The US constitution puts limits on what the government can do. Initially only the federal government but with the civil war amendments it also applied to state governments. Even with that the constitution only bans discrimination by the public sector (government). With the various rulings centering around the commerce clause from the 20th century the federal government can ban some from for discrimination by the private (public accommodation) sector such as segregated lunch counters because some where along the supply chain there was some good or service that crossed state or international boundaries and thus the court ruled that because there was some form of interstate commerce (regardless of how far back in the supply chain) the feds could regulate a private business. The relevant cases that support this view are Wickard v. Filburn from 1942, Gonzales v. Raich from 2005, and Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United_States from 1964 specifically dealing with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which were all argued on commerce clause issues. The 1964 ruling basically overturned the 1883 Civil Rights Cases ruling that prevented the federal government from banning private discrimination that was described in the Civil Rights Act of 1875 but this was argued on the basis of what authority the 14th Amendment granted congress. At this point the commerce clause is a giant fucking hammer that lets the US Federal Government do what ever it likes.
I would rather vote against him as he seem to want to go bomb some Persians. Other than that he just seem like the standard slick politician who will do/say what it takes to get elected. The biggest thing Romney has going for him is that he isn't Obama.
I can play at numbers too. My extrapolation from that trend would indicate that a white democrat would have gotten around 86% in 2008. The biggest difference was that Gore was boring while Kerry was boring and ugly so those were probably more of a factor than anything else. Obama has a cult of personality going for him and it doesn't hurt that he is very well spoken, charismatic, and good looking.
I never said they weren't. There are very few national political commentators I can even stand to listen to as most I would rather go slam my head in my car door than listen to. I was actually hoping for a funny, but I guess people felt my comment deserved an insightful.
I think telling that the Hillary campaign didn't jump on this. The Clinton's have a reputation (according to the political right) of being ruthless in their campaign tactics and if there were something to the birther movement then Hillary would have been all over it. Same thing with the accusations of Obama being a closet Muslium. The only commentators who devote time to either of these seem to be the more conspiratorial talk shows, or Sean Hannity.
The other day at the gorcery store I actually noticed that some of the bread proudly proclaimed that it was HFCS free. I don't usually buy bread at the grocery store but I needed bread crumbs for something I was going to make so I had to journey down that isle. It seems that this is becoming a selling point as I have seen more products advertising that.
But drinking soda does increase your risk of getting fat. Getting fat is much like getting cancer, in neither case do you just got to bed just fine and the next day wake up with stage terminal lung cancer or being morbidly obese.
Ok so if they are forced to waive any insurance or government benefits for treating those diseases then all money that they have paid that covers those treatments should be returned to them. I would even argue that the excise taxes they pay on those products should also be returned as those are so often sold to the public as needed to offset the cost incurred by the product.
I saw an article on this a while back I think on the BBC. In the article they pointed out that food, beautiful people, and dangerous things work well for grabbing our attention and thus are good for advertising. The reason is our primate brains initially assess things based on three criteria:
1. Can I eat it
2. Can I have relations with it
3. Will it harm me
Your post reminds me of my internship. There was another intern who was a woman who was rather attractive and happened to be rather well endowed. She was frequently down in the lab where I was an one of the younger techs was much like the people you describe around here. It was actually quite funny to watch as he would always try and impress her with stories about his fish keeping and tried to convince her to come over to his place to see his fish. I don't think he had any ulterior motives as he seemed to want everyone to come over to his place and see his fish, but she was rather creeped out by it. It seems that the younger male engineers and CS people really lack social skills especially around good looking women, some are over the top assertive (they make the stereotypical Italian male seem like a true gentleman) or look at their own shoes and mumble something unintelligible at them.
There is a difference between not fitting within behavioral norms and deciding that it is a good to threaten other students and teachers, throw things, etc. From what I have experienced with various teachers is that the real problem children are the ones that the parents don't give a shit about, or believe that everyone is out to get their child who is perfect (one of my friend's is like this with his kids). Also when I say these students should be in special classes I don't mean the warehousing that is basically done now with them but actually creating a good environment where they can actually become functional productive members of society. Unfortunately to do that requires additional resources which could be squandered elsewhere like on sports or administration. I also don't agree with putting all of the kids with the various issues in the same class as that really does a disservice to all of them as children with downs need different care and attention from the ADHD needs which is different from the various autism spectrum needs.
To me it sounds like the school really wasn't engaging with your child which really is a problem in a lot of schools. I was treated much the same when my family moved from the inner city to the suburbs. My rather crappy (funding and building wise) inner city school recognized that I was above average and I was moved off to special classes, yet when I was transferred to the suburban school district they put me in regular classes where I was board. I remember sitting with my mother and the school consular when they were trying to place me and the consular stated that even though I was in the advanced classes in my inner city school I should be in the regular classes here because they were supposedly more advanced than the ones I was previously taking. My mom fought had to get me properly placed but it didn't happen until I eventually made it to high school. So for the next 3 years I sat in classes in which I was board out of my mind being rather disruptive (I would talk to those around me) because it was so simple. I had one middle school teacher realize that I was board and not stupid but there wasn't anything he could do other than have me work on other stuff in his class like fractals with a proper understanding of fractional dimensions, how to calculate them and what they mean, countable and uncountable infinities, trig, introduction to linear algebra, etc. Once I was placed in the correct group my sophomore year in high school the behavior issues went away and by the time I graduated high school I had managed to earn enough college credit to have sophomore standing.
If your child has limited learning opportunities it isn't because of the school. Another approach is what I am doing with my oldest which is similar to what you are doing with your child but could be expanded upon is to try and make every activity a learning activity. My oldest (3 years old) and I are always going and doing things that he finds interesting. I teach him as much as I can while we are doing things. We have done a model rocket where we put it together and I explained what each part did and how it worked and then went and shot it off in the park behind my house. We have a large garden where I have been going over all things plant related with him as they happen. I have taken to see the big ships (salties and lakers) up in Duluth, as well as the various stuff up in the iron range (old equipment and an operational mine). His favorite thing so was going the the threshing show and seeing those machines and tractors up close. All the while he is learning all about these things. I try to make every activity a learning one for him even if it is mundane stuff like maintaining the car or fixing something. Granted it isn't as extreme as SuperKendall suggests but will do wonders as well as ensure that they are getting a more complete education. As my kids get older I look forward to doing more activities with them to expand their knowledge and experiences. I got some of this from my dad who went to a 2 year trade school so didn't have the depth or breadth of knowledge that I have now but was active in teaching me about the things we did.
This is why I will be taking a very active role in supplementing my children's education. My oldest (3 years old) is just a little sponge and I enjoy filling his head with knowledge and activities that encourage this. His latest new interest has been rockets as he saw a rocket launch in some cartoon so I showed him one of the NASA space shuttle launches and he was fascinated. So I went and got a model rocket kit and we spent a rainy afternoon assembling it together (I did most of the work but he was there "helping") and explaining what the different parts were and what they did. Last Saturday was the first day where it was nice enough to launch it (no rain and little wind), and we had fun the whole time. Last summer we went up to the iron range and saw the old equipment and active mine. I explained how the different machines worked, what they did, and why they were needed. He had a great time playing on the big shovels, buckets, excavators, steam train, 240 ton trucks, etc and learned a lot. Same thing with the threshing show last fall. Currently he has been learning about plants from the garden that we put in earlier this spring. There are lots of things like this where every day activities are a learning activity.
While I agree that charter schools are not lived up to all the promises that were made the same could be said about public schools. Some of the schools are doing quite well while others suck ass. A few days ago the local paper I get had an article covering just this as 20 years ago the first charter school opened in Minnesota. Now charter schools in Minnesota are not as free to do as the want like most people believe as they are still public schools and must take anyone who applies provided that there is space. If there isn't space then students go onto a waiting list or there is a lottery for spots. The only real priorities given to an individual student is if they have a sibling that is also going to or has gone to the school. They are also not exempted from the various sets of standardized tests that are imposed by the state and feds.
As my wife has worked in both traditional public as well as charter schools as a teacher I have ended up with a rather unique insight. The standard public schools have figured out that it is beneficial to try and dump their problem children into charters as they no longer have to deal with the problems. This was an unofficial policy as teachers were encouraged to suggest to parents of problem children that their child would be better served by the smaller class sizes, more individual attention, different environment, etc that are offered by a charter. This removes a sizable portion of the problem children from the standard public school roles while substantially increasing the number of problem children in the charters. I have watched this and currently the class my wife is teaching has 8 out of 22 students having behavioral, ADD, ADHD, or some form of autism spectrum disorder with the other class in the grade having 7in these categories. The class coming up next year is worse with 18 special needs children out of 44 and the worst one being a child that in a normal public school setting would be 1 on 1 with an aid 75% of the time (the parent decided to move the child to a charter eventhough they couldn't provide the necessary services). Also charter schools are even more money strapped than regular schools since they only get the state and federal money (no local money from property tax), don't get to own their own building and have to pay rent, still have to provide transportation to any student who is located in the same physical school district that the charter is located in (regular public school only have to do this for students who are in the boundary for each school). Given all of that it seems amazing that there is any success at all in charters. What would do the most good would be to remove the behavioral, ADD, ADHD, and autism spectrum children and have schools setup that can deal with them as these are the students that actively detract from the learning of the other students.
Given what I have seen here in the US most rifle users are pretty worthless shots at anything beyond 50 meters as the target is just peppered with holes. I have seen similar results while deer hunting and have run across the hunter who is stuck trying to find the deer they wounded because they didn't get the clean kill shot. A 200+ meter shot that would kill someone should be fairly easy (if you have your rifle setup correctly) but too many people have never learned how to shoot properly. Once you start approaching 400 meters hitting a man sized target does become difficult for most shooters even with a scope as there tends to be a fair amount of drop as well as minor movements having a rather large effect. A good firearm offers minute of arc (MOA) accuracy when shot perfectly (5-10 shots in a group 1 in in diameter at 100 meters), a reasonable one offers 2 MOA accuracy, really good ones can be well under 1 MOA. In most cases the accuracy of the firearm will limited by the shooter's ability. With one of my rifles I am the limiting factor (it is a sub MOA gun with a custom barrel) the other is a 2-3 MOA firearm that is fun to shoot but I wouldn't use it to hunt anything beyond 200 meters, but is great against cans at 50-100 meters. I have never been a big fan of handguns even though I do have a Minnesota carry permit now (I got it because of the large dangerous critters in the north woods that I would want some protection from) because they are just too inaccurate in general. The last place I want to be is between a mamma bear and her cubs or stalked by wolves while unarmed. The latter actually happened to me a couple of years ago which caused me to decided to get the permit as I could carry a loaded handgun while walking down a road as you need to have the rifle or shotgun unloaded.
I would actually be all for through training for being able to own a firearm. It seems far too many people have no idea what they are doing when it comes to firearms. The above case you cited (can't read it now as I am at work and it is blocked) seems to be a clear case of negligence and possibly could have been prevented with proper training. I can only hope at this point that the security guard is charged with negligent homicide. I would also like to see more crimes that are committed with a firearm prosecuted as attempted murder as one of the things I was taught in every firearms course I have ever had (4 different ones) is never point a firearm at something you don't intend to shoot.
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The US constitution puts limits on what the government can do. Initially only the federal government but with the civil war amendments it also applied to state governments. Even with that the constitution only bans discrimination by the public sector (government). With the various rulings centering around the commerce clause from the 20th century the federal government can ban some from for discrimination by the private (public accommodation) sector such as segregated lunch counters because some where along the supply chain there was some good or service that crossed state or international boundaries and thus the court ruled that because there was some form of interstate commerce (regardless of how far back in the supply chain) the feds could regulate a private business. The relevant cases that support this view are Wickard v. Filburn from 1942, Gonzales v. Raich from 2005, and Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United_States from 1964 specifically dealing with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which were all argued on commerce clause issues. The 1964 ruling basically overturned the 1883 Civil Rights Cases ruling that prevented the federal government from banning private discrimination that was described in the Civil Rights Act of 1875 but this was argued on the basis of what authority the 14th Amendment granted congress. At this point the commerce clause is a giant fucking hammer that lets the US Federal Government do what ever it likes.
I would rather vote against him as he seem to want to go bomb some Persians. Other than that he just seem like the standard slick politician who will do/say what it takes to get elected. The biggest thing Romney has going for him is that he isn't Obama.
I didn't know Clinton was elected in 1994. I thought he was initially elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1996.
I can play at numbers too. My extrapolation from that trend would indicate that a white democrat would have gotten around 86% in 2008. The biggest difference was that Gore was boring while Kerry was boring and ugly so those were probably more of a factor than anything else. Obama has a cult of personality going for him and it doesn't hurt that he is very well spoken, charismatic, and good looking.
I never said they weren't. There are very few national political commentators I can even stand to listen to as most I would rather go slam my head in my car door than listen to. I was actually hoping for a funny, but I guess people felt my comment deserved an insightful.
He was a rather unattractive individual, and from accounts I have read had a squeaky voice.
I think telling that the Hillary campaign didn't jump on this. The Clinton's have a reputation (according to the political right) of being ruthless in their campaign tactics and if there were something to the birther movement then Hillary would have been all over it. Same thing with the accusations of Obama being a closet Muslium. The only commentators who devote time to either of these seem to be the more conspiratorial talk shows, or Sean Hannity.
Well I frequently hear various political commentators stating that he was the "first black president".
You mean you have had success with those systems. I usually have to repeat my self at least once.
The other day at the gorcery store I actually noticed that some of the bread proudly proclaimed that it was HFCS free. I don't usually buy bread at the grocery store but I needed bread crumbs for something I was going to make so I had to journey down that isle. It seems that this is becoming a selling point as I have seen more products advertising that.
Sounds like the typical government solution, always increasing entropy.
but wtf is this witch hunt on sodas now
Fatties are the new smokers.
But drinking soda does increase your risk of getting fat. Getting fat is much like getting cancer, in neither case do you just got to bed just fine and the next day wake up with stage terminal lung cancer or being morbidly obese.
Ok so if they are forced to waive any insurance or government benefits for treating those diseases then all money that they have paid that covers those treatments should be returned to them. I would even argue that the excise taxes they pay on those products should also be returned as those are so often sold to the public as needed to offset the cost incurred by the product.
I saw an article on this a while back I think on the BBC. In the article they pointed out that food, beautiful people, and dangerous things work well for grabbing our attention and thus are good for advertising. The reason is our primate brains initially assess things based on three criteria:
1. Can I eat it
2. Can I have relations with it
3. Will it harm me
Your post reminds me of my internship. There was another intern who was a woman who was rather attractive and happened to be rather well endowed. She was frequently down in the lab where I was an one of the younger techs was much like the people you describe around here. It was actually quite funny to watch as he would always try and impress her with stories about his fish keeping and tried to convince her to come over to his place to see his fish. I don't think he had any ulterior motives as he seemed to want everyone to come over to his place and see his fish, but she was rather creeped out by it. It seems that the younger male engineers and CS people really lack social skills especially around good looking women, some are over the top assertive (they make the stereotypical Italian male seem like a true gentleman) or look at their own shoes and mumble something unintelligible at them.
I would settle for a currency that neither lost value or increased in value over time.
Only if the observer is a Ron Paul supporter and the currency isn't 999 or 9999 fine gold or silver.
There is a difference between not fitting within behavioral norms and deciding that it is a good to threaten other students and teachers, throw things, etc. From what I have experienced with various teachers is that the real problem children are the ones that the parents don't give a shit about, or believe that everyone is out to get their child who is perfect (one of my friend's is like this with his kids). Also when I say these students should be in special classes I don't mean the warehousing that is basically done now with them but actually creating a good environment where they can actually become functional productive members of society. Unfortunately to do that requires additional resources which could be squandered elsewhere like on sports or administration. I also don't agree with putting all of the kids with the various issues in the same class as that really does a disservice to all of them as children with downs need different care and attention from the ADHD needs which is different from the various autism spectrum needs.
To me it sounds like the school really wasn't engaging with your child which really is a problem in a lot of schools. I was treated much the same when my family moved from the inner city to the suburbs. My rather crappy (funding and building wise) inner city school recognized that I was above average and I was moved off to special classes, yet when I was transferred to the suburban school district they put me in regular classes where I was board. I remember sitting with my mother and the school consular when they were trying to place me and the consular stated that even though I was in the advanced classes in my inner city school I should be in the regular classes here because they were supposedly more advanced than the ones I was previously taking. My mom fought had to get me properly placed but it didn't happen until I eventually made it to high school. So for the next 3 years I sat in classes in which I was board out of my mind being rather disruptive (I would talk to those around me) because it was so simple. I had one middle school teacher realize that I was board and not stupid but there wasn't anything he could do other than have me work on other stuff in his class like fractals with a proper understanding of fractional dimensions, how to calculate them and what they mean, countable and uncountable infinities, trig, introduction to linear algebra, etc. Once I was placed in the correct group my sophomore year in high school the behavior issues went away and by the time I graduated high school I had managed to earn enough college credit to have sophomore standing.
If your child has limited learning opportunities it isn't because of the school. Another approach is what I am doing with my oldest which is similar to what you are doing with your child but could be expanded upon is to try and make every activity a learning activity. My oldest (3 years old) and I are always going and doing things that he finds interesting. I teach him as much as I can while we are doing things. We have done a model rocket where we put it together and I explained what each part did and how it worked and then went and shot it off in the park behind my house. We have a large garden where I have been going over all things plant related with him as they happen. I have taken to see the big ships (salties and lakers) up in Duluth, as well as the various stuff up in the iron range (old equipment and an operational mine). His favorite thing so was going the the threshing show and seeing those machines and tractors up close. All the while he is learning all about these things. I try to make every activity a learning one for him even if it is mundane stuff like maintaining the car or fixing something. Granted it isn't as extreme as SuperKendall suggests but will do wonders as well as ensure that they are getting a more complete education. As my kids get older I look forward to doing more activities with them to expand their knowledge and experiences. I got some of this from my dad who went to a 2 year trade school so didn't have the depth or breadth of knowledge that I have now but was active in teaching me about the things we did.
This is why I will be taking a very active role in supplementing my children's education. My oldest (3 years old) is just a little sponge and I enjoy filling his head with knowledge and activities that encourage this. His latest new interest has been rockets as he saw a rocket launch in some cartoon so I showed him one of the NASA space shuttle launches and he was fascinated. So I went and got a model rocket kit and we spent a rainy afternoon assembling it together (I did most of the work but he was there "helping") and explaining what the different parts were and what they did. Last Saturday was the first day where it was nice enough to launch it (no rain and little wind), and we had fun the whole time. Last summer we went up to the iron range and saw the old equipment and active mine. I explained how the different machines worked, what they did, and why they were needed. He had a great time playing on the big shovels, buckets, excavators, steam train, 240 ton trucks, etc and learned a lot. Same thing with the threshing show last fall. Currently he has been learning about plants from the garden that we put in earlier this spring. There are lots of things like this where every day activities are a learning activity.
While I agree that charter schools are not lived up to all the promises that were made the same could be said about public schools. Some of the schools are doing quite well while others suck ass. A few days ago the local paper I get had an article covering just this as 20 years ago the first charter school opened in Minnesota. Now charter schools in Minnesota are not as free to do as the want like most people believe as they are still public schools and must take anyone who applies provided that there is space. If there isn't space then students go onto a waiting list or there is a lottery for spots. The only real priorities given to an individual student is if they have a sibling that is also going to or has gone to the school. They are also not exempted from the various sets of standardized tests that are imposed by the state and feds.
As my wife has worked in both traditional public as well as charter schools as a teacher I have ended up with a rather unique insight. The standard public schools have figured out that it is beneficial to try and dump their problem children into charters as they no longer have to deal with the problems. This was an unofficial policy as teachers were encouraged to suggest to parents of problem children that their child would be better served by the smaller class sizes, more individual attention, different environment, etc that are offered by a charter. This removes a sizable portion of the problem children from the standard public school roles while substantially increasing the number of problem children in the charters. I have watched this and currently the class my wife is teaching has 8 out of 22 students having behavioral, ADD, ADHD, or some form of autism spectrum disorder with the other class in the grade having 7in these categories. The class coming up next year is worse with 18 special needs children out of 44 and the worst one being a child that in a normal public school setting would be 1 on 1 with an aid 75% of the time (the parent decided to move the child to a charter eventhough they couldn't provide the necessary services). Also charter schools are even more money strapped than regular schools since they only get the state and federal money (no local money from property tax), don't get to own their own building and have to pay rent, still have to provide transportation to any student who is located in the same physical school district that the charter is located in (regular public school only have to do this for students who are in the boundary for each school). Given all of that it seems amazing that there is any success at all in charters. What would do the most good would be to remove the behavioral, ADD, ADHD, and autism spectrum children and have schools setup that can deal with them as these are the students that actively detract from the learning of the other students.
I would also suggest adding such valuable skills as reading, writing, history, geography, and government.
Given what I have seen here in the US most rifle users are pretty worthless shots at anything beyond 50 meters as the target is just peppered with holes. I have seen similar results while deer hunting and have run across the hunter who is stuck trying to find the deer they wounded because they didn't get the clean kill shot. A 200+ meter shot that would kill someone should be fairly easy (if you have your rifle setup correctly) but too many people have never learned how to shoot properly. Once you start approaching 400 meters hitting a man sized target does become difficult for most shooters even with a scope as there tends to be a fair amount of drop as well as minor movements having a rather large effect. A good firearm offers minute of arc (MOA) accuracy when shot perfectly (5-10 shots in a group 1 in in diameter at 100 meters), a reasonable one offers 2 MOA accuracy, really good ones can be well under 1 MOA. In most cases the accuracy of the firearm will limited by the shooter's ability. With one of my rifles I am the limiting factor (it is a sub MOA gun with a custom barrel) the other is a 2-3 MOA firearm that is fun to shoot but I wouldn't use it to hunt anything beyond 200 meters, but is great against cans at 50-100 meters. I have never been a big fan of handguns even though I do have a Minnesota carry permit now (I got it because of the large dangerous critters in the north woods that I would want some protection from) because they are just too inaccurate in general. The last place I want to be is between a mamma bear and her cubs or stalked by wolves while unarmed. The latter actually happened to me a couple of years ago which caused me to decided to get the permit as I could carry a loaded handgun while walking down a road as you need to have the rifle or shotgun unloaded.
I would actually be all for through training for being able to own a firearm. It seems far too many people have no idea what they are doing when it comes to firearms. The above case you cited (can't read it now as I am at work and it is blocked) seems to be a clear case of negligence and possibly could have been prevented with proper training. I can only hope at this point that the security guard is charged with negligent homicide. I would also like to see more crimes that are committed with a firearm prosecuted as attempted murder as one of the things I was taught in every firearms course I have ever had (4 different ones) is never point a firearm at something you don't intend to shoot.