Ranger School coverup

The Army is attempting to bury the evidence that it relaxed standards in order to permit women to graduate from Ranger School:

Congressman Russell contacted the Secretary of the Army on September 15, 2015, and requested the Ranger School records for Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver.

The Secretary of the Army stalled Russell for nine days and then asked for an extension to obtain documents readily available.

The Army waited another two weeks to tell Russell the documents had been shredded.

The Army refuses to tell anyone what the school’s policy is for the storage and destruction of Ranger School records.

The Army refuses to tell the media why they shredded Griest’s and Haver’s records.

The Army refuses to tell the media what they are doing with the third female graduate, Major Lisa Jaster’s records.

The Army wants us to doubt that journalist Susan Keating’s Ranger School sources are real because they are anonymous.

The Army wants us to believe that if Susan Keating’s sources were real they would come forward, when in fact, they are frightened of retribution. Considering the Obama administration’s treatment of whistleblowers, these fears are more than justified.

I very much doubt anyone is even remotely surprised by this. But consider the silver lining: given the way in which recent administrations appear to regard American citizens as the enemy, there are worse things than social justice convergence debilitating the U.S. military.

Destroying the evidence won't do the Army any good. Everyone knows that the standards were dumbed-down and that the women who "passed" the course are frauds and an insult to all real Rangers, past and present. Want to argue otherwise? Fine, show the records.

Two courses, two prices

My partners are about ready to take over the responsibility for the Game Dev course; the animated ad is done, and they're getting their web site and order processing updated, so if you want to take advantage of the $150 price for the 20-hour course, this is your final opportunity. The price will go up to $199 next week.

However, even if you're interested, you may want to hear about an even better offer, especially if you're interested in entrepreneurship. My partners, as it happens, are going to be offering a Business Startup course of their own; one of them ran Red Herring in Europe and Asia for years before striking out on his own and he is one of the best-connected people in the fields of technology and technology-funding walking the planet. From Skype to Google, you name it, he knows the people who started them and first funded them.

I've learned a tremendous amount from him over the years, and managed to convince him that there are many people who would benefit from tapping into the knowledge and experience he has picked up over the years. His course will probably run 90 minutes per session rather than two hours, but it will be in the same basic format and will feature even bigger names than my course will. It will also be priced at $199 per seat and will begin sometime in Q1 2016.

Anyhow, I've already made reserved seats in the Game Dev course available for free to the Brainstorm Annual members. After our last closed event, a number of the Brainstormers indicated that they would like to attend the Business Startup course, so I spoke with my partner and he agreed that all Annual Brainstorm members will be permitted to attend his course for free as well. The one difference is that while Annual seats can be given to friends and family for the Game Dev course, only the actual Annual member will be permitted to attend the Business Startup course.

So, if you were giving any thought to signing up for Brainstorm and you're interested in entrepreneurship, this is one more reason to give it a shot. In addition to the two courses worth a combined $400, you'll also be able to attend the closed Brainstorm events, such as the upcoming one on November 14th with Mike Cernovich, where we'll be discussing the current state of the publishing industry and how one can best take advantage of its vicissitudes.

And, of course, I will be looking to continue to add value to a Brainstorm membership as time goes on. Stickwick has gone a little overboard in her proposed presentation on dark matter, as it has transmogrified into a book that Castalia will be publishing next year, so that planned event will be delayed until the spring. On the plus side, however, we will be providing the book to all the members in order to facilitate both a meaningful discussion and informed questions.

In largely unrelated news, Castalia has launched Wargame Wednesdays today, kicking off with a review of a set of military history books by Donald Featherstone  that I desperately need to get my hands on:

Even though the scope of the series precludes in-depth historical background as a young student I found the series useful as a beginning reference for various papers and as a gamer I appreciated the emphasis on playing an army using the tactics and dealing with the limitations faced by the historical commanders or in Donald Featherstone’s own words from the first volume’s introduction: “Each section details the technique and styles of fighting of the various nations and armies and offers suggestions how this can best be simulated on a table-top battlefield.” He goes on to explain that war gamers take great care in researching their armies, paint them as accurately as possible to create the most reasonable simulation then it “…all falls down at one critical point – unable to move under their own volition, the small model soldiers are strategically and tactically directed by the war gamer himself, who maneuvers his armies with a military hindsight denied to their real-life commanders of long ago.” The figures on the table top may be dressed as Romans and Greeks but they are played using tactics “that would have done credit to Wellington in the Peninsula, Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley or Montgomery in Libya”. Featherstone then gives the example of a gamer choosing to collect and fight a Roman army against Britons or Gauls and after reading the relevant sections would “…know that they will advance in a certain formation, that they will hurl their pila and then come to close quarters with the gladius. After a simulated 15 minutes of fighting, they will be withdrawn and a fresh century or cohort thrown in to take their place.” On the other hand their enemies “…will fight in a desperate and ferocious fashion rather resembling the headlong charges of the Dervishes in the Sudan towards the end of the 19th century”.

Each volume is slightly different in its methodology ways, whereas the first volume covers each army separately the second volume groups the subject matter into wars, while the third volume is organized by campaigns from the French Revolution to Waterloo, though the final chapters cover the War with America, 1812-1815, the U.S. – Mexican War of 1846-1848, the Crimean War and ends with the War of Austria with France and Piedmont in 1859.

SJW "rights" are anti-rights

The city of Houston rejects a politically correct "anti-bias" measure:

A yearlong battle over gay and transgender rights that turned into a costly, ugly war of words between this city’s lesbian mayor and social conservatives ended Tuesday as voters repealed an anti-discrimination ordinance that had attracted attention from the White House, sports figures and Hollywood celebrities.

The City Council passed the measure in May, but it was in limbo after opponents succeeded, following a lengthy court fight, in putting the matter to a referendum.

Supporters said the ordinance was similar to those approved in 200 other cities and prohibited bias in housing, employment, city contracting and business services for 15 protected classes, including race, age, sexual orientation and gender identity. Opponents said the measure would allow men claiming to be women to enter women’s bathrooms and inflict harm, and that simple message — “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms” — was plastered on signs and emphasized in television and radio ads, turning the debate from one about equal rights to one about protecting women and girls from sexual predators.

The cat is out of the bag. Voters now understand that these seemingly innocuous ordinances will be used against them by the sexual freakshows and political activists. What are called "anti-discrimination" measures are violations of the Constitutional right to free association. The entire concept of "civil rights" has proven to be a complete disaster; the worst predictions of the segregationists proved to be optimistic.

Not that the SJWs are giving up any time soon. Notice something very strange about this "news" report. Where are the results of the referendum? It's like a sports report on the World Series that says the Mets lost, but doesn't tell you what the score was.

From this, we can surmise that the SJWs lost badly.  And yes, as it happens, that's precisely what happened as the SJW measure was voted down 61-39.

Houston's controversial equal rights ordinance failed by a wide margin Tuesday, with voters opting to repeal the law that offered broad non-discrimination protections, according to incomplete and unofficial returns.

A second front in the OSS invasion

ESR warns that SJWs aren't merely using weaponized codes of conduct to try to take over open source software projects these days.

I received a disturbing warning today from a source I trust. The short version is: if you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a “women in tech” advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp.

IRC conversation, portions redacted to protect my informant, follows.

15:17:58 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I'm super careful about honey traps.  For a while, that's how the Ada Initiative was trying to pre-generate outrage and collect scalps.                            
15:18:12          esr | REALLY?                                   
15:18:22          esr | That's perverse.                          
15:18:42 XXXXXXXXXXXX | Yeah, because the upshot is, I no longer can afford to mentor women who are already in tech.
15:18:54          esr | Right.                                    
15:19:01 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I can and do mentor ones who are not in it, but are interested and able           
15:19:21 XXXXXXXXXXXX | but once one is already in...  nope
15:20:08 XXXXXXXXXXXX | The MO was to get alone with the target, and then immediately after cry "attempted sexual assault".
15:23:27          esr | When the backlash comes it's going to be vicious.  And women who were not part of this bullshit will suffer for it.
15:23:41 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I can only hope.                           
15:25:21          esr | Ah. On the "Pour encourager les autres" principle?  I hadn't thought of that. Still damned unfortunate, though.
15:26:40 XXXXXXXXXXXX | Linus is never alone at any conference. This is not because he lets fame go to his head and likes having a posse around.     
15:26:54 XXXXXXXXXXXX | They have made multiple runs at him.      
15:27:29          esr | Implied warning noted.                     
15:27:34            * | XXXXXXXXXXXX nods

Interesting to see that technologists are having to adopt the same policy as Billy Graham and other Christian pastors; SJWs not only always lie, but apparently they always resort to the same tactical set as well. It's also interesting to note that women connected to the Ada Initiative are known to have been engaging in these tactics for some time now.

In any event, you've been warned. I find it a little ironic that there is any concern whatsoever for the hypothesized effect on "women who were not part of this bullshit" because that's simply not important. If they want to work in tech, they can still do so, they simply won't have the benefit of the expected hand-holding.

At any rate, it should be apparent to even the most dubious moderate that SJWs in tech are a serious problem and they need to be rooted out.

#1 in Strategy

The level of interest in 4TH GENERATION WARFARE HANDBOOK has truly been encouraging. I have to admit, I did not expect this:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #904 Paid in Kindle Store
    #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Military > Strategy  

That's pretty incredible for the first day of preorders. We probably should have figured out this preorder thing sooner, it would appear. Although I like to think there is a certain inept charm to our "well, it's done, so let's whang it up there and do a blog post" approach. The least-organized book launch in the entire history of publishing doesn't seem to have hurt SJWAL much, anyhow. And one of these days, we are going to actually get around to doing our first press release.

But since there is so much more interest in 4GW than anticipated, I thought it might be a good idea to make ON WAR: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 more readily accessible to those who aren't familiar with William S. Lind or the four generations of post-Westphalian warfare. So, we have made ON WAR available on Kindle Unlimited; if you're on Prime or KU, you can check it out at no charge to you. And if it piques your interest, well, there is a bestseller-to-be that you may want to preorder.

And for those of you who are curious why we're so suddenly enamored of KU, well, it works very badly for short, expensive works of the sort that independent scam artists and scam artists who are published by certain SF publishing houses who shall remain nameless were publishing, and that Amazon wished to deter. And it happens to work rather well for long, inexpensive works of the sort we publish. And by "rather well", I mean that we actually do better with a KU copy that is read than a copy that is sold either on Amazon or Castalia. So if you really want to help us out, read one of our books on KU first, then buy it.

The First Amendment isn't merely dead

It is outdated, irrelevant, and at this point, civilizationally destructive. John Wright explains:

The First Amendment was never anything but a cease-fire and peace treaty of a Christian v Christian civil war, which was extended, out of Christian charity and and English sense of fairplay and goodsportsmanship, to Jews and other religions.

It was never a suicide pact, never an invitation for socialists at home and soviets or Islamists abroad to overturn our system of protecting our God-given liberties.

The challenge is how to protect some semblance of free speech while strictly limiting, if not banning outright, the exercise of all non-Christian religions in Christendom. This is theoretically possible, as history demonstrates. But as events are rapidly demonstrating, in the current circumstances the latter is going to take precedence over the former.

The age of fairplay and goodsportsmanship is over. You don't have to like it; I certainly don't. Unfortunately, we have no choice but to accept it. And if you can't bring yourself to do so now, don't worry, you will soon enough.

The collaborators are frightened

The European Resistance is rising. I tend to doubt the collaborators will have to be worried about "being knocked to the ground" in the near future.

A German journalist has told of being attacked in the street after writing a column about the rise of xenophobia among right-wing extremists in his country.

Helmut Schümann, a columnist for the Berlin newspaper, Tagesspiegel, wrote on Facebook about the assault, reports The Local.

According to his account, he was attacked from behind by a group of people on Friday. One asked: “Are you Schümann for Tagesspiegel? You left-wing pig.” He was then knocked to the ground.

In a later posting, Schümann wrote that his attackers would not silence him. He would continue to “shout about them and write about them.” He added: “Physically, I’m recovering fast but mentally it is taking longer.”

Schümann had written an article the day before in which he wondered whether he could continue to call Germany his country because of the rise in xenophobia exhibited by organisations such as the anti-Islamic group Pegida and the Eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany.

Attacks on supporters of refugees have become increasingly common in Germany in recent weeks, as has violence against refugees and the places where they live.

Schümann shouldn't have wondered whether he could continue to call Germany his country because of "the rise of xenophobia", he should have wondered whether he could continue to call Germany his country because it is being invaded by large numbers of people who are not German.

4th Generation Warfare Handbook

Written by the author of Maneuver Warfare Handbook and an active-duty USMC officer with experience in Iraq, 4th Generation Warfare Handbook is the doctrine for a new generation of war. Over the last 40 years, the world has gradually entered into a post-Clausewitzian state where the wars are undeclared, the battlefields can be anywhere, the uniforms are optional, and the combatants as well as the targets are often "civilian". Conventional militaries have repeatedly attempted to utilize technology to meet the new challenges posed, but even the most advanced technology has provided little more than meaningless short-term victories rendered futile in months, if not weeks.
 
The inability of Western governments and militaries to come to terms with the changing nature of modern warfare has led to failed interventions, failed occupations, and now even failed states everywhere from Eastern Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. And with the recent mass movement of peoples around the world, 4th Generation Warfare can be safely expected to appear in Western Europe and the United States before long.
 
Drawing on their decades of experience of military strategy, military history, and military action, the authors have distilled 4GW theory into a short, concise, easily accessible handbook that provides the soldier, the military analyst, and the civilian observer with a guide to understanding and responding to the changing realities of this challenging new form of war.

We're handling this book launch a little differently than we have in the past. The handbook is now available in preorder for release on 23 November and will only be available from Amazon as a result. Those who preorder should hold onto your digital receipts as those who preorder will be invited to attend a special Brainstorm later this year featuring both Mr. Lind as well as the lieutenant colonel discussing the new handbook. (Registration will be limited to preorders and Annual members.) If you require an epub version, buy it from Amazon, send us the receipt AFTER the book comes out, and we will send you an epub.

This is a handbook intended for soldiers, not a book of new and expanded theory, so don't be surprised that much of the base doctrine will be familiar to those of you who have read On War, The Four Generations of Modern War, and Victoria. What is new are some of the practical aspects and applications, particularly the focus on developing and utilizing the light infantry required to meet the challenge posed by 4GW. But given the course of recent events, there can be little doubt that 4th Generation Warfare Handbook will prove every bit as influential as Maneuver Warfare Handbook did in the 1980s.

A paperback version will be published in Q1 2016.

Peak SJW

I think David French is perhaps a little optimistic here, but it is interesting to see National Review lining up against SJWs and political correctness in light of its relatively recent purgings of various contributors for their thought crimes. Perhaps the pendulum actually is swinging back:

While it’s always dangerous to predict when any particular cultural trend peaks, I’m pegging October 31, 2015, as peak PC. When universities actually post flow charts to keep your Halloween party from being offensive, humorlessness is redefined. When students are so fragile that the very thought of ethnic-themed Halloween costumes leads to much-mocked YouTube “guides,” then political correctness is losing its punch:

If you disagree — if you think that political correctness is gaining momentum — then consider a few facts. First, the top two candidates in the Republican race for president of the United States attained their front-runner status by willfully, gleefully defying political correctness at every turn. Ben Carson shot to the top of the polls when he did the unthinkable — told the truth about guns, about Islam, about resistance to mass shooters, and about abortion — without flinching. It’s old news by now that Donald Trump’s supporters love him for his anti-PC stands.

Personally, I would like to think that the tide began to turn with the publication of SJWs Always Lie, which was published just two months before the date French pegs. But whether it has or not, it is very clear that a long march through the institutions of the West to clean them of SJW intellectual corruption is required and it is not going to be quick or easy.

And speaking of not being easy, while it's always nice to see one's book become a category bestseller, the fact that The Return of the Great Depression, published in 2009, is presently the #1 bestseller in the following category, is not exactly cause for celebration.

•      #1 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Unemployment

Mailvox: Keeping out SJWs

An email from a member of the Ilk who not only grasps the key concepts, but is putting them into practice in her HR department:

We [are a sizable] company.  I consider myself part of the “Ilk” and have been following your discussion of SJW’s for several years, including reading SJW’s Always Lie. As a result, we have become more proactive during the interview process for new employees, trying to discover if they harbor or are amenable to SJW ideas.

I thought an example of a recent interview would be of value to others in business as a model for modifying their hiring process.

Like many applicants, today’s had recently left a job.  We have always asked, “Why did you leave your last job?”, listened to the various responses, like: “the company downsized”, “change in management”, etc.  However, other common responses now require further questioning.  Responses such as, “I didn’t get along with my boss”, “I had an issue with a company policy”, or other answers that indicate some level of dissatisfaction with the previous employer require more in depth questioning.

When asked why they left the last company, one applicant said, “I just didn’t like some parts of the environment and am looking for a better place to work.”  Years ago, that innocent-sounding response would not have drawn any attention.  Not any more.

The manager immediately picked up on the “problem with previous employer” tone underlying the answer.  So, further questioning was required.

Manager: “Really.  What was part of the environment you didn’t like?”

Applicant: “Some of the employee interaction just wasn’t for me.  It wasn’t professional enough.”

Manager: “That makes sense.  I wouldn’t like that either.  What was an example of unprofessional behavior?”

Applicant: “It was really just the way one of the manager’s treated some of the people.”

Manager: “Oh.  That can be frustrating.  What did the manager do?”

Applicant: “He treated some of the people in the call center unprofessionally.”

Manager: “Ok, but what do you mean by treating them unprofessionally?”

Applicant: “Well, he acted inappropriately around them.”

Manager: “When you say “inappropriately", what do you mean?”

Applicant: “Well, we all thought it was harassment.”

Manager: “What kind of harassment, like yelling at people?”

Applicant: “No. Some of it was sexual harassment.”

Manager: “Oh no.  That’s not good at all.  So, you just left and didn’t do anything about that kind of harassment?”

Applicant: “No.  I spoke to lots of the other phone reps and we all agreed it was harassment.”

Manager: “So, after you spoke to the other reps, did you file a complaint?”

Applicant: “We tried.”

Manager: “So, when that didn’t work, did you file a lawsuit or do anything?”

Applicant: “That’s what we ended up having to do.  It was just that bad.”

Everything past this point was just the formalities of ending the interview without making the applicant feel like they were just arbitrarily eliminated from consideration.

The point I’m trying to share is the amount of effort, time and question asking skills it took to finally dig down to the real issue.  Most small and medium businesses are not used to “digging” during their interviews.  I know, having been guilty myself and many other business owners I know admit they do not “dig”.  If the person looks good, i.e. like they can do the job, they get hired.  That mindset used to work, but in today’s PC environment is too dangerous to the business’ survival, so it must be changed.

When a person finally admits to being the instigator of some type of action against the company and involving other employees in their “dissatisfaction”, then that seems to be a good example of an SJW.

I can hear the “moderates” saying something like, “But maybe they were sexually harassed.  It’s not fair to disqualify them when they were the victim of harassment.  They weren’t the problem.”  Conceptually, I agree.  However, the distinction seems to be the involvement of others or engaging in activities to “punish” the perceived offender; these are SJW characteristics.  A conservative person would simply have left the job if the environment was that uncomfortable.

So, hopefully this is of some value to others as they learn to keep SJW’s out, but I also hope you’ll comment on how you see the interview process being better utilized to screen SJW’s.  Also, how do you respond to the “moderate” mindset described above when it comes to hiring people?

I think questions such as "have you ever lodged a complaint against your superior" or "have you ever been party to a lawsuit against your employer" (prohibited by Federal law) should probably be added to the standard interview repertoire. A better approach would involve asking "have you ever been the victim of harassment", as the average SJW is going to assume you are on her side and be eager to tell you all about how everyone from her kindergarten teacher to her previous boss treated her shabbily.

After which you smile, thank her for her time, and circular file the application. Unless, of course, you're looking to be hit by complaints of one sort or another within weeks of her first day. SJWs Always Lie.

Derb and the Magic Dirt

In which John Derbyshire discovers the power of proper rhetoric:

In the past couple of decades we’ve seen the rise of one particular explanatory strategy. That strategy recently acquired a name—or possibly it’s had the name for a while and I only just recently noticed. Whatever, I really like the name: Magic Dirt.

The core idea is that one’s physical surroundings—the bricks and mortar of the building you’re in, or the actual dirt you are standing on—emit invisible vapors that can change your personality, behavior, and intelligence.

That’s why, for example, you read so much about “bad schools” or “failing schools.” The thing to be explained is that schools whose students are overwhelmingly non-Asian minorities—blacks and mestizos—get much worse results on academic tests than schools whose students are majority white and East Asian. This has been so for decades, defying even extravagantly expensive efforts to change it, like the Kansas City fiasco of the 1990s.

Parsimonious explanation: innate differences in behavior, intelligence, and personality between the races.

Magical explanation: Bad schools! The bricks and mortar of these schools, the asphalt of their playgrounds, are giving out invisible noxious vapors that enstupidate the kids!

Bob Weissberg tossed and gored the whole “bad schools” flimflam in his 2010 book Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, which I recommend to your attention.

Another aspect of the Magic Dirt theory is the current popularity of economist Raj Chetty‘s researches on social mobility. Analyzing millions of individual tax returns from the 1990s, then the returns of those individuals’ now-adult children fifteen years later, Chetty found there’s more social mobility in some places than in others. Who woulda thunk it? Sample quote:

    For children growing up in places like Salt Lake City … the odds of moving from the bottom fifth of the national income distribution to the top fifth are more than 12 percent … In contrast, in cities like Charlotte, North Carolina … a child’s odds of moving from the bottom fifth to the top fifth are less than 5 percent. [The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Economic Opportunity,Brookings Institute, June 1, 2015]

Parsimonious explanation: Those places have different proportions of the various races, so race differences in average behaviors cause different outcomes.

Official explanation: Magic Dirt! Salt Lake City’s dirt has beneficial qualities that Charlotte’s just doesn’t.

A very cynical person—not me, you understand, but a hypothetical extreme cynic—might surmise that Prof. Chetty’s research is funded by the real-estate industry as part of their plan to reclaim America’s cities for upscale whites by driving out minorities and scattering them to distant towns and suburbs—so they can improve themselves by living on better dirt, you see?

Magic Dirt theory is a key component of immigration romanticism, too. Sure, Mexico and Central America are messed-up places, and presumably their inhabitants played some role in messing them up. If we just move thirty or forty million of those people to the U.S.A., though, our Magic Dirt will transform them into civic-minded Jeffersonian yeomen!

Our hypothetical extreme cynic might again wonder if there isn’t some commercial interest at work behind the scenes there. Central Americans work for very low wages—especially when they’re here illegally and dare not complain.

Magic Dirt: the explanatory power of it is truly wonderful. Perhaps we can use it to elucidate String Theory, or the Mystery of Consciousness.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Higgs boson is implicated somehow…

Simplicity + truth + contempt = effective rhetoric. As Derb illustrates, the core pro-immigration argument really is that stupidly ahistorical and cargo cultist. It is so obviously wrong that it can be accurately dismissed in just two words: Magic Dirt.

Economics and science fiction

But I repeat myself. Speaking first of the latter, all three QUANTUM MORTIS novels are now available for free for Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime subscribers. If you were vaguely curious about them, but not enough to actually go out and buy them, here is your chance to test drive them. I'd particularly recommend checking out QUANTUM MORTIS: A MIND PROGRAMMED, which is the literary update and remix of my all-time favorite SF novel, THE PROGRAMMED MAN.

From an Amazon review: "Space Noir. That's what this is. It's a classic spy vs spy tale, but this time the stakes are much higher and there are enough twists and turns to make a Finnish rally driver happy."

QUANTUM MORTIS: A MAN DISRUPTED and QUANTUM MORTIS: GRAVITY KILLS are also available via KU.

And for those who are more interested in economics than in science fiction (to the extent that one accepts the idea that the former is not a subset of the latter), here are the first week's readings in my draft econ curriculum. Don't ask me where you can find the texts, if you can't figure out how to do that, you needn't bother with the readings.

1. What is Economics    

• RGD Introduction
• MURPHY Part 1 Lesson 1
• HAZLITT Part 1-1

RGD: The Return of the Great Depression, Vox Day
MURPHY:  Lessons for the Young Economist, Robert Murphy
HAZLITT: Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt

He can't POSSIBLY win!

It's a little late now, multicultis

After 30 years of stumping for it, the New York Times belatedly develops some concerns about the consequences of mass migration:

They arrived in an unceasing stream, 10,000 a day at the height, as many as a million migrants heading for Europe this year, pushing infants in strollers and elderly parents in wheelchairs, carrying children on their shoulders and life savings in their socks. They came in search of a new life, but in many ways they were the heralds of a new age.

There are more displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history — 60 million in all — and they are on the march in numbers not seen since World War II. They are coming not just from Syria, but from an array of countries and regions, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, even Haiti, as well as any of a dozen or so nations in sub-Saharan and North Africa. They are unofficial ambassadors of failed states, unending wars, intractable conflicts.

The most striking thing about the current migration crisis, however, is how much bigger it could still get....

Nor is it only the Middle East and North Africa that European leaders need to consider. The Gallup Poll, based on data compiled from more than 450,000 interviews in 151 nations from 2009 to 2011, found that in Nigeria, which already has double the population of Germany, 40 percent of people would emigrate to the West if they could. And the lesson of 2015 — for them and much of the world — is that they can.
Continue reading the main story

While the flow of migrants to Europe this year already represents the biggest influx from outside the Continent in modern history, many experts warn that the mass movement may continue and even increase — possibly for years to come.

At least we know what the cause of World War III will be. Don't ever forget who was responsible: the anti-nationalists who have championed open borders and multiculturalism. They are responsible. The bloodshed will be on their hands.

It's time to start making a list, complete with quotes and links, of those on the Left and Right who have championed immigration and open borders. The future needs to know who were the destroyers of Western Civilization, so they will recognize the same arguments being made next time. If you've got a candidate, post it here.

My first candidate: David Brooks.

Globalization, with all its stresses and strains, has created a large international class of middle-class dreamers: university graduates who can’t fulfill their aspirations at home and who would enrich whatever nation is lucky enough to have them.... The Republican Party is insane if its conducts a 21st-century immigration policy based on stereotypes from the 1980s.

It is time for the Men of the West to rise and defend their nations, as they have repeatedly done before. Hungary, Norway, and Germany are waking up. The Men of Poland are rising.

NFL open thread

This would be that. Skol Vikes!

The "Shorty Awards" scam

Don't pay any attention to these online fraudsters. Mike Cernovich explains why:

As you can see, Sawhorse Media has an interest in having people with large social media followings promoting its contest. They use the online presence of me and others to draw attention to its popularity contest.

I received enough votes to be number 3, which means I earned my Shorty Award nomination in Healthy Living fair and square.

(Michael Cernovich was among the top three vote getters in the Healthy Living category of the Shorty Awards.)

I expected Shorty to have some integrity. I can be a controversial person and I would have had no issue with the Shorty Awards pulling my nomination before the nomination period ended.

Yet Sawhorse Media decided to commit fraud on me and my Twitter followers. The Shortys were fine with having me in their contest when I was promoting their contest. When the nomination period ended and I was no longer of use to them, they deleted my nomination and removed me from their website.

After winning enough votes for a nomination, my official Shorty Award page was 404’ed.

The Shorty Awards did not give me any reason for its actions. They simply deleted my page, pretending as if I did not win a Shorty nomination by using my considerable social media presence to promote the Shorty Awards.

The reason you haven't hitherto seen me write anything about these "awards" is because I figured out they were some sort of weird promotional scam on the basis of their mixed nomination system. They don't actually want to honor the real social media presences, they just want to have an excuse to give awards to conventional celebrities in order to try to attract mainstream media attention.

I have no doubt that the Ilk could have gotten me on the list, but what would be the point? They simply would have found some lame excuse to DISQUALIFY me, just as they did to my two GGinParis co-hosts, Mike and Milo.

Why Ted Cruz needs Trump

This analysis of the GOPe road map suggests that every Republican who isn't part of the Republican Establishment should be supporting Donald Trump, as he may be the only thing standing in the way of a third Bush coronation.

The pathway the RNC/GOPe constructed to elect Jeb Bush specifically was designed to eliminate/defeat Ted Cruz.

Stop.  And re-read this reality:

    The GOPe road map was specifically and intentionally created by scheme and construct, to intentionally block any possibility for Ted Cruz to achieve 2016 presidential victory.

As a direct and factual outcome there is nothing Ted Cruz can do to overcome the structural dynamics currently in place which block any possibility of him achieving electoral victory.  Period.

We have laid out the rules, laid out the road-map, and laid out the primary contests -REPEATEDLY- and we continued to asked anyone who finds themselves refusing this reality to outline a path for Cruz victory.

Unfortunately, it simply does not exist.

The RNC rules are now in place; the RNC primary dates are now all confirmed; the RNC delegate distributions all now set in stone;  and there’s enough key state polling data for anyone to use who wants to prove this false.

We have studied this road-map intensely.  We have explored the district-by-district level possibilities within each of the pre-March 16th 2016 states a hundred different ways, the numbers for anyone other than Trump just don’t add up.

The GOPe road-map was specifically created to block Ted Cruz, or anyone like Ted Cruz, from achieving victory.

Team Jeb is: Rubio, Fiorina, Christie, Huckabee, Kasich, Perry, Graham, Pataki and Gilmore. (10 establishment candidates all part of the RNC/GOPe machine)  We have outlined it all HERE.

If, for the sake of intellectual exercise, you remove Donald Trump from the race and apportion his supporters in a reasonable manner, what you will find is that the GOPe road map kicks back into play – and no non-jeb is able to pull enough support to defeat Jeb.

Remove Trump and Ben Carson becomes Herman Cain 2012; Cruz becomes Gingrich, Jeb replaces Romney and the 2016 outcome becomes 2012 ground-hog day.  Just as designed.

Here’s the kicker…. As previously mentioned, Ted Cruz is a smart guy, and therefore Ted Cruz also is aware of this.

Ted Cruz is fully aware of this – he picked up on it months ago.

That explains why Jeb still hasn't dropped out despite the fact that his campaign is practically road kill after his inept debate performances. In other words, it isn't Trump who is Jeb's stalking horse, it is all the other candidates except Cruz.

So Cruz needs Trump to knock Jeb out of the race in order to have a chance himself. Or he might team up with Trump and offer a Trump-Cruz ticket, which is something that a lot of conservatives could live with. If I were in Cruz's shoes, the latter is something I would be looking very hard at right now.

A serious Hugo contestant

Hey, if SJWs don't have to read the books to rate them, we don't have to read them to recommend them.

1 of 106 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
I'm just going to rate this a 1/5 on principle...
By Zoe S. Galaitsis on October 6, 2015

I'm just going to rate this a 1/5 on principle, after Jim Butcher got nominated by Vox Day and his Rabid Puppies. Not sure what's going on there but Butcher hasn't come out and said a thing, not even to deny their platform of reviling women, gays, and non-Christians. I'm generally wary of reading anything by him or giving him any money at this point.

So the SJWs don't like Jim Butcher now simply because he won't submit and dutifully pronounce their ritual denunciations. This is one of the many reasons why they will always lose when resisted; they are the most untrustworthy and unreliable allies you could ever hope to have.

It seems to me that we'll have to give serious consideration to The Cinder Spires: the Aeronaut's Windlass. Very serious consideration.

This is my shocked face

ESPN finally gets around to shutting down Grantland:

Effective immediately we are suspending the publication of Grantland.  After careful consideration, we have decided to direct our time and energy going forward to projects that we believe will have a broader and more significant impact across our enterprise.

Grantland distinguished itself with quality writing, smart ideas, original thinking and fun.  We are grateful to those who made it so.  Bill Simmons was passionately committed to the site and proved to be an outstanding editor with a real eye for talent.  Thanks to all the other writers, editors and staff who worked very hard to create content with an identifiable sensibility and consistent intelligence and quality. We also extend our thanks to Chris Connelly who stepped in to help us maintain the site these past five months as he returns to his prior role.

There was no way the site was ever going to make money. It made sense as a means of keeping Bill Simmons happy, but there was no reason to continue it once they fired him.

I liked the idea, but it was too full of SJWs pushing the usual nonsense to bother sifting through it for the interesting articles. I quit reading it regularly long before the Sports Guy was ejected.

The necessity of reprisal

Some interesting and intelligent commentary on John Wright's post concerning A Time for Peace, A Time for War:

HMSLion: All the codes of chivalry, of diplomacy, and Laws of War work on an assumption that all participants will adhere to them. They represent the Golden Rule in it’s most practical form.

But those codes also recognized the legitimacy of reprisals against violators. A foe who showed no mercy could expect none.

The Enemies of Civilization have realized that there are some people who are so accustomed to acting in a civilized manner that they have forgotten that reprisals are perfectly legitimate. More than legitimate, necessary. It must NEVER be possible to secure an advantage by violating the norms of civilized conduct.

And people are starting to realize it.

I’ll add something else…part of the problem of the West is that the World Wars were fought with a level of savagery that shocked us. They were the modern equivalent of the Thirty Years War three centuries earlier – a conflict fought with a ferocity unprecedented among Christian nations.

The Thirty Years War led to significant changes in international politics with the Treaty of Westphalia, and the formalization of Laws of Warfare. A system that held for nearly three centuries, even in the teeth of the Napoleonic Wars.

The World Wars? There’s been no formal New Laws of Land Warfare, but there’s been no willingness to use nuclear weapons since then. Nor to engage in area bombing of cities. But the lack of a formal document has, I think, hindered the self-confidence of the West. Too many people are obsessively wringing their hands over the past, instead of resolving not to do that sort of thing again.

dgarsys adds: It must NEVER be possible to secure an advantage by violating the norms of civilized conduct. In other words, to keep turning the other cheek in order to “be nice” and “not use their tactics” is to play the iterated prisoners dilemma in “nice only” mode, instead of hammering the violator for betraying you.

As William S. Lind has observed, 4GW is in many ways 0GW, albeit with a technological twist that is primarily based on communications. Both of Mr. Wright's commentators are correct; the chaos is being stoked by the international community's legal overreach combined with a practical refusal to permit bad actors to be held to account if it finds them useful to its interests.

You invited them, you deal with them

Sweden's government is going to collapse and the other EU member states are not going to prevent it:

The Swedish Foreign Minister has claimed her country is facing collapse due to the mass influx of refugees as the migrant crisis deepens. Margot Wallstrom has said that Sweden cannot cope with taking in refugees at its current level, without it affecting services.

She says that Stockholm will now have to pressure the European Union in a bid to force other member states to share the burden of those coming from the Middle East, mainly Syria.

It is expected that Sweden will take in around 190,000 migrants by the end of 2015. In the first nine months of the year, more than 73,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden.

And Mrs Wallstrom said in an interview: 'I think most people feel that we cannot maintain a system where perhaps 190,000 people will arrive every year - in the long run, our system will collapse. And that welcome is not going to receive popular support. I have to admit that there have been moments recently of very great disappointment. I have heard statements from member states that have been completely astonishing and very discouraging.'

The Foreign Minister's comments come after arsonists attacked housing for asylum seekers in the small town of Munkedal, in the south of the country. No one was seriously injured, although some of the 14 migrants living there suffered slight smoke inhalation. They were swiftly rehoused.

It's remarkable to see idiot female politicians like Merkel and Wallstrom whining and crying about the fact that no one will fix the problem that they caused. They ought to own up to the consequences of their failures and resign immediately. The other member states aren't going to let them off the hook. The Swedes should let the Swedish Democrats deal with it. They will have a robust means of dealing with these unwelcome migrants. If it happens soon enough, they will simply repatriate them with a minimum of fuss and bother.

Otherwise, history clearly dictates that there are three alternatives. One, the invaders conquer the natives and rule over them. Two, the invaders excise territory from the natives and establish a new country; Israel and Bosnia-Herzogovina being two such examples. Three, the natives kill all the invaders.

The pipe dreams of the multicultis notwithstanding, peaceful integration is not a credible scenario.

I've been editing the excellent essay on migration that Martin van Creveld wrote, originally for Riding the Red Horse Vol. 2, and it is very clear that, statistically speaking, the world is overdue for another of its periodic ethnic cleansings. Assuming it happens in the next five years, the next European one won't even be particularly large by continental standards.

The war in Norway

It isn't over. It has barely begun.

Three African immigrants who brutally raped a 14-year-old girl to the point where she wanted to kill herself were given extremely light sentences by a court in Norway, with one receiving community service and avoiding prison altogether.

The incident happened on the night of July 30 when the three men accosted the girl on a commuter train before also molesting her in a farm house and at an apartment in Oslo.

During her ordeal, the girl was raped both orally and anally before being forced to take drugs. According to reports, the abuse, which lasted for hours, was so horrific that at one point the girl expressed a desire to take her own life to end the suffering.

The girl suffered “severe mental damage” and PTSD as a result of the incident, missed a year of school and is still struggling to deal with what happened.

The three men, 18-year-old Bile Mohamed Elmi, 21-year-old Abdirizak Nur Ali and 21-year-old Mohamed Abdirisak Mohamed, were initially charged with gang rape, which carries a maximum sentence of 21 years.

However, prosecutor Cecilie Schloss Møller insisted there wasn’t enough evidence and the three men were convicted of sexual contact with a child under 16 years of age, which carries a lighter sentence.

I always figured they'd put up statues to the guy one day, but at this rate, they'll be letting him out of prison and turning over the military to him before long. He looks less and less crazy every passing day.

Disqualify!

It's funny how even though it repeatedly backfires on them, they keep trying and trying and trying, not only using the same tactic, but relying on exactly the same quote. Because, as you surely know, anyone who dares to make a factual observation is raciss. Ergo, disqualified!

When I point out that he was intentionally baiting a person of color with a term that has racial overtones, his answer sounds positively gleeful. “I’m calling her a half-savage because I know it’s going to offend the crap out of her,” Beale says. “She’s going to run around screaming ‘Racist! Racist!’ for the next 10 years.” A beat, and then he adds: “I don’t consider all black people to be half-savages. I mean, some people are. Here in Europe, for example, we have actual proper Africans, not African-Americans. This leads to problems, like people shitting on top of the closed toilets. They don’t know how to use indoor plumbing, OK? This is not civilized behavior.”

She seems to seriously believe I was making that up or something. Not so much.

Fed up with having to clean up messes in the public toilets, a Swiss railway company has come up with a series of graphic illustrations for visitors from Asia and the Middle East to instruct them how to sit on a toilet seat.

The pictograms, that have appeared on trains in the popular tourist destination of Mount Rigi in the Swiss Alps, instruct users to sit on toilet seats rather than to squat on them and to discard used toilet paper in the lavatory and not in the waste bin.

“It happens that guests mount the toilet seats to do their business – and sometimes they don’t know where to put the toilet paper,” said Roger Joss, director of marketing for the Mount Rigi railway at Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland.

The Swiss tourist board has also accused foreign tourists of defecating in the shower.... In March last year, Lloyds Bank’s Old Broad Street office in central London also put up instructions telling foreign staff how to use the loo, with details such as ‘sit on the toilet – do not stand on it’, and ‘please flush it with your hand and not your foot’.

Those of us who aren't parochial Americans who have apparently never traveled outside their little white enclaves know that many immigrants really don't abide by civilized standards. I have not only seen the above signs as well as the occasional shit left on the toilet seat, I once watched a pair of Africans spend 7 minutes carefully studying a roundabout before getting back in the car and going the wrong way, very nearly causing a head-on collision as they took out the floral arrangement in the center.

This is something we are supposed to believe is a good thing? A sustainable thing? A progressive thing? A desirable thing? How is the West going to help the rest of the world in the future if it becomes the rest of the world? Do SJWs just really enjoy train stations and restaurants that smell like shit?

As for Jemisin, I note that she is still doing exactly what I expected her to do. It's already been, what, two years? It's not my fault she's an easily predictable half-savage, any more than it is my fault that the, shall we say, differently civilized find it difficult to master indoor plumbing and roundabouts.

It burns! It burns!

SJWs are very, very unhappy about the fact that people are being exposed to SJWs ALWAYS LIE:

KINDLE: CLEAN YOUR SEARCH ALGORITHMS
ByNome D. Gerron October 29, 2015
0 of 1 people found this review helpful

this is a scree of vindictiveness and self promotion. Somehow, probably in a manner akin to the almost success in awarding himself a people's s/f trophy, this time waster appears in too many (and too many completely unrelated) categories of kindle recommendations. for example, just today, this book was pimped to me three times: in Moro history, in adaptionics and in economics. Motivated by apparent personal animosity, this book is gaming kindle.

There is is. Third law of SJW: SJWs Always Project.

It is interesting, though. We know for a fact that there are SJWs inside Amazon; it is another asymmetric battlefield where the rules are interpreted against us. But perhaps it is not quite as entirely enemy-controlled ground as we assumed.

But since this fake review is an open attempt at gaming Amazon, you know what to do.

Exposing the true face of SJW

Rosarior beats back and exposes an SJW entryist attempting to impose a Code of Conduct on the Awesome-Django project:

great project!! I have one observation and a suggestion. I noticed you have rejected some pull requests to add some good django libraries and that the people submitting those pull requests are POCs (People of Colour). As a suggestion I recommend adopting the Contributor Code of Conduct (http://contributor-covenant.org) to ensure everybody's contributions are accepted regarless of their sex, sexual orientation, skin color, religion, height, place of origin, etc, etc, etc. As a white straight male and lead of this trending repository, your adoption of this Code of Conduct will send a loud and clear message that inclusion is a primary objective of the Django community and of the software development community in general. D.

A few things about this. First, the name is generic. Second, this comment is literally the SJW's first "contribution to the project. Third, while the SJW uses the correct terminology, he offers no evidence whatsoever for his claims. Fourth, his claim that the people whose pull requests were rejected are People of Colour are likely false considering that he doesn't know that the individual he is addressing is Hispanic, not white.

Fortunately, rosarior recognizes the nature of the stealth attack. While he politely addresses the nominal suggestions, he makes it clear that this project is not a soft target and shuts down the SJW's line of entry

The pull request was rejected not the person. Of the people who did not had their patches accepted at least one submitted another pull request and was accepted or are contributors in my other repositories, disproving your basic premise.

There is no need for a code of conduct, there hasn't been a conduct related incident with the repository and nothing about a contributor comes into play when rejecting or accepting a patch (as proved above). An explanation is provided when a patch is rejected, and some have been left open to re-asses in a future time.

I'm not white and please don't make any other assumptions about me, they hold no relevance to the matter at hand.

I already work on several projects that hold inclusion as one of their primary goals.

I'm closing this issue based on the explanations given.

The wording allows just a little more wiggle room than is ideal, but it is a strong and effective response, particularly the implicit statement that "inclusion" is not a primary goal of this particular project. Perhaps due to the wiggle room, the SJW tries again.

You seem to have taken personal issue with well the issue :) I opened this issue not to attack you or your decisions,but to help improve a part of the project in which it seemed lacking. Most projects on Github have adopted the Contributor Covenant or a variant of it. It is a very straight forward document that protects all parties,I don't understand your negative attitude towards that philosophy. You may not be "white" [ in your profile picture you sure seem white :) ] but you are not a woman or a trans-gendered person so you can't possibly understand what they go through (harassment,exclusion,threats) and why a code of conduct is necessary. Even the Django Software Foundation has adopted one to protect it's future,for me it's very obvious Django related projects would naturally follow suite and adopt the same if not similar Code of Conducts. I urge you to reconsider for the good and future of this project :) Thank you

Now the rhetorical gloves come off. The SJW tries to play on rosarior's insecurities and emotions, then throws out an appeal to the herd animal instinct before issuing an implicit threat. The code of conduct is now declared "necessary" in order to protect the future of the project, which is twice mentioned in a threatening manner. Notice that the SJW doesn't even address the fact that his original claimed concerns were addressed, thereby negating any need for the requested code, he simply moves the goalposts and moves on to more high-pressure rhetorical tactics. This is why dialectical arguments are totally useless; the SJWs simply ignore the effective ones.

1- You opened an issue to raise concern about the relationship of a contributor's race and the rejection of their patches.
2- Only I can accept or reject patches in this repository.
You made it clear who this was about.
Apart from this issue, we've had no conduct problems, so no need for a code of conduct.
I'm very certain of my race: I'm Latino, Puertorican, a Mestizo from a Castiza mother and a Mulato father. There are many more races than just black and white (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation).
Yes, I'm not a woman or a transgendered individual and I don't intend to even try to understand what they have to put up with, never said that. But you assume women and transgendered individual are the only targets of harassment, exclusion and threats.

English is not my first language and I hope I'm mistaken but your last line "I urge you to reconsider for the good and future of this project :) " sounded like a threat, please clarify.

This response could be described as overly long and dialectical; rhetoric has ZERO informational content so responding to the feigned issues serves no purpose unless one is doing it to expose pseudo-dialectic on behalf of any onlookers. However, expecting a programmer to not respond in a systematic manner to the issues raised is rather like expecting sight hounds not to chase running rabbits, so it's harmless. What is particularly important, however, is the way rosarior calls out the SJW for his implicit threats and requests clarification; in doing so he causes the SJW to unmask completely and show his fangs.

I really have no idea why you are responding the way you are! Really!! Code of Conducts are not JUST about conduct,they cover all the spectrum of behaviours expected from civilized human beings that are more and more absend in the software industry. You are evading the topic at hand and I can only wonder why,why deny equal opportunity for all to join and contribute to your project Roberto?

That you have not "seen" harassment doesn't mean it is not happening all around us. And turning a blind eye makes it worst. I was not threaning you,but your reaction is a projection of your feelings and now I feel threated by you. Reading the links you posted I only have one thing to say to you:reevaluate your actions,you are becoming a toxic individual who is harming the Python and Django communities and haven't even realized it yet. You are a member of the Django Software Foundation and are supposed to be setting the example. I will be forwarding the content of this issue to the Chair to evaluate your continued presence in the DSF. best regards.

It's all there. Threats, point-and-shriek, playing the victim, false accusations, and the inevitable appeal to the amenable authority. In the interest of Social Justice Convergence, the SJW demonstrates that he will try to destroy the project rather than permit it to continue if it cannot be captured and forcibly submitted to the SJW Narrative. Rosarior's response was the best one I have seen in technology yet, as he not only defeated the assault, but exposed the SJW for what he is in the process.

This is not a joke. These people are genuinely dangerous and will destroy everything they touch. Resist them. Expose them. Seek them out in your own organizations, hunt them down and root them out. SJW delenda est.

It's time to go on the offensive. If your group or organization has a Code of Conduct, start the campaign to get rid of it now. There is a reason the SJWs are so intent on imposing them everywhere; that is how they intend to institute their thought policing.

And since you know the SJWs are going to be coming after him, show the man he's got support behind him. If you're on Twitter, follow the man.

"Those who can code do, those who can't write code of conducts."
- Roberto Rosario

The anti-nationalist enemy

Even the mainstream Right is beginning to recognize that things have irretrievably changed and there is no going back to a sane and reasonably unified America:

A globalized faux cosmopolitanism — simultaneously tribalist and anti-national — seems to have taken much greater hold in the current administration (and perhaps even among some of its supposed political opponents). Yet the Left’s allegiance to the comfortable pieties of the Sixties seems part of the reason for its many failures.

This worldview sees a rural good ol’ boy clinging to his guns and his religion as the greatest foe of “progress.” Thus, it is woefully unprepared to confront the reality of black-robed fanatics beheading religious minorities, enslaving villages, and setting fire to the Middle East. Because of its limited moral imagination, it also struggles to persuade a heterogeneous body politic. Early proponents of Great Society welfare policies might not have foreseen how, too often, well-intentioned government dictates could destroy communities, tear apart families, and destroy the foundation of economic opportunity. Experience has — or should have — disabused us of this naïveté. And say what you will about the dangers of central planning, the technocrats of the past were at least able to do things like put a man on the Moon. The mandarins of today struggle to get a health-care website up and running. Outside the narrowly political realm, as the Far Left claims a resurgent voice in cultural affairs, we have increasingly seen how radical progressive politics are a cultural dead end: Rather than a spirit of creativity, exploration, and accomplishment, radical leftism gives us only the petty tyranny of a Maoist struggle session.

The fact that the globalist Left fails to understand its enemy is a feature, not a bug. We know them. They don't know us. That means we will win, but only if we show up everywhere they are and refuse to continue to concede any ground, intellectual or otherwise.

That means NOT adopting their social justice ideals or their rhetoric. And that may be the hardest thing for many of us, conditioned as we are to avoid speaking our true thoughts and expressing our true feelings out of a misguided sense of imposed decency.

For the love of all that is good, and holy, and true, if we lose, we lose, but let us at least not lose due to a foolish sense of etiquette.

The Republican Final Four Three

According to the Weekly Standard, anyhow:

Tonight’s debate showed that the GOP field is smaller than it looks. Technically, there are still fourteen people running, but the winnowing is far along. We probably have a final six and possibly a final four.

The three winners of the night were pretty obvious: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump.

Rubio ended Jeb Bush’s campaign with the kind of body shot that buckles your knees. That’s on Bush, who never should have come after Rubio in that spot for a host of strategic and tactical reasons. But what should scare Hillary Clinton is how effortless Rubio is even with throwaway lines, like “I’m against anything that’s bad for my mother.” Most people have no idea how fearsome raw political talent can be. Clinton does know because she’s seen it up close. She sleeps next to it for a contractually-obligated 18 nights per year.

Cruz was tough and canny—no surprise there. He went the full-Gingrich in his assault on CNBC’s ridiculous moderators. He did a better job explaining Social Security reform than Chris Christie, even (which is no mean feat). And managed to look downright personable compared with John Harwood, whose incompetence was matched only by his unpleasantness. If you’re a conservative voter looking for someone who is going to fight for your values, Cruz must have looked awfully attractive.

Then there was Trump. Over the last few weeks, Trump has gotten better on the stump. Well, don’t look now, but he’s getting better at debates, too. Trump was reasonably disciplined. He kept his agro to a medium-high level. And his situational awareness is getting keener, too. Note how he backed John Kasich into such a bad corner on Lehmann Brothers that he protested, “I was a banker, and I was proud of it!” When that’s your answer, you’ve lost the exchange. Even at a Republican debate.

And Trump had a hammer close: “Our country doesn’t win anymore. We used to win. We don’t anymore.” I remain convinced that this line (along with his hardliner on immigration) is the core of Trump’s appeal. But he didn’t just restate this theme in his closing argument. He used it to: (1) beat up CNBC; and (2) argue that his man-handling of these media twits is an example of what he’ll do as president. It was brilliant political theater.

Those were your winners.

Carson is irrelevant. He's just the usual Republican Maybe-This-Will-Get-Me-Out-Of-Racism-Free card, the role previously played by Alan Keyes and Hermann Cain. He's also anti-gun, so he's a non-starter.

Cruz and Rubio are competing for the same Establishment dollar as well as the Unicorn vote, also known as the Hispanic Natural Republican. Cruz is tougher than Rubio and he also looks less like an overweight frat brother, so I think he knocks Rubio aside without too much trouble.

The real question is Establishment vs Grass Roots rebellion. And there, the verdict is far from in. And not that anyone here didn't doubt that Jeb Bush was already cooked, but his epic fail raises some genuine questions about the idea that he is the smarter brother.

It’s hard to see how Jeb Bush recovers from his self-inflected wound at Wednesday’s CNBC Republican debate in Boulder when he went after Marco Rubio just after the young senator had hit one out of the park.  Rubio was defending himself from an editorial in the Sun Sentinel calling on Marco to stop “ripping off” the public and quit the Senate because of his poor attendance record.  Rubio responded that John Kerry and Barack Obama had been even more truant from the Senate while running for president and the paper had not only ignored that, but given these men their endorsement.  It was an example of  liberal media bias at its most obvious.  The crowd erupted in its first ovation of the night.  Advantage Rubio.

Clueless, Bush jumped in as if nothing had happened, taking the paper’s side and schoolmarmishly doubling down on Marco.  He got his head handed to him by Rubio (politely) and the audience.

Bush should just quit now. He's an embarrassment.

The future of Vibrant America

We were told that Diversity and Vibrancy make America stronger. The truth is that they have made America literally stupid, ignorant, illiterate, and innumerate:

In the Detroit public school district, 96 percent of eighth graders are not proficient in mathematics and 93 percent are not proficient in reading. That is according to the results of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests published by the Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics.

Only 4 percent of Detroit public school eighth graders are proficient or better in math and only 7 percent in reading. This is despite the fact that in the 2011-2012 school year—the latest for which the Department of Education has reported the financial data—the Detroit public schools had “total expenditures” of $18,361 per student and “current expenditures” of $13,330 per student.

According to data published by the Detroit Public Schools, the school district’s operating expenses in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2014 amounted to approximately $14,743 per student.

Nationwide, only 33 percent of public-school eighth graders scored proficient or better in reading in 2015 and only 32 percent scored proficient or better in mathematics.

This isn't public schools. This isn't bureaucratic inefficiency. It isn't Common Core or whatever the latest school fad is. It is the direct result of shortening time preferences and lowering the average IQ by 15 points.

And there isn't a theory or a social policy in the world that can fix that. There is one answer and one answer only, an answer that every immigrant implicitly knows and nearly every American is afraid to admit, even to himself.

Mailvox: China gears up

This email pretty much echoed my thoughts on the matter:

Yesterday I told my wife, "Watch - when China really feels its oats and gets serious about colonizing and taking Africa, they'll drop the one child policy."

Then this morning I see this report:

China's ruling Communist Party announced Thursday that the country will start allowing all families to have two children, abolishing an unpopular policy that limited many urban couples to only one child for more than three decades.

The decision is the most significant easing of family-planning policies that were long considered some of the party's most onerous intrusions into family life and had been gradually relaxed in recent years. The restrictions led to an imbalanced sex ratio because of a traditional preference for boys, and draconian enforcement that sometimes included forced abortions.

The news elated 36-year-old Su Weihu in Guangzhou, who said she now plans to get pregnant next year before she becomes too old, and that she is eager for her 8-year-old daughter to have a sibling.

"I have looked forward this for so many years — even had dreams about it! I cried every time when I woke up and realized it wasn't yet true. I thought it was so unfair," Su said. "I do not care if the second child is a boy or a girl, at my age, as long as he or she is healthy."

A statement from the party's Central Committee carried by the official Xinhua News Agency said the decision to allow all couples to have two children was "to improve the balanced development of population" and to deal with an aging population.

Yeah, it's to improve demographic balance. That seems likely. And if they need to support an aging population, why not just import Arabs and Africans? That seems to be working out so well for the European nations, after all.