Lots of Short Items

A Feminist Takes a Normal Stand on Islam

Here. This column consists of descriptions of a number of Trump supporters, one of them named Ann:

Ann has recently parted with feminism and quit the National Organization for Women (NOW) over what she describes as the betrayal of women’s rights by feminist leadership.

The politically correct, leftist feminist establishment has done nothing to oppose the oppression of women in Sharia-dominated societies, and continues to oppose any attempt to prevent the spreading of the patriarchal and misogynistic Sharia values through Muslim immigration in America. In Ann’s words, by supporting pro-Sharia multiculturalism, NOW effectively sided with male chauvinists over women’s rights....

She sees the European “men” who do nothing to protect their women or their nations from organised, systemic rape by Sharia-fuelled “guests,” and predicts that will happen to us, too, if we don’t change course.

I suspect there are many more Anns around. We just don’t get to hear from them because the Muslim-supporting feminists are dominant.

What Kasich Should Say Now

John Kasich recently advised women not to go to parties where they are likely to get drunk and so get raped. This piece of common sense was immediately challenged by all the whiners who insisted that this makes women responsible for rape. What he should say now, but which he won’t, is to ask the following question: If a man and a woman are both drunk, and neither remembers the sexual encounter, although it’s clear that it happened, how can you be sure the man was the aggressor? Because isn’t that the assumption of all feminists? Yet, why assume this? Haven’t they been telling young women for ages to free themselves from traditional roles? Then there is no reason to assume the man was the aggressor.

A Note on Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill

Since this confrontation is now back in the news as the result of a movie (which I refuse to see), let me repeat my wife’s observations at the time. She was working two jobs, one at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and one at a Perkins restaurant. Her fellow workers at the MIA were mostly well-educated white women, and they all supported Anita Hill. Her fellow workers at the restaurant were a diverse group in terms of race and gender (though they were from poorer backgrounds than the museum workers), and they all supported Clarence Thomas (including the blacks, both men and women). The “progressive” opinion today of that confrontation is based exclusively on what well-educated white women wanted to believe.

A Good Essay on the Postmodernists

Here.

Foucault and the Academic Jobs Crisis

And speaking of the postmodernists, a number of years ago I read a biography of Michel Foucault. The only reason I read it was because I felt inundated with pressure to become a postmodernist, which I didn’t want to do, and since I didn’t want to waste time trying to understand his actual writings (though I did read some of them), I thought I would do better to read about his life to get some kind of idea of where he was coming from. What struck me was how charmed his academic life was. It wasn’t until he was well along in his career that he actually had to apply for a job. All the previous ones were simply given to him. He didn’t even know they existed until people older and with more power singled him out and gave them to him.

How long before the average postmodernist scholar figures out that Foucault has absolutely nothing to say to them, given the terrible academic jobs market these days?

Gravitational Waves

Awhile back I said (here) that I wanted some extra confirmation for the gravitational waves. Now it seems to be forthcoming in the form of some gamma-ray bursts (here).

NASA and Global Warming

I’m sure this question has been asked many times before, but why exactly is NASA involved in the global warming dispute? Isn’t its purview aeronautics and space? And what do those have to do with climate change? Sure, pilots of planes or rocket ships must worry about the weather, but that is different from worrying about climate. Can we get it back to doing what it is supposed to be doing?

An Interesting Perspective on WWII

Here from PowerLine. The claim is that the allied powers lost a lot of civilians, while the defeated Axis powers lost mostly soldiers, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki notwithstanding. I had never seen this mentioned before.

Interest Rates

The other day the Wall Street Journal had some articles on negative interest rates. In one of them, it was reported that a man in Denmark had actually gotten credit from a bank on his mortgage because of the negative interest rates. That must be a first. But the question is: Why are banks doing this? The idea seems to be that we must keep interest rates low in order to stimulate the economy, never mind that this hasn’t been working very well for the past eight years. The rates are low, but initially at least, banks were reluctant to make new loans because they had made so many bad ones prior to 2008 that they just didn’t want to get into trouble again. Meanwhile, on the consumer side, so many people are still paying off debt from the loans they got before 2008 that they can’t take advantage of low interest rates no matter how low the rates go.

So, why not deal with this household debt? Naturally, there is no easy solution to this. If all the loans are forgiven, all the creditors will be out a lot of money, or they will be paid because taxpayers will foot the bill. Worse is that forgiving loans means that debtors will be tempted to get into debt again, figuring that they won’t have to pay it back. On the other hand, continuing to demand that all the loans be paid back doesn’t help the economy, either. Still, working out a solution to the debt problem seems more sensible than keeping interest rates so low that they actually go negative.

Comments

[vandiver49]

While I give Ann some props for at least acknowledging and taking a stance with NOW's hypocrisy the following statement:

"She sees the European “men” who do nothing to protect their women or their nations from organised, systemic rape by Sharia-fuelled “guests,” and predicts that will happen to us, too, if we don’t change course."

lowers my expectations as she views the problem as something guy should solve. She should be advocating the use of grrrlll power and waif-fu to show these evil chauvinists just how strong and brave ladies are. I thought women didn't need men to protect them? Alas, she is simply a feminist of convenience.

[J. Reed Anderson]

Interest rates are kept low to benefit those with billions in the markets. In the late 70s and early 80s, you'll recall, interest rates were double digits and people saved and had money. The latter aren't the kind of people those who want low interest rates want to have money.

[John Pepple]

So, there are elites and ordinary people, and the elites don't want ordinary people to have money? Is that it? And the idea is what, that then they will have to depend more on government handouts?

[Billy]

Ignore the title, but NASA answered Ted Cruz when he asked the exact same question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCSnKNoyWtw

[Billy]

Sorry wrong link. Corrected:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-Kww5yjYBI

[John Pepple]

Thanks for the link. I don't find the answer a bit convincing. It's really a different agency's job to do it, that of NOAA. Anyway, the ocean isn't going to be rising so fast that their launches will be in danger.