Month: April 2013

Noam Chomsky: Obama’s Attack on Civil Liberties Has Gone Way Beyond Imagination | Alternet

Under Obama’s administration, if you meet with someone in a terrorist group and advise them to turn to nonviolent means, then that’s material assistance to terrorism.

Source: Noam Chomsky: Obama’s Attack on Civil Liberties Has Gone Way Beyond Imagination | Alternet

 

It’s interesting to see the way in which due process is being reinterpreted by Obama’s Justice Department in regards to the drone killings. Attorney General Eric Holder was asked why the administration was killing people without due process. Well, there was due process, he said, because they discuss it within the executive branch. King John in the 13th century would have loved that.

In two years, we’re going to get to the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and it’ll be a funeral. Not just this, but every other aspect. Take rendition, for example. One of the provisions of Magna Carta is that you can’t send someone across the seas for punishment. Much of the world participates in rendition now.

— Noam Chomsky

Cheating to Learn: How a UCLA professor gamed a game theory midterm – For The Curious

A week before the test, I told my class that the Game Theory exam would be insanely hard—far harder than any that had established my rep as a hard prof. But as recompense, for this one time only, students could cheat. They could bring and use anything or anyone they liked, including animal behavior experts. (Richard Dawkins in town? Bring him!) They could surf the Web. They could talk to each other or call friends who’d taken the course before. They could offer me bribes. (I wouldn’t take them, but neither would I report it to the Dean.) Only violations of state or federal criminal law such as kidnapping my dog, blackmail, or threats of violence were out of bounds.

In the end, the students learned what social insects like ants and termites have known for hundreds of millions of years. To win at some games, cooperation is better than competition. Unity that arises through a diversity of opinion is stronger than any solitary competitor.

The best tests will not only find out what students know but also stimulate thinking in novel ways. This is much more than regurgitating memorized facts. The test itself becomes a learning experience – where the very act of taking it leads to a deeper understanding of the subject.

Source: Cheating to Learn: How a UCLA professor gamed a game theory midterm – For The Curious

Thank Goodness Kids Do Belong to Their Parents – The Atlantic

The notion that children belong to the whole community, propounded by Melissa Harris-Perry, would be terrible for most of them.

An article including an example of what happens when employees of the State disagree with how you have chosen (legally within the bounds of established local and federal law) to raise your child.

Source: Thank Goodness Kids Do Belong to Their Parents – The Atlantic

 

I’d generally fall on the side of the debate which is more surprised and upset that a neighbor’s first reaction is to call the police (rather than, you know, saying “hi” to the kid themselves or something similarly friendly-yet-concerned) and that the powers of the State (the police, CPS, etc.) are primarily concerned with scaring the family into behaving how the State wants them to act, rather than supporting a family’s choices in raising their kids (e.g. the police officer could have introduced himself to the child – Emily – and offered to help her get home or otherwise in the future, rather than detaining her and her father).

‘We’re Going to Have a Crisis’: David Stockman’s Stark Warning for America – The Atlantic

The onetime Reagan budget chief has gone from supply-side guru to prophet of doom — and his new book predicts stormy times ahead for the U.S.

The things that the base of each party believes are fundamentally untrue. Pat Moynihan taught me a phrase — “everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but nobody is entitled to his own facts.” What the Democrats and Republicans believe about the fiscal issue is so detached from the facts that there’s no basis for governance.

Source: ‘We’re Going to Have a Crisis’: David Stockman’s Stark Warning for America – The Atlantic