The war on Christmas these days seems to have became a battle on two fronts. First there's the left-liberal attempt to de-christianise Christmas. Although I haven't noticed too much of this in New Zealand, it was clearly obvious when I visited Melbourne recently, where Christmas shop displays seemed to be cleansed of any nativity scene decoration. No doubt this is related to PC concerns about not offending Australia's larger Muslim population.
Secondly, there's the on-going right-liberal campaign to make as much money out of Christmas as possible, even if that means marginalising Christmas day itself. Most retailers now seem to have given up trying to get people to buy presents for the big day, and instead are encouraging them to hold onto their cash until the summer sales start on the 26th.
Hence we now have two Christmas celebrations - one on the 25th for the wealthy people, and a K-Mart-style budget Christmas on Boxing Day for the lower classes.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The overrated gender pay gap
Left-liberal organisations in New Zealand have been going on about the gender pay gap for decades now, despite admitting that in fields where men and women actually compete for the same jobs with the same skills its not particularly significant. For example, in the Christchurch Press last Saturday, of Judy McGregor of the Human Rights Commission said "We still have a long way to go in relation to pay equity," despite saying that the average gender pay gap in the public sector is only about 12 per cent.
I would think that the fact that women have to leave work to have children would account for most if not all of such a relatively small gap, especially in a long-term career-orientated field like civil service work.
Of course in these complaints about pay differences, it's never considered that there may be occupations in which women are over-payed relative to men with the same qualifications.
Take teaching for example - in secondary teaching there is apparently a shortage of science and maths graduates, and a slight surplus of arts graduates. However, teachers unions are strongly opposed to allowing schools to increase pay rates for maths and science teachers.
Given the majority of arts graduates are women and the majority of science and maths graduates are men, holding back salaries for maths and science teachers negatively discriminates against a disproportionate number of male teaching graduates.
In the private sector there are also a number of fields where men are underpaid. There's little doubt male models are paid less than their female counterparts and its also likely to be a similar story in public relations, where a disproportionate number of jobs are given to youngish, relatively attractive females.
Sure, there may be valid reasons why women should be paid more than men in certain occupations, butt that's equally likely to be the case with men being paid more than women in some occupations. Blanket statements about gender oppression just don't cut it, particularly in a relatively tight labour market where there's nothing to stop workers from looking for another employer if they feel they aren't getting a fair deal.
Unless women are frequently getting paid substantially less than men for the same work, for an extended period of time, without taking time off for maternity leave, then its hard to make a claim they are being unfairly discriminated against.
I would think that the fact that women have to leave work to have children would account for most if not all of such a relatively small gap, especially in a long-term career-orientated field like civil service work.
Of course in these complaints about pay differences, it's never considered that there may be occupations in which women are over-payed relative to men with the same qualifications.
Take teaching for example - in secondary teaching there is apparently a shortage of science and maths graduates, and a slight surplus of arts graduates. However, teachers unions are strongly opposed to allowing schools to increase pay rates for maths and science teachers.
Given the majority of arts graduates are women and the majority of science and maths graduates are men, holding back salaries for maths and science teachers negatively discriminates against a disproportionate number of male teaching graduates.
In the private sector there are also a number of fields where men are underpaid. There's little doubt male models are paid less than their female counterparts and its also likely to be a similar story in public relations, where a disproportionate number of jobs are given to youngish, relatively attractive females.
Sure, there may be valid reasons why women should be paid more than men in certain occupations, butt that's equally likely to be the case with men being paid more than women in some occupations. Blanket statements about gender oppression just don't cut it, particularly in a relatively tight labour market where there's nothing to stop workers from looking for another employer if they feel they aren't getting a fair deal.
Unless women are frequently getting paid substantially less than men for the same work, for an extended period of time, without taking time off for maternity leave, then its hard to make a claim they are being unfairly discriminated against.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Stupidly irresponsible journalism
Considering how mainstream journalists like to criticise bloggers for irresponsible journalism, Daily Mirror columnist Brian Reade has quite a cheek to joke about publicly revealing the details of right-wing political activists.
On the Daily Mirror website, he's written under a picture of British National Party politician Nick Griffin Reade (in an apparently sarcastic tone):
"I'm worried about the 12,000 BNP members whose names and addresses have been leaked on the Internet.
I pray their details don't fall into the hands of any of those black radical groups known to take a very dim view of white neo-Nazis.
It would be truly awful if anything nasty happened to these nice people wouldn't it?"
Most blog hosting sites like blogger close down extremist political sites which advocate violence or publish personal details of political opponents (which probably breaches privacy laws as well).
If mainstream newspapers columnists publicly condone this sort of action they should be sacked. At the very least, Reade deserves a warning from his employer for violating the standards of responsible journalism.
As a writer for a national paper he should be mature enough to acknowledge that most political activists, on both the right and left are decent, law abiding people and deserve to have their personal safety protected.
On the Daily Mirror website, he's written under a picture of British National Party politician Nick Griffin Reade (in an apparently sarcastic tone):
"I'm worried about the 12,000 BNP members whose names and addresses have been leaked on the Internet.
I pray their details don't fall into the hands of any of those black radical groups known to take a very dim view of white neo-Nazis.
It would be truly awful if anything nasty happened to these nice people wouldn't it?"
Most blog hosting sites like blogger close down extremist political sites which advocate violence or publish personal details of political opponents (which probably breaches privacy laws as well).
If mainstream newspapers columnists publicly condone this sort of action they should be sacked. At the very least, Reade deserves a warning from his employer for violating the standards of responsible journalism.
As a writer for a national paper he should be mature enough to acknowledge that most political activists, on both the right and left are decent, law abiding people and deserve to have their personal safety protected.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Liberal media and the man bites dog story
After "it bleeds it leads," one of the mainstream media's favourite pre-occupations is, as Steve Sailer points out, the atypical 'man bites dog' story. In crime reporting this often means a fixation on racially motivated crime among whites and organised crime among East Asians - both of which are statistically infrequent compared with the run-of-the-mill underclass crime that's more common among economically under-achieving minorities.
Such is the case with a Press story about the recent murder of an immigrant taxi driver in Christchurch entitled "Teens face killing charge," which had a page two follow up title "Racial link to killing feared," in which another unidentified taxi driver was given the chance to comment about cultural intolerance among Christchurch citizens, and was quoted as saying the murder wouldn't have happened if the man had been white.
This speculative material was deemed newsworthy despite the fact that the names and ethnicities of the two accused youths have not been revealed and that a police spokesman has clearly stated the motive for the murder is not yet known.
Similarly, in the same way racially motivated crime is exaggerated, the power of racialist politics is also over-played. As a rather disallutioned commentator on the white nationalist website Majority Rights points out, the level of serious white racialist political activism in the US is tiny, but is talked up by increasingly irrelevant left-liberal organisations like the Southern Poverty Law Center to gain funding.
Such is the case with a Press story about the recent murder of an immigrant taxi driver in Christchurch entitled "Teens face killing charge," which had a page two follow up title "Racial link to killing feared," in which another unidentified taxi driver was given the chance to comment about cultural intolerance among Christchurch citizens, and was quoted as saying the murder wouldn't have happened if the man had been white.
This speculative material was deemed newsworthy despite the fact that the names and ethnicities of the two accused youths have not been revealed and that a police spokesman has clearly stated the motive for the murder is not yet known.
Similarly, in the same way racially motivated crime is exaggerated, the power of racialist politics is also over-played. As a rather disallutioned commentator on the white nationalist website Majority Rights points out, the level of serious white racialist political activism in the US is tiny, but is talked up by increasingly irrelevant left-liberal organisations like the Southern Poverty Law Center to gain funding.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Buying up the Pacific rim
During the decline of the U.S economy in the 1980s Japan bought out American companies and established car companies on the American mainland. Now Chinese investers are following suite and taking advantage of the current recession to buy up comparatively cheap properties in California (hat tip: Your Lying Eyes).
East Asians now own a significant percentage of the real estate in most of the major Western Pacific rim cities, including: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland, Wellington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and especially Vancouver (not sure about Portland, Oregan).
While the elites of English-speaking West don't seem to be particularly concerned about this, it does signal that the West is now decisively in economic decline relative to East Asia, and a pattern seems to be emerging that the worse the recession, the greater the amount of Pacific real estate bought up by Asian interests.
It also raises concern about North American and Australian security should relations worsen between China and the US.
In the long run, continuing Asian immigration could eventually lead to a fracturing of Australasia and North America with Eastern Australia, Northern New Zealand, British Columbia, and the US Eastern Seaboard becoming Asian countries and the space-loving Caucasian populations retreating to the cheaper and less-densely populated hinterlands.
East Asians now own a significant percentage of the real estate in most of the major Western Pacific rim cities, including: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland, Wellington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and especially Vancouver (not sure about Portland, Oregan).
While the elites of English-speaking West don't seem to be particularly concerned about this, it does signal that the West is now decisively in economic decline relative to East Asia, and a pattern seems to be emerging that the worse the recession, the greater the amount of Pacific real estate bought up by Asian interests.
It also raises concern about North American and Australian security should relations worsen between China and the US.
In the long run, continuing Asian immigration could eventually lead to a fracturing of Australasia and North America with Eastern Australia, Northern New Zealand, British Columbia, and the US Eastern Seaboard becoming Asian countries and the space-loving Caucasian populations retreating to the cheaper and less-densely populated hinterlands.
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