Links - 31st March 2020 (1)

Nature and Origin of "Squirting" in Female Sexuality - "Pelvic ultrasound scans were performed after voluntary urination (US1), and during sexual stimulation just before (US2) and after (US3) squirting... US2 (just before squirting) showed noticeable bladder filling, and US3 (just after squirting) demonstrated that the bladder had been emptied again... The present data based on ultrasonographic bladder monitoring and biochemical analyses indicate that squirting is essentially the involuntary emission of urine during sexual activity, although a marginal contribution of prostatic secretions to the emitted fluid often exists."
Naturally there are a lot of women insisting this is wrong because it doesn't smell like pee or feel like peeing, or some other weird rationalisations which scream "I don't want to believe this so I'll come up with some ad-hoc excuse". One criticised the "small" sample size of 7... and substituted it with her sample size of 1 (herself)
Addendum: Another time I posted it women bitched about mansplaining, men thinking they know the female body better than women and similar sexist nonsense, even when posted a Cosmo article quoting Oz Harmanli the chief of urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery at Yale, who had "reviewed much of the research on squirting". Science is only good when it confirms what I feel. More evidence that 'mansplaining' is when a man confronts a woman with facts she doesn't like

Hilarie Burton Fired for Demanding Interracial Couple on Show - "Amid a controversy involving the Hallmark Channel’s treatment of onscreen same-sex relationships, actress Hilarie Burton claimed she was fired from one of the network’s projects after she demanded “diverse casting.”“Just going through some old emails from a #Hallmark job I was ‘let go’ from back in January. I had insisted on a LGBTQ character, an interracial couple and diverse casting"... Hilarie Burton Fired for Demanding Interracial Couple on Show - "Amid a controversy involving the Hallmark Channel’s treatment of onscreen same-sex relationships, actress Hilarie Burton claimed she was fired from one of the network’s projects after she demanded “diverse casting.”“Just going through some old emails from a #Hallmark job I was ‘let go’ from back in January. I had insisted on a LGBTQ character, an interracial couple and diverse casting... Burton, who played Peyton Sawyer on early aughts teen drama “One Tree Hill,” chose “leave it.”... According to Burton, the “bigotry comes from the top and permeates the whole deal over there.”... A spokesperson for Hallmark told Fox News that Burton had never been employed by Crown Media Holdings, the Hallmark Channel’s parent company.Burton also thanked her husband, actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, for paying for her to have the luxury to live out her progressive ideals."
This should be "I quit because I couldn't force them to follow my creative demands"

Too good to be true... : Tinder - "Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"Oh. Fuck"
"Fuck who?"
"... me?"
"We're a good match"

dishon on Twitter - "My generation went from "we need to take bullying seriously" to "I dug through your past and you made a bad joke 12 years ago, I'm gonna ruin your like and when you kill yourself, I'll post Kpop gifs about it on Twitter""

Politically Incorrect D.Va II: Gamers Never Die - Posts - "Are computers already smarter than humans?"
"Google's new artificial intelligence bot thinks gay people are bad"

The one variable that makes growth mindset interventions work - "Proposed by Stanford psychologist Carol S. Dweck, mindset theory states that there are two perspectives people can have on their abilities. Either they have a growth mindset–where they believe their intelligence and their abilities are malleable–or they have a fixed mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe that their abilities are either impossible to change or highly resistant to change. According to the theory, people with a growth mindset are more resilient in the face of adversity, persist longer in tasks, and learn more in educational programs. People with a fixed mindset deny themselves of these benefits... I discovered the one characteristic that the studies that support mindset theory share and that all the studies that contradict the theory lack: Carol Dweck. Dweck is a coauthor on all three studies that show that teaching a growth mindset can improve students’ school performance. She is also not a coauthor on all of the studies that cast serious doubt on mindset theory."

The Clap Is Back - "Rates of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia infection have continued to rise, according to the Centers for Disease Control.Both total numbers of infections and per capita rates of the three STDs continued their more-or-less uninterrupted climb since the turn of the millennium. In total, rates of infection are at their highest level since the CDC began tracking chlamydia infections in 1984... by 2015 MSMs were 24 times likelier to have gonorrhea than women, and 31 times likelier than "men who have sex with women."In a companion release, the CDC suggested that "multiple factors, including individual behaviors and sexual network characteristics," may determine the high prevalence of STDs among MSM. Those network characteristics included "high prevalence of STDs, interconnectedness and concurrency of sex partners"... The new report highlights a startling increase in syphilis among newborns."
I guess education and a reduction in stigma aren't the magic bullets after all (does anyone seriously think the stigmas has gone up?)

Australia is rich, dumb and getting dumber - "Bangladesh, Cuba, Iran, Mali and Turkmenistan share an unexpected connection to Australia, and it isn't membership of a tourist destination hot list.All are among the economies that are so lacking in complexity, and have such limited natural opportunities to develop new products, that Harvard University recommends they adopt industrial policy straight out of the post-colonial developing world: the "strategic bets" approach.The advice comes from the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for International Development... The enormous wealth generated by iron ore, coal, oil and gas masks, and probably contributes to, an economy that has failed to develop the industries needed to sustain its position among the top ranks of the developed world... the eighth-richest nation in the study has the export profile of Angola. About 70 per cent of products sold to foreign buyers, on a net basis, are minerals and energy. Add in food, alcohol, wool, tourism and metal products, and the figure rises to around 99 per cent. Notwithstanding the success of CSL, Atlassian and corporate pioneers, Australia sells the world almost nothing, relative to total exports, that requires a degree to make. "Australia⁩ is ⁨less complex than expected⁩ for its income level," the study says. "As a result, its economy is projected to grow ⁨slowly.⁩"As a consequence, the economy will grow 2.2 per cent a year over the coming decade, ranking in the ⁨bottom half⁩ of countries globally... For Australia, the study proposes a couple of dozen exports based on research that suggests, logically, leaps are easier when you manufacture similar products, such as moving from woollen socks to business suits.The suggestions include serums and vaccines, laboratory reagents, vehicle bodies, butter, frozen vegetables, pig fat, chemical wood pulp and linseed."

Authorities Recall Sexist Health Manual From Shenzhen Schools - "Girls like boys who are “rich” and full of “masculine charm,” according to a photo included in the report. Boys, meanwhile, prefer girls who are “pretty” and “tender,” and are put off by “tough women,” “strong feminists,” and “money worshippers.”"
Apparently the possibility that these are true was not considered. Better to tell noble lies, presumably

Hawker Culture Belongs To Singapore Because We Have More Money - "Hawker Culture still belongs to Singapore, not because we are better at street food or hawker dishes, but because we have more money than Malaysia. Malaysians may be better at cooking, but Singaporeans are infinitely better at selling/marketing ourselves as better cooks—simply because we have the resources to do so.Our flavours may be lacking, but most of the world will never know because we certainly don’t lack for money when it comes to PR campaigns, media blitzes, and over-the-top product placement. (Remember that pointless scene in Crazy Rich Asians where Henry Golding lectures everyone about satay? I thought not.)... What the angry Malaysian writers fail to understand is this: Origin or history rarely matters when it comes to food. In our late-capitalist planet, food is just as much about big money as it is about great taste."
Presumably Chinese food spread throughout the world because Chinese emigrants were rich. Ditto for Thai and Vietnamese food. And British food is famous and enjoyed all around the world because of the British empire and how it is a rich country

Layla Moran: Lib Dem MP announces she is pansexual - "Pansexuality describes those who are attracted to a person regardless of their sex or gender... According to the charity the LGBT Foundation, pansexuality is different from bisexuality - but they are not mutually exclusive and some people identify as both.  "Being bisexual means being attracted to more than one gender, while being pansexual means being attracted to people regardless of gender""
Elsewhere we are told that bisexuality doesn't mean that you're recognising the gender binary, but that you're attracted both to your gender (homo) and to other genders (hetero). Rebranding is a good way to look brave and stunning. But with this new definition it looks like bisexuality means you can be attracted to the other gender and one of the made up ones - i.e. you can be effectively heterosexual. In other words, pansexuality is the same as what people understand by bisexuality
The sort of people who'd vote liberal democrat would like this. But maybe this will get more people to vote against her next time

Lib Dem MP Layla Moran slapped partner at conference - "Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran has admitted slapping her then-boyfriend at a party conference in 2013, leading to them both being arrested... The row in Glasgow began over a lost computer cable, she said.She said she initially faced charges but they were subsequently dropped.In her statement, she said "in the heat of the moment, I slapped him because I felt threatened"."
Partner assault is good when you're female

mirax on Twitter - "🇬🇧We’re proud to fly the flag for UK culture as part of the @GREATBritaincampaign!These beautiful snaps are from @TheRoyalBallet's production of Romeo and Juliet#CultureIsGREAT"
"The indignant reactions to this ad which had the temerity to feature the flag explains why Brexit won and the woke left are out of touch, still rocketing to ever more rarefied levels of moral superiority."
And yet there're people who claim liberals don't hate their countries
They're so many leftists ignorant of how this campaign has been going on for years. Or who think this means that all the operas featured must be British
It's amazing how many people interpret this as "Britain First" (and even so, that's as if there's anything wrong with putting your country first). Presumably leftists want to change the name of Great Britain

Ralph Alba ️ on Twitter - "I don't know about your uni, but Osaka University has a Catalogue of the cats in their campus every year."

Thread by @MehrsaBaradaran - "So I'm helping a kid I know with some college applications and I have some thoughts. My friend has a GPA of over 4.0 and a star in track and cross-country. She grew up Black in a white rural town in CA--oh and she's homeless. She's living with a friend's family.
So I convince her to apply to some top colleges and offer to help her jump thru all the dumb financial and non-financial hoops. It occurs to me, after 10 or so applications in, that if you wanted to design a system to keep out poor kids, this one is probably your best bet... Columbia asks "what exhibits, lectures, theatre productions and concerts have you liked best in the last year?" I'm tempted to write "Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera--psych--my town doesn't even have a movie theatre!
I ask her what kids do for entertainment and she says: "um.... drugs." Another school asks her what her favorite periodicals, newspapers, websites are. She doesn't have access to a computer except when she does homework on a school computer. She doesn't get the New Yorker
These are minor annoying questions. The major one is "tell us what you're most excited about coming to Stanford, etc." She's a first gen college student. She has no idea what Stanford is like. She has never traveled outside her town.
It just seems like anyone who can answer these questions has got to be coached."
This is what the fetish against standardised tests and for "diverse life experiences" leads to