Overnight Open Thread (6-11-2015)

Quote of the Day I

Feminists won't be satisfied until every abortion is performed by a black gay doctor under an endangered tree on a reservation for handicapped Indians.

-- Florence King, 1978

Quote of the Day II

Motorcycle, Chris Pratt, sprinting dinosaurs: If you require more than that out of a movie, you're being unreasonable.

-- New York Post film critic Kyle Smith responding to 'Jurassic World': A Big, Dumb, Sexist Mess

Mark Steyn on Security Theater and Suspiciously Large Packages

Seventy-three known terror suspects managed to get jobs at US airports. I wonder how many would-be terrorists not known to the watch-list compilers are also gainfully employed at O'Hare and LAX and the rest.

...So the feds created a new acronym - and then prevented them accessing the other acronyms' data. So we have a money-no-object terrorism-prevention agency that, every Thanksgiving, issues rules on the consistency of pumpkin pie you're permitted to take on a plane, and which detained a man at San Francisco airport for a suspiciously large penis, because apparently the TSA has rules on maximum penis size, and if it's in excess of that you have to check it and put it in the hold. So the TSA is doing a bang-up job when it comes to dried-out moisture-free pumpkin pies and federally regulated penises but it has no idea who the terrorists are or whether they're working in the Dunkin' Donuts down by Gate 47.

I would have liked to have heard what the homeland-security honchos had to say for themselves at today's scheduled Senate hearing, but about 40 minutes into the show the Senate hearing on security breaches at the TSA had to be evacuated because of a security breach. That's almost too perfect a summation of the Big Security State - except that 90 minutes later the White House press briefing room also had to be evacuated because of a "suspicious package".

What White Privilege Really Is

Morsy and Rothstein examined new research that details racial and class differences in child-rearing styles among parents, suggesting that parenting styles account for some of the differences in school readiness between black children from low-income families and white children from more affluent homes.

White adults spend 36 percent more time than black adults reading to young children, and three times more time talking with and listening to them, according to research Morsy and Rothstein cite. White parents not only read more to their children, they offer more guidance and are more strategic about helping children build their literacy skills.

By age 6, white children typically have spent 1,300 more hours engaged in conversations with adults than black children have. White parents also tend to offer their children more choices in daily life, helping them to think through decisions and consequences, which are important skills that prepare them for critical thinking, according to the research.

Note that none of this has anything to do with money or skin color. And it suggests that Asian students have extreme white privilege.

RIP Christopher Lee

Famous actor, heavy metal musician, and quite possibly the actual Most Interesting Man in the World. On his wikipedia page his life up to age 17 alone is four full paragraphs and his exploits during WWII take up an entire page (excluding his SOE work). Then at age 24 he decided to take up acting.

Insane Totalitarianism in the UC System

These days I wonder if professors in Soviet universities actually had more day-to-day functional freedom of speech than faculty do today in American universities.

"America is the land of opportunity," "There is only one race, the human race" and "I believe the most qualified person should get the job" are among a long list of alleged microaggressions faculty leaders of the University of California system have been instructed not to say.

These so-called microaggressions - considered examples of subconscious racism - were presented at faculty leader training sessions held throughout the 2014-15 school year at nine of the 10 UC campuses. The sessions, an initiative of UC President Janet Napolitano, aim to teach how to avoid offending students and peers, as well as how to hire a more diverse faculty.

...Other sayings deemed unacceptable include:
- "Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough."
- "Where are you from or where were you born?"
- "Affirmative action is racist."
- "When I look at you, I don't see color."

Dept. of Education Announces Debt Forgiveness For Students Scammed By For-Profit Colleges

What about students scammed by state-run 'non-profit' colleges?

Arab-American Journalist Very Concerned That Bernie Sanders Might Be a Stealth Israeli

Did the FBI Lie About Mass Shootings Before the 2014 Midterms?

Yup. Or possibly they're just incredibly incompetent. Or a little column A, a little column B.

Last September the Obama administration produced an FBI report that said mass shooting attacks and deaths were up sharply-by an average annual rate of about 16% between 2000 and 2013. Moreover, the problem was worsening. "The findings establish an increasing frequency of incidents," said the authors. "During the first 7 years included in the study, an average of 6.4 incidents occurred annually. In the last 7 years of the study, that average increased to 16.4 incidents annually."

...Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott says there is no evidence that crime is rising or that arrests are down nationwide. But late last week, J. Pete Blair and M. Hunter Martaindale, two academics at Texas State University who co-authored the FBI report, acknowledged that "our data is imperfect." They said that the news media "got it wrong" last year when they "mistakenly reported mass shootings were on the rise."

Chesterton's Fence and the M-16 Magazine Catch Fence

Why the Oldest Person in the World Keeps Dying So Quickly

Tariq Aziz, Dead and Now Missing

National Lampoon, October 1980

NSFW. In retrospect it was basically a blog in a magazine form.

 

And my lo-fi Twitter spew.

Tonight's post brought to you by lifeboat 6:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Do not taunt happy-fun ball. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets and I'm all out of chewing gum. Oh and the winner of tonight's mystery meat contest is Barky, who guessed, 'some kind of dog'.

posted by Maetenloch at 10:51 PM

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