Math illiteracy on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”

The contestant, the studio audience, and the online audience all got this easy math question wrong.

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July 31, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , . Education, Math, Television. 2 comments.

The new method of “teaching” math leaves students ignorant and uneducated

I came across this video which compares the traditional methods of teaching multiplication and division to the new methods. The new methods are deliberately dumbed down, the textbooks claim it’s a waste of time for students to try to master math concepts, and use of calculators is heavily encouraged.

The narrator concludes by telling parents that they should ignore these new methods, and instead, use the math textbooks that are currently being used in Singapore.

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July 31, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , . Education, Math. 1 comment.

Here’s a bunch of Hall and Oates music videos from the early days of MTV

Daryl Hall and John Oates are my favorite 80s musical artist. I had a lot fun watching their videos as I was growing up, and I still enjoy them very much today.
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July 31, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , . MTV, Music, Television. 1 comment.

We libertarians and conservatives should praise Barack Obama for sending his own children to private schools

We libertarians and conservatives are always being so critical of Barack Obama. I say it’s long past due that we give him the credit that he deserves.

While living in Chicago and in Washington D.C., Barack Obama has always sent his own children to private schools. I am glad that Obama cares about his daughters enough to make sure that they will never have to attend a K-12 public school. I am glad that he has taken steps so that his daughters will be allowed to achieve academically to the greatest of their potential.

July 30, 2012. Tags: , , , , . Education, Politics. Leave a comment.

Scientific study proves that today’s pop music really does suck

It’s not just our imagination – pop music really has been getting worse and worse. And now we have a scientific study that proves it.
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July 29, 2012. Tags: , , , , , . Music, Science, Technology. 60 comments.

Judge orders New York City Fire Department to hire black and Hispanic applicants who failed “racist” written test

Here’s a situation which reminds me of the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:
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July 28, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Politics, Racism. 4 comments.

According to this political quiz, I should vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson for President

I found this political quiz:

http://www.isidewith.com/

My results show that I agree the most with Gary Johnson, and that I agree the least with Barack Obama.

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July 27, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Politics. Leave a comment.

An Obama supporter from 2008 has a conversation with the 2012 version of herself

This video is amazing. An optimistic and enthusiastic Obama supporter from 2008 talks to the 2012 version of herself:

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July 27, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , . Politics. 3 comments.

Cowardly crybaby EU bureaucrats want to fine Google four BILLION dollars

The Washington Post  reports:

“Google is most squarely in the crosshairs as its officials negotiate furiously in hopes of avoiding a $4 billion fine and a formal ruling that it has abused its dominance in the search market to hurt rivals across a range of industries.”

Google?

Since when is Google a threat?

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July 23, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , . Politics. Leave a comment.

Trial lawyers successfully sue on behalf of people who poured gasoline onto fires.

This is completely ridiculous, but it appears to be how our current legal system works.
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July 23, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , . Dumb lawsuits, Politics. 2 comments.

“The Emperor’s New Clones” is the best “Star Wars” parody that I have ever seen

The Emperor’s New Clones was created by some very talented people at an organization called “Backyard Productions.” With its wonderful sets, costumes, and special effects, I was stunned to find out that the total cost of making this was only approximately £3,000.

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July 21, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Humor, Movies, Star Wars. Leave a comment.

Uh oh. Government bureaucrats want to take control of kids’ summer vacations.

According to this article, summer vacation makes children dumber and fatter. The article even goes on to say that it’s the poor and racial minorities who are hit the hardest.

But don’t worry. There’s a proposal to have the federal government get involved to solve this problem. Supporters of the program claim that it would cost less than $2,000 per child per summer. Of course supporters of these kinds of government programs always understate the cost, so I can easily see such a program costing far more than that amount.

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July 18, 2012. Tags: , , , , , . Books, Police state, Politics. Leave a comment.

“If Barack Obama has a Harvard law degree, he didn’t earn that. Somebody else made that happen.”

On July 13, 2012, at a campaign event at Roanoke Fire Station #1, in Roanoke, Virginia, President Barack Obama said:

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

The bolding is mine.

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July 16, 2012. Tags: , . Politics. 1 comment.

People who say U.S. public schools are “underfunded” have no idea what they are talking about.

The United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools.
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July 13, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Education, Politics. 1 comment.

Here’s “From A to Z-Z-Z-Z” and “Boyhood Daze,” two of the greatest Looney Tunes ever made.

Both of these animated shorts from the 1950s are about a boy named Ralph Phillips, who has these extraordinarily amazing daydreams. These are two of the greatest Looney Tunes cartoons ever made. Both were written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones.

I fear that if a child acted this way today, he would be put on Ritalin, and have all of his creativity forcefully removed.

Can you count how many “politically incorrect” things there are in these two cartoons?

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July 13, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Movies, Television. 1 comment.

Anti-sweatshop activists have caused an increase in childhood prostitution

Every country starts out poor. Ten thousand years ago, every country was poor. It’s only when a country adopts and maintains widespread economic growth over time that the country becomes rich. The emergence of sweatshops in a poor country is often a sign that that country has climbed onto the ladder of economic growth and upward mobility.

Until fairly recently, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea were poor, third world countries. It was only after they started climbing the ladder of economic growth that they became rich. Sweatshops played a big role in these countries change from being poor to being rich.

More recently, other countries have started having sweatshops. Critics of these sweatshops complain about the low wages and poor working conditions of these sweatshops. But these critics never compare the wages and working conditions of the sweatshops to what the workers had before the sweatshops opened.

I trust the average person to choose the job that is best for him. So if someone is working in a sweatshop, I believe that he is doing so because it is his best option, out of all of his real world options.

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July 12, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Economics, Politics, Sweatshops. 3 comments.

Here’s a bunch of episodes of “You Can’t Do That On Television”

You Can’t Do That On Television is a sketch-comedy TV series that was made in Canada and aired in the U.S. on Nickelodeon in the 1980s. The show starred character actor Les Lye, who played all of the adult male roles – and there were dozens of them. Abby Hagyard played all of the adult female roles. At least five children appeared in each episode, and they always played themselves. Some of the children were on the show long term and appeared in many episodes over the years (such as  Christine McGlade, Lisa Ruddy, Alasdair Gillis, Adam Reid, Vanessa Lindores, and Doug Ptolemy) – others appeared in only a few (such as Alanis Morissette, who appears below in the episodes “Pop Music” and “Enemies and Paranoia”). The show portrays many of its adult authority figures as worthy of being mocked, whether it be because they’re incompetent, evil, corrupt, or power hungry. Anyone who said “I don’t know” would have green slime fall on them, and anyone who said “water” would have water fall on them. The series was created by Roger Price, who wrote the script for every episode.
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July 8, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Television. 3 comments.

Ewww! Hawaiian Punch has switched to using sucralose.

Hawaiian Punch has switched to using sucralose.
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July 8, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , . Food. 13 comments.

The world’s supply of resources is getting bigger, not smaller

According to the laws of physics, the total quantity of mass and energy is fixed. Therefore, we cannot “create” new mass or energy, and we cannot “use up” the mass and energy that we already have.

But there is something else that we can do – we can invent, build, and use technology to increase our standard of living. For example, petroleum was worthless until someone with a brain invented a way to use it, at which point the petroleum became a valuable resource. Likewise, today we take rocks that used to be worthless, and turn them into computer chips that are worth trillions of dollars.
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July 5, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Desalination, Economics, Environmentalism, Nuclear power, Overpopulation, Politics, Science, Technology. 11 comments.

Germany replaces nuclear power with coal power, at insistence of environmentalists

In recent years, the environmental movement in Germany has persuaded the country to shut down one third if its nuclear power generating capacity.

Of that shut down nuclear capacity, more than 80% of it has been replaced with fossil fuels.
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July 5, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Environmentalism, Nuclear power, Politics, Science, Technology. 1 comment.

Now that the United States has universal health care, where will Canadian politicians go when they get sick?

Canada has had universal health care for a long time.

When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, Canada, needed cancer treatment, he came to the United States.
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July 2, 2012. Tags: , , , , , , , , . Health care, Politics. 6 comments.