Gnu Atheist latest BS: minorities' prejudice not racism because #privilege

Yes, minorities can be prejudiced, but never racist, because, to be that, you have to be in a position of having ... wait for it ... the favorite word of the Atheism Plus kiddie pool of Gnu Atheism ...

Privilege!

Of course, a blog that has, among its icon pictures, one that claims no person is born with intolerance or hate is going to be a bit resistant to "harder" sciences as well as social science. Tribalism of some sort is a clear part of human evolution, as it is for a lot of animals.

Now, is is not ought, of course, and we can overcome that. But, as tribalism is a form of intolerance, no, we're born with it.

That initial thought must then be put through this filter:

BTW, it is OK if you disagree with me, I can’t force you to be right.

Actually, no, it's NOT OK. I'm venturing that if I tried to post this link on your blog, speaking of icon pictures, per the one at left, I'd get blocked. (If there's not a cross-the-board blocking of my blog's URL at Freethought Blogs already anyway.)

Yes, white folks experience a lot less racism because of being the majority, and having better economic positions by and large.

But, ask Korean grocers burned and firebombed out of their Los Angeles stores as part of the Rodney King riots if they accept this distinction between racism and prejudice?

Many would probably say no.

Many others might say yes, and say that, in this situation, L.A. blacks had a position of privilege over them.

I'm no libertarian. I'm no social Darwinist. But, this is why I say that buried inside accusing others of playing the privilege card lurks at least the danger, if not the actuality, of playing the victimization card.

Also, I'm going to do some intellectual judo here.

Claiming that your "in-group A" can never engage in "Behavior X" because you're not in a position of power?

By that very act of self-insulation, you've put your "in-group A" into a position of power. In other words, you're playing the #reverseprivilege card, which is still the privilege card.

That's kind of exemplified here:

When People of Colour talk about Racism, it would do well for the privileged Skin colour to listen and learn. You can’t be an ally when all you are eager to do is redefine the word to put you in the picture as a victim.

First, there are many of us who reject the idea of privileging certain words by capitalizing them.

So, you lost me right there.

Second, per the whole discussion above, redefining words cuts both ways, too.

Third, getting back to the selective capitalization, and heading into full-blown snark territory?

It's kind of fun, kind of interesting to see a mash-up of Gnu Atheism and New Ageism.

And, headed more into full-blown snark territory.

How does someone who op poses all forms of "general hatefulness" have a blog post with a title like this?

SLAP SOME SENSE INTO BISHOP DAVID OYEDEPO!

Oops! 

A couple of final thoughts below the fold

Is it time for micropayment news paywalls?

Ken Doctor's piece on "superstar" journalists, stimulated by David Pogue leaving the New York Times for Yahoo (and coming off as a bit of a douche, per what Doctor assembled), following on the heels of Nate Silver also moving on, has restimulated my thinking here.

Per this old blog post, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has been bullish on the use of micropayments. And also per that post, at that time, PayPal made micropayments easier, so I know newspapers can do that, too.

Of course, this leads to "superstar" journalists, newspapers wanting more for them, but ... the worries of both newspapers and said journalists finding out they're not so well-read as thought.

I mean, that's part of what killed the New York Times' original paywall idea, Times Select. It was intended to primarily charge for columnists, who might soon find out they weren't worth what they thought they were.

But, why not do micropayments?

People set up RSS feeds for a particular person's blog; why not a particular person's news writing?

Per the Times Select debacle, the key issue, then, is setting the proper price point.

Of course, Pogue is headed to paywall-free Yahoo. And, being overpaid by Yahoo. Even if he's the core of a larger new tech section, it's an overpay. Per this story, Salon and Slate continue to lose money, and Huff Post pulled a reverse AOL by getting AOL to buy it. (Bezos took a pass on buying Slate as part of the WaPost takeover.)

Notice a commonlity? None of those folks listed after Yahoo have paywalls, either.

And, as much of a name as Glenn Greenwald is, Pierre Omidyar will likely be pounding monetary sand down a rat hole with him, too.

I mean, if you're investing in star-centered journalism, as we see online ad rates sink — call it clipping the coinage of the digital dimes, and the mobile nickels staying just that — why wouldn't you look at a micropayment system? You could set the bar low, and you could also mix it with a meter.

Yahoo could let you read David Pogue free three times a month, then charge 10 cents a pop for the next five, then 15 cents for the next five after that.

No, the Cardinals are NOT a good baserunning team

Unfortunately, it's not just Tim McCarver yapping about this, for all the jokes we've had at Tim's broadcasting work over the years; Joe Buck's also made the claim. (Speaking of, Timmy's actually been pretty decent in the box this year, overall. Did good work on explaining the obstruction call. And, Ken Rosenthal has a good tribute column. Meanwhile, I'm wondering, who joins Joe in the box next year? Has an announcement been made that I missed, or is this still open? If he wanted to leave ESPN, I'd love to see Doug Glanville, myself.)

More unfortunately, the double steal by Pete Kozma and Jon Jay in Game 2 reinforced that idea. (Of course, Kolten Wong getting picked off to end Game 3 reinforced the idea they're NOT.)

There's this to add, too:

Jay said the steal call was not something issued from the dugout; Kozma read the situation on his own, and Jay alertly followed.

Really? Yes, it worked, but, that type of freelancing by young players is exactly part of why the Cardinals are NOT a good baserunning team.

Reality? The Cardinals, not just counting stolen bases but the total of baserunning, such as running through coaches' signs or not (and wrongly so), good or bad attempts to go from first to third or second to home on singles, etc.? The Cardinals were a horrible baserunning team in the first half of the year, and improved to mediocre but no better by season's end.

And, it continues in the World Series. At the end of Game 3, if Allen Craig breaks immediately for third when it's clear Yadier Molina is going home, he's in third easily, without any errant throw by Jerrod Saltalamacchia. Who knows what happens next.

Or Matt Holliday, in Game 2, not running out his can of corn to center, and so only being on first when Jacoby Ellsbury drops it, rather than at second.

The Cardinals have been like this all year long.

But, let's go back to those actual stolen bases. Just 45 on the year is horrible. And, 22 caught stealings? That's horrible.

Even throwing out Ellsbury's wonder year on the bases, the Sox had 71 successful steals, and only 19 caught stealings. That's better than 78 percent, while the Cards couldn't hit the 70 percent minimum that's considered necessary for base-stealing to be net benefit. (Total Baseball says 67 percent, but I think that's a touch low; in "Moneyball," Billy Beane also says 70 percent.)

Win or lose this year's World Series, Mike Matheny, along with Jose Oquendo, Mike Aldrete, and the rest of the Cardinal coaching staff, have their work cut out for them next year on teaching better base-running skills. If one "runs within one's self," it's not ultimately an issue of speed. It's an issue of smarts and paying attention.

Or, heck, make Carlos Beltran a coach as part of a new contract. He has the highest career percentage for people with 300 or more attempts and is sixth all-time among those with just 200 or more attempts.

I mean, the Cards have enough speed, plus sneaky-speed (Matt Carpenter, say) that the team should steal at about the same amount, and success rate, as the non-Ellsbury Sox did this year. (And, this is without assuming Wong as a starter at the start of next year.)

Texas abortion law goes down

Federal Judge Lee Yeakel has just ruled, and he said the admitting privileges issue won't fly.
(He) ruled the admitting privileges requirement is unconstitutional and poses an undue burden on women seeking an abortion.

The statute "does not bear a rational relationship to the legitimate right of the State in preserving and promoting fetal life or a woman's health and, in any event, places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus and is thus an undue burden to her," Yeakel wrote. 

"The court concludes that admitting privileges have no rational relationship to improved patient outcomes and hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of a facility in which a physician provides abortion services."

He let stand a part of the law on pregnancy-terminating drugs, but, overall, this seems a pretty clear rebuke for Greg Abbott, and also for Dudley Dewless, aka David Dewhurst.

As the American-Statesman makes clear, there were several specific issues that didn't fly with Yeakel, including board certification for doctors and hospital admitting privileges.

And, even on the drugs issue, Yeakel's statement made clear this isn't open and shut.

And, so, we move on to the conservative Fifth Court of Appeals, where at least part of Yeakel's ruling could well be overturned again.

Dewless, in a special statement said:

"I'm saddened to see two time-and-money consuming special sessions of the Texas Legislature wasted, and my chances for re-election becoming closer to being shot all to hell.

Challengers Todd Staples, Jerry Patterson and Dan Patrick simply re-tweeted Dewless.

The NSA DID spy on Merkel, and others

The National Security Agency's claim that President Obama didn't know about any spying on West German Chancellor Angela Merkel means, in essence, that despite last week's non-denial denials, it's officially letting the cat out of the bag now.

A decade-plus worth of cats, that is. The spying reportedly goes all the way back to 2002.

Meanwhile, Republican Congresscritter Mike Rogers blathers:

Leaked information about surveillance by the NSA is being "misinterpreted,'' Rogers said on CNN's State of the Union. "This was about a counterterrorism program that had nothing to do with French citizens,'' he said. "If the French citizens knew exactly what that was about, they would be applauding and popping champagne corks.''

Rogers called criticism of the U.S. intelligence operations from European leaders "disingenuous.''

"It's a good thing. It keeps the French safe, it keeps the U.S. safe. It keeps our European allies safe. This whole notion that we're going to go after each other on what is really legitimate protection of nation-state interests I think is disingenuous.''

Moron.

The American people, a fair amount of them, probably still are that dumb. The French, no.

That said, other nations that are our allies have spied on each other, and us, even, for nation-state reasons before. The French are renowned for trade espionage.

(And, if you think any NSA head would sign off on spying on a foreign leader without telling the Prez, I got some washed-clean shiny-new beachfront property in Atlantic City to sell you.)

Meanwhile, EU member nations are talking about firing back. Not with their own Internet servers, at least not yet, but something practical, simple, and a lesser escalation, but enough of a shot across the bow. They want to suspend a post-9/11 agreement on tracking banking records. Given that this, too, can be used against folks besides al-Qaeda (and with legit uses, like tracking Mafia money) the US should take this seriously.

That is, if the EU follows through. 

And, isn't this part and parcel with US complaints that Europe is still, in general, a "free rider" on a lot of defense issues? So, let the EU suspend SWIFT. Let's see what happens next, part of me says.

Sorry, Red Sox fans: Obstruction was the right call

First, yes, I'm a huge Cardinals fan. But, I'm not so much a blind "homer" as to say I don't think the umps did right in getting Pete Kozma's error straightened out in Game 1.

In fact, I am so much NOT a blind homer that I say Mark McGwire, even when you take away steroids issues, is not a Hall of Famer.

But, the call was right. And, no, it was not "debatable," and contra a person on Facebook, baseball "pundits" didn't think it was debatable either.

If you don't like how we got to that point, blame your own manager. Or Saltalamacchia.

And, while we're at it, a bunch of you need to actually read not just the rule on obstruction, but the rule book in general. I saw all sorts of dumb things online last night, like claims that Allen Craig has to run outside the foul line going home, or that he didn't take a natural path from third to home.

I have no problems with you being upset. Or venting online about it. But, know the rule book in advance next time, eh?

I don't enjoy winning the game this way, but, without Will Middlebrooks' obstruction, Craig scores.

And, no, baseball is NOT football or basketball. We don't, and shouldn't, ask umps to do the equivalent of "swallowing their whistles." This piece gets it right, hence this long quote:

In baseball the rules are the rules from start to finish and are not dispensed with simply because time is running out. Oh, wait, in baseball time never runs out. As Earl Weaver reminded us, there is no clock in baseball. ...

So many people with Boston IP addresses are telling me this morning that, though the call on the Middlebrooks/Craig obstruction play was technically correct, it perhaps should not have been made. The play — with its collision and tripping and stumbling and dashing home — should have been “allowed to proceed” rather than having a rarely-thought-of rule invoked to determine the outcome. It was the ninth inning of a close World Series game, they’re basically arguing. It was too important to allow the imposition of a rule trump the running and throwing of men.

Baloney. That call went to the heart of what baseball truly is. A sport in which there is or at least should be no relaxation of the rules due to the exigency of a critical moment. Baseball does not and should not allow for times in which aesthetics or raw physicality excuse the relaxation of the rules. ...

Refrain from calling obstruction on that play? To do so would be a betrayal of baseball’s very essence.

Well put.

So, obstruction was the right call. It was not debatable. And, it was not a call that should have been avoided due to the situation. In fact, the situation required it. Period. End of story.

Besides, the game had plenty of interesting tipping points, or whatever you want to call them.

And now, Joe Torre from MLB offices says the obstruction rule will be reviewed in the offseason.

I don't see what's to review, especially since Torre mentioned looking at the no-intent current language vs. intent. If you want umpires to make judgments of intent, then this WILL produce debatable calls.

Finally, contra a friend of mine who says that Joyce was looking at the ball, to make sure no fan interference happened, at the moment Craig tripped over Middlebrooks?

Simply not true.

As we clearly see at both 15 seconds and right at 2 minutes, Joyce is looking right at Craig at the moment he trips over Middlebrooks: