Instead we oppose it 'cause it is vaguely associated with religion. An Arizona high school was teaching from materials supplied by United Scholastic. United Scholastic is associated in some way with the Church of Scientology. They didn't say just what the association was (ownership? historical? shared board of directors?). And they went on at length complaining that using United Scholastics stuff was a violation of the first amendment (establishment of religion)
They didn't say anything about whether the United Scholastics material was any good or not. That apparently doesn't matter.
L Ron Hubbard started writing science fiction back in the 1950's. He was only middling good as a writer but he did get some stories published in Astounding Science Fiction (Later Analog Science Fiction) the premier SF mag. His paperbacks stayed in print into the 1980's. In the later 1950's he invented the "science" of Dianetics. From there he went on to found the Church of Scientology, a cult which has been in and out of trouble with the law, here and overseas, for many many years.
With that background, I would be intensely suspicious of anything associated with the Church of Scientology. Because everything else L Ron Hubbard had a hand in was pure malarkey.
However our crusaders from NPR cannot be troubled with evaluating the worth of the United Scholastic material. It's far more important to trash it for being "religion".
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Background check or blacklist?
The gun control folks are calling for yet more background checks. Like background checks for sales between family members, friends, and private individuals. So someone picks up the phone, calls a magic phone number and asks if it is OK to sell a gun to so and so. At the far end of the phone, some bureaucrat checks the name against a list. If the name isn't on the list he says "OK sell it to him".
In short we have the government running a blacklist. Once your name goes on the list, you cannot purchase firearms. Since this list is so damaging, ethical doctors are reluctant to mess up their patient's lives by calling the government and saying " I was just treating so an so and I think he is a danger to society and you ought to put him on the gun blacklist."
If the government is going to run a gun blacklist, there ought to be clear rules about how much evidence is needed to blacklist a citizen, rules for getting off the black list, and strict rules keeping the black list secret. Amid all the happy talk about more background checks I haven't heard any talk about fair and just procedures for operating the black list.
In short we have the government running a blacklist. Once your name goes on the list, you cannot purchase firearms. Since this list is so damaging, ethical doctors are reluctant to mess up their patient's lives by calling the government and saying " I was just treating so an so and I think he is a danger to society and you ought to put him on the gun blacklist."
If the government is going to run a gun blacklist, there ought to be clear rules about how much evidence is needed to blacklist a citizen, rules for getting off the black list, and strict rules keeping the black list secret. Amid all the happy talk about more background checks I haven't heard any talk about fair and just procedures for operating the black list.
Ford's admen ride again
A week or so ago I twitted Ford over their ineffectual TV ad for an SUV. This morning comes word via NPR that Ford India had done worse. They chartered the JWT agency to do some ads. JWT came up with an ad to show how big the trunk was. The ad showed three women, bound and gagged, being loaded into the trunk. Apparently Ford never actually ran this ad, but copies of it leaked out to the public and caused a furor. It got so bad that Ford is publicly apologizing for the ad.
Great thinking Ford. Sell cars by showing them used for crime. Even though V8 Fords were Bonnie and Clyde's favorite getaway cars, Ford never mentioned this in ads. Let's be charitable and put this down to Indian Ford executives who presumable are less sensitive to public values than American ones.
Mulally ought to schedule all his execs for remedial ad creation 101.
Great thinking Ford. Sell cars by showing them used for crime. Even though V8 Fords were Bonnie and Clyde's favorite getaway cars, Ford never mentioned this in ads. Let's be charitable and put this down to Indian Ford executives who presumable are less sensitive to public values than American ones.
Mulally ought to schedule all his execs for remedial ad creation 101.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Pricey Corporate Jet
The new version of the Gulfstream bizjet retails for a mere $64.5 million. Nice plane and all, but how do I explain to my stockholders why I blew $64 million on a bizjet instead of paying it out as dividends? Especially as IRS will make me capitalize it so I cannot even deduct the cost from earnings.
Vikings on History Channel
I think I am going to stop watching this one. Too much looting and murdering and general crime. Too many bad looking guys with strange haircuts and shaggy beards. Everyone is a bad guy, no good guys. Terrible lighting, every indoor scene is too damn dark. Color is poor. Too many actors mumble their lines.
Too bad. The title was attractive.
Too bad. The title was attractive.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Republican Post Mortem Report
After the 2012 wipeout, the Republican National Committee has issued a "What went wrong and how do we fix it" (aka Growth and Opportunity) report. It came to me yesterday. I skimmed it. It's wordy. It's full of nice sounding but non specific verbiage, repeated over and over again. It fails to grapple with the key issues.
Number One key issue is the women's vote. We lost the woman's vote to Obama by a margin of 10%. Right there is the whole election. Ten percent of half the population is more the all the Hispanics, and all the gays put together. Republicans have to figure out what has to be done to regain the woman's vote. Does the party have to drop it's anti abortion stance? Does it have to offer free contraceptives to all? How many women care about charter schools? Do we need to support charter schools? Teachers (mostly women) are dead set against charter schools. Are there enough mothers who care about charters to offset all those unionized teachers? How many women care about an opportunity to join the infantry? Does maternity leave (or paternity leave) have any resonance with woman voters? Do women want the right to carry concealed or do they want to take the guns away from the bad guys?
Grow and Opportunity report simply doesn't deal with woman's issues. Probably too controversial.
Number Two key issue is the youth vote, youth being everyone under 30. Youth care deeply about the internet, specifically the ability to download neat stuff, music, and movies. They hate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They hate the current copyright law that extends copyright forever. They don't like taxing sales over the internet.
Young folk are universally in favor of gay marriage. They see it as a fundamental right, and opposition is seen like racial prejudice or antisemitism. And, most young folk see nothing wrong with abortion.
And where does the Republican Party stand on any of these issues? Who knows, Growth and Opportunity report is silent. Again, probably too controversial.
Until the Republicans debate these real issues and come to some conclusions, the Democrats will win to next election.
Number One key issue is the women's vote. We lost the woman's vote to Obama by a margin of 10%. Right there is the whole election. Ten percent of half the population is more the all the Hispanics, and all the gays put together. Republicans have to figure out what has to be done to regain the woman's vote. Does the party have to drop it's anti abortion stance? Does it have to offer free contraceptives to all? How many women care about charter schools? Do we need to support charter schools? Teachers (mostly women) are dead set against charter schools. Are there enough mothers who care about charters to offset all those unionized teachers? How many women care about an opportunity to join the infantry? Does maternity leave (or paternity leave) have any resonance with woman voters? Do women want the right to carry concealed or do they want to take the guns away from the bad guys?
Grow and Opportunity report simply doesn't deal with woman's issues. Probably too controversial.
Number Two key issue is the youth vote, youth being everyone under 30. Youth care deeply about the internet, specifically the ability to download neat stuff, music, and movies. They hate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They hate the current copyright law that extends copyright forever. They don't like taxing sales over the internet.
Young folk are universally in favor of gay marriage. They see it as a fundamental right, and opposition is seen like racial prejudice or antisemitism. And, most young folk see nothing wrong with abortion.
And where does the Republican Party stand on any of these issues? Who knows, Growth and Opportunity report is silent. Again, probably too controversial.
Until the Republicans debate these real issues and come to some conclusions, the Democrats will win to next election.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Evolution of domestic dogs
Interesting article here about discovery of a dog 33,000 years old. That's a long time ago. The article talks a lot about "morphology" (size and shape) and DNA analysis. The author argues that this isn't really the beginning of domestication of dogs, the "morphology" is pretty much pure wolf and the DNA matching is more wolf than dog. He speculates that this specimen represents an early attempt at domestication that didn't work out, or the harshness of the last ice age which started maybe 20,000 years ago, aborted the domestication.
Perhaps.
In actual fact, the difference between domestic dogs and wolves is psychological, more than anything else. Dogs have a much better attitude about humans than wolves do. Dogs will accept petting, food, affection, and even obey orders. Wolves, not so much. Modern German Shepherds and Huskies look a lot like wolves but aren't. It's not clear to me that this psychological difference would make much difference in the DNA or in the shape of bones.
It's a good bet that wolves were domesticates when some human children came upon orphan wolf pups in the wild. When young, pups are cute, humans are attracted to cute, and surely the children carried the pup[s] home and made pets of them. Some wolf pups so adopted must have carried the genes needed to bond with humans. Probably other orphan pups lacked these genes and ran away when they grew old enough or were driven off when they did something wolflike such as threatening small children. Some how, an adopted wolf cub who hung with the humans must have found a mate somewhere, and gave birth to a litter of pups while living with humans. It would only take a couple of dog generations to establish a domestic strain of dogs that were breeding while living with humans. Dogs are pretty useful in the hunt and in guarding the camp. The humans would have taken to them. Despite the harshness of the coming ice age, it's hard to see that breaking up the domestication of dogs once begun.
Perhaps.
In actual fact, the difference between domestic dogs and wolves is psychological, more than anything else. Dogs have a much better attitude about humans than wolves do. Dogs will accept petting, food, affection, and even obey orders. Wolves, not so much. Modern German Shepherds and Huskies look a lot like wolves but aren't. It's not clear to me that this psychological difference would make much difference in the DNA or in the shape of bones.
It's a good bet that wolves were domesticates when some human children came upon orphan wolf pups in the wild. When young, pups are cute, humans are attracted to cute, and surely the children carried the pup[s] home and made pets of them. Some wolf pups so adopted must have carried the genes needed to bond with humans. Probably other orphan pups lacked these genes and ran away when they grew old enough or were driven off when they did something wolflike such as threatening small children. Some how, an adopted wolf cub who hung with the humans must have found a mate somewhere, and gave birth to a litter of pups while living with humans. It would only take a couple of dog generations to establish a domestic strain of dogs that were breeding while living with humans. Dogs are pretty useful in the hunt and in guarding the camp. The humans would have taken to them. Despite the harshness of the coming ice age, it's hard to see that breaking up the domestication of dogs once begun.
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