Here’s Why You’re Not an Elite Athlete (Ep. 351) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "FOXWORTH: I mean, Jay Z sold drugs, grew up in Marcy Projects to a single mother. Now he is a multi-multi-millionaire married to Beyoncé, the most amazing talent we have today. So why don’t we set it up so that all young men must sell drugs when they’re kids, and have only their mother, and grow up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, New York... I can go through the course of my life and look at all the things that happened that were just happenstance that led me to these positions, and I’m not going to say that it’s a model that should be followed. I understand that there are occasional outliers, but trying to build around that seems crazy."
Lauren Chen on Twitter - Harvard Business Review: "U.S. firefighters are overwhelmingly white and male. Here’s why that needs to change"
"Screw white men and their...
*Squints*
Disproportionate likelihood to put their lives at risk in order to save others"
The actual article doesn't actually support its headline claim that diversity will improve performance. But that is an article of faith, after all
Luckily the comments are bashing it - of the 11 comments as at the time I write this, 10 have an opinion and 8 are bashing the article
How Firefighters Help Explain the Outcome of 2016 Election - "According to Harold Schaitberger, who has been the union’s president for more than 15 years, the Democratic Party left his members behind — not the other way around — when it went all in on a bet to win minorities and college-educated whites and lost focus on its traditional blue-collar base... Trump earned levels of support among union members that the GOP hasn’t seen since Ronald Reagan. Members of the AFL-CIO labor federation overall voted for Hillary Clinton by a wide margin, according to an internal survey. But that obscures a wide and growing gap inside organized labor between different types of unions, such as the mainly white building trades and the heavily minority service-sector unions... “If they want to be inclusive, inclusive needs to be inclusive. And that is a message for all working class, middle class people of all ethnicities, race, gender, sexual preferences,” he said... Critics may infer gender bias among members, which is certainly possible. But Elizabeth Warren was the star of the firefighters’ national 2015 conference... Schaitberger sees their latest endorsement, for Labor Sec. Tom Perez in the Democratic National Committee Chair race, as a “good example of us that we don't just have this peculiar view” of only supporting white candidates."
Debate: Should Santa Claus be female or gender neutral? - "A recent study has claimed that 27.8% of people in the US and UK would prefer Santa to be either a woman or non-gendered. Of those, 10.6% say they want a female Santa, while 17.2% want the character to be gender neutral."
Surprise! The BBC and other media outlets lied about the "study". The question was actually: "If you could 'rebrand' Santa for modern society, what gender would he be?"
David Pakman on Twitter - "2 days ago @Amy_Siskind posted that she won't vote for white or male candidates in 2020. I pointed out this is racist and sexist. Yesterday she blocked me on Twitter. Today she called Boston College demanding they not have me back as adjunct faculty."
NUSWhispers - Posts - "Graduated from NUS, married with kids and now doing okay in the financial industry to be given a corner office in the financial district... For all the romantics, affairs are way more common than you think. Try throwing a rock in the mbfc area and you are more likely than not to hit someone who slept with someone outside a relationship... I used to be a romantic for monogamy too, until my husband confessed that he was sleeping with a colleague. At first I felt angry and divorce was on my mind. Then after a night of cool down, I was not going to dismantle my family because he stuck his dick in another female's hole. He was and is still a loving husband and father. For the sake of the kids, I told him no divorce if I could have my own fwbs too. Funny how when the tables are turned, males start reconsidering their actions. He agreed though, and the kids were none the wiser. In my industry, well-dressed, good-looking people working long hours together are conducive grounds for finding fwbs, and it was not difficult for me to find my own (two is all I can handle). Of course, there are ground rules, like protection to be worn at all times, to let each other know before liaisons with the fwbs, no getting pregnant or impregnating an fwb, and that family time is of paramount priority. I also go for and get my fwbs to go for regular health screenings. You are wrong if you think the sex is very frequent because we all lead busy lives. It's more like a catch up lunch, then followed by some private time together... Perversely, maybe due to the male ego, my husband insists on a session with me after he knows I had a liaison with one of my fwbs. Letting go of our insistence on sexual exclusivity has returned the much-needed spark to our relationship which has honestly gone stale before this."
Maren Ueland shared a video: - "Never judge people by their appearance"
"The bodies of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen and Maren Ueland were found in the High Atlas mountain range"
This is no longer available
Addendum: Norwegian Tourist Shared Pro-Muslim Video 3 Years Before Murder - "“Never judge people by their appearance. Dear All Must Share It,” an accompanying comment reads next to the post, which goes back to January 2015. Maren Ueland shared the video on her Facebook account."
Uber driver found not guilty of plotting terror - "A man who attacked police with a sword outside Buckingham Palace while repeatedly screaming Allahu Akbar has been found not guilty of preparing acts of terrorism.Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 27, told jurors his claims to support ISIS were 'in jest' and his attack was because he was 'depressed' and 'wanted police to kill him'.They unanimously acquitted the Uber driver... After that trial collapsed, Chowdhury was held at Belmarsh Prison - where he passed the time sketching pictures of an Islamist terrorist gunning down a man outside Number 10.His latest trial was shown the drawing - in which the attacker is depicted shouting Allahu Akbar as blood sprays on the front door - along with a sketch of a plane hitting the Twin Towers in New York.Prosecutors at this trial said Chowdhury had chosen 'self-radicalisation' and had scoured the internet for articles linked to Jihadi John and ISIS beheadings... Chowdhury claimed he was depressed and wanted police to kill him... In a WhatsApp group chat Chowdhury was asked if his profile picture was an ISIS flag, and he responded: 'It is an ISIS flag. I support ISIS,' followed by a laughing emoji. He later told jurors it was all 'in jest'... Further social media was revealed showing Chowdhury praising the Westminster Bridge terrorist Khalid Masood and claiming all the non-Muslim victims of the atrocity would go to hell. Chowdhury urged his family to 'struggle against the enemies of Allah' including the Queen and British soldiers in a suicide note left on his sister's laptop... Chowdhury had conducted internet searches for beheadings and 'Prophet Mohammed crimes' and 'Mohammed sex slaves'."
Lucky he wasn't from the "far right"
Imam Mohammad Tawhidi on Twitter - "While many in the West seek to ban/ruin Christmas, Muslim majority Iraq makes Christmas Day an official nationwide holiday to mark 'the birth of Jesus Christ'.
Jesus wins again."
Imam Mohammad Tawhidi on Twitter - "I don’t get it:
For the last 2 weeks we have had tens of cases where extremist Islamist clerics living in the West, have attacked Christmas and Santa. The MSM said nothing.
Trump asked a 7 year old if he believed in Santa, and the MSM is totally outraged.
Hypocrites "
Charlie Kirk on Twitter - "The left is perfectly fine with putting someone in prison if you use the wrong gender pronoun, but they don’t want illegal aliens to be deported or criminal aliens to be held accountable for their actions"
Florida Guy on Twitter - "In 1978, Democrats overwhelmingly approved $5 Billion in funding for Israel and Egypt for a Wall between them which we have funded every year since."
Garbage Human - Posts - "It matters to me and to countless others. You seem like a really talented person with a lot of amazing gifts. You have a great musical talent. If you need someone to talk to I would love to meet you sometime. You are loved by more people than you can ever imagine."
"You can’t even tweet about killing yourself anymore without instantly getting a thousand replies saying you matter from trump supporters. This site sucks."
"Imagine the rage you’d feel receiving compassion from a Trump supporter.
Orange man bad."
Howard Dean: We Need to Stay In Afghanistan to Spread Feminism - "Former DNC chair Howard Dean, who ran as an antiwar candidate in 2004 before selling his soul and becoming a shadow lobbyist, said Friday on Twitter we need to stay in Afghanistan in the name of feminism"
A 'dad' is tenth most popular Christmas list request for children - "A study of 2,000 British parents found most children will put a new baby brother or sister at the top of their Christmas list, closely followed by a request for a real-life reindeer. A "pet horse" was the third most popular choice, with a "car" making a bizarre entry at number four. Despite their material requests, the tenth most popular Christmas wish on the list was a "Dad"."
Alyssa Milano, Group's Co-Founder Denounce Women's March Leaders; They Issue Loaded Response - "The leadership of the Women's March has come under fire from some of the group's once most vocal supporters, including the woman who founded the group and actresses Alyssa Milano and Debra Messing. The embattled leaders have since responded to criticism with an "intersectionally" loaded statement blasting its critics. Earlier this year, feminist Tali Goldsheft launched a Change.org petition calling on the leadership of the Women's March ― Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez ― to resign, citing their affiliation with and refusal to condemn notorious racist, bigot, and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan... Women's March founder, Teresa Shook, added her voice to the growing chorus of feminists calling on Bland, Mallory, Sarsour and Perez to step down for allowing "bigotry, racism, anti-LGBT sentiment and anti-Semitism to become "part of the platform.""
Women's March hires Nation of Islam to do security. Yes, they pay a hate group. (update)
Report: First Time Women's March Leaders Met, Two Leaders Asserted Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories - "The first time the leadership of the Women’s March met, two of its leaders, Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez, allegedly promulgated such nasty anti-Semitism that according to sources for Tablet Magazine, the incident was buried for two years and is only now surfacing"
Women’s March Roiled by Accusations of Anti-Semitism - The New York Times - "Vanessa Wruble, a Brooklyn-based activist, said she told the group that her Jewish heritage inspired her to try to help repair the world. But she said the conversation took a turn when Tamika Mallory, a black gun control activist, and Carmen Perez, a Latina criminal justice reform activist, replied that Jews needed to confront their own role in racism... The rift is now so dire that there will be two marches on the same day next month on the streets of New York: one led by the Women’s March group, which is billed as being led by women of color, and another by a group affiliated with March On that is stressing its denunciation of anti-Semitism... Ms. Mallory denied that she disparaged Ms. Wruble’s Jewish heritage in that meeting, but acknowledged telling white women there that she did not trust them. “They are not trustworthy”
Intersectionality must have been created by the right to destroy the left from within
Anti-racism means discriminating against, stereotyping and slamming white people
Women's March Leader: Yeah, Jews Are White Supremacists
Saturday, March 02, 2019
The story of modern Japan
The story of modern Japan - History Extra
"One thing that critics within Japan will say is that for some reason, pop culture, you know, these things that we know about Japan, pop culture and politics have never seemed to bridge. They’ve never seemed to mix. So that pop culture ends up being a place where you can imagine Japan a different way. You can fantasize about an entirely different place, and you can enjoy that sort of escapism, a kind of catharsis and then you get back on the train and you go and work your 11 or 12 hour day and you put up with the politicians that you've been given. There isn't this idea that the way people imagine how Japan could be within pop culture, whether it's a film or TV drama, something else, these beautiful programs that get made, there isn't the sense that those ideas can somehow become part of the political mainstream. One seems to be insulated from the other.
And there was this really precious moment just briefly in 2011, after the terrible earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear meltdown, where it looked like a bridge might happen. There was a music video, an anonymous music video that went viral in Japan, just three weeks after Fukushima. And it was a guy who did a cover, a cover version of a song by a very famous pop artist called Saito Kazuyoshi, but he changed the words to this song and it was supposed to be, I always loved you, and he changed the title to it was always a lie, and the lyrics becomes this incredibly hard hitting vilification of the Japanese government and the nuclear industry saying, you told us nuclear power was safe. You told us it was the right thing for our country. Now we've got radiation clouds over God knows how much of Japan because you're not telling us the truth about how bad the radiation is, it's on the air, it's in the food. Who knows what's going to happen in Japan next, people have to wake up. And it went viral, as I say, and people were thinking, well, the real Saito Kazuyoshi whose song this originally was, is certainly going to sue because the idea was that in Japan, your pop stars are entertainers and companions, they don't give you political sermons. Punters don't want a sermon basically.
But in the end, he didn't sue because he turned out to be the guy in the video, he had dressed himself up anonymously with a mask on a trilby hat. And he had done a protest version of his own song because he was fed up with the way things are going. And the reaction on social media was, thank god at last, we've got someone from the pop industry who's actually going to talk about politics. So there is this appetite for bridging the two. And perhaps that's something that will see more of, perhaps in the future...
One of the really big issues for Japan now is its relationship with China and Korea, for the reasons that we just spoke about. There's always this call for the Japanese to reflect on that war. But what's really interesting is that if you look actually at the relationship between Japan and China since the war, the memory of that war in that relationship is switched on and switched off by the Chinese, by Koreans and others as kind of pragmatic need dictates.
So I'll give you a line that was once said, this was said in the early 1950s to some Japanese politicians: You can't be asked to apologize all the time, can you? It's not good to feel guilty all the time. And you know, who said that? That was Chairman Mao saying that. These Japanese politicians visiting China, because what he wanted was Japanese investment in China, what he wanted was to prise the Japanese away from the Americans a little bit in Asia for his own purposes. And he didn't want to talk about the war. He said, that's something for another day, you know. But depending on what China needs, on what Korea needs and what Japan needs as well, that memory gets switched on, and switched off remarkably effectively...
If we can think about the Second World War, at least in part, as an Imperial War, as a war between empires, British Empire, Japanese Empire and talk about what that means more broadly, then it becomes easier for people in Japan to reflect. Because I'll tell you how people in Japan feel - they feel that it's always and only the Japanese who are asked to apologize or feel bad or reflect more and see some double standards. And I think to an extent, they have a point...
They spent something like a fifth of the entire national budget in 1868, just on PR exercises for the Emperor. Touring him around the country, handing out free gifts, handing out sake to people to celebrate, to try and get them to connect with the Emperor"
"One thing that critics within Japan will say is that for some reason, pop culture, you know, these things that we know about Japan, pop culture and politics have never seemed to bridge. They’ve never seemed to mix. So that pop culture ends up being a place where you can imagine Japan a different way. You can fantasize about an entirely different place, and you can enjoy that sort of escapism, a kind of catharsis and then you get back on the train and you go and work your 11 or 12 hour day and you put up with the politicians that you've been given. There isn't this idea that the way people imagine how Japan could be within pop culture, whether it's a film or TV drama, something else, these beautiful programs that get made, there isn't the sense that those ideas can somehow become part of the political mainstream. One seems to be insulated from the other.
And there was this really precious moment just briefly in 2011, after the terrible earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear meltdown, where it looked like a bridge might happen. There was a music video, an anonymous music video that went viral in Japan, just three weeks after Fukushima. And it was a guy who did a cover, a cover version of a song by a very famous pop artist called Saito Kazuyoshi, but he changed the words to this song and it was supposed to be, I always loved you, and he changed the title to it was always a lie, and the lyrics becomes this incredibly hard hitting vilification of the Japanese government and the nuclear industry saying, you told us nuclear power was safe. You told us it was the right thing for our country. Now we've got radiation clouds over God knows how much of Japan because you're not telling us the truth about how bad the radiation is, it's on the air, it's in the food. Who knows what's going to happen in Japan next, people have to wake up. And it went viral, as I say, and people were thinking, well, the real Saito Kazuyoshi whose song this originally was, is certainly going to sue because the idea was that in Japan, your pop stars are entertainers and companions, they don't give you political sermons. Punters don't want a sermon basically.
But in the end, he didn't sue because he turned out to be the guy in the video, he had dressed himself up anonymously with a mask on a trilby hat. And he had done a protest version of his own song because he was fed up with the way things are going. And the reaction on social media was, thank god at last, we've got someone from the pop industry who's actually going to talk about politics. So there is this appetite for bridging the two. And perhaps that's something that will see more of, perhaps in the future...
One of the really big issues for Japan now is its relationship with China and Korea, for the reasons that we just spoke about. There's always this call for the Japanese to reflect on that war. But what's really interesting is that if you look actually at the relationship between Japan and China since the war, the memory of that war in that relationship is switched on and switched off by the Chinese, by Koreans and others as kind of pragmatic need dictates.
So I'll give you a line that was once said, this was said in the early 1950s to some Japanese politicians: You can't be asked to apologize all the time, can you? It's not good to feel guilty all the time. And you know, who said that? That was Chairman Mao saying that. These Japanese politicians visiting China, because what he wanted was Japanese investment in China, what he wanted was to prise the Japanese away from the Americans a little bit in Asia for his own purposes. And he didn't want to talk about the war. He said, that's something for another day, you know. But depending on what China needs, on what Korea needs and what Japan needs as well, that memory gets switched on, and switched off remarkably effectively...
If we can think about the Second World War, at least in part, as an Imperial War, as a war between empires, British Empire, Japanese Empire and talk about what that means more broadly, then it becomes easier for people in Japan to reflect. Because I'll tell you how people in Japan feel - they feel that it's always and only the Japanese who are asked to apologize or feel bad or reflect more and see some double standards. And I think to an extent, they have a point...
They spent something like a fifth of the entire national budget in 1868, just on PR exercises for the Emperor. Touring him around the country, handing out free gifts, handing out sake to people to celebrate, to try and get them to connect with the Emperor"
Links - 2nd March 2019 (1)
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Automata - "The engineering was extraordinarily in genius... there were increasingly sophisticated devices that enabled these statues to weep. You would use containers of liquid: vinegar, water, enamel, which often had fish in them. As the fish moved, the droplets would appear and course down the faces of the statues. You had, at least from the 1300s, the transference of mechanical wheelwork from clocks to church statues...
These objects were totally commonplace in the Arabic speaking world and in the Greek speaking world but virtually unknown in the sort of Latin Christian West until the very end of the 13th century. And so these objects became known in the Latin Christian West through diplomatic gifts like Harun al-Rashid's clock...
There's a really famous story in German literature by ETA Hoffman, the Sandman, about the Sandman, who, which is a story about a young student who falls in love with an automaton lady. And he goes mad from his love for her because he misinterprets visual data. This is quite interesting, because the automaton is the absolute imitation of perfect human workings. She sings perfectly, she dances perfectly, and it's the human that is malfunctioning. And this is at a time where people like Descartes are writing that the distinguishing feature of humans is reason but in what place does this put us when a human cannot exert its reason? And it's actually destroyed by the deception of an automaton. Where does that put us in comparison to the automaton?...
You couldn't really be sure what you were seeing. And added to that is the fact that oftentimes you would have mechanical birds, for example, that might be displayed alongside actual live birds. And the goal was to make the observer distrust their senses for a second. Is that, is that a bird? I think it's a bird. Oh, it's not a bird...
The only thing Europeans made that the Chinese were remotely interested in buying or getting until way into the 1800s were automata… clocks, above all. And they were called sing songs"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer - "President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor and an immediate policy goal for the Nazis was to conform all parts of German society to the Nazi Party program. Youth organizations, schools, walking groups, musical groups - everything had to be brought somehow under the gist of the party and conformed to its goals and character. And that was true too of the church. Hitler had grown up a Catholic and had a very clear sense, not least because of the church’s struggle with Bismarck in the 19th century… Hitler had a very clear sense that that needed to be resolved and moved with tremendous efficiency actually to to agree with the Catholic Church something called the Reich Concordat, which had the effect of neutering Catholic opposition. Prior to the Reich Concordat the Catholic Church banned Catholics from becoming members of the Nazi Party. Thereafter they legalized it. And crucially for Hitler, it removed the Catholic Centre Party, which was the only electoral obstacle still in his way… in North Germany, however, where the Protestant churches was strong, he had a sense that he had to do something, but his knowledge of the Protestants churches was was almost non existent. He didn't even know that there were 28 of them. He thought that there was a single national church like there was in the terms, in the Catholic sense...
He always felt instinctively right from the very beginning from early 1933 that this phase of the church struggle would not succeed. He felt that the confessing church didn't actually have the resources of leadership to sustain opposition to the state. And he also thought that opposing Nazism was almost impossible task when the state has at its disposal brownshirt bully boys to duff up any clergyman who opposes them. They have extra judicial internments in Dachau concentration camp. You can't resist the state for long like that. So Bonhoeffer always felt that what the church would have to do was to have sort of, I don't know, Christian Special Forces, if you like. Kind of small monastic communities, dedicated confessing clergy, who would form the nucleus of groups of Christian prepared to stand up to the Nazis, by protecting, particularly by protecting the vulnerable. And as he puts it, in one letter to the point of shedding blood, by which he means not killing others. But by being prepared to be killed, to stand, to defend the most vulnerable in society...
It's thought there might have been as many as 10 to 15 plots to assassinate Hitler over the years"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets - "Shakespeare’s plays hate children. They love to see horrible snarling… whining little children being killed...
‘[On Henry V] The slaughter of the prisoners in the, in the play itself is down to the killing of the children itself and so on, but no flaws.’
‘Well, I suppose it depends how you interpret that episode, of course, and often it gets left out when the play is performed, which I suppose is telling and certainly, yes, that's the one flaw that tends to be picked up on. And of course, it's led to this modern sense that Henry the Fifth should be regarded as a war criminal. But other historians would argue against that and say that actually the slaughter of the prisoners in that context, there's a French rearguard attack, they're trying to stop the French prisoners joining it. It doesn't actually contravene the contemporary chivalric norms. It wasn't without precedent. Strikingly, the French chroniclers, of whom there were many who commented on Agincourt, did not criticize Henry for this action.’"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Fable of the Bees - "Bernard Mandeville 1670-1733 scandalized the British establishment with his book Fable of the Bees in which he argued that private vices were essential to a healthy economy. Those who strive to make the world virtuous would make it poor he said. Dishonesty supports lawyers who then support their tailors and their cooks. And gambling diverts money from those who don't know its value to those who do and can invest it wisely. Many of our virtues, he wrote, are in fact disguised vices. Mandeville was one of the first to emphasize the role of the consumer in the economy rather than the state and he was to influence ideas from Adam Smith in the 18th century to Keynes and Hayek in the 20th...
[Talking about someone else?] He starts off, as is very popular at the time, adapting Aesop's Fables, either translating them or adding fables of your own and adding a moral at the end that has some kind of political slant. For example, in 1698 there is Aesopash [sp?] Islington which has the story of the Yeoman and the snake. The Yeoman takes in - the honest and kind Yeoman takes in a half starved snake and it recovers and bites him. And the moral is beware of all those Dutch immigrants that are coming in. They leave you with just their clogs, you're doing too much luxury trade and all we're getting is their immigrants... The frogs who wish for a king. They're running themselves but they get a bit bored. He thinks the English are always discontent with their contemporary political situation. They get a bit bored and they pray to Jove for a, for a king. He sends down a crane who starts to eat them. And the moral is: be careful what you ask for and also isn't it great that the English are content not to always change their government"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Free Radicals - "‘Most people now would see free radicals as being a part of aging, but not the driving cause of it. And there's the simple reason for that is that you, you add antioxidants in the hope of interfering with the process and they've never worked. If anything, they tend to be slightly detrimental. And it's partly that-’
‘Not eat your vegetables,’
‘No, you should definitely vegetables, you should probably not take large doses of vitamin C or vitamin E or beta carotene or things like that, because they can distort the balance, the body's natural balance. And you end up kind of suppressing the antioxidant enzymes, the proteins that detoxify these things, you suppress them instead. So everything you do has a kind of a counter effect in terms of physiology, and that means it's very difficult to interfere in these processes. Now, does that mean that free radicals are not relevant to aging, or only just an effect of aging? I don't think so. I still think that there's some some truth in the idea that free radicals are driving aging, but definitely interfering with antioxidants does not work. There's no question about that.’"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Horace - "Horace himself probably called them iambi, which refers to a meter. Iambics. And the associations of this meter were with what we call blame poetry. Insult, obscenity, attack poetry. And he was channeling an archaic Greek poet, Archilochus, who was reputed to have attacked his enemies so virulently that this family committed suicide, they hung themselves. So this was poetry as weapon as, instrument and attack poetry, which would have been appropriate to the period in which he's writing them, period of civil war and civil strife... He did call himself a pig from the herd of Epicurus. So, if he, if he has a philosophical affiliation, it is with the Epicureans and with the idea that pleasure is the end of life, the goal of life. But the important thing is that the things that stand in the way of it, stand in the way of enjoying the pleasure that is available to you. And that is fear of death primarily. So Horace as a lyric poet is appropriately an Epicurean because of their emphasis on the present, the now. And of course you get these tags like Carpe Diem which means really sort of slow things down, savor the day, not snatch it. And focus on the present"
Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet (Ep. 346) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "DUBNER: William Vogt predicted, specifically, personally, he predicted famine, which as you write, hasn’t come true. So in the 1940’s, the global famine death rate was about 785 people per 100,000 — so, call 800 per 100,000. It’s now 3 per 100,000...
So, The Economist has said that you have “an unshakeable belief that human ingenuity will sort everything out.” What’s that belief based on? Other than history?
MYHRVOLD: Well, historical experience. What do you mean, “other than history?” Our species has faced many, many great challenges. And when we face a great challenge, one of the things that we fall back on is technology. And frankly, that is what distinguishes us from other creatures. Most animals have to undergo biological evolution. They can’t learn and undergo a cultural evolution. When we went from being hunters and gatherers to being agriculturalists, that wasn’t because we evolved new kinds of limbs meant for agriculture. What it meant was we learned how to sow crops and harvest them and build a civilization that could stay in one place because we had a regular food supply. Every time we have a really powerful technology that really changes the world, well of course there’s problems that come up. And you can blame technology, but I think the constant in that equation is humans. So, of course we will over-exploit things, of course we will do a set of things that is very much human nature, but for most problems, we wind up realizing it eventually and we fix it... People get extreme, some people anyway, get extremely angry, and they say, “Oh, technology got us in this problem, why are using technology to get us out?” And that’s where I come to think of saying, “Well, okay so are you sincere about worrying about global warming? Or are you using global warming as a stalking horse for your political agenda?...
I am skeptical that we will solve it by just doing the right thing. And I mean that somewhat facetiously. To give an example, there was a little book that was popular a few years ago called 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth. Well, those are 50 simple things that you can do to feel self-righteous and none of them are going to save the world. And I think that approach, and that attitude, fundamentally mistakes what the problem is, and it creates a situation where people can feel good about themselves. “Oh, I unplugged my iPhone charger while I was away today.” And yet, no matter, even if all of us did that, it would not materially change what’s going to happen to global warming. We have to make actually very painful cuts, which our society isn’t very good at doing...
ROBINSON: We need to be careful about how we will move rapidly to having renewable energy in developing countries. Developing countries have become very ambitious to get renewable energy. We’re learning that there are human-rights abuses occurring where clean energy is being put into a country in the wrong way. And the wrong way tends to be mega projects that don’t have any concern for land rights or water rights or indigenous people’s rights to consent locally...
MYHRVOLD: The United States got scared of nuclear starting in the 1970’s and through the 1990’s. Then-Vice President Gore presided over the announcement of killing the last nuclear plant in the United States because we were going to build safe coal plants. Now we realize, inconveniently, that global warming is a threat."
Robert Higgs - MEMO TO: U.S. Representative Alexandria... - "TO: U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
FROM: Robert Higgs, Economist
Noticing that pretty much everything you say about economic matters is mistaken, I would like to offer you some advice about how you can avoid such errors. The first thing you should learn is called "opportunity cost." This is explained in the first chapter of any economics textbook. With an understanding of this concept under your belt, you can eliminate a large part of your errors. There are other important ideas you should master, but unless you gain a command of the concept of opportunity cost, you are destined to make a fool of yourself almost any time you talk about economic matters.
Incidentally, you might consider suing for malpractice the people responsible for awarding you a degree in economics at Boston University."
Vice: The right wing media is obsessed with Alexandria [Ocasio-Cortez].
Also Vice: let’s write 2962 articles on Trump. 🤷🏽♀️
Calls For Ethics Investigation Into Ocasio-Cortez After She Threatens Donald Trump Jr. - "Commenters pointed out that the act of threatening to use the power of Congress against other Americans for partisan gain is prohibited by ethics rules."
Charlie Kirk on Twitter - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Joy to the World! Merry Christmas everyone - here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)"
"Joseph and Mary were LEGAL citizens under King Herod governed under the Roman Empire - they traveled to Bethlehem as part of a census, a legal counting of people"
Ocasio Cortez Melts Down Over ‘100% False’ News That She’s Capitol Hill Mean Girl - "To mainstream media journalists, so protective of their craft, Ocasio-Cortez's criticism sounded an awful lot like President Donald Trump's refrain against leakers and anonymous sources (an inevitable loophole of journalism that he himself, it should be noted, had been happy to exploit). "This sounds a bit like the defense Donald Trump uses," tweeted CBS reporter Grace Segers. "If it contains anonymous sources, it is therefore 'fake news'."
'It Is More Important To Be Morally Right Than Factually Correct,' Says Woman Who Is Neither | The Babylon Bee
Ocasio-Cortez: People Too Concerned With Being 'Factually' Accurate. Fact Checker Smacks Her. - ""If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they're missing the forest for the trees," Ocasio-Cortez said after Cooper highlighted how The Washington Post has repeatedly called out her false claims. "I think that there's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right." Ocasio-Cortez's assertion that the fact checkers are just blowing up "one figure here or one word there," is not accurate. She has repeatedly shown a lack of understanding on many important issues, including how she plans to pay for the $40 trillion in far-left big government programs she supports, which she failed to answer during the interview.Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler weighed in on her comment, writing: "Sorry, not the right answer.""
I'm sure those who angst about post-truth will still support her
ALTERNATIVE FACTS? Pelosi to Homeland Security Secretary: ‘I Reject Your Facts’ - "In a tense meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about the U.S.-Mexico border — in which Nielsen was spieling out a slew of facts (the non-fungible kind) — Pelosi interrupted to declare: “I reject your facts.”"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dance video spurs false media claims of conservative outrage - "Perhaps the most overblown example was published by Newsweek, which wrote that “Conservatives mock Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for college dancing video, everyone else thinks it’s adorable,” while not citing any "conservatives" beyond the original anonymous Twitter account"
These objects were totally commonplace in the Arabic speaking world and in the Greek speaking world but virtually unknown in the sort of Latin Christian West until the very end of the 13th century. And so these objects became known in the Latin Christian West through diplomatic gifts like Harun al-Rashid's clock...
There's a really famous story in German literature by ETA Hoffman, the Sandman, about the Sandman, who, which is a story about a young student who falls in love with an automaton lady. And he goes mad from his love for her because he misinterprets visual data. This is quite interesting, because the automaton is the absolute imitation of perfect human workings. She sings perfectly, she dances perfectly, and it's the human that is malfunctioning. And this is at a time where people like Descartes are writing that the distinguishing feature of humans is reason but in what place does this put us when a human cannot exert its reason? And it's actually destroyed by the deception of an automaton. Where does that put us in comparison to the automaton?...
You couldn't really be sure what you were seeing. And added to that is the fact that oftentimes you would have mechanical birds, for example, that might be displayed alongside actual live birds. And the goal was to make the observer distrust their senses for a second. Is that, is that a bird? I think it's a bird. Oh, it's not a bird...
The only thing Europeans made that the Chinese were remotely interested in buying or getting until way into the 1800s were automata… clocks, above all. And they were called sing songs"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer - "President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor and an immediate policy goal for the Nazis was to conform all parts of German society to the Nazi Party program. Youth organizations, schools, walking groups, musical groups - everything had to be brought somehow under the gist of the party and conformed to its goals and character. And that was true too of the church. Hitler had grown up a Catholic and had a very clear sense, not least because of the church’s struggle with Bismarck in the 19th century… Hitler had a very clear sense that that needed to be resolved and moved with tremendous efficiency actually to to agree with the Catholic Church something called the Reich Concordat, which had the effect of neutering Catholic opposition. Prior to the Reich Concordat the Catholic Church banned Catholics from becoming members of the Nazi Party. Thereafter they legalized it. And crucially for Hitler, it removed the Catholic Centre Party, which was the only electoral obstacle still in his way… in North Germany, however, where the Protestant churches was strong, he had a sense that he had to do something, but his knowledge of the Protestants churches was was almost non existent. He didn't even know that there were 28 of them. He thought that there was a single national church like there was in the terms, in the Catholic sense...
He always felt instinctively right from the very beginning from early 1933 that this phase of the church struggle would not succeed. He felt that the confessing church didn't actually have the resources of leadership to sustain opposition to the state. And he also thought that opposing Nazism was almost impossible task when the state has at its disposal brownshirt bully boys to duff up any clergyman who opposes them. They have extra judicial internments in Dachau concentration camp. You can't resist the state for long like that. So Bonhoeffer always felt that what the church would have to do was to have sort of, I don't know, Christian Special Forces, if you like. Kind of small monastic communities, dedicated confessing clergy, who would form the nucleus of groups of Christian prepared to stand up to the Nazis, by protecting, particularly by protecting the vulnerable. And as he puts it, in one letter to the point of shedding blood, by which he means not killing others. But by being prepared to be killed, to stand, to defend the most vulnerable in society...
It's thought there might have been as many as 10 to 15 plots to assassinate Hitler over the years"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets - "Shakespeare’s plays hate children. They love to see horrible snarling… whining little children being killed...
‘[On Henry V] The slaughter of the prisoners in the, in the play itself is down to the killing of the children itself and so on, but no flaws.’
‘Well, I suppose it depends how you interpret that episode, of course, and often it gets left out when the play is performed, which I suppose is telling and certainly, yes, that's the one flaw that tends to be picked up on. And of course, it's led to this modern sense that Henry the Fifth should be regarded as a war criminal. But other historians would argue against that and say that actually the slaughter of the prisoners in that context, there's a French rearguard attack, they're trying to stop the French prisoners joining it. It doesn't actually contravene the contemporary chivalric norms. It wasn't without precedent. Strikingly, the French chroniclers, of whom there were many who commented on Agincourt, did not criticize Henry for this action.’"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Fable of the Bees - "Bernard Mandeville 1670-1733 scandalized the British establishment with his book Fable of the Bees in which he argued that private vices were essential to a healthy economy. Those who strive to make the world virtuous would make it poor he said. Dishonesty supports lawyers who then support their tailors and their cooks. And gambling diverts money from those who don't know its value to those who do and can invest it wisely. Many of our virtues, he wrote, are in fact disguised vices. Mandeville was one of the first to emphasize the role of the consumer in the economy rather than the state and he was to influence ideas from Adam Smith in the 18th century to Keynes and Hayek in the 20th...
[Talking about someone else?] He starts off, as is very popular at the time, adapting Aesop's Fables, either translating them or adding fables of your own and adding a moral at the end that has some kind of political slant. For example, in 1698 there is Aesopash [sp?] Islington which has the story of the Yeoman and the snake. The Yeoman takes in - the honest and kind Yeoman takes in a half starved snake and it recovers and bites him. And the moral is beware of all those Dutch immigrants that are coming in. They leave you with just their clogs, you're doing too much luxury trade and all we're getting is their immigrants... The frogs who wish for a king. They're running themselves but they get a bit bored. He thinks the English are always discontent with their contemporary political situation. They get a bit bored and they pray to Jove for a, for a king. He sends down a crane who starts to eat them. And the moral is: be careful what you ask for and also isn't it great that the English are content not to always change their government"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Free Radicals - "‘Most people now would see free radicals as being a part of aging, but not the driving cause of it. And there's the simple reason for that is that you, you add antioxidants in the hope of interfering with the process and they've never worked. If anything, they tend to be slightly detrimental. And it's partly that-’
‘Not eat your vegetables,’
‘No, you should definitely vegetables, you should probably not take large doses of vitamin C or vitamin E or beta carotene or things like that, because they can distort the balance, the body's natural balance. And you end up kind of suppressing the antioxidant enzymes, the proteins that detoxify these things, you suppress them instead. So everything you do has a kind of a counter effect in terms of physiology, and that means it's very difficult to interfere in these processes. Now, does that mean that free radicals are not relevant to aging, or only just an effect of aging? I don't think so. I still think that there's some some truth in the idea that free radicals are driving aging, but definitely interfering with antioxidants does not work. There's no question about that.’"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Horace - "Horace himself probably called them iambi, which refers to a meter. Iambics. And the associations of this meter were with what we call blame poetry. Insult, obscenity, attack poetry. And he was channeling an archaic Greek poet, Archilochus, who was reputed to have attacked his enemies so virulently that this family committed suicide, they hung themselves. So this was poetry as weapon as, instrument and attack poetry, which would have been appropriate to the period in which he's writing them, period of civil war and civil strife... He did call himself a pig from the herd of Epicurus. So, if he, if he has a philosophical affiliation, it is with the Epicureans and with the idea that pleasure is the end of life, the goal of life. But the important thing is that the things that stand in the way of it, stand in the way of enjoying the pleasure that is available to you. And that is fear of death primarily. So Horace as a lyric poet is appropriately an Epicurean because of their emphasis on the present, the now. And of course you get these tags like Carpe Diem which means really sort of slow things down, savor the day, not snatch it. And focus on the present"
Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet (Ep. 346) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "DUBNER: William Vogt predicted, specifically, personally, he predicted famine, which as you write, hasn’t come true. So in the 1940’s, the global famine death rate was about 785 people per 100,000 — so, call 800 per 100,000. It’s now 3 per 100,000...
So, The Economist has said that you have “an unshakeable belief that human ingenuity will sort everything out.” What’s that belief based on? Other than history?
MYHRVOLD: Well, historical experience. What do you mean, “other than history?” Our species has faced many, many great challenges. And when we face a great challenge, one of the things that we fall back on is technology. And frankly, that is what distinguishes us from other creatures. Most animals have to undergo biological evolution. They can’t learn and undergo a cultural evolution. When we went from being hunters and gatherers to being agriculturalists, that wasn’t because we evolved new kinds of limbs meant for agriculture. What it meant was we learned how to sow crops and harvest them and build a civilization that could stay in one place because we had a regular food supply. Every time we have a really powerful technology that really changes the world, well of course there’s problems that come up. And you can blame technology, but I think the constant in that equation is humans. So, of course we will over-exploit things, of course we will do a set of things that is very much human nature, but for most problems, we wind up realizing it eventually and we fix it... People get extreme, some people anyway, get extremely angry, and they say, “Oh, technology got us in this problem, why are using technology to get us out?” And that’s where I come to think of saying, “Well, okay so are you sincere about worrying about global warming? Or are you using global warming as a stalking horse for your political agenda?...
I am skeptical that we will solve it by just doing the right thing. And I mean that somewhat facetiously. To give an example, there was a little book that was popular a few years ago called 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth. Well, those are 50 simple things that you can do to feel self-righteous and none of them are going to save the world. And I think that approach, and that attitude, fundamentally mistakes what the problem is, and it creates a situation where people can feel good about themselves. “Oh, I unplugged my iPhone charger while I was away today.” And yet, no matter, even if all of us did that, it would not materially change what’s going to happen to global warming. We have to make actually very painful cuts, which our society isn’t very good at doing...
ROBINSON: We need to be careful about how we will move rapidly to having renewable energy in developing countries. Developing countries have become very ambitious to get renewable energy. We’re learning that there are human-rights abuses occurring where clean energy is being put into a country in the wrong way. And the wrong way tends to be mega projects that don’t have any concern for land rights or water rights or indigenous people’s rights to consent locally...
MYHRVOLD: The United States got scared of nuclear starting in the 1970’s and through the 1990’s. Then-Vice President Gore presided over the announcement of killing the last nuclear plant in the United States because we were going to build safe coal plants. Now we realize, inconveniently, that global warming is a threat."
Robert Higgs - MEMO TO: U.S. Representative Alexandria... - "TO: U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
FROM: Robert Higgs, Economist
Noticing that pretty much everything you say about economic matters is mistaken, I would like to offer you some advice about how you can avoid such errors. The first thing you should learn is called "opportunity cost." This is explained in the first chapter of any economics textbook. With an understanding of this concept under your belt, you can eliminate a large part of your errors. There are other important ideas you should master, but unless you gain a command of the concept of opportunity cost, you are destined to make a fool of yourself almost any time you talk about economic matters.
Incidentally, you might consider suing for malpractice the people responsible for awarding you a degree in economics at Boston University."
Vice: The right wing media is obsessed with Alexandria [Ocasio-Cortez].
Also Vice: let’s write 2962 articles on Trump. 🤷🏽♀️
Calls For Ethics Investigation Into Ocasio-Cortez After She Threatens Donald Trump Jr. - "Commenters pointed out that the act of threatening to use the power of Congress against other Americans for partisan gain is prohibited by ethics rules."
Charlie Kirk on Twitter - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Joy to the World! Merry Christmas everyone - here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)"
"Joseph and Mary were LEGAL citizens under King Herod governed under the Roman Empire - they traveled to Bethlehem as part of a census, a legal counting of people"
Ocasio Cortez Melts Down Over ‘100% False’ News That She’s Capitol Hill Mean Girl - "To mainstream media journalists, so protective of their craft, Ocasio-Cortez's criticism sounded an awful lot like President Donald Trump's refrain against leakers and anonymous sources (an inevitable loophole of journalism that he himself, it should be noted, had been happy to exploit). "This sounds a bit like the defense Donald Trump uses," tweeted CBS reporter Grace Segers. "If it contains anonymous sources, it is therefore 'fake news'."
'It Is More Important To Be Morally Right Than Factually Correct,' Says Woman Who Is Neither | The Babylon Bee
Ocasio-Cortez: People Too Concerned With Being 'Factually' Accurate. Fact Checker Smacks Her. - ""If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they're missing the forest for the trees," Ocasio-Cortez said after Cooper highlighted how The Washington Post has repeatedly called out her false claims. "I think that there's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right." Ocasio-Cortez's assertion that the fact checkers are just blowing up "one figure here or one word there," is not accurate. She has repeatedly shown a lack of understanding on many important issues, including how she plans to pay for the $40 trillion in far-left big government programs she supports, which she failed to answer during the interview.Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler weighed in on her comment, writing: "Sorry, not the right answer.""
I'm sure those who angst about post-truth will still support her
ALTERNATIVE FACTS? Pelosi to Homeland Security Secretary: ‘I Reject Your Facts’ - "In a tense meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about the U.S.-Mexico border — in which Nielsen was spieling out a slew of facts (the non-fungible kind) — Pelosi interrupted to declare: “I reject your facts.”"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dance video spurs false media claims of conservative outrage - "Perhaps the most overblown example was published by Newsweek, which wrote that “Conservatives mock Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for college dancing video, everyone else thinks it’s adorable,” while not citing any "conservatives" beyond the original anonymous Twitter account"
Friday, March 01, 2019
Links - 1st March 2019
America’s .. Duopoly (Ep. 356) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "GEHL: In fact, John Adams said at one point, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and concerting measures in opposition to each other.” And if you take a look at George Washington’s farewell address, which he wrote in 1796, he talks about dangers, which could come in front of the Republic in the future. And he specifically focuses on two. One is foreign influence, and the other is partisanship. The other danger is the formation of strong parties...
our political parties work well together in one particular area, and that is actually colluding together, over time, behind the scenes, to create rules and practices that essentially erect barriers to entry, ways to keep out new competition.
In their report, Gehl and Porter identify the “five key inputs to modern political competition: candidates, campaign talent, voter data, idea suppliers, and lobbyists.” Here’s what they write: “Increasingly, most everything required to run a modern campaign and govern is tied to or heavily influenced by one party or the other, including think tanks, voter data, and talent.”...
The lack of vigorous competition, they argue, has allowed the Democrats and Republicans to carve out diametrically opposed political bases, fairly narrow and extremely partisan.
GEHL: So years ago, we created partisan primaries in order to actually take the selection of a candidate out of this “smoke-filled back room” and give the selection of the party candidate choice to citizens. So that was designed to give more control to citizens. It turns out it has had a very deleterious effect on competition, and has increased the power of the parties.
And the parties, Gehl and Porter argue, use those partisan bases to support the desires of the political industry’s true customers, and its wealthiest: special interests. Industries like healthcare, real estate, and financial services; also, labor unions and lobbyists. In this duopolistic business model, polarization is a feature, not a bug.
PORTER: We have a chart in our report that just selects some, what we call landmark-type legislation over the last 50, 60 years. And if you go back even 20 or 30 years ago, the landmark legislation was consensus.
For instance: the Social Security Act of 1935 had 90 percent Democratic support and 75 percent Republican. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had 60 percent Democratic support and, again, 75 percent Republican...
Think back to the 2016 presidential election. You had one national party, the Democrats, that tried as hard as it could — to the point of cheating, essentially — to pre-select its candidate, Hillary Clinton, who then lost. And you had the other national party, the Republicans, try as hard as it could to keep a certain candidate off the ballot — but they failed, and he won."
Donald Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees - "The Trump administration is resuming its efforts to deport certain protected Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades—many of them having fled the country during the Vietnam War."
Mischievous article by the Atlantic. If you didn't read the article you wouldn't find out that these Vietnamese are “violent criminal aliens.”. And if you didn't read the whole article you wouldn't know that they have been convicted - so it's not just Trump's allegations
Undocumented Irish Caught In Trump's Immigration Dragnet - ""It's really indiscriminate. ICE, in their aggressive tactics of detention, are going after the Irish as much as they're going after any other nationality," says Ronnie Millar, director of the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston... Millar, director of the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston, says that Irish immigrants are "on high alert." "They have no confidence that the color of their skin provides any protection for them," he says. O'Riordan didn't necessarily think being white would save him from deportation orders. He thought staying out of trouble would keep him under the radar. He says other detainees are surprised he was arrested."
White privilege!
Green card doctor faces deportation 26 years after committing minor offence as a teen - "A doctor who has lived in the US for almost 40 years has been arrested and threatened with deportation over minor offences he committed as a teenager. Polish national Lukasz Niec was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on a permanent green card with his wife and two daughters when immigration agents stormed into his home last week and took him into custody. His detention stems from two minor crimes he committed as a 17-year-old: destruction of property worth less than $100, and receiving and concealing stolen goods"
Strange, I was told this only happens to non-white people
Why Are Immigrants Being Deported for Minor Crimes? - "Sylvain is one of thousands of immigrants who have been charged with “aggravated felonies” by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The term, first introduced in the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, applies specifically to immigrants and asylum-seekers: If they’re convicted of any of the crimes in this category, they can be deported and prohibited from reentering the U.S. for 20 years. In 1988, the list of aggravated felonies was limited to serious crimes such as murder and drug trafficking. But Congress expanded the definition over the years, most extensively in 1996."
It's all Trump's fault
*Steve Locke story moved to a dedicated BLM post*
our political parties work well together in one particular area, and that is actually colluding together, over time, behind the scenes, to create rules and practices that essentially erect barriers to entry, ways to keep out new competition.
In their report, Gehl and Porter identify the “five key inputs to modern political competition: candidates, campaign talent, voter data, idea suppliers, and lobbyists.” Here’s what they write: “Increasingly, most everything required to run a modern campaign and govern is tied to or heavily influenced by one party or the other, including think tanks, voter data, and talent.”...
The lack of vigorous competition, they argue, has allowed the Democrats and Republicans to carve out diametrically opposed political bases, fairly narrow and extremely partisan.
GEHL: So years ago, we created partisan primaries in order to actually take the selection of a candidate out of this “smoke-filled back room” and give the selection of the party candidate choice to citizens. So that was designed to give more control to citizens. It turns out it has had a very deleterious effect on competition, and has increased the power of the parties.
And the parties, Gehl and Porter argue, use those partisan bases to support the desires of the political industry’s true customers, and its wealthiest: special interests. Industries like healthcare, real estate, and financial services; also, labor unions and lobbyists. In this duopolistic business model, polarization is a feature, not a bug.
PORTER: We have a chart in our report that just selects some, what we call landmark-type legislation over the last 50, 60 years. And if you go back even 20 or 30 years ago, the landmark legislation was consensus.
For instance: the Social Security Act of 1935 had 90 percent Democratic support and 75 percent Republican. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had 60 percent Democratic support and, again, 75 percent Republican...
Think back to the 2016 presidential election. You had one national party, the Democrats, that tried as hard as it could — to the point of cheating, essentially — to pre-select its candidate, Hillary Clinton, who then lost. And you had the other national party, the Republicans, try as hard as it could to keep a certain candidate off the ballot — but they failed, and he won."
Donald Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees - "The Trump administration is resuming its efforts to deport certain protected Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades—many of them having fled the country during the Vietnam War."
Mischievous article by the Atlantic. If you didn't read the article you wouldn't find out that these Vietnamese are “violent criminal aliens.”. And if you didn't read the whole article you wouldn't know that they have been convicted - so it's not just Trump's allegations
Undocumented Irish Caught In Trump's Immigration Dragnet - ""It's really indiscriminate. ICE, in their aggressive tactics of detention, are going after the Irish as much as they're going after any other nationality," says Ronnie Millar, director of the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston... Millar, director of the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston, says that Irish immigrants are "on high alert." "They have no confidence that the color of their skin provides any protection for them," he says. O'Riordan didn't necessarily think being white would save him from deportation orders. He thought staying out of trouble would keep him under the radar. He says other detainees are surprised he was arrested."
White privilege!
Green card doctor faces deportation 26 years after committing minor offence as a teen - "A doctor who has lived in the US for almost 40 years has been arrested and threatened with deportation over minor offences he committed as a teenager. Polish national Lukasz Niec was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on a permanent green card with his wife and two daughters when immigration agents stormed into his home last week and took him into custody. His detention stems from two minor crimes he committed as a 17-year-old: destruction of property worth less than $100, and receiving and concealing stolen goods"
Strange, I was told this only happens to non-white people
Why Are Immigrants Being Deported for Minor Crimes? - "Sylvain is one of thousands of immigrants who have been charged with “aggravated felonies” by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The term, first introduced in the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, applies specifically to immigrants and asylum-seekers: If they’re convicted of any of the crimes in this category, they can be deported and prohibited from reentering the U.S. for 20 years. In 1988, the list of aggravated felonies was limited to serious crimes such as murder and drug trafficking. But Congress expanded the definition over the years, most extensively in 1996."
It's all Trump's fault
*Steve Locke story moved to a dedicated BLM post*
Clara Sorrenti⚙️ on Twitter - "Whether you like it or not, Joseph Stalin was one of the greatest anti-fascists in the history of the anti-fascist movement. Under Stalin's command, the Red Army defeated the nazis and saved several ethnic groups from nazi extermination. This is a legacy we cannot forget.
h on Twitter - "When you say Stalin was good, you're standing with:
W.E.B. DuBois
Frida Kahlo
Albert Einstein
Che Guevara
Nelson Mandela
Huey P. Newton
When you say he was bad, you're antagonizing these people, their supporters and readers, their ideas, and standing with Nazis."
Tim Pool - Childish Gambino makes a video where he kills a ton of... - "Childish Gambino makes a video where he kills a ton of people with guns.
Monetized, approved.
Youtuber makes Edgy Humor?
Heeeellll no
Independent News Content?
No fucking way
If you arent a mainstream corporation Youtube will come for you eventually"
How the Weighted Blanket Became a Must-Have Holiday Gift - "the triumphant story of the Gravity Blanket and many of its new contemporaries sounds more like a story of appropriation—a story about the sale of the special-needs community’s promise of life-changing comfort to the meditation-app-using, Instagram-shopping masses... the mainstreaming of the weighted blanket seems to imply a conflating of chronic anxiety or sensory issues with feelings of stress—or, perhaps more ominously, the repackaging of a coping strategy that originated in a marginalized community as a profitable relaxation fad at a moment when people feel particularly stressed.
We knew the grievance mongering wouldn't stop at "cultural appropriation"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Augustine's Confessions - "Famously, the time he stole pears as a child, not because he wanted to eat them, but because he wanted to steal...
Essentially, there had been this belief that if they could convert the Roman Empire, if Christianity could convert the Roman Empire, basically if paganism could be got away with... then surely this would bring Christ back. And this is the great trauma of the early churches. Jesus says in the Gospels, or it's reported that he says: before some of you here die, I will return. When they die, that was a bit of a crisis. What had happened? So there was this whole debate, well, is it because we're not good enough? Is it because we haven't converted enough? Is it because we're still grappling with the powers of Satan and paganism and so forth? And then gradually you get this sense as it heads up towards Constantine's conversion and his legitimation of Christianity in 312, that maybe this is the turning point, maybe this sort of existential dimension of Christianity, at last, we're gonna have control, at last the Kingdom of God can come on earth, at last Christ can return. And he doesn't because frankly he screws up. Well, what happens is the moment the church actually gets its hands on a great deal of money, a great deal of prestige, an awful lot of people suddenly decide they want to be Christians who to be absolutely honest are a bit iffy...
Up until that time, people in the Latin speaking world had tended to see the Bible as a kind of source of folk wisdom... it's the wisdom of fishermen. But what Ambrose does... a super literate, fluent in Greek, philosophically trained mind whose leisure time seems to be spent reading third century Greek philosophers, and among them, critically is the philosopher, Christian philosopher Origen of Caesaria, who's the person who really developed the idea of allegory in the New Testament, taking an idea that's already there in the Platonic tradition, but really bringing it over to Christianity, not only the New Testament, but also those lascivious stories of the Hebrew Bible as well. He finds that it's really an allegory. The Book of Kings, they're all having war back and forth. How can this be religious? Of course, the answer is it's an allegory for the war within the soul...
In the City of God, Book 14, he talks about the sin of Adam... he specifically goes back and he says, you think that the sin of Adam was sex because they are fruitful and multiply after they eat the fruit of the apple, but... that's not how it works. The sin of Adam is that moment of pride where he sets himself apart from god. And he actually says that the real sign of that is male impotence. It's not the fact that men are constantly lusting when they don't want to lust. It's the fact that their body won't always follow them when they do want to lust. That's the real sign of the human will being torn out of the divine unity."
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Iliad - "There are critical readings that say the tragedy is, ever since the Second World War, people have read it as a great pacifist polemic about the pain and the suffering of violence. I'm afraid we're talking about an ancient Greek warrior society, whether it's the 13th, the eighth or the fifth century BC, which is almost always at war, where men are trained for war and men are excited by war, and there may well have been lots of women who wished they'd hang it up and stop it. But that was all the aristocrats, aristocracy knew what to do and it's how they spent their whole time training. And I think they found the poetry of it very exciting...
My take is that the genius consists, whoever it was, in not describing the fall of Troy, in the Iliad. Why is the Iliad called the Iliad? It's a nonsense because Iliad means the poem about Ilios or Ilion, Troy. And actually Troy doesn't fall in the Ilios. And it's not about the death of Achilles, which is the most interesting and exciting aspect because of what was then thought about the fact that he lived so shorter life and yet he lives on eternally in memory. So those two absolutely cardinal facts about the Trojan War story excluded though adumbrated, referred to, and so on - brilliant. Absolute genius that whoever it was, I imagine there was one guy, I call him the monumental, I call him the monumental composer...
‘Is there any consensus about the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus?’
‘There is no homosexual sex whatsoever between them in the Iliad. There's plenty outside the Iliad. Whoever put that thing together in the form it's in not only decided not to but actually makes sure he tells us that they’re each sleeping on opposite sides of the tent with their own woman. That is a detail that someone has gone out of their way to put in. And I think that makes it much more profound. And if you do actually read, I'm not one of these people who thinks that Iliad is about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. However, when you read about what happens to ordinary soldiers, especially when they got a weak commander they don't trust, that not trusting commander is a crucial thing. In a passionate way, they get just one other soldier in an intense friendship, not at all sexual, but they call each other mom, they call each other pop, they bathe each other. Because when you're stuck in some swamp in some part of the world that you don't know, that one intense relationship, and I actually think by not making it sexual, he has completely trumped the relationship with Briseis'"
The Gender Paradox of the Nordic Welfare State
The Gender Paradox of the Nordic Welfare State
"Western liberals have a special place in their hearts for the Nordic countries. Their affection is nurtured by a conviction that done correctly, public policy can magically smooth out human contradiction and rid us of difficult tradeoffs. Nowhere is that hope more pronounced than in the Nordic policies related to gender, work, and family life, particularly as they affect women. Work/family, career/children, ambition/breastfeeding, family dinners, and hygge: In these gender-leveling countries, you really can have it all.
Except as the Kurdish-Swedish writer Nima Sanandaji shows in “The Nordic Glass Ceiling,” a paper he wrote for the Cato Institute, that’s just so much wishful thinking. Enthusiasm for women’s balanced lives in Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden has rested on cherry-picked numbers, half-truths, and a stubborn denial of unintended consequences...
The Nordic generosity towards young families does appear to increase female labor force participation... Maybe, but—and in policy, as in life, there is always a but—women pay a price. A UCLA study found that merely 11% of managers and professionals in Sweden are women, a number markedly lower than in many other developed economies, including France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Notably, Iceland—the Nordic country with a smallish welfare state and with by far the shortest parental leave—ranks among the highest in the share of female managers in the world. The U.S. also stands as a rebuke to the common activist claim that generous family leave is a requirement for boosting gender equality. American women have a similarly high ratio of managers and professionals as Iceland, with no federal requirement for paid leave at all.
A growing body of research points to one reason for what many people might think of as counterintuitive findings: lengthy parental leave unintentionally pushes women to lose momentum in developing human capital and workplace seniority and to put more energy into domestic life. One paper quoted by Sanandaji concludes that parental leave not only doesn’t overcome the gender divisions of labor, it “may possibly exacerbate them.”
More ironically yet, the high taxes necessary to maintain the family-friendly welfare state also encourage women to work fewer hours. High taxes reduce the “opportunity costs” to working 30 instead of 40 hours (or part time, a particularly common arrangement among Nordic women.) High taxes also mean that “substitutable services”—private babysitters, prepared foods, house cleaners—remain out of reach for middle-class women. (Again, Iceland is an exception when it comes to taxes; its rates are relatively low).
Now, gender equality and women in executive positions are not the only goods in life, and it could well be that children, mothers, and possibly even fathers, are better off with more family time and respite from the frenzied work-and-spend treadmill endured by many two-career families in the United States. Media reports tend to show Scandinavians to be fairly content with their lot...
Sweden, Iceland, and Norway have created hard-to-resist government incentives to get parents to share leave time equally. Fathers have between 10 and 12 weeks reserved specifically for them. (Norway’s daddy quota is only 4 weeks). Mothers have a similar number of weeks assigned to them and the rest is for couples to decide. As expected, fathers take more leave than they did before these reforms, but they still account for less than 30% of the total time available to parents. In Denmark and Finland, men take less than 9% of total leave. Recently, Denmark debated a new policy reserving more leave specifically for fathers. It was mothers who objected: they didn’t want to give up any mommy time. Swedes with children under school age have a right to shorten their work hours without risking their jobs. The result? 43% of mothers with young children work part time, compared to 10% of fathers, and gender wage gaps remain close to the OECD average, about where they were before the reforms.
As Sanandaji observes, Nordics have also turned to quotas in their quest for gender parity. In 2003, Norway passed a law requiring women to have 40% of the board seats in public companies. So far, the law has not gone as expected: there was no appreciable impact on the gender pay gap, or on women’s career plans. In fact, Norwegian companies had less experienced board members, greater company leverage, higher company acquisition rates, and declining operating performance. About 20% of the companies that would have been affected by the legislation changed their corporate ownership structure to get out of the requirement"
"Western liberals have a special place in their hearts for the Nordic countries. Their affection is nurtured by a conviction that done correctly, public policy can magically smooth out human contradiction and rid us of difficult tradeoffs. Nowhere is that hope more pronounced than in the Nordic policies related to gender, work, and family life, particularly as they affect women. Work/family, career/children, ambition/breastfeeding, family dinners, and hygge: In these gender-leveling countries, you really can have it all.
Except as the Kurdish-Swedish writer Nima Sanandaji shows in “The Nordic Glass Ceiling,” a paper he wrote for the Cato Institute, that’s just so much wishful thinking. Enthusiasm for women’s balanced lives in Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden has rested on cherry-picked numbers, half-truths, and a stubborn denial of unintended consequences...
The Nordic generosity towards young families does appear to increase female labor force participation... Maybe, but—and in policy, as in life, there is always a but—women pay a price. A UCLA study found that merely 11% of managers and professionals in Sweden are women, a number markedly lower than in many other developed economies, including France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Notably, Iceland—the Nordic country with a smallish welfare state and with by far the shortest parental leave—ranks among the highest in the share of female managers in the world. The U.S. also stands as a rebuke to the common activist claim that generous family leave is a requirement for boosting gender equality. American women have a similarly high ratio of managers and professionals as Iceland, with no federal requirement for paid leave at all.
A growing body of research points to one reason for what many people might think of as counterintuitive findings: lengthy parental leave unintentionally pushes women to lose momentum in developing human capital and workplace seniority and to put more energy into domestic life. One paper quoted by Sanandaji concludes that parental leave not only doesn’t overcome the gender divisions of labor, it “may possibly exacerbate them.”
More ironically yet, the high taxes necessary to maintain the family-friendly welfare state also encourage women to work fewer hours. High taxes reduce the “opportunity costs” to working 30 instead of 40 hours (or part time, a particularly common arrangement among Nordic women.) High taxes also mean that “substitutable services”—private babysitters, prepared foods, house cleaners—remain out of reach for middle-class women. (Again, Iceland is an exception when it comes to taxes; its rates are relatively low).
Now, gender equality and women in executive positions are not the only goods in life, and it could well be that children, mothers, and possibly even fathers, are better off with more family time and respite from the frenzied work-and-spend treadmill endured by many two-career families in the United States. Media reports tend to show Scandinavians to be fairly content with their lot...
Sweden, Iceland, and Norway have created hard-to-resist government incentives to get parents to share leave time equally. Fathers have between 10 and 12 weeks reserved specifically for them. (Norway’s daddy quota is only 4 weeks). Mothers have a similar number of weeks assigned to them and the rest is for couples to decide. As expected, fathers take more leave than they did before these reforms, but they still account for less than 30% of the total time available to parents. In Denmark and Finland, men take less than 9% of total leave. Recently, Denmark debated a new policy reserving more leave specifically for fathers. It was mothers who objected: they didn’t want to give up any mommy time. Swedes with children under school age have a right to shorten their work hours without risking their jobs. The result? 43% of mothers with young children work part time, compared to 10% of fathers, and gender wage gaps remain close to the OECD average, about where they were before the reforms.
As Sanandaji observes, Nordics have also turned to quotas in their quest for gender parity. In 2003, Norway passed a law requiring women to have 40% of the board seats in public companies. So far, the law has not gone as expected: there was no appreciable impact on the gender pay gap, or on women’s career plans. In fact, Norwegian companies had less experienced board members, greater company leverage, higher company acquisition rates, and declining operating performance. About 20% of the companies that would have been affected by the legislation changed their corporate ownership structure to get out of the requirement"
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Links - 28th February 2019 (2)
Nicholas J. Fuentes on Twitter - "Who could have guessed that redefining marriage to accommodate homosexuals was only the first phase of a systematic effort to undermine the traditional family? Oh wait, everybody with common sense did.
Remember how they used to say that gay marriage wouldn’t affect you? Now your kids are being taught how to have safe anal sex in schools lmfao. Oh yeah and your son will be wearing makeup and dresses."
Ed Krassenstein on Twitter: "Nice try but you are over the 280 character limit with this FAKE Tweet!… " - "Now more than ever we need transgressive and proud Santa Clauses: HIV+ Santas, Muslim Lesbian Santas, Santas with different types of bodies, Santas with genderfluid identities, Santas with acne and rebellious hygeine. Doesn't Jesus teach tolerance of all people?"
Henry on Twitter - ""This 'Sesame Street' Muppet will become the first to experience homelessness"
"Oscar the Grouch been living in a trash can for 49 years"
Male disposability
A #Palestinian toddler taken by his parents to... - Hussein Sam Ayoub - "A #Palestinian toddler taken by his parents to the #Hamas-led riots on the #Gaza-#Israel border passed away from inhaling tear gas (Later it was proven he had a breathing condition), world wide attention and condemnation.
An #Israeli pregnant women shot along with 9 others at a bus stop by a Palestinian terrorist is in critical condition, had an emergency c-section, and her baby passed away, silence from the world and media."
Actually it's celebrated as 'Resistance'
The Atlantic - Posts - "Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees"
"Exclusive: The White House again wants to deport certain groups of protected migrants, a reversal after backing away from the policy months ago."
The Atlantic is being mischievous. If you don't scroll down you don't find out they're criminals. And if you stopped at the paragraph calling them alleged criminals you wouldn't find out they're convicted criminals
Lauren Southern on Twitter - "So I got banned from Patreon a year ago for a protest with Defend Europe against a boat called the Aquarius. My “manifest observable behaviour” apparently was wrong because this was a ship set out to rescue immigrants.
The Aquarius operations have now been totally shut down because of illegal activities, multiple government investigations into its operating NGOs partaking in human trafficking and the dumping of 24 tonnes of toxic waste into the Med.
Despite our protest being vindicated, and the government shutting them down... I will never receive an apology from Patreon. Nor will they reinstate my account. That’s because it wasn’t about morals a year ago, it was about politics.
Nothing has changed since then."
Claire Lehmann, Founding Editor: I have good news and bad news we're making good - "As you know, we are crowdfunded. Our primary revenue stream is the direct patronage of our readers, who currently support us through Patreon with US$23,400 a month. Up until now, Patreon has been a safe, reliable and mostly politically neutral solution. Recently this has changed with the targeting of creators as part of what we see as a move against free speech. Now, we and many other creators have been forced to consider other options, including SubscribeStar... We have chosen crowdfunding over a more traditional ad-driven model because it allows us the freedom to focus on quality over quantity; to publish voices and points of view that we know our readers appreciate, even if they may not attract always massive clicks or mainstream advertisers. We're proud to be a boot-strap operation. We’ve raised no venture capital and answer to no board of owners/investors. This gives us absolute editorial freedom, but it also makes us reliant on readers. Please consider joining more than 3,500 readers who support us monthly."
Why Bitcoin? Patreon Pushed By Mastercard to Ban Accounts in 'Terrible Precedent' - "Crowdfunding platform Patreon is grappling with fiat currency centralization after MasterCard demanded it must block the account of a prominent US author and several others. Citing an email from the company in August, Robert Spencer, who penned multiple books about countering Jihad and advised law enforcement agencies, said it had “axed” him and he could no longer put contributed funds to any use... Responding publicly, Patreon denied it had chosen to ban Spencer, alleging that “unfortunately Mastercard required” it to “remove” his account. Patreon has since gained negative publicity for further bans, including last week’s move against podcast host Sam Harris."
Lawyer Pursues Filing Formal Complaint With FTC Over Patreon, PayPal Antitrust Violation - "Attorney Lior Leser released a video detailing his intentions to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission regarding the alleged antitrust violation committed by Patreon and Paypal against SubscribeStar (amongst many others). Leser has plans on taking the filing seriously, basically putting together a case file of all of the violations PayPal and Patreon committed when it came to what looks like colluding to remove people from having access to payments through their services, especially with pulling out of SubscribeStar... The media has basically looked upon situations where PayPal and Patreon have banned people from their services as a form of being on the “right side of history”, and that these corporations are aligning themselves with the radical Social Justice Warrior community. However, many of these people aren’t educated enough about history to recognize that when this kind of silencing and censorship becomes widespread against ideological dissidents, it’s just a matter of time before it affects the “allies” in the same way it affects the “enemy”."
Paypal Pulls Support For SubscribeStar Users, Including Tim Pool, Sargon of Akkad - "This was corroborated by Sargon of Akkad, who also detailed how this is part of the continued efforts from Social Justice Warriors to deplatform anyone who doesn’t align with the radicals on the Left. This recent purge started with Patreon, which was documented by Nick Monroe on Twitter, and now it’s escalated to SubscribeStar... Sleeping Giants was pulling the strings in organizing the deplatforming. It’s a Twitter account with a massive reach, consisting of 214,000 followers. They’ve been actively using shame tactics to demonetize various non-Leftists individuals, organizations, and media outlets for speaking out about the SJW agenda. This includes getting advertising pulled from major outlets like Tucker Carlson on Fox News or Breitbart... Basically, the goal of Social Justice Warriors at this point is to either deplatform their ideological opponents by getting them off of places like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, or Facebook, and barring that, they go after the funding of various pundits in order to financially starve them out of the spotlight. This seems to be a trend lately, especially after notable opposition to the extreme Left, such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Sargon of Akkad, and James Allsup were Frecently banned from Patreon."
Patreon betrays the trust of its users - "Many YouTube personalities had turned to Patreon when demonetization practically eliminated all advertising revenue for creators with politically incorrect or controversial content. Seeking a secure way to ensure they could fund their own work, trust was placed in Patreon that they wouldn’t be influenced by ideologically based pressure groups.In his interview, Jack Conte told Rubin that Patreon was different saying “advertisers are not stakeholders in the Patreon ecosystem” thus leaving them free from censorship by corporations... A group called Women, Action and the Media (WAM), had organized a campaign to censor Facebook back in 2013, urging participants to contact advertisers to complain about their products appearing on pages with content they found offensive. It only took a week for the campaign to succeed"
"Hate speech" is the modern liberal equivalent of corrupting our youth with ungodly filth
Far-left extremists are raising money on Patreon to “inspire insurrection”. - "There are several far-left users who appear to be blatantly violating Pareon’s Community Guidelines. These users are raising thousands of dollars each month and are actively using that money to organize and advocate for violent and often illegal criminal activity."
Patreon Lets Podcaster Who Cheered Oakland Violence Raise Funds on Platform - "Patreon allowed a far-left proponent of “Black Marxism” who publicly celebrated acts of unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters in Oakland, California last week to profit from its platform."
More Violent Extremism Unearthed on Funding Platform Patreon - "Both Breitbart News and Far Left Watch have documented numerous examples of violent extremism on Patreon. So far, Patreon has not responded to Breitbart’s request for comment nor taken action against any of the pages identified."
Tanjong Rhu Wanton Mee - Old School Wanton Noodles With NEW Shop At Bugis - "there are different schools of Wanton Noodles in Singapore – some Malaysian style with more use of black sauce; Thai Bak Mee Moo Daeng which emphasizes on the use of pork lard and minimal seasonal; or soupy Hong Kong Wonton Noodles."
How to Force a Public Wi-Fi Network Login Page to Open - "You open your laptop in an airport, at a coffee shop, or perhaps in your hotel or conference room. You sit down to work, select the correct Wi-Fi network, and … nothing. Your Wi-Fi icon may show it's connected, but your browser says You are not connected to the internet no matter how hard you try. That popover login screen just never loads...
An easy trick is to load the router's default page. Try entering 192.168.1.1, 127.1.1.1, 1.1.1.1, or http://localhost in your browser address bar, and you might get the default login page to load...
try visiting a non-HTTPS site; example.com is a great option as it's non-secured and maintained by ICANN...
You may have noticed your device loading captive.apple.com when connecting to Wi-Fi; you could go to that site directly to force your browser to test the connection. Here are the default pages, each of which works on any platform:
Apple iOS and macOS: captive.apple.com
Microsoft Windows: www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt
Google Android and Chrome: google.com/generate_204
Tip: The reason you need to load a non-HTTPS site is that if you try to visit a secure site and your network tries to redirect your browser to a login screen, your browser will prevent the redirect to keep your data secure—something that will also keep you from logging into that Wi-Fi network."
Since almost every site kicks you to https nowadays, it's nice knowing that you still have example.com on http, so you can get redirected to the login page
Crime and Unemployment: Effects across Age and Race Categories - "Negative criminal opportunity-related and positive criminal motivation-related effects are found at the aggregate level, but these vary among age groups and are more evident for white than for African American arrest rates. Further, these effects hold even when controlling for the potential influence of other variables identified in recent research as having an impact on the unemployment-crime relationship."
In other words, race does play a role in the relationship between unemployment and crime. So it's not just about poverty.
Variations in Correlates of Race-Specific Urban Homicide Rates - "A variety of factors from past homicide studies serve to predict white rates of homicide, allowing for the development of a broad profile of white communities with low rates of homicides. In contrast, only two factors (population size and residential segregation) are statistically-significant predictors of homicide rates among African Americans, resulting in an essentially non-descriptive community profile. The results suggest that the two groups may be subject to different social forces, and the ensuing discussion poses the possibility that understanding differences in homicide rates among African-American communities may require an incorporation of factors not normally considered in homicide research."
Scope and Conceptual Issues in Testing the Race-Crime Invariance Thesis: Black, White, and Hispanic Comparisons* - "Our goal in this article is to contribute conceptually and empirically to assessments of the racial invariance hypothesis, which posits that structural disadvantage predicts violent crime in the same way for all racial and ethnic groups... The mixed findings we report from our comparisons (across whites, blacks, and Hispanics; offense types; type of disadvantage) suggest caution and uncertainty about the notion that structural sources of violence affect racial/ethnic groups in uniform ways."
How to Optimize Your Apology (Ep. 353) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "HO: Something that doctors worry about a lot is whether they should apologize after a mistake was made. And the reason they worry is that they’re scared of lawsuits.
So a doctor’s apology might be used against them in a malpractice suit. At the same time, there was evidence showing that a doctor was less likely to get sued if they did apologize.
HO: So people have identified what they call a vicious cycle, where doctors are afraid to apologize because they’re scared of getting sued. But the patients, the only reason they sue is perhaps because they never got an apology. To combat this, a lot of states started passing what are called “I’m sorry” laws. These are laws that basically say that if a doctor apologizes to a patient, that apology can’t be used in court against them.
Ho was curious to find out what happened to malpractice claims once doctors could apologize without fear of reprisal. He and the economist Elaine Liu tried to measure just how much an apology was worth.
HO: We found shockingly really big effects. We found that states that passed this law saw the speed of settlements increase by around 20 percent. We saw that for sort of moderate injuries, the final size of the settlements decreased by around $20,000. For sort of major injuries, which included quadriplegia and death, the size of the final settlements decreased by around $50,000 or $60,000...
LIST: The first data pattern that jumps out of our experiment is that you really have to squint hard to make the case that apologies by themselves work. It’s very difficult to find consistent and significant impacts of the apology alone on future spending or the number of trips that consumers take...
HO: And in one video he looks really angry about the Monica Lewinsky thing. And, in another case, Bill Clinton looks apologetic for Monica Lewinsky. The people that saw apologetic Clinton, the apology worked. They liked him more. But the thing is that people that saw angry Clinton respected him more, right? There’s this tradeoff between being liked and being respected. So the other sort of major cost of an apology is it can make you look incompetent."
Remember how they used to say that gay marriage wouldn’t affect you? Now your kids are being taught how to have safe anal sex in schools lmfao. Oh yeah and your son will be wearing makeup and dresses."
Ed Krassenstein on Twitter: "Nice try but you are over the 280 character limit with this FAKE Tweet!… " - "Now more than ever we need transgressive and proud Santa Clauses: HIV+ Santas, Muslim Lesbian Santas, Santas with different types of bodies, Santas with genderfluid identities, Santas with acne and rebellious hygeine. Doesn't Jesus teach tolerance of all people?"
Henry on Twitter - ""This 'Sesame Street' Muppet will become the first to experience homelessness"
"Oscar the Grouch been living in a trash can for 49 years"
Male disposability
A #Palestinian toddler taken by his parents to... - Hussein Sam Ayoub - "A #Palestinian toddler taken by his parents to the #Hamas-led riots on the #Gaza-#Israel border passed away from inhaling tear gas (Later it was proven he had a breathing condition), world wide attention and condemnation.
An #Israeli pregnant women shot along with 9 others at a bus stop by a Palestinian terrorist is in critical condition, had an emergency c-section, and her baby passed away, silence from the world and media."
Actually it's celebrated as 'Resistance'
The Atlantic - Posts - "Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees"
"Exclusive: The White House again wants to deport certain groups of protected migrants, a reversal after backing away from the policy months ago."
The Atlantic is being mischievous. If you don't scroll down you don't find out they're criminals. And if you stopped at the paragraph calling them alleged criminals you wouldn't find out they're convicted criminals
Lauren Southern on Twitter - "So I got banned from Patreon a year ago for a protest with Defend Europe against a boat called the Aquarius. My “manifest observable behaviour” apparently was wrong because this was a ship set out to rescue immigrants.
The Aquarius operations have now been totally shut down because of illegal activities, multiple government investigations into its operating NGOs partaking in human trafficking and the dumping of 24 tonnes of toxic waste into the Med.
Despite our protest being vindicated, and the government shutting them down... I will never receive an apology from Patreon. Nor will they reinstate my account. That’s because it wasn’t about morals a year ago, it was about politics.
Nothing has changed since then."
Claire Lehmann, Founding Editor: I have good news and bad news we're making good - "As you know, we are crowdfunded. Our primary revenue stream is the direct patronage of our readers, who currently support us through Patreon with US$23,400 a month. Up until now, Patreon has been a safe, reliable and mostly politically neutral solution. Recently this has changed with the targeting of creators as part of what we see as a move against free speech. Now, we and many other creators have been forced to consider other options, including SubscribeStar... We have chosen crowdfunding over a more traditional ad-driven model because it allows us the freedom to focus on quality over quantity; to publish voices and points of view that we know our readers appreciate, even if they may not attract always massive clicks or mainstream advertisers. We're proud to be a boot-strap operation. We’ve raised no venture capital and answer to no board of owners/investors. This gives us absolute editorial freedom, but it also makes us reliant on readers. Please consider joining more than 3,500 readers who support us monthly."
Why Bitcoin? Patreon Pushed By Mastercard to Ban Accounts in 'Terrible Precedent' - "Crowdfunding platform Patreon is grappling with fiat currency centralization after MasterCard demanded it must block the account of a prominent US author and several others. Citing an email from the company in August, Robert Spencer, who penned multiple books about countering Jihad and advised law enforcement agencies, said it had “axed” him and he could no longer put contributed funds to any use... Responding publicly, Patreon denied it had chosen to ban Spencer, alleging that “unfortunately Mastercard required” it to “remove” his account. Patreon has since gained negative publicity for further bans, including last week’s move against podcast host Sam Harris."
Lawyer Pursues Filing Formal Complaint With FTC Over Patreon, PayPal Antitrust Violation - "Attorney Lior Leser released a video detailing his intentions to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission regarding the alleged antitrust violation committed by Patreon and Paypal against SubscribeStar (amongst many others). Leser has plans on taking the filing seriously, basically putting together a case file of all of the violations PayPal and Patreon committed when it came to what looks like colluding to remove people from having access to payments through their services, especially with pulling out of SubscribeStar... The media has basically looked upon situations where PayPal and Patreon have banned people from their services as a form of being on the “right side of history”, and that these corporations are aligning themselves with the radical Social Justice Warrior community. However, many of these people aren’t educated enough about history to recognize that when this kind of silencing and censorship becomes widespread against ideological dissidents, it’s just a matter of time before it affects the “allies” in the same way it affects the “enemy”."
Paypal Pulls Support For SubscribeStar Users, Including Tim Pool, Sargon of Akkad - "This was corroborated by Sargon of Akkad, who also detailed how this is part of the continued efforts from Social Justice Warriors to deplatform anyone who doesn’t align with the radicals on the Left. This recent purge started with Patreon, which was documented by Nick Monroe on Twitter, and now it’s escalated to SubscribeStar... Sleeping Giants was pulling the strings in organizing the deplatforming. It’s a Twitter account with a massive reach, consisting of 214,000 followers. They’ve been actively using shame tactics to demonetize various non-Leftists individuals, organizations, and media outlets for speaking out about the SJW agenda. This includes getting advertising pulled from major outlets like Tucker Carlson on Fox News or Breitbart... Basically, the goal of Social Justice Warriors at this point is to either deplatform their ideological opponents by getting them off of places like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, or Facebook, and barring that, they go after the funding of various pundits in order to financially starve them out of the spotlight. This seems to be a trend lately, especially after notable opposition to the extreme Left, such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Sargon of Akkad, and James Allsup were Frecently banned from Patreon."
Patreon betrays the trust of its users - "Many YouTube personalities had turned to Patreon when demonetization practically eliminated all advertising revenue for creators with politically incorrect or controversial content. Seeking a secure way to ensure they could fund their own work, trust was placed in Patreon that they wouldn’t be influenced by ideologically based pressure groups.In his interview, Jack Conte told Rubin that Patreon was different saying “advertisers are not stakeholders in the Patreon ecosystem” thus leaving them free from censorship by corporations... A group called Women, Action and the Media (WAM), had organized a campaign to censor Facebook back in 2013, urging participants to contact advertisers to complain about their products appearing on pages with content they found offensive. It only took a week for the campaign to succeed"
"Hate speech" is the modern liberal equivalent of corrupting our youth with ungodly filth
Far-left extremists are raising money on Patreon to “inspire insurrection”. - "There are several far-left users who appear to be blatantly violating Pareon’s Community Guidelines. These users are raising thousands of dollars each month and are actively using that money to organize and advocate for violent and often illegal criminal activity."
Patreon Lets Podcaster Who Cheered Oakland Violence Raise Funds on Platform - "Patreon allowed a far-left proponent of “Black Marxism” who publicly celebrated acts of unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters in Oakland, California last week to profit from its platform."
More Violent Extremism Unearthed on Funding Platform Patreon - "Both Breitbart News and Far Left Watch have documented numerous examples of violent extremism on Patreon. So far, Patreon has not responded to Breitbart’s request for comment nor taken action against any of the pages identified."
Tanjong Rhu Wanton Mee - Old School Wanton Noodles With NEW Shop At Bugis - "there are different schools of Wanton Noodles in Singapore – some Malaysian style with more use of black sauce; Thai Bak Mee Moo Daeng which emphasizes on the use of pork lard and minimal seasonal; or soupy Hong Kong Wonton Noodles."
How to Force a Public Wi-Fi Network Login Page to Open - "You open your laptop in an airport, at a coffee shop, or perhaps in your hotel or conference room. You sit down to work, select the correct Wi-Fi network, and … nothing. Your Wi-Fi icon may show it's connected, but your browser says You are not connected to the internet no matter how hard you try. That popover login screen just never loads...
An easy trick is to load the router's default page. Try entering 192.168.1.1, 127.1.1.1, 1.1.1.1, or http://localhost in your browser address bar, and you might get the default login page to load...
try visiting a non-HTTPS site; example.com is a great option as it's non-secured and maintained by ICANN...
You may have noticed your device loading captive.apple.com when connecting to Wi-Fi; you could go to that site directly to force your browser to test the connection. Here are the default pages, each of which works on any platform:
Apple iOS and macOS: captive.apple.com
Microsoft Windows: www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt
Google Android and Chrome: google.com/generate_204
Tip: The reason you need to load a non-HTTPS site is that if you try to visit a secure site and your network tries to redirect your browser to a login screen, your browser will prevent the redirect to keep your data secure—something that will also keep you from logging into that Wi-Fi network."
Since almost every site kicks you to https nowadays, it's nice knowing that you still have example.com on http, so you can get redirected to the login page
Crime and Unemployment: Effects across Age and Race Categories - "Negative criminal opportunity-related and positive criminal motivation-related effects are found at the aggregate level, but these vary among age groups and are more evident for white than for African American arrest rates. Further, these effects hold even when controlling for the potential influence of other variables identified in recent research as having an impact on the unemployment-crime relationship."
In other words, race does play a role in the relationship between unemployment and crime. So it's not just about poverty.
Variations in Correlates of Race-Specific Urban Homicide Rates - "A variety of factors from past homicide studies serve to predict white rates of homicide, allowing for the development of a broad profile of white communities with low rates of homicides. In contrast, only two factors (population size and residential segregation) are statistically-significant predictors of homicide rates among African Americans, resulting in an essentially non-descriptive community profile. The results suggest that the two groups may be subject to different social forces, and the ensuing discussion poses the possibility that understanding differences in homicide rates among African-American communities may require an incorporation of factors not normally considered in homicide research."
Scope and Conceptual Issues in Testing the Race-Crime Invariance Thesis: Black, White, and Hispanic Comparisons* - "Our goal in this article is to contribute conceptually and empirically to assessments of the racial invariance hypothesis, which posits that structural disadvantage predicts violent crime in the same way for all racial and ethnic groups... The mixed findings we report from our comparisons (across whites, blacks, and Hispanics; offense types; type of disadvantage) suggest caution and uncertainty about the notion that structural sources of violence affect racial/ethnic groups in uniform ways."
How to Optimize Your Apology (Ep. 353) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "HO: Something that doctors worry about a lot is whether they should apologize after a mistake was made. And the reason they worry is that they’re scared of lawsuits.
So a doctor’s apology might be used against them in a malpractice suit. At the same time, there was evidence showing that a doctor was less likely to get sued if they did apologize.
HO: So people have identified what they call a vicious cycle, where doctors are afraid to apologize because they’re scared of getting sued. But the patients, the only reason they sue is perhaps because they never got an apology. To combat this, a lot of states started passing what are called “I’m sorry” laws. These are laws that basically say that if a doctor apologizes to a patient, that apology can’t be used in court against them.
Ho was curious to find out what happened to malpractice claims once doctors could apologize without fear of reprisal. He and the economist Elaine Liu tried to measure just how much an apology was worth.
HO: We found shockingly really big effects. We found that states that passed this law saw the speed of settlements increase by around 20 percent. We saw that for sort of moderate injuries, the final size of the settlements decreased by around $20,000. For sort of major injuries, which included quadriplegia and death, the size of the final settlements decreased by around $50,000 or $60,000...
LIST: The first data pattern that jumps out of our experiment is that you really have to squint hard to make the case that apologies by themselves work. It’s very difficult to find consistent and significant impacts of the apology alone on future spending or the number of trips that consumers take...
HO: And in one video he looks really angry about the Monica Lewinsky thing. And, in another case, Bill Clinton looks apologetic for Monica Lewinsky. The people that saw apologetic Clinton, the apology worked. They liked him more. But the thing is that people that saw angry Clinton respected him more, right? There’s this tradeoff between being liked and being respected. So the other sort of major cost of an apology is it can make you look incompetent."
The Germans who fought Hitler
The Germans who fought Hitler - History Extra
"Hitler almost by magic seemed to have some supernatural power that protected him at the very last moment. The plots didn't succeed... The facts have been known for some time. No one's ever put them together to present the picture. And indeed even the facts were uncongenial to know after the Second World War when no one wanted to believe there’d ever been a good German...
I discovered this whole conspiracy beginning in 1938 when Hitler was about to be removed, with the agreement of Winston Churchill and the plotters thought with British government as well. At the moment he ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia he was going to be killed. The plan was to take him to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s father where he's going to be declared to be mad but he was actually going to be killed on the way…
There was this extraordinary organization built up during the war known as the Schwarze Kapelle, the black orchestra, which did these things. Tried to warn the West of when he was going to launch his attacks, frustrated his plans, passed us his crucial military secrets, tried to kill him probably seven times of which we only publicly know the 20th of July and von Stauffenberg and sought to establish an early peace. These were people of extraordinary moral courage, who quite contrary to a lie put about after the war, that there was only ever a German resistance when it was obvious that Hitler was going to be defeated, actually began in 1935 and sustained their opposition at the very highest level of Hitler's administration right the way through to the hangman's noose in 1944...
Was the Second World War the war that didn't have to be?... Was the peace after it the peace that didn't have to hand over Eastern Europe to the Russians?...
In 1937 Carl Goerdeler the mayor of Leipzig, one time candidate for Chancellor of Germany and a high official in Hitler's government came to the national liberal club and had a dinner in which he warned that Hitler was intent on war, nothing would stop him. Appeasements wouldn't work. And in September of the following year, 1938, he was going to launch a coup, launch an invasion to take Sudetenland. And the deal was, supported by himself, members of the Foreign Office and all the key German generals that if Britain stood up to him, then at the moment that he ordered the troops to march on Sudetenland, they would remove him in a coup.
The coup by the way is in place, there are 50 armed officers ready to attack the Chancellory, the back door of the Chancellory has been secretly opened, only 15 SS men are there. It's supported by the Chief of Police in Berlin, by every one of the army officers in command of the regiments around Berlin and by key officials in the Foreign Office. Just at the moment, literally, within half an hour of the coup being launched, up pops Chamberlain and proposes Munich...
On the day war is declared on the first of September, 1939, [he] meets a colleague... and says this: if Germany loses this war, it will be history for Germany. But if Germany wins this war, if Hitler wins this war, it will be a catastrophe for mankind. We are utterly dedicated to make sure that he loses and help the Allies win. And that's what they do right through the whole period of the war until after the 20th of July plot...
Why did Chamberlain not allow that to happen? And I think the answer to that question lies in the personality of Chamberlain. He knew about the coup - of that I'm very clear. I think his flight to Godesberg before Munich was a deliberate attempt, at least in part to frustrate the coup. I think he regarded the plotters as undemocratic, and he's probably right. But I think above all, he believed that he was a great Peacemaker of the age and if anybody was going to deliver peace he was. And it was better to deal with the devil you knew, which was Hitler, rather than the plotters you didn't know. And I think in this, of course, lies Chamberlain's fundamental misjudgment that he believed that Hitler was a conventional leader, a conventional politician who could be negotiated with, who could be appeased, whereas Hitler, the others understood was a man of unique evil, who was never going to be appeased and was always going to go to war. And it's that fundamental misjudgment which I think causes him to have the hubris to believe that he could make peace himself with Hitler, rather than relying on the plotters to do the job...
Genuinely speaking, this was the best chance to get rid of Hitler. And if it did work, there wouldn't have been a Second World War. Would we then have a German government that was less democratic than we wished, that was slightly militarist, that was inherently anti semitic? Probably we would. But would it have been one that nevertheless clung to broadly Christian values and was in the line of German governments back to the Kaiser? Probably it would have been as well and that's the fundamental difference...
‘How many serious attempts were there to try to bring down Hitler?’
‘The answer is, we don't know... I've counted in the book, I think, seven or eight serious plots. And one of the things that is extraordinary is the extent to which Hitler almost by magic seemed to have some supernatural power that protected him. At the very last moment, the plots didn't succeed... Some of them fatalistically came to believe in the end that he was protected by malevolent power, and one of them, Canaris, said the truth is that God does not want him to be killed. God wants Germany to pay the full measure of her debt for the evil that he has created.’...
Right from the start, they seek to prevent the war widening from Czechoslovakia to Poland. And after the Polish invasion they seek to prevent the war widening to the west because then it became a global war. And constantly they're saying to the Allies through secret channels I discovered in Sweden, a bank in Sweden, to London. Look, here's a piece you can do. If we get rid of Hitler will you agree to this peace? Constantly Churchill and Roosevelt, who have adopted a policy from Casablanca onwards of unconditional surrender to keep Stalin on board are saying no. So these constant attempts to strike a peace in which by the way, Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was actually a member of the Abwehr, is closely involved with Bishop Belle of Chichester are constantly refused because they come up against the rock of unconditional surrender...
Is it ever possible to be a traitor and a patriot at the same time? That's the central question. My answer that is yes. And the lives of these men and women illuminate that fact...
The question you also have to ask is other parallels between that age and this and there are frightening parallels and lots of them, and I list them in the book. Are we going therefore to see the same outcome on balance? I think, no. And for two key reasons. First of all, there isn't a Hitler. There isn't somebody who combines both unique evil on the one hand, and unique genius in handling power on the other who is determined on war. Now, are the conditions right for somebody to emerge, maybe, but there's nobody there with that quality.
But secondly, and more comfortingly, actually, our democracies now are much more deeply founded than was the Weimar Republic Germany. A pretty rickety institution, quite easily overturned. If you look at America today, what I think you conclude is, the antibodies of the American Constitution are doing their work in restraining the power of President Trump indeed are quite recently in America, in Washington. And people described to me in exactly those terms. not perfectly, of course, but they are working in the battle between Trump and the Constitution. I think the Constitution is winning. And I think in Britain, it is probably inconceivable even though populism is abroad, and seems to be one of the primary spirits of our age. For, for the moment, at least, it's very difficult to see that our own constitutional settlement. It could be temporary, subverted, but could not be overturned in the way that the Weimar Republic was. In that sense, I think the worst aspects of this cannot be replicated today."
"Hitler almost by magic seemed to have some supernatural power that protected him at the very last moment. The plots didn't succeed... The facts have been known for some time. No one's ever put them together to present the picture. And indeed even the facts were uncongenial to know after the Second World War when no one wanted to believe there’d ever been a good German...
I discovered this whole conspiracy beginning in 1938 when Hitler was about to be removed, with the agreement of Winston Churchill and the plotters thought with British government as well. At the moment he ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia he was going to be killed. The plan was to take him to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s father where he's going to be declared to be mad but he was actually going to be killed on the way…
There was this extraordinary organization built up during the war known as the Schwarze Kapelle, the black orchestra, which did these things. Tried to warn the West of when he was going to launch his attacks, frustrated his plans, passed us his crucial military secrets, tried to kill him probably seven times of which we only publicly know the 20th of July and von Stauffenberg and sought to establish an early peace. These were people of extraordinary moral courage, who quite contrary to a lie put about after the war, that there was only ever a German resistance when it was obvious that Hitler was going to be defeated, actually began in 1935 and sustained their opposition at the very highest level of Hitler's administration right the way through to the hangman's noose in 1944...
Was the Second World War the war that didn't have to be?... Was the peace after it the peace that didn't have to hand over Eastern Europe to the Russians?...
In 1937 Carl Goerdeler the mayor of Leipzig, one time candidate for Chancellor of Germany and a high official in Hitler's government came to the national liberal club and had a dinner in which he warned that Hitler was intent on war, nothing would stop him. Appeasements wouldn't work. And in September of the following year, 1938, he was going to launch a coup, launch an invasion to take Sudetenland. And the deal was, supported by himself, members of the Foreign Office and all the key German generals that if Britain stood up to him, then at the moment that he ordered the troops to march on Sudetenland, they would remove him in a coup.
The coup by the way is in place, there are 50 armed officers ready to attack the Chancellory, the back door of the Chancellory has been secretly opened, only 15 SS men are there. It's supported by the Chief of Police in Berlin, by every one of the army officers in command of the regiments around Berlin and by key officials in the Foreign Office. Just at the moment, literally, within half an hour of the coup being launched, up pops Chamberlain and proposes Munich...
On the day war is declared on the first of September, 1939, [he] meets a colleague... and says this: if Germany loses this war, it will be history for Germany. But if Germany wins this war, if Hitler wins this war, it will be a catastrophe for mankind. We are utterly dedicated to make sure that he loses and help the Allies win. And that's what they do right through the whole period of the war until after the 20th of July plot...
Why did Chamberlain not allow that to happen? And I think the answer to that question lies in the personality of Chamberlain. He knew about the coup - of that I'm very clear. I think his flight to Godesberg before Munich was a deliberate attempt, at least in part to frustrate the coup. I think he regarded the plotters as undemocratic, and he's probably right. But I think above all, he believed that he was a great Peacemaker of the age and if anybody was going to deliver peace he was. And it was better to deal with the devil you knew, which was Hitler, rather than the plotters you didn't know. And I think in this, of course, lies Chamberlain's fundamental misjudgment that he believed that Hitler was a conventional leader, a conventional politician who could be negotiated with, who could be appeased, whereas Hitler, the others understood was a man of unique evil, who was never going to be appeased and was always going to go to war. And it's that fundamental misjudgment which I think causes him to have the hubris to believe that he could make peace himself with Hitler, rather than relying on the plotters to do the job...
Genuinely speaking, this was the best chance to get rid of Hitler. And if it did work, there wouldn't have been a Second World War. Would we then have a German government that was less democratic than we wished, that was slightly militarist, that was inherently anti semitic? Probably we would. But would it have been one that nevertheless clung to broadly Christian values and was in the line of German governments back to the Kaiser? Probably it would have been as well and that's the fundamental difference...
‘How many serious attempts were there to try to bring down Hitler?’
‘The answer is, we don't know... I've counted in the book, I think, seven or eight serious plots. And one of the things that is extraordinary is the extent to which Hitler almost by magic seemed to have some supernatural power that protected him. At the very last moment, the plots didn't succeed... Some of them fatalistically came to believe in the end that he was protected by malevolent power, and one of them, Canaris, said the truth is that God does not want him to be killed. God wants Germany to pay the full measure of her debt for the evil that he has created.’...
Right from the start, they seek to prevent the war widening from Czechoslovakia to Poland. And after the Polish invasion they seek to prevent the war widening to the west because then it became a global war. And constantly they're saying to the Allies through secret channels I discovered in Sweden, a bank in Sweden, to London. Look, here's a piece you can do. If we get rid of Hitler will you agree to this peace? Constantly Churchill and Roosevelt, who have adopted a policy from Casablanca onwards of unconditional surrender to keep Stalin on board are saying no. So these constant attempts to strike a peace in which by the way, Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was actually a member of the Abwehr, is closely involved with Bishop Belle of Chichester are constantly refused because they come up against the rock of unconditional surrender...
Is it ever possible to be a traitor and a patriot at the same time? That's the central question. My answer that is yes. And the lives of these men and women illuminate that fact...
The question you also have to ask is other parallels between that age and this and there are frightening parallels and lots of them, and I list them in the book. Are we going therefore to see the same outcome on balance? I think, no. And for two key reasons. First of all, there isn't a Hitler. There isn't somebody who combines both unique evil on the one hand, and unique genius in handling power on the other who is determined on war. Now, are the conditions right for somebody to emerge, maybe, but there's nobody there with that quality.
But secondly, and more comfortingly, actually, our democracies now are much more deeply founded than was the Weimar Republic Germany. A pretty rickety institution, quite easily overturned. If you look at America today, what I think you conclude is, the antibodies of the American Constitution are doing their work in restraining the power of President Trump indeed are quite recently in America, in Washington. And people described to me in exactly those terms. not perfectly, of course, but they are working in the battle between Trump and the Constitution. I think the Constitution is winning. And I think in Britain, it is probably inconceivable even though populism is abroad, and seems to be one of the primary spirits of our age. For, for the moment, at least, it's very difficult to see that our own constitutional settlement. It could be temporary, subverted, but could not be overturned in the way that the Weimar Republic was. In that sense, I think the worst aspects of this cannot be replicated today."
Links - 28th February 2019 (1)
Amanda Ellen - I've stopped watching SNL for the last long while,... - "I've stopped watching SNL for the last long while, since they got heavy in the Trump/Baldwin skits. I didn't know why it annoyed me so much, I can't stand Trump, and usually love roasts of him. But I've come to the conclusion I find the Baldwin skits so unfunny, because they come from a place of clear hate for him. Good comedic acting, especially impersonations, mandates empathy and an approach of understanding for the character played. That's true whether you hate the person you are playing the role of, or love them. Otherwise it just comes off as a one note, unfunny mockery with no depth. ..Hence why SNL usually has more people clapping in political agreement, than laughing in comedic reaction"
Teaching kids to code: I’m a developer and I think it doesn’t actually teach important skills. - " It’s hard to teach the difference between merely executing steps, such as following a recipe, and doing something well. It can only be passed on through feel and experience. And every time you involve your kids when you work on something you value, you are teaching them how to do things well. You are preparing them to write code.But you’re not only teaching them that. You’re teaching them the world is full of interesting things to discover. You’re showing them how to be passionate and look for that ephemeral sense of quality in everything they do. The best part is that even if they don’t become coders—most shouldn’t and won’t—the same skills can be used in nearly any career, in every hobby, in every life. When we force kids to learn syntax, we reinforce the idea that if something is not a blatantly employable skill, it’s not valuable. Adults can learn syntax. Only kids can learn to embrace curiosity"
What We Talk About When We Talk About Immigration - "Can the elite “anywhere people” begin to understand why the “somewhere people” stayed at home, let alone why they now don’t want the streets in which they grew up inhabited by people who don’t share their culture or language? Last year Douglas Murray wrote a well-researched and erudite book called The Strange Death of Europe, which seemed to sum up what a lot of people were thinking, but the anywhere-person newspaper The Guardian’s only response was to call it “gentrified xenophobia.”... virtually no one when they are talking about their concerns about immigration in the current climate are talking about people who are skilled and highly educated like my father. This has been one of the more disingenuous moves made by those seeking to make an economic case for immigration: highlighting a specific top tier as the norm that can be applied to all. Many of those who leave their countries of origin and do well already come from elite classes. For example, Brahmin from India’s highest caste represent only 3% of people in India, but 45% of Indians living in the United States... trade unions traditionally supported strong immigration controls fearing the downward pressure that increased competition for low-skilled jobs might have on wages. They recognised and openly articulated that the special interests of the working class were diametrically opposed to those of poor immigrants coming from abroad. For Friedman, uncontrolled immigration was only desirable in the free market and is fundamentally incompatible with the welfare state. The issue is that welfare is “sticky,” it takes away the incentives for people to move out. This is not only true of immigrants who fail to achieve their dreams (in the past many thousands of unsuccessful US immigrants moved back to their homelands), but also of native populations... In the past, before the welfare state, areas recovering from creative destruction were able to bounce back much more quickly. But since the welfare state has become so strong, the natural incentives to adapt to change are no longer there, which in turn can lock in endemic multigenerational poverty... The benefit of cheap labour does not come without its costs, as Reihan Salam notes:
'It is generally accepted that it is more expensive to provide the same quality of education to disadvantaged kids than to those from better off families. For one, high-poverty schools often have a hard time attracting and retaining the best teachers, and poor children are more likely to need social services'...
every penny spent on a child living in poverty born to immigrant parents is a penny not spent on a child in a similar position born to native parents. This produces strong incentives for political struggle since the levers of power categorically allocate resources to this group or that group. Polarization becomes inevitable... the Office of National Statistics reported that 50.5 percent of all households received more in benefits (including in kind benefits such as education) than they paid in taxes. Given these facts, there is a serious question: can we afford mass low-skilled immigration?"
Extrapolating from skilled migration to make a case for migration in general is problematic
Warning: Telling a Lame Joke in an Elevator can Endanger Your Career - "I wrote a conciliatory email to the colleague who filed the complaint: Prof. Simona Sharoni, who teaches Gender and Women’s Studies at a small New England college. As she did not grow up in the U.S., I explained the intended meaning of what I said, apologized if it caused her discomfort and suggested we engage in a dialogue. I further suggested that to raise a complaint that many might consider “frivolous” would only provide ammunition to those who opposed the women’s movement and efforts by women to flag and seek redress for real forms of harassment... The ethics and executive committees found me guilty of using a phrase they described as “inappropriate and offensive.” They censured me again for emailing Prof. Sharoni. They insisted that I offer an apology that would satisfy both them and her. I categorically refused. In acting this way, the ISA ignored its own code of conduct, which requires any aggrieved party to try to resolve a conflict privately before asking for adjudication from the ethics committee. Prof. Sharoni did no such thing and rebuffed my attempt to do so. She complained about my email and asked the ISA to tell me never to contact her again. It is nothing short of bizarre that an organization whose members study international conflict and know the value of dialogue over coercion opted for coercion from the outset."
Senator Hirono: Democrats Struggle To Relate To Voters Due To 'How Smart We Are'
MSM Blast Trump Nomination Of Fox News Reporter For U.N. Job, But Two Dozen 'Journalists' Joined Obama Team
It’s Now Racist To Ask Students To ‘Be Respectful In Class’ - "White professors can no longer tell their students to “be respectful in class” or ask them to take their feet off of desks or to turn off their phones, lest they be investigated for racial bias. Anita Moss, a senior lecturer of biology at the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) was investigated after she called police on a repeatedly disruptive student, according to the College Fix. Moss, who is white, had been telling Paige Burgess, who is black, all semester to be less disruptive and to take her feet off of chairs... UTSA conducted an investigation and found Moss did not discriminate against the student. The university spoke to Burgess, interviewed current and previous students, and concluded “racial bias was not a factor.” Burgess herself said she never thought she was disciplined because of the color of her skin... Even though Moss was cleared of racial discrimination and had positive reviews from students, she was removed from class for the semester. The racial bias investigation was not the only investigation going on. Her demands for proper classroom etiquette were also reviewed, and led to her removal... UTSA President Taylor Eighmy sent an email to students on November 13 announcing the investigations against Moss, writing that “regardless of the final outcomes regarding yesterday’s incident, we have an obligation as an institution to take a hard look at our campus climate—especially for students of color—and enact systemic change to make UTSA a more inclusive campus.”"
Sen. Gillibrand: The Future Is Female. Don Jr: I Have A Question. - "Donald Trump Jr., a father of five, was unimpressed by the tweet, asking Gillibrand an important question: When should I tell my young sons "there's no future for them?"... Whoopi Goldberg actually suggested Trump's sons have predatory "tendencies.""You only worry about this for your child if you think your child has these tendencies," Goldberg said. "If you think your child is not someone who is assaulting people, it shouldn’t be a concern for you."... Trump hit back by re-upping a video clip of Goldberg excusing Roman Polanski for rape, because, per Goldberg, it wasn't really "rape-rape." Whatever that means."
Irish lecturer stabbed to death in Paris 'insulted the Mohammed' - "The 66-year-old academic, named locally as John Dowling, was attacked and stabbed 13 times outside the Paris university where he worked... Ali has told police that the teacher had made fun of his Muslim religion during English classes at the university.‘He produced a drawing, which he showed off in class, insulting the Prophet Mohammed,’ Ali said, according to Ms Denis.Despite this claim, Ms Denis said ‘nobody remembers such an incident. ‘We don’t have proof of radicalization, but rather a feeling that we’re dealing with someone who is very religious, very pious, very practicing.’"
Facebook's Community Standards Ban Discussing 'Sexual Preference' - "Tumblr isn’t the only social media platform cracking down on NSFW content. Earlier this week, Facebook users uncovered a new set of community standards that outright ban discussing “sexual preference,” “sexual roles,” “breasts,” and “buttocks” on the site... outing oneself as queer could be banned for being “suggestive” content. Furthermore, Facebook’s community standards don’t just apply to Facebook alone. They also govern all social media platforms owned by Facebook, as Wired reported in April. That means both Instagram and Facebook Messenger are impacted by the new rules... The move by Tumblr has since been strongly criticized for harming queer users, sex workers, and adult artists—criticisms that are similarly being levied against Facebook."
21 Breathtaking Photos Of Isolated Tribes From All Around The World
Being Classically Liberal - Posts - "Black girl, 9, kills herself after classmates bully her for having white friend"
The Other 98% - "Trump's America 2018"
"(M.P.) The Other 98% comes out swinging against interracial friendships. Trump's America, I tell you!"
This is what happens when liberals teach kids that black and white people can't be friends and that black people need to be cautious, suspicious and distrustful of white people
Boy, 9, found hanged 'was bullied for being white' - "A boy of nine who was found hanged is believed to have killed himself after he was ‘bullied for being white’ by an Asian gang at school... Aaron’s mother, Kelly-Marie Dugmore, 30, and stepfather Paul Jones, 43, said that despite complaints to the school, nothing was done to stop the bullying.Aaron had recently started in Year Five at Erdington Hall Primary School in Birmingham, a school where 75 per cent of pupils come from ethnic minority backgrounds... His mother claimed she went to see the head teacher of the school several times only to be told: ‘You didn’t have to come to this school, you chose to come here.’A neighbour of the boy’s grandmother earlier told how ‘he had been targeted by a gang of older bullies at the school’."
The Atlantic - Posts - "Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees
Exclusive: The White House again wants to deport certain groups of protected migrants, a reversal after backing away from the policy months ago."
From all the comments bashing Trump, it's clear that either no one reads articles. Then again the article itself is also mischievous by actively obscuring important facts
If we can't judge a book by its cover, can we judge an article by its headline?
Pat Sajak Savages The Academy Awards In Less Than 280 Characters On Twitter - "“Here’s a quick fix for the Academy Awards show: expand it to two nights,” he tweeted Monday morning. “On the first night, give out awards, and celebrate the history and wonder of movies. On the second night, hold your political rally.”
The Verge - Posts - "The five emoji skin tone options don't accommodate a diverse world"
"How do you choose which emoji skin tone to use?"
Comments: "Remember when The Verge used to do tech news instead of this crap?"
"get rid of them all and force everyone to use Simpsons yellow. Problem solved."
"Riiiiight.... also remember to add the 131 genders please! "
"C'mon man. If your identity hangs on the color of an emoji please see a professional. Just use yellow. 🏻🏼🏽🏾🏿"
"The simple yellow spherical blobs were the most inclusive emojis one could ever have.No chance of dissecting who is on the other side... Just a personal expression conveyed using a digital form.Now it leaves room for needless articles like this."
"Just think: had we not invented this problem in the first place, we wouldn’t need this conversation."
Another example of the slippery slope
Teaching kids to code: I’m a developer and I think it doesn’t actually teach important skills. - " It’s hard to teach the difference between merely executing steps, such as following a recipe, and doing something well. It can only be passed on through feel and experience. And every time you involve your kids when you work on something you value, you are teaching them how to do things well. You are preparing them to write code.But you’re not only teaching them that. You’re teaching them the world is full of interesting things to discover. You’re showing them how to be passionate and look for that ephemeral sense of quality in everything they do. The best part is that even if they don’t become coders—most shouldn’t and won’t—the same skills can be used in nearly any career, in every hobby, in every life. When we force kids to learn syntax, we reinforce the idea that if something is not a blatantly employable skill, it’s not valuable. Adults can learn syntax. Only kids can learn to embrace curiosity"
What We Talk About When We Talk About Immigration - "Can the elite “anywhere people” begin to understand why the “somewhere people” stayed at home, let alone why they now don’t want the streets in which they grew up inhabited by people who don’t share their culture or language? Last year Douglas Murray wrote a well-researched and erudite book called The Strange Death of Europe, which seemed to sum up what a lot of people were thinking, but the anywhere-person newspaper The Guardian’s only response was to call it “gentrified xenophobia.”... virtually no one when they are talking about their concerns about immigration in the current climate are talking about people who are skilled and highly educated like my father. This has been one of the more disingenuous moves made by those seeking to make an economic case for immigration: highlighting a specific top tier as the norm that can be applied to all. Many of those who leave their countries of origin and do well already come from elite classes. For example, Brahmin from India’s highest caste represent only 3% of people in India, but 45% of Indians living in the United States... trade unions traditionally supported strong immigration controls fearing the downward pressure that increased competition for low-skilled jobs might have on wages. They recognised and openly articulated that the special interests of the working class were diametrically opposed to those of poor immigrants coming from abroad. For Friedman, uncontrolled immigration was only desirable in the free market and is fundamentally incompatible with the welfare state. The issue is that welfare is “sticky,” it takes away the incentives for people to move out. This is not only true of immigrants who fail to achieve their dreams (in the past many thousands of unsuccessful US immigrants moved back to their homelands), but also of native populations... In the past, before the welfare state, areas recovering from creative destruction were able to bounce back much more quickly. But since the welfare state has become so strong, the natural incentives to adapt to change are no longer there, which in turn can lock in endemic multigenerational poverty... The benefit of cheap labour does not come without its costs, as Reihan Salam notes:
'It is generally accepted that it is more expensive to provide the same quality of education to disadvantaged kids than to those from better off families. For one, high-poverty schools often have a hard time attracting and retaining the best teachers, and poor children are more likely to need social services'...
every penny spent on a child living in poverty born to immigrant parents is a penny not spent on a child in a similar position born to native parents. This produces strong incentives for political struggle since the levers of power categorically allocate resources to this group or that group. Polarization becomes inevitable... the Office of National Statistics reported that 50.5 percent of all households received more in benefits (including in kind benefits such as education) than they paid in taxes. Given these facts, there is a serious question: can we afford mass low-skilled immigration?"
Extrapolating from skilled migration to make a case for migration in general is problematic
Warning: Telling a Lame Joke in an Elevator can Endanger Your Career - "I wrote a conciliatory email to the colleague who filed the complaint: Prof. Simona Sharoni, who teaches Gender and Women’s Studies at a small New England college. As she did not grow up in the U.S., I explained the intended meaning of what I said, apologized if it caused her discomfort and suggested we engage in a dialogue. I further suggested that to raise a complaint that many might consider “frivolous” would only provide ammunition to those who opposed the women’s movement and efforts by women to flag and seek redress for real forms of harassment... The ethics and executive committees found me guilty of using a phrase they described as “inappropriate and offensive.” They censured me again for emailing Prof. Sharoni. They insisted that I offer an apology that would satisfy both them and her. I categorically refused. In acting this way, the ISA ignored its own code of conduct, which requires any aggrieved party to try to resolve a conflict privately before asking for adjudication from the ethics committee. Prof. Sharoni did no such thing and rebuffed my attempt to do so. She complained about my email and asked the ISA to tell me never to contact her again. It is nothing short of bizarre that an organization whose members study international conflict and know the value of dialogue over coercion opted for coercion from the outset."
Senator Hirono: Democrats Struggle To Relate To Voters Due To 'How Smart We Are'
MSM Blast Trump Nomination Of Fox News Reporter For U.N. Job, But Two Dozen 'Journalists' Joined Obama Team
It’s Now Racist To Ask Students To ‘Be Respectful In Class’ - "White professors can no longer tell their students to “be respectful in class” or ask them to take their feet off of desks or to turn off their phones, lest they be investigated for racial bias. Anita Moss, a senior lecturer of biology at the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) was investigated after she called police on a repeatedly disruptive student, according to the College Fix. Moss, who is white, had been telling Paige Burgess, who is black, all semester to be less disruptive and to take her feet off of chairs... UTSA conducted an investigation and found Moss did not discriminate against the student. The university spoke to Burgess, interviewed current and previous students, and concluded “racial bias was not a factor.” Burgess herself said she never thought she was disciplined because of the color of her skin... Even though Moss was cleared of racial discrimination and had positive reviews from students, she was removed from class for the semester. The racial bias investigation was not the only investigation going on. Her demands for proper classroom etiquette were also reviewed, and led to her removal... UTSA President Taylor Eighmy sent an email to students on November 13 announcing the investigations against Moss, writing that “regardless of the final outcomes regarding yesterday’s incident, we have an obligation as an institution to take a hard look at our campus climate—especially for students of color—and enact systemic change to make UTSA a more inclusive campus.”"
Sen. Gillibrand: The Future Is Female. Don Jr: I Have A Question. - "Donald Trump Jr., a father of five, was unimpressed by the tweet, asking Gillibrand an important question: When should I tell my young sons "there's no future for them?"... Whoopi Goldberg actually suggested Trump's sons have predatory "tendencies.""You only worry about this for your child if you think your child has these tendencies," Goldberg said. "If you think your child is not someone who is assaulting people, it shouldn’t be a concern for you."... Trump hit back by re-upping a video clip of Goldberg excusing Roman Polanski for rape, because, per Goldberg, it wasn't really "rape-rape." Whatever that means."
Irish lecturer stabbed to death in Paris 'insulted the Mohammed' - "The 66-year-old academic, named locally as John Dowling, was attacked and stabbed 13 times outside the Paris university where he worked... Ali has told police that the teacher had made fun of his Muslim religion during English classes at the university.‘He produced a drawing, which he showed off in class, insulting the Prophet Mohammed,’ Ali said, according to Ms Denis.Despite this claim, Ms Denis said ‘nobody remembers such an incident. ‘We don’t have proof of radicalization, but rather a feeling that we’re dealing with someone who is very religious, very pious, very practicing.’"
Facebook's Community Standards Ban Discussing 'Sexual Preference' - "Tumblr isn’t the only social media platform cracking down on NSFW content. Earlier this week, Facebook users uncovered a new set of community standards that outright ban discussing “sexual preference,” “sexual roles,” “breasts,” and “buttocks” on the site... outing oneself as queer could be banned for being “suggestive” content. Furthermore, Facebook’s community standards don’t just apply to Facebook alone. They also govern all social media platforms owned by Facebook, as Wired reported in April. That means both Instagram and Facebook Messenger are impacted by the new rules... The move by Tumblr has since been strongly criticized for harming queer users, sex workers, and adult artists—criticisms that are similarly being levied against Facebook."
21 Breathtaking Photos Of Isolated Tribes From All Around The World
Being Classically Liberal - Posts - "Black girl, 9, kills herself after classmates bully her for having white friend"
The Other 98% - "Trump's America 2018"
"(M.P.) The Other 98% comes out swinging against interracial friendships. Trump's America, I tell you!"
This is what happens when liberals teach kids that black and white people can't be friends and that black people need to be cautious, suspicious and distrustful of white people
Boy, 9, found hanged 'was bullied for being white' - "A boy of nine who was found hanged is believed to have killed himself after he was ‘bullied for being white’ by an Asian gang at school... Aaron’s mother, Kelly-Marie Dugmore, 30, and stepfather Paul Jones, 43, said that despite complaints to the school, nothing was done to stop the bullying.Aaron had recently started in Year Five at Erdington Hall Primary School in Birmingham, a school where 75 per cent of pupils come from ethnic minority backgrounds... His mother claimed she went to see the head teacher of the school several times only to be told: ‘You didn’t have to come to this school, you chose to come here.’A neighbour of the boy’s grandmother earlier told how ‘he had been targeted by a gang of older bullies at the school’."
The Atlantic - Posts - "Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees
Exclusive: The White House again wants to deport certain groups of protected migrants, a reversal after backing away from the policy months ago."
From all the comments bashing Trump, it's clear that either no one reads articles. Then again the article itself is also mischievous by actively obscuring important facts
If we can't judge a book by its cover, can we judge an article by its headline?
Pat Sajak Savages The Academy Awards In Less Than 280 Characters On Twitter - "“Here’s a quick fix for the Academy Awards show: expand it to two nights,” he tweeted Monday morning. “On the first night, give out awards, and celebrate the history and wonder of movies. On the second night, hold your political rally.”
The Verge - Posts - "The five emoji skin tone options don't accommodate a diverse world"
"How do you choose which emoji skin tone to use?"
Comments: "Remember when The Verge used to do tech news instead of this crap?"
"get rid of them all and force everyone to use Simpsons yellow. Problem solved."
"Riiiiight.... also remember to add the 131 genders please! "
"C'mon man. If your identity hangs on the color of an emoji please see a professional. Just use yellow. 🏻🏼🏽🏾🏿"
"The simple yellow spherical blobs were the most inclusive emojis one could ever have.No chance of dissecting who is on the other side... Just a personal expression conveyed using a digital form.Now it leaves room for needless articles like this."
"Just think: had we not invented this problem in the first place, we wouldn’t need this conversation."
Another example of the slippery slope