Sushi without Japanese

This is unintentionally funny. In brief, US cities that are commonly held up as role models of ideal "progressive" cities to live in appear to be mostly white.

Using whatever socio-economic indicators to measure these things, amongst the top ten cities in the USA to live in are Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon. So one enterprising "opinion-leading urban success strategist and writer" has looked at the statistics, and found a remarkable correlation between the 'whiteness' of a city and it's consistently high rankings in the top cities to live in in the US of A. The #1 Role Model in environmental and sustainable policies is Portland.

The disconnect between reality and aspirations of Portland has been noted before, here in a 2008 article in the New York Times:

“I’ve been really upset by what I perceive to be Portland’s blind spot in its progressivism,” said Khaela Maricich, a local artist and musician. “They think they live in the best city in the country, but it’s all about saving the environment and things like that. It’s not really about social issues. It’s upper-middle-class progressivism, really.”

I would argue that the "sushi without japanese" phenomena of Portland is exactly what "upper-middle-class progressivism" is all about, and this idea that 'diversity' should be pursued simply because diversity=Good, is a form of insincere self-righteous preening that is the exclusive purview of certain vegetarians, Toyota Prius drivers and Obama voters ("I voted for Obama so I can't be racist")

The strangest thing I came across whilst researching this was that I found Americans openly rank cities based on progressiveness where progressiveness is defined by the proportion of people who voted Green or for the Democrats, and the city council's policies on the environment and global warming, and all the usual feel-good/do almost nothing measures that inevitably follow. I find it very strange that you would choose a city based on conformity of views..."Yeah I was going to move to Sydney but they vote so Labour that I decided on Cairns instead".

And in proving that real-life does not lack humour, here is a screenshot of the Oregonian
viewed at 11:04am (AEST) 27/10/09. No racist stereotypes here, no sir....

Things that make you go hmmm....

Further to my post about Mr Calma attending the UN anti racist-hatefest, and the confusion as to why someone representing Australia would attend, when the "official" government position was to boycott the conference. In an Andrew Bolt column on Rudd's post-PM ambitions, there was a sentence that caught my eye:

"He [Rudd] also waited until the last minute to pull out of a UN anti-racism conference last month rather than lead in condemning what was in fact a festival of hatred for Israel."

By all accounts, ALL the media coverage about Mr Calma attending was of the "shock and surprise" that a public servant would dissent from the official position. What is of concern is if Mr Rudd did in fact want an Australian presence there but could publicly decry it. The presence could serve as part of Rudd's future campaign to a UN posting whilst his public announcements would serve as a signal to the Aussie electorate that he is taking the "proper" stance.

Let me reiterate, the Durban II conference was nothing but the clearest indication that the UN project is failing allowing the most racist, most tyrrannical regimes in the world a voice to criticise liberal democracies for their alleged failings in human rights. In the end it just results in a lightly worded condemnation of Israel, which most of the world ignores. The wikipedia entry
demonstrates that the problems with this conference are well documented, and I would argue that the correct position was for Australia to boycott. However if it turns out that Mr Calma attended with the tacit acceptance of Big Kev, solely to improve his chances at being elected the
big cheese at the UN after his term as PM, then you might want to ask exactly what other decisions and policy positions he is taking with this aim in mind...

Increasing sales of Uranium to the Chinese?
Introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme?

Can I use "internationalist" as a pejorative term?

Things that make you go hmmm..
(picture source)

ANZAC regrets

On this ANZAC day, where Aussies and Kiwis commemorate the deaths of thousands of soldiers who fought in wars to keep Australia free and the idea of a liberal democracy alive in this lonely corner of the planet, I came across this news and was depressed at how far some Aussies have travelled into the La-La land of ideological madness.

AUSTRALIA'S Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma is attending the controversial UN anti-racism conference in Geneva, despite the Rudd Government's decision to boycott the event because of fears it would become a platform to attack Israel.

The idea that an indigenous "Race Discrimination Commissioner" needs to go to a conference which last time resolved after a couple of weeks of junket deliberation that the only country worthy of racist policies was Israel, is some sort of wacky.

Mr Tom Calma (picture source)

The actual criticism is in point 63 of the Durban declaration (document available here):

63. We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent State and we recognize the right to security for all States in the region, including Israel, and call upon all States to support the peace process and bring it to an early conclusion;

Whilst it's not entirely comparing Israel with Germany circa 1939 (the benchmark of evil), it is curious that in the entire 62 page document, Israel is the only nation that gets a special mention. What this anti-semitic conference will teach the indigenous "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner" (to use his full title) is beyond me and even the Rudd government. The US, Canada, Israel and Australia have all officially boycotted this farce of a conference (as if a UN conference is anything but) yet Mr Calma insists on going.

I'm sure the OIC delegation will have much to teach an indigenous Australian about racism...

When a student union collides with reality

A happy resolution to my previous post about the Cystic Fibrosis charity shmozzle from Carleton University, Canada.

It appears that the voices of outrage and protest on this patently ridiculous motion were heard (via FiveFeetofFury). Two student councillors resigned (including the idiot that crafted the motion) and students at the university are wanting to impeach the student president.

Political Correctness 0 Reality 1

Identity Politics

In this brave new post-racial world of inclusiveness, love and teddy bears, where a black man has been elected the leader of the free world, and human rights trump all concerns of individual liberty and free speech, surely we can all hold hands and sing Kumbaya?

Well...no. Not if you happen to be white and male. From this story (via FiveFeetofFury) :

"OTTAWA -- The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough.

Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it."

What an awesome evolution of charity. Apparently diseases are only now worthy of research depending on their impact on designated victim groups. And if you happen to be of European descent, male and straight....hurry up and die already!!! And note, this is

"a win for diversity"

Expect more of these kind of "motions" in the future. Remember kids, it's only Racist if suggested by a whitey...

Addendum: Another instance of identity politics gone too far:

"eHarmony, a Christian-targeted dating website, gets sued by a gay man demanding that the business match him up with a same-sex partner."
...
" To be clear: The company never refused to do business with anyone. Their great “sin” was not providing a specialized service that litigious gay people demanded they provide."

Even some gays recognise the insanity of this type of lawsuit:

"This is nothing more than a nuisance lawsuit. He just felt hurt because a website offered dating services for heterosexuals, but not for him. "

Brave new world indeed.

Seriously Racist

Actual headline from the BBC site: Australia racism 'still serious'

Curious as to why a UK based news agency thought this was news, I thought I wonder exactly "who" is going to be the focus of this 'racism'. I mean we said "Sorry" to the Indigenous Australians, and whilst not enacting any policies to improve their standard of living, but hey, at least we apologised. And remember kids, these days it's way more important to be seen to be doing the right thing, than actually doing it.

"The group most often singled out as "not belonging" in Australia was Muslims or people from the Middle East, Professor Dunn told reporters on the weekend."

What a surprise! It's of course the turbanophobia (or was that hijabophobia?) raising it's ugly head. Two things kinda scream at me from this:

1. At what point in time are new immigrants considered integrated? Pizza, like it or hate it, ran for 5 seasons on SBS TV, where the principal characters were Lebanese. And no TV show runs for 5 seasons if there's no audience, even on SBS. Are we allowed to consider the Lebanese characters depicted as "integrated"? Is Lebanon in the Middle East?

"Pizza" cast photo, 2005. Spot the evil racist whiteys....

2. The scare quotes around "not belonging". Exactly how that is defined or measured is mercifully absent from the rest of the article, but you can be sure that white Australians are to blame. And could this "not belonging" be a factor of said immigrants attitudes to Australians rather than the other way around?

The good Professor then continues:

""They stand out at the moment as the group that people would be most concerned about. There [are] stronger levels of social distance or fear of Islam or concern about Islam than of any other group at the moment," said Mr Dunn, a professor of human geography and urban studies."

Why would that be? Of all the immigrant groups coming into Australia, why would there be a fear of Islam?
And why the qualifier "at the moment"? Is that just in case all Australians cease to be hijabophobic overnight, and then you can pull another ethnic/cultural group out of your hat and go HA! You're still Racist, Australia!!

The BBC and pretty much every news agency will never lack for the Professor Dunn's of this world who have no problem using their academic kudos (yes I know it's just Humanities, but to the media that's still Academia) to push forward the pre-conceived narrative that only white people have the capacity to be racist, and if they don't accept everything in toto of the new immigrant culture up to and including the immigrants death wish for the current citizens, then they will be labelled the ever so scary and cruel moniker of "Racist".

The colour Purple

Further to my previous post on the Turban effect, we now have researchers that find racism translates to virtual worlds as well.

STOP THE PRESS! Racism exists in the real world and gasp, shock-horror, it also exists in the virtual world.

Why this should be a surprise, as if the interface of a computer, mouse and keyboard can somehow make an unpleasant aspect of human nature vanish, is beyond me.

You will find racism online, in fact you will find every -ism under the sun in cyberspace (sexism, communism, islamism, botulism, etc..) and weirdly enough, for a man-made venture, online games will also have their fair share of isms brought over from the real world.

To sum up the "research", the authors contrived a social manipulation scenario in an onine forum, where people control avatars, human-like characters that can interact with other characters. The details involve 'manipulating' people to do favours, and then seeing if they will do one further favour, all done in the online world. They found that if the researchers asked for favours when they were 'driving' white-skinned avatars, they were 20% more likely to get a positive response when asking for a second favour, than if they were 'driving' black-skinned avatars.

So does that mean there's 20% racism in this online world?

From the article:

The researchers added a second layer on top of these two methods of manipulation by using avatars with skin tones set at the two extremes of light and dark that the environment, There.com, allows. This let them check for whether another pervasive social influence, racism, holds sway in the virtual world. "

Other than the sheer folly of "proving" a real-world phenomena in a virtual world, what really gets my goat is that these "researchers" prove their preconceived agenda with their awesome social science skillz, adding to the meme that Americans are racist.

The media has been very busy setting up the narrative that should Obama lose, it will be because of racism. Research such as this has one purpose only: to prove how bad (racist) the white man is. It must be remembered that the only form of racism on Earth, is the white man's prejudice against the others. Any other form of "racism" is simply evidence of your cultural insensitivity.

"The authors don't seem to know whether to celebrate the finding, since it opens up new avenues for pursuing social research, or to condemn the fact that racism has been dragged from the real to virtual worlds."

A cast picture from There.com. If you like anyone other than the
two darker-skinned homosexuals standing behind the couch, then you're a racist.