Sandbox (3)

Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

This is also a continuation of previous Sandbox threads (1) and (2) that have fallen victim to the dreaded page bug.

1,013 thoughts on “Sandbox (3)”

  1. petrushka: I’ve never been to Mississippi, but I’ve lived in the south side of Chicago. I’ve seen what happened to my wife’s childhood neighborhood.

    What happened?

  2. I say to the grown-ups: if you want to deny evolution and live in your world that is completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it, because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems.

    – Bill Nye

    LoL. We need your kids to learn evolution. Because we need taxpayers and engineers, not evolutionists. You can’t make this stuff up.

  3. Mung: LoL. We need your kids to learn evolution. Because we need taxpayers and engineers, not evolutionists. You can’t make this stuff up.

    The key phrase was scientifically literate.

  4. Seems to me american fundies are trained to read everything like they read the bible: find something that seems to support whatever you have in mind and ignore the rest, with Mung being the epitome of that crap

  5. newton: What happened?

    White flight. Chicago perfected it. It happened while my wife was a kid. Her high school was 95 percent black. Now the neighborhood is as segregated as ever, just black.

    I grew up in segregation city, Florida. White flight never happened. Blacks moved into white neighborhoods and nothing remarkable happened. Even the gated neighborhoods are technically integrated, just segregated by income.

  6. newton: The key phrase was scientifically literate.

    As if no one was scientifically literate prior to 1859. Not buying it.

  7. IIRC, I lived in Mississippi for 27 years. It’s a place of extremes. It’s a place where you have no choice but to pick a side. The finest people I’ve ever known are in Mississippi. The worst in Mississippi are deplorable. But I can’t say that they’re worse than the worst I’ve seen elsewhere. They’re just more overt in what makes them deplorable.

    Donald “From Many Sides” Trump is not overt. But he took a side yesterday, declining to take a side in a circumstance where he had no choice but to take a side. And I realize today that I have no choice but to oppose him actively, even though I’m in poor health.

    He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

    Martin Luther King, Jr.

  8. Mung: As if no one was scientifically literate prior to 1859. Not buying it.

    Compared to our scientific knowledge today?

  9. Tom English: And I realize today that I have no choice but to oppose him actively, even though I’m in poor health.

    Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

    Here’s to your health Tom.

  10. newton: Compared to our scientific knowledge today?

    I don’t know why anyone would think that we have arrived. Even our best scientists are still incredibly scientifically illiterate.

  11. Mung: Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

    Here’s to your health Tom.

    I don’t know of anyone who’s done better at putting this into practice than did Mohandas K. Gandhi. Like MLK, I’m a great admirer of him. Gandhi emphasized that his response was not passive, but active: nonviolent noncooperation. I wonder what noncooperation would be in this circumstance.

  12. Mung: I don’t know why anyone would think that we have arrived. Even our best scientists are still incredibly scientifically illiterate.

    Part of being literate in science is understanding
    science is provisional Did you think Bill Nye was saying children have to know everything ?

  13. Tom English: IIRC, I lived in Mississippi for 27 years. It’s a place of extremes. It’s a place where you have no choice but to pick a side. The finest people I’ve ever known are in Mississippi. The worst in Mississippi are deplorable. But I can’t say that they’re worse than the worst I’ve seen elsewhere. They’re just more overt in what makes them deplorable.

    I grew up in New Orleans.If I remember right when you drove East on I-10 you knew when you were in Mississippi because the pavement went to shit. The motto of Mississippi being ” We make your state look good. “

  14. newton: Did you think Bill Nye was saying children have to know everything ?

    No, I think he was saying children need to know evolution so they could grow up to be taxpayers and engineers. Which is, of course, utter stupidity.

    But thanks for playing the “I’ll defend anything an evolutionist says no matter how ignorant or irrational ” game.

  15. Mung:
    No, I think he was saying children need to know evolution so they could grow up to be taxpayers and engineers. Which is, of course, utter stupidity.

    Perhaps it is your paraphrasing

    “We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.

    Personally I think we should have scientically literate voters and taxpayers in the future. It may help them sort out the truth. And whether you like it or not knowledge of evolutionary theory is a major part of biology and of course it is compatible with ID.

    We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems.

    As long as engineers vote, I am for them being as knowledgeable as possible

    But thanks for playing the “I’ll defend anything an evolutionist says no matter how ignorant or irrational ” game.

    Thanks for reducing me to a stereotype, sorry just think more knowledgeable electorate is a good thing

  21. SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE FIGHTS!

    500 million dollars!

    http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/25/news/companies/mayweather-mcgregor-fight/index.html

    Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor really is “the money fight.”

    Both fighters have made it clear they agreed to Saturday’s bout for one reason: the purse.

    It’s going to be quite large. A huge number of people are expected to tune in to watch, many for the sheer spectacle of seeing an MMA fighter go up against a boxer.

    Industry experts have speculated that the fight could surpass $500 million,

    Powered by SmartAsset.com

  22. stcordova: A huge number of people are expected to tune in to watch, many for the sheer spectacle of seeing an MMA fighter go up against a boxer.

    That can’t be it. Google James Toney vs Randy Couture

  23. For our resident musicians Petrushka and Elizabeth Liddle,

    A 5-minute lecture by Leonard Bernstein:

    After having studied music in college and changing majors to science disciplines, I discovered the notion of harmonics in quantum mechanics and wave mechanics, particularly standing waves.

    Bernstein uses a lot of musical lingo that seems esoteric, but one sees it so clearly when one studies harmonics in physics and electrical engineering! Amazing.

  25. Antifa at it again:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/yes-antifa-is-the-moral-equivalent-of-neo-nazis/2017/08/30/9a13b2f6-8d00-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.b98109fe8f6b

    Yes, antifa is the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis

    Last weekend in Berkeley, Calif., a group of neo-communist antifa — “anti-fascist” — thugs attacked peaceful protesters at a “No to Marxism in America” rally, wielding sticks and pepper spray, and beating people with homemade shields that read (I kid you not) “No Hate.” The Post reports how one peaceful protester “was attacked by five black-clad antifa members, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself.” Members of the Berkeley College Republicans were then stalked by antifa goons who followed them to a gas station and demanded they “get the [expletive] out” of their car, warning, “We are real hungry for supremacists and there is more of us.”

    The organizer of the anti-Marxism protest is not a white supremacist. Amber Cummings is a self-described “transsexual female who embraces diversity” and had announced on Facebook that “any racist groups like the KKK [and] Neo Nazis . . . are not welcome.” The protest was needed, Cummings said, because “Berkeley is a ground zero for the Marxist Movement.”

    As if to prove Cummings’s point, the antifa movement responded with jackboots and clubs — because their definition of “fascist” includes not just neo-Nazis but also anyone who opposes their totalitarian worldview.

  28. Below is a 2-minute video of Antifa thugs bullying black guy. The black guy was a journalist.

    The antifa thugs egg on the leader of their gang and taunt the black man.

    Then the leader of the Antifa throws a punch, and the black guy says, “is that the best you got.” I’m proud of how that black man stood up to that Antifa thug!

  29. stcordova,

    Just be careful Sal, they are coming to get you, lock all your doors.

    I know you are afraid, understandably so, but try to stay strong.

  30. stcordova: Below is a 2-minute video of Antifa thugs bullying black guy. The black guy was a journalist.

    The antifa thugs egg on the leader of their gang and taunt the black man.

    Then the leader of the Antifa throws a punch, and the black guy says, “is that the best you got.” I’m proud of how that black man stood up to that Antifa thug!

    And why is his race relevant to the story, you mentioned it three times?

  31. And why is his race relevant to the story, you mentioned it three times?

    Because it shows opposing Antifa isn’t inherently racist. Opposing antifa isn’t the same as promoting white supremacy or naziism or facism. Opposing Antifa hypocrisy is defense of free speech, freedom of the press and basic civil rights.

    The Antifa thug was previously reported to have been part of a gang assault on an innocent bystander during a previous protest who was going home. That gang assault resulted in his eye glasses being stolen and him being beaten.

    That same thug involved in the previous beating of an innocent bystander was in that black man’s face.

    I give the good guy 1 point for not being the first to punch, 1 point for saying “is that the best you got?” after he was punched, 1 point for grabbing the thug by the collar even though he was outnumbered by Antifa bullies, 4 points for landing 2 right hooks to the thug’s jaw, and 3 point body slamming the Antifa thug to the concrete. That’s a score of 10 and a TKO. A lot more entertaining and meaningful than the 500 million dollar Mayweather vs. McGregor fight.

    Neither were arrested under Oregan’s mutual combatant law because if one party to a mutual fight pressed charges, both parties would go to jail, so neither party appealed to the police. Street justice.

  32. stcordova,

    And none of the supposed Antifa thugs joined in to help their supposed Antifa buddy, so your whole gang theory seems to have gone right out the window.

    But I understand why you are still so afraid. How many guns can you hold at one time Sal? When your hands are shaking.

  33. The damaging effect of racial slurs are over rated. I got called racial slurs, it didn’t hurt me much. I’m disgusted with it, but it didn’t stop me from living! One white guy in a car utter at racial slur to me, and I screamed at the top my lungs back to him, “F-ck you!”. He backed down and instead of giving me the finger, he gave me the V sign and shouted back, “peace.”

    What’s with this generation snowflake? If someone throws a slur and he’s just a criminal, avoid him, he’s a loser, no need to court trouble, someone else will take care of him. I think to myself, “yo trash talking ain’t gonna stop me you trash talkin pr-ck.”

    I get far more ad hominem attacks for me being a Christian than I do for being an Asian guy with a Spanish name and having a black relative by marriage. It was my Christian association and creationist view that got me the most persecution with losers at Panda’s Thumb and Wesley Elsberry’s ATBC tried to contact my professors at JHU to get me expelled. The internet Darwinists showed far more malice toward me when some black guy in the casino directed a slur toward me, I brushed it off. His slur didn’t stop me for leaving the casino with more money than him!

    Some guy who didn’t know I was Asian, but saw my name “Cordova” left a racist comment, “Death to the Spic!” He didn’t stop me. That’s because we live a land of freedom where racist slurs aren’t enough to stop someone who can add surplus value to other human beings in a free capitalist market. God bless the USA!

    Milo Yianopoulous is a gay man. He started “the dangerous faggot tour”. Is that slur to himself, so what? How about the Slants.

    My first real lesson on the power of language was at the age of 11.

    On the basketball courts at school in San Diego, I was tormented by other students. They’d throw balls, punches, rocks and insults, while yelling “gook” and “Jap.” One day, I had enough. I threw back, “I’m a chink, get it right.”

    Stunned, they didn’t know what to do. Confused, they stopped.

    The act of claiming an identity can be transformational. It can provide healing and empowerment. It can weld solidarity within a community. And, perhaps most important, it can diminish the power of an oppressor, a dominant group.

    My first real lesson on the power of language was at the age of 11.

    On the basketball courts at school in San Diego, I was tormented by other students. They’d throw balls, punches, rocks and insults, while yelling “gook” and “Jap.” One day, I had enough. I threw back, “I’m a chink, get it right.”

    Stunned, they didn’t know what to do. Confused, they stopped.

    The act of claiming an identity can be transformational. It can provide healing and empowerment. It can weld solidarity within a community. And, perhaps most important, it can diminish the power of an oppressor, a dominant group.

    The idea of reappropriation isn’t new. The process of turning negative words, symbols or ideas into positive parts of our own identity can involve repurposing a racial epithet or taking on a stereotype for sociopolitical empowerment. But reappropriation can be confusing. Sometimes people can’t figure out the nuances of why something is or isn’t offensive — government bureaucrats in particular.

    Over a decade ago, I started what many have referred to as the world’s first and only all-Asian-American dance rock band, the Slants. Our brand of 1980s-inspired synth pop was influenced by bands like Depeche Mode, the Cure and New Order. We toured the country, promoting social justice, playing anime conventions, raising money for charities and fighting stereotypes about Asian-Americans by playing bold music. Never once, after performing hundreds of shows across the continent, did we receive a single complaint from an Asian-American. In fact, our name became a catalyst for meaningful discussions with non-Asians about racial stereotypes.

    During this time, our attorney recommended that we register the trademark on our name, something that’s commonly done for national acts. It’s a critical step in a music career, not only to protect fans from inadvertently purchasing tickets to another band with a similar name but also because most major record labels and licensing agencies won’t work with acts that can’t register their names. However, in 2010, the government rejected our name, claiming it was, of all things, disparaging to Asians. Alas, our sense of irony got lost in the paperwork.

  37. stcordova:
    Because it shows opposing Antifa isn’t inherently racist.

    No one said it was but it certainly is a reason as is if you want play down the Neo-Nazi’s affinity and support of the present administration with a healthy dose of both siderism ,as well is while sympathetic to the goal of active confrontation of racists they oppose to some of the tactics employed by antifa.

    Opposing antifa isn’t the same as promoting white supremacy or naziism or facism. Opposing Antifa hypocrisy is defense of free speech, freedom of the press and basic civil rights.

    If one constantly obsesses on antifa it does make one wonder why groups whose philosophy is to oppress other citizens right to those things seem to get so little attention. True fascists are not hypocritical, they openly oppose those things for anyone else. Yet your laserlike focus is squarely on whatever percentage antifa makes up of the counter demonstrators. Just parroting the company line?

    The Antifa thug was previously reported to have been part of a gang assault on an innocent bystander during a previous protest who was going home. That gang assault resulted in his eye glasses being stolen and him being beaten.

    They need to be prosecuted of course.

    That same thug involved in the previous beating of an innocent bystander was in that black man’s face.

    But I thought you said anyone upset about speech was a snowflake, I thought you were a big free speech advocate

    I give the good guy 1 point for not being the first to punch, 1 point for saying “is that the best you got?” after he was punched, 1 point for grabbing the thug by the collar even though he was outnumbered by Antifa bullies, 4 points for landing 2 right hooks to the thug’s jaw, and 3 point body slamming the Antifa thug to the concrete.

    So you support antifa’s right to retaliate if attacked first or if they are defending others from being attacked? Good to hear.

    Neither were arrested under Oregan’s mutual combatant law because if one party to a mutual fight pressed charges, both parties would go to jail, so neither party appealed to the police. Street justice.

    So much to do about nothing.

  38. stcordova: The damaging effect of racial slurs are over rated.

    Racial slurs are aggressive behavior, normalizing slurs normalizes aggressive behavior.

  39. Here is a demographic I find disturbing. Out of wedlock births are viewed even by left wing standards to be a causal factor in poverty and promotion of crime.

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/

    Percent births considered non-marital

    Asians or pacific islanders 17%

    Non–Hispanic whites 29%

    Hispanics 53%

    American Indian and Native Alaskans 66%

    Non-Hispanic Blacks 73%

    This is highly correlated and also shown to be causal for poverty and crime. How much of this demographic was caused by racial slurs? One might think by the way politicians and university administrators obsess over the slurs that slurs must be a major factor.

    After the slavery era, the out-of-wedlock rate among black was very low. It was around the sixties it started to spiral out of control. I don’t see how this was due to “white oppression” by the Republicans and Conservatives. An argument could be made it was left-wing welfare policies that contributed to this cycle of poverty.

    When white slave owners had black slaves it served them economically to oppress another race. I don’t see how there is any economic benefit to white people to keep black people in poverty. White people have every reason in the USA to want the whole USA to be rich and prosperous.

    The only people who really benefit from keeping blacks in poverty are left-wing politicians and race pimps.

    The steorotypes about black people aren’t due to slurs. I let reverend Jesse Jackson prove my point:

    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson

    There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved…. After all we have been through. Just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.

    That ain’t due to white oppression or racial slurs. That’s just too funny that Jackson sees a white guy and admits he feels safe.

  40. Larry Elder reflects my view about the level of racism in the USA.

    https://www.prageru.com/courses/race-relations/america-racist

    I tell you what, you want to talk about racism? How about AFRICA! How about the Hutu’s and Tutsi’s in Rwanda.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide

    The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi,[2] was a genocidal mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government. An estimated 500,000–1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from April 7 to mid-July 1994,[1] constituting as many as 70% of the Tutsi population. Additionally, 30% of the Pygmy Batwa were killed.[3][4] The genocide and widespread slaughter of Rwandans ended when the Tutsi-backed and heavily armed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Paul Kagame took control of the country. An estimated 2,000,000 Rwandans, mostly Hutus, were displaced and became refugees.[5]

    The genocide was planned by members of the core political elite, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government. Perpetrators came from the ranks of the Rwandan army, the Gendarmerie, government-backed militias including the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi.

    White oppression (which was real in the USA) never led to that sort of carnage.

  42. stcordova: This is highly correlated and also shown to be causal for poverty and crime.

    It seems to be a feedback loop

    How much of this demographic was caused by racial slurs?

    Since more white out of wedlock births occur, so my guess is that racial slurs are not a causation

    One might think by the way politicians and university administrators obsess over the slurs that slurs must be a major factor.

    Move to Mississippi where freedom to slur is still alive. How about harassment of women, should they just get over it too?

  43. stcordova: After the slavery era, the out-of-wedlock rate among black was very low. It was around the sixties it started to spiral out of control. I don’t see how this was due to “white oppression” by the Republicans and Conservatives. An argument could be made it was left-wing welfare policies that contributed to this cycle of poverty.

    Did it just go up for the poor or did it go up for all groups? By the way in the sixties there were Republican liberals too.

  44. stcordova: I tell you what, you want to talk about racism? How about AFRICA! How about the Hutu’s and Tutsi’s in Rwanda.

    Do you know anything of King Baudoin, The Belgian Congo and the history of the Hutu and Tutsi “tribes”?

    ETA, I should have said King Leopold, his father.

  45. Belgian rule reinforced an ethnic divide between the Tutsi and Hutu, and they supported Tutsis political power. Due to the eugenics movement in Europe and the United States, the colonial government became concerned with the differences between Hutu and Tutsi. Scientists arrived to measure skull—and thus, they believed, brain—size. Tutsi’s skulls were bigger, they were taller, and their skin was lighter. As a result of this, Europeans came to believe that Tutsis had Caucasian ancestry, and were thus “superior” to Hutus. Each citizen was issued a racial identification card, which defined one as legally Hutu or Tutsi.
    From here.
    Also Conrad’s Heart of Darkness might interest you.

  48. stcordova,

    “Equal pay for equal work is the biggest form of apartheid there is. ”

    “The minimum wage rate is the most anti-negro law on the books.”

    Wow, he is nearly as fatuous and full of shit as you Sal.

    Europe has turned the corner into semi-socialist states. And they are generally the happiest people on the planet. Meanwhile America has the worst incarceration rate in the world, one of the unhealthiest populations in the world, one of the most unhappy, societies in the developed world, one of the biggest income gaps, and one of the worst medical systems in the world, and our school children can’t even compete with India.

    Yippee unregulated capitalism!

  50. @phoodoo: Well said, though I’d call the system in Europe “social democracy” rather than “socialism”. I think you and I voted for the same people in the recent election.

    Milton Friedman’s supposedly powerful arguments assume efficient markets. In the real world the rich can create monopolies, buy influence in government, and can hire thugs to intimidate peasants and workers. Friedman’s argument assumes away all of that. He would not have said that the recent massive recession was possible (his admirer Alan Greenspan was astonished by it, for example).

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