We’re Back From Shadow Ban Island (8-28-18)

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Luke Ford

00:00 Trump vs Big Tech
35:00 Original sin of conservatism – race denialism
46:00 Brown University retracts press release on research into early onset gender dysphoria
59:00 Ron Unz on Holocaust revisionism
1:10:00 Cocks vs kids
1:14:00 Conservative Catholics revolt against Pope Francis
1:16:00 Pedophilia in church
1:28:00 Trump’s private meeting with evangelical clery
1:38:00 Better Call Saul S4E4
2:05:00 Australia vs New Zealand

Luke Ford and Kevin Michael Grace discover they are no longer shadow-banned on Twitter.

* Kevin McCarthy leads charge for GOP against Big Tech.

* WSJ: Inside Twitter’s Long, Slow Struggle to Police Bad Actors

* Z-Man on the death of sportsball.

* Beto O’Rourke’s drunk-driving crash is not at all like George W. Bush’s DUI

* McCain tributes echo with criticism of Trump

* Mickey Kaus: “Rob Hurst, manager of Edgartown Commons on Martha’s Vineyard, has had to scrub bathrooms this summer …” The Trump era horror stories get worse and worse!

(The story notes he’s also hired contract workers to replace his usual H-2Bs. But they’re not the same!)

* Steve Sailer: USA’s John McCain Memorial War in Venezuela?

* NYT: Sweden Was Long Seen as a ‘Moral Superpower.’ That May Be Changing.

* Nike selects Colin Kaepernick as its face to the world.

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John David Ebert On The Astral Plane

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Luke Ford

John David Ebert joins us to discuss such movies as The Witch (2015), Annihilation; Blade Runner 2049; Mad Max: Fury Road; Mother!. (John’s Google Plus account.) (Patreon)

According to Wikipedia:

The astral spheres were thought to be planes of angelic existence intermediate between earth and heaven.
The astral plane, also called the astral world, is a plane of existence postulated by classical (particularly neo-Platonic), medieval, oriental, and esoteric philosophies and mystery religions.[1] It is the world of the celestial spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and is generally believed to be populated by angels, spirits or other immaterial beings.[2] In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy and neo-Rosicrucianism.

Another view holds that the astral plane or world, rather than being some kind of boundary area crossed by the soul, is the entirety of spirit existence or spirit worlds to which those who die on Earth go, and where they live out their non-physical lives. Some writers conflate this realm with heaven or paradise or union with God itself, and others do not. P. Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi, “The astral universe . . . is hundreds of times larger than the material universe . . .[with] many astral planets, teeming with astral beings.” (p.416) When Alice Bailey writes of seeing “Masters . . . upon the inner spiritual planes [who]. . . work with Christ and the planetary hierarchy,” she refers to a vision she had of the unseen astral realm that these and countless other beings inhabit. Christ being in that realm, it is hard to construe it as a non-heaven.”

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Alt Hyp Vs Richard Spencer: Analysis, Background As RS Starts Trending On Twitter

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Luke Ford

Disappointed Englishman comments: “A good stream and good neutral take on the AltHype affair. I think you could explore just how much of a personal blow AltHype’s “defection” is to many on the AltRight. Of course, this movement is all on line, and we don’t know our “heroes”, but we all have online stars – and AltHype was a hero to very many people. And it is like a personal gut punch to see/hear him doing what he’s doing. I would love to see Ryan admit that he is just upset the AltRight hasn’t made headway and has regressed over the past year or so, and that is why he acted emotionally against it. I’m not in the US, but as an Anglo-Saxon I’m kind of loyal to other Anglo-Saxon countries (in a way that Americans wouldn’t understand I don’t expect), and also I was hoping the AltRight would give an entry point for nationalism in all Western countries, so we all suffer if the US AltRight declines.”

* “1. Richard Spencer is very intelligent and educated. Plus the issues he defends are not irrational.
2. However he is extremely bad at assessing the current power-structure and the opposition.
3. He is incredibly bad in terms of organization, steps chosen, path chosen.

Plus – what seems to have triggered AltHype is the fact that Richard Spencer slept with the girlfriend of a friend of AltHype. Following Richard Spencer is not a good idea – Spencer should work better as a public speaker, PR person – but he must stay far away from any leading, managing role. Sane guys like Jared Taylor or Frame Games can far better decide for a good pro-White movement.”

Today’s Wall Street Journal article says Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey personally intervened to restore Richard Spencer’s Twitter account in late 2016. “Richard Spencer” is now trending on Twitter as a result.

Ryan’s original attack. His follow-up.

Background.

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I’m No Longer Shadow-Banned On Twitter

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Luke Ford

I notice all sorts of right-wingers on Twitter are no longer shadow banned! Check your status.

Big Tech bias is a winning issue for President Trump and Republicans. From The Hill:

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is leading the charge against President Trump’s new favorite punching bag: big tech.

The California Republican, who hopes to replace Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) next year, has been aggressively promoting a campaign to “stop the bias,” referring to what critics say is a pattern of discrimination against conservative voices on social media.

To that end, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill this week at a hearing requested by McCarthy.

“I’ve had many conversations with the president about how we have to stop this bias,” McCarthy, one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, told Fox News on Thursday.

“I’ve spoken to Jack Dorsey throughout the month,” McCarthy added. “He and I philosophically disagree, but we do agree on one thing: We believe in the First Amendment. But we also believe in transparency and accountability.”

The majority leader’s recent crusade against social media comes at a time when Trump has ramped up his own rhetoric against the tech industry. His eagerness to champion the cause could endear him to both the White House and conservative lawmakers — two constituencies that could be crucial to securing the Speakership.

Trump recently asserted that Google and other platforms are “rigged” against him, an accusation that Google rejected, and one that came on the heels of allegations from conservatives that Twitter has been “shadow banning” certain Republicans so that their accounts are less visible to users.

That controversy started after prominent conservatives aligned with Trump, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) failed to appear on Twitter’s auto-populated drop-down search box when users typed in their names.

The company said that it does not “shadow ban” according to political ideology, but acknowledged that its attempts to crack down on hate speech have unintentionally reduced search results for lawmakers from both parties.

McCarthy was quick to take up the mantle on the issue, tweeting more than a dozen times last month with the hashtag “stop the bias.” He also made the media rounds to step up pressure on Dorsey to publicly testify on Capitol Hill.

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Black PhDs In Hard Sciences

Posted on September 2, 2018 by Luke Ford

Heather Mac Donald writes: “Blacks made up 4.7% of all doctorate recipients nationwide in 2006, 4.9% in 2010, and 5.2% in 2016, according to the National Science Foundation. But black PhDs have historically been concentrated in education; in the sciences, which make up a large proportion of the UCLA faculty, less so. In 2016, for example, 1% of all PhDs in computer science went to blacks, or 17 out of 1,659 doctorates, according to the Computing Research Assn. Many fields — nuclear physics, geophysics and seismology and neuropsychology, for instance — had no black PhDs at all.”

“The ultimate solution to any absence of proportional representation in higher education is to close the academic skills gap. In 2015, only 14% of black eighth graders in California and 13% of Latino eighth graders scored as proficient or above on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math test, compared with 57% of Asians and 43% of whites. In reading, 16% of black eighth graders and 18% of Latino eighth graders were proficient or above, compared with 50% of Asians and 44% of whites. Such gaps have been constant over many decades.”

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