Which of these things is not like the other?

Americans’ confidence in News media has dropped since the 1980s. In 1985, 55% thought news got

their facts straight compared to 20% in 2009. In
1989,  36% thought media dealt with all sides fairly compared to 18% in 2009. Yet, all in all, Americans believe that despite problems, with internet availability, and watchdog groups, the truth comes out and that we get a more accurate pictures of what is going on in the world than other people

If this more or less captures you view,  brace yourself.   Reddit has archived all of he magazine covers since 1923, but you don’t have to look at many to get the point but you don't have to go far back to get the point,



In the latest issue of the Time magazine the cover story for Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Asia and South America, focused on Pena Nieto’s attempts to introduce reforms in Mexico. Nieto’s success in Mexico and the investment community is recognized internationally & Mexican bonds have been upgraded (embarassingly close to  US') , His focus is economic and  nationalistic, and he is less willing to confront drug lords  or deport them to US prisons than his predecessors.  This should be of particular interest to Americans. It could effect detention as a means of reducing re-entry of illegals and require changes in methods of securing borders .

Yet, instead of highlighting this article, the Time magazine cover in the US  was about a six year high school geared to minority students with a high success rate of job placement.



In an issue where the Time Magazine Cover page  focused on US debt for the rest of the world  the US focused on things that could go wrong on election day,


US Tim cover focused on the new “silent majority in the US, while the rest of the world focused on why the US  will never save Afghanistan.

These are not factual errors or leaning towards one side more than another. They are deliberate attempts to manipulate Americans into not seeing issues that effect them and that the rest of the world is concerned about.  Bring out the football and happy minority high school grads. Why think about Germany and the Euro? Isn’t the prospect of life without children more interesting? People from other countries might want to read an article about why Gitmo will never close. but Americans?
For an excellent review of Us medias role as a willing political tool that focuses US citizens attentions away from international (and largely negative) reactions to US government policies see

19 Puzzling Differences Between “Time” Magazine U.S. And International Covers

Bring on the race Card

AP Photograph

Holder did yesterday,  Inspired by injustice and being a man of conscience he called on lawmakers and us ( the American people) to fight felony disenfranchisement which is too unjust to tolerate.States aren’t ending misguided policies that unjustly restrict the ‘most basic right’ of American citizenship”. He will do it with our support.

Emotional appeal, has a powerful appeal that can be misused by politicians (even Afro-American politicians talking about Afro-americans) In this age of so many problems we can't seem to count them, why are votes for former felons the issue that should cause Americans to rise up and demand that the Federal government take away states rights because they are doing the right thing but not fast enough.  Notice this: Holder does not say that last part out loud. It wouldn’t fly well.  Giving the President more power than he has-- after Obamacare? after a messed up economy? after higher taxes?

Now Eric Holder, in case you forgot, is head of the Justice department and should know many intolerable, laws that discriminate against African Americans that aren’t changing fast enough and  don’t require a federal takeover of states rights to fix.

But just in case he can’t think of one , how about. voting for women and men of the armed forces where African Americans  contribute more than their share. Disenfranchisement of these men and women of color is infuriating. They get to die for their country but not vote. Jim Crow would be  proud.

Legally, these soldiers have the right to vote. BUT their ballots don’t arrive on time,  vanish into a black holes, are flown back to the US by planes that mysteriously crash,etc.  If Air Force One plane can fly a dog to a presidential vacation, this should be an easy fix. This is the 21st century?  If a drone it can kill an American in a foreign country it should be able to get the darn ballots and bring them back without crashing. right? . During a hurricane that hit NY close to election day, there were backup plans for people to vote on-line. I have no qualifications. Experts could come up with better ways, I am sure.

People of color have fought long an hard to be recognized in the US armed forced and they deserve an attorney general who stands up for their rights before those of felons, before he treads on constitutionally questionable grounds of federal vs. state power.

If fighting for the rights of felons to vote is more important than members of the armed forced, the obvious question is what is Holders REAL agenda. What is this business of "fast enough." Why the sudden rush? Could this have anything to do with the 2014 elections for congress and the senate? Is the White house worried that the the same Republicans they call Does this man care about African Americans, or is he just one more corrupt Washington insider that will do anything, trample on states rights, throw the constitution to the winds to get more democratic votes.  Big surprise: Guess which states these felons live in?

That’s the problem with the race card folks. You never know where it will go. It’s a bit amusing to see a high level African American Politician stereotyping his own.

Counting the votes: A hypothetical Tale

There is nothing mysterious about voting. We vote with our pocketbooks every time we buy something.

People who own businesses do surveys of their customers all the time. Getting the numbers right are important because business decisions and investments will be based on the assumptions that the numbers that the results are correct.

Imagine a restaurant chain that serves two deserts- cheese cake and apple pie on Friday nights. Because Friday nights are crowded, they don’t know which they make more money on. So, they decide to do a survey.


The central office could decide how the counting should be done and have all stores do it the same way. Each store should decide how to do it the way it wants. Some stores could count the receipts and other stores might buy computers and survey counting computer software

They could count the number of apple pies and also chocolate pies bought on Friday night from the sales slips

Get a computer whiz who works at the restaurant to write at the bar to write a program
Get some clerks in their down time to make sure the results of the computer are the same as the results of counting the slips

-Between these two extremes there are different option
-Train people to ave check each of the steps of the computer program and
   • make sure the deserts are copied correctly
   • make sure none of them are missed
   • none of them are coped twice
- Decide what to do about biases like the restaurant gives chocolate cake for birthdays, chocolate cakes are more often shared, most waiters like chocolate cakes a lot better.

A committee of representatives from each store is tasked with recommending what method should be used. To make sure that they covered everything they examined machines and software that has been built for polling and surveys. They learn that prices vary widely, that you can buy just software and hardware (computers). The biggest companies do not let you see the programs they wrote. 
“ How do we test them to make sure they work for what we are doing?”
“ We have experts that are trained to do that, so you don’t need to worry about that. That’s the beauty of our solution. We do it all”
“ How would we know if you made a mistake”?
“ We don’t make mistakes”

The company lawyer has a few words to say.
"Business relationships are of course based on trust, gentlemen and trust is earned. We would , of course be prepared to sign a nondisclosure agreement and consider your system despite its high cost, and then if it worked, which I assume it would, endorse your product. Can we get past this and move further."
  "I’m afraid that’s out of the question".

  A puzzled look crosses the lawyers face. In all my years dealing vendors. I have never been asked to spend millions of dollars on a product that I know nothing about. Who are your usual clients? the government?

Why my own party makes my blood boil

Is this not incredible? Wendy Davis could actually win the Texas gubernatorial race. Not because she has the credentials. Not because she is widely respective, or represents Texans, who have a very low tolerance level for self promoters who ridicule people in wheelchairs. Who would have ever thought that that Texas pride, gumption to the point of insolence in the 'whole other country' could morph into fear at the power of the democratic "machine". Said a staunch republican pundit yesterday. We can't rest on our laurals. She may not represent the state. But the Obamama, Democratic, machine is powerful. We have nothing like it.

This talk is infuriating. Why did Romney lose the election? Why is the senate democratic, why is there even a remote change the republicans could lose it AGAIN, when every survey shows averge Americans leaning 7 points towards republicans. Why do even our strongest supporters like Glenn Reynolds say "They don't call it the stupid party for nothing.

At the Red State Conference, I suggested that we will never win, until we adopt the tactics of our opponents. I don't know whether the responses whether the reactions were sad or alarming. "But then we would be stooping to their level... WHATTTTTT??????  These are the leaders, the people who are going to bring about social change? How? By maintaining the Moral high ground???

They are very nice people. They are principled, devoted, and unwilling to compromise. They also have no idea, not are they being told that politics is a dirty business, that winning and principles are not the same things, that winning means getting dirty and doing dirty, fighting dirty, knowing your enemy and winning on the battlefield.  The last presidential election was proof
   "A lousy platform and a good vote machine can win"
   "A god platform and an ineffective vote machine looses"


We will lose and lose and lose until we start fighting the war with the right tactics. Polls are useless when actual votes have another major component. The voting "machine" the democrats have is not "magic," We can have the same. If we dedicate ourselves to this. If we do it ourselves [ and not hire a bunch of consultants we don't know]. If we man polling places, have hackers, etc etc. None of this is difficult. Republicans ignore it. That is idiotic and infuriating.

This is not new technology. I and many others have build large databases, used them to predict models predicting product loyalty, incluencability, odds of success and methids/ approach likelt to succed. Updating databases online,is an old technology using hierrchies by zip codes to direct activities of  service reps was done 25 years ago. Database speed and size is known, as is methods of testing  backups, and in critical sitiation, live runs, and backups to backups. In Politics one criticl decision is when do you stop convincing people (a) and start getting out the vote (b). This also can be calculated and used to use staff.. The greater the staff, The greater the odds of winning,

I am less angry at Democrats than I am republicans for being naive idiots, and even more anbry at tea party members and the red state, the Heritge foundation and the Cato foundation who have no excuse for behaving in such an idiotic fashion. For analyzing what Substantantive, communicative or
other essential characteristic Republicans do not have and treating Democratic criticisms with all the seriousness they do not deserve. Letting your opponent set the agenda is always a lousy strategy,

Imagine , if, Romney, instead of graciously, conceding to Obama, and kvetching for poor Ann who would have made such a wonderful first lady, instead of sayong we put up a goiod fight and he wo n fair and square, leaving the stage with his tail between his legs,

Imagine if he said. I do not condede. He did not win. This fraud is a travesty that puts a democracy to shame. In x county and Y county 125% if the population voted. I did not spend years running for president to leave Americans in a banana republic.

Anybody want to do something about it?

All sorts of organizations call me for money. Now  I don't care how good the cause is. I don't give money. I used to. If someone managed to play my emotions well enough, not because I am a female canine (not sure what censorship policies exist here in the political correct) but because I have a litmus test.

In most cases I can spot a sales call in the first three words and hang up. There's that roboto-speech if you know what I mean. Robots, on the other hand have mastered the art of sounding human so well that I found myself chatting with one last week. I have this high IQ and did eventually foure out that he was a recording.

Back to the litmus test which is based in this premise. Most people are inflexible and lazy. If they call for money and I offer something of far greater value they will reject it. This will be true even when I am not speaking to a telemarketing firm based in India.

So last week, the Heritage think tank called me. for some money. Whatever I could spare. As usual, we are at a "critical juncture" , democracy is at stake, the country, the socialists are turning the universities into a Marxist ideology breeding ground on our tax dollars. Aha, something I could bite my teeth into.

After relishing a moment of visualizing me as Buffy wandering around Washington, in my invisible suit, teeth gleaming,  I decided to respond. No great hopes. It's amazing. The things people will say for 15 bucks. Just because they're on your side don't be an idiot and believe them. Trust and verify.

So I wrote a letter, Told them they were brilliant. An that I do that. (I do). We have a GREAT opportunity right now because Universities are failing, the Millenials don't feel like being indentured servants to government crooks fir the rest of their lives, and the time is now for a different kind of college/University. We could be teaching libertarianism, free market capitalism, organizing experimental communities, free speech, critical thought. What balance of powers is. Federal vs. State powers etc. I pointed to specific programs we could join with and how we could and asked if anyone had thought of it and what their stance on "higher education was".

I got no letter but I did get an invitation to a weekly meeting of sentinels the grass roots arm of the organization apparently. These are the people who lobby republican congress people to behave like republican congress people. Up on the agenda this week: Do not extend the unemployment benefits because this sort of thing 'never works' and we have a budget deficit. I will grant that most likely encouraging long term unemployment is a lousy way to get people working again but without a cent and without articulating why this is a lousy idea and pretending it will have an effect on the budget is silly. Next up is immigration. Focus. It's important to NOT have any discussion of immigration because then then congress will go to committee and they will pass the dream act. I was getting worried. Outside of government, the country thinks the dream act has been passed. Hasn't it? Kids get social security numbers, medicaid, low cost tuitions? How are they not citizens? How about talking about this. No immigration legislation by presidential degree. Secure the borders and then we'll talk.

I hadn't read the news for a few weeks. Too depressing perhaps. What a bunch of WIMPS. Nobody talks about Obamacare anymore. One more "feature" of the new normal.
To end the conference call issues were poorly explained, nothing organized, no talking points, no prioritization. Last question was Do you think the Republicans will take both houses in November?

It wasn't just the lack of conviction by an organization that is one of the best hopes in the country or so I thought. It was the blase manner, as if unemployment benefits and winning the vote in November are equally important or maybe as if it doesn't matter.

Have you noticed that so many of the folks that used to launch battle cries are writing books-- Glenn Reynolds, Charles Krauthmauer, Mark Levin.  What the country does not need is one more conservative book or radio show. Yoo Hoo... Anybody out there?  Don't all answer at once....Helllo...eloooo..loooo...oooooo...

If there are hate crimes, they are all created equal

I never thought they would be implemented as equal. I have yet to find a case where more regulations solve problems caused by failure to enforce prior regulations. Government, and change, are by nature slow, and when pushed to quickly nothing good happens. But ,most unfortunately, nobody has asked me how to run the country. The courts rules that hate crimes are recognized as crimes whose motivation earns extra added punishment.

The FBI, monitors hate crimes annually based on police reports. Decisions are very ambiguous and politically vulnerable to the "right answer" from the":top brass." who make it clear that African Americans should emerge as victims and not perpetrators of hate crimes. Nevertheless, the group who are most often victims of hate crimes relative to their presence in the population are Jews. The difference between hate crimes against Jews and hate crimes against any other group is almost unbelievable. If Jews are defined as other religions are (based on self report-- are you Jewish), thgere are @ 3MM Jews in the Us and hate  crimes against Jews are 12 to 1 their fair share in the population. This is in sharp contrast to Muslims. If Jews are defined racially (either birthparent Jewish, the odds are 7 to 1.

There is no other group that remotely approaches this level. Crimes against Africam Americans are higher than the national average .    Crimes against Musims account for      for all the crimes against religiouns. The number of muslims in this country is very doffoicult to determine and based on.. if higher are minimal, Crimes against Christains are higher and on the rise. Not issues in the FBIO reports are crimes of blacks against whites, specifically .  Crimes are chilling as groups involved are games    . Crimes by police against citizens are also unrecorded but are on the rise

The FBU has been reporting hate crimes for x years, The findings  re Jews have been the same, and although there has been a change in favored minorities insofar as as homosexuals, lesbians, transvestites, in all cases, Jews, have been consistently been the victims of hate crimes, no decrease has been noted as with blacks and no efforts to do anything about this have been done.

The FBI in discussing religious discrimination, failed to normalize hate crimes against the number Jews and more important failed to conclude that anything should be done about it. Each year the conclusion was the same, We must redouble our efforts to eliminate any vestige of hate against African Americans.

Hate speech is not illegal and for the most part when cases are brought to court, courts rule in favor of free speech. Yet the vast majority of Universities including state universities funded by tax dollars have rules about what students may and may not say.

The rationale behind this practice raises questions about whether Universities educate or even aim to educate.  Push politics aside completely for a moment and think about Universities as they were a few hundred years ago or if that isn't far back enough try Ancient Greece. Wasn't the purpose of
education, the way Socrates taught it to examine any and all ideas through the lens of Aren't Universities precisely the place where all ideas are game?

Words.. words... which brings us back to today. Unless you are crying fire in a crowded theatre sticks and stones break my bones, words don't hurt, not unless they are followed by actions. Do they?
Maybe, sometimes. Are people who speak hatred, more likely to act hatefully. probably. What would Socrates have said. Something like: Put your faith in reason and in the University as the place, perhaps the only place where reason is free to flourish without interference from the realities if later existence. Let all state there views and subject them to the test of reason and not fear the results. It is not our job to rule reason, but to use it as a most precious tool with which to find truth. There are many in the world who will try to rule reason- politicians, men that seek power, and philosophers whose fears overwhelm their courage. The search for truth demands courage and is not the vocation of every man.

In a true University if there were one, a modern day confederate and a liberal would have a conversation made possible because of the common set of rules of discourse they shares. A socialist and a capitalist and everything in between would speak, the size of government could be discussed, the impact of insults on people and groups would be discussed studied measured without pre-conception. Contrary points of view would be welcome because they bring us closer to our own truths. Emotions would be muted, questions would outnumber answers. The institutions that are called Universities today to not earn the name. In my own field, social psychology, a witch hunt to prove that republican personalities are inferior to democratic personalities is underway , papers published in peer reviewed journals. There is even  study showing neurological differences. The one shocker to the democratic researchers that republicans are better at math and science is never referenced. This is not a desire to learn.

Perhaps a University is a pipe dream. Perhaps it is much too late to be in speaking terms. If that is true, what are the odds that these hate speech codes will be enforced equally. Of course they won't everybody is a member of some group. If people for some reason now have a right to not be insulted, unless nobody insults anybody, people are constantly discriminating against other people. Some of the codes are in fact so broad that students self censor because they have no idea what could qualify.

Example from the University of Buffalo:

     " Students are expected to act with civility.  To be civil means to be courteous and polite or, simply put, to be mannerly.  Acts of incivility—whether verbal, written, or physical—will not be tolerated by the Residential Life community…Hostile or inappropriate language or gestures, words that penetrate and hurt, words that destroy relationships rather than sustain them, or physical aggression in any form are not welcome in our university or residence hall community."

The basic ones are:

    " “stereotyping, negative comments or jokes, explicit threats, segregation, and verbal or physical assault when any of these are based upon a person’s race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, veteran status or sexual orientation.”  

In reality and not surprisingly enforcement bears no relation to even the second statement below. In actuality relative to their numbers experience many more hate crimes than any other group including blacks. The level of hate crimes were @ 30% higher for blacks  but  based on the lowest estimate 7:1 meaning 700% as high as their presence in their presence in the population. These data are not taken from a study conducted by some Jewish organization but from the  annual FBI hate crime statistics report which does note that Jews are not Muslims are the religious group that is targeted for discrimination. 

These numbers are alarming, Yet there is every reason to believe that they are understated and that they are being ignored deliberately and that this policy is supported by the white house. The difficulty or coming up with a definite figure depends on who one classifies as a Jew. If this is based on church membership of self report. (answers to questions like what is your religion), there are less than 3 million Jewish Americans with a decreasing number. If one uses Jewish parentage and includes people who explicitly say they are not Jewish or say they are Catholic or some other religion, there are approxiomately 5 million. Jews, possibly due to fear of extinction tend to gravitate to higher numbers. Using the 3 Million Jews figure of 12:1 or 1200%. The figure does not change from year to year, does not include hate crimes on campus where Jews are victims, but dies where Jews are perpetrators, according to police interviewed they are pressured to not classify crimes against Jews as hate  crimes especially when they are committed by groups of black teens, In general, knockout games are under-reorted as more examples were filmed than reported.

It gets worse. Universities sanction this behavior and only retract when the media picks up a story and embarasses them as it did when.

 Jewish students on campuses have been  threatened for peacefully demonstrating their support of Israel. Rallies interrupted with shouts if sig heil. Events demonize the Jews and glorify their murderers under a thin veneer of anti-Israel and University administrators. Given the strong tie between Obama and the Muslim brotherhood, Obama's failure to act on this issue does ot come as a shock. When a letter was sent to complaint that had accused a California state university of allowing a hostile environment for Jewish students to exist on campus, the education department’s Office for Civil Rights wrote:

    “In the university environment, exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience. In this context, the events that the complainants described do not constitute actionable harassment.”

The mildest critique of a Muslim is Islamophobia, while threats against Jews are not actionable harassment. This double standard encourages more and bolder anti-semitism. The anti-defamation league found that 40% of Jewish students in a study of 1400 Jewish students were aware of anti-semitism on their campus


Actions against Jews Universities are not limited to speech. They include physical violence.  promoted by well funded Muslim organizations associated with the Muslim brotherhood such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the which unlike bad worlds against "protected minorities" is ignored by University personnel and the Muslim Student Association. Jewish students on campus have been physically attacked for demonstrating support for Israel.  A young woman stood near a setup with a fake wall and machine guns in exhibit blaming Jews/Israel for apartheid holding a sign saying "Israel wants peace" One of the people from the exhibit rammed a shopping cart at her so forcefully, she had to be taken to the hospital


This is not limited to Berkley. SJP has organized a pattern of events at a growing number of Universities , setting up mock checkpoints, asking students passing by what their religious affiliation is and intimidating the Jewish students

Trusting Government means never having to grow up

Most people, if asked,  realize that government does do things that are not in their best interests,
that their taxes go to people who use money  frivolously, that it's hard to get things done in government, that they don't really think  any politician does all the things he or she promises, that an honest person would go into some other line of work, and that these guys get paid too much.

But say the word government partial government shut-down and major freak-out. Partial government shutdown was, of course, a joke. Some people had to take unpaid vacations, there was that couple who couldn't get married in Yellowstone because it was closed, memorials that were closed. People got their social security checks, and medicaid, the free phones worked, foodstamps cames . Alcohol tobacco and forearms were there. homeland security made a show of it and then returned to whatever essential stuff it is that they do that we can't know about because it's classified, As for those three and  the department of education, agriculture, forestry. most of the state department, Indian affairs, the part of the IRS that gives you advice that can be wrong, IRS tax auditors that didn't bring in more money than their fully loaded salaries two years in a row... ( I could go a lot further but you get the idea) please go home and stay home). Nobody would miss these people, regardless of party.

Unlike others who believe this was just one more example of democratic maliciousness, I  believe the thought of no government scared people even though they knew it wasn't really true and that it wouldn't last long just like the other times and people wouldn't die of food stamp deprivation. This is a difficult one for me to accept but I believe it's accurate. Most people don't want independence that comes from being responsible for yourself. Not here in NY in the city and Ohh, 100-200 miles out. It isn't simply gaming the system. Its needing and knowing that someone is going to take care of you. The thought of government scared them so much that they prefer a strong one that takes freedoms away that one that is more constitutional. Actually they probably like the strong one better. A bigger government takes care of people more than a smaller government and gives them fewer decisions to make.

But, I say "What if they take care of you like the mafia takes care of you?"

And they don't seem to care. This cartoon captures that sentiment.