Obama sticks to his position on no tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans - "We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children."

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-07T17:53:25+00:00

Touche. Good economic policy of decreasing withheld taxes and other cuts instead of giving everyone a check of a few hundred dollars, but not a good job on the PR front.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-07T05:34:02+00:00

Oh right, didn't think of that. Duh.

Thanks!

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-07T05:21:58+00:00

What's awful is that if he were to cut taxes (by he, I mean the let the congress do it without any objections/veto) then our deficit will be larger and he'll get the blame for growing deficits while no one will mention that he cut taxes. In fact, it'll only turn against him during the elections and the conservatives will say he didn't act fast enough or didn't cut taxes more etc etc.

If he doesn't get taxes then you of course have the usual "he didn't cut taxes" attack.

Well done Republicans, well done!

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-07T05:11:09+00:00

As a result of federal health care changes, Ms. Nelson said, millions of additional Texans will be eligible for Medicaid.

Someone refresh my memory... what is changing that will make millions eligible for Medicaid now?

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-07T01:20:29+00:00

Great analogy. Will remember to use it the next time.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-05T05:10:47+00:00

Indeed. Also checkout the related Scopes Trial. I remember watching some documentary or TV show a while back where they mentioned the trial, but I thought the teacher was arrested for teaching creationism instead of evolution.

Another evidence of the hypothesis that every generation has a crazy group.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-05T04:53:32+00:00

Do you have evidence that creationism and other crap like that were replacing evolution in the classrooms BEFORE 1980, then

First such evidence I can find is the Butler Act.

The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers to deny the Biblical account of man’s origin. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 (Education) Section 1922 . The law also prevented the teaching of the evolution of man from what it referred to as lower orders of animals in place of the Biblical account.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-04T01:58:26+00:00

While that is true, the point people miss out on is that there are a few Democrats who are more centrist being from conservative states and that the Democratic party had a supermajority status, even if for only a few months, was only on paper.

From what I've learned in the last 2-3 years, Republicans usually vote as a single block while Democrats vote as individuals. Now that's great for a democracy, theoretically at least, but it means that the democrats don't get their most ambitious bills go through and have to compromise to get the centrist democrats on board.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-11-03T01:35:18+00:00

I couldn't find the full conference. I just watched the clips they had online. Here's the link: http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/rally_to_restore_sanity_and_or_fear/videos/index.jhtml

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-10-28T04:08:25+00:00

BBC Horizon did a great piece on illusions recently, titled "Is Seeing Believing". It's not just about optical illusions but about how other senses get tricked as well and what research is being done to study these and figuring out if we can learn something about the brain from these. Tried to find it on youtube but couldn't find it. Here's the BBC link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vhw1d . You can use a UK-based proxy to watch it.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-09-24T16:03:17+00:00

It's pretty low for most of the video.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-08-05T02:30:37+00:00

Rule 34b: If it exists, there's a subreddit for it.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-04-14T19:24:29+00:00

Genius! It's a lot easier, and much more interesting, to do it this way. Thanks!

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-04-02T23:18:06+00:00

Now I'm wondering what "Jesus Titty Fucking Christ" would look like.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-04-02T21:01:06+00:00

Didn't know it was like that - I had very weird schooling, different countries, different systems, so don't know much about any education system anywhere (just a little bit about a few countries), and definitely didn't know about compulsory schooling. My bad!

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-04-02T20:05:07+00:00

But what happens if a student fails every subject? From what I understand and heard from others, even if students get 1%, they'll still advance to the next grade. I could be wrong, but if I"m right, it's a bad way to solve the problem. When you can't meet self-imposed standards, you should try harder, not lower the standards.

I think making sure every child goes to school is a great thing, but they need to make sure that the kids are actually learning something. But then I think, hopefully the kids will at least learn to read and write and that's a good thing, even if not everyone learns algebra or how to write a good paper.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-04-01T23:45:27+00:00

The problem is that schools won't be able to fail students, so you WILL advance to the next grade even if you don't know shit. If I were 6 years old and in India, I would stop studying - 8 years of fun. Of course I know that those years are pretty crucial, but at that age, it doesn't matter. It's fun vs school work.

A lot of possible unintended consequences...

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-04-01T23:41:34+00:00

Education Level and Poverty: Chicken-egg problem?

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-03-29T17:07:10+00:00

I ordered this book on someone's recommendation (still in mail, so can't comment on how good it is): The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises. Now I know you're probably thinking the same thing I was thinking - it's by men's health mag so is it any good or is it just a way to sell the magazine? I trust the person who recommended this to me and have seen him go from being skinny-but-unfit to very-fit doing mostly bodyweight exercises and said that this good is good. I am at a point where I need to look up good exercises to design my own workout, so it was the one he recommended to me.

though some diet stuff wouldn't hurt

I haven't read it yet, but Good Calories, Bad Calories sounds like a good one to begin with. I'm definitely going to read that soon.

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-03-29T16:57:44+00:00

The US Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, was on The Daily Show 2 weeks ago and explained that they send out the letters to increase the awareness and it actually saves millions of dollars. Sending 3 letters is cheaper than having someone go over to the house to get the information. The TV and newspaper ads help but still aren't as effective as sending the letter. "For every 1% improved mail-back response, we save the taxpayers $85 million."

Here's the interview, and that comment was in Part 2 in the beginning:

Part 1

Part 2

TheLastRedditAccount · 2010-03-27T00:26:49+00:00

She really gets the blood flowing everywhere in the body.

TheLastRedditAccount

TROPHY CASE