Links - 5th June 2010

"Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so." - Gore Vidal

***

Schumpeter: Overstretched | The Economist - "63% of workers say that their employers do not appreciate their extra effort. And 57% feel that employees are treated like dispensable commodities. Half report that their current level of work is unsustainable... Absenteeism is on the rise. Low-level corporate crime is growing. Corporate loyalty is on the wane. The Corporate Leadership Council reports that the proportion of workers who are willing to put in “discretionary effort” has dropped by almost half since 2007, while the share of respondents who claim that they are “disengaged” from their jobs has risen from a tenth to a fifth. But “discretionary effort” and “engagement” are vital sources of the innovation and creativity that companies claim to value so highly. The biggest danger for companies is if workers head for the door as the economy picks up"
Alternatively, they can try going on telling their workers to be Cheaper, Better, Faster - and see what happens

Evolutionary Psychology FAQ - "Today, apparently, a number of thinkers have, like the Catholic Church, also grounded their moral and political views in certain scientific assumptions about the world. In this case, these are scientific assumptions about human nature (mainly that there isn't one). Consequently, any body of theory and research which calls these assumptions into question will be seen as quite threatening. The problem, of course, is not with those who claim on theoretical and empirical grounds that there is a human nature, it is with those who have succumbed to the temptation to ground their theology in assumptions about humans which are scientifically testable. This is especially unwise because the science of human behavior and psychology is extraordinarily undeveloped... Research which calls into question assumptions underlying popular moral and political views will then unfortunately find itself attacked on extra-scientific grounds. Such research will, in effect, be viewed as heresy. The solution? Don't base your moral or political views on supposed 'facts' about human nature!...
Q: What are your politics? (Translation: Doesn't evolutionary psychology have a crypto conservative political agenda?)
A: Sigh. It shouldn't matter, but of course it does. In case anyone is interested (and I hope no one is), I'm a liberal Democrat"

School to toughen up 'sissy' boys - " Qinlinglu Elementary School in Zhengzhou, Henan province, has launched an initiative called 'Looking for a Real Man' to encourage boys to act more like boys. As part of this the youngsters are taught how to act more masculine and must take an oath swearing to act like 'real men'... During class breaks their favorite game is elastic band skipping, which is a typical girl's game. And the boys are very fragile. If we just scold them a bit they will cry out loudly. In contrast, he says the girls at the school are becoming wilder and wilder."

Expelled activists describe cold-blooded killings - "Israel has gone mad and it will not continue to exist forever."
His comment reveals the activists' real aim

Is This Woman Too Hot To Be a Banker? - "This is the way Debbie Lorenzana tells it: Her bosses told her they couldn't concentrate on their work because her appearance was too distracting. They ordered her to stop wearing turtlenecks. She was also forbidden to wear pencil skirts, three-inch heels, or fitted business suits. Lorenzana, a 33-year-old single mom, pointed out female colleagues whose clothing was far more revealing than hers: "They said their body shapes were different from mine, and I drew too much attention," she says."
It's revealing that her lawyer made her take very conservative pictures for her lawsuit. And all her jobs seem to have been sales jobs - and it's unsurprising she excelled in all of them.

Sigh. Another Conference Against Porn | Good Vibrations Magazine - "It’s really problematic that they usually make sweeping statements about porn without acknowledging that when they talk about “porn,” the term gets used to cover all sexually explicit material, even though porn is much more diverse than they describe. Although it’s in the minority, there’s a growing amount of porn that challenges, questions, and subverts the mainstream industry and they’re usually left out. of the discussion For that matter, there’s plenty of gay porn that, while it doesn’t necessarily challenge notions of sex, certainly doesn’t fit their analyses of how porn affects women simply because there aren’t any women in these movies. There’s also heterosexual porn that shows people having fun, without themes of nonconsensual domination, humiliation, or degradation. If they used some/many/most language in their analysis, they would actually make it more valid because they would actively challenge the idea that all porn has to be a certain way. Also missing from their critiques is any questioning or reflection upon the goals and needs that people are trying to meet by watching porn. In my experience as a sex educator, there are lots of reasons people are interested in porn... I wouldn’t be pointing out that these folks don’t have much understanding around the experiences of men and porn if they weren’t already making all sorts of declarations about the reasons men watch porn and the effects that it may have on them... I’d much rather work towards solutions than complain about problems. Maybe these folks could do the same, but I’m not holding my breath. If you want to check out some of the porn that comes from a different angle, take a look at Good Releasing, our very own production line. You could also try Jiz Lee, No Fauxxx, Pink & White Productions, Courtney Trouble, Comstock Films, Furry Girl, Ruby’s Diary, or Candida Royalle"

Norwegian Boy saves Sister from Moose Attack using World of Warcraft Skills - "Hans knew the first thing he had to do was ‘taunt’ and provoke the animal so that it would leave his sister alone and she could run to safety... Once Hans was a target, he remembered another skill he had picked up at level 30 in ‘World of Warcraft’ – he feigned death. The moose lost interest in the inanimate boy and wandered off into the woods"

How Superstitions Improve Performance

Porn Stars in 3-D Lure Consumers in Japan to Sony, Panasonic Televisions

Today's Alternative Marriage Styles: The Case of Swingers - "Swingers surveyed are the white, middle-class, middle-aged, church-going segment of the population reported in earlier studies, but when it comes to attitudes about sex and marriage they are less racist, less sexist, and less heterosexist than the general population. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers' marriages happier, and swingers rate the happiness of their marriages and life satisfaction generally as higher than the non-swinging population"

Thai Politics | Erotic Massage | Happy Ending - "Chuvit made his fortune in Bangkok running lucrative “soapies”: luxury massage parlors where women treat patrons to erotic baths... 'People still think of you as the “Brothel King.” But in 2005 you smashed a jacuzzi bathtub in front of parliament to show you’re out of that business'... 'The media says I’m a sex merchant, a sex tycoon. Whatever. But I quit already! They’re massage parlors, OK? It’s not immoral... Society, like in Thailand or Asia, everyone runs in a group. In the U.S., you sit at a bar to drink alone and nobody blames you. But Thai people doing this? They’ll say, “What’s wrong with you? Are you broken-hearted?”... People say, “Mr. Chuvit, you're the massage parlor king. Why get into politics?” Because politics has a lot of dirty people. I'm like the massage parlor. I'm gonna clean them all up... Thai people are always talking so nice, even when they’re lying. It’s difficult to see inside them. When I ran my campaign, people would come up and say, "Oh, Mr. Chuvit, I chose you!" I know they’re lying. Why? Because I never win... My political policy is very short. It's love. If the Red Shirts love the [rival-political faction] Yellow Shirts, if the Yellow Shirts love Red Shirts, do you know how much this country would move forward? You just have to love your country, love your king, love your society. All we need is love.'
I wonder if there're translation issues

Get trained, change jobs - "MORE workers who receive training are changing jobs... Almost three in 10 workers with Workforce Skills Qualification (WSQ) training had changed jobs, compared with two in 10 workers without such training, according to a government study of labour mobility between June 2007 and June 2009."
Moral of the story: Don't send your staff for training!

Islamic Foundation calls for death sentence if apostate fails to repent - "According to the Maldivian constitution all citizens are required to be Muslim, and the country is always described as a “100 percent” Muslim country... “In Islam, there are many cases, it doesn’t mean death penalty,” Dr Naik explained. “But if the person who reverts who was a Muslim then converts to and becomes a non-Muslim and propagates his faith and speaks against Islam, and if it’s Islamic rule, then the person should be put to death”"

Why Sex and the City 2 is a science fiction movie - "Sartorially, the film is the most scifi thing I've seen all year. The wardrobe department obviously used Jean Paul Gaultier's designs from The Fifth Element as a jumping-off point. Tromping through the dunes, the women look like David Lynch's Fremen... Carrie goes to the souk to purchase what appears to be genie shoes (I'm serious). At this point, Carrie's old flame, Aiden Shaw, suddenly appears. Do you know how difficult it is to run into people you know in NYC, let alone in the UAE? Aiden's appearance wasn't just a lazy, ludicrously improbable sop to longtime SATC fans. No, it was The City's machinations keeping Carrie in check. The shoes conspired against her. Ooooh."
One comment: "Thanks for writing possibly the first review of this movie I've seen that isn't tinged with misogynistic horror at the thought of middle-aged ladies having active sex lives."
Hurr hurr. Any time you criticise women, you're a misogynist.

Anti-drugs campaigner Barbara Harris brings crusade to sterilise addicts to UK - ""The problem that Ms Harris is trying to address is a real one," concedes Julian Sheather, the British Medical Association's ethics manager... "A small number of drug-addicted women give birth to a succession of drug-dependent children who are taken into foster care. It is by any standards an appalling start in life"... It is reported that one out of every 264 babies born in Scotland suffers withdrawal symptoms from mothers who use drugs including heroin and cannabis... For many women with drug problems, the chance to become a mother can be life-changing and a powerful motivation to seek help for their addiction and other problems in their lives""
The objection sounds like feel-good hand-waving.
One comment: "Can a drug addict give informed consent to sterilisation? Can a drug addict give informed consent to intercourse? Every child should be a wanted child, not the unintended outcome of a casual relationship. I will contribute now."
Strangely, but not entirely unexpectedly, one commenter blames capitalism for drug addiction (?!)

Unofficial Singapore Government 2.0 wiki [licensed for non-commercial use only] / Abbreviations

GOOD Transparency – Immigration Infographic — Simple Complexity - "GOOD Magazine’s latest Infographic Transparency looks at the 20 countries from which the most people came to America in 2008, how many immigrants already had family here, and how many received asylum when they arrived on our shores."
The US accepted 64 UK refugees and asylees in 2008?!

Extending Apologetic Logic to Other Spheres

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

***

"A common technique used in debates by evangelicals is that they will "rationally" prove the resurrection is historically probable but when asked if the methods apply to other miracles - they will coyly reply "they haven't studied it yet"! One such example is that of Christian apologist Micheal Horner. Horner is fond of claiming that skeptics and critical historians have an “anti-supernatural bias” against reports about miracles in the Bible.

In his debate with skeptic Farrell Till in 1995, the latter presented him with accounts of miracles from non-Christian writers (Josephus, Suetonius), modern day “Elvis-sightings” and Mormon claims about Joseph Smith and the golden plates and asked for his opinion on their historicity. Horner, who obviously does not believe such miracles, replied that he hadn’t “checked into” them. A year later, in another debate, this time with atheist Dan Barker, Horner was once again asked by Till in the Q&A session about these non-biblical reports of miracles and whether he had evaluated them historically. Once again Horner replied that he hasn’t “yet done that.” The full transcripts of both debates as well as Farell Till’s comments can be found in the Internet Infidels website [accessed on October 2, 2007]:

The Horner-Till debate:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/horner-till/

The Horner-Barker debate:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dan_barker/barker_horner.html

Farrell Till’s comments on Horner’s position on miracles:
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/2/2claim97.html"


And my response to long tracts about beliefs being "rationally required", "rationally allowed" and "rationally forbidden":

How would you classify belief in the following?

1) The Theory of Gravity
2) The Theory of Evolution
3) Holocaust Denial
4) Julius Caesar being born by Caesarian Section
5) String Theory
6) Rasputin having mystical powers
7) Assortative Mating
8) The Armenian "Genocide" of 1915-1917
9) Crop Circles
10) Alien Abductions
11) Homoepathy
12) The Blank Slate Theory of the Human Mind
13) JFK Conspiracy Theories
14) 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
15) Moon Landing Conspiracy Theories
16) Scientology
17) The existence of William Shakespeare
18) The idea that Salieri killed Mozart
19) The existence of the Basilisk
20) That North Korea just blew up a South Korean vessel

A great message of 'support' for City Harvest

"After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager."" - William S. Burroughs

***

Facebook | City Harvest Church (Official): Statement to CHC Members (June 2, 2010):



"CHC is half as the strength of the SAF regulars combined. Some regulars will even join us. If we want to build an army, we can. We want to buy arms, we have the money given to us by God to buy. No weapon shall form against us. CHC will be victorious, no matter what.

When he arrived, the king asked him, "Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Attack and be victorious," he answered, "for they will be given into your hand." - 2 Chronicles 18:14

God will give us victory if we are willing to fight in the name of the LORD."


Best comment I've seen so far is from Xiaxue:

"So your god is pastor kong???? RT: @heywenz @Xiaxue You are no one to judge our God."

Sausagefest (2nd June 2010)

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later." - Mitch Hedberg

***

Last night, I had a sausagefest.

It was inspired by a night in April when I was eating Currywurst and Brot at Magma and thought that, hey, it wasn't very good and that anyway I preferred it with fries. Bunny Girl then said that she wanted to try Currywurst, and the idea was born.

At first, in keeping with the theme of the evening, I was only going to invite girls (MFTTW, Cunning Linguist, Bunny Girl and Temptation Chris came in the end), but in the end I also asked Mr Wet along (since he's in touch with his sensitive side, I guess that counts); the planned sequel will be a tacofest where I only invite guys, but I suspect Mexican food is not as popular as sausages.


The sausages we ended up consuming:

1) American Packaged Bratwurst ("Cooked Brats")
2) Cold Storage Deli Bratwurst
3) Weisswurst
4) Bockwurst

The sausages we didn't:

1) Spicy Italian
2) Cold Storage Raw Bratwurst
3) English Cumberland
4) Chorizo
5) "Wienerli. Swiss Style" (Swiss Style Vienna Sausage)



One of my specialities, home-made fries


Grilling Cooked Brats and frying frites


Done frites

We then boiled Weißwurst in beer and onions, to bring out its flavour.

Since beer in Singapore is expensive, we used the lousiest beer we could find: Tiger Beer (since 1932).


The only thing Tiger Beer is good for: boiling sausages


Tiger Beer, Onions and Sausages (Weißwurst, Cold Storage Deli Bratwurst, Cooked Brat)

Unfortunately, though I had dispatched my minion (MFTTW) to German Market Place (Bukit Timah Road) to buy the curry ketchup, she forgot to bring it, so we extemporised with tomato ketchup, BBQ sauce and curry powder.


It actually worked quite well with the BBQ sauce.


Bratkartoffeln (German Fried Potatoes), which is actually even more tedious to make than frites.

I'd felt like having Saganaki (Greek Pan-Fried Cheese), and my sister said it could be made with Halloumi which you can find in Singapore, so we also had a go at it:


Australian Halloumi in cornstarch


Frying Halloumi


Fried Halloumi

The crowning glory of Saganaki, of course, is when it is set on fire at your table with the cry of "Opa!"; according to Urban Dictionary, "Opa" is "Greek for, "Oh my God! Your cheese is on fire!""

So we decided to cry out "Opa!" as I valiantly tried to light the Saganaki with flaming disposable chopsticks (we had no lighter and I didn't want to search for matches).

The moment of glory was not captured successfully, but here is its aftermath:


Flaming pan-fried Saganaki (using Halloumi). With too much Cognac. And the flames were extinguished with fresh lemon juice.

Lessons from making Flaming Saganaki:

1) If your first attempt fails, do not pour more alcohol onto the same piece of cheese if you want to be able to eat it afterwards
2) Just light one piece of cheese for dramatic effect - save the rest for eating
3) There is a reason they serve it in its own small pan - so the alcohol fumes collect


Cognac-drenched Saganaki. We didn't touch the centre piece (the one which had gotten the most cognac).

Later, we also got to eat a brownie made with an Easter Egg, and I had one of my fantasies fulfilled: having a beautiful woman spray whipped cream directly into my mouth (I gagged and had to spit).

(Credits: Main photographer of the evening, Bunny Girl, and chronicler of the NSFW pictures MFTTW)



Bonus pictures: mutant egg found in my fridge

Ain Sakhri

"Why on earth did you do that?" "Because this is the Middle East."

"I'm not worried about the bullet with my name on it... just the thousands out there marked 'Occupant.'" - Unknown

***

In the day, I saw that some people were up in arms over something called a "#freedomflotilla", which was an attempt by some activists to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza by sailing in a ship with aid.

What they missed (but which most media happily picked up) were reports of the activists' violence (extensively covered here).

Let's just say that these are Israelis. If they'd wanted to kill people, everyone on that ship would've been dead by now.

Now, I'm very amused, as it seems that both sides know how to play the publicity game:


"Israeli Navy Addresses a Ship in the Flotilla and Offers it to Dock in the Ashdod Port"

Even better:


"Demonstrators Use Violence Against Israeli Navy Soldiers Attempting to Board Ship"

Specified incidents:

"The first soldier is injured and is thrown to the lower deck"
"Attack using metal pole"
"Attack using a large metal object"
"Tens of rioters hit an IDF soldier and try to kidnap him"
"Stun grenade thrown at soldiers"
"Firebomb thrown at soldiers"

[Addendum:


"Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers"

Also, the first soldiers used paintball guns - it's hard to get more peaceful than that.

Large amount of weapons prepared to attack soldiers with

North Korea kills 46 South Korean sailors in cold blood - silence.
Saddam Hussein kills 100,000 Kurds in one operation alone - silence.
10 activists who attack IDF soldiers with knives are shot dead in self-defence - an uproar.]

While Israel shares responsibility for the mess it's currently in, in this situation, at least, they seem to have reacted very appropriately.

The only thing that can make this better is a helmet-cam, like this Dutch video showing a raid against Somali pirates:



Well, actually something like that exists (unfortunately in Hebrew [?], but it shows people brandishing objects and attacking the soldiers):


(this is from Turkish TV)

"I don't know about you but if I genuinely feared for my life I would hide with the other protesters below decks rather than waiting topside for the soliders to touch down so that I could beat them with metal bars."

Unfortunately, despite all this, people will go on claiming things like "Israel has just announced the world's most dangerous weapons: Wheelchairs and elderly people", just as earlier this year (or was it last year) people were mocking the authorities at some event for overreacting with heavy security (including riot police) against what was alleged to be flower-bearing hippies, complete with this iconic picture of a girl dancer placing a flower in front of some police, even though there were in fact some violent anarchists who caused trouble.

Links - 31st May 2010

"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." - Matt Groening

***

The Straight Dope: Does every type of animal dropping have its own name? - "Useful verbs are blissom, to copulate with a ewe; and caponize, to castrate a chicken. For gourmets we have ranivorous, frog-eating; and scolecophagous, worm-eating. In the animal mania department there is formication, the feeling that bugs are crawling over you; boanthropy, the delusion that you're an ox; cynanthropy, the fantasy that you're a dog; and galeanthropy, the nightmare that you're a cat"

The Straight Dope: How accurate are lie-detector tests? - "Probably the most comprehensive look at polygraph accuracy is a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences. After examining 57 polygraph studies the NAS concluded: "In populations of examinees such as those represented in the polygraph research literature, untrained in countermeasures, specific-incident polygraph tests can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates well above chance, though well below perfection." Their analysis of the 30 most recent polygraph data sets showed an overall accuracy of 85 percent, and an analysis of seven field studies involving specific incidents showed a median accuracy of 89 percent."

YouTube - Mc Donald's - Playland - "For kids, McDonald's is a fun, exciting place. We wanted to bring that feeling back to adults"

Because Every Country Is The Best At Something - "International Number Ones"

Can a Pill Help Women Reach Orgasm? - "Tiefer argues that no single drug could possibly cure all of women's sexual problems because there are so many potential causes for a woman's inability to enjoy sex. Male impotence is essentially a mechanical problem that can be cured by a medication that enables erection. But women may turn away from sex for many reasons: physical, emotional, psychological."
Women are complicated

Hans Rosling on Singapore (Part II) - "Q: How valid is this idea that China is the world's biggest source of pollution?
A: It is intellectually at this level. (He bends down and points to his socks). I call the people with these ideas Post-Industrial Morons."
Pointing out an incontrovertible truth makes you a Moron? Sounds like Post-Colonial Guilt
Addendum: In the other part of the interview, he reveals that he is a misandrist and blames men for everything, imagining that men are solely responsible if women don't want to have children; I don't expect him to be up to speed with the latest research on maternal gatekeeping, but at least he should acknowledge that it takes two hands to clap. He also says that if a marriage breaks down and a divorce happens, it must be the women leaving unhappy marriages, and that must be the man's fault. If a woman does not want to have kids, it must be because she married a bastard: "Low-income divorcees with children in tow are also entitled to housing subsidies in Sweden. This makes it easier for women who leave unhappy marriages. 'You then remarry someone you love, that you are willing to have more kids with, instead of with that bastard you happened to marry the first time,' he says." (asterisks replaced)

The man accused of setting up false suicide pacts - "It is related to the whole question of freedom of speech. The difficulty is how the promotion of suicide is defined - after all, there are books, plays and films that deal with the issue."

Was Jesus Christ a Sith Lord? - "When Anakin quotes Jesus to Obi-Wan, "You are either for me or against me" (Matthew 12:30), we find out from Obi-Wan that Jesus was a Sith Lord — "Only the Sith deal in absolutes"... Anakin is quite willing to slaughter innocent children and his own friends in order to save someone he has decided he can't live without (although, as the rest of the series shows, he does manage to survive without her). Likewise, Padme is willing to orphan her children because her husband is an ass. Instead of living for love, she dies from petulance... If anyone wonders what life looks like to a pagan, watch the Star Wars series. Its incoherence, senseless violence and skewed perceptions of reality combine to demonstrate that without Christ at the center, life truly is but sound and fury, signifying nothing."
HAHAHAHAHAHA Christian Literary Analysis is even funnier than the normal sort

That dress looks great... and other fibs your friends tell you - "Four in ten women will lie to friends about how an outfit looks, in order to make themselves look better by comparison. Some will even go as far as 'accidentally' pouring drinks over a friend's clothing to avoid being overshadowed... Luckily, many women are wise to these wicked ways. When asked if they trusted their pals to give an honest opinion of their clothes, just 36 per cent said they did."

Mobile phone number suspended after three users die in 10 years - "A mobile phone company has suspended the number 0888 888 888 – after every single person assigned to it died in the last 10 years."
They should peddle it in China

Good Government vs. Less Government - "Or: Why the Heritage Freedom Index is a Damned Statistical Lie... many of these measures used in the composite Heritage Index have nothing to do with less government, and a lot more to do with good government. It is these measures of good government that correlate to economic growth and drive the overall correlation between the “Freedom Index” and positive outcomes... Fiscal Freedom and lower Government Spending negatively correlate with life expectancy, even without controlling for other variables!... it still undercuts the neoliberal argument (less government = always better)."

Newseum | Today's Front Pages - "834 front pages from 77 countries... The Newseum displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form"

Italian priests' secret mistresses ask pope to scrap celibacy rule - "Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved""

Recover Detail and Sharpen Your Blurred Photos - "Focus Magic uses advanced forensic strength deconvolution technology to literally "undo" blur and recover lost detail. It can repair both out-of-focus blur and motion blur (camera shake) in an image"

YouTube - Lyrebird mimic

Scrap the 50-50 divorce payouts that rob men, says law chief - "It is unfair to men and demeaning to women, she said... Lady Deech, one of the country's most senior family lawyers, said 40 years of divorce law reform had increased the number of divorces and hurt families... Children, who learn about the dangers of smoking and poor diet at school, should also be taught about the value of marriage, she said. Lady Deech spoke out after a series of multi-million-pound divorce payouts to wives who have been married to rich men for only a short time... 'It is no wonder that England is the divorce capital of Europe and out of step with other European countries.' Women who expect equality at work should not suddenly be treated as kept women when they divorce... 'But even when public debate focuses on the plight of single parents and their children, the fact that over half of them are created by divorce and separation is overlooked.'"

NUS Business School Global Alumni Network - "Going by the following accounts, marriages are made not just in heaven but in NUS Business School too. So what is it about looking across the lecture theatre to find your soulmate looking right back at you? Click on their names to read their story"
HAHAHAHAHAHA

David Laws has provoked his treatment at the hands of a homophobic press - "One of the most difficult observations we ever have to make to those who feel they are victims of homophobia is: "It might not be just because you're gay.""

New Template: Light Touch

Am putting the finishing touches on a new blog template (this might take a few days).

(I realise I haven't changed my blog template for 3 years)

Also, I have finally switched commenting systems from the rubbish that is Echo (JS-Kit) to Disqus.

No wonder we have a Mason Lodge!

And here I was thinking Singapore was too trivial for the Illuminati to bother about:

"Is Singapore a New World Order society? What are the connections of our founding fathers and rulers to the illuminati? Is the country free or the people in it under a covert system of enslavement? Why did our early leaders make use of secret societies as part of their operation to establish dominance and order in Singapore? Have you realized how our entire education, national service and employment system was designed to condition people to become automated drones fully suited for the NWO?"

(Idea for Singapore Philosophy Meetup)

Someone: I don't think any of the Illuminati spoke Malay.

Links - 29th May 2010

"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love." - Charles M. Schulz

***

Are Cocaine Users Killing the Rainforest? - "The argument that cocaine users are destroying the environment is rapidly leading its proponents into a spiraling abyss of irony and incoherence... "Cocaine use requires a disposable income and during the week many users drive hybrid cars and recycle. Then, on the weekend, he or she destroys everything they believe in" Wait, what!? Did he just say that cocaine users are successful and well-educated?... I remember the good old days when cocaine was supposed to make you steal things and kill people... The two options are 1) illicit cocaine cultivation in the rainforest, or 2) regulated cultivation somewhere else. There is no third option in which everyone agrees not to do coke. If you wait for that to happen while the rainforests burn, you’re a bigger part of the problem than the party people who drive Priuses."
One comment: "not to mention aereal eradication efforts do a heck of a lot of harm to the environment as well"
Compare "for every line of cocaine snorted in Britain four square yards of rainforest is being destroyed" with "For each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed". 4 square yards = 3.3 square metres. 55 square feet = 5.1 square metres

Pakistan shuts down Facebook over 'Draw Mohammed Day' - ""This is a hot-topic debate, but so is abortion, illegal immigrants, gay marriage and politics. If we allow even a small compromise for one group, then the free speech on topics like abortion, illegal immigrants and politics can also be censored based on accusations that they cause violence or hate... Hate speech is wanting a group eradicated, physically harmed or dead. I dont think drawing Mohammed falls under that category," she said. "Islam is not above criticism or cartoons""

Cowabunga! Teenage student ninjas foil Aussie mugging - "We just ran outside and started running at them, yelling and everything. These guys have turned around and seen five ninjas in black ninja uniforms running towards them. They just bolted."

ReclaimPrivacy.org | Facebook Privacy Scanner - "This website provides an independent and open tool for scanning your Facebook privacy settings"

It’s Over – Our side of the story « Streetwars Singapore 2010 - "What did life lack in Singpore? A little excitement and color? Well that was what we thought when we decided to bring this game to our sunny shores... We had mistakenly assumed that if this was a private event taking place in the whole of Singapore with no mass gatherings where only 2 persons are playing at anyone time, that no permit would be required. We’ve all had orientation and other corporate games in and around singapore organized casually and those went without any issues so what’s the difference here, we thought? We were wrong. After all that’s said and done, the police don’t have an easy job and we respect their decision to shut down the game. Our intentions were to bring this great game to Singapore, never to cause problems for anyone"
Remember kids: Low Crime doesn't mean No Crime! And that Singapore is a Renaissance City!

Are Singapore teachers overworked? « - "A teacher in a local primary school, Ms Quek’s husband wakes up at 5am every weekday, and leaves home by 6am, to reach school in time for morning ‘guard duty’ at 7am. After remedial lessons, co-curricular activities and administrative duties, her husband reaches home at 8pm for dinner, before, surprise, surprise, he starts to work from home... Names have been changed to protect the teachers’ identity"
This is like a crime story where victims' names are changed

Clever Sillies - Why the high IQ lack common sense - "In the human and social sciences there is therefore a professional incentive to be perversely wrong – to be silly, in other words. And this is indeed what we see. The more that the subject matter of an academic field requires, or depends on, common sense; the sillier it will be... anyone smart and sane who disbelieves the silly clever falsehoods and asserts something different is not just denounced as dumb but actually pilloried as evil. I infer that the motivation behind the moralizing venom of political correctness is the fact that spontaneous human instincts are universal and more powerfully-felt than the absurd abstractions of PC; plus the fact that common sense is basically correct while PC is perversely wrong. Hence, at all costs a fair debate must be prevented if the PC consensus is to be protected. Common sense requires to be stigmatized in order that it is neutralized. Ultimately these manoeuvres serve to defend the power, status and distinctiveness of the intellectual elite"

Replacing education with psychometrics - "If psychometric measures of IQ and personality were available, then it would be easy to construct a modern educational system that was both more efficient and more effective than the current one... this impact on educational professionals is likely to be a key underlying reason why IQ has become a taboo subject, and why the basic facts of IQ have been so effectively obfuscated. Miller notes that it is the ultra-elite, most-selective and heavily research-oriented universities which are the focus of IQ resistance. At the same time more functionally-orientated institutions, such as the United States military, have for many decades quietly been using IQ as a tool to assist with selection and training allocations"

John Cleese plans 'alimony tour' to pay his ex-wife - "I mean people are surprised when I say the figures. When Alyce Faye and I split up she got $13m [£9m] and I got to keep $8m. But over the next seven years I have to pay her $1m a year. She needs it"
She gets to keep 1.5 times what he gets; "A Man Is Not a Financial Plan" "No, but a Divorce is"

I.Z. Reloaded: Online Refreshments: Miss Singapore Universe 2010 contestants revealed, look so fugly! - "Seriously, we should ban Miss Singapore Universe pageant. Just take a look at the finalists vying for this year's crown. God please help us!"

EULA Research Center - "The EULA Research Center is built by the kind submissions from users like you. Submissions are used to enhance and improve EULAlyzer's detection of potentially "interesting" words and phrases, to better the experience for all of our users."

Muhammad cartoon sparks threats to South African newspaper - "The image, in the Mail & Guardian, shows Muhammad lying on a couch complaining to a psychiatrist: "Other prophets have followers with a sense of humour!..."... Zapiro, whose real name is Jonathan Shapiro, received a threatening call this morning from someone calling himself "Muhammad". Zapiro replied: "Which Muhammad is that?" and the caller became abusive... Asked about the offence caused to Muslims by depictions of Muhammad, he said: "They should get over it." "When I was thinking how to draw Muhammad, I downloaded images from Iran because Shi'ite Muslims do not have the injuction not to draw Muhammad. There are lots of great images from medieval times. They informed the way I drew Muhammad in this context... If we can't express opinions in a democratic society, we really are in trouble""
FAIL!

Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String - "To get a good story out of a game, you have to constrain gameplay in a way that ensures that a story is told through play. There are direct conflicts between the demands of story and the demands of gameplay, because constraints that benefit the story aspect of the game may sometimes make the game aspect less interesting; yet any game is a system of constraints. Players have free action only within those constraints; there are always limitations on behavior, and indeed, gameplay often emerges precisely because of those limitations."

The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries - "1. The Earth is not the center of the universe.
2. The microbes are gaining on us.
3. There have been mass extinctions in the past, and we’re probably in one now.
4. Things that taste good are bad for you.
5. E=mc²
6. Your mind is not your own.
7. We’re all apes.
8. Cultures throughout history and around the world have engaged in ritual human sacrifice.
9. We’ve already changed the climate for the rest of this century.
10. The universe is made of stuff we can barely begin to imagine."

Your Sunscreen May Give You Cancer: Study

Never been kissed (ST 22 May) - "Ms Loh, an accountant, has been waiting for her Mr Darcy since age 15: ‘I hope for love at first sight, and I hope my Mr Right will just appear in front of me’... Ms Loh hopes to experience a Hollywood-style romance that will touch her to the depths of her soul. She dreams that once she starts talking to ‘The One’, they will find a soulmate in each other and have endless conversations. Many single women like Ms Loh do nothing about their situation – although some do seek ‘divine help’ to unearth Mr Right.Tarot card reader Kelvin Wong, 28, says the bulk of his clients are women aged between 29 and 40... ‘You have mushroom hair’ and ‘You have carrot legs’ are just some examples of what Mr Chen says to girls"
No wonder "Ms Loh" had her name changed.
TC: "what a horrible article hahaa. its clearly saying men are losers and women are dreaming"

The Lonesome Planet Travelers’ Advisory

"All is in the hands of man. Therefore wash them often." - Stanislaw J. Lec

***

The Lonesome Planet Travelers’ Advisory
Tim McDaniel

Here is the latest update, brought to you by the Lonesome Planet Travelers’ Advisory Board, as certified by the Local Group. Those of you who—like us—have been here awhile may find little new here, but remember it’s our task to set the newcomers straight. Things are a little different here than you may be used to back home.

Stealth

l Keep your blurifiers on at all times—you never know who is carrying a camera these days. Some of these people even have cameras in their phones, although our researchers have yet to determine why.

l Having said that, buzzing Air Force jets and installations is fine—they never tell anyone what they see, as per our agreement.

l Finally, I know the big head/almond eye masks are a pain, but please, people, keep them on. If they saw our real faces ... well, let’s just say it would engender a really negative reaction. How negative? Remember the robot rebellions of the Lost Arm? Like that.

Relaxation

l Mutilations. Okay, we’ve all been there. Fun is fun, but there have to be some rules. Cows, now, are okay to mutilate—we all know we can’t resist those lips, those genitals! One of my podsisters does things with a cow’s genitals that are only legal in the Lesser Magellenic Cloud. That’s right—the Lesser!

l Off limits, however, are dogs (of course), pandas (still), giraffes (again), three-toed sloths (for obvious reasons), and adolescent beluga whales (don’t ask).

Playmates

l Of course, now and then we just have to abduct a local. Again, the Advisory Group is not one to stand in the way of tradition. Please remember, however, that only some of the locals are eligible for abduction. Stick to the smaller northern continent, and remember that people in poor, country neighborhoods make the best abductees. The rule of thumbs: “If you live in a trailer, it’s okay to nail yah.” Don’t take anyone from a gated community, and if you take a public figure, such as a politician or pop star, do not send them home again afterwards. Instead, consider replacing them with a symboid or replimonster.

l What’s okay to stick where? Inserts are fine, but make them small. Nasal passages and teeth are the most popular places, but why not get creative? The natives have several other interesting cavities! Unfortunately, some few of the natives have discovered that wearing tinfoil hats blocks some of our control-rays, so check out the penetrating power of your transmitter before spending a lot on fancy inserts.

l Now, as to what may be done with abductees. Exams are fine, and sexual practices are expected. Eating or collecting trophies, however, is frowned upon.

l Just a reminder: It’s fun to give the abductees a little lost time—a mystery to occupy their thoughts.

l Please don’t bother the Men in Black—remember, they’re on our side. If they weren’t covering our tracks, things would be a lot more complicated than they are already. Ditto the big fast food chains—which are, incidentally, another great source for the nether parts of cows.

Health

l A warning: Don’t drink the water that is made available for public consumption in certain parts of the planet. It very well may contain fluoride. More than one visitor has come home with enflamed gums, swollen pulgassods, and an awkward gait after sipping a local beverage. And stay away from Dr Pepper unless you have a private place and an open-minded partner handy.

l Vaccinations may be a pain in the asses, but they are required for anyone who expects to come into close contact with the natives. Slime-based lifeforms, as always, may use suppositories in lieu of injected vaccines.

Monoliths

l With the ratification of the Concord of C57D, construction of pranks such as Stonehenge, black transforming monoliths, and pyramids of the types placed in Egypt, Mexico, and Atlantis are now tightly regulated. Unfortunately, at present only those travelers with expensive legal counsel and copious amounts of patience should consider such activities.

I hope these guidelines will help you make the most of your visit here. This planet can be a wonderful vacation spot, but we all must keep in mind that we are only visitors here. Take nothing but memories and cow genitals, and leave nothing but confused natives and enigmatic patterns in croplands. And let’s keep those crop circle messages clean, by the way. It’s just common courtesy.

(Orignally from Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine)

Morality and Emotions

"It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race." - Mark Twain

***

Morality and Emotions

"Psychopaths shed light on a crucial subset of decision-making that's referred to as morality... They are missing the primal emotional cues that the rest of us use as guides when making moral decisions...

Psychopaths never feel bad when they make other people feel bad... Hurting someone else is just another way of getting what he wants, a perfectly reasonable way to satisfy desires...

The modern legal system still subscribes to this antiquated set of assumptions and pardons anybody who demonstrates a 'defect in rationality' - these people are declared legally insane, since the rational brain is supposedly responsible for distinguishing between right and wrong. If you can't reason, then you shouldn't be punished...

When you are confronted with an ethical dilemma, the unconscious automatically generates an emotional reaction. (This is what psychopaths can't do.) Within a few milliseconds, the brain has made up its mind; you know what is right and what is wrong. These moral instincts aren't rational...

It's only after the emotions have already made the moral decision that those rational circuits in the prefrontal cortex are activated. People come up with persuasive reasons to justify their moral intuition. When it comes to making ethical decisions, human rationality isn't a scientist, it's a lawyer. This inner attorney gathers bits of evidence, post hoc justifications, and pithy rhetoric in order to make the automatic reaction seem reasonable. But this reasonableness is just a facade, an elaborate self- delusion. Benjamin Franklin said it best in his autobiography: 'So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.'"

--- How We Decide / Jonah Lehrer

Conversations - 27th May 2010

"Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more." - Mark Twain

***

Me: hurr hurr
god knows
women are crazy

Someone: hello..u re criticising my kind

Me: it's true what

Someone: when are women open to criticism

Me: never

Someone: :D


Someone else on why she can never live in Singapore again: his younger brother scored 240 for his PSLE
and is now in [not so good school]. which at that point, I went "WTF" in my head and asked him WHY [not so good school]

of all the other better schools he could have gone to like [better school] (my sec) or [better school] (my sister's). because we turned out alright didnt we?
and he said that his dad didnt want his brother to mix with people from Normal Academic and Normal Tech streams
so I was like "ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?!" didnt mince my words there

because I think [not so good school] SUCKS. I used to have friends from there and most of them turned out to be jerks, assholes and MCPs lololol (I had two boyfriends from there AHAHAH)
THE POINT IS (lol)

Me: haha so what do you call a girl who dates jerks, assholes and MCPs? ;)

Someone else: stupid and young ok
LOL

i had friends who were in NA and NT streams when I was in [better school] and some of them turned out doing better than my Express stream counterparts, some had different priorities I dont deny that BUT THAT IS BECAUSE OF HOW SOCIETY HAS ALREADY JUDGED THEM
i know one friend from Normal Tech who told me she behaved how she behaved (undesirably in most people's eyes) because she gave up on herself

teachers gave up on her, parents too, society. she said her classmates are all very self-defeating
and this was coming from a 15 year old
I was sec 3 when I spoke with her. [ECA] mate.
its fucking horrible I say. its disgusting, depressing and TYPICAL singaporean
i could not believe that people like [person] still exists
so I got really mad and cried lor

the reality really hit me hard. it slapped me into remembering why i left SG in the first place. to get away from people like that. to get away from that destructive environment
some people develop slower whereas others faster, because we are all different. I HATE labelling children so young but the sad thing is, it... works?? Like singaporeans are motivated by fear. fear of the govt, fear of failing, kiasu and all

Me: I thought you left SG to elope with your boyfriend?

Someone else: not not elope omg!

i mean here in [more civilised country], teacher student ratio is low, every child is equal and precious. the schs help them to develop in their own way be it academically, sports, music whatever.
no streaming and all this bullshit
i tried to tell my bf why i was so angry last night and he couldnt understand. like the SG education concept seemed to float right across his head lol.

I saw my psychologist for depression last year and he told me that his best friend is a plumber who earns more than him, a doctor
because skilled workers are valued here, its not saikang for foreign workers. and my pscyhologist told me to leave this fear
of failing and everything back in Singapore
because [more civilised country] is NOT singapore. etc etc

my friend is a teacher in [School]. i complained to her abt this and she was like "parents like that are actually very common"
and I was like O_O
cannot lah I tell you. I can't live with people like that around me EVERYDAY
thats why i said it was like a rude awakening when I hear something so "typically singaporean" after all these years


MFTTW on crazy women: aiyah
you are surrounded by arts people
i think you should say
"arts women are mad"
:D

Me: I should get to know more science and engin girls huh

MFTTW: yahlor
we are all so much more logical
and calm
:D


Someone: wa very angry
i just argue wt ***
he said cfa is more imprt than ur degress
i was like wtf no

how can it be more imprt
of cos not!
u think u grad wt some ulu degree wt cfa compare to stanford grad
come on

i think first class hons is a signal
not whether u have a freaking CFA

Me: haha
CFA harder to get right
*** said he thinks 1st class NUS is harder to get than 1st class cambridge haha

Someone: oviously NOT

haha actually thats what my friend from LSE said
hahaha

Me: haha actually I
think so too

Someone: cos nus bell curve
but of cos cfa is not harder than ur first class hons
pls

ec4102 is like how hard
and ec3334
come on man if u fail ur uni mods ur transcript will reflect that u
took sup papers
but no one knows how many attempts for ur stupid CFA

Me: haha if you quit
work and sit for CFA maybe easy

Someone: yeah
actually the content is not hard
pls
its just that theres a lot to study

definitely nothing comparted to ec 4102
i feel so freaking insulted!
wtf

Me: his degree from where one

Someone: SIM

Me: no wonder lah
of course CFA harder

Someone: i'll be the greatest fan of your life:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
WA LAU
THATS LIKE A JOKE LA

HAHAHAHAH
MY GOD U ARE BITCHY

but apparently they think their second upper is equivalent to MY secon upper
wtf


Me: why am I the only one commenting on the wave [about an attempt to improve an institution Someone is no longer in]

Someone: dunno
everyone else is sick of the subject?

Me: same reason I bother taking part in threads where *** is involved
to her latest spiel I replied "Vive La Revolution!"

Someone: why do you have to respond at all

Me: so young uns don't get corrupted and confused by her nonsense
hopefully it's self-evident that's it's nonsense by now

Someone: so kind
most people don't comprehend why I even bother writing the report.

Me: I have an abiding concern for my fellow man

Someone: yeah. I still want to improve things at [former institution]. but people are like: you're not there anymore, why do you care?

Me: is this sort of attitude uniquely singapore?

Someone: maybe

could be due to generally needing a lot of incentive to speak up
could be due to general apathy towards singapore

I don't konw if other emigres are similarly apathetic

Me: many diasporas are concerned with their home country
but maybe that depends on why you leave
if you're an economic migrant there will still be bonds

Someone: well, it's no secret that s'poreans lack a sense of belonging


PPBI: tell her lose weight

Me: she's not fat what

PPBI: she's chunky

if that is not fat
i dunno what is

Me: you want to see fat? :P

PPBI: ok show me fat

Me: *picture*

PPBI: that is obese

Me: ...

PPBI: girl on right has gross eyebrows

Disant le sage de Bandiagara:

"Tonner contre la conduite déréglée — ou paraissant telle — de son prochain... est plus facile que de se corriger de ses propres défauts et de pardonner les offenses subies. Critiquer les inégalités sociales, les dénoncer au public avec de grands gestes et de grands mots, est moins difficile que de se faire humble à l'égard des moins favorisés."

"L'univers est fait d'inégalités. Il a horreur de la monotonie et cela dans tous les domaines"

New blog picture - 26th May

Superfly!

A nation of spoilt princesses?

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." - Kurt Vonnegut

***

A nation of spoilt princesses?

THE Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) seemed to suggest last Thursday ('Singapore still far behind in true gender equality: Aware') that women are free from blame for the declining birth rate in Singapore.

In Singapore, most parents urge their children to excel in studies and focus on their career. Few prepare their children for the rigours of parenthood.

Many households also employ maids. As a result, our boys and girls grow up lacking parenting skills and are clueless about household chores. The boys, however, have responsibilities forced upon them in the form of national service. Not so the girls. They are free to place personal ambition above all else.

Many women choose to remain single because they do not see the need or the urgency to get married. They do not need a man to provide for them and they can always depend on their girlfriends for emotional support. As for sex, few see the need to have it regularly.

Even when a woman does want to get married, her expectations get in the way. The man must be her 'type'. He must have a great job, good income, be reasonably good-looking and he must also charm her off her feet before she will contemplate marriage.

Our society glorifies the career woman. Lifestyle and fashion magazines devote pages to tips for the career woman to get ahead. Floors in shopping malls cater exclusively to the needs of these women and credit card and insurance companies vie for their money.

As a result, women are spoilt for choice. Egged on by society, free from national service and reservist obligations and not needing a man, they are totally free to focus exclusively on their careers. Choosing to get married and have children is committing career suicide.

The conclusion is inevitable. We have raised a nation of 'spoilt princesses' unwilling and unable to handle the rigours of motherhood.

Sulthan Niaz

HAHAHAHAHA

As rhetoric goes, this is certainly superior to AWARE's letter.

Suffice it to say that discursively blaming only one side is not only unfair but counter-productive, as it always takes (at least) two hands to clap.

Why is it alright to eat animals, but not to have sex with them?

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." - Isaac Asimov

***


"Dancing with the octopus at Anilao"

Last week, some people were expressing disgust that Nikon Asia had endorsed this picture as a "truly astounding shot" (the photo has since been taken down):



While one may dispute the photographic merits of this shot, most people were more concerned about animal rights and one even claimed that he would report it to the WWF.

This begs a very important question:

"Why is it alright to eat animals, but not to have sex with them?"

Or a more contextualised one:

"Why is it alright to eat animals, but not to manipulate them for photographs?"

The first question more incisively cuts to the centre of what seems to me to be one of the two most problematic aspects of most people's stances on animal rights (the other being "Cute animals are just as delicious as ugly ones").

The instinctual response to this question, "that's disgusting", just avoids the question, which is an important one for practical ethics, given the widespread nature of meat-eating in the world today.

Most of us are perfectly fine with eating animals, and yet react so violently when witnessing or viewing examples of alleged animal "cruelty". Besides the octopus example earlier, we also have:


Keeping Whale Sharks in Aquariums


Mink Farms


Seal Clubbing


Circus Animals


Bonsai Kitten

Yet, both the suffering that animals undergo while being raised and when being slaughtered, as well as the fact that we deprive them of their lives individually would outrank most examples of "animal cruelty" in the Rankings of Sin.


"Slaughterhouse Murder"

Together, they would surely surpass all of the examples. To wit, if you were tortured you would be pissed off; if you were killed painlessly you would be upset; if you were tortured and then killed you would be furious.


"Cow slaughter in USA"

That many of the people against relatively innocuous uses for animals (like taking photos) are not vegetarian is thus extremely puzzling.

This brings to mind how in secondary school I was accused of being "cruel" for stepping on millipedes - by the very same people who then manipulated other animals for their amusement (for example, by intoxicating mealworms with alcohol).

Back to the issue of bestiality, we can ask ourselves a simple question: would you rather be killed and eaten, or raped?

This question might be anthropocentric (animals might not have the same preferences as us), and prematurely preclude the possibility of animals consenting to sex with humans (some sources testify to this, including this "Delphinic Zoophile", who testifies that "her body also shuddered against mine, and we spent the next 5 or so minutes just lying together in the shallows, holding each other, enjoying our company and revelling in the fact that we had shared something special together, something very few people can claim to have done") as well ignore the fact that inter-species sex is prevalent in nature, but it is the best way to grasp this problem.

Besides a quick moment of personal reflection, the fact that most people who have been raped do not then kill themselves also answers this question. Knowing some people who have been raped I can also confirm that.

Essentially, then, the confused attitudes people hold with regard to eating and having sex with animals boil down to an argument from disgust. This is the same reason why the same people who call homophobes bigots are happy to condemn incest, polyamory and other consensual practices between informed adults that they do not approve of.

Extending this to other forms of "animal abuse", it is clear that it is not genuine animal suffering that motivates people to protest, but the fact that breeding, slaughtering and then eating animals have been normalised and are deemed acceptable, with disgust (or a form of disgust) motivating the grossly disproportionate response to relatively trivial forms of animal suffering.


As an aside, we can resolve the contradiction identified in this post and still be against unnecessary cruelty to animals. For example, we can be against the killing of animals by slitting their throat and letting them bleed to death, as opposed to stunning them first so they don't feel any pain, since the extra pain suffered by the animals does not result in corresponding utility on the part of humans.

Of course there're other cases which would make one uncomfortable.

For example, if a person is sadistic and enjoys torturing animals, we would seem to be committed to allowing him to continue (even if we didn't endorse his action).

I could fudge the issue and claim that it's unlikely that a person can get so much pleasure from torturing an animal that it could outweigh the suffering of the animal, but since it is not unimaginable that people can get as much pleasure from torturing an animal as eating it, the question would then be whether there is a magnitude of difference in the animal's suffering from its being killed for meat versus its being tortured, but then this is a technical question, rather than one of principle.

Links - 25th May 2010

"None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear." - Ferdinand Foch

***

Male defendants to be granted anonymity in rape cases - "Feminists, campaigners and conservative critics of the rape laws all protested that the anonymity offer will hinder justice... 26-year-old chef Peter Bacon... [was] accused of rape by a lawyer following a drunken one-night stand. He has since changed his name and left the country... 'I'd say it is worse even than murder, because there can be circumstances where you can attempt to justify murder. Personally, I'd have preferred to be in that dock accused of murder than rape'"

Did Britain really need to give millions to the wealthy state of Singapore? - "The kind of charity doled out by the overseas aid budget is often fundamentally ill-directed, or worse... Britain has given £8.7 million in development aid to Singapore, whose gross domestic product per capita is the fourth highest in the world, and 46 per cent higher than our own... DFID also paid £40.2 million last year to the economic superpower that is China, now officially classified by the World Bank as a "middle-income country". Among the items funded were "storytelling projects" to encourage Chinese children to campaign against climate change... even as well-meaning Whitehall liberals have poured in the aid, Africans themselves have started to reject it... "It is hard to find a single example of an African NGO that is actively campaigning for aid increases". The unfortunate truth is that, like those Bob Geldof pop concerts, an awful lot of aid spending is actually for our benefit, not the Third World's. All too often, its main effect is not to help the poor – but to make rich people feel good about themselves"
Addendum: Singapore didn't get British public aid. Ben Bland digs up the details of the "aid" here.

Somtow's World: Don't Blame Dan Rivers - "When you watch a red shirt rally, notice how many English signs and placards there are, and note that they they are designed to show that these are events conforming to the archetype. The placards say "Democracy", "No Violence," "Stop killing innocent women and children" and so on. Speakers are passionately orating, crowds are moved. But there are no subtitles. What does it look like?... the red TV station has a perfect right to exist, but if foreign journalists actually understood Thai, they would realize that much of its content went far beyond any constitutionally acceptable limits of "protected speech" in a western democracy. Every civilized society limits speech when it actually harms others, whether by inciting hate or by slander... Arisman threatened to destroy mosques, government buildings, and "all institutions you hold sacred" ... a clip widely seen on youtube, without subtitles. Without subtitles, it looks like "liberty, equality, fraternity""

Secrets Between the Sexes - "Men found women who covered up too much of their bodies to only be half as attractive as those who displayed around 40% of their skin. The most interesting part of the study, though, was that men felt women who showed more than that were “too available,” and were often overlooked for those who seemed a little more modest... Men want someone who’s hard for anyone to get, but they don’t want a woman who is hard for them to get... while men are largely in agreement about who they find to be attractive, women have no consensus with one another. While men would largely agree about how attractive a given image of a woman was, the scores from women would be all over the board."
Re: the last - Freud was right!

Blind Justice? Attractive Get Breaks with Juries - "In serious cases with strong evidence, there was little difference in the conviction rate between attractive and unattractive defendants. But in more minor cases, with ambiguous evidence, jurors were more biased toward the good-looking"

Now hiring in China: Only whites need apply - "Observers estimate that two in five in the 230,000-strong foreign student community here have taken up such race-based jobs at some point... And for schools teaching English, being white has almost become the standard prerequisite for prospective teachers... One school he taught at passed over Asian Americans who spoke English as their first language for an Eastern European who spoke English 'with a heavy accent'... 'It's a ludicrous hiring standard and it's wrong,' he says. 'But unfortunately, that's the reality we're dealing with in China - a culture that is consumed by appearances and stereotypes'... Some locals who think the trend is harmless say stereotypes exist in nearly all societies - some are just better than others at hiding them... 'Till today, discrimination against Chinese peasants remains rampant among Chinese urban folk. So if we haven't even learnt to look at our own people without prejudice, how much longer will it take to change our views about foreigners?'"

Dostoevsky images on metro ‘could cause suicides’ - "On one wall, Rodion Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment brandishes an axe over the elderly pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and her sister, his murder victims in the novel. Near by, a character from Demons holds a pistol to his temple... Ivan Nikolaev, the artist behind the murals, is unapologetic. "What did you want? Scenes of dancing? Dostoevsky doesn't have them," he told Izvestia. "I tried to convey Dostoevsky as a man, an artist, a philosopher.""

Minks pose threat to pets, farm animals - "Released farm minks often end up killed on highways because they are attracted to the sound of traffic. "It sounds like food carts to them. If they do manage to survive, it's a very tough life; they have to get through the cold winter and hot summer. They will cannibalize their own little tails just to survive." Platt questions the motives of activist animal rights groups. "They're willing to burn your building down to force you to embrace their cause. I would think that if you were that committed to protecting animals, you'd be vegan, but we know that they are not. Cars that have been involved in these incidents have been littered with old hamburger wrappers. I think their purpose is to cause great financial harm and stress to the (farming) families. But is it the 'cause,' or the thrill and adrenaline rush of the vandalism?... The individuals who broke into our farm should have been charged with animal cruelty... "When people let animals go from the farms, what do they think they're going to eat? Do they think they're going to get food handouts in the wild like they've been getting all their lives? It's ridiculous that those people think they are doing animals a favor""
This is reminiscent of leftists who beat up Neo-Nazis; ST: "Compassion without wisdom can do more harm than good"

Death wish pair find love - "A broken-hearted fiance planning to throw himself off a bridge found love again - with a girl who was about to jump to her death from the same spot... "I shouted, 'Stop' and ran over to her. She fell into my arms sobbing and I began crying too. We held each other and talked, and talked and talked. That night saved my life - and hers," said Andriej"

The Way We Live Now - Metric Mania - "Consider those ubiquitous articles with titles like “The 10 Friendliest Colleges” or “The 20 Most Lovable Neighborhoods.” Such articles would be more than fluff if they answered critical questions. Are there good reasons the authors picked the criteria they did? Why did they weigh the criteria in the way they did? If changes in the criteria were made, would the rankings of the friendliest colleges or most lovable neighborhoods be vastly different?... No method of measuring a societal phenomenon satisfying certain minimal conditions exists that can’t be second-guessed, deconstructed, cheated, rejected or replaced. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be counting — but it does mean we should do so with as much care and wisdom as we can muster"

Travellers to be searched for porn - "Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers' laptops and mobile phones for pornography... “Is it fair that customs officers rummage through someone's luggage and pull out a legal men's magazine or a lesbian journal in front of their children or their mother-in-law?” she said. "If you and your partner have filmed or photographed yourselves making love in an exotic destination or even taking a bath, you will have to answer 'Yes' to the question or you will be breaking the law.""

Shape-Shifting Battery Smooshes To Fit Sizes AA-D

Cleavage Diver - Bird loves boobs

A steamy calamari: trans-species eroticism and disgust (Practical Ethics) - "Is there really anything wrong with having sex with a dead cephalopod? Or having pictures of the act?... the most common moral arguments against zoophilia are that it is disgusting (invoking the "wisdom of repugnance") and against the natural order. But the former is culturally variable, and the latter is a form of the naturalistic fallacy and refuted by the existence of various trans-species sexual relations in nature... cephalopods are very unlikely to have a concern for their posthumous state, so they would not even be harmed if they knew what would happen to their bodies. Squids do not appear to have a higher-order desire for privacy or modesty... Where is the distinguishing line between erotic uses of vegetables, sausages, pieces of meat or squids?... erotic uses of (say) cucumbers should be proscribed *as strongly* as squids: trans-kingdom sex is an even greater upset of any natural order... and would seem to be an even greater challenge to human dignity - and maybe even the dignity of plants!... To a large degree the dignity and natural order arguments seem to be driven by disgust reactions ("that is not supposed to go there!") that we have come to recognize as being of little value when judging other sexual practices such as homosexuality... If we allow appealing still lifes of meat or pictures of people pleasing themselves with sausages, then it seems hard to argue that it is immoral to have pictures of sex with dead cephalopods"

Karen Armstrong: The Coherence of Her Incoherence / Karen Armstrong: Islam’s Hagiographer / Self-Defeating Apophaticism

"It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go." - Bertrand Russell

***

Karen Armstrong: The Coherence of Her Incoherence - New English Review

"Here is how she begins:

“In 1492, the year that is often said to inaugurate the modern era, three very important events happened in Spain. In January, the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the city of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Europe; later, Muslims were given the choice of conversion to Christianity or exile. In March, the Jews of Spain were also forced to choose between baptism and deportation. Finally, in August, Christopher Columbus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a protégé of Ferdinand and Isabella, crossed the Atlantic and discovered the West Indies. One of his objectives had been to find a new route to India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam As they sailed into the new world, western people carried a complex burden of prejudice that was central to their identity.”

This first paragraph is a scandal, consisting almost entirely of baseless assertions, incredible omissions, and complete fabrications. But it is not inexplicable. For Karen Armstrong history does not exist. It is putty in the hands of the person who writes about history. You use it to make a point, to do good as you see it. And whatever you need to twist or omit is justified by the purity of your intentions – and Karen Armstrong always has the purest of intentions... It is Islam which... has the strongest claim to being based on the need of its Believers for “the Other.” It is in Islam that emphasis is placed constantly on the only division that matters: that between Believer (to whom all loyalty is owed by other Believers, and for whom all transgressions may be forgiven, except that of disloyalty to Islam) and the Unbeliever, or Infidel... That Armstrong fails to see this is extraordinary; it is everywhere in Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira...

In 1492 “the Catholic monarchs conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Europe.” What then should we call all those lands in southern and eastern Europe that the Ottomans were at that very moment busy conquering and seizing, including Constantinople, the richest, most populous, most important city in all of Christendom for 800 years... and the Balkans (including the then-vast Serbian lands), and what are modern-day Albania, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, and they continued to press northward and westward, later seizing much of Hungary and threatening Vienna twice...

It was not until 1502, after difficulties ensued between Spanish authorities, including the famous Cardinal Ximenes (he of the Complutensian Polyglot), and the Muslims (Mudejares) that they were given the choice of expulsion or conversion...

Note how casually Armstrong drops in her astonishing remark: Columbus was “a Jewish convert to Catholicism.” She treats it as a given, and finds no need to offer sources or evidence. But she must. For there is not a single authority on Columbus who has ever claimed this. Not Samuel Eliot Morison. Not Paolo Taviani. Not Salvador de Madariaga. Not all of the hundreds or thousands of scholars who have written about Columbus...

Columbus did not obtain royal support to find a new trading route to the east (now that the Muslim conquests in Byzantium have totally blocked the overland routes), or – as of course he would – along the way to spread the Gospel, but to find the best route to “India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam.”

Having been transformed into a “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” Columbus can more conveniently be depicted by Armstrong as a Pentagon Proto-Neo-Con, Jewish-but-also-Christian-fundamentalist, off on his voyage to “establish a military base” for “another crusade against Islam.” A regular Donald Rumsfeld, negotiating for American bases in Uzbekistan. And Kyrgyzstan.

“A military base for another crusade against Islam” – what can we say? Armstrong appears to believe that the Crusades, which were limited in space to the recapture of the Holy Land, and in time to 200 years (1090-1290, roughly) in fact were some kind of permanent impulse, just the way the unmentionable (in all of Armstrong’s copious published vaporings on Islam) Jihad remains a permanent and central feature of Islamic teaching. But she is wrong. There was no ongoing effort in 1492 to embark on a new Crusade. Not a word about it, from Columbus, from Luis Santangel, from Los Reyes Catolicos themselves.

And had such a thought occurred to someone, what kind of sense would it have made, militarily, to try to attack from India?...

Karen Armstrong is not innocent, and manages to do a great deal of harm, careless or premeditated harm, to history. Too many people read that she has written a few books, and assume, on the basis of nothing, that “she must know what she is talking about” – and some of the nonsense sticks. And perhaps an enraged professor or two bothers to dismiss her, but mostly – this is how the vast public, in debased democracies, learns its history today. It is hearsay as history – “Karen Armstrong says” or “John Esposito says.”

And that is only her first paragraph."


Karen Armstrong: Islam’s Hagiographer

"In one of her baffling Guardian columns, Armstrong argues that, “It is important to know who our enemies are… By making the disciplined effort to name our enemies correctly, we will learn more about them, and come one step nearer, perhaps, to solving the… problems of our divided world.” Yet elsewhere in the same piece, Armstrong maintains that Islamic terrorism must not be referred to as such. “Jihad”, we were told, “is a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has no connection with violence.”

Well, the word ‘jihad’ has multiple meanings depending on the context, and it’s hard to determine the particulars of what “most Muslims” think in this regard. But it’s safe to say the Qur’an and Sunnah are of great importance to Muslims generally, and most references to jihad found in the Qur’an and Sunnah occur in a military or paramilitary context, and aggressive conceptions of jihad are found in every major school of Islamic jurisprudence, with only minor variations...

In another Guardian column, Armstrong insists that, “until the 20th century, anti-Semitism was not part of Islamic culture” and that anti-Semitism is purely a Western invention, spread by Westerners. The sheer wrong-headedness of this assertion is hard to put into words, but one might note how, once again, the evil imperialist West is depicted as boundlessly capable of spreading corruption wherever it goes, while the Islamic world is portrayed as passive, devoid of agency and thereby virtuous by default...

In her latest offering, Armstrong is again given free rein to mislead Guardian readers and, again, rewrite history. Armstrong asserts that, “until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed [violent jihad] was a central tenet of Islam”... The Fifteenth Century historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun, summarised the consensus of five centuries of prior Sunni theology regarding jihad in his book, The Muqudimmah...

If Armstrong does not know of such things, in what sense can she be considered a “respected scholar” of this subject? For what, exactly, is she respected? For reaffirming popular misconceptions and PC prejudice, even when her claims are demonstrably false and egregiously misleading? It is, I think, more likely that Armstrong is aware of these inconvenient details and has chosen not to divulge them."


And a review of Armstrong by a Philosophy Professor:

Troy Jollimore: Troy Jollimore on Karen Armstrong’s ‘The Case for God’

"The complaint that the new atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc.) are theologically incompetent, and that a subtler appreciation for the finer points of theology would expose the shallowness of their attacks, is by now a common one. But few defenders of religion attempt actually to spell out the theological details; and the results of those attempts that have been made are, in my experience, deeply unsatisfying...

It is not as easy as Armstrong assumes to separate belief from action or practice. Indeed all intentional voluntary action presupposes some set of beliefs...

Apophaticism, as she understands it, claims that God is ineffable and that talk about God literally has no content at all. Since God transcends all human attempts at understanding, humans cannot think or say anything meaningful about God...

She is unable to hold herself consistently to her own apophatic view. Indeed... on her understanding the apophatic position, rather than discouraging metaphysical speculation, in fact licenses and encourages it...

In other words, it is precisely our lack of knowledge of God that enables us to say, well, pretty much whatever we want about God—except, of course, that God was not in Christ (but only an atheist or heathen would want to say that anyway). This is mysticism and metaphysical hand-waving raised to a truly objectionable level. If you do not know what you are denying then you also do not know what you are asserting; our inability to conceptualize cannot, on the one hand, prevent skeptics from denying Christ’s divinity while at the same time allowing the faithful to assert it...

The strategy reduces to saying “God isn’t this, God isn’t that” without ever giving a positive account of what God is, while still regarding oneself as justified in talking about and orienting one’s life around God. This is like the debater who responds to every objection by insisting “Well that’s not what I meant” without ever managing to say what he does mean...

When we lose content we do not only lose truth, we lose meaning as well...

Moreover, Armstrong’s attempts to find respectable examples of apophaticism sometimes cause her to resort to highly implausible interpretive strategies. Consider what she says about Socrates...

It requires a profound lack of appreciation of Socratic irony to take Socrates’ insistence that he had nothing to teach at face value. Indeed, Armstrong’s account is not even internally consistent: By her own lights it is false that people learned nothing from Socrates, for what they learned was precisely “how little they knew”...

In light of polls indicating that a large majority of Americans believe in a personal God, and that less than 40 percent of them believe in evolution, Armstrong’s claim that apophaticism represents the religious mainstream—at least in this country—is pretty hard to swallow"