Links - 4th July 2019 (1)

Je fais des poupées en latex grandeur nature: elles comblent un vide sexuel... ou affectif - "Un autre client d’un certain âge a développé des sentiments pour sa poupée. Il était veuf, ses enfants avaient quitté le domicile familial, alors il s’est pris d’affection pour elle. Il l’habillait, il lui parlait et il me disait :
"Ce n’est pas pour le sexe, c’est simplement pour avoir de la compagnie".
C’est étrange, mais si ça peut l’aider à aller mieux, j’en suis très content."

How Building Churches Out of Egg Whites Transformed Filipino Desserts - "The Holy Rosary Church dates back to 1877 and the Spanish colonial era, a period when, Evangelista explains, “Local churches were built with egg whites.” As evangelizing Spanish colonists built churches across the islands, laborers used egg whites as an emulsifier in the concrete. “Food is in the foundations here,” Evangelista adds.As the well-attended Holy Rosary Church attests, this had a lasting influence on the country’s architecture and spiritual life. But its legacy is also on display in Filipino bakeries and home kitchens. Because what else is there to do with millions of leftover egg yolks but bake delicious desserts?"

Pagans, History Buffs Rage as Sweden Considers Banning "Nazi" Runes - "The government's reported plans to ban the traditional runic alphabet alongside heathen imagery, due to their alleged popularity in Neo-Nazi circles, have sparked the ire of politicians and ordinary Swedes alike... According to the government proposal, ancient Norse symbols, imagery, and traditional jewellery can also be banned as "incitement of ethnic hatred". This applies, among other things, to Thor's Hammer known as Mjölner, the Valknut (or Odin's knot) and the magical stave Vegvisir... Banning an entire written language restricts the freedom of religion, which is backed by the Swedish Constitution and international conventions, they argued. Additionally, by adding contrived meaning to the runic script, the government is making the same mistake as the Nazis, who widely utilised Nordic imagery... "So, the government wants to ban runic writing. Well, will they destroy the Rök Stone outside Vadstena and several other priceless rune stones from the Viking Age? A more anti-history government is indeed hard to find", a Swede wrote."
They need to ban Buddhists from using the swastika

Three Gorges Migration Not the Largest in Chinese History - "In 127 BC, during the reign of Emperor Hanwu, about 100,000 people from what is now Hebei, Shandong, Henan and Anhui provinces were summoned to move to the Hetao Plain and areas to the south of the Yellow River. In 119 BC, 720,000 poor people migrated to southern Inner Mongolia, northwestern Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, southern Ningxia and the Hexi Corridor of Gansu Province. The next year, both officials and common people thought to be treacherous were exiled to border areas, their number estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. Also, there are some other migrations organized by officials at different places. In a period of more than 20 years, the government had implemented a migration of 1.2 million people, more than 3 percent of the total population, 36 million, of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). Most of the moving and resettlement fees were borne by the government. En route, the migration was supervised by a large number of officials and soldiers. The migrants covered hundreds of kilometers, sometimes 3,000 kilometers, before they finally settled down"

Women Don’t Belong in Combat Units - WSJ - "Most female aspirants couldn’t pass the test, so the Marines changed it from a pass/fail requirement to an unscored exercise with no bearing on the candidate’s ultimate evaluation. The weapons-company hike during the IOC is now “gender neutral,” meaning that officers can hand their pack to a buddy if they get tired, rather than carrying it for the course’s full 10 miles.Lowering these physical requirements risks reducing the American military’s lethality. A more serious effect of sex integration has become taboo to mention: the inevitable introduction of eros into combat units. Putting young, hormonally charged men and women into stressful close quarters for extended periods guarantees sexual liaisons, rivalries and breakups, all of which undermine the bonding essential to a unified fighting force.... Long before infantry integration became a feminist imperative, evidence was clear that a coed military was a sexually active one. In 1988 then-Navy Secretary Jim Webb reported that of the unmarried enlisted Navy and Air Force women stationed in Iceland, half were pregnant... The argument for putting women into combat roles has always been nonmilitary: Combat experience qualifies soldiers for high-ranking Pentagon jobs. But war isn’t about promoting equality. Its objective is to break the enemy’s will through precise lethal engagement, with the lowest possible loss of American life. The claim that female combat soldiers will perform as lethally as men over an extended deployment entails a denial of biological reality as great as the one underlying the transgender crusade"

Why Many of Today’s News Reporters Believe It’s Their Duty to Lie to You - "Fournier basically endorsed the idea that journalists need to stop seeing themselves as neutral relaters of facts and begin shaping narratives for the public, in order to hold the powerful accountable... This new viewpoint of how to “do” the news quickly spread like wildfire throughout the entire DNC media complex. At last, reporters were actually being encouraged by their editors to give free rein to their own political biases, while engaged in “reporting the news.” Far from being desirable, political neutrality in the newsroom came to be viewed as a bad thing... We are now 11 years removed from 2008, when many media outlets in the political news industry enthusiastically embraced the new accountability journalism guidelines. What are the results?Reporters and editors gave in to their worst impulses. They began to give free rein to their most naked biases. And it began showing up loudly and clearly in their “news coverage.” By the time Mitt Romney ran against Barack Obama in 2012, most U.S. news media outlets had ditched even a pretense of neutrality between the candidates... Since Acosta thinks Trump is a very bad president who must be “held accountable” at all times, the accountability journalism philosophy gives him the green light to crudely distort Trump’s words to achieve his goal of being a “heroic” journalist who is holding a president “accountable.”... The DNC media complex’s biases and its political agenda are why they fell so hard for the Trump–Russia collusion hoax for more than two years. A neutral and impartial news industry that checked its own biases at the door and investigated thoroughly would never have fallen for it.Far from making the U.S. political news industry better, accountability journalism totally ruined it... What many in the mainstream news media loved the most about accountability journalism is that it allowed them to openly be what they always were: political activists disguised as reporters, chafing under the repressive strictures of the old model of neutrality and objectivity."
If people don't trust the media, it's the people's fault!

What are the Democrats doing that will likely cause them to lose the 2020 election against Trump? - Quora - "The Democrats are doing everything they can to alienate their moderate voters. It’s hard to imagine how they could do a better job of it.I am a mellow, moderate, middle aged mom. I have never been particularly interested in politics, but I have voted solid Democrat for 32 years because I viewed the Democrats as the party of compassion and open-minded tolerance. Sadly, I would not describe the Democrats that way anymore.Most of my friends are mellow, middle aged and older moderates like me. None of them are happy with where the Democratic Party is going...
Late Abortion. Watching the Democrats light up the World Trade Center to celebrate being able to kill late term babies was one of the most shocking, horrifying things I have ever witnessed. This is far beyond a deal-breaker for me. Even if this was the only issue I had with the Democrats, I would switch parties and never vote Democrat again.
Government Daycare. I don’t think this is a big issue for most people, but it’s a big deal to me. The government has no business getting involved in the Mommy Wars. Full time daycare for a small child in my city costs about $1,000 per month. How is it fair for the government to essentially give working moms (or dads) $1,000 per month to support their choice, and not give stay at home moms (or dads) the same amount of money for their parenting choice? Offering free government daycare pressures and coerces parents to choose going back to work instead of caring for their own kids. No fair.
A bunch of other crazy liberal concepts in no particular order:
Modern (4th wave?) feminism, The Patriarchy, & Rape Culture
Equity (rather than equality)
What the Democrats did to Brett Kavanaugh. (I’m the mother of a teenaged son. I was appalled at how the Democrats treated Kavanaugh.)
What the Progressives are doing to Joe Biden now
Colleges and students shutting down even moderately conservative speakers.
Blatant mainstream media bias against conservatives
The constant hysterical hatred of Trump. The endless accusations against Trump. Get over it already!"
"the ever-rising qualifications from the Left and an increasing influence of the Alt-Left’s intersectionality ideology. For example:
Pros for Alt-Left
(+) Be a woman
(+) Be LGBT or vocal ally
(+) Be a minority
(+) Hate Trump
Negatives for Alt-Left
(-) Don’t be white
(-) Don't be affluent
(-) Don't be a man
(-) Don't be straight
(-) Don't be old"

Frigid Offices Might Be Killing Women’s Productivity (Facebook post)
Comments: "Umm, I have run warm my entire life. A warm office is a nightmare to me. My brain will catch on fire. As well, germs love warm offices. Germ incubators."
"Clearly the authors of this article have never never met a woman experiencing menopause...who would love to work in a refrigerator."
"Except for the portion of us women who run hot. For us, cold offices are heaven. I can always add layers or a blanket. If it’s warm, there’s only so much I can remove and stay within dress code. Haha!"
"as someone who runs hot I have a hard time with a change to this. Anything over 75 and I spend my time in the office sweating, and my productivity plummets. Hell, I have a fan mounted at my desk for summer months. Someone who’s cold can put on more clothes, but I can’t strip "
"in our office, it was the women who wanted it cold"
"Notably, the women in the study were college students and therefore probably not menopausal or peri menopausal. I suspect that if a cohort of older women were tested, the results might be different."

These 3 S’poreans Took A Leap Of Faith To Switch Careers And Are Now Successful - MyCareersFuture - "3 Singaporeans who proved that pursuing passion over paycheck was a good call." (Facebook blurb)
I like how success is still defined as earning a lot of money