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School Defied Google and US Government, Let Boys Program White House Xmas Trees
theodp writes This holiday season, Google and the National Parks partnered to let girls program the White House Christmas tree lights. While the initiative earned kudos in Fast Company's 9 Giant Leaps For Women In Science and Technology In 2014, it also prompted an act of civil disobedience of sorts from St. Augustine of Canterbury School, which decided Google and the U.S. government wouldn't determine which of their kids would be allowed to participate in the coding event. "We decided to open it up to all our students, both boys and girls so that they could be a part of such an historic event, and have it be the kickoff to our Hour of Code week," explained Debra Knox, a technology teacher at St. Augustine.
they really should be reversing most of those programs. Girls are utterly dominating every aspect of education, including almost all STEM fields, to the point of being nearly 2/3rds of college graduates. At this point they're not "helping" girls, they're blatantly doing nothing more than sabotaging boys even further.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
But whatever, it's not like this is anything shocking or new.
...for their terrific job and a wonderful tree display.
And kudos also to the admins with the balls to tell the administration and Google to fuck off with their politically-correct bullshit.
-Styopa
Link bait.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
There is no reason to believe that there are equil numbers of boys and girls interested in programming. This does not say anything about if there are girls that "can do it", but that different people, different sexes have different interests.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It's been shit for 6 years. Obama defies US citizens and the US Constitution with his abuse of power when he usurps the legislative process and unilaterally takes action on immigration, obamacare, the environment. It goes on and on. He's even in denial that voters repudiated him in the 2014 mid-terms.
We do need more women in the tech field, but my feeling is that having exclusively female projects like this can actually widen the gap.
What it basically says is that girls and boys can't work together, and it doesn't teach guys to work as coworkers with women. Furthermore, boys who wanted to join in, later in life may feel jealous that women always get what they want, and may avoid hiring women.
A better approach would have been to have 2 trees, 1 for the females, 1 for the males.Nobody would feel left out then.
Whether you like it or not, discrimination against boys is discrimination
By trying to exclude the boys from the team, Google and the Democrats are telling the world that it is okay to discriminate against the boys
These "Girls Only" programs are bogus and sexist. If they did it "Boys Only" there would be cries of discrimination and lawsuits. It is illegal to do sexual discrimination yet our government does it over and over "Girls Only." Time to cut the crap.
So how is influencing girls to take up programing any different from discouraging them? In both cases you are forcing your own ideals and opinions onto them,
rather than letting them figure out for themselves on what the hell they want to do as individuals with their own identities.
Except that in the case of influencing them to take it up, you cover up your forced social engineering with self-righteous justification much like annoying religious fanatics do when organized religion goes nuts and they think they know better than you on what is good for you.
For the past few years, i couldn't help but create parallels between feminism and religion as organizations, hilariously they have too much in common now. Feminism has become a thought policing self-righteous religion, in an ideological political manner. The political equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church for the modern age. Heh.
If the White House had said they'd limit the tree programming to BOYS only, imagine the shitstorm that would have ensued.
Yes. Our entire government is, of course, Obama. We shouldn't lay any blame at the feet of senators and house representatives for the state our country is in. Obama is the problem, and surely when we "vote" a new president into office, everything will be merry-go-rounds made of rainbows, fields of chocolate covered dandelions and rain will taste like lemonade! Our government is not run by one man. And there is no aspect of it that is running satisfactorily, stop trying to lay it all at one person's feet. In relation to the actual article, I find it quite refreshing. I'm not saying that girls get more or anything, but how is it promoting equality to give exclusive rights on a project to one group of people?
Everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others. I remember my alma mater decided one year to vastly increase the number of women accepted into their freshman class. rather than accept the top 400 applicants regardless of gender, they accepted the top 125 female applicants, most of whom never expected to be accepted - they applied because their father graduated from there - and the failure rate was astronomical... Typically half the freshman class failed out before sophomore year, for the girls it was more like 75-80% of Friedman girls failed out. How did that help those girls?
Thank you for restoring my faith.
You have:
1. Showed that discrimination is not cool.
2. That disobedience is sometimes appropriate.
These are most valuable lessons,
I look forward to the day when there is gender parity among teaching staff at all public schools.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Freshman, not Friedman girls...
Girls succeed when boys are excluded!
When there is opportunity for only girls it doesn't help change the gender gap of certein careers. It hurts males because then they don't get experience, and it hurts females by not making them work for opportunities
Yes. Our entire government is, of course, Obama. We shouldn't lay any blame at the feet of senators and house representatives for the state our country is in. Obama is the problem, and surely when we "vote" a new president into office, everything will be merry-go-rounds made of rainbows, fields of chocolate covered dandelions and rain will taste like lemonade!
Our government is not run by one man. And there is no aspect of it that is running satisfactorily, stop trying to lay it all at one person's feet.
In relation to the actual article, I find it quite refreshing. I'm not saying that girls get more or anything, but how is it promoting equality to give exclusive rights on a project to one group of people?
Oh cut the crap.
Senator Obama campaigned on the promise to close Gitmo - and President Obama didn't do it. Despite his being Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and Gitmo being run by the military, President Obama hasn't closed Gitmo.
But he turned around and issued an executive order to effect amnesty despite the fact the Constitution explicitly makes control of immigration and naturalization a Congressional power? Despite him saying until just a few months ago he didn't have the power?
What about the NSA's warrantless wiretaps? If Obama can violate the law to change Obamacare deadlines or enact de facto amnesty for illegal immigrants, why the hell can't he shut down warrantless wiretaps - something Senator Obama said was unconstitutional.
The Festivus pole doesn't require blinking lights.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Are you seriously suggesting that he should have just ordered the gates opened and let all those people with really big chips on their shoulders out to run amok? Even though some of them weren't guilty, they now have a huge axe to grind against the US for the torture and general abuse.
Moving them to the US or other facilities would require an act of congress and the jackasses in congress have refused even when a community volunteered to let the government use their empty super-max prison for the prisoners.
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Diversity is not about just moving the bigotry and discrimination around from one group to another, nor is it about creating artificial safe spaces that suppress both competition and actual achievement. It is with pleasure I note that apparently the leaders of St. Augustine have realized this and declined to participate in musical bigotry chairs. Let boys and girls, hetero and not, religious and secular, of dark hue and light participate on an equal playing field - defeating the racist meme as youth of all descriptions work to simply create the most effective approaches and, in this instance, the greatest beauty. Education shouldn't be about who has the coolest grievance or privilege card - it should be about who, through intellectual achievement, is best suited to a limited opportunity - and when opportunities are broad, they should be offered broadly without consideration of race, gender, orientation, religion, creed or philosophy.
"It is morally wrong to initiate the aggressive use of force.." Of course, defensive force is fair game...
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Um. Yes. With a substantial reparation payment on top. That's how justice might work, instead of scary-cat ass-covering.
Colorado/Washington state give the feds the finger and legalize weed. Race baiting mayors get publicly snubbed by their police force. Ranchers and their neighbors send rent seeking feds packing. Whole states publicly disregard immigration laws. Stupid symbolism like "girls only" Christmas tree programming get thwarted and then mocked.
I want more of all of this. Fuck the powers that be. They're wrecking this country and citizens need to tell them to fuck off.
This nation is not and has never been a big romper room of compliant children. We have a long history of defiance that must continue.
Seriously, my mind is blown here.
Furries make the internet go.
Are you seriously suggesting that he should have just ordered the gates opened and let all those people with really big chips on their shoulders out to run amok? Even though some of them weren't guilty, they now have a huge axe to grind against the US for the torture and general abuse.
Moving them to the US or other facilities would require an act of congress and the jackasses in congress have refused even when a community volunteered to let the government use their empty super-max prison for the prisoners.
Obama's utter hypocrisy on Gitmo is independent of anyone's position on whether or not Gitmo is legal, a good idea, a bad idea, totally unconstitutional or just fine under the US Constitution.
He claims he doesn't have the power to close Gitmo, but it's a military installation and he's clearly Commander-in-Chief of the military.
Obama's got a helluva lot more inherent power to unilaterally close Gitmo than he does to unilaterally change Obamacare deadlines or effect amnesty for illegal immigrants.
It's a matter of what he WANTS to do.
The point is to use the quest for equality to justify penalizing anyone who rises above "equal," thus ensuring that all favors get handed out by the state or its ideological fanatic supporters.
This resembles... Communism? National Socialism? Totalitarianism? ...something where the agenda of control has replaced trying to achieve anything. We could have had a moon base by now, instead we will all be equal comrades under the People's Reich.
Futurist Traditionalism
Yeah....this is just like Selma...
The thing is, you find that as nations get more free and accepting of men and women to do what they please, gender parity isn't something that develops. In fact, some careers stratify even more. This isn't a bad thing, this is because men and women tend to have different interests. When things are fair and equal and you can pursue the career you wish, what they wish on average is different. That doesn't mean there aren't outliers, of course, but that you will find some careers are "gendered" in that one gender prefers them more than the other.
We shouldn't try and stop that. We should just make sure that the reason someone chooses a career is because they want it, not because they have been prevented from entering another field and this is their second choice, and also not because they were pressured in to it. We want people to be truly free to do what they desire, without artificial barriers to that.
sound like the H1B's we say that we open it to usc but we really do not.
Simple, every male teacher is a punching bag with a huge target on them. You smiled at the girl when she turned in her paper, you are a pedophile man! Girl hugs the male teacher, he goes to jail. Female teacher fucks a student, claims "alcohol was the problem" and walks away. Wholly fuck, you would not be able to pay me enough to teach with the current climate. No, I quit mentoring too for similar reasons! The only way a guy can be safe in a school is to have a woman with him 100% of the time, and he's still fucked if she decides he's no longer needed.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Butthead, Congress passed a law prohibiting him from transferring any prisoners from Gitmo AFTER HE WAS ELECTED.
What kind of asshole politician or business tells little boys, "No, you are not allowed to participate in this event because it's for girls only."? And this is to teach children about the equality of the sexes? Good going morons.
Wouldn't this girls-only program violate Title IX?
Congress can't 'pass a law' without Obama signing it - when did Obama sign the bill (making it law) that prevents him from transferring gizmo detainees? I suspect they put a line in a budget CR that says no money can be spent transferring gitmo prisoners.
Ken
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Congress can't 'pass a law' without Obama signing it - when did Obama sign the bill (making it law) that prevents him from transferring gizmo detainees? I suspect they put a line in a budget CR that says no money can be spent transferring gitmo prisoners.
Don't forget, they can also not pass a law authorizing him to do anything about Gitmo, but since the prison was already authorized, they can keep authorizing it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/02/1348849/-Defense-authorization-bill-won-t-include-language-Obama-sought-to-close-Guant-namo-prison
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We thought it would be great if girls could use computer science to own that space and design unique trees,” said Google spokeswoman Samantha Smith. Boys can participate, too, she added, but the emphasis is on girls, because they’re so underrepresented in computer and engineering careers.
It is good that education from IT firms are needed.At the same the gender discriminating was not required as few days ago the same program turned up for girls as well. As being educated, the firms should keep programs which doesn't disturb both the genders. I think education cannot be categorized as gender!!
Girl children should be married to men.
It is allowed in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 22 28-29, hebrew).
America is a feminist cuntry. The whole world is it seems.
So Fu**n tired of this female sh**t
That is all....
But how many of them married a nice college man? That's the winning metric.
What next? The school could be treating everyone equally regardless of race, gender, or background. Surely this must be stopped ;-)
Even though some of them weren't guilty, they now have a huge axe to grind against the US for the torture and general abuse.
So you're saying the US should continue to punish them indefinitely for something that the US did in the first place?
The big problem with transferring people out of Gitmo is that NOONE WANTS THEM.
In order to release those people, we have to send them somewhere. That "somewhere" has to be willing to take them (there are actually a few places like this, for some of the detainees) AND has to promise not to just kill them on arrival (the few places mentioned above don't seem to be willing to do this part).
Which means, ultimately, the choice we have is to either keep them in Gitmo, or to release them into the USA.
And we don't want them either....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
do you need a programmer for Christmas lights? Ok US Christmas lights are insane, but still ...
I love the fact that the St. Augustine of Canterbury School took it upon themselves to right a perceived wrong. That represents freedom of thought, independent (not government) planning, action without reprisal and education without politics. It's still funny how nobody comments on "Xmas Trees" in the title but will spend hours defending a statistical point backed by an obscure online publication or an unsupported observation by self-proclaimed expert or someone in the field. Stop your whining (and just blogging) and physically do something about it! Take the energy and passion you display on your keyboard and make it kinetic. By the way, I spoke to your mothers, they want you to turn off the video games, move out of the basement, and get some sun.
I'm so sick of reading about what gender/sex programmers and engineers are. Color blindness is the key to ending racism, and highlighting the gender/sex of people in this field is doing anything but helping end sexism.
Common Sense (+1)
Government has very few jobs. The two most important ones are to defend our country, and to defend our individual rights.
Government has completely lost sight of both of those jobs. We gallivant around the world fighting illegal, unprovoked wars, which only brings more danger to our citizens. And, government goes out of its way to elevate the rights of special interest groups above those of others.
Why can't we just have equal rights for everybody, regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever? A human is a human right? Why must we have a government engaged in constant bias against whites, bias against males, bias against the successful, and so on?
WELL DONE! Kudos to the school.
Integration as in boys and girls working together early on. So that when either are in a hiring capacity they blip right over the name (and try and determine sex) and go straight to their experience/qualifications and hire on that alone. If neither are used to being integrated then the disparity will continue to exist.
Which means, ultimately, the choice we have is to either keep them in Gitmo, or to release them into the USA.
We could transfer them to a prison inside the USA which met at least the standards they have to meet here, which are pretty pitiful as it is. Why aren't we doing that? Answer, because there would be more pressure to treat those people like human beings, with rights.
And we don't want them either....
Then why have we got them? That's bullshit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I gave the examples regarding public school, not private school. Public schools must follow Government laws and mandates, which is quite different from Private schools who don't have to follow the same rules.. just pass the same tests. I know because from K-7 grades my kid was in private school. There was no private high school close enough to where we lived for him to finish in private school so we had to switch to public. Public schools are extremely hostile toward men, and the bureaucracy ensures that it is. Public school advancement requires following the "program" and ratting out anyone doing anything differently. Making people look bad so that you look good, and it's way too easy to make a guy look bad.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It is very telling that a bunch of boys are sitting around whining about being left out of a programming contest offered by the highest elected office in the US, which has always been closed to women.
Claiming reverse sexism is kind of like dropping the biggest silent but deadly fart in the room. We know you stink but we are too polite to tell you.
My IT group has twenty engineers. All are male. I interviewed 60 people in 2014. All were male. It hasn't gotten any better in the 20 years I've been in IT. In my math and science courses in college, everything above the simple stuff needed for other degrees, there was one female in all my math classes combined. Twenty years later it's no surprise that there are few females when they are unrepresented in school.
I'm of the opinion that competition is good. Frankly, the folks I've been getting for interviews pretty much suck. I want more people interviewing. I want competition instead of the issue now where anyone who can run "./configure" calls himself a developer and anyone who can "apt-get install httpd" thinks he's a system engineer.
--and wouldn't find the compensation commensurate with the work involved.
Many years ago, I considered getting credentialed and becoming a teacher. Turns out getting an education degree doesn't really prepare you to teach. Classroom management is, at best, an afterthought.
Also I came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough money in it, and the hours are very long if you are conscientious. It's been much easier, and better pay per hour of effort, coasting along with marginal computer skills doing tech support.
And free time!!
I have an advanced degree in an unrelated field, and I'm male.
I'm just going to leave this here.
Honestly, it's really kinda sad to read some of these comments - especially the over the top "reverse discrimination" ones. What's up with all of this anger and aggression over something this insignificant? Jeeze, put things in perspective. Women have to deal with a ton of discriminatory and sexist bullshit all the time - where's the anger and outrage then? I'm not advocating for affirmative action, but the question has to be asked: Why the disproportionate rage? When you answer that, maybe you will also find out why women aren't prevalent in tech.
Isn't Sexism one of America's most persistent crimes? Our government and media and schools have been telling us this constantly for forty years. So the White House and its corporate partners should be prosecuted for engaging in gender-supremacism. This regressive, anti-liberal chauvinism should be condemned by every segment of American society. Oh, wait, their daily Hate Crime was targeting little boys. That's OK then. Never mind. Not only is it OK to hate little boys and men in America, it's a fundamental part of the New Way Forward. Nice going folks!