Monthly Archives: October 2015

Pew Research Center: Gun Deaths Down 30% Since 1993

 

 

 

Imagine how much lower it would’ve been if shitholes like Chicago and Baltimore had proper mayors and city councils instead of the corrupt excuses for the same with which they’ve been saddled.  Even with that not being the case, this kinda blows a hole in the case for gun confiscation that all the usual suspects have been making lately:

(source: Pew Research Center: Gun Deaths Down 30% Since 1993)

So this is why new files weren’t showing up

Nothing like changing the default behavior of a program in a point release so that users then wonder why it’s not behaving as it should:

ownCloud 8.2 Release Notes

Changes in 8.2

filesystem_check_changes in config.php is set to 0 by default. This prevents unnecessary update checks and improves performance. If you are using external storage mounts such as NFS on a remote storage server, set this to 1 so that ownCloud will detect remote file changes.

Nearly all of the files on my ownCloud server are accessed from Samba shares on the same server; ownCloud is basically how I access my files away from home.  If it’s not monitoring filesystem changes, it will rapidly fall behind on which files have been created and deleted.

Until v8.1, it monitored filesystem changes in the default configuration.  I upgraded to v8.2 over the weekend, which no longer does that unless you add an option to the config file to reenable it.  Grr.

The state of free speech in academia

Nazi book burningNot much different than shown in the photo:

How Wesleyan’s Attempt To Stamp Out Words Inflames Them

For anyone interested in freedom of the press, October 18, 2015 is a day that deserves to live in infamy. That night, for what may be the first time in the United States, the student government of an elite American university stripped funding from that university’s campus paper—for the offense of running a conservative op-ed.

The Wesleyan Argus published the op-ed in question on September 14. Conservative student columnist Bryan Stascavage’s article was titled “Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think.” Stascavage, who, by his own admission, was conflicted about his opinions on the movement, raised some rather moderate concerns about its propensity towards excusing, or even encouraging, violence toward police officers. He invited students to question if a more considered approach to police violence was necessary.

For his efforts, he was branded a racist, and a group of radical “student of color” activists started a petition to defund the campus paper that published his piece, and—and I swear I’m not making this up—to burn any copies of the paper found carrying the offending article. Yes, apparently publishing an op-ed that was merely undecided about the question of #BlackLivesMatter was enough for some activists to argue for book burning and press closure.

Alcohol abuse…in space!

1445869708280I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of hashers suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced:

Comet Lovejoy appears to be a well-stocked bar in space

If you are looking for a good time, it might be worth stopping by Comet Lovejoy.

That’s because the famous comet is releasing huge amounts of alcohol as well as a type of sugar in space, according to NASA. This marks the first time that ethyl alcohol, the same type found in alcoholic beverages, has been observed in a comet.

“We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity,” Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory, France and the lead author of a paper on the discovery published in Science Advances, said in a statement.

It also raises the prospect that comets could have been a source of the complex organic molecules required for the emergence of life. The team found 21 different organic molecules in gas from the comet, including ethyl alcohol and glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar.

This would explain all the “safe space” bullshit on our college campuses…

…among other such nonsense.  The New Left has been all about creating a generation of spoiled brats unable to handle an opposing viewpoint, shouting them down at every turn.  Want to know where the left-wing noise machine got its start?  Look no further:

How Marcuse made today’s students less tolerant than their parents

When Samuel Stouffer first wrote on political tolerance during the McCarthy era, he concluded that Americans were generally an intolerant bunch. Yet, finding that younger people were more tolerant than their parents, he also concluded that Americans would become more and more tolerant over time, due to generational replacement and increases in education.  However, Stouffer did not predict the rise of the New Left, which I argue has reframed our collective notions about free expression, resulting in a significant decline in political tolerance among America’s youth.   I develop this argument in a chapter I wrote for Stanley Rothman’s last book, The End of the Experiment, (Rothman, Nagai, Maranto, and Woessner, 2015)   My findings are outlined below.

First, I make the case that young people are less politically tolerant than their parents’ generation and that this marks a clear reversal of the trends observed by social scientists for the past 60 years.  Political tolerance is generally defined as the willingness to extend civil liberties and basic democratic rights to members of unpopular groups.  That is, in order to be tolerant, one must recognize the rights of one’s political enemies to fully participate in the democratic process.  Typically, this is measured by asking people whether they will allow members of unpopular groups, or groups they dislike, to exercise political rights, such as giving a public talk, teaching college, or having their books on loan in public libraries.

Americans have not, in fact, become more tolerant.  Rather, they have shifted their dislike to new groups.  For example, “Muslim clergymen who preach hatred against the United States” are now the least liked group included in the General Social Survey (GSS), followed by people who believe that “blacks are genetically inferior”.   Most importantly, compared to those in their 40s, people in their 30s and 20s actually show lower tolerance towards these groups.  According to the 2012 GSS, people in their 40s are the most tolerant of Muslim clergymen who preach anti-American hatred: 43% say a member of this group should not be allowed to give a public speech in their community.  Among people in their 30s, the number who would prohibit this group from speaking climbs to 52%, and for those in their 20s it jumps to 60%.  Young people are also less tolerant than the middle aged groups toward militarists, communists, and racists.  This is not true for tolerance towards homosexuals or atheists, because younger people simply like these groups more. (Political tolerance is not a measure of liking someone, but the willingness to extend political freedoms to those one dislikes).

Second, I argue that youthful intolerance is driven by different factors than old fashioned intolerance, and that this change reflects the ideology of the New Left.  Herbert Marcuse, considered “The Father of the New Left,” articulates a philosophy that denies political expression to those who would oppose a progressive social agenda. 

Fast and Furious Gun Scandal Heading to the Big Screen

Wonder if there’s any chance of this hitting theaters in time for the 2016 election:

Fast and Furious Gun Scandal Heading to the Big-Screen

Lionsgate is aiming to bring the story of the ATF’s gunwalking scandal to the big-screen.

The studio has picked up the rights to The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious, a memoir written by ATF agent John Dodson, and has set Matthew Carnahan to pen the adaptation.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce the adaptation, which will be titled River of Iron, with Josh Bratman and his Immersive Pictures banner.

Gunwalking, which later became known as the Fast and Furious scandal, was a strategy used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms where the agency allowed the illegal sale of guns in Arizona with the hopes that the guns would cross the border into Mexico and lead to the arrests of members of the drug cartels.

That plan went off the rails when the guns sold began finding their way into local and border crimes. The tactic went public after a border patrol agent was killed by one of the firearms.

Because nothing is ever the JEF*’s fault

With regard to this:

what-exactly-would-you-say-you-do-hereOur Gutless President: Hey Don’t Blame Me For the Special Forces Soldier Who Died; That Was Someone Else’s Call

Like I said, the only good news I’ve read in the war in a while.

So of course Obama had nothing to do with it.

 

  • JEF: Jug-Eared Fuck