By Nicholas Stix
Dillon Gee (2-6, 6.30, going into the game), who has been largely execrable this season, delivered 7 1/3 sterling innings and a career-high 12 strikeouts and no walks. Gee gave up four hits, including a third-inning home run by Robinson Cano. Marlon Byrd delivered the game-winning hit with a two-run homer in the second inning. Bobby Parnell earned his ninth save in 11 opportunities with a 1-2-3- ninth inning.
As the SNY announcers Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling observed, these Yankees showed little ability to work deep into counts, unlike the Yankees of the past 15 or so years.
Gee was rolling, having struck out five hitters in a row, but a cautious Terry Collins removed him, apparently based on the “let him end on a positive experience” theory.
The Mets’ John Buck also had an RBI on a swinging bunt with the bases loaded in the eighth. Yankees third baseman David Adams let the ball roll all the way to the third base bag, hoping it would roll foul, but it stayed in play.
Vidal Nuno (now 1-2, 2.25) took the loss.
With the win, the Mets swept the four-game season series with their crosstown rivals, the first time the amazins had accomplished that feat since the advent of interleague play.
However, back in reality, the winning streak left the Mets at only 22-29, and nine games behind the division-leading Braves.
Friday, May 31, 2013
“Low-Crime” Indianapolis Beset by Detroit-Style Thefts of Power Supply Batteries
"Low-Crime" Indianapolis Beset by Detroit-Style Thefts of Power Supply Batteries, Knocking Out Internet and Cable
Posted by Nicholas Stix
[A tip 'o the hate to the Countenance blogmeister.]
Crime knocks out Internet, cable TV across Indianapolis
Providers urge people to watch for battery thieves
By Steven Dean
[Circa May 25, 2013]
RTV6 ABC
· Video
· Photos
· 
INDIANAPOLIS - Brazen thieves in search of power supply batteries have been causing neighborhoods across Indianapolis to temporarily lose Internet and cable television service.
Indianapolis police reports obtained by the Call 6 Investigators show several neighborhood utility boxes have been targeted within the past week on the northwest side, with thieves sometimes knocking out cable service to an area that covers several blocks of homes.
Northwest District IMPD Detective Jeff Thomas said some thefts can knock out cable and Internet service for a couple hundred families. He estimated several hundred thefts across the city in recent months.
"It seems to be a new trend," said another Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer who reviewed the recent theft reports.
People who live in several neighborhoods that were hit by the thieves this week said the street corner utility boxes are often left with their doors hanging open and wires dangling out of them after the criminals strike.
"It's happening every couple of days sometimes," said one man who lives off Congress Avenue near the Naval Armory.
Cable and Internet provider Bright House Networks reported to IMPD on Tuesday that three batteries were stolen from its utility box in a neighborhood alley. The batteries were valued at $450 and were quickly replaced, said Joe Durkin at Bright House headquarters in Florida.
Roadside cable boxes were also stripped of their batteries in the 3600 block of Moller Road and the 3600 block of Clifton Street, where a Bright House technician told police the theft knocked out power to the entire cable system in that neighborhood. In that crime, the three batteries were valued at $900, along with a $100 cable harness that was attached to the batteries, which was also stolen.
Another Indianapolis cable provider, Comcast , has also been hit by the growing trend.
Spokeswoman Mary Beth Halprin told the Call 6 Investigators her company is working with police to track down the thieves that target its system. She said most of the battery thefts are not noticed by Comcast customers because they only provide backup power in the event of an electrical outage.
Comcast reported batteries being stolen from its roadside boxes in the 6400 block of Walton, as well as the 8100 block of Hayworth and the 5100 block of Delmar over the past several months. In one crime, six batteries were valued at $720, while power supply cables that were also stolen were valued at $300.
The Call 6 Investigators have been tracking how metal thefts are impacting people in surprising ways throughout Indianapolis over the past few months, including downspouts being ripped off homes and air conditioners being stolen while people sleep.
Police said thieves are now focusing their attention on batteries because they can be easily sold on the black market, and because the batteries can rarely be traced to a specific crime if they are sold to metal scrap yards for cash. In other recent cases, thieves have targeted entire fleets of Indianapolis trucks and church buses .
"We got to catch them in the act," said Thomas, calling the crimes "frustrating" for police as well as the people who lose their cable service.
While scrap yards are required to take fingerprints and photo identification cards for anyone selling material, many batteries that have no unique markings on them provide police with no way of tracing them or proving that they were stolen from a particular location, he said.
In this week's crimes that targeted the Bright House Network cable system, Durkin said his company is working with police to prevent future thefts and make its network boxes less vulnerable to thieves.
He said his company was notified this week that IMPD had made an arrest after catching one thief in the act while breaking into a Bright House Network box. A neighbor spotted someone cracking into the roadside box and called 911, prompting police to arrive and quickly arrest the criminal in action, he said.
"Be good neighbors," he said, urging people to call police whenever they see something suspicious near one of the utility boxes.
He said his company was not notified exactly where the arrest took place, and the arrest could not be confirmed with IMPD northwest district detectives or with a headquarters spokesman.
It was unclear whether the arrest was connected with any of this week's outages, or whether it was a separate and isolated theft.
Police said they are urging Bright House and Comcast to better secure their roadside utility boxes or perhaps locate them higher off the ground to deter this new brand of criminal.
Thomas, who has been tracking some of the recent thefts reported to IMPD, estimated that more than 100 battery thefts have targeted the Comcast cable system locally, while more than 40 battery thefts have hit the Bright House system in recent months.
Ricin Letters to Bloomberg & Obama: Feds Question Suspect in N Texas, but Say
Ricin Letters to Bloomberg and Obama: Feds Question Suspect in North Texas, but Say He's Merely a "Person of Interest"
By Nicholas Stix
Keep in mind, that the term "person of interest" has no legal status, but since the attempt in 2002 by the George W. Bush/John Ashcroft DOJ to railroad scientist Dr. Steven Hatfill for the fall, 2001 anthrax attacks, while referring to him as a "person of interest," the term has been the most popular law enforcement euphemism for suspect. Although the CNN story below does not speak of a "person of interest," a story that ran on NY1 after tonight's Mets-Yankees' game did, citing the feds as saying that the individual in question was a POI, and not a suspect. That's nonsense; for lawmen, "POI" and "suspect" are synonyms. The trick is to refer to someone as a POI, so as to be able to violate the rights due a suspect.
The only thing this mope has accomplished is to generate sympathy for possibly the two most unsympathetic public figures in America.
<CENTER>* * *</CENTER>
Source: Authorities question person in connection with ricin probe
May 30, 2013
By CNN Staff
Thursday, May 30, 2013, updated 9:44 PM EDT
Suspicious letter addressed to Obama
· NEW: Person in Texas is being questioned by authorities, a source tells CNN
· Secret Service confirms letter was addressed to President Obama
· Letter to Obama was postmarked in Shreveport, a law enforcement official says
· The letter is said to be similar to ones sent to Bloomberg
(CNN) -- Authorities are interviewing a person in Texas in connection with threatening letters sent to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that are being tested for ricin, a person with knowledge of the investigation told CNN on Thursday.
Officials on Wednesday intercepted a letter addressed to the president that was similar to letters sent to Bloomberg and a gun-control group he founded.
The off-site facility that screens mail addressed to the White House turned the letter over to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force for testing and investigation, U.S. Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said Thursday.
The letter was addressed to Obama, the Secret Service said.
The letters sent to Bloomberg and his group are suspected of containing a deadly toxin. Preliminary tests indicate ricin was found in the letters, New York Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said Wednesday.
Mayor Bloomberg reacts to ricin letters
Letter to Bloomberg positive for ricin
CNN Explains: Ricin
"You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns," the letters said, a law enforcement official told CNN. "Anyone wants to come to my house will be shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional God-given right and I will exercise that right 'til the day I die. What's in this letter is nothing compared to what I've got planned for you," the note inside each envelope said, according to the official.
A memo the mayor's office sent to employees Thursday said the envelope sent to Bloomberg "contained a small amount of ricin," which "did not appear to be in a form that could be inhaled or otherwise readily ingested. Touching the envelope or letter should not be a risk."
If inhaled, injected or ingested, less than a pinpoint of ricin can kill a person in 36 to 48 hours by causing failure of the respiratory and circulatory systems. There is no known antidote for the toxin, which is derived from castor beans.
Officials have not said whether any such substance was found in the letter sent to the White House.
The law enforcement official did not know the status of testing on anything found in the letter and did not disclose whether there was a message. But the source said the letter appears similar to the notes sent to Bloomberg and Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
The letter sent to Obama was postmarked in Shreveport, Louisiana, the official said -- just like the letters to Bloomberg and his group, the law enforcement source said.
The person who wrote the letters to Bloomberg and his group threatened anyone who tried to seize the writer's guns would be "shot in the face," a source with knowledge of the letters said Thursday.
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said: "We are assuming that the letters are ... from the same machine or the same computer."
He said there was no signature on the letter sent to New York.
That letter was opened at the city government's mail facility, in a biochemical containment box. The employee who handled the letter has no symptoms of illness, and there's no reason to believe any employees are at risk from being in the building where it was delivered, the mayor's office memo said Thursday.
Bloomberg met with employees at the facility Thursday and "thanked them for their dedication," his office said.
The letter to the mayor's organization was opened by Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, in Washington on Sunday.
Glaze is doing fine, a spokeswoman for the group said Thursday.
Opinion: Ricin, almost never deadly
Suspected ricin has been included in letters in the past few months sent to Obama and other officials. In April, letters were sent to Obama; Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi; and Sadie Holland, a judge in Lee County, Mississippi. James Everett Dutschke of Tupelo, Mississippi, has been charged with possession and use of a biological agent in connection with that case.
There haven't been any more ricin-type suspicious letters to lawmakers since the mailing to Wicker, Capitol Police in Washington said. In addition, a reminder was recently sent to lawmakers urging them to be careful at home and in their state offices.
The new letter to Obama is not believed to be related to the Mississippi case, the law enforcement official said.
Man, 37, arrested in probe of ricin-laced letters in Washington state
CNN's Jim Acosta, Carol Cratty, Dana Bash, Ted Barrett and Alex Mooney contributed to this report.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
BSA, RIP
The Boy Scout Oath
On my honor, I will do my best;
To do my duty to God and my Country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
Updated Version:
On my honor, I will do my best;
To do my duty
To help [members of protected classes, like my openly gay scoutmaster]
To keep myself physically strong
Possible New Boy Scouts of America Symbols
Racist, Lying, Affirmative Action Columnist Mary Sanchez Just Wants You to Know That She Hates Jason Richwine (Not That She’s Ever Read or Listened to Him!)
By Nicholas Stix
This is the America of 2012: Moronic, lying, lazy scum like Mary Sanchez are wield influence, get paid loads of money, and routinely get journalism awards, while our most brilliant people, like Jason Richwine get fired, whitelisted, shunned, and must try and find a way to keep a roof over the heads and feed their wives and little children.
[Link to the Heritage study, for which Richwine crunched the numbers.
Previously, on Mary Sanchez at WEJB/NSU:
“Racist, KC Star DNC Propagandist Mary Sanchez Brags That American Whites’ Days are Numbered, While Calling on Them to Embrace Their Own Destruction, and Failing to Explain Who Will Pay the Bill for Her New, Non-White Nation, or: Die, Whitey, Die, Version MMMDLIX.”]
* * * Conservativism needs to purge eugenics obsession
By Mary Sanchez
May 14, 2013 12:00 am
Muscatine Journal
(0) Comments
Jason Richwine is a type in American politics.
[What the heck is that lede supposed to mean?]
He holds a doctorate from Harvard. He writes studies, appears at conservative conferences in suit and tie, and expounds the same old nonsense about immigrants that we've been hearing since the Know Nothings had their last hurrah.
[Oh. So there are all these morons with Harvard doctorates “expound[ing] the same old nonsense…”? Like who?]
Sure, his work is perfumed with the air of scholarly respectability, but his eugenics-based beliefs bear more than a whiff of white supremacism. [N.S.: Liar.]
Remarkably — or maybe not so remarkably — that was no bar to getting a perch as a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation's most influential think tanks.
One of his learned opinions is that Hispanics are genetically [lie; he never said that, even though it’s true] inferior intellectually and will never fully assimilate into U.S. society.
Yes, you read that right.
If you're unfamiliar with Richwine, he garnered notice as co-author of a study Heritage published recently in hopes of defeating immigration reform legislation in Congress. The paper argues, unconvincingly [Liar], that changing current immigration law will cost the United States trillions of dollars. [Make that 6.3 trillion, though Rector and Richwine’s estimate was extremely conservative. The likely cost will be over $20 trillion.]
Having read Richwine's report, a curious blogger at the Washington Post looked up his other work and discovered his 2009 Ph.D. dissertation. In it, the young scholar argued that IQ should be the means used to select immigrants, observing by the way that there are too many intellectually inferior Hispanics already in the country.
The resulting furor pretty well torpedoed Heritage's messaging on the Senate immigration proposals, and on Friday Richwine announced his resignation.
It would be difficult to convey the offensiveness of Richwine's dissertation, titled "I.Q. and Immigration Policy," better than by quoting a few choice lines.
"No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach I.Q. parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-I.Q. children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against," Richwine wrote. "From the perspective of Americans alive today, the low average I.Q. of Hispanics is effectively permanent."
A Heritage had this to say about the dissertation: "This is not a work product of The Heritage Foundation. Its findings in no way reflect the positions of The Heritage Foundation. Nor do the findings affect the conclusions of our study on the cost of amnesty to the U.S. taxpayer."
That statement may be sincere, or it may be no more credible than the think tank's report on the cost of amnesty. That study tried to argue that giving them legal status would wind up costing $6.3 trillion over 50 years. It's a regurgitation of an old Heritage study, also long debunked [Liar] for ratcheting up projected costs while ignoring economic benefits.
In fact, Republicans from Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio to Grover Norquist — hardly a softie — have decried the Heritage study as deeply flawed. [What are the flaws? They never read it, either!] It's pathetic scholarship [Liar], which is to say the same fine stuff Heritage is known for. Heritage must have been familiar with Richwine's dissertation when it hired him. In any case, his toxic views fit right in with a vein of sentiment — I hesitate to call it thought — that has informed much of the conservative movement since "The Bell Curve," by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. [If only!]
In his dissertation [Which Sanchez never read.], Richwine dredged up the old pseudo-science of eugenics. [Liar.] That's the same baseless theories about racial and ethnic superiority that have caused nations to embrace selective sterilization, slavery, apartheid and worse.
It's dangerous stuff, and Richwine knows it.
He counseled using euphemisms like "skill-based" when proposing which immigrants should be welcomed via IQ tests, to "blunt the negative reaction."
Negative reaction, Jason? To the proposals of a guy who feels permitted [English, please] to warn that more Latinos — sorry, low-I.Q. immigrants — will lead to "more underclass behavior, less social trust." That's code for criminals and degenerates. [It’s not code at all.] For some reason, I'm thinking of those old Thomas Nast cartoons of apelike Irish immigrants.
Richwine is offensive, but he's also wrong. [No, he isn’t.]
Hispanics are assimilating at the same rates as previous immigrant groups [Liar], in some ways even faster [Liar] due to technology. (Note: This column is written in English, by the daughter of an immigrant from Mexico.)
Immigrants have lower rates of criminal conduct than native-born people. [What study? What immigrants? This statement is so vague that I don’t even know if she’s lying.] And a new study shows that Hispanic high school graduates have now overtaken white students in rates of enrollment into college. [Liar.]
And it's long been noted that immigrants have exceptionally high rates of entrepreneurship in starting small businesses. [No; that’s a lie that has been endlessly repeated.]
Unfortunately, it's not difficult to get some people to believe that they are somehow "better" than whole ethnic groups not that different from them. [Not that different?] And that any social policy that might impact another person's well-being will "take" something from them. [Especially when it’s true.]
But set aside the prejudiced hatreds being stoked. [Says the revanchist reconquista!]
Richwine and his ilk on the right also argue against something that Americans hold dear. And that's the very promise of this country. He's attempting to undercut the lofty ideals of opportunity enshrined at the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore ..."
[Gimme a break.]
A very powerful faction among our nation's so-called conservative movement wants to scribble in, "Just don't let them be Hispanic." [the so-called conservative movement does nothing but Hispander.] They have forgotten where we came from. All of us. [Mexico?]
Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.
This is the America of 2012: Moronic, lying, lazy scum like Mary Sanchez are wield influence, get paid loads of money, and routinely get journalism awards, while our most brilliant people, like Jason Richwine get fired, whitelisted, shunned, and must try and find a way to keep a roof over the heads and feed their wives and little children.
[Link to the Heritage study, for which Richwine crunched the numbers.
Previously, on Mary Sanchez at WEJB/NSU:
“Racist, KC Star DNC Propagandist Mary Sanchez Brags That American Whites’ Days are Numbered, While Calling on Them to Embrace Their Own Destruction, and Failing to Explain Who Will Pay the Bill for Her New, Non-White Nation, or: Die, Whitey, Die, Version MMMDLIX.”]
By Mary Sanchez
May 14, 2013 12:00 am
Muscatine Journal
(0) Comments
Jason Richwine is a type in American politics.
[What the heck is that lede supposed to mean?]
He holds a doctorate from Harvard. He writes studies, appears at conservative conferences in suit and tie, and expounds the same old nonsense about immigrants that we've been hearing since the Know Nothings had their last hurrah.
[Oh. So there are all these morons with Harvard doctorates “expound[ing] the same old nonsense…”? Like who?]
Sure, his work is perfumed with the air of scholarly respectability, but his eugenics-based beliefs bear more than a whiff of white supremacism. [N.S.: Liar.]
Remarkably — or maybe not so remarkably — that was no bar to getting a perch as a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation's most influential think tanks.
One of his learned opinions is that Hispanics are genetically [lie; he never said that, even though it’s true] inferior intellectually and will never fully assimilate into U.S. society.
Yes, you read that right.
If you're unfamiliar with Richwine, he garnered notice as co-author of a study Heritage published recently in hopes of defeating immigration reform legislation in Congress. The paper argues, unconvincingly [Liar], that changing current immigration law will cost the United States trillions of dollars. [Make that 6.3 trillion, though Rector and Richwine’s estimate was extremely conservative. The likely cost will be over $20 trillion.]
Having read Richwine's report, a curious blogger at the Washington Post looked up his other work and discovered his 2009 Ph.D. dissertation. In it, the young scholar argued that IQ should be the means used to select immigrants, observing by the way that there are too many intellectually inferior Hispanics already in the country.
The resulting furor pretty well torpedoed Heritage's messaging on the Senate immigration proposals, and on Friday Richwine announced his resignation.
It would be difficult to convey the offensiveness of Richwine's dissertation, titled "I.Q. and Immigration Policy," better than by quoting a few choice lines.
"No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach I.Q. parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-I.Q. children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against," Richwine wrote. "From the perspective of Americans alive today, the low average I.Q. of Hispanics is effectively permanent."
A Heritage had this to say about the dissertation: "This is not a work product of The Heritage Foundation. Its findings in no way reflect the positions of The Heritage Foundation. Nor do the findings affect the conclusions of our study on the cost of amnesty to the U.S. taxpayer."
That statement may be sincere, or it may be no more credible than the think tank's report on the cost of amnesty. That study tried to argue that giving them legal status would wind up costing $6.3 trillion over 50 years. It's a regurgitation of an old Heritage study, also long debunked [Liar] for ratcheting up projected costs while ignoring economic benefits.
In fact, Republicans from Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio to Grover Norquist — hardly a softie — have decried the Heritage study as deeply flawed. [What are the flaws? They never read it, either!] It's pathetic scholarship [Liar], which is to say the same fine stuff Heritage is known for. Heritage must have been familiar with Richwine's dissertation when it hired him. In any case, his toxic views fit right in with a vein of sentiment — I hesitate to call it thought — that has informed much of the conservative movement since "The Bell Curve," by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. [If only!]
In his dissertation [Which Sanchez never read.], Richwine dredged up the old pseudo-science of eugenics. [Liar.] That's the same baseless theories about racial and ethnic superiority that have caused nations to embrace selective sterilization, slavery, apartheid and worse.
It's dangerous stuff, and Richwine knows it.
He counseled using euphemisms like "skill-based" when proposing which immigrants should be welcomed via IQ tests, to "blunt the negative reaction."
Negative reaction, Jason? To the proposals of a guy who feels permitted [English, please] to warn that more Latinos — sorry, low-I.Q. immigrants — will lead to "more underclass behavior, less social trust." That's code for criminals and degenerates. [It’s not code at all.] For some reason, I'm thinking of those old Thomas Nast cartoons of apelike Irish immigrants.
Richwine is offensive, but he's also wrong. [No, he isn’t.]
Hispanics are assimilating at the same rates as previous immigrant groups [Liar], in some ways even faster [Liar] due to technology. (Note: This column is written in English, by the daughter of an immigrant from Mexico.)
Immigrants have lower rates of criminal conduct than native-born people. [What study? What immigrants? This statement is so vague that I don’t even know if she’s lying.] And a new study shows that Hispanic high school graduates have now overtaken white students in rates of enrollment into college. [Liar.]
And it's long been noted that immigrants have exceptionally high rates of entrepreneurship in starting small businesses. [No; that’s a lie that has been endlessly repeated.]
Unfortunately, it's not difficult to get some people to believe that they are somehow "better" than whole ethnic groups not that different from them. [Not that different?] And that any social policy that might impact another person's well-being will "take" something from them. [Especially when it’s true.]
But set aside the prejudiced hatreds being stoked. [Says the revanchist reconquista!]
Richwine and his ilk on the right also argue against something that Americans hold dear. And that's the very promise of this country. He's attempting to undercut the lofty ideals of opportunity enshrined at the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore ..."
[Gimme a break.]
A very powerful faction among our nation's so-called conservative movement wants to scribble in, "Just don't let them be Hispanic." [the so-called conservative movement does nothing but Hispander.] They have forgotten where we came from. All of us. [Mexico?]
Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.
Coalition for the Future American Worker Commercial
AmericanWorkers
Posted by Nicholas Stix
Unfortunately, this commercial is from 2009. There’s no workplace enforcement now, and hasn’t been for some time.
Charles Murray: In Defense of Jason Richwine
"A bygone era: Defending free expression in Inherit the Wind (1960)" [Spencer Tracy as "Henry Drummond" (Clarence Darrow) and Fredric March as "Matthew Harrison Brady" (William Jennings Bryan).]
Charles Murray
Posted by Nicholas Stix
His resignation is emblematic of a corruption that has spread throughout American intellectual discourse.
By Charles Murray
National Review
Comments 602
On Monday, May 6, Robert Rector and Jason Richwine
of the Heritage Foundation published a study of the fiscal effects of immigration amnesty, arguing that the costs would amount to $6.3 trillion. Controversy greeted the report, but of the normal kind, with critics making specific allegations that the costs were calculated using unrealistic assumptions.
On Wednesday, the Washington Post revealed that Richwine's 2009 Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard's Kennedy School had said that, on average, Latinos have lower IQs than do non-Latino white Americans and the nation should consider incorporating IQ into immigration decisions. The blogosphere and some elements of the mainstream media erupted in denunciations.
On Friday, the Heritage Foundation announced that Richwine had resigned.
I have a personal interest in this story because Jason Richwine was awarded a fellowship from my employer, the American Enterprise Institute, in 2008–09, and I reviewed the draft of his dissertation. A rereading of the dissertation last weekend confirmed my recollection that Richwine had meticulously assembled and analyzed the test-score data, which showed exactly what he said they showed: mean IQ-score differences between Latinos and non-Latino whites, found consistently across many datasets and across time after taking factors such as language proficiency and cultural bias into account. I had disagreements then and now about his policy recommendations, but not about the empirical accuracy of his research or the scholarly integrity of the interpretations with which I disagreed.
In resigning, Dr. Richwine joins distinguished company. The most famous biologist in the world, James D. Watson, was forced to retire from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2007 because of a factually accurate remark to a British journalist about low IQ scores among African blacks. In 2006, Larry Summers, president of Harvard, had to resign after a series of attacks that began with his empirically well-informed remarks about gender differences. These are just the most visible examples of a corruption that has spread throughout American intellectual discourse: If you take certain positions, you will be cast into outer darkness. Whether your statements are empirically accurate is irrelevant.
In academia, only the tenured can safely write on these topics. Assistant professors know that their chances of getting tenure will be close to zero if they publish politically incorrect findings on climate change, homosexuality, race differences, gender differences, or renewable energy. Their chances will not be much higher if they have published anything with a distinctly conservative perspective of any sort. To borrow George Orwell's word, they will have proved themselves to be guilty of crimethink.
Everybody who does research in the social sciences or biology is aware how treacherous the environment has become, and so scholars take defensive measures. They bury important findings in obscurely worded technical articles lest they be discovered by reporters and lead to disastrous publicity. A few years ago, a brilliant young evolutionary geneticist publicly announced he would not pursue his work on the evolution of brain size after his preliminary results were attacked as crimethink. Others have deliberately refrained from discussing race or gender differences in works that ordinarily would have called for treating those topics. When I chided the author of a successful book for avoiding some obvious issues involving race, he quite rightly replied that if he had included anything about race, everything else in the book would have been ignored.
These examples are only the visible tip of a much broader problem of self-censorship in the questions that scholars are willing to ask. I am not referring just to scholars who might otherwise engage the taboo topics directly. We can have no idea of the full extent to which important avenues of inquiry in economics, sociology, genetics, and neuroscience that indirectly touch on the taboo topics are also self-censored by scholars who fear becoming pariahs.
But let's not pretend that the problem is confined to academia or intellectuals. It infects the culture more broadly.
Freedom of expression used to be a big deal in the United States. When the Founders wrote the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech was first on the list. Americans didn't originate "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (maybe Voltaire said it, maybe not), but it became part of the American credo. The celebration of freedom of expression was still in full flower in the 1950s, when a play based on the Scopes trial, Inherit the Wind, was a Broadway hit. The American Civil Liberties Union of that era was passionately absolutist about freedom of expression, defending the right of free expression for even odious groups such as neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. The lonely individual saying what he believed in the face of pressure to keep silent was a staple of American films and television drama.
Few remnants of those American themes survive. We too seldom engage our adversaries' arguments in good faith. Often, we don't even bother to find out what they are, attacking instead what we want them to be. When we don't like what someone else thinks, we troll the Internet relentlessly until we find something with which to destroy that person professionally or personally — one is as good as the other. Hollywood still does films about lonely voices standing up against evil corporations or racist sheriffs, but never about lonely voices standing up against intellectual orthodoxy.
I'm sick of it. I also have no idea how to fix it. But we can light candles. Here is what I undertake to do, and I invite you to join me: Look for opportunities to praise people with whom you disagree but who have made an argument that deserves to be taken seriously. Look for opportunities to criticize allies who have used crimethink tactics against your adversaries. Identify yourself not just with those who agree with you, but with all those who stand for something and play fair.
— Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The Joys of Diversity: Extremely Drunk “New Mexico Man” Has Sex with Woman While Driving; After Causing the Obligatory Accident, Wrecking His SUV, He Ditched His Naked, Injured, Sex Partner, and Sought to Escape
Posted by Nicholas Stix
Thanks to reader-researcher RC for this one.
If “extremely drunk” is an ethnic code phrase, so is, he “tried to drive away after the crash and leave his passenger behind.” I was tempted to say chivalry is dead, but the truth is, with these guys it was never alive. If you asked Luis Briones who the girl was, would he even remember her name? Indeed, would he even have remembered the incident, had he not gotten arrested and had a bilingual public defender, at taxpayer expense, to tell him about it? And will yet another public charge come out of this fun coupling, which Briones will surely brag about to his buddies for years to come, assuming the girl survives her injuries?
The best comment, by far, was Michelle MacKenzie Morton’s:
* * * Police: NM driver drove drunk while having sex
May 29, 2013, 11:28 a.m.
Associated Press/WFAA
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico man faces multiple charges after police say he was having sex with a woman while driving drunk and crashed, ejecting the woman from the vehicle.
The Albuquerque Journal reports 25-year-old Luis Briones was found with one shoe on and his shorts on inside-out Monday night after he wrecked his Ford Explorer in Albuquerque.
Police say Briones' female passenger was found naked outside the SUV after being ejected. She had deep cuts to her face and head.
Authorities allege Briones tried to drive away after the crash and leave his passenger behind, but a witness grabbed his keys from the ignition. He also allegedly tried to hide from responding officers behind a cactus.
Briones is charged with aggravated DWI, reckless driving and evading police.
No attorney was listed for him.
___
Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
Thanks to reader-researcher RC for this one.
If “extremely drunk” is an ethnic code phrase, so is, he “tried to drive away after the crash and leave his passenger behind.” I was tempted to say chivalry is dead, but the truth is, with these guys it was never alive. If you asked Luis Briones who the girl was, would he even remember her name? Indeed, would he even have remembered the incident, had he not gotten arrested and had a bilingual public defender, at taxpayer expense, to tell him about it? And will yet another public charge come out of this fun coupling, which Briones will surely brag about to his buddies for years to come, assuming the girl survives her injuries?
The best comment, by far, was Michelle MacKenzie Morton’s:
Just glad they spelled ejected right or it might have been well "different."
May 29, 2013, 11:28 a.m.
Associated Press/WFAA
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico man faces multiple charges after police say he was having sex with a woman while driving drunk and crashed, ejecting the woman from the vehicle.
The Albuquerque Journal reports 25-year-old Luis Briones was found with one shoe on and his shorts on inside-out Monday night after he wrecked his Ford Explorer in Albuquerque.
Police say Briones' female passenger was found naked outside the SUV after being ejected. She had deep cuts to her face and head.
Authorities allege Briones tried to drive away after the crash and leave his passenger behind, but a witness grabbed his keys from the ignition. He also allegedly tried to hide from responding officers behind a cactus.
Briones is charged with aggravated DWI, reckless driving and evading police.
No attorney was listed for him.
___
Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Islamgate: “A Recovered Muslim” Writes about “a Scandal for the Ages”—Islamophilia
Posted by Nicholas Stix
I thank the old friend who sent me this article, along with some telling pull-quotes. I have added some Mohammed cartoons, most of them form the Jyllands-Posten, for color.
Islam’s true “god,” Mohammed (Jyllands-Posten, as are all the following images)“The only reason we’re talking about Islam is because it doesn’t mean peace.”
“[A] good Muslim, by our standards is a bad Muslim by Islamic standards.”
“Our problem is not ‘Islamophobia,’ but Islamophilia. It is this uncritical, uninformed, absolute defense of Islam by Western elites after 9/11 that I refer to as Islamgate. It’s a scandal for the ages that few involved would ever admit to being part of.”
==========
My Name is Bosch and I’m a Recovered Muslim
By Bosch Fawstin On May 27, 2013 @ 12:51 am
Front Page Magazine
Author’s note: This was originally published in Dec. 2011 in Front Page Magazine and it was the most popular piece I’ve written until this piece of mine. I’m a cartoonist, so the only essays I write are ones that I cannot express in any other way but words, and here- in light of the latest Jihad attack in London, and the latest “Islam vs “Islamism”” debate going on- is what I think is my most comprehensive piece on Islam, Muslims & Jihad.
My name is Bosch and I’m a recovered Muslim.
That is, if Muslims don’t kill me for leaving Islam, which it requires them to do. That’s just one of the reasons I’ve been writing and drawing against Islam and its Jihad for a number of years now. But fortunately for us, Islam hasn’t been able to make every Muslim its slave, just as Nazism wasn’t able to turn every German into a Nazi. So there is Islam and there are Muslims. Muslims who take Islam seriously are at war with us and Muslims who don’t aren’t.
But that doesn’t mean we should consider these reluctant Muslims allies against Jihad. I’ve been around Muslims my entire life and most of them truly don’t care about Islam. The problem I have with many of these essentially non-Muslim Muslims, especially in the middle of this war being waged on us by their more consistent co-religionists, is that they give the enemy cover. They force us to play a game of Muslim Roulette since we can’t tell which Muslim is going to blow himself up until he does. And their indifference about the evil being committed in the name of their religion is a big reason why their reputation is where it is.
So while I understand that most Muslims are not at war with us, they’ve proven in their silence and inaction against jihad that they’re not on our side either, and there’s nothing we can say or do to change that. We just have to finally accept it and stop expecting them to come around, while doing our best to kill those who are trying to kill us.
Another problem with Muslims who aren’t very Muslim is that they lead some among us to conclude that they must be practicing a more enlightened form of Islam. They’re not. They’re “practicing” life in non-Muslim countries, where they are free to live as they choose. But their “Islam” is not the Islam. There’s no separate ideology apart from Islam that’s being practiced by these Muslims in name only, there’s no such thing as “Western Islam”.
Non-observant Muslims are not our problem, but neither are they the solution to our problem. Our problem is Islam and its most consistent practitioners. There is nothing in Islam that stays the hand of Muslims who want to kill non-Muslims. If an individual Muslim is personally peaceful, it’s not because of Islam, it’s because of his individual choice, which is why I often say that your average Muslim is morally superior to Mohammad, to their own religion. The very rare Muslim who helps us against Jihad is acting against his religion, but that doesn’t stop some among us from thinking that his existence somehow means that he represents more than himself.
The only reason we’re talking about Islam is because it doesn’t mean peace. Islam wasn’t hijacked by a “small minority of extremists” on 9/11, it was hijacked by a very small minority of moderates whose embarrassment in being associated with such an immoderate religion leads them to engage in moderate truth telling about it, proving their irrelevance as allies.
In addition to these politically active moderates, when you see well-assimilated Muslims in the West, you’re not seeing Islam in action, you’re seeing individuals living up to the old adage, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. They’re essentially post-Islamic Muslims who have rejected Islamic values and have embraced Western ones. But since the process of their assimilation was implicit – as it happened naturally by their exposure to Western, i.e., pro-life, values – both Muslims and non-Muslims alike prefer to generously give Islam some credit for it. But a good Muslim, by our standards is a bad Muslim by Islamic standards. Objectively good human beings, who identify themselves as Muslim, give Islam a good face, one far better then [sic] it deserves. This only gives us a false impression about what it is we’re facing, with just another excuse not to face it. And this leads to our acceptance into our culture of stealth jihadists who have figured out how to say what we want to hear, while they scheme behind the scenes to further Islamize the West.
In the name of distinguishing the enemy from Muslims who mean us no harm, far too many Western commentators have avoided using the name “Islam” for the enemy’s ideology, and instead have decided to create their very own terms for the threat we’re facing, terms that are alien to the enemy. Terms such as:
Islamic Fundamentalism.
Islamic Extremism.
Totalitarian Islam.
Islamofascism.
Islamonazism.
Political Islam.
Bin Ladenism.
Radical Islam.
Militant Islam.
Islamism.
Jihadism.
We didn’t use terms such as “Radical Nazism”, “Extremist Shinto” and “Militant Communism” in the past. “Militant Islam”, Political Islam”, etc., are redundant terms. Our pretending otherwise has proven disastrous. Thousands of American lives, both civilian and military, have been sacrificed because of policies predicated on the myth that “Islam means peace.” We didn’t try to reform Shinto or Nazism during World War II; the major changes in those cultures took place only after we thoroughly de-militarized them.
And it’s no accident that Western analysts of Islam who are most informed about Islam are also most critical of it, while those least informed are least critical. But then there are those who, in their study of Islam, have become so enamored with their subject that, instead of sticking to what Islam is, they often write about what it isn’t, what they hope it might be. They seem preoccupied with doing their part to save Islam from those who have allegedly corrupted it.
The Muslim world is where the true meaning of Islam can be found in practice. Islam – not any alleged deviant form of it – means misogyny, censorship, anti-Semitism, homophobia, wife-beatings, beheadings, honor killings, pedophilia/“child marriages,” murdering infidels, etc. This is evil, and Islam sanctions every bit of it, but we’ve been told that we must respect “one of the world’s great religions” because it’s a religion. Following 9/11, the only thing George W. Bush knew about Islam was that it was a religion, and that apparently was a good enough reason for him to exonerate it as he did. And his advisor on Islam, David Forte, told Bush exactly what he wanted to hear, that “Nothing this evil could come from religion.” But 9/11 did come from a religion. Whatever else 9/11 was, it was an act of faith.
And Bush saying “Islam is peace” shortly after 9/11 gave the enemy a gift they couldn’t have foreseen. Here was the one man who was charged to defend America from their attack and here he was defending the very ideology that motivated the attackers. Honesty is the best policy in general, and when it comes to war, it’s a moral imperative to find out the truth, to tell the truth and to act on the truth, no matter what sacred cow is killed in the process. And so a big part of why nearly 3,000 victims of jihad on 9/11 haven’t been avenged is because of respect for religion, even for a religion that calls for our destruction.
Muslims who really care about Islam are part of an organized effort to spread Islam, and I sometimes refer to this collective effort by Muslims as “Organized Islam.” No matter the means involved, Muslims working towards a more Islamic world want the same thing the jihadists want. This organized effort includes Mosques, Muslim organizations, Muslim individuals writing books, blog posts, etc. And they all invariably engage in anti-Western, Anti-Israeli propaganda, at the very least.
I often hear that we should be working with the Muslim world. Working towards what? As Ayn Rand writes, “In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.” Any time we spend “working” with a culture that calls for our destruction, we are working towards our own destruction, consciously or not.
While it’s true that jihadists don’t represent most Muslims, they do represent Islam. But then why don’t most Muslims engage in jihad? Like in any culture, heroes are a small minority, and that goes for Islamic culture as well. The jihadists are Islam’s heroes; they are the ones most dedicated to following Allah’s commands and they’re celebrated in the Muslim world for it. They are also the only ones to whom Islam guarantees paradise. And their rarity was made even clearer when we learned that only the pilots of 9/11 knew it was a suicide mission. Our enemy knows that it’s tough to get even hardcore Muslims to sacrifice their lives for Islam, but they don’t want us to know that. Just as they don’t want us to know that behind their boast that they love death is the fact that they hate life.
And while Muslims who blow themselves up in order to kill non-Muslims are a small minority, Muslims who would explicitly condemn them are an even smaller minority. And while I think that Muslims are mere sheep to their Jihadist wolves, there are also too many Muslim cheerleaders for jihad. How many Muslims celebrated 9/11? Far too many. Even in my own lax Muslim upbringing in America, there was an omnipresent anti-Semitism and misogyny. Some members of my family admired Adolph Hitler, who I refer to as “Islam’s Favorite Infidel.” Regarding misogyny, the birth of a girl became a day of mourning for Muslim women in my family; they understood the suffering this girl would endure under Islam, even in America.
Though we say we’ve been at war for over ten years, we haven’t even begun to fight the war the way we should be fighting it. And those calling for a change within Islam during this war would be surprised at how much Islam can be changed through an honest war on our behalf. You can’t make a violent religion like Islam non-violent by argument, only by greater retaliatory force against state sponsors of jihad terrorism.
The future of Islam and the well-being of Muslims is said to be of importance to us. Post – 9/11, the defense of our culture, our values, our very lives has been optional, but our defense of Islam has been absolute. It began with Bush’s “Islam is peace” and it continues with Obama, who said in his Submission Speech in Egypt in 2009, in front of members of The Muslim Brotherhood, “I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” If only he felt the same about America.
We can’t be both for Islam and for ourselves. This enemy is fully on their own side and fully against us and they’ve made themselves believe that they’re the good guys and that we’re the bad guys, and our actions have done nothing but turn their hatred of us into an ever-deepening contempt. Before we see the enemy for what it is, we need to see ourselves for what we are. Only then can we, with full moral conviction, make them pay for what they’ve done and move us towards victory.
Our problem is not “Islamophobia”, but Islamophilia. It is this uncritical, uninformed, absolute defense of Islam by Western elites after 9/11 that I refer to as Islamgate. It’s a scandal for the ages that few involved would ever admit to being part of.
I care about the truth. I care about Western Civilization. I care about myself, my loved ones and my friends. I care about Iife. And that’s why I don’t care about Islam.
Our altruistic concern for the future and well being of the Muslim world has come at the expense of American lives and treasure. We’ve placed the well being of “The Muslim World” above our own self-defense. We’ve placed today’s Big Lie, “Islam means peace,” above the truth we need to act on. We’ve placed the lives of Muslim civilians above the lives of our soldiers, placing them in absolutely unnecessary danger in order to protect innocent (or even guilty) civilians. Our Rules of Engagement might as well be renamed the Golden Rules of Engagement, as our soldiers have been forced to treat the enemy the way we’d like to be treated. And the enemy takes full advantage of that, as they do of all of the policies our morally vain politicians have concocted. We need to shift the focus onto our own well-being at the enemy’s expense for a change.
We’ve tried everything since 9/11 except real war. War is the answer to Jihad.
So who cares about Islam? Muslims, Jihadists, Islamophiles, Leftists who naturally side with anti-American ideologies, guilt-ridden fellow travelers who think America is usually in the wrong, and religionists who believe any religion is better than none. But since Leftists and Islamophiles usually know very little about Islam, who truly cares about Islam? Those who are at war with us.
In the end, I care about Islam and the Muslim world as much as the Muslim world cares about America and the West. This is war. We can’t be on both sides. I’m not rooting for Islam or the Muslim world.
I’m rooting for us.