You're just a little ray of sunshine aren't you?

If you read the actual document from the Texas Repubs, they were against a specific program called "Higher-Order Thinking Skills" which teaches "critical thinking skills" for some value of "critical thinking skills."

I don't know anything about the program itself, but one could just as easily name an initiative to dump raw sewage into the reservoir the "Protecting Kittens, Puppies and Small Children Act" and when someone opposes it call them a monster for being against kittens, puppies and small children.

I have no love of the Texas Republican party, but this is a straw man.

Infrastructure. We need to stop spending billions on bombs and put people to work fixing bridges, building roads, etc. There's tons of work to do, and plenty of people to do it, and the money exists.

I see the appeal of the minimum income, as something will have to be done with the unemployed and starving masses. Hell, we're already massively subsidizing Wal-Mart and fast food companies because their employees are on food stamps and living in section 8 housing. Might as well cut out the bureaucracy and just say "here's money."

But practically, I don't see how we afford it. The middle class pays the taxes (and the middle and lower classes actually work the jobs that produce new wealth). Mitt and pals dodge all that shit with their offshore tax havens. We're already paying for the poor (not that welfare and medicaid are worth shit), we're supporting the old with social security and medicare. How much more are we supposed to produce to take care of everybody else?

Can I have your dollars? Since it's just fake monopoly money?

Oh, wait I bet you just realized they can be exchanged for goods and services. Guess they're not worthless after all.

Sadly, the most informative comment I've read on Slashdot in weeks is about McDonald's.

Depends on what all they determine and sell from your browsing habits. Say, health issues.

Your medical records are pretty tightly under wraps with HIPAA. Doubly so for mental health (there are more restrictions on the mental health information than other information). But what if you go searching on the internet for help dealing with depression? Maybe you visit a support forum for people with bipolar disorder? Google isn't bound by HIPAA. Maybe google starts selling dossiers on people to potential employers. That could freeze you out. A lot of employers are not going to want to hire the mentally ill, even if they're properly treated/medicated and are stable.

Meh, we're still here talking aren't we?

People are waking up. People are more informed. Especially the younger generation. Not a lot of Fox News aficionados amongst the millennials.

I work in a hospital and I did my Ebola training just this morning. It was a series of 10-15 slides I had to click through, and now I'm Ebola-proof.

Of course, I'm an analyst who works in the administration building, so it's not likely I'll be treating any patients...

Eh, you're not contagious until you're symptomatic. During the week before he started showing symptoms he could have gone into Wendy's and spit on everybody's food for three days and they'd be fine. Well, not fine because they'd have some weird dude spitting on their food. But they wouldn't get Ebola.

But it's not needless. It's very, very needed.

Firefighters, doctors in west Africa: motherfuckin heroes.

Just remember to:

1) Be handsome.

2) Be attractive.

3) Don't be unattractive.

This PSA should help.

That is my complaint about online SJWs. They take a stand for social justice in the easiest way possible: a self-righteous tweet or blog post. Their primary goal is not actual social justice. It's shaming somebody else (the bigger the better. Major corporations are a great target) to puff themselves up.

The real fighters for social justice are on the ground. They're in the food banks, they're working with prisoners, they're running shelters. But that would be messy and take more time than tweeting and how would everybody know how courageous they are for taking a stand since the homeless don't want to be in their selfies?

I'm reminded of Matthew 6:2-3.

Online SJWs are worse than the Pharisees. At least the Pharisees were actually giving alms, even if they don't so loudly for their own aggrandizement. Online SJWs want all the adoration without the alms. All smoke and no fire.

When leaders of their religion say "go kill infidels" and then the followers of that religion go and kill infidels, that does imply causation.

We can also test a control group. Say, Methodists. Methodist leaders do not say "go kill infidels," and there have been no reported incidents of Methodists beheading anyone.

Correlation does not imply causation, but that doesn't mean causation doesn't exist. When the cause and effect are easy to define and testable, we can indeed say the Islamic religion is a cause of violence.

That would be fine in a free market, but the Masters of Universe rig the game by illegally colluding (as in this case) or buying immigration laws that allow them to import indentured servants (H1Bs). If everybody were playing fair, yeah we could have free market competition settle issues between capital and labor, but capital is rigging the game.