(Long past) time to defund public universities

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Too many whites attending college

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo works on massive diversity and inclusion effort

 

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo works on massive diversity and inclusion effort

In keeping with the diversity and inclusion movement sweeping campuses across the country, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo recently released a 30-page report outlining plans to “improve diversity” via a series of initiatives.

One goal is to increase the number of people of color on campus beyond the increases that have already occurred over the past few years, as “applications from underrepresented minority students doubled between 2008 and 2018.”

“In 2011, the campus was 63 percent Caucasian,” the May 2 report informs readers, “in fall of 2017, it was less than 55 percent … but there is still much work to do.”

The public research institution states it wishes to get those numbers more in line with the state’s percentage of white people, which recent polls hold at 39.7 percent of the population.

“To further advance its goals of reflecting the demographics of California and creating a more diverse and inclusive campus community, Cal Poly administration has developed the following Diversity Action Initiatives document,” the report states.

In it, administration details a multi-year effort with dozens of intitiatives, including ones to further lower the percentage of white students on campus and increase the number of faculty of color.

For students, the school plans on recruiting applicants more heavily based on race. For instance, the school has recently implemented several new scholarships “aimed at recruiting more African-American and other underrepresented minorities.” It’s also working to recruit low-income and first-generation students by partnering with high schools that enroll a high percentage of these students, according to the report.

Cal Poly SLO has eliminated applicants’ ability to apply to the school in Early Decision since the process, according to the report, “disadvantaged low-income students.” All applicants, regardless of their level of interest in the school, are viewed in one big pool in regular decision admissions.

And the college announced its intention of forcibly increasing diversity in “traditionally male-dominated majors” such as STEM and Architecture and Environmental Design, according to the document.

For faculty, the university states diversity will be a criterion considered in cluster hiring faculty “every other year.” And the university has received $150,000 from the Cal State University system “for a cluster hire of up to 10 faculty positions that focus on diversity and inclusion in a variety of scholarly areas throughout the university’s six colleges.”

This fall campus leaders will “require a diversity statement from candidates for all faculty and staff searches,” the report states. It adds that search committees will now be made up of diverse membership and Academic Affairs has “set [an] expectation that search committees will be based on best practices regarding diversity.”

Harvard, and the top California schools are already being sued for discriminating against Asian students, and now this. Harvard and the rest of the Ivies are private schools, albeit the recipients of massive tax subsidies, and given the power of their liberal alumni, the group is probably immune from retaliation, but taxpayers may, and should, in my opinion, rebel against funding public schools that are so determined to punish the children of the middle-class parents who are paying for this disaster. 

 

 

Florida Man comes up with the (possibly) perfect defense against a D.U.I. charge

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He only sipped his Jim Beam while paused at stop signs, and not while actually driving.

My memory of criminal law is that merely having keys in the ignition, even if the engine is off, falls within the definition of driving under the influence, but good try.

JULY 10--An inebriated motorist assured Florida police that he was not drinking while driving, but only swigging from a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon when his vehicle paused at stop signs and traffic signals, according to a police report.

Earle Gustavas Stevens, 69, was arrested two weeks ago for driving his Mercury Grand Marquis while under the influence. The Vero Beach resident, now free on $1500 bond in advance of a July 31 arraignment, was nabbed after a driver called 911 to report that Stevens’s car repeatedly tapped her bumper while they were in a McDonald’s drive-thru lane.

When a sheriff’s deputy contacted Stevens, he reeked of alcohol, was slurring his words, and had ”red and glossy” eyes. On the Mercury’s passenger seat was a bottle of Jim Beam, from which Stevens admitted he had been drinking.

Asked if he was drinking in the auto, Stevens replied, “No.” He then explained he was enjoying the bourbon at “Stop signs.” The deputy further noted Stevens’s distinction when it came to drinking while driving: “He further explained that he was not drinking while the car was moving and only when he stopped for stop signs and traffic signals.”

Stevens was arrested after failing a series of field sobriety tests, as first reportedby Will Greenlee of Treasure Coast Newspapers. A breath test recorded Stevens’s blood alcohol content at nearly twice the legal limit.

In addition to a drunk driving charge, Stevens was cited for driving without a license. Stevens, seen above, reportedly told cops that he had two “prior DUI charges from Missouri.”

"Anti-gentrification" terrorists burning down new construction in Oakland

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rebuild it, as a gibbet

rebuild it, as a gibbet

Catch 'em, hang 'em. Except that it's California, the sanctuary state for criminals of all types.

After a series of unsolved arsons at housing projects under construction in the East Bay, Oakland developers said Monday they hope hundreds of thousands of dollars in reward money will attract a useful tipster and end the destruction.
Members of the Jobs and Housing Coalition, a lobbying group of Oakland developers and businesses, announced a $300,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of a responsible party.
“Clearly this is a disturbed individual who really has no regard for life or property or concern for the current state of housing in our Bay Area,” said Fire Chief Darin White, who joined the group for the announcement at City Hall.
Motives are uncertain behind four suspicious fires in Oakland and Emeryville since 2016, and it isn’t clear if one or more arsonists are setting them. But Oakland leaders suspect those responsible oppose gentrification.
At a news conference to announce the reward money, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the perpetrators “endangered human life” and “were specifically targeting residential construction.”
“We are in a housing crisis. Every new unit of housing is going to help this Bay Area region start to stabilize what is now an unsustainable housing market,” Schaaf said. “You will not get away with destroying a residential construction project in Oakland.”
Schaaf spoke days after the anniversary of a fire on July 7, 2017 in the Auto Row neighborhood north of downtown Oakland, which burned down the Alta Waverly construction project that was to build nearly 200 apartment units and 32,000 square feet of retail space. The blaze also damaged a crane, temporarily displacing 700 residents in neighboring buildings as it swiveled out of control.
That fire, its cause could not be determined, came just a few months after the second of two fires at a $35 million project in Emeryville near the Oakland border. On May 13, 2017, surveillance footage captured photos of a suspected arsonist riding a bike to the scene. Investigators said the fire was deliberately set. It delayed construction about nine months on the 105-unit building with 21,000 square feet of retail space. The same project was damaged the previous July in similar circumstances.
Arson was also ruled the cause of an October 2016 fire at an unfinished 41-unit site on Lester Avenue in Oakland.
Another arson, in Concord, is not included in the reward offer. Investigators said an arsonist also burned down a 180-unit project in Concord on April 24, forcing 250 people in a neighboring apartment complex to flee their homes. Two people were treated for smoke inhalation.
Greg McConnell, president and CEO of the coalition offering the reward, said his members have reported tripling or quadrupling their spending on security since the arsons. They have outfitted construction sites with video cameras, fencing, alarms, bright lights and round-the-clock security guards. Some builders have even started using products designed to be fire retardant, McConnell said.
If the arsonist or arsonists are indeed motivated by hostility toward a development boom and displacement, their actions are self-defeating, McConnell said.
“There’s this theory that if you stop building, gentrification will go away,” he said. “It’s exactly the opposite. If you decrease building, people are still coming to town and they are competing with the Oakland resident, and they have greater resources. So if you don’t build new housing stock for them to occupy, they are going to out-compete the existing Oakland resident.”

90% of the plastics in our oceans spews from by just 10 rivers, all in Asia and Africa

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Off to the pacific

Off to the pacific

Banning plastic bags in Greenwich or straws at Starbucks is fine for virtue-signaling, but absolutely useless in addresing the problem. Just like the religion of residential recycling, *

Here's the report:

A shocking study has revealed 90 per cent of the world's plastic waste comes from just 10 rivers in Asia and Africa.
As governments around the world rush to address the global problem of plastic pollution in the oceans, researchers have now pinpointed the river systems that carry the majority of it out to sea. 
About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources - such as the Yangtze and the Ganges - could almost halve it, scientists claim. 
Carried out by Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, it suggests that the most effective way of reducing the amount of plastic in the world's oceans is by addressing the sources of pollution along such waterways as these.
[snip]
China's Yangtze River was the worst polluter, and ferries some 1.5 million tonnes of plastic into the Yellow Sea every year, the study found. 
e 1.5 million tonnes of plastic into the Yellow Sea every year, the study found. 

* Single stream recycling,mingling plastic, glass, cardboard, etc., is so contaminated by non-recyclable materials that it's mostly consigned to the same landfills that receive the rest of our garbage.

Quick sale in Cos Cob

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7 Loughlin.jpg

7 Loughlin Avenue, $1.3 million. It came on at $1.295, but went a tad higher. That's not too surprising, because Loughlin's a good street and, for this price, No. 7's a very decent house. 

It might be worth pointing out that the sellers priced this at $1.795 back in 2013, slowly dropped it to $1.195, and couldn't attract a buyer, so they pulled it that year. My guess is that that initial overpricing hurt its chances. This time around, they hit the sweet spot.

Price drop on Bedford Road

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167 Bedford Road

167 Bedford Road

167 Bedford Road has cut its price a third time since it hit the market in March at $3.150 million, and now asks $2.5. The owners paid $3.350 million for it in 2013 (from sellers who'd originally priced it in 2009 at $4.950), but it's a rare property on Bedford Road that's held its value over the past decades, and I suspect this isn't one of them.

Great property, but the house requires a complete re-do, from kitchen to baths to, probably, mechanicals. In most of the country, that kind of renovation might cost $250,000 or so, but here in happy Greenwich I'd budget $1 million, and the market for $3.5 million homes on Bedford is practically nil. There have been two recent sales between $6.5 and $8.5 million, but neither one was built in 1997. Better, I think, is to scrape this and try again, but that makes the listing a land sale, and what's that worth?

53 Bedford Road, four-acres, is priced at $2.3 million, but it's been on the market for 2,285 days (2012) with, so far, no takers. Obviously, 167 Bedford is a real house, and perfectly livable, unlike 53, so if a buyer wants it as is he or she will get a perfectly good house for what passes in Greenwich for not a lot of money. But at $2.5, I wouldn't put much more into it.

53 Bedford Road

53 Bedford Road

And, just to screw up comps on the street, there's 22 Bedford Road, bank-owned, that sold last December for $1.8 million. The borrowers had tried to sell it since 2011, when they priced it at $5.3 million. Big mistake.

22 Bedford Road

22 Bedford Road