September 2012

There were 103 posts published in September 2012 (this is page 3 of 11).

School assignment madness

Two miles or two hundred feet?

You want to know how messed up the proposed 2013-2014 Wake County school assignments are? Above is a photo of our kids’ school, Conn Elementary. Highlighted in red is the long-time home of Mrs. Williams at 300 Plainview Avenue in the Belvidere Park neighborhood.

As you can see, Mrs. Williams’s property is actually adjacent to Conn Elementary. The neighborhood crosswalk for Conn runs right in front of her property. From her back porch she could honestly throw a rock and hit the school (provided of course that Principal Richburg isn’t around).
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China Shows Off an Aircraft Carrier, but Experts Are Skeptical

The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning

Lt. Gen. Qi Jianguo, assistant to the chief of the PLA’s general staff said “All of the great nations in the world own aircraft carriers — they are symbols of a great power.”

No, simply owning an aircraft carrier isn’t power. Anyone can buy one. Knowing how to use an aircraft carrier is a great power.

Cute, China. Cute.

In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby seas.Officials said that the carrier, a discarded vessel bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refurbished by China, would protect national sovereignty, an issue that has become a touchstone of the government’s dispute with Japan over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

via China Shows Off an Aircraft Carrier, but Experts Are Skeptical – NYTimes.com.

Tata’s supporters and the N&O’s false balance

Does this look nonpartisan to you?

Above is a picture of Donna Williams, a former Republican candidate for Wake County School Board, out demonstrating in support of endangered school superintendent Tony Tata. Williams was one of about 30 demonstrators who attended yesterday’s rally, whom News and Observer reporters Thomas Goldsmith and T. Keung Hui called “self-described” nonpartisans:

At Monday’s meeting, a group of about 30 self-described nonpartisans gathered outside to oppose any move to remove the retired U.S. Army brigadier general.

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Twitter Updates for 2012-09-25

Twitter Updates for 2012-09-25

The drugs don’t work: a modern medical scandal | Ben Goldacre | Business | The Guardian

This is a frightening, eye-opening look at the sham taking place with drug trials, where the sponsoring pharmaceutical company often cherry-picks the results.

Because researchers are free to bury any result they please, patients are exposed to harm on a staggering scale throughout the whole of medicine. Doctors can have no idea about the true effects of the treatments they give. Does this drug really work best, or have I simply been deprived of half the data? No one can tell. Is this expensive drug worth the money, or has the data simply been massaged? No one can tell. Will this drug kill patients? Is there any evidence that it’s dangerous? No one can tell. This is a bizarre situation to arise in medicine, a discipline in which everything is supposed to be based on evidence.

via The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal | Ben Goldacre | Business | The Guardian.

Romney Is Losing His Social Media Mojo – OhMyGov News


Mitt Romney’s Facebook growth has slowed considerably, coincidentally right after Facebook began cracking down on fake “likes.”

While Romney’s done plenty in public to scare away voters, I can’t help but wonder if Facebook’s new policies may have stopped the campaign from padding its numbers.

Romney’s trouble with the social network has nothing to do with President Obama’s commanding overall lead in total number of Facebook “Likes.”

Rather, it has everything to do with the fact that in August, plenty of people were liking Mitt Romney on Facebook, yet in September that growth has suddenly — and significantly — slowed.

via Romney Is Losing His Social Media Mojo – OhMyGov News.

Rethinking Sleep – NYTimes.com

Here’s an interesting look at the power of naps, i.e. breaking up the so-called usual 8-hour sleep cycle.

I’m a big believer in new sleep patterns. I think we’re doing it wrong by sleeping for long chunks. Without a spouse who’s willing to share my sleep habits, however, I’m not likely to change much!

Rather than helping us to get more rest, the tyranny of the eight-hour block reinforces a narrow conception of sleep and how we should approach it. Some of the time we spend tossing and turning may even result from misconceptions about sleep and our bodily needs: in fact neither our bodies nor our brains are built for the roughly one-third of our lives that we spend in bed.

via Rethinking Sleep – NYTimes.com.