I read Delgado and Stefancic's Intro to CRT, and one thing I found really striking is that it almost systematically went through and contradicted virtually every claim that was being made by CRT defenders in the media. Not intentionally; the book was written before that, but just by explaining what CRT is, it contradicted almost every talking point.
The people defending CRT were either lying or had no idea what they were talking about (and thus were lying by implying that they knew anything).
I'm not sure whether you're in denial about the insane stuff done in the name of DEI, or are actually in favor of it. What are the three most controversial things done explicitly under a DEI banner that you're willing to defend?
Apparently Donald Trump thinks VATs are tariffs. This is a golden opportunity. Maybe someone can convince him to replace the income tax with a retaliatory VAT. That'll show those Europeans who's boss!
The style of bottle depicted here was supposedly later nicknamed "murder bottle," because they were hard to clean, leading to frequent bacterial infection and death, although Google's Ngrams viewer gives no results for "murder bottle" or "murder bottles."
Even in Mississippi, the median hourly wage was $18 in 2023. Certainly not great, but 2.5 times the minimum wage.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes_ms.htm
Nationally, the 10th percentile weekly earnings for full-time workers is $611, and the BLS considers "full time" to start at 35 hours, not 40. As far as I can tell, essentially nobody works full time for federal minimum wage anymore. Even part-time work rarely pays that little except in tipped jobs.
This is really bad, with some pretty serious misinterpretation of statistics (e. g. assuming that everybody working part time would prefer to work full time but can't find a full-time job). He's also acting like he's exposing some deep secrets, but this is stuff anyone who follows economics stats would already know.
I'm hoping to find some time to write up a full debunking.
Honestly, I'm surprised that Democrats aren't more on board with normalizing hatred of market-dominant minorities. I guess we really are past peak woke.
Another is that he got to put on a show for his base, who aren't going to believe the mainstream media when they say he got pantsed. Placating his base with no real damage done is arguably a pretty good outcome, all things considered.
As a one-off, Occam's razor favors the first, but stuff like this just keeps happening, so...I dunno. Maybe he actually is smarter than he lets on.
I mean, he'd have to be, right? He manages to dress himself.
Yes she obviously wasn’t good enough but it could be that no one was good enough because “throw the bums” out has been a global phenomenon
You say that as if Trump had won in a landslide, but it was actually a reasonably close race. A better candidate who actively distanced herself from Biden's screwups, who hadn't made a total ass of herself in the 2020 primary, and successfully positioned herself as a responsible moderate, could plausibly have gotten the couple extra points needed to beat Trump.
Do you actually have a problem with the meta-policy here, or just the underlying policy? So, for example, if the executive branch were rife with the kind of racism and pseudoscience that you don't like, would you object to an incoming Democratic President issuing an EO to cut that crap out, and encouraging employees to report any attempts to subvert that EO and continue promoting racism and pseudoscience within the executive branch?
If you would have an objection, how specifically would you recommend dealing with this issue?
Again, in this hypothetical, the EO is an attempt to stop the promotion of the kind of racism and pseudoscience that you don't like.
Ending Birthright citizenship by EO isn’t unconstitutional if five out of four Supreme Court Justices say it is fine by sophistry.
Worked for FDR, but we have a better class of justice on the Court now. There are legitimate questions about whether Congress can eliminate automatic citizenship for children of illegal immigrants (no, Wong Kim Ark didn't address this), but it definitely can't be done unilaterally by the President.
As should be expected from Blueski, this is disingenuous and/or histrionic. Race and sex discrimination in employment is already illegal for all businesses (excepting those with legitimate requirements for sex-specific hiring), which includes government contractors. He rescinded this EO for the affirmative action provision, not the redundant anti-discrimination provisions.
I started a new blog. The first post is about research covered last month in the New York Times claiming that there's an elevated risk of homicide victimization in pregnant and post-partum women. I explain that this finding is an artifact of some errors in quantitative reasoning that somehow got through peer review in four different papers.
If Trump issues an executive order postponing the ban for 90 days, which he only has the authority to do if a sale is already pending, who has standing to challenge that? Just Congress? Would competing social media services also have standing?
That doesn't sound right. For one, it only takes me 5-6 minutes. One minute per flight would be extremely slow. 85 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 5m/floor * 16 floors = 62.5 kJ. At 360 seconds, that's about 170 watts.
I've been taking the stairs up to my 17th-floor office for a couple of weeks. It's much tougher than I expected!
I usually run up stairs, which works fine for up to five flights or so, but beyond that I just hit a wall and have to start walking. After about ten flights, even the walking is tough.
I'm not sure I understand the argument for the defense in Dillon v. Gloss. Dillon claimed that the seven-year expiration made the 18th Amendment invalid, but the 18th Amendment was ratified in a bit over a year, so the expiration never came into play.
Hypothetically, if the last required state had not ratified the 21st Amendment until more than seven years after its passage by Congress, and a bootlegger had been arrested after 3/4 of states had ratified it, the bootlegger might plausibly claim in his defense that the 21st Amendment was in force because the deadline for ratification was unconstitutional. That would make more sense.
I guess the argument was that since the Constitution didn't explicitly authorize Congress to set a deadline, the entire bill proposing the 18th Amendment was invalid, and not just the portion setting a deadline?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “From Vox: How Democrats should respond to Trump’s war on DEI”
I read Delgado and Stefancic's Intro to CRT, and one thing I found really striking is that it almost systematically went through and contradicted virtually every claim that was being made by CRT defenders in the media. Not intentionally; the book was written before that, but just by explaining what CRT is, it contradicted almost every talking point.
The people defending CRT were either lying or had no idea what they were talking about (and thus were lying by implying that they knew anything).
"
I'm not sure whether you're in denial about the insane stuff done in the name of DEI, or are actually in favor of it. What are the three most controversial things done explicitly under a DEI banner that you're willing to defend?
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
Apparently Donald Trump thinks VATs are tariffs. This is a golden opportunity. Maybe someone can convince him to replace the income tax with a retaliatory VAT. That'll show those Europeans who's boss!
On “Egbert”
The style of bottle depicted here was supposedly later nicknamed "murder bottle," because they were hard to clean, leading to frequent bacterial infection and death, although Google's Ngrams viewer gives no results for "murder bottle" or "murder bottles."
On “From Politico: Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong.”
Even in Mississippi, the median hourly wage was $18 in 2023. Certainly not great, but 2.5 times the minimum wage.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes_ms.htm
Nationally, the 10th percentile weekly earnings for full-time workers is $611, and the BLS considers "full time" to start at 35 hours, not 40. As far as I can tell, essentially nobody works full time for federal minimum wage anymore. Even part-time work rarely pays that little except in tipped jobs.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252911200Q
"
This is really bad, with some pretty serious misinterpretation of statistics (e. g. assuming that everybody working part time would prefer to work full time but can't find a full-time job). He's also acting like he's exposing some deep secrets, but this is stuff anyone who follows economics stats would already know.
I'm hoping to find some time to write up a full debunking.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
So it was in contravention of the law, and also Congress made a mistake passing bills requiring it?
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
Honestly, I'm surprised that Democrats aren't more on board with normalizing hatred of market-dominant minorities. I guess we really are past peak woke.
"
The Department of Education itself is not constitutionally authorized, so there's kind of perverse symmetry there.
"
One hypothesis is that Trump got pantsed.
Another is that he got to put on a show for his base, who aren't going to believe the mainstream media when they say he got pantsed. Placating his base with no real damage done is arguably a pretty good outcome, all things considered.
As a one-off, Occam's razor favors the first, but stuff like this just keeps happening, so...I dunno. Maybe he actually is smarter than he lets on.
I mean, he'd have to be, right? He manages to dress himself.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
You say that as if Trump had won in a landslide, but it was actually a reasonably close race. A better candidate who actively distanced herself from Biden's screwups, who hadn't made a total ass of herself in the 2020 primary, and successfully positioned herself as a responsible moderate, could plausibly have gotten the couple extra points needed to beat Trump.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
I wish Democrats cared about free trade and economic literacy even when Donald Trump isn't in office.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/20/2025”
Do you actually have a problem with the meta-policy here, or just the underlying policy? So, for example, if the executive branch were rife with the kind of racism and pseudoscience that you don't like, would you object to an incoming Democratic President issuing an EO to cut that crap out, and encouraging employees to report any attempts to subvert that EO and continue promoting racism and pseudoscience within the executive branch?
If you would have an objection, how specifically would you recommend dealing with this issue?
Again, in this hypothetical, the EO is an attempt to stop the promotion of the kind of racism and pseudoscience that you don't like.
"
Let's have some concrete predictions. What are some distinctively N-zi things that these N-zis are going to do?
"
You have never had an original thought in your life, have you?
On “Trump Term Two, Day One, Executive Orders”
Worked for FDR, but we have a better class of justice on the Court now. There are legitimate questions about whether Congress can eliminate automatic citizenship for children of illegal immigrants (no, Wong Kim Ark didn't address this), but it definitely can't be done unilaterally by the President.
"
As should be expected from Blueski, this is disingenuous and/or histrionic. Race and sex discrimination in employment is already illegal for all businesses (excepting those with legitimate requirements for sex-specific hiring), which includes government contractors. He rescinded this EO for the affirmative action provision, not the redundant anti-discrimination provisions.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/20/2025”
Are you suggesting that Elon Musk was personally responsible for South African Apartheid, or is that just an ethnic slur?
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Cryptmaster”
Is MA still at it? Or Kimmi?
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/13/2025”
I started a new blog. The first post is about research covered last month in the New York Times claiming that there's an elevated risk of homicide victimization in pregnant and post-partum women. I explain that this finding is an artifact of some errors in quantitative reasoning that somehow got through peer review in four different papers.
On “SCOTUS Upholds TikTok Ban: Read It For Yourself”
If Trump issues an executive order postponing the ban for 90 days, which he only has the authority to do if a sale is already pending, who has standing to challenge that? Just Congress? Would competing social media services also have standing?
On “Weekend Plans Post: One Single Good Song in 2024”
I've pretty much just given up on new music. I'm sure some of it is good, but I find searching through new-to-me old music to be much more productive
"
That doesn't sound right. For one, it only takes me 5-6 minutes. One minute per flight would be extremely slow. 85 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 5m/floor * 16 floors = 62.5 kJ. At 360 seconds, that's about 170 watts.
"
I've been taking the stairs up to my 17th-floor office for a couple of weeks. It's much tougher than I expected!
I usually run up stairs, which works fine for up to five flights or so, but beyond that I just hit a wall and have to start walking. After about ten flights, even the walking is tough.
On “President Biden Affirms the Passage of the ERA”
I'm not sure I understand the argument for the defense in Dillon v. Gloss. Dillon claimed that the seven-year expiration made the 18th Amendment invalid, but the 18th Amendment was ratified in a bit over a year, so the expiration never came into play.
Hypothetically, if the last required state had not ratified the 21st Amendment until more than seven years after its passage by Congress, and a bootlegger had been arrested after 3/4 of states had ratified it, the bootlegger might plausibly claim in his defense that the 21st Amendment was in force because the deadline for ratification was unconstitutional. That would make more sense.
I guess the argument was that since the Constitution didn't explicitly authorize Congress to set a deadline, the entire bill proposing the 18th Amendment was invalid, and not just the portion setting a deadline?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.