2 Sept 2015

Anti-Knowledge

What does education mean when the knowledge learned is false? johntheother

Dramatic Escalation, China Sends Five Navy Ships Off Alaska Coast For First Time Ever

Tyler Durden's picture Just as China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II with an extravagant parade designed to showcase the country’s military prowess and project Xi Jinping’s power to nervous onlookers in the West, the Pentagon says it has spotted five Chinese Navy ships in the Bering Sea, just off the coast of Alaska.
Here’s WSJ:

Five Chinese navy ships are currently operating in the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska, the first time the U.S. military has seen such activity in the area, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The officials said they have been aware in recent days that three Chinese combat ships, a replenishment vessel and an amphibious ship were in the vicinity after observing them moving toward the Aleutian Islands, which are split between U.S. and Russian control.

Stop What’s That Sound? Falling Markets!

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the return of fear as global stock markets begin to wobble. They examine the role of central banks in performing magic tricks that are far too convincing, thus conning investors to misallocate capital. In the second half, Max interviews investment banker and author Chris Whalen about global stock markets and the perhaps unpayable debts of many nations, states and municipalities around the world - including Puerto Rico and Chicago.

An Article That Almost Gets Rape Culture Right

By : Mona Charen has a pretty decent article up at the Federalist about rape culture, specifically as it is imagined on college campuses. It’s definitely worth a read. There are two passages in particular that I want to discuss. Here’s the first one: 
Rape culture is an attitude toward women in particular, but not even just to womento treating all people as sexual objects, nothing more than an opportunity for sex,” Anna Bahr, a Columbia graduate told New York magazine. That’s not “rape culture,” that’s hook-up culture. That’s the post-sexual revolution American culture, and she’s right that it stinks.
I think Charen is absolutely correct that ‘rape culture’ is really ‘hook-up culture’, and the Columbia student quoted above makes an important point that hook-up culture treats all people as ‘sexual objects, nothing more than an opportunity for sex’. Not just women. Everyone. Charen takes a very simplistic, and quite frankly disappointing, definition of rape, excluding most men from coerced or forced sex unless their assailants were other men, gay or not. We know for a fact that approximately equal numbers of men and women report unwanted, coerced or forced sex that involves traditional penis-in-vagina action. When the victim is a woman, the CDC collects those numbers as sexual assault. When the victim is a man, they collect the numbers under the awkwardly worded ‘made to penetrate’ option under ‘other sexual assault’.

How To Treat Him As A Human Being

Thanks to Terrence Popp, I learned about this “interesting” book by Jewish feminist Jessica Rubin:
Here’s the description:Training a man is really no different than training a canine. It just takes time, reinforced behavior, and a firm grasp of when to use the carrot and when to use the stick. Simply follow the 50 tips in this book and you’ll have a loving and faithful companion for years to come.”
That’s right. Apparently, men are like dogs and can and should be trained. Technically, anybody can be trained, from kids to adults. But you don’t hear men say this about women, let alone write a book about it: it would be immediately banned by the Female Inquisition.

The Primacy Of Jewish Genes

Gilad Atzmon at his cutting best. Be careful what you wish for, really careful.

The Myth Of A Russian 'Threat'

Not a week goes by without the Pentagon carping about an ominous Russian "threat".
By Pepe Escobar: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey entered certified Donald “known unknown” Rumsfeld territory when he recently tried to conceptualize the “threat”; “Threats are the combination, or the aggregate, of capabilities and intentions. Let me set aside for the moment, intentions, because I don’t know what Russia intends.”
So Dempsey admits he does not know what he’s talking about. What he seems to know is that Russia is a “threat” anyway — in space, cyber space, ground-based cruise missiles, submarines.
And most of all, a threat to NATO; “One of the things that Russia does seem to do is either discredit, or even more ominously, create the conditions for the failure of NATO.”
So Russia “does seem” to discredit an already self-discredited NATO. That’s not much of a “threat”.
All these rhetorical games take place while NATO “does seem” to get ready for a direct confrontation with Russia. And make no mistake; Moscow does view NATO’s belligerence as a real threat.

October 13, 2015 - The Day Digital Privacy Officially Dies In Australia

By Michael Krieger: At least in America, the authorities feel a need to lie to the public while engaging in invasive and tyrannical warrantless surveillance. In Australia, a nation in which you are more likely to die by hitting a kangaroo with your car than in a terrorist attack, government officials have no qualms with doing it right in your face.
We learn from the Sydney Morning Herald:
The digital privacy of Australians ends from Tuesday, October 13.
On that day this country’s entire communications industry will be turned into a surveillance and monitoring arm of at least 21 agencies of executive government.
The electronically logged data of mobile, landline voice (including missed and failed) calls and text messages, all emails, download volumes and location information will be mandatorily retained by Australian telcos and ISPs.

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies will have immediate, warrantless and accumulating access to all telephone and internet metadata required by law, with a $2 million penalty for telcos and ISPs that don’t comply.

Rape Charges At Colleges, Arrest The Guy First And Ask Questions Later. MEN BEWARE!

"They are going right now and they are arresting this man and throwing him in jail for the weekend. Let me repeat that, they are on Zero evidence, without even questioning the man by the way. ...they are literally going to go over his apartment right now and arrest him and charging him with aggravated sexual assault most likely without even asking his side of the story! ...It is guilty until proven Innocent. ...As men we arepublic enemy number one." Dark Knight