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Why doesn’t the left cheer when they’re wrong about bad things too?

Posted: October 20, 2019 by datechguy in culture, dablog, education, media, News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths

A few days ago I lead with a post about some apparent insanity in a school district in NH that I had seen at a site I frequent. Turns out the info in question was incorrect & I missed an email warning me of same so the post in question went up as scheduled.

When I saw the email I added an update as follows:

Update: Got a heads up that suggests there might be less to this than meets the eye, While that might be embarrassing for me it would be delightful as it would indicate that insanity does not reign at the school in question and that’s more important that a post getting hits. I don’t believe in pulling posts as it changes the record so for now I’m going to put the base post under a “more” tag until I get more data. For now we’ll wait and see and if a correction is warranted I’ll update the post with it.

Long story short the info was incorrect the author apologized to the people in question. I provided a 2nd update joining in said apology and rejoicing that the school in question was not in fact insane. As it’s likely who saw the 1st post but might never check it again a fresh post linking to the mea culpa was the proper and honorable thing to do which was the primary reason for this post.

Then it hit me. The reason why I wrote the base post was I don’t want public schools to be acting insane and the purpose of said post was to hold up a light to such behavior to stop this school & others from acting that way.

Thus when it turned out this school wasn’t doing so I was very happy regardless of any embarrassment from an erroneous post because my primary goal is schools not acting insane.

This is not the case with the Democrat/left media. Think about it for a second

  • The media/left went all in on the idea of a Supreme Court Nominee being a sexual predator, then the evidence showed the accusations were not credible
  • The media/left went all in on the idea that the President of the United State was colluding with Russia to steal an election, and even with an independent council, a staff full of partisans, the assistant AG working against the president it turned out their suspicions were unfounded.
  • The media/left went all in as various colleges being bastions of “rape culture with claims that as many as 25% of the women attending were assaulted but it turned out that the methodology of the studies and the definitions of assault were so stretched as to be meaningless.
  • The media/left went all in on various race hoaxes being furious that various individuals, some involving celebs, particularly at colleges were a bunch of racists and white supremacists, yet over and over these turned out to be hoaxes.

Now supposedly the left and media and the guests they brought in did this because they didn’t want a serial sexual predator on the supreme courts or a President conspiring with Russia, colleges being bastions of rape, gay black TV starts threatened with nooses or racist acts being committed all over the nation. That being the case all of these things turning out to be false should be cause for celebration for the left who can breathe a sigh of relief that none of these things that they considered beyond the pale had happened.

Yet instead their reaction has been at best been too ignore when such hoaxes are exposed as such or at worst to continue to insist they are true despite evidence to the contrary.

Now if you work under the assumption that the goal of the media/left is to prevent such behavior then you might be utterly confused at this reaction as it makes no logical sense.

However if you work from the assumption that the primary goal of the left/media is POWER and or WEALTH and that in search of said power & wealth the events and actions that they supposedly deplore are used to generate both the funds to gain them and the means to retain them, well it makes perfect sense.

To them the the only “crisis” in government is when they don’t control it and the only “abuse” of power is if it not in their hands. Work under that assumption and all the left/media does and you will never be shocked or surprised by anything they do ever again.

A Primer on Freedom of Speech & Association for both sides in the NBA / LeBron Business

Posted: October 19, 2019 by datechguy in business, nba, Sports
Tags:

Let me explain how freedom of speech works for all those angry on either side of the NBA/Lebron/China busines

Freedom of association means The NBA has the freedom to associate and/or do business with whoever they wish, including China

Freedom of speech means that players and or executives on their own time have the right to associate with whom they wish, but freedom of speech and associations means the NBA has the right when players and executives are on the clock or using league resources to limit their speech in ways that they wish (unless a contract specifies otherwise)

Freedom of speech might be also means that potential fans and customers of the NBA can publicly approve or disapprove of said decisions either by public expression or with their pocketbooks.

So here is what that means:

the Rockets GM had every right to tweet out what he did.

The NBA had every right if they decided it was in their interest to object to him doing so and then change their position when the heat was on.

The players have every right to say something, say nothing or equivocate on the China issue.

HOWEVER free speech also means that the fans, the media and everyone else has the right to publicly object, act protest and ridicule the NBA for those choices and act accordingly.

The bottom line is freedom of speech means freedom to speak or not to speak, to associate with someone or some group or not, to do business with a person, a group or even a country or not and to object to these choices or not.

This freedom exists even if we don’t like what they’ve done.

I like that the GM of the Rockets spoke up for Hongkong, I don’t like the NBA’s initial reaction nor the players reactions on this. I don’t like or respect LeBron’s reaction (although I’m sure most of the rest of the league is happy for him to take the heat so they don’t). However it’s their right to act how they wish according to law and it’s my right to react accordingly.

That’s freedom of speech!

The Two Real stories in this piece about Biologists and life

Posted: October 18, 2019 by datechguy in abortion, Uncomfortable Truths
Tags:

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.

Richard Feynman

At Quillette Steve Jacobs has a post about a survey he did of thousands of biologists when doing a paper on balancing fetal and abortion rights. To the press this was the most newsworthy result from that paper

members of the media were mostly interested in my finding that 96% of the 5,577 biologists who responded to me affirmed the view that a human life begins at fertilization.


It was the reporting of this view—that human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are biological humans—that created such a strong backlash. 

You can argue that this is a pretty good headline but I think the bigger headline is the following cross reference:

As the usable responses began to come in, I found that 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization, with 240 (4%) rejecting that view. The majority of the sample identified as liberal (89%), pro-choice (85%) and non-religious (63%). In the case of Americans who expressed party preference, the majority identified as Democrats (92%).

Now frankly the idea that Human, zygotes, embryos and fetues or as I would call them “unborn children” are well HUMAN is so obvious that the concept that 4% of trained biologists, even from a group that is 92% democrat, 89% liberal and 85% pro-abortion and 63% non religious wouldn’t say they are speaks volumes about that 4% but the bigger story is the responses he got from those who objected to the question. They sounded like this:

“Is this a studied fund by Trump and ku klux klan?”
“Sure hope YOU aren’t a f^%$#ing christian!!”
“This is some stupid right to life thing…YUCK I believe in RIGHT TO CHOICE!!!!!!!”
“The actual purpose of this ‘survey’ became very clear. I will do my best to disseminate this info to make sure that none of my naïve colleagues fall into this trap.”
“Sorry this looks like its more a religious survey to be used to misinterpret by radicals to advertise about the beginning of life and not a survey about what faculty know about biology. Your advisor can contact me.”
“I did respond to and fill in the survey, but am concerned about the tenor of the questions. It seemed like a thinly-disguised effort to make biologists take a stand on issues that could be used to advocate for or against abortion.”
“The relevant biological issues are obvious and have nothing to do with when life begins. That is a nonsense position created by the antiabortion fanatics. You have accepted the premise of a fanatic group of lunatics. The relevant issues are the health cost carrying an embryo to term can impose on a woman’s body, the cost they impose on having future children, and the cost that raising a child imposes on a woman’s financial status.”

Remember the people he surveyed were trained scientists, biologists, who are supposedly taught to go where the data takes them rather than where their political opinions do, and he’s getting responses like this?

This leads of some obvious and disturbing questions:

  • Would you hire such people to do any work on any scientific item that requires objective fact or actual data that might contradict with this personal opinions?
  • Would you trust any study which is supposed to present objective fact or data to make decisions on?
  • Would you want your city, county state or federal government to fund any research by such people or made any decision based on the input of such folks?

I wouldn’t.

Now you might say that this is only a small percentage of the number of people who are in this position but remember this isn’t a sample of the general population, this is a sample of biologists, people who have been highly educated and supposedly trained in the scientific method. These are people to whom facts and data are supposed to be sacrosanct.

Or to put it another way, imagine if you knew that same percentage of a football team’s offensive was willing to blow the play for political or personal gain. Would you still bet on that team?

That’s the real news out of this study and if you are getting such results on abortion there is no reason to believe that you wouldn’t get such results on any other subject that such people’s politics are dear to them.

Under the Fedora A reminder to Dem Debate Viewers, CNN vs Veritas, Beto vs Chief Joseph, No impeachment Inquiry vote says Pelosi, Washington to the Series

Posted: October 17, 2019 by datechguy in elections, politics, primaries
Tags: , , ,

An important reminder to all those who watched the Democrat Debate.

The Democrat nominee will be decided by the Superdelegates on the 2nd ballot at the convention. I still think it will be Biden because by then they’ll figure out there is almost no chance to win and he’s the best shot for helping some down ballot races

You heard it here 1st

The expose of what’s going on at CNN by Project Veritas is having a lot less bang that you might normally expect. This is mainly because those of us on the right, particularly those of us who have watched and covered CNN, particularly during the Trump years already knew this was the case and those on the left who have become obsessed with removing the president by impeachment are happy to see Zucker demand all impeachment all the time and would consider this a feature.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good journalism but it would be a real shock if any of it surprised anyone. Still it’s nice to have it on the record as to why they do what they do. I always thought it was the water

Beto O’Rourke’s treat to compel compliance by force to comply with a “buyback” program reminded me of bit of this quote from Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

If we ever owned the land we own it still, for we never sold it. In the treaty councils the commissioners have claimed that our country had been sold to the Government. Suppose a white man should come to me and say, “Joseph, I like your horses, and I want to buy them.” I say to him, “No, my horses suit me, I will not sell them.” Then he goes to my neighbor, and says to him : “Joseph has some good horses. I want to buy them, but he refuses to sell.” My neighbor answers, “Pay me the money, and I will sell you Joseph’s horses.” The white man returns to me and says, “Joseph, I have bought your horses, and you must let me have them.” If we sold our lands to the Government, this is the way they were bought.

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce indians

It doesn’t surprise me that younger people never heard this as high school & college don’t teach history anymore but I’m shocked Elizabeth Warren didn’t make this objection.

Nancy Pelsoi has stated there will be no vote to formally begin an impeachment inquiry in the house. This makes a lot of sense for her as such a formal vote will only cause trouble for the phony moderates that she needs to keep the gavel. Ideally any such vote on impeachment or even an inquiry would take place when it’s too late to primary any Democrat who votes against it.

Given how will this strategy worked in saving the “moderates” who voted for Obamacare I suspect it’s not going to make all that much difference but I suspect her odds of keeping seats are better with this crowd than with crew generated primary opponents in the general.

Finally The Washington Nationals after shocking the LA Dodgers made short work of the St. Louis Cardinals and are now going to their 1st World Series since they entered the league as the Montreal Expos in 1969. Of course there have been other Washington Teams the Texas Rangers were the expansion Washington Senators from 1961 to 1971 before moving to Texas and the original Washington Nationals moved to Minnesota and became the Twins, who were bounced by the Yankess in three straight in the 1st round.

The last time a Team from Washington went to the World Series was 1925 and the last time they won was the year before, both times the ace of the squad was Walter Johnson one of the best pitchers who ever lived and one of the charter inductees in the baseball hall of fame. They don’t have Johnson this time around but they do have a pitching staff that are worthy successors to him. It has the potential to be a really great world series no matter who they face.

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