Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
what a piece of shit this guy is...
News of Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D-WV) death has been met with an outpouring of reverence for his distinguished career, with even political opponents, like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), praising Byrd’s “remarkable life” and “devotion to the U.S. Constitution.” But Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes Inc. and perennial GOP presidential candidate, celebrated Byrd’s death, declaring that it was “good news” for those opposed to Wall Street reform:
Byrd’s death does indeed imperil the final passage of financial reform bill, but Forbes could show a little more respect by hiding his glee at the prospect of his Wall Street friends getting off the hook. The major threat to the bill comes from Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who has threatened to vote against the measure, even though he secured a special deal and has been supportive thus far. Forbes is a co-chair of the corporate-funded astroturf group FreedomWorks, which helped Brown win his seat in January. (HT: Wonkette)
Byrd’s death does indeed imperil the final passage of financial reform bill, but Forbes could show a little more respect by hiding his glee at the prospect of his Wall Street friends getting off the hook. The major threat to the bill comes from Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who has threatened to vote against the measure, even though he secured a special deal and has been supportive thus far. Forbes is a co-chair of the corporate-funded astroturf group FreedomWorks, which helped Brown win his seat in January. (HT: Wonkette)
Sunday, June 27, 2010
PALIN CONTROVERSY! - Reporters Call Palin "Dumbest of Dumb" On Open Mic!
Several people were caught on an open mike mocking Sarah Palin for delivering a "roller coaster"-type speech after she addressed California State University, Stanislaus on Friday.
As the former Alaska governor stepped off stage at the sold-out dinner fundraiser and the sound of applause faded away, voices identified as reporters in a viral video could be heard one after another cracking jokes about the speech.
"Oh my God, I feel like I just got off a roller coaster, going round and round, and up and down. Sh-t flying out … everywhere," one said, as someone else made whooshing sounds.
Another one chimed in, comparing the address to the work of a sloppy college student.
"When you’ve got to write a report as a college student and you just try to jam as many quotes in as possible … That’s what I got," he said.
Someone else added: "She didn’t finish a statement."
Then another voice could be heard cutting through, saying: "Did she make a statement, because I didn’t catch that either."
A suggestion for the Pope
A suggestion for the Pope
Ol' Ratzi is quite upset at the Belgian raids on Catholic church offices — he's calling them "deplorable", a "moment of sadness", and is calling in the Belgian ambassador to the Vatican for an angry dressing-down.
He's doing everything all wrong. Here's what he should be doing: he should be calling the actions of priestly sex abusers deplorable and wrong, and insisting that the church will do everything in its power to correct the deep problems that have led to these awful acts. Then he should announce that the church will cooperate fully with all legal secular actions — and the Belgian raids were fully authorized by the Belgian state — in getting down to the heart of the matter, and go even further, offering to open up all relevant records to inspection. Then I might be convinced that the church is sincere in its pursuit of justice for all, not just its priests, but also its parishioners.
But then, I'm an atheist. Ignore me. I'm kind of enjoying the spectacle of the Catholic church putting on the indignant act of a guilty criminal caught red-handed and insisting that the police shouldn't be working so hard to catch them.
Ol' Ratzi is quite upset at the Belgian raids on Catholic church offices — he's calling them "deplorable", a "moment of sadness", and is calling in the Belgian ambassador to the Vatican for an angry dressing-down.
He's doing everything all wrong. Here's what he should be doing: he should be calling the actions of priestly sex abusers deplorable and wrong, and insisting that the church will do everything in its power to correct the deep problems that have led to these awful acts. Then he should announce that the church will cooperate fully with all legal secular actions — and the Belgian raids were fully authorized by the Belgian state — in getting down to the heart of the matter, and go even further, offering to open up all relevant records to inspection. Then I might be convinced that the church is sincere in its pursuit of justice for all, not just its priests, but also its parishioners.
But then, I'm an atheist. Ignore me. I'm kind of enjoying the spectacle of the Catholic church putting on the indignant act of a guilty criminal caught red-handed and insisting that the police shouldn't be working so hard to catch them.
Sunday Sacrilege: So alone
Sunday Sacrilege: So alone
Posted on: June 27, 2010 11:53 AM, by PZ Myers
Scientists and atheists do something that many believers find repellent: we shatter their perception of their relationship to the universe. And understandably, they don't like that.
Most religious people in the West have a very specific model of the way the world works that is based on our cultural history as the progeny of nomadic herdsman, and that still resonates strongly with all of us — the father-child relationship, the patriarchy. We have a wise leader who guides us all, punishes us when we stray, offers largesse to those in his favor, and unites the whole tribe in common cause. Those bronze age sheepherders lived this way, and it made sense. It was a strategy for survival that worked well, and that shaped the way we see the world even now. Ask any Christian on any Sunday morning about flocks and sheep and shepherds, and they will understand the metaphor even if it is highly unlikely that any of them have been in contact with any animal other than a household pet.
It's also a powerful idea because it posits a set of very personal relationships. The father is remote because of his great responsibilities, but at the same time, we all want that pat on the shoulder, the encouraging word, the opportunity to serve and win distinction in Father's eyes by virtue of our dutifulness. It's a familial relationship, tightly-knit and long-established, where we are respectful dependents and the leader of the tribe relies on our service.
Beyond just the family and tribe, though, this vision has been extended to the entire universe. There is a great Patriarch in the Sky, who is our leader and guide, responsible for making the grand strategic decisions about where our tribe will go, and is also watchfully making sure the unity of the tribe is not disrupted by wayward ideas from nonconformists. He has a central concern that we all share, that our people should thrive, and even if he is stern at times, it is because he cares so much that we succeed. And of course, he knows each one of us personally, just as the leader of tribe or clan in our pastoral days would have, and he can give us an approving stroke or a damning angry smiting, depending on whether we help or hinder the work of getting the flocks to the summer pasturage.
Read your bible. It's saturated with this primitive herdsman mentality: God the Father, sheep and goats, lost lambs and the Lamb of God, flocks and herds. It's anthropologically fascinating, and it's also not necessarily an evil metaphor (unless, of course, you're a woman — the patriarchy is also deeply misogynistic). One of it's most appealing aspects is that it makes the relationship with the universe a close and personal one, of a very simple kind of relatedness, that of father and child. It's one metaphorical generation, direct and immediate, and it colors everything about how we view our place in the world: dominant and submissive, leader and follower, wisdom and naiveté, master and servant, command and obedience. It also tangles up our relationship with the world in those paternal virtues of love and concern and discipline, and often with those less savory issues of the complicated relationships many people have with their fathers, because, face it, sometimes men are jerks. Which also fits with the portrait of the omnipotent god painted by the Bible.
I can sympathize. I loved and respected my father, and any attempt by an outsider to defame or complicate or diminish that relationship would trigger a resentful response from me. Christians and Muslims and Jews have been told from their earliest years that God is their father, with all the attendant associations of that argument, and what are we atheists doing? Telling them that no, he is not, and not only that, you don't even have a heavenly father at all, the imaginary guy you are worshipping is actually a hateful monster and an example of a bad and tyrannical father, and you aren't even a very special child — you're a mediocre product of a wasteful and entirely impersonal process.
It makes that whole business of breaking the news about Santa Claus look like small potatoes. Reality is harsh, man.
But it is reality. We've done the paternity tests, we've traced back the genealogy, we're doing all kinds of in-depth testing of the human species. We are apes and the descendants of apes, who were the descendants of rat-like primates, who were children of reptiles, who were the spawn of amphibians, who were the terrestrial progeny of fish, who came from worms, who were assembled from single-celled microorganisms, who were the products of chemistry. Your daddy was a film of chemical slime on a Hadean rock, and he didn't care about you — he was only obeying the laws of thermodynamics.
You aren't you because of some grand design, but because of chance, contingency, and selection. Your genome is a mess of detritus with a tiny fraction of well-honed functionality, and your body is cobbled together from the framework of a tetrapod — you bear the scars of chance throughout, and you are mostly unaware of them because selection, that is the death of millions, has patched them over…but they're there to the eye that will look. You aren't even the best at much of anything: you're weaker, slower, more fragile, clumsier than the other species we compete with, and although you've got a bigger brain, the majority of Americans, at least, consider it a virtue to keep it ignorant and unused — and universally, we have difficulty thinking in the long term while we are very good at exploiting our environment in the short term, which is leading to some interesting and possibly fatal consequences.
The legacy of good husbandry, we are not. Our cosmic father did not and does not exist, which is a good thing, because if he did, he's the kind of lazy, destructive deadbeat we'd be ashamed of.
This is our new heresy. We have killed our heavenly father, demolished that cozy personal (but imaginary!) relationship with a great and caring being. We are alone, orphans in an indifferent universe. We atheists must be a cold and broken people, without hope, without love.
But of course, we're not, and I think this change in our vision of our relationship to the universe is humankind's great good hope. Primitive monotheistic religions have shackled us to a limited metaphor and model, the father and child, and erected an entire invisible heavenly mouthpiece to help us maintain that comfortable delusion — but it's like relying on the Great and Powerful Oz to help us out of our problems, when Oz is only a sham and a show. We have to escape out of this narrow perspective.
Reality doesn't just destroy the patriarchal model, it gives us new and better ways to visualize our relationship with the universe. Father and child is inadequate; we have to think in terms of populations and species interacting (not dominating), of being part of an environment. There is more to life than the father and child bond. I am the outcome of a trillion coalescing possibilities, with a vast population of brothers and sisters acting out our brief lives on a background of gas and stone, water and light, grasses and fishes, and my responsibilities are far greater than obedience to a father figure. Breaking that illusion of a personal tie to one grand elder lord can briefly leave us feeling abandoned and alone and lost, and I can understand how some people find severing that imaginary relationship a horrible prospect.
But here's the wonderful revelation. If you're a well-adjusted person, once you've discarded the unhealthy fictitious relationship with a phantasm, you can look around and notice all those other people who are likewise alone, and you'll realize that we're all alone together. And that means you aren't alone at all — you're among friends. That's the next step in human progress, is getting away from the notion of minions living under a trail boss, and onwards to working as a cooperative community, with no gods and no masters, only autonomous agents free to think and act.
Posted on: June 27, 2010 11:53 AM, by PZ Myers
Scientists and atheists do something that many believers find repellent: we shatter their perception of their relationship to the universe. And understandably, they don't like that.
Most religious people in the West have a very specific model of the way the world works that is based on our cultural history as the progeny of nomadic herdsman, and that still resonates strongly with all of us — the father-child relationship, the patriarchy. We have a wise leader who guides us all, punishes us when we stray, offers largesse to those in his favor, and unites the whole tribe in common cause. Those bronze age sheepherders lived this way, and it made sense. It was a strategy for survival that worked well, and that shaped the way we see the world even now. Ask any Christian on any Sunday morning about flocks and sheep and shepherds, and they will understand the metaphor even if it is highly unlikely that any of them have been in contact with any animal other than a household pet.
It's also a powerful idea because it posits a set of very personal relationships. The father is remote because of his great responsibilities, but at the same time, we all want that pat on the shoulder, the encouraging word, the opportunity to serve and win distinction in Father's eyes by virtue of our dutifulness. It's a familial relationship, tightly-knit and long-established, where we are respectful dependents and the leader of the tribe relies on our service.
Beyond just the family and tribe, though, this vision has been extended to the entire universe. There is a great Patriarch in the Sky, who is our leader and guide, responsible for making the grand strategic decisions about where our tribe will go, and is also watchfully making sure the unity of the tribe is not disrupted by wayward ideas from nonconformists. He has a central concern that we all share, that our people should thrive, and even if he is stern at times, it is because he cares so much that we succeed. And of course, he knows each one of us personally, just as the leader of tribe or clan in our pastoral days would have, and he can give us an approving stroke or a damning angry smiting, depending on whether we help or hinder the work of getting the flocks to the summer pasturage.
Read your bible. It's saturated with this primitive herdsman mentality: God the Father, sheep and goats, lost lambs and the Lamb of God, flocks and herds. It's anthropologically fascinating, and it's also not necessarily an evil metaphor (unless, of course, you're a woman — the patriarchy is also deeply misogynistic). One of it's most appealing aspects is that it makes the relationship with the universe a close and personal one, of a very simple kind of relatedness, that of father and child. It's one metaphorical generation, direct and immediate, and it colors everything about how we view our place in the world: dominant and submissive, leader and follower, wisdom and naiveté, master and servant, command and obedience. It also tangles up our relationship with the world in those paternal virtues of love and concern and discipline, and often with those less savory issues of the complicated relationships many people have with their fathers, because, face it, sometimes men are jerks. Which also fits with the portrait of the omnipotent god painted by the Bible.
I can sympathize. I loved and respected my father, and any attempt by an outsider to defame or complicate or diminish that relationship would trigger a resentful response from me. Christians and Muslims and Jews have been told from their earliest years that God is their father, with all the attendant associations of that argument, and what are we atheists doing? Telling them that no, he is not, and not only that, you don't even have a heavenly father at all, the imaginary guy you are worshipping is actually a hateful monster and an example of a bad and tyrannical father, and you aren't even a very special child — you're a mediocre product of a wasteful and entirely impersonal process.
It makes that whole business of breaking the news about Santa Claus look like small potatoes. Reality is harsh, man.
But it is reality. We've done the paternity tests, we've traced back the genealogy, we're doing all kinds of in-depth testing of the human species. We are apes and the descendants of apes, who were the descendants of rat-like primates, who were children of reptiles, who were the spawn of amphibians, who were the terrestrial progeny of fish, who came from worms, who were assembled from single-celled microorganisms, who were the products of chemistry. Your daddy was a film of chemical slime on a Hadean rock, and he didn't care about you — he was only obeying the laws of thermodynamics.
You aren't you because of some grand design, but because of chance, contingency, and selection. Your genome is a mess of detritus with a tiny fraction of well-honed functionality, and your body is cobbled together from the framework of a tetrapod — you bear the scars of chance throughout, and you are mostly unaware of them because selection, that is the death of millions, has patched them over…but they're there to the eye that will look. You aren't even the best at much of anything: you're weaker, slower, more fragile, clumsier than the other species we compete with, and although you've got a bigger brain, the majority of Americans, at least, consider it a virtue to keep it ignorant and unused — and universally, we have difficulty thinking in the long term while we are very good at exploiting our environment in the short term, which is leading to some interesting and possibly fatal consequences.
The legacy of good husbandry, we are not. Our cosmic father did not and does not exist, which is a good thing, because if he did, he's the kind of lazy, destructive deadbeat we'd be ashamed of.
This is our new heresy. We have killed our heavenly father, demolished that cozy personal (but imaginary!) relationship with a great and caring being. We are alone, orphans in an indifferent universe. We atheists must be a cold and broken people, without hope, without love.
But of course, we're not, and I think this change in our vision of our relationship to the universe is humankind's great good hope. Primitive monotheistic religions have shackled us to a limited metaphor and model, the father and child, and erected an entire invisible heavenly mouthpiece to help us maintain that comfortable delusion — but it's like relying on the Great and Powerful Oz to help us out of our problems, when Oz is only a sham and a show. We have to escape out of this narrow perspective.
Reality doesn't just destroy the patriarchal model, it gives us new and better ways to visualize our relationship with the universe. Father and child is inadequate; we have to think in terms of populations and species interacting (not dominating), of being part of an environment. There is more to life than the father and child bond. I am the outcome of a trillion coalescing possibilities, with a vast population of brothers and sisters acting out our brief lives on a background of gas and stone, water and light, grasses and fishes, and my responsibilities are far greater than obedience to a father figure. Breaking that illusion of a personal tie to one grand elder lord can briefly leave us feeling abandoned and alone and lost, and I can understand how some people find severing that imaginary relationship a horrible prospect.
But here's the wonderful revelation. If you're a well-adjusted person, once you've discarded the unhealthy fictitious relationship with a phantasm, you can look around and notice all those other people who are likewise alone, and you'll realize that we're all alone together. And that means you aren't alone at all — you're among friends. That's the next step in human progress, is getting away from the notion of minions living under a trail boss, and onwards to working as a cooperative community, with no gods and no masters, only autonomous agents free to think and act.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Divorce by letter
Divorce by letter
Dear Wife:
I’m writing you this letter to tell you that I’m leaving you forever. I’ve been a good man to you for seven years and I have nothing to show for it.
These last two weeks have been hell. Your boss called to tell me that you quit your job today and that was the last straw.
Last week, you came home and didn’t even notice that I had a new haircut, had cooked your favorite meal and even wore a brand new pair of silk boxers. You ate in two minutes, and went straight to sleep after watching all of your soaps. You don’t tell me you love me anymore; you don’t want sex or anything that connects us as husband and wife.
Either you’re cheating on me or you don’t love me anymore; whatever the case, I’m gone.
Your EX-Husband
P.S. Don’t try to find me. Your SISTER and I are moving away to West Virginia together! Have a great life!
————————————————————————————————————-
Dear Ex-Husband -
Nothing has made my day more than receiving your letter. It’s true that you and I have been married for seven years, although a good man is a far cry from what you’ve been.
I watch my soaps so much because they drown out your constant whining and griping. Too bad that doesn’t work..
I did notice when you got a hair cut last week, but the first thing that came to mind was ‘You look just like a girl!’ Since my mother raised me not to say anything if you can’t say something nice, I didn’t comment.
And when you cooked my favorite meal, you must have gotten me confused with MY SISTER, because I stopped eating pork seven years ago.
About those new silk boxers: I turned away from you because the $49.99 price tag was still on them, and I prayed that it was a coincidence that my sister had just borrowed fifty dollars from me that morning.
After all of this, I still loved you and felt that we could work it out. So when I hit the lotto for ten million dollars, I quit my job and bought us two tickets to Jamaica . But when I got home you were gone.. Everything happens for a reason, I guess.
I hope you have the fulfilling life you always wanted. My lawyer said that the letter you wrote ensures you won’t get a dime from me. So take care.
Signed,
Your Ex-Wife, Rich As Hell and Free!
P.S. I don’t know if I ever told you this but my sister Carla was born Carl. I hope that’s not a problem.
Dear Wife:
I’m writing you this letter to tell you that I’m leaving you forever. I’ve been a good man to you for seven years and I have nothing to show for it.
These last two weeks have been hell. Your boss called to tell me that you quit your job today and that was the last straw.
Last week, you came home and didn’t even notice that I had a new haircut, had cooked your favorite meal and even wore a brand new pair of silk boxers. You ate in two minutes, and went straight to sleep after watching all of your soaps. You don’t tell me you love me anymore; you don’t want sex or anything that connects us as husband and wife.
Either you’re cheating on me or you don’t love me anymore; whatever the case, I’m gone.
Your EX-Husband
P.S. Don’t try to find me. Your SISTER and I are moving away to West Virginia together! Have a great life!
————————————————————————————————————-
Dear Ex-Husband -
Nothing has made my day more than receiving your letter. It’s true that you and I have been married for seven years, although a good man is a far cry from what you’ve been.
I watch my soaps so much because they drown out your constant whining and griping. Too bad that doesn’t work..
I did notice when you got a hair cut last week, but the first thing that came to mind was ‘You look just like a girl!’ Since my mother raised me not to say anything if you can’t say something nice, I didn’t comment.
And when you cooked my favorite meal, you must have gotten me confused with MY SISTER, because I stopped eating pork seven years ago.
About those new silk boxers: I turned away from you because the $49.99 price tag was still on them, and I prayed that it was a coincidence that my sister had just borrowed fifty dollars from me that morning.
After all of this, I still loved you and felt that we could work it out. So when I hit the lotto for ten million dollars, I quit my job and bought us two tickets to Jamaica . But when I got home you were gone.. Everything happens for a reason, I guess.
I hope you have the fulfilling life you always wanted. My lawyer said that the letter you wrote ensures you won’t get a dime from me. So take care.
Signed,
Your Ex-Wife, Rich As Hell and Free!
P.S. I don’t know if I ever told you this but my sister Carla was born Carl. I hope that’s not a problem.
Stand Up Toothbrush
The DEWS Toothbrush by Ryan and Harc won the Red Dot Concept Award. This new brilliant design concept for a standing toothbrush put an edge over current designs. The toothbrush keeps standing upright and never topples over because of a weight embedded in its bottom. No need for a brush-stand that will occupy space. Also, you’ll avoid putting the toothbrush just anywhere, causing it to be contaminated with organisms that will affect your health. Many are looking forward to the first manufacturer of this standing toothbrush. The Dews toothbrush will be the biggest hit in the future, so it’s time to make this one a reality.
WOW....This Is A Fucking Member Of Congress----> Rep. Gohmert Touts Column Comparing President Obama To Hitler Over Handling Of BP
Logical fallacy spotted:
Reductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, is an ad hominem or ad misericordiam argument, and is an informal fallacy.
The fallacy claims that a policy leads to—or is the same as—one advocated or implemented by Adolf Hitler or the Third Reich, and so "proves" that the original policy is undesirable. For example: "Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism is wrong." The tactic is often used to derail arguments, because such comparisons tend to distract and anger.
Reductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, is an ad hominem or ad misericordiam argument, and is an informal fallacy.
The fallacy claims that a policy leads to—or is the same as—one advocated or implemented by Adolf Hitler or the Third Reich, and so "proves" that the original policy is undesirable. For example: "Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism is wrong." The tactic is often used to derail arguments, because such comparisons tend to distract and anger.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
#snatchquotes
Brick Top: You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together.
Sol: Would someone mind telling me, who are you?
Brick Top: And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig".
The SAT and Black Students Don't Mix
A 2003 study by researcher Roy Freedle confirms what we've suspected for decades: The SAT discriminates against Black students. In an episode of Good Times, "the militant midget," aka Michael Evans, rebelled against a standardized test because it discriminated against poor blacks. How? The way it designed questions. Freedle's study examined varying ethnic groups that scored at the same level on the verbal portion of the exam. Freedle found that African-American students did better on harder questions with less-common words and worse on easier questions with common words that had multiple meanings. He theorized that this was due to racial and class upbringing. If the SAT doesn't take that into acount, then how accurate is the test design and what does it really reflect? Perhaps it isn't someone's aptitude after all, which is exactly what Michael Evans said.
The College Board should stop reflexively denying the research of Roy Freedle and seriously investigate whether the SAT is biased against African Americans and other minorities. If the test is indeed biased, it needs to be fixed or scrapped altogether.
Freedle published a paper in 2003 that looked at the results of varying ethnic groups that had scored at the same level on the verbal portion of the exam. He found that African American students did better on harder questions with less-common words and worse on easier questions with common words that had multiple meanings. Freedle theorized that the simpler words might have had different meanings in white middle-class neighborhoods than they did in more minority and underprivileged communities.
Jay Matthews of the Washington Post writes:
Simpler words tended to have more meanings, and in some cases different meanings in white middle- lass neighborhoods than they had in underprivileged minority neighborhoods, he concluded. This, he said, could help explain why African American students did worse on questions with common words than on questions that depended on harder, but less ambiguous words they studied at school.
On average, he said, black students were performing only slightly above matched-ability whites on hard questions. But
averages did not submit applications to colleges. Individual students did. Some of those individuals, he discovered, would have gotten a boost of a hundred points or more on the SAT if the score was weighted toward the hard items. He proposed that the College Board offer a supplement to SAT scores, called the Revised-SAT, or R-SAT, which would be calculated based only on the hard items. This, he said, would "greatly increase the number of high-scoring minority individuals."
Now, eight years later, two researchers have confirmed some of Freedle's findings. The results of their study have been published in the Harvard Educational Review.Maria Veronica Santelices of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago and Mark Wilson of UC Berkeley say that the "SAT, a high-stakes test with significant consequences for the educational opportunities available to young people in the United States, favors one ethnic group over another."
"The confirmation of unfair test results throws into question the validity of the test, and, consequently, all decisions based on its results," they added. "All admissions decisions based exclusively or predominantly on SAT performance -- and therefore access to higher education institutions and subsequent job placement and professional success -- appear to be biased against the African American minority group and could be exposed to legal challenge."
Freedle offered a possible solution to the bias he found on the test. He suggested that supplemental scores be released showing how well minorities did on the harder questions.
The SAT can be a gateway to opportunity. Students who do well on the test have access to the best colleges and universities, scholarships and other activities. Do poorly on the test, and opportunities are limited.
Aside from the type of bias that Freedle researched, the ability to pay for the expensive review programs that most top-scorers take is another issue in how well minority students perform. That's why admission to college should never be based solely or heavily on standardized testing alone.
There are varying types of intelligence. Some students, regardless of color, simply are not good test takers, and conversely because you are a good test taker doesn't mean you're a good student.
Since the SAT is a money-making enterprise, though, the College Board, even as a nonprofit entity, has an inherent interest in protecting it. In 2006, it reported assets of more than $464 million and paid the president of the organization more than $600,000.
The College Board called the new study "fundamentally flawed" and "wrong and irresponsible and a disservice to students, parents and colleges." The College Board also says it plans to publish a criticism of the paper.
What's a disservice for student, parents and colleges is for the College Board to not more seriously investigate the findings of these studies. While the College Board spends time refuting the study, maybe the NAACP or some other civil rights organization should gather a team of lawyers to consider that legal challenge.
The College Board should stop reflexively denying the research of Roy Freedle and seriously investigate whether the SAT is biased against African Americans and other minorities. If the test is indeed biased, it needs to be fixed or scrapped altogether.
Freedle published a paper in 2003 that looked at the results of varying ethnic groups that had scored at the same level on the verbal portion of the exam. He found that African American students did better on harder questions with less-common words and worse on easier questions with common words that had multiple meanings. Freedle theorized that the simpler words might have had different meanings in white middle-class neighborhoods than they did in more minority and underprivileged communities.
Jay Matthews of the Washington Post writes:
Simpler words tended to have more meanings, and in some cases different meanings in white middle- lass neighborhoods than they had in underprivileged minority neighborhoods, he concluded. This, he said, could help explain why African American students did worse on questions with common words than on questions that depended on harder, but less ambiguous words they studied at school.
On average, he said, black students were performing only slightly above matched-ability whites on hard questions. But
averages did not submit applications to colleges. Individual students did. Some of those individuals, he discovered, would have gotten a boost of a hundred points or more on the SAT if the score was weighted toward the hard items. He proposed that the College Board offer a supplement to SAT scores, called the Revised-SAT, or R-SAT, which would be calculated based only on the hard items. This, he said, would "greatly increase the number of high-scoring minority individuals."
Now, eight years later, two researchers have confirmed some of Freedle's findings. The results of their study have been published in the Harvard Educational Review.Maria Veronica Santelices of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago and Mark Wilson of UC Berkeley say that the "SAT, a high-stakes test with significant consequences for the educational opportunities available to young people in the United States, favors one ethnic group over another."
"The confirmation of unfair test results throws into question the validity of the test, and, consequently, all decisions based on its results," they added. "All admissions decisions based exclusively or predominantly on SAT performance -- and therefore access to higher education institutions and subsequent job placement and professional success -- appear to be biased against the African American minority group and could be exposed to legal challenge."
Freedle offered a possible solution to the bias he found on the test. He suggested that supplemental scores be released showing how well minorities did on the harder questions.
The SAT can be a gateway to opportunity. Students who do well on the test have access to the best colleges and universities, scholarships and other activities. Do poorly on the test, and opportunities are limited.
Aside from the type of bias that Freedle researched, the ability to pay for the expensive review programs that most top-scorers take is another issue in how well minority students perform. That's why admission to college should never be based solely or heavily on standardized testing alone.
There are varying types of intelligence. Some students, regardless of color, simply are not good test takers, and conversely because you are a good test taker doesn't mean you're a good student.
Since the SAT is a money-making enterprise, though, the College Board, even as a nonprofit entity, has an inherent interest in protecting it. In 2006, it reported assets of more than $464 million and paid the president of the organization more than $600,000.
The College Board called the new study "fundamentally flawed" and "wrong and irresponsible and a disservice to students, parents and colleges." The College Board also says it plans to publish a criticism of the paper.
What's a disservice for student, parents and colleges is for the College Board to not more seriously investigate the findings of these studies. While the College Board spends time refuting the study, maybe the NAACP or some other civil rights organization should gather a team of lawyers to consider that legal challenge.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Seventeen Caffeine-Free Ways to Stay Awake
Seventeen Caffeine-Free Ways to Stay Awake
By: Marc and Angel Hack Life (View Profile)
Staying awake is easy … five shots of espresso and a can of Red Bull is all you need. You’ll certainly be wide awake and wired, but you may also die from a heart attack a few hours later. In all seriousness, conquering drowsiness before it overwhelms your mind can be quite a challenge without the help of stimulants.
So the big question is: What are some healthy ways to stay awake when you must? Let’s take a look at seventeen possibilities.
1. Crank Up the AC
Warm, stuffy environments accelerate mental fatigue. If you need to stay awake in a lecture hall or meeting room find an open seat under an AC vent.
2. Cold Water
Splash some on your face and the pulse area of your wrists. Drinking an ice-cold glass of water can also help to wake you up, and if you drink enough of it you’ll be up on your feet using the restroom every thirty minutes as well.
3. Fasting at Mealtime
The human body expends a great deal of energy during the digestion process. This can create a great deal of fatigue when you are trying to stay awake. Fasting is a great way to avoid this natural fatigue. As long as you are drinking enough water, fasting for a meal or two is also a healthy way to detoxify your cells and rejuvenate organs.
4. Light Exercise Breaks
Take a break and take a walk or do a couple jumping jacks to get your blood moving. Even the slightest bit of exercise can act as a healthy way to energize your mind and body.
5. Chew Sugar-Free Peppermint Gum
It won’t rot your teeth and it will generate just enough physical activity to keep you awake. Strong peppermint flavors seem to work best for me; there’s just something about that refreshing minty taste.
6. Write
The idea is to keep your mind busy. If you are attending a lecture or business meeting, write down everything that is said. If you are simply trying to stay awake, create a detailed to-do list for the week or plan out your perfect weekend getaway.
7. A Good Laugh
Watch a funny video clip or read your favorite comic strip. A good chuckle will stimulate your mind and help you to stay awake a little while longer.
8. Inspirational and Motivational Material
Sometimes all you need is a little pep talk. Watch a video clip that inspires you.
9. Music
If it’s not too much of a distraction, listening to fast beat music can be a great way to keep your mind awake.
10. Tickle the Top of Your Mouth Cavity
Obviously, you’ll want to do this with your tongue. Rub your tongue against the top front area of your mouth cavity. It feels a little weird, but it does give you a quick, irritating nerve jolt that can actually help to keep you awake.
11. Turn On All the Lights
Darkness promotes sleepiness. Turn on every light in the room.
12. Hangout with a Friend
It’s so much easier to stay awake when you have someone else to interact with.
13. Play Video Games
First-person shooters, fast paced driving games, or online RPGs like the great World of Warcraft are sure to keep you wide awake.
14. Go Outdoors
Getting some fresh air outdoors is always a good way to rouse your senses.
15. Pull Down on Your Earlobes
This may sound strange, but pulling down on your earlobes can help you stay awake and alert when you’re feeling drowsy. Just try it.
16. Nutritious Low Carb Snacks
Low carb fruits such as raspberries, apples, oranges, and grapefruits are great energy boosters. Heaping scoops of spicy salsa on a few small crackers is another goodie. Stay away from meats, breads and dairy products.
17. Get Enough Sleep When You Can
This one should be obvious. The best way to stay awake is to be well rested. If you get enough sleep on a regular basis it will be much easier for you to stay awake or pull an all-nighter when you absolutely must.
By: Marc and Angel Hack Life (View Profile)
Staying awake is easy … five shots of espresso and a can of Red Bull is all you need. You’ll certainly be wide awake and wired, but you may also die from a heart attack a few hours later. In all seriousness, conquering drowsiness before it overwhelms your mind can be quite a challenge without the help of stimulants.
So the big question is: What are some healthy ways to stay awake when you must? Let’s take a look at seventeen possibilities.
1. Crank Up the AC
Warm, stuffy environments accelerate mental fatigue. If you need to stay awake in a lecture hall or meeting room find an open seat under an AC vent.
2. Cold Water
Splash some on your face and the pulse area of your wrists. Drinking an ice-cold glass of water can also help to wake you up, and if you drink enough of it you’ll be up on your feet using the restroom every thirty minutes as well.
3. Fasting at Mealtime
The human body expends a great deal of energy during the digestion process. This can create a great deal of fatigue when you are trying to stay awake. Fasting is a great way to avoid this natural fatigue. As long as you are drinking enough water, fasting for a meal or two is also a healthy way to detoxify your cells and rejuvenate organs.
4. Light Exercise Breaks
Take a break and take a walk or do a couple jumping jacks to get your blood moving. Even the slightest bit of exercise can act as a healthy way to energize your mind and body.
5. Chew Sugar-Free Peppermint Gum
It won’t rot your teeth and it will generate just enough physical activity to keep you awake. Strong peppermint flavors seem to work best for me; there’s just something about that refreshing minty taste.
6. Write
The idea is to keep your mind busy. If you are attending a lecture or business meeting, write down everything that is said. If you are simply trying to stay awake, create a detailed to-do list for the week or plan out your perfect weekend getaway.
7. A Good Laugh
Watch a funny video clip or read your favorite comic strip. A good chuckle will stimulate your mind and help you to stay awake a little while longer.
8. Inspirational and Motivational Material
Sometimes all you need is a little pep talk. Watch a video clip that inspires you.
9. Music
If it’s not too much of a distraction, listening to fast beat music can be a great way to keep your mind awake.
10. Tickle the Top of Your Mouth Cavity
Obviously, you’ll want to do this with your tongue. Rub your tongue against the top front area of your mouth cavity. It feels a little weird, but it does give you a quick, irritating nerve jolt that can actually help to keep you awake.
11. Turn On All the Lights
Darkness promotes sleepiness. Turn on every light in the room.
12. Hangout with a Friend
It’s so much easier to stay awake when you have someone else to interact with.
13. Play Video Games
First-person shooters, fast paced driving games, or online RPGs like the great World of Warcraft are sure to keep you wide awake.
14. Go Outdoors
Getting some fresh air outdoors is always a good way to rouse your senses.
15. Pull Down on Your Earlobes
This may sound strange, but pulling down on your earlobes can help you stay awake and alert when you’re feeling drowsy. Just try it.
16. Nutritious Low Carb Snacks
Low carb fruits such as raspberries, apples, oranges, and grapefruits are great energy boosters. Heaping scoops of spicy salsa on a few small crackers is another goodie. Stay away from meats, breads and dairy products.
17. Get Enough Sleep When You Can
This one should be obvious. The best way to stay awake is to be well rested. If you get enough sleep on a regular basis it will be much easier for you to stay awake or pull an all-nighter when you absolutely must.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Police: Family killed dad for watching World Cup instead of gospel show
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country.
David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.
"He said, 'No, I want to watch soccer,"' police spokesman Mothemane Malefo said Thursday. "That is when the argument came about.
"In that argument, they started assaulting him."
Malefo said Makoeya got up to change the channel by hand after being refused the remote control and was attacked by his 68-year-old wife Francina and two children, 36-year-old son Collin and 23-year-old daughter Lebogang.
Malefo said he was not sure what the family used to kill Makoeya.
"It appears they banged his head against the wall," Malefo said. "They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead."
All three were arrested Sunday night, but Lebogang was released on $200 bail Tuesday, Malefo said. The other two are still being held in custody.
Malefo said the mother and son will reappear in the local Seshego Magistrates Court on July 27.
"He was always a happy man, never violent," Makoeya's nieces, Miriam and Anna, told the Daily Sun newspaper. "On Saturday, we saw him the last time at a funeral."
The World Cup, being played in Africa for the first time, started Friday and runs through July 11. Although most the tickets for the 64-game tournament have been sold, many in South Africa are too poor to attend matches.
David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.
"He said, 'No, I want to watch soccer,"' police spokesman Mothemane Malefo said Thursday. "That is when the argument came about.
"In that argument, they started assaulting him."
Malefo said Makoeya got up to change the channel by hand after being refused the remote control and was attacked by his 68-year-old wife Francina and two children, 36-year-old son Collin and 23-year-old daughter Lebogang.
Malefo said he was not sure what the family used to kill Makoeya.
"It appears they banged his head against the wall," Malefo said. "They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead."
All three were arrested Sunday night, but Lebogang was released on $200 bail Tuesday, Malefo said. The other two are still being held in custody.
Malefo said the mother and son will reappear in the local Seshego Magistrates Court on July 27.
"He was always a happy man, never violent," Makoeya's nieces, Miriam and Anna, told the Daily Sun newspaper. "On Saturday, we saw him the last time at a funeral."
The World Cup, being played in Africa for the first time, started Friday and runs through July 11. Although most the tickets for the 64-game tournament have been sold, many in South Africa are too poor to attend matches.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Juror's conduct halts sex trial
Juror's conduct halts sex trial
4:00 AM Friday Jun 4, 2010A sexual abuse trial was aborted after a juror revealed he became aroused while listening to evidence from the alleged victims.
The elderly jury member was one of 12 people hearing a case in an Auckland Court this week about the sexual abuse of two teenage girls.
The Herald has been told the jury was sent home early on Monday after the man said he was distressed by what he had heard during the first day of evidence.
On Wednesday, Judge Mary Beth Sharp questioned the jurors about how they were coping.
It is understood she was told the male juror had confided to his fellow jurors that he had been sexually aroused by the victims' evidence but had coped on Tuesday by wearing a condom in the courtroom.
The man also told the other jurors his views on the trial in case he ended up being taken off the jury.
As a result of that, the trial - which was supposed to run until yesterday - was aborted and the case rescheduled for a new trial date.
Staff at the Auckland District Court yesterday confirmed the case had been aborted, but would not elaborate on why apart from saying it was as a result of a "contempt of court" issue.
Neither the police nor the Crown would comment, saying the case was still before the courts.
But one source last night told the Herald the alleged victims would now have to go through the ordeal of giving evidence again at another trial.
Another source said this was not the first instance of a juror acting inappropriately.
"While these sorts of events are certainly uncommon, this sort of conduct is not without precedent."
Sources said the aborted case was yet another reason to have sexual abuse trials heard by judges only.
Only a third of those involving young victims result in a conviction.
There have also been concerns that juries do not always accurately represent society as they often are drawn from people who have the time to do jury service.
The accused's lawyer, Adam Couchman, said what had happened was not a common enough occurrence to seek change in the system.
"This is a once in a 20-year experience, so we have got to be careful of falling into that knee-jerk sort of reaction we all seem to have when something bizarre or significant occurs."
It is understood police are looking into the matter.
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