Hodad

Yes, guts. Sometimes my phone keyboard is unkind. We are addicted to something that is killing us- in many ways. No, we can't quit cold turkey, but we should be doing the work.

Yes, we're all aware of the scope of the problem. It will take people with guys to kick the killer habit.

I love that you get your energy policy analysis from a supermarket tabloid. I guarantee that everyone in the oil and gas industry would love to use current high prices and public pressure as a lever to get favorable concessions from Biden. But I can also assure you that they are not waiting around for Biden's permission or encouragement to make money in the global marketplace. Record profits, people, record profits. And near-record production.

Would you care to explain how US companies "factor in" future supply (like a decade from now) when they bring their oil barrels to the global market? "Dear wholesale buyer, our oil is priced $10 per barrel above market price, but please buy it anyway because supply might be tighter in several years."

No, I don't think a word from Biden is going to shift the global price of oil. That's terribly naive. Facts are facts. US oil production has dramatically increased under Biden, and it's currently near record levels. I didn't have to pay twice as much for heating oil because of anything Biden did. The numbers are very clear on that point. Though I'm sure many ignorant people believe otherwise. If Biden's words were as all-powerful as you seem to think, he surely would have waved his wand and muttered a spell to lower gas prices during the midterms. Would've kept the house, lol.

I was shocked when I moved to the East Coast a few years ago to find that almost every house heats with a boiler--usually oil. Totally foreign concept out west. I just paid about double to fill my tank relative to last year. I'm aware of the global realities, so I wasn't surprised at all, but I imagine I'm surrounded by misinformed (or disinformed) people who mistakenly believe that Joe Biden has somehow reduced oil production. Sigh.

I assume it's just refreshing to have something bouncing around in there.?

Another insane thread. Calling them Native Americans has nothing to do with the timing of the arrival of Amerigo Vespucci. They are called so because we renamed the land America and because we are a thoroughly ethnocentric society we renamed the peoples of that place accordingly. Exactly as we would call beings from Mars "martians" even though those beings would have no relationship to the name or notion what Mars is. That's what ethnocentricity is--we view all the world from our own perspective with little regard for the perspectives of other cultures. Abandoning the term Native American is totally reasonable, but thinking that Indian is somehow more correct is lunacy. It's not better. It's worse. It too is a name imposed upon them by ethnocentric outsiders with zero concern for their perspective--and compounded by the fact that there are actual Indians on the Indian subcontinent who seem to have embraced that designation. We could correctly call the people who were here before us indigenous people or some variation. Canada has a very considerate and respectful designation (IMO) with First Nations. Or we could get totally wild and ask the collective peoples what they prefer instead of imposing, once again, some purely external name. I mean, after a conquest of land, a raft of broken promises and a little light genocide, we could probably afford to be a bit more considerate going forward.

Really a problem in the bedroom. However, I suspect he's referring to coal and gas power plants. Which is still pretty silly considering the efficiency gains and the fact that fossil fuels are only about 60% of our energy mix these days.

Wait, tell us again how the brutality American slavery wasn't so bad, because Turkey hasn't apologized for the Armenian genocide.? You are whatbouting your arse off. Gross. I don't know Joy Reid. Maybe she's a racist. But that evidence is not on display. What she's said here about the origin of the country isn't racist. There are living grandchildren of slaves alive today. But aside from that, WTF is your point? Do you even have a point? Are you just looking for more ways to deflect from the brutal roots of the American experiment? It's small, petty and disgusting. We cannot hope to fix the problems we have today without understanding what caused so many of them. Yes, very stupid memes. You take a freeze frame of an innocent and very publick peck from a grandfather to a granddaughter and make it into something lascivious? You're disgusting.

You're just sort of repeating your opinion here rather than taking in the information. It's not a "cover." Diverse organizations do perform better. And the reasons are pretty obvious why if you slow down and think about it. We, every individual, filter the world through our own experiences.For general purposes, I'm a first-class communicator. But the further an audience is from my experience the less successful I can be in reaching and serving them. In trying to understand and persuade a female audience I won't be quite as effective--I know less about the female experience. And if it's young women, it gets worse. And if it's young urban women, it gets worse still . And if it's young, Black, urban women I have even less chance of getting it right. But nobody does anything solo these days. What about my comms team? Well, if they are all like me then they are of no real help. But if I have a diverse team they can vet my work and craft broad messages that don't exclude anyone unnecessarily or to shape specific messages to target audiences outside of my wheelhouse. If I'm designing a car on my own, it's going to disproportionately reflect my experience in the world, my use cases. And maybe that's not as well aligned to the larger market as it should be. Do I usually drive alone? Do I have kids? How important are folding seats and cupholders? I'm probably not going to get it right on my own, but if I have a diverse team, my odds go up. Or how about if I'm a 20-something male running a software startup. I grew up on l33tspeak and touchscreens. Is my microcopy and user progression clear to the 50-something woman I want to buy my software? No, probably not. But, again, if I have a diverse team--a team that represents everyone--then we're more likely to be able to serve everyone. I'll give you a real-world, practical example. One of my teams is a small group of writers. I had two older women on the team who were elite talent with veteran experience. I had an open role and a good friend of mine wanted the job--also an older woman with serious skills. Her resume was hands-down better than any of the other applicants that I interviewed. On paper, she was the "strongest candidate"--and a friend. But she wasn't the "best" candidate, and I didn't hire her. Not because of gender or age or race, but simply because I already had two people with similar experiences and perspectives, and adding a third similar voice to the team wasn't going to fill any gaps. Homogeneity doesn't make a stronger team. Instead, I hired a young woman, early career, who had talent and a different experience and perspective. Her resume wasn't nearly as good, but she expanded the experience base of my team in a practical way. And every time she points out that the way something is phrased sounds anachronistic or that a phrase has a different meaning within her peer group I pat myself on the back a little, because even though I didn't hire my friend with the better resume, I know that the work that team produces is more effective for a wider audience. Do you see the difference? It's not about quotas or including or excluding any specific demo. It's about building diverse, representative teams for better success in a diverse, representative marketplace.

No, you are a shameless liar. Literally anyone can see that they were not banned, yet you persist. And, you've told us all about your reliable sources, like Pinterest posts, and Red State- the latter of which is actively lying to you. Click your own link. Then click through to the actual article that Red State is blogging about. Not banned. Not proposed to be banned by that curriculum change. You are absolutely full of "it."

Yes, really, you hapless troll. It's about numbers, not opinion. -- Hang on, maybe I can find a Pinterest post to meet your high standards.

And it sure seems like some of the folks in this thread would be front row at the auction. After all, if other people commit evil acts it excuses what you do!

You are not playing with a full deck to begin with, but when you ingest nothing but garbage media you compound the problem.=. You cited a disreputable source and, of course, they lied to you and you don't have the capacity to critically evaluate information. A. This is an article from 2012, nearly a decade old. B. Your garbage source is basically re-blogging an article from an actual newspaper--and adding lies to rile up the gullible and easily manipulated. They completely made up the notion that these books are "banned" -- and you swallowed it down without question. Ugh. C. If you were to actually click the link in your citation and view the original source - they link to it there - you'd get to The Telegraph. Or, you could read the excerpts on the page of your linked article. D. As any literate person can see, those books WERE NOT BANNED. Nor was banning proposed in that curricular shift. They were listed in the article as examples of what might be lost in the curriculum in a shift to 70% nonfiction. Those books are still available in libraries and are still being taught in classrooms across the country--even in backwaters like Florida. E. Should go without saying that books that are not included in a curriculum are not "banned." F. The push for nonfiction books comes from in pursuit of STEM education and workplace readiness. Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea, as I would prefer well-rounded humans as a priority, but there's no need to lie about it.

You just cannot restrain yourself from saying obviously stupid, obviously wrong things, can you, Trump Jr.? California on track to become the fourth largest economy in the world Golden State poised to pass Germany and sit behind only US, China and Japan

He says, after rationalizing evil two posts in a row. Jeebus. How morally bankrupt must someone be to "whatabout" farking slavery? What, those aren't in your library of stupid memes? I assure you, they are as terrifying as Biden kissing his grandaughter or some state-level candidate dancing on a beach. That is to say, not at all. This is the level of substance you are bringing to the conversation. Ugh. Do better.

I had never heard of Joy Reid before this thread, but she's not wrong. Children can learn a version of history in which we're always the good guys, or they can learn the truth about how and why we have what we have. Being thankful for what we have today is not incompatible with understanding that our "good fortune" came at an enormous cost other people. Rather, remembering that cost should be a powerful reminder of how we should navigate the world today.

I'm sorry that you're not familiar with the name for annoying debate tactic that you so often deploy--and apparently don't want to look up. A Gish gallop is when, instead of focusing on debate topics, a person just starts throwing piles of unrelated crap into the conversation. A type of deflection. Like how you reply to a discussion about slavery and somehow end up re-posting a pile of stupid memes (that weren't clever the first time) related to general political grievances and yet completely unrelated to the topic at hand. Now, you can get back to telling us how building a nation on the bleeding backs of black slaves is totally cool, because other nations have done the same in the past, or something. And when you get tired of rationalizing and excusing the evils of our past you can get your gallop on with some photos of Obama's tan suit or AOC dancing or something else substantive and scintillating. That will be fun for everyone.

Have you considered an evaluation for ADHD? The Gish gallops are out of control. I mean after you finished making excuses for and minimizing the evil of American slavery and misstating demographic trends you go all the way off the rails with your regular schtick.

Yes, trending toward a makeup that reflects the general population. Not with quotas, but with an active interest. It's difficult to define "the best person for the job." It's not like a 40 yard dash where you know is fastest. Interviews have always been a soft, nebulous process, and because of it they are particularly prone to bias. People get a "better vibe" from people with whom they have more in common. Same interests, same school, some common point in their backgrounds. In that way it's a lot like making small talk at a cocktail party with relative strangers. This is called affinity bias. It's sort of an inescapable part of human nature--and there are a dozen or so other biases like that to be aware of. And if people aren't aware of their biases and actively course correcting, then they won't be hiring the "best candidate" but rather the most comfortable conversation. "This person is like me, so they will be a good fit." Of course, the problem is that a bunch of people "like me" won't be the best team. There's ample research that shows that diverse--and deliberately diverse--teams and organizations outperform those without a diversity agenda. Part of the reason is obvious, in that a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds results in a diversity of ideas. And that bears real fruit rather quickly. Imagine designing something as simple as scissors. What's the perfect design? It's just math/science/research, right? But add a left-handed person on the team and you probably get a better answer that will perform better in the marketplace simply because they bring a different experience. The other is, perhaps, subtler. When leadership is more homogenous those biases creep in again. White men, for example, are more likely to have more in common with other white men, and that trickles down to them being more likely to promote white men. And the bias plays the other way as well, if employees (even, and perhaps especially, superstar employees) who are outside of the leadership demographic won't relate as well to the leadership team. If they don't see themselves represented then they see themselves as excluded. And it ends up creating a sort of brain drain, particularly among high performers nearing a social ceiling. They are looking for greener pastures in more diverse organizations where they feel like they have a fair shot. Organic means based on not a purely individual evaluation, but the evaluation of how a given candidate can benefit the whole team. To turn to a sports metaphor, the best athlete is not always the best fit for a team. You don't want 5 point guards on the court, regardless of how talented they are individually. You want to look at the strengths and weaknesses of your current team and identify a candidate that will best compliment and enhance the talent you already have. Diversity can be a factor in building the strongest team. The thinking goes, "If you can't see it, you can't hire it." There's nothing wrong with asking recruiters to provide a diverse candidate pool. They are as susceptible to bias as any other human, and bias costs $. By asking for a diverse pool you not only put positive pressure on the recruiter to look beyond first impressions, but also give yourself a chance to consider a broader range of talend and to hire "the best" candidate based on a more holistic perspective.

There's nothing racist about it. People used to coasting on privilege are going to have to get skilled and compete or be left behind. Instead of spending time at Trump rallies and waiting for him to restore their "divine right to rule" they should be out getting a cybersecurity credential or figuring out some other way to make themselves useful.

Boy, those those are serious accusations. If a person were to be found guilty of misusing charitable funds, what should happen to them? Should they go to jail? Should they be disqualified from holding public office? Or are you cool with it?

Do you have anything even close to a lucid point to make? It's not remotely strange to ask other foreign leaders to take action to benefit American interests--like resolving trade disruption. That's normal international relations. Whereas, it's wildly corrupt to threaten to withhold aid to other countries unless they publicly attack your election opponent.

Yeah, that's basically true. I mean quotas aren't a thing anymore, but there is definitely an effort for better representation, diversity and inclusion of marginalized groups. Both for a sense of fairness and for, on the business side, enhanced performance. And to pursue that objective there is a conscious effort to shift some of the "benefit of the doubt" from the group that used to have exclusive access to groups that have not. Of course, that's just a bridge. If our society, institutions and offices are representative, the built-in advantages disappear. ETA: more on quotas. It's much more organic than that now. Nobody says, "We're short on X, go hire one." Instead, for example, when I'm hiring I'm asking HR/recruiting for a diverse slate of candidatesv and then hire the best candidate. If you only interview five white guys from ivy league schools, that's who gets hired. If you see a diversity of talent you naturally end up with a more diverse team.