Nobrainer’s Think Tank

From a department within UVA:

Good morning,

Big news, our name is changing! We believe it is appropriate to have our departmental name reflect the intensified efforts we have made in the area of supplier diversity. Therefore, the office departmental name is now Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services.

Over the past five to six years the University has made tremendous increases in the amount of business we are conducting with minority- and women-owned businesses. Through the first half of the current fiscal year, our percentage of business has surpassed our goals in these two areas. Minority spending totaled just under $14 million or 6.2% and women-owned business was paid $13.3 million (6%). Although much of these gains has been in the area of construction, your efforts in these areas on a day-to-day basis have also helped to grow these SWaM businesses.

We are doing much better than in the past — we must keep it up and not lose sight of this important mission of the University. I want to personally thank everyone for their efforts in this important area and ask that you continue with your good work.

The put this crap in place when I was there. I thoroughly enjoyed spending hour searching for SWaM providers of obscure scientific equipment that didn’t exist. I also enjoyed the loopholes to the rules, such as purchases made through certain contract vendors didn’t require sworn statements of the effort made to find SWaM providers. Why buy the cheapest item when I can pay 2x as much and save hours in paperwork?

Of course, I also have to wonder how much the university is actually accomplishing here, versus how much business owners are taking advantage of these kinds of rules. Family business? Put it in the wife’s name. Owner’s last name is Cruz? Now it’s a minority owned business.

To be fair, I believe all of this was mandated by a state law, but it makes it no less ridiculous.

One thing that non-Hispanic white people don’t seem to understand is that many, perhaps most, Hispanic people are also white. Nor do they seem to understand that “Hispanic” is an ethnicity and not a race, and that it can often say little more than “normal white guy with an ancestor with a Spanish name”.

For example, I’ve started also checking news links from Drudge Retort (www.drudge.com). Says their link “85% of U.S. Growth Non-White (81 comments) …” In their comments page they begin to summarize the article by saying “U.S. racial minorities accounted for 85 percent of the nation’s population growth over the last decade…” But the article actually says “Racial and ethnic minorities accounted for roughly 85 percent of the nation’s population growth over the last decade.” [emphasis mine]

To the extent that race matters, its important to not confuse ethnicity with race. Otherwise you start counting white Hispanics as a minority, which is pretty much the same as saying Italian-Americans are a specific minority. For example, famous people such as Cameron Diaz and Charlie Sheen are Hispanic.

… for linking to PrisonPlanet and easily the dumbest article I’ve read all year. “Obama’s Blocking Of New Power Plants Triggers Nationwide Blackouts” says Prison Planet. Look, I hate Obama as President, but that claim is bullshit. Pure bullshit. I have to figure that they are “stuck on stupid.” And they must be to a) figure that Obama has had so much influence in just over 2 years given the lengthy, multi-year process involved in building a new power plant and b) claim “the inability of power companies to meet demand is almost exclusively a consequence of the Obama administration’s publicly stated goal to bankrupt the coal industry” to ignore other factors such as major natural gas supply disruptions caused by “[f]rozen natural gas wellheads in the Rocky Mountains and pipeline problems in Texas.”

Looks promising… and pretty flippin sweet.