Links - 9th April 2020 (1)

Will Labour ever understand what went wrong? - "Denis Healey's advice – "when you’re in a hole, stop digging" – was never more necessary than for today's Labour Party. It lost the December 2019 general election in resounding fashion, and yet a considerable section of the Party insists on believing that it was the electorate, not the party leadership under Jeremy Corbyn, that got it wrong. Other causes they have been blamed include Brexit, the opinion polls, the BBC and mainstream media in general, Boris Johnson's lies, and a failure to campaign in seats they might lose instead of in seats that they thought, in a fit of delusional optimism, they could win... Rebecca Long Bailey, shadow Business Secretary... presents herself as an old-fashioned Socialist in the footsteps of Tony Benn and Michael Foot... she won herself a standing ovation led by the platform party, including Mr Corbyn himself, when she recited the old Clause Four of the Labour Party's constitution, and declared that although it was no longer printed on the back of Labour membership cards, it is still "written on our hearts."... Adopted in 1920, it declared that the party's purpose was "to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable popular administration and control of each industry or service"... Some of the best advice for Labour comes from some of the most unlikely directions. Former Tory leader, for example, William Hague, writing in the Daily Telegraph, analysed a number of instances since the war where either the Conservatives or Labour had suffered a severe drubbing at the polls, and had realised the need, in Healey's phrase, to stop digging. In 1951, 1964, 1970, 1979, 1997 and 2010, a party returned to power after a long spell in opposition, and irrespective of the party concerned, he found five factors which made such a recovery possible."The first," he wrote, "is an appreciation of the strengths and appeal of the other side." Yet most candidates in the coming Labour leadership election seem utterly baffled by Boris Johnson's success, particularly among working-class voters, and could see no redeeming features in him at all.Second, they must stop making excuses and recognise that they themselves, and not some external factor, are the problem. In Labour's case, obviously, not enough people saw them as a plausible government. British elections are usually won on the centre ground, centre-right or centre-left. It wasn't Brexit that lost Labour the election, it was Mr Corbyn and friends.Third was a willingness to accept policies of the outgoing government, even those they had bitterly opposed. However difficult, Labour has to take a positive view of Brexit. In 1951 the Tories accepted the NHS; in 1997 Tony Blair accepted fundamental aspects of Thatcherism, such as privatisation... The fourth factor in a successful return to power was a determination to assure nervous voters that the party was a safe pair of hands that could be trusted. That meant Labour reassuring the City just as it meant the Tories reassuring the trade union movement, that an incoming government would be one it could work with. The reassurances given must be plausible. It also means relying on persuasion, not dogma. It requires sensitivity and tact.And the fifth secret of a successful return was to look and sound "modern", a party of the future not the past. Labour's manifesto seemed to have been written by people who thought of the Seventies as a golden age instead of the disaster it nearly was. The stain of anti-Semitism was a particular throw-back. And it is not modern to argue that Labour ought to have a female leader because it hasn't had one before. That horse has bolted. Modern women want fair treatment based on their merits, not their X chromosomes."
A business secretary who wants to destroy business. Hmm.

Love and Money | LendingTree - "Our survey results showed a large gap between gender ratings when it came to the impact of debt on attractiveness. For the women rated in the study, there was very little difference between the average rating of the women in good financial standings versus those in bad standings. For our fictional male profiles, respondents rated a good financial standing nearly two times higher than a bad one.  Sixty-five percent of female survey respondents said it was extremely important for their partner to work. Business News Daily came to a similar conclusion; it found that 75 percent of women said it was unlikely that they’d date a man who was unemployed.In the same Business News Daily study, 46 percent of men said they would date someone who was unemployed. In our study, less than a third of men considered their partner being employed as “extremely important”... there are dating sites set up solely for the purpose of finding a partner who is financially stable... 4.1 percent of women and 5.3 percent of men said they have checked their partner’s credit score at some point, and roughly 35 percent of women and 30 percent of men said they hadn’t in previous relationships, but they would."

OUR FINE FURRY FLYING FRIENDS & SO MUCH MORE
Bull trying to mount a motorcycle

Sperm donations from dead men should be allowed, study says - "Sperm can be collected after death either through electrical stimulation of the prostate gland or surgery, and can then be frozen."

30 Pics Showing How Canadians Are Dealing With An Unprecedented Blizzard - "A massive blizzard hit Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, covering the area in huge amounts of snow."

Meme - "Wanna Go Back to My Place? We Can Play Doctor if Ya Know What I Mean"
"Oh Yeah That Sounds Hot"
"Wtf Is He Doing? I've Been Waiting for Like an Hour"

Joseph Clark on Twitter - "UTILITARIAN POTUS CANDIDATE: "On day one, I will direct the NIH to breed 2.1 trillion rats, to be fed a constant morphine drip. By year's end, the opiate-rodents will have undergone more pleasure than has hitherto been experienced in our nation's entire history. End of speech.""

75kg pig made to bungee jump 68m in China to welcome Year of the Rat

Man charged in credit union robbery wanted to 'try something new' - "Xengxai Yang of Appleton was charged Monday in Outagamie County court with robbery of a financial institution with a dangerous weapon... Yang told police that he had "decided to try something new today, so I robbed a bank." The robbery wasn't planned, he said."

Babylon Bee – Liberals taste their own medicine - "With now over 670,000 followers on Facebook, it regularly gains national spotlight for, well, making liberals whine...And this is why I love it.The Left has long dominated the entertainment industry from sitcoms that routinely take jabs through scripted dialogue to late-night shows that thrive by making fun of conservatives. You can’t even watch SNL anymore without liberals shoving their ideology down your throat... Liberals hate The Babylon Bee so much that they moved their focus from attacking the Daily Wire... The well-known “fact-checking” website Snoopes has repeatedly tried to take action to damper and restrain the Babylon Bee’s reach... Comedy is powerful, it has a power about it that allows the truth to flow undisrupted. This is why liberals hate it so much, they hate being opposed and exposed.Now, this is not to say liberals can’t laugh at themselves.  There are plenty that can. The same principle applies to both sides. However, it’s the pushback from major publication that indicates the Babylon Bee is doing exactly what it needs to be doing: breaking down the nonsensical world the far-Left is trying to build, one joke at a time."

CEO’s pet rabbit flew business class from San Francisco to Japan - "Ogawa registered Coco as an emotional support animal, allowing her to bring her pet rabbit onto the flight.Thus, it cost just US$100 (S$135) for Ogawa to bring her rabbit onto the flight, in a special case.Later, the flight attendant informed Ogawa that there would be nobody sitting beside her on the 11-hour flight, thus Coco was allowed to use the seat beside Ogawa."

Homeless man who murdered woman and her son jailed for life - "A homeless man who turned on the woman who tried to help him and killed her and her teenage son has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 30 years.Aaron Barley stabbed Tracey Wilkinson 17 times and inflicted eight knife wounds on her son, Pierce, after sneaking into their home in Stourbridge, West Midlands, dressed in a balaclava. Barley, who was given food, friendship and shelter by the family, also tried to kill Wilkinson’s husband, Peter, when he returned home after walking the dog... Tracey Wilkinson, 50, took pity on Barley, when she found him huddled in a cardboard box outside a supermarket in September 2016. She drove him home and gave him her husband’s dinner. The family helped Barley find accommodation and made sure he had a hot meal every night.Peter Wilkinson, 47, gave Barley a job at his company but had to sack him after he began taking drugs... Barley’s motive remains unknown. He refused to give an explanation to the police and would not allow toxicology tests to be done, meaning it is not known if he had been drinking or taking drugs... Barley rocked from side to side as details of his 21 previous convictions for offences including an assault on a former partner were read out.Volunteers at an alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre have reported that Barley said he wanted to kill someone with a knife – with his “two aims in life” being to kill a police officer and a prison officer. But his remarks were dismissed as bravado caused by drug abuse."

Migrants in Singapore mostly from Malaysia - "Malaysians form the biggest group of migrants living and working in Singapore, accounting for almost half - or 44 per cent - of the foreign-born population here, United Nations figures show. They are followed by Chinese nationals, who make up around 18 per cent of the migrant pool... Rounding off the top three sources of migrants is Indonesia, which made up 6.4 per cent... followed by Indians (5.9 per cent), Pakistanis (5.1 per cent) and Bangladeshis (3.2 per cent). Those from Hong Kong and Macau together make up 3.3 per cent. This diverse group of migrants has tripled in the last 30 years... The UN figures reveal, for the first time, where migrants in Singapore were originally from"
This includes not just new citizens but PRs, work pass holders and dependents, and students
It's not surprising people think PRCs are the majority of migrants, since Malaysians can pass for Singaporeans

Trump’s new Puerto Rico hate-tweets rest on a very ugly premise - The Washington Post - "In an unusually disgusting and hateful series of tweets, he claimed that Puerto Rico has already gotten $91 billion in aid, which he said has been “wasted” by “grossly incompetent” leaders there."
April 2019

Trump administration refuses to release aid to Puerto Rico despite earthquakes - "The Trump administration is refusing to release all available disaster aid to Puerto Rico despite this week’s earthquakes, citing concerns about “corruption” and “financial mismanagement” on the island"
January 9, 2020

Puerto Rico residents outraged after discovering warehouse full of unused aid from Hurricane Maria - "People in a southern Puerto Rico city discovered a warehouse filled with water, cots and other unused emergency supplies, then set off a social media uproar Saturday when they broke in to retrieve goods as the area struggles to recover from a strong earthquake. With anger spreading in the U.S. territory after video of the event in Ponce appeared on Facebook, Gov. Wanda Vázquez quickly fired the director of the island's emergency management agency... The information upset many in Puerto Rico already angry over the government's botched response to Hurricane Maria, with similar incidents of supplies going unused being uncovered months later."
January 19, 2020

The Real Reason Shoppers Aren’t Returning - "Eighty-six percent of consumers continue to make most of their purchases at brick and mortar locations. Yet many brick and mortar retailers fear how much business they are losing to online retailers. Yes, retailers must learn to compete with an online business, but that’s not the only reason a customer doesn’t return. Something as simple as a dirty restroom or a broken shelf could impact a return visit. Even something about the parking lot – too much traffic, having to walk too far, trash on the ground, etc. – could impact the experience enough to make a customer look for an alternative store. In addition, 40% of customers surveyed said they are likely to spend less money in a store where there is a negative experience, while 43% said they are likely to jump to a competitor if they encounter any of these negative experiences. In other words, customers know what good service is. What’s more, they expect it. The report goes on to say that when customers have a problem-free experience, they come back and spend more"

Death to Merit! College Admissions Process Descends Into The Abyss - "There is nothing wrong, and much that is right, about looking at high school grades as predictors of collegiate success. But, to better predict such success, why not look at both high school grades and SAT/ACT scores? How does removing information about students make for better-informed evaluations of them? Even those whose research points to the superiority of high school GPA over the SAT/ACT simultaneously confess that “better marks on both measures predict a better chance of completion.” Our schools’ flight from common sense raises troubling questions about what exactly is going on and what the results of this move will be. According to some studies, the consequences of this change will be to harm the very persons most in need of help getting into college—inner-city and minority students... the Fordham Institute published American University professor Seth Gershenson’s study of grade inflation in American high schools, which demonstrates that grade inflation is real and rampant in high schools. These are the very high school grades that colleges now tell us should be relied on in place of the SAT/ACT. In fact, so ravaged by grade inflation are our high schools today, argues Gershenson, that “two-thirds of U.S. teenagers are ill-prepared for college when they leave high school.”... “grade inflation was more severe in schools attended by affluent students than in those attended by lower-income pupils (emphasis mine). So, richer students—those who live in suburbs and are primarily white—are playing the academic game with Monopoly Money grades. How bad is grade inflation in high schools today? A 2017 study finds that the average high school GPA (grade point average) in 2016 was 3.38 (out of a possible 4). The study also found that the average high school GPA has risen steadily over the years. From this, Gershenson concludes, “Unfortunately, it’s getting harder and harder to assume that an A truly represents excellence.”... “During the 1920s, the established Northeastern Anglo-Saxon elites who then dominated the Ivy League wished to sharply curtail the rapidly growing numbers of Jewish students, but their initial attempts to impose simple numerical quotas provoked enormous controversy and faculty opposition. Therefore, the approach subsequently taken . . . was to transform the admissions process from a simple objective test of academic merit into a complex and holistic consideration . . . the resulting opacity permitted the admission or rejection of any given applicant, allowing the ethnicity of the student body to be shaped as desired. As a consequence, university leaders could honestly deny the existence of any racial or religious quotas, while still managing to reduce Jewish enrollment to a much lower level. . . .”... “Asians have some of the highest academic credentials but the lowest acceptance rates at the nation’s top schools.”"