Welcome to Sott.net
Fri, 05 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

NPC

Summer seminar offered at Cornell University asks: Should we still use concepts like 'rationality' and 'reason'?

Dave Huber
College Fix
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 17:36 UTC
reason
A six-week seminar offered this summer at Cornell University will ask, among other things, "should we continue to use concepts like 'rationality' and 'reason'?"

The course, "Decolonizing Epistemology," is offered through Cornell's School of Criticism and Theory. The instructor is Hunter College's Linda Martín Alcoff whose research interests include feminism, decolonial theory, and the philosophy of race ... and she's recently taught courses titled "Gender and Embodiment" and "New Feminist Epistemologies and Metaphysics."

At the beginning of the seminar's description, Alcoff asks
There is a widespread skepticism about many sorts of knowledge claims today, and this skepticism has been promoted from both the right and the left. The skepticism is largely based on the realization that knowledge is always connected to power. But there is uncertainty about what follows from this: is it still 'knowledge'?

Comment: The diseased spread of post-modern though continues unabated through Western society. What's the point in having truth, facts and objectivity when everything is subjective and a creation of an oppressive epistemology?

      Read More...
Handcuffs

S-300 theft fail: Pole jailed for 14 years after attempting to steal Russian missile system parts


RT
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 17:31 UTC
missile
© Reuters/ Maxim Shemetov/ FILE PHOTO
A Polish national, caught red-handed trying to steal classified parts of the S-300 missile system for a Polish supplier, has been tried and convicted in a Moscow court on charges of espionage.

Marian Radzajewski was found guilty and sentenced to 14 years in a "strict regime colony," Moscow City Court announced in a press release Tuesday. The trial itself was closed to the public as it involved materials the Russian government considers confidential.

The man was contracted by a leading Polish military supplier to steal the parts and export them back to his home country, according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). The Russian officials say he was apprehended while attempting to go through with the deal.

At the beginning of March, President Vladimir Putin said that "129 staff members and 465 agents of foreign special services were foiled" in Russia in 2018 alone.

The Soviet-made precursor to the S-400 still enjoys wide-use in over a dozen countries, including North Korea, Venezuela and Iran. Meanwhile, sales of the S-400 to Turkey and India continue to make headlines and drive a wedge between Washington and its allies with the US insisting they should halt their deals with Russia.
      Read More...
Camcorder

Cops release bodycam footage of actor Jussie Smollett in noose after 'attack'

Charlie De Mar
CBS News
Mon, 24 Jun 2019 17:08 UTC
jussie smollett
© Reuters / Kamil Krzaczynski
Jussie Smollett
The Chicago Police Department has released body cam footage from the morning after Jussie Smollett's alleged attack, showing the actor still wearing a noose around his neck which he claimed was used in the assault.

The footage was filmed in the ex-Empire actor's Chicago home back in January at 8:45am local time, some seven hours after he was allegedly subjected to a racist and homophoic attack in a nearby street.

The bodycam captured the officers entering the home and speaking to Frank Gatson, who introduces himself as the actor's "creative director," while Smollett can be seen wearing a thin white rope around his neck.

Comment: Previously:

      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

US college suggests 'God is queer,' heaven forbid you challenge it!

Robert Bridge
RT
Mon, 24 Jun 2019 20:07 UTC
gender protest
© Global Look Press / Ed Lefkowicz
Another liberal institution is challenging an age-old dogma - this time on hallowed religious ground - with radical new ideas. This would not be worrisome if dissenting voices were invited, but that is not the case.

Hell hath no fury than a liberal scorned, and if Swarthmore College, situated on a lush, tree-lined campus in the state of Pennsylvania, teaches that God might be experiencing some doubt over his (her?) sexual identity then who are we mere mortals to doubt it? Perhaps the liberal college might even consider extending an invitation to God the Almighty, who micromanaged the Creation in just seven days, to enroll in this course, which promises to "stretch the limits of gendering, and sexing, the divine."

Yes, sexing the divine. Questioning whether God might be male or female, however, is not a very radical concept. It is a harmless game of intellectual pursuit, a bit like pondering the existence of angels or whether that eternal hot spot for sinners known by the Italians as 'Inferno' is real. Then, along came Pope John Paul II with his 1992 hit release 'Catechism of the Catholic Church,' which had the last word on the debate by stating unequivocally that "God is neither man nor woman: he is God." That blast of papal certitude worked to placate everyone, at least for a while anyways.
      Read More...
Megaphone

Georgians continue protests for 5th night despite promised reforms


Radio Free Europe
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 16:29 UTC
Georgian Protesters

Protesters waive the Georgian and U.S. flags during a motorcade rally in Tbilisi on June 24.
Georgians have taken to the streets of Tbilisi for a fifth day after their country's ruling party failed to meet all their demands.

Several thousand protesters gathered outside the parliament building on the evening of June 24, blocking traffic in Rustaveli Avenue, the capital's main thoroughfare.

Earlier in the day, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said that the 2020 parliamentary elections should be held under a proportional system -- bowing to the one of the protesters' key demands.

Ivanishvili said that no threshold for parties should be applied during the elections. It was the second concession by officials to disgruntled citizens. Parliament speaker Irakli Kobakhidze resigned on June 21 amid calls for his ouster.

However, protest leaders said that the rallies would continue until their wider demands were met, including dismissal of the interior minister, release of those arrested on the first night of protests, and punishment of law-enforcement officers who used violence against the crowd.
      Read More...
People

British rocker, Morrissey, defends his support for anti-Islam party


RT
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 16:17 UTC
Morrissey
© Getty images
Morrissey on The Tonight Show
Morrissey, the former frontman of British rock band The Smiths has denied accusations that he's a 'racist', insisting that "everyone ultimately prefers their own race," but reasserted his support for anti-Islam party For Britain.

The 60-year-old singer, who recently faced widespread criticism on social media for sporting a For Britain badge on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, hit back in an interview conducted by his nephew Sam Etsy Rayner and posted on his website.

Morrissey has previously claimed that "halal slaughter requires certification that can only be given by supporters of ISIS," leading to complaints he's indulging in racism. A charge he now rejects, insisting that "opposing Halal slaughter" does not make him a racist, because he rejects "all forms of animal slaughter."
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Knitting website bans all pro-Trump support, labeling it white supremacy

Robby Soave
Reason
Mon, 24 Jun 2019 16:09 UTC
knitting
© Littleny | Dreamstime.com
Ravelry, a website and forum for the knitting community, announced Sunday that it would no longer allow users to show support for President Trump and his administration, either by speaking in favor of Trump, or by designing Trump-inspired patterns.

"We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy," wrote Ravelry's site administrators. "Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy."

This is an absurd position to take-no, not everyone who supports Trump is a white supremacist-though the site is free to take it. Ravelry is a privately-owned space, and is within its rights to enforce all kinds of restraints on its users behavior. Anyone who doesn't like this should go find a rival knitting community, or start their own.
      Read More...
Attention

Shale pioneer: Fracking industry is an "unmitigated disaster"

Nick Cunningham
Oilprice.com
Mon, 24 Jun 2019 18:00 UTC
fracking site
Fracking has been an "unmitigated disaster" for shale companies themselves, according to a prominent former shale executive.

"The shale gas revolution has frankly been an unmitigated disaster for any buy-and-hold investor in the shale gas industry with very few limited exceptions," Steve Schlotterbeck, former chief executive of EQT, a shale gas giant, said at a petrochemicals conference in Pittsburgh. "In fact, I'm not aware of another case of a disruptive technological change that has done so much harm to the industry that created the change."

He did not pull any punches. "While hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits have accrued to hundreds of millions of people, the amount of shareholder value destruction registers in the hundreds of billions of dollars," he said. "The industry is self-destructive."

The message is not a new one. The shale industry has been burning through capital for years, posting mountains of red ink. One estimate from the Wall Street Journal found that over the past decade, the top 40 independent U.S. shale companies burned through $200 billion more than they earned. A 2017 estimate from the WSJ found $280 billion in negative cash flow between 2010 and 2017. It's incredible when you think about it - despite the record levels of oil and gas production, the industry is in the hole by roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars.

Comment: The larger picture on fracking gets worse, far worse:

      Read More...
Fire

Violence escalates in Honduras: Students protest with molotov cocktails at university against US coup-installed president


RT
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 11:25 UTC
honduras violence
© File photo REUTERS / Jorge Cabrera
Honduran military police opened fire at protesters outside the national university, injuring five people. Authorities said live ammunition was used in response to molotov cocktails which injured officers.

Protests demanding the resignation of the country's president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, have intensified in recent weeks as momentum gathers against privatization and austerity measures targeting the health and education sectors.

"About 40 military police entered the university campus without authorization," Armando Sarmiento, director of institutional development at the Tegucigalpa-based university, told AFP. The military police reportedly pursued the students across the campus "shooting them with live rounds," Sarmiento added.


Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Books

UK business academic faces dismissal over criticism of LGBT training in universities


RT
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 13:55 UTC
gay pride parade
© Reuters/Neil Hall
Participants take part in the annual Pride London Parade, which highlights issues of the gay, lesbian and transgender community, in London, UK, June 25.
A UK lecturer, who claims she's been branded a transphobe by students after signing an open letter to the Sunday Times that criticized LGBT training, insists she will not "recant" her signature despite the risk of being fired.

Sarah Honeychurch, a fellow in the Adam Smith Business School at Glasgow University, signed a letter along with 30 academics registering their "disquiet" over a program run by the charity Stonewall.

In the letter, Honeychurch and her colleagues condemn the "anti-scientific claims" that are "presented... as objective fact" contained in the training literature. The lecturer is unrepentant, insisting she had given the letter much thought before signing it.

Comment: The colonization of the academic system by the LBGTQ etc. continues. What does a business degree have to do with 'gender sensitivity'? Business people are grounded in the real world, possibly even more than scientists. What happens when the small minority demanding their 'rights' steamroll all before them? A reaction is inevitable.

Poll finds Americans are growing less tolerant of the 'LGBTQ' movement

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts