Links - 14th October 2019 (1)

Russian family fleeing Swedish child welfare services granted asylum in Poland - "A father who sought refuge after escaping from Sweden to Poland with his three daughters will be allowed to remain in Poland, a Warsaw court decided... Danis Lisov, a Russian immigrant to Sweden, arrived in Warsaw earlier this week. During the airport control, it was discovered that his three daughters are considered abducted by Sweden’s authorities. The man decided on his course of action after his children were placed in a foster family by Swedish child welfare services... the 12, 6, and 4 year old lived with their parents in Sweden for years. The Swedish child welfare services began to investigate the family when the mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and placed in a treatment facility. Two years ago, it was decided that the children should be placed in a foster family, 400 kilometres from their parent’s home. The father was not deprived of parental rights but the time he could see his daughters was limited to six hours a week.According to the family’s attorney, the fact that the children were placed in a Muslim family of Lebanese origin despite being raised in a Christian faith was also an important factor in Mr Lisov’s decision to escape Sweden"
What happens when people decide the state needs to "protect" children

The Screen - Posts - "The Swedish authorities seized three kids from a family after their mother’s schizophrenia worsened, even though the father was with them right there. They were then placed 400km away from the family home. Typical misandry from Sweden.
They then placed them with another family.
The Father then abducted them and ran off to Poland where the courts granted them asylum!"
Shorter version of the above

When The U.S. Government Tried To Replace Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers - "Students from across the country began showing up on farms in Texas and California at the beginning of June. Carter and his classmates were assigned to pick cantaloupes near Blythe, a small town on the Colorado River in the middle of California's Colorado Desert."

The Mystery of Florida's Cannonball-Eating Spanish Fort - "even after nearly two months of being shelled with cannonballs and gunfire, the fort’s walls wouldn’t give. In fact, they appeared to be “swallowing” the British cannonballs, which then became embedded within the stone. Precisely how the walls did this remained a mystery for the next three centuries.Normally, a cannonball creates long, deep cracks in stone that radiate out from the impact’s center, causing catastrophic damage to a structure. This was clearly not the case for the walls surrounding Castillo de San Marcos. Built from coquina—sedimentary rock formed from compressed shells of dead marine organisms—the walls suffered little damage from the British onslaught. As one Englishman described it, the rock “will not splinter but will give way to cannon ball as though you would stick a knife into cheese.”... although coquina looks more like sandstone, it behaves more like foam."

How Building Churches Out of Egg Whites Transformed Filipino Desserts - "“Local churches were built with egg whites.” As evangelizing Spanish colonists built churches across the islands, laborers used egg whites as an emulsifier in the concrete. “Food is in the foundations here,” Evangelista adds.As the well-attended Holy Rosary Church attests, this had a lasting influence on the country’s architecture and spiritual life. But its legacy is also on display in Filipino bakeries and home kitchens. Because what else is there to do with millions of leftover egg yolks but bake delicious desserts?... “The extensive use of egg white and eggshells brought about the ingenuity of the Filipino women who saw all these egg yolks being thrown in the river,” writes Lim-Castillo. “Recipes were created to make use of the egg yolks, like pan de San Nicolas, yema, tocino del cielo, leche flan, pastries, and tortas.”"

The campus-censorship hypocrites - "Campus censorship, a certain type of radical academic rushes to tell us, simply does not happen. Apparently, free speech is alive and well at a university near you and to suggest otherwise is ‘hysteria’ that fuels a moral panic ‘whipped up’ by a politically motivated minority intent on besmirching students and sullying hallowed institutions. Except, of course, when it’s not... Whether it is a talk by Murray or a book on revolutionary ethics, whether it is Prevent or students, the language of censorship is the same: danger, harm, risk, safety, protection. Yet only one of these incidents prompted an Observer column and outrage from academics themselves. Lecturers and students’ union officials have been quick to denounce the inappropriate use of Prevent. What happened at Reading has rightly been described as ‘hugely concerning’ and an example of anti-terrorism legislation ‘being applied far beyond its purview’. But where is the outcry about what happened at Oxford?Where is the outrage from academics at students threatening to close down a debate? Where are the lecturers queueing up to be quoted in the Guardian expressing disgust at the censorious student members of the LGBTQ campaign? Why get angry at one but not the other? Those determined to present campus censorship as a figment of the imagination like to get pedantic. Calling for a speaker to be No Platformed is not an attack on free speech, they say; it is actually a demonstration of free speech in action – it is a form of protest. It is only censorship, they say, if students are actually prevented from reading a book or hearing a speaker – and with YouTube and social media students can still encounter a range of ideas, just not in the campus Safe Space. And, despite calls for No Platforming, speakers are rarely banned — they simply withdraw, which was what Murray did.Well, if we are going to be pedantic, Murray did not get to speak. Those who wanted to hear what she had to say – perhaps even to challenge her – were denied the opportunity. On the other hand, students can still read Geras’s book, it just comes with a warning."

The truth about the ethnicity pay gap - "the two highest-earning ethnic groups in Britain are people of Chinese or of Indian origin. Their average hourly pay, of £15.75 and £13.47 an hour respectively, even exceeds that earned by those in the white British majority (£12.03 an hour). Meanwhile, the two ethnic groups reporting the lowest levels of pay are those of Pakistani and of Bangladeshi origin (£10 and £9.60 an hour respectively)... There are some very real and problematic cultural barriers that are holding back Britain’s Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, and ‘discrimination’ is often used to deflect from these issues. Historically, British Indians also faced discrimination. They had difficulty obtaining employment commensurate with their formal qualifications and were often overlooked in favour of similarly qualified white Brits. But what we might call the ‘British Indian’ socioeconomic model has, over time, as the ONS figures suggest, shown to be a recipe for economic success. Among British Indians, there is a high proportion of two-income households. These are streamlined family units, in which values of academic excellence, economic self-sufficiency and entrepreneurialism predominate. British Indians are also positive about integration and have developed important links with mainstream British society. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why the British public holds such favourable views towards migrants of Indian origin, compared with migrants from other South Asian countries."
Presumably white people are so racist that they're able to distinguish those of Indian origin from those of Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin

Poll finds more favourable attitudes towards Indian immigrants than Pakistanis and Bangladeshis – why? - "British Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities have historically ranked highly when measuring average fertility rates by ethnicity in the UK. The fertility rate for British Indians is noticeably lower in comparison.What this data collectively suggests is that due to superior occupational status, a higher proportion of two-income households and substantially lower fertility rates, British Indian households are far less likely to be dependent on welfare... Bangladeshis and Pakistanis living in the UK have far higher levels of residential and social segregation than Indians. They are more likely to be part of social and economic networks which are predominantly made out of people from their own ethnic group. This is partly down to being occupationally segregated in the transport and hospitality sectors... A substantial proportion of UK Indians are either Hindu or Sikh. Britain’s Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are nearly all Sunni Muslim. And the 2010 data shows that UK Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are more likely to identify more with their faith (when traded-off against British identification)... Major cases of child sexual exploitation in places such as Rochdale and Rotherham are unlikely to have helped. The YouGov figures suggest that economic performance, social relations and religio-cultural values can all influence perceptions on immigration... considering the group trends in socioeconomic status and sociocultural integration, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants are viewed more negatively than those of Indian origin. The question remains what to do about it.The state does have a role to play in improving social and economic outcomes. But frank discussions need to be held within certain groups over socioeconomic progress and sociocultural modernisation. And their place in Britain’s liberal democracy."

Uganda: Forty Years After Idi Amin Expelled Asians - "Forty years ago this August, the brutal dictator of Uganda, General Idi Amin, ordered the deportation of the country's Asian population, which mostly comprised Indian Gujaratis who had lived in the East African country for more than 100 years.The order by Amin in 1972 created a diplomatic crisis involving Uganda, India and Great Britain (where most of the Asians eventually emigrated to).Indians had often been the target of resentment and violence throughout their sojourns in southern Africa. Indeed, as reasons for his expulsion order, Amin cited that the Ugandan Indian community were "bloodsuckers" had exploited the local economy and refused to integrate with black African people after a century in the country...
All assets were confiscated, there were army checkpoints on all major roads, any gold, jewelry or money Asians were carrying with them was taken. Asians were also unable to access their bank accounts, so they landed in Britain without a penny to their name. A few of the wealthier Ugandan Asian families probably held foreign bank accounts, but the vast majority would have arrived in the UK with nothing.
IB TIMES: Amin claimed that Indians in Uganda were dominating and exploiting the economy at the expense of local Africans. Is there any validity to this assertion?
SAMANI: Indians did not really have any power to marginalize African Ugandans. They were operating under rules set by a colonial government. The economic segregation primarily arose due to 'know how' and trading instinct of the Indians. Even when trading regulations did not favor the Indians, they still prospered. It was mainly politicians of Amin's persuasion that claimed the Indian community exploited Ugandans... Indians generally employed African Ugandans, and from what I understand, they did not really socialize. You could say the Indians were isolated, but every community in Uganda socialized and mixed only amongst its own people - the Indians were not unique in behaving in this way. This also applied to Ugandan tribes and Europeans...
IB TIMES: After the Indians left, did Uganda's economy collapse?
SAMANI: From 1971 to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Party's adoption of free market reforms in 1987, the Ugandan economy fell deep into a crisis under the strain of civil wars, the nationalization of certain industries and the expulsion of the Asians. The NRM overthrew Amin in 1979. The instability of the economy between 1971 and 1987 led to the rise of the informal sector. By 1987, President Yoweri Museveni had inherited an economy that suffered the poorest growth rate in Africa."
Strange how despite being penniless the Indians from Uganda found success in the UK

Finally, a Democrat worth supporting - "The liberal establishment is so scared of Tulsi Gabbard that they’ve convinced themselves she’s an unwitting stooge of Russia, being pushed by Putin’s evil online robots to destroy America from within. Yes, in the febrile, conspiracist, Russian-bot-obsessed brains of the increasingly unhinged liberal elite, Ms Gabbard, the Democratic congresswoman for Hawaii and easily the most impressive 2020 presidential candidate, is the fave of those dastardly bots whose ultimate aim is to screw over the USA. Following this week’s Democratic candidates’ debate in Detroit, in which Gabbard made mincemeat of the California Democrat Kamala Harris on the issue of judicial authoritarianism, an actual New York Times writer said: ‘Beware the Russian bots and their promotion of Tulsi Gabbard and sowing racial discord, especially around Kamala Harris.’ This idea that Gabbard – the most principled critic of military interventionism to have emerged in the US mainstream in decades – is in the ascendant because Russian bots and other evil online forces are doing her bidding is becoming widespread among centrists. Newsweek columnist Seth Abramson says ‘there’s a concerted far-right effort (possibly involving foreign actors) to bolster Tulsi Gabbard’. He based this nuts claim on the fact that, during the Detroit debate, Ms Gabbard was the most-searched name online in every state in the US. Erm, isn’t it possible that viewers who weren’t entirely sure who Ms Gabbard is, but who were impressed by her articulate takedown of Harris and other candidates, took to the web to find out more? Surely that’s a more rational explanation than the idea that a Russian troll army and loads of fascists are on the web promoting Gabbard as chief wrecker of the United States... Russophobic conspiracy theories play a really important role for dazed Hillary-era centrists. They are now the main means through which these people try to make sense of a political world that no longer conforms to their tastes or their ideology. So just as they used the Russian-bots rubbish to explain why Trump beat Hillary, now they use it to explain why a candidate who, horror of horrors, is opposed to US military intervention overseas is proving popular with viewers and voters. Given that Gabbard’s worldview runs so counter to theirs – on war, on free speech, even on identity politics – the only way they can explain her presence in politics is as a result of foreign, fascistic meddling. That tells us far more about their own political arrogance than it does about Gabbard’s Russian fanbase... If Gabbard horrifies the old warmongering elites, she worries, at least, the new woke elites. It is notable that unlike other young female political representatives, most notably the so-called ‘squad’, Gabbard is rarely cheered for her background. She was the first-ever Hindu and Samoan America to enter Congress. She’s the first Hindu to run for president. But you’ll be waiting a long time for the kind of people who never stop going on about the fact Ilhan Omar was one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress to congratulate Gabbard on her identity achievements. Not that Gabbard would want praise on that basis. Indeed, she’s a critic of both identity politics and political correctness, which is precisely why the woke are so iffy about her. She lists political correctness alongside overreaching government and Big Tech as one of the great threats to freedom of speech in 21st-century America. And she says of identity politics that it is ‘being used to kind of tear people apart’ when we should be ‘remembering and recognising what unites us’."

'Trump Is Being Influenced By The Russians!' Screams Communist | The Babylon Bee - "a self-identified Communist screamed, "Trump is being influenced by the Russians!" while wearing his favorite hammer-and-sickle hat... "It's really scary to see how much influence Russia has on our country," said the man who wants our country to be exactly like Russia during the Cold War. "We need to stay true to what makes America America and not let the ideas, philosophies, and governmental policies of other countries influence our elections.""