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The Zeitgeist continues - 18 March 2010
Mar. 19th, 2010 03:08 amGreetings, strange people. Be aware that for people to learn from history, others must be willing to keep it alive, often by praising the point of view most others have discredited thoroughly. Remember also that even when clearly in the context of not being serious about any of it, people will take offense if you post stuff about their racial group. Perhaps because they still encounter too many people who take that satire as their gospel truth.
Elsewhere, persons robbing a bank dressed as little Fae were killed in Tennessee by pursuing police after they left their getaway vehicle. They were obviously less successful than the thieves that made off with prescription drugs like Prozac, to the estimated worth of $75 million USD, most likely with the intent of selling them on the black market for on-label and off-label use. Thsoe thieves also might have managed to prove that a movie-style break-in, steal, and get away job is possible, from the account of how they got in and out.
Last out of the headlines, while![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
torakiyoshi and I often have disagreements about the best course of political action for the country, he's absolutely right when he rips apart voters and legislators alike for not funding schools and teachers properly and for cannibalizing the things that make schools great first when it comes to budget difficulties. When school librarians are cut, public libraries often try to pick up the slack a little, but there’s no substitute for a dedicated and trained school librarian unburdened with other obligations. There’s no way that the community can provide programs for the gifted or the different to help them excel as the people they are. Early and constant exposure to the arts produces better students than those stuck entirely in core classes with drills and standardized tests and very little freedom. Voters need to be less concerned with their tax rates and more concerned with whether or not their schools are turning out citizens that can be productive. That means authorizing bonds for building improvements and passing operating levies. Legislators need to learn where their priorities are and always ensure that schools (and libraries - we do the bulk of the heavy lifting on learning outside of primary education) have enough funds to be their best, have the amount of staff they need to keep class sizes down, and standards that allow them to excel. Without that, failure really is the only option.
Internationally, a mother dressed her child up as various dictators throughout time and took pictures of the costumed child as part of a photo series on the nature of evil. She has received some condemnation for her choice of Adolf Hitler in the costume series from Jewish groups, but her point is important - everyone has the potential for great good or great evil at birth, and it falls to parents and others to teach kids about the consequences of their actions and the costs involved.
Pakistan charged five Americans with planning terrorist attacks and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan, because of alleged ties to terror groups in Pakistan.
In domestic news, it is possible to be listed on a sex offender registry even if you have not actually committed a sexual crime, because of the wording of laws that mandate registration for nonsexual crimes involving minors. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the decision, stating that the law as written overrides any definition the defendant wants to use (no matter how much more sense it makes, we note.) On that standing, it would be unlikely for SCOTUS to reverse, should they be asked to hear the case.
President Obama says that we should not be worried about procedural matters, but more concerned that the health care bill gets passed and available for the country. (During said interview, the person interviewing wanted to interrupt the President before he was finished answering questions to ask him other questions.) The pollsters are continuing to turn out numbers, with the numbers on job performance continuing to trend downward because of the economy's lack of rebound. Other numbers say "The people oppose the health care bill! They oppose it! It must be stopped!" They do note, at least, that people are still of two minds when they approach the bill by individual components and all together, bringing other complications and inssues into the picture. Clearly, they approve of the idea, but they’re wary of the execution, which sounds about right.
The Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office are feeling swamped and overwhelmed with having to score and keep track of all the proposals currently going through the Congress, and thus request a budget increase to hire on more staffers.
Science and technology presents the brains of psychopaths, where they are wired to seek rewards regardless of cost. Which could be accomplished, for some, through the use of inhalable coffee.
In the opinions, The Slacktivist reminds us that the commandment was against bearing false witness, a very specific type of lying, one very corrosive and dangerous to those who choose to engage in it. Mostly because those that do end up having to act as though they believe the lie, and then they eventually do believe the lie, and that makes things that much worse.
Let’s have a look at an example - an unsigned from the Washington Times that says "America has the best health care system in the world - those horror stories you keep hearing about are statistical outliers". Would that be the horror stories of the people being bankrupted by medical costs, or the people dying because they couldn’t get treated, or the people whose life expectancy and lives have been ruined because they were dropped from their insurance? The one focused on, the one the President mentioned, no, she’s okay because she’s going to qualify for financial aid, so she won’t have to sell her house. We have the greatest system in the world! Everyone’s happy with their coverage!...if they have it, that is. There’s nothing there about the people who don’t have insurance. What do they think?
Speaking further of misinformation, the logic on this unsigned from the WSJ against the usage of a "deem and pass" rule to pass the Senate bill and a reconciliation amendment also leaves open a better interpretation. Supposedly, the usage of a reconciliation bill is already an abuse of the process (see earlier on why that’s likely not so), but that to deem and pass, there’s never an actual passage of the Senate bill by the House. Excepting the part in deem and pass that says “pass”. The bill itself does, in fact, get passed by the House, and then held to send up to the President until the amendment bill also passes. Which suggests to me that one must first send up the original bill, have that signed, then send up the amendment bill, have that signed, and the procedures have been followed to the letter. Mind you, it certainly goes into the Dirty Tricks file, but it doesn’t seem to violate anything that I can see. (Also, the writer seems to believe that Bart Stupak is right when he worries that the bill will somehow subsidize abortions, despite anti-abortion language and the Hyde Amendment, which has not failed to pass this year or any other year so far, so their credibility takes another hit.)
However, to top it all off in the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics show of misinformation, Ms. Parker quotes the numbers expressed above about popular disapproval of health care and generally of the President&apos job, says the bill will cost a lot more than it claims to, that Massachusetts already tried it and they're failing, and says the bill is a plan to nationalize the health care sector, and transform the country into a European welfare state. Um, liar, especially on those last two? The European-style welfare state was never brought to the table, nor was nationalization of the health care sector. And if Mass. is the prime example of things going wrong, then shouldn’t Ms. Parker and others be advocating for something that does work, instead of saying that the status quo, which is already demonstrably not working, works? Finally, as bad as it sounds, a lot of things that we think are good now had popular opposition when they were first proposed, and while they were being pushed through the legislature. So saying “the people oppose it” isn’t really a good enough reason to say that it shouldn’t be passed. Combined with all the other untruths and errors, Ms. Parker has only one thing she could be right on - the cost, and the only way to find that out is to actually pass the bill. Set up against the reasons to pass the bill, even if it is going to be expensive, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
One of the founders of Liz Cheney's group and their attack ad against lawyers defending detainees provides a longer-form explanation for why they think those lawyers need to be attacked, because they were apparently passing along incindiary material to their clients - stuff like an Amnesty International report about their conditions.
Finally, Mr. Peterson says that we need more charter schools, detailing all the dvantages charter schools have, including not having collective bargaining agreements, being able to tailor their curriculums, select their students, expel their students, and all of the things that a government entity that is required by law to provide education to everyone really doesn’t get to do (excepting perhaps modifying bargaining agreements to make it easier to dismiss the teachers that aren’t working and reward the ones that are). By saying “we need more charters!”, Mr. Peterson is implicitly saying that we should be giving our public schools the advantages the charter schools have. Perhaps then, once competing on even ground, one could make a fair and fruitful comparison between the two. Until then, though, charter schools will always look better than public schools.
Last for tonight, xkcd covers some Google searches of various phrases in search of a number, which makes for some very interesting demographics about the people who post. That, and an old standby, the Gettysburg Powerpoint.
Elsewhere, persons robbing a bank dressed as little Fae were killed in Tennessee by pursuing police after they left their getaway vehicle. They were obviously less successful than the thieves that made off with prescription drugs like Prozac, to the estimated worth of $75 million USD, most likely with the intent of selling them on the black market for on-label and off-label use. Thsoe thieves also might have managed to prove that a movie-style break-in, steal, and get away job is possible, from the account of how they got in and out.
Last out of the headlines, while
torakiyoshi and I often have disagreements about the best course of political action for the country, he's absolutely right when he rips apart voters and legislators alike for not funding schools and teachers properly and for cannibalizing the things that make schools great first when it comes to budget difficulties. When school librarians are cut, public libraries often try to pick up the slack a little, but there’s no substitute for a dedicated and trained school librarian unburdened with other obligations. There’s no way that the community can provide programs for the gifted or the different to help them excel as the people they are. Early and constant exposure to the arts produces better students than those stuck entirely in core classes with drills and standardized tests and very little freedom. Voters need to be less concerned with their tax rates and more concerned with whether or not their schools are turning out citizens that can be productive. That means authorizing bonds for building improvements and passing operating levies. Legislators need to learn where their priorities are and always ensure that schools (and libraries - we do the bulk of the heavy lifting on learning outside of primary education) have enough funds to be their best, have the amount of staff they need to keep class sizes down, and standards that allow them to excel. Without that, failure really is the only option.Internationally, a mother dressed her child up as various dictators throughout time and took pictures of the costumed child as part of a photo series on the nature of evil. She has received some condemnation for her choice of Adolf Hitler in the costume series from Jewish groups, but her point is important - everyone has the potential for great good or great evil at birth, and it falls to parents and others to teach kids about the consequences of their actions and the costs involved.
Pakistan charged five Americans with planning terrorist attacks and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan, because of alleged ties to terror groups in Pakistan.
In domestic news, it is possible to be listed on a sex offender registry even if you have not actually committed a sexual crime, because of the wording of laws that mandate registration for nonsexual crimes involving minors. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the decision, stating that the law as written overrides any definition the defendant wants to use (no matter how much more sense it makes, we note.) On that standing, it would be unlikely for SCOTUS to reverse, should they be asked to hear the case.
President Obama says that we should not be worried about procedural matters, but more concerned that the health care bill gets passed and available for the country. (During said interview, the person interviewing wanted to interrupt the President before he was finished answering questions to ask him other questions.) The pollsters are continuing to turn out numbers, with the numbers on job performance continuing to trend downward because of the economy's lack of rebound. Other numbers say "The people oppose the health care bill! They oppose it! It must be stopped!" They do note, at least, that people are still of two minds when they approach the bill by individual components and all together, bringing other complications and inssues into the picture. Clearly, they approve of the idea, but they’re wary of the execution, which sounds about right.
The Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office are feeling swamped and overwhelmed with having to score and keep track of all the proposals currently going through the Congress, and thus request a budget increase to hire on more staffers.
Science and technology presents the brains of psychopaths, where they are wired to seek rewards regardless of cost. Which could be accomplished, for some, through the use of inhalable coffee.
In the opinions, The Slacktivist reminds us that the commandment was against bearing false witness, a very specific type of lying, one very corrosive and dangerous to those who choose to engage in it. Mostly because those that do end up having to act as though they believe the lie, and then they eventually do believe the lie, and that makes things that much worse.
Let’s have a look at an example - an unsigned from the Washington Times that says "America has the best health care system in the world - those horror stories you keep hearing about are statistical outliers". Would that be the horror stories of the people being bankrupted by medical costs, or the people dying because they couldn’t get treated, or the people whose life expectancy and lives have been ruined because they were dropped from their insurance? The one focused on, the one the President mentioned, no, she’s okay because she’s going to qualify for financial aid, so she won’t have to sell her house. We have the greatest system in the world! Everyone’s happy with their coverage!...if they have it, that is. There’s nothing there about the people who don’t have insurance. What do they think?
Speaking further of misinformation, the logic on this unsigned from the WSJ against the usage of a "deem and pass" rule to pass the Senate bill and a reconciliation amendment also leaves open a better interpretation. Supposedly, the usage of a reconciliation bill is already an abuse of the process (see earlier on why that’s likely not so), but that to deem and pass, there’s never an actual passage of the Senate bill by the House. Excepting the part in deem and pass that says “pass”. The bill itself does, in fact, get passed by the House, and then held to send up to the President until the amendment bill also passes. Which suggests to me that one must first send up the original bill, have that signed, then send up the amendment bill, have that signed, and the procedures have been followed to the letter. Mind you, it certainly goes into the Dirty Tricks file, but it doesn’t seem to violate anything that I can see. (Also, the writer seems to believe that Bart Stupak is right when he worries that the bill will somehow subsidize abortions, despite anti-abortion language and the Hyde Amendment, which has not failed to pass this year or any other year so far, so their credibility takes another hit.)
However, to top it all off in the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics show of misinformation, Ms. Parker quotes the numbers expressed above about popular disapproval of health care and generally of the President&apos job, says the bill will cost a lot more than it claims to, that Massachusetts already tried it and they're failing, and says the bill is a plan to nationalize the health care sector, and transform the country into a European welfare state. Um, liar, especially on those last two? The European-style welfare state was never brought to the table, nor was nationalization of the health care sector. And if Mass. is the prime example of things going wrong, then shouldn’t Ms. Parker and others be advocating for something that does work, instead of saying that the status quo, which is already demonstrably not working, works? Finally, as bad as it sounds, a lot of things that we think are good now had popular opposition when they were first proposed, and while they were being pushed through the legislature. So saying “the people oppose it” isn’t really a good enough reason to say that it shouldn’t be passed. Combined with all the other untruths and errors, Ms. Parker has only one thing she could be right on - the cost, and the only way to find that out is to actually pass the bill. Set up against the reasons to pass the bill, even if it is going to be expensive, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
One of the founders of Liz Cheney's group and their attack ad against lawyers defending detainees provides a longer-form explanation for why they think those lawyers need to be attacked, because they were apparently passing along incindiary material to their clients - stuff like an Amnesty International report about their conditions.
Finally, Mr. Peterson says that we need more charter schools, detailing all the dvantages charter schools have, including not having collective bargaining agreements, being able to tailor their curriculums, select their students, expel their students, and all of the things that a government entity that is required by law to provide education to everyone really doesn’t get to do (excepting perhaps modifying bargaining agreements to make it easier to dismiss the teachers that aren’t working and reward the ones that are). By saying “we need more charters!”, Mr. Peterson is implicitly saying that we should be giving our public schools the advantages the charter schools have. Perhaps then, once competing on even ground, one could make a fair and fruitful comparison between the two. Until then, though, charter schools will always look better than public schools.
Last for tonight, xkcd covers some Google searches of various phrases in search of a number, which makes for some very interesting demographics about the people who post. That, and an old standby, the Gettysburg Powerpoint.
