Saturday, January 29, 2022

Links - 29th January 2022 (2 - Guns)

Dayton and El Paso: 'Good Guys With Guns' Can Rarely Stop Mass Shootings - "The gunman who opened fire in Dayton, Ohio early Sunday killed nine people and wounded 14 in just 32 seconds before police responded and took him down.Dayton, along with the shooting at an El Paso, Texas Walmart the day before, are the most recent mass shootings that show how, despite the presence of trained officers and armed civilians—the people the National Rifle Association would call “good guys with guns”—gunmen can inflict horrific casualty counts within seconds, before anyone can respond. Experts on violent crime say such incidents make clear that despite the NRA’s post-Sandy Hook justification, relaxing gun laws to let more people to arm themselves has done nothing to prevent mass shootings. It’s likely to make things worse if armed civilians intervene when shootings erupt in public places, says John Donohue, a Stanford Law School professor whose research has focused on gun violence and policy. “Unless you’re very well trained, you usually add more to the body count than you subtract,” Donohue says.But it’s an experiment that has played out across the United States at the cost of hundreds of lives. The notion that a “good guy with a gun” can prevent a mass shooting gained traction after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., when NRA then-Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said, “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” during a defiant press conference amid rising calls for gun control. Many states have taken that advice to heart in the years since. In states where Republicans have control, laws that loosen gun restrictions increased by 75% in the wake of mass shootings... Nearly every state implemented new gun laws after the Sandy Hook shooting, with about two-thirds enacting laws that made access to guns easier and gave more rights to gun owners... While mass shootings have not increased in frequency since 2012, they have become deadlier... while police or other armed response can end a rampage and save lives, authorities typically can’t respond fast enough to prevent an active shooter entirely––and the death tolls add up in seconds.“It really is unbelievably lucky how effective the police response was in these recent mass shootings,” Donohue says. “And there were probably loads of people carrying weapons around and they did nothing. You can’t expect them to.” There was at least one armed citizen at Cielo Vista Mall near the Walmart in El Paso during the shooting. Army Pfc. Glendon Oakley said in interviews that he was carrying a licensed handgun and drew it when he heard the gunshots... But, he said he didn’t see the shooter and so instead focused on rescuing as many children as he could... It’s rare to find instances of armed civilians responding to mass shooters in public spaces, even when they have the legal right to carry weapons––like most residents of Texas and Ohio do. Typically, mass shootings occur in crowded, populated areas—and people never respond exactly how they might imagine they’d react, says Joe Hendry, director of risk assessments and a national trainer at the ALICE Training Institute, which focuses on response strategies to shootings.“Carrying a concealed weapon is basically for the defense of yourself. It’s a whole different level of training and expertise to defend others”... Even law enforcement officers, who receive training to respond to mass shootings, often don’t react as expected. For one thing, police usually respond to shootings once they are already underway—whether they appear on the scene within a few seconds or several minutes, the damage has already been done. According to Hendry, only about one in five rounds fired by officers responding to shootings hit their targets.“It’s a very difficult thing to shoot in a room that’s full of people, while someone is shooting at you,” he says.And even with the proper training and being in the right place, armed citizens cannot always stop a shooter before the assailant opens fire."

Mass shootings aren't growing more common – and evidence contradicts common stereotypes about the killers - "A 2017 public policy statement by the American Psychological Association’s media psychology and technology division specifically recommended politicians should stop linking violent games to mass shootings. It’s time to lay this myth to rest.
Early reports suggest that the El Paso shooter was a white racist concerned about Latino immigration. Other shooters, such as the perpetrator of the Christchurch, New Zealand attack, have also been white supremacists.Overall, though, the ethnic composition of the group of all mass shooters in the U.S. is roughly equivalent to the American population. Hateful people tend to be attracted to hateful ideologies. Some shootings, such as the 2016 shooting of police officers in Dallas, were reportedly motivated by anti-white hatred. Other shooters, such as the 2015 San Bernardino husband and wife perpetrator team, have espoused other hateful ideas such as radical Islam.Most mass homicide perpetrators don’t proclaim any allegiance to a particular ideology at all. Of course, mass homicides in other nations – such as several deadly knife attacks in Japan – don’t involve U.S. race issues...
I’ve seen the suggestion that individuals with mental illness account for just 5% of violent crimes. However, that assertion is based on research like one Swedish study that limited mental illness to psychosis only, which is experienced by about 1% or less of the population. If 1% of people commit 5% of crimes, that suggests psychosis elevates risk of crime... So improving access to mental health services would benefit a whole range of people and, by coincidence, occasionally bring treatment to someone at risk of committing violence. But focusing only on mental health is unlikely to put much of a dent in societal violence...
Using standard definitions, most data suggest that the prevalence of mass shootings has stayed fairly consistent over the past few decades... mass homicides have stayed stagnant while other homicides have plummeted in frequency is a question worth asking.Nonetheless, it does not appear that the U.S. is awash in an epidemic of such crimes, at least comparing to previous decades going back to the 1970s."

Mom shoots 'intruder' who turned out to be her daughter - "A mother allegedly mistakenly shot her 18-year-old daughter when she came home from college to surprise her. The unnamed Girard, Ohio, woman fired a single shot at a person she assumed was an intruder, striking her daughter in the arm... "If you realize someone has a gun for protection and they're not expecting you, announce yourself when you enter the home," Chief Norman advised. "Even if you're getting up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night, just announce yourself.""
Clearly, more guns are the solution

Meme - "Why Do I Need an AR-15? Because Some Day the Government May Tell Me I'm Not Allowed to Put My Sick Son on a Plane and Fly Him to Italy for Treatment and Believe Me whenI Tell You I WILL Be Putting Him on That Plane #AlfieEvans"
"I Need an AR-15 in Case I Need to Hijack a Plane to Fly My Son to a Country With Socialized Healthcare Is Currently My Favorite Take on Gun Ownership"

Anger causes violence: Treat it rather than mental illness to stop mass murder. - "In the wake of a string of horrific mass shootings by people who in many cases had emotional problems, it has become fashionable to blame mental illness for violent crimes. It has even been suggested that these crimes justify not only banning people with a history of mental illness from buying weapons but also arming those without such diagnoses so that they may protect themselves from the dangerous mentally ill. This fundamentally misrepresents where the danger lies. Violence is not a product of mental illness. Nor is violence generally the action of ordinary, stable individuals who suddenly “break” and commit crimes of passion. Violent crimes are committed by violent people, those who do not have the skills to manage their anger. Most homicides are committed by people with a history of violence. Murderers are rarely ordinary, law-abiding citizens, and they are also rarely mentally ill. Violence is a product of compromised anger management skills... Paolo del Vecchio of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has said, “Violence by those with mental illness is so small that even if you could somehow cure it all, 95 percent of violent crime would still exist.”"
Of course it's much easier to blame mental illness than gun laws and gun availability

Brazil Has an Idea to Fix Rampant Gun Violence: More Guns - WSJ - "Brazil’s murders are largely carried out with guns made in the country and originally sold legally... Many states failed to fully implement the gun-control law by removing guns from circulation—an unpopular measure in many crime-ridden areas—while the country also didn’t do enough to prevent guns flooding into the black market, said Tulio Kahn, a former security consultant to the government. “The problem, as ever in Brazil, is that the law is good, it just needed to be enforced,” he said... “It would be like a tropical version of a Bruce Willis movie or an old-fashioned Western, where everyone is armed and bad-tempered, going around shooting each other over the smallest thing,” said Rafael Alcadipani, a security expert at Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation, a higher education institution focused on public administration. Mr. Alcadipani has been embedded in Brazil’s police force for the past six years.Mr. Kahn, the former security consultant, said the problem isn’t just gangs or criminals armed with illegal weapons, but ordinary law-abiding Brazilians—the “good citizens,” as Mr. Bolsonaro likes to call them. In São Paulo, the majority of murders are everyday altercations that spiral out of control, often committed by first-time offenders, he said."
More examples of how legal guns become illegal ones. So regulations on 'law abiding citizens' can keep guns out of the hands of criminals

Understanding the Second Amendment: What Dana Loesch's CNN Town Hall statements got wrong about history - "Mason’s statement at the Virginia Ratifying Convention was a criticism of Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, which gave Congress the power “to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia.” Mason’s fear was that if Congress had this power, they would decide to only conscript the poor into service. Not an unreasonable fear, mind you, given the way most wars have gone. It is often the poor fighting and dying, while the rich enlist in champagne units or sit at home tending to their “bone spurs.”... It is important to know that, at the time the constitution was signed, there was significant opposition to having a standing army, and state militias were supposed to fill that gap. The state, in turn, was supposed to arm and train them. They were there to suppress insurrections—specifically slave insurrections and anti-tax insurrections like the Whiskey Rebellion, and to fight Native Americans who, god forbid, wanted to continue living where they were living—not to start them. From the second Military Act of 1792 until the establishment of the National Guard in 1904, all “free, able-bodied white male citizens” were conscripted into state militias and were required to fight at the behest of the government. So yes—guns for certain individuals. But individuals that were trained and disciplined, and not all that free."
All the gun nuts crazy about the Second Amendment always ignore the "well regulated" bit. To say nothing of "militia"

The True Meaning of the Second Amendment - "Of all the changes the new Constitution made in the relations of state and nation, the new central government’s arrogation of power over the militia was the most radical single feature of the new system. Under the Articles of Confederation, from 1777 on, states were required to maintain their own “well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered”... The states were further protected by remarkable supermajority rules: Unless nine states out of 13 agreed, Congress couldn’t declare war, raise an army, or even appoint a “commander in chief of the army or navy.” Even if the nation was invaded, five states could stop any military response; even if the other eight agreed, they would not even be able to appoint a commanding general, much less march against the enemy.All told, the arms and the military power remained solidly in state hands, with the confederation government taking over only in the direst circumstances, and after humbly asking the states for permission... In the Constitution of 1787, by contrast, the federal government would control virtually every aspect of war, peace, and military structure... it suggests that, in adopting what became the Second Amendment, members of Congress were attempting to reassure the states that they could retain their militias and that Congress could not disarm them... Dick Heller, a law-abiding citizen, can own a handgun in his home for self-protection. The text and context, however, don’t point us to an unlimited individual right to bear any kind and number of weapons by anyone, whether a minor or a felon or domestic abuser. That would be a right that, if recognized by the courts, has the potential to disrupt our society at a profound level; a right that, as Fallows’s correspondent blithely asserts, renders the damage of gun violence “utterly irrelevant.”There’s no other such right anywhere in the Constitution. To prove that the Second Amendment transcends all others, the proof would have to be damned strong. I haven’t seen it yet."

Mass shootings are low in Switzerland. Here's why. - "The country's gun ownership rate is high... its rate of deaths from gun violence is still high for Europe... Switzerland has mandatory military service for able-bodied adult men, and women may volunteer for military service as well... many Swiss people own firearms and are highly trained in their use by default... Since many Swiss citizens obtain their weapons through the military, this acts as a major avenue by which gun owners' capability can be verified... some Swiss police may ask for a certificate from a psychiatrist prior to approving a gun license, which is required before buying most kinds of guns in Switzerland."

The 3 Gun-Control Laws That Work Best in the U.S. - "A new study by researchers Michael Siegel, Molly Pahn, Ziming Xuan, Eric Fleegler, and David Hemenway finds conclusive evidence that states with stricter gun-control laws have lower rates of both murders and suicides. (Nearly two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths are suicides.) We covered an earlier study that found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had higher rates of teen suicide. Research by one of us (Richard) has found that states with stricter gun-control laws have fewer gun deaths. And a meta-analysis of more than 130 studies across 10 nations found strong evidence of the same.But this new study scrutinizes how different types of gun laws—alone and in combination—affect homicides and suicides. The study examines 10 different types of measures, including universal background checks, age limits for handgun purchases, concealed-carry laws, assault-weapon bans, prohibiting purchases for those who have committed violent crimes, stand-your-ground laws, and bans on large-capacity ammunition magazines. The study tracks the effects of the 10 gun laws below on gun deaths between 1991 and 2016, while controlling for factors like gun ownership, the overall violent-crime rate (excluding homicide), alcohol use, unemployment, poverty rate, and density (at the state level), all of which affect the rate of gun deaths. It’s not just that gun control works—and it does, according to the study—it’s that particular kinds of gun-control measures are significantly more effective than others. In fact, three types of restrictions are most effective, individually and in combination, in reducing the overall homicide rate. They are: universal background checks, bans on violent offenders purchasing guns, and “may-issue” laws (which give police discretion in issuing concealed-carry permits). Universal background checks are associated with a nearly 15 percent drop in the homicide rate. Measures that prohibit people who committed a violent crime from owning a handgun are associated with an even larger reduction in homicide, 18 percent. Conversely, requiring police to approve concealed-carry permits unless the applicant meets explicitly stated exclusion criteria—so-called “shall-issue” laws—are associated with a nearly 10 percent higher homicide rate. None of the other seven firearm laws had a statistically significant association with the homicide rate when controlling for other factors... An analysis the researchers did in a related policy brief shows that gun-control restrictions work even better when they are enacted in combination. States with all three of the most effective measures—universal background checks, bans on violent offenders, and “may-issue” laws (which give police discretion in issuing concealed-carry permits)—had homicide rates that were 36 percent lower. States with two of these measures had 13-percent lower rates, and those with just one had 6-percent lower rates... The most effective gun-control measures are those that regulate who has legal access to guns as opposed to what kinds of guns they have access to, the study concludes. Especially effective are measures that restrict the access of people with a history of violence. Certain kinds of gun-control measures have more public support than others. For example, a large majority of Americans support universal background checks, including a whopping 97 percent of people in gun-owning households. Meanwhile, just two-thirds of Americans and roughly half of people in gun-owning households support assault-weapons bans."
The problem is that regulating who has legal guns is racist, discriminatory etc

A growing background check loophole is making US gun laws even weaker - "Under federal law, the great majority of checks are completed with few problems. But a small few are deemed inconclusive, at which point the FBI can ask for three business days to complete a check. If the FBI doesn’t complete those background checks within three business days — maybe it can’t get the right information in time, or maybe a report takes too long to fax to the FBI — then the would-be buyer is allowed to purchase a gun despite not completing a background check."

The Role Of Impulsiveness Is One Of The Saddest Things About Suicide - "Anywhere from one-third to 80% of all suicide attempts are impulsive acts, according to The New England Journal of Medicine. 24% of those who made near-lethal suicide attempts decided to kill themselves less than five minutes before the attempt, and 70% made the decision within an hour of the attempt. Suicidal urges are sometimes caused by immediate stressors, such as a break-up or job loss, that go away with the passage of time. 90% of people who survive suicide attempts, including the most lethal types like shooting one's self in the head, don't end up killing themselves later.
So if you don't have a gun and need to look for a more drawnout method...

5 reasons metal detectors in schools are a bad idea, according to security expert - "Ken Trump, president of Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services, believes metal detectors are an unsustainable, knee-jerk political reaction. He cautions against their use for practical reasons like cost, and because they are often seen as a replacement for better strategies... In order to do the job, a metal detector would have to be coupled with other measures that simply are not realistic. First and foremost, they must be in use around the clock, 365 days a year, to prevent someone from stashing a weapon, Trump said. All ground-floor windows need to remain permanently shut so no one can pass anything into the building. No one can prop open a door, even temporarily, and every entrance and exit would need to be manned. Some of these measures could violate local ordinances and fire codes. And everyone, young and old, student and staff, parent and visitor, would need to be screened every time they enter, no matter the purpose.If you want to go see a play, report for athletic practice or games, use the gym outside school hours, or attend a public meeting, you'd have to go through the metal detector. Even just dropping off your child's lunch or going to a parent-teacher conference would require the same... What if it breaks? Can the school district or the city afford to fix it?The one-time installation cost can buy a sense of security "instead of investing in more longer-term strategies that are focused on people"... In 2013, a 14-year-old in Atlanta was shot in the neck inside a school that used them. Administrators admitted the machines were "not operable" that day. A Minnesota school with a metal detector, guards and fencing was the site of a mass shooting in 2005 that left seven people dead. The gunman killed an unarmed security guard manning the detector, and the other guard fled for his life... Trump said the best way to find out about a weapon in school is to build relationships with students and make them feel comfortable reporting it to a trusted adult."

Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data and a State-Level Synthetic Control Analysis - "This paper uses more complete state panel data (through 2014) and new statistical techniques to estimate the impact on violent crime when states adopt right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws. Our preferred panel data regression specification, unlike the statistical model of Lott and Mustard that had previously been offered as evidence of crime-reducing RTC laws, both satisfies the parallel trends assumption and generates statistically significant estimates showing RTC laws increase overall violent crime. Our synthetic control approach also strongly confirms that RTC laws are associated with 13-15 percent higher aggregate violent crime rates ten years after adoption. Using a consensus estimate of the elasticity of crime with respect to incarceration of 0.15, the average RTC state would need to roughly double its prison population to offset the increase in violent crime caused by RTC adoption."

Breaking down the NRA-backed theory that a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun - "“It’s not very often that somebody with a gun who’s a private citizen plays a useful role in ending these mass shooting events,” Donohue said.David Chipman, who served as a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for 25 years before becoming a senior policy adviser at gun violence prevention advocacy group Giffords, said there is insufficient training for many armed civilians.“I was a good guy with a gun. I was a member of ATF's version of SWAT and I know what it takes, and the training that is required to perform during a critical incident when rounds are being fired at you,” Chipman told ABC News.“I can imagine scenarios wherein trained hands, a gun could be used in self-defense of oneself. It’s a whole ‘nother thing to imagine [how] a gun in untrained hands could somehow result in winning a gun battle, and my belief is that this ‘good guy with a gun’ messaging really is a sales technique to encourage people to believe that their capabilities with a gun are well beyond what they would actually be like in scenario like Parkland,” Chipman said, referring to the recent Florida shooting"

A Drumbeat of Multiple Shootings, but America Isn’t Listening - The New York Times - "lives are [easily] shattered when a firearm is readily available — in a waistband, a glove compartment, a mailbox or garbage can that serves as a gang’s gun locker. They document the mayhem spawned by the most banal of offenses: a push in a bar, a Facebook taunt, the wrong choice of music at a house party. They tally scores of unfortunates in the wrong place at the wrong time: an 11-month-old clinging to his mother’s hip, shot as she prepared to load him into a car; a 77-year-old church deacon, killed by a stray bullet while watching television on his couch. The shootings took place everywhere, but mostly outdoors: at neighborhood barbecues, family reunions, music festivals, basketball tournaments, movie theaters, housing project courtyards, Sweet 16 parties, public parks. Where motives could be gleaned, roughly half involved or suggested crime or gang activity. Arguments that spun out of control accounted for most other shootings, followed by acts of domestic violence... nearly three-fourths of victims and suspected assailants whose race could be identified were black. Some experts suggest that helps explain why the drumbeat of dead and wounded does not inspire more outrage... often, a minor dust-up — a boast, an insult, a decision to play basketball on another gang’s favorite court — was taken as a sign of disrespect and answered with a bullet... “White folks don’t want to say it because it’s politically incorrect, and black folks don’t know how to deal with it because it is their children pulling the trigger as well as being shot”... No one worries more about black-on-black violence than African-Americans. Surveys show that they are more fearful than whites that they will be crime victims and that they feel less safe in their neighborhoods.Most parents Mr. Abdullah meets are desperate to protect their children but are trapped in unsafe neighborhoods, he said, “just trying to survive.” And some are in denial, refusing to believe that their sons are carrying or using pistols, even in the face of clear evidence... F.B.I. statistics show that African-Americans, who constitute about 13 percent of the population, make up about half of both gun homicide victims and their known or suspected attackers... Both he and Mr. Abdullah say they wish some of the outrage over police killings of unarmed African-Americans would spill over to victims who die in anonymity in routine gun violence... From his hospital bed, one of four young men shot last May at one of Cincinnati’s most violent intersections pointed a police officer to a suspect. He gave the man’s first name. And he suggested that he had been shot in retaliation for an earlier shooting in the same area.Officers were able to identify the suspect and confirm that his car had been shot up a few days earlier, said Police Specialist Mark Longworth, who headed the inquiry.But “that’s where this case died,” he said. The injured victim attributed his information purely to “street talk,” not to direct knowledge that would stand in court. Hints are not evidence.“It’s frustrating because if people would do the right thing, we could probably prevent some of these shootings from happening,” Specialist Longworth said. “But in that world, very few things are worse than being labeled a snitch.” Nationally, nearly half of last year’s shootings with four or more casualties ended in the same way: no arrest; often, not even a suspect... A wounded 3-year-old named Jabarri seemed the best hope of persuading witnesses to come forward, the detective said. Sometimes, the moral outrage over a child victim overwhelms the code of silence... “We have had cases where people found out who talked and that person wound up dead. ‘So if the police cannot protect me, why would I jeopardize my life and my family?’ ”"
If you talk about black people killing other black people that's victim blaming and racism
Black lives only matter when they can be used for political benefit to shame white people
The "more guns, less crime" model posits rational actors. So we should give every country, including North Korea, nuclear weapons so they will be less likely to use them

Woman shoplifting in Walgreens fatally shot in head by bystander - "the woman was shoplifting and was confronted by the manager around 11:30 p.m.Another man then intervened and got into an argument with the woman. Police said he then pulled out a gun and shot her in the head."
The only thing that stops a shoplifter is a good guy with a gun

High School Bans Student After He Goes To Shooting Range With His Mom, Snapchat Post - "A 16-year-old student at a Colorado high school was informed by the school district Wednesday that he was not allowed to return to classes until the school could conduct an investigation into an anonymous tip that he had posted "threatening" content online... The caption for the post read, "Finna be lit," which he explained to Complete Colorado is just slang used among his peers meaning he's "excited" about the chance to go to the range with his mom, who he hadn't seen in a few weeks due to his parents being separated... "This is exactly the mechanics of the Red Flag Law," Reams told the outlet. "Someone filed an anonymous complaint, without the other person knowing it was being filed, but instead of him being deprived of his Second Amendment rights, he’s being deprived of his ability to go to school without due process."The teen simply "exercised his First Amendment right to use his Second Amendment right," said Reams, adding, "I hope this doesn’t make him fear that in the future.""

WaPo Lists All Deaths From Mass Shootings In Last 54 Years; Gun Rights Advocates Respond - ""Mass shootings are horrible, but your chances of being killed in one are about the same as being struck by lightning [49 per year]," wrote one gun control advocate. "Chicago has the same number of people killed about every two years. The USA is a massive country, 327 million people. This isn't to under[mine] the severity of mass shootings, they are horrible and we all want to put a stop to them. However, putting a list of names of people killed over a 65 year period is pure sensationalism and an attempt to exaggerate the problem."... gun control advocates' renewed push for banning assault weapons ignores the prominence of other types of guns, particularly handguns, in mass shootings. A study by Statista released this year found that between 1982 and August 2019, handguns were used in 93 mass shooting incidents, shotguns in 26, and rifles in 45."
Since you're more likely to drown in a swimming pool than be killed by a terrorist...

Effects of Missouri’s Repeal of Its Handgun Purchaser Licensing Law on Homicides - This study estimates the impact of Missouri’s 2007 repeal of its permit-to-purchase (PTP) handgunlaw on states’ homicide rates and controls for changes in poverty, unemployment, crime, incarceration, policing levels, and other policies that could potentially affect homicides. Using death certificate data available through 2010, the repeal of Missouri’s PTP law was associated with an increase inannual increase in firearm homicides rates of 1.09 per 100,000(+23%), but was unrelated to changesin non-firearm homicide rates. Using Uniform Crime Reporting data from police through 2012, the law’s repeal was associated with increased annual murders rates of 0.93 per 100,000(+16%)."
Doubtless there was a conspiracy to cover up the true fall in firearms deaths by forcing coroners to wrongly classify deaths as gun deaths!

Missouri Gun Laws 101: Answers to common questions - "According to Missouri law, it is a crime to refuse to sell a firearm to a purchaser who isn’t barred from possessing a firearm."
Liberatarians need to protest this infringement on the right to free association!

Data Confirm Semiautomatic Rifles Linked to More Deaths, Injuries - Scientific American - "The biggest take-home message is that in an active shooter incident, an assailant with a semiautomatic rifle may be able to hurt and kill about twice the number of people compared to if they had a non-semiautomatic rifle or a handgun"

Dank Star Wars Memes Cantina - "No one: Americans: Weapons are part of my religion"

Trump's knife crime claim: how do the US and UK compare? - ""There is more we can all do to combat this violence, but to suggest guns are part of the solution is ridiculous,” said Professor Karim Brohi, trauma surgeon at the Royal London Hospital. “Gunshot wounds are at least twice as lethal as knife injuries and more difficult to repair.""
Of course, gun nuts claim that criminals will kill using other weapons so there's no point banning guns, not realising that this means that there's no reason for them to have guns too - since (according to their logic) guns are no more lethal or effective than weapons such as knives (since other weapons are perfectly substitutable for guns), law abiding citizens can use weapons such as knives to defend themselves just as well as with guns too. But then guns have a religious significance to them, so

Deadly knife crime: How does London compare to New York? - "London’s knife murder rate is lower than in Trump’s hometown city, New York"
So much for gun nuts mocking Europe for knife crime

Switzerland has lots of guns. But its gun culture takes different path from US. - "The Swiss’s historic relationship to their arms as members of a standing militia, their motives for keeping them, and the regulations around them diverge from the American experience. It’s one reason that the prevalence of arms here is not accompanied by a scourge of gun violence... There is no official count of guns in Switzerland. But according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, Switzerland has more guns circulating per capita than any country besides the US and Yemen. The most recent government figures estimate about 2 million firearms in Swiss households. Conscription is mandatory for Swiss males, and citizen soldiers store their weapons at home, making up the bulk of guns in households today.The militia, and the culture it has fostered, is seen as part of the common good, binding a nation together in a mission of national security. That differs widely from America’s individualistic gun culture. According to a Pew poll in 2017, 67 percent of those who own guns in the US cite their personal protection as a major motive. And differences with the US don’t end at cultural ones. In Switzerland, regulations have become much more stringent since the free-wheeling days before a Weapons Act was put into place in 1999. And they have steadily tightened over the past 15 years. Military guns, once given to members after their service and passed down for generations, can now only be acquired after service with a firearms acquisition license. Since 2007, army-issued ammunition cannot be kept at home. A gun under the bed for self-protection? Impossible in Switzerland. Loaded guns, whether military or for sport, cannot be carried on the streets here without a special permit which is rarely issued. Because of conscription, the Swiss are highly trained in weapons handling and storage. As he drives away from the shooting range Sunday, Mr. Steffen says he would never want the right to transport his army rifle loaded. “No, no,” he says, “that is crazy. For us, guns are for sport, and protection of our country, only.”Switzerland does grapple with gun death rates higher than European neighbors, the vast majority of it suicide. Guns also play a troubling role in domestic disputes. But unlike the US, gun deaths out of self-defense are a rare phenomenon... The homicide rate in the US is about six times that of the Swiss national average. But when comparing domestic violence that ends in death with a firearm, the ratio is just under 2 to 1, a much smaller gap of gun deaths between American and Swiss households. “It is very illustrative,” Mr. Killias says. “It’s not so much that American people are more aggressive, or Swiss are so terribly more peaceful, it’s simply that gun use in the street [in the US] is quite common,” he says. “That is why robbery quite often ends with a shooting in America, whereas in Switzerland it is practically never the case.”... Lang worries about language he hears from the hard-line gun lobby about “self-protection,” against refugees and migrants or cuts in police budgets, a concept that is largely a taboo in Swiss society. Lang calls this the “Americanization” of the Swiss mentality... following strict guidelines, the rifle is in the cellar, the firing pin is in the cupboard, and the ammunition is at a military facility. “I don’t look at it like a gun,” he says. “It’s like a long, heavy piece of metal. It’s useless.” Mr. Völkle says he accepts the status quo here because there haven’t been widespread gun problems in his country, unlike the wrenching violence the US is living through. After Parkland, Fla., he once again looked across the Atlantic in bewilderment.“Mostly it’s just baffling to us that nothing gets changed after something like this happens,” Völkle says. “I assure you if more people died it would very, very quickly change, and you would not be able to keep your gun at home anymore.”" It is hard to commit gun crime with a rifle

Lie detector robot


A man buys a lie detector robot that slaps people who lie...

The man decided to try it out at dinner.

Dad: Son, where were you during school hours?

Son: At school.

The robot slaps the son.

Son: Ok! I was at my friend's house watching a DVD.

Dad: Which one?

Son: Kung Fu Panda

The robot slaps the son again.

Son: Ok! It was a porno.

Dad: What!? When I was your age I didnt even know what porno was.

The robot slaps the dad.

Mom: HAHAHAHAHA. He is your son after all!

The robot slaps the mom.

Links - 29th January 2022 (1 - General Wokeness)

Meme - "World Economic Forum @ When being anti-bug is bigotry: billions of people across the world eat insects as a part of their daily diet. We ask: is it racist to not want to transition to a bug- based diet?"
Almost surely fake but at the rate we're going, it wouldn't be surprising if it were real

Kanye West Says Planned Parenthood Was Arranged By ‘White Supremacists To Do The Devil’s Work’

Race, Welfare, and Media Lies - "When you talk to leftists about race, it doesn’t take long for them to bring up some variation of “most people on welfare are white.” As we’ll see, this is simply not true. And you don’t even have to delve into the grade-school concept of per capita welfare rates to explain this. In absolute terms, whites are a minority of users. But this doesn’t stop lefties from making claims like this...   Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is what most people think of when they say “welfare.” It pays cash directly to users. The amount varies by state. In 2018 (the most recent data available), there were over 2.27 million recipients, who got nearly $17 billion. Here’s the racial breakdown... Whites are clearly an absolute minority of recipients: just 27.2 percent of the total. There are more blacks and Hispanics on welfare than whites. On a per capita basis, blacks are 4.8 times more likely than whites to get TANF, and Hispanics are 4.7 times more likely. Asians are only two-thirds as likely.   Interestingly, over 85 percent of TANF recipients are single or divorced, and only 13 percent are married. Conservatives have long argued that marriage reduces poverty... whites are an absolute minority of food stamp users...   Poor whites do use welfare. But contrary to what the media say, they use it at low rates. There is some evidence whites are more likely to be too proud to take handouts. The Washington Post cites a Mississippi study that found poor whites were twice as likely as poor blacks to forego benefits. It is not inconceivable that at some point there could be affirmative-action welfare, or different, more stringent criteria for whites... fewer whites means fewer taxpayers, while a burgeoning black and Hispanic population means more welfare consumers. When the shrinking white middle class complains it is overtaxed, non-white politicians will call their complaints “racist.” The overclass may leave the US or hide its money as they do in the Third World."
I saw some liberals trying to dismiss this source due to its supposed ideological bias, but the article uses US government data

An0maly - Posts | Facebook - "Manhattan apartment sales worst on record, biggest plunge in 30 years"
"Who wants to live in a city where they defund police & let it go to ruins?"

Meme - Joe Keskold: "So I've blocked you. Wondering why? Please consult the criteria below:
You done a racism.
You done a sexism.
You done a bi-erasure.
You heckin disrespected sex work.
You called me "Joe Cuckold."
Twitter is my weapon of justice, and the block button my bullet. Pow."
Imagine being this self-absorbed

After YouTuber Casey Neistat Falls Victim To Car Break-In, Seth Rogen Dismisses Concerns Over LA Crime: “I’ve Never Really Felt Violated Any Of The 15 Or So Times My Car Was Broken Into” - "According to actor Seth Rogen, YouTuber Casey Neistat’s recent criticisms of and frustrations with the crime rate in Los Angeles – made after his car was subject to a criminal break-in – are completely unfounded, based on the grounds that the Invincible voice actor never personally “felt violated any of the 15 or so times my car was broken into.”... Taking it upon himself to defend LA’s reputation, Rogen soon pushed back against Neistat’s justifiably angry assertions, saying of the city that’s seen a 49% percent increase in homicides alone since 2019, “Dude I’ve lived here for over 20 years. You’re nuts haha. It’s lovely here.”  “Don’t leave anything valuable in it,” Rogen added, simultaneously excusing the thief’s behavior and blaming Neistat for his own victimization. “It’s called living in a big city.”   When asked by Neistat if he could “still be mad tho right?” because he felt “so violated” by the experience, the multimillionaire celebrity condescendingly dismissed the YouTuber’s safety concerns and sense of vulnerability, telling him, “You can be mad but I guess I don’t personally view my car as an extension of myself and I’ve never really felt violated any of the 15 or so times my car was broken into.”  “Once a guy accidentally left a cool knife in my car so if it keeps happening you might get a little treat,” he bizarrely joked."

Democrats Boast That Their Donors’ Most Common Profession Is Teacher - "  An Education Week survey in 2017 found that 27% of teachers identify as Republicans, compared to 41% as Democrats and 30% as Independents.  The National Education Association reported spending $48 million in the 2020 election cycle, nearly 94% of which went to Democrats. Direct donations reported by unions only represent a small portion of unions’ political spending, according to a 2012 investigation by The Wall Street Journal.  Teachers unions also played a major role in influencing government institutions to keep schools closed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in addition to reportedly pressured the CDC to implement stricter mask guidance for schools after it announced Americans did not need to wear masks indoors."
Clear proof there is no indoctrination in schools

Charity apologises for asking supporters to donate $14.92 because the number is offensive - "A women’s charity asked supporters to donate $14.92 in an email - and it quickly received flak due to the offensive connotations of the number.  The organization, which developed out of the 2017 march and now conducts the yearly event, sent out an email with the subject line “$14.92.”  “We have an important favor to ask,” the email read.  Subscribers on the email list were then asked if they’d like to donate the $14.92... Former George W. Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer tweeted, “‘Let’s all chip in and raise the amount to $17.76. Then they’ll really lose their minds.”  “They don’t want your $$ (because they hate America SOOOO much), but please feel free to contribute $14.92 to our campaign! Or $17.76.Or $20.24. Happy Thanksgiving!” wrote Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).  On the other hand, the organisation Indigenous Women Rising wrote that “this is not a good look at all.”  “This proves that Indigenous people are inherently not even thought of in this movement. We are yet again another afterthought and IT IS F****** HURTFUL.”"
From the Women's March. A few years ago these people were mocking Christians who believed in satanic backmasking

Philip E. Tetlock on Twitter - "Andrew Yang’s use of Asian stereotypes is reinforcing toxic tropes.   His one-liners about “math” and “doctors” ultimately send a troubling message."
"Culturally, Asians strongly encourage their kids to pursue  academic areas & career paths (e.g. math, medicine). They believe that effort plays a key role in determining a child's level of achievement.  Beliefs lead to outcomes. What's so 'troubling' about @AndrewYang 's rhetoric?"
"People who protest “toxic tropes” care more about identity-damage/hurt-feelings Those who violate toxic-trope taboos care more about statistical accuracy. That's why there are "forbidden base rates" & why some love the forbidden fruit"

Is it racist to rap along to the Notorious BIG? - "Do you like hip-hop? If so, you’d better be careful, because rapping along to songs can now get you into trouble. A student is being punished by his college for using the n-word when rapping along to the Notorious BIG. The first-year student at Christ Church College, Oxford was reported for racial harassment by a fellow student... Listening to rap would be a deeply painful and challenging experience if it carried the same weight in this context. Why isn’t that obvious to the college authorities?  Similarly, students at Durham University were ‘reprimanded’ in 2018 for a karaoke performance of the Kanye West song ‘Gold Digger’.  But perhaps the students got off lightly. In Britain, where police are forever on the prowl for offensive language, an autistic teenager was arrested and even convincted of a hate crime for posting lyrics containing the n-word on her Instagram account. Thankfully, the conviction was later overturned by an incredulous judge."

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "A follow up to a story last month from Minnesota. A conservative student was accused of posting viscous racist statements aimed at black students in his school. The police determined that the case was a hoax but no more information was released.  We now know from police records that the perpetrator was a female student that was a member of the Black Excellence Club.  She will not be charged with committing a hate crime or lying to an officer. There is no evidence that the school is punishing the girl for creating a national news story."
When victimhood is celebrated, people will pretend to be victims

University of Michigan-Dearborn apologizes for segregated 'virtual cafes' meant to spur discussion about race - "University of Michigan-Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso apologized on Wednesday after the university's Center for Social Justice and Inclusion hosted two segregated virtual conversations about race and society, with one of them meant for "Non-POC."... One virtual cafe was meant for people of color to gather and discuss their experiences, while the other was meant for "non people of color." The latter received backlash, as many criticized the idea of hosting a space for only White people to discuss race without the presence of any people of color."
Only white people don't get their own space

The Singapore Grip: ITV drama called 'harmful' and 'deeply upsetting' - "A new ITV drama set in Singapore during World War Two has been called "harmful" and "upsetting" by an advocacy group for British East and South East Asians.  Beats called The Singapore Grip "a kick in the teeth" to those it represents.  Based on JG Farrell's 1978 novel, the six-part drama follows a family of wealthy Britons living in Singapore.  In response, its writer said it was actually "an attack on colonialism" and showed "the corrupt practices and casual racism of the ruling elite".  Screenwriter Sir Christopher Hampton said "any fair-minded viewer" would "easily understand" this. The trilogy of books to which The Singapore Grip belongs is "perhaps the most celebrated attack on colonialism by a British novelist in the 20th Century"... The promo prompted widespread criticism on social media, with one commentator calling it "colonial history told through a white gaze" and another dismissing it as "a rose tinted soap"... "Every time we see the sole East Asian female character and every time we go into what feels like an Asian setting, we get these kind of keening erhus and guqins and flutes," he continued, referring to Chinese musical instruments.  In his statement, Sir Christopher described the character in question - "mysterious Chinese refugee" Vera Chiang - as "the most sympathetic and resourceful of the central characters".  It is she, he went on, who educates Treadaway's Matthew Webb "to the corrupt practices and casual racism of the ruling British elite"."
The circular firing squad of the left

Powerful: Google Leaves Homepage Empty In Honor Of Jesus's Empty Tomb | The Babylon Bee - "While Christians have often complained of bias in the selection of which days Google honors with its “Google Doodles,” believers around the country were reportedly ecstatic to find that the search and advertising giant chose to honor the empty tomb of Jesus on Easter morning with an empty homepage."
Of course it's a myth that liberals hate Christians

Dr. Sealy-Jefferson on Twitter - "I wonder how long it’s going to take me to heal from the violence inflicted on me by white women in academia."
Reply: "I am so sorry for the pain that has been inflicted by white women in positions of power. I felt pain and trauma during my years in academia- inflicted by the women in power. I know that my experience is minimal compared to my colleagues of color. Please continue to scream out."
The Revolution comes for White Women. Maybe some of them will realise the beast they have contributed to unleashing

Meme - "Hey honey, what did you learn in school today?"
"Mommy, you have to stop calling me honey. It's the oppressive language of the patriarchy.

Meme - "Keith Woods People who define their identity through their mental illnesses and sexual perversions will be the first to tell you it's silly to take any pride in your national identity."

Proms conductor derides Britannia - "Proms conductor Leonard Slatkin has described Rule Britannia as "militaristic" and "a little outdated".  The song, one of the highlights of the Proms season, was dropped last year from the celebrated concert series following the 11 September attacks on the US... "We have had a lot of letters saying it is time to get rid of Rule Britannia and I must admit that I am not completely comfortable with playing it"... "Rule Britannia does seem a little militaristic, and though it's wonderful to celebrate who you are and have faith in your country, I don't think we should exclude others.""
From 2002
Wait till they realise what the Chinese are singing
Weird how having pride in your country means excluding others

Rule Britannia was 'opposition anthem', says Oxford historian - "Rule Britannia may have been written as a song of opposition to King George II, rather than a patriotic anthem, according to an Oxford historian.  Oliver Cox unearthed letters believed to be written by audience members of its first performance in 1740.  They suggest the song, performed each year at the Last Night of the Proms, reinforced beliefs of politicians who supported the Prince of Wales.  Mr Cox described it as a "very potent attack on the king"."

The Rule, Britannia! row is too important for anti-racists to ignore - "Over the past few days I’ve found myself feeling at odds with writers on the left that I normally agree with. Ever since the Sunday Times reported that the BBC was discussing ditching Rule, Britannia! at this year’s Proms, these voices have been almost united. They’ve treated this as a non-story – a confection by the Murdoch press – and pointed out that no one has been demanding the banning of this song, so we should move on and talk about the things that really matter. Faced with a rightwing backlash, the BBC first said it would be played but not sung due to Covid restrictions, with the words reinstated next year; and today, under its new director general, Tim Davie, (a former Conservative organiser), it has completely U-turned and announced that the words will be sung this year after all... Organisations and institutions everywhere are now, rightly, looking at themselves and reassessing their practices and cultural icons – whether or not they’re on the Black Lives Matter to-do list... anyone who believes in race equality should welcome the corporations’s move, and the chance to have a discussion – rather than abandoning the BBC to the rightwing jackals in the media and losing the chance to end this annual supremacist indulgence once and for all."
Isn't it racist to suggest that black people in the UK don't love their country?
We're still told that liberals don't hate their countries
Apparently if you don't want to destroy your culture and history, you're racist

Student seen throwing away 2,977 American flags for 9/11 - "A Washington University student was caught on camera tossing thousands of American flags commemorating the lives lost in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the garbage — calling the display a “political prop upholding American hegemony.” Fadel Alkilani was seen stuffing blue garbage bags with the flags Saturday on the campus in St. Louis, Missouri, before he’s confronted by another student who is filming him... “[Alkilani] said that [the display] was in violation of school rules. He was also saying profanity”... Alkilani, vice president of finance of the university’s Student Union, defended his actions, saying his protest was to bring attention to the rise of Islamophobia and criticize US military intervention in the Middle East. “Any memorial of 9/11 that does not contend with these facts is not only incomplete, but it also amplifies pro-imperialist sentiment and actively disrespects those who have died because of American Invasion,” he said in a statement... He added that the 9/11 victims “deserve better than to be used as a political tool by those who seek to excuse American imperialism and Islamophobia."

Jemele Hill tweets that new book shows US as bad as Nazi Germany - "Controversial liberal journalist Jemele Hill caused waves of shock on Twitter Sunday when she tweeted that America is just as bad as Nazi Germany. She tweeted: “Been reading Isabel Wilkerson’s new book, ‘Caste,’ and if you were of the opinion that the United States wasn’t nearly as bad as Nazi Germany, how wrong you are. Can’t encourage you enough to read this masterpiece.”... Former Democratic New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind said: “REMINDER for @jemelehill about just a FEW of the differences between AMERICA and NAZI GERMANY!” Earlier this month, Oprah Winfrey announced she had chosen Isabel Wilkerson’s exploration of race and hierarchy in the U.S., “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” as her latest book club pick... Hill, now a writer for The Atlantic and a podcast host, famously called President Trump a “white supremacist” on Twitter in 2017. She was an ESPN host at the time. ESPN initially declined to punish Hill but then sidelined her for two weeks in October 2017 after she violated the company’s social media guidelines again... Last year, Hill deleted a tweet that jokingly referenced the assassination of the president during his State of the Union address."
Imagine hating your country that much
This is ironic, given how much the left tries to appropriate the mantle of American soldiers in World War II. Does this mean that they're admitting that they're terrible people?

DISGRACEFUL: US women's soccer team members turned away from flag as 98-year-old WWII vet played the national anthem | The Post Millennial - "Frank Luntz argued that the US women not facing forward had turned to face the American flag by the scoreboard. A few of the players placed their hands over their hearts while facing toward the flag "instead of the anthem performer," he tweeted. Grenell, who saw the pre-game ceremony live, countered the "spin": "You are wrong. The flag is to the women's right. The women facing forward turned away from the US flag despite their teammates facing them. Here's a picture of the whole team. Which one facing forward has their hand on their heart?!""

Washington school bans 9/11 tribute over race sensitivities - "Students at a Washington state high school football game were banned from wearing red, white and blue in honor of 9/11 victims because some may find it “racially insensitive.”"

New York Times columnist "really disturbed" to see pickup trucks and American flags on Long Island and I'm starting to think she doesn't get out of the city much - "Put yourself in Mara Gay's shoes. She's possibly never seen a pickup truck in real life."

Facebook - "The fact that Drew Brees got more pushback for saying respect the flag then DeShawn Jackson got for a blatantly anti-semetic IG post is a sad reflection on the current state of American culture"
So much for it being a myth that liberals hate their countries. Liberals only defend Jews when they can use that to shit on white people

Howard Beckett on Twitter - "At Pimlico Academy they have introduced pupil uniforms with Union Jacks; banned afros and “colourful” hijabs. They have taken Black History Month off the curriculum. Institutional racism. Teachers & pupils united in strike action & protests. Call it out. Tories promote racism." Might as well abolish all uniform policies.

Member of Conservative, Anti-Gay Group Places Homophobic Cake Order at LGBTQ-Owned Detroit Bakery - "I am ordering this cake to celebrate and have PRIDE in true Christian marriage. I’d like you to write on the cake, in icing, “Homosexual acts are gravely evil. (Catholic Catechism 2357”)...
Anderson wasn’t sure what to do, fearing that she might face a lawsuit if she refused to fill the order... Ultimately, Anderson decided to fill the order without the requested writing, noting to the Free Press that her website states that special written message requests must be placed over the phone or in person; Gordon’s order was placed online. Instead, Anderson made a layer cake with white frosting and rainbow decorations with the message “God Is Love and Love Is God” on the inside of the box."
It's ok to discriminate against Christians, of course.

Meme - White woman to black woman: "Oh you poor, ignorant, stupid fool who has internalized white supremacy and racism! Don't worry, I'll fight the good fight for you, since you are obviously too brainwashed to know better! I'll be offended on your behalf!"

Why the way we teach kids table manners is actually kind of racist
Everything is racist, of course.
Naturally, non-white countries' table manners are not racist even if they marginalise other cultures

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 21, 1993 - "Calvin:  Nothing I do is my fault.  My family is dysfunctional and my parents won't empower me!  Consequently, I'm not self-actualized!  My behavior is addictive functioning in a disease process of toxic codependency!  I need holistic healing and wellness before I'll accept any responsibility for my actions! Hobbes:  One of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water. Calvin:  I love the culture of victimhood."
Precient

Meme - "Evolution of the American Left
Late 20th Century Leftist: Question Authority
Early 21st Century Leftist: If you Question Authority you are a Racist"

Why celebrating ‘mixed-race beauty' has its problematic side - "It’s impossible to see the rise of mixed beauty ideals as a positive thing, because at its heart sits an unsettling insistence on white superiority."
Apparently now it's anti-racist to be against miscegenation

Your ‘strange’ crush on Rishi Sunak could actually be a racist fetish
And if you don't find him attractive, you're racist too. So everything is racist

Facebook - ""Singapore is treating our foreign workers badly!
SG govt is doing a terrible job in managing foreign workers!
We are not treating foreign workers right! They shed their blood and sweat for our nation-building!
It's inhumane to house so many workers in a small place!
How can the govt not be providing enough food for workers under quarantine?"
These are some of the harsh headlines and comments about how employers and government is treating foreign workers in Singapore. Are they true? I share my opinions here, and debunk the myths and explain some of the half-truths from my viewpoint and direct experience. Unfortunately, a lot of these falsehoods and deliberate harsh comments are politicized to attack the authorities and employers to make a molehill by manipulating the workers.
𝐓𝐋𝐃𝐑;
1. Reports on poor living condition in quarantined dormitories are likely to be temporary lapses due to sudden lockdown instructions but have since stabilized
2. Photos of poor condition and portion of food given to workers are proven to be fake, and MOM has since shared sample photos of actual food provided. Fake news are propagated and politicized by people with other agendas, including anti-government
3. It is unfortunate that the government is unable to cater for 20k indian and bangladeshi food. In Singapore, most official catered food are "Chinese style food" but we pay attention to whether it's halal, non-halal, vegetarian. Hopefully authorities are able to find another bangladeshi/indian food caterer with excess capacity to cook for 20k pax - not easy.
4. Previous claims of foreign workers provided with lousy food is half truth. They pay very little ($1.33 per meal) for catered food, and while there are better external catering options available, most workers rather eat poorly but save more for their family. I've provided some sample photos of their acceptable food, which is part of their culture and norms. Not very far off in variety and portion, it's more of countering the problem on maintaining the taste and freshness of food when caterer has to cook for 10-15k pax per meal.
5. Food - if you think 1 veg + 1 meat + rice and gravy from Chye Png / Nasi Padang is adequate, the workers have it too and maybe 3 times more rice.
6. Accommodation - details of personal space and facilities is strictly regulated by MOM. If you think army bunk is acceptable, approved dormitories meet the requirements too.
7. The real problems that foreign workers are facing is the attitude from Singaporeans. People shun them, speak rudely to them, judge their culture, complains about their eating/resting behavior, complains when their dormitories are too close to hdb, complain when a bus has too many foreign workers on Sundays, Grab drivers speed off and cancel the bookings when they know they are picking up foreign workers...
8. Yet, some Singaporeans trying to stand on higher moral grounds claiming these foreigner workers deserve better
9. My suggestion: let's not start with food and accomodation. Let's start with our day to day attitude towards them. Else, we're just hypocrites...
i'm Aloysius and i run an interior design and renovation contracting firm, or classified as a Construction Firm by MOM. Including workers from various nationality, we employ about 40-50 workers. I also work with a large number of foreign workers from partners, sub-contractors, main contractors, supply labour firms, etc...
people like Jolovan Wham and Kirsten Han who are regular critics of the government, including getting themselves in trouble with law over previous incidents of spreading deliberate falsehoods, continue to spread fake news. Attached is the post shared by Jolovan, also by Kirsten (they may not be original authors), alleging that the workers are provided with terrible food at one of the dormitory. It is however, later proven that the photos they've used are from elsewhere and the workers are provided with food that doesn't look like that at all. In fact, MOM has included a set of photos in the press release of the sample of food provided to the workers... these workers typically earn a basic salary of $18 to $40 per day, before overtime and allowances. Before you complain with disgust how lowly they are paid, consider for yourself if you're willing to pay more for your roads, town management, BTO flats, renovations... Workers earning lower salary will have no choice but to pay for the cheapest catering. You expect some better paid workers ordering from external caterers, but many of them will still choose to pay for the cheapest caterer so that they can send more money back. My opinion: You can kill those $120 caterers, but that'll mean the youngest and lowest paid workers will not be able to afford their basic 3 meals. You'll also be forcing others to spend more on their food, when you're actually depriving them from the chance to decide whether to eat better themselves or for their families back home to lead a better life... Trust me, my workers are all very happy with 1 dish meal. They are happy enough to have 1 properly cooked and tasting veg on Monday, then just mutton meat and curry on Tuesday, Fish curry with onion/tomato/radish on Wednesday, etc.  Don't project your own expectations on food quality onto them, it's difference. To them, it's really not just about the variety. We do enjoy our 1-dish meals too isn't it?...
or regular dormitories, it's just bunk beds. Typically 10-12 pax per room, with general ventilation by fan and each person has his own locker. Some properties may have bigger rooms, so they house 15-20 pax per room instead. The area of space per pax is controlled and guided by MOM. Not worse off than SAF bunks. Don't complain, cos you will not be willing to pay more for their services so that they can sleep in individual rooms."
The liberal solution is to pay foreign workers a lot more, so a lot fewer of them get jobs, and then when prices go up blame greedy companies for over-charging

Friday, January 28, 2022

Links - 28th January 2022 (2 - General Wokeness)

City Bans Men From Applying for $63,000-A-Year Street Sweeper Operator Job - "An Australian city council has banned men from applying for a $63,000-a-year street sweeper operator job in order to create an "inclusive" organization.  Darebin City Council, in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria (Vic) state, opened the job to people identifying as "non-male" to apply for the position before it closes on September 16."

Meme - "PLEASE DO NOT buy the BTS meal if you don't stan them. You're preventing actual BTS fans who have waited for months from having the BTS meal experience. Eating the sauces without understanding their significance is literally cultural appropriation and it's not okay."

Meme - "Not being willing to give up meat in 2021 is like not being willing to give up your slave in 1860."
Is this racist?

Nathaniel Beamon EL on Twitter - "I don’t support ANY immigration to the US at this point.   Because all these immigration policies are ultimately used to undermine Foundational Black Americans   With ZERO exceptions"
"@tariqnasheed You don’t like Haitians immigrating here but on the other hand respect their culture enough to make documentaries on it #1804 .... help me understand"
"stay home and sustain your society..Whats hard to understand?"
Is it still racist if a black person says it?

Meme - "I have a dream, that one day, my four little children will not be judged by the content of their character, but by their skin color, their gender identity, and their kinks."

These families of missing Black people are frustrated with the lack of response to their cases - "Robinson said he sympathizes with the family of Gabby Petito, whose remains were recovered Sunday after she disappeared while exploring parks in Wyoming prompting a highly publicized search."
Basically, "all lives matter"
Meanwhile there're more missing men than women, but no one cares about men

The Meme Policeman - Posts | Facebook - "In response to the Gabby Petito case, which the media rushed to highlight, many outlets have now switched to the claim that “710 indigenous people, mostly girls” also went missing, but they failed to cover it. While it’s heartening to hear them admit their failure, this is a great example of manufacturing a misleading headline.
▪️The 710 number comes from a Wyoming state report on missing and murdered Indigenous people. This includes ALL reported missing people in Wyoming for a decade!... Almost all (84%) of these missing people were juveniles. 11% were found within a day, and 50% were found within a week. 21% were missing for more than a month. 57% were female. As of now, there are 9 Indigenous people listed as missing from the past decade (3 females and 6 males).
▪️Over the same period there were actually 4,884 people reported missing in WY! Indigenous people make up ~13% of these each year, which is a higher rate per capita, but still just a fraction of overall cases. They currently make up 9/52 active cases...
▪️It’s similar to how police killing an unarmed minority gathers huge coverage, while dozens of shooting in Chicago over a weekend gets almost none. Unusual and sensational stories get attention. A mysterious and tragic saga of a young, attractive engaged couple on Instagram fits that in spades."

ABC's Holmes: Petito Coverage 'Perpetuating' Idea Some Lives Matter More Than Black Lives
Weird. We're told that "Black Lives Matter" doesn't mean that Black Lives matter more than other lives

Wagatwe Wanjuki 🇰🇪 🇧🇸 on Twitter - "Cool cool cool Bill and Melinda Gates funding an article trying to use "cultural competence" to set the stage for African child labor....in a colonizer publication...
Y'ALL LOOK AT THE OLD HEADLINE "Child labour doesn't have to be exploitation-it gave me life skills""

Meme - Feminista Jones: "Black Women Not Jews Were Hitler's Primary Target. Revisionist History Just Muted That. Black Women Were Destroying Germany"
When you've maxed out your victim card

Meme - weratepigs: "YOU CANT JUST *takes sip of Coca Cola who hired mercenaries to kill union leaders* EAT CHIK FIL A *sips out of Starbucks cup made by prison slave labor* THEY HATE GAYS *eats fruit picked by exploited undocumented worker* ARENT YOU AN ALLY?!"

Meme - "umm to the billions of POC who dont accept your white european cultural standards?!? the age of consent is a racist european white construct Here are the 10 countries with the lowest ages of consent: Angola (12 years) Philippines (12 years) Western Sahara (13 years) Comoros (13 years) Burkina Faso (13 years) Niger (13 years) South Korea (13 years) Japan (13 years)"
Related: it's amazing how many virtue signalling idiot Americans go around calling all sex with someone under 18 "pedo" behavior, given that most US states have an age of consent under 18

Amy Eileen Hamm on Twitter - "Just sitting here thinking about what it means to be Canadian: a government-funded unicorn named after a derogatory term for vagina is blocking adults on twitter while trying to collect our children's email addresses"
On Gegi

Meme - "Just took my kids to the park and as soon as my son came down the slide, these two kids ran up to him to ask if he can play hide and seek with them. One was white and the other was Indian, they all had a blast together. Kids aren't worried about skin color, just having fun."
Since liberals say colourblindness is racist, this proves that kids are racist

Meme - "No one chooses their country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it."
"Strongly agree"
*Pride flag, Pride tattoos, Pride T-Shirt, Pride Monster Energy Drink, Pride stickers on monitor*

Barbican staff claim world-leading arts centre is ‘institutionally racist’
Nothing can be spared from the Revolution

Meme - Official Death Note: "how do allocishet neurotypical apsychotic singlets exist like u gotta be the most BORING people like god's default mode"
"none of these words are in the bible"

Meme - "In 1993, most critics dismissed a one-of-a-kind movie as just a stupid action flick with "excessive explosions." Except that it smartly predicted and joked about political correctness, toxic masculinity, racial bias, the hysteria around cancel culture, and even more. By now, it's obvious that the movie was brilliant. But it still doesn't get enough credit. *Demolition Man*"

Meme "- if you could end COVID-19 by sacrificing a part of the united states, which state would you choose & why ohio?"
"Between Florida and New York"
"Which ever one has the most white people"

Meme - Vxqzzz: "If ur white I will misgender u and dehumanize u idgaf if u a cishet or a queer y'all aren't humans in my eyes"

Meme - "There are many aspects of BDSM that will trigger Black people. The terms Master and slave, white people using whips, etc. I wish more people would actually talk about it because they claim to be "inclusive.""
"Unsurprisingly, most of the people in positions of power in the community are white people who can't & shouldn't speak for BIPOC, yet get to influence conduct, language & discrimination in these spaces. This needs to be addressed more. 'We must unlearn, relearn, expand our perspectives, adjust & do the work, otherwise we're not inclusive or intersectional"

The 'terrible' hypocrisy behind Chicago's first black lesbian mayor - "Lori Lightfoot did something during her victory party last week that once would have been considered obscene.  As Chicago’s beaming mayor-elect stood at a podium, she turned toward her wife, Amy Eshleman, and kissed her in full view of a roomful of jubilant supporters while photographers snapped away.  The images of that moment looked like a sneak preview of a New America breaking through – a black, gay woman kissing her white wife before a mini-rainbow coalition of onlookers. And nobody raised an eyebrow.   But focus on just the black supporters in that room and another image emerges. The black vote – especially members of black churches who mobilized on her behalf – was crucial to Lightfoot’s victory.  What if Lightfoot had been standing in the pulpit of one of those black churches when she kissed her wife?  “In probably 90% of the black churches, she would be put out or asked to leave,” says the Rev. Martha Simmons, a scholar on black preaching and a consultant to an upcoming PBS special on the black church.   There is a cruel irony in Lightfoot’s election that few, if any, are talking about. Many of the same black voters who asked her to lead their city wouldn’t dare ask her to lead their own churches because she is a gay woman. Women and LGBTQ members are still treated like second-class citizens in many black churches across America...   Black women are the heart and muscle of the black church. More than two-thirds of a typical black congregation are women. But click on the web sites for groups like the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. or the Church of God in Christ, Inc. and you’ll see that virtually all their leaders are solemn-looking black men staring intently at the camera. The pictures look as out of date as those black-and-white photos of all-white NBA teams from the 1950s.  Ask these black church groups about their attitude toward women and LGBTQ people, and you’ll hear everything except a full-throated affirmation of both groups as equals."

Bishop Talbert Swan on Twitter - "We taught you troglodytes how to bathe when you were crawling in caves. The white world was built on plagiarized Black knowledge. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Hypocrates, studied in Kemet. Writing, math, architecture, came from our ancestors. Yo’ve been smoking too much meth."

Meme - Nintendo: "Happy #PrideMonth! Our staff is filled with people of all sexualities so we love supporting that. *Mario and Luigi kissing*"
"Bruh....those two are brothers..."

Meme - "I think Disney casually dropped a same-sex kiss scene in The Rise of Skywalker!"
"Yassss! Glad you noticed! We value and celebrate diversity!"
"Disney cut Star Wars' historic lesbian kiss from foreign release"

Critical Spectator - Posts | Facebook - "Have you ever wondered why is it that some of the most devout followers of the modern age "progressive" beliefs are the children of the wealthy? It is visible not only among the rich but across entire societies as relative wealth elevates more people into greater comforts (hence the dominance of left-wing ideas in the academia - both among students as well as their teachers)... Most of the 20-somethings have to come to terms with reality at some point, since their parents - however comfortable they may be - usually cannot bankroll their children's existences into infinity... 🔴 This, however, is often not so with the children of the wealthiest, who don't have the same sense of urgency and can live their Peter Pan fantasy lives for many years after they graduate. Two quite extreme examples of the results it has produced in Singapore are Jolovan Wham and Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh. The former is a notorious troublemaker, breaking the laws of the country at every opportunity, so he can get himself jailed and play a martyr sacrificing himself in an uneven battle against the "regime". Notably, it's not for the lack of funds that he ends up behind bars, as his father founded, among several other businesses, Goldheart Jewellery.  The latter is an equally notorious race-baiter, who speaks of Singapore as "soulless" and "racist", even though his immigrant Malayalee Indian family has achieved a multimillionaire status in the city-state, allowing him to complete two degrees in America while his parents were busy expanding a future S$40 million mansion, which he only moved out of 3 years ago at age 40. He labels himself a "plebeian", railing against the "elites" despite coming from a family that isn't just a part of the richest 1% but a fraction of that percent. All of that just as he swapped the swanky family bungalow for a million dollar Pasir Ris' executive condo with sea view, 1000+ sqft. of which he inhabits with his wife and cats, while getting reacquainted (by his own admission) with washing his own clothes for the first time since his university days."

Facebook - "*D Day* 90% of the soldiers on the first boats to hit the beach didn't live to see the end of the day. Look at those faces. Some of them never made it to 18. Never voted. Never loved a woman, or owned a home. They gave their lives fighting Hitler and the Nazis, so today's kids can call everyone they don't like Hitler and Nazis."

Meme - ""Why do you care so much at what adults do in their own bedroom" simps ask in response to me saying I don't support a commmunity that sues businesses over not endorsing their lifestyle, grooms children, has statistically high levels of child/ partner abuse and wants hate laws..."

L.A. Times Columnist Who Likened Trump Supporters To Terrorists Wants Real Estate Listings To Show Gun Ownership In Area - "Virginia Heffernan tweeted, “Real-estate listings should include prevalence of gun-ownership in a 50-mile radius and number of annual mass shootings in the region. Time to change what a ‘bad neighborhood’ is.” “[A]nd introduce a meaningful tax on guns and gun violence,” she continued. “No one should say ‘this is a great place to raise kids’ about neighborhoods where even one person has an assault rifle.”... Heffernan noted that her Trump-loving neighbors had done her a favor and “plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job,” but then likened them to Nazi supporters and Hezbollah terrorists"
When you hate legal gun owners. Ironically she probably loves criminals

Two major real estate search engines nix crime data in racial equity push - "Realtor.com has removed crime data from its website, and Redfin has decided not to add it out of concerns that it could perpetuate racial inequity... In addition to the FBI’s metrics, Redfin also considered the National Crime Victimization Survey, which relies on interviews from tens of thousands of people annually and queries them about the frequency, characteristics, and consequences of criminal victimization across the country. Those who say they are victims of crime are also asked whether the crime was reported to law enforcement. Taubman said that while the survey includes information on unreported crimes, because it is a survey, if respondents’ responses are racially biased, that bias would be reflected in the crime data. “And there are troubling signs of this: in the 2019 survey, people reporting crimes were more likely to describe their offender as young, male, and Black than would be expected given the representation of those groups in the population”"
Gun ownership data good, Crime data bad
Clearly if some groups are more likely to show up on crime statistics, that means there's a problem with the statistics

Gad Saad on Twitter - "I defend @Caitlyn_Jenner against abuse: I'm accused of being "transphobic."
I fight for women's rights in the Middle East: I'm accused of being "Islamophobic."
I fight for absolute freedom of speech: I'm accused of being a "white supremacist neo-Nazi.""
I criticize BLM: I'm accused of being a "bigot."
I criticize @KingJames: I'm accused of being a "racist."
While 99.9% of people appreciate my efforts, the very tiny minority is truly terroristic. We need to stand up to these Woke Terrorists and reclaim reason and common sense."

Without John Lydon, Danny Boyle’s Sex Pistols series will be an anti-punk woke wash - "Lydon and Morrissey - and myself - grew up working-class in England, being told by older Right-wing people that our views were unacceptable and that we should shut up and listen to our betters. We’re now being told this by younger Left-wing people. The straightforward class-based culture we grew up with has mutated into cancel culture. As Lydon summed it up: “I never thought I’d live to see the day when the Right-wing would become the cool ones giving the finger to the Establishment and the Left-wing become the snivelling self-righteous ones going around shaming everybody.”"

Aimee Terese on Twitter - "Wokeness is literally passive aggressive narcissism as state ideology. Abusers pretending to be victims. Powerful people pretending to be vulnerable. It's 100% resistant to duty, responsibility, obligation of any kind, to anyone else whatsoever. Totalising bourgeois narcissism."

Raheem J. Kassam on Twitter - "The left: “Let everyone in so they too can enjoy amazing America!”
Also the left: “America sucks! Burn it all down!”"

All Senate Democrats voted against an amendment to prevent federal funding to universities that discriminate against Asians - "Democrats only care about discrimination against Asians when doing so furthers their own purposes"

Jonathan Kay: A white mob comes after an Arab-Canadian professor — in the name of anti-racism - "Azar is no shrinking violet. When a local activist named Husoni Raymond opined that New Brunswick is “systemically racist,” Azar applied her comparative understanding of Lebanon and Canada to argue that, in relative terms, her adopted home isn’t racist at all, but is rather “a young country” that “wants to save the world.” (As evidence, she pointed to the fact that Raymond himself had been lavishly honoured for his anti-racism work, which is hardly consistent with white supremacism.) In a similar vein, she has argued down activists who claim Canada is a “patriarchy” afflicted by rape culture. If you want to see “real rape culture,” she’s noted archly, take a look at “ISIS practices in Syria.” Azar also has called Black Lives Matter a “radical” movement, which is an unfashionable thing to say, but isn’t remotely inaccurate given BLM’s stated goals of creating a “global liberation movement” that will “dismantle capitalism,” abolish prisons, and erase national borders. You’re all adults, and so you know how this story ends. One of Azar’s umbraged former students, Tweeting under the name “Izzy,” went through Azar’s past blog posts and assembled an incriminating pastiche of the above-described viewpoints. Izzy pronounced herself “personally disappointed to see that (Azar) shows a fundamental misunderstanding of race,” then helpfully listed some of Azar’s professional affiliations, so readers would know where to direct complaints. Naturally, a local reporter from the Moncton Times & Transcript hopped on the thread, and duly wrote up Azar’s “inappropriate” comments. The CBC also got in on the mobbing in its patented CBC way: In a 19-paragraph story, reporter Marie Sutherland somehow managed to quote numerous people (including Mount Allison administrators, who are conducting an “internal review” of Azar) denouncing the professor for her “hurtful” ideas, without ever actually quoting a single word that Azar had actually written — thus giving readers the false impression that Azar had said something really awful. Just a few years ago, it would have been completely shocking to see the CBC publish journalism on this sub-Canadaland level, let alone for a university to publicly denounce its own professor at the urging of a Twitter mob. But in 2021, it’s all part of the routine... there’s my favourite white-person comment, from @darevha11 (“acknowledging my white privilege & the fact I live on unceded Mi’kMaq territory”), tweeting — you can’t make this up — “I am a privileged cis white 50-year-old woman. How is (it) that I understand systemic racism and she doesn’t? She needs to be removed immediately!” Topping off the thread, Izzy herself huffed that this immigrant and civil-war survivor has fallen short of Izzy’s own “understanding of systemic racism, colonialism and social determinants of health.” As readers can see, I’m straining to maintain the conceit of ironic detachment here — because the absolute gall of these “intersectionalists” is truly maddening. But also revealing: What these self-sanctifying white “settlers” want isn’t diversity at all, but rather for people of all backgrounds and identities to celebrate their own “privileged cis white” moral grandeur. And if a woman such as Azar refuses to play that game, it’s under the bus they go. After all, New Brunswick’s Izzys have other, equally diverse, more ideologically compliant personnel options they can go with — such as the aforementioned Husoni Raymond, who spiked the football at Azar with a Tweet reading “Lol” and an emoji of someone crying. (Naturally, Raymond works as an “anti-racism project coordinator” at something called the New Brunswick Multicultural Council, which purports to “advocate for a more multicultural and inclusive New Brunswick.”) One important detail here is that Azar has tenure. So ultimately, I’d be surprised if the Izzy-led mob manages to get Azar fired from Mount Allison, even if it does manage to get her thrown off a few advisory councils and generally humiliate her, which seems to be their real goal. The real question is why Azar herself would want to stick around within a white-dominated academic community whose members have now betrayed themselves as the worst kind of hypocrite."

New study suggests moms may be more gender biased than dads - "the stereotype that boys shouldn’t cry is being perpetuated by moms more than dads.  The study says mothers may be more gender-biased than fathers when it comes to encouraging or discouraging their children’s expressions of sadness and anger. It also reveals mothers may not even be aware they have these biases.   Thomassin says she thought both moms and dads would be more accepting of daughters showing sadness than sons, and more accepting of sons showing anger.  Instead, the study shows only mothers had those attitudes while fathers showed no preference at all."

Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class—A Status Update - "Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.  In the past, people displayed their membership of the upper class with their material accoutrements. But today, luxury goods are more affordable than before. And people are less likely to receive validation for the material items they display. This is a problem for the affluent, who still want to broadcast their high social position. But they have come up with a clever solution. The affluent have decoupled social status from goods, and re-attached it to beliefs.    Human beings become more preoccupied with social status once our physical needs are met. In fact, research reveals that sociometric status (respect and admiration from peers) is more important for well-being than socioeconomic status. Furthermore, studies have shown that negative social judgment is associated with a spike in cortisol (hormone linked to stress) that is three times higher than non-social stressful situations. We feel pressure to build and maintain social status, and fear losing it.   It seems reasonable to think that the downtrodden might be most interested in obtaining status and money. But this is not the case. Inhabitants of prestigious institutions are even more interested than others in prestige and wealth. For many of them, that drive is how they reached their lofty positions in the first place. Fueling this interest, they’re surrounded by people just like them—their peers and competitors are also intelligent status-seekers. They persistently look for new ways to move upward and avoid moving downward. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim understood this when he wrote, “The more one has, the more one wants, since satisfactions received only stimulate instead of filling needs.” And indeed, a recent piece of research supports this: it is the upper class who are the most preoccupied with gaining wealth and status. In their paper, the researchers conclude, “relative to lower-class individuals, upper-class individuals have a greater desire for wealth and status…it is those who have more to start with (i.e., upper-class individuals) who also strive to acquire more wealth and status.” Plainly, high-status people desire status more than anyone else.   Furthermore, other research has found that absolute income does not have much effect on general life satisfaction. An increase in relative income, on the other hand, has a positive effect. Put differently, making more money isn’t important. What’s important is making more than others...  the anthropologist and historian Jared Diamond has suggested that one reason humans engage in displays such as drinking, smoking, drug use, and other physically costly behaviors is because they serve as fitness indicators. The message is: “I’m so healthy that I can afford to poison my body and continue to function.”   Veblen proposed that the wealthy flaunt these symbols not because they are useful, but because they are so pricey or wasteful that only the wealthy can afford them, which is why they’re high-status indicators...  top universities are also crucial for induction into the luxury belief class. Take vocabulary. Your typical middle-class American could not tell you what “heteronormative” or “cisgender” means. But if you visit Harvard, you’ll find plenty of rich 19-year-olds who will eagerly explain them to you. When someone uses the phrase “cultural appropriation,” what they are really saying is “I was educated at a top college.”... Only the affluent can afford to learn strange vocabulary because ordinary people have real problems to worry about.   The chief purpose of luxury beliefs is to indicate evidence of the believer’s social class and education. Only academics educated at elite institutions could have conjured up a coherent and reasonable-sounding argument for why parents should not be allowed to raise their kids, and should hold baby lotteries instead. When an affluent person advocates for drug legalization, or anti-vaccination policies, or open borders, or loose sexual norms, or uses the term “white privilege,” they are engaging in a status display. They are trying to tell you, “I am a member of the upper class.”...   Unfortunately, the luxury beliefs of the upper class often trickle down and are adopted by people lower down the food chain, which means many of these beliefs end up causing social harm. Take polyamory. I had a revealing conversation recently with a student at an elite university. He said that when he sets his Tinder radius to five miles, about half of the women, mostly other students, said they were “polyamorous” in their bios. Then, when he extended the radius to 15 miles to include the rest of the city and its outskirts, about half of the women were single mothers. The costs created by the luxury beliefs of the former are borne by the latter. Polyamory is the latest expression of sexual freedom championed by the affluent. They are in a better position to manage the complications of novel relationship arrangements. And if these relationships don’t work out, they can recover thanks to their financial capability and social capital. The less fortunate suffer by adopting the beliefs of the upper class.  This is well-illustrated by the finding that in 1960 the percentage of American children living with both biological parents was identical for affluent and working-class families—95 percent. By 2005, 85 percent of affluent families were still intact, but for working-class families the figure had plummeted to 30 percent...   Over time, luxury beliefs are embraced down the social ladder—at which point, the upper class abandons its old luxury beliefs and embraces new ones. Which explains why the beliefs of the upper class are constantly changing. It’s easy to see how this works if we look at actual fashion...   The economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell once said that activism is “a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” The same could be said for luxury beliefs. They are similar to luxury goods, but present new problems. Attaching status to luxury goods or financial standing meant there were limits to how much harm the leisure class could do when it came to their conspicuous displays. For example, fashion is constrained by the speed with which people could adopt a new look. But with beliefs, this status cycle accelerates. A rich person flaunts her new belief. It then becomes fashionable among her peers, so she abandons it. Then a new stylish belief arises, while the old luxury belief trickles down the social hierarchy and wreaks havoc."
Late capitalism means you worry about stupid shit and imaginary problems
Good explanation of virtue signalling and the slippery slope

Meme - "Arctic Ron Every single time you try to convince someone that you're not a racist they win. The argument is over, and they have beaten you because you are now a dancing monkey begging for their approval & understanding. Stop letting their words have power over you"

Blaire White on Twitter - "A lot of y'all can't tell the difference between hate speech and speech you hate."

NBC News - Posts | Facebook - "The FDA appears likely to move to ban menthol in cigarettes this week — a step, experts say, that has been years in the making and that could have a significant positive impact on the health of Black Americans."
So much for "stereotypes"
Is it racist to be patronising?

US school’s social studies quiz asks kids if it is normal for Chinese to eat cats and dogs - "Three teachers in a Texas school have been suspended for a racist question on Chinese people in a sixth-grade social studies test...
    "A. It is normal in China to cut off someone's lips if they burp in a restaurant."
    "B. It is normal in parts of China to give children 50 lashes by a cane if they steal a piece of candy."
    "C. It is normal in parts of China to eat cats and dogs."...
"Harmful rhetoric in our education system is exactly why anti-Asian hate crimes and racism persist today,” she wrote.  The school, Carrollton-Farmers-Branch School, issued a formal statement condemning the derogatory language of the quiz. "The words used on the test question were derogatory and hurtful," the statement read, adding the teachers "have been placed on administrative leave until the investigation is complete"... parents were upset by the incident, with one calling for the teachers to be fired."
Hate facts!

(14) Dog “Meat” Consumption in China: A Survey of the Controversial Eating Habit in Two Cities - "The consumption of dog "meat" is dividing the Chinese society into two camps. Is dog eating part of the mainstream food culture or is it a declining practice? With the help of a survey of 1,265 respondents in Yanji and Dalian, the study confirms different rates of acceptance regarding dog eating among the respondents by age, ethnicity, education, rural-urban residence status, and profession. Contrary to the belief that urbanization weakens traditional behaviors, our study found that Yanji, with its high urbanization rate, considers dog "meat" consumption to be acceptable. The local subculture appeared to be a strong intervening factor. Unlike Korean vegetable side dishes, dog "meat" is not a mainstream food choice in Yanji. The eating habit may continue for a long time if it is not banned. However, the decline of the eating habit seems irreversible... To determine if dog eating was popular, we asked Yanji respondents how often they had dog “meat”  and  how  often  they  ate  the  Korean  vegetable  side  dishes.  Among  the  Yanji business office workers, 29% ate Korean vegetable side dishes every day. Those  who  ate  the  food  every  week  accounted  for  35%.  In  contrast,  none  of  the respondents said that they ate dog “meat” on a daily basis. Only 12% had dog “meat” once a week. Fifteen percent never ate dog “meat.” In contrast, 19% never ate Korean vegetable side dishes. Traditional  food  typically  survives  better  in  the  rural  areas.  Of  the  200  respondents in rural Yanji, 31% ate Korean fermented vegetable side dishes every day. Those who ate the side dishes weekly and monthly accounted for 41% and 19%, respectively. Only 9% of the rural respondents never ate the side dishes. Therefore, 72% of the rural residents were frequent eaters of the Korean veg-etable  side  dishes.  In  contrast,  only  16%  ate  dog  “meat”  on  a  regular  basis.  Regular  consumption  of  dog  “meat”  was  significantly  higher  in  rural  Yanji  (16%) than in urban Yanji (7.7%)... Dog  eating  is  believed  to  be  more  common  among  the  ethnic  Koreans  in  Northeast  China.  This  perception  was  confirmed  by  our  study... Among those with only elementary education, 57% consumed dog meat; 46% of those with middle school education consumed it; and 23% of those with college education consumed it."
Why is this "racist" paper not yet retracted? Plus it "stigmatises" ethnic Koreans in China, who are double minorities!

Don't say nay to horsemeat: French eaters - "France’s taste for horsemeat dates back to when 18th Century revolutionaries seized the fallen aristocracy’s horses to sate their hunger. It flourished for two centuries until falling out of fashion with a more squeamish younger generation. The French now consume less than 300 grams (0.66 lbs) per person per year... “I never buy beef. I prefer horse meat, it tastes better and it’s cheaper,” said Catherine Clerc, 42, who claims to have converted friends after cooking them horse roasts at home."
Somehow no one considers it racist to say that horse meat consumption is a thing in France