the Revision Division

DAVE BARRY: The New York Times Published This Brilliant Column By This Brilliant Essayist.

Isn’t that amazing? She’s here two weeks and she knows how “most locals” feel about income inequality! I’ve lived here almost thirty years, and I’d never claim to know that. Probably because I’m not a thinker. I’m referring to this sentence from Ms. Druckerman’s essay:

And while there are some thinkers scattered around town, Miami is overrun with lawyers, jewelry designers and personal trainers, all trying to sell services to one another.

That’s right: She knows who Miami’s thinkers are — all of them, apparently — and also knows where they are! “Scattered around town.”

I wish the Times had printed a map, so I could go see them.

HEH: “A District of Columbia news crew reporting on an app that identifies ‘sketchy’ neighborhoods had their van burglarized while they were interviewing individuals who lived in a neighborhood the app identified as ‘sketchy.'”

BEING ARMED is a deterrent to crime, while being unarmed is an invitation.

The victim told police that he believed the boys were playing the “knockout game.” He said he was approached on the beach by one of the boys who asked him if he had a “Glock.” The man was punched after admitting that he was unarmed.

Fearing that the boy would continue to hit him until he was unconscious, the man grabbed at a folding knife that he had tucked into his waistband and pretended to have a gun.

MARK STEYN: “A culture in which you can be hauled into court for ‘offending’ persons of designated groups is one in which everyone quickly becomes adept at reflexive self-censoring.”

This is where we came in, 13 years ago – Portland airport in Maine at five in the morning on a Tuesday morning in September, as Mohammed Atta checks in for his flight:

Atta’s demeanor and the pair’s first-class, one-way tickets to Los Angeles made [US Airways ticket agent Michael] Tuohey think twice about them.

“I said to myself, ‘If this guy doesn’t look like an Arab terrorist, then nothing does.’ Then I gave myself a mental slap, because in this day and age, it’s not nice to say things like this,” Tuohey told the Maine Sunday Telegram. “You’ve checked in hundreds of Arabs and Hindus and Sikhs, and you’ve never done that. I felt kind of embarrassed.”

So he let Mr Atta board the plane. And, if he felt “kind of embarrassed” after thousands of people died in New York a couple of hours later, on balance it’s probably less embarrassing than if he’d stopped him and been consigned to sensitive-training hell by US Airways for six months.

WHY are Indian children so short?

The average baby born in India is more likely to be stunted than the average baby in sub-Saharan Africa — even though the baby’s mother is more likely to survive the birth, and he or she will probably go on to live longer and be richer and more educated.

Many explanations have been offered up for this “South Asian enigma.” . . .

We found that the South Asian enigma begins only with the second-born child, and becomes more pronounced for each subsequent baby. Among children born third or later, 48 percent are stunted in India versus 40 percent in Africa, while the rates for firstborn children are 35 percent in India versus 37 percent in Africa.

Children from the same family are most likely subject to the same external factors, like exposure to pathogens from open defecation, so there must be something else going on. We believe that the explanation is India’s deeply entrenched preference for firstborn sons.

BUT WILL ANYONE WATCH? CBS Sports to Make TV History with All-Female Sports Talk Show This Fall. “The weekly show, which will air on CBS Sports Network, will not only feature an all-female cast, but will also be produced and directed by women.”

Will women also carry around and service the cameras and other equipment? This is important.

WHITEY NEED NOT APPLY: Minority teachers needed to increase diversity in Minn. schools.

Finding new ways to recruit and license teachers of various ethnicities could help close the achievement gap between white and non-white students, said former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, executive director of Generation Next, which aims to improve outcomes for students of color in Twin Cities districts.

“The ability to look at the person who is the role model in that room and have at least every once in a while it be someone who looks more like you, is not only about common sense,” Rybak said. “It is backed by data: having a teacher of color helps a kid of color achieve better.”

If it helps to have a teacher “who looks more like you,” then why not divide students and teachers by race and sex? Why not push for more male teachers where they are currently lacking, namely primary school? And why not push for more white teachers in gentrifying districts?

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: Why some feminists say women bosses are just ‘a decoy’.

“The women in boardrooms initiatives seem to me to be a decoy,” says feminist Laurie Penny, in her new book Unspeakable Things – Sex, Lies and Revolution.

“This idea that magically putting women in boardrooms would sort out women’s rights and economic injustice is just to fob us off.”

It’s never enough. The demands will never end.

The takeaway: If you can only ever lose, then stop playing the game.

THE STATE AS FATHER: South Carolina mom calls 911 after son, 15, watched porn on living room TV.

While watching porn isn’t illegal, Gallman said she needed backup because her son “has been having behavior issues,” reports The Smoking Gun.

She also said he had problems with listening, talking back and stealing — and she wanted to wanted to file a report to document her son’s “behavior and due to her daughter being exposed to porn.”

BUT OF COURSE: U.S. medical schools urged to increase enrollment of illegal immigrants. “The authors . . . suggest that these students, who are often highly motivated and qualified, can help alleviate the nationwide shortage of primary care physicians, particularly in underserved, low-income areas.”

It is, of course, framed as a matter of jobs Americans won’t do (we have a “shortage”!). And, of course, we’re talking about “qualified” applicants, not just any ol’ immigrants. So, rest easy, America.

But as Mark Perry points out, “acceptance rates at US medical schools in 2013 reveal racial profiling and affirmative discrimination for blacks, Hispanics.” Medical schools are already uninterested in accepting only qualified applicants. Widening the pool of applicants to include (mostly-Hispanic) illegal immigrants just means more discrimination against actually-qualified whites and Asians.

And these schools are encouraged by law to discriminate in this way. See, for example, the following provisions of Obamacare:

It directs the secretary of health and human services to award federal grants worth billions of dollars to educational institutions that train medical-service providers. However, “priority” for federal dollars is to be given only to those institutions offering “preferential” admissions to underrepresented minorities (according to race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, and religion, depending on which section of the bill you look at). Thus, schools will be unable to compete for essential federal funding unless they adopt admission policies that intentionally and deliberately discriminate. It guarantees the institution of racist and sexist quotas sanctioned and encouraged by the federal government . . .

The bill also declares that institutions training social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, behavioral pediatricians, psychiatric nurses, and counselors will be ineligible for federal grants unless they discriminate. According to Section 756, these programs must enroll “individuals and groups from different racial, ethnic, cultural, geographic, religious, linguistic, and class backgrounds, and different genders and sexual orientations” and demonstrate “knowledge and understanding of the concerns of the[se] individuals and groups.” If the schools fail to abide by these requirements, they will be liable for “liquidated damages.” [See 42 USC §294e–1 (b) 1, 2, and 5.]

The Senate bill even creates a federally funded and administered medical school called the United States Public Health Services Track to “grant appropriate advanced degrees.” Priority in admissions is to be given to “students from rural communities and underrepresented minorities.” (“Underrepresented minorities” is liberal code for “Asians need not apply.”) [See 42 USC CHAPTER 6A, SUBCHAPTER I, Part D, §239/ (a) 1 and §239/-2 (a) 2.]

The proposal to extend medical school enrollment to illegal aliens is less a remedy for a supposed lack of qualified applicants and more a remedy for a felt lack of minority (i.e., Hispanic) applicants.

Keep in mind also that Obamacare pushes matching the race of doctor and patient. And once you permit an influx of illegal Hispanic immigrants and offer them free health care, such matching requires more illegal Hispanic health care providers. As for non-Hispanic citizens? They can get bent.

PEDDLING LIES: USA Network’s “Satisfaction” and the Gay Redefinition of Marriage.

Here is the reason why the gay redefinition of marriage [“two people who live together but largely have sex with others”] is happening. Women want it. . . .

You have the showrunner from “Suits” and FX’s “Nip/Tuck” creating another show aimed at middle class women. Promising them they can have it all, exciting sex AND a husband who rakes in the money.

In short, women are powering the gay redefinition of marriage. Not because they are bad or evil.

BECAUSE THEY ARE SUCKERS. . . .

The honest, and ugly truth, is that women can only get love and keep it if they choose wisely young, and refrain from sleeping around with lots of guys. . . .

A woman who sleeps around, fails to lock down the good man she might have gotten years earlier. And all that is left is the dregs, men considered “unmarriageable” because of bad habits, unattractiveness, worse personality, etc. Men she would have brushed aside years earlier now reject her. Worse from her point of view, any man she can attract will always value former girlfriends, lovers, etc. more than herself (she herself of course will do the same). The union such as it is will be very, very fragile. . . .

Who is to blame? Women’s mothers. They are the ones who had the responsibility to speak the truth. To tell their daughters, “you won’t be hot forever.” To let them know they had to avoid the temptation of sex-greed, the hucksters, and that what works (for a while until they die old and alone) for gay men won’t work for them.

DOG BITES MAN: HHS just admitted it destroyed a bunch of emails.

CURIOUS: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake in relation to semen quality and reproductive hormone levels in young men.

Higher consumption of SSB was associated with lower sperm motility among healthy, young men. . . .

As in all cross-sectional studies, causal inference is limited. An additional problem is that only [a] single semen sample was obtained from each subject. . . .

To our knowledge, this is the first report on the relation between SSB intake and low semen quality beyond the contribution of caffeinated beverages. While our findings are in agreement with recent experimental data in rodents, more studies are required to draw conclusions on the relation of SSB with semen quality or male infertility.

IF I HAD A SON, he would look like Jamarion. “Serious charges against such a young boy who just turned 12 in March. Both the prosecution and defense say they’ve never seen someone so young charged with murder before.”

FINALLY a congressional Republican calls out Democrats on their anti-white political strategy. “One gets the sense that we’ve passed the apogee of Peak Racism/Racialism. If not, it is good to see some return fire against the liberalist Left using their own bullets.”

THE COST of January’s Minimum Wage Hikes: “In states that raised their minimum wages in January the net job growth rate among retail and restaurant workers fell an average 1.7 percentage points, costing those states 129,200 new jobs total.”

FIGURES: Timeline: Border Surge Began a Few Months After Obama’s First Executive Action on Immigration.

MARK PERRY: But..but..who will build the roads without government? British man built one in 10 days so drivers can bypass 14-mile detour.

CHATEAU HEARTISTE: The Working Woman’s New Master.

The modern wife leaves the world of her husband every morning to submit to sexy male rulers presiding over the parallel world she inhabits during the day. She still has a boss, but it’s no longer her husband. The temptation for her to cheat, either bodily or in mind, must be great. . . .

Men — particularly men with little experience bedding women — have a hard time understanding this primal craving of women for higher status mates, because men don’t give a fig about female status. To help focus minds, recall what you as a man feel when a beautiful young woman poured into a slinky cocktail dress sits close to you and smiles. That’s what women feel in the presence of powerful male bosses commanding them to do their bidding.

JOHN COCHRANE: “In the last census, 19.2% of 20-24 year old [black male]s were employed, and 26.4 (!) percent were in jail. Read up, and it was not always thus. Of the cohort born in the 1930s, at the same age, 68% were employed and 6.7% were in jail.”

BREITBART TEXAS: Leaked CBP Report Shows Entire World Exploiting Open Us Border. “The report reveals the apprehension numbers ranging from 2010 through July 2014. It shows that most of the human smuggling from Syria and Albania into the U.S. comes through Central America. The report also indicates the routes individuals from North Africa and the Middle East take into the European Union, either to illegally migrate there or as a possible stop in their journey to the United States. The data are broken down further into the specific U.S. border sectors where the apprehensions and contact occurred.”

ANTHONY WATTS: A brief history of climate panic and crisis… both warming and cooling. “Not only is it clear that they take any change and claim it’s going to go on forever and kill everyone, but notice that they even sometimes get the short-term trend wrong.”

REPLICATION in psychology.

Psychologists are up in arms over, of all things, the editorial process that led to the recent publication of a special issue of the journal Social Psychology. This may seem like a classic case of ivory tower navel gazing, but its impact extends far beyond academia. The issue attempts to replicate 27 “important findings in social psychology.” . . .

Unfortunately, published replications have been distressingly rare in psychology. A 2012 survey of the top 100 psychology journals found that barely 1 percent of papers published since 1900 were purely attempts to reproduce previous findings. Some of the most prestigious journals have maintained explicit policies against replication efforts; for example, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published a paper purporting to support the existence of ESP-like “precognition,” but would not publish papers that failed to replicate that (or any other) discovery. Science publishes “technical comments” on its own articles, but only if they are submitted within three months of the original publication, which leaves little time to conduct and document a replication attempt. . . .

The results were sobering. At least 10 of the 27 “important findings” in social psychology were not replicated at all. In the social priming area, only one of seven replications succeeded.

UK: NHS to fund sperm bank for lesbians: New generation of fatherless families… paid for by YOU. “Heterosexual couples will also be able to benefit, but the move – funded by the Department of Health – is largely designed to meet the increasing demand from thousands of women who want to start a family without having a relationship with a man.”

Isn’t this just an extension of the welfare state’s attempt to replace fathers as a provider? Not only will the state protect women and provide for them and their children through redistribution of taxpayer money, but now it will see to it that they are impregnated in the first place, again using tax dollars.

And how is it in any way in the interest of society actively to encourage and assist in the making of children who are, from the start and by design, without fathers?

TREATING CRIMINALS LIKE KINGS: Migrant Detention Facility Has Hair Salon, Child Care, Library.

Further inside they will have access to a dental care, a bilingual library, playrooms, child care, pay phones, flat-screen TVs, free Internet access, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, weightlifting equipment, a small soccer field and a soon-to-be installed playground play scape.

Many of those amenities were already in place. The center opened in 2012 and was built to meet standards set after immigrant advocate groups complained the government previously held children behind razor barbed wire in facilities with strict rules and run by staff trained to deal with hardened criminals.

Here’s an idea: do the exact opposite of what “immigrant advocate groups” say.

THEY CERTAINLY COULD USE IT: Something To Hit Clueless Republicans Over The Head With.

What’s at stake for Republicans isn’t “merely” winning current elections, it’s survival as a viable national party. That’s the irrefutable conclusion of a 41-page report, How Mass (Legal) Immigration Dooms a Conservative Republican Party [640-kB PDF], published earlier this year by the Eagle Forum. . . .

A couple of us have put together two pages of excerpts from the report. The contents of those two pages are posted at the end of this blog entry. Further, they’re available in the 250-kB PDF file archived here. [PDF]

Readers can use that file to print their own one-sheet (two-page) copies of these excerpts for distribution to candidates and interested others in campaign offices and at campaign rallies. . . .

But if reading even the approximately 850 words in those two pages of excerpts sounds like a bridge too far, at least initially, you can download and print the one-page graphic from the full report’s inside front cover that you’ll find here [PDF] [350-kB PDF].

JANET BLOOMFIELD: The moment I knew feminism was a crock of sh*t.

There was always something a bit off with all the theories. It wasn’t until my fourth year, when I confronted Moniqe Wittig that the bulb suddenly blared into full spectrum light.

Essentially, Wittig’s argument is that only lesbians are truly women and that only lesbians experience true freedom. Taking as a starting point the idea that freedom is central to the definition of humanity, Wittig is basically arguing for the end of the human race. If the only way to experience freedom is to be a lesbian, men are instantly irrelevant. Without men, there are no children. Without children, there is no future. It’s PD James and the End of Men.

JACK DONOVAN on men applauding masculine women. “If men take female hormones to gain the characteristics of females, we call them transsexuals. If women are be told to admire women who take testosterone and testosterone derivatives to gain the characteristics of men, aren’t they being encouraged to look like borderline transsexuals? Is the fitness community’s ‘ideal woman’ really a vascular tranny with the 6-pack, biceps, and modified rear end of an 18 year-old dude? What does that say about this brave, new post-feminist bonobo culture?”

JONATHAN TAYLOR on false rape accusations.

Even in cases that receive a high degree of public outcry false accusers are not charged. The infamous false accuser Crystal Mangum in the 2006 Duke lacrosse false rape case was not charged either despite overwhelming evidence that she lied. . . .

At Hofstra University, Danmell Ndonye falsely accused five young men of gang rape as an alibi to her boyfriend for having sex with several men in a restroom. Even though one of the young men recorded the incident with his phone and proved she lied, she was never charged with a crime. . . .

Dr. Eugene Kanin is a retired sociologist at Purdue University. As an early feminist he pioneered awareness and study of the concept of date rape. In the 1990s he authored a study [PDF] on the prevalence of false rape accusations that concluded that 41% of the accusers —which were in fact all of the accusations made to the police department of a small metropolitan area over a ten-year period—were false. . . .

The police only considered an accusation false when the accusers themselves admitted it, regardless as to whatever they themselves thought about the case. Given that there were likely numerous false accusers who did not recant this means the 41% false rape figure is actually the floor . . .

Edward Greer, J.D., states in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review [PDF], “no study has ever been published which sets forth an evidentiary basis for the ‘two percent false rape complaint’ thesis,” and that “without exception every scholarly or semi-scholarly source that utilizes the two percent false claim proposition can ultimately be traced back to Against Our Will.”

Against Our Will is a book on rape by feminist Susan Brownmiller that was published in the 1970s. Brownmiller claims that she was given the figure by a professional in the criminal justice system. We are given no evidence other than her word that this was ever the case.

NOPE: Media Coverage of Medical Journals: Do the Best Articles Make the News? “Newspapers were more likely to cover observational studies and less likely to cover RCTs [randomized controlled trials] than high impact journals. Additionally, when the media does cover observational studies, they select articles of inferior quality. Newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology.”

REALITY ITSELF IS SEXIST: An ‘Ether Of Sexism’ Doesn’t Explain Gender Disparities In Science And Tech. “According to ‘ether’ sexism, parents, teachers, and our entire culture create — often unknowingly — a noxious miasma that contributes to a systematic and early barrage of gendered, subliminal messages. This effectively discourages women from doing anything that doesn’t fit with hoary notions of femininity. Does an invisible, ineffable fog of oppression truly engulf modern American women? The evidence is increasingly strained and far-fetched.”

Let’s say that it’s true. Who cares? If men can control women through such a clever conspiracy, then maybe men deserve all those STEM jobs and women don’t.

It turns out, then, that the “ether” theory of sexism is itself an example of reverse reverse sexism, a subset of reverse reverse bigotry, whereby an ideology of victimization ends up harming the very groups it intends to privilege.

KEEP GOING: Podcasting patent troll: We tried to drop lawsuit against Adam Carolla. The troll claims that Carolla is wasting his fans’ money. It isn’t until the twelfth paragraph that we find Carolla’s position on the matter:

In response, Carolla sent Ars a statement saying he’ll continue to pursue counterclaims against Personal Audio, seeking to invalidate the patent “so that Personal Audio cannot sue other podcasters for infringement of US Patent 8,112,504.” Lotzi (Carolla’s company) has already “incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and expenses to defend itself” against the Personal Audio patents.

The statement from Carolla also says that “court orders prevent Lotzi and Adam from discussing the matter in further detail.” A spokesperson wouldn’t say what those court orders were. A review of the case docket doesn’t show any court order that would prevent Carolla from responding to Personal Audio’s main accusation, which is that he’s essentially wasting his donors’ money.

Was this article written by a complete tool? Carolla actually does respond to the accusation. He says that he’s trying to prevent the company from ever again claiming to own podcasting. Letting them go would mean that they could turn right around and continue suing podcasters.

Earlier: Adam Carolla fights patent troll.

FOR THE LADIES: Don’t bring a problem to him if you don’t want a solution.

Related video: It’s Not About The Nail.

MAYBE THEY SHOULD LOSE WEIGHT: Justice Department sues Pennsylvania State Police, claiming fitness tests discriminate against women.

The practice violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and does not qualify under the law as a business necessity, it said.

“The Department of Justice is deeply committed to eliminating artificial barriers that keep qualified women out of public safety work,” Jocelyn Samuels, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said in a statement.

“Qualified.” You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: From ‘My People’ to ‘Our People’ — What Next? “Representative Luis Gutierrez addressed the National Council of La Raza in hyper tones, calling not only for more amnesties but also for the crowd to ‘punish’ their adversaries who would oppose them. Apparently, Eric Holder’s prior separatist reference to ‘my people’ when talking of African Americans, and President Obama’s earlier 2010 racialist call for Latinos ‘to punish our enemies’ have filtered down as mainstream nomenclature and emboldened others.”

CURIOUS: What the textbooks don’t tell you – one of psychology’s most famous experiments was seriously flawed. It refers to Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Dominant Behavior and Posture Increase Testosterone.

If behavior can influence testosterone levels significantly as this evidence suggests, then we may have to rethink why men experience low testosterone problems in the first place. Is this strictly caused by physical health issues (obesity, environmental plastics, pollution, etc.)?

Or, does disempowerment and emasculation contribute to this phenomenon as well? If so, “acting like a man” may be more than just a socially-constructed gender option. It may be necessary for men’s mental and physical health.

YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT. THEY DID. Obama: Muslims Built ‘The Very Fabric Of Our Nation’.

VIDEO: Gas station clerk with MMA training surprises thieves.

CULTURAL ENRICHMENT: Illegal immigrants arrested for murder of homeless black man. “This is what happens when our old vibrant diversity meets our new vibrant diversity.”

Democrats want to replace blacks with Hispanics. Seems like the plan is working.

JOHN STONESTREET: Yeah, We Messed Up, Too: The Church’s Role in Redefining Marriage.

Remember the widespread Christian backlash against no-fault divorce? No? That’s because there wasn’t a backlash—at least not one on the scale we’ve seen against gay “marriage.”

Our willingness to yawn at the definition shift that fractured marriage 40 years ago—but only take up arms when homosexuals wanted recognition—has not gone unnoticed. And LGBT apologists have used the Christian blind spot for divorce to great effect.

If we want to be taken seriously when we warn that same-sex “marriage” will dissolve the foundations of society, we need to take more seriously the redefinitions that got us here in the first place.

TODD STARNES: Troop leader: Customs and Border agent held Boy Scout at gunpoint.

During the search, one of the scouts tried to retrieve a bag from the roof carrier. When he turned around, Fox said an agent had a loaded pistol pointed at the child.

“He heard a snap of the holster, turns around, and here’s this agent, both hands on a loaded pistol, pointing at the young man’s head,” Fox told the television station. . . .

They also wanted to know why the Boy Scouts were hauling “excessive amounts of lighters, matches and knives,” Fox said.

STEVE SAILER: World War T Crushes Lesbians: Never Underestimate the More Masculine Mind’s Urge for Dominance. “There’s a certain historic irony and inevitability to lesbian feminists being routed by the only people claiming to be women who are even more ferociously masculine than themselves: individuals with actual Y-chromosomes.”

POLL: 77% want illegals sent home.

SCOTT BROWN becomes first U.S. Senate candidate in nation to run ad on immigration crisis. “The 30-second ad that is scheduled to air this week on WMUR-TV and on cable stations in the state begins with Brown saying that Americans must go through security when they ‘get on a plane, enter a government building or attend a ballgame. But folks who come here illegally just walk across the border.'”

ACT OF LOVE: Mexican Immigrant With Drug-Resistant TB Goes Missing in California. “He went missing in March but we’re just hearing about it now? That’s unsettling.”

CULTURAL ENRICHMENT: Border agents say violent MS-13 gang recruiting at Arizona facility for new Central American arrivals.

IN OTHER NEWS: WATER IS WET. Study Finds That Men Like Nice Women, But Not the Other Way Around. Stupid closing line: “So for now, the question ‘what do women want?’ will remain unanswered.” The correct answer is, “Who cares?”

APPARENTLY THIS IS NEWS: Young man voluntarily mutilates genitals, calls self woman. Actual headline: “Andreja Pejic Comes Out As A Transgender [sic] Woman.” Key quotation: “One of my earliest memories is spinning around in my mom’s skirt trying to look like a ballerina.” First thought: No father. Correct: “The couple divorced shortly after Pejić’s birth.”

Also, it appears that the mutilation procedure doesn’t involve getting rid of the Adam’s apple.

NOT A BAD IDEA: Japanese Supreme Court Rules Against Foreign Residents on Welfare. The original title of this article, as reflected in the URL, claimed that the court “makes foreigners second-class citizens.” No, it just recognizes that non-naturalized foreigners aren’t citizens at all.