Catapaulting the Propaganda

The truth about taxes

If there ever was a doubt that a lie repeated often enough can supplant the truth in people's perceptions of reality, take a look at the two graphs below. The first is from the Tax Policy Center and compares the after-income effects of the McCain and Obama tax proposals.

Now, take a look at what Americans believe each candidate's tax proposal will do:

Although only 1% of Americans will see an actual tax increase under Obama's plan, 53% believe he will increase their taxes. I was a little curious why Republicans hammered Obama so hard on taxes during the convention when his policy actually benefits most Americans more than McCain's. I guess they just thought they wouldn't get called on it.

In the Eyes of the Beholder

Sorta puts things into perspective I suppose; but I don't see a problem with any of these three ladies. What's your take?

I'm not a racist; are you?

My reaction time is a tad slow, but I don't seem to see things in "black and white".

Well, that's what a University Of Chicago online psychological test tells me.

Click here to take the test yourself and tell me how you score.

My ResultsProfiled recently in The New York Times, the online pop psych test presents you with images of 100 Black and white men. Some are armed, while others are carrying nothing more dangerous than a wallet or a cell phone. Unfortunately, if you're a Black man in New York, you're fully aware of the danger of carrying seemingly harmless objects.. From Amadou Diallo, who died after being shot at 41 times by police as he reached for his wallet, to the case of Sean Bell who, though unarmed, was gunned down by NYPD officers in a confrontation after a bachelor party, New York is ripe with examples of how deadly being a Black man in the wrong place at the wrong time can be.

With that in mind, I took the online exam. I was presented with these images and prompted to either shoot or holster my weapon depending on my split-second determination of whether the target was carrying a weapon or not. You lose points for being too slow and deliberate. The point of the exam is to gauge your instinctive belief of whether the target will be armed based on skin color.

My results were … "slow and deliberate". Definitely not racist; in fact I was quicker to shoot the white man with a gun. My overall score was 210, low compared to scores I observed on the site where I found this referenced. In all fairness to myself, the keys used to fire and holster, / and Z respectively seemed unfamiliar. I was probably 30 shots into the test before I became comfortable with them. My mindset was to focus immediately on the hand and it's contents as it appeared. Everything else became secondary.

The score is determined by getting points for a "good" shot -- shooting a target that is armed -- and losing points for either getting shot or shooting an unarmed target. In short, this exercise comes down to fractions of seconds. Fractions of seconds? Yes, but that's what real armed police officers who make these life and death decisions in real life situations as they encounter possible perps are faced with.

Let me know what your results look like!

**Update: I just tried the test again and, with more familiarity of the controls, my ratios didn't change appreciably but my score increased to 435.