allisnow: (usa // liberal neutered cat)
2008-11-13 04:02 pm

The t-shirt test

Another failure to communicate tolerate?

Tolerance fails T-shirt test

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment. Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be. So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

"McCain Girl."

"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid. "People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.


Read the rest

Yeah, so they're just stupid kids. The kids at my school were hyped up about Obama, too... at least more than they were hyped about McCain. But then this is a low SES school in California, and not just California but the Bay Area, where their parents and (most of their) teachers are influencing what they think.

I had a lot of kids ask me who I voted for.

"I'm not going to tell you," I told them. "When we vote in America we do it in secret, because it's our business."

"Mrs. B told us she voted for Obama," said one student.

"That's Mrs. B's choice," I told them.

Two teachers I know of - one I work with and one in my cousin's school - let their class have parties after election day "because Obama won".

The indoctrination gets less subtle in high school, believe it or not.
allisnow: (etc // got something for ya!)
2008-11-11 03:55 pm

stay classy

I know that some of my friends are against the passage of Prop 8 here in California, and although I disagree with you I respect your right to your opinions. However, I cannot respect bullshit like this.

Video starts behind cut )

Seems like the tolerant left is really only tolerant as long as you agree with them.

The (male) anchor needs to be smacked, though. "There's a lot of anger and hate on both sides." Yes, that 69 year old woman looked extremely hateful standing there with the reporter, trying to share her side of the story.
allisnow: (tv // futurama // stop exploding)
2008-10-20 05:41 pm

(no subject)

I think I love Orson Scott Card more now than ever before...

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn on the Lights?

Yes.
allisnow: (usa // woodstock flag)
2008-10-19 10:31 am

Sunday quiz

So this is floating around the Internet:
Some news audiences are more politically savvy than others, according to a new poll, with readers of The New Yorker and similar high-brow magazines being the most knowledgeable.

The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to name the controlling party of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and Great Britain's prime minister.

Overall, just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly.


Let's see if we can do better.

[Poll #1281422]

No Googling. I will post the results in a couple of days.
allisnow: (usa // praise allah)
2008-09-15 06:01 pm

Doh.

Britain Adopts Islamic Law, Gives Sharia Courts Full Power to Rule on Civil Cases

Oh well isn't that just wonderful.

Nice knowin' ya, Brits.
allisnow: (movie // kinder cop // SHUT UP!)
2008-06-30 01:16 pm

(no subject)

Seen in several places, including hotair and fark:

“F*** off” now worth two points in UK English classes
"It would be wicked to give it zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for, like conveying some meaning and some spelling," Buckroyd was quoted as saying.

"It's better than someone that doesn't write anything at all."

Buckroyd said the student would have received a higher mark if the phrase had been punctuated.
allisnow: (movie // emperor // smash it)
2008-04-06 12:27 pm

Dumbasses

Protesters Try to Grab Olympic Torch During London Relay LONDON — Police repeatedly scuffled with protesters as Olympians and celebrities carried the Olympic torch through snowy London during a chaotic relay Sunday.

Sometimes people just need to be beaten until unconscious.

I understand that China is run by jackasses, but how is that the fault of the torch runners?
allisnow: (usa // hippies smell)
2008-03-06 03:51 pm

This disgusts me.

RAF personnel ordered not to wear uniforms in public after suffering abuse in the street

They serve their country with pride and are ready to put their lives on the line. Yet RAF personnel have been repaid with volleys of abuse in the street. So bad is the problem that servicemen and women from RAF Wittering have been ordered not to wear uniform in public. They were told to keep a low profile in nearby Peterborough following seven months of verbal attacks.

The insults have come from a "cross section" of the community and are believed to be linked to current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to air-base officials. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has held talks with Cambridgeshire police over the problem, described as "despicable" by the city's mayor Marion Todd.

Click for the entire article )

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former Army colonel, said: "The yobs who shout this abuse are a bunch of clowns and cowards. Do they not realise our servicemen put their lives on the line on a daily basis for them?"


Seriously, I want to kick somebody now. And it's not even my damn country.

If you are in Britain and you come across a serviceperson, please tell them "thank you".

(Ditto for you Americans, but I shouldn't have to say that...)
allisnow: (etc // inconvenient fruit)
2008-02-03 08:22 pm

Doh

Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.
allisnow: (usa // democrats white feather)
2007-07-03 10:40 am

Hitting the blogs

We're getting our new countertops put in today, which means I have to wait to eat breakfast. So I'm distracting myself with blogs.

Fast Cars, Small Penises, and Australian Men: When you first read the slogan, SPEEDING: NO ONE THINKS BIG OF YOU, you might think it was a reminder that people think poorly of those who break the law. Think again. This new road-safety campaign, launched in Australia last week, is aimed a bit more below the belt—by suggesting those men who speed have small penises. In the television and cinema advertisements, young "hoons"—Aussie-speak for speeding or reckless drivers—are mocked by unimpressed women who wave their little fingers at the drivers in a parody of their manhood.

Alli says: oh, they need to use this one in the US. Hilarious.

Arizona Clamps Down on Illegals: The governor of the US state of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, has signed into law legislation designed to deter illegal immigrant workers. The law requires businesses to verify that all their employees are legally entitled to work in the US, or face the prospect of being closed down.

Alli says: Following the law... what a concept. Then again, Gov. Napolitano is just doing the job Congress won't do.

Really, Says Bill, I'm Not Just Backing Hillary Because We're Married, I swear

Alli says: Really, does anything else need to be said? I think not.

Of course, Hill is the one complaining about the commutation of Scooter's sentence when her husband pardoned terrorists and "traded" pardons for "gifts" to his library. But you know, she'll trot out Slick Willy whenever she thinks it can give her a leg up. So to speak.

A funny: Frank Advice for Sppealing to the Nutroots. OUT: Death for Islamic extremists. IN: Hugs for Islamic extremists. OUT: Concern for large national threats against our very way of life. IN: Broadband internet for the poor.
allisnow: (movie // 300 // tonight we dine)
2007-06-05 09:44 pm

The Ancient Greeks are rolling over in their ... ... ...

Dude. The London Olympics 2012 logo.

Could it be any uglier?

Personally, I say no.


My eyes! My eyes!!!



In fact, it's so ugly that it may cause serious health conditions.

Come on, Brits.

The BBC has some reader-submitted designs that are all better than the real thing. Even the ones that look like they were drawn by little kids. Instead of the real thing, which looks like it was puked up by a puzzle-making factory. I really like this one, and this is kind of neat, too, in a very traditional way.

[Poll #997981]
allisnow: (movies // superman // truth)
2007-05-19 06:23 pm

D'oh

"Web site" baffles Internet terrorism trial judge
"The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is," he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws.

Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts."

Off wit' 'is 'ead!

Brits: don't you have some form of recusal? Or maybe just, um, researching the matter before you hear a case regarding it?
allisnow: (etc // stop global whining)
2007-05-06 01:46 pm

Color me shocked

Congrats to the French for electing the less-French candidate.

i.e. not the Socialist wench.
allisnow: (etc // stop global whining)
2007-03-30 10:50 pm

Compassion and the Decline of America

Dennis Prager has a great editorial over on townhall.com about... well, baseball, but also the danger in replacing truth, wisdom and fairness with "compassion".

This past weekend, a friend of mine attended his 13-year-old son's baseball game. What he saw encapsulates a major reason many of us fear for the future of America and the West.

His son's team was winning 24-7 as the game entered the last inning. When he looked up at the scoreboard, he noticed that the score read 0-0. Naturally, he inquired as to what happened -- was the scoreboard perhaps broken? -- and was told that the winning team's coach asked the scoreboard keeper to change the score. He and some of the parents were concerned that the boys on the losing team felt humiliated.

In order to ensure that the boys losing by a lopsided score would not feel too bad, the score was changed.

As is happening throughout America, compassion trumped all other values.

Read more... )
Compassion as the primary determinant of behavior is effective in personal life. In making public policy, it is a morally and socially destructive guideline. In fact, it is so bad that thinking people must conclude that its primary purpose is to enable policy makers who are guided by compassion to feel good about themselves.


I had to leave that last line outside the cut and bold it cause it's just so good.