So to start this off, this entry is about global warming, and how it is utter alarmist media bullshit.
Before you start turning away because you believe in global warming, ask yourself this, "Why do you believe in global warming?", "What proof can you cite?"
Here is a link to possibly the best compilation of facts refuting global warming (http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/dec2006/gwspin.pdf). In an effort to entice you to read that, I will now list some counter-evidence to global warming alarmist claims.
I'd like to start off with the most ridiculous one I've heard of:
Argument: POLAR BEARS IN THE ARCTIC ARE SAD AND DYING -- PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING
Wrong: "Let me repeat what biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic government of Nunavut, a territory of Canada, said recently: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”"
Argument: Antarctica is simultaneously warming and losing ice, proof of global warming affecting the Antarctic.
Wrong: "But both the journals Science and Nature have published studies recently finding – on balance – Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice."
Argument: The use of fuel that creates carbon dioxide (a green house gas) is one of the main driving forces of global warming!
Wrong: Carbon Dioxide has not shown to have any direct correlating effect on global temperature. Remember that thing called the Industrial Revolution? Remember the sudden spike in coal use and subsequent CO2 release? Oh, then you also remember how the world did not become warmer during or after the Industrial Revolution.
There are many more examples in the .pdf I have linked to, however here is the coup de grace of the global warming situation:
"At the turn of the 20th century, the media peddled an upcoming ice age -- and they said the world was coming to an end. Then in the 1930s, the alarm was raised about disaster from global warming -- and they said the world was coming to an end. Then in the 70’s, an alarm for another ice age was raised -- and they said the world was coming to an end. And now, today we are back to fears of catastrophic global warming -- and again they are saying the world is coming to an end. "
Now don't take this to the extreme and assume that I think the efforts to reduce pollution are crap too, because I don't. Infact, I believe reducing pollution is one of the most important things we should do, but at the present, there seems to be conflicting information regarding that as well. I am all about realistically stopping DAMAGING things we do, but please if those happen to fall in the same category as "global warming" then lets stop the bullshit, and just call it cleaning up pollution.
If you want to rally behind something that really does affect us, go look up Global Dimming. Research it for yourself, find the facts, talk to me, do what you can to educate yourselves. Because the real blights of this world are going unaddressed.
Use your reasoning and question people, stop being sheep for no good reason.
Friday, April 25, 2008
crime.
I am a criminal of the crime
I am a victim of.
I cut deep into the souls of them,
just as they do to me.
So does that make me an imposter?
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
"We've got work to do"
So, I have to say it was a pleasant surprise to find this article. I couldn't agree more with most of what is said, and it upsets me.
Clueless in America
By BOB HERBERT
Published: April 22, 2008
We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.
The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.
“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”
Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.
When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.
Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American students, when compared with their peers in other countries, tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the higher grades:
“In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all industrialized countries.”
Many students get a first-rate education in the public schools, but they represent too small a fraction of the whole.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the nation’s high schools a few years ago, describing them as “obsolete” and saying, “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”
Said Mr. Gates: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they are broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools — even when they’re working as designed — cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.”
The Educational Testing Service, in a report titled “America’s Perfect Storm,” cited three powerful forces that are affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans and already shaping the nation’s future. They are:
• The wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of both the school-age and adult populations. These skills, which play such a tremendous role in the lives of individuals and families, vary widely across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
• The “seismic changes” in the U.S. economy that have resulted from globalization, technological advances, shifts in the relationship of labor and capital, and other developments.
• Sweeping demographic changes. By 2030, the U.S. population is expected to reach 360 million. That population will be older and substantially more diverse, with immigration having a big impact on both the population as a whole and the work force.
These and so many other issues of crucial national importance require an educated populace if they are to be dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools that are needed.
While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that.
But, then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.
We’ve got work to do.
Clueless in America
By BOB HERBERT
Published: April 22, 2008
We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.
The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.
“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”
Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.
When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.
Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American students, when compared with their peers in other countries, tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the higher grades:
“In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all industrialized countries.”
Many students get a first-rate education in the public schools, but they represent too small a fraction of the whole.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the nation’s high schools a few years ago, describing them as “obsolete” and saying, “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”
Said Mr. Gates: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they are broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools — even when they’re working as designed — cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.”
The Educational Testing Service, in a report titled “America’s Perfect Storm,” cited three powerful forces that are affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans and already shaping the nation’s future. They are:
• The wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of both the school-age and adult populations. These skills, which play such a tremendous role in the lives of individuals and families, vary widely across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
• The “seismic changes” in the U.S. economy that have resulted from globalization, technological advances, shifts in the relationship of labor and capital, and other developments.
• Sweeping demographic changes. By 2030, the U.S. population is expected to reach 360 million. That population will be older and substantially more diverse, with immigration having a big impact on both the population as a whole and the work force.
These and so many other issues of crucial national importance require an educated populace if they are to be dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools that are needed.
While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that.
But, then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.
We’ve got work to do.
I'm sick of college.
Yes, I said it, and I'll say it again- I am sick of college...and I haven't even applied yet.Let me explain myself, before the CAC office comes to rip my hands away from the keyboard. :P
I understand that college is important- oh, it's VERY important. Don't get me wrong there.
However, what irks me more than anything is that the conversational topic of "college" and "standardized tests" seems to edge its way into every single conversation I have. It is frustrating to have a set of parents who view me as a prospective college student, and only as that. Do they know me as a person? Probably not.
We've lost our individuality. Thus, do to our culture, everything one does just needs to be filed under one aspect of the college application process.
"Oh, you got StudCo president? Damn, you're set for college!"
No! Don't you see what we've become? How a 36 on an ACT or a 2300 on the SAT can excite the masses more than anything else? How we continuously compare ourselves to each other, when, in reality, we're all going to be just fine in the end?
I want to relax, do what I love and do it well. I want fun. I'm sick of people worrying and I'm sick of people comparing. This institution was built on the idea of getting away from the standards- unfortunately, a love for learning can't be fostered in an environment where pure grades are the number 1 priority, followed by a long list of extracurriculars that one doesn't really care about.
I want to stop talking about SATs and ACTs. Dad, don't address every single one of my friends with the college interrogation. I want to talk about life, interests, and personal, real things. Let's take PrepHQ off as our homepages. Let's realize that there are many more colleges than the top 20 of U.S. News' list. Yes, we need to work hard, yes, we need do well. But we don't need to center our very lives around it.
Take a step outside, lay down on the cement, and let the sun carry you away from this world that we've created for ourselves.
Monday, April 21, 2008
caring is creepy
i will keep this short so as to not sound trite (or to sound as un-trite as possible)
juniors, i know its hard right now. but, look, this is the hardest it will get.
you need to get through the month of may and then you will feel everything easing off.
and if you think this is indeed very dr phil, then just stop reading.
if you dont, then thanks. heh
i just really wished that more people cared last year, and i know i'm not actually doing anything at all by writing some blog but
if you think that everything is lost, hold out for just one more day, and you'll feel better.
that's all.
juniors, i know its hard right now. but, look, this is the hardest it will get.
you need to get through the month of may and then you will feel everything easing off.
and if you think this is indeed very dr phil, then just stop reading.
if you dont, then thanks. heh
i just really wished that more people cared last year, and i know i'm not actually doing anything at all by writing some blog but
if you think that everything is lost, hold out for just one more day, and you'll feel better.
that's all.
Sing
here's a collage of songs
props to you if you can guess which ones they are
Do you know what it feels like loving someone that’s in a rush to throw you away? Do you know what it feels like to be the last one to know the lock on the door has changed?
I got a first class ticket to a night all alone and a front row seat up right by the phone. 'Cause you're always on my mind and I'm running out of time.
But in the meantime we've got it hard; second floor living without a yard. It may be years until the day my dreams will match up with my pay.
I have seen the others and I have discovered that this fight is not worth fighting. I have seen their mothers and I will no other to follow me where I'm going.
Money on my mind, is you with it? Tryin' to hold me down cause of that ego now they ain't around, but look at me. Hello.
Jay's favorite line: "Dog, in due time". Now he look at me, like "Damn, dog, you where I am". A hip hop legend; I think I died in an accident, cause this must be heaven.
So just take me home where the mood is mellow, and the roses are grown, M&M's are yellow, and the light bulbs around my mirror don't flicker. Everybody gets a nice autograph picture.
'Cause I could comb across the world, and see everything and never be satisfied, if I couldn't see those eyes.
I'm waking up at the start of the end of the world, but its feeling just like every other morning before, Now I wonder what my life is going to mean if it's gone.
There are moments when, when I know it, and the world revolves around us, and we're keeping it, keep it all going, this delicate balance, vulnerable all knowing.
I've got a problem and I don't know what to do about it. Even if I did, I don't know if I would quit but I doubt it. I'm, taken by the thought of it.
Matzo Men
I think it speaks for itself. I was going to include my synagogue's rendition of the hokie pokie, known as the matzo motzi, but i figured this would be more enjoyable...
College fair worried me quite a bit. I read in a pamphlet for Beloit, I think, or perhaps Lawrence, that (and this is based off of my memory) "1/3 of our classes - from cooking to language to chemistry - have an international focus." Chemistry has an international focus? When did science become about culture?
I also saw in the Cornell U. presentation an interesting little slogan: "Elite. Not elitist." I think it mostly speaks for itself. What ridiculous bullshit. Whatever happened to applauding achievement and not being scared to say that competence is valued over incompetence? Not to mention the inherent contradiction in saying you simultaneously are composed of only the best and don't only take the best.
Also Cornell-related was a weird little section in the pamphlet that said scholarships are awarded based on need alone. Merit scholarships have been eliminated. Dad says this is happening at a lot of big schools. Everyone says Atlas Shrugged is bullshit but tell me that isn't the whole point of it! Need alone? Where do these people's priorities lie?
What the hell is happening to this country?
I also saw in the Cornell U. presentation an interesting little slogan: "Elite. Not elitist." I think it mostly speaks for itself. What ridiculous bullshit. Whatever happened to applauding achievement and not being scared to say that competence is valued over incompetence? Not to mention the inherent contradiction in saying you simultaneously are composed of only the best and don't only take the best.
Also Cornell-related was a weird little section in the pamphlet that said scholarships are awarded based on need alone. Merit scholarships have been eliminated. Dad says this is happening at a lot of big schools. Everyone says Atlas Shrugged is bullshit but tell me that isn't the whole point of it! Need alone? Where do these people's priorities lie?
What the hell is happening to this country?
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