Camden And Central African Republic

A few days ago I posted about Camden, that 90% black city which has a murder rate on par with some of the most dangerous countries in the world. In it I commented as follows:

Oh, so the solution to the problem of black crime is white supervision. Let that sink in for a minute.

How do a people, who spend a whole lot of time talking about equality need white supervision in order to behave properly?

One would think that surely after all the exploitation and racism shown by the colonial powers in Africa that in the absence of said exploiters and oppressors Africans would, you know, manage their own concerns. But:

The man, Abdon Seredangaru, 25, a primary-school teacher, was one of the many hundreds attacked in three days of mass killings this month here in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. More than 450 people were massacred in the city, according to the United Nations, and 150 others nationwide…

The arrival of French troops, and a contingent of African Union troops airlifted in by the American military, has brought some stability, and everyday life is slowly returning to the capital. Crowds jostled at the banks downtown as women in colorful dresses and high heels turned up for work.

So half a globe away, in yet another black populated area of the world, French (read: white) troops are needed to restore "stability". Am I the only African bothered by this? Why is it, time after time, White folks need to be flown in to one of the places that we supposedly "run" in order to restore "stability" (among other things)? Camden and Central African Republic: more in common than you think.

The NYT Does Not Know IQ Either

Just like Business Insider, the NY Times apparently doesn't understand IQ either:

But the Somali children were less likely than the whites to be “high-functioning” and more likely to have I.Q.s below 70. (The average I.Q. score is 100.)

The study offered no explanation of the statistics.

No. The median IQ for those classified as caucasian is 100. it is 110-115 for those classified as Asian and 85 for those classified as African. I get no joys from these statistics, but there they lay. So when looking at a sample of white (European descended) children vs a sample of African descended children, that the European descended children still score higher and be "higher functioning" is expected. So the explanation is already known.

The results echoed those of a Swedish study published last year finding that children from immigrant families in Stockholm — many of them Somali — were more likely to have autism with intellectual disabilities.

Again. Not surprising. Northern European natives score a median of 100. Africans score a median of 85. So of when there are other non biological factors added that would trigger intellectual disabilities, Africans are, unfortunately to show more of their population with such issues. Again, I don't enjoy writing this. It's not meant as a knock against the African. The same research shows that urbanized Africans have a significantly higher IQ than non-urban Africans, which suggests a strong influence of environment, education and I think, methylation processes. But this is not the place for that discussion.

Even though the city has Asian and Native American communities, records for so few of those children were studied that they were not included in the analysis, she added, “but it’s reasonable to extrapolate that autism rates among them are lower.”

Well research shows that Asians have a higher median IQ than Caucasians and Africans (115). Therefore it would stand to reason that it would take a drop of 2 standard deviations for an Asian to reach the median IQ of the African, and even more to be registered as having a intellectual disability. Of course the data would have to be collected and studied to confirm that. Anything else is just a guess.

At onetime, 25 percent of the children in local special education classes were Somali, while Somalis represented only 6 percent of the student body. While some children back home had the same problems children everywhere do, parents said, autism was so unfamiliar that there was no Somali word for it until “otismo” was coined in Minnesota.

Personally I think it's the weather. I would act a fool if I had to deal with the winter they have to deal with. Kidding. The other thing could be a large number of misdiagnosed developmental issues that are NOT actually autism. It could be that the children are simply not that bright relative to the white population. It may also be clashes of cultures (language, habits, etc.) that are affecting them in ways that look like autism.

Of course that's speculation and I'm not even a little bit of an expert on autism. But the IQ statement? The NY Times should know better than to pass of 100 as THE average IQ, when it is known that it is the median for a specific group.

Probable Cause and Reasonable Suspicion

So a judge in DC ruled that the NSA's grabbing of "metadata" was unconstitutional. I'm shocked. Not because I don't agree with the ruling but because apparently there is an official in DC that actually understands the US. Constitution.

It seems to me that a great deal of people do not understand what the term "probable cause" means and why it is in the Constitution. The U.S. government is prohibited from searching your private effects without a warrant. To qualify for a warrant the government must provide reasonable suspicion that you have committed crime. Similarly,in order to search you and your place agents of the government must have probable cause to do so. These two things, Reasonable Suspicion and Probable Cause, are the two things that keep the government in check. Those items are what are supposed to keep the government from going on "witch hunts" and invading the lives of private citizens.

As the NSA said on 60 minutes last Sunday, it is supposed to do foreign intelligence. Of course, under U.S. Law the NSA may search whomever and whatever it pleases. No one who is not a U.S. citizen is covered by constitutional guarantees of privacy. Nor are national governments or so called "enemies of the state". So nothing written here is a commentary on any of that. However; U.S. citizens are supposedly covered under such guarantees and the NSA has clearly and blatantly violated these guarantees.

The NSA has made the ridiculous argument that in terms of phone calls that it cannot get to the contents of a phone conversation. ANYONE with a Google Voice account knows full well that all the NSA has to do (and does, do not be fooled) is translate the conversation in real time to a small text file and store that. That whole "we don't have access to the contents, is for the simple minded among you. The next thing they claim is that it is OK for them to intercept so called "metadata".

Let us be clear, even the capturing of metadata of U.S. persons is a violation of reasonable suspicion and probable cause. Why? Such metadata is not "public". It is not the same as you and I walking down the street in plain view of a camera (and I have issues with cameras, but that's another issue for another time). It can be argued that if you conduct your business in a place where any Jamaal can see you, then a government agent, such as the police, can also observe your clearly public activities and take action if said public activity is illegal.

Your phone calls are not public. While someone may observe that you are making a phone call, no Jamaal on the street can know, simply by looking at you who you are calling. Whether you made or received the call, etc. Therefore your phone calls are not "public" data sitting in plain view and therefore ANY collection of that information iscovered (notice I did not say "should") under the Reasonable Suspicion and Probable Cause requirements. It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of persons in the US are not terrorism suspects. Therefore it is NOT reasonable suspicion to collect their private information which includes so called "meta-data".

The same thing applies to e-mail. I don't understand how any arm of the government thinks that the e-mails that a person sends is OK to collect for any reason at all that is not covered under Reasonable Suspicion or Probable Cause. Exactly what probable cause does the NSA or any agency have for collecting and storing your e-mail (including the "meta-data")? You have committed no crime. You have not been implicated in any crime. You have been implicated in no conspiracy to commit a crime. Why then are your personal effects being collected and stored by the government? The only argument is that you MIGHT be a terrorist. You MIGHT at some point in the future be implicated in a crime. You may in the future you MAY be implicated in a criminal conspiracy. And IF such "reasonable suspicion" were to arise, we ALREADY have access to your information. In other words the entire idea of law enforcement, namely investigations of crimes either already committed or in the process of being committed are being twisted and reversed in the name of "security".

And people think this is "reasonable".

Let me tell you what is "reasonable". Stop funding Al-Qaeda in Syria and elsewhere. Stop meddling in the internal affair of other countries. Stop allowing free entry of persons who don't understand or value constitutional freedoms. I guarantee you that doing these things will do more to promote "safety and security" than the trampling of so called "constitutionally guaranteed rights".

So lets be clear. I don't care what the NSA looks at and stores in regards to people who are not "US persons". Those persons have no coverage of constitutional guarantees. But U.S. Persons have so called "rights" that no government agency should be able to get around. get the warrant. Show the reasonable suspicion and probable cause, then collect away. Short of that, delete.

Black Crime and Population Control

For the longest time I have been wondering why the African-American population has not grown much over the past couple of decades. As I've written the last two pieces on Camden and Detroit respectively it hit me as to how devastating black crime is on the African-American population.

As I've written before, the number one cause of death for African American males between the ages of say 12 and 40 is assault (usually a homicide). Going back to the Camden post we find:

The next year, 2012, little Camden set a record with 67 homicides

That was a record. Now for the longest time I could not understand the gravity of the murder rate in terms other than it's impact on business, employment and community stress. But now, all late, it has dawned on me how bad this is. If you the reader don't understand, then lets look at it in terms of a school. The average urban school class has 30-35 students. I'm going to go with the smaller number. If you have 67 people killed, it would be like every year, two classes of students simply disappearing.

I looked at an article on a Boston high school in which the school in question had 1842 students. A 67 person murder rate, over ten years would see 1/3 of the school population disappear. That doesn't include the shooters. If we add the shooters, then over ten years 1340 persons no longer in the population due to being dead or being put in jail for the crime. That would be close to an entire school population gone every 10 years (of course many, if not most murders go unsolved and so the number of shooters do not match the number shot. Also as with other crimes, one person may have killed multiple people. Therefore the math would be off by quite a bit but is still alarming considering that even unfound killers are a drain on the communities they live in). Multiply that by all the mostly black communities spread out across the United States. Every 10 years black folks in America eliminate one school's worth of people in each of their communities.

How much loss is that? No one can say.

Even considering that murder numbers vary from place to place and the "entire school" argument has it's noted issues, it is still staggering to consider that at the very least, a classroom's worth of people are disappeared each year.

If you are a teacher in a college or university when you next go to teach your class, imagine that all of your students in one of your class being gone next year. If you are a teacher in a high school, imagine that your classroom would be empty next year because all the children that would be there are dead. That's what this high murder rate is. Worse than anything that happened in Sandy Hook. And it happens every year.

Rolling Stone Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch From America's Most Desperate Town

Here's a challenge. Camden is 95% Black. Black folks say that the problems they have are caused exclusively by White people. Since there are essentially no White people in Camden, Black folks should be able to show the world what they can do in the absence of White people and their racism. What say you NAACP? Urban League? National Action Network? What say you?

in Camden, chaos is already here. In September, its last supermarket closed, and the city has been declared a "food desert" by the USDA. The place is literally dying, its population having plummeted from above 120,000 in the Fifties to less than 80,000 today. Thirty percent of the remaining population is under 18, an astonishing number that's 10 to 15 percent higher than any other "very challenged" city, to use the police euphemism. Their home is a city with thousands of abandoned houses but no money to demolish them, leaving whole blocks full of Ninth Ward-style wreckage to gather waste and rats... Over three years, fires raged, violent crime spiked and the murder rate soared so high that on a per-capita basis, it "put us somewhere between Honduras and Somalia," says Police Chief J. Scott Thomson. "They let us run amok," says a tat-covered ex-con and addict named Gigi. "It was like fires, and rain, and babies crying, and dogs barking. It was like Armageddon."

Again. Remember, no White folks to blame because White folks don't do Camden. What say you NAACP? Urban League? National Action Network?

With legal business mostly gone, illegal business took hold. Those hundreds of industries have been replaced by about 175 open-air drug markets, through which some quarter of a billion dollars in dope moves every year. But the total municipal tax revenue for this city was about $24 million a year back in 2011 – an insanely low number. The police force alone in Camden costs more than $65 million a year. If you're keeping score at home, that's a little more than $450 a year in local taxes paid per person, if you only count people old enough to file tax returns. That's less than half of the $923 that the average New Jersey resident spends just in sales taxes every year.

Remember that post on Detroit I did recently? What did I say about tax revenue? What did I say about how revenue is generated? That's why the title of THAT post was "You Expected What In Detroit?"

. But once Christie assumed office, he announced that "the taxpayers of New Jersey aren't going to pay any more for Camden's excesses." In a sweeping, statewide budget massacre, he cut municipal state aid by $445 million. The new line was, people who paid the taxes were cutting off the people who didn't. In other words: your crime, your problem.

It's pretty easy to blame Christie for deciding not to spend other people's money on Camden's problems. Let's even call him racist for doing so. But here's the thing: What exactly is wrong with "your crime, your problem"? No seriously, the people who left Camden left because they didn't want to deal with the rising crime rates. They didn't want to be threatened by it and they certainly didn't want to pay for it. Is that racist? Really? And if such crime rates are limited to Camden and it's residents, then isn't it the responsibility of the residents to fix? And what if outsiders do pay to "clean up" Camden? What if in return for cleaning it up, they, you know, gentrify it? I mean isn't that fair?. If you ask me to pay to fix your problem, that you created, I should be compensated right for my money and effort, no?

After the 2011 layoffs, police went into almost total retreat. Drug dealers cheerfully gave interviews to local reporters while slinging in broad daylight. Some enterprising locals made up T-shirts celebrating the transfer of power from the cops back to the streets: JANUARY 18, 2011 – it's our time. A later design aped the logo of rap pioneers Run-DMC, and "Run-CMD" – "CMD" stands both for "Camden" and "Cash, Money, Drugs" – became the unofficial symbol of the unoccupied city, seen in town on everything from T-shirts to a lovingly rendered piece of wall graffiti on crime-ridden Mount Ephraim Avenue.

Drug dealers did what? So when the white folks left the only thing that enterprising black folks could come up with was drug dealing?

Hmmmmmmmm.

And get on national TV to brag about it?

And for all the talk about how racist police who love to kill black men (though police involved shootings of black males accounts for maybe...maybe 1% of all black men shot) need to be restrained, we see in the absence of such "racist" police crime goes through the roof and hits a plane flying over head at cruising altitude? Clearly then the issue of high crime has little to do with "racist" police.

At times in 2011 and 2012, the entire city was patrolled by as few as 12 officers.

That's like the number of police in an upscale neighborhood. In a rational world, 12 officers would be too many. But hey, since white folks are essentially absent from Camden, and white folks represent THE cause of everything wrong in black communities, why s there so much crime?

No matter what side of the argument you're on, the upshot of the dramatic change was that Camden would essentially no longer be policing itself, but instead be policed by a force run by its wealthier and whiter neighbors, i.e., the more affluent towns like Cherry Hill and Haddonfield that surround Camden in the county. The reconstituted force included a lot of rehires from the old city force (many of whom had to accept cuts and/or demotions in order to stay employed), but it also attracted a wave of new young hires from across the state, many of them white and from smaller, less adrenaline-filled suburban jurisdictions to the north and east.

Oh, so the solution to the problem of black crime is white supervision.

Let that sink in for a minute.

How do a people, who spend a whole lot of time talking about equality need white supervision in order to behave properly?

You don't understand the question? Let me change the scenario. When have you EVER heard of a poor white community with the crime rates of Camden that needed black intervention to get it's crime under control? I'll wait.

See this is why Garveyism never took hold. Garveyism required hard work. It was about building a community and nation. Not guilt tripping white people about the obvious stuff they had and continued to do. It was about proving your equality by doing what every other people do: Run their communities end to end. But that requires work. It requires dealing quite harshly with people who want to be fuck ups. That's hard. Now getting access to stuff that other people already built? That's easy. That's why the NAACP, Rainbow Coalition, Urban League and National Action Network can spend time in meetings with Macy's and Barney's rather than meeting with black millionaires on how to finance a massive change in Camden where you can't blame white folks for shit.

To paraphrase a poet I know:

They stay worshipping the very Satan they created.

Santa is a White Male. Deal With It.

"I don't really think there should be a white Santa Claus," said one mother whose son shuns white mall Santas. "You've got to do what your kids believe in because if you don't, it's like, you're lying to them."

Stupid. stupid. Stupid.

You know Negroes annoy me a great deal sometimes. Really. they do. Negroes hate their own origins so much that they go and tell other people to place them in their own mythos' so that they can feel better about themselves. Sad thing is that those people are too scared to tell these Negroes to fuck off. The latest nonsense is the apparent stunning fact that Santa is a white male.

Now personally I do not celebrate Christmas. There are two reasons for this:

1) I am not a Christian. Therefore I have no reason to celebrate the "birth of Christ".

2) I don't like the idea of telling children that some overweight white male somehow made an entrance to my home and dropped off gifts when the reality is mom and dad (most cases mom) worked and saved their money (often imperiling their future finances) to plant a toy that will soon be broken or forgotten under a tree. Essentially lying to their children. Later they will punish those same children for telling lies themselves. Set the example.

But I have NEVER, EVER bought into the idea that Santa needs to be black for the supposed self-esteem of black children. Just as I objected to, and still object to Idris Elba (and the Asian) playing in Thor.

So let's get this straight for the folks upset about Santa not being black. Santa Claus is derived from a German myth. You do realize Black people do NOT originate in northern Europe right? Santa Claus is another name for Saint Nick or Saint Nicholas, also known as Sinter Klaus. You also have the figure of Kris Kringle. This long standing germanic myth of a guy who handed out gifts to children became embedded into Christianized Europe along with the Tree of Thor and such things as Yule tidings.

The English character of Father Christmas as a huge white man in red robes were merged into this conglomerate of ideas to solidify the Santa Claus as we know him. This character made it's way in the US by obvious means.

So lets put this dumb shit to rest: Santa as a figure has it's origins in Europe and out of European pre-Christian myths. He was appropriated into Christianized Europe as was the Christmas tree, Easter Eggs and many other things not relevant to this blog post. All the "black" Santa's are essentially Santa in blackface. The worst thing about that is that millions of people will see black Santa and think that the history somehow includes them when it does not. These same people grow up to be the same people making silly complaints of racism, when the truth is pointed out about him.

As for the silly Negroes, how about stop hating on your own origins and celebrate your OWN historic celebrations? If you do that you don't have to worry about making things black, they'll just be that way. But you know, it's easier to complain and edge your way into other peoples culture than to do and maintain your own.

Ex -slaves complaining about the ex-master's holiday symbols. *smh*

U.S. Suspends Nonlethal Aid to Syria Rebels

WASHINGTON — Just a month before a peace conference that will seek an end to the grinding civil war in Syria, the Obama administration’s decision to suspend the delivery of nonlethal aid to the moderate opposition demonstrated again the frustrations of trying to cultivate a viable alternative to President Bashar al-Assad.

That would be "official" non-leathal aid. And of course, no mention of "lethal aid".

The administration acted after warehouses of American-supplied equipment were seized Friday by the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist fighters who have broken with the moderate, American-backed opposition, but who also battle Al Qaeda.

Meaning, after people such as myself, pointed out numerous times that Al-Qaeda was quite active in the Civil War and stood to gain the most by the removal of Assad. Just as there was a need to justify an intervention, there is a need to justify a reversal. This event provides the necessary "we aren't aiding Al-Qaeda" cover needed by the administration. Also, by knowing that Al-Qaeda was involved in the opposition, the US government was in violation of it's own so called "anti-terrorism" laws, which state clearly that any aid to a terrorist organization is a violation of federal law. Yeah, so there's that.

Administration officials said that the suspension, confirmed on Wednesday, was temporary and that the nonlethal aid, which is supplied by the State Department, could flow again.

Translation: As soon as we figure out how to get around this Al-Qaeda problem.

American officials are still struggling to assess what the internecine battle means. “If we’re able to understand that, we could revert to the provision of nonlethal assistance,” a senior administration official said.

What is there to "figure out"? The more militant group is trying to take over from the less militant group. The goal: topple Assad. If the more militant group wins, Al -Qaeda gets a new state. What else needs to be explained? For US policy (which I'm not commenting directly on here) is to keep a lid on Al-Qaeda, making a proxy war with Assad was a huge, huge, huge mistake.

The official said that the United States would not rule out talks with the Islamic Front, but that it was too soon to determine whether the administration would abandon its insistence that all American and allied assistance be funneled through the Supreme Military Council.

Read that again. Now read my previous comment about the terrorism laws. So the administration is actively considering funding an Al-Qaeda organization? I wonder what all those soldiers who have blown off limbs and the families of the slain who were told they were fighting the enemy think about that?

At the same time, the opposition groups that the Obama administration has designated as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people appear to have grown weaker, in part because of their tenuous ties to many of the rebel fighters inside the country and because of the lukewarm support they have received from the West.

Obama gets to decide who is the legitimate representative of people outside the US? I had no idea. You know, that would be like, say Putin deciding that the Tea Party was the legitimate representative of the United States. No really, THAT is what it's like.

A major aim of the meeting is to begin the process of identifying Syrians who might serve in a transitional governing body that would run the country if Mr. Assad yielded power.

Imagine if you would that during the US Revolutionary War, France decided that as a condition of their support, they would set up a meeting in say Madrid, where they would get to have a direct hand in who would be the "legitimate leadership" of the new republic. Yeah, it's THAT odd. How about this: To the winner goes the spoils?

Khatab, the commander of a small Free Syrian Army battalion, interviewed by phone in Turkey, said that the suspension would hamper fighters like his. But he added that it would ultimately harm the Islamic Front as well, suggesting that whatever the official policies, the Islamic Front had cooperated with the Supreme Military Council and received supplies through it.

A nice admission. I'm sure that included "lethal aid" as well.

NSA Using Advert Cookies and Smart Phone Apps to Track Users

The same documents also appear to show the NSA as using data gathered from smartphone apps, under another section apparently named "Happyfoot." The location data stemming from a smartphone app is considerably more useful for the security agencies, due to the higher positional accuracy when compared to far broader cellular mast-based tracking, potentially allowing for agencies to track the movements of suspects without the need for any intrusive techniques.

Yeah. This stuff gets better and better

To The Black Folks Who are Crying About Mandela But Were Good with the Libyan War

You Expected What in Detroit?

So the official bankruptcy hammer has fallen on Detroit. No one who has open eyes is surprised by any of this. There are a lot of black folks on the left side of the spectrum who see racism at the heart of the matter. While there are certainly racial angles to the problem, it is not the full issue.

As many people on either side of the argument will point out is that Detroit is a mostly black city (~85%). It is also a heavily Democratic city. What I always fail to see on coverage of Detroit is that it once was a mostly White city. When Detroit was mostly white it was prosperous. No one can argue against that fact. Folks don't like hearing that but hey don't hate me hate the history. We all know that there was a riot (or uprising if you will) that started what we refer to as "white flight". It is at this juncture that we, meaning The Ghost, and regular black liberal folks, part ways in how we assign "blame" for the current mess. Generally speaking whites essentially left Detroit and took their money with them. For many people this was a racist move. Sure. You can say that. Let's say it is. What are you really saying? Complaining about white flight is equivalent to saying that White people don't have the right to live where they choose, among who they choose, and to take the money they earned with them. That is called freedom of association. Do you believe in freedom of association/

NO seriously. Answer that question. Because either you believe in freedom of association or you do not. Because if white people aren't free to up and move wherever they please, then black people do not have the freedom to up and move and live where they please. Isn't one of the principles of Kwanzaa, which many "pro black" people support, Self-Determination? If you believe in self-determination then you mustrecognize that everyone else has that right as well. So again, do you believe in freedom of association?

What the white flight argument essentially is is a claim on white people's money and property. Black people ought to have access to the money and wealth that white people have based on the idea that white people's money was gotten in an unfair manner. White people didn't really earn it. OR due to discrimination white people are obligated to fund black development. of course being the Garveyite that I am, though I am all for reparations, I am not of the position that whites are obligated to do black development too. I believe that black people are responsible for black development. If whites must pay, blacks must work. But lets focus on Detroit.

When I was in Michigan in 1989-91 I knew that middle class black folks were trying to get the hell out of Detroit. So there goes the white flight argument. I read about the Halloween devil's night events in the Detroit Free Press. Never had I heard of any such thing. Folks committing arson for no other reason than they could and it was Halloween. I read about the staggering crime rates. How anyone with a straight face would say that Detroit's problems were the sole result of white people moving out is smoking very potent crack. Anybody who was able to was leaving Detroit as far back as 1989 when I finally knew Detroit existed. Detroit's bankruptcy was long in coming.

In 1950 Detroit had a population of 1.8 million. In 2013 that number is around 700,000. Over half the population (assumed tax paying) up and gone. Where were the business development done by the black middle class? Why weren't black people who controlled the government able to get a grip on crime? Was that the fault of white people too? To restate Garvey: Black Detroit! Where are your factories, Where are your cars? Where are your men of big affairs? Where are the fathers of the babies?

Why did Detroit have this coming? Simple economics. Here's the deal: poor people do not generate [much] tax revenue. They do not generate enough tax revenue to run a city the size of Detroit as it stood in the late 1970s. A city the size and complexity of Detroit depends on middle class (and higher) persons and businesses to generate the income necessary for stuff like bus service, street lights, street cleaning, police (and we know Detroit needs police), schools, etc. I mean really, do you THINK the fare you pay to get on a bus or subway reflects the ACTUAL COST of running that service? Really?

Wake up son you've been dreamin'.

You think I'm making this up right? OK check the image from the Tax Foundation:

See the light blue area? That's property taxes. Watch it fall.
See the darker blue area? That's the income taxes. Watch it fall.
See the even darker blue area? That's the utility taxes. Watch it fall.

Watch it all fall. However pay close attention to that first area. The light blue representing income tax. Note that it never kicks up again after 1973.

So as the middle class, both white and black, left Detroit, it's tax base shrunk…and...shrunk…and...shrunk. But those services still had to be paid for. The choices: raise taxes, borrow or gamble. Raising taxes on a population already unable to pay for services they want doesn't work so Detroit borrowed and gambled (see that black area on the chart). And lost. Here's the obvious truth. One that hit Mandela while he was on Robben Island: You can't run out the folks who create the wealth and expect to keep the city afloat. Now for the part that shouldn't have surprised anyone:

That the bankruptcy judge allowed the city to put it's pension on the chopping block in direct violation of the state constitution is alarming. Well it would be if so called "constitutional guarantees" were in fact guaranteed. As we have found out in the past couple of years, our so called "constitutional rights" have already been tossed aside by none other than the chief executive and his people. Since we cannot expect the highest law of the land to be honored by those who swore to uphold it, how can we expect that any lesser constitution such as a state constitution to be worth much more than the paper it is printed on? It should shock nobody that a judge saw no reason for the pensions to be put on the chopping block rather than paid in full as provided for and required by the state constitution. I'll call this trickle down disenfranchisement.

It's not surprising that these things are happening. We are living in a country in which not only does the federal government not give a damn for the rights of citizens, but it is actively trying to accommodate those non-citizens who have entered the country illegally and who use fraud as a means of remaining. It is insulting, as an African-American to see the government at the state and federal level devote money and other resources that would be better spent on infrastructure, education of it's citizens and on job opportunities for it's citizens on folks who have not even a legal right to even be in the country. And I'm supposed to feel guilty about holding the position that the government ought to be looking out for it's citizens first and above all else. If the government on the state and federal level actually gave a rats ass about the rights of the citizenry, Detroit's pension would not even be on the chopping block in violation of the state constitution. It would be on the state of Michigan to make good on it's obligations to it's pensioners even if they wished to change the plans for future benefits.

Barclay's Bank and all other financial institutions that took the risk of lending to Detroit would have been told that they line up AFTER the constitutionally protected pensioners. But no, In a country where citizens rights and privileges are only as valid as the paper it's written on, no one should have expected any different.

But back to Black Detroit. What is glaringly obvious from the course of events in Detroit is that all the talk about "black power" means diddly squat without a sound economic plan and a social movement that addresses young black men. It serves to underscore that for all that "we're a black city" talk, Detroit essentially was dependent upon white money to stay afloat and when that money left, we saw what happened. If black folks want to talk about how equal they are to everybody else, I suggest they take up the words of Garvey and build and maintain their own stuff. All those black ballers making millions? Step up to the plate and finance these black communities rather than complain about what Bank Of America is and isn't doing. These rich black folks? Why don't YOU put your money where your mouths are and finance home mortgages since it is the consensus that B of A is so racist and corrupt. Let's put our money where our mouths are and build up Detroit without the money of those "racist" white folks who "selfishly" took their money ball and left the playground. I'm with Garvey and Delany before him: build your own and show and prove. Name calling doesn't lower crime. It doesn't open small businesses. And it certainly does not provide employment.

Triumph of The Drones

Continuing on with my discussion of the impending employment crisis that will soon hit the U.S. Salon has an informative article on some of the changes that are already happening:

I eventually realized that I could sit down and order breakfast-via-iPad from any seat in the concourse. Before starting, I was required to input my flight details (presumably so I could be warned when my flight was boarding). Then I ordered coffee and breakfast — two eggs sunny-side up, home fries, bacon and orange juice — through a clunky menu interface. A card-reader to my right enabled payment.

A few minutes later, a waitress appeared with a cup of coffee. Ten minutes after that, she returned with the rest of the food. We exchanged hardly a word.

And I wondered: Why was the airport bothering with any human touch at all? Why wasn’t a drone bringing me my bacon? I mean, isn’t that the obvious next step?

And the next step is already with us in Japan. It is only a matter of time before what we saw in I, Robot comes to life. This is why I commented on the whole "livable wage" protest going on. Not that I don't agree on livable wages, but that as those wages increase the cost/profitability ration tips more and more in favor of automated processes. These machines will cost less and less as market penetration happens. Soon, possibly in my lifetime, those workers will simply be unemployed.

I don't really think that the leadership in government really understands what is coming down the pipe. Job training will not help. Automation will be so prevalent that humans will simply be unnecessary in many of the things that we currently expect to see them. Those people, who will still presumably require money to live, will do what to earn? Will the entire concept of "earn" be done away with? At this point I only see the countries that undergo these transformations living like citizens of certain oil states. They get a stipend from the government based on national productivity. Going to have to consider that or something.

Voices from Robben Island

The Mandela Years

Before I write my critique, read this one:

Finally, the “R” – redistribution – benefited corporations most because a succession of finance ministers lowered primary company taxes dramatically, from 48 percent in 1994 to 30 percent in 1999, and maintained the deficit below 3 percent of GDP by restricting social spending, notwithstanding the avalanche of unemployment. As a result, according to even the government’s own statistics, average black African household income fell 19 percent from 1995–2000 (to $3,714 per year), while white household income rose 15 percent (to $22,600 per year). Not just relative but absolute poverty intensified, as the portion of households earning less than $90 of real income increased from 20 percent of the population in 1995 to 28 percent in 2000. Across the racial divide, the poorest half of all South Africans earned just 9.7 percent of national income in 2000, down from 11.4 percent in 1995. The richest 20 percent earned 65 percent of all income. The income of the top 1 percent went from under 10 percent of the total in 1990 to 15 percent in 2002, (That figure peaked at 18 percent in 2007, the same level as in 1949.) The most common measure, the Gini coefficient, soared from below 0.6 in 1994 to 0.72 by 2006 (0.8 if welfare income is excluded).

R.I.P. Nelson Mandela

Jihadist Groups Gain in Turmoil Across Middle East

Oh yeah. OHHHH yeah. I remember a few years back when certain mainstream news organizations were talking about how Al-Qaeda was defeated and it's goals and aims were not bearing fruit. I laughed because I knew that wasn't true in the least bit. In my opinion such commentary was no better than GW Bush's "Mission Accomplished" grandstanding.

I said then that the Arab Spring was actually an opening for Al-Qaeda because one of their stated goals were to topple regimes that they saw as insufficiently Islamic as well as too closely aligned (or aligned at all) with The West. So far from a rejection, many of the events were in fact in line with the desired outcomes of Al-Qaeda.

Intensifying sectarian and clan violence has presented new opportunities for jihadist groups across the Middle East and raised concerns among American intelligence and counterterrorism officials that militants aligned with Al Qaeda could establish a base in Syria capable of threatening Israel and Europe.

So NOW these folks are concerned about that? I would have thought these geniuses would have figured that out long ago. And what's this?

“We need to start talking to the Assad regime again” about counterterrorism and other issues of shared concern, said Ryan C. Crocker, a veteran diplomat who has served in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. “It will have to be done very, very quietly. But bad as Assad is, he is not as bad as the jihadis who would take over in his absence.”

Which we here at The Ghost knew all along. You know there is a reason why Mubarak was called "Our boy in Egypt" right? Look. It was STUPID to have gotten involved with the Syrian civil war. It is equally bad for the US to be willy nilly turning on former allies. That anybody trusts the words of the US after the recent backstabbing of former allies is beyond me. One minute they're visiting the White House or a diplomat is taking a photo for a photo-op and the next we're talking about who has to go and where we're going to bomb and what red line exists. That's really bad policy, kinda like the new dumb shit going on in the South China sea. I mean really? The US is where? The South China Sea is where? Why does the US think they have the right to fly anywhere and declare who we will and will not notify like the whole world is the US's property.

But rest assured that if the Chinese up and decided to fly a warplane anywhere near the US west or east coast for a couple of hours without notification there would be all kinds of complaining going on.

Seriously?

As a follow up to last night's post on protected classes. Jane Wells shows us just how far the rabbit hole goes. Remember that I said that the material directed at white males eventually filters down to the rest of us. Here's a wonderful example:

Whether white men can be discriminated against is one question. Whether THESE white men were discriminated against is a second question. Whether men should generally be bothered by a female referring to them by their male anatomy is yet a third question. I will let you answer these questions for yourself.

But talk about a toxic workplace.

The only valid question in this set is question number two: Whether those [white]men were discriminated against. The other two "questions" are not questions at all. They are a matter of fact. White men, like all other men can be discriminated against and when it comes to the workplace a man can and should be bothered by a female referring to them by their "special" anatomy.

There is no "make up your own mind" when it comes to this. There is no fuzzy grey area. This is what I was referring to last night.

"Not A Protected Class"

Salon has an article entitled "Three white college students file racial discrimination complaint against professor over lesson on structural racism" which contains a video interview with the professor involved, the head of the "diversity department" but curiously not any of the three students involved.

First and foremost; regardless as to what position one holds on the incident, if one is going to present a video report on the subject one should at least ask one of the mentioned parties for comment. If anything the absence of commentary from the students involved only serves to underline their contention that they are being singled out for discrimination. Lets start with the allegation:

A black female professor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College was formally reprimanded by school officials after three of her white male students were upset by a lesson she taught on structural racism.

Shannon Gibney says that the students reacted in a hostile manner to the lesson in her Introduction to Mass Communication class, with one of them asking her, “Why do we have to talk about this in every class? Why do we have to talk about this?”

Gibney says that, after this initial comment, another white male student said, “Yeah, I don’t get this either. It’s like people are trying to say that white men are always the villains, the bad guys. Why do we have to say this?” These students continued to argue and disrupt the lesson until Gibney told them that if they were troubled by her handling of the subject, they could file an official complaint with the school’s legal affairs department.

I was not a communications major when I was attending university so I do not know what subject matter is covered in an Intro to Mass Communication class but I would seriously ask, on academic relevancy grounds what a lesson on "structural racism" has to do with Intro to Mass Communication. Not that there are no academic ground to cover such a subject but is an Intro to Mass Communication the place for such a topic? The other question in regards to that subject would be has or had the professor covered other "discriminatory structures" in Mass Media (misandry comes immediately to mind). Secondly by the statements made by the students and the words of the professor herself, it would appear that the entire subject matter was the negative representation of white heterosexual males. One could ask "what is wrong with that?" and the answer would be that if one is talking about racism and racist attitudes and actions in "Mass Media" that only made the "bad guys" out to be white males, then one is not only covering up group acts of racism (remember that racism is actually a set of beliefs and attitudes in regard to race, any race that are not necessarily negative or positive). Therefore the subject would have to cover similar attitudes, if any, present in other groups. For example the lack of black people in much "Hispanic" mass media even though there are a great deal of black Hispanics. Or the general absence of dark skinned Indians in their media outlets, advertising, etc. Particularly in regard to women. Are these not "structural racisms" that do not involve white heterosexual males?

Moving on. When you watch the video and see Gibney's commentary you find some very typical, shall we say entitlement and hysteria common among female liberal faculty members:

1) She said she is scared. No seriously. What is with liberal "feminist" women and their apparent lack of emotional control? Just about every time I see a liberal women get challenged on something she says, there are comments about not feeling safe and the so called intimidation they are feeling. It is as if everyone is obliged to walk on eggshells lest these delicate "damseling" women catch fright. Gibney should be put under a psychiatrists care if she is scared to be in a class of students willing to ask questions and not simply take what is said as canon. Isn't that what these institutions of higher learning are supposed to be about anyway?

2) She's complaining about her authority taken away (or challenged). Well yeah. Students can actually do that, provided they are respectful. I'll say this as someone who regularly challenged my teachers in college, including reporting one to a dean; If I feel that I am being picked on based on my race or gender, I will do something quite similar to these 3 fellows. It is a GREAT thing that I did not have to sit in a gender class for graduation. Based on what I have been seeing, I would have certainly gotten into it with not a few faculty members over the blatant bullshit passed off as sound academics. Here's the deal: If you don't want to be challenged in class, make sure your shit is tight. That means checking your material against that which opposes it. I know this is hard for some people to understand, but as an academic you have an obligation to look into opposing viewpoints and data AND to present that to the students so long as that data is credible. If you don't expect to be challenged.

3) She handled the situation all wrong: In my view this is partly why she is being reprimanded. As a teacher and someone who is supposed to be facilitating the development of critical thinking skills she was very dismissive of the students concerns (most likely because being white, male and presumably heterosexual, they have no say. No really, there are so called feminists who believe that men have absolutely no right to opine on various subjects). Instead of inviting the students to lodge a complaint she should have taken the opportunity to provide them with an assignment to air their view on the subject of "Structural Racism in Mass Media". This was a perfect learning opportunity for the entire class. Since the original complaint stemmed from a student presentation(s) (as claimed by Gibney) let these students present their case in an equal setting and be subject to the same challenges they wished to impose on others. I will lay down $1000 that had Gibney done this rather than take offense at "challenges to her authority" she would not have been reprimanded AND she would have gained the grudging respect of the students who disagreed with her, because at least she was open to opposing views. She also would not have opened the school to a lawsuit.

4) If Gibney is so concerned about intimidating white males why is she teaching there? If Gibney is so concerned about the performance of "students of color" and has issues being confronted by white male heterosexual students, why doesn't she teach at an HBCU? No really? I have been asked to "teach" (that is really funny) at a HBWC and I have flat out refused because I don't do challenges like that. As a Garveyite I concern myself with the education of the African as my primary mission. I'm not here to educate other folks. So I sensibly stay away from the profession. I WOULD be so inclined at an HBCU. Perhaps Gibney would be better off teaching at say Spellman. There she could teach without being bothered with intimidating males at all.

5) Why do black (alleged feminists) keep letting white women off the hook? Really? Why? Gibson blatantly states that the "structured racism" is the sole creation and operation of white [heterosexual] males as if white women were not and are not supportive and benefiting from the same system. Like they didn't raise the kids, make the false accusations, and request the handmaidens (among other things). No seriously, why do black folks (particularly of feminist stripes) continue to give white women the oppressor pass? It's like they forget those women are white as well until they do something that upsets black feminists who then throw a fit about racism in white feminism. Well duh…welcome to the "structural racism" ladies.

6) Lastly there is the issue of folks thinking they can get away with commentary that is discriminatory in nature when it is directed at White [heterosexual] males. This particular poison is the result of the government's creation of "protected classes" of people. Of course it was started with the noble intention of protecting black people from discrimination but it has since been expanded and diluted to the point that if one is not a white [heterosexual] male, then one is a protected class. This is silly and it has dangerous consequences. It may seem odd for a Garveyite to be seen as "protecting" white males. However; upon further examination you will see that it is not so strange. One thing I have noticed from the flip dismissal of commentary or concerns of white males most recently by feminists is that it has crept into flip dismissals of black males (see so called Black Male Privilege) by so called black feminists. Often in many so called progressive conversation, "white" is stripped from male and conversations devolve down into supposed evils of heterosexual males as a group. At that point, as a heterosexual male it becomes my business and my concern. This brings us to article number two:

Nancy Silberkleit is accused by her male employees of gender discrimination such as referring to them as 'penis' instead of by name

Yeah you read right. But that was not the worst of what she did. Not satisfied with engaging in behavior that would have gotten a male worker fired and make headlines across twitter, Nancy's legal team whips out the big gun:

In papers filed in Westchester Supreme Court, Nancy Silberkleit's lawyer says a gender discrimination lawsuit filed against her earlier this year by a group of Archie Comics employees should be tossed in part because white guys aren’t members of “a protected class.”

So in essence, Nancy is free to be sexist towards men, heterosexual men, white heterosexual men, because the government doesn't protect their rights. Not because they have no rights. Does this sound familiar? No? Sounds a lot like the Dred Scott decision doesn't it? For those unfamiliar with that case, the judge in that case declared that black people in general have no rights that any white male (or female for that matter) were bound to respect. How is that any different than this lawyer's contention that the white heterosexual male cannot have his day in court because basically he has no rights that the government (or anybody in a so called protected class) are bound to respect? I believe it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who pointed out that when the rights of one group are trampled on, we are all damaged. See how low feminism has stooped? It begins with an idea and grows into a gross legal framework that threatens everybody.

Mind you I understand that lawyers need to do whatever they legally can to defend their client but I would hope that the judge in this case tosses that entire argument out as it clearly fails the 14th Amendment case. Protected classes are protected from discrimination and not from being discriminatory. How that doesn't fall afoul of the 14th Amendment is beyond me. But I assure you that this policy, the entire concept of "protected classes" is going to get blown up due to this kind of behavior.

And in complete disregard for what gender discrimination is:

And Silberkleit's lawyer, Thomas Brown, said the employees' allegations don't even rise to the level of gender discrimination. "It's absurd," he said

Essentially they are claiming that even if the behavior in question happened, it isn't discriminatory. Imagine that! Imagine a male supervisor referring to his female subordinates as vagina. like "go see the vagina at the front desk." Yeah, such a claim of "not discriminatory" would generate many many laughs and meme's across the internet.

This takes us back to Gibney's class. She's fortunate that the students in question did not have the information I have at the tip of my tongue because a reprimand would have been the least of her worries. See the problem Gibney has is that she thinks she's entitled to say whatever it is she says and that somehow her degree places her beyond critique. Matter of fact a lot of black people walk around with a sense of entitlement. Gibney didn't even acknowledge the concerns of the students. They were simply labelled "angry white heterosexual males" and told to be quiet. Yeah, I'm familiar with that kind of attitude as a BLACK male so I can sympathize. Black folks think that they alone can discuss and discuss correctly matters of racism. That simply is not the case. While we may have the best experiences on the receiving end we also make mistakes in discussing it (since we are fallible humans) and have our own blind spots on the matter. Futhermore, as is evidenced from this blog, not all of us ascribe to the same overall themes of racism. For example, I freely point out the White Supremacy System and Culture as described by Garvey(s) and Welsing, but many of my compatriots do not ascribe. I personally think I have a far better documented case for my position than they do, but I leave that to the readers. What is worse though are academics who think somehow a PhD means they cannot be wrong or questioned by anyone much less someone far less degreed (or has qualifications in other fields of study).

What Gibney and others of her ilk will soon learn is that they no longer have the monopoly on information in regards to issues of race and gender. The world wide web has thrown open the doors of information that previously was locked away in libraries and journals. Stuff like the very very bad violent crime rates among African-Americans are no longer hidden as they are all over YouTube and reported on by individuals with blogs. Blatantly racist (some would say "compensatory justice") knockout games and polar bear hunting deals deadly blows to the common concept of racist violence as the sole domain of whites as perpetrators. The anti heterosexual male attitudes that permeates the feminist sphere are being well documented for those who look for it. And while the mass media of Gibney's class may still hold sway over the public, these things are reaching out. If black academics wish to keep their heads above water, whether it be in matters of race or gender, they better get their acts together and get more, shall we say, mathematical with their analyses. A lot of what is out there is heavy on academic jargon (watch the video) and low on verifiable data. Current verifiable data.

Doubly So

Reading a piece over at Nicholas Stix Uncensored and saw the following:

From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future – that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure - that is not only to be expected; it is very near to inevitable.

And for African-Americans add the historical hostility to authority, due to the experiences of white supremacy, and you have a double impact.

Sniffer Dogs Are What?

From the AP:

The troops don't have metal detectors or other equipment to search cars. And they are missing another important tool: sniffer dogs. Although the canines are very good at finding explosives, the use of sniffer dogs seems to be an unattainable dream in Somalia, where the conservative Muslim population reject sniffer dogs because touching them is "haram" (sinful).

You know this is total bullshit right?

Business Insider Doesn't Understand IQ

Business insider attempted to correct London's mayor , Boris Johnson's commentary on IQ and economic success.

Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 percent of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2 percent have an IQ above 130. [According to the Guardian, Johnson then asked whether anyone in the audience had a low IQ. To muted laughter he asked: "Over 16% anyone? Put up your hands."]

Adam Taylor responded with:

There are many problems with this statement. First, it's a fudging of what IQ measures. IQ testing is designed to show someone's intelligence relative to others. An IQ of 100 is based on the median score, and higher or lower scores are based on their relation to this median score — scores each standard deviation (SD) up or down are defined as 15 IQ points greater or less. What this means is that if you somehow managed to make the everyone with an IQ below 85 leave the U.K., the curve on which IQ is based would shift, and there would be a new 16% of the population with an IQ below 85. All Johnson is really saying which such a statement is that some people score above average on a test, and some people score below average.

Adam doesn't know what he is talking about.

First of all the 100 in the IQ distribution curve described above is ONLY for those classified at Caucasian. It is not the "median score" for everybody. The median score for those classified as Asian is actually 115. The median score for those classified as African is 85 (let that sink in for a minute).

So Adam has the median score part wrong. Onto Standard Deviation.

Standard Deviation is determined mathematically: It is the square root of the average of the squared differences of the values from their average value.

It is not "15". It is "15" for this data set So again, the SD of 15 discussed in the quote isn't some random number to fit the data, but rather a result of the data and it's averages. For the different Mean IQ levels the standard deviations will change based on the population data. In the case of Caucasians, one standard deviation from their median is 85. Mind you that IQ's below 85 used to be considered mentally challenged.

So now that we've corrected Adam on what the Standard deviation is lets get to his really flawed argument.

What this means is that if you somehow managed to make the everyone with an IQ below 85 leave the U.K., the curve on which IQ is based would shift, and there would be a new 16% of the population with an IQ below 85.

Well no. If all the sub 85 IQ people left the researched median would STILL be 100. The base (median) wouldn't change because that number is based on long term research. But per chance we were to run with Adam's assertion that magically the curve would change then if anything, by knocking out all the sub 85 scores, the median IQ score for Caucasians would increase. It would approach that of Asians. Once that happened, one standard deviation down would be around 100. 85 would be at least 2 SD down and represent a very small number of the population. Much smaller than the population in the original setting.

Yup. See what happens when the IQ median creeps up? Less folks down in the 85 range. See what happens when the median creeps down? More people in the 85 range.

So Boris isn't wrong at all. At least not factually. If the UK were to deport or otherwise "dispose of" the portion of it's population that score below 85 on an IQ test, then it will in fact have a brighter population. Singapore has a policy in place that STRONGLY encourages bright people to breed with each other. Any clue as to why?

Whether that brighter population would produce better economic results is something that can be questioned. And the morality of such a eugenic move could also be discussed. One other thing that would happen if people with IQ's below 85 were "removed" would be a epic drop in crime rates. Particularly violent crimes as most of the people who commit these crimes have low IQ's. But the sheer math? Boris has it right. Adam has it wrong.

So It's Natural Then

I know a lot of people who like to be "bothered" by what they call "segregation". That is, that white people tend to want to live among themselves. It really upsets some of these folks that white people would dare do such a thing. Of course in their total focus on whatever it is white people are doing, they fail to notice the various Asian communities. In fact it seems that the folks I come into contact with have no interest in integrating Asian communities. I suppose that's the old "white is right" philosophy in play. I've often commented to these folks that if a group of people volunteer to freely associate with each other how is it "segregation"? Segregation, as I've written about before, implies a power and coercion on the part of one party (or a third). Freely moving into a particular community is not coercion and therefore not Segregation. Even if the origins of that community did begin in segregation.

So NPR has an article in which they state what should be the obvious. People with like minds (and backgrounds) tend to live together. Of course they are talking Democrat and Republican, but don't be naive, this applies to far more than politics.

States themselves have , with most legislatures and governorships controlled entirely by one party. As a result, not only are blue and red states tracking different courses on just about every issue, but some people are seeking to escape their states. But if Americans are sorting themselves into like-minded communities, are they doing so on purpose? In other words, are people voting with their feet by consciously moving to states or counties that reflect their own partisan preferences? Researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California suggest that, yes, they may be.

Republicans have held an iron grip on governorships in a lot of states, even as their national counterparts are suffering the lowest approval ratings ever. Witness the re-election of Chris Christie in NJ. In what should be seen as particularly shocking, that Republicans got 20% of the African-American vote in NJ. That is like hitting a grand slam in the world series. Black folks simply do not vote for a Republican in that kind of numbers. Anywhere.

Similarly I have pointed out that in NJ, though Obama took the state in 2008 (and 2012). It was on the strength of urban voters in Passiac, Essex and Bergen Counties (as well as Trenton). The rest of the state is red, red, red. And when you look at the election returns across the country, Democrats do very well in urban areas and do very poorly in rural areas. It is only because of the population densities of urban areas that the democrats can do well.

Of note, these red rural areas are very very white. And these white areas have far less crime of all types than their urban counterparts. therefore they do not respond to gun legislation hysteria which seeks to make them pay for the actions of largely urban (and non-white) dwellers. And from what I'm reading in various blogs, there is a migration of like minded whites out of what they consider liberal states and moving into the northwest (Hello Colorado).

People then tend to end up living among people who are more or less like them, in terms of economic status, shopping preferences and the like. But the U.Va. and USC researchers, in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Experiment Social Psychology, suggest that increasing numbers of people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial.

Really? People want to live among people who share their ideology. Shocking! Shocking!!

"It is natural for people to desire communities where they share a worldview with their neighbors," writes the team, led by Matt Motyl, a doctoral candidate in psychology at U.Va.

Natural you say?

"The desire to live near people of the same ideological group," the study authors concede, may be less important than jobs, safety and clean air, but they conclude it's "relevant" nonetheless.

What if the ideology concerning safety like say "gun control laws" drives the decision to live near people with the same ideology?

Torben Luetjen, a German political scientist who has been studying liberal and conservative enclaves in Wisconsin. "America has split into closed and radically separated enclaves that follow their own constructions of reality."

And when this happens in a country what usually happens?

Denial

The linked Salon.com article is a classic case of denial. Title header reads:

Colorado lawmaker resigns in face of recall over gun control vote In that piece we find the following:

“Most Coloradans believe that going through a background check is a reasonable thing to do if it means we can keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals,” Hudak wrote in her resignation letter. “Most Coloradans believe that the convenience of high-capacity ammunition magazines is less important than saving lives in tragedies like Sandy Hook, Aurora and Columbine. By resigning, I am protecting these important new laws.”

Think about it for a minute. If per chance Hudak was correct about what "most Coloradans" believe, then why resign? Stand at the ballot and let the people express their belief and return her to her seat. Her resignation is a recognition that the fact is most Coloradans do not believe what SHE believes they should believe.

Belief aside, Sandy Hook would not have been prevented by any gun law whatsoever. Not limited magazines or background checks. Why? Research shows that even though shooters bring much ammunition to shootings, they rarely use even 1% of what they bring before they kill themselves. Secondly Adam Lanza did not go through a background checks because Adam Lanza did not purchase the gun he used. Perhaps "most Coloradans" know these things and don't like hysterical lawmakers imposing their faulty views on everyone else who is, you know, law abiding.

Manufacturing Is Tied To What?

He argues, for instance, that the demise of US manufacturing dooms the country not just intellectually but creatively, because innovation is tied to the process of making things. (And, unfortunately, he has the figures to back that up.) WIRED got Smil’s take on the problems facing America and the world.

Mr. Garvey back in 1920 told the African: Where are your ships, your factories and men of big affairs. People thought he was being ridiculous to want black folks to create what they wish to consume and engage in all levels of commerce. I wonder why? Oh right.

People who do not solve their own problems (making things) depend on those persons who DO solve their problems. The people who create the solutions profit and progress and the ones who consume the solutions feed those who create the solutions. Take a walk around various ethnic neighborhoods and see who is producing solutions to their problems and who are not. line that up with levels of poverty and employment. The results should be "interesting".

Who's Kid Is That?

I saw The Best Man Holiday this past weekend. I also saw a commercial this morning. I have a problem with something I saw in both. I have a friend who tells me I'm “Technical”. I suppose that's a nice way of saying “way too picky” but my “technical” mind kicked in when Lance's children were shown in The Best Man Holiday.

See apparently, in great disregard for general genetics, Lance and Mia have a set of rainbow children. One of those children sporting light skin and practically straight hair stands out as a “who's kid is that?”

See, there was no discussion of adoption in the film. Nor was there any mention of Lance having tipped out on Mia or of Mia having done any more tipping out. Therefore;we are left to assume that all of those children are biologically Lance's and Mia's. The problem is that Lance (played by Moris Chestnut) is, shall we say, “quite the Africoid” and Mia, while clearly less so, is not so mixed as to produce a child like that unless she had been cheating with someone not so “Africoid” as Lance.

In fact here's a nice photo of Mr. Chestnut's actual children:

Note that Mr. Chestnut's wife is significantly lighter than he is. Matter of fact she closely matches the Mia character.

There are a lot of confused people out there who will quote popular science about how African-Americans are mixed. Yeah that's true for some or maybe most of them but it is not true for all of them and it is how much so that is the point. Generally children come out as a combination of the parents. Mom's eyes. Dad's face. Maybe mom's entire face but dad's body type. Maybe dad's face but halfway between mom and dad's height. Etc. But generally speaking the children resemble the parents, strongly. After all they share 50% of their genes. The same applies to black folks. The problem, if you may call it that, is that you introduce color into the equation. Skin color of offspring generally falls between that of the parents (albinos being an obvious exception). Not only that but since skin color, nose shape, eye color and hair texture are linked traits, children will also come out generally with a combination of the parents hair texture.

This is why among more self hating African-Americans, the obsession with mates with “good hair” is prevalent. If you are an outsider the amount of commentary in regards to hair type of children, particularly girl children, would make you wretch in disgust. But it is well known that if you and your mate has “nappy” hair then your children will have said hair too. Black folks do not pop out babies with “odd” hair unless they have odd hair themselves (which is actually a growing trait given the general breeding patterns in the African-American community).

In case y'all forgot, Morris's hair looks like so:

You don't get damn near straight hair from that.

So knowing this, “that child” in Lance's home stood out. But for an increasing number of people, this is considered “normal”. Why? Well it goes back to the Cosby show. Bill Cosby in complete disregard of genetics decided that his on screen family would “represent all the shades of us”. So in blatant disregard for the science, the children ranged in skin tone, hair texture and facial features and thus began this really silly trend of making African-American families rainbow in order to reflect some social fantasy of the producers.

This was also in a commercial I saw this morning where another supposedly African-American family contemplating Christmas shopping had a child that was clearly “not theirs” (unless adopted). Every time I see this I wonder who the producers think they are fooling. Then I remember that they are fooling a lot of people. And well, people like me who point out the obvious are being “divisive” and racist or whatever else other than “truthful”.

Which brings me to my last point, which is not actually about children but still about genetics. spoiler alert At the end of the movie Mia pulls off her wig to reveal what I suppose the audience is to regard as her natural hair. Short, close to the head. To me that was a pretty powerful statement. First some background which should be common knowledge but you never know who is reading this.

African men and women have the same hair texture.

Yeah it looks like that...and sometimes tighter.

No, there is no miracle of genetics in which African women grow straight hair and the men grow curly hair. We all have the same hair. African women use chemicals to “uncurl” their hair or use what is referred to as a hot comb for similar effect. I will not bore the reader with a long explanation as to why this is done but if you asked the honest opinion of the vast majority of African-American men and women, the overwhelming response (possibly after 'easier to handle') would be it looks better/more feminine. In fact many black men (and women for that matter) will outright tell you that natural haired black women look masculine. But that's not the subject of this entry so back to Mia's hair.

So near death Mia takes off the wig and wears it natural. What a statement that Mia could not and had not accepted her hair, as it grows out of her head until she was literally a day away from death. Such a shame. OK I lied, it does have to do with the children. See I think a part of why the producers tried to pass off “that kid” is due to the confusion about black women's hair. After all, if you think that black women's hair grows straight naturally, then why can't they have a straight hair baby? Makes me think of the numerous black women who have never, ever seen their mother's natural hair texture.

Ever.

Look at Michael Jackson's “kids”. Why are there people who still think they are biologically his? Those are not his children, at all. And mind you, Michael Jackson is mixed himself. He most certainly would have children with a white woman who would share a lot more European type features than African, but that there? Nope. Doesn't mean that MJ wasn't a loving father. Not at all. Just don't pass the bullshit plate my way and expect me to eat it.

So could we please stop with the random rainbow children. Please? If you wanna put some light bright kids in a movie, then please have the parents resemble the appropriate geno and phenotype for that. And for all you folks out there who are getting fooled by hollywierd, Yeah um, if you messin' with Morris Chestnut, you're NOT having “that kid”, unless you're not black, at all, well, maybe a little bit black, just a little bit, and even then, odds are long. Reallly long.

U.S. Flies B-52s Into China’s Expanded Air Defense Zone

Two long-range American bombers have conducted what Pentagon officials described Tuesday as a routine training mission through airspace recently claimed by China as its “air defense identification zone.”

I think China (or Russia for that matter) should fly a few bombers 13 miles off the US east coast and see how Washington reacts to that.

Compare and Contrast

So Counterpunch has a piece on the American Criminal Elite Where we find this gem:

Let someone die in a gang-banger crossfire in South Central, and William Bennett will rush to indict an entire generation, an entire race. Where are the sermons from Bennett, Murray and the Sunday Show moralists about the CEOs scuttling off with their swag, leaving their employees to founder amid wrecked pensions and destroyed prospects? A street kid in Oakland is in the computer by the time he’s 10. No “criminal propensity” profiles for grads of the Wharton or Harvard business schools.

It takes the special thinking of a liberal to actually write something like this. The authors would seriously want us to say that stuff like the Knockout Game which has been claiming victims for at least 2 years now is somehow equal to the might be criminal propensity of a business school grad? Really?

The above is supposed to be the same as studying in business school.

Seriously.

This is not to dismiss the criminal conduct of those in the industry who have given us the housing collapse among other things, but really, that's on the level of random gun [and non-gun] violence?

No. And don't insult black people's intelligence with that nonsense either. One of the most pernicious forms of white supremacist racism is the dismissal of agency of black people when they do wrong. If the authors want to talk about the crimes of corporate elites, do so, but leave out the rank comparisons to street violence.

Living Wages and Inflation

Reading through comments about that "socialist" city council member in Seattle made me think I should revisit my support of livable wages. Some commentators brought up the potential for prices to rise dramatically if the minimum wage is increased.

On the surface such a concern seems valid. After all labor is the highest [recurring] cost for most businesses. Equipment has a high one time purchase and then a cost associated with maintenance and then can be sold to recoup some of the original costs. But as automation has shown, machines cost far less than human labour, particularly when measured against sheer productivity gains.

There are businesses that run at very high profit margins on their final product. It is completely false to claim that somehow raising the wages of workers who put together say Nike sneakers would push prices of Nike sneakers up. The only reason why Nike sneakers would go up in price would be because Nike was protecting it's profit margins. Smaller mom and pop stores would have larger problems with large increases in wages. On the one hand many family run stores with family as employees are somewhat immune from the issues, because the family generally co-owns the business and so money is evenly split. They live their lives with the business and nobody is really getting insanely rich off the business. They may be a part of the 1% due to raw income but they are at the bottom part of the 1%.

At the upper end of the 1% are folks who aren't really making money because they produce anything. They make money off of money off of money. Minimum wage increases will do nothing to their wealth. Not one bit. In fact I would hazard to guess that a lot of those top top top earners give away more money than a lot of workers make in a year or ten.

On the other hand one has to be pretty careful about wages. Should a no skill job pay the same as one that takes 8 years of specialized training to do? I certainly do not think that the guy who changes the oil on my car deserves the same pay as the one who can take apart my engine or transmission. I DO think that the guy who changes my oil should have the opportunity to get the training to take apart my engine so he can get that pay if he so chooses. But I'm not up for increasing his oil changing pay because he simply thinks he should be paid more to do it.

Of course therein lies the conundrum: What job deserves "living wages" as opposed to shall we say "entry level, HS student, don't expect to support a family on this" pay? If a lot of people who should be in "support a family" job are in "HS Student part time" job trying to support a family then there is a problem with the kind of work available and not so much what is being paid to do it. As I've pointed out in other entries, those "part time, don't expect to support a family" jobs are going to go away with automation and self-service. So, for example, if you think you will be able to be a cashier at a department store for the next 30 years and support your family, you have a whole other thing coming. And no amount of minimum wage is going to help.

This brings us back to the point I made in the last post: As technology decimates low and medium skill work (anything done by hand) and those previously employed doing these things (and the future would have been workers) are no longer employable but are still, you know, alive, what is government going to do? That is the policy question that needs to be looked at.

Flex Point

Kshama Sawant recently won an election in Seattle. She says she is a Socialist and has some ideas about how businesses should be run:

I wouldn’t call it “more socialist,” in the sense that it doesn’t make sense: It can be either capitalism or socialism. But what we can do, in the journey toward making the economy into something that works for everybody: We have to fight for major reforms under capitalism … We are going to be pushing forward for $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle in 2014 …

I'm not opposed to a $15/hour minimum wage. In fact I'm all for a livable wage.

But we also have to be honest … That’s not going to be enough. Because the system itself is a system of crises … Capitalism does not have the ability to generate the kind of living wage jobs that will be necessary in order to sustain a decent standard of living for the majority …

Well here starts the problem. It isn't that Capitalism does not have the ability to generate living wage jobs, it that technology, the very sector Kshama comes from, has completely upended labour. Anyone familiar with history knows that for a while between Unions and business ideas like that of Henry Ford created quite a few middle class jobs where a man could, on his own salary, purchase a house, marry and support his family. That man could do so without a college education. Those days are fast closing.

Boeing has an enormous factory, [as well as] all the auto factories that are lying defunct right now in the U.S. — they all have enormous capacity for production. And there’s any number of workers with the skills, and people who have the potential of learning those skills. And instead we have a situation where, because we don’t have a say in the production, either the machines are lying idle, or the machines are being used to produce destructive machines like drones.

So what we need to do is to take the machines and the factories into democratic, say, democratic ownership — and the workers can contribute rail cars or buses, something like that, something that is beneficial to society. And that’s something that creates jobs — it will create living wage jobs …

Are you comfortable with the government telling you what your business should and should not produce? I'm all for responsible business but I am not for dictating what businesses should be in the business of doing. Boeing would not produce "destructive drones" if there were no customers for said drones. Kshama should be more concerned about why those customers exist more so than the means of their production

But her commentary about Boeing also underlines her complete blindness to business realities. Boeing factories aren't sitting idle because they don't want to use them. Boeing has idle factories because it no longer needs to use them to produce what they want. And why should a business pay to maintain a factory they have no need for?

And apparently Kshama thinks that Boeing would pay people x amount per hour to produce "rail cars or buses" when robots (who I'm sure she programmed for at some point) could do the job far cheaper. Unless of course she thinks the government ought to pass legislation requiring a certain number or percentage of human employees. Good luck with that.

See, I don't mind Kshama's attitude and vision for the people. The problem is that she apparently does not realize that the tech ship has sailed. More and more jobs previously done by "the people" (those who are not college educated and who's jobs do not require a college degree of any sort) are soon to be automated. How long do you think a $50k/year Starbucks barista job will last against the soon to come fully automated coffee stores that makes perfect coffee every single time?

or a Burger King?

Or a totally self service supermarket where RFID items are automatically checked and paid for so there are no cashiers or lines?

Department stores with RFID on all items so you pick up and go? Where robots can and will restock items (assuming one goes to shop).

Where there are no gas stations or attendants?

Where there are no road crews?

Where there are no bus drivers?

What happens when the minimum wage hits the reality of the jobs they were intended for are gone? That is the real problem facing the people. A technology makes human labour more and more unnecessary what do the countries do with the people who will supposedly still need money to get the stuff they need and want?

This is the real question for those concerned about the future. The flex point is fast approaching. Who's paying attention?

Who Says Illegal Immigration Doesn' Hurt Blacks?

From the NY Times:

“I’ve been turned down from McDonald’s because I was told I was too articulate,” she says. “I got denied a job scrubbing toilets because I didn’t speak Spanish and turned away from a laundromat because I was ‘too pretty.’ I’ve also been told point-blank to my face, ‘We don’t hire the unemployed.’ And the two times I got real interest from a prospective employer, the credit check ended it immediately.”

Not French, German, Italian, Swahili or Arabic.

Spanish.

Not even a language indigenous to this hemisphere.

I've already laid the case out of why those so called black leaders who are good with illegal immigration are throwing black folks (particularly those without college educations) under the employment bus for political gain. Someone ought to demand that these black elites explain to regular ol' black folks, who are experiencing double digit unemployment, as to why they are OK with adding more competition into the workforce and helping to create an employment environment that blocks them.

The Affordable Care Act "Issues"

So it is amusing to see the great whale fail of the ACA website coupled with the millions of cancellations of insurance policies made illegal by the ACA. All of it was avoidable. First and foremost, had we passed go (The insurance companies) and went directly to a single payer policy by expanding medicaid and medicare to cover everyone, cradle to the grave, none of the policy cancellations we have seen would have happened at all because everyone would be covered once the expansion kicked in. No looking for a policy. No figuring out what your budget could afford. You have a Social Security card? You have insurance. Easy peasy.

There would have been no website to sign up. You ever use a website to get your SSN? I didn't. When my mother had to claim her SS and Medicare benefits the already up and running structures in place, though a bit rough around the edges, worked fine. Why it was thought it would be better to make up a brand new system, process and bureaucracy to implement something that is already working and already scaleable.

It was clearly a bad idea and this whole thing makes the opposition look like they were right all along which of course they were, even if for the wrong reasons. Yes the ADA ought to be done away with but not for the status quo. The ACA is a poor excuse for handing insurance companies more customers. And a lot of people are finding out I and others were absolutely right to point out that said companies will make more money because they have every right to charge more to meet the new "floor" of coverage that is legally required (the reason why so many are getting cancellations in the first place).

I'm certain that this will be rectified in the near future with modifications, deadline extensions and the like. And the insurance companies are about to make a nice bit of change even with the so called increase caps. All in all, all of this would have been better with single payer.

Who Played Patsey?

Were you familiar with the story of Solomon Northrup before? Absolutely not, and I was shocked and dismayed that I hadn't heard of it. I, of course, talked a little bit with my friends about it, and few if any had heard of the 12 Years a Slave autobiography.

And many will continue not to know.

But she did an excellent job. Excellent.

The Simple Beauty of Tanned Skin

Just don't have the other things that usually go along with dark skin.

Women quickly realized that they looked and felt better with tanned skin. But why?

Tanned skin hides skin imperfections like cellulite, dark spots, wrinkles and veins. Suddenly the skin, even of an older woman, suddenly looks glowing and more youthful when tanned. Cellulite is smoothed, dark spots are muted, wrinkles seem to disappear, and varicose and spider veins are camouflaged and sometimes completely covered by the bronze glow.

Women? What women?

Men notice you, girlfriends comment on your beautiful tan, and clothes and jewelry look even better against tan skin.

Really?

I wonder when these women figured that out?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get that tan we all crave without ruining our skin? Coco Chanel had no choice but we do, because we have sunless tanners. Sunless tanners offer a safe option to get the tan we crave without the dangers of the sun.

We who? I believe nature provided some of us protection from the "dangers of the sun".