Tidbits Political Quotations
To Accompany the July 30, 2020 Edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2020/Tidbits073020.htm             
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University




My Latest Web Document
Over 600 Examples of Critical Thinking and Illustrations of How to Mislead With Statistics --
-
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.htm

Animated  Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010) ---
A Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010)

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
The published national debt is a lie
Here's the real federal debt ---
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/about/our_national_debt

Debt to GDP Ratio by Country 2020 ---
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-national-debt/

Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE 

MIT's Links to Covid-19 Trackers Around the World ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1000961/launching-mittr-covid-tracing-tracker/

Johns Hopkins University:  Updated Map and Table on the Number of Coronavirus Cases for Every Nation ---
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Accuracy is subject to wide margins of error for every nation and varies greatly between nations.

Covid019 in New Hampshire ---
https://www.nh.gov/covid19/

The best maps for comparing counties and towns in your state are provided by your state. For example, here's the map showing the distribution of cases for New Hampshire counties and towns ---
https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-coronavirus-map/32009329#
 


 

Beautiful News Daily (news and statistics to offset all of today's bad news) ---
https://informationisbeautiful.net/beautifulnews/

 

 Here's a humorous and serious TED talk that seriously argues why the world needs billionaires

https://www.ted.com/talks/harald_eia_where_in_the_world_is_it_easiest_to_get_rich
 

Why did Cuba abandon its socialist/communist dream of equality for everybody?
The Guardian:  This was the egalitarian dream of Cuba in the 1960s: For years in Cuba, jobs as varied as farm workers and doctors only had a difference in their wages of the equivalent of a few US dollars a month.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/12/cuba 

 

Here's a somber and serious Guardian article on why the Cuban model of income equality for all is a disaster ---
Fidel Castro says his economic system is failing ---
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/09/fidel-castro-cuba-economic-model

 

Miracle of Chile --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile
Movie:  The Chicago Boys of Chile ---
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/chicagoboysenglish

 

The Singapore Dream:  How Singapore's richest man went from welding in a factory for $14 per hour to owning a $17 billion hotpot restaurant chain ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/life-of-singapore-richest-man-from-welder-to-hotpot-billionaire-2020-1

 

While a move is underway to destroy the American Dream of rags to riches (by taxing away the riches) the Chinese dream is on the rise.
The Chinese Dream
How a Chinese billionaire went from making $16 a month in a factory to being one of the world's richest self-made women with an $8.3 billion real-estate empire ---

https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-richest-self-made-woman-wu-yajun-net-worth-2019-2

Top 50 Billionaires in China ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_by_net_worth

Jensen Comment
The question for students to debate is why a supposed communist country allows so many billionaires to rise up from poverty.
That's supposed to happen in the USA where a child growing up in deep poverty (think Oprah Winfrey or Howard Shultz) became a multi-billionaires.
But is it also supposed to happen under communism? If so, why?

 

One reason is that many billionaires can afford to pour lots of money into high risk ventures. When's the last time you heard about a high risk (think Silicon Valley) venture in Europe?


 

Wikiquote from Wikipedia --- https://www.wikiquote.org/

 

"This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House, with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone"
John F. Kennedy at a White House party

 

The True Meaning of Memorial Day Isn’t a Three-Day Weekend ---
https://www.ozy.com/news-and-politics/the-true-meaning-of-memorial-day-isnt-a-three-day-weekend/78579/?utm_term=OZY&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyDose%20%282020-05-25%2016:37:44%29&utm_content=B

 

When the Great Scorer comes to write against your name, one unforgiveable sin (racial profiling) outweighs all the good you've done in life.

Bob Jensen

 

Kobe Bryant:  We need to make the most of every minute we have ---
https://www.newsweek.com/i-wont-take-see-you-later-granted-148449

 

Hermann Weyl born in Hamburg, Germany. He wrote, "One may say that mathematics talks about the things which are of no concern to men. Mathematics has the inhuman quality of starlight---brilliant, sharp, but cold ... thus we are clearest where knowledge matters least: in mathematics, especially number theory." ---
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Weyl.html
Also see Mathematical Analytics in Plato's Cave
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm#Analytics

 

And nevertheless conclude that the optimum amount of restriction of immigration is zero point zero, zero, zero? Amazing. Economics are generally skeptical models that yield corner solutions ---
https://www.econlib.org/do-you-talk-about-it-in-open-borders-yes/
Jensen Comment
To the list of questions I would add "Do your talk about the Tragedy of the Commons?"
The problem with open borders is somewhat related to the economic problem of "The Sharing of the Commons" where giving everybody the right to use a free resource leads to everybody losing that resource. At what point will allowing billions of people share in the free medical care, free college, and other scarce resources ruin it for everybody ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

 

History of United States Immigration Laws ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGCkZzrvQkcFbRplBPwBFwmFDs

 

Open immigration can’t exist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure healthcare and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global ---
Paul Krugman
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/724654-open-immigration-can-t-exist-with-a-strong-social-safety-net

 

History will prove former President Donald Trump was correct about Mexico one day funding an impenetrable wall --- to keep out over 2 billion starving green immigrants seeking to enter Mexico from the north.
Bob Jensen

 

Assorted Charlie Munger Quotations ---

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-charlie-munger-12-best-quotes-2020-5-1029210949

 

Walter E. Williams:  Insults to Black History ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/06/24/insults-to-black-history-n2571095?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=06/24/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 

Walter E. Williams:  The True Plight of Black Americans

https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/06/10/the-true-plight-of-black-americans-n2570249

 

Is Racism Responsible for Today's Black Problems? ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/07/29/is-racism-responsible-for-todays-black-problems-n2573212?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/29/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 

Some Fatherly Words of Wisdom from Jack Bogle, Founder of Vanguard Investments, to My Sons ---
https://jborden.com/2019/06/16/some-fatherly-words-of-wisdom-from-jack-bogle-founder-of-vanguard-investments-to-my-sons/

 

Walter A. Williams:  The Nation's Report Card
How are K-12 schools doing under President Trump versus President Obama?
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/05/06/the-nations-report-card-n2568167?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=05/06/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Jensen's Comment
Most K-12 schools were probably doing better when I was a child than they're doing today. The downhill slide is greatest in the gang-ridden schools, drug-infested urban schools like Chicago and New Orleans. Throwing money at such schools is not the answer until life at home recovers. Finland knows this, which is why Finland's dads spend more time with school children than the moms or the teachers.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/04/finland-only-country-world-dad-more-time-kids-moms

 

Walter E. Williams:  Insane News Tidbits ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/05/27/insane-news-tidbits-n2569329?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=05/27/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 

Milton Friedman:  The Lesson of the Spoons ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/08/spoons-are-in-aisle-9.html
Chopsticks would be even better

 

Rep. Ilhan Omar Calls For “Dismantling” of US “Economy and Political Systems” (VIDEO) ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/944250-radical-seattle-city-councilmember-kshama-sawant-vows-to-overthrow-the-united-states-and-replace-with-a-socialist-world?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=1Cugtgg08BDw-1AwBlaN1Qmmriw..A
Jensen Comment
Republicans are most grateful that Omar played a huge role in getting Biden nominated

 

Portland Antifa and Black Lives Matter launched explosives at the Federal Courthouse and Justice Center while attempting to barricade agents inside on the 50th night of riots in the ultra liberal city ---
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/breaking-portland-antifa-blm-launch-explosives-federal-building-barricading-agents-inside/
I think Nancy Pelosi is happy about this since the Federal "storm troopers" seem to be losing the battle ---
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/nancy-pelosi-calls-dhs-agents-nazi-stormtroopers-sent-portland-following-40-days-leftist-rioting-mass-destruction/

Oregon will sue federal agencies over use of force against protesters ---
https://nypost.com/2020/07/18/oregon-will-sue-feds-over-use-of-force-against-protesters/

 

The Antifa Brought Weapons And Will Bring Them Again Until They Get Their Civil War
Three Federal Agents May Have Been Blinded Permanently by Antifa-BLM Lasers in Portland ---
https://www.fox13news.com/news/federal-officers-in-portland-may-have-been-permanently-blinded-by-lasers-officials-say
I'm afraid the the defunded and defanged police are helpless in fighting the armed Antifa-led mobs.

One day white supremacist snipers may enter the fray and Antifa will finally get the Marxist Civil War it really wants.
The said thing is that BLM activists will one day regret being led into that civil war by Antifa Marxists

 

Radical Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant Vows to Militantly Overthrow the United States and Replace with “a Socialist World” ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/944250-radical-seattle-city-councilmember-kshama-sawant-vows-to-overthrow-the-united-states-and-replace-with-a-socialist-world?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=1Cugtgg08BDw-1AwBlaN1Qmmriw..A
Also see
https://mynorthwest.com/1850633/rantz-socialist-kshama-sawant-militant-takeover-amazon/?

 

Black Police Chief Explains to Seattle Councilwoman That She Can't Fire White Officers Just Because They're White ---

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/07/black-police-chief-explains-seattle-councilwoman-daniel-greenfield/

 

"In Praise of Cheap Labor," by Paul Krugman, Slate, March 21, 1997 ---
https://slate.com/business/1997/03/in-praise-of-cheap-labor.html

 

Corruption in general has a deleterious effect on the readiness of economic agents to invest. In the long run, it leads to a paralysis of economic life. But very often it is not that economic agents themselves have had the bad experience of being cheated and ruined, they just know that in this country, or in this part of the economy, or this building scene, there is a high likelihood that you will get cheated and that free riders can get away with it. Here again, reputation is absolutely essential, which is why transparency is so important. Trust can only be engendered by transparency. It's no coincidence that the name of the most influential non-governmental organization dealing with corruption is Transparency International.
A Conversation with Karl Sigmund:  When Rule of Law is Not Working
https://www.edge.org/conversation/karl_sigmund-when-the-rule-of-law-is-not-working

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum ---

Augustus De Morgan

Prior to 1980 what was unique about the year of his birth in 1871?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/De_Morgan.html

Also see
 

The enemy is fear
We think it's hate
But, it's fear

Gandhi

 

12 inspiring quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.---
https://www.businessinsider.com/inspiring-martin-luther-king-jr-quotes-2017-1

 

‘Never Be Afraid’: William Faulkner’s Speech to His Daughter’s Graduating Class in 1951 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/05/never-be-afraid-william-faulkners-speech-to-his-daughters-graduating-class-in-1951.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

 

21 outstanding Warren Buffet quotations ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-21-best-quotes-2019-2
Also see
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-25-best-warren-buffett-quotes-in-one-infographic/

History of United States Immigration Laws ---
https://rapidvisa.com/history-of-united-states-immigration-laws/

Will Nextpolis become the new Hong Kong?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/07/a-hong-kong-enclave-in-ireland.html
Jensen Comment
I doubt if the proposed location of Nextopolis will work well unless the EU gives Nextopolis exemptions from the many and severe regulations in the EU.  The same can be said for the West Coast of Canada since Canada is also bound up in regulations. It would be dangerous to locate it in Tiawan. Singapore has a better shot.

Hydroxychloroquine could save up to 100,000 lives if used for COVID-19: Yale epidemiology professor ---
https://www.foxnews.com/media/hydroxychloroquine-could-save-lives-ingraham-yale-professor

NYT:  Should We Cancel Aristotle? He defended slavery and opposed the notion of human equality ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/opinion/should-we-cancel-aristotle.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Walter E. Williams:  Rotten Education Isn't Preordained:  in 2016, in 13 Baltimore high schools, not a single student tested proficient in math ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/05/20/rotten-education-isnt-preordained-n2569005?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=05/20/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

The Politidcally Correct Goose Step May Ruin Universities ---
https://mises.org/wire/are-universities-finished?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=96712ec7ff-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_17_06_30_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-96712ec7ff-228708937

THE MEDIA'S JIHAD AGAINST SWEDEN'S NO-LOCKDOWN POLICY IGNORES KEY FACTS ---
https://mises.org/power-market/medias-jihad-against-swedens-no-lockdown-policy-ignores-key-facts?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=73aebfbd79-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-73aebfbd79-228708937

Did you notice how Snopes is totally ignoring the latest research showing positive impacts of Hydroxychloroquine?
https://www.snopes.com/
Jensen Comment
Snopes is notorious in cherry picking what it "fact checks"

Iranian People Mock General Salami’s Secret ‘Magnetic Coronavirus Detection Machine’ ---
https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2020/07/15/iranians-mock-general-salamis-secret-magnetic-coronavirus-detection-machine/

How much trade is dodging Trump’s China tariffs?
https://qz.com/1874110/how-much-trade-is-dodging-trumps-china-tariffs/

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Where Is the Outrage Over Anti-Semitism in Sports and Hollywood?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kareem-abdul-jabbar-is-outrage-anti-semitism-sports-hollywood-1303210

Smithsonian’s Anti-White Propaganda ---
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/smithsonian-whiteness-anti-white-propaganda/

A Short Documentary on the Courageous Tuskegee Airmen, Narrated by Morgan Freeman ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/07/a-short-documentary-on-the-courageous-red-tails-tuskegee-airmen.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+OpenCulture+(Open+Culture)

Moskos on Surging Crime in NYC ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/07/moskos-on-surging-crime-in-nyc.html

After the whites, police, and businesses leave NYC AOC and her comrades are welcome to it ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/alexcorey/2020/07/16/aoc-calls-for-cuomo-to-support-billionaires-tax-n2572623?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/17/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167
Amazon is lucky to be scared off by AOC's threats to destroy it's NYC preliminary choice for a second headquarters.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture Removes Chart on “Whiteness” ---
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/07/the-national-museum-of-african-american-history-and-culture-removes-chart-on-whiteness/

Reason Magazine: Black Lives Matter 'Is Hostile Towards Free Markets and Capitalism' ---
https://reason.com/podcast/kmele-foster-black-lives-matter-is-hostile-towards-free-markets-and-capitalism/

Curious Why US News Networks Are Supportive of Chinese Government? Just Look at the Corporate Ownership ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/bradslager/2020/04/24/curious-why-us-news-networks-are-supportive-of-chinese-government-just-look-at-the-corporate-ownership-n2567504

On July 21, 2020 National News ABC repeated this well-known error
As of July 17, 2020, Nueces County in Texas had seen 85 positive COVID-19 tests among children aged under 1 year
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/85-babies-covid-texas-county/
There's no excuse after other news services retracted the claim

Vox mostly publishes leftist articles
Progressives Don't Love Joe Biden, But They're Learning to Love His $10+ Trillion in New Spending -
--
https://www.vox.com/21322478/joe-biden-overton-window-bidenism
Not mentioned in the article is his new promise of nearly $1 trillion annually for child and elder care (beyond Medicaid) funded by taxing wealthy real estate investors who are now taking an enormous hit in USA cities hit hard by the  simultaneous whammy of Covid-19, flight of high income people who can absorb losses now to escape larger losses in the future, and crashing real estate markets ---
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-estate-crash-next-shoe-012742635.html
Also see Ican's multibillion short position taken on commercial real estate ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/04/25/icahn-sees-further-market-crash-from-coronavirus-says-hes-shorting-commercial-real-estate/#193b49ca256e

DNC Held Hostage: 15% Of Dem Delegates ‘Committed’ Socialists' Who Will 'Tear It Down' ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/963126-dnc-held-hostage-15-of-dem-delegates-committed-socialists-who-will-tear-it-down?utm_source=c-am&utm_medium=c-am-email&utm_term=c-am-GI&utm_content=697zxgAhCmuHg4vas74EBzlnoWM3eNVp0oCrhLuQnY-I.A

Why Detroit has been spared the violent protests happening in other urban centers across the U.S. ---
https://www.foxnews.com/media/detroit-police-chief-we-dont-retreat-here
Jensen Comment
I think Detroit is appreciative of the billions spent recently by the public and private sectors on its recovery --- billions for new factories, housing recovery, public services (think plumbing and electricity), etc. Detroit is unwilling to throw all that progress away on a Marxist quest for civil war.

Asheville, N.C., City Council Unanimously Approves Reparations for Black People (need not be descended from slaves) ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/953550-asheville-nc-city-council-unanimously-approves-reparations-for-black-people-special?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=4_IBzIGwv_cPJlMRU4kb7RWtLkQ..A
Jensen Comment
No mention of requirements for residency or being "Black." Payments will not be paid to individuals, but qualified residents may share in the benefits like housing and housing improvements dedicated to this initiative. Apparently other minorities will not share these benefits but may be taxed to help their Black brethren. Presumably the city will not allow discriminatory wages, but these are mostly illegal anyway. Perhaps there will be more enforcement such as when teenage Blacks are hired to do domestic chores like baby sitting or mowing lawn or taking care of pets. Limits on health care benefits are not discussed, but presumably this will not go so far as to pay for organ transplants. Remember Paul Krugman's warning:
Open immigration can’t exist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure healthcare and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global ---
Paul Krugman
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/724654-open-immigration-can-t-exist-with-a-strong-social-safety-net
This applies to "open immigration" of any people coming into a town. Ashville could not afford thousands of people coming to town just for generous "reparation" benefits.

Remarkable data on wealth inequality in Germany ---
https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1287701766830583811
Extreme wealth inequality in the USA, China, Russia, and elsewhere does not surprise me, but the German data surprised me. The inequality is not so visible when you visit the country like Erika and I used to visit her relatives quite often and I did a few gigs at German universities (to pay for my supper). Like Japan there's much more collaboration between government and Germany's banks and businesses. When I lectured in classes in Germany it also amazed me how large and crowded the classrooms were even in graduate courses.

Anyone Catch ABC News' Odd Tweet About the Mayhem in California?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/07/27/anyone-catch-abc-news-odd-tweet-about-the-mayhem-in-california-n2573174?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/27/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Newsweek:  In the future, I believe this misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence ---
HARVEY A. RISCH, MD, PHD , PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, YALE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535
Jensen Comment
It amazed me how the leftist media (including Snopes and the NYT) ignored studies, such as from the NYU School of Medicine, that showed positive results for hydroxychloroquine in combination with other ingredients.

 




 

Who Are the Real Victims When We Abandon Surveillance in Policing, Academic Cheating, Credit Card Fraud, Traffic Violations, Shoplifting, etc.?

 

MIT:  Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/17/1005396/predictive-policing-algorithms-racist-dismantled-machine-learning-bias-criminal-justice/

 

Surveillance for plagiarism, examination Integrity, etc. are cop-shit racist. They need to be dismantled ---
http://hackeducation.com/2020/07/20/surveillance 

Indeed, I will close by saying that — as with so much in ed-tech — the actual tech itself may be a distraction from the conversation we should have about what we actually want teaching and learning to look like. We have to chance the culture of schools not just adopt kinder ed-tech. Chances are, if you want to focus on the tech because it's tech, you're selling "cop shit."

Jensen Comments
When George Orwell published A renowned book entitled 1984 that anticipated (too soon) a police world (where Big Brother watched your every move) nearly everyone got concerned that freedom and innovation would end in police world taken to its utmost extreme ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. Many terms used in the novel have entered common usage, including Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, prole, and memory hole. Nineteen Eighty-Four also popularised the adjective "Orwellian", connoting things such as official deception, secret surveillance, brazenly misleading terminology, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state. Time included it on its 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[5] It was placed on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, reaching No. 13 on the editors' list and No. 6 on the readers' list.[6] In 2003, the novel was listed at No. 8 on The Big Read survey by the BBC.[7] Parallels have been drawn between the novel's subject matter and real life instances of totalitarianism, communism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression among other themes.[8][9][10]

 

Until the BLM, we've allowed surveillance technology Big Brotherism to creep into society in the name of academic integrity, public safety, and, yeah, even social justice. The City of London is covered by video surveillance more than any other city --- in part to detect bombers before they plant their bombs in public transit systems, schools, parks, public buildings, etc. Teachers routinely use plagiarism detection software and software to detect exam cheating (especially when students are remotely located).

 

After the BLM protests brought us a revelation that racism truly is endemic in all nations we've started to dismantle some of our surveillance tools on the claim that they are racist. The Sacramento Bee newspaper no longer will publish any pictures of wanted criminals because the proportion of blacks being pictured would be most likely racist even when those wanted criminals might be terrorists, murderers, rapists, and pedophiles. St. Louis no longer prosecutes looters and shoplifters because those jailed would be disproportionately Black.

 

We've hit a point where preventing racism trumps preventing all other crimes and cheating.

 

No concern is given to victims of reduced surveillance.

 

In academe if you eliminate cheating surveillance or give everybody A or A- grades the schools the will lose their reputations for academic integrity. Even worse you've weakened the learning process. When a plagiarized term paper earns an A grade just as much as a carefully researched term paper you've turned some learners into transcribers who no longer have to think beyond thinking of what they can transcribe. Actually in a cut-and-paste computer world they no longer even transcribe/read,

 

Exhibit A is my oft-repeated illustration where over 60+ students in political science course plagiarized turned-in homework. Their reasoning was that since they we're assured that all students who did the work would get A grades for the course why waste time doing the homework? To Harvard's credit, however, over 60 cheaters were expelled from Harvard University on grounds that they violated the sacred Harvard Honor Code. Harvard has such an honor code because Harvard University places great value on academic integrity at Harvard.

 

Schools that weaken their academic integrity surveillance should not be surprised when they also lose their academic reputations.

 

Who are the real victims of the loss in their schools' academic reputations?
The victims are the graduates themselves, especially the Black graduates that society (especially ignorant white supremacists) will blame Blacks as the reason schools no longer have academic integrity.

 

Now let's turn to predictive policing where preventing racism is now supposed to trump preventing high crimes like terrorism murder, rape, domestic abuse, etc.

Predictive Policing:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_policing

 

Over 1,500 mathematicians have signed a letter urging the community to stop working with police:  Don't those mathematician's care about black victims of fraud, robbery, rapes, arson, domestic abuse, and murder?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/06/24/mathematicians-urge-cutting-ties-police?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=5feb7348e1-DNU_2019_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-5feb7348e1-197565045&mc_cid=5feb7348e1&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Nationwide protests against anti-Black racism and police violence have sparked demands and reckonings in several corners of higher education and academe.

The latest to join the fray is the discipline of mathematics. Ten mathematicians from eight universities and one company wrote an open letter last week calling for mathematicians to cease collaborating with police departments. The letter also urges math scholars to publicly audit influential algorithms and to embed learning outcomes related to ethics in data science curriculums.

 

"It's a political belief, that collaborating with police in any capacity contributes to white supremacist violence and oppression," said Tarik Aougab, a math professor at Haverford College and one of the letter writers, speaking personally on his motivations. "Really any collaboration between mathematics, which is something that I love and that I find extremely beautiful, and the institution of policing shouldn't happen."

The letter has 1,500 verified signatures from mathematicians, Aougab said, although that number is not limited to academic mathematicians. The letter has been submitted to and accepted by the Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

 

The letter writers take particular aim at "predictive policing," which involves using data and mathematics to predict where crime will happen.

"Many of our colleagues can and do work with police departments to provide modeling and data work," the letter said, noting that in 2016 the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics at Brown University held a one-week workshop on predictive policing.

 

PredPol, a major predictive policing company, says that its technology is being used to protect one out of every 33 people in the United States.

Opposition to predictive policing is not new. Academics have raised concerns in recent years about the mathematical theory underlying the technology and its tendency to create self-reinforcing feedback loops ("It is predicting future policing, not future crime," said a 2017 paper on the subject).

 

Although the group has gotten some pushback for not having personally worked with predictive policing mathematics, Aougab said that for them, opposition to the technology isn't based on finding errors in equations or formulas.

Continued in article

 

Professor Walter E. Williams was raised by a single mom in an urban ghetto ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams

 

Walter E. Williams:  The True Plight of Black Americans ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/06/10/the-true-plight-of-black-americans-n2570249

To put police shootings in a bit of perspective, in Chicago alone in 2020 there have been 1,260 shootings and 256 homicides with blacks being the primary victims. That comes to one shooting victim every three hours and one homicide victim every 15 hours. Three people in Chicago have been killed by police. If one is truly concerned about black deaths, shootings by police should figure way down on one's list -- which is not to excuse bad behavior by some police officers.
[denying predictive policing in Chicago will be far more damaging to its enormous Black community than to its white community fleeing to the suburbs at every chance]

 

Walter E. Williams:  Rotten Education Isn't Preordained:  in 2016, in 13 Baltimore high schools, not a single student tested proficient in math ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/05/20/rotten-education-isnt-preordained-n2569005?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=05/20/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167
Even of math appears to be a racist subject matter we should not water it down to almost nothing because test results suggest it's a racist subject matter

 

Is Racism Responsible for Today's Black Problems? ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/07/29/is-racism-responsible-for-todays-black-problems-n2573212?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/29/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 

Walter E. Williams:  Stop Question, and Frisk Can Help (meaning help prevent minorities from becoming victims of violent crimes) ---
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/feb/28/walter-williams-stop-question-and-frisk/

 

Walter A. Williams:  The Nation's Report Card
How are K-12 schools doing under President Trump versus President Obama?
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/05/06/the-nations-report-card-n2568167?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=05/06/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 

. . .

The school climate, seldom discussed, plays a very important role in education. During the 2017-18 school year, there were an estimated 962,300 violent incidents and 476,100 nonviolent incidents U.S. public schools nationwide. Seventy-one percent of schools reported having at least one violent incident, and 65% reported having at least one nonviolent incident. Schools with 1,000 or more students had at least one sworn law enforcement officer. About 90% of those law enforcement officers (used to) carry firearms. 
[but we shouldn't use predictive policing to anticipate who will instigate school violence since it might predict a disproportionate number of Blacks]

 

Aside from violence, there are many instances of outright disrespect for teachers. First- and second-graders telling teachers to "Shut the f--- up." To note the attitude of some school administrators, a New Jersey teacher was seriously assaulted by a student. When she asked her principal to permanently remove the student from her classroom, the principal told her to "put on her big girl panties and deal with it."  
[but we shouldn't punish disrespect for teachers since doing so might be racist]

Years ago, the behavior of young people that we see today would have never been tolerated. There was the vice principal's office where corporal punishment would be administered for gross infractions. If the kid was unwise enough to tell his parents what happened, he might get more punishment at home. Today, unfortunately, we've replaced practices that work with practices that sound good and caring, and we're witnessing the results.

Jensen Note
I'm not advocating corporal punishment in schools. But I do recommend suspensions and expulsions to make school enrollment become more of privilege than a right.

Lawrence Mead --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Mead

Jensen Comment
I'm no expert on the award-winning Professor Mead or his research into welfare and poverty. I am, however, against banning politically incorrect research conducted by respected researchers who intend to help rather than harm their research subjects and the world in general. Professor Mead is not Josef Mengele. He's done years of research into poverty and varying cultures. He thinks a better understanding of what leads to poverty can help us more efficiently marshal resources in to alleviate poverty.

Having said this I'm also not in favor of encouraging certain types of research. And if there's a way to do so, some types of research should be against the law. The obvious candidates are bomb making for home workshops and development of WMDs for which the risks are so great that treaties are in effect and advanced nations have enough WMDs of one type or another to counterbalance newer threats.

In 1971 I spent a year in a think tank on Stanford University land. Three doors down from my office was the office of Josh Lederberg ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Lederberg
We did not interact on a regular basis since our research interests were far different, but I did have some conversations with Josh about his research, usually in the presence of Harvard University's libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick who had an office next to my office. Bob Nozick and Josh Lederberg argued quite a bit about one topic while I was merely a bookkeeping professor who mostly just tuned in ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick

The topic in question was what scientific research should be banned or otherwise vigorously discouraged. Josh Lederberg's best example nearly fifty years ago was cloning --- which at the time was mostly limited to some South African frogs. Later came dogs, sheep, cows, polo ponies, etc. ---
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adolfo-cambiaso-the-clones-of-polo-60-minutes/

Professor Lederberg's fear of cloning was how it could be misused if one day we could successfully clone human beings. The dangers are relatively obvious with Hitler's master race coming first to mind. But there are other fears on various fronts that overwhelm most of the good things we can imagine about cloning.

One problem of banning research, however, is the mechanism for doing so. We can make it illegal within assorted nations, but there will nearly always some nations that will not go along with the ban or will even encourage encourage/fund banned research. Do you really think Israel and Iran or the major world powers will cease all WMD research because they've made it illegal?

The arguments between Nozick and Lederberg made me glad I was a bookkeeping professor. But they did start me thinking about issues of freedom to conduct research and publish the findings. Sure it would be easier for me to promote burying the findings of Professor Mead in politically correct sand. I would most certainly be more respected as a politically correct blogger.

The research of Professor Mead has not been declared illegal. I think the research should be published if for no other reason than to motivate research that counters Professor Mead's conclusions. Professor Mead and Arthur Jensen did not necessarily discover truth. It's better to conduct further research to find what is not true than to bury it in the sand leaving the world uncertain about the truth.

In any case burying research that is not politically correct just won't work on a global scale, even research into human cloning and newer and more scary pandemic viruses.

Sorry, but I think political correctness has taken the Academy to new lows that are temporary and will go even lower in the next few decades. Visitors to our campuses today are required to march a politically correct goose step. Otherwise they will be shouted down at best and physically harmed at worst.

We should openly solve problems like poverty with better corrective alternatives --- rather than throw trillions of dollars wastefully into solutions that won't solve the fundamental problems.

My favorite example is the reason given by Fidel Castro why his egalitarian dream eventually failed ---
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/12/cuba
Believe it or not tens of millions of people prefer not to work productively and uncomfortably when they have a choice. I also think this applies to all racial and ethnic groupings. I'm inclined to doubt Professor Mead, but not to a point where I want him fired and his research banned.

Bob Jensen's threads on political correctness in academe ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness


One related point:
Watch the cities (like Minneapolis) that severely defunded policeand eliminated SWAT teams react to incoming white supremacist militias. Listen to them scream when the white supremacist snipers start picking off Antifa protesters. And then watch to Antifa protesters turn to sniper rifles themselves. Antifa wants civil war in the USA. Sadly, Antifa may get what it wishes for.

 

In Minneapolis, Armed Residents Set Up Patrols Amid Calls to Defund Police ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-minneapolis-armed-residents-set-up-patrols-amid-calls-to-defund-the-police-11595698725?mod=djm_dailydiscvrtst
Vigilantes move in when the law moves out

 


Italy's Grim Future ---
https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2020/07/24/italys-grim-future-n2573076?bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&utm_campaign=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_source=thdaily

Italy’s problem, similar to many of its southern European neighbors, is an oppressively high tax burden, irresponsible welfare programs that encourage high measured unemployment and increase the debt, and high levels of regulation. …the share of average wages collected by the Italian government via income and social security taxes is 48 percent, among the highest in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In addition, Italy imposes a value-added tax of 22 percent on most goods and services, one of the highest in Europe. Plus, Italy’s corporate, capital gains, gift, and myriad other taxes are passed on to individuals and borne directly by workers. …At the same time, Italy’s complex regulations are a barrier to starting or continuing productive activities. A study by economist Raffaela Giordano of the Bank of Italy concluded that the main reason behind Italy’s underperformance was burdensome regulations and corrupt and inefficient government structure.

Jensen Comment
Unlike the USA, EU nations that adopted the euro (think Italy) cannot devalue their currencies or print money to pay their spending deficits. I've been hearing a lot about increase in USA's Federal debt accompanied by "printing" of money (called "quantitative easing") since the spending deficit is now pushing toward $1 trillion per month in the USA.

 

Vox mostly publishes leftist articles
Progressives Don't Love Joe Biden, But They're Learning to Love His $10+ Trillion in New Spending -
--
https://www.vox.com/21322478/joe-biden-overton-window-bidenism
Not mentioned in the article is his new promise of nearly $1 trillion annually for child and elder care (beyond Medicaid) funded by taxing wealthy real estate investors who are now taking an enormous hit in USA cities hit hard by the  simultaneous whammy of Covid-19, flight of businesses, and crashing real estate markets as the recession deepens ---
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-estate-crash-next-shoe-012742635.html
Also see Icahn's multibillion short position taken on commercial real estate ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/04/25/icahn-sees-further-market-crash-from-coronavirus-says-hes-shorting-commercial-real-estate/#193b49ca256e

 


 

EU leaders reached an economic recovery $860-billion coronavirus stimulus package. But poorer, harder-hit countries (think Italy) will have to make do with substantially reduced grants and repay loans to the EU ----
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit/eu-reaches-historic-deal-on-pandemic-recovery-after-marathon-summit-idUKKCN24M0DF

 

Leaders hope the 750 billion euro ($857.33 billion) recovery fund and its related 1.1 trillion euro 2021-2027 budget will help repair the continent’s deepest recession since World War Two after the coronavirus outbreak shut down economies.

While strong in symbolism, the deal came at the cost of cuts to proposed investment in climate-friendly funds and did not set conditions for disbursements to countries, such as Hungary and Poland, seen as breaching democratic values.

In an unwieldy club of 27, each with veto power, the summit also exposed faultlines across the bloc that are likely to hinder future decision-making on money as richer northern countries resisted helping out the poorer south.

The Netherlands led a group of “frugal” states with Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, insisting that aid to Italy, Spain and other Mediterranean countries that took the brunt of the pandemic should be mainly in loans, not in non-repayable grants.

Continued in article

 


 

Chronicle of Higher Education:  What College Activists Want?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-College-Activists-Want/249184?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_1363707&cid=at&source=ams&sourceId=296279

Defunded police.
Inclusive coursework.
Faculty
members who look like them. (including administrators and coaches.
Students are demanding radical change for racial justice,
and they’re not backing down.

 

 

The demand: Sever ties with the police (except armed Antifa patrols)
The demand: Remove symbols of oppression
(including the library's politically incorrect materials)
The demand: Hire people of color
(even if they are less qualified than others)
The demand: Diversify the curriculum (No Shakespeare/math/business and more Che Guevara)

Some of the unmentioned demands in the above article

Free tuition, room and board, pot, and booze
Free medical and dental care (including free abortions)
Open admission for for people of color
Only A grades (stop giving mostly A- and B grades)
No examinations, quizzes or grading of term papers
Excuse from class attendance in favor of protesting
Screening of all campus speakers for political correctness (pretty much like it is now)
No suspensions or dismissals (except in the case of the first signs of conservatism disease)
Reparations plus guaranteed annual income during and after graduation

Reply from Bob Jensen later in the day

I perhaps exaggerated too much on student demands and tried unsuccessfully to be somewhat funny. However, I think if I dug deeper I would find where student groups have made demands of all the the things I mentioned.

I note that the Daily Beast articles almost always promoted a leftist agenda. 

 

Here are some of the documented demands of students listed by the Daily Beast (note the ones to get rid of grades, tests, and teachings of all white male poets (including Shakespeare). I also note that some colleges (think Michigan State) removed mathematics from the core course and skills requirements: 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-craziest-demands-of-college-kids-in-2016

 


 

MIT:  Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/17/1005396/predictive-policing-algorithms-racist-dismantled-machine-learning-bias-criminal-justice/

Jensen Comment
Its a shame that the above article fails to mention is that the predictive policing algorithms probably protect minorities (especially Blacks) more than anybody else since minority crimes (think rape and murder) are so heavily perpetrated on minority victims.

NYPD statistics show 96 percent of shooting victims are black or Hispanic and that minority groups represent 89 percent of all murder victims ---
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-statistics-show-96-percent-shooting-victims-black-hispanic-minority-groups-represent-89-percent-murder-victims-article-1.1152838

Walter E. Williams:  Stop Question, and Frisk Can Help (meaning help prevent minorities from becoming victims of violent crimes) ---
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/feb/28/walter-williams-stop-question-and-frisk/

Who made the decision that its worse to falsely suspect a minority person of violent crime than to not detect/prevent minorities from being victims of violent crime?
Predictive policing can help minorities probably more than whites.

Predictive policing is not the cause of violent crime. What is needed is greater focus on the causes of violent crime where in many cases it's poor policing in poverty neighborhoods that make criminals more assured they can get away with rape, murder, etc. Often minority women don't even report rapes because they rightfully think the police won't do anything about it. We need significant police reforms and more rather than less funding of police.

Eliminating predictive policing is dysfunctional to protecting all victims of violent crime, especially minority victims.

Why Detroit has been spared the violent protests happening in other urban centers across the U.S. ---
https://www.foxnews.com/media/detroit-police-chief-we-dont-retreat-here
Jensen Comment
I think Detroit is appreciative of the billions spent recently by the public and private sectors on its recovery --- billions for new factories, housing recovery, public services (think plumbing and electricity), etc. Detroit is unwilling to throw all that progress away on a Marxist quest for civil war.

Black Police Officer Blasts Arrogance, Ignorance and Bigotry of White 'BLM' Activists ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2020/07/17/must-watch-black-police-officer-blasts-the-arrogance-ignorance-and-bigotry-of-white-blm-activists-n2572668?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/17/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Police Union Backs Trump for Re-Election in 2020 ---
https://www.courthousenews.com/police-union-backs-trump-for-re-election-in-2020/
Democrats may shrug their shoulders thinking that there aren't enough police officers to make a dent in Biden's enormous lead in the polls. However, the public stand of the Police Union could affect millions of independents who beginning to become more upset about why police are supporting Trump for November's election. And a lot of older voters may turn out to vote just because they don't like the thought of defunding their protectors.


 

Guy walks down SF street bashing windshields. No one bats an eye (including police since he would never be prosecuted if he was arrested) ---
https://presscalifornia.com/2020/07/22/sf-broken-windows/
He may have been hired to do this by windshield repair companies
 


 

Armed kids as young as 10 carjack more than a dozen people on South Side, police say ---
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/armed-kids-as-young-as-10-carjack-more-than-a-dozen-people-on-south-side-police-say
If there's any feasible way to leave Chicago who would want to stay there, especially if you can't afford private schools for your children

 


Black Leaders Call on NYPD to Bring Back Anti-Crime Unit as Shootings Spike ---
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/black-leaders-call-on-nypd-to-bring-back-anti-crime-unit-as-shootings-spike/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=most-popular&utm_term=second
Don't look for the national media to pick up on this one


Minneapolis: High-crime neighborhoods that want more police

Even city leaders want to disband the police department, the city charter requires them to field their own police force with at least 724 officers ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/955438-defundorama-minneapolis-police-disbanding-via-disability-claims?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=5iEzoSRA3OwmMZouDYnIqL3RgHsaffHcB6hB5DcjF-f0.A
It's not at all clear that a referendum to do so would pass.

That might leave room for the Minneapolis city council to save face and withdraw its charter change. Black leaders and groups in the city have become increasing vocal in their opposition to the idea of defunding the present police force, especially in high-crime neighborhoods that want more police, albeit with better accountability. It also might help them avoid a very dicey fight over the status of the popular chief of police, the first black chief in the city’s history:


2015:  No more white flight from Detroit (whites are returning) ---
https://www.telegraphherald.com/news/national_world/article_d5e9bb21-2fe3-5857-bd4c-f56b5e2da123.html

Jensen Comment
Even before the BLM demands for defunding/reforming Detroit's police the city over five years reduced Police Department budgets by over 20% and reduced police officer salaries. And after the 2020 BLM Movement to defund/reform police this is no longer 2015 in Detroit. Major crime (rapes, murders, home invasions, car jackings, etc.) are on the rise since 2015 and will only get worse with more police defunding ---
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/mi/detroit/crime-rate-statistics

Marxists want civil war in the USA and prefer that all whites leave Detroit. It's such a shame since the government and private sector spent billions to bring back jobs in Detroit. To the extent that the jobs last they will be filled by non-whites. How long can those businesses endure fewer police, increases in major crime, lootings, legalized shoplifting, etc.?

Detroit's leadership says having unarmed social workers respond to 911 calls will reduce major crime. Yeah right!
https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/what-does-it-mean-to-defund-the-police-in-detroit-one-of-the-most-violent-cities-in-the-us/Content?oid=24792239
Before long there won't be much diversity among the residents of Detroit --- not that there was a whole lot of diversity 100 years ago when Detroit was almost all white.
But by 2015 Detroit was making some progress at restoring diversity in it's mostly Black community. That is probably over!



A leading voice on welfare reform is accused of racism after he publishes an article linking poverty to "culture." Journal faces calls for retraction ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/07/28/leading-voice-welfare-reform-accused-racism?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=708582c960-DNU_2020_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-708582c960-197565045&mc_cid=708582c960&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Jensen Comment
This is another in a long list of recent examples of how racism trumps all the good and important things a person has done in life. Failing to march to the politically correct goosestep brings down careers these days.

It also illustrates how research conclusions must be politically correct for publication of those research conclusions.

Bob Jensen's threads on political correctness and how leading scholars like J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, and Noam Chomsk are trying to bring balance (equality) to the worrisome political correctness trends in research, teaching, and scholarship ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness

We've reached a very low point in the Academy.

We've also reached a new low in the politically correct major media.

Anyone Catch ABC News' Odd Tweet About the Mayhem in California?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/07/27/anyone-catch-abc-news-odd-tweet-about-the-mayhem-in-california-n2573174?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/27/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 


From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on July 15, 2020

U.S. consumer prices rose sharply in June, with higher prices for staples such as food, gasoline and apparel, as states broadened efforts to reopen economies last month while coping with the coronavirus pandemic.

The index had fallen in each of the previous three months, with particularly sharp declines during the earlier part of the pandemic in March and April.

Jensen Comment
In the early months of the pandemic prices declined because of lower demand (think gasoline, apparel, hotels, and entertainment). After the virus surge in July they prices are not expected to surge until the USA gets back to work. Then they may soar due to added trillions of dollars in government spending.

Consumer Price Index FAQs (these are good) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index#Personal_consumption_expenditures_price_index

Personal consumption expenditures price index
Because of some shortcomings of the CPI, notably that it uses static expenditure weighting and it does not account for the substitution effect, the PCEPI is an alternative price index used by the Federal Reserve, among others, to measure inflation.[17] From January 1959 through July 2018, inflation measured by the PCEPI has averaged 3.3%, while it has averaged 3.8% using CPI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index#Personal_consumption_expenditures_price_index


 

How to Mislead With Bad Assumptions

Biden plan for free public college tuition could doom most private colleges ---
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-free-college-justin-haskins-chris-talgo

Jensen Comment
I'm opposed to free public colleges except possibly the first two years in local community colleges. My reason is the trillions of dollars it will cost to otherwise provide free tuition and other aid to all public universities for undergraduate and postgraduate education. It's unfair to give them free undergraduate degrees and then tell them they have to pay to graduate schools aimed at career education.

The conclusion that free public education will doom most private colleges is misleading.
Some private colleges are on the brink of extinction and will fail with or without free public college competition.

Free public college education will overwhelm the best public colleges (think flagship universities) with applicants. Either top public universities will limit the acceptance rates for onsite campuses to what it is now, or they will ruin onsite education with gigantic lecture classes, or they will limit the free tuition to inferior distance education. By inferior I mean that online courses will be huge with almost no interaction between students and their teachers and other students in each course. The very best online courses are small with instant messaging between faculty and students. These can be even better than face-to-face tutorials.

The better private schools will survive by offering what they offer now --- smaller classes, closer interactions with faculty, and campus residency aimed at providing all the things they cannot obtain in large public universities, small dormitories, participation in sports without having to perform at a professional level, etc.

But the nation may not survive as Biden's social program promises inch up toward $100 trillion per year for universal health care for legal and illegal residents, minimum basic income, green initiatives, reparations for all people of color, open borders, massive housing subsidies, free college for all legal and illegal residents, enormous increase in funding to K-12 schools, new roads/bridges, bailout of states, etc.

The ploy of promising everything for everybody is not new to political candidates.
History is replete with failed promises when economic realities set in for elected officials. The worry today is that activists will no longer accept excuses for failed promises and will elect zealots like AOC, Warren, Harris, or Bernie Sanders instead of Joe Biden --- who, like Obama, I hope is more tuned into economic realities even though Biden's now making unrealistic promises.

I hope Biden's VP choice is a realist and not a zealot.

Here's One Economic Reality That Activists Avoid Mentioning
Some argue that public colleges aren't all that radical, and some European nations (think Finland and Germany) now offer free university education. But they don't tell you how these nations face economic realities. These nations painfully limit the number of students getting free college education or free training to about the top 1/3 of Tier 2 graduates such that the other 2/3 either cannot get into college or have to rely on private sector companies to train them with apprenticeships ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Tertiary

 


How to Mislead With Statistics
Corona19 Death Rates ---
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/where-the-u-s-ranks-in-covid-19-deaths-per-capita/

 

President Trump claimed the USA had one of the lowest death rates.
Chris Wallace Claimed the USA has had the seventh highest death rate ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2020/07/20/fact-check-president-trump-vs-chris-wallace-on-coronavirus-death-rates-defunding-the-police-n2572736
Both are wrong. Out of 144 nations the USA comes in at Rank 32 with most European nations having higher death rates. Austria and Norway had death rates lower than the USA.


Averages (for some nations are more misleading than others). For example, the Netherlands has a relatively dense population across the entire country. Its death rate has a low standard deviation relative to the USA. In comparison, the USA has a relatively disperse nation with populations concentrated in some large cities in in some states and other states that are relatively low in population. Among other things population density contributes to higher death rates (but there are exceptions for other interactive factors like age of the state populations, number of people commuting by subways and trains, etc.).

Corona-19 Death Rates Per 10,000 Cases
Accumulated Data as of July 19, 2020

 

 

Since accuracy of reported data is so suspect in the majority of nations, it's misleading to compare number of cases and number of deaths by nation.
Having said this I will report the following in any case because it's consistent with the Johns Hopkins Data

 

Coronavirus (COVID-19) death rate in countries with confirmed deaths and over 1,000 reported cases as of July 17, 2020, by country ---
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-death-rates-worldwide/

 



Yemen

Confirmed
Cases
1,552

Number of
Deaths
438

Death
Rate %
28.22

Belgium

63,238

9,795

15.49

United Kingdom

292,552

45,119

15.42

France

200,929

30,049

14.96

Italy

243,736

35,017

14.37

Hungary

4,279

595

13.91

Netherlands

51,351

6,137

11.95

Mexico

324,041

37,574

11.6

Spain

258,855

28,416

10.98

Canada

111,144

8,875

7.99

Ecuador

71,365

5,207

7.30

Sweden

76,877

5,593

7.28

Ireland

25,698

1,749

6.81 

 

Liberia

1,070

68

6.36

Sudan

10,527

668

6.35

Niger

1,102

69

6.26

Switzerland

33,290

1,969

5.91

Slovenia

1,897

111

5.85

Romania

35,003

1,971

5.63

China

85,314

4,644

5.44

Burkina Faso

1,038

53

5.11

Iran

267,061

13,608 5.10
North Macedonia 8,623 401 4.65
Denmark 13,124 610 465
Germany 201,450 9,087 4.50
Finland 7,293 328 4.25
Guatemala 32,939 1,404 4.26
Lithuania 1,902 79 4.15
Japan 23,833 985 4.13
Poland 39,054 1,605 4.11
Iraq 86,148 3,532 4.09
USA 3,565,256 138,174 3.88
Sierra Leone 1,678 64 3.81
Brazil 2,012,151

76,688

3.81
Followed by 112 other nations      
Accuracy varies greatly

© Statista 2020

Show source 


 

How to Mislead With Statistics
The COVID Panic Is a Lesson in Using Statistics to Get Your Way in Politics ---
https://mises.org/wire/covid-panic-lesson-using-statistics-get-your-way-politics?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=e9c5c5695a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-e9c5c5695a-228708937

Jensen Comment
One of my favorite examples is the media's use of Sweden's relatively high Covid-19 death rate (that's lower than that of the Belgium, the UK, and various other EU nations) as a glaring example of what happens when you don't have a national lockdown. Evidence seems to be mounting that Sweden's high death rate comes more from a glaring failure to protect its most vulnerable citizens, especially the elderly. Had Sweden done this aggressively early on in March the case the media might have had less of a case against the Swedish failure to lock down. Of course we'll never know in hind sight since national death rates from Corona-19 are so varied and complicated and the data are so inaccurate.

Please don't take this tidbit as a suggestion that locking down is not important for most (all?) nations.

 


How to Mislead With Statistics

Surprising study: Urban density doesn’t cause more COVID-19 infections, even promotes lower death rates ---
https://www.studyfinds.org/surprising-study-urban-density-doesnt-cause-more-covid-19-infections-even-promotes-lower-death-rates/

Crowded city streets, subways, and buses have been considered the most likely places to become infected with COVID-19 over the past few months. Surprisingly, however, a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health concludes that densely populated spaces aren’t actually linked to higher infection rates.

Even more confounding, the study’s analysis indicates that crowded, dense locations are associated with lower coronavirus death rates.

In all, COVID-19 infection and death rates were assessed across 913 U.S. metropolitan counties. After researchers accounted for additional factors like race and education, the population density within each county was not significantly linked to infection rates. As mentioned, denser counties, as opposed to more ruralsprawling areas with smaller populations, were associated with lower death rates. The study’s authors speculate this is because denser, urban areas often offer better healthcare services.

Instead, higher coronavirus infection and death rates seem to be linked to a metropolitan area’s size, not its density. So, cities that are very big and stretch across multiple counties that are “tightly linked together through economic, social, and commuting relationships” appear to be most at risk of high coronavirus infection rates

Continued in Article

Jensen Comment
I think the populated density issues are more complicated than density per se (think population per square mile). For example, the above study concludes that "densely populated spaces aren’t actually linked to higher infection rates". However, I contend that the most dense populations vary greatly  in terms of lifestyles. Los Angeles differs greatly from New York City in many ways, including the LA's relative lack of public transportation relative to NYC. Also in NCC it's extremely common for workers to move out of NYC when they retire. And if they retire in a another dense area like Miami or LA their lifestyles change because they are no longer commuting daily over long distances by public transportation to get to and from jobs. The public indoor places of Manhattan and San Francisco are crowded many hours of each day relative to the public indoor places of Miami, LA, and Houston.

My point here is that population density as a predictor of Covid-19 infections and deaths confounds many other issues like demographic differences of residents, lifestyle differences, etc. But density should not be eliminated as a contributing factor to the multivariate set of interactive causes.

 

Both the risks of infection from Covid-19 and the risk of dying when infected are multivariate and interactive.
Except for age I don't think we can factor out any one variable (like population per square mile) from all the other interactive causes.


And density is a continuum. Southern New Hampshire is much less densely populated than Northern New Hampshire. And Southern New Hampshire is very much less densely populated than New York City.

New York State has a population of 19.5 million out of which over 8.2 million live in NYC. New Hampshire has a population of 1.4 million out of which 110,000 live in Manchester, NH.

 

As a retired total recluse living on food and drink ordered from Amazon, your odds of testing positive for Covid-10 are probably about the same in NYC or New Hampshire's Manchester or Littleton in the north. If you're a patrol cop or hospital worker your probability of testing positive is much higher in dense NYC or Manchester. However your probability is even lower in Littleton relative to Manchester and points along I-93 leading toward Massachusetts.

Now consider the following map of New Hampshire where the state's highest population density is skewed toward the southern part of the state ---
https://www.nh.gov/covid19/
Note that "50+" in the color coding includes such large numbers as 500 and 800.

 

 

In the middle of New Hampshire my guess is that nursing home residents contributed to nearly all of the  6, 7, AND 16 numbers shown on the map below.

I contend that the Covid-19 infection rates along the southeastern boundary are relatively high because this is where NH workers commuting to Massachusetts (think Boston) are most likely to live in NH. These NH state line residents most likely were infected due to working in Massachusetts (think NH medical professionals who work in Massachusetts hospitals)

Contrary to the conclusion of the above "Surprising Study," the one thing I'm certain of is that people who move from New York City to northern New Hampshire at the present time ipso facto have lower probabilities of becoming infected unless they live like a recluses before and after the move.

 


 

Alpha --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_(finance)

 

New study slams public pension funds’ alternative investments, identifies CalPERS as one of the worst ‘negative alphas’ ---
https://www.data-z.org/news/detail/new-study-slams-public-pension-funds-alternative-investments-identifies-calpers-as-one-of-the-worst-negative-alphas

 


 

Political Correctness --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness

Florida Congressional Candidate Sues Law School Claiming She Was Expelled For Supporting President Trump ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2020/07/florida-congressional-candidate-sues-law-school-claiming-she-was-expelled-for-supporting-president-t.html

Walter E. Williams:  Despicable behavior of today's academicians ---
https://www.annistonstar.com/the_daily_home/free/walter-williams-despicable-behavior-of-todays-academicians-column/article_91f53c10-c6f6-11ea-aaf6-3bf6925ca976.html

Penn State Retracts Statement Saying Conservative Voices Are Important:  Leftist Ideology is the Only Politically Correct Ideology ---
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/09/penn-state-retracts-statement-saying-conservative-voices-are-important/

“Dear conservative students. Your viewpoints are important,” the announcement read, referencing the isolation and self-censorship many conservative students experience on left-wing campuses. According to the schools Director of Strategic Communications, it was part of a statement aimed at creating a supporting and inclusive environment for students.

. . .

 

The University quickly crumpled, and retracted the statement.

Jensen Comment
By withdrawing support for debating ideologies that are not politically correct Penn State is ignoring the appeals of Norm Chomsky and some other liberals
That hints that academe is marching lockstep toward one ideology. Noam and others are worried!
The inmates are guarding the asylum.

Penn State University training film on how to liberal faculty can deal with military veterans who refuse to be politically correct ---
An analysis by The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/PennStateVeteran.htm
Penn State issued a public apology for producing the video --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/13/qt#196252


 

The Harpers free speech letter and controversy ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/07/the-harpers-free-speech-letter-and-controversy.html

 

Noam Chomsky and Other Scholars Feer the Dangers of Losing Open Debate and Toleration of Differences in Ideology ---
https://www.ibtimes.com/noam-chomsky-malcolm-gladwell-address-cancel-culture-open-letter-3007684

In an open letter, a group of public figures and writers warn readers about the pros and cons of the current world climate (mania). 

The piece, titled " A Letter on Justice and Open Debate," featuring signatures from 150 public figures including the likes of J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, and Noam Chomsky, was published on the Harper's Magazine website on Tuesday with plans to make a reemergence in the October issue of the magazine. 

"Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial," the letter begins. "Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts."

"But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity."

Specifically speaking to their craft and the dire consequences if mindsets don't change lanes, they conclude, "As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us."

It seems not everyone was happy with the letter, though. After it was published both historian Kerri Greenidge and trans activist Jennifer Finney Boylan announced the withdrawal of their support on Twitter.  

Who decides which books to burn?

Franklin Pierce Biographer Urges Consideration Of 14th President's Progressive Civil Liberties Record Before Removal Of His Name From UNH Law School ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2020/06/franklin-pierce-biographer-urges-consideration-of-14th-presidents-progressive-civil-liberties-record.html
No chance

'Black Lives Matter' was painted on the streets of New York City and Washington, D.C. as a way of city officials showing their support for the movement. Questions have been asked (address to the NYC Mayor) about whether or not other political groups and organizations should have the ability to paint their messages on city-owned and maintained streets ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/07/11/conservative-womens-group-has-an-interesting-request-for-bill-de-blasio-n2572317?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/12/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167
Only politically correct messages, in the socialist Mayor's eyes, are allowed. The Mayor actually helped the mob paint the streets with BLM graffiti in front of Trump Tower ---
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/07/de-blasio-bans-large-gatherings-after-he-helps-paint-black-lives-matter-in-front-of-trump-tower/

Bob Jensen's threads on political correctness ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness


 

From the Chronicle of Higher Education on July 9, 2020

Some Scholars Have Long Talked About Abolishing the Police. Now People Are Listening. What Comes Next?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Some-Scholars-Have-Long-Talked/249149?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_1357562&cid=at&source=ams&sourceId=296279

A few years ago, Forrest Stuart would find himself in an academic version of "Who’s on First."

To write Down, Out, and Under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Rowthe associate professor of sociology at Stanford University spent five years roaming one of Los Angeles’s poorest neighborhoods. He watched citizens contort their lives to avoid interactions with police officers, who would frequently question them for sitting on a corner. Stuart himself was stopped 14 times that first year. He spent evenings with those officers, listening to what he called their discordant ideas about punishment and compassion. The officers saw the two ideas as mutually dependent, Stuart wrote, even as he watched the people entangled in the criminal-justice system lose their housing, their jobs, and their hope.

At book talks, Stuart would lay out these themes and talk about the need for systemic changes, like the necessity of a large-scale redistribution of wealth. But then someone would inevitably ask: What reforms did he think were needed? How should the police be dealing with the people of Skid Row?

He would answer: The police shouldn’t be interacting with these people.

More hands would fill the air. Stuart didn’t understand the original question, people insisted. What new policies did he recommend?

Again, Stuart would tell them that no new policy would yield good results. What we need, he’d say, is less policing. Back and forth they’d go, speaking past each other. Even other sociologists, outside of his subfield, would look at Stuart as if he were some “crazy radical,” he said.

But that was before. Before May 2020, when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, for nearly eight minutes as he died, igniting protests around the world.

“Nobody looks at me [like I’m] crazy when I say this anymore,” Stuart said in a recent interview, “which is just totally nuts.”

. . .

The Limits of Academe

However, traditional channels of academe have their limits. Lisa Guenther, a philosopher at Queen’s University, in Ontario, and a social activist, sees a tension between the imperatives to represent the university and to build the abolitionist movement. Universities “hire someone who, you know, maybe has a title like Queen’s National Scholar in Critical Prison Studies and Political Philosophy, which is my title, and then they write some articles and publish them and you might get some grants and that sort of thing,” she said. But that can operate as a sort of alibi, deflecting attention “from the ways that the university, itself, is operating in continuity with colonialism, with anti-Black racism.”

Certain social-science disciplines have long overlooked the roles of the criminal-justice system and policing. After the uprising over the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, many scholars in political science “appeared to be caught off-guard, as if events had pushed them onto unfamiliar empirical and conceptual terrain,” the researchers Joe Soss and Vesla Weaver wrote in a 2017 paper that called out the mainstream subfield of American politics for “largely and unreflectively ignoring the role of the police.”

Now, said Weaver, an associate professor of political science and sociology at Johns Hopkins, that’s changing. Otherwise, she said, “look how stupid and obsolete we look if we can’t say anything about police power when this is the central issue of the day.”

But historically, the Black radical tradition did not come out of the university, said Joy James, a professor of humanities and political science at Williams College, who spent years anthologizing the writings of incarcerated intellectuals. Academics sometimes assume that articles and talks are really beneficial to their subjects, James said. But while prison-abolition scholarship might lead other free people to sign a petition, make a donation, or vote accordingly, “it doesn’t really open prison doors.”

Sometimes students, too, get caught up in the theoretical and lose sight of the real, practical work, said Carl Suddler, an assistant professor of history at Emory University, who wrote Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York. He remembers when he was an eager undergraduate who traveled to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to help with the reconstruction effort. “I went in thinking about the big picture, like, How are we going to destroy structural racism in a week?” That is, until a woman in the Lower Ninth Ward told him, “Honey, we’re just trying to get speed bumps in our neighborhood.”

That served as an “earth-shattering” lesson for Suddler about the balance between study and practice — one that he passes along to students who want to dismantle oppressive and racist systems. You can read. You can theorize. But you’ve also “got to get into these communities,” he said, and listen to them.

Forrest Stuart, of Stanford, thinks academics like himself will have to grapple with a somewhat different role. Previously he saw his work as that of diagnosis, exposing the damage done by exploitative systems. That’s what sociologists do. But they hesitated, he said, to offer tangible recommendations.

Now more people are convinced by the diagnosis, Stuart said. Not only that, but they want to know what’s next. They want a prescription.

Essentially, the world has changed, and scholars will decide how to change with it.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
The trick is to abolish police without turning the largest cities back into Black ghettos and ganglands while rural White homes and towns become armed fortresses.
If you want to scare older Republicans, older Democrats, and especially older minorities living in high crime hot spots in the USA into voting for Trump in November 2020 articles like the ones above and below might do the trick.

 

Joe Biden Says Police Have 'Become the Enemy,' 'Absolutely' Should Defund Them ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/07/08/joe-biden-says-police-have-become-the-enemy-entertains-defunding-them-n2572130?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167
Jensen Comment
Defunding police in praise of Kaspernik is not a smart way to attract older voters from the very, very large subset of older voters. It's also not a good way to attract tourists to our USA cities and other tourist attractions. Is this helping Trump more than hurting Trump?

Pew Research:  Recent protest attendees are more racially and ethnically diverse, younger than Americans overall ---
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/24/recent-protest-attendees-are-more-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-younger-than-americans-overall/
Jensen Comment
Media coverage at the protests, especially persons chosen to interview, leads us to believe that there were many more than 17% Black people in those protests.
Pew analysts make the point that ethnicity among protesters differs greatly from ethnicity of the total voting public in the USA. This probably is the reason that Biden and the Democratic Party are not quick to support all of the protest leader demands, including legalizing shoplifting, reparations for Blacks, defunding of police, guaranteed annual income, Medicare-for-All, etc. Some of these demands are losers in the 2020 Presidential campaign.

BBC News:  Antifa: Left-wing militants on the rise (in the entire free world) ---
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40930831

St Louis and Baltimore Beat Out Chicago In Rankings of the Most Dangerous Cities on Earth---
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2020/07/09/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-the-world-3/2/
Jensen Comment
Not good news for tourism, business development, or police defunding, although existing police seem to be failing a lot in the world's most dangerous cities (think solving fewer and fewer murders). NYC is striving to overtake St Louis with defunding and deteriorating police relations under a socialist mayor. How much will police defunding contribute to upper income and business flight from our largest USA cities?
This article especially reveals how criminal gangs have ruined policing in Mexico's cities.

NYT:  American Crime and the Baltimore Model ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/opinion/policing-crime-baltimore.html
Nearly 30,000 residents have since fled Baltimore, whose population is now the lowest it’s been in a century.
New York, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon may soon beat Baltimore's record may so beat Baltimore's rate of flight as public safety deteriorates

In Minneapolis, Armed Residents Set Up Patrols Amid Calls to Defund Police ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-minneapolis-armed-residents-set-up-patrols-amid-calls-to-defund-the-police-11595698725?mod=djm_dailydiscvrtst
Vigilantes move in when the law moves out

Seattle rioters seen damaging, looting stores; 2 arrests, 12 cops injured ---
https://www.foxnews.com/us/seattle-rioters-looting-amazon-store-officers-injured

Seattle will cut its police force down to 630 police officers for a city of over 750,000 residents having over 800,000 911 calls annually. There will be no emergency SWAT force ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/948019-seattle-city-council-to-defund-police-leave-600-officers-no-tactical-or-heavy-arms?utm_source=c-mid&utm_medium=c-mid-email&utm_term=c-mid-GI&utm_content=697zxgAhCmuHg4vas74EBzlnoWM3eNVp0oCrhLuQnY-I.A
Jensen Comment
I wonder if the entire city will become a no-go zone unsafe for tourists, sports fans, and conventioners. Don't you wonder what this will do to the price of real estate and the number of businesses that will close because of fear? Will shoplifting and looting now be legal in Seattle? Would you want to be a firefighter without armed police protection?
USA cities with the most and the least police
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/05/15/cities-with-the-most-and-least-police/
Ankeny, Iowa has the most law enforcement officers with 104.7 per 100,000 residents
University Place, Washington has the least law officers with 48.2 officers per 100,000 residence

Saying Goodbye to Seattle ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/960022-media-covering-up-facts-as-this-city-sees-record-amounts-of-people-leaving?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=06zogopD0FR_-qkpQTYmRsUU8Iw..A

Six Weeks, Six Cities, 600 Murders ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2020/07/05/six-weeks-six-cities-600-murders-n2571887?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

In June alone some 270 people were shot in the NYC, a 154 per cent increase from a year earlier. July is not looking any better. Over the recent July 4 holiday weekend, 64 people were shot. Seventeen more were shot this Monday, a day after Gardner’s death. Those shootings have contributed to a 23 per cent increase in homicides so far this year. Burglary is also soaring ---
https://www.ft.com/content/a444b43e-ba40-48b5-a064-fa51c591cc32

AOC says proposed $1B budget cut to NYPD isn't enough: "Defunding police means defunding police"
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/aoc-asked-defunding-police-her-130800430.html

Connecticut is Counting on Flight From NYC
Connecticut's Big Bet on the Suburbs Might Finally Pay Off ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/connecticut-suburbs-coronavirus-new-york-real-estate-houses-for-sale-weston-fairfield-11594558882?mod=djm_dailydiscvrtst

The New York Times: Defund the Police
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

 

The Atlantic:  Defund the Police  ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/defund-police/612682/

Derecka Purnell:  How I Became a Police Abolitionist
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-i-became-police-abolitionist/613540/
The Atlantic Finally Admits Its Police Abolition Piece Is Based On A False Narrative ---
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/21/the-atlantic-finally-admits-its-police-abolition-piece-is-based-on-a-false-narrative/

Why BLM Yawns at Police-Shooting Statistics (prefers fake news) ---
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/why-blm-yawns-police-shooting-statistics-john-perazzo/
As does the major media.

New York City's Mayor is Jumping for Joy:  NYC's Police Applications for Retirement are Now Running 100 Per Day
https://nypost.com/2020/07/08/nypd-limits-retirement-applications-amid-411-surge-this-week/

Portland Rioters Assault Police With Sling Shots and Lasers ---
https://www.foxnews.com/us/riot-declared-in-portland-cops-oder-protesters-to-leave

Six Weeks, Six Cities, 600 Murders ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2020/07/05/six-weeks-six-cities-600-murders-n2571887?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Do Trump's Border Walls Work?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/06/do-walls-work.html

More than a dozen businesses and property owners are suing the city of Seattle over its tolerance of, and alleged support for, an "autonomous" protest zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The city's approach, they argue, has led to lawlessness, property damage, and a decline in commerce and property values ---
https://reason.com/2020/06/25/seattle-autonomous-zone-sparks-class-action-lawsuit-from-local-businesses/

This Progressive City Has Been Releasing Vandals, Arsonists, & Violent Protesters Back To The Streets  ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/946763-this-progressive-city-has-been-releasing-vandals-violent-protesters-back-to-the-streets?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=06zogopD0FR_-qkpQTYmRsUU8Iw..A
Would you want to move to Portland after all this?
Why do Portland police even bother anymore?
Portland is an example of how urban anarchy commences before criminal gangs move in to restore order

Pelosi's Stand for Ilhan How Jew-hate became the new normal in the Democrat Party ---
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/nancy-pelosi-endorses-anti-israel-agitator-ilhan-ari-lieberman/

Young Mother Killed By BLM Mob for Allegedly Saying ‘All Lives Matter,’ National Media Fully Ignores ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/947222-young-white-mother-killed-by-black-lives-matter-mob-for-allegedly-saying-all-lives-matter-national-media-fully-ignores-special?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=1Cugtgg08BDw-1AwBlaN1Qmmriw..A

Video: Black Lives Matter protestors demand that Target stop calling the police on shoplifters ---
https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2020/06/29/video-black-lives-matter-protestors-demand-that-target-stop-calling-the-police-on-shoplifters/
Otherwise they threaten to shut it down

Chick-Fil-A Changes Name To Gender-Neutral 'They-Fil-A' ---
https://babylonbee.com/news/chick-fil-a-to-change-name-to-gender-neutral-they-fil-a
What are farmers now supposed to call baby chickens?
The Dixie Chicks are toast. The popular singing group took away the Dixe part and now call themselves "The Chicks."

The New Yorker on the Dark Side of Dollar Stores ---
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-true-cost-of-dollar-stores?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_1331449&cid=db&source=ams&sourceId=296279
Jensen Comment
Imagine what low income neighborhood stores will become with defunded police?
Ask AOC, the New York Times, and The Atlantic about what the solution is to the "Dark Side of Dollar Stores"?

The Present Moment Has Set Blacks Back a Half-Century ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/06/30/the-present-moment-has-set-blacks-back-a-halfcentury-n2571585?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=06/30/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

FiveThirtyEight:  Most Americans balk at defunding the police ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-like-the-ideas-behind-defunding-the-police-more-than-the-slogan-itself/
Defunding and dismantling police departments ala Minneapolis will not be a 2020 winning election platform stance, although replacing corrupt officers and increasing police budgets may be a winner like in Camden, NJ. But Camden is a city of 77,000 residents. How do you dismantle and replace an entire police force in a city with over a 300,000 residents?

Jensen Closing Comment
Is academe playing a much larger role in re-electing Donald Trump than it wants to admit?
The surprise may come in November unless academe along with city governments and Joe Biden tone down the rhetoric on defunding police.

 

Liberals are tipping their hands too early on police defunding.

Destroy the USA later after Donald Trump is out of the barn.

 

How long has it been since you watched the movie entitled Mad Max ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max


 

Labour of Love: An Open Access Manifesto for Freedom, Integrity, and Creativity in the Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences ---
https://commonplace.knowledgefutures.org/pub/y0xy565k/release/2

Hopefully this Manifesto covers resistance to political correctness censorship and ideological conformity that is storming the world at the moment

The Harpers free speech letter and controversy ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/07/the-harpers-free-speech-letter-and-controversy.html

Noam Chomsky and Other Scholars Fear the Dangers of Losing Open Debate and Toleration of Differences in Ideology ---
https://www.ibtimes.com/noam-chomsky-malcolm-gladwell-address-cancel-culture-open-letter-3007684

In an open letter, a group of public figures and writers warn readers about the pros and cons of the current world climate (mania). 

The piece, titled " A Letter on Justice and Open Debate," featuring signatures from 150 public figures including the likes of J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, and Noam Chomsky, was published on the Harper's Magazine website on Tuesday with plans to make a reemergence in the October issue of the magazine. 

"Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial," the letter begins. "Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts."

"But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity."

Specifically speaking to their craft and the dire consequences if mindsets don't change lanes, they conclude, "As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us."

It seems not everyone was happy with the letter, though. After it was published both historian Kerri Greenidge and trans activist Jennifer Finney Boylan announced the withdrawal of their support on Twitter.  

Walter E. Williams:  Despicable behavior of today's academicians ---
https://www.annistonstar.com/the_daily_home/free/walter-williams-despicable-behavior-of-todays-academicians-column/article_91f53c10-c6f6-11ea-aaf6-3bf6925ca976.html

Why isn’t Andrew Sullivan allowed to write about protests in his New York Times column?
https://spectator.us/andrew-sullivan-new-york-column-riots/
Apparently because he might say looting and shoplifting are wrong

TED Talk:  Why it Pays to Listen to People You Disagree With ---
https://www.ted.com/talks/zachary_r_wood_why_it_s_worth_listening_to_people_we_disagree_with?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2018-04-21&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_button

Harvard President Lawrence Bacow to Activist Students Who Shut Down His Talk: 'The Heckler's Veto Has No Place' Here ---
https://reason.com/2019/04/12/harvard-president-lawrence-bacow-disrupt/

Levy: Why I Resigned In Protest From Penn Law's Board When A Conservative Professor Was Punished (for not being politically correct)---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/12/levy-why-i-resigned-in-protest-from-penn-laws-board-when-a-conservative-professor-was-punished.html

Ohio University's Radical Students Could Have Ignored Kaitlin Bennett. Instead, They Threw Liquids At Her.---
https://reason.com/2020/02/19/ohio-university-kaitlin-bennett-riot-free-speech/

Politically Correct Big Brother Will Not Allow Free Speech in USA Colleges
Williams College plans to revise its policies after a faculty petition to adopt free speech guidelines enraged student activists ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/23/williams-college-rework-free-speech-policies-after-controversies?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=1aea7e93d2-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-1aea7e93d2-197565045&mc_cid=1aea7e93d2&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Political Correctness at Georgetown University
Kevin K. McAleenan, acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was shouted off the stage by protesters who interrupted his talk at Georgetown University’s law school ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/us/politics/homeland-security-chief-protesters.html?cid=db&source=ams&sourc

Conservative Law Prof Heckled by CUNY Protestors ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/04/conservative-law-prof-heckled-by-cuny-protestors.html

Political Correctness in Universities Never Quits
Black Pro-Life Speaker Disinvited From Cornell ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/briannaheldt/2019/03/27/black-prolife-speaker-disinvited-from-cornell-n2543853?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=03/28/2019&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Beloit College:  The incident (a pro-capitalism speaker)  was the latest in a string of free expression occurrences on college campuses where students have intentionally drowned out speakers whose views they find distasteful ---
Click Here
Capitalism is such a dangerous topic that mention of it should be banned in all colleges and universities

Purdue University has won praise for embracing all expression. What risk does that posture bring in an era of violence? ---
http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Free-Speech-Stronghold/241203?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=037e1e9941bc49ac93470e0e8430fa75&elq=0a44b6cc9e2a42208f8f52234581978a&elqaid=15632&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6700

I think political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality.
Juan William before he was fired after a distinguished career on NPR.
http://townhall.com/columnists/GuyBenson/2010/10/21/npr_finally_finds_an_excuse_to_fire_juan_williams

The Washington Post:  Conservatives say campus speech is under threat. That’s been true for most of history ---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/conservatives-say-campus-speech-is-under-threat-thats-been-true-for-most-of-history/2017/08/11/6aa959fa-7c4b-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.a02b7a26615d

John Cleese Makes a Stand Against Political Correctness ---
http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/john-cleese-monty-python-in-conversation.html

If colleges take precautions to protect their campuses when a controversial figure comes to speak, they aren't coddling students but encouraging a safe exchange of different ideas, argues Eddie S. Glaude Jr., a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University, in this Twitter thread ---
https://twitter.com/esglaude/status/908659323085164545?elqTrackId=8cb0ce38a2a24ea4a554189a51323204&elq=01c6a39c93c14e27a4f00717d1aa8abe&elqaid=15633&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6701

Professor: Tom Brady’s popularity is result of white supremacy ---
https://www.thecollegefix.com/professor-tom-bradys-popularity-is-result-of-white-supremacy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thecollegefixfeed+%28The+College+Fix%29
Jensen Comment
Is there any doubt why academe has lost a lot of respect?

Speaker at CUNY law school interrupted repeatedly by those who said he shouldn't have been permitted there ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/04/16/guest-lecture-free-speech-cuny-law-school-heckled?mc_cid=e889308cb3&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Politically Correct Rudeness in Academe:  ACLU Speaker Shouted Down at William and Mary ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/05/aclu-speaker-shouted-down-william-mary?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=948d0f34e9-DNU20171005&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-948d0f34e9-197565045&mc_cid=948d0f34e9&mc_eid=1e78f7c952
Jensen Comment
Are civil liberties coming to an end in higher education?

The (London) Times:  Universities warned over free speech by Jo Johnson
Universities must “open minds, not close them” and face tough new penalties if they do not promote freedom of speech . . . 
--
-
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/universities-warned-over-free-speech-by-jo-johnson-bqp2d5np0

Bob Jensen's threads on political correctness ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness


 

How to Mislead With Bad Assumptions

Biden plan for free public college tuition could doom most private colleges ---
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-free-college-justin-haskins-chris-talgo

Jensen Comment
I'm opposed to free public colleges except possibly the first two years in local community colleges. My reason is the trillions of dollars it will cost to otherwise provide free tuition and other aid to all public universities for undergraduate and postgraduate education. It's unfair to give them free undergraduate degrees and then tell them they have to pay to graduate schools aimed at career education.

The conclusion that free public education will doom most private colleges is misleading.
Some of private colleges are on the brink of extinction and will fail with or without free public college competition.

Free public college education will overwhelm the best public colleges (think flagship universities) with applicants. Either top public universities will limit the acceptance rates for onsite campuses to what it is now, or they will ruin onsite education with gigantic lecture classes, or they will limit the free tuition to inferior distance education. By inferior I mean that online courses will be huge with almost no interaction between students and their teachers and other students in each course. The very best online courses are small with instant messaging between faculty and students. These can be even better than face-to-face tutorials.

The better private schools will survive by offering what they offer now --- smaller classes, closer interactions with faculty, and campus residency aimed at providing all the things they cannot obtain in large public universities, small dormitories, participation in sports without having to perform at a professional level, etc.

But the nation may not survive as Biden's social program promises inch up toward $100 trillion per year for universal health care for legal and illegal residents, minimum basic income, green initiatives, reparations for all people of color, open borders, massive housing subsidies, free college for all legal and illegal residents, enormous increase in funding to K-12 schools, new roads/bridges, bailout of states, etc.

The ploy of promising everything for everybody is not new to political candidates.
History is replete with failed promises when economic realities set in for elected officials. The worry today is that activists will no longer accept excuses for failed promises and will elect zealots like AOC, Harris, or Bernie Sanders instead of Joe Biden --- who, like Obama, I hope is more tuned into economic realities even though Biden's now making unrealistic promises.

I hope Biden's VP choice is a realist and not a zealot.

 




Updates on Medical Insurance

 


 

 

Open immigration can’t exist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure healthcare and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global ---
Paul Krugman
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/724654-open-immigration-can-t-exist-with-a-strong-social-safety-net

 

Bob Jensen's threads on health insurance ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

 




Bob Jensen's Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm 

Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals

Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:

Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm

Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Enron --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm

Rotten to the Core --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

American History of Fraud --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm

Bob Jensen's fraud conclusions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on corporate governance are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance 

 

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

·     With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier

·     With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams

·     With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR

·     With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave  --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen

What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Bob Jensen's threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/