I guess as a white male you can say that stuff and not be racist, but as a non-white male I cannot.

Opposing reverse racism does not mean that affirmative action is wrong. Accepting the premise of reverse racism means accepting that there is in fact a dominant racial group. Referring to people in this group as "whitey" and "crackers" is bigotry and inappropriate.

I say reverse racism is less damaging, because the dominant racial group is already protected (has better jobs, more money, better access to legal and health services). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

Affirmative action on the other hand is a great attempt at equalizing racial disparities. It is not a perfect solution, but they are effective at getting people more fair access to jobs/education and other means of self-improvement. The devil is in the implementation. For instance if two candidates, one in the dominant group, one in the marginalized group are vying for the same position, the one with the obviously better skillset, experience/other qualifications should be chosen. However if it is not clear who is more qualified, then some weight can and should be given to affirmative action. This isn't about putting unqualified people in jobs because of their race, but recognizing the uphill battle that people who are not in the dominant groups face.

I ended up doing the job for the guy who was hired. He failed miserably and was fired (after years). He was eventually replaced by another UNIX-saavy guy who left the University around the same time I did.

The Solaris admin guy was a friend of mine who had dropped out of the CS program because he needed income, but sincerely wanted to come back as an employee and continue school part time. He probably would have left after he got his degree (if underpaid).

If the decision to hire mediocre but retain people was made, the other two candidates (who were ruled technically unfit) should have been given fair consideration.

I've worked in a state University and perceived serious discrimination in the hiring practices. While it wasn't necessarily widespread there were individuals who were hired that were less qualified because they fit a certain cultural acceptability perspective.

For a Solaris admin job, a guy with long hair who was certified as a Solaris admin and loved Linux and was working on his CS degree at said University, was not hired while someone who had no experience with Solaris or any UNIX-like OS, but was a conventional looking white guy in a suit and had general IT support experience got the job. Both wore a suit to the interview, but the guy who looked a little weirder was way more qualified and enthusiastic about the job. However, a decision to hire a less qualified candidate was made (not by me)

Race wasn't an issue because both candidates were white. An older white gentleman and a young asian woman were also interviewed but were also unqualified (although not any less qualified than the guy who got the job)

It's called reverse racism, and it is bigotry. It is damaging, and it should not be acceptable. However on a scale of damage, it's less damaging than regular racism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

  “The cry of the poor is is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.”

  Howard Zinn

It's horrible to presume non-whites are foreign, and that foreigners are nonwhite. So says a nonwhite native-born American who would never work at Apple but does in fact work in a diverse tech-company :)

That link did not work.... http://curt-rice.com/2012/04/0... (this link works)

The purpose of affirmative action is to give opportunity to marginalized population (and therefore a slight advantage to those populations) not to establish strict ratios where unqualified candidates will be hired simply because they belong to a historically unhired group.

It's interesting (but not at all surprising) that opening up access to jobs to entire populations of people improves overall talent.

Actually, I don't dislike Java at all, but there is a special place in hell for any vendor that says, "A crappy java applet is all they need to manage the only interface needed". Java applets should have died a long time ago.

http://preview.images.memegene...

To me it's not purely a question of numbers. A leak-less intelligence apparatus could exist if the only members were radically different in terms of culture than the rest of the population. People who went to special schools and who at a young age were identified by themselves and/or family members for military/intelligence careers. To me people who go to West Point and the Citadel are not "regular people". They may be fine people, but culturally they are not the same and may have a different set of values.

However after 9-11, the intelligence apparatus grew so large that it pulled in a lot of ordinary nonmilitary people, some of whom were not raised to unquestioningly follow orders that they perceived to be unconstitutional/immoral/etc resulting in folks like Snowden. So in that sense it is a question of numbers to fill high growth. We may have a movement on or hands but maybe not-

I think it is possible to have a leakless surveillance state with a military intelligence minority "keeping check" on a non-military freedom-loving-but-freedom-denied majority. People "selected" to work in intelligence would just hve to be people "built inside the system", going to military academies etc from a young age. Just one frightening distopian thought to wake me up if my 2nd cup of tea doesn't work.

That being said, I don't have any real-world knowledge or experience in the real cloak and dagger world of intelligence and national security, so anything I say is uninformed speculation.

Taxi drivers have a reputation (whether deserved or not I will not speculate) for having heavy accidents. However I don't see why speech recognition is necessary. A keyboard and screen, or a touch screen would be fine to say where you want to go.

From mainstream news, you would think this is a conflict Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. While that element exists, there are a lot of Israelis who do not support the actions of their government. There are massive demonstrations in Israel right now and a very strong contingent of JATO (Jews Against The Occuppation)

http://countercurrentnews.com/...

In my opinion this is a conflict between pro-peace people and pro-war people.

You are 100% right, antisemitism is a very real and very awful thing, but so is Israeli apartheid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy).

A few Israeli soldiers are refusing to serve and can get away with saying everything that needs to be said. (Well they can get away without being called antisemitic, but they are going to jail for it): http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I have the luxury of being friends with people who believe in different religions (including Islam and Judaism), and there is nothing about the religions or the people that prevent peaceful coexistence and friendship. When religious beliefs seem to be a factor in this conflict, I think they are being manipulated for political ends.

And stop subsidizing meat and letting people graze cows on federal lands. Also make factory farms pay the true cost of their waste instead of externalizing to the public. It's a tragedy of commons!

You would be hard pressed to find a thirstier crop than meat. Almost half of our water goes to animal agriculture. http://www.onegreenplanet.org/...

It makes sense to switch to a plant-based diet rather than continue to deplete (and contaminate with manure) our precious water resources.