gregladen | September 4, 2009... is more of a cave in according to Stephanie Zvan. Read her post at Quiche Moraine.
gregladen | September 4, 2009All the kiddies have to wait until September eight, but I've obtained a copy of it!!!!
Ooops, wrong president. OK, now, please help me find all the press and other documentation of the left wing going nuts over the president addressing the school children.
Oh, what? There isn't any? You mean the left and the right are NOT mirror images of each other? Well, I'll be a goat!
Thanks Ed for digging this up.
gregladen | September 3, 2009Dusty Trice has some brilliant reporting. Here's his film:
Read his detailed report and analysis here.
I love this: The woman who asks the opening question seems to assume that the general population is behind her. Love the way she says "Obama" ... reminds me of how southerners used to say a different word back in the old days. Then, I love the way she stands there dumbfounded when actual conversation happens.
gregladen | September 3, 2009I was shocked to learn only a few minutes ago that the administration of the largest independent school district in the state of Minnesota had no idea until today about the President's intention to speak to the school children of this country next week.
As one teacher said to me, "It is very hard to just add in an activity with no prior warning or knowledge that this is happening. I don't expect a lot of teachers to just buy into this regardless of the politics."
That is interesting, disappointing, and shocking.
It is also remarkable that the event is scheduled for 12:00 EDT. That's lunch…
gregladen | September 3, 2009Dear Dr. Thein,
I am a parent of a child in the Roseville, MN School District. I am very concerned about news reports I've been hearing from elsewhere in Minnesota indicating that there are parents upset about The President of the United States addressing the students in some classrooms next week.
I am primarily concerned with the responses by the school districts to the parents. The responses I've heard have been rather appeasing to these parents. I do not think this is appropriate.
The parents in question are insane.
They are suggesting, perhaps not to school districts directly but…
gregladen | September 3, 2009A poll of facebook ... link is here ... asks "Should President Obama be allowed to do a nationwide address to school children without parental consent?"
I find the wording of that statement to be astounding. But anyway, if you are on facebook, you may want to go and vote. CUrrently, 65% say NO, 29% say YES.
OH, and people are posting this on their facebook status today:
"_______ believes that no one should die because they cannot afford health care, and nobody should go broke because they get sick."
(you put your name int he blank, or whatever)
gregladen | September 3, 2009Drug monkey points out the latest over the tip insanity... The President of the United States plans to distribute an address to the nation's school children on September 8th, and some of the wingnuts are saying they want their kids out of school, or out of the classroom, for that event. They are pretty sure this is part of Obama's attempt to spread socialism. There is a poll asking this question:
What are your feelings about the President addressing school children in a speech on September 8th?
HERE. So, you have the opportunity to express your opinion on this vitally important topic.
gregladen | September 3, 2009At issue here is the idea that "biology" is slow and ponderous, glacial, even geological, in its rate of change, while culture is quick and snappy and makes rapid adjustment. Connected to this is a subtly different but very important idea: Culture actually makes sensible adjustments to compensate for changes in the biological realm.
Surely, it is true that culture can change more quickly than biology, and surely it is true that culture can make adjustments for biological effects or alterations. Indeed, the very essence of humanity is culture's effects on human capacities. We tropical ex-…
gregladen | September 2, 2009"You also must rely on Science."
Well, OK, he didn't actually SAY that, but he did DO that...
Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson underwent 10 hours of surgery to repair an irregular heartbeat that put the 79-year-old at higher risk of a deadly stroke or heart attack, his lead surgeon said Monday.
Robertson was back at home in Virginia Beach after his release on Thursday from a hospital in North Carolina. He ultimately will be fitted with a heart monitor, Dr. Andy C. Kiser said.
That is not the kind of surgery the average poor folk are likely to get, it seems to me. Anyway, he had his chance…
gregladen | September 2, 2009What is this strange blog that seems to like me, happy about my voice and putting me on my very own blog roll and stuff?????
Don't forget to check out the "about" page.
gregladen | September 2, 2009A new study using both genetic and cultural data shows that ethnic groups in Central Asia are primarily a sociocultural phenomenon.
From the Abstract:
...we used genetic data that ... in addition to data from the literature, to understand better the origins of Central Asian groups at a fine-grained scale, and to assess how ethnicity influences the shaping of genetic differences in the human species. We assess the levels of genetic differentiation between ethnic groups on one hand and between populations of the same ethnic group on the other hand ...
Our results show that there are more…
gregladen | September 2, 2009OK, folks, your wisdom is needed.
I got an email from Sheril Kirshenbaum asking me to promote a blog post in which she asks for pictures that might be used to illustrate her upcoming book on kissing. I had planned to help her out, and in fact, here I am doing that right now: Please look at this post and consider sending Sheril some pics. Be nice about it. No porn please.
(cc me anything you are not sure of and I'll tell you if it is porn or not.)
Now, DrugMonkey has chimed in and made an interesting comment that I think should be taken into consideration (by Sheril). He points out, in…
gregladen | September 2, 2009Central Asian ethnic groups are more defined by societal rules than ancestry. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genetics found that overall there are more genetic differences within ethnic groups than between them, indicating that separate 'ethnic groups' exist in the mind more than the blood.
Evelyne Heyer, from the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, France, led an international team of researchers who studied mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome data from several populations of two major language ethnic groups of Central Asia, the Turkic and Indo-Iranian groups.
She said: "Our…
gregladen | September 2, 2009I just received a very cool graphic from my friend and former student who is currently living under the ice at the South Pole. She is very excited about the implications of this graphic.
To read this, imagine yourself on a certain date (x axis). Now, follow a line down from top to bottom and see when the sun is up vs. down. This shows the change in "day length" across the year.
But if you are on the south pole, it is essentially binary. Sunup, or sundown.
Now, go find today's date on the graph for the south pole and see why my friend is getting exited!
gregladen | September 2, 2009Today's falsehood is the idea that individual animals act for the benefit of their own species.
Let me give you an example. When I was a kid, I watched a nature show about cougars. The show 'documented' a single female cougar going about doing cougar-things and being generally cougar-like. At one point she had cute little baby cougar kittens.
Then a flood came. The stream near her chosen lair swelled its banks and threatened to drown the kittens. So, she carried one of the kittens up the hill to a new lair. She went back to get the second kitten, and the flood waters were even higher…