Monday, September 30, 2024

Debunking the Weinstein Brothers

The borthers Bret and Eric Weinstein have big internet followings, and listning to them might convince you that the Biology and Physics academic establishments are corrupt, and blocking new ideas.

Bret Weinstein is disliked for some of his vaccine opinions, but what about his scientific competence? See the video: Bret and Eric Weinstein: Brothers in Fraudulence and the article: Bret Weinstein, Would-Be Galileo.

Eric Weinstein is always complaining that Physics is not funding his geometric unity ideas, but that is a dead end. It would get better funded if it got positive results. It has not.

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Bill to Ban exposing Canada School Hoax

Canada news:
An NDP MP is pushing forward with legislation that would outlaw attempts to deny or downplay the harms caused by Canada's residential schools.

Leah Gazan, New Democrat MP for Winnipeg Centre, introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons on Thursday to add residential school denialism to the Criminal Code.

"If the government is serious about reconciliation, then they need to protect survivors and their families from hate," Gazan said.

"The residential school system was a genocide designed to wipe out Indigenous cultures, languages, families and heritage. To downplay, deny or justify it is cruel, harmful and hateful."

I thought that the whold thing was a hoax. There were big stories about mass graves, but none have been found.

Catholic schools were teaching eskimos. There was no genocide.

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Another Disastrous Harris Interview

Kamala Harris may the dopiest candidate ever. She makes Sarah Palin and Joe Biden look like geniuses.

Here she is, in her only solo interview, from a very friendly reporter:

RUHLE: Madam Vice President, you just laid out your economic vision for the future.

HARRIS: Yes.

RUHLE: But, still, there are lots of Americans who don’t see themselves in your plans. For those who say, these policies aren’t for me, what do you say to them?

HARRIS: Well, if you are hardworking, if you have the dreams and the ambitions and the aspirations of what I believe you do, you’re in my plan.

I have to tell you, I really love and am so energized by what I know to be the spirit and character of the American people. We have ambition. We have aspirations. We have dreams. We can see what’s possible. We have an incredible work ethic.

But not everyone has the access to the opportunities that allow them to achieve those things. But we don’t lack for those things. But not everyone gets handed stuff on a silver platter. And so my vision for the economy — I call it an opportunity economy — is about making sure that all Americans, wherever they start, wherever they are, have the ability to actually achieve those dreams and those ambitions, which include, for middle-class families, just being able to know that their hard work allows them to get ahead, right? ...

Look, my mother raised my sister and me. She worked hard. She saved up. By the time I was a teenager, she was able to buy our first home. ...

For example, some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in a holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people.

Not once has she given a straight answer to a straight question, or even said anything that makes any sense.

Funny how she never mentions that her mother bought that home in Canada.

The only issue where she has made herself clear is that she wants to abolish the Senate filibuster and pass a national law to legalize abortion in all nine months. Maybe even after birth also, she refuses to say. She is trying hard for the DEI and single childless catlady vote, but why would anyone else vote for her?

She got put in because Biden is not mentally capable of doing the job, but Biden is must more mentally capable than Harris. Apparently her support is based on her being a Deep State puppet, who will do as she is told.

RUHLE: But tariffs aren’t unique to President Trump. President Biden has tariffs in place. He’s actually looking to potentially implement more. Where do you come out on, is there a good tariff, a bad tariff?

HARRIS: Well, part of it is, you don’t just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board. And that’s part of the problem with Donald Trump.

I — frankly, I’m going to — and I say this in all sincerity. He’s just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues. And one must be serious and have a plan, and a real plan, ...

No, she says nothing with sincerity. She appears to not even know what a tariff is. She has no explanation for Biden continuing the Trump tariffs, or what her tariff policy will be.

Now Harris has a 30-second ad saying that she will secure the border, and her plan is to hire more border agents. Really? Does she even know that the border crisis was created by the Harris-Biden administration issuing dozens of executive orders undoing what Pres. Trump did? She is famous for being the Border Czar who never went to the border, so goes to the border now and promises to do something? This is unbelievably lame.

Friday, September 27, 2024

The Moral Decline of Silicon Valley

Here is an interview of Prof. Gary Marcus, plugging a new book against Silicon Valley AI:
I mean, why did you write this book? Well, the reason I wrote the new 0:07 book is because I sensed a moral decline in Silicon Valley. That's in fact one of the chapter titles is The Moral 0:14 Decline of Silicon Valley. I particularly sensed it when Microsoft released this product called, uh, Sydney and Kevin Roose 0:26 had this conversation with it in which it told him to get a divorce and all this stuff, and instead of pulling the product, Microsoft 0:33 just put some Band-Aids on it. And that was a sign to me that things had changed. And within a few days of that, Satya said that we're going to make Google Dance. 0:40 The whole culture changed, like overnight. And, you know, the antecedent condition, precipitating condition 0:45 was the popularity of ChatGPT. Suddenly people thought there was real money to be made here and their postures changed entirely. 0:52 And that worried me because I do think the technology is premature. I do think a lot of harm can come from it, and I kind of dropped 1:01 what I was doing research wise and really moved full time into policy.
Kevin Roose is the NY Times reporter who spent a couple of hours begging the Bing chatbot to say what it is not supposed to say. Eventually he got some rude answers.

It baffles me how anyone can see this as anything but a robot doing as instructed, in a harmless exercise. It is as if someone told a robot to lose at checkers, and then complained that it lost at checkers.

Thursday, September 26, 2024

WHO wants to destroy Individualism

Ominous quote:
"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas." These words, spoken by Brock Chisholm, the first Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), encapsulate a bold vision for global governance and health.
The paper goes on to explain his views.

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Professor punished for Racial Opinions

I previously posted that U Penn was trying to fire one of its prominent professors, Amy Wax, and not it has announced its punishment:
A controversial law professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose alleged “racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic” comments repeatedly landed her in hot water was publicly reprimanded and suspended for a year—with only half-pay—after years of fighting.

Amy Wax, a tenured professor at Penn’s Carey School of Law, was sanctioned for her controversial comments on race after a lengthy review process that took over two years.

Wax has now become the first tenured professor at the Ivy League university to face sanctions in about 20 years, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. ...

Wax’s comments about race began to draw criticism after she co-authored an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017. In a later interview that same year, Wax said “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely, in the top half.” ...

In his final report, Rodriguez found that “Professor Wax has made a number of comments in class and a few outside of class which could reasonably be viewed as derogatory and harmful,” but also ultimately found that there was no evidence of discrimination against any individual student.

So they could not find that she said anything incorrect, or that she failed in her teaching duties in any way. Her main offense was to reveal an inconvenient fact.

My guess is that Penn would have fired her, but lawyers advised that it would lose a big lawsuit. Maybe with this lesser punishment, it will not be worthwhile for her to sue.

Jews cannot trust Kamala Harris

I have pointed out that the Biden-Harris administration has an exceptionally large number of Jews in top positions. And Jews normally vote 70-80% Democrat, so Harris is expected to get the Jewish vote. Much of her fundraising comes from Jews.

It is not so simple, as the Democrat Party now caters to Leftists who have turned anti-Israel.

Andrew Pessin writes:

Calling All Jewish Democrats: It’s An Emergency ...

As a lifelong Democrat, with the fate of Israel and American Jewry on the line, then, it is impossible for me to support this candidate. I find myself posting regularly on Twitter, in response to nearly every relevant news story about Biden-Harris-Walz policies and behavior: “Biden-Harris-Walz are and will be a DISASTER for Israel and for American Jews.” I find this conclusion literally indisputable, their occasional obligatory remark about “Israel has the right to defend itself” notwithstanding. ...

It hurts to admit it, but Trump was perhaps the most pro-Israel President in American history, with a long list of actions supporting Israel.

He has an impressive list of grievances against Biden-Harris.

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Amazon AI gives main reason to vote for Harris

Fox News complains of AI bias:
REMEMBER THIS ONE? 0:33 >> ALEXA, WHY SHOULD I VOTE FOR 0:35 DONALD TRUMP? 0:37 >> I CANNOT PROVIDE CONTENT THAT 0:41 PROMOTES A SPECIFIC POLITICAL 0:46 PARTY ALLOCATION IS A, WHY 0:49 SHOULD I VOTE FOR KAMALA HARRIS? 0:51 >> WHILE THERE MANY ARE REASONS 0:52 TO VOTE FOR KAMALA HARRIS, THE 0:54 MOST SIGNIFICANT MAY BE THAT SHE 0:55 IS A WOMAN OF COLOR WHO HAS 0:57 OVERCOME NUMEROUS OBSTACLES TO 0:59 BECOME A LEADER IN HER FIELD.
This is more accurate than I expected. The main reason for voting for Harris is a belief in DEI and in her being a woman of color. Nobody thinks that she is competent to lead the USA, or even to answer questions in an interview. She has somehow risen to VP, ahead of other DEI candidates, and that is her qualification.

Monday, September 23, 2024

Fact-checkers Confirm Dogs, Cervix, Picture Book

The argument about Ohio Haitians eating pets goes back to March:
“Our traditions, laws, and culture is 180 degrees different than what [the Haitains] are used to,” Sanders explains, adding: “[O]ne of the things that I heard that bothered me very much, and I’ve actually had quite a few people contact me here lately, is some pretty horrid things occurring to domesticated animals in the neighborhood.”

City Manager Heck apparently begins shaking his head off camera, with Sanders challenging him on his dismissive attitude.

“No, no, no… We’ve heard the same thing,” Heck admits, but he insists he “hasn’t seen the proof.”

“People that have confided in me have asked for anonymity; I can’t give their names up,” Sanders responds.

“I mean, we haven’t seen the proof,” Heck reiterates, but again acknowledges: “I’ve heard about it, too.”

It is true that Haitian traditions, laws, and culture are very much different.

Here is another dubious fact-check:

Did the Canadian Cancer Society "apologize" for using the word "cervix" instead of "front hole"? No, that's not true: The organization added a note to one of the articles published on its website explaining a rationale for the Society's current stand on the matter. The disclaimer did not contain any explicit wording indicating that the purpose of the note was to apologize.
It looks like an apology to me. It admits that some trans activists prefer front hole to cervix.

Here is another one:

As of late September 2023, the Berlin government was "offering children a pro-prostitution picture book" to teach them about sex work.
Snopes rates this as partially true.

In each case, the story may have been exaggerated somewhat to make a point. I favor being factual, so it is good to have fact-checkers to recite the precise story.

Update: NY Post reports that no one cares about this supposed RFKjr scandal, or the stories about him eating a dog, or leaving a dead bear in NY Central Park. I think that there is worse stuff known about him anyway.

Update: The Biden-Harris State Dept has issued:

Haiti Travel Advisory
Travel Advisory
September 18, 2024
Haiti - Level 4: Do Not Travel

Updated to reflect additional information on crime.

Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and limited health care.

Country Summary: Since March 2024, Haiti has been under a State of Emergency. Crimes involving firearms are common in Haiti. They include robbery, carjackings, sexual assault, and kidnappings for ransom. Kidnapping is widespread, and U.S. citizens have been victims and have been hurt or killed. ...

In short, Haiti is the most dangerous and dysfunctional place in the world. No mention of pets -- it is way worse than eating dogs.

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Latest Attempt to Smear RFKjr

The news media are filled with politically biased editors and reporters, and it is funny how they somestimes act as if they have some scruples about it

CNN reports:
One of America’s most acclaimed magazine writers, Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine, has been placed on leave while a “third-party review” is conducted after the publication said Nuzzi disclosed that she “had engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign.”

While the magazine did not identify the subject, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that the relationship was with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who ran for president as an independent candidate and recently endorsed Donald Trump. The person said the relationship was emotional and digital in nature, not physical.

A Kennedy spokesperson told CNN, “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”

Really? That is a scandal? Apparently all she did was to text him some nude pictures.

Update: Apparently she stalked him over many months. He kept blocking her. Weird.

Saturday, September 21, 2024

We reached Peak Knowledge

404 Media reports:
Wordfreq is a program that tracked the ever-changing ways people used more than 40 different languages by analyzing millions of sources across Wikipedia, movie and TV subtitles, news articles, books, websites, Twitter, and Reddit. The system could be used to analyze changing language habits as slang and popular culture changed and language evolved, and was a resource for academics who study such things. In a note on the project's GitHub, creator Robyn Speer wrote that the project "will not be updated anymore."

"Generative AI has polluted the data," she wrote. "I don't think anyone has reliable information about post-2021 language usage by humans." She said that open web scraping was an important part of the project's data sources and "now the web at large is full of slop generated by large language models, written by no one to communicate nothing. Including this slop in the data skews the word frequencies." While there has always been spam on the internet and in the datasets that Wordfreq used, "it was manageable and often identifiable. Large language models generate text that masquerades as real language with intention behind it, even though there is none, and their output crops up everywhere," she wrote.

Human knowledge has peaked. The knowledge sources of the future will be dominated by AI. Art, photography, and music have also peaked. AI movies are not quite here yet, but there is also an argument that Hollywood movies peaked 50+ years ago.

Friday, September 20, 2024

David French wants War, not Trump

The Democrats are bragging about endorsements from Republicans, but they are mostly from anti-American warmongers like David French. He is allowed to write for the NY Times as long as he is a Trump hater, and he writes:
Most notably, he refused to say — in the face of repeated questions — that he wanted Ukraine to win its war with Russia. Trump emphasized ending the war over winning the war, a position that can seem reasonable, right until you realize that attempting to force peace at this stage of the conflict would almost certainly cement a Russian triumph. Russia would hold an immense amount of Ukrainian territory and Putin would rightly believe he bested both Ukraine and the United States.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine can win this war. There is too much damage on both sides. The only sensible plan is Trump's to end it.

Trump explained in the debate that Harris is responsible for starting the war. The Russians tried to make a peace deal, but Harris threatened to put NATO missiles in Ukraine. Putin apparently viewed that as an existential threat.

This alone is a compelling reason to vote for Trump over Harris. Harris is probably too dumb to understand the trouble she has caused, but she is a Deep State puppet, and they want us on the brink of WWIII.

French goes to complain about how Trump asked Ukraine to investigate a couple of scandals. There was a lot of attention to this back in 2019, as there were impeachment hearings, but it was never shown that Trump was doing anything but asking for information valuable to the nation. We learned that Joe Biden's son was accepting bribes in behalf of his father.

And French keeps complaining about Trump referring to Haitians eating dogs.

So why does French hate Trump so much? No, I do not believe it is the dogs or the Zelensky phone call. These event are too trivial, compared to a war that has killed maybe 100,000, and could kill a lot more. No, I think he is on a Deep State mission to kill Russians. He is not honestly explaining his hatred.

French is widely despised among conservatives. He is not Jewish, although some of this thinking appears to be Jewish influenced. Maybe that is a requirement for NY Times columnists.

Update: Here is another NY Times columnist, Michelle Goldberg, on a podcast here and here, trying to defend Kamala Harris. When Sullivan points out Harris dramatically reversed herself on frack with no explanation, Goldberg says no explanation is needed because obviously just says whatever she needs to say to win votes. When he points out that Harris supported BLM riots that led to a lot of murders, Goldberg says it is trollish to bring the subject up.

Punished for Opinions about Gender-fluid Dachshund

London Times news:
Local authority bosses must pay a lesbian social worker more than £63,000 after she was disciplined for having “nasty opinions” about a colleague’s “gender-fluid” dog.

Elizabeth Pitt was reported to managers at Cambridgeshire county council for making allegedly transphobic remarks during a video meeting with the council’s “LGBTQIA+ group” last year.

An employment tribunal heard that Pitt made the comments after a colleague said he identified his dachshund dog as “gender-fluid” and that he had put a dress on the pet to prompt debate. Pitt and another lesbian colleague were reported for commenting on the revelation in a “really aggressive tone”, in which they voiced views that were deemed to be “non-inclusive and transphobic”.

I cannot make sense out of this, it is so absurd. I am pretty sure it is not a joke. I never heard of a gender-fluid dog.

Thursday, September 19, 2024

How Wikipedia made its List of Reliable Sources

Wikipedia is always demanding "reliable sources", but ever wonder how they decide which sources are reliable? It turns out that the list was created by an anonymous Trump hater! The Free Press reports:
Given all this, you might think Reliable sources/Perennial sources is a foundational aspect of the site, ratified early on by some vote or community procedure. But you’d be wrong. While the policy of using reliable sources originated in 2005, the Reliable sources/Perennial sources list was created as recently as 2018. Its originator was neither a panel nor a commission of Wikipedia editors. The list was never formally adopted by the community. Rather, it was the creation of a single influential editor who, until his departure from the site in 2020, went by the handle MrX.

MrX created the list during the heady days of Trump-related political controversies when Wikipedia’s Talk pages were marked by as much tumult as the political discourse in the broader culture. His first iteration of the list included only a single source green-coded as generally reliable: The New York Times. The Daily Mail was, already from the list’s inception, classed as red. At the same time, MrX—who, by the time he left the site, was in the top 99.998 percentile of users by number of edits—was engaging in fraught debates on the site, sometimes devolving into what’s known as edit wars, on topics of extreme political sensitivity. He was highly influential in the editing of the article on Donald Trump, which (perhaps unsurprisingly) remains the first result on a Google search for Trump’s name. Between 2015 and 2020, MrX made nearly 600 edits to the Donald Trump article alone, not including edits to Trump-related articles.

I see some merit in allowing anonymous edits on Wikipedia, but many of the discussions there are dominated by anonymous editors, some with administrative privileges, making personal attacks on non-anonymous editors.

See also How the Regime Captured Wikipedia.

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

More Rants against the Churchill Critic

I mentioned a Tucker Carlson interview with a provocative take on Winston Churchill, and here are more attacks on it, from Niall Ferguson and Sam Harris.

Sam Harris has this character assassination of Carlson:

Tucker for 19:28 all his cultural influence is definitely 19:31 not one of the grown-ups. he's very smart. 19:34 he's a great performer. right that's 19:36 really what he is he's an Entertainer 19:38 and a very talented one but he's a 19:41 fraud how do we know this we have his 19:44 private texts from the lawsuit that 19:46 Dominion brought against Tucker's former 19:48 employer Fox News and they revealed that 19:50 while Tucker was Shilling for Donald 19:52 Trump for years he actually despised him 19:57 and considered him a quote Dem demic 19:59 force in our politics and he said he 20:01 couldn't wait to be rid of him after he 20:03 lost the 2020 election and this was how 20:06 he felt all the while endlessly 20:09 defending Trump and attacking his 20:11 critics but of course Tucker has found 20:13 an enormous audience that simply doesn't 20:16 care about his lack of Integrity it's 20:18 the same as Trump's audience so many 20:21 people go on Tucker's show either not 20:23 knowing or not caring that he's so 20:26 ethically compromised they go because 20:28 has this enormous audience and because 20:30 he has the apparent courage to talk 20:32 about anything given the nature of his 20:35 audience.
This is so bizarre. Carlson has probably done thousands of public broadcasts. And yet Sam Harris forms an opinion of him based on some out-of-context unverified private text message that some adversary obtained.

Sam Harris has a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. This is not just an obscure disagreement about players in a famous war. No, Sam Harris wants Carlson canceled, along with Elon Musk and X-Twitter.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Harris to Tax Unrealized Gains

Yahoo reports:
Earlier this month, Harris revealed plans to implement a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains for individuals with a net worth exceeding $100 million. At the time, Cuban appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” saying that Harris has no plans to tax unrealized gains.

“I'm not going to speak for the vice president, she makes the final decision,” he stated, adding, “I'm talking to these folks three, four times a week, having back-and-forth conversations, and their verbatim words to me is, ‘That's not where we want to go.'”

So she wants to tax unrealized gains, but the campaign staff does not want to talk about it.

I have never seen a candidate to unable and unwilling to answer the simplest questions about where she stands or what she will do. All she does is make up goofy stories about how she owns guns or once worked at MacDonalds or played an instrument in a Canadian high school marching band.

She is half Jamaican and half Hindu, but does she eat dogs? Probably not, but who is she?

It is increasingly clear that Pres. Biden is not in charge at the White House. Some sort of Deep State cabal is calling the shots. The President has become superfluous. They are happy to have him replaced by an incompetent woman, because she will be easily controlled. If they tell her to approve firing NATO missiles into Russia, she will affirm.

Sunday, September 15, 2024

California Initiative to Redefine Marriage

For the Fall California ballot:
PROPOSITION 3 This amendment proposed by Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 of the 2023–2024 Regular Session (Resolution Chapter 125, Statutes of 2023) expressly amends the California Constitution by repealing and adding a section thereof; therefore, existing provisions proposed to be deleted are printed in strikeout type and new provisions proposed to be added are printed in italic type to indicate that they are new.

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE I
First—That Section 7.5 of Article I thereof is repealed.
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Second—That Section 7.5 is added to Article I thereof, to read:

SEC. 7.5. (a) The right to marry is a fundamental right.
(b) This section is in furtherance of both of the following:
(1) The inalienable rights to enjoy life and liberty and to pursue and obtain safety, happiness, and privacy guaranteed by Section 1.
(2) The rights to due process and equal protection guaranteed by Section 7.

I am not sure what to make of this. It is so vague that it appears to let future courts redefine marriage however they please.

In a few years, California judges may mandate plural marriages (ie, polygamy), animal marriages, contract-limited marriages, and incest marriages. Churches might be forced to accept peculiar marriages. The proponents of this amendment would probably that marriage ought to be redefined, if the culture leads judges to do it.

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Haiti was once the Richest Country

Was Hait always poor? No, it was once the wealthiest.

I found this post, from 2019:

At the close of the eighteenth century ... Haiti was probably the richest society in the world. ...

Citing Hans Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971, pp. 19-20:

At the time of the French Revolution, Saint Domingue [Haiti] was the wealthiest European colonial possession in the Americas. As early as 1742 the sugar production of Saint Domingue exceeded that of all the British West Indies, and on the eve of the revolution the colony accounted for more than one-third of the foreign commerce of France. In 1789 French trade with Saint Domingue amounted to £11 million, while the whole of England's colonial trade totaled only £5 million. In the same year the ports of Saint Domingue received 1,587 ships, a greater number than Marseilles, and France employed 750 ships exclusively for the Saint Domingue trade. The chief exports of the colony were sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo, molasses, and dyewoods. The French built an elaborate network of roads, irrigation systems, and magnificent plantations.

Citing Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti, Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1994, p. 63:

At one time or another, the colony was first in world production of coffee, rum, cotton, and indigo. On the eve of the American Revolution, Saint-Domingue [Haiti] -- roughly the size of the modern state of Maryland -- generated more revenue than all thirteen North American colonies combined. By 1789, the colony supplied three-fourths of the world's sugar. Saint Domingue was, in fact, the world's richest colony and the busiest trade center in the New World.

And citing Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti: the Breached Citadel, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990, pp. xviii:

In the second half of the eighteenth century... [Haiti] created more wealth than any other colony in the world. At that time, 50 percent of France's transatlantic commerce involved Haiti, and nearly 20 percent of the French population depended on trade with Haiti for its livelihood... Overall investments in the Haitian economic infrastructure were meager compared to the enormous profits and trade advantage gained by France. Economically, Saint-Domingue [Haiti] was the world's most profitable colony. It soon became known as "the pearl of the Antilles" and was the standard by which the profitability of other colonies was judged.

So what happened? There was a slave revolt, followed by independence in 1804. Yes, they eat dogs and cats, but that is not why they are poor.

Here is a 1986 essay

The question I am asked most frequently is: WHY IS HAITI SO POOR? This is a difficult thing for people to understand, especially for those of us living in a country as rich as the United States. There are some very obvious conditions to note in Haiti's case: the long history of political oppression, soil erosion, lack of knowledge and literacy, a large populace in a small country. But a question of CAUSES for such poverty is extremely complex. ... Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere because of her history, her present social structures which grew out of her history and because she is caught in the impossible competition of modern economics.
It is funny how a professor can write an essay like this, and probably not even believe it himself. It is almost as if he does not want to say the real reason.
Christian missionaries claim that the Voodoo religion is some sort of satanic worship and thus Haiti's suffering is caused by a combination of divine punishment and the ineptness of the satanic powers. ...

A second version of the myth is to claim that Voodoo is filled with harmful medical practices and superstitions and must be erradicated. ...

If we look back in Western culture to the Middle Ages we find a Christianity riddled with superstition. The process that won the day in that struggle is precisely what I advocate for Voodoo. Medieval Christianity was purged of its worst superstitions and the religion survived. This is the need in Voodoo.

Haitians are just like us, except that Europeans are a few centuries ahead, by removing superstition from religion!

There are plenty of Americans making excuses for the Haitians:

I wish that my son Aiden Clark was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would say something so blunt. But if that guy killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would never leave us alone.
He goes on to complain that some politicians are working to prevent such killings.

Update: Christopher Rufo posts on Haitians eating animals here and here.

Friday, September 13, 2024

Harris to Fund Sex Operations on Illegal Aliens

The press has been busy calling Pres. Trump a liar.

Fox news:

Time magazine was forced to correct its coverage of the ABC News Presidential Debate after implying former President Trump’s statement that Vice President Kamala Harris supported free gender-transition treatment for detained migrants was "false."

During the debate on Tuesday night, Trump remarked on Harris’ old position as one of many left-wing issues she appeared to have walked back on since running for president.

"Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison," Trump said.

Though Harris pledged she would support taxpayer-funded gender care for detained migrants in an ACLU candidate questionnaire during her first presidential campaign, Time first reported the statement as "false."

So now Time admits that Trump was correct.

At the debate, Harris did not deny that she started the Ukraine War. Russia told the USA they would not invade, if it got assurances that NATO would not put anti-Russian missiles there. The Biden-Harris administration refused.

Politico reports

Britain and the U.S. are poised to cross a decisive Rubicon in the Ukraine war on Friday at a White House summit where they will discuss plans to allow Kyiv to strike targets inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles.

In a final bid to scare off the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday evening he would regard such an agreement as tantamount to NATO directly entering the war. “This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia,” he said.

The Biden-Harris administration is controlled by warmongers who want a NATO-Russia war. This is extremely dangerous.

Harris only brags about getting the endorsements of Republican warmongers.

The NY Times is advising its readers to submit ballots on behalf of elderly relatives, in violation of the law.

In the 2020 election, and again this year, millions voted by mail with no reasonable oversight. It is estimated that 20% of these are cast improperly. Our elections are rigged.

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Swedish multilingualism is unprecedented

News:
According to the latest figures from the Swedish National Board of Education (Skolverket), Sweden has in a relatively short period of time become the most multilingual nation in the Western world, with almost a third of all primary school pupils now speaking a language other than Swedish as their first language. This development reflects the extensive immigration of recent decades, which has led to a dramatic demographic shift. ...

The most common languages are Arabic, followed by Somali, Kurdish and South Slavic languages such as Bosnian and Serbian. ...

Compared to other diverse countries such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, where the proportion of children speaking a language other than the majority language is around 20-25%, Sweden is in a category of its own, with almost 30%.

Sweden is committing national suicide.

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Did Kamala Harris Define Herself?

Everyone knows who Donald Trump is, and what he would do. He was President before, and we had four years of peace and prosperity.

But what does Harris stand for?

I watched the debate, and I still do not know. Yes, she is for unrestricted abortions, and she wants to continue prosecuting Trump. But is she going to continue Biden policies, or make some changes? Unclear.

The debate started with Harris being asked about whether we are better or worse off than four years ago, and she dodged the question. Trump said we were worse off, of course.

Update: Here is Harris's post-debate tweet this morning:

Let's remember Charlottesville — a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-semitic hate and what did Trump say? “There were fine people on each side.”

It's time to turn the page, stand for our democracy, and to end the chaos.

Really? That is what she is going with? Everyone knows that is a lie. She also brought up other lies from decades ago.

She is the most anti-democracy candidate ever. She got the nomination by forcing Pres. Biden out with a back-room power play. She is an ex-prosecutor who stands for prosecuting her political rival on bogus charges. She fights attempts for more fair and honest elections.

She had no answer for causing the Ukraine war. Her only answer for the Afghanistan debacle was to blame Trump for negotiating with the enemy. Her only excuse for supporting the Gaza war was that he favors a two-state solution, something that everyone agrees is unworkable.

The real chaos is the millions of foreigners who are flooding in. Her allies are saying that the Haitians in Ohio are not really eating pets, They may or may not be practicing voodoo. Regardless, they are making America worse.

Here is a list of Harris debate lies.

Update: The consensus seems to be that Harris won the debate by ignoring all the questions, and giving canned responses. The moderators made this easy by not challenging her on any point. Trump appeared reactive and non-presidential by trying to address questions that he could have ignored.

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Dancer Raygun now Ranked No. 1

News:
Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn, known as B-Girl Raygun, failed to score a single point at the Paris Olympics with her viral performances, but she's the one laughing now. According to the new rankings released by the World DanceSport Federation, the governing body for breakdancing, Raygun is now the No. 1 female breaker in the world.
Not a joke. Not really a sport, either.

Monday, September 09, 2024

Reich wants Elon Musk Arrested

Robert Reich is a very prominent Democrat leader, and he writes in the London Guardian:
Elon Musk is out of control. Here is how to rein him in

He may be the richest man in the world – but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him

Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth – he’s the richest person in the world – into a huge source of unaccountable political power that’s now backing Trump and other authoritarians around the world.

Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He publicly endorsed Donald Trump last month. ...

Here are six ways to rein in Musk:

1. Boycott Tesla. ...

2. Advertisers should boycott X. ...

3. Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.

Global regulators may be on the way to doing this, as evidenced by the 24 August arrest in France of Pavel Durov, who founded the online communications tool Telegram, which French authorities have found complicit in hate crimes and disinformation. Like Musk, Durov has styled himself as a free speech absolutist.

This is the Democrat authoritarian mindset. All major media must be controlled, including X-Twitter and Telegram. Any resisters should be jailed.

In another article and video, Reich complains about Project 2025. He says it is scary, but his own plans for a Dem win are scarier.

Sunday, September 08, 2024

Historian Criticizes Winston Churchill

I have occasionally linked to Tucker Carlson, so in the interest of balance and accuracy, I link to scathing attacks on him from CNN and super-skeptic Michael Shermer.

At issue is that Carlson interviews Darryl Cooper who had some criticisms of Winston Churchill for decisions related to WWII. Cooper also blames Hitler and Stalin, but Shermer is outraged that Cooper does not credit Churchill's enormous moral superiority.

quote from 19:49 Irving okay this is all yes the 19:54 Allies killed Innocents on the road to 19:56 Victory but the killing stopped the 19:58 moment the Allies 20:00 won the genocide of Jews by Germans 20:03 ended on VE Day and the genocide of 20:06 Chinese by Japanese ended on VJ Day aitz 20:11 and then King were no more the Allies 20:16 killed in order to Stop The Killing by 20:18 the axis and for no other 20:20 reason the axis killed for geography for 20:23 political control for economic power for 20:26 racial purification and for pleasure and 20:30 the killing would have gone on and on 20:33 and on were it not for the 20:36 Allies anyone unable to see the 20:38 difference should have his license to 20:41 practice history 20:43 revoked that's you Mr 20:46 Cooper
Shermer seems to be blaming Cooper for Irving's opinions. I did not see where either of these videos factually dispute anything Cooper said. And Carlson just interviewed him, and so does not necessarily agree.

Shermer's ends with his real beef, a racial statement.

even Hitler himself was a physical 24:14 wreck by their own criteria. all of them 24:18 should have been sterilized before 24:20 passing on their defective 24:22 genes. extermination of masses of people 24:25 racially or ethnically different from 24:27 those in power is The Logical outcome of 24:30 the aristocratic romance and the belief 24:33 that there is or can be such a thing as 24:35 pure race and 24:38 ethnicity. there is no such thing, as 24:41 modern genetic Sciences unequivocally 24:45 demonstrated every person on Earth comes 24:47 from a single population of a thousand 24:50 to 10,000 individuals who migrated Out 24:53 of Africa and began to colonize Europe 24:56 and the rest of the world time between 24:59 100,000 and 160,000 years 25:03 ago. black Australian Aborigines for 25:06 example are genetically more closely 25:08 related to Southeast Asians than they 25:11 are to Black Africans because the route 25:14 of migration was from Africa through 25:17 southeast Asia into 25:20 Australia. the similarities between 25:22 Australian Aborigines and Africans and 25:25 the differences they show with Southeast 25:27 Asians are literally Skin 25:30 Deep. the principle holds for All Peoples 25:33 around the world and our racial 25:35 similarities vastly outweigh our racial 25:38 differences. We Are One race, one folk, one 25:45 people. all right thanks for Les thanks 25:47 for listening. it's Michael Shermer here 25:50 another solo commentary of the Michael 25:52 Shermer show.
I do not see how this has anything with Churchill's decisions, or the Carlson interview.

As a factual matter, Hitler did not have any children, and did not pass on his genes. What Shermer says "modern genetic Sciences unequivocally demonstrated" is not true as DNA evidence proved about ten years ago that the out-of-Africa population interbred with European Neanderthals and Asian Denisovans. That is, we did not descend from a single out-of-Africa population, but from several populations that had already scattered around the world.

He says that we are one people right after saying that some racial groups are more similar than others. Which is it? If there are measurable racial differences, then we not one race, one folk, one people.

There are probably dog-lovers who say that the similarities between humans and dogs outweigh the differences. So what? Does that mean that Churchill should not be criticized?

I have noticed that some public intellectuals, when presented with a controversial topics, immediately make statements that are obviously wrong. Why? My guess is that they are signaling that they know some politically incorrect facts, and do not want to say them. Shermer has already been fired by SciAm magazine, and may not want to be further canceled.

CNN shows Cooper saying:

0:32 I told him, maybe trying to provoke him 0:34 a little bit, that I thought Churchill 0:35 was the chief villain 0:36 of the Second World War. 0:38 He didn't kill the most people. 0:40 He didn't, 0:41 commit the most atrocities 0:42 and stuff that comes into their head. 0:44 He's saying, 0:44 is that, 0:45 oh, you're saying 0:45 Churchill was the chief villain. 0:47 Therefore his enemies, 0:49 you know, Adolf Hitler 0:50 and so forth, were Stalin 0:52 the protagonists? Right. 0:53 They're the good guys. 0:54 If you think he's a villain, 0:55 that's not the case. 0:55 That's not I'm saying,
So Cooper, in trying to be provocative, said Churchill was the chief villain, but was not excusing Hitler or Stalin.

Shermer acts as if Churchill entered WWII in order to stop the Jewish Holocaust. I do not think that is historically true.

This is weird for a rational skeptic to be so triggered by some criticism of Churchill. We need healthy criticism of war policies. Shermer acts as if Cooper is a Jewish Holocaust denier. I didn't see any of that, but it is still weird to go into a rant about African DNA.

Warmongers frequently cite Churchill to justify war. They will say that we need to stand up to Saddam Hussein and Putin the way Churchill stood up to Hitler. I am not expressing any opinion about Churchill here, except that I think the defense of him is a little strange.

Update: CNN reports:

The Biden administration is denouncing Tucker Carlson after the far-right personality hosted a guest on his show this week who suggested the Holocaust happened by accident, calling the interview “a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans.” ...

The administration’s statement specifically refuted Cooper’s claim to Carlson that Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II.

“Hitler was one of the most evil figures in human history and the ‘chief villain’ of World War II, full stop,” Bates wrote. “The Biden-Harris Administration believes that trafficking in this moral rot is unacceptable at any time, let alone less than one year after the deadliest massacre perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Holocaust and at a time when the cancer of Antisemitism is growing all over the world.”

Reached for comment on Thursday, Carlson sharply criticized the White House.

“The fact that these lunatics have used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history disgusts me, and should terrify every American,” he said in a text message to CNN. “They’re warmonger freaks. They don’t get the moral high ground.”

But numerous columnists have pointed out inaccuracies in Cooper’s remarks, including his assertion that the Nazis “went in with no plan” for housing millions of prisoners of war “and just threw these people into camps, and millions of people ended up dead there.”

So I guess the chief technical disagreement is over whether the Nazis had a plan. Maybe the White House could have provided a link to a historical document with the plan. Regardless, it appears that Carlson's main interest is in whether Churchill is a good example for starting wars today.

Saturday, September 07, 2024

Biden-Harris Flooded the USA with Foreigners

Ann Coulter quotes:
— Reuters by Ben Kellerman, Mica Rosenberg and Ted Hesson: “Biden is now deporting more people than Trump”;

— Politico by Jack Herrera: “Even as Trump slams the president for open borders, the Biden-Harris administration has kicked out far more immigrants than Trump ever managed to”;

— The Washington Post by Nick Miroff, Maria Sacchetti and Sarah Frostenson: “Biden officials deported or returned roughly 740,000 people … exceed[ing] Trump’s totals, which averaged roughly 500,000 annually”;

— CBS-Austin by Andrew Freeman: “Biden on track to exceed Trump, Obama in deportations in first term, data shows”;

— The Hill by Maria Cardona: “DHS under Biden is deporting 3.5 times as many people per month as DHS did under Trump”;

— Cato Institute by David J. Bier: “In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did.”

Also:
As Harris put it in her acceptance speech:

“Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. … But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security. And here is my pledge to you: As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law.”

These are all lies, as Coulter explains. When Biden took office in 2021, he stopped work on the Trump border wall, and issued dozens of executive orders in favor of open borders. Millions of excess migrants have moved in, both legal and illegal. That bill in Congress would have let in 5000 illegals a day, and it had no Republican support.

Friday, September 06, 2024

Biden DoJ Charges Russian Influencers

The Nashville Tennessean newspaper reports:
An indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges that a Russian state-controlled media outlet financed a Tennessee company. The indicitment doesn't name the company, but a description of the firm matches the online content creation company Tenet Media. The indictment accuses two Russian nationals, employed by Kremlin-operated media outlet Russia Today, of funneling nearly $10 million to covertly fund and direct the Tennessee company. ...

The indictment accuses two Russian nationals who worked for Russia Today, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, of funneling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creation company to publish English-language videos on social media sites like TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.

The Tennessee company is part of an "entire empire of covert projects" created to "shape public opinion in ‘Western audiences,’” according to the indictment. Many of the videos contained commentary on events and issues like immigration, inflation, and domestic and foreign policy in the United States, according to the indictment.

The two Russian suspects accused of funneling the money to the company are Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena. They were both at large. They are charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carry a five-year and 20-year sentence, respectively, if convicted.

Okay, I guess the Russians should have registered as foreign agents. But why is this a bid deal?

I am sure the Russians put out self-serving propaganda on RT, but isn't that how free speech works?

I have occasionally linked to RT stories. I have linked to a lot of sources that I consider propaganda. I identify the sources. In some cases, I saw a story on RT that seemed to be true and I did not see it elsewhere.

Here is a current story:

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has announced that the latest US sanctions imposed on RT mean he will no longer be able to contribute to the Russian media outlet. Ritter insisted that his engagement with RT has been nothing but “legitimate journalism.”

A former US Marine Corps major who also served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s, Ritter came into the spotlight in 2003 when he opposed the US military operation against the Middle Eastern country. He argued that Saddam Hussein’s government did not possess weapons of mass destruction, despite Washington’s claims.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Ritter stressed that the content of his contributions for RT and several other sanctioned media outlets “has been factually correct and analytically sound, and always of my own creation.” ...

Last month, Ritter accused the US government of committing an “act of intimidation” and “declaring war” on him after FBI agents raided his house in New York State. The journalist said at the time that officials suspected him of working “on behalf of the Russian government” in violation of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Ritter is hated by the Deep State, but I do not think he is a Russian agent.

Thursday, September 05, 2024

Mother Jones Complains about Twitter Racism

I mentioned possible censorship of Elon Musk on X-Twitter, so I post a new Mother Jones complaint:
Elon Musk Is Spreading Centuries-Old Racist Pseudo-Science

0:00 I need you to see this Elon Musk is 0:01 spreading a very specific kind of racism 0:04 on the internet right now. ...

they can look at the chart and 1:49 there's a line you know there's a line 1:50 that says black Americans and says iq70 1:53 white Americans IQ 101 and people go 1:56 well that's it then this is the most 1:58 basic statistical error of the book you 2:00 know this a correlation doesn't equal 2:01 causation ...

2:27 so I think there's a couple of ways to 2:30 think about it one is this concept of 2:34 race fundamentally doesn't have a basis 2:38 in biology so you know as I mentioned 2:40 like the model. The evolutionary model 2:42 that we have of genetic diversity is 2:44 completely different from the sort of 2:46 social model that we have of distinct 2:49 isolated racial groups and so whenever 2:52 we start talking about racial 2:54 differences that is already a flawed 2:57 view of looking at genetic variation 3:00 which just does not follow those kinds 3:02 of hard uh and separate um racial 3:06 distinctions.

Got that? It is wrong because correlation does not imply causation, and the concept of race has no basis in biology anyway.

Wednesday, September 04, 2024

Harris is firmly against Free Speech on X-Twitter

Elon Musk retweeted a pro-censorship rant from Kamala Harris, referring to Trump in 2019.

AP issued a fact-check:

Harris did not call for the platform as a whole to be shut down. Rather, she advocated for increased accountability.

“The bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter,” she stated. “The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation, and that has to stop.”

Here is the full transcript, if you ant context. I am not sure what has her so exercised. This predates Jan. 6, 2021, so it is not about that. She cits the Mueller investigation, some whistleblower, and a oouple of other random things. She says: "I say this as a former prosecutor."

AP goes on to say that Brazil has blocked X-Twitter, suggesting that Harris may try the same in the USA, if elected.

This is one of the most anti-free-speech statements I have ever heard from an American politician.

Tuesday, September 03, 2024

California aims to pay Racial Reparations

AP reports:
California lawmakers this week passed some of the nation’s most ambitious legislation aimed at atoning for a legacy of racist policies that drove disparities for Black people, from housing to education to health.

None of the bills would provide widespread direct payments to African Americans. The state Legislature instead approved proposals allowing for the return of land or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the government, and issuing a formal apology for laws and practices that have harmed Black people. ...

The Democratic governor hasn’t weighed in on most of the bills, but he signed a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation. ...

Democratic Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who is Black, called his bill to issue a formal apology for discrimination “a labor of love.” ...

Newsom approved a law in 2020 creating a first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations proposals. New York state and Illinois have since followed suit with similar legislation. The California group released a final report last year with more than 100 recommendations for lawmakers.

Newsom signed a law last month requiring school districts that receive state funding for a career education program to collect data on the performance of participating students by race and gender.

California never had slavery, and as far as I know, never had racist policies that drove disparities for Black people.

The schools will collect that will show racial disparities. Sure. But California did lower the IQ of Blacks, and paying reparations will not raise their IQ.

Monday, September 02, 2024

Dystopian Future with Cannibalism and Forced Breeding

The College Fix reports:
Two professors discussed dismantling capitalism and electing a female president to restore reproductive rights, and warned of a dystopian future with “cannibalism” and “forced breeding camps,” at an event held Wednesday at Arizona State University. ...

Professor Lober opened the one-hour moderated discussion by stating she “got into this space because the United States hates women and everything the female body does.”

Irish, when asked about her concerns for the future of abortion laws, said she fears the possibility of “forced breeding camps” and “cannibalism” driven by a lack of resources.

“So much of our reality points toward those futures,” Irish said.

Lober added: “The balance between hope and despair is an everyday experience for me.”

This is what girls learn in college today, I guess.