viewpoint."

No, Pot Legalization Probably Didn’t Increase Homicide Rates - "Despite Berenson’s claim of “sharp increases in murders and aggravated assaults since 2014” in Oregon, for example, the FBI reported that the murder rate there went up a grand total of 1.0 percent from 2015 to 2016, as compared to a nationwide uptick of 7.9 percent, and then dropped by 11.6 percent between 2016 and 2017, a significantly steeper drop than in the rest of the country. If one insists on positing a tight causal relationship between pot laws and murder rates, one could just as easily argue that Oregon’s homicide trajectory has been softened by pot legalization in these years, at least relative to national trends, saving a number of Oregonians’ lives. And of course, such a focus on state laws and crime rates ignores the larger picture: “Cannabis consumption, and especially heavy cannabis consumption, has been on the rise since 1992,” said Kleiman in his email. “Over that period, national homicide rates have fallen more than 50%.”... These are important questions. But the way to get people to take them seriously is, well, to take them seriously — not to revert to the over-the-top claims of the past. Berenson laments the fact that anyone who points out that marijuana legalization could have certain net-negative effects “may be mocked as a modern-day believer in ‘Reefer Madness,’ the notorious 1936 movie that portrays young people descending into insanity and violence after smoking marijuana.” But if you don’t want to be lumped in with Reefer Madness, don’t make unjustified claims about reefer!"

Melania Trump: A Quintessential Female Icon - "You couldn’t find a better female icon than First Lady Melania Trump: an immigrant who came to America to flee communism and in pursuit of the American dream. She is beautiful, classy, educated, and fluent in six languages.So why do feminists detest her?... Maybe to be deemed worthy of empowerment you have to march down city streets half naked with “slut” written across your chest, or have a “female penis” – at least those are the only women feminism seems to be interested in putting on a pedestal... Maybe the left hates her because she’s a successful legal immigrant... The left’s double standard over women and immigrants couldn’t be more appalling.They want to let anyone waltz over the U.S. southern border, and not require them to learn the language or assimilate in any form. In contrast, the First Lady is a multilingual legal immigrant and instead of applauding her intellect and skill the left mocks her for speaking accented english... In addition to disliking the gracious First Lady on the premise of her legal immigration, the left also criticizes her fashion choices. Regardless of how objectively well-dressed and poised the First Lady is, the left never fails to see a flaw... First Ladies Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton were plastered all over magazine covers... If her last name was that of a Democrat, magazines would be scrambling to do feature pieces on her before their competitors could, no doubt hailing her grace and beauty."

Labour unveil taxes on homeowners who have a garden and forces of sale of land on the cheap - "Labour was accused of pursuing the policies of Venezuela last night as it unveiled plans for a tax raid on middle-class homeowners and powers to force landlords to sell on the cheap. A report, called Land for the Many, said council tax should be replaced with a new 'progressive' levy targeting larger homes with gardens... it called for Britons to be forced to attend town hall planning meetings in the same way they have to go on jury service...
under current arrangements, local authorities or infrastructure companies such as HS2, which is building the high speed rail link between London and Birmingham and on to Manchester, are required to compensate land and home owners affected by the development at market values. Corbyn and his team, headed by shadow chancellor John McDonnell, want to change that. They would buy land at its current (and always lower) 'land use value' rather than at a market price which recognises the uplift that development can bring. This could trigger a financial crisis... Some of these development holdings will have been bought or financed on credit from the banks. If land values plummet, banks will be left with a black hole on their books."

EXCLUSIVE: Queens man unaware of $2 bail, spends nearly 5 months at Rikers Island - "He could have been free for the cost of a cup of coffee.A Queens man spent nearly five months at Rikers Island — from November 2014 to April 2015 — without knowing his bail was just $2, according to records and his lawyers.Aitabdel Salem, 41, who was acquitted of bail jumping at a Manhattan Supreme Court trial last week, had been jailed on $25,000 bail for attacking an NYPD cop who was arresting him for stealing a coat at a Zara store in the Flatiron District on Nov. 21, 2014, court papers show.Although Salem didn't know it for more than four months, he caught a lucky break when prosecutors could not get an indictment. He was ordered released on Nov. 28, 2014 on the police assault arrest.But he still had dollar bails set on each of two minor offenses — that included tampering and mischief charges — so he could not have been freed without first paying the tiny amount."