Is Thinking Obsolete?

ARTIFICIAL STUPIDITY

Is thinking now obsolete?

Thomas Sowell defends Matt Drudge in face of Geraldo's barbs

  

(By Thomas Sowell)

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. He is the author of 28 books, including "Dismantling America" and "Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy."

Some have said that we are living in a post-industrial era, while others have said that we are living in a post-racial era. But growing evidence suggests that we are living in a post-thinking era.
 (Critical thinking is the identification and evaluation of evidence to guide decision making. A critical thinker uses broad in-depth analysis of evidence to make decisions and communicate his/her beliefs clearly and accurately." "Critical thinking includes the ability to respond to material by distinguishing between facts and opinions or personal feelings, judgments and inferences, inductive and deductive arguments, and the objective and subjective.)INSERT
 In an age when scientists are creating artificial intelligence, too many of our educational institutions seem to be creating "artificial stupidity".
It is much the same story in our domestic controversies. We have gotten so intimidated by political correctness (PC) that our major media outlets dare not call people who immigrate to this country illegally “illegal immigrants.”
Many people in Europe and the Western Hemisphere are staging angry protests against Israel’s military action in Gaza. One of the talking points against Israel is that far more Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli military attacks than the number of Israeli civilians killed by the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel that started this latest military conflict.

Are these protesters aware that vastly more German civilians were killed by American bombers attacking Nazi Germany during World War II than American civilians killed in the United States by Hitler’s forces?
Talk-show host Geraldo Rivera says that there is no way Israel is winning the battle for world opinion. But Israel is trying to win the battle for survival, while surrounded by enemies. Might that not be more important?
Has any other country, in any other war, been expected to keep the enemy’s civilian casualties no higher than its own civilian casualties? The idea that Israel should do so did not originate among the masses but among the educated intelligentsia.
In an age when scientists are creating artificial intelligence, too many of our educational institutions seem to be creating artificial stupidity.
It is much the same story in our domestic controversies. We have gotten so intimidated by political correctness (PC) that our major media outlets dare not call people who immigrate to this country illegally “illegal immigrants.”
Geraldo Rivera has denounced the Drudge Report for carrying news stories that show some of the negative consequences and dangers from allowing vast numbers of youngsters to enter the country illegally and be spread across the country by the Obama administration.
Some of these youngsters are already known to be carrying lice and suffering from disease. Since there have been no thorough medical examinations of most of them, we have no way of knowing whether, or how many, are carrying deadly diseases that will spread to American children when these unexamined young immigrants enter schools across the country.

The attack against Matt Drudge has been in the classic tradition of demagogues. It turns questions of fact into questions of motive. Geraldo accuses Drudge of trying to start a “civil war.”
Back when masses of immigrants from Europe were entering this country, those with dangerous diseases were turned back from Ellis Island. Nobody thought they had a legal or a moral “right” to be in America or that it was mean or racist not to want our children to catch their diseases.
Even on the less contentious issue of minimum wage laws, there are the same unthinking reactions.
Although liberals are usually gung ho for increasing the minimum wage, there was a sympathetic front-page story in the July 29 San Francisco Chronicle about the plight of a local nonprofit organization that will not be able to serve as many low-income minority youths if it has to pay a higher minimum wage. They are seeking some kind of exemption.
Does it not occur to these people that the very same thing happens when a minimum wage increase applies to profit-based employers? They, too, tend to hire fewer inexperienced young people when there is a minimum wage law.
This is not breaking news. This is what has been happening for generations in the United States and in other countries around the world.
One of the few countries without a minimum wage law is Switzerland, where the unemployment rate has been consistently less than 4 percent for years. Back in 2003, The Economist magazine reported that “Switzerland’s unemployment neared a five-year high of 3.9 percent in February.” The most recent issue shows the Swiss unemployment rate back to a more normal 3.2 percent.
Does anyone think that having minimum wage laws and high youth unemployment is better? In fact, does anyone think at all these days?

Federal Workers Allowed To Access Porn Sites On Government Computers During Office Hours

One man's art is another man's porn. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 The Birth of Venus is a 1486 painting by Sandro Botticelli. It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as an adult woman, arriving at the sea-shore. The painting is on display at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Bathsheba at Her Bath (or Bathsheba with King David's Letter) is an oil painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt (1606–1669) finished in 1654. A depiction that is both sensual and empathetic, it shows a moment from the Old Testament story in which King David sees Bathsheba bathing and, entranced, seduces and impregnates her.

David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created between 1501 and 1504, by the Italian artist Michelangelo.
The statue has been reproduced many times. The plaster cast of David at the Victoria and Albert Museum has a detachable plaster fig leaf which is displayed nearby. The fig leaf was created in response to Queen Victoria's shock upon first viewing the statue's nudity, and was hung on the figure prior to royal visits, using two strategically placed hooks.
By the 20th century, Michelangelo's David had become iconic shorthand for "culture". David has been endlessly reproduced, in plaster and imitation marble fibreglass, signifying an attempt to lend an atmosphere of culture even in some unlikely settings such as beach resorts, gambling casinos and model railroads.

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter . He is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body. His works are marked by a frank eroticism. One of the works most popularly associated with his golden period is  The Kiss (shown above)(1907–08).
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I cannot give a working definition of porn, or of art that everyone would agree on; but, I agree with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.
Justice Potter Stewart is best known for a quotation from his opinion in the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). Stewart wrote in his short concurrence that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it.

For one Federal Communications Commission worker, his porn habit at work was easy to explain: Things were slow, he told investigators, so he perused it “out of boredom” — for up to eight hours each week.
Lack of work has emerged time and again in federal investigations, and it’s not just porn, nor is it confined to the FCC. Across government, employees caught wasting time at work say they simply didn’t have enough work to do, according to investigation records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

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“He stated he is aware it is against government rules and regulations, but he often does not have enough work to do and has free time,” investigators wrote of another federal employee, this one at the Treasury Department, who viewed more than 13,000 pornographic images in a six-week span.
Investigations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Commerce Department and the General Services Administration have turned up similar cases, though memos show the employees rarely face criminal prosecution for time and attendance fraud.
A spokesman for the FCC declined to comment on what, if any, action the agency took after the FCC’s inspector general singled out the eight-hour-a-week porn peeper.

Enlarge Photo

Brian Miller, a former inspector general for the General Services Administration, said federal managers may be hoarding resources, including employees who have little work to do.

FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield said only that the agency follows Office of Personnel Management guidelines on disciplinary matters and officials could not comment on specific cases.
In another recent case, a GSA employee who spent about two hours a day on a computer looking at pornography and dating sites “sometimes became bored during these long hours at the computer and would often use the computer for personal use to pass the time,” according to a case report by the GSA inspector general last year.
In a more recent and far more costly example, U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board paralegals received salaries and bonuses for years even though they spent much of their time watching television, shopping online, exercising and wasting time on their tablet computers, according to an investigation released this week by the Commerce Department’s inspector general. Investigators estimate that more than $4 million was spent paying employees for time they weren’t working.

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The paralegals, who can’t create their own work, later told investigators that the reason was simple: Supervisors weren’t giving them any assignments. Some supervisors were reluctant to give paralegals special projects out of fear that the assignments could antagonize the labor union.Brian Miller, a former GSA inspector general who is now managing director of the consulting firm Navigant, said executives may feel reluctant to let go of employees.
“Today, federal managers are under many constraints,” he said. “With hiring freezes and budget limitations, a federal manager may hoard resources, squirreling them away for fear of losing even unneeded resources.
“It takes a very strong manager to stand up and do the unpopular thing: to manage resources efficiently.”
No matter what evidence the inspector general turns up, he said, it’s ultimately up to the agencies to hold employees accountable.
“At the end of the day, an IG may recommend a course of action, but the IG has no power to make it happen,” he said. “An IG warns, reports, and recommends, but agency managers administer disciplinary actions and make changes in the agency.”
Pete Sepp, executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, said there is no doubt that downtime contributes to federal workplace downtime.

“There’s a reason that saying about idle hands has such a long lineage,” Mr. Sepp said. “Not everyone with excess time in the workplace will spend it helping their colleagues get caught up or knitting clothes for the less fortunate,” he said.
“There needs to be a balanced approach to reform here, one that provides more flexibility to reassign workers’ duties, aggressive enforcement of whistleblower protections, incentives for agencies and managers that save tax dollars, and penalties for those that fail to properly oversee them,” Mr. Sepp said.
Some administration officials have come under criticism for allowing workers to remain on the job even in the face of clear misconduct findings.
In March, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee railed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for not firing several employees involved in misconduct investigations. The employees included a senior executive who investigators said hired friends and family and sold weight loss products from the office.
The Washington Times reported on other time and attendance issues at HUD this year. One case involved an auditor who worked on private business from the office and later said work sometimes was impossible because the department’s computers were frequently down.

(McElhatton, Jim; Feds Go easy On Bored Workers Surfing Porn, The Washington Times, p. A-1, Aug. 1, 2014)

Gas Prices Fall, The Hemline Indicator

Gas prices fall in the USA and in Hungary: but, hem lines continue to creep.

Next time you fill up, don't be surprised if you leave the gas station with a few more dollars in your pocket. Gasoline prices have been falling for months, and they should continue to decline throughout the rest of 2013.
There is a Wall Street superstition that “claims that when hemlines rise, so do the markets. Likewise, when hemlines fall, the markets fall,” according to Investing Answers. Are hemlines really an indicator of gas prices and the stock market’s future? History has given us a few examples of this theory, which goes to show that this isn’t just a one-time thing. Smith Barney indicates that in 1925, short flapper skirts of the Roaring 20s gave way to a rise on the stock market, just as the longer hemlines of the early 1930s seemed to forecast a downfall leading into the Depression (think: the crash of 1929). The economic boom of the 1950s went hand in hand with the knee-length poodle skirts, while the conservative 1970s made hemlines longer again, pulling down the stock market. The stock market went up and down accordingly throughout the years. The 1980s welcomed the Material Girl inspired mini skirt up until the 1987 crash. 
The Hemline Indicator, was first presented as a theory by economist George Taylor back in 1926, according to The Big Picture. Research afterwards only helped prove that this is actually a valid theory. According to Taylor, this skirt theory suggests that women’s dress hemlines rise along with the stock market so that when the economy is good, mini skirts become popular, like in the 1960s. Likewise, when the economy is doing poorly, hemlines can drop down overnight, just as the stock market crashes.
According to Investopedia, it is also referred to as the “bare knees, bull market” theory. This theory gained value in 1987 when skirt lengths changed from mini to floor-length just as the U.S. greeted the market crash. The same happened in 1929, but “many argue as to which came first, the crash or the hemline shifts.” When skirts get shorter, it is time to buy and when they get longer, it is time to sell. Investopedia explains that this shows that a positive economy leads to happiness and fun. This ‘fun’ is then reflected in the shorter hemlines, hence the reason why they’re indicative of a good market, while long skirts are a commonly reflective of rather bad news.
The national gas price average, which has held stubbornly above $3 per gallon since 2010, may finally dip below that mark before next year, according to an October forecast by energy information service GasBuddy.com. If it goes that low, it'll be a discount of about 76 cents per gallon from July, when the national average hit a summer peak of $3.75 per gallon.
That's a lot more than pocket change. Combined with a decline in driving this winter, lower gasoline prices could help American drivers save $13.1 billion in the fourth quarter, according to Bankrate's analysis of government petroleum data.
Why are prices falling? You can thank a variety of market forces that are working together to push prices lower. Here are five of the main ones, and how each will make it less expensive to drive this winter.
 Did you know that there are many different recipes for gasoline? Thanks to different state and local regulations, your neighborhood pump probably dispenses a different blend of gas from pumps in other states. And there are seasonal varieties, too -- summer gasoline and winter gasoline.

Call it an unfortunate quirk of nature: The Gulf of Mexico is home to some of the most promising oil fields in the world. It's also especially vulnerable to hurricanes.
That makes the Gulf a rich and perilous place for satisfying America's energy needs.
A well-placed storm can cripple thousands of oil rigs in a weekend, and occasionally one does. Gas prices usually spike in reaction as nervous refineries and petroleum traders gauge how long the supply disruption will last.
For example, in August 2012, gasoline prices surged as Hurricane Isaac whipped through the Gulf and shut down plants pumping 1.3 million barrels per day in refining capacity. In 2005, gas prices jumped more than 46 cents in the week after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, according to EIA data.
This year, Mother Nature has given the Gulf a break. The Atlantic saw only nine named storms, according to the National Hurricane Center. Only two -- Ingrid and Humberto -- were hurricanes, and neither impacted Gulf oil operations.

Overall, gasoline demand in the U.S. has declined every year since 2007.

A Tale Of Two Cities (States).

Illinois & Oklahoma:

I thought these two states, the first part about Illinois and the second part about Oklahoma, made for an interesting contrast .

PART 1 — Illinois 

"A State with No Republicans!"

Some interesting data on the 'state' of, the State of Illinois ... There are more people on welfare in Illinois than there are people working.

Chicago pays the highest wages to teachers than anywhere else in the U.S..  Their average pay is $110,000/year. Their pensions average 80-90% of their income. Wow, are Illinois and Chicago great or what? Be sure to read till the end. I've never heard it explained better. Perhaps the U.S. should pull out of Chicago?

Body count:

In the last six months, 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago . . . 221 killed in Iraq; AND Chicago has one of the strictest gun laws in

the entire US.

Here's the Chicago chain of command:

President: Barack  Hussein Obama •

Senator: Dick Durbin •

House Representative: Jesse Jackson Jr.

Governor: Pat Quinn •

House leader: Mike Madigan •

Atty. Gen.: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike) •

Mayor: Rahm  Emanuel •

The leadership in Illinois - all Democrats. •

Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago. •  Of course, they're all blaming each other. •  Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any! •

Let us get ALL the facts out while we are at it:

Chicago school system rated one of the worst in the country. Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!

State pension fund $78 Billion in debt, worst in country. Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!

Cook County ( Chicago ) sales tax 10.25% highest in country. Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!

This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois . And he is going to 'fix' Washington politics for us?

George Ryan is no longer Governor, he is in prison. He was replaced by Rob Blagojevich who is, by the way, also in prison.

And Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned . . . and, that's right, he and his wife are both in prison.

The Land of Lincoln, where our Governors and Representatives make our license plates.  What?

As long as they keep providing entitlements to the population of Chicago, nothing is going to change, except the state will go bankrupt before the country does.

"Anybody who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian."

Don't forget Detroit, another great example of a Democratic empire…With all the bad news, there is hope, so let's go to:

  

PART 2— Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA- may soon have plenty of new residents!

THIS IS REALLY INTERESTING, AND TRUE ... PLEASE READ IT!

Oklahoma is the only state that Obama did not win even one county in the last election...  While everyone is focusing on Arizona's new law, look what Oklahoma has been doing!!!

An update from Oklahoma:

Oklahoma law passed, 37 to 9 an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values... HB 1330

Guess  what... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB1804. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake. 

Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Recently we passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegal's to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional SB1102

Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Several weeks ago, we passed a law, declaring  Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining, Texas, Montana and Utah as the only states to do so; More states  are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia,

Carolinas,  Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi and Florida .

Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003

The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I'm sure that was a setback for the criminals  The Liberals didn't like it -- But.... 

Guess  what... Oklahoma did it anyway.

Just this month, the state has voted and passed a law that ALL driver’s license exams will be printed in English and only English and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma, you must read and write English. Really simple.

By the way, the Liberals don't like any of this either

Guess what... who cares... Oklahoma is doing it anyway.

 

Federal Courts Issue Conflicting Rulings On ObamaCare Subsidy

Good. This means that we are a nation of laws and the Rule of Law still applies. The Rule of the Political Party does not control; not yet, anyway. But wait, this is not over. The DOJ plans to appeal this decision to the full Washington DC Circuit Court. This was a 2-1 majority decision by 3 judges out of the full 11 on the DC Circuit. 4 of the 11were appointed by Obama and 7 of the 11 were appointed by Democrats. If the Rule of Law still governs in America, then an "en banc" decision by the full 11 judges will result in the same decision. But if political party trumps the Law then an appeal would result in the politically absurd ruling advanced by the Democrats who pushed thru the flawed and defective ObamaCare Law.
WASHINGTON –  Two federal appeals court rulings put the issue of ObamaCare subsidies in limbo Tuesday, with one court invalidating some of them and the other upholding all of them.
The first decision came Tuesday morning from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The panel, in a major blow to the law, ruled 2-1 that the IRS went too far in extending subsidies to those who buy insurance through the federally run exchange, known as HealthCare.gov.
A separate federal appeals court in Virginia, next door to Washington, DC -- the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals -- hours later issued its own ruling on a similar case that upheld the subsidies in their entirety.
The conflicting rulings would typically fast-track the matter to the Supreme Court. However, it is likely that the administration will ask the D.C. appeals court to first convene all 11 judges to re-hear that case.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stressed Tuesday that different courts have reached different conclusions on the subsidy issue, and said the latest ruling against the subsidies “does not have any practical impact” at this point on the ability of people to get tax credits. The White House later said the D.C. decision was "undermined" by the Fourth Circuit decision.

Still, the D.C. court ruling nevertheless strikes at the foundation of the law by challenging subsidies that millions of people obtained through the federally run exchange known as HealthCare.gov.
The suit maintained that the language in ObamaCare actually restricts subsidies to state-run exchanges -- of which there are only 14 -- and does not authorize them to be given in the 36 states that use the federally run system.
The court agreed.
“We reach this conclusion, frankly, with reluctance. At least until states that wish to can set up Exchanges, our ruling will likely have significant consequences both for the millions  of individuals receiving tax credits through federal Exchanges and for health insurance markets more broadly,” the ruling stated.
The case, Halbig v. Burwell, is one of the first major legal challenges that cuts to the heart of the Affordable Care Act by going after the legality of massive federal subsidies and those who benefit from them.
The decision said the law "unambiguously restricts" the subsidies to insurance bought on state-run exchanges.
The dissenting opinion, though, claimed political motivations were at play. “This case is about Appellants’ not-so-veiled attempt to gut the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ('ACA'),” the dissent stated.
The ruling, though likely to be appealed, could threaten the entire foundation of the newly devised health care system. Nearly 90 percent of the federal exchange’s insurance enrollees were eligible for subsidies because of low or moderate incomes, and the outcome of the case could potentially leave millions without affordable health insurance.
“Today’s decision rightly holds the Obama administration accountable to the law,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a written statement adding, “… As it has on so many occasions, the Obama administration simply ignored the law and implemented its own policy instead.”
The next step for the Obama administration would be that they request a so-called en banc ruling, which means there would be a vote taken by all of the judges on the court. An appeals court can only overrule a decision made by a panel if the court is sitting en banc.
Earnest said the Department of Justice will likely appeal to the full D.C. Circuit Court and defended the administration’s position that Congress intended “all eligible Americans” to have access to the subsidies regardless of which entity set up the exchange.
“We are confident in the legal position that we have,” Earnest said.
Ron Pollack, founding executive director of Families USA, said in a written statement that the ruling “represents the high-water mark for Affordable Care Act opponents, but the water will recede very quickly.”
He added, “It will inevitably be placed on hold pending further proceedings; will probably be reheard by all of the 11-member active D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals members, who predictably will reverse it; and runs contrary to" the ruling from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals process could eventually lead to the U.S. Supreme Court deciding on the legality of the subsidies, but Pollack, whose group supports the law, believes that won’t happen.
Of the 11 judges that could rehear the case, seven are Democrats and four are Republicans.
Halbig v. Burwell, which previously had been called Halbig v. Sebelius, is one of four federal lawsuits that have been filed aimed at targeting the idea of tax credits and other subsidies afforded under ObamaCare.
A total of $1 trillion in subsidies is projected to be doled out over the next decade.
A U.S. District Court previously sided with the Obama administration on Jan. 15.

All Publicity Is Good

United States Coast Guard Academy Alumni: London Steverson, G. William Miller, Thad Allen, James Loy, Bruce E. Melnick, Harvey E. Johnson, JR.

ISBN13: 9781155406800  ISBN10: 115540680x

 0  19  0  0  21

 All publicity is good. There is no such thing as bad publicity. It is better to be attacked and slandered than to be ignored. You must not discriminate between the different types of attention. In the end, all attention will work to your favor. Welcome personal attacks and feel no need to defend yourself. Court controversy, even scandal. Never be afraid or ashamed of the qualities that set you apart or draw attention to you. Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in a crowd, or buried in oblivion. Stand out; be conspicuous at all costs. Make yourself a magnet for attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the bland and the timid masses.
Burning more brightly than those around you is a skill that no one is born with. You have to learn to attract attention. At the start of your career, you have to attach your name and your reputation to a quality or an image that sets you apart from other people. This image can be something characteristic like a style of dress, or a personality quirk that amuses people and gets you talked about. Once the image is established, you have an appearance, a place in the sky for your star. Attack the sensational, the false, the scandalous, and the politically correct. Keep reinventing yourself. Once you are in the limelight you have to renew it by reinventing ways to court attention.
People feel superior to people whose actions they can predict or control. If you show them who is in control by playing against their expectations, you will gain their respect and tighten your hold on their fleeting attention. Society craves people who stand apart from general mediocrity.

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Chapters:

 London Steverson, G. William Miller, Thad Allen, James Loy, Bruce E. Melnick, Harvey E. Johnson, Jr., Erroll M. Brown, James C. Van Sice, Chester R. Bender, Peter Boynton, J. William Kime, Charles D. Wurster, Owen W. Siler, Daniel C. Burbank, Thomas H. Collins, Paul A. Yost, Jr., John B. Hayes, Willard J. Smith, Timothy S. Sullivan, William D. Baumgartner, Thomas T. Matteson, Terry M. Cross, Steven H. Ratti, Edwin J. Roland, Robert E. Kramek, Billy Tauzin III, James S. Gracey, George Naccara. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: 

  London Eugene Livingston Steverson (born March 13, 1947) was one of the first two African Americans to graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1968. 

Later, as chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), he was charged with desegregating the Coast Guard Academy by recruiting minority candidates.

 He retired from the Coast Guard in 1988.

In 1990 was appointed to the bench as a Federal Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Social Security Administration. Steverson was born and raised in Millington, Tennessee, the oldest of three children of Jerome and Ruby Steverson. 

At the age of 5 he was enrolled in the E. A. Harrold elementary school in a segregated school system. He later attended the all black Woodstock High School in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating valedictorian.
A Presidential Executive Order issued by President Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948, but the service academies were lagging in officer recruiting. 

President Kennedy specifically challenged the United States Coast Guard Academy to tender appointments to Black high school students. London Steverson was one of the Black students to be offered such an appointment.

More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=432685

Synopsis:

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. 

Chapters: 

London Steverson, G. William Miller, Thad Allen, James Loy, Bruce E. Melnick, Harvey E. Johnson, Jr., Erroll M. Brown, James C. Van Sice, Chester R. Bender, Peter Boynton, J. William Kime, Charles D. Wurster, Owen W. Siler, Daniel C. Burbank, Thomas H. Collins, Paul A. Yost, Jr., John B. Hayes, Willard J. Smith, Timothy S. Sullivan, William D. Baumgartner, Thomas T. Matteson, Terry M. Cross, Steven H. Ratti, Edwin J. Roland, Robert E. Kramek, Billy Tauzin III, James S. Gracey, George Naccara. 

Excerpt:  

Wilbert Joseph Billy Tauzin III was born December 1, 1973 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, the son of Congressman Billy Tauzin and Gayle Clement Tauzin. After graduating from Bishop O'Connell High School in Arlington, VA, as a National Honor Society Student and 3 sport lettermen (football, wrestling and lacrosse), Tauzin accepted an appointment to the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. After quitting the Coast Guard Academy his junior year, Tauzin finished his bachelor's degree in marketing at Louisiana State University in 1996. That summer he applied for and accepted an entry-level position selling wireless phones for Bell Atlantic Wireless in suburban Virginia. Three promotions later, he moved to outside sales in Rockville, Maryland. When the desire to return to his home state overwhelmed him, he applied for and accepted a job in Metairie, Louisiana as a Corporate and External Affairs Manager for BellSouth. In a decision that provoked internal dissension in the Louisiana Republican Party, the 30-year-old Tauzin was endorsed by the Republican Party executive committee as its candidate to fill the open seat caused by his father's 2004 retirement from the United States House of Representatives due to his battle with pancreatic cancer. Tauzin bested a crowded ...

Reasons For Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action works. Public opinion polls suggest that most Americans support affirmative action, especially when the polls avoid an all-or-none choice between affirmative action as it currently exists and no affirmative action whatsoever.

Say it loud, "I'm Black and I'm proud!". Obama was the first Black President. And Obama is the first Affirmative Action President.
 http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/tygrrrr-express/2013/jan/31/barack-obama-still-affirmative-action-president/
Under the Obama watch the economy has contracted, the debt has skyrocketed, environmental “investments” have gone bankrupt, and anti-business policies have stifled growth. Americans are being murdered and kidnapped globally.
Numerous scandals are coupled with the failed policies of the administration to become the open secrets many dare not utter. The alleged superior intelligence of Obama and his administration team is marked by sub-par performance. Let the perpetually outraged left hyperventilate and scream.

Adding to, or detracting from, his record, Obama is the failed affirmative action president (FAAP). To say he was elected solely because of his race would be wrong. Many Blacks and guilty white liberals are fixated on his race, but many other Americans love the idea of a multi-racial leader. In reality, though, most Americans turned to him after Lehman Brothers burned.
Upon taking office, something happened that is an insult to everybody who believes in affirmative action but also values merit. The standards were lowered for Obama regarding actual job performance.
It’s impossible to deny that his defenders make excuses for him. The worse things get, the more he is propped up. He is too liberal to fail and, for those people who focus on race, too black to fail. Thus criticism of Obama is de facto racism, regardless of any objective merits to the criticism.
 http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/tygrrrr-express/2011/jul/11/barack-obama-affirmative-action-president/
From now on, liberals need to pretend that Barack Obama is 100% Caucasian. It is the only way they will be able to view him objectively as a man, not a demigod.
To refuse to allow any person, business, or entity to fail is to ensure greater failure in the long run.

Many of America's "Black Firsts" were allowed to become "Firsts" because of Affirmative Action. By any other name, it would be the same. Ability without opportunity is wasted. It is futile and unproductive to have a talent and never get the opportunity to use it for the benefit of humanity.
When many others are as qualified for a coveted position and a Black or other minority group person is chosen for the position, there is a strong possibility that Affirmative Action played a part in the selection. That is nothing to be ashamed of.

Jackie Robinson was the first Black professional major league baseball player. Jackie Robinson was an Affirmative Action Baby.
 http://www.jackierobinson.com/

Thurgood Marshall was the first Black lawyer appointed to be an Associate Justice of the U S Supreme Court. President Lyndon Baines Johnson made Justice Marshall an Affirmative Action Baby.

http://www.biography.com/people/thurgood-marshall-9400241
Johnson claimed that the reason he did not run for another term as President was because he had lost all of his Southern Support because he appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court; as the Southern politicians said, "it was because he put his nigger on the Court".

So, the escalation of the Viet Nam War had nothing to do with Johnson pulling out of the Presidential Race.

Wilt Chamberlain was an Affirmative Action Baby. Chamberlain and Bill Russell were the First Black superstar NBA Basketball players.
http://www.nba.com/history/players/chamberlain_summary.html

Wilt was a pretty good student. He was capable of a gentlemanly "C", as was said about President John F. Kennedy.

I was an Affirmative Action Baby.

Like Wilt, I was capable of a gentlemanly "C", but I got mostly A's and B's.
http://www.powells.com/biblio/9781155406800
I was the beneficiary of a program designed to redress the effects of past discrimination. So were Jackie Robinson, Wilt Chamberlain, Constance Baker Motley, Spottswood Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, Eric Holder, and President Barack Obama; and so are many Americans of African descent who were pioneers in their fields.


http://www.understandingprejudice.org/readroom/articles/affirm.htm
Job discrimination is grounded in prejudice and exclusion, whereas affirmative action is an effort to overcome prejudicial treatment through inclusion. The most effective way to cure society of exclusionary practices is to make special efforts at inclusion, which is exactly what affirmative action does. The logic of affirmative action is no different than the logic of treating a nutritional deficiency with vitamin supplements. For a healthy person, high doses of vitamin supplements may be unnecessary or even harmful, but for a person whose system is out of balance, supplements are an efficient way to restore the body's balance.

Some may take umbrage or offense at my use of the term because it has become so politically charged and may not be politically correct; however, Affirmative Action works. It is easier to implement than Reparations.
Affirmative Action allows America to make a partial down-payment on a debt owed to the children of the builders of America. To many it is a dirty word or two, but Reparations would not sound as sweet. Germany paid the Jews; America paid the Japanese; and America will have to pay the children of the African slaves who built America's wealth, if Affirmative Action is abandoned. How else will we make up for past discrimination against African Americans?