Sunday, September 28, 2008

Don't Know Nothin About History

George Bush Should Take a Lesson From President Grant Before Interfering With the Markets (by Tracy Dove, the Naked Historian)

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Friday, September 26, 2008

All Hands on Deck

McCain on the bailout --
"I'm an old Navy pilot," he said, never missing a
chance to mention his war record, "and I know when a crisis calls for
all hands on deck."

What Navy was he in? Nobody running the engines, nobody loading the guns, nobody making sandwiches? No wonder he can't win a war.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Life on the Rio Grande


Lifestyle and Political Blogs


Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Does MSNBC own a map

Some MSNBC news dweeb was broadcasting about the hurrican from Corpus Christi Beach (used to be called North Beach).

He called it "a little sliver of an island.

It's bordered on the North by Nueces Bay, on the East by Corpus Christi Bay, on the South by a Ship Channel, and on the West by a land mass the size of Texas.

There's no development or highway to the immediate West of the beach area, for a few miles it's a narrow strip of marshy land between the Ship Channel and Nueces Bay. But Corpus Christi Beach is not on an island and that would be clear to anybody who knows how to read a map.

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Sunday, September 07, 2008

Fact Checking McCain's Speech

Continuing the thread on McCain's speech:

One of the things he said was
iv
"Executives don't get to vote present."

He was talking about the "present" vote option in the Illinois Senate that had been used by Obama a bunch of times.

But McCain is just wrong, the US President does have an option that's equivalent to the "present" vote.

"Present" is functionally the same as a "no" vote since a bill has to have a "yes" majority to pass. "Present" votes count as votes. A bill with 99 "yes" votes and 100 "present" votes will not pass in Illinois.

The US President can use a pocket veto to stop bill without actually doing anything. It's the same as a "present" vote.

Does McCain actually know the duties of the US President?

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Friday, September 05, 2008

Fact Checking McCain's Speech

He said, "We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers."

Well, okay, one way to reward hard work is with a minimum wage law.

But what does it mean to reward risk takers? If you can be assured that the government will reward you for taking risk then you aren't taking much of a risk.

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Thursday, September 04, 2008

Fact checking Palin's speech

Palin had a very good delivery of her speech last night.

I'm not so sure it was a good speech, it was good in the sense that she applause at all the right spots. But much of it was really just sound byte bullshit. It seems that's what sells though.

One example (I'll try to do some more examples later) is when she said.

"There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you where winning meant survival and losing meant death".

Of course McCain lost (that's how you become a POW, you lose) but survived so she was using just a little bit of hyperbole.

The crowd loved it though.

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Florida Fashion Police

Do we have some empty prisons somewhere with a critical need to be filled?

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Monday, September 01, 2008

Abercrombie & Fitch

The Dallas Morning News website uses pop up ads, which I really dislike. But they have an interesting story on the personnel practices of Abercrombie & Fitch.
There's no in between. You're either Abercrombie hot – or you're not.

Kristen Carmichael discovered she didn't fit the clothing store's self-described "sexy, effortless style" when she was pulled from a sales position on the floor of the NorthPark Center store and shoved back to the stockroom to fold clothes.

This was after they'd rated her face.

The college student who was in Dallas for the summer and her female co-worker had received a 0 ranking on a district manager's monthly audit. The report, posted on a wall in the office, included the question, "Do all female models currently working have beautiful faces?"

There were two choices, 0 and 5, with the higher number signifying an approval rating for the models – an Abercrombie & Fitch term for sales representatives. The same question for the male models had both 0 and 5 marked – a mix.

"It's so subjective how they judge you," said Ms. Carmichael, a 19-year-old brunette with sharp blue-green eyes and a trim, athletic build, who was told by one manager that she wasn't attractive enough to work on the floor.

The debate centers on the ethics of labeling teenage beauty more than on the possibility of unlawful actions. At issue is whether it's morally justifiable to define an "Abercrombie look" these days, three years after a lawsuit settlement forced the retailer to enhance diversity and amid ongoing debate about Abercrombie's marketing practices, which often include shirtless young men and wistful-looking women in thin outer garments.

Todd Corley, Abercrombie's vice president of diversity and inclusion, said the "face" question refers to the full presentation of an individual, not merely his or her visage.

The company says it is important to uphold the brand's image and maintain diversity in its stores. Some sales representatives are chosen to appear in posters, ads and other marketing materials.


'Hierarchy of hotness'

Sales people function as the store's advertising and are handpicked by current employees, said Joshuah Welch, a 26-year-old Dallas resident, was hired two weeks ago as a manager and told to recruit people who walked into the store looking "all-American, clean, wholesome, or the girl or boy next door." He said stocking employees, on the other hand, are told not to speak to customers.

"It's a hierarchy of hotness," he said.

Cory Payne thought he reached the upper tier when he was recruited as a "model," or salesman, at the Dallas store. Then he found himself in the back storeroom.

"It wasn't the job we signed up for," said the tall 22-year-old blond athlete. "We showed up on time and we felt we were being punished for being good employees."

A weekly "secret shopper" evaluation posted in the back room also focuses on appearance. Employees receive one point for a "yes" to the questions, "Was the person in the women's front room attractive?" and "Was the cashier attractive?"

These rating systems remain legal as long as they don't discriminate based on race or gender.

"There's no real problem to discriminate against 'ugly' people," said Jahan Sagafi, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, the firm that represented the plaintiffs in the original diversity suit. "The problem is when you define beauty to incorporate white, which it essentially does at Abercrombie."

Ms. Carmichael and Mr. Payne are both white and say they don't expect legal or financial compensation. Instead, they believe their demotion signifies a disturbingly shallow mentality in youth-focused retail.

The job is "a cattle call and you are hired based on looks, not your ability to fold clothes or work with people," Mr. Welch said.


Fitting a mold

He just quit his managerial training program at the NorthPark store after his bosses told him he would have to leave if he didn't get rid of his new blond highlights.

"I need a job where I am appreciated for the work I do, not because I fit into their mold," said Mr. Welch, who previously worked for Abercrombie in Austin before appearing on a season of the CBS reality show Big Brother.

"I thought they had evolved, but they haven't," he said.

The company agreed in 2005 to pay $40 million to a group of Latinos, blacks, Asians and females who accused the company of advancing whites at the expense of minorities.


Working on diversity

Company representatives say they're fostering a much more diverse and accepting workplace since the lawsuit, with about 32 percent of the floor staff now either Asian, black or Latino.

Last spring, the company – which has more than 1,000 stores and 88,000 employees nationwide – created a new "look book," a collection of images for managers to refer to when hiring.

"It's an array of faces – black, white, Hispanic," Mr. Corley said. "It gives a sense of style, dress. It goes to a whole standard of appearance."

Although the company has hired a diversity coordinator and promoted more minorities to management positions, it's unclear to what extent Abercrombie has adapted its image.

A court-appointed monitor wrote in his second annual compliance report last August that images of Asians and Latinos were "almost entirely absent" in Abercrombie's marketing. A third compliance report is due at the end of the month. Earlier this month, a civil rights group filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Muslim teenager in Oklahoma who alleged she was denied a job because she wears a headscarf.


Unintended bias

Even physical evaluations can tread on shaky ground because they often unintentionally discriminate, said Greg Gochanour, a lawyer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the supervising trial attorney on the 2005 case.

He called the rating system "bizarre" and said he hasn't heard of other companies with this type of audit.

The streamlined image book in each store is intended to take out bias, said Mr. Corley, as are partnerships with organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League. The company also is working with Georgetown University to establish the country's first diversity management program.

Ms. Carmichael, who is back at school in Arizona, said that even if the company isn't technically violating the law, it's still sending the wrong message.

"It just seems so superficial and kind of stupid," she said. "I don't think I'm the most attractive person in the world, but I don't think I'm so hideous you have to shove me into a back room."

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Birdwatchers

Birdwatchers is an Italian movie about conflicts between Brazilian ranchers and native peoples of Brazil.

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Earrings and Denim

This is just too much.

Some ignorant yankee who blogs at Americablog.com doesn't like Palin's choice of earring. Earring.



The commenters are particularly funny. They can't seem to agree on whether or not hoop earrings are "dressing up" or "trollopy". Of course they're all a bunch of ignorant yankees and don't understand that hoop earrings aren't either. They're just ordinary.

Maybe they aren't ordinary in NYC. I don't know. But they sure are ordinary in the United States. Alaska is part of the United States. She's from Alaska. Mississippi is in the United States. She's wearing them in Mississippi.

I'm reminded of an event from when I was a graduate student in the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, in the piney woods of East Texas.

We got ourselves a new dean. A guy from Albany, New York. A guy who had gone to school at SUNY, Albany and had worked at SUNY, Albany most of his career. A guy from New York. Not the City, from upstate, but New York nonetheless.

One of the first things he did was establish a dress code for the deans office staff which included a NO DENIM rule. No denim. In Texas. In rural East Texas.

I think he might have meant no jeans, that was never clear. But some of those women didn't own a skirt that wasn't made of denim. The reaction to the announcement of that rule was hilarious. His deanship went downhill from there. He's not at Sam Houston any more. His replacement as dean was a woman who often wore denim dresses.


h/t althouse

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