Today's Jackass Comment

read here:

CrookedCEOsAndPols 3/30/2014 11:53 PM EDT justmyvoice: #3.) Some of what Kobe Bryant said may be correct. However, Kobe Bryant isn't really African-American, anymore. He's a member of the wealthy elite where color, ethnic heritage, sexuality, national origin - none of that matters - only the color of your money. He thinks that way, he talks that way, he acts that way. Kobe Bryant is a man who has forgotten where he came from.

So apparently you can earn your way out of 'African-American"! Who knew!!

Apparently if you're broke or at least not rich you're not really "African-American".

Wow.

Had no clue.

Liberal Cannibalism

Being eaten by his own

So apparently Steven Colbert got himself into trouble by using humor to point out how racist (or at least highly offensive) he found it that the Washington Red Skins had decided to curry favor with Native Americans by offering a Washington Red Skins Original American scholarship. Being a comic, he decided to make fun by saying that he would create a Ching Chong Ding Dong Scholarship in order to make up for any offended Asians. Note: Native Americans have a high proportion of Asian genes...

On cue an Asian woman (and I notice it's usually women) got upset about the clearly critical “joke” and decided to start a Twitter hashtag to dump Colbert (or something to that effect).

Seriously.

I am not kidding.

One will hope that Colbert has the spine of one Jeremy Clarkson who made a “slope” joke during the filming of the Burma Special for Top Gear. And Jeremy Clarkson, is known to actually make bigoted remarks from time to time, about a lot of people. But this isn't about Clarkson. This about what I warned people about back when I was on Twitter: The Speech Police on the left.

I warned people many many times of the dangers of the concept of “hate speech”. When we attempt to stiffle people's free speech based on whether it makes us uncomfortable, then any and every speech is in danger of censorship. Furthermore, people are getting fired and other things basically for saying things that other people do not like, regardless to whether what was said is even true or not. You'd think that factual speech, no matter how uncomfortable it makes someone, would be protected. Think again folks.

So there are people wondering why I'm defending a white man. I'm not, I'm defending the right to free speech. I'm defending my right to not be subject to the temper tantrums of people who have little emotional control and of the mobs that enable them. See, I knew that certain groups would never stop at just “leave me alone”. I knew that they would eventually turn on their very own colleagues when the power they got went to their heads. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

My taste of this came at the hands of women who asserted that because I was male nothing I said in regards to gender was valid (unless approved of by a female). I ran into this a number of times. It didn't make sense at all. Certainly there were things I could never speak authoritatively on in regards to women since by not being a woman there were things I would never, ever actually experience. But that doesn't mean that I cannot speak on any of it.

Similarly I saw that with race matters, I told someone on Twitter that black people think that they are the only authorities on racism and that any and every time a black person claims racism it is assumed to be so. I said that such a position was untenable. Why? Because it assumes that black people are infallible. Good luck with that proposition. Atlantic slave trade anyone?

So just as black folks can get racism (among other things) wrong, so to can feminist get things wrong (often) and so can Asians. Colbert wasn't making fun of Asians, he was actually making fun of his fellow white folks, particularly those he considers conservative. If anyone ought to be offended it should be them.

But the Dump Colbert campaign essentially shows how liberal thought and mouth police get some power, nobody is safe from them, not even their own compatriots. Not to emotionally disturbed chick: The “Ching Chong Ding Dong” commentary was supposed to be offensive and it wasn't directed at “ching chongs” either. Colbert actually had your back. Too bad that as far as I know he won't tell you and your supporters to “sod off”. But I will.

Does ‘Ebony’ Magazine Condone Bigotry?

I don't know. What I do know is that they have been a platform for stupid for a while. I stopped with Ebony.com when they printed the "Stop Telling Women How Not To Be Raped" piece. It was perhaps the most asinine article I had read in a long time and to top it off was perhaps one of the most dangerous pieces of writing for women of that year.

I waited for people who I thought were objective and thinking to condemn that piece as the hetero man hating piece it was. Didn't happen. Of course, today, more and more people are seeing pieces like that for the trash that it is. The day's of these folks trafficking in lies are numbered. But the point being is that Ebony.com is run by people, women I assume, who have a lot of degrees but little sense, and apparently, class.

The latest episode of bigotry comes at the hands of Ebony Magazine Senior Editor Jamilah Lemieux. According to their website, Ebony “is the No. 1 source for an authoritative perspective on the Black-American Community…

Well I'll give Ebony.com credit for saying "an authoritative" rather than "the authoritative" but I assure the reader that "authoritative" ought to be in quotes. Large ones.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this exchange is the condescending nature and supposed moral superiority Ms. Lemieux displays when she notes: “Oh great, here comes White dude telling me how to do this Black thing. Pass.”

This condescending tone is unfortunately a way too common trait among African-American women. It is essentially: I have arrive, shut the fuck up. And believe me when I say it, this treatment is not reserved for "white dude" it is for black males, particularly heterosexual ones, who "step out of line" as well. The Twitter exchange is typical of what you will find among women who are afflicted with this disease. I have seen it played out many times (at times been the target of it).

If Ebony.com wishes to be "an authoritative perspective" I would suggest that if it doesn't excise the factually deficient writers on staff, it at least seek out and add people with different positions. Kinda like a library. It just has the books, doesn't mean they endorse everything they hold. And if Jamilah wishes to continue to make an ass of herself in public, she should at least create a pseudonym on twitter (and wherever else) to do so and spare the company the grief of guilt by association.

Kobe Was Right

So apparently there are black folks who object to black folks (and others?) who look at situations, particularly situations black folks find themselves in, objectively. Kobe Bryant has apparently upset those folks

“I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American,” Bryant said. “That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, we’ve progressed as a society, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.”

How anyone, no, any sane and rational person could object to what Kobe said here is beyond me. But there is a lot of insanity floating around presenting itself as intelligence. As a matter of fact if you replace "African-American" with "Woman" or "women", you will make a statement that will upset man so called feminists in regards to rape and domestic violence. But back to the black folks.

Hall of Fame NFL running back Jim Brown told the article’s author Bryant doesn’t understand the African-American culture.

“[Kobe] is somewhat confused about culture, because he was brought up in another country,” Brown said.

Jim Brown needs to have a seat and a muzzle. What Kobe said is what we call proper jurisprudence. It is NOT assuming facts not in evidence. It is about getting the story right. There were people who were upset with The Ghost because I stated early on that I thought the murder charge against Zimmerman would NOT work. I told people the evidence for such a conviction did not exist and that the state ought to center on negligence rather than intent. I was told I was on Team Zimmerman for that. Total bullshit.

Early in the Duke Lacrosse rape case I came to the conclusion that at the very least the woman in question had accused the wrong people and then later decided her story was a complete fabrication. Why? Because I examined the evidence and the evidence proved that her story could not have occurred as she told it. Eventually I was proven correct.

Objecting to black people who objectively look at situations that occur to members of our group is stupid. We already have to deal with the lower median IQ scores and the lower media SAT scores no need to add public statements of stupid on top of all that.

Hobby Lobby, Enumerated Rights, State Privileges And Saying "No" To Women

Currently the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is in the middle of a debate that really ought not even exist. The contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act combined with a virulent strain of feminism that features a total disregard for the concept of limited government and ignorance of constitutional guarantees and the purposes thereof have combined for a mashup of epic legal proportions. Let's get some basics out of the way.

There are constitutional rights and there are state privileges. There are needs and there are wants. In both cases people often confuse the latter with the former and frequently sane people are not around to disabuse these folks of their flights of fancies. And for good measure, when these differences are pointed out accusations of racist, sexist and/or hate the poor soon follow

The constitution of the United States explicitly lays out the rights of citizens through a varied set of amendments. These are referred to as enumerated rights. You have the right to speak freely without government prior restraint. This is an enumerated right. The government is prohibited from establishing any religion as a state religion AND from restraining the freedom of expression (practice) of whatever religion a citizen may adhere to. This last example is what has sparked the Hobby Lobby suit.

There are of course exceptions to the freedom of exercise right. You cannot murder a person via human sacrifice regardless as to whether the person volunteers to be killed. Why? Because your free exercise of religion stops when it runs afoul of laws designed to protect the lives of other people. The number of restraints on free exercise are very few and far between and are very specific because the free exercise clause is pretty clear.

Now if you continue to read the US constitution you will find no enumerated right to contraception. Go ahead and read it. You don't even find the right to education, healthcare or many other things that may be desirable (or not) Therefore any argument stating that somehow these things are rights, as in constitutional rights, are flat out wrong. They may be “moral” arguments but moral arguments are not constitutional arguments.

Back in the 70's SCOTUS overturned bans on abortion on the grounds that it was an unreasonable invasion of the privacy of women. That is, the woman's body was her property and the state did not have the right to tell her what she could do with it. One of the justices pointed out that the only way to bypass such a ruling would be to declare a fetus a person. In such a case, as in my example of human sacrifice, the state would have a legal reason to intervene: preventing murder.

In my opinion, women won a significant victory. If the state did not consider the fetus a person that needs legal protection from murder then why does the state have any right to tell women what to do with their body in which the fetus resides? My body, my choice. That's fair AND falls within constitutional understanding of private property (Your body is your property) and limited government power over individuals and their property. It also rebuffed the idea that a religious group could use the levers of government to impose their rules of living onto persons who do not ascribe. That's a big win for individual liberty and keeping the state free from endorsing a religious view of conception, etc. Fair deal all around.

Under the Obama administration someone thought it was a good idea to include contraception in “healthcare”. Contraception for women that is. Now the first problem is that the contraception mandate is a clear violation of the equal protection clause because it discriminates against men by not covering condom purchases Birth control is birth control. Cover all of it or cover none of it. How that escaped the geniuses in Washington is beyond me but there it is. Apparently it also didn't occur to these folks that such a law would also run afoul the “free exercise” constitutional guarantee of religious individuals and institutions.

Then again, it probably did. Many people on the left are hell bent on fucking with those of certain religious convictions. Having grabbed onto the levers of power they have gone to great lengths to disenfranchise those individuals and groups under the ruse of “hate”. Those people have “hateful” ideologies and ideas and therefore they don't get protection. Mind you I disagree with many of the views held by religious people and institutions however my position is that I give them wide berth, don't spend my money or time with them BUT make sure their rights are protected as much as I want mine to be. And I said “rights”.

One of the things that is dear to a number of religious people and the institutions they create is that they do not believe in contraception. Some go as far as to say none at all and some say anything that prevents implantation or disrupts development after implantation. It doesn't matter whether I think that's BS or not. It doesn't matter if 99.9% of the people in whatever religion actually use those methods of birth control. The matter of fact is the constitution explicitly allows for those persons to have said beliefs and to practice them freely. That also means that the state cannot compel them to participate in such things that run counter to their beliefs. To do so would run afoul of the free exercise clause.

How did contraception get to be thought of as a right? Cue feminists. At some point in recent history it became the idea that to oppose just about anything a woman wants is sexist and oppressive. This bullshit has run up the political mainstream because there are a number of men in power who are literally scared to death of their wives and women in general. Men generally are trained to seek female approval and if a woman says “hey pay for my shit!” these men ask “how much do you need?” rather than “why the fuck should I?” or “Pay for it yourself since you, you know, work.”

If you read statistics you will see that it is claimed that women “influence” the majority of purchases. I've always asked myself what exactly that meant. I would think a grown man with his own money who wants to buy something wouldn't be asking for permission or approval to do so but apparently this is not the case. Even Microsoft had an advertisement a few months back where persons (male) would fill out a form letter asking their “honey” to allow them to buy an X-Box One. The only objection raised in the media about it was that the advertisement was “hetero-normative”. Not that is was blatantly sexist and implied that men need approval of women to spend their money. My reaction to that is, if I have 4 bills to drop on an X-Box and my bills are paid and investments funded, I'm buying one and nobody can tell me otherwise. If my “honey” doesn't like it, she can have a seat and fix her face. I don't expect my “honey” to pass her entertainment plans by me for approval and I don't expect to do so either. You want it, you got money for it, knock yourself out.

I take the same stance with contraception. Why should I be on the hook for your lifestyle choices? Why should the state, who women rightfully got out of and off of their bodies, now want to the state to force other people to pay for or otherwise provide for their contraception? I believe a woman should have the right to contraception. No state should be able to prohibit women from getting contraception forms of their choosing. What I don't believe is that the state should be able to force any other individual, male of female, to pay for or provide it for them. And there is no basis in the US constitution to do so.

If the State wishes to provide contraception to its citizens at no out of pocket (or little out of pocket) cost to them, then the state should do so via it's own program (and I note here that with Single Payer this would not even be an issue). For example the state could provide tax deductions for the cost of contraception via the yearly taxes. It could do so under a monthly program much like tax collection. It could set up a program with pharmacies whereby the state is billed for contraceptives sold by them. Whatever way the state chose to (or not to) provide free or low cost contraception would still not prohibit women from getting contraception. So there is no threat of the state denying women access to contraception regardless of what certain parties wish to be the case.

But then we run into the entitlement problem. Due to the inability of government of late to simply say “no” to women in fear of being tarred with the “sexist” brush, certain groups think they are entitled to make other people finance their personal sex lives. They are upset that Hobby Lobby, etc. refuse from doing so against their beliefs. They say that Hobby Lobby is 'denying” women their “right” to contraception coverage. First, we explained already that there is no such right. Secondly Hobby Lobby, or any other person or organization should not be on the hook for financing the personal sexual lives of it's employees anymore than it should be dictating how their employees engage in their personal sex lives.

What these groups are arguing is that they have the right to force those who object to finance their personal sex lives. That is unsupported by any reading of the constitution. There are no civil rights at stake here. This decision should be simple for the SCOTUS. But that requires saying “no” to women. Do the men on the court have the fortitude to do so? Do the women of the court have the sense to understand that they are treading on very dangerous legal grounds by endorsing such an entitlement mentality among their gender peers?

Personally, I doubt it.

The Hobby Lobby case has brought up arguments about those who wish to oppose things such as blood transfusions and whatever other medical procedures they find objectionable on religious grounds. Let's end this line of thinking quickly. The difference between the contraception argument and the “we don't like blood transfusions” is that the former is not a life saving medical intervention while the latter is. Hobby Lobby cannot (and is not) saying that they can or should dictate to a hospital what forms of life saving medical treatment an insurance company can provide. And it should not be able to. If Hobby Lobby had the right to tell a hospital that it cannot provide a blood transfusion to a patient or to prohibit a medical insurance company from covering a blood transfusion, Hobby Lobby would find itself on the receiving end of wrongful death lawsuits galore and soon find itself out of business.

Similarly, Hobby Lobby cannot put itself between an employee who may object, on religious grounds, blood transfusions and demand that a hospital give a patient one over the patient's objection.

Similarly, if Hobby Lobby is against living wills that contain DNR orders, it cannot compel an insurance company or hospital to ignore the DNR order from a patient's family.

In other words neither Hobby Lobby or anyone else can (or should be able to) stand between a doctor and life saving medical treatment. Contraception is not life saving medical treatment and should not even be discussed in the same breath as those procedures.

Lastly, Hobby Lobby is not a person. This is agreed upon by even those on the Left who are pushing to [further] impose the state on Hobby Lobby. As a non person, Hobby Lobby is therefore the property of it's founders. It is the expression of the free will of the founders and should therefore be protected like any other property. Who's property is it? The Founders. What do the founders want to do with their property? Not provide for contraception. Why? Because it's a religious conviction of the property owners. End of story.

In the end the SCOTUS should remember that it's primary function is to uphold the constitution and the rights enumerated therein. Enumerated rights always come before acts of congress granting state privileges. Hobby Lobby has an enumerated right to the free exercise of it's founders religion and it's expression through it's businesses and it's business practices. Women and men who do not care for the offerings made by Hobby Lobby should be and are free to not work at Hobby Lobby. Perhaps Hobby Lobby will lose out on very talented people as a result of it's decision. That's Hobby Lobby's loss. But the government ought not be involved with that. The SCOTUS should be very careful in enforcing state created privileges over enumerated rights.

Here's the bottom line: Not a single woman will be unable to obtain birth control as a consequence of Hobby Lobby's actions. They may not be able to afford to buy it, but “affordability” is not an enumerated right.

A decision in favor of Hobby Lobby will not give them control over a woman's body. In fact it maintains the very correct legal idea that a private company AND the government has no business IN the body of a woman.

Some women may be inconvenienced by Hobby Lobby's policy. Convenience is not an enumerated right and should not be the basis of law and definitely not an argument against an enumerated right.

The limits of an enumerated right should be few and far between with maximum deference given to the right. There is only one party in the Hobby Lobby case that has an enumerated right and therefore should be given great deference by the court. We rightfully circumscribe free speech in cases of screaming fire in a crowded theater because such speech endangers the public. We rightfully restrict exhortations to violence in circumstances where such exhortations can predictively precipitate violence against other citizens. And even then, saying things like “I wish someone would run my boss over with their car” is protected speech even though it is a clear “exhortation”. Absent the likelihood that someone would actually act on such a statement is why it is protected. But make that same statement while surrounded by amped up persons willing to commit such an act and it's an entirely different thing. That's a narrow definition.

Declining to pay for someone's contraception does not in any way meet such a high bar of “danger to the public”. This is clear.

Weakness You Say?

"Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbours, not out of strength but out of weakness," the president said. The US also has influence over its neighbours, he added, but: "We generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them.

Cuban Missile Crisis anyone?

Bay of Pigs anyone?

Panama anyone?

Seriously.

We're supposed to be stupid right? But fine then. Let Russia decide to drop a few nukes and ballistic missile "shields" into say, Venezuela and Cuba and see what happens. Anyone up for that?

But let me agree with Obama for a moment though. He is right that Russia has been and is showing weakness. Russia allowed itself to be surrounded by NATO. It allowed countries bordering it to allow opposition troops closer than the US would allow if it were similarly situated. That NATO has been allowed to spread to the extent that it had does show weakness on the part of Moscow. As a matter of fact, that Russia and to an extent China, has allowed the US to run roughshod around the world without any opposition by them is also a sign of supreme weakness. I believe that both the Chinese and the Russians know this but neither of them are strong enough to do anything about it.

For example. If Russia was so opposed to NATO in Libya, why didn't it float it's own fleet into the Mediterranean and fly some planes in opposition to the NATO warplanes? If China and the Russians so objected to the actions of the US in Iraq, why didn't they run some ships and planes over there and present a threat? Why didn't they make it clear that unless the actions in these countries were stopped they would fire on any ship or plane that so much as pointed a turret in the wrong direction?

Because both the Chinese and the Russians know they are not really up for that kind of conflict. The Chinese has a vested interest in keeping the US "happy". US consumers make the Chinese a lot of money. They aren't going to shit on that over the Ukraine, Iraq, Syria or wherever. Those countries currently cannot make up for the money they get from the countries they would piss off if they actually went to bat over the issues they point out. The Russians are in even deeper mess because they are right on the border of western Europe and they too would have serious business losses, among other things, to deal with. However; the Russians DO have an interest in securing their borders and that means taking aggressive actions with nations that border them.

So yes, in a sense Obama is quite correct about the weakness of Russia. Putin knows this too.

About That Noah Movie

I used to watch The Ten Commandments every year. I looked forward to seeing that movie. Especially that whole wall of water and all the drowning Egyptians. And who could forget the talking burning bush and the fire blasted tablets of the 10 commandments. Then I got wise to the wholesale robbery of ancient Egyptian theology that was actually the source of the great Moses story and lost interest in watching that particular piece of fiction. Since today is the day of the hanging of the sun (god) on the cross (equator), I figured I'd weight in on the latest piece of fiction from Hollywood: Noah.

There are a few scientific facts that we have to discuss in order to understand why Noah is a complete white washing of anything that could remotely be possible with Noah. First is that White people, AKA Caucasians are a genetic recessive population. Their skin color is a result of a form of albinism that was favored in the northern climate where there was little sunlight and vitamin D fortified milk had not been invented yet. Similarly the narrow noses were a favored adaptation to the cold of the northern climes as it provided a means of warming cold air before entering the body better than the relatively flat nose of the African. But the most important thing to understand is that Black skin comes first for the human and all others are derived from it. Strictly speaking you do not get the African from the European but you get the European from the African. It's a long explanation which I won't get into here. If you're that interested in it, you can visit your local, honest evolutionary biologist. Emphasis on honest.

With that in mind we enter the Noah story. From the Bible we are to believe that the flood killed everything that was not on the ark. Humans, animals, everything. Dead. That would mean that whoever was on the Ark would be the new Adam and Eve (I know...just go with it). Noah's family would necessarily be the progenitors of the new humanity. Well if that is the case how could Russell Crow be Noah? No, seriously. White folks can't make black folks. Noah couldn't be a Caucasian. His wife couldn't be Caucasian. Because if either one of them was, there would be none of the blackest of the black people on the planet. it is simply a genetic impossibility... well no, highly, highly, highly improbable.

And no, no English accents either.

Let's be clear Noah's wife should have been, oh, Lupita. And maybe, maybe Henry Lennix as Noah. Of course, if they did do that, millions of white people would be unable to identify with the character for the same reason the Middle Eastern "skin like burnt bronze" Jesus happens to look like a "surfer dude" with blue eyes in the recent Jesus movie to cause much weeping in theaters.

a more accurate Noah

Noah's wife better portrayed by her

Yes, pick your mouth off the floor. Don't hate me, hate the genetics of it all.

But Hollyweird is like that. I constantly see movies, TV shows and commercials with families that are impossible to create. Wither it be politically correctness, wishful thinking or a "you know we can't sell this with THOSE folks starring", Black folks get cut out of stories that should have them front and center. Or if it "our" presence must be there, then get the most ambiguously "black" person you can find. One Drop Rule to the rescue. Duly excepted: Fat black women. Whenever they are needed or called for, they can find the blackest and fattest one. For real though, how often do you see a light skinned mammy?

Let Hollywood tell it, there are few fat white women and even fewer mixed ones. I guess Lupita got the call because Solomon was pretty clear about what she looked like. But back to Noah.

If you actually adhere to that bible story, well I suppose you can overlook this one rather obvious flaw, Kinda like I had to stop from hurling every time I watched Thor (all due respect to Idriss). But if you're like me and recognize the only sun being crucified is that yellow one in the sky today perhaps you should demand that these folks at least make an attempt to make it believable. I do hope there are no domesticated cats or dogs on that Ark cause then we're dealing with time travel too! Cats from the future in the ark!! Now that would be an interesting twist.

If You Can't Pass A Written Test....

If you can't pass a written test and you're white. Well next time you study more.

If you can't pass a written test when you are black you complain that the test is discriminatory (because who in their right mind would expect black test takers to be able to pass a written test. I mean DAMN to expect black people to WRITE? What kind of racist thought is that?!!!).

Then you sue because the law says that if your dumb black ass can't pass a written test then it must be unintentional discrimination against your barely literate self and NOT because you should take your ass to a library, classroom or somewhere, anywhere where you can get your writing skills up.

When a white official refuses to treat you like an illiterate child and demands that you put in the work like everyone else is expected to in order to make the grade, you call that person racist and sue for some more money.

Eventually a sympathetic white man will come to your defense and pay you for your troubles because it simply isn't right that black folks who can't pass a written test like everybody else has to actually be held responsible for their own failures.

And seriously there are people who think this ruling is a good thing.

Ron Paul: What’s the big deal?

Ron Paul asks the right questions on Crimea:

Why does the U.S. care which flag will be hoisted on a small piece of land thousands of miles away?

Why indeed?

Critics point to the Russian "occupation" of Crimea as evidence that no fair vote could have taken place. Where were these people when an election held in an Iraq occupied by U.S. troops was called a "triumph of democracy"?[my emphasis]

Yes. Where exactly were these people?

Perhaps the U.S. officials who supported the unconstitutional overthrow of Ukraine's government should refocus their energies on learning our own Constitution, which does not allow the U.S. government to overthrow governments overseas or send a billion dollars to bail out Ukraine and its international creditors.

Yes. Why does a White libertarian and Black Pan-Africanist understand the constitution and international law and those who's job it is to uphold the constitution and supposedly are for self-determination and democratic institutions and rule of law do not?

"Below Average Scores in Mathematics"

From FiveThirtyEight

Conventional news organizations on the whole are lacking in data journalism skills, in my view. Some of this is a matter of self-selection. Students who enter college with the intent to major in journalism or communications have above-average test scores in reading and writing, but below-average scores in mathematics. Furthermore, young people with strong math skills will normally have more alternatives to journalism when they embark upon their careers and may enter other fields.4[My emphasis]

This is very, very true. You will notice that here at The Ghost we deal with direct quotes (not paraphrase or cut and pasted sentences from different paragraphs to make a point that does not exist), long form pieces and where appropriate, mathematical explanations as to why certain things are or are not the case. I would argue that not only are many people in the "soft science" fields not only lacking in "mathematics" but that they are lacking in the area of logic (related) and knowledge of other forms of hard sciences. For example those persons who claim there are no such thing as human races, even though the evidence is quite clear that there are. These people do not know that there can be a social construct that is "unscientific" while there is a biological construct that is quite scientific. Those persons are lacking in the basics of logical thought and instead try to "intuit" and feel out there arguments. Since many people (most?) are susceptible to emotional arguments they fall for these arguments even when their own eyes tell them that what they think is the case, is not.

Similar issues abound with comments about "rape culture" and the like (as it pertains to Western democratic societies). Even though the actual statistics do not bear out their claims, not even by a long shot, these claims are still allowed to be made in mass media because who wants to be the guy saying "it's not that bad" to a person who may have been a victim? How many men have the guts to stand up to a woman that he wants approval of, and many, many do, and say, that is bullshit? There are not many takers.

Similarly when we discuss the high levels of black crime. There are those who wish to shift the responsibility onto white folks, guns, poverty, and whatever else other than the fucked up parenting (which of course would also be blamed on white folks), the lack of black folks opening small businesses in their own communities that serve as the first line of employment for young people. Of black flight from black neighborhoods (for good intentions, who wants to deal with crime). When we cannot have discussions about police targeting black males without discussing the very real fact that in many metropolitan areas, homicide is an overwhelmingly black problem. That statistically speaking, if there is a murder in, for example, NYC, the most likely suspect AND victim will be a black male and that white folks have absolutely NOTHING to do with that free choice made by that killer.

Of course one of the reasons for this failure to be scientific in regards to such things is the "opinion journalism" that many people take as absolute truth. This failure is also pointed out in the linked article:

My disdain for opinion journalism (such as in the form of op-ed columns) is well established, but my chief problem with it is that it doesn’t seem to abide by the standards of either journalistic or scientific objectivity. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to abide by any standard at all.

This is absolutely true. If anything shows the absolute truth of this one simply has to look at the recent coverage of the crisis in Ukraine. I have made numerous "so and so thinks you're an idiot" posts because all of them simply failed the simple fact check. But this is what much reporting has come down to. There is no objectivity there is partisan-ism, advocacy and in many cases snark and name calling fronting as intelligent writing.

Because of the above we generally cannot have proper discussions on these topics because generally, the people who are writing and speaking on these things are not good at math. The audience is not good at math and so it's the blind leading the blind leading the deaf. They don't wanna hear it. They don't wanna see it. And if you bring it up you're a sell out to black folks and a woman hater and rape apologist to the women. But the one thing they cannot call you is a liar.

Chokwe Lumumba and Real Nationalism

Chokwe Lumumba, mayor of Jackson MS. died. One comment in a NY Times report:

To the white business establishment, he had evolved into a surprisingly pragmatic politician who promised to fix the potholes and the sewers and passed a sales tax increase to help do it...“The expectations when he was elected were not very high, and he surprised everybody pretty dramatically.”

Why was it surprising? I'll tell you why. So called black nationalists and other assorted "pro-black" "afro-centric" persons usually spend their time and energy trying to get paid to talk about white folks, ingratiating themselves to white folks OR trying to get paid working in institutions built and/or run by white folks. Exhibit A:

Temple University took on the wrong adjunct professor when they terminated Dr. Anthony Monteiro’s contract, without warning, in January. And Dr. Molefi Asante, the proponent of “Afrocentricity” who Monteiro and his student and community allies propelled to the chairmanship of the African American Studies Department after a bitter struggle with the administration, last year, chose the wrong man – and the wrong movement – to stab in the back.

That article goes on to discuss the "struggle" to get Temple U to "do the right thing". Meanwhile back in Jackson MS. Lumumba was actually about running things. I have often said that most of the people who call themselves activists have absolutely no idea about building and running institutions. Calling white folks names does not fix streets or schools or bring down crime rates. African-American studies departments at HWCI's only give those non-black institutions that much more of a reputation. It does NOTHING to build up the reputations, clout and eventual high value teachers to black institutions of higher education.

This is why Garvey was opposed by many African-American "leadership" when he was around. African-Americans have long since been singularly focused on white folks and being accepted by them to the detriment of their own economic and community development. But to get back to Chokwe and the statement.

See the actions of persons such as those at Temple are why it was "surprising" that Chokwe got to "running things" business. Real nationalists are about running things. This is why Garvey was interested in Tuskegee. Booker T. Washington, like Garvey understood that the long term solution to black dependence and exploitation was to own and control our own resources. That no group that is economically dependent upon another group has a secure future.

But the masses of African-Americans weren't and still aren't trying to hear all that. Booker T Washington is widely seen as a sellout. When we are taught about Booker T Washington we are told that he was a sellout because he made a speech to white folks in Atlanta where he "approved of segregation" with his famous "hands and fingers" speech. Booker T and build your own: Bad. Dubois and the Talented Tenth: Good.

So the people of Jackson MS. had to live under the ideology that if they appealed to white folks and the expertise of the talented tenth long enough, they would prosper. That didn't work out so well.

Enter Chokwe. Not Anthony Monteiro. Not Cornell West. Not any of the Popular Negroes(tm) with lots of degrees from Ivy League institutions or books on Afro-centricity or shows on popular cable shows. Here he comes talking about running things which includes taxes and fixing potholes. Real. Nationalist. Business. The rest of y'all can stay in the street protesting HWICs to re-instate degreed negroes. After all, positions for the talented tenth in HWIC is a very important thing.

Salute Chokwe

Wrong Headline

NY Times leads with:

Defying West, Putin Declares Independent Crimean State

Of course the proper headline would be:

Crimean voters declare independent Crimean Stats

As the late great Kwame Ture said: History is made by the masses of people, this is clear. [note: NY Times changed the headline in the actual story link. We see you NY Times]

The Gall and The Hypocrisy

The Gall:

The US and the European Union have retaliated over the Crimea referendum by targeting sanctions against Russians and Ukrainians.

Just like in Palestine. People exercise their democratic right to vote on their own self-determination and "Europe" decides that it's not valid.

The Hypocrisy:

European foreign ministers imposed EU-wide sanctions on Monday against 21 Russian and Ukrainian officials linked to unrest in Crimea. Washington followed up an hour later with a list of its own, targeting seven top Russian government officials and politicians and four Crimea-based separatist leaders accused of undermining the "democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine".

With the leaked video and audio tape of the clear complicity of both the US and EU in the internal affairs of Ukraine including breeches in the Ukraine constitution, how can anyone keep a straight face at claims of "undermining the democratic processes and institutions in the Ukraine".

If the UN was anything more than a showpiece for people with no useful skills in life and who therefore pontificate on law, order, sovereignty and humanitarian intervention, it would declare these "sanctions" what they are: acts of war against a people and illegal under the UN Charter and exact the proper penalties to those signatories.

Let's just say this now: Ban-Ki-Moon is a stooge for Europe and the United States and the faster he is gone from his position the better.

"Absolutely No Reason"

Ukraine appointed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk:

This is absolutely and entirely unacceptable in the 21st century, to resolve any kind of conflict with tanks, artillery and boots on the ground.”[My Emphasis]

You know what? I would agree with this fellow 100%. I think the UN should take Yatsenyuk's statement very seriously and apply it to every conflict that started as of 2001.

Either that or it was comedy hour(s) at the UN "The Rules Apply Only To Certain Countries" Security Council.

NY Times STILL Thinks You're An Idiot

The publication of record writes:

n Moscow, the military acknowledged significant operations involving armored and airborne troops in the Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions abutting eastern Ukraine, where many ethnic Russians have protested against the new interim government in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, and appealed to Moscow for protection. A day after a deputy minister denied any military buildup on the border, the Defense Ministry released a series of statements beginning early Thursday that appeared to contradict that. They outlined what was described as intensive training of units involving artillery batteries, assault helicopters and at least 10,000 soldiers.[My Emphasis]

Except that the was no such denial. From the Russia Times:

Antonov said that Kiev had never asked for one before, and that Moscow was "under no obligation" to allow it immediately. “We have decided to allow such a flight. We hope that our neighbors are assured that there is no military activity that threatens them on the border.”[Underlines substituted for original italics]

The key here being "that threatens them on the border". That statement does not deny any military activity. It simply states that, at least in the opinion of Antanov, that the activity is non-threatening.

So exactly how does that amount to a "denial"? The actual denial was of the following:

Antonov vehemently denied a statement Tuesday by Igor Tenyukh, defense minister for the Kiev coup-appointed government, that Russia had amassed more than 220,000 troops, 1,800 tanks and over 400 helicopters in regions adjacent to eastern Ukraine.

Which the NY Times failed to report on. I wonder why.

Of course If there was a government bordering the US with questionable intentions, I'm quite certain that the US military would simply sit back and relax. Right?

Let's Not Misinform The Public

One thing about The Ghost, We don't deal in misinformation. One thing the reader will note is that here we take direct quotes from whatever source we point to so that you the reader don't have to take our word for it. The reader may strenuously disagree with the conclusion but the reader will never be able to say that The Ghost has mis quoted any piece of information for it's own purpose.

Today on Counterpunch we find a piece that does not stand up to that level of integrity. Roger Harris has a post on Venezuela where he writes the following:

To find a script for the violence to come in Venezuela, one need only go to the Brookings Institute’s January 23rd memo1 to President Obama suggesting “inciting a violent popular reaction” could “oust the radicals and president.” In the polite doublespeak of the Washington consensus, the memo deplores violence at the same time it welcomes its possibilities including a “traditional coup” in Venezuela.

Eager to see the actual documentation of what would have to have been one of the stupidest pieces of advice in recent memory I looked at the Brookings memo To find such a statement. Here's what I found:

The risk of a violent outcome may still be low, but it will rise as the true extent of scarcity in Venezuela becomes apparent in the coming months. The threat to the Maduro administration may come from popular unrest, an effort by moderates in the government to oust the radicals and the president, or (least likely) a traditional coup. A now unified national opposition continues to emphasize elections as the solution, but the playing field is hardly level, and elections are not scheduled to take place again until 2015.[underlined text represents the quote taken by Harris]

What the Brookings Institute was laying out was the likely threats to the Maduro administration from inside the country (whether assisted by outsiders or not). This was not a suggestion to Obama to do the ousting (though I'm sure that the Institute and Obama would love to do so.

Furthermore:

Economic mismanagement in Venezuela has reached such a level that it risks inciting a violent popular reaction. Venezuela is experiencing declining export revenues, accelerating inflation and widespread shortages of basic consumer goods. At the same time, the Maduro administration has foreclosed peaceful options for Venezuelans to bring about a change in its current policies.[underlined text represents the quote taken by Harris]

Again, her the incepting a violent reaction is a statement of fact and not a suggestion to Obama to do anything (again not that Obama or Brookings would be averse to the idea).

You simply cannot put together two partial sentences from two different paragraphs to make an argument that a memo says to do something it clearly does not. This is not to defend the Institute. I don't agree with it's advice to "work with other countries in the region". I would hope that those countries know better by now. But just because one supports Maduro doesn't mean that one gets to make up claims about the opposition.

Disturbing to Who?

The NY Times article reads: China's Disturbing Defense Budget. Why is the editorial board of the NY Times, a US company concerned about the defense budget of China?

China is causing new anxieties in Asia with a defense budget for 2014 that totals $132 billion, up 12.2 percent over the previous year. These numbers should not be used as an excuse to ratchet up America’s military spending. But they do raise legitimate concerns about China’s motives that Beijing should seek to dispel, especially at a time when regional tensions are rising.

Although China’s overall economic growth rate has declined, the new defense budget reflects the biggest increase in three years and continues a several-decades-long trend of double-digit increases. Many experts assume that the real total is higher. Even so, the budget is far below that of the United States, which was $526.8 billion for fiscal year 2014 and finances the world’s largest, most expensive and advanced military program. It is reasonable to expect that as the world’s second-largest economy, China, over time, would invest more on defense to protect its security and economic interests.[My Emphasis]

So the editorial board of the NY Times a company based in the United States; the same United States that they write:

the United States, which was $526.8 billion for fiscal year 2014 and finances the world’s largest, most expensive and advanced military program.

is "disturbed" that China is raising it's defense budget. Surely this is bizarro world. That's like a bully declaring that he or she is "disturbed" that it's potential targets have decided to invest in self defense classes and perhaps a knife or two. How many sovereign nations has the US run into and toppled the government? Isn't there a commercial in which the Navy tells us point blank that they are on patrol everywhere? Aren't there hundreds of US military bases all over the world? And the editorial board is concerned about China's defense budget?

The Times thinks that the problem is China's aggression with it's neighbors. *cough* Cuba! *cough* *Cough* Panama *cough* *cough* Grenada *cough* *cough Venezuela *cough* *cough* Nicaragua *cough*

I can do this allllllllll day.

U.S. envoy: Crimea crisis solution needs to address Russian concerns

* Warning! This post does not contain numbered lists of points. It presumes you have a sufficient level of reading comprehension to know when a new point is being introduced. * When I read this title on the LA Times website I thought that perhaps there was at least one person in the Obama administration with some actual sense in his head.

KIEV, Ukraine -- The United States continues to rule out military action to eject Russian troops from Crimea and acknowledges that a diplomatic settlement needs to address Moscow’s interests in the strategically important peninsula, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine said Monday.

You'd think that this guy actually read the Ukraine Russia Friendship Treaty and saw that such a statement was a part of it. Literate people in the White House? Shocking thought after the things that have popped out of the mouths of the "leadership" in the past few weeks. Of interest though is the blatant example of empire delivered to the public:

In a sign of how seriously the U.S. takes the crisis, President Obama has invited acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk to Washington this week for a meeting at the White House.

Any serious student of history knows that when an empire wants to exert control and "legitimacy" it brings in the vassal "king" to the court to show his fealty to his emperor. For a more vulgar example of how this works, one could watch the recent "300" film series. Here Obama is Xerxes and Yatsenyuk plays a very feeble Leonidas who in this drama actually accepts the offer of being warlord of Ukraine. It's nice to know that the game of thrones still works the same way.

Then there is this:

Pyatt accused pro-Russian forces of trying to stir up public dissension and tension in Ukraine, and of trying to provoke Ukrainian troops in Crimea into retaliating violently.

You would think that since the Nuland video went public that nobody from The West(tm) would even attempt to make such a silly statement. But then again the White House thinks we're all idiots. 60 minutes thinks we're all idiots too. Their report on Ukraine last night had to be one of the worst interviews they've done. They did do us a great favor in showing that the boxer guy ought not be allowed anywhere near the presidency of Ukraine. But for a "news" organization that claims to do investigative reporting how did they completely miss the Nuland video? How did they mention the snipers and none of the recordings of the Estonian foreign affairs minister. It is not as if this material is unknown. Certainly even if the CBS organization did not believe the allegations it had a duty to report the FACT that both police and protestors were apparently shot by the same third party. Whether that third party was a part of the protesting factions or undercover Russian agents is yet to be definitively determined but to act like that important fact doesn't exist is poor reporting on the part of 60 Minutes.

Rio’s Race to Future Intersects Slave Past

The newly arrived slaves who died before they even started toiling in Brazil’s mines were hauled to a mass grave nearby, their corpses left to decay amid piles of garbage. As imperial plantations flourished, diggers at the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos — Cemetery of New Blacks — crushed the bones of the dead, making way for thousands of new cadavers....

cholars say the scale of the slave trade here was staggering. Brazil received about 4.9 million slaves through the Atlantic trade, while mainland North America imported about 389,000 during the same period, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, a project at Emory University.

Rio is believed to have imported more slaves than any other city in the Americas, outranking places like Charleston, S.C.; Kingston, Jamaica; and Salvador in northeast Brazil. Altogether, Rio received more than 1.8 million African slaves, or 21.5 percent of all slaves who landed in the Americas, said Mariana P. Candido, a historian at the University of Kansas.

How and Why Did Chokwe Lumumba Die?

Yet, the Mississippi state coroner has refused to perform an autopsy on the body of Chokwe Lumumba, who was elected by a landslide in June and died last Tuesday after checking into a hospital. The coroner says only that the mayor succumbed of “natural causes.”