On FPF #173, I discuss the US expelling 60 Russian diplomats. Several other countries also expelled Russian diplomats in response to an alleged Russian nerve agent attack in the UK. I look at the evidence behind the allegations and respond to US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman.
A few comments on the following article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/school-shootings-are-extraordinarily-rare-why-is-fear-of-them-driving-policy/2018/03/08/f4ead9f2-2247-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html
Interesting article from a Harvard specialist in risk assessment about how we irrationally respond to certain events like school shootings. The reality is that the chance of a kid dying from a school shooting every day is 1 in 614,000,000. Or about 1 in 3.4 million per year if you assume they attend 180 days. And this risk has fallen since the 1990s (in the days of the “assault weapons” ban).
This means almost any activity or hazard is more dangerous for kids, most by orders of magnitude. From walking to the bus stop, transportation to school, dying from a disease caught at school, or athletic and extracurricular activities. A teenager is more than 100 times likelier to die in a car accident than a school shooting. Yet we tend to preoccupy ourselves with things that invoke the most emotion, similar to other fears like airplane accidents or terrorism.
It should be the adults who impart this sort of thinking to kids and teach them how to think rationally. Make sure they know the facts, that they’ve never been safer in schools than today, and appreciate risks in context. Instead, we seem to be encouraging youth to emote, putting them on pedestals to express their feelings, and validating emotional arguments.
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For this episode I discuss the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the rise of big data, and detail the death of Facebook. In doing so, I share my experience with Mewe, an impressive Facebook replacement that we could move to TODAY.
On FPF #172, I discuss Trump’s announcement that John Bolton will replace HR McMaster as National Security Advisor. Bolton continues to support the Iraq War and he was involved in lying us into the war. Bolton has been a long opponent of the Iran Nuclear Deal. He has suggested preemptive strikes against North Korea and Iraq. Bolton supported Obama’s war in Libya. I also give some analysis of what this means for US foreign policy.
Perspective is everything and facts are important in the gun debate. Unfortunately, after tragedy strikes, facts are cast aside in favor of emotionally-based pleas that ‘We Must Do Something!’
The graphs below are provided with little to no commentary as it is unnecessary.
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1. There are more guns than ever in the United States and there are now more guns than people.
2. Americans can more freely carry guns on them now than ever before.
3. But with this increase in guns, accidental fatalities from firearms has continued to decrease…
4. Additionally, homicides from firearms has also decreased…
5. Suicides aren’t on the rise, either. Rates among men and women have been statistically similar going back multiple generations.
6. As suicides go, “Suicide by gun” has actually decreased as well.
7. After each tragedy, our politicians politick, our late night comedians weep, and we leap to social media to re-hack all of our side’s talking points. But these tragedies don’t actually change anyone’s mind.
8-9. So what HAS changed?
10. Gun Regulation doesn’t reduce homicides, quite the opposite.
Since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. on February 14 that left 17 people dead and 17 more wounded, there has been a renewed push for tougher gun laws. In the weeks since, schools around the nation have had organized protests in which students walked out of class. Some students traveled to Washington, D.C., and a larger event occurred there on March 24. There is some lovely beachfront property in Arizona for sale for anyone who believes that this is truly a grassroots movement in which students are expressing their own opinions and planning their own events. Like other forms of establishment-friendly activism, this movement is greatly assisted (if not entirely orchestrated) by agents of the Cathedral and follows several guidelines which are common to other such movements. Let us deconstruct this movement to see how the establishment can manufacture and sustain such movements step-by-step. 1. Never let a crisis go to waste. Though the establishment is not above manufacturing a problem itself in order to have a pretext to impose its desired solution, less effort is required on their part to take advantage of events that happen without their direct involvement. (One might call compulsory education laws and lack of involuntary commitment of the mentally ill a form of direct involvement, but let us take direct involvement to mean conspiring with the shooters.) A number of high-profile mass shootings have occurred in recent years, and almost everyone agrees that this is a problem. However, fervor for more gun restrictions quickly waned after each previous shooting when token legislation either failed to pass or caused very little meaningful change and other events took over the news cycle. The progressives have learned from this, which brings us to the remaining points. 2. Call in support from other establishment-friendly movements. In this case, major players in the Women’s March are now helping with March For Our Lives. The American Civil Liberties Union is advising students on legal matters concerning school systems that threaten punishment of students who walk out of class to protest. Leftist public figures are providing generous financial support and speaking out. Non-profits like Everytown for Gun Safety are pitching in. This is to be expected; leftist activist movements frequently share personnel, taking advantage of experience in fundraising and organization from fellow-traveling organizations. Read the entire article at ZerothPosition.com
Cathy Newman conducted one of the most abhorrent and embarrassing interviews of all time with Dr. Jordan Peterson recently. For those who haven’t seen the exchange, watch it here, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54&t=1174s) it’s truly something to behold. She was rude, condescending and clearly out to get Peterson with her simplistic talking points.
Except she underestimated him, and was grossly out of her element intellectually, which resulted in her getting repeatedly destroyed by Peterson argument after argument. It was so bad the interview has been a running joke among many, and turned into memes (“so what you’re saying is that…”). Rarely has there ever been such a case where a professional interviewer so obviously ignored what their guest actually said, and caricatured them to their face. Yet, Peterson stayed civil and fact-based through the exchange, and performed admirably in the face of clear journalistic bias. In any just world, Newman would have been fired and shamed for her conduct, or at least forced to issue an apology.
Enter The Guardian’s fluff piece, which rushes to paint Newman in a positive light and turn her into the victim. As for Peterson, he’s described simply as “a controversial Canadian psychologist who has attracted a following among the “alt-right””. That’s his description! That’s the critical information The Guardian thought necessary for their viewers to know. Not that he’s a highly credentialed psychologist from Harvard and University of Toronto, who wiped the floor with Newman, and is the antithesis of the alt-right in almost every way. Or that he’s done more than anyone on the planet to keep young men from falling into the alt-right, by demonstrating careful reason and railing against nihilism and self-destruction. Peterson is the antithesis of the shallow anti-intellectuals and trolls of the alt-right. Continue reading “So You’re Saying?”
The US isn’t an outlier for mass shooting death rates.
This study found the mass shooting death rate between 2000-2014 in Finland, Switzerland and Norway was higher than in the US. (1)
Another study looked at public mass shootings between 2009-2015.
Norway, Serbia, France, Macedonia, Albania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium, and Czech Republic all ranked higher than the US in public mass shooting death rate. The author also found the mass public shooting death rate for all Europe was nearly the same as the US.
.0881 for Europe
.0879 for US
(2)
It’s commonly pointed out that countries like Norway skew the data. After all, Norway only had 1 mass shooting between 09′ and 15′.
Here’s a better way to think about it:
Norway has 5.2 million people. There are 7 states in the US with between 4.4 and 5.7 million. Over the same time period 3 of them had 0 mass shootings and 4 of them had 1, the same as Norway. All the death totals for these 7 states combined is lower than Norway’s.
So of course the US had more shootings over the sample period, the US has over 62 times as many people as Norway. But if we focus in on states of similar size to Norway, the states did much better.
Back to school. Back to school. To prove to dad that I’m not a fool.
Hahahaha. Shut up.
We are back at it again with episode 69 of the podcast talking about the generational cult classic Adam Sandler flick, Billy Madison. This one is mostly talking about the ridiculousness of the plot and some of the funny quotes and bizarre scenes, but we hope you enjoy it.
He’s the heir to the Madison Hotel millions but in order to win his father’s respect, and his Fortune 500 company, grown-up goof-off Billy must repeat all 12 grades of school – in just 24 weeks! Comedy superstar Adam Sandler stars in this laugh-a-minute hit.
Shampoo is better!
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