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No real surprise – Trump won (wokery lost)!

November 8, 2024

I am sitting in Europe and watched the US elections with interest and fascination. I am considerably right of centre in my opinions but not, I think, closed to reasonable opinions from any quarter. I do though have great contempt for the modern “freaky woke” movements who complicate simple matters for the sake of complicating them, merely to create nonsense jobs for pretend sociologists.

I have little respect for BLM when black lives don’t matter much to other blacks in the US. (Blacks kill more blacks than any other group. Black women terminate more of their own potential children than any other ethnic group in the US. Black mothers, more than any other group, are single parents). In the spectrum of all people there are a few people who are born with some physical or mental aberrations. Among these there are a very few whose gender is physically ambiguous (intersex). Modern medicine, in some cases, can mitigate some of the problems. There are also a few who though being physically, unambiguously, either male or female do develop a belief over their growth years of being of the opposite gender. They are termed transgender and clearly suffer from some mental aberration. They do not form some new gender. There are just two genders with aberrations. It is no more complicated than that. Identity is not complicated either. It is determined at conception when an individual’s DNA is pretty well set in stone. It needs no more than that. A man pretending to be a woman or vice versa remains pretense and does not cause any change to identity. You are what you are and not what you might have liked to be.

I am not directly affected by the outcome of US elections though the world, whether it likes it or not, is indirectly impacted by who is President there. The Presidential debate in June settled the matter for me. It was a disaster for Biden.

But then he stayed in the race and only stepped down in favour of Kamala Harris at the end of July. Though this gave her a rather short time to campaign the fundamental problem was that she provided no real choice and was the wrong candidate for the Democrats. The perceptions of a sick and infectious Democratic party were much more widespread than liberal bigots like to acknowledge. She came from California – where all the sickness and wokeness came from. Where men were allowed into girls changing rooms and pedophiles into boys changing rooms. Where it was a badge of honour to be a freak. Where having the right to kill your own was considered an achievement. Where it was a point of pride to have terminated a fetus of your own as a matter of convenience.

She didn’t stand much of a chance. A flawed candidate and a doomed campaign. She was not sure of her own identity. Black first, Indian second. She was stuck between the devil and a hard place. She could not, in conscience, distance herself from Biden’s failures. And if she had she would have been a traitor.

BBC

The Harris campaign had hoped to reassemble the voting base that powered Biden’s 2020 victory, winning over the core Democratic constituencies of black, Latino and young voters as well as making further gains with college-educated suburban voters. But she underperformed with these key voting blocs. She lost 13 points with Latino voters, two points with black voters, and six points with voters under 30, according to exit polls, which may change as votes are counted, but are considered representative of trends. …

While women largely threw their support behind Harris over Trump, the vice-president’s lead did not exceed the margins that her campaign had hoped her historic candidacy would turn out. And she was unable to deliver on her ambitions of winning over suburban Republican women, losing 53% of white women. ….. In the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Democrats had hoped her focus on the fight for reproductive rights would deliver a decisive victory. While some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for Harris, it fell short of the 57% who backed Biden in 2020, according to exit poll data. …….

In the final stretch, however, Harris made a tactical decision to again highlight the dangers of a second Trump presidency, calling the president a “fascist” and campaigning with disaffected Republicans fed up with his rhetoric. After Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, told the New York Times that Trump spoke approvingly about Adolf Hitler, Harris delivered remarks outside her official residence describing the president as “unhinged and unstable”. “Kamala Harris lost this election when she pivoted to focus almost exclusively on attacking Donald Trump,” veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said ……

The perception here is that most of the legal cases against Trump were brought by Democratic prosecutors on a witch hunt. I suspect they actually helped the resolve of his die-hard supporters and even engendered the “Trump as victim” meme. Trump’s undoubted vulgarity has been largely discounted by the US electorate. Trump as misogynist does not quite wash. He certainly has no time or patience with feminism without femininity. His view of women is that of a playboy – not that of a misogynist.

I was not surprised at the result. Certainly, in my opinion, the direction for the US and for the world is better off with Trump than with Kamala Harris. I think the Democrats need to ask themselves how it can be that the Presidency, the Senate and maybe even the House will all be Red in spite of Trump. They are so blinkered by the freaky woke that they are missing the real issues.

With Trump I am expecting some more protectionism and a little less globalism. That is a good thing. A little more bilateralism and a little less multinationalism. That is not a bad thing either. I expect small businesses to fuel growth much more than large global companies. This will trickle down to other countries as well. I hope that the parasitic part of academia in the US shrinks by purging itself of all the nonsense sociology departments and students.  I look forward to the US reverting to common sense and walking back some of the freaky wokery that has been indulged in. I am expecting that the Russian/Ukraine war will come to an end in 2025 – somehow. The terms may not be to the EU’s liking but it will end. The fighting will come to a stop in Gaza as well and Netanyahu will step down.

I am now looking for a bunch of Hollywood stars to relocate to houses on the Mediterranean coast. Not that they matter.

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Why I see race as a brute fact which needs no social construction

October 23, 2024

One of the modern delusions promoted by behavioural apologists is that race is a social construct. Yet the same people tend to be those promoting “affirmative action” which is a kind of reverse discrimination based on the races which they don’t see existing!

I see race as brute fact of existence which originates in ancestry/genetics and not in social engineering.

Why evolution is true

…. if races/ethnic groups can be diagnosed with over 99% accuracy by using information from many bits of the genome, then the statement “Race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological meaning” is simply wrong. Race and ethnicity, even when diagnosed by individuals themselves, do have scientific biological meaning: namely, they tell us about an individual’s ancestry and where their ancestors probably came from. This is true in the U.S. (this paper) or worldwide (the Rosenberg et al. paper). Further, if you look on a finer scale, as Novembre et al. did, you can even diagnose what part of Europe a European’s ancestors came from (it’s not perfect, of course, but it’s pretty good).

  • All visible physical characteristics used to create classification clusters for a race are real and due to ancestry/genetics.
  • The physical attributes are brute facts and social construction is of no relevance in their reality.
  • A tall person is a tall person because of his height and calling him tall needs no social construct to be invoked. Social engineering does not move a short person into the ranks of the tall race.
  • A “child” is a child because of age and “children” are real and not some artificial social construct.
  • A black person – irrespective of the hue of his skin – of black ancestry is a black person whatever any social construct may pretend.
  • Being blonde or blue-eyed or having curly hair are all characteristics determined by ancestry/genetics. They are never a social construction.
  • An Indian of Indian ancestry is a member of the Indian race whatever else any social school may pretend.
  • A Chinese of Chinese ancestry is of the Chinese race whatever any social mumbo-jumbo may pretend.
  • Blackness or Indianness or Chineseness, which are represented by the cluster of visible physical attributes typical of being a member of the black race, the Indian race or the Chinese race, are brute facts of existence and are not socially engineered.
  • Social engineering does not create the physical attributes of people. There is no physical characteristic used in describing race which is not genetic (Skin colour, hair colour and appearance, eye-colour and shape, height and width, ….). Race is never based on clustering according to social characteristics (even if happiness and truthfulness surveys are reported by country).
  • That some races of man have been repressed, abused, exploited and badly treated by other races of men is also brute fact.
  • The existence of the races themselves is brute fact and not a social construct. The social behaviour or misbehaviour of some races to other races – historically and now – are social constructs.
  • Addressing past misbehviour against some races is itself a tacit acknowledgement of the existence of the races.

The races of man are a useful, practical classification of clusters of visible, physical attributes manifested by people at any given time. It is rooted in the primal survival traits of “we” and “them”. It is a convenient classification by how people look. And how they look is genetic not social. The clustering may change over time but rather slowly across generations. The races were slightly different in Roman times but not so very different. There were surely races 100,000 years ago but those would have looked very different to the races we recognize today. At any given time the races recognized are generally based on easily distinguishable characteristics, all of which are a consequence of ancestry/genetics. Whether members of some races are treated well or badly by members of other races may well be of social concern. But the existence of the races is not caused by social construction.

Race is a brute fact and needs no social construction to exist. Or to put it another way, social construction adds no value to the definition of races which have been established by ancestry/genetics.

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The real interests in the Arctic

January 26, 2014

Much of what is said or written about the Arctic – especially by governments or government funded institutions – is political positioning for military reasons, for staking a claim to the resources in the region, or to ensure potential sea transportation routes. Denmark’s positional strength is entirely dependent upon Greenland being part of Denmark whereas Iceland is only a second-tier country as far as rights in the Arctic are concerned. Without Alaska, the US would be in a very much weaker position (and in 1867 the purchase price paid to the Russians was just $7.2 million, or about 2 cents per acre!)

The region is divided into five sectors of responsibility between Russia, the US, Norway, Canada and Denmark. But there are others wishing to develop rich Arctic resources. Among them there are Sweden, Finland and Iceland. 

Arctic Circle Image Athropolis.com

Arctic Circle Image Athropolis.com

The Russians have just had a conference about future development of the Arctic Region:

The Arctic is in the zone of Russia’s special interests. During the last week,

  • the Russian authorities, experts and the international community were actively engaged in the issues of developing the Arctic region.
  • President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on the issue of military presence in the Arctic;
  • leading political scientists and scholars participated in a round table discussion of the development of infrastructure in the Arctic;
  • and the International Maritime Organization announced an adoption of the Polar Code in the coming days.

……. It’s not a secret that a conflict is swelling between the countries making bids for the development of this territory rich of hydrocarbons and having a unique transit potential. Last year, Putin urged the Ministry of Defense “to pay special attention to the deployment of infrastructure and military units in the Arctic direction.” Today, the military industry is ready to supply the Defense Department with weapons that may be required in Northern latitudes. ….. Next to Russia, the US announced the increasing of its military presence in the Arctic. In these circumstances, Moscow needs to adhere to the course that was chosen during the Soviet times, member of the Federation Council Nikolay Fedoryak says.

“Back then, a serious contingent of Soviet troops was present in the Arctic. The troops located there mainly defended us from a possible air attack of the enemy. It’s not a secret that all strategic routes of US bombers were laid through the North Pole. Now, American capabilities of using high-precision weapons are significantly higher than in 1970-80ies. Therefore, it is inevitable that we need to restore the infrastructure and even do it on a higher level, so that we can protect our national interests. And if we don’t do it now, we may be late.”

…..  Russia puts great hopes on the development of the Northern Sea Route, which may become the most popular route from Europe to Asia. Its use will be strictly regulated in two years. The International Maritime Organization has announced its readiness to adopt the Polar Code of shipping. It will define international standards of the use of the Arctic for transportation purposes. The voluminous document will define in details what vessels and their crews, whose route passes above the 72nd parallel north, can and cannot do.

Until now, strange as it may seem, there were no international conventions regulating navigation in the Arctic. In other words, the same rules as those applied to the Adriatic Sea or in the Mediterranean with their mild climate were applied to the severe Northern region. However, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 stated that each state could introduce its own rules of Arctic shipping, head of the Center of Maritime Law Vasily Gutsulyak says.

“The international community can establish provisions on the environmental protection in Northern areas. Thus, it provides a carte blanche to extend the application of a number of international conventions to the Arctic. But the Polar Code quite clearly determines the order of requirements to vessels.”

The game is really worth it. Enormous reserves of hydrocarbons – for example, more than 90 billion barrels of oil – are concentrated in the Arctic. Hence, he who is the most active player in the Arctic direction will secure economic and geopolitical influence in the region.

The positioning of each country is immediately obvious in news articles and the statements of politicians. But it it is also discernible in most scientific papers about the Arctic and especially those about climate and the potential for ice-free regions giving rise to potential new sea routes. Many so-called “scientific expeditions” to the Arctic (just as with the Antarctic) are merely for demonstrating a presence or establishing a claim, for

he who is the most active player in the Arctic direction will secure economic and geopolitical influence in the region.

The next frontier after the Arctic and Antarctic which will see countries similarly jostling for position will surely be the moon. Positioning is one of the key drivers for the Chinese Chang’e-3 moon mission and for the Jade Bunny’s gambolling there. Similarly the Japanese and Indian Space Programmes have political and commercial positioning goals among their key drivers.

Science fiction is coming to life. Within 100 years we shall probably see Japan and China playing out their terrestrial island territorial disputes also around planets and asteroids in space. I have visions of some astronauts being left on asteroids by one country or the other to establish territorial claims!! Maybe we will see mining companies “occupying” mineral rich asteroids.

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Unions+con-men+lawyers+sleaze = Julia Gillard?

August 13, 2012

I first came across Australian politics some 25 years ago when trying to sell a turnkey power plant to be located in W. Australia. I found myself trying to negotiate through a morass of cronyism together with convoluted local and national politics which I never did succeed to decipher.  Since then I have been a fascinated – but always confused – observer of Australian politics. I never did manage to sell that particular power plant in Bunbury but I did manage to see a couple of Test matches at the WACA. I have subsequently sold steam and gas turbines  in Australia where these projects did not attract the same level of political interest. But I still have  a very meagre understanding of how things actually get done within Australian politics.

An Australian political cartoonist – Larry Pickering – has been running a series of articles on his blog (4 parts – so far – with part 5 yet to come just published). The contents seem to reveal a web of corruption and deceit encompassing a crooked union leader, the AWU, dirty weekends, a law firm and Julia Gillard who was then employed at that firm. Somewhere along the line Ms. Gillard was apparently sacked from the law firm and then entered politics. The revelations appear quite explosive to me but I note there is almost no coverage of these in the Australian media. I am not quite sure what to make of the apparent disinterest of the MSM. It could be that the “revelations” are pretty tame and just represent  the “normal” and expected behaviour of Australian politicians?

Part One: Our Prime minister is a Crook

Part Two: Is our Prime Minister a Crook?

Part Three: Is our Prime Minister a Crook?

Part Four: Is our Prime Minister a Crook?

UPDATE!

Part 5: Is our Prime Minister a crook?

Larry Pickering’s cartoons are pretty interesting as well. The Bolt Games are over now and I like this one:

Cartoon by Larry Pickering

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Swedish Social Democrats commit suicide as they destroy their own leader

October 14, 2011

I was not much impressed by the “back-room” election of Håkan Juholt as the leader of the Swedish Social Democrats and nor have I been very impressed by his performance to date. But the current media storm over his “failings” (excessive housing and travel expense claims, vacillation on immigration and citizenship and embellishing his credentials as a young politician) is I think entirely fuelled by forces within his own party which have decided to take revenge for the manner in which they were ignored and overridden in the battle for the party leadership. The timing  and the drip feeding of all the revelations over the last week screams of an “inside job”. There are some who are now blaming the media feeding frenzy – which no doubt exists – but it was surely initiated – and perhaps orchestrated – by a few of his party “colleagues”.

But this internecine feuding will surely keep the Social Democrats out of government for a long time to come.

Irrespective of whether he will actually be found to have broken any laws or parliamentary rules, his position and that of his party has been destroyed for the next election in 2014. The prevailing perception – that will surely dominate the next election – is of a party which is supposed to represent workers, weaker members of society and the downtrodden but where the representatives are a grubby, greedy, hypocritical lot looking for every possibility of lining their own pockets. They have opened themselves up for unending attacks regarding their ethics. All social democratic politicians can now be  accused of embodying a “do as I say and not a do as I do” mentality.

Needless to say, the left-wing of the party which organised the coup which made Juholt the party leader 6 months ago are now whining and busy blaming the “neo-liberal” wing for leaking and initiating the whole affair. As one of them- Daniel Suhonen – puts it:

Maybe Juholt needs to go, maybe he deserves it. But the story of how this has happened for probably all the wrong reasons, and how the trap was sprung by the
neo-liberal, right-oriented social democrats in the county of Stockholm has yet to be revealed.

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