Khan Academy Disrupting Traditional Teaching

This is a cool concept, I think:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/sal-khans-academy-sparks-a-tech-revolution-in-education?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6dc9eb7c71-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

Romney May Be a Unicorn!

A new conspiracy theory: Is Romney a unicorn?

By Dana Milbank, Published: May 29

The time has come for Mitt Romney to prove it once and for all: Is he or is he not a unicorn?

Let me stipulate that I have no proof that Romney is a unicorn, and indeed I want to believe that he is not. But I have not seen proof of this because he has not released the original copy of his long-form birth certificate.

There are many others who feel as I do — 18,000 people to be precise. I first began to consider the possibility that Romney might be a unicorn when I heard that LeftAction, an online petition operation created by Democratic PR guy John Hlinko, was campaigning to get the Arizona secretary of state to certify that the presumptive Republican nominee is not a mythical beast before allowing his name to be on the presidential ballot.

“There has never been a conclusive DNA test proving that Mitt Romney is not a unicorn,” the group wrote last week. “And if Mitt Romney is or may be a unicorn, he is not Constitutionally qualified to be president.”

The mittromneyisaunicorn­.com campaign came about because Arizona Secretary of StateKen Bennett, citing allegations that the birth certificate President Obama released is a fraud, threatened to take the incumbent off the ballot.

Obviously, the likelihood that Romney is a fanciful equine is no more plausible than the claim that Obama was born in Africa. So why is the unicorn fair game? Because Romney has made it so.

Romney is scheduled to hold a fundraiser Tuesday night in Las Vegas with Donald Trump, the nation’s most prominent “birther.” The real-estate tycoon, in interviews last week with the Daily Beast and Tuesday with the Las Vegas Review Journal, revived his charge that Obama was born in Kenya.

Romney on Monday declined to repudiate Trump, telling reporters aboard his plane: “I don’t agree with all the people who support me. . . . But I need to get 50.1 percent or more. And I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”

It’s not the first time Romney, who once distanced himself from the birthers, has failed to stand up to sinister elements on the right. But this is a particularly unsavory crowd.

Some members have already turned against Romney. In a lawsuit filed in March, a group of birthers sued to require California to verify the eligibility of all presidential candidates. Obama is “arguably ineligible,” the plaintiffs wrote, and “a similar situation may exist concerning the Republican Party candidacy of Mitt Romney.” A lawyer for the birthers said the claim is related to George Romney’s time in Mexico as a child.

Give these birthers some credit: They may be crazy, but they’re nonpartisan. In fact, if Trump and his ilk want to be fair about it, a white presidential candidate with a foreign-born father deserves to be badgered into releasing his birth certificate just as much as a black presidential candidate with a foreign-born father.

There actually is a minor controversy surrounding Romney’s birth certificate. Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi, pursuing a theory that the candidate’s middle name is “Milton” rather than “Mitt,” asked Romney’s campaign five years ago for a copy of the birth certificate. The campaign declined.

I would prefer it if presidential candidates didn’t need to produce vital records to prove eligibility. But if Romney is going to pal around with birthers — especially a newly reborn birther such as Trump — he shouldn’t be surprised that people want him to play by the same rules.

That was the thinking behind the unicorn campaign. When Arizona’s Bennett said he was investigating Obama’s eligibility because he received 1,200 e-mailed requests, Hlinko’s group wanted to see what Bennett would do if presented with even more requests to investigate an equally implausible claim against the Republican. LeftAction claims 18,000 have petitioned Bennett so far.

The secretary of state has retracted his threat to keep Obama off the ballot after Hawaii yet again verified the president’s birth. But the request for a unicorn probe, Bennett said, is “ridiculous.”

The “corners,” as we unicorn movement followers call ourselves, agree that ours is “a cockamamie conspiracy theory with no basis in reality,” as Hlinko put it. And yet, he told me, “it’s arguably more plausible” than the Obama-Kenya claim, because nobody has seen whether Romney has a unicorn’s horn beneath that ample mane.

“If he would just shave his head, the whole thing would be disproved,” Hlinko offered.

I’d settle for a long-form birth certificate.

danamilbank@washpost.com

© The Washington Post Company

How the "Job Creators" REALLY Spend Their Money

http://www.nationofchange.org/how-job-creators-really-spend-their-money-1338296463

8 Ways Christian Fundamentalists Make People Convert -- to Agnosticism or Atheism

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/155553?page=entire

Homophobic Pastors

These are some truly ignorant assholes:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/pastor-delivers-anti-gay-rant-suggests-building-electric-142753831.html

Republican Hypocrisy Over Gay Marriage

http://www.nationofchange.org/only-true-way-save-marriage-obama-1337224994


I think I just came up with a brilliant solution. Since the 1st Amendment to the Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," all gays need to do is create a religion that allows gay marriage. It would thus be unconstitutional to prohibit gay marriage. Problem solved.

Public overwhelmingly supports large defense spending cuts

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/05/10/8856/public-overwhelmingly-supports-large-defense-spending-cuts

Why Obama's Bin Laden Ad Drives Republicans Crazy

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-obama-s-bin-laden-ad-drives-republicans-crazy-1336052350

Pastor Advocates Beating Gay Children

Oh, fundies....

http://www.bbcfnc.org/ <http://www.bbcfnc.org/>


TRANSCRIPT:
"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years
old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, "Man up,
son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because
that is what boys do," you get out the camera and you start taking
pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to
YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this
dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been
squashed.

Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping
the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give
him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made
by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your
daughter starts acting to Butch you reign her in. And you say, "Oh, no,
sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But
sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk
like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be
beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress
yourself up."

You say, "Can I take charge like that as a parent?"

Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special
dispensation this morning to do that."

Petition to have him resign! Please sign it and promote it!
http://www.change.org/petitions/berean-baptist-church-pastor-sean-harris-resign-as-pastor-of-berean-baptist-church

Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120430140035.htm#.T5_zBce5dIs.email


This study doesn't mention the total contributions of more religious vs. less religious people, just the relative differences as far as compassion is concerned, but it's still a useful item to keep in one's arsenal of responses to fundies who claim atheists aren't motivated by compassion for others.


And here's an article based on the findings:


-----------

Why are highly religious people less likely to be moved by compassion than 
atheists, agnostics, and people who are religiously unaffiliated?  After all, 
charity is a central tenet of most religious traditions. But, according to a new 
study from scientists at the University of California, Berkeley 
<http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/30/religionandgenerosity/> , that fact 
may be exactly why highly religious people are least likely to be moved by 
compassion.

In a series of experiments, the scientists found that nonreligious people were 
consistently compelled toward acts of generosity by feelings of compassion. 
According to the study's news release, compassion is defined as "an emotion felt 
when people see the suffering of others which then motivates them to help, often 
at a personal risk or cost." By contrast, for people who were rated "highly 
religious" on an unidentified religiosity scale (the full article is behind a 
firewall), compassion had no impact on their levels of generosity. This finding 
is especially interesting in light of recent evidence showing that the highly 
religious are less likely to think analytically <http://www.care2.com/causes/will-too-much-thinking-make-you-an-atheist.html> 
.

A moral obligation

This report, however, does not mean that highly religious people are, in 
general, less compassionate. But it does unseat a fundamental assumption about 
acts of generosity or charity: that is, that these acts are motivated by 
feelings of empathy and compassion. That appears to be true for people who are 
non-religious, but for the highly religious, generosity appears to be more 
connected to a sense of moral obligation.

Laura Saslow, the study's lead author said that she was inspired to undertake 
the study after a nonreligious friend told her that "he had only donated to 
earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti after watching an emotionally stirring 
video of a woman being saved from the rubble, not because of a logical 
understanding that help was needed."

In one of the experiments, subjects watched either a "neutral" or a 
"heartrending" video, and were then given 10 "lab dollars," with the instruction 
to give any amount of that money to a stranger. The non-religious people who had 
watched the "heartrending" video were much more likely to give more of their 
money away.

Emotional or doctrinaire connection?

"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their 
emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help 
that person or not," explained Robb Willer, a study co-author. "The more 
religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and 
more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational 
concerns."

There are two ways to read this. The findings indicate that though non-religious 
people are more prone to spontaneous acts of generosity if they feel compassion 
toward another individual, they are also less likely to be involved in a 
community that encourages regular giving to charitable causes in the first 
place.

More religious may simply act sooner

That is, a highly religious person might have been driven by social obligation 
to donate to earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti before Saslow's friend saw the 
video that inspired him to give. Indeed, these findings seem to suggest that 
religious people are more likely to give charity because it is the right thing 
to do without any prodding from researchers. On the other hand, as Willer 
pointed out, "When feeling compassionate, [the non-religious] may actually be 
more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people."

These findings are further complicated because different religions have 
different traditions regarding charity and compassion. It is possible that 
Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and any other religious tradition might 
all teach the importance of charity differently. Since the studies had fairly 
small sample sizes, it is difficult to break out how people from different 
religious traditions might have different ways of dealing with compassion. This 
study, however, does show that for organizations seeking to inspire people to 
donate to charitable causes, different tactics might be in order when targeting 
religious and non-religious people on the aggregate.