Google admits it

Google has been accused multiple times of suppressing political views they don't like, of favoring the left in their search algorithms. They always denied it. 

Back in 2018, CEO Sundar Pichai (photo) stressed that they operate without political bias.

As late as last October, he claimed Google's innocence for almost four hours before a congressional committee. He said they are as objective as possible.

Now . . everybody knows the accusations were correct and the denials were lies, because they've admitted it in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee. The previous administration pressured them repeatedly, they say, to remove content from Youtube and they did it.

They admit it was "unacceptable and wrong," and they "will allow creators banned for political speech on COVID-19, elections, and related issues an opportunity to return to the platform."

Maybe they're sorry. Or . . maybe they're just complying to the "vibe shift" and they'll do it again as soon as it's convenient to do so.

Exposed 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

The drive for justice is a reason for our new Department of Government Efficiency. When you and I fund the federal government with our tax dollars, we suppose that it's well-managed. But apparently the federal government is spending our money wildly, making payments that we would not approve--if only we knew about them. We want it stopped. Doge is investigating.

Some expenses are inefficient. The IRS manages about the same number of daily transactions as a bank. Banks budget about $20 million/year for operation and maintenance. The IRS budget for operation is $3.7 billion/year. That's seventeen times more than what a bank spends for about the same amount of work. 

Some payments are fraud. Social Security checks were going out to 3.7 million people who were listed as . . 120+ years old. Somebody was cashing all those checks.

Some payments are waste. $3 million for transparency and accountability in the cotton industry of Uzbekistan.

 from Doge

Exposed 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Wait, do people really want injustice exposed? For some, that depends on who did it. They'd be okay with injustice if it's done by someone on their own side.

Genuine justice calls for perpetrators to be called out, regardless of which political side they're on. Check out this attack on personal property, part of a wave of vandalism directed at Elon Musk's Tesla car company. The man may think he's justified in this crime because (in his opinion) Elon is bad. 

But that's not justice. And, fortunately, he didn't get away with it.

Exposed

All of us have a sense of "justice," a feeling that we should be treated fairly, according to what is right. We are frustrated when wrongdoing is covered up, when it's kept secret, whether it happens to us or to someone we care about. We want it exposed and set right.

(Of course, that drive for justice is much reduced when it comes to our own wrongdoing. We're not anxious for that to be exposed.)

What does God think about it? One appeal of Christianity is that God is going to set things right eventually. Part of Giuseppe Verdi's dramatic and beautiful requiem (1874) deals with God's final judgment:

The great book shall be unfurled,
Whereby God shall judge the world;
What was distant shall be near,
What was hidden shall be clear.

Merit 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If shoplifters are arrested and laws are enforced for one race but not for other races, we've lost justice.  

It seems obvious that justice and medical standards and law schools should be color-blind. It was obvious to all of us until 5 minutes ago. The point of the civil rights movement in the latter half of the last century was that rights and justice should be administered without regard to the race of the individual. That would be fair and just. Now we've gone backward, less fair and less just.

Most Americans are bewildered. A scholar and writer puts it in black and white terms with no confusion in this address to a conference last month. She says, "Disparate impact thinking is destroying our civilization."

"Any racial disparity in any institution is by definition the result of racial discrimination." So bar exams, police arrests, medical degrees, law schools--anywhere that the percentage of black people differs from the 13% of the general population that is black--are all the result of racist discrimination.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many people actually believe this nonsense? If you haven't bowed to the wokeness, please speak up. But maybe not at work . . I don't want you to be fired for thinking things through.

from Hillsdale

Rights

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

The concept that all human beings have "rights" is a moral imperative, a "should" sort of claim: all human beings should freely exercise their rights. But is it obvious? It was definitely not obvious for thousands and thousands of years of civilization. 

Kings and emperors throughout history might rule kindly from time to time, but their governing paradigm was not to preserve peoples' rights. They held their power position because of birth or force, but either way they did what they pleased. It's called "totalitarian" when there's no greater authority than the ruler or the government and they have total control.

photo

American founders wanted to break that mold. They took the "Imago Dei" concept from the Bible (that humans are all created in the image of God) and crafted a government around it:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Radical.

Zero for Zero

A Florida school compels teachers to give a grade of 50% to students who make zero effort to turn in an assignment.

Diane Mirado was fired in 2018 for refusing to comply. She gave a grade of 0% to the students who made zero effort. 

She left this message for her students when she cleaned out her room:

"Bye kids, Mrs Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50 percent for not handing anything in."

photo

Woman in Gold

Somehow, stories of escape from Nazi occupation of Austria (1938) came together for me this weekend. Last Friday's post was about a Jewish boy who escaped to Britain. Then that night my husband and I went to see "Woman in Gold" which turned out to be a Jewish woman's (Maria) story of escaping Austria about that same time.

Nazis began to isolate and bully Jewish Austrians. Police barged into Maria's family home and stole their art - paintings, jewelry, and a cello. (If you saw the movie "Monuments Men," you know that they stole thousands upon thousands of art pieces.)

"Woman in Gold" was a painting of Maria's aunt, a family treasure, which ended up after WWII in an Austrian gallery as public property. Maria wanted to get it back. She loved Austria, so why the hard feelings against the land of her birth? Some Austrians collaborated with the Nazis, betraying the Jewish community.

Another Maria, another movie example of escape - "Sound of Music." The Von Trapps abandoned everything to escape to the West when the new Nazi command in Austria "offered" Capt. Von Trapp a position in their military.