Reader’s Links for May 6, 2021

Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

93 Replies to “Reader’s Links for May 6, 2021”

  1. Idaho governor Brad Little has a bill signed into law that aims to restrict critical race theory from being taught as a subject in schools and universities.

    The bill, H 377, prevents teachers from “indoctrinating” students into belief systems that claim that members of any race, sex, religion, ethnicity or national origin are inferior or superior to other groups. Signed into law last week, H 377 also makes it illegal to make students “affirm, adopt or adhere to” beliefs that members of these groups are today responsible for past actions of the groups to which they claim to belong.

    Critical race theory is a concept developed by academics and leading scholars of jurisprudence, with intellectual origins in the 1960s which were organized officially in the late 1980s. The theory states that racism is embedded both in US history and modern American law. It holds that legal institutions in the US are inherently racist.

    Often abbreviated as CRT, it seeks to challenge racism and improve equitable racial power through legal reform. Equitable treatment under the law for all races, according to the theory, renders the law incapable of recognizing systemic and indirect racist practices.

    In the bill’s transmittal letter to Idaho’s Republican house speaker Scott Bedke, Little, who is also a Republican, cited the undermining of “trust and local governance of our public schools” and “popular support for public education in Idaho” as concerns.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/06/idaho-critical-race-theory

  2. Republican lawmakers in Texas are reportedly moving forward with an effort to prohibit teaching of “woke philosophies” such as critical race theory in favor of “traditional history” being taught in schools.

    Two pieces of legislation, Senate bill 2022 and House bill 3979, making their way through the legislature would ban teachers from teaching anti-racist material, and from receiving private funding or material for teaching the controversial 1619 Project.

    The Senate bill, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, says that “no teacher shall be compelled by a policy of any state agency, school district, campus, open-enrollment charter school, or school administration to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs.”

    In addition, schools would be barred from requiring “political activism” as part of a course or including as extra credit, and from teaching that people should feel “discomfort” or “guilt” because of their race or sex, according to the bill text. Students also would be prohibited from being taught that “meritocracy” or “hard work” are racist or sexist, the bill says.

    https://nypost.com/2021/05/05/texas-bans-critical-race-theory-from-being-taught-in-classrooms/?utm_source=reddit.com

  3. MESQUITE, Texas — Police in a Dallas suburb fatally shot a 27-year-old man who they said ran toward officers with a knife and club, although his family said he was carrying a walking stick and had a history of mental illness.

    Officers were dispatched Tuesday morning to an apartment building in Mesquite after receiving a 911 call on which a woman could be heard screaming and crying, according to a statement from the city police department.

    At the apartments, police were told that Ashton Pinke was armed with a knife, according to the statement. When police found Pinke by the side of the building he “charged at officers, armed with a knife and a club” and they shot him, police said.

    Pinke was later pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. The officers were not injured.

    Pinke’s family questioned whether he had a knife in his hand when he was shot and why the officers didn’t try to deescalate the situation. They called on police to release body camera footage of the shooting, which the department said it will do later this week.

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-police-fatally-shoot-man-charged-officers-77509365

  4. VIDEO: Attacker uses cement block to brutally beat two Asian women — and male bystander just feet away simply walks off
    Dave Urbanski
    4 minutes

    A pair of Korean woman were brutally beaten by an attacker who used a cement block to repeatedly strike them as they were trying to close their Baltimore store overnight Monday, WJZ-TV reported.

    And the attack was caught on surveillance video.
    What are the details?

    John Yun — whose mother and aunt were the victims — told the station the attack was random and that they never saw their assailant before.

    Surveillance video shows Yun’s aunt walking to the front of Wonderland Liquor Store to close for the night, WJZ said, when a man on the sidewalk comes at her with a cement block and pulls her through the door back into the store.

    https://www.theblaze.com/news/video-attacker-cement-block-two-asian-women?utm_source=theblaze-breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210506TRending-AsianAttack&utm_term=ACTIVE%20LIST%20-%20TheBlaze%20Breaking%20News

    Twitter video of news report at site

    • Well at least the bystander was described as a male and not a man. I am now an older woman and I would never stand by and watch.

  5. 2022 “Could Be Major Setback” For Democrats – Patriot Daily Wire
    3-4 minutes

    A Democratic candidate who lost her bid during last weekend’s Texas congressional special election sounded the alarm that the 2022 midterms “could be a major setback” for the Democratic Party.

    During the special election, two Republicans – and no Democrats – advanced in the runoff as the top two vote-getters in the race for Texas’s 6th Congressional District, after no one in the 23-candidate field won an outright majority of votes on May 1.

    Republicans Susan Wright, wife of the late Rep. Ron Wright, finished with 19 percent of the vote, while Jake Ellzey garnered 14 percent. Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez finished third with 13 percent and conceded on May 2.

    https://patriotdailywire.com/losing-texas-candidate-issues-warning-2022-could-be-major-setback-for-democrats/

  6. Microwaving the White House: Enemies Are Now Sonic Attacking Americans from American Soil
    Gordon G. Chang
    6-7 minutes

    Unidentified parties have in recent years been directing sonic attacks on U.S. officials on American soil. The attacks have also occurred in Cuba, China, and Russia. In spring 2018, American diplomats assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China (pictured) suffered brain injuries after being hit with microwaves or something similar. (Image source: iStock)

    Unidentified parties have in recent years been directing sonic attacks on U.S. officials on American soil. One such attack even occurred on the grounds of the White House.

    We should not be surprised. Failure to impose costs on known sonic attackers — the Cuban and Chinese regimes — almost certainly emboldened the perpetrators to think they could harm Americans in America.

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17343/sonic-attacks

  7. America’s Border: Cui Bono? – Who Benefits?
    Chris Farrell and Shea Garrison
    6-7 minutes

    Pictured: A Texas National Guard soldier guides a column of illegal border-crossers near the bank of the Rio Grande on April 29, 2021 in Roma, Texas. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

    The Latin expression “cui bono?” has been used by law enforcement officials and prosecutors for centuries to examine and evaluate criminal conduct in order to identify the most likely suspects and determine questions of motive. For nearly every crime, there must be a motive, a means, and an opportunity. When examining the ongoing criminal activity along the U.S.-Mexican border, any serious analysis requires the application of the cui bono investigative and legal concept.

    With the advent of the Biden administration, we have seen a 180-degree turn — a complete reversal — of the Trump administration’s “get tough” enforcement of federal immigration, drug enforcement, and national security laws along the Mexican border. The Biden administration has made a deliberate decision to abandon the application and enforcement of federal law. Why?

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17344/america-border-benefits

  8. Expelling Asian Americans from top schools proves NYC education is off the rails
    Bob McManus
    5-6 minutes

    Anti-Asian violence in New York right now is more than random street-corner sucker punches and terrifying subway shoves. It’s also the deliberate disassembly of meritocratic public education under the guise of ethnic equity — a dagger to the heart of the fastest-growing and arguably most dynamic immigrant group in the city.

    Not to diminish the thuggery, the most serious threat to Asian American New Yorkers is the Department of Education’s ill-disguised effort to eliminate merit test-based admission to the city’s eight highly selective high schools. The process is dominated by Asian kids to the virtual exclusion of black and Hispanic students.

    The new numbers came out last week, and they are beyond harsh: Asians won 54 percent of this year’s freshman class seats; whites, 28 percent; Hispanics, 5 percent, and African Americans, 4 percent.

    https://nypost.com/2021/05/03/expelling-asian-americans-from-top-schools-proves-nyc-education-is-off-the-rails/

  9. Attacker With Hammer Caught on Video Hitting Asian Woman in New York City
    4-5 minutes

    An attacker hitting an Asian-American woman in the head while walking her with friend in New York City on May 3, 2021. (Screenshot via NYPD street camera)

    Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.

    An Asian woman had to use a wine bottle she was carrying to fend off an attacker with a hammer while walking down the streets of New York City with a friend Sunday night.

    The attacker, who was caught on street-cam video, started following the 31-year-old woman, who has not been publicly identified, and her friend, who’s also Asian, around 8:40 p.m. in West Manhattan. According to police, the assailant demanded the two take off their masks. Then, the attacker can be seen on the footage repeatedly coming at the two women with the hammer at least four times, with so much force that both of the attacker’s shoes fall off, before dropping the hammer and walking away.

    The two friends were able to walk away from the scene after the 30-second attack, but one of the strikes caused a “laceration” on the 31-year-old’s head, according to police.

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/k788wn/attacker-with-hammer-caught-on-video-hitting-asian-woman-in-new-york-city?utm_source=vicenewsfacebook&fbclid=IwAR3rH0vWCEAkX3_BiktMHU3t5bSxSnuHF2IrwFC8TMV4osuwpwEvg0HNaSY

    https://twitter.com/NYPDHateCrimes/status/1389367802700648453?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1389367802700648453%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%2Farticle%2Fk788wn%2Fattacker-with-hammer-caught-on-video-hitting-asian-woman-in-new-york-city

  10. Pompeo: ‘No evidence’ Biden admin is prepared to confront China threat

  11. RAND Corporation – Detecting Conspiracy Theories on Social Media

    Improving Machine Learning to Detect and Understand Online Conspiracy Theories

    Conspiracy theories circulated online via social media contribute to a shift in public discourse away from facts and analysis and can contribute to direct public harm. Social media platforms face a difficult technical and policy challenge in trying to mitigate harm from online conspiracy theory language.

    As part of Google’s Jigsaw unit’s effort to confront emerging threats and incubate new technology to help create a safer world, RAND researchers conducted a modeling effort to improve machine-learning (ML) technology for detecting conspiracy theory language.

    They developed a hybrid model using linguistic and rhetorical theory to boost performance.

    They also aimed to synthesize existing research on conspiracy theories using new insight from this improved modeling effort. This report describes the results of that effort and offers recommendations to counter the effects of conspiracy theories that are spread online.

    Key Findings
    The hybrid ML model improved conspiracy topic detection.

    The hybrid ML model dramatically improved on either single model’s ability to detect conspiratorial language.

    Hybrid models likely have broad application to detecting any kind of harmful speech, not just that related to conspiracy theories.

    Some conspiracy theories, though harmful, rhetorically invoke legitimate social goods, such as health and safety.

    Some conspiracy theories rhetorically function by creating hate-based “us versus them” social oppositions.

    Direct contradiction or mockery is unlikely to change conspiracy theory adherence.

    Recommendations

    Engage transparently and empathetically with conspiracists.
    Correct conspiracy-related false news.
    Engage with moderate members of conspiracy groups.
    Address fears and existential threats.

    Table of Contents
    Chapter One

    Introduction: Detecting and Understanding Online Conspiracy Language

    Chapter Two

    Making Sense of Conspiracy Theories

    Chapter Three

    Modeling Conspiracy Theories: A Hybrid Approach

    Chapter Four

    Conclusion and Recommendations

    Appendix A

    Data and Methodology

    Appendix B

    Stance: Text Analysis and Machine Learning

    FULL DOCUMENT :

    https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA600/RRA676-1/RAND_RRA676-1.pdf

    ===================================

    This research was sponsored by Google’s Jigsaw unit and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD).

    This report is part of the RAND Corporation research report series. RAND reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

    Permission is given to duplicate this electronic document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND Permissions page.

    The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

    https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA676-1.html

  12. White House Argues That The 1st Amendment Doesn’t Apply To “Online Misinformation”
    4-5 minutes

    Following Facebook’s Oversight Board decision to keep a suspension in place for former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden recently shared that he believes social media platforms should do more to “stop amplifying untrustworthy content” and start blocking more “misinformation” related to COVID-19, vaccinations, and elections.

    The debate on Big Tech censorship grew during the 2020 presidential campaign when Biden and fellow Democrat officials were protected by social media companies that were blocking damaging stories about them.

    One of the most prominent examples was the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was censored and suppressed by Big Tech to the point that the New York Post’s Twitter account got suspended over it. The social media platforms stopped these stories from spreading online or being shared on numerous sites.

    The Big Tech debate exploded after Facebook and Twitter banned former President Donald Trump’s social media accounts in January after thousands of his supporters sought to stop the confirmation of the 2020 US election results at the US Capitol. The American people questioned whether this was a violation of the First Amendment and if social media companies had the power to silence a world leader.

    https://americanconservatives.com/2021/05/white-house-argues-that-the-1st-amendment-doesnt-apply-to-online-misinformation/