Meanwhile In The UK: Going About Our "Normal" Lives?

Authored by Douglas Murray via The Gatestone Institute,

• One of the most striking images from the night of the London Borough Market terror attack was of drinkers being marched out of the Market under police escort with their hands on their heads. The British public at that point looked not like stoical, pugnacious heroes, but like a defeated army being marched into captivity.


• Contrary to all our public statements, we have become terrorised, just as the terrorists want.


• It is a glimpse into the soul of a city; and like all such ugly glimpses, we will turn away from looking at it, rather than considering it and wondering what it truly suggests.

Whenever Britain suffers a terrorist attack -- and it has suffered four Islamist attacks this year alone -- the British public responds the same way.

Twelve years ago, when four suicide bombers detonated homemade bombs on the London underground and on a red-top bus in central London, there was much talk of "Blitz spirit". After 7/7, the media erupted with boasts of wartime echoes. Some people who lived in London noticed a rather different atmosphere. Of course people "got on with their lives" (what else could they do?) but in the days and weeks after the attacks it was not really "business as usual". Especially not after another four suicide bombers went onto the tube a fortnight later, on July 21, and attempted to repeat the exercise. Fortunately, on that occasion the bombs failed to detonate. But during the period that ensued, it was certainly easier than usual to get a seat on the London Underground.

Of course, political leaders relish the opportunity to accentuate and exaggerate these echoes. If the British public are the citizens of London in the Blitz, then the politicians are Winston Churchill. After attacks like the 2013 daytime slaughter of Drummer Lee Rigby on the streets of London, then-Prime Minister David Cameron stressed from the steps of Downing Street that "One of the best ways of defeating terrorism is to go about our normal lives. And that is what we shall all do." These themes are thought to play deep to the spirit of the British people.

But the more this conspicuous, self-conscious egging-on of such attitudes is stressed, the thinner it seems to get. In March, after Khalid Masood ploughed a car across Westminster Bridge, mowing down locals and tourists, and crashed the car and stabbed policeman Keith Palmer to death inside the gates of the Palace of Westminster, one prominent British journalist took to the pages of the New York Times to pour out the clichés.

"By Thursday morning, London was, if not quite back to normal, then certainly back in business. As I traveled through the south of the city, up to Chelsea and later over to King"s Cross, Londoners really were going about their lives as on any other day.

 

"This behavior reflects something deeper than conscious defiance, I think. It would simply not occur to the 8.6 million citizens of this megalopolis to allow one man to send them into hiding. As they say in the East End, you"re having a laugh, aren"t you?"

One wonders when the author last went into an East End pub to have a pint, and whether he honestly believes such honest cockneys still reside there? Nevertheless, he went to boast of the "stoicism" and "ancestral pride" that still exists there and to insist that, "The only way to proceed is -- in the much-loved British slogan -- to keep calm and carry on." Quite why this spirit is meant to reside in the bones of a city in which most of its current residents (according to the last census) have arrived in the decades since the Second World War is never clear.

Similar clichés spilled out after the suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena in May. They came out yet again after the London Bridge attack in June. Yet one of the most striking images from that night was of drinkers in Borough Market, where the terrorists finished their assault, being marched out of the Market under police escort with their hands on their heads. The British public at that point, at any rate, looked not like stoical, pugnacious heroes, but like a defeated army being marched into captivity. Still the clichés continued. The day after the attack, in her address to the nation, Prime Minister Theresa May assured the public that "Our response must be as it has always been when we have been confronted by violence. We must come together, we must pull together."

One of the most striking images from the June 3, 2017 Borough Market terror attack was of drinkers being marched out of the Market under police escort with their hands on their heads. The British public at that point looked not like stoical, pugnacious heroes, but like a defeated army being marched into captivity. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

So it is interesting to consider, beneath all the talk of business as usual, and Blitz spirit, and keeping calm and carrying on, what, in fact, are the British public actually feeling? Last month provided a sobering demonstration.

Early in the evening on Friday, November 24 there were reports of shots having been fired at Oxford Circus station. A crowd stampede occurred, with people fleeing in terror down Oxford Street and other parts of one of London"s busiest shopping areas. Terrified crowds barricaded themselves into local shops. A celebrity singer and television presenter called Olly Murs tweeted to his millions of followers that he was in Selfridges department store. "F**k everyone get out of Selfridges now gun shots!! I"m inside." That was his first unwise tweet, followed up shortly after with, "Really not sure what"s happened! I"m in the back office... but people screaming and running towards exits!"

The police announced that they were responding to events as though they were a terrorist incident. Social media and some early national media reports said that not only gunshots had been heard but that a vehicle had ploughed into pedestrians on Oxford Street and that there were bodies and blood everywhere.

Within an hour, however, all this turned out to be nonsense. Not only had there been no vehicular attack -- there had been no gunmen. Reports that the incident may have been sparked by a gang fight rather than a terrorist attack were themselves later quashed. The next day two men who thought they might have been responsible for the panic voluntarily came into a police station and were released without charge. The only casualties from the incident were 16 people injured, one seriously, as a cause of the mass stampede out of Oxford Circus station and through the neighbouring area.

Incidents like this one in London last month easily flow by in the news cycle, and are easily forgotten. They will not be referred to in the speeches of any politician and they immediately fell away from even the "News in Brief" sections of the nation"s media. But they are in fact extremely telling. They suggest that rather than being this persistently stoical, unbending and resilient people, the citizens of London have absorbed the lessons of the terror attacks of the last year and the terror attacks across Europe that have occurred in the years preceding them, in Paris and elsewhere. Contrary to all our public statements, we have become terrorised, just as the terrorists want. So much so that a minor altercation on an average evening can lead to a mass panic, a crowd stampede, and terrified public figures bleating to their followers about wholly imagined horrors. It is a glimpse into the soul of a city. And like all such ugly glimpses, we will turn away from looking at it, rather than consider it and wondering what it truly suggests.

Democratic Campaign Tells Voters Not To Vote For A Man (Because He Has A Penis)

Authord by Alex Thomas via SHTFplan.com,

Despite losing the 2016 election largely because the Democrat Party refused to move away from divisive identity based politics they have apparently not learned their lesson, with at least one powerful female Democrat deciding to piggyback off the wave of sexual assault allegations sweeping the country by openly telling Michigan voters to vote for her because she is a women.

Democratic candidate for Michigan’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel, has released an ad for her campaign that directly implies that voters should choose her simply because she does not have a penis and therefore cannot sexually assault someone she works with like many male politicians (on both sides of the aisle) have been accused of over the past month.

“Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? That would be the candidate who doesn’t have one,” Nessel says with a straight face as headlines of male sexual harassment play across the screen.

Nessel attempted to explain the fact that she is now attempting to guilt voters into voting for her as a way to show that they are against sexual harassment in an interview with a local news outlet.

“If you get more women in office, if you get more women in positions of authority, you’re less likely to have issues where someone is pulling out their penis at an inappropriate time in the the workplace,” she told WWJ’s Charlie Langton.

 

“I’m not saying that all men harass and I’m certainly not saying that women are incapable of sexually harassing, but I know from many years serving as an assistant prosecutor prosecuting sex crimes, honestly, the vast, vast majority of those cases do involve men. So I thought that point needed to be made.”

So there you have it.

The Democrats apparently plan to run on a platform that uses guilt to force Americans to vote for them or risk making it look as if they do not care about the issue of sexual harassment.

Absolutely disgusting.

Big Brother Is Here: Twitter Will Monitor Users Behavior "Off Platform"

In perhaps the most intrusive move of social media platforms" efforts signal as much virtue as possible and appease their potentially-regulating government overlords, Twitter has announced that it is cracking down on what it defines at hate-speech and not just by looking at its own site.

In what amounts to a major shift in Twitter policy, Mashable"s Kerry Flynn reports that the company announced on Friday that it will be monitoring user"s behavior "on and off the platform" and will suspend a user"s account if they affiliate with violent organizations, according to an update to Twitter"s Help Center on Friday.

Abusive Behavior

We believe in freedom of expression and open dialogue, but that means little as an underlying philosophy if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up. In order to ensure that people feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, we prohibit behavior that crosses the line into abuse, including behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.

 

Context matters when evaluating for abusive behavior and determining appropriate enforcement actions. Factors we may take into consideration include, but are not limited to whether:

• the behavior is targeted at an individual or group of people;


• the report has been filed by the target of the abuse or a bystander;


• the behavior is newsworthy and in the legitimate public interest.

 

Violence: You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people. This includes, but is not limited to, threatening or promoting terrorism.

 

You also may not affiliate with organizations that - whether by their own statements or activity both on and off the platform - use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes.

 

Abuse: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.

 

Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.

 

Hateful imagery and display names: You may not use hateful images or symbols in your profile image or profile header. You also may not use your username, display name, or profile bio to engage in abusive behavior, such as targeted harassment or expressing hate towards a person, group, or protected category.

Furthermore, Twitter says it will control the stream of information more broadly...

At times, we may prevent certain content from trending.

As Kerry Flynn notes, these changes comes amid aggressive moves by Twitter to curb abuse and harassment on the site after more than a decade of essentially letting the abusers operate freely.

Over the last week, Twitter has taken action against the accounts of white supremacists. Twitter permanently banned Tim "Treadstone" Gionet, a prominent alt-right troll more widely known as Baked Alaska, earlier this week. It also removed the verification badges of Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of the racist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and of alt-right activist Richard Spencer.

Twitter"s decision to monitor users off site sparked concern from free speech advocates such as Andrew Torba, founder of social network Gab.

"This is a scary precedent to set," he wrote in an email to Mashable.

 

"Rules like this will only force dissidents and those who are speaking truth to power to silence themselves or risk being silenced by Twitter."

Twitter"s new rules will not be enforced until December 18th...

We’ve updated our rules around abuse and hateful conduct as well as violence and physical harm. These changes will be enforced starting December 18. Read our updated rules here: https://t.co/NGVT3qGFvg

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) November 17, 2017

And of course, "if you"re doing nothing wrong, then why would this be an issue for you" will be instant reposte of those defending yet more intrusion within America"s surveillance state.

WTF Chart Of The Day: America"s Youngest Child Brides & Grooms

Between 2000 and 2015, at least 207,468 minors were married in the United States.

As Statista"s Martin Armstrong notes, despite an overall fall in child marriage since 2000 (25,583 to 9,247), there are still a shocking number of young children legally married in the country. Only 14 percent married other minors, meaning 86 percent wedded an adult.

As the infographic below shows, the youngest to marry since 2000 were three ten year olds.

You will find more statistics at Statista

According to Frontline, the three girls married men aged 24, 25 and 31 in Tennessee in 2001.

While certain conditions have to be met before a minor can marry, and consent from a parent or judge is usually required, every state in the U.S. allows children to marry to some extent.

In Oregon and Nebraska, for example, the lower limit is set at 17.

In 26 states, there is no minimum age for marriage.

Former Playboy Model Accuses Senator Al Franken Of "Kissing And Groping" Her Without Consent

The anti-sexual harassment backlash started with the Harvey Weinstein expose claimed its latest victim on Thursday when news anchor, former Playboy Playmate and sports broadcaster Leeann Tweeden accused Minnesota"s Democratic Senator Al Franken of "kissing and groping" her without her consent in 2006.

In an essay published this morning on KABC, Tweeden accused Franken of groping her, without her consent, while she was asleep and provided a photo as evidence.

I’ve decided it’s time to tell my story. #MeToohttps://t.co/TqTgfvzkZg

— Leeann Tweeden (@LeeannTweeden) November 16, 2017

The incident happened in December 2006, when she and Franken, then a comedian, were on a USO Tour to "entertain our troops."

Tweeden, a morning radio anchor on Los Angeles station KABC, said she was part of a United Service Organizations (USO) tour in 2006 to entertain troops stationed in the Middle East. At the time, Tweeden said, she was “a TV host and sports broadcaster, as well as a model familiar to the audience from the covers of FHM, Maxim and Playboy,” and did not expect to play a large part in the performance.

She wrote that it was her ninth time on such a tour, which Franken, then a comedian, headlined. Tweeden said she agreed to play a part in one of Franken’s skits. “When I saw the script, Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd,” she wrote.

According to Tweeden, Franken insisted on rehearsing the kiss backstage, and “continued to insist” over her protestations until she agreed so he would stop “badgering” her.

“We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth,” Tweeden wrote. “I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.”

"It wasn’t until I was back in the U.S. and looking through the CD of photos we were given by the photographer that I saw this one," she wrote on KABC. "I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated," she wrote. "How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?"

In the photograph published in Tweeden’s essay, Franken is looking into the camera and grinning as he reaches toward Tweeden’s chest. Tweeden’s eyes are closed, and the person sitting next to her also appears to be asleep.

“I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep,” Tweeden wrote. “I told my husband everything that happened and showed him the picture.”

"I wanted to shout my story to the world with a megaphone to anyone who would listen, but even as angry as I was, I was worried about the potential backlash and damage going public might have on my career as a broadcaster," she wrote. "But that was then, this is now. I’m no longer afraid."

She said she is sharing her story because there may be others.

"I want the days of silence to be over forever," she wrote.

Tweeden also issued a direct statement to Franken.

"Senator Franken, you wrote the script. But there’s nothing funny about sexual assault. You knew exactly what you were doing. You forcibly kissed me without my consent, grabbed my breasts while I was sleeping and had someone take a photo of you doing it, knowing I would see it later, and be ashamed."

Ironically, back in January 2016, Franken tweeted that "@HillaryClinton is a progressive voice that will fight back against attacks on women"s rights, and #ImWithHer."

@HillaryClinton is a progressive voice that will fight back against attacks on women"s rights, and #ImWithHer. pic.twitter.com/IFumzEmhMC

— Al Franken (@alfranken) January 22, 2016

Shortly after the report was published, Franken apologized to Tweeden saying “I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann. As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”

* * *

It"s unclear if that will be enough: Tweeden said that over a decade later, she is "still angry" about what she says Franken did.  “Every time I hear his voice or see his face, I am angry. I am angry that I did his stupid skit for the rest of that tour,” she wrote. “Senator Franken, you wrote the script. But there’s nothing funny about sexual assault.”

Tweeden"s comments come amid increased reports of sexual harassment in the workplace, including on Capitol Hill. Multiple women in Congress have come forward to say they have been victims of sexual harassment, prompting lawmakers to call for reform.

Rep. Jackie Speier said Tuesday the House has paid out $15 million in harassment settlements over more than a decade, though a spokesperson later clarified that figure does not only account for sexual harassment claims. She said at a Tuesday hearing that two current members of Congress, one Republican and one Democrat, have been accused of sexual harassment.

Her comments come after multiple women have accused GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct. Moore is facing growing calls from top Republicans to step aside in the Alabama race, though he has indicated he plans to continue running.

It remains to be seen if the public backlash against the Democratic Senator will be sufficient to prompt his resignation.

Tweeden"s full report can be read here.

Congressmen Will Now Receive Mandatory Sexual Harassment Training

Looks like Congress needs a visit from the sexual harassment Panda...

Joking aside, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Tuesday that there will be a new mandatory anti-harassment and discrimination training for all House members and staff. Ryan’s announcement followed the revelation, made by Rep. Jackie Speier, that the House has paid out $15 million in harassment settlements over more than a decade, though a spokesperson later clarified that figure accounted for payouts related to all types of complaints between 1997 and 2016, the Hill reported.

Ryan said in a statement that the goal is "not only to raise awareness, but also make abundantly clear that harassment in any form has no place in this institution.” His announcement also followed a morning-long House hearing on sexual harassment where some members of Congress brought up concerns about sexual harassment in the legislative branch and reviewed the institutions in place for reporting and addressing such behavior, according to CNN.

Ryan called the hearing an "important step" in efforts to combat sexual harassment and added, "As we work with the Administration, Ethics, and Rules committees to implement mandatory training, we will continue our review to make sure the right policies and resources are in place to prevent and report harassment."

The renewed focus on sexual harassment in Congress is part of a broader national conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace that has enmeshed many powerful figures in the media and entertainment industries.

Speier also revealed that there were two active sexual harassers still serving in the House, one a Republican and one a Democrat.

The Office of Compliance (OOC) is responsible for handling sexual harassment complaints and settlements and making payments, which come from a special Treasury fund rather than House office funds. One lawmaker even said one unnamed colleague exposed his penis to her.

Speier and three colleagues shared stories of harassment in an interview published a few weeks ago by the AP.

Rep. Bradley Byrne, who practiced employment law before serving in the House, recommended in testimony before the House Administration Committee on Tuesday that lawmakers accused of harassment should personally repay the Treasury for settlements.

Last week, the Senate passed a bill mandating sexual harassment training for lawmakers and their staff.

Let’s see if the House, where the majority of sexual-harassment-related coverage has focused, follows suit.
 

Twitter Told Congress This Random American Is A Russian Propaganda Troll

Update: Twitter has re-activated Delaware"s account. The company declined to comment about why it reinstated the account and about whether it would amend the list it sent to Congress.

*  *  *

Authored by Louise Matsakis via Motherboard.Vice.com,

Robert Delaware is now part of the Congressional record, despite having no apparent ties to Russia...

Robert Delaware is a US citizen, a former Microsoft contractor, and an avid Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) filer. According to the United States Federal Government however, he"s a Russian propaganda agent - at least on Twitter.

As part of the social media company"s investigation into Russia"s meddling into the 2016 US presidential election, it deleted Delaware"s account, and sent record of it to US lawmakers as evidence of foreign interference.

The problem is Delaware is actually an American - and has never even been to Russia. So how did his account get swept into a list of those believed to be connected to a Russian troll farm?

Representatives from Google, Facebook, and Twitter testified at several open hearings on Capitol Hill this week about how Russian-linked trolls used their platforms to influence the 2016 US presidential election and sow political unrest. As part of that process, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a list of 2,753 suspended Twitter accounts the company believes to be linked to a Russian troll farm.

The committee said those handles "impersonate[ed] U.S. news entities, political parties, and groups focused on social and political issues," in a memo it released along with the accounts.

Included on the list is Delaware, under the handle @RobbyDelaware. Motherboard reviewed emails sent to Delaware by Twitter verifying that he was the owner of the handle or at least had access to the email account associated with it. Motherboard also verified that Robert Delaware was the person he purported to be by verifying his Facebook account.

The fact that Delaware was included in the cache sent to the US government indicates that real people are being swept up in Twitter"s investigation into how Russia used its platform to influence US politics. Delaware"s Twitter account is now part of the Congressional record as being linked to a Russian troll farm - even though he has no apparent ties to it.

A Google cache as well as several news articles which aggregated his tweets show that Delaware talked about the journalist Don Lemon, a Microsoft chatbot, and used the hashtag #1980sin4words on Twitter. According to a Google cache, his bio said "I support the free movement of people, ideas and capital."

The cached version of his Twitter account shows Delaware tweeted about current events, as well as mundane events like having a cold. A screenshot from the Internet Archive also shows that he was tweeting about similar topics in 2012.

According to an email from Twitter to Delaware reviewed by Motherboard, Delaware"s account was suspended two weeks ago, on October 17.

Delaware"s life is far from connected to Russian propaganda efforts. He is a United States citizen and was born in California. In 2010, he moved to the country Georgia, and now resides there with a Georgian woman. He works as a commercial actor and an English instructor. He mainly used his Twitter account to tweet about books, movies, and television shows, he told me.

Delaware"s account was the oldest included in the ones Twitter provided to US lawmakers, according to a security expert Motherboard spoke to that asked to remain anonymous citing professional concerns. Twitter assigns a unique ID number to each person when they join the network. Delaware"s was 18710816. The number is an indication of the age of an account; you can use this website for example to calculate your own.

Other security researchers noticed the age of some of the accounts as well:

Looking at the user IDs, they must have been at this for awhile - some of those accounts are old.

— Adam Caudill (@adamcaudill) November 2, 2017

We don"t know for certain why Delaware"s account was banned or why it was on the list delivered to US lawmakers, and Twitter declined to tell me.

"We are confident in the methodology described in our written testimony to surface accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency.

 

We encourage all Twitter users to take steps to reinforce security on their accounts, including enabling two-factor authentication, and to file a support request if they believe their account may have been compromised," a Twitter spokesperson told me in an email.

Delaware believes that his account might have been mistakenly connected to Russia for two reasons.

For one, he lives in Georgia, which shares its northern border with Russia. For nearly seven years, he has tweeted from the country in which he lives. Delaware told me that he rarely tweeted about his intellectual pursuits (like filing FOIA requests) nor politics.

The second reason involves a Russian-created hoax from 2014. On September 11 of that year, Russian trolls spread a false rumor online about an explosion at the "Columbian Chemicals plant" in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. The "Columbian Chemicals plant" doesn"t exist. The trolls used text messages, YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter to try and spread their hoax.

Almost a year later, journalist Adrian Chen published an extensive article in the New York Times connecting the hoax to a now-notorious Russian propaganda outfit, the Internet Research Agency. The accounts Twitter handed over to US lawmakers are believed to be connected to the same outfit.

On the day the trolls attempted to spread their explosion hoax, Twitter was flooded with hundreds of fake accounts tweeting under the hashtag #ColumbianChemicals, according to Chen"s reporting.

Robert Delaware was one of the people using the hashtag that day. Not because he was a bot trying to spread a hoax, but because he knew the explosion was fake, he told me. "I immediately suspected it as a hoax. I tweeted to DHS [Department of Homeland Security] saying something like, "what is this, please investigate,"" Delaware told me in a Twitter direct message from another account he has, @iPad_App_Bugs, where he documents minor iOS bugs that he finds. Delaware has had that account since 2016, but began using it more after @RobbyDelaware was suspended.

Delaware even communicated with Chen. The journalist confirmed with Motherboard that he was contacted by Delaware in a Twitter message. "I think I emailed him because he tweeted about [the hoax]," Chen told me. "And he emailed me back. I think we talked on the phone. He seemed fine."

After his account was suspended, Delaware tried a variety of methods to try and get it back, or at least figure out why he was banned in the first place. He opened a case with Twitter Support asking for information about his account, and he sent messages to various Twitter email accounts, according to messages Motherboard reviewed.

"I went to the thing where I entered in my account, and asked for support," Delaware told me. "I even cc"d other emails I found on the site. I searched on the internet, and someone on a blog wrote that Twitter has zero human customer support. That is why I cc"d advertising and jobs emails associated with Twitter."

In addition to @iPad_App_Bugs, Delaware also runs an account where he shares photos of his adopted country, Georgia. There, he sent a public plea to Twitter"s CEO Jack Dorsey for help with his banned account:

Hi .@jack, my other main twitter account, which dutifully follows all twitter rules, is suspended and this happens with password reset... pic.twitter.com/S0z5tJXACH

— Georgia Pictures (@GeorgiaPictures) October 17, 2017

As of Thursday, Twitter had not gotten back to Delaware, he said. Twitter did not immediately respond to a followup request for comment about why Delaware"s support case has yet to be addressed.

"Still puzzled as to how I entered into the Congressional record," he told me. "I would guess I am the only actual human who ended up on this list."

Company Gives Non-Smokers 6 Extra Days Vacation To Make Up For Cigarette Breaks

Authored by S.M.Gibson via TheAntiMedia.org,

A company is providing non-smoking employees an extra six days of vacation time per year to compensate for the time smoking staff members take on cigarette breaks.

Piala Inc, a Japanese marketing firm, introduced the policy in September after receiving multiple complaints from workers who do not smoke cigarettes.

"One of our non-smoking staff put a message in the company suggestion box earlier in the year saying that smoking breaks were causing problems. Our CEO saw the comment and agreed, so we are giving non-smokers some extra time off to compensate,” according to a spokesperson for Piala Inc.

Each cigarette break reportedly lasts at least 15 minutes because the firm is located on the 29th floor of a Tokyo office building.

The company hopes the new program will encourage employees to put an end to their nicotine addiction.

"I hope to encourage employees to quit smoking through incentives rather than penalties or coercion,” Takao Asuka, the Piala Inc CEO, told Kyodo News. 

 

The CEO also added that the program has already encouraged four members of the staff to give up the habit.

As Japan inches closer to the Tokyo-based 2020 Olympic games, the nation is doing everything it can to cut down on the number of smokers in the country, including a push for an outright smoking ban in public spaces.

Overall, 19.8 percent of Japanese adults are smokers, down from only four years ago when cigarette smokers made up 21.6 percent of the population.

"We Microchip Dogs, So Why Not Athletes" - Olympics Suggest Implants To Prevent Doping

Companies in Scandinavia and the US have already embraced microchipping as a way to make the office experience more seamless by allowing employees to easily unlock doors or pay for food in the cafeteria.

Of course, while workers say they"ve welcomed the technology (one Russian hobbyist has reported self-implanted six microchips), and companies not to abuse the technology, the temptation to do so should make people nervous.

But the use of microchips in the workplace likely won’t be limited to corporate environments. Pretty soon, microchipping might become a common tool for monitoring professional and amateur athletes as sports leagues try to eradicate the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs.

At least that’s what recent remarks from Mike Miller, chief executive of the World Olympians Association, appeared to suggest. Speaking Tuesday to anti-doping leaders at a Westminster forum on integrity in sport, Miller said the Olympic Games should begin microchipping athletes to try and prevent the type of state-sponsored evasion of anti-doping rules purportedly organized by the Russian government ahead of the winter games in Sochi, the Guardian reported.

Because cheating is so widespread, Miller said such a radical approach is justified to help protect the integrity of the games. However, in what appears to be an ill-conceived attempt to preempt criticism, Miller clumsily compare human athletes to animals, saying that, since microchips are now being used to monitor pets, using them on humans wouldn’t be that much of a stretch.  

“Some people say we shouldn’t do this to people,” Miller said. “Well, we’re a nation of dog lovers, we’re prepared to chip our dogs and it doesn’t seem to harm them, so why aren’t we prepared to chip ourselves?”

The Olympics should act quickly to begin microchipping, Miller said, because a breakthrough in the technology is on the horizon that could allow microchips into a potent tool for cheaters. For example, the chips could be used to determine when levels of banned substances in an athletes blood have returned to “normal” levels.

What about the invasion of privacy inherent in using microchips? Well, Miller has an answer for that, too, noting that sports are “a club and people don’t have to join…if they don’t want to.”

“In order to stop doping we need to chip our athletes where the latest technology is there. Some people say it’s an invasion of privacy, well, sport is a club and people don’t have to join the club if they don’t want to, if they can’t follow the rules.”

“Microchips get over the issue of whether the technology can be manipulated because they have no control over the device. The problem with the current anti-doping system is that all it says is that at a precise moment in time there are no banned substances but we need a system which says you are illegal substance-free at all times and if there are changes in markers they will be detected.”

To be sure, Miller said he was not speaking on behalf of the organization, and that his remarks about microchips reflect his views alone. He was merely throwing out an idea to try and guage the public"s reaction, he said.

“I’m just throwing the idea out there,” he said. “I’m gauging reaction from people but we do need to think of new ways to protect clean sport. I’m no Steve Jobs but we need to spend the money and use the latest technology.”

The WOA supports the 48 national Olympians associations and 100,000 living Olympians.

As the Guardian notes, the idea of microchips being inserted into athletes might not be so well-received by national teams and individual athletes. Some feel the current system of vigorous testing is already too invasive. According to current Olympic rules, athletes must declare on an online database where they will be every day for a one-hour window between 5 am to 11 pm to allow drug testers the opportunity to surprise them.

Nicole Sapstead, the UK’s anti-doping chief executive, said she’s wary of using microchips to monitor athletes, adding that the Olympics would never be able to guarantee that the technology is immune to tampering.  

“We welcome verified developments in technology which could assist the fight against doping. However, can we ever be sure that this type of thing could never be tampered with or even accurately monitor all substances and methods on the prohibited list?”

“There is a balance to be struck between a right to privacy versus demonstrating that you are clean. We would actively encourage more research in whether there are technologies in development that can assist anti-doping organizations in their endeavors.”

Miller isn’t the first person to cite the increasing use of microchips to monitor pets as possible justification for using the technology on humans. Last year, a local NBC News report appeared to advocate implanting children with microchips. In one particularly galling passage, the report tried to guilt-trip parents by asking them: “How far would you go to keep your children secure?”

With that in mind, how far should the Olympics (not to mention professional sports leagues) go to stamp out the use of performance-enhancing drugs?

What do you think?

Power Corrupts: A Culture Of Compliance Breeds Despots And Predators

Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

Power corrupts.

Worse, as 19th-century historian Lord Acton concluded, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about a politician, an entertainment mogul, a corporate CEO or a police officer: give any one person (or government agency) too much power and allow him or her or it to believe that they are entitled, untouchable and will not be held accountable for their actions, and those powers will eventually be abused.

We’re seeing this dynamic play out every day in communities across America.

A cop shoots an unarmed citizen for no credible reason and gets away with it. A president employs executive orders to sidestep the Constitution and gets away with it. A government agency spies on its citizens’ communications and gets away with it. An entertainment mogul sexually harasses aspiring actresses and gets away with it.

Abuse of power - and the ambition-fueled hypocrisy and deliberate disregard for misconduct that make those abuses possible - works the same whether you’re talking about sexual harassment, government corruption, or the rule of law.

For instance, 20 years ago, I took up a sexual harassment lawsuit on behalf of a young woman - a state employee - who claimed that her boss, a politically powerful man, had arranged for her to meet him in a hotel room, where he then allegedly dropped his pants, propositioned her and invited her to perform oral sex on him.

Despite the fact that this man had a well-known reputation for womanizing and this woman was merely one in a long line of women who had accused the man of groping, propositioning, and pressuring them for sexual favors in the workplace, she was denounced as white trash and subjected to a massive smear campaign by the man’s wife, friends and colleagues (including the leading women’s rights organizations of the day), while he was given lucrative book deals and paid lavish sums for speaking engagements.

William Jefferson Clinton eventually agreed to settle the case and pay Paula Jones $850,000.

Here we are 20 years later and not much has changed.

We’re still shocked by sexual harassment in the workplace, the victims of these sexual predators are still being harassed and smeared, and those who stand to gain the most by overlooking wrongdoing (all across the political spectrum) are still turning a blind eye to misconduct when it’s politically expedient to do so.

This time, it’s Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein - longtime Clinton associate and a powerhouse when it comes to raising money for Democrats - who is being accused of decades of sexual assaults, aggressively sexual overtures and harassment.

I won’t go into the nauseating details here. You can read them for yourself at the New York Times and the New Yorker.

Suffice it to say that it’s the same old story all over again: man rises to power, man abuses power abominably, man intimidates and threatens anyone who challenges him with retaliation or worse, and man gets away with it because of a culture of compliance in which no one speaks up because they don’t want to lose their job or their money or their place among the elite.

This isn’t just happening in Hollywood, however.

And it’s not just sexual predators that we have to worry about.

For every high-profile power broker who eventually gets called out for his sexual misbehavior, there are hundreds - thousands - of others in the American police state who are getting away with murder - in many cases, literally - simply because they can.

The cop who shoots the unarmed citizen first and asks questions later might get put on paid leave for a while or take a job with another police department, but that’s just a slap on the wrist. The shootings and SWAT team raids and excessive use of force will continue, because the police unions and the politicians and the courts won’t do a thing to stop it. Case in point: The Justice Department will no longer attempt to police the police when it comes to official misconduct. Instead, it plans to give police agencies more money and authority to “fight” crime.

The war hawks who are making a profit by waging endless wars abroad, killing innocent civilians in hospitals and schools, and turning the American homeland into a domestic battlefield will continue to do so because neither the president nor the politicians will dare to challenge the military industrial complex. Case in point: Rather than scaling back on America’s endless wars, President Trump—like his predecessors—has continued to expand America’s military empire and its attempts to police the globe.

The National Security Agency that carries out warrantless surveillance on Americans’ internet and phone communications will continue to do so, because the government doesn’t want to relinquish any of its ill-gotten powers. Case in point: The USA Liberty Act, proposed as a way to “fix” all that’s wrong with domestic surveillance, will instead legitimize the government’s snooping powers.

Unless something changes in the way we deal with these ongoing, egregious abuses of power, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.

For starters, let’s recommit to abiding by the rule of law.

Here’s what the rule of law means in a nutshell: it means that everyone is treated the same under the law, everyone is held equally accountable to abiding by the law, and no one is given a free pass based on their politics, their connections, their wealth, their status or any other bright line test used to confer special treatment on the elite.

We need to stop being victimized by these predators.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, I’m not just talking about the political predators in office, but the ones who are running the show behind the scenes—the shadow government—comprised of unelected government bureaucrats whose powers are unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and beyond the reach of the law.

There is no way to erase the scars left by the government’s greed for money and power, its disregard for human life, its corruption and graft, its pollution of the environment, its reliance on excessive force in order to ensure compliance, its covert activities, its illegal surveillance, and its blatant disdain for the rule of law.

“We the people” - men and women alike -  have been victims of the police state for so long that not many Americans even remember what it is to be truly free anymore. Worse, few want to shoulder the responsibility that goes along with maintaining freedom.

Still, we must try.

1 In 5 Students Endorse Violence To 'Prevent' Controversial Speakers

Authored by Nikita Vladimirov via CampusReform.org,

A new survey published by The Brookings Institution finds that about one-in-five undergraduate students approve of using violence to shut down controversial speakers.

A majority of undergraduate students at U.S. four-year colleges and universities also agreed with a hypothetical protest in which a group “opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker.”

According to the survey, 51 percent of students agreed that such a demonstration would be acceptable, while 49 percent disagreed. Not surprisingly, the response to the hypothetical scenario was also largely partisan, with 62 percent of Democrats approving of the protest, compared to just 39 percent of Republicans .

“I find the numbers in the above table to be highly concerning, because they show that a very significant fraction of students, across all categories, believe it is acceptable to silence (by shouting) a speaker they find offensive,” wrote John Villasenor, the author of the survey and a Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow.

The study further found that 19 percent of responders said that they approved of using violence “to prevent the speaker from speaking.” An 81 percent majority, on the other hand, did not approve of the violent approach.

“A surprisingly large fraction of students believe it is acceptable to act—including resorting to violence—to shut down expression they consider offensive,” Villasenor wrote.

While 39 percent of responders indicated that hate speech is protected by the First  Amendment, 44 percent said that it is not protected by the document. Another 16 percent remained undecided.

In one survey question, the students were also asked if they prefered a learning environment where certain views are prohibited versus an open learning environment “where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints.”

According to the study, 53 percent of responders said that they prefer the former while only 47 percent chose the latter.

“The survey results establish with data what has been clear anecdotally to anyone who has been observing campus dynamics in recent years: Freedom of expression is deeply imperiled on U.S. campuses,” Villasenor wrote.

“In fact, despite protestations to the contrary (often with statements like ‘we fully support the First Amendment, but…’),” he asserted that “freedom of expression is clearly not, in practice, available on many campuses, including many public campuses that have First Amendment obligations.”

Villasenor surveyed a pool of 1,500 undergraduate students at U.S. four-year colleges and universities between August 17 - 31. The margin of error is between 2-6 percent.

"Dangerously Vague" - New US Law Blurs The Line Between Hate Speech And Hate Crime

Authored by Michael Rozeff via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Eleven years ago, this essay argued against hate-crime laws.

One argument read “People can eventually be accused of hate crimes when they use hateful speech. Hate crimes laws are a seed that can sprout in new directions.”

This has now come to pass, I am sorry to say. This week, the Congress passed S. J. Res. 49, and President Trump signed it, making it part of the U.S. legal code.

The law rejects “White nationalists, White supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups…” But why? Because of their ideas? Because of their expression of these ideas?

No government that stands for freedom and free speech, whose charge is to protect rights, should be singling out specific groups by name and by law declaring them as outlaws or threats because of their philosophies. If they have committed a crime, such as defamation of character or incitement to riot or riot itself, then charge them and try them. But American government has no legitimate authority to single out some of its citizens in this way. This, furthermore, is an exceedingly bad precedent. Who’s next?

The resolution is too specific, but it’s also dangerously vague. The term “other hate groups” has no known definition. Suppose that this term is defined by a group like the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC currently names 917 groups as hate groups (see here for a list). Their criteria are not restricted to violent actions. They comprise SPEECH. They say “All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” They are very clear about this: “Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing.”

This Congressional resolution is a declaration that certain kinds of groups, some named but many, many others open to inclusion, are to be attacked by the U.S. government.

The law urges “the President and the President’s Cabinet to use all available resources to address the threats posed by those groups.” The term “threats” in the first paragraph is vague, dangerously vague. However, the very next paragraph singles outfree speech actions when “hundreds of torch-bearing White nationalists, White supremacists, Klansmen, and neo-Nazis chanted racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant slogans…” The same sentence joins this with violent actions “…and violently engaged with counter-demonstrators on and around the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville…”

This law regards free speech as a threat, linking it to violence, painting them with one brush. There can be no justice that can stem from such a completely sloppy and inexcusably amateurish legal treatment. This linkage is made clear in paragraph seven with this language: “…communities everywhere are concerned about the growing and open display of hate and violence being perpetrated by those groups…” There is no distinction made here between the “open display of hate” and “violence being perpetrated”. As I predicted 11 years ago in arguing against hate crime laws, hate speech is being identified with hate crime.

I am just as uncomfortable with the notion of defining and singling out “hate speech” as some sort of new danger or threat or harmful activity or crime, to be dealt with by government or courts of law as I was 11 years ago with the idea of “hate crime”. The standard categories of crime are quite enough without adding to them a government laundry list of prejudices and aversions that everyone is not supposed to express or feel, under penalty of government law.

Wayback Machine Video – The Great Ronald Reagan, the Awesome Johnny Carson, and the Current Late Night Wusses

For full archives, please visit The Entry Points:

There was a time when late night TV talk show comedy was a place for, well, comedy, and civility.  Going after all politicians in a talented, witty, smart, well thought out manner is, well, funny. As the great Jerry Seinfeld has pointed out, funny is hard work. But now the degenerates who host the late night “comedy” shows, force their audience to watch them make spectacles of themselves crying (about President Trump), attacking (President Trump), and spouting disgusting vulgarity (at President Trump). But the problem with this has nothing to do with Trump per se, it has to do with, uh…comedy. Is there some hidden “comedy” in those wimps’ routines? Is there humor in their personal attacks? Is it hilarious to see grown men act like hormonal teenagers? And the real question, is it “funny” when they only direct their attacks at Republicans? Answer, no it’s not. How many Trump-type supporters would have found it “hilarious” to direct the exact same kind of “humor” towards President Obama? Answer – not many.

Yes there was a time when humor and civility went hand in hand on late night talk shows. And making fun of, and creating humor, was across the board. For instance both President Carter and President Reagan were the butts of jokes. There were also very friendly appearances by politicians on late night, where they were allowed to discuss their philosophies. (Not yet President) Reagan was on with Johnny Carson in 1975, and it was masterful, showing his natural wittiness. Unfortunately, as President his optimism and his great ideas were considerably watered down. During the interview Mr. Reagan had some great lines about how to balance the budget, how government is the problem not the solution, and how taxing business is just a hidden tax on consumers. Forty years ago he was already warning about the unelected bureaucrats taking control over policies, and how we need to drastically simplify taxes. He also had an idealistic proposal to put a % limit on how much of our (you know, the citizens) earnings could be taken/snatched by the government, thus going above that limit would require our “approval”.

Isn’t it interesting that then Governor Reagan and Johnny were joking about the CIA, since it would be 5 years later when a certain former CIA Director would become his Vice-President. Was this decision forced upon Reagan? Did it play a role in future events? Also in the interview, foreshadowing modern times, he had no problem with the government shutting down for a while, “we’d never miss them”.

Study Warns Of Binge-Drinking "Crisis" As Alcoholism Rates Spike 49%

The opioid epidemic isn’t the only public-health crisis plaguing the US.

Americans are hitting the bottle harder than ever, according to a new study published by JAMA Psychiatry, posing new challenges for the US’s strained health-care system as local hospitals and first responders struggle with the spike in substance-abuse related maladies, including overdoses and alcohol poisoning that warrant urgent care.

The JAMA study showed that rates of dangerous binge drinking rose dramatically between 2001 and 2013, with women, ethnic minorities, Americans over the age of 65 and low-education adults registering the largest increases.

“Twelve-month alcohol use significantly increased from 65.4% in 2001-2002 to 72.7% in 2012-2013, a relative percentage increase of 11.2%. Significant increases, seen across all sociodemographic subgroups, were particularly notable among women (15.8%), racial/ethnic minorities (from 17.2% among Hispanic to 29.1% among Asian or Pacific Islander individuals), adults 65 years and older (22.4%), and respondents with lower educational level and family income (range, 11.7%-22.3%).”

Furthermore, rates of diagnosed alcoholism climbed 49% to roughly one in eight Americans.

“The prevalence of 12-month DSM-IV AUD increased significantly from 8.5% to 12.7% (change, 49.4%) in the total population. Significant increases in AUD were seen in all subgroups except Native Americans and those residing in rural areas. Notable increases were found among women (83.7%), racial/ethnic minorities (51.9% for Hispanic and 92.8% for black individuals), adults 65 years and older (106.7%), those with a high school education (57.8%) and less than a high school education (48.6%), those earning incomes of $20?000 or less (65.9%), those living within 200% of the poverty threshold (range, 47.1%-55.8%), and those residing in urban areas (59.5%).”

Rates of “high risk” drinking increased by 30%, with women and minorities again registering the biggest gains.

"The prevalence of 12-month high-risk drinking increased significantly between 2001-2002 and 2012-2013 from 9.7% to 12.6% (change, 29.9%) in the total population. Significant increases in high-risk drinking were also seen for all sociodemographic subgroups except Native Americans and respondents residing in rural areas. Increases were most notable among women (57.9%), other racial/ethnic minorities (from 40.6% among Hispanic to 62.4% among black individuals), adults 65 years and older (65.2%), persons previously married (widowed, divorced, or separated) (31.9%) and married or cohabitating respondents (34.2%), those with a high school education (42.3%) and less than a high school education (34.7%), those earning incomes of $19?999 or less (35.1%), and those residing in urban areas (35.1%)."

The spike in abuse rates among women was perhaps the study’s most alarming finding. The study’s authors speculated that, although men still struggle with higher rates of alcohol abuse, several factors are helping women close the gap. Women increasingly hold high-stress jobs, and social mores surrounding female behavior have grown more permissive.

“Greater sensitivity to adverse health effects of heavy drinking among women are potential biological factors influencing the convergence of rates between the sexes within the context of increasing rates of high-risk drinking and AUD. Drinking norms and values have become more permissive among women, along with increases in educational and occupational opportunities and rising numbers of women in the workforce, all of which may have contributed to increased high-risk drinking and AUD in women during the past decade.”

The rise in alcohol-abuse rates among older Americans was another discouraging revelation from the study – particularly because they’ve typically exhibited lower rates of abuse in the past. The study uncovered an unprecedented increase in abuse rates among the elderly, which is particularly problematic given the increased risk of mortality. Data for the study was collected from surveys of nearly 80,000 people, with the first conducted in 2001-2002, and the second in 2012-2013.

The Myth Of India's Information Technology Industry

Authored by Jayant Bhandari via Acting-Man.com,

A Shift in Perception – Indians in Silicon Valley

When I was studying in the UK in early 90s, I was often asked about cows, elephants and snake-charmers on the roads in India.  A shift in public perception - not in the associated reality - was however starting to happen. India would soon become known for its vibrant IT industry.

Friends and family are helping students taking university exams with cheating. 2.5 million candidates, many of them with PhDs or post-graduates, recently applied for 6,000 of the lowest level job positions (“grade D”) available in West Bengal, which require no more than an early-stage school education. While India produces the largest number of PhDs, engineers, etc. in the world, the educational system is in reality in a shambles and a complete joke. Most of these people are in fact unemployable. [The incredible scene above took place in Bihar and is explained in greater detail here. Relatives of students are scaling the walls of the examination center to pass on cheat sheets to their offspring. Policemen who were supposed to guard examination buildings were often bribed to look the other way. A total of 6 to 7 million people across India were estimated to provide  cheating assistance. [PT]]

 

A similar scene at another examination center in Bihar. In several locations parents and relatives even clashed with police who tried to keep them from scaling the walls (which is actually quite risky). Here is a You-tube video showing a TV report on the “massive family affair” the exam turned into, which is in parts quite funny. You will inter alia notice that students who get caught cheating by their teachers sometimes have to expect the kind of traditional instant punishment that would be frowned upon in politically correct Western societies, but which probably has the advantage of being memorable (here is another video of the collective cheating effort; and here is Mr. Bean taking an exam). [PT]

As more IT graduates from India moved to the US to work, they lobbied to change how India was viewed, not because India had actually changed or because they cared for India, but because from their tribal perspective, this reflected well on them. This process went hand in hand with the emerging trend toward political correctness in the West - people in the West became keen to exaggerate the successes of India and other “emerging markets” to prove their non-racist orientation.

Today, Silicon Valley has quite a visible Indian population and many of its members are very talented and in top positions. This helped change the perception of India. There are a total of one million Indian engineers and scientists in the US.  To put this number into perspective, the population of India increases by more than a million souls every month.

These were the best and the brightest of India, and while their number is not even noise in the grand scheme of things, the exception to the rule began to be seen as the rule. A completely faulty assumption was taking root, namely that India is a land of high-tech people. Neither Indians nor politically correct Westerners challenged this notion.

Indians were hired by Americans based on meritocratic principles, but as more Indians rose to the top, they tended to hire based on tribal affiliations. Again, this tribalism has nothing to do with trying to help their brethren.  Mostly  it is about the comfort tribal people feel working with their own kind, despite harboring concomitant feelings of disdain. An Indian boss finds it easier to get away with abusing his Indian staff.

Apart from visible high-caliber Indians in the IT industry in the US, most of these employees are actually C-level, sweatshop labor, who work for a lot less than what Americans would be prepared to accept. Many of those who did not learn programming in the US are known for writing error-prone code that cannot be maintained. Moreover, they have developed a reputation for being pompous. Americans find it difficult to complain, as they don’t want to risk looking racist.

An outsized number of Indians in the position of recruiters tend to favor Indians, once again not for reasons of empathy, but merely for the comfort they feel in managing expectations. The lottery system associated with H1B visa is riddled with manipulated multiple filings and fake resumes – stories about this abound.

The IT Industry in India

Even within India, the IT industry is not what many people believe it to be. The IT sector accounts for 9.3% of the country’s GDP, or about $150 billion. While the Indian IT industry looks big from an Indian perspective, it is miniscule even in comparison with China, let alone the US.

In total, a mere 3.7 million out of India’s population of 1,350 million people are employed in the IT industry. Again, most of them are working as better-paid sweat-labor, forever ready to jump to a slightly better job offer. Creative, innovative work is almost never sent to India.

As time has passed it has become increasingly difficult for political correctness to suppress the fact that much of the code written by Indian IT programmers is of inferior quality. Indian IT firms are losing business and sadly the one industry that led most of India’s growth over the last three decades is rapidly shedding employees.

An Indian friend who has worked for many years in the IT industry, in and outside of India told me:

“The Indian IT sector, excluding the work that gets done at Microsoft, Google, Intel and few research-based companies, is the biggest joke of the millennium. Service-based companies within India, including well-known Indian names, try to skim clients big-time and operate with meager productivity. It really doesn’t make surprise me when many Indians in IT are losing their jobs because of their irresponsibility and indecent behavior. They treat their offices as their own private place to hang around, chit-chatting with colleagues, talking about their private lives publicly. Managers, mostly incompetent at work have zero-tolerance towards their subordinates, are sexist, and lure their female subordinates.”

Will Indians one day sit back and reflect that their lack of reason, their tribalism and superstitions are the reason for the utter backwardness and wretchedness, which is letting the one small advantage Indians had slip by?

The flaws of Indian coders have made headlines before. The article from which the above exhortation was taken appeared in 2015 after “Snapdeal cheerfully declared that ‘right programmers are rare in India’” and inter alia notes that “India’s education system has failed its citizens”. The problems with many Indian coders are deemed to consist of “rote-learning, lack of research and Gestalt skills and an inability to be innovative even while they possess the talent”. Two years earlier, the Atlantic had already published a “behind the scenes” article on the topic as well, which also blames the Indian education system for the situation and includes a forecast that the amount of coding work outsourced to India is likely to drop – to the chagrin of many newly-minted, but apparently poorly trained Indian programmers. [PT]

Here is a comment by Vidyanshu Pandey, who in the past worked as a coder, in delivery management, as a software architect, and is currently in IT sales and management consulting:

“ The combination of all these factors creates IT services that are cheap, but unsustainable. Wage hikes and inflation will make Indian IT services non-competitive. Moreover, the Chinese have rapidly become quite good in English and programming. The quality of their work is high, they have excellent skills in cyber-security, data-science and AI, and they constantly win the International Programming Olympics, a recognition that has mostly eluded Indians. Chinese coders are also happy to put in long hours, without complaining. Also, I find Filipinos to be very good, as well as the Vietnamese. I see a decline coming in India’s IT industry soon. The easy money of the past several years has encouraged materialism, hedonism and decadence. As IT has spearheaded growth of the middle class, its coming downturn may well herald its decline.”

Quiet Changes

Inside the country, Indians have increased their gold hoarding. There is no way to know how much they are really buying, as a lot of gold comes into the country  through smuggling. Those who can are moving their gold and wealth abroad. They are increasing their purchases of properties outside the country, in the process contributing to property price increases in the US, in London, Thailand, and so forth.

A very large number of Directors of publicly-listed Indian companies are officially residents of Singapore, Hong Kong or Dubai. 30% of the people living in the UAE are from India. Of course, not much of this shows up in statistics.

Every Indian I know would emigrate today if he could. Most want to live under  institutions created by Europeans. Hypocritically, those who cannot emigrate, and particularly those who do manage to do so, vociferously claim that European colonization of the third world was somehow an unmitigated calamity. It wasn’t. Without the British running India, India is rapidly on its way to utter chaos, disintegration and what will likely end up becoming a major humanitarian crisis.

The Virtues Of Discrimination

By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at

I deserve to be punished!

Yesterday, I received some mail from subscribers in response to my article about the end of the empire:

"More buggered than an alter boy at the Vatican". This is a witch hunt against the clergy. Can"t you see that? You perpetuate the lies and I hope God punishes you for it. What"s more I"m British, and proud of it and your article is racist. I"ve unsubscribed from your stupid discriminating blog.

Not everyone wants me dead, though... which is nice:

"God, I love these essays!"

And:

Hi Chris

Just a quick thanks to you and your team for all the updates and your insights. Having a feed of well thought through investment advice mixed with highly entertaining commentaries which cut through the thickest layers of the BS right to the essence of the matter is more than I had expected when I signed up for this and I really appreciate it.

 

Regards

And:

"I just shared this around the office here in London, where I have to tell you...we"re having a cup of tea:-) Love your take on the world and your unashamed way of dealing with reality. I first came across your work when a friend forwarded this one to me. It is so rare to find clarity of thinking and I really appreciate your ability to bring together the complexity of economics, human behaviour, history and everything in between. Keep up the fantastic truly insightful work."

I"m reminded that you can"t please everyone... and neither should you try. It"s also useful to weed out morons so it"s got that going for it.

As much as I find amusement from hate mail and am humbled by well wishers, it made me think about this problem of political correctness. It"s an incredibly important topic and, in fact, was a significant factor in correctly predicting the ascension of Trump to the throne.

The people, like the disgruntled Brit above, who refuse to acknowledge things like the epidemic of pedophilia in the church are dangerous. The selective bias is appalling. They look at themselves and others not as individual human beings... which is how we should interact with one another, but rather as some group. Everything to them is pigeon holed into some category: white, black, male, female, left, right, capitalist, globalist, and so on.

They actually define themselves and others as a class, not as an individual. It"s lazy thinking at its finest. This is seriously problematic for a simple reason: it subjugates the individual in favour of the group. Some humour about Brits (who I secretly love) is immediately classed as racist. It"s completely absurd to the point of bordering on mentally ill.

Everything that doesn"t fit into their world view finds a label with "discrimination" being extremely popular. This is because it"s so loosely defined - literally anything can (and is) jammed into the discriminatory jar.

Have you ever bought a new car and then found that everywhere you look you seem to see the same car and colour?

In a similar fashion, these people search for discrimination, find it everywhere, and then attack it.

Say after me: we need discrimination. It is what keeps society ordered and civilised.

An example:

Some time ago my wife and I were out having dinner with a group of friends - 3 other couples. One of the guests, who I"ll call Harry (not his real name), had shoddy manners, cut people off in mid-conversation in order to put his point across, and was generally overbearing, loud, and obnoxious. Even when I cut him down and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was being rude and offensive, this washed over him like water off a duck"s back. When a shared plate of food arrived, Harry proceeded to scoop literally half of the plate straight onto his own plate and eat it... without the slightest acknowledgement that his bahaviour may not be exactly acceptable.

Have we and the other couples subsequently discriminated against Harry? Hell, yeah! We won"t be inviting him and his poor wife over anytime soon.

Discrimination? Sure.

Necessary? Absolutely.

It"s what keeps society civilised. It comes as no surprise that Harry has few friends, is constantly "in between" jobs, and survives, as far as I can tell, by the grace of his wife, who for whatever reason, continues to support him. That, too, may at some point become too much, and Harry will find that, in order for him to not starve, he"ll need to change his ways. This is how things should work.

Do you discriminate when you steer clear of a group of young men with an aggressive swagger walking at night?

I sure hope so. This is not prejudice it"s bloody prudence.

Multiculturalism

It"s got such a nice ring to it but those using it don"t actually understand its true meaning. The dictionary tells us it"s the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society. 

Discrimination is closely tied with multiculturalism, which is easily one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted terms in our modern lexicon. From my experience - and I"ve lived in 7 different countries, traveled to over 50, and do business with, have employees, colleagues, and business associates that traverse not only the globe but all the major religions and ethic groups - I can tell you this: those who live and work with many cultures and across geographies never, and I mean never, have an issue with this.

Those who do are inevitably the ones who have never traveled or travel little, and they wish to actually enforce on others their own world view. These are the worst sort of people. Those who not only believe things which are false but are not content until you, too, adhere to their beliefs. It"s an ideology, and ideologies are more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

Peter Thiel saw this coming a full 20 years ago. I would urge you to spend 15 minutes and listen to this speech he gave:

He quite correctly mentions that

"Multiculturalism has nothing to do with the study of other cultures." He goes on to say that "You do not see students protesting on college campuses demanding missionary postings in third world countries, to learn more about other societies. You do not have people protesting to learn Chinese or Swahili."

"You cannot have diversity on a college campus with people who look different but think alike."

Peter discusses the threat to Western civilisation, which ironically is not posed by any other civilisation but rather comes from within. Those who have been reared in the warm bosom of Western civilisation providing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and a host of freedoms, which have allowed for unparalleled wealth and opportunity. This is where the threat comes from. It"s not unlike a spoilt child who has been given too much by well-meaning parents... only to invite drug dealers and gangsters into the homestead to destroy it and rape and pillage.

This is not non-Western but anti-Western and advocating the destruction of Western civilisation.

Multiculturalism joins the ranks of a long list of junk words that have crawled into popular vocabulary but which infest our brain and are used by self-righteous pompous pseudo intellectuals to further goals which have little to do with what we"re told they do.

Words such as "islamophobia", a nonsensical word if ever there was one (which I"ll write about in a separate article... because nobody else will)... and another pet hate: "marginalized", which if you look carefully, is a term used to describe any minority group that enjoys support from multimillion dollar lobby groups where the objective is to destroy criticism of the particular group and to garner favours which would, if the group couldn"t muster being "marginalised" would NOT receive largess. Interestingly, these "marginalised" groups cannot ever be white and male. Think about why that is.

Be careful of using these rubbish euphemisms and fight back against those who throw them out as accusations, because they are the epitome of lazy thinking and are being used as weapons to destroy what is often common sense. In this world or irrationality, when a rational statement is made that it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, society runs the risk of being to afraid to say that yes, it"s a duck. That, my friends, is dangerous territory indeed.

- Chris

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn"t thinking." — George S. Patton

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Liked this article? Then you"ll probably like my other missives on

this topic as well. Go here to access them (free, of course).

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