Heather Mac Donald on post-watershed facts: 

YouTube’s age-restriction policy lists vulgar language, violence and disturbing imagery, nudity and sexually suggestive content, and portrayal of harmful or dangerous ­activities as factors that could lead to an age restriction. None of those categories has any bearing on my talk. I used federal data to show that the claim that police are wantonly killing black men is a product of selective coverage by a politicised press and an elite establishment dedicated to the idea that racism is America’s defining trait. There was nothing racy or ­incendiary about the talk — unless you find criminological ­research titillating — unlike the soft-pornographic and anarchist videos that YouTube allows on its site without age restriction.

Ms Mac Donald’s apparently scandalous video – which was promptly deleted by YouTube and only restored, for consenting adults, following appeals by the talk’s organisers – can be viewed in full here. As Larry Elder adds, 

Not only does [your evidence] give perspective, it’s uplifting. Isn’t it good to know that whatever is going on is nothing to do with “institutional, systemic, structural” racism? Isn’t that good news?

And not entirely unrelated, Coleman Hughes on the life and work of Thomas Sowell: 

Sowell has encountered countless smears, though the usual avenues of attack—accusations of racism, privilege, and all the rest—have not been available. Someone should have told Aidan Byrne, who reviewed one of Sowell’s books for the London School of Economics blog. Doubtless convinced that he was delivering a devastating blow, Byrne quipped: “easy for a rich white man to say.” It’s hard not to laugh at this hapless reviewer’s expense, but many mainstream commentators differ from Byrne only in that they usually remember to check Google Images before launching their ad hominems. The prevailing notion today is that your skin colour, your chromosomes, your sexual orientation, and other markers of identity determine how you think. And it is generally those who see themselves as the most freethinking—“woke,” while the rest of us are asleep—who apply the strictest and most backward formulas.

A selection of videos featuring Dr Sowell can be found here, here, here, and here. 

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Andy Ngo reports from Seattle’s super-woke world of tomorrow:

Those unfortunate enough to have homes or businesses within CHAZ — an estimated 30,000 residents — have no say over their new overlords. Residents have discreetly voiced their concerns to local media. Gunshots and “screams of terror” at night have been reported… Every business and property inside CHAZ has been vandalised with graffiti. Most messages say some variation of “Black Lives Matter” or “George Floyd,” but other messages call for the murder of police. Most businesses are boarded up. “ACAB” — all cops are bastards, an Antifa slogan — is written over them.

Needless to say, there’s more, much more, including armed warlords, triumphant racism, bomb-making, and the sexual assault of deaf women. But hey, we mustn’t judge. After all, we’ve been assured that it’s a precursor, a blueprint, of a brighter, kinder, more liberated world.

In the new, progressive pecking order: 

I just saw a notice go out to the alumni of Caltech, saying we had to eliminate anyone who still resisted these measures to increase awareness of our terrible bigotry. And quite honestly, the key problem that we’re facing here is that we are all for some reason terrified of telling the black community, “you’re wrong.” The black community that is behind Black Lives Matter is frequently wrong… They make terrible arguments… [But] if you contradict [these terrible arguments] then it must mean that you don’t think black lives matter… and that’s not how science works… If a person says, “Two times three equals a chicken,” that person is wrong. I don’t care how trans they are. We have to have the ability, inside of a free society, to treat each other as equals. And if I can’t tell you you’re wrong, you’re not my equal.

Eric Weinstein pokes at academia’s deference to Black Lives Matter. Via Rafi. 

It’s worth noting just how often professed egalitarians delight in overt hierarchies. Of which type of person matters, and does not.

Update, via the comments. The point made above, but in slightly more direct terms.

Also, open thread.

Speaking, as we were, of enthusiasts of crime, meet communist poet Wendy Trevino:

When I see tweets of this nature – repeated slogan, repeated slogan, repeated slogan – I tend to think the tweeter is either adolescent or unwell. Ms Trevino is supposedly a grown woman. One who appears to have a complicated relationship with her father. Sometimes the clichés are just too on-the-nose. When not advocating shoplifting and being titillated by visions of collapsing social norms, Ms Trevino, our communist poet and Antifa Gal, wants us to know how pleased she is by criminals escaping prison and taking hostages. What said prisoners may have done to be there in the first place, and what they may do again now that they’re at large, doesn’t seem to interest her.

Update, via the comments:

This is the nice version of what happens when the state justice system fails and private individuals must step in to fill the void. There is also a less nice version.

Over at Samizdata, Natalie Solent is pondering this item of crime and policing news. Or rather, non-policing news:

It was no surprise to anyone who knew Nicholas Richards, a career criminal with 25 convictions including 18 for shoplifting, that his motives were not entirely honourable when he walked into Boots. Witnesses described him stealing £170-worth of Gucci perfume; CCTV footage recovered from the chemist’s flagship branch in Piccadilly showed him putting the goods in his bag; and cameras worn by private security officers who detained him recorded him admitting the offence.

So staff at Boots, which loses between £10,000 and £12,000 a week to shoplifting, were upset when police officers arrived on the crime scene, decided the case was a “civil” matter and released Richards, who was already on a suspended sentence for theft. Boots was furious about the failure to dispense justice and decided to take part in what is believed to be the first private prosecution for shoplifting supported by a corporate victim.

The case is being brought by TM Eye. Set up by two former Metropolitan police officers, it is the parent company of My Local Bobby (MLB), which provides neighbourhood policing to residents, firms and shops. Its 30 “bobbies,” who wear red vests and caps, provide 24-hour cover. They are mostly former police officers and soldiers.

In the comments following which, a reader adds,

Anyone with 25 previous convictions should not be on our streets.

Some time ago, I suggested, not entirely flippantly, that a “three-strikes-and-we-put-you-out-to-sea-on-a-fucking-raft” policy might be quite popular. Readers are welcome to use the comments below to share alternatives.