Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I asked some Jehovah Witnesses this week if it would be fair for demonstrators in Iraq to start burning the works of Hans Christian Anderson in retaliation for the Dutch burning their fairy-tales.

Does the next POTUS believe in too many gods?

How Oklahoma became Ground Zero in the war over Church-State separation.

Here is an update on the religious discrimination case in NC where an atheist was fired for not attending worship in work.

The religious in Mississippi are sincere in putting their children at a greater risk of illness or death.

Desperate to show Democrats are “promoting atheism,” Republicans divulged sensitive data.

World of Woo: Some more stupider people!

Environment: Mid-winter temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius in South America leave climatologists in disbelief.

Are we really living in the Anthropocene, the geological time marked by the global impact of human activity?

What are the prospects that we might soon face another coronavirus-like viral pandemic?

Is “groupthink” in science a problem or a myth?

Ideological segregation in the echo chambers on Facebook.

Why the laws of physics will never explain the universe and why the Big Bang might not have been the beginning of our Universe.

The truth is out there. But this UFO ‘whistleblower’ likely doesn’t have it. What does 60 Years of silence tell us about the search for Extraterrestrials?

Major cancer discovery reverts cancer cells back into normal cells.

Long Reads: Sympathy for the Devil; the making of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Welcome to the Transhumanist Party.  The great libraries of Rome.  How will Artificial Intelligence change the News Business?  Beirut, at Sunset.

Sunday Book Club:  One of the books by Milan Kundera, probably The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Video:  Milton Friedman on free enterprise and government spending. Atheist endures a debate with a theist. Bart Ehrman in discussion with Lawrence Krauss. The Swimmer.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg!

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Reg

Right Wing Watch now has a pay wall. Too bad. More and more the news is for the well-heeled. If you want to get your news from just about all the major newspapers, you have to pay. Now even a minor source like this is demanding that you pay to enter.

Usually in the case of minor sites, there is an X you can click to close the pop-up, but I found none.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  Unseen.

[StregaModerator]

Hi Unseen, this used to frustrate me all the time, over here in the US.
A trick I learned from a friend was to copy the few words I could see, and paste them into a search engine – there are apparently many minor local news outlets that carry the same article without the paywall.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

The ongoing story of Aurora Pro Services was always a wonder to behold.

Employment discrimination law aside, it is just a stupid business practice to put any consideration above merit and productive ability in hiring, retaining, promoting, and overall treatment of employees and contractors. Any firm that doesn’t operate on merit and ability shouldn’t be trusted with building an outhouse, let alone repairing a home.

I am glad to see more companies in all fields are seeing the light here as well and ditching DIE–er–DEI policies and the phoney positions created by them.

The Rise and Fall of the Chief Diversity Officer
Diversity executives hit the exits as company priorities shift; ‘everything is a battle’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chief-diversity-officer-cdo-business-corporations-e110a82f

Meanwhile, my area of North Carolina has an even worse problem than employers nebbing their workers on Theology.

There has been a wave of I should add alleged sexual predators preying upon the innocence of children, and six of out of nine are representatives or agents of both Religion and State…and two are out on bond!

9 arrests made in Charlotte-area child sexual abuse cases since March

Since March, WCNC Charlotte has covered nine child sexual abuse cases in the greater Charlotte area, and at least six of the suspects held positions of power.
Author: Julia Kauffman
Published: 11:47 PM EDT August 4, 2023
Updated: 12:18 AM EDT August 5, 2023
https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/crime/charlotte-area-child-abuse-cases-arrests/275-0ad88433-da82-481d-bde8-b892702c972f

There is simply not enough practice of the bumper sticker wisdom to “Question Authority” in the world. It needs to be part of every child’s upbringing and lifelong learning.

On a brighter note, that was a fantastic story about reversing cancer cells back into normal cells! While harrowing surgery and chemotherapy are the ports in a storm for now, this new treatment if it works could make cancer as rare as leprosy!

Maybe soon, we’ll be able to look at surgery and chemo as grim relics next to blood-red barber poles where barbers once performed leechings just one Century ago. Must wait and see…

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum for due process

[DavisModerator]

Encoginator, you seem to be under the impression that companies hire based on merit. There have been more than enough studies to show that women and visible minorities, better qualified are passed up for, typically, white men. This is done even by those who have been trained in, and fully agree with diversity in the work place. That bias is pernicious and hard to fight. If merit was reflected in the work place, it would align with the rate at which women and visible minorities graduate with distinction. It does not remotely do so.

Policies which work to fight bias against under hiring women and visible minorities (not to mention the disabled and those in the LGTBQ+ sector) which work to ensure a level playing field…are entirely reasonable. If the idea is to ensure those who merit being hired actually happens, such a policy helps realise that.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Davis, privately and as an attorney i have heard so many stories about hiring and nepotism. Know somebody? If not fahgettaboitit. And i aint from Joisey.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@unseen – The RWW paywall must only be in certain regions. Works for me in GA and in Ireland. Sometimes though a splashscreen about “supporting us” pops up but I refresh the link and it works fine after that.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

If not fahgettaboitit. And i aint from Joisey.

Could have fooled me with that accent 🙂

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Reg

Refreshing did the job. I’ll have to remember that trick, though I’m pretty sure it won’t work on the major sites like NYT, WSJ, and WashPo.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

I meant to tell you earlier: Thank you very much for posting the video of the one whom we Libertarians affectionately call Uncle Miltie! 🤓

The singing group America also put well lyrically: “Oz never did give nothing to The Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.”

Of course, now Government spending takes up a far bigger portion of the Gross Domestic Product of the U.S. and many other nations than in Friedman’s time, so his words are even more pertinent than ever.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Davis,

Encoginator, you seem to be under the impression that companies hire based on merit. There have been more than enough studies to show that women and visible minorities, better qualified are passed up for, typically, white men. This is done even by those who have been trained in, and fully agree with diversity in the work place. That bias is pernicious and hard to fight. If merit was reflected in the work place, it would align with the rate at which women and visible minorities graduate with distinction. It does not remotely do so.

Recall from my words above: I didn’t say that all companies always hire on merit, only that they are economically stupid if they don’t do so.

A private enterprise makes a profit to the extent that it can produce goods and services that others in the marketplace want to buy at a price that pays the overhead expenses of the enterprise, with what’s left over as profit.

Producing goods and services requires hiring based on merit and ability, not irrational considerations like immutable traits of birth. If the enterprise doesn’t hire rationally—whether because of personal prejudice or Jim Crow laws or Affirmative Action laws or adopting DIE/ESG policies– then the enterprise’s productivity suffers and is less profitable and eventually becomes insolvent.

And the phenomenon of graduates without jobs in their field of study is not entirely the result of irrational discrimination, but from two other major reasons.

One, Government subsidy of higher education through student loans, Pell Grants, research grants, and other subsidies creates a glut of graduates.

Two, the taxation and unnecessary regulation of business make enterprises less profitable and less able to hire new employees and contractors.

Put together, this means a disconnect between the number of work-seekers and the number of work positions available.

Ending Government subsidies to higher education and scaling back taxation and regulation would ultimately mean a closer fit between work-seekers and those who need them and ultimately greater opportunities for all.

And fear not, lack of Government education would not mean zero education, just different education and career tracks than done by most today, such as what I call The Eric Hoffer Fellowship. Eric Hoffer independently studied and wrote profound things about history, culture, civilization, and the psychology of joiners of mass movements…yet by trade he was a Longshoreman.

Policies which work to fight bias against under hiring women and visible minorities (not to mention the disabled and those in the LGTBQ+ sector) which work to ensure a level playing field…are entirely reasonable. If the idea is to ensure those who merit being hired actually happens, such a policy helps realise that.

Anybody who takes Government subsidies or Government contracts certainly should be required to be Equal Opportunity, but otherwise, private enterprises with no Government subsidies or contracts should be free to make their own hiring decisions and take their economic lumps if they hire poorly. And even enterprises that take subsidies and contracts should not be held to quotas, goals, and timetables for hiring. Ticking boxes still doesn’t get the job done.

Pop-Up Video Factoid: Woolworth’s may have remainders in the U.K., Australia, and the Third World, but closed all it’s doors in the U.S. in 1997 and hasn’t been in my town since 1982. The little lunch counter incident in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960 didn’t do them any favors.

Sucks to be Woolworth’s, but they couldn’t have picked a better time to die.

Now there are literally millions of better ways for people of all conditions of birth to forage, hunt, trap, raise, grow, manufacture, purchase, deliver, prepare, cook, and eat more grub than the whole Earth can handle in a single sitting, all produced from less than 2 percent of the U.S. population who farm and shrinking numbers of the world’s population who farm.

Life is indeed better!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendums for clarity
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: More clarity

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