Sadly, what we're getting is a big push by politicians for Charter schools. These are schools owned by businesses which function like private schools (they get to set their teacher hiring requirements and can accept/reject students based on anything they like) but are funded from the public school budget. They wind up draining the public school coffers and funneling the money to businesses instead of to students (through a good education).
And yet politicians keep pushing for more of these. Lobbying dollars talk.
It's worse than that, even. In a claimed attempt to "catch up", politicians and business leaders developed "Common Core" - a set a principals that all schools should go by. Notice I didn't say educators. They weren't allowed to work on this. After all, this would kill the "teachers are to blame" notion that politicians/business leaders have been pushing for years.
Now, with Common Core, we are paying big companies like Pearson millions of dollars to design curriculum that teachers MUST adhere to and paying them millions more to give horrible standardized tests to our kids. Normally, tests help teachers gauge how good students are doing and where they need help. These tests, however, are sealed. Neither teachers nor parents are allowed to see them. Results are posted the following year (after the kids are with different teachers) but the results dictate whether the teachers get to keep their jobs. So teachers have a strong incentive to teach ONLY what is on the test and focus on test preparation. If it's not on the test (Math and English), it doesn't get taught or somehow gets "folded" into Math and English. (History has become a side-topic to teach during English. Science is a side-topic during Math.)
What if the schools keep failing? (As they likely will given that kids aren't really being taught anything well.) Well, businesses have an answer for that also: Charter schools. These are schools run by businesses, for profit, but using public school money. So the businesses open charter schools, get to choose which students they accept, get to hire anybody as their teachers (no degree or background in education required), and don't need to take those tests I mentioned before. Meanwhile, the public schools have LESS money, need to focus on tests MORE, and are left with all of the kids with special needs. So the public schools fail more and more charter schools take over. It's a win-win... for businesses and the politicians who get their lobbying money - not for the kids.
I think it's more than just PC gamers, but you're right about the power of the desktop and laptop PC being a limiting factor. I have a laptop that I got three years ago and it can still run every program I need it to run. Maybe I'll need to upgrade in a year or two, but that's in the far future as far as the computer market is concerned.
Contrast this with the early 90's when you'd get a new computer only to have a new, more powerful one come out and make you want to get it. Computers were the hot commodity and everyone wanted the latest and greatest. Now, they are seen as useful tools which are so powerful that even the low end products can handle the tasks most people need them for.
Add into the mix the fact that smartphones and tablets can handle the tasks that many people previously needed a computer for (e-mail, updating Facebook, etc) and it's easy to see why desktop computer manufacturers are seeing stalled sales. The market isn't dying, but it is reaching an equilibrium much lower than it was in its heyday.
I don't think you need a religious justification for people having rights. If that were the case, the US couldn't have people having any rights since we have a secular government. As much as the fundies would love to argue otherwise, we aren't a "Christian Nation." We're a nation made up of a lot of Christian people, but also a lot of Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Wiccans, and other various religious/non-religious types. Therefore, so as to not make any laws concerning religion (e.g. declare an official State Religion or require that all government workers say a prayer to Jesus Christ daily), our government is secular in nature.
Our rights are "naturally existing." You can read that as being "from God" or as being "the natural correct way things should be" depending on your personal preference. The government doesn't need to address WHERE the rights came from. It just needs to recognize that the rights are there and not get in the way of them.
The question is: Was it you pointing at the hidden food or was it the dog's powerful sense of smell that detected the food? If you have two overturned bowls, one hiding food, and you point to a random bowl, will the dog go to the bowl you point to or to the food bowl?
I remember first encountering this back in High School when I made a joke about Jehovah's Witnesses and someone in the class claimed to be a Jehovah's Witness. Whether they were or weren't, I realized that I had rationalized making fun of a group simply because they were "an other." Years later, on a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, I saw a piece that explained how Hitler approached the Jehovah's Witnesses and basically told them "sit quietly while we do this and you won't be harmed." They didn't feel they could morally do this and protested. Thanks to this, they were persecuted alongside Jews, Gypsies, etc. Those two experiences taught me that every "Other" group is comprised of individuals. Some are going to be bad, yes, but some are going to be good. I try my best not to assign labels to whole groups based on the actions of a few individuals. (Sadly, this is a lesson that my father didn't learn and I'm constantly rolling my eyes when he gets talking about how SOME GROUP is ruining America. It doesn't help that he listens to some particularly bad right-wing radio/TV commentators.)
I use a similar product called Password Safe. http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/ It lets you store your passwords in an encrypted file with a master password. It can also generate passwords for you (in a configurable manner so you can go from "p%qLr%&Vb9" to "+R0WeeDUck" to "PiGhtEdraN" and anywhere in between - and yes, those were Password Safe generated). There are also ports for Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Linux, etc: http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/relatedprojects.shtml All free and open source.
If you put your password file on a cloud drive (e.g. Google Drive), you can then access it using your smart phone anywhere you happen to be. Yes, there are security concerns with this, but this can also be a very useful feature to have.
Just to add one more element to the mix, Autism can often be marked by an inability to filter out noises and other sensory input. So the brain gets bombarded by input from all directions. Whereas neurotypical (those without Autism) can filter it out, those with Autism can feel like they are struggling to stay afloat in the sensory sea. People with Autism will often need time in a calm, low-sensory input environment to decompress after too much sensory input. (I know this both personally - I have Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism - and as a parent of a child with Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism.)
We've never had a UPS package stolen, but given the UPS drivers in our area, it's only a matter of time. The drivers, no matter how many times we complain, will put the package outside our front door and walk away. They don't ring the doorbell at all even when it's apparent that people are home. (Cars in the driveway, lights on, sounds coming from inside the house.) Luckily, we tend to track our packages and know approximately when they'll be delivered. Still, we've had packages that seemingly were outside for an hour or more before they were discovered. If the doorbell was rung, this would be minutes (if not seconds). Without the doorbell rung, someone could easily run up to our front door, grab the package, and drive off before we ever noticed.
Interestingly, FedEx doesn't seem to have this problem by us. Just UPS.
And the best thing about "local-scale censorship" is you get to decide what to censor. If you happen to think that the human body is fine to be viewed but violence is horrible, then you can ban violent sites and allow sites that show humans sans clothing. If you think that certain combinations of adult humans are abhorrent, you can block that from being viewed by you (or anyone else in your house). And so on. Meanwhile, other people with other ideas of what is fine to view and what isn't will view (or block) their own sites without affecting you.
If the censor-happy people really just didn't want to see the stuff that offends them, they'd install NetNanny (or a similar program) and be done. Instead, like you said, the mere existence of what offends them is what gets them upset. They don't care if you need to type in an address, confirm your age, sign up for an account using a credit card, pay a $10 monthly fee, and THEN get to see the offending content. The fact that a path exists to the content at all is horrible and MUST be stopped at all costs. Usually because they imagine a child innocently stumbling along the path - no matter how unlikely - and seeing the content. ("Then little Johnny mashed his fingers on the keyboard and just happened to enter our Discover Card number and expiration date.... If only the site was banned, he wouldn't have seen those nekkid women!")
There are many reasons not to buy from Wal-Mart. In our case, it's the fact that Wal-Mart supports business-backed, for-profit Charter schools which take money away from public schools.
The Times Union recently had a front page story on how the New York State Department of Education was selecting curriculum and programs like InBloom. There's a small, secretive group of private workers (not bound by state worker rules). They raise donations from big companies/individuals and set educational policy. One of their biggest donors? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Like that donation to the group setting the educational policy didn't result in InBloom being implemented at all.
And if they get one true thing and lump it in with a couple of made up things, the target can't deny it all without denying the true thing. Then, when the true item is proven to be true, everyone will just assume that the rest is true also.
Exactly. The people that the NSA claims to be targeting with programs like this believe that the US is a great evil. Do you think these people are going to believe a word that "an evil secret-spy organization within the great evil" says? This will do zero to reduce terrorism and is only a tool for political manipulation either foreign ("let us fly drones in your country or your people learn what websites you like looking at") or domestic ("stop opposing our agenda or we'll ruin your political career and/or life").
First off: Why would they need to prove it? Not in a sense of "proving it's true", but in a sense of "accomplishing their goal of discrediting the target."
NSA leaks Joe Radical's porn habits to FOX News. FOX reports on it. Joe denies it. CNN picks up the story. Joe still denies it. MSNBC does a story about the report from FOX News. ABC news does a story. The headline of every paper in the country starts asking What Was Joe Watching? Joe continues to deny it but by now his name has been inexorably linked to this scandal and he becomes a liability to his cause. Whether the initial report is true or not, he resigns and fades into oblivion. NSA Mission Accomplished.
(20 years later, he is exonerated when it is revealed that, due to a typo, the NSA search picked up browsing habits for Joe Dadical, not Joe Radical, but nobody really cares at this point and everyone remembers him as that pervert.)
Let's assume you could somehow magically solve the enforcement problem. It's still a horrible idea because now there's the question of who issues warnings. Would Spamhaus be the one to issue warnings? Would other, similar organizations get to issue warnings? What if one organization has a draconian view of what constitutes "spamming"? Do their warnings count the same as a group with a more lenient view? Would individual users issue warnings? How do you handle false positives? (Such as: User signs up for newsletter. User forgets signing up. User gets newsletter. User reports newsletter sender as being a spammer.)
This system would just be riddled with problems and - again, even magically solving the enforcement issue - would lend itself to corruption. (Group becomes a "certified spam reporter." Starts issuing warnings and then fines to groups that they disagree with. Or issues fines as a business plan.)
This is a horrible, horrible plan. The only good thing about it is that it is so completely unworkable in the real world that I don't see anyone actually pushing this into existence.
First, you tie your request to download Wikipedia to this pigeon's leg and let it fly off.
Next, you wait for the reply.
Finally, you load the reply into your computer.
NOTE: Reply will come in printed format - one article per pigeon. A few million pigeons may be required, but don't worry. We send them all at once to keep you from having to wait.
I think "committing suicide" and "physician assisted suicide" are two very different things. Committing suicide could just mean that the person suffers from depression and thinks that there's no hope. In actuality, there is. Depression lies and will make things seem much worse than they are. Letting people commit suicide in these circumstances is wrong. Help these people get through the depression instead of ending their lives. (NOTE: I think laws against suicide might be mostly useless, but the general attitude towards "committing suicide" should be "help the person get through it and live" not "sure, I'll help end your life because you're suffering from depression.")
In the case of Physician Assisted Suicide, you have a person who is in a medical situation where there is no hope. Beyond that, they are suffering immensely. This isn't a case of going to the doctor's for some mild headaches, finding out you have terminal brain cancer, and so saying "Ok, well just kill me now then." This is finding out you have terminal brain cancer, living your life the best you can until the disease gets to be too much to bear (due to pain, loss of mental functions, etc), and THEN you are given a dose of pain medication intended to end your life as painlessly as possible.
My wife's grandfather had Parkinson's. Slowly, over the years, he developed Dementia. So not only couldn't he move well on his own, but he began to forget people and events. One moment he'd be completely lucid. Another moment, he'd be telling me about events that happened thirty years ago as if it happened yesterday. His lucid moments got shorter and further apart until he didn't recognize anyone. His mind at this point was totally gone. He needed people to do everything for him: Feed him, change him, clean him, etc. Slowly, his body began to die. Emphasis on slowly. Over the course of months, he'd be "on the edge of death" only to pull back and then approach the edge again. For months we knew he was going to die. It was a 100% certainty. There was nothing that could be done to save him: Only to prolong his mind-less existence. Finally, he passed away.
It would have been easier on everyone involved had his loved ones (his wife, for example) been able to say "give him a lethal dose of pain killers and let him pass away in peace instead of suffering."
And if you really want to teach a religious creation myth in a public school, put it in a World History, Comparative Religions, or Philosophy class - preferably alongside some other creation myths so you can compare and contrast.
They also have double-standards when they say "teach creationism" because they want THEIR version of creationism taught and not an American Indian, Norse, Greek, Islamic, Wiccan, or any other creation myth.
Is a pair of double-standards called quadruple standards?
I can't speak to other religions, but Judaism has always equated wine with happiness. (Anyone who says Jews see wine as blood is just repeating centuries-old blood libel lies.) While it might frown on abusing alcohol, there's nothing that says alcohol is bad by nature. In fact, there's one holiday, Purim, where you get dressed up in costumes, give each other presents, and are religiously commanded to get drunk. (So drunk that you can't tell the difference between "Blessed is Mordechai" and "Cursed is Haman.") I think of it as Halloween, Christmas, and St. Patrick's Day all rolled into one.
Windows Phone is doing better than Blackberry at the moment. And given how Windows Phone is barely clinging to a fraction of marketshare, that's saying something. Blackberry is so bad at this point that a switch to Windows Phone would be an improvement!
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly, what we're getting is a big push by politicians for Charter schools. These are schools owned by businesses which function like private schools (they get to set their teacher hiring requirements and can accept/reject students based on anything they like) but are funded from the public school budget. They wind up draining the public school coffers and funneling the money to businesses instead of to students (through a good education).
And yet politicians keep pushing for more of these. Lobbying dollars talk.
It's worse than that, even. In a claimed attempt to "catch up", politicians and business leaders developed "Common Core" - a set a principals that all schools should go by. Notice I didn't say educators. They weren't allowed to work on this. After all, this would kill the "teachers are to blame" notion that politicians/business leaders have been pushing for years.
Now, with Common Core, we are paying big companies like Pearson millions of dollars to design curriculum that teachers MUST adhere to and paying them millions more to give horrible standardized tests to our kids. Normally, tests help teachers gauge how good students are doing and where they need help. These tests, however, are sealed. Neither teachers nor parents are allowed to see them. Results are posted the following year (after the kids are with different teachers) but the results dictate whether the teachers get to keep their jobs. So teachers have a strong incentive to teach ONLY what is on the test and focus on test preparation. If it's not on the test (Math and English), it doesn't get taught or somehow gets "folded" into Math and English. (History has become a side-topic to teach during English. Science is a side-topic during Math.)
What if the schools keep failing? (As they likely will given that kids aren't really being taught anything well.) Well, businesses have an answer for that also: Charter schools. These are schools run by businesses, for profit, but using public school money. So the businesses open charter schools, get to choose which students they accept, get to hire anybody as their teachers (no degree or background in education required), and don't need to take those tests I mentioned before. Meanwhile, the public schools have LESS money, need to focus on tests MORE, and are left with all of the kids with special needs. So the public schools fail more and more charter schools take over. It's a win-win... for businesses and the politicians who get their lobbying money - not for the kids.
I think it's more than just PC gamers, but you're right about the power of the desktop and laptop PC being a limiting factor. I have a laptop that I got three years ago and it can still run every program I need it to run. Maybe I'll need to upgrade in a year or two, but that's in the far future as far as the computer market is concerned.
Contrast this with the early 90's when you'd get a new computer only to have a new, more powerful one come out and make you want to get it. Computers were the hot commodity and everyone wanted the latest and greatest. Now, they are seen as useful tools which are so powerful that even the low end products can handle the tasks most people need them for.
Add into the mix the fact that smartphones and tablets can handle the tasks that many people previously needed a computer for (e-mail, updating Facebook, etc) and it's easy to see why desktop computer manufacturers are seeing stalled sales. The market isn't dying, but it is reaching an equilibrium much lower than it was in its heyday.
I don't think you need a religious justification for people having rights. If that were the case, the US couldn't have people having any rights since we have a secular government. As much as the fundies would love to argue otherwise, we aren't a "Christian Nation." We're a nation made up of a lot of Christian people, but also a lot of Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Wiccans, and other various religious/non-religious types. Therefore, so as to not make any laws concerning religion (e.g. declare an official State Religion or require that all government workers say a prayer to Jesus Christ daily), our government is secular in nature.
Our rights are "naturally existing." You can read that as being "from God" or as being "the natural correct way things should be" depending on your personal preference. The government doesn't need to address WHERE the rights came from. It just needs to recognize that the rights are there and not get in the way of them.
The question is: Was it you pointing at the hidden food or was it the dog's powerful sense of smell that detected the food? If you have two overturned bowls, one hiding food, and you point to a random bowl, will the dog go to the bowl you point to or to the food bowl?
I remember first encountering this back in High School when I made a joke about Jehovah's Witnesses and someone in the class claimed to be a Jehovah's Witness. Whether they were or weren't, I realized that I had rationalized making fun of a group simply because they were "an other." Years later, on a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, I saw a piece that explained how Hitler approached the Jehovah's Witnesses and basically told them "sit quietly while we do this and you won't be harmed." They didn't feel they could morally do this and protested. Thanks to this, they were persecuted alongside Jews, Gypsies, etc. Those two experiences taught me that every "Other" group is comprised of individuals. Some are going to be bad, yes, but some are going to be good. I try my best not to assign labels to whole groups based on the actions of a few individuals. (Sadly, this is a lesson that my father didn't learn and I'm constantly rolling my eyes when he gets talking about how SOME GROUP is ruining America. It doesn't help that he listens to some particularly bad right-wing radio/TV commentators.)
I use a similar product called Password Safe. http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/ It lets you store your passwords in an encrypted file with a master password. It can also generate passwords for you (in a configurable manner so you can go from "p%qLr%&Vb9" to "+R0WeeDUck" to "PiGhtEdraN" and anywhere in between - and yes, those were Password Safe generated). There are also ports for Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Linux, etc: http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/relatedprojects.shtml All free and open source.
If you put your password file on a cloud drive (e.g. Google Drive), you can then access it using your smart phone anywhere you happen to be. Yes, there are security concerns with this, but this can also be a very useful feature to have.
Just to add one more element to the mix, Autism can often be marked by an inability to filter out noises and other sensory input. So the brain gets bombarded by input from all directions. Whereas neurotypical (those without Autism) can filter it out, those with Autism can feel like they are struggling to stay afloat in the sensory sea. People with Autism will often need time in a calm, low-sensory input environment to decompress after too much sensory input. (I know this both personally - I have Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism - and as a parent of a child with Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism.)
We've never had a UPS package stolen, but given the UPS drivers in our area, it's only a matter of time. The drivers, no matter how many times we complain, will put the package outside our front door and walk away. They don't ring the doorbell at all even when it's apparent that people are home. (Cars in the driveway, lights on, sounds coming from inside the house.) Luckily, we tend to track our packages and know approximately when they'll be delivered. Still, we've had packages that seemingly were outside for an hour or more before they were discovered. If the doorbell was rung, this would be minutes (if not seconds). Without the doorbell rung, someone could easily run up to our front door, grab the package, and drive off before we ever noticed.
Interestingly, FedEx doesn't seem to have this problem by us. Just UPS.
And the best thing about "local-scale censorship" is you get to decide what to censor. If you happen to think that the human body is fine to be viewed but violence is horrible, then you can ban violent sites and allow sites that show humans sans clothing. If you think that certain combinations of adult humans are abhorrent, you can block that from being viewed by you (or anyone else in your house). And so on. Meanwhile, other people with other ideas of what is fine to view and what isn't will view (or block) their own sites without affecting you.
If the censor-happy people really just didn't want to see the stuff that offends them, they'd install NetNanny (or a similar program) and be done. Instead, like you said, the mere existence of what offends them is what gets them upset. They don't care if you need to type in an address, confirm your age, sign up for an account using a credit card, pay a $10 monthly fee, and THEN get to see the offending content. The fact that a path exists to the content at all is horrible and MUST be stopped at all costs. Usually because they imagine a child innocently stumbling along the path - no matter how unlikely - and seeing the content. ("Then little Johnny mashed his fingers on the keyboard and just happened to enter our Discover Card number and expiration date.... If only the site was banned, he wouldn't have seen those nekkid women!")
There are many reasons not to buy from Wal-Mart. In our case, it's the fact that Wal-Mart supports business-backed, for-profit Charter schools which take money away from public schools.
The Times Union recently had a front page story on how the New York State Department of Education was selecting curriculum and programs like InBloom. There's a small, secretive group of private workers (not bound by state worker rules). They raise donations from big companies/individuals and set educational policy. One of their biggest donors? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Like that donation to the group setting the educational policy didn't result in InBloom being implemented at all.
And if they get one true thing and lump it in with a couple of made up things, the target can't deny it all without denying the true thing. Then, when the true item is proven to be true, everyone will just assume that the rest is true also.
Exactly. The people that the NSA claims to be targeting with programs like this believe that the US is a great evil. Do you think these people are going to believe a word that "an evil secret-spy organization within the great evil" says? This will do zero to reduce terrorism and is only a tool for political manipulation either foreign ("let us fly drones in your country or your people learn what websites you like looking at") or domestic ("stop opposing our agenda or we'll ruin your political career and/or life").
What does it mean if the NSA is learning from our browsing history, then?
First off: Why would they need to prove it? Not in a sense of "proving it's true", but in a sense of "accomplishing their goal of discrediting the target."
NSA leaks Joe Radical's porn habits to FOX News.
FOX reports on it.
Joe denies it.
CNN picks up the story.
Joe still denies it.
MSNBC does a story about the report from FOX News. ABC news does a story. The headline of every paper in the country starts asking What Was Joe Watching?
Joe continues to deny it but by now his name has been inexorably linked to this scandal and he becomes a liability to his cause. Whether the initial report is true or not, he resigns and fades into oblivion.
NSA Mission Accomplished.
(20 years later, he is exonerated when it is revealed that, due to a typo, the NSA search picked up browsing habits for Joe Dadical, not Joe Radical, but nobody really cares at this point and everyone remembers him as that pervert.)
Let's assume you could somehow magically solve the enforcement problem. It's still a horrible idea because now there's the question of who issues warnings. Would Spamhaus be the one to issue warnings? Would other, similar organizations get to issue warnings? What if one organization has a draconian view of what constitutes "spamming"? Do their warnings count the same as a group with a more lenient view? Would individual users issue warnings? How do you handle false positives? (Such as: User signs up for newsletter. User forgets signing up. User gets newsletter. User reports newsletter sender as being a spammer.)
This system would just be riddled with problems and - again, even magically solving the enforcement issue - would lend itself to corruption. (Group becomes a "certified spam reporter." Starts issuing warnings and then fines to groups that they disagree with. Or issues fines as a business plan.)
This is a horrible, horrible plan. The only good thing about it is that it is so completely unworkable in the real world that I don't see anyone actually pushing this into existence.
First, you tie your request to download Wikipedia to this pigeon's leg and let it fly off.
Next, you wait for the reply.
Finally, you load the reply into your computer.
NOTE: Reply will come in printed format - one article per pigeon. A few million pigeons may be required, but don't worry. We send them all at once to keep you from having to wait.
I think "committing suicide" and "physician assisted suicide" are two very different things. Committing suicide could just mean that the person suffers from depression and thinks that there's no hope. In actuality, there is. Depression lies and will make things seem much worse than they are. Letting people commit suicide in these circumstances is wrong. Help these people get through the depression instead of ending their lives. (NOTE: I think laws against suicide might be mostly useless, but the general attitude towards "committing suicide" should be "help the person get through it and live" not "sure, I'll help end your life because you're suffering from depression.")
In the case of Physician Assisted Suicide, you have a person who is in a medical situation where there is no hope. Beyond that, they are suffering immensely. This isn't a case of going to the doctor's for some mild headaches, finding out you have terminal brain cancer, and so saying "Ok, well just kill me now then." This is finding out you have terminal brain cancer, living your life the best you can until the disease gets to be too much to bear (due to pain, loss of mental functions, etc), and THEN you are given a dose of pain medication intended to end your life as painlessly as possible.
The problem is: When do you stop being you?
My wife's grandfather had Parkinson's. Slowly, over the years, he developed Dementia. So not only couldn't he move well on his own, but he began to forget people and events. One moment he'd be completely lucid. Another moment, he'd be telling me about events that happened thirty years ago as if it happened yesterday. His lucid moments got shorter and further apart until he didn't recognize anyone. His mind at this point was totally gone. He needed people to do everything for him: Feed him, change him, clean him, etc. Slowly, his body began to die. Emphasis on slowly. Over the course of months, he'd be "on the edge of death" only to pull back and then approach the edge again. For months we knew he was going to die. It was a 100% certainty. There was nothing that could be done to save him: Only to prolong his mind-less existence. Finally, he passed away.
It would have been easier on everyone involved had his loved ones (his wife, for example) been able to say "give him a lethal dose of pain killers and let him pass away in peace instead of suffering."
And if you really want to teach a religious creation myth in a public school, put it in a World History, Comparative Religions, or Philosophy class - preferably alongside some other creation myths so you can compare and contrast.
God Codes All Life Using DNA?
They also have double-standards when they say "teach creationism" because they want THEIR version of creationism taught and not an American Indian, Norse, Greek, Islamic, Wiccan, or any other creation myth.
Is a pair of double-standards called quadruple standards?
I can't speak to other religions, but Judaism has always equated wine with happiness. (Anyone who says Jews see wine as blood is just repeating centuries-old blood libel lies.) While it might frown on abusing alcohol, there's nothing that says alcohol is bad by nature. In fact, there's one holiday, Purim, where you get dressed up in costumes, give each other presents, and are religiously commanded to get drunk. (So drunk that you can't tell the difference between "Blessed is Mordechai" and "Cursed is Haman.") I think of it as Halloween, Christmas, and St. Patrick's Day all rolled into one.
Windows Phone is doing better than Blackberry at the moment. And given how Windows Phone is barely clinging to a fraction of marketshare, that's saying something. Blackberry is so bad at this point that a switch to Windows Phone would be an improvement!