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That's only if you assume that article is the only evidence. The link was just a quick google result meant to just show the correlation, because many people who blame the legacy of slavery, or racism, or something inherent with blacks don't realize crime, poverty and single motherhood had already gotten much better 100 years after slavery, before the welfare state war on poverty. None of the "explanations" commonly given in left-wing nor in racist circles even correlate with the timeline of the facts, let alone explain them.

Here's a summary from Dr. Thomas Sowell, noted black Harvard educated (pre-affirmative action) economist. Here's a longer, more detailed look at the issue from City Journal. If you want even more detail, including academic studies and citations, the best source is Sowell's books “Wealth, Poverty, and Politics" and “Vision of the Anointed”, but I obviously can't link you to a free to read copy of those. Here's someone who tried to summarize part, including some of the references to other countries which experienced the same issue, making the theory replicable.

I think there is definitely some room for additional contributory explanations like the "war on drugs" as well, although the timing on that doesn't match up as well for an inflection point. If you think about it, lacking education and career opportunities is silly as an explanation, unless you think those were improving for black women until the 1950s, but with the Civil Rights Act and such in the 60s, suddenly it all started getting much worse? Somehow I don't think that is going to hold much explanatory power. Correlation doesn't prove causation, but you do need at least some correlation in order to consider something for such a dramatic causation. When the same correlations occur in other countries like England and among other races (like whites), the pattern becomes pretty obvious.

The impacts of similar laws are demonstrated as recently as 1999 in Britain. I couldn't find a direct link to the journal article itself, but in news article summary: 'The prestigious Journal of Economics has published "The Effect of In-Work Benefit Reform in Britain on Couples: Theory and Evidence"'showing "the introduction of the Working Families Tax Credit has increased the divorce or separation rate by a staggering 160 per cent among women married to or living with a partner who either does not work, or who earns very little because he works part-time."

There is literally a ton of related evidence, not just a single correlation. Most anyone who has honestly researched the various timings, effects and related welfare system laws can see the same thing, it's not a big mystery, although it does tend to quash some people's kneejerk reactions of slavery, racism or some inherent racist characteristic.

...to send me your life savings?

Actually the hysteria is mounting.

Fixed that for you.

The Russian's hacked power plants storyline was bullshit.
CrowdStrike is bullshit.
The "17 intelligence agencies" line was bullshit.
The Russia hacked election systems is bullshit.

find this report by the Director of National Intelligence particularly interesting

Sure, lets look at this - while remembering the FBI wasn't allowed to examine the DNC servers so how exactly would they have "high confidence" in any thing - but this time noting the weasel words:

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.

Zero evidence provided, only claims and accusations. Well guess what Chem Trailers, Sandy Hook Truthers and Birthers have? Claims and accusations.

Then there's the fact the entire "Russia wanted Trump to win so hacked the election" makes no sense whatsoever. The election was Hillary's to lose, right up until she picked Tim Kaine as her running mate and decided to skip campaigning in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. So according to the storyline, Putin was crafty enough to dig up dirt on Hillary (which was all true) but dumb enough to collude with someone as dumb as Trump. Which means the CIA, NSA & FBI would know all about it. Which meant Hillary would too, who had already campaigned on shooting down Russian jets in Syria. So what's really going on?

The entire "Russian hacking" storyline is nothing but Swiftboating from Clinton supporters, as she was the candidate who engaged in corrupt collusion with Russian interests to sell a fifth of America's uranium.

And you can skip that Snopes link that handwaives away Hillary's culpability for a number of reasons:
1) Access is corruption
2) Avoiding the appearance of impropriety applies to politicians, not just judges
3) Her own campaign was warned internally that the deal was a political liability for her
4) Hillary flat-out broke her confirmation promises on keeping a wall between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation

At this point, Chem Trailing anti-vaxxer Birther Sandy Hook Truthers have more respectability than Russiagaters.

Antifa was fighting the original fascists in Italy in 1921 already.

And the Democratic Party was supporting slavery in the 19th century — and still had a KKK "Grand Wizard" among it Senators until his recent death.

Yes its the same organization.

Whether it is "the same" or not, it is openly violent and favors the ever-increasing government control of the means of production. Which makes them very very Fascist.

House Intelligence Committee Republicans wouldn't be dragging their feet on the Russia investigation.

Phlease, there is nothing to "investigate" there. I'm yet to hear even a coherent accusation — much less any evidence, however circumstantial or otherwise unreliable.

He actually WAS working on closing it down, by transferring detainees out of Guantanamo

He-he... Much comfort that is — from the loving care of MPs to the gentle mercies of civilian wardens. More importantly, perhaps, Obama also changed the entire doctrine from capturing suspected terrorists to outright killing them. That's actually bona-fide evil, but with media airbrushing it, he was given a pass — even the unwarranted killing of Osama bin Laden was celebrated with only a few people asking, why he was ordered killed, not captured.

To recap, the folks, who roasted Bush alive for detaining suspected terrorists, were perfectly fine with Obama murdering same. And still he has not fulfilled his promise to drain Guantanamo...

until Republicans took over congress under his watch

Two years... Two years was not enough for him to disperse a few hundred prisoners... Trump's been in office for less than 100 days and you are already trumpeting his "failures"...

No, you can't make this shit up because it happens to be true.

https://www.creators.com/read/...

https://www.creators.com/read/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Of course, it's not a history that Democrats and progressives are fond of, which is why they have been trying hard to rewrite history.

No, you can't make this shit up because it happens to be true.

https://www.creators.com/read/...

https://www.creators.com/read/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Of course, it's not a history that Democrats and progressives are fond of, which is why they have been trying hard to rewrite history.

Guns save lives - Thomas Sowell
http://www.creators.com/opinio...

Summary: in the US, where there are around 300 million personal firearms.
There are around 30,000 firearms deaths per year. 20,000 firearms deaths are self-inflicted (suicide) and would occur whether firearms were available for self-defense or not. of other the 10,000 firearms deaths, many are gang violence. However, set against the 10,000 non-suicide gun deaths is around 100,000 violence crimes prevented by citizens. In many cases the firearm is not discharged, the mere presentation is enough to deter the crime.

In cases such as a string 26-year old male attacker who waited for the family to go out the only defense a 12-year old girl had against rape and possibly murder at the hands of the much-stronger attacker was the pink rifle her father had given her. She was able to stop the attacker in her home and drive him off. And there are many, many similar cases like this.

Whether or not you believe citizens have a right to self-defense - or if you think it is somehow morally superior' to be defenseless and slaughtered like sheep either by criminals that don't obey gun control laws; or by any of the mass-murdering Governments (National Socialism, Soviet Socialism, Chinese Socialism, North Korean Socialism, Cuban Socialism, Vietnamese Socialism, East German Socialism, Ba'athist Socialism, and various Islamist regimes) that murdered over 200 million of their *own* citizens in peacetime - then the statistics are clear: GUNS SAVE LIVES.

The best defense against a bad guy/jihadi with a gun really is good guys with guns. This is proven over and over and over again.

Now if you don't like firearms then please don't obtain and learn how to use one - but it is illogical and immoral to say that competent individuals cannot have access to firearms for self-defense. Even Europeans are slowly starting to grok this (shotguns are pretty much sold out in Austria as their country buckles under invasion of a large number of unruly youths who don't share European cultural norms about not stealing, not raping and not trashing the joint). I wish this were not the reality of today's world, but unfortunately it is.

Just wait for these inv... undocumented Earthlings to really figure things out. In addition to medicines, they'll also be eligible for schooling, tax "credits", food stamps, "Obamacare" and other assistance. Some of these hand-outs will be illegal (in the US), but they will happen and no one will be punished for allowing it to happen.

The verb profiteer has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)

1. profiteer -- (make an unreasonable profit, as on the sale of difficult to obtain goods)

But we already know, that "profiteering" is bad (heck, to nearly half the country "profit" is bad!), so why not use the word as a dirty term against someone we dislike?

Any heterosexual man has the same basic physical capabilites as a homosexual man, so he could easily engage in homosexual acts... [...] Face it: There is no "gay gene".

1) There is the concept of physical attraction. Looking at a woman's breasts or thighs or buttocks and being attracted. Versus looking at a man's buttocks, biceps or chest and being attracted.

2) There are simple measurable physical tests for both attraction and arousal.

For a bisexual, he can probably be aroused by another man and get an erection. For a pure heterosexual, this is simply not going to happen.

I'm sure there are porn stars who have such will and control over their erections that they can generate an erection on demand. But my suspicion is most mail porn stars are bisexuals. Ron Jeremy said, "At any given time there are about 24 reliable woodsmen, guys who keep good erections in the American porn scene. You know, myself, Randy West, Peter North, Tom Byron." But let's say they are pure hetero - that's 24 people he's talking about in the 300 million strong US population.

You're right in that there is a lot of variation in sexuality. Serial killers are aroused by murdering the objects of their attraction. I've seen estimates of up to 50 active serial killers in the US at any one time.

I'm sure there is pretty much any variation of sexuality out there one can imagine. In tiny numbers. Focusing on those instead of the larger groups is an inability to see the forest because of the trees.

Employment is a trade of skills for money, not a benevolent gift by a kindly rich man. Why do so many righties forget that?

Because they desperately want to pretend that it's not so.

Compare:

If I sign a mortgage that I can't pay for, it's my fault for not reading the contract and understanding what it would mean and what my responsibilities are.
If a company signs a labor contract that they can't pay for, it's the union's fault for threatening to withhold labor which companies are entitled to.

If I complain about the price of good X because demand has driven up the price, well, that's just the law of supply and demand.
If a company complains about not being able to find skilled workers at minimum wage, well that's quite alright. Let's get on those immigration laws right away, after all, they're entitled to cheap labor.

If I complain about the quality of a good, I'm told to vote with my wallet and find someone willing to make it to the specifications I desire.
Companies complain about university degree programs not being their personal training programs, and Republicans respond by trying to completely remodel universities instead of suggesting that their HR department stop insisting on degrees and consider vocational training or gasp training their own employees.

Just this morning a came across a column that mentioned a number of people in the press who claim that since the organizations they work for have failed to report on the Obama Administration's many scandals the Obama Administration is remarkably scandal free, when in fact there have been as many, or more, scandals(or what would be scandals if the media chose to report on them) in the three years of the Obama Administration as there were in just about any previous administration.

Speculators get blamed a lot, but they aren't the real problem. They are a convenient distraction from the real issues that government doesn't want to address, like drilling more domestically. I found John Stossel's opinion on speculators to be rather interesting. He typically does his homework.

He's discovered how to use the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle to perpetuate his delusions.

Oh, look, it has discovered, how to use fancy terms to survive in an argument.

Hint... The fallacy of excluded middle (a.k.a. "False Dilemma") has nothing to do with the matter at hand or my argument.

We are on the slippery slope — the government is ever increasing its role in all aspects of life. The other metaphor is "the slowly-boiling pot"...

"The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology."

Ayn Rand

When people like me were warning, that Roosevelt's "New Deal" is the path towards government's (federal, state, and local combined) controlling about 50% of the nation's spending, people like you were ridiculing the dire predictions... A government-controlled (and mandated) healthcare remained just as much "an uncontested absurdity" back then, as the government's control of our food, shelter, and higher education seems a scare-mongering absurd to you today...

Actually I did. Just how stupid are you? Try reading. it. again.

The link is there now. It wasn't when I responded to your posting earlier. Why? I don't know. My account is configured to insert the domain name after linked text (to avoid the URL trolls), and it wasn't there when I pasted your quote into my reply.

But, I went to look at your link. To be clear, WSWS.org is the World Socialist Web Site. I prefer to avoid citation of clearly partisan sources, but I read through the article and found the assertion you quoted:

The top .1% of Americans earned almost as much as the bottom 150 million Americans.

Based on other data I've seen, something didn't add up. So, I went to look at the actual report. I was only able to find the version dated through 2002, but the home page of one of the authors has the Excel data, updated through 2006. I wasn't able to find the statement in question in the report. I also wasn't able to find the NY Times article that the WSWS article cites. So, I don't know the source for the statement.

But, we should be able to verify it ourselves. Download the Excel workbook and take a look at the worksheet named "Table0". There, you can see the average income (including capital gains) for the top 0.1% is $3.7M. Multiply that by the number of families (133,325) and you get a total of $495B. In the same table, the total number of families is 148M. Dividing 495B by 74M (1/2 of 148M) yields an average income per family for the bottom 50% that must be less than $6,672, if the statement in question were correct.

The workbook doesn't contain information by percentile, for less than 90%. But, this graph was derived from Table A-3: Selected Measures of Household Income Dispersion: 1967 to 2003. The table on the same page shows the same data, and in 2003, the average income of the lowest quintile is $10,536 -- substantially higher than the implied average of $6,672 for the lowest 50% that is claimed above.

I'm not claiming that the report is in error, although there is certainly some controvery about it. However, it appears that someone's interpretation doesn't meet the smell test. You might want to take some time reading the entire report and corroborate it against other sources.

The graph from Wikipedia (derived from a US Census report) appears to support part of your claim: the gap between the 95th percentile and the 10th percentile has certainly gotten wider since 1967. The gap between the 10th and 50th percentiles also has gotten wider, although to a lesser extent. However, the gap has leveled off or even declined slightly since 1999 -- ironically since Bush 43 took office.

Yes, that is exactly what I want. I think it would be good for the country if congress had to come up with a 2/3 majority to pass anything...

I'm afraid that's one of those ideas that sounds nice on the face of it, but would be a disaster in practice. And the reason for that is the Senate, where the least populated states get the same two senators as California. Some people did the math and discovered that 3% of the population is enough to block legislation from passing. And that's with a 3/5 majority, much less 2/3.

A lot of people have talked about the incentive purposes of copyright, which is the constitutional basis for copyright protection in the US. Other countries have started from a different direction, which is the author's "moral right" to control his work and what happens to it. My favorite example of this is something Gary Larson wrote about people putting up Far Side comics on the web. I think this is something most people can appreciate.
http://www.creators.com/index2_anotefromgarylarson .html

...what a beowulf cluster of Neanderthals would accomplish?

Perhaps that's how the goatse.cx posters came about.

Anyway, all I ever needed to know about Neaderthals came from BC

Their entry page shows the date as Saturday, January 1, 192000...

Oops.

You are the first person I've, well, "met" who reads Sherman's Lagoon that neither I nor my friend Matt (who introduced me) introduced to the strip.

Another one I bookmark and read regularly is Liberty Meadows. Funny stuff.

Now back to your regularly scheduled Slashdot...

Jay (=