What’s news today?
Can we just call “Black Friday” what it is?
I was thinking maybe “Adults Acting Badly Day”.
I could link to numerous examples, but anyone who’s seen the news has already had more than enough of that nonsense.
Since I like you folks, I’ll spare you any more of it.
🙂
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Let’s see what else is going on….
This one I like.
From CNSNews
“A bipartisan bill in the House would expand the religious exemption to the insurance mandate in Obamacare, allowing those with a religious objection to absolve themselves of the mandate’s health insurance requirement with an affidavit.
Introduced by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), the bill has drawn co-sponsors from both sides of the political aisle, including Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Todd Akin (R-Mo.) Ron Paul (R-Texas), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).
The bill would allow anyone to be exempt from the individual mandate so long as they filed an affidavit along with their tax returns that “sincerely held religious beliefs” would cause them “to object to the medical health care that would be covered under such coverage.””
Maybe common sense prevails? We’ll see.
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This one I don’t like, and since he’s only off by a month, he gets a
GRINCH ALERT!
Also from CNSNews
“Forget all that turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, today should be a day of fasting and atonement for American “sin.” That’s according to Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Jensen, known for his hard-left politics, also calls Thanksgiving a “white-supremacist holiday.”
Jensen’s opinion piece “No Thanks for Thanksgiving,” appeared on the far-left, Soros-connected website Alternet on Thanksgiving eve. In it, he wrote how Native Americans suffered because of the “European invasion of the Americas.” He went on to compare the Founding Fathers to Nazi Germany. “How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis?” he asked.
According to Jensen, Thanksgiving is “at the heart of U.S. myth-building. “But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin — the genocide of indigenous people — is of special importance today,” he explained.”
I hope you all are happy with yourselves.
🙄
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This one I’m unsure. If done right, and this review seems to think it was, then I’d go see it.
No. Not The Hobbit, but yeah, I’d go see that one too!
From ShowBiz411
“Cheers and a standing ovation this afternoon at the first screening of the film version of “Les Miserables.” Tom Hooper, Oscar winner for The King’s Speech, has made a thrilling, sensational epic of the legendary Broadway show. This now becomes the “Titanic” of this year’s awards season, the epic film to beat. Hugh Jackman is a triumph as Jean Valjean, Anne Hathaway sings the heck out of the film’s big numbers, and Samantha Barks just about steals the film. Russell Crowe makes for a solid Javert. And the many supporting players, especially Aaron Tveit, Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried, are top notch.
Universal Pictures with help from Peggy Siegal put on two blockbuster screenings this afternoon and this evening at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Anne Hathaway, husband Adam Schulman, and Anne’s parents Gerry and Kate sat right in front of me. It was the second time this week that Anne, who plays Fantine, sat down and watched the film all the way through. Hooper gives her the first of his many signature closeups as she sings “I Dreamed a Dream” and brings down the house. As Fantine, Hathaway breathes life into the tortured waif whose saga spurs Jean Valjean through the French Revolution. She will be a Best Supporting Actress nominee. And with any luck she’ll sing on the Oscars.”
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This one we file under the “Well, elections have consequences” category.
From Breitbart
“Pennsylvania’s Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is slashing the hours of 400 adjunct instructors, support staff, and part-time instructors to dodge paying for Obamacare.”
“On Tuesday, CCAC employees were notified that Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week and that on Dec. 31 temporary part-time employees will be cut back to 25 hours. The move will save an estimated $6 million.
“While it is of course the college’s preference to provide coverage to these positions, there simply are not funds available to do so,” said CCAC spokesperson David Hoovler. “Several years of cuts or largely flat funding from our government supporters have led to significant cost reductions by CCAC, leaving little room to trim the college’s budget further.” The solution, says United Steelworkers representative Jeff Cech, is that adjunct professors should unionize in an attempt to thwart schools seeking similar cost-savings efforts from avoiding Obamacare.”
So the only way out is to unionize? Oh, that’s right, the union got a waiver. Funny that, huh?
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Say, how’d that union protest of WalMart go?
Is underwhelmingly a word? I think it is…. Let’s just say it didn’t go as the union had hoped.
From WalMart.com
“Today, Walmart U.S. reported its best ever Black Friday events. The retailer saw larger crowds than last year and a huge response to its first ever one-hour guarantee on key electronic items.
“I’m so proud of what our more than 1.3 million associates have done to prepare and execute our Black Friday plans, giving our customers a great start to their Christmas shopping season,” said Bill Simon, Walmart U.S. president and chief executive officer. “The work of our associates is even more impressive when you consider they served approximately 22 million customers on Thursday.”
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And for the last one, a video, from ReasonTV.
3 Reasons to Kill the Dept. of Homeland Security
Wandering Views 
1- I like the fact that Barney Frank and Ron Paul both support the exemption to Obamacare. But they are both “lame duck” Congressmen, so they won’t be around to override the inevitable veto. And Todd Akin is also going out, since he ran for Senate and lost. So that leaves an unknown Illinois Republican (almost an oxymoron, but knowing about Illinois politics, it is Chicago that is a Democratic stronghold, the rest of the state is a mix of both parties) and a not-so-well-known California Democrat. Will she bow to the leadership of her party and distance herself from a weakening of Obama’s crown achievement? Only time will tell.
2- Thank you AJ for these notes that never make it to the MSM. But could you put some kind of separation between the stories other than a change of font color? How about ==== or ———– or some other easily done marker?
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In yesterdays News/Politics I had a discussion with Sails and others on education, and I can’t leave it without having the last word.
Sails — I don’t disagree with your Conrad Black quote (which leaves me feeling strange agreeing with the criminal reprobate Cdn), especially the parts you didn’t bold. So here’s the quote again
Far too large a proportion of the country’s human capital has been squandered in a failed state education system, a gigantic and corrupt and oppressive criminal-justice and custodial system, and a system of public health and medical care that seriously disadvantages the lower economic third of the population and is more than twice as expensive per capita as systems of other countries that, on balance, provide as good a service. Too much has been spent in duplicative or hypertrophic national defense, including wars from which the country did not gain anything and that it need not have fought, or fought at such high cost, in people and in resources.
note his criticism on what I call the American gulag, his comparision between American health care and other countries, and finally the wasteful military industrial complex.
Sails — I’m also surprised by your approval of the Finnish educational system. Heavily unionized and highly paid Finnish teachers do indeed deliver nearly the best education in the world (S. Korea may be better). And yes they do teach health, crafts, visual arts, home economics and ethics. BTW, Canada is ranked third in the world. Within Canada, Ontario is ranked the highest. Interestingly, formal education doesn’t begin until the age of 6 in Finland — a year later than most countries. Would you approve replacing the current US system with a Finnish style system? Unionized, highly paid teachers teaching ethics……
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How viable is a religious exemption? In a workplace insurance scheme, workers frequently pay a portion of the premium and these plans may include coverage for items which may violate the conscience of some. Is there a religious exemption for these schemes? The whole point of insurance is shared risk, and exemptions undermine this.
Walmart.com isn’t exactly an unbiased source. Leftist sites are full of protest videos. I imagine the truth is somewhere in-between and with the current worker’s rights movements an on-going struggle, these types of protests will continue.
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The IQs of the students is what puts the Scandanavians (and South Koreans) at the top on standardized tests. Even within the US, the demographic makeup of the students by state is a much better predictor of test scores than per capita education spending.
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what type of demographic are you referring to? Socioeconomic? religion? voting records? poverty?
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Peter L.,
I’ve played around a little and puts some breaks in between the stories. Refresh and you should see them. Just some examples, you guys can let me know which you like, if any.
Don’t make me do a poll. I will. I’m just lookin’ for a reason. It’s my favorite feature.
Well, besides the SPAM filter.
🙂
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I’m prefering the solid, thick, black line. It’s the most obvious I think.
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hwesseli, weather you agree with the conclusion or not it is a fact that blacks and Hispanics score lower on IQ tests than whites and Asians. But since we are not allowed to mention this without being called racist we may never know why or what can be done about it.
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The Bell Curve by Murray gives an excellent analysis. Murray then got amazing amounts of grief for publishing what was essentially a 600 page statistical analysis. When he wrote Coming Apart, he had learned his lesson and studied only white people.
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For the most part the racial difference in IQ test is essentially an American phenomenon. In part this is due to poverty more than race. One can also correlate lower test scores to rural/urban vs suburban, voting patterns, family structure, family reading practices, etc. It would hard to give a definitive cause to one factor versus other factors. In most cases, a white upper middle class individual with an intact family and parents who have post secondary degrees will score highest.
There are other issues before you even get started. Race itself is a construct and the Hispanic category is especially fluid. Many IQ tests were flawed in design and have a suburban middle class bias. Interestingly, since IQ tests have been given the scores have consistently gone up for all categories of race, income, culture, etc. A 1990 African American now scores similar to a 1950 Caucasian.
There are some interesting trivial explanations. Ontario schools test reading, writing and math in a week long testing process for grades three and six. These are intensive test which featuring essays, short answers along with multiple choice. Schools found that if they gave children nutritional snacks prior to the test, the scores were better. In between tests, schools gave extended recesses. Anecdotally, these two combined have led to better scores.
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Here’s my review of Coming Apart
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/318241663
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There are some interesting rebuttals to the bell curve. One is to posit a difference between voluntary and involuntary minorities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Caste-like_minorities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_by_Design:_Cracking_the_Bell_Curve_Myth
Interesting comparisons include the performance of the low status Jews of late 19th and early 20th century to the higher status American Jews enjoy today.
Koreans score poorly in Japan while scoring highly in the US. Same minority but in Japan they have a low status while in the US, they are generally considered a valued minority.
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Here’s a balanced report of the Walmart protests
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/23/walmart-black-friday-strikes-protesters
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HRW, If you went to a Finland high school and spent four years working with the students on sprinting, I could go to any Jamaican high school and in two days I could find 4 students who could destroy your four best students in the 100 meters. Conversely, if you went to a Jamaican high school and spent four years working with the students in math, I could go to any Finnish high school and in two days I could find 4 students who could destroy your best math students on the math part of the SAT. Anyone who watches sports or has participated in sports with different people groups knows the truth of the first statement. The Bell Curve explains the reason for the truth of the second statement.
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The Bell Curve deals with the issues you raised. If you only compare blacks and whites with the same incomes or from the same areas, the gap goes up. If you look at tests that are arguably less culturally biased, the gap goes up. It is true that the overall IQs of groups can be raised over time. However, there is clearly a point of diminishing returns. White Europeans do not have the highest IQs. Asians have demonstrably higher IQs, and Jews are higher than Asians.
If you look at high school test scores, American whites do relatively well compared to whites around the world. American blacks do relatively well compared to blacks around the world. The same for our Asians.
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Jamaica produces the world’s best sprinters. But why? To embrace a genetic explanation produces the question what about other mixed race populations such as Brazil? The simple reason is the best athletes in Jamaica train to be sprinters while the best athletes in Brazil train to play soccer. Its not genetics but cultural. If you want to be the big man on campus in a Jamaica high school, you run fast. Conversely in Brazil, you would play soccer.
Take your Finnish example. I couldn’t train Jamaicans to cross country ski even though it essentially uses the same muscles and strength as sprinting yet the Finns excel at cross country skiing but not sprinting.
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The Bell Curve has several problems but essentially two things make its premise a non-starter. Race is a construct which doesn’t really exist and intelligence is difficult to categorize or measure. Murray assumes he can measure IQ, that intelligence is wholly inheritable and cannot be improved, and tests have no bias. People can easily improve their test scores … in fact there are practice tests, test strategies, etc available on the internet which do improve your IQ and SAT scores yet don’t improve your general intelligence.
Interestingly, Jews once tested lower and now test higher than average.
I’m not sure of your reference to high school tests — which one? PISA which measures education in all OECD countries places the US in the middle at around 15th in the world. Finland, South Korea, and Canada are the top three countries.
In the Bell Curve and elsewhere, erroneous conclusions are based on select Asian IQ test which are compared to general American IQ test. Similar to many education tests, Europeans and North Americans generally test everyone whereas Asian tests are usually based on a select group, usually the higher performing students.
For example PISA includes select areas of China (Hong Kong and Shanghai) in their education rankings. These areas do extremely well but can’t be considered a valid comparison of Chinese education vs other countries.
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HRW, Cross country skiing is not similar to sprinting. It is similar to long distance running. Is there a winter sport that requires the same attributes as sprinting? Oh, yes! Bobsledding! The Jamaicans understood this. This is the hilarious part of this entire discussion. Most blacks know about the different strengths of the various races. They joke about it: “White men can’t jump.”. The fact that different races have different strengths doesn’t make one better than others. They are just different.
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But the joke is a stereotype — because white man (and women) can jump. The top 10 high jumpers in the world are all white Europeans except a mixed race Cuban and American. Now you could say, if high jumping was something Americans cared about more African Americans would excel but thats exactly my cultural argument.
As for basketball (the origins of the joke) white Europeans are quite good at basketball. And even the Asians are proving quite adept at basketball now that they take it seriously. China now outranks Angola the highest ranked African team (ranked 15th).
I was referring to cross country sprints which yes do exist. Using your example; if genetics was the sole determinant the Jamaicans should dominate bobsleigh after participating for the last 30 years …. but they don’t. Its still dominated by white Europeans and even in North America its a white sport. In Jamaica, the best athletes are sprinter not bobsledders.
However, despite the caveats I raise, I will agree that genetics is important just that its not race based. The best athletes from different ethnic and national groups are steered in a particular direction which allows a particular group to dominate in one athletic event or other. This creates misleading racial stereotypes.
Look at volleyball ( it requires lots of jumping) which is dominated by Europeans, Asians, Arabs and white Americans simply because good African and African American athletes are steered elsewhere.
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AJ- The thin line looks best IMO also. And it’s easy to make.
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HRW, afew points:
I wouldn’t mind a few frilly school subjects as long as the basic subjects are well taught.
It doesn’t follow from Black’s criticism of America’s excessively costly health care that the solution is a socialistic single-payer system.
While America has engaged in recent years in dubious limited wars, America as the leading power in the world still needs to have an exceedingly strong military deterrent.
Black is critical of the waste and fraud involved in American military, not the need for an overwhelmingly strong military force necessary to keep the peace and deter war.
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Well since Canada and more specifically Ontario teaches the basics well, I’m glad you won’t mind me teaching a few frilly subjects like health.
Black offers no solutions since he know the only real alternative is either single payer and individual mandate. He prefers to pay cash. But even he knows that free market health care won’t provide the best care for the larger portion of the population.
Much of what the US spends in defense is waste and pork. The US can spend much less and still be a deterrent.
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HRW, how do you address the matters of contraception, abortion, and homosexual practice in your “health” course?
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We don’t discuss abortion.
Contraception is taught in grade eight — Abstinence is heavily promoted as the first choice but then I outlined the pros and cons of other methods.
As for homosexuality, homophobia and sexual orientation is raised in the context of bullying and discrimination.
Sex acts are discussed in terms of safe sex if at all and not according to who practices what.
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Yikes with all that stuff being taught by anyone besides parents!
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I got this originally from theWashington Times
Kuhner: Obama remakes America in his image
…… He has amassed over $5 trillion in debt. The national debt is above $16 trillion — a staggering amount that threatens our economic security. We are sliding toward Greece and impending bankruptcy. Yet, the electorate rewarded him with another term.
Why? The answer is simple and ominous: Because over half the population — 50 percent plus one — now are dependent upon government benefits. For the past four years, the Obama administration has created a Franco-German welfare state whose sole purpose is to forge a majority political coalition wedded to the Democratic Party. The stimulus, the health-care overhaul, the redirecting of financial resources to the inner cities, the explosion in Americans on food stamps and welfare, the massive spending increases in public education, infrastructure and agriculture, the green energy boondoggles, the bailouts of the auto industry, the contraceptive mandate, the federal funding of abortion, support for homosexual marriage, and pushing amnesty for illegal aliens — all of these measures directly bought off key liberal constituencies, such as unions, public-sector workers, environmentalists, blacks, Hispanics, feminists and the LGBT community………..
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/farewell-america-second-term-ushers-in-socialist-empire#ixzz2DGpITVlA
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Of course , HRW, in advocating contraception and by implication approving of fornication and homosexual practice, even with a pitch for abstinence, you are violating the principles of some orthodox religious groups in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Also, your “health” course in effect advocates, the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, including some lethal ones, as it is well known that the only real protection from STD stems from men and women who refrain from pre-marital sex with multiple partners.
With your world view, you are in perfect alignment with the dominant secular ideology of our time, a world view that often regards religious folk as existing in some sort of Bronze Age religious barbarity or at best quaintness.
The only solution for this parlous reality is public financial support for orthodox religious schools, as is the case in parts of Europe.
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I spent a couple of hours walking through new car lots after church today, and it was clear to see how America went bad. There were rows and rows of Camaros Challengers and Corvettes with automatic transmissions. I feel certain such vehicles would be banned in St Petersburg and Ukraine as promoting homosexuality.
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Ricky — I know a host of Europeans who would agree with you.
Sails — Informing and advocating are not the same thing. I simply provide information, if I’m guilty of any bias its toward abstinence. Informing students of STIs, their effects, and prevention methods does not increase transmission risks, its the exact opposite.
Actually I have great respect for religious students and their families and if I were to violate their faith, trust me, they would be sure to tell me.
Yes some gov’ts fund Christian schools but they also fund Muslim schools.
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Because of the automatic transmission or the kind of car? And why would one think a car choice indicates sexual preference?
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Chas — accusing Obama of socialism demonstrates a poor understanding of political ideologies. For example, socialist health care is single payer whereas the insurance mandate is regulated competition a free market idea advocated by Bob Dole and the Heritage Foundation and first implemented by Romney.
Building coalitions to win elections is classic politics and nothing new. In a first past the post system with only two parties its a necessity in order to win. The whining and grieving of some emerges only because they find themselves outside the coalition — not a place they want to be.
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Peter, HRW understood. Neandrathals like me believe it is a travesty to have a sports car with an automatic transmission. You can watch reruns of King of the Hill if you want to understand us. For example, Hank Hill explained that soccer was invented by French women so they would have something to do while their husbands cooked supper.
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HRW, I have no problem with public funding for Muslim schools that stay within the law of the land. In financially supporting religious schools it would be rather important to make sure that subversive content and indeed schools are eliminated.
My problem is with the quasi-religious secular schools that are more interested in ideology than serious learning that stresses virtue and character. Your health course merely pretends to give just information; it actually reflects at base a secular liberal viewpoint.
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The problem for religious schools is once you accept gov’t funding you accept gov’t curriculum. Catholic schools received gov’t funding in ontario but spent the last year fighting the gov’t over anti-bullying and homophobia. I suppose you could say that is the means gov’t eliminates subversive content …. you can then argue what is subversive content.
You want learning that stress virtue and character but then you disparage secular schools that stress character education. The truth is you want schools to teach your version of virtue and character.
The only viewpoint I convey in any form is respect and choice. And in any controversial subject I’m careful to advise students to listen to their parent/religion/cultural perspective on the material.
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This article calling Obama and his ilk “communists” and praising Reagan and Christianity was published in Pravda. The world has turned upside down.
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-obama_soviet_mistake-0/
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My ’07 Jeep Liberty has an automatic transmission. I like it.
But it’s the first automatic I’ve had after driving VW bugs (2) and Jettas (2) that all had manual (stick) transmissions, at my insistence.
Arrg, I must be getting old. 😉
But it is kind of nice …
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Donna, Automatic transmissions are OK for girls and older people. They are also OK in trucks, just not in sports cars.
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