Between January and May 2023, Swedish police recorded on average one completed bomb detonation every two days. If you add the bombs that were in preparation, but not yet detonated, Sweden experienced one explosives-related crime per day. Rival gangs increasingly continue to target each other’s relatives with revenge attacks.In early May 2023, National Police Commissioner Anders Thornberg stated that more than 1,000 people are initiated into criminal gangs across Sweden every year. ...
And after all of this only twenty percent of the populace is in favor of allowing firearms for self defense. ...
Unfortunately, Sweden’s fate at the hands of their Coloured “guests” was both predictable (I’ve been posting about it on fb since at least 2016!) and, to the surprise of no one reading this, self-inflicted—karma doesn’t have a menu, you get served what you deserve. ...
It isn’t native, white Swedes that are in these gangs. This is a wholly imported and self-inflicted problem. ...
The perplexing thing is that many modern Swedes are descended from ancestors of that warrior race the Vikings. But whatever it is that animated those warriors of old, the modern Swedes appear to lack.
Singular Values
Nunquam praescriptos transibunt sidera fines
Sunday, June 04, 2023
Sweden Became a Gangster’s Paradise
Saturday, June 03, 2023
The Future is Trans
Twitter canceled a deal with @realdailywire to premiere What is a Woman? for free on the platform because of two instances of “misgendering.” ...From a Time magazine essay:Specifically: In the film, a father refers to his 14-year-old daughter as “her,” and a store owner uses the “wrong” pronoun in a confrontation with a trans person.
Trans people are not new. We have always been here. As long as there’s been recorded human history, we have always existed. But we have been written out of the human story ...Now Elon Musk has personally approved the movie on Twitter, and fired the chief censor.So there cannot be Black Lives Matter without the centering of Black trans women. Because if we’re able to secure the rights for the most marginalized, then everyone is going to have rights. What we’re proposing in this latest BLM moment is a reimagination and an expansion of Blackness—and a fundamental understanding that we’re all going, or none of us is.
Black trans women are essential to creating the future, because when everything fails you, you’re more clearly able to reimagine what it would look like if things worked. This is why Black trans women are, in many cases, the most visionary and progressive leaders within social justice movements.
Twitter is now worth only a third of what Musk and his co-investors paid.
Google YouTube announced:
with 2024 campaigns well underway, we will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections.Many USA elections have been questionable, and a free society must allow dissenters to say that the election was stolen. This policy was a purely partisan attempt to make sure Trump leaves the White House.
Update: I watched the movie. It does not misgender anyone. The complaint is bizarre. It does mention a father who was punished for supposedly misgendering his daughter. That is, he used "she" to describe a girl. The movie itself just reports the story, which might be of interest to anyone, regardless of favorite pronoun policy.
Friday, June 02, 2023
The Great AI Panic
AI experts, journalists, policymakers, and the public are increasingly discussing a broad spectrum of important and urgent risks from AI. Even so, it can be difficult to voice concerns about some of advanced AI’s most severe risks. The succinct statement below aims to overcome this obstacle and open up discussion. It is also meant to create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously.For details, see the 8 Examples of AI Risk. Here is a paper with more examples. Or Wikipedia on AI Alignment.Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.
The OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before Congress that AI was so dangerous that it needed to be regulated. Congress showed no interest in any of his suggestions.
An exception is Yann LeCun. He says that the USA would not exist, if not for the French philosophers who inspired the French Revolution, and we similarly need open large language AI models in order to inspire future products. See this lecture.
Wow. Do Frenchmen really think that?
Here is another expert opinion, saying that the warnings are alarmist and unproductive. We are more likely to avoid extinction if the technologies are more widely worked on.
The LLMs require special expertise and millions of dollars to develop, so the market will probably be dominated by a couple of large tech companies. But let's consider the extreme alternatives -- that US government regulators control development and use of the good LLMs, and that the LLMs get open-sourced where anyone can use them.
Going down the list of 8 risks, several of them appear much higher if centrally regulated. Such LLMs are more likely to spread misinformation, be used for proxy gaming, seek power, lock in value, etc. With open LLMs in the market, we are more likely to be able to choose the more reliable information, safer use, etc.
Possibly allowing unrestricted use of LLMs would allow non-state actors to weaponize them. I assume that USA, China, and Russia are pursuing military applications, and will not pay attention to regulators.
I am wondering what is behind this. I am sure Eliezer Yudkowsky sincerely believes in the dangers of AI, but he is not on the recent letters.
There is no specific regulation proposal, nor any explanation as to how it would ameliorate the dangers.
Possibly they are looking for regulatory capture, in order to lock in the market for big companies, and make it impossible for small players to competer.
Maybe it is some sort of virtue signaling, where they can appear to be responsible citizens, while they kill 50 million jobs.
Maybe they are all just typical authoritarian leftists. They see the new AI as powerful and influential, and they want leftists to control it.
Either way, I think it is a con job.
Update: An ex-Googler says people should not have kids now, because of the uncertainty of AI. He had a child die, and he would not want to bring that child back. He also mumbles something about geopolitical economics and climate change.
Thursday, June 01, 2023
The $70 Trillion Debt
While much of the focus is on having wealthy governments pay their fair share, a new study argues that fossil fuel companies should pay “climate reparations,” too.The paper says the fossil fuel debt is $70 trillion.In a recent peer-reviewed paper published in One Earth, researchers used data on emissions tied to the world’s 21 top polluting companies to determine just how much and landed on a total of $5.4 trillion over a period of 26 years. The largest sum would come from Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, which would be responsible for $1.1 trillion, or $42.7 billion per year, followed by Russia’s state-owned Gazprom, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron....
The researchers also decided that companies from less wealthy countries, including Gazprom and Mexico’s Pemex, should pay only half the sum their emissions would suggest. Those from developing nations, including Algeria, India and Venezuela, were deemed not responsible for reparations at all.
“It seems arbitrary and it is,” Heede said.
CNN:
In the first quarter of 2019, the United States’ total public- and private-sector debt amounted to nearly $70 trillion, according to research by the Institute of International Finance. Federal government debt and liabilities of private corporations excluding banks both hit new highs.Those are not the only $70 trillion debts:
In his book, Rochester breaks down how racism and discrimination have cost Black Americans trillions of dollars over the course of several generations — $70 trillion, by Rochester's estimate — and how discrimination has created the massive racial wealth gap that exists today.Are all these debts $70 trillion by coincidence? Or is that just the biggest number that economists can conceive of?
Saying that the oil companies owe us $70T is saying that we would be $70T richer if no oil or gas had ever been extracted from the ground. No, that is absurd. The oil and gas has made us $70T richer.
Without fossil fuels, we would all be farmers, and not have any modern conveniences. Several billion people would have starved to death.
Possibly we would be $70T richer if Blacks had never come to North America.
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
No Free Speech in Germany
A man in Germany was sentenced to three years in prison for mere political speech related to the war in Ukraine. He reportedly called Ukraine a "terrorist state" and prominently displayed the Russian military symbol "Z" in online posts.Yahoo reports:
Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk lost to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus' 6-3, 6-2. After the match, Kostyuk opted not to shake the Australian Open champion's hand.There is no free speech in Germany. The Ukraine War has been a disaster for Germany, and no one can even post one letter of criticism.Russia reportedly launched its ‘largest drone attack’ on Ukraine's capital of Kyiv Sunday, news Kostyuk read shortly before her match with Sabalenka. Kostyuk is based in Monaco with her mother and sister, but her father and grandfather remain in Kyiv.
She was booed after skipping the usual pleasantries, telling reporters after the loss that fans should be "embarrassed" for doing so. She also said that she "cannot respect" Sabalenka for failing to speak out against the war.
Sabalenka said Sunday's win was "emotionally tough." She added that she understands why Kostyuk avoided her.
Monday, May 29, 2023
Science Journal goes Fully Partisan
Ron DeSantis’s Antiscience Agenda Is DangerousYou can follow the links if you wish, but it is all crap. There is no science supporting the transgendering of kids. There is a link to a couple of studies, but they have no control group or any scientific merit.Presidential contender Ron DeSantis has used governmental power in Florida to restrict access to health and education, promoting an intolerant and harmful agenda
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is running for president of the United States on a record of anti-diversity, pro-censorship, white nationalist measures. He has targeted education, LGBTQ rights and access to health care, and should he prevail, his anti-science candidacy stands to harm millions of Americans. ...
What Ron DeSantis has done in Florida mirrors efforts in other states, including Texas. He is among a new class of conservative lawmakers who speak of freedom while restricting freedom. This political maneuvering is part of building his national presence yet it does not represent most Americans’ views. The population of Florida is growing faster than most other places in the U.S., but the state is now poised to have fewer critical thinkers, fewer people of color as educators and as the subjects of education, more deaths in childbirth, and scores of people in the throes of crisis because of their identities. A country led by someone wielding such cruelty, bigotry and megalomania will never be “a more perfect Union.”
There were some scientific arguments in favor of covid lockdowns, but they turned out to be wrong.
DeSantis has signed bills allowing people to challenge school library books they deem unfit for children. To date, books pulled from library shelves include a biography of baseball player Roberto Clemente (which was later restored), poetry from Amanda Gorman, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and books about Black, Cuban and LGBTQ perspectives.Gorman's poetry is partisan garbage. Atwood's seems like nonpartisan dystopian garbage, but she claims that she wrote it to make a partisan political argument. Yes, these books are unfit for school libraries.
Some scientists have spoken up against the partisan politicization of science journals, but mostly retired professors who cannot be canceled. Everyone else is intimidated.
Sunday, May 28, 2023
Systemic Racism in the USA
Systemic Racism Exists in the USAHe complains a lot about color blind laws, such as punishing violent criminals and drug dealers, because of a disproportionate effect on Blacks. He complains about Republicans encouraging Republican voters, because they do not try to benefit Black Democrats. His biggest complaint is policies result in Blacks living with other Blacks, such as redlining and predominantly Black colleges.
Systemic racism is the creation of a lower caste of non-white Americans, separated by their economic and social circumstances, and kept in an inferior position through so-called “color blind” laws and traditions that hinder people of color more than their white counterparts. This episode will look at systemic racism placed upon black people, but the burden of America’s racist history is placed upon many more races
The word "disproportionate" is used in a funny way. Blacks are prosecuted in proportion to the crimes they commit, but more that their percentage of the population.
It complains about ghettoization, where Whites move out of Black neighborhoods, and gentrification, where Whites move back in. Whites get blamed no matter what, it seems.
There is no attempt at balance here. The video complains about gerrymandering, but fails to mention that most gerrymandering today is done because of laws and court decisions intended to elect more Blacks. And there are plenty of Whites today who think that Black favoritism causes the police system to be too easy on Black criminals.
Here is a review of a book that the Nation of Islam wrote about Jews and the Atlantic slave trade. I am not trying to apply presentism here. Jews were just practicing a legal business at the time.
Saturday, May 27, 2023
The Left Hates the John Birch Society
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today's political extremism has roots in the past. The organization that did more than any other conservative group to propel today's extremist takeover of the American right is the John Birch Society. That's according to the new book "Birchers: How The John Birch Society Radicalized The American Right." My guest is the author, historian Matthew Dallek. The society was known for its opposition to the civil rights movement, its antisemitism, its willingness to harass and intimidate its political enemies and for spreading conspiracy theories.No, that is not what the Birch Society was known for. It was primarily anti-Communist. It was also against many other Leftist policies, whether or not related to actual Commie.Communist plots were alleged to be behind many things the Birchers opposed, from the U.N., to teaching sex education in schools and putting fluoride in the water supply.
The Birchers were not radical at all. The show cannot give any examples of radicalism. It mentions water fluoridation, but the State of California was also against it, and so were a lot of others.
It was not racist or antisemitic either. Some members may have been, but people are free to have opinions. It would be easier to make the case that the Democrat Party was racist and antisemitic.
Speaking of antisemitism, here is Ben Shapiro accusing someone of antisemitism and goes into a rant about how Anne Frank was a 14-year-old girl in Denmark who was captured and gassed to death in Auschwitz. My sources say she was a 15-year-old German living in Amsterdam, and died of typhus.
It may be antisemitic for me to point that out. Possibly illegal in some countries.
The NY Post reports:
The White House on Thursday rolled out a 60-page strategy to counter anti-Semitism in the United States that some Jewish and anti-hate groups say misses the mark. ...I cannot keep up with this. I thought that Jews were against anyone identifying the problem. Jews are the most powerful, influential, and privileged ethnic group in the USA today, if not the world. Nearly all claims of antisemitism have turned out to be hoaxes.But some groups have taken offense to what the White House says it considers anti-Semitism, and argue that President Biden has chosen a diluted definition of the term that doesn’t say it’s anti-Semitic to oppose Israel’s creation or hold the Jewish state to different standards than other countries. ...
Liora Rez, executive director of watchdog group StopAntisemitism, argues that the Biden administration’s acceptance of numerous definitions “flies in the face of the plan’s assertion that ‘If we cannot name, identify, and admit a problem, we cannot begin to solve it.’”
In a statement, Rez adds that she is “extremely disturbed by several key aspects of the White House’s antisemitism strategy” and says the Biden plan “falls short.”
Update: RT reports;
German police have launched a criminal investigation into English rock legend and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters on suspicion of glorifying Nazism during two concerts in Berlin. The musician has insisted the performance was in opposition to fascism.Shapiro was responding to the Waters performance. I do not want to violate German law. In the USA, we are allowed to post facts about how someone died. Not sure about Germany. I am not trying to deny Nazi tyranny or disturb the peace.
Friday, May 26, 2023
Medical Journals have gone Woke
Here’s my own brief summary of Horton’s op-ed:Coyne also reports that Mathematics education is infected:“Global health” is a manifestation of colonialism and white supremacy, an exclusive and structurally racist club that must be decolonized and dismantled. We shouldn’t waste our time pursuing the traditional version of this practice, which won’t be decolonized until the entire world is fixed: rid of war, racism, unequal wealth, climate skepticism, and all other manifestations of right-wing politics.”
More than 50 of Britain’s leading mathematicians have accused standards bosses of politicising the curriculum with new diversity guidance.Academics at top UK universities have signed an open letter criticising guidance on academic standards that states that values of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) “should permeate the curriculum and every aspect of the learning experience”.
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Pakistani Murderer Walks Free
Thus, as of this date, Adnan Syed remains a convicted murderer who lost his appeals, was neither pardoned nor paroled, and is not even technically free on bail. Nevertheless, he is at liberty to move freely, and to go to his job at Georgetown University every day. He is almost certainly the only person in America who finds himself in this unique and paradoxical situation. His might be the only such case in American history.I listened to several episodes. They made no serious attempt to give both sides of the story. They gave some arguments to doubt the conviction, but not really any good arguments that he was innocent. They tried to give the impression that he was being picked on for being a Pakistani Moslem, dating a Korean girl.Adnan Syed landed in this unique situation because he is a world-famous celebrity, and he became a world-famous celebrity because of a humble podcast. Three hundred million people have downloaded Serial, a 2014 American podcast about his trial that purported to raise troubling questions about his conviction. The success of that series helped trigger a tsunami of true-crime media, from basement-rant Serial imitators to glossy Netflix productions. It was also followed by further re-investigations of Hae Min Lee’s murder—more podcasts and documentaries have bobbed along in Serial’s expansive wake. The result? A straightforward 1999 murder case has, according to the Washington Post, “arguably received more attention, review and support than any other criminal case, ever.”
As the article shows, he did a vigorous defense, and a fair trial.
Meanwhile, here is a California man who has been subjected to a temporary restraining order for a year or more, because he called his wife fat, lazy, and trailer trash.
H.B. obtained a domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) against her estranged husband, appellant F.K., pursuant to the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (DVPA). The trial court issued the DVRO on the grounds that appellant "called the mother of his children 'fat,' 'lazy,' 'trailer trash.'" The trial court misinterpreted the purpose and scope of the DVPA, which "prevent[s] acts of domestic violence, abuse, and sexual abuse." Puerile name-calling by a spouse is lamentable but does not warrant a DVRO. We reverse….He is still subject to the order.
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
Was Jesus a Jew?
Here is a contrary view. Thomas Dalton writes:
First, I should note that there is a high likelihood that no such man ever existed. We can say this with confidence because there is no—literally, zero—contemporaneous evidence for his existence, either as a miracle-working Son of God, or even as a rather ordinary rabbi. ...Dalton makes some good points, but he rejects the Gospels as a source of facts about Jesus, so I don't know why he would accept Gospel evidence that Jesus was a Jew.The likeliest conclusion to this mess is that the Jew Paul and the anonymous Jewish gospel writers made it all up: that there was no miracle-working Son of God, no virgin birth, and no resurrection. They did so, not for fame or money, but because they believed that promulgating a pro-Jewish, anti-Roman theology would aid the Jewish cause. ...
In fact, the evidence suggests that Jesus was a double-Jew: ethnically and religiously.[3] ...
Likewise, the Gospel writers clearly viewed their Savior as a Jew. Jesus is repeatedly called ‘rabbi’.[4] He was circumcised (Luke 2:21) and celebrated Passover (John 2:13). The Gospel of Matthew opens with these words: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Even the non-gospel Hebrews remarks that “it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah” (7:14). Jesus regularly attended the local synagogue (Luke 4:16). He himself told the people that he came “to fulfill the [Jewish] law and the [Jewish] prophets” (Matt 5:17). And of course, everyone thought of him as “king of the Jews” (Matt 2:2; John 19:3).
It could hardly be clearer: both by genetic heritage and according to his evident beliefs and practices, Jesus was a Jew. He was a biological Jew—surely embodying all those wonderful Jewish phenotypical characteristics—and he was a religious Jew.
At any rate, Christianity and Judaism have diverged so much that they have little in common. Ditto for Islam. They are called the Abrahamic religions, but they have almost nothing to do with Abraham.
Monday, May 22, 2023
What if Somalia conquered Europe?
Time and time again throughout history, the white man has proven he cannot be trusted. In Martin Scorsese's twenty-sixth film "Killers of the Flower Moon," he shows us another staggering real-life example of that very warning. The legendary director's magnificent epic traverses several years in the 1920s to tell the story of the wealthy members of the Osage Nation who discovered a massive oil well on their Oklahoma land — and as a result found themselves victim to a deceitful murder plot designed to put every dime in the hands of entitled white men.Maybe if Columbus never discovered American, the Red man could have kept all that oil wealth.
Also:
“What if India ruled Great Britain?” reads the caption of a TikTok video, now viewed over 1.7 million times.Without the White man holding the Somalis back, maybe they would all have flying cars, living in domed cities.The prompt is followed by a series of faux documentary images that narrate a history which never happened: An industrial revolution set off the militarization of India. London fell to the Indian Armada, and wealthy Indian families settled in Great Britain. ...
The TikTok account @what.if_ai, for one, already has over 27,000 followers. It posts videos with prompts like, “What if Mexico invaded the U.S.?” and “What if Somalia conquered Europe?”
Sunday, May 21, 2023
More Celebrity Kids have Unusual Outcomes
British celebrity couple Carrie and David Grant have claimed that three of their four children are transgender or gender “non-binary,” with one of them coming out as trans at the age of ten.Mom is White, Dad is Black.Their revelation adds to the growing list of celebrities who have transgender children, including Charlize Theron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Cynthia Nixon, and couple Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade.
In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, the TV presenter couple said that their four children – all of whom are neurodivergent, meaning they fall somewhere on the autism spectrum – have a “smorgasbord of different needs.”
The couple revealed they are parents to Olive, 28, Tylan, 21, Arlo, 17, and Nathan, 13.
Carrie Grant told the newspaper that Arlo was the first to discuss gender identity, declaring herself a boy at age 10.
Conventional wisdom seems to say that these kids are just finding out who they really are, and the parents are to be commended for supporting that.
The comments on Breitbart do not agree.
Friday, May 19, 2023
New African Ancestral DNA Identified
The NY Times reports:
Scientists have revealed a surprisingly complex origin of our species, rejecting the long-held argument that modern humans arose from one place in Africa during one period in time.Actually, that nail was hammered in ten years ago, when the Neanderthal and Denosivan DNA was discovered.By analyzing the genomes of 290 living people, researchers concluded that modern humans descended from at least two populations that coexisted in Africa for a million years before merging in several independent events across the continent. The findings were published on Wednesday in Nature.
“There is no single birthplace,” said Eleanor Scerri, an evolutionary archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Geoarchaeology in Jena, Germany, who was not involved in the new study. “It really puts a nail in the coffin of that idea.”
Paleoanthropologists and geneticists have found evidence pointing to Africa as the origin of our species. The oldest fossils that may belong to modern humans, dating back as far as 300,000 years, have been unearthed there. So were the oldest stone tools used by our ancestors.No, there were no modern humans 300k years ago. Maybe 40k years ago when Neanderthals interbred with African, or the dawn of civilization 10k years go, or maybe the dawn of the modern age about 1k years ago.Human DNA also points to Africa.
The researchers concluded that as far back as a million years ago, the ancestors of our species existed in two distinct populations. Dr. Henn and her colleagues call them Stem1 and Stem2. ...The Neanderthals are no more extinct than Stem1 and Stem2.The researchers compared these Africans’ DNA with the genome of a person from Britain. They also looked at the genome of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal found in Croatia. Previous research had found that modern humans and Neanderthals shared a common ancestor that lived 600,000 years ago. Neanderthals expanded across Europe and Asia, interbred with modern humans coming out of Africa, and then became extinct about 40,000 years ago.
Here is the Nature research article.
It is weird how these article are always talking about human origins as being in Africa, and only Africans being called modern humans. Much of the research actually shows the opposite.
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Westerners Show Egotistical Individualism
In the early 1990s my colleagues and I started our “Culture and the Self” project, exploring how the sense of the self might vary across cultures. We found no strong evidence for the better-than-average effect or other positive illusions in East Asia. ...So they used brain scans to confirm stereotypes about the difference between Westerners and Easterners.Americans reported they would feel better about success than they would feel bad about failure. Meanwhile Taiwanese participants did not show this positive illusion: if anything, they reported they would feel worse about failure than they would feel good about success. ...
We observed the alpha effect when Americans thought about themselves within a fraction of a second after learning that something good happened to them. This early attention predicted the magnitude of their positive illusions. Taiwanese participants did not show this pattern when thinking about either success or failure happening to the self, nor did they show evidence of holding positive illusions, as mentioned above.
In East Asia, modesty is culturally valued. ...
On the contrary, Westerners take an additional step to boost their good feeling when something good happens to them. They spontaneously maximize good feelings about the self through an automatic neural response. It occurs within a fraction of a second, without apparent effort, let alone any deliberation or conscious strategizing. Such a response might seem natural and inevitable, but it is not. Instead the response is cultural, having formed through years of socialization. The brain is extensively trained to produce this response because it supports attitudes that help a person fit into their individualistic culture, valuing self-promotion and initiative. East Asians show no such spontaneous or automatic response. ...
The evolution of these things, summarily called “culture,” has accelerated, especially over the past 10,000 years, forging several major cultural zones today.
All of this is very plausible, except for the claim that it is a cultural effect. No evidence is given for that at all.
Considering that they find these differences in subconscious brain scans, they are more likely the result of biological evolution over the last 10k years, not cultural evolution. China and Japan have a long history of killing off their individualists, leaving behind genes for conformism.
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Even Musk does not have Free Speech
Nope. A court just ruled that his tweets must be pre-approved by a lawyer. Another court said his tweets violate labor law.
And of course the Jews disapprove:
The second-richest man in the world Elon Musk’s recent tirade against fellow billionaire George Soros relies on long-shared antisemitic tropes and could stoke further antisemitic attacks, the Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday, drawing a social media retort from Musk.Musk fired a tweet Monday likening Soros to Magneto, the fictional comic book supervillain who is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust like Soros, subsequently claiming Soros “hates humanity” and “wants to erode the very fabric of civilization.”
Musk’s posts echo historical stereotypes against Jews that are “distressing” and “dangerous,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted Tuesday, while American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch later tweeted: “Comparing George Soros to Magneto, a Jewish comic book villain who is a Holocaust survivor like Soros, is extremely pointed and intentional.”
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
The Greatest Domestic Terror Threat
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” that a “rise in white supremacy” was the United States’ greatest domestic terror threat.Pres. Biden says we are in a battle for the soul of the nation. Also:Host Jonathan Capehart asked, Today marks one year since white supremacists opened fire in a black neighborhood at the Top Supermarket in Buffalo. The president, yesterday at his commencement address for Howard University graduates, called white supremacy the major domestic terrorist threat in this country. Is that correct? ”
Mayorkas said, “It tragically is. And the terrorism context, domestic violent extremism is our greatest threat right now. Individuals are driven to violence because of ideologies of hate, anti-government sentiment, false narratives, personal grievances. Regrettably, we have seen a rise in white supremacy. The principal under lying our work is that when one community is targeted, Jonathan, when one community is targeted, we as a country are targeted.”
President Joe Biden rebuked white supremacy in his commencement address to graduates of Howard University on Saturday, where he called it a “poison” and the most “dangerous terrorist threat” to the country.It is not clear that he even knows what he is saying. See this recent embarrassing interview.“On the best days, enough of us have the guts and the heart to stand up for the best in us,” Biden said. “To stand up against the poison of white supremacy … to single it out as the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland.”
The NY Times declares Christianity to be the enemy:
A major question for Republicans in 2024 is whether this militant version of Christian nationalism — one often rooted in Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on prophecy and revelation — can overcome the qualms of more mainstream evangelicals. The issue isn’t whether the next Republican presidential candidate is going to be a Christian nationalist, meaning someone who rejects the separation of church and state and treats Christianity as the foundation of American identity and law. That’s a foregone conclusion in a party whose state lawmakers are falling over themselves to pass book bans, abortion prohibitions, anti-trans laws, and, in Texas, bills authorizing school prayer and the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.What’s not yet clear, though, is what sort of Christian nationalism will prevail: the elite, doctrinaire variety of candidates like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, or the violently messianic version embodied by Flynn and Trump.
Monday, May 15, 2023
New California Hate Hotline
Reports of hate crimes across California have risen and so have concerns that victims of those crimes aren't getting the support they need.This is foolish.Now, there's a new hotline those victims can call.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the official launch of CA vs Hate, a new multilingual statewide hotline and website that provides a safe, anonymous reporting option for victims and witnesses of hate acts. ...
"If someone calls, they can have access to people who can speak over 200 languages so we will have language access, we think, for almost anyone who calls in California and in terms of who will be on the other end of the line, we are very fortunate to be partnering with 211 LA and the 211 statewide network," said Becky Monroe with the California Civil Rights Department.
Reports to the CA vs Hate hotline can be made anonymously by calling (833) 866-4283, or 833-8-NO-HATE, Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. or online at any time.
For more information on CA vs Hate, visit CAvsHate.org.
What can be done with a hater who obeys the law? For one thing, he can be banned from Europe, as Jared Taylor just found out. I would call him a race realist. He even tries not to blame the Jews.
A typical offense is his publishing this book review:
When Race Trumps Merit is divided into three main sections, dealing with the worlds of medicine and science, the fine arts, and law and justice.Medicine is getting wrecked, and we are all going to get worse medical care.All the major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), have embraced disparate impact theory. The AMA recently adopted an Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity — 86 jargon-filled pages that, as Miss Mac Donald notes, “is virtually indistinguishable from a black studies department mission statement.” This document calls for “just representation of Black, Indigenous and Latinx people in medical school admissions as well as . . . leadership ranks.” Such representation is allegedly lacking only because people of color have been “excluded, exploited, and deprived of needed resources,” so it is now the AMA’s responsibility to “prioritize and integrate the voices and ideas of people and communities experiencing great injustice.”
Medical schools are dropping the entrance exam known as the MCAT due to the racial gaps it reveals. Instead, they are seeking out, as one admissions officer puts it, students with a “strong appreciation of human rights and social justice.” Blacks are apparently thought to excel in that regard.
In the curriculum itself, medical schools are replacing science with advocacy. More than half of the top 50 medical schools, for example, already require courses in “systemic racism.” As the author points out, part of the appeal of such requirements lies in the creation of new employment slots that can be filled by non-whites, but “every moment spent regurgitating social-justice jargon is time not spent learning how to keep patients alive.” Such practices are no doubt already costing lives, although that is difficult to document.
The new dispensation brooks no opposition. Edward Livingston, deputy editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), participated in a podcast on “Structural Racism for Doctors” in February 2021. He agreed on the importance of making sure all people “have equal opportunities to become successful,” but thought that goal could be better achieved by considering socioeconomic disparities rather than alleged racial animus. JAMA quickly scrubbed the podcast from its website, fired Livingston, and began issuing apologies. The podcast was said to be “inaccurate, offensive, hurtful, and inconsistent with the standards of JAMA.” The journal announced it would be “instituting changes that will address and prevent such failures from happening again.”
An even fiercer reaction greeted Norman Wang of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2020 when he argued in the Journal of the American Heart Association for an end to racial preferences. Mr. Wang pointed out that years of research showed students admitted under quotas disproportionally drop out because of poor grades and have a harder time passing medical licensing exams. Miss Mac Donald quotes a president-elect of the American Heart Association who wondered out loud how such a paper could have been published, given its “unbalanced, unscientific, and untrue statements” — without citing a single example of such statements.
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Why Fox News Dropped Tucker Carlson
Each reason seems like a dubious conspiracy theory. Put them together, and it is a wonder he stayed on the air so long.
Here is the latest Douglas Macgregor video. I don't know how to fact-check him. If he is right, then our foreign policy is a disaster. We have destroyed Ukraine.
Saturday, May 13, 2023
All 3 Kids Identify as Queer
Actress Marcia Gay Harden’s advocacy for LGTBQ community is motivated, she says, by they love she has her three of adult kids who all identify as queer.Maybe it is all a coincidence. Maybe if all parents were so open-minded, they too would get divorced and support their kids being queer.During a recent “Drag Isn’t Dangerous” telethon, Harden called anti-drag policies “fear-based.”
“What’s happening right now is wrong,” Harden told the telethon’s host. “What drives me is my children are all queer. My eldest child is non-binary. My son is gay. My youngest is fluid. And you know, they are my kids and they teach me every day.”
Harden shares Hudson, 19, Julitta, 19, and Eulala, 24, with her ex-husband, Thaddaeus Scheel.
“It’s spreading that kind of fear and hatred among other people. I believe this country will fight that,” Harden continued.
“The Morning Show” star also advocated for the LGBTQ+ community in an Instagram post. “Gay is here to stay. Drag is here to stay. Donate what you can, and join us in spreading the love,” she wrote.
She had two of her kids at age 45, so it is not clear whether she actually gave birth to them.
Friday, May 12, 2023
Trump looked good as Presidential Candidate
CNN town hall highlights media's struggle with how to cover Trump and his liesIt pretends to be neutral by having two guests, but they had the exact same Trump-hating opinion!PBS NewsHour
A debate over how journalists should cover former President Trump is underway as he seeks another term. It comes after an unruly CNN town hall where Trump spouted lies about the 2020 election, mocked the woman he was found liable of sexually abusing and dodged policy questions all before a supportive audience in New Hampshire. James Fallows and Mark Lukasiewicz joined Geoff Bennett to discuss.
It is funny to see how upset these Democrats are that Trump expressed some opinions on the air. They kept saying he lied and expressed anti-democratic opinions, but they were unable to give any specifics.
The CNN Trump Townhall was entertaining. The CNN host made no attempt at a fair interview, and attacked him thoughout. Trump refuted everything she said.
The real issues were that President Biden has made a mess of our borders, our economy, our energy supplies, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. The Biden Presidency has been a disaster.
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Putin Denounces Globalist Elites
Western elites have forgotten the consequences of the Nazis’ “insane ambitions,” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said during his Victory Day Parade speech on Red Square in Moscow.I am not agreeing with this, but there is some merit to this, from the Russian view. People accuse the Russians of pitting people against each other, but I think the globalist elites do it more.Russia believes that “any ideology of superiority is by its nature disgusting, criminal and deadly,” the president pointed out.
“The globalist elites keep insisting on their exceptionalism; they pit people against each other, split societies, provoke bloody conflicts and coups, sow hatred, Russophobia and aggressive nationalism, destroy traditional family values that make human a human,” Putin said.
According to the Russian leader, all this is being done by the US and allies in order to “further dictate their will, their rights and their rules” and implement what is basically “a system of robbery, violence and suppression” on the international stage.
“It seems that they have forgotten what the insane ambitions of the Nazis led to. They have forgotten who defeated this monstrous, total evil,” he stressed.
The Jewish ADL objects to the terms:
A noteworthy anti-Semitic theme in 2017 was the use of the term “globalist” as an anti-Semitic slur. Although the term is not inherently anti-Semitic, “globalist” is often used as a pejorative term for people whose interests in international commerce or finance ostensibly make them disloyal to the country in which they live, or who are willing to undermine the financial security of their neighbors in order to benefit transnational interests.Tucker Carlson has now had his shows killed by CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews. Here is the 2004 video of the CNN show that supposedly got him fired. The dopey Jewish comedian John Stewart Lebowitz went on the show, said he watches it every night, and complained that they were arguing instead of debating. He did not make much sense, except that he wanted censor right-wing views. Apparently the Jews have been trying to get Carlson fired for a long time.
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Medical Journal Goes Full Commie
Occasionally, someone says something so appalling, so shocking, and so disheartening that you just stop in disbelief. On April 26, 2023, UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman said this: “I think that the people coming here illegally do possess values which are at odds with our country. We are seeing heightened levels of criminality when related to the people who have come on boats related to drug dealing, exploitation, prostitution.” Persistent attacks on migrants escaping war, poverty, and insecurity are now normalised in British politics. Robert Jenrick, Minister of State for Immigration, repeated Braverman's claims: “Excessive and uncontrolled migration threatens to cannibalise the compassion that marks out the British people. Those crossing [the English Channel] tend to have completely different lifestyles and values to those in the UK.” ...Gramsci was an Italian Marxist Leninist Communist. The Commie revolution failed because they did not replace the population with migrants having alien values. Now they are.This is the era of culture wars — politicised conflicts over values, identities, and beliefs. ...
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was arrested by Mussolini's police in 1926. Imprisoned, he used his time to fill the pages of 33 notebooks. Gramsci sought to make sense of his experience in the vanguard of Italian politics. One question in particular occupied his thoughts. Why did every effort to bring about revolutionary change in Europe fail?
Tuesday, May 09, 2023
Trump Charged with Secret Evidence
Former President Donald Trump cannot post sensitive discovery materials from his criminal hush-money case on “any news or social media platforms,” a Manhattan judge ruled on Monday.The Seventh Amendment says that he has a "right to a speedy and public trial". He is not getting a fair trial. The whole case is bogus, and now he is not even being allowed to publicly defend himself.The judge’s six-page protective order bars Trump from disseminating the “covered materials” on platforms “including, but not limited, to Truth Social, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Snapchat, or YouTube, without prior approval from the court.”
He is also finishing a ridiculous civil trial, where New York changed the law to make the lawsuit possible, and rich Trump-haters financed it.
Update: The Wash. Post reports:
A Manhattan jury has found that Trump sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, and awarded $5 million in damages. Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her during a chance encounter at a Manhattan department store. He has denied her allegations, calling her a liar. Carroll sued him last year for battery and defamation.She first made the accusation in 2019, and claimed that the incident occurred sometime in the 1990s. There are no corroborrating facts.
This whole trial was a setup, in order to derail Trump's candidacy. The claims are absurd, and were barely mentioned in the mainstream media because even the MeToo leftists did not believe them. Our courts are seriously broken.
Here is another example of a man ruined by a false accusation:
Punter Matt Araiza, who lost his NFL job after being implicated in an alleged gang rape, wasn’t present when the alleged incident occurred, Yahoo reported.He is lucky that there was video evidence to exonerate him, but he is still fighting court battles instead of playing football.The outlet reviewed a transcript of more than 200 pages that reports what prosecutors in San Diego told the young woman and her attorneys as to why charges weren’t pressed.
The woman told police that Araiza and two teammates at San Diego State were at a party on 15 October 2021, when Araiza walked her into a bedroom where “at least three other men” were waiting for her, according to a civil lawsuit she filed. Then 17, she said Araiza threw her on the bed and was part of a gang rape over a 90-minute period.
In her lawsuit, she acknowledged she had been drinking and said she was “in and out of consciousness” during the alleged assault.
San Diego police investigated her allegations for almost 10 months before giving the case to the district attorney without recommending prosecution.
The Buffalo Bills selected Araiza with the first pick of the sixth round in the 2022 draft. A prolific punter in college, he earned the starting job in preseason, during which he sent one punt sailing 82 yards in a game.
Soon after, the allegations emerged, and the Bills cut Araiza, 22. No team signed him, even after prosecutors announced last 7 December that they wouldn’t be filing charges.
Few details emerged about their decision until Monday. The biggest takeaway from the Yahoo report was that the investigation by prosecutors determined Araiza left the premises about an hour before the time of the alleged assault.
“He wasn’t even at the party anymore,” deputy district attorney Trisha Amador explained to the alleged victim, per the Yahoo report. Later, Amador said, “All I know is that at that point, suspect Araiza is gone from the party.”
Also, prosecutors told the young woman that they had reviewed video recordings of the alleged incident and couldn’t determine that anything other than consensual sex with the other men in the room had taken place.
The attorney for the accuser, Dan Gilleon, told Fox News Digital that he intends to forge ahead with the civil suit and that his client will not be “bullied”.
Sunday, May 07, 2023
Effort to Change our Country Fundamentally
And then there was the replacement theory. Over and over, Carlson suggested that immigrants were being brought to the United States to shift the electorate to the left. He blamed Democratic leaders and left-wing philanthropist George Soros, arguing that there was an explicit effort to “change our country fundamentally” through increased immigration. This was a white-nationalist trope, now airing on the country’s most-watched cable news channel in prime time.So is this why his show was killed?
Leftist media often say that they get increased support from immigrant communities. They act offended when a right-winger says the same thing.
All these articles say that Carlson's show was killed because Jews hated him for being a White Christian.
Saturday, May 06, 2023
The Day Robots Enslave the Earth
Klaatu tells Barnhardt's assembled scientists that an interplanetary organization has created a police force of invincible robots like Gort. "In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us". Klaatu concludes, "Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer". Klaatu and Gort depart in the saucer.So AI robots had enslaved the galaxy.
The intent of the movie was not to alarm the public about the possibility. Just the opposite. The movie presents the AI robots as being wiser than humans. We should all want to turn our fate over to scientists, who will then turn it over to AI robots.
Thursday, May 04, 2023
Bias in the criminal justice system
There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal justice system is racist. Here’s the proof. ...The studies do show racially disparate outcomes, but that is not what is usually meant by bias.Of particular concern to some on the right is the term “systemic racism,” often wrongly interpreted as an accusation that everyone in the system is racist. In fact, systemic racism means almost the opposite. It means that we have systems and institutions that produce racially disparate outcomes, regardless of the intentions of the people who work within them. ...
In any case, after more than a decade covering these issues, it’s pretty clear to me that the evidence of racial bias in our criminal justice system isn’t just convincing — it’s overwhelming. ...
I, of course, can’t vouch for the robustness or statistical integrity of all of these studies. I’m only summarizing them. But for the most part, I’ve tried to include either peer-reviewed studies or reviews of data that tend to speak for themselves and don’t require much statistical analysis.
If Blacks committ crimes at a higher rate, then outcomes will be racially disparate.
If you ignore the statistical analysis, then that is about all that can be said.
To get something statistically meaningful, you have to have some sort of control group, or some other way to control for obvious explanations. Eg, maybe cops stop Blacks more because Blacks commit more crimes. Of the studies I looked at, they did not control for anything. They just show some statistical disparaties, with finding any explanation.
Wednesday, May 03, 2023
The Plot to Fire Tucker Carlson
EXHIBIT 276the paper says:
Tucker Carlson January 7, 2021 — 04:18:04 PM UTC
A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?
the text message revealed more about his views on racial superiority. ... The text alarmed the Fox board ...Alarmed? Why exactly was this so alarming to the lizard people running Fox?The next day, the board told Fox’s leadership about its plan to have the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz investigate Mr. Carlson.
It is very unusual for a company to fire its top star, without any scandal or wrongdoing. Obviously a certain group of people were out to get him, for his opinions.
Sunday, April 30, 2023
Scientific Studies of Transgenderism
In short, transgenderism is a big fad, and the cause is not clear. It is also not clear whether any treatments help.
You may hear that medical societies have endorsed various treatments, but it is all voodoo. There just isn't any good scientific evidence supporting any of those treatments. There are many people who have gotten these treatments and regretted them.
Teenagers suffer a lot of mental health problems, with girls suffering a lot more than boys. Gender dysphoria appears to be just one of those problems, and there is no easy fix.
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Multimodel models of animal sex
“The vast array of sexual determination and reproductive systems challenge frameworks that impose human cultural binary categories on animals.” ...I don't even know what "TNGC" is, but it is obvious that the authors are trying to justify their sexual perversions by denying that animal sex is binary.The historical legacies of sexism, racism, queerphobia, and ableism have deeply influenced the frameworks we use to study nature. Challenging these foundations is difficult but vital to both increasing inclusion in biology and dismantling assumptions that interfere with our ability to observe the natural world on its own terms. ...
There is pressure for scientists to avoid making the politics of our work explicit, especially those of us who do not directly study social issues. However, especially in the United States, legislation targeting TGNC people is increasingly undergirded with simplistic binary language purportedly rooted in biology.
Of course animals are divided into male and female, and that is not a human cultural imposition.
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Demographics is destiny
Demographics is destinyI just listened to a Libertarian podcast (sorry, I lost the link) where they talked about Libertarian being pro-immigration, and usually in favor of open borders. They mentioned the argument that immigrants will not be Libertarian, and will vote for more anti-Libertarian policies such as voting for more welfare benefits for themselves.
They quickly called the argument absurd, and moved on to another topic.
This is a major blind spot in Libertarians. There was a recent takeover of the American Libertarian Party, and one of the main purposes was to stop working for more immigration. (Another was to stop working for more abortions.)
The America of the future will be determined by the immigrants we choose to admit today.
Most of our leaders refuse to accept this. Am Greatness reports:
Three of the five living former presidents have joined forces with American Express Global Business Travel and Welcome.US to create a non-governmental organization (NGO) that will fly illegal aliens to any desired destination in the United States.These ex-Presidents are destroying America. Donald Trump is looking better every day.Just The News reports that the new NGO, Miles4Migrants, was created by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Welcome.US was a pre-existing NGO funded by far-left billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, originally created to provide logistical assistance to the roughly 85,000 Afghan refugees that were brought into the United States after the collapse of Afghanistan, which resulted from the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from that country.
Now, with Welcome.US teaming up with American Express for the joint effort, Miles4Migrants will raise money to provide air travel for illegal aliens from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Ukraine, with the illegals being allowed to fly to any destination they choose.
“Donations are needed to fund the flights for newcomers to travel to the United States,” the new group’s webpage declares. “Those forced to flee often leave behind all but what they can carry, and the costs of international travel can be prohibitive.”
Monday, April 24, 2023
The Two-Parent Privilege
A new and great book, authored by Melissa S. Kearney of the University of Maryland. The subtitle is How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, and here is one excerpt of the summary points:Maybe those conclusions are true, but I am skeptical about the evidence.Two-parent families are beneficial for children.The marshaled evidence is convincing, and I will be blogging more about this book. While some stiff competition is coming, this could be the most important economics and policy book of this year.
The class divide in marriage and family structure has exacerbated inequality and class gaps.
Places that have more two-parent families have higher rates of upward mobility.
Not talking about these facts is counterproductive.
Correlation does not prove causation. Maybe the bad child outcome causes the parent divorce. Maybe inherited genes cause both.
Sunday, April 23, 2023
The NATO War in Ukraine
The London Guardian reports:
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said all member countries have agreed that Ukraine will eventually join the transatlantic military alliance once the war is over, ahead of a meeting of western defence ministers discussing further military aid for Kyiv.This is a Nato war. Ukraine is being propped up with Nato weapons, with the full intention of absorbing Ukraine into the Nato empire.Further announcements on weapons and support are expected after the summit at the Ramstein airbase in Germany, but Stoltenberg also sounded notably upbeat about Ukraine’s longer-term prospects for joining Nato.
“All Nato allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member,” he said. “President Zelenskiy has a very clear expectation, we discussed this.
“Both the issue of membership but also security guarantees, and of course Ukraine needs security. Because no one can tell when and how this war ends. But what we do know is that when the war ends, we need to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.”
Saturday, April 22, 2023
Amy Dickinson Hates Blacks
Dear Amy: At the end of an extremely long road trip, my fiancée, her 16-year-old son and I stopped at a noisy sports bar at 9:30 p.m. – famished.So of course she sides with the White racists who infantilize Blacks.As we waited for our food, I saw an article regarding a woman who was recently fired for using a slang variant of “the N-word.”
I turned to my fiancée to recount the story, but instead of using the variant of the word I saw in the article, I leaned in and in a very low voice said the actual (offensive) word to her, never intending for her son to hear it.
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Science Journal Pledges to Tackle Racism
It is regrettable but true that researchers have used and abused science to justify racist beliefs and practices. As previous editorials have acknowledged, Nature has played its part in perpetuating racism — and has now pledged to play its part in tackling it, together with colleagues in the research community.They are saying that truths about race and sex have the potential to cause harm, so they won't publish them anymore.As part of this pledge, Nature and the Nature Portfolio journals are updating our advice to authors on reporting research that involves race, ethnicity and other socially constructed characteristics (see go.nature.com/3mtobwx). Specifically, we’re asking that authors exercise care and consideration so that the highest standards of rigour are applied where these attributes are found to be an explanation for an outcome or conclusion. This is part of our ongoing updates to guidance asking authors to describe how demographic characteristics, including sex and gender, are considered in the design of studies — and, more broadly, to consider the research’s potential to cause harm.
Here is an example of what they will not publish:
New data from the American Bar Association has shown that the gap in bar pass rates between white and minority law graduates has widened for the second year. The data showed that 83% of white test takers passed their bar exam on their first attempt, compared to 57% of Black examinees – a difference of 26 percentage points. This gap increased from 24 percentage points in 2021. The disparity also held for Hispanic and Asian test takers, with 69% and 75% first-time pass rates, respectively. The gap with white examinees grew from 13 percentage points to 14 for Hispanic test takers and six percentage points to 8 for Asian test takers.
Monday, April 17, 2023
And we threw everything at the wall
The NY Times reports in its top story yesterday:
When the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage nearly eight years ago, social conservatives were set adrift.Here is a supposed comedy tv show, SNL, with its first nonbinary cast member, doing a comedy skit that is actually just a rant against Republicans who are denying healthcare to kids.The ruling stripped them of an issue they had used to galvanize rank-and-file supporters and big donors. And it left them searching for a cause that — like opposing gay marriage — would rally the base and raise the movement’s profile on the national stage.
“We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” said Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group. “And we threw everything at the wall.”
What has stuck, somewhat unexpectedly, is the issue of transgender identity, particularly among young people. Today, the effort to restrict transgender rights has supplanted same-sex marriage as an animating issue for social conservatives at a pace that has stunned political leaders across the spectrum. It has reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures.
This is absurd. Until several years, almost everyone was against transgenderism. They believed that schools should not be promoting transgenderism or drag shows. That schools should use legal names only, and not withhold info from parents. And there should be no gender-affirming drugs or surgery for minors.
The lizard people are gaslighting you again. Boys are boys and girls are girls. No one is nonbinary. Christendom is under attack by radical perverts.
Sunday, April 16, 2023
Germany Closes Nuclear Plants
Germany’s final three nuclear power plants close their doors on Saturday, marking the end of the country’s nuclear era that has spanned more than six decades.Germans have joined the war against Russia, and so are not getting Russian oid and gas anymore. Germany has been building wind and solar power, but those are insufficient to meet needs. So it will go back to coal.
From the view of global warming, Germany must be considered one of the world's worst offenders.
Friday, April 14, 2023
FBI Warning about the Red Pill
New documents released Monday warned that common internet lingo is being associated with "Violent Extremism" by the FBI.Here is the pdf FBI document.The Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project said it used a Freedom of Information Act request to expose FBI documents that include glossaries showing that common internet slang has been flagged as an indication of "Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism" or "Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism."
Part of the document refers specifically to "incels," or those "involuntary celibate," whom the "threat overview" describes as possibly seeking to "commit violence in support of their beliefs that society unjustly denies them sexual or romantic attention, to which they believe they are entitled." The assessment notes, "While most incels do not engage in violence," some have been involved in "at least five lethal attacks in the United States and Canada."
Many of the terms mentioned in the FBI’s list of incel terminology are either widely used across the internet or innocuous in nature.
It is amusing to see the FBI try to define these terms, and classify them as threatening.
The one term in the glossary is "Red Pill," which comes from the 1999 film "The Matrix" and has been used a metaphor for seeing hidden or politically incorrect truths about the modern world, particularly when it comes to politics or dating. The FBI list of key terms defines it as "a belief shared by many online communities that society is corrupt, and that the believer is a victim of this corruption." ...It just means accepting the truth, especially when the authorities are perpetrating lies. Such lies might be that Blacks are violent and poor because of systemic racism, or that Jews are persecuted.The FBI list for terms associated with "Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism" (RMVE) has a mix of extreme terms and innocuous ones.
"Red Pill" also appears in this list, but with a different description: "In the context of RMVE ideology, taking the red pill or becoming ‘redpilled’ indicates the adoption of racist, anti-Semitic, or fascist beliefs."
Thursday, April 13, 2023
PBS says Defending Trump is Sowing Division
In covering the Trump indictment, it has a steady stream of anti-Trump propaganda. If anyone defends Trump, it accuses him of election interference!
Yesterday, the PBS News hour broadcast this:
Analysis shows Russian and Chinese-backed efforts to sow division after Trump indictmentIf Russia or China were prosecuting a political candidate on such obviously bogus charges, PBS would be crying that it is anti-democratic.PBS NewsHour
A week after the arraignment of Donald Trump, we’re learning new details about a covert effort by Russian and Chinese-backed actors aimed at sowing division among the American electorate and increasing distrust in institutions. Laura Barrón-López discussed the findings with Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center And Zach Schwitzky of the data science firm Limbik.
there are American groups that consistently sow division in the USA, much more radically than the Russians and Chinese. They are Jews, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the Democrat Party.
The Trump indictment fails for many reasons. It is one charge, repeated 34 times. The charge is that he had an incomplete business record that was intended to defraud and cover up another crime.
Trump paid a lawyer to settle a legal claim, and recorded that as a legal expense. That is an accurate description. The DA would have to prove that it was not a legal expense, but it plainly was a legal expense.
The indictments fails to allege what was wrong with Trump's description, or who was defrauded, or what other crime was being covered up. The statute of limitations has expired anyway.
There is no way anyone would defend this indictment, unless he was already a Trump-hater. If PBS or any other news media has not explained this, then it is lying to you.
Update: Some Trump-hating experts say that under NY law, prosecutors do not need to show that Trump was trying to avoid any particular law, or was trying to defraud any particular person.
PBS TV and NPR Radio have stopped posting to Twitter, because they do not like being labeled government-funded media.