Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Freedom, Immigration, Intelligence, Media Bias, Politics, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Diversity, Does it Matter?, Race
Heather MacDonald spoke a couple of weeks ago at Hillsdale’s Washington DC outpost, about diversity, based on the research done for her new book The Diversity Delusion. If you wonder why every college now seems to have a Diversity Office, as well as large groups of “snowflakes” and frequently gets into the news for some protest or riot, and is so sensitive that hearing something with which they disagree gives them major cases of the vapors, Heather explains. Her speeches have been protested, yet she speaks in favor of the police, the dismantling of what she properly calls “the diversity delusion.”
At a time when race seems to matter less and less, we talk about it more and more. We have a long and unfortunate history of assuming that race matters, and officialdom still wants to know just what our race is, even in situations where it does not and should not matter. It’s because we are run by a bureaucracy that wants to protect itself by keeping track. It’s a very interesting speech, and eye-opening about the dysfunction on our college campuses. And yes, if you have kids now in college or soon to be, you need to be informed. Heather MacDonald always does her homework. She searches out the data and verifies it, and what she says can be taken to the bank.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economics, Economy, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Humor, Immigration, Intelligence, Islam, Media Bias, National Security, News, Politics, Progressivism, Terrorism, The Constitution | Tags: How and Why, So What to Do?, The Suicide of Europe
Here is another speech, a very good one, and important,by Douglas Murray.
Douglas Kear Murray (born 16 July 1979) is a British author, journalist, and political commentator. He is the founder of the Center for Social Cohesion and is an associate editor of The Spectator, a British magazine discussing culture and politics, and is the associate director of the Henry Jackson Society. (Yes, our own Scoop Jackson) Murray’s most recent book is The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam(2017).
Douglas Murray clearly identifies the strange case of the suicide of Europe, and how and why it is happening. The speech is a very real warning to America. We need to pay attention.
It’s all about guilt, the new theme of our Democratic Party, guilt for the misdeeds of our forbears, the shame of our past, and how (they think) we can redeem ourselves. Throw in political correctness and goofy feminism, racism, and a deep lack of understanding of history, with our Constitution, and the overweening importance of power and control.
Filed under: Education, Entertainment, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Intelligence, Literature, Movies, Pop Culture, Television, The United States | Tags: Blame Us., Introspection, Richard Mitchell
“The intellectual climate of the nation today came from the public schools, where almost every one of us was schooled in the work of the mind. We are a people who imagine that we are weighing important issues when we exchange generalizations and well-known opinions. We decide how to vote or what to buy according to whim or fancied self-interest, either of which is easily engendered in us by the manipulation of language, which we have neither the will nor the ability to analyze. We believe that we can reach conclusions without having the faintest idea of the difference between inferences and statements of fact, often without any suspicions that there are such things and that they are different. We are easily persuaded and repersuaded by what seems authoritative, without any notion of those attributes and abilities that characterize authority. We do not notice elementary fallacies in logic; it doesn’t even occur to us to look for them; few of us are even aware that such things exist. We make no regular distinction between those kinds of things that can be known and objectively verified and those that can only be believed or not. Nor are we likely to examine, when we believe or not, the induced predispositions that may make us do the one or the other. We are easy prey.“
—Richard Mitchell: The Graves of Academe
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, China, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Free Speech, Freedom, Intelligence, Law, National Security, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, The United States | Tags: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Just What is Google Doing?, Monitoring the People
From the Washington Free Beacon, Sept. 13, 2018:
Former Google research scientist Jack Poulson has resigned from the company over its decision to move forward with a censored search engine approved by the Chinese government for use in the country.
Poulson quit after he raised concerns with his supervisors about Google’s secret project to release a censored search app in China, ultimately determining the company was willing to “capitulate” to China, the Intercept reported. …
“I view our intent to capitulate to censorship and surveillance demands in exchange for access to the Chinese market as a forfeiture of our values and governmental negotiating position across the globe,” he wrote. “There is an all-too-real possibility that other nations will attempt to leverage our actions in China in order to demand our compliance with their security demands.”
Poulson said around five people have resigned for the same reason. When the project, codenamed Dragonfly, was reported in the press, he was one of many both inside and outside the company demanding answers from the tech giant. Not only did they fail to answer him, Google executives even refused to show up to a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing and answer questions about their activity in China.
From Foreign Policy: “48 Ways to Get Sent to a Chinese Concentration Camp: Something terrible is happening in Xinjiang”
From Daily Wire.com: “Google Built China a Prototype Search Engine That allows Government to Spy On Citizen’s Search Queries”
From Reuters: “Chinese Official says China is educating, not mistreating. Muslims”
From The Wall Street Journal: By Walter Russell Mead: “Imperialism Will Be Dangerous for China:“Beijing risks blowback as it exports surplus economic capacity to Africa and Asia.
From ABC.net.au: “Leave no dark corner” China is building a digital dictatorship to exert control over it’s 1.4 billion citizens. For some, “social credit” will bring privileges—for others, punishment.
Do read the whole thing, particularly the last piece just above. Note the facial recognition. Democrats here at home want control. Just what do they mean by control?
What is it that George Soros wants, that he is so ready to plow in big money to influence? Nancy Pelosi has already been somewhat clear in declaring that they will immediately end the tax cuts that have created such a booming economy, because they only(in spite of vast evidence to the contrary), went to the very rich. But it is also rumored that Democrats are determined to get rid of Pelosi as a potential Speaker, once again.
We were taken aback at the crazy Democratic reaction to the election of President Trump – calling it Trump Derangement Syndrome – almost as if it was all a big joke. It isn’t. Someone, and I forget who, explained that the Democrats were terrified when the Tea Party movement broke out. Republicans weren’t supposed to protest, be activists, Democrats depended on their polite objections, not actual confrontation. We might keep that in mind.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Intelligence, Junk Science, Media Bias, News, Politics, Progressivism | Tags: Big Ideas of Science Illiterates, His Own Climate Satellite, Increasing California Poverty
California Governor Jerry Brown has announced that California will launch it’s very “own damn climate satellite” into orbit to battle climate change. State officials will work with San Francisco-based company Planet Labs to develop a satellite to track climate-change causing pollutants. “With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we’re launching our own damn satellite,” he said. Radical Climatistas jetted in to San Francisco in their private jets for the 3-Day Big Climate Conference, where Brown announced his next big thing.
The Democrat governor, who is leaving office at the end of the year, did not announce a launch date or divulge a cost estimate.
Before Brown’s announcement, two prominent Democrats and a Republican mayor criticized Trump for his decision to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accord.
“While Donald Trump may have pulled out of the climate agreement, the American people have not,” former Secretary of State John Kerry said, opening the second day of the Global Climate Action Summit.
Kerry, also a Democrat, called Trump’s decision “the single greatest act of irresponsibility of any president of the United States at any time.”
Trump announced in June 2017 the United States’ intention to pull out of the international agreement, which Kerry signed while serving as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. The 195 countries that signed the treaty agreed to commit resources to combating climate change.
Former Vice-President Al Gore followed Kerry to speak, and said that it’s difficult to deny than climate change is causing more severe weather but that “It’s a little harder to deny the 3,000 deaths from the hurricane in Puerto Rico.”
Governor Brown has signed into law one of the most radical pieces of climate legislation ever, as SB-100, it commits the state of California to produce all of its electricity from alternative sources by 2040, which will happen only with a major scientific advance. Wind and solar cannot possibly support the state’s energy needs, so with current technology that means building a lot more nuclear plants in an earthquake-prone state. The result will be soaring energy costs, increasing poverty in a state that already has the highest poverty rate in the nation, and lower living standards for all. The state is home to a third of all the U.S. welfare recipients, with the most billionaires.
People are moving out of California in droves, a net 140,000 per year are heading for other states, half of them middle class or higher, and of child-bearing age. California seems to be home to large numbers of scientific illiterates. I don’t really understand all these people who do not do their homework. If someone tells you the earth is ending or the sky is falling it would seem to be a good idea to find out if it is actually true.
Harrison Ford was one of the Hollywood types who jetted up to be a part of Governor Brown’s 3-day whoop-de-do in San Francisco for far-left climatistas.
“While you work to meet the challenge of climate change, I beg of you—don’t forget nature. Because today, the destruction of nature accounts for more global emissions than all the cars and trucks in the world.”
“We face an unprecedented moment in this country. Today’s greatest threat is not climate change, not pollution, not flood or fire. It’s that we’ve got people in charge of important shit who don’t believe in science.”
Harrison Ford also castigated politicians like Trump, whose “political or economic self-interest denigrate or belittle sound scientific understanding of the causes and effects of human pressure on the environment.”
I wonder what he has in mind as the “destruction of nature” when the Earth is greening and food crops and forests alike are growing vigorously because of the slight amount of greater CO² in the atmosphere. And where does he get his loony ideas about climate? He clearly does not keep up with the science. He’s responding to climate propaganda without ever questioning it. along with Al Gore and Leo Di Caprio.
There’s no end to the catastrophe that our media has in for us as the result of climate change. Did you realize that climate change is threatening the world’s supply of coffee beans? Conditions for growing coffee would no longer be suitable, and plagues and pestilences will destroy the crops. You’d have to change to tea. And look what the media claimed!
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Crime, Domestic Policy, Election 2016, History, Intelligence, Law, National Security, The United States | Tags: Declassification, Statement from the White House, Without Redaction
Office of the Press Secretary
September 17, 2018
At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials 91) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.
In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economics, Education, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Intelligence, Politics, The United States | Tags: A Failed Generation, College Fragility, Overprotective Parenting
Here’s a completely fascinating conversation about how over-protective parenting has led to the snowflake generation on America’s college campuses. Reason TV leads a conversation between Greg Lukianoff of FIRE (The organization promoting free speech on America’s campuses) and Jonathan Haidt, who is a psychology professor at New York University and is a co-founder of Grow, the free-range parenting advocacy organization, and Heterodox Academy, which promotes intellectual diversity among faculty. Reason is a leading source of news, politics and culture from a Libertarian prospective. Lukianoff is a lawyer by training and FIRE works, and sues, to fight for free speech on campus.
In 2015, Lukianoff and Haidt published “The Coddling of the America Mind” in The Atlantic magazine. It argued that speech codes, trigger warnings and safe spaces on college campuses are disastrous for education – and mental health. It became the most-read article in the history of the magazine. They have now expanded the article into a new book with the same title. Reason’s Nick Gillespie sat down with them to talk about why they believe that “good intentions and bad ideas” about the supposed fragility of young people is “setting up a generation for failure.”
It’s a remarkably enjoyable conversation, but long, nearly an hour, so if you can make time for it, you will be well rewarded. Good for those who have mindless tasks like knitting or polishing shoes.
