yeah I pointed that out as a possible outcome of this decision, but not in any seriousness.

It would be an interesting approach to education if you could tie aggregate knowledge gain of the students to rating of the school/educator and create a market for students with UnTapped Potential. With all this rhetoric of kids being out greatest resource why not treat them as resources. Allow those able to extract the most gain from kids have access and cut off access for those that fail to exploit the kids potential to the fullest.

Of course that's just a thought experiment, again, what is being done in Virginia is not in my mind meant to make things better for the kids, only the administrators.

So having read the article near as I can tell schools are 'scored' based upon their students test scores. Schools with predominately asian students do well, schools with predominately black students don't, and whites and hispanics fill the middle.
The school system has decided to change how those scores are calculated based upon the race of the students. So that now all those schools that were lower performing can use the lower standards for the black students to bring up their scores.


In one sense I could almost see schools competing for black enrollment so that their score goes up, but that is about the only positive thing about this law. And not likely to happen.
The reality is that instead of using those metrics to identify schools that are failing their students and local community, so that funding or corrective action can be taken, the system has decided to skew the numbers to bury the problem. I'm pretty sure based upon recent events it's clear that skewing numbers to make things look better leads to a lot of wishful thinking but nothing concrete. To actually address the problems is harder work, and potentially more embarassing to the administrators than it is to blame the kids. Never mind how incredibly ignorant and insulting their approach is.
Again, it's about the administrators, not about the kids.

The Bounty left port a week before the storm. The captain's stated intention was to skirt around/through the storm and head south. Let me repeat. The captain intentionally sailed into Sandy.
There was a plenty of warning of the scale and scope of this storm before the Bounty left port. This wasn't a case of it being caught unprepared in harbour with a hurricane bearing down on it trying to get to sea. This captain made a decision to put this ship into incredible danger. A ship which is 400 years out of date in technology and used as a school ship to teach sailing.
This was not the right decision.

Second person perspective writing is a crime against humanity.
YOU have just got your 7th grade exercise in creative writing posted to a news site read by people who actually don't enjoy having their eyeballs bleed. YOU giggle as the tags and cries of despair come pouring in across the interwebs. But then something happens when YOU see YOUR cackling face reflected in the nearby plastic cover of YOUR David Hasslehoff poster. David's honest face and oh so tight leather pants make YOU realize that this is not what The Hoff would do.
YOU become ashamed of YOURself and take YOUR soul destroying ass to a short pier where YOU plan on taking a long walk. YOU will do this because YOU know that it is the only way YOU can find absolution from this horror that YOU have perpetuated upon this world. Also YOU know that YOU will never have the respect of YOUR friends and coworkers until YOU have taken this corrective action.

I know this (the parent) is a joke, but the basis of learning to type is drill and repitition. I see nothing wrong with just geting a bunch of keyboards, don't bother to get computers for them and have the kids drill.
A A A A
S S S S
ASDF
etc.
If the kid is going to hit the letter 'W' 12 times in a row, they don't need to see it actually show up on screen or paper, that's not the point, the point is to establish the muscle memory. Make sure the kids have the finger movements down in drill before you ever sit them at a powered computer. Just walk around the class and make sure the kids are hitting the right key as you call it out.

It's been a while but I do recall being informed in an airport once (in Canada) that it is a crime to joke about bombs at the airports in Canada. This information came as I was watching my carry on being searched and I made an inopportune comment as the agent pulled out my travel clock.
I think we can all agree he was joking with the shirt. (ZOMG he's serious!!)
So basically he could have spent the night in jail or paid a fine had he been in Toronto.
Either way, really poor taste and inconsiderate behaviour on his part, not just the bozos working at Delta or the various cops.

Recently I got a bug up my butt and complained about crappy service at the my local coffee shop.

In my complaint I said I had waited for 3 minutes before one of the two counter people finally addressed me and took my order. It was a simple complaint about slow service in an empty shop.

The reply from the coffee shop manager was ten paragraphs long. In it they gave several possible explanations for why the counter people didn't take my order ranging from being engaged in a business related conversation to unavoidable staffing issues. The reply also included a detailed timeline of my visit to the shop based upon the security camera footage. Literally detailed to the second. Apparently my rough estimate of 3 minutes was wrong, I had actually only waited 1min 43 seconds, and the manager made sure to point that out in their email.

My reply was less than polite and ended with:

"Was the point of your email to keep me from ever being a customer again?
In what way did you think the ten paragraphs below are a better response than
'Sorry, our bad, next ones on us.' ? "

Sometimes it makes more sense say "Sorry" and stop digging that hole.

Actually you brought up a direct comparison of Canada to the US to push this idea of Unilateralism being either good or bad but not both.

It's a dumb idea, or question, or red herring. Unilateralism describes actions, it's those actions that determine the good or bad consequences.

If you don't understand that concepts such as sovereignty, security, and the various legal and moral traditions of a nation apply to it's policies and governance, than I don't recommend a career in international relations.

My first thought on reading the article was : "What a f*cking Idiot"
Seriously make my eyes bleed some other day.

Well there's always Switzerland, they have some incredible medical treatments. They wouldn't mind us sponging, especially since we do pay our own way. Or any of the other westernized countries with modern medicine. Just like other countries send patients here for medical procedures and treatments that they don't offer. It's a small world now, and reciprocity is an understood concept.

But really the fact is regardless of the style of medical care or health system offered, because the US is a large, educated, wealthy, populous, first world nation, it will always be a natural aggregate point for advanced medical techniques.

It doesn't matter how you pay for it, in the end medical advances will continue.

I don't begrudge those citizens of the US that lie to get Canadian health care (sometimes for things as simple as the flu). I do sincerely wish that there were better options for them. I suspect a lot of Canadians think like that.

I was wrong when I said I'd be laughing two years later, that was cruel and I'm sorry. The reality is I mourn all unnecessary deaths.

The above may be a joke - but I used to sell this kind of technology years ago (just before the 2001 bubble burst).

I concluded then that the reason for the failure of the company I worked for was that we were competing with cell phones. Find me Follow me, One Number, etc, however you market the service ultimately you are adding a layer of complexity and hassle when 90% of the phone calls will be coming to your cellphone anyways.

There's nothing here that hasn't been done by unified communications software and providers before. Of course Google has a name and cachet, but my prediction is that for most the current cell phone/voicemail solution will continue to endure.

And why do so many Americans come to Canada and lie to get basic medical treatment?

Here's the deal:
Most Canadians would rather not get stuck in some American hospital bankrupting themselves for survival. So most of us don't go to the US for care.

The thing about Waiting Lists is that because we have regular contact with our doctors (free contact) we can identify issues early on. It's called Preventative Medicine, rather than addressing problems after they happen, we identify them before they start. It sucks to wait 9 months for a knee replacement, but that knee problem was spotted potentially months earlier for a Canadian as opposed to an American who may have waited until they were forced to go to an expensive doctors visit because their knee doesn't work.

However there are some treatments that are more developed in the US, some of the *rare* cancer treatments. That's because there are 300million Americans, allowing for more specialization in health problems that affect a very small .00001% of the population.

And here's the kicker: Our Socialized medicine will pay for Canadians to go to the US for these treatments when they aren't offered here.

Some Canadians aren't going to the US for rare treatments though. There are also some who feel that good enough Health Care isn't fast enough. They spend their own dough in the US, saving my health system money and generally showing their stupidity.

And then there are the Boobs. I'm hard pressed to find anything comparable to the Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon in Canada. Of course Socialized medicine shouldn't be buying Boobs as a general rule of thumb.

-------
What it really comes down to is LIFE EXPECTANCY
You can shout to me until your blue in the face that the United States has a superior Health Care system than Canada. It's certainly more expensive per capita, but 2 years after you're dead I'll still be here laughing.

Being Canadian I like to follow the rules as well KraftDinner.
It's the Canadian way really, just like saying 'sorry' when someone steps on our foot. We just have to watch out for our tendency to over legislate things once in a while.

It is not a failing to play by the rules when others cheat. There are sometimes bigger pictures beyond individual situations that the rules are meant to address. If the system and participants in it encourage cheating then the whole thing ultimately breaks. (cough banking cough)

Some countries and businesses may disagree, I just don't have to respect them. Though I'd never say that to their face.

Instead I'd give them a little of the silent moral condemnation that we Canadians can do so well.

Something like acknowledging what few 'merits' there may be in their solution, things like it being fast and cheap while subtly reminding them of the legal ramifications those 'merits' may bring with them.

Sigh, I suspect I did a useless post as well.
Ah well. We can't all be smrt on the internets.