Education and Politicians: Politicians Are All Wrong. Surprise!

If it weren't for my Aspergian tendencies, I'd try to become a lobbyist or politician. Or if I knew I could make a good living off of it I'd do it.

I have some relatives that work in public schools, so I get to hear about lovely programs and solutions-of-the-month that are fed into the public schools by administrators and government. Most of the time I'm just left shaking my head, wondering what the politicians are thinking.

I mean...do they actually spend any time in the classroom to see what effect their various decrees are having?

I was thinking about it again when I found a Time article from a researcher who actually studied the effect of "bribing" kids with money in order to increase achievement in schools. The researcher was an economist, which reminded me of a fantastic book I recently finished, SuperFreakonomics. That book continued to build off the first book, Freakonomics, wherein the economist authors provide both entertaining and informative information while reinforcing the idea that people change their behavior based on the proper incentive (well, that's one of the ideas, anyway...he makes several observations and links between various phenomena of people's behavior).

I was thinking about the way the US is currently trying to increase student achievement. The government finds that our population is stupid. Very stupid. As in, on average, we are scientifically, mathematically, and historically ignorant compared to most other industrialised nations. Recent highlight; the NSF hid results of portions of a recent survey of American regarding the big bang and evolution.

Okay, blame schools, they decide. Enter No Child Left Behind, and the ensuing efforts to standardise education. There are lists of what kids must be able to do by certain grade levels/ages, and if schools keep underperforming, they lose funds, and if it continues to happen, schools are shut down or taken over by outside groups. Kids take a series of tests as dictated by various agencies in various state governments at different times of their educational lives.

There are huge numbers of detractors for the way education is attempting to be reformed, but it seems to me that the most fundamental problem is that the onus of "fixing" education is on the wrong entity.

There is no incentive for students to do better. If they perform poorly, the school is punished. Essentially, the teachers are told that if they have students not doing what they're supposed to be doing, then it's the teacher's fault; the teacher didn't "engage" every kid in the classroom to the point where they want to learn.

This places blame for student stupidity squarely on the teachers, as the blame is placed by politicians on the schools which goes on the administrators who then turn around and blame the teachers. And the blame stops there.

The real problem, as I see it, lay in the community. If the kids screw off in school, the school gets punished. Not them. What incentive is there to learn?

The parents of failing kids rarely seem to care. Usually that sub group is just as ignorant as the kids.

The community as a whole doesn't value education. We have a society that wanted to have a George Bush clone for president because he was someone that the "Average Joe" could sit and have a beer with, while "liberal" candidates were overeducated and out of touch with the average American, apparently because they were educated if you listen closely enough to the criticisms. How can you expect students to want to perform well in academia when we pay sports stars millions of dollars while scientists are begging for funding, usually from corporate interests only funding research that they believe with benefit their own interests?

What it comes down to, in my view, is incentive. Students have no incentive to achieve academically. What happens if they fail math or science? They still have their cell phones, ipods, freedoms for the most part...schools can only limit so much. Even things they're not supposed to have the freedom to do teachers will let kids get away with. "It's study hall, it's not worth taking away the cell phone, so if they want to text go ahead..."

Most parents don't care. The helicopter parents are usually the ones in the conferences and emailing about their child's progress and their kids aren't the ones failing or staying home "sick" for thirty days a year.

Since we don't place incentives or punishments on parents and students, and instead focus on schools being punished, of course schools will fail at getting kids motivated to learn. How do you get kids involved when all teachers hear from the students is, "What do these tests matter? It's not like we're graded on them or something."

It's simply another burden for schools to bear. The funny part is that people still think schools are for learning; they're instead a social program for watching kids. Most parents have no idea how much money is spent on so-called IEP's (this may be different depending on what your state has for helping kids) and special-needs. Schools spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on purchasing special equipment for kids that will never be able to move beyond the most basic of skills; 18 year olds with the mental development of a five year old. Schools spend resources on counseling kids, sports, and various activities that have little if anything to do with academics. It's disingenuous to label a school as an educational institution when it actually fills a niche I like to call "community spackle;" public schools are expected to fill in all the gaps that parents can't be bothered to perform in raising their kids.


The whole "No Child Left Behind" is simply highlighting the shortcomings that have been cultivated in our society so blame can be allocated onto the schools and politicians are able, for the next several years, to both look like they care about making society less stupid while simultaneously looking like they're doing something about it. What it actually does is add a greater burden to schools, which in turn puts a greater squeeze on their employees, which then makes more qualified educators flee from the field and encourage more mediocre teachers to fill teaching posts, thus lowering education quality even more.

In short:
There's little incentive for parents to pressure students to achieve.
There's little incentive for kids to achieve.
There's little incentive for good, qualified educators to stay in the field.
There's little power given to schools to actually affect any change in the situation. They're simply given a directive, and when they fail, they're punished. Ever been put in charge of something that you have no authority to direct? Isn't that the definition of being set up to fail?

There are several things I've found to be screwed up with public education but until we acknowledge that many of these problems begin and end with the public, our nation will continue to carry a reputation of being among the most mediocre countries for education, per capita, among the developed nations of the world.

Healthcare System Thoughts: Reform

I recently saw someone make a half-headed comment about Democrats "ramming" legislation through congress for healthcare reform that "most Americans don't want" and Independents and Republicans are against.

I commented, only half jesting, asking if she had seen the recent bit on Colbert (or was it Jon Stewart?) where they did a news bit on Hawaii's healthcare.

For the most part she stayed out of the back and forth, probably because she doesn't really have a full idea of what she was whining about. She only clarified that if people were against it then it shouldn't be rammed through Congress.

Which, of course, is bullshit.

Primarily because Congress isn't looking out for the people; they're looking out for the popular vote, money, and politics, THEN their constituents. And I usually think most of the people bitching about whatever issue is on the front page of a newsmag probably do not know what a constituent is.

The bit on the "fake" news program brought up that Hawaii has had, for nearly 40 years, a law that mandates employers to provide health insurance for employees who work 20 hours or more four days a week. This means that just about every person in Hawaii is insured. There are wonderful statistics for the state showing that overall their health is among the best in the country. Of course here are problems to nitpick; employer fraud is on the rise, and some have decided to skirt the law by hiring more people to work fewer hours. It happens, of course. Apparently if something isn't one hundred percent effective then it's a failure in the minds of morons. At the same time, the numbers speak for themselves; the NY Times has an article that states that the health insurance premiums in the state tie North Dakota's for being the lowest and medicare costs per beneficiary are the lowest in the country. Hawaii has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the country, yet the lowest number of deaths.

This, of course, didn't stop someone in the Facebook thread, apparently from Hawaii, from being offended at the comment that they have a "socialized" healthcare systems (her tricorder must be missing a 'sarcasm' setting). Quick tidbit...when Republican spin doctors are spinning the ideas they oppose in oversimplified terms for an ignorant population, they like using words like "socialized" in this case to mean that the government is in control of the healthcare instead of the people; I was using the term tongue in cheek, but the fact remains that your state government is mandating health insurance coverage by proxy through the employers. When the government mandates and agent through proxy, it's still government meddling.

But in this case it seems to be helping.

A quick Google on the topic of "Hawaii healthcare" pops up several articles, most of the recent ones about a failed children's health insurance coverage system and many bouncy heads pointing to it as a failure. "See! They repealed it in seven months! We told you government healthcare can't work!"

Actually reading the information seems to show that there are kids who aren't covered with insurance. To help with that there was an initiative meant to cover the population of kids in need. What happened was that a number of people with  insurance already dropped their kids and moved them to the new system, so the money allotted couldn't handle the influx.

The actual "unworkable" system has been in place for decades for employed citizens.

On another note, I asked a friend and expat living in Australia what the health insurance system is like. He said that, like most of the modern world, it's socialized, and he'd be afraid to return to the States with the nightmare that is our insurance bureaucracy. The thing to remember, he said, is that your insurance companies are for-profit. They aren't there to help you. They have shareholders to please.

Which is true. It's against the law, last I knew, for a company to act in a way contrary to the interests of the shareholders, or the shareholders can sue. Good luck navigating this information, though...apparently big names like Blue Cross Blue Shield are fractured into a number of for-profit and non-profit sub companies in relationships so convoluted that the only thing more confusing is dealing with them as a customer.

I quickly grew tired of the crap spewing from talking heads and ended my contributions with a summary; I don't care. Any changes made not won't have a significant effect until I'm dead. Why?

Simple. Because part of the reason Hawaii is most likely doing well is because they've had it for decades. If you have state-run or federal-mandated health systems, it's going to have a large budget swell the first few decades because we're a population of gluttonous pigs. We're smokers. We're sedentary. We recognize more McDonaldland characters than we do names of astronauts or federal judges. More people can name more sports teams than ingredients in a soft drink or average calories at their favorite restaurant for their favorite meals (for those that actually provide nutrient information). So if you want to help with health issues, there's going to be a tail effect...the youth will need to grow up with better habits and lifestyles. As they become more prevalent, you'll see health effects slink up the charts, but the initial funding will be going towards those of us that have pissed away our lives in front of the television eating fast food and generally making unhealthy choices.

Offensive for some, but once we, the current generation or two, die off, then you'll see effects of a healthier lifestyled generation.

Of course at the point where we put a strain on the budget there will be a large outcry from the morons bemoaning the reform, and steps will be taken to eradicate it. People want it both ways. We want businesses to sell boatloads of frankenfoods...shakes...burgers...sodium-laden but yummy chain restaurant glop...while people just magically stay fit and healthy.

On the other hand, people living longer and healthier means that we'll have a greater population living longer and the health effects that just come from aging, a whole new ball of wax to debate and whine over.

My take? Like I said, I don't care anymore. I can't make a change. What I say doesn't matter. Any change for the better is going to take time and I'll be dead before I could reap any benefits from it (which I truly think is what insurance companies want). I also don't understand the endless debate we have in this "wonderful country" over healthcare when people literally go bankrupt because they have an illness. There's people WITH insurance that go bankrupt because of an illness. That's simply ridiculous, and the only reason I can think of that this is allowed to go on is because the asses actually being vocal about the debate are healthy or already have excellent insurance coverage, so they couldn't really give a damn about other people without voices in the matter, people who actually suffer the ramifications of these debates and political manoeuvrings, suffering because the talking heads that are supposed to be representing the interests of the constituency are more interested in the money from lobbyists.

Sad, isn't it?

Young Kids: It's Black and White

I remember when I was younger (way back in the 80's) I used to love watching cartoons like Transformers and Voltron. There were plenty of other series on like Smurfs, G.I. Joe, Dinosaucers, and many, many others.

I remember as I grew up it became fairly confusing how each of the series seemed to follow the same tropish formula. I don't mean just the examples found in series like Voltron, either, where you have a basic premise of the bad guys coming in and launching an all-out assault against the "good" planet (alway focusing somehow on the good guy's base of operations), good guys get into a scrape (how will they get out of it?) then the whole thing is resolved in the last five minutes by forming Voltron and slashing the bad guy in half with the Blazing Sword.

No, I mean the trope wherein these cartoon worlds were always divided into two factions; the good, and the evil. While in elementary school I began to wonder why the good guys always won. It was boring. We never knew why the bad guys wanted to take over the universe (who would want the paperwork involved? And what do you do once you've taken over the universe? Go to Disneyworld?)

Why were bad guys bad? Sometimes there's some trite backstory involving how the psychotic Bad Guy(tm) feels the world wronged him or the hero of the series wronged him, but there was never a decent reason given as to what motivated this Bad Guy to dedicated his life (and make a living, somehow) off making the Good Guys suffer, or why the Good Guys were dedicated to thwarting the Bad Guy.

It was always so simple, so clear cut which was good and which was bad (why didn't the bad guys just wear white? They could easily infiltrate the Good Guy base just be switching colors, it seemed). For no apparent reason whatsoever the bad guy simply perpetuated every "bad" stereotype out there for being bad. It really drove me nuts. Even in church I never understood why the Devil, Satan, Prince of Darkness, was such a trope...if God was infallible, and was the paragon of goodness, why would Satan have crossed Him? What possible reason would have made him think he could "beat" God? And even if it was just because he was jealous, why dedicate the rest of existence to this endless game of screwing with humanity to anger God? I mean, doesn't it get boring after a thousand years, and why wouldn't God just get tired of it and say, as most parents do when they grow weary of a child's petulance, "That's enough, you've had your fun. Now stop it or I'm going to invert the laws of physics holding your molecular structure intact."

The world didn't seem to play by these simple rules of Here's Good, There's Evil, and Good Always Wins, although we were always told that's how things worked. Certain political parties pandered to the citizenry as holding American values, that we're the Good Guys, that we do what must be done for the good of the world. We are the good guys, over there are the bad guys.

As I grew older I read stories of American warriors sent to other countries to destabilize their governments; we assassinated, we tortured, we killed. We reeled in disbelief at pictures held up by our government of concentration camps created by other countries as examples of their evil intentions and behaviors while simultaneously forgetting that America apparently had concentration camps for Asian-Americans during World War II.

The blinders continue to this day, but I'm not entirely sure anymore it's media that causes this viewpoint. Rather, media simply reinforces this notion that the world is a simple matter of black-and-white, good-and-evil. They're playing to an audience in order to sell more stuff to kids.

I'm the father of a four year old. Thanks to our corporate overlords my son was introduced to Lego Wii games in the form of Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars. I blew his mind when I told him these were based on movies.

So he watched Star Wars. Yes, even three. I'm a bad parent that way. But what I found interesting was his total lack of comprehension for what he's watching. Yes, he's four, but there are some things he latched onto ("Star Wars people are cool!" he'd say, referring to the Jedi with the lightsabers) and other things that flew over his head (understandably so). But in particular, he needed to divide the movie into "good guys" and "bad guys."

Star Wars is not necessarily a shining example of perfect storytelling. But it is rather complicated. It weaves a story together not just of a man's journey from his own failures and shortcomings to redemption, but of a man who plotted and achieved great power at the expense of a democratic republic, all the while the people of the republic supported his ascension to power. It told a story of corruption and of the apathy on the part of the citizenry that were in a position to do something about these things and didn't.

My son talked of the "bad guy" Trade Federation, the army of droids, in the movie. They weren't bad, I tell him. They were oppressed by taxation that they felt was unfair. Not surprisingly this didn't matter to my son.

He doesn't understand how the Republic ended up putting powers into the hands of Palpatine as supreme chancellor, and how he manipulated the events to eventually make himself emperor, or turn a democratic republic so mired in bureaucracy into a smooth if oppressive empire.

He doesn't understand how the "good guys" in the first three movies become "bad guys", or that Vader became Vader because he was selfish but driven to gain power over life and death itself in order to protect his true love (whom he ended up killing anyway).

As I live to observe kids in different ages I see fewer and fewer differences. We are, by most accounts in ways it matters, sheeple. We follow crowds. We are manipulated by television ads and print media, all the while told the television shows and ads and print media are just giving us what we want. Petulance becomes tempered and expressed in other more subtle forms as we get older, but in observing children I see human behavior in its most raw form. I see what we want, and what we want to do, in the most basic form. Children have no qualms about telling someone they're fat. Or that you stink. Or any of a number of things that we learn are social faux-pas to admit to. They want something, they say so, unlike my teenager that tries to manipulate us into getting something for her through other means.

And one of the things children latch on to is the idea that the world is simple. It's black and white. There's good, there's evil. Grey wavy lines in between are uncomfortable and take thought and critical thinking to work through.

That's why I think Star Wars is actually kind of a nice critical thinking test for my son. He doesn't yet understand what is going on in it, but someday he hopefully will. In it's own way Star Wars is a wonderful analytical exercise for understanding and critical thinking despite the obvious tropes and horrible elements put into the story for seemingly no reason (Jar-Jar? Oh geez...)

There are elements that should give pause. Why were the Jedi revered while so arrogant in their own power? Why was so little emphasis placed on the fear they placed on ordinary people, or is it unethical that children strong in the force were simply taken away for training, whether they wanted to or not? Was the Empire truly bad, when they apparently had done some good for the citizens in the Empire? And the rebels were killing large numbers of people who probably were not inherently "evil"...they blew up a Death Star that probably had many innocent people working and living on it. They killed beings whose only sin was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And at the same time, the Empire had held the galaxy in order, and by destroying the central government they achieved what? Plunging the galaxy into a system of regional chaos, overseen by regional governors with their own agendas, while trying to re-establish a central Republican (not American political party Republican) government like the one that had become bloated an ineffectual in the first place? The Empire had drawbacks; being xenophobic, killing dissidents, and a small roster of other offenses to what we consider basic freedoms, but the Empire also brought stability and actual governance where the Republic had failed miserably.

On the surface the movies are simple and appeal to people who, like my son, want superficial simple good-is-good and evil-is-evil and rah rah for the good guy action. But there are skeptics and critical thinkers that want more.

I know this because there is now a growing surge in revisiting the 80's. It seems every franchise is having an attempt at a reboot, and in the process storylines are being fleshed out and revamped, some for better and some for worse.

Not long ago I read a story about the origin of Megatron, the leader of the "evil" Decepticons in Transformers (the real transformers, not the Michael Bay productions). I truly enjoyed it. Why was Megatron bad? He wasn't, really. He was a miner whose job was being taken away through the automation of the plant at which he worked, so Megatron and all the other "low ranking" beings were being forced from a job so a corrupt Autobot government would profit. The series showed how Megatron more or less fell into the position of Decepticon leader after leading a rebellion against a corrupt government. The Autobots were not all clean and clear of fault after all, and the Decepticons, despite having a simplistic set of motives in the childhood cartoons (namely, "we're conquering the galaxy because...well, because.") had actually valid reasons for the spark of insurrection.

Other heroes eventually explored the more complicated intricacies of their backgrounds. Batman is a truly screwed up individual. Iron Man faced his ethical demons in the Civil War story arc, one of the best series I've read from Marvel. Even Voltron has had some light shown in darker recesses that question how wonderful and pure he was as a hero when you look at the original, non-Americanized (and non-Disneyfied) Japanese origin story of Voltron.

This gives me some hope that sometime down the road my son will grow to be a critical thinker. There's hope I can interest him in thinking under the initial layers of simplistic thinking, that the Empire, despite Lucas' efforts to show otherwise, isn't just an evil scourge on the universe. There are complicated undercurrents to the story that can be fascinating to explore and in the process perhaps learn more about the world in which we live.

Hijackers and Body Scanners

Whenever some goober gets the itch to blow up an airplane there is a small flare of public interest in keeping the public safe without much thought to the consequences.

After the attempted blowing up of a plane by a moron over Christmas via an explosive banana hammock, the news stations were all abuzz over ways to thwart terrorists in our planes. Nevermind that most of our security enhancements added to airport security amounted to little more than feel-good measures that added a ton of hassle for innocent people and very little actual effectiveness (ask Bruce Schneier) in preventing attacks.

The latest push I've seen in the news is for the deployment of full-body scanners. A quick Google turns up a number of articles on them, but this was the first time I heard our "local news" covering the idea in one of their typical short-attention-span-friendly broadcasts.

They seem like a wonderful solution. Basically using backscatter X-ray technology you can see through someone's clothes, highlighting hidden objects. They also let the TSA agents see breast and penis implants, your genitalia, and essentially remove anything that before resembled modesty or personal privacy.

More effective than pat-downs? Yes, probably they are.

Preferred over pat-downs? That's probably a personal question. Would you rather have a "freedom grope" or a minimum wage barely trained McGoober staring at your nubbins?

The TSA swears that the images aren't kept; they're erased in a short amount of time. Oddly enough, nipple slips and upskirt glances aren't visible after a short amount of time as well, but there's nonetheless a thrill from those who get to see these passing slips of modesty and for most of those who were on the slip-per side of the equation the embarrassment doesn't get conveniently erased so quickly.

Does the TSA promise that leering glances and/or smirks are going to be suppressed?  Does the TSA mind a nice fat lawsuit when some monkey behind the controls snaps a quick picture with a camera phone and circulates the picture online of the MILF that just went through the line? Or if another passenger gets the image on their camera? And what protection is there for the passenger's privacy? My doctor has seen my gross nudity (lose a lot of weight, you'll know what I mean). My wife's had doctors see her give birth, and she has doctors that explore her nether regions on a scheduled basis with a duck-billed device that I won't pretend to understand. But the doctors and nurses we rely on for care are trusted not to abuse their positions. I don't get that feeling from TSA agents that are hardly considered elite law enforcement personnel. I often worry they're one step above mall security guards in terms of training and professionalism or are recruited from Craigs List.

My parting thought to the news story...my daughter is underage and nearly legal. My son is DEFINITELY underage. What's to keep some pervert from leering at her nether regions as one of my kids go through security? It's that tantamount to child porn? Sounds to me like they're saying child pornography is okay for the government to produce but for everyone else it's wrong. I'd like to know how they're keeping perverts from going through their McTraining program just to get their jollies staring at young T&A in the airport, seeing as they have such fulfilling and upwardly mobile professional options working in those positions.

Hearing these arguments the government entities swore that they would be putting some software graphic-scrambling magic in so that you don't have your junk or nethers necessarily clear in the images. So...doesn't that defeat the purpose of the scan? Shove some of your magic exploding powder up the canal or tape it to your love stick and it'll just be part of a blurred algorithm on the screen (assuming this is actually done, or is actually effective).

I'm not entirely comfortable with this crap anymore. Air travel is becoming a bigger and bigger hassle, and now I have some half-trained halfwits staring at my wiener just to prove that I am allowed to get on a plane. I'm not innocent until proven guilty. I'm a cog at the mercy of a group of ineffectual thugs who get their jollies showing they have power over people who really are trying to get from point A to point B. The vast majority of people are innocent, but thanks to a few goobers that committed a heinous act, the innocent must suffer at the hands of knee-jerk reactions on behalf of the government trying to pretend they're actually making a difference with feel-good measures. The real question is how much more of this are we, the traveling public, going to accept before we give up on the idea that we are a country that values freedoms and privacy?

Internet as a Valid Source

I have a kid in school. This child is old enough to do research papers. Said child has had many teachers say that she cannot use Internet resources as sources for papers and projects; she must cite "paper" sources, like newspapers and magazine articles. Sometimes there are particular web sites that they're allowed to use that are "valid" due to being subscription based or have parent companies that are based in the paper world (Time magazine's website, or the New York Times).

Why? Because any moron can put information on the Internet. Supposedly.

I think that teachers that use this line of reasoning clearly don't understand the nature of the Internet. Or their own chosen "Valid Citation" sources, for that matter.

They still think Wikipedia is inaccurate. There was a study done that compared Wikipedia with Britannica; the results were startlingly close. More importantly, if you are researching anything having to do with fringe or pop culture, Britannica was about as useful as a knife at a gunfight. I searched for the name Optimus Prime on Britannica's website and got a nonsense result (with offers to buy one on eBay...huh?). Wikipedia? Full character history, voice actor information, incarnations in various series...the whole shebang.

Wikipedia has also been making changes to help ensure accuracy in their articles as well.

Most sites that have information seem to draw a particular crowd; as such, the users gain a form of currency in reputation. Sites like StackOverflow and Serverfault have created entire communities based on reputation; the more you participate, the more reputation other users will give you as a reward for correct answers, the higher your reputation, the more authority you have.

There's a tacit acknowledgement in this when these luddites allow for "certain" online articles to be cited in research but not others; authority is the currency that matters. Popular sites on the Internet are popular because large numbers of people continue to visit them and use their information. Incorrect information can be separated out by the community.

But these teachers insist that printed sources carry authority because of their oversight; they have editors, while the webbertubes are governed like the wild west!

Hmm...that doesn't take into account incidents like the sheepskin pulled over Oprah's eyes by Mr. James Frey? Or reporters that make their information up completely? Including for big name news media like USA Today? Where was their oversight then?

The Fake Steve Jobs had an interesting article reviewing why mainstream media is dying. He outlines a story on TechCrunch examining a company called Zynga that was selling scam ads online with those stupid games like "FarmVille". The blog basically heavily slammed the company with proof of their scum tactics including a video clip when Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, told an audience of developers all about the things he did to generate revenue through those games.

The New York Times had a story about Zynga that completely neglected to mention any word about the ad revenue and scam tactics being used by them. It was all sunshine and rainbows being blown up Zynga's arse, and it gave Zynga positive press at a point when people should have been alerted that they're being ripped off.

Here, the online resources were more accurate and arguably more relevant than the "authoritative" New York Times.

It can also be argued that our media outlets are too biased to be taken seriously without a heavy dose of skepticism. Even searching for "media bias" on Google comes up with a site near the top of the rankings that "exposes the liberal bias of the media." The entire site is geared towards not giving you facts to interpret, but rather convince you that the media is run by evil liberals out to poison the minds of conservatives.

None of this addresses the real weakness of my daughter's teacher's view in using online resources; in research papers, you're supposed to use reason and research to back up your claims. You can't just cite one source for any fact and expect it to be taken as a given; you need multiple sources that verify the fact, or a line of reasoning that can lead you to reasonably conclude what the researcher concludes. Any idiot can parrot one thing they heard.

Hell...many of the "published" authorities do. How often do you run across the same articles nearly word for word, then realize they're all from the Associated Press? Five sources all using the same Associated Press as their source isn't five sources for your paper.

Even then, there are times when a clearly satirical news story was re-reported by "valid sources" as being true. Where was their authoritative oversight then?

The fact is that when properly researched (i.e., by applying cross-checking and reason to the topic at hand) the source of information is less important than the brains analyzing it. All the news being reported is coming from people and as such is going to be filtered (read: biased) in some way. Straight information is of little use to an audience; it must be interpreted to make sense, and that is part of the job of the researcher doing the paper. By encouraging students to only refer to and lay their unquestioning belief in certain news authorities these teachers are doing a grave disservice. They teach that there are definite authorities who should not be questioned rather than encouraging students to think and analyze information for themselves, and this is in my opinion yet another reason our students in the US are lacking in critical thinking skills.

H1N1 Flu Vaccine Nonsense

I work in a place with a large population of people who have the opportunity-for free-to get the H1N1 flu shot. I was saddened and downright appalled at the amount of ignorance and sheer stupidity being spread about getting the shot.

Like the stupid email scams that keep showing up every few months in my inbox as forwards, these rumors and mistruths are still being spread by the legions of ignorati. The CDC recommends that 80% of our population get vaccinated from the flu. A whopping 40% actually do. (citation)

"The flu shot can make me sick!"
No, the flu shot is a dead virus. It stimulates an immune reaction from the body, but it's dead. It won't make you sick.

"There's mercury in the shot! It'll poison you! It causes Autism!"
No, that ingredient was removed decades ago. And yet autism rates continued to climb. There no mercury in the shot.

The definition of Autism has been expanded so more people are now being diagnosed with Autism (you have any idea how recently Aspergers, part of the spectrum of Autism, was officially made a disorder? Not long ago at all...1992!

Not that a little thing like facts will ever shut some idiot with a platform from decrying the same bull@#$ over and over, the same lies and distortions that will end up killing people. If people actually looked into the background on that flake they might not be so ready to believe what she's spouting.

Worse, there's a concept of herd immunity. Basically there are some people that can't get the shot because of allergy or health reasons. So they rely on you not getting the disease to keep them healthy. People in the US buying the anti-vax rhetoric end up acting as carriers to spread the disease to others.

And it's silly to think that there are children who could die from this simply because you can't be bothered to get a simple shot.

Anyway there are plenty of intelligent skeptics that are rallying to debunk the crap that anti-vaccination nuts are spreading.

http://www.immunizenc.com/FluFactsMyths.htm

http://richarddawkins.net/article,4465,An-Open-Letter-to-Bill-Maher-on-Vaccinations,Michael-Shermer

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2116

http://www.antivaxxers.com/

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=444

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=851

Check those links out. No doubt there's always going to be reasons that the fringe will feel justified in perpetuating their anti-science theories, no matter what they're told, but if you're an otherwise reasonable person sitting on the fence after hearing some nonsense about how the shot will end up killing mankind, read those links. They should address your questions nicely. There's no reason to stand by and let others end up suffering because you couldn't be bothered to do something relatively simple.

Trust In Our Government

This is one of the best talks on the subject of trust in our government that I've ever found.

Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Harvard and is well known in copyright circles for his insights and intelligent decomposition of the corporate interests during the various legal scuffles involving copyright. Anything more I say here would just be rehash of his Wiki article or blog, though, so I'll leave it to you to check on the link if you're interested...I'll sum it up by saying that despite the topic of the legalities involved in copyright, he is one of those rare speakers that effectively communicates to his audience and I actually don't mind learning from him.

Check out that speech and see if you agree. From the summary at the site:
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Only 9 percent of the electorate thinks the U.S. Congress is doing a good job. Lawrence Lessig talks about the damage that arises from politicians focusing on raising funds to get themselves reelected. This constant attention to making money feeds the Washington 'economy of influence'. The morally destitute behavior, foretold by Thomas Jefferson in The Founders' Constitution, undermines the trust of the electorate in the institution of the government.

The Congress have been known for feathering their own nests, voting themselves back into power, developing the sixth sense to get re-elected into tenure, since the 1770s. Barack Obama may fix the presidency in one fell swoop, but the core of the problem is not in the presidency. It is in the loss of trust. People have lost trust in the government because the integrity of politicians is compromised by bribery from influential lobbyists.
***
Again. Download the mp3 or listen right from the website. Check it out and see what you think...feel free to leave comments here about it if you'd like. You just may be glad you did, or at least have something to think about. The talk was less than 15 minutes...

Republicans...Do They Like the Stereotypes?

It's well known that the Bush administration stifled science on many fronts; as a consequence, the Republican party is seen as being mostly pro-religion and anti-science.

But now apparently they don't mind having some of their more prominent figurehead organizations reinforce the idea that Republicans are ignorant racists as well.

I'm sure there are those who would say that this is a minor thing, that there are always rogues that give a group a bad name. This is true. But every little ripple in the news contributes to your perception of a group or idea and this is yet another ripple that can cripple. Unless, of course, you agree with them...in which case you're probably perfectly comfortable with this kind of ignorance on parade.

It's a real shame.

Homeland Security Doesn't Understand Comics

The irony of this is delicious.

Worse, news of it spread like wildfire because you really shouldn't let ignorant morons mess with someone working in a field loved by geeks.

Mark Sable was detained by airport security because he had a script for one of his latest comic book projects, Unthinkable, had information that paralleled the 9/11 attacks. The mini-series follows a group in a government thinktank that comes up with 9/11-type scenarios that are now coming true; the story is based on the real-life proposal from the government asking writers to come up with scenarios for terrorist plots, and in the comic Mark took it to the next step and asked what would happen if these scenarios came true and then the people coming up with the scenarios would become suspects.

Mark Sable is known for his work with DC and Image Comics, as well as Unthinkable under the Boom! umbrella.

He said in the story that the TSA agents had trouble understanding that they were looking at a script for the next issue of a comic book because apparently these macadamia nuts didn't know that comics weren't all about superheros.

That'll teach him. Next time you're going to delve into an issue that requires some form of cerebral interaction, make sure you throw Superman into the mix or some idiots will think you're planning to blow up a plane. A big thank-you to these goofs that are keeping us safe from having convenient travel plans!