Ain’t America Grand?

We live in a culture where a talk show radio host can lose his job for racially insensitive comments, but a judge can be nominated to the Supreme Court in spite of them.

Testing Windows Live Writer

Okay, now what?

Some Basic Scientific Definitions, As Used In Science

Scientific Hypothesis, Theory, Law Definitions
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm

Hypotheses
http://www.batesville.k12.in.us/Physics/PhyNet/AboutScience/Hypotheses.html

In theory, computer models of complex systems *could* be wrong.

Just some links I dug up, before deciding a lazy Saturday morning should not be wasted debating more climate theory loonery.

Climate Con Job

Scaring the kids

Faulty models driving faulty policy

‘Worse Than Fiction’

Subsidizing Bad Behaviour, And Other Tales Of Irrational Thinking.

It occurred to me after reading this, that groups like the Guttenamacher Institute seem to draw conclusions between minorities and what they call access to women’s health care, (which those of us not trying to pull a fast one know as government subsidised access to birth control and abortion).

abortion rates among racial and ethnic minorities—especially blacks and Hispanics—are directly linked to their higher rates of unintended pregnancy, which in turn reflect pervasive health disparities more generally.

In an August 2008 opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Guttmacher Institute Board Chair Melissa Gilliam said of the high unintended pregnancy and abortion rates among African Americans: “The root causes are manifold: a long history of discrimination; lack of access to high-quality, affordable health care; too few educational and professional opportunities; unequal access to safe, clean neighborhoods; and, for some African Americans, a lingering mistrust of the medical community.”

Here’s the thing. Unwanted pregnancies are the result of individual’s behaviour. Guttenmacher seems to be implying that a civil rights wrong is being committed because unwanted pregnancies are happening disproportionately among minorities. It’s not a reproductive rights argument at all. It’s a behavioural problem.

Instead of addressing the behavioural problem Guttenmacher insists that we subsidize it. According to them, the argument must be something like this: “Pay for us to have birth control or we’re going to overpopulate the less productive segments of society, or worse, we’ll have abortions, which we want you to pay for also!” Note, I am not saying minorities are less productive, it is tax-exempt groups like the Guttenmacher who are doing these studies.

I don’t really know if that’s the logic, or not. But whatever it is, there seems to be a lot of people who buy into the idea that instead of educating people about the consequences of their bad behaviour, we develop multi-billion dollar industries surrounding, and encouraging that bad behaviour.

Buckle Your Seat Belt. It’s Cooler Than You Might Think.

A little background on why I’m writing this:
On June 2, I posted this on twitter.
Last weekend, a couple high school kids were killed, and one seriously injured in car accidents. None were wearing seat belts.

I’ve had my head cracked on the dashboard of a ‘68 Camaro once. I had a lap belt on, or it probably would’ve been the windshield. That was before wearing a seat belt was the law. Mom was a ICU/CCU nurse, so she passed on the wisdom of what she’d seen.

When I was 15, I snuck out with Mom’s car, and went and picked up a buddy. There was about 8″ of slushy snow on the roads. I gunned the engine as I rounded a corner, and locked up the brakes as I slid out of control into a tree. Needless to say, I didn’t get the signature I needed to start driving at 16.

I’ve been in a few accidents since then, only one involving a collision, where a woman deliberately hit me in the company truck to get insurance money. I got the ticket, and from then on racked up a lot of speeding tickets, but I never got hit again. I did blow out all of the brake wheel cylinders in my old Pontiac after avoiding a car that slid through an intersection and then backed into traffic, (traffic being me, in this case). Now that I think about it, I did have a ‘57 Chevy bumper tag me once, but I try to block the memory of that little bruise to my ego. The point is, I’ve always worn my seat belt, other than the time I took a ride in a buddy’s ‘64 Le Mans, which didn’t come with seat belts. I gripped the sides of the seat for pretty much the whole ride. I don’t like the feeling of not being secured to the vehicle.

A good example would be the time I thought it’d be a good idea to protect the bed of a truck by putting down some paper before stacking about 300 pounds of cement bags in the back. I hit the brakes, the paper went on a magic carpet ride, and 300 pounds of cement slammed into the bulkhead of the truck at probably 25-30 mph. Try it some time, you might get a new appreciation for the importance of securing your load.

I’ve got a few friends who fly F-16s, and I kind of think of them sometimes when I’m driving. I guess I have an active imagination. If, for a second, you’re tempted to think that wearing a seatbelt is uncool, I have to wonder, do you think you’re cooler than an F-16 pilot by not wearing one?

The New Rules On Racism?

Apparently, liberals have a little trouble with looking words up in the dictionary. If they would look up the word, marriage, for instance, they would see that it is defined as being something between a man and a woman. Seems simple enough, but liberals seem to thrive on bashing Christians. They insist the word must be bent to their unyielding will to include arbitrary arrangements of sexes that frankly won’t stand up in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as far as successful strategies for survival of the species.

The word racism, to them, apparently, should be modified to mean only when whites do it. When anyone else does it, they would like it to be called advocacy.

Here’s the compact Oxford definition of the word racism:

racism
• noun 1 the belief that there are characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to each race. 2 discrimination against or antagonism towards other races.

On my previous post, a comment was made that I don’t know anything about what I’m talking about when I claim that someone made a racist statement by saying the decisions of one race are superior in quality to those of another’s.

The fact that it was a careless, poorly worded statement does not lessen its inherent racism.

I always try to treat people fairly regardless of race, gender, or social standing. Is it so much to ask that I be extended the same courtesy?

I have strong feelings regarding racism. I ask you to think why that would be before accusing me of not knowing what I’m talking about.

Politics of Fear

You will criticise Judge Sotomayor at your own peril, says the White House. The City of New Haven threw out the test results and didn’t promote anyone for fear of a lawsuit, we hear.

The White House has proven that it will use its power to crush any who stand in its way, and the liberal media will dance like a puppet on a string to do its bidding. Character assassinations of beauty pageant contestants and old white guys seems to be the media’s specialty.

So, yes, indeed, let’s ask questions about this woman who went to private schools in her rag to riches story, who claims that the richness of her experience as a New York latina has made her a better decision maker than a white guy, regardless of his background. It’s her experience versus his skin color and Y chromosome that she claims makes the difference.

I don’t doubt that any man or woman of any race could perform about equally in any given position. I also acknowledge that men and women, in particular, are different. Women appear to be better than men at networking, for instance. But if I’m supposed to believe all of this Equal Opportunity Employer hoohah, that should not preclude a man from equal consideration for a job that requires extensive networking skill, should it?

We’ve had decades of affirmative action, “minorities and women given special consideration” on help wanted ads, and countless taxpayer funded special interest advocacy groups to try to level the playing field. White men have been left out of this system, other than to pay the taxes to fund the special interest advocacy groups, and provide jobs with a special consideration for members of these groups.

Do I have to say it again? I think that any man or woman of any race could perform just about any given job equally. But politically, there’s the added threat of a lawsuit from special interests. Some wield this fear as a political weapon, knowing they have powerful advocacy groups to back them up. In this way, minorities and women have both a system of protection if they are mistreated, and a political tool that white men don’t have.

In other words, the system does not provide equal protection for white men, and so political hacks like those currently occupying the white house can wield the powerful fear of self-interest groups against them.

Fear this.

She Almost Made The Right Point

I have no doubt Satomayor is a decent Latina woman with many honourable accomplishments. I also think she probably catered her lecture to La Raza, in speaking up for the voice of minority representation. But she used poor judgement in stating that because of her gender and race, she was more qualified, better, even, than someone of a different race and gender. And poor judgement isn’t exactly a desirable trait people look for in Supreme Court Judges, that I’m aware of.

That her nomination is a calculated decision by the Democratic Party is obvious. They want the Latino votes. Bill Richardson, (who once stated that he wanted Gonzales to be found innocent “because he’s hispanic”), withdrew his nomination to Commerce secretary under the stain of a corruption investigation. But Republicans catered to the Latin community as well, turning a blind eye to the burgeoning illegal immigrant community winning the Latino vote for George W. Bush.

I have no doubt, that even without the million plus dollars the Democratic Party will spend on advertising for Sotomayor’s nomination campaign, she will most likely be confirmed.

The fact is, she is largely being selected for the job for two reasons; the hoped for political clout of her minority status and because she will interpret the law with a liberal bias.

But in her statement to La Raza, in which she said a latina woman would come to a better decision than a white man based on her experience, she almost got it right. White men have been taught for the last four decades to be empathetic to the sensitivities of women and minorities. A white man would be far less likely to say they are better than someone else because of their race or gender. Most white men, I think, know better.

Disappointed in Myself

I used to go watch concerts at The Ritz in Rosedale, and remember walking in one night when a guy with a wad of cash in his hand outside the door said, “Ten Bucks for parking”. I barely slowed down, but remember being kinda pissed. The Ritz parking lot was in a strip mall, the guy was ripping people off.

I was reminded of this the other day, when I was parking downtown in Miami. It was an automated lot, there was a sign saying “No Parking Attendant on Duty”, but there was a guy, waving me up, telling me the prices with a fist full of parking tags in his hand. So I roll down the window and ask him about prices, when he thought I was going to pay, he stuck a parking tag on my dashboard. I grabbed it, and looked, sure enough, the tag was four days old. So, I parked the car, and started walking to the automated machine.

An older guy pulled up to the fake parking lot attendant, and the thought crossed my mind to warn him, but I just kept walking. I paid the tab, and as I walked back to put the parking tag on the dashboard, I saw the older guy standing in the parking lot, obviously becoming aware of the scam. As I walked back across the street, I saw him yelling at a cop, “I’ll have him arrested”.

It’s not the first time in my life that I regret not doing the right thing, but it strikes that it would’ve taken so little effort to have helped my fellow man, and I failed. I’m disappointed in myself.