Links - 21st November 2019 (1)

College trustee’s Straight Pride Parade speech prompts cries for her resignation - "A Raritan Valley Community College trustee who spoke at the recent “Straight Pride Parade” in Boston is drawing criticism, including calls for her resignation... “Children need stability, not confusion and indoctrination," Nace told the crowd.“Where is the overwhelming need to teach lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual history that supersedes basic academic success”... The uproar over Nace’s remarks is the latest since Gov. Phil Murphy, in February, signed a law requiring public school districts to develop lessons about the “political, economic, and social contributions” of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, in addition to those with disabilities, starting with the 2020-21 school year... New Jersey was the second state to mandate LGBT education - California was the first, in 2011... Two other states, Colorado and Illinois, followed New Jersey this year in requiring LGBT education. In her remarks in Boston, Nace argued that the emphasis on LGBT education was detracting from academics and possibly distorting history.She cited examples from a curriculum model in California that questioned the sexuality of President James Buchanan, the only unmarried U.S. president, and 19th Century poet Emily Dickinson... "For most children, their gender is a fundamental part of who they are. The vast majority of children are not confused about their sex, and it’s something that they were never, ever preoccupied with until today”"
The same people trying to shut down straight pride parades claim that straight people have never faced discrimination

Auckland adman hires professional clown for redundancy meeting - "A Kiwi adman has chosen an unusual support person to accompany him to a redundancy meeting.In lieu of the usual suspects of a friend, colleague or family member, the member of the creative team at FCB hired a professional clown to attend the meeting with him... In the strange world of support creatures, this adds another colourful addition to a quirky crew that already includes hedgehogs, peacocks and goats.  The Herald understands that the clown blew up balloons and folded them into a series of animals throughout the meeting. It's further understood that the clown mimed crying when the redundancy paperwork was handed over to the staffer."

Guardian apologises for David Cameron editorial - "The Guardian has apologised for saying David Cameron had only felt "privileged pain" over the death of his son... Comedian and actress Jenny Eclair tweeted: "I am furious with David Cameron but to question his grief privilege as the Guardian is doing is vile beyond vile - his 6 year old son died.""

This is one of the best costumes ever : interestingasfuck - "*Head on a plate*"

China's scissor-hand selfie-takers warned of cybersecurity threat - "A popular hand gesture adopted by China’s online community in uploaded pictures could be used by criminals to steal people’s fingerprints, Chinese cybersecurity experts have warned.The “scissor hand” pose – similar to the peace sign or “V” for victory– could reveal a perfect fingerprint if held close enough to the camera... scissor-hand pictures taken closer than three metres (10 feet) could be vulnerable and should not be published on the internet.“A scissor-hand picture taken within 1.5 metres (four feet 11 inches) can be used to restore 100 per cent of people’s fingerprints, while pictures taken about 1.5-3 metres away can turn out 50 per cent of the fingerprints”"

‘Ireland is not a typical European country. It's more like Africa’ - "“Ireland is not a typical European country. It’s almost like Africa. The way the people chat and live their lives, it’s not like in Holland or Germany or Belgium or France. People in Ireland value their family, that’s something I’ve discovered here.”... He says he feels happy in Limerick and that he has rarely experienced racism in this country.“Where I come from in Rwanda we had too much racism. We were the same people but I’d see neighbours killing their neighbours because of their tribe. Even if you meet someone here who is not a good person, you cannot call that racism. Not everyone is good, there are bad people everywhere, but I cannot see racism here.”"

Makeup artist brands Boots 'racist' after she finds security tags on only 'black hair care' products - "Boots has been accused of racism for putting security tags on hair products for black customers but leaving ones aimed at white people untagged.Make-up artist Natasha Wright was upset to see the devices - designed to prevent theft - in a store on Wembley High Road in north west London... In response Boots said: 'To prevent theft our colleagues add security tags to the products they believe are being stolen.'They do this regardless of what the product is, the cost of it, or which aisle they are on.'"
So apparently Boots is so racist that they waste money tagging black hair products even if they're not at higher risk of being stolen. I guess at least they're not beholden to neo-liberal market logic

Dead bodies move as they decay, Australian scientists find - "Time lapse cameras set up by Australian scientists at a research facility have recorded dead bodies moving as they decompose"

Machete-wielding gangs trade blows in shocking broad daylight brawl on busy South London street - "The video, filmed on London Road, shows baseball bats and what appear to be knives, machetes and even swords being used in the ugly fight"

Florida couple busted for DUI had sex in back of police car - "Ex-cons Aaron Thomas, 31, and Megan Mondanaro, 35, were initially stopped by a deputy after they were spotted riding bikes with no lights and almost being hit by a car... Thomas and Mondanaro were placed in the backseat of a patrol car — and that’s when things got hot and heavy... Thomas managed to briefly flee, escaping hold of the deputy who tried to remove him from the patrol car.But he was caught shortly after behind a nearby Cold Stone Creamery.Authorities hit Thomas with an additional charge of theft because he took the police handcuffs with him when he ran off"

Guard with huge, stinky penis found guilty of abusing inmates - "A Brooklyn jail guard was found guilty of sexually abusing female inmates Monday — after the victims gave matching accounts of his giant, stinky penis. A jury found correction officer Lt. Eugenio Perez guilty on 23 counts for forcing four women at the Metropolitan Detention Center to perform oral sex on him and propositioning a fifth... Perez previously sat stoically through his nearly two-week trial, as visibly uncomfortable jurors endured graphic testimony from victims about his huge, hook-shaped, uncircumcised, putrid pecker. “He wasn’t circumcised. It was big, and it was like a hook … It was humongous and it curved,” one 38-year-old told the court. “If it didn’t stink I would have been all over that s–t.”... The feds were able to corroborate the women’s stories by getting a warrant for photos of his distinctive junk — which were shown to the jurors.“There is no reason why any of the victims should know anything about his penis. They all remember things about his penis”"

Having an elder brother is associated with slower language development - "Several studies had already demonstrated that children who have an elder sibling have poorer linguistic performance than those who have none. Now a research team at the CNRS, Hôpital Robert-Debré AP-HP, the EHESS, the ENS and the INSERM1 has reported a more specific result: this only concerns children who have an elder brother"

Meme - "Look son! An angry purple-haired woman dressed as a vagina is here to lecture us on human dignity"

dyl on Twitter - "Women: boobs aren’t sexual organs! stop sexualizing boobs! men can show their nipples in public, why can’t we?
Men: aight then send me a pic of your tiddies
Women:"
This is the same doublethink whereby some liberals claim that you should never touch anyone without consent, since they need to claim female hysteria about having their breasts touched should apply to all sexes and all body parts. So presumably you should never tap anyone on the shoulder

Moms Outraged After Shirtless Beach Photos Of Their Long-Haired Sons Keep Getting Taken Down By Instagram - "in some cases, the moms were even banned from Facebook or Instagram for days on end...
maybe stop sexualizing the chests of girls and women?  The chest is not a sex organ. Breasts are not genitals."

Jolie King and Mark Firkin Imprisoned in Iran During Trip - "A blogger couple who traveled from Australia to Asia and the Middle East in an attempt to “break the stigma” surrounding developing countries was reportedly arrested in Iran... “Our biggest motivation… is to hopefully inspire anyone wanting to travel, and also try to break the stigma around travelling to countries which get a bad wrap [sic] in the media,” the pair wrote online... King and Firkin were arrested for reportedly flying a drone without a permit. They’ve been imprisoned ever since.  A source told the BBC that King was told Iran is holding her as part of a potential prisoner exchange with Australia. King and Firkin aren’t the only couple to have taken turned their idealism into action by traveling to potentially dangerous foreign lands... Jay Austin and Lauren Goeghegan were biking in southwest Tajikistan – a region that borders ISIS-territory in northern Afghanistan – when they were murdered by five men who stabbed the couple to death. The attack was led by an Islamic State terrorist. The two had embarked in 2017 on a bike trip around the world. In an echo of Firkin and King, the couple was motivated by their belief that, “By and large, humans are kind,” as Austin put it in a blog post documenting the journey.“You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place,” Austin wrote from Morocco. “I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own.”"

Hodan Nalayeh: Somali-Canadian journalist among 26 killed in Kismayo attack - The Washington Post - "Hodan Nalayeh spent the last days of her life doing what she loved most: sharing a side of Somalia rarely depicted in the West... al-Shabab militants stormed the Asasey Hotel in Kismayo, killing at least 26 people, including Nalayeh, 43, and her husband, Farid Jama Suleiman. An additional 56 people were wounded. It took around 14 hours for Somali security forces to regain control of the hotel, where several tribal elders and another journalist, Mohamed Sahal Omar, were also killed... Nalayeh’s death came as a particular shock to the Somali diaspora, where the YouTube star was seen as a relentless optimist — someone who found a way to always see the best of humanity in a country where so many others seemed to only see the worst... Her presence in Somalia sparked hope among those in the diaspora looking for proof that they too could one day return to their ancestral homeland, said Mukhtar Ibrahim, executive director of the Sahan Journal, a nonprofit news organization covering immigrant communities in Minnesota, where there is a large Somali population."
Headlined as: "A Somali-Canadian journalist returned to Somalia to tell ‘uplifting’ stories. Then terrorists killed her"

Newark's Lead-Water Crisis Won't Be America's Last - The Atlantic - "The city of Newark, New Jersey, is racing to replace all of its lead pipes after a public outcry over the high levels of lead in its water. After exceeding a federal lead limit three times in a row, the city began to provide water filters to certain residents in 2018. But some of the filters were found to be ineffective, and as of the end of last month, thousands of the city’s residents were still advised to drink bottled water... Newark is far from the only city that has struggled to keep its drinking water free from lead. Drinking water in the United States is mostly safe, but between 2015 and 2018, about 5.5 million Americans in communities around the nation got their water from systems that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s lead action level of 15 parts per billion... The widespread presence of lead in water in certain areas points to what advocates call a serious failure to upgrade water infrastructure in recent decades. “The U.S. has not been investing in its drinking-water infrastructure for generations,” says Erik Olson, the senior director for health programs at NRDC, which filed a lawsuit against Newark last year. “A lot of our pipes are 50 or 100 years old or more, and many are lead. And water-treatment plants are still using World War I–era technology for treatment.”... replacing all the lead service lines in the U.S. could cost $30 billion. It’s a hefty-seeming sum, “but that’s the kind of investment that society made when these water systems were being built 100-plus years ago,” he says. “We have been living off of the investments of our great-grandparents for decades.”... Americans have already indicated that they are willing to pay for even safer water: We currently spend $18.5 billion on bottled water every year."
Crumbling US infrastructure strikes again