Zero Tolerance and Disparate Impact

Two blog posts illustrate how a lack of intellectual honesty and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement (and various Supreme Court decisions) have led to a national education system responding to incentives: to avoid being sued for "Disparate Impact" by creating "Zero Tolerance" policies that allow for random punishment of White students to balance that of Black and Hispanic students. Hotair reports that a 17 year old girl, an honor student and athlete, has been charged with weapons possession and suspended for a year. Because she had a paring knife in her lunchbox for an apple. Does this make sense? Certainly if you are a school district, and must show punishment of White students at a rate approaching that of Black and Hispanic ones.


Steve Sailer reports that Black students are suspended at rates three times that of Whites. Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, pledges "stronger efforts to ensure racial equality in schooling." Reality, as the legacy (inevitable) of the Civil Rights Act and various Supreme Court decisions regarding Disparate Impact, means that school districts will get sued if they cannot impose discipline without resorting to suspensions and other administrative acts. This means, as Steve Sailer notes, that schools choose (rationally) teachers who can maintain order in the classroom, without resort to administrative functions, which get districts sued (since Black kids act out more than Whites, and far more than North East Asian kids). Thus as Sailer notes, a preference for the Offensive Line coach who doubles as a Social Studies teacher.

The other method is to construct "zero tolerance" policies designed to entrap and punish, randomly, White kids to maintain racial balance. This is entirely a rational response by school boards and school officials, who do not like being sued by the NAACP, the US Justice Department, the Urban League, National Council for La Raza, and more. Far easier to simply suspend and expel as many White kids as can be constructed, and demonstrate racial or near-racial parity. Voila! No lawsuits! Sailer notes in his post, the data for Chatsworth HS, where tellingly, White and Black suspensions seem to mirror each other, year by year. Even though Blacks are 9.3% student population, for the last year available, as opposed to Whites at 22% or so.

Naturally, this preference for avoiding lawsuits and investigations over racial disparity, among all other things, means instruction suffers. Schools rationally prefer guys who can maintain order, over passion for learning and instruction. Schools also rationally seek to suspend/expel as many White kids as possible, to balance out those that must be suspended, almost all of the latter being Black and Hispanic. This was the natural and inevitable legacy of the Civil Rights movement, which sought, not color blind treatment of all, but rectifying past discrimination by permanent discrimination against others (Whites). Codified by decisions including Grutter vs. Bollinger, that concluded:

the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

It is pretty clear that outright quotas are illegal, but everything else to promote "diversity" and avoid Disparate Impact of protected class (Latinos and Blacks are protected classes) people are indeed, not only legal but endorsed by the majority decision of the Supreme Court. Thus, carefully tailored policies designed not to create quotas for suspensions but serve the incentives created by Civil Rights laws and more than half a century of jurisprudence around them. Which holds not color blind neutrality, and equality under the law, but a clear preference system and protected classes.

What is the likely outcome of all this?

First, White parents will gradually but inevitably discover the truth. Zero Tolerance is just a "speed trap" designed to suspend and expel White kids to maintain racial parity in disciplinary action. The internet, and the ability to end-run the media blockade in discussing this reality, will help. But most will see it inevitably for themselves, as their kids or kids friends fall victim to seemingly idiotic enforcement of rules designed to produce White disciplinary action and avoid lawsuits over disparate impact.

This in turn will lead, to home schooling, or private schooling. This will have a side-benefit, increasing the value of beta males (whose extra income and ability to help with home schooling or paying for private school make the difference between success and failure for the children of White women). It is not just the random nature of White kids having their lives ruined (the young woman in the Hotair link will likely face arrest, and little if any college interest and certainly no scholarships). No, it is the miserable state of educational instruction, where teachers are selected for the ability to maintain discipline, not teach the subject.

While it is true teachers have generally, only a marginally good or bad effect on student learning (sad to say), and student aptitude, attitude, habits, discipline, and family support accounting for most of learning outcomes, teaching can make a marginal difference. And when parents aim for college scholarships as the cost of attending a "good" school increases radically, and quality of school (say, Northwestern vs. University of Idaho, Sarah Palin's Alma Mater) determines life success, well every bit matters. Matters as much as proper extra-curricular activity (athletics, band, student government) and avoiding "bad" activities (Junior ROTC, 4H).

Incentives matter. School administrators respond to the real, powerful incentives in front of them. So too, will parents. And the net result will be more White Flight. From any school district that is not almost 100% White. Since the cost of moving to a district like that is pretty high (not much real estate lending, home prices are depressed), the growth in private schools and home schooling is likely the most likely outcome. Which will in turn make, gradually, public K-12 education "not for Whites" and for "Black and Hispanics only." Asians, of course, are protected classes so they face little action by school administrators to "get" them via Zero Tolerance.

This in turn is going to reduce White voters desire to support K-12 with tax dollars. White voters and parents respond to incentives, that create a demand for "punishing" White students and degrading teacher effectiveness, as much as any one else. No, this will not be some giant avalanche of action. And no, White parents don't want a return of segregation or separate but equal. [Though aspects of punishing White kids to maintain rough racial parity with Black kids disciplinary action smacks of separate but equal. As does the notion of protected classes, only the other way around.] But generally speaking, it is a bad bet to figure on an eternal White self-flagellating, cringing apology for past (and very real, let us say) racism against Blacks. How much guilt do the current generations of White folks hold for past segregation and slavery? Almost none, I'd say. And even less when it comes to punishing their kids for George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse doorway.

The very predictable White response is to flee the public school system, and desire to pay nothing at all for something that is hostile and punishment-prone to their own kids. Along with that, will come an end to support for "diversity."

Young, SWPL folks love the idea of diversity. Even, the sometime reality of gentrification. Until they have kids. The most ardent, left-wing woman can be transformed into an enemy of diversity when she sees her kid is being punished, in effect, for being White. And measures the true cost of diversity (lots of extra transaction costs and ceding of opportunities to different groups to obtain social peace). Diversity does not, in practice, resemble a Target ad, or the Colors of Benetton, rather it means the constant, grinding, costly bargaining and conflict over a constantly shrinking set of opportunities, distrust, ancillary costs, and the goal being not growing wealth for everyone, but making sure everybody gets the cut that society has determined, by race or religion. In the current arrangement, unlikely to changed absent a widespread, hyper-violent civil war, Whites are at the bottom of the totem pole, "cuts" of opportunities, and face as in Grutter vs. Bollinger, discrimination in favor of diversity (i.e. promotion of non-Whites over Whites).

Hard times of course will lead to delayed family formation for Whites (probably not for Hispanics and Blacks, according to various preliminary census data and media reports). But eventually (and now, for parents of White kids already born and in school), this process will continue. White flight from K-12 education, and opposition (led by White parents) to "diversity." Its all very well and good to enjoy diversity in commercials and movies and TV. It is another thing when there is a risk of ruining your kid's life, and marginal degradation of teaching, when the struggle to get into the "right" school seems to start at kindergarten.
...Read more

The Future Lies In Your Hand: Phone TV vs 3-D TV

A recent series of Financial Times columns shows why 3-D TV will not be Hollywood's savior, and some combination of Kindle, Nook, Ipad, Ipod, Iphone, Netbook, or other cheap, flexible, and handy tablet sized device will be the consumption device of the future. This has profound implications for the type of media, with the possibility of all sorts of new content over-turning the Big Media stranglehold, and not incidentally refighting the culture wars. Think a lot more "Rifleman" type Westerns, instead of say, "Glee."


First, a Financial Times Panel tested 3-D TVs and the results were not pretty. Just as most 3-D films have flopped (there's only one Avatar), daily use of 3-D TV is not a happy experience. Glasses are required, and it can be a strain for some. The FT panel, including six kids, four girls and two boys, ages 2 to 10, with some grown-ups, found the extended use tiresome:

At the same time, even 3D-light can be a strain to watch for some. After an hour, at least one child had her plastic glasses off and was curled up in a ball, declaring that her eyes hurt.

By the time the children’s test session switched to Pain – a video game in which a rubbery adolescent thrill-jockey is launched from a slingshot against buildings, rubbish bins and other urban-landscape targets – the kids were happy to play in plain old 2D.

The 10-year-old Mhairi summed up: “It was fun – but it made me tired.”

The 3-D effect for the World Cup broadcasts was compared to cut-outs in dioramas, not a fully immersive effect.

Another Financial Times article notes that Sony has bet big on 3-D TV:

A nimbly-executed product launch is no guarantee that consumers will embrace Sony’s 3D world. A shaky US economy, the scarcity of original 3D content so far, and consumer discomfort with clunky 3D glasses have slowed initial sales of 3D TVs.

Research groups estimate that 3m-4m 3D sets will be shipped this year, equal to about 3 per cent of global high-definition TV sales and below some analysts’ and industry executives’ early predictions.

Sony's ambitions are quite large in this area, but history shows that consumers prefer convenience over high-quality of reproduction. While obviously, sound and color in theaters won over silent films and black and white movies, consumers were not required to invest in anything but a ticket. Perhaps only color television and High Definition (the latter still only at 80% penetration in the US market) mark consumer preference for higher quality media reproduction, over convenience. Every other major consumer decision has been in favor of convenience. From the victory of VHS over Betamax, and later VHS over LaserDiscs, to Walkmen and cassette tapes over LPs, then CDs over LPs and tapes, and finally MP3s over CDs, consumers have been choosing convenience and on-the-go music over high quality reproduction, and the same with video.


Do consumers have an extra $700 to spend for a 3-D TV? Likely, no, not most of them. They'll be hard-pressed with predicted $5 a gallon gas and many energy and commodity shortages to spend much beyond a price point of $100 or so. Perhaps even less, around $75.

And what sort of device would be sold at that price point? A massive, home-based theater system? Nope. Something cheap, fast, and very, very handy. A super-video Ipod, basically, that can also double as an e-reader, an e-magazine reader, and so on. A cheaper, more versatile Ipad, basically. Aimed at the mass market.

With the FCC imposing by regulation, net neutrality, price pressures will naturally inhibit streaming video over 3G, 4G, and Wifi/Wimax networks. This makes the model of "download and go" and playing the media, anywhere, anytime, more probable. The Ipod/Itunes model. People like having a massive library of music, it is quite likely they'll like a massive library, on the go, convenient no matter connections or not, of video.

We are likely to see an explosion, of cheap, more broadly appealing content, at the 99 cents model, set by Itunes and apps on Iphones. This can be singles, short stories, e-comic books, and "episodes" of serialized video content. And unlike the old style of top-down, 18-34 female oriented TV (and often, movie) content, the new media devices will be completely open to anyone. The Band "OK GO" detailed on the WSJ how they used the internet, YouTube, and personalized content to make a comfortable living without record label contracts. Various other artists are doing the same, selling everything from dinner with them to personal concerts to personalized swag and songs and so forth.

Consider this, in the new hard-stressed economic environment, most US consumers will be spending considerably less on media and entertainment. They'll want a personal, cheap device to keep (likely with their computer) a media library of songs, movies, TV shows (by any name), magazines, books, and so on, all there for consumption in a hand, personal, and affordable form. This will herald a big change in how media is made and distributed.

The current model requires expensive budgets, and has many gatekeepers. Movies are expensive gambles, and so too are TV shows, with production budgets at around $3-4 million per episode, at around $66-$88 million per year. Much of the latter only paying back if a show hits at syndication or foreign sales, both under severe price pressure.

By being able to charge, directly, consumers of serialized entertainment, the break-even rate at roughly 99 cents per download is only 3 to 4 million downloads. And of course, the more downloads beyond those levels, the higher the profits. By cutting out the TV Network and advertiser supported middle men, much lower levels of viewership can hit break-even points. And a limited, three episode run can be constructed, contingent on say, downloads covering costs and indicating future profits by demand.

What does this mean? Far fewer things like "Nurse Jackie" and a lot more entertainment versions of "Call of Duty: Black Ops." Because content creators won't get paid unless their content is popular. Unlike today, when stuff like "Kick Ass" or "Scott Pilgrim Versus the World" makes creators rich despite almost no real appeal to anyone. Yes this also means a lot more "Twilight" like stuff, with hunky bad boy supernatural or superpowered Alpha males, and loser beta males, to appeal to the female market. But it will be balanced by stuff that guys like. Can anyone imagine a network TV show that portrayed Cold War Black Ops heroically? Even "the Unit" had to play the anti-Government, soapy, female-drama relationships angles to get on the air.

And the ability to create e-comic books, or e-books without major publishers, means even more content oriented towards (the only underserved audience, men) is likely. Certainly, Amazon and Itunes are vying to become profitable portals for this content, each in their own way. Netflix is likely to be a player, with perhaps Redbox and a few others (MicroSoft?) as well. But the model established with consumers seems to be, purchase a cheap download, put it on your computer (and media player, phone, Ipad, tablet, etc.), and play the media anywhere.

The corollary to this, obviously, is that a new shift to 3-D content will not bail out Hollywood's content model. Instead, they will face constant erosion, not just from rampant piracy (made worse by recession), but viewer apathy. Hollywood has bet heavily that they can continue their current business model, where few movies or TV shows actually make money or find audiences, but content generally is subsidized by a few massive hits (and ancillary revenues, mostly from toys/merchandising) and repackaging old content in 3-D, the way old catalogs found value by making DVDs of TV shows and movies often decades old. Hollywood desperately hoped first Blu-Ray and then 3-D would prevent them from rethinking their business models and the lucrative role gatekeepers, and the entire infrastructure plays in creating and delivering content to consumers.

This seems unlikely to happen. Rather, it seems clear that democratization, and just as important, re-massification of serialized entertainment (TV) and movies is on offer with the transition to Ipad-style entertainment. Hollywood's creative people will have to emulate OK Go, rather than the current audience-unfriendly model. Direct engagement with fans, by producing content or goodies they pay for directly, will be the model. Perhaps some content will feature ads, or embedded product placement, at reduced cost. That too, will obviously will be aimed at a very broad audience, rather than a narrow one, in most cases.

It won't all be a land of milk and honey. Privacy issues and exposing user's data, including age, gender, location, politics, and sexual preferences, are going to be major issues for interactive content, they way they are now with Iphone and Google Android apps. Abuses will occur.

But the major shift in entertainment is consuming cheap content on the go, personalized. Not massive and expensive home entertainment systems consumers just cannot afford. THAT promises to be a big change certain to shake up Hollywood.
...Read more

Julian Assange Is An Alpha Male

Two new stories about Julian Assange confirm he is an Alpha Male. And just how the the nexus of celebrity and fame operate to create, Alpha Male winners, and losers (Beta Males). That, moreover, women's preference for Alpha Males exists only in a timeless now, where tomorrow never comes.


Assange apparently fathered a son with a girl of 17, when he was only 19. After his first arrest for computer hacking, the couple split up, and she remarried (and remains estranged from him and her son). This is not surprising. Men who have early experience with women, and early success, tend to be more confident and assured. Assange having a child, at the age of 19, seems not have made him less attractive to the women in his life. Rather, the reverse, proof positive that he was in fact, worth having. Assange, despite his rather unimpressive looks, seems to be a "natural," at least among a certain subset of women, able to impress those who are "shy and introverted."

The other story shows how Assange stole a girlfriend right away from a journalist, at a social occasion. While rude (and courting a fight outside say the world of journalism), it certainly cements Assange as a true Alpha male. One able to chat up (through his celebrity) and impress the girlfriend of a journalist, and apparently go home with her. That is not surprising. A man with fame, and one who uses it arrogantly, is practically irresistible to most women. Even if he is not particularly good looking.

Arrogance, and obnoxiousness, are when done right, incredibly attractive for women in a man with a measure of fame or better yet, notoriety. Particularly in today's society where there is no shame.

The journalist later saw his girlfriend and Assange walking hand in hand, and claimed that when he challenged the WikiLeaks founder, ‘he dropped into a classic fighter’s pose, with his fists up’.

He said: ‘Assange seemed to take pleasure in humiliating me.’ The writer slept alone that night.

Of course Assange took delight in humiliating a Beta male. Women find beta male humiliation quite attractive, for the most part, if done by an Alpha male. Yes it is utterly unsurprising that a beta male's girlfriend would dump him on the spot for a fling with an infamous Alpha a-hole. And consider herself the winner of the exchange.

It is alleged that Assange may have been able to smooth the whole thing over by taking an HIV test:

Yet it has been suggested the Swedish police would never have become involved in the first place if Assange had only agreed to an HIV test.

WikiLeaks’ Swedish co-ordinator, who knows Assange and his two women accusers, said: ‘The two women told me, that if he goes to the clinic for an HIV test, then we won’t go to the police. I told him, “Just do it, and anyway, it’s good for you, because you’re sleeping around”.’

Funny. Even among the nerdy set, there are a few Alpha male winners, and a lot of losers. Assange is not that good looking (neither are his accusers) but he has great social power because of his infamy. Indeed, he may like the even greater notoriety around his sexual assault cases because it only makes him more hyper-notorious. Thus, more attractive to women than before. His celebrity endorsement can only help in that regard, like say, Roman Polanski. Not exactly lacking for female companionship after pleading guilty to drugging and anally raping a 13 year old girl. Polanksi's Wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, is many years his junior. She has two children by him.

Are Alpha males a good bet for women? Well, if you are Emmanuelle Seigner, and Roman is getting older, yes. Same for perhaps, Annette Benning (Warren Beatty), but even then, straying is in the cards. A straight up trade, a beta male boyfriend for a fling with an Alpha? It depends, perhaps, on what the priority is and how difficult it will be to get another beta male boyfriend.

The rapidity by which the beta male journalist was dumped by his girlfriend suggests that he wasn't that valuable, that beta males are basically interchangeable and replaceable by women. Whereas, an Alpha Male with some notoriety is the catch of a lifetime.

Consider the women in Sweden swearing out a complaint.

It is not disputed Miss A willingly slept with Assange. A fellow activist, she had invited Assange to stay at her flat while he was in Stockholm to address her political party, the centre-left Brotherhood Movement. Although she was away at first, when she returned on Friday August 13 they went out for dinner and then went to bed together.

But in the police statement, Miss A claims Assange began stroking her legs as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes. She claimed she tried to put some clothes back on because the situation was ‘going too quickly’ for her liking, but ‘Assange ripped them off again’.

She tried to reach for a condom but Assange held her arms and pinned her legs, she stated to police. He then agreed to use a condom but, Miss A alleges, he did ‘something’ to it that resulted in it becoming ripped.

When police interviewed Assange, he said he did not tear the condom and was not aware it had been torn. After that night, he continued to sleep in her bed for a week and she had never even mentioned it, he said.

Certainly, that is one of the most puzzling aspects of the case against Assange. For not only did Miss A indeed let him stay, she threw a party in his honour the night after he allegedly assaulted her.

No, it is not puzzling at all. Let us just assume for the moment that every bit of the complaint sworn out against Assange by Woman A is true. Every bit. Why would any woman then host a party in his honor the night he assaulted her?

Answer: Assange is an Alpha male.

Every man, learns sooner or later, that there are two rules for men, in how they are treated, by women. An Alpha male can do anything and everything, and pretty much get away with it. A beta male will have to regularly apologize for his existence. Assuming that every bit of the complaint is true, why of course Woman A would host a party in Assange's honor. He was an Alpha male. It was likely only when she learned of Woman W, that she found behavior she could not tolerate. Particularly since Woman W was younger.

So what is in the future for Assange? Assuming he is not extradited to the US (fairly remote given that Barack Obama is President and Eric Holder the Attorney General), likely dismissal of the charges against him (recall, he is an Alpha male). And even more notoriety. All of which will make him even more irresistible, to a certain set of rich Western Women at least. Assange can live like a rockstar, with rockstar like groupies in every city, for a long time.

At least until his money runs out. Wikileaks mission (undermine the West through selective leaking of Western but not other secrets) is not the same as Assange's (be a big shot Alpha Male and sleep with lots of women). He might challenge the wrong guy (a nerdy guy may decide to fight him) or his funders may tire of him and use another front. But for now, Assange is an Alpha Male. The modern rock star. Stealing other men's girlfriends (and taking special Alpha Male pleasure in doing it), sleeping around, and living the life of a natural A-hole. How long that can last in the endless now, is another question.



...Read more

A Christmas Commercial

A particular Christmas Commercial caught my eye:



The point about the commercial is how little controversy it creates. It is an article of faith that 85% of all Branded Purchases are made by women. Car companies in particular are targeting women. Certainly this ad does. What is the ad targeting? The Kardashian fantasy.


Keeping Up With the Kardshians is a female-targeted reality show featuring the daughters of the late (O.J. Simpson lawyer) Robert Kardashian, as they navigate various Black Athlete celebrity boyfriends/husbands, paparazzi, fame, fabulous parties, and the like. Another princess fantasy, as Virginia Postrel writes about in the Wall Street Journal. Now the Prince Charming is a Black Athlete. Famous. Rich. Powerful. Privileged. [See Michael Vick. A White Athlete who had done what he'd done, would be out of the NFL forever.] And critically, allowed to be masculine in a way that most (Beta) White guys are not.

Its not just this Christmas Commercial either. This Levi's Commercial spoke to the same desire:



Apparently Walt Whitman was a fervent proponent of Levi's Jeans. Who knew? But the point is obvious. The Black guy is presented as the far more desirable choice than the skinny, "kind of gay" White guys, and the kids doing athletic tricks are all Black.

This is not surprising. Show "Joe Average White guy" as a doofus, or icky Beta guy, and there's no place else to go in ads, for a masculine presence. Other than a Black guy. When the commercial is aimed at White women. As nearly all are.

Whatever the reality or myth of Black comparative sexual/romantic masculine advantage (and ahem, "attributes"), there is no question that culturally, Black guys don't have the diffident, nerdy, deferential manner that most White guys adopt as a matter of workplace survival in most workplaces and certainly in the "White Guy hostile" University environment.

Carlton Banks from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (who did the "White Guy Dance" to Tom Jones "Its Not Unusual"):



Is funny because it is untrue. He's a fantasy character just like Urkel from "Family Matters". The equivalent to Vanilla Ice or Eminem. Characters adopting the extreme cultural characteristics of another race, that usually has oppositional characteristics. I.E. most Blacks are not nerdy, and disapprove of nerdiness (hence the Will Smith bit at the end of the Carlton Dance bringing an end to the Tom Jones-foolery). Or most Whites don't adopt the mannerisms and behavior of Black rappers like Vanilla Ice or Eminem, and consider both kind of jokes.

Indeed the existence of these four characters, Urkel, Carlton Banks, Eminem, and Vanilla Ice, point like arrows to the characteristics around race, at least the way the mostly White female audience of TV consider the characteristics of race (most TV viewers are and have been for some time, White women). Black guys, excluding the comic exceptions, are not nerdy. And White guys, excluding the few (somewhat comic) exceptions, are not uber-macho rappers. Certainly Vanilla Ice is viewed as a comic character, a suburban guy posing as tough rapper.

Clearly, Advertisers are in point of their own making. They have no way to portray, in ways that move emotionally, the target female audience, in association with a product and desirable, high-status, macho White guy. Absent a few celebrity pitchmen and such. The point of the Levi's Commercial is that "the jeans come with a hot boyfriend." Indeed, it is patriotic, and Walt Whitman approves, of your Black Boyfriend! Because Advertisers (and popular entertainment) have mostly pushed the line that Beta White guys are icky, and nerdy (unsexy), that hot boyfriend must be Black if he's not a White Alpha celebrity (see the ads with Ashton Kutcher, very absent Demi Moore). Same with the car commercial. The Lexus comes with the rich, (likely Athlete) and sophisticated (the house is a modernist dream) husband. Right straight out of the Kardashian's reality show.

Ashton Kutcher only sells Nikon cameras. Advertisers seeking that "hot guy with the product" vibe have to go beyond the limited Alpha A-hole celebs.

This has moved the culture in ways unimaginable, before. You'll note that there are no commercials featuring a White guy and "hot Black girlfriend."



The point of the above ad being that the White guy is so clueless he doesn't get that Beyonce is right there in front of him. This being the second attempt to show a clueless White guy and Beyonce, the (now defunct) Circuit City commercial with the clueless White clerk drooling over Beyonce being the first attempt.

Which is not surprising. The commercials are in all cases, aimed at White women. Who tend to find the commercials, portraying White guys as doofuses, amusing and "accurate." Very likely, the very diffident, mild, and unassuming manner that White guys generally adopt in the multicultural workplace, with its White-guy-hostile attitudes, create a repellent effect on their female peers. It doesn't get them hit with sexual or racial harassment lawsuits, or counseling from HR. But it does not win them respect from their female peers as "real men" either.

Advertising (and popular entertainment) is pushing the idea that (Beta) White guys are doofuses, the only appropriate Prince Charmings being outside that group, are either White Alpha A-holes (paging Ashton Kutcher) or Black guys. Don't underestimate the power of advertising, or reality TV (catering to princess fantasies) to move the culture.



Ashton Kutcher's Nikon commercials all hit the same button. Alpha A-hole doing whatever he wants (crudely, but you get the point). The longing look by the chick with the doofus male companion tells it all. Of course the Lexus commercial is more sophisticated, the fantasy of being basically a "cultured Kardashian."



The above Star Trek scene was considered controversial (the first inter-racial kiss on TV) in the 1960's when it aired. The sad thing is, the same pairing would be considered controversial today, which is why it has not been repeated. The pairing of a White guy kissing a Black woman, is just impossible. Black guys object, just as Black women don't like the Black guy and White woman pairing much either. But that's not the reason you don't see White guys smooching up Beyonce.

It is that White women, who form the target of the commercials and reality shows and most of TV, object. If Black women had cultural power, their objections would have killed the Lexus commercial and the Levi's Commercial. Lexus and Levi's don't care. They're selling to White women, and basically no one else. This is why, more than forty years since Kirk kissed Uhura on TV, it is almost impossible to find a White guy and Black woman pairing. While the other way around sells jeans or luxury cars. It is certainly "funny" to mock clueless White guys ("Hey, Beyonce is right THERE dummy!") in female-oriented commercials.

[Interestingly, there are a few commercials featuring a White guy and Asian wife/girlfriend. Almost none of the other way around, Asian Guy and White Wife/girlfriend. It would appear the losers in the way the sexes are depicted inter-racially are Asian Men, and Black Women, most of all. The SWPL blog entry entitled "Asian Women" generated thousands of vituperative comments from Asian men, complaining about the disparity and how they are viewed in the ruthless sexual marketplace. So diversity tends to produce winners and losers. Asian men find the White guy / Asian woman pairing no less disagreeable than Black women find the Black guy / White woman pairing.]

Is it likely that these commercials will generate a mass wave of inter-racial marriage/kids? Nope. Most people marry and have kids within their own race, and this is unlikely to change, being quite stable over time. While there are solid advantages to mating across races (hybrid vigor, disease resistance among some groups, avoiding genetic bottlenecks among some groups, attraction of the "forbidden" and even racial preferences for not being White), the question of who your in-laws will be remains large. Marriage and family is not merely a question of passion and romance. There is the question of a whole host of people who are now related to you, and to whom you have mutual obligations. Mass immigration also tends to suppress marriage across groups. Hispanics after mass immigration, as well as Asians, tend to inter-marry less where there is a large pool of people of the same race (like Southern California). It makes family life easier, juggling in-laws and grandparents and the like. Only among the military (where the civilian/military divide looms larger than that of race, try being deployed for two years in Iraq) is inter-racial coupling anything other than rare. Jewish enthusiasm for out-marriage is probably the anomaly, and likely explained by a desire to avoid considerable genetic bottlenecks (it is not fun to have a kid with Taysachs disease).

It is entirely possible, however, for the natural disdain that White women have for White guys who adopt the typical Beta male posture (diffident, non-aggressive behavior that "keeps heads down" in the multicultural wars) can be accelerated by this advertising and reality blitz. The beneficiaries won't be rappers, or Black athletes, but rather the few men, mostly White, who can create "soft harems" by appealing to their inner Ashton Kutcher. Acting like a self-centered jerk. Which is the whole point of the Kutcher commercials. "Of course he's a jerk ladies, but you still want him, BECAUSE he's a jerk. And his camera!"

Which is a dagger aimed right at the heart of the West. Most women can't marry Reggie Bush. Or even be his girlfriend/mistress on the side. Even Tiger Woods could carry only a few hundred or so. But the rest can be the shared, part time girlfriends of would-be-Kutchers. Instead of generally happy wives/mothers in a relationship like that of their grandmothers at least. One that produces the next generation of people.

The end result is not widespread inter-racial marriage. But a sterile, San Francisco/Portland/Seattle playpen for adults. No children present, save the one designer eugenic baby by IVF at age 41, by a single mother. Beta White guys are already not very popular. It won't take much to make them even less popular.
...Read more

Why Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell is a Disaster

Only clueless RINOs like HotAir's Allahpundit or hostile Liberal Democrats could find letting openly gay military personnel serve to be a wise social policy. The first are clueless SWPL folks, the latter profoundly hostile to every institution that supports America. Allowing openly gay people to serve in the Military will be an unmitigated disaster that will cost America dearly. Barack Obama would not have it any other way, but the larger issue is the stupidity of the RINOs who want to have their social liberalism and a functioning America. PC does indeed make you stupid.


As Ann Coulter noted, Bradley Manning is the poster child for letting gays serve openly in the military. Manning was by all accounts, a first-class screw up. But was protected because he was gay, even with DADT. Manning gave Wikileaks the confidential data, including classified diplomatic cables, military documents, and video, because he was angry over his break up with his Drag Queen Boyfriend.

This is the reality of Gay Life. Gays, are not, by and large, respectable, middle class, sober, and staid men who merely like to have sex … with other men. They tend to be like Bobby Trendy than John Wayne. Gay men are largely, flamboyant, emotional, flighty, and lacking in any real discipline. They are poor security risks (being ruled as Manning shows, by emotions and pique) even if they are serving openly. Gays are in short, far closer to one giant hissy fit from betraying their country over a break-up with a Drag Queen, than they are from John Basilone style sacrifice.

For this, we must blame Hollywood. People like Allahpundit simply reflexively accept whatever is shown on the screen. Lacking any real knowledge of gays (not attending say the Folsom Street Fair chronicled by "Zombie" of "Zombietime") squishy RINOs view whatever TV and movies depict as accurate and reflective of reality. The "nice" and staid, sober Gay guys are in reality, all variants of Bobby Trendy, to greater or lesser degree. While staid, sober, and responsible Gay men do exist, they are about as rare as Black Republicans. Just as the reality of Lesbianism is reflected by Rosie O'D0nnell, not Alyson Hannigan playing "Gay Now!" Willow on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

The arguments of the pro-gays in the military camp are: 1. It is inevitable, because public opinion supports it, 2. it is like Desegregating the military under Truman, 3. other militaries like the Netherlands do this, and 4. the courts will do it anyway.

Is this inevitable? Nope. America has wanted its borders secure since the early 1990's, and the widespread majority support for building a massive border fence and deporting every illegal we can, has been stymied ever since. Americans tend to be deferential to serving combat military on what they need in terms of manpower, how the men are mustered and organized, and disciplined. Most Americans moreover are capable of being persuaded …

That Gays in the military are not like Desegregating the military. Because Black and White guys did not want to have sex with each other. In particular, ordinary White women can be told, it is like every icky Beta male lusting after you, now protected and able to "order you" on pain of facing death in battle to service them. Gays in the military GUARANTEES gay sexual harassment. With Gays protected, basically immune the way Muslims are, because of PC and multiculturalism and diversity, all of which have the force of law (one of the fruits, intended or not, of the Civil Rights movement).

The whole point of Civil Rights was to promote "fairness" and "equality" by discriminating against White men (later Straight White Men as the Gay Liberation movement gained power) in favor of everyone else: Blacks, Hispanics, Women, and of course, Gays and Lesbians. This means, as a practical and legal matter (including many Supreme Court decisions) Straight White guys have very few rights, almost none, against those higher in the "protected class" totem pole. Protected Class means in practice, that Major Hassan could scream that he wanted to cut off the heads of infidels, at Army conferences, and nothing was done until he shot and killed 14 people. Because he was part of the Protected Class (as was Bradley Manning).

The only type of Gay guy who joins the military, overwhelmingly, if we are honest, are those desiring sex with other men, in a hot-house, near male only environment. Most gays go into fashion, design, advertising, and other gay-friendly "flamboyant" occupations in civilian life. Sure, there are a few sober, patriotic gays. Just like there is at least one Chinese born Center in the NBA. But extrapolating from the Yao Mings of the world (rare, outlier folks) to the average is the mark of weak minds desperate to keep the PC myths they see on TV and movies, alive.

The flood of gays in the military will harass (with PC/Protected Class impunity) all the straight guys below them rank and power. Again, this is something Jane Average White girl can understand if put to her bluntly. As well as Joe Sixpack already getting it. The Marines in particular understand this. They don't want to share close, personal space for months, with a guy who wants to have sex with them.

For the simple reason that straight men find gay sex repulsive. Even more repulsive than straight women find the idea of having sex with beta males.

Ending DADT is not like Desegregating the military. Because put bluntly, White and Black soldiers did not want to have sex with each other, the other side being repulsed and unwilling. Marines view it as akin to Prison Rape. Which it is.

Yes, other militaries have openly gay soldiers. They also have pretend, toy militaries incapable of fighting their way out of a paper bag. The Dutch Peacekeepers surrendered Srebenica to Miladic and did nothing to stop the massacre. Because they had a pretend, toy military oriented towards politically correct gay soldiers, not an effective fighting force.

You can have a PC-driven, gay military. With tons of Bobby Trendys, and not much else. Or you can have the US Marine model. Not very PC, fairly brutal, but quite effective in molding an effective fighting force. No effective, large, and powerful military has gays serving openly. Yes, you can't eat all the chocolate you want and not get fat. And you cannot have gays in the military, serving openly with a fighting force actually capable of fighting. And winning.

But the saddest thing of all is a refusal to pick a fight with the courts. While it is true that the Executive, and Congress both have limits, and cannot do everything, rule everything, and regulate everything, the same is true for the courts. Courts cannot order military policy. It is outside their purview. Which is not universal. Judges are not god-like philosopher kings ordering everything in modern life. There are limits, and the public is well disposed to side with the military against Judges, often un-elected, extending their authority to the point of personally taking charge of say, the next Battle of Midway.

So what is likely to happen?

First, every active duty military personnel who can leave when their enlistment is up, will. Gay soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are like dumping Bobby Trendy as a protected and highly disruptive force right into a firefight. The military cannot make it work because it cannot be made to work. Already stretched thin and abused, by a hostile Media, Democratic Party, "activists" (anti-American elitists), and lawyers, most of the combat force is likely to quit. Gays being a burden just too much to tolerate. If you were in combat would you sign up again for having to protect a Bobby Trendy trying to have sex with you every night?

And, mission accomplished, no more effective US fighting force. Except nukes. Which will be all that a fabulously hip, cool, edgy, politically correct nation will have left for its defense. No more kicking the can down the road, with limited use of combat troops alongside proxies to keep the lid on regional flashpoints that threaten to become global ones. Instead, EVERY conflict will nuclear, or result in abject US surrender of strategic objectives. This pattern of Western Weakness has been seen before: 1932-39. It is unlikely to end any better than the last time.

Western people want to live in John Lennon's "Imagine." A fantasy of PC utopia where no human conflict exists, and everyone is so hip and cool and "at the end of history." A desire fueled by the desperate need to avoid conflict, at any and all costs. Which results in Western weakness, and conflict anyway. Merely at greater cost. So moral superiority and status-mongering can take center stage. Perhaps this is inevitable in societies that produce staggering amounts of wealth and tend to have, in one form or another, minor aristocracies over and over again.

But the world is not built this way. Gays in the military means a military that does not work. Is at best a toy, play military useful for parades and social engineering but nothing else. One that is "fabulous" but fighting-effective.
...Read more

The George Clooney Effect: Female Hypergamy Confirmed

In a story that might as well be titled, "Beta Males Can't Win," Science Daily reports on a new study of women's mate preferences. To the utter surprise of no one, older, higher earning women don't want beta males, or even for that matter hot young guys (they certainly cannot get them, Demi Moore no exception). Nope, they want in effect, George Clooney. Men even older than themselves, and even more successful. This preference makes sense.

Women, no matter how much they protest, don't want or need equalist marriages or want a partner of roughly equal attractiveness and status and age. Women with options (their own independent earnings) confirm this with their choices:

The finding suggests that greater financial independence gives women greater confidence in choosing their partner. Instinctive preferences for material stability and security become less important, physical attractiveness becomes more important, and the age of partner women pick also increases.

"The behaviour of men and women does become more similar as women earn more, but only in terms of the importance of physical attraction," Dr Moore added. "But the similarities stop there: greater income makes women prefer even older men, and men prefer even younger women."

As women now out-number men in the workforce, and out-earn them, this means even more soft-harem forming. Women, as they age out of the younger bad boys, pursue the George Clooneys as they start to earn serious money. Unsurprisingly, the beta male age-peers, who are the same age, same level of attractiveness, and so on, are simply invisible. Or, quite likely, an annoyance given interest that is not shared. Certainly, women don't find men who are the same as they are in status (which includes, looks, wealth, power, and age) exciting.

What matters to women most when choosing partners unconstrained by money/social pressure, is power. Power that comes from social dominance, fame, money, or anything else that a George Clooney type would possess. Including, looks. For which almost anything can be excused. Even Gay Rosie O'Donnell makes excuses for John Edwards, saying he suffered the most, instead of his late wife Elizabeth Edwards. Consider Charlie Sheen. A man who has a questionable history with women at best, considering the accidental shooting of then-girlfriend Kelly Preston, the allegations of abuse and violence by ex-wife Denise Richards, the arrest for putting a knife to his second wife's throat on Christmas Day (and threatening to kill her), and the account of the woman (a porn star) terrified of Sheen in his hotel room rampage. One would think this record would make Sheen toxic to the female audience, but his series Two and a Half Men is hitting new ratings highs. Sheen remains the "good looking bad boy" women aim to tame.

If China has a long-term problem on its hands, with a lot of men who will never marry, and won't as Mark Steyn notes, being turning into the world's first Gay Superpower since Sparta, the US similarly has a problem. Lots and lots of beta males, who even if they strive hard are not even the preference to their female peers, will be at loose ends. With, quite likely the power of the internet and sites like Roissy's and others to explain the reasons why (things worked out so differently for them than their fathers), a built in incentive to change things. So that they are Alpha.

Call it another Silverado Moment.

If the reality of illegal immigration is such that, the only way to create a balanced budget in the States, and not have taxes be so sky-high that they are confiscatory to average working people, is simple deportation of illegals (and their children) regardless of anything else, well then the same holds true for the position of beta males. If it is all about the money (and it always is), then public outlays decrease radically for education, health, welfare, and prison/corrections by simply deporting illegals (and their children, even if they are US citizens) back to Mexico. Eventually States will start doing it, not the least of which is that rule of law cannot exist with some laws not applying (to Mexican nationals) and all other laws applying to a selected few on the bottom of the PC totem pole (Whites and particularly Straight White Beta guys). If the law does not exist, for Mexicans entering the US illegally and working illegally and putting their families on the taxpayer's support, but does exist for those expected to pay out that support, ultimately the law does not exist at all. And Mexicans, eventually, will be deported, one way or another. As White guilt fades and Lifeboat Economics moves to the forefront.

But just as certain is that the same Beta Males are unlikely to stop there. If the problem is the equalist status between men and women, a few will certainly follow PUA guru advice and move to become an Alpha Male. By changing their posture, clothes, personality, and essentially lie about everything:

In the relationship that ended three months ago, I had made the mistake of taking women at their word when they say they want you to be honest about your feelings. Well, I guess women aren’t exactly lying when they say this; it’s more that they just don’t mean it the way you assume. Women do in fact want you to be honest about your feelings, but it’s not so they can love you better—it’s so they know whether to dump your pathetic ass. Women want you to be honest about your feelings the way the IRS wants you to be honest about your finances. What I realized too late was that it was totally within my power to keep that relationship going. All I would have had to do was lie about what I’m really thinking every moment for the rest of my life.

Yes, women HATE HATE HATE Beta Males (you knew it was coming, didn't you?) They'd prefer that they all be Gay, or gone from the planet. This is almost entirely because, yes, most men are their equal, or indeed inferior in power and status. A few men can make the leap (which has considerable cost as seen above) into Alpha Male status, basically a performance that implies superior status due to superior social power, or network, or looks, or any combination. Even fewer men are lucky enough to be born natural Alphas, the Tom Bradys and such. Early maturers, physically, gifted at Athletics, dominant in some way, so that they have women throwing themselves at them from age 15 onwards and never look back.

Everyone else is likely to come to the same conclusion. It would be better for them if their status were higher. And the only way to do that is to make most women's status lower. By destroying the female job-base: health, education, welfare, marketing, corporate finance, advertising, media, etc. Remaking the economy into one dominated by men: resource extraction, transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, engineering. Or, in reality TV terms, destroying the Kardashians and making all of America look like Ice Road Truckers or Axe Men.

If China has a built-in pool of angry young men looking for an outlet of aggression and figuring it would be a very good thing for China to conquer Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, and other places with attractive women nearby, so maybe they can get a girlfriend (by the age old method of killing the boyfriends of said women in the near-abroad), the US has its own problem. Beta males by and large are unattached to most women. A married man would never contemplate destroying his wife's livelihood -- she brings in home money required to run the household, and live better. A single man, contemplating the hard hurdle to become in effect, George Clooney (not in the cards for about 90% of all Beta Males, or about 81% of all men), can figure its better to simply remake the economy so HE is in effect George Clooney by taking down the earnings and income and social position of most of his age peer (and younger) women.

Gone would be jobs in media, in entertainment, in government, in most health and education and welfare roles. Gone would be jobs in corporate HR, or diversity, or any such thing. Welfare for single mothers? Why? Not their kids. Corporate finance and HR and marketing jobs? Move to trim them (by taxing them). Put costs right on top of the entertainment industry to make it a broken shell. The same for media companies, and fashion, and the like.

Now, this effort is unlikely to be successful, in and of itself, but it will certainly be attempted. Men are not stupid, and the bigger the group of beta singletons, unattached (and thus uncaring) towards women (and a particular woman), and the longer that cohort ages, the more they will push for this policy. It won't be labeled as such. The measures will be "fiscally responsible" or "work to welfare" or "improving productivity" or "revenue neutral" but there will be a sizable group of beta men wanting their own preferences by pushing down their female peer's.

Beta males cannot become George Clooney (which is what their age peers in their thirties and older seem to want). Only a select few can create that wealth/power/looks premium that women demand. Even Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's wealthy billionaire founder, has less social power and attraction than say, Grade Z actor Jared Leto. While Sorkin's movie was completely untruthful about how Facebook was created and developed ("the Social Network") he did capture one unpleasant truth: when women have their own money, power, and status, only the most massively dominant of men are attractive. Mere money and brains makes one an afterthought, even at Zuckerberg's levels. The dog that is not barking there, is the complete lack of women throwing themselves at Zuckerberg. Compared to even fairly pathetic guys like … Charlie Sheen or Ashton Kutcher.

Nope. Beta males won't be able to remake themselves into Clooney. Or Sheen, or even Kutcher. But they can reduce their female peers, or at least try to. In this, they are likely to be helped by the "Rendezvous with Scarcity" that Ed Driscoll has predicted. In a later post I will identify the factors driving scarcity of almost everything, from investment capital, to natural gas, to oil, to food, and clothing. But suffice it to say that even marginal improvements in China's average income means a lot more competition for scarce resources, and the likelihood of economic autarky and trade bloc moat building. India and Russia have already banned sugar and wheat exports, respectively, due to bad harvests and the politically sensible desire to keep domestic prices as low as possible. The whole female-dominated super-structure of marketing, advertising, corporate finance, HR, fashion, and the rest including the Kardashians and Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus is coming to an end in a long-lasting age of scarcity and massive international resource competition.

As Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's right hand man says, the power of incentives in shaping human behavior is massive. If Beta males cannot become George Clooney, and are not tied to women's income (single men) they are likely to demand their own status become much higher by remaking the economic and social order in any crisis coming to hand. And the new international system hard-wiring instability globally into the US and the West guarantees there will be no lack of shocks and crisis.

If the social order can muddle through, without any real stress, if the economy magically recovers, everyone goes back to work, and the old social-economic-political alliance of White Women, various non-Whites, and connected White social elites, reasserts itself by producing economic good times, of course there is zero chance of Beta males remaking the system. But in a crisis, the old values are upended. New ones come to the fore, when its to the lifeboats. In J.G. Ballard's "Empire of the Sun," pickpockets and thieves rule the Japanese run internment camps for the British and other Western Whites, not the old elites who have no ability to provide food and survival in a brutal new environment. If the markets decide that the US Government cannot repay the implied debt of the States and localities on top of its own debt, without massive inflation or repudiation (same thing), or oil, gas, food, cotton, and money shocks occur, or war breaks out somewhere sensitive (Korea, the Persian Gulf), then it is to the lifeboats. Events themselves will drive survival, and the "thieves and pickpockets," the lowest of the low, (beta White males) are unlikely to return to old ways of deference and social order once one storm has passed and another gathers.

But clearly, everything has its cost, everything is connected, and everything in turn has an effect on everything else. Women's choices in men, preferring George Clooney, are in turn inexorably driving the 81% of all men that excludes into behavior designed to make them that powerful. One way or another.
...Read more

The Laziest President: Obama Turns Over Presidency to Clinton

President Obama has more important things to do than stop your taxes from rising in a recession. Like, going to parties. Remarkably, during a Joint Press Conference with Bill Clinton, Obama walked away to go to parties. Obama, besides being the worst President, ever, is intent on being the laziest. You can also see for yourself the video at Real Clear Politics, and the story here at Yahoo News.

Obama is imploding. The first Affirmative Action President, and the second "Black President" (Clinton claims he was the first) is simply not up to the job. Not disciplined enough to take questions, not focused enough to drive the press conference (and not let Clinton take over), not smart enough to re-assure House/Senate liberals that "triangulating" is not on the agenda, but simple survival accommodation is required. As Hot Air wondered, what's next? Dick Morris at the podium, replacing Robert Gibbs.


Obama wanted to be President to do three things: The first was party, party, party. The second was give big, self-important speeches about how important, he, Obama really was to history. The third was to punish "wicked" America for being too White and Western, and weakening it and his own office of the Presidency. While he has accomplished all of these objectives, Obama lacks the intelligence to see the danger to himself, his party, and the whole Affirmative Action superstructure. By bringing home to everyone (including property owning Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics "stuck" in America like Donald Trump and the local landlord alike) but particularly Whites, the dual incompetence and malevolence of the Affirmative Action class in action, Obama has guaranteed that there will be serious efforts eventually to impeach and convict him.

Yes, Ralph Nader says he just might oppose Obama in 2012. Nancy Pelosi, and her House caucus have told Obama to "F Off" in just those explicit words. [We are all adults here, but Google has terms of service requiring at least a minimal effort to rein in the obscenities.] Obama looks weak already, unable to deliver the Dems as leader of his own party, to a deal he himself endorsed. Indeed, his reflexive hard-left denouncing of his own deal and the "hostage taking" by Republicans on not raising taxes for those making more than $200,000 a year made the House revolt of the uber-liberal "Gentry Liberal" Dems a foregone conclusion. While alienating any and all Republican help in making further concessions on this or any other deal down the road. For what? Making deals he does not like politically, as part of being President.

It was more than bad politics. It was total immaturity, from a man well into middle age. It was the sort of thing found among Black rap stars, spoiled athletes, and other coddled people when confronted by reality. It was akin to Albert Haynesworth being unable to make weight and perform for his massive contract for the Washington Redskins, or Vince Young of the Tennessee Titans throwing his shoulder pads into the stands after being booed, and wanting to fight physically with his coach, Jeff Fisher. This has not gone un-noticed.

But Obama's latest stunt is going to cost him, big, down the road. People will remember.

Walking away from the Presidential Podium and Press Conference, and handing over both to Bill Clinton, because he was bored and wanted to go to a party, is the mark of a man to pathetically lazy to do the scut work that the Presidency requires. At a time when Americans demand their President do what he has to in order to keep their taxes from rising, right around the holidays, Obama is too lazy. He has to go to a party. Rather than defend his tax deal and make it happen. He's turned it over to Clinton, like he turned his own domestic policy over to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, while he did the three things that were important to him.

1. Party, Party, Party.


2. Give big speeches about how important he is to History.


3. Punish "Wicked" White America for being "too White" and diminishing America's power and that of the Presidency itself.

If rapper P-Diddy was President, you'd not find any significant differences in objectives. Obama perhaps is America's First (and likely last) Rap President.

Obama is constantly called "smart" and even "brilliant" in the media because as a Black man, he can avoid sounding like Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, or Louis Farrakhan. That's a low bar. In reality, he is a man of average, at best, IQ. Too stupid and self-engaged in self-love to realize his own danger. Bill Clinton was at least smart enough to be afraid, eventually, and come up with a plan to pump wealth into middle class America so he could keep his Presidency. Though even Clinton was fairly dumb, risking the Presidency for what, oral sex from Monica Lewinsky. A face (and body) incapable of launching not just a thousand ships, but a rubber ducky in a bath-tub.

Obama just showed, unmistakably, in a way that cannot be denied, spun, or postured, how little he cares about the Presidency and America. When the nation counts upon to keep his own tax deal in place, he turns over everything to Clinton (who in turn hates him for playing the race card against him) and walks out to go to a party.

Vince Young is not going to play another down for the Tennessee Titans, in all probability. Rap artists can get away with that posturing, their White male teen audience eats it up as a the only model of aggressive masculine behavior "allowed" for them to consume. In athletics however, the only sin one can not come back from is "quitting." Quitting on a team, quitting on an effort, quitting on playing.

Obama just quit on the Presidency. To go to a party.

Not only has he lost much of his liberal base, he's lost most of America through one stupid act. When, not if, he faces impeachment, it is highly likely that his quitting on the job will persuade wavering Senators that he deserves to be sent out to an endless party. So that a caretaker President can succeed the job, until the elections of 2012.

This is remarkable. I cannot stress how big this action is. Obama just walked out on the Presidency. Like a bored, stupid, and spoiled Rap star.

...Read more

Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys

The new Sundance Channel series, "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys," explores the gay best friend phenomena. Because, apparently no one demanded it, but got it anyway.





This brings a new face to the reality of niche, upscale TV. It is inescapably a female-gay ghetto. And the desire for upscale women for gay best friends for shopping (as detailed by the LAT review here) is telling. "A Celebration of the most important relationship in a straight girl's life -- her gay best friend!"


This show is the illustration of why, beta males are losers. Far too many, get pushed into gay best friend categories. Also, a look at the picture shows why straight White guys should never wear shorts except at the beach. The proliferation of "gay best friend" in urban, professional circles for women is toxic for the average White beta male. Thus the need to go Alpha male, or simply not bother.

For those wondering why this guy was featured on KTTV Fox Los Angeles, with his PUA bootcamp offering $1,300 seminars on how to actually pick up a woman and not be the gay best friend, the "hunk or gay" mentality of the modern professional woman is a big reason why. Gay best friends are an aspect, an indicator, of a skewed relationship market.

Our current relationship/sexual model puts a premium on hotness, and desire of the moment. John Edwards is not experiencing millions of women calling for his head, after betraying his cancer stricken, dying wife in the most ugly way. Now Elizabeth Edwards is struggling to live long enough to divorce him, to shield her assets from both Edwards bastard love child and legal action. So her children are not left with nothing. You would think there would be an outcry from women, to string up Edwards on general principles. Yet … nothing.

Decency, compassion, and faithful companionship seem to be the province of pets and gay best friends. Not family and spouses. For men, it seems various video games and perhaps pets as well. This is not the mark of a strong social structure able to withstand rapid change and many shocks. If Twilight, and Ugly Betty are part of the problem, so too is "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys."

In a rational society, a woman's best friend would be her husband. Who, even if he was older, or fatter, or less socially dominant, would be her partner in every aspect of her heart and life. Not a mere sex object supplemented by a fabulous gay best friend. That the upper classes so obviously celebrate this dysfunction is more evidence (if it was needed) of their decadence.
...Read more

Netflix's Choice and the Return of Louis B. Mayer

The usually reliable Edward Jay Epstein has a new column up at the Wrap detailing the transition Netflix is undergoing. Netflix currently spends around $500 million a year in postage mailing out DVDs and receiving them back. This also requires obviously, distribution centers, and along with an average price of $15 per DVD, accounts for operating profit of about 12%.

Steaming, obviously, is cheaper. No postage fees, no rate hikes in postage, instant gratification. The only problem being that Hollywood is charging premium prices for streaming rights (Netflix can simply buy DVDs from wholesalers and rent them out without costly rights fees). As Epstein notes:

The brutal reality is Netflix’s bargain days for streaming movies and television is coming to an end. As everyone else in the licensing game, Netflix will have to pay real world prices for content. Just the output deal it announced with three of the weakest studios, Paramount, LionsGate and MGM will cost it $200 million a year, a sum that exceeds its operating income last year. And if it wants the kind of output deals the other pay channels have, it will have to pay a great deal more than that.

Of course, Netflix can do something else. Create its own content. Which, in order to make money, would have to be very popular. Yes, HBO, Time-Warner Cable (HBO's Parent), Amazon, Itunes/Apple, Hulu, Google/Youtube, are all Netflix competitors, as Epstein notes. Competing on price for streaming, and on every platform: smartphones, Ipads, tablets, TV sets connected to the internet, gaming devices, and more. Netflix very likely has few illusions on this matter. But … they can create their own content.

And that can be their great competitive advantage.


Most entertainment is junk, which also loses money. Hollywood's movie system depends almost entirely on a few mega-hits: Transformers, Iron Man, and other male-oriented action movies, along with Twilight, and a few other female oriented romance movies. Stuff like "the Reader" or "the Woodsman" or "Ghost Writer" don't make money, even if they do win awards and get Hollywood's execs their next job (by catering to stars egos). Among TV series, a few mega-popular reality shows like American Idol make a lot of money (American Idol is estimated to add about $200-$300 million to Fox's bottom line). The repeat value or desire to see these on devices other than TV, live, is fairly low, however. A few other shows like NCIS, and Desperate Housewives, generate high ad dollar purchases by sponsors, and thus make money. But again, the desire by consumers to purchase these shows is fairly low.

What Netflix can do, then, is exploit the gap in broad entertainment people will pay modest amounts to view, by creating their own. Epstein, like many in and around Hollywood, over-estimates the barriers to creating original content. And the sea change a producer like Netflix which cannot survive in the Hollywood model and MUST create broadly popular entertainment across its offerings to prosper against a host of rivals. Which, amounts to a return to mass culture, and the end of niche culture and "de-massification."

Netflix is not HBO. HBO depends on keeping heads of households "happy" by offering female-skewing "edgy" content not available anywhere else. Alpha males in full a-hole glory: Tony Soprano, the folks of "Rome" and so on. HBO, of course, is available in almost all TV households but less than 30% actually pay for it. HBO gets paid if people watch their content or not. It's been very profitable, but depends on lots of excess cash among high income consumers expressing a desire to be "different." Making it vulnerable to economic downsizing and consumers being pressed into dropping the service (and cable altogether). Cable cutting, a real phenomena, is already occurring at the lower end of the income spectrum, as the cost of living inflates while income remains stagnant.

HBO depends on a large pool of high-income consumers expressing their niche content desire by paying premium prices for niche content consumption. That is not Netflix's mass consumer model. Near-premium cable folks like FX, or AMC, rely on keeping their channels as part of the basic subscription model, and thus follow HBO's model: AMC's Mad Men and Breaking Bad (Alpha male assholes appealing to women), or Nip/Tuck, Damages (Alpha female) fit that model. Mad Men famously got less than 1 million viewers per episode the first season. Yet it was considered a massive success (generating lots of publicity) and was easily renewed. Because AMC gets paid if people watch the channel or not. Again, that's not Netflix's model.

The limits of the HBO model (you cannot grow beyond the niche consumption of high end consumers) and the near-premium cable model of AMC and FX and others, come with risks of being unable to compete on price in a prolonged recession/depression. These entities depend like Hollywood movie studios and TV broadcast networks, on good times rolling not hard times a coming.

Netflix has always been different. Oriented towards mass consumer spending, not pricey niche stuff. Their play, and they are clearly edging towards it, is to create their own content. Aimed necessarily at the broad middle, and those willing to shell out modest amounts for entertainment: men. Yes, Netflix to compete will have to produce its live action competition to Call of Duty and Medal of Honor and Halo. Male skewing tales of adventure, excitement, and action-driven conflict.

Can Netflix do this? Certainly, and they must. After all, soundstages are for rent to whoever can pay. Actors, directors, writers, are all for hire. So too, are many locations outside Hollywood where tax incentives matter. USA Network has already leveraged this, with In Plain Sight shot in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Burn Notice in Miami Florida. Male skewing writer/producer teams like Life's Rand Ravich/Far Shariat and 24's Joel Surnow can be hired. So too, comic creators like Jim Shooter (Valiant Universe creator) or James Robinson or Brian Michael Bendis or Micah Ian Wright. The idea being to produce not just one-off movies but serial entertainment streamed right to men who have other than video games, little competition. A price point of say, 99 cents per episode, or even free with embedded ads. So the male consumer comes back.

Clearly, just trying to make the next "Vampire Diaries" or "Parenthood" is not a way to success. No matter how many tween girls (or their moms) watch, or how many PC plaudits are earned. Netflix is interested in making money, and doesn't have a massive parent to subsidize making Hollywood players happy. Amazon, Itunes, Google/Youtube, and even Coinstar's Redbox can crush them. So whoever races to their own, vertically created, distributed, and sold content gets to replicate …

Golden Age Hollywood. Characterized by "Its A Wonderful Life" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart. No metrosexual, "I Love You Philip Morris" stuff, or "TransAmerica." You didn't see John Wayne smooching Ward Bond, in a gay cowboy movie, or Rosalind Russell playing a trans-sexual man/woman. Everything was broadly pitched, straight to the middle, as content was owned, distributed, and revenue collected, by Hollywood's studios.

Hollywood was no less filled with hard left folks in the Golden Age. Heck, many writers and actors were outright members of the Communist Party, when it actually meant something and Stalin was alive. But the economics of the mass media, vertically integrated companies requiring mass sales not niche stuff for premium prices in one way or another meant you got Jimmy Cagney extolling the virtues of the Red, White, and Blue, not a metrosexual, stalker Superman who fights for truth, justice, and "all that stuff."

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Can Netflix create original content for less than licensing it from other creators, that will generate more money than licensed content, in a mass medium model (i.e. not niche content at niche/expensive prices)? Very likely, yes.

TV Networks action/adventure series generally average about $3-4 million dollars per episode. The more action, and the more stunts, obviously the more expensive it is to shoot versus dialog on a soundstage (like ultra-cheap soaps). So on the upper end, excluding tax breaks, it would cost Netflix about $88 million to produce a 22 episode series. Assuming it can sell each episode for about 99 cents or so, its break-even sales volume is about 4 million sales per episode. At about 5 million sales units at that price, Netflix will make about $22 million. Assuming it can build sales to about say, 10 million purchases per episode, it would be generating $132 million per "hit" series, which would be roughly half the views per episode of shows like NCIS (averaging around 20 million viewers per episode per season, excluding repeats). With, critically, revenues rising dramatically as popularity and views per episode go up.

Why was Golden Age Hollywood so mainstream? Because the people who owned it got immediate financial rewards for being mainstream (that's the feedback mechanism of vertically integrated media companies) and punishments for going niche. Warren Buffett's right hand man, Charlie Munger, was quoted as saying:

‘Well I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes [without me] getting some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.’ That was Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice-Chairman, speaking before the Harvard Law School on the psychology of human misjudgement.

Munger is resolutely focussed on the power of incentives to influence human behaviour. In his speech he recounts a number of examples where incentives have been used for both good and ill. Federal Express was one such example. It has to transport packages within its network to a central location for sorting before sending them on to their final destination. For the system to work, the sorting must be quick and efficient. The trouble was that, for a time at least, it wasn’t. The company tried all sorts of incentives without much success. Then management came up with the idea of paying their staff by the shift, instead of for the shift. In other words, when the sorting was done the staff could go home. As you can guess, along with the staff at the end of their shift, the problem vanished almost immediately.

If not Netflix, then one company not already laden with perverse Hollywood incentives, will push entertainment to a vertical model, where lavish rewards await anyone who can replicate the Golden Age of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, or Warner Brothers. Amazon, Apple's Itunes, Google/Youtube, and perhaps even growth-strapped Microsoft can be players here. Creating their own content, selling it on their own pay/ad-supported network, and collecting hefty profits.

Its far more than a transition from Netflix renting out DVDs through the mail. It is about breaking the stranglehold that Hollywood has had, strangely, in creative content production, for about 90 years. With talent mobile, and lots of money at stake, it is only a matter of time. Particularly as Hollywood's post-80's niche model collapses during hard times.

The return of Louis B. Mayer awaits.
...Read more

The Silverado Moment

In the movie "Silverado," the character played by Kevin Kline has an awakening. His friend, played by Linda Hunt, is threatened with death by the evil sheriff, played by Brian Dennehy. Hunt points out the obvious to the gambler and gunfighter character played by Kline: the Dennehy character can't hurt her if he's dead. In the same way, a crisis of money, in State budgets, is driving already a "Silverado Moment" for White middle class voters. Nearly every state is in budgetary crisis, and the bigger states with terrible demographics are in severe crisis. California faces a $6 billion budget crisis in the next six months and $20 billion for the next 12 budget cycle after that. Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts face similar budget crises. Spurred by middle class flight, and demographic transformation into Brazil like favelas filled with the "Mexodus" of Mexican immigrants, nearly all illegal and very, very poor, with a few highly liberal rich Whites, these states simply cannot pay for the budgets they must have, often by statute or state constitutions or federal consent decrees. There are not enough White middle class taxpayers to fund the required massive outlays in health, education, welfare, and prisons.Sky high taxes make raising new taxes a prospect sure to create massive voter revolt.

Hence the Silverado Moment. Voters in these states, are increasingly realizing they can have the nice things they want, libraries open, beautiful parks, safe streets, saving the obscure mice and birds in wetlands, if they do just one thing. Deport every illegal alien they can find (and their kids) and let the Federal government go hang. Bingo! Budget balanced, with no new taxes.


The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Mexicans outnumber Whites in K-12 students, and about 40% of all K-12 students parents cannot vote (i.e. they are likely illegal aliens). This fact is driving the Silverado Moment.

No, White voters don't want to "kill" Mexican illegal aliens. They just want to deport them, so they won't have to pay for their high costs. Illegal alien labor is not cheap, certainly not for taxpayers.


The Orange County Register posted a budgetary breakdown. Roughly $37 billion in the current budget year goes for K-12 Education, about $37 billion for Health and Welfare, and about $9 billion for prison/corrections expenditures. These are the biggest budgetary areas, all others including Higher Education are minor categories, and cannot be cut radically without impacting middle class, and crucially, upper class White voters.

Assuming a 40% reduction in expenditures in K-12, Health and Welfare, and prisons, with widespread deportation (or even pushing out to other states through vigorous enforcement), you would be looking at decreases of $14.8 billion in K-12, $14.8 billion in Health/Welfare, and 3.6 billion in Prison/Corrections. Totaling $33.2 billion in cuts, without tax increases. Of course, enforcement and deportations cost. Not the least of which is that the Feds and Obama will fight hard to keep "instant voters" in the US, no matter what the costs to States and their taxpayers

This crisis is coming because unfunded pension obligations, among the States, is estimated to be around $500 billion. The unfunded obligations exist because there is not enough money to pay for both contractural obligations to public employees and expenditures on illegal aliens and their children. Already bond markets are reacting badly, with California and Illinois reaching Greek levels of yields (yields are the inverse of prices, cheap bonds equal high yield bonds or, junk level, essentially). California even had to withdraw some bonds due to tepid investor reaction at the prices. California must eventually offer the bonds at junk-level prices.

Rahm Emmanuel and Saul Alinksy counseled to never let a crisis go to waste. Well, the crisis is here. Like Kevin Kline in Silverado, middle class White taxpayers face tax annihilation in a time of stagnant wages, and rapidly increasing food and energy and clothing prices, with no more ability to simply borrow today to put off reckoning tomorrow. To pay, essentially, for the costs associated with educating the children of dirt poor peasants from Mexico who came to America illegally. Or spending welfare on illegal aliens and their children, almost all of them from Mexico. Or spending on prisons and corrections for the massive influx of illegal aliens, many of them low level drug criminals associated with the Zetas or Gulf Cartel.

In addition, many states have constitutional or statute requirements for certain percentages of the budget to be spent on various categories: K-12 education, or welfare. With Obama's Spendulus, many federal funds (that are now running out) came with requirements for states to massively increase (permanently) welfare spending, there is not much to cut.

Unless ... Unless ...

Illegals simply get deported. By States deciding to ignore a federal government and President who is a clueless and destructive idiot. Somewhere, somehow, a Governor and Legislature will decide that a President who cannot jail (and punish) Julian Assange can be defied internally. One cannot be weak abroad and not be also, weak at home. Deciding, as President Andrew Jackson said, to allow the Supreme Court having made their decision to enforce it.

In the end, it will be all about the money. Even Santa Monica and Malibu millionaire marxist liberals care about (their) money. Taxes on their real estate holdings are the next targets, voiced by the uber-rich (David Geffen, Eli Broad) against the merely rich (say, David Spade). The remaining middle class Whites are being squeezed, and don't figure to be very sympathetic to what amounts to a colonization of the US by Mexican peasants. Roughly 7.2 billion for enforcement would be available ($33.2 billion in savings minus the current 18 month budget deficit of 26 billion) under a California plan to simply balance the budget by deporting illegals (and their children).

Of course Jerry Brown and a Democratic Legislature will not ever consider this. Nor will the folks of Massachusetts, or New York. But New Jersey is probably another measure. Or possibly even Illinois (Mayor Daley getting out of town means a scandal is brewing). Definitely places like South Carolina, or Georgia, or Tennessee, can see the way to balance budgets without punitive tax increases that push the White middle class into poverty.

Setting up a confrontation with a President who has gambled everything that he can be weak abroad, deliberately, without being weak at home. In other words, States taking what the President and feds have ceded: control over the borders. With the approval of their taxpayers and voters, in places where moneyed interests are tied to real estate, not mobile assets able to be moved globally. Not obviously, California, but other states with more favorable demographics (bigger slices of White middle class voters and taxpayers, more real estate owners, less uber-rich and Mexican illegals) seem to be moving towards this.

It is always about the money.
...Read more

Ugly Betty Has Much To Answer For

Recently, the Orange County Register ran a story on a local charity. Eighteen year old Erika Sanchez was quoted as saying:

Nothing is going to hold Erika Sanchez back.

The 18-year-old wants more than the path taken by many of her peers.

"I look at my cousins and my close friends from when I was younger and they're living a life where they're basically going to be at the same place," said Sanchez, who grew up in Santa Ana. "Their husbands are still going to be working the same job and they're going to be home with their kids and that's just always going to be their life.

"It's just always been hard for me to accept that I have to stay in the same place my whole life.

The confidence and skills that Sanchez gained through Santa Ana-based KidWorks have helped her find her own way.

Obviously, all the time and money spent by KidWorks on Sanchez has paid off, she is prepared for a life of excitement and glamor and celebrity.


The article further notes:

KidWorks' Possible Dream is to provide a science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics program (STEAM Dream) within its after-school program curriculum. The nonprofit's after-school program serves 300 children in kindergarten through 12th grade. The STEAM Dream would help them learn science and math through creative activities.

When she was between second and third grade, Sanchez's mother started taking her to KidWorks to better her English. As she got older, she was introduced to the arts and writing. She learned a lot about herself.

"I remember taking art classes and falling in love with art and being like 'I may be passionate about this.'" Sanchez said. "I was involved with the newsletter program that we had and discovered that I really enjoy writing."

More than three months into her first year at Biola University, Sanchez is still a presence at KidWorks, despite no longer being a student there.

It is my estimation that about $2,000 to $3,000 per year was spent on Sanchez over ten years, amounting to about $20,000 to $30,000, if one includes "direct to student" expenditures such as staff to tutor English, writing skills, computer and software purchases for student use, overhead for rent, utilities etc in the rented space. Now, what did that money accomplish?

Not much. Perhaps a few Nikki Blonsky (from "Hairspray" and "Ugly Betty") dreams:



But there are only so many roles by openly gay writer-director-producer John Waters for very fat girls dancing. For all the money spent, it looks as if KidWorks has not produced a young woman even interested in a career in Math or Science. Instead, dreams of fame and vague desires about "passion for writing."

Self esteem is fine, based on accomplishment. I could care less if a researcher discovering a cure for cancer is fat or thin, has a fabulously glamorous lifestyle, or simply goes home to spouse and family every night (which would very likely be the case). Someone who has accomplished something difficult, worthwhile, and beneficial to society, well that person deserves every bit of their self-esteem.

Self esteem based on "you go girl" idiocy and platitudes about "nothing can hold her back" is self-defeating and a waste of resources. One would think that science and math are not learned by "creative activities" but rather the drudgery that accomplishes, say, achievement in the martial arts, or boxing, or football, or math and science for White and Asian (particularly Asian) kids. It means lots of studying, memorization, of working problems, of working to understand concepts and being able to apply them. All of which are about as fun as two-a-days in July and early August, or bag work in the gym. America understands and embraces hard work and discipline for athletic, musical, and even scientific achievement (as long as those doing so in science are Asian or White). Yet we reject out of PC/Multicultural platitudes the same hard-won knowledge, when it comes to Latino and Latina students. And yes, Black students.

A great deal, in fact most educational resources, are in effect wasted on girls like Sanchez. She is not evil or bad, simply a poor use of scarce dollars for investment in Math and Science achievement. At best, she is a failed Liberal Arts major in Chicano Studies or something, demanding more investment by society to further the dream of fame and stardom.

Unlikely given her height, weight, and appearance. At 18, she should be in the peak of her beauty, not resembling a sixty five year old matron. Her build and obesity are very common among Latina girls from Mexico. Short and stout comprise most Mexican girls. Height is limited by genes, but the lack of exercise from young girlhood and obesity inducing diet is cultural. Like most from Amerindian backgrounds, the highly processed foods and high carbohydrate content of the modern American diet, designed to feed robust men doing extremely hard physical labor (farming, mining, lumber, etc. BEFORE mechanization) have not served people like this well. Or, put more simply, the diet of Scottish and Norwegian fisherman hauling traps all day in the frigid North Sea, or their descendants cutting timber by hand, or mining by hand, is not conducive to those whose ancestors lived off limited calories in tropical or semi-tropical environments.

Nevertheless, the young woman's general obesity is very, very common among Mexican and Mexican ancestry teen girls. Any drive past a Mexican majority High School as kids are let out will confirm this in five minutes. If one wonders why so many Mexican young men fall into gangs and criminality despite the obvious drawbacks (you can get killed with one wrong step) you need look no further. A life of law-abiding nose to the grindstone gets you … Erika Sanchez. Who knows nothing can hold her back, and does not yearn for a life of being in the same place, married to the same man, taking care of the same kids. A life of criminality can offer the possibility, should one rise high, of a girl much more attractive.

Not all marketplaces trade in money, exactly. Even if they can be boiled down to the equivalent.

Are there talented young men and women even in the Barrio who deserve attention and help to succeed in Math and Science?

Yes. There are. There just are not that many of them. Inside Santa Ana Unified, there are likely no more than about 35-40 students each year who have any hope of a career in math and science, including stuff like a career in basic chemistry, or mechanical engineering, and the like. Santa Ana Unified has 58,000 students K-12. Or put it another way, about 4,461 students in High School, roughly, dividing by 13. It is 95% Latino (Mexican) and about 1.1% White. About 60% don't speak English, essentially "English learners." That runs about 0.008% of the District's Seniors being able each year to do anything in Math and Science.

That is a poor use of resources. Shooting a shotgun full of money, in effect, at Mexican kids in barrio schools in the hope of hitting a few that will add value is something that would never be tolerated in a for-profit endeavor. There are indeed kids who are worth investing in. Far better is identifying them, coaching them, training them, and investing in them alone. This is essentially what Jaime Escalante did (identifying through his network of Junior High teachers who could be fed into his Calculus Prep classes and who was not worth the time and effort).

And importantly, this is what every successful High School and College Coach does. They must and do of course, teach skills. Teamwork. Discipline. But none of that matters if the young men they coach do not have the solid athletic ability demanded on the football field or basketball court or baseball diamond. Everyone understands this. No one tolerates a "shotgun approach" of firing money at kids to make them all track or baseball or football or basketball stars. If you are not tall, no matter how talented you are, you will not be playing Basketball at the College or NBA Level. This is reality. And no one has the fantasy that simply throwing a lot of resources at ordinary kids with no height and athletic ability will produce NBA and NFL and MLB winners.

America would do a lot better by using the proven methods of coaches to create and train science and math winners.
...Read more