Random Brain Dump

Time takes a look the state of education with the cover article called “How To Build a Student For the 21st Century“. The article points to a report coming from a bi-partisan commission which concluded that we need to advance education into the 21st century. Right now, our education system has a low aim: traditional reading & math competency. The article suggest these additional skills are necessary also:

1. Knowing more about the world
2. Thinking outside the box.
3. Becoming smarter about new sources of information.
4. Developing good people skills

One thing I didn’t see addressed here is arts which is woefully lacking in public school these days. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policy further worsens the support for the arts since it only put emphasis on academic studies. As a parent of 2 preschool girls, education is one of the biggest & most challenging concern I have.

Update: here’s an entry with links to bloggers discussing this article…

There’s a new worldwide poll going on right now for voting the modern 7 wonders of the world from a list of 21 sites. So very cool. Go vote!

I have yet to visit any of the 21 candidate sites, that sucks! Sigh… 🙁

Unless you haven’t been following the tech news of late, the HP board is in chaos. Board member resigning left & right, the chair woman is the latest victim. All stems from the questionable tactics used in investigation of information leaks in management– phone taps, illegal access of private computer records etc… Now, the scandal is drawing the attention of federal prosecutors. The feds are investigating HP.

The feds are investigating illegal wire tapping and invasion of privacy? They care about leaks? Let’s see… Remember George Tenant’s CIA leak? How about the Patriot Act and the bill aiming to allows the feds to wiretap anybody’s phone.

Doesn’t the irony just kills you? 🙂

A news reporter in LA uncovers scams at Jiffy Lube.

I hate Jiffy Lube. Some years ago, I took my old Celica for an oil change there before a long trip. I discovered later that the goofballs who worked there didn’t fill up the minimal amount of oil. Had I taken my car to Sacramento as planned, the Celica would probably be incinerated somewhere on interstate 80.

Jiffy Lube sucks.

NASA announces that Voyager 1 reaches 100 astronomical units, or 9.3 billion miles, from the sun on Tue 8/15 at 2:13 PM (PST). It’s 100 times more distant from the sun than the Earth is. Traveling 1 million miles a day, it’s the most distant human-made object in space and is traveling at the outer edge of our solar system. It will hit interstellar space in 10 years.

And to think that the spacecraft was launched some 30 years ago. A mind boggling human achievement!

I haven’t been following TV coverage of the new Israeli-Herzbolla conflict, but I imagine the following photos are more powerful than anything featured on CNN.

Even at the get-go, the Bush adminstration made clear its stance on the environment by withdrawing from the Kyoto Accord, which aims to reduce global emmision of green-house gases. It insofar denied even that global warming is a real concern when in 2001, Bush claimed that “we do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.” Sure claim ignorance…

An episode of 60 Minutes aired last nite claims that the administration is now censuring findings by NASA’s James Hansen on global warming. Hansen is the world’s leading researcher on climate changes and believes global warming is accelerating; he points to the melting of artic glaciers and that 2005 was the warmest year on record, as proofs. The administration is restricting his communiques. Interview requests for Hansen are repeatedly turned down by the administration. When requesting an interview with Hansen, NPR was informed by NASA that they didn’t want Hansen talking on the most liberal media in America. Hansen’s press releases are reguarly reviewed by the chief-of-staff of the Council on Envronmental Quality named Phil Cooney. Conney was a lobbyist for American Petroleum Institute before going to work for Bush! 😮

Now, it’s one thing to be driven by certain politcal motives (aren’t all politicians?)– it’s another to censure, and worse, alter science! It’s blatant, outrageous and alarming. Now I won’t get started on the administration’s dealing with stem cell research, that’s a story for another day…

The comedians are having a ball poking fun at the VP’s hunting accident. Here are some of the funny ones:

David Letterman: “Good news, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction: It’s Dick Cheney.”
Jay Leno: “I think Cheney is starting to lose it. After he shot the guy he screamed, ‘Anyone else want to call domestic wire tapping illegal?’ ”
Jon Stewart: “Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt … making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting veep since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, (was) shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird.”
Borowitz Report: HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT UNVEILS CHENEY ALERT SYSTEM: Color-coded System Would Warn Nation of Future Attacks by Veep.

Star Locke is a longshot candidate for the Republican nomination for the governorship in Texas. This cowboy aims to kill property tax by taxing on 3 things he find undesirable instead:

1. $10,000 per abortion tax on medical clinics
2. 10% tax on sodas with sugar
3. 50% tax on violent video games

“I take the position that the Founding Fathers took: that the power to tax is the power to destroy,” he said. “So our concept is that we need to tax things we don’t want and you want to not tax things that you want to encourage.”

Where’s the bandwagon? Sure sounds like a killer plan to me… 😉 Man… Are all Texan politicians just nuts wearing spurs & donning cowboy hats?

The government is trying to peek at what you’re searching for on the web! US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asked a San Jose federal judge to order Google to hand over search records of millions of its users and 1 million random web addresses in the search engine’s databases.

The administration claims that this is part of their anti -pornography efforts. But along with the recent wire tapping efforts, this is yet another encroachment on individual privacy. Furthermore, I am certain the government wouldn’t know what to do with such sheer amount of raw data. It’s a lot of data that for sure, but is it useful data to anybody? I doubt any insightful stats can be drawn from raw data like this without user information which wasn’t being requested. Worse, misleading or even wrong conclusions can be drawn from misinterpretation of this mountain of raw data. Perhaps, the feds will try to acquire user information next? Why not, if the feds get their way this time around.

I applaud Google for fighting the feds. It’s a shame that other search engines like Yahoo, MSN & AOL quickly caved in and handed the data to the feds. Kudos to Google….