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POPSPsychology, Sociology most politically correct fields The first thing that Simmons does in the study with the database — which covers a range of disciplines and institution types — is to identify a politically correct cohort, reflecting largely common views on a set of issues that are seen as defining political correctness. He finds a set of issues that produce this cohort. The views are the belief that gender gaps in math and science fields are largely due to discrimination; support for affirmative action; and belief that discrimination is a key cause of racial inequities in American society. Generally, members of this cohort see race and gender as fundamental — and share that belief much more than beliefs about the curriculum or scholarship, such that the study says that “multiculturalism trumps postmodernism.” Via Tyler Cowen
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POPSHaaretz editor: Israel facing existential crisis The outgoing editor of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz spoke at the London Jewish Book Week. On the 2005 Chris McGreal series that appeared in the Guardian, comparing Israel to South Africa: Landau was "outraged" by the articles at the time, but went on: "I don't feel like that any more. I don't feel that my outrage did sufficient justice to that piece of journalism because I feel that we in Israel have got ourselves into a situation in which we will indeed be facing a South African dilemma. "We will have a country in which we will become the minority and the majority will be denied their political and civil rights. When I re-read the Chris McGreal reports I no longer feel necessarily that that was totally tendentious. It might have been a prophetic piece of journalism. But the point is that the outrage which I gave voice to was an inadequate reaction. The reaction should have been: 'has he got a point?'"
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POPS"The Dark Knight" Earns An Unprecedented $18,489,000 BURBANK, Calif., Jul 18, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Just past the stroke of midnight, Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Dark Knight" broke the record for a 12:01 a.m. film opening, earning an unprecedented $18,489,000 at the box office. Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Legendary Pictures, a Syncopy Production, a Christopher Nolan film, "The Dark Knight," starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morgan Freeman. Nolan directed the film from a screenplay written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan.
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POPSThere is no climate crisis: Hoax revealed
The IPCC’s 2007 climate summary overstated CO2’s impact on temperature by 500-2000%; CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100; Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly; The IPCC’s values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500; The IPCC’s values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated; “Global warming” halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years; Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling; The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists’ draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%; Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed; In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.
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POPSRising Inequality Has Not Been Offset By Mobility The fact that all three data sources suggest the same conclusion doesn’t necessarily mean it’s correct, but it offers good reason to favor that conclusion. Rising income and earnings inequality in the United States does not appear to have been offset by increased mobility.
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POPS'Worse than apartheid' Nablus is closed off by six checkpoints. Until 2005, one of them was open. "The checkpoints are supposedly for security purposes, but anyone who wants to perpetrate an attack can pay NIS 10 for a taxi and travel by bypass roads, or walk through the hills. The real purpose is to make life hard for the inhabitants. The civilian population suffers," says Said Abu Hijla, a lecturer at Al-Najah University in the city. In the bus I get acquainted with my two neighbours: Andrew Feinstein, a son of Holocaust survivors who is married to a Muslim woman from Bangladesh and served six years as an MP for the ANC ; and Nathan Gefen, who has a male Muslim partner and was a member of the right-wing Betar movement in his youth. Gefen is active on the Committee against AIDS in his AIDS-ravaged country.
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POPSRace, crime, community, and redemption From Kasinitz, Philip, John H. Mollenkopf, Mary C. Waters, and Jennifer Holdaway. 2008. Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. New York: Russell Sage Foundation pp. 127-128
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POPSCalifornia Republicans Cool to Youth-Voting Bills This is a wonderful idea as it educates towards understanding that the vote is a right and important. If the Republicans are against it then they know their policies need changing to attract voters. ( This article indicates to me that the GOP people are not willing to make a forward step, let alone cater for younger voters.)
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POPSWhy Hispanics are not a race From: Kasinitz, Philip, John H. Mollenkopf, Mary C. Waters, and Jennifer Holdaway. 2008. Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. p. 72
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POPSMcCain 'jokes' about killing Iranians The joke : Sen. John McCain hasn't had good luck joking about Iran. But he tried it again Tuesday. Responding to a question about a survey that shows increased exports to Iran, mainly from cigarettes, McCain said, "Maybe thats a way of killing them." He quickly caught himself, saying "I meant that as a joke" as his wife, Cindy, poked him in the back.
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POPSGovt blocks payment of Gitmo defense attorneys "government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers' services are foreign terrorists" - of course, these being "fair" trials, we wouldn't assume they were "terrorists," before their conviction, now would we? Justice means nothing in this political theater.
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POPSObama: "I need to earn troops' trust" Before they can trust, they have to respect. Clinton never got the respect of the troops other than the lickspittle Gen. Wesley Clark. Similarly, this empty suit, al Qaeda sleeper cell Hussein Obama, will never gain that respect. He represents the Left who continually stabbed them in the back during the long war.
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POPSNewsweek - television minus electricity Read the whole piece by Scott McLemee. The Newsweek article declared Lincoln the winner, by the way. (full disclosure: I am a "Facebook friend" of McLemee's, which is to say, I'm not really a friend of his at all) CLARIFICATION: He friended me after I signed up as a fan of his blog. Other than that we have had no personal contact at all.
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POPSThe true heart of the conservative movement Of course as tends to be the case with Helms' most repugnantly racist bile, he said that a good ways back in the past. But even at that time, most Americans managed not to be repugnant racists. But not Helms. And unlike a lot of people who did take the white supremacist line in the 1950s and 60s, Helms never apologized and, indeed, never backed down doing things like mounting a filibuster against making Martin Luther King Day into a federal holiday. Remarkably, mainstream American conservatives are eager to tell us that this man is their hero. Even more remarkably, you sometimes hear conservatives talk about reaching out to black voters.
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POPSLawyers accuse judge of lying, bungling Roman Polanski case The famous film director Roman Polanski fled the US in 1977 because he was charged for statutory rape. Twenty years later, Polanski's lawyer and prosecutors made a deal that would have allowed Polanski to return to the US. Polanski refused the deal because the judge wanted the proceedings televised. Fast forward to now, when HBO releases its Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired documentary which contains this little tidbit. The judge calls the story completely fabricated. Both the defense and prosecuting attorney go on the record calling the judge a liar.
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