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Sage's Rant of the Moment

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Does this country produce anything but disgruntled social activists any more? I mean, go to practically any college in the country and you'll see students who've been indoctrinated in "multi-culturalism" and "gay" rights, but how about producing some engineers? Or mathematicians? Or doctors? Asia is outpacing us by a MILE in terms of their educated masses, and that's why we can't compete.

Makes me sick. Pretty soon being a professional protester is going to be a job description.
Nemo me impune lacessit

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LOL. This thread is much-needed.

I don't really have an opinion to add to Sage's current rant, although I'm sure there will be many more to come

War does not make one great.

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But why the hell would our country need *educated* people when the people who don't do anything and bitch the loudest get rewarded the most? I mean after all- what have the last 40 years or so taught us except that the squeaky wheel gets the grease... and usually the drugs and sex and all that other fun stuff! What we need is more heroes like athletes, musicians and actors- people who really stand for what everyone believes in!! People who can tell our youth what to do and they do it!! The revolution WILL be televised... and sponsored by Nike, Budweiser and Match.Com!!! And hosted by Tim Robbins!!! And simulcast on iPod!!!

Screw education!! Who needs it?!?!
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Originally posted by: greencapt
But why the hell would our country need *educated* people when the people who don't do anything and bitch the loudest get rewarded the most? I mean after all- what have the last 40 years or so taught us except that the squeaky wheel gets the grease... and usually the drugs and sex and all that other fun stuff! What we need is more heroes like athletes, musicians and actors- people who really stand for what everyone believes in!! People who can tell our youth what to do and they do it!! The revolution WILL be televised... and sponsored by Nike, Budweiser and Match.Com!!! And hosted by Tim Robbins!!! And simulcast on iPod!!!

Screw education!! Who needs it?!?!


LMAO!! GC is the Sonny to my Cher once again...(I'm cool with that as long as he doesn't start singing I Got You Babe)
Nemo me impune lacessit

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Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
LOL. This thread is much-needed.

I don't really have an opinion to add to Sage's current rant, although I'm sure there will be many more to come


LOL

I thought about asking Jay for a sticky but then felt it's not really appropriate. I was just in one of those moods...

Nemo me impune lacessit

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Originally posted by: JediSage

LMAO!! GC is the Sonny to my Cher once again...(I'm cool with that as long as he doesn't start singing I Got You Babe)


So what- you're saying I'm a short, dead politician?!?!?

Damn- I KNEW I shouldn't have skipped class and gone skiing!

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There was a great editorial in the paper here yesterday by John Leo about something similar. It was actually about how many colleges give out awards to and awards named after people who completely DO NOT deserve to have awards given to or named after them; murderers, America haters, cop-killers.

It made me want to go crack some Academia skulls after rading that artcle. I see things like what Sage described and feel so utterly helpless to prevent society from going all to crap.

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Originally posted by: JediSage
Makes me sick. Pretty soon being a professional protester is going to be a job description.



I thought it already was. After all, lobbyist is already a job description; protester isn't much of a stretch from there.

Princess Leia: I happen to like nice men.
Han Solo: I'm a nice man.

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All we are SAYing... is give SOAP a chance!!!!

(trust me- this is the same chant I used to sing whilst managing the comic/RPG shop)
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I blame it on the vast majory of baby boomer parents who've done a piss-poor job of child rearing. Between revolving door marriages and coddling our kids rather than teaching them the life skills and discipline they so desperately need, we've created a generation of softies who don't stand for much of anything. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, as there are some stellar youth, but they are few and far between, and I think their numbers are dwindling.

I suspect the trend may be reversing itself. Being a parent of a toddler, I'm amazed at the number of people in my generation who are letting one parent quit work to actually raise the child properly (one-on-one parenting in the formative years is extremely important), and who are teaching their kids self-reliance. We still seem to be showering our kids with too much material stuff, but I'm noticing more quality time being spent between parent and child that seemed to be sorely missing in the generation of current high school/college kids. This is far from the rule, but I'm seeing evidence of it.

It's important, because there is a major problem in "Generation Y." Those of you who are in it probably don't see it, but trust me, it's there, and is is at the heart of what Sage is talking about.

That said, there's nothing wrong with being multi-cultural in a democracy made up of the wretched refuse from every other shore. What is important is what you do with it. It is okay to be tolerant of other's differences and to be assertive about your political beliefs while also being good at math and medicine. These aren't mutually-exclusive concepts.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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Speaking of (sorta) have you heard about the new Adult Swim show this year? Minoriteam?

MINORITEAM STARTS SAVING THE WORLD THIS SUNDAY

Just when you thought the world will again be safe for vapid, mind-draining animation, Adult Swim announced it starts airing MinoriTeam this Sunday.

MinoriTeam is a crew of superheroes whose powers are based on their ethnic stereotype. Leader (and Prof. X clone) Mr. Wang is a strategically and mathematical genius. He also owns a laundromat and should never, ever get behind the wheel of a car. Fasto can run faster than the speed of light and has the endurance levels great enough to satisfy a room of Thai hookers. On the other hand, the one person who always whupp his hide is his Momma. Then there’s El Jefe, by day a Texas oil baron, by night a hat dancing, greasy pachuco armed with a leaf blower so powerful it can shatter the barriers between the dimensions.

Then there are the villains, who for some bizarre reason all happen to be upright, conservative Wonder Bread types (even if they carry nicknames like Racist Frankenstein, Corporate Ladder and White Shadow).
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Originally posted by: JediSage
Does this country produce anything but disgruntled social activists any more? I mean, go to practically any college in the country and you'll see students who've been indoctrinated in "multi-culturalism" and "gay" rights, but how about producing some engineers? Or mathematicians? Or doctors? Asia is outpacing us by a MILE in terms of their educated masses, and that's why we can't compete.

Makes me sick. Pretty soon being a professional protester is going to be a job description.


Yeah, I must agree with ADM, in that one isn't at the expense of the other, but I still believe your point about a decreasing professional workforce is relevant. I believe that the main problem with tertiary education systems in the U.S. is that they're so exhorbitant fee-wise, and there's no decent pay-back systems. In Australia, we have HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) whereby the government pays for the fees (except for Student Union fees), and it is taxed from your income once you earn enough money until it is paid off (i.e. once you are placed within a certain income bracket or above). This system isn't perfect, but at least it doesn't scare off people who don't have the money/don't want to take out a $40,000+ student loan from the outset. While I was staying in the U.S., I heard countless stories of people who wanted to go to university, but didn't want to get themselves into a life-long debt. They still don't regret it to this day because of the $ factor, but the point is, they would have if they could have and the system scared them off.

I am actually a firm believer in free tertiary education, which admittedly, would be expensive for any world government to implement. However, not implementing it is short-sighted and motivated by short-term economic/financial results. A long term view would be to say that free tertiary education encourages more tertiary enrolments, more university graduates, leading to an increase in a nation's professional labour-force. A greater professional labour force means more businesses, more companies, more competition, higher wages, more research, more technological improvements, the list goes on...The most important commodity a nation has is its collective intelligence, and every country should invest in it if it's serious about its place in the future. If America took a few billion out of its trillion dollar military expenditure and put it into education, it would be a good start.
MTFBWY. Always.

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Yes, I have quite a few more qualifications than my American wife, including a batchelors degree, yet her education cost her 30,000 plus, whereas mine cost about 3000. And I was one of the unlucky ones - had I gone to uni a little earlier, it would have been free, but they changed that the year I started. Now they are changing it again and a lot of people can't afford to go - my younger brother is one of them.

I also agree with the comment about the military budget.

War does not make one great.

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Multiculturalism shouldn't be a major. Right now waaaay too many colleges are placing more emphasis on "tolerance" (while throwing pies at Ann Coulter) instead of educating people in real disciplines. Do I REALLY need a class to teach me how to get along with someone else? If so, then we're in worse trouble than I thought. There are entire generations being tought that there's nothing more important than treating every single group/person/belief system as though they're all equally valid and the intrinsic value of gangsta' rap music instead of how to read and write.

I do agree w/ADM though. I see more and more people with young kids taking a very active role in their child's education. If my wife and I could afford it, I would be a "stay-at-home" dad in a heartbeat. We also turn the tv off quite often (at least 2 hours a day) for family time and also limit video games to only Friday and Saturday nights for short durations.
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NEW RANT: Why is it that we've spend like $30 trillion over the past 35 years to fight poverty but we've still got the same rate of poverty we had when we started? Should we throw even MORE money at it?
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This is over-simplistic, but it isnt' discussed enough: We aren't using that money for it's best purposes. If we allocated more money (not just tax dollars but all those offering plate donations that go to third-world relief) helping Africans to actually develop their land into productive farmland, they'd have a source of food AND income as the worlds population increases.

It's like the old addage "Give a man a fish and he won't be hungry for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry again."
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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I'm with my wife on this one...help the poor here, then help the world. By doing that you're increasing the base from which to draw assistance.
Nemo me impune lacessit

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Am I the only one who finds it ironic that people want to have complete integration of all races, that they all should be equal, and yet we have an entire month set aside for Black History Month?

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Originally posted by: JediSage
I'm with my wife on this one...help the poor here, then help the world. By doing that you're increasing the base from which to draw assistance.


Here's my idea: free education and free healthcare. Now, of course it's not free, you're paying for it with your tax dollar. But at least your tax money is being spent on your skills, health, and intelligence. Imagine it: a society of healthy people, fully skilled in whatever area they wish to work in. Less screw-ups, more efficient businesses, more money to play with in the future, more companies, more competition, more jobs.
MTFBWY. Always.

http://www.myspace.com/red_ajax
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Originally posted by: Nanner Split
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that people want to have complete integration of all races, that they all should be equal, and yet we have an entire month set aside for Black History Month?
No, you are not the only one.

War does not make one great.

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Originally posted by: theredbaron
Originally posted by: JediSage
I'm with my wife on this one...help the poor here, then help the world. By doing that you're increasing the base from which to draw assistance.


Here's my idea: free education and free healthcare. Now, of course it's not free, you're paying for it with your tax dollar. But at least your tax money is being spent on your skills, health, and intelligence. Imagine it: a society of healthy people, fully skilled in whatever area they wish to work in. Less screw-ups, more efficient businesses, more money to play with in the future, more companies, more competition, more jobs.



The problem is that this is already happening for quite some time and it's not producing results. Financial aid in the form of government grants for education is nothing new. If you fall below a certain amount of income you're elligible (I received grants when my wife and I first got married and we were eating rocks for dinner...we had NO cash). Also, there are health clinics for the poor everywhere (at least in our area) and state sponsored (ie: taxpayer financed) health insurance is becoming more readily available.

When someone feeds you, clothes you, educates you, pays your health care bills, and sends you a check every week for doing nothing what incentive do you have for changing that situation?
Nemo me impune lacessit

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Today's Rant: My Problems with Linux

I'm in favor of the Open Source movement. I really am. I think that the best software is software that's freely available and open for review and changes. I'm dead-set against "similarity" law suits that the big software companies are launching against smaller ones for allegedly stealing interfaces, etc.

I've been involved with computers for 20 years. I really got serious about them roughly 12 years ago when I got my first 486 DX2-66 with DOS 6.22 and Win 3.1 on it. I grew up on WinTel, however I'm also quite curious and enjoy "tinkering" with new things on my computer.

I've become more aware of the Linux revolution as of late, and I heard a quote last week (can't remember the source) that said 1/4 of all the world's servers are now running some variety of Linux. That's a HUGE number.

So, in my desire to tinker and also make myself more marketable I've created a dual-boot machine that has Red Hat 8.0 on it, and also Win XP. My XP machine is configured exactly the way I want it, in almost no time (I realize it's because I've been using it my whole life).

I purchased a book on using Red Hat 8 that had 4 1/2-5 star reviews on Amazon...and there were a LOT of them. The book has more information than a Chinese Phonebook. I started going through the tutorials the other night, then I tried branching off on my own. The first thing I did was add a Lexmark Z22 inkjet printer. Nothing exotic. To my chagrin there was no plug-and-play support and I couldn't even BEGIN to figure out how to install the drivers, much less where to get them.

Next I wanted to increase the resolution on my display. I went to "Configure Desktop" (I'm using KDE, BTW) and saw nothing about it. I could setup my wallpaper...increase my font size, and a multitude of other things. Except change my display resolution.

A while back I tried installing FireFox for Linux. There's something wrong and I get an error message during the install (I don't remember what it was, but there were other people on the FF board having the same problem). I asked for help on the boards, figuring there's got to be an easy fix for a newb out there. The reply I get: Upgrade to the Fedora Core. What a freakin' joke!! I've got to install a new OS to make a supported browser work?

I've come to the following conclusions during this time: 1. An Operating System does not need to be overly complex in order to be "good". 2. An OS without a descent help system is almost totally worthless. 3. Any OS not offering good plug-and-play support at this stage in the game should give it up. 4. When I hear that I've got to upgrade my OS in order to use something as pedestrian as a browser, it's time to pack it in. I said the same thing about Internet Explorer 7 when it wouldn't work on my 2K Pro machine. If I've got to upgrade...go to hell.
Nemo me impune lacessit

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Originally posted by: greencapt

...armed with a leaf blower so powerful it can shatter the barriers between the dimensions.



That is sheer genius.

Also, I agree on the Black History Month thing. It seems more and more obvious that many "civil rights activistists" don't want EQUAL treatment for blacks, they want PREFERENTIAL treatment for blacks. Just look at racial quotas in college.

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I would say the same is true of homosexuals.

Princess Leia: I happen to like nice men.
Han Solo: I'm a nice man.

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This is quite obvious given the nature of "hate crimes" legislation. It creates protected classes of citizens on an arbitrary basis and totally invalidates the concept of "equal protection" under the law.
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