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Comment so say our betters? (Score 1) 102

"Kirsch says to stop treating reading as civic medicine. "It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice,""
Well, I guess I'd start with telling him to stop trying to "trick" people - even kids - into doing what he wants?

It's a routine fault of progressives AND evangelical conservatives: this inherent sense of moral certainty, and the instinctive justification that "pretty much anything goes because I'm doing it to HELP you".

Reading (or more specifically, the desire to read, as there are tons of people with impairments that get in the way of literally reading a book) I'd say is symptomatic of intelligence. So what we really want are people who value intelligence, who value reason. Reading will more or less automatically follow.

I'll be honest, I don't think 'reading' alone is inherently magical. Reading the sports page, or some fantasy smut about milking male minotaurs - they may both be enjoyable, but neither is going to make someone the kind of constructive, reasoning citizen we NEED in our Republic.
Well, that any democracy needs, not just ours.

Of course, then we get back to the 'certainty'. Reasoning adults need to be able to hold in their heads a fundamental RESPECT for the other person's ideas. Even if they don't agree.

So here's the funny bit for me. Kirsch suggests that we trick kids into thinking reading is scandalous, a vice. Is that really what he wants? What if they read actually-scandalous texts (according to Kirsch's orthodoxy) like something by Charlie Kirk? The Art of the Deal? Would he be as intrinsically delighted with "people reading" then?

Comment Re:Two big reasons for the politeness (Score 2) 162

Or, crazy idea I know, maybe wealthy people aren't universally - or even mostly - stuck up self obsessed narcissists, and that's just your own seething envy and sense of self justification?

If I had to choose between Walmart vs a store that literally filters out the poorest at the door, I know where I'd rather work or shop.

Comment Re:Two big reasons for the politeness (Score 2) 162

I'd put it another way: the "you have to pay to even GET IN THE DOOR" keeps out the rifraff.

"...describes the stores as spaces of "cooperation, courtesy, and grown-ups mostly acting like grown-ups." Shoppers follow unwritten rules: move along, don't block the way, step aside to check your phone. Checkout lines form orderly queues. ..."

Note the entire article is about how civilized an experience it is, and how "weird" that is; that Atlantic tries to paint it as "cult like" shows how utterly fucked up our Intelligentsia has become.

Comment Re:"Not Invented Here" Syndrome (Score 1) 210

That's not an IPv6 failure, that's an ISP failure. If they're still using PPPOE, it sounds like they managed to screw up IPv4 support as well, does that mean IPv4 is a fucking mess too? I'd say that ISP is a fucking mes.

I've been using IPv6 in one form or another for nearly 20 years now without issue. For a good while, 6to4, then 6in4 with a HE tunnel, now native v6.

Comment Re:malaria (Score 0) 81

I'm sorry that Sad Oregonian Cunt is bad at the google. I understand. It's hard to fight deep-seated quasi-religious beliefs.

I apologize that my use of the word 'healthier' confused you. I know that enraged leftists routinely forget concepts like vernacular and idiom, retreating to semantic hairsplitting but I'm assuming here in good faith that you're LEGITIMATELY confused by my broadly using the term 'health' to include 'reproductive success'. I am, of course, talking more precisely about eggshell thinning and impact on bird reproductive health, which was flogged around by Silent Spring, the just-born EPA, and used as a reason for the global ban on DDT despite the ruling of a judge to the contrary.

Here's a much-footnoted paper that maybe helps you understand what you're trying to talk about.
https://nationalcenter.org/ncp...

To your specific accusation "This is a lie. It is not supported by your link or any literature." Well, it's literally what happened, something you could find if you bothered to, y'know, check something other than your back-library of Mother Jones magazines.

When carefully reviewed, Dr. Bitmanâ(TM)s study revealed that the quail in the study were fed a diet with a calcium content of only 0.56 percent (a normal quail diet consists of 2.7 percent calcium). Calcium deficiency is a known cause of thin eggshells.21-23 After much criticism, Bitman repeated the test, this time with sufficient calcium levels. The birds produced eggs without thinned shells.24
After many years of carefully controlled feeding experiments, Dr. M. L. Scott and associates of the Department of Poultry Science at Cornell University âoefound no tremors, no mortality, no thinning of eggshells and no interference with reproduction caused by levels of DDT which were as high as those reported to be present in most of the wild birds where âcatastrophicâ(TM) decreases in shell quality and reproduction have been claimed.â23 In fact, thinning eggshells can have many causes, including season of the year, nutrition (in particular insufficient calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, and manganese), temperature rise, type of soil, and breeding conditions (e.g., sunlight and crowding).25

And in case that's still too hard for stupid fucks to follow, let me help you:
21 Greely F. Effects of Calcium Deficiency. J Wildlife Management. 1960; 70:149-153.
22 Romanoff AL, Romanoff AJ. The Avian Egg. New York: Wiley & Sons; 1949:154.
23 Scott ML, Zimmermann JR, Marinsky S, Mullenhoff PA. Effects of PCBs, DDT, and Mercury Compounds Upon Egg Production, Hatchability and Shell Quality in Chickens and Japanese Quail. Poultry Science. 1975; 54:350-368.
24 Cecil HC, Bitman J, Harris SJ. No Effects on Eggshells, If Adequate Calcium is in DDT Diet. Poultry Science. 1971; 50:656-659.
25 The Avian Egg:152-156, 266.

My actual point, against which a very narrow facet made you so incensed, was that if malaria is an issue, we should go back to using DDT, which was banned based on lies. The fact is that Carson was a deep, deep liar, misrepresenting and mispresenting facts throughout her moronic screed. (Since you love sources and details, here's a nearly page-by-page refutation (up to around p125) of the tidal wave of bullshit in Silent Spring: https://21sci-tech.com/article...)

So, please: go fuck yourself and have a great New Year while you're at it!

Comment Re:Addiction specialists should be next (Score 1) 39

"The one size fits all model of education is broken. "

It was broken the moment this method was being pushed. What worked was "One size fits MOST". You direct your resources on educating those who can benefit from the "Most" of the "one size". The ones that this doesn't work with is now a much smaller subset and can be managed with smaller class sizes (in the case of hands on need), special campuses (for behavior issues that would otherwise affect the "fits all" of the hated "one size fits all") and a much smaller pool of administrators necessary to make it all work.

Oh... less administrators. Never mind. Unions will hate it. Just shut up and give them more money.

Comment Re:malaria (Score 1, Interesting) 81

Maybe do your research, midwit.

Notice I said that the researchers realized that they'd underfed the birds calcium.
You think that might have something to do with the resulting strength of their EGGS.
Here, let me help since you're stupid: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q...

When they re-ran the experiment, feeding the birds the CORRECT amount of calcium they get in the wild, the eggs were - SURPRISE! - just fine.

SOME species do indeed show minor eggshell thinning; then again, others seem to benefit.
Certainly it's nothing like the case made to justify banning DDT.

https://www.thenewatlantis.com...

"Responding to (environmentalists') pressure, in 1971 the newly-formed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an investigation of the pesticide. Lasting seven months, the investigative hearings led by Judge Edmund Sweeney gathered testimony from 125 expert witnesses with 365 exhibits. The conclusion of the inquest, however, was exactly the opposite of what the environmentalists had hoped for. After assessing all the evidence, Judge Sweeney found: âoeThe uses of DDT under the registration involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlifeâ¦. DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to manâ¦. DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man.â[20] Accordingly, Judge Sweeney ruled that DDT should remain available for use.
Unfortunately, however, the administrator of the EPA was William D. Ruckelshaus, who reportedly did not attend a single hour of the investigative hearings, and according to his chief of staff, did not even read Judge Sweeneyâ(TM)s report.[21] Instead, he apparently chose to ignore the science: overruling Sweeney, in 1972 Ruckelshaus banned the use of DDT in the United States except under conditions of medical emergencies.[22]"

Need data, sources, proof? How about from the California Environmental Protection agency? Is that progressive enough?
https://www.calepa.ca.gov/wp-c...

Sometimes apparently even scientists believe dogmatic bullshit with the blind faith of a drooling Evangelical Christian.

Comment malaria (Score 0) 81

Well, if malaria is such an issue:

1) go back to using ddt. The entire Silent Spring thing was a load of crap based on poorly designed experiments (the scientists that did the original experiment recognized this and reran the same thing except this time giving the birds the normal amount of calcium they're have gotten from natural diets. The result was that ddt was NO IMPACT - actually the ddt heavy birds were slightly healthier, albeit not statistically significantly).

2) why would the US bear the responsibility for curing 37% of the world's malaria problem by itself? Please provide an answer that's not a paraphrase of "white man's burden".

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