12 Posts of Christmas, 2016 (Day 9)

Quick Takes – Jobs for Big Tech; Favors for Big Oil; Nothing for You

Posted on December 22, 2016 by The Political Hat

Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

The focus this time: Silly peasant, luxuries are for the rich people!

First, a little mood music:

Carrying on…

When you are a pro-Obama and working for a pro-Obama company, certain opportunities in the public sector seem to just open up…

“More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office.

“The Google Transparency Project, the work of Campaign for Accountability, poured over reams of data to find 258 instances of ‘revolving door activity’ between Google or its associated companies and the federal government, national political campaigns and Congress since 2009.

“Much of that revolving door activity took place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where 22 former White House officials went to work for Google and 31 executives from Google and related firms went to work at the White House or were appointed to federal advisory boards by Obama. Those boards include the President’s Council on Science and Technology and the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.”

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Posted in Progressives | Tagged Democrats, Energy, Leviathan, Mood Music, Quick Takes | 2 Comments

12 Posts of Christmas, 2016 (Day 9)

Posted on December 21, 2016 by The Political Hat

“Snow” by Loreena McKennit

The Previous “Posts of Christmas”:

Day 1 – The Chemistry of Snowflakes.

Day 2 – Someone’s getting a lump of coal…

Day 3 – “Silent Night” by the Gothard Sisters.

Day 4 – Christmas Puppies!

Day 5 – Bing Crosby sings “Mele Kalikimaka”.

Day 6 – Can’t wait for what’s underneath the Christmas tree!

Day 7 – “Hark the herald angels sing” and “Come all ye faithful” as performed by Blackmore’s Night.

Day 8 – Fake Santas make Kitteh mad.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, Mood Music | Comments Off

And This Is Why Fembots Will Be Invented

Posted on December 20, 2016 by The Political Hat

In the science-fiction series “Armitage III”, Feminists have taken over Earth and encourage men to emigrate to a terraformed Mars, where the lack of women is compensated by gynoids (i.e. fembots)… including “Type III” androids that resemble non-Feminist female humans (which obviously ends up angering the Earth’s Feminist overlords).

The FUTURE, thanks to Feminism

Feminists angered at gynoid robots, and Social Justice Warriors angered about sexist men oppressing robots by daring to “gender them”, however, is not science-fiction, but rather the basis of the peer-reviewed academic paper “Gendering Humanoid Robots: Robo-Sexism in Japan” by Jennifer Robertson.

The abstract, obviously, is yet another “word salad”:

“In humans, gender is both a concept and performance embodied by females and males, a corporeal technology that is produced dialectically. The process of gendering robots makes especially clear that gender belongs both to the order of the material body and to the social and discursive or semiotic systems within which bodies are embedded. This article explores and interrogates the gendering of humanoid robots manufactured today in Japan for employment in the home and workplace. Gender attribution is a process of reality construction. Roboticists assign gender based on their common-sense assumptions about female and male sex and gender roles. Whereas the relationship between human bodies and genders is a contingent one, I argue that gendered robots render that relationship a necessary one by conflating bodies and genders. Humanoid robots are the vanguard of posthuman sexism, and are being developed within a reactionary rhetorical climate.”

As is usual, there is plenty of reiterating other academics points with a “unique” POV, as well as rambling; there is also bonus cultural insensitive since the Japanese specifically are being blamed for this sexist assault against defenseless robots.

I blame Genom Corporation…

Right out of the gate:

“Even the robots can’t escape the goddamn sexist pigs.”

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Posted in Progressives, Science | Tagged FAIL, Gender, Lulz, Science, Social Justice | Comments Off

12 Posts of Christmas, 2016 (Day 8)

Posted on December 20, 2016 by The Political Hat

Fake Santas make Kitteh mad.

The Previous “Posts of Christmas”:

Day 1 – The Chemistry of Snowflakes.

Day 2 – Someone’s getting a lump of coal…

Day 3 – “Silent Night” by the Gothard Sisters.

Day 4 – Christmas Puppies!

Day 5 – Bing Crosby sings “Mele Kalikimaka”.

Day 6 – Can’t wait for what’s underneath the Christmas tree!

Day 7 – “Hark the herald angels sing” and “Come all ye faithful” as performed by Blackmore’s Night.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas | Comments Off

The Constitution Is Not A Rubber Stamp For The States

Posted on December 19, 2016 by The Political Hat

Amidst machinations by Democrats to overturn their loss to Donald Trump this past November, a legitimate Constitutional point has been raised… and decided poorly. Many states “bind” the chosen Presidential Electors, in effect treating the Electoral College as just a rubber stamp for the states. This ignores the entire point of electoral colleges and delegated representative bodies.

Certainly, state may require Electors to pledge themselves to a candidate, or punish said Electors for violating that pledge. Indeed, it is recognized that the states have a plenary power over who or how they appoint Electors.

However, Electors are not simply proxies for the state legislatures, or the plurality vote of the people. Electors are Federal officers, as the Electoral College is a creature of the Constitution, and not of the states. As such, while states are given plenary powers over the appointment of Senators, their ascribed powers are limited by the Constitution thereto. As such, the states, having chosen their Electors, have no power over the Electors thereafter.

This is similar to Senators and Representatives, who while chosen by the state via direct election, can not be mandated, recalled, or otherwise required to vote or act under anyone’s direction except the elected officials’ own choice. This was even more directly in parallel with the question of Electors as the Constitution, as originally written, before the 17^th Amendment when the state legislatures directly chose Senators—the power of the state legislatures being limited to the selection of the Senators, with not other power over said Senators being ascribed to the states by the Constitution.

The entire point of electoral colleges and other independent plenary bodies was to separate direct power from the states via deliberative intermediary bodies. Rather than the states themselves being in the drivers seat, as opposed to direction of the three main branches of government, the Electoral College, similar to Article V conventions, were intended to insulate important Constitutional functions from both the states and the regular Federal government. It is this independence in being and freedom in action that is critical.

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