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Diversity and inclusion of identity group politics often means uniformity and exclusion of ideas

John Staddon
James G. Martin Center
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 18:26 UTC
diversity
"'Diversity and inclusion' is the moral benchmark of our time... Every corporation, college, and government agency, along with a growing number of bowling leagues and bait-and-tackle shops, has an Office of Diversity and Inclusion." So says William Voegeli in a recent article. And so says the University of California at Los Angeles, whose campus-wide Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion earned (or at least, was paid) some $444,000 in 2016. UCLA is not alone in assigning overwhelming importance to "diversity and inclusion."

Bias in favor of or against an individual simply because of his or her race or ethnicity is morally wrong. When bias is government policy, the outcome is also invariably bad. Neither morality nor Machiavelli favors group preferences, as distinguished black economist Thomas Sowell argued in an 18,000-word 1989 article.
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Calendar

The liberal media's Father's Day

Rod Dreher
The American Conservative
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 18:07 UTC
Self-mutilated female LARPing
© CNN screenshot
Self-mutilated female LARPing as a man plays with the son to whom she gave birth; LARPing male in background in the June Cleaver role
Happy Father's Day from CNN:
Like many new dads, Sabastion Sparks knew parenting would come with serious challenges.

But most new dads didn't give birth to their child. They didn't breastfeed them. And they don't endure glares from strangers when they go shopping with their wife and their toddler son.

Sabastion, 24, is a transgender man who lives with his wife Angel in suburban Atlanta. Assigned the female gender at birth, he began transitioning five years ago . It's a process that felt more complete last month when he had surgery to remove his breasts.

Comment: Perhaps the last statement is a bit harsh. A better thing to do may be to gain knowledge of how ideological possession affects people and the world around us.

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Dollar

The direct approach to reducing poverty isn't always best

Bjorn Lomborg and Manorama Bakshi
LiveMint
Fri, 25 May 2018 08:10 UTC
school children in India
© Hemant Mishra/Mint
Sometimes in life, it is clear that the direct approach isn't the best one. This is true in many areas, even when it comes to policymaking. Take, as an example, the area of extreme poverty. It seems logical, at first, that the most effective response should be head-on: giving money and assets to protect people from income shocks.

In recent times, microcredit schemes have been presented as a panacea, attracting a lot of money around the world. However, a series of trials have shown that microcredit doesn't do much good-often not even increasing average incomes, and burying the poor in debt.

Subsidized crop insurance is another direct approach designed to help generate more income for the poorest of farmers by making agriculture less risky. But how useful is this approach? New research by Munshi Sulaiman, research director of Save the Children International, with Michael Murigi of the University of Sydney, analytically weighs the costs and benefits of this along with other direct approaches to poverty alleviation.

Comment: Giving people free money rarely solves any problems, so an approach of aiding in bootstrapping them to be economically productive would likely produce better and longer term results.

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Light Sabers

Twitter loses case against right-winger suing for banning his account

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC
clipping Twitter's tail feathers
On Thursday, a California superior court judge ruled in favor of "white advocate" Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, who is suing Twitter for banning his account over his political views.

From Bloomberg, "Twitter to Face Claims by 'White Advocate' Over Banned Accounts":

Comment: Will Twitter think twice before censoring and manipulating content for its Deep State-aligned ends? See more:

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Russian Flag

Russia hosting the World Cup has political dimensions all to her benefit

Andrew Korybko
Eurasia Future
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 17:05 UTC
Putin world cup
© Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin /Reuters
FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour kick-off ceremony at the Luzhniki Stadium, on September 9, 2017
The act of playing and watching football should always remain apolitical, but it's impossible not to notice the political dimensions of hosting the World Cup, all of which decisively play to Russia's favor.

It was a very prudent move for President Putin to work his hardest over the years in getting FIFA to ultimately grant Russia the global honor of hosting the 2018 World Cup. This renowned privilege will assuredly be to Moscow's political advantage despite the act of playing and watching football being a decidedly apolitical pastime. Here are the three benefits that Russia stands to reap through its hosting of this event, beginning with those that are most relevant from a grassroots level and then proceeding to the ones that are within the realm of International Relations:

Comment: Russia's patient and disciplined diplomatic policies are paying off handsomely. The West ought to be taking notes.

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People 2

Child abuse: Mother wants son she birthed to see 'him' as a man - father now a 'woman' too


Conservative Fighters
Sat, 16 Jun 2018 17:11 UTC
Sabastion Sparks
Just in time for Father's Day, CNN brings you the story of a biological female who refers to herself as a transgender man who, after taking testosterone to "transition," conceived a child with a man who was "transitioning" into a transgender woman but stopped taking hormones long enough that they could conceive a son.

CNN titled the piece, "He gave birth. He breastfed. Now, he wants his son to see him as a man."

The "he" in question is Sabastion Sparks, 24, "a transgender man who lives with his wife Angel in suburban Atlanta."

CNN writes, "Like many new dads, Sabastion Sparks knew parenting would come with serious challenges. But most new dads didn't give birth to their child. They didn't breastfeed them."

That's certainly true.

CNN writes that Sparks "wants Jaxen, their 20-month-old son, to have as normal a childhood as possible," suggesting that a more "comfortable" Sparks can now better provide that normal childhood.

"I'm going to be a better father being comfortable in myself and him seeing that confidence in me," said Sparks.
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Dollar

Judges work around student loan bankruptcy laws in favor of borrowers

Yves Smith
Naked Capitalism
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 17:06 UTC
student loan debt
Earlier this week, we linked to a CNBC story that described how the Department of Education is seeking input on whether it was too hard for borrowers to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. We pointed out that if the DoE went forward, it would be a twofer for the Republicans: they'd probably win votes from at least some borrowers who benefitted, and the recognition of losses on Federally guaranteed loans would lead to call to make the program more stringent, perhaps including penalties on higher educational institutions who mislead borrowers about loan risks and their earnings potential. Since employees of higher educational institutions skew Democratic, effectively cutting their funding would not hurt and probably would help Team R.

It turns out some bankruptcy judges have already concluded that the bankruptcy requirements for student loans have been excessive, and they've been allowing some borrowers to reduce or discharge their debts, something that was heretofore virtually impossible.

Mind you, this is not happening very often, in part because bankruptcy judges historically have been so unreceptive to plaintiffs weighed down by student debts seeking relief that lawyers would refuse to take these cases. As a result, last year, only 473 borrowers made the attempt.

Comment: See also:

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Camera

Inside the California shelter for child illegals separated from parents

Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 16:50 UTC
el cajon hhs
The Department of Health and Human Services hosted Breitbart News and other media on a tour of a facility in El Cajon, California, on Friday where migrant children are being sheltered after being separated from their parents.

The children are separated from their parents - or, to be precise, from the adults accompanying them, who may or may not be their parents - when their parents cross the southern U.S. border illegally and are caught and detained.

Previously, under the "catch-and-release" policy, the adults would be released. Under the "zero tolerance" policy of the Trump administration, the adults are being detained and prosecuted. Children cannot be incarcerated with them.

However, families that arrive together at legal ports of entry and apply for asylum status are generally not split up and are permitted to stay in the U.S. pending the adjudication of their applications (which can take several years).

Democrats and the mainstream media have accused the administration of separating the children of "immigrants" from their parents and imprisoning them in "cages." On Thursday, CNN analyst and Playboy reporter Brian Karem shouted at White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "These people have nothing. They come to the border with nothing and you throw children in cages." None of the reporters in the briefing room corrected him.
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Better Earth

China's all-seeing credit score system rewards good behavior, punishes bad

Charles Rollet
Wired
Tue, 05 Jun 2018 08:29 UTC
chinese social credit score
© Kevin Hong
In the UK, credit scores are mostly used to determine whether people can get a credit card or loan. But in China, the government is developing a much broader "social credit" system partly based on people's routine behaviours with the ultimate goal of determining the "trustworthiness" of the country's 1.4 billion citizens.

It might sound like a futuristic dystopian nightmare but the system is already a reality. Social credit is preventing people from buying airline and train tickets, stopping social gatherings from happening, and blocking people from going on certain dating websites. Meanwhile, those viewed kindly are rewarded with discounted energy bills and similar perks.

China's social credit system was launched in 2014 and is supposed to be nationwide by 2020. As well as tracking and rating individuals, it also encompasses businesses and government officials. When it is complete, every Chinese citizen will have a searchable file of amalgamated data from public and private sources tracking their social credit. Currently, the system is still under development and authorities are trying to centralise local databases.

Comment: Undoubtedly, a system like this is very powerful and thus by its very nature, dangerous, however the devil is always in the details and ultimately it comes down to how such a system is used. Those in the west, where in reality we're already living in a strongly Orwellian system with corrupt governments that routinely spy on us and work to our detriment, would likely see such a system as inherently evil.

However, if the government weren't corrupt and if the system did actually work to punish anti-social behavior while rewarding pro-social behavior, where all kinds of various anti-social people couldn't hide their various nefarious activities in the shadows, such a powerful tool could actually aid in increasing the honesty, decency, and functionality of a society.

Interestingly, such a system does bear a resemblance to a theoretical system mapped out by Pierre Lescaudron for Sott.net: Post imperialism: A Template for a New Social Order

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Fire

Tesla vehicle catches fire 'out of the blue' in California traffic


RT
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 11:27 UTC
Tesla car
© Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters
A Tesla vehicle caught fire, apparently "out of the blue," while sitting in California traffic. Video of the incident has been shared by US actress Mary McCormack whose husband was in the electric car at the time.

McCormack said her husband was in traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard when the vehicle suddenly caught fire. There was "no accident" and the blaze came completely "out of the blue," she said.

Passersby flagged down the driver who then got out of the vehicle. Video recorded at the scene shows flames shooting from underneath the parked car.

The electric car did not have an autopilot feature and was a "normal Tesla,"according to McCormack.
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