Bullsh1t. Sorry, but most of your points are baloney.
"Books are very expensive in poor countries. In many of them the government assumes the cost of production and distribution of books for primary education since the population could not afford them otherwise." Tell you what, how about we provide them with the MILLIONS of books disposed of every year in this country, as textbooks are 'upgraded' and districts (waste) $millions in upgrading to the newest version.
"If each child had a cheap laptop the books could be distributed electronically, saving millions that could be put to other uses in the educational system." Really? And next you'll tell me that textbook prices are all about the cost of the paper? HAHAAHHAAHA. Here's a tip: compare the cost of a truckload of textbooks (what, let's say only $30/book * 8000 books a shipment = $240,000) vs. the transport cost of those books (let's assume a ridiculously long transport for books - 1000 miles, or about $3000 trucking)....slightly over 1% in transport costs.
"But something else elitist people in this website forget is that having a computer with access to the Internet is really an equalizer in terms of access to knowledge and the world economy." Again, nonsense.
"Many children would be able to learn English and other languages by browsing the Internet (heck, many did so by watching Sesame Street on cable TV, the Internet is vastly superior on this regard), all children would have access to dictionaries and encyclopaedias, both items they would never see otherwise." They can learn English and better reading skills from books and last time I checked, there was no need to have electrical power for a book. And already-sophisticated media consumers have enough trouble discerning news from opinion; all you're going to do is offer the zealots and evangelists of this world more rubes to manipulate.
"And of course they would be computer literate, which is a competitive disadvantage they will have to deal with: workers in other countries are raise with computers around them, people in poor countries may never have seen a computer before they are 18, so they start disadvantages when they go into University or looking for a job." Do you seriously think Nigerian Child 1 or Pakistani Child 2 are competing for jobs with German Child 3 or Japanese Child 4? Here's a tip: MOST of the jobs south of the Tropic of Cancer (and a goodly chunk of the jobs north of it) involve backbreaking amounts of labor, filthy working conditions, and probably never even SEE a computer in a years' time, much less need to use one.
"In an era where pretty much any job requires computer literacy it is a huge disadvantage not to be familiar with the basics of how a computer works." The naivete of this statement is staggering, but is a good example of the fundamental MISperception that started the stupid idea rolling in the first place. Yes, if you live in the white, western world and either work in an office or academia, you might be able to get through life not understanding the veritable LEGIONS of people whose sweat supports your lifestyle. Construction, shipping, food, agriculture, (the examples continue) are career fields in our developed economies that STILL require the bulk of workers to perform hand labor and utterly do NOT require computer literacy.
I'm still stunned by how little of the world you must encounter.
The only reasonable way to test your hypothesis would be to actually STICK a hippy in a microwave. Better still for an adequate statistical sample, perhaps 100 would be better. Then, maybe another 100 with their Orgone generators and see if there is a different result.
Look, there are many, many things that we could spend our resources on that would greatly improve the lives of children everywhere.
Giving them each a laptop is about 364th on the list. Somehow they are magically supposed to be able to participate in the 'new economy' as long as they can connect to the web? WTF?
Watch Born Into Brothels. Then tell me that the first thing we need to do is to work to get then LAPTOPS. Jesus.
"I accept the fact that I don't have the ability to be tossed into the wild and survive. I don't need to. Moreover, I don't WANT to. Why would I want to spend most of my day worrying about where my next meal is going to come from, or providing for basic safety?"
Seconded. If nothing else, one of the great lessons Boy Scouts teaches by repeated and extended campouts is that: - cooking in primitive conditions is difficult and time-consuming (and this is when all the food's already been gathered/prepared) - getting good rest is critical (and this is in entirely safe places) - simply BEING DRY for any length of time is nigh unto heaven.
I don't really like camping anymore. I'm glad I did it a lot, and have some fundamental skill sets if I ever need them. But as a negative lesson illustrating the simple values of shelter and a place to sleep, it's unparalleled.
I just got a Roku for Xmas, and I'm quite pleased with it.
Frankly, I prefer my hardware modular. I understand the appeal of having "all in one" boxes, but if I have a DVD player, and a monitor, I'd rather they be SEPARATE (at least insofar as the separation doesn't impair quality) so I can upgrade/replace parts as needed.
And FWIW: "...Netflix's streaming service taps a library of 12,000 titles..." of which about 11,900 are truly SUCKY MOVIES.
Most of the good ones are STARZ-licensed, meaning they are only available for as long as they are up on the STARZ network, meaning a handful of months at most.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Netflix, and I really like Roku (lots of good TV stuff there), but don't for a minute think 12,000 movies means anything close to 12,000 GOOD movies you want to watch.
Let's see... Significant portion of entire post in CAPITAL LETTERS... $0.00. Liberal use of boldface, including aforementioned capital letters... $0.00. Seven sentences, six exclamation points... $0.00.
The delicious irony of this post pointing out that someone (else) takes themselves way too seriously? PRICELESS!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and expect that there might be a 'friend of the court' brief filed by Blizzard, stating quite clearly that a certain 900lb gorilla believes this is a load of crap.
...so in the same vein I'm sure you guys are all over the SIXTY people alleged to have died because of their association with the Clintons, right? I mean, that's TEN TIMES your puny '6'.
"Why do you care?" That's probably the most insightful question asked in any of the responses I got to my post.
I care because both parties have shown themselves willing to tear up the Constitution wholesale when it suits them. Bush on a number of issues over the past 8 years, and this would be proof (to me) that the Left and the bastions of Political-Correctness would be willing to hand the presidency over to someone just to ameliorate their pervasive white guilt.
To some, he looks like the the 'great American success story'. To me, I simply wonder how likely it is that the son of a globetrotting tramp (I mean, c'mon have you seen his family history?) can *somehow* manage to scrape together the serious $$ to go to Harvard, and then weasel his way up in the MOST CORRUPT POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT since Tammany Hall, be selected as the 'great white hope' in 2004 when he's barely even a senator (you don't think it was coincidence he got the PRIME speech of the Kerry convention, did you?), be thoughtful enough to write a book before he even was anything significant, and then manage to overrun one of the most powerful political machines (the Clintons) the Dems have seen since Kennedy?
Sure, he could be on a mission from God. I suppose that's possible.
I don't gain anything from questioning his glory. In fact, I get a lot of quite wonderful comments from his supporters describing in detail what a horrible human being I am for even doubting him. So if you ask 'what does he get out of this?', ask yourself as well, 'why is he willing to put up with this if the evidence seems so flimsy?'.
"After all, we know who his mother and grandmother are, and we know they are natural born citizens. By definition, if either of your parents are US citizens, you are a natural born citizen." Absolutely correct. Except US law at the time stated very clearly that IF a child was born to one American and one non-American parent, they would 'inherit' US citizenship only if the American had resided in the US for 10 years previously. This was to prevent people scurrying into the US, getting preggers, and handing citizenship automagically to their kids.
It was the law at the time.
Subsequently, Obama carried an INDONESIAN passport when he visited Pakistan...Indonesia didn't recognize dual-citizenship at the time either. Finally, I seem to recall that he also certified that he was either Indonesian or Kenyan as 'citizenship' for the receipt of scholarships at Harvard.
At what point does the evidence begin to cause you to question the 'canon'?
Except for the fact - fact, mind you - that both his grandmother, and the Kenyan government INSIST he was born in Kenya. She claims she was there when he was born. I believe (but am not certain) there's also a half brother and half sister that claim the same.
He simply needs to produce a valid (not digitally-edited) birth certificate from Hawaii to prove the wingnuts TOTALLY wrong, so why doesn't he? The only documentation he's provided is a certificate of live birth, dated DAYS after his birth.
"Barack Obama Is One Step Closer To Being President"
Now if he can just clear that pesky 'American Citizenship' requirement.
AFAIK, McCain's citizenship was initially also questioned, but was resolved within a week when the McCain campaign released all relevant documents. Sadly, the Obama campaign has refused to do so, I genuinely don't know why. They don't want to credit the wingnuts with a response? True, I could understand that, but when there remain a number of valid questions about Obama's claimed citizenship, I'd hope that everyone would want to put these questions to rest ASAP:
- According to Obama's Kenyan Grandmother, and the Kenyan government, he was born in Kenya. Multiple other sources point to two different Hawaiian hospitals, and the campaign-supplied certificate has serious questions as to its provenance. - The circumstances of his mother's precise status (wherever he happened to be born) and her ability to legally transfer citizenship to her son based on the law at the time of his birth, are certainly muddled. - Subsequent questions of his claimed citizenship also shadow the discussion: what was his own claimed citizenship while he attended Harvard? When he traveled to Pakistan in 1981, he is recorded as having an Indonesian passport...a country which didn't allow dual citizenship.
And for those who'll aggressively mod me down 'troll' because they disagree, censorship != winning a debate. As Harvey Krumpet might point out: "fakt 48: fakts still exist even if they are ignored "
...sadly, I think many slashdotters are going to be disappointed as NASA funding under Obama takes a backseat to a number of other programs that are targeted at much larger domestic constituencies.
Believe me, I don't disagree with you - I think it's an idiotic hyperextension of already-absurd political correctness. I'm just wondering aloud if this is their way to get around that by saying that 'nobody can have anything on their face' thus making it not solely a muslim/nonmuslim issue.
"For god's sake, what is so difficult about learning the definition of the word "irony"?"
irony Definition irony (r n, r n) noun pl. ironies -nies
1.
1. a method of humorous or subtly sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words is the direct opposite of their usual sense the irony of calling a stupid plan "clever"
2. an instance of this
2. the contrast, as in a play, between what a character thinks the truth is, as revealed in a speech or action, and what an audience or reader knows the truth to be
often dramatic irony 3. a combination of circumstances or a result that is the opposite of what is or might be expected or considered appropriate an irony that the firehouse burned
4.
1. a cool, detached attitude of mind, characterized by recognition of the incongruities and complexities of experience
2. the expression of such an attitude in a literary work
5. the feigning of ignorance in argument: often called Socratic irony (after Socrates' use of this tactic in Plato's Dialogues)
Example: "It's ironic the Anonymous Coward posting about knowing the meaning of 'irony' apparently didn't know what it meant, but then again he was probably looking up the meaning of 'rhetorical'."
Or is this ACTUALLY a circuitous way to fight the tide of court rulings allowing people (muslim women) to wear a full hijab(?) on ID pictures, revealing only pretty much their eyes, on the grounds that their religion prohibits them from displaying more of their faces?
"Wikipedia is nice, but most schools are (rightfully) banning it." Your editorialization provides a perfect jumping-off point for discussing why I think you're so very wrong.
Let's start by recognizing that the internet - particularly to those under-20's - is no longer a novelty item. More likely than not, it's going to be their PRIMARY source for information; most grade-schoolers I know would find any information FAR more quickly with google than in a library. (Me being 41, there's something that feels very wrong with that...)
Yet what do schools do? They BAN the use of Wikipedia. This is simply absurd. In the first place, the huge bulk of factual information there is perfectly accurate, and presented with no more inherent bias than that presented in the Encyclopedia Britannica. President Garfield's birthplace? The wavelengths of visible light? Not a lot of controversy there, thus the information is fairly reliable.
But more importantly, when we're talking about an information source (the internet) which will so obviously and universally be used, wouldn't it perhaps make more sense to DEAL with it as a possible learning opportunity?
Perhaps explore WHY Wikipedia is or isn't reliable? Is there a way to tell which subjects are/aren't factually dependable? Perhaps a creative teacher could expand the discussion into the internet generally, and analyze the various 'classes' of information one can find out there, discussing the interpretation of 'facts' as presented by blogs, by forum sites like DailyKOS or Littlegreenfootballs, by amateur newsies like Drudge or Wonkette, or even the value of news as presented by professional media organizations like NYT, MSNBC or Fox? (I'd even include the Onion and Jon Stewart as relevant too.)
Or go even further, and explore critical thinking, critical reading, and the value of multiple source review in ALL media - newspaper, radio, magazines, tv, and books. Is the information presented in your local paper more or less reliable than at Reuters.com? Why or why not?
Yeah, I guess you're right. There's no POSSIBLE value in using Wiki as a source; better to just ban it and hope the kids just go back to using the tattered encyclopedias in the media center that the district paid so much for.
"Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before prohibition, which tempered their fears..." I'd have to say this statement is patently false.
Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before Prohibition, which made it terrifying. Some people perhaps believe that the Temperance movement was just a bunch of stern-faced moralists who 'got off' on the idea of circumscribing peoples' freedoms or just enjoyed being repressive.
Hardly.
The pre-Prohibition world was poisoned by alcohol. The pervasive use of spirits was destroying society from the bottom up. Remember, there were no 'minimum drinking age's in those times; in some communities it was not uncommon to see 8- and 9-year-olds passed out like winos in alleys. Largely a male problem, it inspired mostly women to try to do SOMETHING to stop their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers from killing themselves slowly.
So while we all chuckle at how naive the 'Prohibitionists' were, we generally do so from a position of total ignorance at HOW BAD the problem really was before 1920. Further, most people today are in almost complete ignorance at the very necessary post-Prohibition compromises that probably would have been impossible to emplace without Prohibition in the first place.
One might draw a parallel to today's 'legalize pot' crusaders, who may have been unsuccessful partly because they likewise trivialize and mischaracterize the very real concerns expressed by mainstream adults on the other side of the issue.
For my own point of view, I personally don't have any problem with broad legalization of a wide range of narcotics - people, as self-aware adults, should have the freedom to destroy themselves if they want. Simultaneously, however, I'd like to see DRACONIAN, brutal penalties for dealing to children or for being cognitively impaired in situations where your condition could harm others, like driving.* * I'd say that this should be far worse than today's drunk-driving laws, and should equally apply to alcohol.
"And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys. It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminized genitals. "
Democrat wins by increasing margins in 2006 and 2008.
"...an innovator in the use of statistical graphics..." Really? I'd have said that she was an innovator in the use of statistical graphics to MISLEAD and 'spin' her data to enhance what she wanted to show (so in that sense, I guess she was in fact ahead of her time, the foremother of all crappy powerpoint presentations).
Why do I malign such a wonderful woman? Because her presentation is misleading and not so terribly well-presented in terms of either accuracy or simplicity.
1) while the method of graphing the data is perhaps novel in it's way of advancing over time, it's NOT USEFUL. It's finite - once you've determined the proportion each pie piece is of the circumference, that's it. If your pie pieces are going to each be 30 degrees, you get 12 data points, and that's IT...have a 13th point? Sorry, need to start another roundel (or whatever it's called) subsecting the data in ways that are at least hard to interpret and possibly misleading. 2) circular (area) presentations of linear data should always make the viewer suspicious, and this is no exception. Circular data emphasizes change in disproportional ways, as recognized and explained perfectly by Tufte. For example if you're showing your information as 'circles of relative size' but your data is implemented as the diameter of those circles, a simple doubling of the diameter actually increases the AREA of the circles (what your eye instinctively recognizes) by FOUR. So if you want to mislead people that a small increase really 'feels' quite a bit larger, circular graphs are the ticket. This is precisely what FN did here. Her goal was to show the HUGE number of 'preventable' deaths, and she did this in two ways: first, she chose the circular-presentation which exaggerates increases by ballooning the area disproportionally to the actual numeric increase. Secondly, she even further stacked the graphs, pushing preventables out to the circumference of the circle, further exaggerating the numbers because they were then stacked ATOP the death data, sneakily increasing the radius (and thus the displayed 'area') even if preventables did NOT increase.
She obviously had the best of intentions, but let's recognize this 'graph' for what it is: a very clever presentation of highly massaged data to induce an administrator to come to the conclusion desired. It's propaganda, nothing more. Well intentioned, but still propaganda.
So clearly, she's not simply the mother of the Red Cross, but the ancestor of all modern hatable powerpoint quackery to the present day.
Slashdot Mirror
Bullsh1t. Sorry, but most of your points are baloney.
"Books are very expensive in poor countries. In many of them the government assumes the cost of production and distribution of books for primary education since the population could not afford them otherwise."
Tell you what, how about we provide them with the MILLIONS of books disposed of every year in this country, as textbooks are 'upgraded' and districts (waste) $millions in upgrading to the newest version.
"If each child had a cheap laptop the books could be distributed electronically, saving millions that could be put to other uses in the educational system."
Really? And next you'll tell me that textbook prices are all about the cost of the paper? HAHAAHHAAHA. Here's a tip: compare the cost of a truckload of textbooks (what, let's say only $30/book * 8000 books a shipment = $240,000) vs. the transport cost of those books (let's assume a ridiculously long transport for books - 1000 miles, or about $3000 trucking)....slightly over 1% in transport costs.
"But something else elitist people in this website forget is that having a computer with access to the Internet is really an equalizer in terms of access to knowledge and the world economy."
Again, nonsense.
"Many children would be able to learn English and other languages by browsing the Internet (heck, many did so by watching Sesame Street on cable TV, the Internet is vastly superior on this regard), all children would have access to dictionaries and encyclopaedias, both items they would never see otherwise."
They can learn English and better reading skills from books and last time I checked, there was no need to have electrical power for a book. And already-sophisticated media consumers have enough trouble discerning news from opinion; all you're going to do is offer the zealots and evangelists of this world more rubes to manipulate.
"And of course they would be computer literate, which is a competitive disadvantage they will have to deal with: workers in other countries are raise with computers around them, people in poor countries may never have seen a computer before they are 18, so they start disadvantages when they go into University or looking for a job."
Do you seriously think Nigerian Child 1 or Pakistani Child 2 are competing for jobs with German Child 3 or Japanese Child 4? Here's a tip: MOST of the jobs south of the Tropic of Cancer (and a goodly chunk of the jobs north of it) involve backbreaking amounts of labor, filthy working conditions, and probably never even SEE a computer in a years' time, much less need to use one.
"In an era where pretty much any job requires computer literacy it is a huge disadvantage not to be familiar with the basics of how a computer works."
The naivete of this statement is staggering, but is a good example of the fundamental MISperception that started the stupid idea rolling in the first place. Yes, if you live in the white, western world and either work in an office or academia, you might be able to get through life not understanding the veritable LEGIONS of people whose sweat supports your lifestyle. Construction, shipping, food, agriculture, (the examples continue) are career fields in our developed economies that STILL require the bulk of workers to perform hand labor and utterly do NOT require computer literacy.
I'm still stunned by how little of the world you must encounter.
The only reasonable way to test your hypothesis would be to actually STICK a hippy in a microwave. Better still for an adequate statistical sample, perhaps 100 would be better. Then, maybe another 100 with their Orgone generators and see if there is a different result.
It's really a no-lose experiment.
Look, there are many, many things that we could spend our resources on that would greatly improve the lives of children everywhere.
Giving them each a laptop is about 364th on the list. Somehow they are magically supposed to be able to participate in the 'new economy' as long as they can connect to the web? WTF?
Watch Born Into Brothels. Then tell me that the first thing we need to do is to work to get then LAPTOPS. Jesus.
"I accept the fact that I don't have the ability to be tossed into the wild and survive. I don't need to. Moreover, I don't WANT to. Why would I want to spend most of my day worrying about where my next meal is going to come from, or providing for basic safety?"
Seconded. If nothing else, one of the great lessons Boy Scouts teaches by repeated and extended campouts is that:
- cooking in primitive conditions is difficult and time-consuming (and this is when all the food's already been gathered/prepared)
- getting good rest is critical (and this is in entirely safe places)
- simply BEING DRY for any length of time is nigh unto heaven.
I don't really like camping anymore. I'm glad I did it a lot, and have some fundamental skill sets if I ever need them. But as a negative lesson illustrating the simple values of shelter and a place to sleep, it's unparalleled.
I just got a Roku for Xmas, and I'm quite pleased with it.
Frankly, I prefer my hardware modular. I understand the appeal of having "all in one" boxes, but if I have a DVD player, and a monitor, I'd rather they be SEPARATE (at least insofar as the separation doesn't impair quality) so I can upgrade/replace parts as needed.
And FWIW: "...Netflix's streaming service taps a library of 12,000 titles..." of which about 11,900 are truly SUCKY MOVIES.
Most of the good ones are STARZ-licensed, meaning they are only available for as long as they are up on the STARZ network, meaning a handful of months at most.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Netflix, and I really like Roku (lots of good TV stuff there), but don't for a minute think 12,000 movies means anything close to 12,000 GOOD movies you want to watch.
Let's see... ... $0.00. ... $0.00. ... $0.00.
Significant portion of entire post in CAPITAL LETTERS
Liberal use of boldface, including aforementioned capital letters
Seven sentences, six exclamation points
The delicious irony of this post pointing out that someone (else) takes themselves way too seriously? PRICELESS!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and expect that there might be a 'friend of the court' brief filed by Blizzard, stating quite clearly that a certain 900lb gorilla believes this is a load of crap.
...so in the same vein I'm sure you guys are all over the SIXTY people alleged to have died because of their association with the Clintons, right? I mean, that's TEN TIMES your puny '6'.
http://www.clintonmemoriallibrary.com/clintbodycnt.html
In point of fact, they are BOTH wingnut political tinfoil hattery. But hey, don't let me interrupt.
You're awesome, thank you.
Only on slashdot would pointing out grossly obvious tinfoil-hattery be considered an 'ad hominem' attack.
- fact: plane crashed
- fact: cause for the crash is undetermined.
- everything else: guesses
Didn't one of the guys who flew around the world also just die in a light plane crash? That was presumably sabotage too?
New slogan:
Slashdot "The closest thing to straight reporting..." - why would we care? And if you suggest we care, I'm going to take it as a personal insult.
I'm amazed that you're functionally unable to give Bush's administration credit for anything good, no matter how trivial.
Get over your pathological hatred of George Bush, please - you won.
"Why do you care?"
That's probably the most insightful question asked in any of the responses I got to my post.
I care because both parties have shown themselves willing to tear up the Constitution wholesale when it suits them. Bush on a number of issues over the past 8 years, and this would be proof (to me) that the Left and the bastions of Political-Correctness would be willing to hand the presidency over to someone just to ameliorate their pervasive white guilt.
To some, he looks like the the 'great American success story'.
To me, I simply wonder how likely it is that the son of a globetrotting tramp (I mean, c'mon have you seen his family history?) can *somehow* manage to scrape together the serious $$ to go to Harvard, and then weasel his way up in the MOST CORRUPT POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT since Tammany Hall, be selected as the 'great white hope' in 2004 when he's barely even a senator (you don't think it was coincidence he got the PRIME speech of the Kerry convention, did you?), be thoughtful enough to write a book before he even was anything significant, and then manage to overrun one of the most powerful political machines (the Clintons) the Dems have seen since Kennedy?
Sure, he could be on a mission from God. I suppose that's possible.
I don't gain anything from questioning his glory. In fact, I get a lot of quite wonderful comments from his supporters describing in detail what a horrible human being I am for even doubting him. So if you ask 'what does he get out of this?', ask yourself as well, 'why is he willing to put up with this if the evidence seems so flimsy?'.
Again, that's simply ignorance talking.
"After all, we know who his mother and grandmother are, and we know they are natural born citizens. By definition, if either of your parents are US citizens, you are a natural born citizen."
Absolutely correct. Except US law at the time stated very clearly that IF a child was born to one American and one non-American parent, they would 'inherit' US citizenship only if the American had resided in the US for 10 years previously. This was to prevent people scurrying into the US, getting preggers, and handing citizenship automagically to their kids.
It was the law at the time.
Subsequently, Obama carried an INDONESIAN passport when he visited Pakistan...Indonesia didn't recognize dual-citizenship at the time either.
Finally, I seem to recall that he also certified that he was either Indonesian or Kenyan as 'citizenship' for the receipt of scholarships at Harvard.
At what point does the evidence begin to cause you to question the 'canon'?
Except for the fact - fact, mind you - that both his grandmother, and the Kenyan government INSIST he was born in Kenya. She claims she was there when he was born. I believe (but am not certain) there's also a half brother and half sister that claim the same.
He simply needs to produce a valid (not digitally-edited) birth certificate from Hawaii to prove the wingnuts TOTALLY wrong, so why doesn't he?
The only documentation he's provided is a certificate of live birth, dated DAYS after his birth.
"Barack Obama Is One Step Closer To Being President"
Now if he can just clear that pesky 'American Citizenship' requirement.
AFAIK, McCain's citizenship was initially also questioned, but was resolved within a week when the McCain campaign released all relevant documents. Sadly, the Obama campaign has refused to do so, I genuinely don't know why. They don't want to credit the wingnuts with a response? True, I could understand that, but when there remain a number of valid questions about Obama's claimed citizenship, I'd hope that everyone would want to put these questions to rest ASAP:
- According to Obama's Kenyan Grandmother, and the Kenyan government, he was born in Kenya. Multiple other sources point to two different Hawaiian hospitals, and the campaign-supplied certificate has serious questions as to its provenance.
- The circumstances of his mother's precise status (wherever he happened to be born) and her ability to legally transfer citizenship to her son based on the law at the time of his birth, are certainly muddled.
- Subsequent questions of his claimed citizenship also shadow the discussion: what was his own claimed citizenship while he attended Harvard? When he traveled to Pakistan in 1981, he is recorded as having an Indonesian passport...a country which didn't allow dual citizenship.
And for those who'll aggressively mod me down 'troll' because they disagree, censorship != winning a debate. As Harvey Krumpet might point out: "fakt 48: fakts still exist even if they are ignored "
...sadly, I think many slashdotters are going to be disappointed as NASA funding under Obama takes a backseat to a number of other programs that are targeted at much larger domestic constituencies.
Note, it DOESN'T have sex. Ergo, "wife" not "girlfriend".
Believe me, I don't disagree with you - I think it's an idiotic hyperextension of already-absurd political correctness. I'm just wondering aloud if this is their way to get around that by saying that 'nobody can have anything on their face' thus making it not solely a muslim/nonmuslim issue.
"For god's sake, what is so difficult about learning the definition of the word "irony"?"
irony Definition
irony (r n, r n)
noun pl. ironies -nies
1.
1. a method of humorous or subtly sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words is the direct opposite of their usual sense the irony of calling a stupid plan "clever"
2. an instance of this
2. the contrast, as in a play, between what a character thinks the truth is, as revealed in a speech or action, and what an audience or reader knows the truth to be
often dramatic irony
3. a combination of circumstances or a result that is the opposite of what is or might be expected or considered appropriate an irony that the firehouse burned
4.
1. a cool, detached attitude of mind, characterized by recognition of the incongruities and complexities of experience
2. the expression of such an attitude in a literary work
5. the feigning of ignorance in argument: often called Socratic irony (after Socrates' use of this tactic in Plato's Dialogues)
Example: "It's ironic the Anonymous Coward posting about knowing the meaning of 'irony' apparently didn't know what it meant, but then again he was probably looking up the meaning of 'rhetorical'."
What about religious garb?
Or is this ACTUALLY a circuitous way to fight the tide of court rulings allowing people (muslim women) to wear a full hijab(?) on ID pictures, revealing only pretty much their eyes, on the grounds that their religion prohibits them from displaying more of their faces?
Is it ironic that this doesn't work in Chrome?
"Wikipedia is nice, but most schools are (rightfully) banning it."
Your editorialization provides a perfect jumping-off point for discussing why I think you're so very wrong.
Let's start by recognizing that the internet - particularly to those under-20's - is no longer a novelty item. More likely than not, it's going to be their PRIMARY source for information; most grade-schoolers I know would find any information FAR more quickly with google than in a library. (Me being 41, there's something that feels very wrong with that...)
Yet what do schools do? They BAN the use of Wikipedia. This is simply absurd. In the first place, the huge bulk of factual information there is perfectly accurate, and presented with no more inherent bias than that presented in the Encyclopedia Britannica. President Garfield's birthplace? The wavelengths of visible light? Not a lot of controversy there, thus the information is fairly reliable.
But more importantly, when we're talking about an information source (the internet) which will so obviously and universally be used, wouldn't it perhaps make more sense to DEAL with it as a possible learning opportunity?
Perhaps explore WHY Wikipedia is or isn't reliable? Is there a way to tell which subjects are/aren't factually dependable? Perhaps a creative teacher could expand the discussion into the internet generally, and analyze the various 'classes' of information one can find out there, discussing the interpretation of 'facts' as presented by blogs, by forum sites like DailyKOS or Littlegreenfootballs, by amateur newsies like Drudge or Wonkette, or even the value of news as presented by professional media organizations like NYT, MSNBC or Fox? (I'd even include the Onion and Jon Stewart as relevant too.)
Or go even further, and explore critical thinking, critical reading, and the value of multiple source review in ALL media - newspaper, radio, magazines, tv, and books. Is the information presented in your local paper more or less reliable than at Reuters.com? Why or why not?
Yeah, I guess you're right. There's no POSSIBLE value in using Wiki as a source; better to just ban it and hope the kids just go back to using the tattered encyclopedias in the media center that the district paid so much for.
"Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before prohibition, which tempered their fears..."
I'd have to say this statement is patently false.
Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before Prohibition, which made it terrifying.
Some people perhaps believe that the Temperance movement was just a bunch of stern-faced moralists who 'got off' on the idea of circumscribing peoples' freedoms or just enjoyed being repressive.
Hardly.
The pre-Prohibition world was poisoned by alcohol. The pervasive use of spirits was destroying society from the bottom up. Remember, there were no 'minimum drinking age's in those times; in some communities it was not uncommon to see 8- and 9-year-olds passed out like winos in alleys. Largely a male problem, it inspired mostly women to try to do SOMETHING to stop their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers from killing themselves slowly.
So while we all chuckle at how naive the 'Prohibitionists' were, we generally do so from a position of total ignorance at HOW BAD the problem really was before 1920. Further, most people today are in almost complete ignorance at the very necessary post-Prohibition compromises that probably would have been impossible to emplace without Prohibition in the first place.
One might draw a parallel to today's 'legalize pot' crusaders, who may have been unsuccessful partly because they likewise trivialize and mischaracterize the very real concerns expressed by mainstream adults on the other side of the issue.
For my own point of view, I personally don't have any problem with broad legalization of a wide range of narcotics - people, as self-aware adults, should have the freedom to destroy themselves if they want. Simultaneously, however, I'd like to see DRACONIAN, brutal penalties for dealing to children or for being cognitively impaired in situations where your condition could harm others, like driving.*
* I'd say that this should be far worse than today's drunk-driving laws, and should equally apply to alcohol.
"And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys. It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminized genitals. "
Democrat wins by increasing margins in 2006 and 2008.
Coincidence?
Maybe it's considered a really really late-term abortion device?
"...an innovator in the use of statistical graphics..."
Really? I'd have said that she was an innovator in the use of statistical graphics to MISLEAD and 'spin' her data to enhance what she wanted to show (so in that sense, I guess she was in fact ahead of her time, the foremother of all crappy powerpoint presentations).
Why do I malign such a wonderful woman? Because her presentation is misleading and not so terribly well-presented in terms of either accuracy or simplicity.
1) while the method of graphing the data is perhaps novel in it's way of advancing over time, it's NOT USEFUL. It's finite - once you've determined the proportion each pie piece is of the circumference, that's it. If your pie pieces are going to each be 30 degrees, you get 12 data points, and that's IT...have a 13th point? Sorry, need to start another roundel (or whatever it's called) subsecting the data in ways that are at least hard to interpret and possibly misleading.
2) circular (area) presentations of linear data should always make the viewer suspicious, and this is no exception. Circular data emphasizes change in disproportional ways, as recognized and explained perfectly by Tufte. For example if you're showing your information as 'circles of relative size' but your data is implemented as the diameter of those circles, a simple doubling of the diameter actually increases the AREA of the circles (what your eye instinctively recognizes) by FOUR. So if you want to mislead people that a small increase really 'feels' quite a bit larger, circular graphs are the ticket. This is precisely what FN did here. Her goal was to show the HUGE number of 'preventable' deaths, and she did this in two ways: first, she chose the circular-presentation which exaggerates increases by ballooning the area disproportionally to the actual numeric increase. Secondly, she even further stacked the graphs, pushing preventables out to the circumference of the circle, further exaggerating the numbers because they were then stacked ATOP the death data, sneakily increasing the radius (and thus the displayed 'area') even if preventables did NOT increase.
She obviously had the best of intentions, but let's recognize this 'graph' for what it is: a very clever presentation of highly massaged data to induce an administrator to come to the conclusion desired. It's propaganda, nothing more. Well intentioned, but still propaganda.
So clearly, she's not simply the mother of the Red Cross, but the ancestor of all modern hatable powerpoint quackery to the present day.