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That almost sounds convincing, but actual analysis disagrees.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/why-sputnik_b_814967.html

President Obama was doing what politicians do all the time. He was trying to create a mood of crisis in the country. And for a reason: That's the only way we get things done.

There is ample evidence that many American corporations have been actively discriminating against American Workers for well over a decade. This is especially true when it comes to STEM work skills. India, China, and Russia have been the main sources of off-shoring (and now, in-shoring). India is the absolute worst, with India's goovernment actively pushing for more H1-Bs because they would rather America hire them than India build proper educational and business infrastructure systems. Indian government is one of the most corrupt on earth (easily as corrupt as some of the worst African states).

Want proof? Unemployment is a problem in America, and so are our sticky problems with immigration. Undercover of helping those immigrants who have so long labored in our agricultural sector, the American IT sector has seen fit to use the sentiment to help agricultural workers to create a Landslide of advantage for itself. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

The H-1B fiasco has cost Americans **$10TRILLION** dollars, since 1975. For anyone who wants to know the truth, read on.

One of the most respected technology pundits in Silicon Valley has this to say about the H1-B worker problem http://www.cringely.com/2012/1...

Here's an attorney and his consultants teaching corporations how to manipulate foreign-worker immigration law to replace qualified American workers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

H1-B abuse if accompanied by other worker-visa abuse L-1 Visa (H1-B's are only the tip of the iceberg). There are more than 20 categories of foreign worker visas. http://economyincrisis.org/con...

Professor Norman Matloff's extremely well documented studies on this problem. http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/...

Federal offshoring of healthcare.gov website http://www.economicpopulist.or...

How H1-B visa abuse is hurting American tech workers http://www.motherjones.com/pol...

There is no stem worker crisis in America http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-wo...

Marc Zuckerberg and wealthy tech scions continue to perpetuate this trend http://programmersguild.org/do...

Yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs...

Also, little known is the tactic of creating many different kinds of sub-visa categories to "fool the system". There are almost TWENTY different kinds of work visas. The whole thing is a sham and a lie, designed to drag down wages and keep from having to re-train Americans. Never thought I would see this day!

Some of the information presented in the aforementioned links will shock most Americans, because American corporate leaders don't want us to know the truth, and they are paying off policy makers with contributions to keep the truth from us. Bill Gates, John Chambers, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, and many, many others - including the principals of the most prominent immigration law firms, who profit from this outrage, are lying through their teeth. There is NO shortage of STEM workers in the US!!

Germany is in the process of introducing one, currently planned for approx $12, next year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

What business hires employees they don't need? If you lay people off because the minimum wage is raised, who takes over the work those people did?

For many low-skill jobs, machines and technology. Once you raise the minimum wage past the amortized cost of an automated solution (factoring in human-related issues like sick leave, unemployment benefits, lawsuits, etc.), you significantly reduce the incentive to hire the person. This is well understood and recognized outside the sphere of feel-good political promises.

Sometimes, they use hypnotherapy to achieve the same effect.

Never said anything to the contrary. Democrat or Republican, the comment about rich oligarchy has a fair amount of truth in the US.

For example, the Bay Area has a Congressional race between old tech money Mike Honda and new tech money Ro Khanna. Both Democrats.

Due to recent election reforms it's actually an interesting race. The primary is non-partisan, so the top 2 vote getters go to the general election. Of course, interesting doesn't necessarily mean better. People with money will always find ways to use that money to fuck up good intentions (in this case Honda's PAC is actually supporting the Republican candidate to try to keep Khanna from coming in second. Despicable, IMO. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Buying Congressional seats or the presidency has frequently been unsuccessful, and very rich and powerful people regularly get tough sentences from judges. Therefore, obviously, your hypothesis is false: democratic government under capitalism does not go to the highest bidder.

Of course, how SIMPLE. The only kind of corruption is quid-pro-quo corruption, when a politician receives an actual bag of $$$ for an actual favor (The Only Form Of Corruption The Supreme Court Cares About Is Almost Impossible To Prosecute). Everything else just is oiling the wheels of capitalism. Why didn't I think of that?

Income inequality => wealth inequality => political inequality => rules that favor more income inequality. Do you really think this is made-up?

But FiOS is most DEFINITELY profitable. This is not why FiOS is still dead on rollouts. Yes, they originally put on the brakes because they were not signing people up fast enough. And they sold a lot of fiber to Frontier. But I'd be willing to be they red-lined it. I bet they kept the most lucrative communities in the Northeast and dumped low-income areas on Frontier. However they have stopped investing in ALL landline rollout and just bought out Vodafon's ~45% stake in Verizon Wireless for somewhere in the $130B neighborhood. They don't want to lay any wires in the ground at all anymore -- they just want to build cell towers. In fact, after hurricane Sandy they had to be forced to rebuild some copper lines to communities they didn't want to.

Don't fool yourself into thinking FiOS only survived because it wasn't subject to regulation like old POTS systems were. All that happened was they put down a ton of fiber and realized they wanted to make money from it before putting any more down. Rather, they even took tax breaks meant for POTS and title II regulated systems for the expenditures they made for FiOS. It seems they always make profits and growth for Wall St, but when it comes time for tax breaks, they play they "woe is us" card.

Now they realize that putting cables all over the place is less profitable than wireless and they are still the ones who sued over the FCCs toothless Open Internet rules. The simple fact is, they are scumbags. They will try to weasel out of any regulation, (yet still take the tax breaks), and maximize all profit at every opportunity even when they are already massively profitable.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ma...

FiOS adoption was low when it originally came out -- because people were confused, (would they lose their cable? Was installation hard? change is hard! They had the same cable provider for 10 years). But now, demand for FiOS is high. Demand for fiber is massive all over the country. No one is providing it except Google in a few tiny markets.

But really what changed with Verizon is that they plan to use what they have to move to all wireless. So they are just raising rates on current FiOS customers to pay for the Vodafone deal.

TLDR: They didnt restart FiOS rollout because of a lack of profits, they didnt restart because they bought VZW.

can't wait to crack into that puppy!!!

Mmm...now...lemme see....going to have to make a rather large shopping list to buy some of those absolute nessecities....maybe even start a state owned business...I mean, a private business.(Woops, nothing to see here...move along....move along.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

I bought a 2D Postscript printer around 1984 and I can assure you that I did not spend $850,000 on it.

Here's the good news: You can't make a 3D-printed gun with your run-of-the-mill 3D printer. You need a DMLS machine, which costs around $850,000.

Even though about 80% of what Snowden "leaked" is hyperbole meant to stir up shit? After listening to the interview I'm convinced that a ton of this information is utter crap. "ooh I'm a spy" "ooh I was trained by the CIA" Does the NSA have a bulk collection program? Yes. Do the US Federal Courts screw us over on privacy issues? Yes. Do the FISA courts represent a black hole in the justice system? No more than the IRS' Tax Courts but both are invalid "justice" systems meant to screw over Americans. Was any of this known before Snowden? To a large extent no, but programs like ECHELON were known to be gathering bulk intelligence for years including spying on Americans using our allies. This has been known since the 90s folks, it's nothing new! All the NSA/spy community did was extend ECHELON into the Internet realm. Cellphones and the patriot act did more to let the government in on your movements more than anything else, all in the name of "fighting terrorists."

With the progress in technology affecting our daily lives, are we that naieve to assume that the government isn't making the same kinds of leaps in tracking us when organizations like Google, Equifax, the US Postal Service even your TV with ToS like LG watching what you watch. Wake up and smell the cat shit folks, Snowden is the Inspector Clouseau of the espionage world.

What we need is a Constitutional Amendment enforcing the right to privacy in this country, also forcing an end to spying on US citizens and to secret/out of due process courts/legal systems.

I did all of the above. Not murderously violent, but violent enough that I acted out in inappropriate ways.

It is safest for such men to consider *any* sexual contact outside of marriage to be rape- because it's certain that unless you have put a ring on that finger, any consent you think you have received will be revoked retroactively, and you'll be charged with rape anyway.

As for proof of a widespread pedophilia culture, I suggest you read this article analyzing the topic as it is treated in the DSM-V

The news agency was probably jumping to a conclusion, not the judge. Like reporting over here, the press agency put their own spin on it.

Zuckerberg personally claims to be an atheist, which presumably is not really compatible with being a Zionist. In addition, it seems that he's not too popular in Israel or with US Jews either....

this study is terrible because the psychiatrist has not actually
linked the issue to mental illness and he doesn't mention once mental
health drugs causing the problems. in fact studies have been done that
show it's mental health drugs causing a drop in the average life
expectancy by 25 years on average:
http://www.oregonstatehospital...

also a study done and published in the American Medical Association
showed that on average pharamacuticels were causing 100,000 deaths per
year when correctly prescribed and not due to side effect issues or
misprescribing:
http://themindunleashed.org/20...

Direct link to study publication:
http://www.oregonstatehospital...

Anti-anxiety and sleep aids are also tied to causing a 17.5% increased
chance for instant death in your sleep, as well as increases in
cancer. In these two studies:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

There's a reason the United Nations and World Health Organization also
are calling for a ban on forced psychiatric treatment and consider
treatment forms of torture:
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://oregonstatehospital.net...

Scientists "Antipsychotic drugs are schizophrenia's hidden gulag":
http://www.newscientist.com/ar...

Drugs like Prozac also cause a 12 fold increase in risk of suicide and
homicidal tendencies. Zyprexa also causes mania in bipolar people and
induces first time psychotic episodes. How could it not be that when
all this is known they don't mention it once in an article about
people with mental illness having reduced life spans?

More articles and videos about medications causing severe illness and
the over diagnosing of people. BTW, another cause of death for people
with mental illness is the chronic abuse and neglect they face in
forced treatment programs and treatment in general, and also
experimentation and abuse by the government. More details on this
here: http://www.oregonstatehospital...

Documentary video covering the abusive history of psychiatry here:
http://cdn.oregonstatehospital...

Looks like the study linking the drop in life expectancy to mental
illness and recommending that people receive medications as treatment
is heavily flawed. :)

-Todd Giffe

I Googled Trifigura and nothing relevant came up. Perhaps you can let me know what you're talking about there.

If you're in Europe, thats not terribly surprising: There was a superinjunction gag order issued to keep the whole thing under wraps, but the general fuzzy details were reported by the Guardian. Famously, a member of parliament tried to sidestep the superinjunction with parliamentary privilege, but IIRC that somehow got shut down.

Basically, Trifigura has been dumping some fairly toxic stuff illegally in Africa, and severely understating the risks to the locals there who they are paying for the privilege. All of that is generally a matter of fact, and isnt really disputed (perhaps Trifigura would?). The kicker is that Trifigura is claiming defamation (or slander or libel-- not clear which), and they won their case; so because reporting real world facts could cause "damage", it is illegal.

This isnt isolated, either; it is (AFAIK) not legal to host a default router passwords site in germany because that, too, could be damaging, so a fairly famous default passwords sites a number of years ago had to relocate. There was even a case recently where a judge ruled that, the mere fact that a statement is true does not defend against a defamation claim. As I recall there was a fairly major court case a number of years ago as well regarding a full disclosure of security issues in the underground of one of the EU countries.

So, speaking truth is now illegal in parts of Europe if it happens to be uncomfortable to various parties. That is what

which is a far cry from "a man can be imprisoned for saying anything on twitter that offends someone else".

2012, UK Teens Arrested, jailed
2013, 2 arrested for "suspicion of inciting racial or religious hatred"
2014, Teens arrested, placed on bail for "racist" tweets

Im afraid I am not as hopeful as you regarding European free speech. The push to "PC" seems just too strong.

Amazon: Big on Net Neutrality, not so much on Book Neutrality.

And biggest hypocrits, too. Remember the wikileaks saga? Wikileaks was hosted on Amazon cloud - for a few days, until some congress critters gave Amazon a nice phone call.

Amazon and net neutrality my ass. That was the day I decided to no longer do any business with Amazon. A bookstore and hosting service that engages in politically motivated censorship does not deserve my business, and the story posted here shows how far Amazon is willing to go.

Amazon: Big on Net Neutrality, not so much on Book Neutrality.

http://stopthecap.com/2011/12/...

and the FCC knows about it:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/docum...

and even in Congress:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

You'll get modded down for your Obama bashing, but the essence of what you have written is correct. The US has always performed poorly on PISA tests since international testing begain in the mid 1960s. Yet most people would acknowledge that the US has done very well as a nation in the last 50 years.

Seems we have something else going for us here other than our ability (or lack thereof) to conjugate our multiplication tables that isn't measured in PISA tests.

Every time the new PISA scores come out, everyone goes apeshit about how the US is lagging behind East Bumfuckistan and how we're going to fall behind in this increasingly high tech world. And I really do mean "every time" the new PISA scores come out, as in they've been saying this since the 1960s when international testing began.

And as we all know, the US has become a desolate wasteland of a third world country since the 1960s, right? Right?

Or maybe the PISA scores really aren't that important and we can all just relax a bit.

Right-wing lunatics like, say, Jamie Foxx?

Related?

There's tax after tax after tax and additional regulatory burdens (on TOP of the basic corporate greed and bloat) added-on to the basic bill... oh, they all have "nice" names....

"Federal Subscriber Line Charge"

"Rate Surcharge"

"State Regulatory Fee"

"Federal Universal Service Fee"

"CA High Cost Fund Surcharge-A"

"CA High Cost Fund-B and CA Advanced Svc Fund"

"California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge"

"Universal Lifeline Telephone Service Surcharge"

"CA Relay Service and Communicatons Devices Fund"

"9-1-1 Emergency Access System"

"Federal Tax"

"Universal Connectivity Charge"

"Carrier Cost Recovery Fee"

...

You might like all the stuff this crap provides (hey, who doesn't like 9-1-1 service?) but the FACT is that everytime some lawmaker proposes some new law or benefit or regulation, THERE IS A COST... and most voters are too stupid/short-sighted to pay attention. Just WHERE do people think all those free "Obama phones" are COMING from?!?!?!? Those of us who PAY our phone bills are kicking-in cash every month that goes (largely) to one of the richest men on the planet, (who just incidentally, of course backed Obama) Carlos Slim, who profits providing those phones. Oh, and I linked to HuffPo so you Obamabots cannot dismiss this so easily as a "faux news" post.

And while we're at it, here's another fun example of tricky things you can do with data: The fun won't stop.

Don't you Foxbots have anything better to say than AAAAALLLLL GOOOOORRRRRE!?

It was not Fox, but Al Gore himself, who made Al Gore the face of the global movement for control masquerading as a virtuous fight against Global Warming, nay, Climate Change, no, what's the term du jour, — Climate Disruption yeah, that is it.

That said, the designation is serving Mr. Gore pretty well — he is already 50 times richer, then he was during Vice-Presidency — so I don't know, what you are complaining about.

a measly $100mil?? it should of course had been $500mil

That would barely build one high school in California.

I agree that many IT disciplines are more analogous to a skilled trade than a scientific or academic discipline. These career paths would benefit from a structured apprenticeship program, and in some cases unionization.

However, the group of institutions consisting of ITT, DeVry, and "others" (UofPhoenix, Virginia College, Strayer, etc.) are not even a part of the answer.

This category of institutions are private, for-profit "vocational" schools. They are predatory companies that have extremely high tuition for very poor educational value. Their admissions requirements are dubious, essentially consisting of "can you pay your tuition".

Their business model is built around sucking as much money from their students as possible. In some cases they encourage their students to take out private, high-interest loans to pay tuition. A large portion of their students are also GI-bill students, whose education is paid for by the military.

This group of institutions as a whole has a 3-year federal student loan default rate of 21.8% - about 60% higher than public institutions at 13%. This does not reflect the default rate on private loans, which in the case of ITT tech might be as high as 60%. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is currently suing ITT tech for predatory lending practices.

You can check the official, per-school 2-year federal student loan default rates here.

Also, these institutions are not accredited in the same way that legitimate universities and colleges are, and their credits will NOT be accepted by most legitimate institutions, or even among each other.

TL;DR - stay away from the private, for-profit vocational schools. You will, without a doubt, receive a better education for dramatically less cost at your local community college - also, many credits that you earn at a community college can be applied towards a bachelor's degree at a legitimate university in the future.

Exactly. Bush wrote his Executive Orders in such a way that subsequent Presidents cannot undo them. This is 100% his fault and until Congress acts with a 2/3 majority, the NSA cannot stop it. Blaming Obama, who did not create this can cannot stop it, is unproductive. He has said many times that he does not support this. Why include him in your scorn when he agrees with the public that it should be stopped? That is unless you're a Republican, and you're trying to irrationally blame him.

What the hell are you talking about? President Obama nullified Executive Order 13,233 He also reversed GWB's policy on stem cell research And he reversed E.O. 13201 Which was also an EO signed by GWB. I could go on, but it would be pointless, I'm sure

It's very easy to include the president in anyone's scorn on this subject. One of the topics he campaigned under was the premise that EO abuse must be stopped. And yet if things aren't going the way he wants, or as quickly as he would like them to, all of the sudden use of the executive power is somehow warranted.

Like most/all politicians (both democrats and republicans) he agrees with the public when it's convenient. People in this country really need to get over this "us vs. them" mentality. It doesn't matter if you are a democrat or a republican. Black, white, yellow, red or purple. Gay, hetero, both, or neither. We are all americans. It's really sad to see us all at each others throats. We have been comfortable, and extremely safe (barring a few blips) for so long that we have started turning on each other. And our "leaders" have not helped the situation for quite some time now.

Maybe the US Government should stop issuing overreaching executive orders.

For that to happen, it would have to start producing laws again. All Congress produces right now is campaign events, and days off for themselves. Passing a law that the POTUS supports might make him look good, and we can't have that. Passing a law that the POTUS doesn't support would require a 2/3 majority, which would require working with a lot of Democrats, who might also end up looking good, so we can't have that either.

In the meantime, executive orders are the only way left to keep the government staggering along in a manner vaguely resembling a real functioning government.

You just contradicted yourself. Risks with less controls are higher risk.

No. Risks of the same type are identical. Management techniques change the risk.

Risk management terminology is annoying. A thing which may become a risk event is a risk. Risk is a measure of the probability and severity of a risk event. These are different things.

For example: A hard disk crash is a risk. The probability of a hard disk failing in a 5 year period is 50%. The severity of this risk is loss of data. In 5 years, you have a 50% risk of loss of data. Hard disk failure is your risk; a 50% risk of loss of data can be quantified as 0.5 * DATA_VALUE, which tells you how much risk this risk represents. This measure is not "how much hard disk failure", yet this measure and "hard disk failure" are both called risk.

You can reduce the probability of failure by adding RAID-5 with hot spare. The theoretical risk of a RAID-5 array failing completely in a short window is higher, but the risk crowds around the EOL of the drives (risk scales with age for hard drives, as they wear). Likewise, back-ups reduce the severity of loss to the severity of limited downtime.

The risks between Uber and Taxis are the same. The way those risks are managed--adjustments to their probability and severity--differ, and thus the amount of risk differs. Swimming in a 15 foot deep pool carries the same risk as swimming in a 30 foot deep pool: you may drown. In a 30 foot deep pool, people will have difficulty swimming down to you: the risk is greater, but it's the same risk.

Which may not cover being a passenger in an uninsured vehicle and may not pay much at all.

Some google research invalidates this whole discussion anyway: You're covered by more insurance under Uber than you are in a traditional taxi. $1 million coverage if your Uber driver rams into a wall because he's retarded and drunk.

I don't think I'll ever understand why anybody ever distrusts an article when the news outlet specifically calls out who said what, which is exactly what Fox did.

Honestly, people who do that shit are no better than the news organizations that they lambaste on a daily basis. I mean fuck, Fox News even paints republicans in more of a negative light in that article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb...
http://www.reuters.com/article...

There, you happy?

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) on Tuesday rejected a White House offer to let senators read a federal court nominee's memo authorizing a drone strike on a U.S. citizen, calling anything short of a full public release "inadequate."

Paul is threatening to block the federal appeals court nomination of David Barron, who wrote a Justice Department memo justifying a drone strike against alleged al Qaeda commander Anwar al-Awlaki, until that memo is released. Last month the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the government to release the document.

"A federal court has ordered the public release of a redacted legal memo authored by Barron and I believe that anything short of that is inadequate," Paul said in a statement released Tuesday. "I will continue to oppose this nomination until the document is released."

Barron's nomination has been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's not clear whether Paul will be able to stop Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) from bringing Barron's nomination to a full Senate floor vote.

President Barack Obama's administration had offered earlier Tuesday to let senators read the memo before they vote on Barron's nomination. But that offer has mollified neither Paul nor the American Civil Liberties Union, which wants senators to be able to review any and all of the memos Barron may have written justifying the targeted killing program -- not just the memo the 2nd Circuit publicly ordered to be released. (Part of the 2nd Circuit's order was kept under seal, so it may have ordered the release of additional Barron memos.)

Barron served as the acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010. The office's legal memos, underlying the targeted killing program, have been the subject of several contentious legal battles over whether they will be publicly released.

SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Latest episode of Cosmos broadcast on Fox TV:
"We just can't seem to stop burning up all those buried trees from way back in the carboniferous age, in the form of coal, and the remains of ancient plankton, in the form of oil and gas. If we could, we'd be home free climate wise. Instead, we're dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate the Earth hasn't seen since the great climate catastrophes of the past, the ones that led to mass extinctions. We just can't seem to break our addiction to the kinds of fuel that will bring back a climate last seen by the dinosaurs, a climate that will drown our coastal cities and wreak havoc on the environment and our ability to feed ourselves. All the while, the glorious sun pours immaculate free energy down upon us, more than we will ever need. Why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?"
The show:
http://www.cosmosontv.com/watc...
The news:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Can you provide any evidence of this or do you just like spouting gossip?

Rand Paul ABDUCTED Female Student While In College, Tried To Force Her To 'Take Bong Hits,' GQ Article Alleges

Let me guess. You are the WT's personal lobbyists, who is running interference.

iPhones go to drug cartels
iPhone theft leads to seizure of drugs/guns.

Also, if you can bust the "criminal of opportunity" perhaps it'll stop before reaching the "career criminal" point.

Billionaire farmers on welfare

Here is data for those Pink John Deer driving welfare queens in California

And here is more on how California Farmers should have the Fox News assholes in a tizzy if they weren't tools

Just ask Wayne Dobson

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Do you know what I love about you Basil? The plainest statement of fact by someone, if not in line with your ideology, must be attacked as whining and complaining.

It was whining and complaining. There are a myriad of government subsidies, most of which you CAN'T claim. Here's one you can claim, by simply doing the promoted actiokn of buying an EV. And yet this is the one you complain about, not all the ones you can't claim, that are orders of magnitude bigger. Not only is it whining, it's dumb whining.

So you didn't know that the oil companies are subsidized. Here's a clue, in future before you make a fool of yourself, try Google. e.g.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

http://priceofoil.org/fossil-f...

http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...

Here are ten more

And despite the ramblings of Harry Reid, hardly half of the country knows who they are.

You may need to work on picking better boogie men.

Of course they're cozy with the governing party.

And if the other party takes control they'll be cozy with them.

You are implying sheer cynicism and I wish, it were this simple. It is not — the media-holdings of both companies are, quite (in)famously Illiberal. The National Review article I linked to has the detail. The sole Democrat fighting the merger is a clown...

Title IX of course. Since there aren't as many women and girls in Video Gaming, once they're 'Sports', Title IX can be used to "encourage" girls to play. Then there'll be more girls in Video gaming!

It's just like real sports where Title IX has brought the participation of women up to close what mens participation is (like 45/55 I think was the last stat I read).

I've also heard Title IX is being examined to apply to STEM courses as well to ensure more women are represented in STEM courses.

http://www.dailyherald.com/art...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

[John]

Culinary Consultant for Hannibal. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

This AC was modded as troll, but I think ve is just assuming that politicians would try to take advantage of the infrastructure... in my opinion improbable...

Right. Because politicians rarely ever use public infrastructure to suit their own goals or vendettas.like this

What is wrong with saying a 2nd grader should know x before moving on to the 3rd grade, and a 3rd grader should know y, before moving to the 4th grade, and so on?

That's not really a good description of common core - it doesn't really do that. States can impose certain testing requirements on top of it, optionally, like Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOL), but you won't find any kind of requirement for "knowing" any objective facts in the Common Core.

But I wont, ill just ask you, what is wrong with the STANDARDS THEMSELVES? And please do not come up with the usual list of proven incorrect statements, such as teachers not being involved in the standards themselves.

That's a pretty big topic. The Common Core advocates seem to do a lot of marketing around their process for creating the standards, which includes taking a lot of existing standards (really bad ones), and pretending they're worthy of expanding upon.

I'll bring up a few of the basic issues and let you research more yourself.

Seventy-two CEOs hailing from corporations that usually like to stay out of the political fray, including Harley-Davidson, General Mills and Xerox, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times claiming that the curriculum will meet the “business community’s expectations.” That should tell you something right there: Are these companies interested in educating Americans to pursue their highest potential, or in creating a workforce beholden to the Corporate ladder?

The fundamental theme of Common Core’s English language arts (ELA) standards is a focus on non-fiction “informational texts.” The ELA standards were fashioned so that elementary students read no more than 50 percent classic literature and high school students may read only 30 percent classic literature. The other 70 percent is comprised of informational texts. The curriculum advocates a “close reading” of a text in which students are asked to analyze what they’ve read strictly from the available text without a whiff of historical context. This method teaches students to accept the information that they are given without question. It's an indoctrination technique writ large, through years of barraging students with lesson plans produced by government bureaucracies.

You can also check out some of the writing by Carol Burris, an award-winning educator that was a big proponent of Common Core until she started seeing the ugly details. Very enlightening.

Have you seen how they are teaching math under the Common Core now? The premise is that students should learn "estimating" instead of math or number theory. I guess that makes sense if you're a bureaucrat dealing with multi-million dollar budgets - as long as you're within 1 or 2% you're good. But that's not really good enough if you're trying to really learn the core principles. You should see if this makes any sense to you as a way to teach 5th graders math. I don't think it does.

You'll probably dismiss these issues as "growing pains" and issues that can be fixed over time. But we should not be experimenting on our children this way. Or they won't be able to contribute anything to the next generation of learners.

How soon before there is a conflict between solar energy producers and endangered species protection? This report tells of the aviary carnage caused by the new plant in Nevada. Note that this is during the construction phase. There was also a report last year from England where bird watchers were out for a sighting of a species of bird that hadn't been seen in many years - until it promptly flew into a wind turbine.

There's a fix for that: parental leave. The US's worker protection laws are awful; this is just one of the ways that they hurt women more than men. (Of course, this isn't just an issue for women: letting parents spend more time with their children is good for fathers, too.)

They're talking about training "Data scientists". The folks who, for example, look at Twitter hastags to find out who will the PResidential election.; turned out the guy got it better than anyone - even the statisticians came in second.

Would you be talking about them if they didn't?

How many projects like this were attempted but gave bad answers, and thus we don't talk about them?

The predictive power of something like this is far from proven.

>> Many third world countries will soon be more free than the USSA - time to emigrate.

"Freer" until you're killed by an executive-ordered, zero-oversight drone strike.

Oh wait, that can happen here too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.motherjones.com/moj...