Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Radbot posted:

Try frequenting any SJ board/tumblr and you'll frequently see claims that allies/activists that advocate for a minority that they are not specifically a part of cannot ever be legitimate fighters for that cause.

This is getting into derail territory, but Huey Newton of the Black Panther Party once responded to a question from a white guy about how he could support the Black Panthers, Newton being an early voice for the perspective that it's bad for a movement trying to help black people if well-meaning, clueless white people take over. Newton said that he could start the White Panthers and start explaining to white people what was going on and what they could do to help (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Panther_Party best motto of any group ever, by the way), and the guy did just that.

Tim Wise seems like he's doing that kind of thing--being a white guy talking to white people about whiteness. That doesn't seem like the same thing as taking over anti-racist activism, but just getting his foot in the door with clueless, well-meaning white people to tell them something they'd take as an attack if a black person said it.

# ? May 4, 2013 22:49

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 19:31

The Warszawa: Jun 6, 2005; Look at me. Look at me.

I am the captain now.

Radbot posted:

Some people view people that have a vested interest in the topic at hand as not able to be completely impartial about it. It's extremely dumb in this circumstance, but it does happen. People that hate on white anti-racist advocates or straight/cis LGBT allies are the people who make the SJ movement look loving dumb and alienating to outsiders.

The thing is, there's a difference between hating on allies and not wanting non-group members to co-opt the group or dictate conduct, especially not by conditioning allyship on running the show. Wise isn't doing that, but it happens enough in large and small scale projects to be a serious problem.

# ? May 5, 2013 14:35

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Jack Gladney posted:

Tim Wise seems like he's doing that kind of thing--being a white guy talking to white people about whiteness. That doesn't seem like the same thing as taking over anti-racist activism, but just getting his foot in the door with clueless, well-meaning white people to tell them something they'd take as an attack if a black person said it.

He's immune to certain kinds of criticism (mostly bullshit, but enough to stop a lot of people listening), anything which relies on the speaker's race, or status as an out-group member.

# ? May 5, 2013 14:48

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Never mind

The Vosgian Beast fucked around with this message at 18:43 on May 5, 2013

# ? May 5, 2013 16:33

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

What?

# ? May 5, 2013 18:35

A Fancy 400 lbs: Jul 24, 2008

Your post is a bit confusingly worded, at first I read it to mean "white" as the outgroup within "anti-racist activists" instead of meaning he's immune from the criticism that a black activist would get from society at large.

# ? May 5, 2013 19:10

Mr Interweb: Aug 25, 2004

hakarl posted:

Man, being poor sounds awesome!

I don't know what to say other than that I can only hope this is satire, but I don't think it is. I know better than to read internet comments, what's wrong with me?

The guy DOES make some good points about technological advancements making things easier for a poor person nowadays than a rich guy in the 1920s, but following this line of thought, wouldn't that mean that a modern day rich guy be even better?

# ? May 5, 2013 21:12

Who What Now: Sep 10, 2006; by Azathoth

Mr Interweb posted:

The guy DOES make some good points about technological advancements making things easier for a poor person nowadays than a rich guy in the 1920s, but following this line of thought, wouldn't that mean that a modern day rich guy be even better?

Being able to play MP3s and Google any inane trivia you want, while nice, doesn't put food in your stomach.

# ? May 6, 2013 16:27

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

There's one thing the poor rarely get, and the rich rarely lack: security.

# ? May 6, 2013 16:32

A Fancy 400 lbs: Jul 24, 2008

Yep:

quote:

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

-Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Book 1, Chapter 8

# ? May 6, 2013 17:25

ProperGanderPusher: Jan 13, 2012

Pththya-lyi posted:

How does he imagine a poor person will actually take that?

"Oh, silly me! Of course I can move away from the freeway! After all, costs of living are the same everywhere. I can't imagine what I was even worried about."

Just move into the woods and live off the land! I dream about doing it all the time after watching reruns of Little House on the Prarie! If anything, I envy our spoiled poor by being able to leave it all behind easier.

# ? May 6, 2013 22:29

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Dennis Prager is very infuriating because he seems like such a nice old man, is funny for a conservative, and he even sounds like a wise old rabbi when he's doing his non-political talk hours. Then he changes the topic to politics and it's absolute purestrain crazy, this has to be one of the worst op eds he has done yet.

quote:

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced last week that it will discontinue the free school breakfast plan it initiated last year.

Called "Food for Thought," the plan provides school breakfasts to about 200,000 students.

It was funded by the LAUSD and the nonprofit Los Angeles Fund for Public Education, whose goal is to raise the number who participate to about 450,000 students (out of a total of 645,000 in the entire district).

If you go to the fund's website (lafund.org), you are greeted with these messages: "Learn to dream" (in English and in Spanish) and "Imagine your life without limits." These are essentially meaningless messages. But, as we shall see, the fund's breakfast program is not only meaningless; it is quite destructive.

The reasons for the announced cancellation were that the program had drawn rodents and insects into classrooms, and that classroom learning time was being wasted by students eating for long periods in class.

But the rodents, insects and disruption of class learning time are nothing in terms of destructiveness compared to the free breakfast itself.

First, the program was created to solve a problem that does not exist.

It is inconceivable that there are five, let alone 200,000 or the projected 450,000, homes in Los Angeles that cannot afford breakfast for their child. A nutritious breakfast can be had for less than a dollar. For examples, go to WebMD, which lists five "Breakfast Ideas for a Buck."

Second, it both enables and encourages irresponsible, disinterested and incompetent parenting. Given how inexpensive breakfast can be (not to mention the myriad public and private programs that provide food for poor households), any home that cannot provide its child with breakfast demands a visit from child protective services. Any parent who cannot give a child breakfast is not too poor; he or she is too incapable of being, or too irresponsible to be, a competent parent.

Third, even where decent parents are involved, free breakfasts at school weaken the parent-child bond. Hundreds of thousands of parents who are able and happy to provide their child with breakfast have accepted the offer -- because anything free is too enticing for an increasing number of Americans. But what they have done is made the proverbial deal with the devil. They have traded in one of the most fundamental definitions of parenthood -- providing one's children with food -- for a dollar and for a little less work as a parent. As a result, these parents become less of a parent to their children.

And fourth, the free breakfast profoundly weakens young people's character. When you grow up learning to depend on the state, you will almost inevitably -- even understandably -- assume that the state will take care of you. And you will grow up also assuming -- as do Europeans, who give far less charity than Americans for this very reason -- that the state will take care of your fellow citizens, including your own children.

These are the ways in which the left has damaged children and families through free school breakfasts.

But it gets worse. "Canceling" the program does not mean ending it.

Remember, the program is not being canceled because of its destructive effects on students and family life. The reasons it is being canceled are that rodents and insects infest classrooms, and that classroom learning time is wasted while the children stretch out breakfast eating time.

Therefore, the program is being shifted to the schools' cafeterias. The public employee unions, which govern the state of California and the city of Los Angeles, have demanded that the program be shifted from the classroom to the school cafeterias so as to employ more cafeteria workers.

Virtually everything the left touches is either immediately or eventually harmed. The free breakfast program is only one, albeit a particularly dramatic, example.

Why, then, do progressives advocate it? Because it meets three essential characteristics of the left wing: It strengthens the state; it has governmental authority replace parental authority; and perhaps most importantly, it makes progressives feel good about themselves. The overriding concern of the left is not whether a program does good. It is whether it feels good.

What I want to know is what does he plan on doing with all of the poor people's kids once CPS takes them away? Surely the solution isn't to simply have BIG GUBMINT take care of them until they're 18, maybe we can borrow from newt's idea and make them indentured child janitor servants or something.

# ? May 8, 2013 02:33

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

MaxxBot posted:

Dennis Prager is very infuriating because he seems like such a nice old man, is funny for a conservative, and he even sounds like a wise old rabbi when he's doing his non-political talk hours. Then he changes the topic to politics and it's absolute purestrain crazy, this has to be one of the worst op eds he has done yet.

What I want to know is what does he plan on doing with all of the poor people's kids once CPS takes them away? Surely the solution isn't to simply have BIG GUBMINT take care of them until they're 18, maybe we can borrow from newt's idea and make them indentured child janitor servants or something.

The pain of a missed meal teaches well the benefit of labor. Those kids will be begging to get out of class to serve the school as janitors once they go a few days without food in their algebra classes. Hell, if they're not smart enough to realize that, they'll fail out from poor performance from all those missed meals!

# ? May 8, 2013 03:32

Sharkie: Feb 4, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Worthless Aristo Swine posted:

If you go to the fund's website (lafund.org), you are greeted with these messages: "Learn to dream" (in English and in Spanish) and "Imagine your life without limits." These are essentially meaningless messages. But, as we shall see, the fund's breakfast program is not only meaningless

You could do a line-by-line analysis of how ignorant and disconnected from reality this poo poo is, but I wanted to highlight this for special attention. These are absolutely not meaningless messages. I guess they're meaningless for him because he lives in an environment where you can dream, you can imagine yourself doing all sorts of things, because you have financial resources, the support of a loving, materially secure family, and a nice piece of paper saying you have an education. As well as other more intangible psychological assets, social skills, etc.

This man has never been in a room with a bunch of teenage boys who are convinced they'll be dead or in prison by the age of 22.

He's never had to teach kids whose idea of a dream job is working at (not owning, but working at) a nail salon.

Convincing kids like that to dream of a better life is absolutely essential, and is incredibly difficult for everyone involved.

# ? May 8, 2013 04:02

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

What's wrong with wanting to work at a nail salon? Why should that be looked down upon? It seems like it'd be a cool place to work for a chatty girl who's into that kind of stupid bullshit.

Well, it would be if you didn't have to be a captain of industry in order to not have every other aspect of your life ruined.

You shouldn't want to be the person who makes it possible for capitalists to be capitalists: capitalists admit this.

VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 05:46 on May 8, 2013

# ? May 8, 2013 04:57

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

VideoTapir posted:

What's wrong with wanting to work at a nail salon? Why should that be looked down upon? It seems like it'd be a cool place to work for a chatty girl who's into that kind of stupid bullshit.

Well, it would be if you didn't have to be a captain of industry in order to not have every other aspect of your life ruined.

You shouldn't want to be the person who makes it possible for capitalists to be capitalists: capitalists admit this.

What the hell? I believe the guy was saying that it is wrong for certain girls to believe that the best possible job they could get, a "dream job", is working in a nail salon. As in, it's wrong for them to think that that is the upper limit of what they can strive for. I don't see at all how the dude was saying that working in a nail salon is to be looked down upon.

# ? May 8, 2013 10:31

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

You're doing the same thing I was talking about.

# ? May 8, 2013 12:34

Armyman25: Sep 6, 2005

Here is the list from Web MD of breakfast for a dollar. The first five are fast food:

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/breakfast-ideas-for-a-buck

WebMD posted:

I found cheap and healthy breakfast ideas at McDonald's, Burger King, and Jack in the Box.

McDonald's Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait: $1 (from dollar menu)
160 calories, 2 grams fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 0 gram trans, 4 grams protein, 5 mg cholesterol, 85 mg sodium, 1 gram fiber
McDonald's Sausage Burrito: $1 (from dollar menu)
300 calories, 16 grams fat, 7 grams saturated fat, .5 gram trans, 12 grams protein, 130 mg cholesterol, 830 mg sodium, 1 gram fiber
Burger King Ham Omelet Sandwich: $1.08
290 calories, 13 grams fat, 4.5 grams saturated fat, 0 grams trans, 13 grams protein, 85 mg cholesterol, 870 mg sodium, 1 gram fiber
Burger King French Toast Sticks, 3 piece: $1.08
240 calories, 13 grams fat, 2.5 grams saturated fat, 0 grams trans, 4 grams protein, 0 mg cholesterol, 260 mg sodium, 1 gram fiber
Jack in the Box Breakfast Jack: $1.07
290 calories, 13 grams fat, 4 grams saturated fat, 0 grams trans, 16 g protein, 219 mg sodium, 757 mg sodium, 1 gram fiber

# ? May 8, 2013 19:48

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

Ho Chi Mint posted:

Here is the list from Web MD of breakfast for a dollar. The first five are fast food:

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/breakfast-ideas-for-a-buck

She doesn't even list carbs or sugar at all.

She has a master's in public health and is giving terrible health advice, so it seems appropriate to mention that she is fat:

http://www.webmd.com/elaine-magee

# ? May 8, 2013 20:03

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

edit: nvm

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 20:57 on May 8, 2013

# ? May 8, 2013 20:50

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

This lady clearly isn't the sharpest tool in the shed...but how anyone, ever, with this kind of attitude (not thinking you can give away a national cemetary plot, and wanting to give it to him; but having that sort of craving for peace) would think it would be a good idea to talk to Fox News, even a Fox affiliate, is a good idea is something that I will never comprehend.

http://joeforamerica.com/2013/05/boston-bomber-to-be-buried-at-arlington/

quote:

Boston Bomber to be buried at Arlington
Posted by Joe Wurzelbacher on May 7, 2013 in Culture, Email Featured, Religion, Veterans Affairs, Videos
5659 249 17 2573 8566

If Julie Frein has anything to say about it�
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, aka: The Islamic jihadist scumbag, aka: the dead Boston Bomber will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery if one US Air Force Veteran has her way.

Yes, you heard that right. The murdering, older brother who killed three and maimed hundreds more innocent people at the Boston Marathon, including an eight-year-old blown to bits has been offered a National Cemetery burial plot by a USAF veteran named Julie Frein. What?

You heard right � Julie Frein served two years of a four-year commitment some time ago and was discharged honorably. Well, something went very, very wrong because this biat-shiite crazy woman has made a teary-eyed request to give her burial plot bequeathed to her by America to her fellow biat-shiite crazy traveler Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Sure, he�s an extremist killer, but that�s cool with Julie Frein, I guess. She just �wants the hate to stop�� I also guess she wasn�t paying attention when it was reported that this little fartknocker from Chechnya would have continued killing in Times Square and anywhere else he could, had he not been thwarted by Boston Authorities and subsequently ran over by his little brother accomplis.

We have a military which is Constitutionally compelled for one reason � to protect our country from foreigners who want us gone. I know there�s securing energy supplies, trade routes and keeping the free market rocking for all of us, but the bottom line is our military is for blowing up stuff and killing people. So what was Julie Fein doing in the military in the first place? I�ll tell you: It�s because of the social experiment the Armed Forces has had to endure. I for one am glad she�s no longer in the Armed Forces, but this is proof she should be put in a rubber room.

I can understand, back in the day honoring a worthy opponent. What I don�t understand and will never understand is honoring a scumbag Islamic Terrorist. Tamerlan Tsarnaev is hated and reviled by all Americans � especially this American � and just the suggestion that he receive an honorable burial plot anywhere is complete lunacy. Unless you�re a leftist or Chris Matthews. But I repeat myself.

Let�s be honest, this is a Barack Obama wet dream. There must be a chill going up the leg of The President at the prospect that this Muslim extremist, this Islamic Terrorist, this Jihadist women and children killer in the name of Allah could be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. For a man who cannot even say the words in public, an America-hating terrorist buried at the most hallowed ground in our country must be the things that Hope & Change are made of.

# ? May 9, 2013 03:21

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

VideoTapir posted:

This lady clearly isn't the sharpest tool in the shed...but how anyone, ever, with this kind of attitude (not thinking you can give away a national cemetary plot, and wanting to give it to him; but having that sort of craving for peace) would think it would be a good idea to talk to Fox News, even a Fox affiliate, is a good idea is something that I will never comprehend.

http://joeforamerica.com/2013/05/boston-bomber-to-be-buried-at-arlington/

This guy used the word "fartknocker" and now I'm reading it in Butthead's voice.

# ? May 9, 2013 07:08

The Midniter: Jul 9, 2001

Zeroisanumber posted:

This guy used the word "fartknocker" and now I'm reading it in Butthead's voice.

I'm surprised you were able to continue reading after the first instance of "biat-shiite".

# ? May 9, 2013 15:15

Gourd of Taste: Sep 11, 2006; by Ralp

Oh is that joe the plumber

# ? May 9, 2013 15:24

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Yes it is. He's subliterately British now.

# ? May 9, 2013 15:25

TerminalSaint: Apr 21, 2007; Where must we go...

we who wander this Wasteland in search of our better selves?

Current and former military personnel are heroes and demigods and should be worshiped as such.

Unless I disagree with them.

# ? May 9, 2013 21:40

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Mike Adams is exceptionally douchey even by the standards of conservative pundits, everything he writes is just dripping with spite and vitriol. His latest column is supposedly what he would tell Jason Collins if he were president, even though in real life any self-respecting person would tell him to gently caress off and hang up before he got halfway though this self-righteous diatribe.

quote:

My Phone Call To Jason Collins

People often write to me expressing their dissatisfaction with President Obama and his policies. They also like to write to me asking how I will do things differently if I am elected president in 2016. For example, they ask whether I would have taken the time to call Jason Collins after he "came out" - becoming the first openly gay active player in the NBA. The answer is a definite "yes." I would have called him immediately. And here is what I would have been able to say to the White House Press corps if later asked about our conversation:

"I told Jason I could have been much prouder of him. One of the extraordinary measures of social regression that we have seen in this country has been the insistence that the interests of the LGBT community be interjected into every aspect of American life. Now, the agenda is even present in kindergarten sex education classes in Massachusetts. At first, it was placed there by those who insisted that such educational classes would be fully optional for objecting parents. Now, parents who show up at these schools objecting to the sexualization of their children are threatened with prosecution for trespass. None of this would be happening if homosexuals were content to live their lives privately and peacefully without imposing their agenda upon those who respectfully disagree with them.

"I reminded Jason that everyone deserves full equality. But I also reminded Jason that the so-called LGBT community already has full equality, not just partial equality. For example, he had a right to marry his fianc� of seven years. But just because he decided to relinquish that right, it does not mean the courts need to create a new right for him to exercise. The polygamists tried that in the 1800s and the Supreme Court rightly said �no� to their legal arguments. Given that there is far greater historical acceptance of polygamy than so-called gay marriage, he has no broad right to marry anyone he chooses. So I urged Jason not to use his newfound platform to push this issue. I will have more to say about substitutionary rights - the idea that when you relinquish a right, you get to select a new one - in a future press conference. But now back to Jason.

"I also told him that I was disappointed that the LGBT community was no longer seeking tolerance, but instead seeking acquiescence to the notion that their lifestyle is every bit as healthy as the traditional American family. Of course, that is simply absurd. I reminded him that even Elton John recently recognized that his adopted son would suffer because he had no 'mummy.' I urged Jason to avoid gay adoption as it was not in the interests of the child - although it might be an effective publicity stunt once his first round of media adoration has subsided.

"Given the importance of sports in our society, for an individual who's been mediocre at best in one of those major sports to suddenly say 'This is who I am. I'm proud of it. I'm still a great competitor. I'm still seven foot tall and deliver a hard foul' was simply a distraction. I think for a lot of young people out there who are confused and who are struggling with these issues, to see a role model like that who is interjecting sex into sports, well, it's just not a good thing. I think America should be concerned that this is just one more stunt reinforcing this ongoing illusion that we do not treat everybody fairly, and that we judge people on the basis of their sex life rather than their character and their job performance. We can't judge them on the basis of those things if they keep interjecting sex into the workplace. That just isn't right. So, I'm very displeased with Jason and I told him that.

"Over the course of his career, Jason has averaged less than five points a game and made less than two-thirds of his free throws. The fact that he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated merely because of the fact that he likes to have sex with men is just embarrassing. There are far better and more deserving athletes who will never be featured on the cover of a major sports magazine. What a shame he got there the easy way by 'coming out' rather than coming to the gym to work on his foul shots.

"I told Jason, what is most notable about his recent conduct is his lack of courage. He lived a lie and misled a nice woman for seven years. Only after it became politically correct to be gay - and when anyone on the NBA was assured a six-digit fine for criticizing him - did he come forward. I've never seen a seven foot man act so small.

Jason has taught young people to do easy things, not hard things, in order to win the affection of others. He has taught them that they are to be judged, not by the content of their character, but by the many colors of the banner of sexual political correctness. That will be the legacy of Jason Collins. I wish he had thought of the long term consequences of his decisions before he made them. Whether we like it or not, an athlete is a role model. Others are watching. And that is something I plan to talk about again in my next White House Press Conference.

"Now, does anyone have any questions about the economy? This country is in serious debt and we�ve already wasted too much time on an over-paid, aging athlete who is neither a victim nor a hero.�

I want to judge you by the content of your character but I just can't because whenever your name comes up I just can't think of anything other than disgusting, immoral, hot, steamy gay se.... what were we talking about?

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 22:20 on May 9, 2013

# ? May 9, 2013 22:16

Crameltonian: Mar 27, 2010

Wait, gays have equal rights because they can marry women and Collins is bad for giving up that right but he's also bad for being in a relationship with a woman and living a lie? Just come out and say 'gently caress off human being', it'll be more honest and spare us having to read your disingenuous arguments. edit: Also 'Why did you come out, no one wants to know?' 'Why didn't you come out sooner you coward!?'

And sure, being gay is just so easy. :allears:

I chose to be gay because I'm just too cowardly to face the hardships straight people have to face every day like

# ? May 9, 2013 22:40

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN: Jun 26, 2009

Sweet fanfic. Could have used more sephiroths.

# ? May 10, 2013 09:30

Mo_Steel: Mar 7, 2008; Let's Clock Into The Sunset Together; Fun Shoe

Sharkie posted:

You could do a line-by-line analysis of how ignorant and disconnected from reality this poo poo is, but I wanted to highlight this for special attention. These are absolutely not meaningless messages. I guess they're meaningless for him because he lives in an environment where you can dream, you can imagine yourself doing all sorts of things, because you have financial resources, the support of a loving, materially secure family, and a nice piece of paper saying you have an education. As well as other more intangible psychological assets, social skills, etc.

This man has never been in a room with a bunch of teenage boys who are convinced they'll be dead or in prison by the age of 22.

He's never had to teach kids whose idea of a dream job is working at (not owning, but working at) a nail salon.

Convincing kids like that to dream of a better life is absolutely essential, and is incredibly difficult for everyone involved.

Reminds me a lot of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

Hard to have a dream if you're stuck trying to fulfill base physiological and safety needs day to day.

# ? May 10, 2013 15:32

MD2020: May 30, 2003; she had tiny Italian boobs.
Well that's my story.

MaxxBot posted:

Mike Adams is exceptionally douchey ...

I think I'm more upset at Adams' POTUS for just not getting to the point already. He could be saying something I agree with and I'd be like, drat dude, let's wrap this up.

This may be my favorite part:

quote:

"Over the course of his career, Jason has averaged less than five points a game and made less than two-thirds of his free throws. The fact that he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated merely because of the fact that he likes to have sex with men is just embarrassing. There are far better and more deserving athletes who will never be featured on the cover of a major sports magazine. What a shame he got there the easy way by 'coming out' rather than coming to the gym to work on his foul shots.

I don't know which part I like better: that the President would be dropping stats like knowledge bombs in his press conference or the insinuation that all of the hard work, dedication, and desire that goes into having a 12 year career in the absolute top league of his chosen sport is taking the "easy way".

I'd rather see wall-to-wall coverage of Collins' games next year, when he's mostly on the bench, than see one more Tebow cover on SI or ESPN. And I don't even hate Tebow; he's just a bad pro football player.

# ? May 10, 2013 16:02

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Tatum Girlparts posted:

And by 'love' I mean 'want to throw out a window'.

You mean 'defenestrate' :eng101:

# ? May 10, 2013 18:13

Swing State Victim: Nov 8, 2012

This appeared in the Star Tribune on Wednesday before the Minnesota House voted to legalize gay marriage. For the most part it's boiler plate "gay marriage hurts straight marriage" stuff. He hits all the big ones: polygamy, kids getting married, overly short marriage. I can't help but appreciate the kind of dedication it takes to cling to such bad arguments.

At one point he also unintentionally makes a case for where gay couples might actually be better at raising children. See if you can spot it.

quote:

Mother�s Day is coming up � the day we pay lip service to all that Mother brings to parenting. A month later, Father�s Day arrives � and we pay lip service to what Father brings to parenting.

A few of us troglodytes still truly believe that Mother brings something special that a father doesn�t, and that Father brings something special that a mother doesn�t.

But a growing number of us don�t believe there�s anything unique about gender when it comes to raising a family.

Not that long ago, the book �Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus � sold 50 million copies because its explanation of why men were different from women resonated with many. Today, many people see the sexes as interchangeable.

Just two years ago, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that if a woman had been on an Arizona appellate court, she would have understood how a young girl felt when strip-searched, and the court�s decision would have changed. Now, Justice Ginsburg is about to rule, in effect, on whether womanhood makes a difference in raising a child.

Will she say men married to each other can understand a young girl as well as a woman? Or will she be consistent and say that a young girl needs a mother?

President Obama used to exhort men to take responsibility and be fathers. Now, by taking the side of gay marriage, he says that two women can do the job.

Obama no doubt wants to be on the side of history�s march to gay marriage.

For all those gay-marriage enthusiasts who claim they are �on the side of history,� I ask: Will you also be on the side of history when marriage is no longer solely between two people? For why would history deny marriage to two people who love each other just because one of them is already married to a third, whom she also loves?

I would also ask: Why would history deny two 15-year olds who love each other the right to marry? Finally: How do we define love?

A brother and sister love each other, and might benefit from the legal rights attached to marriage (no one says they have to have sex together). Am I making a mockery of the issue? Am I exaggerating? Twenty years ago, people would have said that about forecasts of gay marriage.

History has brought us to the point where a Kardashian can profess married love for 72 hours. Is there anything magical about the number 72? What would stop someone for loving for seven hours, or seven minutes? Who is to discriminate against short marriages? Prostitution could be legalized by quick marriages followed by quicker divorces.

An April 30 Star Tribune column (�Wanted: Men to mentor children�) stated: �But research has shown that some of the most effective mentoring comes from matching youth and mentors of the same sex.� So, there is research that says something is different about how genders mentor or raise other genders.

Perhaps I�m fighting a rear-guard action. But I believe the chief benefit of marriage to government is the development of new citizens. And best practices say that is done through a mother and a father, each bringing different intrinsic human values by virtue of their sex.

In other words, a citizen of Earth is best created by a woman from Venus and a man from Mars.

Have a happy Mother�s Day while you can. History says its days are numbered.

# ? May 10, 2013 20:19

Nick_326: Nov 3, 2011; History's Latest Monster

Mr Interweb posted:

The guy DOES make some good points about technological advancements making things easier for a poor person nowadays than a rich guy in the 1920s, but following this line of thought, wouldn't that mean that a modern day rich guy be even better?

This reminded me of some small controversy that went down last year, when some news site published a story that included a photo of a an 8-year-old with an iPad on the steps of his public housing development. I like the point the author made here:

quote:

I could try to defend myself and say that I think it's ridiculous for anybody in any income bracket to buy rims, but that's rather beside the point. I'm not my best self when I'm sitting in judgment and managing other people's money, and I doubt you're at your best when you do.

The idea that most people in public housing are living the lush life has persisted for at least as long as presidential candidate Ronald Reagan started using the offensive "welfare queen." But you ought to take a walk through the Iberville if you think its residents are living like royalty. Walk through and see if you'd exchange their thrones for yours.

The sight of a kid in public housing with an iPad doesn't offend me. Actually it gives me hope. So many poor people have no access to the digital world. They fall behind in school because of it. They miss the opportunity to apply for certain jobs. Yes an iPad is an expensive gadget, but we can't deny its usefulness. As computers go, an iPad comes cheaper than most laptops and desktops.

Back on topic, with some context courtesy of this post in a thread on miscarriages of justice:

EllisD posted:

Wrongfully convicted people is what always infuriates me. This country has a track record with doing this to blacks. The absolute worst cases are when multiple people are tried for a crime and all wrongfully convicted.

One of the most famous cases is the Central Park Jogger case that convicted 5 minority males, a.k.a. The Central Park Five, of brutally assaulting and raping a white woman in Central Park. They happened to be running with a group of 20-30 juveniles who were committing actual harassment and assault on people in the park, but happened to do at the same time a serial rapist named Matias Reyes was brutally raping Trisha Meili. They weren't near the location when it happened, but during questioning the police never told the kids where the crime took place. The kids were railroaded and coerced into implicating the others.

The most central person responsible is Linda Fairstein who was the lead investigator (and busy promoting her books on Facebook, who has never suffered any consequences for ruining the lives of five kids. In fact, after Mr. Reyes confessed to raping the woman, Fairstein only slightly changed her original conclusion and said the kids must have helped him rape her because no man could to that by himself.

The five kids filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the city of New York, and the city refuses to settle.

Another much more well-known case is the West Memphis Three. Going with the theme of Satanic hysteria, the teenagers were accused of murdering young boys in a Satanic ritual.

PBS recently aired a documentary on the case, and some guy started a petition to get Elizabeth Lederer (the case's prosecutor who, to my knowledge, has never apologized for her role) fired from Columbia Law School. Sounds understandable, right?

Jim Dwyer, a Pulitzer-winning journalist who appeared in the documentary and had written about how Lederer misrepresented evidence, somehow has the loving gall to make this staggering false equivalency:

quote:

It was a simple task to discover Elizabeth Lederer on Google, just as those boys were easy to find in the park. The petition has found someone to blame, repeating the very mistake of the injustice it deplores.

Yes, convicting a group of people for a crime they didn't commit is the same as trying to hold a public official accountable for poo poo she actually did.

quote:

The petition against Ms. Lederer, in part, reduces her life in public service to a single moment, the jogger case. In fact, she has a lengthy r�sum� of unchallenged convictions in cold cases, having pursued investigations of forgotten crimes.

There are people who are in prison solely for marijuana possession. Countless people in prison are there because they were judged on single moments.

quote:

No one lives without error.

This is true. Just last month I got several people convicted for rape by misleading everyone, which allowed the real rapist to continue going around raping other people. WHOOPSY DAISY.

quote:

And designating a single villain completely misses the point and power of the documentary. The jogger case belongs to a historical moment, not any one prosecutor or detective; it grew in the soils of a rancid, angry, fearful time.

And that means nobody should face any consequences for this travesty. Got it.

Ta-Nehisi Coates responds to this, and is golden:

quote:

For my part, I'm a little puzzled by Dwyer's defense. Before she scrubbed her bio, Lederer proudly advertised her role in the prosecution of the Central Park Five. Ledere did not simply fail to live "without error." She sent a 16-year old boy to Riker's Island on the basis of coerced testimony. She sent four other boys off to prison, and she did this even after it was revealed that no DNA from any of the attackers was found on the victim. The real rapist was not found because of the investigative efforts of the police or Lederer, but because of his own need to confess. If not for that confession the Central Park Five would still be considered rapists. By that time the rapist had gone on to rape other women, killing one.

The notion that someone who played a principle role in this travesty should be training lawyers at one of the best schools in the country is rather amazing. We are not suggesting that our prosecutors must live "without error." We are suggest that those who participated in one of the most dubious cases in the city's history, and have never apologized for it, should not be in the business of educating the next generation of lawyers.

# ? May 10, 2013 22:26

Lee Harvey Oswald: Mar 17, 2007; by exmarx

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/may/11/vw-investment-a-huge-benefit-to-our-city/?opinionletters

quote:

United States needs to keep Muslims out

Recent events are a wakeup call for America to end Muslim immigration.

The Iranian revolution was as far-reaching as the Russian and French Revolution combined.

When the U.S. and England did not support Sweden after the Muslim attack, it was a grave failure on the part of the West. America should learn from Europe and its failure to act. France will be Muslim in less than 50 years by out-birthing. There are 60 Muslim enclaves around Paris, where no French man enters.

America needs to close all Islamic schools. America needs to end Muslim students attending U.S. colleges. Harvard and Yale alone have accepted $10 million in grants from Islam.

Hamas calls for the destruction of the Rotary Club and the Lions Club. There are over 30 Hamas chapters in America in places like Raleigh and Kansas City. There are Islamic terrorist already in America, and our borders are not protected.

JOE KING, Signal Mountain

Signal Mountain :banjo:

# ? May 11, 2013 12:19

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

If my name was Joe King, and I weren't trolling, I'd call myself "Joseph."

# ? May 11, 2013 12:43

Pththya-lyi: Nov 8, 2009; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020

Is it possible that Joe King is, in fact, the pseudonym of a troll taking advantage of Poe's Law? See if any more editorials show up under names like Justin Case or Anna Conda.

# ? May 11, 2013 13:42

Armyman25: Sep 6, 2005

Lee Harvey Oswald posted:

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/may/11/vw-investment-a-huge-benefit-to-our-city/?opinionletters

Signal Mountain

When did "The Muslims" attack Sweden?

# ? May 11, 2013 16:02

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

I love all this "traditional marriage" talk. My family came to America in 1889, my great-great grandparents got married when they were 13. It was your typical traditional marriage, wherein my grandmother was traded by her father to my grandfather's father for a moderate bride-price. The very concept of marriage for love is an extremely recent development in the history of human relationships. My family is full of excellent historians who have kept detailed records of our family transactions, including original contracts for several arranged marriages.

I bring this up every time I get into an argument about gay marriage and somebody uses the term "traditional marriage." Invariably they are talking about a concept of marriage that is plainly non-traditional and religious in nature, which is set against the bulk of human history- and American history- where marriage is clearly an economic and legal relationship. This general ignorance about the traditional property-contractual marriage and the modern love-choice marriage is really the problem, and the marriage paradigm most people argue about has only been in effect for scarcely 100 years (the last arranged marriage I have records for in my family took place in 1915). In the paradigm of love-choice marriages, it shouldn't be surprising that homosexual marriage has caught on culturally in so little time, and it is specifically because our modern conception of heterosexual marriage has also only been around for a very short time.

# ? May 11, 2013 18:01

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 26, 2024 19:31

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Well this is lovely

quote:

Four years ago, long before he�d join the Heritage Foundation, before Marco Rubio was even in the Senate, Jason Richwine armed a time bomb. A three-member panel at Harvard�s John F. Kennedy School of Government accepted Richwine�s thesis, titled �IQ and Immigration Policy.� In it, Richwine provided statistical evidence that Hispanic immigrants, even after several generations, had lower IQs than non-Hispanic whites. Immigration reformers were fools if they didn�t grapple with that.

"Visceral opposition to IQ selection can sometimes generate sensationalistic claims�for example, that this is an attempt to revive social Darwinism, eugenics, racism, etc,� wrote Richwine. �Nothing of that sort is true. � an IQ selection system could utilize individual intelligence test scores without any resort to generalizations.�
This week, Heritage released a damning estimate of the immigration bill, co-authored by Richwine. The new study was all about cost, totally eliding the IQ issues that Richwine had mastered, but it didn�t matter after Washington Post reporter Dylan Matthews found the dissertation. Heritage hurried to denounce it��its findings in no way reflect the positions of The Heritage Foundation��and Richwine has ducked any more questions from the press.

His friends and advisers saw this coming. Immigration reform�s political enemies know�and can�t stand�that racial theorists are cheering them on from the cheap seats. They know that the left wants to exploit that�why else do so many cameras sprout up whenever Minutemen appear on the border, or when Pat Buchanan comes out of post-post-post retirement to write another book about the �death of the West?�
Academics aren�t so concerned with the politics. But they know all too well the risks that come with research connecting IQ and race. At the start of his dissertation, Richwine thanked his three advisers�George Borjas, Christopher Jenks, and Richard Zeckhauser�for being so helpful and so bold. Borjas �helped me navigate the minefield of early graduate school,� he wrote. �Richard Zeckhauser, never someone to shy away from controversial ideas, immediately embraced my work.�

Yet they don�t embrace everything Richwine�s done since. �Jason�s empirical work was careful,� Zeckhauser told me over email. �Moreover, my view is that none of his advisors would have accepted his thesis had he thought that his empirical work was tilted or in error. However, Richwine was too eager to extrapolate his empirical results to inferences for policy.�

Borjas� own work on immigration and inequality has led to a few two-minutes-hate moments in the press. He wasn�t entirely convinced by Richwine, either.

�I have never worked on anything even remotely related to IQ, so don't really know what to think about the relation between IQ, immigration, etc,� Borjas told me in an email. �In fact, as I know I told Jason early on since I've long believed this, I don't find the IQ academic work all that interesting. Economic outcomes and IQ are only weakly related, and IQ only measures one kind of ability. I've been lucky to have met many high-IQ people in academia who are total losers, and many smart, but not super-smart people, who are incredibly successful because of persistence, motivation, etc. So I just think that, on the whole, the focus on IQ is a bit misguided.�

But Richwine had been fascinated by it, and for a very long time, in an environment that never discouraged it. Anyone who works in Washington and wants to explore the dark arts of race and IQ research is in the right place. The city�s a bit like a college campus, where investigating �taboo� topics is rewarded, especially on the right. A liberal squeals �racism,� and they hear the political correctness cops (most often, the Southern Poverty Law Center) reporting a thinkcrime.

I saw this for the first time in 2006. During the backlash to the McCain�Graham immigration bill, the young paleo-conservatives Marcus Epstein and Richard Spencer founded the Robert Taft Club, a debating society that would welcome taboo ideas and speakers. They did so, and the SPLC then branded them �hateful��it was the way of things. But I�d sometimes attend those events, as a reporter. In 2006, they invited American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor to a debate on race and conservatism. Years later, a few reporters condemned James O�Keefe because he�d been in the room. They botched the story, accusing O�Keefe of planning the event, when he�d merely shown up. The lesson everyone took away from this? Well, of course the left would blow up anything you said about race into a controversy. That was no reason to stop doing it.

Richwine either relished in the controversy or didn�t care. In 2008, while at the American Enterprise Institute, he joined a panel discussing a new book from Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. �Decades of psychometric testing,� said Richwine, �has indicated that at least in America you have Jews with the highest average IQ, usually followed by East Asians, and then you have non-Jewish whites, Hispanics, and then blacks. These are real differences. They�re not going to go away tomorrow.�

Even in that room, conservatives tried to distance themselves from Richwine�s remark. �It's looking at America in 1965 and assuming that's what we always were,� said Krikorian. Even Richwine added some caveats. �I point out that Ayaan Hirsi Ali was given an IQ test in the Netherlands and did very poorly,� he said. �[It�s] hard to imagine someone brighter.�
But Richwine was winning fans on the nativist right. Marcus Epstein was in the audience, asking a question, then writing the event up favorably at the anti-immigration site VDare.com. Over the years, VDare�s Steve Sailer would point to Richwine�s work and charts to reveal cold truths about racial IQ differentials. In March 2009, he shared Richwine�s calculations �from the 2003 New Immigrant Survey of the backward digit span subtest from the Wechsler IQ test.� Immigrants from Mexico had IQs, on average, 18 points lower than those of white Americans.

Throughout 2009, Sailer pointed readers to Richwine�s research on IQ and crime rates. He doesn�t recall whether he talked to Richwine personally, but Richwine never really put up a wall between his work and the endorsements of nativists. While at AEI he got to know Richard Spencer, the other Taft Club founder, and another thinker who laughed at the constant denunciations of �hate watchers.� In 2010, as first noticed by Yahoo News� Chris Moody, Richwine wrote a couple of pieces for Spencer�s new white nationalist magazine Alternative Right. His debut story demolished a piece by the pro-immigrant legalization conservative Ron Unz. �His reason is superficially plausible�the sole offense of some Hispanics in federal custody may be an illegal border crossing,� wrote Richwine. Alas, as numbers from the Bureau of Justice Statistics would prove, �Unz is wrong when he says that Hispanics are no more criminal than whites. Hispanics are, in fact, substantially more likely than whites to commit serious crimes, and U.S.-born Hispanics in particular are about two and a half times more likely.�

At his day jobs, on the mainstream right, Richwine wasn�t usually this blunt. He might cite the Bell Curve in an article for AEI�s magazine, but there was no thinkcrime there�he�d thanked Charles Murray in his dissertation. When he joined Heritage, Richwine wrote only rarely about immigration, applying his statistical acumen more often to public pension crises and student loans. �His mistake is that he wrote about a taboo subject,� Charles Murray told the New Republic yesterday. �And to write about IQ and race or ethnicity is to take a very good chance of destroying your career. And I really hope that doesn�t happen.�

It�s happening right now. According to Politico, Heritage is on the hunt for a PR guru who might spin away the Richwine story. On the paleo right, that�s being interpreted as a nolo contendere admission of thinkcrime. VDare�s writers have defended Richwine as a statistician whose work people prefer to hyperventilate about than to debunk, because they can�t debunk it. �The forces of orthodoxy have identified a heretic,� wrote John Derbyshire, who was laid off from National Review last year after writing that he�d educated his children about racial differences. �They�re marching on his hut with pitchforks and flaming brands. The cry echoes around the Internet: �Burn the witch!� �

Anyone could have predicted it. Richwine didn�t mind taking on taboos or talking to taboo people. That�s how immigration reform foes talk amongst themselves. That�s not how they�re going to stop the bill.
�In my estimation, our School gives too much emphasis on moving from findings to policy implications in scholarly work,� said Harvard�s Richard Zeckhauser. �In many cases, merely presenting the facts would be a preferable way to go. That makes it much harder for one�s opponents to dismiss what you say, or to accuse you of manipulating facts to reach policy conclusions. Moreover, I believe that policy conclusions usually rest on one�s underlying values. If one complements one�s empirical assessments with values issues, those assessments get questioned, particularly if one addresses a controversial realm of policy, as Richwine surely did in his dissertation. In many contexts, one�s work will have a long run greater influence on policy if the facts are left to speak for themselves.�

# ? May 11, 2013 22:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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