Comes with this, just to help make things clear.
I just might mention that I also play the concertina which is like an accordion only better.
A banjo is naturally one of them
Reply
Monthly Archives: December 2019
Life in the slow lane
Image
How to get high marks at University
Amongst my friends from economics classes these decades ago, the one who always got the highest marks – and not just because he understood this stuff better than the rest of us – was the one who took the fewest notes. He would write down only what the lecturer said more than once, got the wording exactly right, and would then be sure to write these words back on the exams. A superior strategy which I am reminded of by reading this: How to Cope With Your Prof’s Left-wing Bias. It wasn’t at the same level as today, although possibly no one really noticed since we were all Keynesians then (and therefore all socialists). But here’s the advice:
To get the best possible grade, students may need to pander to their professors’ left-wing ideology.
Professors are much more likely to be progressives than they are to be moderate or conservative. Law professors are no exception. Progressive professors view progressive views as a sign of intelligence, and conservatism as a sign of stupidity. For example, Prof. Robert Brandon, head of Duke University’s philosophy department, argued that conservatives are rare in academia because they are stupid.
He is talking about law, but it applies in all the humanities and social sciences, and absolutely in economics. Just ask yourself, how bizarre is it that virtually all academic economists (along with their idiot graduates) are socialists of one kind or another. Same everywhere, but among economists it is the greatest disgrace since they are supposed to know how an economy works, and if you are a socialist who never discusses the role of an entrepreneur you clearly do not.
Helping to define the current wave of insanity
This is gender.
And then there’s David Solway’s The Transrealism of the Left which begins:
In the ongoing and infinitely tedious sex wars of our time, pitting women against men, women against women, men against women, men against men, and whatever seventy or so gender claimants lurk in between, it looks like the transgender brigade is winning the day. It represents, so to speak, the cutting edge of the intersectional fray.
Indeed, the trans phenomenon is perhaps the most interesting of the erotic variables that define the current wave of insanity, of which the transition from male to female, whether surgical, hormonal or cosmetic, appears to be the paramount factor in the venereal mix. Bathrooms in many establishments are no longer gender-specific. Women’s sporting events are increasingly dominated by biological males identifying as women. Corporations have climbed aboard the intersex, gender non-conforming and transgender bandwagon. Over fifty large companies, including Amazon, Coca Cola, ebay, Google, Microsoft and counting, have issued a statement affirming “the rights and identities of transgender people,” ludicrously claiming that “gender definition determined by birth anatomy fails[s] to reflect the complex realities of gender identity and human biology” and implying the virtue of biomorphic mutation. Many religious institutions have welcomed such gender anomalies into the fold. Even preschoolers are being subjected to the LGBT+ blitz and are taught the blessings of transitioning.
To be read through for those few who remain able to read a sustained argument on a non-fashionable subject that goes absolutely against the grain of the times in which we live.
In Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, French philosopher Paul Ricoeur defined the positive form of utopian thinking as the “exploration of the possible,” but understood that it is always vulnerable to fantasy, a gloss on Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia where Mannheim claims that utopian thinking is “not at all concerned with what really exists.” And utopian thinking is the definitive property of the political left — that is, not only as the “exploration of the possible” but the attempted realization of the impossible. Human beings can thoroughly shed their private personalities, wealth can be equally distributed without damaging the social consensus, property can be seized by an all-encompassing state for the undeniable benefit of all its citizens, society can be happily and productively collectivized, class divisions can be eradicated, endemic corruption can be rooted out, and human beings and human societies can be manipulated to ensure peaceful coexistence, economic parity, pastoral tranquillity and a sense of universal kinship.
In other words, everything becomes possible in the socialist world-view. That is why a woman can become a man but, more importantly in the current milieu, why a man can become a woman. Biological sex can be transformed into voluntary gender. All that is needed is a bit of invasive tinkering and the right attitude. The transgender phenomenon is merely the latest manifestation of leftist postconceptions, the basic assumption that the impossible is possible, that everything can be transformed according to an ideologically inspired blueprint.
Much, much more. And to go with David Solway, there is this from Mark Steyn: The Men Who Walked Away. I would say this must be a Canadian thing, with me quoting two fellow citizens of the frozen Dominion, except that it is most definitely anything but. Will just quote this, but worth your time.
“There is no law that says women and children first,” Roger Kohen of the International Maritime Organization told Time magazine. “That is something from the age of chivalry.”
If, by “the age of chivalry”, you mean the early 20th century.
You know, like when the Titanic sank.
And then there is this, which even comes with a picture: POLICE SUBJECTED TO PRONOUN POLICE.
You would think this is parody but it’s not. It’s the future.
And to show this is an idea that’s in the air, this also just came my way: Is Gender a Social Construct?. Read it as well. The short answer is No, but that’s my answer. At the link there is some hedging of bets. Final para:
Ultimately, the mantra that “gender is a social construct” is misleading and may cause significant confusion and unnecessary acrimony. It is more reasonable to suggest that gender is an internalized sense of masculinity/femininity that is shaped by a complex interaction of genetic, hormonal and social forces. Granted, that’s probably harder to fit on a coffee mug. But I remain optimistic that if we are realistic about the complex interplay of biology and environment, we can work toward an egalitarian and open society that allows individuals to express their individuality whether or not they conform to traditional (or progressive) gender role norms.
I guess he [?] wants to keep his [?] job. It does say at the end that “you can follow him on Twitter” so I will just presume.
Modern education
Image
In a world with no God
Image
Even more media political stupidity
| Our cover this week is on the most important election in Britain for many years. Voters face a stark choice between Boris Johnson, whose Tories promise a hard Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour Party plans to “rewrite the rules of the economy” along radical socialist lines. Mr Johnson runs the most unpopular new government on record; Mr Corbyn is the most unpopular leader of the opposition. That leaves a low bar for the Liberal Democrats and, for all their faults, they clear it. Their economic approach is the most sensible; on climate change and social policy they strike the best balance between ambition and realism. Yet they will not win. So why back them? The principled reason is that the Lib Dems are closest to the liberalism on which this newspaper was founded. But there is a practical reason, too. Voters worry that backing the Lib Dems plays into Mr Corbyn’s hands. However, our modelling suggests that votes and seats would come from both the main parties. A Lib Dem surge would be the best way to restrain whoever ends up in Downing Street. | ||
 Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief |
I guess it’s now too late to do anything
Why aren’t these people at least a little embarrassed? It’s all in a good cause, even though there’s not an ounce of evidence that the globe is heating up, and quite a bit that it may even be cooling down (but to these “scientists” that’s part of global warming as well).
From Donna Laframboise
Impeachment theatre
I keep reading about how the impeachment investigation is going badly for the Democrats, but that’s only how we look at it. ‘It did nothing’: White House blasts Judiciary Committee hearing as ‘desperate charade’.
The White House called the first day of impeachment testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee a “bad day” for Democrats as they attempt to impeach President Trump.
“Today was a good day for President Trump, and a bad day for the Democrats,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a Wednesday statement. “The only thing the three liberal professors established at Chairman Nadler’s hearing was their political bias against the President. It did nothing to change the fact that, despite weeks of hearings in this sham process, the President did nothing wrong.”
“Congress should get back to working for the American people. The United States–Mexico–Canada trade agreement, infrastructure, and drug pricing all await action from Speaker Pelosi. Instead, House Democrats continue to ignore their constituents by focusing on this pathetic and desperate charade,” she added.
Great. Rational, civil, sensible, sane. That, however, is not what we are dealing with on the other side. These people are plain loco. They bulldoze power stations. They try to open their borders to anyone who wants to come. They want to believe that if we don’t do something about climate, the world will end in twelve years. They want to end the market economy. They have not a policy to their name that will solve a single problem, nor do they seem to care or even want one. Self-destructive and deluded, and have no idea what they want. And this far out, you cannot even begin to say with any certainty that one of their candidates will not become president eleven months from now.
I picked up these posts on the first page of Lucianne.com just now, but you could find just the same any time of night and day. The level of derangement is beyond comprehension. You cannot talk to these people. They want magic solutions to all problems.
President Donald Trump likes to say he’s going to win so much, you’ll get tired of winning. Maybe Democrats have taken the president too literally. The Democratic Attorneys General Association is leading the charge to excise all abortion moderates from the good graces of the party. It announced it will not endorse or assist any candidates who do not support unfettered abortion access. While state AGs may not seem incredibly relevant, they are an important stepping stone toward governors’ mansions in many states. So, considering the Democrats’ weak bench for plausible candidates in red states, the decision not to compete for attorney general is significant.
Former Women’s March leader and current Bernie Sanders campaign surrogate Linda Sarsour attempted to explain controversial comments she made at the 12th Annual Conference for Palestine, which took place in Chicago this past weekend. True to her noxious brand, the Palestinian-American activist compared Jewish self-determination to white supremacy in a full-throated speech that only a hateful artist of her caliber could manage. “Ask them this: How can you be against white supremacy in the United States of America and the idea of living in a supremacist state based on race and class but then you support a state like Israel that is built on supremacy
This Friday, the top four NCAA Division III women’s soccer teams face off in the national semifinals. One of the final four teams’ goalkeepers, Isa Berardo, is a male transgender playing as a female for Pomona-Pitzer Colleges. Not surprisingly, the male goalie has dominated the field against opposing female players, giving his own a chance to win the national championship thanks to his physical advantages in a key position. This is increasingly happening throughout women’s sports, at all levels from elementary school through professional competitions. It’s creating not equality, but inequality.
Yesterday, the House Judiciary led by Democrat ball of impeachment fury Jerry Nadler and his booster seat, presented a panel of highly-credentialed white people to quack about how Trump should be impeached from a constitutional perspective. When I say “highly-credentialed” I refer to their NeverTrump credentials because these three clowns have been howling against Trump for years. No rational watcher, and I doubt there were any rational watchers just political junkies/employees, would find this performance art in any way credible or persuasive. The event was a straight up PR exercise. The GOP did get one witness, lawyer Jonathan Turley who is also not a Trump supporter but is a reasonable
Everyone knows the universities are on the political Left. Political science is part of that problem, though it isn’t nearly as corrupt as some other disciplines. While many professors hold their partisan biases close, those inclinations all too often appear in curricula and scholarship and inevitably reach the classroom. A contrary example both of the theory and practice of politics, because its focus is on advancing the principles of the Declaration of Independence, are the panels and scholarship sponsored by the Claremont Institute—recently honored at the White House with the National Humanities Medal.
As far as I can remember, the late Dr. Charles Krauthammer, author of the line “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” never added an amendment about First Lady Laura. Well, Trump Derangement Syndrome is alive and well and it’s Melania’s turn to hear from the critics. Check this one from Robin Rivhan, Fashion Critic, of the Washington Post: First lady Melania Trump unveiled this year’s White House Christmas decorations in a gauzy video in which she strolls through the public rooms marveling at their holiday luster. She gingerly adjusts a single red rose in a lush floral swag draped over a mantelpiece
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) nuked Democrat witnesses during the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment inquiry hearing on Wednesday in a fiery round of questioning that exposed their bias against President Trump and Republicans. Gaetz also got the witnesses, all constitutional law professors, to admit they donated thousands of dollars to Democrats. Gaetz first asked Michael Gerhardt, professor at University of North Carolina, if he donated money to Barack Obama. Gerhardt responded, “My family did, yes.” Gaetz asked, “Four times?” Gerhardt responded, “That sounds about right, yes.”
Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-CA) dramatic exit from the 2020 Democrat presidential primary race has many on the left lamenting the current lineup for the upcoming debate, which currently has six candidates qualifying, all of whom are white. Harris exited the race on Tuesday as one of the seven Democrat candidates who met the fundraising and polling thresholds required to qualify for the December 19 debate in Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. In order to qualify, a candidate must report at least 200,000 contributions and reach four percent in four Democratic
.
“Democrats disturbed” seems right, but how do you fix that?
Law of Markets 