kimmy

What was your honest opinion of it? Did you present it here because you felt like it made a strong case, or because it was the first thing you found? The only evidence that the author presents to support the claim that this contradiction exists, is the fact that a higher percentage of visible minorities have university degrees than non-visible minorities. But that piece of evidence is not adequate to substantiate her claim, for reasons I already explained. If I told you that 2 of the 5 Smith kids have university degrees, but only 1 of the 5 Johnson kids have university degrees, could you use that information to make reasonable assumptions about the employment rates and average incomes of the Smith kids and the Johnson kids? Ms Tran thinks she can. Using her logic, one would conclude that with a considerable advantage in university degrees, the Smith kids should obviously have a higher employment rate and higher incomes. But it's ridiculous to make that sort of assumption when we know absolutely nothing about the remaining 70% of people we're talking about. The only way you could proceed is to *assume* that the 70% of the people you don't know anything about are all equal. But if 3 of the Johnson kids have tech-school diplomas or trades tickets, while two of the Smith kids are grade-10 drop-outs, that assumption gives you completely wrong results. In short, my point is that Ms Tran has drastically overplayed her hand. The statistic about rates of university education doesn't come close to making the points she wishes it did. As a result, the argument she wishes to base on this shaky foundation-- that visible minorities should be doing better than non-visible minorities-- does not stand up. Well, the primary thrust of Ms Tran's article is statistics that deal with males, for reasons Ms Tran herself explains. So I did mean "men". And the small number of non-white people who have been lumped in with "non-visible minorities" leaves the distinction between "non-visibile minority" and "white" to be statistically pretty minimal, and not a big issue as a result. An observation that appears to further undermine Ms Tran's case, and that of those who argue the necessity of affirmative action (at least in regard to visible minorities). I don't actually know. However, the idea that affirmative action is needed to combat racial discrimination is at the heart of Ms Tran's paper, and it's at the heart of many arguments in favor of affirmative action, whether the proponents wish to use the word "race" or whether they choose to to tip-toe around it. I've never heard a proponent of affirmative action who supported it for women and for the disabled, but opposed its use for "visible minorities". How would you rate the qualifications of an Indian electrician? Would he know anything about Canadian electrical codes? How would you verify the work experience of a Chinese machinist? It might be pretty tough to speak to his supervisor, or find out anything about his work history or his work habits. How can you determine if a graduate of the Kuala Lampur Institute of Technology electronics technology program has the same qualifications as a graduate of the BC Institute of Technology electronics technology program? I don't discount it out of hand, but if an employer can't verify it or can't determine its relevance to the job he's looking to fill, I don't expect him to just take it on faith either. -k

OMG you and Mabus should get together and start a band. -k

You've argued this West-as-terrorist angle before. Can you direct us to the prior discussion so that we can see what you're talking about? -k

Yes, it looks like Scotty's post about trolling contains an unclosed tag. Up yours, Scotty! Close your fricken tags! -k

I've read this over, and I'm not impressed. Is this representative of the sort of scholarship that argues in favor of affirmative action? Foreign-born visible minorities used to have better employment rates than whitey, but in the 1990s that changed. Why might that be? Did Canadians transform into a bunch of racists during the 1990s? Considering that Canadian-born visible minorities had *better* employment rates than whitey, that doesn't seem likely. Might there be something about the immigrants themselves that changed? For example, is it possible that earlier immigration had tighter standards for the sorts of skills and qualifications that were sought in immigrants? Is it possible that in the 1990s rules were changed to allow larger numbers of non-economic immigrants (ie, people allowed in for family reunification, dependents, etc) than had been allowed in previously? The author is either uninformed, or dishonest in attempting to equate a university education with employability. "This pattern contradicts the widely-held view that workers benefit from more skills, education and experience and are in greater demand," she writes, yet fails to explain how a university degree provides experience, or to account for the wide variety of skills that are obtained by other means than attending university. Many of the most in-demand skills are in skilled trades or in specialized areas that are taught at technical schools rather than university. The premise that because a higher percentage of visible minorities have university degrees, visible minorities should have a higher employment rate is based on broken logic. It fails to take into account the large number of jobs that don't require university degrees. It fails to take into account the large number of jobs that require skills that aren't learned at university. And the fact that a higher percentage of visible minorities have university degrees gives us no insight at all into the qualifications and abilities of those who don't. Clearly the author is either not very smart, or is just plain dishonest in attempting to present this argument. This is an attempt to deceive or mislead. But she goes on for another page in attempting to argue in that vein anyway, attempting to suggest that the 30% of visible minorities who hold university degrees confer some kind of information as to the qualifications of the 70% who don't. And in the meantime we come to an interesting chart, showing that in 1981, visible minorities (both Canadian born and foreign born) had significantly higher employment rates than Canadian white men. And the adjacent chart shows that in 2001, it was pretty much the same: Canadian born visible minorities had better employment rates than Canadian born white men. Foreign born visible minorities who arrived in the 1960s had better employment rates than Canadian born white men. Foreign born visible minorities who arrived in the 1970s had better employment rates than Canadian born white men. Foreign born visible minorities who arrived in the 1980s had better employment rates than Canadian born white men. (if she's trying to prove that visible minorities are discriminated against, this is an odd way of going about it, it seems to me.) But wait, her point is the bar on the very right of the chart, showing that foreign born visible minorities who arrived in the 1960s have worse employment rates than Canadian born white men. But again... why? Could it be that maybe these most recent immigrants were simply not as well qualified as earlier immigrants? Ms Tran did tuck a relevant thought on this issue earlier on: Yes, I would suspect that things like not speaking the language, having no experience, and having no credentials probably do adversely affect your chances of getting a job. Are these the people affirmative action is supposed to help? Well, no. Affirmative action's champions insist that race is only supposed to be a factor if the qualifications are equal, affirmative action isn't supposed to give jobs to unqualified people, that it's not supposed to lower the standards. So clearly, people who can't speak the language, have no experience, and have no credentials are not the target group for affirmative action. Ms Tran does offer us some interesting information, though. -the two groups least likely to have university degrees are Canadian-born white men, and Canadian-born white women. -visible minorities have historically enjoyed higher rates of employment than Canadian-born white people. -the only visible minorities who are not doing *better* than whitey in the job market are recent immigrants. So ... where *is* this racism? We need affirmative action why? -k

You can do that in minutes? Find a complete list of inappropriate taser use, and then determine the ethnicity of the officers involved? How are you going to get that information? Would you even know Kwesi Millington's skin color if he hadn't been on your TV? -k

By the way, I did dig up the article that dre and yourself cited claiming that affirmative action policies primarily benefit white people. Who Benefits From Affirmative Action Affirmative action is intended to help not just racial minorities, but also other disadvantaged groups in which whites get hired in greater numbers than black people. One concludes that the hiring of disabled people isn't sufficient cause for celebration so they are calling for black disabled people to receive preference over white disabled people. -k

To declare as fact that the quality of service has declined is completely unprovable. But it's reasonable to speculate that a declining quality of service is a likely result of accepting lower-quality applicants. If you're asking for correlations between taser use and the race of the officers involved, then you're asking for a study after all. We don't actually need to know anything about that. All we need to know is the circumstances of Millington's hiring. If they knowingly accepted a questionable candidate because he was black, then clearly racially based hiring practices undermined the quality of service. That other substandard officers may have been recruited for other reasons doesn't deflect from that. -k

I'm trying to figure out what you're suggesting should happen here. Are you suggesting that there is some quantifiable metric we could look at that would tell us whether police performance is improving or declining, and then speculate as to whether affirmative action might be the cause? Are you suggesting we could look at specific incidents of police failure and examine whether affirmative action policies may have been a contributing factor? These are obviously non-starters. I'm puzzled as to what sort of information you're requesting be brought forward. What if we were to look the Robert Dziekanski incident, and note that taser-enthusiast Kwesi Millington is, indeed, a visible minority. What does that get us? We still have no reasonable means of determining the circumstances of his admission to the RCMP. We have no way of knowing whether the RCMP would have accepted him if his race weren't taken into consideration. It seems reasonable to suggest that Millington appears to be a substandard officer, but we have no way of knowing whether his hiring was a result of a decision to accept a lower standard because of his skin color, or if his hiring was a result of a failure to identify him as a substandard individual at all. Am I misunderstanding what you're asking for? Sure, you're setting the bar low, but you've set it so low that what you're actually asking for is completely without value. There's no way of discussing this intelligently without real data which we all know we'll never get. -k

That dude with the bass is pretty good. It looks like he's planning on going trick-or-treating after the show. -k

Can you provide a link? I'd be very interested in reading more about this. -k

It's a part of the story that some people seem to refuse to acknowledge. Why aren't I a millionaire? Oh, sure, some of it is beyond my control. -wasn't born into wealth. -wasn't born with the kind of looks where people would pay me large sums of money to just walk around wearing their clothes. But there's also stuff like: -I'm not smart enough to invent a million dollar idea. Or at least, I haven't had one yet. -I have yet to create some work of art or literature or music that will inspire millions of people. -I have not learned any skill that people would pay me millions to perform. -I haven't got the business sense to wheel and deal my way to millions of dollars. See? The reasons I'm not a millionaire primarily boil down to my lack of merit. On the other hand, my decidedly modest list of merits has been sufficient to allow me to achieve a lifestyle where I have security, comfort, recreation, and the ability to save for the future. I think that these are goals that are attainable for most people and qualify as "success" by my standards at least. I agree that we do need a supply of labor that has not yet "succeeded". However, one's lack of success need not be a permanent condition. I didn't make any claim that poor people are lazy. The poor people I know who are working their asses off are ones who remain poor because of poor spending choices (to put it as politely as I can), poor personal choices, and poor life planning choices. I'm sure the poor people you know who are working their asses off are a far nobler group who are disadvantaged entirely through circumstances beyond their control. But the poor people I know who are working their asses off remain poor because of they choices they've made. -k

How's that relevant to anything? That some tiny fraction of the population is born into circumstances that allow them to be wealthy without accomplishing anything of their own doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of us do have to sink or swim on our own merits. If you were helping out disadvantaged children and set out to "buy them the things they need to succeed", what would your shopping list be? I don't think it would be a very daunting list. I don't think material goods are what's lacking. -k

"What people normally define as success" isn't dependent on acquiring "a large amount of wealth". "The right geographic location"? People are free to move. "The right uterus"? That depends. If your notion of the "right uterus" belongs to a wealthy person, then no, I disagree. If "the right uterus" is one that belongs to a capable parent, then I absolutely agree. Sadly, I see no way for the government to provide a child with lousy parents with the same advantages that a child with good parents has in life. This "anecdotal evidence" was intended to illustrate the fact that our country provides financial assistance that makes it possible for even the very poor to obtain post-secondary education. -k

People have long been accustomed to the latter (did you ever hear anybody refer to the year 1997 as "one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven"?) The years 2000 to 2009 were awkward, because "twenty-nine" no longer worked. "Twenty-oh-nine" and "twenty-aught-nine" were used by some, but never caught on, probably because they're both dreadful, and also because neither offered any economy over "two thousand nine". Happily, "twenty-ten" and "twenty eleven" roll off the tongue as easily as the "nineteen" years did, and I am sure that within a short time, everybody who got used to saying "two thousand- ..." will have returned to "twenty-...." And to you. God bless us everyone. -k

I know people (and I'm sure you do too) who are poor because they have no work ethic and no sense of personal responsibility. (ironically, a lot of people like this complain about affirmative action, or that "the immigrants are taking all the jobs.") Some of them came from environments where they had every advantage in life and still failed to achieve anything for themselves. I go over to somebody's place and listen to them complain about how the government isn't doing enough to help them get back into the workforce or how they can't save enough money to take the courses they want or how they're stuck in debt and they can't get out, and I look around and see brand new magazines and full ashtrays and empty beer bottles. What's she going to teach her kids? How to feel sorry for themselves and make excuses and blame others for their failures. If people as poor as your parents and my parents can go on to attend university, then surely poverty itself isn't the obstacle holding back others. (btw: the "is university affordable?" thread I mentioned.) -k

Of course not, but it's not necessarily poverty itself that is the big obstacle either. I believe that the biggest advantage a child can have in life is good parenting. And (I hope this is not too controversial a statement) a lot of people who are poor in a financial sense are poor for reasons that make them lousy parents as well. That's not to say that poor people are inherently bad parents, or that well-off people are inherently good parents. Just that a lot of people who are poor are poor for a reason, and that their kids are probably going to learn how to be poor from their parents because they have little chance of learning anything else from them. My parents were both farm kids who grew up in circumstances that would be considered extreme poverty by modern Canadian standards, but both went to university and obtained degrees. (a while back we argued about whether a university education is more attainable or less attainable than it used to be, but that's a topic for a whole 'nother thread.) What my parents' families provided them instead of money was an environment where a tireless work ethic was required. Surely examples like theirs argue against poverty itself being a great barrier in our society. -k

With all the chatter about Buddy Rich lately... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_BmeBfV-O4 ...Animal sneaks a little Judas Priest past the network. -k

Says that he exposed a cover-up of civilian casualties. It doesn't say anything about leaking the identities of civilians who've assisted our armed forces. The former fits my idea of whistleblowing. The latter fits with any reasonable definition of treason. I'd be all for a strongly worded rebuke of such behavior. You, correct me if I'm wrong, are calling for a complete severance of ties with India. Thinking back to when Harper criticized the Chinese for human rights issues, the angry cry from liberals and Liberals was that doing it publicly would actually undermine the cause. The proper way to do it, we were told, would be to work with them behind closed doors, try to influence them positively in private rather than scold them in public. A public confrontation would only cause us to lose influence with them. That was the argument at the time. I wonder how many of those folks who were in favor of gentle, private persuasion at the time are now on the "we're entitled to know everything and anything!" campaign now? I have to bow out now. I'm leaving for the airport shortly, and won't be online much in the next week. If you like, I can catch up when I get back. Merry Christmas, everybody. -k

Dre argues that these leaks are the fault of those who failed to secure the data. I argue that the leaks are the fault of the person who leaked the data. In all probability, the people who leak this data are the people who are supposedly entrusted with its security in the first place, which makes the "they should have secured the data better" argument pretty moot. You've been willing to concede that "you've gotta break a few eggs". Dre has been willing to concede that not all of this is positive, but won't concede that any of the negative is WikiLeaks' responsibility. And eyeball is clearly willing to rationalize that nothing that's come of this has had any negative impact at all. ("well, whatever Abbas was trying to accomplish wouldn't have worked anyhow...") I've never argued that they must be stopped. -k

Maybe Mary was a teenager? -k

Send me a private message listing any items with sentimental value in your home. When I rob your pad, I'll be sure to leave the sentimental stuff, as long as it doesn't look valuable. And by the way, when I do rob you, it's your own fault for not having better locks. Actually, I'll be helping you out by pointing out how lousy your home security is. Aren't I nice? That logic didn't work for Napster, or bit torrent sites, or for people who traffic in child pornography. It won't work for the pawn shop that gets caught selling the stuff I jack from your pad. If there's a comparison to be made between WikiLeaks and YouTube, this is it. If you make a crappy video of your dog falling on its head or whatever, and post it on your own website, who's going to see it? But if you post it on YouTube, you have a chance of finding an immense audience. Thousands of people will probably see your crappy video just by accident. YouTube provides a facility for distributing your crappy video that's completely unequaled by what you could accomplish on your own. WikiLeaks has the ear of media. WikiLeaks has a credibility that some random site on the web would not have. Send your stuff to WikiLeaks and your identity is safe. Publish it on your own, and you're going to get caught. The very existence of YouTube encourages people to create and upload crappy videos that they wouldn't have bothered to upload if YouTube didn't exist. The very existence of WikiLeaks probably encourages people to obtain and upload documents that they probably wouldn't upload if a secure and credible means of publishing that information didn't exist. I'm willing to agree that in some cases that's a good thing. None of you are willing to admit that in some cases it has not been a good thing. The source of the leaks, if found, will face outrage aplenty. The guy who leaked the Afghanistan documents would probably get court martialed for treason if he's caught. -k

WikiLeaks published the names of Afghan civilians who have assisted coalition forces-- civilians who are now being assassinated according to Amnesty International. Clearly, knowing that their identities won't be secret after-all will make people unwilling to assist coalition forces. Thanks to WikiLeaks, former informants are dead, and future informants are going to keep their mouths shut. Obviously this undermines the mission in Afghanistan. Far more than some mooks with grenades could. -k

Let's review: No thats fundamentally wrong. Wikileaks is just an information clearing house. A media wholesale outlet. Its the WHISTLE BLOWERS that are uploading documents to wikileaks that are the guys making the decisions, and its regular news networks that actually decide what gets shown to the public. And if wikileaks wasnt there theres thousands of other outlets they could send the information to. Julian Assanged didnt "decide" that some American soldier was going to leak hundreds of thousands of US goverment documents, anymore than YouTube decides what theyre users will upload. Sorry, but if WikiLeaks reviews the information before they release it, then they're not like YouTube. Clearly they could have decided not to publish the names of Afghan civilians, but went ahead anyway. Their spokesman says so himself. -k

What is it about, then? North Korean nationalism? -k