Millennial Socialist Luvvies worry about inequality more than efficiency

Did Ami Horowitz cherry-pick these lefty lovelies?  I don't know, but suspect they're pretty representative.  After all, I've seen plenty of other evidence that young kids in the US are in thrall to the romanticism of socialism.  Look at how many "feel the Bern".  But they know nothing of how socialism works in real life -- in other words that it doesn't work.
And I do know from living in China in the fading days of the Cultural Revolution when everything including food was rationed.  But everyone was equal!  They all earned about $US50/month.  In other words, they were all equally poor.
Today, there's all manner of everything and available to all.  There's more income inequality in China, but everyone is richer in including those at the bottom.  The poorest in China are today better off than the wealthiest in socialist times, the 60s and 70s.
These idiot millenials would prefer the China of the 60s to the China of today.
Ask anyone in China who went through the Cultural Revolution which they prefer: equality of the past or inequality of today. All of them prefer today. They prefer having wide choices to everyone being equal and having no choices.  In the 60s China you were lucky to get enough to eat. Today there's every food you could want, and every consumer good imaginable.  In the past equal days there was no way you could move within the country, let alone head overseas, while in todays unequal society Chinese are the largest group of international tourists.
It's crazy.  History means nothing to these millenials, because they don't read.  Even if they did read something other than social media I suspect they'd just put down comments like mine as being the blatherings of an old white man. Which of course they are.
From Ami Horowitz's post.

Jeannie de Clarens, Spy Who Uncovered Rockets Used by Hitler, Dies at 98

Jeannie de Clarens with her husband, Henri.
They both survived stays in concentration camps

Surely this is worth a movie....
What a story of beauty, intelligence, bravery, skullduggery, cunning and a good dash of luck (she survived four German concentration camps, through screw ups by the German bureaucry!).
It's behind a New York Times paywall, so I've copied below the fold.
Thanks NYT

Sam Harris and Scott Adams in conversation: Triggered

Letter to a friend:

A while back you asked what I thought of "Triggered", the podcast of Sam Harris talking to Scott Adams. Sorry for taking so long!

First up, by the way, I do get Sam's podcast notifications direct as I'm a supporter (financially!).  I support a couple of other podcasts, like Dave Rubin.  I value them. They rely on users, not advertisers and they're doing a great job of speaking to a wide variety of people in a free and open way (no identity politics for these guys).

I enjoyed the talk Sam had with Scott.  It was a very polite exchange, which might have, in other hands, descended into acrimony.  You could feel them at times hauling in their frustration with each other's views. But they managed, so good on them, in these days of instant offense-taking.

Sam said in his intro that the person his Trump-supporting listeners ("Trumpkins") most wanted Sam to interview was Scott Adams.  

Having heard the podcast I wonder why. Why did they want Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert?

After all, Scott didn't really say anything supportive of Trump, let alone his policies, such as they are.  Instead, what the talk amounted to was Scott saying that Trump was a great "persuader".  Perhaps the greatest he'd seen.  Another term for "persuasion" is "deception" or "con".  Whether persuading or deceiving or conning, it seems odd to me that Trump supporters would want this to be the thing that is talked about.  After all, is it good to be seen as someone who is persuadable, let alone someone who will swallow a con, allows oneself to be deceived? 

I listened to the podcast soon after it was posted, and read some of the early comments.  Here are some of the ones I noted.  Last I saw there were over 1,000 comments, mostly, interestingly, on Sam's side.  Very few of his Trumpkins seem to have joined in the discussion.  Wandering around the comments for a bit may be worthwhile.

I thought Sam won the debate, even though it wasn't strictly speaking a debate.  But some of the commenters thought the other way. Some faulted Sam for missing some opportunities to make a point, and I agree.  Eg, not calling out Adams for criticising Sam's use of analogy, when Scott's main point (in the campaign people were watching two different movies in the same theater) is an analogy!

Adams talks of "pacing and leading", as the key technique of persuasion. It appears this is a part of Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is a controversial subject, some saying that it's been debunked by scientists.  Here's an interesting take on NLP by a young philosopher.

I remember my main impression when I first heard the podcast was to think: "OK, Trump may be a great persuader (though I never thought him so, neither does Sam).  But so was Mao a great persuader, so was Stalin a great persuader, so is Derren Brown".  (I didn't want to mention —even in my mind — that most infamous mustachio'd persuader, not wanting to invoke Godwin's law).

Some while ago I stopped reading Dilbert, Scott Adams' cartoon and for which he has made his main name.  I liked it for a while. Then I got tired of its incessant cynicism.  That's pretty much Adams, I think.  A cynic.  And doing anything, saying anything, to win power is ok, by him.  Persuasion it is, and ethics be damned. 

And that's what Trump did and still does. The man who is not just a con-man (oh… sorry, "a persuader"…), but also, kinda crazy.

All for now: there's much more in the comments.

(We may have very different views about Trump, you and I, but I do enjoy exchanges with you. That was the theme of a recent Harry's Place post, "Friendship across the political divide " which I sent to you earlier. Again the comments are the interesting part in that post)

Cheers,

Forse

Trump’s craziness

Doonsbury's take: the disagreements are just about which disorder he has!
Trump's doctor: "you're the sanest person in the history of the world"

Speculation about Trump's mental state has been around for a while.  This morning an article in the International New York Times says that the most common guess is he has Narcissistic personality disorder.  (The guy who wrote the criteria for NPD disagrees). For we armchair psychiatrists it seems spot on.  Look at the description of it in Wikipedia (below).
Does is sound like someone we know, or what?!
Then again, his people may know it, and excuse it a healthy dose of ego, needed to shake things up.
From Wiki:

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder in which there is a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of others' feelings.
People affected by it often spend a lot of time thinking about achieving power or success, or about their appearance. They often take advantage of the people around them. The behavior typically begins by early adulthood, and occurs across a variety of situations.

My prediction: the coming collapse of China’s Ponzi scheme economy | Jake Van Der Kamp | SCMP

One of the many possible outcomes of a collapse of China.  Not predicted by Jake...
Let's pray not!

Letter to a friend

I've got a lot of time for Jake Van Der Kamp of the South China Morning Post.  He was an investment analyst, before he got a column with the Post.  He retired from the Post about five years ago (IIRC) and went back to his native Canada, but apparently couldn't stand the quiet, so he came back a few years ago and got another column, "Jake's view".  He's a contrarian, an iconoclast, often critical of both Hong Kong's government and Beijing's.

Here, in his scarily-named column "The coming collapse of the mainland's Ponzi economy", he addresses the issue you asked about: the possible collapse of China's economy, as a result of its mountain of debt.

I told you earlier I was not plugged in enough to comment on your fear of a possible coming economic collapse in China, and just commented that those who've gone short China in recent decades have been burnt.  Of course, past performance doesn't determine future results….

Jake sees a collapse at some stage.  But — optimistically! — does "not think it will result in the break-up of China". Sure hope not!  Disaster be there. 

Again though, he reckons it will "more likely resemble the Russian emergence from a command economy". If so, God — or the Flying Spaghetti Monster — help us!  Spare us a Chinese version of Russia's kleptocracy. 

Jake reckons the collapse will come "long before 2047", but still I'll be getting on by then; we will likely have sold up our properties here, and invested in an apartment on a permanent cruise, like The World!

Cheers

Pope prays for Muslims. Ignores Middle East christians

BFFs

I just saw the Mario Bergoglio, aka "the pope", on BBC. He was at the balcony praying for the Rohingya Muslims in Burma. "We pray for our brothers and sisters in Islam", he said.
Curious.
I've never heard Bergoglio -- this crypto-Marxist, this Islamopologist -- praying for the persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Persecution unto mass murder, such that their number has declined from 100% before the Muslim invasions in the seventh and eighth centuries to under 10% now.
It's not a matter of competitive oppression. Of who's been the most oppressed. Is it the Muslims in Burma or Christians in Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Syria? Not a question of that.
But surely, for god's sake, one ought to hear the head of Catholics pray for persecuted Catholics -- and other Christians! -- at least as much as we've heard him pray for his "brothers and sisters in Islam".
No?

Trump screws the future

Government funded science leads to huge economic gains.
Trump is cutting funding for science. China will gain

America tampers with the Chomsky Trade at its peril. Financial Times, August 24, 2017
Mark Blyth (professor of political economy at Brown University):

There is a trade in finance known among some as the "Chomsky trade", after the linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky. Mr [sic] Chomsky once pointed out that, if you want to know what's worth investing in, look at what US federal research funding organisations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) are investing in today, and then go long 30 years.

• In the 1950s, the big thing was transistors, which gave us the microelectronics revolution in the 1980s. 
• In the 1960s, it was digital processing, which gave us personal computers in the 1990s. 
• In the 1970s it was biotech, which started to come on line in the 2000s. 
• And in the 1980s, it was the beginnings of machine learning and big data, which will transform much of the world of work in the 2010s and beyond.

When will the “anti-hate” crowd take on the hate embedded in Islam?

When will the "anti-hate" crowd take on the vitriolic hate in Islam?

The headline tells it all: "London anit-Islam protesters overshadowed by sea of opposition".
The article goes on to report that the so-called "anti-hate" people outnumbered those who were protesting the "Islamization of the West".  These latter were eventually spirited away "under a hail of anti-hate supporters".
Comments:
1.  Note how the anti-anti Islam folk are called "anti-hate". There's no evidence provided that those opposing "Islamisation of the West" were motivated by "hate".  It's just becoming the meme: that if you're against Islam, you're a hater. They could well be people just like me.  No hate here, just concern that there really is an Islamisation of the west going on, and it's not for the better.
2.  The Koran is full of hate for non-Muslims.
Here's Raymond Ibrahim, who I've quoted often, because he's very knowledgeable about Islam, well read, sane and sensible:

According to the ancient Islamic doctrine of al-wal’a wa al-bara’, or “loyalty and enmity”—which is well grounded in Islamic scriptures, well sponsored by Islamic authorities, and well manifested all throughout Islamic history and contemporary affairs—Muslims must hate and oppose everyone who is not Muslim, including family members.Koran 60:4 is the cornerstone verse of this doctrine and speaks for itself: “You [Muslims] have a good example in Abraham and those who followed him, for they said to their people, ‘We disown you and the idols which you worship besides Allah.  We renounce you: enmity and hate shall reign between us until you believe in Allah alone’” (Koran 60:4, emphasis added).

BTW: it's not a matter of translation.  The online Koran I link to at the left has nine translations. ALL of them have the word "hate" in their translations.
There are many other verses in the Koran enjoining hatred of non-Muslims: 4:89, 4:144, 5:51, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 60:1.  This is, of course, why so many pious Muslims decide to strap on an explosive belt, or hire a van, and kill we infidels.  (They kill Muslims too, but they're fine with that, because these murdered Muslims will be considered innocent, and so go straight to heaven and all those waiting virgins; nothing said for said for murdered Muslimas).
When will these "anti-hate" people get onto this?  I'm not holding my breath.  Though talking of breath, it's surely breathtaking, the extent of their hypocrisy.

On the insanity of the Left

On the insanity of the Left.  In this case corporate America, trying to get out in front of the SJW's, and not just virtue signalling but virtue creating.

From the article in National Review:

Freddie deBoer, a far-left writer, summarizes the problem on the Left well: 

The woke world is a world of snitches, informants, rats. Go to any space concerned with social justice and what will you find? Endless surveillance. Everybody is to be judged. Everyone is under suspicion. Everything you say is to be scoured, picked over, analyzed for any possible offense. Everyone's a detective in the Division of Problematics, and they walk the beat 24/7. You search and search for someone Bad doing Bad Things, finding ways to indict writers and artists and ordinary people for something, anything. That movie that got popular? Give me a few hours and 800 words. I'll get you your indictments. That's what liberalism is, now — the search for baddies doing bad things, like little offense archaeologists, digging deeper and deeper to find out who's Good and who's Bad. 

Why western women are now the Islamists’ target of choice | Coffee House

False equivalence. Bikini lady does have a choice. Bag lady doesn't

When critics if Islamisation say we should not pander so much to Islam, the apologists shoot back, snarkily, "in what way are we 'pandering' to Islam, then?"  

Well some ways are obvious: like the Sharia courts in the U.K.  Or having women-only sessions at council swimming pools. Pandering to Islamic blasphemy laws, by "hate speech" legislation. 

In other ways the pandering is less obvious: as in women's dress in Europe. Becoming more restricted and "modest" simply because of the pressure resulting from Islamisation. 

Not wearing mini skirts may seem like a small thing, but it's part of the whole cloth, part of the irrevocable trend weaving more of Islam into our woof and weft.  None of it good, in my view. There is nothing - simply nothing - that the West can learn to its benefit from Islam.*

From the Spectator:

Nowhere is the effect of Salafism in Europe more evident than in France. In 2002, a group of French Muslim women launched a feminist movement called Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissives) in reaction to the growing violence being inflicted upon them, which ranged from verbal abuse to gang rape. The violence has not only continued – it has expanded, prompting the noted French feminist philosopher and writer, Élisabeth Badinter, to warn in a recent interview of a "regression" in women's rights. This week, a report in France revealed that topless bathing, once de rigueur, is a thing of the past with only 22 per cent of women under 50 daring to strip, compared with 43 per cent in 1984. Francois Kraus, whose company conducted the survey, told Le Figarothat "the risk of physical or verbal intimidation" was a factor in the decline, adding that other surveys revealed women "no longer dared to wear mini-skirts or low-cut dresses on public transport"

****************

* That's "nothing" as in nothing. 

(But note the qualifier, "to its benefit". There's certainly much we can learn from Islam that's not to our benefit: treatment of women, for example, or of gays, of apostates of non-Muslims)

Hong Kong steps ahead | Stanford News

From a Stanford university study of the amount people walk per day for various cities around the world. They used the ingenious method of getting information from a steps-tracking app. 

Meantime the International New York Times, quoting the above study, reports that Hong Kong people walk the most average steps per day, 6,880 with China second at 6,189. The United States is low in the rankings while Jakarta is the lowest at 3,513.

There is a link between the number of steps per day, obesity rates and mortality rates. 

I need to do my bit to help Hong Kong keep its first place. At the moment, I'm pulling Hong Kong's average down...

Trump speaks some sense

Trump decides not to lose in Afghanistan

Watching Trump live speech on Afghanistan. 

Key points:
1.  America would stay in Afghanistan as long as needed based on conditions. Not based on some fixed time line -- as Obama had done. 

2.  Giving more flexibility to the armed forces to decide how to proceed the war. Not micromanaging from Washington, again as Obama had done.
3.  Criticism of Pakistan. For taking American money, but harbouring terrorists, especially Afghan Taliban. Now the money will be based on cooperation in fighting terrorism. This will be tough because the Pakistani leadership, especially its armed forces, are irredeemably duplicitous. But again, about time some fire was applied to their feet. 

4.  Stroking India. To do more on anti terrorism, especially in Afghanistan.
5.  Allies need to do more. (Generally agreed in post-speech commentary).
6.  Less transparency. No need to signal everything we're doing to our enemies, as Obama had done.
BBC giving good early reviews. They have a panel doing analysis. Interesting: neither CNN nor Fox is doing post mortem. That surprises me.
Overall I thought it a good speech. He stuck to the TelePrompTer!  David French in the National Review liked it too.  See his reasoning here.
LATER: CNN is now talking about the speech, after re-litigating Trump's Charlottesville cock-up. They're generally giving it thumbs up. Was written by his generals, they say, which would seem to be the case.

Haset Sali backs Pauline Hanson's burqa ban | Daily Mail Online

Haset Sali (L), and Hanson in the Bag.  Sali supports her call for a ban
while our Senate went all kneesy-weaky virtue-signalling

We're happy to constrain religious liberty in other cases: for example, we don't allow Christian Scientists ["scientists"!] to deny medical treatment to a critically ill child because they believe "Jesus will heal". And we don't allow Mormons to marry multiple women even if that's been their believed religious right.
And so we shouldn't allow the burka. It's a horrid garment that women only wear if they are forced to or if they are deeply pious (and misread the Koran). And piety in a Muslim is when they start to get all jihad-y.
We don't allow masks to hide the face. We shouldn't allow the burka to do the same. No matter how much Muslim leaders may bleat about "Islamophobia". (That bullshit Muslim Brotherhood neologism designed to shut down criticism of Islam).
So it's great to see Haset Sali, a Muslim leader, support Hanson's proposed ban.
So it's depressing to see the Senate give a standing ovation to the majority Leader who spoke of the religious rights to wear this body bag.
Bugger that. And bugger these pious senatorial virtue-signallers.

All the Terror Attacks in Europe This Year | Clarion Project Clarion Project

But all of it "nothing to do with Islam"

A useful summary

Don’t like Google’s diversity agenda? You’re fired! | The Spectator

Yes, it's that Google memo again!  This time Toby Young in the Spectator.  I think he gives simply the best summary of the issue.

I'm as surprised as Toby is that so many in the mainstream media simply did not understand (willfully or not) the main point Damore was making. He's not "anti-diversity" and his paper was not a "screed", or "manifesto", or any one of the other pejoratives, applied to it.  It was an attempt, in a more or less well thought-out (though patchy) memo, to suggest what Google could do extra to increase diversity.  Perhaps, for example, by taking note of well-documented gender differences in various traits. At a population level, not individual; and not large, but ought to be taken into account.

Anyway, Toby says it better.
James Damore's original memo is here.
My guess is that the majority of commenters, both liberal and conservative, have criticised Google CEO Sundar Pichai's firing of Damore.

State Dept hosts Muslim Brotherhood | Clarion Project

The Muslim Brotherhood is more dangerous than these few loonies

The Clarion Project does a lot of good work that's generally sound and well researched. So this is most troubling: that the US State Department appears to have no qualms in meeting that nasty outfit, the Muslim Brotherhood. You know, the one set up in the 1920s by Hassan al-Banna, grandaddy of the oleaginous Tariq Ramadan and parent of Hamas (Hamas describes itself as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine). And it's outlawed in some Muslim countries!  But not the US where they welcome them to Foggy Bottom.

And they're more dangerous than the Nazis who paraded last week in Charlottesville.  First, because the Nazis are few and the Brotherhood is many, and is supported by many millions more Muslims. And secondly because the Nazis would be welcome in no government department, whereas the Brotherhood is shown the open door.  And third, because the Nazis are just against Jews and blacks, whereas the Brotherhood is against all we unbelievers. It wants nothing less than to overthrow the US government, install Sharia and rule -- eventually the World!  See the "secret memo" link quoted below.

✄....

Islamist groups still have an open door to the State Department under Secretary Tillerson. A coalition of Muslim Brotherhood groups is boasting that it was granted a visit to the department to provide their perspective on the Temple Mount crisis.

The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) is an umbrella of Islamist extremist groups that was formed in 2014 so they can operate as a single body. The U.S. Muslim Brotherhood had been hoping to achieve such unification since at least 1991 when the Brotherhood expressed this desire in a secret memo uncovered by federal investigators.

Most of the groups in the USCMO are listed by the Brotherhood as being fronts for its "Islamic Movement" in America. The memo described "their work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."

"Don't Even Think About Being Evil” | Wall Street Journal

I just love that Googly thing. It's NOT on the Google search page; it's a made up one, for the article "Don't even think about being evil", by Heather MacDonald, in the WSJ, about the Google memo issue.  Have a look at it closely, it all works...

And Mac Donald, like most commenters, left and right, believe that Damore, the author of the offending memo, should not have been fired.  Bad signals.  Makes a mockery of CEO Sundar Pichai's claim that Google encourages people raising issues within Google, no matter what the subject. Clearly the subject does matter, and what you think about it has to hew closely to the fine sensitivites of the Google snowflakes.

"How the Saudis Can Promote Moderate Islam” | WSJ

In the heart of the crumbling Middle East, but still supporting its
failed ideology worldwide

This follows on from the post immediately before this which looks at Saudi's support of world-wide radical Wahhabi-Salafist schooling.  Maybe there's some hope for Saudi.  Though I'm not getting my hopes up. The west -- especially the US -- should have been pressing Saudi to give up its malign support of these deeply conservative anti-western schools.  It's poisonous stuff.
The article is here, behind a paywall at the Wall Street Journal, so I've copied it below the fold.

"Does Qatar Support Extremism? Yes. And So Does Saudi Arabia” | New York Times

All they learn at madrassas is the Koran, by heart.
And that's a handbook of violence against unbelievers 

The main reason for posting this is the information it has on the perfidious Saudi Arabia: our putative "ally", but one which funds madrasas around the world teaching its students to hate we infidels.
The link is here, but may be behind a paywall.
You can read it below the fold.  Emphasis in the article is mine:

"Trump is a toddler in a car” | Ann Applebaum in the Washington Post

From this part of the world, Trump threats sound pretty scary until you realise, as North Korea has, that they mean nothing. He has cried wolf too often.
Ann Applebaum is a smart cookie, in the Washington Post

What Obama Could Teach Trump About Charlottesville | The Atlantic

These are not "fine folks" as claimed by Trump

A very thoughtful article by the reliable Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic pondering Trump's failure to name white supremacists in his condemnation of the violence in Charlottesville. 

But the issue here is substantially larger than mere hypocrisy. Obama carefully measured his rhetoric in the war against Islamist terrorism because he hoped to avoid inserting the U.S. into the middle of an internecine struggle consuming another civilisation.

But the struggle in Charlottesville is a struggle within our own civilization, within Trump's own civilization. It is precisely at moments like this that an American president should speak up directly on behalf of the American creed, on behalf of Americans who reject tribalism and seek pluralism, on behalf of the idea that blood-and-soil nationalism is antithetical to the American idea itself. Trump's refusal to call out radical white terrorism for what it is, at precisely the moment America needs its leadership to take a unified stand against hatred, marks what might be the lowest moment of his presidency to date.

"Study: Terrorists do understand Islam" | World Net Daily

Yes ISIS really is Islamic whatever the BBC* and others would have us believe: the "ISIS has nothing to do with Islam" crowd.

*[Later: apparently I'm wrong about the BBC, in that its head of Religious programming, himself a Muslim, has said that ISIS is indeed Islamic.  "They're not preaching Judaism", Aaqil Ahmed wisely notes, according to that report.  Mind you, I don't trust the site, so will have to double check that one]

This report linked here was done for the Austrian ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

A snip from the article quotes Dr Zuhdi Jasser, himself a reforming Muslim:

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim and leader of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told Lifezette: "This study proves what any honest Muslim already knows or [has] been in major denial about. While our 'Islam' as we practice it here in the West is for reform-minded Muslims compatible with Western values, the reality is the 'Islam' practiced by large swaths of Muslims in Muslim-majority nations run by Shariah law is supremacist and theocratic in mindset."

He continued: "Our organization [AIFD] and other leaders in our Muslim reform movement have been screaming from the rooftops for over a decade that there is a direct connection between non-violent Islamism (the supremacism of Islamic states based in Shariah law) and the violent Islamism of militant jihadists. One naturally leads to the other, and this study is simply proving what has been painfully obvious to any honest Muslims.

"Islamists will blame the 'anti-Muslim bigotry' or aka 'Islamophobia' of the 'right' when in fact it is Islamist groups in the West (Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups) that exaggerate the extent of anti-Muslim bigotry, trying to impose anti-blasphemy behaviors by calling it 'Islamophobia,'" Jasser said. "The Islamist groups like CAIR, MPAC, MAS, ICNA, ISNA and others will do anything possible to blame everyone on the planet who is non-Muslim except their own ideologies and in essence the ideology spread across the planet by OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] regimes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan, to name a few."

BBC Newsnight on Damore's Google memo

LETTER TO BBC: re your Nightline just now:

Caroline Criedo-Perez says the Damore Google memo had no evidence because "there were no references". She must have read Damore's memo on Gizmodo the first to publish it: which it did while stripping the memo every one of the 30 links to various scientific references. 

Criedo-Perez is plain wrong about the lack of evidence for male-female difference in traits. There's plenty. But as Damore points out there's huge overlap and the gender population differences say nothing about an individual man or woman

The head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, has noted that women are better than men at team building. This is likely true and her observations met general acclaim. She was not outed let alone fired for noting a male-female difference, an anti-male observation or anti-diversity statement.  That's all Damore was doing, pace Criedo-Perez. 

Someone at the BBC really ought to *read* the Damore Google memo before allowing more people on to voice their own prejudices and bigotries like those of Ms Criedo-Perez. 

PF
etc...

"File lawsuits to disrupt tech's sexism": take 2

LETTER TO NEW YORK TIMES, International Edition

[455 words]

Anita Hill was subject to unfair treatment in the Clarence Thomas affair, so you'd think she would try to avoid it in her treatment of others.   Instead she joins the braying mob in lynching the poor James Damore, author of the controversial "Google Memo".  ("File lawsuits to disrupt tech's sexism".  August 10). 

She does a hatchet job on what he didn't say, but ignores what he did say.

James Damore did not say he was "against Google's diversity initiatives".  The opposite is the case: his aim was to try to make these initiatives more effective, a point he made repeatedly throughout the memo.

He did not say that Google should "... abandon its efforts for gender diversity and replace them with a focus on 'ideological diversity'".  

He does not have "anti-equality attitudes".  Quite the opposite, as he repeatedly says and shows.

Against Hill's straw-persons, we have what Damore did say, which Hill simply ignores: "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes" [p1]. "I strongly believe in gender and race diversity, and I think we should strive for more" [p6].  "Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity…" [p8].  

Does that sound like a person who wants Google to abandon diversity?  He simply wants there to be more attention to what he calls "viewpoint diversity", which ought to be unarguable since that is the very reason we are told that the other diversities - gender and race - are so valuable.

He wonders if part of the disparity in the number of coders might be due to lack of interest by women in doing it.  (Different (not better or worse) traits).  That's an interesting question on which there is some data, and which ought to be a debatable issue, not a fireable offence.

The gist of his memo is on the folly of directing people into jobs for which they are not suited purely to meet diversity goals.  Google could rethink how jobs are structured if the goal is to make them more attractive to people with a different set of traits than they attract now.

In saying that Damore has challenged the prevailing orthodoxy.

That orthodoxy is incoherent.  It states that all people, no matter the gender or race, are equal. All inequalities in outcome must therefore be the result of some type of bias or oppression.  But if that were the case, why then insist on "diversity"?  Diversity is only a good thing to the extent that different viewpoints come from different genders and races. And in turn those different viewpoints must be because of "viewpoint diversity". 

In short, you can have equality, or you can have diversity.

But you can't have both. And it's a shame that Hill should smear Damore's efforst to discuss that.

Yours,

PF
Etc...

PS: 

Anita Hill opens her article with the same wording as Gizmodo did on 5 August: a Google "engineer's screed against the company's diversity initiatives…", suggesting she may have taken her line from them. Gizmodo was the first to obtain Damore's memo and posted it, allegedly in "Full".  But it is without the only two graphs — both of which are crucial to understanding Damore's argument — and "several hyperlinks are also omitted".  Actually, all 30 of the hyperlinks are omitted. Why?  It has led to some of the commenters on your online version of Hill's article to say that Damore provided no evidence for his statements, whereas he did so extensively.  What's going on here? And why didn't Hill note that fact?

Other links

Peter Guy in the South China Morning Post:  Says Damore should not have been fired.  Right.

"Stop Equating 'Science' with Truth", by Prof Chanda Prescod-Weinstein.  Against Damore. Hammered in the comments. 

Socialism flow chart

Oh how true! What a wonderful little chart! 

Wherever socialism has been tried from Albania to Zimbabwe, via Cambodia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Soviet Union, Vietnam and most recently Venezuela, it has failed.  And failed dismally and spectacularly. And when it does so, the cry from socialists is "it wasn't real socialism!" 

The Socialist party of the UK is saying that socialism hasn't been tried anywhere! 

Chavez supporters are running for cover. Corbyn has blamed Venezuela's collapse on oil price drops (to which the obvious counter is that Norway, a country with a similar bounty of oil, has managed to remain vibrantly strong despite the oil price drop. It's all about management. And socialist management simply doesn't do the job). Michael Moore was challenged this morning on U.K. Channel 4, about his fawning over Chavez and Madura. All he could do, apart from looking like he had a cockroach in his undies, was to blame the US -- again! -- for interfering in elections!  He looked like he was going to cry. I wonder how Sean Penn, a BFF of Chavez, view the Venezuelan disaster. No doubt it will be the fault of the US. Or the Jews maybe.
Sent from my iPhone

Britain Turns to Chinese Textbooks to Improve Its Math Scores - Current News & Events - OneHallyu

Well this is interesting. Britain turning to Chinese maths textbooks. Specifically Shanghai's textbooks. 

A couple of years back Britain brought in 21 Chinese maths teachers to help out at English schools.

I wonder how that went. Presumably well enough for them to now move to introduce Chinese textbooks. 

There was also a BBC reality show some months back following the trials and tribulations of half a dozen Chinese teachers employed at an English high school to teach the kids along the Chinese lines.  Fascinating show but also plenty  of cultural misunderstandings!  In the end, IIRC, both sides thought it had been worthwhile. Tough but worthwhile. 

File lawsuits to disrupt tech's sexism | Anita Hill, New York Times

LETTER TO NEW YORK TIMES, International Edition

[455 words]

Anita Hill was subject to unfair treatment in the Clarence Thomas affair, so you'd think she would try to avoid it in her treatment of others.   Instead she joins the braying mob in lynching the poor James Damore, author of the controversial "Google Memo".  ("File lawsuits to disrupt tech's sexism".  August 10). 

She does a hatchet job on what he didn't say, but ignores what he did say.

James Damore did not say he was "against Google's diversity initiatives".  The opposite is the case: his aim was to try to make these initiatives more effective, a point he made repeatedly throughout the memo.

He did not say that Google should "... abandon its efforts for gender diversity and replace them with a focus on 'ideological diversity'".  

He does not have "anti-equality attitudes".  Quite the opposite, as he repeatedly says and shows.

Against Hill's straw-persons, we have what Damore did say, which Hill simply ignores: "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes" [p1]. "I strongly believe in gender and race diversity, and I think we should strive for more" [p6].  "Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity…" [p8].  

Does that sound like a person who wants Google to abandon diversity?  He simply wants there to be more attention to what he calls "viewpoint diversity", which ought to be unarguable since that is the very reason we are told that the other diversities - gender and race - are so valuable.

He wonders if part of the disparity in the number of coders might be due to lack of interest by women in doing it.  (Different (not better or worse) traits).  That's an interesting question on which there is some data, and which ought to be a debatable issue, not a fireable offence.

The gist of his memo is on the folly of directing people into jobs for which they are not suited purely to meet diversity goals.  Google could rethink how jobs are structured if the goal is to make them more attractive to people with a different set of traits than they attract now.

In saying that Damore has challenged the prevailing orthodoxy.

That orthodoxy is incoherent.  It states that all people, no matter the gender or race, are equal. All inequalities in outcome must therefore be the result of some type of bias or oppression.  But if that were the case, why then insist on "diversity”?  Diversity is only a good thing to the extent that different viewpoints come from different genders and races. And in turn those different viewpoints must be because of "viewpoint diversity". 

In short, you can have equality, or you can have diversity.

But you can't have both.

Yours etc,
PF

PS: 
Anita Hill opens her article with the same wording as Gizmodo did on 5 August: a Google "engineer's screed against the company's diversity initiatives…", suggesting she may have taken her line from them. Gizmodo was the first to obtain Damore's memo and posted it, allegedly in "Full".  But it is without the only two graphs — both of which are crucial to understanding Damore's argument — and "several hyperlinks are also omitted".  Actually, all 30 of the hyperlinks are omitted. Why?  It has led to some of the commenters on your online version of Hill's article to say that Damore provided no evidence for his statements, whereas he did so extensively.  What's going on here? And why didn't Hill note that fact?

Other links
Peter Guy in the South China Morning Post:  Says Damore should not have been fired.  Right.

"Stop Equating 'Science' with Truth", by Prof Chanda Prescod-Weinstein.  Against Damore. Hammered in the comments. Slate = left of centre.

Ex-muslim talks about eating bacon for the first time

Sami loooves bacon!

What fun! Sami Shah, a Muslim apostate, describes first time tasting bacon after he renounced Islam. Something he could only do in Australia, by the way.  In his home of Pakistan, he would have been killed for exercising his right to freedom of belief.

See him here.

My letter on Muslim apologists, published today | South China Morning Post

Condemnation sounds like empty words

I guess we all know of the non-apologetic apology: "I'm sorry if you feel offended". How about the non-condemnatory ­condemnation?

This is what we've been ­hearing from a phalanx of ­Islamic apologists in your pages recently. Syed Ridwan Elahi, of the Muslim Council of Hong Kong, is just the latest in this genre ("Muslim voices against terror drowned out", July 30).

They all claim that they have been condemning terrorism. So why do we "misguided" ­non-Muslims still complain?

Well, because these so-called condemnations are not really condemnations at all: terrorism is by people "with Muslim names" (that is, they're not real Muslims). Or the terrorists have "distorted" Islam's message (it has nothing to do with Islam). Or terrorism is the fault of the West (that is, because of "our wars of terror in the Middle East").

I would like to see some real honesty from these representatives of Islam, not obfuscation, ­obscurantism and deflection.

Some brave Muslims – but too few – have addressed this issue front on: selected Koranic doctrines mandate the ­terrorising and killing of infidels.

Many more Muslims, especially those in leadership ­positions, need to face up to these doctrines and neutralise them.

No one imagines this will be easy. But the process can't begin until it's acknowledged.

Until then no amount of non-condemnatory condemnation is going to cut the ice.

PF, etc...

What turns a Hong Kong maid towards Islamic State? | This Week In Asia | South China Morning Post

Well the Hong Kong press has finally got onto this story. The story of Maids to Murderers.  From Maids to Jihadi brides.

These are Indonesian Muslim women who come to Hong Kong as domestic helpers. They find themselves isolated and "empty" according to the story. So what else do you do if you feel isolated and empty? Why, go off to kill some infidels, of course!

The story doesn't look at the issue of why the Filipinas in Hong Kong, about the same in number as the Indonesian Muslimas, in the same conditions, entirely the same, in other words, don't head off to joint ISIS or contemplate suicide bombing of we unbelievers.  Instead, you find the Filipinas, on their days off, going to church, then gathering together in town and singing and dancing and playing and acting up and being funny….
It's only the muslimas, wanting to find a "purer form of Islam", who come upon Jihadi Islam, and find new meaning in life in becoming part of the Islamic killing machine.