2,650 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2015
    1. Walters would not address how the savings could be that high if almost all the employees are still being paid and the facilities still have to be maintained.

      because it won't

  2. Sep 2015
    1. race-conscious admissions policies could change as a result of its decision in June to revisit a lawsuit challenging a race-conscious admissions policy for undergraduates at the University of Texas at Austin.

      ugh

    2. Such suspicions have become common among Asian and Asian-American students who believe that selective colleges are either discriminating against them outright or holding them to substantially higher standards than applicants who are black, Hispanic, or Native American.

      But not white students. THAT'S interesting.

    1. the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which exercises police powers as part of its function of regulating the sale and use of alcohol in Virginia.

      So of course the report didn't find THEIR OWN police at fault.

    1. Emanuel promised during both of his campaigns to have "the most open, accountable and transparent government that the city of Chicago has ever seen," but the Tribune says the Democrat has repeatedly stonewalled press access.

      hahahahaha

    1. The regents rejected a request from Israel supporters to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism

      interesting. I wonder how the state department defines anti-Semitism

    2. Rather than having to wait to file the application after completing tax returns for the previous year, students and families will be able to use tax information from two years prior.

      Nice!

    1. the Oak Brook Village Board voted unanimously to support repealing the prevailing wage, going against the wishes of 40 or so union representatives and workers who attended the board meeting.

      that's not going to serve them well in the next election

    1. the disputes between the two—taxes and workers' comp reform, pensions and prevailing wage, school aid and unemployment compensation—can be worked out by people of goodwill.

      prevailing wage is off the table, we all know this. Rauner is never going to get that.

    2. a man who, after all, sabotaged his own daughter's aspirations for higher office because he thinks he's entitled to power forever—was not going to roll over.

      wow, really? She's already the Attorney General ffs

    1. “The last thing I would see our governor doing is making our pension funds political,” says Hobson. “He understands at his core what pension fund investing is about.”

      How can you look at this and say it's NOT political?

    2. We were paying them fees for putting money in a mattress. . . . Our vision is to be pretty tough on fees.”

      despite the fact that the board's OWN RECORDS show that Ullico's investments were actually making money. Because unions have been proven to increase productivity

    3. Unlike the three other firms that the Rauner appointees voted to terminate, Ullico wasn’t fired for “underperforming” on investment returns

      sounds union related to me

    4. In line with Rauner’s anti-organized labor stance, one of the managers the board dumped was Ullico, a union-owned investment firm that lends money to construction projects that agree to hire union labor.

      Ugh. That sucks

    5. The Republican governor’s appointees to the Illinois State Board of Investment voted to shift $697 million into investments designed to mimic the financial markets’ performance

      is that really a good thing right now?

    1. tax in the wake of a potential Metra shutdown is irresponsible and unfair to the people who have to get in and out of the city for work each day.

      this is mostly speculation

    2. Instead of federal mandates, it is incumbent upon local train systems to maintain responsible safety standards that make sense for each locality.

      well they don't, which is why federal mandates are necessary

    3. Train systems that do not implement PTC cannot continue to operate after Dec. 31, 2015. Metra officials have repeatedly told the federal government they cannot make all of the necessary adjustments until 2019

      this will probably be delayed

    1. Calling state employees "pawns in the political dispute over the state budget," the union is asking Circuit Judge Robert LeChien, among other things, to block the state from laying off 158 employees on Sept. 30 and to continue to pay health insurance claims for state employees and their dependents.

      I fail to see how this is "refusing to negotiate". This is merely AFSCME doing their jobs to protect workers while still negotiating with Rauner

    1. Republicans' trust in the judicial branch could be restored with a landmark ruling more in sync with conservative ideology and policy preferences; one possibility would be in a case on Affirmative Action in college admissions, to be heard in the coming term.

      ugggh

    1. I can’t imagine any of the mostly-white English-speaking protesters standing outside carnicerias and protesting traditional Latin American methods of animal husbandry and slaughter

      What are "traditional Latin American methods of animal husbandry and slaughter". You can't help but see the irony here in saying Jews are "other" and then singling out Latinos in literally the EXACT SAME WAY.

    1. They believe that many neonatal herpes cases the city attributes to mohels were caused by a family member or a caregiver touching the circumcision wound with a finger or hand

      So, from the parents??

    2. But at the beginning of 2015, under pressure from the ultra-Orthodox community, the administration of New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, announced the city’s intention to revoke the consent form regulation.

      ffs

    1. McWhorter encourages us to see linguistic structures as nothing more than products of “chance,” and to accept that we are all “mentally alike.”

      just because language doesn't show this doesn't mean we're all mentally alike. Culture still affects how we think and perceive. Maybe culture has more of an effect on language than language does on psychology, but that doesn't mean we're all the same.

    2. McWhorter praises Boroditsky and others for elegant and sound experimental design, but says they have resurrected the hypothesis in such a diluted form that their work only serves to show that language barely affects thought at all, as measured cognitively.

      that's not really generous. And is awfully dismissive. So does language barely affect thought, or is it simply subtle?

    1. Did the opposite genders of “bridge” in German and Spanish, for example, have an effect on the design of bridges in Spain and Germany?

      that sounds like a thesis

    1. a 550-square-foot one-bedroom unit would have to rent for $1,165. Without them, renters could pay $975—saving $190 a month.

      that's CRAZY expensive for downtown Champaign

    2. the university was worried that eliminating parking requirements in Champaign would make the city too nice.

      this actually makes zero sense to me considering the quote. How would this make the city too nice? It won't make it too nice, it will make it too expensive for the University to buy those plots of land.

    1. the Guttmacher Institute surveyed all abortion providers (about 1,700), including Planned Parenthood, and found that 60 percent are in majority-white neighborhoods — and that fewer than one in ten abortion providers are located in neighborhoods where more than half of the residents are black

      this isn't specific to Planned Parenthood though =/

    1. than a distantly possible threat to minority voting rights that are already protected in the amendment and by federal law anyway.

      I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over all that white privilege. The better response would be to invite groups of concerned citizens to work together on an independent maps initiative.

    1. A patchwork of court orders and state laws are ensuring that around 80% of state spending is still disbursed. State employees are still getting their salaries and pensions, and recipients of Medicaid, a government health-scheme for the poor, are still getting coverage.

      None of these are Rauner's doing

    1. the Republican had abandoned right-to-work as part of his platform. Rauner pushed the issue as he could through the courts, an effort that is still underway

      Which is sneaky and underhanded

    1. This, of course, disregards that gasoline literally fuels the car, a key component of what makes it work," Rauner wrote

      What do you think he'll say when he finds out that electric cars are a thing?

    1. The absence of bathroom breaks and waiting periods between meetings does not change the hours of dialogue with top-level Planned Parenthood executives eager to manipulate abortion procedures to get high-quality baby parts for financially profitable sale.

      if bathroom breaks were being cut out then the audio in the video would have indicated that. Typically people say "excuse me, I have to go to the restroom" or something along those lines.

    2. f you look at the timestamp in the lower left-hand corner, it jumps forward by nearly a half-hour (from about 7:46 to 8:18) in just a few seconds.

      Metadata is important, yo

    1. This research demonstrates that current federal and local regulations are having a big effect on the availability of guns to criminals in Chicago,” he adds. “They can’t buy their guns from stores, the way most people do, and are instead largely constrained to making private deals with acquaintances, who may or may not be willing and able to provide what they want.

      OH WEIRD, STRONGER GUN LAWS ACTUALLY WORK

    1. He and I share a passion around economic empowerment, especially in the black community

      I think this is the first time I've seen Rauner admit that the black community exists

    2. Rauner shifted the blame to Democrats who he said have refused to institute his reforms and instead want to discuss revenue options to pay the bills.

      "I won't negotiate with them because they won't give me everything I want".

    1. the powerful speaker of the Illinois House, failed to round up enough votes to override the governor’s veto of an important labor bill

      "failed". Madigan didn't fail, he did that on purpose.

    2. he has been unable to win passage of the major restrictions on labor rights that he has endorsed.

      because this is freaking ILLINOIS. We're a bunch of Democrats and pro-union Republicans!

  3. Aug 2015
    1. The bill increases the transparency of political spending in Illinois by adding a year-round 5 day reporting requirement for Independent Expenditures.

      I guess Rauner is gonna have to step up his game and start reporting his expenditures.

    1. It has also been suggested that OWL itself could be used to coordinate concepts: ex:bicyclesRepairing a skos:Concept; owl:intersectionOf (ex:bicycles ex:repairing); skos:prefLabel "Bicycles--Repairing"@en.

      I like this suggestion!

    2. However the SKOS vocabulary itself does not provide any mechanism for expressing that a given concept consists of a pre-coordination of other concepts

      E.g., this is why it's difficult to represent complex LCSH headings using SKOS.

    1. they’ve caused a lot of confusion about what kind of information we access and what we do with it. We apologize for that. We should have done a better job in communicating what these policies mean and how any information you choose to share will – and will not – be used.”

      they seemed pretty clear to me

    1. “There easily could be a female Doctor,” Moffat told SFX magazine last year. “I think the next time might be a female Doctor. I don’t see why not. I think it’s good to do that.”

      Uh, why didn't you say this BEFORE you hired Capaldi?

    1. According to this USAToday article, “Automakers have substantially improved the reliability of their vehicles. Although it’s still possible to buy a ‘lemon,’ it’s getting increasingly difficult. Analysts say that most of the major automakers have overcome major quality issues.”

      Tell that to my Ford

    1. there are still millions of U.S. residents who lack health insurance, even though the country spends almost double what any other nation does for health care

      holy crap, how is this possible??

    1. But there's no indication thus far that Oklahoma is likely to espouse that attitude. Earlier this year, Oklahoma and Nebraska officials launched a legal challenge to Colorado's legalization, arguing that it has ushered in a flood of illicit pot across state lines.

      ugh

    1. Germany is the biggest and most formidable opponent of debt relief, but is also the loudest supporter of keeping the IMF on board.

      Maybe Germany shouldn't lend more than it can afford to lend.

    2. t is now likely that Tsipras will call early elections and trigger a realignment of Greek politics.

      interesting. Because he feels like he wasn't loyal to his movement?

    1. The Teamsters deal pending final approval puts in place a four-year wage freeze for the state workers it covers and “a new performance incentive program” to award bonuses to high-performing employees.

      whistles

    1. "Given that no sale has yet occurred and we have not had an opportunity to evaluate the success and failure of the pilot program, a further extension would be premature," Rauner wrote to lawmakers.

      Given that no sale has occurred is exactly the reason WHY it needs to be extended!

    2. But Rauner said the program should only be extended by four months because that "would account for the delay in the final months of the prior administration."

      this is so petty

    3. Rauner again argued that standard went too far in the opposite direction, suggesting the limit instead should be 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood.

      Where did he get his numbers?

    1. many of the reforms that were so effective in Michigan are included in Gov. Bruce Rauner’s legislative agenda for Illinois. Michigan enacted collective-bargaining reforms along with Right to Work,

      Right to Work isn't reform - it guts workers rights and job security. Plus, the number of manufacturing jobs in Michigan have been steadily rising since 2010. Right to Work wasn't passed until 2012. Data doesn't match context.

    2. And Michigan property taxes are, on average, $750 per year lower than Illinois’.

      Probably because Michigan doesn't fund their public schools as much as Illinois does.

    1. Just converting a CSV file to a set of RDF triples and linking them to another set of triples does not necessarily make the data more (re)usable to humans or machines.”

      the BIBFRAME people need to read this!

    1. While corporations have advanced payroll systems that would seem to make it relatively simple to calculate a median wage, they said that the rule required companies to make new calculations for workers across the globe.

      cry me a river

    1. "I am fluent in Clinton-speak," he said at the Voters First Forum in New Hampshire. Graham then equated Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal to Hillary Clinton's email scandal.

      Keep it classy Lindsey

    1. the residency program administra-tors with on-campus multicultural partners/organi-zations will complement diversity education,

      Assuming your residency program even has an administrator. Arg

    1. This was really about protecting the taxpayers of the state.” Laurel Patrick, a spokeswoman for his office, emailed that taxpayers will get $3 in income tax revenue for every dollar the state spends.

      haha ya right

    1. Calling for 100,000 more cops on the street and promising to “end welfare as we know it” positioned Clinton to win back Reagan Democrats that had fled the party.

      ugh

    1. Yes, but it's not just America. This is the damn problem that we face. We are spending more money on the military than the next nine countries behind us.

      YES, THIS

    2. In terms of prejudice, yeah, of course that's an extra issue. Is there racism in America? Of course there is. We've seen an explosion of that recently.

      we haven't seen an explosion of it. Now we have the tools to expose the racism and prejudice THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE.

    3. I want to know why the rich get richer and everybody else gets poorer. I want to know why the United States is the only major country on Earth that doesn't provide health care to all of its people, the only major country that doesn't have family and medical leave so that women can stay home with their kids when they have a baby.

      and fathers.

    4. the Employee Free Choice Act that says if 50 [percent of] workers in an agency plus one sign a union card, they have a union. And I believe in that.

      I need to call my representatives ASAP.

    5. If you're a white high school graduate, it's 33 percent, Hispanic 36 percent, African American 51 percent. You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low-wage workers, or do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those kids?

      not quite

    6. The argument people make about single-payer is that a tremendous amount of health-care innovation around the world is other countries freeloading on the amount of money Americans pay to induce innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, in the medical device sector.

      interesting, didn't know that was an argument.

    7. what Germany and many other countries are doing, and say, "You want to go to college? You have the ability to go to college? You have the desire to go to college? Public colleges and universities will be tuition-free," because education must be a right of all people.

      Yeah, but Germany and other countries often track students from early on, deciding who should go to college and who shouldn't. We should keep the flexibility of being able to return to school, or go to community college and transfer to universities, in place as well. We should be much more fair.

    1. It stands to reason that unemployment rates for high school graduates not enrolled in further schooling would be higher for the 17 to 20 year age group than it would be for the 16 to 24 year old group

      I'm not entirely sure why

    2. the unemployment rate for this age group was 24.8 percent for black people, 16.8 percent for Hispanic people, and 12.6 percent for white people.

      here the unemployment rate for black youth is LITERALLY twice that of white youth.

    3. The unemployment rates, as calculated by EPI, are still high — but not nearly as high as Sanders claims.

      it's significant though, that black youth unemployment is nearly TWICE that of white youth unemployment

    1. Prohibits an individual from taking action against a law enforcement officer based on the officer’s compliance or noncompliance with the provisions of this bill (Sec. 5).

      this sounds like it will prevent minorities from suing an officer based on racial discrimination when the police inevitably don't comply with this bill when the underage drinkers are PoCs and not whites

    1. whites who didn’t graduate high school is, likewise, six times the rate for whites who did? Is that not due to economic inequality?

      for whites, yes. for blacks, no. Take a class on intersectionality. Read some bell hooks

    2. But can that explain why Bland ended up dead? I doubt it, because there are a lot of people the proverbial hick Texas bigot cop doesn’t like.

      What about all the other PoCs who mysteriously end up dead after being arrested? Yes it explains it!

    3. racial animosity. I can’t think of what else she could mean. The new generation of radicals on Twitter like to talk about “structural” racism or “institutional” racism — but behind the verbal bravado, what they, too, are really referring to is racial animosity.

      the condescension here. Wow. It's not just animosity (strong hostility). Structural/institutional racism is often inherently NOT outwardly hostile. It's often IMPLICIT.

    4. Just as the story of English imperialism is merely a history of how Ireland — even fifty years after winning independence — found itself the poorest country in all of capitalist Europe.

      English imperialism in Ireland is NOT the same as English imperialism in Africa.

    5. Nor does anyone dream of analyzing serfdom in Russia as primarily a problem of race relations, even though the Russian nobility invented fictions of their innate, natural superiority over the serfs as preposterous as any devised by American racists.

      this entire quote is just shortsighted and lazy

    6. racial inequality is merely a symptom of economic inequality? He’s not going to say that. Nobody would.

      It's the reverse actually, but please, whitesplain away

    1. A note: New York Magazine's profile of 35 of the women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault and rape is a powerful, important piece of journalism, but it would be a disservice to the article — and the women — to try to distill it here. Go read the whole thing, if you have the time. 

      Maybe this should have gone at the top of the article rather than as an after though

    1. The Olympics were to leave, respectively, “a legacy for the athletes,” “a legacy for the Olympic movement,” and “a legacy for the community.”

      a legacy of taxpayer debt. If these billionaires want the Olympics to be hosted in America, they can pay for it themselves.