Links - 24th September 2018 (1)

Alumnae Of Christine Blasey Ford's High School Circulate Letter Of Support - "“We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story,” says a draft letter from alumnae of Holton-Arms, a private girls school in Bethesda, Maryland. “It demands a thorough and independent investigation before the Senate can reasonably vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court.” The women also say that what Ford is alleging “is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves.”... "I grew up hearing stories like hers, and believe her completely.”... She said she was 15 when she attended a party where she encountered Kavanaugh, who was 17 at the time. She said Kavanaugh and his friend shut her in a room and turned up the music to hide her protests. Kavanaugh, who was drunk, held her down and tried to remove her clothes. She said that at one point he held his hand on her mouth to stifle her screams. She managed to escape... Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans released a letter from 65 women who said they knew the nominee in high school and vouched for his character, saying he always treated women with ”decency and respect.”... Republicans on the Judiciary Committee put out a statement Sunday reiterating the support Kavanaugh has publicly received and casting Ford’s allegations as part of a political tactic by Democrats."
In other words, "we have no proof of what she is claiming but it sounds good so we support it"

Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Pick, Denies Alleged Sexual Misconduct In High School - "the woman, who did not want to be named, said in a letter that Kavanaugh "attempted to force himself on her" at a party when they were teenagers... All three were minors at the time. The woman declined to be interviewed by the New Yorker... Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a letter on Friday signed by 65 women who said they knew Kavanaugh in high school and defended his character. The letter noted that the signatories included women from "a broad range of political views."... Feinstein called a meeting on Wednesday at which she disclosed the contents of the letter to committee Democrats, but did not show the letter itself... "Throughout his confirmation process, Judge Kavanaugh has had 65 meetings with senators—including with Senator Feinstein—sat through over 30 hours of testimony, addressed over 2,000 questions in a public setting and additional questions in a confidential session. Not until the eve of his confirmation has Sen. Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new 'information' about him"... an extensive background check was already completed by the White House and reviewed by the committee... Kavanaugh has completed six FBI background checks between 1993 and 2018, and that Feinstein, who obtained the letter in July, did not raise the issue during the hearings or attend a closed session on the nomination where the information could have been discussed"

Trump defends his Supreme Court nominee, wants accuser to testify - "A former classmate of Kavanaugh denied attending the party where the assault allegedly occurred. Patrick J. Smyth sent a letter to Grassley and top committee Democrat Dianne Feinstein, denying seeing any "improper conduct" by Kavanaugh, a classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School, according to CNN, which obtained a copy of the letter. "I understand that I have been identified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as the person she remembers as 'PJ' who supposedly was present at the party she described in her statements to the Washington Post," Smyth said in his letter, CNN reported. "I am issuing this statement today to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has levelled against Brett Kavanaugh.""

Escape the Echo Chamber - "Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers announced yesterday that she wants a FBI investigation into her claims before she testifies. Ford made an accusation of a non-federal crime committed by a minor 36-years-ago. She couldn’t name the year and she could not name the location. The one witness she said was there claims no knowledge. She also doesn’t have names of the other people in the house. If every word of what she says is true, what is the FBI supposed to do? A fair interpretation of this is that this is a delaying tactic. I suspect the special hearing will be held on Monday and Ford will attend. If she doesn’t, that works to Kavanaugh’s advantage. His supporters can claim she refused to testify under oath"

John Hawkins on Twitter - "Hello, FBI? We need you to investigate a sexual assault allegation? Oh, that's a police matter? Still. When was it? Roughly 36 years ago? The actual date? No idea. The location? Not sure. What do we know? There were either 2 or 4 people in the room. Hello, hello? Did you hang up?"

Accusation Against Kavanaugh Is Exactly Why Men Should Be Leery of #MeToo Movement - "One of the tricks liberals love most is taking something that is as close to universally despised as humanly possible, like racism, police shooting innocent people, or rape, and then declaring that they are bravely against it while their opponents are for it. To provide evidence for their gaslighting, they redefine the terms they’re discussing in the most dubious and polarizing ways imaginable. “Oh, you’re against disrespecting the flag?” Then you must want black men to be shot by the police! “Oh, you’re not in favor of tearing down historical statues because the owners had slaves?” Then you must hate black people! “Oh, you don’t believe EVERY rape accusation made against a man?” Then you must be pro-rape... we have Brett Kavanaugh, an extremely well-qualified judge with an impeccable reputation who has been vetted by the FBI six times. You don’t get any more squeaky clean than Kavanaugh. Then, at the last minute, after his hearing was over and as he was about to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Bernie Sanders donor Christine Blasey Ford alleged that Kavanagh had sexually assaulted her... although Kavanaugh’s name does not appear in her therapist’s notes, those notes do say she claimed four men were in the room. Ford now says two men were in the room... she describes 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh acting like a hardened sexual predator. According to Ford, he physically forced her into another room, turned the music up so no one could hear her scream, covered her mouth, pinned her down as she tried to get away, and treated her so roughly she feared he was going to kill her. On the other hand, that’s mixed in with what sounds like playful, drunken horseplay between Kavanaugh and Judge... we have three people categorically denying Ford’s account and she doesn’t seem to know a lot of the basics of her own story. So, it’s an unreliable 36-year-old he said/she said allegation about something that happened between teenagers. Surely, no one could think that an accusation this flimsy should be enough to ruin a man’s life? Right? WRONG."

CONFIRMED: Organizer Vinay Krishnan Who Was Caught Paying Off Kavanaugh Protesters -- Works for Soros-Linked Organization - "several Texas doctors attended the Kavanaugh hearing in Washington DC. After the hearing the doctors told reporter Adam Schindler that they witnessed organized activists with a bag of cash paying the rent-a-mob protesters."

'Everyone tweeting this vicious conspiracy theory should be ashamed of themselves': US attorney slams accusations that his wife made a controversial hand gesture during Kavanaugh hearing - "US attorney John Bash slammed what he called a “vicious conspiracy theory” that spread on social media after his wife, attorney Zina Bash, was accused of making a hand signal that some people associate with white-supremacy groups. “The attacks today on my wife are repulsive,” Bash said on Twitter. “Everyone tweeting this vicious conspiracy theory should be ashamed of themselves.” Zina, a former clerk for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, was accused of making the gesture on Tuesday, at the start of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for his nomination to the US Supreme Court. Accusers claimed that Zina, who is of Jewish and Mexican heritage and is a descendant of Holocaust survivors, is of an ilk who “literally want to bring white supremacy to the Supreme Court.”... The hand symbol, commonly known as the “OK” gesture, is believed to be affiliated with members of the alt-right, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the origin of the symbol is also disputed by the Anti-Defamation League, which describes it as a hoax “to fool liberals and get them to spread such false messages.” The gesture was also spotted when a former White House intern allegedly mimicked the symbol in a group photo with President Donald Trump. The former intern, who is of Jewish heritage, denied any association with “racist white power organizations.”"
So much for conspiracy theories being the preserve of the "right"

How Colleges Teach Students to See Bias Where It Doesn’t Exist - "“You have blood on your hands. You’re a murderer,” shouted one of the protesters at Judge Brett Kavanaugh during the Senate hearings of his nomination to the Supreme Court. This apocalyptic rhetoric had been espoused before — at none other than the Yale Law School, immediately after President Donald Trump announced the school’s graduate as his chosen replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy. There, a group of alumni and professors circulated an open letter declaring that selecting Kavanaugh “presents an emergency — for democratic life, for our safety and freedom, for the future of our country.” People “will die” if Kavanaugh is confirmed, the letter announced. By the time of the hearings, Kavanaugh had gone from being a future murderer to an actual one. These protests, intended to shut down the proceedings — and the fantastical social-media charge that one of Kavanaugh’s former clerks displayed a white-power sign during those hearings — showed how academic identity politics is transforming the non-academic world... The key feature of academic diversity ideology is the assertion that to be a member of an ever-growing number of favored victim groups at a college today is to be the target of pervasive bigotry on campus — despite, well, being favored. Taught by a metastasizing campus-diversity bureaucracy to believe that they are subject to an existential threat from circumambient bias, students equate nonconforming ideas with “hate speech,” and “hate speech” with conduct that should be punished, censored and repelled with force if necessary. This victimology fuels the efforts to shut down speech that challenges campus orthodoxies. Dozens of times in the past several years alone, classrooms have been invaded; professors, accosted and even assaulted; and outside speakers, silenced... protesters at Columbia University temporarily occupied a class and accused a professor who is an LGBTQ rights advocate and one of the school’s premier proponents of the idea that campuses are pervaded by rape culture of creating a “dangerous environment for students, including queer students.” That same month, shouting activists prevented University of Oregon President Michael Schill from delivering his State of the University Speech. Schill’s merely pro forma support for free speech was enabling “fascism and white supremacy,” according to the student protesters... In none of these instances were the silencers disciplined. In several of them, the college presidents thanked the anti-speech advocates for their courageous stands. Yale conferred its prize for “provid[ing] exemplary leadership in race and/or ethnic relations” on two of Christakis’s scourges, including the student who shouted, “It’s not a debate.”... The right has its shrill manias— whether the unseemly obsession with Hillary Clinton and her emails, the corrosive Trump-fueled calumny that federal law enforcement agencies have been corrupted by political bias, and the dangerous Trump-induced crusade to turn those agencies into instruments of political revenge. But until now, the notion that silencing non-conforming speech is a legitimate response to disagreement has come overwhelmingly from campuses and other progressive institutions — from Google to the New Yorker. Were Trump to seize the same weapons, arrogating to himself the power to define and punish “hate speech,” the danger of such precedents might become clearer to all."

Study shows Wikipedia Accuracy is 99.5% - "They analyzed articles on drugs, drawing every piece of relevant information, as well as references, revision history and readability. Their conclusion is that the accuracy of drug information on Wikipedia was 99.7%±0.2% when compared to the textbook data. However, even though the articles were very accurate, they weren’t fully complete. Scientists rate the completeness of articles at 83.8±1.5%. However, completeness had a huge variation, ranging between 68.0% and 91.0%. This difference shows that Wikipedia is not always the best resource to draw complete information from, but it always provides over two thirds of the whole story. Furthermore, from the drug information missing in Wikipedia, 62.5% was rated as didactically non-relevant in a qualitative re-evaluation study."

She’s the world’s top empathy researcher. But colleagues say she bullied and intimidated them - "Tania Singer, a celebrated neuroscientist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, is known as one of the world’s foremost experts on empathy... Singer, one of the most high-profile female researchers in the Max Planck Society (MPG), sometimes made harsh comments to women who became pregnant, multiple lab members told Science. “People were terrified. They were really, really afraid of telling her about their pregnancies,” one former colleague says. “For her, having a baby was basically you being irresponsible and letting down the team,” says another, who became a mother while working in Singer’s department."
So much for role models for women in science

Vox’s Ezra Klein Defends “Kill All Men” Twitter Hashtag - "Leftists like Klein are only defensive because one of their own was involved. Even falling back on the idea that every -ism and -phobia takes power plus privilege (which is in no way the official definition, just the one used by social justice warriors), how does #KillAllMen not offend more Leftists? In their heads they seem to think it would just mean white men, which is fine and funny to them. But the hashtag would include black, Hispanic, Muslim, Asian, disabled, transgender, and gay men as well — all protected groups by the Left. Does that alter their lack of outrage?"

Canada’s Politicians are in Denial on Terrorism - "Since 2013, Canada has had a series of low level terrorist attacks which have an Islamist connection. Among these have been the attempted 2013 bombing plot on a Via Rail train, the 2014 vehicle attack which killed a Canadian soldier, the 2014 gun attack on the National War Memorial and the Parliament, a 2016 attempted suicide bombing attack which was thwarted at the last minute with only the bomber dying, a 2016 knife attack on a Canadian Forces recruiting centre, a 2016 knife attack in a Canadian Tire hardware store by a woman claiming to work for ISIS, and a 2017 vehicle and knife stabbing attack. Canadians are increasingly wondering about their own Prime Minister. Prime Minister Trudeau stated openly that ISIS fighters returning to Canada would be an asset as they are a “powerful voice for deradicalization.” The Canadian government has no deradicalizaiton program. Prime Minister Trudeau also spoke in Parliament and stated that anyone who opposed the return of ISIS fighters to Canada was “Islamophobic.”... In December of 2015, newly elected Prime Minister Trudeau sent a video message to the Toronto based “Reviving the Islamic Spirit” conference. Observers of this conference know that the conference has morphed into a “who is who” in the world of Islamists in Canada and the USA"