Politically-correct delusions . . .

TIGHTY-WHITEY WEDGIE ALERT: Apparently the Saudis and the Pakistanis are on the Womens Rights Agency control committee at the UN. This chap thinks that's silly. He has a point, even if it's not politically-correct.

On a negative note . . .

THE POLITICALLY-CORRECT CAN BE A REAL PAIN, as a young engineering student at the U of Waterloo found out. According to Justin Hyde's article in Jalopnik, "How a university punished a female engineering student for this bikini photo",

Last month, one of Waterloo's Formula SAE engineering student — the leader of the chassis design team — needed modeling photos for an application to a Canadian beauty pageant and breast cancer charity. While the idea had been to pose in front of a borrowed Audi in the school's engineering design center, the student also posed with the SAE car in a two-piece bikini (a requirement of the competition); another female student also posed for a few shots. The photographer, also an engineering student, posted a few of the shots online.

Two weeks later, Waterloo's dean of engineering Adel Sedra announced the school was suspending the entire Formula SAE team through June 1 — blocking them from competing in the Michigan event. The reason? "Misuse of the student design centre space for an unauthorized photo shoot."

Grrrr. Bunch of wankers. Here's a shot of a triumphant Danica Patrick, the first woman to win a major open-wheel motor race. Somehow, they probably won't like it, either. Love that picture; Dan Gurney sure started something.

Perspectives . . .

IT'S NOT EASY, SOMETIMES, to be politically-correct. Being part of the vanguard of the progressives requires a certitude of righteousness that can triumph reality on occasion. It's when reality bites back, that problems arise.

John Tierney's article in the NYT, "Social Scientist Sees Bias Within" is a fascinating look at this process by which the politically-correct bludgeon those with whom they disagree.

“If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.” It’s easy for social scientists to observe this process in other communities, like the fundamentalist Christians who embrace “intelligent design” while rejecting Darwinism. But academics can be selective, too, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan found in 1965 when he warned about the rise of unmarried parenthood and welfare dependency among blacks — violating the taboo against criticizing victims of racism.

“Moynihan was shunned by many of his colleagues at Harvard as racist,” Dr. Haidt said. “Open-minded inquiry into the problems of the black family was shut down for decades, precisely the decades in which it was most urgently needed. Only in the last few years have liberal sociologists begun to acknowledge that Moynihan was right all along.”

Similarly, Larry Summers, then president of Harvard, was ostracized in 2005 for wondering publicly whether the preponderance of male professors in some top math and science departments might be due partly to the larger variance in I.Q. scores among men (meaning there are more men at the very high and very low ends). “This was not a permissible hypothesis,” Dr. Haidt said. “It blamed the victims rather than the powerful. The outrage ultimately led to his resignation. We psychologists should have been outraged by the outrage. We should have defended his right to think freely.”

Instead, the taboo against discussing sex differences was reinforced, so universities and the National Science Foundation went on spending tens of millions of dollars on research and programs based on the assumption that female scientists faced discrimination and various forms of unconscious bias. But that assumption has been repeatedly contradicted, most recently in a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by two Cornell psychologists, Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams. After reviewing two decades of research, they report that a woman in academic science typically fares as well as, if not better than, a comparable man when it comes to being interviewed, hired, promoted, financed and published.

“Thus,” they conclude, “the ongoing focus on sex discrimination in reviewing, interviewing and hiring represents costly, misplaced effort.

Perspective change . . .

Multi-Kulti success story

POOR OLD MULTI-KULTI. It's been a hard winter. First, in October, Angela Merkel pronounces the death of that darling of the politically-correct, and now, David Cameron has delivered England's coup de gras on M-K: "State multiculturalism has failed, says David Cameron".

According to the BBC,

At a security conference in Munich, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.

He also signalled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism.

The speech angered some Muslim groups, while others queried its timing amid an English Defence League rally in the UK.

As Mr Cameron outlined his vision, he suggested there would be greater scrutiny of some Muslim groups which get public money but do little to tackle extremism.

• • •

"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?

"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations," he added.

• • •

He said under the "doctrine of state multiculturalism", different cultures have been encouraged to live separate lives.
'I am a Londoner too'

"We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values."

Building a stronger sense of national and local identity holds "the key to achieving true cohesion" by allowing people to say "I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, but I am a Londoner... too", he said.

The knee-jerk on this is going to be delightful to watch, as the sanctimonious scolds come out of the woodwork at both ends of the political spectrum to flail and rail.

Perspectives . . .

"Political correctness is a doctrine,
fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an
unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition
that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end."

— Texas A&M

Politically-correct BS . . .

ACCORDING TO THE GLOBE & MAIL, Dire Straits' smash hit "Money for Nothing" has been BANNED on Canuck airwaves. Why? Because of the word "faggot". Really.

The 1980s song Money for Nothing by the British rock band Dire Straits has been deemed unacceptable for play on Canadian radio.

In a ruling released Wednesday, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says the song contravenes the human rights clauses of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code.

The panel noted that Money for Nothing would be acceptable for broadcast if suitably edited.

Well, here's a great version, with ol' Slowhand to help Mark out. Aw, that ain't workin', you play yer guitar on the MTV . . .

You can't fix stupid . . .

THE UK TELEGRAPH has a report that's sure to get the politically-correct in the wonderful world of tighty-whitey wedgie: "Tattooed woman 'told to put bag over head by Jobcentre'". 

Hayley O'Neil, 23, - who also has 20 body piercings - says was also advised to ''stand behind a wall'' when she asked a job centre official what post she could apply for.

She eventually left the Job Centre Plus centre in Blackburn Lancs in tears without any interviews lined up after the advisor concluded: ''Who would hire you looking like that?''

Miss O'Neil, who got her first tattoo from her mother as an 18th birthday present said: ''I just felt so humiliated. I couldn't believe what this guy was saying.

''I said I could take the piercings out but they look a lot worse when they are out."

"The guy said: 'on first impressions do you think anyone would hire you?' He said: 'look at it this way if you were to stand behind a wall - or put a paper bag over your face do you think you would have a better chance?'

At least there's call centers.

Johnny Appleseed

THE NYTIMES MAGAZINE has an article by  Mattathias Schwartz, "Firing Line".

One June morning last year, Jack Dailey drove from his home in North Carolina’s Piedmont country, through verdant, hilly farmland to a rifle range near the town of Ramseur. Eleven men and a woman had mustered there for a weeklong boot camp run by the Appleseed Project, a group Dailey started that is dedicated to teaching every American how to fire a bullet through a man-size target out to 500 yards. So far Appleseed has taught 25,000 people to shoot; 7,000 more will learn by the end of this year. Its instructors teach this skill not for the purpose of hunting or sport. They see marksmanship as fundamental to Americans’ ability to defend their liberty, whether against foreigners or the agents of a (hypothetical) tyrannical government. Appleseed frames this activity as being somewhere between a historical re-enactment and a viable last resort. I came to find out how serious they were.

500 yards. Decent. Worth the read. Guns make a lot of Canucks lose their power of rational thought, like, say, Wendy Cukier, and the long-gun registry freaks, who insist that every farmer in Canada register his or her shotgun. Of course, some of this is derived from the politically-correct, who just cannot accept that today's problems are people problems: we have too many defectively-socialized people. So instead of working on training the society on proper behaviour, they want to disarm Canadians, and pretend that they have actually fixed the problem.

You may not agree, but consider: just about every private home in Switzerland contains several rifles and handguns, and a government-owned submachine gun or two (with ammo), and their owners train annually, as required by law. That's probably why no government usurpation of powers and very few home invasions ever take place in the world's oldest democracy. So, the tighty-whitey wedgie question is, are the Swiss better people?