|
Strudel Man posted:Well, this guy says it's due to a combination of an increase in the number of police, an increase in imprisonment, the decline of the crack epidemic and the legalization of abortion. Some or all of those factors could be considered controversial, however. I lean towards the decrease in lead poisoning theory myself.
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 19:13 |
|
|
# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:57 |
Walter posted:I refuse to believe that Harry Binswanger is not a troll. He literally has an article defending insider trading
|
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 20:03 |
|
Xyven posted:He literally has an article defending insider trading This is a guy who, 284 years ago, would not have understood that Jonathan Swift was a satirist.
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 20:20 |
|
While on the topic of "articles that are indistinguishable from satire," this steaming pile of poo poo from today seems to fit the bill perfectly. At least I can take some solace in the fact that this line of thinking has declined dramatically in popularity from a decade ago, but I'm sure it will come back eventually once everyone forgets about Iraq.quote:Yes, We Are the World's Policeman
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 20:43 |
|
So my local paper is awful. Though I'm somewhat encouraged that in the follow-up letters to the editor they published a bunch of well-reasoned responses and the only letters agreeing with the editorial they could find to publish were two semi-literate half-paragraphs.
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 21:17 |
|
"At Lakehead University here in Thunder Bay there are now washrooms designated for men, women and LGBT, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Presumably, LU acknowledges that transgender persons entering either of the other washrooms is not acceptable. Presumably, too, transgender students accept that with the right to protection from discrimination comes the responsibility to avoid pushing the bounds of acceptance too far. There comes a point in all matters where a line is reached. That line was crossed when the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission penalized a storeowner for acting reasonably and understandably to protect her livelihood and her customers from unreasonable and ultimately selfish behaviour." This is the most bullshit non-argument I can think of. "Pushing the bounds of acceptance too far" is just a nice euphemism for "at least we're not threatening you with death", and that is absolutely abhorrent. Furthermore, it's bullshit that they would designate a bathroom for LGBT individuals specifically as opposed to just allow transpersons to use the bathroom that aligns with their identity.
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 21:43 |
|
Honestly, the answer is to have ONE bathroom with individual stalls. The fact that a huge percentage of adults are not really adult enough to deal with this is why it will never happen, but...
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 22:06 |
|
JDM3 posted:Honestly, the answer is to have ONE bathroom with individual stalls. The fact that a huge percentage of adults are not really adult enough to deal with this is why it will never happen, but... Keep the urinals in a corner, though. All I ever hear about is how terrible lines in the women's restroom are. We can do without the trough -- that poo poo's inhumane. Anyway, wasn't the Monolav one of the mythic reasons the ERA floundered?
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 23:04 |
|
Fandyien posted:"At Lakehead University here in Thunder Bay there are now washrooms designated for men, women and LGBT"
|
# ? Sep 17, 2013 23:07 |
|
7c Nickel posted:Fried Chicken wasn't sure where this should go, but I am. http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/ Wow, how is this not a parody? Binswanger posted:It’s time to gore another collectivist sacred cow. This time it’s the popular idea that the successful are obliged to “give back to the community.” That oft-heard claim assumes that the wealth of high-earners is taken away from “the community.” And beneath that lies the perverted Marxist notion that wealth is accumulated by “exploiting” people, not by creating value–as if Henry Ford was not necessary for Fords to roll off the (non-existent) assembly lines and Steve Jobs was not necessary for iPhones and iPads to spring into existence. Henry Ford was extremely valuable as an innovator and as a manager, but it doesn't follow that his legal ownership of Ford Motor Company was necessary. Making your money through your inventions and management skills is fine, the problem comes in when you and your children make money from other peoples' work in perpetuity, just because you own the equipment and the workers don't. After things had been established and gotten off the ground, Model T's could have been produced without Henry Ford -- but they could not have produced them without the workers. And the people who make iPods and iPhones are exploited, even under a vulgar bourgeois definition of exploitation. Of course, the parasite Binswanger praises later in the piece is a far cry from either of these talented, creative men. Binswanger posted:All proper human interactions are win-win; that’s why the parties decide to engage in them. It’s not the Henry Fords and Steve Jobs who exploit people. It’s the Al Capones and Bernie Madoffs. Voluntary trade, without force or fraud, is the exchange of value for value, to mutual benefit. In trade, both parties gain. This completely ignores how certain people came to be in a position of owning the capital, and others didn't, and the leverage that gives them over workers. The owners can pay unorganized workers as little as the law will allow, because what other option do they have? Starve, or go without housing and medicine? Believe me, the children making Binswanger's clothing are just as "forced" by WalMart as anyone was ever forced by Al Capone, and much more than anyone was coerced by Madoff. Binswanger posted:Or if the moral praise showered on Mother Teresa went to someone like Lloyd Blankfein, who, in guiding Goldman Sachs toward billions in profits, has done infinitely more for mankind. (Since profit is the market value of the product minus the market value of factors used, profit represents the value created.) Hahaha. Firstly, profit is also equal to the value created by workers, plus the amount by which workers are underpaid. But what else has Goldman Sachs done? It was in large part responsible for the financial crisis, causing the loss of millions of jobs and retirement funds PLUS trillions of dollars worth of wealth, and it received a ten billion dollar bailout. Tell me again how that leech Blankfein "has done infinitely more for mankind"? Binswanger posted:An end must be put to the inhuman practice of draining the productive to subsidize the unproductive. Oh, I agree completely, you're just 100% wrong about who is who. People who just happen to own the means of production are not "productive" by being owners, and cannot be productive except as managerial workers. Investors who simply buy the right to profit off of someone else's work are not productive. It's so laughable that he considers the people who tanked the global economy are "wealth-creators". I wish I had a Forbes account so I could post some of this. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Sep 18, 2013 |
# ? Sep 17, 2013 23:59 |
|
Man, today I was reading up on DARPA and ARPAnet. I wonder how the internet plays into Apples products or Goldman Sachs trading models? Probably not much I guess.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 00:06 |
|
OwlBot 2000 posted:http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybi...-back-to-the-1/ Okay, take a deep breath, then look up Jonathon Swift's "a modest proposal". That should clear things up.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 15:31 |
|
That's what came to mind, but then I saw he was a fellow at the "Ayn Rand Institute" and her personal acquaintance of hers. I think it might be serious
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 15:36 |
|
OwlBot 2000 posted:That's what came to mind, but then I saw he was a fellow at the "Ayn Rand Institute" and her personal acquaintance of hers. I think it might be serious Article by the same guy: http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/06/04/dont-be-silly-the-entitlement-state-wont-allow-bitcoin/ Yes, the reason why Bitcoin is a big joke is the intractability of the Entitlement State, how did I not realize this before. Thank you Objectivism.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 16:14 |
|
Walter posted:This is a guy who, 284 years ago, would not have understood that Jonathan Swift was a satirist. There is no longer any such thing as satire.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 16:33 |
|
JDM3 posted:Honestly, the answer is to have ONE bathroom with individual stalls. The fact that a huge percentage of adults are not really adult enough to deal with this is why it will never happen, but... My college was all girl a few years before I went and they said gently caress it and did exactly that with everything. Bathrooms and showers were all co-ed and no one really gave a gently caress. The only people who freaked out were people who WEREN'T going to the school and it was always telling who would get offeneded by the practice.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 16:40 |
|
VideoTapir posted:There is no longer any such thing as satire. Tom Lehrer did once quip that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 17:00 |
|
quote:Had we left Japan, what would have happened in that country and in Asia? Had we left South Korea, would it be the vibrant democracy and economic power that it is today -- or would it have become like the northern half of the Korean peninsula, the world's largest concentration camp? Had we left Germany by 1950, what would have happened to Europe during the Cold War? We did leave Vietnam, and communists imposed a reign of terror there and committed genocide in Cambodia. Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier? boner confessor fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Sep 18, 2013 |
# ? Sep 18, 2013 17:14 |
|
Also if we hadn't stealth-bombed the absolute poo poo out of Cambodia they would've been a lot less open to the machinations of the Khmer Rouge. Beyond that, Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia is sometimes regarded as one of the few largely humanitarian military interventions in modern history. I can't source that all of the sudden, and I know there were a lot of geopolitical factors beyond that, but even the Vietnamese government and Pathet Lao looked at the Khmer Rouge and went "holy poo poo that's uncool."
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 17:29 |
|
FilthyImp posted:Keep the urinals in a corner, though. All I ever hear about is how terrible lines in the women's restroom are. Is it ever... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQthwyF2LqY
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 17:41 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier? Going to preface all of this by agreeing that the article in question was terrible. But the Vietnamese army helped INSTALL the Khmer Rouge, before later realizing what a monster it was. Its not Black vs White, with clear good guys and bad guys. There was a lot going on, and frankly the Khmer Rouge is a historical abomination, but no one at the time realized just how hosed in the head Pol Pot was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Kampuchea Check out the "Rise to Power" section and the relevant links from historians. The truth is more complicated than that, and you have your timeline confused. The sides also shifted repeatedly, with the Vietnamese supporting Pol Pot in 1968 before invading in 1979. The Soviet Union backed the Vietnamese, and the following PRK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Kampuchea) China's involvement had less to do with opposing Western interests and more to do with entrenching Chinese ones; following the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea under Pol Pot (the Khmer Rouge), China saw it as a client party. When Vietnam invaded in 1979, China launched an attack on Vietnam that killed some 60,000 people. Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia did more for the rise of the Khmer Rouge than anything else. William Shawncross, the largest proponent of the US carpet bombing as being influential in destabilizing Cambodia, agrees that Vietnamese intervention was the biggest influence in the ability of the Khmer Rouge to seize power. Basically, check the history and the scholarship on the subject, its fascinating and frankly everyone in common discussion gets it wrong, because they are always too focused on America and Vietnam; way more was happening, locally and geopoliticaly, than just the Vietnam War. Edit: Read this for a good primer on a lot of the things going in the background, courtesy of the Soviet archives - https://www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Mosyakov.doc Basically, the Cambodian Civil War between 1970 and 1975, is generally considered to be part of the Vietnam War (or the American War if you live in Vietnam) and the North Vietnamese invaded, and eventually helped defeat, the Khmer Republic - at the request of Nuon Chea. quote:A great chance for Pol Pot and Khmer communists came in March, 1970. Their long-term enemy - Cambodian leader prince Sihanouk - was overthrown in the military coup d’etat of March 18, 1970. He had to enter into a military-political union with the communists to get back to power. It became a turning point for the communists: in the eyes of thousands of peasants, they turned from enemies of Sihanouk into his protectors. The revolutionary army started growing as on yeast, and the mass base of the communists considerably increased. In this case the goals of purely communist reorganization obviously were set aside for the moment, and the slogans of protection of the legal chief of state and of national independence came to the fore. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Sep 18, 2013 |
# ? Sep 18, 2013 18:31 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier? Hey, guess which country invaded Cambodia to remove the evil Khmer Rouge from power? Was it the United States, world police and general Doer of Good? No. It was communist Vietnam, recently bombed to all gently caress by said United States.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 20:40 |
|
Bel_Canto posted:Tom Lehrer did once quip that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Satire still exists, it's just that when the crazies are running the asylum, you cease being able to tell who REALLY wants to eat children. Stick around SA enough and similar things will happen to your sarcasm detection, in my experience.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 21:55 |
|
Oh man, Binswanger teaches at the college right by my nearest NYC subway stop (Hunter College, part of CUNY). I'm tempted to take a poo poo in a paper bag and see if I can put it in front of his office.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 22:20 |
|
Y-Hat posted:Oh man, Binswanger teaches at the college right by my nearest NYC subway stop (Hunter College, part of CUNY). Isn't that a public university? Tax-payer funded, mostly? Edit: I bet he rides the subway, too. And likes it. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Sep 18, 2013 |
# ? Sep 18, 2013 22:33 |
|
OwlBot 2000 posted:Isn't that a public university? Tax-payer funded, mostly? Oh, the irony.
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 22:35 |
|
Bel_Canto posted:Tom Lehrer did once quip that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." I've heard it said before, and I said it myself once, that the reason I stopped reading the Onion was because the joke headlines started to bleed into the actual news cycle. I still haven't gone back to the Onion for that reason. Then again, I think *everyone* at pretty much every time period has made a similar complaint about political satire, so...
|
# ? Sep 18, 2013 23:07 |
|
These days I think satire is a form of political cover. If people don't thoroughly mock it, then it must be a good policy option!
|
# ? Sep 19, 2013 01:10 |
|
MaxxBot posted:While on the topic of "articles that are indistinguishable from satire," this steaming pile of poo poo from today seems to fit the bill perfectly. At least I can take some solace in the fact that this line of thinking has declined dramatically in popularity from a decade ago, but I'm sure it will come back eventually once everyone forgets about Iraq. Liberty and stability are code words for "American interests" which is code for the ability of (sufficiently) American companies to exploit local resources and populations.
|
# ? Sep 19, 2013 02:13 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier? American foreign policy 1945-1991 was based on the assumption of a Communist Hivemind. Some people long for the days of such simplicity.
|
# ? Sep 19, 2013 11:32 |
|
Laphroaig posted:
It's really hard to construct a straw man that I can topple with a clever bumper-sticker bon mot if I acknowledge this, so please, for the love of God, will you shut the gently caress up you liberal piece of poo poo?
|
# ? Sep 19, 2013 14:28 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier? Plus after Pol Pot was exiled the US gave the Khmer Rouge $85 million in funding as well as $12 million worth of food. The British SAS also trained the remaining Khmer Rouge guerillas for close to a decade.
|
# ? Sep 19, 2013 15:06 |
|
Fandyien posted:This is the most bullshit non-argument I can think of. "Pushing the bounds of acceptance too far" is just a nice euphemism for "at least we're not threatening you with death", and that is absolutely abhorrent. Furthermore, it's bullshit that they would designate a bathroom for LGBT individuals specifically as opposed to just allow transpersons to use the bathroom that aligns with their identity. To be honest the more I think about it the more I come to realize that keeping transgender people out of the bathroom that pertains to their own gender identity really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The most "convincing" arguments seem to fall down to this weird notion that men will pretend like they're transgender in order to go into women's restrooms and harass women. But we already live in a world where if a man wants to walk into a women's restroom and just sit right down in a stall and hang out there's nothing really stopping him. What I guess I'm saying is that creeps will be creeps.
|
# ? Sep 20, 2013 05:18 |
|
Walter posted:I've heard it said before, and I said it myself once, that the reason I stopped reading the Onion was because the joke headlines started to bleed into the actual news cycle. Trotsky, Pacifism as the servant of imperialism (1917) quote:Our epoch lacks the indignant satire of a Juvenal. In any case, even the most potential satirical weapons are in danger of being proved powerless and illusory in comparison with triumphant infamy and grovelling stupidity; which two elements were unfettered by the war. Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Sep 20, 2013 |
# ? Sep 20, 2013 06:09 |
|
OwlBot 2000 posted:People who just happen to own the means of production are not "productive" by being owners, and cannot be productive except as managerial workers. Investors who simply buy the right to profit off of someone else's work are not productive. It's so laughable that he considers the people who tanked the global economy are "wealth-creators". I wish I had a Forbes account so I could post some of this.
|
# ? Sep 20, 2013 15:05 |
|
Mischitary posted:To be honest the more I think about it the more I come to realize that keeping transgender people out of the bathroom that pertains to their own gender identity really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The most "convincing" arguments seem to fall down to this weird notion that men will pretend like they're transgender in order to go into women's restrooms and harass women. But we already live in a world where if a man wants to walk into a women's restroom and just sit right down in a stall and hang out there's nothing really stopping him. What I guess I'm saying is that creeps will be creeps. I think it has more to do with people being afraid that they might have to accept what they feel is creepy behavior because society is too drat politically correct and won't listen to common sense, etc. This is why people feel like the Homosexual Agenda exists - it's not about gay rights, it's about those drat gays forcing themselves upon society where they aren't wanted and good honest Americans aren't allowed to speak their minds (because these people are generally incapable of speaking their mind in a respectful and tolerant fashion).
|
# ? Sep 20, 2013 16:18 |
|
Mischitary posted:To be honest the more I think about it the more I come to realize that keeping transgender people out of the bathroom that pertains to their own gender identity really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The most "convincing" arguments seem to fall down to this weird notion that men will pretend like they're transgender in order to go into women's restrooms and harass women. But we already live in a world where if a man wants to walk into a women's restroom and just sit right down in a stall and hang out there's nothing really stopping him. What I guess I'm saying is that creeps will be creeps.
|
# ? Sep 20, 2013 22:45 |
|
Guilty Spork posted:Also, not unlike the homophobes who seem like deeply repressed gay guys, when someone's whole argument against trans* people existing has to do with women's restrooms, I can't help but think that the speaker may be saying more about themselves than they realize. "What's to stop me - er, I mean someone - from dressing up in women's clothing and hanging out in a women's restroom?"
|
# ? Sep 22, 2013 00:11 |
|
Forbes has some genuinely bad writers.quote:Republicans Will Win The Government Shutdown PR Battle If They Promise Voters Private Jets http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntam...artner=yahootix
|
# ? Sep 22, 2013 16:50 |
|
|
# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:57 |
|
Man, that editorial is just a giant wad of Republican Assumptions. Also:quote:To be blunt, if the Republicans aren’t willing to do everything in their power to defund, delay, or repeal Obamacare, what’s the point of voting them majority status to begin with? Just the same, if the cost of government is going to continue to grow no matter the Party in control of the purse strings, why vote Republican at all?
|
# ? Sep 22, 2013 19:29 |