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Today: 70 articles and 167 comments as of 14:59.
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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Fighting grips Hodeidah port, complicates peace moves
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Land of the Free
Telling the awful truth about the new SAT ‘adversity' score
[American Thinker] Few people have the audacity to speak the truth about the underlying problem with the efforts to engineer "diversity" ‐ which in practice means that blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans receive a share of jobs, college admissions, income, and other products of achievement at least proportional to their share of the population. Fortunately, Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has a lot of guts.

Last night, Ms. Mac Donald appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and discussed the newly-announced "adversity score" adopted by the College Board publishers of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). As explained by the New York Times:
The company announced on Thursday that it will include a new rating, which is widely being referred to as an "adversity score," of between 1 and 100 on students’ test results. An average score is 50, and higher numbers mean more disadvantage. The score will be calculated using 15 factors, including the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s neighborhood.

The rating will not affect students’ test scores, and will be reported only to college dmissions officials as part of a larger package of data on each test taker.

The Wall Street Journal expresses the decision factors in this graphic:

Posted by: Besoeker || 05/17/2019 07:43 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reparations, one small step at a time.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/17/2019 7:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Designed to get certain test takers into better schools. Stupidly, sending any student into a school more demanding than their abilities is a guarantee of failure, frustration, and a path to dropping out. Better to match ability to challenge, driving toward success. This is known, but some people prefer to virtue signal with other people’s lives.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/17/2019 8:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Of course we recently learned the 'privileged' buy their way in to top schools with at least passing marks to obviously follow.

Everyone must be looked after on "Airstrip One".
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/17/2019 8:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Racial preferences are illegal even if you think your oh-so-clever way around the illegality works. This will be blown up in court or SATs will not be usable
Posted by: Frank G || 05/17/2019 8:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Adversity is our strungth.
Posted by: charger || 05/17/2019 9:42 Comments || Top||

#6  a guarantee of failure, frustration, and a path to dropping out.

But the loans will still be due. Until the dems cancel them, anyway...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/17/2019 9:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Haven't these kids faced enough adversity without sending them to indoctrination camps and burdening them with lifelong debt?
Posted by: Glenmore || 05/17/2019 9:55 Comments || Top||

#8  Someone call me when the NBA and NFL start allowing underprivileged short slow white guys into the league to the limit of their population percentage.
Posted by: Hellfish || 05/17/2019 12:53 Comments || Top||

#9  Stupidly, sending any student into a school more demanding than their abilities is a guarantee of failure, frustration, and a path to dropping out.

I dunno. What about all those kids whose parents bought their way into the top schools like Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and USC? Did they drop out? I've never been so I don't really know but it makes me wonder if the so-called best and brightest who come out of those schools really are the best and brightest. Maybe they're just the children of the elite.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 05/17/2019 14:01 Comments || Top||

#10  We already have a problem with kids being given positions in elite schools way above their abilities and then flunking out after a year or two. This will only compound that problem.
Posted by: rschwarz || 05/17/2019 14:58 Comments || Top||

#11  Standards will be lowered so they DON'T flunk out - diminishing those schools. Would you hire an Evergreen College or Berkeley grad? I sure as hell wouldn't
Posted by: Frank G || 05/17/2019 18:48 Comments || Top||

#12  ...And the genius behind this was also one of the people who put together Common Core.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 05/17/2019 19:39 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Somalia-Turkey Ties Will Triumph Despite The Murder Of A Turkish Citizen
[RADIOSHABELLE] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....
’s economic, humanitarian and nation-building efforts in Somalia have forged a bond that cannot be derailed by terror attacks.

On Sunday, the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 05/17/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  Words. Utterly. Fail.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/17/2019 8:23 Comments || Top||

#2  "Somalia has become a symbol of the relations we wish to establish with our brothers in Africa."

Locate the triggering word in the above sentence.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/17/2019 8:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Turkey's commitment to establish commercial ties with Somalia is truly mystifying.

It is such an obvious waste of time and money that you would think even an ego like Erdogan would see it.
Posted by: lord garth || 05/17/2019 8:35 Comments || Top||

#4  The salient message comes at 1:32...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/17/2019 9:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Wannabe neo-Ottoman sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan I, “the much beloved” is only lately come to the generous Muslim autocrat role long displayed by the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the former rulers of Libya and Iraq. There aren’t many Muslim nations left where he can shower largess upon a suitably grateful populace. There is also the fact that, due to less than rosy government accountancy numbers, he has considerably less in the way of funds to lavish, and so must pick his targets carefully. Only Iran, as I recall, has shown any interest in Somalia, so there he goes. He also has the advantage of having taken over the Gulen schools following the claimed coup attempt, and so can capitalize on the good name of Turks established by the teachers and graduates of those excellent educational academies... at least until it comes to general notice that the teachers he provides are not anywhere near the caliber of the Jesuit-like Gulenists.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/17/2019 12:40 Comments || Top||


Economy
Half of Americans are just one paycheck away from financial disaster
[Market Watch] Missing more than one paycheck is a one-way ticket to financial hardship for nearly half of the country’s workforce.
No doubt at least a quarter of that group are in the upper middle class, income-wise, choosing to live at the edge of their means. It used to be called keeping up with the Joneses.
A new study from NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent social research institution, found that 51% of working adults in the United States would need to access savings to cover necessities if they missed more than one paycheck.
Does this mean over half actually have savings accounts? And isn’t that what savings accounts are for?
Certain communities were more prone to economic hardship in the event of missing a paycheck. Roughly two-thirds of households earning less than $30,000 annually
...the working poor, who nowadays get food stamps and other forms of aid for exactly that reason...
and Hispanic households
...is that code for illegal immigrants? Why else pick them out, but not African-Americans?
would be unable to cover basic living expenses after missing more than one paycheck, the researchers found.

The findings were based on a survey of more than 1,000 adults. The researchers interviewed a nationally representative panel designed to be indicative of the U.S. population.

The survey provides a sobering look at Americans’ precarious finances even as the economy is improving, jobs are more plentiful and the stock market has ‐ despite this week’s volatility ‐ generally continued its upward trajectory this year.
The usual situation during recovery after a crash. This time it was made longer and deeper by vast ladlefuls of excessive regulations poured on by the Obama administration, including Obamacare.
Though wage growth has accelerated recently, those gains have been concentrated among the wealthiest Americans most.
But the vast number of newly employed has been concentrated among the formerly non-working poor, giving them the first step up the skills-and-salary ladder.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/17/2019 01:20 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looking for a government hand out
Posted by: Uleck Spererong9442 || 05/17/2019 6:37 Comments || Top||

#2  would need to access savings to cover necessities if they missed more than one paycheck.

What would you expect them to use, the change in the couch?
Posted by: AlanC || 05/17/2019 7:23 Comments || Top||

#3  The Gubbamint Teat
Posted by: Frank G || 05/17/2019 7:28 Comments || Top||

#4  If only we had a government safety net like say Venezuela
Posted by: Regular joe || 05/17/2019 8:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Guaranteed National Incomes NOW, or we shall surely all DIE !
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/17/2019 8:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Wouldn't the 'working poor' be better off if they/we didn't have to pay all those taxes? Sales taxes up front and all the intermediary taxes levied on stuff from the ground to the store shelves? Strange how the pols never bring that up.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/17/2019 8:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Just print more money to cover the shortfall - problem solved!
Posted by: Raj || 05/17/2019 9:32 Comments || Top||

#8  AOC, Bernie and Warren will run on "If other people have money and you don't, we have plans to fix that..."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/17/2019 9:59 Comments || Top||

#9  I need a second mortgage so I can buy more stuff.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 05/17/2019 14:08 Comments || Top||

#10  8 years of Obama drained most peoples savings and we were told it was a great economy.
Posted by: rschwarz || 05/17/2019 15:00 Comments || Top||

#11  I seem to remember hearing this same statistic decades ago.

Been there. Luckily my job didn't go away.
Posted by: james || 05/17/2019 21:36 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
The marriage age debate
[DAWN] THE new debate over the minimum marriage age for girls has revealed a massive regression in our society’s social thinking and the implications are truly alarming.

Ninety years ago, a Hindu member of the Central Assembly of India moved a bill to fix the minimum age for the marriage of girls belonging to his community, so that the evil of child marriage could be tackled. Mohammad Ali Jinnah insisted on extending the protection of the proposed measure to Moslem girls, too. Many Moslem members of the assembly opposed him, but no member from any religious community challenged his right to have his say.

Recently, Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a non-Moslem member of the ruling party, moved a bill to raise the marriage age for girls to 18 years. A Moslem minister not only disagreed with him, but also challenged his right to move the bill, implying thereby that Vankwani’s belief debarred him from raising a matter that could affect Moslem girls. Retrogressive thinking of this order has not been witnessed in our legislative history ‐ neither before Independence, nor after it.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 05/17/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Home Front: Culture Wars
Alabama Girl Crushed As Mother Explains She May Never Have Opportunity To Kill Offspring
[Babylon Bee] TUSCALOOSA, AL‐Seven-year-old Gloria Hutchins was taken aside by her mother today and informed that thanks to new abortion laws, she may never enjoy the opportunity to kill her offspring. The two shared tears as Hutchin's mother, Heather, explained how, back in the good old days, if she decided she wanted to have sex without any discrepancy or thought, that was totally fine because she could always just end the life she had created.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/17/2019 00:44 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can you imagine the amount of counseling that will have to be done if "running other people's lives" is ever found unconstitutional?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/17/2019 8:16 Comments || Top||

#2  OMG, she is now going to have to take responsibility for her actions... Think ahead little girl..
Posted by: 49 Pan || 05/17/2019 10:54 Comments || Top||

#3  The Babylon Bee is just great!

But are we really sure this one is satire?
Posted by: Tom || 05/17/2019 13:35 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
25[untagged]
6Islamic State
6Govt of Pakistan
4Taliban
4al-Shabaab (AQ)
4Govt of Iran
3Hamas
3Sublime Porte
2Govt of Iran Proxies
2Arab Spring
2Moslem Colonists
1Houthis
1Human Trafficking
1Govt of Pakistain Proxies
1Lashkar e-Taiba
1al-Qaeda
1Muslim Brotherhood
1Narcos
1Commies
1Hezbollah

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Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2019-05-17
  Fighting grips Hodeidah port, complicates peace moves
Thu 2019-05-16
  F-16 with live ordinance crashes in Riverside CA.
Wed 2019-05-15
  Iranian ballistic missile platforms in Basra city directed towards the Gulf, Exxon evacuating, German mil. trainers evacuating
Tue 2019-05-14
  The Latest: Norwegian Tanker's Hull Punctured off UAE Coast
Mon 2019-05-13
  Gunmen kill six during Catholic mass in Burkina Faso
Sun 2019-05-12
  Security guard killed as terrorists storm Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar: ISPR
Sat 2019-05-11
  B-52s in Al Udeid AB Qatar
Fri 2019-05-10
  U.S. revokes citizenship of Portland mosque's imam for ties to ObL
Thu 2019-05-09
  Rotherham abuse scandal: 40 arrests made in last two months
Wed 2019-05-08
  Pompeo suddenly in Iraq
Tue 2019-05-07
  400-strong Christian mob attacks Muslim shops in Sri Lankan town hit by Easter bomb
Mon 2019-05-06
  19 killed in Gaza, four in Israel in Sunday’s escalation, say officials
Sun 2019-05-05
  Iran money man zapped in Gaza
Sat 2019-05-04
  Israel strikes Gaza targets in response to heavy rocket fire Saturday
Fri 2019-05-03
  Taliban militants blow up one of the oldest shrines of Ghazni city

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