My Blog

Category: Society

  • Censorship: This is How it Begins

    Spain’s government is drafting a law that bans the photographing and filming of members of the police. The Interior Ministry assures they are not cracking down on freedom of expression, but protecting the lives of law enforcement officers.  …

    ­The new Citizen Safety Law will prohibit “the capture, reproduction and editing of images, sounds or information of members of the security or armed forces in the line of duty,” said the director general of the police, Ignacio Cosido. He added that this new bill seeks to “find a balance between the protection of citizens’ rights and those of security forces.”

    The dissemination of images and videos over social networks like Facebook will also be punishable under the legislation.

    via RT.

    “Oh it could never happen here.”  That’s what the Spanish used to think.  Now look at them.

    Note the language of the law. It’s the Citizen Safety Law.  Bullshit!  It has nothing to do with the safety of citizens.  It about making sure that people do not record the unlawful acts of their own government.

    In case you don’t know, Spain is going through a tough time right now because for years and years they spend more money than the had.  They go too far into debt and now they have to pay the bills.  The austerity measures are not very popular.  So people have been taking to the streets.  The government don’t like that.

    Keep this in mind as we start having to pay down our own debt.  Something is going to have to give… People are going to take to the streets.  There may very well be some violent confrontations between people and police.  Those confrontations need to be public.  Not limited to what the government, a/k/a The Ministry of Truth, tells us what happened.

    It can happen there… it can happen here.  Prepare yourself.

  • Florida’s Bigoted New Education (Union) Standards

    Asian students should be the smartest, and teachers will expect the least from blacks.  That’s the case in Florida, at least, where the Board of Education has agreed to pass a revised plan that outlines new academic goals for students based on race.  …

    Under the approved strategic revision, 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of whites, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks will be expected to read at or above their applicable reading grade levels in future tests. For math scores, they expect 92 percent of Asians, 80 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks to excel, suggesting that some races warrant a lower bar than others.

    Patrick Franklin, president and CEO of the Urban League of Palm Beach County, opposes the revision, telling the Sun Sentinel, “All children should be held to high standards and for them to say that for African-Americans the goal is below other students is unacceptable.”

    via RT.

    What kind of nonsense is this?  Thank you Patrick Franklin for standing up and demanding equal educational expectations for African-American children.

    Did Florida just accept the premise of The Bell Curve?  Is that where we are today?

    Can you imagine someone said, well it’s ok to pay black people less than white people or Asian people?  Or that black people only need to work 6 or 7 hours a day instead of 8?

    We need to work on treating all peoples equally.  Isn’t the goal to try to ignore race — not call it out?  This goofiness is only going to set back race relations 20-30 years.

    It’s such a stupid idea that one has to wonder why it was put forth and passed…

    And while educators are hoping to have higher test scores coming in across the board, race and ethnicity play a deciding factor in what’s expected from Sunshine State students in the years to come.

    “Educators” for those that don’t know means “Union Teachers.”  These are the people who are fighting to limit any performance based evaluations.

    Florida’s Republican governor think this is a dumb idea:

    Schools’ expectations should be color blind.  As a nation, we have rejected police use of racial profiling on the streets, by what rational do we now accept it from educators in the classroom.

    Indeed Governor. Indeed.

    The take-away here is that Democrat Teachers’ Unions are racist.

  • Secrets Of the College Admissions Office

    1) It sucks to be a middle class white applicant.

    2) East Asians can be disadvantaged too.

    3) Athletes bring down the quality of the class. So do legacies, but not nearly as much.

    4) Early admission is less competitive, despite what the College claims.

    5) Most college essays are too boring.

    via Business Insider.

    Tell me something we don’t already know, right?

  • Bus-Only Lanes Hurt Everybody

    CTA super-express buses that will operate on 21-mile stretches of Ashland and Western avenues will have the benefit of using full-time bus-only lanes, under a still-evolving concept the transit agency and the city will present this week at three open houses, starting Tuesday.

    via  Chicago Tribune.

    This is just an extension of the ongoing war on vehicles & one of the dumbest ideas ever.  It makes no sense to make life more difficult for cars; which just so happen to be how most people get around.  Why punish the majority for the minority?  Some people literally must drive b/c they have to take children to school before work or otherwise travel on routes not covered by public transit.

    Damen in one lane.  Halsted is one lane.  California is one lane.  It makes no sense to destroy the only two North-South arteries.  Between the bike lanes and the center islands it is getting impossible for vehicles to get around.  This includes police, fire, and EMS vehicles as well.

    Lastly, what is the problem trying to be solved here?  That buses travel more slowly in traffic is not new.  It’s been that way since the invention of buses.  People on buses however can read, play with their phones, talk on the phone, send txt messages, and do all sorts of things that people in cars cannot (safely) do.  This is the advantage of taking the bus over the car… that, and the cost.

    Chicago can be a great great city.  Truly world class.  But it will not become so by declaring war on vehicles which the majority of people use to get around.

  • MSM is a Fundamental Threat to Democracy

    In case you don’t know, Pat Caddell was part of team Jimmy Carter.  He is no right-winger or tin-hat wearer.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBR4g6cBYeA?rel=0]

    It’s safe to say if you were not aware that U.S. embassies all over the Middle East and Northern Africa we under attack then the MSM is pretty much carrying water for Obama.

    If you have never before heard about David Plouffe taking $100k from some shadowy Middle East group the MSM has failed in it’s mission.

    Damning stuff.

  • Problems in Pennsylvania Schools

    Well over 100 educators will eventually face state disciplinary charges for cheating that could lead to the revocation of their professional certificates, Tomalis said. But that could take years, and the results of state disciplinary board hearings in Harrisburg would be disclosed only if educators were disciplined.

    In Philadelphia, 53 district-run schools and three charter schools are still under investigation for allegations of cheating in past years.

    via Philly.com.

    Charter Schools do NOT perform any better than Government Schools.

    Failing test scores.  Cheating teachers.  And general poor performance all around.

    Pathetic.

  • China Crushes Man by Steamroller

    A villager in northern China attempting to resist a forced government relocation by remaining on his land was brutally crushed to death by a road flattening truck on the orders of a Chinese government official.  …

    The victim, He Zhi Hua, refused to accept a paltry payment from the government which has forcefully evicted Changsha Village locals in order to re-appropriate their land for commercial use.When Hua began a protest by lying down on the spot through which construction vehicles had to pass, the local Vice Mayor ordered workers for the state-owned company to murder Hua by driving over his body with a huge road-flattening truck.

    via Infowars (Warning — Graphic Photos!)

    Why is this not front page of the NYT?  I’ll tell you why; because it doesn’t fit with their agenda.  It’s about not doing anything to embarrass not only China but Obama.

    Obama has bent over backwards for China.  Even when they stopped buying bonds and so the Fed had to take over, Obama refused to hold China accountable for any of it’s bad behavior.  (BTW, if you need a list of China’s bad behavior then you’re too dumb to vote.)

    It’s time we held China accountable for it’s actions.  Everything from human rights violations to unfair trading policies.  They wrongfully hold their money constant to the dollar instead of letting it float (like all other industrialized nations) making their goods cheaper the marketplace.  This costs Americans jobs.  It’s not only unfair; it’s bad for America and Americans.

  • Huge Increase in Warrantless Electronic Surveillance

    Pen register and trap and trace devices now generally refer to the surveillance of information about—rather than the contents of—communications. Pen registers capture outgoing data, while trap and trace devices capture incoming data. This still includes the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing telephone calls and the time, date, and length of those calls. But the government now also uses this authority to intercept the “to” and “from” addresses of email messages, records about instant message conversations, non-content data associated with social networking identities, and at least some information about the websites that you visit (it isn’t entirely clear where the government draws the line between the content of a communication and information about a communication when it comes to the addresses of websites).

    via ACLU.

    For the record, I agree with the ACLU exactly one time.  This is it.

    Our government has taken to spying on its own citizens, that’s us, on an unprecedented level.  As more and more communications go electronic it’s easier and easier to intercept.  That it is done without a warrant is truly frightening.  If these communications are so important then the FBI should present evidence to a judge and get a warrant.

    Mind you, this is the same FBI that cannot find hundreds of guns from Fast and Furious.  This is the same presidential administration that refuses to turn over records regarding those guns or the Fast and Furious catastrophe.  The same administration that promised to the “the most open and transparent in history” and has proven to be just as closed and private as Dick Cheney and the Bush years.

    When it comes to spying on you but keeping gov. secrets Obama = Bush.

  • Corruption “Widespread” in Illinois

    A new poll finds that a whopping majority of state residents believe that not only state government but Illinois business is plagued by serious misconduct.

    According to the survey of 1,271 registered voters by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, 76.8 percent agree that “corruption in Illinois government is widespread.”

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Awhile back there was a long article about why Illinois is so corrupt.  The bottom-line is that the people tolerate it.

    Most people won’t tolerate someone stealing from them.  But in Illinois the people do.  My guess is that the school system is so bad that most folks don’t even realize that all the corruption costs them a boat-load of money.

    People get what they vote.

  • East Coast Liberals: Smartest Students in CPS are the Gang Leaders

    …  Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker and former New York Gov. David Paterson — who spoke Tuesday morning about recidivism and racism at a panel hosted by Stroock law firm — say.

    During the talk, Paterson observed the smartest students in the Chicago Public School system are the gang leaders because they’re giving kids what they need — structure, a way to make money, and some sense of belonging.

    Until society steps up and gives those kids that same sense of security, according to Paterson, this non-stop cycle of people going to prison on nonviolent drug offenses is never going to end.

    via Business Insider.

    These two guys are real pieces of work.  Newark is quite likely the only city in America worst off than Detroit and East St. Louis.  Why doesn’t he fix his own damn problems before telling us who our smart kids are?

    Doesn’t he have any gang leaders smart kids in Newark he can talk about?  Why drag us down to Newark’s standards?

    What a jerk.