Interesting Links for 15-03-2012

[andrewducker]

• Twitter's tales of sexism
  (tags: sexism twitter )
• Trans fat consumption linked to greater aggression
  (tags: aggression diet health )
• The lost child who found his way home 25 years later thanks to Google Earth
  (tags: india child google maps )
• Fascinating discussion on Hacker News on how Google has caught a nasty case of The Managers
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Comments

[helflaed]

Same sex marriage- so what's wrong with allowing religious organisations an opt in?

[andrewducker]

I have _no_ idea. Why you'd stop The Quakers marrying who they like is beyond me.

[helflaed]

It is such a simple solution, but I suppose that's why no-one in Parliament has bothered with it.

[makyo]

I've noticed there's a strong correlation between "being on the other side of an argument to the Quakers" and "being judged harshly by later generations". So many things throughout history that they argued firmly in favour of have subsequently come to be regarded as obviously the right thing to do: the abolition of slavery, compassionate treatment of the mentally ill, prison reform, various forms of equality, universal suffrage, etc. Similarly, I believe that the next generation will look back at the current tiptoeing around marriage equality with a combination of bemusement and dismay

[sigmonster]

"but why the hell tell churches they can't perform ceremonies?"

This isn't the case - it's "not compulsory to perform", rather than "compulsory not to perform", and therefore is up to the religion (or to the individual congregation). It certainly used to be the case that civil marriage and civil partnerships could not take place in a religious building, a restriction left over from the original establishment of civil marriage in the early 1800s and never changed, but that was removed not long ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-17311555.

[andrewducker]

FTA:
"Under our plans no church, mosque, temple, synagogue or other religious premises will be forced to hold gay marriage ceremonies. - in fact, they won’t be allowed to even if they want to. Religious marriage between a gay couple will remain illegal."

[sigmonster]

Yes - the ability of places of worship to perform civil partnership is very new and was on my mind. I really cannot see any reason why a chapel could host a civil partnership but not a civil marriage between the same two individuals though...

[theweaselking]

According to the sentence before, she thinks "Civil marriages can’t happen inside a church now”.

Which is to say, she thinks that right now, legal marriage is "banned" inside churches, therefore future legal marriages will still be banned.

(That's kind of the way it is in Canada: There's no such thing as marriage that is not civil marriage. Your religious ceremony is completely irrelevant and has no meaning. All that matters is the paperwork - and you can do the paperwork at the ceremony if you want to, but who cares? Apparently, your Home Secretary thinks there's a rule PROHIBITING you from getting real-married in a church. From her reputation, I suspect being wrong about stuff like that is normal?)

[momentsmusicaux]

> It's the sound of an unsatisfied woman working to satisfy the already exploding male ego.

Hur hur. I see what he did there ;)

But seriously: yes.

[meaningrequired]

Why women shouldn't fake their orgasms.

Interesting post... and it seems to be aimed at women, maybe I've read it that way, with a little bit aimed at men.... but as a young woman growing up, I got the impression from males that if you didn't orgasm then there was something wrong with you, and then it becomes less about ego and more about "doing something wrong". I know that's all a load of rubbish, but its pressure and things to negotiate. I sort of wish sex education also included telling young people how the male and female orgasms can be different, (and similar) and that's okay.

Although overall I wish society would accept that people can be different, and that's ok.

[erratio]

Shy people take longer to get used to new people? Next you'll be telling me the shocking new discovery that water is wet.

(sorry, grumpy this morning. But as a shy person this struck me as one of those findings that reflects the bleeding obvious without adding much insight)

[andrewducker]

It didn't say that shy people take longer to get used to new people - this is much more specific than that, and can give clues as to _why_ it takes shy people longer to get used to new people. If there's something going on with lack of habituation to faces then that's very different to a deeply-rooted belief that ones opinions are not worth listening to.

[erratio]

"If there's something going on with lack of habituation to faces then that's very different to a deeply-rooted belief that ones opinions are not worth listening to."

That's true, I was being uncharitable. Noticing that I was grumpy should have been my cue to wait a couple of hours, not to go ahead and share said grumpiness. Sorry about that.

I think part of it for me is that my last 9 months in a completely new environment have really hammered the point home for me that even in the best of circumstances it takes me a long time to stop reacting to people as obvious threats. While I do also have problems thinking I'm not worth listening to, I've had enough variation in mood to notice that my mood has limited impact on the shyness (and it should have, if the problem was entirely self-worth) . The only thing that has obviously helped has been spending lots of time in their vicinity.