Muda69

Found this kind of humorous: Bunch of Gays Went Down to Georgia —apologies to Charlie Daniels and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" Bunch of gays went down to Georgia, they were lookin’ for a Chick-Fil-A They’d got all bent ’cause its President liked marriage the old-fashioned way. They drove right up to the window, under their collars they were hot And they said to the girl takin’ orders there, “We don’t like the chicken in your pot. “Now girlie, you may not know it but we’re a bunch of militants, “And while we insist on our own liberty, we don’t like Dan Cathy’s stance. “So we’re gonna have a kiss-in here just to show our contempt for you “‘Cause nobody nowhere nohow can criticize what gay folks do.” The girl spoke back right smart at them, and didn’t damn their eyes, But said, “I think you’ll change your mind when you try our waffle fries.” Chick-Fil-A, fire up the grill and spread that chicken spice See if you can make militant gays learn how to act real nice; Everybody has free speech, that’s how this country’s made Maybe you’ll sweeten their dispositions with a glass of lemonade. The gays all piled out of their car and locked in an embrace A couple guys with tattoos started in to gnaw each other’s face But no-one paid them any mind, although they acted rude They practically were trampled by folks looking to buy food. They writhed and gripped hard as they could, but it was no big deal 'Cause Chick-Fil-A was swamped with people clamoring for a meal They yelled, “Gimme a spicy sandwich, do “Gimme a drink, waffle fries too “Whether you’re for gay marriage or not “We don’t care for kiss-ins or boycotts.” The militants were angry ’cause they knew that they’d been beat They were about to get into their car and drive off in defeat They knew they’d really lost when one of them came back outside, Saying, “Hey, guys, you know this sandwich? It’s the best I’ve ever tried.” They yelled, “Gimme a spicy sandwich, do “Gimme a drink, waffle fries too “Whether you’re for gay marriage or not “We don’t care for kiss-ins or boycotts.”

So the interview process is part of the term "in employment"? If so then I propose a hypothetical. Let's say a private company openly solicits resumes for an open position. They receive 10 resumes, and based on the non-racially identifiable info on the resume decide to interview 6 individuals. During the interviews it is discovered that 5 of the candidates are white, 1 is non-white. Is this a large enough percentage of a racial minority to making a hiring decision, or should the company have to then solicit more resumes until the required number of non-white candidates are successfully interviewed?

Socialism for Thee, But Not for Me: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/socialism-for-thee-but-not-for-me/ Yep, most socialist believe that only government force can get them a "better deal".

https://mises.org/wire/objective-journalism-has-always-been-myth "Since the real effect of most laws are subtle and hidden," Lippmann contends, "they cannot be understood by filtering local experiences through local states of mind. They can be known only by controlled reporting and objective analysis." But how is this "objective analysis" to be achieved? The answer for Lippman lies in making journalism more scientific, and in making facts "fixed, objectified, measured, [and] named." It is not a coincidence, of course, that Lippmann is writing this in the early 1920s. This was the late Progressive Era, and as such it was the age of "scientific motherhood" and an endless society-wide drive to convince Americans to hand over all important decisions to "experts." Consequently, mothers were to abandon control to parenting "experts," parents were to hand over their prerogatives of educating children "experts," and the economy was to be controlled by "experts" in public policy. Journalism historian Richard Streckfuss notes that Lippmann was jumping on the same bandwagon: Lippmann's influence on the profession's aspirations has never really waned. To this day, the Lippmann model leads to continued efforts at greater opbjectivity inluding the promotion of methods like "precision journalism," popularized by Philip Meyer. Meyer notes that journalists often stray from the Lippmannian ideal, largely due to the difficulty of collecting information. Meyer believes the solution to this This ideal remains quite popular among journalists. They continue to fancy themselves as experts at providing objective and balanced information on critical pieces of information and as the only ones who can be trusted with providing an unbiased viewpoint. Not Even Scientists Are Objective This philosophy, however, is faulty even at its most basic foundation. Lippmann, as a proponent of scientific objectivity was himself embracing a fanciful idea of scientific inquiry and objectivity. This view that the physical sciences were above bias was almost universal in Lippmann's day. But in recent decades, numerous cracks have shown up in the facade of scientific objectivity among even physical scientists. Thanks to the research in the fields of the "sociology of science" and the "economics of science," there is increasing documentation illustrating what should have been obvious all along — namely that scientists are not immune to the effects of their own personal biases. ... On the other hand, scientists have a better claim to objectivity than journalists. In many fields, scientists are constrained by whether or not their scientific knowledge is actually useful. Prescription drugs either work or they don't. New building materials and new chemical solutions either work or their don't. Many physical scientists are thus limited in how they might indulge their biases by the successful application of their discoveries and conclusions. Journalism, of course, has no such check on its own work, and thus we see the fundamental flaw in Lippmann's attempt at making journalism "scientific." There's no practical measure of whether or not a news story has been communicated scientifically or not. Journalists Increasingly Admitting Objectivity Is Unattainable Thanks to journalism's profound and obvious hostility to the Trump administration, it has become increasingly difficult for the media to continue to claim it enbraces as Lippmann model of dispassionate scientific inquiry. This departure from the scientific ideal has become so clear in the last decade, in fact, that even mainstream journalists have started to openly discuss it. For example, in 2015, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone authored an op-ed in The New York Times titled "'Objective Journalism' Is an Illusion." Taibbi was writing on the occasion of the retirement of John Stewart from The Daily Show and contended that part of Stewart's popularity could be explained by the fact Stewart did not pretend to be an objective journalist. Unlike most journalists who hide behind a facade of objectivity, Stewart was upfront about his biases. Although many journalists are still in denial about this, the overwhelming majority of those who consume media are well aware that biases are rampant, from all directions. Thus Taibbi concludes: Trying to hide one's bias is thus only courting suspicion from readers. Others have departed from the ideal of objective journalism as a means of defending the mass media's lopsided hostility to the Trump administration. This is partly why Rob Wijnberg at The Correspondent concludesthat "'not taking a position' means being not only a mouthpiece for power but a conduit for lies." Wijnberg abandons the ideal of objective journalism because, for him, that means going too easy on the forces of evil. It's better to emphatically oppose the bad guys (i.e., Donald Trump) rather than be limited some some arcane ideal of scientific reporting. Whatever the agendas of Taibbi and Wijnberg might be, they're more honest about the realities of journalism than the powerful talking heads at CNN or Foxnews who would have us believe objectivity is possible in journalism.Regardless of one's political leaning, variations on the slogan "We Report. You Decide" have always been based on fantasy. ... Thus has it always been. This isn't to say that no journalists have tried to be objective. Many have. And many have thought they have achieved objectivity. But the realities of framing and agenda-setting mean that even those who attempt objectivity are bound to fail. Indeed, the real scandal here may not be the fact that many journalists continue to indulge their entrenched ideological biases while claiming to be objective. Perhaps the real problem, all along, has the been the fact that so many Americans have been so gullible as to even entertain the notion that the information they receive through the news media is objective or free of bias. Nowadays, it's extremely difficult to believe there was ever really a time that Americans watched the networks' evening news and went away thinking "golly gee whiz! I guess I now have an even-handed purely factual re-telling of the world's events!" In the age of Walter Cronkite, it's possible some people thought that way. Hopefully, those days are over. An interesting perspective from Mr. McMaken.

Kim Foxx, the State's Attorney Who Let Jussie Smollett Go, Has a Lot of Explaining to Do: http://reason.com/blog/2019/03/28/kim-foxx-jussie-smollett-prosecutor So it appears that as with much in life it's who you know as opposed to what you did. If you are a mid-level celebrity in Chicago, at least.

Cardi B Is A Vile Crook Who Should Be In Prison: https://www.dailywire.com/news/45245/walsh-cardi-b-vile-crook-who-should-be-prison-matt-walsh Sad.

http://reason.com/blog/2019/03/28/betsy-devos-is-right-feds-shouldnt-be-fu This isn't the first year that DeVos called for cuts to the Special Olympics and there is very little reason to believe the reductions will go through. But even if they did, the organization and its beneficiaries would still be in excellent shape. Founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the Special Olympics is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, meaning that deductions to it are tax deductible. According to its 2017 financials (the most-recent available on the web), the organization had total revenues of about $149 million, including $15.5 million in federal grants. It's not a stretch to assume that if federal funding disappears, the resulting outcry would lead to record donations. This sort of flap is political theater at its most transparent and unhelpful by diverting attention from more important topics. There are serious questions to be asking about the size, scope, and spending of the federal Department of Education and whether it should even exist. It was established in 1979, and Ronald Reagan campaigned on a promise to kill it if he took the White House. Not only didn't he kill it, he expanded its budget throughout his presidency. Yet student achievement, the most-basic measure of educational productivity, has not improved since the department was created and began effectively controlling more and more aspects of the K-12 curriculum. Agreed. It is not constitutional for the federal government to fund everything. let alone the Special Olympics. And it is refreshing to see a cabinet secretary, even if the department they head is blatantly unconstitutional, actually be somewhat serious about cutting spending.

Jussie Smollett's lawyer suggests Osundairo brothers wore white makeup during attack, brushes off FBI probe: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jussie-smolletts-attorney-not-at-all-concerned-over-possible-doj-fbi-investigation-nothing-improper-was-done This just keeps getting more bizarre.

Why was SWAT involved with this?

Study Estimates the Green New Deal to Cost $93 Trillion — That's a Conservative Estimate: https://mises.org/wire/study-estimates-green-new-deal-cost-93-trillion-—-thats-conservative-estimate So, using the above chart and averaging out the three goals that have a variable cost, I come up with $507,010 per house hold over 10 years, or $50,701 dollars a year. I'm sure all of us have this kind of cash laying around, especially elderly households.

Russian Hackers:

I'll take Don Lemon vs. Joy Behar in the final match.

Yes, I believe it would. And while Mr. Peele's reboot of TTZ sounds interesting I'm not sure I want to shell out $X for another streaming service at the moment.

The Jussie Smollett Disgrace: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/jussie-smollett-case-prosecutors-drop-charges/

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Police Superintendent Still Think Jussie Smollett Is Guilty—and Are Furious He’s Going Free: http://reason.com/blog/2019/03/26/rahm-emanuel-jussie-smollett-police Gee, internal politics/bad blood in Chicago city/county government allowing an attempt at justice to get thrown out the window. I'm really shocked.

The Socialist Fantasy. Central planning always fails.: http://reason.com/archives/2019/03/27/the-socialist-fantasy/ Wise words. Too bad the liberal progressives will never heed them, after all they know better than the rest of us.

The Southern Poverty Law Center Is in a State of Moral Collapse: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-in-a-state-of-moral-collapse/ In the pages that followed, he described a place with an “uncomfortable” racial dynamic where female staffers were “warned by their new colleagues about Dees’s reputation for hitting on young women.” He described how another former writer called the place a “ a virtual buffet of injustices” with problems “racial, sexual, financial.” On March 19, the SPLC announced that it was hiring an outside lawyer to “review its workplace environment and policies.” Three days later, Richard Cohen, the president of the SPLC, stepped down. And yesterday, the New York Times published an almost 2,000-word report on the SPLC’s “intolerance within”: Oh, I disagree. Given the intolerance and bad faith it exhibited in its evaluations and assessments of all too many conservatives and Christians, I’d argue that the SPLC has embraced exactly the values it champions. It’s intolerant through and through. Intolerant and fraudulent, in fact. In a scorching piece in Current Affairs, Nathan Robinson points out the hysterical exaggerations in the SPLC’s assessment of hate groups. It essentially manufactures fear. This paragraph is amazing: What’s to be done? The SPLC can sort itself out. Hopefully it can rediscover its roots and focus its efforts on combating white supremacy and renew its commitment to poverty law. There was a time when it would represent indigent death-row inmates, for example, and there remains ample opportunity to do good for America’s poorest citizens. The SPLC has an almost half-billion-dollar endowment. You can hire a lot of lawyers with that kind of cash. But the rest of the world should move on. The rest of the world should recognize that a corrupt organization has generated corrupt assessments of its fellow citizens, and it should be ignored. We don’t need the SPLC to spot white supremacists, and we certainly don’t need the SPLC to evaluate religious doctrines — be they Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. This organization has devolved from helping people to hurting people, but it only has the power that the media and progressive corporations give it. Now, every single time a media organization or a company uses the SPLC’s listings, it should be held to account. There is no excuse. The emperor has no clothes. The SPLC is in a state of moral collapse.

http://reason.com/blog/2019/03/26/jussie-smollett-charges-dropped-hate-cri#comment

So Mr. Smollett did commit felonies, he was just able to pony up enough cash to get out of it. 'Tis the American Way.

Jussie Smollett won't be prosecuted on charges he faked attack: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jussie-smollett-wont-be-prosecuted-on-charges-he-faked-attack An interesting development.

The Electoral College and Slavery: A Reality Check: https://spectator.org/the-electoral-college-and-slavery-a-reality-check/ According to Congressman Cohen’s biography, he was educated at Vanderbilt University. His comments suggest that his parents must have paid a hefty bribe to get him enrolled in that once-respected institution. Cohen’s statement reveals a breathtaking level of illiteracy regarding American history in general and the Electoral College in particular. For example, Cohen obviously believes that, when the Constitution was ratified, slavery was limited to the southern states. In reality, slavery was ubiquitous throughout the fledgling nation—both north and south. Yes, you read that correctly. The 1790 census reveals the following: More than 6 percent of New York’s population consisted of slaves. Likewise, 6.2 percent of the people living in New Jersey were slaves. The number of slaves in Delaware totaled 15 percent of its population. Maryland’s slaves accounted for a whopping 32 percent of its population. The census also found that New England states like Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire had significant slave populations. Even Pennsylvania had a few. Only Massachusetts had none. In other words, the “slave states” included all but one. There was no need for them to impose their will on the other states represented at the Constitutional Convention. Cohen’s claim that the “slave states wanted equal representation in the Senate because they wanted to keep slavery” and the implication that this somehow drove the debate over the Electoral College is equally absurd. The decision to allow each state two senators regardless of size was an effort to ensure that the large population states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, and New York (all slave states at the time) would not be able to undermine the will of the voters in low population states. The “two senator” structure actually reduced the power of the large slave states. In other words, Congressman Cohen has it exactly backwards. Another of Cohen’s uninformed assertions goes thus: “The slave states wanted to have an Electoral College… where the slaves counted as two-thirds.” Here, he not only fails history but arithmetic as well. What he is blindly groping for is the three-fifths compromise. Like a lot of people who slept through their history and government courses, Cohen never learned that this often misrepresented compromise was not supported by the big slave states. It was supported primarily by the small states, the majority of which were located in the north, and it had nothing at all to do with the Electoral College. As Tara Ross points out in the Daily Signal: Cohen finishes off his remarks with the following claim: “So the slave states didn’t want a popular election because their slaves wouldn’t count towards voting and the slave states would have less votes.” Once again, he has it backwards. Cohen mistakenly believes the slave-to-white ratio at the time of the Constitutional Convention was equal to what it became after the invention of the cotton gin. It was, in fact, the smaller northern states who most feared direct popular vote. The large slave states had enough white voters to swamp the small states. Virginia alone had as many eligible voters as Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire combined. It was because of that large disparity that opponents of slavery tended to favor the Electoral College. It is commonly believed that it was first proposed at the convention by James Madison, whose comments on the matter are routinely taken out of context by the people who peddle the canard that the institution was designed primarily to perpetuate slavery. This, as it happens, has no basis in fact. The use of some system of electors rather than a direct popular vote to choose the President was first suggested by delegates to the convention well known for their lifelong aversion to slavery. To quote Tara Ross of the Daily Signal again: The notion that the Electoral College was designed to perpetuate slavery is nonsense. Most Democrats who make this claim, like Cohen and (inevitably) AOC, know little about American history and less about the institution they wish to abolish. Its more crafty critics, like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton, just lie. The obvious reason they dislike the Electoral College is that they can’t win playing by the rules. This is why the Framers designed it as they did — to preclude the tyranny of the majority. During the past 230 years, the number of states has increased and population centers have shifted, but demagogues haven’t changed much.