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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Nate Silver had an amusing interview on The Colbert Report last night. Colbert buffeted him a bit on his assertion that his was the best model for predicting the outcome, and he replied that the bar has been set pretty low. He also said that in a hypothetical election between political pundits and the Ebola virus, he'd vote for the Ebola. Or third-party.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
It'd be cheaper through taxpayer money in that it's not an out of pocket expense for parents, some of which genuinely cannot afford to buy their children whatever kind of computer would be required by school system.(Basically they either have just the one home computer or rely on things like local library computers to get their business done.) This also allows the school system to buy in bulk and thus get discounts and other perks that way.
Also, merit pay is a bunch of crap.
edited 6th Nov '12 8:52:31 AM by AceofSpades
It's kind of a derail, but I agree that using taxpayer money to buy laptops for school children is far more efficient than having parents do it individually. You save quite a bit of money through bulk purchasing, you can standardize your IT policy, and have administrative control over the computers. It's yet another case where the power of the government is vastly superior to the power of individual consumers.
In areas with well-off families where they can be presumed to have the money to buy their own laptops, go right ahead and let them. Have a blast. But make sure that if those one or two dirty little poor kids manage to slip in among the "upper crust", that you give them some kind of subsidy, so they can pretend to be as good as their peers.
edited 6th Nov '12 8:58:35 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Look at other nations. It's not like we have a monopoly on stupidity. Take Greece. Or Pakistan, for goodness sake. The human species as a whole is balls-out terrible at acting rationally. Somehow we still muddle through, which is at the very least a reason for cautious optimism.
edited 6th Nov '12 9:31:09 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Or, as Men In Black put it...
<Sigh> Goddamnit. Why do people I like have to be stupid? One of my favorite professers voted for Romney because she thinks it'll make America safer for her children. I didn't want to confront her on it, because I don't like starting political debates with people who aren't looking for a debate, but damn. Yes. Let's vote for the guy who's *more* likely to start wars in the middle east. Or the guy who's from the party that utterly failed at getting Osama.
edited 6th Nov '12 9:57:01 AM by DrTentacles
I think this was here before, but I'll post it anyway. Obama extended the Patriot Act
.
Yeah, glad I voted for Anderson.
edited 6th Nov '12 9:59:30 AM by Sledgesaul
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Which is interesting, but you know he won't be elected. And as I've said before, I'm more comfortable in my judgement that Obama will not abuse the Patriot Act than that Romney won't.
edited 6th Nov '12 10:02:06 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I can. I absolutely endorse voting for Stein or Anderson in solid red district.

Just voted half an hour ago. Went for Johnson-Gray.
There's also a series of propositions on the education system (Idaho), and I voted against two of them while leaving a third proposition blank. One of the two I voted against concern the use of taxpayer-funded laptops for students (I'm not against technology or the use of laptops in schools, just how taxpayer dollars are in the equation which could not only be more expensive than say buying one from a store, but it can get out of hand; what if a student-issue laptop breaks when a student accidentally drops it or spills cola over the keyboard?), with the other concerning standardized test scores to merit pay (I agree with merit pay on principle, but not through this inflexible mean)
edited 6th Nov '12 8:43:11 AM by EarlOfSandvich
I now go by Graf von Tirol.