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Saturday, May 24. 2014

Got up at 4 this morning for the meteors. Clouds and light drizzle, so headed to Dunkin Donuts instead.

Excellent travel site: Travel Insider

All-You-Can-Eat Taco Bars Deemed Offensive

Pope Francis 'Not Pleased' About Scandalous Canonization Banquet

When Sprawl Hits the Wall

The Hungry Kids Act of 2010

WHY THE MONA LISA STANDS OUT

Famous for being famous

How the Hiring Process Marginalizes Candidates on the Autism Spectrum

How Do We Feel about Incarceration?

Team Obama knew about VA’s cooked books for years

The VA Really is Socialized Medicine – That’s Why It’s Terrible

Immigration Creates Political Earthquake In Britain

A Blow to Campus Barbarism - A former Princeton president stands up against student-radical intimidation

A big part of the reason why more young people don’t vote conservative (i.e., as a practical matter, Republican) is that they have no freaking idea what is going on.

Perhaps, but Repubs have their share of low-information voters too

Radical chic and today's politicians

Radio Hosts Fired for Failure to Revere Transsexual Freakazoids

Everyone knows that they have major "issues," but it's not permitted to say it. Except here.

Hamas: We'll Use Unity Accord To Move Terrorism To West Bank

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:08 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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I got up for the meteors this morning, too. It wasn't cloudy, but there was nothing. Never saw one.

#1 Randy on 2014-05-24 08:07 (Reply)

The sprawl didn't so much hit the wall as the little socialist urban "planners" ran out of victims. They intimate early on, the city/county merged in the '70s and sucked money into they dying urban core. Now that the '70s suburbs are in decline due to aging population in place, they can't grasp the taxes of those who move to developments over the county line.

One wonders what things might be like if they hadn't annexed the entire county then let the urban planners blow all the victims tax dollars on their urban wet dreams of life before affordable, convenient, and on demand transportation, i.e., the automobile.

How you going to keep them piled up in urban tenements when they've felt surging power on the open road?

#2 JKB on 2014-05-24 08:16 (Reply)

Indianapolis is a bad example to choose for examining the consequences of sprawl, since it's real problem is that it is following the Detroit/Baltimore/Birmingham model of going majority black. If you don't understand why that would cause the white and Hispanic populations to move out regardless of the economics, please study legriffedulion's Crime in the Hood

#2.1 Soviet of Washington on 2014-05-24 14:37 (Reply)

The "sprawl" became a dirty word when politicians realized that citizens were voting with their feet to get away from the socialist politicians. Isn't it interesting that cities decided the solution was to create a city of the entire county; that is annex back those recalcitrant taxpayers so they could be taxed to pay for more socialist spending. But that too backfired as citizens moved into rural counties adjacent to the cities. I'm sure there is a socialist answer to this too, perhaps a city state, but isn't that what California has done. No worries California's population is growing exponentially so surely they won't run out of tax revenue. But indeed a lot of the rich and uper middle class are abandoning California for other Western states with a better tax system and most of the increase in population in California are the poorer people and workers who choose to work outside of the tax system. Meanwhile the left leaning politicians are trying to find some way to prevent certain states from opting out of the higher taxes and repressive regulations to prevent the flight of tax paying workers from California and other repressive socialist leaning states. Can Texas resist the Borg?

#3 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-05-24 11:02 (Reply)

re Tacos...

I know of Mexico only from border towns like Cabo and the traditional musica of the Tijuana Brass, and the award winning travel documentaries The Wild Bunch and Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and I don't remember no stinkin' tacos anywhere.

#4 Frigate on 2014-05-24 12:33 (Reply)

Same as I saw in Manzanillo and Acapulco. The only American Mexican food I recognized was quesadillas.

#5 JKB on 2014-05-24 12:45 (Reply)

Manzanillo is heavy on seafood. Why not -- the ocean is their front door. Buying the local stuff is the best bet and I don't remember too many corn and wheat fields in the neighborhood. Handmade breads similar to Cuban bread rolls out of packaged flour, yes.

#5.1 jma on 2014-05-24 19:58 (Reply)

Regarding the difficulties that people on the autism spectrum have getting hired, I was reminded of an interesting meta-analysis looking at studies of discrimination. The researchers found that nowadays, most discrimination consists of giving a leg up to someone else just like you - not in consciously denying opportunity to members of other groups.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140519160609.htm

"Favoritism, not hostility, causes most discrimination"

ost discrimination in the U.S. is not caused by intention to harm people different from us, but by ordinary favoritism directed at helping people similar to us, according to a theoretical review published online in American Psychologist.

"We can produce discrimination without having any intent to discriminate or any dislike for those who end up being disadvantaged by our behavior," said University of Washington psychologist Tony Greenwald, who co-authored the review with Thomas Pettigrew of the University of California, Santa Cruz."

This type of hiring process leaves the non-schmoozing, productivity oriented Asperger's types out in the cold. Seriously, how many ASD people are working in human resources?

#6 JM01 on 2014-05-24 12:49 (Reply)

re: How Do We Feel about Incarceration?

Rachel Lu is a near total asshat. She can't express an opinion without clouding it in the passive voice, without supporting it with anything more than what she wants to believe.

Rehabilitation takes a backseat to punishment in prison, e.g., California Penal Code sec. 1170(a)(1): "The Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment." Her whining about failed rehabilitation is a strawman that demonstrates ignorance of the law and practical facts.

There are good reasons for easing up on prison time for simple drug possession offenses, and there are many diversion or delayed entry of judgment programs that are out there for offenders, even repeat offenders. cool, wonderful, they don't work because treating an addiction requires a personal effort that the get out of jail card derails but yay for reform.

then this loony says:

QUOTE:

For a number of reasons (the welfare state, broken family structures, high unemployment among the less-educated, etc.) we have a high proportion of broken and dysfunctional citizens in our society. Rather than face up to those problem children, we lock up them up so that nice people like me don’t have to deal with them.

problem children????? holy shi'ite what is wrong with that woman?

rapists, drug traffickers and armed robbers are not problem children. they are rapists, drug traffickers and armed robbers and it is not my doing that caused the rape, traffic and rob. Prison gangs run narco-distribution networks, order hits, extortion, intimidation from inside prison, solitary confinement or not. a criminal jailed for the first WTC bombing passed instructions to Egyptian insurgents through his attorney. Does she get her feelings about prisoners from watching movies on the Oxygen network? I like womens' prison movies* too but at least I've got personal experience with the defense side of the criminal justice system and I'm never fooled myself about the innocence of any client.

*Big Doll House, dig it.

#7 Frigate on 2014-05-24 13:54 (Reply)

How the Hiring Process Marginalizes Candidates on the Autism Spectrum

Like I really needed to read the article to figure that out. Companies like to hire likeable, competent candidates. Autism spectrum people generally do not come across as likeable. Not much new information there. Though in favor to the article, it does present more detail.

#8 Gringo on 2014-05-24 16:04 (Reply)

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Saturday, May 24. 2014

Saturday morning links