Links - 15th January 2019

« A friend of mine took this picture of an old... - Nicolai Gamulea Schwartz - "« A friend of mine took this picture of an old gravestone. Six children, murdered by their mother. 1901.
The town blamed the father for not making enough, and the community for not taking care of them.
The mother? A poor, innocent victim.
Patriarchy my ASS. » - Windy"
Elizabeth Ann Craig and Frank Naramore

USC Library Censors Article on ‘Female Privilege in Prison Sentencing’ - "The University of Southern California (USC) library system has seemingly begun censoring a 2012 academic article documenting that men, on average, get slapped with a 63 percent longer prison sentence than women for the same crimes... The study in question, “Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases,” was the first major academic article to find that men face harsher prison sentences than do women"

Democrats' trend of bashing white men is dangerous and could backfire - "It’s become often enough that it is seemingly now normal to just casually attack a broad group of the country’s citizens. And sometimes race is inserted gratuitously even when it isn’t an issue, like during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings: the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee were attacked as old white men. Besides, there is the strangeness in the spectacle of certain white people calling out certain other white people on their whiteness. What gives? What is happening is that everyone’s id is now not just out in the open, it has gone berserk... Today’s Democratic Party is predicated on having and expressing open hostility toward white citizens. They are making the dangerous bet that most minorities and immigrants will jump on the white-male-bashing bandwagon. But it could backfire and turn off many voters. If you ask most minorities and immigrants, they’ll probably tell you they just want a fair, equal shot at the American Dream, and that they’re not angling for racial payback or Civil War Take 2"

Why Many Americans Are Averse to Unironic Expressions of Patriotism - "American and world history is rife with examples of bad actors distorting and exploiting the patriotic impulses of the masses. Unthinking patriotism has contributed to millions of horrific deaths. The impulse to temper it with skepticism is a healthy one, and going too far in that direction has never resulted in any calamity."
Given how many millions (and more) have died due to Communism and other attempts to improve the world in the name of equality and social justice, many Americans are averse to unironic support for Communism and social justice... right?

Donald Trump's nationalism is a patriotic appeal for unity - "You know America is in trouble when the president is viciously slammed simply for saying good things about the country. Appeals to the inherent goodness and manifest greatness of America used to be a staple of political oratory. It was so commonplace that it was entirely noncontroversial. Love of country was taken for granted. But when President Donald Trump described himself as a “nationalist” at a rally in Texas, it set off a firestorm of criticism. Nationalism is now the new “n-word.” CNN’s Jim Acosta pathetically insinuated the president was making a secret appeal to racism. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace invoked her History Channel-based education to tie in Nazi appeals to German nationalism, while perhaps being unaware that the Nazis also were ardent socialists. Maybe she missed that program. This predictable progressive panic is baseless and tiresome. It is a willful misunderstanding of what Trump means when he says nationalist. The president framed the term against “globalist,” which in his words is “a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly not caring about the country so much.”... Trump’s nationalism is also a patriotic appeal for national unity and pride. It is a response to progressive tribalism, which seeks to divide the country into grievance groups and promote a narrative of shame. Decades of revisionist history and grievance ideology have corrupted the American story. The left defines politics in terms of alleged oppression that forms the root of their demands as purported victims. Any notion that the United States is praiseworthy disrupts their relentless quest for proof of victimhood. Thus when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said America "was never that great,” he was simply expressing the dominant progressive view in very mild terms. And woe to any Democrat who forgets that America exists only to be criticized. In Pennsylvania, Allegheny County Democratic Party Executive Director Mark Salvas, a former Marine and veteran, was driven from his position for posting “I stand for the flag, I kneel at the cross” on social media. He failed to realize that on the left, flags are for kneeling or burning and crosses are for tearing down. Then-Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, in the wake of the 2017 violence at Charlottesville, innocently invoked “patriots … Thomas Jefferson and George Washington who brought our country together” as an appeal for unity in the wake of the tragedy. He was immediately slammed by the left for daring to praise icons of U.S. history who were “seeding white supremacy.” To the progressives, the Founders were slavers, the Constitution is racist, and Mount Rushmore should be blown up... Donald Trump is appealing to this time-honored idea; not just restoring economic growth and international clout but reviving the greatness of the American spirit. Part of making America great again is restoring the American story, and with it our sense of destiny, dynamism and optimism. Whether you call it nationalism, patriotism or Americanism, it is our common legacy. We discard it at our peril."
This is a more convincing for why many Americans disapprove of displays of patriotism

65-year-old retiree acquitted of asking underage girl for sex - ""I'm an old man and I don't have sexual urges any more. I'm truly thankful for my lawyers, Mr Patrick Fernandez and Ms Cheryl Tan, for helping me these past six months." Mr Fernandez told ST on Tuesday that prior to the acquittal, he sent Mr Jamalludin for a medical examination and a doctor found the elderly man has erectile dysfunction. The lawyer added: "Due to his condition, it was unlikely that my client was able to commit the offence.""

5% of Americans Made Up 50% of U.S. Health Care Spending - "In 2008 and 2009, 5% of Americans were responsible for nearly half of the country's medical spending.Of course, health care has its own 1% crisis. In 2009, the top 1% of patients accounted for 21.8% of expenditures"

The Crackdown on Little Free Library Book Exchanges - "in Kansas, a 9-year-old was loving his Little Free Library until at least two residents proved that some people will complain about anything no matter how harmless and city officials pushed the boundaries of literal-mindedness... "Crime, homelessness and crumbling infrastructure are still a problem in almost every part of America, but two cities have recently cracked down on one of the country's biggest problems: small-community libraries where residents can share books," Michael Schaub wrote. "Officials in Los Angeles and Shreveport, Louisiana, have told the owners of homemade lending libraries that they're in violation of city codes, and asked them to remove or relocate their small book collections."... This is what conservatives and libertarians mean when they talk about overregulation disincentivizing or displacing voluntary activity that benefits people. We've constructed communities where one must obtain prior permission from agents of the state before freely sharing books with one's neighbors! And their proposed solution is to get scarce public art funds to pay for the needless layer of bureaucracy being imposed on the thing already being done for free. The power to require permits is the power to prevent something from ever existing. This lovely movement would've never begun or spread if everyone who wanted to build a Little Free Library recognized a need to apply and pay for a permit. Instead they did good and asked permission never."

No books loaned from Barrow Island library in a year - "Eighteen books were technically "checked out" at the library on Barrow Island, Cumbria, but they were by IT staff making sure the machine worked."
Yet if the library is to be closed, suddenly everyone will show up and protest

Poorer conservatives more generous than wealthy liberals – new study - "Less well-off families from red states donate a relatively higher – and growing – proportion of their money to charity, while those at the top have been giving a smaller share as their income has increased, a new extensive study has revealed"

I,Hypocrite - refollow - Posts - "Vice: "Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
Savings tips are classist garbage and belong in the trash."
Comments: "It's always somebody else's fault that you're poor, and if anyone ever tries to help you, they're part of the problem."
"This is why the poor stay poor"
"Yeah, just spend all your money on Jordans and Yeezys. SOLID financial planning there."

A Map of China, By Stereotype – Foreign Policy - "Why is the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang “so chaotic?” Why are many from the southern metropolis of Shanghai “unfit to lead”? And do people from central Henan Province really steal manhole covers? These are just some of the questions — ranging from the provocative, to the offensive, to the downright ridiculous — that Chinese people ask about themselves and each other on Baidu, the country’s top search engine, which says it processes about 5 billion queries each day... Netizens associate several northern regions with varying degrees of violence. Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang — collectively called the Northeast — are famous for their Siberian winters as well as their beautiful women, but the apparently pugnacious locals are also known for starting fights"

Mapped: Chinese Stereotypes of the Americas – Foreign Policy - "In a final look at Canada, a few ranking queries ask about the country’s immigration rules, as well as why the visa process is so slow. In final preparations for this article, FP discovered a new suggested question asking why “Canada doesn’t want rich Chinese people.” The query may be a puzzled reaction to the Canadian government’s cancelling of an investor visa program popular with wealthy Chinese; it may also have to do with popular suspicions that moneyed Chinese are responsible for driving up Vancouver housing prices. If so, Chinese netizens may inadvertently have stumbled upon Canadian fears of a different kind of invasion from a different superpower."

Guantanamo Bay: A History of How the U.S. Military Got There - "as part of the Platt Amendment, the document that governed the end of the occupation, the new Cuban government was required to lease or sell certain territory to the United States"

Paging the patriarchy! You’re now a straight-up sexist if you dare ask a woman this question - "Today, we learned that “upbraid” is racist … and asking a woman about her two laptops is sexist... Why? Because feminism, that’s why!...
'“Women are strong and powerful”
*deals with any little thing that any other human would encounter*
“Help, I’m being oppressed!”'"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, The Return of Jacob Zuma? - "‘You're going to Galicia? You’ll eat well there’... They eat well there is the standard Spanish response to anyone over 25 who's going anywhere in their country. As everyone knows, that once you're no longer interested in only clubbing, the only good reason to go anywhere is to eat... Alberinio wine...
It always amazes me how news savvy these scams can be. Just a few days after Muammar Gaddafi was caught and shot dead hiding in a sewer in Libya. I got an email from someone claiming to be his lawyer and offering me a chunk of his huge fortune"