music for the week
Month: March 2015
Beijing official warns on `one country’ limits
The “one country, two systems” principle should not be used by “opposition forces” to attempt to snatch governance over the SAR, a Beijing official said.
Zhang Rongshun, vice chairman of the legislative affairs commission of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, was speaking at a forum in Beijing to mark the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Basic Law.
Zhang said “one country, two systems” is aimed at preserving the SAR’s status and that Beijing has sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Zhang told the forum, organized by the semi- official think-tank the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, that the special constitutional institution as stipulated in the Basic Law is to acknowledge the country’s sovereignty on Hong Kong.
“It is not providing a stage for some forces and letting them snatch governance of Hong Kong and attempt to turn Hong Kong into an independent political entity or change the fundamental institution in the country,” he said.
Zhang said he is still optimistic the political reform for the 2017 chief executive election could be passed in the Legislative Council.
The association’s head, Chen Zuoer, said since Hong Kong is at a critical stage in the pursuit of political reform, politicians should have the courage to consider the matter from a macro perspective and not to neglect the SAR’s actual democratic development.
Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office deputy director Zhou Bo referred to late Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who predicted the friction between the SAR and central governments about political reform, unless it adhered to the Basic Law and national constitution.
Central government liason office deputy director Huang Lanfa criticized Occupy Central, which challenged the central government.
City University political scientist James Sung Lap-kung said Zhang referred to activists who launched Occupy Central as the “opposition forces.”
Civic Party lawmaker Alan Leong Kah-kit said Zhang’s remarks further worsened the ties between Hong Kong and the mainland and it is much better for Beijing officials not to make intimidating remarks.
Federation of Students secretary general-elect Nathan Law Kwun-chung said the Basic Law has clearly guaranteed Hong Kong people’s political rights.
Do You Want to Be a ‘Male Feminist’?
http://theothermccain.com/2015/03/30/do-you-want-to-be-a-male-feminist/
“Feminism is organized insanity. Why be merely crazy, when you can turn your mental illness into a political movement?”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Jan. 29
If there is anything feminists hate more than Christianity, heterosexuality, America and capitalism, it’s a “male feminist.”
The quotation marks are required because “male feminist” is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Feminism is a women’s movement, organized for women and led by women, and there is nothing any man can do that will qualify him for membership in the movement.
However, this self-evident truth does not prevent “progressive” males from trying to leverage feminism to their own advantage. The “male feminist” denounces his fellow men — you know, those hateful misogynists over there in the patriarchy — in an effort to persuade feminists that he is an exception to the rule. He is not a sexist oppressor.He does not view women as sex objects. He just wants equality (and a “liberated” girlfriend who doesn’t demand monogamy or a long-term commitment or any of that other bourgeois “responsibility” stuff).
The prototypical “male feminist” was Hugo Schwyzer, a deranged professor who routinely slept with his community college students, nearly killed a woman and had a psychotic meltdown after he was called out for his gross misconduct.
Feminism is based on the belief that all men (collectively) oppress allwomen (collectively), so that humanity is divided into two groups, male oppressors and female victims. As members of the oppressor group, males are by definition part of the problem (variously termed “patriarchy,” “male supremacy” or “misogyny”) and only women, as members of the victim group, can be permitted to have any voice or influence in defining the solution to this problem. Karen Ingala Smith has explained that anything a man says about feminism contributes to the “silencing of women in the public sphere,” which means that “women’s subordination is reinforced.” Men only seek to be recognized as “feminists” so they can play a role of “leadership and power”:
Those who have power and benefit from it in varying degrees generally do not cede it and share it — they protect and reinforce it. . . .
[Women] are entitled to demand our rights without apology, without reference to how this affects men, without sorting out all the men’s problems too. . . .
That is not to say there is no role for men, just not the role they are used to of leadership and power. Men are very welcome to say that they support us and to consult with us to see in what way they can be most useful to the cause and we will tell them.
In other words, guys: “The First Rule of Feminism Is Shut Up.”
Nevertheless, “progressive” males continue begging for scraps from the feminist table and feminists sometimes give them answers:
Question: Do you believe that there is anything men can do to aid feminism despite not being able to be feminists themselves?
Answer: Oh, there’s plenty men can do! Unfortunately (for men), none of that gets you the hero status and women fawning over you that most men seem to be after when they decide to engage in feminist causes. Some things that men can do to help are:
– Confront other men in male-dominated spaces when they display sexist behavior (even if there’s no woman looking).
– Do not watch porn or participate in the sex industry in any way. Tell your male friends to do the same.
– Donate money to institutions dedicated to helping women.
– Listen to women and believe them without questioning or playing devil’s advocate when they talk about their experiences.
– Use your privileged voice to create opportunities for women. For example, you can recommend a female coworker for a promotion to your boss, or make sure he pays attention to her work. Women are often invisible or ignored.
– Understand the importance of female-only spaces and protect those spaces. Do not try to invade them and do not let other men do the same.
– Do not let the women in your life do more than their share of housework. Clean your stuff, wash your dishes, change your kid’s diapers, cook your food, and do all of that without being asked to or expecting special praise.
– Respect women’s boundaries and spaces. Do not take more than your share of a seat on a bus or a train, for example, and do not push women around verbally. Women are socialized to be accomodating and will often not enforce their own boundaries for fear of male violence, even if they’re terribly uncomfortable, so you have to recognize this discomfort and back off.
– Do not judge a woman for her appearance. Avoid commenting on it, and never compare her to another woman. If you want to praise a woman, prefer to focus on her intelligence or skills.
– Work to dismantle male supremacy from the inside. Combat your own male socialization, your own entitlement and your own tendency to violence and aggression. Question everything that’s gendered. And do not become defensive or try to justify yourself when a woman calls you out on your male-dominant behavior. Do not use tired cliches like “not all men are like that!” or “but I’m a nice guy!”. Instead, examine your behavior and try to understand why you’re being called out.
– And more important of all, do all of the above without expecting any special reward! Your reward is to be participating in creating a better world that’s fair for everybody. You don’t get to be a “special” man, you don’t get free passes for anything, you don’t get to stand out for being decent. If you feel you deserve anything extra for being a decent human being, that’s your male entitlement at work. Afterall, if you’re helping women to make yourself look good, you are not helping at all.
Hope the info’s useful!
Quite useful, indeed! This was written by a young blogger who describes herself as “The Angry Hairy Lesbian Feminist they’ve warned you about,”and her point is exactly correct: No man can ever expect praise from a feminist, because nothing any man does can ever qualify him for the admiration, trust or respect of a feminist. Because he is male (and therefore, by feminist definition, an oppressor) he is undeserving of love from any female (who is, by definition, his victim).
Someone should write a book to explain this to you guys . . .
Jihadist Lessons At The Boston Marathon Bombers’ Mosque
The Boston Marathon bombers’ mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), employs an intensive radicalizing program aimed at Boston’s historically moderate Muslim community, especially at its youth. It’s called “Tarbiya,” which is Arabic for “growth and refinement.” It is not something that is practiced as part of classical mainstream Islam.
APT has obtained several curriculum documents created by ISB-affiliated groups, which describe exactly what is taught and when, with assignments detailed down to book and page number. We are making the most detailed and traceable of these documents availablehere and here. We will focus in this article on a particular Tarbiya program called “Young Muslims,” which was explicitly endorsed by Suhaib Webb, the Imam of the ISB’s mega-mosque in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. It lists books that all participants must read, and even includes page numbers for specific assignments (the document was formerly available at the program’s website, and can still be accessed through an archived version of the site).
The authors of many of these books are among the “Who’s Who” of radical Islamic ideologues. A lot of the books are available in the Boston Marathon bombers’ mosque’s library. Major focus is given to books by Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood; Said Qutb, the father of modern jihadism; Maulana Maududi, the father of political Islam on the Indian subcontinent; and Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, whom the Anti-Defamation League calls the “Theologian of Terror.” Some of the books on the “must read” list have nothing to do with Islam, such as several books written by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Michael Moore. Having young Muslims read a curriculum that includes far-left atheist authors of Jewish and Christian backgrounds shows that the goal of Tarbiya is not just to develop a Muslim’s spirituality, but also to develop within him a deep animosity to Western democracy.
The ISB and its political arm, the Muslim American Society (MAS), are very open about the program’s existence and even have websites dedicated to it. MAS teaches Tarbiya at each of its dozens of chapters across the United States, and the entire national Tarbiyaprogram happens to be led by the Imam of the Boston Marathon bombers’ ISB Cambridge mosque, Basyouni Nehela. MAS describes Tarbiya in these terms:
more at
#thankyouellenpao Only if you like bullying, vexatious opportunists
Ellen Pao, interim chief executive of Reddit, has lost her “landmark” gender discrimination case against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Pao had alleged that the firm denied her a promotion and eventually fired her on account of her gender. But after deliberating for more than two days, a jury of six men and six women dismissed all charges brought by Pao against the firm.
This followed 21 days of witness testimony, which revealed a number of unpleasant truths about Pao’s conduct as an employee of the firm and raised further, unpleasant questions about her household and personal circumstances.
Despite the verdict, feminist activists and their sympathizers in the tech media have sought to spin Pao’s defeat as a ‘win’ for women in Silicon Valley. They argue that Pao’s case has, somehow, shone a light on gender discrimination in tech, despite the fact that the jury found that Pao experienced none. It’s a contortion of which Houdini would be proud.
Let me give these over-eager gender activists some advice: you may want to think twice before adopting Pao as your victim du jour. Because evidence given during the trial reveals that she is anything but a victim. Work emails reveal her to be a callous and resentful employee who bullied colleagues and held grudges.
Her link to Buddy Fletcher, a man with a notorious reputation for frivolous discrimination lawsuits, also raises a very large question mark over her motivation in bringing the claims against Kleiner Perkins.
It’s worth first remembering that Kleiner Perkins was an odd target for a gender discrimination lawsuit. The firm has a much better track record of hiring female talent than its rivals. Women make up 20 per cent of the firm’s members, which is double the average for Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Throughout the trial, Kleiner’s attorneys were able to draw on a number of high-profile female venture capitalists who testified that the firm was one of the most female-friendly in Silicon Valley.
Kleiner maintained that Pao was let go not because she was a woman, but because she was an unpleasant person to work with. Given the result of the case, it’s clear that the jury was persuaded by Kleiner’s arguments, but there has been little discussion in the tech media of the evidence that persuaded them. So let’s dip our toe into some of it.
Kleiner’s attorneys didn’t have to look very far for evidence of Pao’s horrible personal failings. Emails from 2009 show Pao critcising her assistant for taking time off work to help her landlord, a non-English speaker, who had been in a serious car accident. Pao’s response to the domestic crisis was as follows:
“It’s great that you want to be helpful to your landlord. It would be better for me if you could come to work on time. Let me know if you think differently, but I think your job should be your priority.”
The woman had a heart of gold, as you can see.
But admonishing her staff for helping victims of road accidents was just one aspect of Pao’s sociopathy and selfishness. Bizarrely, she kept a chart listing “resentments” that she held over her colleagues at Kleiner Perkins. She also admitted to sending negative e-mails about coworkers behind their backs, and acknowledged that she had once bullied a colleague to tears.
It’s funny how none of this information has made it into the mainstream media or the tech press. They’re all desperate to present Pao as a victim because they’ve bought into a bizarre, self-flagellating narrative about how awful women have it in the tech industry. (They don’t – and especially not at Kleiner Perkins.)
Journalists have preferred to laud Pao as a feminist underdog – a brave victim with a social conscience trying to change society for the better – despite the fact that many of her victims were other women. It’s almost as if the media were blindly supporting Pao because of her gender. Which is ironic, really, isn’t it?
Considering the flimsiness of Pao’s case, it’s incredible that she ever thought it was worth the effort in the first place. Kleiner’s attorneys had originally intended to closely interrogate Pao’s motivations, but were stopped by the presiding judge, Harold Kahn, who argued that such a line of questioning would create a “sideshow.”
He’s not wrong: Pao’s most likely motivations are quite the show. You see, Ellen Pao isn’t the only one who’s been involved in high-profile legal disputes recently. Her husband, Alphonse Fletcher, is in deep legal and financial trouble too. His asset management firm was declared bankrupt in 2012, and he is currently being sued by three Louisana public pension funds. They allege that Fletcher’s asset management defrauded them of up to $145 million, and are now seeking to recover the funds.
How much was Pao seeking from Kleiner Perkins in damages? Oh. $144 million.
As if that weren’t suspicious enough, Fletcher also has a long history of engaging in highly questionable discrimination lawsuits. His first discrimination suit, launched in 1991, was mostly a failure. Fletcher was awarded $1.26 million – a modest sum for Wall Street – with most of the damages he claimed rejected. A later arbitration panel dismissed the case entirely.
According to Boston Magazine, Fletcher was nonetheless heralded as a champion of diversity:
“The arbitration award wasn’t really a victory for Fletcher, but the story that emerged in subsequent media reports was less nuanced: On Wall Street, went the narrative, even Harvard grads get discriminated against if they happen to be black. Buddy Fletcher, though, had fought back.”
The race baiting, special pleading, minority politics and grievance-mongering don’t end there. Fletcher is currently suing the Dakota, an elite apartment block in Manhattan, for – you guessed it! – racial discrimination. The Dakota’s crime? Refusing his application to add a fourth apartment to the three that he already owned in the building. Quite what this has to do with Fletcher’s skin colour, nobody has been able to tell me.
While a judge can arguably justify excluding these details from the courtroom, it is astonishing that they were excluded from media coverage of Fletcher and Pao’s legal history. Fletcher has staged a string of frivolous discrimination lawsuits and currently faces a $144 million lawsuit, and just happens to be married to Ellen Pao, a woman who demanded almost precisely the same sum... in what we now know was also a frivolous discrimination lawsuit.
You couldn’t, as British newspaper columnists like to say, make stuff this up.
While the media may have bought into Pao’s absurd victim narrative, ordinary internet users have not. In comment sections, on social media, and even on the #ThankYouEllenPao hashtag on Twitter, it’s clear that most people aren’t buying the spin. That’s why it’s alarming that Pao remains in charge of Reddit, one of the centres of user-curated content on the web.
There have already been reports that Pao may have been using her authority to suppress discussion of Fletcher’s history on the website. This has not gone down well with Reddit’s user base, who are notoriously anti-censorship. If the comments underneath this widely-discussed posting on /r/news are any guide, Redditors are not at all pleased with their new leadership.
Ellen Pao be able to rely on the slavish support of tech columnists in hock to outdated and discredited complaints about gender equality, but she has few other admirers. It isn’t hard to see why. Her past behaviour indicates she is a deeply unpleasant person who lacks empathy and is perfectly happy to bully and undermine her colleagues when it suits her – then cry foul when she sniffs out professional or financial advantage.
Multi-millionaire corporate bullies who use equality legislation to advance their own interests? Meet the new heroes of the San Francisco progressive left.
Sai Ying Pun MTR station finally opens
The new Sai Ying Pun MTR station opened on Sunday morning after months of delay.
The MTR Corporation says everything went smoothly, apart from a technical problem with a platform door.
Dozens of people waited outside the station to get on the first train.
The Island Line extension from Sheung Wan to Kennedy Town opened at the end of last year, but soft soil slowed construction down at the Sai Ying Pun site.
http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/elocal/news.htm?elocal&20150330&56&1088356
#Blacklivesmatter Alabama college students among seven shot at Florida spring break party: police
Three spring break revelers were critically wounded Saturday when a gunman opened fire at a crowded house party on the coast of Florida, authorities said.
Seven victims, who included a handful of Alabama A&M University students, were found at the Panama City Beach bash, one of whom had been shot in the head, Bay County Sheriff’s Office announced in the hours after the 12:55 a.m. round of gunfire.
A desperate spree of 911 calls brought deputies to victims strewn about a home at 5312 Thomas Drive, steps away from the sandy beach.
In the seconds after being shot, one victim, Tykeria Etheridge, thought she would not survive. The 22-year-old mother of one and other victims had trekked the three-hour drive from Mobile, Ala., to party.
“I was shot several times including in the neck. I just knew I was dead,” Etheridge wrote on Facebook. “All I could think about was my son. He (sic) all I got.”
Etheridge says she was “just an innocent person like everybody else” when the alleged gunman, David Jamichael Daniels, 22, fired a handgun into the packed room of dancers, striking seven people.
Police said the shooting followed an altercation, but did not elaborate.
Police found the discarded weapon in a nearby backyard and quickly captured Daniels after he ran away from the bloodied scene. He was later charged with seven counts of attempted murder.
Officers brought him back to the house party where witnesses identified him as the shooter.
In addition to Etheridge, police identified two other out-of-town victims as Kearria Freed, 20, and Henton Franklin, 22. Both are also from Mobile.
The other victims are Annesia Powell, 19, Devanta Moore, 21, Jacole Young, 22, and Kelli Curry, 21.
Freed, who was shot in the head, is in critical condition along with Moore and Franklin.
Alabama A&M University officials identified Freed, Curry and Powell as students.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/shot-florida-spring-break-party-cops-article-1.2165552
Men build Nations: Singapore
Chicago activists, Messy Jackson & Negro Men pt1
Tom Leykis – She Said Impregnate Me or No Sex – 8/19/2003
some pictures of normal sexy attractive women to get rid of pictures of #teamharpy false accusers from my head
posting pictures of normal sexy attractive women!!
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#teamharpy false rape accusers librarian Nina de Jesus and librarian Lisa M. Rabey
ugly lying femicunt Nina de Jesus librarian at York University
another pic of the ugly man hating femicunt
land whale lying femicunt Lisa Rabey
another pic of the land whale lisa rabey
more on their attempts to destroy a man’s librarian career by falsely accusing him of rape and a sex predator
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/03/27/teamharpy-another-ugly-story-of-progressive-vigilantism/
Police: Middle School Teacher Had Lesbian Sex With 14-Year-Old Girl
http://theothermccain.com/2015/03/28/teacher-sex-meghan-dougherty-girl-14-middle-school/
A former Hillcrest Middle School teacher is in jail amid allegations of an inappropriate relationship with an eighth grade student, authorities said.
Meghan Colleen Daugherty, 36, of 200 E. Carolina Ave., Clinton, was charged Friday with criminal sexual conduct with a minor — 2nd degree, according to a warrant.
The warrant alleges Daugherty committed sexual battery on a 14-year-old girl more than once from Jan. 4 to March 25.
Simpsonville police said the suspect was a physical education teacher at the time of the incident and had previously coached the girls’ volleyball and soccer teams.
A teacher resigned Thursday after meeting with the school’s principal to discuss allegations of an inappropriate relationship, said Greenville County schools spokeswoman Susan Clarke.
Recently:
- Geraldine Alcorn, 28, was arrested this month in Pittsburgh after police say she became obsessed with an 11-year-old student at Beechwood Elementary School, where Alcorn was a pre-kindergarten teacher. Alcorn took the student ice skating and later lured the 11-year-old girl to her house. Police say Alcorn and the girl exchanged more than 2,000 text messages and had discussed running away together.
Shakyla Wislon
- Shakyla Wilson, 22, was charged with one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse after police in Naperville, Illinois, say she had sexual contact in February with a 14-year-old girl from Hill Middle School, where Wilson was volunteering as a girls basketball coach.
- An unnamed math teacher resigned from New Braunfels Christian Academy in February amid a police investigation after allegations surfaced that she had ongoing inappropriate sexual relations with a former female student.
- Dione Thompson, 45, was charged in February for having sex with a teenage girl she met while serving as a school resource officer in Bothell, Washington.
- High school dance teacher Michelle Smith White, 37, of Durham, N.C., was charged in October with having sex with a 16-year-old female student. Police said White had the student’s name and initials tattooed on her body.
- Dance teacher Sabrina Epps, 19, was arrested in October after police say she admitted having lesbian sex with a 14-year-old girl who was a student at the Tennessee studio where Epps taught.
- Gaile Supp, 25, pleaded guilty in September to sexual battery, a third-degree felony. A former teacher at Clearfield High School in Utah, Supp had originally been charged with object rape, a first-degree felony, in April 2013 for allegedly committing a sexual act on an unwilling 17-year-old female student at her West Haven home.
- California teacher Rebecca Eileen Diebolt, 35, was arrested in June after a woman told police that she and Diebolt had a four-year sexual relationship that began in 2004, when the victim was 15 and Diebolt was her language arts teacher and swim/water polo coach.
- Dance teacher Nichol Marie Phelps, 30, was sentenced to prison in June after she pleaded guilty to having lesbian sex with a 15-year-old student at the Florida academy where Phelps taught.
Not like there’s a pattern here or anything . . .
The Tom Leykis Show – Keep Your Religious Beliefs Out Of The Office
Islam exposed 122 and 123
restarting the islam exposed series to see the previous videos use the search bar and type “islam exposed” and press enter
England: Father of one of three ISIS teens is caught participating in Islamofascist rally
Earth Hour Is a Colossal Waste of Time—and Energy (2013)
On the evening of March 23, 1.3 billion people will go without light at 8:30—and at 9:30, and at 10:30, and for the rest of the night—just like every other night of the year. With no access to electricity, darkness after sunset is a constant reality for these people.
At the same time, another 1 billion people will participate in “Earth Hour” by turning off their lights from 8:30-9:30.
The organizers say that they are providing a way to demonstrate one’s desire to “do something” about global warming. But the reality is that Earth Hour teaches all the wrong lessens, and it actually increases CO2 emissions. Its vain symbolism reveals exactly what is wrong with today’s feel-good environmentalism.
Earth Hour teaches us that tackling global warming is easy. Yet, by switching off the lights, all we are doing is making it harder to see.
Notice that you have not been asked to switch off anything really inconvenient, like your heating or air-conditioning, television, computer, mobile phone, or any of the myriad technologies that depend on affordable, plentiful energy electricity and make modern life possible. If switching off the lights for one hour per year really were beneficial, why would we not do it for the other 8,759?
Hypothetically, switching off the lights for an hour would cut CO2 emissions from power plants around the world. But, even if everyone in the entire world cut allresidential lighting, and this translated entirely into CO2 reduction, it would be the equivalent of China pausing its CO2 emissions for less than four minutes. In fact, Earth Hour will cause emissions to increase.
As the United Kingdom’s National Grid operators have found, a small decline in electricity consumption does not translate into less energy being pumped into the grid, and therefore will not reduce emissions. Moreover, during Earth Hour, any significant drop in electricity demand will entail a reduction in CO2 emissions during the hour, but it will be offset by the surge from firing up coal or gas stations to restore electricity supplies afterward.
And the cozy candles that many participants will light, which seem so natural and environmentally friendly, are still fossil fuels—and almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs. Using one candle for each switched-off bulb cancels out even the theoretical CO2 reduction; using two candles means that you emit moreCO2.
Electricity has given humanity huge benefits. Almost 3 billion people still burn dung, twigs, and other traditional fuels indoors to cook and keep warm, generating noxious fumes that kill an estimated 2 million people each year, mostly women and children. Likewise, just 100 years ago, the average American family spent six hours each week during cold months shoveling six tons of coal into the furnace (not to mention cleaning the coal dust from carpets, furniture, curtains, and bedclothes). In the developed world today, electric stoves and heaters have banished indoor air pollution.
Similarly, electricity has allowed us to mechanize much of our world, ending most backbreaking work. The washing machine liberated women from spending endless hours carrying water and beating clothing on scrub boards. The refrigerator made it possible for almost everyone to eat more fruits and vegetables, and to stop eating rotten food, which is the main reason why the most prevalent cancer for men in the United States in 1930, stomach cancer, is the least prevalent now.
Electricity has allowed us to irrigate fields and synthesize fertilizer from air. The light that it powers has enabled us to have active, productive lives past sunset. The electricity that people in rich countries consume is, on average, equivalent to the energy of 56 servants helping them. Even people in Sub-Saharan Africa have electricity equivalent to about three servants. They need more of it, not less.
This is relevant not only for the world’s poor. Because of rising energy prices from green subsidies, 800,000 German households can no longer pay their electricity bills. In the United Kingdom, there are now more than 5 million fuel-poor people, and the country’s electricity regulator now publicly worries that environmental targets could lead to blackouts in less than nine months.
Today, we produce only a small fraction of the energy that we need from solar and wind—0.7 percent from wind and just 0.1 percent from solar. These technologies currently are too expensive. They are also unreliable (we still have no idea what to do when the wind is not blowing). Even with optimistic assumptions, the International Energy Agency estimates that, by 2035, we will produce just 2.4 percent of our energy from wind and 0.8 percent from solar.
To green the world’s energy, we should abandon the old-fashioned policy of subsidizing unreliable solar and wind—a policy that has failed for 20 years, and that will fail for the next 22. Instead, we should focus on inventing new, more efficient green technologies to outcompete fossil fuels.
If we really want a sustainable future for all of humanity and our planet, we shouldn’t plunge ourselves back into darkness. Tackling climate change by turning off the lights and eating dinner by candlelight smacks of the “let them eat cake” approach to the world’s problems that appeals only to well-electrified, comfortable elites.
Focusing on green R&D might not feel as good as participating in a global gabfest with flashlights and good intentions, but it is a much brighter idea.
“Stop a Douchebag” Ep.4 – MMA Fighter
Hillary Clinton 2016 supporters attempting to censor the press
A group known as The HRC Super Volunteers has launched a campaign aimed at journalists to prevent the use of sexist language when covering potential 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The group began as an online Facebook community made up of some 150,000 members who came together during the 2007-2008 primaries to take a stand against sexist reporting
In Which a Grumpy Lesbian Offers Her Feminist Understanding of Men
You know, just once, it would be nice if we heard a married grandmother’s analysis of male psychology, sharing insights from her happy life with her husband, raising sons and daughters, observing their experience of dating and marriage and so forth.
Grant that men are always irritated by female criticism — it injures our pride and puts us on the defensive — but we might be willing to heed such criticism if it came from a woman who was successful in her own relationships with men. Instead we get lectured by emotionally unstable graduate students and various professional ax-grinders who have made careers of proclaiming their oppressed victimhood.
“The personal is the political,” and so feminist analysis nearly always emerges from the experiences of maladjusted misfits.
But why bring up Laurie Penny again?
No, let’s consult the amateur feminists of Tumblr.com. Here is Lost Princess of the Lizard People (“40 .. . gay, female . . . geek”) attempting to analyze Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs):
One of the funny things about MRAs is, many of their ideals seem self-contradictory — for example — not wanting to compete with women in the workforce, but at the same time, angry about female freeloading (I’ve even heard arguments that resent women for having sex work as an alternative to homelessness — totally ignoring the existence of men who do sex work — and that argue that women even take traditionally female dominated jobs away from men), They also tend to scream pretty loudly about their resentment of the traditional male role. They call women prudes on the one hand but sluts on the other.
It would seem this doesn’t make any sense. This is not what your chauvinist grandpa from Texas would’ve ever said; this is not the sexism we’re familiar with. It seems so ridiculous. Is anyone really this stupid??
Most seem like they’re espousing some kind of progressivism out of one side of their mouth and traditional chauvinism out of the other, and it seems so self contradictory …
What I am realizing is that no, these guys aren’t actually stupid. Many MRA attitudes are part of a larger, self-consistent world view. Let’s look at the things so many are into: a particularly radicalized form of atheism (rejection of traditional religions). Your chauvinist grandpa was all for organized religion. Objectivism, though strangely, from the other side of their mouth, they sound like they want a weird form of communism wherein they are just given accolades and raises and bonuses and kudos without ever earning them. Your chauvinist grandpa was too proud for that and even had a sense of fulfillment in hard work. And then there’s all the Libertarianism and anti-statism. Your chauvinist grandpa was an old school patriotic man, all for the military-industrial complex.
Instead of looking at MRAs only in terms of their misogyny facet, why not examine the entire picture?
They want to be aristocrats. They’re under the impression that this is the birthright of all white men. They don’t SAY this, but … it’s the only way their worldview makes sense, because from that point of view, the views that seemed contradictory, actually make sense. The “alpha/beta” (heirarchies), “Return of Kings” (an MRA site) brand aristocratic or even royal branding (this language pops up a lot) … it’s the only thing that makes this whole thing make sense.
This is a reason why arguments against them fail, because most people can’t figure out what their stand actually is, and get caught up in the vacillation. They listen hard to what’s being said but miss what was actually NOT said.
This is the only way that their superficially contradictory views make any sense. . If they were — they wouldn’t be competing with women, let alone other men, except very high status men. Any women they partnered with would come with their own wealth and *born* status (but low-status women of course would be sexually used and disposed of). They wouldn’t personally have to deal with the labor involved in running a household and they would be awarded kudos and pay without having to work overly hard for it.
Taken this way, their views about women become logically consistent, and fall into a consistent and logical frame work that accommodates their other views.
Thanks for your analysis, Lizard Princess.
As I’ve said before, I’m ambivalent toward the “Men’s Rights” movement. On the plus side, A Voice for Men consistently and directly opposes feminism, per se. This is very important.
For too long, the established Right has offered a neoconservativeopposition to feminism that tries to win the argument by ceding the premise (i.e., that “sexual equality” is either desirable or possible) and offering women an ersatz “me too” Republican feminism. This is not the original (and successful) anti-feminism of conservative women led by Phyllis Schlafly. Nor is it even the anti-feminism of Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a real neoconservative who rejected the feminist movement because of its hostility to marriage and motherhood. While I appreciate the valuable work of Christina Hoff Sommers, her attempt to rescue the “feminist” label from the feminist movement was doomed from the start. The title of Dr. Sommers’ most famous book poses a question: Who Stole Feminism?And the answer is, “Nobody.” Marxist radicals, abortion lobbyists and lesbian man-haters did not “steal” feminism; they were in control of the Women’s Liberation Movement from its very inception in the 1960s. Trying to re-define “feminism” for conservative purposes is futile and perhaps even dishonest. Our proper goal is to oppose feminism, and MRAs are willing to do so without apology.
On the negative side, however, the phrase “Men’s Rights” implies that males and females are necessarily antagonistic in their interests, an idea I reject. The problem, as I see it, is that feminists have wrongly intruded the political language of “rights” into a private sphere. Remember that the title of Kate Millett’s 1970 book (the first book produced by the Women’s Liberation Movement) was Sexual Politics — which is the problem of feminism summarized in two words.
FEMINISM IS ABOUT SEX!
POLITICS CAN’T SOLVE YOUR SEX PROBLEMS!
Excuse me for shouting in ALL CAPS there, but after more than four decades of failing to solve the basic problem they set out to solve, I think people need to wake up to the truth. Human nature is not infinitely malleable. Attempting to re-arrange society to accommodate the permanent discontent of professional ax-grinders has not solved their problem, because their problem is an inability to adjust successfully to normal adulthood. Instead, feminism has only created new problems for women, problems that did not exist before the Women’s Liberation Movement began its futile attempt to bring about an egalitarian androgynous utopia.
Is anyone surprised to learn that our Lizard Princess (“40 . . . gay, female . . . geek”) failed in heterosexual relationships — she speaks about an ex-husband, a marriage that apparently lasted less than two years — and has since experienced failure in her lesbian relationships? Valentine’s Day was always unhappy with her most recent partner:
This is the kind of sh*t my ex pulled about nearly all “special days”.
me: “So what do you want to do?”
ex: “Anything you come up with will be great” (note that it was always up to me to do the romancing; I was basically cast into the traditional male role in a lot of ways)
The day rolls around.
me: “How do you like it?”
ex, starry eyed and smiling: “Oh it was wonderful! I love it when you do that.”
Six months later:
Ex picks fight seemingly out of nowhere.
ex: “I knew you’d forget about ___ (insert random thing), you didn’t even remember what I liked for [Valentine’s Day].”
me: “Wait, I asked you what you wanted to do.”
ex: “there you go, you never remember our conversations, because you weren’t paying attention. I TOLD you.”
-or-
ex: “You did, but if you’d actually paid attention to what I like, you would’ve known. But you didn’t, and never do.”
me: “Well, I can’t read your mind.”
ex: “You didn’t have to read my mind, you just didn’t know me.”
Lizard Princess elsewhere complains:
Basically, my associations with relationships and [Valentine’s Day] are memories of painful awkwardness. It only tended to highlight how bad the relationship actually was, it was something we had to grin and bear until we broke up a week later. Seriously, most of my relationships have broken up a week or two after [Valentine’s Day] . . .
So yes. I F–KING HATE VALENTINE’S DAY AS A COUPLE HOLIDAY.
Every single [Valentine’s Day] I have is a day I count my blessings that I am not in a f–ked up situation and it feels like *fresh air*. And dammit, I do want to be healed and whole enough to love someone again, but I have really bad associations around [Valentine’s Day].
This is the woman, you see, who presumes to provide objective analysis of the “self-contradictory” ideals of Men’s Rights activists. She couldn’t succeed in heterosexual marriage, but she can’t sustain a lesbian relationship, either. It’s almost as if . . .
UNHAPPY PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY
There’s your real bottom line. Do I claim to know why all of Lizard Princess’s relationships have been such hopeless bummers? No. As I said of Jillian Dunham, maybe it’s just bad luck or maybe it’s bad judgment.
Finding a good relationship requires either (a) an ability to recognize good character, or (b) an ability to cope with the particular character flaws of the imperfect partner you have chosen. Maybe also (c) a bit of both, because very few people are of such excellent character that their partner never has any cause for complaint. What you must avoid is situation (d) — being a flawed person who attracts other flawed people and yet is unable either to admit your own shortcomings or to accept your partner’s shortcomings.
The Lizard Princess’s complaints about her partners are not necessarilywrong, nor do I doubt that she might have identified something important about the mentality of many MRAs, in their ideal of an atheist libertarian aristocracy of Alpha males. The problem, as with most feminist analysis, is that we have unhappy misfits telling us what’s wrong with “society,” rather than having successful people telling us how to succeed and be happy in society as it exists.
Alas, the unhappy misfits are so full of envy and self-righteousness that none of them would listen to good advice if it were offered, nor can we expect them to ask happy successful people to share the secrets of our success and happiness. (Hint: People used to tell me I acted like I was God’s gift to women. I seldom bothered to explain that it’s not acting.)
And what’s with this site calling itself “A Return of Kings”? When were we ever deposed and overthrown? Our reign has been continuous, no matter what that chattering rabble may say.
Speaking of A Voice for Men, Pierce Harlan reports that a New Jersey grand jury has declined to indict five students at William Paterson University who were accused of gang rape.
The accusation was false? But . . . I thought women never lie about rape.
Living in Anglo-America 