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Thu, 04 Nov 2021
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NPC

'Idiotic and divorced from reality': Prof dissects Disney film Moana through lens of 'rape' and 'toxic masculinity'

disney
A Gonzaga University professor related Disney movie Moana to themes of rape and colonization in a Thursday presentation.

As previously reported by Campus Reform, philosophy professor Danielle Layne hosted an event, titled, "Is MoanaAbout Rape?"

At the event, which Campus Reform attended, Layne showed attendees a full viewing of the movie without prior comment and encouraged people to watch the movie with an open mind. She followed up with a 10-minute presentation, which preceded an hour discussion during which attendees could ask her questions.

The presentation proceeded with three themes regarding the film: feminine and indigenous empowerment, environmental destruction (rape of nature), and neo-colonialism.

Red Flag

Child Protective Service has helped create a Gestapo-like police state

police state

My generation and that of our children grew up without Child Protective Service (CPS). We stand up very well compared to subsequent generations.

Child Protective Services is an extremely intrusive government agency that would not have been tolerated. The power of this police agency trumps parental rights and responsibilities. The agency is an important part of the destruction of liberty that I have witnessed over my lifetime.

The Gestapo power that the state now wields over parents is a creation of "child advocates" who believe that it is the function of government to protect children from parents. One consequence has been to erode parental control and to effectively end it in the case of rebellious children who respond to punishment by calling CPS and reporting their parents. CPS has powerful incentives to seize children as it justifies the agency's existence and brings a federal payment for each child seized.

There are reports that many of the seized children end up in the hands of pedophiles, but governments seldom want to hear that they are doing harm rather than good.

Comment: Child Protective Service workers now being installed in public schools


Road Cone

Second explosive device in a week found in Dutch city, area cordoned off

Dutch police
© Reuters / Piroschka van de Wouw
File Photo: Dutch police in Utrecht, March 18, 2019
Dutch police have responded to the discovery of an explosive device, the second such incident this week in the Netherlands.

The explosive device, resembling a grenade, was discovered at about 8:30am local time at the Nieuw Zeist cafe, in a residential area in the town of Zeist, near Utrecht. Reports by local media suggest the device had been left there deliberately, however, this was not confirmed by police.

Airplane

Singapore Airlines grounds part of Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet due to engine problems

Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner airplane
© Reuters / Tim Chong
Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner airplane
Singapore Airlines (SIA) has removed two of its nine Boeing 787-10 aircraft from service due to engine issues. It is more bad news for Boeing following the worldwide grounding of its popular 737 MAX passenger jet.

"During recent routine inspections of Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 TEN engines on Singapore Airlines' Boeing 787-10 fleet, premature blade deterioration was found on some engines," the carrier said in a statement on Tuesday.

Two SIA 787-10 aircraft have been removed from service pending engine replacements, while other jets equipped with the model of the Rolls-Royce engine are awaiting precautionary inspections that are to be finished by April 3.

Singapore Airlines said that some of the company's flights have been affected by the grounding, but did not elaborate on the number of the flights and passengers affected. The company is now seeking a replacement to "minimize schedule disruption to customers."

NPC

Rutgers professor: Even the concept of time is racially biased

commuting
© Getty Images
One of the privileges of being a tenured professor in the field of "studies" is that you can make up crap out of thin air and majors in the field, fellow faculty, and progressive media all go "Ooooooh!" in amazement.

Rutgers University's Brittney Cooper is a master at this. The associated professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies who once opined that Jesus was "potentially queer" or was "married to a prostitute," called black city officials she did not like "white supremacists in Blackface," and had nothing but words of "the four-letter variety" after the US Supreme Court allowed for religious exemptions to the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate, now says that the very concept of time itself is ... racially biased.

Attention

$450M Leonardo da Vinci painting mysteriously vanishes into thin air

DaVinciPainting
© Unknown
Missing Da Vinci painting, 'Salvator Mundi'
Back in November 2017, "Salvator Mundi," a painting of Jesus that was controversially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, was driving the art world crazy. Aside from its sky high price of $450 million and its sale to a bidder that many thought represented Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the painting's authenticity was also called into question.

Which is why when the Louvre Abu Dhabi cancelled a planned showing of the work this week, it caught the eye of art world yet again. Not only that, but the museum's culture department has deflected questions about the work and other museum workers have said that they "do not know where the painting is," according to Inquisitr.

The bottom line: the painting appears to have vanished into thin air.

French officials at the Louvre in Paris expected to get the painting for an exhibition later this year that will mark the 500th anniversary of Da Vinci's death. They hoped that the painting would surface prior to then, but so far, it hasn't.

Comment: See below for more on this 'missing' masterpiece:


Card - VISA

Hungary: Suspected ISIS fighter found with EU debit card

VISA-IS
© Global Look Press/Monika Skolimowska • AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye
A suspected Islamic State terrorist, who sought asylum in Europe, reportedly received a prepaid debit card meant for refugees from the European Union. The incident reflects a dangerous new period for Europe, an analyst told RT.

Hungarian counter-terrorism officers apprehended a Syrian national, in Budapest last week, who had been identified as a high-ranking member of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). The suspected terrorist, posing as a refugee, reportedly received a prepaid debit card from the EU upon his arrival in Europe - one of 64,000 individuals to receive the taxpayer-subsidized cards.

While the EU insists that a strict screening process is used to ensure the euro handouts reach the right people, the Hungarian government has argued that the embarrassing discovery highlights the grave security threat facing Europe, as jihadists fleeing the Middle East seek refuge abroad.

Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer, agreed, telling RT that Europe must become more diligent as Islamic militants flee Syria and Iraq. "We're seeing a time of transition. They'll transition into something different. This is a very, very dangerous and difficult period, and we need to monitor that transition very closely, to be able to identify and track known jihadists that are coming through," he said.


V

Russian prankster who trolled Guaido tells RT how he fools world politicians time and again

Aleksey Stolyarov
While not quite president of Switzerland, prankster Aleksey Stolyarov has made his political mark with little more than a phone. In a conversion with RT, he explains how he makes headlines by making fools of powerful people.

From tricking Elliott Abrams into proving the United States' power over Juan Guaido, to getting the investigators of the Skripal case to admit they didn't know which country produced the Novichok poison, Stolyarov is no ordinary prank caller. Yet, as he himself is quick to admit, he lacks some of the "moral ethics" a journalist ought to possess. All the same, he and his partner in crime, Vladimir Kuznetsov, have been able to get the truth out of high-ranking officials in ways normal journalists could only dream of.

The duo's brand of "prank journalism" aims to be "useful to society," provoking both rare moments of honesty from powerful figures as well as laughter among audiences. Watch Afshin Rattansi's conversation with the Russian trickster about how he manages to pull off his epic pranks on people at the highest levels of international politics on RT.


2 + 2 = 4

Pollution in Pre-Industrial Europe

1600s-london
Last week, I wrote about Jason Hickel's romantic idea that people in the past "lived well" with little or no monetary income. I noted that prior to the Industrial Revolution, clothing was immensely expensive and uncomfortable. The cotton mills changed all that.

As a French historian noted in 1846, "Machine production...brings within the reach of the poor a world of useful objects, even luxurious and artistic objects, which they could never reach before."

Today, I wish to turn to pollution. It is well known that industrialization helped to pollute the environment, but that does not mean that air and water were clean before factories and mills came along! Compared to today, our ancestors had to endure horrific environmental conditions.

Comment: Social and environmental justice warriors and anti-capitalist activists of all types would do well to read a little real history before they roundly denounce the 'modern world'. It is true that we live in an increasingly dystopian society, but that is largely due to the lack of truly moral guidance from authorities and cannot reasonably be laid at the door of technological progress. Indeed, without the creature comforts of modern technology, the immorality of modern Western life would likely be too much to bear.

At the same time, modern creature comforts have led many people to passively accept or ignore the immorality that defines modern Western culture and encouraged the 'social justice' types to misjudge what should be railed against and what should be left well alone. Indeed, a major part of the immorality sweeping Western society is the result of modern technology and comforts that allows fanatical social justice warriors the time and means to promote their twisted view of reality far and wide.


Stock Down

Artificially low interest rates: The slow vindication of Austrian economics?

Austrian Economics

Austrian Economics
Followers of the Austrian economists (if you are at all sincere about understanding political economy you should at least get familiar with their arguments) frequently lament that the Keynesian social-democrat mainstream not only disagrees with them, but never even bothers to argue against them, treating them instead as if they were invisible or worse, attacking idiotic strawmen instead. But every once in a while I notice a truth, revealed long ago through reason by the Austrians, peeking through when a modern Keynesian happens to write about real world effects that seemed to him counter-intuitive. Several times in the past year or two I've seen Austrian conclusions pop through the cracks of post-2008 Keynesianism, but justified on different grounds and expressed in different language. The truth is making itself known, for truth can never be suppressed forever, but the mainstream of economics is still having a hard time shedding their faux empiricism and obsession with complicated-but-meaningless mathematical models. So when they notice it they have to notice it in terms of economic history throwing them a curveball that warrants more study.

Just today in the New York Times, Neil Irwin notices with some consternation that low interest rates have a strange way of favoring the biggest players in a market. The revelation comes from a chance encounter with on-the-ground experiences of actual entrepreneurs.

Comment: While this may be true, it is also true that the financial system is so manipulated, its values distorted and at the whims of an unaccountable government-corporate elite that whichever system is employed it's unlikely to ever benefit to the little man: