Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups






















« Bloomberg "Reporter," Who By the Way Once Served as Head of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz' PAC, Headlines Story About Mike Pence's Possible Presidential Run By Noting He's a "Koch Favorite" | Main | Top Headline Comments (4-17-2014) »
April 16, 2014

Overnight Open Thread (4-16-2014)

This is One Case Where I Actually Prefer the Cover

To the original even with the whole Pennywise thing going on. Supposedly the title to the song was inspired by this picture of George Brett (along with lots of teenage angst).

In the War on Standards Standards Actually Won a Round

In one case on whether employers can use background and credit checks in hiring. The courts rejected the EEOC's complaint.

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a challenge by the EEOC to the use of credit checks by Kaplan Higher Education Corporation. The very first sentence of the opinion, by Judge Ray Kethledge, calls out the EEOC for its hypocricy:
In this case, the EEOC sued the defendant for using the same type of background check that the EEOC itself uses.

The EEOC claimed that these kind of checks had a disproportionate effect on minorities and to prove it they brought in a crack team of "race detectives" to guess at applicants' race based on their drivers license picture.

The way the EEOC attempted to prove disparate impact is quite revealing and rather disconcerting. To evaluate the racial impact of a hiring policy, one must, of course, know the race of applicants. In this case, Kaplan did not record this information. Thus, the EEOC's "expert" had to eyeball copies of applicant driver's licenses and, in effect, guess the race. (The expert also had the names of applicants; though the EEOC insisted they weren't used to determine race, the Sixth Circuit seemed skeptical of that claim).

To guess the race of applicants from the photos on their licenses, the expert used a process called "race rating." He assembled a team of five race raters each of whom has experience in what the EEOC calls "multicultural, multiracial, treatment outcome research."

And the Court was having none of this.

The EEOC brought this case on the basis of a homemade methodology, crafted by a witness with no particular expertise to craft it, administered by persons with no particular expertise to administer it, tested by no one, and accepted only by the witness himself. The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding [the expert's] testimony.

I almost expected the court to follow up with a Billy Madison judgment here.


Where Your Tax Dollars Are Going

Mostly to other people to spend.

TaxUntitled-15

The Road to Progressive Dhimmitude

In the recent Hobby Lobby Case, Justices Elana Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said that corporations that don't want to pay for abortions should simply not provide any health insurance: "But isn't there another choice nobody talks about, which is paying the tax, which is a lot less than a penalty and a lot less than - than the cost of health insurance at all?" Dissenters from the official line must pay a tax. That sounds familiar.

Consider the ObamaCare 'Tax' penalty as just the starting jizyah dhimmis like you will have to pay for not adhering to the state religion - progressivism.

Google Has Yet to Comply With Anarchist Group's Demand for...$3 Billion Dollars

The pinky to mouth movement is just assumed here.

Harvard Dean: Hollywood is Being Too Friendly and Not Mocking the Military Enough

So sayeth Professor Steven M. Walt of Harvard's School of Government:

Since the early 1980s, in fact, mass-market treatments of war and the military have become increasingly respectful, even adulatory. This trend begins with An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), followed by Top Gun, a 1986 film starring the F-14 Tomcat; A Few Good Men (1992); Saving Private Ryan (1998 ); Independence Day (1996), where the villains are evil space aliens and a sniveling civilian secretary of defense; Black Hawk Down, a 1999 book by Mark Bowden and 2001 film; the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008 ); and Zero Dark Thirty (2012) about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. You could toss in Lone Survivor, Shooter, Under Siege, Tour of Duty, Call to Glory, JAG, and Band of Brothers - the moral of the story wouldn't change much. Some of these works include conniving politicians or less-than-admirable commanders, but the core institutions and the troops themselves are portrayed in a consistently positive light. Today, only Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury is still willing to crack a few jokes at the military's expense, but his main military characters (B.D., Ray, Melissa, and Toggle) are all wounded or damaged in some fashion and the predominant tone is one of sympathy and support rather than satire.

I can think of only five partial exceptions to this pattern - Private Benjamin (1980), Stripes (1981), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and the two Hot Shots! parodies, but these works do not undermine my larger point.

And even the exceptions he points out aren't portraying the military negatively enough for him:

In Stripes and Private Benjamin, for example, the lead characters ultimately gain wisdom from their military experience and become better people. And Good Morning, Vietnam becomes less funny as the film proceeds, as Cronauer confronts the realities of the war and discovers a Viet Cong agent has duped him. Hot Shots! (1991, 1993) doesn't really count, as these films are really spoofs of pro-military genre films (especially Top Gun) rather than of the military itself.

Well at least Walt can console himself with M*A*S*H and all the deranged veteran movies of the 70s.

1waltphoto 

RIP Barry Elliot of Gun Gripes

Like Is Our Language Fucking Degrading or Something?

waslike

The Worst Breakfast Cereals Of All Time

Well excluding Kaboom since its horror transcends simply a bad morning meal.

polls_quisp_cereal_5016_132109_poll_xlarge.jpeg

Tonight's post brought to you by tonight's filmstrip:

tumblr_mzv45bMx0k1r5e698o1_500

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

digg this
posted by Maetenloch at 10:37 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
eleven: "Chuck Norris once punched a hole in Darth Vader to ..."

[/i][/b]andycanuck (hovnC)[/s][/u]: "Crack shots at golf. https://tinyurl.com/2s3zaz ..."

Sebastian Melmoth: "You can smell Amarillo long before you get there. ..."

Taggart: "108 It would take 9 hours to drive to Amarillo fro ..."

Piper: "109 Hey, Piper! Posted by: Bulg at November He ..."

Mazda Facts: "The 323 was the successor to the GLC. My son had a ..."

Bulg: "Hey, Piper! ..."

Geotge Strait: " It would take 9 hours to drive to Amarillo from H ..."

Tonypete: "Amarillo also has the Giant Pair of Legs. Goofy ro ..."

Martini Farmer: "> Trump appointed Dr. Oz as the head of Medicare/M ..."

Alberta Oil Peon: "I did it recently. It's not fun. Somewheres in/ ..."

Cicero (@cicero43): "93 If these rotors are rockin', don't come knock ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64