DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for April, 2012

Zimmerman, Jena Six, and Overcharging

12th April 2012

Steve Sailer looks under the hood … so to speak.

I have some fun below with the Dave Barry-ish Florida special prosecutor lady overcharging George Zimmerman with 2nd degree murder, but it’s worth keeping in mind (because nobody else will) how this is the mirror image of the Jena Six brouhaha.

This is not to say that blacks are never the victims of racist injustice, but that crime stories involving blacks that the prestige press gets most worked up over (Dominique Strass-Kahn, Duke Lacrosse, various campus hate hoaxes, etc.) turn out, with remarkable regularity, to be travesties.

Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Zimmerman, Jena Six, and Overcharging

TSA Agent Admits $1B Nude Body Scanner Fleet Worthless

12th April 2012

Read it.

I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on TSA Agent Admits $1B Nude Body Scanner Fleet Worthless

Random Numbers Via Fluctuations of the Quantum Vacuum

12th April 2012

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This website offers true random numbers to anyone on the internet. The random numbers are generated in real-time in our lab by measuring the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum.

If, of course, it’s random numbers you’re looking for.

Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Random Numbers Via Fluctuations of the Quantum Vacuum

Elitism Leads to Tyrannically Whiny Protestors

12th April 2012

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When Trenton Oldfield, weird and wrongheaded, jumped into the River Thames last Saturday to protest the Cambridge-Oxford Boat Race specifically and elitism in sports generally, he did us all a favor. Not only did he cement his blazing idiocy in sports history, but he re-energized the debate over elitism in sports. And while doing so, gave us hard proof that it’s needed and necessary.

Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »

Talking Back

12th April 2012

John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, responds to his critics.

Goodness, what a fuss!

I don’t know why people have so much difficulty thinking statistically, as we behave statistically all the time. The sky is overcast; I have to go out to an event where I’ll be in the open; I take an umbrella. If, after all, it does not rain, do I feel like an idiot for having taken the umbrella? Of course not. I yielded to my inner statistician. I went with the percentages. We all do it a dozen times a day. It’s statistical common sense. The trouble-free black neighborhood is the rain-free overcast day: It happens a lot, but take that umbrella.

I say what I think, and I’m very much obliged to Taki’s Mag for letting me do so. If you don’t like the kinds of things I say, there is a very simple remedy available to you: Don’t read me.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Talking Back

Talkin’ ’bout the Car Wash, Baby

11th April 2012

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Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, owes up to $1.5 million to Bank of America, thanks to a loan he took out to buy a car wash. So what, you ask? You’re paying for it.

The Small Business Administration supported the loan, meaning that if Cleaver fails to make payments, the SBA picks up the tab on $1.1 million. Cleaver is likely to default on the loan in toto – he’s spent ten years paying off the original $1.35 million loan, and still has $1.2 million in unpaid principle, plus another $300,000 in late fees and charges.

Damn those racist white people and their racial profiling.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Talkin’ ’bout the Car Wash, Baby

Protest Over Police Shootings in Stockton Gets Ugly

11th April 2012

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Crowds in Stockton, California massed for a protest against the police yesterday over the police shootings of Luther Brown Jr. and James Rivera. Brown was shot after grabbing an officer’s baton and beating him with it; he was a gang member. Rivera was shot after he tried to back over police officers in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

Ah, yes; just innocent victims of The Man. Looks like Derb was right.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 3 Comments »

TSA Security Theater Described in One Simple Infographic

11th April 2012

An Informative Chart.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on TSA Security Theater Described in One Simple Infographic

Fluker

11th April 2012

Freeberg makes up a useful new word.

1. You have a problem and want everyone to know about it; it is the very same problem other people have had, and have managed to solve, while keeping it to themselves.
2. This doesn’t bother you in the slightest.
3. The answer you have in mind for your problem involves a change in the rules that would affect EVERYONE.
4. You partner up with special-interest and advocacy groups, politicians, “community organizers” and so forth, and give lots of press conferences and interviews about this problem you’ve got…that thousands, maybe millions, of other people have managed to solve without bugging anyone at all.
5. That doesn’t bother you either.
6. You have your problem in years that are divisible by 4.
7. Inexplicably and strangely, while yammering away about how helpless you are until such time that the rules are changed so that everyone is forced to reckon in some way with your problem, and bitching up a storm about some guy on the radio calling you dirty names, you still want to let everyone know how tough you are and how you don’t back down, that you’ve got a backbone of solid steel, your will be done, you’ll triumph over anything, never get discouraged…blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
8. Just like a kid on the playground at recess during third grade, you are entirely unable to distinguish between people who have logical/moral reservations against your idea (which, as noted above, would impact everyone)…and…well, you’ll slander ‘em any which way you possibly can, won’t you. Chauvinists, sexist pigs, Nazis, monsters, DirtyRottenCreepyJerks…nobody can be a decent human being unless they back your idea. Because your skin is too thin to handle disagreement, skepticism or legitimate criticism.

Next up. Motherfluker. Suggested definitions are now being accepted.

See, there’s the thing. In the pre-teen years, the dudes have to make a choice. They can grow up to be sissies who are constantly complaining that this-or-that basic challenge in life is tooooooo haaaaaard…can’t handle it by themselves, start hollering for help even where it’s obvious they should be able to succeed by themselves. But you have to give up your big-badass title to do that. You can act like a smug prick if you want, like our current Commander in Chief. You can wrap yourself up in a thick blanket of that “NPR male” not-quite-masculine sissy-rage, like Keith Olbermann or Alan Alda used to do when people were still paying attention to them. But you can’t go strutting around like a modern Conan The Barbarian when you need someone else to twist the top off your soda pop for ya. If you insist on having your cake and eating it too, you get your ass kicked. It’s wired into the male DNA. We put up with bossy male progs, expecting that after they’re done strutting around and acting imperious, they’ll go away, or at least get out of the way. To actually take the top-dog spot, for reals, pulling rank after you got done proving you aren’t good for anything — that’s a whole different story. Men don’t tolerate this in other men.

Oh, noes! Sex-linked differences! How politically incorrect!

We’re now very deep into the Age of the Fluker. I hope it’s a brief blip on the radar of our history. I don’t know if it’s up to the women to stop it, or up to the men to stop it, or to motivate the women to stop it, or if the two sexes need to work together on it somehow. Whatever the case may be, this cannot continue. There are reasons men make other men choose between prestige and the soft blanket of helplessness. No society can survive for long when its rules are created and refined by the wanker set.

Hear, hear.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Fluker

Obama 2012: The Great White Hope

10th April 2012

Read it.

Note the photo of Obama campaign staff. The only non-white face is some poor Asian chick right in the middle — who is the only one not smiling. Wonder why that is.

Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Obama 2012: The Great White Hope

Star Garden

10th April 2012

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An artificially excavated limestone pit in the south of France will soon host star-making technology, New Scientist reports. “If all goes well,” the magazine explains, in a few year’s time the pit will “rage with humanity’s first self-sustaining fusion reaction, an artificial sun ten times hotter than the one that gives our planet life.”

We have the technology … I hope.

Posted in News You Can Use. | 1 Comment »

Police Car Shot at as Tensions in Trayvon Martin Case Boil Over

10th April 2012

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Must have been one of those neo-Nazi white people done it. No way it was any law-abidin’ black folks.

(A brilliant way to ensure that the next Neighborhood Watch guy who approaches a black kid will be unarmed.)

Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Police Car Shot at as Tensions in Trayvon Martin Case Boil Over

Row in America Over Gay Characters in EA Video Games

10th April 2012

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Electronic Arts is being criticised by Christian campaign groups who say it is setting a bad example for young people.

Uh, where in their Articles of Incorporation does it say anything about ‘setting a good example for young people’ as one of their business purposes? Sell games, I would believe; make money, sure. But ‘setting a good example’? I don’t think so.

The company has reportedly described the complaints as “political harassment” and said the ‘gay’ content is only an customisable option, not a mandatory part of the game.

Some people need to learn to mind their own business.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

High School Paints Over Portion of Student’s Mural

10th April 2012

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She sketched a mural that showed the growth of a boy into adulthood. The last image showed a man with a woman and child and wedding rings over their heads.

Sounds pretty normal.

Some people at the school felt the mural didn’t accurately represent many students at Pilgrim and school officials decided to paint over the right side.

I guess the new normal isn’t the same as the old normal. I guess we don’t want all of those teenage slackers having kids out of wedlock to feel, you know, uncomfortable.

On Friday, Bierenday spoke with John DePetro on WPRO-AM about the mural and said she was told that her original design may be offensive or a religious symbol.

Oh, yeah, that famous offensive religious symbol, the wedding ring. It’s all clear to me now.

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | 1 Comment »

Bagless in Seattle: The Cancer Spreads

10th April 2012

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This trend is of a piece with those that seek to ban such things as smoking, trans-fats in foods, and salt in restaurant meals. In every case, political power is used to force an ideological agenda on people who are obviously Not With The Program. In every case, it divides a population into the Smart People who are enacting the ban and the Dumb People who don’t know what’s good for them and hence have to be forced into it.

Such strictures are one of the primary reasons that people are deserting places like California and New York and Michigan, and moving to places like Texas, where personal liberty is still a respected concept. You will no doubt have noticed that such ideological advocacy groups tend to prefer to get their programs enshrined into law on the  Federal level whenever they can, precisely to prevent such ‘voting with the feet’.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Bagless in Seattle: The Cancer Spreads

US Ecosystems Basically Unaffected by Global Warming, Studies Show

10th April 2012

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Scientists monitoring water flow in streams at test sites across the USA have found, unexpectedly, that the global warming seen in the late 20th century had basically no effect on most of the ecosystems they studied.

I guess we’re not all going to die after all. Imagine that.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on US Ecosystems Basically Unaffected by Global Warming, Studies Show

Texas Tan Line

9th April 2012

Thanks, Freeberg.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Texas Tan Line

Our Dangerous Dependence on Foreign Chocolate

9th April 2012

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A majority of us consume chocolate each day. Although the U.S. produces only 6% of the world’s cocoa, we consume more than 20%.

The threat is obvious. It’s time for government to step in and promote alternatives.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Our Dangerous Dependence on Foreign Chocolate

Sprite Step Off: In Step With the Times, or Going a Step Too Far?

9th April 2012

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White college girls from Arkansas go to a national step dancing competition — a dance form that is a hallmark of black fraternities and sororities — and, gee whiz, win the whole darned thing! Boy, are the black sorority sisters steamed!

But wait!

In the final reel, five days after the results set off a national ruckus, show organizers say they discovered a “scoring discrepancy.” They say the second-place sorority from Indiana University, the pink-and-green Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s oldest black sorority, is also a winner! Each team gets $100,000 in scholarships!

I notice that each of the sorority girls in the photo has ‘white girl hair’. Guess they’re just comfortable bein’ black.

But later, when it was announced that the Zetas won, the feel-good vibe evaporated. Large sections of the crowd starting booing. Then Internet and radio-call-in warfare broke out when the videos were posted on YouTube. There were allegations of cultural theft and reverse racism, not to mention race-based taunting and name-calling.

Late last week, Sprite officials said they discovered the scoring discrepancy. This was odd because the show’s host, rapper Ludacris, assured the crowd that the judges’ scores had been “double-checked.”

God forbid that white people should ever win anything ‘black’. After all, what would happen if some black kid won an Irish dance competition? They’d rig it so a white kid won too, wouldn’t they? (Oh, maybe not….)

“If you take race out of it, it doesn’t matter if the Zetas won,” Ross said. “They were good. They won. It’s reasonable to believe the AKA routine was better, but it’s debatable. That’s it. The only reason people are upset about the winners is because they were white.”

Fancy that. Can’t be racism, of course, ’cause only white folks can be racist. It’s in the rules.

Steve Sailer, of course, has some comments.

Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Sprite Step Off: In Step With the Times, or Going a Step Too Far?

The Federal Refugee Industry

9th April 2012

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When we hear the word “refugee”, we tend to think of “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. That image, however — the earnest but impoverished foreigner, lined up along with hundreds of others on Ellis Island eager to work hard for a pittance to make a new life in America — is at least a hundred years out of date.

The typical “wretched refuse” of the 21st century is an illiterate from a backward and barbaric Third World despotism, usually a Muslim one. He’s eager to make a new life in the land of milk and lavish welfare benefits.

An entire industry has been built around the “refugee” process, because big money can be made by the well-connected symbiotes of the federal government inhabiting the public-private penumbra that surrounds the American immigration bureaucracy.

Doing well by doing good.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on The Federal Refugee Industry

In Pakistan: Your Moustache or Your Life

9th April 2012

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For the past two years he has braved death threats, intimidation and been forced to flee his home all in the name of a moustache that demands 30 minutes of grooming every morning. (It’s a highly specialised regimen involving almond oil, hairdryers and a secret wax that no amount of pleading will make him reveal.)

“They arrested me in broad daylight, put me in their car,” he told me. “They took me to a religious scholar who declared the moustache un-Islamic and ordered it removed.

“There was nothing I could do. I was surrounded by guns. If I had resisted I would be dead.”

Yet another reminder the Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology with which no co-existence is possible.

Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on In Pakistan: Your Moustache or Your Life

Name That Party

9th April 2012

Daniel Salinas, Democrat.

The Associated Press manages to write 600 words about the mayor-elect of Sunland Park, New Mexico, Daniel Salinas — “Alcohol, padded expense reports, prostitutes and kickbacks. Those are some the latest charges filed in New Mexico against the mayor-elect of the troubled border town” —without mentioning his political party affiliation.

Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Name That Party

Operations, Machine Learning, and Premature Babies

9th April 2012

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In any neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), every baby is connected to dozens of monitors. And each monitor is streaming hundreds of readings per second into various data systems. They can generate alerts if anything goes severely out of spec, but in normal operation, they just generate a summary report for the doctor every half hour or so.

IBM discovered that by applying machine learning to the full data stream, they were able to diagnose some dangerous infections a full day before any symptoms were noticeable to a human. That’s amazing in itself, but what’s more important is what they were looking for. I expected them to be looking for telltale spikes or irregularities in the readings: perhaps not serious enough to generate an alarm on their own, but still, the sort of things you’d intuitively expect of a person about to become ill. But according to Anjul Bhambhri, IBM’s Vice President of Big Data, the telltale signal wasn’t spikes or irregularities, but the opposite. There’s a certain normal variation in heart rate, etc., throughout the day, and babies who were about to become sick didn’t exhibit the variation. Their heart rate was too normal; it didn’t change throughout the day as much as it should.

Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Operations, Machine Learning, and Premature Babies

With New Monthly Grooming Kits for Men, Birchbox Isn’t Just for fhe Ladies Anymore

9th April 2012

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I’ll refrain from expressing an opinion regarding the metrosexuals who would subscribe to a monthly grooming kit. It would be like kicking a puppy.

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | 1 Comment »

The Obama Economy

9th April 2012

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1. Every fifth man in America is out of a job. Indeed, black male unemployment is now at the highest rate it has ever been since the U.S. government began collecting statistics on the subject in 1972. Just 56.9 percent of black men over the age of 20 are now working. Indeed, according to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), one out of every six African Americans, male or female, are now unemployed.

2. Every seventh person you pass on the sidewalk now relies on food stamps.

3. On the last day of President Bush’s presidency, gas prices were $1.84 a gallon. Today under Obama, the average price of a gallon of gas costs $3.94. Easter weekend in Catalina Island, California, drivers saw prices topping $7 a gallon.

4. In 2006 and 2007, 90% of all college graduates found a job. Under Obama, just56% of college graduates are able to find a job.

5. More than one in four U.S. homeowners are “under water” or owe more than their homes are worth. The housing crisis has now destroyed $7 trillion in U.S. household wealth. Another 9.5 million homes are still at risk of default, sparking what analysts believe will be a second wave of foreclosures in the months to come.

6. President Obama has increased the national debt more in three years than President Bush did in eight. Under Bush, the debt rose $4.899 trillion in eight years. In three years, Obama has exploded the debt by $4.939 trillion.

7. A record 87,897,000 Americans are no longer in the labor force. When the number of individuals who have stopped looking for a job and/or who are working part-time but desire full-time employment is included–a figure known as the “underemployment rate”–real unemployment stands at 19.1%.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Obama Economy

Torch Mobs for Tolerance

9th April 2012

Jim Goad doesn’t much like anyone, apparently with good reason.

These days, “racist” is the favorite smear word for the ideologically intolerant. When people ask me if I’m a “racist” I always ask them for their personal definition of that eternally shape-shifting and ever-expanding social construct. I then explain either why I am or am not a racist based solely on their definition. I also explain that I think the term itself is silly and ultimately meaningless, but it’s not a word that scares me like it appears to cause testicles to leap out of nutsacks and hit the floor running nationwide. But my interrogators—or, just as often, my accusers—hardly ever seem to be looking for explanations. They don’t even seem to know the difference between scientific inquiry and the Spanish Inquisition. Rather, they seem hell-bent on using a rusty knife to pry open my cold heart like a stubborn oyster shell to discover the boundlessly irrational primal HATE they are certain throbs inside. True believers that they are, they take it as an article of faith that evil lurks within the hearts of those who don’t think like they do, and goddamnit, they’re going to find it whether it’s there or not.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Torch Mobs for Tolerance

L’Affaire Derbyshire Goes International

9th April 2012

The Daily Telegraph has a piece that slovenly characterizes John’s article as ‘racist’ but is otherwise fairly accurate.

The disappointing thing is the number of people who, had it been a black guy talking about white people, would have praised it for its ‘courage’ and ‘speaking truth to power’, yet are in the forefront of those howling for his scalp, while out-and-out racists like Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson apparently get a pass.

Nothing so strongly supports what John has to say as the reactions to it.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on L’Affaire Derbyshire Goes International

Nigeria Car Bomb Leaves 38 Dead

8th April 2012

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Car bombers blocked by police from approaching a church instead detonated their explosives in a busy street in Nigeria on Sunday, killing 38 people in an apparent repeat of Islamists’ attacks on Christians on Christmas Day.

That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, Mohammed.

Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Nigeria Car Bomb Leaves 38 Dead

Annals of Government Medicine

8th April 2012

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Obamacare is a Trojan horse, intended, as Barack Obama has said, to lead to the extinction of private health insurance and its replacement by socialized (“single payer”) medicine. So it is pertinent to observe how socialized medicine has worked out in countries where it has been in place for some decades, like the United Kingdom. One key feature of socialized medicine, wherever it exists, is the establishment of death panels. Death panels are needed to ration health care by designating those who are not worth treating, usually by virtue of their age.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Annals of Government Medicine

Time to Erect a Victims of Crime Memorial on the National Mall

7th April 2012

Steve Sailer has one of those excellent ideas that won’t go anywhere.

Far more people have lost loved ones to crime over the decades, and they deserve a serious memorial on the National Mall to commemorate their tragedies. We also have a Victims of Communism Memorial, a Holocaust Museum, and and increasing number of ethnic victim remembrance sites under the names of museums. It’s time for a tasteful, somber memorial to all the people whose losses disappear down the memory hole because their loved ones were random citizens brutalized by criminals.

Of course, the reason it won’t go anywhere is that it will be a constant reproach to those who are ultimately responsible for those deaths, those whose responsibility it was to protect those innocent victims but who, through venality or incompetence or ambition, decided that they had more important fish to fry.

Yeah, Eric Holder, I’m looking at you.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Time to Erect a Victims of Crime Memorial on the National Mall

Use ‘Derbyshire’ as a Verb

7th April 2012

The Other McCain jumps into the latest SWPL controversy, this one involving John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspspsia.

What you might not notice is that this is a skirmish on the fringes of the Trayvon Martin controversy, which has turned into a stalemate, so that now frustrated people are in scalp-taking mode. The NBC producer got taken out by conservatives and now, for some strange reason, NR‘s John Derbyshire just volunteers himself as a target for the Left?

It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it. Since Derb turned up with cancer perhaps he’s looking for a grenade to fall on.

One problem I’ve discovered in trying to communicate with intellectuals is that so many of them are wimps from sheltered backgrounds whose mamas wouldn’t let them play football — apple-polishing goodie-two-shoes who never strayed outside the confines of their safe, wholesome, upwardly-mobile affluent cocoon.

Yeah, that matches my experience. Couple of years in the military would straighten them out — but usually that sort of thing is too yucky for them, so they just stay drones. So we wind up with a country run by drones, which results as you see them.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 6 Comments »

Union Activist on Charter Schools: ‘Why Didn’t White Folks Keep Them for Themselves?’

7th April 2012

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One activist who tried to enter pointed out that the 40-story building where the event took place was owned by “Bain and company”–you know, that evil Mitt Romney’s company.

She also called Juan Williams “a known Republican.”

But perhaps the most remarkable accusation came when she said, “If charter schools were so good, why didn’t the white folks keep them for themselves?”

Really, you can’t make this stuff up.

 

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Here’s How Hard It Is to Fire a Really, Really Bad Teacher

7th April 2012

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A high school science teacher in the Bronx who had already been warned about touching female students brushed his lower body against one student’s leg during a lab exercise, coming so close that she told investigators she could feel his genitals through his pants.

That guy’s still in the classroom, as are a math teacher who harassed a female student via phone and text messages and a health teacher who simulated anal sex on one of his male students. In these and other cases, the Times reports, New York school officials’ efforts to fire such teachers were stymied by contractually-required arbitration that, while finding the teachers at fault, didn’t go so far as to fire them.

And why? Because it’s a government school

  1. Being a government school means being controlled through politics.
  2. Being controlled through politics means being subject to whoever has the most and loudest votes.
  3. Unions almost always have enough (and loud enough) votes to control the political process especially if Democrat are involved.
  4. In a large city, Democrats are always involved — after all, they invented the big city political machine.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 2 Comments »

How We Know That Iran Has a Nuclear Weapons Program

7th April 2012

Read it.

There are more, but let’s face it, if the title were Top 246 reasons, who would look?

Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on How We Know That Iran Has a Nuclear Weapons Program

DNC Defends ‘Jewbag’ Jewish Liaison Because Her Parents Give Obama Cash

7th April 2012

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Children of the Crust can do no wrong.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on DNC Defends ‘Jewbag’ Jewish Liaison Because Her Parents Give Obama Cash

Man, 78, Recounts Assault by 6 Youths in E. Toledo

6th April 2012

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Black kids beat up old white guy.

While Mr. Watts was down the boys kicked him, over and over, shouting, “[Get] that white [man]. This is for Trayvon … Trayvon lives, white [man]. Kill that white [man],” according to a police report.

Obama White House, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson: Yawn.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Man, 78, Recounts Assault by 6 Youths in E. Toledo

Education, Skills & Slavery… and Why We’re Probably Screwed.

6th April 2012

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A couple of years ago I attended a conference which discussed various aspects of public sector and government, and education in particular. During this event I got taken aside by someone who apparently did something fairly high up in the department of education, probably because of my previous work on Elgg which has been linked – for better or worse – to the field of E-Learning.

During our rather meandering conversation on education and politics, he admitted that the education time bomb, as he called it, was a widely acknowledged problem, but that they had no solution whatsoever for it.

He went so far as to admit to me that given the lead time involved for any solution to have an effect it was almost certainly too late to do anything about it in any case.

His candour shocked me, and I asked what he suggested as a recommended course of action; “Leave.”, was his reply, “Before it gets really bad.”

I think this guy is really Dennis in a Clever Plastic Disguise.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

Politics Isn’t About Policy

6th April 2012

Economist Robin Hanson explains some unpleasant facts of life.

Food isn’t about Nutrition
Clothes aren’t about Comfort
Bedrooms aren’t about Sleep
Marriage isn’t about Romance
Talk isn’t about Info
Laughter isn’t about Jokes
Charity isn’t about Helping
Church isn’t about God
Art isn’t about Insight
Medicine isn’t about Health
Consulting isn’t about Advice
School isn’t about Learning
Research isn’t about Progress
Politics isn’t about Policy

When I say “X is not about Y,” I mean that while Y is the function commonly said to drive most X behavior, in fact some other function Z drives X behavior more.

There’s more to most things than meets the eye … or the brain, when you get right down to it.

For example, we want nationalized medicine so poor sick folks will feel cared for, military actions so foreigners will treat us with respect, business deregulation as a sign of respect for hardworking businessfolk, official gay marriage as a sign we accept gays, and so on.

This is why I’ve always said that ‘gay marriage’ isn’t about marriage, it’s about the attempt by homosexuals to have their sexual activities accepted as somehow normal by the wider society when it’s as plain as the nose on your face that their sexual activities are not normal, if normal means anything. Which is why ‘progressives’ attempt to destroy the whole concept of ‘normal’ — the closer they can get to having people accept the DoubleSpeak notion that ‘normal is whatever you want’, then the closer they can get to keeping the sheep quiet while they destroy any aspect of the common culture that they find inconvenient.

This perspective explains why voters tend to prefer proportional representation, why many refuse to vote for any candidate when none have earned their respect, and why so few are interested in institutional reforms that would plausibly give more informed policies.

Hence the resistance in the current Republican primary process to ‘settling’ — I won’t vote for Santorum because he’s a bigot, I won’t vote for Gingrich because he’s a flake, I won’t vote for Romney because he’s a rich white guy and I’ve been raised to believe that rich white guys are the Enemy.

The same process works on the Democrat side: I’ll vote for Obama because he’s a black guy (ignoring the non-black parts) and black guys are oppressed, even though it’s plain as the nose on your face that he’s an incompetent amateur who’s never had an oppressed day in his life. This is why an notorious simpleminded moron like Joe Biden can spend a lifetime getting elected to public office (by people who appear to be even stupider than he is), and wind up a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Politics Isn’t About Policy

No Bowlder Man Than Dennis Walcott Ever Lived

6th April 2012

Smitty at the Other McCain does a little venting.

The Orwellian abuse inflicted upon our culture at the hands of us Postmodern, Progressive–let’s just put it out there–Godless Commies, while actually worse than all of the alcohol, tobacco, and drugs assailing the culture, is a necessary evil to bring about Utopia. From birth (if we deem you fit, in our  Sanger-esque milieu), Progressives must mold formerly free people into our precise little geometric forms, even down to the level of bodily functions.

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Fingerprint Evidence ‘Should Be Regarded as Opinion Not Fact’

6th April 2012

Read it.

Sir Anthony also recommended that special processes be developed for complex fingerprint marks, saying these should be examined by three experts who should reach their conclusions independently, making notes at each stage.

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Trayvon Martin killing: UN Human Rights Chief Calls for Investigation

6th April 2012

Read it.

Ms Pillay made the comments about the controversial case at a press conference in Barbados, as she wrapped up a three-day visit to the Caribbean island nation.

“As High Commissioner for Human Rights, I call for an immediate investigation,” she said.

“Justice must be done for the victim. It’s not just this individual case. It calls into question the delivery of justice in all situations like this.”

Of course, if it hadn’t happened in the U.S., not a word would be said.

If anybody needs proof that the U.N. is full of anti-American wankers, this should do it.

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Healthy Polar Bear Count Confounds Doomsayers

6th April 2012

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The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.

Heh.

 

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Plasma Germ Blaster Gun Invented for Cleaning Skin

5th April 2012

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The plasma gun or “flashlight” requires just a 5V battery to produce enough cold plasma to kill even heat-resistant and antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as Enterococcus faecalis (a nasty gastrointestinal bug). Because the plasma’s heat ranges from 20 to 23°C (68 to 73°F), it doesn’t damage the skin. The bacteria-busting raygun – the work of scientists from China and Australia – costs just $100 to manufacture.

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Oops, Again …

5th April 2012

Steve Sailer gives us some inconvenient truth.

There are patterns that people can notice if they let themselves. And once you let yourself notice the pattern, it’s easier to notice more. For example, an awful lot of the hate crimes that make the news turn out to be hoaxes. That doesn’t mean there are no such things as hate crimes, just that hate crimes like, say, Matthew Yglesias getting stomped for Walking While White is too boring and depressing to be news. The stuff that becomes big news is, typically, a noose is found in the Diversity Nook at some hyper-liberal college.

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The Talk: Nonblack Version

5th April 2012

John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, speaks truth to power.

You have to follow my version of the talk point for point; but if you are white or Asian and have kids, you owe it to them to give them some version of the talk. It will save them a lot of time and trouble spent figuring things out for themselves. It may save their lives.

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When a Woman’s Right to Choose Results in Fewer Women – in the U.S.

4th April 2012

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So the question remains, are those who oppose any restriction on sex-selective abortion as an adjunct of women’s rights, willing to live with the consequence that this choice results in fewer women being born? I imagine the answer will be yes for most, but at least people should be honest about the consequences of their choice.

Posted in Think about it. | 3 Comments »

BMW’s Full-Color HUD: Distraction, Minimizer of Distractions, or Costly Tech Gadget?

4th April 2012

Read it.

I don’t care what you call it, I want one.

Posted in News You Can Use. | 1 Comment »

How Property Rights Solve Problems

4th April 2012

David Henderson, a Real Economist, points out the obvious.

 

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Figureheads Go on Show Under the Restored Cutty Sark in Greenwich

4th April 2012

Check it out.

The Telegraph has a new and greatly improved method of doing photo slideshows.

When I went aloft through the lubber’s hole
The mate, he cried, ‘Why, damn your soul!’…

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The Myth of Self-Radicalization

4th April 2012

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As someone who has worked in the criminal justice system for 26 years and a considerable amount of that time in the prison system, I can tell you emphatically that Merah’s radicalization was much more than self-induced. One does not become “self-radicalized” in prison. The constant interaction that occurs within a prison negates that. There is always a facilitator, an influence, or a catalyst. Be that literature, another cellmate, or a clergy. What was the integer in this case?

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