Sexual harassment paid off for Melinda Gates

Here is a 2017 story:

Melinda Gates is adding her voice to the many women across the world speaking out about sexual harassment.

The philanthropist and co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation published an op-ed for Time on Monday to weigh in on the sexual harassment women face in Silicon Valley and the workplace in general, and reflecting on the immense power of the two short words that started a movement: "Me Too."

In the op-ed, titled: "'Me Too, Me Too, Me Too' Is Changing the World," Gates discusses the struggles women continually face with regard to sexual harassment, noting that while 2017 has been challenging, it's also been a remarkable time for women speaking up.

"2017 is proving to be a watershed moment for women in the workplace and beyond. Instead of being bullied into retreat or pressured into weary resignation, we are raising our voices — and raising them louder than ever before," she wrote. "What’s more, the world is finally listening."

Gates touched upon her own experiences in speaking with women around the world over the last two decades, and admitted that though the stories differ, the sentiment of each woman remains unchanging.

Her own experience was that she was working for Bill Gates at Microsoft, and became and instant billionaire when he married her. While their divorce announcement sounded neutral, press reports say that she was the one to file the court petition for divorce. She was probably planning it in 2017, and waited for the youngest child to reach age 18.

Explaining the decline of Compton California

NPR Radio gives this long explanation:

In the 1950s, the city of Compton was nearly all-white. But by the 1970s, it had turned majority Black ...

We're going to show you the forces responsible for this by visiting Compton in the 1960s. It's a city just south of downtown LA that was in the midst of transforming from all white to majority Black. ...

Oftentimes, when a neighborhood turns white, property values go up. And when a neighborhood turns Black, property values go down. ...

Real estate agents would tell these white homeowners that their houses were losing value by the day, so the homeowners would panic and sell.

CHANG: Then, those agents would turn around and sell those homes at inflated prices to Black buyers who were eager to make a start in better neighborhoods. ...

The really evil part of blockbusting, in my view, is that it perpetuated the notion that Black people in your neighborhood diminished value. And because of that perception, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. ...

In 1950, one-fifth of 1% of Compton's entire population was non-white. Just 10 years later, the city was 40% Black.

NPR Radio explains that Compton was a very nice and reasonably-priced place to live when it was all-White. Then Blacks moved in, with the assistance of real estate agents. Then the schools, parks, crime, and everything else got a lot worse, and property values went down.

This story has played out in many cities around the USA. Rarely is it so clearly blamed on real-estate agents encourging Blacks to move into White neighborhoods.

Libertarian pushes censorship at Facebook

PBS TV

Four months after Facebook indefinitely suspended former President Donald Trump's account, the company's oversight board backed the initial decision to throw him off the platform at the time. But the board may have opened the door to allowing Trump back on this fall. John Samples, vice president of the Libertarian Cato Institute, is a member of the board and explains the decision to Stephanie Sy.

Yes, the Libertarian defended censoring Trump for six months because Facebook has a right to prevent imminent harm.

Remember when Libertarians believed in freedom? And the ACLU believed in civil liberties?

I have come to believe that Libertarian organizations are doing more harm to the cause of freedom, than help.

Nothing Trump said was harmful, unless you just see harm in political opinions with which you disagree.

Liz Cheney seems to be still mad that a lot of Democrats refused to accept the legitimacy of her father's election in 2000, and calls it poisonous to question an election. Okay, that is her opinion. But if you believe in free speech, or any Libertarian principles, then surely a politician can question election procedures and outcomes.

A bunch of other free speech organizations put out statement:

Dear President Biden,

Congratulations on your election and your administration’s impressive first hundred days. We are writing as a coalition of human rights, free speech, democracy, and technology organizations to urge the creation of a federal interagency Disinformation Defense and Free Expression Task Force with domestic policy leadership.

As we think about the next four years, we are keenly aware of the challenge the rampant spread of disinformation poses to our nation. The prevalence of deceptions, propaganda, and conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election, COVID-19, and the recent Capitol insurrection illustrates the clear and present threat that disinformation poses to our democracy and national security. ...

Finally, disinformation is both an urgent and a rapidly evolving issue. The threat is protean. In order to make the Task Force effective we believe it must have twin mandates: to provide near term recommendations and to provide ongoing consultation and new initiatives over time. The Task Force should be mandated to deliver, within the first year of your administration, a comprehensive set of principles and overall policy, funding, and legislative recommendations for addressing disinformation and protection of free expression. It should also be mandated to provide periodic updates to these recommendations in recognition of the rapidly shifting cultural, political, regulatory, and technological environment.

In other words, a bunch of leftist groups that were previously committed to free speech, are now asking Pres. Biden to regulate it.

French lesbian wants to erase men

News from France:

A new generation of French activists emerging in the post #MeToo era are turning to lesbian feminism to denounce centuries of male oppression, inspiring the first march of lesbians in forty years but also sparking controversy.

French feminists are increasingly drawing on the tools of political lesbianism, which argues heterosexuality and patriarchy are inextricably linked, to contest pervading inequalities between the sexes.

This has caused deep rifts in public opinion -- while some laud it as evidence of a new method embraced by a younger generation with a greater intolerance of sexism, others criticise what they perceive as a war on the heterosexual lifestyle. ...

Ana, 34, had suffered from eating disorders, including bulimia, since her teenage years.

She credits becoming a lesbian last year with healing, as she now sees herself through the eyes of women.

"It becomes absolutely impossible to combine feminist ideas with an intimate life with men," she told AFP, a "Survivor of heterosexuality" placard in her hand.

"It makes you go crazy," she added.

- 'Hatred of men'? -

But there has also been a backlash. Philosopher Elisabeth Badinter, a veteran universal feminist voice, denounced in an article for the Journal du Dimanche last September an emerging "hatred of men" and "warlike neofeminism".

When journalist and local politician Alice Coffin's essay "The Lesbian Genius" came out in September, there was an outcry among France's political class, mostly due to one passage.

"It's not enough to help one another, we have to erase (men) from our minds, from our pictures, from our representations," Coffin wrote.

Experts say no herd immunity in sight

In case you are still following the sort of experts who are quoted by the NY Times, here is the ltest:

Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

So wht ws the point to the lockdowns? Why were the schools closed? If this is right, then everyone is going to be exposed to the virus eventually anyway.

When they told us to flatten the curve, they did not tell us that it was going to make herd immunity impossible.

USA is no longer racist

CNN reports:

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday agreed with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott that the United States as a nation is not racist, but added that the country has a history of racism that cannot be overlooked.

I think thats right. NY Times adds:

Historically, however, there is no question that the country was founded by racists and white supremacists, and that much of the early wealth of this country was built on the backs of enslaved Africans, and much of the early expansion came at the expense of the massacre of the land’s Indigenous people and broken treaties with them.

Eight of the first 10 presidents personally enslaved Africans. In 1856, the chief justice of the Supreme Court wrote about the Dred Scott case, in an infamous ruling that would be issued in 1857, that Black people “had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

The country went on to fight a Civil War over whether some states could maintain slavery as they wished. Even some of the people arguing for, and fighting for, an end to slavery had expressed their white supremacist beliefs.

Abraham Lincoln said during his famous debates against Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 said that among white people and Black ones “there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.”

Elsewhere it has an essay on How the N-Word Became Unsayable, where it says the word dozens of times, even tho it fired its best reporter for saying it privately in South America. and its article on Platonic Marriage has to include these definitions:

Asexual is defined as having no sexual feelings or desires; aromantic means having no desire for a romantic relationship. Hetero-monogamous is a sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Pansexual is defined as sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction toward people regardless of their sex or gender identity. A platonic marriage is a deep bond and lifelong commitment to a nesting partner you build a shared life with. Demisexual is defined as only being sexually attracted to someone with whom you have an emotional bond.

It also calls these people "queer", without defining it.

Finn to be Jailed for Quoting the Bible

Sputnik News:

Finnish Christian Politician Formally Charged for Hate Crime Against Homosexuals After Quoting Bible

The Finnish Prosecutor General has found that statements by former Christian Democrat leader and Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen are “derogatory and discriminatory against homosexuals” and exceed “the boundaries of free speech and religion”.

The Finnish Prosecutor General has announced formal charges against senior Christian Democrat Päivi Räsänen for hate speech that violates the dignity of homosexuals.

Following an investigation that took nearly two years, the prosecution appears to have collected enough evidence, and Finland’s Interior Minister between 2011 and 2015 now stands accused of three counts of incitements against a minority group, national broadcaster Yle reported.

The politician, who happens to be a devout Christian, will have to defend herself over social media posts in which she quoted Romans 1:24-27 to address the participation of the Finnish Lutheran Church (of which she is a member) in the (gay) Pride festivals, for a booklet about the Bible and sexuality titled “Male and Female He Created them” from back in 2004, and her statements in a radio talk show where she spoke on the topic “What would Jesus think about homosexuals?”

The Prosecutor General said Räsänen's statements were “derogatory and discriminatory against homosexuals” and “violate their equality and dignity”. Therefore, Räsänen “overstepped the boundaries of freedom of speech and religion and are likely to fuel intolerance, contempt and hatred”.

A conviction could potentially lead to a fine or up to two years of prison, as well as a ban on the content deemed as hateful.

So a prominent politician woman belonged to a church that participated in a festival that she believed to be against Biblical teachings, so she expressed her opinion. Ten years later, such discussions become socially offensive, so she gets jailed for it.

This is in Finland, which I would expect to be relatively immune to this sort of nonsense. Obviously not. Free speech is dead.

i It used to be that having civil rights meant being able to do want you want, say what you want, and associate with whom you want. Now it means silencing those who might disapprove.

Much of the Protestant Reformation meant being able to interpret the Bible by oneself, without taking orders from the Pope or similar authority. Wars were fought over this. No more. That right has quietly been abolished.

Israel is running its own Inquisition

The London Guardian reports:

A man in Jerusalem who has worked for years as a rabbi and raised his family in an ultra-Orthodox community has been accused of faking his religion to mask his true identity as a Christian missionary from New Jersey. ...

“The family has been under surveillance for at least seven years,” ...

The man’s wife, Nussan said, promoted Judaism on social media but “incorporated content from Christianity”. She died last year and was buried in Jerusalem with a Jewish funeral ceremony, Nussan said. ...

Behadrei Haredim, an ultra-Orthodox website that first reported the news, said the incident “blew up” a week ago after the man’s 13-year-old daughter told a classmate that Jesus “accepts everyone, even if they are wrong”. ...

The news website said evidence against the man and his family would be delivered to the interior ministry ...

They watch him for seven years, and the giveaway is that his 13yo daughter says Jesus accepts everyone! I guess no real Jew would say that.

Can you imagine a Christian priest or monk being threatened with deportation because he was secretly a Jew? I think that happened a couple of times in Spain, about 500 years ago.  

This is like one of those spy novels, where a deep cover spy does everyone perfectly except for some subtle flaw that exposes him. If so, he could now get deported.

We need to hear from Covid-19 skeptics

I have now heard several otherwise intelligent people say something like:

I used to be a free speech absolutist, and believe that the best antidote to bad speech is more speech. But I have changed my mind in the last year, because of covid-19. Bad advice about masks and vaccines is too harmful, and the opinions of people like Alex Berenson must be suppressed.

This opinion is so wrong, I don't know where to start.

Berenson may be wrong about some things, but he is not any more wrong that Anthony Fauci, who has a long history of being wrong.

More importantly, I was willing to get a covid-19 vaccine because I believe that if it were particularly harmful or dangerous, I would have heard about it by now. But if the Left succeeds in suppressing such stories, then I will lose confidence in the vaccine.

Covid-19 has proved the importance of openness and free speech in health matters.

Covid-19 is not as bad as we are told

The NY Times published this chrt bout week go.

A surge in deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic created the largest gap between the actual and expected death rate in 2020 — what epidemiologists call “excess deaths,” or deaths above normal.

This was a big story, and was picked up by everyone else. 

But look at this chart. Two things are striking. First, covid-19 appears to be the greatest natural disaster in history, with deaths far exceeding everything else, including the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. It also appears that a miracle occurred in 1919 that saved millions of lives.

This is all bogus. There was no miracle in 1919, and deaths that year were about what was expected from before 1918. And 2020 only had about 15% more deaths than the year before. 1918 had about 40%.

The NY Times data is supposed to be "age-adjusted", whatever that means. Any genuine age adjustment should make the 1918 flu appear very much worse than the 2020 one, as the 1918 flu mainly killed the young and covid-19 mainly killed the elderly. So if you counted years of life being taken by disease, the 1918 flu might be 50 times worse.

See  this statistician for more info.

Avoiding McDonalds Restaurants

McDonalds does a lot of things really well, but some policies seem designed to alienate customers. You cannot get a clerk to tell you the difference between a Big Mac and a Quarter Pounder. It is difficult to get a burger without mustard and ketchup. And the ice cream machines are usually broken.

The company makes lots of money, so I can only assume that it has some business interest in doing things this way. My guess is that they are trying to train their customers to like mustard and ketchup, so people stop making special orders.

The ice cream baffled me, and here is a video trying to explain it: The REAL Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken. I don't know if this is right or not, but I go elsewhere for ice cream.

ACLU and SPLC have gone kooky Left

Americn liberal groups are not wht they used to be:

Last 100 @ACLU tweets by topic
Immigration/Muslim ban: 8
Police reform/racial justice: 9
Voting rights: 7
Economic inequality: 3
Prison: 1
Surveillance: 2
Abortion: 3
DC Statehood: 2
ACLU fundraising: 1
Trans issues: 63
Free speech: 1
Due process: 0

Also:

The Southern Poverty Law Center claims it’s dedicated to fighting hate. But some things are more important than fighting hate.

Like “equity”.

In the name of equity, the SPLC announced that it’s shutting down its black nationalist hate groups category like the Nation of Islam. After “doing the internal work of anti-racism”, the SPLC will no longer list black racist hate groups because “the hate is not equal”.

The SPLC hs been anti-White for years.

Political Prisoners are held without Bail

William Saletan writes in Slate:

Three months after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Republican Party still won’t fully renounce it. In Congress, Republicans are opposing an investigation of the attack unless other incidents are included.

And I don't see any Democrats denouncing this:

Demonstrators chanting "Black Lives Matter" stormed the Oklahoma Capitol on Wednesday, forcing the state House of Representatives into lockdown, in order to protest several Republican-backed bills, including one that provides legal protections to motorists fleeing riots.

Many Jan. 6 protesters have been held without bail:

[Federal judge] Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, cited former President Donald Trump’s continued false claims about the November presidential election as one reason why he denied Whitton’s request for bond.

“As was true in (co-defendant Jeffrey) Sabol’s case, such comments reflect the continued threat posed by individuals like Mr. Whitton, who has demonstrated that he is willing and able to engage in extreme and terrifying levels of violence against law enforcement with a chilling disregard for the rule of law and the lives of law enforcement, seemingly based on mistaken beliefs about the illegitimacy of the current administration,” the judge wrote.

Magistrate Judge Regina Cannon granted bond for Whitton a day after his April 1 arrest, but federal prosecutors appealed the decision, keeping Whitton locked up in the federal jail in Lovejoy. At a hearing last week, his defense attorney said he had no prior criminal history and presented dozens of letters and affidavits signed by Whitton’s friends and relatives attesting to Whitton’s “strong moral code.”

These protesters probably deserve some punishment, but holding them without bail appears to be purely political. Even the official justification relies on quoting an opinion of the ex-President.

Just imagine if you were investigating a human rights abuse in another country. You found a political protester in jail, and the judge's explanation was that he must be jailed without trial because the ex-head-of-state claimed that an election was stolen.

High rate of sexually transmitted infections

Everyone has been going to the CDC for coronavirus data, but there are other diseases:

CDC estimates 1 in 5 people in the U.S. have a sexually transmitted infection ...

It is estimated there were:

Nearly 68 million STIs on any given day in 2018 (prevalent STIs).
26 million newly acquired STIs in 2018 (incident STIs).
Nearly one in two incident STIs were acquired by people aged 15 to 24 years old.
Nearly $16 billion in direct lifetime medical costs resulting from STIs acquired in 2018.

This is all pre-pandemic. We should have more recent data than 2018. Have STIs been going up or down?

The next thing that surprises me is how high these figures are. I would have guessed that about 80% of the population are leading lifestyles that do not expose them to STIs. That is, they are faithfully married, or not in sexual relationships.

That would seem to imply that most of those who are sexually active with more than one partner are getting infections. I find this hard to believe.

Congresswomen want Feminist Foreign Policy

Here is the new Congress at work:

117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 196

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of taking a feminist approach to all aspects of foreign policy, including foreign assistance and humanitarian response, trade, diplomacy, defense, immigration, funding, and accountability mechanisms.

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of taking a feminist approach to all aspects of foreign policy, including foreign assistance and humanitarian response, trade, diplomacy, defense, immigration, funding, and accountability mechanisms.

Whereas a feminist approach to public policy requires meaningful analysis of and proactive challenges to power structures and inequalities based on intersecting systems of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race, age, language, socioeconomic status, physical or mental ability, sex, including gender identity or expression and sexual orientation, indigenous identity, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, and nationality or migrant status;

Whereas foreign policy reflects how a government defines and prioritizes peace and security, structures international trade, provides humanitarian aid and development assistance, and works with other nations and non-state actors;

Whereas feminist foreign policy is the policy of a state that defines its interactions with other states, as well as movements and other non-state actors, in a manner that—

(1) prioritizes peace, gender equality, and environmental integrity;

No, it has not passed yet.

NPR Radio wants a feminist internet. It has already created a feminist radio network. The hosts are nearly all women now, and the opinions are all feminist.

Dawkins is canceled

The Atheist community acts as if it is rational and objective, but they have just canceled their most prominent member because he believes there are two sexes:

Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values. His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient. His subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity.

Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award.

What kind of award is it, if it can be retracted later?

They gave him a trophy in 1996, supposedly for what he did that year. They want it back for his opinions in 2021. So was he a good humanist in 1996 or not?

I have come to the conclusion that terms like Atheism, Humanism, Rationalism, etc. don't mean what they say at all. These have become terms that represent a range of left-wing political beliefs.

More and more, the news is filled with cancelations. In today's NY Times, the new Philip Roth biography is being halted because of allegations of inappropriate behavior in the 1990s. A police lieutenant in Virginia lost his job after he contributed $25 to a legal-defense fund. A make-up artist lost his 25M-subscriber Youtube channel. These stories go on and on.

Update: Former award winner Steve Pinker explains the AHA error. Also, a philosopher describes the position of many public intellectuals today:

If you can pose as a champion of the underdog and a speaker of truth to power whilst ingratiating yourself with the neoliberal regime, that kind of hits the jackpot, by combining the ego gratifications of being a tribune of the people with the career benefits of being a lackey of the establishment. Consequently this is what a lot of people do.

Update: It appears that the atheists are split on this issue. One prominent blogger defends retracting the award, but if you google him, you will find a history of him making reckless accusations against other atheists, and of others making accusations against him. Maybe they will all cancel each other.

George Floyd Verdict

George Floyd death verdict is in. Here are my observations.

The had to prove bad intent on Chauvin, and I did not see any proof of that.

I did not see any proof, based on hard evidence, that Chauvin failed to follow police policy and training. It was all after-the-fact opinion.

There was conflicting testimony about the cause of death. Floyd may have died of a fentanyl overdose.

I do not believe the prosecution expert who testified that the body position and abdomenal pressure would have killed a healthy man.

No evidence of racial motive was given, nor any other bad motive.

I can accept that Chauvin was guilty of culpable negligence or something that, and deserves some penalty for that. But that is not what this case was about.

The upshot of this case is that many people are taking this as proof of systemic racism. Police departments everywhere are demoralized. New York City has just abolished the safest and most effective arrest procedures. Big city murders and other crimes are skyrocketing. Riots have killed dozens and destroyed millions in property. Democrats are rushing to pay slavery reparations to Blacks.

All of this crazy. This is a case where a cop had to hold a criminal for about ten minutes while waiting for ambulance, and made a bad judgment. That's all.

Bailing out of a very fancy girls school

I was expecting to like this widely publicized letter from a father to a fancy girls school, disenrolling his daughter.

She has been at Brearley for seven years, beginning in kindergarten. In short, we no longer believe that Brearley’s administration and Board of Trustees have any of our children’s best interests at heart.

Why did he ever think that they did?

He was paying them $54k a year to educate his daughter. It is a business. That's all.

I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets.

Why does he care about their words, concerns, or admissions policies? Are they educating his daughter, or not?

Lastly, I object, with as strong a sentiment as possible, that Brearley has begun to teach what to think, instead of how to think. I object that the school is now fostering an environment where our daughters, and our daughters’ teachers, are afraid to speak their minds in class for fear of “consequences.” I object that Brearley is trying to usurp the role of parents in teaching morality, and bullying parents to adopt that false morality at home. I object that Brearley is fostering a divisive community

He is probably right, but I would like to see some specifics. Has the school really usurped the role of parents?

What did he really think that he was getting for that $54k? Teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic? I am guessing not, as surely the basics can be learned more cheaply. He wanted the school to impart values, and now he does not agree with the values being taught. And that is a good reason to withdraw from the school, but he does not really explain it.

You don't feed a dog that bites your hand

Republicans got a lot of criticism for these remarks:

“I found it completely discouraging to find a bunch of corporate CEOs getting in the middle of politics,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whined Monday. He fumed on Tuesday that his “warning, if you will, to corporate America is to stay out of politics.” Then he hastened to add: “I’m not talking about political contributions.” ...

Earlier this month, the Georgia House of Representatives voted to revoke a break on fuel taxes that benefits Atlanta-based Delta Airlines, which had criticized the state’s recent voting law. House Speaker David Ralston, R, explained: “You don’t feed a dog that bites your hand. You gotta keep that in mind sometimes.”

This is common sense, not corruption.

Corporations exist to make money, so I have to assume that Delta Airlines and others are making money out of their political meddling. They may be assuming that their opponents will not stop feeding the dog.

Stop feeding the dog that bites your hand.

The Bachelor is trolling us

NBC News reports:

Former "Bachelor" star Colton Underwood revealed that he is gay in a taped interview with "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts that aired Wednesday. ...

Underwood, a former football player, was first introduced to viewers in 2018 as a contestant on Becca Kufrin's season of "The Bachelorette." He then joined the cast of "Bachelor In Paradise" in Season 5, before becoming "The Bachelor" in 2019 for its 23rd season.

He had a relationship for a year and a half with a contestant he met on that season, Cassie Randolph.

Is this a courageous admission that sacrificed his TV career? No, just the opposite:

After the interview aired, TMZ and CNN reported that Underwood had already begun production on a reality series with Netflix documenting his life as an out gay man. (TMZ reported that the series had, in fact, already begun filming.)

Anything for show business. I am guessing that in a couple of years, he will announce that he is now straight, and go back on The Bachelor. Or he will change his gender identity, and go on a reality TV show about that. Or he will enter into an interracial marriage and adopt an African transgender child. This game can be played a few more times.

Weaved into our Founding Documents

The Hill reports:

Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that white supremacy is “weaved” into America’s “founding documents” during a speech Wednesday to the National Action Network.

"I have seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles," said Thomas-Greenfield.

In addition to her remarks on white supremacy and its history in the U.S., Thomas-Greenfield told the activist organization that issues of “equity and justice” must be approached with “humility.”

Thomas-Greenfield also said the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery resulted from the nation's institutionalized white supremacy.

I have mentioned here and here that there is a history of arguments that the USA was founded as a White supremacist nation. These arguments are being increasingly accepted by mainstream Democrats.

I do not think that this is a good strategy. This just encourages Whites to say "This is a White country, founded by Whites for Whites. If you are non-white, then go back to some other country with your own kind."

Update: The NY Post reports:

Emerald Robinson of Newsmax asked Psaki at her daily press briefing whether Biden is “going to remove her from her position” — saying the speech hit themes similar to an anti-US diatribe by Chinese diplomats in Alaska last month. ...

“Is the president going to remove an African American woman with decades of experience in the Foreign Service who is widely respected around the world from her position as ambassador to the UN? He is not,” Psaki said.

Evolutionists join delusional leftist political fad

Biology professors define evolution as the history of life on Earth, and so everyone accepts under that definition. But the subject is couple to a number of seemingly unrelated ideologies.

In particular, evolutionists are nearly all leftists and atheists. They used to be all in favor of eugenics, and now they have gone to the other extreme.

Now it appears that they are adopting a bunch of anti-white racial delusions.

Evolution Society news:

The Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Society of Naturalists, and the Society of Systematic Biologists stand in solidarity with the many Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander communities and vehemently condemn these acts of domestic terror. To our Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander members: we support and respect you. We will continue the work of transforming our Societies into safe and inclusive places for you, and for all members of our communities.

The murders of Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Delaina Ashley Yaun, and Paul Andre Michels in the Atlanta area are symptoms of violent anti-Asian racism, which has only increased since the onset of the pandemic in the United States last year. These events are widespread. ...

We call on our largely white membership to capitalize on their privilege to support their colleagues.

Not all of those white members agree, as here are a couple who don't.

These murders were not acts of domestic terror, and are not symptoms of violent anti-Asian racism. And they should have nothing to do with academic pursuits of evolutionary biology.

I don't know what it is about the subject of Evolution, but it has a long history of prominent advocates like Stephen Jay Gould giving opinions on politics, religion, social customs, and other topic outside their expertise, and pretending that they are imparting evolutionary wisdom on us.

CNN has jump on this Asian fad, and declared that chop suey fonts are racist. The article seems like a joke, but it is not.

Congress is preparing to pay slavery reparations to Blacks, and making it a hate crime to associate China with the coronavirus.

A NY Times Black columnist writes:

Rage Is the Only Language I Have Left

Society has become horribly desensitized to police killings of Black men. ...

One of the first times I wrote about the police killing of an unarmed Black man was when Michael Brown was gunned down in the summer of 2014 in Ferguson, Mo. Brown was a Black teenager accused of an infraction in a convenience store just before his life was taken.

This is pretty crazy stuff. Brown was a violent criminal who was trying to kill a cop. The recent Minnesota death was of a Black man with a history of gun crimes.

Meanwhile, Ashli Babbitt was an unarmed White woman participating in a political protest when a cop shot and killed her. That cop will not be charged or even identified. She was much more innocent than any of the examples of Black killings. She was not threatening to hurt anyone. It makes much more sense to say that society has become accepting of police killings of White women.

Medical Schools get Woke

Remember when medical schools were only concerned with teaching medicine?

Here is an Antiracism Statement from Harvard Medical School:

We will focus on measures designed to improve recruitment, hiring, retention, and promotion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color ... We must be intentional in accompanying the marginalized, and actively engaging in anti-racism in all our collaborations. This means recognizing and including our Black, Indigenous, and colleagues of color in setting the agenda in all aspects of our academic, policy and advocacy work.

Translation: in order to become fully anti-white, we need to hire a lot of BIPOCs.

U. of Virginia medical School kicked out a student for this exchange:

Bhattacharya: Hello. Thank you for your presentation. I had a few questions just to clarify your definition of microaggressions. Is it a requirement, to be a victim of microaggression, that you are a member of a marginalized group?

Adams: Very good question. And no. And no—

Bhattacharya: But in the definition, it just said you have to be a member of a marginalized group—in the definition you just provided in the last slide. So that's contradictory.

Adams: What I had there is kind of the generalized definition. In fact, I extend it beyond that. As you see, I extend it to any marginalized group, and sometimes it's not a marginalized group. There are examples that you would think maybe not fit, such as body size, height, [or] weight. And if that is how you would like to see me expand it, yes, indeed, that's how I do.

Bhattacharya: Yeah, follow-up question. Exactly how do you define marginalized and who is a marginalized group? Where does that go? I mean, it seems extremely nonspecific.

Adams: And—that's intentional. That's intentional to make it more nonspecific . ...

His lawsuit was just reinstated by an appellate court.

It appears that medical culture operates on groupthink, and that anyone who questions official policy is not likely to be successful.

The Harvard student newspaper has a popular article on The Scarcity of Harvard’s Conservative Faculty. Only 3% lean conservative at all, and only 0.4% are truly conservative. While the professors talk about diversity all the time, there is no attempt at ideological diversity. Just the opposite, there are active campaigns to kick out any Trump supporters.

If Harvard professors publish research on climate science, or crime, or economics, or many other topics that can be influenced by politics, would you take it as objective research? Not anymore. Harvard has become a left-wing think tank.

You would think that a magazine title The Skeptic would rely on hard objective science, but it is filled with leftist nonsense. Sure it has anti-superstition articles, but it also a lot of articles pretending to be scientific, but actually are just political opinions denying modern science.

I expect political, religious, and other organizations to give opinions that are not necessarily grounded in science. But these opinions in The Skeptic are not much different from the superstitions that they denounce.

NY Times endorses White Replacement Theory

NY Times Black columnist Charles M. Blow writes:

On Thursday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson caused an uproar by promoting the racist, anti-Semitic, patriarchal and conspiratorial “white replacement theory.” Also known as the “great replacement theory,” it stands on the premise that nonwhite immigrants are being imported (sometimes the Jewish community is accused of orchestrating this) to replace white people and white voters. The theory is also an inherent chastisement of white women for having a lower birthrate than nonwhite women. ...

Carlson continued, “Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter.”

The whole statement is problematic.

I don't think he said anything about Jews or White women. I think that the birthrate has fallen for all races and religions in the USA. You can watch his comments here and here.

By "problematic", Blow means an unsettling truth, and he goes on to confirm everything Carlson said:

the percentage of voters who are white in America is shrinking as a percentage of all voters ...

But now, in addition to Black voters voting overwhelmingly Democratic, there is a wave of nonwhite immigrants who also lean Democratic. ...

I would even argue that the bizarre obsession with trans people is also rooted in part in white anxiety over reproduction.

Carlson didn't say anything about trans people either.

The Democrats are the ones who are obsessing with importing non-white immigrants, and getting them to vote Democrat. There is not any conspiracy, and the Democrats are quite open about it. The Democrats are also the ones obsessed with trans people. The NY Times writes about these subject much more than conservative sites do, and Democrat politicians talk about them much more.

Update: Here is the ADL response. In it, Jonathan A. Greenblatt argue that since FoxNews is run by Jews, it should fire Carlson as being contrary to Jewish interests.

He has no answer to Carlson's point:

Go to the Anti-Defamation League’s website sometime if you’d like a glimpse of what an honest conversation about the nation’s interests might look like. In a short essay posted to the site, the ADL explains that the state of Israel should not allow more Arabs to become citizens with voting rights, quote: “With historically high birth rates among the Palestinians, and a possible influx of Palestinian refugees and their descendants now living around the world, Jews would quickly become a minority within a bi-national state, thus likely ending any semblance of equal representation and protections. In this situation, the Jewish population would be increasingly politically – and potentially physically – vulnerable. It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the state of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory.”

That is, the ADL, NY Times, and other Jewish organizations strongly advocate keeping non-Jews out of Israel, because of a Replacement Theory. They also admit that Jews are working to replaces Whites in the USA. But they are very much opposed to any American Whites even talking about Replacement Theory as it might apply to the USA.

Trump's vaccine promise is realized

Intellectuals attacked Donald Trump for COVID-19 more than anything else, with everyone claiming that he was lying about it. They all said that Gov. Cuomo and Newson showed excellent science-based leadership.

Those governors were so terrible that they are being run out of office.

But how does Trump's record hold up?

The Wash. Post attacked Trump, 6 weeks before the election:

Trump says, without evidence, every American will get coronavirus vaccine by April https://t.co/PdkoQyaagX — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 18, 2020

President Trump said Friday that every American would have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April, contradicting his own statement of two days earlier and sowing deeper confusion about the process and timing of vaccine approval and distribution.

When Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said earlier in the week that the general public was unlikely to get access to a vaccine until the second and third quarters of 2021, echoing other scientific leaders in the administration, Trump said he’d misspoken.

“I think he made a mistake with that statement,” Trump said Wednesday. “When he said it, I believe he was confused. I’m just telling you we’re ready to go.”

Trump then said a vaccine would be ready in weeks and swiftly made available, despite the fact that no one knows yet when sufficient data will be collected from clinical trials to show that one of the vaccines in late-stage trials is effective or safe.

We now know that Trump was telling the truth, and the FDA, CDC, and vaccine companies conspired to conceal the trial data until after the election.

And his promise of universal vaccination by April was right on target:

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that all adults in the U.S. should be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine by April 19 … The new deadline to expand eligibility — which is two weeks earlier than Biden had previously targeted — should not be difficult to meet since several states have already begun administering the vaccine to anyone over 16 who wants it.

This Wash. Post lie probably cost Trump the election. There were a fair number of centrist voters who only voted against Trump because of the coronavirus.

Of there were many other times Trump was accused of lying, when he was actually telling the truth. The Lincoln Project just put out of video titled "Trump's Big Lie", where Trump predicts that the only way he will lose the election is thru mail-in votes. And that is exactly what happened. Trump won the votes of those who actually voted according to pre-existing rules. Biden's extremely narrow margin was based on changing the rules to allow unauthenticated early mail-in votes.

Floyd trial witnesses have surprising testimony

I have been following the George Floyd murder trial, and some witnesses have some surprising testimony.

One expert indentified the precise second Floyd died. It was about 6 minutes into the 9-min. video.

He also said Chauvin was the sole cause of death, and the same thing would have killed a healthy man.

Others said that there were multiple contributing causes.

Chauvin knee was not on Floyd's neck; it was on the shoulder blade.

Floyd's breathing difficulties were caused by the position of the body and the pressure on lungs, and not on by blocking air or blood in the neck.

The police chief and others said that Chauvin did not have cause to use deadly force, and that his actions were contrary to his training and police policy.

Some of this changes my thinking. If it is really true that Chauvin went against policy and training, then he ought to be convicted of something. But the prosecution have not produced specifics to back this up, and the defense may be able to rebut. We really just heard police officers say that they would not have made the judgments that Chauvin, and that is not convincing. I want to see the actual training materials used on Chauvin.

The prosecution has to prove intent, and there has been nothing about that so far.

I am expecting the defense to present testimony that:

Chauvin had training to do what he did.

A healthy man would have survived being held down like Floyd, and it happens all the time.

If Floyd died at the 6-min mark, then Chauvin's actions for the last 3 minutes have no bearing on the charges.

Chauvin will testify that he was following accepted procedures to restrain Floyd so that he could get medical attention. Chauvin's a apparent aloofness was the result of bystander heckling.

The judge seems fair. I think Chauvin may be convicted of a lesser charge. He really needs to testify, to give evidence of intent, but if he does, he will be subjected to a nasty character assassination.

The larger issue is that this case was supposed to prove the existence of systemic racism. No such evidence has even been presented.

The picture shows a lethal dose of fentanyl, compared to a penny.

Jews try to censor Fox News

Jonathan A. Greenblatt of the Jewish lobbying organization ADL is trying to get Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson:

Last night, in a segment on his program dealing with voting rights and allegations of voter disenfranchisement, Tucker Carlson disgustingly gave an impassioned defense of the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” the hateful notion that the white race is in danger of being “replaced” by a rising tide of non-whites. While couching his argument in terms of what he described as the Democratic Party attempting to replace traditional voters with immigrants from third-world countries, Carlson’s rhetoric was not just a dog whistle to racists – it was a bullhorn.

Make no mistake: this is dangerous stuff. It is a notion that fueled the hateful chants of “Jews will not replace us!” in Charlottesville in 2017. ...

In short, this is not legitimate political discourse. ... Furthermore, Carlson has suggested that the very idea of white supremacy in the U.S. is a hoax, ...

Here is the Tucker Carlson video. As you can see, he doesn't say anything about Jews. He also denies that it is mainly a racial issue, as he objects to American Whites being replaced by foreign Whites, and American Blacks being replaced by other foreigners.

The above letter is curious for what it does not say. It does not claim that claim that Carlson said anything factually incorrect. It does not even deny that Jews are seeking to replace White Christian Americans with foreigners. He merely argues that it is against Jewish interests to have a public discussion of the issues.

It is funny how Jewish publications and organizations are forever complaining about what a few protesters chanted in Charlottesville in 2017. The NY Times alone has published about 200 articles complaining about it, but never doubting that Jews seek a great replacement.

Update: This article relates the controversy to longstanding Jewish policies towards immigration.

Update: The United Nations calls it "replacement migration".

Prince Philip Dies

When a king marries, his wife becomes the queen. But when Queen Elizabeth II married, her husband just became Prince Philip, not the king.

What goes? I thought that Britain had a patriarchal monarchy. It used to give a preference to male heirs, so I guess Elizabeth II only became queen because she had no brothers. A few years ago, they decided that was sexist, and the system now prefers the first-born, whether boy or girl. As it happens, males are in line for the throne, so the next crowning will be of a king, and then his wife will be the queen.

Professors blame Whites for Black crimes

Today's universities teach White hatred all the time, and don't miss a chance to blame Whites. Here is the latest example:

White supremacy is the root of all race-related violence in the US

[by] Jennifer Ho, Professor of Asian American Studies, University of Colorado Boulder ...

The point https://www.unz.com/isteve/white-supremacy-is-the-root-of-all-race-related-violence-in-the-us/I’ve made through all of those experiences is that anti-Asian racism has the same source as anti-Black racism: white supremacy. So when a Black person attacks an Asian person, the encounter is fueled perhaps by racism, but very specifically by white supremacy. White supremacy does not require a white person to perpetuate it.

White supremacy is an ideology, a pattern of values and beliefs that are ingrained in nearly every system and institution in the U.S. It is a belief that to be white is to be human and invested with inalienable universal rights and that to be not-white means you are less than human – a disposable object for others to abuse and misuse.

The dehumanization of Asian people by U.S. society is driven by white supremacy and not by any Black person who may or may not hate Asians.

By "Asian", I assume she means Oriental. And she blames Whites when a Black commits a crime against an Oriental.

The department has this Land Use Statement:

We honor and acknowledge that the University of Colorado’s four campuses are on the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota, Pueblo and Shoshone Nations. Further, we acknowledge the 48 contemporary tribal nations historically tied to the lands that comprise what is now called Colorado.

These statements have become common. Again, this seems to have no purpose except to express hatred for Whites. It credits non-whites, but not the Whites who built the state and the university. If they really think that they are occupying stolen land, then they can leave.

Causes of racial identification

Comment:

In a Clubhouse discussion back in February, an immigrant to the U.S. from China said that, in her opinion, our roughly nine months (so far) of #BLM and #SocialJustice was the primary driver behind people perniciously identifying as “white”. As far as she was concerned, prior to all of the efforts in “anti-racism”, people who happened to be white would primarily identify as “Italian” or “German-American” or “New Yorker” or “Dentist” or whatever. But with the constant media drumbeat of Black vs. white, Asian vs. white, and Pacific Islander vs. white, the former “Anglo-Scotch-American” now identifies as “white”.

I agree with that. I don't think most whites identified as white, until recently. Maybe they still don't.

The Democrats have become the anti-white party, and blame whites for everything. Pres. Biden campaigned on promises of considering racial reparations, and now he is making such payments to Black farmers. Whites are the ones who are not eligible, whether they like it or not.

The Anti-Asian Hoax

A libertarian immigrant law professor writes in The Hill:

Lost in this partisan war of words is the reality that both the right and left-wing versions of anti-Asian bigotry deserve condemnation. The two rest on similar flawed foundations and perpetrate similar injustices.

His examples of left-wing anti-Asian bigotry involve Americans acting against Asian-Americans. But his right-wing examples all involve Americans supposedly discriminating against foreigners living on the other side of the world!

In my experience, Americans have been extraordinarily kind to Asians. In the last few weeks, the leftist press has dug up some Asian complaints, and they are remarkably petty. They are mostly things that no one else would complain about. There is an occasional crime, but it is not clear that Asian-Americans are victims any more than anyone else. The whole thing is a big hoax.

MSN reports:

Joe Biden is considering restarting construction on Donald Trump's southern border wall as his administration continues to grapple with a growing immigration crisis including record numbers of illegal crossers.

It is already obvious that Pres. Trump was a much better President that Joe Biden will ever be.

The Kinds of Beliefs

People have different kinds of beliefs. Roughly, there are beliefs based on reason and faith, but I want to break it down further.

Positivism beliefs. These are beliefs in proven knowledge, such as 2+2=4 or conservation of energy.

Probability beliefs. These are factual beliefs that you admit could be wrong, but they are justified by sufficiently high probability. For example, you might believe that you will drive to the beach tomorrow, even though accidents or external events could interfere.

Solipsism beliefs. These are untestable beliefs that exist in your mind, such as belief in a God that does not reveal himself in the natural world.

Fantasy beliefs. These are beliefs that allow you to live out a fantasy of how the world ought to be. For example, recycling your plastics may help you feel better about the environment, even though there is no actual benefit.

Alignment beliefs. This is where you profess a belief in order to socially align with others.

When someone declares something to be the truth, I need to figure out which of these five categories of belief applies. If I pick the wrong category, then nothing I say will mean anything to him, because my argument will have nothing to do with what underlies his belief.

This last category of alignment beliefs is particularly confusing. We just celebrated Easter, which commemorates Jesus Christ rising from the dead. This is a core Christian belief. If you want to be a Christian, and align yourself with other Christians, you need to accept this.

If you are a Republican American politician, you need to be pro-gun, anti-tax, and anti-abortion. A Democrat must be pro-tax, pro-immigration, anti-gun, pro-abortion, and favor identity politics of anyone but straight White Christian men.

CNN was recently attacked for saying:

It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.

How could anyone even say something so silly? I think the way to understand this is that CNN has become a left-wing network, and this is a statement that aligns with leftist transgender activists. It is not a statement of fact in the usual sense.

Several have made an analogy between the Woke Left and a religion. This gives the Left too much credit. It is not a religion. They do have a willingness to recite things that are obviously false, but that is not what defines religion. When the Woke Left says things that are obviously false, they are just aligning themselves with their leftist causes.

Jan. 6 prosecutions fall apart

By Julie Kelly reports:

He is known as the “zip tie guy.”

In one of the most iconic photographs of the January 6 Capitol melee, Eric Munchel, wearing tactical gear, is seen holding up a fistful of zip ties in the Senate gallery. Munchel, the media quickly concluded, brought the flex cuffs to arrest lawmakers attempting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The woman photographed with him later was identified as his mother, Lisa Eisenhart.

The top federal prosecutor who handled the first two months of the Justice Department’s Capitol breach probe recently bragged that Munchel was one of the first protestors targeted in the agency’s unprecedented 50-state manhunt for alleged “insurrectionists.”

The feds threw the book at them, as they were prosecuted for the so-called armed insurrection. They were held in jail without bail, because they were supposedly so dangerous.

But they were just innocent pro-democracy protesters, like everyone else.

The three judges carefully deconstructed the charges against mother and son, noting neither has been accused of violence such as assault or destruction of property. One judge argued the detention order should be reversed, not revisited. In his partial dissent, Judge Gregory Katsas took aim at the Justice Department’s exaggerated case.

“While there, they attempted neither violence nor vandalism,” Katsas wrote. “They searched for no Members of Congress, and they harassed no police officers. They found plastic handcuffs by chance, but never threatened to use them. Munchel’s threat to ‘break’ anyone who vandalized the Capitol was intended to prevent destruction and was addressed to no one in particular.”

Katsas detailed how both defendants fully cooperated with authorities, both were employed at the time of surrender—Eisenhart has been a nurse for 30 years—and neither has a criminal record with the exception of Munchel’s two marijuana possession charges from several years ago.

The only felony the government could come up with to charge Munchel and Eisenhart—who are being charged together—is “obstruction of an official proceeding,” which is an enhancement count filed against defendants charged with misdemeanors.

If this were any other country, they would be regarded as political prisoners.

White liberals have mental health disorders

Bill Hennessy writes:

Researchers have identified a strong correlation between liberalism and mental illness.The correlation is so powerful that almost one in two young white liberals have been diagnosed with mental health disorders according to Pew American Trends research.

We have identified four major takeaways from this research, conducted earlier this year:

Nearly 1 in 2 (45.9%) of white liberals have been diagnosed with mental health disorders.
White liberals of all ages are more than twice as likely as conservatives of any age to suffer from mental health disorders.
White liberals are almost twice as likely as non-white liberals to be diagnosed with mental health problems.
Among conservatives of all ages, there is very little difference in the rates of mental disorders between whites and non-whites.

The Censorship increases

The NY Post reports:

Facebook and Instagram removed an interview with former President Donald Trump by his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, simply because it “featured Trump speaking” and the “voice of Donald Trump,” Facebook said in an internal email.

As big tech companies continue their bid to cancel the ex-commander-in-chief, audio from the podcast “The Right View With Lara Trump,” was yanked from Facebook Tuesday night and reportedly later removed by Instagram.

Lara Trump, who also contributes to Fox News, shared a screenshot of an email sent by a Facebook employee, saying the company would be taking down the interview.

“We are reaching out to let you know that we removed content from Lara Trump’s Facebook page that featured President Trump speaking,” the email she posted states.

“In line with the block we placed on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, further content posted in the voice of Donald Trump will be removed and result in additional limitations on the accounts,” the email continued.

You can view the interview here. The interview has nothing offensive, except that it criticizes the Biden presidency, and the press.

YouTube has announced that it is removing this Dershowitz-Kennedy debate on the pros and cons of vaccination.

This disgusting Pantene ad is on YouTube, but no comments are allowed.

2020 death totals announced

I posted speculation that COVID-19 might not lead to measurable excess deaths. It appears that I was wrong:

The coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 3.3 million deaths were reported in the U.S. last year, a 16% increase over 2019, according to provisional data published Wednesday compiled by the National Vital Statistics System, which examines and reports annual mortality statistics based on death certificates.

The deadliest weeks last year were at the beginning of the pandemic and then in the middle of the holiday surge, during the weeks ending April 11, with 78,917 fatalities, and Dec. 26, when 80,656 people died, the CDC found.

According to the study released Wednesday, Covid-19 was listed as the underlying cause for 345,323 deaths, killing more Americans than unintentional injuries, strokes, chronic lower respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia and kidney disease.

Compared to other countries, 11 European countries had higher per capita death rates, and some countries had much lower rates. China, Vietnam, and Tanzania did the best, if you believe the official figures.

Most of those US covid deaths had multiple other co-morbidities, and no actual positive test for covid.

2020 showed that the USA is really good at keeping elderly obese diabetics alive in nursing homes, until a pandemic strikes.

This does not settle the question of whether the lockdowns and other measures were worthwhile or not. Since different countries used different strategies, you would think that we would have good data on what works and what does not. We do not, and it is still hotly debated whether any of these deaths were preventable, and whether the prevention measures were worth the cost.

Western origins go back to Rome and Greece

I mentioned Henrich's theory of the origin of Western individualism, and other behavioral differences from the rest of the world.

Here is another detailed criticism.

There are many issues here, such as whether European marriage customs are the result of Catholic teachings of a millennium ago, or Greek and Roman law of two millennia ago.

Obviously it was some combination.

This research came to light when universities did psychology experiments on student subjects, and then found that their results do not apply to the rest of the world.

The research is much more important than that. It goes to the heart of what made modern civilization possible. We need to figure that out, or else we might be inadvertently undermining civilization. It is also important for understanding cultures from other parts of the world.

There is also a nature-nurture issue, and these authors have only scratched the surface.

The War against Free Software

I mentioned a plot to cancel the leading advocate of free software, and the battle rages on with Mozila, Red Hat, other other big companies

pushing an open letter against him:

Richard M. Stallman, frequently known as RMS, has been a dangerous force in the free software community for a long time. ...

We, the undersigned, believe in the necessity of digital autonomy and the powerful role user freedom plays in protecting our fundamental human rights. In order to realize the promise of everything software freedom makes possible, there must be radical change within the community. ...

We cannot continue to let one person ruin the meaning of our work. Our communities have no space for people like Richard M. Stallman, ...

We are calling for the removal of the entire Board of the Free Software Foundation. These are people who have enabled and empowered RMS for years.

The attack is so vicious, and the actual offensives are so trivial, that I wonder what underlies it.

Apple, Microsoft, and other software companies have hated him for many years, because they sell software and he gives it away for years.

Mozilla claims that its software is free, but it is not really free in the way that Stallman defines the term.

But he was more of threat to him 30 years ago. Now they make money selling his free software. Why now? And why do they want to take down his whole Free Software Foundation?

Why do they say he is "dangerous"? This can oly be a reference to his ability to persuade others with his free software ideas.

I am guessing that this is partially a personal vendetta, partially a business attempt to steal the ability to define what is or is not free software, and partially a symptom of our cancel culture run amok.

A clue is that these companies are pushing "radical change". Mozilla is also the company that fired its CEO for donating a small amount to a winning ballot measure.

These companies have become extremely intolerant.

Some of those commenting on this matter say that Stallman is being blamed for his personality traits. In some cases, he is blamed for saying something rude or insensitive, and he will argue that he was just expressing a completely legitimate opinion. To some, the question is whether we should tolerate someone with a mental illness that makes him insenstive to others. I think that the people taking offense are the mentally ill ones. They should be able to deal with some ordinary opinions.

Update: Stallman has posted an apology. He admits to being "tone-deaf". That has become one of the major accusations of the modern age.

Israeli Spy Admits Dual Loyalty

Pollard claims Jews ‘will always have dual loyalty,’ whether they know it or not
Convicted spy laments US Jews see themselves as more American than Jewish, suggests he’d counsel Jew working in American security apparatus to spy for Israel even now

Jonathan Pollard, an American who served a 30-year sentence for spying for Israel and who moved to Israel in December after the end of his parole, made blunt comments on supposed Jewish dual loyalty and the FBI in an interview published Thursday.

“American Jewry has one major problem: they consider themselves more American than they do Jews,” Pollard told the Israel Hayom daily.

Asked how he felt about being accused by US Jews of having dual loyalties, Pollard did not take issue with the title. “If you don’t like the accusation of double loyalty, then go the F*** home,” he said bluntly.

“It’s as simple as that. If you live in a country where you are constantly under that charge, then you don’t belong there. You go home. You come home. If you[‘re] outside Israel, then you live in a society in which you are basically considered unreliable. The bottom line on this charge of dual loyalty is, I’m sorry, we’re Jews, and if we’re Jews, we will always have dual loyalty,” he added.

An he suggested that if asked for advice, he would counsel a young US Jew working in the American security apparatus to spy for Israel.

“I’d tell him, not doing anything is unacceptable. So simply going home [to Israel] is not acceptable. Making aliyah is not acceptable,” Pollard said. “You have to make a decision whether your concern for Israel and loyalty to Israel and loyalty to your fellow Jews is more important than your life.

“If you do nothing, and you turn your back, or simply make aliyah, and go on with your life, you’ll be no better than those Jews who before and after the destruction of the Temple said, ‘It’s not my responsibility.'”

Pollard, now 66, sold military secrets to Israel while working as a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy in the 1980s.

Dual loyalty is not really the right term, as he is advocating loyalty to Israel and Jews, over loyalty to America.

To be fair here, he concedes that many American Jews are loyal to America. He is now a citizen of Israel, and it doesn't bother me that he aligns with his own kind. Most of the world have some group that they identify with, and then they are loyal to that group. Jews happen to have particularly strong tribal loyalties.

I had thought that he served an extra-long sentence because he got double-crossed in his plea bargain. But the article quotes him as saying that he refused to cooperate with prosecutors, so maybe he was the one to renege on the bargain.

Men's college basketball makes money

The press has had stories all week about how women's sports suffer discrimination, but here is the college basketball story:

The NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship budget for the 2018-19 season was $28 million — almost twice as much as the women’s budget.

Information provided by the NCAA to ESPN on Friday shows the men’s tournament brought in a total net income of $864.6 million that season, while the women’s event lost $2.8 million — the largest loss of any NCAA championship.

The women's sports are probably going to get ruined by the transgender athletes anyway.

Woke White Model has Baby Boy

The famous model Emily Ratajkowski writes in Vogue magazine:

WHEN MY HUSBAND AND I tell friends that I’m pregnant, their first question after “Congratulations” is almost always “Do you know what you want?” We like to respond that we won’t know the gender until our child is 18 and that they’ll let us know then. ...

I like the idea of forcing as few gender stereotypes on my child as possible. ...

When I bring this thought to my therapist, she explains that this is relatively common. ...

I resent that his entire family’s DNA is inside of me but that my DNA is not inside him. “It just seems unfair,” I say, ...

I’m scared of having a son too, although not in the same way. I’ve known far too many white men who move through the world unaware of their privilege, and I’ve been traumatized by many of my experiences with them. And boys too; it’s shocking to realize how early young boys gain a sense of entitlement — to girls’ bodies and to the world in general. ...

My friend who is the mother to a three-year-old boy tells me that she didn’t think she cared about gender until her doctor broke the news that she was having a son. She burst into tears in her office. “And then I continued to cry for a whole month,” she says matter-of-factly. After a difficult birth experience, she developed postpartum depression and decided that she resented her husband more than she’d ever imagined possible. She told me she particularly hated — and she made an actual, physical list that she kept in her journal, editing it daily — how peacefully he slept. “There is nothing worse than the undisturbed sleep of a white man in a patriarchal world.” She shakes her head. “It was hard to come to terms with the fact that I was bringing yet another white man into the world. But now I adore him and can’t imagine it any other way.” She also eventually learned to love her husband again. The sound of his perfect sleep next to her at night is now tolerable.

She gave birth to a boy, and posted the above picture of her breastfeeding him.

She is seeing a psychotherapist, so I guess she at least recognizes that she has a mental illness. I am guessing that she has a sense of entitlement that is greater than any man I know.

Pres. Joe Biden just said:

You know, I’ve told my daughters, granddaughters from the time they got old enough to understand what I was saying — and I mean it: There’s not a single thing a man can do that a woman can’t do as well or better. Not a single thing.

Both men and women can say dopey things.

Canceling Richard Stallman

One of the most influential men in the history of computer software is Richard Stallman. Besides programs that he wrote, he figured out how copyright law could be used to force open source software, and then convinced the world. Without him, the industry might be about ten years behind where it is now.

He was canceled in 2019, and is now making a comeback.

Here is the attack:

Richard M. Stallman, frequently known as RMS, has been a dangerous force in the free software community for a long time. He has shown himself to be misogynist, ableist, and transphobic, among other serious accusations of impropriety. These sorts of beliefs have no place in the free software, digital rights, and tech communities. With his recent reinstatement to the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation, we call for the entire Board of the FSF to step down and for RMS to be removed from all leadership positions.

And here is a letter of support.

He is over-opinionated, and I disagree with a lot that he says. I think that I alienated him once, but he probably doesn't remember me.

At any rate, the gripes against him are remarkably trivial. The one that seems to have done the most damage was simply that he stood up for his deceased friend and mentor, MIT professor Marvin Minsky, against some extremely doubtful allegations. For that, I commend him.

Even if you follow all the above links, read all the backstories, and disagree with him, it is still just an opinion. Can't a man have an opinion anymore? I do not agree with these cancellations, that are so popular today. Even the EFF, which used to be a free speech advocate, is against Stallman.