Politics (formerly Election 2012)

[Fivelives]

My university took attendance that way. It caused a HUGE stir among the student body, split about evenly between "hey, you tell us we're adults, but you want to punish us for not attending above and beyond an F that we'd normally get for skipping a bunch of classes" and "OMG POLICE STATE WTF".

Pretty much what you'd expect from a university-level student body.

[bldavis]

ive had classes where you missed more than 3 classes, and that includes being more than 5 min late, you dropped a grade and i have had classes where he didnt give a rats ass if you showed, but if you didnt you had to figure out how to do the project on your own or get a class mate to help (one of my ...ok most of my drafting classes were like that)

[Fridmarr]

My university took attendance that way. It caused a HUGE stir among the student body, split about evenly between "hey, you tell us we're adults, but you want to punish us for not attending above and beyond an F that we'd normally get for skipping a bunch of classes" and "OMG POLICE STATE WTF".

Pretty much what you'd expect from a university-level student body.

lol, how exactly would they punish you? Did they really have an attendance problem like that? I mean you're the one that is paying for the school, that should be motivation enough for you to show up. In any event, at least at the university level you have a choice.

[Dantriges]

I'm not doubting their reasoning. I know how the funding works, part of our backwards system of having a federal department of education, a gigantic waste of resources that unsurprisingly has created bad results and ridiculous inefficiencies. I'm just amazed that a school can't figure out how to take proper attendance without resorting to RFID tagging their students. As a government school, the logic doesn't pass a basic sniff test for something so invasive.

And well school rducation is more or less in the hands of the provinces over here and it´s a gigantic waste of resources, too and they can´t agree on anything if they are all affected. That´s just bureauracy, no matter if it´s on a state or nation wide level. We are long past the time where village level administration is sufficient which is probably more efficient... in rural towns. There are enough countries in the world as big as your average US state that are perfectly capable of wasting big bucks in big bureaucracy. So if you transfer power over to the states, your tax dollars will go to waste within the then expanded state administration. Perhaps you can save quite a few bucks if you disband the Union completely and let every state work for himself but somehow I don´t think that there are so many people in favor of that.

[Torquemada]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/al-gore-still-following-in-his-daddys-footsteps/2013/01/08/48b33c34-59e2-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html
Hypocritical douche is hypocritical.

[Brekkie]

I'm not doubting their reasoning. I know how the funding works, part of our backwards system of having a federal department of education, a gigantic waste of resources that unsurprisingly has created bad results and ridiculous inefficiencies. I'm just amazed that a school can't figure out how to take proper attendance without resorting to RFID tagging their students. As a government school, the logic doesn't pass a basic sniff test for something so invasive.

And well school rducation is more or less in the hands of the provinces over here and it´s a gigantic waste of resources, too and they can´t agree on anything if they are all affected. That´s just bureauracy, no matter if it´s on a state or nation wide level. We are long past the time where village level administration is sufficient which is probably more efficient... in rural towns. There are enough countries in the world as big as your average US state that are perfectly capable of wasting big bucks in big bureaucracy. So if you transfer power over to the states, your tax dollars will go to waste within the then expanded state administration. Perhaps you can save quite a few bucks if you disband the Union completely and let every state work for himself but somehow I don´t think that there are so many people in favor of that.

And this is exactly why I have trouble understanding the "states rights" argument.

[Shoju]

I guess I don't see the big deal with RFID based attendance. They are students. In a school. Is it the expense that people have a problem with? Is it the RFID? There are companies that have similar monitoring systems. Good for them. You're there to go to school. You're there to do a job. The RFID proves if you were there or not, and can keep people there, and accounted for. But then, I guess I'm not that upset by it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/al-gore-still-following-in-his-daddys-footsteps/2013/01/08/48b33c34-59e2-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html
Hypocritical douche is hypocritical.

Why? Because he took Al-Jazeera's money? Because they are funded by a country whose funding is based on Oil? I guess I don't understand. Just because you are an environmentalist, you can't even deal with people who do other things? Just because Quatar has a big carbon footprint, he shouldn't make a business decision to sell something to them?

I don't care much for Al "I invented the internet" Gore, but I hardly see him selling his stake in a TV Company as hypocritical.

Maybe if he owned a for profit "greenpeace" type company and sold out to Oil Barons, that'd be hypocritical. But a business deal for a TV station? Just doesn't get me all up in arms.

[Shoju]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/1 ... 49431.html

Holy Shit Bricks Batman. Texas just lost all of their Medicaid Funding for women, because of their new "Anti Planned Parenthood" Discrimination Laws.

I uh... Well, I see some lawsuits coming in the great state of texas, and I think I see a shift in population coming if goes too far.

[Klaudandus]

That article was posted last march

[Shoju]

That article was posted last march

Hmm... I think I clicked the wrong thing. Let me see if I can find the article they were linking to today. There was supposedly some new development.

EDIT: Yeah, I fail at keeping up with my Twitter feed. I found a couple of links,

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/texas-plan ... d=18173045

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/17041/

But there was another link about Texas and funding, and Planned Parenthood today. I can't seem to find the link, but there was some sort of new development. Go me.

[Klaudandus]

Hmm... I think I clicked the wrong thing. Let me see if I can find the article they were linking to today. There was supposedly some new development.

EDIT: Yeah, I fail at keeping up with my Twitter feed. I found a couple of links,

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/texas-plan ... d=18173045

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/17041/

But there was another link about Texas and funding, and Planned Parenthood today. I can't seem to find the link, but there was some sort of new development. Go me.

Hey, more rich old white guys deciding what's best for women's health.

Just for added bonus
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/h ... tml?hp=r15
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/0 ... .html?rape

There's not enough desk for me to face

Addendum: Again, my beef is that it's guys deciding, let women decide the policies that affect their own bodies.




The irony is completely lost on this guy

[Fridmarr]

And well school rducation is more or less in the hands of the provinces over here and it´s a gigantic waste of resources, too and they can´t agree on anything if they are all affected. That´s just bureauracy, no matter if it´s on a state or nation wide level. We are long past the time where village level administration is sufficient which is probably more efficient... in rural towns. There are enough countries in the world as big as your average US state that are perfectly capable of wasting big bucks in big bureaucracy. So if you transfer power over to the states, your tax dollars will go to waste within the then expanded state administration. Perhaps you can save quite a few bucks if you disband the Union completely and let every state work for himself but somehow I don´t think that there are so many people in favor of that.

Here's it's not a choice between state level bureaucracy vs federal level.  We actually have both, we get the worst of both worlds.  Education is actually mostly a state thing, it used to be more local but it's been moving more and more towards the state and even federal a bit.  The federal government just coerces states to do various things by taking their money and holding it until the states comply. 

Many of our programs are run in that way, the degree varies, but a lot of these programs would run just fine (aside from funding) if the federal gov't stopped existing tomorrow.  The fed comes up with the rules, a chunk of the money (sometimes all of it), but the states do most the implementation.  The fed just becomes a sort of draconian compliance and reporting authority.

And this is exactly why I have trouble understanding the "states rights" argument.

My line of work has enabled me to get a pretty decent working knowledge of many levels of business in both the private and public sector.  Needless to say I could probably write quite a bit on that topic, but I have neither the time nor the inclination at the moment, and I suspect no one is interested in hearing it anyhow.  That said, if you've ever uttered the phrase "large corporation" you get the idea, only in the public sector the risks and balances are even more skewed.  Now, I'm not naive enough to consider states to be the equivalent of "small business", but our current system is just one more layer of abstration which emphasizes those negative qualities that much more.
 

[Fivelives]

My university took attendance that way. It caused a HUGE stir among the student body, split about evenly between "hey, you tell us we're adults, but you want to punish us for not attending above and beyond an F that we'd normally get for skipping a bunch of classes" and "OMG POLICE STATE WTF".

Pretty much what you'd expect from a university-level student body.

lol, how exactly would they punish you? Did they really have an attendance problem like that? I mean you're the one that is paying for the school, that should be motivation enough for you to show up. In any event, at least at the university level you have a choice.

Anywhere from an automatic failing grade for the semester and academic probation all the way to financial aid suspension and loss of university grants. It depends on the individual department how far they want to take the punishment, but the university is pressuring them to make it more and more stringent.

[Klaudandus]

And going back to guns....
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/10/u ... n-control/

[Klaudandus]

And how stupid some right-wingers are...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/10/e ... um=twitter


Somehow... my quote about the evils of algebra becomes funny in hindsight...
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=32920&p=733531&hilit=algebra#p733531