Patrick Beard › Likes

...with liberty and justice for all. HAH! -

;) - Mona Nomura

Getting out my 10 foot clown poll for this one... :) - Johnny Worthington

Religion has a place in school. It's called the Theology class room. Where the christian creation can be taught along with the other dozens of creationist doctrine. How they going to like that? - Geoff Schultz

I thought that's the reason private schools existed in the first place - Rodfather

Why not teach religion as part of literature? It's not half-bad fiction. - Patrick Beard from twhirl

Because as literature, it's not really that good? - ·[▪_▪]·

I teach philosophy in public school and religion is very welcome in that mix. But dang, they are looking to develop an underground by poking around in the private schools. I wonder if home schooling there will take off more (as it has in the US) in reaction to the bans. They may actually be making things more dangerous if so. - Boo

Boo: I agree, regarding underground. The option to learn should exist, but not mandated. Like Geoff said: "Theology Class" - Mona Nomura

Yes, teaching the world's creation stories in a theology class makes perfect sense. "Teaching religious doctrine as if it were true" doesn't make sense. Which doctrine? Which truth? - Ayşe E.

Illegal? Really? - Mona Nomura

I don't get it, Mona. - Pete Delucchi

My question, Pete? - Mona Nomura

Mona, the god part is a recent addition to the pledge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... you'll find the founding fathers weren't all that hot on religion. - Duncan Riley

The statement, Mona. - Pete Delucchi

as to the question: I can see some merit in it, although it's difficult to reconcile in terms of a free society. We are far better off equipping our children with critical reasoning than blind theology. If they then decide to follow, so be it. - Duncan Riley

I can't believe that people don't think science is THE religion in our paradigm... :P - Kenn Ejima

Duncan: Yes, I looked it up during ongoing "Ban the Pledge of Allegiance" controversies :) I just wrote it to get people's attention. Pete: ? - Mona Nomura

I support the motivation for this law, only object to telling privately funded schools what they can and can't teach. I blogged about this (http://frethink.com/?p=79) and have gotten nearly 20 replies (on Disqus), mostly supportive of the law. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

i agree with Daniel Dennett on this one. a solution is not less religion, but more religion. mandatory teaching of world religions in schools is a good start. they are already doing it in Modesto, CA - http://bit.ly/2ywsfs - ~C4Chaos

Jack: WOW. @~C4Chaos: Interesting, thank you for the link. - Mona Nomura

I say let the private schools teach whatever they want. - Internet's Tad

I agree, Tad. As long as they're privately funded, they can teach wizardry and alchemy as fact. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

I'm not sure I like my site's comments being rerouted through Disqus. I wish there was an option to have them appear on the site while comments could only be made through Disqus. If I disable Disqus, do the comments already made disappear? Or can I export them back to my blog? (Sorry for the off-topic) - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Wizards aren't real? - Shannon Jiménez

Jack: I don't have a self hosted WordPress blog, and don't want to give you an inadequate answer. I suggest asking on the DISQUS forums. The dev team is really active there :) http://disqus.disqus.com/ - Mona Nomura

Mona, just to be clear, I'm not in favor of making this illegal. It's a big world w/ lots of ideas. Best to expose the kids and teach them how to think critically about them. - Ayşe E.

excerpt - "Whatdya mean, he left his clothes with Susie?" - Yuvi

Funny! :) thanks! - matthew hunt

@Yuvi -- explain your PowerShell script more, are you using it to find / grab the c&h content or to post it to ff? - Nicholas Kreidberg

@Nicholas - No, I'm using it for posting. I would use a Py script for grabbing, if I had to. These are on my HDD, so my PS script is the easiest way to post to FF. - Yuvi

This is one of those topics where a " like" doesn't seem to be appropriate ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Do we have any corroborating evidence to support some of the claims? Do we have information about IAO's possible involvement in FB? This is important stuff. Thanks for the post! - phil baumann

I haven't got a clue if any of this information is true or not. It sounds pretty scary though - Alexander van Elsas

all your base are belong to the CIA. - Hao Chen

I agree about the like, but I "like" that it was posted. Be nice to have a FF feature to distinguish the two. ;-) - phil baumann

Can anybody verify these facts? - Brian Sullivan

The CIA can have all the pokes, zombies and other BS I ever received on Facebook. I rarely use it to be honest, it's just doesn't work for me - Alexander van Elsas

Once, I typed 'terrorist' in an IM, and my internet was shut off for 5 mins. :/ - Hao Chen

CIA would be interested in photos (facial recognition), profile info (dossier), and friends (known connections). - Hao Chen

People seem to think that they have a right to privacy when they post info about themselves on public sites like facebook, myspace etc. If you want privacy don't post your most intimate details. It isn't the government that I worry about but employers, ad agencies, insurance companies and crooks. If the CIA wants my info then they can have it, not sure what good it will do them. It is sometimes interesting to blog about the CIA and FBI and watch the government and military hits on my blog spike. - Don Rogers

Alexander - you had that conversation with me. :) I guess my confusion is this... you can only be responsible for your privacy in as much as the services you use allow you to be fine grained in your control. From the networks I've seen, it looks to me like FB has the finest grain control. Which still may not be enough, but it is certainly more than say, FriendFeed provides. - felix

Don, you would be AMAZED how many people have never read the privacy policy of Facebook, and even worse, are naive enough to believe that they are save from commercial exploitation. And let's be honest. There isn't a big first screen during sign up that reads "Be aware that this service is free because we use your data for commercial purposes" (now that would be clear). And what sort of bugs me is that in the press Facebook talks protecting privacy when they seem to mean protecting their own business. - Alexander van Elsas

Felix, Facebook sort of protects you from both the world outside Facebook and from users within. But it doesn't protect you from Facebook ;-) It would be much better if your important aspects of your on-line identities (there can be more) were implemented with you. And that you would have settings available that would allow you to control how much anyone (including Facebook) couls see of you - Alexander van Elsas

It's part of what I call the User Centric Web. You control your own data, and your own privacy. Service Providers liek Facebook become the gas station you visit when you are traveling somewhere. All they do is provide you service, no more ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

facebook.com + odnoklassniki.ru = 1984 - ǝuǝƃnǝ

@Jason: somewhat agree, but it would be a painful process to get there and we would have to live through that... There can be a middle ground to get there... - Chris Reed

@Jason Right on. This looks like great news to me. The world described here as collapsing was illusory anyway. If the subprime mortgage melodrama accelerates the massive global trend of most humanity moving to cities, so much the better. City life is such a healthier and more efficient thing than life in the suburbs or country. Now to translate this to more mass transit funding in the cities... - Sean Savage

And herein lies the problem... For years, people talked about raising the gas tax, but everyone needs gas. You can talk about how raising food prices to curb obesity, but everyone needs to eat. Hurting everyone to get to a better status quo is not my way of doing things. You can whip a person often enough so that they will make sure to throw away their wrapper when they're done. No littering is a good thing, but was the means to get there? - Chris Reed

Chris: you have to raise the gas tax in order to build public transportation that works. People should spend more money on food for lots of reasons: eat less, eat organic, local, etc. and more importantly people should CARE more about what they are eating. OK, so people are poor, I get that. Lots of poor people manage to make their situation worse with large families, I DON'T get that. If your living situation is untenable, then changes are necessary. - Jason Wehmhoener

People get so trapped in self-defeat, believing that everything but their own actions is to blame for their circumstances. - Jason Wehmhoener

This is why I moved only a mere mile from 6th and Red River in Austin. While it's considered the "scary East Side" to a lot of suburban idiots, it's also damn near downtown. I can walk to everything within 20 minutes, take the bus, or a taxi. I work from home, so I save on gas, but I can easily find a job farther out when they install the light rail, which will be done in 6 months. I pay more to live downtown, but I save on parking and gas, while feeling safer compared to people who live near abandoned home - moo Money

moo's got the right idea. mel: people were lied to, and I guess that's my error, I don't really accept that as an "excuse". I don't watch talk shows, so I apologize if it sounds like I'm puppeting them, but I guess I figure that if I could see through the lies as a kid growing up in suburbia, and if my parents could as well (when pressured) then why the hell did my parents and our neighbors persist in the folly? - Jason Wehmhoener

I guess easy credit is like a drug, but I watched and learned from my parents: debt is slavery. - Jason Wehmhoener

People don't want to believe that their precious dreams are crumbling around them. Like the couple in this story, they think that they can hang on. I applaud their effort, but what will it take for them to realize that life has changed? Will it be the husband's murder in a robbery gone wrong? The wife's rape? It's funny how many people look down on the East Side of Austin. Guess who's moving there, though? Your old neighbors. Pretty soon, our crime will be much lower and the suburban areas higher. - moo Money

Even without reading the article, this reminds me of "little brother" by Cory Doctorow. Great read. - Phil G

I've spent most of my life in two places, suburban LA/Orange Co. and Las Vegas, NV. Historically in both metro areas New Urbanism and walkable communities were not on the radar. There was talk here in Vegas 2 years ago of building "huburbs" - self contained mini-communities where everything you needed for day-to-day living is within 3 miles of your home. MGM's CityCenter is the first project to go up. Let's see if it redefines the current space or whether it becomes a separate Delta City, a la Robocop. - Jim Stanger

@chris classic orwellian mindfuck: we Americans buy the frame that this is an issue of whether or not to add gas taxes.. We forget that the oil corps get gigantic subsidies, huge portions of our income taxes. Its more effective to frame this as an issue of REDUCING taxes - personal taxes going to welfare to Exxon et al, that result in the illusion of cheap gas. (and believe me $5/gallon is incredibly artificially cheap) - Sean Savage

@Jim: I'm in the same boat and in such sprawling areas, the concept of from door to work public transportation is beyond daunting (especially in L.A.). Solutions to reducing our consumption culture aren't going to come by forcing hardship upon people, but my making it easier for them to consume less. - Chris Reed

Making it easier for people to consume...less? It's a good goal to reach for. Then again, how long before those thoughts get us put on a terrorist watch list? - Jim Stanger

Change is always painful and in thsi case probably good. You want peopel to give up gas guzzling SUV's and eat healthier without some crisis? Umm, guess again. The biggest problem in US is that government has set the tone on deficit spending(trickle down to individuals-credit debt) and Americans need to wake up and realize they don't need to have a tv in every room of the house just because tv's are affordable. Consumerism was foisted upon US public by military contracting companies that were left without a - Mark Forman