October 21, 2012

"Underperforming Barack Obama"

From the L.A. Daily News:
Most of the parents who sign up for LAUSD's Choices program hope to send their child to a specialty magnet - a performing arts program for an aspiring actor, perhaps, or a medical academy for a would-be doctor. 
Sharette Arnold simply wanted a safe place for her twin boys. 
Fearful of gangs trolling her South L.A. neighborhood and dismayed at her sons' falling grades, Arnold took advantage of a less-publicized part of Choices. She pulled her sons out of the underperforming Barack Obama Global Prep Academy and enrolled them in Hale Charter Academy, a high-achieving campus in Woodland Hills where Cameron and Delion McDonald are thriving.

However, if Romney messes up the final debate, I claim dibs on the term "The Underperformin' Mormon," a phrase that Google tells me has so far only been applied to 7'6" ex-BYU basketball center Shawn Bradley.

The phrase Underperformin' Norman was coined by John Derbyshire for Bush Administration Transportation secretary Norman Mineta, who refused to allow ethnic profiling in airport security after 9/11 to prevent Japanese from being interned, or something.

41 comments:

  1. The phrase Underperformin' Norman was coined by John Derbyshire for Bush Administration Transportation secretary Norman Mineta, who refused to allow ethnic profiling in airport security after 9/11 to prevent Japanese from being interned, or something.

    This is a little off-topic; but an Armenian friend of mine feared for his own life and safety after 9/11 on the grounds that "most people can't, don't, or won't tell the difference". He might have been worried about mass internment of Armenian-Americans, or at the least, mob pogroms.

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  2. Depressing, eh? She's just doing what any mother would do, but enough people like her doing the same thing and the new school will be ruined as well.

    There's a large mass of NAM lumpen who will screw up any school they attend in sufficient numbers.

    And I'm not sure we have the necessary majority any more to dilute them out. There may be a certain percentage of schools that have to be written off.

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  3. I guess pretty soon Barack Obama Ave will replace Martin Luther King Boulevard as the street that everyone tries to avoid.

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  4. This is a little off-topic; but an Armenian friend of mine feared for his own life and safety after 9/11 on the grounds that "most people can't, don't, or won't tell the difference". He might have been worried about mass internment of Armenian-Americans, or at the least, mob pogroms.

    Ah yes, the liberal/MSM fear of the Great Backlash. The Other are the real victims. Very much along the lines of 'Muslims in fear following tomorrow's terrorist bombing'.

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  5. Steve, Did you see that Mayor Villaraigosa gave a non-answer to running in 2016 for POTUS. Puppet Latinos Unite!!!!!

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  6. I suspect that he has underperformed as the opiate of the masses and the Dark Messiah.

    They will be looking for a newer, post modern Messiah, and Sandra Fluke and her vagina are not up to it.

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  7. The gangs of South LA are no doubt guilty of many and various misdeeds, but I doubt 'trolling' is one of them.

    Gilbert Pinfold

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  8. On the matter of profiling at airports, it's worth reading this long - 13,658 word essay - it covers the issue thoroughly:

    To Profile or Not to Profile? A Debate between Sam Harris and Bruce Schneier

    Nick - Pretoria, South Africa

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  9. "Barack Obama Global Prep Academy"

    Aren't there laws against naming public buildings against living politicians (or at the very least serving ones)? Roll on the cult of personality in the USSA!

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  10. "Aren't there laws against naming public buildings against living politicians (or at the very least serving ones)? " Broken Symmetry

    Never been through West Virginia I take it. "More than 50 buildings built with funds from his economic contributions to West Virginia are named for either Byrd or his wife, Erma Ora Byrd" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_named_after_Robert_Byrd

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  11. Off topic, but I enjoyed Steve's replies on Marginal Revolution's posts on Korea. It is a impressive place, but predictably Cowen didn't put the fact that it's full of Koreans rather than say... Mexicans, together with the high level of organization in Korea. He's a smart guy, but I wonder if he really doesn't think that's relevant in any way or if he makes a calculated decision to protect his NYT gig by not touching that at all.

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  12. underperforming Barack Obama Global Prep Academy

    Just another 'bad school' I guess, one which, per this 'fact sheet', is, just coincidentally, 100% black and Hispanic. Whereas the other school is 60% white and Asian.

    You can have the 'dibs'.

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  13. "Erma Ora Byrd" sounds more like a medical condition than a person.

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  14. Hapalong Cassidy10/22/12, 4:15 AM

    After 9/11, even some black people thought that white racists would use it as an excuse to target blacks. As Chris Rock put it, "That train is never late!"

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  15. Speaking of unclaimed neologisms, I was shocked to see that Google has never heard the phrase "Correlation does not imply caucasians." Seems like the perfect antidote to faux statistical knots that blank slaters tie themselves into to avoid mentioning the obvious, but I was apparently the first person on the internet to use the phrase.

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  16. I always wanted to see "The Iago from Chicago" gain currency to describe Obama.

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  17. underperforming Barack Obama Global Prep Academy

    Back in the 1988 presidential debates, someone asked the candidates, "Tell us something you admire in your opponent."

    Dukakis, being the good little apparatchik narcissistic dweeb that he was, struggled to think of anything kind to say about H-Dub.

    Whereas H-Dub quickly spoke up about how impressed he was at the sense of family that the Dukaki had displayed at the DNC Convention, and how the Bushes had tried to copy that spectacle at the RNC Convention [with Babs and the children and all the grandkids].

    [Parenthetically: I actually thought that that exchange might have been as important for H-Dub's victory as was the infamous question to Dukakis about Kitty getting raped and axe-murdered].

    ANYWAY, for quite some time now, I have thought that if Mittens were to be asked a similar question in one of these presidential debates, then, with UChig Lab School and Sidwell Friends in mind, he could say something along the lines of, "Well, at least my opponent was enough of an hypocrite to never have sent his own daughters to gubmint school".

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  18. I don't think Byrd named anything for himself though as John Stroeger in Chicago didwhen he was president of Cook County Board, Stroeger Hospital ....

    From WV, live in Chicagoand hate it.

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  19. btw, what's the etymology of "dibs"?

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  20. Ah yes, the liberal/MSM fear of the Great Backlash. The Other are the real victims. Very much along the lines of 'Muslims in fear following tomorrow's terrorist bombing'

    On September 11, 2001, after one plane had already hit the Pentagon and nobody had a clue about how extensive the terror attack might turn out to be, Montgomery County Maryland sent its police to guard the local mosques and other Moslem centers.

    If MoCo Police Chief Charles Moose (who couldn't catch the DC Snipers) also sent squad cars to guard potential terrorists targets, search for bombs, inspect vulnerable infrastructure, etc., on that day, he sure as hell never bragged about it like he bragged about keeping the Moslems safe.

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  21. This is on topic. Donald Trump says that Wednesday he will make a "big" announcement.

    I think he will present evidence - such as he can - that Obama is gay.

    I predicted an 'October Surprise' of this sort, some time ago. The Donald was not afraid to go public with his birther notions. He is just the sort of public figure to give creedance to the Obama is gay trope.

    In fact the idea that Obama was born in Africa was always very improbable. As I have also commented Nixon, Bush, and Eisenhower had also been subject to wild theories about where they really were born.

    But the idea that Obama is gay has prima facie credibility - at least for many. Obama is at least fey if not truly gay. He sets off a lot of of the electorate's gaydar, and always has.

    Obama unlike almost all other male politicians has no string of former girl friends behind him. He sings, he dances, he legalizes gay marriage.

    I don't know if it's true. I don't personally care. I don't think it really should matter. Homosexuality I believe is simply a developmental disease caused by a toxoplasma gondii infection in his mother. No one should be penalized for that. But many voters will care.

    Albertosaurus

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  22. Sharette Arnold simply wanted a safe place for her twin boys.
    Fearful of gangs trolling her South L.A. neighborhood and dismayed at her sons' falling grades, Arnold took advantage of a less-publicized part of Choices.


    where's the father of "her" boys?

    assuming, you know, they had the same father

    whoops that's right, this is america, where Daddy's permanently on the Dont Fly List

    obie hasnt underperformed, he has performed quite predictably and consistently as groomed, and as planned

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  23. The Legendary Linda10/22/12, 12:01 PM

    ANYWAY, for quite some time now, I have thought that if Mittens were to be asked a similar question in one of these presidential debates, then, with UChig Lab School and Sidwell Friends in mind, he could say something along the lines of, "Well, at least my opponent was enough of an hypocrite to never have sent his own daughters to gubmint school".

    Oprah did ask Romney that very question in the November issue of the Oprah magazine and he said he admired Obama for killing Osama.

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  24. Albertosaurus - Obama had at least three girlfriends in college, that he rolled into one composite for his book. At least one has been identified, I believe. He's got to be interested in women - a woman like Michelle wouldn't put up with a gay man, though she might tolerate a bisexual.

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  25. Cloward and Piven and Ayers10/22/12, 12:06 PM

    obie hasnt underperformed, he has performed quite predictably and consistently as groomed, and as planned

    This.

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  26. "btw, what's the etymology of "dibs"?"

    I dunno, but it was popular in junior high schools in 1971.

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  27. I dunno, but it was popular in junior high schools in 1971.

    Like beatings, stompings, and the like?

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  28. I always wanted to see "The Iago from Chicago" gain currency to describe Obama.

    I can't even get people to use "Obamaton."

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  29. Albertosaurus - Obama had at least three girlfriends in college, that he rolled into one composite for his book. At least one has been identified, I believe.

    Where are the other 2?

    He's got to be interested in women - a woman like Michelle wouldn't put up with a gay man.

    But wives are always the last to know. No woman wants to believe her marriage was a lie and that she was used as a political prop.

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  30. Anonydroid at 1:44 asked, "Like beatings, stompings and the like?"


    Hunsdon replied: Worse, anonydroid, much, much worse. Bell bottoms. Leisure suits. Sideburns!

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  31. @Pat:

    Bite your tongue!

    An emotional, heartfelt speech by Obama coming out of the closet on November 5th would ensure he wins by a landslide!

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  32. Cail Corishev10/22/12, 2:43 PM

    "He's got to be interested in women - a woman like Michelle wouldn't put up with a gay man, though she might tolerate a bisexual."

    Are you aware of the pay raise she got at her fake job when people started touting her husband as a presidential candidate? I think she'd put up with quite a bit.

    Having said that, I don't think he's Liberace-gay either. He probably did have a SWPL girlfriend or two whom he bored to death with pompous poetry and philosophy, and he probably did sire his daughters. He seems more likely to have dabbled in teh gay, the same way he dabbled in drugs, Islam, and anything else that looked "alternative" to a good liberal. Not many men are really bisexual, but he does seem like the type who might've tried it for the experience, just because his massive intellect makes him so bored with the ordinary ways of doing things.

    True or not, it'd be awesome to see Trump bring it up. Our campaigns are way too nice; just bringing up an opponent's actual record is called negative campaigning, and whole topics go unexplored lest someone be accused of a hate crime. Let's have some real mud-slinging already.

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  33. "Homosexuality I believe is simply a developmental disease caused by a toxoplasma gondii infection in his mother." -Pat

    This paper, http://www.shb-info.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/7_dorner_et_al.pdf , suggests a majority of cases of transsexualism (in older patients) is caused by pre-natel exposure to DDT. Though the condition is not the same as homosexuality, the two share some characteristics, such as "A positive estrogen feedback on LH secretion was only evocable in homosexual and transsexual men in contrast to heterosexual men." The paper also says that rates of homosexuality in West Germany were higher during years of heavy DDT usage.

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  34. True or not, it'd be awesome to see Trump bring it up. Our campaigns are way too nice; just bringing up an opponent's actual record is called negative campaigning, and whole topics go unexplored lest someone be accused of a hate crime. Let's have some real mud-slinging already.

    I'd just as soon Trump kept it to himself, if that's all it is. I can almost hear Romney saying "you're not helping, Donald. STFU please."

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  35. "As I have also commented Nixon, Bush, and Eisenhower had also been subject to wild theories about where they really were born. "

    OK Albertsaurus, that's the second time you've brought this up on Steve's site. Where were they supposedly born?

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  36. OK Albertsaurus, that's the second time you've brought this up on Steve's site. Where were they supposedly born?

    The Nixon one is minor and obscure but the other two are very big and important politically.

    Eisenhower is a central figure in Holocaust Denial. He saw the camps with his own eyes and he was afraid that future generations would forget or deny it. He made Patton and Bradley go into the barracks of one of the camps. Patton said it made him sick.

    Eisenhower spoke often about the NAZI atrocities. This made him a target by the Holocaust Denial loons. They then made up a legend that Eisenhower was not born in Texas at all. He was really an Austrian Jew.

    This birther theory has been around in marginal literature and denialist web sites for forty years. There are lots of references and millions of hits.

    The Bush birther theory goes back just as far. The idea is that Prescott Bush (George's father) was not just born in Germany but was a high official in the NAZI party. George senior was also supposed to have been born in Germany and is also supposed to have benn a NAZI. There are many web sites that recount this crazy notion. There is a picture on the web that you can find that purports to show a photo of Prescott and George in a meeting also attended by Mengele. Look it up.

    These last two are not minor obscure conspiracy theories. They are well established wacko history. I remember just a few years ago hearing Bush called a NAZI based on these ideas. Obama is almost certainly being wronged by the birther theories but he is by no means the first.

    Albertosaurus

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  37. suggests a majority of cases of transsexualism (in older patients) is caused by pre-natel exposure to DDT

    One problem with the DDT theory is that DDT is young and homosexuality is old.

    Albertosaurus

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  38. This is a little off-topic; but an Armenian friend of mine feared for his own life and safety after 9/11 on the grounds that "most people can't, don't, or won't tell the difference". He might have been worried about mass internment of Armenian-Americans, or at the least, mob pogroms.

    Ah yes, the liberal/MSM fear of the Great Backlash. The Other are the real victims. Very much along the lines of 'Muslims in fear following tomorrow's terrorist bombing'.


    The issue here is not the reality or unreality of the Great Backlash. Certain ethnic groups have certain collective fears, and that hangs them up in the past, and muddles up thinking on current events. For Jews, a certain part of them still lives in 1943. For the Irish, 1843. For Armenians, 1915. For Japanese-Americans such as Mineta, 1941.

    This Armenian friend has no lost love for Muslims, by the way. But in his own way, he's a realist, and knows that mobs do not have good cognitive abilities or discrimination. I mean discrimination in the true sense of the word. His greatest fear is ending up in the same internment camp as Muslims, where they would beat him to death.

    This has historical precedents. Britain in WWII interned its citizens of German descent, and many of these were Jews. Since the Brits couldn't tell the difference, Nazis and Jews often wound up in the same cells.

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  39. "One problem with the DDT theory is that DDT is young and homosexuality is old." Pat

    I would suggest reading the paper. It is very interesting and never argues that DDT is the sole cause of anything. The suggestion is that DDT use quadrupled rates of transsexualism, not that it didn't exist beforehand, and, of course, there are old reports, in a number of cultures, of transgendered people.

    The interesting thing from an HBD perspective, which, if I remember right, the authors of the paper nod to(though possibly in another paper), is that the relatively high frequency of homosexuality make it more natural. They argue that transsexuality should be prevented if possible while homosexuality should not.

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  40. The Legendary Linda10/22/12, 9:04 PM

    A lot of studies suggest that male homosexuality is a function of how many male fetuses a man's mother carries prior to his birth. The higher a boy's fraternal birth order, the more likely he is to be gay.

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