Links - 8th April 2020 (1)

dr jpa 🇺🇸 󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 on Twitter - "If you are positive thinking every day, work hard, strive to become the best version of yourself, surround yourself with inspiring people and never give up, there will be no limit to how exhausted you will be. --Svend Brinkmann, Danish Professor, Psychology"

Mother jailed for involving children in divorce case - "A mother, together with a male colleague, turned her two children against their father during divorce proceedings, so much so that their 15-year-old daughter publicly alleged that her father sexually abused her and her younger brother.But these allegations were unfounded, and the woman was found to have breached court orders by involving her children in the acrimonious divorce, in which she and her children accused the father of being a "mega-evolved sexual fetishist womanising pervert"."

California couple left bikes in yard to lure thieves, beat them with bats and post videos to YouTube: police

Philip Gehr - "Up early in the morning before the kids. Cutting the product *pouring Tootie Fruities into a Fruit Loops box*"

Those Vegan Guys - Posts - "Darren: "Why would you want to eat things that look and taste like meat if you're a vegan, why not just eat meat?"
Karen: "Why would you play computer game shooters when you could just go outside and shoot actual people?"
Darren: "Because that would make me a murderer"
Karen: "Ta dah""
Of course, there're people who think it's wrong to kill computer game characters, or who think killing them promotes bad values

Why cheating comes naturally to Indians - "We Indians are born fraudsters and hustlers. The big guns obviously hunt bigger game. The returns are higher. Every Indian cheats to the best of her ability. You do the best you can. It’s what school taught us. To learn to cheat in India is to learn how to survive. If you don’t, society will treat you as an imbecile who never grew up. Like the freelance writer.The working principle is this: If you don’t exploit, then you will automatically become the exploited. What happens then is that since everyone is cheating everybody else, all this cheating cancels each other out in the final sum. No one really gains. But it’s something we are habituated and genetically inclined to do, like the way we drive. It’s a mix of nature and culture. The shopkeeper wakes up and ups his shutters. The spider waits for the fly to come flying in. It could be the smallest of shopkeepers. It’s the reason people don’t change neighbourhoods, although familiarity is no guarantee that you will not be cheated. There is a cold bloodedness to our human relationships: false obsequiousness always follows a successful heist. The cheater respects the cheated’s stupidity. Without that he will be nothing. This cheating can be about the smallest of things, beginning with plumbers, electricians, carpenters, the cab ride from the airport or train station.The cigarette seller will keep five rupees and refuse to return the change.The mobile phone shop man will take a look at you, size you up, then quote you an inflated price for a phone cover and case.The parking attendant will take an extra ten for parking.Every tourist is fair game, which is why we have to chaperone, baby sit and play tourist-guide to our foreign guests. They can’t be left alone. They will be fleeced. You will hand in a five hundred rupee note, the cashier will keep it and return much less than you’d calculated. When you say "Hey, what happened to the rest?", he’ll reply: "Oh sorry I thought you gave me a hundred." He’s testing you. On your face he will make you feel that you’re being unnecessarily difficult. Secretly, he respects you... That’s the reason why Indian parents always warn their kids: Don’t let your guard down for a moment. The moment you do, you’ve been had... Basically if you don’t look local enough, you don’t bargain hard and question every transaction, you will be a sitting duck. That’s the default Indian setting. No Indian trusts the next Indian. Trust signals gullibility, not a valued trait in our urban jungle."
Will castigating the writer for perpetuating "stereotypes" be silencing a "minority"?

Konstantin Kisin on Twitter - "Students at Sheffield University are being paid £9.34 per hour to report on their fellow students. This is tremendous progress as in the Soviet Union, these roles were unpaid."

Turning students into a woke Stasi - "A friendly word of warning to black students thinking of applying to the University of Sheffield: don’t. Racism is endemic at this university. You will be confronted with racist abuse everywhere – in your accommodation, the library and the student bar. Racism at Sheffield University is – apparently – so rife that the vice-chancellor has had to resort to paying students to police not just the words but also the thoughts of their peers in a bid to get to grips with it.The university has announced that it will employ 20 of its own students at the generous rate of £9.34 an hour to tackle racist language on campus. The qualifications needed to become a ‘race-equality champion’ have not been made public. Thankfully, details have been provided about the role so we can make a guess at the skills required. The informers will be expected to tackle ‘microaggressions’ — that is, ‘comments or actions which might be unintentional, but which can cause offence to a minority group’. Sheffield’s vice-chancellor, Koen Lamberts, has said the aim of the initiative will be to ‘change the way people think about racism’ through initiating ‘healthy conversations’... will they be paid a commission for the numbers they inform on? What about snitches, sorry – champions – who find no sinners, no matter how hard they try? Will they risk losing their jobs? The East German Stasi seemed to have the answers to some of these questions – surely an all-expenses-paid fact-finding trip to Berlin by Sheffield’s senior-management team is perfectly justified.University lecturers and students must be among the most sensitive and most politically correct people in the UK today – and Sheffield is unlikely to be an exception. Sadly, this new initiative will inevitably lead to a massive increase in reports of racism. This won’t, of course, mean that the university has actually become more racist. It will mean that students have been taught to interpret every question posed to them, every sentence of every conversation, even every intended compliment as an expression of racist thinking. Every remark must be seen in the worst light possible. No joke shared between friends, no chat about home or holidays can be spared analysis for unintentional racism. What’s more, students will be taught that nothing can be questioned or challenged informally among friends – everything should be reported to officials who can intervene and instigate a ‘healthy’ conversation. What sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning have labelled ‘victimhood culture’, where an accusation is as good as proof and being a victim becomes a form of social status, will take root. This will be to the benefit of no one other than the bureaucrats and administrators who manage the campus."

Long weekends are alluring, but the shorter working day is more practical - "When Microsoft gave its 2,300 employees in Japan five Fridays off in a row, it found productivity jumped 40 per cent. When financial services company Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand trialled eight Fridays off in a row, its 240 staff reported feeling more committed, stimulated and empowered... Arguably it is the pressure to fit family and personal commitments into the few hours between getting home and bedtime that is the main source of today’s time-squeeze, particularly for families. This suggests the priority should be the shorter working day rather than the four-day week... It’s worth bearing in mind the historical fall in the working week from 72 to 40 hours was achieved at a rate of only about 3.5 hours a decade. The biggest single step — from six to five-and-half days — was a reduction of 8 per cent in working hours.Moving to a six-hour day or a four-day week would involve a reduction of about 20 per cent in one step. It therefore seems practical to campaign for this in a number of stages.We should also treat with caution results of one-off, short-term, single-company experiments with the four-day week. These typically occur in organisations with leadership and work cultures willing and able to experiment with the concept. Employees are likely to see themselves as “special” and may be conscious of the need to make the experiment work. Painless economy-wide application cannot be taken for granted"

Taxpayer-funded electric vehicle chargers barely used: Report - "A $182.5 million federal government program has so far subsidized 102 electric vehicle charging stations across Canada, but some locations are used barely once-a-day according to an audit by Natural Resources Canada... The federal program is intended to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions"
"Sustainability" requires subsidies

Farmers Are Buying 40-Year-Old Tractors Because They're Actually Repairable - "When a brand new John Deere tractors breaks down, you need a computer to fix it. When a John Deere tractor manufactured in 1979 breaks down, you can repair it yourself or buy another old John Deere tractor. Farming equipment—like televisions, cars, and even toothbrushes—now often comes saddled with a computer. That computer often comes with digital rights management software that can make simple repairs an expensive pain in the ass... The tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s look and run like modern tractors, but lack the computer components that drive up costs and make repair a nightmare... Farmers are at the center of right-to-repair, a grass-roots consumer movement that says people should have the right to repair their own stuff. When a John Deere tractor breaks down, John Deere requires its owner to take it to an authorized dealer for repairs. Apple wants the same for its iPhones and recently told Congress that people would hurt themselves if they repaired their own stuff"

B.C. Supreme Court rules Indigenous ceremony at Vancouver Island school didn't violate religious rights - "The B.C. Supreme Court has ruled that an Indigenous smudging ceremony performed in a Port Alberni classroom in 2015 does not constitute a violation of religious rights for non-Indigenous students.The controversy began in September 2015 at John Howitt Elementary School after a student's parent claimed their child was unable to leave the classroom when the ceremony was taking place, which infringed on their religious neutrality...  "This was an incredibly difficult case to go through and the court agrees that some of the petitioner’s arguments were insensitive and regrettable hyperbole especially considering the magnitude of what occurred in the residential school," said Sayers.   "It was tough for all concerned to sit through this hearing and listen to assertions about Nuu-chah-nulth culture and hope that it never happens again.""
Apparently if you can't force others to watch your ritual, that is reminiscent of forced cultural re-education (residential schools)

The medieval ‘Shame Flute’ was used to punish bad musicians in the Middle Ages - "The contraption, which is essentially a heavy iron flute – although you probably wouldn’t want play it – was shackled to the musician’s neck.The musician’s fingers were then clamped to the keys, to give the impression they were playing the instrument.Finally, just to further their humiliation, they were forced to wear the flute while being paraded around town, so the public could throw rotten food and vegetables at them. At the time, it was considered a fitting punishment for crimes against music.But the Shame Flute – which is probably, if we’re being picky, closer in appearance to today’s clarinet – wasn’t just used to punish devious musicians. It was used on pretty much any public performer whose work was considered objectionable.Played your lute a bit out of tune? Shame Flute. Dropped a couple of juggling balls while jesting? Shame Flute."

Malaysia has become hub for Iranian activity, Western intel suggests - "Western intelligence analysts have noted extensive and growing activity by Iran in Malaysia, and that Iran has been shifting more activity to Malaysia from African countries... “Malaysia is the meeting point between various terrorist organizations and the Iranians”... In most of his statements, Mohamad refers to “the Jews” and not to Israelis, without bothering to differentiate between the two. And he makes no attempt to hide this. In 2012, he said he was proud to be called an anti-Semite. In his personal blog, he wrote, “The Jews control the world by a proxy,” and last August he said that “the term anti-Semitism was only coined to prevent people from criticizing the Jews for their evil deeds.”... Mohamad’s odious statements are not confined to Jews and Israel. Other countries in the West are also a target. At the same conference, he said, “There is significant evidence that the attack on the Twin Towers was staged.” He claimed the goal was to enable the U.S. government to operate against different Arab countries. No such theory was ever mentioned before it appeared on the website of the Malaysian Foreign Ministry"