Wednesday Link Encyclopedia

~ Clarissa

A really good link on the myth of a lazy student.

Northwestern is freaking out about sex in a variety of entertaining ways. It’s good to see people who get a chance to navel – gaze like this while we are battling for the very survival of higher education down here.

Few things are more off-putting than Dan Savage ‘ s bizarre marriage advice. Is the guy even married? There is some sort of a huge marriage – related dysfunction going on with him. Plus, he seems to have a weird attachment to a fantasy about husbands concealing the truth about their sex lives from their wives.

Why it matters that the U of Oklahoma frat chant was also a poem.

Are there people who are stupid enough to pay $83,000 for an online medical degree when the real one costs exactly the same?

[Russian] A museum that will glorify Stalin will open in the Russian city of Tver.

[Russian] The Russians in the Crimea are making desperate and pathetic attempts to pretend that the locals are happy with the annexation.

What does it say about my fight against diabetes that the very first thing I associated with this article’s title was a candy bar?

“Fat people aren’t disgusting, but the whole fat acceptance/fat celebration culture certainly is.” Hear, hear. I agree completely. The extraordinary irresponsibility of the “fat acceptance” folks just boggles the mind.

” The Greek government also riled up its citizens and now doesn’t know how to deliver anything satisfactory to them, to the detriment of political stability.” I just hope the same kind of idiocy doesn’t happen in Spain. All the stupid Syriza has achieved so far was to buoy up Putin. And what a great achievement that was.

How I hate these strawman arguments: ” While the U.S. pretends to be a class-free society (even as U.S.-ians spend an inordinate amount of time making very subtle class distinctions), the reality is we do have classes with specific economic interests.” Who is the evildoer that pretends this is a class free society? Where are the articles and books making that case?

Making fun of Libertarians is always enjoyable.

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Published by Clarissa

37 thoughts on “Wednesday Link Encyclopedia”

  1. Few things are more off-putting than Dan Savage ‘ s bizarre marriage advice. Is the guy even married? There is some sort of a huge marriage – related dysfunction going on with him. Plus, he seems to have a weird attachment to a fantasy about husbands concealing the truth about their sex lives from their wives.

    Yes he’s married. And it’s pretty much his standard advice that partners have to put out or put up with people going outside the relationship to find sex if they want to keep the relationship. Here’s an excerpt his book about adopting a child. Also he does have all kinds of issues. He once decided to deliberately lick doorknobs in hopes of infecting people with the flu.

    Why it matters that the U of Oklahoma frat chant was also a poem.
    It’s set to the tune of “If You’re Happy & You Know It” for the same reason my neighbors sang “This is my land/This is not your land/I’ve got a shotgun/I’ll blow your head off” to the tune of “This Land”. They only disbanded the frat because there was a video and it went viral. Otherwise it’s just a “joke” and minorities are “oversensitive” and now these wannabe Klan members are “afraid for their safety” and why don’t they just shake it off and ignore it and “be the bigger person” instead of being “PC” instead of hating “tradition”? Of course they’ll be fine. Mommy and Daddy have nice friends at the country club who will give these violent bigots nice jobs with health insurance and lots of money.

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    1. Today is a Zygmunt Bauman quoting day. 🙂

      “Ours are times when the child is, first and foremost, an object of emotional consumption. Objects of consumption serve the needs, desires or wishes of the consumer; so do children. Children are wanted for the joys of the parental pleasures it is hoped they will bring – the kind of joys no other object of consumption, however, ingenious or sophisticated, can offer. To the sadness of the practitioners of commerce, the commodity market cannot supply worthy substitute.”

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  2. A new low: Charlie Hebdo’s murdered staff receive an ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ award

    Charlie Hebdo has been given an international award for ‘Islamophobia’, two months after 12 members of staff were shot dead in a terror attack.

    The awards, which were devised by The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), took place at a ceremony on Saturday and saw the gong go to the French satirical magazine for ‘the world’s most Islamophobic person or publication’ in 2015.

    It beat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US president Barack Obama and American television host Bill Maher to the title.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-murdered-staff-given-islamophobe-of-the-year-award-10100317.html

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    1. God, I love this test. Thank you for the link! I don’t have time to do it now but I definitely will give it a try.

      But what a great idea to test people on general knowledge. It’s much more necessary today than back in 1921.

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  5. I was interested in the recent CNN poll surveying the salaries of world leaders:

    Netanyahu outearns Russian and Chinese leaders
    While Putin took a pay cut due to faltering economy, Israeli prime minister maintained $141,000 salary despite year focusing on his exorbitant expenses.

    At the top of the CNN list – unsurprisingly – was US President Barack Obama, who raked in $400,000 last year not including a tax-free expense account valued at $50,000. That impressive salary, however, was once only half the sum, until George W. Bush entered the Oval Office in 2001.

    In a distant second is Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, with $260,000 in compensation for running the second largest country on Earth by size. The leader of Europe’s economic powerhouse, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, came in third with $234,000.

    The Israeli prime minister earns $141,000 annually – $5,000 more than [Putin], who recently took a 10 percent pay cut after his country fell into a deep recession.

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4636580,00.html

    But Netanyahu doesn’t steal millions, unlike Putin and his friends, so Putin’s real salary may be greater than Obama’s. 🙂

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      1. \ I didn’t understand a word of the following post

        He says that if one votes for Left Israeli parties and, thus, for negotiations and for giving any land to Arabs – votes for Holocaust 2. He (wrongly, imo) calls Israeli Left – “communists.”

        The person lives in Hebron:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebron#Settlements_in_Hebron

        Jewish settlements surrounded by Palestinian population.
        He is afraid that in case of peace negotiations, he’ll be told to leave his home there.

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  6. \ Globalization is the best.

    I don’t understand what you mean. That we will have one state with Palestinians?

    I see only decades of conflict and operations ahead… And am sure that if Palestinians get their state, we’ll be shot at worse than ever. What is funny about that? I don’t see any globalization in my future.

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    1. “I don’t understand what you mean. That we will have one state with Palestinians?”

      • I was just trying to say how great it is that there is something I don’t understand and immediately there is a person from another part of the world who can explain.

      “And am sure that if Palestinians get their state, we’ll be shot at worse than ever. What is funny about that? I don’t see any globalization in my future.”

      • By globalization I only meant you and me talking across oceans. I promise to be less cryptic in the future. I haven’t fully awaken yet which is the reason for the misunderstanding. Sorry!

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      1. //I was just trying to say how great it is that there is something I don’t understand and immediately there is a person from another part of the world who can explain.

        I am always glad to do that. If you ever wish to ask anything about Israel – do. 🙂

        Here is the opposite view which Uri just published – “For whom to Vote?”
        http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/

        I thought whether to vote for Yitzhak Herzog instead of Netanyahu, but think in the end will vote for Netanyahu. Unlike Herzog, he has experience, charisma and seems to be much more able to withstand pressure. For our country, the latter is of crucial importance. May be I am wrong, but Netanyahu seems to be smarter than our other politicians.

        In addition, my mother said that if voting for Herzog and Livni (I wouldn’t want to see her as PM) means voting for giving territories, we’ll be shot at worse than before. And I can’t say she’s wrong. Also, that while settlers in Hebron may be seen as (often religious) fanatics, their presence in the territories justifies IDF’s presence. Thus, our lives in Tel-Aviv are protected from terror. I can’t honestly say this is wrong either.

        Do you have any thoughts?

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        1. Is it true that “The Israeli welfare state, once the envy of many countries (remember the kibbutz?) is falling apart. All our social services are crumbling”? What is he saying about the kibbutz?

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          1. Clarissa, you are reading “An Expensive Speech” article. I wanted to link to “For whom to Vote?” article, but couldn’t succeed. Click at the article’s name on the right side of Uri’s page to go to it. The name in read is the column you’re reading.

            Kibbutz was the attempt to build communism in Israel in state’s first years. Its time has passed. From wiki:

            “A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism. In recent decades, some kibbutzim have been privatized and changes have been made in the communal lifestyle. “

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            2. “Clarissa, you are reading “An Expensive Speech” article. I wanted to link to “For whom to Vote?” article, but couldn’t succeed. Click at the article’s name on the right side of Uri’s page to go to it. The name in read is the column you’re reading.”

              • I tried but the website refuses me to read anything but the “Expensive Speech” piece. That website does not like me. 🙂

              “In recent decades, some kibbutzim have been privatized and changes have been made in the communal lifestyle.”

              • God, that’s sad.

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        1. “There is no single party that offers a mix of the right’s just arguments and the just arguments of the Zionist left; in the end, it’s a vote for the least-bad party. Such is democracy.”

          • I know very little about the parties in Israel but this is exactly how things are everywhere.

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  8. A large company CEO has a salary that dwarfs that of any head of state. Nobody who holds the head of state office looks at those salaries as impressive, because they’re usually upper middle class to wealthy in their own right. And in corrupt regimes, the kickbacks far outstrip any official salary.

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    1. Putin has 13 palaces for his own private use. And the private airstrip for the private plane that takes him to one of the private palaces cost a billion. That’s just one airstrip. “Salary” is a ridiculous term in a country where almost the entire economy is “grey.” The official “salary” figures for everybody, not just Putin are a joke in Russia (and Ukraine.) People pay a tiny “white” salary that is taxed. And the rest of the actual salary is paid in cash and is undeclared and untaxed.

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  10. Iran: Proposed laws reduce women to ‘baby making machines’ in misguided attempts to boost population

    Women in Iran could face significant restrictions on their use of contraceptives and be further excluded from the labour market unless they have had a child, if two proposed laws are approved, says a new report by Amnesty International published today.
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2015/03/iran-proposed-laws-reduce-women-to-baby-making-machines/

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  12. That’s almost funny:

    Russia And North Korea Embrace 2015 As ‘Year Of Friendship’
    Over the past few months, Pyongyang and Moscow have been planning a combined military drill some time in the future.

    OK, this is more like it: welcome back to 1981, the epoch of east-block tyrannies is back, as North Korea has just declared 2015 as Friendship Year with Russia, boosting relations between Pyongyang and Moscow, IBTimes reported.
    http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2015/03/11/russia-and-north-korea-embrace-2015-as-year-of-friendship/

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    1. Oh, you didn’t know? This is a huge huge scandal in the US right now. The leader of these folks i s a young and very ignorant weirdo from Arkansas. He’s like a male version of Sarah Palin.

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  14. Do not know to what extent this is representative choice of people:

    10 Israeli Voters Lay Out Their Hopes And Expectations For The Future
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/09/israel-voters-2015_n_6831162.html?utm_hp_ref=worldpost-middle-east

    I also checked “Views From A Real Place” page, reading answers to the last question / section of the interviews – “What are your hopes and expectations for the future of this land?”

    Was interested in the answer of an Israeli Arab:
    http://www.judithhertog.com/rami

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    1. To put things into perspective, an Israeli Jew commented:

      // I would not call this a representative sample of Israeli people. I live in Israel and I have heard a lot of opinions that are quite different from those expressed in the article. This does not give people outside of Israel a true picture of what people think and feel. We have our bigots, our racists. our pacifists, our ultra-orthodox, our secular and so on. We have extreme right-wingers and extreme left-wingers, and everyone else in between. We have people who want to make peace with the Arabs and people who do not. We have Arab citizens who feel they are Israeli and Arab citizens who consider themselves Palestinians. We have so many more opinions than can be covered in such an article, that I would ask people not to judge all Israelis on the basis of the opinions expressed here.

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    2. There is so much editing that goes into this sort of article that it’s only use is as an illustration of the way Americans who read this news source want to see Israelis and the world. The main conclusion I can draw from the article is the readership of Huffington Post suffers from a higher than usual incidence of depression.

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