Want to Save Israel From Yet Another Meaningless Election? Change the Way the Country Votes. - "the principal cause of the crisis is the founding form of Israeli elections: proportional representation, or PR, a system in which different parties gain seats in proportion to the number of overall votes they have received... PR has damaged the ability of the country to achieve stable and strong governments... The chief advantage of proportional representation seems to be the warm feeling of every voter that their vote matters regardless of whether their neighbors lean a very different way. Yet in practice, PR typically leads to weak, chaotic, or nonexisting governments, as has often occurred in Germany, Italy, and now Israel. In these countries, modern diverse democracies all, it is next to impossible for one party ever to win an outright majority of 50% of the votes plus 1. Thus all governments are necessarily coalition governments. While this may seem to be a recipe for moderation or compromise, the reverse tends to be the case. While postelection compromises are sometimes possible, in the lead up to the vote, parties are incentivized to stick to the hardcore version of their message in order to maintain the allegiance of their natural constituencies. When a party does manage to cobble together a coalition under PR, the resulting government is usually unstable both structurally as well as in policy... In PR systems, therefore, “big tent” parties such as they exist in the United States, Britain, and elsewhere are impossible.First-past-the-post, on the other hand, tends to lead to stronger or effective governments... Americans, British and others who have first-past-the-post systems tend to take for granted the benefits of having a specific, named representative who must compete to win over a certain jurisdiction, and then serves as its representative. This means that citizens know the name of the person they might theoretically call, email, or tweet at if they are bothered or, rarely, pleased by some local or national issue." For all those who keep calling for PR
Common Sense Extremists - Posts - "*9 white kids from 2 months to 11 years from the same family* "Y’all this is insane"
"This is literally terrorism"
When you hate white people so much
Comment: "I love all the people in the comments so absorbed in their selfishness and trauma, they needlessly insult a functional family unit. Those that yell that this is mental illness are projecting and they know."
Vanessa on Twitter - "After the success of ‘Karen’, we really need to talk about ‘The A Gay’.White, cis male, gay. Affluent or aspiring to be.The most ostentatiously racist, sexist, classist, ableist behaviour I’ve seen face-to-face in my life was committed by A Gays.David Starkey is an A Gay."
"I denounce the A Gay as a bourgeois defender of capitalist privilege and the cisnormative binary patriarchy whose instincts are to preserve essentialist hierarchical dominance structures against marginalised and oppressed transwomen."
Vernon Chan - "Dear Liberal Activists: Liberal privilege is when you can use extreme language and vile accusations to "start conversations on serious issues", and others who don't even come close to using extreme language and vile accusations get cancelled by your activists for WrongSpeech and WrongThought."
Terry Lambert's answer to My neighbor told me to stop using his WiFi, but he doesn’t put a password on it. Can he legally make me stop? - Quora - "Yes, he can make you legally stop.He’s probably not going to bother making you technologically stop, however, because the WiFi access point is likely open on purpose, in order to ensure that he has plausible deniability, should there be illegal activity using his router.Many computer professionals do this.They know that it’s not possible to secure a router in such a way that a determined person can be prevented from using it, and so rather than attempting to secure it, and having a court not believe that it wasn’t them downloading the illegal content … they simply leave the router wide open.At which point… maybe it’s them downloading the illegal content… maybe it’s a neighbor… but it’s nothing that anyone can reliably prove in court... What you really should be concerned with at this point is that your neighbor knew you were the one accessing their Internet.This probably means they are doing traffic monitoring, and doing DPI (Deep packet Inspection).They are probably able to do this because as part of you getting your DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) lease from the WAP (WiFi Access Point), they are provisioning a trusted certificate authority with the lease, and that authority is themselves.And so they can simply decrypt all your traffic, watch you access your bank accounts, see you type your email passwords, watch you read your email, and so on.This is also pretty common with computer professionals who leave open WiFi routers.So just be aware?What you are doing isn’t safe for you."
10 Inventors Who Came to Regret Their Creations - " If you've ever found yourself yelling at your computer screen in frustration as yet another pop-up ad leaps into view, obscuring the content behind it, Zuckerman is the person to blame.Now head of the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Zuckerman wrote an essay for The Atlantic in 2014 entitled "The Internet’s Original Sin," in which he took full responsibility for the pesky blighters...
Flappy Bird was a sensation in 2014. What looked like a crude and simple game proved to be hugely addictive thanks to it hitting that sweetspot between infuriatingly difficulty and being just playable enough to make you think that next time you'll do better. Downloads soared and controversy raged until, after 50 million downloads and advertising revenue that was hitting around $45,000 a day, Nguyen had had enough and announced that he was going to withdraw it from app stores. "I cannot take this anymore," he tweeted. Apparently, the publicity generated by the game had attracted the attention of the world's press and Nguyen was bombarded with calls, tweets, and emails.The removal of the game from app stores did little to quell the publicity. Nguyen received death threats, while phones with the game already installed sold on eBay for small fortunes, and app stores were flooded with copycat titles.
While working as a consultant for Herman Miller in the 1960s, Bob Propst introduced America to the open plan office and with it, the office cubicle... Propst came to lament his invention. "The cubiclizing of people in modern corporations is monolithic insanity"...
The problem with Comic Sans is not with the font itself, but its overuse and misuse. Designed for a Microsoft application aimed at children to be used as a replacement in speech bubbles for Times New Roman, Connare never imagined it would become so widely used and derided...
When John Sylvan invented coffee pouches and machines which could turn them into steaming cups of joe, he had no idea of the monster he had created. Sylvan's invention gave rise to systems like Nespresso and Tassimo and made it easier than ever for millions of us grab a regular caffeine fix. "I feel bad sometimes that I ever did it," he said a few years ago. "It's like a cigarette for coffee, a singleserve delivery mechanism for an addictive substance""
Meme - "Do you want come inside and grab a coffee?... I... just want a coffee"
Meme - "The secret to Bruce Wayne's fortune is renting his garage for music videos"
Arizona Child Welfare Workers Caught Wearing 'Professional Kidnapper' T-Shirts - "The Prescott Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) is down to only one child-abuse investigator after having to fire at least eight others for wearing t-shirts that say “Professional Kidnapper” on them and posting the photos on Facebook. The terminated child-welfare employees had these shirts made up with the phrase “Do you know where your children are?” in bright pink as a “joke” that no one who has battled DCS for custody of their children thought was funny... Parents in Arizona and across the country have regularly accused government agencies tasked with child welfare of illegally kidnapping their children and denying them their due process rights. It is devastatingly traumatic for a family when DCS or Child Protective Services (CPS) gets involved and removes children — a whopping 62% in 2018 for vague accusations of “neglect.” That means the parents accused of neglect are generally no charged with criminal abuse and cannot defend themselves in a real court with real due process. Instead, they are shuffled through family courts with low standards of evidence, where they must prove they are innocent instead of the other way around. The process bankrupts almost everyone it ensnares, as public defenders are not available to people who aren’t accused of crimes. Many of the families mixed up with child welfare lose everything trying to pay legal bills to get their children returned. The average time child welfare holds children away from their parents is twelve to fifteen months."
When you have a power trip and are in a position to exercise power
Boon Tat Stabbing Victim Sold $100m-Turnover Firm For $9m, Took Share In Firm That Bought It - "What stunned the nation most when Mr Spencer Tuppani was stabbed to death outside A Poke Theory cafe wasn’t the unfortunate naming of the location. It was the circumstances surrounding the murder — one could have easily mistaken it for a plot straight out of a Korean melodrama.Mr Tuppani, 38, was killed at the hands of his father-in-law, who remained eerily at peace as he stood over his victim... Central to the tragedy is TNS Ocean Lines, a company with a $100 million annual turnover that he sold for $9 million, then took up a share in the company that bought it... Behind closed doors, Mr Tuppani wanted out of his marriage, according to people who claimed to be his friends, reported Lianhe Zaobao.His relationship with his wife soured in 2014, according to these friends, and he soon began to have an affair with an “attractive, older lady”. Mr Tuppani would pay for her rent and living expenses, and frequently take her out to dine at posh restaurants along Orchard Road.He negotiated for an amicable split, but Mr Tuppani’s wife Tan Cheng Cheng wouldn’t sign the divorce papers.His friends also tried to coax him out of making a potentially rash decision, but Mr Tuppani remained unmoved, choosing to make knowledge of his affair public instead.Ironically, Ms Tan was courted by Mr Tuppani under similar circumstances after the latter divorced his first wife"
Special Prosecutor Finds ‘Substantial Abuses of Discretion’ in Kim Foxx’s Handling of Jussie Smollett Case - "Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office committed “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures” in prosecuting and dismissing actor Jussie Smollett’s first disorderly conduct case, according to an investigation by special prosecutor Dan Webb... “It’s a blatant attempt to take down a black, progressive, female prosecutor,” Geragos said of the report, “who does not fit within the white power structure.”"
In the map world, every male has a female : geography - "Strait - Isthmus
Archipelago - Lakes
Bay - Cape
Lagoon - Island
Gulf - Peninsula"
How To Make 2-Ingredient Banana Pancakes - "These pancakes are bananas. No, I mean they are literally made from bananas. And eggs. Eggs and bananas, and that’s it"
Will segregation come to King’s College London? - "An eight-page report from its geography department was picked up by the press last week. It is apparently officially sanctioned – at the very least, it was partly funded by the department, and appears on the departmental website under the KCL logo with no disclaimer or statement that it merely represents one point of view. It makes for some interesting reading.Entitled Inclusivity at University: Muslim Student Experiences, this document supposedly promotes ‘inclusivity’. When dissected, however, it actually turns out to be a demand for education to take second place to identity... it goes on to make quite a number of recommendations... First, inclusivity means more student society get-togethers must, it is argued, be non-alcoholic... More significant is the demand to curb the proliferation of ‘white geographies’ (sic)... ‘White geographies’ presumably means something more than the geography of European and other white countries, since the KCL curriculum already goes well beyond that. What this seems to indicate is that geography teaching at KCL, rather than embodying the sceptical empiricism usually associated with universities, should take as a starting point the existence of institutional racism, colonial structures, and so on. Put shortly, this is a proposal for the blatant politicisation of teaching as instruction would be given from one preferred point of view.Next, we have a proposal that the work of Muslim scholars, as well as black and indigenous writers, must be emphasised because they are ‘relevant to the lived experiences of students’, and that the curriculum should be adjusted according to what those students demand. It is difficult to see what is most insulting here to any academic or student who genuinely wants to learn. It could be the suggestion that, in a world where academic publication is overwhelmingly subject to blind peer review, the quality or relevance of a scholar’s work should be judged according to his religious conviction or the colour of his skin. It also insinuates that Muslim students value intellectual production more highly according to whether the writer is a co-religionist, and that – unlike traditional students – they come to university not to have their minds stretched, but just to see what is already familiar to them. Much the same goes for the now-familiar insistence that universities need to hire more BAME staff. This particular report calls for more ‘Muslim role models’. But a respectable student surely does not care about the religion or ethnicity of those teaching him... Segregation by reference to sex and religious affiliation should be not just be tolerated but actively encouraged by the university. A woman should be able to request not to be mentored except by a woman, a man by a man, and a Muslim by a Muslim (or does it go further: should a Shiite be given the opportunity to say he would really rather not have a Sufi or liberal Muslim as a mentor?). So much for the idea of KCL as a liberal, secular institution that transcends religious divides and doesn’t believe in sex discrimination. The third criterion – ethnicity – should worry us even more. Yes, a black student should, it seems, be given the opportunity to request a black personal mentor, apparently on the basis that this would be to everyone’s advantage because, well, black people understand black people better, and then everyone gets on. This sort of venomous nonsense was bad enough when spouted in broad South-African accents by blockheaded Boers in Bloemfontein in 1970"
Amazon contract drivers hang cell phones in TREES to snag deliveries - "Amazon drivers have devised a plan to increases their chances of grabbing new delivery orders at a Whole Foods Store – hanging smartphones in trees."
The Eastern Jesus - "He introduces us to intellectuals—some believers, many not—who grappled with Jesus as a historical figure and a person with a place in Asian religions. Most were not interested in academic searches for the historical Jesus—in other words, in textual analyses that might or might not prove that he existed, or the probability that he carried out certain acts. Instead, they examined the man and his message, comparing him with other religious figures, such as Zoroaster, Buddha, and Krishna... Ramanathan was also irritated by the biblical accounts of Jesus’s lineage to King David, seeing them as a needless diversion to satisfy Jewish audiences. As for Jesus’s resurrection, Ramanathan dismissed it as a “vulgar doctrine,” arguing that it must be understood symbolically, not literally. Ramanathan wrote two books about Jesus and also went on a speaking tour of the United States, where he told audiences that Christian ideas, such as the kingdom of God being within oneself or neighborly love, are not originally Christian but the “old Hindu doctrine, and it has been brought to you by your own religious teacher, Jesus Christ.” This illustrates one of Sugirtharajah’s main points: that Asians decolonized Jesus, often by making him into an Eastern mystic whose teachings were profound but nothing special, and indeed were often inferior to Asian traditions. This was achieved not through strict academic inquiry but a selective and sometimes polemical reading of the Bible, in which useful passages were accepted and others were dismissed or ignored."
This is a textbook example of cultural appropriation. Plus, those who rage at Jesus being depicted in European iconography as European ignore how he is depicted in Asian iconography as Asian
The face of Cleopatra: was she really so beautiful? - "The modern negative reaction to the face of Cleopatra tells us more about our love of stories than anything about this most famous of Egyptian queens, who ruled from 51 to 30 BC. For us, the reality of her coin portraits clashes with the much greater myth of Cleopatra, a myth so grand that it has practically consumed the person behind it. Hollywood did not invent the tradition of the beautiful seductress; that we can believe so says much about its influence in our world"
What Is History's Greatest Mystery? Read Historians' Nominations - "1. Who built Stonehenge – and why?
2. Could Roman soldiers have reached China?
3. Where is Cleopatra’s tomb?
4. What was the Feejee Mermaid?
In the early 19th century, the legend took a sensational turn with the unveiling of a 3-foot-long mummified creature, half-humanoid and half-aquatic, reportedly captured by Japanese sailors off Fiji. It was transported to Europe by Dutch merchants, acquired in 1822 by American mariner Samuel Edes for the princely sum of $6,000, and then continued to change hands until it was leased by showman extraordinaire PT Barnum, who gave it top billing at his New York museum in 1842.
5. Who was the architect of Anne Boleyn’s downfall?
6. Did Agatha Christie engineer her own disappearance?
7. Where did the Ninth Legion meet its doom?
8. What disaster struck the Franklin Expedition?
9. Why did medieval Europeans dance themselves to death?
10. What secrets do the kofun tombs hold?
In Japan, it’s forbidden to excavate any kofun over a certain size and created in the shape of a keyhole, as it’s believed that these are the resting places not just of great kings, but of divine emperors. To venture inside these burial chambers would be sacrilege – or would it? These spectacular kofun are perhaps a necessary mystery: to open them up, only to find something inside that calls into question the history of the world’s oldest monarchy, is a risk that the tombs’ overseers – the Imperial Household Agency – simply cannot afford to take.
11. Why did Mao’s chosen successor flee China?
Lin and eight others – including his wife, Ye Qun, and son, Lin Liguo – rushed from their home to the waiting jet. The plane took off successfully, but in their haste to leave, they had not refuelled the plane, and the aircraft crashed... during the Cultural Revolution, longstanding alliances within the Chinese leadership disintegrated into a snake pit of distrust. So it is perhaps no wonder that today China’s communist leaders regard the period as a disaster.
12. Was the Trojan War fact or fiction?
13. What is the Voynich Manuscript trying to tell us?
14. What befell Abu Bakr and his fleet?
Mansa Musa, who served as Abu Bakr’s councillor and heir apparent, noted that the emperor’s desire to expand his kingdom at close quarters grew over time, until it bubbled over into obsession. Early in his reign, Abu Bakr sponsored an audacious attempt to sail across the Atlantic Ocean by funding the construction of a grand armada, containing hundreds of ships. Once the fleet was complete, he bade farewell to his admirals, telling his captains not to grace Mali’s shores again until they had successfully sailed to the far reaches of the Atlantic.
15. What happened to Jesus’s body?
16. Where did Amelia Earhart spend her tragic last moments?
17. Where is King Harold buried?he Carmen states that Harold was buried on top of a cliff on the Sussex coast, under a mocking inscription that said he could continue to guard the shore. William of Poitiers says the same, and this is significant, for on other occasions he substituted the Carmen’s account with his own version of events. Poitiers’ implicit endorsement is important because he was William the Conqueror’s chief propagandist. Had William allowed Harold’s body to be taken to Waltham for burial, it seems fairly certain that Poitiers would have told us so.
18. Why was the world fooled by the Cottingley Fairies?
Just how did the inventor of the world’s most famous investigator fall for the tricks of two young Yorkshire girls? To put it another way: just why did Doyle, Gardner and so many others want to believe in fairies in 1920?... Frances always insisted that the fifth picture was genuine, and that she had actually seen a fairy man staring at her from a willow branch.
19. Did Richard III order the murder of the princes in the Tower?
20. Why did an English colony vanish into thin air?
When Sir Richard Grenville landed 600 stinking, seasick men at Roanoke Island in July 1585, he had no inkling that a mystery would consume the island a scant five years later."
