Good something.
(Damn job…)
1. Police state, or stupid state? The Boston Globe reports :
Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency.The previously undisclosed program, called “Quiet Skies,” specifically targets travelers who “are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base,” according to a Transportation Security Administration bulletin in March.
The internal bulletin describes the program’s goal as thwarting threats to commercial aircraft “posed by unknown or partially known terrorists,” and gives the agency broad discretion over which air travelers to focus on and how closely they are tracked.
But some air marshals, in interviews and internal communications shared with the Globe, say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat — a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third.
Look at these guidelines regarding what kind of conduct and clues could justify investigating a traveler:
I am less concerned with the civil rights implications of such idiocy than I am with the fact that the policy makers responsible for airport security appear to be morons.
But we knew that, I guess. [Pointer: Amy Alkon]
2. And it isn’t just the TSA. Remember when the IRS hired the same firm that had botched the design of the Healthcare.gov website? Now a recent Treasury inspector general’s report tells us that the IRS rehired more than 200 employees fired for misconduct in a little over a year. An earlier IG report indicates that this is a pattern dating back to 2009. It occurs, apparently, because the IRS does not provide officials responsible for hiring decisions with the information about employment history, so the IRS has rehired, among others…
- A fired worker with several misdemeanor theft convictions and one count of felony possession of a forgery device.
- 11 employees previously disciplined for unauthorized access to taxpayer accounts.
- An employee who was absent without leave for 270 hours—the equivalent of 33 work days.
- An employee fired for physically threatening co-workers.
- An employee fired for lying about previous criminal convictions on employment forms.
- 17 employees previously caught falsifying official documents.
Two IRS employees fired for poor performance were rehired within six months. In its response letter to the Inspector General’s Office, the IRS wrote that the IRS “determined its current process is more than adequate to mitigate any risks to American taxpayers, federal agencies, and its employees.”
Oh. All righty then!
Rep. Kristi Noem, (R-S.D.) has presented a bill, the “Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act,” to the House that would prohibit the IRS from rehiring employees fired for misconduct or poor performance.
Good. (Pointer: The Daily Signal)
3. Tales of the cognitive dissonance scale. Of the 176 riders who started this year’s Tour de France, only five were American. What a difference from less than a decade ago, when cycle racing was a growing sensation among the young in the U.S! What happened? Cognitive dissonance happened, or more specifically, Lance Armstrong happened. The American who caused interest in cycling to soar was ultimately exposed as a con man, a liar and a cheater. The hero became a villain, and he dragged his sport down with him.
That’s how the cognitive dissonance scale works.
4. I think the real lesson is being missed here. Campus Reform reports an academic scandal involving Helen Wilson, who submitted her study, “Human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon” to the Journal of Feminist Geography in 2017, claiming that she held a “doctorate in feminist studies.” (“Performativity”?????) Campus Reform checked with each of the four academic institutions in the United States that offer a PhD program in Feminist Studies, and none could confirm that Helen Wilson had ever earned a PhD. Well, that’s interesting, and shows, as many have long claimed, that scientific journals do not vet their authors and articles as thoroughly as they should.
However, the larger issue is that any journal would publish a study by anyone, credentialed or not, that includes a sentence like, “Dog parks are microcosms where hegemonic masculinist norms governing queering behavior and compulsory heterosexuality can be observed in a cross-species environment.” There are many such sentences in Wilson’s article.
5. It’s official: the social justice warriors and political correctness hacks masquerading as sportswriters are determined to punish every Major League baseball player who was an asshole on social media in high school. First Josh Hader, Milwaukee Brewers relief ace, had his All-Star Game honor marred by being labelled a racist and homophobe based on his dumb tweets when he was a minor. His sport sentenced him to have his brain washed, shrunk, and reprogrammed so no further personal opinions that vary from the One Great Truth will ever darken his neurons. In a highly predictable development, while Atlanta Braves starter Sean Newcomb was almost pitching a no-hitter yesterday afternoon against the Dodgers, a Dodger fan went looking for Hader-like dirt on him. Eureka! Some of Newcomb’s high school tweets were Hader-like, requiring Newcomb, instead of being able to answer questions about his near-masterpiece after the game, to spend time apologizing, denying that he was a racist and a bigot, and telling anyone who would listen that he would humbly submit to re-education too.
Now Trea Turner, the Washington Nationals’ young shortstop, has been fingered in the witch hunt, which this debacle unquestionably is. Last night someone who was mad at the Nationals’ crummy play or something posted old Turner tweets from 2011 and 2012 while he was playing ball at North Carolina State University. If you’re interested, you can see them here, and if you’re interested, what the hell is the matter with you? Turner had no choice but to apologize for his tweets, saying,
“There are no excuses for my insensitive and offensive language on Twitter. I am sincerely sorry for those tweets and apologize wholeheartedly,” Turner said. “I believe people who know me understand those regrettable actions do not reflect my values or who I am. But I understand the hurtful nature of such language and am sorry to have brought any negative light to the Nationals organization, myself or the game I love.”
Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo also had to follow the MLB “It doesn’t matter when you wrote something offensive, we will treat it like you did it yesterday” rule, and said,
“I have spoken with Trea regarding the tweets that surfaced earlier tonight. He understands that his comments – regardless of when they were posted – are inexcusable and is taking full responsibility for his actions. The Nationals organization does not condone discrimination in any form, and his comments in no way reflect the values of our club. Trea has been a good teammate and model citizen in our clubhouse, and these comments are not indicative of how he has conducted himself while part of our team. He has apologized to me and to the organization for his comments.”
NBC Sports blogger Craig Calcaterra, whom I have officially lost all respect for as a result of his thought-police grandstanding on this issue, wrote, among other fatuous statements,
“A lot of young athletes — like a lot of young men — are basically idiots who lack empathy for marginalized people and thus feel it’s cool to use slurs and stuff like that so casually. Maybe we should ask ourselves why that’s the case and what we can do about that.”
That belongs in the biased, arrogant and thought-controlling social justice warrior Hall of Crap, not to put too fine a point on it. The reason, Craig, you pompous, censorious ass, people feel able to make outrageous statements to their friends for the hell of it is that this is a country that once encouraged rather than punished free speech, and recognized that private speech was nobody’s business, and should not be captured and used as a weapon of personal destruction.
“What we can do about that?”
A more sinister question was seldom composed.
Trea Turner the latest player to have his ugly tweets uncovered
Ethics Alarms 
Thank heavens there was no Twitter when I was 16. Who knows what I might have typed after a athletically or socially disappointing night .
You DAMN skippy!
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=you%20damn%20skippy
On point one. Just how many would need to be employed to follow everyone exhibiting a substantial number of said behaviors. I see quite a few people at airports that fit the behavioral model. However, section 2 appears to be a derivitive of Isreali security data points during one on one interactions.
Point 2. If we need legislation to prevent this we have a problem with senior managers that allow this to occur. Upon separation a box should be checked as to whether the individual is eligible for rehire. Termination for cause would be no by default.
Point 4. What is concerning is that no one of any merit questions the linguistic gymnastics some Phd candidates use to make their sophistry sound important. This suggests those who judge such works do the very same thing to increase their sense of self-importance.
Point 5
All of this social grandstanding is self serving. I bet Calcaterra would have sided with those fighting Branch Rickey in his day; not because he agreed with them but because it would allow him to indear himself with them and they would then be willing to give him interviews. It’s the same as why some males claim to be feminists – they think it will make them desireable to women.
He might think twice about denying people the right of speech when someone tries to take his away.
It’s the same as why some males claim to be feminists…
It’s also an excellent out if he gets a woman pregnant. *Feminist* primarily means for both sexes today: Cool with abortion.
I agree but I did not want to go down that rabbithole.
There’s a theory in circles that I swim in, that male feminists tend to punch above their weight class in rapists, pedophiles and abusers. This could be bias, obviously, when someone on “the other side” falls, it’s easy and low hanging fruit, but every year it seems, there’s a rash of middlingly popular male YouTube celebrities that get caught up in arrests for sexually abusive crimes, and then the rest of feminist YouTube pretends they never existed. Last year, Russian Deadpool actually killed his podcast co-host in an (I assume) vodka-infused fury.
I’d love to know what circles you swim in.
That Deadpool story is sad. Also not getting much attn. in media today are the lesbians who are being attacked by those who ID as trans, including a couple murdered by a MtF. Most of these folks also claim to follow the SJW lefty feminist rhetoric…except the Degenderettes. They advocate hurting women & have their very own display in the San Francisco public library for it.
1 Police state or stupid state? I vote both. They want a police state, but have made themselves look ignorant trying to justify the unjustifiable. That’s because they are ignorant, as well as nascent fascists.
2 The IRS — I don’t know who could possibly be surprised by this after what they did to the conservative nonprofits during the Obama administration. This is an organization who is confident that they don’t have to justify anything, and they are right.
We were unable to hold them accountable for the scandal with conservative non-profits, nor has Trump been able to reign in their excesses even as president, so who could possibly be surprised if they thumb their nose at the nation and do what they want in hiring? As far as they are concerned, they can do anything they want, and frankly, I’d say they’ve been proven pretty much correct. That bill will never see the light of day, because the two parties can’t agree that the Earth is, in fact, round.
3 Cognitive Dissonance — Also see Woods, Tiger.
4 The real lesson
So what we have here is an academic paper that is actually Authentic Frontier Gibberish? I’d be willing to bet it has quite a bit of company.
In fact I win my own bet. I offer “The Conceptual Penis As A Social Construct.” Hat tip: The Blaze. Can it be coincidence that they are both ostensibly related to human sexuality?
5 SJW punishing MLB — Thou shalt not engage in wrongthink. It’s the 11th Commandment, don’t you know?
Coming soon to an NFL arena near you. Also to the NBA. But only to white players. There are rules for everything, you know.
Asked… and unfortunately, answered.
“Rep. Kristi Noem, (R-S.D.) has presented a bill, the “Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act,” to the House that would prohibit the IRS from rehiring employees fired for misconduct or poor performance.”
Annnnnd, this bill is limited to the IRS because ……., it doesn’t matter if all other Government bodies rehire people sacked for misconduct or poor performance …., I guess.
Everybody can hate the IRS, but too many oxen belonging to congress critters would be gored if the government in general was included in the bill.
#4 Brought to mind an article “The conceptual penis as a social construct” that was published in a peer reviewed scientific journal in 2017. The article began “The androcentric scientific and meta-scientific evidence that the penis is the male reproductive organ is considered overwhelming and largely uncontroversial.” I think that sentence runs neck and neck with Ms Wilson’s as complete and utter gibberish. The difference is that the conceptual penis article was a deliberate hoax submitted to demonstrate that pretty much anything could be published in the field of “gender studies.” Ms Wilson’s article certainly provides proof that the situation hasn’t improved. Or, is her article a hoax also?
The sad thing is I understood both those titles perfectly. This is why I’m a social studies/women’s studies drop out. Couldn’t take one more class telling me why I should feel oppressed by everything.
Ironically, the same psychological manipulation that engenders feelings of oppression is the same for feminists, racial minorities and supremacists. Each are told someone is rigging the system against them and they are victims that need to fight back.
They spend so much energy fighting perceived injustice that there is little left for achieving personal growth and economic advancement.
While we’re noting NBC’s poor quality journalism in the baseball department, consider this gem:
https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2018/07/29/six-mlb-players-were-elected-to-the-hall-of-fame-today/
The headline: “Six MLB players were elected to the Hall of Fame today”
The players were “elected” months ago, but were “inducted” on Sunday.
While brain slips happen (Editors? What editors?), this has been up for over a day. Admittedly, the headline writer isn’t always the columnist. But there’s the following doozy.
The lede:
“On Sunday, six new inductees entered Cooperstown in what appears to be the largest living class since 1939…”
So it “appears to be”? This is an objective fact, one that can be verified (or refuted, as the case may be). The weasel-worded “appears to be” seems to be reflective (my opinion here, NOT fact) of overall poor quality journalism and the abandoning of the search for truth.
Of course it would have been even worse if it had been:
“On Sunday, six new inductees entered Cooperstown in what appears to be the largest living class since 1939…
…tweeted ESPN’s Joe Blow.”
>>>“On Sunday, six new inductees entered Cooperstown in what appears to be the largest living class since 1939…
So, my instant question: what, then, is the largest dead class to be inducted?
‘largest living class’ indeed: sounds like someone ran out of meaningful things to write about oh, maybe, a few months ago……
“However, the larger issue is that any journal would publish a study by anyone, credentialed or not, that includes a sentence like…[nonsense redacted]”
Jack, this is a publication unironically titled “Journal of Feminist Geography”. I’ll bet the sentence you highlighted isn’t even in the top 500 least-comprehensible, most-risible nonsense word-salad sentences they’ve published this year. However, I do not have the stomach to attempt to verify this hypothesis.
How is there such a thing as feminist geography, and how can there there be enough of it to necessitate a journal of any kind?