A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Spanky
Is Affirmative action (or to be specific, quotas and preferences) an attempt to equalise opportunity or outcome? I would say outcome.

It's like medical marijuana. Sold as one with the intent of achieving the other.

"Equality of opportunity" vs. "equality of outcome" is a vacant slogan... a semantic dodge for social engineers to avoid being braded soft socialists. You can't cleave the two. I don't even respond when I see it used because the notion the two can be separated is such a cynical lawyerly manipulation of the issue that extended debate with anyone who'd use it is pointless. That person doesn't want to debate - they and their fellow travelers simply want to "win."

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Dissent. I am dealing with this on a daily basis. The left wing wants to equalise outcome, assuming making hiring decisions based solely on race effects outcome rather than opportunity.

Getting the job is both the outcome and the opportunity. The Left's argument is tantamount to saying "We don't want people to all get the same vacation at the same destination... We just want to ensure everyone gets on the same plane."

They sound as silly as intelligent design advocates. They'd do much better to admit naked social engineering.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Your side manipulates statistics to show inequality on the rise. The other side does the same to come to the opposite conclusion. . . . I've read both the NYTimes and Journal for years on this issue and the best I can divine is it is a grey area.

Then I complement President Bush for getting on the correct side of this "grey" area.

Your cynical, "everyone distorts the data" shtick is just tired. There is a consensus view on this issue, and there is a rearguard action by conservatives to deny the problem. You have this guy at Cato -- funded by who? -- working full-time to try to create the perception that the data is confused. Congratulations -- you've just proved that the money was well spent.

You exemplify a lot of what makes it impossible for the Left to get its message across when you assume your "truth" is infallible. It's not. You have stats; Slave has stats. neither of you have any business saying inequality definitively is or is not on the rise.

I don't believe that Slave has any stats here, or that he's even arguing about this stuff.

I'll tell you what -- I'll find a conservative who acknowledges that income inequality is rising, and then you find me a lefty who says it isn't a problem, 'kay?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
The Democrat congress in its infinite stupidity cut off funding for the contras and these men risked jail to help that country throw off the yoke of communism. The Contras were kept alive, Ortega was forced to have elections (which would not have happened without the Contras) and millions of Nicaraguans were saved from destitution and tyranny.

These guys did not gain anything personally from their actions. They may have broken the law but they stepped up when Congress betrayed our friends.

Still struggling with that whole "democracy" thing, huh?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I'm the king of the broad brush statement, and even for me, this "inequality rising" thing sounds like someone trying to describe the workings of supercomputer in ten words or less.

Supercomputers add stuff really fast.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Getting the job is both the outcome and the opportunity. The Left's argument is tantamount to saying "We don't want people to all get the same vacation at the same destination... We just want to ensure everyone gets on the same plane."

No, just that they can get to the airport.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Then I complement President Bush for getting on the correct side of this "grey" area.

Your cynical, "everyone distorts the data" shtick is just tired. There is a consensus view on this issue, and there is a rearguard action by conservatives to deny the problem. You have this guy at Cato -- funded by who? -- working full-time to try to create the perception that the data is confused. Congratulations -- you've just proved that the money was well spent.

Bullshit. There is not a consesnus, and you've just done exemplified what I cited as the Left's most annoying debate technique - assuming consensus where there is none.

Bush is a foundering lame duck. I wouldn't be surprised if he were snapped kissing Hillary and applauding socialized medicine next week.

Income inequality, my friend, is not as simple as "rising" or "falling." There are a thousand different groups at issue, all rising and falling month to month in regard to one another. You don't like that because to suggest the issue is complex robs you of the bully pulpit a convenient blanket statement provides.

Everyone does distort the data, on both sides. And that leaves us with a stupid "debate" about poorly considered absolute statements such as yours. Do you really assume any intellectual honesty in the media? Do you really believe the "packaging" of information into general soundbites like "inequality is rising" paints us a fair picture? Do you honestly believe its as simple as we're "winning" or "losing" in Iraq? No, of course you don't. You realize that's media oversimplification.

There is inequality rising when comparisons are made between certain sectors. There is also a decrease in it when comparing other sectors. Do you really debate that? And do you debate that we should do a "netting" of that before we make broad pronouncements like "Inequality is on the rise!" I think you would allow that netting, but I also think a lot of the people you read would not. It serves their ends to have a broad statement, so that's what they have.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
No, just that they can get to the airport.

That taxi's already at the curb - anti-discrimination laws.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Bullshit. There is not a consesnus, and you've just done exemplified what I cited as the Left's most annoying debate technique - assuming consensus where there is none.

I wasn't assuming it. I'm happy to talk about the actual facts if you'd like to, but you're more interested in pulling a Cynical Broder -- the sort of centrism where you complain about both sides, but in a jaded way rather than earnest.

Bush is a foundering lame duck.

No argument here.

I wouldn't be surprised if he were snapped kissing Hillary and applauding socialized medicine next week.

I would, and he's perfectly capable of sticking to his guns on a variety of issues.

Income inequality, my friend, is not as simple as "rising" or "falling." There are a thousand different groups at issue, all rising and falling month to month in regard to one another. You don't like that because to suggest the issue is complex robs you of the bully pulpit a convenient blanket statement provides.

I grant you that the issues is complex, but this business of insisting that it's complex without talking about its facets or what they mean is just another pose. I'm perfectly willing to believe that inequality is decreasing in some respects. Why don't you tell me what they are?

Everyone does distort the data, on both sides.

No. That's crap. Some people have intellectual standards and some don't. And the desire to wave your hands and say that everyone is intellectually dishonest is a ploy to avoid talking about what they're saying.

And that leaves us with a stupid "debate" about poorly considered absolute statements such as yours.

I didn't make absolutist statements. I quoted a Washington Post article about a Bush speech and praised him. Are you trying to show that even you will distort the evidence to make your arguments?

Do you really assume any intellectual honesty in the media?

I'm happy to give you the long answer this question would deserve if it weren't just a rhetorical flourish on your part. Is it?

Do you really believe the "packaging" of information into general soundbites like "inequality is rising" paints us a fair picture? Do you honestly believe its as simple as we're "winning" or "losing" in Iraq? No, of course you don't. You realize that's media oversimplification.

OK. But sometimes the simple statements are accurate, as generalizations. In 1944, we were "winning" World War II. In 1974, we were "losing" Vietnam. Last year, the economy "grew."

There is inequality rising when comparisons are made between certain sectors. There is also a decrease in it when comparing other sectors. Do you really debate that?

No. And neither do you.

I'm telling you that I think the rising inequality is more significant across the economy than the decreasing inequality elsewhere. You know this. But you aren't interested in having that debate.

Go ahead -- prove me wrong.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

• The world's leading climate scientists said global warming has begun, is "very likely" caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries, according to a report obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
  
  The scientists — using their strongest language yet on the issue — said now that the world has begun to warm, hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries," no matter how much humans control their pollution. The report also linked the warming to the recent increase in stronger hurricanes.
  
  "The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone," said the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a group of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments.
  
  The phrase "very likely" translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man's burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame.
  
  What that means in simple language is "we have this nailed," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who originated the percentage system.
  
  Sharon Hays, associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, welcomed the strong language of the report.

SFGate

Good for the White House.

eta: OTOH, this is Orwellian:

• there are some curious patterns in the whitehouse.gov search engine. It turns out that it has been blocked from returning most results if the search phrase includes "global warming" - even if it's from the President himself. For instance, searching for "issue of global" gives as top result the President's Rose Garden speech in June 2001 on Global Climate Change, but searching for "issue of global warming" (which of course is the full phrase used) returns nothing...

Did I use the word correctly, Hank?

eata: Turns out there's good money to be made attacking that report:

• Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank . . ., offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)....
  
  The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil.... The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs". Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. "The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Getting the job is both the outcome and the opportunity. The Left's argument is tantamount to saying "We don't want people to all get the same vacation at the same destination... We just want to ensure everyone gets on the same plane."

They sound as silly as intelligent design advocates. They'd do much better to admit naked social engineering.

Always fun to argue against the monolithic left, while castigating them in other posts for viewing a debate on inequality in simplistic terms.

There are lots of forms of affirmative action, and, like Iraq, some of it is figuring out first what your goals are and then targetting what you want to do with those goals.

For example, if you've got a school where 1/3 of the seats are taken by alumni children, and the alumni are overwhelming rich, white and suburban, you've just radically increased the opportunity for a number of applicants and decreased it for the rest -- do you accept the fact that your school will be disproportionately rich, white and suburban, or do you give offsetting preferences to other parts of the applicant pool?

In hiring, I've always argued that if we were really strictly merit based, we'd hire relatively few lawyers from rich, white suburban backgrounds - they're disproportionately lazy shits accustomed to easy living. But I've seen lots of hiring decisions made on the basis of "fit" that favor the white surbanite. I'm not sure how to fix that problem other than ongoing one-on-one advocacy for the clawers and pointing out over and over again how useless some of the overeducated suburban shits are (unless, of course, their buddies start an investment bank and hire us....)

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

eta: OTOH, this is Orwellian:

• there are some curious patterns in the whitehouse.gov search engine. It turns out that it has been blocked from returning most results if the search phrase includes "global warming" - even if it's from the President himself. For instance, searching for "issue of global" gives as top result the President's Rose Garden speech in June 2001 on Global Climate Change, but searching for "issue of global warming" (which of course is the full phrase used) returns nothing...

Did I use the word correctly, Hank?

Try it yourself. The blogger is wrong. Or they've fixed it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I wasn't assuming it. I'm happy to talk about the actual facts if you'd like to, but you're more interested in pulling a Cynical Broder -- the sort of centrism where you complain about both sides, but in a jaded way rather than earnest.



No argument here.



I would, and he's perfectly capable of sticking to his guns on a variety of issues.



I grant you that the issues is complex, but this business of insisting that it's complex without talking about its facets or what they mean is just another pose. I'm perfectly willing to believe that inequality is decreasing in some respects. Why don't you tell me what they are?



No. That's crap. Some people have intellectual standards and some don't. And the desire to wave your hands and say that everyone is intellectually dishonest is a ploy to avoid talking about what they're saying.



I didn't make absolutist statements. I quoted a Washington Post article about a Bush speech and praised him. Are you trying to show that even you will distort the evidence to make your arguments?



I'm happy to give you the long answer this question would deserve if it weren't just a rhetorical flourish on your part. Is it?



OK. But sometimes the simple statements are accurate, as generalizations. In 1944, we were "winning" World War II. In 1974, we were "losing" Vietnam. Last year, the economy "grew."



No. And neither do you.

I'm telling you that I think the rising inequality is more significant across the economy than the decreasing inequality elsewhere. You know this. But you aren't interested in having that debate.

Go ahead -- prove me wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/bu...BJam7qIOA+tdHg

http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...0601300839.asp

http://www.themoneyblogs.com/poorand...p-1-myths.html

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/f...1/mobility.cfm

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

For example, if you've got a school where 1/3 of the seats are taken by alumni children, and the alumni are overwhelming rich, white and suburban, you've just radically increased the opportunity for a number of applicants and decreased it for the rest -- do you accept the fact that your school will be disproportionately rich, white and suburban, or do you give offsetting preferences to other parts of the applicant pool?

The 14th amendment says what about alumni children?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Try it yourself. The blogger is wrong. Or they've fixed it.

Or not.

eta: Based on some additional messing around, the discrepancy would seem to have more to do with the peculiarities of the search engine than anything else, but I can't quite figure out the pattern. Still, it looks unlikely that anyone at the White House was messing with the search engine. Orwell can rest easy.