My Blog

Category: Society

  • Everything (the GOP does) is Racist

    Or at least so says the Left.  Bill Maher is only the latest:

    HBO host and Obama donor Bill Maher has accused journalists like NBC’s Tom Brokaw of encouraging the birther movement by failing to label it as racist.

    In a blog post endorsing Chris Matthews’ recent on-air attack against RNC chairman Reince Priebus during MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Maher accused Brokaw and other reporters of stoking the coals of birtherism by championing “‘balance’ over objectivity,” citing Brokaw’s attempt to defend Mitt Romney’s remark about his birth certificate as an “awkward joke.”

    “How did [birtherism] grow to the point where half of Republican primary voters believed it? It wasn’t just the silence of Republican leaders, it was the failure of people like Tom Brokaw to just dismiss it as racism from the beginning,” Maher wrote.

    via DailyKenn.

    Sometimes the best way to show the absurdity of a position is through comedy.  Meet Bob.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1o0ooNn8Qc?rel=0]

  • Fallout of China’s One Child Policy

    I’d not thought of this:

    … The reason Chinese savings levels are so high is the one-child policy.

    In most developing countries the way that people save is they have multiple children hopefully to generate a gaggle of grandchildren all of whom are trained to respect their elders. Given most people did not live to old age if you did you became a treasured (and well cared for) family member.

    This does not work in China. Longevity in China is increasing rapidly and the one-child policy results in a grandchild potentially having four grandparents to look after. The “four grandparent policy” means the elderly cannot expect to be looked after in old age. Four grandparents, one grand-kid makes abandoning the old-folk looks easy and near certain.

    Nor can the elderly rely on a welfare state to look after them. There is no welfare state.

    So the Chinese save. Unless they save they will starve in old age. This has driven savings levels sometimes north of fifty percent of GDP. Asian savings rates have been high through all the key industrializations (Japan, Korea, Singapore etc). However Chinese savings rates are over double other Asian savings rates – this is the highest savings rate in history and the main cause is the one-child policy.

    via Business Insider.

    Kinda sad the level of social engineering that has taken place in China.

    It is this very savings that permits the Chinese government to buy trillions and trillions of dollars worth of U.S. treasuries.  Should the U.S. drive itself over the cliff (which appears more and more likely) it will cause a world-wide financial meltdown.

    Very sad in so many ways.

  • How to Help Black Kids Graduate? Vouchers!

    Since CTU is out on strike, this appears to be timely.

    Educational choice is the civil rights movement of our generation.

    Then look at a breathtaking new study from researchers at the Brookings Institution and Harvard University. Brookings fellow Matthew M. Chingos and Harvard government professor Paul E. Peterson tracked 1,363 New York elementary school students who, starting in 1997, had received vouchers worth up to $1,400 a year through a New York City scholarship fund. Those students had their choice of any private school, religious or secular, in New York.

    Result: African-American students who had used the vouchers were 24 percent more likely to attend college, and more than twice as likely to attend selective four-year colleges, as their peers who had not won the voucher lottery in a random draw. The hard numbers: 45 percent of the African-American students with vouchers graduated and attended college. That’s compared to 36 percent of otherwise similar students who hadn’t received the vouchers.

    Those vouchers didn’t give a similar boost to white or Hispanic students, but did help African-Americans close the customary graduation gap between black and Hispanic students, the researchers reported.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Poor kids on the South and West sides of the city are stuck in failing schools and Rahm, Obama, and the rest of the Democratic cabal aren’t going to do a damn thing about it.

  • Teachers’ Unions vs. Children

    When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.
    — Albert Shanker, former president of the United Federation of Teachers

    I wrote about this before, how the truth is that CTU, WEAC, and all other teacher’s unions have a fiduciary duty to the union members.  The union cannot do anything which would advance the interests of non-members (i.e. children) to the detriment of the members (i.e. teachers.)

    This is a very simple legal principle that most educated people easily understand.

    Of course there’s the greater philosophical discussion that should take place as to whether of not unions of government employees are to anyone’s benefit.

    The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.
    — F.D. Roosevelt, in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees

    The idea being that when private sector employees collectively bargain they can overplay their hand only to their own detriment as well and to the detriment of their employer.  Another company will be the beneficiary of the higher wages (and cost of goods/services) of the first.  This is not true in government where there is no competition.

    Anyone seeking more and more from the public coffers should be considered with extreme skepticism.

  • U.S. Department of Education: 79% of Chicago 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading

    Seventy-nine percent of the 8th graders in the Chicago Public Schools are not grade-level proficient in reading, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in math.

    via CNS News.

    Very… very… sad.

    Teachers make over $60/hour.  Get awesome benefits.  Not getting the job done.  On strike demanding more money.

  • The Unemployment Farce: Only 42% of People Working

    Worst news ever!!

    The number of Americans whom the U.S. Department of Labor counted as “not in the civilian labor force” in August hit a record high of 88,921,000.  …

    In July, there were 155,013,000 in the U.S. civilian labor force. In August that dropped to 154,645,000—meaning that on net 368,000 people simply dropped out of the labor force last month and did not even look for a job.There were also 119,000 fewer Americans employed in August than there were in July. In July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 142,220,000 Americans working. But, in August, there were only 142,101,000 Americans working.

    Despite the fact that fewer Americans were employed in August than July, the unemployment rate ticked down from 8.3 in July to 8.1. That is because so many people dropped out of the labor force and stopped looking for work. The unemployment rate is the percentage of people in the labor force (meaning they had a job or were actively looking for one) who did not have a job.

    The Bureau of Labor Statistic also reported that in August the labor force participation rate (the percentage of the people in the civilian non-institutionalized population who either had a job or were actively looking for one) dropped to a 30-year low of 63.5 percent, down from 63.7 percent in July. The last time the labor force participation rate was as low as 63.5 percent was in September 1981.

    via cnsnews.

    Think about that.  In August the U.S. civilian labor force was 154,645,000 people.  The unemployment rate among those people was 8.1%.  So of those 154M who could/should be working 12,526,245 were not.  These 12.5M are on unemployment.  That means that 142,118,755 people are working; hooray for them!!

    We are a country of 314,330,000 people.  That means that only 42% of the people in this country are working.

    Forty-Two Percent of people in this country are working.

    Just think about that for a little bit.

  • Race at DNC – Button Says it Plainly

    20120905-181243.jpg

  • You’re Being Watched by Your Government

    Back in July I wrote about how your government was utilizing all kinds of technology to spy on you.  At the time it appeared to just be speculation; now we know it to be true.

    Part I

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing the Justice Department for details of last month’s ruling by a secretive U.S. court that National Security Agency’s domestic spying program violated the U.S. Constitution, Jon Brodkin of arstechnica reports.

    The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found that “on at least one occasion” the NSA had violated the Fourth Amendment’s restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures.  …

    The kicker is that there is ample evidence that the NSA has gone above and beyond the powers granted through the 2008 FISA Amendment Act by actively spying on the electronic communications of American citizens within the U.S. and by coercing service providers to feed it any and all information it wants.via Business Insider.

    And it that’s not scary enough for you, check this out!

    Part II

    A Naomi Wolf article in the Guardian about the rise of security cameras at Occupy hangouts and the multi-billion dollar biometric technologies industry includes this story:

    A software engineer … visited Disneyland, and … the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

    It turns out that Disney applies biometrics – that is, the statistical analysis of biological data – in the form of scanning visitor fingerprint information and identifying people with facial recognition software.

    In fact, “Walt Disney World is responsible for the nation’s largest single commercial application of biometrics” and after 9/11 the government sought “Disney’s advice in intelligence, security and biometrics,” as reported in 2006 by Karen Hamel of News 21.

    Hamel listed several former Disneyland employees that have gone on to fill “some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. intelligence and security communities,”

    via Business Insider.

    That’s more than just a little creepy.

    There’s also a guy who used to work for the NSA who’s coming forward and blowing the whistle.

     

  • Thoughts on Colorado – Freedom vs. Safety

    This is was written as a comment on this NYT piece.  I’ve made it much longer here because the NYT limits space.

    —

    Restricting access to firearms will never stop these kinds of attacks.  As a society we need to resolve ourselves that some people are crazy and will drive cars into crowds, shoot other people en mass, and otherwise engage in spree killings.

    Many believe it’s as simple as restricting access a/k/a gun control.  But what happens when a police officer’s gun is stolen?  What should we do with the 5+ million firearms already owned? What about hunters?  People who think that food comes from a store don’t have decent solutions that play nationally.

    Vermont has nearly no restrictions on firearm ownership or concealed carry.  One never hears of people shooting-up a Home Depot in Vermont.  Why should Vermont be required to change their laws – which appear to work and the citizens clearly want – because of actions in New York or Colorado?

    In Chicago (where I live) we have the most restrictive gun laws in the country.  It’s not working.  In addition to gangs using guns to solve problems they routinely use knives.  In Chicago over 500 people are stabbed each year.  Should we outlaw knives?

    Chicago has also been the city where three times in as many years we’ve made national news because people have been beaten with baseball bats or a 2×4.  One Irish girl is still in a coma as a result of a beating; another H.S. student is dead.  Dozens of others have been seriously injured.  Should Chicago ban baseball bats and lumber?

    Additionally, at least 4 kids have drowned at local pools and the lake this year.  Should we close them too?

    Of course the last example are accidents.  I recently read a story about “who’s to blame” for the recent drownings.  The story quoted one dead child’s uncle who asked where the lifeguards were.  I wondered where we was.  It is not patently irresponsible for a parent to send a child to a pool if they cannot adequately swim?  While the parents may be negligent, they surely did not intend for their children to drown.  That’s a very very different situation from Colorado — that is recognized.

    But accidents deserve to be included in the analysis because of how society reacts to the event.  And also because how society deals with “means” vs. “ends”.  The end result is the same, people are dead.  We as a society accept that while tragic, we should not close down pools and beaches because they take hundreds of lives each year.  We believe those losses are tragic but the risk / reward (pleasure) ratio is acceptable.

    This is similar to driving.  Traffic accidents kill over 40,000 people each year.  We believe that the risk of being injured or dying in a traffic accident is acceptable given the benefit we receive by not having to walk everywhere (or take a horse which is probably more dangerous.)

    As a society we do our best to reduce the risks.  At pools and beaches we employ lifeguards.  In Chicago lifeguards are paid for by the taxpayer who may or may not utilize them.  On the roads we have laws against drunk driving; we don’t let 12 year-olds drive either.  We, through our government, demand that cars have seat belts and air bags.  It appears that society in general is content with the risk / reward balance.  But of course we could do more.

    It would be very easy for the government to mandate that every vehicle be equipped with a sobriety tester.  It would prevent drunks from driving.

    We, through our government, could also mandate a speed control device on all cars so that they’re limited to the speed limit.  It would prevent high speed crashes not to mention high speed police chases.

    Why do we not have these existing technologies in our cars already?  Because society does not want them.  We’re happy with the balance of risk / reward that is involved with driving.  We value our freedom to drive drunk and fast more than we demand additional safety.

    And that is how we need to address gun control.  Do we wish to give up more freedom in order to provide more safety?  And would we in fact be safer with less freedoms?  Those are two different questions.

    There is no doubt that lifeguards and air bags save lives.

    There is a lot of doubt as to banning guns would save any lives.

    The facts are clear that More Guns Equal Less Crime.

    So however tragic the recent events in Colorado may be, further restrictions on our freedom will not result in additional safety.

    We morn those who we’ve lost.  We pray for their families.  We struggle to find answers to unanswerable questions.

    But most importantly, we get on with our lives recognizing that evil is present in the world and that bad things happen to good people.  In the end we also know that we cannot prevent these events from happening by passing additional laws.

  • St. Charles School Group Hates Class Rankings

    Members of the St. Charles District 303 school community want to eliminate class rank at the high schools and expand foreign language and technology offerings at all levels, according to a report released Monday.

    The information was compiled from several community meetings this year.

    via chicagotribune.com.

    Well this is easy right?

    About 2% of the people love the class ranking system and 98% of the people hate it.

    That mean’s that in out of District 303 2% of the graduates will be ready for jobs in the private sector and 98% will be looking for either government jobs or handouts.