2015-01-14

Odds And Ends: Charlie; Turkey Too Chicken; Islamic Terrorist Stats; Obama The Articulate; Kroooogman Plays Fancy Pants

Maybe keeping Turkey out of the EU may be a good idea. A few years back an observer suggested allowing Turkey in the EU would force them to embrace Western values. 

In hindsight, I think this is naive. Erdogan is an egotistical nationalist and secular Turks are right to be concerned. Especially since he pulled the 'West is behind the Charlie Hebdo' killings. He knows what he's doing because ill-informed Muslims eat that shit up.

Not to mention Greece would be a tad nervous if not reticent about this happening.

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Speaking of Charlie. Voila David Friedman:

"...Both tribes are, of course, opposed to Muslim terrorism and the murder of journalists. But the blue tribe version amounts to "Muslim terrorists are bad people, but we should not let their offenses prejudice us against the vast majority of Muslims who are not terrorists or give us a negative opinion of their religion." The red tribe version concedes that not all Muslims are terrorists but sees Muslim terrorism as part of an us vs them conflict, with "us" the west and "them" the Muslim world. The same split shows up in views of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The blue tribe, or at least its hard core members, sees the Palestinians as the oppressed, the Israelis as the oppressors. The red tribe sees the Israelis as part of us, the Palestinians as part of them.



The New York Times is the nearest thing the blue tribe has to an official organ. The Charlie Hebdo case is a red tribe story. The Times cannot deny that it happened, cannot refuse to cover it, cannot defend the killers. But it also cannot identify with victims who, from its (unstated) point of view, were on the wrong side of the red/blue split over Islam, deliberately provoking Muslims with their cartoons.

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Charlie all the time.

Popehat has some questions for the New York Times.

From comments:


"Catholics who were upset about "Piss Christ" have plenty of political power and avenues to protest and make their displeasure heard in ways that can actually affect policy or other people's bank accounts. (We won't even talk about the Supreme Court right now.) In short, Catholics are not a marginalized group. In contrast, no one reasonable believes Muslims in America have any real political power or avenues to log game-changing nationwide protest outside of Dearborn, MI.
When one understands the power differential, one realizes that the failure to deliberately antagonize minorities isn't a free speech issue per se–it's a basic tolerance issue, i.e., the majority respecting a minority b/c they realize some groups lack institutional protections and there's no need to pile on."

There it is. Considering the feelings of powerless minorities must trump free speech!

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What's a discussion on Charlie without Steyn's input?

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Interesting stats on Loonwatch from 2010 about Islamic terrorism in Europe.

At the moment, we're reacting emotionally (as we always do) to a senseless act of violence, at the expense of rational thought - think calls for gun control right after a killing spree. However, there is a problem with Islamic terrorism in Europe (as well as North America if we include sleeper cells) and it will get worse before it gets better.

Other than that, notice how left-wing terrorism dwarfs right-wing attacks. Funny. One would get the impression watching the MSM in North America it's the opposite.

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So. What do I get out of this Tesla v. GM article? Well, I already know about this but this unrelated final paragraph caught my eye:

"Or, to use a word invented by the linguistically gifted George W. Bush, traditional carmakers are constantly “misunderestimating” the nature of Tesla’s real challenge."

Poor Bush. They will never leave him alone even though the guy who replaced him is just as mediocre if not worse. Probably because people just let their perception rule them on this issue. There's no question the average person 'believes' Obama to be smarter or more articulate.

Here have a look as to why they're wrong.

Okay. I'm nitpicking since Bush's flib worked perfectly with his sentence.

I mean it's not like Obama never made any errors (which suddenly becomes 'he's only human' and 'has a lot stress' to his defenders. 'Fixing' Bush's mess no doubt) as you can see here and here and here and here and (sigh) here.

And here regarding his 'unforced errors' (again, which others to be blamed for).

Nonetheless, I highly doubt anyone would ever writer in the mainstream in such a sarcastic tone 'linguistically gifted Barack Obama'.

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What? Krugman, a Nobel prize winner in a sub-sub set of economics ergo we should listen to him all the time, plays fancy and loose with statistics and graphs?

Why I never!

From Council on Foreign Relations on Geo-Graphics (link above):

"...Krugman’s chart plots changes in real GDP against changes in real government purchases for 33 advanced countries between 2010 and 2013.  The slope of the trend line (which Krugman does not draw) is clearly positive (with R-squared of 0.31), suggesting strongly that cutting government spending (during that period) reduced growth, and that raising it increased growth.
The problem with this figure is that it mixes countries that were able to use monetary policy with those that weren’t – such as those in the Eurozone or those with hard currency pegs.  Referring to this problem, Scott Sumner recently asked on his blog: “Why do Keynesians show cross-sectional graphs of fiscal austerity and growth, mixing in countries that have their own independent monetary policy with those that do not?” Sumner’s point is that countries that have independent monetary policy can, in principle, offset fiscal drag with more accommodative monetary policy.  Is he right?
On the right-hand figure above, we re-did Krugman’s chart for advanced countries with independent monetary policies.  Lo and behold, Krugman’s spending-growth relationship collapses, as Sumner would have expected.
This is not to say that austerity is good.  But it does undermine the empirical basis for Krugman’s claim that reducing government spending lowers growth, and that increasing government spending raises growth, at least in countries that can use monetary policy as well as fiscal policy."




2 comments:

  1. We need to treat Muslims like dirt. If we would do that, perhaps they would get the message that the radicals are destroying their image... or perhaps not and we could then happily continue to treat them like dirt. I love the complaints about "backlash Islamophobia". Perhaps that would be justified after some Christians start burning Mosques filled with worshipping Muslims. And I see the French response to an attack on free speech is to outlaw free speech and arrest a comic.
    Oh, and Krugman is an idiot, an educated one, no doubt but an idiot just the same.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The response by France has indeed disappointing if not pathetic. Just goes to show where the mindset of Europeans lies. Worse, you're an 'extremist' for wanting to push back.

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