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To people blaming refugees for the attack in Paris, do you not realize these are the people the refugees are trying to run away from...?

--Dan Holloway, @RFCdan

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From DKos: Consultant skewers Dems for not taking fight to public

Consultant skewers Democrats for not taking the fight to the American public

By Egberto Willies  

 

Thursday Nov 05, 2015 11:27 AM EST

 

How many different times must consultants tell politicians if they want the vote, they must give the voters a reason to vote? Democratic Consultant Steve Jarding put the 2015 election into context as he effectively said that Democrats simply were not up to the job of getting Americans to vote for them.

 

“Democrats have not taken the fight to the American public,” Steve Jarding said. “The American public is upset. They should be upset. Government’s failed them.

 

"And yet you didn’t see in Kentucky. You saw a Republican who could win by saying I am going to dismantle healthcare when 20% of the kids in Kentucky go to bed hungry. When a hundred thousand kids are going to lose their healthcare under this governor. I didn’t see a Democratic candidate fighting for that.

 

"They concede family values to the Republicans. I will challenge Republicans on family values. Poverty is not a family value. Hunger is not a family value. Lack of health insurance is not a family value.

 

"The Democrats have to go after these people. Kim Davis says, ‘Well I am doing what the Bible says.’ No you are not. You are doing what The Old Testament says, not what Jesus said

 

"Democrats aren’t making the case. They are conceding the arguments to Republicans. Particularly in rural areas and in the South instead of taking the argument to them. When they are playing on that turf, on the Republican turf of letting the Republicans define the issues, that’s what happens.

 

"So, I I think the fundamental problem for the Democrats is much deeper. They have to stand up and start reminding the American public what their programs have meant. That when kids in Kentucky are hungry, we are going to feed them. When this governor, the governor elect wants to get rid of healthcare for a hundred thousand kids, we are not going to let that happen. That is not a family value.

 

"And yet the Democrats aren’t saying it. And they wonder why they lose races."

 

Democrats need to stop fearing deviating from the center. Americans are demanding bold solutions. Republicans support bold solutions. Yes, we know they are failed solutions, but they know how to put lipstick on a pig.

 

Unless Democrats boldly articulate how their policies will help working Americans, that pig could begin looking like a beautiful swan.

From DKos: Arm Mizzou's Black students yet?

Isn't it time to arm Mizzou's black student body yet?

By Frank Vyan Walton

     

Friday Nov 13, 2015 · 12:39 PM EST

Maybe they can sell them at the student book store

On Friday a fourth person was arrested for issuing death threats against African-American college students this week—this time in Michigan.

Police said they took a suspect into custody Thursday afternoon in connection with an anonymous threat posted on social media directed at students at Michigan Technological University, reported The Detroit News. 

The university’s Department of Public Safety and Police Services spotted a message posted about noon Thursday on the Yik Yak social media platform and increased security on the Houghton campus. 

The person who made the threat vowed he or she was “going to kill all black people,” authorities said.

Many Republicans truly believed that the only thing that stops a “bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” So the next logical step should be to call for black students at colleges across the nation to openly carry firearms.  It’s only logical right? They have repeatedly argued that the real problem that encourages mass shootings is “gun free zones,” haven’t they?

Oddly, not a single Republican presidential candidate has called for this in the case of African-American college students who are being repeatedly threatened with death. Wonder why that is!
Read More

From DKos: religion apparently doesn't teach kids generosity?

A new study examined the generosity of children raised religiously versus their less-religious peers

By Walter Einenkel  

     

Thursday Nov 05, 2015 5:05 PM EST

 

Do unto others as you would...whatever.

In news that will only be shocking to people who think the Duggars clan are doing this life thing right, a new study has been released on religiousness and the children who grow up in such an environment.

Highlights  

•  Family religious identification decreases children’s altruistic behaviors
•  Religiousness predicts parent-reported child sensitivity to injustices and empathy
•  Children from religious households are harsher in their punitive tendencies

The study was a simple one, according to OregonLive:

Here's how the study worked: researchers asked kids to play a game which required them to decide how many stickers to share with an anonymous peer from the same school and similar ethnic group.  

In their report, the researchers noted it was important for the anonymous stranger to be similar to the child so that other biases didn't get in the way.

The study also found that children from religious homes were more judgmental of others' actions and in return were harsher in their opinions of punishment. These findings were true of children growing up in a religious household with frequent practice of a religion, regardless of the specific religion.

In our sample, 23.9% of households identified as Christian (n = 280), 43% as Muslim (n = 510), 27.6% as not religious (n = 323), 2.5% as Jewish (n = 29), 1.6% as Buddhist (n = 18), 0.4% as Hindu (n = 5), 0.2% as agnostic (n = 3), and 0.5% as other (n = 6). Results from an independent samples t test, comparing altruism in children from religiously identifying (Msharing = 3.25, SD = 2.46) and non-religiously identifying (Msharing = 4.11, SD = 2.48) households indicated significantly less sharing in the former than the latter (p < 0.001).  

To further investigate these effects within specific religions, three large groupings were established: Christian, Muslim, and not religious; children from other religious households did not reach a large enough sample size to be included in additional analyses.  

Results from a linear regression with number of stickers shared as the dependent variable and age (1-year bins), country of origin, socioeconomic status (SES), and religious identification of the household (dummy coded) suggest that age (βstandardized = 0.39, p < 0.001), SES (βstandardized = 0.16, p < 0.001), country (βstandardized = 0.1, p < 0.01), and religious identification (βstandardized = −.132, p < 0.001) are significant predictors of sharing, (model r2adjusted = 0.184).  

Paired comparisons (corrected for family-wise error) showed that Christian children (Msharing = 3.33, SD = 2.46) did not differ in their altruism from Muslims (Msharing = 3.20, SD = 2.24); however, both were significantly less altruistic than non-religious children (Msharing = 4.09, SD = 2.52, both p < 0.001; Figure 1).  

Regardless of religious identification, frequency of religious practice, household spirituality, and overall religiousness were inversely predictive of children’s altruism (r = −.161, p < 0.001; r = −.179, p < 0.001; r = −.173, p < 0.001, respectively; Figure 2).  

Results from a linear regression with number of stickers shared as the dependent variable and age (1-year bins), country of origin, socioeconomic status (1–6 scale) and overall religiousness of the household (aggregate score) suggest that age (βstandardized = 0.410, p < 0.001), SES (βstandardized = 0.13, p < 0.001), and religiousness (βstandardized = −.150, p < 0.001) are all significant predictors of sharing (model r2adjusted = 0.194).  

Importantly, the relations between altruism and the three aspects of religiousness were strongest in older children (n = 533, ages 8–12 years; r = −.187 p < 0.001; r = −.211, p < 0.001; r = −.202, p < 0.001, respectively).

Spare the rod and spoil the child.

#Ben Carson Wikipedia...again!

Sadly, I can't copy/paste the original article from Daily Kos here any more than I could last time because of the tweets...but here is the link, and I will quote a few more of the tweets that made me LOL.

Dogs that go into animal shelters straight come out Gay.
@jawillie

Who's crazy now, Internet?

@EonGattignolo

Kangaroos were the first to sink during the great flood because they have pouches that filled up with water.

@markjbradford

There is no such thing as gravity -- its only a theory. Schools should teach "Intelligent Falling"
@BJStolz

Peanut allergies are psychosomatic, but wifi allergies can be factually documented back as far as 1823.

@seanbonner

The Amazon is the longest river named after a corporation.
@Crutnacker

The square root of any number is always four, because a square has four sides
@AWorldOutOfMind

If you punch a tiger hard enough it explodes into kittens.

@erikfrick

 

...ah, yes, I needed that.

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For every $1 of damage [9/11] did to us,
we did $231 to ourselves.

--Bret Weinstein

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From Salon: Let's not repeat our response to 9/11 in light of Paris attacks

Let’s not get it wrong this time: The terrorists won after 9/11 because we chose to invade Iraq, shred our Constitution

We destroyed ourselves with our dumb 9/11 overreactions. It's essential not to make the same mistake again.
                       
By Bret Weinstein                                       

(Credit: AP/Kevin Lamarque)

What is terrorism? Many are convinced that the word is inherently so vague as to be meaningless. I have never understood this. To me the definition seems singular, and obvious, and it would appear that simply understanding it is the key to avoiding terrible missteps in the aftermath of an attack like the one in Paris.

Terrorism is a tactic in which the primary objective is to produce fear, rather than direct harm. Terrorist attacks are, first and foremost, psychological operations designed to alter behavior amongst the terrorized in a way that the actors believe will serve them.

The 9/11 perpetrators killed about 3,000 people and did about $13 billion in physical damage to the United States. That’s a lot of harm in absolute terms, but not relative to a nation of 300 million people, with a GDP of almost $15 trillion. It was a massive blow to many families and to New York City. But, to the nation as a whole, that level of damage was about as dangerous as a bee sting.

You may find that analogy suspect because bee stings are deadly to those with an allergy. But what kills people is not the sting itself. It is their own massive overreaction to an otherwise tiny threat, that fatally disrupts the functional systems of the body. And that is exactly what terrorists hope to trigger—a muscular and reflexive response on the part of the victim-state that advances the perpetrators’ interests far beyond their own capacity to advance them.

The 9/11 attack was symbolic. It was not designed to cripple us economically or militarily, at least not directly. It was designed to provoke a reaction. The reaction cost more than 6,000 American lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more than $3 trillion in U.S. treasure. The reaction also caused the United States to cripple its own Constitution and radicalize the Muslim world with a reign of terror that has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians.

The return on the terrorists’ investment was spectacular. Assuming the official story is right, then Al Qaeda got $7 million of effect for every dollar it spent on the attack–$7 million to one. That is the ratio of harm inflicted on U.S. targets by the 9/11 attacks, to the financial harm the U.S. inflicted on itself reflects the same amplification. For every $1 of damage they did to us, we did $231 to ourselves. For every American that was killed in the attack, we sacrificed more than two on the battlefield. And that is all before we consider the instability we brought to the Middle East, the harm we did to our own freedoms, and the spectacular cost to our reputation abroad.

The lesson, of course, is that above all else a nation should refuse to do what everyone will expect it to do in response to an attack. And if there is a silver lining, it is that one does not need to be sure of the identity or intent of their attackers to respond intelligently.

Terrorists do not engage in terror attacks because they are strong. They engage in these attacks because they are weak. The gruesome spectacle of terrorism is a cost saving measure in which the fears of the victims and onlookers amplify the resources that the terrorists themselves are able to deploy.

Reacting reflexively is inherently self-defeating. If a nation wishes to make itself an unappealing target, then it should get its primordial fears under control.

We are not made safe from terrorists by helicopters, or missiles, or boots on the ground. Nor is it drones, torture, or digital dragnets that protect us. What makes us as individuals safe from a terror attack is the staggering probability that we will be elsewhere when one occurs. Accepting a tiny chance that we will die at the hands of terrorists is a bargain price for freedom. Reconciling oneself to it is very much like accepting a small chance that one will die on the highway in exchange for the ability to travel at will.

There is much we do not know and much we many never know about ISIS and its objectives. We can, however, be sure of this: ISIS would like the citizens of the West to surrender their liberties while lashing out blindly into the dark.

This time, let’s not.

Bret Weinstein is a professor of evolutionary biology at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.               

From DKos: Confederate Flag Unwelcomes Military FL Vet

As Military Vet I Felt Unwelcome When Rebel Flag Got Big Ovation at Vets Day Parade in Melbourne, FL

By Kwik  

     

Wednesday Nov 11, 2015

This float got the loudest and longest ovation from people attending the Melbourne, Florida Veterans Day Parade. Note how the Robert E. Lee wannabe is staring at my camera as I take his picture and how the lady in front of me is on her feet giving the float a standing ovation.

I went to today’s Veteran’s Day Parade in Melbourne, Fla., to join with fellow military veterans and others to celebrate America and American heroes who have fought to preserve America and protect our freedoms.

 

Instead, I left bitterly insulted and disappointed that a float sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans featuring the Confederate Battle Flag got the loudest and longest ovation of any float in the ENTIRE parade.

 

My heart sank at the sight of that treacherous rag approaching the spot where my wife and I were watching the parade from.  And before it got to us she said it was going to get a rousing ovation...and unfortunately she was right.  The crowd around us went nuts, and, as you can see, the woman in the picture stood up clapping and yelling her support as that wretched float went by.

 

Given the racist nature of many Floridians, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was.  I simply didn’t expect it to that extent.  Disgustingly, there was more excitement and energy toward that float and that flag than there was toward all the floats featuring the American flag.  Far more.  And frankly, being near those folks made me and my wife feel extremely uncomfortable.

 

It makes you wonder what the heck these people are thinking.  While I fully support their right to wave the battle flag and dress in Confederate gear at public events, I don’t pretend to understand why they’d want to—especially at an event designed to celebrate America and its military veterans.

 

Even if you take the racial aspect out of it, at the very least the Confederacy was determined to destroy the United States of America.  If somebody truly loves America, how can they have any respect or appreciation for what the Confederates tried to do?

I have a sinking feeling that most of the folks cheering that flag and float know exactly what the Confederacy was really about...and are proudly planning to call that 1-800-MYDIXIE phone number displayed on the float to express their ongoing support for traitors who LOST the Civil War to the true heroes who preserved the United States of America.

 

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Je suis Paris.

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