Firearm Felons at it again.

I don't really understand the point you're trying to make here, as we (NewsNation, which is definitely conventional, mainstream media on cable and satellite) carried this story at least twice per hour yesterday. Complete with the full-frame mugshot showing the shooter who is clearly black.


Did I miss a straw-man?




Anyway...



Marjorie Taylor Greene.

As sweet old ladies say in the southeastern US, god bless her heart, calling for the motion to vacate Mike Johnson's speakership.

She's trying her best to turn the Republican party into a complete clown-show, on the cusp of what may, in all seriousness, be the most polarizing Presidential election in US history.

I mean... here:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...667884497a.png

That was posted at 8:21pm central daylight time, May 1 2024. Pretty damn clear that the person wanted is black. And, try to keep in mind, WGN caters to... shall we say... the left end of the bell-curve in the Chicago market. But they pay my salary, so here we are.



I'd actually really like a response from you on this one.

WGN is the #1 rated local news station in Chicago, and also the head-end for NewsNation, which is the lowest-rated cable news channel in the USA.

We have both ends of the spectrum covered. If that's not representative of "mainstream media," I'd really love to hear an explanation of what is.

I understand the narrative you're trying to preach, I really do. I'm like 90% there with you. But I'm dumbfounded as to why you keep picking my people to be your strawman, when we are literally putting on the air the very thing that you accuse us of trying to sweep under the rug.

A few weeks ago, we spoke of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who definitely committed suicide just before he was scheduled to give further testimony against the company and that's not at all suspicious.

Apparently, blowing the whistle on Boeing and its subcontractors is also in no way associated with spontaneously developing "a sudden, fast-spreading infection," as Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems learned when he developed a slight case of death this week, after he gave a deposition in a Spirit shareholder lawsuit and also filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration alleging “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line” at Spirit.

Not suspicious at all. Young, healthy people who have accused giant corporations of malfeasance die of completely natural causes all the time. Probably due to climate change.


https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...tems-has-died/

I guess you can't go against Boeing without getting a case of death.

Too many political pockets being lined with gold to let a pesky thing like unsafe aircraft interfere.

I do appreciate that the threatening graffiti which students at the Portland State University are defacing the interior of their library with is eloquently phrased.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1b47f644d9.png

The following is satire. It is not real news.

Someone may have posted for the last whistleblower, but it's too good not to post...

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8a14dfb0e1.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...29d0f84a89.jpg
Second time in my life seeing this.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3162ae4e91.png

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8153cf360d.jpg
I somehow, stupidly, expect this news to get more traction. I guess the trillion dollar climate scare industry sees fit to ignore the data...

I am not an expert, BUT I don't think riot gear chips and or shatters.

Courtesy of The New York Times:


M.I.T. Will No Longer Require Diversity Statements for Hiring Faculty
‎
Applicants were required to explain how they would enhance diversity. Free-speech advocates and others said that requirement enforced groupthink.
‎
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7d8559211d.png


The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said on Monday that it would no longer require candidates applying for faculty positions to write diversity statements, which have been denounced by conservatives and free-speech advocates as forcing a kind of ideological conformity.

In their statements, generally a page-long, candidates were required to explain how they would enhance the university’s commitment to diversity.

Such statements have become enshrined in faculty hiring at many elite public and private universities, as well as in corporate life. Academics have defended them as necessary in judging whether a faculty member can reach out to an increasingly diverse student body.

In announcing the change, M.I.T.’s president, Sally Kornbluth, said diversity statements constituted a form of compelled speech that do not work.

“My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to M.I.T. and to make sure they thrive once here,” Dr. Kornbluth said in a statement. “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”

M.I.T. and Dr. Kornbluth have been under scrutiny by House Republicans for the university’s handling of antisemitism accusations. In December, Dr. Kornbluth testified alongside two other presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, in a congressional hearing on antisemitism, which helped lead to Dr. Gay and Ms. Magill’s resignations. And M.I.T., like many other campuses, has struggled to handle an increasingly intense pro-Palestinian encampment.

Diversity statements have long been opposed by conservatives and many academics as enforcing a kind of ideological conformity. M.I.T.’s decision to drop them could embolden other universities to take a second look. A 2021 study by the American Enterprise Institute found that selective universities were more likely than less selective ones to require such statements.

M.I.T., whose students are required to immerse themselves in science and technology courses, has been in the forefront of pushing back against measures that some say could dilute the rigor of its education. After the pandemic, it was among the first universities to restore standardized testing in admissions, saying that it helped predict academic success.

The practice of screening candidates for their diversity statements, sometimes before considering their academic qualifications, has been attacked as particularly corrosive in the sciences, where maintaining academic rigor in research projects can actually be a matter of life and death. Dr. Kornbluth is a research cell biologist.

Dr. Kornbluth made the move to remove diversity statements with the support of other top officials, including the provost, chancellor, all six academic deans and the vice president for equity and inclusion, according to her statement.

It was not immediately clear whether jobs beyond faculty positions would require diversity statements, or whether this was a first step in dismantling M.I.T.’s broader diversity, equity and inclusion infrastructure.

To supporters, diversity statements are an important tool, now that the Supreme Court has banned race-conscious admissions, in creating a more welcoming environment for students of every background and ethnicity, and bringing in different life experiences to the classroom.

But diversity, equity and inclusion programs have come under concerted attack by conservatives, as well as free-speech advocates and some academics who say they stifle open inquiry.

“They require faculty to endorse or apply specific positions on race, gender and related issues as if they are beyond question, and as if a professor who disputes them is ipso facto incompetent,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression says on its website.



Original: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/u...ty-hiring.html

Sans paywall: https://archive.is/YmZmJ

In my mind, the focus of the above article about how the DEI crap doesn't work is self-evident. Of course reality has said otherwise up until this point. I am hopeful that this pushing back will result in this nonsense being done away with once and for all. I am also realistic...

While I knew that Universities were amongst the leaders in DEI-influenced policy, I had absolutely no idea that "Diversity Statements" were a thing. The fundamental concept seems so bizarre, and I'd have expected that, if an employer was literally requiring potential employees to write a statement describing how their hiring would contribute to diversity on campus, that would have been challenged under EEO law and then appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

The fact that this has gone un-publicized until now genuinely surprises me.

I work for a small division of a large, multinational company. We currently have 42 people working at my location. While we have a bunch of Turks (5, I think, including one who speaks almost no English) we only have a few other minorities, and only one woman. But because NYS, we have to have sexual harassment training yearly. It is so patently stupid, that even our single female rolls her eyes at the hypothetical scenarios presented. The last 4-5 years have included not just sexual harassment, but also all "protected classes", and the list of those grows absurdly longer each year.

I work for a large, multinational corporation, as well.

If you were a male Venusian, transitioning to female that identified as a lesbian, and you had a speech impediment and a wooden leg, if my company hired you pre-DEI, no one would have ever thought you were a quota hire. We hired the best people for the job at hand, irregardfull of the social box they fit in. As soon as a company implements DEI, all that goes out the window. Even if you were truly the most qualified, the curse of DEI will always be there.

DEI = Didn't Earn It