Slashdot Mirror

The MSU Student newspaper has a more interesting take on this then the Fox News one. It looks more like she pissed someone off something horrible.
From the State News:

"Of the 391 e-mails Spencer sent, Spencer said she didn't receive any negative responses. All responses asked for more information regarding Provost Kim Wilcox's Welcome Week proposal."

"Dr. Katherine Gross, director of the Kellogg Biological Station, initially approached ATS in September with concerns as to how Spencer had e-mailed what she believed was the deans, directors and chairs list. Hall said that response led to ATS approaching Spencer."

I just had a story submission that answered this very question: "Narcissist Technology: Did Mamma Lie?"

Unfortunately it dribbled out of the Slashhot Firehose.
Fortunately you can still read about it elsewhere:

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/03/h as_myspace_contributed_to_gen_1.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-esteem27fe b27,0,225486,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines
http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=40058

Did no one here see the 2004 movie National Treasure.... Benjamin Franklin invented these multi colored glasses centuries ago. see image here

I will admit I only know a handful of people that do cartoons, and only a couple who have them published in a daily (The State News http://www.statenews.com/ and The Midland Daily http://www.ourmidland.com/), but the ones I know either start with a very rough sketch that is then scanned and pretty much completely redone in Illustrator and/or Photoshop. A few of them don't even bother with paper anymore and have tablet inputs and use Illustrator and Photoshop to create works from scratch.

• Obscene conduct can include indecent exposure and urinating in public if police convict a person of the charges three separate times, said MSU police Detective Earl Barringer.
• Jones also said that not every person on the sex offender list has necessarily committed an egregious crime such as rape or molestation because a conviction of indecent exposure, even in cases such as public urination, can land someone on the list.
• Michigan's sex-offender registry currently includes teenagers prosecuted for having consensual sex with underage girlfriends and a woman convicted of urinating in public.
• Violations ranging from groping or fondling to more minor offenses, like public indecency -- which includes urinating in a public park -- are posted on the sex offender registry for 10 years. More serious offenses, such as aggravated criminal sexual assault, are posted for life.

It sometimes amazes me the bullshit that I read on a daily basis. Lately, there has been this odd reoccurrence in the media that has left me a bit aghast. It seems that the old fear of Orwell's (in the book 1984) was that jack-booted government thugs would come down and "re-educate" the masses who did not go along with their ideology. It was a common theme that has been analyzed repeatedly over the past 20 years.

But what is really amazing to me is the group responsible for the actual indoctrination and re-education of the masses. Twenty years ago, it was the government and some vast right-wing organization who were painted as the evil ones. But in reality it is the lefties and their hydra-like organizations. Just look at two instances of political correctness and the big-brother speak that flourishes:

CSULB students angered by flyer - In this instance, the students are to under go cultural sensitivity indoctrination. "...mandatory attendance for all organizations at the Cultural Awareness Fair."

Mascot Mishap - This is a similar instance of a politically correct "no-no". The people involved wiil be re-educated and shown the true meaning of happiness through being politically correct. "Members of the foundation agreed to...attend a sensitivity training session to learn about diversity."

It seems that if you don't think and act like the hive mind on the left...you are doomed to "re-education" and indoctrination of some sort. For those that do not follow these PC rules...you will be branded a harbinger of hate and a bigot.

Here is another example...

"At the conference, students in the college learned the importance of firm handshakes and direct eye contact when meeting with potential employers. When a student of color raised concerns that her culture does not encourage such interactions, a comment by Springfield school district's Director of Human Resources Roger Jordan was perceived to be culturally insensitive. Jordan said he had explained what he calls "the blemish effect," which is something that might distract a potential employer during the interviewing process, such as cultural differences. He said the meaning was misconstrued and that he did not intend to propose that the student's culture was a blemish."

I really don't get it. They are being taught how to conduct themselves in an interview and possibly land a job here in the States. They don't like the fact that what they are being taught does not jibe with their culture in their own country, so they take offense and are probably hyper-sensitive about the entire situation. Of course, the school will use the following tactics to "right any wrong" that was committed:

* The creation of a 5-year plan to address the issues;
* standardized and enforced procedures for handling complaints;
* and diversity training for staff and faculty.

I think that my biggest problem with the whole situation is that the school actually has a "Bias Response Team". Political correctness run amok. Common sense is missing in this whole situation and the diversity police (or the Bias Response Team, in this case) come to the rescue and mandate forced re-education. Lovely.

ummm no, in 1997-8 weapons inspectors were kicked out of Iraq under threat of imprisonment for being in the country illegally.

StateNews

Also a full page ad in my school's campus newspaper yesterday. Tried to find a link, but here's the text...

THE KAZAA REVOLUTION
1990 - Made a compilation tape off the radio.
1992 - Bought my first CD. Went to my first concert.
1995 - Logged onto the net for the first time.
2002 - Discovered Kazaa and peer-to-peer.
2003 - Called a pirate. Joined the revolution.
2004 - Buying all my music on Kazaa.
2006 - Formed a band. Sold first song on Kazaa.
2007 - First sold out gig.

The Kazaa Revolution is about you and the other 60 million fans of music, movies and games. It's a new technology that could make life better for everyone. Lower prices. Unlimited catalogs. A smarter way to buy and share online.
The record and movie industry are trying to stop it. Don't let them.
Go to www.kazaa.com/revolution and change to world of entertainment.

Join the Revolution
www.kazaa.com/revolution

----
With a logo that I won't even pretend to copy via ASCII art.

The thing that shocks me the most about it is how they stress BUYING music online. And throw in the line "The record and movie industry are trying to stop it. Don't let them."

That's like saying "The Federal government is trying to invade your privacy! Don't let them! Instead, send all of your personal information to this website: ~~~~~~". Not that I think buying music is rediculous (have a large CD collection myself).

I'll keep my own opinions about filesharing quiet, but I was really suprised that they'd put this in a college newspaper. I know college campuses are one of the leading "frontiers" (lacking a better word atm) of p2p-filesharing, but I have to wonder how many people will read that and say "Yeah! I want to stop downloading my music and rebel by buying my music online! !Viva la revolution!"

Just google for "grade inflation" and read a couple of the articles. For your convenience I've listed a couple of articles that I found off the top. There's pretty strong social pressure on professors to "give" the students the grades even though the students may not have earned them. And that lottery money being used for merit based scholarships? A waste of effort. Taxpayers would do better to simply allocate funds to the schools instead of giving it to the kids as a scholarship.

• Grade Inflation: The current fraud
• Fiscal Policy Effects on Grade Inflation
• A call for an end to grade inflation
• HOPE Scholarships Transform the University of Georgia
• Grade inflation becoming problem at Vanderbilt
• Students studying less, receiving higher grades

Police have been known to sieze computers that simply had data that might be used as evidence, even when the owners hadn't done anything wrong. Is there any legal defense against this, like "I have my website, my financial records, and tomorrow's homework on that fileserver... you can't take it away from me!"? Or does this come under the heading of "why you should always have multiple good backups"?

Religious organizations can get government money for charitable projects. They just have to demonstrate that the charity is distinct from the religion - essentially, that they're not saying "Join our church and we'll give you food."

What Duhbya's "faith-based" charity program allows is essentially federally funded churches, as long as the churches use some of the money for charity. My local newspaper had an article today which talked about some effects of a similar program already going on in Texas. The interesting part was that about 1/3 of the end recipients of the charity said that they had been pressured to join a religious organization or to change their beliefs.

The federal government has absolutely no right to use my tax money to convert heathens to some governmentally preferred religion. I would really like to read the text of the bill, when it becomes available. I'd like to see how they make it sound like "We're going to give money to churches" isn't a "law respecting an establishment of religion."

Just about every university has someone who rates professors. Here at MSU we have Mark Grebner who, while I don't believe has ever been sued, I know has really annoyed some professors with his ratings.

I think part of the reason he has never been sued is the sheer length of time he's been publishing them - he started in the mid 70's!