KKK not interested in African-American members

Posted on August 31, 2014 by bitemaster

The Klan has recently been distributing recruiting flyers in many places, including Katy, Texas. There, the flyers urged recipients to “join the fight to protect U.S. borders.”

Damian Neveaux, who is African-American, received a flier and called the number because he, too, was concerned about border security. He reached a Klan representative who told him he would not be allowed to join.

“The only way you can become a member is if you’re 100 percent Caucasian,” Neveaux recalled the Klan member telling him, according to KPRC-TV of Houston. “This flier wasn’t meant for you.”

Shucks. The Bitemaster is pretty pale, but who among us really can be sure they have no African blood in them?

via From NY to Texas, KKK recruits with candies and fliers – CNN.com.

The truth behind Whole Foods dropping Chobani yogurt

Posted on August 30, 2014 by bitemaster

In late 2013, Whole Foods announced that it was dropping Chobani yogurt, the number one brand of Greek yogurt. “The company plans to make room for non-genetically-modified food and organic brands instead.”

It turns out that Whole Foods replaced Chobani with its house brand “Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Plain Greek Yogurt,” which contains six times as much sugar as its label claims.

A class action lawsuit has been filed — by the same attorneys who sued Subway for having a less than 12 inch “footlong” — on behalf of defrauded consumers.

The inaccurate label gave Whole Foods, which specializes in natural and organic food, a competitive advantage and justified the higher prices the specialty market charges consumers, the suit alleges.

Whole Foods To Drop Chobani.

The Consumers Report test results on the Whole Foods yogurt

Federal Law Ordering US Attorney General To Gather Data On Police Excessive Force Has Been Ignored For 20 Years

Posted on August 26, 2014 by bitemaster

Are police officers getting worse or is the apparent increase in excessive force nothing more than an increase in cell phone videos, citizen journalism and and public scrutiny?

One of the reasons we don’t have data on police use of excessive force is because compiling this information relies on law enforcement agencies being forthcoming about these incidents. Which they aren’t.

What about the federal government? In 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act which requires the US Attorney General to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.” The Justice Department was also required to publish an annual report on the data collected.

And . . that’s pretty much the last anyone heard of that.

Federal Law Ordering US Attorney General To Gather Data On Police Excessive Force Has Been Ignored For 20 Years | Techdirt.

National Science Foundation sponsoring study of the accuracy of your political tweets

Posted on August 26, 2014 by bitemaster

“[T]o detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution . . . Truthy uses a sophisticated combination of text and data mining, social network analysis, and complex networks models . . .”

And, yes, the project really is named “Truthy.”

Truthy.

Beulah, peel me a grape

Posted on August 25, 2014 by bitemaster

Here at the lavish Biteme World Headquarters and Auto Showroom, we were much heartened by economist Gene Simmons’ recent announcement:

The 1 percent pays 80 percent of all taxes. Fifty percent of the population of the U.S. pays no taxes. The 1 percent provides all the jobs for everybody else. If the 1 percent didn’t exist, there would be chaos and the American economy would drop dead.

Gene Simmons a/k/a Chaim Witz a/k/a The Demon in his pre-economist days

Imagine how disappointed we were to hear that Simmons was wrong. It turns out that the 1 percent pays much less than 80% of all taxes. And much less than 50% of the population of the U.S. pays no taxes.

I don’t know where Simmons got his figure for the jobs created by the one percenters, but of about 140,000,000 total US employed, 20,000,000 are employed by government.

Unfortunately, Simmons won’t be getting that Nobel Prize in economics this year, but he did rate 4 Pinocchios from the Fact Checker.

4 Pinocchios for a rocker’s off-base claims about taxes and the ’1 percent’ – The Washington Post.

Terrorism in Fargo, ND

Quote

Posted on August 25, 2014 by bitemaster

“Homeland Security gave $8 million to Fargo to fight terrorism in Fargo, North Dakota,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told NBC News. “And I say if the terrorists get to Fargo, we might as well give up.”

via Jay Nixon on possibility of controversial Ferguson cop being charged – CBS News.

Noted asshole Richard Dawkins spews again

Posted on August 22, 2014 by bitemaster

Richard Dawkins, most famous for his atheism, has stirred up controversy again by asserting that it would be immoral for a mother not to abort a fetus if she knew that it had Down syndrome.

Presumably he has another book coming out and is trying to pump up some publicity for it.

Atheist Richard Dawkins: It would be ‘immoral’ not to abort a fetus with Down syndrome.

Good news for Sports Illustrated advertisers

Posted on August 22, 2014 by bitemaster

Apparently Sports Illustrated has instituted new criteria in the evaluation of some of its editorial employees: how “beneficial to advertiser relationship” an editor/writer’s work is.

If you’re advertising in SI and you’re getting slammed in the news articles, complain to your ad rep and see if he can exert a little pressure on your behalf. It just might work.

Time battles blow-back from ad-based employee ratings | New York Post.

On a similar note, see RIGGED RESEARCH: WALL STREET STOCK ANALYSTS UNDER FIRE

High school student suspended for saying ‘bless you’ to a classmate who sneezed

Posted on August 21, 2014 by bitemaster

When Dyer County High School senior Kendra Turner said “bless you” to her classmate, she says her teacher told her that was for church. Apparently, Turner received a brief (under one hour) in-school suspension.

The Bitemaster would be happy to learn that this is some sort of hoax, but many real media outlets are carrying the story and no one has gotten an official comment from the school or school district. Also, the high school’s website is offline and the county board of education’s domain is not resolving.

If the story is true — and it sure seems true — it is an infringement on freedom of religion.

Kendra Turner, Tennessee high school student, suspended for saying ‘bless you’ to a classmate who sneezed | WJLA.com.

Edited to add the teacher’s purported list of banned words:

NY State adjusted the scoring of statewide student tests — upwards

Posted on August 18, 2014 by bitemaster

State officials touted increases in scores on tough Common Core exams this year but failed to reveal that they had lowered the number of right answers needed to pass half the exams.

The state Education Department dropped the number of raw points needed to hit proficiency levels in six of the 12 English and math exams given to students in grades 3 to 8, officials acknowledged.

Here’s a great way to improve your test results: monkey with how the tests are scored!

NY ‘fixed’ Common Core tests — and scores surged | New York Post.

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Monthly Archives: August 2014