Today I went into Sam Goody and bought a CD. I was asked by the clerk if I wanted to reserve another artist's CD coming out next month! He was invading my privacy!
Or maybe not! Give me a break, you privacy nuts are going too far!
Aye, the Gateway is cheaper. I just actually purchased a MacBook Pro, 1.83ghz w/ 1GB of memory (single DIMM), 100GB 7200RPM hard drive, and an extended warranty. Price after shipping and taxes was $3,124.88.
So I built a comparable Gateway S-7510Nb, except I could not configure a 7200RPM hard drive (this was $100 extra from Apple, so let's subtract the $106 from the cost of the MacBook (I pay 6% sales tax in NJ) and the price becomes $3018.88.
I also configured the gateway with Windows XP. Sorry, but OSX can join a Windows domain, WinXP Home cannot, and this was my only consideration, we can talk all day about what OSX has that Windows doesn't or visa versa, it doesn't matter, but I run XP Pro on my Windows machines and I would want it.
Price of the Gateway, including taxes and shipping: $2,701.76
3018.88 - 2701.76 ---------
317.12
A couple of notes, no bluetooth added in, no camera, no remote control. Software is, of course, limited on the Gateway. The ship dates are similar (February for both machines). Also had to include the 3 year warranty on the hard drive for the Gateway (included with the Apple warranty). Also added the McAfee internet suite... since Mac doesn't have these problems, and I would require such software on windows ($119).
So is $317 worth it? I have owned 3 laptops in my life (Gateway, Dell and Apple), and have used 3 issued from work (2 Compaqs and an IBM)... out of all these machines, my PowerBook is by far the best one... between size, weight and usability. Now add to it the ability to run Windows AND OSX on the same hardware, and it's well worth the $317 to me.
While CALEA does indeed mention that the act forbids tapping of 'information services', it defines 'information services' as:
(A) means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications; and
(B) includes--
(i) a service that permits a customer to retrieve stored information from, or file information for storage in, information storage facilities;
(ii) electronic publishing; and
(iii) electronic messaging services; but
(C) does not include any capability for a telecommunications carrier's internal management, control, or operation of its telecommunications network.
Therefore, 'information services' as defined by the law, must be considered services which generate, acquire, store, transform, process, retrieve, utilize or make use of information. This would include such things as Google Mail and web site providers. HOWEVER, an Internet Service Provider does not generate, acquire, store, transform, process, retrieve, utilize or make use of information... it transmits, or transfers.
Therefore, under the law, it is OK to wiretap an ISP, if the information being wire tapped was not destined to be to or from the ISP (but merely a pass-through). Section (c) covers this by saying it does not include command control functionality of the ISP.
At least, that's my interpretation of the law. Obviously this conflicts with the great ACLU, so I'm sure this will be modded down.
I knew I would see the anti-Diebold and anti-Microsoft propaganda from this crowd. But Diebold was a valid point. Let's say some other company, let's call them GNUVote, makes a voting machine. It's based on Linux and OpenSource code.
Under North Carolina law, please provide me all the developers who were responsible in the development of this code.
I didn't think so.
The law is simply impractical. There is no way to obtain a complete list of all developers whether it's for Microsoft Windows or Linux. In the case of a vendor running windows (which is possible, Windows can actually be pretty well hardened), the vendor wouldn't be able to meet the requirements of the law, anyway.
URL inspectors are pretty common, specifically the w3c validator for HTML/CSS. So why not for.mobi extensions? Some application can dump all the.mobi domain names, query them all and run a validator, send warning emails to admins... and eventually, cut their domain off of the network.
Can this be enforced for other domains? Sure. Will it? Unlikely. Since the intent of.mobi is for mobile-based web browsers, it kind of makes sense that it would be restricted. However, some standard domain names (like.com) may not even have web addresses, maybe only email.
Sure, Clinton didn't give a shit when The Onion used the presidential seal, but that was just a sign of the contempt that budget balancing whore had for the office of President.
Bill Clinton did not balance the budget, the Republican Majority balanced it. In fact, Bill Clinton vetoed the budget causing the longest shutdown of the federal government. He then went on to sign it as he was practically forced into.
He also twice vetoed the Welfare Reform Act which was also part of the budget balancing exercises being pushed by the Republicans.
Now this administration may be able screw up the invasion of the wrong country...
As opposed to Bill Clinton's invasion of two "wrong" countries Haiti and Kosovo... a "quagmire" I think we're still stuck in. Not to mention his poor execution of the efforts in Somalia and his indifference to the people of Rwanda.
leak the names of CIA agents...
At this point unfounded speculation at best. Besides, it's not a crime to "leak" the names of CIA agents unless the intent was to expose them. In this case, it was hardly the intent to expose an undercover CIA operative (which Mr. Wilson's wife was not), but simply to disclose how Mr. Wilson got the assignment. But speaking of breaking laws, who was it that lied to a Grand Jury abou a blow job? Oh yes, that was Bill Clinton.
But I guess all this overshadows the fact that the 9/11 commission says Mr. Wilson lied about the Nigeria-Iraq connection, which is what the liberals want.
mismanage hurricane disaster relief efforts...
Sorry, but I did not know that "the administration" was elected as governor of the state of Louisianna and the mayor of New Orleans. Oh wait, no... they weren't. It seems odd how they "mismanaged" this relief effort but did just fine and dandy during the most recent Wilma that hit Florida. Or even how they did so well last summer after 4 hurricanes hit Florida. Gee, common denominator... FEMA... uncommon denominator... state government. Hrmmm maybe it wasn't FEMAs fault afterall.
But hey, anything to not blame the democratic governor of the state of Lousianna.
I'll tell you why this democrat doesn't support them, and I can also say that I'm not the rule. I have a few lefty friends who like the voucher concept, interestingly enough. You sound conservative, but you seem to be stumping for an entitlement to the "economically disadvantaged", which is hard to gauge. I think what you're really stumping for is a government subsidy for well-off people to pay cheaper private school tuitions, but I could be wrong.
Well, I think you may be missing a few points. If providing school vouchers for students is an entitlement program, then public education is an entitlement program. Right? My tax dollars pay for public education, so therefore it's an entitlement. I don't see a good argument for saying my tax dollars should be an entitlement for a student to do poorly in a crowded public school as opposed to do well (or even average) in a private school.
If our goal as a society is to improve the living conditions of the poor and underprivileged, then this is the type of program we need. Obviously these other entitlement programs (e.g. welfare) are not doing their jobs 60 years later. It's time we rethink our plans. We know that social-economic status is based on the quality of education, and if we plan to improve the social-economic status of our nation's most underprivileged, we need to provide them better education. One route to better education is through private schools.
For me, it's about keeping the funding in the school system. The money in that voucher is coming out of the public school budget. Sure, class size gets reduced (which is a good thing, I believe), but the public schools are still out of the money. A lot of art and music programs have been cut from public budgets already, and having the extra money per-student would allow public schools to build those classes back in, better equip the chem lab, add more AP courses, pay the better teachers a little more money, buy newer textbooks, etc.
I don't know the exact numbers, but school vouchers as provided in Washington DC, do not cover the total cost of educating the student. Let's assume the school district spensd $7000 per student (I believe this is about the national average), but the voucher provided is only for $5000. Thus, the school board is actually $2000 richer. This money is then distributed evenly to all kids in the district, thus more money is spent per student. This makes perfect sense to me. On top of that, it simply reduces the number of kids per class, thus giving the teacher the ability to spend more time per student which significantly increases the learning experience.
I went to public school for K-6 and private school from 7-12, so I've seen both. The tuition for each year of my private school education was 16K, back in 1980. (incidentally, I went to public university for my undergrad and grad schooling, spanning some 11 years, and the total cost of those eleven years was about half of what my dad spent on my middle and upper school tuition -- my dad likes to tell me that my private schooling cost him six nicely-appointed corvettes) Anyhow, if you're talking about a voucher for 2-3000 dollars, you're not really making that big a dent in a private school tuition when you have a voucher. It cuts the cost a bit, but not that much.
What seems to get left out of the conversation is that most private schools have an assistance program, built on endowments from alums and benefactors, that would make a much bigger dent in the total cost of tuition than the voucher. For older schools like the one I went to, the amount of cash available for grants and tuition assistance can be in the millions. Several of my classmates paid no tuition -=at all=-.
As I said in another post, I also attended a private school costing about $16,000 per year. I did receive a fairly decent scholarship from the school of about $10,000, thus making my education only $6,000. Now although this was a significant help, my family earned about $30,000 per year and ev
Creationists do not accept your point of view. They believe in the literal reading of the Bible.
That's simply not true. Creationists do not believe everything in the bible is to be 100% fact. The bible is actually a bunch of small stories, metaphors more or less. The lessons of the people in the books of the Old Testament, primarily, are a bunch of metaphors to help people better themselves by "learning from the mistakes of others." While the content of the Old Testament are metaphors, it does not mean there is no truth, it just means they are not necessarily 100% accruate.
To the religious right, when the Bible says "days', it means one rotation of the Earth.
I think your description of the "religious right" is simply a stereotype. Not everyone who is religious and a conservative believes days means days. I know many priests, ministers and even bishops (all of which consider themselves conservative) in many faiths who do not believe days actually means days. Specifically in some of these denominations of Christianity, some of these ministers, priests and bishops are actually scientists themselves (one I know is a chemist, another a psychologist).
The idea that the "religious right" believes 'days' means 'days' is like saying the "religious muslims" believe killing infidels is the only way to Heaven. While some in the faith may believe this, it is hardly the belief of religious people as a whole. I would subscribe it as ignorance, in the case of Christians and Muslims, with respect to their own beliefs.
The bible doesn't explain HOW the universe was created, but it does explain WHY it was created. These are two different questions that simply cannot be answered or dispelled by the simple 'evolution' vs 'creationism' controversy.
esides, vouchers are pablum. They rarely let students in true economic need afford private school. When a school costs $10k/year and the voucher only provides $5k, what good is it?
With the system currently working in Washington DC, the private schools are supplementing the voucher with scholarships... similar to college. What a concept, eh?
Me, in particular, my family barely made of $30,000 per year, but I attended a private school that cost $13,000-$15,000 per year for the 5 years i attended. So how did we do it? Scholarships got the price down to $6000 per year, which was still tough (we didn't take any vacations and went out less), but we made it through. Now if we had that $5000 voucher, we would have been better off.
Which is why I support (and mentioned) school vouchers, but Democrats do not support them. So why? If private schools promote better education, yet are currently only available to those who have social-economic advantages, why not allow those at a disadvantage to obtain the same level of education?
Actually, to your point (and your parent's point) about time passage in Genesis...
The aramaic language, there is no concept of time. Therefore, it must have been extremely difficult for the original authors of the Old Testament, and the people before them who used oral tradition, to truly grasp and convey the concept of a large expanse of time (in the billions of years).
But in religious private schools, every class has a religious context. While Theology teaches the basics of the religion, in English class you actually read the Bible for stories (similar to the way someone may read Shakespear).
Religious schools do not discount evolution, they only promote intelligent design. These two "theories" do not contradict each other.
Not all teachers are part of the NEA, nor are they required to be. My father was not a member of the NEA nor is my girlfriend. Therefore, the NEA wouldn't care.
I think placing the blame simply on the "religious right" is a little biased. It is obvious you are not religious, and it seems like you may even fear religious people, but to blame the lackluster teaching of science in schools on the "religious right" is simply wrong.
This doesn't have anything to do with our scientific advances *now* as opposed to how it's taught in school. The "religion right" has no influence in our schools (thanks to the Supreme Court).
So if the religious right is so bad about science, how do you explain the better scientific education of kids coming out of religious private schools? When I graduated, I had taken both Chem II AP and Physics II AP, and got my college credits. Did my local public school even have similar courses? No.
Let's talk about the real problems with public education, and we will find an answer to our problems. How am I authoritative? My girlfriend and father teach or have taught middle school.
Problems:
Social promotion. Yes, it exists. My father was threatened with being fired for not promoting a kid to the 9th grade after failing his social studies class. The reason? The principal "wanted to get rid of the troublemaker".
Parental duties. I hear stories from my girlfriend all the time about the parents who don't care. I hear the "yups" and "uh-huhs" from my father who got the same thing 30 years ago. Parents are caring less and less about the education of their children. When kids get a bad grade, parents call to complain about how the teacher is offending their kid. When kids act bad, parents call to complain about how the school is insensitive.
Education funding. Huge problem in many states, but mostly only in the poorer areas of the state. My girlfriend works in a school district that belongs to the poorest area of Maryland. The state and federal government provides some relief, but the real problem is that the money is being wasted (given the previous two problems) on many students. The students who want to learn can not because they are being held back by the students who do not want to learn. Attempts to get kids into private schools via vouches hit a big road block when democrats objected to it. Despite the fact it would both 1) reduce the number of students per class and 2) provide more money per student; seems irrelevant to Democrats who rather keep a socialist program alive and well, even if it means dumbing down the children. Community Support. What have you done for YOUR local public school? I like to provide some money and have even offered to help with some computer learning (rejected everytime, it seems that the elitests only want people with college masters degrees). Bt I still give money to the schools during fundraisers and actually vote for members of the school board. Considering I do not have children, this is the best I can do. But then again, even if I did have children, they probably would go to a private school where science and mathematics doesn't lag behing as much.
The original piece was not an article, it was not written as a piece of news, but a piece of commentary by a columnist... as specified by the 'Views' header on the top of the page.
If you need to understand the differences between a Columnist and a Reporter, click these links.
In any case, the liberal fodder against Fox News is once again ablaze with insufficient facts and ignorant assholes.
Note: Yes, this is flame, grade it as such. Thank you.
Get a story submitted linking to your corporate website for more information. Then, point to another site, not on your corporate URL, labeled 'Sponsored Content' which once again shows why your product is so great!
Well, since the 1900s the number of recording industry executives has increased. At the same time, the average temperature of the world's oceans has risen about 1 degree farhenheit. Therefore, global warning is obviously the result in the increase of recording industry executives.
This concept, the piggy-backed plane, is basically the original concept for launching the space shuttle. The idea was to launch the space shuttle aboard a high altitude, re-usable airplane (rocket powered). Once at a specific altitude, the space shuttle would detach and use it's own power to continue into space.
Congress killed it because of money problems.
Over 25 years later, we see the Japanese using the same technology as a commercial airliner. There is nothing really new here, only the implementation has changed.
The bed can handle his 5-foot-6-inch, 165-pound frame, even when he jumps up and down on it (an experiment he tried in response to an e-mail asking if the bed could support two people).
And the reason he couldn't actually test his bed with two people on it obvious.... right?
Yes, the first thing I think about when printing out mapquest directions is whether the government will know which printer printed it! OMFG what if they know someone wants to go to Boston?!?!?! HOLY SHIT!
But I guess it'd be easier for them just to track my ezpass tag!
If the presidents ass-hatery has put us into record deficits... That forces congress (who i'm no great fan of) into a very bad situation.
Not only does Congress dictate the budget for NASA, but they are responsible for the budget of the entire government. While the President does have opinions on how to spend money, the Congress is not obligated to listen to him. Therefore, once again, if you want to blame "someone" for our deficit, blame the Congress.
Slashdot Mirror
Today I went into Sam Goody and bought a CD. I was asked by the clerk if I wanted to reserve another artist's CD coming out next month! He was invading my privacy!
Or maybe not! Give me a break, you privacy nuts are going too far!
This link was actually posted on a previous slashdot story, but a simple google search revives it. http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0506intelmac.html
Aye, the Gateway is cheaper. I just actually purchased a MacBook Pro, 1.83ghz w/ 1GB of memory (single DIMM), 100GB 7200RPM hard drive, and an extended warranty. Price after shipping and taxes was $3,124.88.
So I built a comparable Gateway S-7510Nb, except I could not configure a 7200RPM hard drive (this was $100 extra from Apple, so let's subtract the $106 from the cost of the MacBook (I pay 6% sales tax in NJ) and the price becomes $3018.88.
I also configured the gateway with Windows XP. Sorry, but OSX can join a Windows domain, WinXP Home cannot, and this was my only consideration, we can talk all day about what OSX has that Windows doesn't or visa versa, it doesn't matter, but I run XP Pro on my Windows machines and I would want it.
Price of the Gateway, including taxes and shipping: $2,701.76
3018.88
- 2701.76
---------
317.12
A couple of notes, no bluetooth added in, no camera, no remote control. Software is, of course, limited on the Gateway. The ship dates are similar (February for both machines). Also had to include the 3 year warranty on the hard drive for the Gateway (included with the Apple warranty). Also added the McAfee internet suite... since Mac doesn't have these problems, and I would require such software on windows ($119).
So is $317 worth it? I have owned 3 laptops in my life (Gateway, Dell and Apple), and have used 3 issued from work (2 Compaqs and an IBM)... out of all these machines, my PowerBook is by far the best one... between size, weight and usability. Now add to it the ability to run Windows AND OSX on the same hardware, and it's well worth the $317 to me.
Therefore, 'information services' as defined by the law, must be considered services which generate, acquire, store, transform, process, retrieve, utilize or make use of information. This would include such things as Google Mail and web site providers. HOWEVER, an Internet Service Provider does not generate, acquire, store, transform, process, retrieve, utilize or make use of information... it transmits, or transfers.
Therefore, under the law, it is OK to wiretap an ISP, if the information being wire tapped was not destined to be to or from the ISP (but merely a pass-through). Section (c) covers this by saying it does not include command control functionality of the ISP.
At least, that's my interpretation of the law. Obviously this conflicts with the great ACLU, so I'm sure this will be modded down.
I knew I would see the anti-Diebold and anti-Microsoft propaganda from this crowd. But Diebold was a valid point. Let's say some other company, let's call them GNUVote, makes a voting machine. It's based on Linux and OpenSource code.
Under North Carolina law, please provide me all the developers who were responsible in the development of this code.
I didn't think so.
The law is simply impractical. There is no way to obtain a complete list of all developers whether it's for Microsoft Windows or Linux. In the case of a vendor running windows (which is possible, Windows can actually be pretty well hardened), the vendor wouldn't be able to meet the requirements of the law, anyway.
So then what? Back to paper and pens?
Does this give new meaning to the phrase: HACK THE PLANET ???
Hrmmmm
% uname -a && uptime
FreeBSD genesis 5.1-RELEASE-p8 FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE-p8 #0: Sun Sep 28 16:56:16 PDT 2003 root@genesis:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENESIS i386
11:06AM up 390 days, 9:19, 2 users, load averages: 0.23, 0.19, 0.19
So much for that theory of yours...
A **FREE** copy of FreeBSD 5.4 available by download via FTP from his local mirror!
URL inspectors are pretty common, specifically the w3c validator for HTML/CSS. So why not for .mobi extensions? Some application can dump all the .mobi domain names, query them all and run a validator, send warning emails to admins... and eventually, cut their domain off of the network.
.mobi is for mobile-based web browsers, it kind of makes sense that it would be restricted. However, some standard domain names (like .com) may not even have web addresses, maybe only email.
Can this be enforced for other domains? Sure. Will it? Unlikely. Since the intent of
Let's do some "history correction".
Sure, Clinton didn't give a shit when The Onion used the presidential seal, but that was just a sign of the contempt that budget balancing whore had for the office of President.
Bill Clinton did not balance the budget, the Republican Majority balanced it. In fact, Bill Clinton vetoed the budget causing the longest shutdown of the federal government. He then went on to sign it as he was practically forced into.
He also twice vetoed the Welfare Reform Act which was also part of the budget balancing exercises being pushed by the Republicans.
Now this administration may be able screw up the invasion of the wrong country...
As opposed to Bill Clinton's invasion of two "wrong" countries Haiti and Kosovo... a "quagmire" I think we're still stuck in. Not to mention his poor execution of the efforts in Somalia and his indifference to the people of Rwanda.
leak the names of CIA agents...
At this point unfounded speculation at best. Besides, it's not a crime to "leak" the names of CIA agents unless the intent was to expose them. In this case, it was hardly the intent to expose an undercover CIA operative (which Mr. Wilson's wife was not), but simply to disclose how Mr. Wilson got the assignment. But speaking of breaking laws, who was it that lied to a Grand Jury abou a blow job? Oh yes, that was Bill Clinton.
But I guess all this overshadows the fact that the 9/11 commission says Mr. Wilson lied about the Nigeria-Iraq connection, which is what the liberals want.
mismanage hurricane disaster relief efforts...
Sorry, but I did not know that "the administration" was elected as governor of the state of Louisianna and the mayor of New Orleans. Oh wait, no... they weren't. It seems odd how they "mismanaged" this relief effort but did just fine and dandy during the most recent Wilma that hit Florida. Or even how they did so well last summer after 4 hurricanes hit Florida. Gee, common denominator... FEMA... uncommon denominator... state government. Hrmmm maybe it wasn't FEMAs fault afterall.
But hey, anything to not blame the democratic governor of the state of Lousianna.
OK.. enough, I'm tired. *sigh* lamer.
I'll tell you why this democrat doesn't support them, and I can also say that I'm not the rule. I have a few lefty friends who like the voucher concept, interestingly enough. You sound conservative, but you seem to be stumping for an entitlement to the "economically disadvantaged", which is hard to gauge. I think what you're really stumping for is a government subsidy for well-off people to pay cheaper private school tuitions, but I could be wrong.
Well, I think you may be missing a few points. If providing school vouchers for students is an entitlement program, then public education is an entitlement program. Right? My tax dollars pay for public education, so therefore it's an entitlement. I don't see a good argument for saying my tax dollars should be an entitlement for a student to do poorly in a crowded public school as opposed to do well (or even average) in a private school.
If our goal as a society is to improve the living conditions of the poor and underprivileged, then this is the type of program we need. Obviously these other entitlement programs (e.g. welfare) are not doing their jobs 60 years later. It's time we rethink our plans. We know that social-economic status is based on the quality of education, and if we plan to improve the social-economic status of our nation's most underprivileged, we need to provide them better education. One route to better education is through private schools.
For me, it's about keeping the funding in the school system. The money in that voucher is coming out of the public school budget. Sure, class size gets reduced (which is a good thing, I believe), but the public schools are still out of the money. A lot of art and music programs have been cut from public budgets already, and having the extra money per-student would allow public schools to build those classes back in, better equip the chem lab, add more AP courses, pay the better teachers a little more money, buy newer textbooks, etc.
I don't know the exact numbers, but school vouchers as provided in Washington DC, do not cover the total cost of educating the student. Let's assume the school district spensd $7000 per student (I believe this is about the national average), but the voucher provided is only for $5000. Thus, the school board is actually $2000 richer. This money is then distributed evenly to all kids in the district, thus more money is spent per student. This makes perfect sense to me. On top of that, it simply reduces the number of kids per class, thus giving the teacher the ability to spend more time per student which significantly increases the learning experience.
I went to public school for K-6 and private school from 7-12, so I've seen both. The tuition for each year of my private school education was 16K, back in 1980. (incidentally, I went to public university for my undergrad and grad schooling, spanning some 11 years, and the total cost of those eleven years was about half of what my dad spent on my middle and upper school tuition -- my dad likes to tell me that my private schooling cost him six nicely-appointed corvettes) Anyhow, if you're talking about a voucher for 2-3000 dollars, you're not really making that big a dent in a private school tuition when you have a voucher. It cuts the cost a bit, but not that much.
What seems to get left out of the conversation is that most private schools have an assistance program, built on endowments from alums and benefactors, that would make a much bigger dent in the total cost of tuition than the voucher. For older schools like the one I went to, the amount of cash available for grants and tuition assistance can be in the millions. Several of my classmates paid no tuition -=at all=-.
As I said in another post, I also attended a private school costing about $16,000 per year. I did receive a fairly decent scholarship from the school of about $10,000, thus making my education only $6,000. Now although this was a significant help, my family earned about $30,000 per year and ev
Creationists do not accept your point of view. They believe in the literal reading of the Bible.
That's simply not true. Creationists do not believe everything in the bible is to be 100% fact. The bible is actually a bunch of small stories, metaphors more or less. The lessons of the people in the books of the Old Testament, primarily, are a bunch of metaphors to help people better themselves by "learning from the mistakes of others." While the content of the Old Testament are metaphors, it does not mean there is no truth, it just means they are not necessarily 100% accruate.
To the religious right, when the Bible says "days', it means one rotation of the Earth.
I think your description of the "religious right" is simply a stereotype. Not everyone who is religious and a conservative believes days means days. I know many priests, ministers and even bishops (all of which consider themselves conservative) in many faiths who do not believe days actually means days. Specifically in some of these denominations of Christianity, some of these ministers, priests and bishops are actually scientists themselves (one I know is a chemist, another a psychologist).
The idea that the "religious right" believes 'days' means 'days' is like saying the "religious muslims" believe killing infidels is the only way to Heaven. While some in the faith may believe this, it is hardly the belief of religious people as a whole. I would subscribe it as ignorance, in the case of Christians and Muslims, with respect to their own beliefs.
The bible doesn't explain HOW the universe was created, but it does explain WHY it was created. These are two different questions that simply cannot be answered or dispelled by the simple 'evolution' vs 'creationism' controversy.
esides, vouchers are pablum. They rarely let students in true economic need afford private school. When a school costs $10k/year and the voucher only provides $5k, what good is it?
With the system currently working in Washington DC, the private schools are supplementing the voucher with scholarships... similar to college. What a concept, eh?
Me, in particular, my family barely made of $30,000 per year, but I attended a private school that cost $13,000-$15,000 per year for the 5 years i attended. So how did we do it? Scholarships got the price down to $6000 per year, which was still tough (we didn't take any vacations and went out less), but we made it through. Now if we had that $5000 voucher, we would have been better off.
But minor details.
Which is why I support (and mentioned) school vouchers, but Democrats do not support them. So why? If private schools promote better education, yet are currently only available to those who have social-economic advantages, why not allow those at a disadvantage to obtain the same level of education?
Actually, to your point (and your parent's point) about time passage in Genesis...
The aramaic language, there is no concept of time. Therefore, it must have been extremely difficult for the original authors of the Old Testament, and the people before them who used oral tradition, to truly grasp and convey the concept of a large expanse of time (in the billions of years).
But in religious private schools, every class has a religious context. While Theology teaches the basics of the religion, in English class you actually read the Bible for stories (similar to the way someone may read Shakespear).
Religious schools do not discount evolution, they only promote intelligent design. These two "theories" do not contradict each other.
Not all teachers are part of the NEA, nor are they required to be. My father was not a member of the NEA nor is my girlfriend. Therefore, the NEA wouldn't care.
I think placing the blame simply on the "religious right" is a little biased. It is obvious you are not religious, and it seems like you may even fear religious people, but to blame the lackluster teaching of science in schools on the "religious right" is simply wrong.
This doesn't have anything to do with our scientific advances *now* as opposed to how it's taught in school. The "religion right" has no influence in our schools (thanks to the Supreme Court).
So if the religious right is so bad about science, how do you explain the better scientific education of kids coming out of religious private schools? When I graduated, I had taken both Chem II AP and Physics II AP, and got my college credits. Did my local public school even have similar courses? No.
Let's talk about the real problems with public education, and we will find an answer to our problems. How am I authoritative? My girlfriend and father teach or have taught middle school.
Problems:
Social promotion. Yes, it exists. My father was threatened with being fired for not promoting a kid to the 9th grade after failing his social studies class. The reason? The principal "wanted to get rid of the troublemaker".
Parental duties. I hear stories from my girlfriend all the time about the parents who don't care. I hear the "yups" and "uh-huhs" from my father who got the same thing 30 years ago. Parents are caring less and less about the education of their children. When kids get a bad grade, parents call to complain about how the teacher is offending their kid. When kids act bad, parents call to complain about how the school is insensitive.
Education funding. Huge problem in many states, but mostly only in the poorer areas of the state. My girlfriend works in a school district that belongs to the poorest area of Maryland. The state and federal government provides some relief, but the real problem is that the money is being wasted (given the previous two problems) on many students. The students who want to learn can not because they are being held back by the students who do not want to learn. Attempts to get kids into private schools via vouches hit a big road block when democrats objected to it. Despite the fact it would both 1) reduce the number of students per class and 2) provide more money per student; seems irrelevant to Democrats who rather keep a socialist program alive and well, even if it means dumbing down the children.
Community Support. What have you done for YOUR local public school? I like to provide some money and have even offered to help with some computer learning (rejected everytime, it seems that the elitests only want people with college masters degrees). Bt I still give money to the schools during fundraisers and actually vote for members of the school board. Considering I do not have children, this is the best I can do. But then again, even if I did have children, they probably would go to a private school where science and mathematics doesn't lag behing as much.
The original piece was not an article, it was not written as a piece of news, but a piece of commentary by a columnist... as specified by the 'Views' header on the top of the page. If you need to understand the differences between a Columnist and a Reporter, click these links. In any case, the liberal fodder against Fox News is once again ablaze with insufficient facts and ignorant assholes. Note: Yes, this is flame, grade it as such. Thank you.
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Well, since the 1900s the number of recording industry executives has increased. At the same time, the average temperature of the world's oceans has risen about 1 degree farhenheit. Therefore, global warning is obviously the result in the increase of recording industry executives.
How's that?
This concept, the piggy-backed plane, is basically the original concept for launching the space shuttle. The idea was to launch the space shuttle aboard a high altitude, re-usable airplane (rocket powered). Once at a specific altitude, the space shuttle would detach and use it's own power to continue into space.
Congress killed it because of money problems.
Over 25 years later, we see the Japanese using the same technology as a commercial airliner. There is nothing really new here, only the implementation has changed.
Nonetheless, it's a good idea.
And the reason he couldn't actually test his bed with two people on it obvious.... right?
Yes, the first thing I think about when printing out mapquest directions is whether the government will know which printer printed it! OMFG what if they know someone wants to go to Boston?!?!?! HOLY SHIT!
But I guess it'd be easier for them just to track my ezpass tag!
Not only does Congress dictate the budget for NASA, but they are responsible for the budget of the entire government. While the President does have opinions on how to spend money, the Congress is not obligated to listen to him. Therefore, once again, if you want to blame "someone" for our deficit, blame the Congress.