University study from Duke has the usual Identity FIRST! people upset …

A minority group at Duke University is protesting a recent study by university researchers that found that black students take easier classes than white students.

The study has inflamed racial tensions on campus, but its authors say students are drawing the wrong conclusions.

The study is titled “What Happens After Enrollment? An Analysis of the Time Path of Racial Differences in GPA and Major Choice.” Researchers discovered that black students were more likely than white students to switch to less difficult majors, and in turn, bridge the gap between their GPAs. [...]

This conclusion prompted silent protests from black students who were photographed holding signs that read, “my major is not easy,” and, “it’s not a Duke issue, it’s a national issue.”

The leaders of Duke’s Black Student Alliance wrote a letter to the editor to the university’s newspaper, The Chronicle. In the letter, they accused the University of ignoring “the frustrating racial climate” at Duke:

“We reiterate our respect for academic freedom, but believe that the University has an ethical obligation to address the perpetuated and serious implications of the study for the racial climate Duke.”

So a study that some students can’t understand or refuse to understand is dismissed as racist!! and those that dared to do the study are the perpetrators of a “frustrating racial climate.”

Got it.

“People have written that my study says black students are taking the easy way out and have a poor work ethic,” he said. “The paper says nothing close to that.”

Arcidiacono explained that while it is true that black students are much less likely to persist in certain majors, these differences disappear once the researchers distinguished students based on their academic background. [...]

The study also argued that though elite universities are trying to increase the number of minority students in natural sciences and engineering through affirmative action, the policy is actually working against them.

Arcidiacono emphasized that if universities evaluated applicants as individuals rather than as groups, they could achieve the same results as a point system.

And there’s the reason such a study will be dismissed out-of-hand. The identity politics of Leftism demands the subsuming of the individual into victim groups. These victim groups – either melanin level, sex or ethnicity — cannot wield power on their own, but with a handful of usually self-selected “leaders” can threaten to mug the public if their demands are not met.

And those demands rarely have anything to do with bettering the condition of the individual member — it’s a perpetual grievance machine that accumulates power to the “leaders” with promises to the group, promises that never deliver.

As evidence, he cited graduation rates at elite universities, and said that dramatic minority dropout rates are a result of different standards for applications.

“The universities are so preoccupied with having an incoming student class look a certain way, that they didn’t really seem to care what happened to them once they got into the university,” he said.

But as long as melanin groups like Duke’s Black Student Alliance can be counted on to bring the outrage and deliver the power to the Leftist leaders of pallor, the success of the individual black student is not only irrelevant but actually harmful to “the cause.”

Tell me again how it is conservatives that want to control one’s most intimate behaviors?

BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) – Some New Hampshire state employees may be picking the unscented soap off store shelves if a new bill passes through the House.

Under House Bill 1444 , state workers who interact with the public as a part of their job would be prohibited from wearing fragrances or scented products during business hours.

If approved, the bill would take effect within 60 days. [...]

There is no word on how the state would enforce the legislation if passed.

A new civil servant master job akin to TSA gropers – NH Sniffer Police. Yes we can!

Or alternately, if we can’t get a squish like Romney by way of the primary process, we’ll figure out a way to install one of our own at the convention!

Al Cardenas, head of the American Conservative Union, has said that Republican turmoil might lead to a brokered convention in which Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, would emerge as a “possible alternative” party nominee.

Mr Cardenas, who is running this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a gathering in Washington of some 10,000 conservatives, told MailOnline that it was not certain that one of the four current Republican candidates would emerge victorious.

[...]

Jeb Bush, former Florida governor and younger brother of President George W. Bush, has repeatedly said he will not run in 2012. He is one of a number of senior figures who disappointed activists and party officials alike by staying on the sidelines.

“We’ll know more in the next few weeks,” said Mr Cardenas. “The pressure’s already been on Mitt Romney to close the sale… and he hasn’t.” A split verdict on “Super Tuesday” on March 6th, when 10 states vote, could lead to a surprise at the Republican convention in Tampa in August, he suggested.

[...]

“March 6th is really the telling date as to whether we have a chance of a brokered convention or not,” said Mr Cardenas. “If Mitt wins Arizona and Michigan at the end of February and runs with the vast majority of delegates on March 6th, I still think he could end it early.

“If there’s a mixed bag, if he loses Michigan or Arizona and he wins one or two [on March 6th] and the other states are spread around you might just as well get into a convention where nobody has a majority of delegates.

“And then you might see the possibility of two of the four candidates making a deal, a ticket, things of that nature. It starts getting exciting.” If no deal could be struck then a dark horse could step in on a second ballot, when delegates pledged to candidates would be free to vote as they wished.

“That’s when you start thinking of a Jeb Bush or someone like that could maybe come in as a possible alternative,” said Mr Cardenas, who also hails from Florida.

Cardenas also mentions as possible Party saviors — should, say, some Republicans be put off by the name Bush, or by being told by the former Governor and latest in the line of GOP establishment Bushes that their rejection of illegal immigration marks them as anti-Hispanic nativists — the likes of Chris Christie, or Mike Huckabee, or Mitch Daniels.

Noticeably absent from the list offered by Mr Cardenas? Sarah Palin.

Suggesting to me that Mr Cardenas has no idea what’s happening inside the conservative movement as it exists outside of the GOP media cheerleading squads, and that he has no conception of what a Jeb Bush or Chris Christie or Mike Huckabee candidacy would do to finally shovel that last scoop of dirt atop an already moribund Republican party.

Personally, I’m fine with Santorum, and can even get behind Newt if it comes to it. If I’m given Jeb Bush to vote for, I might seriously consider voting for Obama in protest. Just get it over with so we can maybe begin again fresh.

With the bees, probably.

(thanks to guins)

****
update: Palin’s full speech at CPAC, from TRS (h/t jdw)

Privacy is a right! Freedom of choice! KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR BEDROOMS!

(Unless it’s a committed Catholic’s bedroom, in which case the Papist’s hostility toward contraception is just crazy and irrational, and so has no justifiable claim to privacy, it being a crime against reason itself, and so can’t in good SCIENTIFIC and MEDICAL conscience be allowed to stand in the way of women’s health. In other words, the complaints of a few nutjobs that their privacy is being invaded cannot be permitted to trump a person’s right to fuck using other people’s money as a sperm barrier, or, if that fails, an egg beater.)

Now. Who wants to go tell the military what kinds of foods soldiers must eat?

“Unhelpful” and “puristy” as always.

Unitary executive! Corporate welfare for Big Pharma! KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY UTERUS!

– Or, you know, just promise to throw me some free shit, and we’ll forget all that and fall right in line. Your choice, Big Gov. We’re easy that way.**

Does Obama’s dictatorial ploy to force private companies and the individuals therein to both pay for and provide “free” birth control, sterilization, arbortifacients, etc., gain strength if it can actually lower the costs of health insurance premiums? Writes Sarah W in the comments:

I am horrified at the prospect of national health care, and the related infringements of Obamacare if anyone here isn’t familiar with me.

People ought to be able to provide for their own costs or prudent provision of insurance, by having less of any money spent in that direction confiscated to government coffers; along with health accounts with tax free growth to boost the power of that money. Employer based insurance is part of the problem ( although there are different ways to change that system and I don’t mean to go into that now. ) Mainly I think individuals should have more power and choice in the matter and that this particular issue would be moot if people bought their own plans and paid their own expenses.

Let me be the debbil though. Devils advocate for a moment (and devils advocate only). I have a feeling this is going to come up, and I think it ought to be talked about. What if net subscriber costs went DOWN as as result, or were raised much less than predicted when adjusted for the following:

This wasn’t addressed directly, unless I missed it, in the article – there is an expected savings from one of the pricier payouts for insurers – the cost of pregnancy and childbirth, especially complicated pregnancy and childbirth, and the extraordinarily high expenses associated with premature delivery of a baby (who is generally added to the parents insurance without any exclusions possible for the insurer, and whose care may rapidly mount into the hundred of thousands and even millions in rare cases over time).

It is possible that this would make provision of contraceptives and sterilization procedures cost effective and lower insurer payouts overall.

I’d like to know the true answer to that. It would have some effect certainly.

But assuming it is true – what then? The argument that costs rise for all even when there is no direct subsidy of a particular health care consumers choices is weaker then.

To which I’d like to answer this way:

Dear Devil’s advocate,

The answer is, we needn’t sell our individual liberty and autonomy for a coupon, if that’s what it comes down to, just as we shouldn’t only concern ourselves with losses in individual liberty if the immediate price tag goes up a bit.

And because there was no shortage of availability for cheap contraceptives before Obama’s dictate — and because the rate of abortion is already so elevated in poor areas to begin with — the point is moot anyway: you aren’t going to significantly decrease pregnancies because pregnancies today are widely planned (or at least welcomed), while those that aren’t are readily dealt with, either in advance (through the use of cheap and readily available contraception, from condoms to the pill to the very free abstinence) or after the fact. And even if you did, the savings would be diffuse and long term, pace the analysis from HHS.

Besides that — and this is crucial — none of this is the point. For instance, why make birth control services “free”? Why not, by the same logic, make, say, Lipitor “free.” After all, to play devil’s advocate to your devil’s advocate, heart disease and disease caused by high cholesterol (diabetes, etc.) are on the whole likely more expensive to treat in the long run than is the price of “free” Lipitor spread among the entirety of the mandated population, right?

The point being, that once you begin concentrating on such localized questions, you’re now back to a kind of Gingrich noodling about what should and shouldn’t be provided and at what cost according to a government now intimately involved in the health care of everyone, all of which — by getting us lost in the weeds — misses the overarching point (as I believe is the point): the market and private contracts should be controlling these decisions and prices, and that includes getting the government out of the way of who it allows to join what pool even if it’s across state lines.

Obama is systematically pandering identity group to identity group, promising them “free” things or tax payer-funded relief that people in these various groups wish to take advantage of. And the pitch is seductive, because we’ve all come to realize that we have a government that has no compunction about spending money it doesn’t have — making it difficult for us to reject our cut of an out of control entitlement State. And all Obama and the progressives are asking for in return is that the people they’re buying off eventually enslave themselves utterly to the state.

I would pause here to mention how none of this movement toward dictatorship and the deconstruction of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would have been nearly as likely had we not adopted and then legitimated 1) a New Critical — and later post structural — hermeneutic that allowed the Constitution to be rewritten under the aegis of “interpretation” that, because it dismissed the need to appeal to original intent, was not in fact interpretation; and 2) a judicial system that gives itself leave to build and rule upon the presumed legitimacy of prior poorly-reasoned, unconstitutional “interpretations” instead of returning to the source documents.

I’ve been told bringing ideas about interpretation and language into the rough-and-tumble of politics is “fundamentally unserious.” But the truth is, this control over language, how it’s used, and what comes to count as a legitimate claim upon it, is the very foundation upon which the Statist coup is built, because the stumbling block to the left’s Utopian designs in this country — and here is where American exceptionalism comes in to play — has always been a Constitution designed and intended to limit their power and control their reach.

Which is why we have now — and have had at various times in our history (see, eg., Woodrow Wilson) — active, leftist intellectual and academic attempts to question 1) the legitimacy of the Constitution and its framers, and failing that, to question its role as foundational, should we wish to maintain the fiction that we are a country of laws and equal protection for all thereunder; and 2) its fixed intent, should we wish to maintain the fiction that there is, in fact, something stable to appeal back to when we gauge the legitimacy of the Statist’s plans to affect the relationship between a government and the putatively self-governed, be it through Executive order or legislation or the administrative state or court activism.

The coupling between ownership over meaning and individual autonomy, as I’ve repeatedly tried to explain over the years, is foundational to our constitutional republic as envisioned by the Declaration; just as the move to make “interpretation” as an operation a matter of motivated consensus at the expense of the individual — now bracketed as his words become public, and his signs are reduced to signifiers then reconfigured as new signs by various interpretive communities seeking to marshal them for their own purposes — is anathema to a society that claims to stand for the rights of the individual.

The erosion of our Constitutional protections is tied directly to the linguistically incoherent procedures we’ve at various times legitimated; the originalist view, which coincides with the intentionalist idea of interpretative coherence and legitimacy, stands as a bullwark against motivated rewritings disguised as interpretation.

And it because we allowed the left, through emotional appeals that praise the “democratizing of meaning” (while simultaneously decrying the linguistic totalitarianism of the individual author), to convince us that what we think we’re doing when we interpret is not a serious or useful question, that we now find the leftist, textualist idea of interpretation institutionalized — and working actively at the bedrock level of epistemology to replace individual autonomy with a kind of motivated and politically-charged collectivism.

Which means all that “free stuff” will paradoxically (though predictably) lead to an increase in rates for everyone.

Or to put it more forcefully, the President has determined that he has the authority, as well as the support of his base, to force the public to pick up the cost of freely-chosen lifestyle choices (from here on considered a “right” by the left, with a condom being refigured as part of a regiment of “preventive care” and an elective abortion as a “women’s health” issue) — and the Executive overreach on display, while it may please some in Obama’s leftwing base (and the Catholic Church hierarchy), is becoming a rallying cry for conservatives, classical liberals, libertarians, and constitutionalists who see in this President’s actions an attempt to redefine the relationship between the individual and the government.

Too, this move will almnost certainly bring both ObamaCare –and a concern over the Pandora’s box opened with the legitimation of government mandates more generally — into the forefront of the election conversation.

Which I suspect helps Santorum and perhaps damages Romney.

But yeah. It was The GOP what got “punked.”

… because food has national security implications

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Hold the mystery meat: Military mess halls soon will be serving more fruits, vegetables and low-fat dishes under the first program in 20 years to improve nutrition standards across the armed services.

First lady Michelle Obama and Pentagon officials announced the effort Thursday during a visit to Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas, where the military has been experimenting with ways to improve the quality and variety of foods served on base. The first lady toured a gleaming cafeteria line, then announced the program in a dining hall filled with service members whose plates were overflowing with salad greens, broccoli and whole grains.

“You all look really good, really fit,” she told the airmen. “Thank you for eating your vegetables. We need you strong.”

She encouraged healthy habits during a visit with individual airmen at their tables.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be a vegetable guy soon,” she reassured one airman.

Remember, in ’08, Michelle said Barry wouldn’t let us live our lives like we used to or want to. She’s just being his bestest, little helpmate.

Bless her arugula-wrapped heart.