I had a flip-phone model. Had it die on me (internal speaker died, would only work in speakerphone mode). Called in my warranty, got the "replacement"... it's a SLIDE-phone instead of flip (meaning the screen is unprotected).
Called them up, turns out they have a clause in the contract to ship back whatever the fuck phone it is they can with "similar features" if yours is out of production... and the lines go "out of production" every 6 months.
Where do they make the money? Constantly changing accessories. Car charger? Bam. No good. Extra house charger I kept at work? Bam. No good. Belt clip? Bam, no good. Thank god I hadn't bought the "proprietary" handsfree set too.
$100 worth of accessories, down the tube, "not covered" simply because they ship a different model phone incompatible with the accessories you bought right along with the damn phone in the first place.
While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that it's the nature of IT itself to push its elderly workers out... inexperienced or nontechnical hiring managers tend to look at resumes with an eye for youth, under the "more bang for the buck" theory. Cheaper young 'uns will work longer hours and produce more code.
I think I just read the definition of age discrimination.
There are many other climate research groups who would I'm sure be very happy to hoover up any money that might become available as a result of CRU's demise
You miss the point. Either you're being willingly blind, or you're really that stupid.
Why would organizations who fund the CRU and similar "scientists" specifically to get studies that reach a prearranged conclusion ever give funding to someone who torpedoed the CRU's bought-and-paid-for conclusions?
You could torpedo the CRU, but that money won't come to you, it'll go to someone else who can be bought to reach the same conclusion CRU was reaching before they were discredited. Therefore, most scientists in the field have no reason to torpedo the CRU. The money is in agreeing with AGW hustlers, not in disagreeing.
Again, this happens in other fields. In medicine, drug companies routinely pay researchers to do drug trials with an expected conclusion, and then pay money to "bury" any study that fails to meet their pre-decided conclusion. Why is it so far out of the reach of your AGW-religious mind that people trying to make moeny off of selling "carbon credits" would do the same thing?
Yawwn. He's been caught numerous times, with scandal resulting in each. They just look the other way every time and wait for it to blow over, while his patrons and AGW believers scream about how he's being "targeted."
Any of them could publish a critique of the CRU's work, and if it was effective, nick all their money and doom them.
Why would the money that was being put towards CRU's propaganda efforts flow to someone who disproves CRU's propaganda, exactly? Do tell.
If there was a single research group then yes I suppose you could get collusion to shut down opposition, but it's not like that
Then what, pray tell, is the CRU set up to be? Various "units", structured similarly, are in existence. Moreover, the funding the various "units" receive flow from well-defined sources who have a very well-defined agenda.
You tell me. If someone torpedoes the hell out of the CRU, or any other, of these flawed-as-hell "studies", what is the response going to be? The answer is what has already happened: media blitz from the pro-AGW salesmen attacking those who did the torpedoing, with shouts of "the science is settled the science is settled."
I've made the suggestion that downmods (overrated, troll) should just be eliminated. Allow the upmod threshold to go up to 10 or 15 rather than just 5, and then simply do upmods rather than downmodding.
Since it's the downmods that are abused (and let's face it, almost exclusively abused, I've yet to see a proper downmod other than a GNAA troll in >5 years of metamodding and the last time I saw a GNAA troll even when browsing at -1 was 3 years ago), we should just remove them.
When that happens (and it's usually pretty soon, especially for such a hot issue as AGW), you're reputation will be in tatters and, if you lied, you'll lose your job. You won't get grant money and you'll have to find a new career
Unless you're like James Hansen, or most of the other AGW-proponent "scientists", and have a patronage arrangement set up...
Hmm. Now yours is at +3. How'd that happen I wonder? We're certainly not "even."
I have said for a long time that the Mod system needs serious repair. Most of the moderating isn't done by people trying to improve the dialogue anymore, merely by people who want to find their political adversaries and shout them down. I've seen times (both my own comments and others) where someone gets targeted for "karma destruction" and posts 2,3,4 weeks old or older suddenly plummet from 5 Insightful/Informative down to "-1 Troll" as organized groups go after a person's karma. Sure, they can each only attack an individual post once, but with the Mod Lottery now handing out both 5 and 15-point sets of mod points, and groups out there perfectly willing to keep 30+ accounts each in order to play the Mod Lottery more often, the system is broken.
Not at all. There are very simple questions to ask yourself anytime you see research.
#1 - Who paid for the research? #2 - What was the agenda of those who paid for the research? #3 - Who "peer-reviewed" the study? #4 - What was the agenda of those who did the peer reviewing?
Scientists, as you say, are self-interested jerks. In medicine, studies which contradict drug-company studies tend to get buried. Studies that the drug companies funded that don't reach the desired conclusion get buried very, very quickly (in fact, they oftentimes pay the study head off to not even bother publishing).
In climate "science", the desired outcome is known. The CRU emails show numerous discussions, not of analyzing what the data actually means, but of working together to collectively manipulate the data for a desired outcome. Also, the CRU skirts the issue of "cutting your rival's work off at the knees" by turning the larger CRU papers into a collaborative process.
Climate "science", as currently existing, is all about the groupthink, as evidenced by the emails colluding to (a) prevent outside investigators from acquiring, and verifying the veracity of, CRU-member data and (b) influence and coercively deny publication to any studies that disagree with the CRU groupthink. There is immense competition for funding from groups that have a dedicated interest in "studies proving AGW."
Yes, much of this funding comes from groups that include Al Gore and believe in the idea of selling "carbon credits" and "carbon taxes" to the public. Remind yourself: when Al Gore testified to Congress that "both of my businesses are carbon-neutral", what businesses was he talking about? One of them is Generation Investment Management, a company which he both owns and "buys carbon offsets" from, and a company which puts out significant "research" funding to, yes, CRU-group "scientists." The more people Gore gets to buy "carbon offsets", the richer he gets.
This is one example of why, for me, current "climate science" and the idea that the "debate is over" don't pass the smell test.
I find it impossible to believe that good anti-AWG ideas really have been suppressed for 50 years or however long it is.
Funny. In schools in the '70s and '80s, we were teaching kids that the Earth was headed for an oncoming ice age. "Ozone Action Days" for lake/ocean coastal cities like New York, Chicago, and LA were called "Thermal Inversions", but it meant the same thing - "don't go outside if you have asthma, and try not to drive your car if you can help it, because the air quality sucks today." It wasn't until the mid-'90s that "Global Warming" came into rage, quickly modified into "Global Climate Change".
The other problem with AGW/Climate Change/Global Warming/Global Cooling is that it's a catchall, handwaving theory. Big nasty hurricane season? Blame it on AGW. Long, harsher winter when our AGW priesthood were predicting snow would be a "rarity"? Oops, actually the model DOES predict it, after we re-jiggered the model TO predict it. Big hurricane season that was predicted by the AGW scientists doesn't come to pass? Oh wait a second (scribble scribble scrape scrape edit rejigger edit) ok we're good, now the model DOES predict it. It's a theory based on lousy, poorly collected data which has to be continually "corrected" and "reinterpreted" constantly to get even remotely close to the observed real-world situation, a following that flows dangerously close to being an article of blind religious faith in which adherents cannot imagine of, and therefore reject, any evidence to the contrary.
So in other words, they accuse the climate change scientists of of acting in their own financial interests by being alarmists
Being alarmist gets you book sales. Being alarmist gets you photo ops. And yes, being alarmist gets you a re-up on your grants.
They claim that scientists toe the climate change line to get grants, and yet can you imagine how much definitive proof against man-made climate change would be worth to businesses?
Any business offering such a grant would be massively targeted with protests, ads, etc by the left-wing lunatic fringe. Actively sponsoring such research would instantly, since most of the "scientists" are on government dole, mean that honest scientists who came up with the opposite conclusion would be kept out of publishing due to collusion (actually has happened if you read the CRU emails yourself).
The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims
No, the problem with this debate is that one side constantly insists the debate is already over and engages in propaganda tactics, while the other side that wants to see competent research that actually follows the scientific method, are derided and mocked and attacked.
In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either. In all the leaked emails regarding this, where was the shred of evidence that anybody was trying to rort taxpayers money?
Admittedly this is cherry-picked, but in their own words. Pretty fucking damning. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is ! " - Direct words of Phil Jones!
As for the money? Phil Jones wasted £13 Million of Brit taxpayers' money. The phrase "gravy train" actually comes from Prof. Ross McKitrick, University of Buckingham, who said the following:
"Climate sceptics are always accused of taking money from industry but it is now clear the money is on the other side.
"There is a huge amount of money on the global warming side. Institutions like the CRU have a very large budget but that would disappear if global warming ceased to exist.
"Scientists are enjoying a funding gravy train; there is so much money in climate research. Lots of areas of science are short of money but not climate change."
When their education doesn't fit people to become self-aware and give them both SUBJECT AWARENESS and the ABILITY TO LEARN FROM OPPOSING VIEWS there can be consequences (such dead civilians, dead G.I.s, dead antiwar protesters).
I offer you up Barack Hussein Obama as yet another example.
The leaders of these efforts outright admit they are attempting to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system
As opposed to the leaders of other various educational efforts, who instead clandestinely hide that they are attempting (via the current books) to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system favoring social welfare programs and environmentalist agendas based on fraudulent "science"?
And those of use who disagree with Obama and the Democrats, for we are not lemmings blindly following the fuzzy ass in front of us off a cliff, are rationally against the things which you claim the Republicans are being "obstructionist" on.
Since you are obviously uneducated, however, let me clue you in. The point of the US governmental structure is not about "thinking rationally." The point is to prevent power grabs. As James Madison put it, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." The worst thing they could think of was a government in which every separate division - House, Senate, Executive, Judicial - all had the precise same interest and worked in concert. What they wanted and originally intended, quite deliberately, was that it would be in the best interests of the country for all to have different, competing, and contradictory interests so that only the truly necessary things that they could agree on despite their different interests could pass and be sustained.
The President is supposed to question the shit out of everything Congress does. The Senate and House are supposed to question the shit out of everything the other side does, and everything the President sends their way. The Judicial branch is the backup, to "catch" when the President, Senate, and House all make the same goddamn mistake.
When you are a member of the House, you are supposed to "think rationally and vote along lines that are in the best interest of the citizens of YOUR DISTRICT."
When you are a member of the Senate, you are "think rationally and vote along lines that are in the best interest of the citizens of YOUR STATE." Originally, specifically, the legislature and not just "the people." The Senate was supposed to be a proxy for sending the entire elected State governments to vote, or having them mail things in. Boy did we fuck THAT one up.
When you are President, you are supposed to "think rationally and vote along lines that are in the best interest of the citizens of the United States." Though I haven't actually seen one do so in decades.
I don't like politicians who lie to me, and the number of distortions and lies in the speech were phenomenal.
As for the Republicans, when in the minority they are SUPPOSED to be obstructionist. The system is supposed to have checks and balances. Obama with Democrat control of the House and Senate means there's no checks and balances.
There's a reason George Washington warned us against forming political parties. A shame we didn't listen.
Congratulations -- you're officially part of the far right.
Congratulations, you're officially part of the Uninformed, Uneducated Bloc.
Go for the gusto. Play Obama's latest SOTU speech. It's nasty, offensive, AND completely untruthful for a 3-in-1.
Besides, if you really want them to fight each other, you have to give them something to fight about. Right now they're arguing over whether GnR is better than Queen, just imagine if we can get the beetles to go to war over their political differences!
They are completely put off by target who just ignore them.
Not always possible. From the experience of myself and other kids I knew growing up, ignoring the bullies was the best way to find a baseball bat, or other heavy (or sometimes bladed!) object impacting you in an injurious manner. Usually from behind, where you couldn't see it coming to avoid it.
Bullies, and rapists, get a sick pleasure off of the pain of others and the feeling that they are "controlling" others. Whether that's beating someone unconscious or doing other vile things to them, really doesn't matter. "Ignoring" these people generally causes them to simply escalate to a point where either they get a reaction from the victim, or they get the sick rush that comes from their diseased brain's reaction to inflicting pain on others.
Been through that one. That was the real one that taught me school administrators are fucking morons.
What does such a policy accomplish? NOTHING. It basically becomes a weapon for the bullies. Now, not only do they get to threaten the kid with beating them up, the secondary threat of missing out on tests and getting in trouble that way comes with it. The bullies in my school system didn't give two shits whether they were suspended or not, they were already failing.
If your kid tries to defend himself
It didn't matter what the kid. Someone blindsides him into a wall and he just curls into a ball and cries for help, he STILL got suspended for the same length of time as the bully. Might as well fight back, for all the good it's going to do.
Your group did what they needed to do - they self-segregated. Fortunately for you, your own teacher was willing to work with you and let you go to the library.
On the other hand, our teachers weren't given the choice. And no, the ones I speak of dragging down the class were, definitively, NOT the type you claim would have merely "inattentive" or not "intent on learning." I'm talking of the ones who were such stupid screwoffs that despite having a gigantic woodworking shop on the ground floor, the district dropped the idea of holding shop class at all and just locked the door and let the space rot rather than risk one of these dumb fucks getting injured. I'm talking of the ones who for "fun" one day, got into the music classroom and trashed it, including urinating on the teacher's desk and breaking half the furniture. I'm talking about the ones who made us sit there wondering why, in sixth grade, the teacher was wasting time trying to get these dumb shits to understand basic concepts out of the second grade textbook.
I guess the point of this ramble is that it wasn't lack of intelligence that was the problem, it was the cultural aspects that made it not cool to care about learning or seem like learning wasn't worthwhile.... Segregating students may be an acceptable temporary solution, but it's one that does a disservice to those left behind.
Sorry, no. Rewarding children who show intent and intelligence with an engaging, exciting learning experience that challenges them? THAT is an acceptable solution. And if the only "disservice" it does is to the dumb shits who don't want to be there anyways, I think I'm okay with that.
Once I moved on to a private high school with a tradition of 100% matriculation (~40% ivy league), the culture changed to one where getting good grades was something to be proud of.
You know why the culture changed? Because the dumb shits weren't let into your private high school. That's what you are missing in this equation.
The best long-term solution is to address the culture that stigmatized intellectual success and gives students a bleak picture of where they're heading once their through with their schooling.
The best solution is to get the bright students out of harm's way, into their own accelerated classes away from the dumb shits, and then work on a different solution for the dumb shits.
the fundamental difference between Republican "alternatives" and the health care bills proposed by democrats is that these alternatives were simply bills related to health care (not comprehensive health care alternatives), covered entirely or by one or more of the existing democratic bills.
Since you've proven by that load of pure, weapons-grade bolognium that you never read the alternative bills, the rest of your statement is meaningless.
The Democrats' bill was equivalent to "removing cancer from a patient" with a broadsword rather than a scalpel. The Republican bills were smaller and more focused, yes, but that's because the fundamental approach - reforming the system, not throwing the system in the trash and replacing it wholesale - was different.
And if you're going to claim that a more focused approach is "just saying no over and over", then fine, I can file you away as just a partisan hack.
Slashdot Mirror
AT&T makes money off forced "upgrading."
I had a flip-phone model. Had it die on me (internal speaker died, would only work in speakerphone mode). Called in my warranty, got the "replacement"... it's a SLIDE-phone instead of flip (meaning the screen is unprotected).
Called them up, turns out they have a clause in the contract to ship back whatever the fuck phone it is they can with "similar features" if yours is out of production... and the lines go "out of production" every 6 months.
Where do they make the money? Constantly changing accessories. Car charger? Bam. No good. Extra house charger I kept at work? Bam. No good. Belt clip? Bam, no good. Thank god I hadn't bought the "proprietary" handsfree set too.
$100 worth of accessories, down the tube, "not covered" simply because they ship a different model phone incompatible with the accessories you bought right along with the damn phone in the first place.
If the CRU's work is exposed as faulty they will lose the confidence of the funding bodies and they will close very rapidly.
When the CRU's work was exposed as faulty, the media and AGW believers went into full-blown attack mode smearing the messengers.
While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that it's the nature of IT itself to push its elderly workers out... inexperienced or nontechnical hiring managers tend to look at resumes with an eye for youth, under the "more bang for the buck" theory. Cheaper young 'uns will work longer hours and produce more code.
I think I just read the definition of age discrimination.
There are many other climate research groups who would I'm sure be very happy to hoover up any money that might become available as a result of CRU's demise
You miss the point. Either you're being willingly blind, or you're really that stupid.
Why would organizations who fund the CRU and similar "scientists" specifically to get studies that reach a prearranged conclusion ever give funding to someone who torpedoed the CRU's bought-and-paid-for conclusions?
You could torpedo the CRU, but that money won't come to you, it'll go to someone else who can be bought to reach the same conclusion CRU was reaching before they were discredited. Therefore, most scientists in the field have no reason to torpedo the CRU. The money is in agreeing with AGW hustlers, not in disagreeing.
Again, this happens in other fields. In medicine, drug companies routinely pay researchers to do drug trials with an expected conclusion, and then pay money to "bury" any study that fails to meet their pre-decided conclusion. Why is it so far out of the reach of your AGW-religious mind that people trying to make moeny off of selling "carbon credits" would do the same thing?
Yawwn. He's been caught numerous times, with scandal resulting in each. They just look the other way every time and wait for it to blow over, while his patrons and AGW believers scream about how he's being "targeted."
Any of them could publish a critique of the CRU's work, and if it was effective, nick all their money and doom them.
Why would the money that was being put towards CRU's propaganda efforts flow to someone who disproves CRU's propaganda, exactly? Do tell.
If there was a single research group then yes I suppose you could get collusion to shut down opposition, but it's not like that
Then what, pray tell, is the CRU set up to be? Various "units", structured similarly, are in existence. Moreover, the funding the various "units" receive flow from well-defined sources who have a very well-defined agenda.
You tell me. If someone torpedoes the hell out of the CRU, or any other, of these flawed-as-hell "studies", what is the response going to be? The answer is what has already happened: media blitz from the pro-AGW salesmen attacking those who did the torpedoing, with shouts of "the science is settled the science is settled."
Neither does Al Gore.
Neither, apparently, does the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction.
Whoops! Another CRU member...
I've made the suggestion that downmods (overrated, troll) should just be eliminated. Allow the upmod threshold to go up to 10 or 15 rather than just 5, and then simply do upmods rather than downmodding.
Since it's the downmods that are abused (and let's face it, almost exclusively abused, I've yet to see a proper downmod other than a GNAA troll in >5 years of metamodding and the last time I saw a GNAA troll even when browsing at -1 was 3 years ago), we should just remove them.
When that happens (and it's usually pretty soon, especially for such a hot issue as AGW), you're reputation will be in tatters and, if you lied, you'll lose your job. You won't get grant money and you'll have to find a new career
Unless you're like James Hansen, or most of the other AGW-proponent "scientists", and have a patronage arrangement set up...
Hmm. Now yours is at +3. How'd that happen I wonder? We're certainly not "even."
I have said for a long time that the Mod system needs serious repair. Most of the moderating isn't done by people trying to improve the dialogue anymore, merely by people who want to find their political adversaries and shout them down. I've seen times (both my own comments and others) where someone gets targeted for "karma destruction" and posts 2,3,4 weeks old or older suddenly plummet from 5 Insightful/Informative down to "-1 Troll" as organized groups go after a person's karma. Sure, they can each only attack an individual post once, but with the Mod Lottery now handing out both 5 and 15-point sets of mod points, and groups out there perfectly willing to keep 30+ accounts each in order to play the Mod Lottery more often, the system is broken.
When I saw the post it was sitting at "-1 Overrated". The moderation system is fucked up.
Not at all. There are very simple questions to ask yourself anytime you see research.
#1 - Who paid for the research?
#2 - What was the agenda of those who paid for the research?
#3 - Who "peer-reviewed" the study?
#4 - What was the agenda of those who did the peer reviewing?
Scientists, as you say, are self-interested jerks. In medicine, studies which contradict drug-company studies tend to get buried. Studies that the drug companies funded that don't reach the desired conclusion get buried very, very quickly (in fact, they oftentimes pay the study head off to not even bother publishing).
In climate "science", the desired outcome is known. The CRU emails show numerous discussions, not of analyzing what the data actually means, but of working together to collectively manipulate the data for a desired outcome. Also, the CRU skirts the issue of "cutting your rival's work off at the knees" by turning the larger CRU papers into a collaborative process.
Climate "science", as currently existing, is all about the groupthink, as evidenced by the emails colluding to (a) prevent outside investigators from acquiring, and verifying the veracity of, CRU-member data and (b) influence and coercively deny publication to any studies that disagree with the CRU groupthink. There is immense competition for funding from groups that have a dedicated interest in "studies proving AGW."
Yes, much of this funding comes from groups that include Al Gore and believe in the idea of selling "carbon credits" and "carbon taxes" to the public. Remind yourself: when Al Gore testified to Congress that "both of my businesses are carbon-neutral", what businesses was he talking about? One of them is Generation Investment Management, a company which he both owns and "buys carbon offsets" from, and a company which puts out significant "research" funding to, yes, CRU-group "scientists." The more people Gore gets to buy "carbon offsets", the richer he gets.
This is one example of why, for me, current "climate science" and the idea that the "debate is over" don't pass the smell test.
I find it impossible to believe that good anti-AWG ideas really have been suppressed for 50 years or however long it is.
Funny. In schools in the '70s and '80s, we were teaching kids that the Earth was headed for an oncoming ice age. "Ozone Action Days" for lake/ocean coastal cities like New York, Chicago, and LA were called "Thermal Inversions", but it meant the same thing - "don't go outside if you have asthma, and try not to drive your car if you can help it, because the air quality sucks today." It wasn't until the mid-'90s that "Global Warming" came into rage, quickly modified into "Global Climate Change".
The other problem with AGW/Climate Change/Global Warming/Global Cooling is that it's a catchall, handwaving theory. Big nasty hurricane season? Blame it on AGW. Long, harsher winter when our AGW priesthood were predicting snow would be a "rarity"? Oops, actually the model DOES predict it, after we re-jiggered the model TO predict it. Big hurricane season that was predicted by the AGW scientists doesn't come to pass? Oh wait a second (scribble scribble scrape scrape edit rejigger edit) ok we're good, now the model DOES predict it. It's a theory based on lousy, poorly collected data which has to be continually "corrected" and "reinterpreted" constantly to get even remotely close to the observed real-world situation, a following that flows dangerously close to being an article of blind religious faith in which adherents cannot imagine of, and therefore reject, any evidence to the contrary.
So in other words, they accuse the climate change scientists of of acting in their own financial interests by being alarmists
Being alarmist gets you book sales. Being alarmist gets you photo ops. And yes, being alarmist gets you a re-up on your grants.
They claim that scientists toe the climate change line to get grants, and yet can you imagine how much definitive proof against man-made climate change would be worth to businesses?
Any business offering such a grant would be massively targeted with protests, ads, etc by the left-wing lunatic fringe. Actively sponsoring such research would instantly, since most of the "scientists" are on government dole, mean that honest scientists who came up with the opposite conclusion would be kept out of publishing due to collusion (actually has happened if you read the CRU emails yourself).
The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims
No, the problem with this debate is that one side constantly insists the debate is already over and engages in propaganda tactics, while the other side that wants to see competent research that actually follows the scientific method, are derided and mocked and attacked.
In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either. In all the leaked emails regarding this, where was the shred of evidence that anybody was trying to rort taxpayers money?
Admittedly this is cherry-picked, but in their own words. Pretty fucking damning.
"Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is ! " - Direct words of Phil Jones!
As for the money? Phil Jones wasted £13 Million of Brit taxpayers' money. The phrase "gravy train" actually comes from Prof. Ross McKitrick, University of Buckingham, who said the following:
"Climate sceptics are always accused of taking money from industry but it is now clear the money is on the other side.
"There is a huge amount of money on the global warming side. Institutions like the CRU have a very large budget but that would disappear if global warming ceased to exist.
"Scientists are enjoying a funding gravy train; there is so much money in climate research. Lots of areas of science are short of money but not climate change."
Xfinity = the number of customers they want to have locked into their monopolistic areas so they can jack their prices up.
As opposed to Comcrap: It's Crapatastic, which referenced their crappy service.
Either that or a Cthulhu Fan...
When their education doesn't fit people to become self-aware and give them both SUBJECT AWARENESS and the ABILITY TO LEARN FROM OPPOSING VIEWS there can be consequences (such dead civilians, dead G.I.s, dead antiwar protesters).
I offer you up Barack Hussein Obama as yet another example.
Hey, wait a second.
The leaders of these efforts outright admit they are attempting to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system
As opposed to the leaders of other various educational efforts, who instead clandestinely hide that they are attempting (via the current books) to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system favoring social welfare programs and environmentalist agendas based on fraudulent "science"?
And those of use who disagree with Obama and the Democrats, for we are not lemmings blindly following the fuzzy ass in front of us off a cliff, are rationally against the things which you claim the Republicans are being "obstructionist" on.
Since you are obviously uneducated, however, let me clue you in. The point of the US governmental structure is not about "thinking rationally." The point is to prevent power grabs. As James Madison put it, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." The worst thing they could think of was a government in which every separate division - House, Senate, Executive, Judicial - all had the precise same interest and worked in concert. What they wanted and originally intended, quite deliberately, was that it would be in the best interests of the country for all to have different, competing, and contradictory interests so that only the truly necessary things that they could agree on despite their different interests could pass and be sustained.
The President is supposed to question the shit out of everything Congress does. The Senate and House are supposed to question the shit out of everything the other side does, and everything the President sends their way. The Judicial branch is the backup, to "catch" when the President, Senate, and House all make the same goddamn mistake.
When you are a member of the House, you are supposed to "think rationally and vote along lines that are in the best interest of the citizens of YOUR DISTRICT."
When you are a member of the Senate, you are "think rationally and vote along lines that are in the best interest of the citizens of YOUR STATE." Originally, specifically, the legislature and not just "the people." The Senate was supposed to be a proxy for sending the entire elected State governments to vote, or having them mail things in. Boy did we fuck THAT one up.
When you are President, you are supposed to "think rationally and vote along lines that are in the best interest of the citizens of the United States." Though I haven't actually seen one do so in decades.
Get the point?
I don't like politicians who lie to me, and the number of distortions and lies in the speech were phenomenal.
As for the Republicans, when in the minority they are SUPPOSED to be obstructionist. The system is supposed to have checks and balances. Obama with Democrat control of the House and Senate means there's no checks and balances.
There's a reason George Washington warned us against forming political parties. A shame we didn't listen.
Congratulations -- you're officially part of the far right.
Congratulations, you're officially part of the Uninformed, Uneducated Bloc.
Go for the gusto. Play Obama's latest SOTU speech. It's nasty, offensive, AND completely untruthful for a 3-in-1.
Besides, if you really want them to fight each other, you have to give them something to fight about. Right now they're arguing over whether GnR is better than Queen, just imagine if we can get the beetles to go to war over their political differences!
They are completely put off by target who just ignore them.
Not always possible. From the experience of myself and other kids I knew growing up, ignoring the bullies was the best way to find a baseball bat, or other heavy (or sometimes bladed!) object impacting you in an injurious manner. Usually from behind, where you couldn't see it coming to avoid it.
Bullies, and rapists, get a sick pleasure off of the pain of others and the feeling that they are "controlling" others. Whether that's beating someone unconscious or doing other vile things to them, really doesn't matter. "Ignoring" these people generally causes them to simply escalate to a point where either they get a reaction from the victim, or they get the sick rush that comes from their diseased brain's reaction to inflicting pain on others.
Yep.
Been through that one. That was the real one that taught me school administrators are fucking morons.
What does such a policy accomplish? NOTHING. It basically becomes a weapon for the bullies. Now, not only do they get to threaten the kid with beating them up, the secondary threat of missing out on tests and getting in trouble that way comes with it. The bullies in my school system didn't give two shits whether they were suspended or not, they were already failing.
If your kid tries to defend himself
It didn't matter what the kid. Someone blindsides him into a wall and he just curls into a ball and cries for help, he STILL got suspended for the same length of time as the bully. Might as well fight back, for all the good it's going to do.
Sorry, but no.
Your group did what they needed to do - they self-segregated. Fortunately for you, your own teacher was willing to work with you and let you go to the library.
On the other hand, our teachers weren't given the choice. And no, the ones I speak of dragging down the class were, definitively, NOT the type you claim would have merely "inattentive" or not "intent on learning." I'm talking of the ones who were such stupid screwoffs that despite having a gigantic woodworking shop on the ground floor, the district dropped the idea of holding shop class at all and just locked the door and let the space rot rather than risk one of these dumb fucks getting injured. I'm talking of the ones who for "fun" one day, got into the music classroom and trashed it, including urinating on the teacher's desk and breaking half the furniture. I'm talking about the ones who made us sit there wondering why, in sixth grade, the teacher was wasting time trying to get these dumb shits to understand basic concepts out of the second grade textbook.
I guess the point of this ramble is that it wasn't lack of intelligence that was the problem, it was the cultural aspects that made it not cool to care about learning or seem like learning wasn't worthwhile. ...
Segregating students may be an acceptable temporary solution, but it's one that does a disservice to those left behind.
Sorry, no. Rewarding children who show intent and intelligence with an engaging, exciting learning experience that challenges them? THAT is an acceptable solution. And if the only "disservice" it does is to the dumb shits who don't want to be there anyways, I think I'm okay with that.
Once I moved on to a private high school with a tradition of 100% matriculation (~40% ivy league), the culture changed to one where getting good grades was something to be proud of.
You know why the culture changed? Because the dumb shits weren't let into your private high school. That's what you are missing in this equation.
The best long-term solution is to address the culture that stigmatized intellectual success and gives students a bleak picture of where they're heading once their through with their schooling.
The best solution is to get the bright students out of harm's way, into their own accelerated classes away from the dumb shits, and then work on a different solution for the dumb shits.
Word to the wise: stop drinking the kool-aid. Obama calling someone a liar is like Castro yelling at Mao for human rights violations.
the fundamental difference between Republican "alternatives" and the health care bills proposed by democrats is that these alternatives were simply bills related to health care (not comprehensive health care alternatives), covered entirely or by one or more of the existing democratic bills.
Since you've proven by that load of pure, weapons-grade bolognium that you never read the alternative bills, the rest of your statement is meaningless.
The Democrats' bill was equivalent to "removing cancer from a patient" with a broadsword rather than a scalpel. The Republican bills were smaller and more focused, yes, but that's because the fundamental approach - reforming the system, not throwing the system in the trash and replacing it wholesale - was different.
And if you're going to claim that a more focused approach is "just saying no over and over", then fine, I can file you away as just a partisan hack.