Links - 21st December 2019 (1)

Muslim porn star reveals why she refuses to quit despite being 'banned from Pakistan' - "A porn star who claims she is 'banned' from Pakistan after conducting 'adult scenes' in Islamic dress said she is still a practicing Muslim and prays regularly - despite the potentially conflicting demands of her job.Nadia Ali - who first got into the adult industry as a dancer two-and-a-half years ago before moving into escorting then becoming a porn star - admitted that she experiences 'conflicts' between her religion and work but that she views it as a 'stepping stone' for her work in the beauty industry."

Star Wars Battlefront 4 Concept Art Reveals Dark Side Luke - "The art showcases dark side versions of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Mace Windu, as well as light side versions of Maul, Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress, and more, including an intriguing Emperor Vader variant of Anakin Skywalker. There's even an Evil Chewbacca that looks... interesting."

Half Of Americans Are Spending More Than They Earn, But Don't Realize It: Survey - "About half of 3,000 Americans polled in a recent survey said that they're spending more than they earn at least a few months each year. However, just 10 percent said they were living beyond their means... Part of the problem may be that a lot of Americans don't see saving as part of their lifestyle. Half of those surveyed do not set monthly savings goals for themselves, according to the Rasmussen survey. Of those who are spending more than they earn, 36 percent are dipping into savings, 22 percent use a credit card and 8 percent are borrowing money in other ways... Just 44 percent of Americans understand that a credit score measures the risk of not repaying a loan, rather than their debt or financial resources... Only about half of those surveyed by Rasmussen said that they have a monthly budget."
For all the complaints that the American middle class is being screwed by elites/Republicans/globalisation, this suggests that it's really Americans' spending habits, financial knowledge and how they treat money that are at fault

Why Financial Confessionals Go Viral - The Atlantic - "The hypothetical couple were making $350,000 a year and just getting by, their income “barely” qualifying them as middle-class. Their budget, posted in September, showed how they “survived” in a city like San Francisco, spending more than $50,000 a year on child care and preschool, nearly $50,000 a year on their mortgage, and hefty amounts on vacations, entertainment, and a weekly date night—even as they saved for retirement and college in tax-advantaged accounts... The country’s 10 percent really do feel strapped... urban professionals—they are almost always urban professionals—describe spending on $7 lattes and $70 bikini waxes and $70,000 private-school tuition. Some describe themselves as middle-class. Many describe themselves as unable to save... families earning six figures are considered middle-class in San Francisco because the cost of living is so high... “If the amount of money you’re saving each month doesn’t hurt a little, you’re not saving enough.”"
Presumably the problem is that they don't earn enough and they've been screwed by capitalism

Here are the three 'stupid' things millennials waste money on, says Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary - "It’s no secret that millennials are in debt. Massive debt. The average American aged 25 to 36 years old is in debt to the tune of about $42,000, and most of it isn’t even from student loans — it’s from credit card spending... statistics show that millennials are still spending money on the things that experts say would constitute huge savings if they were avoided — things that Shark Tank personality and O’Shares ETFs chairman Kevin O’Leary says are utterly, totally stupid...
1. $4 Coffee... the average American spends about $1,100 per year on coffee, or about $92 a month — which it says is about 30 percent more than a third of Americans spend on investing...
2. Shoes... women appear to be the worst offenders — shoe retailer DSW found last year that 75 percent of women in the U.S. own more than 20 pairs of shoes, while the average man reportedly owns 12 pairs. Credit card comparison app CreditDonkey reports that the average person buys 7.8 pairs of shoes per year. And a report by Psychology Today found that, indeed, of all the pairs of shoes owned, most people regularly wear only three to four.
3. Jeans
Nobody should own more than three pairs of jeans, O’Leary believes. “If you have more than three pairs of jeans — one black, one white and one jean original — you’re an idiot”...
The celebrity investor says you’ll save 10 percent of your salary if you just listen to those rules alone. “Then you invest that and the market gives you 7 percent a year,” he added. “The average salary in America is $58,000, you save 10 percent a year, you have $1.25 million in the bank when you’re 65.”"

Shaun Roberts's answer to Why are most people broke? - Quora - "As someone in the financial service business I have seen a lot of people go broke or stay broke. They all have some common elements.
1. They follow the herd. They buy houses too young, have children and get married too young because they are in a rush to keep up with their friends and they are constantly pressured by their families (who are also broke).
2. They load up on debt starting with student loans and credit cards they receive in college when they have little income...
3. They start saving too little, too late. They also save wrong. Cutting out a $5 cup of coffee a day will not solve your financial woes. Putting 20% of your income away before you even see it will...
4. They are never willing to sacrifice... They don't want to cut big lunches and dinners from their routine, or they have to have 5 star vacations instead of 3 star ones...
5. They are always looking for the “big score". They are going to invent something, be the top seller on Amazon, or grow marijuana. Nobody broke just gets a part time job to supplement their income. They all want to be rich, just like their Facebook friends.
6. They can't hold onto money. As soon as they build a small savings some “emergency" comes up that they just have to use their money for. Money is truly “burning a hole in their pocket".
7. It's always someone else's fault...
8. They just don't learn from their mistakes and they refuse to take responsibility...
9. They don't invest in themselves...
10. They don't stick with anything...
11. They always worry about what they don't have instead of appreciating what they do have."

The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most European Nations - "after accounting for all income, charity, and non-cash welfare benefits like subsidized housing and food stamps, the poorest 20 percent of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries. This includes the majority of countries in the prestigious Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including its European members. In other words, if the US “poor” were a nation, it would be one of the world’s richest... US households receiving food stamps spend about 50 percent more on sweetened drinks, desserts, and candy than on fruits and vegetables. In comparison, households not receiving food stamps spend slightly more on fruits & vegetables than on sweets."
If it is fueled by debt or low saving, this is not a good thing

Why Americans don't use electric kettles - "Most homes in the US operate on 100-127 volts, whereas the UK and many other countries use between 220 and 240 volts. The lower voltage in the US means that electric kettles would not heat water as quickly as they do in the UK. As a result, they haven't caught on in the US."

Canadians may pay more taxes than Americans but there's a catch - "in terms of total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, in 2010, the U.S. collected a slightly lower than average amount of taxes from its citizens ($11,365 USD per capita). Canada collected a slightly higher than average amount ($14,693 USD).The average for OECD countries was $12,911 USD... Middle-class Canadians probably pay more in taxes than middle-class Americans... They also must contend with higher sales taxes and a higher cost of goods, especially in the wealthier provinces, which affects buying power... Canadians may not pay that much more than Americans — and, on occasion, as a nation, they have even paid less — but they do get a lot more from their government in terms of social services. That’s part of what makes Canada one of the Top 10 happiest countries on earth, ranking seven spots higher than America... Government involvement in paying for health insurance has been shown to both lower prices and help citizens live longer: “The 10 countries with the highest life expectancy depend on voluntary insurance for an average of less than six percent of their costs, and government spending for nearly half.”... Perhaps that’s why so many Americans, as well as the president, feel that Americans pay more than anyone else in taxes: Because while many U.S. residents pay nearly as much, or in some cases more, than our neighbors to the north, Canadians in general can get so much more in exchange."

The Canadian Beer Banned for Being ‘Too Cheap’ - "Saskatchewan’s local government deemed the generic brand “illegally cheap.” Beer Beer, priced at $10.80 for a 12-beer case, was $2 less than competing beers. “It wasn’t expensive enough,” Tibbles said.Drummond Brewery threw money at the problem — literally. In response to the reprimand, the brewery began packing $2 bills into each case of Beer Beer destined for Saskatchewan. It was a creative solution, but the liquor board didn’t buy it. “All we ask is that everybody play by the rules to give our brewers a fair chance to compete,” Darrel Cunningham, then provincial minister responsible for the liquor board, told The National.Beer Beer was pulled off the shelves, victim of a 45-day ban in Saskatchewan"

Mainstream media one of the sources of misinformation in Canada, reveals major report - "those who get their news from mainstream outlets are more likely to give incorrect answers to questions about basic governmental policy issues.“Survey respondents who read or watched more traditional news media were less likely to express uncertainty about policy questions than those with low consumption, but more likely to give an incorrect response”"

Londoner’s Dungeons and Dragons game has lasted 38 years, and counting - "Fifty players, 38 years, 20,000 miniatures, one dungeon master and an epic story that’s spanned multiple worlds."

SpongeBob' is a 'violent,' 'racist' colonizer, says University of Washington professor - "For a recently published academic journal, the professor, Holly M. Barker, wrote an article "Unsettling SpongeBob and the Legacies of Violence on Bikini Bottom," in which she offers a different take on the affable sea sponge."SpongeBob Squarepants and his friends play a role in normalizing the settler colonial takings of indigenous lands while erasing the ancestral Bikinian people from their nonfictional homeland"... Marker stated that as an "American character" allowed to inhabit an area that natives had no choice but to leave, SpongeBob showed his privilege of "not caring about the detonation of nuclear bombs."Marker also points out the cultural appropriation of Pacific culture, with Hawaiian-style shirts, homes in the shapes of pineapples, tikis and Easter Island heads, and the sounds of a steel guitar perpetuating stereotypes of the region... Other issues for Marker: a perceived imbalance between male and female characters, and the name "Bob" representing an everyman rather than a culturally appropriate characterIn the article, Marker claims that because of these themes, children have "become acculturated to an ideology that includes the U.S. character SpongeBob residing on another people’s homeland.""
"Not sure how a sea sponge with a squirrel and starfish as best friends could be racist"

NPR on Twitter - "When should you start talking to your kids about race, religion and social class? At six months, experts say. In one study, infants as young as six months old showed a preference for members of their own race and against those of different races."
"NPR says we’re biologically hardwired to prefer our own race and that children must be brainwashed from before they are even able to speak if there is any chance of them being manipulated into denying factual racial differences into adulthood."

From Satire to Reality: Monty Python Predicts Woke Culture - "It’s telling that the Pythons satirize religion and what we today call wokeness in the same film. There is, after all, a religious component to woke culture. There are dogmas, myths, taboos and a tendency to moralize. And dissenters are denounced, or called out, with a fervour reminiscent of the persecution of witches and heretics in centuries past... Monty Python star Terry Jones is probably right to say that Life of Brian “couldn’t be made today,” partly because some of the scenes make light of transgenderism. Leaving aside the fact that Brian’s mother is played by Jones, a man, part of the humour in the stoning scene, for example, comes from the fact that the stone-throwing crowd is made up of women disguised as men, since only men are allowed to participate in stonings. However, being women (biologically female), they have a hard time maintaining their cover... The People’s Front of Judea is, in many ways, a fictional precursor of the modern woke left. Take the 2019 National Convention of the Democratic Socialists of America. In a viral video, we see a young delegate raise a “point of privilege” regarding the noise level in the auditorium. “Guys,” he says, “can we please keep the chatter to a minimum. I’m one of the people who are very, very prone to sensory overload.” A moment later, he is admonished by another delegate to “stop using gendered language to address everyone.”What is also striking about the footage is how much time is spent discussing procedural formalities... Monty Python understood that what we today call wokeness—excessive political correctness at the expense of reason, open inquiry and free speech—is incompatible with an enlightened society."

Sixth Circuit Deals New Blow to University Speech Codes - "There was a time, in the recent past, when universities were in the grip of a kind of speech-code fever. Even as recently ten years ago, after a wave of litigation striking down campus speech regulations, the vast majority of American colleges and universities still kept clearly unconstitutional speech codes on the books. They kept losing in court, yet they still couldn’t quit their codes. Fast-forward a decade and that’s changed. Between 2009 and 2019, the portion of surveyed American universities with what the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education classifies as “red light” speech codes has shrunk from 74.2 percent to a mere 28.5 percent, and a total of 17 states have enacted some form of campus free-speech legislation. But the impulse to censor dies hard, and some schools have been nothing if not creative in their efforts to control speech without explicitly and clearly running afoul of the law. Witness, for example, the phenomenon of the “bias-response team.”"