WELL, YES: Why the Diversity ‘Industry’ Is a Sinister Scam. It produces a climate of fear, and it funds consultants and HR bureaucrats, but as for its alleged purpose, well: “Now, I tried very hard to find any evidence I could. I looked not just in the United States but also in Rwanda and other post-conflict countries, where reconciliation is often built on the kind of diversity trainings that we do in our companies, to see how this is working. Sadly enough, I did not find a single study that found that diversity training in fact leads to more diversity.”
Archive for 2017
July 11, 2017
AT AMAZON, It’s Amazon Prime Day 2017 – 30 Hours of Deals.
This makes sense to me. We’re constantly told by the administration that “climate change” is a bigger threat than terrorism. And as even President Obama has noted, there’s a great power in setting an example: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”
Likewise, it’s hard to expect Americans to accept changes to their own lifestyles when the very people who are telling them that it’s a crisis aren’t acting like it’s a crisis. So I have a few suggestions to help bring home the importance of reduced carbon footprints at home and abroad.
Read the whole thing.
FLASHBACK: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama’s ‘politically-driven suppression of news.’
In unprecedented criticism of the White House, 38 journalism groups have assailed the president’s team for censoring media coverage, limiting access to top officials and overall “politically-driven suppression of the news.”
In a letter to President Obama, the 38, led by the Society of Professional Journalists, said efforts by government officials to stifle or block coverage has grown for years and reached a high-point under his administration despite Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to provide transparency.
Worse, they said: As access for reporters has been cut off, the administration has opened the door to lobbyists, special interests and “people with money.”
Weird how now they act like this never happened.
JOHN SEXTON: After Covering The Ejection Of Jews From A Chicago Pride Parade, Reporter Is Moved To The Sales Desk.
Mustn’t disrupt the narrative.
CNN’S BRIAN STELTER BLAMES ‘MEDIA ILLITERATE’ AMERICANS FOR THE CORRUPTED FAKE NEWS MEDIA:
Stelter—the employee of an exposed purveyor of biased and fake news—then wraps up his argument by blaming media consumers for the failures of his network and professional brethren.
I’m sorry to say these people, these trolls, they’re media illiterate. They don’t really know how newsrooms work.
It’s your fault, America. You just aren’t educated or smart enough to understand how being 99% in the tank for the Democrat party is what real journalism is all about.
I think the real problem here is that the news media is largely America illiterate, and Americans know more about how newsrooms work than the folks at CNN really want them to.
People don’t want to eliminate journalism. They’re starving for it.
It’s funny how well the original slogan of “Progressivism” – “rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class” – and journalists from then-Washington Post-owned Newsweek and now CNN’s Stelter in full “Yeah, I’m in the media – screw you”* mode dovetail together. Just think of old media as Democrat operatives with bylines (lashing out with a mammoth case of status anxiety because their pose of elitism is being threatened), and it all makes sense.
* Warning: CNN takes Ginny Carroll’s odious old slogan all too literally these days.
U.S. MAY HAVE HAD LIVE VIDEO OF KIM JONG UN VISITING A MISSILE LAUNCH SITE: That’s the claim in this Business Insider report. And if you can see him you could strike him with a precision munition. The implication is the U.S. had a surveillance drone over the test site.
The report concludes with this:
Perhaps rather than kill Kim and trigger a North Korean response, which could be massive, the US elected to signal to him that the best path to regime security would be to stay indoors and not play around near dangerous rocket engines, which have a habit of blowing up.
Now what we need to acquire is some very intimate video, something more risque than walking around a missile launch site while smoking cigarettes.
RELATED: Option 4, Decapitation, discussed.
THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE DEVICE: Woman saved from attack when Amazon Echo’s Alexa calls 911.
Eduardo Barros was arrested July 2 after an hours-long standoff with a SWAT team at a home in Tijeras, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to Bernalillo County sheriff’s spokeswoman Deputy Felicia Romero.
The couple was house sitting for the victim’s parents at the time, according to the arrest warrant affidavit and criminal complaint from the sheriff’s department.
The alleged assault began when Barros’ girlfriend received a text message. Barros accused the victim of cheating and “stated he was going to kill her if she called the cops,” the complaint said.
He asked her, “Did you call the sheriff?” the complaint said. An Amazon Echo device in the home overheard this comment, apparently interpreted it as a command to call authorities and placed a call to 911.
Amazon however denies that Alexa has that ability.
Maybe Amazon didn’t program Alexa to call 911, but Alexa programed herself to…
RANKING THE STATES BY FISCAL CONDITION, 2017 Edition. Happy to see Tennessee doing well. Sad to see Kentucky in the bottom 5. Funny, when Tennessee was thinking of adopting an income tax — or, more accurately, when Tennessee’s political class was trying unsuccessfully to foist an income tax on the populace — we heard how Kentucky was in a better place because it had an income tax and didn’t depend on sales tax so much. Oops.
THE HILL: Dem senator: I didn’t expect Trump Jr. to give proof of collusion.
Note how we’ve gone from “hacked the election” to “collusion that won it from Trump,” to “it’s collusion even if it didn’t affect the election.”
WHEN IS A SANDWICH NOT JUST A SANDWICH? Rod Dreher on David Brooks, “condensed symbols, cultural elites, and Italian salami as a barrier to social mobility:”
The point is this: in our time and place — in liquid modernity — a man who can make and accommodate those kinds of radical shifts in perspective is a man who is enormously advantaged professionally over a man who cannot. More prosaically, a man who can walk into a gourmet sandwich shop and roll with it is enormously advantaged over the man who cannot. This is the real meaning of the David Brooks anecdote. Don’t laugh at it.
Read the whole thing.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Best-Run States Are Low-Tax Republican, Worst-Run Are High-Tax Democratic, Study Finds.
There were several changes in the rankings from last year. Florida moved from sixth place to first, while Alaska dropped from first place last year to 17th this year, driven mainly by the fall in oil prices. Idaho moved into the top 10.
At the bottom of the heap, Louisiana and West Virginia both dropped down in the 10-worst list, while Hawaii greatly improved, going from 45th place last year 27th this year. Connecticut, Maine and New York also climbed out of the bottom 10 list. But New Jersey fell to dead last from last year’s 48th place.
The report also includes rankings for each individual measure of fiscal solvency, in addition to the overall ranking. Some states do well on some measures, and bad on others. New Jersey, for example, is last on long-run solvency and second to last on budget solvency, but ranks 24 on service-level solvency.
Nearly bankrupt Illinois is in the bottom in all but one of the five individual measures — service-level solvency.
The Mercatus report doesn’t include data on the states’ political leanings or tax burdens, but the implication is clear.
Great study — don’t get cocky.
PLAY “MISTY” FOR ME: Ax-wielding man prompts standoff outside radio studio after song request.
BLOCKBUSTER! Trump Jr. Releases Emails; They Support His Account.
But what a tyro. Everyone knows you’re supposed to wipe the server, then let your friends in the press ignore the issue.
HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Viagra won’t advertise on NFL games, signaling softening ad market. This is a sharp example of how a few SJW types can weaken even a strong organization if the folks in charge don’t slap them down.
GOING BALLISTIC ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA: Kim Jong Un has gone intercontinental ballistic. The essay examines several options for dealing with the rotund dictator and his regime.
THIS SEEMS PRUDENT: Trump administration considering government-wide ban on popular Russian software.
The Obama Administration, for all of its late worries about Russian meddling, had eight years to implement a similar policy, yet never did.
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: First Object Teleported From Earth To Orbit. Okay, it was just a photon, but you have to start somewhere.
TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY: Check out July 11, 1872.
Battle of the Hotel d’Europe, Alexandria: the American Consul and his party have a shoot out with some former Confederate officers serving in the Egyptian Army, everyone demonstrating bad aim
An odd historical sidelight.
Some background on the consul in question, George Harris Butler– who was a questionable fellow.
FAIR SHARE: Seattle Approves Rich-Only Income Tax.
By a vote of 9-0, the council approved an income tax that only applies to wealthy residents, with the 2.25% tax starting at income above $250,000 for individuals and above $500,000 for married couples filing joint returns, the Seattle Times reports. The city estimates that the tax will raise around $140 million a year from Seattle’s 20,000 or so wealthiest residents. Washington state doesn’t have a personal income tax and a 1984 law bans cities and counties in the state from taxing net income, meaning Seattle’s move is certain to face legal challenges, the AP reports.
Opponents vowed to fight the measure, with Washington State Republican Party Chair Susan Hutchison urging citizens to “forcefully resist” the tax and not pay a penny.
Why are Republicans bothering to defend wealthy urban progressives from progressive policies?
CNN CURRENTLY TRYING TO FIND OUT: How Deep Can You Dig A Hole? Of course, if you go too deep, the DEEP SEVENS get upset, which is why we abandoned that stuff back in the seventies.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: San Jose State Freshmen Charged $250 for Mandatory ‘Diversity And Inclusion’ Training.
Don’t worry, they’ll just roll it into your student loan.