White Genocide professor resigns

The Bezos Wash. Post reports:

Drexel University professor George Ciccariello-Maher tweeted that all he wanted for Christmas was white genocide.

This week, he resigned, ...

The Christmas tweet was meant to be satirical, as white genocide is an “imaginary concept” used by the far right to scare white people, Ciccariello-Maher said.

I am not in favor of firing someone for a tweet, but it appears that his explanation made things worse. He is like someone who tweets, "All I want for Christmas is a Jewish Holocaust", and then explaining that there was never any such thing as Jewish Holocaust anyway.

He got in more trouble for other remarks:

The professor had drawn attention for a series of inflammatory remarks. Most recently, he was placed on administrative leave after he blamed the Oct. 1 Las Vegas massacre of 58 people on the “narrative of white victimization” and “Trumpism.”

In another instance, Ciccariello-Maher in March said he wanted to “vomit or yell” after seeing an airline passenger giving up a first-class seat to a U.S. military service member. On Christmas Eve last year, he said that all he wanted for the holidays was a “white genocide.”

Again, he is entitled to his opinion, but college professors usually get fired if they keep denigrating a race of people.

Wikipedia calls White Genocide a "conspiracy theory". The article does not allege a conspiracy in the sense of a secret plot. This is like saying the Jewish Holocaust is a conspiracy theory.

Violence decline is just a scaling effect

AAAS Science mag reports:

Are people in big, modern societies more or less violent than our forebears? The answer is neither, according to a controversial new study: People who lived in small bands in the past had no more proclivity toward violence than we do today. The finding—based on estimates of war casualties throughout history—undercuts the popular argument that humans have become a more peaceful species over time, thanks to advances in technology and governance. ...

But a team led by anthropologist Rahul Oka at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana wondered whether there was a mathematical explanation for why fewer people proportionally are lost to violence nowadays. They reasoned that as populations get bigger, their armies don’t necessarily grow at the same rate. In a small group of 100 adults, for example, it would be perfectly reasonable to have 25 warriors, says anthropologist and study co-author Mark Golitko, also at Notre Dame. But in a population of 100 million, supporting and coordinating an army of 25 million soldiers is logistically impossible, to say nothing of such an army’s effectiveness. Researchers call that incongruity a scaling effect.

I made a similar point on this blog in a 2011 post:

Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature is one of the better-selling science-related books of the year. As noted below, it claims that violence has declined over history in spite of Christianity.

Pinker's quantitative analysis seems to based on the assumption that violence should be expected to scale linearly with population size. So he compares the Mongol invasion to recent wars by counting deaths, as a proportion of the population at the time. His trick has the effect of making the Mongol invasion seem much more deadly than it was.

This assumption seems dubious. If we have a population of N people, and we assume that each pair of people has a 1% chance of being enemies, then we expect about 0.01N² pairs of enemies. If violence occurs between enemies, then we might expect violence to grow quadratically in N.

However civilization would be impossible if violence grew that rapidly. Maybe it makes more sense to assume that potential friendships grow quadratically in N. Then maybe societies can use those friendships to self-organize into peaceful communities, and violence would grow sublinearly in N. Maybe violence only grows like the square root of N, or even the logarithm of N.

I posted some additional criticisms of Pinker's book in 2012.

Pinker's book got a lot of praise, and this scaling problem seemed obvious to me. Was I really the only person to notice this problem in 6 years? Hard to believe.

Allowing judges to dictate choice of school

UCLA prof E. Volokh has moved his blog to a Libertarian site, while claiming that he is only "Often Libertarian", and not necessarily a true libertarian.

He has a libertarian view of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, but he agrees with this family court decision:

That's correct, I think; the father doesn't have a right to demand that R.A. go to a religious school over the mother's objection, but neither does the mother have a right to demand that R.A. go to a secular school over the father's contrary preference. When there is such a conflict, a court must decide, and it must do so on a basis other than the school's religiosity; the Nevada Supreme Court noted several religion-neutral factors for lower courts to consider in making this decision:

(1) The wishes of the child, to the extent that the child is of sufficient age and capacity to form an intelligent preference;

(2) The child's educational needs and each school's ability to meet them;

(3) The curriculum, method of teaching, and quality of instruction at each school;

(4) The child's past scholastic achievement and predicted performance at each school;

(5) The child's medical needs and each school's ability to meet them;

(6) The child's extracurricular interests and each school's ability to satisfy them;

(7) Whether leaving the child's current school would disrupt the child's academic progress;

(8) The child's ability to adapt to an unfamiliar environment;

(9) The length of commute to each school and other logistical concerns;

(10) Whether enrolling the child at a school is likely to alienate the child from a parent.

Allowing a judge to force a school choice on parents based on those factors is one of the most anti-libertarian decisions possible.

In the case, the divorced parents agreed to split the cost of private school if they agreed on a private school, but they did not agree to one.

I don't see judge's opinion of those factors 1-10 have any relevance. If the parents don't agree to pay for private school, then the kids can attend public school. Or one parent might offer to pay for private school. But there agreement explicitly rejects the idea that one parent could force the other parent to pay for private school, and the judge should not be able to force that parent either.

I guess that there are Libertarians who believe that children should have individual rights independent of the preferences of their parents. But how would that ever work? It would mean that govt bureaucrats and judges take over the most personal decisions that families make. It would have some of the worst aspects of Communism.

I used to think that Libertarians were pro-freedom, and I was all in favor of that. But more and more, I see Libertarians applaud the most anti-freedom policies.

Brainwashed college girl cannot accept mom's facts

Here is the advoce column in my local newspaper yesterday:

Dear Amy: My mother is a very hardworking and dedicated mother, but she has some very problematic views of the world. She assumes that refugees are going to terrorize our country and that women only gossip and tear each other down (for instance). The thing is, she is an immigrant herself from a Latin country.

When I explain to her how problematic her thinking is, she tells me one story about something she saw that backs up her claims.

I was privileged enough to graduate from a private liberal arts school (through scholarships). That experience opened my eyes to racism, sexism and other problems in our country and around the world.

I visit my mother once a week and we read the newspaper together. We start a dialogue about the never-ending stories about sexual assault and police brutality, and it always ends in a fight.

I want to spend time with my mother, but it's hard to listen to the things she says.

This is funny. The mother is obviously much wiser than her dopey college daughter who has been brainwashed to be a social justice warrior. The mother even backs up her opinions with facts and evidence!

Human capability peaked before 1975

John Derbyshire says we aren't going back to the Moon, because of politics, budgets, and this 2010 essay:

Human capability peaked before 1975 and has since declined
I suspect that human capability reached its peak or plateau around 1965-75 – at the time of the Apollo moon landings – and has been declining ever since.

This may sound bizarre or just plain false, but the argument is simple. That landing of men on the moon and bringing them back alive was the supreme achievement of human capability, the most difficult problem ever solved by humans. 40 years ago we could do it – repeatedly – but since then we have *not* been to the moon, and I suggest the real reason we have not been to the moon since 1972 is that we cannot any longer do it. Humans have lost the capability.

Of course, the standard line is that humans stopped going to the moon only because we no longer *wanted* to go to the moon, or could not afford to, or something…– but I am suggesting that all this is BS, merely excuses for not doing something which we *cannot* do.

It is as if an eighty year old ex-professional-cyclist was to claim that the reason he had stopped competing in the Tour de France was that he had now had found better ways to spend his time and money. It may be true; but does not disguise the fact that an 80 year old could not compete in international cycling races even if he wanted to.

Human capability partly depends on technology. A big task requires a variety of appropriate and interlocking technologies – the absence of any one vital technology would prevent attainment. I presume that technology has continued to improve since 1975 – so technological decline is not likely to be the reason for failure of capability.

But, however well planned, human capability in complex tasks also depends on ‘on-the-job’ problem-solving – the ability to combine expertise and creativity to deal with unforeseen situations.

On the job problem-solving means having the best people doing the most important jobs. For example, if it had not been Neil Armstrong at the controls of the first Apollo 11 lunar lander but had instead been somebody of lesser ability, decisiveness, courage and creativity – the mission would either have failed or aborted. If both the astronauts and NASA ground staff had been anything less than superb, then the Apollo 13 mission would have led to loss of life.

Back then we had a telephone system that was 99.999% reliable. I wonder whether we will ever see any complex system that reliable again.

Possible backlash against MeTooism

I commented on how many feminists refuse to make distinctions between serious crimes like rape, and commonplace flirting that some consider rude.

Here is a Politico essay by Emily Yoffe:

Why the #MeToo Movement Should Be Ready for a Backlash

In the past few weeks, a number of accused men have disappeared Soviet-style from public life, with the work of some—Louis C.K. and Garrison Keillor, for example—withdrawn from distribution. There has been discussion about whether everyone accused deserves a professional death penalty, or whether there should be a scale of punishment. After all, the violations run the gamut from multiple allegations of rape to unwanted touching. But in a statement on Facebook calling for Franken’s resignation, New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand came out against making such distinctions. “While it’s true that his behavior is not the same as the criminal conduct alleged against [Alabama Senate candidate] Roy Moore, or Harvey Weinstein, or President Trump, it is still unquestionably wrong,” she wrote. “We should not have to be explaining the gradations between sexual assault, harassment and unwelcome groping.”

In a New York Times op-ed, actress Amber Tamblyn wrote that making distinctions will mean the cultural change that is happening will stall and bad behavior will win out. So, she wrote, “The punishment for harassment is you disappear. The punishment for rape is you disappear. The punishment for masturbation in front of us is you disappear. The punishment for coercion is you disappear.” (She conceded that some men may be allowed to come back professionally after a period of contrition.)

This erasing of distinctions between the criminal and the loutish was a central feature of the campus initiatives of the Obama administration and led to many unjustified punishments. “Definitions of sexual wrongdoing on college campuses are now seriously overbroad,” the feminist Harvard Law professors wrote. “They are so broad as to put students engaged in behavior that is overwhelmingly common in the context of romantic relationships to be accused of sexual misconduct.”

Remember this next time you hear some feminist say that someone was raped. Maybe the accused just made a rude comment, and the feminist refuses to distinguish that from rape.

MeTooism is intolerant of distinctions

The NY Times reports:

The actor Matt Damon waded into the national conversation about sexual assault in an interview with ABC News on Thursday, observing that men are being lumped into “one big bucket” when in reality there is a “spectrum of behavior.”

“You know, there’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?” he told Peter Travers of ABC. “Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”

Those comments were met with anger and frustration online, where many women, including the actress Alyssa Milano, rejected attempts to categorize various forms of sexual misconduct.

“They all hurt,” Ms. Milano wrote on Twitter on Friday. “And they are all connected to a patriarchy intertwined with normalized, accepted — even welcomed — misogyny.”

Other critiques soon followed — with some women speaking up in Mr. Damon’s defense — but the tenor of the conversation was the same: frustration, anger and exasperation.

Some of the complaints are really trivial. Some are things that 99% of the population would take no offense to.

So these are all supposed to be the same?

This reminds of feminists who say that all rape is the same. A brutal stranger rape is just the same as routine drunken sexual relations between lovers who did not formally articulate consent.

The world has gone mad.

Meanwhile, others are saying that MeTooism is anti-semitic, because the big majority of the high-profile targets have been Jewish men.

I guess MeTooism is a good name for knee-jerk liberal feminist blaming of Jewish men for behavior many years ago, with no one allowed to doubt the accusers or distinguish the seriousness of the rude behaviors.

Many states considering shared parenting

The Bezos Wash. Post reports:

Now lawmakers are accelerating this trend toward co-parenting, with legislatures in more than 20 states this year considering bills that would encourage shared parenting or make it a legal presumption — even when parents disagree. ...

The legal push for custody arrangements follows years of lobbying by fathers’ rights advocates who say men feel alienated from their children and overburdened by child-support obligations. This movement is gaining new traction with support from across the political spectrum, as more lawmakers respond to this appeal for gender equality and, among some conservatives, the frustration of a newly emboldened constituency of men who say they are being shortchanged.

Critics of the bills ... say that stricter laws will ... take discretion away from judges who are tasked with deciding what is in the best interest of children.

There are many arguments for shared parenting, but I don't think that the best are either fathers' rights or gender equality.

The most convincing arguments are the studies that overwhelmingly show that shared parenting works best, especially when the parents have conflict or disagree.

I think that the best argument is the negation of the last one from the critics. We should take discretion away from judges who are tasked with deciding what is in the best interest of children. We want children reared by their parents, not micro-managed by judges.

Webster's words of the year

They are:

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2017 is feminism. The word was a top lookup throughout the year, ...

Today’s definitions of feminism read: “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” and “organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests.”

Not everyone realizes that these two definitions are opposites in many contexts.

If you listen to women who call themselves feminists, they hardly ever talk about equality issues. For example, their biggest current complaint is about sexual harassment, but 90% of their complaints are things that no man would ever complain about.

Complicit means “helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way.” It comes from the Latin word meaning “to fold together.”

The word has been used in connection with the Trump administration throughout the year: first, regarding whether members of Trump's administration were complicit in the firing of James Comey, and later whether they were complicit in Russian disinformation campaigns meant to disrupt the 2016 election.

This word is misused also, as it is generally agreed that the firing of Comey was legal and proper.

Lookups of recuse spiked several times this year, and all the spikes were in reference to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. ...

Recuse means “to disqualify (oneself) as judge in a particular case” and “to remove (oneself) from participation to avoid a conflict of interest.” Recuse came to English from French and ultimately traces back to the Latin word recusare (meaning “to object to” or “to refuse”).

Sessions removed himself from active participation in Mueller's investigation, but he still has a constitutional obligation to oversee Mueller and fire him if necessary.

Empathy means “the ability to share another person’s feelings” and ultimately derives from the Greek word meaning “emotional.”

Wikipedia lists other definitions.

Mueller blinded the FBI to terror threats

Robert Spencer writes:

It has come to light that as director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, who is currently the special counsel looking for any dirt he can find on Donald Trump, presided over the 2012 removal of all counterterror training materials of any mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism. Since then, our law enforcement and intelligence officials have been blundering along in self-imposed darkness about the motivating ideology behind the jihad threat. This, it turns out, was Mueller’s doing.

In February 2012, the Obama Administration purged more than one thousand documents and presentations from counter-terror training material for the FBI and other agencies. This material was discarded at the demand of Muslim groups, which had deemed it inaccurate or offensive to Muslims.

So a terrorist ideology tries to kill us, and Mueller hushes up the causes. But Russia broadcasts some criticism of Hillary Clinton on RT TV, and Mueller seems to be trying to use it to impeach Donald Trump.

Porn novelist complains about porn

The NY Times editorializes:

Last week, The Washington Post reported the allegations of six women who had worked for the judge as clerks or staff members, and who accused the judge in detail of crude behavior and sexual harassment.

Heidi Bond, who clerked for Judge Kozinski in 2006 and 2007, said he repeatedly called her in to look at pornography on his computer, and asked if she was aroused by it. ...

Ms. Bond wrote that after one encounter with the judge, “I felt like a prey animal.” The stress of working under those conditions, she said, nearly led her to quit. It damaged her mental health and derailed a promising legal career, which she eventually gave up to write romance novels.

Here is the Wikipedia article for Courtney Milan, her porno pen name:

Milan was raised in Southern California. She wrote her first book at the age of ten, and intended to be an author from a young age.[1] After failing spectacularly at this, she changed her mind. She received a double major in mathematics and chemistry from Florida State University in 2000, and went on to get a Master's degree in Physical Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2003, where she did research on computer models of glassy behavior.[2]

She then went to the University of Michigan Law School, where she graduated summa cum laude,[3] after which she clerked for Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit, followed by Retired Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor[4] and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States.[5] She was a law professor at Seattle University School of Law for several years, teaching contracts and intellectual property, before quitting to write full-time.[6]

So looking at porn derailed her career? On the contrary, it appears that she went on to have a very successful legal career, and then left it for a more rewarding porno book career.

Her blog story does make her sound mentally or emotionally damaged. She is obviously living in some sort of fantasy world. By her own account, she was the one to tell Kozinski of her interest in porn, and he suggested against it.

She has a weird complaint that a friend emailed her 20 years later that the judge undressed her with his eyes! How would anyone know that? Then there is a complaint that he referred her to a reporter writing a book on the courts. She said that she can't talk about confidential matters, and he said that was fine. So what's the problem? I refuse to believe that a woman who writes porn for a living could really be upset by seeing a picture with a little photoshopped nudity.

I don't know what this woman's problem is, but it is very strange for the NY Times and Wash. Post to make an issue out of some trivial conversations 10 years ago.

Update: Kozinski resigned a couple of days later, on Dec. 18. The carnage continue. I wonder if the accusers will ever suffer any consequences for their behavior.

Update: This story gets weirder:

Which brings us to Bond’s career choices. Her rejection of what might have been — an illustrious future as a law professor, government lawyer, judge, law firm partner — seems to have its roots with her awful experience with Kozinski. And though she writes that she had a positive time clerking for Justices O’Connor and Kennedy, it’s ultimately Kozinski who cast the biggest shadow in her career.

Did she try to seduce Kozinski, or what? It appears that she fell in love with him.

Half of all rape accusations are false

CR reports:

With the cooperation of the police agency of a small metropolitan community, 45 consecutive, disposed, false rape allegations covering a 9 year period were studied. These false rape allegations constitute 41% the total forcible rape cases (n = 109) reported during this period. These false allegations appear to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention. False rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations. ...

Back in 2013 I did some digging on this. And I remember that study you cite: Eugene Kanin at Purdue conducted a study that showed, according to police reports from one city, that 41% of rape claims were untrue, and a full 50% of claims at two universities were untrue. Other researchers have come up with similar numbers for false rape accusations: Gregory and Lees, 1996: 45%. Jordan, 2004: 41%. Chambers and Millar, 1983: 22.4%, Grace et al., 1992: 24%. McDowell and Hibler, 1985: 27%. Buckley, 1992: 25%. Washington Post, Virginia and Maryland, 1991: 25%. Even the lowest number is TEN TIMES the number of false rape allegations that feminists will admit to.

The news has been dominated women's sexual allegations that are much less serious than rape. They mostly consist of some inappropriate flirting. How many of those do you think have been described accurately? Is there any example of any of them that has been substantiated to have been described accurately?

A lot of flirting sounds awkward and inappropriate when described out of context. When the words and facts get distorted, it can sound worse.

I am not doubting, for example, that some actresses were having relations with Harvey Weinstein in order to get movie parts, but I don't think that we are getting the whole story in any of these allegations.

Fired for being a skeptic

The sex harassment witch-hunt continues to ruin innocent ppl. This guy was fired for just expressing a personal opinion of skepticism in his own free time.

The NY Times reports:

On the sidelines of a children’s soccer game in Los Angeles this month, a Netflix executive reportedly told a woman that people at the company did not believe the rape allegations against Danny Masterson, an actor who was starring in the series “The Ranch.”

Andy Yeatman, the executive, did not know that the woman he was speaking to was one of several who had come forward to accuse Mr. Masterson of rape, HuffPost reported. Shortly after she revealed this, the conversation came to an abrupt end.

On Wednesday, Netflix confirmed that the executive, Andy Yeatman, no longer worked for the streaming service. ...

“Law enforcement investigated these claims more than 15 years ago and determined them to be without merit,” Mr. Masterson said in a statement. “I have never been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. In this country, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. However, in the current climate, it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused.”

I don't know the details, but I probably wouldn't believe it either if the police investigated and rejected the claims 15 years ago.

The paper also reports on The Race to Erase Kevin Spacey. This is creepy. Sony spent an extra $10M to unperson Spacey from a completed $40M movie. This is really sick.

Where did Neanderthals come from?

The NY Times Science section explains:

Q. Where did Neanderthals come from?

A. Most scientists think that Neanderthals probably evolved in Europe from African ancestors.

The consensus now is that modern humans and Neanderthals shared a common ancestor in Africa about 700,000 years ago. The ancestors of Neanderthals left Africa first, expanding to the Near East and then to Europe and Central Asia. DNA extracted from a 430,000-year-old Neanderthal skeleton found in Spain, reported in the journal Nature in 2016, is believed to be the oldest human DNA ever studied.

Modern humans emerged in Africa about 200,000 years ago and remained there until roughly 70,000 years ago, when they too began venturing into other parts of the world. Recent genetic studies have concluded that modern humans and Neanderthals met up again in Europe — and interbred. As a result, the genes of all living non-Africans are roughly 1 percent Neanderthal. Our cousins went extinct about 40,000 years ago.

The facts are consistent with current thinking, but the terminology is wrong.

Neanderthals are called "human", while Africans are called "modern humans". There is no good reason for calling Africans any more modern than Neanderthals. On the contrary, Neanderthal appears to have been more advanced.

If your genes are 1% Neanderthal, then Neanderthals are your ancestors, not your cousins, and they did not go extinct. Billions of their descendants live today.

I think that the NY Times uses this terminology because it is owned and operated by white-haters who wish to put down those of European ancestry at every opportunity. They look forward to the day when they can say that white Europeans are just cousins that went extinct.

I know that sounds goofy, but you tell me why a well-edited newspaper would say that someone was an ancestor in one sentence, and then an extinct cousin in the next. It doesn't make any sense, except to try to give the impression that Europeans were irrelevant and inferior to Africans.

Here is another NY Times article with a political angle on race and science:

Sickle cell anemia was first described in 1910 and was quickly labeled a “black” disease. At a time when many people were preoccupied with an imagined racial hierarchy, with whites on top, the disease was cited as evidence that people of African descent were inferior. But what of white people who presented with sickle cell anemia? ...

Professor Yudell belongs to a growing chorus of scholars and researchers who argue that in science at least, we need to push past the race concept and, where possible, scrap it entirely. Professor Yudell and others contend that instead of talking about race, we should talk about ancestry (which, unlike “race,” refers to one’s genetic heritage, not innate qualities); or the specific gene variants that, like the sickle cell trait, affect disease risk; or environmental factors like poverty or diet that affect some groups more than others.

This reminds me of the campaign to replace the name GRIDS with AIDS, because science had proven that it was not a gay disease. Now, 30 years later, it is as much a gay disease as it ever was. The campaign was political.

The article makes distinctions that don't make any sense. It distinguishes between ancestry and race by saying that ancestry refers to genetic heritage while race refers to innate qualities. No, this is just nutty. Ancestry and race are both innate, and both being just different ways of expressing the same genetic heritage.

I understand that physicians could have been misled by racial generalizations in the past, but the article examples do not back that up.

Consider the case of kidney disease. Scientists have found that African-Americans fare worse than whites when it comes to this illness. The assumption had long been that some environmental factor explained the difference. But in recent years, scientists have linked certain variants of a gene called APOL1 to worse kidney-related outcomes. Those variants are enriched in people of African ancestry. Girish N. Nadkarni, a kidney specialist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, explained to me that scientists think this may be because those variants protect against the sleeping sickness endemic to some parts of Africa.

In other words, the scientists using race were completely correct. Anti-race propagandists tried to convince them race was not the issue, but when new DNA evidence became available, it turned out that race was the issue exactly as the earlier scientists had suspected.

Not everyone agrees that it is possible or even desirable to completely scrap the race concept. ... Science seeks to categorize nature, to sort it into discrete groupings to better understand it. ... The problem is, the concept is imprecise. ... Now, at a time when we desperately need ways to come together, there are scientists — intellectual descendants of the very people who helped give us the race concept — who want to retire it.

Notice the reluctance to use races in the above article on Neanderthals, even when the science requires it. It says "all living non-Africans" when it really means all those not belonging to the negro race. The South Africa whites have the Neanderthal genes.

For more criticism, see Prof. Jerry Coyne.

IQ correlated with disorders

SciAm reports:

Now there’s some bad news for people in the right tail of the IQ bell curve. In a study just published in the journal Intelligence, Pitzer College researcher Ruth Karpinski and her colleagues emailed a survey with questions about psychological and physiological disorders to members of Mensa. A “high IQ society”, Mensa requires that its members have an IQ in the top two percent. For most intelligence tests, this corresponds to an IQ of about 132 or higher. (The average IQ of the general population is 100.) The survey of Mensa’s highly intelligent members found that they were more likely to suffer from a range of serious disorders.

The survey covered mood disorders (depression, dysthymia, and bipolar), anxiety disorders (generalized, social, and obsessive-compulsive), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism. It also covered environmental allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders. Respondents were asked to report whether they had ever been formally diagnosed with each disorder, or suspected they suffered from it. With a return rate of nearly 75%, Karpinski and colleagues compared the percentage of the 3,715 respondents who reported each disorder to the national average.

The biggest differences between the Mensa group and the general population were seen for mood disorders and anxiety disorders. More than a quarter (26.7%) of the sample reported that they had been formally diagnosed with a mood disorder, while 20% reported an anxiety disorder — far higher than the national averages of around 10% for each. The differences were smaller, but still statistically significant and practically meaningful, for most of the other disorders. The prevalence of environmental allergies was triple the national average (33% vs. 11%).

This is interesting, but how is it that in 2017, research like this is still being published without a control group?

Maybe Mensa appeals to neurotic people. Maybe neurotic ppl are more likely to respond to these questionnaires. Maybe smart ppl are more likely to self-diagnose with some oddball disorder.

These confounders can be reduced by using a control group. They could have sent out similar questionnaires to a couple of groups that seem similar to Mensa, except for the high IQ admission requirement. It is not that complicated. Social science studies without a control group are usually worthless.

Expand the travel ban

Need proof that the Arabs do not want peace?

BBC News:

There have been violent clashes near the US embassy in Lebanon, in the latest protest against President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Security forces fired tear gas and water cannon to force back flag-waving protesters close to the embassy complex north of the capital, Beirut.

Overnight the Arab League condemned the US decision.

The USA can put its embassy wherever it wants. Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel forever. What's the problem?

We should not have friendly relations with any country that tries to tell us where to put our embassy. We should expand the Trump travel ban to the entire Arab League, whatever that is.

The Palestinian Arabs have been offered peace deals many times, and turned them all down. They do not want peace with Israel, and they are incompetent to govern themselves. The deal that they have now is much better than they deserve.

We should make it clear that these hateful Arabs and Moslems have no home in America. We don't need them bringing their wars over here.

They don't just hate the Jews. They try to interfere with American policy as well.

Speaking of Jews, here is a prominent one that claims that inbreeding among white Christian Americans has led to the creation of monstrous dimwits! I thought that Jews were the most inbred religion on Earth. Maybe some Moslem sects are worse.

The witch-hunt complaints get weirder

The casualties of the current sex witch-hunt are getting stranger. The London Guardian reports:

The Arizona congressman Trent Franks has announced he will resign from Congress at the end of January after discussing child surrogacy with female staff members.

“I have recently learned that the Ethics Committee is reviewing an inquiry regarding my discussion of surrogacy with two previous female subordinates, making each feel uncomfortable,” Franks said in a statement on Thursday. “I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress.”

However, the Arizona Republican insisted, “I want to make one thing completely clear. I have absolutely never physically intimidated, coerced or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff.” ...

The House speaker, Paul Ryan, said in a statement that on 29 November he had been “briefed on credible claims of misconduct by Rep. Trent Franks” that he found “serious and requiring action”. He also said that Franks, when presented with the accusations, did not deny them and that Ryan told him he should resign.

This is not sexual harassment by any definition in use before 2017. He did not make sexual advances, did not touch a woman, did not discuss any sexual acts, and did not persist. Sexual harassment means persisting in some sexual behavior of some kind.

So what's the problem? Two women felt uncomfortable by the conversation? How is he supposed to know that some ordinary topic of conversation is going to touch on their neuroses and anxieties?

This is pretty crazy. A congressman needs to have staff who can discuss controversial issues of the day, without freaking out.

Now he says he is quitting, because he was not sufficiently sensitive to how a staff woman might react to a personal subject. Here is more detail:

Franks, a staunch conservative, asked two 'female subordinates' to bear his child in 2011, three years after he and his wife had twins using a donor egg and a surrogate. ...

The Associated Press spoke to one of them, who said Franks offered her money – ultimately, $5 million – on four separate occasions if she were willing to carry his child. ...

He explained that he and his Filipina wife Josephine chose the surrogate method after struggling with infertility and experiencing three miscarriages.

When his twins were three years old they kept asking for another sibling and that's when he approached his staffers about surrogacy.

Note that this conversation occurred in 2011! If the women do not approve of surrogacy, then why were they working for him? The process is completely legal, in most states.

And what's the matter with Paul Ryan? That guy is disgusting in almost everything he does. I guess child surrogacy is one of those subjects that some women are hyper-sensitive about, like abortion, menstruation, venereal disease, and adoption.

The accusations against Al Franken are fairly trivial also. He is one of the biggest jerks in Senate. Many say he stole his election. I've seen clips of him asking questions in committee hearing, and he is just a blustering moron. Maybe that is part of why his colleagues are making him resign.

Aesop's fable trumps the facts

Radio host James Edwards writes:

As many of you know, after prayerful consideration, I sued The Detroit News last year for publishing that I was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Alas, the journey came to an end yesterday morning when the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled against me and in favor of the defendants.

he panel of judges mention in the first sentence of their decision that the law was on my side, but that Aesop’s fables instructs them to judge a man by the company he keeps.

The Restatement (Second) of Torts § 559 lists “membership in the Ku Klux Klan” as the quintessential illustration of a defamatory statement. In an opinion piece in The Detroit News, columnist Bankole Thompson asserted that radio show host James Edwards is a “leader” of the Ku Klux Klan. There is no record evidence to suggest that Edwards holds a formal leadership position in the Ku Klux Klan, nor is there any record evidence to suggest that he is even a member. Notwithstanding this lack of formal relationship, Edwards has espoused views consistent with those associated with the Klan and, equally as important, he has repeatedly and publicly embraced several individuals who are strongly associated with the Klan. Mindful of Aesop’s lesson, “A man is known by the company he keeps,” we hold that Edwards cannot make claims of defamation or invasion of privacy and affirm summary disposition in favor of defendants.

Please click here and take the time to read this remarkable ruling in its entirety.

This illustrates how it is nearly impossible to win a libel suit in the USA.

Remember this next time you read a newspaper associate someone with the Ku Klan Klan. The newspaper could have just made it up, like the Detroit News, for the purpose of smearing someone.

Inevitability of legal prostitution

I have come to the conclusion that it is inevitable that prostitution will become legal, and publicly acceptable.

Prostitution is legal in more and more places. It is legal in Germany. Canada has decriminalized it. It is trending towards legality about like marijuana.

California has a legal porn video industry, so prostitution is legal as long as you say that you are making a porn movie, or auditioning for one.

Public opinion has turned against the sex habits of Harvey Weinstein, so what is a guy like that supposed to do?

The public has been trained to approve of homosexuality and other acts that have been traditionally considered immoral, with the argument that nothing can be wrong with a consensual act.

In this modern lens, prostitution is the most fully consensual sexual act of all. As it is usually practiced, all parties are freely and voluntarily participating with no unusual pressure or coercion.

Some are now arguing that almost anytime two co-workers date, there is a power imbalance that detracts from it being fully consensual. If an actress seduces Weinstein to get a movie part, then someone has more power. Either the actress, because she is young and beautiful and captivating, or Weinstein because he can award the movie role. Usually feminists blame the man, of course even tho 30% of the victims of sexual harassment are men.

Even in marriage, there are those today who consider it rape if the husband unduly pressures the wife to have sexual relations with him.

But with prostitution, there are no ongoing promises, commitments, or pressures. It is the perfect consensual act. Either party can walk away at any time, with no repercussions. Everyone gets exactly what they want.

I am not saying that I agree with these trends. I think that co-workers ought to be able to flirt at work. I think people ought to be able to make moral judgments about the consensual acts of others. I think spouse should be able to make long-term sexual commitments. But hardly anyone in the major news media agrees with me.

With the current views that dominate public sexual attitudes, I don't see any grounds for rejecting prostitution.

It is not practical to enforce laws against prostitution anyway. Prostitute can advertise on online dating sites, and say they want a no-strings-attached sexual relationship. The man will understand that he should bring a gift. Then it is all legal, even if prostitution is illegal.

So legal prostitution will be here to stay. Get used to it.

Update: A feminist article says: "being pro-sex worker is a necessary pillar of dismantling the patriarchy." The rest of the article is so wacky that it appears to be a joke, but I don't think it is.

Charlottesville officials created the chaos

NPR Radio news reports:

An independent review of Charlottesville's handling of the white nationalist rally there in August found that law enforcement and city officials made several significant mistakes, resulting in violence and distrust.

The city commissioned the report, which was prepared by Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney in Virginia. In conducting the investigation, Heaphy said his team pored through hundreds of thousands of documents, interviewed hundreds of witnesses, and reviewed countless hours of video and audio.

The resulting 220-page report is a detailed record of the chaos and conflict that unspooled in the Virginia college town. It is unsparing in identifying the errors authorities made that day and in the preceding months.

The city failed to protect either free expression or public safety, the report finds: "This represents a failure of one of government's core functions — the protection of fundamental rights. Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and protect citizens from harm, injury, and death. Charlottesville preserved neither of those principles on August 12, which has led to deep distrust of government within this community."

The "most tragic manifestation" of the failure to protect public safety was the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, the report says.

The news media had been blaming the white nationalist organizers. The city finally admits that the blame belongs with their own officials.

The mainstream news media at the time blamed the white nationalists for everything, even tho they weren't even present when Heyer died. The white nationalists explained that the city officials were creating a dangerous riot, and now that appears to be the correct story.

Scared of medical diagnostic tests

From the Slate.com medical examiner column:

We Don’t Want to Know What Will Kill Us
Years of data on genetic testing reveal that when given the option, most people want less information, not more. ...

When, in 1996, French nun Mariannick Caniou found out she didn’t have Huntington’s disease, the lethal, degenerative genetic disorder, she fell into a depression. Throughout her life, she had been convinced that she would develop the illness that had killed her mother and grandmother. So convinced, in fact, that all her most important decisions had been based on that conviction: her decision not to marry, for example, or not to have children. ...

In those preparatory surveys, roughly 70 percent of those at risk of Huntington’s said they would take a test if it existed. In fact, only around 15 percent do — a proportion that has proved stable across countries and decades. A similar pattern emerged when tests became available for other incurable brain diseases, including rare familial forms of Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia: The vast majority of people prefer not to know.

There is a certain logic to this. Why know if there’s nothing you can do about it?

I think that she is misreading these studies. Huntington's is incurable, but obviously Caniou's (faulty) knowledge did influence her decisions. There were things that she could do about the Huntington's info.

I have posted examples of genetics experts who refuse to get their genes sequenced. Sometimes they complain that the tests are too unreliable, and sometimes that they are too reliable.

A lot of ppl are also afraid to take an IQ test. Some sort of phobia is at work here.

While some ppl have these problems, I refuse to believe that it is a majority. Most ppl have no problem with other diagnostics, like cholesterol, blood pressure, and diabetes tests. These are pushed by physicians who want to prescribe drugs for treatment, but the drugs don't really cure the problems.

Sexual harassment is purely subjective

An NPR Radio news guest explains sexual harassment:

MARSHALL: Yeah. The episode that just turned up in the last 24 hours involving Representative Kihuen really sets this out, I think, which is that - remember that sexual harassment is defined by how the recipient of it feels. If it's welcomed, it's not sexual harassment. If it isn't welcomed, it is sexual harassment. And it opens - the way the law is written and the way we look at it is someone who can change their mind about whether it was welcomed or not some time after it actually occurred. And men who - men who think that any conduct from them is welcomed often may find themselves in the situation of suddenly finding it was not. And this comes from, often, what their experience is, how attractive they are.

I have a script that I use in my training where, you know, a George Clooney level of actor and someone who looks like Steve Buscemi, for example, both hit on the same employee over and over again. That's sexual harassment, except eventually she agrees to go out with the good-looking guy. And the other guy who's just sort of inept is sent to HR with a complaint. And my audiences don't get this. They say it's unfair. And I say, well, that's sexual harassment. It depends on the victim's perception.

MARTIN: So - wait a minute. Are you really trying to tell me that somebody good looking behaving in a boorish fashion is OK as long as the target eventually thinks it's OK? I mean...

MARSHALL: I don't think it's OK. But it's not - but - I don't think it's OK. However, they will not get in trouble for sexual harassment because of the way the law is written. A hostile work environment means that the recipient of this has to feel hostility. They don't like it. So, for example, if somebody - I have a hypothetical that I'm sure has happened where someone is grabbed by Donald Trump back when he's a celebrity, and she comes home. And she's kissed, and she tells her roommate that was cool. Donald Trump kissed me. And then when everybody she knows detests Donald Trump, she suddenly says that not - you know, I was harassed.

In other words, there is no way you can know whether you are sexually harassing someone or not.

Spinelessness and contempt for democracy

I did not expect to agree with the World Socialist Web Site on anything, but it is a voice of reason on the US sexual witch-hunt:

The purge of the US entertainment, media and political world initiated in early October by the New York Times has chalked up two more victims. The spinelessness and contempt for democracy in these circles seems almost universal and unlimited.

NBC News announced Wednesday it had axed Matt Lauer, longtime co-anchor of its “Today” show, after receiving a complaint on Monday night about his alleged sexual impropriety. ...

The case against Keillor, 75, seems even more preposterous. ...

With the toll of disgraced and disappeared mounting daily, one can only wonder, who’s next?

However creepy the accused men appear, the accusers, the news media, and their accomplices are much creepier.

Speaking of socialists, I mentioned the NY Times profiling a national socialist. Now the guy has lost his welder job, and the NY Times has attached a disclaimer to the original story. There is another witch-hunt in progress.

Four world maps

Melinda Gates: Me Too slut

Melinda Gates writes in Time mag:

But 2017 is proving to be a watershed moment for women in the workplace and beyond. ... the message from women is the same: Me too. Me too. Me too.

In every country and every continent, we have been taught that being born female comes with a cost. That if we are the victims of harassment or discrimination or violence, it’s somehow our fault. It’s the price we pay for daring to have ambition, to seek a job, to express an opinion, to assert our inalienable right to decide who will have access to our bodies.

"Me Too" has become the slogan of slutty actresses who try to seduce Harvey Weinstein to get a movie role. And of star-struck sluts who will do anything for a TV star, over-ambitious sluts who use sex to get a promotion, and of gold-digging sluts who sue rich men like Bill Cosby.

It is surprising to see Melinda Gates join this group. She was a young Microsoft employee when she seduced the CEO, and got a piece of the world's greatest fortune. Most companies have policies against relationships with subordinates, but Bill Gates was the boss and I guess he could change the rules to his liking.

Saying "Me Too" suggests that women helplessly throw their bodies at men with money, fame, and power. Maybe so, but Melinda got to run a $100M foundation, and buy all the luxuries that she could ever want. And she still complains!!

Can Authoritarianism happen here?

Marginal Revolution announces:

Acclaimed legal scholar, Harvard Professor, and New York Times bestselling author Cass R. Sunstein brings together a compelling collection of essays by our nation’s brightest minds across the political spectrum—including Eric Posner, Tyler Cowen, Noah Feldman, Jack Goldsmith, and Martha Minow—who ponder the question: Can authoritarianism take hold here?

With the election of Donald J. Trump, many people on both the left and right feared that America’s 240-year-old grand experiment in democracy was coming to an end, and that Sinclair Lewis’ satirical novel, It Can’t Happen Here, written during the dark days of the 1930s, could finally be coming true.

I think that authoritarianism would have been more likely if Hillary Clinton had been elected.

Globalism is incompatible with Americanism. If we keep bringing in Third World migrants, then our political system will have to change.

NY Times found a real neo-Nazi

I mentioned that the NY Times profiled a white nationalist, without realizing that the guy appears to be a genuine neo-Nazi. Check out his web site, www.tradworker.org. I didn't see much about blaming the Jews, or that he even cares much about Jews, but he does advocate a national socialist political system along the lines of the German one in the 1930s.

I would not such a system right-wing, because it is so socialist.

This might be the first neo-Nazi I have heard of. There are others who like Nazi symbolism, but aren't really Nazis.

Meanwhile Hong Kong has censored another political site:

The world’s leading white supremacist and neo-Nazi news and commentary website The Daily Stormer has found a home on the regional “.hk” domain, after hosts around the world rejected it for violating their terms of service.

The Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation (HKIRC), a non-profit which regulates the top-level “.hk” domain, told HKFP on Monday that it is reviewing the situation.

I cannot find the site anywhere, except on Tor.

The Daily Stormer is not really neo-Nazi, as it mainly just uses Nazi imagery as a way of trolling Jews.

Leftist weaponisation of social media

John Naughton writes a London Guardian essay:

One of the biggest puzzles about our current predicament with fake news and the weaponisation of social media is why the folks who built this technology are so taken aback by what has happened. ...

It never seems to have occurred to them that their advertising engines could also be used to deliver precisely targeted ideological and political messages to voters. Hence the obvious question: how could such smart people be so stupid?

No, they were not so stupid. Not only were they aware of the utility of political ads, they spent millions of dollars marketing those services to political operatives.

Now mathematics, engineering and computer science are wonderful disciplines – intellectually demanding and fulfilling. And they are economically vital for any advanced society. But mastering them teaches students very little about society or history – or indeed about human nature. As a consequence, the new masters of our universe are people who are essentially only half-educated.

Being half-educated is better than being negatively educated. Humanities majors are brainwashed into leftist thinking. Those professors do not teach human nature, they teach a denial of human nature.

“a liberal arts major familiar with works like Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, or even the work of ancient Greek historians, might have been able to recognise much sooner the potential ...

Note that he has to go back centuries to find scholars concerned with human nature.

All of which brings to mind CP Snow’s famous Two Cultures lecture, delivered in Cambridge in 1959, in which he lamented the fact that the intellectual life of the whole of western society was scarred by the gap between the opposing cultures of science and engineering on the one hand, and the humanities on the other – with the latter holding the upper hand among contemporary ruling elites.

Snow's conclusion was that the humanities scholars were the half-educated ones. He found that the science and engineering scholars were well-educated in the humanities, but the humanities scholars were science illiterates.

Google, Facebook, and Twitter are run by leftists who use the platform to promote leftist views, and censor others. The same could be said for the NY Times, Wash Post, CNN, NBC, NPR, etc.

What seems to bug the leftists is that their control is not universal. You can hear non-leftist views on talk radio, Fox News, RT TV, and the internet. Furthermore, recent disclosures have shown that maybe 0.0001% of Facebook ad revenue was used for political ambiguous messages from sources that cannot be precisely identified.

Sure, RT has criticism of American capitalism, but so does NPR. At least RT is not using American tax money for its anti-American propaganda.

So what did Facebook do that was so bad? The essay refers to this:

Along with his fellow Jews, Mark Zuckerberg introspected over Yom Kippur and asked for forgiveness via Facebook from “those I hurt this year … for the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring us together”. He promised to “work to do better”.

Presumably, Zuckerberg was referring to the two types of harm that Facebook has recently acknowledged causing: allowing Russian nationals to purchase Facebook ads to aid Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and allowing ad buys on hateful search terms.

It took congressional investigations, a special counsel investigation, and great reporting by Politico to get Facebook to fess up to these sins. It took President Obama pulling Mark Zuckerberg aside shortly after the election and schooling him in Facebook’s responsibility for distributing electioneering lies.

How is this harmful?

Clinton outspend Trump on advertising by about $1B to $200M. In terms of free partisan news stories and editorials in the mainstream media, favoritism towards Clinton was maybe 10-1 or 20-1. The Russians only spent several thousand dollars, and most of it did not even mention Trump.

I am all in favor of pointing out foreign influence on our elections, but the biggest NY Times stockholder is Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. He is a Trump-hater with a financial interest in Mexicans invading the USA. The NY Times is run by Jews who have ties to Israel. The NY Times, and its foreign influences had a vastly greater effect on the election.

Everyone points to the 17 USA intelligence agencies that supposedly said that the Russians influenced the election. In fact, none of those intelligence agencies said that the Russians had any influence on the election. Their report mostly consisted of reciting some RT stories that were critical of the USA.

Whites looking to avoid hatred

A Jewish mag complains:

Late last month, posts began circulating on the site 4chan, calling for members to place posters with the slogan “It’s Okay To Be White” in public places as “proof of concept” that a “harmless message” would cause a “massive media sh*tstorm.” Some took to calling it “Operation White.”

The troll operation was launched Halloween night, according to screenshots of a 4chan post, and detailed seven simple steps. The plan? Make “normies realize that leftists & journalists hate white people, so they turn on them.” A hashtag circulated, #IOTBW. ...

While it may have felt like an innovation, Anti-Defamation League post showed that the phrase itself has a “fairly long history in the white supremacist movement.” ADL has tracked white supremacist flyers featuring the phrase “It’s okay to be white” as long ago as 2005. In 2012, United Klans of America, a Ku Klux Klan organization, even used the hashtag #IOTBW on Twitter.

So if you say it is okay to be white, then the Jews will call you a KKK white supremacist.

Remember that next time you hear of someone being called KKK or white supremacist. It is probably just some hysterical name-calling by a Jewish white-hater.

Associating whites with KKK white supremacists is worse that associating Jews with Communists.

Another Jewish publication, the NY Times, had a couple of stories about some white guy who thinks it is okay to be white. The reporter seems baffled by his views.

Part of the white guy's explanation concerns a news story about a black thug who visited a residential community and nearly beat a hispanic resident to death. The hispanic managed to pull a gun to save his life. The NY Times reported this as "white man who shot the black teenager", and ran 100s of stories blaming white ppl.

Yes, the NY Times hates whites.

Unix deletes Hitler quotes

FreeBSD unix has removed these quotes:

"Everlasting peace will come to the world when the last man has slain the last but one." -- Adolph Hitler

"I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but victory." -- Adolph Hitler

"Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong." -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

"The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence." -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

"A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work." -- Adolf Hitler

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." -- Adolph Hitler

Goose pimples rose all over me, my hair stood on end, my eyes filled with
tears of love and gratitude for this greatest of all conquerors of human
misery and shame, and my breath came in little gasps. If I had not known
that the Leader would have scorned such adulation, I might have fallen to
my knees in unashamed worship, but instead I drew myself to attention, raised
my arm in the eternal salute of the ancient Roman Legions and repeated the
holy words, "Heil Hitler!"
-- George Lincoln Rockwell

Goose pimples rose all over me, my hair stood on end, my eyes filled with
tears of love and gratitude for this greatest of all conquerors of human
misery and shame, and my breath came in little gasps. If I had not known
that the Leader would have scorned such adulation, I might have fallen to
my knees in unashamed worship, but instead I drew myself to attention, raised
my arm in the eternal salute of the ancient Roman Legions and repeated the
holy words, "Heil Hitler!"
-- George Lincoln Rockwell

I go the way that Providence dictates.
-- Adolf Hitler

If I made peace with Russia today, I'd only attack her again tomorrow. I
just couldn't help myself.
-- Adolf Hitler

Imagine me going around with a pot belly.
It would mean political ruin.
-- Adolf Hitler

Thank God I've always avoided persecuting my enemies.
-- Adolf Hitler

The broad mass of a nation... will more easily
fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.
-- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

The fact that Hitler was a political genius unmasks the nature of politics
in general as no other can.
-- Wilhelm Reich

The very first essential for success is a perpetually
constant and regular employment of violence.
-- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty,
Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and love of the
Fatherland.
-- Adolf Hitler

"Violence accomplishes nothing." What a contemptible lie! Raw, naked
violence has settled more issues throughout history than any other method
ever employed. Perhaps the city fathers of Carthage could debate the
issue, with Hitler and Alexander as judges?

Some of these quotes are probably not authentic.

I think that these quotes were in the Fortune program for historical interest or amusement, and not for any endorsement. Nevertheless, it is probably offensive to mention Hitler, even if criticizing him.

Banned for nationalist opinions

AP reports:

A leading figure in the U.S. white nationalist movement said Wednesday that he hasn't received government confirmation of his reported ban from entering more than two dozen European countries.

Poland's state-run news agency PAP says Polish authorities banned Richard Spencer from entering 26 countries in Europe's visa-free Schengen area for five years. The news agency cited unnamed sources close to Poland's Foreign Ministry.

A source close to the Polish Foreign Ministry confirmed to The Associated Press that the ban has taken effect. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the ministry's behalf.

Spencer previously was banned from the Schengen zone for three years after his 2014 arrest in Hungary, where he had planned to host a conference.

Spencer told The Associated Press he would try to contest a new ban.

"I'm being treated like a criminal by the Polish government. It's just insane," he said. "I haven't done anything. What are they accusing me of?"

Just what is the accusation? He is mainly attacked for arguments that a nation should pursue its national interests.

He does identify with his ethnic group, but no more so than is typical for Jews, Chinese, and other ethnic groups.

Those same Schwengen countries are taking millions of Moslem who believe in killing infidels in the name of Allah.

Chinese lawyer whines that USA does not need him

A Chinese lawyer writes an NY Times op-ed:

After earning law degrees in China and at Oxford, after having worked in Hong Kong as a lawyer at a top international firm, after coming to United States three years ago for an M.B.A. and graduating and joining a start-up, I was given just 60 days to leave the country. I have 17 days left. ...

Many of my fellow international students are in situations similar to mine. ...

My two requests for evidence asked me to prove my job was a “specialty occupation” ...

The Trump administration is right to demand such evidence. This guy is just a lawyer with an MBA degree. Any job he can do would be better filled by an American. We have many thousands, if not millions, of Americans available to do that job. Letting him stay would put an American out of work.

Rather, I’m frustrated, because I know I’m part of a pattern: America is losing many very skilled workers because of its anti-immigrant sentiment, and while this is a disappointing blow to me and my classmates, it will also be a blow to the United States’ competitiveness in the global economy. ...

As I make plans to go back to China, I find myself wondering: If I am not qualified to stay in the United States, then who is?

A lot of Americans are better qualified. We don't need him. Many millions are more desirable than him.

He blames this on "anti-immigrant sentiment", but H-1B is a guest worker program, not an immigration program. Even if he got the visa, he would not be an immigrant. He would merely be a Chinese lawyer who is displacing an American worker for 3 years.

This guy is a creep, and I am glad he is going. He acts as if America owes him something. China does not allow immigrants from America, so why should we allow Chinese immigrants? We have an excess of lawyers and MBA graduates already.

Update: Here is an essay explaining the H-1B human trafficking.

Jewish paper rationalizes anti-Christian hatred

A Jewish Trump-hater editor for the NY Times reports:

Last week, voters in Alabama — rocked, befuddled or riled by allegations that Mr. Moore, the Republican nominee for the Senate, sexually assaulted teenage girls — were treated to an electronic “robocall” that intoned, or really whined:

I’m a reporter for The Washington Post calling to find out if anyone at this address is a female between the ages of 54 to 57 years old, willing to make damaging remarks about candidate Roy Moore ...

The anti-Semitism of the alt-right, the newest manifestation of bigotry that combines age-old hatred with internet-era technological savvy, biting wit and a self-conscious sense of irony, shows no more logical consistency than the anti-Semitism of the past.

There really is a Jewish effort to dig up dirt on Roy Moore, and to destroy him.

The 684 anti-Semitic hate crimes were more than the rest of the religiously motivated crimes of bias and bigotry combined.

The article does not mention that many of those supposed hate crimes have turned out to be Jewish hoaxes, or the result of natural causes.

Leaving aside the low esteem that many Alabamians hold the national media in, no mainstream outlet is paying women for dirt on Mr. Moore, and no one is promising to publish half-baked uncorroborated allegations.

Oh yes they are.

The NY Times and Wash. Post have now published dozens of stories with half-baked uncorroborated allegations against Roy Moore. Most of them do not even mention the fact that the most serious allegation has been proved to be a forgery.

There is a hatred of Roy Moore that is far beyond disagreement with his politics. And the campaign against him is being led by Jews. Among public opinions I've seen, Jews seem to be almost universally against him. He is openly Christian, and they are obviously anti-Christian bigots. If someone calls them on their obvious anti-Christian hatred, then they cry anti-Semitism.

Moralizing about private lives of others

I used to often hear complaints about how the religious right was moralizing about the private romantic lives of others, and how they should just mind their own business.

Who says that now?

I should keep a list of all those denouncing non-criminal, personal, consensual behavior based only on uncorroborated raw allegations years afterwards. They obviously do not believe ppl are innocent until proven guilty, or that they have a right to private romantic lives.

They also have sever misunderstandings about how human memory works, and whether accusers can have bad motives.

The accusers and the accused are mostly left-wing Jewish feminist Democrats, so I don't have a dog in this fight.

This is a witch-hunt. The Salem witch prosecutors probably had more incriminating evidence against their targets.

How Mike Pence has avoided scandal

Six months ago, the Wash. Post published this article mocking Mike Pence:

The Billy Graham Rule was soon adopted by evangelical pastors and business executives. Men in positions of influence wanted to “flee from sexual immorality” and be “above reproach” (both biblical commands), as well as abstain from “every appearance of evil.” ...

The article cites a 2002 interview with Vice President Pence — who has called himself an “evangelical Catholic” — saying that he “never eats alone with a woman other than his wife,” and that he doesn’t attend events serving alcohol unless she is with him as well. ...

The Billy Graham Rule also denies the reality of LGBT people. As a friend pointed out to me: Should a bisexual person refuse to ever be alone with anyone, full stop? ...

In this conversation, we also have to keep in mind the fact that Pence is the vice president of the United States. He is not a pastor and does not act in that capacity. How on earth can he be expected to represent half the country if he won’t eat at the same table as us?

About once a day, some well known Jewish leftist feminist Democrat has had his career sabotage by ridiculous allegations from women, published in newspapers like the Wash. Post.

I don't think anyone is making fun of Pence today. He looks like a genius.

Meanwhile, Judge Roy Moore's chief accuser has finally given a public interview, and she now tells a different story about how she met Moore. She also admits that she agreed to tell her story contingent on it being part of a coordinated attack on Moore.

Stop immigration to cut carbon emissions

Here is some green research from a few months ago:

The greatest impact individuals can have in fighting climate change is to have one fewer child, according to a new study that identifies the most effective ways people can cut their carbon emissions.

The next best actions are selling your car, avoiding long flights, and eating a vegetarian diet. These reduce emissions many times more than common green activities, such as recycling, using low energy light bulbs or drying washing on a line. However, the high impact actions are rarely mentioned in government advice and school textbooks, researchers found. ...

The researchers found that government advice in the US, Canada, EU and Australia rarely mentioned the high impact actions, with only the EU citing eating less meat and only Australia citing living without a car. None mentioned having one fewer child. In an analysis of school textbooks on Canada only 4% of the recommendations were high impact.

Chris Goodall, an author on low carbon living and energy, said: “The paper usefully reminds us what matters in the fight against global warming. But in some ways it will just reinforce the suspicion of the political right that the threat of climate change is simply a cover for reducing people’s freedom to live as they want.

This research was also chicken to give the high-impact advice.

The paper measured results in tons of CO2 emissions per year, and found that per capita averages in developed countries was much greater than for other countries. So the most effective thing is to keep Third World migrants and refugees out of developed countries.

But none of the textbooks or govt guides mentioned that option.

Fired for including white men

Apple fires its black female diversity chief:

Denise Young Smith, who was named Apple’s vice president of diversity and inclusion in May, is “stepping down” after saying white people can be diverse last month.

During a summit in Colombia, Young Smith, a black woman, claimed she likes to focus “on everyone” and that “diversity goes beyond race, gender, and sexual orientation.”

“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blonde men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” Young Smith declared, sparking controversy. “Diversity is the human experience… I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”

Young Smith later apologized, claiming her comments “were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple sees it.”

Obviously, "inclusion" does not mean including white men.

It is more and more apparently that diversity just means hating white men.

Dunham backstabs her accused friend

Does anyone believe ppl are innocent until proven guilty? Can't someone at least defend a friend?

Apparently not, among creepy Jewish left-wing feminists:

"I now understand that it was absolutely the wrong time to come forward with such a statement and I am so sorry."

Lena Dunham has apologized for comments she made supporting Girls writer Murray Miller, who has been accused of sexually assaulting actress Aurora Perrineau.

On Friday, after the claims against Miller were made public, Dunham took to Twitter to support Miller on behalf of herself and Girls executive producer Jenni Konner, ...

The witch-hunt continues. She was defending a Jewish producer accused of raping a 17yo non-Jewish actress. Dunham had previously said:

While our first instinct is to listen to every woman’s story, our insider knowledge of Murray’s situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3 percent of assault cases that are misreported every year,” the statement added. … We stand by Murray and this is all we’ll be saying about this issue.

No doubt she will continue to express dopey opinions about this.

Michigan shared parenting

A Michigan lawyer writes:

Michigan House Bill 4691 would mandate shared custody of children in divorce cases with few exceptions. ...

This bill also presupposes that all parents are able to get along well enough to co-parent their children and that conflicts in a shared custody situation will be at a minimum. Most people divorce because they can’t get along and concur on parenting issues.

No, very few get divorced because of an inability to cooperate on parenting issues.

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers has come out against the recent legislative movement toward mandated shared custody in Michigan and other states,

Yeah, the divorce lawyers want to make money over custody disputes, instead of having custody rights codified by law.

Child custody arrangements should take into account the child’s best interest, first and foremost and forever. This bill does not.

The term "child’s best interest" is a euphemism for lawyers and judges overriding the wishes of the parents.

If we truly want to do something to encourage parents spending more time with their children -- as proponents of this bill claim is their goal-- we should eliminate any relationship between parenting time and money.

Currently in Michigan, the number of overnights a parent has with his or her children, very much drives the amount of child support paid. That is the worst legislation ever passed. It discourages parents who receive child support payments to be agreeable to their children spending more time with the other parent as it would diminish that support.

He finally writes something sensible. Not everyone knows this, but the laws in all 50 states create extreme financial incentive against sharing custody. The mom can get a whole lot more money by refusing to let the dad see the kids. That is what "child support" is all about, as it is currently implemented.

Parents should be encouraged to have their children spend time with both parents without a financial penalty or reward linked to it.

That is what a shared custody bill should do. Then there would be no reason to fight over custody or support in most cases, and divorce lawyers would not have much to do.

With the Child Custody Act of 1970, we have 47 years of case law giving judges guidance over a variety of child-related issues. To scrap that would an egregious error.

Each divorce is different and it is a mistake to mandate a cookie-cutter decision without careful consideration into the nuances of each family situation. Again, it is the child in child custody cases whose needs should be the priority, not a parent’s.

He is just saying that judges and lawyers should run the lives of kids, not their parents. We have 47 years of a system that is worse that what we had before.

A right-wing philosopher argues:

Parental rights and authority have been under scrutiny from some lefty liberals and and socialists recently (here’s an example). The concern is usually grounded in “children’s rights” and their autonomy, though there is also attention paid toward critiquing the basis for parental authority. I used to think parental authority is a given, but it seems as though “the left” is willing to challenge any traditional source of authority that is not the state itself. Conservatives should always pay close attention to philosophies and ideologies that dissolve or undermine non-state authorities, such as the family or religious institutions, because that is a mechanism on which totalitarianism depends. The idea is to slowly eliminate the authority of and allegiance to non-state institutions.

Consider this. Just a few days ago, the democratic socialist government of Alberta legislated that schools cannot inform parents whether their child is a member of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. It’s called Bill 24. The justification for this law, so far as I have heard, is that such information “outs” a child to his parents, which therefore can violate his privacy or is too great a risk for his safety. ...

Caring of children requires choosing particular goods and ends for children. But who gets to make those decisions? Plausibly, it’s either the parents or the state. If the state chooses for children, then parents would serve as mere bodily donors and custodians for the state. But that is perverse: The parent-child relationship is naturally much deeper and more intimate than that, as I argued earlier. Hence, it is not the state should choose, but the parents. Yet, if it is the parents who should choose, then they need a great deal of space to exercise their choices in accordance to their conscience, particularly within matters of education, sexuality and morality, for each is deeply consequential to the child’s identity, good and life trajectory. In fact, aside from providing the necessities of life, it is hard to think of a contribution more important to the life and good of a child than those aforementioned things.

Yes, right-wingers favor family autonomy, while left-wingers, lawyers, and judges seek to let the state make decisions for children.

Planned software obsolescence is not a myth

The NY Times reports:

The phenomenon of perceived slowdowns is so widespread that many believe tech companies intentionally cripple smartphones and computers to ensure that people buy new ones every few years. Conspiracy theorists call it planned obsolescence.

That’s a myth. While slowdowns happen, they take place for a far less nefarious reason. That reason is a software upgrade.

“There’s no incentive for operating system companies to create planned obsolescence,” said Greg Raiz, a former program manager for Microsoft who worked on Windows XP. “It’s software, and software has various degrees of production bugs and unintended things that happen.”

That guy is lying. The companies certainly have an incentive to induce customers to upgrade to the latest version. Microsoft is notorious for planting logic bombs in Windows 7 and 8 to trick users into upgrading to Windows 10.

Here’s what happens: When tech giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google introduce new hardware, they often release upgrades for their operating systems. For example, a few days before the iPhone 8 shipped in September, Apple released iOS 11 as a free software update for iPhones, including the four-year-old iPhone 5S.

The technical process of upgrading from an old operating system to a new one — migrating your files, apps and settings along the way — is extremely complicated. So when you install a brand-new operating system on an older device, problems may occur that make everything from opening the camera to browsing the web feel sluggish. ...

The good news is that because tech companies are not intentionally neutering your devices, there are remedies ...

This article is contradicting itself. Now it acknowledges that these companies do make software changes that slow down your device, and these changes are timed to coincide with the availability of upgrades that the company wants you to get.

The catch seems to be the word "intentionally". And maybe the word "nefarious".

The companies are certainly intentional about their upgrade policies. They are certainly intentional about writing bigger and slower software on the assumption that you will be buying devices with more memory and faster chips. They are certainly intentional about adopting business strategies that make more money for the company. So how is this different from the "conspiracy theory"?

I guess the Microsoft guy is trying to say that they don't deliberately put in bugs for the explicit purpose of annoying users. Instead the bugs just occur naturally in all the software they write, and they are most conscientious about fixing the bugs in the latest and best-selling products. The "planned obsolescence" is not from deliberately planted bugs, but from bugs that occurred naturally and deliberately not fixed because they were assigned low priority.

This seems like a distinction without a difference to me.

Anglin defends Roy Moore, is censored

The Atlantic mag has an expose of Andrew Anglin:

“I am not actually a ‘Neo-Nazi White Supremacist,’ nor do I know what that is,” he wrote in mid-September. He claimed that his violent rhetoric was never sincere but simply a way to mock those who slap a Nazi label on anyone who “stands up for white people’s rights” or “refuses to believe the stupid lies about Hitler” or rejects the “alleged Holocaust” narrative. Anglin now shared what he said had been his true editorial approach all along: “Ironic Nazism disguised as real Nazism disguised as ironic Nazism.”

Five days later, he posted about “the world being ruled either by reptiles from another dimension or some other type of reptilian or insectoid race of aliens.” Where the irony started and stopped was hard to know. ...

At times while tracking Anglin, I couldn’t help but feel that he was a method actor so committed and demented, on such a long and heavy trip, that he’d permanently lost himself in his role. ...

Who was he if not the king of the Nazi trolls?

He is indeed the king of the Nazi trolls. His Daily Stormer site is back up, but it is regularly shut down and can be hard to find sometimes.

It is clear that Anglin is not really a Nazi, but believes that he would be called a Nazi anyway, so he embraces the term for rhetorical purposes. It is also clear that he does not believe that his political enemies should be allowed to define the boundaries of acceptable discussion.

He is sometimes accused of making violent threats, such as this:

Like many young men on the extreme right, Anglin hadn’t just given up on the idea of the United States as a liberal democracy. He wanted to burn it to the ground. “There is rapidly approaching a time when in every White Western city, corpses will be stacked in the streets as high as men can stack them,” he wrote. “And you are either going to be stacking or getting stacked.”

This is exaggerated, but I do not take it as a threat. If trends continue, I do believe that we are headed for race and religion wars. Open discussion of the issues might be the best way to avoid war.

To give a flavor of Anglin's posts, here is a current rant:

So the situation is, Roy Moore got his money in order by the time he was 32, then he went cruising for a teenage virgin wife. He was doing interviews with these women.

This isn’t weird.

So then they throw in this 14-year-old who says he grabbed her by the pussy, then add some other lying whore.

And based on the accusation alone, all of these cuckolds come out and say he needs to drop out.

Could anything be more obvious than this?

The one guy who is standing up to the establishment just happens to also be the one guy who is a sexual deviant?

What the hell are the chances of that, statistically?

CROWN PRINCE CUCK Paul Ryan of course rushed out right with KING CUCK Mitch McConnell to condemn. ...

I don’t care if this man was fondling jailbait. No one cares about that. What we care about is the fact that our country is being destroyed, and that Roy Moore is set to be the first guy in decades in the Senate that is going to stand up for us. Period.

And he is going to win.

And then revenge begins.

You might not agree with him, but he is posting worthwhile opinions. His site is probably the most censored site in the history of the internet, among sites being censored for political opinions.

Update: Anglin responds. Funny, as usual.

The piece is written by an obsessive failure at life named Luke O’Brien who spent this year tracking and harassing my family and people I went to high school with. I’ve previously published some of the threats, though most of them were over the phone. What he would say is “if you don’t talk to me, you’re protecting him and that makes you part of the story.” That is a threat of defamation.

He had a vendetta against me because when he was writing an article on the Alt-Right for Huffing Post, I published emails where he faked statements from the FBI, which was presumably illegal. ...

Obviously, the article is a product of the Jew editors. The Atlantic is an entirely Jewish publication.

The Editor-in-Chief, Jeffery Goldberg, even does Atlantic events in a synagogue.

The article does everything to try to make Anglin look bad, but some of it is so over-the-top ridiculous that it give the impression that The Atlantic has been trolled. The reader will be impressed that Anglin is important enough to be the cover story.

Update: See also Heartiste, who notes that Anglin is blamed for dumping a girlfriend in high school, when everyone said that the girl was a slut.