Links - 13th May 2020 (1)

Irish election 'romcom': couple who ran against each other both win - "In an election with its share of heartache – not least for Ireland’s two historically dominant forces – there has at least been a happy ending for the couple running for rival parties in the same constituency.To Holly Cairns, a candidate for the centre-left Social Democrats, competing against her partner in Cork South-West had felt like a “badly written romcom”.Would-be screenwriters got their happy ending however after both she and Christopher O’Sullivan, a candidate for the centre-right Fianna Fáil party, won two of the three parliamentary seats up for grabs."

The Alt-Centrist - Posts - "Mayor of London: "I’m proud to unveil Nubian Skin as the winner of this year’s TfL Diversity in Advertising Competition. Look out for their empowering, inclusive adverts on the @TfL network. *All black people*""
"Diversity is definitely not a white exclusionary dog whistle, bigot!"

Woke playwright tells white people not to review her play - "Playwright Yolanda Bonnell is a two-spirit, Ojibwe/South Asian performer who has written a new play entitled Bug, which is now playing at the Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. The aim of her play is to take a stand against colonialism. Bonnell has requested that the media only allow Indigenous, black or other people of colour to review her play."
If it bombs, guess who will be blamed?

Garbage Human re-follow - Posts - ""Birds of Prey" is a fantabulous, feminist grenade"
""Birds of Prey's Opening Weekend Is Seriously Underperforming, But Why?"
"Why is it that feminists dont care about actual good female leads like Wonder Woman, but when it comes to a phychopathic villain, suddenly its a strong empowering feminist icon."

Birds of Prey Was A Box Office Disappointment (But Can It Be Saved?) - "Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) was a box office disappointment, and it remains to be seen if it can salvage profits on the home media release. In the aftermath of the infamous Justice League fiasco, the DCEU rebounded nicely by focusing more on quality standalone films, rather than trying to replicate Marvel's approach of an interconnected shared cinematic universe. This new strategy produced well-received hits Aquaman and Shazam, both of which have sequels on the way. There's also excitement for Wonder Woman 1984, followup to the 2017 blockbuster. Birds of Prey was coming out as DC films were riding a nice hot streak... Birds of Prey earned widely positive reviews, with many praising its sense of fun and Margot Robbie's lead performance as Harley Quinn. Unfortunately, the film ultimately underperformed at the box office, posting the lowest opening for any DC movie in nearly a decade... Her performance is one of the most universally-praised aspects of the DCEU, and viewers would like to see more of her"

Meme - "Straight White Males: This Movie Is NOT For You"
"Why Are Straight White Males Refusing To See This Movie?

DC’s ‘Birds of Prey’ hates men, but wants their money - no wonder it's bombing at the box office - "The new DC Universe film ‘Birds of Prey’ is populated by despicable men, and feminist women who want to be just like them. The outcome: financial losses and moral bankruptcy... ‘Birds of Prey’ banished the problematic ‘male gaze’ of ‘Suicide Squad’ – that allegedly dehumanized Harley by making her purely an object of desire – by employing an all-female creative team that included producer Margot Robbie, writer Christina Hodson and director Cathy Yan. The production goes so far in exorcising men as to even have a soundtrack containing only female artists.The problem, though, is that ‘Birds of Prey’ tries to thread the needle and make a chaotically cool combination of ‘Deadpool’ meets ‘Wonder Woman’ – only it doesn’t have the first clue about the sardonically masculine humor of ‘Deadpool’ and the appealing feminine power of ‘Wonder Woman’, or masculinity and femininity in general... What’s so bizarre about the supposed girl power message of the movie is that, while it relentlessly tells us that men are despicable creatures, all of the female characters are lionized for trying to behave like men. As with the recent batch of feminist movies such as 2019’s ‘Charlie’s Angels’ reboot and ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’, ‘Birds of Prey’ believes that feminism means women should act like men.Even more baffling is the cinematic schizophrenia of ‘Birds of Prey’, as it obviously loathes men yet is so desperate for their attention it serves up a steady supply of hyper-violence. As Harley Quinn says, “nothing gets a guy’s attention like violence… blow something up, shoot someone.” Totally coincidentally, the New York Times published an op-ed by actress Brit Marling, titled ‘I Don’t Want to be the Strong Female Lead’ on the day ‘Birds of Prey’ premiered... In some ways this applies to ‘Birds of Prey’, since the women in it are smarter, tougher and stronger than the men, except they have been stripped of their sex appeal in a convoluted attempt to be pro-feminist... Contrast this with the Super Bowl halftime show, where Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were declared fiercely feminist when they wore skimpy outfits and literally danced like strippers...  It’s a hot mess of a movie that features derivative, repetitive and dull action sequences, and that tries to be funny, but isn’t. Hell, there is a hyena in the movie and even he wasn’t laughing. Watching this thing felt like wading through an Olympic-sized swimming pool of radioactive 'You go girl!' vomit.If equality is women making misandrist, hyper-violent, incoherently vapid and dreadful movies, then ‘Birds of Prey’ is a smashing success for feminism. It is also an abysmal failure for cinema… and probably humanity. It deserves to fail."

Opinion | I Don’t Want to Be the Strong Female Lead - The New York Times - "I moved to Los Angeles to become an actress at 24. These are character descriptions of roles I have read for: “thin, attractive, Dave’s wife”; “robot girl, a remarkable feat of engineering”; “her breasts are large and she’s wearing a red sweater.”I stuffed my bra for that last one. I still did not get the part.After a while it was hard to tell what was the greater source of my depression: that I could not book a part in a horror film where I had three lines and died on Page 4, or that I was even auditioning to play these roles at all. After dozens of auditions and zero callbacks, my mom suggested I get breast implants. From her perspective, I had walked away from a coveted job at Goldman Sachs and chosen a profession of self-commodification. She wanted to help me sell better... Even when I found myself writing stories about women rebelling against the patriarchy, it still felt like what I largely ended up describing was the confines of patriarchy... the Strong Female Lead.She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top... the more I acted the Strong Female Lead, the more I became aware of the narrow specificity of the characters’ strengths — physical prowess, linear ambition, focused rationality. Masculine modalities of power... what we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: “Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked.” It’s difficult for us to imagine femininity itself — empathy, vulnerability, listening — as strong... I’ve played the Strong Female Lead in real life, too — as an analyst at an investment bank before coming to Hollywood. I wore suits, drank Scotch neat and talked about the women and the men I was sleeping with like commodities on an open market. I buried my feminine intelligence alive in order to survive. I excelled at my linear task of making more money from a lot of money regardless of the long-term consequences for others and the environment.The lone female V.P. on my floor and my mentor at the time gave me the following advice when she left to partner at a hedge fund: Once a week, open the door to your office when they finally give you one, and place a phone call where you shout a string of expletives in a threatening voice. She added that there doesn’t actually need to be someone on the other end of the line.I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all. How do we restore balance? Or how do we evolve beyond the limitations that binaries like feminine/masculine present in the first place?... the hero’s journey is centuries of narrative precedent written by men to mythologize men. Its pattern is inciting incident, rising tension, explosive climax and denouement. What does that remind you of?And I say, a male orgasm."

The best way to reheat pizza - "The official reheating method of the /r/pizza subreddit, this calls for placing your cold pizza on a non-stick pan and cooking it for two minutes over medium-low heat (or until the bottom of the slice is crispy). Then, pour two drops of water (less than a teaspoon) into the pan as far from the pizza as you can get. Cover the pan with a lid and turn the heat to low. Cook it for another minute... we found a standard non-stick pan worked best. The crust was crispy, the cheese (thanks to the steam from the water circulating under the lid) melted perfectly, and the slice was the perfect temperature to be eaten immediately"

No toilet paper? Health experts say washing may be better than wiping - ""Think about using dry toilet paper. You're leaving a residue of stool and bacteria, whereas if you're using a bidet, you’re washing that away," said Dr Phillip Buffington, the chief medical officer of The Urology Group in the US.As a result, those who wash or use the bidet “are much less likely to have issues with rashes and discomfort and irritation," said Dr Allen Kamrava, a California-based colorectal and general surgeon, in Healthline. There’s also the issue of anal tears because not everyone wipes gently with toilet paper. Dr Evan Goldstein, a rectal surgeon in New York City, said in Business Insider Singapore that the most common anus-related injuries are tears caused by improper wiping.  Those with constipation are susceptible to such tears, he said, as the forcing already puts additional pressure on the anus."

Mark Hughes - "Jollibee’s has no representation or diversity in their hiring, they only have one group ob stapp and it pucking pisses me opp."
"I really want to go to Jollibee and get some Pillipino past pood"

Jussie Smollett update: Former 'Empire' actor indicted again in connection with alleged Chicago attack - "Special prosecutor Dan Webb filed new charges Tuesday against former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett in connection with the alleged attack in Streeterville in January 2019, saying further prosecution is "in the interest of justice."Webb released a statement, saying a Cook County grand jury returned a six-count indictment against Smollett, charging him with making four separate false reports to Chicago police "related to his false claims that he was the victim of a hate crime, knowing he was not the victim of a crime.""

Research: Macs Saw Almost Twice as Much Malware as Windows PCs in 2019 - "Malwarebytes announced today its annual State of Malware report, which detailed findings for 2019. One of the key revelations  is that throughout the year, Macs saw an average of 11 threats per endpoint. Meanwhile, Windows-based systems experienced an average of 5.8 threats per endpoint. Notably, the number of threats to Macs grew by over 400% year-on-year compared to 2018"
Macs are safer by design, apparently

Where antibiotics fail, 'bacteria-eating' viruses may prevail - "Recent studies have investigated the usefulness of some surprising therapies against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including using a specific bacterium that lives in Irish soil and experimenting with new drug combinations.Now, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Chevy Chase, MD, provide evidence that a different approach can offer an effective way of fighting off dangerous bacterial infections. Prof. Graham Hatfull, who works at the University of Pittsburgh and at the HHMI, and his team have been studying a type of biological infectious agent called "bacteriophages," or simply "phages." Bacteriophages — a name that literally means "bacteria-eating" — are viruses that target, infect, and destroy different strains of bacteria. Previous research co-authored by Prof. Hatfull suggests that there are an estimated 1031 bacteriophage particles on the planet.Different phages target different bacterial strains, however. For this reason, identifying which agent matches which bacterium can be challenging trial and error task."

How do bacteria defend themselves against viruses? - "Just as humans are susceptible to viruses, bacteria have their own viruses to contend with. These viruses – known as phages – attach to the surface of bacterial cells, inject their genetic material, and use the cells’ enzymes to multiply while destroying their hosts.To defend against a phage attack, bacteria have evolved a variety of immune systems"

‘No Mandarin allowed’: dining in ‘Hongkongers-only’ restaurants - "A restaurant in Hong Kong posted this on Facebook: “From now on, we will only serve Hongkongers. Only Cantonese and English are allowed when placing orders. We do not serve Mandarin speakers.”An edited version of the post later said, “Update: Taiwanese people are allowed.” When I was standing in front of the restaurant with my friend, both of us from mainland China, we were anxious and a bit embarrassed.“Let’s order in Cantonese, and then we can speak Mandarin with each other,” I said, in Cantonese. She agreed... The government of Hong Kong, which is run separately from the rest of China and where most people speak Cantonese, has refused to heed a popular demand for a ban on all travelers from the mainland.And as a way to protest against the decision, a number of restaurants have imposed a “no Mandarin” rule to keep out mainland Chinese patrons. (In the weeks since the widespread outbreak was reported in early January, the Hong Kong government gradually tightened its travel control and quarantine measures.) ... Like many other “yellow restaurants,” color-coded to express their support for the pro-democracy protests that put Hong Kong on front pages last year, this place had colorful Post-it Notes on the wall, carrying protest slogans. (Blue restaurants, on the other hand, support the police’s crackdown on the demonstrations.)... The second place was a ramen restaurant. A piece of paper on the door says, “Forgive us for not serving mainlanders. We only want to live longer.”... Both Hongkongers and mainland Chinese people have many misunderstandings about each other.My Hong Kong colleagues would ask me, “Do you all use counterfeit products?” My family in the mainland share conspiracy theories about Hong Kong every day. At a discussion session in Hong Kong, I said mainland immigrants could also become a pro-democracy force. Many people came to me afterward and said it was the first time they met a mainland person who supported the city’s democracy fight.This is depressing for us who live on the margin in both worlds. One mainland friend said she is a bit disappointed with Hong Kong recently. As the coronavirus spreads across the country, internet users in Hong Kong are gloating: “It’s so lucky to be Chinese”, “not a single Chinese person is innocent,” “any place without Chinese people is a good place.”"
Is this "racism"?