The Chinese are such optimists

Donald Trump compounded his problems over his quid pro quo call urging the Ukrainian president to find dirt on Joe Biden in return for return for releasing weapons to them, by then calling on the Chinese government to do the same. In response, this is what the Chinese foreign minister said.

Good one, Wang Yi!

As US politics sinks into the mire, the chances that we can sort out our problems in anything like a rational manner become dimmer by the day.

Forced obsolescence

This Pearls Before Swine cartoon struck home for me because, like Rat, I have an iPhone 5. I am not one that needs to have the latest version of anything. If the old one works, I stick with it. In fact, I have never bought a cell phone in my life. The ones I have used have all been hand-me-downs from my spouse or children when they upgrade to new phones.

I am perfectly happy with my old iPhone 5 and would be quite content to continue to use it forever because it seems to be working fine as far as its basic functions of calls and texts and its data storage features. But I am feeling pressure to upgrade. The problem is not the phone itself but that one by one, various apps are upgrading to versions that are no longer supported by the phone. The iOS operating system I have is 10.3.4 which is the latest one that my hardware can support but the updates of various apps require newer versions of iOS and that would require me to get a newer phone just to use those apps.

I am holding out for now even though some things (like depositing checks in my bank account) can no longer be done by phone and I have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Sigh.

The CAPS LOCK key should go

On the computer keyboard, apart from the space bar and shift keys which are both used considerably, the next biggest key is the Caps Lock key which is almost never used, except by those who like to use all capitals all the time. These are probably the same people who immediately get onto the fast lane on the highway and stay there, irrespective of the level of traffic.
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The unbearable whininess of New York Times columnists

It is extraordinary how brittle are the sensibilities of people who have major media platforms. I recently highlighted the absurd over-reaction of New York Times columnist Bret Stephens to a tweet by an until-then obscure professor who called him a bedbug. This turned out to be a beautiful example of the Streisand Effect because Stephens’ ridiculous response went viral and was used as an example by many (including me) about how these who often use their platforms to denounce those whom they accuse of silencing the speech of others, have feelings that are hurt so easily that they denounce any critics of themselves, however innocuous. It reveals what sheltered lives they live, in a cocoon of like-minded people who pat each other on the back at their social gatherings.
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There is a conference for people banned from conferences

Conservative billionaire Peter Thiel’s Foundation Fund is backing an invitation-only conference in May 2020 for people who have been banned from other conferences. The conference is hoping to attract ‘dissenting thinkers’ and is meant to be “a safe space for people who don’t feel safe in safe spaces.”

Hereticon (yes, it’s actually called that) promises to include “many of our culture’s most important troublemakers,” specifically ones committed to improving civilization.
…

The topics that will take center stage at Hereticon? They’re a doozy. Conversations will center on a smorgasbord of libertarian micro-obsessions, including transhumanism, “the abolition of college” (a favorite of Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel), “the benefits of starvation” a la Jack Dorsey’s fasting diet, “the softer side of doomsday prepping,” and immortality, naturally.

UFOs. biological modification, and drag culture are also on the menu.

It would be interesting to see whether the nature of the bans matter in inviting people. If you are banned for other conferences because you are a sexual predator or are a sexist, misogynist, racist, homophobe or similarly obnoxious, does that qualify you to attend Hereticon?

I suspect that the people who might be attracted to attend this are the usual suspects like the denizens of the ‘intellectual dark web’ who feel that their views are out of step with a ‘politically correct’ culture and are angry that people protest their talks. They are like the Jack Nicholson character in the 1992 film A Few Good Men, yelling to their critics, “You can’t handle the truth!” It must be nice for them to know that a billionaire will provide them a home.

Is trolling public displays of religion a good idea?

The Satanic Temple and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Or Pastafarians for short) are examples of non-religious groups adopting religious symbolism in order to highlight the importance of separation of church and state by showing that if you allow one religion into the public sphere, then you have to allow every religion, even parody ones. The Satanic Temple has been particularly effective in rolling back attempts to plant Ten Commandments and other monuments on public land, by demanding that their own statue of Baphomet be placed as well, because of the requirement that government entities be neutral with regard to religions
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The people who benefit most from Harvard’s admissions policies

A federal judge ruled this week that the admissions policy of Harvard University is constitutional.

In a closely watched lawsuit that had raised fears about the future of affirmative action, a group called Students for Fair Admissions accused the Ivy League college of deliberately — and illegally — holding down the number of Asian Americans accepted in order to preserve a certain racial balance on campus.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, however, ruled that Harvard’s admissions process is “not perfect” but passes constitutional muster. She said there is “no evidence of any racial animus whatsoever” and no evidence that any admission decision was “negatively affected by Asian American identity.”

“Race conscious admissions will always penalize to some extent the groups that are not being advantaged by the process,” Burroughs wrote, “but this is justified by the compelling interest in diversity and all the benefits that flow from a diverse college population.”

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The callousness and cruelty of Donald Trump

It is a telling sign of politics in the US that what triggered impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump was his phone call to the Ukrainian president that sought a quid pro quo, asking them to get dirt of the son of his Democratic political opponent Joe Biden in return for releasing weapons that he had held up. In the US what gets serious attention is not major crimes but when one faction of the ruling political establishment sees a chance to discredit the other faction or engages in dirty tricks against the other faction. Recall that impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon were triggered by his operatives breaking in to the offices of the Democratic party headquarters. And impeachment against Bill Clinton was ostensibly because he lied under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky but we know that the real reason is because Republicans saw a chance to turn a sexual liaison into a political weapon. None of them were impeached for the many awful things they committed because these were in the service of the bipartisan war machine.
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How Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All plan works

Bernie Sanders has had to have surgery to install two stents for a blocked artery. This is a pretty routine procedure now but needing medical treatment of any kind is not good for a candidate about whom questions have been raised about age.

In this clip, he cuts through all the distortions about his Medicare For All plan and lays out for Stephen Colbert how it will work.

Meanwhile Elizabeth Warren is making all the right enemies. After Wall Street executives warned the Democratic party that they would abandon he party if she ended up being the nominee, now Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says that he “will go the mat” to prevent her plan to break up the big tech companies because they have too much power.