Yep. I thought he kicked Rachel's ass last week.

Credit to Rick Perlstein in "Nixonland". My paraphrase of his book-length argument.

The case of Ricci v. New Haven seems at heart 1 thing - a misplaced emphasis on a testing process only vs. a balanced approach that includes performance on the job, character and team leading skills, comfort with typical tasks......Desidero

In any case, it's not just about Ricci, it's about 20 firefighters denied promotion based upon an agreed upon exam they'd succeeded on.....Desidero

We agree the test may not be the best method of predicting who will make the best fire captain. Ricci had people read him questions suggesting that he may have had access to older tests. There is nothing despicable in that statement. It is a fact. Does that make him qualified to make emergency decisions? No. I brought up the visual graphics scenario as a means of suggesting creating past fire events in such a fashion may provide better analysis for who will respond properly to an emergency situation, dyslexic or not.

You have problems with Buchanan's attack on Sotomayor, yet fall into lockstep with Buchanan in an "A Brief For Whitey". Interesting.

The Jena 6 case has been resolved recently.

http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/the-jena-6-are-free/

Regarding the South, the question in Jena was about unequal sentencing. In the Duke case, the prosecutor (who happened to be White)said that he had a solid case. Jesse Jackson offered a woman who he heard had been raped a scholarship. How many times did Jesse Jackson travel to Durham? Zero.

Here is Jackson's initial column about the Duke Lacrosse Team

Duke: Horror and Truth

By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
© Tribune Media Services

“Divorced Mother Of Two, Working Way Through College, Allegedly Raped, Abused By Gang.” Had the headline read that way, the fury would have been great. The facts that the police didn’t arrest anyone, that the gang was not talking, that it took two days for the police to search the scene of the crime would have added to the anger.

But that’s not how it was reported. Rather, it was reported that a black stripper was accusing members of the Duke lacrosse team of rape after she and another woman were hired to dance for them at a party. That method of reportage put race and class in the center of the story. Predictably, the right-wing media machine has kicked in, prompting mean-spirited attacks upon the accuser’s character. Rush Limbaugh called the two women strippers “hoes,” and later apologized saying “I regret you heard me say that.” And Michael Savage referred to the alleged victim as a "Durham dirt-bag" and "dirty, verminous black stripper". And, it is in this tense atmosphere that the accuser flees from home to home, fearing for her safety. The players got lawyers immediately, who advised them to talk to no one. Duke University boosters hired big-time legal gunslinger Bob Bennett – who counts the Catholic Church as well as then-president Bill Clinton among his clients – to step in as spokesman for the newly-formed “Committee for Fairness to Duke Families”.

We don’t know exactly what happened that night. Initial DNA tests came back negative, incriminating no one. But something happened on the night of March 13th – something so compelling that Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong was prompted to say, “This case is not going away”. Indeed, he asserts that the lack of DNA evidence "doesn't mean nothing happened. It just means nothing was left behind." The District Attorney is putting the case before a grand jury. And, while unresolved racial, gender and class issues dictate and divide perspectives, these facts are not in dispute.

The players say that they used aliases to hire strippers for a team party at the house rented by the team captains. The accuser goes to school full-time at North Carolina Central, and for the past two months has worked at an escort service to help pay her way through school and support her two children. This was the first time she had been hired to dance for a party, but she expected it to be a bachelor party of five men. She and her partner found themselves in a party of more than 30 white male lacrosse players. The one African American on the team wasn’t there.

We know that the two women were abused. The accuser says they were met with racial slurs, and stopped dancing and decided to leave. “We started to cry,” she said, “we were so scared.” They left, but team members came out, apologized, and convinced them to come back. A neighbor reports seeing them leave and then come back, and confirms hearing racial slurs.

The accuser says once they returned, they were separated and she was pushed into a bathroom by three men, strangled, raped, kicked and beaten. The players deny that that happened, but they immediately retained lawyers and stopped talking. The woman was picked up afterward by police, who reported her as “passed out drunk.” Admitted to a hospital, tests showed injuries consistent with rape and physical assault.

The team was notorious for its gross behavior. 15 of the 47 players had been previously charged with misdemeanors ranging from underage drinking to public urination. After the party one player sent out an email saying that he planned on inviting strippers over and then “killing the b…. as soon as they walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off,” an act he said would be sexually satisfying.

Black women; white men. A stripper; and a team blowout. The wealthy white athletes – many from prep schools – of Duke; and the working class woman from historically black North Carolina Central. Race and class and sex. What happened? We don’t know for sure because the Duke players are maintaining a code of silence.

The history of white men and black women – the special fantasies and realities of exploitation – goes back to the nation’s beginning and the arrival of slaves from Africa. The patterns associated with this history arouse fears and evoke too many bad memories.

Duke University is clearly embarrassed by the incident. The president canceled the lacrosse team’s season, and accepted the resignation of its coach, who had taken the team to the national championship last year. He convened five panels to look into various aspects of the incident. At Duke, North Carolina Central, and schools across the country students and administrators began discussing once more the combustible realities of racial and sexual harassment on campus.

Durham, North Carolina where Duke is located is not the old South. Its Mayor is black, as is its police chief, and the majority of its city council. It is relatively prosperous, with low unemployment, home of high-tech companies. The largest black owned insurance company is located there as are two black owned banks. There is also poverty, disproportionately African American. And there is Duke, a private school stocked with affluent, mostly white kids, often referred to as the plantation.

But Duke is alas probably no worse than other schools in the way African American women are too often perceived. As Rebecca Hall of the University of California in Berkeley, who studies images of African American women in the culture, states, “Turn on a music video. A black woman is somebody who has excess sexuality….It’s excess sexuality that white men are entitled to.”

In the wake of the Duke scandal, black women across the country report on how often they are harassed or treated as simply objects available to hit on by white men. This image is magnified in our culture – and not simply by white producers, but on black music videos and black networks as well.

The Duke scandal should lead colleges across the country to hold searching discussions about racial and sexual stereotypes, exposing the myths that entrap so many. But it shouldn’t take the brutalizing of a mother of two to raise these issues. Justice must be pursued at Duke. But Duke should not be treated as an isolated extreme – but as a goad to probing discussion and concerted action to lift students above the hatreds, the fears and the fantasies that still plague our society.
--------------------

Jackson points out that Nifong alleged something had happened despite the negative DNA test. The response of Limbaugh and Savage is noted. Those statements are much more inflammatory than anything Jackson said. Duke's president canceled the lacrosse schedule. Jackson points out that Durham is not part of the "old South mentality". Jackson says this incident is not about "The South". He chastises black rappers and networks for their depiction of Black women.

The above were the facts when Jackson wrote his column. There were no mass demonstrations against Duke. Jesse Jackson did not go to Durham. Nancy Grace did more to keep the Duke fires burning than Jackson.

"Nothing is said of the thousands, perhaps hunderds of thousands of people that scored above her that were denied admission.

Well, I'm guessing no more than one were denied admission strictly because of Sonia Sotomayor, dumbass."

Hundreds of thousands of whites may have scored above Sonia Sotomayor, and have been either academically unqualified for admission; or they may have been academically qualified for admission but unable to pay.

If you take Sonia Sotomayor's SATs there may have been hundreds of thousands of whites and asians who scored above her that didn't go to Ivy League schools. Many, because of inability to pay, might not have even applied.

So the fact that later on in life she succeeded might be less shocking given the fact she didn't really have that much competition.

"Second, do you have any proof for any of the shit you spout in this comment?"

Yes. I have sotomayor's own words as proof for the shit that I spout in this comment. Stop getting upset.

"Do you know that her scores would not have gotten her admission?"

Yes. She freely, unabashadly admits to this fact, and cites it as proof that the policy of affirmative action must continue.

"Do you know how much scholarship money was given to her that would not be given to an otherwise qualified working class white?"

She was given full scholarships for 100% of her tuition.

"I think you're talking out of your ass on the subject of Sonia Sotomayor. And, even if you're right on the facts of her admission to Princeton, the fact that you get outraged by the bending of standards for poor minorities who show every possibility of succeeding at the highest levels of our society, yet show no similar outrage at legacy admissions, athletes, etc. reveals the racist prism through which you and the other anti-affirmative action fanatics view this issue."

I have yet to meet a single legacy candidate in my whole life. I have met thousands of affirmative action beneficiaries--personally. 40% of the population is elegible for affirmative action; less than 1% of the populaton is rich.

While George W. Bush is frequently cited as an example (someone that noone in America has personally met--but we've all read about it the news), he's old enough to be the grandparent of anyone entering the workforce today. His daughters didn't attend Ivy League schools--and their dad was president of the United States. Clearly, the policy of legacy at Yale had changed; it's only relevence is to cite a time period that's as old as the Jim Crowe laws.

Why do you expect me to get outraged about legacy when its effect is so small that I've never personally met a beneficiary? What fraction of the population is so rich that their parents have sufficient connections to sway an admissions board--not two generations ago--but today?

As far as athletes go--they earn their scholarships by entertaining the fans. The tickets sold more than pay for thier tuition. And athletic scholarships results in a more diverse, not less diverse class anyway--it's not as if a majority of gifted football and basketball players are white. And college athletic stars are a very small percentage of the entering class--less than 2% or so. While a person may or may not agree with this policy, it's nothing to get enraged about since its disparate impact is very small. People are enraged about affirmative action because--since 40% of the population is eligible--its disparate impact is huge. Moreover, more than 50% will be eligible very soon (and this is already the case in most urban areas)--meaning that we will have crossed the line where blacks and hispanics are a numerical majority--and where discriminating against whites and asians means discriminating against minorities.

And, Test, if you would like to know how Princeton allocates its financial aid, please read this report, which breaks it down to the dollar:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S19/19/37O67/index.xml

I think the case of South Africa disproves your reference to when minorities become large. There blacks were the majority, but left out of most positions of power.

Not exactly. I did not say that if whites become a minority, they will become second-class citizens. I said that if whites become a minority, it will become far costlier to have government racial policy skewed toward protecting non-white interests over those of whites.

I also said that in the absence of a white majority, having our racial policies specifically favor non-whites (i.e. have them operate on the theory that whites are always the oppressor and non-whites are always the victim) will turn whites into second-class citizens.

During white rule in South Africa, the government did not have such policies, so Apartheid South Africa really isn't an example of what I was referring to.

Whether post-Apartheid South Africa disproves my reference sort of depends on whether or not you think it is headed the way of Zimbabwe.

"Not really. 1969 seems late, but its still history. There is no evidence that females are disadvantaged--in fact, current statistics would suggest the exact opposite." "Pure poppycock. Statistics will show..."

Statistics will show that currently, in the current crop of college-age kids, there more women both applying and being admitted to college than men. Women currently have better grades, on average, then men (and the higher test scores that men often get are being given less emphasis in the admissions process than before.) For that reason, I said women no longer need any additional help in college admissions despite the fact that in 1969, which is 40 years ago, women were admitted to Yale for the first time.

"People shifted jobs all over the place in the 1990's and made a tidy sum of money - both entrepreneurs and people who rode their coattails in regular dayjobs. If the government change in 2001 didn't decide to shift from a capitalist market economy back to crony capitalism and a war economy, we could have continued much of that growth as we improved efficiency, paid down debts and improved services. But a few hundred billion siphoned off to my closest friends each year certainly lowers available services from both the government and private sector."

Millions of people have some culpability in the last economic downturn. It wasn't just the big guys at the top that caused it; the real damage was caused by the individual mortgage brokers who overlooked any due diligence before writing loans they should have never written. They later sold these off in packages that were inappropriately priced by the market--and repeated the process until the collapse eventually occured. Millions of homeowners borrowed inappropriately to buy houses that they could pay for under only the most rosy of scenarios.

And none of that has much to do with affirmative action. Whether affirmative action needs to end eventually--and whether that date should be moved foward towards the present due to demographic changes in the US that will make minorities into the majority--has absolutely nothing to do with whether a few CEOs and millions of homeowners behaved badly.

Could the US afford more liberal economic policies if people never made mistakes? Yes.

However, that seems to be an overly optimistic expectation as well, doesn't it?