Tyler Stoken, a fourth-grader at Central Park Elementary School in Aberdeen, Wash., is in hot water after taking a standardized test, Bloomberg reports:
Tyler came upon this question: "While looking out the window one day at school, you notice the principal flying in the air. In several paragraphs, write a story telling what happens."
The nine-year-old was afraid to answer the question about his principal, Olivia McCarthy. "I didn't want to make fun of her," he says, explaining he was taught to write the first thing that entered his mind on the state writing test.
In this case, Tyler's initial thoughts would have been embarrassing and mean.
So even after repeated requests by school personnel, and ultimately the principal herself, Tyler left the answer space blank. "He didn't want them to know what he was thinking, that she was a witch on a broomstick," says Tyler's mother.
Because Tyler didn't answer the question, McCarthy suspended him for five days. He recalls the principal reprimanding him by saying his test score could bring down the entire school's performance.
"Good job, bud, you've ruined it for everyone in the school, the teachers and the school," Tyler says McCarthy told him.
Why in the world did he think she was a witch?
Posted by: Mike ||
11/06/2006 14:58 ||
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#1
Two comments: first, the kid was right not to answer what he was thinking. In today's PC world writing that answer might have gotten him suspended for longer. Hell, he ought to have refused to answer on 5th Amendment grounds! Second, the principal may not be a witch but she's certainly a first-class, blue-ribbon, fully fledged BITCH. I wouldn't trust her with a pet rock, much less my child. Just think, some people in the education industry wonder why home schooling is growing by leaps and bounds! They need a sound walloping with the big #1 ClueBat!
Posted by: mac ||
11/06/2006 17:04 Comments ||
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#2
I rather suspect that the principal can't suspend a student for leaving a standardized test question blank. I bet some exploration of that by the parents, with or without legal counsel, will make that clear. I bet further that after the parents and counsel meet with the principal the suspension will be lifted.
If I were a betting man.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/06/2006 17:11 Comments ||
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#3
Is it just me or does the concept of one data point having significant impact that could bring down the entire school's performance indicate that:
a) there are very few fourth graders at Central Park Elementary School
b) the performance is already in the pits and young Master Stoken was seen as the savior of the average
c) the principle doesnt understand the fundamentals of statistics
or
d) the performance of the entire school was already so poor that said principle was looking for an easy scapegoat?
#1
Murphy [TX] Mayor Bret Bishop told the newspaper that he hopes his town won't be used again as a trap for child predators. "I think it's a noble cause, but our police department is hired to serve and protect our citizens, and not to expose them to outside threats," Bishop said.
WTF? So protecting your minor citizens is okay only if it doesn't involve any real work or danger? Then it needs to happen in some other jurisdiction?
What a cop out. This Mayor's a p*ssy.
Posted by: Dar ||
11/06/2006 13:20 Comments ||
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#2
At least he had the residual decency to off himself.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/06/2006 14:58 Comments ||
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#3
Good. Saved us the trouble. I don't want these people in my society, and I certainly don't want them in positions of power.
BTW: The Mayor's thinking is so complicated he can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. I wonder how he'd feel if that was his daughter.
#4
I'm not going to lose any sleep over this ...but.. this seems a bit strange.
If he didn't go to the house, how did he know why the police were at the door?
I suppose he was bright enough to figure it out -he wouldn't need to be a rocket scientist if he saw the Dateline TV crew in his driveway. But it just seems a bit strange to me.
What is it about all of these high level officials that are sexual deviants? I'm beginning to wonder. Really, I am.
"He was supposed to stay there until he died. I guess he fulfilled that," Vernon Dahmer's widow said. "He lived a lot longer than Vernon Dahmer did."
Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Samuel H. Bowers, who was serving a life sentence for the 1966 bombing death of a civil rights leader, died Sunday in a state penitentiary, officials said. He was 82. He died of cardio pulmonary arrest, said Mississippi Department of Corrections spokeswoman Tara Booth. Bowers was convicted in August of 1998 of ordering the assassination of Vernon Dahmer, a civil rights activist who had fought for black rights during Mississippi's turbulent struggle for racial equality. "He was supposed to stay there until he died. I guess he fulfilled that," Vernon Dahmer's widow, Ellie Dahmer, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "He lived a lot longer than Vernon Dahmer did."
#1
This bastard was originally no-billed in the Dahmer case and spent the next 32 years enjoying life and building a prosperous business. This was known as "Sambo Amusements" (I shite you not). It provided pinball machines and the like to low-class saloons, reputable watering holes wouldn't do business with him.
I saw video of Sam enjoying himself in one of these establishments, a beer in one hand and a sleazy looking honky-tonk girl on each arm. Among Klansmen, he was something of a legend. One current Klan leader called him "the greatest Klan leader of all time" for his uncompromising devotion to "bullets, bombs and blood" as instruments of persuasion.
Roast in peace, Sam.
#4
Secret Master,
That was Byron de la Beckwith, a different scumbag. He died in prison a few years ago. His story was similar to Bowers' in many ways. He was tried for the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers back in the 60s and acquitted despite overwhelming evidence. A crusading prosecutor re-opened the case many years later and got a new trial. "Delay" was convicted and put away for good. He wasn't as active in the Klan as Bowers but he did become a kind of folk hero to Klansmen and even boasted of his guilt at a public meeting.
The seven-time Tour de France champion made an impressive marathon debut Sunday, accomplishing his goal of finishing [the New York marathon]in less than 3 hours on a crisp autumn afternoon. Armstrong's time was 2 hours, 59 minutes and 36 seconds. His shirt soaked in sweat, he virtually walked the last couple of steps to the finish line. He shuffled into a post-race news conference, his right shin heavily taped. "I think I bit off more than I could chew, I thought the marathon would be easier," he said. "(My shins) started to hurt in the second half, especially the right one. I could barely walk up here, because the calves are completely knotted up." He called the race "the hardest physical thing I have ever done" - even more grueling than his worst days on the Tour. "I never felt a point where I hit the wall, it was really a gradual progression of fatigue and soreness."
#2
No criticism of Lance here; that being said: Impact sport vs. non-impact sport. Running takes some toughening up, which is why the military says swimming and biking can be a rough substitute for running, but it doesn't take the place of it.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
11/06/2006 16:09 Comments ||
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An Eritrean Christian gospel singer, detained by the authorities without charge for more than two years, has been freed, Amnesty International says. Helen Berhane was among about 2,000 members of illegal Evangelical church groups in Eritrea, who Amnesty says have been arrested in recent years.
She was reportedly imprisoned inside a metal shipping container and beaten in an effort to make her recant her faith. But Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Abdu denies all knowledge of her case.
"Lies! All lies!"
More than 90% of Eritreans belong to one of four recognised religions - Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Churches and Islam.
Australias Northern Territory is one of the few sacred places in the world where you can drive at unlimited speeds – legally. Despite the regions isolation and wide open landscape, the local government has decided to impose a speed limit of 110km/h on all open roads with 130km/h restricted for 4 of its major highways. That's 67 and 79 in real numbers.
The move comes after the release of statistics from a damning report that found that three times as many people were killed on NT roads than elsewhere in Australia, per capita, with one person dying and nine seriously injured every week.
The region is a popular spot for testing vehicles due to the long stretches of open highways and extremely hot temperatures. Porsche has favored the area because it could run its cars during high temperatures combined with sustained high engine speed, and recently tested its 911 Turbo there. Honda and Ford also confirmed testing in the region, but the new limits are likely to turn away carmakers.
Americas Federal Highway Administration has found that theres no correlation between speed enforcement and traffic safety improvement. Now that the NT is off the list of unrestricted roadways, that leaves only stretches of the German inter-city Autobahn, rural parts of the Isle of Man and some roads in India. Might as well adopt sharia while you're at it.
#1
Americas Federal Highway Administration has found that theres no correlation between speed enforcement and traffic safety improvement.
I don't think that is strictly true. The variable is the other morons on the road. If they are aware that the freeway is a speed zone and stay in the slow lane there is no issue. If not, well there are few injury accidents at those speeds.
Its a sad day though. I hope the Northern Territory rethinks this plan, or perhaps gets the big auto makers to fund a highway to nowhere that speedsters can zip around on thus keeping away from the toddler traffic.
#2
It's also not true that there is an unrestricted speed limit anywhere on the Autobahn. The truth is more complicated: you may drive up to the maximum safe speed of your automobile as determined by the police.
That is, if you are driving a Lancia Scorpion that can handle 180 mph, no problem. But if you are pushing a shuddering Yugo at 50 mph, you might be breaking a very, very expensive law.
That is, if the police think your are speeding, for your vehicle, on the autobahn, you could get a traffic citation in the thousands of Euros.
It is also a well-established principal in Germany to let the police use their good judgement in enforcement. If they think you are DUI, *they* give you the blood test. Think about that.
Plus, there are very few police brutality laws in Germany. If you mess with a cop, well, you will have a chance to ponder your mistake in the hospital.
#4
I have driven a lot in the Northern Territory, and it can be a nerve-wracking experience. Lots of cattle on the road, and they are predominantly black, hence invisible at night. The station owners are progressively fencing along the Stuart Highway, but there is a long way to go. I know one station owner who has been losing 3 cows every 2 nights on the Highway, for years.
But the really scary thing is trying to pass the road trains. They are 55 meters long and even if you can see clear road ahead you can be half way past and a car can show up with a closing speed of 200 miles an hour or more.
These aren't dived roads like the Autobahns. Pull out, press metal and pray.
#7
Major segments of the Autobahn now have a maximum speed limit now -- I think of 130 kph (~75 mph, I think). It was doen for reasons of safety -- when there is an accident it generally ends up as a 200 vehicle pile-up) -- and to reduce pollution/improve gas mileage. The screams of outrage were audible throughout the land, but it passed anyway. A dear friend was pulled over in Bavaria a few years back for exceeding the fixed speed limit, and he was driving a BMW M-something or Z-something, and had gone through several training sessions at the BMW racetrack. Apparently the police had started chasing him just outside Munich, but didn't pull him over til they neared the Bavarian state line; "We were having too much fun chasing you at that speed to stop you before it was necessary," they told him, just before they took his licence away for the next six months.
Lahore Education Executive District Officer (EDO) Zahid Hussain Khan has summoned the headmistress and English teacher of Government Girls High School Dry Port for beating a sixth grader, Daily Times learnt on Sunday.
The EDO told Daily Times that he had summoned Headmistress Aroosa Begum along with the English teacher Robina, who was accused of beating up one of her students Gulnaz and causing her a severe injury. Zahid said that the department was inquiring into the matter and that officials were gathering information in order to come to a just and unbiased conclusion.
The AGHS Child Rights Unit demanded that the government adopt solid measures for the eradication of corporal punishment from educational institutions, especially schools. AGHS Child Rights Unit Coordinator Isma said that she had visited the victims house and had observed that the school administration and government had totally neglected her, since none of the officials had approached Gulnaz to ask her version of the story.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/06/2006 00:00 ||
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Ah, Tom Browns School days, the dull book that gave the first glimpse of Flashman.
Scientists using NASA's Swift satellite have spotted a stellar flare on a nearby star so powerful that, had it been from our sun, it would have triggered a mass extinction on Earth. The flare was perhaps the most energetic magnetic stellar explosion ever detected. The flare was seen in December 2005 on a star slightly less massive than the sun, in a two-star system called II Pegasi in the constellation Pegasus.
It was about a hundred million times more energetic than the sun's typical solar flare, releasing energy equivalent to about 50 million trillion atomic bombs.
Fortunately, our sun is now a stable star that doesn't produce such powerful flares. And II Pegasi is at a safe distance of about 135 light-years from Earth.
Yet in detecting this brilliant flare, scientists obtained direct observational evidence that stellar flares on other stars involve particle acceleration, just like on our sun. Rachel Osten of University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., presents this finding today at the Cool Stars 14 meeting in Pasadena, Calif.
"The flare was so powerful that, at first, we thought it was a star explosion," said Osten, a Hubble Fellow. "We know much about solar flares on the sun, but these are samples from just one star. This II Pegasi event was our first opportunity to study details of another star's flaring as if it were as close as our sun."
Solar flares on the sun originate in the corona, the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere. The corona's temperature is about two million degrees Fahrenheit, while the sun's surface, called the photosphere, is only about 6,000 degrees. The flare itself is a burst of radiation across much of the electromagnetic spectrum, from low-energy radio waves through high-energy X-rays. The X-ray emission can last up to a few minutes on the sun; on II Pegasi it lasted for several hours.
The flare involves a shower of electrons raining down from the corona onto the photosphere, heating the coronal gas to temperatures usually encountered only deep inside the sun. Scientists think that the twisting and breaking of magnetic field lines lacing through the corona generate the particle acceleration and flaring.
The flaring star in II Pegasi is 0.8 times the mass of the sun; its companion is 0.4 solar masses. The stars are close, only a few stellar radii apart. As a result, tidal forces cause both stars to spin quickly, rotating in step once in 7 days compared to the sun's 28-day rotation period. Fast rotation is conducive to strong stellar flares.
Young stars spin fast and flare more actively, and the early sun likely generated solar flares on par with II Pegasi. Yet II Pegasi could be at least a billion years older than our middle-aged 5-billion-year-old sun. "The tight binary orbit in II Pegasi acts as a fountain of youth, enabling older stars to spin and flare as strongly as young stars," said Steve Drake of NASA Goddard, a co-author with Osten on an upcoming Astrophysical Journal paper.
The key finding in the II Pegasi flare was the detection of higher-energy X-rays. Swift's Burst Alert Telescope usually detects gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions known, which arise from star explosions and star mergers. The II Pegasi flare was energetic enough create a false alarm for a burst detection. Scientists quickly knew this was a different kind of event, however, when the flare overwhelmed Swift's X-ray Telescope, a second instrument.
Higher-energy "hard" X-ray detection in this case is the telltale signal of electron particle acceleration, creating what is called non-thermal X-rays. NASA's RHESSI mission sees this in the sun's solar flares.
While lower-energy "soft" X-rays from thermal emission have been seen on other stars, scientists have never seen hard X-rays on any flaring star other than the sun.
Because the hard X-rays occur earlier in the flare and are responsible for heating the coronal gas, they reveal unique information about the flare's initial stages.
Had the sun flared like II Pegasi, these hard X-rays would have overwhelmed the Earth's protective atmosphere, leading to significant climate change and mass extinction.
Ironically, one theory posits that stellar particle outbursts are needed to condition dust to form into planets and perhaps life. The Swift observation demonstrates that such outbursts do occur.
"Swift was built to catch gamma-ray bursts, but we can use its speed to catch supernovae and now stellar flares," said Swift Project Scientist Neil Gehrels of NASA Goddard. "We can't predict when a flare will happen, but Swift can react quickly once it senses an event.
#3
Scientists think that the twisting and breaking of magnetic field lines lacing through the corona generate the particle acceleration and flaring.
A stellar example what is wrong with our education... I am not sure if that is the writer's misconception or the scientists do think such... in that case they should get money back from their respective edu institutions.
There is no such a thing as magnetic field lines!
Never was and never will be. The pictures in textbooks display imaginary lines to convey the flow of electrons or ions. Magnetic field is continuous. What may twist is currents (Birkenland pairs) and their expression in plasma layers/sheaths. And that is what accelerates the particles.
Global warming!
TOKYO (AP) - Japanese researchers said Sunday a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, providing further evidence ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.
Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin off the coast of Wakayama prefecture in western Japan on Oct. 28 and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, said museum director Katsuki Hayashi.
Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared.
Though odd-shaped protrusions have been found near the tails of dolphins and whales captured in the past, researchers thought it was the first time one had been found with well-developed, symmetrical fins, Hayashi said.
"I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins' ancient ancestors lived on land...this is an unprecedented discovery," said Seiji Osumi, an adviser at Tokyo's Institute of Cetacean Research, at a news conference televised Sunday.
The second set of fins - much smaller than the dolphin's front fins - are about the size of human hands and protrude from near the tail on the dolphin's underside. The dolphin measures 2.72 metres and is about five years old, the museum said.
A freak mutation may have caused the ancient trait to reassert itself, Osumi said. The dolphin will be kept at the Taiji museum for X-ray and DNA tests, Hayashi said.
#3
One thing that has always puzzled me about this level of macro-evolution is this.
If a land animal survives on land with legs, what motivated it to move into an acquatic environment? After all, for evolution to make this large a change had to take a looooooong time. Did the animals with legs slowly move into a swamp, then a marsh, then a pond, then a ...... And what kept them in their neither fish nor foul state from being easy prey? At what point did it become advantageous to have fins, and how many generations did it take? Where are the fossil animals with legs that have prototype fins?
This sort of evolution seems to have way too many holes in it. And no, I'm NOT a creationist. I'm just comfortable with the idea that we don't know everything and probably never will.
#4
Major changes in ecosystems due to long term climate change. Having legs is great if there's a lot of dry land, less good if water levels rise and continents offer smaller habitats.
Add in a die-off of reptilian sea predators and then, a long time later, the rise of mammals. The niche for large sea predators is now open and attractive.
#7
One thing that has always puzzled me about this level of macro-evolution is this.
If a land animal survives on land with legs, what motivated it to move into an acquatic environment? After all, for evolution to make this large a change had to take a looooooong time. Did the animals with legs slowly move into a swamp, then a marsh, then a pond, then a ...... And what kept them in their neither fish nor foul state from being easy prey? At what point did it become advantageous to have fins?, and how many generations did it take? Where are the fossil animals with legs that have prototype fins?
This sort of evolution seems to have way too many holes in it. And no, I'm NOT a creationist. I'm just comfortable with the idea that we don't know everything and probably never will.
#8
One thing to keep in mind on this ... on the macro view point you see things change like fins to legs, etc.
However, on the micro scale, a billion evolutions occur between legs and fins.
The key to this interplay of micro and macro, is to understand a change may occur that has no impact in current environment, but drastic changes later.
For example, human hemogloblin, has changes from other hemogloblin that allow less strong bonding of the oxygen in the heme group. This has the effect of allowing the oxygen to be given up to tissue much 'easier' than other hemogloblin.
Thus, our hemo is a bit over-clocked.
When this change occured, it may not have mattered at the outset. Many generations on it mattered drastically as it allows our warm-blooded bi-pedal nature an advantage over others (we can exchange oxygen more efficiently, thus can move faster and for longer, etc).
Anyway, the point is, from the macro scale a change of legs to fins or wahtever is not one single change. It is the accumulation of tons of other changes, some of which may be meaningless when the change occured but coupled with another express a major advantage or dis-advantage.
That is to say, the macro change doesn't just occur - it is the accumulation of hunders/thousands of other changes and they must be viewed together to pin 'that is when it became more advantagous to have legs'. This mapping is very complex and takes a lot of analysis.
Factor in that many genomes hang onto the 'old' stuff or things go dormant and it is verh hard to get a perfect picture.
"When this change occured, it may not have mattered at the outset" hence the question.
If it did not matter why did it change and why did it prevail over the long term which was needed for the mutation to stabilize and become complete? This seems to be NOT survival of the fittest, but survival of the luckiest. Which, of course, confounds the idea that changes were a rational or logical response to external stimuli.
Climate change works on a MUCH shorter cycle than massive biological mutation, by the time a species mutated to take decreasing land into account, land would have been increasing.
#10
confounds the idea that changes were a rational or logical response to external stimuli.
Species do not make a 'rational' decision to evolve. As for survival of the luckiest, that is essentially what natural selection is. Being adapted to your environment increases your chances.
I'm tempted to say that your grasp of biology lacks opposable thumbs, but that would be an ad hominem hominid attack. heehee.
A good question and the answer is exactly the interplay between micro and macro.
For example, why does a change progress if it doesn't offer instant advantage or disadvantage?
A change may occur on the micro for pure thermodynamic reasons. For example, a protien may incur a change in strucutre, which while not impacting the function of the protien allows it to assemble easier (i.e. takes a little less energy to build version A vs. B).
Thus a change at the micro level could set us up for a macro expression now or later. Say for example, another micro change for energy sake occurs, but now when the two changes are in play there is an expression at macro level - human hemoglobin can now perform 20% more efficient ... humans can now hunt better, their population grows.
Again, an example, not saying this is exactly what happened with hemoglobin. But your two micro thermodynamic changes resulted in a functional change to the protien which afforded an advantage and we're off to the races.
Again, the answer is the interplay between micro and macro. Steve has it exacly right, this occurs with no logic, it is a iterative trial and error process - hence evolution and not revolution!
it is a truism among serious breeders of purebred show dogs, horses etc. that many desireable traits at the anatomical level are the result of multiple genes interacting with one another and, we are finding, with the biochemical environment within which they are expressed as the fetus develops.
For instance, a "good front assembly" in a hunting dog -- i.e. one that suits it to working all day at a trot in brush -- can be described in terms of the proportional length of the various bones that make up the front legs, shoulders and chest assembly. Bone density comes into play as well, and the desireable proportions for a trotting breed like the spaniels and setters are quite different from those of the sighthounds, for instance.
Breeding is an art rather than a science in good part because even those individual elements of anatomy are each the product of multiple genes and other factors. Cattle breeders have developed indices of heritability for anatomical parts -- i.e., how easy/hard it is to "fix" a less than optimal front assembly in offspring by breeding to another animal whose front assembly is more desireable. Few traits have heritability of more than 50%, many are quite lower.
To make things more complex, it's not a simple matter of "gene present automatically leads to result in body". Many genes interact with one another in subtle ways, including by partially enabling or suppressing the expression of other genes when present in combinations. These partial interactions have been discovered to play a part in whether some genes actually result in certain inherited diseases showing up in a given animal, for instance. In one of my breeds, a dog that inherits two copies of the gene for a certain gradual blindness often does not in fact go blind despite living to an old age -- but his/her offspring might, if s/he inherits copies of that gene from both parents.
Bottom line up front: what you see (anatomy) is the result of very complex interactions of genes with genes and of genes and environment -- including the environment within the womb for mammals, the mother's nutritional status during gestation etc etc.
Posted by: dog breeder ||
11/06/2006 15:22 Comments ||
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#15
"could be the remains of back legs"
Or not.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda, maybe - call me when you've got any actual, you know, FACTS.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/06/2006 15:29 Comments ||
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#16
Exactly, and the list of etc, etc, etc is MASSIVE and not totally complete yet.
Bottom line though, a million things occur at micro long before expression at macro.
#18
Steve S, I'm glad you believe in adding such brilliance to a discussion. Of course you may be offering yourself up as an example of this intermediate state, but I won't say that.
The logic about which I was speaking is cause vs effect. To use one of Darwin's examples, the bird with the bigger beak, did that come about because of the type of food available; or did was that a random mutation that happened to be good for that type of food?
I've never claimed to be a biologist, however, some of the evolution "facts" seem to be kind of short on a few steps in the process. Micro evolutionary mutations are one thing, having the entire sequence occuring sufficient to the macro level changes e.g. losing legs and gaining fins, needs to have some serious statistical study done based on time and random changes.
Despite the old saw, a thousand monkeys typing aren't going to produce Hamlet.
'The bird with the big beak, did that come about because of food or a mutation'
Here's the problem, you are looking at this as a binary state. It was either the environment OR a mutation which confered big beaks.
In reality, it is BOTH that come into play.
The food that requires a big beak may not have been in play in the past. For example, there was little in the way of competition for food so enough to go around. Populations increase, food becomes more rare.
Some members of the population have a mutation which allows them to consume other sources. Only those with longer beaks can reach the other source.
In the past, there was no selective pressure on this, however due to population increases and some environmental changes there is now selective pressure.
Members which express longer beaks due to the mutation are now afforded an advantage and will likley move on; while members of the other line fade away.
Another example along same lines, a mutation occurs which allows the birds to digest (although not fully to potential) another type of plant. Currently food is plentiful so this mutation is not in play.
Enviromental conditions or population pressures begin to have their toll. Members that can partially digest the alternate food source can survive long enough to get past the 'dry spell' and pass the code along. The others fade away.
Thus, the two in play have both had impact.
Anyway, point is the equation is more like
past mutations + current mutations + gene interplay + current conditions + a whole lot more = story.
vs.
big beaks = because food was out of reach of small beaks
or
big beaks = because mutation occured.
The debate which you allude to occurs in the transition from micro to macro.
#22
AlanC: it might be instructive to look at other aquatic mammals, such as seals, otters, and beavers, as well as aquatic reptiles such as iquanas, crocodiles, and alligators. Alligators switch back and forth between land and water, but they're remarkably well adapted.
(I started to say "amphibious" but I was worried about confusion happening).
Anyway, I'll see y'all tomorrow; I'm heading home.
Had one, a Biscayne (Cheap model, six Cylinder) the fins were supposed to be for high speed stability, pure horseshit, it wallowed like a round-bottomed steamer in a gale.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/06/2006 19:51 Comments ||
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#25
One other factor no one has mentioned: sex appeal. First example is peacock tails: the males have them only because the females respond to bigger, fancier tails, which otherwise make the peacock less likely to survive. The second example is large breasts and buttocks, and a comparatively small waist, on the homo sapian female, which conveys no survival characteristic except that it makes her more desirable to the male of the species.
The creator of the World Wide Web said on Thursday night that the Internet is in danger of being corrupted by fraudsters, liars and cheats. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Briton who founded the Web in the early 1990s, says that if the Internet is left to develop unchecked, "bad phenomena" will erode its usefulness. And Spam. Dont forget about the Spam.
Berners-Lee's creation has transformed the way millions of people work, do business and entertain themselves. But he warns that "there is a great danger that it becomes a place where untruths start to spread more than truths, or it becomes a place which becomes increasingly unfair in some way." He singles out the rise of blogging as one of the most difficult areas for the continuing development of the Web, because of the risks associated with inaccurate, defamatory and uncheckable information. Shucks, I suppose this is where we should thank Fred and the moderators for doing such an excellent job of making sure all posted material comes with links.
Berners-Lee believes devotees of blogging sites take too much information on trust. "The blogging world works by people reading blogs and linking to them. You mean like that Worlds Funniest Joke bit of stupidity?
You're taking suggestions of what you read from people you trust. That, if you like, is a very simple system, but in fact the technology must help us express much more complicated feelings about who we'll trust with what," he said. The next generation of the Internet needs to be able to reassure users that they can establish the original source of the information they digest. Berners-Lee was launching a new joint initiative between Southampton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create the first degree in Web science. The two schools hope to raise the standards of Web content. Cool! A PhD in Geek.
"Our plan would be to run similar courses on either side of the Atlantic," said Wendy Hall, head of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science. It is little more than a decade since the Web was just a glimmer in the eyes of a handful of scientists, but Internet-savvy students will get the chance to study online phenomena like Google. The vision for Web science embraces traditional technology subjects such as computer science and engineering, but also brings in other areas of social studies and academic thinking. Students will be expected to explore questions such as Internet privacy and regulation, as well as investigating the social trends behind massively popular Web sites like MySpace.com and YouTube.com. Id prefer if they spent some serious time advocating for severe penalties to be imposed upon virus writers and spammers. This is one of the greatest threats to the Internet at present. We have junk fax laws, why not junk email laws? Freedom of speech does not necessarily allow you to come into my home and mouth off.
Much more important is increasing the penalties for virus and worm writing. Current penalties are laughable. These maggots actually obtain street credibility that they then use to obtain employment at computer companies. Solutions should include: 1.) Mandatory felony records and hard prison time for convicted virus writers. 2.) Exclusion from employment in computer-related fields that limits the ability to profit from a criminal enterprise. 3.) Possibility of a lifetime ban from the Internet for egregious cases of damage. 4.) Mandatory reparations to be paid individuals who release harmful or damaging viruses. Lifetime attachment of wages must be a possible result of causing major harm to the computing community. 5.) Much harsher penalties for mass Spammers. This one phenomenon is sapping national productivity. It must be halted in the interest of quality-of-life and workplace profitability.
Prospective researchers will be encouraged by new figures that indicate that the Web is growing at an unprecedented rate, having doubled in size in less than two-and-a-half years, and with more than 1 billion people around the world now connected to the Internet. The new discipline is expected to gain widespread support from huge Internet companies such as Google, Yahoo and Amazon, as well as more traditional computing giants such as Microsoft and IBM. The ultimate task for students of Web science will be to come up with the next generation of the Internet -- and bring about the "semantic Web," a more intelligent version of the systems we use today. But Berners-Lee said that his only intention was to make sure the Internet of the future remained free and open for anybody to use. Something that Google and Yahoo are actively undermining by assisting censorship in communist China. This must become a central issue in future Web development.
"We're not going to be trying to make a Web that will be better for people who vote in a particular way, or better for people who think like we do," he said. "The really important thing about the Web, which will continue through any future technology, is that it is a universal space."
#1
Arise, THOLIAN Web + Galaxy/Federation-renowned Tholian punctuality, arise. SOSUS + GMOSUS > Can there be such a thing as MARXISM-HITLERISM or MARXISM-FASCISM a form of Leftism???
#4
Berners-Lee deserves the title 'creator of the Web' a whole lot more than Gore's absurd claim about the underlying Internet.
Gore was tangentially involved in the regulatory decision to spin the Arpanet to NIST and then out for public use as the Internet. It's grown a bunch since then.
Berners-Lee built upon work at Xerox PARC labs in hymperthreaded documents, plus the TCP/IP and ISO communications protocol stacks, in order to define HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), the basic protocol for requesting and receiving web pages over the Internet.
He and his team also selected a subset of DOD's Structured Graphical Markup Language (SGML) and added hyperlinks, calling the result HTML (hypertext markup language).
Together HTML and HTTP provide the basic technical framework for the Web, which of course uses the Internet in the same way that FedEx uses airports and the highway system.
#5
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Briton who founded the Web in the early 1990s,
I was Gonna Snark about Algore being the true "Founder of the Internet" but 'Yall beat me to it.
Good Snark folks.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/06/2006 19:45 Comments ||
Top||
#6
It's good to know that until now we've been protected from fraudsters, liars and cheats. I know I'm looking forward to a lucrative retirement thanks to the payments I'll be receiving from the Hon. Mrs. Kwame Nkibada, wife of the former Nigerian Finance Minister.
And we certainly wouldn't want untruths spreading about the internet as they do on older, less robust technologies, such as television, where forgers can easily pass off word processed documents as typewritten.
An Indonesian radio station yesterday held a cartoon drawing competition to lampoon Danish royalty to get even for cartoons published in Denmark that insulted the Prophet Mohammed, a report said. A total of 73 children took part in the The Legend of the King of Denmark and the Pig drawing competition at a mosque in the East Java town of Kediri, organised by Radio Famili Education (Radikal) FM, the Antara news agency said.
"Yer Highness! Some Indonesians are making fun of you!"
"Really? Who?"
"Indonesians, sire."
"Really? Okay. Did you have anything important to tell me?"
"No. Just passing the time of day."
"Hokay. Is there any more beer?"
Station executive Agus Sunyoto said the competition was a good way to get at Denmark for having allowed the publication of the insulting cartoons. Actually, this is a very effective way, compared to protests that often can lead to anarchism Sunyoto said.
Sure hope the Danes don't go protesting and getting all anarchic. Somehow I don't think they're going to.
The agency said that many of the participants were non-Muslims. One of the cartoons, by Halim Wiranata, 13, was titled King of Circus of Copenhagen, showing a mustachioed and crowned pig sitting on a throne in a circus with the Danish flag in the background.
#2
Of course, the choice of the pig was purely by chance... kinda like homegrown US terrs refering to kufrs as "white meat" (as in "the other white meat")...
#3
Have the Danes started seething over this? Are there calls for Crusade? Should there be a contract put out on Agus Sunyoto?
Or is the opinion, "Man, what a buncha retarded lamos."?
I'm betting on the later.
#6
I'm more than confident that the Danes won't even bother to take umbrage at this meaningless backwater drivel. Of course, their lack of response will not manage to get through as any sort of signifier to the Indonesians, EXCEPT ...
Be prepared for rabid foaming spittle flecked Islamic declamations about how; "The Danish court and its people are decadent and weak for not springing into immediate action with violent protests over this egregious slight upon their Royal house."
#8
Nah, those are just for scooting over and replenishing their stock of nublie Indonesian dancing girls. The cuties line up dockside just waiting for their Nordic he-men to arrive, don't cha know.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
James Taranto, "Best of the Web," Wall Street Journal
Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Samuel H. Bowers, who was serving a life sentence for the 1966 bombing death of a civil rights leader, died Sunday in a state penitentiary, officials said. He was 82. He died of cardio pulmonary arrest, said Mississippi Department of Corrections spokeswoman Tara Booth. Bowers was convicted in August of 1998 of ordering the assassination of Vernon Dahmer, a civil rights activist who had fought for black rights during Mississippi's turbulent struggle for racial equality. "He was supposed to stay there until he died. I guess he fulfilled that," Vernon Dahmer's widow, Ellie Dahmer, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "He lived a lot longer than Vernon Dahmer did."
Lahore Education Executive District Officer (EDO) Zahid Hussain Khan has summoned the headmistress and English teacher of Government Girls High School Dry Port for beating a sixth grader, Daily Times learnt on Sunday.
