Muda69

https://mises.org/wire/draft-should-be-abolished-everyone-—-not-just-women

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On Friday, Federal Judge Gary Miller declared the federal government's policy of male-only conscription to be unconstitutional.  Miller ruled that past prohibitions on women in combat may have legally  justified the all-male policy, but since the military has integrated women into combat positions, the past policy can no longer be constitutionally justified.

The ruling can be taken two ways. It can be seen as a ruling that expands federal powers to conscript through the Selective Service system, and thus expand the military's power over the everyday lives of Americans. This is true in the strictly legal sense. On the other hand, the ruling could be interpreted as a political blow against conscription since the number of voters negatively impacted by conscription is now far higher than before. Apparently sympathetic to this latter interpretation, USAToday described the ruling as  "the biggest legal blow to the Selective Service System since the Supreme Court upheld the draft registration process in 1981." After all, those who brought the lawsuit, an organization called "The National Coalition for Men" was expressly attempting to highlight the injustice — from a male point of view — of being the only group legally obligated to submit to what is essentially registration for possible future slave labor. (Miller, however, does not actually order to the Pentagon to expand Selective Service eligibility. Any concrete legal action will likely come in the future, but those seeking to make such a move will be emboldened by Miller's declaration.)

Experience suggests, however, that an expansion of the Selective Service requirement will manifest itself largely as a matter of "equality" rather than as a ploy to highlight the general injustice of conscription overall.

For example, during a 2016 GOP presidential debate the candidates were asked if they would support mandatory registration for women with the Selective Service System now that women are allowed combat positions in the US military.

Most of the candidates applauded the idea while Ted Cruz denounced the notion. But, as is often the case, Cruz was right for the wrong reasons. Cruz seemed to base his reaction on sentimentalism and gender politics. However, he should have opposed an expansion of the draft not the the basis of some arcane idea of chivalry, but for the simple reason that conscription imposes enormous costs on private individuals by depriving them of control over their own labor.

Chris Christie, on the other hand, pounced on the issue of female conscription and declared it’s important that "women in this country understand anything they can dream, anything that they want to aspire to, they can do."

After hearing this, one is left wondering if Christie is aware that there’s a difference between being a soldier and being forced to be a soldier by the state.

This sort of confusion is likely to continue.

But Make no mistake about it. Expanding Selective Service from 50 percent of young adults to 100 percent is not about equality, or progress, or patriotism. While these notions will no doubt be used to bully people into supporting such a move, the real-world effect will be a massive expansion in government power over the lives of the population. Conscription, after all, is simply a draconian tax on the conscripts who lose their freedom for the duration, but who may also be coerced into being killed in order to promote the state’s policy agendas:

“Conscription is slavery,” Murray Rothbard wrote in 1973, and while temporary conscription is obviously much less bad — assuming one outlives the term of conscription — than many other forms of slavery, conscription is nevertheless a nearly-100-percent tax on the production of one’s mind and body. If one attempts to escape his confinement in his open-air military jail, he faces imprisonment or even execution in many cases.

Conscription remains popular among states because it is an easy way to directly extract resources from the population. Just as regular taxes partially extract the savings, productivity, and labor of the general population, conscription extracts virtually all of the labor and effort of the conscripts. The burden falls disproportionately on the young males in most cases, and they are at risk of a much higher tax burden if killed or given a permanent disability in battle. If he’s lucky enough to survive the conflict, the conscript may find himself living out the rest of his life as disfigured or missing his eyesight and limbs. He may be rendered permanently undesirable to the opposite sex. Such costs imposed on the conscript are a form of lifelong taxation.

Fortunately for those who escape such a fate, the term of slavery ends at a specified time, but for the duration, the only freedom the conscript enjoys is that granted to him by his jailers.

We’re likely to hear a lot about how “fairness” and egalitarianism requires an expansion of the Selective Service System. But those claims are all distractions from the central issue here, which is the state’s power over the citizen.

After all, if women want to go help terrorist groups in Syria (which is what the US is doing there), they are free to volunteer. Whether or not women can be directly involved in blowing up revelers at Afghani weddings is a completely separate issue from conscription and the Selective Service.

Besides, if fairness is a concern, there’s an easy way to achieve fairness on this issue: abolish the Selective Service for everybody. It’s as easy as that. It wouldn’t even cost a dime of taxpayer money. Simply shred the records, fire everyone who works for Selective Service, and lease out the office space to organizations that do something useful. Then, we won’t have to hear anything about “discrimination” or the alleged sexism implicit in a policy that outrageously neglects to force women to work for the government against their will.

Some who want to expand Selective Service for egalitarian reasons are claiming that it’s all just symbolic anyway, because the draft “will never happen.”

“The US hasn’t had the draft since the early 1970s,” one columnist loftily intoned as if that were evidence that the draft could never return. Wow, the 1970s? Did they even have electric lights back then?

Moreover, it’s a mistake to think that the draft could never return because people would overwhelmingly oppose people being forced into combat. Even if that is the case, there is no reason at all why conscription could not be used to draft people for non-combat positions. After all, only a very small portion of the military ever sees combat. The vast majority of soldiers are involved in logistics, transportation, and desk jobs such as computer programming. According to one report sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School, "only 17% [of active-duty military personnel] are identified as performing combat specialties."1 Long gone are the days of pouring fresh conscripts into fox holes with little more than a rifle and a shovel.

Only a small portion of military deaths occur in combat. Most deaths in the military are due to accidents.

Additionally, there is no reason that Selective Service could not be modified to be used to draft people for so-called “national service” positions in which conscripts would perform non-combat bureaucratic and manual-labor jobs. Austria and Switzerland (which have conscription) allow this option for those morally opposed to combat. And historically — such as during World War II — “service” was imposed on conscientious objectors who were forced to work on farms or perform other types of manual labor in special camps.

So no, the draft is not “hypothetical,” “symbolic,” or something that “will never happen.”

Numerous countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia still employ conscription, and it is hardly some kind of never-used relic from the distant past.

Alas, much of the opposition to the expansion of Selective Service has taken the form of National Review’s opposition which is based on the idea that conscripting women is some kind of special unique evil, quite unlike conscripting men. Military service is one thing, the editors write, but forcing women into it is “barbarism,” they admit. They’re half right. It is barbarism to force women to fight wars for the state. But the same is also true of conscription for men.

Agreed.  Conscription is anathema to the concept of a free state. It needs to be abolished.

I guess "The Boss" has a realistic and workable plan to pay for a complete remodeling of the American Economy, aka 'The Green New Deal'?.  Only going to cost $90 Trillion dollars.

Study: Green New Deal Could Cost More Than $90 Trillion

Whether its supporters care is another question.: http://reason.com/blog/2019/02/25/study-green-new-deal-could-cost-more-tha

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The Green New Deal—a brainchild of progressive Democrats, particularly Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.)—has been controversial since it was released earlier this month. Several Democratic presidential candidates endorsed it, while others have noted that it's not realistic and would be fiscally impossible.

How much would it cost? At least $50 trillion and possibly in excess of $90 trillion, according to a report released today by the American Action Forum (AAF).

The AAF, a center-right think tank that focuses on economic issues, projected costs for six aspects of the Green New Deal: reworking the electricity grid in an environmentally friendly manner, revamping the nation's transportation network to reduce transmissions, and its guarantees of well-paying jobs, universal health care, affordable housing, and food security for each person in the U.S.

First, the power grid. One of the Green New Deal's goals is to meet "100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources" in the next 10 years. Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in this area would cost at least $5.4 trillion by 2029, the AAF says—not including another $387 billion per year for things like operations and maintenance.

Why so much? The study explains:

We assume that states without nuclear moratoriums build approximately 50 percent of their needed capacity with nuclear power, and cover the remaining 50 percent with wind, solar, hydro, geothermal electricity, and battery storage. States with nuclear moratoriums are assumed to replace fossil fuels with wind, solar, and storage. This approach raises issues in dispatching electricity, because one needs to cover the difference between available nuclear and peak capacity with both solar and wind resources. Most renewable resources are non-dispatchable, and must be supplemented by storage and other available assets.

This estimate is not an outlier. As Reason's Ron Bailey has noted, a similar plan outlined in 2015 would have cost roughly $7 trillion, while a previous version of that proposal might have cost up to $13 trillion.

For comparison, the electric industry pulled in roughly $390 billion in revenue in 2017, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Around 59 percent of that was accounted for by "generation" costs. Assuming that $230 billion rose to the aforementioned $387 billion, then subtracting $70.5 billion in annual "avoided fuel costs" from the net difference, total electricity costs would go up by 22 percent for consumers, the AAF says. Residential customers, who paid an average of $111.67 per month in 2017, would pay an average of about $300 more per year for electricity. This does not include the trillions it would cost to achieve a completely clean power grid in the first place.

The Green New Deal also proposes "overhauling transportation systems...to eliminate pollution and 19 greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible." The AAF's estimate of the cost for this proposal assumes that high-speed trains would replace air travel. While this is not specifically noted in the Green New Deal itself, an overview of the resolution that was apparently published by mistake did include the goal of "build[ing] out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary."

Doing so would cost between $1.3 trillion and $2.7 trillion, the AAF estimates. The lower figure can be reached by multiplying the 2018 proposed capital cost per mile of California's since-toned-down high-speed rail system ($129.8 million) by 8,263 miles, which is the difference between the number of miles covered by transit rail and by airports in the U.S., as of 2013. Then add on another $166.9 billion for the trains themselves, which in California would have cost about $71.2 million. The higher figure, meanwhile, "assumes replacing all [19,453] air route miles without using existing track," the report says. (There are other reasons why replacing air travel with high-speed rail doesn't make sense, which I outlined here.)

The Green New Deal's jobs guarantee would also cost a considerable amount. The AAF based its estimates here on a 2018 report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, which found that reaching full employment would involve putting roughly 10.7 million unemployed or underemployed people to work. Assuming the average annual cost per job (including an average wage of $32,500) would be $56,000, this would cost a total of $543 billion.

The AFF updated some of those numbers with 2019 data, and found that a federal jobs guarantee would cost $547 billion in 2019, and $6.762 trillion from 2020 to 2019. Both of those numbers would rise if, with a guaranteed job waiting for them, many of those who aren't currently looking for work decide to join the labor force.

Of course, there are also plenty of workers who earn less than $32,500 per year (or $625 each week) who would naturally want to switch jobs in order to make more. Including them "would increase the cost to $3.8 trillion in 2019, $44.6 trillion between 2020 and 2029," the AAF says.

The report also estimates that providing universal health care "will cost roughly $36 trillion between 2020 and 2029." The AAF simply built off a 2016 estimate of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I–Vt.) Medicare for All Plan, which the Center for Health and Economy said would cost $34.67 trillion over 10 years. It's likely an accurate projection, roughly in line with a July 2018 Mercatus Center report, which said Medicare for All would cost the federal government more than $32 trillion over 10 years.

Whether those in favor of the plan care about the cost is another question. Asked on CNN yesterday about the Green New Deal's massive price tag, particularly for Medicare for All, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) suggested that "it's not about a cost."

The fifth aspect of the Green New Deal that AFF addresses is its guarantee of "affordable, safe, and adequate housing." Simply housing the homeless could cost under $12 billion, AFF estimates, citing Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) data. But the Green New Deal also calls for "upgrading all existing buildings in the 19 United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification." This could cost trillions, as AFF explains:

A 2012 HUD study evaluated the costs involved in having affordable housing meet the "National Green Building Standard." The results varied across a series of case studies and efficiency levels. Assuming the highest level ("Emerald") is a reasonable proxy for a GND rubric, upfront improvement costs ranged from $13,257 to $34,422 per unit. Applying such costs to simply the 5 million currently available HUD-subsidized housing units yields a cost range of between $66.5 billion to $172.8 billion. Applying such costs to all housing units—since the resolution calls for upgrading "all existing buildings"—yields a potential cost of $1.6 trillion to nearly $4.2 trillion.

Finally, the AAF calculated how much it would cost to ensure that all Americans have food security. Since 2011, the federal government's Healthy Food Financing Initiative has secured about $245 million in taxpayer money. Assuming, based off data from a Pennsylvania food access initiative, that it would cost $75 to improve food access for the 23.5 million people who needed it as of 2009, the AAF said such a program would cost $1.76 billion. Since taxpayers have already put in $245 million, we're left with a remainder of roughly $1.5 billion. "This increased access to fresh food, in conjunction with the income guarantees provided elsewhere in the GND, should meet the plan's goal of food security for all Americans," the AAF says.

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http://reason.com/archives/2019/02/26/minimum-wage-boosts-are-greatfor-robots

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In recent weeks, Illinois mandated a huge increase in the state minimum wage, Pennsylvania's governor proposed to double his state's minimum wage, and New Mexico lawmakers moved forward with a plan to raise the minimum wage there, too. Hiking the cost of labor is a popular cause once again—even among people who've demonstrated in the past that they know perfectly well this is a recipe for limiting opportunity and trapping people in poverty.

It's tempting to say that people are actually getting stupider about economics. But maybe, instead, it's all part of a conspiracy by robots who are poised to be the big beneficiaries of an artificially crippled job market.

...

If the laws of economic haven't changed, technology has—in ways that make artificial hikes in the price of labor even more damaging. Robots are ever-more available to take over when people become too expensive.

"To curtail rising labor costs, businesses are investing in automation that can replace 'low-skilled' workers, high school educated or less," warned payroll and human resources company ADP last year in an article acknowledging the new popularity of boosts in the minimum wage. "Automation has already taken hold in grocery stores with self-checkout lines and fast food restaurants with touchscreen order entry kiosks. We see it with smart ATMs and the robots installed in manufacturing plants."

The ADP article points to grocery stores, with a high percentage of low-wage workers and low profit margins (2.2 percent in 2017) as especially ripe for automation. If you've used a self-check aisle at a grocery store in recent years, you know that the process is well under way. But it's not just that one industry.

"Increasing the minimum wage decreases significantly the share of automatable employment held by low-skilled workers, and increases the likelihood that low-skilled workers in automatable jobs become nonemployed or employed in worse jobs," Grace Lordan of the London School of Economics and David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, reported in a paper published last year in Labour Economics. They drew their conclusions after reviewing data from 1980 through 2015.

"These effects are relatively larger for individuals employed in manufacturing, and are larger for the oldest and youngest workers, for females and for blacks," they add.

To some extent, the researchers found, higher-skilled workers benefit from automation because of the need for somebody to run and maintain machinery. But that doesn't help new workers trying to break into the job market, or established workers who don't have the skills to justify the higher price mandated by law for their labor.

As The New York Times noted in wiser days: "Raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers and fewer will be hired."

From a tech standpoint, this opens up intriguing possibilities. A few years ago, Momentum Machines was a buzzy startup leveraging the movement to boost minimum wages by promising to replace wage-earners with burger-flipping robots. Now, under the name Creator, the company has opened a high-profile demonstrator restaurant that does just that, with hamburgers cooked and served, untouched by human hands. A few actual people take orders on iPhones and keep the automated burger line stocked with supplies.

That even some of those remaining humans can be replaced is obvious to anybody who has ordered drinks or paid their tab through a Ziosk or similar tabletop tablet at a casual dining restaurant. "The biggest fear is that eventually the Ziosk will take over the job entirely," NPR reported in 2015.

Well, yes. If lawmakers keep pricing humans out of the job market relative to ever-more-innovative and automated alternatives, I expect that tabletop terminals and robotic line chefs will replace the biological competition at the low-skilled end of the job market. Maybe they'll be kept company by a well-paid live technician or two, but certainly not by anybody who has little more to offer than their muscles (but who could become more valuable and harder to replace if given time to learn in lower-paid work).

Will minimum wage advocates relearn the errors of their ways and come to recognize, once again, that a flexible and dynamic job market is a healthy job market—for humans? I wouldn't count on it.

In New York, where the $15 minimum wage is an accomplished fact, "advocates for low-wage workers" now push for more rules on scheduling and dismissing fast food workers. That would, it goes without saying, make hiring those workers more expensive.

If I was a robot, or if I manufactured them, I'd root for those "advocates" to succeed.

Developing and maintaining robotics, more than ever, is a growth industry that young people should be encouraged to get involved with.  

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2019/02/26/bill-grow-hemp-clears-senate-hurdle-gov-holcombs-support/2977697002/

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Hemp, marijuana's non-psychedelic cousin, has a new cheerleader in Indiana: Gov. Eric Holcomb.

Last year, the governor doubted the state's readiness to regulate the hemp industry. But this year, he is behind a push in the legislature to get hemp growing in Indiana's fields, telling IndyStar he is "supportive of efforts to establish a hemp program."

And with his blessing, Senate Bill 516 overwhelmingly passed out of the Senate Monday — a hurdle that a similar bill was not able to clear last year.

"The biggest difference between this year and last year is that the Governor's office didn’t support the bill last year, but now they do," said Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, SB 516's author. "The bill had momentum before, but I think it has even more now."

What's changed is the federal 2018 Farm Bill, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in December. Part of that law removes industrial hemp from the Controlled Substances Act, now making it a legal crop.

That momentum is apparent. Head's bill, which would create a program to monitor and regulate hemp, passed out of the Senate on a vote of 47 to 1. Both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of the legislation, and Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, was the only opposing vote. Sen. Jean Breaux, D-Indianapolis, did not vote. 

The bill will now head to the House, where several lawmakers have asked Head if they could be listed as sponsors — outnumbering the four that are allowed. Those who are named as sponsors include Rep. Sean Eberhart, R-Shelbyville; Rep. Don Lehe, R-Delphi; Rep. Michael Karickhoff, R-Kokomo; Rep. Ethan Manning, R-Logansport. 

A similar bill that would have created a program to allow for hemp production was proposed last session and passed the House only to die in the Senate. That chamber, following Holcomb's disapproval, voted to strip the bill and instead refer it to an interim study committee.

Many proponents, including Justin Swanson, have said that Indiana is already behind several other states when it comes to growing hemp and the economic benefits and jobs that go with it.

"We've studied it to death in Indiana over the last few years, so it's time to sink or swim — are we going to do this or not?" said Swanson, a board member of the Indiana Hemp Industries Association and founding member of the Midwest Hemp Council.

Several other states had already set up programs prior to last year's farm bill, saying that the production was for research purposes as a way to circumvent the federal rules. That said, Indiana has a great opportunity to catch up and be leader, given its agricultural infrastructure.

Both legislators and farmers are hoping SB 516 will be signed into law early enough to allow for hemp seeds to be planted this growing season.

Head said he thinks it is possible. If the bill passes the House and is signed by the governor by April, the state could draft a program and submit it to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval. The main question is how long the federal agency's review takes, Head said.

If everything is in place by June, however, it should still be enough time to get some seeds in the ground. 

"There is lots of interest from farmers but with everything still in limbo it makes it difficult," said Mark Boyer, a farmer and owner of Healthy Hoosier Oils that presses food grade oils. 

He has grown about a dozen acres of hemp for research and is hoping to get a permit for roughly 100 acres once a program is established. 

Head said he is optimistic, though cautiously, that his hemp bill will make it across the finish line this year. Much of last year's opposition has been calmed by the passing of the farm bill, he said, and he hopes an amendment passed last week assuaged any other concerns. 

The amendment changed several members on an advisory committee that will help establish the hemp program, replacing industry officials with regulatory ones. It also strengthened a few points for law enforcement, allowing them to test crops for THC levels to ensure they are within limits. 

"We want to give our farmers maximum freedom to grow while those who abuse the program have the maximum chance to get caught," Head said during the third reading of the bill during Monday's session. "But if we don't create a program, the federal government will do it for us. And as always, we think Hoosiers know what is best for us." 

Good news for all involved. Hemp should have never been labeled a controlled substance to begin with.  

Stop Counting Women: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/opinion/sunday/women-directors-quotas.html

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I recently joined the board of a small nonprofit organization. I can’t say for sure that my ovaries got me the gig, but I think they were at least part of my appeal. That uncertainty isn’t pleasant, but it’s less unpleasant than not being invited to join the board at all. The same is true for nearly every television or conference panel I’m asked to be on. Political journalism has long been male-dominated, libertarianism doubly so. For many professional women, doing gender-balance math is a tic, a reflexive response to being in too many rooms with too few other women.

That reflex was on display in January, when the announcement of Oscar nominations set off the annual ritual of counting up female nominees and then lamenting the ways in which women have been slighted. In recent years, the Hollywood commentariat has institutionalized my counting reflex.

In a typical example of the genre, The Atlantic declared “female filmmakers were entirely neglected.” Bustle told its readers, “Don’t celebrate too much” over women’s success in the documentary category, but focus instead on how their numbers in the directing and cinematography categories were shockingly low. At the Golden Globes, even as she clutched her best supporting actress trophy, Regina King scolded Hollywood for not doing better and vowed “to make sure that everything I produce” is going to be “50 percent women.”

Women are, of course, more than capable of producing Oscar-worthy cinema or panel-worthy insights. However, the notion that the lack of perfectly equal representation is obvious evidence of injustice is wrongheaded and counterproductive.

I understand why people want to keep tallies. While some gender imbalances can be explained by individual or group preferences, the shortage of women in so many areas of public life has been allowed or ignored or tacitly excused for so long that it may take hard numbers to open people’s eyes.

And there’s something seductive about counting. We count sheep to fall asleep. We celebrate anniversaries and birthdays. We track stock prices. We log miles run and dollars spent. To count something is to see it, to understand it, to have the illusion of control over it.

But people who want to lose weight initially learn to count calories in order to recalibrate their perceptions about how to make healthy choices. The goal isn’t a lifetime of squinting at labels. The goal is to develop a new set of habits and instincts, to make good decisions that feel natural and unforced. An occasional audit is vital, but continuous mortification can be crippling and wasteful. People who routinely go on about their diet rules — or worse, freely share their thoughts about co-workers’ lunch orders — are more likely to provoke resentment than to convert the reluctant. In the same way, the real work of recalibrating representation must be done privately and incrementally, one day at a time.

Counting is a form of mental labor, just like remembering when it’s time to buy laundry soap or send out birthday invitations. As such, it is predominantly — though not exclusively — performed by women, who shoulder the mental load of tracking, fostering, supporting and promoting other women. Keeping those running tallies of gender imbalance is like other emotional labor: It’s exhausting and distracts from more substantive work, and some people are skeptical it needs to be performed at all.

It can also be difficult to see the forest when you’re busy counting the trees. Not every cracked glass ceiling is a victory. Recently, major newspapers trumpeted the fact that women hold all of the highest positions at the Central Intelligence Agency. The chief executives of four of the nation’s five biggest military contractors are now women; Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the defense arm of Boeing all have #ladybosses. It’s hard to imagine our feminist forebears seeing female dominance of the military-industrial complex as an unmixed blessing.

...

But consider “Roma.” If there is any justice in this world, it will win the Academy Award for best director on Sunday. This wrenching, beautiful film is set almost entirely in the world of women; it delicately engages class and race, stares unflinchingly at the darkness and light of motherhood, and yet it shows up on the wrong side of the gender ledgers: The director is Alfonso Cuarón, a man.

It is all the more troubling when the gender accountants are legislators or regulators with the power to do more than just name and shame. Technocrats on the right and left are quite certain they know all kinds of things: the right number of children to have, homes to own, degrees to obtain, pills to take, miles to drive, women to employ. Precise numerical goals create a false sense of clarity and certainty.

The absolute best way to ruin the gradual organic process of moving toward a society where men and women can both pursue the work they want — safely, with fair salaries and equal opportunities for promotion — is to freeze and polarize the conversation by imposing a bunch of rigid laws and policies. California passed a bill last fall that mandates the presence of at least one woman on the board of any publicly traded company headquartered there, with increases in that number under certain conditions.

“We are tired of being nice. We’re tired of being polite. We are going to require this because it’s going to benefit the economy,” said a co-author of the legislation, Hannah-Beth Jackson, a Democratic state senator from Santa Barbara, in a floor speech. This line of argumentation is typical, and baffling. Could it really be true that increasing female board representation is irrefutably good for business yet won’t happen unless companies are forced to do it right now?

In Norway, where a requirement for 40 percent female board membership became law in 2008, there’s some evidence that strict quotas may be counterproductive. Fewer companies chose to undertake initial public offerings in the period after the policy took effect and there was no measurable change in the affected companies’ performance or improvement in the prospects for women lower on the corporate hierarchy. In Kenya, lawmakers are debating a bill to enforce the so-called Two-Thirds Gender Rule, a constitutional clauseprohibiting more than 66 percent of the legislature to be the same gender.

In the case of any kind of quota, there are obvious trade-offs between one category (gender) and others (race, sexual orientation, disability status among them) that arguably deserve more consideration. As usual, the law is a lagging indicator. Gender is easier (though not always easy!) to notice and tally in ways that other statuses aren’t. In a perfect world, there would never be a roomful of white men deciding whether to pick a woman instead of a person of color for a “diversity slot.” We do not live in a perfect world.

Underlying all of this is that there is something deeply off-putting about slotting people into categories by gender, about sussing out the precise nature of their genitals and their hearts before deciding if their presence on a masthead or a list of finalists is just.

Being a token woman or winning the women’s trophy is better than nothing. But it’s also reductive and demeaning. Our unease over this was reflected in the mockery Mitt Romney got for his “binders full of women.” Though the idea of a president carefully curating lists of women to hire for top-level positions (rather than, well, other activities) doesn’t seem so bad looking back, does it?

The courts grappled with the problems of quotas during the college admissions affirmative action wars of the 1990s. (Like most of America’s wars, this conflict is continuing, but many people have stopped paying attention.) They settled on a compromise that does a shockingly good job of mirroring the way people actually function when left to their own devices. Hard quotas aren’t permitted, but giving some consideration to balance and diversity is fine.

In the meantime, the powers that be at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have actually laid the groundwork for sustainable improvements. They have tried to fix unbalanced inputs rather than mandating equal outputs. In 2018, they invited a record 928 new members, on top of 774 the year before, half of whom were women — up from 100 to 200 new additions in a normal year. As recently as 2014, Oscar voters were 76 percent male (as well as 94 percent white and on average 63 years old).

We’re too far from parity for anyone to claim the current system is just. It’s equally unclear that a 50/50 result is the only acceptable outcome.

On Oscar night this year, I will wince when only men are the nominees in some ostensibly coed categories. But I’m going to try my best to celebrate victories for women when they come and leave the counting to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/25/697599611/with-no-host-directing-traffic-green-book-drives-away-with-best-picture

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It turns out the Oscars telecast doesn't need a host.

Sure, the headline coming out of Sunday's Oscars is that Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody were big winners — Green Book won three including best picture, and Bohemian Rhapsody won four including best actor for Rami Malek. (That despite the fact that both films had decidedly mixed reviews.) That Bohemian Rhapsody's credited director, Bryan Singer — fired part of the way through filming — has been accused of a wide range of sexual misconduct seemed to bother the voters not at all. In fact, no one even mentioned Singer. It was as if the film had not been directed by anyone at all, so neatly was he excised from the story of the film's baffling march to the Oscars.

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And Spike Lee is a a sore loser.

Update:  https://www.umnews.org/en/news/gc2019-daily-feb-24

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Petitions meant to address pensions and the Traditional Plan topped the list of priorities for what General Conference delegates will work on in their legislative committee.

This was a key vote as delegates to the denomination’s top lawmaking assembly try to set the direction in the denomination’s longtime debate over homosexuality. 

By 56 votes, the Traditional Plan topped the One Church Plan, supported by a majority of the bishops. 

The Traditional Plan was second behind pensions, and the One Church Plan was fifth behind legislation that deals with disaffiliating churches.
  
The Traditional Plan would strengthen restrictions against officiating at same-gender unions and being “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy. The One Church Plan would leave questions of same-sex weddings up to individual clergy and congregations.

“We’re very happy the Traditional Plan received the majority of the votes,” said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of the unofficial advocacy group Good News, which has championed the legislation.

“In spite of all the efforts of the groups and the bishops, the church remains committed to a scriptural understanding of sexual ethics.”

...

Bishop Julius C. Trimble, who leads the Indiana Conference, said his word to his people is: “Hold on and keep doing ministry the way you're doing now.”

“There's more to come. Let's not put a period on it yet.”

...

The Traditional Plan received 459 votes.
 
The next highest vote getters were two different plans for how exiting congregations could leave with their property, with 412 and 406 votes respectively.

The One Church Plan received 403 high-priority votes.
 
The Simple Plan, which would eliminate all restrictive Disciplinary language related to homosexuality, received 153 high-priority votes.

The Connectional Conference Plan, which would restructure the church around theological lines, drew 102 votes. 

...

Before voting even began, delegates learned that the two petitions that are part of the Modified Traditional Plan would first go to the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters. The permanent committee of General Conference deals with legislation that affects central conferences — church regions in Africa, the Philippines and Europe.

Neil Alexander said his unofficial advocacy group Uniting Methodists, which supports the One Church Plan, is not giving up. 
“We are in the beginning of a complex legislative process,” Alexander said. “There is much debate and many decisions to come. We will be sharing information and ideas we believe will win broad support.”

The Rev. Edwin Momog, a delegate from Sierra Leone, said the hall was charged and tense during the vote. But he believes a majority of delegates are happy. 

“But God has a way of doing things. He has some sense of humor. When we feel so much anxious, that’s when he comes in with his own way. It is God’s church. And, I think the voting just went God’s own way.”

Audun Westad, lay delegate from the Norway Conference, said it saddened him that the disaffiliation petitions got such huge support. 

“That does not look good for their willingness to stay together with people of a different mind,” he said.
 
The German delegation was surprised that the plan was ranked so low with less than 50 percent of the vote, said Klaus U. Ruof, German communicator. They likewise were surprised the delegates wanted to talk pensions and money before talking about a plan, he said. 

The Rev. Alex da Silva Souto, an openly gay clergy delegate from the New York Conference, was less surprised. He has championed the Simple Plan.

“Today’s results are not the first time we as LGBTQIA United Methodists have been hurt by our church, and not the first time that our denomination contradicts its mission, and still we are here,” he said. “We will continue to trust in God's priorities for our welfare.”

....

I'm not clear on how all this voting works and what is binding and what is not,  but it appears pretty close.   If it remains like this a schism is very likely.

12 hours ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

You, yourself (in bold print no less) showed where that church claimed to follow the Biblical teaching on homosexuality.  The Biblical teaching in Leviticus is clearly to kill gays.

If you advocate killing of a group of people with out actually killing them based on their sexual orientation, this is clearly a hateful group.  

Are you suggesting that you have to physically kill someone to be considered a hate group??   Clearly you are not that stupid?  Or maybe Wabash82 is correct....

I believe actions speak louder than words. 

So you believe all Christian churches who say they follow the Bible are hate groups? That would include all Catholic churches, all churches in the various protestant denominations (SBC, UMC, etc.) and non-denominational protestant churches.

12 hours ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

Yes.  Anyone that wishes to say gays should be killed for being gay(the Bible says so) should be labeled a hate group.  What say you?

Wishes to say or actually says it?  Those are two different things.

3 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

If they advocate death to gays, I say Yes.   What say you?

Possibly, although how would you define the word "advocate"?  If one parishioner of said church wrote "death to gays" on his/her personal blog?  If the term "death to gays" in published on the church's website?  If "death to gays" is a common theme in the weekly sermon given by the church's pastor?  If multiple parishioners go out in the general public distributing literature that says "death to gays"?

Is spouting "we advocate death to gays" without  killing or physically harming homosexuals enough to be labeled as a "hate group"?

Is the use of profanity by coaches and players currently an issue in Indian High School Football?

On 2/20/2019 at 5:30 PM, BARRYOSAMA said:

Unfortunately, way too many in the comment section, don't seem to think so.

https://www.al.com/news/2019/02/alabama-press-group-censures-goodloe-sutton-over-kkk-editorial-suspends-democrat-reporter.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/23/media/alabama-newspaper-klan/index.html
 

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An African-American woman is now the publisher and editor of the Alabama newspaper that recently urged the Ku Klux Klan to "night ride again," the paper said.

Elecia R. Dexter, a "strategic leader with expertise in human resources, operations and change management," took up the positions Thursday, the weekly Democrat-Reporter of Linden said in a press release.

 

Dexter replaces Goodloe Sutton, the newspaper's owner who penned a staggering editorial with the headline "The Klan Needs to Ride Again" in the paper's February 14 edition.

 

Sutton still owns the newspaper, Dexter told CNN.

...

Yes, lets just forget about this unfortunate incident:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

1 hour ago, Bobref said:

Sorry, I was editing my post and the time expired. Here’s what I meant to say.

 

@gonzoron, your rage springs from ignorance. Here is the Illinois statute. You decide if what he’s accused of merits felony status:

§ 26-1.  Disorderly conduct.

(a) A person commits disorderly conduct when he or she knowingly:

(4) Transmits or causes to be transmitted in any manner to any peace officer, public officer or public employee a report to the effect that an offense will be committed, is being committed, or has been committed, knowing at the time of the transmission that there is no reasonable ground for believing that the offense will be committed, is being committed, or has been committed;

A violation of subsection (a)(2), (a)(3.5), (a)(4), (a)(6), (a)(7), or (a)(9) of this Section is a Class 4 felony.

Thank you Bob.  I thought what is boiled down to, at least in most states, is that if the crime you falsely reported is a felony crime then you can be charged with felony false reporting. If the falsely reported crime is a misdemeanor then you can be charged with misdemeanor false reporting.

8 hours ago, Irishman said:

Wait a minute...Muda, of ALL peopl in the history of this forum, including the various reboots, is now defending fundamentalist Christian groups? Well that is weird. 

In a way yes.  If it serves to expose the SPLC's agenda of wrongfully labeling organizations as 'hate groups' in order to stay relevant and keep the donations flowing.  

Do I advocate that anyone should join a fundamentalist Christian group?  No, but to each his own.

19 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

My claim is backed up with evidence that a black man was charged with felony false reporting. (against imaginary white people)

You have presented zero evidence that the white people shown in @foxbat 's meme have been charged with felony false reporting.(against innocent black people)

Case closed.

Has your 40 years of experience in the legal system involved extensive defense work of people charged with false reporting of a crime? Please enlighten us.

I don't understand your rage, Gonzo.  Are you saying that maybe because some white people did not get charged with felony false reporting that Mr. Smollett should be given a pass, because he happens to be black?

56 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

Not a stretch at all.  You highlighted the fact that this church advocates for the Biblical treatment of gays (death).  Thanks again.

Hmm, NightHawk.    American Vision, the organization in question, is not a church. They seem more like an organization that champions the turning of American into a de-facto Christian theocracy.   But perusing their website at https://americanvision.org  I see nothing where they advocate for the killing of homosexuals.  If you find such evidence please share it with us.

Now if we do want to include traditional churches that also claim they 100% follow the teachings found in the Christian Holy Bible,  and therefore according to you must also be advocates for the killing of homosexuals, should these following churches make the SPLC list as "hate groups"?

The Church of Jesus Christ

Argos United Methodist Church

Parkside Community Church

Cornerstone Church

Gilead Church

Walnut Church of the Brethren

15 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

Dare I say....hateful

Should that church in question be on the SPLC's list?

3 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

The Bible tells us to kill the gays.  If this group follows the Bible with regards to homosexuality as they say they do....they are pretty hateful.

Thanks for sharing this article that shows the SPLC is looking out for those who have been terrorized by folks that try to hide their hatred behind the Bible.

The Left's Demand For Oppression Has Exceeded The Supply: https://www.dailywire.com/news/43790/walsh-lefts-demand-oppression-has-exceeded-supply-matt-walsh

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Jussie Smollet has finally been arrested for staging a fake hate crime attack against himself. Police believe he also sent a threatening letter covered in white powder to himself, which could presumably lead to more (and potentially much more serious) charges. He was motivated, according to law enforcement, by a desire for a pay raise. It is not clear how getting beat up would necessarily lead directly to a raise. It certainly seems like an odd way to engage in salary negotiations.

I would theorize that there was probably more to it, psychologically, than mere greed. Everyone likes money, everyone wants a raise, but most people don’t hire two large Nigerian men to kick the hell out of them in order to achieve that goal. Why did Jussie take that rather drastic and convoluted step? Because, as I wrote a few days ago, he covets victimhood. Our culture fosters such a mentality, teaching kids from a young age that victimhood is power, victimhood is status, and victimhood is privilege.

It is a very unfortunate thing, then, to live in the most tolerant and open civilization in the history of the world while at the same time seeking validation and identity in oppression. The rash of fake hate crimes shows how desperate the victimhood mongers have become. But we need not limit ourselves to hate crime hoaxes.

Consider other recent events. A few weeks ago, the media spun a dramatic yarn about Catholic school students randomly accosting an innocent Native American man. This week, leftists on Twitter dusted off an offensive 50-year-old Playboy interview with John Wayne and spent the day scolding his corpse. Yesterday, feminists got very upset because the director of the upcoming "Ghostbusters" movie said he wanted to "give the movie back to the fans," which apparently is hurtful to women for some reason or another. Meanwhile, a performance of "The Vagina Monologues" was canceled because the show is now offensive to transgenders. I could go on.

The point is that the Left must now apparently dig up the dead or hire Nigerians if they want to be oppressed. They are reduced to searching for persecution in "Ghostbuster" films and renditions of "The Vagina Monologues." They are martyred even by facial expressions. They cannot just admit that we are the least racist, least sexist, least "homophobic," most open-minded and welcoming society to ever exist on Earth. Rather than express gratitude for the unearned privilege of living in by far the most accepting time and place imaginable, they go around turning over every rock and shining a flashlight into every crevice, hoping to find the faintest hint of something they can construe as bigotry. And if they cannot find it, they invent it themselves.

13 minutes ago, Staxawax said:

Edit...... I don't think the IHSAA had any choice in the matter.  

According to Mr. Doyel they did have a choice:

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After being suspended earlier this season for this very reason, and after missing too many meets to qualify for the postseason, the kid wasn’t eligible to swim last week at the sectional meet at HSE. But Fishers High petitioned the IHSAA for relief, and the IHSAA allowed the kid to swim because, near as I can tell, that’s the IHSAA’s sole purpose for existing: to take a bad situation and screw it up worse.

At least this time the IHSAA has a concrete reason for being so lost: It has a board of directors composed of 19 athletics directors from around the state, with one AD elected president of the elite board.

Guess whose AD is the current president of the IHSAA’s board of directors? Yup: the guy from Fishers. His name is Jim Brown. 

Now I can understand such a petition for relief being granted in something like the death of a close relative.  But relief because you were suspended earlier in the season?  I don't think so.

Another Dot on the ‘Hate Map’: https://spectator.org/another-dot-on-the-hate-map/

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Citizens of Powder Springs, Georgia, probably have no idea they are a dot on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual “Hate Map,” which was published this week and achieved its purpose, i.e., generating scary headlines: “Hate group count hits 20-year high amid rise in white supremacy, report says” (USA Today), “U.S. Hate Groups Rose 30 Percent In Recent Years, Watchdog Group Reports” (NPR), and “Trump ‘fear-mongering’ fuels rise of U.S. hate groups to record: watchdog” (Reuters). The journalists who supply the SPLC with this kind of free publicity seldom if ever bother to dig down into the details of these annual reports, so it’s unlikely that USA Today readers or NPR listeners in Powder Springs (center below) are aware that one of these “hate groups” has made their town a dot on the map.

Located in the prosperous Cobb County suburbs of Atlanta, Powder Springs has more than tripled its population in the 30-odd years since I worked there as a young newspaper reporter. However, I had no idea there was a “hate group” in Powder Springs until I clicked on the SPLC’s latest map and found that the town of 14,000 people is home to American Vision, a small 501(c)3 “Biblical Worldview Ministry” currently led by Dr. Joel McDurmon, author of such books as God Versus Socialism: A Biblical Critique of the New Social Gospel(2009) and Restoring America: One County at a Time (2012). A theologian by training, McDurmon’s views can perhaps be most easily summarized as Calvinist and libertarian, and the question is: Why is this Christian non-profit organization with an office in Powder Springs labeled an “Anti-LGBT Hate Group” by the SPLC?

“Merely because we have always stood by the Bible’s position on homosexuality,” McDurmon told me in a phone interview the day the latest “Hate Map” was published. Of course, there are many thousands of churches with millions of Bible-believing congregants in America that stand by the same position, but the SPLC can’t put every church on its “Hate Map,” so there’s a certain randomness to this designation. A couple of years ago, as part of an effort by the Left to defund conservative organizations, American Vision was denied services by various online payment processing companies citing the SPLC’s “Hate Group” label. As McDurmon explained in an article last fall, “Apparently, such left-leaning companies believe Christians should be forced to bake their homosexual wedding cakes, but they shouldn’t have to serve us.”

This tactic of “financial blacklisting,” as Allum Bokhari of Breitbart News calls it, has been targeted at a broad spectrum of conservative activist groups since President Trump’s election in 2016, and can be devastating in its impact. Fortunately for supporters of American Vision, its online donations page is back in operation and McDurmon says the group has “recovered 80 to 90 percent of our donor base” since it first got blacklisted by companies like Stripe and Amazon.

The increasing absurdity of the SPLC’s “hate group” designation has become obvious to conservatives in recent years. David Horowitz, the former New Left radical-turned-conservative, has called the SPLC “a $400 million dollar hate machine.” Any really serious journalist who bothered to research the SPLC’s operation could easily find articles with headlines like “Seven Reasons to Beware the Southern Poverty Law Center” (Carol Swain, American Thinker) and “The Southern Poverty Law Center has lost all credibility” (Marc Thiessen, Washington Post). In case a reporter is too lazy to do his own research, the “SPLC Exposed” website has collected a vast trove of reporting and commentary on the subject.

Nevertheless, the SPLC’s dots-on-a-map motif continues to be parroted by liberal journalists who share the group’s hatred of all things Republican. “The words and imagery coming out of the Trump administration and from Trump himself are heightening these fears,” the SPLC’s Heidi Beirich was quoted by Reuters as telling a conference call of reporters this week. “These images of foreign scary invaders threatening diseases, massive refugee caravans coming from the south. This is fear-mongering.”

Apparently, none of those reporters bothered to ask if the SPLC is itself engaged in “fear-mongering,” nor question whether residents of Powder Springs have any reason to fear the presence of a Calvinist theologian in their tranquil suburban community. McDurmon says it’s “ridiculous” to lump American Vision in with violent groups like the Klan, and of course none of his group’s supporters have perpetrated “hate crimes” against homosexuals or anyone else for that matter. McDurmon says of the SPLC’s methods that “they stretch the definition” of hate for the most obvious of reasons: “They do this to scare people to raise money.”

Whether through laziness or sympathy for the SPLC’s left-wing agenda, few journalists ever carefully scrutinize the list of U.S. “hate groups” that are allegedly now at an all-time high. For example, among the 17 “Anti-Immigrant Hate Groups” on the SPLC’s map are Pro English — because it’s “hate” to encourage Americans to learn the English language, apparently — and Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC), whose president William Gheen has emphatically denounced the SPLC’s label. While “no evidence exists that anyone in our organization has ever engaged in racism, hate, or violence against minorities,” Gheen wrote in a 2014 letter to the SPLC, the “hate group” listing was “directly encouraging people to threaten violence against me and my family.”

The 100 “Anti-Muslim Hate Groups” listed by the SPLC include Jihad Watch— a blog run by Robert Spencer, author of a number of books on Islamic terrorism — as well as 47 separate listings for local affiliates of ACT for America, a group headed by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese immigrant and author of the 2006 bestseller Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America. Whatever one thinks of Ms. Gabriel or her group, what purpose is served by depicting ACT for America not as one “hate group,” but 47? Obviously, the SPLC does this to pad its numbers — to inflate the “hate,” so to speak — and any intelligent person must doubt whether any actual menace to Muslims is posed by Ms. Gabriel’s admirers in towns like Oostburg, Wisconsin, or Cape Cod, Massachusetts, each of which has a dot on the SPLC’s map.

Becoming a dot on that map can be dangerous, as when a deranged gun-wielding homosexual named Floyd Lee Corkins attacked the D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC) in 2012. The SPLC labels the FRC as an “anti-LGBT hate group,” and Corkins told police that this label inspired his terrorist attack. McDurmon acknowledges this danger: “There’s a lot of violent unstable people on the Left.” On the other hand, Cobb County is still a pretty conservative place, so it’s unlikely American Vision could become a target of left-wing violence.

Targets on the map are beginning to fight back against the SPLC’s smears in court (see “Lawsuit Challenges SPLC’s ‘Hate’ Label,” Feb. 8), but don’t expect American Vision to join the list of plaintiffs. McDurmon says that such litigation would be contrary to his political and religious convictions: “I don’t believe in making people slaves to the government.” Wow, what an extremist opinion! With a few more dots on the map like that, Americans might start believing they have a right to “the blessings of liberty,” as some old white guys once said.

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2019/02/22/fishers-high-school-swimmer-suspension-botched-hse-school-board-ihsaa/2949529002/

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What’s wrong with you, HSE school board? No, really. What’s wrong with you?

You have on the Fishers boys swimming team, in your own words, a kid who was making the pool a "hostile environment." As a result, in your own words, there was “fear exhibited by female swimmers.” And you’re saying the reason behind that fear, the “three allegations of sexual harassment” – in your own words, HSE school board – “were substantiated.”

That’s pretty much what you’re saying.

And you’re saying this:

He can swim this weekend in the state meet. He can represent Fishers on the biggest stage. And he can do that because ... why?

Because the girls swimming season ended weeks ago. Which means there’s nobody left for the boy to harass.

Seriously.

That’s my reading of the official statement from the HSE board. Here, see it for yourself (emphasis mine), specifically where it says: “Noting that because the girls swim season had concluded and that joint competition and practice were no longer taking place, the swim environment had been altered sufficiently to allow the male swimmer, no-contact provision enforced, to resume participation on the boys swim team.”

You see that? The kid has a no-contact provision with the girls swimmers, and that remains in place. But he can compete again. Because the girls aren't around anymore to have "fear exhibited."

And then the school board pats itself on the back by noting: “This affirmation assures persistence of a safe environment for all students as they continue their education within the school corporation.”

It also assures persistence of a possible state title for Fishers. Goooooo Tigers!

Seriously, HSE board. And seriously, Fishers. What’s wrong with you? Have you lost your minds? What kind of message are you sending? Not to the boy in question. Forget him. Not to the world at large. Never mind us.

 

What message are you sending to the girls you’re pretty much saying he caused to have “fear,” those girls whose “three allegations of sexual harassment were substantiated”?

This message:

Sorry, girls. But he’s really good at swimming, so ...

After being suspended earlier this season for this very reason, and after missing too many meets to qualify for the postseason, the kid wasn’t eligible to swim last week at the sectional meet at HSE. But Fishers High petitioned the IHSAA for relief, and the IHSAA allowed the kid to swim because, near as I can tell, that’s the IHSAA’s sole purpose for existing: to take a bad situation and screw it up worse.

At least this time the IHSAA has a concrete reason for being so lost: It has a board of directors composed of 19 athletics directors from around the state, with one AD elected president of the elite board.

Guess whose AD is the current president of the IHSAA’s board of directors? Yup: the guy from Fishers. His name is Jim Brown. 

Oh, high school athletics in our state has an abject lack of leadership. But don’t get me started on the IHSAA. Not today. The abomination at Fishers is bad enough today.

....

Disgusting.  All Around.

And have pretty much lost all respect for the governing aspect of the IHSAA.