Duke dean: “You can’t be a great scholar, and be intolerant - "I asked Duke for a follow-up comment, and they passed along this e-mail that Dean Ashby sent four days later, which in the fourth paragraph says, “we equally recognize intellectual freedom and the courage to hold, articulate and defend and debate ideas, whether popular or not, as an essential value of the university.” (I quote the entire e-mail below.) Query which message Duke faculty are likely to be getting: “we equally recognize intellectual freedom and the courage to … debate ideas, whether popular or not” — or “you can’t be a great scholar, and be intolerant. You have to go.”"
Smith College bars reporters from sit-in, unless they agree “to explicitly state they support the movement in their articles”
A ‘superbug’ emerges in China to remind us that antibiotics won’t last forever - ""Polymyxins were the last class of antibiotics in which resistance was incapable of spreading from cell to cell," co-author Jian-Hua Liu, a professor at Southern Agricultural University in Guangzhou, told the AFP... Polymyxins are meant to be reserved for dire medical cases — after all, these drugs are too toxic for a human to want to consume. But in China, their rare usefulness in humans has led to a secondary use: animal husbandry. Chinese pigs are some of the biggest consumers of the drug colistin, a kind of polymyxin, which is used to fatten them up. The researchers report that this is almost certainly the breeding ground of the resistance, and that the Ministry of Agriculture has launched an investigation to assess this."
White Tigers Are Hybrid, Inbred, Mutant Freaks That Shouldn’t Take Up Zoo Space
Zoolander 2 isn’t just bad for trans people – it’s a step backwards for us all - "you may have come across a petition asking you to boycott the film Zoolander 2. A trailer for the movie features a scene with Benedict Cumberbatch introduced as “the most famous supermodel in the world”, the androgynous “All”. “This is the modern equivalent of using blackface to represent a minority,” the petition claims, asserting that the portrayal is “an over-the-top, cartoonish mockery of androgyne/trans/non-binary individuals”. The trailer has upset many people, and the petition (as I write) has collected nearly 12,000 signatures and much commentary... Most comedy could be described – advertised, even – as “over-the-top, cartoonish mockery”. And we’re OK with that when the targets are appropriate: reality TV stars, politicians, the posh. “Punching up”, it’s sometimes called. Lampoon the lucky, the strong, those who can bear it – topple the oppressors, but never the oppressed... The destruction of gender binary would free everybody."
If you're really oppressed, you've more important things to worry about than flippant jokes in a movie
Comments: "I thought trans was all about supporting the gender binary- not destroying it at all."
"'Equal-opportunity mockery.'
That's where the article should've ended. Oh, and please stop using the term 'cis'. It's offensive :)"
"Has anyone actually seen this movie?"
"you might find that most transgender people AREN'T outraged. Maybe they're amused. Maybe they're just normal people like us who don't get offended at the smallest thing..."
"I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!! I am a transwoman and I can't for the life of me see what is offensive? The character of "All" has only one line, "All is all." Is this supposed to be offensive? Is it supposed to be offensive when Zoolander and Hansel, who, by the way, are potentially the stupidest people in the fashion industry, have some confusion about hir gender and ask? I get asked, and it's not offensive in the least! It's more respectful to ask than to assume and pass a rude comment. Or is it offensive that the producers introduce androgyny and gender variance in their film in the first place? Their fashion industry film. Is it offensive to talk about gender variance in a film about fashion? Or is it offensive to attempt to censor everyone and their brother and pin the blame on people like me, to use my situation and YOUR assumptions about what offends me to silence others? In my mind, it's that last thing."
"There is no better way to promote acceptance than to be willing to include trans people in your comedy and world. If you think anyone that goes to see this movie sees it as 'reality', you are the delusional one. Welcome to mainstream reality. When people feel safe to make fun of you, it means you are accepted."
"As a gay middle eastern man in my 50's who grew up with other gay men and transsexuals and has heard and had every nasty thing said about me and us, you and this movement of censorship has caused more frustration and shame than any of those things. I'm not saying you shouldn't speak out for those who are ridiculed or marginalized but by always harping and hysterically trumping all this outrage you do many of us a disservice and perpetuate the myth that we are all delicate flowers always offended. It's not the truth and I dare say if you we to approach a group of rational people who have gone thru the things many of us have you used be surprised to find many don't agree with any of this. You have your petition, mostly signed by supporters you mostly find on Tumblr. You don't speak for me or my community, but you have the right to try."
"If you can't laugh at yourself sometimes your doomed. Are you sure the character is even trans? They could be poking fun at those male models that are so pretty they could be women."
"I'm gay and didn't even consider someone that's straight playing gay as "gay face". Everyone needs to get over themselves and just laugh. If more people laughed at themselves then maybe the world would be a better place. If you see someone exaggerated one of your traits then just laugh because you know on some level it might be a bit true lol."
BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Eat my words! - "Scandinavia's very strong, surprisingly. Scandinavia's the place where more books are sold by a person than any other country in the world. There's a general trend, which is that in any hemisphere, the closer you are to the north, the more they buy cookbooks. So the colder you are, the more you eat or the more you want cookbooks. Countries from the South in Europe buy less cookbooks per capita than countries in the North...
People have been writing about food in a semi-pornographic way for centuries. I just think it's gone a bit too far now in that people are putting so much of their erotic energy into writing about food that they don't have enough other areas of life...
It's nice to look at a menu that is offering you a ham and cheese toasted sandwich. But in fact it says it's rosemary ham, aged cheddar and white onions. I slightly wondered what white onions were, and then I realised they're just normal onions, but describing them as white makes it seem, again, just so much more delicious and unique than a ham and cheese toastie"
Freakonomics » Meet the Woman Who Said Women Can’t Have It All: A New Freakonomics Radio Episode - "DUBNER: What’s it like for you to be sitting here, to have wanted to intervene much more directly in Syria, not being part of a team that took that direction, and seeing the aftermath?
SLAUGHTER: Intensely frustrating. It is just agonizing to see the paper every day because this was so completely predictable. And it’s been predictable. We’ve got a government that’s been using chemical weapons, that’s been dropping barrel bombs on its people. Now what’s happening is even the Syrian government supporters are fleeing. But, this goes to a point that I have made over and over and over again that the divide between strategic interests and humanitarian interests is a false one. That you could see that where a country’s population is being driven out of their homes and being massacred by their governments, sooner or later, very bad things will happen. Extremists will move in, and people will move out. And then that becomes a national security interest. And that’s what we’re seeing right now. But it was predictable. And we could have done something to stop it. And we didn’t. And now the problem is so much worse...
some people thought that she was a traitor to the feminist cause – that, if a woman as well-credentialed and well-situated as Anne-Marie Slaughter had to put aside her dream career, what did that mean for the average working-class woman? And that was just the public response. It was what she heard from people she knew that really surprised her."
Freakonomics » Should Kids Pay Back Their Parents for Raising Them? A New Freakonomics Radio Episode - "ZELIZER: When children were taken in by foster families in the 19th century, they were taken in because of their labor value. Not that they were necessarily unloved; I don’t think we can judge past psychologies. But they certainly were taken in for that. And babies were — nobody wanted babies in their households in the late 19th century... But the enormous transformation, by the 1920s or so, it is the babies that become the hot commodity. Especially blonde, curly-haired, blue-eyed little girls got prime market value. And then starts the fact that people don’t want to adopt older children because now kids are adopted following these new sentimentally defined conceptions of children. They’re adopting them for that emotional value, and not for any kind of economic contribution."
It's 2014: Why Are Men Still Paying for First Dates? - "in the early stages of courting, the pressure to pay falls primarily on men, but this imbalance hardly dissolves as the relationship progresses. Fifty-six percent of men foot the bill in full once they’re in an established relationship, and, even further down the line, 36 percent of men pay all of household bills, versus 14 percent of women. There’s not much in the way of historical data on the question of who pays for dates, but the findings of a 1985 poll suggest that very little has changed in the past 30 years... he and his co-authors called paying for dates “a rare case” in which women are incentivized not to fight old-school gender dynamics. This same logic might explain why men who are okay stepping down as breadwinners aren’t as eager to step up to the demands of parenting and homemaking. (The scope of Frederick’s study was wider than NerdWallet’s too, and, interestingly, 39 percent of its female respondents admitted that they hoped men would reject their offers to help pay)... A 1985 study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly presented subjects with a variety of fictional dating scenarios—mixing up who invited whom, who paid, and the venue—and asked them to evaluate the acceptability of the sexual encounter that followed. Disturbingly, they found that money contorted men’s opinions of sexual consent. “Rape was rated as more justifiable,” the authors wrote, “when the man paid all the dating expenses rather than splitting the costs with the woman.” Culturally speaking, 1985 may seem distant, but the study's conclusion apparently hasn’t become any less relevant (or urgent): A more recent study, from 2010, found that men were more likely than women to think that sex should be expected when a man pays for an expensive date."
Girl hanged herself after allergic reaction to Wi-Fi
Uhh...
A woman has been awarded compensation for being "allergic to Wi-Fi" - "A 39-year-old French woman named Martine Richard has won a court case that means that government will need to pay her roughly US$900 a month in disability allowance for at least three years, because of the discomfort caused by her alleged Wi-Fi allergy. Richard claims that she had to quit her job and is confined to a rural barn without electricity because she's so sensitive to electromagnetic waves. Although there are many people who have reported Wi-Fi allergy - or electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) - in the past, she's the first to be officially recognised and compensated for the condition, despite the fact that science says it doesn't exist... It sort of reminds us of wind turbine syndrome, another alleged condition with no scientific backing that claims technological advances are making people sick. Even worse, this court ruling means that we're never going to find out what's really causing the symptoms experienced by Richard and all the other sufferers out there, so we'll never have the opportunity to give them the help and treatment that they really need."
Canada woman faces 10 years in prison for giving pigs water on hot day - "A video of the incident shows the driver, identified in court documents as Jeffery Veldjesgraaf, climbing from the vehicle to confront Krajnc.
“Jesus said, if they are thirsty, give them water,” she tells him.
Veldjesgraaf responds: “You know what, these are not humans you dumb frickin’ broad.”
He threatens to call the police and then asks: “What you got in that water?”
When she replies that it is just water, he says: “How do I know?”"
Do Political Preferences Change? A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Supreme Court Justices - "Do the political preferences of U.S. Supreme Court justices change over time? Judicial specialists are virtually unanimous in their response: The occasional anomaly notwithstanding, most jurists evince consistent voting behavior over the course of their careers. Still, for all the research that presupposes the consistency of preferences, it is startling to find that scholars have yet to explore rigorously the assumption of stability. We fill this gap by describing the behavioral patterns of the 16 justices who sat on the U.S. Supreme Court for 10 or more terms, and began and completed their service sometime between the 1937 and 1993 terms. The data reveal that many experienced significant change over time—a result with important implications for virtually all longitudinal work on the Court."
L'origine de Bert
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Why Bernie Sanders is a Bad Idea
"There is both an empirical and a logical problem with the notion that Sanders could even win a general election. The empirical problem is that for Sanders to win it would need a huge number of people to vote their economic interest. As a Marxist, I can tell you that it has been the bane of my people's existence from the man himself to today that people simply do not vote their economic interests. Period. For Sanders to win hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people to disregard their non-economic preferences, that is, their stance on issues like abortion rights, gay marriage, states' rights, gun control, and foreign policy and their own previous patterns of voting. That simply does not happen. Though US politics is more polarized than it has been for a generation, elections are still won and lost in the political center and margins of victory or defeat are in the single digits. A Sanders candidacy would put a left-wing economic isolationist populist political platform to a nation-wide referendum in a country where the voting preferences of the population are a considerable distance from Sander's expressed political positions. That is not a recipe for electoral success in a local race, to say nothing of a presidential election.
The logical problem with a Sanders presidency is related to the empirical problem. Great Britain's Labour Party recently elected a left-wing economic isolationist populist as its leader. I don't think anyone would argue that the United Kingdom is as conservative as (and definitely not more conservative than) the United States. The Labour Party was running in opposition to a Conservative/Liberal Democrat government that had been in office for years. Jeremy Corbin's platform was an electoral catastrophe for the Labour Party and delivered the Conservatives their first Parliamentary majority in decades. If a Sanders platform can't work in Great Britain there's no way it's going to work here.
And neither the empirical nor logical problems with a populist candidate winning the election come close to the problems of attempting to implement a populist platform in a political system characterized by strong institutions.
People in the United States are desperate for a new kind of politician. That is why they support anti-system populists like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Both men characterize the world's problems and the solutions to those problems as inherently simple. For Trump, it's all about leadership and tough negotiating, for Sanders it's all about regulation and redistribution. The police platforms of both men lead to me to believe that neither actually understands anything about economics or geopolitics. But the beauty of that fact (from their perspective) is neither do most voters, so their understanding of these issues is immaterial.
The fact of the matter is that the United States, and the entire world, for that matter, is/are going through a period of profound social, economic, and political change that poses fundamental issues to the comfortable (and familiar) post-World War II status quo. For both Trump and Sanders, the solution to these problems is not coming to grips with a post-industrial society and a multi-polar world, but making promises to people who just want things to get better and/or go back to the way they used to be.
With regards to their proposed solutions, I think both men are sincere in their desire to implement policies that would benefit the middle class (I'd rather think of them as misguided than just cynical). But the problem is that both men fundamentally misunderstand the structure of the American political system, the structure of the economy, and the international system.
Bernie Sanders has a long list of things he'd love to do to solve some pressing issues like wealth and income inequality (source: https://berniesanders.com/issues/income-and-wealth-inequality/). The fact of the matter is that the executive branch *cannot* do any of these things by itself. Bernie Sanders will not get support from Congress to do any of this. We can and should blame Congressional Republicans for being batshit crazy, but the President of the United States cannot just sit around bitching and moaning about Congress. Whatever legislative program he proposes *must* be subject to compromise and his entire policy platform is so far to the left that it will not receive support from even the most liberal Republicans (to say nothing of the most conservative Democrats). Think about what happened when Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Everyone was thrilled. There was going to be "hope" and "change" and while Obama did manage to get the Affordable Healthcare Act passed, the Democrats had to railroad that thing through Congress using lots of opaque parliamentary procedures. It is, of course, great that they did, but it goes to show you that even a seemingly-popular President working with a somewhat-friendly Congress still needs to be able to maneuver very careful and very adroitly to get anything accomplished. And let's get real: if Obama could barely get a law through Congress that basically just fixes the market failures that characterize a capitalist system of healthcare provision, what chance does a President Sanders stand getting a single-payer system through?
A reliance on executive power also characterizes Donald Trump's political platform. He does not care to elucidate a detailed policy platform, but he doesn't need to because for him it's all about going in, kicking ass, and taking names. But if you look at what Trump wants to do on trade policy it's actually not that different from what Bernie Sanders wants. To quote the latter's website: "[A President Sanders would] [reverse] trade policies like NAFTA, CAFTA, and PNTR with China that have driven down wages and caused the loss of millions of jobs. If corporate America wants us to buy their products they need to manufacture those products in this country, not in China or other low-wage countries."
Sounds great, but in practice this would be almost impossible to implement. Let's imagine that either of them found a way to abrogate one or all of these treaties, impose huge tariffs on imports, and force companies to start producing everything from underwear to televisions in the United States. What happens? The prices on everything go up which is basically just a giant regressive tax on the poor and middle class. You can't pay someone $15 dollars an hour to produce a pack of 20 socks sold at Wal-Mart for $12 dollars. That's not advanced economics, it's simple math.
Furthermore, even if the US tightens up import and export policies it won't matter because we live in a world where capital is hyper-mobile. Sanders wants to make the United States an outpost of socialism and Trump wants to "make America great again," but in a world where there are lots of other large (and growing) countries with open markets the net effect of these policies would be higher prices, lower economic growth, and an even more stark polarization of the rich and poor. That Donald Trump does not realize this (or does not care) speaks volumes to his business acumen."
The logical problem with a Sanders presidency is related to the empirical problem. Great Britain's Labour Party recently elected a left-wing economic isolationist populist as its leader. I don't think anyone would argue that the United Kingdom is as conservative as (and definitely not more conservative than) the United States. The Labour Party was running in opposition to a Conservative/Liberal Democrat government that had been in office for years. Jeremy Corbin's platform was an electoral catastrophe for the Labour Party and delivered the Conservatives their first Parliamentary majority in decades. If a Sanders platform can't work in Great Britain there's no way it's going to work here.
And neither the empirical nor logical problems with a populist candidate winning the election come close to the problems of attempting to implement a populist platform in a political system characterized by strong institutions.
People in the United States are desperate for a new kind of politician. That is why they support anti-system populists like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Both men characterize the world's problems and the solutions to those problems as inherently simple. For Trump, it's all about leadership and tough negotiating, for Sanders it's all about regulation and redistribution. The police platforms of both men lead to me to believe that neither actually understands anything about economics or geopolitics. But the beauty of that fact (from their perspective) is neither do most voters, so their understanding of these issues is immaterial.
The fact of the matter is that the United States, and the entire world, for that matter, is/are going through a period of profound social, economic, and political change that poses fundamental issues to the comfortable (and familiar) post-World War II status quo. For both Trump and Sanders, the solution to these problems is not coming to grips with a post-industrial society and a multi-polar world, but making promises to people who just want things to get better and/or go back to the way they used to be.
With regards to their proposed solutions, I think both men are sincere in their desire to implement policies that would benefit the middle class (I'd rather think of them as misguided than just cynical). But the problem is that both men fundamentally misunderstand the structure of the American political system, the structure of the economy, and the international system.
Bernie Sanders has a long list of things he'd love to do to solve some pressing issues like wealth and income inequality (source: https://berniesanders.com/issues/income-and-wealth-inequality/). The fact of the matter is that the executive branch *cannot* do any of these things by itself. Bernie Sanders will not get support from Congress to do any of this. We can and should blame Congressional Republicans for being batshit crazy, but the President of the United States cannot just sit around bitching and moaning about Congress. Whatever legislative program he proposes *must* be subject to compromise and his entire policy platform is so far to the left that it will not receive support from even the most liberal Republicans (to say nothing of the most conservative Democrats). Think about what happened when Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Everyone was thrilled. There was going to be "hope" and "change" and while Obama did manage to get the Affordable Healthcare Act passed, the Democrats had to railroad that thing through Congress using lots of opaque parliamentary procedures. It is, of course, great that they did, but it goes to show you that even a seemingly-popular President working with a somewhat-friendly Congress still needs to be able to maneuver very careful and very adroitly to get anything accomplished. And let's get real: if Obama could barely get a law through Congress that basically just fixes the market failures that characterize a capitalist system of healthcare provision, what chance does a President Sanders stand getting a single-payer system through?
A reliance on executive power also characterizes Donald Trump's political platform. He does not care to elucidate a detailed policy platform, but he doesn't need to because for him it's all about going in, kicking ass, and taking names. But if you look at what Trump wants to do on trade policy it's actually not that different from what Bernie Sanders wants. To quote the latter's website: "[A President Sanders would] [reverse] trade policies like NAFTA, CAFTA, and PNTR with China that have driven down wages and caused the loss of millions of jobs. If corporate America wants us to buy their products they need to manufacture those products in this country, not in China or other low-wage countries."
Sounds great, but in practice this would be almost impossible to implement. Let's imagine that either of them found a way to abrogate one or all of these treaties, impose huge tariffs on imports, and force companies to start producing everything from underwear to televisions in the United States. What happens? The prices on everything go up which is basically just a giant regressive tax on the poor and middle class. You can't pay someone $15 dollars an hour to produce a pack of 20 socks sold at Wal-Mart for $12 dollars. That's not advanced economics, it's simple math.
Furthermore, even if the US tightens up import and export policies it won't matter because we live in a world where capital is hyper-mobile. Sanders wants to make the United States an outpost of socialism and Trump wants to "make America great again," but in a world where there are lots of other large (and growing) countries with open markets the net effect of these policies would be higher prices, lower economic growth, and an even more stark polarization of the rich and poor. That Donald Trump does not realize this (or does not care) speaks volumes to his business acumen."
Post ID: 3151476050086608368
The Ideal Malay State
Finding the root of little red dot, Singapore in Singapore Diary Forum:
"In truth, by 1330 “SINGAPURA” had become a name common across Asia, since the lion was a symbol closely associated with the Buddhism that sread across the region before the arrival of Islam. Various Singapuras had already existed, in Vietnam, southern Siam, western Java and in India too. Nonetheless, for the island of Temasek the name Singapura struck — as did Sri Tri Buana’s reign, which according to the Malay chronicles, lasted right through the first half of the 14th century. The problem with these chronicles is just how much of them we can treat as historical fact — a problem that goes well beyond Sri Tri Buana’s advisor mistaking something in the bushes for what he imaged to be a lion.
To the end, the Sejarah (Malay literatures) casts the blame for the ultimate fall of Singapura on the poor judgement of its last king, Sultan Iskandar Shah. After only 3 years on the throne, the Sultan listened to court gossip and humiliated one of his favourite concubines by publicly exposing her in the market. This act enraged her father, a royal minister, who exacted his revenge by inviting one of Singapura’s rivals, the neighbouring Majapahit Empire in Java, to seize and sack the Sultan’s kingdom (the father was even there at the gates f the fort to open them for the Javanese army when it landed). The Sejarah tells of a fierce battle where so many were killed … that blood flowed like a river in spate and flooded the fort of Singaura on the sea shore. Sultan Iskandar Shah fled north to the Malay Peninsula, where he founded a new settlement of Melaka under the shade of the eponymous malaka tree. From here, the Malay chronicles really hit their stride, describing Melaka’s rise and extolling it as an ideal Malay state where every woman was beautiful, every man was handsome and the government worked well."
--- Singapore: A Biography / Mark Ravinder Frost, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
"In truth, by 1330 “SINGAPURA” had become a name common across Asia, since the lion was a symbol closely associated with the Buddhism that sread across the region before the arrival of Islam. Various Singapuras had already existed, in Vietnam, southern Siam, western Java and in India too. Nonetheless, for the island of Temasek the name Singapura struck — as did Sri Tri Buana’s reign, which according to the Malay chronicles, lasted right through the first half of the 14th century. The problem with these chronicles is just how much of them we can treat as historical fact — a problem that goes well beyond Sri Tri Buana’s advisor mistaking something in the bushes for what he imaged to be a lion.
To the end, the Sejarah (Malay literatures) casts the blame for the ultimate fall of Singapura on the poor judgement of its last king, Sultan Iskandar Shah. After only 3 years on the throne, the Sultan listened to court gossip and humiliated one of his favourite concubines by publicly exposing her in the market. This act enraged her father, a royal minister, who exacted his revenge by inviting one of Singapura’s rivals, the neighbouring Majapahit Empire in Java, to seize and sack the Sultan’s kingdom (the father was even there at the gates f the fort to open them for the Javanese army when it landed). The Sejarah tells of a fierce battle where so many were killed … that blood flowed like a river in spate and flooded the fort of Singaura on the sea shore. Sultan Iskandar Shah fled north to the Malay Peninsula, where he founded a new settlement of Melaka under the shade of the eponymous malaka tree. From here, the Malay chronicles really hit their stride, describing Melaka’s rise and extolling it as an ideal Malay state where every woman was beautiful, every man was handsome and the government worked well."
--- Singapore: A Biography / Mark Ravinder Frost, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
Post ID: 5059569173748006907
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Links - 12th January 2016
Is Teaching to a Student’s “Learning Style” a Bogus Idea? - "Harold Pashler of the University of California, San Diego, and his colleagues searched the research literature for exactly this kind of empirical evidence. They couldn't find any. One study they reviewed compared participants’ scores on the Verbalizer–Visualizer Questionnaire, a fifteen-item survey of true-or-false questions evaluating whether someone prefers auditory or optical information, with their scores on memory tests after presenting words via either pictures or verbal reading. On average, participants performed better on the free-recall test when they were shown images, regardless of their preferences. Some studies claimed to have demonstrated the effectiveness of teaching to learning styles, although they had small sample sizes, selectively reported data or were methodologically flawed. Those that were methodologically sound found no relationship between learning styles and performance on assessments. Willingham and Pashler believe that learning styles is a myth perpetuated merely by sloppy research and confirmation bias... When teachers wonder how to present a lesson to kids with a range of abilities, they may not find the answer in established learning style approaches. Instead, Willingham suggests keeping it simple. “It’s the material, not the differences among the students, that ought to be the determinant of how the teacher is going to present a lesson," he says. For example, if the goal is to teach students the geography of South America, the most effective way to do so across the board would be by looking at a map instead of verbally describing the shape and relative location of each country. “If there’s one terrific way that captures a concept for almost everybody, then you’re done.”"
Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil - "The tips flaked and broke off, drifting in microgravity where they could potentially harm an astronaut or equipment. And pencils are flammable--a quality NASA wanted to avoid in onboard objects after the Apollo 1 fire."
Inuit vs. Eskimo - "In Canada, the term Inuit is preferred over Eskimo, which is considered offensive. What many people do not know is that using the term Inuit as a blanket term for all arctic people in Alaska is offensive – the opposite of the situation in Canada. Why? Because there are two main groups of arctic people in Alaska, the Yupik and the Iñupiat. The Yupik peoples are Eskimo but not Inuit. Quite understandably, they don’t like being called Inuit because they aren’t Inuit (and the word doesn’t even exist in Yupik languages). This means that it’s better to call arctic Alaskans Eskimos, not Inuit – or better yet, call them Yupik if they are Yupik, Iñupiat if they are Iñupiat, Cup’ik if they are Cup’ik, and so on... contrary to popular belief, there are also non-Eskimo indigenous peoples in Alaska: the Aleut (Unangan) as well as many different Native American groups"
Election Boycotts: Losing Voices and Votes - "Boycotting elections emerges as a "third option", but the boycott strategy presents a false option for voters and parties because it throws away a vote and voids the collective voice... Although the boycott strategy worked in South Africa's case, evidence shows that boycotting elections failed in most cases. When the opposition and voters boycott, they forget that elections are not just a one time effort. There is always the next election cycle. So why sit on the sideline and relegate the party voice to "non participant"? As found in 171 cases of the opposition choosing to boycott elections, the boycott strategy only worked 4 percent of the time, according to a 2010 study "Threaten but Participate: Why Election Boycotts Are a Bad Idea" by Matthew Frankel"
Students At Wesleyan Demand Abolition Of Free Press - "The petition calls for all copies of the Argus on campus to be thrown away until the paper gives in to all of the protesters’ demands. Those demands include creating a special front-page section dedicated to marginalized voices and forcing all Argus staff to be trained in social justice and diversity once per term, among other things. The paper just might have to give in. The Wesleyan Student Assembly has control over some of the Argus’s funding, and both the president and vice president have endorsed the petition... “People whispered “racist” or other pleasantries under their breath when I passed. In a cafe, an activist berated me in public for 15 minutes,” Stascavage writes. “According to one commenter on my column, my picture is being posted online with comments that ‘seem to be calling for violence’ against me.” At one point, he says, activists stormed into the Argus’s offices and screamed at editors, demanding that the entire next issue be dedicated to apologizing."
Mexican Ceviche Recipe - "In Mexico when they make this they often add sea water (not recommened)."
Stories differ inside and outside court - "Nearly half the men said nagging or complaining contributed to the broken marriage, while only 27 per cent of women said so"
‘I Want to Be a Boy Scout.’ There’s Just One Hitch. - NYTimes.com - "“I want to be a Boy Scout,” Allie Westover, 13, told a panel of men in khaki uniforms weighted by pins and patches. She dropped a scout application in front of them. Then so did her sister, Skyler, and three friends: Ella Jacobs, Daphne Mortenson and Taylor Alcozer." In a year in which gender roles in traditional American institutions have undergone major changes and challenges, a fight in Northern California over joining the Boy Scouts is among the most recent points of contention. These girls — the latest of many over the decades who have sought to become Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts instead of Brownies and Girl Scouts — say they would rather be camping and tying knots than selling cookies... Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination by sex, carves out an exception for the Boy Scouts, allowing them to exclude members based on gender."
If the Boy Scouts admit girls, are they still the Boy Scouts?
1 in 3 Singaporeans travel to shop: Survey - "Singaporeans continue to live up to their reputation as avid shoppers, as 36 per cent of them go on holiday mainly to rack up purchases, according to a survey by insurance company AIG. In a media release on Thursday (Nov 19) AIG said the survey also found that 56 per cent of respondents said shopping holidays are the most desired type of holiday. Other top reasons for going on holiday include getting away for a weekend break (21 per cent), the desire to visit an exotic destination (12 per cent), and the need for a luxurious getaway (4 per cent)."
MSNBC's 'No-Fly List Is Islamophobia' Poster Boy Arrested in Turkey as Part of ISIS Cell - "A man, who just two years ago was the poster boy for the far-Left media's attacks against the U.S. government's no-fly list for "unfairly" targeting Muslims, finds himself and several family members sitting in a Turkish prison -- arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell."
Is the World Against China? - "my colleague in the College of Communication talks about conscious skepticism among her students. And that’s a foreign term in China. From an American perspective, every reader and writer should have that, but in China they don’t get that. It is somewhat related to the government-controlled media, but in 5,000 years of Chinese history, it has not been a big part of education. In other words, here in the United States, it is a very, very important mission for the media to report what the government does wrong. Anti-government is too strong a word, but basically the Western media has that mission to reveal anything that goes wrong with the government. In the Western media business, if you simply report that the government did this for us, it’s two sentences and you’re done, because not a lot of readers are interested in reading this. But in China, people basically don’t have that mind-set. They are used to hearing that the government did this and that for us."
Sex Ed Lesson: ‘Yes Means Yes,’ but It’s Tricky - The New York Times - "“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room. “Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom answered. “It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask”.. The students did not seem convinced. They sat in groups to brainstorm ways to ask for affirmative consent. They crossed off a list of options: “Can I touch you there?” Too clinical. “Do you want to do this?” Too tentative. “Do you like that?” Not direct enough. “They’re all really awkward and bizarre,” one girl said... Corey Mock, a student at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, was expelled after officials there found him guilty of sexual misconduct because he could not prove he had obtained verbal consent from a woman who accused him of sexual assault. But a Davidson County Chancery Court judge ruled in August that the university had “improperly shifted the burden of proof and imposed an untenable standard upon Mr. Mock to disprove the accusation.” The judge called the university’s ruling “arbitrary and capricious.”
Affirmative consent: the ultimate romance-killer - "The impromptu kiss between Owen and Claire in Jurassic World left women swooning and men hoping to emulate Owen. The scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince where Ginny asks Harry to close his eyes before softly kissing him does not bring to mind the word ‘assault’. And in The Notebook, Noah grabbing and kissing Allie in the pouring rain after being reunited is incredibly romantic, despite his use of force. In all these films, there was no explicit consent, no breathalyser, no contract – not even a request for permission... Sometimes people misread the moment, and try to kiss someone who doesn’t want to be kissed. Some people are simply bad with social cues. Misreading a situation and feeling embarrassed and apologetic afterwards is an honest and forgivable mistake. That is, unless you’re in California or New York, where misreading the desires of another would be seen as sexual assault. Whether the outcome of attempting a kiss is romantic or humiliating, you better pray the person you’re going for is not someone who would ruin your life over it. To take it a step further, the New York and California affirmative-consent laws assert that ‘consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity’. This concept has been portrayed in short films such as Feminism For Bros – 105. The actors hooking up in this short speak throughout the entire sexual encounter, ensuring every touch, every kiss, every movement is acceptable. The whole scenario strikes me as awkward, forced and unappealing."
George W. Bush’s greatest legacy — his battle against AIDS - "This is a moment for all Americans to be proud of the best thing George W. Bush did as president: launching an initiative to combat AIDS in Africa that has saved millions of lives... some of these men and women would be dead if not for Bush’s foresight and compassion... When the Bush administration inaugurated the program in 2003, fewer than 50,000 HIV-infected people on the African continent were receiving the antiretroviral drugs that keep the virus in check and halt the progression toward full-blown AIDS. By the time Bush left office, the number had increased to nearly 2 million. Today, the United States is directly supporting antiretroviral treatment for more than 4 million men, women and children worldwide, primarily in Africa. This is an amazing accomplishment, especially because it wasn’t supposed to be possible... 11 African countries — including some of the hardest-hit by the epidemic — are providing antiretroviral drug treatment to well over half of their citizens infected with HIV... Bush’s initial multibillion-dollar commitment to PEPFAR was not really justifiable on grounds of national security, except perhaps in the broadest possible sense. The administration was motivated instead by altruism. It was the right thing to do."
The Social Side of Eating - "Women, for example, eat less calories when they’re eating with men than when they eat with women. Both men and women eat less in front of a stranger of the opposite sex, but women eat particularly less if the guy is attractive. In general, people eat about as much as they see other eating, and eat more when in larger groups of people or when we think other people have eaten more. Even more impressively, how much you like a food item can be influenced by seeing the like or dislike of that food by others. But the changes aren’t limited to just who is around in terms of number and gender – their relationship to us has a big impact as well. Guys eat more around their guy friends than male strangers. In fact, men eat more around their guy friends than any other pairing of people. Couples and females around strangers eat much, much less."
The Koreans who televise themselves eating dinner - "How do you fancy eating your dinner at home in front of a webcam and letting thousands of people watch? If they like the way you eat, they will pay you money - maybe a few hundred dollars a night... a good salary for doing what you would do anyway. This is happening now in South Korea... It feels like a dinner party where the diners are talking from different rooms. "They like to see me eat but we also have lots of conversations," says Lee Chang-hyun. "We talk about everything. I even give them counselling about problems they might have so we have a real relationship.""
Relationship Experts Recommend Single Women Try Bathing In Open Stream Until Suitor Glimpses Them Through Trees - The Onion - America's Finest News Source
BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Chinatown - "There was a huge economic decline in the 1870s... there was a huge anti-Chinese violence. There were shootings and lynchings and, you know, just mob attacks towards these people because they were considered people who were just stealing their jobs. It was almost like a tension with outsourcing now. And so the Chinese were basically driven out: both geographically from a lot of areas and also from being employed. And so what happened was the Chinese gravitated towards 2 areas. The first one is laundries and the second was restaurants. And these are both women's work and thus not threatening to the American male. And so you find restaurants actually being the heart of Chinatowns, not just in the United States but all over the world"
Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil - "The tips flaked and broke off, drifting in microgravity where they could potentially harm an astronaut or equipment. And pencils are flammable--a quality NASA wanted to avoid in onboard objects after the Apollo 1 fire."
Inuit vs. Eskimo - "In Canada, the term Inuit is preferred over Eskimo, which is considered offensive. What many people do not know is that using the term Inuit as a blanket term for all arctic people in Alaska is offensive – the opposite of the situation in Canada. Why? Because there are two main groups of arctic people in Alaska, the Yupik and the Iñupiat. The Yupik peoples are Eskimo but not Inuit. Quite understandably, they don’t like being called Inuit because they aren’t Inuit (and the word doesn’t even exist in Yupik languages). This means that it’s better to call arctic Alaskans Eskimos, not Inuit – or better yet, call them Yupik if they are Yupik, Iñupiat if they are Iñupiat, Cup’ik if they are Cup’ik, and so on... contrary to popular belief, there are also non-Eskimo indigenous peoples in Alaska: the Aleut (Unangan) as well as many different Native American groups"
Election Boycotts: Losing Voices and Votes - "Boycotting elections emerges as a "third option", but the boycott strategy presents a false option for voters and parties because it throws away a vote and voids the collective voice... Although the boycott strategy worked in South Africa's case, evidence shows that boycotting elections failed in most cases. When the opposition and voters boycott, they forget that elections are not just a one time effort. There is always the next election cycle. So why sit on the sideline and relegate the party voice to "non participant"? As found in 171 cases of the opposition choosing to boycott elections, the boycott strategy only worked 4 percent of the time, according to a 2010 study "Threaten but Participate: Why Election Boycotts Are a Bad Idea" by Matthew Frankel"
Students At Wesleyan Demand Abolition Of Free Press - "The petition calls for all copies of the Argus on campus to be thrown away until the paper gives in to all of the protesters’ demands. Those demands include creating a special front-page section dedicated to marginalized voices and forcing all Argus staff to be trained in social justice and diversity once per term, among other things. The paper just might have to give in. The Wesleyan Student Assembly has control over some of the Argus’s funding, and both the president and vice president have endorsed the petition... “People whispered “racist” or other pleasantries under their breath when I passed. In a cafe, an activist berated me in public for 15 minutes,” Stascavage writes. “According to one commenter on my column, my picture is being posted online with comments that ‘seem to be calling for violence’ against me.” At one point, he says, activists stormed into the Argus’s offices and screamed at editors, demanding that the entire next issue be dedicated to apologizing."
Mexican Ceviche Recipe - "In Mexico when they make this they often add sea water (not recommened)."
Stories differ inside and outside court - "Nearly half the men said nagging or complaining contributed to the broken marriage, while only 27 per cent of women said so"
‘I Want to Be a Boy Scout.’ There’s Just One Hitch. - NYTimes.com - "“I want to be a Boy Scout,” Allie Westover, 13, told a panel of men in khaki uniforms weighted by pins and patches. She dropped a scout application in front of them. Then so did her sister, Skyler, and three friends: Ella Jacobs, Daphne Mortenson and Taylor Alcozer." In a year in which gender roles in traditional American institutions have undergone major changes and challenges, a fight in Northern California over joining the Boy Scouts is among the most recent points of contention. These girls — the latest of many over the decades who have sought to become Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts instead of Brownies and Girl Scouts — say they would rather be camping and tying knots than selling cookies... Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination by sex, carves out an exception for the Boy Scouts, allowing them to exclude members based on gender."
If the Boy Scouts admit girls, are they still the Boy Scouts?
1 in 3 Singaporeans travel to shop: Survey - "Singaporeans continue to live up to their reputation as avid shoppers, as 36 per cent of them go on holiday mainly to rack up purchases, according to a survey by insurance company AIG. In a media release on Thursday (Nov 19) AIG said the survey also found that 56 per cent of respondents said shopping holidays are the most desired type of holiday. Other top reasons for going on holiday include getting away for a weekend break (21 per cent), the desire to visit an exotic destination (12 per cent), and the need for a luxurious getaway (4 per cent)."
MSNBC's 'No-Fly List Is Islamophobia' Poster Boy Arrested in Turkey as Part of ISIS Cell - "A man, who just two years ago was the poster boy for the far-Left media's attacks against the U.S. government's no-fly list for "unfairly" targeting Muslims, finds himself and several family members sitting in a Turkish prison -- arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell."
Is the World Against China? - "my colleague in the College of Communication talks about conscious skepticism among her students. And that’s a foreign term in China. From an American perspective, every reader and writer should have that, but in China they don’t get that. It is somewhat related to the government-controlled media, but in 5,000 years of Chinese history, it has not been a big part of education. In other words, here in the United States, it is a very, very important mission for the media to report what the government does wrong. Anti-government is too strong a word, but basically the Western media has that mission to reveal anything that goes wrong with the government. In the Western media business, if you simply report that the government did this for us, it’s two sentences and you’re done, because not a lot of readers are interested in reading this. But in China, people basically don’t have that mind-set. They are used to hearing that the government did this and that for us."
Sex Ed Lesson: ‘Yes Means Yes,’ but It’s Tricky - The New York Times - "“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room. “Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom answered. “It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask”.. The students did not seem convinced. They sat in groups to brainstorm ways to ask for affirmative consent. They crossed off a list of options: “Can I touch you there?” Too clinical. “Do you want to do this?” Too tentative. “Do you like that?” Not direct enough. “They’re all really awkward and bizarre,” one girl said... Corey Mock, a student at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, was expelled after officials there found him guilty of sexual misconduct because he could not prove he had obtained verbal consent from a woman who accused him of sexual assault. But a Davidson County Chancery Court judge ruled in August that the university had “improperly shifted the burden of proof and imposed an untenable standard upon Mr. Mock to disprove the accusation.” The judge called the university’s ruling “arbitrary and capricious.”
Affirmative consent: the ultimate romance-killer - "The impromptu kiss between Owen and Claire in Jurassic World left women swooning and men hoping to emulate Owen. The scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince where Ginny asks Harry to close his eyes before softly kissing him does not bring to mind the word ‘assault’. And in The Notebook, Noah grabbing and kissing Allie in the pouring rain after being reunited is incredibly romantic, despite his use of force. In all these films, there was no explicit consent, no breathalyser, no contract – not even a request for permission... Sometimes people misread the moment, and try to kiss someone who doesn’t want to be kissed. Some people are simply bad with social cues. Misreading a situation and feeling embarrassed and apologetic afterwards is an honest and forgivable mistake. That is, unless you’re in California or New York, where misreading the desires of another would be seen as sexual assault. Whether the outcome of attempting a kiss is romantic or humiliating, you better pray the person you’re going for is not someone who would ruin your life over it. To take it a step further, the New York and California affirmative-consent laws assert that ‘consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity’. This concept has been portrayed in short films such as Feminism For Bros – 105. The actors hooking up in this short speak throughout the entire sexual encounter, ensuring every touch, every kiss, every movement is acceptable. The whole scenario strikes me as awkward, forced and unappealing."
George W. Bush’s greatest legacy — his battle against AIDS - "This is a moment for all Americans to be proud of the best thing George W. Bush did as president: launching an initiative to combat AIDS in Africa that has saved millions of lives... some of these men and women would be dead if not for Bush’s foresight and compassion... When the Bush administration inaugurated the program in 2003, fewer than 50,000 HIV-infected people on the African continent were receiving the antiretroviral drugs that keep the virus in check and halt the progression toward full-blown AIDS. By the time Bush left office, the number had increased to nearly 2 million. Today, the United States is directly supporting antiretroviral treatment for more than 4 million men, women and children worldwide, primarily in Africa. This is an amazing accomplishment, especially because it wasn’t supposed to be possible... 11 African countries — including some of the hardest-hit by the epidemic — are providing antiretroviral drug treatment to well over half of their citizens infected with HIV... Bush’s initial multibillion-dollar commitment to PEPFAR was not really justifiable on grounds of national security, except perhaps in the broadest possible sense. The administration was motivated instead by altruism. It was the right thing to do."
The Social Side of Eating - "Women, for example, eat less calories when they’re eating with men than when they eat with women. Both men and women eat less in front of a stranger of the opposite sex, but women eat particularly less if the guy is attractive. In general, people eat about as much as they see other eating, and eat more when in larger groups of people or when we think other people have eaten more. Even more impressively, how much you like a food item can be influenced by seeing the like or dislike of that food by others. But the changes aren’t limited to just who is around in terms of number and gender – their relationship to us has a big impact as well. Guys eat more around their guy friends than male strangers. In fact, men eat more around their guy friends than any other pairing of people. Couples and females around strangers eat much, much less."
The Koreans who televise themselves eating dinner - "How do you fancy eating your dinner at home in front of a webcam and letting thousands of people watch? If they like the way you eat, they will pay you money - maybe a few hundred dollars a night... a good salary for doing what you would do anyway. This is happening now in South Korea... It feels like a dinner party where the diners are talking from different rooms. "They like to see me eat but we also have lots of conversations," says Lee Chang-hyun. "We talk about everything. I even give them counselling about problems they might have so we have a real relationship.""
Relationship Experts Recommend Single Women Try Bathing In Open Stream Until Suitor Glimpses Them Through Trees - The Onion - America's Finest News Source
BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Chinatown - "There was a huge economic decline in the 1870s... there was a huge anti-Chinese violence. There were shootings and lynchings and, you know, just mob attacks towards these people because they were considered people who were just stealing their jobs. It was almost like a tension with outsourcing now. And so the Chinese were basically driven out: both geographically from a lot of areas and also from being employed. And so what happened was the Chinese gravitated towards 2 areas. The first one is laundries and the second was restaurants. And these are both women's work and thus not threatening to the American male. And so you find restaurants actually being the heart of Chinatowns, not just in the United States but all over the world"
Post ID: 117564718393664008
Why haven't western countries signed the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers & Members of Their Families?
Gabriel Seah's answer to Why haven't western countries signed the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers & Members of Their Families? - Quora
Post ID: 3550432507295187563
It is notable that only 48 UN Member states have ratified the convention (More help and treats for foreign workers) - and they are countries from which migrants come (rather than those to which migrants go). East Timor, Egypt, the Philippines and Senegal are some of them.
This suggests that it is detrimental for countries which expect to receive migrants to sign it.
There are many problematic aspects of this convention (Text: International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families). I shall just look at Articles 10, 29 and 43.
Article 10 says that no migrant worker or his family "shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". This has the potential to subvert a country's legal system. For example some states in the US practise capital punishment, which some argue is cruel and unusual punishment (The Case Against the Death Penalty). Ratifying this convention might mean that migrant workers and their families could not be subject to capital punishment. This might cause a legal crisis in countries practising capital punishment.
Article 29 says that "each child of a migrant worker shall have the right to a name, to registration of birth and to a nationality". The last seems the most problematic. In countries which don't practise jus soli, or the right of those born in a country to be citizens (i.e. most of the world), you need to have at least one parent who is a citizen of the country in question. Now, what happens if the child of a migrant worker is unable to obtain the nationality of one or both of his parents' countries? A country signing the convention would be obligated to give this child citizenship of its own country.
Article 43 calls for migrant workers to have equal access to nationals with regard to housing, including social housing. Social housing is typically subsidised or otherwise priced below market prices, and countries understandably would prefer for their citizens to benefit from this first before opening it to migrant workers (if at all).
Post ID: 3550432507295187563
Monday, January 11, 2016
Links - 11th January 2016
Blakely teacher restricts Lego-play to her girl students in the pursuit of gender equity - "In Karen Keller’s kindergarten classroom, boys can’t play with Legos. They can have their pick of Tinkertoys and marble tracks, but the colorful bricks are “girls only”... Although her approach might anger some parents, Keller is sticking to her guns: It’s all part of a plan to get girls building during “free choice,” the 40 minutes of unstructured play time embedded at the end of every school day. For years, Keller, who has taught at Captain Johnston Blakely Elementary since 2008, watched with discouragement as self-segregation defined her classroom — her boy students flocked to the building blocks while her girl students played with dolls and crayons and staples, toys that offered them little challenge or opportunity to fail and develop perseverance... In Keller’s mind, it’s a fair practice “because fair is getting what you need to succeed or to get better.” Fair doesn’t have to be the same, and she says her kindergarteners get that."
Free choice = you can choose what feminists choose
Comments: "Asians do better at maths - so will she refuse to teach them mathematics so the non-asian kids have 'equality'?""
"So lets stop girls's access to books so that boys can catch up."
Calissons of Aix-en-Provence - "“Calisson” is a Provencal sweet treat composed of a light paste of crystallised melon and almonds crushed together. It is coated with royal icing and spread on unleavened bread. This sweet in a shuttle shape with an orange blossom fragrance has been a specialty of Aix-en-Provence since the 15th century. The word “calisson” comes from “calice” (chalice) and the Provencal diminutive “oun”, meaning “petit calice” (small chalice). “Calice” originally referred to the holy cup of the Eucharist and Communion itself. The calisson is indeed a kind of host. It became popular between Northern Italy and Provence and semantic usage resulted in the name calisson!"
The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, book review - "Stopping time was an obsession with Carroll, and it lies at the heart of his creativity. He did not want children to grow up... Between 1856 and 1889, he took approximately 3,000 photographs, no mean feat given the painstaking process involved. Of these, only 1% were of naked children, taken with the permission of their parents: he kept them in an envelope marked, “honi soit”, (ie, “evil be to him that thinks it.”) Their composition pleased his sense of geometry, theatricality and scale, but it was Alice Liddell to whom he returned repeatedly. Her elfin face and pageboy haircut are a world away from Tenniel’s bulgy-browed, flowing-tressed little maiden, but she was his “dream-child”. In fiction, she could be, as the biographer put it, “stretched and squashed until she acquired the illusion of independent life, even as his writing was permanently fixing her on the page.” So did his photographs. I still remember my revulsion on first seeing a semi-nude photograph of Alice Liddell aged eight, but the Victorians’ Romantic conception of childhood as a separate realm allowed this to seem innocent. At any rate, the fall-out with the Liddells, whether caused by Carroll’s recently discovered nude photograph of Alice’s budding adolescent sister or not, has a whiff of scandal to it. Today, Carroll himself is tainted as a possible precursor to Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert although as his biographer observes,“a number of Carroll’s contemporaries thought that his sexual interests, however pale and repressed, were more likely to have been focussed on other men …the most probable conclusion is that Carroll’s strongest feelings [ for children] were sentimental rather than sexual.” A former child subject attests to his being “so scrupulous not to embarrass or offend,” though Douglas-Fairhurst admits, “a vision of innocence is not the same as innocent vision.” But when Carroll kissed a 17 year old girl, thinking she was a child, her mother, Mrs Owen, a trained barrister and niece of Oxford’s Vice Chancellor was furious. In 1880, with the public mood changing in the wake of journalistic exposes of child prostitution, and the age of consent raised from 13 to 16, the photographs stopped."
New Wave of Mormon Missionaries Is Young, Energetic and Female - "“Each of my sisters were married by the time they were 19 or 20,” said Sister Rachel Thomson, 24, from Hamilton, New Zealand. “They didn't have the opportunity to go when they turned 21.”... There are now more than 22,000 women serving on missions, making up more than a quarter of all missionaries, according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the church is officially called. The number of sister missionaries has nearly tripled since the age minimum was lowered in October 2012... “People are definitely more open to a female missionary,” said Sister Thomson. “Part of it may be what we wear.” Unlike their male counterparts, they say they are are encouraged to wear cheerful clothing. Female missionaries wear blouses and long skirts, which can be flowery and feminine. “Just recently they told us to be colorful and look cute,” said Sister Thomson. There are guidelines about their underwear, too, which must be white or nude."
5 Reasons Why You Should Never Date A Girl With Dyed Hair - "In short, based on my extensive experience, a girl having hair dyed with a non-traditional color is a leading indicator of instability, mental illness, and an inability to function within a healthy relationship."
I Know Why So Many Angry Women Have Blue Hair - "Early man knew to avoid the blue poison dart frog. Modern man knows the same is true of a Canadian gender studies student who thinks she’s Zelda."
General Butt Naked - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Blahyi has said he led his troops naked except for shoes and a gun. He believed that his nakedness was a source of protection from bullets. Blahyi now claims he would regularly sacrifice a victim before battle, saying, "Usually it was a small child, someone whose fresh blood would satisfy the devil."... In 1997 Blahyi traveled to the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana. It was at the camp, he recounts, that he made confession for his sins at a church and "had his life saved". When he goes out to preach now, he says he sometimes encounters relatives of his victims. "I feel very bad, so bad", he said, but he insists it was satanic powers that possessed him in the past and he cannot be held responsible."
Medicine and Evolution, Part 4: Physicians seduced by “intelligent design” creationism - "'A national survey of 1,472 physicians indicates more than half — 63 percent — believe the theory of evolution over that of intelligent design... 88 percent of Jewish doctors and 60 percent of Roman Catholic physicians said they agree more with evolution, while 54 percent of Protestant doctors agreed more with intelligent design'... Although there can be overlap, there’s a big difference between the primary motivations for going into science and medicine. Basic scientists tend to be motivated by a profound curiosity, a desire to understand nature, and a profound satisfaction that one derives from satisfying that curiosity and fulfilling that desire. In other words, it is the thrill we as scientists get from discovering something new, from deepening our understanding. To a scientist, there’s no greater rush than discovering a new and important gene, for example, or coming up with a hypothesis and seeing it validated by experimentation. All scientists seek that rush, and it is their curiosity that drives them. In contrast, what motivates most physicians to enter medicine is not curiosity; at least that is not the primary reason. Rather, as corny as it sounds, it is the desire to help people and the satisfaction we get from curing disease and easing suffering. Some of us have the motivations of a scientist, but there has to be a strong element of wanting to help others to go through the pain of medical school... many physicians see their calling as a professional who cares for the sick to be the highest form of service to God and their fellow humans. Indeed, there is even evidence that physicians as a group are more religious than the general population... Another thing that scientists don’t always understand is that we as physicians are trained to place a high premium on being nonjudgmental of our patients"
Why Do Some Doctors Reject Evolution? - ""Most physicians are not scientists. This is not a knock, but they're more akin to engineers," Gorski says. "They take science that's already known and they apply it to a problem, the problem being making patients better"... Another potential culprit: the memorization-based nature of medical training, which may give a doctor-to-be the impression that biology is a made up list of facts to recall; not a process that has gathered evidence for concepts like evolution over generations of experimentation... an evolutionary understanding of the human body can make doctoring feel richer, Omenn thinks. The symptoms people see their doctor for—vomiting, diarrhea, or anxiety, for example—all developed to protect our evolutionary ancestors. Doctors get to see and intimately know the end product of humanity's evolution so far, in all its frailties."
YouTube Toy Review Channel EvanTubeHD Pulls In About $1.3 Million Per Year - "EvanTubeHD is one of YouTube’s prominent toy review channels. In new videos, which arrive at least once a week, Jared provides nine-year-old Evan and his six-year-old sister Jillian with new toys, which they play with on camera. The videos have proven enormously popular; since 2011, they have received more than 1.2 billion views"
Channels: Broadcasting Done Right - "Channels replace the old Broadcast lists and are better in every way. They can have an unlimited number of members, they can be public with a permanent URLand each post in a channel has its own view counter."
Telegram is awesome. Too bad people don't use it
University refuses to post job advert because having 'junior' in title is 'discriminatory' - Telegraph - "Rhizome PR was told by the university that it would only publish their advert for a junior PR consultant if the word “junior” was changed to "entry level", "graduate" or "trainee"."
Effects of Heredity and Environment on Intelligence - "identical twins raised in different environments tend to have very similar IQ scores. In fact, these twins are more similar to each other than are fraternal twins raised in the same home... adopted children’s IQ scores are more highly correlated with their biological parents’ IQs than with their adoptive parents’ IQs... Furthermore, the IQ correlations between adopted children and their biological parents become stronger, and those between the children and their adoptive parents become weaker, as the children grow older, especially during late adolescence... Especially as they get older, children choose their environments and experiences. Children may actively seek out environmental conditions that match their inherited abilities—a phenomenon known as niche-picking (Flynn, 2003; Halpern & LaMay, 2000; Scarr & McCartney, 1983). For example, children who, genetically speaking, have exceptional quantitative reasoning ability may enroll in advanced mathematics courses, delight in tackling mathematical brainteasers, and in other ways nurture their inherited talents. Children with average quantitative ability are less likely to take on such challenges and so have fewer opportunities to develop their mathematical skills. In such circumstances the relative effects of heredity and environment are difficult to tease apart. Earlier we mentioned that the IQ correlations between adopted children and their biological parents become stronger over time. We now have a possible explanation for this finding. Children gain increasing independence as they get older. Especially as they reach adolescence, they spend less time in their home environments, and they make more of their own decisions about the kinds of opportunities to pursue—decisions undoubtedly based, in part, on their natural talents and tendencies... Genetic activity affects neural activity (i.e., the operation of neurons in the brain), which in turn affects behavior, which in turn affects the environment. But influence moves in the opposite direction as well: The environment affects behavior, and these two (through stimulation, nutritional intake, physical activity, etc.) affect neural activity and genetic expression."
Story Begins To Unravel About Drowned Syrian Boy - "Abdullah Kurdi, the little boy’s father, was living in a relatively safe area in a Turkish town for three years while working on construction sites for 50 Turkish lira (roughly $17) a day. However, Kurdi told a Syrian radio station it was not enough to support himself and his family and he relied on his sister Tima Kurdi, who is a 20-year resident of Canada, to assist in paying the rent. It should be noted that Tima told reporters Thursday that the family just came to Turkey last year, even though WSJ points out he came to Turkey three years ago, and his Facebook “shows pictures of the family in Istanbul crossing the Bosporus and feeding pigeons next to the famous Yeni Cami, or new mosque”... According to earlier reports, the family’s application for asylum in Canada was rejected by Canada, but Canadian immigration authorities told the BBC they had no record of receiving an application for refugee status from Abdullah. Tima later admitted the asylum application for the family was never submitted... “That boy and his family had lived in Turkey for three years. The money for that boy’s father to pay the people smugglers was sent from Canada.” He added, “The father sent them on that boat so the father could get dental treatment. They were in no fear, they were in no persecution and they were in no danger in Turkey.”"
Addendum: Full quote: “The facts remain that that terrible image was not brought about by recent events in Syria or Iraq. That boy and his family had lived in Turkey for three years. The money for that boy's father to pay the people smugglers was sent from Canada. The father sent them on that boat so the father could get dental treatment. They were in no fear; they were in no persecution and they were in no danger in Turkey … People are drowning at sea because of the incentives that were being provided by their cockamamie humanitarian ethos. It is much more humane for people to go through an orderly migration program, to be put in place where they are safe and where they do not have to take such tempting things.” — Senator Cory Bernardi in an address to the Australian Senate, 7th September 2015, after the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on a beach near Bodrum, Turkey.
Free choice = you can choose what feminists choose
Comments: "Asians do better at maths - so will she refuse to teach them mathematics so the non-asian kids have 'equality'?""
"So lets stop girls's access to books so that boys can catch up."
Calissons of Aix-en-Provence - "“Calisson” is a Provencal sweet treat composed of a light paste of crystallised melon and almonds crushed together. It is coated with royal icing and spread on unleavened bread. This sweet in a shuttle shape with an orange blossom fragrance has been a specialty of Aix-en-Provence since the 15th century. The word “calisson” comes from “calice” (chalice) and the Provencal diminutive “oun”, meaning “petit calice” (small chalice). “Calice” originally referred to the holy cup of the Eucharist and Communion itself. The calisson is indeed a kind of host. It became popular between Northern Italy and Provence and semantic usage resulted in the name calisson!"
The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, book review - "Stopping time was an obsession with Carroll, and it lies at the heart of his creativity. He did not want children to grow up... Between 1856 and 1889, he took approximately 3,000 photographs, no mean feat given the painstaking process involved. Of these, only 1% were of naked children, taken with the permission of their parents: he kept them in an envelope marked, “honi soit”, (ie, “evil be to him that thinks it.”) Their composition pleased his sense of geometry, theatricality and scale, but it was Alice Liddell to whom he returned repeatedly. Her elfin face and pageboy haircut are a world away from Tenniel’s bulgy-browed, flowing-tressed little maiden, but she was his “dream-child”. In fiction, she could be, as the biographer put it, “stretched and squashed until she acquired the illusion of independent life, even as his writing was permanently fixing her on the page.” So did his photographs. I still remember my revulsion on first seeing a semi-nude photograph of Alice Liddell aged eight, but the Victorians’ Romantic conception of childhood as a separate realm allowed this to seem innocent. At any rate, the fall-out with the Liddells, whether caused by Carroll’s recently discovered nude photograph of Alice’s budding adolescent sister or not, has a whiff of scandal to it. Today, Carroll himself is tainted as a possible precursor to Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert although as his biographer observes,“a number of Carroll’s contemporaries thought that his sexual interests, however pale and repressed, were more likely to have been focussed on other men …the most probable conclusion is that Carroll’s strongest feelings [ for children] were sentimental rather than sexual.” A former child subject attests to his being “so scrupulous not to embarrass or offend,” though Douglas-Fairhurst admits, “a vision of innocence is not the same as innocent vision.” But when Carroll kissed a 17 year old girl, thinking she was a child, her mother, Mrs Owen, a trained barrister and niece of Oxford’s Vice Chancellor was furious. In 1880, with the public mood changing in the wake of journalistic exposes of child prostitution, and the age of consent raised from 13 to 16, the photographs stopped."
New Wave of Mormon Missionaries Is Young, Energetic and Female - "“Each of my sisters were married by the time they were 19 or 20,” said Sister Rachel Thomson, 24, from Hamilton, New Zealand. “They didn't have the opportunity to go when they turned 21.”... There are now more than 22,000 women serving on missions, making up more than a quarter of all missionaries, according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the church is officially called. The number of sister missionaries has nearly tripled since the age minimum was lowered in October 2012... “People are definitely more open to a female missionary,” said Sister Thomson. “Part of it may be what we wear.” Unlike their male counterparts, they say they are are encouraged to wear cheerful clothing. Female missionaries wear blouses and long skirts, which can be flowery and feminine. “Just recently they told us to be colorful and look cute,” said Sister Thomson. There are guidelines about their underwear, too, which must be white or nude."
5 Reasons Why You Should Never Date A Girl With Dyed Hair - "In short, based on my extensive experience, a girl having hair dyed with a non-traditional color is a leading indicator of instability, mental illness, and an inability to function within a healthy relationship."
I Know Why So Many Angry Women Have Blue Hair - "Early man knew to avoid the blue poison dart frog. Modern man knows the same is true of a Canadian gender studies student who thinks she’s Zelda."
General Butt Naked - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Blahyi has said he led his troops naked except for shoes and a gun. He believed that his nakedness was a source of protection from bullets. Blahyi now claims he would regularly sacrifice a victim before battle, saying, "Usually it was a small child, someone whose fresh blood would satisfy the devil."... In 1997 Blahyi traveled to the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana. It was at the camp, he recounts, that he made confession for his sins at a church and "had his life saved". When he goes out to preach now, he says he sometimes encounters relatives of his victims. "I feel very bad, so bad", he said, but he insists it was satanic powers that possessed him in the past and he cannot be held responsible."
Medicine and Evolution, Part 4: Physicians seduced by “intelligent design” creationism - "'A national survey of 1,472 physicians indicates more than half — 63 percent — believe the theory of evolution over that of intelligent design... 88 percent of Jewish doctors and 60 percent of Roman Catholic physicians said they agree more with evolution, while 54 percent of Protestant doctors agreed more with intelligent design'... Although there can be overlap, there’s a big difference between the primary motivations for going into science and medicine. Basic scientists tend to be motivated by a profound curiosity, a desire to understand nature, and a profound satisfaction that one derives from satisfying that curiosity and fulfilling that desire. In other words, it is the thrill we as scientists get from discovering something new, from deepening our understanding. To a scientist, there’s no greater rush than discovering a new and important gene, for example, or coming up with a hypothesis and seeing it validated by experimentation. All scientists seek that rush, and it is their curiosity that drives them. In contrast, what motivates most physicians to enter medicine is not curiosity; at least that is not the primary reason. Rather, as corny as it sounds, it is the desire to help people and the satisfaction we get from curing disease and easing suffering. Some of us have the motivations of a scientist, but there has to be a strong element of wanting to help others to go through the pain of medical school... many physicians see their calling as a professional who cares for the sick to be the highest form of service to God and their fellow humans. Indeed, there is even evidence that physicians as a group are more religious than the general population... Another thing that scientists don’t always understand is that we as physicians are trained to place a high premium on being nonjudgmental of our patients"
Why Do Some Doctors Reject Evolution? - ""Most physicians are not scientists. This is not a knock, but they're more akin to engineers," Gorski says. "They take science that's already known and they apply it to a problem, the problem being making patients better"... Another potential culprit: the memorization-based nature of medical training, which may give a doctor-to-be the impression that biology is a made up list of facts to recall; not a process that has gathered evidence for concepts like evolution over generations of experimentation... an evolutionary understanding of the human body can make doctoring feel richer, Omenn thinks. The symptoms people see their doctor for—vomiting, diarrhea, or anxiety, for example—all developed to protect our evolutionary ancestors. Doctors get to see and intimately know the end product of humanity's evolution so far, in all its frailties."
YouTube Toy Review Channel EvanTubeHD Pulls In About $1.3 Million Per Year - "EvanTubeHD is one of YouTube’s prominent toy review channels. In new videos, which arrive at least once a week, Jared provides nine-year-old Evan and his six-year-old sister Jillian with new toys, which they play with on camera. The videos have proven enormously popular; since 2011, they have received more than 1.2 billion views"
Channels: Broadcasting Done Right - "Channels replace the old Broadcast lists and are better in every way. They can have an unlimited number of members, they can be public with a permanent URLand each post in a channel has its own view counter."
Telegram is awesome. Too bad people don't use it
University refuses to post job advert because having 'junior' in title is 'discriminatory' - Telegraph - "Rhizome PR was told by the university that it would only publish their advert for a junior PR consultant if the word “junior” was changed to "entry level", "graduate" or "trainee"."
Effects of Heredity and Environment on Intelligence - "identical twins raised in different environments tend to have very similar IQ scores. In fact, these twins are more similar to each other than are fraternal twins raised in the same home... adopted children’s IQ scores are more highly correlated with their biological parents’ IQs than with their adoptive parents’ IQs... Furthermore, the IQ correlations between adopted children and their biological parents become stronger, and those between the children and their adoptive parents become weaker, as the children grow older, especially during late adolescence... Especially as they get older, children choose their environments and experiences. Children may actively seek out environmental conditions that match their inherited abilities—a phenomenon known as niche-picking (Flynn, 2003; Halpern & LaMay, 2000; Scarr & McCartney, 1983). For example, children who, genetically speaking, have exceptional quantitative reasoning ability may enroll in advanced mathematics courses, delight in tackling mathematical brainteasers, and in other ways nurture their inherited talents. Children with average quantitative ability are less likely to take on such challenges and so have fewer opportunities to develop their mathematical skills. In such circumstances the relative effects of heredity and environment are difficult to tease apart. Earlier we mentioned that the IQ correlations between adopted children and their biological parents become stronger over time. We now have a possible explanation for this finding. Children gain increasing independence as they get older. Especially as they reach adolescence, they spend less time in their home environments, and they make more of their own decisions about the kinds of opportunities to pursue—decisions undoubtedly based, in part, on their natural talents and tendencies... Genetic activity affects neural activity (i.e., the operation of neurons in the brain), which in turn affects behavior, which in turn affects the environment. But influence moves in the opposite direction as well: The environment affects behavior, and these two (through stimulation, nutritional intake, physical activity, etc.) affect neural activity and genetic expression."
Story Begins To Unravel About Drowned Syrian Boy - "Abdullah Kurdi, the little boy’s father, was living in a relatively safe area in a Turkish town for three years while working on construction sites for 50 Turkish lira (roughly $17) a day. However, Kurdi told a Syrian radio station it was not enough to support himself and his family and he relied on his sister Tima Kurdi, who is a 20-year resident of Canada, to assist in paying the rent. It should be noted that Tima told reporters Thursday that the family just came to Turkey last year, even though WSJ points out he came to Turkey three years ago, and his Facebook “shows pictures of the family in Istanbul crossing the Bosporus and feeding pigeons next to the famous Yeni Cami, or new mosque”... According to earlier reports, the family’s application for asylum in Canada was rejected by Canada, but Canadian immigration authorities told the BBC they had no record of receiving an application for refugee status from Abdullah. Tima later admitted the asylum application for the family was never submitted... “That boy and his family had lived in Turkey for three years. The money for that boy’s father to pay the people smugglers was sent from Canada.” He added, “The father sent them on that boat so the father could get dental treatment. They were in no fear, they were in no persecution and they were in no danger in Turkey.”"
Addendum: Full quote: “The facts remain that that terrible image was not brought about by recent events in Syria or Iraq. That boy and his family had lived in Turkey for three years. The money for that boy's father to pay the people smugglers was sent from Canada. The father sent them on that boat so the father could get dental treatment. They were in no fear; they were in no persecution and they were in no danger in Turkey … People are drowning at sea because of the incentives that were being provided by their cockamamie humanitarian ethos. It is much more humane for people to go through an orderly migration program, to be put in place where they are safe and where they do not have to take such tempting things.” — Senator Cory Bernardi in an address to the Australian Senate, 7th September 2015, after the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on a beach near Bodrum, Turkey.
Post ID: 8741404237242850713
One of the weirdest spam emails I've gotten
Subject: Happy New Year!
Message: Happy new year in....
Romani: baxtalo nevo bersh
Sardinian: bonu annu nou
Afrikaans: gelukkige nuwejaar
This came from a larceno.us email address
larceno.us redurects to udemy.com, some course website
This is a very indirect and inefficient way of advertising one's website
Message: Happy new year in....
Romani: baxtalo nevo bersh
Sardinian: bonu annu nou
Afrikaans: gelukkige nuwejaar
This came from a larceno.us email address
larceno.us redurects to udemy.com, some course website
This is a very indirect and inefficient way of advertising one's website
Post ID: 8889398905419421788
Monday, January 04, 2016
Literature and the Civilising Project
"Literary criticism, particularly in its present cohabitation with the academic, is no longer a very interesting or responsible exercise. Too much of it exhibits the complacencies of academic or journalistic values and habits of statement developed in the nineteenth century. Books about books and that flourishing though more recent genre, books about literary criticism (a threefold remove), will no doubt continue to pour out in great numbers. But it is becoming clear that most of them are a kind of initiate sport, that they have very little to say to those who would ask what coexistence and interaction are possible between humanism, between the idea of literate communication , and the present shapes of history. The gap between the academic, belle-lettristic treatment of literature and the possible meanings or subversions of literature in our actual lives has rarely been wider since Kierkegaard first pointed to its ironic breadth...
The blackness of it did not spring up in the Gobi Desert or the rain forests of the Amazon. It rose from within, and from the core of European civilization. The cry of the murdered sounded in earshot of the universities; the sadism went on a street away from the theaters and museums. In the later eighteenth century Voltaire had looked confidently to the end of torture; ideological massacre was to be a banished shadow. In our own day the high places of literacy, of philosophy, of artistic expression, became the setting for Belsen.
I cannot accept the facile comfort that this catastrophe was a purely German phenomenon or some calamitous mishap rooted in the persona of one or another totalitarian ruler. Ten years after the Gestapo quit Paris, the countrymen of Voltaire were torturing Algerians and each other in some of the same police cellars. The house of classic humanism, the dream of reason which animated Western society, have largely broken down. Ideas of cultural development, of inherent rationality held since ancient Greece and still intensely valid in the utopian historicism of Marx and stoic authoritarianism of Freud {both of them late outriders of Greco-Roman civilization} can no longer be asserted with much confidence. The reach of technological man, as a being susceptible to the controls 0F political hatred and sadistic suggestion, has lengthened formidably toward destruction.
To think of literature, of education, of language, as if nothing very important had happened to challenge our very concept of these activities seems to me unrealistic. To read Aeschylus or Shakespeare—let alone to “teach” them—as if the texts, as if the authority of the texts in our own lives, were immune from recent history, is subtle but corrosive illiteracy. This does not mean any indiscriminate or journalistic test of “present relevance”; it means that one tries to take seriously the complex miracle of the survivance of great art, of what answer we can give to it from our own being.
We come after. We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning. To say that he has read them without understanding or that his ear is gross, is cant. In what way does this knowledge bear on literature and society, on the hope, grown almost axiomatic from the time of Plato to that of Matthew Arnold, that culture is a humanizing force, that the energies of spirit are transferable to those of conduct? Moreover, it is not only the case that the established media of civilization—the universities, the arts, the book world—failed to offer adequate resistance to political bestiality; they often rose to welcome it and to give it ceremony and apologia. Why? What are the links, as yet scarcely understood, between the mental, psychological habits of high literacy and the temptations of the inhuman? Does some great boredom and surfeit of abstraction grow up inside literate civilization preparing it for the release of barbarism?"
--- Language and Silence / George Steiner
The blackness of it did not spring up in the Gobi Desert or the rain forests of the Amazon. It rose from within, and from the core of European civilization. The cry of the murdered sounded in earshot of the universities; the sadism went on a street away from the theaters and museums. In the later eighteenth century Voltaire had looked confidently to the end of torture; ideological massacre was to be a banished shadow. In our own day the high places of literacy, of philosophy, of artistic expression, became the setting for Belsen.
I cannot accept the facile comfort that this catastrophe was a purely German phenomenon or some calamitous mishap rooted in the persona of one or another totalitarian ruler. Ten years after the Gestapo quit Paris, the countrymen of Voltaire were torturing Algerians and each other in some of the same police cellars. The house of classic humanism, the dream of reason which animated Western society, have largely broken down. Ideas of cultural development, of inherent rationality held since ancient Greece and still intensely valid in the utopian historicism of Marx and stoic authoritarianism of Freud {both of them late outriders of Greco-Roman civilization} can no longer be asserted with much confidence. The reach of technological man, as a being susceptible to the controls 0F political hatred and sadistic suggestion, has lengthened formidably toward destruction.
To think of literature, of education, of language, as if nothing very important had happened to challenge our very concept of these activities seems to me unrealistic. To read Aeschylus or Shakespeare—let alone to “teach” them—as if the texts, as if the authority of the texts in our own lives, were immune from recent history, is subtle but corrosive illiteracy. This does not mean any indiscriminate or journalistic test of “present relevance”; it means that one tries to take seriously the complex miracle of the survivance of great art, of what answer we can give to it from our own being.
We come after. We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning. To say that he has read them without understanding or that his ear is gross, is cant. In what way does this knowledge bear on literature and society, on the hope, grown almost axiomatic from the time of Plato to that of Matthew Arnold, that culture is a humanizing force, that the energies of spirit are transferable to those of conduct? Moreover, it is not only the case that the established media of civilization—the universities, the arts, the book world—failed to offer adequate resistance to political bestiality; they often rose to welcome it and to give it ceremony and apologia. Why? What are the links, as yet scarcely understood, between the mental, psychological habits of high literacy and the temptations of the inhuman? Does some great boredom and surfeit of abstraction grow up inside literate civilization preparing it for the release of barbarism?"
--- Language and Silence / George Steiner
Post ID: 952347343496426808
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Links - 31st December 2015
Designers Are Prostitutes, Agencies Are Brothels - "When we first became designers (substitute this with your profession if applicable), we had big dreams. We wanted to get to know each of our clients. Understand their underlying problems; preferably through multiple conversations and a nice fancy dinner. Console them. And of course, eventually solve their issues with our skills and knowledge. In other words, we wanted to be a social escort."
Pentagon’s big budget F-35 fighter ‘can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’
Muslim children should not be forced to sing national anthem, says Hizb ut-Tahrir - "They were told Muslim children should not be forced to sing the Australian anthem and that "deradicalisation" was an agenda of forced assimilation...
"The insistence of senior government ministers that Muslim children sing the national anthem – an anthem that reflects a particular disputed view of history and celebrates particular ideological values ... Why should they be forced to sing it?" he asked the crowd, gathered at The Bellevue function centre in Bankstown."
Australia school criticised for letting Muslim students walk out during national anthem - Telegraph - "The head of Cranbourne Carlisle primary school allowed about 30 to 40 Shia Muslim students aged eight to ten to leave the assembly, saying it was the Muharram period for the children, a sacred month when Shia Muslims observe a period of mourning, and they should not be required to take part in “joyous” events... The decision angered parents, while Muslim schools said it was standard for all Muslim students to sing Advance Australia Fair, the national anthem."
Can We Take Political Correctness Seriously Now? - "The upsurge of political correctness is not just greasy-kid stuff, and it’s not just a bunch of weird, unfortunate events that somehow keep happening over and over. It’s the expression of a political culture with consistent norms, and philosophical premises that happen to be incompatible with liberalism. The reason every Marxist government in the history of the world turned massively repressive is not because they all had the misfortune of being hijacked by murderous thugs. It’s that the ideology itself prioritizes class justice over individual rights and makes no allowance for legitimate disagreement. (For those inclined to defend p.c. on the grounds that racism and sexism are important, bear in mind that the forms of repression Marxist government set out to eradicate were hardly imaginary.) American political correctness has obviously never perpetrated the brutality of a communist government, but it has also never acquired the powers that come with full control of the machinery of the state... As far as the students are concerned, they represent the cause of anti-racism, a fact that renders the need for debate irrelevant"
Brunei puts stop to Christmas celebrations to protect Muslims, religious ministry says - "The ban, instituted after Christmas last month when local children and adults were seen wearing clothes “that resemble Santa Claus”, raises fresh concerns of religious restrictions after last April’s announcement of the introduction of a penal code that will eventually include penalties such as the severing of limbs and death by stoning."
Failed Windows 3.1 system blamed for shutting down Paris airport
We Muslims should be appalled by the sale of halal meat by stealth - "Halal meat should never be forced on customers without their knowing, surreptitiously and using clandestine methods. It’s unfair to everyone, non-Muslims and Muslims alike. It’s deception on a grand scale for the former, while it could fuel bitter resentment against the latter... if the Koran does not insist on what have become the customary halal methods, why are they now so prevalent in Britain? One reason is that religious zealots and theological ideologues are deliberately promoting confusion about halal to sow discord and resentment... Muslim fundamentalist insistence on halal meat does not come from the Koran itself — it derives from a secondary and often suspect source, called the Hadith... In my hometown, Oxford, you can go to the local supermarket and pay perhaps £5.50 a kilo for lamb. But go to the halal shop and it’s £6.50 or £7 a kilo — even though, as we now know, the supermarket meat is probably halal too. That’s a big mark-up. As a British Muslim — and I underline the word ‘British’ — I want to see full transparency when I go to the supermarket. I want to know the true provenance of the food I buy, and it’s essential that businesses start labelling food better and accurately. It is high time the white, liberal, Guardian-reading classes stopped behaving like apologists and woke up. There is a fundamentalist Trojan horse in our midst, and we must take corrective action."
Muslim academic gets death threats over women and gay-friendly mosque - Telegraph - "A Muslim academic is vowing to push ahead with the launch of his woman and gay-friendly mosque in South Africa, despite receiving death threats. Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a group of "forward thinking" Muslims, said his Open Mosque will welcome all genders, religions and sexual orientations when it opens in Wynberg, a Cape Town suburb, on Friday."
The ISIS leader was NOT trained by the CIA or Mossad, and Snowden didn’t say it - "There are three common rules when people discuss politics:
1) they are willing to believe anything on the internet if it confirms their prejudices
2) they don’t want to accept people of their tribe do awful things
3) they find a way to blame America or the UK for most of the world’s problems...
Edward Snowden’s lawyer called this claim a hoax too."
Federal Government Money Is Not The Best Way To Fund The Arts - "we can't take for granted that government funding for the arts will always be virtuous in purpose. One could argue that Western Europeans have lucked into a happy accident of history that combines exceptional largesse with a largely hands-off approach. Some countries, such as the former Soviet Union and modern-day China, have had no qualms about using state power to exercise censorship on a vast scale and co-opt the arts for nationalistic purposes. Closer to home, even Hungary's arts community has seen significant turmoil due to the meddling of a newly elected conservative government. And while it's hard to imagine anything destroying Sweden's commitment to public funding of the arts, the recent scandal involving that country's culture minister cutting a "racist cake"certainly gives critics some ripe material."
Should Government Fund "the Arts"? - "government support of specific institutions or individuals is in no way necessary or sufficient for the production of "art" (however you choose to define that gloriously nebulous term). What more do you need to know than the one point on which Alan Davey and Pete Spence agree: Britain—the very birthplace of Dr. Johnsonand Dr. Who—didn't start using serious amounts of tax money to fund art until after the second world war. How did culture in Old Blighty ever survive so long?... There's at least a third reason to stop state funding of the arts, and it's the one I take most seriously as a literary scholar and writer. In the 17th century, a great religious dissenter, Roger Williams (educated at Cambridge, exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony), wrote the first case for total separation of church and state in the English language. Forced worship, said Williams, "stinks in God's nostrils" as an affront to individual liberty and autonomy; worse still, it subjugated theology to politics. Something similar holds true with painting, music, writing, video and all other forms of creative expression. Forced funding of the arts—in whatever trivial amounts and indirect ways—implicates citizens in culture they might openly despise or blissfully ignore. And such mandatory tithing effectively turns creators and institutions lucky enough to win momentary favour from bureaucrats into either well-trained dogs or witting instruments of the powerful and well-connected. Independence works quite well for churches and the press. It works even more wonderfully in the arts."
Unethical health food: is your avocado habit funding drug cartels? - Telegraph - "It turns out that those nuts you love to sprinkle on your granola every morning are greedy little so and sos - it takes a gallon of water to produce each and every almond. California produces 82 per cent per cent of the world's almonds and as the state hits its fourth consecutive annual drought, the finger of blame is being well and truly pointed at the almond. Planted to meet the demand for almond milk in the US’s most hippified state, this all-year round crop guzzles about eight per cent of the area's agricultural water supply"
Free Ottawa yoga class scrapped over 'cultural issues' - "Student leaders have pulled the mat out from 60 University of Ottawa students, ending a free on-campus yoga class over fears the teachings could be seen as a form of "cultural appropriation"... The centre goes on to say, "Yoga has been under a lot of controversy lately due to how it is being practiced," and which cultures those practices "are being taken from." The centre official argues since many of those cultures "have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy ... we need to be mindful of this and how we express ourselves while practising yoga"... Scharf, a yoga teacher with the downtown Rama Lotus Centre, said the concept does not apply in this case, arguing the complaint that killed the program came instead from a "social justice warrior" with "fainting heart ideologies" in search of a cause celebre. "People are just looking for a reason to be offended by anything they can find," said Scharf... According to email correspondence between Scharf and the centre, student leaders debated rebranding the program, but stumbled over how the French translation for "mindful stretching" would appear on a promotional poster, and eventually decided to suspend the program."
Blocking yoga classes: Multiculturalists succeed where Christian conservatives failed - "It, like all such ideas, is the common heritage of all mankind. That means of each and every one of us, even those of us who have a genetic background or culture that some people feel aggrieved at. We (Indian, American, African, Oceanian, anyone else) are entitled to use it, to adapt it, to merge it with other ideas. There’s no improper “appropriation” here because there’s no “property” here in the first place. I think it makes sense to view this as our honoring other ideas: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and so is adaptation and modification, since it represents the view that the thing be imitated, adapted and modified is worth our time and attention."
Apple triggers 'religious' reaction in fans' brains, report says - "The neuroscientists ran a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on an Apple fanatic and discovered that images of the technology company's gadgets lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people, the report says... People have gone to great lengths to prove their love of Apple with tattoos, bumper stickers and home shrines to outmoded Mac computers. Apple's cult-like following was highlighted in a 2009 documentary called "Macheads.""
Creationism poll: How many Americans believe the Bible is literal, inerrant, or symbolic. - "only 21 percent agreed that everything in the Bible is literally true. Thirty percent chose the second statement: that the Bible is “without errors” but that “some parts are meant to be symbolic.” This isn’t what secular people tend to think inerrancy means. But it is what a lot of Christians apparently believe. Most people who believe that the Bible is inerrant do not believe that this means everything in it is literally true... Ask whether humans have been around for only 10,000 years, and the hardcore—those who are absolutely or very certain on all five questions—shrinks to 7 percent."
Pentagon’s big budget F-35 fighter ‘can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’
Muslim children should not be forced to sing national anthem, says Hizb ut-Tahrir - "They were told Muslim children should not be forced to sing the Australian anthem and that "deradicalisation" was an agenda of forced assimilation...
"The insistence of senior government ministers that Muslim children sing the national anthem – an anthem that reflects a particular disputed view of history and celebrates particular ideological values ... Why should they be forced to sing it?" he asked the crowd, gathered at The Bellevue function centre in Bankstown."
Australia school criticised for letting Muslim students walk out during national anthem - Telegraph - "The head of Cranbourne Carlisle primary school allowed about 30 to 40 Shia Muslim students aged eight to ten to leave the assembly, saying it was the Muharram period for the children, a sacred month when Shia Muslims observe a period of mourning, and they should not be required to take part in “joyous” events... The decision angered parents, while Muslim schools said it was standard for all Muslim students to sing Advance Australia Fair, the national anthem."
Can We Take Political Correctness Seriously Now? - "The upsurge of political correctness is not just greasy-kid stuff, and it’s not just a bunch of weird, unfortunate events that somehow keep happening over and over. It’s the expression of a political culture with consistent norms, and philosophical premises that happen to be incompatible with liberalism. The reason every Marxist government in the history of the world turned massively repressive is not because they all had the misfortune of being hijacked by murderous thugs. It’s that the ideology itself prioritizes class justice over individual rights and makes no allowance for legitimate disagreement. (For those inclined to defend p.c. on the grounds that racism and sexism are important, bear in mind that the forms of repression Marxist government set out to eradicate were hardly imaginary.) American political correctness has obviously never perpetrated the brutality of a communist government, but it has also never acquired the powers that come with full control of the machinery of the state... As far as the students are concerned, they represent the cause of anti-racism, a fact that renders the need for debate irrelevant"
Brunei puts stop to Christmas celebrations to protect Muslims, religious ministry says - "The ban, instituted after Christmas last month when local children and adults were seen wearing clothes “that resemble Santa Claus”, raises fresh concerns of religious restrictions after last April’s announcement of the introduction of a penal code that will eventually include penalties such as the severing of limbs and death by stoning."
Failed Windows 3.1 system blamed for shutting down Paris airport
We Muslims should be appalled by the sale of halal meat by stealth - "Halal meat should never be forced on customers without their knowing, surreptitiously and using clandestine methods. It’s unfair to everyone, non-Muslims and Muslims alike. It’s deception on a grand scale for the former, while it could fuel bitter resentment against the latter... if the Koran does not insist on what have become the customary halal methods, why are they now so prevalent in Britain? One reason is that religious zealots and theological ideologues are deliberately promoting confusion about halal to sow discord and resentment... Muslim fundamentalist insistence on halal meat does not come from the Koran itself — it derives from a secondary and often suspect source, called the Hadith... In my hometown, Oxford, you can go to the local supermarket and pay perhaps £5.50 a kilo for lamb. But go to the halal shop and it’s £6.50 or £7 a kilo — even though, as we now know, the supermarket meat is probably halal too. That’s a big mark-up. As a British Muslim — and I underline the word ‘British’ — I want to see full transparency when I go to the supermarket. I want to know the true provenance of the food I buy, and it’s essential that businesses start labelling food better and accurately. It is high time the white, liberal, Guardian-reading classes stopped behaving like apologists and woke up. There is a fundamentalist Trojan horse in our midst, and we must take corrective action."
Muslim academic gets death threats over women and gay-friendly mosque - Telegraph - "A Muslim academic is vowing to push ahead with the launch of his woman and gay-friendly mosque in South Africa, despite receiving death threats. Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a group of "forward thinking" Muslims, said his Open Mosque will welcome all genders, religions and sexual orientations when it opens in Wynberg, a Cape Town suburb, on Friday."
The ISIS leader was NOT trained by the CIA or Mossad, and Snowden didn’t say it - "There are three common rules when people discuss politics:
1) they are willing to believe anything on the internet if it confirms their prejudices
2) they don’t want to accept people of their tribe do awful things
3) they find a way to blame America or the UK for most of the world’s problems...
Edward Snowden’s lawyer called this claim a hoax too."
Federal Government Money Is Not The Best Way To Fund The Arts - "we can't take for granted that government funding for the arts will always be virtuous in purpose. One could argue that Western Europeans have lucked into a happy accident of history that combines exceptional largesse with a largely hands-off approach. Some countries, such as the former Soviet Union and modern-day China, have had no qualms about using state power to exercise censorship on a vast scale and co-opt the arts for nationalistic purposes. Closer to home, even Hungary's arts community has seen significant turmoil due to the meddling of a newly elected conservative government. And while it's hard to imagine anything destroying Sweden's commitment to public funding of the arts, the recent scandal involving that country's culture minister cutting a "racist cake"certainly gives critics some ripe material."
Should Government Fund "the Arts"? - "government support of specific institutions or individuals is in no way necessary or sufficient for the production of "art" (however you choose to define that gloriously nebulous term). What more do you need to know than the one point on which Alan Davey and Pete Spence agree: Britain—the very birthplace of Dr. Johnsonand Dr. Who—didn't start using serious amounts of tax money to fund art until after the second world war. How did culture in Old Blighty ever survive so long?... There's at least a third reason to stop state funding of the arts, and it's the one I take most seriously as a literary scholar and writer. In the 17th century, a great religious dissenter, Roger Williams (educated at Cambridge, exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony), wrote the first case for total separation of church and state in the English language. Forced worship, said Williams, "stinks in God's nostrils" as an affront to individual liberty and autonomy; worse still, it subjugated theology to politics. Something similar holds true with painting, music, writing, video and all other forms of creative expression. Forced funding of the arts—in whatever trivial amounts and indirect ways—implicates citizens in culture they might openly despise or blissfully ignore. And such mandatory tithing effectively turns creators and institutions lucky enough to win momentary favour from bureaucrats into either well-trained dogs or witting instruments of the powerful and well-connected. Independence works quite well for churches and the press. It works even more wonderfully in the arts."
Unethical health food: is your avocado habit funding drug cartels? - Telegraph - "It turns out that those nuts you love to sprinkle on your granola every morning are greedy little so and sos - it takes a gallon of water to produce each and every almond. California produces 82 per cent per cent of the world's almonds and as the state hits its fourth consecutive annual drought, the finger of blame is being well and truly pointed at the almond. Planted to meet the demand for almond milk in the US’s most hippified state, this all-year round crop guzzles about eight per cent of the area's agricultural water supply"
Free Ottawa yoga class scrapped over 'cultural issues' - "Student leaders have pulled the mat out from 60 University of Ottawa students, ending a free on-campus yoga class over fears the teachings could be seen as a form of "cultural appropriation"... The centre goes on to say, "Yoga has been under a lot of controversy lately due to how it is being practiced," and which cultures those practices "are being taken from." The centre official argues since many of those cultures "have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy ... we need to be mindful of this and how we express ourselves while practising yoga"... Scharf, a yoga teacher with the downtown Rama Lotus Centre, said the concept does not apply in this case, arguing the complaint that killed the program came instead from a "social justice warrior" with "fainting heart ideologies" in search of a cause celebre. "People are just looking for a reason to be offended by anything they can find," said Scharf... According to email correspondence between Scharf and the centre, student leaders debated rebranding the program, but stumbled over how the French translation for "mindful stretching" would appear on a promotional poster, and eventually decided to suspend the program."
Blocking yoga classes: Multiculturalists succeed where Christian conservatives failed - "It, like all such ideas, is the common heritage of all mankind. That means of each and every one of us, even those of us who have a genetic background or culture that some people feel aggrieved at. We (Indian, American, African, Oceanian, anyone else) are entitled to use it, to adapt it, to merge it with other ideas. There’s no improper “appropriation” here because there’s no “property” here in the first place. I think it makes sense to view this as our honoring other ideas: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and so is adaptation and modification, since it represents the view that the thing be imitated, adapted and modified is worth our time and attention."
Apple triggers 'religious' reaction in fans' brains, report says - "The neuroscientists ran a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on an Apple fanatic and discovered that images of the technology company's gadgets lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people, the report says... People have gone to great lengths to prove their love of Apple with tattoos, bumper stickers and home shrines to outmoded Mac computers. Apple's cult-like following was highlighted in a 2009 documentary called "Macheads.""
Creationism poll: How many Americans believe the Bible is literal, inerrant, or symbolic. - "only 21 percent agreed that everything in the Bible is literally true. Thirty percent chose the second statement: that the Bible is “without errors” but that “some parts are meant to be symbolic.” This isn’t what secular people tend to think inerrancy means. But it is what a lot of Christians apparently believe. Most people who believe that the Bible is inerrant do not believe that this means everything in it is literally true... Ask whether humans have been around for only 10,000 years, and the hardcore—those who are absolutely or very certain on all five questions—shrinks to 7 percent."
Post ID: 7658301249942110680
On Yasukuni Politicking
"Most people end up wrongly believing the blame game played by China to divert their population's attention outward every time a Yasukuni Shrine visit is done.
They are ignorant that just 0.04% (or 1,068 out of 2,466,532 dead) of those commemorated there are war criminals.
Condemning Japan for every Yasukuni Shrine visit for that 0.004% is like screaming that a person has a shit fetish every time one sees a lady kiss her husband (since he, on conservative estimate, contains 100g of fecal matter out of his average 62kg, a massive 0.16% concentration of shit, or 4 times the concentration of Yasukuni Shrine war criminals)."
They are ignorant that just 0.04% (or 1,068 out of 2,466,532 dead) of those commemorated there are war criminals.
Condemning Japan for every Yasukuni Shrine visit for that 0.004% is like screaming that a person has a shit fetish every time one sees a lady kiss her husband (since he, on conservative estimate, contains 100g of fecal matter out of his average 62kg, a massive 0.16% concentration of shit, or 4 times the concentration of Yasukuni Shrine war criminals)."
Post ID: 6481862918291263590
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Links - 29th December 2015
NETHERLANDS: “POOR REFUGEES” ARE WELL TO DO AND LOADED WITH MONEY - YouTube - "Some retailers are also complaining that some of the refugees have a lot of money to spend. 'They are really flashy and... Their mobiles and so! All the things (gadget) that we. as citizens, still don't have.' Asylum seekers coming sometimes with a lot of money. Notes of 200 or 500 are not accepted. "It is very frustrating for the one who hold a note of 500 Euro in his hand. As for he wants to buy something... Yesterday there was also a man who said, My goodness. I have here 500 Euro but I cannot use it!'"
Danish police refuse to seize refugee jewelry and cash - "The controversial proposals, which were revealed in parliament last week, would see migrants' valuables seized to cover the costs of their stay in the country and to dissuade others from making a similar journey. Any item with a value of more than 3,000 kroner (400 euros) could be confiscated... Danish ministers say the plan is no different from restrictions on existing Danish residents, which require them to deplete their savings to less than 10,000 kroner, before they can claim welfare."
Processed meats do cause cancer - WHO - "In the UK, around six out of every 100 people get bowel cancer at some point in their lives. If they were all given an extra 50g of bacon a day for the rest of their lives then the risk would increase by 18% to around seven in 100 people getting bowel cancer... It has now placed processed meat in the same category as plutonium, but also alcohol as they definitely do cause cancer. However, this does not mean they are equally dangerous. A bacon sandwich is not as bad as smoking... Red meat does have nutritional value too and is a major source of iron, zinc and vitamin B12."
Sunlight is in the same category too. So we should all become vampires
Hilarious Pics Of Men Mimicking Women’s Instagram Photos
The Wartime Origins of the M&M - "It was during the Spanish Civil War that Mars purportedly encountered soldiers eating small chocolate beads encased in a hard sugar shell as part of their rations. In an age when sales of chocolate typically dropped off during summer months due to the lack of air conditioning, Forrest was thrilled by the prospect of developing a product that would be able to resist melting in high temperatures"
How the US Military Helped Invent Cheetos - "emulsifying salts. The chemical disperses water‑phobic caseins by exchanging sodium for calcium; this permits the now smaller particles to be diffused and suspended in liquid. Melting traditional cheeses and mixing them with the emulsifying salts resulted in a cheese‑like product that withstands high temperatures and protracted storage. Even better, this new food could be made and sold very cheaply, because it could be produced, at least in part, from the rinds and irregular bits left over from cutting wheels of cheese into bricks. Melting the ingredients also pasteurized them, inactivating the live bacteria and enzymes and contributing to a longer shelf life... what could one do with football fields full of potato flakes, a cave stuffed with dried eggs (the army’s strange storage location for one hundred million pounds of the stuff), or a mountain of dehydrated cheese? Well, there was one group always interested in lowering the cost of finicky fresh ingredients: the grocery manufacturers"
'Finland's no good': Disappointed migrants turn back - "Hundreds of predominantly Iraqi migrants who have travelled through Europe to reach Finland are turning back, saying they don't want to stay in the sparsely-populated country on Europe's northern frontier because it's too cold and boring... Finnish authorities have seen a rise in the number of cancelled asylum applications. "You can tell the world I hate Finland. It's too cold, there's no tea, no restaurants, no bars, nobody on the streets, only cars," Muhammed, 22, told AFP in Tornio, as the mercury struggled to inch above 10 deg C on a recent blustery grey day."
'Star Wars' or ISIS: Which is more Islamic? - "Take Obi Wan Kenobi, for example, and his relationship with Luke Skywalker -- as well as Skywalker's relationship with Yoda. (Ignore, if you must, the filming of the most pertinent Jedi scenes in Tunisia, an Arab-Muslim country with a very long tradition of Islamic spirituality, or Sufism). The notion of the "Jedi Knights" is built very much on the quintessentially Muslim phenomenon of tariqah Sufism -- or the spirituality of the Sufi order."
Indian restaurants band together for productivity gains - "The signing took place during the launch of two Central Processing Units (CPUs). Set up by two consortia comprising of 22 members of the association, the CPUs are aimed at boosting productivity. They are also aimed at allowing companies to save on manpower costs by up to 40 per cent, through the adoption of innovative technology and food processing techniques."
Why is food made in bulk in central kitchens considered a good thing?
Rose McGowan slams Caitlyn Jenner over Woman of the Year Awards speech - ""Caitlyn Jenner you do not understand what being a woman is about at all," Rose wrote. "You want to be a woman and stand with us - well learn us. We are more than deciding what to wear. We are more than the stereotypes foisted upon us by people like you. You're a woman now? Well f**king learn that we have had a VERY different experience than your life of male privilege. "Being a woman comes with a lot of baggage. The weight of unequal history. You'd do well to learn it. You'd do well to wake up. Woman of the year? Not by a long f**king shot." Rose later clarified her comments and added, "Let me amend this by saying I'm happy for what she's doing visibility wise for the trans community, and I'm happy she's living her truth, but comments like hers have consequences for other women. How we are perceived, what our values are, and leads to more stereotyping. If you know you are going to be speaking to media about being a woman, maybe come to understand our struggles.""
Glamour Woman of the Year award returned by 9/11 widower - "The husband of a police officer who died on 9/11 has returned her Glamour "Woman of the Year" award because the magazine honored Caitlyn Jenner with the same award last week... Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner transitioned to Caitlyn Jenner over the past year in the spotlight of the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" reality television show. It's not that Glamour honored a transgender person, James Smith told CNN. He supported Glamour's decision to honor actress Laverne Cox in 2014. As a New York City police officer, "my precinct covered a shelter for transgendered youth," Smith said via email. "On several occasions I responded there to take reports or give aid to suicidal youths. I listened to their stories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Young people thrown out of their homes or fleeing from unlivable conditions. "They didn't have the luxury of being part of the Kardashian circus," Smith wrote. "They weren't living in a Malibu Barbie beach house surrounded by what passes for family in Hollywood. They were truly brave people fighting hourly for existence. "When Mr. Jenner said the hardest part about being a woman was figuring out what to wear (in a recent BuzzFeed interview), he proved to me that he is not truly a woman. I believe this comment and others he has made trivializes the transgender experience as I have witnessed it."
How Terrorist Groups End: Implications for Countering al Qa'ida - "By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory. These findings suggest that the U.S. approach to countering al Qa'ida has focused far too much on the use of military force. Instead, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts... In 10 percent of cases, terrorist groups ended because they achieved victory. Military force led to the end of terrorist groups in 7 percent of cases. The authors found that militaries tended to be most effective when used against terrorist groups engaged in insurgencies in which the groups were large, well armed, and well organized. But against most terrorist groups, military force was usually too blunt an instrument."
Paper: "There is no statistical correlation between the duration of a terrorist
group and ideological motivation, economic conditions, regime type, or the breadth of terrorist goals. But there appears to be some correlation between the size of a terrorist group and duration: Larger groups tend to last longer than smaller groups."
Reza Aslan: If ISIS Says It's Muslim, Then It's Muslim
Is Reza Aslan Islamophobic for saying ISIS is Muslim?
Situation in Singapore | Project X - "In practice, police regulates and monitors a limited number of brothels. In particular, the Anti-Vice Police department issues licenses to brothels and provides clearance for brothel sex workers. Sex workers in such establishments are required to undergo monthly health checks and are given the infamous “yellow card” (literally—it is a yellow coloured card). The State does not publicly acknowledge this, however, through our work, we managed to learn of some criterion for application of the yellow card:
- You have to be between 21 to 35 years of age
- You cannot be Malay or Muslim
- You cannot be Male on your identification card (this includes pre-operative transgender persons)
- You have to be from a list of approved countries (i.e. China, Malaysia, Thai, and Singapore)
Most workers under the yellow card system are migrants. They will have to undergo an interview and sign a contract with the Anti-Vice police upon arrival. We understand that some workers were asked at this point if they have been coerced into this industry. Amongst other things, the agreement states that one will not break any local laws, and that once their contract ends, they will face a travel ban lasting between three years to a lifetime. Other terms and conditions include not soliciting outside one’s designated brothel, not loitering in public spaces, and not to have a Singaporean boyfriend...
Do sex workers truly enjoy their job?
Does anyone truly enjoy their job? Don’t we all wish to be lying on a beach looking over at fine white sand, clear blue waters and fluffy clouds?"
Majority Privilege means you're allowed to be a legal sex worker
Mark Ferguson's answer to Why do liberals defend Islam? - Quora - "In America, racism from the political right tends to treat non-white people as if they were animals; racism from the political left tends to treat non-white people as if they were children... some crimes receive disproportionate media coverage: liberal bigots expect those people to act in that way, so it's not newsworthy. It is straightforward to condemn a pastor in the American South for their homophobia and misogyny, but summon the same passion against an imam in the Middle East and many will accuse you of Islamophobia because the white criminal and the white savage is a greater betrayal of their expectations, needing condemnation, whereas a non-white criminal or savage is expected. Lowering your expectations of a person is a sign of disrespect to them."
UK's three leading lagers - Budvar, Heineken and Stella Artois - are indistinguishable, according to blind taste tests - ""Our results suggest that brand loyalty in this market is likely to be driven largely by marketing and packaging and not by underlying sensory properties of the competing products"... it's certainly not the first time that an independent blind test has left a major brand's marketing department with a bad taste in its mouth. In a survey of 13 tomato ketchups by Which?, Heinz finished joint second from last, despite boasting an 80 per cent share of the market. The favourite was a Sainsbury's own brand that cost almost half the price of "the nation's favourite".
Back to basics: Nothing keeps wrinkles at bay better than moisturiser - "In the first long-term study measuring the speed of wrinkle development, experts found that women with well-hydrated faces develop persistent wrinkles more slowly than those with dry skin"
Here comes the science... - "it "wouldn't surprise me at all if other, up til now, designated cosmetic products actually have more effects on skin physiology and skin structure than we gave them credit for in the past. But then you start to question what is a cosmetic and what is a pharmaceutical." And that's the catch for the cosmetics companies. If they prove a product really can heal damaged skin, it could be classified as a medicine. That would mean they require years of expensive tests before getting a licence. So for the moment, if you want to stay young and beautiful, don't smoke and avoid too much sun exposure. And if you think your moisturiser is helping keep away the wrinkles, just maybe it could be working a little more than skin deep."
Aldi's moisturiser is 'nearly' as good as La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe cream
Why Japanese doesn’t need swear words - "Japanese doesn’t really have much in the way of curse words. That’s not to say it completely lacks them, as there’re a few slurs for certain ethnic groups still rattling about, which are thankfully becoming less common as death thins the ranks of old-school racists. Aside from those derogatory terms, I’ve only come across two words that universally provoke an angry or shocked reaction, no matter how they’re said. One is manko, a vulgar way of referring to the vagina (it’s basically the Japanese version of “cunt”). The second instantly offensive word I’ve run into? Teme. What’s it mean? You."
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Strays From My Original Vision, George Lucas Says - ""It's a family soap opera," he added. "People don't realize it's actually a soap opera and it's all about family problems--it's not about spaceships. So they decided they didn't want to use those stories; they decided they were going to do their own thing so I decided, 'Fine.'""
Butt-Chugging Cough Syrup? - "One of my Facebook friends shared a meme about teenagers “Butt-chugging” cough syrup. I was going to put the image in this post, but it’s just too much. It involved some girl…well…butt-chugging cough syrup. In the photo, the chugger is doing a hand stand, and one of her friends is administering the dose... I don’t have kids, but I think I would rather my daughter come home, tell me she’s pregnant, was only able to narrow the father down to 12 men, and had the fetus coat-hanger aborted by an Albanian in a Waffle House parking lot – than tell me she butt-chugged cough syrup."
Carrier Eisenhower crew posts Star Wars spoof
I Turned Off JavaScript for a Whole Week and It Was Glorious - "THERE’S ANOTHER WEB out there, a better web hiding just below the surface of the one we surf from our phones and tablets and laptops every day. A web with no ads, no endlessly scrolling pages, and no annoying modal windows begging you to share the site on social media or sign up for a newsletter. The best part is that you don’t need a special browser extension or an invite-only app to access this alternate reality. All you need to do is change one little setting in your browser of choice. Just un-tick the checkbox that enables “JavaScript” and away you go, to a simpler, cleaner web."
13 Percent of Syrian Refugees Support ISIS: Poll - "A poll published in November 2014 by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies found that 13% of Syrian refugees have positive feelings towards the Islamic State terrorist group. The data should raise questions about the risks posed by the acceptance of Syrian refugees into the United States. The poll surveyed 900 Syrian refugees equally split between Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The think-tank found that 4% expressed a positive opinion of the Islamic State (ISIS) and another 9% expressed a "somewhat positive" opinion of the terrorist group. Another 10% only view the group negatively "to some extent"... The majority are aware of the Islamic State’s extremist ideology and barbarism. About 40% said they follow news related to the Islamic State very closely and 37% follow it somewhat closely. About 10% said they rarely follow ISIS-related news and 12% follow it not at all. The survey didn't even ask about more popular groups like Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch named Jabhat al-Nusra and Hamas or extremist beliefs like jihad against the U.S. When asked about the greatest threat to the Arab world, 29% of Syrian refugees said Iran, followed by Israel (22%) and the U.S. (19%). The threat of Islamist militancy was rated the top threat by only 10%... The importing of the refugees could actually increase their risk of radicalization, based on widely-cited social science studies. A study of Al-Qaeda operatives found that 70% joined thejihad after moving to a new country and 80% were isolated from the society they lived in. The aforementioned congressional report warns that that the radicalization of Americans is already happening at an "unprecedented speed" and is "straining federal law enforcement's ability to monitor and intercept suspects.""
Blog: Pew poll: Between 63 million and 287 million ISIS supporters in just 11 countries - "A new poll by the Pew Research Center reveals significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world. In 11 representative nation-states, up to 14 percent of the population has a favorable opinion of ISIS, and upwards of 62 percent "don't know" whether or not they have a favorable opinion of the Islamist group... In Nigeria, the ISIS favorability rating among the Muslim population soars to 20 percent. Another 12 percent of Muslims in Malaysia take a similar positive view of ISIS."
Dream of the bed chamber | The Economist - "The country is in the midst of a sexual revolution. A 2012 study found that more than 70% of Chinese people have sex before marriage... But a lack of sex education means that many are not protecting themselves, resulting in soaring abortion rates and a rise in sexually transmitted diseases. The Communist Party has stuck its nose into people’s bedrooms for 30 years through its harsh family-planning policies. Yet taboos on sex before marriage prevailed, the result of paternalistic—not religious—values about female chastity, with a dose of Communist asceticism thrown in. Pre-marital sex fell foul of a range of laws, including the catch-all charge of “hooliganism”, only scrapped in 1997. The social climate remains chilly. Most news items about sex involve scandals or crimes. Schools ban pupils from dating and many deploy “morality patrols” to root out flirting or frolicking couples. Sex outside wedlock is not illegal but children born to unmarried mothers face obstacles obtaining a hukou, or household residency, that entitles them to subsidised education and welfare... The pill is not widely used in China, even by married women. The government encourages the use of intra-uterine devices which provide less chance of human error. Until last year advertising condoms on television was banned (abortion, by contrast, is widely promoted)."
Unsafe to sew on train - "At times, MRT trains lurch when moving or halting. If the woman is pulling the needle in an upward movement and is caught unexpectedly by a sudden staggering of the train, an involuntary jerk of the hand holding the needle may cause the needle to jab at a fellow commuter sitting or standing close by. There will be very serious consequences if the needle impales an eye or other body part of a nearby commuter who could not move away in time. How can the injured commuter seek recourse? If the SMRT's regulations do not permit sewing inside MRT trains in operation, what is the appropriate action that a concerned fellow commuter can take in such a situation? By the way, what circumstances warrant an activation of the emergency communication button?"
Subscene - Speed English subtitle - "Created and Encoded by -- Bokutox -- of www.YIFY-TORRENTS.com. The Best 720p/1080p/3d movies with the lowest file size on the internet. Come and say hi to me; World of Warcraft - Terenas (EU) / Outland(PVP) (EU) - Bokutox (name)"
What if Blizzard helps trace him?
Art does heal: scientists say appreciating creative works can fight off disease - Telegraph - "Great nature and art boost the immune system by lowering levels of chemicals that cause inflammation that can trigger diabetes, heart attacks and other illnesses."
Publicity drive for new MRT Downtown line - "About 60 per cent of the primary and secondary students of Methodist Girls' School (MGS) go to school by car every morning, estimates vice-principal Diana Goh."
There Really Is No 'One Size Fits All' Diet Plan, According To Study - "people can metabolize the exact same foods in very different ways. What this means is that a healthy diet for one person may not be healthy for another person... "After seeing this data, I think about the possibility that maybe we're really conceptually wrong in our thinking about the obesity and diabetes epidemic,” Segal said in a statement. "The intuition of people is that we know how to treat these conditions, and it's just that people are not listening and are eating out of control -- but maybe people are actually compliant but in many cases we were giving them wrong advice"... the participants all responded very differently to foods, even after meals in which participants were eating the same exact provided foods. In the video above, the researchers explain that sushi actually caused one man’s blood sugar to spike higher than ice cream did. For another participant who had struggled to lose weight on different diets all her life, the researchers found that eating a seemingly healthy food -- tomatoes -- spiked her blood sugar... The researchers then selected 26 of the participants to see if they could provide personalized nutrition recommendations would bring down the subjects' blood sugar levels. And indeed, Elinav and Segal were able to lower blood sugar levels after recommending meals made of foods they knew wouldn’t spike individual participants’ blood sugar. Interestingly, these dietary changes also resulted in a change in gut bacteria in the participants."
Peter Jackson: 'I didn’t know what the hell I was doing' when I made The Hobbit
13 dreamy overseas homes you can get for the price of a Bidadari BTO flat
Turkey fans boo minute’s silence for Paris victims
Ninja rocks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Ninja rocks are broken shards of spark plugs formed by smashing the ceramic portion of the spark plug with a hammer or other large object. Since they can quickly and quietly fracture the glass side windows on most cars, ninja rocks have been used in "smash-and-grab" auto burglaries since at least 1995"
Sexism In China. A Good Thing For Foreign Business? - "Had an interesting lunchtime discussion the other day with two very dynamic international entrepreneurs on global prejudices. Both told me of how they “take advantage” of it. These two take advantage of it by hiring women, the disabled, and ethnic minorities in countries where other businesses are either reluctant or refuse to hire these people. And let’s face it, these prejudices exist, at least to some degree, in every country. One guy told me of how his small factory in Russia had hired one physically disabled person and of how that person ended up recommending a whole slew of his disabled friends and of how in fairly short order, 22 of his 40 employees were physically disabled"
Markets tend to clear
Danish police refuse to seize refugee jewelry and cash - "The controversial proposals, which were revealed in parliament last week, would see migrants' valuables seized to cover the costs of their stay in the country and to dissuade others from making a similar journey. Any item with a value of more than 3,000 kroner (400 euros) could be confiscated... Danish ministers say the plan is no different from restrictions on existing Danish residents, which require them to deplete their savings to less than 10,000 kroner, before they can claim welfare."
Processed meats do cause cancer - WHO - "In the UK, around six out of every 100 people get bowel cancer at some point in their lives. If they were all given an extra 50g of bacon a day for the rest of their lives then the risk would increase by 18% to around seven in 100 people getting bowel cancer... It has now placed processed meat in the same category as plutonium, but also alcohol as they definitely do cause cancer. However, this does not mean they are equally dangerous. A bacon sandwich is not as bad as smoking... Red meat does have nutritional value too and is a major source of iron, zinc and vitamin B12."
Sunlight is in the same category too. So we should all become vampires
Hilarious Pics Of Men Mimicking Women’s Instagram Photos
The Wartime Origins of the M&M - "It was during the Spanish Civil War that Mars purportedly encountered soldiers eating small chocolate beads encased in a hard sugar shell as part of their rations. In an age when sales of chocolate typically dropped off during summer months due to the lack of air conditioning, Forrest was thrilled by the prospect of developing a product that would be able to resist melting in high temperatures"
How the US Military Helped Invent Cheetos - "emulsifying salts. The chemical disperses water‑phobic caseins by exchanging sodium for calcium; this permits the now smaller particles to be diffused and suspended in liquid. Melting traditional cheeses and mixing them with the emulsifying salts resulted in a cheese‑like product that withstands high temperatures and protracted storage. Even better, this new food could be made and sold very cheaply, because it could be produced, at least in part, from the rinds and irregular bits left over from cutting wheels of cheese into bricks. Melting the ingredients also pasteurized them, inactivating the live bacteria and enzymes and contributing to a longer shelf life... what could one do with football fields full of potato flakes, a cave stuffed with dried eggs (the army’s strange storage location for one hundred million pounds of the stuff), or a mountain of dehydrated cheese? Well, there was one group always interested in lowering the cost of finicky fresh ingredients: the grocery manufacturers"
'Finland's no good': Disappointed migrants turn back - "Hundreds of predominantly Iraqi migrants who have travelled through Europe to reach Finland are turning back, saying they don't want to stay in the sparsely-populated country on Europe's northern frontier because it's too cold and boring... Finnish authorities have seen a rise in the number of cancelled asylum applications. "You can tell the world I hate Finland. It's too cold, there's no tea, no restaurants, no bars, nobody on the streets, only cars," Muhammed, 22, told AFP in Tornio, as the mercury struggled to inch above 10 deg C on a recent blustery grey day."
'Star Wars' or ISIS: Which is more Islamic? - "Take Obi Wan Kenobi, for example, and his relationship with Luke Skywalker -- as well as Skywalker's relationship with Yoda. (Ignore, if you must, the filming of the most pertinent Jedi scenes in Tunisia, an Arab-Muslim country with a very long tradition of Islamic spirituality, or Sufism). The notion of the "Jedi Knights" is built very much on the quintessentially Muslim phenomenon of tariqah Sufism -- or the spirituality of the Sufi order."
Indian restaurants band together for productivity gains - "The signing took place during the launch of two Central Processing Units (CPUs). Set up by two consortia comprising of 22 members of the association, the CPUs are aimed at boosting productivity. They are also aimed at allowing companies to save on manpower costs by up to 40 per cent, through the adoption of innovative technology and food processing techniques."
Why is food made in bulk in central kitchens considered a good thing?
Rose McGowan slams Caitlyn Jenner over Woman of the Year Awards speech - ""Caitlyn Jenner you do not understand what being a woman is about at all," Rose wrote. "You want to be a woman and stand with us - well learn us. We are more than deciding what to wear. We are more than the stereotypes foisted upon us by people like you. You're a woman now? Well f**king learn that we have had a VERY different experience than your life of male privilege. "Being a woman comes with a lot of baggage. The weight of unequal history. You'd do well to learn it. You'd do well to wake up. Woman of the year? Not by a long f**king shot." Rose later clarified her comments and added, "Let me amend this by saying I'm happy for what she's doing visibility wise for the trans community, and I'm happy she's living her truth, but comments like hers have consequences for other women. How we are perceived, what our values are, and leads to more stereotyping. If you know you are going to be speaking to media about being a woman, maybe come to understand our struggles.""
Glamour Woman of the Year award returned by 9/11 widower - "The husband of a police officer who died on 9/11 has returned her Glamour "Woman of the Year" award because the magazine honored Caitlyn Jenner with the same award last week... Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner transitioned to Caitlyn Jenner over the past year in the spotlight of the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" reality television show. It's not that Glamour honored a transgender person, James Smith told CNN. He supported Glamour's decision to honor actress Laverne Cox in 2014. As a New York City police officer, "my precinct covered a shelter for transgendered youth," Smith said via email. "On several occasions I responded there to take reports or give aid to suicidal youths. I listened to their stories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Young people thrown out of their homes or fleeing from unlivable conditions. "They didn't have the luxury of being part of the Kardashian circus," Smith wrote. "They weren't living in a Malibu Barbie beach house surrounded by what passes for family in Hollywood. They were truly brave people fighting hourly for existence. "When Mr. Jenner said the hardest part about being a woman was figuring out what to wear (in a recent BuzzFeed interview), he proved to me that he is not truly a woman. I believe this comment and others he has made trivializes the transgender experience as I have witnessed it."
How Terrorist Groups End: Implications for Countering al Qa'ida - "By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory. These findings suggest that the U.S. approach to countering al Qa'ida has focused far too much on the use of military force. Instead, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts... In 10 percent of cases, terrorist groups ended because they achieved victory. Military force led to the end of terrorist groups in 7 percent of cases. The authors found that militaries tended to be most effective when used against terrorist groups engaged in insurgencies in which the groups were large, well armed, and well organized. But against most terrorist groups, military force was usually too blunt an instrument."
Paper: "There is no statistical correlation between the duration of a terrorist
group and ideological motivation, economic conditions, regime type, or the breadth of terrorist goals. But there appears to be some correlation between the size of a terrorist group and duration: Larger groups tend to last longer than smaller groups."
Reza Aslan: If ISIS Says It's Muslim, Then It's Muslim
Is Reza Aslan Islamophobic for saying ISIS is Muslim?
Situation in Singapore | Project X - "In practice, police regulates and monitors a limited number of brothels. In particular, the Anti-Vice Police department issues licenses to brothels and provides clearance for brothel sex workers. Sex workers in such establishments are required to undergo monthly health checks and are given the infamous “yellow card” (literally—it is a yellow coloured card). The State does not publicly acknowledge this, however, through our work, we managed to learn of some criterion for application of the yellow card:
- You have to be between 21 to 35 years of age
- You cannot be Malay or Muslim
- You cannot be Male on your identification card (this includes pre-operative transgender persons)
- You have to be from a list of approved countries (i.e. China, Malaysia, Thai, and Singapore)
Most workers under the yellow card system are migrants. They will have to undergo an interview and sign a contract with the Anti-Vice police upon arrival. We understand that some workers were asked at this point if they have been coerced into this industry. Amongst other things, the agreement states that one will not break any local laws, and that once their contract ends, they will face a travel ban lasting between three years to a lifetime. Other terms and conditions include not soliciting outside one’s designated brothel, not loitering in public spaces, and not to have a Singaporean boyfriend...
Do sex workers truly enjoy their job?
Does anyone truly enjoy their job? Don’t we all wish to be lying on a beach looking over at fine white sand, clear blue waters and fluffy clouds?"
Majority Privilege means you're allowed to be a legal sex worker
Mark Ferguson's answer to Why do liberals defend Islam? - Quora - "In America, racism from the political right tends to treat non-white people as if they were animals; racism from the political left tends to treat non-white people as if they were children... some crimes receive disproportionate media coverage: liberal bigots expect those people to act in that way, so it's not newsworthy. It is straightforward to condemn a pastor in the American South for their homophobia and misogyny, but summon the same passion against an imam in the Middle East and many will accuse you of Islamophobia because the white criminal and the white savage is a greater betrayal of their expectations, needing condemnation, whereas a non-white criminal or savage is expected. Lowering your expectations of a person is a sign of disrespect to them."
UK's three leading lagers - Budvar, Heineken and Stella Artois - are indistinguishable, according to blind taste tests - ""Our results suggest that brand loyalty in this market is likely to be driven largely by marketing and packaging and not by underlying sensory properties of the competing products"... it's certainly not the first time that an independent blind test has left a major brand's marketing department with a bad taste in its mouth. In a survey of 13 tomato ketchups by Which?, Heinz finished joint second from last, despite boasting an 80 per cent share of the market. The favourite was a Sainsbury's own brand that cost almost half the price of "the nation's favourite".
Back to basics: Nothing keeps wrinkles at bay better than moisturiser - "In the first long-term study measuring the speed of wrinkle development, experts found that women with well-hydrated faces develop persistent wrinkles more slowly than those with dry skin"
Here comes the science... - "it "wouldn't surprise me at all if other, up til now, designated cosmetic products actually have more effects on skin physiology and skin structure than we gave them credit for in the past. But then you start to question what is a cosmetic and what is a pharmaceutical." And that's the catch for the cosmetics companies. If they prove a product really can heal damaged skin, it could be classified as a medicine. That would mean they require years of expensive tests before getting a licence. So for the moment, if you want to stay young and beautiful, don't smoke and avoid too much sun exposure. And if you think your moisturiser is helping keep away the wrinkles, just maybe it could be working a little more than skin deep."
Aldi's moisturiser is 'nearly' as good as La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe cream
Why Japanese doesn’t need swear words - "Japanese doesn’t really have much in the way of curse words. That’s not to say it completely lacks them, as there’re a few slurs for certain ethnic groups still rattling about, which are thankfully becoming less common as death thins the ranks of old-school racists. Aside from those derogatory terms, I’ve only come across two words that universally provoke an angry or shocked reaction, no matter how they’re said. One is manko, a vulgar way of referring to the vagina (it’s basically the Japanese version of “cunt”). The second instantly offensive word I’ve run into? Teme. What’s it mean? You."
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Strays From My Original Vision, George Lucas Says - ""It's a family soap opera," he added. "People don't realize it's actually a soap opera and it's all about family problems--it's not about spaceships. So they decided they didn't want to use those stories; they decided they were going to do their own thing so I decided, 'Fine.'""
Butt-Chugging Cough Syrup? - "One of my Facebook friends shared a meme about teenagers “Butt-chugging” cough syrup. I was going to put the image in this post, but it’s just too much. It involved some girl…well…butt-chugging cough syrup. In the photo, the chugger is doing a hand stand, and one of her friends is administering the dose... I don’t have kids, but I think I would rather my daughter come home, tell me she’s pregnant, was only able to narrow the father down to 12 men, and had the fetus coat-hanger aborted by an Albanian in a Waffle House parking lot – than tell me she butt-chugged cough syrup."
Carrier Eisenhower crew posts Star Wars spoof
I Turned Off JavaScript for a Whole Week and It Was Glorious - "THERE’S ANOTHER WEB out there, a better web hiding just below the surface of the one we surf from our phones and tablets and laptops every day. A web with no ads, no endlessly scrolling pages, and no annoying modal windows begging you to share the site on social media or sign up for a newsletter. The best part is that you don’t need a special browser extension or an invite-only app to access this alternate reality. All you need to do is change one little setting in your browser of choice. Just un-tick the checkbox that enables “JavaScript” and away you go, to a simpler, cleaner web."
13 Percent of Syrian Refugees Support ISIS: Poll - "A poll published in November 2014 by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies found that 13% of Syrian refugees have positive feelings towards the Islamic State terrorist group. The data should raise questions about the risks posed by the acceptance of Syrian refugees into the United States. The poll surveyed 900 Syrian refugees equally split between Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The think-tank found that 4% expressed a positive opinion of the Islamic State (ISIS) and another 9% expressed a "somewhat positive" opinion of the terrorist group. Another 10% only view the group negatively "to some extent"... The majority are aware of the Islamic State’s extremist ideology and barbarism. About 40% said they follow news related to the Islamic State very closely and 37% follow it somewhat closely. About 10% said they rarely follow ISIS-related news and 12% follow it not at all. The survey didn't even ask about more popular groups like Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch named Jabhat al-Nusra and Hamas or extremist beliefs like jihad against the U.S. When asked about the greatest threat to the Arab world, 29% of Syrian refugees said Iran, followed by Israel (22%) and the U.S. (19%). The threat of Islamist militancy was rated the top threat by only 10%... The importing of the refugees could actually increase their risk of radicalization, based on widely-cited social science studies. A study of Al-Qaeda operatives found that 70% joined thejihad after moving to a new country and 80% were isolated from the society they lived in. The aforementioned congressional report warns that that the radicalization of Americans is already happening at an "unprecedented speed" and is "straining federal law enforcement's ability to monitor and intercept suspects.""
Blog: Pew poll: Between 63 million and 287 million ISIS supporters in just 11 countries - "A new poll by the Pew Research Center reveals significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world. In 11 representative nation-states, up to 14 percent of the population has a favorable opinion of ISIS, and upwards of 62 percent "don't know" whether or not they have a favorable opinion of the Islamist group... In Nigeria, the ISIS favorability rating among the Muslim population soars to 20 percent. Another 12 percent of Muslims in Malaysia take a similar positive view of ISIS."
Dream of the bed chamber | The Economist - "The country is in the midst of a sexual revolution. A 2012 study found that more than 70% of Chinese people have sex before marriage... But a lack of sex education means that many are not protecting themselves, resulting in soaring abortion rates and a rise in sexually transmitted diseases. The Communist Party has stuck its nose into people’s bedrooms for 30 years through its harsh family-planning policies. Yet taboos on sex before marriage prevailed, the result of paternalistic—not religious—values about female chastity, with a dose of Communist asceticism thrown in. Pre-marital sex fell foul of a range of laws, including the catch-all charge of “hooliganism”, only scrapped in 1997. The social climate remains chilly. Most news items about sex involve scandals or crimes. Schools ban pupils from dating and many deploy “morality patrols” to root out flirting or frolicking couples. Sex outside wedlock is not illegal but children born to unmarried mothers face obstacles obtaining a hukou, or household residency, that entitles them to subsidised education and welfare... The pill is not widely used in China, even by married women. The government encourages the use of intra-uterine devices which provide less chance of human error. Until last year advertising condoms on television was banned (abortion, by contrast, is widely promoted)."
Unsafe to sew on train - "At times, MRT trains lurch when moving or halting. If the woman is pulling the needle in an upward movement and is caught unexpectedly by a sudden staggering of the train, an involuntary jerk of the hand holding the needle may cause the needle to jab at a fellow commuter sitting or standing close by. There will be very serious consequences if the needle impales an eye or other body part of a nearby commuter who could not move away in time. How can the injured commuter seek recourse? If the SMRT's regulations do not permit sewing inside MRT trains in operation, what is the appropriate action that a concerned fellow commuter can take in such a situation? By the way, what circumstances warrant an activation of the emergency communication button?"
Subscene - Speed English subtitle - "Created and Encoded by -- Bokutox -- of www.YIFY-TORRENTS.com. The Best 720p/1080p/3d movies with the lowest file size on the internet. Come and say hi to me; World of Warcraft - Terenas (EU) / Outland(PVP) (EU) - Bokutox (name)"
What if Blizzard helps trace him?
Art does heal: scientists say appreciating creative works can fight off disease - Telegraph - "Great nature and art boost the immune system by lowering levels of chemicals that cause inflammation that can trigger diabetes, heart attacks and other illnesses."
Publicity drive for new MRT Downtown line - "About 60 per cent of the primary and secondary students of Methodist Girls' School (MGS) go to school by car every morning, estimates vice-principal Diana Goh."
There Really Is No 'One Size Fits All' Diet Plan, According To Study - "people can metabolize the exact same foods in very different ways. What this means is that a healthy diet for one person may not be healthy for another person... "After seeing this data, I think about the possibility that maybe we're really conceptually wrong in our thinking about the obesity and diabetes epidemic,” Segal said in a statement. "The intuition of people is that we know how to treat these conditions, and it's just that people are not listening and are eating out of control -- but maybe people are actually compliant but in many cases we were giving them wrong advice"... the participants all responded very differently to foods, even after meals in which participants were eating the same exact provided foods. In the video above, the researchers explain that sushi actually caused one man’s blood sugar to spike higher than ice cream did. For another participant who had struggled to lose weight on different diets all her life, the researchers found that eating a seemingly healthy food -- tomatoes -- spiked her blood sugar... The researchers then selected 26 of the participants to see if they could provide personalized nutrition recommendations would bring down the subjects' blood sugar levels. And indeed, Elinav and Segal were able to lower blood sugar levels after recommending meals made of foods they knew wouldn’t spike individual participants’ blood sugar. Interestingly, these dietary changes also resulted in a change in gut bacteria in the participants."
Peter Jackson: 'I didn’t know what the hell I was doing' when I made The Hobbit
13 dreamy overseas homes you can get for the price of a Bidadari BTO flat
Turkey fans boo minute’s silence for Paris victims
Ninja rocks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Ninja rocks are broken shards of spark plugs formed by smashing the ceramic portion of the spark plug with a hammer or other large object. Since they can quickly and quietly fracture the glass side windows on most cars, ninja rocks have been used in "smash-and-grab" auto burglaries since at least 1995"
Sexism In China. A Good Thing For Foreign Business? - "Had an interesting lunchtime discussion the other day with two very dynamic international entrepreneurs on global prejudices. Both told me of how they “take advantage” of it. These two take advantage of it by hiring women, the disabled, and ethnic minorities in countries where other businesses are either reluctant or refuse to hire these people. And let’s face it, these prejudices exist, at least to some degree, in every country. One guy told me of how his small factory in Russia had hired one physically disabled person and of how that person ended up recommending a whole slew of his disabled friends and of how in fairly short order, 22 of his 40 employees were physically disabled"
Markets tend to clear
Post ID: 5772056305295308870
Malay Racism in Singapore
Re: Chinese kid in S’pore said he doesn’t want to sit beside ‘Malay people’ during Star Wars movie. Malay guy responds. | Mothership.SG
Comment:
"I find it ironic that a Malay person is trying to pin Racism on Chinese people over one kid and how this hack of an alternative news site "TheMothership.sg" is trying to sensationalize "Chinese guilt".
I just hope more Chinese people are smart enough to see through this bullshit.
I'm 1/4 Chinese, many people here think I'm Chinese.
Growing up in Singapore, I faced so much racism from... guess who?
Malays.
Primary school I had a had a racist Malay teacher who would single me out, give me low marks, hold me back in detention for the pettiest reason all because I looked Chinese, this was when I was 11 -12.
Wondering why I speak Malay poorly, there you go.
She turned me off from wanting to learn Malay.
Madrasa, again same problem.
Only this time on top of putting up with the racism from the ustazas, I also had to put up with the religious bigotry from them.
Often Id be picked on because of being mixed as the reason why did poorly at parroting jawi/urdu.
And now with Islamic fundamentalism on the rise, imagine how the Malay Muslim community would react to the Malays who identify as Ex-Muslims.
You want to talk about racism and tribalism, look into your own community first and how badly it treats outliers, the ex-Muslims, the homosexuals, the trans-gendered and the others who don't fit in.
And I'm not saying that there are no racist Chinese people.
I'm not even saying racism doesn't exist in Singapore.
I'm well aware that it's alive and well in ALL ethnic communities.
So before you start pointing your finger at other people and widening the ethnic chasm, look at yourself.
What irks me this is Malay guy trying to play victim over something so trivial in an attempt to demonize and put the responsibility of abolishing racism onto Chinese folks.
I'm Human."
Comment:
"I find it ironic that a Malay person is trying to pin Racism on Chinese people over one kid and how this hack of an alternative news site "TheMothership.sg" is trying to sensationalize "Chinese guilt".
I just hope more Chinese people are smart enough to see through this bullshit.
I'm 1/4 Chinese, many people here think I'm Chinese.
Growing up in Singapore, I faced so much racism from... guess who?
Malays.
Primary school I had a had a racist Malay teacher who would single me out, give me low marks, hold me back in detention for the pettiest reason all because I looked Chinese, this was when I was 11 -12.
Wondering why I speak Malay poorly, there you go.
She turned me off from wanting to learn Malay.
Madrasa, again same problem.
Only this time on top of putting up with the racism from the ustazas, I also had to put up with the religious bigotry from them.
Often Id be picked on because of being mixed as the reason why did poorly at parroting jawi/urdu.
And now with Islamic fundamentalism on the rise, imagine how the Malay Muslim community would react to the Malays who identify as Ex-Muslims.
You want to talk about racism and tribalism, look into your own community first and how badly it treats outliers, the ex-Muslims, the homosexuals, the trans-gendered and the others who don't fit in.
And I'm not saying that there are no racist Chinese people.
I'm not even saying racism doesn't exist in Singapore.
I'm well aware that it's alive and well in ALL ethnic communities.
So before you start pointing your finger at other people and widening the ethnic chasm, look at yourself.
What irks me this is Malay guy trying to play victim over something so trivial in an attempt to demonize and put the responsibility of abolishing racism onto Chinese folks.
I'm Human."
Post ID: 5715541308261428479
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
