The definitions of particular words get a little murky when people appropriate the terms for a political ideology:

"http://thinkprogress.org/election/2013/03/22/1761431/what-it-means-to-be-a-progressive-a-manifesto/"

Yes, "progress" in terms of advancing the "progressive" political agenda is a very bad thing. Contemporary "progressivism" is just reformulated communist nonsense.

I'm always trying to get leftists, socialists, communists and other statists to specify exactly what they mean by "rich". Tax the Rich! Make the rich pay their fair share! etc. etc.
You really think a $109k annual salary makes you "rich"? In Massachusetts no less? What do you think of these people that want to soak you even more for the crime of being "rich"?
Your Romneycare payment is $800/month? Is that just for yourself? Plus 49-freakin-percent taxes? With that and the gun laws, there's no way I'd live there.
F*** Socialism.

"IF" states in this country are still going to use the death penalty, they should at least give the condemned a choice. The degree to which governments have gone to sanitize execution bespeaks the embarrassing nature of the whole operation. Rather than doing it quickly, loudly and publicly, they do it in some dark secluded basement with an injection as if they're trying to obscure the fact that they are killing someone.

I don't anticipate being in this position, but I'd definitely take a firing squad to being poisoned and/or asphyxiated.
If the government is willing to execute people and call it "justice", then they should do it out in the open and/or broadcast it on TV for all the world to see. Poisons and gases are, IMO, much more barbaric to the condemned than the old methods. Those methods are not more "humane", they merely spare the authorities from having to clean up the mess associated with their deeds.

"For historical reasons the best solution to racial problems in society is mixing."

What historical reasons are those? What do you mean by "problem"? What data do you have to support the conclusion that "mixing" is the best solution to that "problem"?

I've never seen tangible evidence to indicate that this society's obsession with "diversity" and "multiculturalism" is justified or that implementing public policy to achieve it yields net positive results.

Yes, you have to prevent them from oxidizing somehow. Dumping them in water or burying them raises a lot of questions though. Would the operation of cutting them down and either digging deep holes to bury them or transporting them to the ocean to be weighted down and dumped be carbon negative? The market need for building materials is presumably being filled with current operations, so I don't think you could store much additional carbon that way. Many logging operations also re-plant.

I wonder if something like hemp wouldn't suck up more carbon than trees and be easier to sequester?

How are we going to implement the "one child per family" option in the places where the population is growing the fastest? Westerners have been trying and failing to teach denizens of the 3rd world to use condoms just to control the spread of disease! These places would be unable to implement or enforce such a policy and you know that any proposal to force population control on the third world, say by putting contraceptives in water supplies, would be roundly criticized as 'racism' and 'eugenics'.

We could at least limit environmental destruction of North America and Europe by cutting off immigration. You wouldn't need to impose child limits on Europeans, USAians and Canadians because they aren't even procreating at replacement levels. As we know however, anti-immigration policies bring out the same whines about 'racism!'

I think peak oil is our best chance at population control. Petroleum scarcity will limit food production, drive up prices and lead to starvation and war. A new world war or nuclear war might be nature's way of population control. I also keep thinking that it's only a matter of time before the emergence of a mutated strain of avian flu that can pass from person to person.

I can see him cutting his own pay as a publicity stunt because cutting expense would go straight into profits which he would benefit from due to his ownership stake.
However, he didn't have to give the rest of his employees an average raise of $22,000! Do you really think their increased happiness is going to increase their average productivity to the extent that it generates an additional $2M in profits?
I don't see how you can dismiss this as simple "self interest". Most employees would be psyched for a one time bonus of $22,000, but an annual salary increase of $22,000? I think that's pure generosity on his part.

The average salary is already $48,000, so you only need to multiply 121 by the $22,000 increase. He's also reducing his own salary by about 900,000.

$2.2M - 121x$22k + $900k =~ $438k

Still in the black if the profit estimate holds true.

Hey! As long as they pursue their socialist fantasy within the confines of their own company and leave the rest of us out of it, more power to them!
Why would you be happy about the prospect of them going out of business? I wish them long life and prosperity.
A "skilled worker" would have to be quite the a$$hole if he agrees to work for a certain salary and then gets upset because he isn't making more than the janitor to whom he feels superior. Let him quit and good riddance.
The article I read mentioned "clerks" and "customer support reps". Maybe they sub-contract cleaning, security and other menial work?

Because white women between 50 and 70 are equally likely to perpetrate a terrorist attack or hijacking as dark skinned men between 20 and 40?

I wouldn't argue that we ban anyone from air travel based on skin color, religion, clothing, hair style or whatever, but we should sure as hell use profiling and subject people who fit the profile to extra scrutiny.

It isn't "lazy hatred", it's using what we know about past hijackings to prevent future ones.

White boys are failing because the curriculum is teaching everyone else self esteem while white boys are taught that they are nothing but evil oppressors. Everyone else has a "pride" month, while whites get a "shame" century. White people, especially boys, are taught that they must go through life in constant state of collective guilt about the crimes of their ancestors, but must NEVER exhibit collective pride in the achievements of their ancestors(that's racism!). It's a deliberate effort to dumb them down and impair their learning ability and achievement to achieve "equality".
It was bad and getting worse when I went to school, I can only imagine how horrible it must be now. I can't help but think that the public school curriculum and it's "shame on white people" and collective guilt BS does long term psychological damage.

That doesn't follow at all. It's not just a "line of thinking" they actually conducted a study which lends support to the idea that race matching leads to improved outcomes.

Maybe a new study will look at gender? It could be that kids raised by mom are taught more effectively by females or that boys have better results with women and girls with men? Who knows until you look?

I agree with the overwhelming majority of what you say. I especially appreciate your stating that 10 people of the same skin color can be orders of magnitude more "diverse" than having the magic rainbow. This prevailing "wisdom" that if you mix the right % of people from different races, genders and ethnic backgrounds you get an ideal outcome is absolute nonsense. AA and quotas are also absolute nonsense. The entire idea that fostering "diversity" and "multiculturalism" will lead to improved outcomes is only a feel-good measure. There is absolutely no empirical evidence to suggest that a work force, student body, government body etc. performs optimally with the "right" mix of races and genders.

However, the article is citing an actual observable phenomenon. Children learn better when taught by a member of their own race. Young kids are not capable of rationalizing thoughts such as yours. e.g. "If the teacher is qualified, who gives a damn?" I can theorize about why this might be true, but would be called a racist, so let's stop at the point where the observed data end.

Yes, to hell with all of the "magic diversity formula" and other nonsense, but hiring black teachers for black students and white teachers for white students to achieve improved results apparently has some empirical basis, so why not do it?

I've only voted 'R' or 'D' once in a presidential election. As for 2016, if Rand Paul gets the 'R' nomination I would probably vote for him. If he betrays the voters and deviates from his campaign rhetoric in the same ways that Bush and Obama did, I'll give up on 'R's and 'D's forever.

I think there was definitely something different about Ron Paul, despite the 'R' next to his name. I don't think he would have changed his message after being elected. That's probably why the MSM and the whole political establishment was against him. With Rand Paul, I'm not so sure, but I'm willing to take a chance.

A nation is defined by its borders and the people of that nation have every right to take actions which serve their collective best interests. If that means defending those borders and limiting the number of people who can cross over and take up residency, so be it.