You Wanted Change? You Got it.
Labels: Barf, Current Events, Dictionary, Downfall of Civilization, Pantheon, Politics, TV, Without Speech
Labels: Barf, Current Events, Dictionary, Downfall of Civilization, Pantheon, Politics, TV, Without Speech
Labels: Business, Current Events, Money, Pantheon, Poetry, TV
The Supreme Court today narrowly ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor and others that had come to play a large role in the consideration of her nomination for the high court.For years SCOTUS has existed as a way to correct the biased, inaccurate, misinformed, under-educated and blatantly wrong decisions made by lower court judges, such as Sotomayor (who has had SIXTY PERCENT of her decisions reversed).
The city had thrown out the results of a promotion test because no African Americans and only two Hispanics would have qualified for promotions. It said it feared a lawsuit from minorities under federal laws that said such "disparate impacts" on test results could be used to show discrimination. [...]
"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. [...]
The New Haven case, Ricci v. DeStefano, has become the ruling that Sotomayor's critics most point to for evidence that she lets her background influence her decisions.
Kennedy's opinion referred to the judgment of Sotomayor and the other judges only by noting the short opinion.
Kennedy said the standard for whether an employer may discard a test is whether there is a strong reason to the employer to believe that the test is flawed in a way that discriminates against minorities, not just by looking at the results.
In New Haven's case, "there is no evidence -- let alone the required strong basis in evidence -- that the tests were flawed because they were not job-related or because other, equally valid and less discriminatory tests were available to the city," Kennedy wrote. [...]
The case has drawn considerable attention not just because of Sotomayor's role but because of the sympathetic nature of the claim brought by the firefighters, who said they were discriminated against simply because of the color of their skin.
Labels: Current Events, Dictionary, Holidays, Hooray, Pantheon, Politics
Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages. [...]I can't begin to wrap my brain around this. If ever there was someting indefensible, it is this.
In a letter to the CEO's of both companies, Representatives Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner warned that a 70 percent sales threshold "may be too onerous."
Labels: Current Events, Dictionary, Downfall of Civilization, Life of Crime, Money, Pantheon, Scandalous, Without Speech, Yeah Right
Labels: Also Worth Noting, Barf, Blame the Internet, Downfall of Civilization, Internationally Known, Life of Crime, Literature, NYC, Pantheon, Scandalous, Technology, Without Speech, Yeah Right
Other pieces of legislation might have only destroyed the livelihoods and life savings of people who use electricity, drive cars or buy things from stores. But this bill will effectively make the energy you expend while jogging for 30 minutes a resource the government can regulate and incarcerate you for producing without a permit.The free market-based Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington has obtained a set of internal e-mails exposing Team Obama’s willful and reckless disregard for data that undermine the illusion of “consensus.”
In March, Alan Carlin, a senior research analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, asked agency officials to distribute his analysis on the health effects of greenhouse gases. EPA has proposed a public health “endangerment finding” covering CO2 and five other gases that would trigger costly, extensive new regulations of motor vehicles. The open comment period on the ruling ended this week. But Carlin’s study didn’t fit the blame-human-activity narrative, so it didn’t make the cut.
On March 12, Carlin’s director, Al McGartland, forbade him from having “any direct communication” with anyone outside his office about his study.
“There should be no meetings, emails, written statements, phone calls, etc.” On March 16, Carlin urged his superiors to forward his work to EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, which runs the agency’s climate change program. A day later, McGartland dismissed Carlin and showed his true, politicized colors:
“The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision… I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”
Contrary comments, in other words, would interfere with the “process” of ramming the EPA’s endangerment finding through. Truth-in-science took a backseat to protecting eco-bureaucrats from “a very negative impact.” [...]
The EPA now justifies the suppression of the study because economist Carlin (a 35-year veteran of the agency who also holds a B.S. in physics) “is an individual who is not a scientist.” Neither is Al Gore. Nor is environmental czar Carol Browner. Nor is cap-and-trade shepherd Nancy Pelosi.
Carlin’s analysis incorporated peer-reviewed studies and, as he informed his colleagues, “significant new research” related to the proposed endangerment finding. According to those who have seen his study, it spotlights EPA’s reliance on out-of-date research, uncritical recycling of United Nations data, and omission of new developments, including a continued decline in global temperatures and a new consensus that future hurricane behavior won’t be different than in the past.
Labels: Barf, Current Events, Downfall of Civilization, Future, Life of Crime, The Science, Without Speech
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 33% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-three percent (33%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of 0.This has come quite a way from inauguration day his approval index was +28 -- back when no one knew anything about him. Back when people still believed that a man with no credentials, no leadership experience, no tangible ideas, and no concrete solutions could lead a super power.
Labels: Current Events, Dictionary, Don't Judge Me, Future, History, Numbers Don't Lie, Politics, Print
Fiscal threats to libraries deeply unnerve Mr. Bradbury, who spends as much time as he can talking to children in libraries and encouraging them to read.
The Internet? Don’t get him started. “The Internet is a big distraction,” Mr. Bradbury barked from his perch in his house in Los Angeles, which is jammed with enormous stuffed animals, videos, DVDs, wooden toys, photographs and books, with things like the National Medal of Arts sort of tossed on a table.
“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’
“It’s distracting,” he continued. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”
Labels: Blame the Internet, Current Events, Dictionary, Education, Internationally Known, Intrawebs, Pantheon, Robots, Technology
In August 2003, Bush said he decided to stop playing golf to show his respect for the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.However, even giving up golf was met with criticism because critics stated (with some accuracy) that it seemed too little too late.
“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” Bush said in an interview with Politico and Yahoo News on May 13, 2008. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
The Washington Post on June 9, 2009, staff writer Richard Leiby wrote. “The attraction seems to be simple. It’s a great escape; the game demands such attention that nothing else matters. It’s time spent with friends, an unhurried afternoon in loose clothing (shorts seem to be Obama’s preference).”As noted before, we have reached a stage wherein Obama could bring a reporters mother on national TV, hit her with a shovel while shouting homophobic slurs and then wakeup the next day to a glowing front page story about it.
Leiby continued, “To some, Obama’s frequent outings reflect a cool self-confidence.”
Labels: Barf, Current Events, Dictionary, Downfall of Civilization, Duh, Education, Future, Print, Without Speech
As the debate over health care reform escalates on Capitol Hill and in the White House, first lady Michelle Obama told "Good Morning America" in an exclusive interview that "no system is going to be perfect" and "it's not going to be easy."
The hospital had nonprofit status and received lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care.
Yet, in fiscal year 2007, when Mrs. Obama was employed there, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor -- 1.3 percent of its total hospitalexpenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the nonpartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.
Sure, the American College of Emergency Physicians responded with a stern condemnation of Michelle's policy, but they dare not push this too hard, lest they get called racists for questioning our wise president.In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas' community exploded upon learning that a young boy covered by Medicaid had been turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Dontae Adams' mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama's hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics and Tylenol, and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.
I'll guarantee you this: You'll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the first lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the health care system.
Labels: Animal Kingdom, Barf, Dictionary, Don't Judge Me, Future, Health, History, Life of Crime, Scandalous, The Science, Without Speech