Desmond Tutu Has It All Wrong

Desmond Tutu has recently penned a piece in the NYT saying that African leaders are looking for a license to kill. Never mind the over the top James Bond reference, it is pretty clear that Tutu did not spend much time thinking about what he wrote before he sent it off for publication in one of the widely read publications in the world.

These calls must be resisted. The continent has suffered the consequences of unaccountable governance for too long to disown the protections offered by the I.C.C.

It's pretty ironic that the person who authored the "truth and reconciliation" commission in South Africa, which essentially let those who committed crimes against the Azanian people to go without punishment so long as they "told the truth", to be talking about accountability.

Where was the accountability in South Africa? Where was the JUSTICE for the many many many murders of South Africans (and we ain't talkin' about the European colonist or their descendants)?

Now Tutu was correct that there are those who have been using their countries as personal bank accounts and have killed their own citizens in doing so. But that is no excuse for advocating that a foreign body that seems to think it's job is to police Africa keep doing so. Oh right, Tutu believes that because Africans are in the court and have "high up" positions, that it is OK.

Well then Mr. Tutu, if it's supposed to be good for Africa, then why isn't it good enough for the US? See the US has signed to the court but not ratified it. See the US doesn't want to have it's citizens, including it's leadership liable for prosecution under the ICC. It does not want to be held responsible for it's wars of aggression. The criminal acts of its armed services members. The drone warfare. The wars it has provided material support for (which the ICC recently convicted Charles Taylor of doing in Sierra Leone).

If Mr. Tutu wanted to make a real point about the validity of the ICC, he should demand that the world's police nation ratify the court and submit to it's jurisdiction. Until that happens those African leaders, regardless of what they've done are right to say they do not want to be under a court that is clearly stacked against them.

Syrian Rebels Targeted Civilians

n a coordinated attack, numerous rebel groups fought off a small garrison of government troops and swept into the villages, killing 190 people, according to a Human Rights Watch report to be released on Friday. At least 67 of the dead appeared to have been shot or stabbed while unarmed or fleeing, including 48 women and 11 children, the report said. More than 200 civilians are still being held hostage.

Well at least they didn't use chemical weapons.

Police Aggression

Echoing a sentiment I've had for a while, Jonathan Carp writes about the NYPD police in general in the US:

American police today appear unwilling to accept any risk whatsoever and seem willing to kill anyone and anything that could possibly be seen as a threat; according to the chief of the D.C. police, Cathy Lanier, these police officers “did exactly what they were supposed to do.”

I said a long time back that militarizing the police is a convenient way around the Posse Comitatus Act.

Instead of bringing the military into the domestic sphere merely extend the power of domestic police to include capabilities and equipment previously available only to the military. In the end you get the same result with a different name.

Jonathan ends with:

Deadly force cannot be the first and last choice for dealing with any potential threat, and police officers must be trained to strive always to protect the lives of citizens, especially of suspects. Policing is a dangerous job, but as someone who has held another dangerous job, I must say that our American police need to understand and accept the risks they take when they accept the badge and understand that they are there to protect others before themselves.

Absolutely.

Video of LAPD Officer Kicking Woman Should Be Public

O’Callaghan arrived to assist the arresting officers in placing Thomas in a patrol car. While Thomas was in handcuffs and leg restraints, prosecutors said, a police cruiser’s video camera captured the veteran officer kicking Thomas in the stomach and groin area and pushing her in the throat.

Thomas, once inside the patrol car, lost consciousness and paramedics were called. Shortly afterward, she was pronounced dead at a hospital... Two of the officers disregarded Thomas' request for medical help, while the third cop may have lied to investigators about the incident, Beck wrote in a report.

The five-member Police Commission agreed with the chief's finding that the female officer's forceful use of her feet was "ineffective and inappropriate," according to a commission report on the incident.

What was it Chris Dorner was talking about in regards to the LAPD?

Hostage

Back in late 2010 and August 2011, I wrote that Obama was caving to hostage taking Republicans over the budget.

There is so much being said here such as, is this his Afghanistan policy? It's a fair question. However; most importantly is that if this Democratic president had any backbone, this comment, particularly about the American people being held hostage, would have been what he would have said after vowing to not sign a single piece of legislation that allows the Bush tax cuts to be continued for the "rich"...

Hostage takers use this act only when they think it has a good chance of working. The hostage taker must believe that which they hold is of enough importance to a third party that the third party will do what the hostage taker wants.

During negotiations, the hostage taker may be "convinced" to make slight concessions such as freeing a hostage or two, but they do not EVER make concessions on their primary objective.

NEVER.

and I predicted:

Some observers scored one victory for the president -- the second round of cuts do not kick in until 2013, when the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire. Having a fresh round of deficit reduction that is all cuts with no revenues could give the White House ammunition to end the tax cuts on wealthier Americans, as it failed to do last winter.

So then they will be right back in the same position in 2013. Are we to believe that 3rd time is the charm?

And so here we are in 2013, hostage taking and all and the president is doing what he should have done in 2010.

A Hard Lesson in “Middle Class Values”

We were poor when I was growing up. Not dirt, in a shelter poor but poor enough to do bargain basement everything. What we weren't were “poor” in was values. There were certain values passed onto me, like it was others before me, that were meant to make it easier for me to get out of poverty and stay out of it. These lessons included gems like :

* Save the change after breaking a dollar.
* Don't walk around, sit around with your mouth hanging open.
* Speak properly.

And the gem for today:

* Mind the company you keep.

I know plenty of kids that hate it when their parents tell them that they cannot play with so and so.

Whyyyyyyy????? The usual reply went.

Kids didn't get it. The parents did. They knew that even if their kid wasn't prone to doing bad things, the kid that IS prone to do so would likely involve their children and their children could end up on the short end of the trouble stick.

Today Edwin Mieses is an example of when one fails to learn this particular lesson.

For those who happen to still be unfamiliar, Edwin was in a group of motorbikes that thought it was a good idea to “entertain themselves” on the West Side Highway in NYC. Let's examine how Edwin's bad choices, and those of the people he associated with lead him to a comatose state in a hospital with a snapped spine.

Edwin got up that Sunday morning. Edwin decided he would go hang out with a crew of motorcyclists. Nothing wrong with that. All over America people do things like that on a Sunday. The gather at restaurants, Mall parking lots, etc. They line up and they cruise. I see it all the time. It's loud but loud pipes save lives. The problem was with who Edwin decided to ride with.

Edwin was with a group of people that included one Christopher Cruz who can be seen in the video evidence, riding up along side a surrounded Range Rover. Let's stop here for a moment. You do realize that it is illegal for a motorbike to share a lane with an automobile right? Motorbikes are expected to follow the same rules as any other motor vehicle. So one count against Mr. Cruz. Mr Cruz clearly did not care one bit about his own safety, the safety of the other motorcyclists or Alexian Lien. And certainly Christopher Cruz gave no thought to Edwin. Christopher Cruz only cared about himself.

But what about Edwin. Clearly the behavior of the group on the West Side Highway was shall we say, unsafe. At least that's clear to those of us who give a thought about people other than ourselves when we are out and about on motor vehicles. Edwin could have said to himself:

“Edwin, you got a wife and kid at home. I need to be there for them. This shit right here could end badly. Let me go about my business.”

Edwin didn't do that. Strike against Edwin.

Cruz, as seen in the video decides to cut in front of the Range Rover. Why? Well I don't know. Common sense says that in a survival competition between a motorbike and a Range Rover the bike certainly loses. But Cruz, being the brightest candle of the bunch decides that he would slow down in front of the Rover.

Genius.

We can see in the video that the Rover was slowing down as Cruz cut in front of him and that Cruz purposely slowed down enough to get hit from behind. At this point the crowd stops. Including Alexian Lien in the Rover with his family who are no doubt “concerned”. At this point the videocamera is pretty far away from the events, but if you look closely you can see someone (who I assume to be Cruz) up by the driver side saying something to the driver.

Now if Cruz was a pleasant and reasonable fellow the conversation would have went something like this:

“Hey man. I am soooo sorry for cutting you off and stopping short. Are you OK?” “Oh your kid is back there. Yo, man sorry about that. Do we need to exchange info? My bike looks ok. I doubt your car is damaged. No? Cool man. And again, Sorry for cutting you off.”

But knowing what I know and experiencing what I've experienced AND seeing the figure in the video, snap back and then aggressively go back to the driver's window, I'm going to assume the conversation was more like:

“The fuck man? Why you fuckin' hit me?.....

etc. etc.

Edwin, who had seen this had an opportunity to leave. He could have said to himself:

“You know what, this could end really badly. We're in the middle of a highway, blocking traffic. Tempers are flaring and I know how niggas do when their boys are around. Let me go on and leave before this gets really bad.”

Nope. Edwin decided to continue to hang out with bad company.

So after likely being threatened by the person who was likely yelling profanities at him, Alexian Lien, fearing for his and his family's safety decided to get out of the situation quickly. Now some people are of the opinion that Alexian Lien had no reason to be afraid for his safety. I will simply point the reader to the numerous reports of mob actions by groups “resembling” the one on the highway who have randomly beat up people in the streets on Mall properties and at State fairs. Maybe YOU aren't bothered by a bunch of folks threatening you on a road, but for other people that kind of behavior sets off alarms.

So when Alexian Lien drove off, Edwin, hanging with the wrong crowd at the wrong time, had his back crushed by the escaping Rover and now lays in a hospital bed in a coma. Sad. Edwin's wife wants Lien charged over that. I'm certain there will be a lawsuit. Unless there is a very sympathetic jury, Edwin and his family gets nothing. Why?

Mind the company you keep.

Lien had good reason to believe that he was not safe. He had been surrounded while driving on the highway. A cyclist was riding closely to his vehicle and likely menacing him. His vehicle was purposely hit by one of the group. That person likely threatened him verbally while he was surrounded by at least 30 people. Guess what folks, if a person feels threatened they have a duty to defend themselves AND to retreat from the situation. There was no way for Lien to reasonably deduce that Edwin was not one of the people who would beat him up and slash his face. Nope. The fact that Edwin was a part of the group made him as suspect as anybody else involved.

Mind the company you keep.

Unfortunately, should Edwin come out of his coma, he will have the rest of his paralyzed life to contemplate the hard truth of the Middle Class Values lesson that he ought to have learned years ago.

For those of you who are young, somewhat dumb, able bodied, healthy and of impressionable age; I suggest you take a good look at Edwin and then take a good look at the company YOU keep.

For you parents out there who have been lax in teaching and enforcing those lessons you are supposed to impart to your children, Take a good look at the comatose Edwin. That could be your child next. And yes, it will be partially your fault if you did not do your part.

Skin Bleaching in Jamaica

Speaking of "too black"...One of the effects of being told one is "too black" to be [put whatever here]

Not Surprised In The Least Bit

Jakiyah McKoy was crowned Little Miss Hispanic Delaware but… “There was uproar when the winner was announced because, according to the public, she was not the best representative of a Latin beauty.” According to a college friend of mine, who knows the family: “[the pageant] required proof of only her ethnicity, not the other contestants. On top of that they take her title and crown away, because she can’t show proof of ethnicity because her undocumented grandmother who was from the Dominican Republic, which gives her the necessary 25% of Latino ancestry, is deceased.”

The persistent disappearing of black women in a well known phenomenon to those who have been paying attention.

Of course when we see beauty pageants in central and south America we see many contestants who are CLEARLY of European descent or who look very much like the European "ideal" winning contests. I have previously written about it in Brazil

The goal, he and other model scouts say, is to find the right genetic cocktail of German and Italian ancestry, perhaps with some Russian or other Slavic blood thrown in. Such a mix, they say, helps produce the tall, thin girls with straight hair, fair skin and light eyes that Brazil exports to the runways of New York, Milan and Paris with stunning success.

Once you have read the above, look at various "hispanic" media (tv, print, internet) then you know that what happened to the young lady from Delaware is not only unexpected but not surprising in the least bit.

Jennifer Lopez, in an advertisement for a cosmetic line, claims 100% Puerto Rican. Exactly WHAT is that in an island made up of people from various races (even if one is dominant)? It would be one thing if Puerto Rico was a homogeneous society much like Korea or Japan but it is not. The clear implication is that if Jennifer Lopez is "100% Puerto Rican" then anything not resembling her is not 100%.

It is much like how Mexico attempts to call itself a Meztizo nation. A statement which clearly implies that being unmixed is somehow less "Mexican".

What is also amusing with this is that the current Pope is from Argentina and embraced as a Latino while he is actually a child of Italian immigrants and has no genetic roots in that part of the world AT ALL. Why the acceptance of an Italian as a "latino" (or a German, Russian, etc.) and a stink about this little girl? Well it' simple really. As in the north it is in the south:

White is allllllll right.

Enjoy that immigration reform negritos. You'll soon figure out that anti-black attitudes do not stop at the southern border. If you wish for a quick primer I suggest seeking out and watching the movie Quilombo.

Declassified NSA files show agency spied on Muhammad Ali and MLK

The National Security Agency secretly tapped into the overseas phone calls of prominent critics of the Vietnam War, including Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali and two actively serving US senators, newly declassified material has revealed.

Absolutely nothing new about this information. Anyone who's read the FBI files on MLK and Malcolm X and the multi-volume work on Marcus Garvey knows this already. Only folks who have recently "discovered" what the government has been up to in general and to black folks in particular would think this "new".

And certainly those in the movement(s) knew they were being recorded and watched (among other things).

Powerful Syrian Rebel Group "Casting Their Lot With...Al Qaeda"

Somehow, "I told you this already" doesn't seem quite enough of a statement.

As diplomats at the United Nations push for a peace conference to end Syria’s civil war, a collection of some of the country’s most powerful rebel groups publicly abandoned the opposition’s political leaders, casting their lot with an affiliate of Al Qaeda...

As support for the Western-backed leadership has dwindled, a second, more extreme Al Qaeda group has carved out footholds across parts of Syria, frequently clashing with mainline rebels who accuse it of making the establishment of an Islamic state a priority over the fight to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The fractured nature of the opposition, the rising radical Islamist character of some rebel fighters, and the increasing complexity of Syria’s battle lines have left the exile leadership with diminished clout inside the country and have raised the question of whether it could hold up its end of any agreement reached to end the war.

What was it Al-Assad said was behind the war? Matter of fact who what it that the deposed and executed Ghaddaffi said was behind the civil war in his country.

US fighting and scheming on the side of Al Qaeda.

My, my.

Black Males: What They're Supposed to Be.....

From our friend Cappuccino Soul:

Question Bridge: Black Males is an innovative transmedia art project that facilitates a dialogue between a critical mass of Black men from diverse and contending backgrounds; and creates a platform for them to represent and redefine Black male identity in America.

70% Failure?

So there I was reading another post at SBPDL about the alleged genetic inferiority of black folks when I was struck by the cited article. It is a must read for anyone who is seriously concerned with the state of African people. The alarming quotes:

During the 2011 administration of the Georgia High School End of Course Test for Mathematics I examination, more than half, 54 percent, of the nearly 52,000 black students who took the exam, failed. The failure rate got worse when considering Mathematics II which is the integrated mathematics course that covers statistics, algebra and geometry. Of the approximately 44,000 black students who took that exam, nearly 60 percent failed.

Of 52,000 black students in the state of Georgia 28,080 failed Mathematics I. Of the 44,000 black students in the state of Georgia, 26,400 failed Mathematics II.

For a people who appears to have coined the phrase "Droppin' science", this is not good at all.

Just to make sure we all understand just how bad this is, consider the following chart from the article:

The highest percent failure of white students was 21%.

Twenty percent.

Wait. There's more.

71 percent of the 2,500 black students in APS who took the Mathematics II exam in 2011, failed and only 1 percent, 25 students, passed with distinction (Pass Plus). By contrast, only 21 percent of white students failed with 79 percent passing and 23 percent of those passing with distinction. In Fulton County, where 62 percent of black students failed the Mathematics II exam, 90 percent of the white students passed, 32 percent with distinction. The failure rates and achievement gaps throughout most of the school districts in the metro-Atlanta area are astonishing.

Astonishing is right.

But the following statement fails to adequately understand the problem:

The consequence of this reality is that black students are excluded from much of the STEM conversation and are nearly entirely excluded from the higher level STEM education discourse.

Black students are not "excluded". Excluded implies that some outside force is preventing black students from passing these tests. No, the black students have absented themselves from "much of the STEM conversation". Because black students are not doing the work required. Full stop.

Full. Stop.

In recent postings on education (just in time for the start of school), I pointed to research that shows that:

About the age when a child’s voice stops cracking, education itself has a relatively mild effect on academic success. IQ, good parenting, and personal motivation are by far the most important factors.

So applying this to the report we have to ask the question. What is the cause of the abysmal failure rates from the black students?

Well it's not Jim Crow. It's not Republicans. It's not the KKK either. Why? Because none of these things determine whether you can add, subtract, multiply and divide.

The IQ argument has been dismissed by scholars. It's the easiest explanation. If negroes are simply not constituted to grasp algebra and trigonometry then there's no point even being upset when the vast majority of them fail to do so. The exceptions are, well, exceptional. But we've rejected that as the argument so that leaves two other options:

Good parenting Personal motivation. Let me propose that these two items are the cause of this catastrophic failure. Exhibit A:

If "back to school" for your kid is about clothes, rapping and dancing. They are not going to pass the maths exams. Sorry. For all I know this group of kids are rocket scientists. Fact is though most likely most of them are not. Not even close. Exhibit B:

Oh what's that you say? There are commercials with other kids of other races that do fashion?

I see, And their fail rate is what exactly?

When most of a community's children cannot pass basic mathematics, the above commercial ought not be made or presented.

Either we're serious about this education thing or we're not. We're either preparing our children to do big things or we're preparing them for failure.

Writing in MommyNoire we find:

Kids from both groups are part of Beats and Rhymes Program, a YMCA after school program in Minneapolis. In order to participate in studio time and video shoots, the kids, middle school students, must finish an hour of homework each day they come to the program. The kids told a local CBS station they love the program and know it keeps them out of trouble. Said one ninth grader, “There’s a lot of bad things out here that I could easily adapt to, so, Beats and Rhymes really kept me out of there, so [without it] I would probably be nowhere.” The programs organizers want the kids to understand the importance of school, even writing it into lyrics. One little lyricist says in “Khaki Pants”, “You better stay on your Ps and Qs, ’cause in school I stay on mine.”

Let me remind you: 71% failed basic math. Clearly a whole lot of somebody's are not on their P's and Q's.

But the video is cute and adorable.

70% failure rate is not "cute". Nor is it "adorable".

Let me make a wild guess and suppose that these same 70% who do not know basic maths do know the latest dance moves and the latest hip hop tracks and artists.

And lest we think this kind of failure rate is limited to Georgia or Atlanta, look at the Common Core test results from NY:

Chrystina Russell, principal of Global Technology Preparatory in East Harlem, said she did not know what she would tell parents, who will receive scores for their children in late August. At her middle school, which serves a large population of students from poor families, 7 percent of students were rated proficient in English, and 10 percent in math. Last year, those numbers were 33 percent and 46 percent, respectively.

Do I need to discuss the demographics of Harlem public schools? Thought not.

How are only 7% of students in middle school simply "proficient"?

How are 93% (see, easy math) of the students NOT simply "proficient" in English?

Don't blame the schools. Don't blame the teachers. Don't blame the teachers union.

Why are 90% of the children not even "proficient" in math. Basic math?

And let's examine the results from last year.

67% were NOT proficient in English? Thats' a majority fail rate.

54% were not proficient in math? That's a majority fail rate.

So the results in the previous year, before the changes were abysmal:

But striking gaps in achievement between black and Hispanic students and their counterparts persisted. In math, 15 percent of black students and 19 percent of Hispanic students passed the exam, compared with 50 percent of white students and 61 percent of Asian students.

85% of black students failed?

85%?

Mayor Bloomberg, thinking that we are complete idiots says:

black and Hispanic students, who make up two-thirds of the student population, had made progress that was not reflected in the scores.

85% failure in math is progress? I wonder what egress looks like.

I'm sure a bunch of folks reading this are not happy. Don't care.

71% failure rate of basic maths.

The videos of black students singing, dancing and rapping are not cute because that's the only thing that the vast majority of our students are doing and failing in the stuff that matters.

Either black folks are inherently stupid or parents (and the community at large) are messing up badly. If we reject one, then other must be the case.

Egypt Bans Muslim Brotherhood Group

This is what democracy looks like.

An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the Muslim Brotherhood to be banned and its assets confiscated in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown by the military-backed government against supporters of the ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi...

The ruling opens the door for a wider crackdown on the vast network of the Brotherhood, which includes social organizations that have been key for building the group's grassroots support and helping its election victories. The verdict banned the group itself — including the official association it registered earlier this year — as well as "any institution branching out of it or ... receiving financial support from it," according to the court ruling, made public on Egypt's state official news agency MENA.

The judge at the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters also ordered the "confiscation of all the group's money, assets, and buildings" and said that an independent committee should be formed by the Cabinet to manage the money until final court orders are issued. The verdict can be appealed.

The Brotherhood was outlawed for most of its 85 years in existence.

What's old is new again.

48 Hours.....

So last night I'm watching 48 Hours Mystery. At least that's what I think the show is called. I know they have 48 hours (which turned out to be 4 months I think) to solve a murder case. In this one a 40 year old going to get chicken from a fast food place was bum rushed and shot. I don't usually watch the show but this one I decided to for whatever reason.

A couple of things were just sad about that episode: When they went to arrest the shooter and were putting him in the car, I noted that he was particularly cut (as in fit) and guessed that he had done time in prison before.

I was right.

See, I don't get the whole I been to jail and trying to go back thing. But we'll get back to that in a few.

So then this guy is being questioned by the detective because apparently this guy shot another guy a few hours later while attempting yet another robbery. The way he explained it was that victim no. 2 at the hotel, kinda figured he was being set up and refused to enter the room. So this guy went out to "convince him". When the victim put up resistance, this guy, O.J. decided that such resistance offended his sensibilities so "I shot him".

And that's how he put it.

"So I shot him." Plain as day. Like there was nothing unusual about it.

Then when he was being questioned about victim one at the chicken place he says: "Well you know, I don't just shoot people."

Really.

After just stating how he shot a man for resisting his attempts at robbing him, he straight faced told the detective that he isn't the type to shoot a man who is resisting being robbed.

*Silence*

Then once this guy understood he was going back to jail, he starts with the crying.

Oh. NOWWWW he's sad.

Don't give a damn that he took two lives. Not a tear shed over that.

This "man" feels sad 'cause his butt was headed back to lockup with not one but two murder charges.

Then here comes his mother. This woman calls her son "fat daddy" and "baby".

Really?

Hugging his ass. What?

See this is part of the problem. your grown ass offspring is not a baby. You need to stop calling your grown ass offspring "baby". And what is this "fat daddy"? Why are you calling your child "daddy"?

Your offspring is not your daddy and you shouldn't refer to your offspring as daddy, with the possible exception of father's day.

Instead of upbraiding his ass for the two murders he willfully committed and telling him he's a piece of shit who apparently didn't learn from the first stint in jail and so now is returning on two murder charges like he NEEDS to be told. This "mother" was there cuddling him like he was a 3 year old.

Talking to him like he was a child rather than a grown man who once again brought shame and disrepute on hims AND his family by taking the lives of two people.

Until we change our attitudes to our children and increasingly grown "men" making mayhem in the places where we live (I strain to call them "our communities" since "we" clearly do not "control" them) we are going to continue to see this kind of behavior.

Just last night 13 people were shot at a basketball court in Chicago at 10PM. Why, on a school night and work night were people out on a basketball court at 10PM?

Allow me to suggest what folks should be doing at 10PM:

Sleeping. Reading. Studying for job training or school (or GED if applicable). Working.

Folks don't wanna hear all that. Let me go and write about how the super-agency white folks are responsible because they want their guns and so we cannot outlaw them and keep ourselves safe.

What Determines Academic Performance?

There's always controversy when IQ is discussed. Some people are uncomfortable with the idea that IQ is measurable, variable and averages differently among different populations. Many of the same folks who are uncomfortable discussing IQ, also don't want to point the fingers at culture and parenting in the academic [non] performance of certain groups relative to others. It's amusing (in the not funny way) when I see the following:

Public policy research tank, MDRC, finds that as students age, the effect of any change in education (an “intervention”) shrinks dramatically. The average Intervention for a first grader can bring a failing student in the 27th percentile into the middle of the pack. 10 years later, the average intervention has half the effect. By senior year, it’s expected that students won’t budge more than 6-percentile points.

About the age when a child’s voice stops cracking, education itself has a relatively mild effect on academic success. IQ, good parenting, and personal motivation are by far the most important factors.

Indeed, a recent National Science Foundation report of an online experiment at San Jose State University revealed that student effort was a key variable.

So when we see reports of low test score performance being blamed on "poor schools" and "bad teachers", lets look at the above and realize that the number 1,2 and 3 determinants of scholastic performance has nothing to do with teachers or the kind of school a child attends or WHO that child is sitting next to. *ahem*

Eventually we, African descended folks are going to have to admit that our kids are not all up in Brooklyn Tech or Stuyvesant High has more to do with what we as adults and parents are doing rather than any other force "out there". We will have to stop giving white folks super agency over us and our decisions. Stop giving the Educational system super agency over our children's lives and come face to face with what others have known for a long time:

Sneakers are not important. Clothes are not important. Contrary to Target back to school advertising, dancing and being popular in school is NOT important. Facebook is not important. Twitter is not important. Homework and more homework and a clear expectation of academic excellence is important. Period.

What If American Colleges Abolished Football?

Asked by DAVID MACARAY in a piece run by Counterpunch In his run down, he neglects to note that the number of African-Americans at certain universities would drop as well. Particularly African-Americans who otherwise could not afford a university education (however flawed).

No more "free ride" for them eh?

U.N. Report on Chemical Weapons

Please pay special attention to Appendix 5 where it states in part:

Limitations:

The sites have been well travelled by other individuals both before and during the investigation. Fragments and other possible evidence have clearly been handled/moved prior to the arrival of the investigating team

and

As with other sites, the locations have been well traveled by other individuals prior to the arrival of the Mission. Time spent on the sites was well used but limited. During the time spent at these locations, individuals arrived carrying other suspected munitions indicating that such potential evidence is being moved and possibly manipulated.

Jonathan Ferrell

I heard about this in the morning. Read the report and thought about it for a while.

Jonathan Ferrell had an accident wherein his car went off the road. He got out of the car and since he apparently had no cell phone (or it was dead, we do not know) walked until he found "civilization" and approached a house.

Ferrell apparently walked about a half-mile to the nearest house and was "banging on the door viciously" to attract attention, Monroe said. Thinking it was her husband coming home late from work, the woman who lives there opened the door. When she saw Ferrell, she shut it and called police about 2:30 a.m., Monroe said.

Firstly. This woman. Is her husband in the habit of coming home at 2-3AM "viciously banging on the door"? Does that sound right to you? Does her husband often forget his keys? Does he not have a cell phone which he can call his wife and say "sorry dear, I forgot my keys again, could you come down and let me in?"

Secondly this woman is in the habit of simply opening her door at 2:30 AM to a person "viciously banging on the door"?

Thirdly, your going to tell me that at no point from when she answered the door and shut the door did Jonathan say anything to the effect of "I had an accident and need help"? or simply "help"?

This is a southern boy. Southern boys are known to say "ma'am". He didn't say that?

She saw his black face and decided she was being robbed shut the door (never mind that an actual robber would have pushed her in the minute that door was unlocked) hits the alarm and calls the police.

So far no crime but very questionable story from the woman.

Officers responding to the breaking and entering call found Ferrell a short distance from the home, police said. As they approached him, Ferrell ran toward the officers, who tried to stop him with a Taser. Police said he continued to run toward them when officer Randall Kerrick fired his gun, hitting Ferrell several times. Ferrell died at the scene.

Now lets get something clear. There was no "breaking" and there was no "entering". So the woman in this case, IF she made such a claim made a false claim. Knocking on a door is not "breaking and entering" and being scared of the black man at your door is not "breaking and entering".

So this report (likely false, like in the case of Trayvon) lead the police to come to the home.

Now they reach the scene and the "robber" is still in the area even though his "victim" slammed the door in his face and sounded the alarm. Now any actual burglar or "break and enterer" would have left the premises because the risk of getting caught is way to high. But our actual victim, having done nothing wrong was still looking for help. However, since he's been deemed a criminal.

Now the police said they approached Ferrell (who again, did nothing wrong) who they claimed "ran towards them".

Note that there is no statement of whether Ferrell was saying anything. Note they say nothing about whether he was waving his arms. You know, the things people trying to get help for themselves are likely to do.

Why don't we have these statements?

Where is the statement that Ferrell was coming at them "With what looked like a weapon"?

There is not even the usual "We identified ourselves as police".

So these police, believing the false report assume Ferrell to be a threat and shoot him with a Taser. They claim that Ferrell kept coming.

Now I'm not an expert on the use of Tasers and I don't know what this fellow was wearing, but most of the times that I have seen demonstrations of Tasers, most people go down and tend to spaz out unless they have some kind of protection or are high.

I suppose a toxicology report will determine the latter. Was the "continued to run" actually a response to being tazered while moving?

And still where is the report that the officers, by now, saw a weapon of some kind that justified the use of deadly force?

And certainly a person being Tazered is not generally able to execute commands while they are in pain.

A Tazer is effective up to 15 feet (roughly two body lengths of an average height male). Are you telling me that the officers could not tell that Ferrell was not armed at that distance? Yes it was night time, but we know police roll with flood lights, head lights and flashlights. That does not include any illumination from street and house lights.

At this point Kerrick shoots at Ferrell multiple times.

10 times. Just to be sure, I'm sure.

Police called Ferrell and Kerrick's initial encounter "appropriate and lawful." But in their statement late Saturday, they said "the investigation showed that the subsequent shooting of Mr. Ferrell was excessive" and "Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter."

Much like with Trayvon Martin, the police in this town were unable to come to grips with the fact that a person who had not committed and was not committing any crime whatsoever was dead at the hands of the state and all because they believed that it was OK that the dead black man was assumed to be a criminal.

Only later after pressure mounted did they realize that the usual "our officer thought his life was in danger" line was not going to fly.

I will give the police department credit on this one, they didn't take as long as others to act.

Syrian Rebel Groups Allegedly Sought Sarin Gas Material

An indictment issued in the southern city of Adana alleged that a Syrian national identified as Hytham Qassap, 35, was in Turkey trying to procure chemical materials for a pair of well-known Islamist rebel blocs, Al Nusra Front and the Ahrar al-Sham Brigades, the reports said. Washington has designated Al Nusra Front as a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda.

Oh really?

Neither group is affiliated with the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.

Of course they're not.

Kerry's True Colors

These past few weeks have shown the world John Kerry's true colors. It's not that they weren't on display before but since his rise to an administration post with international dealings, John Kerry has shown us just how craven and two faced Democrats have become.

I rarely, if I ever recall, agree with Ann Coulter *managing to avert a bit of barf welling in my throat*, but she has the current Democrats pegged when she wrote the following:

Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, escalated the war in Vietnam in order to prove that Democrats could be trusted with national defense. Which they cannot.

Though the rest of the piece leaves much to be corrected, that comment absolutely describes Democrats of late and John Kerry in particular.

Let us recall that then Senator John Kerry sat by while a citizen in an "open forum" meeting was tasered by the police (or security) because they objected to his line of questioning. That one act convinced me once and for all that John Kerry was a coward. How does a supposed representative of the people sit by and watch one of the people be abused by state authority?

This coward sat in his seat the entire time while a citizen exercising his supposed freedom of speech and possibly his freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances, was assaulted by multiple officers.

Kerry kept his seat.

Now this coward extraordinaire finds something in his pants that he thinks are testicles and attempts to push the US into war. This guy who was supposed to be the 2004 Anti-Bush (tm). The former "anti war" soldier who "famously" tossed his medals was supposed to be the Democratic "peace" presidential candidate.

So yeah, it seems Kerry is doing exactly what Ann proposed. Nice to know he cares more about the well being of Syrians than about citizens right in front of his face being abused by the state.

Democratic party symbol is the donkey.

Fits Kerry perfectly.

Nigeria's Child Brides

Others are more blunt. Haliru Andi, who served as Yerima's top aide while he led the call for sharia, bristles at the idea of interference with his faith. "How I even use the toilet, how I share my time with my family – everything is contained in my religion," he says in his Persian-carpeted living room. "How, then, can I take instructions from anybody who does not have a deep understanding of Islam?"

Idiot. And I'm being nice.

In one, a woman is being forcibly restrained on a woven palm-frond mat. An assistant grabs her legs; another sits on her chest, and yet another reaches between her legs with a razor blade.

The scene shows a common recourse when a child bride refuses to sleep with her husband, prompting her parents or in-laws to drag her to the wanzan, or traditional barber. "This traditional barber, he doesn't understand anatomy. He thinks there's something obstructing the girl down there, and that's why she fears her husband. So anything he sees, he will just use his knife to cut it," Mutia explains. "They think they are helping."

Because no way she could just not want to have sex. Nope.

2013 and this dumb shit is happening and folks wanna hide behind their religion.

That Thug George Zimmerman

"He's in his car and he continually has his hand on his gun and keeps saying step closer ... and he's gonna shoot us," a breathless and clearly scared Shellie Zimmerman told the police emergency operator, according to the 911 call released by police. "He's just threatening all of us with his firearm," she added. Shellie Zimmerman, who filed for divorce last week, also said her husband had punched her father in the nose and smashed her iPad.

This is the accusation of the wife of George Zimmerman. The same George Zimmerman who insisted he was "minding his own business" and posed no threat and made no threats to Trayvon Martin.

So now the world knows he quite possibly has a habit of sitting in his car with his gun seeking whom he may assault.

Now the world knows quite well that Zimmerman apparently has a habit of hitting people in the face whom he has a problem with.

Now we know beyond reasonable doubt that Trayvon did, in fact, say "Get off me" when Zimmerman attacked him. The world can reflect on the apparently factual testimony of Rachel Jeantel, roasted for being unable to read (or write)in cursive (like that meant shit) and for being "combative". We can reflect that she was most likely the most truthful witness (as in direct to the incident) on the stand.

The world can now reflect that the video presenting Martin as "sucker punching" Zimmerman was likely a total misrepresentation of the facts.

O'Mara confirmed Zimmerman had his gun on him. "He was armed ... He put his hand (on the gun) to make sure it was holstered," he said. "He knows how to carry responsibly."

Yes. I'm quite sure he had his hand on his gun. He's had practice.

Besides...who brings a gun to an argument with their wife?

Uh huh.

We see you George.

Robots and employment

I have an ongoing series on the coming effects of robotics and the profound effects it will have on employment and society, particularly the relationships between increasingly disposable men and child bearing women. Some people have questioned my predictions and assertions but the evidence, most recently an expose on 60 Minutes still supports my assertions

Syria chemical weapons attack not ordered by Assad, says German press

President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported , citing unidentified, high-level national security sources.

Lets assume this report to be true. By claiming that Assad is responsible for the unapproved actions of his subordinates would be the same as saying that Bush was directly responsible for the crimes committed by US troops in Iraq. If one isn't willing to "take it to the top" when such events are done by US personnel then how can it be justified in Syria?

Kenya MPs vote to withdraw from ICC

Good for them.

the ICC prosecutions bolstered their campaign as they portrayed it as foreign interference in Kenya's domestic affairs.

The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse reports from the capital, Nairobi that even though the vote does not halt the cases, it sends a powerful signal of defiance to The Hague - a sentiment that is becoming increasingly popular, in Kenya and across much of Africa....

Mr Duale noted that the US had refused to sign the Rome Statute to protect its citizens and soldiers from potential politically motivated prosecutions.

"Let us protect our citizens. Let us defend the sovereignty of the nation of Kenya," Mr Duale is quoted as saying

Certainly. It's pretty bad for the defender of democracy, particularly one who deems itself the sole arbiter of "red lines" to not sign up for the international court?

Actually I think that not only should Kenya remove itself from the ICC, it should also resign from the UN itself. That body has shown itself to be totally incapable of being anything of a neutral body upholding so called international law. I think the events of the past few years has proven beyond doubt that the UN is simply a tool of certain nations to:

1) Police other nations by whatever standards and whims the [permanent] Security Council members has for the day.

2) To provide philanthropic cover for [permanent] security council members while they put their agents into various organizations to foment dissent in target nations while bragging about how many wells they dug and how many drugs they injected.

If the UN actually had any credibility, there would be ships in the Mediterranean sea right now making it clear to the US that any actions taken against Syria would be met with [peace keeping] force. There is no justification under the UN charter for a member state (or any state) to go to war against another for any reason other than immediate self defense. If the US (or France or Britain) can bomb Syria as it did Libya then what exactly is the point of the UN Charter? And if the charter means nothing more than the paper it was printed on, then what is the point of the organization itself? It's time for the member states, which greatly outnumber the security council states to force Ban Ki Moon to either make the UN live up to it's charter and face the errant [permanent] members of the Security Council (sic) or for those states to exit the arena.

Education (Retracted)

[Update 9-25-2013 9:15AM: Following up on this report, I was informed that the information relayed to me was, shall we say, faulty. It was found that the student who had relayed the information was under the impression that the boys in her previous class had failed because the boys she knew had been struggling in the class. The teacher says that though there were in fact a number of failures (perhaps above what would be considered average), that it was not the case that all the boys failed. Furthermore,the reason for the lack of any boys in the second level Spanish class was that none had decided to sign up. This makes sense given that it is an elective. I want to extend an apology to the readership for the misinformation below. It was my fault. I knew that statistically the story as relayed to me was extremely remote. Knowing that, I should not have posted this piece without a thorough investigation. As the saying goes: Trust but verify. Original post below for posterity. I still stand behind the commentary that education has become hostile to boys and the way that they learn. I am still bothered by the fact that you have an entire class of an "upper level" subject with no boys in it. ]

Wednesday a friend of mine relayed information from her daughter whereby her daughter's Spanish II class had no boys in it allegedly because all of the boys failed Spanish I and had to repeat it. I found the information quite disturbing.

I have never been even a B student when it came to second languages. In fact had it not been for my second language classes (French and Spanish) I would have probably been an A student. We all have our weaknesses. In all my years in education as both a student and a staff member I have never, ever heard of an entire group of a single gender to have all failed a class. I know there are educators that frequent this blog and I'd be happy to have any of them contact me about such a phenomenon that has occurred. I simply have not seen it. Ever.

I'm not going to say that it is impossible to happen. Supposedly this was an elective. Even so, who would purposely throw an F into their grades just because it's not a requirement? The likelihood that every boy in the class (I am not aware of the total number of boys in that class) failed the subject because they were intellectually incapable of getting at least a C level grasp of the material flies in the face of probability.

In every class there is a range of intellectual capacity among the students. Some are going to find the work easy and some will struggle to the point of failure. It is generally understood that if you give an exam and everybody gets 100% that the exam was way too easy or a significant amount of the population cheated. Similarly if one gives an exam and 100% of the students were to fail then you know that either the exam was way too hard (possibly covering material not taught) or nobody in the class studied.

Generally test scores fall into a distribution curve that a decent teacher can often predict based upon the activity of the students in class including homework. You would think that a teacher faced with the prospect of each and every boy in the class failing would be alarmed. Indeed I wonder (again not knowing the specific demographics of the class) if the administration is aware that such a glaring gender disparity in performance is going on.

Among people who are advocates for men and boys there are people who have collected a lot of data that shows that in education there has been a swing in teaching styles and attitudes that are decidedly anti-boy and anti-male. In one example that I read about recently there is a school system that teaches young grade school boys that they are in fact potential rapists! Never mind the inappropriateness of telling male children that they are likely budding felons, but it ignores the fact that the vast majority of males (96+%) do not and will not rape anyone.

Along with that bullshit, are teaching styles that punish boys for being boys, you know, can't sit still, aggressive, hyper, etc. Mind you the age of the group in this Spanish class is 12-13 years of age, there are many teachers who have very negative opinions of males and boys and seek to make life as difficult for them as possible. I won't go into the college student who was working in a college admissions office who was of the opinion that [white male applicants (presumably heterosexual) deserved to be binned in favor of anyone else but preferably women.

Not that I am accusing the teacher in this case of anything inappropriate. I do not have enough information to make an outright charge of gender discrimination and perhaps straight out incompetence. I am simply pointing out that statistically, the results indicate that something is not right in Denmark.

On the flip side; while contemplating this issue I drove past a bunch of school age boys and girls in a neighborhood with 'failing public schools" and noticed that they were not doing homework, studying or anything else that should be going on this time of year. Currently we are in the midst of a mayoral campaign and there is a lot of talk of "failing public schools" and how there is a need to "get tough on teachers". Education is a partnership. We cannot hold teachers accountable when parents are allowing their kids to hang out rather than do homework and study. We cannot hold teachers responsible for behavior and habits that they have no control over. No teacher can make a student do homework. No teacher can force a student to read on their own. No teacher can force a parent to make sure homework is done even if that parent has no clue what the answer should be. I remember when my studies past my mother's knowledge of math. It was made clear to me that she would STILL be checking that it was done and I showed work.

No teacher can be held responsible for the food that a child eats (or does not eat) before coming to class. No teacher is responsible for the social environment that the child has at home. These are all variables that greatly affect whether a student will succeed or fail in school yet I never hear anyone talk about these responsibilities that belong squarely on the parents.

Patrick Buchanan on Syria

I don't often agree with Patrick Buchanan but he has the Syria situation down pat.

Gas is a sickening weapon. Yet, there is no evidence thus far that Assad ordered its use. Rebel elements are said to have been found with sarin. As for Americans who tend to prefer white phosphorus, napalm and cluster bombs, upon what lofty moral ground do we stand? Have we forgotten that Churchill wanted to drop anthrax on Germany and settled for two days of firebombing the defenseless city of Dresden? Or that our great friend Anwar Sadat was the confidante of Gamal Abdel Nasser when Egypt was using poison gas on Yemeni tribesmen?

And

The Israeli Air force is five minutes from Damascus, its army a two-day march. The Turks have three times Syria's population and a 400,000-man army equipped with NATO weapons. Together, they could invade and turn the tide in a week. Why do they not man up?

Yeah. Why not?

This is the kind of analysis and discussion I expect of so called left organizations and so called leadership. Thus far Van Jones and Sharpton (among others) have totally failed in this regard.

Tossing Folks Off Buildings

Some Syrian rebels at work. 'Cause you know they are all upstanding folks with respect for human life. Obama would like for you to support these folks with "limited air strikes".

Why Mr. Ban?

Asked why the scope of the chemical weapons investigation had been limited to whether the banned munitions had been deployed — and did not address the question of who had used them — Mr. Ban said that was his decision. “It was not to determine who has used against whom,” he said. The investigation was based on internationally recognized protocols, he said.

You'd think that WHO did what would be central to the issue. It's like saying someone was murdered and we're trying to find out how it happened but not who did it. By the way we're going to execute this guy over here for the crime.

Perfect Comment

Found on the LA Times:

london3 at 12:54 PM September 3, 2013 I'm only opposed to wars against Middle East dictators that gas their own people when a Republican is President.

What Was That Word? "McSame"?

The White House’s aggressive push for Congressional approval of an attack on Syria appeared to have won the tentative support of one of President Obama’s most hawkish critics, Senator John McCain, who said Monday that he would back a limited strike if the president did more to arm the Syrian rebels and the attack was punishing enough to weaken the Syrian military....

There appeared to be broad agreement with the president, Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham said, that any attack on Syria should be to “degrade” the Syrian government’s delivery systems. Such a strike could include aircraft, artillery and the kind of rockets that the Obama administration says the forces of President Bashar al-Assad used to carry out an Aug. 21 sarin attack in the Damascus suburbs that killed more than 1,400 people.

No, seriously. Cannot even make these things up.

In remarks to reporters outside the West Wing, he called the meeting “encouraging,” urged lawmakers to support Mr. Obama in his plan for military action in Syria and said a no vote in Congress would be “catastrophic” for the United States and its credibility in the world. Mr. McCain said he believed after his conversation with the president that any strikes would be “very serious” and not “cosmetic.

"Catastrophic".

Exaggerate much?

Look. Obama painted himself in a corner with his red line talk. I told y'all that already. Should have never done it. So this whole congressional approval thing is about getting out from under that by being able to place blame and responsibility on congress regardless of whether "approval" is given or not. The best case scenario here is that Congress grows a pair and says "no".

“The debate is shifting away from ‘Did he use chemical weapons?’ to ‘What should be done about it?' ”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The debate should be who used chemical weapons since there still hasn't been proof of use by either side. And please spare me the speech about what the rebels do and do not have and what they would and would not do. I've seen suicide bombings in mosques. So please.

In regards to "what should be done about it", that is the job for the UN. And if the UN was actually a functioning neutral body the US would find itself in problems for Libya, providing Saddam with cover for using chemical weapons against Iran and the use of Depleted Uranium munitions in Iraq which is the source of many medical problems.

Yeah. All during the 2008 campaign I heard McSame....and now who's front and center.

Two sides of the same coin.

About That Proof

Two pieces in regards to the "proof" that Assad was the source of the Sarin gas use in Syria: 1) Story Leak reports the following:

The German magazine Focus and The Guardian are reporting that the majority of the information indicating dictator Bashir Assad’s use of poisonous gas comes from the 8200 unit of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The 8200 unit is Israel’s equivalent of the National Security Agency; it intercepts and collects electronic intelligence. The evidence the unit collected apparently consists of a recording of two Syrian officials talking about the use of poisonous gas. There appears to be no physical evidence that the poisonous gas actually exists, yet US officials are discussing the possibility of an imminent attack on Syria. An attack that, as Anthony Gucciardi has warned us, could really be all about entering a ‘hot’ scenario with Russia and other nations who support Assad.

Of course one may not feel that Story Leak is a reputable source, so we can go to their source material, The Guardian

The 8200 unit of the Israeli Defence Forces, which specialises in electronic surveillance, intercepted a conversation between Syrian officials regarding the use of chemical weapons, an unnamed former Mossad official told Focus. The content of the conversation was relayed to the US, the ex-official said.

2) A report from Mint Press

However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”

Take that with however amounts of salt you want but I believe this account. It supports a theory I've had that the rebels had these items and they were detonated when the government forces attacked their position which made it look like the Syrian government had deployed the weapons. Unlike the claims of the administration, we know the rebel groups have Al-Qaeda elements in them. We know Al-Qaeda is not beyond killing civilians to further it's aims.

Remember that the US and Israel have a deep interest in going after Syria as it sees that as a way of getting at Hezbollah and Iran. And remember the entire Libya campaign.

Britain’s Rejection of Syrian Response Reflects Fear of Rushing to Act

In an act that should be an example for the US Congress, the British parliament showed a measure of respect for international law and decent aversion to another set of lies by the US government by voting NO on a vote urging "action" on Syria.

But Mr. Obama’s efforts to marshal a unified international front for a short, punitive strike raised concerns about the evidence, reawakening British resentment over false assurances from the American and British governments that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Even on Thursday, a British summary of intelligence could say only that it was “highly likely” Mr. Assad’s forces were responsible for the use of chemical weapons. And many questions were raised, both Thursday night and in the days before, about whether the American assurances could be taken at face value, whether the expected riposte would accomplish any serious strategic or policy aim, and whether it might set off a worse regional conflict.

And they shouldn't. Libya should stand as the latest example of so called "humanitarian intervention" that was exposed as regime change, a totally illegal aim under the UN charter and international law.

The second example should be the last time the US accused Bashir of using chemical weapons. That accusation was shown to be unfounded and that evidence pointed to the rebels as the most likely source of the chemical weapons.

While I'm at it let me take the opportunity to say SHAME on ABC World News tonight with Dianne Sawyer for acting as propaganda organs for the White House. Dianne Sawyer should be totally ashamed of herself for repeating the claims of the White House as if they were and verified facts, and to launch a smear campaign on Assad. That is not World News. That is World Propaganda. If that is they kind of reporting she and Martha Raddatz are going to do then I suggest they go [back] to GMA where they can do gossip and other light fluff fare.

Anyway back to England:

After the shocking defeat, Mr. Cameron was clear. “I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons,” he said. “While the House has not passed a motion, it is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the government will act accordingly.”

Now lets see if the so called representatives in Washington have the guts to do the same. If not let's see if the voting public has the guts to put the ones who support this foolishness out of office.

The “US effect” Biases Behavioral Research

This tight clustering went away when it came to the behavioral studies, though, which had a much greater frequency of extreme results. And here, US-based researchers showed a clear indication of bias. Rather than being evenly distributed around the typical answer, the results were much more likely to support the experimental hypothesis. Why do so many papers that produce positive results get published? Fanelli and Ioannidis suggest that it's because behavioral sciences don't have a robust set of theories, in contrast to traditional biology (which has things like evolution and genetics). Without that, researchers are able to be very flexible about the hypotheses that they propose and the methods they use to test them. They also argue that the "publish or perish" mentality that drives US scientists motivates people to report positive results. The two combine, they argue, to make "US researchers potentially more likely to express an underlying propensity to report strong and significant findings."

Not surprised actually. I think that there is also the political correct issue of not wanting to report something that would offend any number of groups. For example, when it Psychology Today reported on the findings that Black women were objectively less attractive (compared to others), a whole storm erupted. Many people, including myself took offense to the publication. However, what I took offense to was the explanation rather than the actual data. Since if we do observe the behavior of people, we cannot miss a strong negative reaction to black (as in dark skinned and tightly curled hair, thick lipped and broad of nose) women. We see it even in publications that claim to represent said women. A lot of people went after the results, when they are pretty much undeniable. The explanation fell far from the root of the problem though and that was the problem with the publications.

Today the medical journals that previously declared certain behaviors as diseases no longer do so for reasons that IMO have nothing to do with objective science but with politics. If one wishes to publish material that is contrary to the new "canon" you can expect to either not be published or to have one's career deaded quickly.

So it's not just a case of "publish or perish" that is a likely culprit but publishing the "right stuff". For example I know someone working on a dissertation in which they asserted that a particular community was segregated. I've long ago explained the difference between separation and segregation. While it may have been proper to declare certain areas segregated in say 1940 because it was clear that black people (or others) could NOT live in certain areas regardless of income, etc. it is impossible to make such a claim in 2013. if one is going to assert a place segregated in 2013 one has to prove that point. Until then you can only factually state that a particular neighborhood is primarily inhabited by a particular ethnic or racial group and that is all. That persons that far up in academia does not realize this basic issue is, in my opinion, symptomatic of the biases that are in the behavioral sciences. This can only be eradicated by enforcing a strict "math" rule to such research. In math 1+1 =2. No way around that. You can make any kind of explanation you want but if you don't show 2 as the proper answer and show your work, it isn't valid. Period.

The Syria "protect civilians" Hoax

If you read anything about this recent "chemical attack" bullshit, you need to read the linked piece:

So the U.S. and its allies are using their own “evidence” and will come to their own conclusions, likely much faster than the UN is able to investigate. Obama will then say that Syria poses an “immediate threat” and that there is no time for the UN to investigate. It’s sadly predictable; we’ve seen it all before.

Of course, the Obama administration and its anti-Syrian allies cannot act as an objective party in this matter, since they have been directly backing the Syrian rebels. Nor can Obama be trusted that his “evidence” that was “smuggled” out of Syria is any evidence at all. Again, this is why there is the UN: to perform an impartial investigation. Even if there were evidence of a chemical weapons attack — which looks likely — such evidence doesn’t say who launched the attack, which, of course, is the key issue

Of course the above is obvious to anyone thinking for themselves.

"My God Is Black"

So one of the fellows who shot Chris Lane in the back while he was taking a run told his sister:

"I can't go to your church anymore because my god is black."

Really now.

Well my God is black and doesn't condone shooting anybody in the back. So exactly what "black god" is it that this guy has "found" that condones such actions?

Furthermore what "black god" thinks highly of pants hanging off your ass and disrespect of women in public over social media?

I have studied a number of black religions and I haven't found one yet that has such ideologies.

So I want someone to ask this person exactly what "black god" he is following, cause it's not any that I know of.

Total Parental Fail

They were bored?

Let's see, was there a library accessible? Was there a track or a park they could have gone to and, I don't know, learned how to run long distance, work out? Learn some Kung Fu (which is good for developing discipline and impulse control)?

How about reading? Anyone thought that reading would be a good way to pass time?

Like music? Anybody thought of making some music? Spoken word?

I can think of all kinds of shit to do other than find a gun and pick someone minding their own business to shoot in the back

And really...really....what kind of fucked up parenting has been done by the parents of these kids where upon hearing the suggestion of "hey lets find someone to shoot!" The immediateresponse is "You're fucked in the head. I'm out of here?"

No, seriously.

I was a 15 year old. I was a latch key kid. I was raised by a single parent. No way no how I was going to be hanging around with ANYONE that seriously contemplated shooting someone. Why? Because it was made clear to me from before I could remember that "thou shalt not kill." (which is actually an admonishment against murder and not to all killing, but that's beyond the scope of this post). While I no longer ascribe to the specific religion that I got that message from, the one I do subscribe to is also quite clear on that.

15, 16 and 17 year old's know that killing is wrong. They're old enough for that. The acceptance of such a plot is a failure of imparting morals and the value of life by the parents and by extension the community in which they lived.

Here's a clue for parents with kids sitting on their asses at home during vacations and breaks:

Book reports. If you have no plans for your child to be supervised during the summer while you are at work (a bad idea), then you should have weekly book reading and reporting assignments for them. No kid who has work to do is going to be bored enough to consider the fun of killing a random person on the street. Side benefit is the educational value of reading and writing. I have a nice list of books that will keep your child well occupied.

Math problems: Your child should be given hard ass math problems to do which are required to be done by day's end. Not so much that the entire day would be taken up by it, but enough so that there is not enough time to contemplate whether shooting a man in the back is a good idea. Side benefit: better math grades next semester.

Home chores: These little rug rats have nothing to do? Time to learn how to earn their keep. They should be cooking dinner for when YOU the parent comes home. There is no sitting on your ass all day while I work then come home and cook for some able bodied teenager. No. warming up previously prepared food should be their job along with vacuuming/sweeping and perhaps laundry. Earn their keep. If you have a vehicle, it's their job to clean and hoover it every weekend.

Bored 15 year old thinking driving up on a man and shooting him in the back....total parental fail.

The Harriet Tubman What?

On August 14, 2013, Russell Simmons posted these words on twitter: “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen Harriet tubmans [sic] sex diary.” Those are words guaranteed to catch one’s attention, the way a bomb going off gets attention. Simmons wasn’t lying or joking either. His latest entertainment venture, All Def Digital, had in fact produced something he called The Harriet Tubman Sex Tape.

Simmons claims that he wanted to show Tubman “turning the tables” on the slave master.

These Negroes here.

From Huffington Post:

but I still maintain that comedy should push the edge. I misunderstood the underlying implications and I'm deeply sorry for that. Because I thought the slave took advantage of and blackmailed the slave master. That's what I thought. "Django," whatever…and I liked "Django." I'm not Spike Lee. I ain't a hater. I thought "Django" was good.

These Negroes here.

Never the fuck mind that Django is fiction. I don't care if one thinks that Django was good. What kind of so called black person, descendant of enslaved Africans, doesn't understand "the underlying implications" of a sex parody of one of THE seminal black women in African-American history? Perhaps the same type of negro that thinks comparing their sexual prowess with to the lynching of Emmett Till But this is not surprising when we have a generation of completely clueless young black people, many of whom think the accounts of slavery and Jim Crow are fictional accounts made for movies. It's hard to blame them when those who should know better are busy sanitizing black history in an ongoing and continuous effort to gain and maintain white acceptance. Which leads us to the second part of the original linked piece:

The movie does tell some historic truth but with an underlying message that political action is acceptable only within very narrow parameters. The son in the film goes on a journey from the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides to the Black Panthers. Daniels should have just left the Panthers alone instead of depicting them as disrespectful young people who never remove their black berets and give offense at the dinner table. But he couldn’t leave the Panthers alone. If white people can be appeased with the right attitude there is no need for radical politics to be taken seriously. The Black Panthers also have to be brought low in the popular consciousness of a Lee Daniels movie.

It was the brief clip of Oprah's character saying to who I assumed to be a black panther that everything he had was because of his brother (who I assume to be The Butler). It was at that point that I understood that this "epic" about a Butler was going to be yet another broadside at black folks who wont react to racism in the "proper" manner (meek, forgiving and with a smile). Up until that point I was going to see The Butler, but decided I won't support a film that disrespected the Panthers. The Panthers for all their faults were faulty for us and therefore deserve our respect. Not uncritical respect, but our respect.

In terms of the "all you have" comment. Harpo should have thought long and hard on that point. Isn't it SAD that a black family, indeed that black folks nation wide, depend upon the "kindness" of "benevolent" white folks for employment opportunities. I don't know about you, but that strikes me as particularly fucked up. I don't know about you, but that sounds vaguely like sharecroppers.

All I have to say to these folks is that when the next college frat does a black face party or a Republican group gets together for an Antebellum South costume party, I don't wanna hear a damn thing from these "celebrities".

Confirming What The Informed Already Knew

CIA Admits Role in Iran Coup Well that only took six decades. The CIA has finally admitted its participation in a 1953 coup that ousted Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The U.S.- and British-orchestrated coup influenced years of anti-American sentiment. Now, almost 60 years to the day later, the CIA released a version of "The Battle for Iran" internal report to a Freedom of Information Act request. Under the section titled "Covert Action" it reads: "[T]he military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy," to avoid leaving Iran "open to Soviet aggression." The American role has long been common knowledge, but the CIA had refused to confirm that aspect of the operation.

So every time you see a mofo talking shit about Iran, you point 'em to this and end the conversation.

Stopped and Frisked in London Airport

Mr. Miranda, Mr. Greenwald said, was told that he was being detained under Section 7 of the British Terrorism Act, which allows the authorities to detain someone for up to nine hours for questioning and to conduct a search of personal items, often without a lawyer, to determine possible ties to terrorism. More than 97 percent of people stopped under the provision are questioned for under an hour, according to the British government.

Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said.

Ahh. You know how these politicians say how the laws they want passed (or just rushed through the legislative bodies) say that the laws will not be abused and the rights of the public will be respected.

Yeah, all that jazz.

Funny how all these European states are showing themselves to be simple extensions of the US govt. Why not just officially make them US states and collect taxes. I mean if they are going to stop the plane of the Bolivian head of state from going about his legitimate business though he posed no threat to them at all, then what's the point of calling yourself an independent nation?

Michael Dawson: Hater

So Michael Dawson writes up a critique of the proposed Hyperloop in which he essentially walks in and takes a shit on the proposal and leaves. That his critique is but a fraction of the length of the proposal not to mention his numerous comparisons to Tesla automobiles is telling that Michael is a hater.

I put the scare-quotes around the word “plan” here because Musk’s ridiculous proposal is clearly little more than a cocktail napkin fantasy being publicized to keep Tesla’s stock price in the rarified strata where it presently resides so undeservingly.

Cocktail napkin. You would not believe the number of ideas that are now commonplace that originated on that form of paper. I sure wouldn't use "cocktail napkin" as some kind of offense. I suppose that Michael doesn't have many "oh damn!!" ideas while he's out and about. Anyway, why the fixation on Tesla?

The Hyperloop imagined by Musk, who is invariably described as “a billionaire” as if that should-be-unspeakable status somehow renders one a technical genius in one’s chosen field of exploitation, would be a giant techno-tube shooting people from Los Angeles and San Francisco in half an hour.

Now I'll agree that being a billionaire doesn't mean one has unspeakable status. But if one is using one's billions to address a world wide issue of travel and energy use, then yeah you get attention for that. Besides Michael, where is your non-billionaire idea for long distance travel? Oh right, not in this offering. I'll take the billionaire's actual idea (however flawed) over Michael's non-idea any day. Besides that billionaire is doing a lot of hard math stuff and solving relevant problems to put his crafts into space and vehicles on the road. Michael is doing what exactly?

Right.

Aside from the obvious question of who would be willing to risk traveling at such a velocity in constant, extremely close proximity to terrestrial solid objects, the rank silliness of the “plan”

I assume Michael is one of those risk averse liberals. Anyway I am certainly game for riding in one of these should it be made. But more to the point, that today's vehicles readily go 90+ MPH on the roads was thought not only to be impossible at one point that one would have to be nuts to do it. Also why does Michael think that included in real world development plans would be safety and accident mitigation technologies (perhaps some that we haven't even thought of yet)?

Hater.

For starters, take expense. It’s humorous to watch Musk, whose entry-level Tesla S sedan costs $69,900 and also relies on huge public subsidies and tax breaks beyond those already flowing to all car owners via street construction and foreign oil wars, assure his hapless admirers that his Hyperloop, which would require not only large numbers of extremely specialized forms of the motors used in Tesla cars but an unspecified source of solar self-power for the whole system, could be built for a mere $6 billion.

Why the obsession with Tesla? What does the price of the Tesla model S, sold with a large purpose of making a profit have to do with the pice of tea in China? First of all, assuming that Tesla makes all the parts of the 'loop (highly doubtful) does Michael not understand the concept of economies of scale? The amount of magnets and motors and the like would drive down the price of these items AND any other product that uses them.

Secondly, the roads are not "pubic subsidies" to Tesla buyers. Car owners are taxed (and tolled) for the use of roads. We pay for these roads just like we pay for our vehicles. If anything cyclists (I bike) get a free ride on the road since their "vehicle" of choice is not taxed and therefore contributes nothing to the upkeep of the roads that they travel on (admittedly with far less destructive impact).

Thirdly, while I too object to foreign oil wars. They are not necessary and are done by and for the benefit of a small group of people.

Fourth: Had Michael bothered to read the proposal he would know that the "unspecified source of solar self power" was specified: On the fucking roof of the tube. Yes, the images and the text clearly state that the panels would be on the length of the tube with batteries wherever necessary (including in the transport pods) to store power for bad weather conditions (night, clouds, etc.).

Even more importantly, the matter of energy use is treated with equal un-seriousness by Musk. On this front, consider not only the substantial difficulties that plague Tesla car owners trying to make use of their purchases, but remember that “electric” vehicles are really coal, natural gas, and nuclear vehicles, given the fact that 88 percent of U.S. electricity is still made from those sources, with little prospect of serious reduction.

Unserious you say? I mean really? Solar powered but unserious? Again what is with the Tesla comparison? Since we're on that....again.... lets remind Michael of a few things.

1) Yes the vehicles are Zero-Emissions. That means that the product itself produces no emissions when operating. So there is no trickery here. It is exactly what it stated. Now if one is interested in the energy used to produce the car, batteries and the source of the electricity that is an entirely different argument. Why? Because EVERY vehicle on the road, electric or not has similar costs. What the Zero-Emissions claim does is remove the "in use" emissions of the IC motivated vehicle.

2) While it is true that the vast majority of energy production in the US is "dirty" the fact is that per KJ of energy needed to move a 2 ton vehicle roughly 300 miles is less for an electric vehicle than it is using chemical combustion. Why? the IC engine is only 35% or so efficient. Most of the energy produced by the IC engine is lost as heat. An electric motor is 90% efficient in converting stored energy into mechanical energy (moving the vehicle not heating it up) (People with more knowledge on this process please forgive my gross simplification of the subject). Therefore even though the grid is dirty, using it is far better in the long run than using gasoline.

Furthermore as the population becomes more aware of Solar energy and solar panel installation drops in price, many people with electric vehicles will have harnessed solar energy to recharge their vehicles (and/or use their vehicles to power their homes) so the entire "dirty grid" argument goes out the window.

Musk is also silent about the wild impracticalities of all his products. Why should tourists be visiting Earth’s low orbit on a planet that has yet to get serious about either poverty or ecological sustainability? How could 200 million drivers ever possibly recharge electric vehicles in a way that would sustain present time economies, bad as those already are? What happens when the Hyperloop experiences its first serious malfunction? Elon? Elon? [Crickets chirping...]

I don't know why tourists should be visiting Earth's low orbit. I don't have the income to do it. If someone who does wants to do it, enjoy. Self centered people are not going to suddenly become interested in the plight of the poor because Michael or I think they should be. I learned that a long time ago. There will always be people with more disposable income than concern for other humans. Deal with it. On the other hand, the technological innovations that will come from these near space trips will certainly be beneficial to getting us off dirty energy.

As for the200 million drivers recharging electric vehicles, well by the time you get that many people into purely electric vehicles there will have been a massive infrastructure change in the US. Personally I think a mandate for Solar panels on all new housing and the use of fuel cell technology would be a great start. Remove the need for the individual home (or buildings) from having to suck all it's juice from a central grid will greatly reduce the strain on the central grid AND provide a means of charging all those cars without increasing the load on said central grid.

Musk is thinking ahead. Michael unfortunately cannot see beyond perhaps a few years in front of him. Maybe not past his own lifespan. The rest of us are excited to see what could become of this 'Loop proposal and the multiple changes that would accompany it. We're too busy imagining the possibilities to be hating.

The Wishful Thinking Left

Pretty much sums up my current general opinion of so called lefties. Black left not excluded.

Next, like it or not, the actions of “Russia, China and Iran” in Syria have been in accordance with international law, unlike those of the “U.S. and its Gulf allies”. From the viewpoint of international law, the current government of Syria is legitimate and responding to its request for help is perfectly legal, while arming rebels is not. Of course, the leftists who sign the petition would probably object to that aspect of international law, because it favors governments over insurgents. But just imagine the chaos that would be created if every Great Power was arming the rebels of its choice all over the world. One could deplore the selling of arms to “dictatorships”, but the U.S. is hardly in a position to lecture the world on that topic.

Moreover, it is “Russia and China” who have, by their vote at the UN prevented another U.S. intervention, like the one in Libya, which the Western Left, opposed very lukewarmly, if at all. In fact, given that U.S. used the U.N. Resolution on Libya to carry out a regime change that the resolution did not authorize, isn’t it natural that Russia and China feel that they were taken for a ride in Libya and say: “never again!”?

And

That brings us to a second problem with the petition, which is its tendency towards revolutionary romanticism. The present-day Western Left is the first to denounce the “Stalinist” regimes of the past, including those of Mao, Kim Il Sung or Pol Pot. But do they forget that Lenin fought against tsarism, Stalin against Hitler, Mao against the Kuomintang, Kim Il Sung against the Japanese and that the last two ones, as well as Pol Pot, fought against the U.S.? If history should have thought us anything, it is that struggling against oppression does not necessarily turn you into a saint.

My emphasis.

Technology and Male Labour

I've been discussing in recent blog posts in regards to the changes technology will have not only on the job market but on gender relations. Some people are not convinced about what I'm proposing. That's fine as I will let the evidence continue to speak for me. The latest is the simple lawn mower.

Illinois is procuring $42k lawn mowers which are described as huge Roombas. What is it that the state is saying? It "reduces costs" and reduces "safety risks".

The machines have performed well and so far have been low maintenance, said Kerry Brown, a tollway maintenance section manager.

While the Spider has been cost-effective compared with traditional landscaping, the big advantage has been reducing the risk of accidents and injuries, Brown said.

I've said that these will be the first line arguments for replacing humans with machines. Not that I object to safer, but there are ways to deal with embankments that do not involve robots. Understand that this is an effort to remove the fallible and liable human element.

For now the robots are remote controlled by a person with a "joystick" who can be a football field away. I call that a "design flaw" that will eventually be fixed. With computers as powerful as they are, there is no reason why the "roomba" cannot be equipped with GPS and a telematics system to navigate it's given terrain.

Just as you see tractors left out on the highways between grass cuttings expect these rechargeable grass cutters to be assigned a certain amount of acreage and be put on a schedule (as we saw in I, Robot) and go off to cut grass unattended and then return to recharge via solar power for the next run. A human will only be needed for repairs (for the time being).

And of course once the technology goes mainstream the costs will go down from $42K to less than any full time worker would be willing to work for. Entire landscaping crews all over the country, mostly men will be out of employment and that market will cease to exist as a job engine.

Oh and wait until the snow plows get telematic systems..... "No, we don't need you to cut the grass." "No, we don't need you to drive the plow all day/night."

"So what do I do?"

"Perhaps go sign up for college...and the loans that come with it."