Christina Hoff Sommers on Feminism v. Truth

On a not completely unrelated note:

“Proof We’re Not Violent: We Haven’t Slain All Our Enemies Yet”

Evidence which suggests that Mahometan scholars have not quite a full command of logic (or facts*) can be seen in propaganda from Islamic Online University:

Of course, Islam is a religion of peace because Mahomet hardly ever advocated bloodshed, there are very few Koranic verses endorsing violence, not all that many Mahometan governments have ever suggested exterminating Jews and annihilating Israel, and during Mahometan conquests in various countries over the centuries non-Mahometan populations were never totally exterminated or brutally forced to convert.

* A better estimate of the total number of Mahometans, for example, would be around 1,600,000,000 or about 23% of the world’s population. 

UPDATE I (29 September):  reasonable observers might find it remarkable that so many people who, one minute, loudly decry any prejudiced assumption that one group of Mahometans might typify the rest will also, next minute, readily assert that a Westerner who thinks ill of any Mahometan must be a bigoted redneck.

Similar Arguments

Very few serpents
are lethal; a fair man’s a
snake-disregarder;

and I’m no glutton
because I still have some food
left in the larder.

Ebola virus
can’t be very bad because
Africans survive,

and other plagues too
have had an unkind rap since
humans are alive.

Few Mahometans
are murderers; the rest are
unfairly hated

by folk around the
world who, so far, have not been
annihilated. 

Lions and jackals
can’t be carnivores because
zebras still exist,

and my neighbour is
so amiable he can’t
be a jihadist.

Anyone who thinks
Islam bad has been watching
too much Murdoch news;

the world’s real problem
is global domination
by prejudiced Jews!

UPDATE II (29 September):  A wilful ignorance of logic and facts can be seen in propaganda being spread all over the place wherein it is asserted that no one regards the Ku Klux Klan as representative of Christianity so no one should be so foolish as to believe that the murderers of the supposed Islamic State are obeying the commands of their holy texts.  See “Islamic State isn’t just like the Ku Klux Klan” by Aussie Madness:

While the KKK claimed it was based on Christianity, it was condemned by every Christian denomination, and the KKK would be very hard pressed to point to particular verses in the Bible to justify its actions.  Even if it could, Christianity has gone through many reinterpretations in the last 2000 years and there are very few denominations which still claim the Bible to be the literal word of god.
On the other hand, Islamic State is a perfect implementation of Islam as set out in the Qur’an, and their members are emulating the acts of Muhammad to the letter.
Unlike Christianity, Islam has gone through no reinterpretation or modernisation since its 7th century beginnings, and such a reinterpretation is strictly forbidden anyway.  The word of the Qur’an is the infallible and literal word of god, which can never be questioned or changed. There is no freedom to put any spin on it.  […]

There are literally hundreds of verses in the Qur’an which disparage and preach hatred for, and violence against, ‘infidels’.  And there are plenty of hadith which describe similar acts of Muhammad during the founding days of Islam, and since Muhammad is the ‘perfect man’, all Muslims must strive to emulate him.

UPDATE III (15 November, 2015):  Adam Hills (the very image of an intellectual comedic commentator for “progressives” who have little knowledge, imagination, humour or intellect), provides another instance of mischievously fallacious and duplicitous folly:

I shouldn’t mind wagering that, say, French cartoonists or Dutch film-makers could publicly insult peanuts, bees and the NHS without fear of lethal consequences.  Furthermore, I’m fairly certain that peanuts, bees and the NHS have seldom called publicly for the death of the West.

“Radical Islam
hasn’t killed all of us yet:
it can’t be a threat.

“We’re quite safe from harm!”
shout appeasers who, meanwhile,
feed the crocodile.

It is worth noting that Adam Hills is a fervent advocate for “gun control” and has lambasted the USA for failing to ban those rifles which he dislikes but, if semi-automatic rifles, for instance, “were really dangerous we’d all be dead right now.”  He has more chance of being killed by a bee sting, a peanut, or the NHS yet he wants to ban all “assault weapons” and “assault rifles”.

UPDATE IV (15 November):  an hilarious example of the comedic genius of Adam Hills:

Note that, whereas the Islamic State explicitly follows the official manual of Mahometanism—the Koran—, the alleged dumb extremist, Pauline Hanson, neither follows nor professes to follow a manual of Australianism.  Note also that Adam Hills endorses the learned opinion of that famed religious expert, Piers Morgan, who insists (on no evidence whatsoever other than wishful feelings) that people who obey the unambiguous and comprehensive, murderous instructions of Mahomet are somehow not real followers of Mahomet.

UPDATE V (18 November):  Adam Hills now asserts (based on nothing other than foolish hopes or mischievous duplicity) that the “vast, vast, vast majority of Muslims—around 99.997 per cent—disapprove of [ISIS].”

The “Progressive” Submission

The Greens have already lost their heads

With any trouble,
plight, mess or crisis which might
afflict our nation

The Greens know what to
do: plan yet another march
or demonstration.

Dr. Bandt* will write
a chant, and one having
a simple thesis:

the only way to
solve our problems with Islam’s
by proskynesis;

if any muslim
promise your immediate
decapitation

bow, bow, bow to all
demands whilst blaming Western
civilisation.

*  An example of Green silliness:

Greens MP Adam Bandt asked whether Australia’s deployment to the Middle East [were] making Australia less safe.
“We have to ask the serious question what is it that makes someone, a teenager, so disaffected with their own country that they want to kill people,” he told reporters in Canberra.

To answer Dr. Bandt’s question. Australia’s recent deployment to Iraq and Syria started Monday; Abdul Numan Haider’s plans to behead someone began at least three months ago.  Clearly, for a Government’s action to have an effect on someone’s “radicalisation” three months before it occurred, it must be really bad.

UPDATE I:  The Chant of Adam Bandt:

An some jihadist threaten you
blame, blame, blame your racist view,
and when your blood is on your chest
blame, blame, blame, the biassed West.
Should Muslims take away your head
blame, blame, blame yourself instead.
An Islam turn your life to shit
never blame the cause of it:
appease extremists!  let them slay!
Blame, blame blame the Western way.

UPDATE II:  see “Melbourne terror shooting: Numan Haider planned to behead Victoria Police officers, drape bodies in IS flag” by John Silvester in The Age:

Numan Haider used a small knife to attack an Australian Federal Police officer and a Victorian policeman before he was shot dead with a single shot.
When Haider was searched he was found to be carrying a larger knife and an Islamic State flag.
Police believe the plan was to follow instructions from the international terror group Islamic State and behead the officers, cover the bodies in the flag and then take photos to post via the internet.

Yeah, but it had nothing—nothing whatsoever!—to do with Islam, the Religion of Peace.

ad Kalendas Graecas

The First of September
 
It is not Spring yet
despite silly date-watchers
who say so.  I bet

the awarmist set
will grab any suppos’d rise
in warmth it can get.

We should never let
lying, self-serving scammers
persuade us to fret:

whether dry or wet,
raisin’ fears—and fees!—on change
is their raison d’être.

Defending Twitter (and Rhymed Haikus)

A Simple Solution
 
I have free advice
for those who don’t like Twitter:
give it a wide berth!

Stay away therefrom,
and give it just as much time
as you think it’s worth!

You’ll feel no loss, I
assure you, and its users
will notice no dearth:

everyone wins.
We have more important things
to address on Earth.*

* see a discussion at Catallaxy Files wherein, inter alia, I submitted these verses:

Limit characters

to one hundred and forty,

and yet still inform


effectively? Yes,

and it can be done using

some poetic norm.

A poster—Oh come on—has said 
that Twitter is better not read;
   thus critics have gibed
   at words circumscribed,

preferring the prolix instead.

The haiku’s a verse,
 
of seventeen syllables,

meaningful, but terse.

(The original

form had to contain a word

which is seasonal;

but the modern kind

can be very expressive

without that, I find.)

UPDATE I:  a recapitulation:

Twitter:  “seven score
characters should suffice for
pithy points, no more”.

UPDATE II (11 August):  an encapsulation:

The critics’ complaint?
brevity’s unfair constraint,
and what Twitter aint.

Two Heartening Exhortations

On Facebook, and on other “social media”, people often post, repost and re-repost all sorts of encouraging axioms and other droll examples of wisdom; here are two recent examples:

How wise!  Consider, then, a consequent situation: 

In a grimy, urban garage in a large, formerly well-developed but increasingly decrepit city, a masked youth approaches a mechanic, lounging against a wall covered in painted and printed slogans. 

Masked Man:  I’m a friend of Mad Mo.  I hear you have some AK-47s you might be able to sell me, and ammunition, and stuff.

Mechanic:  Uh-huh.

Masked Man:  I could do with some guns and ammo, see, because right now there’s a convention of Jewish oil-men in a hotel in town—one owned by Jews, by the way—and I’d like, y’know, to shoot them.

Mechanic:  Are you sure you want to do that?  Would that be a wise or good thing to do?

Masked Man:  What are you?  A critic?  The world has plenty of critics already.  You should be an encourager.  Look, you have a poster saying so.

Mechanic:  True.  Sorry.  Right, I encourage you to run through all that again; how might I help you?

Masked Man:  If you have the power to make someone happy, you should do it.  The world needs more of that.  It would make me happy to kill quite a few Jews, and did I mention that it’s a convention of gay Jews?  It is.  Very gay and very Jewish.  And they’re climate-deniers.  Making profits from fossil-fuels, y’know.

Mechanic:  All right, I’ll grab you a couple of AKs and a back-pack of ammo.

Masked Man:  It would make me very happy indeed if you would arm me to the teeth at a considerable discount.

Mechanic:  Well, if it will make you happy.  Would you be happy if I threw in armour-piercing rounds and a reloadable RPG with a sixpack?

Masked Man:  Very happy indeed. 

Mechanic:  All right then, will do.

The Stupid ‘Carbon’ Tax is Gone

Finally

The Greens, of course, are aghast,
the ABC is downcast;
reality-deniers
must give ‘deniers’ a blast.

The act was by no means fast
but the legislation’s passed:
Gillard’s stupid ‘carbon’ tax
has been abolished at last.

Dear Power Company

I sent the following message to TasNetworks by e-mail:

This morning I received a glossy, expensive leaflet—with a fridge magnet!—from you by mail informing me that TasNetworks is now providing the electricity supplied throughout Tasmania but that it will mean no difference to my current supply or use or cost of electricity; in other words, your advertising is wastefully superfluous.  You are also broadcasting the same needless message by way of costly advertisements on commercial television.
How much did all that unnecessary advertising cost?  The mailing-charges alone for your glossy but redundant missives must have cost a hundred thousand dollars, surely.  Couldn’t you merely have ensured that brief notices accompanied forthcoming electricity bills?
What are the salaries of your executives?  Will they be listed on your website and, if not, why not?  Are your obviously overpaid but clearly under-educated executives making similar dud decisions involving the provision of electricity?  No wonder electricity prices continue to rise when power companies squander so much of their energy on (unconsciously) advertising their own incompetencies.

The Books of Leo Bruce

To commemorate the eleventy-first anniversary of the birth of Rupert Croft-Cooke (June 20, 1903 – June 10, 1979), I have established a blog, “The Books of Leo Bruce”, to publicise Croft-Cooke’s two series of detective novels which he wrote under that pseudonym.  Sadly, some of those books, too long out of print, are now almost impossible to find; I shall provide e-texts thereof—though, of course, whenever possible, readers really ought to buy copies of the novels.
I have begun by providing the first chapter of Case for Three Detectives; further chapters will be added later.

UPDATE I (22 June):  I’ve added to that site a “lost” Sergeant Beef short story, “Beef for Christmas”, hitherto found only in the 1957 Christmas issue of The Tatler and Bystander.

UPDATE II (23 June):  Leo Bruce books in print:

Case for Three Detectives 

Case with No Conclusion 
Case with Four Clowns 
Case for Sergeant Beef 
Dead Man’s Shoes

 Our Jubilee Is Death
 Jack on the Gallows Tree

 Furious Old Women


 Die All, Die Merrily

Such Is Death 

Death in Albert Park
Death at Hallows End (hb)
Death at Hallows End (pb)
Death at St. Asprey’s School
Death of a Commuter 
Death with Blue Ribbon 
Death on Allhallowe’en 
Death in the Middle Watch 
Death of a Bovver Boy
Murder in Miniature and Other Stories (hb)

Murder in Miniature and Other Stories (pb)

UPDATE III (24 June):  I’ve added the second chapter of Case for Three Detectives.

UPDATE IV (29 June):  the remaining chapters of Case for Three Detectives are all now available.

UPDATE V (3 July):  all chapters of another Sergeant Beef novel, Case with Ropes and Rings (1940)—which, sadly, is long out of print—are now available.

UPDATE VI (13 July):  all chapters of another two out-of-print Sergeant Beef novels, Case without a Corpse (1937) and Neck and Neck (1951), are also now available; furthermore, all chapters of the last Sergeant Beef novel, Cold Blood (1952), have been formatted and will be published on 1 August.

UPDATE VII (1 August):  all chapters of Cold Blood have been posted.

UPDATE VIII (25 September):  all chapters of Death by the Lake have been posted.

If Other Experts Were as Qualified as “Climate-Change Scientists”

On the ABC’s “QandA” an awarmist, scamming cretin, Bahareh Sarah Howard*, asked Sen. Cory Bernardi a stupid question:

Senator Bernardi, last week you said it was “good news” that the Federal budget had abolished the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and that the government was “still committed to abolishing the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation”.  As a researcher in climate change and renewable energy, I presume that when your car mechanic, your dentist, or your plumber tells you there is something wrong with your car, your teeth, or your pipes, you listen and act.  Why is it that you ignore the advice of climate change experts, from every corner of this planet who are urging us that climate is changing and we must act to reduce CO₂ emissions now?  Australia is per capita the largest emitter in the world.†

The silly cultist and aspiring hierophant fails to recognise that, currently, car mechanics, dentists and plumbers don’t duplicitously predicate their remedies on a scamming, self-serving, pseudo-scientific conjecture.  We may, however, imagine what a wonderful world it would be if tradesmen, medical specialists and various other experts were as qualified and as proficient as she and her fellow hoaxers:–

Visiting the new-age car mechanic:

Mechanic:  How may I help you?
Customer:  My car just needs a tune-up, I think.


Mechanic: Ho! So you think you’re the expert, eh?


Customer: No, I just—
Mechanic: We’re the experts here; now, your car obviously needs a new, non-polluting electric engine and, of course, a nice new, non-polluting, heavy battery will just fit into your boot very snugly.


Customer: How much will that cost? And where am I going to put the family’s luggage when we go on holiday if you put a great big battery—which is surely not as non-polluting as you say—in the boot?
Mechanic: First, apart from a few charges, imposts, dues, tariffs and levies, and a series of weekly payments, the engine is completely free—


Customer: Free?


Mechanic: Courtesy of the taxpayer, through the engine-change levy and the renewable energy subsidisation tax; and, as for holidays, you ought to know by now that going on holidays is very bad for the planet, so don’t.


Customer: But I can see from all the photos around this garage that you regularly fly overseas for—


Mechanic: That’s different.
Customer: How?


Mechanic: It just is.


Customer: Well, I don’t want to insult you or anything but are you a qualified tradesman?
Mechanic: Of course; I have an associate diploma in automotive studies from the Australian Climate Institute.


Customer: Right, well, I think I’ll drive away and have the car fixed later. You see, it wasn’t anything urgent—


Mechanic: Too late, under provisions of the engine-change legislation I’ve had to seize your vehicle and we’ve already started replacing your old, wicked, fossil-fuel engine.  Trust me, I’m a automotive-change expert.

Visiting the new-age dentist: 

Dentist: Before we begin, just sign these consent forms here, here and here.  Good, well done.  Now, what seems to be your problem? 
Customer:  My upper left premolar smarts, and I think it could do with a filling.  All my other teeth, thank heavens, are fine.

 
Dentist:  Ah, yes, they must be removed.

 
Customer:  They? 
Dentist:  Yes, all of them. 
Customer:  Don’t you need to take an X-ray or something first? 
Dentist:  No, modern dental-change science is beyond nasty, ancient and dangerous techniques now.  I’ll just ring the nurse and she’ll take you and your forms to the dental-change facility.

 
Customer:  Hell, what did I just sign?

 
Dentist:  This is permission to hold you in detention for six months on an anascorbic diet; that one’s garnisheeing your wages for the next fifty years; and that one’s subscribing to a monthly recipe service for nutritious vegetable smoothies.

 
Customer:  Hey, what?  What, what’s an anascorbic diet when it’s home?

 
Dentist:  Well, we remove Vitamin C from your diet so that you develop a therapeutic form of scurvy, which allows all your diseased teeth to fall out naturally and relatively painlessly.  Then, if you recover, you’ll enjoy for the rest of your days slurping nutritious vegetable smoothies or soups without ever having to chew like a beast of the field ever again.

 
Customer:  What about false teeth?  What if I want to eat a steak?

 
Dentist:  All teeth (97% of dental-change scientists agree) are bad for the planet, and so is eating meat:  it’s murder. 
Customer:  Look, are you a qualified dentist? 
Dentist:  Of course; I have an Bachelor of Arts in Dental Studies from Swinburne. 
Customer:  Who were your teachers there? 
Dentist:  An accountant, an archæologist and a career politician.

 
Customer:  Look, I think I want a second opinion. 
Dentist:  Too late.  The science is settled and, anyway, you’ve signed all the forms already.  Bye.  Take him away, nurse.  Next!

 A visit from the new-age plumber: 

Plumber:  Here I am at last. 

Customer:  Good, there seems to be a leaking pipe somewhere, because our garage has been flooded for the last couple of—

 

Plumber:  Wait, I’m the plumbing-change expert; I tell you what’s wrong. 

Customer:  Plumbing-change expert?  So you’re not an actual plumber with a trade certificate? 

Plumber:  Ah, far better than than that, I have a masters degree—in the media’s acceptance of global plumbing change.

 

Customer:  So you’ve studied the history of plumbing rather than learn how to mend broken pipes and such? 

Plumber:  Who said anything about history?  We studied models at the Institute for Plumbing Change!


Customer:  Okay, so how will you mend my pipes?

Plumber:  Mend them?  I’ll get a team of young migrants to pop by in a few weeks and they’ll tear out all the current plumbing and install new stuff.

 

Customer: Why? 

Plumber: Well, just looking at this sink here I can tell you that it has to go. 

Customer:  Why? 

Plumber:  It’s made of stainless steel, you fool!  Do you know how wicked it is to source the components of a stainless steel sink?  My god, man, it even has carbon in it! 

Customer:  I should have thought you’d support a carbon sink.  No?  Anyway, you’ll replace it with ceramic or plastic—

 

Plumber:  Ceramic? Plastic? What are you, a lobbyist for the evil mining or fossil-fuel industries?  Wood, man; the sinks, basins, pipes, sewers and all the rest must be replaced by ethically-sourced, sustainably-harvested wood products.

 

Customer:  Wooden products?  How will they last?  Stainless steel is used precisely because it doesn’t corrode, and the same goes for plastic pipes; what will stop the wood rotting? 

Plumber:  Since you’re so bloody well-educated, can’t you think of anything else which doesn’t corrode? 

Customer:  Don’t tell me that wooden pipes will be gold-plated? 

Plumber:  Ethically-sourced, of course.  Look, trust me:  I’m a plumbing change expert.

*  who intends to “develop scenarios to determine carbon dioxide emissions involved in the transition to a 100 per cent renewable energy sector in Australia and the world”, whose “passion is in social and environmental entrepreneurship, which has the potential to have a broader, multidisciplinary positive impact on the global level.”  Ah, yes, researchers no longer have boring old interests or specialities but, being so unscientific, irrational, eager and fervid, they have passions.
†  a lie:  see “Australia the Highest Emitter of Carbon Dioxide?” at Impact of Climate Change.

UPDATE:  see also by “Dean, King, Krauss and Bernardi on Q and A” by Matt Hayden.