The unimportant news thread

[Ken B]

Twitter is not yet all of the world.
https://www.al.com/life/2019/11/covered-waffle-house-customers-step-in-to-fill-gap-at-birmingham-restaurant.html

[Ken B]

Secret Labour Party group

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7693489/amp/Labour-Election-candidate-ran-secret-Facebook-group-advises-party-Holocaust-deniers.html?__twitter_impression=true

This is my shocked face: 

[Ken B]

"I hate it here!"

Sound familiar?

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14003

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh. But the invocation of the spirit of George Wallace And Lester Maddox  is worth noting.

[Ken B]

Stanley Milgram, fraud. https://www.psypost.org/2019/11/unpublished-data-from-stanley-milgrams-experiments-casts-doubts-on-his-claims-about-obedience-54921

[Ken B]

Chinese camps for Uighurs https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uighur-prison-camp-suspected-locations-maps-2019-11

[Florestan]

Chinese camps for Uighurs https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uighur-prison-camp-suspected-locations-maps-2019-11

Quote: China has tried to prevent journalists from reporting on what goes on inside those camps. It has formally acknowledged the existence of some of these camps, but euphemistically calls them "re-education camps," or says they offer "free vocational training."

That nice euphemism for forced labor looks as taken straight from some posts here on GMG. 

[Ken B]

Quote: China has tried to prevent journalists from reporting on what goes on inside those camps. It has formally acknowledged the existence of some of these camps, but euphemistically calls them "re-education camps," or says they offer "free vocational training."

That nice euphemism for forced labor looks as taken straight from some posts here on GMG. 

They are looking at Christians too. https://churchleaders.com/news/366396-chinese-government-scanning-churchgoers-faces-fingers.html

[JBS]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ag-announces-netanyahu-to-stand-trial-for-bribery-fraud-and-breach-of-trust/

[Ken B]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ag-announces-netanyahu-to-stand-trial-for-bribery-fraud-and-breach-of-trust/

The AG is known as a straight shooter and is a member of Likud so this does not look like just politics.

Bibi should dress in blackface. Worked for our Prime Minstrel.

[Florestan]

They are looking at Christians too. https://churchleaders.com/news/366396-chinese-government-scanning-churchgoers-faces-fingers.html

I'm not surprised in the least.

[Ken B]

This article could be clearer, but the headline is borne out: the university tribunal really did say threesomes were outrageous and no rational woman would consent to one.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/judge-approves-title-ix-suit-against-university-for-saying-women-cant-consent-to-threesomes/

The new Puritans.

[Todd]

This article could be clearer, but the headline is borne out: the university tribunal really did say threesomes were outrageous and no rational woman would consent to one.

What if the threesome involved three Women and Gender Studies majors?

[Ken B]

What if the threesome involved three Women and Gender Studies majors?

Ah well, I think I answered that 

[Todd]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg admitted to hospital after chills and a fever

It's CNN, so it's fake news.

[Todd]

Borat embraces censorship.

The bit about people he deems publishers being sent to jail is surreal.  One is forced to conclude his speech was really an act.

[Ken B]

Borat embraces censorship.

The bit about people he deems publishers being sent to jail is surreal.  One is forced to conclude his speech was really an act.

So, playing along for a moment, he wants Zuckerberg et al to exert more power doesn't he? After he complains about the Super Six having so much power, he then complains they don't exercise it.

Perhaps most revealing is his remark about Goebbels and Facebook. Goebbels succeed precisely by using the force of law to restrict information and argument. You can read about China's Uighur camps on Facebook right now. Well, you can here. You cannot in China; they practice Baron-Cohenism in re Facebook.

[Ken B]

An excellent post by Jerry Coyne on a recent bit of academic mau-mauing. https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/uc-davis-math-professor-demonized-for-criticizing-required-diversity-statements-for-academic-jobs/

[Florestan]

Today we had presidential elections in Romania.

Klaus Iohannis, the incumbent center-right president mopped the floor with his competitor, the former Social-Democratic prime-minister Viorica Dăncilă, winning 65% of the votes.

In a single year, the Social-Democratic Party lost the elections for the European Parliament, lost the government following a no-confidence vote and today lost the presidential elections too (actually, the last time they won a presidential election was in 2000). They are groggy. And I am extrermely pleased.

Yay!

[dissily Mordentroge]

An excellent post by Jerry Coyne on a recent bit of academic mau-mauing. https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/uc-davis-math-professor-demonized-for-criticizing-required-diversity-statements-for-academic-jobs/

"We should continue to do all we can to reduce barriers to participation in this most beautiful of fields." Well she did open a can of worms with that assertion.
Has it ever occurred to mathematicians, nuclear physicists et al that the underlying reality of the space we find ourselves in could be very ugly?

[drogulus]

"We should continue to do all we can to reduce barriers to participation in this most beautiful of fields." Well she did open a can of worms with that assertion.
Has it ever occurred to mathematicians, nuclear physicists et al that the underlying reality of the space we find ourselves in could be very ugly?

     I'm with Coyne on this.

     As a dedicated Sokal-ist I know how the war is fought. It's kind of like this. An Evil Crab wants to attack the bastion of liberal thought, higher education, with a right claw and a left claw. Sometimes the right one is bigger, sometimes the left one. From the Crab perspective anything that can kill liberalism in favor of overmighty ideology (rightist/theist/leftist) is good, victory for belief over discovery.

     Those of us in the liberal center rely on the discovery processes to counter self authorizing belief. We want education to be about how to think and not only what to think. We resist being pure "sideists".

     You know what they say about liberals, that they are the people who won't take their own side in an argument. That's not exactly right, I think liberals don't want to live in a world that's all claw.