So The EU Paid The Bankers....

From The Guardian:

Only a small fraction of the €240bn (£170bn) total bailout money Greece received in 2010 and 2012 found its way into the government’s coffers to soften the blow of the 2008 financial crash and fund reform programmes.

Most of the money went to the banks that lent Greece funds before the crash. [my underlines]

They could have just written the cheque to RBI and cut the middle country man out. But really, if this is true then it's pretty clear that it wasn't a Greek bailout it was a bank bailout.

The troika of lenders first stepped in during the spring of 2010 after Athens could no longer afford to finance €310bn borrowed from a wide range of major European banks...

Greek government debt is still about €320bn, 78% of it owed to the troika.

I saw a credit card statement like that many years ago. I advised that person to cut the card up and toss it into a fire.

Wal-Mart apologizes for turning down Confederate flag cake, baking an ISIS cake

And the reason?

“For that reason we did not make the cake. [Netzhammer] brought in the other image of ISIS and really, what happened, was our associate didn’t recognize what that image was and what it meant or it wouldn’t have been made.”

I say that generally that fits for more than Walmart. A lot of people don't recognize the signs and don't know what they mean until they've already FUBAR.

Facebook only hired seven black people in latest diversity count

*laughs hysterically*

Ok I'm done.

The most recent EEO filing available shows Facebook hired an additional seven black people out of an overall headcount increase of 1,231 in 2013. At that time Facebook employed just 45 black staff out of a total US workforce of 4,263.

Really?

Facebook’s black female headcount increased by just one person over 2013 to 11, and the number of black men increased by six to 34. There were no black people in any executive or senior management positions.

Just like where I work. Seems to be standard operating procedure.

Over the same period the company’s white employee headcount increased by 695. There were 125 white people holding executive and senior management positions at the firm.

Similar to where I work. They get hired and run up the ladder, quick fast and in a hurry. What actually bothers me about this though is the sheer hypocrisy of Facebook, Apple, etc. in that they talk a whole lot of game about "diversity" but the senior offices have "No negroes allowed" policies.

“We need a team that understands and reflects many different communities, backgrounds and cultures. Research also shows that diverse teams are better at solving complex problems and enjoy more dynamic workplaces.

Now now Zuckerberg. If that were the case then Facebook wouldn't be doing as well as it is. The fact of the matter is that Facebook does just fine hiring (and not hiring) the people it does. if it were in the shitter then Zuck could say something like that. But the fact is that the hiring practices of Facebook are serving Facebook very well. There is no economic incentive to do anything differently.

Guardian UK

Rise Of The Robots: An Interesting Note On American Spending

So my new read is Rise of the Robots. There is an interesting note on page 53:

Second, although it may appear that virtually everything sold at Walmart is made in China, most American consumer spending stays in the United States. A 2011 analysis by Galina Hale and Bart Hobijin, two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, found that 82 percent of the goods and services Americans purchase are produced entirely in the United States; this is largely because we spend that vast majority of our money on nontradable services. The total value of imports from China amounted to less than 3% of US consumer spending.

The Supreme Court Is Sick

After yesterday's ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States made yet another ruling in which it shows that it's membership has no regard for the Constitution or it's own purpose. Just yesterday Justice Roberts released a ruling in which he said:

(e) Petitioners’ plain-meaning arguments are strong, but the Act’s context and structure compel the conclusion that Section 36B allows tax credits for insurance purchased on any Exchange created under the Act. Those credits are necessary for the Federal Exchanges to function like their State Exchange counterparts, and to avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid. Pp. 20–21.

Get that? It doesn't matter what the legislation actually SAYS. It's what we think the congress thought when they voted on it and we should be concerned about the "Calamities" that would ensue if we did our jobs.

Now with the gay marriage ruling we see this from Roberts:

But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized co urts to exercise “neither force nor will but merely judgment....

Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal argu - ments for requiring such an extension are not. The fun - damental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand ma rriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition.

And this is his dissent!!

He is using the same language and even references from the dissent in yesterday's ruling to justify is current dissent. How can a neutral judge use two very different lines of reasoning on the very same set of issues? Either the court cannot legislate and think up what is and isn't good law or it can.

It's pretty clear here that the SCOTUS is a corrupted institution that can't keep it's thinking straight and is hell bent on ruling on emotion rather than the law. Peeking at Alito's dissent I saw many references to other countries and the past, but not ONE mention of English common law that is the basis of common law in the US. At this point we can stop saying the US is a country based on the rule of law and say that it is ruled by popular opinion.

Edit: Alito did not mention English common law but Roberts did. For that reason I have struck the sentence from the original. Also Thomas (wow...I'm referencing Thomas...) deep dives into Blackstone, the Magna Carta and the rights of Englishmen.

"Plain Meaning Arguments"

Allow me to present a thought argument. Imagine if you will that you have a child in school and they had a test. A math test. Say that little junior said that two plus two equals three. imagine that the teacher marked the answer correct. Imagine that for every question that junior answered incorrectly, the teacher actually marked it correct. You'd be very concerned right? Concerned enough to go to the school (or at least call) to find out what's going on right? Because since we all know that two plus two equals four, why would any teacher mark any other answer as correct??!! How would you feel if upon asking about the clear discrepancy the teacher told you:

"Although in plain meaning, your argument that two plus two is four are quite strong the context and structure of the problem as well as a desire to not have a calamity lead me to just mark the answer correct."

If you are a sane person your next move would be to the principals office to have the teacher removed.

Lets try another one. imagine you are on trial for murder. And you're in a death penalty state. Say we have an expert witness who is supposed to testify as to the time of death of the person you are accused of murdering. Your alibi is that you couldn't have done the crime because you were too far away to have possibly made it to the crime scene, committed the crime and then arrive back at the location where you said you were. Say that the expert witness had data that showed that the body's drop in temp showed the murder took place 2 hours [ago] but on the stand said it was something like 7. That time difference puts you in the execution chamber. Upon cross examination your attorney challenges the clearly wrong interpretation of the data and the prosecution objects saying that though the plain meaning of the argument is strong, the context and structure of the testimony as well as a desire to not have to go find another witness or are more likely suspect which would be calamitous means we should just let that testimony stand.

Yeah. me too.

Now imagine that there is no appealing this objection, which of course was granted. Well you're dead.

This my friends is what the Supreme Court of the United States did yesterday. In their ruling in favor of the Obama administration we find the following in the summary:

(e) Petitioners’ plain-meaning arguments are strong, but the Act’s context and structure compel the conclusion that Section 36B allows tax credits for insurance purchased on any Exchange created under the Act. Those credits are necessary for the Federal Exchanges to function like their State Exchange counterparts, and to avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid. Pp. 20–21.

I haven't read past that. It is unlikely I will because the statement here is so powerful that it will undoubtedly have a profound effect on future courts and the nation as a whole. How is it that "plain meaning arguments" in a court of law be less important than congresses duty to write law properly and for the courts to enforce the laws as written? Consider the recent case in Mass. where a man was caught filming up women's skirts in a store. He was arrested and prosecuted based on what the state thought was the law. They thought that surely the statute meant to include that kind of behavior. The judge in that case read the law and saw that whether the intention was there or not, the law as written did not criminalize the actions of that person. The Mass. legislature did what they are constitutionally bound to do: legislated and created a law that added upskirting as a crime.

This is exactly what the courts are supposed to do. If the legislature wrote a law in a manner that excluded something they may have wanted to included, the legislature must amend that law. It is not for the courts to change the "plain meaning" of the laws to fit whatever views that the justices may have. This is what is meant to be governed under LAW and not men. Consider their very brief explanation for dismissing the "plain meaning" argument:

Petitioners’ arguments about the plain meaning of Section 36B are strong. But while the meaning of the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U. S. C. §18031]” may seem plain “when viewed in isolation,” such a reading turns out to be “untenable in light of [the statute] as a whole.” Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332, 343 (1994). In this instance, the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.

Reliance on context and structure in statutory interpretation is a “subtle business, calling for great wariness lest what professes to be mere rendering becomes creation and attempted interpretation of legislation becomes legislation itself.” Palmer v. Massachusetts, 308 U. S. 79, 83 (1939). For the reasons we have given, however, such reliance is appropriate in this case, and leads us to conclude that Section 36B allows tax credits for insurance purchased on any Exchange created under the Act. Those credits are necessary for the Federal Exchanges to function like their State Exchange counterparts, and to avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid.

I would agree with this IF the "context" was that there was only that one statement. However I wrote extensively on the subject and showed that the term "state" was used a number of times in relation to Fed and that the paragraph in question, not just the quote in contention clearly never mentions the federal government even though in the context of the legislation, when they wanted to put the federal government on the hook, they were not shy about doing so. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that these justices, like many of the congresspeople who voted for the ACA didn't actually read the document.

But here's another thing with the statement by the court. If the "context of the entire document" is going to be the standard then it's probably time to let the gun control people have a go at the second amendment. It has been pointed out by many that the second amendment's right to bear arms is in the context of a well maintained militia.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So it is veryeasy with the context argument to say that individuals not connected with a militia have no right to keep and bear arms. It's an easy argument to make on both "plain meaning" and "context" grounds. But perhaps they don't want to in order to avoid "calamity".

Did He Say That?

Doing my morning reading when I saw the following:

This year’s attacks on Jews in Paris and Copenhagen have led to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling on European Jews to immigrate to Israel.

If Jews do it, that would trigger a serious economic crisis in Europe, Kantor warned.

"I think out of three million Jews that are living in Europe at least one million, a very active part or young part, self-sufficient part are going to leave and it will be a disaster, an economic disaster for Europe in general because first of all some supporters, non-Jewish supporters will come with Jews. It's a lot of cash and money currents are going to leave Europe and also businesses," he said.

Three million Jews in Europe out of a population of around 740 million total. That's what? Not even one percent of the total population? If the exit of less than one percent of the total population of Europe would lead to an "economic disaster" then one would think that this extremely small population must have an inordinate amount of economic power in Europe. No? And isn't it usually the case that those holding inordinate amounts of economic power also have inordinate amount of influence in government policy?

I suppose if I were in France and published this, I would be soon hearing that knock on the door.

Five Social Disadvantages That Depress Student Performance

I saw this report two days ago and wanted to address it since education is one of the issues important to The Ghost. Though this report lists 5 disadvantages I'm going to add more particularly for black folks (and not so black folks who are called African-American...ahem...I'll deal with that on another post). The short list is as follows:

This report describes how social class characteristics plausibly depress achievement and suggests policies to address them. It focuses on five characteristics for purposes of illustration:

*parenting practices that impede children’s intellectual and behavioral development
*single parenthood
*parents’ irregular work schedules
*inadequate access to primary and preventive health care
*exposure to and absorption of lead in the blood.

Leaad poisoning is definitely an external factor. A parent that has no idea that there is lead paint in their home that their kid is eating cannot be blamed for that. So lets get to the findings: I want to add something to the talked with children. If the adult is speaking street slang to their children or other forms of so called "ebonics", they are not helping their children in the least bit. In fact I would suggest that it creates a barrier to later learning as proper English has to be learned in the classroom almost like a second language rather than English being primarily improved in the classroom.

Also allow me to take issue with the following:

ECLS-K reports responses by socioeconomic status (SES), using an SES definition including parents’ income, education, and occupational prestige. Such definitions are useful but limited, missing other important social class characteristics. For example, in 2010, the ratio of black to white median family income was 56 percent, while the ratio of black to white median family wealth was 5 percent, owing largely to 20th century housing policy that barred African Americans from purchasing suburban homes that later appreciated in value, a primary source of wealth for households.

While these economic disparities do exist they do nothing to explain why a parent doesn't buy a book for their child. Anyone rolling through the 'hood will note that black folks of "poor" backgrounds have no problems purchasing expensive sneakers, spending inordinate amounts of money on vehicles and of course on weaves of all hues. Also, even within the middle class of black folks who are still behind their white counterparts in wealth, they generally have enough income to purchase books for their children but choose not to. I grew up with a wall of books of all kinds and my parent never made more than $46k/year in her entire life until well after I graduated college. Parents who are bullish on education do what they have to do.

Patrick Sharkey, for example, has shown that the quality of the neighborhood where a child’s mother was raised has a bigger influence on the child’s achievement than the quality of neighborhood where the child was raised.

This was also pointed out in the Bell Curve. Poor smart people have better chances at being successful than poor dumb ones. If you are poor but live in a home that values hard work and education, that will likely pass on to the children who generally will do better than the parent. If you live in a house of deadbeats who think living that life is acceptable, then the children of those people are going to also think that such behavior is OK. This is old news to those of us paying attention. There is something very important in this chart. It shows that on average the HIGHEST SES blacks own less books than the LOWESTSES whites. So the question would be what are the characteristics of this high SES class of black folks that they simply do not read? I would be very interested in how other groups (Asians, Hispanics of various racial backgrounds) rank.

Other research finds that parents on public assistance, unemployed, or with less than a high school education typically provide less cognitive stimulation to children.11 When reading aloud, lower-class parents provide less guidance and are less strategic in building on children’s prior knowledge to expand it.12

This is not surprising. If the parents were prone to "building on prior knowledge" they most likely would not have "less than a high school education and/or be on public assistance. Dropping out of high school is generally a good sign of lack of forward looking thinking and desire for "knowledge expansion".

By age 6, white children have typically spent 1,300 more hours engaged in conversations with adults than black children.

I'll repeat here that not only would these children be lacking the 1300 hours but the quality of the hours that were spent are per previous paragraph probably lacking as well.

How parents shape children’s choice-making, self-direction, and stances toward authority varies by social class. Middle-class parents typically give fewer direct orders, instead providing controlled choices. Lower-class parents expect more deference to authority. Lower-class children typically have more unstructured leisure time where they need not follow adult rules, while middle-class children typically have more structured schedules. [my underlines]

I think the underlined passage directly contradicts the preceding sentence. If a child is in a situation where they do not have to follow adult rules, then expectations of deference to authority (particularly male authority) moot. However; I think there is a great deal of value in "unstructured" leisure time IF it is within a set of boundaries. For example, saying to your children "go outside and play" means they are not sitting in the house watching TV. If they are in the house and told to "play" but play does not include video games, iPads or the like, forces a child to use their imagination which IS good for education. It would probably be best for the researchers to define or refine "unstructured".

Math and reading skills of entering kindergartners in the top and bottom SES quintiles differ by about 40 percentile points in normal distributions.16 Cognitive gaps do not change much from kindergarten to middle school. This does not mean that schools are ineffective with lower SES children; rather, lower SES gains resemble those of higher quintiles, and initial gaps are left mostly unchanged. [My underlines]

Meaning if your kid wasn't very bright in the beginning, he will still not be very bright in the end. Bright children will still continue to acquire and build on prior knowledge as they progress. They don't generally slow down. I brought this up in the "20 Minute Kids" post.

Parents who are more involved in their children’s educations by volunteering outside the classroom, helping their children with homework, and checking their children’s homework have children with fewer behavioral problems in the classroom.

That would be "structured time" no? If they weren't prone to doing that before...

The availability of children’s books and whether mothers read aloud, share meals with their children, use non-harsh discipline, expect their children to help keep their homes clean, are affectionate with their children, and encourage children to contribute to conversation all predict better social skills and fewer teacher-reported behavioral problems. [my underlines]

You know that "non-harsh" discipline is code for spanking right? Oh and we will definitely notice that fathers are mention nowhere. Let me suggest a different formulation:

The availability of children's books and whether mothers and fathers read aloud, share meals with their children, use proper and proportionate discipline, set high expectations of their children's behavior and are affectionate with their children...

We have seen what happens when so called "harsh discipline" is removed from the equation. Teachers assaulted in schools. Kids deciding to not go to class. Kids deciding to act a total fool in class. swift, certain and consistent discipline, sometimes "harsh" is a key factor in the proper socialization of children.

Parents with less education have fewer educational interactions with their children at home. Among low-income African American mothers, those who are less educated tend to provide less assistance and be less supportive and encouraging of their children during home-based teachable tasks like puzzle-making. [my underlines]

Aside from the complete absence of "father" in this paragraph I would like to know whether there is a recorded difference in attitude, specifically in the area of support between mothers and their male children vs. their female children. I would also like to know if any of this relatively hostile environment is the result of any hostility on the part of the mother towards their father that has been redirected towards the children.

Moving on: 51% of black children living without a father in the home?!!!

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Although black children are more likely to be living with the mother alone than white children, the share of both white and black children in single-parent homes has grown, partly because falling real wages have made it more challenging for women to find marriage partners who earn sufficient incomes to support families.

Partly. How about largely because the types of jobs that guaranteed a middle class lifestyle have all but disappeared from the US. How about partly because in some professions there may as well be a "no negro allowed" sign on the door for the low numbers of black people employed but the high level of immigrants that are. You might not "need no man" but clearly your children do.

The number of years fathers work nights before children’s fifth birthdays predicts increased sexual activity for the children when they reach adolescence.

I'm going to take this with a few grains of salt. If they are saying that *Single* father's who work night shifts have these issues, then I'd be prone to believe it. If they are saying that where the mother and father live together and the father is working a night shift while the mother is at home, meaning the children are supervised, then something is very wrong. There is a linked paper so I'd have to read it to be certain.

Children with parents who work non-standard hours are heavier than those whose parents work regular schedules. Lower-middle-class children (those whose families are in the second income quartile) whose mothers have worked non-standard shifts for from one to four years have close to twice the odds of being overweight at age 13 or 14 as children from economically similar families whose mothers do not work non-standard shifts.

They did not say the age of these children, which is relevant but it would suggest that either the parents are "rush cooking" and/or the children are being left alone and therefore are prone to digging in the fridge for food.

Parents with non-standard schedules find it more difficult to spend time with children and engage in cognitively stimulating activities with them.74 For example, for low-income African American mothers of preschool children, each additional nighttime hour of work is associated with a decrease in cognitively stimulating mother–child activities of about 1.5 percentile points in a normal distribution of mothers’ engagement in such activities. Thus, mothers who work a full eight-hour night shift decrease their engagement in cognitively stimulating mother–child activities by about 21 percentile points in such a distribution.

This brings an implication for mothers who decide to pursue additional education (or make up education) after having a child. If this paper is correct and each hour costs the child 1.5 percentage points of less engagement and it doesn't matter what the mother is doing for that hour, it would mean that if she pursues an education after work, the children are losing that much more time. She may become better off financially at the end of x years but how damaging has that been to the child's development?

I'm skipping over the doctor visits and lead issues and going to the recommendations.

The employment-to-population ratio of African American men age 20–24 was below 50 percent in early 2014, the lowest rate for any demographic group.121 We can enhance outcomes for African American children by creating opportunities for their fathers to support them. This requires a national full-employment policy, including public jobs when the private sector is too weak to absorb the unemployed.122 Macroeconomic policy is education policy.

Not sure what utopia this group is living in or imagines will happen but there is never full employment in a society where one is not a farmer or hunter. Secondly, with automation gaining steam jobs are going to get more scarce, not less scarce. Furthermore the jobs that are the last to fall will be the ones that these 20-24 year old, high school drop outs cannot do as they generally lack the IQ to do them. Lastly, in the interim the high levels of illegal immigration and the jobs they perform, places they live and strains they put on the educational systems which poor black people already suffer from only means that such employment opportunities will not show up. If the authors are not willing to face up to these issues then their recommendations are extremely faulty.

Young African American men as a group are less employable because they are discriminatorily incarcerated at very high rates.

Sorry but being jailed because you shot someone isn't discrimination. And no, the white man didn't make you do it.

But when growing numbers of middle-class women are single mothers by choice, we cannot expect lower-income women to delay childbearing indefinitely when we fail to create conditions for economically viable marriages.

And why exactly are middle class women choosing to be single mothers?

With 40 percent of births currently to unwed mothers, even if programs to reduce this rate are effective, single parenthood will continue. Ameliorating single parenthood’s negative outcomes requires reforms discussed above: home-visiting programs like the NFP, high-quality early childhood care and education, and high-quality after-school and summer programs for children whose home lives are unstable and resource-starved. The federal tax code’s child care subsidy is inadequate and its availability insufficient to enable low-wage single mothers to afford high-quality child care.

Lets see...the state should provide resources like medical care. Child entertainment, an environment that is conducive to rearing a child. You know what? That sounds like what we expected fathers to do. So in essence the state should be the daddy. Let me ask you a question: You have a choice between two men to have a baby with. One has a job, some savings, car, decent place to live, BUT you never know. He might bail. The other one has millions coming in every year from recurring income and will never disappear. Which one do you decide to have a baby with? Now about that "why are middle class women choosing single parenthood..."

Live Where You Want?

So I'm reading this piece about "diversifying" wealthy neighborhoods where I found the following:

“We have a history of putting affordable housing in poor communities,” said Debby Goldberg, vice president at the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Maybe that's because that's where the people that can afford it live. Wealthy neighborhoods don't need "affordable housing" cause they can already afford the housing that is there.

The agency is also looking to root out more subtle forms of discrimination that take shape in local government policies that unintentionally harm minority communities, known as “disparate impact.”

There's that garbage concept again.

“This rule is not about forcing anyone to live anywhere they don’t want to,” said Margery Turner, senior vice president at the left-leaning Urban Institute. “It’s really about addressing long-standing practices that prevent people from living where they want to.” [my underlines]

You know what? I'd like to live in Alpine NJ. Maybe a house overlooking the Hudson. No. I want to have a house in the Hamptons. Oh wait. I don't have enough money. But I WANT to live there!!! Let me get the government to make them build a house I can afford in those places.

0.0

Look. News for the cry babies out there. You don't get to live where you WANT to live. You get to live where you can afford to live. That said, let me be clear that I am for rent stabilized places. I am for building places that are affordable for people who are not making 6 figure salaries.

“In our country, decades of public policies and institutional practices have built deeply segregated and unequal neighborhoods,” Turner said.

So long as there are people who make more than other people, there will be "unequal neighborhoods". That's a fact of "free enterprise". Secondly the vast majority of people want and like to live around people who are of the same racial and ethnic backgrounds as them. Why is this a problem? Those who WANT to live in highly mixed neighborhoods find and move into such neighborhoods.

Children growing up in poor communities have less of a chance of succeeding in life, because they face greater exposure to violence and crime, and less access to quality education and health facilities, Turner suggested.

Well there are a few things here. First the "violence and crime". Who is committing all this "violence and crime"? Wouldn't that be the other people in those communities? It certainly isn't people coming in from the wealthy neighborhoods deciding to take a trip "slumming" and shooting and robbing the residents for fun. So why not point out that it is the very residents who are creating this violent and criminal environment? And furthermore why not realize and say that the reason that there isn't "affordable housing" in these wealthy areas is specifically to keep those persons prone to "violence and crime" OUT of their neighborhoods so that they do not become subject to "violence and crime".

“Segregation is clearly a problem that is blocking upward mobility for children growing up today,” she said.

Segregation has been legally dead for decades. Negroes who can afford it can live just about anywhere they want. Restrictive covenants are illegal. Why is this person talking about segregation like it's the 1950s?

More Adventures in One Drop Rule Land

NAACP leader of Washington state chapter lied about being black, parents say

Dolezal’s parents, who are both white, provided a birth certificate and childhood pictures of their daughter to the Coeur d’Alene Press to back up their claims she has been grossly misrepresenting herself. The birth certificate confirmed she was born to the white couple, and the pictures show Dolezal as a pasty, blonde child — a complete contrast the darker skin and curly brown hair she has now...

A black man who Dolezal has publicly claimed to be her son is in fact her adopted brother, they said — a fact Dolezal confirmed to the paper.

Dolezal also lied about growing up in a teepee, hunting for her own food with bows and arrows, being abused by a stepfather and once living in South Africa, her parents said.

When you accept One Drop Rule you inevitably get stuff like this.

I will say this though, She either was keeping some tanning salon in good business or has stock in a spray tan company.

Drinking The Haterade

David MacCaray is hating on horse racing. Just like Tim Wise had to take time out of his day to shit on the bicycle dude who did some impressive stunts while white. David feels the need to shit on American Pharaoh

Consider: When Miguel Cabrera won the “real” Triple Crown, in 2012 (the one in baseball, the one that requires genuine athletic talent and isn’t joined at the hip to pari-mutuel wagering), it hadn’t been done for 45 years, not since 1967, when Carl Yastrzemski led the league in batting average, homers, and RBI.

Now that’s a real achievement, one done by a human being and not by a horse or trained dog. Nothing against animals, mind you. I’ve watched the Kentucky Derby and I’ve watched the Westminster Dog Show, and have been amused, if not overly worked-up, by both. But those aren’t “sporting events.”

Don't let the "Nothing against animals , mind you" distract you. This is full on hateration and holeration to quote on MJ Blige. Look anyone who's daft enough to compare the dog show with horse racing has clearly not run any distance further than couch to toilet while having the runs. The WDS is an entirely different event than the Kentucky Derby. You can't even compare the two. the WDS is perhaps comparable to say NY Fashion Week, with one having more proportional models.

Yeah, running a horse around a mile and a half track and not fall off or break one the legs (as I believed happened during one of the training runs) is a big deal. If it wasn't all that, then it would have been done regularly. And the whole baseball comparison is irrelevant. If you like baseball, then why not just write about that instead of bothering The Derby?

I think the real problem David has with Pharaoh is that he's gonna be breeding real soon now and that bothers people who don't like to think that certain abilities are genetically determined. Oh dear.

Moreover, after Cabrera won his Triple Crown, you didn’t hear the media get all dollars-and-sense about it. You didn’t hear broadcasters speculate about how much more money Cabrera could expect to earn now that he had accomplished this milestone.

Well maybe if they started a breeding program for baseball players (and other athletes) maybe they could start getting dough for impregnating worthy fillies...hmmmmm there's an idea for a business...

Bikini Girl vs. Dead Black People

This past week is a slam dunk example of how out of whack the national consciousness is as it regards the supposed significance of black lives. All week we have heard about the bikini clad young lady who was roughed up by a police officer after disregarding numerous orders to clear the premises of a crime scene investigation (trespass and assault).

While reports of the gun pulling cop have been on repeat little has been said about the trespass and assault that prompted the call to police in the first place. Not a single talking head or writing hand in the MSM has found the courage to ask why the pool party crashers were there in the first place. Or why some of them felt it was appropriate to assault one of the residents.

Of course none of that surprises The Ghost because The Ghost has already explained a number of times that in America, Black people of all ages are considered children and cannot be held responsible for anything they do. Cops should be held to high standards of behavior in the face of angry people who threaten them (and sometimes carry out said threats) but black people should never ever be held to answer for trespassing on someone's property and assaulting people. But that's not even the point here.

The point is that while this stuff has been making the rounds of all major media outlets, Chicago saw it's murder total top 1000

5 persons were killed and 30 wounded just last week!

None of these involved police or bikini clad black girls.

In Baltimore 5 people were shot on Sunday. Just Sunday. There were 43 murders in Baltimore in the month of May alone. That doesn't include ANY of the people who were shot and survived.

Not a single police officer was implicated in any of these shootings. There were no bikini clad black girls involved either. Yet for the past week the top news on major news outlets has been bikini girl who can't follow directions and the cop who put her head to the ground. It is pretty clear then that the so called significance of black lives has nothing to do with actually saving the lives of black people from those who pose the greatest harm to them. Rather it is something else entirely. I know what it is. Do you?

The Purpose Of The Supreme Court According To Counterpunch

I know...I know..I've been putting my foot in Counterpunch's arse of late. But really, some of the stuff that has been showing up there is deserving. Here's the latest by a PhD no less. First:

The Supreme Court has a very mixed track record when it comes to protecting women.

I had no idea at all that it was the duty of the Supreme Court to protect women. Article III of the US Constitution states:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;— between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Yup. Just as I thought. Nothing at all about a duty to "protect women". This woman has a PhD eh?

As a domestic violence advocate, Criminologist, and activist for a decade, I am deeply concerned that the U.S still fails to prioritize women’s safety.

And here I was thinking that the government shouldn't prioritize any particular group's safety but rather provide safety for all it's citizens equally. And besides going strictly by the statistics, if the state was concerned with the safety of citizens most likely to be victimized by anyone, it would be prioritizing the safety of male citizens. But it must be special to be able to guilt trip people by effectively saying "I have a vagina prioritize me!"

Given that globally more women ages 15-45 die from men’s violence than of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined, far more needs to be done to protect women and girls.

I believe I covered the duties of the Supreme Court above. And I believe the jurisdiction of the US ends about 12.1 miles east of Myrtle Beach, SC. and 12.1 miles west of Malibu Beach CA.

Why is it that these liberals who spent so much time talking about imperialism when they lacked the power, now want to extend US jurisdiction worldwide? Oh right, hypocrites.

In 2000, the court overturned part of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that allowed women to sue their abusers in federal court.

I don't know the specifics of the case but since I'm anti VAWA (because it disregards nearly half of domestic violence victims, men) I do not care what's gutted from that law.

So, we can sue darn near anyone for anything, just not the people who hurt us most deeply.

I actually think we shouldn't be able to sue for darn near anything.

In 2005, the court ruled in Castle Rock v. Gonzales that a town and its police cannot be sued for failing to enforce a restraining order.

As it would surprise many people that police are also not under any obligation to protect citizens. Look it up. As per the case the Supreme Court decision does not say that the police cannot be sued for failing to enforce a restraining order. It actually makes an argument about whether the law in Colorado created a 14th Amendment right that could be acted upon in a federal court. It also recognized that police often use discretion when enforcing the law. This is why you don't usually get a ticket for jay walking though it is an offense in just about every city in the US.

Jessica Gonzales, now Lenahan, had a permanent restraining order against her husband Simon, who had been stalking and harassing her. Simon was prohibited from seeing her son (not his biologically) and the couple’s three daughters except during specified visitation times

That is a misstatement of the restraining order:

On June 4, 1999, the state trial court modified the terms of the restraining order and made it permanent. The modified order gave respondent’s husband the right to spend time with his three daughters (ages 10, 9, and 7) on alternate weekends, for two weeks during the summer, and, “ ‘upon reasonable notice,’ ” for a mid-week dinner visit “ ‘arranged by the parties’ ”; the modified order also allowed him to visit the home to collect the children for such “parenting time.” Id., at 1097 (majority opinion). [my underlines]

I would take a guess that the underlined portion was what the husband used to scoop the children up. It does not appear to have any time constraints at all.

The court held 7-2 that the Colorado statute did not require that police actually enforce restraining orders.

For the same reasons a police officer may decide to not give you a speeding ticket.

What?! Absolutely insane.

No. No it's not.

In 2014, the court seemed to improve, as it determined in United States v. Castleman that a state law requiring persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, even when it did not involve force, must still surrender their firearms per federal law. In doing so, the court used a broad interpretation of domestic violence, recognizing it as more than physical.

Broad definitions in law are usually not a good idea. In this case it is even worse since there are people who wish to declare that if you say "unkind words" to someone, then you have committed domestic violence. Lastly:

One of the first things a domestic violence advocate knows is that if an abuser is making claims that he intends to hurt his partner, we should go ahead and presume he will at some point act on them.

Him you say? Sometimes a man fi get kuff:

For those who have issues with reading comprehension, let me highlight the important parts: 1) Men account for 1/3 of domestic violence injuries and deaths. When was the last time you heard this from any of the talking heads you listen to?

2) 50% of reported domestic violence is reciprocal. This was illustrated in the Rice video. They were engaged in reciprocal violence.

3) in 70% of single sided violence women were the perpetrators. For the hard of reading this is when men stand around, or sit around, or lay around and allow themselves to be hit.

The NRA Made 'Em Do It

Michael Pfleger and Jesse Jackson are of the opinion that the NRA is responsible for all the shootings in Chicago

Last night in Chicago, three were killed. And ten were shot just last night. In Chicago.

Let me stop here. "were killed" and "were shot". By whom sir? By whom?

The NRA...

The NRA what? You mean the staff of the NRA were the ones who did the killing and shooting "just last night"?

The NRA lobby...The gun manufacturers and John [garbled] of Chucks want to make you think I'm a gun grabber

Wait. Wait. Who did the "killing" and "shooting"? Shouldn't we be told who did the killing and shooting?

I love life more than the more than the death they are perpetrating

Wait. Wait. Did 'Chucks do the killing and shooting? Is that what is being said here? Is there evidence for this? Because if Michael is saying that the mere existence of a gun shop means high murder rates, then someone needs to explain to me why Tuxedo NY has a gun shop and no murders that I know of.

I'm just tired. Tired of the NRA

You know what I'm tired of? Liberals who treat black people like children and do not hold them responsible for their actions. That's what I'm tired of.

What I want is for Chucks to be responsible

He wants Chucks to be responsible. Not the parents of the kids roaming the streets shooting. Not the people actually doing the killing and shooting. Chucks.

This is why black people will get NOWHERE. Never held to high standards. Just treated like large babies.

Conspicuously Missing

So some South Koreans won the top prize in the recent DARPA challenge.

Here's a photo of the winning teams:

Can you spot the Negro?

Above is the picture of an "American" team, Team THOR:

Team THOR is a union of two robotics laboratories: the Robots and Mechanisms Lab (RoMeLa) at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Lab (GRASP) at the University of Pennsylvania. The team consists of roughly 35 official members composed of graduate students, undergraduate students, and post docs under the guidance of Professor Dennis Hong at UCLA and Professor Daniel Lee at UPenn.

Can you spot the Negro?

How about that team from Florida, Team IHMC? Well I looked through all the linked profiles (there are a number that are NOT linked) and not a negro among them. Now it's certainly possible that there is one or more not linked, I'm not motivated to find out.

The significance here is that while other groups are doing this advanced stuff, we, black folks collectively are doing what?

Only One "Real"Extreme Eh?

So Henry Giroux is of the opinion that there exists only one extreme in politics:

Conservatives such as David Brooks trade in this kind of discourse only too willing to portray leftists as the real extremists in American society. [my underlines]

Given the amount of academic gobbledegook that is present in this fellow's piece I cannot believe that Henry wrote that sentence the way he did by accident. I believe that Henry believes that there is only really ONE REAL extreme in politics and that they are "the right". For Henry the political spectrum probably looks like this: *The Left-------->*American Public*--------->*Republicans*------>*Police*->| Where The Left is the base of rational political thought and everyone else is somewhere to the right of it with police of course being the worst of the worst. His thinking is kind of like the Kelven scale. Either you are at absolute zero or you are not. The only question is how far from absolute zero are you.

Of course political thought is more like the centigrade scale where there is a marking designating "zero" ("frozen" to the common man) and temperatures above and below freezing. When people inhabit such sane scales one can see clearly there are "real" extremes to either side of zero. Neither of them are very comfortable.

Similarly when we look at the Ph scale we find that 7 is neutral. We find that the human body generally functions best when it has a slightly alkaline Ph (7.4), which I will note would be a "right leaning state". Just saying. If ones body goes to far to either extreme then one is either sick, dead, or soon to be dead. Within this optimal Ph level various parts of the body may have specific Ph levels. Saliva is (should be) acidic. So within the human body the interactions of acidic and alkaline sub-environments creates an optimal state.

In politics and society we can and should see these things on a macro level. Being "Left" is not "right" or "Optimal" anymore than being "Right" is optimal. There are times for one to be "conservative" in nature and times to be liberal in nature. If either one of these things come to dominate, then society is screwed.

Beware of commentators who act as if there is only extreme.