Welcome to 2015 Link Encyclopedias! I spent a long time hanging out in airports since the year started, so I have accumulated a big collection of good links for you. Feel free to leave your links in the Comments, as usual.
I’m so envious of this person: “The garden crew arrived, cleared the garden, and were done in an hour! Some excitement – we found a hibernating hedgehog, whose guardian angel was working overtime since it was somehow not hit by a spade (no idea how it even got in! It has been carefully relocated to some suitable dense bushes in the parking area).” Hedgehog! She found a real hedgehog in the garden! Some people have all the luck.
[In Russian.] Hilarious true stories about the USSR.
I agree completely: “No one can live rationally in perpetual fear of what any random stranger might claim to be offensive, and it is beyond obscene to say, as some have, that the staff of Charlie Hebdo basically had it coming when they published those cartoons. Let me suggest a thought exercise for anyone who thinks such commentators have a point: Imagine what your life would be like if you sincerely tried never to offend anyone. Now, knowing that there is evil in the world, imagine further what would happen when an evil person gets wind of your slavery to the professed offenses of others.” I detest people who think that their permanently hurt “feelings” are my problem.
A link for those who want to help publish a volume of Russian science fiction in translation. It’s a good, worthy project.
The new Congress is such a joke. All it is doing right now is discussing abortion (yes, right, that issue which is of zero interest to the voters) at the stage of past 20 weeks. This comprises 1.5% of all abortions, but the people’s representatives are sure that this is the hugely crucial issue they need to be addressing right now. Stupid fucks.
[In Spanish.] The great Vargas Llosa on Charlie Hebdo massacre.
“Russian science is amazing. So why hasn’t it taken over the world?” Because there is no science. This is all stupid propaganda. All that Skolkovo managed to produce as a result of gynormous funding is a massively expensive copy of the Intel processor. And it doesn’t even work.
“There’s Nothing Moderate About Jeb Bush’s Position On Gay Marriage.” God, people are stupid. We should not allow the next presidential campaign to drown in debates about issues that have been resolved already. Let’s ask our future candidates how they will face the new challenges of the changing society. let’s not allow our elected officials to hide from the world in flux in the outdated debates on abortion and “definition of marriage.”
Even the ultra-conservatives recognize that “The President has been very strong on free speech lately, between these comments and his stance against North Korea’s intimidation of Sony. This stands in stark contrast to the President’s response to Benghazi, in which the federal government condemned an allegedly provocative film and arrested the filmmaker on a technical parole violation. But perhaps the President has learned something from that. This time the tone was spot on. Bravo, we say—and more, please.” Hear, hear!
On of The Nation‘s Russian darlings accuses the US of organizing the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
Carving Dostoyevsky out of Lenin. (It’s a photo but there is a small blurb in Russian as well.)
“Beth Breslaw had had enough of manslamming, and she wasn’t gonna take it anymore. Thinking that perhaps her friend’s results were skewed (surely this was an entitled-finance-dude thing and not an all-dude thing?), Breslaw decided to conduct her own experiment. Instead of automatically moving out of the way for people in her path, she would spend some time taking a more masculine approach to city living. She would stride confidently in whatever direction she chose, refusing to alter her route for anyone, male or female.” It is very sad that there isn’t a single person in this obviously unwell woman’s life to gently point her in the direction of getting help with her mental health. It’s just wrong to make such a meal out of somebody’s ill health.
If you needed any more proof that Ian Welsh is a total sicko, please observe his gleeful fantasies about murdering “brown people”: “We spend our time killing brown people and black people and Muslims in large numbers, using paramilitary weapons domestically, and military weapons and economic warfare internationally, killing far more of them than us, then act surprised when, deeply offended, they strike back.” But wait, there is more insanity: “As for women, the biological “realists” would claim that those who can create new humans are more valuable, but whatever the reason most societies hate the idea of them being killed in war or raped far more than they dislike the idea of either of those fates happening to men.” Poor stupid freak.
George Soros is smart: “George Soros has called for $50 billion dollars of international aid in response to Ukraine’sacute financial crisis. For Soros, the case for taking drastic economic action is not only about Ukraine; it’s also an investment in the future security of the entire European project.” And he is absolutely right.
[In Russian.] Will Israel move to Ukraine?
“Activists have published scores of articles denying the existence of the “pause” (or “hiatus”). That’s politically convenient — the pause contradicts their narrative of imminent catastrophic warming and arouses doubt about the computer models that create the forecasts. But it displays an astonishing disregard for the work of climate scientists, and science — just like those on the Right they mock. Here we again we see the similar behavior of Americans on both ends of the political spectrum, obvious to all who look — except the participants themselves. It’s one of the things that gives our politics that Oz-like air of absurdity.” That’s precisely the problem: there is so much hysteria and idiocy on both sides of the global warming debate that the general public just loses all interest in the issue. This is what I’ve been saying for years.
[In Russian.] I know it’s wrong to mock people at such a time, but the French who have been idolizing Limonov should pay attention to their idol’s statement that they deserved the recent terror attacks. The rest of the quotes at the link are from famous Russians celebrating the suffering of the French people.
A landscape of salt. But go get a glass of water before looking at it.
“What I remember from my undergraduate experience was learning to read closely and interpret texts, learning to make sustained arguments, and learning how to look for interesting questions and illuminating connections. The actual content of courses has faded away.” Very true. Higher ed is not about content. You can find all the content you want on Google, for all the good it will do.
Food landscapes that almost made me throw up. Some people have very sick imaginations.
[In Russian.] Don’t forgive the Russians. Ukrainians do tend to forgive offences almost before the offences are over, so this warning is needed.
A strange true story of a missing professor.
Was 2014 the warmest year on record?
“Teaching consent does necessitate explaining to children that only they get to say who can touch their body, and that it is wrong to touch someone else’s body without asking them first. Parents can model this in a number of ways, even with very young children—for instance, by asking them if they would like to be tickled, stopping immediately if the child says to stop, refraining from forcing their child to hug or kiss relatives, and reminding the child to ask other children before hugging or touching them.” Yes! If only more people managed to understand that you can’t spend decades violating a child’s bodily boundaries and then expect the child to lead a normal, happy, healthy life.
Amy Touchette and her brilliant photography.
“Many educators (and undergraduates) complain about helicopter parents, but the Associated Press warns of a particular variety that may terrify: those who move with their children to college.” The next step would be to join “the kids” in bed on their honeymoon.
“In October in Paris, at La Traviata opera, the cast stopped mid performance when they saw a woman in a full-face veil. She happened to be a tourist from the Gulf on a visit to take in some French culture. They refused to carry on until she was removed from the theatre.” Good for them. And all of us who care about the rights of women. I’m very proud of these artists and their dedication to the great cause of feminism.
I’m less proud of Americans, though: “Vladimir Putin: The 10th Most Admired Man in America.” WTF, Americans? WTF?
“Millions of parents today think that they are smarter than the “professional educators” and the school establishment. They are dissatisfied with what the schools offer. An increasingly well-educated American populace feels more confident than ever that ordinary middle-class people can dump the help of certified experts.” Let’s dump this empty verbiage and be honest: these parents know they will not be able to inscribe themselves into the new post-nation-state and they are frustrating their children’s chances to do so because that will make them feel less lonely. There is zero difference between these cannibals of their own children and those who follow them to college. They all want to keep feasting on their children because finding another source of nourishment requires too much effort. That’s all there is to it.
I really wish I met this great flight attendant on one of my trips.
“While some obese people show no signs of heart disease, a new study suggests it’s just a matter of time before the consequences of carrying substantial, excess pounds ultimately take a toll. British researchers followed more than 2,500 men and women for 20 years, tracking their body mass indices (BMI), cholesterol counts, blood pressures, fasting glucose amounts and insulin resistance levels. Among many of the study subjects who were obese, heart disease risk factors eventually appeared, according to the study, published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.” It’s bizarre that anybody still needs to be proving these painfully obvious things, of course. One of the weirder features of consumer societies is the number of fat people who believe that their obesity carries no health-risks. They want to keep consuming extravagantly but can’t accept that this consumption comes at a price.
And the article of the week is obviously the one about Kirby Delauter. Journalists have found a hilarious way to defend freedom of speech from a busybody with offended feelings. The article deserves a Pulitzer for sure.
Clarissa's Blog 
NB your site now flashes one to the page of Amazon for about a minute before one can read your posts. At least, this is what is happening to me. I think it’s going too far unless they are really paying you a whole lot for this — it is going to scare me away as a reader a lot of the time, and it may do others.
Q why do you so like Vargas Llosa? I mean, you’ve said the whole of Latin American literature is misogynist, with which I would disagree but I would agree that his work is. ?
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“NB your site now flashes one to the page of Amazon for about a minute before one can read your posts.”
“Q why do you so like Vargas Llosa? I mean, you’ve said the whole of Latin American literature is misogynist, with which I would disagree but I would agree that his work is. ?”
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I have not experienced the problem Z describes. But that sounds terrible! I read this blog from both a Windows machine and an Android tablet; what’s your operating system Z?
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“(BTW, I’ll be back in a week or two — I have some Secret Squirrel business to attend to.”
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Well I think it’s okay if the woman wants to walk into people, but she should learn some techniques first, like the one for getting out of a boxing clinch. You have to thrust your left shoulder in hard first and then pull it back straight away and your right elbow can then go in hard against the cheek area.
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As for this:
““Around campus? Most universities now have speech codes, which demand that students not express ideas that will make others feel unwelcome, or embarrassed, or challenged. The student with the weakest sensibilities now has veto power over what others can say. And no one has to develop critical faculties for rebutting arguments; they can simply faint, or complain that they feel insecure.” ”
if I’m in a situation where it would be ethically valid to back me up as an employee, but instead the side of the weakest and most inclined to moral masturbation is taken, I am out there right away. That is a recipe for continual abuse. Why not take a stand instead of indulging everybody’s random fantasies?
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I had a student last year whose parents had moved across the state with her to the city where our university is located. The parents had found a house here and gotten new jobs and the student was living at home with them. The explanation was that the parents didn’t really like the city they were living in before and thought our university’s city was extremely nice when they came for a campus visit. I’ve visited the city where they used to live and I agree that it’s nicer here than there, but it still seemed really strange.
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A “Blank Space/Gone Girl” mashup.
A treasure trove of Vivian Maier’s portraits.
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Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel of Bayit Yehudi has ordered an expansion of settlements in order to make room for the stream of immigrants from France, Channel 2 News reported Tuesday.
Many Jews living in France expressed their intention to move to Israel following the terror attack on a kosher supermarket on Friday and many have already made aliyah, with some 7,000 French Jews arriving in Israel in 2014 alone.
Ariel on Monday instructed officials in the Housing Ministry and the Israel Land Authority administration to expand settlements in order to accommodate these newcomers. Ariel also sent a letter to the Yesha Council, an organization of municipal councils of settlements, calling on members to prepare for a mass influx of French immigrants to the territories, and asked the council to immediately locate settlements that could be expanded.
[…]
Labor Chairman Isaac Herzog and his political partner Tzipi Livni said: “This cynical step not only hurts Israel’s standing in the world and will deepen the isolation Netanyahu has led us into, but also deeply hurts our relations with Jews of the Diaspora.”
Sources in the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption also criticized Ariel, saying: “It’s best for the Housing Minister to deal with matters in his office, and not in immigrant absorption and housing of olim.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4615117,00.html
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A sausage saga: UK publisher bans pork references in children’s books
In an attempt to make educational books more friendly to practicing Jews and Muslims, Oxford University Press publishers are banning any mention of pigs, bacon, or sausage in their youth books.
[…]
The Jewish Leadership Council said in response that “Jewish law prohibits eating pork, not the mention of the word, or the animal from which it derives.”
http://www.jpost.com/International/A-sausage-saga-UK-publisher-bans-pork-references-in-childrens-books-387718
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Since SB is interested in Iran:
1 –
Israel urged Argentine authorities on Monday to carry on with the work of a prosecutor who was found dead after having alleged a cover-up in the investigation of Iran over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Alberto Nisman had accused Argentine President Cristina Fernandez of having opened a secret back channel to a group of Iranians suspected of planting the bomb, with a view to clearing them so Argentina might trade grains for much-need oil from Iran.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4616744,00.html
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Iran confirms general killed in Syria strike attributed to Israel
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4616784,00.html
3-
Gaza rally conducted in support of French terrorists, Islamic State
Hamas security forces allow rare rally to take place by rival jihadist Salafi activists in support of Islamic State and the deadly attacks in France.
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