Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears - "he was concerned such technology could be turned on political opponents or used to curb free speech by deterring peaceful protest. Facial recognition technology typically allows authorities to match people picked up on cameras with those in databases.Singapore’s only opposition party in parliament, The Workers’ Party, declined to comment... Wilson, the security lecturer at Murdoch University, said that unlike cities like London or New York, Singapore did not have a high crime or terror-threat level that justified such surveillance capabilities"
Trevor Noah: when words are worse than war - "in New York, 7,000 miles west of Kashmir, something far worse, far more dangerous, or at least far more tweetable, happened. Comedian Trevor Noah made a joke about the conflict on the The Daily Show. A war between India and Pakistan would be the ‘most entertaining’ and ‘longest war of all time’, he joked, as the Indian soldiers would rush on to the battlefield and break out into a Bollywood-style song-and-dance number.Tweeters across the globe denounced the joke as racist, insensitive, ‘vile and despicable’. By Noah’s own admission, he has not shied away from tackling difficult subjects in the past, including the death of his mother, who was shot in the head by his abusive stepfather. It is a shame, then, that he has since apologised for causing offence. Often the best comedy results from comedians finding the line and pushing it further.But whatever you think of Noah’s India-Pakistan joke – funny, racist or just clichéd – he later made an important observation. He tweeted that his joke ‘trended’ more on social media, in the West at least, than the actual India-Pakistan crisis. For Noah, this showed that ‘people are more offended by the jokes comedians make about an issue than the issue itself’... Back in 2001, a month after 9/11, coalition forces were gearing up for war in Afghanistan. An unidentified US Navy sailor on the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier defaced a bomb that was being loaded into a fighter jet. On it, he scrawled the following: ‘HIGH JACK THIS FAGS.’ (sic). A picture of the ‘fag bomb’, as it came to be known, was leaked to the Associated Press (AP). It drew immediate condemnation from GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and the Human Rights Campaign. An AP spokesman apologised for the photograph and it was removed from the news wires within a day. An admiral at the Pentagon also apologised and admonished the crew, urging them to ‘more closely edit their spontaneous acts of penmanship’. ‘We want to keep the messages positive’, he added, saying that messages like ‘I love New York’ would be more appropriate. The navy introduced guidelines for vetting messages in future. So here we had a literal bomb, about to be used in a literal war, and apparently the thing to be outraged about it was the offensive message on its casing, not the deadly explosives inside it. In their apologies for the ‘fag bomb’, what the navy commanders were really saying was that it is acceptable to kill, but it is unacceptable to offend. You can blow the limbs off an Afghan child, so long as the message on the bomb is positive and doesn’t use the wrong language"
Speech is so violent that it is worse than violence! Therefore violence is a morally obligatory response to offensive speech
More People Bought Physical CDs and Vinyl Than Songs on iTunes Last Year - ""virtually all the revenue growth" for 2018 came from streaming music platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal, which last year collectively added 1 million new subscribers every single month, and now have a record number of more than 50 million subscribers."By the way, don't be fooled into reading something positive about CDs from the title of this post," adds BGR. "While physical media sales were down 23%, CD sales themselves slipped 34% for the year to $698 million. That's the first time CD yearly revenue has come in below $1 billion since 1986.""
Report: San Francisco Has More Drug Addicts Than High School Students - "San Francisco now has more intravenous drug users than high school students. San Francisco, which operates 15 high schools, currently has 16,000 students enrolled grades nine through twelve.By comparison, the northern California city currently has 24,500 “injection drug users.” That is approximately 8,500 more drug users than high school students."
21 Indian students kill themselves in a week after IT blunder meant they failed key exams
Only 3% of people are perfect. Are you? - "What if we told people what people like them do instead of what perfect people should do? That approach is called social proof and it’s something Robert Cialdini has been studying for years.Social proof: When people are uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look outside of themselves and to other people around them to guide their decisions and actions. It’s a very primitive way of deciding what to do. Basically: we do what people like us would do... Social proof can backfire if it’s not used in the right way. For example, the Petrified Forest National Park had a problem: People were stealing small bits of bark from the ancient trees. To combat it, they erected signs:Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time.The signs basically said: “everyone is taking it.” They actually increased the amount of vandalism in the park.Cialdini and team tested an alternate sign: Please don’t remove petrified wood from the Park, in order to preserve the natural state of the Petrified Forest.By describing why it mattered, the new sign was able to reduce theft from ~7% of park visitors to ~2%."
Elizabeth on Twitter - "We all have our preferences but to state it outright is racist to me. If you wont/dont want people of other races to reach out to you as a possibility for a mate, that shows some bigotry imo.
To be clear: for white people only. Our 'cultural' desire to keep the race "pure" by dating only other white people is a continuation of white supremacy. I take no issue of other races wanting to keep to their own."
A-levels are often said to be poor predictors of degree results. Is there any evidence for this? - "Currently we have a problem statisticians call 'restricted range'. While one side of the co-relationship (degree mark) has lots of variability, variability on the other side (A-level grades) is narrowly confined to the top end. However, the correspondents above who can only use this creamed-off sample are still making a useful point in reporting no correlation with degree results. Having wisely privileged the As and Bs, admissions tutors should look for other indicators that allow them to make finer judgments within this (increasingly large) sample."
Social media influencers give bad diet and fitness advice eight times out of nine, research reveals
Media Downplays Migrant Sexual Assault Statistic While Hyping And Inflating Similar Statistics About College Women - "NBC made sure to note the small sample size of the statistic. Politifact had already rated this claim as “half true” because of the small sample size and because Trump says “sexually assaulted” not “sexually abused.” Politico was the worst offender this time around, putting out a tweet that called Trump’s claim “partly true” because the Doctors Without Borders report from which the president derived the statistic says “31% of female migrants and 17% of male migrants said they had been sexually abused while traveling through Mexico.” So Trump gets a “partly true” because 1 in 3 is technically 33%, not 31%, and because he didn’t include men? This is not the tactic these websites and others use when the alleged rate of sexual assault pertains to American college women. For American college women, the media completely accepts the impossible-on-its-face statistic that 1 in 5 undergraduate women will be sexually assaulted... The definition of sexual assault was also incredibly broad, including “unwanted” sexual activity. This is meaningless, as a person can’t know something is unwanted until they ask or try it, but the mere ask can be considered a form of harassment if it comes from someone one simply doesn’t like."
A feminist shoots and murders a girl and feminists blame ‘a male system’ - "the alleged perpetrator of the crime was a supporter of the feminist movement “Ni una menos” (Not one less), which has called for several mobilizations in Argentina against the murders of women by their boyfriends or their husbands."
State of the Union 2019: Most viewers approved of Trump's SOTU address - "Seventy-six percent of Americans who tuned in to President Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night approved of the speech he gave. Just 24 percent disapproved."
Has Trump wrecked our sex life? "Post-Trump Sex Disorder" is real, says sex therapist - "As unbelievable as it may sound, there are actually slave plantation retreats where black people go to be dominated by white people in a BDSM interracial role-playing experience. There are also other examples of that kink where blacks and Latinos and other nonwhites engage in "race play" with their intimate partners where the former act out "crossing the border" and being captured by the authorities, are servants or slaves who are subjected to racist abuse. Sometimes this takes the form of using racial slurs while having sex. To me these are all clear examples of internalized white supremacy and self-hatred. But I also believe that people have a right to their own pleasure and bodily autonomy with consenting partners. How do we reconcile these tensions?"
Judge calls on Muslims to publicly disavow violence in Koran - "Justice Desmond Fagan said the lethal messages derived from "hostile passages" of the Koran were not effectively countered by suggestions from "various quarters" that the verses had been "cherry picked" or that Islam was an "interpretive religion"."The incitements to violence which terrorists quote from the Koran cannot just be ignored by the many believers who desire harmonious coexistence. Those verses are not ignored by terrorists," Justice Fagan said.He said there were sometimes assurances offered to Western communities that “Islam is a religion of peace”."But in the absence of express public disavowal of verses which convey Allah’s command for violence, as quoted in the jihadist literature tendered in this case, such assurances are apparently contradicted," he said... Justice Fagan said terrorists' perceived scriptural support for their actions couldn't be effectively rebutted by police or the courts."If the verses upon which the terrorists rely are not binding commands of Allah, it is Muslims who would have to say so," he said."
What Does Natural Mean? The FDA's New Definition Might Change Your Pantry - "What does "natural" mean? Debating the definition of the word is like debating whether people see colors the same way. Is your "natural" wine like my "natural" quinoa? We’re all on the same page about trans fats, thanks to the FDA’s 2006 requirement that they be declared on Nutrition Labels. The same goes for “organic,” which the U.S. Department of Agriculture clarified in 2000 as being free of synthetic chemicals. But when it comes to defining “natural” food, we’re still on our own."
When you can't live without bananas
Saturday, June 08, 2019
Historian Marc Morris on British Castles
Historian Marc Morris on British Castles | History Extra Podcast - History Extra
"A murder hole, I couldn't tell you precisely when the term comes into fashion. Meurtrière is the French word. But they are the holes within a gatehouse, as you pass into the gatehouse itself. If you look up, if there are holes in the ceiling, they give the potential for people standing on the floor above to drop things on top of you, whatever, you know, lime, boiling water, perhaps not boiling oil. That's the famous old one that we’re told there isn't any evidence for. But whatever kind of nastiness you could contrive, it gives you the opportunity to put that on people, to shoot down with crossbow bolts for that matter.
Now, people have said in in recent years, perhaps these were more likely to be for extinguishing fires at the gate, which is sort of slightly perhaps disappointing way to see them. But I think in many cases, there is little doubt that they could be used for the purpose that murder hole suggest, for killing people as they were trying to get through that particular choke point...
As originally built, they were palaces. They were palaces fit for the richest people in medieval society… I always have to sort of bite my tongue if I'm being led around a castle, it is increasingly rare these days. If I'm going around a castle and I see a tour group, a school group perhaps being told, can you imagine how miserable it would be to live here. It would have been cold and drafty, it's like, well, yes, perhaps it would by 21st century standards. But in the 12th, 13th or 14th centuries, this would have been the highest level of opulence imaginable. So you're going to have, particularly in those later centuries, glazed windows or partially glazed windows. You're going to have roaring fires, you would have ensuite accommodation, you're going to have perhaps water running down lead pipes, or being able to draw out from the well. So in terms of medieval living conditions, they were as good as could be imagined. Because these were the richest people in society paying for them. So however ruinous they appear now, remember they were palaces...
Their owners would only have been residents very occasionally... Kings had dozens and dozens of castles dotted around the country as a legacy of the Norman conquest. Kings had estates everywhere. So a castle say, you know, there were castles that were favored, like Windsor Castle. Or in the case of just thinking of someone like King John, he favored Corfe castle and Marlborough castle. But there were royal castles, you know, in the far north of places like sort of Scarborough, that might get visited, you know, once or not at all, during the course of the entire reign. But they were they were kept up by a resident constable and a sort of skeletal garrison of men, they could be beefed up in times of unrest. And so kings didn't have one residence. Kings, and to pretty much the same extent great aristocrats like Earls were always on the move around their estates. So their furniture traveled with them, to some extent their chests, their beds.
So most of the most of the time these castles stood empty. So that's one thing in terms of what it was like for everybody else, well, you know, it's probably better to have been a servant in royal pay than someone who was, you know, begging outside the castle gates. But as you went further down the scale in the royal household, you're living conditions are going to become worse and worse. So you're not going to be getting your own room sleeping, you'll have to sort of curl up wherever you can, in sort of rushes on the floor. So you know, medieval society goes without saying is a very strictly hierarchical society, so there are, even within the castle walls, there are extremes of luxury and comfort, right down to sort of the person who mucks out the horses...
When people get it right the films tend to be boring and when the films are sort of exciting and sort of the things that cause you to grab more popcorn, they're often the worst offenders when it comes to historical accuracy...
They will fuss about the armor and the weapons and they will get those things right because they'll have a historical advisor, but the person who has actually written the lines people say and determine the way characters behave, has people behave either in a totally modern way. So they are modern people in mili- medieval dress, or they will have have them behave in a way, which they think is archetypally medieval, so they’ll be sort of thundering around saying off with his head, do you know, and put him on the rack and you know, torturing people left, right and center"
"A murder hole, I couldn't tell you precisely when the term comes into fashion. Meurtrière is the French word. But they are the holes within a gatehouse, as you pass into the gatehouse itself. If you look up, if there are holes in the ceiling, they give the potential for people standing on the floor above to drop things on top of you, whatever, you know, lime, boiling water, perhaps not boiling oil. That's the famous old one that we’re told there isn't any evidence for. But whatever kind of nastiness you could contrive, it gives you the opportunity to put that on people, to shoot down with crossbow bolts for that matter.
Now, people have said in in recent years, perhaps these were more likely to be for extinguishing fires at the gate, which is sort of slightly perhaps disappointing way to see them. But I think in many cases, there is little doubt that they could be used for the purpose that murder hole suggest, for killing people as they were trying to get through that particular choke point...
As originally built, they were palaces. They were palaces fit for the richest people in medieval society… I always have to sort of bite my tongue if I'm being led around a castle, it is increasingly rare these days. If I'm going around a castle and I see a tour group, a school group perhaps being told, can you imagine how miserable it would be to live here. It would have been cold and drafty, it's like, well, yes, perhaps it would by 21st century standards. But in the 12th, 13th or 14th centuries, this would have been the highest level of opulence imaginable. So you're going to have, particularly in those later centuries, glazed windows or partially glazed windows. You're going to have roaring fires, you would have ensuite accommodation, you're going to have perhaps water running down lead pipes, or being able to draw out from the well. So in terms of medieval living conditions, they were as good as could be imagined. Because these were the richest people in society paying for them. So however ruinous they appear now, remember they were palaces...
Their owners would only have been residents very occasionally... Kings had dozens and dozens of castles dotted around the country as a legacy of the Norman conquest. Kings had estates everywhere. So a castle say, you know, there were castles that were favored, like Windsor Castle. Or in the case of just thinking of someone like King John, he favored Corfe castle and Marlborough castle. But there were royal castles, you know, in the far north of places like sort of Scarborough, that might get visited, you know, once or not at all, during the course of the entire reign. But they were they were kept up by a resident constable and a sort of skeletal garrison of men, they could be beefed up in times of unrest. And so kings didn't have one residence. Kings, and to pretty much the same extent great aristocrats like Earls were always on the move around their estates. So their furniture traveled with them, to some extent their chests, their beds.
So most of the most of the time these castles stood empty. So that's one thing in terms of what it was like for everybody else, well, you know, it's probably better to have been a servant in royal pay than someone who was, you know, begging outside the castle gates. But as you went further down the scale in the royal household, you're living conditions are going to become worse and worse. So you're not going to be getting your own room sleeping, you'll have to sort of curl up wherever you can, in sort of rushes on the floor. So you know, medieval society goes without saying is a very strictly hierarchical society, so there are, even within the castle walls, there are extremes of luxury and comfort, right down to sort of the person who mucks out the horses...
When people get it right the films tend to be boring and when the films are sort of exciting and sort of the things that cause you to grab more popcorn, they're often the worst offenders when it comes to historical accuracy...
They will fuss about the armor and the weapons and they will get those things right because they'll have a historical advisor, but the person who has actually written the lines people say and determine the way characters behave, has people behave either in a totally modern way. So they are modern people in mili- medieval dress, or they will have have them behave in a way, which they think is archetypally medieval, so they’ll be sort of thundering around saying off with his head, do you know, and put him on the rack and you know, torturing people left, right and center"
Post ID: 2447650921009066296
Links - 8th June 2019 (2) (Climate Change/Environmentalism)
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, 'War footing' needed on climate change - "‘All those nasty old cynics out there who will say but come on this country produces less than 1% of total emissions, it'll make no difference at all, take the message to China’
‘Here’s my answer. Moral authority, you only get the moral authority to tell China and India that they need to change as well if we are changing’
‘You really think that China will listen to us because we stop going on holiday to the Costa Brava’...
‘I saw this as Climate and Energy Secretary. Actually in the negotiations that we were part of Britain did have some moral authority, because at that time, we were going ahead’"
Maybe Britain's moral authority will hurt the feelings of the Chinese people
Basically this is an admission that climate change hysteria is virtue signalling
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Extinction Rebellion's protests - "‘As you're escalating the disruption, we're on the fourth day, there's been talk of disrupting public transport, which is, after all, one of the most acceptable forms in terms of dealing with climate change. Aren’t people entitled to say it's an entirely insincere apology, you're disrupting lives for a political cause? Would you be happy if Nigel Farage was bringing the streets to a halt? *Something* in the name of democracy? Because the Brexit vote has not been delivered?’
‘I would actually. Yes, I think that's perfectly reasonable. If democracy is not being honored’...
‘If we were treating this as the emergency that it is, it would be on the news. Absolutely. Every single day, our children are at risk of not having food to eat in a few years time... This is unprecedented in our humanity, human extinction, our children's lifetime, it should be on, it should be your top news item every single day, what's happening, you need to be holding politicians to account?’
‘Well, let's talk about what you argue for. What you argue for is net zero emissions by 2025. That isn't currently the UN target... even after all those talks, the target is 2050. Do you accept the claim made by some that that’ll mean getting rid of all gas boilers in that time, and all petrol driven cars by 2025?’
‘I think we need a wartime type mobilization to make these changes. And we have to adopt the precautionary principle.’
‘Because in practical terms, that's why I give you practical examples. Would it mean that?’
‘And I don't know exactly. I think there's lots of different ways that you can go about this, which is why we're calling for a Citizens Assembly that comes up with the different mechanisms for implementing’
‘But if it did you be in favor of that? If that's what it says, that's totally fine. I mean, what you have to realize is, like in a war, you have to deal with the reality. We're not in a war. We're at war with ourselves. We're at war with life on Earth. We can't just do reality here, we have to do what's necessary.’...
‘We will be announcing that from the climate change committee based on the science. And that will be announced in the next couple of weeks. It will then be for the government to take that and I believe to commit itself to that. And to ignore the Daily Telegraph, which says that we're only a very small number of emissions. We, in Britain, are causing much of the climate change that is happening now. Because we were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution'
Not caving to activists = not honouring democracy"
If it's a war they need to invade China and India to cut their emissions rather than effectively virtue signal uselessly
This is an admission that climate change hysteria is about self-flagellation for perceived historical wrongs rather than what will make a difference today
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Climate change protests - "The Home Secretary is asking the police to use the full force of the law. You know, what does that mean? If you remember the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, at that time, bought water cannon, after the inner city riots. And then the Home Office refused to give it a license and it had to be sold at a great loss. So there's no political appetite, really for more robust policing. And the police don't on the whole trust politicians who say that, is because when the investigations and the public inquiries happen, and they don't get the support"
Kid Climate Educators Open Adult Eyes - "This process of children teaching their parents, it really was most effective among those parents who were previously the least concerned about climate change. So that was conservatives and fathers. And then what was also really exciting was that the treatment was particularly effective if the child that was doing the teaching was a daughter"
No wonder they want to get the children
Popular Technology.net: 97% Study Falsely Classifies Scientists' Papers, according to the scientists that published them - "The paper, Cook et al. (2013) 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature' searched the Web of Science for the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change" then categorizing these results to their alleged level of endorsement of AGW. These results were then used to allege a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.To get to the truth, I emailed a sample of scientists whose papers were used in the study and asked them if the categorization by Cook et al. (2013) is an accurate representation of their paper. Their responses are eye opening and evidence that the Cook et al. (2013) team falsely classified scientists' papers as "endorsing AGW", apparently believing to know more about the papers than their authors."
Around the world, backlash against expensive climate change policies - "the Forum for Democracy (FvD), a fledgling political party just three years old, tied for the largest number of seats, 12, in the divided Dutch Senate in the 2019 elections. FvD takes a decidedly skeptical stance on climate change. On the campaign trail, Thierry Baudet, FvD’s leader, said the government should stop funding programs to meet the country’s commitments to international climate change agreements, saying such efforts are driven by “climate change hysteria.”In Finland, climate change policies became the dominant issue in the April 14 election, as support for climate skepticism suddenly surged"
Bjørn Lomborg - Posts - "Unbridled alarmism: Global warming worse than famine, plague and global nuclear war... according to one geography study book, officially endorsed by the Wales, England and Northern Ireland exam board (WJEC)."
Keywords: Climate Change hysteria
The only consistency about the climate change protesters is that they are completely wrong - "Police have arrested more than 100 climate change protestors who have brought parts of London to a halt and vandalised dozens of buildings. They are part of an allegedly global movement demanding more action from governments to tackle global warming. The activists have deliberately set out to cause maximum disruption and to get themselves arrested for wanton damage and obstruction.The campaigners belong to an outfit called Extinction Rebellion, some of whose members stripped off in the public gallery of the House of Commons earlier this month. They are in the anti-capitalist tradition of the Occupy movement which grew to prominence around the time of the 2008 financial crash... The sanctimonious climate change activists essentially want to put us back into the dark ages by ending economic growth. They are inflicting misery on commuters and businesses for no purpose whatsoever other than to claim a spurious moral high ground.The UK contributes less than one per cent of global CO2 emissions and they are falling fast. Countries like China are the major producers and emissions there are going up not down. Why don’t the protestors take their pink boat from Oxford Street and park it in the middle of Beijing and see if the authorities there are as indulgent as ours have been."
Bjørn Lomborg - Posts - "The linking of every catastrophe to climate is obviously very useful for alarmists. A 2019 survey showed that extreme weather makes more people change their minds on climate than anything else."
Domestic Livestock and Its Alleged Role in Climate Change | IntechOpen - "Our key conclusion is there is no need for anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and even less so for livestock-born emissions, to explain climate change. Climate has always been changing, and even the present warming is most likely driven by natural factors. The warming potential of anthropogenic GHG emissions has been exaggerated, and the beneficial impacts of manmade CO2 emissions for nature, agriculture, and global food security have been systematically suppressed, ignored, or at least downplayed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and other UN (United Nations) agencies. Furthermore, we expose important methodological deficiencies in IPCC and FAO (Food Agriculture Organization) instructions and applications for the quantification of the manmade part of non-CO2-GHG emissions from agro-ecosystems. However, so far, these fatal errors inexorably propagated through scientific literature. Finally, we could not find a clear domestic livestock fingerprint, neither in the geographical methane distribution nor in the historical evolution of mean atmospheric methane concentration"
(15) (PDF) Severe Methodological Deficiencies Associated with Claims of Domestic Livestock Driving Climate Change - "Reduction of global livestock numbers and meat consumption have been recommended for climate change mitigation. However, the basic assumptions made to come up with that kind of recommendations reveal severe methodological deficiencies: (1) Carbon footprint, emission intensity, and life-cycle assessments of domestic livestock products reported in scientific literature consistently overlooked the necessity of correcting non CO 2 GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions (nitrous oxide and methane) from managed ecosystems for baseline emission scenarios over time and space (pristine ecosystem and/or pre-climate change emissions); (2) Uncertainties associated with the climate sensitivity of anthropogenic GHG-emissions have been ignored; (3) Inconsistencies in the methodological treatment of land use change (deforestation) in emission intensity calculations (per unit of product) can be detected in the literature; (4) The virtual lack of a discernable livestock signal in global methane distribution and historical methane emission rates has not been acknowledged; theoretical bottom up calculations do not reflect the relative insignificance of livestock-born methane for the global methane budget; (5) Potential substrate induced enhancement of methane breakdown rates have not been taken into consideration"
Humans Did Not Cause the U.S. Cold Snap - "The cold snap that sent temperatures plunging last week and brought the most frigid new year in recorded history, in some places, had nothing to do with climate change, according to a new study... former Vice President Al Gore tweeted that the bitter cold is "exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis.""
Netflix is lying about those falling walruses. It’s another ‘tragedy porn’ climate hoax - "Now that polar bears have failed to die off in response to a sea-ice decline as promised, climate alarmists are looking hard for a new icon... a now-famous episode of Netflix’s “Our Planet” documentary series, released this month and narrated by veteran BBC broadcaster David Attenborough, features walruses falling from atop a high cliff and bouncing helplessly over rocks to their deaths. The incident occurs after what’s called a “land haulout,” which is when large herds of walrus females and calves emerge from the water to gather and rest on a beach. The show blames the land haulouts — and the deaths caused by falling from cliffs — squarely on lack of sea ice due to human-caused climate change. “They’d be on the ice if they could be, but there’s no option but to come to land,” the episode’s producer says. The claim isn’t true. In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in October 2017 that Pacific walrus have not been harmed by recent sea-ice loss and are not expected to be harmed in the foreseeable future... The tactic is reminiscent of the infamous 2017 stunt when National Geographic magazine publicized a video of an emaciated polar bear, which it falsely blamed on global warming. This kind of disturbing nature film footage has become known as “tragedy porn.” It’s infused with a narrative that misrepresents or glosses over important facts for the sole purpose of manipulating emotionally immature viewers into feeling distressed and angry... Along the Russian coast of the Chukchi Sea, records show that walrus land haulouts are a natural phenomenon going back to the 19th century, and have nothing to do with climate change. Recent haulouts are enormous because the total population is enormous... Despite the climate change fears, the walrus population is actually booming once again. It may now be as large as 300,000 animals. And polar bear numbers are also up in the Chukchi Sea, according to a survey completed in 2016. Chukchi polar bears are fatter and reproducing better than they were in the 1980s. Ringed and bearded seals are doing better too, which has been attributed to more algae and plankton in the water since 2007. In other words, longer ice-free summers in the Chukchi Sea, along with restricted hunting, have allowed walrus, Arctic seals, and polar bears to thrive... What really made those walruses on Netflix fall to their death from a rocky cliff? Overhead shots in a “behind the scenes” trailer for the “Our Planet” series suggest a drone was used in filming, which could have spooked the walruses into stampeding. The crew also admitted there were polar bears in the area, another possible cause for the deadly stampede. The behind-the-scenes segment also, troublingly, shows how a cameraman on the beach may have potentially discouraged walruses at the top of the cliff from returning the way they had gone up — the safer way down."
‘Here’s my answer. Moral authority, you only get the moral authority to tell China and India that they need to change as well if we are changing’
‘You really think that China will listen to us because we stop going on holiday to the Costa Brava’...
‘I saw this as Climate and Energy Secretary. Actually in the negotiations that we were part of Britain did have some moral authority, because at that time, we were going ahead’"
Maybe Britain's moral authority will hurt the feelings of the Chinese people
Basically this is an admission that climate change hysteria is virtue signalling
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Extinction Rebellion's protests - "‘As you're escalating the disruption, we're on the fourth day, there's been talk of disrupting public transport, which is, after all, one of the most acceptable forms in terms of dealing with climate change. Aren’t people entitled to say it's an entirely insincere apology, you're disrupting lives for a political cause? Would you be happy if Nigel Farage was bringing the streets to a halt? *Something* in the name of democracy? Because the Brexit vote has not been delivered?’
‘I would actually. Yes, I think that's perfectly reasonable. If democracy is not being honored’...
‘If we were treating this as the emergency that it is, it would be on the news. Absolutely. Every single day, our children are at risk of not having food to eat in a few years time... This is unprecedented in our humanity, human extinction, our children's lifetime, it should be on, it should be your top news item every single day, what's happening, you need to be holding politicians to account?’
‘Well, let's talk about what you argue for. What you argue for is net zero emissions by 2025. That isn't currently the UN target... even after all those talks, the target is 2050. Do you accept the claim made by some that that’ll mean getting rid of all gas boilers in that time, and all petrol driven cars by 2025?’
‘I think we need a wartime type mobilization to make these changes. And we have to adopt the precautionary principle.’
‘Because in practical terms, that's why I give you practical examples. Would it mean that?’
‘And I don't know exactly. I think there's lots of different ways that you can go about this, which is why we're calling for a Citizens Assembly that comes up with the different mechanisms for implementing’
‘But if it did you be in favor of that? If that's what it says, that's totally fine. I mean, what you have to realize is, like in a war, you have to deal with the reality. We're not in a war. We're at war with ourselves. We're at war with life on Earth. We can't just do reality here, we have to do what's necessary.’...
‘We will be announcing that from the climate change committee based on the science. And that will be announced in the next couple of weeks. It will then be for the government to take that and I believe to commit itself to that. And to ignore the Daily Telegraph, which says that we're only a very small number of emissions. We, in Britain, are causing much of the climate change that is happening now. Because we were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution'
Not caving to activists = not honouring democracy"
If it's a war they need to invade China and India to cut their emissions rather than effectively virtue signal uselessly
This is an admission that climate change hysteria is about self-flagellation for perceived historical wrongs rather than what will make a difference today
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Climate change protests - "The Home Secretary is asking the police to use the full force of the law. You know, what does that mean? If you remember the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, at that time, bought water cannon, after the inner city riots. And then the Home Office refused to give it a license and it had to be sold at a great loss. So there's no political appetite, really for more robust policing. And the police don't on the whole trust politicians who say that, is because when the investigations and the public inquiries happen, and they don't get the support"
Kid Climate Educators Open Adult Eyes - "This process of children teaching their parents, it really was most effective among those parents who were previously the least concerned about climate change. So that was conservatives and fathers. And then what was also really exciting was that the treatment was particularly effective if the child that was doing the teaching was a daughter"
No wonder they want to get the children
Popular Technology.net: 97% Study Falsely Classifies Scientists' Papers, according to the scientists that published them - "The paper, Cook et al. (2013) 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature' searched the Web of Science for the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change" then categorizing these results to their alleged level of endorsement of AGW. These results were then used to allege a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.To get to the truth, I emailed a sample of scientists whose papers were used in the study and asked them if the categorization by Cook et al. (2013) is an accurate representation of their paper. Their responses are eye opening and evidence that the Cook et al. (2013) team falsely classified scientists' papers as "endorsing AGW", apparently believing to know more about the papers than their authors."
Around the world, backlash against expensive climate change policies - "the Forum for Democracy (FvD), a fledgling political party just three years old, tied for the largest number of seats, 12, in the divided Dutch Senate in the 2019 elections. FvD takes a decidedly skeptical stance on climate change. On the campaign trail, Thierry Baudet, FvD’s leader, said the government should stop funding programs to meet the country’s commitments to international climate change agreements, saying such efforts are driven by “climate change hysteria.”In Finland, climate change policies became the dominant issue in the April 14 election, as support for climate skepticism suddenly surged"
Bjørn Lomborg - Posts - "Unbridled alarmism: Global warming worse than famine, plague and global nuclear war... according to one geography study book, officially endorsed by the Wales, England and Northern Ireland exam board (WJEC)."
Keywords: Climate Change hysteria
The only consistency about the climate change protesters is that they are completely wrong - "Police have arrested more than 100 climate change protestors who have brought parts of London to a halt and vandalised dozens of buildings. They are part of an allegedly global movement demanding more action from governments to tackle global warming. The activists have deliberately set out to cause maximum disruption and to get themselves arrested for wanton damage and obstruction.The campaigners belong to an outfit called Extinction Rebellion, some of whose members stripped off in the public gallery of the House of Commons earlier this month. They are in the anti-capitalist tradition of the Occupy movement which grew to prominence around the time of the 2008 financial crash... The sanctimonious climate change activists essentially want to put us back into the dark ages by ending economic growth. They are inflicting misery on commuters and businesses for no purpose whatsoever other than to claim a spurious moral high ground.The UK contributes less than one per cent of global CO2 emissions and they are falling fast. Countries like China are the major producers and emissions there are going up not down. Why don’t the protestors take their pink boat from Oxford Street and park it in the middle of Beijing and see if the authorities there are as indulgent as ours have been."
Bjørn Lomborg - Posts - "The linking of every catastrophe to climate is obviously very useful for alarmists. A 2019 survey showed that extreme weather makes more people change their minds on climate than anything else."
Domestic Livestock and Its Alleged Role in Climate Change | IntechOpen - "Our key conclusion is there is no need for anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and even less so for livestock-born emissions, to explain climate change. Climate has always been changing, and even the present warming is most likely driven by natural factors. The warming potential of anthropogenic GHG emissions has been exaggerated, and the beneficial impacts of manmade CO2 emissions for nature, agriculture, and global food security have been systematically suppressed, ignored, or at least downplayed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and other UN (United Nations) agencies. Furthermore, we expose important methodological deficiencies in IPCC and FAO (Food Agriculture Organization) instructions and applications for the quantification of the manmade part of non-CO2-GHG emissions from agro-ecosystems. However, so far, these fatal errors inexorably propagated through scientific literature. Finally, we could not find a clear domestic livestock fingerprint, neither in the geographical methane distribution nor in the historical evolution of mean atmospheric methane concentration"
(15) (PDF) Severe Methodological Deficiencies Associated with Claims of Domestic Livestock Driving Climate Change - "Reduction of global livestock numbers and meat consumption have been recommended for climate change mitigation. However, the basic assumptions made to come up with that kind of recommendations reveal severe methodological deficiencies: (1) Carbon footprint, emission intensity, and life-cycle assessments of domestic livestock products reported in scientific literature consistently overlooked the necessity of correcting non CO 2 GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions (nitrous oxide and methane) from managed ecosystems for baseline emission scenarios over time and space (pristine ecosystem and/or pre-climate change emissions); (2) Uncertainties associated with the climate sensitivity of anthropogenic GHG-emissions have been ignored; (3) Inconsistencies in the methodological treatment of land use change (deforestation) in emission intensity calculations (per unit of product) can be detected in the literature; (4) The virtual lack of a discernable livestock signal in global methane distribution and historical methane emission rates has not been acknowledged; theoretical bottom up calculations do not reflect the relative insignificance of livestock-born methane for the global methane budget; (5) Potential substrate induced enhancement of methane breakdown rates have not been taken into consideration"
Humans Did Not Cause the U.S. Cold Snap - "The cold snap that sent temperatures plunging last week and brought the most frigid new year in recorded history, in some places, had nothing to do with climate change, according to a new study... former Vice President Al Gore tweeted that the bitter cold is "exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis.""
Netflix is lying about those falling walruses. It’s another ‘tragedy porn’ climate hoax - "Now that polar bears have failed to die off in response to a sea-ice decline as promised, climate alarmists are looking hard for a new icon... a now-famous episode of Netflix’s “Our Planet” documentary series, released this month and narrated by veteran BBC broadcaster David Attenborough, features walruses falling from atop a high cliff and bouncing helplessly over rocks to their deaths. The incident occurs after what’s called a “land haulout,” which is when large herds of walrus females and calves emerge from the water to gather and rest on a beach. The show blames the land haulouts — and the deaths caused by falling from cliffs — squarely on lack of sea ice due to human-caused climate change. “They’d be on the ice if they could be, but there’s no option but to come to land,” the episode’s producer says. The claim isn’t true. In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in October 2017 that Pacific walrus have not been harmed by recent sea-ice loss and are not expected to be harmed in the foreseeable future... The tactic is reminiscent of the infamous 2017 stunt when National Geographic magazine publicized a video of an emaciated polar bear, which it falsely blamed on global warming. This kind of disturbing nature film footage has become known as “tragedy porn.” It’s infused with a narrative that misrepresents or glosses over important facts for the sole purpose of manipulating emotionally immature viewers into feeling distressed and angry... Along the Russian coast of the Chukchi Sea, records show that walrus land haulouts are a natural phenomenon going back to the 19th century, and have nothing to do with climate change. Recent haulouts are enormous because the total population is enormous... Despite the climate change fears, the walrus population is actually booming once again. It may now be as large as 300,000 animals. And polar bear numbers are also up in the Chukchi Sea, according to a survey completed in 2016. Chukchi polar bears are fatter and reproducing better than they were in the 1980s. Ringed and bearded seals are doing better too, which has been attributed to more algae and plankton in the water since 2007. In other words, longer ice-free summers in the Chukchi Sea, along with restricted hunting, have allowed walrus, Arctic seals, and polar bears to thrive... What really made those walruses on Netflix fall to their death from a rocky cliff? Overhead shots in a “behind the scenes” trailer for the “Our Planet” series suggest a drone was used in filming, which could have spooked the walruses into stampeding. The crew also admitted there were polar bears in the area, another possible cause for the deadly stampede. The behind-the-scenes segment also, troublingly, shows how a cameraman on the beach may have potentially discouraged walruses at the top of the cliff from returning the way they had gone up — the safer way down."
Post ID: 1685269052451287452
Sex and Demographic Variables
No Sex, Please.. We're College Graduates (John Student, American Demographics, Feb 1998)
"Like wealth, sex is not distributed equally across the population. The GSS shows that about 15 percent of adults engage in half of all sexual activity, and that 42 percent of adults engage in 85 percent of all sex. Sex appears to be distributed more unequally than money, because 20 percent of Americans possess half of the wealth. But sex is more equitably shared than wine, 85 percent ofwhich is consumed by 15 percent of the public.
Part of the reason for this inequity is that about 1 in 5 US adults says he or she did not engage in any sex the previous year. Only 1 in 20 Americans has sex three or more times a week, so that this group claims about 30 percent of all sexual activity. Perhaps these are also the people who tell us about their sex lives on TV talk shows...
Men do report more sexual frequency than women, but not because men are more driven or boastful about their prowess. It’s because of demographics. Widows and older women without partners dominate the 20 percent who are inactive...
Are people more sexually active if they have more free time?
No. People who report having the least free time are married, have children at home, and work long hours. Each of these groups also reports having more sex. Indeed, people who work more than 60 hours a week are about 10 percent more sexually active than other workers, and even those who have preschool-aged children report having more sex than average.
One might think that these higher rates happen simply because the busiest Americans are still young enough to have energy left over at night. Indeed, the greater sexual frequency reported by parents returns to normal levels after their answers are controlled for differences in age, gender, and other factors. But even after the controls, Americans with the longest work hours report higher sexual frequency...
Sexual frequency peaks among those with some college education, then decreases among four-year college graduates and declines even further among those with professional degrees.
Americans who have attended graduate school may have money and smarts, but they report being the least sexually active educational group in the population. This pattern is true for both men and women, and it persists after age, work hours, and other factors are statistically controlled. It’s possible that more-educated respondents are more honest. than others in reporting sexual activity, or they are more demanding in their definition of what counts as sex. Whatever the reason, however, sex is different from most other activities because its reported frequency declines with increasing education...
For some reason, watching PBS seems more positively related with increased sexual behavior than watching regular prime-time drama...
One of the most sexually active groups in the US. is people who have a strong preference for jazz music. Even after controlling for age and race, jazz enthusiasts are 30 percent more sexually active than the average person. Liking other types of music, such as rock or rap, seems to be unrelated to sexual activity...
People who own guns also have higher-than-average sexual frequency.
Perhaps sexual activity is highest among people who are most likely to seek adventure. The most sexually active people are more likely to report having been threatened by guns or knives in their lives. They are also likely to report frequent contact with friends rather than relatives, and they are more likely to go out to bars. Smoking is associated with about a 10 percent increase in sexual activity, and drinking is associated with about a 20 percent increase. Those who both smoke and drink report almost twice as much sexual activity as those who do neither...
The more sex a person has, the more likely he or she is to report having a happy life and a happy marriage. This connection is stronger among women than men, again contrary to popular stereotypes. A second and more important predictor of sexual frequency is the feeling that one’s life is exciting rather than routine or dull. And being excited by life is most strongly associated with being happier. It seems that increased sexual activity is one of the many benefits of having a positive attitude.
Still, sex doesn’t solve all your problems. A high frequency of sex is not associated with greater satisfaction with job or family, for example. And people who report a high degree of satisfaction with their city or community are actually less likely than average to report having more sex. Perhaps sex is one of the psychological tactics people use to escape from a less—than—satisfying community.
A similarly surprising connection is lack of confidence in the presidency. Confidence in most social institutions has nothing to do with sexual activity, but somehow, lack of confidence in the nation’s chief executive is associated with having more sex. The pattern was more apparent in the years when George Bush was president than it is during Bill Clinton’s presidency, however.
One disturbing connection is that the most sexually active Americans are also more likely than average to say they do not regard other people as fair or trustworthy. In other words, some Americans who have more sex may be attempting to compensate for a general attitude of suspicion or mistrust. Sex is universally cited as Americans’ favorite activity. But the General Social Survey hints that for a few Americans, a robust sex life goes along with a pessimistic view of other people."
The link for women is probably the other way round - women with happy lives and happy marriages want to have more sex
"Like wealth, sex is not distributed equally across the population. The GSS shows that about 15 percent of adults engage in half of all sexual activity, and that 42 percent of adults engage in 85 percent of all sex. Sex appears to be distributed more unequally than money, because 20 percent of Americans possess half of the wealth. But sex is more equitably shared than wine, 85 percent ofwhich is consumed by 15 percent of the public.
Part of the reason for this inequity is that about 1 in 5 US adults says he or she did not engage in any sex the previous year. Only 1 in 20 Americans has sex three or more times a week, so that this group claims about 30 percent of all sexual activity. Perhaps these are also the people who tell us about their sex lives on TV talk shows...
Men do report more sexual frequency than women, but not because men are more driven or boastful about their prowess. It’s because of demographics. Widows and older women without partners dominate the 20 percent who are inactive...
Are people more sexually active if they have more free time?
No. People who report having the least free time are married, have children at home, and work long hours. Each of these groups also reports having more sex. Indeed, people who work more than 60 hours a week are about 10 percent more sexually active than other workers, and even those who have preschool-aged children report having more sex than average.
One might think that these higher rates happen simply because the busiest Americans are still young enough to have energy left over at night. Indeed, the greater sexual frequency reported by parents returns to normal levels after their answers are controlled for differences in age, gender, and other factors. But even after the controls, Americans with the longest work hours report higher sexual frequency...
Sexual frequency peaks among those with some college education, then decreases among four-year college graduates and declines even further among those with professional degrees.
Americans who have attended graduate school may have money and smarts, but they report being the least sexually active educational group in the population. This pattern is true for both men and women, and it persists after age, work hours, and other factors are statistically controlled. It’s possible that more-educated respondents are more honest. than others in reporting sexual activity, or they are more demanding in their definition of what counts as sex. Whatever the reason, however, sex is different from most other activities because its reported frequency declines with increasing education...
For some reason, watching PBS seems more positively related with increased sexual behavior than watching regular prime-time drama...
One of the most sexually active groups in the US. is people who have a strong preference for jazz music. Even after controlling for age and race, jazz enthusiasts are 30 percent more sexually active than the average person. Liking other types of music, such as rock or rap, seems to be unrelated to sexual activity...
People who own guns also have higher-than-average sexual frequency.
Perhaps sexual activity is highest among people who are most likely to seek adventure. The most sexually active people are more likely to report having been threatened by guns or knives in their lives. They are also likely to report frequent contact with friends rather than relatives, and they are more likely to go out to bars. Smoking is associated with about a 10 percent increase in sexual activity, and drinking is associated with about a 20 percent increase. Those who both smoke and drink report almost twice as much sexual activity as those who do neither...
The more sex a person has, the more likely he or she is to report having a happy life and a happy marriage. This connection is stronger among women than men, again contrary to popular stereotypes. A second and more important predictor of sexual frequency is the feeling that one’s life is exciting rather than routine or dull. And being excited by life is most strongly associated with being happier. It seems that increased sexual activity is one of the many benefits of having a positive attitude.
Still, sex doesn’t solve all your problems. A high frequency of sex is not associated with greater satisfaction with job or family, for example. And people who report a high degree of satisfaction with their city or community are actually less likely than average to report having more sex. Perhaps sex is one of the psychological tactics people use to escape from a less—than—satisfying community.
A similarly surprising connection is lack of confidence in the presidency. Confidence in most social institutions has nothing to do with sexual activity, but somehow, lack of confidence in the nation’s chief executive is associated with having more sex. The pattern was more apparent in the years when George Bush was president than it is during Bill Clinton’s presidency, however.
One disturbing connection is that the most sexually active Americans are also more likely than average to say they do not regard other people as fair or trustworthy. In other words, some Americans who have more sex may be attempting to compensate for a general attitude of suspicion or mistrust. Sex is universally cited as Americans’ favorite activity. But the General Social Survey hints that for a few Americans, a robust sex life goes along with a pessimistic view of other people."
The link for women is probably the other way round - women with happy lives and happy marriages want to have more sex
Post ID: 3728989959016070135
Links - 8th June 2019 (1) (Climate Change/Environmentalism)
Is Paul Ehrlich The Fifth Stooge? - "Basically, Ehrlich seems to perceive himself to be a modern-day Yahweh, wanting to rid the Earth of its infestation of sinful humans. While I would not go so far as to embrace Julian Simon’s enthusiasm for a large population, aside from a desire to see the backsides of certain individuals, the current planet is just a little crowded for my tastes. But to suggest putting contraceptives in people’s food, as Ehrlich has done, is beyond shocking. Especially on the back of such horrible research. Any number of scientists and experts have noted that Ehrlich has not only been laughably wrong and that he not only doesn’t acknowledge it, but considers himself prescient... As Gardner (p. 227) notes, “In two lengthy interviews, Ehrlich admitted making not a single major error in the popular works he published in the late 1960s and 1970s.”... In response to those who note his errors, he only admits to being off on the timing of events, but the reality is that things have moved in the opposite direction of what he predicted... There is an entire community of neo-Malthusians and anti-technologists who are not just misguided but hold flat out wrong opinions, yet are treated like rock stars. Ehrlich’s Wikipedia page lists eighteen awards and honors of which maybe half are from ecological or environmental groups. (By contrast, Julian Simon, whose work is much more scientific than Ehrlich’s, has only one.)... Ultimately, there needs to be a way to deal with demonstrably incorrect theories and to have discredited work acknowledged as such. Until we can, debate will too often be dominated by inverse Cassandras, those who are always wrong, but always heeded. Perhaps we should label them Ehrlichs"
Scotland's food waste causing more greenhouse gas than plastic - ""It might seem bizarre but scraping that leftover lasagne, mince or salad from your plate into the bin is seriously damaging the planet, because when those scraps of pasta and lettuce which you never got around to eating end up in landfill, they rot."As they break down, they emit methane, which is many times more harmful in the short-term to our climate than carbon dioxide (CO2)."Food waste is actually a bigger cause of climate change than plastics."... Zero Waste Scotland calculated that the carbon footprint of food waste collected from Scottish households that year was nearly three times that of plastic waste collected from people's homes, at roughly 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) compared to 0.73MtCO2e."
Cutting down on food waste costs companies profits, so good luck with that
Climate change: I work in the environmental movement. I don’t care if you recycle. - "One word about my five years at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or my work in the climate justice movement broadly, and I’m bombarded with pious admissions of environmental transgressions or nihilistic throwing up of hands. One extreme or the other... I don’t blame anyone for wanting absolution. I can even understand abdication, which is its own form of absolution. But underneath all that is a far more insidious force. It’s the narrative that has both driven and obstructed the climate change conversation for the past several decades. It tells us climate change could have been fixed if we had all just ordered less takeout, used fewer plastic bags, turned off some more lights, planted a few trees, or driven an electric car. It says that if those adjustments can’t do the trick, what’s the point? The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous. It turns environmentalism into an individual choice defined as sin or virtue, convicting those who don’t or can’t uphold these ethics. When you consider that the same IPCC report outlined that the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions come from just a handful of corporations — aided and abetted by the world’s most powerful governments, including the US — it’s victim blaming, plain and simple... industries have redirected the environmentalist narrative to blame consumers since the ever-so-problematic “Crying Indian” ad campaign of the 1970s... While we’re busy testing each other’s purity, we let the government and industries — the authors of said devastation — off the hook completely. This overemphasis on individual action shames people for their everyday activities, things they can barely avoid doing because of the fossil fuel-dependent system they were born into. In fact, fossil fuels supply more than 75 percent of the US energy system.If we want to function in society, we have no choice but to participate in that system. To blame us for that is to shame us for our very existence"
James Lovelock: environmentalism has become a religion - "Environmentalism has "become a religion" and does not pay enough attention to facts, according to James Lovelock.The 94 year-old scientist, famous for his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, also said that he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that "it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms... Lovelock said of the warnings of climate catastrophe in his 2006 book, Revenge of Gaia: "I was a little too certain in that book. You just can’t tell what’s going to happen."“It [the impact from climate change] could be terrible within a few years, though that’s very unlikely, or it could be hundreds of years before the climate becomes unbearable," he said."
Why Is It So Hard to Predict the Future? - "In the 30 years since Ehrlich sent Simon a check, the track record of expert forecasters—in science, in economics, in politics—is as dismal as ever. In business, esteemed (and lavishly compensated) forecasters routinely are wildly wrong in their predictions of everything from the next stock-market correction to the next housing boom. Reliable insight into the future is possible, however. It just requires a style of thinking that’s uncommon among experts who are certain that their deep knowledge has granted them a special grasp of what is to come... experts were, by and large, horrific forecasters. Their areas of specialty, years of experience, and (for some) access to classified information made no difference. They were bad at short-term forecasting and bad at long-term forecasting. They were bad at forecasting in every domain. When experts declared that future events were impossible or nearly impossible, 15 percent of them occurred nonetheless. When they declared events to be a sure thing, more than one-quarter of them failed to transpire. As the Danish proverb warns, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” Even faced with their results, many experts never admitted systematic flaws in their judgment... Hedgehogs are deeply and tightly focused. Some have spent their career studying one problem. Like Ehrlich and Simon, they fashion tidy theories of how the world works based on observations through the single lens of their specialty. Foxes, meanwhile, “draw from an eclectic array of traditions, and accept ambiguity and contradiction,” Tetlock wrote. Where hedgehogs represent narrowness, foxes embody breadth.Incredibly, the hedgehogs performed especially poorly on long-term predictions within their specialty. They got worse as they accumulated experience and credentials in their field. The more information they had to work with, the more easily they could fit any story into their worldview.Unfortunately, the world’s most prominent specialists are rarely held accountable for their predictions, so we continue to rely on them even when their track records make clear that we should not"
Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us - "major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents... Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war"
From 2004
Addendum: I remember when this story broke, many people were crowing about climate change. Of course today, they are crowing about the new deadline of 2030
A multi-country analysis on potential adaptive mechanisms to cold and heat in a changing climate - "despite the progressively warmer temperatures, our findings indicate a strong reduction in vulnerability to heat in the past decades in most of the countries included in the present study. This suggests that the pace of decrease in susceptibility to heat has been faster than the observed warming, which indicates scope for adaptation to further warming under climate change... health burden attributed to ambient temperatures persisted at the end of the study period in most of the locations, with a considerably larger extent for cold"
Cold is more deadly than heat, and heat is actually a decreasing problem
Climate Change is a Problem But Not the End of the World - "Bjorn does believe that sea levels would rise but that this is not a big overall cost.Hurricanes will go from 0.04% of world GDP damage to 0.02% of world GDP by 2100. However, it would have declined to 0.01% of world GDP if there was no global warming.There will be 2-4% of economic impact in 2100, but this is from a projected increase of 1000-3000% in world GDP. This would mean that the GDP of 2100 would be the GDP of 2099. We would lose one year of growth.The Doha round of world trade agreements would have made everyone in the world on average $1000 per year richer in 2030. It would have raised 146 million people out of poverty... Bjorn lists the costs and benefits of the smartest solutions to twelve global problems. If $75 billion were spent over four years.The highest ranked solution – meaning that it yields the most benefit for the least cost – is to spend $3 billion over four years, on a bundle of micronutrients and medicines to reduce under-nutrition and improve education in preschool-aged children.For about $100 per child, this bundle could reduce chronic under-nutrition by 36 percent in developing countries. More than 100 million children could start their lives without stunted growth or malnourishment.Because these children will lead healthier, more productive lives as adults – a virtuous cycle of dramatic development – each dollar spent addressing chronic under-nutrition has a $30 payoff in economic terms. Ultimately, when all the benefits are translated into economic terms, every dollar spent on malnutrition will likely do $63 worth of global good.Other top-ranked solutions include expanding malaria treatment (generating $35 in benefits for every dollar spent), immunization for children, and deworming"
Given how many people excitedly gush about how humans will go extinct and deserve to, it's clear that many people have a death wish and this goes beyond simple concern for the environment
FACT CHECK: Did Patrick Moore, a Doubter of Anthropogenic Climate Change, Co-Found Greenpeace? - "Patrick Moore was an early and influential member of Greenpeace who now espouses climate-skeptic views...
Moore left Greenpeace in 1986. Speaking of that decision, Moore wrote in 2005:
By the mid-1980s, the environmental movement had abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism. I became aware of the emerging concept of sustainable development: balancing environmental, social and economic priorities. Converted to the idea that win-win solutions could be found by bringing all interests together, I made the move from confrontation to consensus."
Global warming a ‘fear campaign’ by scientists ‘hooked on government grants,’ Greenpeace founder says - "Moore argued that on top of “the green movement creating stories that instill fear in the public” and the “media echo chamber ... repeating it over and over and over again to everybody,” the narrative is bolstered by “green politicians who are buying scientists with government money to produce fear for them in the form of scientific-looking materials” and “the green businesses, the rent-seekers, and the crony capitalists who are taking advantage of massive subsidies, huge tax write-offs, and government mandates requiring their technologies to make a fortune on this.“And then, of course, you’ve got the scientists who are willingly, they’re basically hooked on government grants”"
Scotland's food waste causing more greenhouse gas than plastic - ""It might seem bizarre but scraping that leftover lasagne, mince or salad from your plate into the bin is seriously damaging the planet, because when those scraps of pasta and lettuce which you never got around to eating end up in landfill, they rot."As they break down, they emit methane, which is many times more harmful in the short-term to our climate than carbon dioxide (CO2)."Food waste is actually a bigger cause of climate change than plastics."... Zero Waste Scotland calculated that the carbon footprint of food waste collected from Scottish households that year was nearly three times that of plastic waste collected from people's homes, at roughly 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) compared to 0.73MtCO2e."
Cutting down on food waste costs companies profits, so good luck with that
Climate change: I work in the environmental movement. I don’t care if you recycle. - "One word about my five years at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or my work in the climate justice movement broadly, and I’m bombarded with pious admissions of environmental transgressions or nihilistic throwing up of hands. One extreme or the other... I don’t blame anyone for wanting absolution. I can even understand abdication, which is its own form of absolution. But underneath all that is a far more insidious force. It’s the narrative that has both driven and obstructed the climate change conversation for the past several decades. It tells us climate change could have been fixed if we had all just ordered less takeout, used fewer plastic bags, turned off some more lights, planted a few trees, or driven an electric car. It says that if those adjustments can’t do the trick, what’s the point? The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous. It turns environmentalism into an individual choice defined as sin or virtue, convicting those who don’t or can’t uphold these ethics. When you consider that the same IPCC report outlined that the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions come from just a handful of corporations — aided and abetted by the world’s most powerful governments, including the US — it’s victim blaming, plain and simple... industries have redirected the environmentalist narrative to blame consumers since the ever-so-problematic “Crying Indian” ad campaign of the 1970s... While we’re busy testing each other’s purity, we let the government and industries — the authors of said devastation — off the hook completely. This overemphasis on individual action shames people for their everyday activities, things they can barely avoid doing because of the fossil fuel-dependent system they were born into. In fact, fossil fuels supply more than 75 percent of the US energy system.If we want to function in society, we have no choice but to participate in that system. To blame us for that is to shame us for our very existence"
James Lovelock: environmentalism has become a religion - "Environmentalism has "become a religion" and does not pay enough attention to facts, according to James Lovelock.The 94 year-old scientist, famous for his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, also said that he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that "it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms... Lovelock said of the warnings of climate catastrophe in his 2006 book, Revenge of Gaia: "I was a little too certain in that book. You just can’t tell what’s going to happen."“It [the impact from climate change] could be terrible within a few years, though that’s very unlikely, or it could be hundreds of years before the climate becomes unbearable," he said."
Why Is It So Hard to Predict the Future? - "In the 30 years since Ehrlich sent Simon a check, the track record of expert forecasters—in science, in economics, in politics—is as dismal as ever. In business, esteemed (and lavishly compensated) forecasters routinely are wildly wrong in their predictions of everything from the next stock-market correction to the next housing boom. Reliable insight into the future is possible, however. It just requires a style of thinking that’s uncommon among experts who are certain that their deep knowledge has granted them a special grasp of what is to come... experts were, by and large, horrific forecasters. Their areas of specialty, years of experience, and (for some) access to classified information made no difference. They were bad at short-term forecasting and bad at long-term forecasting. They were bad at forecasting in every domain. When experts declared that future events were impossible or nearly impossible, 15 percent of them occurred nonetheless. When they declared events to be a sure thing, more than one-quarter of them failed to transpire. As the Danish proverb warns, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” Even faced with their results, many experts never admitted systematic flaws in their judgment... Hedgehogs are deeply and tightly focused. Some have spent their career studying one problem. Like Ehrlich and Simon, they fashion tidy theories of how the world works based on observations through the single lens of their specialty. Foxes, meanwhile, “draw from an eclectic array of traditions, and accept ambiguity and contradiction,” Tetlock wrote. Where hedgehogs represent narrowness, foxes embody breadth.Incredibly, the hedgehogs performed especially poorly on long-term predictions within their specialty. They got worse as they accumulated experience and credentials in their field. The more information they had to work with, the more easily they could fit any story into their worldview.Unfortunately, the world’s most prominent specialists are rarely held accountable for their predictions, so we continue to rely on them even when their track records make clear that we should not"
Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us - "major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents... Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war"
From 2004
Addendum: I remember when this story broke, many people were crowing about climate change. Of course today, they are crowing about the new deadline of 2030
A multi-country analysis on potential adaptive mechanisms to cold and heat in a changing climate - "despite the progressively warmer temperatures, our findings indicate a strong reduction in vulnerability to heat in the past decades in most of the countries included in the present study. This suggests that the pace of decrease in susceptibility to heat has been faster than the observed warming, which indicates scope for adaptation to further warming under climate change... health burden attributed to ambient temperatures persisted at the end of the study period in most of the locations, with a considerably larger extent for cold"
Cold is more deadly than heat, and heat is actually a decreasing problem
Climate Change is a Problem But Not the End of the World - "Bjorn does believe that sea levels would rise but that this is not a big overall cost.Hurricanes will go from 0.04% of world GDP damage to 0.02% of world GDP by 2100. However, it would have declined to 0.01% of world GDP if there was no global warming.There will be 2-4% of economic impact in 2100, but this is from a projected increase of 1000-3000% in world GDP. This would mean that the GDP of 2100 would be the GDP of 2099. We would lose one year of growth.The Doha round of world trade agreements would have made everyone in the world on average $1000 per year richer in 2030. It would have raised 146 million people out of poverty... Bjorn lists the costs and benefits of the smartest solutions to twelve global problems. If $75 billion were spent over four years.The highest ranked solution – meaning that it yields the most benefit for the least cost – is to spend $3 billion over four years, on a bundle of micronutrients and medicines to reduce under-nutrition and improve education in preschool-aged children.For about $100 per child, this bundle could reduce chronic under-nutrition by 36 percent in developing countries. More than 100 million children could start their lives without stunted growth or malnourishment.Because these children will lead healthier, more productive lives as adults – a virtuous cycle of dramatic development – each dollar spent addressing chronic under-nutrition has a $30 payoff in economic terms. Ultimately, when all the benefits are translated into economic terms, every dollar spent on malnutrition will likely do $63 worth of global good.Other top-ranked solutions include expanding malaria treatment (generating $35 in benefits for every dollar spent), immunization for children, and deworming"
Given how many people excitedly gush about how humans will go extinct and deserve to, it's clear that many people have a death wish and this goes beyond simple concern for the environment
FACT CHECK: Did Patrick Moore, a Doubter of Anthropogenic Climate Change, Co-Found Greenpeace? - "Patrick Moore was an early and influential member of Greenpeace who now espouses climate-skeptic views...
Moore left Greenpeace in 1986. Speaking of that decision, Moore wrote in 2005:
By the mid-1980s, the environmental movement had abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism. I became aware of the emerging concept of sustainable development: balancing environmental, social and economic priorities. Converted to the idea that win-win solutions could be found by bringing all interests together, I made the move from confrontation to consensus."
Global warming a ‘fear campaign’ by scientists ‘hooked on government grants,’ Greenpeace founder says - "Moore argued that on top of “the green movement creating stories that instill fear in the public” and the “media echo chamber ... repeating it over and over and over again to everybody,” the narrative is bolstered by “green politicians who are buying scientists with government money to produce fear for them in the form of scientific-looking materials” and “the green businesses, the rent-seekers, and the crony capitalists who are taking advantage of massive subsidies, huge tax write-offs, and government mandates requiring their technologies to make a fortune on this.“And then, of course, you’ve got the scientists who are willingly, they’re basically hooked on government grants”"
Post ID: 1148883986972869413
Friday, June 07, 2019
Links - 7th June 2019 (2) (Gillette)
Gillette responds to backlash against Venus post featuring plus-size model - "Gillette is pushing back against critics who are attacking a post shared by one of their Twitter accounts last week that features a plus-size model wearing a bikini."
Gillette Venus slammed for advert showing woman shaving her arms - "People have been using social media to slam the commercial, arguing women already feel pressured enough to remove body hair, without the idea of them needing to remove more."
Next Gillette ad: "Don't buy our products!"
Gillette Is Feeling the Financial Burn Thanks to Their "Toxic Masculinity" Ad - "Proctor & Gamble are experiencing better than expected profits in every area…except the male grooming products section of Gillette, and few people should be surprised.Before the Super Bowl, Gillette released an ad that insulted men with social justice/feminist based narratives about toxic masculinity. Even things such as wanting to talk to a pretty girl or boys wrestling in the yard were considered negative things that needed to be dealt with. Gillette finished the commercial by indicating that “some men” don’t do this and that we should all be like these “some.”Needless to say, it didn’t go over well. Gillette received a well-deserved societal spanking for its sexism.Now the numbers have come out, and Gillette seems to be the weakest link in P&G’s chain... Gillette must have felt the burn before the earnings reports. It attempted a quiet, yet blatant, and very lazy walk-back of its toxic masculinity stance by attempting to make a United States soldier out to be a hero. The ad could have been considered even more insulting than the first... the old saying “get woke, go broke” has repeatedly been shown to be an adage that businesses should pay attention to. Very few brands succeed after venturing into social justice territory, with one notable exception being Nike.ESPN, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and the NFL itself did not fare well. At all."
Mark Ritson: Gillette's new ad will be the year's worst marketing move - "Nike used the authenticity of Kaepernick, the pathos in his voice and the positivity of his message to inspire customers with an aspirational message that attracted them and then propelled them to purchase. Gillette’s ad feels like a tedious, politically correct public health video – the kind of film we were forced to watch in school about road safety before they invented the internet. Never mind making me hate Gillette, it makes me feel bad about pretty much everything. This could have been a win for Gillette. A less heavy hand. A less preachy tone. A more inspirational message that real men, the kind who use Gillette, behave better and stand for change... Rather than a work of inspiration and aspiration she delivers a short film that feels vindictive and accusatory. We are not being shown the better path, we are being told we are all on the wrong one and must change course immediately. Men are to blame. You, yes you. It’s a poor way to sell razors. Hell, it’s a poor way to sell anything... Thus far the like to dislike ratio is running 10 to one against the campaign. More worryingly, the sheer number of dislikes – one in every 10 people who have seen the ad went to the trouble of clicking the thumbs-down button at the time of writing – suggests a vehement dislike unusual for such a big brand with this kind of major campaign. I’ve never seen that kind of negative engagement before. “It’s crucial to make the customer feel bad from the outset and then throughout the ad if you intend to sell to them effectively,” as David Ogilvy never wrote... despite its enormous cultural impact, divisive message and four months of air time, Nike’s campaign has only managed to generate a 10th of the dislikes on YouTube that Gillette has achieved in just 24 hours... Nike had nowhere near a 50% share of any of the categories it competed in. From t-shirts to jogging bottoms to running shoes, there was much more to be gained than lost from its risky Kaepernick ad. Gillette, conversely, was sailing a big 50% boat and suddenly decided to rock it, badly. “All you had to do was be quiet and sell razors. RIP Gillette”... Of course, that’s the one thing you won’t see much of in Gillette’s new ad: razors. Among all the sanctimonious hectoring and evil masculinity on display in the ad there is very little room for any reference to shaving or Gillette. Nike’s campaign was not just aspirational, it actually showed Nike products in action throughout the two-minute spot."
Gillette 'Toxic Masculinity' Commercial Set to Break into Most Disliked YouTube Videos List - "Gillette’s recent commercial against “toxic masculinity” has reached 700,000 dislikes on YouTube and is quickly approaching the top 50 most disliked YouTube videos of all time after just several days on the platform."
Too bad I'm not a woman, so when a colleague helpfully rephrases my point in a meeting so it can be better understood I can't pretend I'm a victim. And I can't talk to random strangers of the opposite gender without being accused of catcalling
KA Houchen - Can we admit that the women didn’t come across all... - "Can we admit that the women didn’t come across all that great in the Gillette ad either? Where were the strong independent women who’d slap away a man’s wandering hand? Where was the image of the confident woman who didn’t need a man to intercede for her to reject unwanted advances?... The women in the Gillette ad showed less spunk and less personal agency than Annette Funicello in a 1960’s “Beach, Blanket, Bingo” movie. Joan Crawford would roll in her grave. So why there’s no outcry from feminists groups about Gillette’s portrayal of passive, hapless femininity?Because the commercial is targeted at belittling men. Feminists seem willing to sacrifice their image if it’s to take pot shots at the so called “male patriarchy”.Is their silence a sign that feminists hate men more than they like women?"
#MeToo Boomerang: Gillette Lectures US Men on Sexism -- Then Objectifies Hot Women in Provocative Clothing at Their Sponsored Events - "The company decided the best way to promote their product was to attack their customer base... Gillette is NOTORIOUS for showcasing smokin’ hot women in skintight jumpsuits!"
Peter Lloyd on Twitter - "According to insiders, a (female) vice president of Procter & Gamble recently told a 100-strong meeting: "I will never promote a straight, white man again."...
The source is a reliable one. I’ve heard similar stories from inside @HSBC @HSBC_UK."
Wojciech Pawelczyk 🇵🇱 on Twitter - "Gillette Spokeswoman Ana Kasparian in 2016: "I have no respect for women who voted for Trump. I think so poorly of them... I think you're dumb. I think you're fu*king dumb..."
-----
Does Gillette endorse toxic femininity"
The Screen - Posts - "Gillette: Men are violent, bullying rapists.
Men: If you want to say that, we won't buy your products.
Feminists: Haha, the menz, conservatives & MRAs are triggered. #LOL!
Also Feminists: How dare #ProteinWorld show an attractive woman and suggest I should be physically healthy, this is literal oppression!
THE HYPOCRISY KNOWS NO BOUNDS!!!"
Being Classically Liberal - Posts - "For the people who can't understand why the Gillette 'toxic masculinity' ad rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
Imagine if a company ran an ad about 'toxic Islamism' that told Muslims not to blow people up or beat their wives.
It's insulting because 1) you are treating the group in question like children who don't that already know right from wrong and 2) you are presenting the anti-social behavior as if it were unique to the group at hand."
Melissa Chen - I can get behind the message that we all can be... - "it ended up painting an entire demographic with a negative stereotype perpetuated by a few. Imagine the uproar if it was an ad about an ethnic group with higher say, obesity or crime rates, touting the message that "you can be better." Would we consider it somewhat bigoted to apply negative stereotypes to a whole group? If it's unacceptable when directed at any other group, it should be unacceptable here."
Cheryl Marie Tay - "I found myself annoyed (though not personally offended) by the Gillette commercial, and I did wonder why that was the case. Turns out it wasn't just its preachy, pandering tone that grated on my nerves. It was also the possibility that women, not men, were actually the target audience. I've seen ads targeted at women that have made me cringe and / or laugh (not because they were funny, but because they were simply terrible), and I guess this was no exception. But hey, kudos to Gillette if this marketing tactic works in its favour... Bonus irony points: The women who are now whooping and cheering for Gillette as if it just scored the winning goal in a penalty shootout between #metoo and "toxic masculinity" are likely the same women who have also complained about the brand's "sexist" pricing of razors. I love it."
Surprise: Genius behind man-hating Gillette ad is a radical feminist - ""The guy at the ad agency" is actually philosophically unpleasant feminist Kim Gehrig. Hiring her to court the male market is like expecting to accrue impressive rainbow flag sale numbers with spiels from Farrakhan... Fox News host Greg Gutfeld tweeted: "the only ones lauding the Gillette ad work in media/advertising. everyone else sees it for what it is: a smarmy, condescending virtue signal aimed at the hardworking decent men they have been price-gouging for years."... The greatest ultimate harm caused by Gehrig's Gillette advertising maliciousness may be this: irresponsible,"woke" parents bludgeoning their young sons with her message that just being a boy is unhealthy, a wrong for which they should forever hang their heads."
WALSH: 3 Reasons Why Gillette's 'Toxic Masculinity' Ad Is Incredibly Stupid And Degrading - "It is implied that we men have excused these behaviors by shrugging and muttering "boys will be boys." The ad makes this point very subtly, by showing a line of men saying "boys will be boys" in unison as they watch two other boys fight... There is not a single man on Earth who watched a news report about Weinstein, slapped his forehead, and said, "Oh! So we're not supposed to do that? Alright then! My mistake!"... the vast majority of men are not rapists or harassers and were, prior to this past year, already staunchly opposed to both activities. There was nothing epiphanic or revolutionary about Me Too for us... "Boys will be boys" is not a rationale for bad behavior. In my entire life I have never once heard anyone, ever, offer "boys will be boys" as an excuse for rape or bullying. I have never seen a bunch of men standing around watching a kid pummel another kid while they all nod in approval and say "boys will be boys" to one another, like programed automatons. Have the people at Gillette ever even met an actual human man before? Perhaps not. Maybe that's why they think we need a razor with 14 blades to shave in the morning, as if our beards are made from the steel bristles of a wire brush. In any case, "boys will be boys" does not generally function as an excuse. It is a cliche but, like many cliches, it contains great wisdom. Boys will indeed be boys, and should be boys, and should be allowed to be boys without their natural boy-ness being constantly suppressed. Boys are energetic, aggressive, creative, competitive. They need safe and accepting outlets for these impulses. Incidentally, rolling around and roughhousing is one such outlet. The ad shows an enlightened man swooping in to stop a couple of young boys from wrestling around in the grass, which is exactly the wrong approach... There are only, in the end, two options. Either we let boys act like boys or we force them to act like girls. But the latter option makes as much sense as forcing girls to act like boys. You wouldn't demand that your daughter stop playing with dolls and go out and wrestle in the grass instead. Why should we demand the reverse of boys? That's the point of "boys will be boys," and God help the boys cursed with parents who don't understand this point... Imagine an ad for Dove body wash that shows women doing stereotypically negative things like gossiping and nagging and shopping too much, and then the narrator comes on: "Sure, some women act the right way." Feminists would be rioting in the street. They'd storm Dove headquarters and stone the head of marketing to death with loofahs dipped in cement.But no such ad would or could ever exist. Women are not lectured and scolded this way. This sort of treatment is reserved for men. And men are tired of it."
The Screen - Posts - "l have an idea for a Gillette Venus commercial.
A line of women sit in chairs fretting about their nails. lecturing their daughters that if they don't lose weight they won't be marriagable. Then pan to a group of women fighting Jersey Shore style over a man calling eachother sexually derisive terms.
Next show to a woman marrying a much older man for his money. Cut to a high school girl gossiping about her former best friend and what a slut she is now. Then show a woman happily getting married to a soldier then splash to that
same woman cheating on her deployed husband.
Fade in a wife nagging her husband for not contributing around the house as he seals an envelope with a check for the mortgage payment, then fade in a sequence of a judge awarding that wife the home in a divorce settlement.
Next show an HR rep pressuring a manager to hire a less qualified woman over a well-qualified man specifically because the company has a "diversity problem" .
Finally. close with a panel informing a young man that he has been found responsible for an allegation of sexual assault by a female student, while being denied an opportunity to confront his accuser.
Then splash "Gillette Venus" across the screen with a narrator's voice imploring women to stop being so difficult.
If we're gonna be "woke". lets go full red pill shit woke""
Gillette - Toxic Femininity Ad (Parody) - YouTube
ROTHMAN: Woke Brands And The Sorry Fad Of Entry-Level Politics - "66 percent of respondents said it was important for brands to take a stand on issues of political and social relevance. That figure includes eight-in-ten self-identified liberals and a majority—52 percent—of self-described conservatives. This new reality has been years in the making. According to a 2014 Horizon Media study, a staggering 81 percent of Millennials believe socio-political values should be a major part of a corporation’s public identity. Of course, these firms only participate in “politics” if we define the term as loosely as possible. These firms almost always devote their energies to agitating around cultural issues and identity politics, not the conduct of legislative affairs. The satisfaction consumers derive from patronizing “socially responsible” brands is the feeling they get from appearing to participate in politics... On March 8, 2017, New Yorkers awoke to the sight of a new monument in Manhattan: a bronze statue of an elementary school-age girl standing defiant, arms akimbo, directly across from Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull... The statue’s sponsor, the investment firm State Street Global Advisors, said it was designed to communicate to the financial services industry that women were woefully represented in its upper echelons. State Street would know. At the time, women occupied only 17 percent of its leadership positions. No woman had ever held the role occupied by Fearless Girl’s chief spokesperson, State Street President Ronald O’Hanley. But the diversionary purpose of this public relations campaign was soon revealed by the courts. In October 2017, State Street agreed to settle the lawsuit that followed a Department of Labor audit, which found that the firm had systematically discriminated against its female and black employs in favor of white men. The fact that the Left fell for a commercial for a bunch of unenlightened Wall Street bankers is a cautionary tale about the true purpose of corporate political identities. Consumers think they’re advancing social justice by patronizing “woke” brands, but they’re almost always being taken in by firms who want to cater to their customers’ well-meaning desire to appear informed without doing the requisite homework. Entry-level politics has become a lucrative enterprise for the unscrupulous, and it is deeply troubling that the product the public is unwittingly consuming is civic illiteracy."
82% of Liberals Like Brands With Their Politics - "Far fewer conservatives want the same... 58 percent of consumers surveyed said they dislike it when marketers talk politics.” (The full article, titled “Trump Boycotts Turn 25% of Consumers Off,” gets into how 80 million Americans say they change their spending habits due to these boycotts. But marketers can benefit, if the political stands they take align with their brands’ DNA.)"
Gillette Venus slammed for advert showing woman shaving her arms - "People have been using social media to slam the commercial, arguing women already feel pressured enough to remove body hair, without the idea of them needing to remove more."
Next Gillette ad: "Don't buy our products!"
Gillette Is Feeling the Financial Burn Thanks to Their "Toxic Masculinity" Ad - "Proctor & Gamble are experiencing better than expected profits in every area…except the male grooming products section of Gillette, and few people should be surprised.Before the Super Bowl, Gillette released an ad that insulted men with social justice/feminist based narratives about toxic masculinity. Even things such as wanting to talk to a pretty girl or boys wrestling in the yard were considered negative things that needed to be dealt with. Gillette finished the commercial by indicating that “some men” don’t do this and that we should all be like these “some.”Needless to say, it didn’t go over well. Gillette received a well-deserved societal spanking for its sexism.Now the numbers have come out, and Gillette seems to be the weakest link in P&G’s chain... Gillette must have felt the burn before the earnings reports. It attempted a quiet, yet blatant, and very lazy walk-back of its toxic masculinity stance by attempting to make a United States soldier out to be a hero. The ad could have been considered even more insulting than the first... the old saying “get woke, go broke” has repeatedly been shown to be an adage that businesses should pay attention to. Very few brands succeed after venturing into social justice territory, with one notable exception being Nike.ESPN, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and the NFL itself did not fare well. At all."
Mark Ritson: Gillette's new ad will be the year's worst marketing move - "Nike used the authenticity of Kaepernick, the pathos in his voice and the positivity of his message to inspire customers with an aspirational message that attracted them and then propelled them to purchase. Gillette’s ad feels like a tedious, politically correct public health video – the kind of film we were forced to watch in school about road safety before they invented the internet. Never mind making me hate Gillette, it makes me feel bad about pretty much everything. This could have been a win for Gillette. A less heavy hand. A less preachy tone. A more inspirational message that real men, the kind who use Gillette, behave better and stand for change... Rather than a work of inspiration and aspiration she delivers a short film that feels vindictive and accusatory. We are not being shown the better path, we are being told we are all on the wrong one and must change course immediately. Men are to blame. You, yes you. It’s a poor way to sell razors. Hell, it’s a poor way to sell anything... Thus far the like to dislike ratio is running 10 to one against the campaign. More worryingly, the sheer number of dislikes – one in every 10 people who have seen the ad went to the trouble of clicking the thumbs-down button at the time of writing – suggests a vehement dislike unusual for such a big brand with this kind of major campaign. I’ve never seen that kind of negative engagement before. “It’s crucial to make the customer feel bad from the outset and then throughout the ad if you intend to sell to them effectively,” as David Ogilvy never wrote... despite its enormous cultural impact, divisive message and four months of air time, Nike’s campaign has only managed to generate a 10th of the dislikes on YouTube that Gillette has achieved in just 24 hours... Nike had nowhere near a 50% share of any of the categories it competed in. From t-shirts to jogging bottoms to running shoes, there was much more to be gained than lost from its risky Kaepernick ad. Gillette, conversely, was sailing a big 50% boat and suddenly decided to rock it, badly. “All you had to do was be quiet and sell razors. RIP Gillette”... Of course, that’s the one thing you won’t see much of in Gillette’s new ad: razors. Among all the sanctimonious hectoring and evil masculinity on display in the ad there is very little room for any reference to shaving or Gillette. Nike’s campaign was not just aspirational, it actually showed Nike products in action throughout the two-minute spot."
Gillette 'Toxic Masculinity' Commercial Set to Break into Most Disliked YouTube Videos List - "Gillette’s recent commercial against “toxic masculinity” has reached 700,000 dislikes on YouTube and is quickly approaching the top 50 most disliked YouTube videos of all time after just several days on the platform."
Too bad I'm not a woman, so when a colleague helpfully rephrases my point in a meeting so it can be better understood I can't pretend I'm a victim. And I can't talk to random strangers of the opposite gender without being accused of catcalling
KA Houchen - Can we admit that the women didn’t come across all... - "Can we admit that the women didn’t come across all that great in the Gillette ad either? Where were the strong independent women who’d slap away a man’s wandering hand? Where was the image of the confident woman who didn’t need a man to intercede for her to reject unwanted advances?... The women in the Gillette ad showed less spunk and less personal agency than Annette Funicello in a 1960’s “Beach, Blanket, Bingo” movie. Joan Crawford would roll in her grave. So why there’s no outcry from feminists groups about Gillette’s portrayal of passive, hapless femininity?Because the commercial is targeted at belittling men. Feminists seem willing to sacrifice their image if it’s to take pot shots at the so called “male patriarchy”.Is their silence a sign that feminists hate men more than they like women?"
#MeToo Boomerang: Gillette Lectures US Men on Sexism -- Then Objectifies Hot Women in Provocative Clothing at Their Sponsored Events - "The company decided the best way to promote their product was to attack their customer base... Gillette is NOTORIOUS for showcasing smokin’ hot women in skintight jumpsuits!"
Peter Lloyd on Twitter - "According to insiders, a (female) vice president of Procter & Gamble recently told a 100-strong meeting: "I will never promote a straight, white man again."...
The source is a reliable one. I’ve heard similar stories from inside @HSBC @HSBC_UK."
Wojciech Pawelczyk 🇵🇱 on Twitter - "Gillette Spokeswoman Ana Kasparian in 2016: "I have no respect for women who voted for Trump. I think so poorly of them... I think you're dumb. I think you're fu*king dumb..."
-----
Does Gillette endorse toxic femininity"
The Screen - Posts - "Gillette: Men are violent, bullying rapists.
Men: If you want to say that, we won't buy your products.
Feminists: Haha, the menz, conservatives & MRAs are triggered. #LOL!
Also Feminists: How dare #ProteinWorld show an attractive woman and suggest I should be physically healthy, this is literal oppression!
THE HYPOCRISY KNOWS NO BOUNDS!!!"
Being Classically Liberal - Posts - "For the people who can't understand why the Gillette 'toxic masculinity' ad rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
Imagine if a company ran an ad about 'toxic Islamism' that told Muslims not to blow people up or beat their wives.
It's insulting because 1) you are treating the group in question like children who don't that already know right from wrong and 2) you are presenting the anti-social behavior as if it were unique to the group at hand."
Melissa Chen - I can get behind the message that we all can be... - "it ended up painting an entire demographic with a negative stereotype perpetuated by a few. Imagine the uproar if it was an ad about an ethnic group with higher say, obesity or crime rates, touting the message that "you can be better." Would we consider it somewhat bigoted to apply negative stereotypes to a whole group? If it's unacceptable when directed at any other group, it should be unacceptable here."
Cheryl Marie Tay - "I found myself annoyed (though not personally offended) by the Gillette commercial, and I did wonder why that was the case. Turns out it wasn't just its preachy, pandering tone that grated on my nerves. It was also the possibility that women, not men, were actually the target audience. I've seen ads targeted at women that have made me cringe and / or laugh (not because they were funny, but because they were simply terrible), and I guess this was no exception. But hey, kudos to Gillette if this marketing tactic works in its favour... Bonus irony points: The women who are now whooping and cheering for Gillette as if it just scored the winning goal in a penalty shootout between #metoo and "toxic masculinity" are likely the same women who have also complained about the brand's "sexist" pricing of razors. I love it."
Surprise: Genius behind man-hating Gillette ad is a radical feminist - ""The guy at the ad agency" is actually philosophically unpleasant feminist Kim Gehrig. Hiring her to court the male market is like expecting to accrue impressive rainbow flag sale numbers with spiels from Farrakhan... Fox News host Greg Gutfeld tweeted: "the only ones lauding the Gillette ad work in media/advertising. everyone else sees it for what it is: a smarmy, condescending virtue signal aimed at the hardworking decent men they have been price-gouging for years."... The greatest ultimate harm caused by Gehrig's Gillette advertising maliciousness may be this: irresponsible,"woke" parents bludgeoning their young sons with her message that just being a boy is unhealthy, a wrong for which they should forever hang their heads."
WALSH: 3 Reasons Why Gillette's 'Toxic Masculinity' Ad Is Incredibly Stupid And Degrading - "It is implied that we men have excused these behaviors by shrugging and muttering "boys will be boys." The ad makes this point very subtly, by showing a line of men saying "boys will be boys" in unison as they watch two other boys fight... There is not a single man on Earth who watched a news report about Weinstein, slapped his forehead, and said, "Oh! So we're not supposed to do that? Alright then! My mistake!"... the vast majority of men are not rapists or harassers and were, prior to this past year, already staunchly opposed to both activities. There was nothing epiphanic or revolutionary about Me Too for us... "Boys will be boys" is not a rationale for bad behavior. In my entire life I have never once heard anyone, ever, offer "boys will be boys" as an excuse for rape or bullying. I have never seen a bunch of men standing around watching a kid pummel another kid while they all nod in approval and say "boys will be boys" to one another, like programed automatons. Have the people at Gillette ever even met an actual human man before? Perhaps not. Maybe that's why they think we need a razor with 14 blades to shave in the morning, as if our beards are made from the steel bristles of a wire brush. In any case, "boys will be boys" does not generally function as an excuse. It is a cliche but, like many cliches, it contains great wisdom. Boys will indeed be boys, and should be boys, and should be allowed to be boys without their natural boy-ness being constantly suppressed. Boys are energetic, aggressive, creative, competitive. They need safe and accepting outlets for these impulses. Incidentally, rolling around and roughhousing is one such outlet. The ad shows an enlightened man swooping in to stop a couple of young boys from wrestling around in the grass, which is exactly the wrong approach... There are only, in the end, two options. Either we let boys act like boys or we force them to act like girls. But the latter option makes as much sense as forcing girls to act like boys. You wouldn't demand that your daughter stop playing with dolls and go out and wrestle in the grass instead. Why should we demand the reverse of boys? That's the point of "boys will be boys," and God help the boys cursed with parents who don't understand this point... Imagine an ad for Dove body wash that shows women doing stereotypically negative things like gossiping and nagging and shopping too much, and then the narrator comes on: "Sure, some women act the right way." Feminists would be rioting in the street. They'd storm Dove headquarters and stone the head of marketing to death with loofahs dipped in cement.But no such ad would or could ever exist. Women are not lectured and scolded this way. This sort of treatment is reserved for men. And men are tired of it."
The Screen - Posts - "l have an idea for a Gillette Venus commercial.
A line of women sit in chairs fretting about their nails. lecturing their daughters that if they don't lose weight they won't be marriagable. Then pan to a group of women fighting Jersey Shore style over a man calling eachother sexually derisive terms.
Next show to a woman marrying a much older man for his money. Cut to a high school girl gossiping about her former best friend and what a slut she is now. Then show a woman happily getting married to a soldier then splash to that
same woman cheating on her deployed husband.
Fade in a wife nagging her husband for not contributing around the house as he seals an envelope with a check for the mortgage payment, then fade in a sequence of a judge awarding that wife the home in a divorce settlement.
Next show an HR rep pressuring a manager to hire a less qualified woman over a well-qualified man specifically because the company has a "diversity problem" .
Finally. close with a panel informing a young man that he has been found responsible for an allegation of sexual assault by a female student, while being denied an opportunity to confront his accuser.
Then splash "Gillette Venus" across the screen with a narrator's voice imploring women to stop being so difficult.
If we're gonna be "woke". lets go full red pill shit woke""
Gillette - Toxic Femininity Ad (Parody) - YouTube
ROTHMAN: Woke Brands And The Sorry Fad Of Entry-Level Politics - "66 percent of respondents said it was important for brands to take a stand on issues of political and social relevance. That figure includes eight-in-ten self-identified liberals and a majority—52 percent—of self-described conservatives. This new reality has been years in the making. According to a 2014 Horizon Media study, a staggering 81 percent of Millennials believe socio-political values should be a major part of a corporation’s public identity. Of course, these firms only participate in “politics” if we define the term as loosely as possible. These firms almost always devote their energies to agitating around cultural issues and identity politics, not the conduct of legislative affairs. The satisfaction consumers derive from patronizing “socially responsible” brands is the feeling they get from appearing to participate in politics... On March 8, 2017, New Yorkers awoke to the sight of a new monument in Manhattan: a bronze statue of an elementary school-age girl standing defiant, arms akimbo, directly across from Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull... The statue’s sponsor, the investment firm State Street Global Advisors, said it was designed to communicate to the financial services industry that women were woefully represented in its upper echelons. State Street would know. At the time, women occupied only 17 percent of its leadership positions. No woman had ever held the role occupied by Fearless Girl’s chief spokesperson, State Street President Ronald O’Hanley. But the diversionary purpose of this public relations campaign was soon revealed by the courts. In October 2017, State Street agreed to settle the lawsuit that followed a Department of Labor audit, which found that the firm had systematically discriminated against its female and black employs in favor of white men. The fact that the Left fell for a commercial for a bunch of unenlightened Wall Street bankers is a cautionary tale about the true purpose of corporate political identities. Consumers think they’re advancing social justice by patronizing “woke” brands, but they’re almost always being taken in by firms who want to cater to their customers’ well-meaning desire to appear informed without doing the requisite homework. Entry-level politics has become a lucrative enterprise for the unscrupulous, and it is deeply troubling that the product the public is unwittingly consuming is civic illiteracy."
82% of Liberals Like Brands With Their Politics - "Far fewer conservatives want the same... 58 percent of consumers surveyed said they dislike it when marketers talk politics.” (The full article, titled “Trump Boycotts Turn 25% of Consumers Off,” gets into how 80 million Americans say they change their spending habits due to these boycotts. But marketers can benefit, if the political stands they take align with their brands’ DNA.)"
Post ID: 7442870419440155042
Why liberals like contemporary pop culture (and Capitalism likes liberalism)
Alexander Anraí - Nuclear take but it’s correct
From Gnome, @bullionsaver on Twitter (who has since disappeared from Twitter, most probably due to Twitter censorship):
">'Star Wars' poster
>comic book outfits
>"The Bible is for simple-minded people unlike the important lessons I derive
from 20th century American capitalist mass market entertainment media."
The reason the modern left LITERALLY are dressing up like children is that theyve painted themselves into an intellectual corner; they can't embrace the Classics of western civ because theyre by evil "dead white men", so reduced to "Harry Potter" and "Star Wars" for metaphors.
And they can't embrace the classics of other civilizations because then they are "colonizers" and "appropriating".
So they are left with the shitty contemporary era of Western art but
even that's not OK since they have to make it "diverse" and so then its not even theirs.
*picture of 2 female protesters with signs: Kavanaugh is aggressive / Christine Blasey Ford is 100% believable and dressed as Wonder Woman*
An "inter-sectional" lefty could pic this picture apart about how Wonder Woman and Princess Leia are archetypes of the White female savior complex or something like that lol
So the cultural message of modern leftism for whites is that the only culture you're allowed to embrace is the contemporary corporate consumer culture as
it evolves, because anything from the past is evil and you're not allowed to appropriate other existing cultures.
This is why contemporary leftists will defend Nike's Chinese sweatshops so long as they have a WOKE black man mascot. Why they call Trump a Nazi for saying Amazon was profiting off of gov't post office. Slap a rainbow flag on a Wall St bank and they'll defend it.
Capital has embraced and co-opted cultural leftism. It did so to prevent any risk of genuine economic leftism. Its hard to sell communism to someone who's addicted to capitalist entertainment, alcohol, meds, games, fashion, etc - why would they ever want to be communist workers?
I'm old enough to remember Democrats being in favor of tariffs in order to help American factory worker union members. Contemporary leftists call this fascism and want their fix of cheap Chinese garbage, the US factory worker is probably a knuckle-dragging cis-white male anyway."
From Gnome, @bullionsaver on Twitter (who has since disappeared from Twitter, most probably due to Twitter censorship):
">'Star Wars' poster
>comic book outfits
>"The Bible is for simple-minded people unlike the important lessons I derive
from 20th century American capitalist mass market entertainment media."
The reason the modern left LITERALLY are dressing up like children is that theyve painted themselves into an intellectual corner; they can't embrace the Classics of western civ because theyre by evil "dead white men", so reduced to "Harry Potter" and "Star Wars" for metaphors.
And they can't embrace the classics of other civilizations because then they are "colonizers" and "appropriating".
So they are left with the shitty contemporary era of Western art but
even that's not OK since they have to make it "diverse" and so then its not even theirs.
*picture of 2 female protesters with signs: Kavanaugh is aggressive / Christine Blasey Ford is 100% believable and dressed as Wonder Woman*
An "inter-sectional" lefty could pic this picture apart about how Wonder Woman and Princess Leia are archetypes of the White female savior complex or something like that lol
So the cultural message of modern leftism for whites is that the only culture you're allowed to embrace is the contemporary corporate consumer culture as
it evolves, because anything from the past is evil and you're not allowed to appropriate other existing cultures.
This is why contemporary leftists will defend Nike's Chinese sweatshops so long as they have a WOKE black man mascot. Why they call Trump a Nazi for saying Amazon was profiting off of gov't post office. Slap a rainbow flag on a Wall St bank and they'll defend it.
Capital has embraced and co-opted cultural leftism. It did so to prevent any risk of genuine economic leftism. Its hard to sell communism to someone who's addicted to capitalist entertainment, alcohol, meds, games, fashion, etc - why would they ever want to be communist workers?
I'm old enough to remember Democrats being in favor of tariffs in order to help American factory worker union members. Contemporary leftists call this fascism and want their fix of cheap Chinese garbage, the US factory worker is probably a knuckle-dragging cis-white male anyway."
Post ID: 8862925226121698559
Links - 7th June 2019 (1) (Sri Lanka Church Attacks)
Leftists Refer to Christians Killed in Sri Lanka as 'Easter Worshippers' - "There appears to be a certain “C-word” the left seems to have trouble saying. Yet, these same lefties have no trouble calling Muslims by the correct term when they’re on the receiving end of some terrorist dickery... Also, is it just me or does it seem like these lefties are tweeting from a script? It’s almost like the DNC sent out an email with guidelines for how to address the incident. “Refrain from saying ‘Christian.’ Stick with ‘Easter Worshippers and tourists.'” After all, we wouldn’t want people sympathizing with lovers of Big Jeezy, now would we?"
Maajid - (Mājid) [maːʤɪd] ماجد on Twitter - "Strange difference in tone between condemnations of a terrorist attacks on Muslims after New Zealand & against Christians after Sri Lanka. Note the absence of words “terrorism” & “Christianity”. This Muslim stands with persecuted Christians globally &all minorities everywhere"
How come Christchurch wasn't an attack against Friday worshippers and/or attacks on mosques?
The right-wing backlash to the phrase “Easter worshippers,” explained.
Amazingly, Slate readers are all bashing 'Republicans' for being racist. Maybe if they were more aware they'd be bashing them for being sexist too, since 'Republicans' condemned Hillary and Theresa May for their ambiguous words
Presumably since to Theresa May Sri Lanka was "violence against churches and hotels", Christchurch was violence against mosques
Why conservatives are so angry about Obama and Hillary’s use of “Easter worshippers” after the Sri Lanka attacks. - "Here is how the construction works in similar contexts:
• BBC: “Finsbury Park Attack: Roses for Ramadan Worshipers”
• The Guardian: “Afghanistan Suicide Bomber Kills Eid Worshippers at Mosque, Police Say”
• The Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Homeless Couple Attacks Synagogue Worshippers in Buenos Aires”"
What this article doesn't tell you is that from before 20 April 2019, there're a grand total of 40 Google search results for "Eid Worshippers" and 30 for "Ramadan Worshippers" (including duplicates)
Imam Tawhidi - Posts - "Analysis: Sri Lanka church bombings stroke far-right anger in the West"
"After Islamic Extremist terrorists massacred 300+ Christians and injured hundreds more, the mainstream media is worried about “Right-wing anger.”"
Imam Tawhidi - Posts - "Sri Lanka's Defence Minister says initial investigations show the series of bombings targeting churches and luxury hotels on Easter Sunday were a response to the Christchurch mosque attacks in March.
How would he explain all the other atrocities pre Christchurch? Also, this would have been planned way before Christchurch."
Were Sri Lanka Bombings Retaliation for Christchurch? - "Ruwan Wijewardene, the state minister for defense, told Parliament today that the attack was retribution—not for Syria and blows against the caliphate, but for the mass murder of Muslims by a white-supremacist gunman in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15. He did not provide evidence for this claim, and there is reason to doubt it. The Easter terrorists did not refer to Christchurch at all—an omission that might strike some as strange... The Islamic State, in its form for the past five years, sought to attract followers with reinforcement both positive and negative. The positive reinforcement came from the promise of a terrestrial paradise in Mesopotamia, where one might bask in God’s favor. The negative came from unremitting abuse directed at Muslims who chose to live in the West; they were cast as the absolute scum of the earth. Those who resisted the call to immigrate to the caliphate, and remained in places such as Christchurch as taxpaying, loyal citizens of infidel lands, were selling their soul to the enemies of Islam and would burn for eternity while the caliphate’s elect few watched with delight from the gardens of paradise. The Islamic State would be mixing its messages if it were to claim that it attacked Sri Lanka to avenge the souls of those it considered worthy of hellfire anyway. The propaganda value of Christchurch for a group such as ISIS is, then, inestimable, yet difficult to exploit. One sometimes sees supporters of ISIS comment on attacks on Muslims in the West with a pitying shrug: You sold your souls to the infidel—and for this? (Notice the similarities between ISIS and radical separatists through the ages, including certain strains of the Nation of Islam.) Even if the retribution argument were consistent with prior ISIS doctrine, the timing suggests it’s not correct. The bombings in Sri Lanka were among the more spectacular in the history of terrorism, and they almost certainly took more planning than would have been possible in the past five weeks. (It may seem easy to get several guys to push detonator buttons all at once, in several different locations. But terrorists are often bumblers, and the more complicated the plan, the greater the chance of disruption.)"
Edward C. Yong - ah, look at all the people all over the world... - "ah, look at all the people all over the world wearing crucifixes and singing Ave Marias in solidarity with the victims of the Sri Lanka Easter bombings. so touching."
Josiah on Twitter - "How many of the “journalists” who demanded @MaximeBernier make a statement about Christchurch are demanding he condemn the attacks on Christians in #SriLanka?
Are they concerned about terror or just about using terrorism as a political weapon? #DefundCBC #FakeNews #PPC2019"
Maxime Bernier - Posts - "They’ve all been completely silent. No fancy analysis of wording in statements. And they won’t spend the coming weeks hysterically denouncing “Christianophobia” and warning about the Islamist threat. This massacre just doesn’t fit their narrative. Disgusting hypocrites."
Sri Lanka attacks: Hate preacher Zahran Hashim's videos 'did not violate' YouTube policies - "YouTube initially defended hosting messages from a hate preacher linked to the Sri Lanka attacks, saying it only found one which was in breach of its policies... Neil Potts, the public policy director at Facebook, Katy Minshall, the head of public policy in the UK at Twitter, and YouTube's director of public policy Marco Pancini were questioned by MPs earlier about the role their platforms had in spreading hate material."
This is a good excuse to get rid of "far right" content
Orwell & Goode on Twitter - "Mobs of Christian men in Sri Lanka have been threatening and beating Muslims, dozens of residents said. "They even beat my kids," said a Pakistani refugee who has lived in Sri Lanks for 2 years.
"You mean "Easter-Worshippers""
Christchurch, Sri Lanka: hierarchy of victimhood - "In disturbing contrast to the aftermath of the mosque massacres in Christchurch last month, the response to the horrors in Sri Lanka has been muted, cagey, sheepish even.The Christchurch atrocity provoked an angry and distinctly political response. We must stand as a human family against this vile Islamophobia, world leaders and commentators insisted.The Sri Lanka atrocity has generated no such sense of global resolve... US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Twittersphere’s favourite socialist, tweeted about the Christchurch massacre 14 times; she tweeted about the Sri Lanka atrocity not once... Hillary Clinton also used the term “Easter worshippers”. European Commission president Jean Claude-Juncker talked about people “who had gathered to worship peacefully”. French President Emmanuel Macron didn’t say Christian either.This warped avoidance of describing the victims, of using the religious name that led to their being targeted in the first place, was matched by a reluctance to name the ideology of the attackers.After Christchurch, Obama said we must stand against “hatred”. Clinton went further. “My heart breaks” for the “global Muslim community” which has been attacked by “white supremacist terrorists”, she said... as The Jerusalem Post points out, one of the imams suspected of inspiring the Sri Lanka slaughter — Zahran Hashim — has a “history of racism and Islamic superiority”... Across the Western Left, the tone after Sri Lanka was markedly different to the tone after Christchurch.Following that racist slaughter of 50 Muslims at prayer, leftists talked about the return of fascism, the scourge of white supremacy, the need to resist far-right hatred.After Sri Lanka there has been none of that. Is it not fascism when Islamist extremists slaughter civilians? Is it not hateful supremacy to believe that people of a different religion to yours deserve to be massacred? Is it not far-right to hold the kinds of views that Islamic State-linked groups hold — that women are inferior to men, gay people deserve to be executed, non-believers must occasionally be mown down?The Left seems to believe only white men can be fascistic. Which is in itself a kind of racism. As if non-white people are too childish to be truly evil. As if they lack the capacity for wickedness that white people enjoy.Here’s the perverse thing in all of this: in terms of loss of human life, the Sri Lanka attacks were five times as awful as the Christchurch massacre. And yet they elicited far less fury, and gave rise to far less moral resolve, than Christchurch did... What we are witnessing is the internationalisation of the politics of identity... perhaps the worst thing the politics of identity has done is create a hierarchy of victimhood.It categorises people as oppressed or privileged. You’re either a victim, and therefore deserving of sympathy and social support, or you’re a member of “the privileged”, and therefore deserving of ridicule and censorship.And in this hierarchy, Muslims are oppressed and Christians are privileged... Muslims good, Christians bad. Black people good, white people bad. Trans people good, cis people bad.This is why a cartoon mocking Mohammed will be raged against by the censorious identitarian lobby while a crucifix in a bottle of piss will be celebrated as wonderful art."
The same people who complain that Notre Dame gets people in the West more excited than Christchurch and/or Sri Lanka are silent about Sri Lanka vs Christchurch since it doesn't fit their anti-Western agenda
The Hypocrisy of Waleed Aly - Ex Muslim Atheist - Harris Sultan - "Waleed Aly is Australia’s favourite Muslim, an academic and a proud Islam apologist. He is the darling of the left-wing media and hosts a program... In the wake of every Islamic terrorist act, Waleed always mentions Muslims being victimised by non-Muslims albeit cleverly never endorses it but doesn’t do the same when terrorists are non-Muslims, especially when the victims are Muslims... he said the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks didn’t make any sense as the Sri Lankan Muslims have been victimised by the Sinhalese Buddhists, not by the Sri Lankan Christians. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense. No Waleed, it makes perfect sense. You have basically proven our point that Islamic terrorism is not just retaliation of political injustice... imagine, after the Christchurch terrorist attack, a prominent right-winger had said: “Well, it makes perfect sense because Islamists are responsible for victimising many non-Muslims.” In fact, this is kind of what Senator Fraser Anning said but not as explicitly as you did. Senator Fraser Anning paid the price"
Burqa ban: Sri Lanka bans all face veils after Easter bombings.
Of course, some people are spinning this as 'Islamophobia'
Man who escaped mosque in burqa was under counter-terror restrictions - "The terror suspect who escaped surveillance by disguising himself as a woman in a burqa was under restrictions to stop him travelling overseas to support terrorism, the home secretary has told MPs.Theresa May defended the use of terrorism prevention and investigation measures, or Tpims, after the disappearance of the Somali-born suspect, Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, from a west London mosque"
Burqa-clad suicide bombers kill at least 29 inside Afghan Shiite mosque - World - The Jakarta Post - "Burqa-clad suicide bombers struck a Shiite mosque in eastern Afghanistan Friday as it was crowded with worshippers for weekly prayers, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 80 in the latest attack on the minority... "Two suicide explosions happened during Friday prayers in the Khwaja Hasan area of Gardez," said Abdullah Hasrat, spokesman for Paktia province near the Pakistan border... Provincial police chief General Raz Mohammad Mandozai confirmed the incident, and that the pair were wearing burqas to hide their explosives and weapons."
Chad bans Islamic face veil after suicide bombings - "Chad has banned people from wearing the full-face veil, following two suicide bomb attacks on Monday.Chad's government accused Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram of the bombings which killed more than 20 people.The prime minister said the veil was used as a "camouflage" by militants and said the security forces will burn all full-face veils sold in markets... Boko Haram militants have increasingly been using female suicide bombers in Nigeria, as they are more likely to smuggle bombs into public places without detection.The majority of the population in Chad is Muslim and the burka is worn mainly for religious reasons, but also helps protect women from the hot, dusty climate of the Sahara.The full-face Islamic veil was also banned in May in public places in Congo-Brazzaville, to "counter terrorism"."
Islamophobia!
Cameron becomes fourth recent African country to ban Islamic veil over terrorism fears - "The northern region of the Central African country joins Chad, Congo and Gabon in making the religious garment, including the burka, illegal in public spaces... two suspected female Boko Haram terrorists dressed in the burka blew themselves up in Fotokol, Cameroon.The twin attacks left 13 people dead in the Far North region of the country.The two terrorists were able to smuggle the bombs into public areas without detection by hiding them under their veils.The Fotokol governor said the attack in the mainly Muslim region meant restrictions had to be enforced."
How Criminals Use the Burqa to Get Away with Rape, Robbery, and Terrorism - "Jermaine Grant, who was linked to the widow of one of the London 7/7 bombers and found guilty of terror-related charges in Kenya, was arrested on a bus in Nairobi while dressed in a burqa to evade authorities who went hunting him after a 2008 attack on a police base.Another terror conspirator, Yassin Omar, had left London for Birmingham disguised as a veiled Muslim woman the day after he made a failed attempt to detonate a bomb on a London Underground station in the attempted 21/7 London terror attacks, evading counter-terror surveillance.
While motorcyclists are expected to remove their helmets before entering banks and jewellery stores, the same is not expected of those wearing Islamic face veils, with criminals taking advantage of liberal laws in Western countries to commit armed robbery. In May 2017, an armed gang was jailed after using Islamic burqas to hide their identities as they stole hundreds of thousands of pounds in raids across Manchester, northern England, with similar robberies in Australia in 2017, the U.S. in 2015, and Canada in 2014"
Maajid - (Mājid) [maːʤɪd] ماجد on Twitter - "Strange difference in tone between condemnations of a terrorist attacks on Muslims after New Zealand & against Christians after Sri Lanka. Note the absence of words “terrorism” & “Christianity”. This Muslim stands with persecuted Christians globally &all minorities everywhere"
How come Christchurch wasn't an attack against Friday worshippers and/or attacks on mosques?
The right-wing backlash to the phrase “Easter worshippers,” explained.
Amazingly, Slate readers are all bashing 'Republicans' for being racist. Maybe if they were more aware they'd be bashing them for being sexist too, since 'Republicans' condemned Hillary and Theresa May for their ambiguous words
Presumably since to Theresa May Sri Lanka was "violence against churches and hotels", Christchurch was violence against mosques
Why conservatives are so angry about Obama and Hillary’s use of “Easter worshippers” after the Sri Lanka attacks. - "Here is how the construction works in similar contexts:
• BBC: “Finsbury Park Attack: Roses for Ramadan Worshipers”
• The Guardian: “Afghanistan Suicide Bomber Kills Eid Worshippers at Mosque, Police Say”
• The Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Homeless Couple Attacks Synagogue Worshippers in Buenos Aires”"
What this article doesn't tell you is that from before 20 April 2019, there're a grand total of 40 Google search results for "Eid Worshippers" and 30 for "Ramadan Worshippers" (including duplicates)
Imam Tawhidi - Posts - "Analysis: Sri Lanka church bombings stroke far-right anger in the West"
"After Islamic Extremist terrorists massacred 300+ Christians and injured hundreds more, the mainstream media is worried about “Right-wing anger.”"
Imam Tawhidi - Posts - "Sri Lanka's Defence Minister says initial investigations show the series of bombings targeting churches and luxury hotels on Easter Sunday were a response to the Christchurch mosque attacks in March.
How would he explain all the other atrocities pre Christchurch? Also, this would have been planned way before Christchurch."
Were Sri Lanka Bombings Retaliation for Christchurch? - "Ruwan Wijewardene, the state minister for defense, told Parliament today that the attack was retribution—not for Syria and blows against the caliphate, but for the mass murder of Muslims by a white-supremacist gunman in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15. He did not provide evidence for this claim, and there is reason to doubt it. The Easter terrorists did not refer to Christchurch at all—an omission that might strike some as strange... The Islamic State, in its form for the past five years, sought to attract followers with reinforcement both positive and negative. The positive reinforcement came from the promise of a terrestrial paradise in Mesopotamia, where one might bask in God’s favor. The negative came from unremitting abuse directed at Muslims who chose to live in the West; they were cast as the absolute scum of the earth. Those who resisted the call to immigrate to the caliphate, and remained in places such as Christchurch as taxpaying, loyal citizens of infidel lands, were selling their soul to the enemies of Islam and would burn for eternity while the caliphate’s elect few watched with delight from the gardens of paradise. The Islamic State would be mixing its messages if it were to claim that it attacked Sri Lanka to avenge the souls of those it considered worthy of hellfire anyway. The propaganda value of Christchurch for a group such as ISIS is, then, inestimable, yet difficult to exploit. One sometimes sees supporters of ISIS comment on attacks on Muslims in the West with a pitying shrug: You sold your souls to the infidel—and for this? (Notice the similarities between ISIS and radical separatists through the ages, including certain strains of the Nation of Islam.) Even if the retribution argument were consistent with prior ISIS doctrine, the timing suggests it’s not correct. The bombings in Sri Lanka were among the more spectacular in the history of terrorism, and they almost certainly took more planning than would have been possible in the past five weeks. (It may seem easy to get several guys to push detonator buttons all at once, in several different locations. But terrorists are often bumblers, and the more complicated the plan, the greater the chance of disruption.)"
Edward C. Yong - ah, look at all the people all over the world... - "ah, look at all the people all over the world wearing crucifixes and singing Ave Marias in solidarity with the victims of the Sri Lanka Easter bombings. so touching."
Josiah on Twitter - "How many of the “journalists” who demanded @MaximeBernier make a statement about Christchurch are demanding he condemn the attacks on Christians in #SriLanka?
Are they concerned about terror or just about using terrorism as a political weapon? #DefundCBC #FakeNews #PPC2019"
Maxime Bernier - Posts - "They’ve all been completely silent. No fancy analysis of wording in statements. And they won’t spend the coming weeks hysterically denouncing “Christianophobia” and warning about the Islamist threat. This massacre just doesn’t fit their narrative. Disgusting hypocrites."
Sri Lanka attacks: Hate preacher Zahran Hashim's videos 'did not violate' YouTube policies - "YouTube initially defended hosting messages from a hate preacher linked to the Sri Lanka attacks, saying it only found one which was in breach of its policies... Neil Potts, the public policy director at Facebook, Katy Minshall, the head of public policy in the UK at Twitter, and YouTube's director of public policy Marco Pancini were questioned by MPs earlier about the role their platforms had in spreading hate material."
This is a good excuse to get rid of "far right" content
Orwell & Goode on Twitter - "Mobs of Christian men in Sri Lanka have been threatening and beating Muslims, dozens of residents said. "They even beat my kids," said a Pakistani refugee who has lived in Sri Lanks for 2 years.
"You mean "Easter-Worshippers""
Christchurch, Sri Lanka: hierarchy of victimhood - "In disturbing contrast to the aftermath of the mosque massacres in Christchurch last month, the response to the horrors in Sri Lanka has been muted, cagey, sheepish even.The Christchurch atrocity provoked an angry and distinctly political response. We must stand as a human family against this vile Islamophobia, world leaders and commentators insisted.The Sri Lanka atrocity has generated no such sense of global resolve... US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Twittersphere’s favourite socialist, tweeted about the Christchurch massacre 14 times; she tweeted about the Sri Lanka atrocity not once... Hillary Clinton also used the term “Easter worshippers”. European Commission president Jean Claude-Juncker talked about people “who had gathered to worship peacefully”. French President Emmanuel Macron didn’t say Christian either.This warped avoidance of describing the victims, of using the religious name that led to their being targeted in the first place, was matched by a reluctance to name the ideology of the attackers.After Christchurch, Obama said we must stand against “hatred”. Clinton went further. “My heart breaks” for the “global Muslim community” which has been attacked by “white supremacist terrorists”, she said... as The Jerusalem Post points out, one of the imams suspected of inspiring the Sri Lanka slaughter — Zahran Hashim — has a “history of racism and Islamic superiority”... Across the Western Left, the tone after Sri Lanka was markedly different to the tone after Christchurch.Following that racist slaughter of 50 Muslims at prayer, leftists talked about the return of fascism, the scourge of white supremacy, the need to resist far-right hatred.After Sri Lanka there has been none of that. Is it not fascism when Islamist extremists slaughter civilians? Is it not hateful supremacy to believe that people of a different religion to yours deserve to be massacred? Is it not far-right to hold the kinds of views that Islamic State-linked groups hold — that women are inferior to men, gay people deserve to be executed, non-believers must occasionally be mown down?The Left seems to believe only white men can be fascistic. Which is in itself a kind of racism. As if non-white people are too childish to be truly evil. As if they lack the capacity for wickedness that white people enjoy.Here’s the perverse thing in all of this: in terms of loss of human life, the Sri Lanka attacks were five times as awful as the Christchurch massacre. And yet they elicited far less fury, and gave rise to far less moral resolve, than Christchurch did... What we are witnessing is the internationalisation of the politics of identity... perhaps the worst thing the politics of identity has done is create a hierarchy of victimhood.It categorises people as oppressed or privileged. You’re either a victim, and therefore deserving of sympathy and social support, or you’re a member of “the privileged”, and therefore deserving of ridicule and censorship.And in this hierarchy, Muslims are oppressed and Christians are privileged... Muslims good, Christians bad. Black people good, white people bad. Trans people good, cis people bad.This is why a cartoon mocking Mohammed will be raged against by the censorious identitarian lobby while a crucifix in a bottle of piss will be celebrated as wonderful art."
The same people who complain that Notre Dame gets people in the West more excited than Christchurch and/or Sri Lanka are silent about Sri Lanka vs Christchurch since it doesn't fit their anti-Western agenda
The Hypocrisy of Waleed Aly - Ex Muslim Atheist - Harris Sultan - "Waleed Aly is Australia’s favourite Muslim, an academic and a proud Islam apologist. He is the darling of the left-wing media and hosts a program... In the wake of every Islamic terrorist act, Waleed always mentions Muslims being victimised by non-Muslims albeit cleverly never endorses it but doesn’t do the same when terrorists are non-Muslims, especially when the victims are Muslims... he said the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks didn’t make any sense as the Sri Lankan Muslims have been victimised by the Sinhalese Buddhists, not by the Sri Lankan Christians. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense. No Waleed, it makes perfect sense. You have basically proven our point that Islamic terrorism is not just retaliation of political injustice... imagine, after the Christchurch terrorist attack, a prominent right-winger had said: “Well, it makes perfect sense because Islamists are responsible for victimising many non-Muslims.” In fact, this is kind of what Senator Fraser Anning said but not as explicitly as you did. Senator Fraser Anning paid the price"
Burqa ban: Sri Lanka bans all face veils after Easter bombings.
Of course, some people are spinning this as 'Islamophobia'
Man who escaped mosque in burqa was under counter-terror restrictions - "The terror suspect who escaped surveillance by disguising himself as a woman in a burqa was under restrictions to stop him travelling overseas to support terrorism, the home secretary has told MPs.Theresa May defended the use of terrorism prevention and investigation measures, or Tpims, after the disappearance of the Somali-born suspect, Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, from a west London mosque"
Burqa-clad suicide bombers kill at least 29 inside Afghan Shiite mosque - World - The Jakarta Post - "Burqa-clad suicide bombers struck a Shiite mosque in eastern Afghanistan Friday as it was crowded with worshippers for weekly prayers, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 80 in the latest attack on the minority... "Two suicide explosions happened during Friday prayers in the Khwaja Hasan area of Gardez," said Abdullah Hasrat, spokesman for Paktia province near the Pakistan border... Provincial police chief General Raz Mohammad Mandozai confirmed the incident, and that the pair were wearing burqas to hide their explosives and weapons."
Chad bans Islamic face veil after suicide bombings - "Chad has banned people from wearing the full-face veil, following two suicide bomb attacks on Monday.Chad's government accused Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram of the bombings which killed more than 20 people.The prime minister said the veil was used as a "camouflage" by militants and said the security forces will burn all full-face veils sold in markets... Boko Haram militants have increasingly been using female suicide bombers in Nigeria, as they are more likely to smuggle bombs into public places without detection.The majority of the population in Chad is Muslim and the burka is worn mainly for religious reasons, but also helps protect women from the hot, dusty climate of the Sahara.The full-face Islamic veil was also banned in May in public places in Congo-Brazzaville, to "counter terrorism"."
Islamophobia!
Cameron becomes fourth recent African country to ban Islamic veil over terrorism fears - "The northern region of the Central African country joins Chad, Congo and Gabon in making the religious garment, including the burka, illegal in public spaces... two suspected female Boko Haram terrorists dressed in the burka blew themselves up in Fotokol, Cameroon.The twin attacks left 13 people dead in the Far North region of the country.The two terrorists were able to smuggle the bombs into public areas without detection by hiding them under their veils.The Fotokol governor said the attack in the mainly Muslim region meant restrictions had to be enforced."
How Criminals Use the Burqa to Get Away with Rape, Robbery, and Terrorism - "Jermaine Grant, who was linked to the widow of one of the London 7/7 bombers and found guilty of terror-related charges in Kenya, was arrested on a bus in Nairobi while dressed in a burqa to evade authorities who went hunting him after a 2008 attack on a police base.Another terror conspirator, Yassin Omar, had left London for Birmingham disguised as a veiled Muslim woman the day after he made a failed attempt to detonate a bomb on a London Underground station in the attempted 21/7 London terror attacks, evading counter-terror surveillance.
While motorcyclists are expected to remove their helmets before entering banks and jewellery stores, the same is not expected of those wearing Islamic face veils, with criminals taking advantage of liberal laws in Western countries to commit armed robbery. In May 2017, an armed gang was jailed after using Islamic burqas to hide their identities as they stole hundreds of thousands of pounds in raids across Manchester, northern England, with similar robberies in Australia in 2017, the U.S. in 2015, and Canada in 2014"
Post ID: 8698732503356852886
Thursday, June 06, 2019
Links - 6th June 2019 (2)
Bjørn Lomborg - Posts - "Again: MMR Vaccines Don't Cause Autism. Now confirmed by the biggest study consisting of 657,461 Danish children. Remarkably, MMR vaccination reduced the risk for autism in girls (hazard ratio significantly lower than 1 at 0.79)."
Queensland University of Technology backflips over allocation of prize money for female runners - "Brisbane runner Alexandra Blake crossed the line first in the women's 5 kilometre race category at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Classic, but was outraged when she had not received a cent, unlike her male counterparts... When she confronted a race official, she claims she was told, "the money was only for the first three across the line, that was always the case and we made that very clear in our advertising". Her father, Mark Blake, posted on social media that organisers should be ashamed of themselves."This is a pure disgrace and sexist in the extreme. It's not about the money — it's about the simple concept of equality," he said."My daughter who won the 5km was told by the race director — it's simple enough, if you want prize money you simply have to beat the men."You sir should never be allowed near athletics or any sport again.""
Sexism is treating men and women the same and communicating this clearly in advance
It's okay, in a few years transwomen will be getting all the women's prizes anyway
Keynote speaker at Harvard diversity conference says Christians should be ‘locked up’ - "To celebrate a “Decade of Dialogue” in its annual diversity conference, Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences invited a straight white man to give the keynote lecture.But not just any straight white man.Tim Wise, an “anti-racism writer, educator and activist,” has denigrated Christians as “Jeezoids” and fascists and called Pope Francis evil. He has tweeted that “people who believe in a God of hell/damnation deserve to be mocked viciously and run out of the public square.”... “Just because I have a husband and a four-year-old, people might assume that I’m straight … when I am very queer,” said Huckel, who leads the global diversity and inclusion initiative at gambling technology provider IGT. She didn’t explain how she is “very queer.”"
Diversity means Christians are evil
Does he believe in mocking Jews and Muslims viciously?
The term ‘people of color’ erases black people. Let’s retire it - Los Angeles Times - "According to the Fashion Spot’s annual “Diversity Report,” one out of every three models in 2018 fashion ads were women of color. That certainly sounds like progress. But editorials and magazine covers lean heavily toward non-black women of color, and the terms non-white and women of color are used repeatedly to bolster the analysis.To see for myself, I picked up a random high-end fashion magazine. Out of hundreds of models it had a total of 12 black women in it, admittedly better than the one or two I was expecting. Looking closer, however, I noticed that these women were either all extremely light-skinned, very dark-skinned or highly established in their careers, like Lupita Nyong’o.This was highly conditional inclusivity. Your everyday black girl was missing."
When "inclusive" and/or inoffensive language is "racist"
Every minority needs to hit a quota, apparently
A new generation of flying cars is taking to the air. But without the cars - Los Angeles Times - "Thanks to advances in electric propulsion technology, the new designs look more like many-rotored helicopters. And while the early concepts were envisioned as personal transportation, the reality is more likely to be short-range flying taxi services in cities... Advances in battery and electric-motor technology gleaned from the auto industry, as well as improvements in lightweight carbon-fiber materials, are another reason eVTOL flying car designs are more viable than they may have been 10 years ago... Uber has said the price per flight could eventually be comparable to an UberX car ride... Uber, Terrafugia and others plan to have human pilots at the helm, at least initially, before eventually transitioning to fully autonomous flying vehicles"
Americans don't trust their government, its institutions, or each other. This is not a good place to be - Los Angeles Times - "Increasingly, Americans do not tolerate people who do not stay in identifiable political and even geographical lanes. There is probably no more hated politician right now than the temperamentally centrist lame-duck Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). Acres of pixels are expended most every time a perceived center-right type is hired by a reliably left-leaning news outlet — Kevin Williamson at the Atlantic, Bari Weiss at the New York Times, Hugh Hewitt at MSNBC... 61% of Democrats think the phrase “racist/sexist/bigoted” applies generally to the Republican Party, while 54% of Republicans think the Democratic Party is “spiteful.” More than one in five members of each bloc think the other can be rightly described as “evil.”... We are careening dangerously from a high-trust to a low-trust society. We trust one another less, we trust government and other mediating institutions less. This trend, which like many of our pathologies predates and arguably helped give rise to the Trump presidency, has ominous consequences.High-trust societies have lower transaction costs, lower crime rates and less corruption. People are nicer and better behaved when they’re reasonably confident that the local grocer won’t steal their credit card information and the IRS won’t audit them based on their politics. Low-trust countries are clannish, unable to develop the civil institutions of a free society, and those in power tend to use government authority like a club to punish political enemies. The resulting disorder builds demand for strongmen, for more centralized state power. None of this is good."
Parrot clams up after it was detained for warning owners of law enforcement presence in drug raid - Story - "Police seized the bird in hopes of getting more information out of the loyal lookout, but according to Brazilian journalists, the faithful fowl kept its beak shut"
F R E S H S T O L E N M E M E S - Posts - "Chemistry substitute was slowly writing endgame spoilers on the board every time we talked"
Animal Rights Activist Wants To Abolish Guide Dogs Because They Don’t Consent To Work - "Campaigner Wendy Turner Webster appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain to express her controversial opinion, where she argued working dogs, including guide dogs, sniffer dogs, police dogs and working sheep dogs, are used for the benefit of humans without consent."
Teach "Don't Steal", not "Lock your doors" - Posts - "haha look at all these fragile white males getting defensive when I yell at them about how evil they are. clearly this proves me right somehow"
Private parts for private property: evolution of penis size with more valuable, easily stolen shells - "I introduce a novel hypothesis, the ‘private parts for private property' hypothesis, which posits that enlarged penises evolved to prevent the theft of property during sex. I tested this hypothesis in hermit crabs, which carry valuable portable property (a shell) and which must emerge from this shell during sex, risking social theft of their property by eavesdroppers. I measured relative penis size (penis-to-body ratio) for N = 328 specimens spanning nine closely related species. Species carrying more valuable, more easily stolen property had significantly larger penis size than species carrying less valuable, less easily stolen property, which, in turn, had larger penis size than species carrying no property at all. These patterns in penis size remained even when phylogeny was controlled for, and the patterns were not explained by alternative hypotheses. Instead, the results suggest larger penises evolved as morphological adaptations to facilitate safe sex, in which individuals retain their valuable property by extending a long penis outside the shell to copulate."
Lucas Adler - Fascinating how nobody expects that random Jews in... - "Fascinating how nobody expects that random Jews in Europe or America will suddenly lash out in acts of terrorism upon random white people in an 'inevitable' reaction to the synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and San Diego, right? I was told terrorism is a response that *all* people have as a response to 'oppression', and hardly any group of people has suffered this more than the Jews. And yet random acts of terror as a result do not occur. How do they and Ahmadi Muslims seem to escape this 'inevitable' human tendency?"
"It is remarkable, also, how Vietnamese and Japanese people lacks terrorist trends against the West, or how even among the poor and marginalized Romani pople there is no terrorist trend rising."
MOORE: 20 Years After 'Sex And The City,' The 'Real-Life Carrie Bradshaws' Are Wishing They Hadn't Slept Around - "In the early 2000s, modeling themselves on Carrie Bradshaw and her friends, women in their 20s and early 30s began to have sex “like men.” One night stands and sexual exploration became the ultimate feminist statement. If men could do it, then why shouldn’t they? “There was no such thing as a bad date,” writes dating columnist Julia Allison of her time living the Sex and the City lifestyle, “only a good date or a good brunch story.” In fact, in the years since the show’s premiere, Sex and the City has come to be seen as not feminist enough — receiving criticism for leaving its four heroines happily paired up romantically by the series finale. In 2010, The Telegraph complained that “The happiest character, Charlotte, is by far the most conventional – rich husband, children, no job (by the end), a Park Avenue palace.” In 2017, Marie Claire called one of the show’s main characters “anti-feminist” for saying that “everyone needs a man.” If a lesson is to be learned from the show, today’s critics seem to be suggesting, it’s that it didn’t go far enough. In order to be truly feminist, it seems, women must give up romance altogether. There's only one problem: eventually women do want to settle down. In fact, many of the women who bought into the Sex and the City lifestyle 20 years ago are coming forward to share their regrets. Julia Allison says the show literally “ruined her life.” She says it peddled a “fear of intimacy disguised as empowerment.” Writing for The New York Post, Allison wistfully wonders what her life might have been like if she hadn’t bought into the Sex and the City philosophy. “Perhaps I’d be married with children now?”"
Why Most Bakeries Sell Frozen Bread & Croissants - "[In France] For modern day bakeries, buying pre-made product is easier because they know that skilled artisan bakers are hard to find, the products are labor-intensive (croissants can take anywhere from 20 hours to 3 days to make), the price of butter & milk has sky-rocketed, and most importantly if they did manage to find a skilled artisan baker but they were sick, who would replace them?... are you standing in front of a bakery (boulangerie), a baker (boulanger) or an artisan baker (artisan boulanger)?... When you see artisan baker/artisan boulanger it is a big step up because these words tell us that there is a skilled/trained artisan sourcing ingredients and making the dough and baking it on premises, but even then, I question, are they using quality flour? Fresh yeast? Margarine or butter?"
Ethnicity, the amygdala, and the social environment: a neuroimaging study - "Ethnic minorities have greatly increased rates of schizophrenia. The risk is most pronounced when individuals are living in areas with few people of the same ethnicity as them. Amygdala hyperactivity has been linked to paranoid symptoms in psychosis, and increased levels of paranoia have been observed in ethnic minority individuals... We have shown for the first time, to our knowledge, increased amygdala response to white faces in individuals of black ethnicity. Significant correlations were observed between amygdala response and neighbourhood variables associated with increased psychosis risk. This finding has relevance for our understanding of the increased rates of paranoia and psychotic disorders in ethnic minority individuals."
A downside of diversity and ethnic mingling?
The Incredible Shrinking Singapore Stock Market - "Many of the businesses that have left the exchange in the past few years are well-known in Singapore. They range from GLP Pte., one of the world’s biggest warehouse owners, to Osim International Pte., Asia’s largest maker of massage chairs. Some chief executive officers who’ve taken their companies private, lamenting what they see as low valuations in the city-state, are seeking more liquid markets that can generate higher stock prices. For example, Lee says, sofa maker Man Wah Holdings Ltd. was taken private in September 2009. Within six months, it was relisted in Hong Kong at about eight times its market value. Chew Sutat, SGX’s head of equities and fixed-income businesses, says delisting is a global trend. What’s more, he says, it’s a healthy market function that weeds out weaker companies. Unlike some exchanges, Chew says, SGX doesn’t refrain from delisting zombie companies just to keep its numbers up. But that doesn’t tell the whole story... some of the factors often cited as driving Singapore’s economic success are the very ones holding back the stock market... stocks and securities account for just 9.6 percent of household assets, according to government statistics. That compares with 48 percent in the U.S. And Singaporeans who do put money into equities increasingly turn to options beyond the city-state, a diversification that’s facilitated by exchange-traded funds, among other things... the delisting trend could be a good sign, says Tamara Henderson, who covers Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand for Bloomberg Economics in Singapore. It creates a situation in which unlisted companies, free of the constraints of quarterly reporting, are more able to focus on long-term growth, thereby stabilizing the economy. “It’s probably a sign of wealth,” she says."
Queensland University of Technology backflips over allocation of prize money for female runners - "Brisbane runner Alexandra Blake crossed the line first in the women's 5 kilometre race category at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Classic, but was outraged when she had not received a cent, unlike her male counterparts... When she confronted a race official, she claims she was told, "the money was only for the first three across the line, that was always the case and we made that very clear in our advertising". Her father, Mark Blake, posted on social media that organisers should be ashamed of themselves."This is a pure disgrace and sexist in the extreme. It's not about the money — it's about the simple concept of equality," he said."My daughter who won the 5km was told by the race director — it's simple enough, if you want prize money you simply have to beat the men."You sir should never be allowed near athletics or any sport again.""
Sexism is treating men and women the same and communicating this clearly in advance
It's okay, in a few years transwomen will be getting all the women's prizes anyway
Keynote speaker at Harvard diversity conference says Christians should be ‘locked up’ - "To celebrate a “Decade of Dialogue” in its annual diversity conference, Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences invited a straight white man to give the keynote lecture.But not just any straight white man.Tim Wise, an “anti-racism writer, educator and activist,” has denigrated Christians as “Jeezoids” and fascists and called Pope Francis evil. He has tweeted that “people who believe in a God of hell/damnation deserve to be mocked viciously and run out of the public square.”... “Just because I have a husband and a four-year-old, people might assume that I’m straight … when I am very queer,” said Huckel, who leads the global diversity and inclusion initiative at gambling technology provider IGT. She didn’t explain how she is “very queer.”"
Diversity means Christians are evil
Does he believe in mocking Jews and Muslims viciously?
The term ‘people of color’ erases black people. Let’s retire it - Los Angeles Times - "According to the Fashion Spot’s annual “Diversity Report,” one out of every three models in 2018 fashion ads were women of color. That certainly sounds like progress. But editorials and magazine covers lean heavily toward non-black women of color, and the terms non-white and women of color are used repeatedly to bolster the analysis.To see for myself, I picked up a random high-end fashion magazine. Out of hundreds of models it had a total of 12 black women in it, admittedly better than the one or two I was expecting. Looking closer, however, I noticed that these women were either all extremely light-skinned, very dark-skinned or highly established in their careers, like Lupita Nyong’o.This was highly conditional inclusivity. Your everyday black girl was missing."
When "inclusive" and/or inoffensive language is "racist"
Every minority needs to hit a quota, apparently
A new generation of flying cars is taking to the air. But without the cars - Los Angeles Times - "Thanks to advances in electric propulsion technology, the new designs look more like many-rotored helicopters. And while the early concepts were envisioned as personal transportation, the reality is more likely to be short-range flying taxi services in cities... Advances in battery and electric-motor technology gleaned from the auto industry, as well as improvements in lightweight carbon-fiber materials, are another reason eVTOL flying car designs are more viable than they may have been 10 years ago... Uber has said the price per flight could eventually be comparable to an UberX car ride... Uber, Terrafugia and others plan to have human pilots at the helm, at least initially, before eventually transitioning to fully autonomous flying vehicles"
Americans don't trust their government, its institutions, or each other. This is not a good place to be - Los Angeles Times - "Increasingly, Americans do not tolerate people who do not stay in identifiable political and even geographical lanes. There is probably no more hated politician right now than the temperamentally centrist lame-duck Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). Acres of pixels are expended most every time a perceived center-right type is hired by a reliably left-leaning news outlet — Kevin Williamson at the Atlantic, Bari Weiss at the New York Times, Hugh Hewitt at MSNBC... 61% of Democrats think the phrase “racist/sexist/bigoted” applies generally to the Republican Party, while 54% of Republicans think the Democratic Party is “spiteful.” More than one in five members of each bloc think the other can be rightly described as “evil.”... We are careening dangerously from a high-trust to a low-trust society. We trust one another less, we trust government and other mediating institutions less. This trend, which like many of our pathologies predates and arguably helped give rise to the Trump presidency, has ominous consequences.High-trust societies have lower transaction costs, lower crime rates and less corruption. People are nicer and better behaved when they’re reasonably confident that the local grocer won’t steal their credit card information and the IRS won’t audit them based on their politics. Low-trust countries are clannish, unable to develop the civil institutions of a free society, and those in power tend to use government authority like a club to punish political enemies. The resulting disorder builds demand for strongmen, for more centralized state power. None of this is good."
Parrot clams up after it was detained for warning owners of law enforcement presence in drug raid - Story - "Police seized the bird in hopes of getting more information out of the loyal lookout, but according to Brazilian journalists, the faithful fowl kept its beak shut"
F R E S H S T O L E N M E M E S - Posts - "Chemistry substitute was slowly writing endgame spoilers on the board every time we talked"
Animal Rights Activist Wants To Abolish Guide Dogs Because They Don’t Consent To Work - "Campaigner Wendy Turner Webster appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain to express her controversial opinion, where she argued working dogs, including guide dogs, sniffer dogs, police dogs and working sheep dogs, are used for the benefit of humans without consent."
Teach "Don't Steal", not "Lock your doors" - Posts - "haha look at all these fragile white males getting defensive when I yell at them about how evil they are. clearly this proves me right somehow"
Private parts for private property: evolution of penis size with more valuable, easily stolen shells - "I introduce a novel hypothesis, the ‘private parts for private property' hypothesis, which posits that enlarged penises evolved to prevent the theft of property during sex. I tested this hypothesis in hermit crabs, which carry valuable portable property (a shell) and which must emerge from this shell during sex, risking social theft of their property by eavesdroppers. I measured relative penis size (penis-to-body ratio) for N = 328 specimens spanning nine closely related species. Species carrying more valuable, more easily stolen property had significantly larger penis size than species carrying less valuable, less easily stolen property, which, in turn, had larger penis size than species carrying no property at all. These patterns in penis size remained even when phylogeny was controlled for, and the patterns were not explained by alternative hypotheses. Instead, the results suggest larger penises evolved as morphological adaptations to facilitate safe sex, in which individuals retain their valuable property by extending a long penis outside the shell to copulate."
Lucas Adler - Fascinating how nobody expects that random Jews in... - "Fascinating how nobody expects that random Jews in Europe or America will suddenly lash out in acts of terrorism upon random white people in an 'inevitable' reaction to the synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and San Diego, right? I was told terrorism is a response that *all* people have as a response to 'oppression', and hardly any group of people has suffered this more than the Jews. And yet random acts of terror as a result do not occur. How do they and Ahmadi Muslims seem to escape this 'inevitable' human tendency?"
"It is remarkable, also, how Vietnamese and Japanese people lacks terrorist trends against the West, or how even among the poor and marginalized Romani pople there is no terrorist trend rising."
MOORE: 20 Years After 'Sex And The City,' The 'Real-Life Carrie Bradshaws' Are Wishing They Hadn't Slept Around - "In the early 2000s, modeling themselves on Carrie Bradshaw and her friends, women in their 20s and early 30s began to have sex “like men.” One night stands and sexual exploration became the ultimate feminist statement. If men could do it, then why shouldn’t they? “There was no such thing as a bad date,” writes dating columnist Julia Allison of her time living the Sex and the City lifestyle, “only a good date or a good brunch story.” In fact, in the years since the show’s premiere, Sex and the City has come to be seen as not feminist enough — receiving criticism for leaving its four heroines happily paired up romantically by the series finale. In 2010, The Telegraph complained that “The happiest character, Charlotte, is by far the most conventional – rich husband, children, no job (by the end), a Park Avenue palace.” In 2017, Marie Claire called one of the show’s main characters “anti-feminist” for saying that “everyone needs a man.” If a lesson is to be learned from the show, today’s critics seem to be suggesting, it’s that it didn’t go far enough. In order to be truly feminist, it seems, women must give up romance altogether. There's only one problem: eventually women do want to settle down. In fact, many of the women who bought into the Sex and the City lifestyle 20 years ago are coming forward to share their regrets. Julia Allison says the show literally “ruined her life.” She says it peddled a “fear of intimacy disguised as empowerment.” Writing for The New York Post, Allison wistfully wonders what her life might have been like if she hadn’t bought into the Sex and the City philosophy. “Perhaps I’d be married with children now?”"
Why Most Bakeries Sell Frozen Bread & Croissants - "[In France] For modern day bakeries, buying pre-made product is easier because they know that skilled artisan bakers are hard to find, the products are labor-intensive (croissants can take anywhere from 20 hours to 3 days to make), the price of butter & milk has sky-rocketed, and most importantly if they did manage to find a skilled artisan baker but they were sick, who would replace them?... are you standing in front of a bakery (boulangerie), a baker (boulanger) or an artisan baker (artisan boulanger)?... When you see artisan baker/artisan boulanger it is a big step up because these words tell us that there is a skilled/trained artisan sourcing ingredients and making the dough and baking it on premises, but even then, I question, are they using quality flour? Fresh yeast? Margarine or butter?"
Ethnicity, the amygdala, and the social environment: a neuroimaging study - "Ethnic minorities have greatly increased rates of schizophrenia. The risk is most pronounced when individuals are living in areas with few people of the same ethnicity as them. Amygdala hyperactivity has been linked to paranoid symptoms in psychosis, and increased levels of paranoia have been observed in ethnic minority individuals... We have shown for the first time, to our knowledge, increased amygdala response to white faces in individuals of black ethnicity. Significant correlations were observed between amygdala response and neighbourhood variables associated with increased psychosis risk. This finding has relevance for our understanding of the increased rates of paranoia and psychotic disorders in ethnic minority individuals."
A downside of diversity and ethnic mingling?
The Incredible Shrinking Singapore Stock Market - "Many of the businesses that have left the exchange in the past few years are well-known in Singapore. They range from GLP Pte., one of the world’s biggest warehouse owners, to Osim International Pte., Asia’s largest maker of massage chairs. Some chief executive officers who’ve taken their companies private, lamenting what they see as low valuations in the city-state, are seeking more liquid markets that can generate higher stock prices. For example, Lee says, sofa maker Man Wah Holdings Ltd. was taken private in September 2009. Within six months, it was relisted in Hong Kong at about eight times its market value. Chew Sutat, SGX’s head of equities and fixed-income businesses, says delisting is a global trend. What’s more, he says, it’s a healthy market function that weeds out weaker companies. Unlike some exchanges, Chew says, SGX doesn’t refrain from delisting zombie companies just to keep its numbers up. But that doesn’t tell the whole story... some of the factors often cited as driving Singapore’s economic success are the very ones holding back the stock market... stocks and securities account for just 9.6 percent of household assets, according to government statistics. That compares with 48 percent in the U.S. And Singaporeans who do put money into equities increasingly turn to options beyond the city-state, a diversification that’s facilitated by exchange-traded funds, among other things... the delisting trend could be a good sign, says Tamara Henderson, who covers Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand for Bloomberg Economics in Singapore. It creates a situation in which unlisted companies, free of the constraints of quarterly reporting, are more able to focus on long-term growth, thereby stabilizing the economy. “It’s probably a sign of wealth,” she says."
Post ID: 1065132270266046832
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