Friday, February 26, 2021

The Four Stages of a 172 Year Cycle

From World Cycles Institute.com (April 17):

Stage One

The first stage after a crisis and financial collapse begins slowly. After a period of spiraling deflation, prices stabilize and then very gradually begin to rise to a plateau that continues for some time. Food and fuel tend to increase ahead of anything else. The initial rise in inflation is a result of population increases, which leads to a higher demand for goods and services. Living standards begin to rise. Couples marry earlier and have more children. Civil wars stop and social confidence and optimism return.

This leads to a “golden age” in every 172 cycle:

  • 12th century — Renaissance
  • 15th century — Italian Renaissance
  • early 18th century — The Enlightenment
  • late 19th century — Victorian era
Stage Two

Inflation continues, with prices beginning to accelerate above the previous plateau. Government wealth increases, sparking political hubris, which leads to empire-building and wars of expansion. Examples:

  • 13th century — rivalry between emperors and popes (gov’t vs. the church)
  • 15th century — state-building
  • 18th century — dynastic and imperial struggles
  • 20th century — world wars

Prices become volatile, rising and falling, a signal in underlying instability. This results in political disorder, social disruption, and a general mood of cultural anxiety

Stage Three

In the third stage, the general population comes to see inflation as the norm. People began to make choices that only exacerbates the situation and causes inflation to increase. Governments increase the money supply, only to add to inflation (like a snowball slowly rolling down a mountainside).

Stage Four

Prices continue higher and gradually became unstable with increased volatility. Commodities fluctuate wildly and prices begin to fall. The money supply is expanded and then reduced with financial markets becoming unstable. Governments increase spending and go heavily into debt. The strongest nation-states are the ones to eventually suffer the most due to fiscal constraints:

  • 16th century —Spain
  • 18th century — France
  • 20th century — United States

Real wages begin to stagnate. The rich grow richer; the poor grow poorer. The middle class are hit hard and the standard of living drops. Crime and violence rise, as does the use of drugs and alcohol, and the family unit begins to fail. [read more]

According to the chart above earth is heading for another mini ice age. It started around 2007. Instead of decreasing CO2 maybe we should increase it and think about ways of adapting to the coming ice age.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Google “Machine Learning Fairness” Whistleblower Goes Public, says: “burden lifted off of my soul”

From Project Veritas.com (Aug. 14, 2019):

(San Francisco) A Google insider who anonymously leaked internal documents to Project Veritas made the decision to go public in an on-the-record video interview. The insider, Zachary Vorhies, decided to go public after receiving a letter from Google, and after he says Google allegedly called the police to perform a “wellness check” on him.

Along with the interview, Vorhies asked Project Veritas to publish more of the internal Google documents he had previously leaked. Said Vorhies:

“I gave the documents to Project Veritas, I had been collecting the documents for over a year. And the reason why I collected these documents was because I saw something dark and nefarious going on with the company and I realized that there were going to not only tamper with the elections, but use that tampering with the elections to essentially overthrow the United States.”

In June of 2019, Project Veritas published internal Google documents revealing “algorithmic unfairness.” Vorhies told Project Veritas these were documents that were widely available to full-time Google employees:

“These documents were available to every single employee within the company that was full-time. And so as a fulltime employee at the company, I just searched for some keywords and these documents started to pop up. And so once I started finding one document and started finding keywords for other documents and I would enter that in and continue this cycle until I had a treasure trove and archive of documents that clearly spelled out the system, what they’re attempting to do in very clear language.” 

[read more]

A politically correct AI? Yea, that makes sense. 🙄

Another article on machine learning fairness: An Introduction to Fairness in Machine Learning

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Ex-bin Laden henchman freed from NJ prison after judge deems him too fat for jail

From NY Post.com (Dec. 11):

A former Osama bin Laden henchman convicted in two deadly 1998 bombings is free and living in the UK this week after being released early — thanks to a Manhattan federal judge who agreed the terrorist was way too obese to survive the coronavirus behind bars.

Adel Abdel Bary, 60, had spent 21 years in a New Jersey prison for his role in the 1998 al Qaeda bombings of two US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

“Defendant’s obesity and somewhat advanced age make COVID-19 significantly more risky to him than to the average person,” US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote in granting the release.

Bary had been set to be freed on Oct. 28, but his attorneys asked that he be let out sooner, citing their ­client’s age, girth and asthma. [read more]

Stupid.

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

China Communist Party Members Work In Consulates

From Breaking News Alerts.com (Dec. 14):

Leaked official data showed that China Communist party members work in consulates and offices in Western countries for more than ten years. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reportedly utilized a recruitment agency to fill staff openings in British, Australian, and U.S. consulates in Shanghai. The leak uncovered a register of almost 2 million members of the CCP residing and working all throughout the world, with some holding senior, sensitive, or advisory positions in major firms. The data leak includes names, party positions, date of birth, identification number, ethnicity, and even contact information.

Sky News Australia’s Sharri Markson reported that some of the CCP members have worked in at least 10 consulates in Shanghai. Some of them have worked for up to sixteen years. This does not automatically mean the employees are outright spies. But, intelligence officials flagged the revelation as a breach of protocol and a national security risk.

Major Companies

Among the major companies listed as employing CCP members are major corporations. These include members who worked for vehicle manufacturers Airbus, Boeing, Rolls Royce, and Volkswagen. They also include 123 members working in big pharma corporations Pfizer and AstraZeneca. 600 members also worked for financial firms Standard Chartered ANZ and HSBC. Markson reported that the leak also revealed details on 79,000 communist party branches, many of them inside companies.

The CCP members in these branches are “answerable directly to the Communist Party” and President Xi himself. “It is also going to embarrass some global companies who appear to have no plan in place to protect their intellectual property from theft, from economic espionage,” Markson said. [read more]

Any Chinese citizen is told by the CCP that they are a spy if they are living in a foreign country. They are also told to report any info they find about the country they are living in or going to school in to their embassy. Whether or not citizens does this or not is up to them but I am guessing that there is real pressure (it’s your patriotic duty) put on them to do this.

Monday, February 22, 2021

Police respond to ‘break-in,’ find music video shoot instead

From San Diego Union Tribune.com (Dec. 8):

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. —

Police in South Florida descended on what they thought was an armed break-in at a men’s clothing store Tuesday morning after people were spotted storming in with rifles — but officers arrived to find a music video filming, all with the store owners’ knowledge.

The guns were not real and the men holding them were actors in a video, said Amanda Conwell, a spokeswoman for the Pembroke Pines Police Department.

The music video was being filmed inside the men’s clothing and accessories store with a film crew while the larger shopping center was closed, The Miami Herald reported, citing a store manager. The manager said the filming was supposed to take less than an hour.

But a witness saw the events unfolding, and not knowing it was staged, called police, authorities said. The scene being filmed depicted two men with guns entering the store and demanding workers to put money in the bag, according to the news outlet.

Pembroke Pines officials said the city had not given a permit for the filming, and the shopping center’s management team said in a statement that it was also not aware of the video. [read more]

The men’s clothing store should have let the police know or the local news know what was going on so the police wouldn’t waste a trip to the clothing store. 

Rush Limbaugh dead at 70, but his legacy is immense

From Washington Examiner.com (Feb. 17):

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has died, his wife announced Wednesday morning.

He was 70.

“I know that I am most certainly not the Limbaugh that you tuned in to listen to today,” Kathryn Adams Limbaugh told her late husband's audience. “I, like you, very much wish Rush was behind this golden microphone right now, welcoming you to another exceptional three hours of broadcasting.

“It is with profound sadness I must share with you directly that our beloved Rush, my wonderful husband, passed away this morning due to complications from lung cancer,” she added. “Rush will forever be the greatest of all time. Rush was an extraordinary man, a gentle giant, brilliant, quick-witted, genuinely kind, extremely generous, passionate, courageous, and the hardest-working person I know.”

Thus concludes the life of the most influential voice in conservative politics since the late 1980s.

This is not an exaggeration.

Before Limbaugh, right-leaning audiences had few options insofar as explicitly conservative political commentary was concerned. They had a handful of magazines. They had a handful of columnists. That was about it. The rest was controlled mostly by the big three networks and other Democratic-sympathetic media, entities that generally invest very little time and effort in understanding or speaking to the values of conservative audiences. [read more]

I remember Rush Limbaugh talking to a young Left-wing caller on his radio show. The caller said of all the conservatives he listened to on the radio, Rush was the only one who understood the Left. Rush always said he never needed a Left-wing co-host on his show because he could represent both sides. This understanding scared the Left. They like to live in the shadows. They don’t like to be exposed for who they really are. That’s why they attack Rush and any other conservatives that threatens their ideology.

Rush had a guy on his show who had a girl friend that gave him an ultimatum: Stop listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show or I’ll leave you. They guy told the girlfriend adios! I thought to myself good for him. If the girlfriend (probably a Leftist) is that insecure in her life then later on they probably would have deep problems in their relationship. Ultimatums are a last resort to persuasion if the person is making a really bad decision about his/her life—like using drugs, etc. Definitely should not be used for personal tastes.

RIP Maharushi. You are one of a kind. You will be missed by all the dittoheads. Gone but not forgotten. Condolences to his family and friends.

Other memories and thoughts of and about Rush Limbaugh:

The thoughts of Rush Limbaugh:

Friday, February 19, 2021

Slaveowners Lying

When [slaveowners] visit the north, and return home, they tell their slaves of the runaways they have seen, and describe them to be in the most deplorable condition. A slaveholder once told me [Harriet] that he had seen a runaway friend of mine in New York, and that she besought him to take her back to her master, for she was literally dying of starvation; that many days she had only one cold potato to eat, and at other times could get nothing at all. He said he refused to take her, because he knew her master would not thank him for bringing such a miserable wretch to his house. He ended by saying to me, "This is the punishment she brought on herself for running away from a kind master."

Source: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Physics and Free Will

From Break Point.org:

When Christians use the term “free will,” it’s often in discussions about divine sovereignty and predestination. Whether we choose God or God chooses us has been at the center of theological debate for centuries. On the other hand, when the term “free will” is used by evolutionary biologists, the debate is over whether choice itself is real, whether it is an illusion produced by our brains.

Materialists have long insisted, because they kind of have to, that human actions and decisions are determined, not free. In other words, we think we make real choices as humans, but we don’t. Our choices are really the inevitable outcomes of a whole chain of material causes that go back, like falling dominoes, to the Big Bang.

This idea is called “determinism.” If true, a scientist with perfect knowledge of all of the conditions from the beginning of the universe could, like a cosmic weatherman, predict everything that would ever happen.

Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, who runs a popular blog called “Why Evolution Is True,” has long held this view. As he puts it, “our choices and behaviors are the result of the laws of physics…” Given our chemistry, the arrangement of atoms in our brains, and outside forces acting on us, we cannot help doing what we do.

Obviously, determinism does quite a number on issues like meaning and moral responsibility, among other things.

Determinism is an unavoidable conclusion if you start with the assumption that the world is only a place of natural causes and processes. However, if you start with the evidence, it’s another matter altogether.

For example, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor points out at “Mind Matters” that quantum physics suggests we do not live in a deterministic universe. As early as the mid-60’s, physicists had devised experiments that strongly pointed to the fact that nature does not determine every event beforehand. Quantum events, such as those that put a certain spin on an electron, are not the result of “hidden variables” at the subatomic level. In fact, we don’t know what determines them! [read more]

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

New Report Assesses Illnesses Among U.S. Government Personnel and Their Families at Overseas Embassies

From National Academies.org (Dec. 5):

WASHINGTON — Government personnel and their families at the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba, in late 2016, and later at the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, began suffering from a range of unusual — and in some cases suddenly occurring — symptoms such as a perceived loud noise, ear pain, intense head pressure or vibration, dizziness, visual problems, and cognitive difficulties, and many still continue to experience these or other health problems.  As part of its effort to ascertain potential causes of the illnesses, inform government employees more effectively about health risks at posts abroad, and determine best medical practices for screening, prevention, and treatment for both short- and long-term health problems, the U.S. Department of State asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide advice.  After undergoing a security review, the National Academies’ report is now available.

In examining plausible causes of these illnesses, the committee that conducted the study and wrote the report considered the possibilities of directed, pulsed radio frequency energy, chemical exposures, infectious diseases such as Zika, and psychological issues.  An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies says that among the mechanisms the committee considered, directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases, especially in individuals with the distinct early symptoms.  Persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD) — a functional (not psychiatric) vestibular disorder that may be triggered by vestibular, neurologic, or other medical and psychological conditions — is a secondary reinforcing mechanism, as well as the possible additive effects of psychological conditions. 

The committee could not rule out other possible mechanisms and found it is likely that a multiplicity of factors explains some cases and the differences between others.  In particular, it could not be certain that the individuals with only the chronic set of signs and symptoms suffered from the same causes and mechanisms as those who reported the initial, sudden onset set of signs and symptoms.  The committee noted that it faced several challenges in its assessment, related to the extreme variability in the clinical cases as well as lack of access to specific health or personal information on the affected individuals. [read more]

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Congressman Introduces Bill Requiring Voters To Be Alive To Cast Ballots

From Daily Wire.com (Dec. 6):

Talk about controversial.

Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) last week proposed a new bill — the “You Must Be Alive to Vote Act” (let’s call it YMBAVA).

YMBAVA’s intent is simple: “To require States to obtain information from Social Security Administration on deaths for purposes of voter registration list maintenance, and for other purposes.”

The bill comes amid charges by President Trump and others of voter fraud, especially that the ballots of deceased individuals were cast absentee in the 2020 presidential election.

“The right to vote is one of the most vital pillars of our democracy, the foundations of which are election integrity and confidence in our democratic processes,” Babin said in a statement. “The ease with which someone is able to steal the ballot of a deceased person and cast an illegitimate vote should disturb, alarm, and outrage every American citizen, no matter what side of the aisle they sit on. To protect our democratic process and Americans’ faith in our elections, we must ensure that deceased individuals are not allowed to remain on state voter rolls.” [read more]

Sounds good to me, but the Left will never vote for it. They would call the bill voter suppression.

Monday, February 15, 2021

Bill Clinton's former 'right-hand man' claims the president visited Epstein's Island in 2003​

From The Blaze.com (Dec. 2, 2020):

Doug Band, a longtime counselor and friend to former President Bill Clinton, claimed recently that Clinton did in fact visit deceased convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's infamous private island — an accusation that Clinton has repeatedly denied for decades.

What are the details?

The claim appears in a lengthy Vanity Fair feature story about Band's time working with Clinton, titled, "Confessions of a Clintonworld Exile," written by Gabriel Sherman.

In the article, Band discloses a great deal about Clinton's life and work post-presidency, including details about the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. But perhaps the most relevant bit of information relates to Clinton's supposed visit to Little St. James, Epstein's private 70-acre island in the Caribbean, where it has long been surmised that the accused sex trafficker and his guests would engage in acts of pedophilia. [read more]

Friday, February 12, 2021

The Three Phases of Science

It appears that each science goes through three phases of development. The first phase is Baconian, with scientists exploring the world to find out what is there. In this phase, amateurs and butterfly collectors are in the ascendant. The second phase is Cartesian, with scientists making precise measurements and building quantitative theories. In this phase, professionals and specialists are in the ascendant. The third phase is a mixture of Baconian and Cartesian, with amateurs and professionals alike empowered by the plethora of new technical tools arising from the second phase. In the third phase, cheap and powerful tools give scientists of all kinds freedom to explore and explain. The most important of the new tools is the personal computer, now universally accessible and giving amateurs the ability to do quantitative science. After the computer, the next-most important tool is the World Wide Web, giving amateurs access to scientific papers and discussions before they are published, allowing amateurs all over the world to communicate and work together. Astronomy, the oldest science, was the first to pass through the first and second phases and emerge into the third.

Source: The Scientist as Rebel (2006) by Freeman Dyson.

Thursday, February 11, 2021

The Terrorist Attacks You’ve Never Heard Of

From National Review.com (Dec. 2):

The American health-care system is under siege. Not only by a deadly novel coronavirus, unleashed by the evil and inept Chinese Communist Party, but also by cyberterrorists whose acts of aggression are just as condemnable and deadly as those of a suicide bomber or hijacker.

On October 28, the University of Vermont (UV) Health Center in Burlington was crippled by an attack on its systems. At the time, the nation’s eyes were set — solely and squarely — on the upcoming election. Thankfully, Ellen Barry and Nicole Perlroth at the New York Times have done yeoman’s work reporting on the attack and its aftermath. So now that the election is behind us, we can identify, name, and address this new kind of national-security threat.

“We expect panic,” declared one hacker in the run-up to the attack. To be sure, for staff working the day the attack came, panic set in when workstations were suddenly rendered inoperable, as were the backup computers. So were the pneumatic tubes used for transporting blood samples and test results, and — worst of all — the electronic medical-record system, which was only restored on November 22, nearly a month after the attack.

The attack on the UV Health Center is not the first act of cyber terror on U.S. health-care infrastructure. The Russian group believed to be responsible for the Burlington attack has, per the FBI, made somewhere around $61 million in ransoms over a 21-month period in 2018 and 2019. In early October, eResearchTechnology, a Philadelphia firm that sells software used in clinical trials — including for certain coronavirus vaccines — was locked out of its data by ransomware — a kind of malware that remains in place until the hackers who have sicced it on you are paid. Hospitals in California, Oregon, Montana, Tennessee, and upstate New York have been similarly afflicted by hackers, who have even gone so far as to release patient data — Social Security numbers, dates of birth, ages, hiring dates, and contact details — on the dark web. [read more]

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Chinese Sociologist: We’ll Soon Surpass U.S., ‘U.S. Will Not Survive,’ We’ll ‘Drive U.S. To Its Death’

From Daily Wire.com (Nov. 30):

A Chinese sociologist recently delivered marks at a forum reportedly in Shenzhen where he declared that it was only a matter of time before China overtakes the United States and effectively puts an end to it.

The remarks from Dr. Li Yi were reported by MEMRI TV, a research organization that normally tracks Islamic extremism around the world and anti-Semitism.

“Chinese sociologist Dr. Li Yi said in an October 16, 2020 speech delivered at the Shenzhenwan Dialogue Forum in Shenzhen, China that China would overtake the United States in GDP by 2027, and that COVID-19 has been harmful to the U.S. and Europe but beneficial to China and North Korea,” MEMRI reported. “Dr. Yi holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Illinois and according to his Linkedin account, he is a full-time professor at Renmin University in China. Following Dr. Yi’s October 16 speech, Renmin University issued a statement denying his employment at the university.” [read more]

Tuesday, February 09, 2021

Give Everyone a Barcode? China Trying to Use COVID Fears to Launch Global Tracking System for Humans

From cbn.com (Nov. 24):

China's communist leader Xi Jinping is calling for countries across the world to accept a global COVID-19 tracking system that uses QR codes in an attempt to expedite international travel.

Xi proposed the concept during a virtual G20 leaders' meeting on Saturday, noting that this "global mechanism" uses an electronic barcode that would help determine a traveler's health status, according to China's government-run "news" agency.

"China has proposed a global mechanism on the mutual recognition of health certificates based on nucleic acid test results in the form of internationally accepted QR codes," Xi said. "We hope more countries will join this mechanism."

"We need to further harmonize policies and standards and establish 'fast tracks' to facilitate the orderly flow of personnel," he added.

The system provides users with a color code based on their risk of exposure to the coronavirus and the QR codes, or bar codes can be read on mobile devices.

A green code indicates that someone is safe to travel, while an orange or red code signifies the need to quarantine for up to two weeks.

Xi didn't elaborate on the type of app or QR code system that would be used and who would design it.

Meanwhile, some people have expressed concerns over the use of a system that was designed by China's communist party which is known for using extreme methods to control people through censorship and surveillance. [read more]

Monday, February 08, 2021

Texas sues to block Biden’s deportation freeze

From NY Post.com (Jan. 22):

The state of Texas filed suit Friday seeking to block President Joe Biden’s 100-day freeze on deportations, claiming it violated an agreement the state signed with the Trump administration earlier this month, officials announced.

“I told @DHSgov and @JoeBiden last night to rescind its deportation freeze, which is unconstitutional, illegal, and bad for Texas and the nation,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a tweet Friday. “They didn’t budge. So #Texas is bringing them to court.”

After Biden was sworn in as president on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security “ordered a halt of nearly all deportations of illegal aliens including those whose removal was ordered following a full and fair hearing and those who are not entitled — and do not claim to be entitled — to further immigration benefits,” the Texas Federal suit alleges. [read more]

Friday, February 05, 2021

The Administrative State

The administrative state is no fourth branch of government. It is a parallel government, operating in the shadows, outside the light of democratic transparency. The best indicator of this stems from the fact that members of the administrative state are not subject to the same system as the rest of us. Charles Murray describes this system well:

If you are prosecuted for violating a regulation issued by the EPA, OSHA, HHS, Department of Energy, or any of the myriad other federal regulatory agencies, you appear before an administrative law judge (ALJ) sitting in an administrative law courtroom. An ALJ is selected by the agency whose cases he will hear, and is subsequently an employee of that agency. The agency gets to choose its preferred candidate from among the three top-rated candidates identified by the office of Personnel Management. An administrative law judge is exempt from performance reviews and other oversight by the regulatory agency, but may be overruled by the head of the agency.

There's no jury. When appearing in an administrative court, you do not get a lawyer unless you pay for it. Most rules of evidence used in normal courts do not apply. The legal burden of proof placed on the lawyer making the case for the regulatory agency is "a preponderance of the evidence," not "clear and convincing evidence," let alone "evidence beyond a reasonable doubt" that you are guilty. If the administrative judge thinks that it's a 51/49 percent call in favor of the regulatory agency that accused you, you're found guilty. If the administrative court judge's decision is adverse, you may, in most cases, appeal that decision to another body within the agency.

In other words, you’re pretty much screwed.

Source: Suicide of the West. How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (2018) by Jonah Goldberg.

Thursday, February 04, 2021

Physicists could do the 'impossible': Create and destroy magnetic fields from afar

From Live Science.com (Nov. 24):

Scientists have figured out a way to create and cancel magnetic fields from afar.

The method involves running electric current through a special arrangement of wires to create a magnetic field that looks as if it came from another source. This illusion has real applications: Imagine a cancer drug that could be delivered directly to a tumor deep in the body by capsules made of magnetic nanoparticles. It's not possible to stick a magnet in the tumor to guide the nanoparticles on their journey, but if you could create a magnetic field from outside the body that centered right on that tumor, you could deliver the drug without an invasive procedure.

The strength of a magnetic field decreases with distance from the magnet, and a theorem proven in 1842, Earnshaw's Theorem, says that it's not possible to create a spot of maximum magnetic field strength in empty space.

"If you cannot have a magnetic field maxima in empty space, it means you cannot create the field of a magnetic source remotely, without placing an actual [magnetic] source at the target location," said Rosa Mach-Batlle, a physicist at the Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies in Italy who led the new research. [read more]

Could also be used as a weapon of some sort.

Wednesday, February 03, 2021

What American Schools Should Teach About Race, Racism, and Slavery

From The Daily Signal.com (Nov. 17):

Regarding race and much else, America’s students are not taught history. In fact, they are not taught; they are indoctrinated. With anti-Americanism.

The purpose of all teaching about race in American schools is to engender contempt for America. They are, therefore, “taught” the lies of The New York Times’ 1619 Project—that the United States was founded to preserve and protect slavery—and of such works as Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility.”

So, then, what should American schools teach about race?

They should, of course, teach students about slavery and racism.

But, if truth and moral clarity are to matter, students must also learn that slavery was universal. They would therefore learn about Muslim-Arab slavery, slavery among Africans, slavery among Native Americans and Native South Americans, and slavery in Asia and India.

They would learn that it was the West, beginning with England and America, that abolished slavery. And they would learn that the abolitionists were overwhelmingly religious Christians, animated by the Bible and Judeo-Christian values.

They would learn that, unlike the slaves under Arab-Muslim rule, most black slaves in America were allowed to have children and form families.

They would read Herbert Gutman’s “The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925,” about which The New York Times wrote when it was published in 1976: “Gutman has performed an immense service in burying the idea that slavery destroyed the black family.” For the record, Gutman was a professor of the left and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

They would learn that the tens of millions of African slaves under Islamic-Arab rule were not allowed to form families (most males were castrated). [read more]

More articles on racism and slavery:

Tuesday, February 02, 2021

China: Journalist Faces Five Years in Prison for Coronavirus Reporting from Wuhan

From Breitbart.com (Nov. 18):

Chinese authorities indicted a Shanghai-based citizen journalist for allegedly sending “false information” after she reported on the coronavirus outbreak in the city of Wuhan, China, early this year, a prosecution document released on Monday and seen by the Guardian revealed.

According to the indictment sheet, Zhang Zhan, 37, is accused of sending “false information through text, video and other media through the Internet media such as WeChat [Chinese messaging and social media app], Twitter and YouTube.”

“She also accepted interviews from overseas media Free Radio Asia and Epoch Times and maliciously speculated on Wuhan’s Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] epidemic,” the document stated.

A former lawyer, Zhang was arrested in May following months of continuous online reporting on Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak via social media platforms. Her reporting was highly critical of municipal authorities’ handling of the outbreak. Authorities accused Zhang of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” a crime regularly used to jail political dissidents in China. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

Zhang’s citizen reports included documentation of “the detentions of other independent reporters and harassment of families of victims seeking accountability from the epicenter,” according to the NGO Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). [read more]

The Chi-Coms define “false information” any info that makes their gov’t look bad.

Monday, February 01, 2021

Donald Trump Has Been One Of Our Great Presidents

From Dick Morris.com (Jan. 18):

Despite a level of condemnation by the media that dwarfs anything to which Nixon, Clinton, Hoover or Grant were subjected, Donald Trump ranks as one of our great presidents.

As Richard Nixon once said, “history is written by liberals,” so don’t count on any objectivity. But we, Trump’s supporters, need to keep the memory of his record in mind so we can unpack it for the next election.

Here’s my take on what he did:

He defied almost every vested interest group in the country — and in the world — to achieve his ends. And in 2020, those interests took their revenge.

He began by defying the almost-royal power of the economic establishment — Wall Street, the big banks, hedge funds, multinational corporations. These giants were used to writing tax policy to benefit only themselves, but Trump changed that. He forced Congress to pass a massive tax cut, skillfully crafted to benefit the middle class, the working poor and small businesses, producing millions of jobs.

Then he upended the pro-China foreign policy elites — and corporate America — by holding Beijing accountable for its unfair trade practices through massive and highly effective sanctions.

President Trump virtually eliminated illegal immigration over the southern border, first by using the threat of trade sanctions to induce Mexico to hold refugees on its side of the Rio Grande and then by brilliantly contriving to build a border wall and funding it despite congressional opposition. [read more]

I agree. Other articles and videos on Donald Trump: