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Friday, March 12, 2004 |
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Follow Up To The Michigan Teacher Issue
You all have probably heard or read about the teacher from Kenowa Hills Middle School who allegedly was forced to pay for his own substitute teacher and turn over his military pay while performing Annual Training with the Naval reserve. What you read was an example of a reporter failing to do proper research, taking comments out of context, turning a positive story into a negative, then putting the story on the AP news wire for the whole world to see. The teacher is not being forced to pay for his sub or turn over his Annual Training pay. In fact, the school district is providing a pay differential. Below is a synopsis, albeit lengthy, of the circumstances and facts. Please feel free to share the facts with anyone you may know who may be concerned with the teacher's plight. [Blackfive - The Paratrooper of Love]
This is a great example of why the net or blog world is self cleansing. When this story hit the major media by way of the AP, people all over this country were seething with anger at the school in Michigan. I'm sure the school received thousands of e-mails about it and I'm sure some were not very calmly worded in civil language.
Now we find out that this big story was not a story at all and simply an attempt by one reporter to make a name for themselves by twisting, distorting, and leaving out some of the facts. Makes you wonder how many other stories in the mainstream press are manufactured the same way.
Will we now see the real facts loudly proclaimed in the mainstream press. I doubt it. CP
10:57:10 PM 
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God bless the young people
Here's the deal. What is it with the young people's music these days, the drugs, violence, raw sex, perversion, explicit language. Back in our day music meant something, it was a cause, we were fighting back against a heartless system that was killing us, both spiritually and physically. We took drugs to turn on and tune out. [Scripting News]
No we didn't all take drugs and tune out Dave. Most of us were too busy getting on with life instead of denying it. I know it's hard to believe but there are still a few of us who have never felt the necessity to "turn on and tune out."
Dave tries to convince us that today's music is wonderful.
He's wrong of course and RAP STILL SUCKS!
10:28:44 PM
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Routing Around the Damage from Google's Atom Bomb
If your upset with friends and other bloggers who refuse to get off Google's Blogger, there is a work around.
"So what does all this mean to my friend and his new weblog? Essentially, it means that until the Atom camp and the RSS camp can work it out, syndication from his site is broken, since most of his users can't see his content in their aggregators. This is a showstopper for what he's trying to do. But as Doc Searls has said, "The Net will route around your dumbed-down features just like it routes around everything else."
10:05:46 PM
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There is some really silly shit on Al's net tonight!
My shirt went to America and all I got was a gay sheep
Actually, I think the implications of this research could be quite profound on our society.
Imagine for a moment that as a result of this research they find not only a physical cause of gayness in sheep, but also genetic markers that cause it. The next step would be to produce a gene based treatment that would reverse it. Something that farmers would be interested in because gay sheep don't contribute to the continued growth of their flock and prosperity of the farmer.
Ok, so far so good. No one cares about gay rights for sheep, so there isn't likely to be any social backlash against this. But what happens if the scientists take the next logical step. If gayness is a down to a correctable genetic difference in sheep, then could the same thing be found in apes and humans. It seems logical to assume that this would be the case and they're bound to go looking. If they were to find the same in apes and could treat it, then it's almost certain that humans would be the next target.
This has some major social implications for us and how we view gay people. If gayness is caused by a genetic difference, and this can be effectively treated to turn a gay person heterosexual, then what do we do with this knowledge? If the gay gene is a mutation, then gayness 'could' be viewed as a genetic disorder; effectively a disease. And if it's curable then what do we do with that?
Food for thought. [The Register]
9:37:46 PM
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THE PRICE OF GAS
It ain't so high after all....
"'The administration is extremely concerned' about the near-record gasoline prices, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said." So read the lead story of USA Today on Friday. Over on CBS News, Dan Rather intoned that gasoline prices "could hit a record." Many other news organizations said about the same. In fact, gas prices are nowhere near a record level.
Last week the national average for regular unleaded was $1.71, while "the record," USA Today declared, was $1.74 in August 2003. But all that matters to consumers is inflation-adjusted cost, and in this real-dollar calculation, gasoline prices remain about where they have been for most of the postwar era. This chart shows that the actual U.S. record price for gasoline occurred in 1981, when regular unleaded cost $2.80 in today's money. (The chart is in 2002 dollars; add 2 percent for current dollars.) The current gas-price level that Spencer Abraham, Dan Rather, and others are hyping as close to "the record" is actually 39 percent lower than the true price peak. [DiscountBlogger]
8:38:32 PM
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The Saudi War on George Bush
President Bush has provoked this response by proclaiming his intention to encourage democracy and liberalism in the Middle East, liberate the Arab masses from despotic rule, bring peace and prosperity to the region, and halt the spread of militant Islamic terror groups. Unlike past Presidents who, in varying degrees, paid lip service to these ideals, President Bush has acted decisively on them. His politically perilous actions, such as his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, his conditioning support for a Palestinian state on the cessation of terror, corruption, and dictatorship, and his active promotion and support for liberal groups in the Arab world, have aroused Saudi fears and provoked a quiet counterattack. [The American Thinker]
3:43:57 PM
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Warning
I was raised in a very strict Holy Roller, evangelical, type atmosphere. Even thinking of entering an establishment where liqueur was sold or consumed was enough to send you straight to hell.
I was not brave enough to taste my first alcohol till the age of 19. I was with a friend in Reno who decided that since I had never tasted alcohol he would start me with Sloe Gin Fizzes. I was surprised at how good it tasted and that my head didn't explode and I was not struck by lightning. Of course I was worried about that little detail drummed into us in church. You know - the one that says if you ever took one drink you would be an alcoholic for life.
My friend kept my glass full of Sloe Gin Fizzes all night. When I woke up the next morning my head did explode. I really think the sickness of that next day is the reason I have never been a big drinker. I have never been able to look another Fizz in the face without feeling ill.
[Curmudgeonly & Skeptical]
3:29:34 PM
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Only one is a Lady
Laura Bush makes an appearance to do this - to thank the spouses of troops deployed in Iraq. Teresa Heinz-Kerry makes an appearance and does this - hands out 'Asses of Evil' buttons with names of members of the current... [Silent Running]
1:20:39 PM
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Astronomy Picture of the Day
X Ray Saturn
1:10:14 PM
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Soylent Green anyone?
A Food Fight Over a Fungus
Los Angeles Times - STOKESLEY, England — Refrigerated trucks trundle down the pretty country lanes laden with pale, doughy masses of fungus — 32 tons or more a day. [Yahoo! News - Top Stories]
1:08:19 PM
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Interesting e-mail
Probably each of you has wondered if things could be as bad as Brokaw, Jennings, et al, have been painting it. "They have a saying in the news business," Geraldo Rivera related this week. "Reporters don't report buildings that don't burn." And with that introduction, he told a TV audience about the story that is being systematically denied to our entire nation: the success story of post-Saddam Iraq. [democrats give conservatives indigestion]
8:23:27 AM
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Stop the Wedding!
The tears are flowing in San Francisco.
The California Supreme Court ordered an immediate halt Thursday to same-sex weddings in San Francisco and said it would decide within months whether the city had the authority to issue marriage licenses in defiance of state law. The justices' unanimous orders at least temporarily froze ceremonies that have brought thousands... [Right-Thinking from the Left Coast]
8:09:59 AM
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INFORMATION WARFARE: Winning the Media Battle
The media front is one not often discussed. It is there, nonetheless, and it often has a decisive effect on a war. The 1993 firefight in Mogadishu was, in fact, a tactical victory for the United States. The raid achieved its objectives, the capture of some high-ranking members of Mohammed Farah Aidid’s militia, and in the resulting firefight, Aidid’s militia suffered hundreds of casualties.
The problem, though, was in the media presentation. The sight of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets created such an outcry that the Clinton Administration ordered a pullout. This was not the first time the media had created the impression of defeat. Another big example was the 1968 Tet Offensive, which was remarkably similar – the Viet Cong was defeated on the battlefield and finished as a fighting force, but the American media portrayed the battle as a major setback. The result was to turn popular opinion against the Vietnam War.
8:00:49 AM
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THEY'VE GOT OUR BACK
Remember the news a few days ago? There was a story about 3 people who work for the US forces in Iraq that were stopped at a bogus police checkpoint beofre being shot and their car stolen. StrategyPage.com reports that... [Hell In A Handbasket]
7:56:31 AM
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3/12/2004. Day By Day Cartoon
7:23:23 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Lopsided Poopdeck.
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Picture of the Day
