“I dabbled in politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, more out of guilt than anything. Guilt for being rich and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn’t enough and you have to go and get shot or something, or get punched in the face to prove I’m one of the people.  I was doing it against my instincts.”

John Lennon, quoted just before his death.

At a brief lull during the Who’s performance of Tommy, [Abbie] Hoffman, who had ingested LSD after working the past few hours at the medical tent, abruptly walked onto the stage and began addressing the crowd from Pete Townshend’s microphone.  He shouted, “I think this is a pile of shit! ... While John Sinclair rots in prison ...”  Alerted to the disturbance, Townshend (who apparently had been too distracted to notice Hoffman ambling onto the platform), snarled at Hoffman, “Back off!  Back off my fucking stage!”  He then struck Hoffman with his guitar, sending the interloper tumbling.  As the crowd let out an approving roar, Townshend returned to his microphone to add a sarcastic “I can dig it!”  Following the conclusion of the next song, the short “Do You Think It’s Alright?”, Townshend issued a stern warning to those in attendance: “The next fucking person that walks across this stage is gonna get fucking killed, alright? You can laugh, [but] I mean it!”

From the Wikipedia entry on the Woodstock Festival

During last month, the fortieth anniversary of the Paris student protests, the press was well-populated with articles about the generation of 1968.  I am nearly but not quite one of them and, personally, I’ve found a lot of what was written to suffer from generalisation.  The spirited, no-nonsense attitude of Townshend and the coerced and manufactured gaucheness of Lennon were nowhere mentioned.  But they are both much closer to the world that I encountered as a (very) young man.

One does well to remember that, at heart, the 60s generation as a whole was probably no more interested in left-wing political activism than any other.  Rather, it was caught up in an historical moment in the West so coloured by cultural, religious and political exhaustion, and - something entirely new - so drenched with the images of an inexcusable, far-away war, that millenarianism and rebelliousness were a simple, mechanical response.

Many aspects of it were ineffably silly and lightweight.  But a few managed to turn escapism from the grey reality of our parent’s world into an adventure of self-discovery.  These were a pure intoxication of the spirit, the like of which I have not seen since.

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Two arguments about the maths gap, spotted by John Ray - the first from World Science:-

It’s been a long, sometimes vicious controversy: are boys better at math than girls? Some say they are, because boys tend to outscore girls in math. Opponents blame that on sexist upbringing. 

New studies may be shedding light on the issue. In a nutshell, some of the latest research points to three conclusions that offer something to satisfy both sides but overall paint a bright picture for those eager to see more women enter mathematics and sciences. The key findings: Girls are as good at math as boys given the proper environment.

Males may have an edge in spatial thinking abilities, which are useful in math, evolutionarily speaking, and this advantage may be very ancient.

Deep-rooted though this difference may be, females can surmount it with just a little work.  “The so-called gender gap in math skills seems to be at least partially correlated to environmental factors,” said Paola Sapienza of The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois. “The gap doesn’t exist in countries in which men and women have access to similar resources and opportunities,” added Sapienza, summarizing the results of a new study published in the May 30 issue of the research journal Science.

In it, Sapienza and colleagues analyzed data from more than 276,000 children in 40 countries who took an internationally standardized test of math, reading, science and problem-solving. The data came from the 2003 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment.

The researchers found that globally, boys outperformed girls in math by 10.5 points on average on this test. But this advantage vanished in some of the most progressive and gender-equal countries such as Iceland, Sweden and Norway.

Now that the apparent good news is out, does this mean anyone who dared suggest the existence of natural gender differences in math was being sexist?

Not necessarily, if one believes other studies suggesting sexism isn’t the only reason for the math gap. Some research has attributed that gap to a deeper discrepancy in spatial reasoning abilities. One new study even suggests an evolutionary reason: better spatial reasoning in males might be related to larger range size in their ancestral environment.

This discrepancy may extend all the way down the evolutionary tree to invertebrates, according to the research, which focused on cuttlefish and appears in the May 27 online issue of the research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“Evidence of sex differences in spatial cognition have been reported in a wide range of vertebrate species,” but never the simpler invetebrates, the authors wrote. The investigators found that male cuttlefish both range over a larger area, and have better orienting abilities than female cuttlefish. “The data conform to the predictions of the range size hypothesis,” they wrote.

Nevertheless, differences in spatial cognition are easily surmountable, if one believes yet a third study, which might help explain why ultimately girls and boys can perform equally in math. Published in last October’s issue of the journal Psychological Science, this study found that malefemale differences in some tasks requiring spatial skills are largely eliminated after both groups play a video game for 10 hours.

“On average, women are not quite as good at rapidly switching attention among different objects and this may be one reason why women do not do as well on spatial tasks,” said the lead author, University of Toronto psychology doctoral student Jing Feng. But “both men and women can improve their spatial skills by playing a video game,” he added, and “the women catch up to the men. Moreover, the improved performance of both sexes was maintained when we assessed them again after five months.”  The game used was a first-person shootemup game, “Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault.”

The game “may cause the expression of previously inactive genes which control the development of neural [brain] connections that are necessary for spatial attention,” said Ian Spence, director of the university’s engineering psychology laboratory. “Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain” thanks to the playing.

“One important application of this research could be in helping to attract more women to the mathematical sciences and engineering,” he added. “Since spatial skills play an important role in these professions, bringing the spatial skills of young women up to the level of their male counterparts could help to change the gender balance in these fields that are so important to our economic health.”

And now for the demolition:-

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Three days ago the Guardian ran some knocking copy on the Telegraph’s failure to take down London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook’s blog, which is tucked away in a distant corner of the paper’s website:-

Richard Barnbrook, the British National party’s London Assembly member, has used a blog on the Daily Telegraph’s website to blame immigrants and their sons for knife and gun crime among young people in the capital after a spate of murders.

Under the headline “Blame the immigrants”, the posting on My Telegraph, a platform which allows readers to publish their own articles, Barnbrook claims the perpetrators are protected by a government eager to secure the “Ethnic Block-Vote” and says immigrants “will not be allowed to terrorise our kids any longer”.

“I have had enough of political correctness,” he writes. “I have had enough of people being afraid to actually say what they really want to say. Yes ... it is the immigrants.” He continues: “The real crime is on the streets, and it is the young people who are being attacked every day now by knives and guns. Most of it is being done by immigrants or by the sons of immigrants who have been protected by a despicable government desperate for the Ethnic Block-Vote.”

The Telegraph defended itself by attacking the Guardian mods itchy trigger fingers.  The battle raged back and forth, effectively making it impossible for the Telegraph to take down Mr Barnbrook’s blog unless he goes completely mad.

So, what’s the quality of the material he’s posting?  Well, as yet there are only three offerings on the page.  The first, Tombstone Politics (these MyTelegraph links are very slow to load - please be patient), is a tad self-referential going on reverential.  But if refreshingly sincere is what you want, that’s what you get with this guy:-

Only the dead make the news but there are hundred who are stabbed but only just live.  Their lives are wrecked though in many cases.  This is liberalism…...these are the great values of the left…......they smoke drugs and your children get slaughtered in the streets.  It makes me sick.  It drags me down into tombstone politics when I would rather be building a better society.  It has become so normalised that people think they have to accept it.  Well I am going to change it….I am going to clean up the streets, because our society has had enough of their dirty values, their dirty ideas, and their dirty politics.

I will bring this up in the London Assembly but I doubt those Members will care.  They can’t even bring themselves to call me Richard.  Everyone is on 1st name terms except me.  For me it is Mr Barnbrook like they are talking to their Bank Manger or the man in charge….and thats just it….I am the man in charge….because I get out into the street and meet real people.  I know how awful their lives are.  I know they worry that their kids might get hacked to death for a mobile phone…..I know who people are

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GT sent me a link to the following Yahoo “Green” article today.  It reports the lengths to which people are going now, today, to prepare for the possible effects of a post-peak collapse.

If you are living in a connurbation, and not necessarily a large one ... if you are raising children ... if you have skills likely to enhance the prospects for success at the localist level, this is something you should be taking seriously.  Notwithstanding the fact that this time the ramp in energy prices is speculator-driven.
GW

ENERGY FEARS LOOMING, NEW SURVIVALISTS PREPARE

BUSKIRK, N.Y. - A few years ago, Kathleen Breault was just another suburban grandma, driving countless hours every week, stopping for lunch at McDonald’s, buying clothes at the mall, watching TV in the evenings.

That was before Breault heard an author talk about the bleak future of the world’s oil supply. Now, she’s preparing for the world as we know it to disappear.

Breault cut her driving time in half. She switched to a diet of locally grown foods near her upstate New York home and lost 70 pounds. She sliced up her credit cards, banished her television and swore off plane travel. She began relying on a wood-burning stove.

“I was panic-stricken,” the 50-year-old recalled, her voice shaking. “Devastated. Depressed. Afraid. Vulnerable. Weak. Alone. Just terrible.”

Convinced the planet’s oil supply is dwindling and the world’s economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn’t prepare.

The exact number of people taking such steps is impossible to determine, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the movement has been gaining momentum in the last few years.

These energy survivalists are not leading some sort of green revolution meant to save the planet. Many of them believe it is too late for that, seeing signs in soaring fuel and food prices and a faltering U.S. economy, and are largely focused on saving themselves.

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If you read the current version of the Wikipedia article on “The Great Divergence”:

The Great Divergence is the period beginning in the 18th century in which the “West” (namely England, followed closely by the rest of Western Europe) clearly emerged as the most powerful region of the world. In the early 1700’s, many believe, Western Europe and East Asia were roughly similar materially, but coming up against Malthusian constraints (population exceeding food supply) to further growth. Due to the many technological advancements that took place in Europe (including the invention of the steam engine by Thomas Newcomen), The subsequent mechanization of many European industries, the wealth and power of the world shifted from Asia to Europe (specifically England). Many explanations have been offered for the Great Divergence. For example, Kenneth Pomeranz, in The Great Divergence (2000, Princeton University Press), emphasizes the proximity of coal deposits and the easily exploitable Americas. Other observers believe intrinsic features of European culture made it destined to surpass other regions, while Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs and Steel, sees geography, with Europe’s geographical layout promoting competition which led to greater technological advancement, as being the ultimate factor. In contrast, according to Diamond, China’s layout allowed it to become precociously united which removed a major incentive for technological advancement, and allowing China to become subject to a single emperor’s arbitrary whim. In A Farewell to Alms Gregory Clark argues that it was cultural and genetic factors that allowed England to grow wealthy while others fell behind.

Seemingly every cause is listed…. every cause but the one implied by this recent sob story about how a poor unfortunate farmer has lost access to illegal aliens and as a result is turning to machines:

“We always assumed we could find the labor we would need,” said Mr. Bittner, who has managed Singer Farms since 1991. “We’re not making that assumption anymore.”

Mr. Bittner said he was planning to grow blueberries, or tart cherries for use in pies, because those crops could be harvested by machine and did not require migrant workers.

Others managing the fields and dairies of western New York State are starting to make the same calculation. For the last several years, crackdowns on illegal immigrants and the lack of comprehensive immigration reform have increased anxiety among the region’s farmers, many of whom rely on a migrant labor force from Latin America to work their fields. Some have begun making changes in their operations to reduce their reliance on that labor force…

Other farms are making large capital investments in mechanical systems that will allow them to cut their work force significantly. Fewer farmers are willing to buy neighboring properties, a traditional method of expansion for agricultural businesses.

It seems an obvious factor in the Great Divergence was the emigration of labor to the New World.  The unfortunate fate of the Confederate South, importing vast numbers of Africans so as to reduce the incentive to industrialize, is widely recognized as contributing to its inability to win its war with the Union North.

Moreover, the New York Times seems to be telling us that the centralization of land ownership may be slowed down by the emigration of labor.  This, too, would be unsurprising since when labor is more valued, laborers frequently become land owners and thereby become more participants than components of individualistic capitalism.  When a laborer comes to into his own, he is often motivated to apply his “ground truth” knowledge, combined with his new capital, to systems optimizing his labor.  The result:  Yeoman farmer becomes Yeoman inventor.

The latest example of intercultural dialogue, the knife murder of 18 year-old Robert Knox in Sidcup, has generated unusual behaviour at Rupert Murdoch’s News International.

Time was (like yesterday) when we were never told the race of a black perp until the jury had bought in the verdict.  We, of course, came to understand that journalists are poor, squeamish creatures who say “youth” and “teen” when they mean black.  We developed exquisitely attuned antennae for the rubric of professional denial and obfuscation.  The slightest reluctance to come clean about some random act of inner city savagery was sniffed out and added to the probabilities that, once again, the perpetrator was ... black, of course.

But today, like a throw-back to the 1970s, Murdoch’s Sunday papers gave out the race of Robert Knox’s murderer as reported by witnesses and friends of the deceased.  Just like that.

From the The Times:-

Lee Bentley, manager of the Metro bar, said the attack appeared to have been triggered by a row over the alleged theft of a mobile phone.

“Nine days ago, a guy came to the bar and caused trouble,” said Bentley. “He accused [Knox’s friend] Dean Saunders of stealing his phone and hit him in the face. We cleaned up Dean and barred the man.”

But the man, who is black and in his twenties, returned on Friday night armed with two knives and tried entering the bar, where Knox was a regular drinker.

What happened next is unclear, but Jade Nicholson, an assistant bar manager, said: “I saw Rob go outside and shout, ‘You pulled a knife on my brother, someone call the police’.”

Tom Hopkins, 18, who was drinking at the bar, said: “Rob had been trying to stop the trouble, it wasn’t his fault.

“All I remember was seeing Rob get stabbed in the chest. I ran over and me and my mate Tarik both tackled the black man. I jumped on top of him and he said, ‘I’ve got a knife, I’ve got a knife’. As I tried to grab the knife I didn’t realise he had another one in his other hand and he cut me in the back of the head.

Well, I doubt whether young Tom Hopkins really told Murdoch’s hack that he “tackled the black man”.  Surely the word “cunt” or “bastard” must have slipped in there somewhere.  Boys being boys.  But, then, perhaps the sensibilities of Times readers are too refined for an encounter over the breakfast table with a “c—-” or “b———d”.

Anyway, from the News of the World, where no one has to worry about such things:-

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By Bo Sears

One of the great questions confronting the diverse white American peoples as the population of the United States of America changes, requiring all the various peoples to re-tribalize or maintain tribal bonds as may be, is how to establish a governing body much like La Raza, the American Jewish Congress, the NAACP, and the various Indian tribal nations.

We used to be non-hyphenated Americans, now we are the hate-crimes-default demographic, harassed and assaulted by more organized groupings, and unprotected by our government which kills our youth in foreign wars, steals our wages and profits, destroys our symbols and holidays, and unendingly defames us and discriminates against us.

A solution - The Articles of Confederation

One solution for white American governance would be to revive the Articles of Confederation (“Articles”) as our framework for governance.  A little known fact is that the Congress of the Confederation established by the Articles never adjourned sine die (its last meeting with a full quorum was October 10, 1778).  It never officially declared an end to its own existence.

A second little known fact is that the second and current badly-abused Constitution failed to declare the Articles null and void.  So the Articles, approved by each of the original 13 states, continue to exist in a shadowy way, waiting for the sons and daughters of the founders to revivify their promises and protections.

Advantages

The advantages to using the Articles are numerous.  They reflect our European-American natural spirit and ancestry, while rejecting the spirit of one man rule (monarchy).  They are easy to read (only five pages long).  There were ten national presidents under the Articles.  They contain no embarrassing terms even for those whose psychopathology revolves around the mental illness known as “presentism” which means every word can be twisted by comparison to current values simply to disrespect the founders.  There would be no need to meet to draft a fundamental governing body for the diverse white American peoples.  Drafting such a fundamental document could take years - adopting the Articles would take one season, although adopting policies and procedures would be an unending follow-up task.

The Articles were very successful, contrary to the impression given by contemporary spiteful and envious academia:

# The Articles provided the framework for waging war against the most powerful monarchy of its time.

# They handled the ending of the rebellion against the British kingdom, the post-rebellion peace negotiations, and important international relations with the Russian empire and the French kingdom.

# They drafted and adopted the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1887.

All in all a commendable record.

A side note - flaws With current Constitution

There were numerous flaws in the adoption of the new and current Constitution (secret meetings, ultra vires actions, and only nine states required to adopt in violation of Clause 13 of the Articles’ amendment process), and we all see how its purposes and meanings have been twisted out of recognition.  Contemporary centralized government fans disrespect the Articles, but only because they would not be able to use them for war-making and exorbitant taxing purposes.

Bo Sears is a member of that brotherly band Resisting Defamation.

Do you remember what it was like as a sleepyhead when you came into contact with free thinking for the first time?  Was it a taste of a new freedom - what “PF”, in describing an encounter with life’s most forbidden truth, once poeticised as “the delicious pleasures of racism”?  Or was it perhaps more constrained and personal ... more a fascination with some question particular to you and your life experience?

What made you push on past the barriers of artificial disapprobation?  What made you feel you might belong in this bracing new intellectual environment, instead of being mechanically repelled by it?

These are important questions for every site-owner, every forum poster, every blogger and commenter like us because, whatever our specialism, we are all in the business of outreach, all trying to communicate our ideas and create some beneficial response.  It’s an uneven battle, of course.  We are fighting against a zeitgeist of self-destruction that stretches wall-to-wall across the Western world, and is reinforced constantly through every available mainstream medium (not that all of it works).

Getting our message out, whether it’s one of political analysis, immigration, race-realism, the JQ, the global elite, or even what might pompously be called the meta-theory that sometimes appears here, is a labour of love.  We want to succeed.  We want to ... have to touch the minds of our sleeping compatriots.

So presentation plainly matters.

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