[American Thinker] The Cadet Honor Code; high attrition rates; intense competition in academics, athletics, and military performance; an all-military faculty; the requirement to swear an Oath of Office to the Constitution; and the primary mission to train career military officers — these are the traditional elements that separate a United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) education from its liberal arts counterparts. Much has changed since the first class graduated in 1959, including the welcome addition of female cadets to the Cadet Wing, but the transition includes an onerous drift toward relaxation of standards, an erosion of the Honor Code, politicization of the educational experience, and a sympathetic view of Critical Race Theory promoted by the Academy's pervasive Diversity and inclusion Program (D&I).
Last week, talking points from a USAFA-authorized lecture on inclusive language entitled "What Can I Do Now?" were shared with concerned graduates. The D&I program openly promotes a set of values consistent with the teachings of Critical Race Theory (CRT), where language, syntax, and word definitions are meticulously defined to weaponize communication and support the narrative that racism is inherent and ubiquitous.
Imagine a cadet audience being told they must now communicate in a manner dictated by CRT founders and Marxists Richard Delgado and Derrick Bell. They must become fluent in a sterile, sexually obsessed language in order to accommodate those who are easily offended and regard common English as a second language.
The Cadet Wing was instructed that the mundane, non-descriptive term "partner" should be used in lieu of "boyfriend" or "girlfriend." A nonsensical distinction was made between "people with disabilities" and "the disabled," and "transgender people" and "transgenders" — subtle, seemingly innocent differences in speech separate the pariah from the woke. A dubious guideline prohibited the use of the words "mom" and "dad." Proper terminology included caregivers and guardians, which give one the impression that one's parents serve as employees in a nursing home.
Dr. Martin Luther King's sage remarks regarding a colorless society, where one's character is more important than skin color, is deemed controversial and unacceptable by USAFA standards. Cadets were cautioned not to use the word "colorblind" or the expression "I don't see color" or "we're all just people." Anyone straying from these guidelines is instructed to "model humility."
Civilian professors constitute a large portion of the USAFA faculty and wield considerable influence over a cadet's educational experience, now valued at $416,000. USAFA offers a minor academic degree in D&I — a curious choice for an institution known for its STEM curriculum. According to Colonel Scott Williams, vice dean of the faculty, 37% of faculty authorizations are civilian, with the number expanding to 42% when including visiting faculty and distinguished chairs.
Controversy erupted when political science professor Lynne Chandler Garcia openly admitted in a Washington Post op-ed that she taught CRT at the Academy. Despite the Academy administration's denial of the events, it left many to question whether or not civilian faculty are monitored and why course syllabuses are not available to the public. Unlike military faculty members, civilian faculty do not take an oath to defend and support the Constitution.
#1
'Math be hard.' Everyone knows STEM is racist and exclusionary.
Southern state military patriotism is a hold-over from the days of Jim Crow and represents a threat to equity. The threat to our national security from historic, red-blooded MAGA patriotism and outdated STEM curriculums must be stopped.
#6
We could start by DEemphasizing Division 1 "semi-pro" sports at the Academies. If someone wants to play "Pro Sports" there are more appropriate places for them to go. If they want to major in "grievance studies" majors then there are other places. STEM, or maybe Business Majors, should be the emphasis...
Willie Dixon was an American blues songwriter of the 1960s and 1970s.
[AMERICANBLUESSCENE] Interview with Willie Dixon conducted at Yambo Records and Soul
Productions Chicago by Cary Baker
Willie Dixon was the unsung father of Chicago blues. Artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Koko Taylor, Bo DIddley and Otis Rush were making waves during the 1950s. But the man behind the scenes with the bass and the song repertoire was Willie Dixon, a staff writer and producer at Chess for many influential years. But Dixon had a past worth mentioning: A Golden Gloves boxing champion, segueing into being one third of the jump-blues Big Three Trio. From there to Chicago, he wrote the songs that made the Chess stars into global hitmakers. Dixon was on salary, and his publishing was owned by Arc Music. But later, Dixon took control with his own label, management company and of course publishing company.
Continued on Page 49
[BBC] Are you being played? That's the question the author Adrian Hon poses in a new book about the "gamification" of modern life. As Tom Chatfield discovers, game-like incentives and rewards permeate our world.
When nudging is built into work as well as social media, it makes conspiracy theorizing more likely as people come to expect hidden agendas under other areas of their lives.
#1
Starts with the premise that QAnon is a ridiculous conspiracy fantasy.
Which may be, but like 1984 (the novel) more and more of the fantasy seems to become fact.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/25/2022 11:15 Comments ||
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#2
Hasn't it always been that way for everybody? Except for Luddites and bums? It's a ride you can't get off of. We're born to dominate, we spend the better part of our innocence learning the rules. And once you know the rules, there's no throwing you into gears is there? You're your own little republic. Only the ones who never learn the rules are caught out unawares whining 'waaaah this wasn't supposed to happen!'
Incentive based slavery and gamification creeped in after systems theory and behaviourism got married and produced the creed that tries to turn people into easily controlled and predictable quantities. From religion to education and the modern factory it permeated into everything. Until there was a neat and tidy process even for impressing Gawd!
Societies and communities which retained some of their rough libertarian edges as part of essential laws, religious rights, whatever, they saved themselves from total systematisation. And because they remained 'immune' to control while 'good citizens and workers, churchgoers and boy scouts' all grew increasingly servile and trusting of the machine.
That is just my observation.
It is free radicals like us who get to push. Of course there's a limit to how much we can push. And a great clash is approaching. We shall even be forced to pick sides with lesser evils.
#3
I think whatever the writer wanted to say devolved into a rant against things like Qanon and conspiracy theories. Sure, there's no all omnipotent, omniscient cabal out there.
But Christians know there's something worse, and like Hy Spirit, it too has vessels and a cause and a kingdom to serve. It is organised, efficient, armed, beautiful to look at, appealing in a self-righteous way. It is the man of sin, who sits in the throne of God, wants to be worshipped as God.
Those who don't believe are not ready for anything.
#4
Hasn't it always been that way for everybody? Except for Luddites and bums? It's a ride you can't get off of. We're born to dominate, we spend the better part of our innocence learning the rules. And once you know the rules, there's no throwing you into gears is there? You're your own little republic. Only the ones who never learn the rules are caught out unawares whining 'waaaah this wasn't supposed to happen!'
All true. However, upon occasion, one finds for reasons of conscience that he has to throw caution to the wind, hoist the jolly roger, and accept an inevitable death at sea.
[TheDiplomat] Pakistain’s initial euphoria at the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... victory has given way to concern as several troubling developments threaten Pakistain’s regional interests.
Although stability is gaining ground in Afghanistan, challenges remain as the economy and people’s livelihoods are facing serious difficulties. These developments hold ramifications for the world, yet regional countries will be most heavily impacted by any development in Afghanistan — and none more than Pakistain, because of its geographical proximity and historical and cultural links.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/25/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Evgeniy Tsots
[REGNUM] The US is dreaming of an orange scenario in China. And they have good reasons for it.
A number of media, the existence of which in the world no one knew the day before, writes about a possible coup d'état in China. Allegedly, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi are not seen at important meetings , and amazing events are taking place in the country. For example, massive flight cancellations. The topic was eagerly picked up by social networks, it grows like a snowball.
The trigger for panic was the article - the question "Is Xi Jinping under arrest?", Published by the Indian portal Tfiglobalnews.
The authors of the material write that “Chinese netizens flooded social networks with messages that Beijing is under military occupation. However, the world has no idea what is going on because the city is ultimately cut off from the world."
It is alleged that Xi Jinping was detained at the airport after returning from Samarkand "and is most likely currently being held under house arrest at the Zhongnanhai House." As confirmation of this version, they refer to the cancellation of flights in China, as well as the presence at one of the important meetings of an official who was previously fired by Xi.
This version, which did not find any confirmation, quickly migrated to Taiwanese and other media and instantly covered the world's social networks. Users were not even embarrassed by the fact that the “arrested” Xi Jinping had already participated in public events in China after returning from the SCO summit.
The orange scenario in China is Washington's cherished dream. Let's leave the verification of arguments and the search for truth to specialists in the Chinese agenda. But what should you pay attention to? The stuffing appeared between the completed SCO summit and the congress of the Communist Party of China, which will be held on October 16 and where a new chairman of the PRC will be elected. Whether Xi Jinping will become it or whether his opponents from the pro-American lobby will win is still a question. And a lot depends on the events that are happening now.
In order to strengthen the position of its supporters in Beijing, the US provoked the Taiwan crisis and tried to push the parties to start hostilities. Of course, China is preparing an operation to liberate Taiwan from separatist forces, but the conflict could turn out to be bloody, given that Taipei is supplied with Western weapons no worse than Kyiv. But China is not accustomed to military conflicts. Losses in the course of hostilities will become a national tragedy. And people's pain will turn into a geopolitical tool in the hands of opponents of the current course.
The second circumstance is the partial mobilization announced in Russia. The decree was signed after the summit in Samarkand, after negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. What was discussed on them is covered with a tight veil. However, the decision to mobilize and the Russian leader's warning about the wind rose in case of threats to Russia speak of Moscow's determination to fight to victory. And it is obvious that the main ally, Beijing, supports it in this. This means that the West has not yet had any success, despite the impressive sanctions and the regrouping of Russian troops in the Kharkov direction.
The third circumstance is the approaching recession in the European Union. The fact that it is inevitable in the coming year, experts interviewed by Bloomberg say. They estimate this probability at 80%. The recession in the economy, of course, will affect the social situation of the inhabitants. But first of all, it means capital flight. From the fading European territory, large investments will migrate to where everything is not so bad. Where?
The United States, which provoked the conflict in Europe, hopes that they will. But there are doubts about this, since the United States also has problems in the economy. And they also run the risk of falling into a recession. The alternative is the Asian markets, namely a stable China and a rapidly growing India.
The mass relocation of European enterprises to the SCO countries will be the final collapse of the West. There is no market way to stop it. But when did it stop the US?
And therefore, the material about Xi Jinping's "arrest" from the outside does not seem completely implausible.
[She did a bang-up job as German Defense Minister, didn't she?]
[GGG] It’s no secret at this point that the EU is an anti-democratic organization. The leadership isn’t elected, but selected from a pre-determined pool of candidates from within the Party structure.
Everyone with the power to make a decision was placed there not by popular vote but by backroom collusion.
As we approach this weekend’s Italian elections there is real despair in the air that there is any light out of this dark time. That no matter what decisions we try to make, they are only in service of those that seek total dominion.
And yet all you hear from these Eurocrats is that we are in a "war of Democracy versus Autocracy," as EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen put it in her hellish EU state of the union address to the European Parliament recently.
Cloaking herself in the inverse of the EU flag’s colors to show solidarity with another anti-democratic regime, Ukraine, Von der Leyen and her merry tribe of vandals in Brussels cast themselves as the protectors of the sacred right of a ’democracy’ they deny to anyone who disagrees with her.
The same can be said for nearly every major government in Europe. Every time an ’election’ rolls around the local system is gamed to ensure a particular outcome. The political establishment always coalesces around maintaining the status quo, freezing out any possibility of an ’unworkable’ or ’representative’ coalition.
Any outcome they can’t overcome that lies outside the scope of the EU’s values is either laden with poison pills, immediately put under pressure by the EU’s Byzantine rules, and eventually forced out of office.
There is no better example of this anti-democratic structure made flesh than Italy.
For more than a decade Italians have been saddled with mostly-unelected technocratic governments who, at best, stymie any populist/sovereigntist impulses within Italy’s electorate or, at worst, advance the EU’s centralization agenda under the false rubrics of Climate Change and "European Values."
European Values is a phrase that is synonymous with the phrase "rules-based order." We make the rules, they say, and you abide by them. We’re allowed to break those rules because 1) we can and 2) we are the goodies.
So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that as the Italians go to the polls this weekend with the center-right coalition led by the Brothers of Italy (FdI) likely to win a major, uncontestable victory, the unelected, openly totalitarian President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, openly threaten Italians to ’vote right’ or face her wrath.
‼️Corrupted unelected bureacurat Von der Leyen threatens the Italians: "We will see the result of the vote in Italy. If things go in a difficult direction, we have tools, as in the case of Poland and Hungary." This is called meddling in elections....
I’ll be honest. Seeing that threat issued towards inherently disagreeable Italians coming from a German bureaucrat will not go as she thinks it will.
When you run out of the power to persuade people the only things left is threats (no matter how empty) and subterfuge. Italy has been trended towards this moment for over a decade and to this point subterfuge has worked particularly well for the EU.
Now it’s down to open threats and ’consequences.’
Ask Hungary about those ’consequences.’ The EU parliament this week exercised its only real power, wagging their finger sternly at a member who doesn’t represent the majority’s conception of ’European Values’ by declaring the democratically-elected (by a landslide) government of Viktor Orban is ’not a democracy.’
Orwell’s O’Brien would be proud.
This declaration means they have the ability to withhold shared EU development funds from Hungary.
This is called ’blackmail’ in common parlance.
Moments like this always invoke the great Lew Rockwell reminding us that the government engages in behavior decent people would be ashamed of. It’s more of the "rules-based order" I keep hearing so much about, I guess.
The rough translation to all of these issues is "rules for me and not for thee," the very essence of San Francis’ description of anarcho-tyranny. The EU is truly an anarcho-tyrannical State where words only have the meanings they decide they have.
And definitions are malleable.
The goal is to pervert the meanings of words to destroy any concept of meaning itself. Doing that unmoors us from our beliefs, seeing only them as the arbiters of truth.
Orwell tried to warn us about this 74 years ago. Moreover, it’s the mechanism by which to subvert our common bonds as people and replace them with the State.....
#4
The original charter said if any of the ratifying states didn't so ratify the thing was dead. Then Denmark and Ireland both didn't so they made them take the vote over again till they got the results they wanted. It's illegitimate. Brussels is just Moscow but with better suits.
Hattip Instapundit. Very long, discussing the Swedish Establishment coverup of violence by the Moslem colonists for the past fifteen years, with those saying anything defined as racist. The set-up:
[CommonSense] My country just voted in a right-wing government. The almost 500 bombings since 2018 may have something to do with it.
Yesterday morning, Swedes woke up to news of a kind that has become all-too familiar: During the night, powerful bombs went kaboom! at apartment buildings in two different towns in southern Sweden.
One person was severely injured in Åstorp, where a witness told the press: "People screamed and cried. It felt so unreal." A resident told Radio Sweden that his 7-year-old had come running into his bedroom screaming, as the blast made their apartment shake.
In Helsingborg, the earth-shattering kaboom was so powerful that, according to the police, cars parked nearby were destroyed. It is still unclear if the bombings are connected to each other, or who is behind them.
Since 2018, there have been almost 500 bombings—yes, bombings—in what is known as one of the most stable societies in the world.
There’s not just a bombing problem. There are shootings, too.
Sweden, which has a population of around 10 million, has the highest per-capita number of deadly shootings of 22 European countries. Forty-seven people have been rubbed out so far this year, which, while far from American levels of gun homicide, is extreme for Europe. Other European countries have come to look at Sweden with horror.
It may be shocking for Americans to learn that in Sweden—the land of IKEA, Spotify and Greta "Pippi" Thunberg ...an autistic sixteen year old Swedish expert on climate change... —all of this is going on. Perhaps the reason you don’t know about it is because of the uncomfortable reality of how we got here.
Among shooting suspects, 85 percent are first- or second-generation immigrants colonists, according to the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, as immigrant neighborhoods have become hotbeds for gang crime. National Police Commissioner Anders Thornberg has described the violence as "an entirely different kind of brutality than we’ve seen before" and his deputy, Mats Löfving, says that 40 criminal clans now operate throughout the country. Spreading fear are "humiliation robberies," targeting children and youth, in which victims are subjected to degrading treatment by assailants, such as being urinated upon. Just this week, four men were sentenced for robbing, beating and urinating on an 18-year-old, who was also filmed by his tormentors.
All of which is why, for the first time ever, crime emerged as a top priority among voters ahead of this past weekend’s general election. Swedes made their concerns plain on Sunday, when they awarded the country’s most strident anti-immigration party more than 20 percent of the vote.
The Sweden Democrats, or SD, is now the second-biggest party in parliament, and the biggest party of the right-wing bloc—gaining more votes than the more traditional center-right Moderate party. (It remains to be seen whether Ulf Kristersson, leader of the Moderates, can form a government with the support of SD, while sticking to his promise not to allow the party into the government coalition.)
So how did Sweden’s famously liberal electorate usher in a party with roots on the extreme right? In a word: denial.
In response to Sweden’s increasing problems with gang violence and social unrest in immigrant suburbs, the government’s strategy for many years was to deny how serious the situation had become. In the meantime, those people who noticed the problem—many of whom were working class—and spoke out about their diminished safety were accused of racism by leading politicians, the mainstream press, and the cultural elites. Only one political party did not: the SD. And in election after election, they gained more and more popular support.
This is a story of what happens when the people who run things want to avoid confronting the consequences of their actions.
[Front Page] From branding parents speaking out against critical race theory and sexual ideology in schools as terrorists to the Mar-a-Lago raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s radicalized Justice Department transforms pre-election political opposition into national security threats.
The infamous DOJ letter on schools was sent out a month before the gubernatorial election in Virginia, where the National School Board Association, not to mention much of the D.C. establishment, is based. Much as Garland’s DOJ operatives feared, the school protests helped elect Gov. Glenn Younkin and nearly toppled New Jersey’s Democrat governor in the bargain.
The Mar-a-Lago raid was carefully timed around the DOJ’s day policy of avoiding politically sensitive moves 90 days before an election. The real election it has its eye on is in 2024.
And, if it has its way, 2024 will be the new 1984.
The Steele dossier, the Mueller investigation, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and everything before and after are part of the larger Spygate continuum which is marked by the use of national security tools to suppress the political opposition especially before and during elections. The claims of national security, whether they involve the Russians or classified documents, are just a tactic that allow Democrat officials to wield virtually unlimited investigative powers cloaked in secrecy.
Beyond the details of these investigations, which turn as hollow as Steele or Mueller on closer examination, is the larger construct of a crisis that is described as a "threat to democracy".
The "threat to democracy" is shorthand for a threat to Democrats. The source of that threat are conservatives and Republicans. The vectors of that threat can be described as coming from Russia, school board parents, electoral activism or "disinformation" on the internet. The common denominator is that political activities which are inherently "democratic", speech, protest and electioneering, are defined as a national security "threat to democracy".
The net of this crisis extends from individuals posting on social media to political candidates and institutions. Meeting the "threat to democracy" requires the government to monitor social media and for social media companies to censor unapproved speech, for candidates who believe the wrong things to be barred from office, for the IRS to investigate conservative non-profits, for companies to be pressured into pulling donations to conservative candidates and for the military to be prepared to intervene once again in the event of another grave "threat to democracy".
The threat to democracy or rather the republic here is coming from the Democrats.
WE THE PEOPLE, need to flush out the Federal System of the Anti-USA crap that has built a nest there.
WE need to remind them they work for WE the Citizens of the USA.
WE need to remind ALL Elected & Appointed Officials there is a US Constitution and a Bill Of Right "still" and it MUST be followed.
WE need to remind them they are limited in their authority to running a Government that follows the US Constitution & Bill Of Right. And they need to stay the HELL OUT OF OUR PERSONAL LIVES. That Government ends at the Mailbox.
Having said these now considered Extremest ideas and views, I will await the knock on the door in the coming days.
Posted by: Nobody Important ||
09/25/2022 8:19 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
'Math be hard.' Everyone knows STEM is racist and exclusionary. 
...an autistic sixteen year old Swedish expert on climate change...
[Front Page] From branding parents speaking out against critical race theory and sexual ideology in schools as terrorists to the Mar-a-Lago raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s radicalized Justice Department transforms pre-election political opposition into national security threats.
