Republican proposes paying poor women to have their tubes tied and paying rich women to have more kids

[EstebanTrabajos 7]

Social cleansing I say...

Fukcing nazis

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Uppity ####.

[HAL 9000 96]

Can we just tie the tubes/give vasectomies to morons?

I concur. Pay morons to get vasectomized/hysterectomized. Problem is, there are morons out there that don't need the cash- according to them.

ORLY? Why Mavi, who might you be referring to?

Hey its not like we're having them offed or maimed, as some of them would oft do to others...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Have you seen Idiocracy?

Not yet but it's in my Netflix queue.

It's already happening to some extent. There was a study a few years ago showing that the average high school student today has half the vocabulary of their grandparents when they were in school. The same is true for top students and the "great" books they didn't read compared to previous generations.

I noticed that now most younger people won't watch black and white movies and one my colleagues (age 24) at work claimed he's never watched a movie older than the Godfather.

Well with movies - there's a lot of oversaturation that goes on. You have channels like AMC, or TCM that show "classic" movies, but they're buried by view on demand channels (not to mention netflix, digital download stores like iTunes) that compete to get the latest movies from theater onto cable in the shortest time possible.

I agree with you on education - back when I first moved out here and we were living in CA, discursive examinations had just been introduced into the High School SAT program (before that I think they were doing some sort of multiple choice thing) and there was a lot of stuff in the news about how kids were finding the new standards unreasonably difficult. I think it was Kaplan who brought out that series of books (basically reprints of classic novels) which had key vocabulary words underlined and defined throughout the text.

Pretty much every examination I ever did - outside of mathematics and the driving test, required me to write an essay (or at least a few paragraphs) in response to a question. I can certainly see how kids would get stressed out - having that suddenly thrust on them.

[HAL 9000 96]

Have you seen Idiocracy?

Not yet but it's in my Netflix queue.

It's already happening to some extent. There was a study a few years ago showing that the average high school student today has half the vocabulary of their grandparents when they were in school. The same is true for top students and the "great" books they didn't read compared to previous generations.

I noticed that now most younger people won't watch black and white movies and one my colleagues (age 24) at work claimed he's never watched a movie older than the Godfather.

Well with movies - there's a lot of oversaturation that goes on. You have channels like AMC, or TCM that show "classic" movies, but they're buried by view on demand channels (not to mention netflix, digital download stores like iTunes) that compete to get the latest movies from theater onto cable in the shortest time possible.

I agree with you on education - back when I first moved out here and we were living in CA, discursive examinations had just been introduced into the High School SAT program (before that I think they were doing some sort of multiple choice thing) and there was a lot of stuff in the news about how kids were finding the new standards unreasonably difficult. I think it was Kaplan who brought out that series of books (basically reprints of classic novels) which had key vocabulary words underlined and defined throughout the text.

Pretty much every examination I ever did - outside of mathematics and the driving test, required me to write an essay (or at least a few paragraphs) in response to a question. I can certainly see how kids would get stressed out - having that suddenly thrust on them.

This is not an overnight change. I wonder then if some folks will finally agree that the lack of critical thinking skills is having a burgeoning effect on the political process. I do always think that we deserve the politicians we vote for...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Have you seen Idiocracy?

Not yet but it's in my Netflix queue.

It's already happening to some extent. There was a study a few years ago showing that the average high school student today has half the vocabulary of their grandparents when they were in school. The same is true for top students and the "great" books they didn't read compared to previous generations.

I noticed that now most younger people won't watch black and white movies and one my colleagues (age 24) at work claimed he's never watched a movie older than the Godfather.

Well with movies - there's a lot of oversaturation that goes on. You have channels like AMC, or TCM that show "classic" movies, but they're buried by view on demand channels (not to mention netflix, digital download stores like iTunes) that compete to get the latest movies from theater onto cable in the shortest time possible.

I agree with you on education - back when I first moved out here and we were living in CA, discursive examinations had just been introduced into the High School SAT program (before that I think they were doing some sort of multiple choice thing) and there was a lot of stuff in the news about how kids were finding the new standards unreasonably difficult. I think it was Kaplan who brought out that series of books (basically reprints of classic novels) which had key vocabulary words underlined and defined throughout the text.

Pretty much every examination I ever did - outside of mathematics and the driving test, required me to write an essay (or at least a few paragraphs) in response to a question. I can certainly see how kids would get stressed out - having that suddenly thrust on them.

This is not an overnight change. I wonder then if some folks will finally agree that the lack of critical thinking skills is having a burgeoning effect on the political process. I do always think that we deserve the politicians we vote for...

This was back in '04 - I suspect the local media did its usual job of exaggerating things. But I thought it was interesting.

I didn't go to the best high-school by any means (in fact, it was pretty mediocre by local standards) yet I still came away with a pretty good degree of literacy. Plenty of others in my year didn't.

I am surprised though that anyone would eschew older movies. Most of my favourite films (the favourite is probably For a Few Dollars More) are pre-1970.

[HAL 9000 96]

Have you seen Idiocracy?

Not yet but it's in my Netflix queue.

It's already happening to some extent. There was a study a few years ago showing that the average high school student today has half the vocabulary of their grandparents when they were in school. The same is true for top students and the "great" books they didn't read compared to previous generations.

I noticed that now most younger people won't watch black and white movies and one my colleagues (age 24) at work claimed he's never watched a movie older than the Godfather.

Well with movies - there's a lot of oversaturation that goes on. You have channels like AMC, or TCM that show "classic" movies, but they're buried by view on demand channels (not to mention netflix, digital download stores like iTunes) that compete to get the latest movies from theater onto cable in the shortest time possible.

I agree with you on education - back when I first moved out here and we were living in CA, discursive examinations had just been introduced into the High School SAT program (before that I think they were doing some sort of multiple choice thing) and there was a lot of stuff in the news about how kids were finding the new standards unreasonably difficult. I think it was Kaplan who brought out that series of books (basically reprints of classic novels) which had key vocabulary words underlined and defined throughout the text.

Pretty much every examination I ever did - outside of mathematics and the driving test, required me to write an essay (or at least a few paragraphs) in response to a question. I can certainly see how kids would get stressed out - having that suddenly thrust on them.

This is not an overnight change. I wonder then if some folks will finally agree that the lack of critical thinking skills is having a burgeoning effect on the political process. I do always think that we deserve the politicians we vote for...

This was back in '04 - I suspect the local media did its usual job of exaggerating things. But I thought it was interesting.

I didn't go to the best high-school by any means (in fact, it was pretty mediocre by local standards) yet I still came away with a pretty good degree of literacy. Plenty of others in my year didn't.

I am surprised though that anyone would eschew older movies. Most of my favourite films (the favourite is probably For a Few Dollars More) are pre-1970.

Not to knock on the video game culture, but this plus simple, general social stupidity and a self-appeasing drive to self-gratify has slowly started (as of the last 30 years or so) begun replacing more traditional means of acquiring literacy- and as a major consequence... critical thinking skills.

Hence there are people out there that blow themselves up at some movies that have a clear agenda to make people think for themselves.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Videogames don't help I think... I'm not really into the whole ####### about violence in the media, but I do think they have some other undesired effects, for example - robbing people of imagination. I don't think its any coincidence that the games that I have the best memories of were the old, 8/16 bit ones from when I was a kid.

Part of that I think comes from being a kid, but I also think that the gameplay and graphics of those old games was so limited that your imagination had to fill in the rest. With modern games - you have hollywood production values, you don't need to imagine anything in that way.

Combine that with videogame time gradually taking the place of reading time...

[HAL 9000 96]

Videogames don't help I think... I'm not really into the whole ####### about violence in the media, but I do think they have some other undesired effects, for example - robbing people of imagination. I don't think its any coincidence that the games that I have the best memories of were the old, 8/16 bit ones from when I was a kid.

Part of that I think comes from being a kid, but I also think that the gameplay and graphics of those old games was so limited that your imagination had to fill in the rest. With modern games - you have hollywood production values, you don't need to imagine anything in that way.

Combine that with videogame time gradually taking the place of reading time...

I think that is spot on in bold.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

I guess abortion is better.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I guess abortion is better.

Better than providing financial incentives to keep a baby you wouldn't otherwise be able to afford?

[akdiver 3]

There is a child tax. It is called 'daycare'. It runs between $400-1000 a month for the first 3 years and then about $200-$400 until the kid is old enough not to kill itself being left alone. It's enough to keep me from having more kids because I like working.

Good lord. That logic is as twisted a pretzel.

First of all, a tax is paid to a government entity, not to a private company in exchange for services rendered.

Calling day care a child tax is like calling jail a stupidity tax.

[akdiver 3]

A master in fine arts gets about 15k/year if you're lucky. Good luck in finding a job in the museum.

Are you high?? You can get $13K just by working full-time at McDonalds. You have to work hard at getting $15K or less these days.

Excellent idea!! Why does he not think of having the poor men get a parallel procedure done as well?

It's been done.

I guess abortion is better.

It's a good choice too. I support abortion fully paid for by tax payers. It's cheaper than the alternative.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I guess abortion is better.

What a stupid comparison. Nobody has suggested paying women to get abortions.

[akdiver 3]

I just fniished reading the book Freakonomics. It makes an interesting, quantitative argument about parenting and obsessive parenting.

Basically, what the data show is that parenting "skills" really don't matter too much. What matters much, much, much more is WHO the parent is - and this has been determined by the time the child is born. For example - well off, well educated, more mature (older) parents who put their kids on a basic "auto pilot" are more likely to produce "successful" children than parents who are less well off, more poorly educated, and younger who obsess about getting their kid into the right school, providing an enriching environment, etc. etc.

In other words, 10 or so factors that were THOUGHT to be correlated with school performance, many were not. The ones that were had to do with WHO the parents were, not HOW they parented.

It went on to say things like, statistically speaking:

• programs like headstart had no positive effect
• mother's age at birth of first child was a primary factor
• poorness affects whites the same way it affects blacks
• moving poor black kids into better schools had no effect on performance (when other factors were the same)
• school integration has no effect (when other factors are the same)
• adopted kids were more likely to do poorly, even with rich parents (genetics)

In other words, all this stuff we seem to think matters, really doesn't.

Based on this information - the solution seems clear. Rather than developing programs to help poor kids do better in school, we should be developing solutions to improve the economy, and economic capability of the poor, doing anything possible to encourage young women not to have babies, and other sorts of things. It is also clear that parents shouldn't stress themselves out being all obsessed about parenting and giving their kids every opportunity under the sun.

I just found it interesting, because the info is based on the data, not moralism and other completely subjective BS.

What a stupid comparison. Nobody has suggested paying women to get abortions.

I'll suggest it.

I think all abortions should be provided at no expense. Furthermore, I think it is reasonable to offer a payment of $1000 to anyone under age 25 who has on. All completely voluntary, of course.

Edited September 26, 2008 by akdiver