Headlines

168101112

Comments

  • probably a good thing i've never actually used my robinhood account. pretty sure i'd be up to my eyeballs in debt and my wife would hate me.

    the fed backstopping every stock has really made fundamentals of stock markets not mean anything. tesla gained the equivalent (in market cap) of ford for no goddamn reason.

  • edited August 2020

    Well, the midwest is about to be on fire again.

    https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2020/08/23/wisconsin-police-shooting-kenosha-cops-shoot-man-sunday-evening/3427347001/

    The usual suspects online are already spreading false rumors.

    • "The guy had shot his girlfriend and that is why the cops were there" (I haven't seen this anywhere but twitter and facebook)
    • "This is because they defunded the police" (They have not defunded a damn thing in Kenosha)
    • "They shot the cops brother" (I don't think this is true)

    And my favorite, from someone in a rural area an hour away from Kenosha that owns tons of rifles and ammo already:

  • Well that should be interesting, at least.

  • D.C. Public Schools Spend $30K Per Student; Only 23% of 8th Graders Proficient in Reading

    For that kind of money, they should consider closing the schools and hiring everyone tutors.

  • edited September 2020

    Eh. A couple of things:

    First: What is the national average percentage for NAP proficient or higher?

    Answer: 32%.

    They're still not rated well. But its not the dramatic difference the article implies. They're within a margin of error compared to some other states at "NAP basic" at least.

    Second: Are they purposely choosing the expenditures that look the worst?

    Answer: The number they chose includes interest on school debt and 'capital expenditures' (that don't include construction or remodeling). They have a lot of school debt... it looks like twice as much as the next highest state on a quick scan. Not sure if that includes bond payments voters asked for or if they're just being run like the federal government. Probably a mixture of both, since the DC local government is constantly overridden on their educational agendas. Either way its not an apples-to-apples comparison for cost of instruction.

    In any case, I've seen other numbers from the Census Bureau website, and that showed under $20k per student in D.C. (Also in 2016), which is pretty close to the 'current expenditures' total on the chart in the article. According to the census website, about half of that was spent on 'instruction'.

    (Side note: Don't go to public school in Utah).

    I think we've debated before about how some cities spend their school money inequitably. Plus "No Child Left Behind" has actually guaranteed that schools that under-perform actually get less federal money instead of more. One of these days I need to find a chart showing how school performance in large urban areas has changed since NCLB was instituted.

  • As I read dystopian headlines, eroding democratic norms, post office stuff, ICE giving women hysterectomies, Trump saying more weird shit, etc., in the back of my mind part of me wonders what Bill thinks when he reads the same headlines. Fake news? regrettable but necessary? something else?

  • @fenomas said:
    As I read dystopian headlines,

    Predicted, and the chickens are coming home.

    eroding democratic norms

    This has been going on since the Civil War, probably. It became apparent in the Wilson administration. "Too proud to fight" my ass.

    post office stuff

    Trump fears that every habitual non-voter will suddenly vote Democrat. This phenomenon is not without precedent. See, for example, the districts with 100% voter turnout during the Gore vs. Bush contest in Florida.

    ICE giving women hysterectomies

    There are many bad people in the world. They aren't enacting public policy.

    Trump saying more weird shit

    Trump always says weird shit. My judgment on Trump is that he failed. It was worth a try, but the country and all of Western civilization appears to be in for a world of hurt.

  • edited September 2020

    Well that answers my question :|

    That said, "failed but was worth a try" is an odd take. I mean, love the guy or hate him, he's been incredibly predictable. Everything we now know to be bad about him was completely obvious from the start; everything he's done, it was obvious he was going to do.

  • The big surprise for me was the amount of damage he did to internal government agencies. Trump must have had help picking the worst person possible for every appointment, there's no way he would have known exactly who would be best suited to ruin everything.

  • Immigration is the most important issue of our time. Anyway,

    Seattle pays ex-pimp $150,000 to offer ‘alternatives to policing’

  • Immigration is a non issue.

    Andre Taylor was arrested in 2000 on charges of pimping, and served a little over a year. He has built a consulting company over time that has had a relationship with Seattle since before 2018. (Not that it has done much good, considering the videos of police starting riots I keep seeing out of that city).

    I will say he probably isn't qualified to be chief of police or to run a women's shelter. But if his consulting agency is legitimate then it should be seen as a success story.

  • Immigration a non-issue? What about all those caravans?

  • Which ones? The refugee kids, families scared out of their countries, or the imaginary violent criminal ones?

    Either way, it seems like a pool of people that would be grateful for a chance to grow up safe, work, and/or become a citizen to me. I'm not necessarily saying let anyone become a citizen without review. I am saying that our current immigration system has set up a barrier of entry that is too high and focused mainly on slowing the spread of brown people unless they're doctors or something.

    What am I keeping them away from? Jobs? More people means more demand for goods and services. If those goods aren't being manufactured here or those services not providing a living wage for the proportion of people they serve than we have different issues than who it is that is working the jobs.

    Crime? Immigrants on average commit fewer violent or property crimes than citizens. Illegal immigrants even less than that.

    Culture? Meh. Something something melting pot.

    Language? shrug

  • edited September 2020

    Investigative Journalism isn't dead quite yet.

    Info on far right attempts to incite violence in Portland...
    https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/09/23/patriot-coalition-far-right-chat-logs-violence/?fbclid=IwAR2wQegrTxi4PhwTA6GppTgoJfQDt5hTXFC10slF_e3pHjVzcJa4-XonDks

  • If you guys want to know what's going on in Seattle you know you can just ask me, right?

  • Cool!

    What is your opinion on the Andre Taylor article that Mr. Bill posted, or of the consulting company that he is heading?

    I have multiple sources for recent data about police brutality out of Seattle and Portland, but anything outside of that niche can sometimes be unreliable.

    @Bitchycakes said:
    If you guys want to know what's going on in Seattle you know you can just ask me, right?

  • I knew there would be milkshakes at the Pride Boy rally a couple days before they were served, but watching the media and our president try to push for ANTEEFA to be labeled a terrorist organization after the fact has completely removed any desire to talk about it.

  • The collective screeeeeeeeching of conservatives on my various feeds since the debate... they're complaining about Joe Biden stating that antifa was an idea rather than an organization has me wanting to find a few milkshakes myself.

    Of course any time they're challenged on it they just go "Why was he so triggered by mention of his criminal son Hunter?" Which makes me want to upgrade to cans of soup.

    Soup for my family.

  • Random thought: Trump's weird reluctance to condemn white supremacism becomes extra disturbing when you consider how indiscriminately he lies about things.

    Like, when he needs to burn a former aide or a long-time associate or whatever, it's always "total loser" or "never met the guy" without a second's hesitation. But for some reason the white supremacism question really gets him hemming and hawing.

  • edited October 2020

    America has a problem...

    Whenever an issue of major social importance comes up, an extremist minority group of assholes and opportunists (on both sides of the issue) hijack the narrative and drown out the majority with legitimate complaint.

    Then the people who want to suppress the legitimate complaint, point at the people on the opposite extreme to find excuse to claim that the complaint is illegitimate, and find excuse to ignore the issue.

    Bill seems determined to take the bait on this, with his laser focus on the looters. Yes, looters are bad; but they have nothing to do with the problem. If there was no problem, the looters and anarchists wouldn't have an excuse.

  • In normal times I'd laugh at thatstory.

    I don't fucking know what to think now.

  • I think the average level of craziness has been going up.

  • It seems like Florida Man was always like this. :)

    But yeah, I don't disagree.

Sign In or Register to comment.