Sunday, April 28, 2024

Worth Reading in Full

4/19/24 Boston Globe.  The article is by a professor who grew up a black kid in a neighborhood so white:

"i could have been used as a landmark when giving directions.
Sadly, as one of the few Black kids in the neighborhood and one of the even fewer who spent any time with white peers, I was a daily target of racist bullying.". But the article is not a "I am a victim of white racism" rant.  It is how he has managed to get himself in trouble with a new class of racial bullies because he argued that speaking and writing standard English was empowering.

"Once, I committed the sin of saying that knowledge of standard written English may be valuable to all students, regardless of skin color. For this, I endured vitriol. Because standard English came from England and was used by imperialists and slaveholders, I was told, it was inherently racist to teach it to nonwhites. On a now-defunct academic listserv, I was accused of white supremacy, of being unconcerned with how such thoughts, coming from my Black body, were doing harm to other Black people."

Remember that there are black academics who are on the side of civilization and equal opportunity.  I suspect there are a lot of them.  Pretty obviously, you are not going to hear about them except in derision.  Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams are likely the only black scholars you can likely name in this category but they are not alone.  I have worked on gun rights history with a couple of others whose names I will not repeat on the small chance that they have  colleagues, or at least academic peers, who do not realize that they are "black faces of white supremacy.". A colleague where I teach now has given me reason to suspect him of academic rigor and commitment to equality of opportunity.

Pay Attention to Your Mutual Fund Returns

I confess that I have been enjoying a 35% annual gain on my IRA so much that I have not paid enough attention to individual mutual fund performance.  CPOAX has grown 227% over ten years while most of my other good choices in 2014 have grown 450% or better.

It is about time to shoot the dog and transfer the proceeds into one of the other better performing funds.

Friday, April 26, 2024

Boise Growing Up

I went to get my enhanced concealed weapon permit renewed.  It is also where you go for vehicle registration.  So what is parked out front?

Lime green Maserati 




Jewish Nazi Funding Anti-Israel Protests

4/26/24 New York Post:
"George Soros and his hard-left acolytes are paying agitators who are fueling the explosion of radical anti-Israel protests at colleges across the country.

"The protests, which began when students took over Columbia University’s Morningside Heights campus lawn last week, have mushroomed nationwide."
You may recall that Soros got his business start helping the Germans rob his fellow Hungarian Jews.

I always wonder what drives Soros' hatred of Western Civilization.  Is it self-loathing because of what he did as a teenager and that he was able to become rich through the system that it created?  Or is it rage that Western Civilization failed in one of the great moral crises of history, letting Hitler get away with an unprecedented genocide?

Is J. Norman Heath Here?

 He is a remarkably diverse person: circus rigger for Cirque de Soileil and historian.  If you have an email address for him, let me know.

Do You Have This Book in Your Collection?

James H. Willibanks, Machine Guns, An Illustrated History of Their Impact.  I need pages 22-23.  If you have a SCRIBD subscription, I think you can find it at https://www.scribd.com/doc/73220163/Weapons-and-Warfares-Machine-Guns-an-Illustrated-History-of-Their-Impact.

Jonathan B. A. Bailey, Field Artillery and Firepower 187 n. 192. (Naval Institute Press, 2003).  I need p. 182 n. 192.

Washington State is making an absurd discovery demand.  They want links to every cited source.  These two items I must have read on paper.


Thursday, April 25, 2024

Successful Education

4/25/24 New York Post:
"Two Columbia University students who rushed to join NYU’s violent anti-Israel rally are going viral after admitting they had no idea what the protest was about — and wished they were “more educated.”

"The unidentified students rattled off their clueless rationale on the steps of the NYU campus in downtown Manhattan as a slew of NYPD cops clad in riot gear stood in the background, as seen in footage viewed more than 3 million times since being shared by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani late Wednesday.

“I think the main goal is just showing our support for Palestine and demanding that NYU stop … I honestly don’t know all of what NYU is doing,” one admitted when asked about the protest’s purpose."

And what is Columbia teaching about critical thinking (or even uncritical thinking)