Republicans

[Tero]

What's he gonna do? register as a democrat?

Independent. He will be the Republican Sanders.

[Svartalf]

so a nasty fly bugging people but without ability to get anywhere... I wish him pleasure of it.

[Tero]

With unpredictable tweet era politics, most Republican governors won't risk running 2020. They will remain big fish in smaller ponds.

[Brian Peacock]

-win it over? it's what they've been since I've been alive.

Maybe it just got too real?

"Don't talk to me about the real - you don't even know what the real real is. I know real man. I know. You can't handle it. You can't handle the REAL real."
-- Edward Scissorhands

[L'Emmerdeur]

The Republican controlled US Congress in action on health care. It's something to see.

'Congress misses deadline to reauthorize childrens' health care program'

Congress missed a deadline to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) over the weekend, leaving federal funding to expire at the end of the month, according to ABC News.

Neither the House nor the Senate took up a vote to reauthorize the program, which helps states provide inexpensive health insurance to children in lower-income families.

Congress was on track to miss the deadline earlier this week, and though the Senate released a bipartisan, five-year bill to reauthorize the program, a vote wasn’t scheduled.

...

The deadline to reauthorize the program passed after Senate Republicans spent much of the last few weeks pushing to pass an ObamaCare repeal bill co-sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

That bill wasn’t introduced for a vote on the Senate floor after three Republicans announced their opposition, killing its chance of passing.

A spokesperson for the House Energy and Commerce Committee said earlier this week that the committee “continue to have bipartisan negotiations” to reauthorize CHIP as it considers combining CHIP funding with money for community health centers.

[Forty Two]

My fucking God. Talk about tl;dr. I stopped reading where you started confusing the value of learning the roots of English words with specifically learning Latin.

You asked, I answered. I provided you with a mountain of evidence as to the benefits of learning Latin, including, for example, the link to the evidence that students who had a small about of instruction in Latin wound up a grade level higher in proficiency in the English language, grammar, etc., than those that did not (and the study was controlled for variable, including socio-economic and other differences).

The value of learning Latin is not the same thing as the value of learning the roots of words. Latin provides advantages to spelling (lots of spelling B champions learn to understand Latin concepts -- that's why you have them asking for usages and other allowed clarification questions when they're engaged in spelling B's - they're puzzling out the spelling, when they don't have it memorized, and Latin helps tremendously), Latin provides advantages in understanding grammar too. Having some knowledge of Latin helps puzzle out the meaning for words without prior knowledge of those words - including legal terms, scientific terms, and everyday words as well. Latin is a fantastic language to have some understanding of if one is going to learn other romance languages. The list goes on and on.

It's o.k. if your subjective opinion is that it's worthless. I mean, you haven't explained your basis for your opinion. And, you haven't refuted any of the points I made supporting my view that it is very worthwhile. But, feel free to believe what you believe, arbitrarily.

[Forty Two]

The rest of your stuff is just yet another iteration of your "what's wrong with the youth of today" hobby horse.

In other words, you know you lost the point, and you're just just hand-waving it away again.

I did not at all suggest there was something wrong with the youth. I've explained the value of certain disciplines, vs the lack of value of certain other disciplines.

Are you of the view that the youth of today generally are gender studies proponents, in line with the "ideology" you say I oppose?

[Forty Two]

Oh, quick question, pErvin -

You accused me of opposing gender studies and the like because of ideology. What ideology is that? Please specify which ideology you believe underpins or is advanced by gender studies.

Also, you'll note that I also included studies like "communications" in the less valuable group. Is it ideology that I'm opposing there, too?

Do tell.

You yourself have specifically mentioned what aspects of what the courses allegedly teach that cause you conniptions. You don't need to ask me, just go back and read your own posts.

And the set of things you don't like isn't equivalent to the set of things you don't like because of ideological reasons. Perhaps if you learnt more set theory and less archaic languages you might understand.

You accused me of opposing gender studies and the like because of ideology What ideology is that? Please specify what ideology YOU believe underpins or is advanced by gender studies.

My main objection to the gender studies courses and the like were, you'll recall, lack of rigor and lack of educational value. I compared teaching certain classic science and liberal arts courses to teaching "contemporary feminist theory." Note, also, stated explicitly that one need not have a specific ideology to teach gender studies courses. My only objection that related to ideology was that I did not think ANY university course should be designed to advance any ideology. If, as you said, there was an ideology behind or necessitated by gender studies, and that ideology is being advanced by the instructor or the course in general -- if it's part of the movement, for example - then yes, I oppose that. I would oppose it in any discipline. I don't think economics is a place to sell or advance laissez-fair capitalism, for example - so if a course does participate in "advancing that movement" or places itself at the forefront of the "laissez-fair capitalism" movement, then I would strongly oppose taking that course. The point is education vs. indoctrination.

[Forty Two]

A large and growing part of universities today. As stated, by way of example, on the University of Cincinnati website - "Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) is one of the fastest growing academic fields in the country.

I really don't think you get how stats works. Growing fast from a miniscule base isn't equivalent to being widespread (or not niche, as Jim was pointing out).

Go fuck off. He was asking about "significance."

Number 1. Nothing in my argument had anything to do with how "significant" or "insignificant" specific courses or subjects or disciplines are. My discussion related to their value as part of a good education. JimC asked how insignificant they were.

Number 2. I never said they were or were not widespread. I'll leave it to you to make that argument and present that stats, if you're taking a position on that. I don't really care how widespread they are. I do see pretty much every university has a gender studies or women's studies program, and they also have a communications program and the like. So what?

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with their relative value as disciplines. Astrophysics is taken by only a small percentage of college students, but it's of tremendous educational value, for example.

What makes a discipline significant to you? What makes it widespread? Let's start there. Then we can discuss whether one or more disciplines meet that definition for you. To me, it's not relevant to the discussion, but if it's relevant to you, I'm happy to discuss it.

Oh yes, let's equivocate over simple words so you can spend 10 pages trying to argue that black is white.

No no - this is very simple, but you evade as usual: "What makes a discipline significant to you? What makes it widespread? Let's start there. Then we can discuss whether one or more disciplines meet that definition for you. To me, it's not relevant to the discussion, but if it's relevant to you, I'm happy to discuss it." So --- your position?

[Forty Two]

A large and growing part of universities today. As stated, by way of example, on the University of Cincinnati website - "Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) is one of the fastest growing academic fields in the country.

I really don't think you get how stats works. Growing fast from a miniscule base isn't equivalent to being widespread (or not niche, as Jim was pointing out).

Go fuck off. He was asking about "significance."

Number 1. Nothing in my argument had anything to do with how "significant" or "insignificant" specific courses or subjects or disciplines are. My discussion related to their value as part of a good education. JimC asked how insignificant they were.

Number 2. I never said they were or were not widespread. I'll leave it to you to make that argument and present that stats, if you're taking a position on that. I don't really care how widespread they are. I do see pretty much every university has a gender studies or women's studies program, and they also have a communications program and the like. So what?

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with their relative value as disciplines. Astrophysics is taken by only a small percentage of college students, but it's of tremendous educational value, for example.

What makes a discipline significant to you? What makes it widespread? Let's start there. Then we can discuss whether one or more disciplines meet that definition for you. To me, it's not relevant to the discussion, but if it's relevant to you, I'm happy to discuss it.

You have an inherent drive to be dishonest, don't you?

No, and that's a personal attack. I wasn't dishonest at all. Fuck off.

Here's what Jim said, and this is directly what you responded to with your numpty point about those "studies" courses being among the fastest growing academic fields.

..do such courses represent a major part of universities today, or are they a minor side-show whose significance is exaggerated because the weird shit they often come up with is so bizarre it is newsworthy?

The point you are either too stupid to get, or more likely too dishonest to admit, is that it's not a major part of universities today, and positing a retarded statistical "analysis" as proof that they are significant is, well, retarded.

[/quote]

He was asking the question. And, you obviously have no idea if "it's a major part of universities today" or a minor part. Also, I never ventured an opinion as to what part, major or minor, they were. That had nothing to do, at all, with my argument about their educational value.

Yes, I did suggest that they were among the fastest growing majors at universities, which certainly doesn't mean they are the majority, but to be "significant" a given course or course of study need not be the most dominant or popular. There are hundreds of different majors. Is any one of them "significant" in and of itself? If so, might gender studies not also be just as "significant?"

Anyway - I left that for those who feel "significance" is relevant to the discussion. I don't. I don't think significance is relevant to the discussion of the VALUE of the course work. Very few people take, for example, Egyptology as a major, but it's educational value is great. It probably lacks overall "significance" in the sense JimC was using the term, but it's "educational value" is great, because of the rigor and topics covered in the coursework. Texas A&M University offers a major in Nautical Archaeology, which is fantastic, but of very little "significance."

You really can fuck off with your constant bullshit about dishonesty. I didn't say anything that wasn't true, and I suspect you know that.

[Forty Two]

FortyTwo from the 1800's

Yabbut in 1912 pupiis were expected to give the capitals of States touching the Ohio River!

Don't laugh. This is important!

Well, if the argument was that kids are using computers too much in their process of learning, then that would make sense. The criticism today is that they haven't mastered certain material at all, not that they used different devices to learn it, and might not have a computer on them later.

I mean, for example, I use electronic devices to teach my daughter all the time. She's used it to, at the age of 3, master the alphabet - both cases - and numbers up to 20 - and do basic addition and subtraction. She also knew the planets and their relationship to the sun, and the concept of stars and asteroids and comets, and their names - and the dwarf planets vs primary planets - all by the time she turned 4 -- as well as basic geography - understanding continents and countries and capitals.

We used all sorts of technology - including LeapPads, and iPads, and the like.

I'm not in the least saying that kids today aren't doing it like they did 100 or 200 years ago. I'm saying the kids today are not LEARNING as much important information and concepts, and not learning specific subjects (like logic, math, history, and science, which are vital, irrespective of the tools used to learn it).

There is a dizzying lack of knowledge among even college graduates. Employers are sounding the alarm that graduates from college have a hard time, too often, writing coherent emails, let alone writing a letter in classic letter form.

[Forty Two]

What's he gonna do? register as a democrat?

Independent. He will be the Republican Sanders.

Kasich is going to be the Republican Sanders? What's he going to do? Continuously say outright that he's a socialist, and yet never be able to convince his supporters of that fact (his supporters who continuously say "no, he's not a socialIST, he's just a social democrat, like in Denmark")?

[Tero]

He is going to repeat centrist pro business low tax mantra. No personal attacks.

[Forty Two]

He is going to repeat centrist pro business low tax mantra. No personal attacks.

And, you think that's a good thing?

[Brian Peacock]

The Republican controlled US Congress in action on health care. It's something to see.

'Congress misses deadline to reauthorize childrens' health care program'

Congress missed a deadline to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) over the weekend, leaving federal funding to expire at the end of the month, according to ABC News.

Neither the House nor the Senate took up a vote to reauthorize the program, which helps states provide inexpensive health insurance to children in lower-income families.

Congress was on track to miss the deadline earlier this week, and though the Senate released a bipartisan, five-year bill to reauthorize the program, a vote wasn’t scheduled.

...

The deadline to reauthorize the program passed after Senate Republicans spent much of the last few weeks pushing to pass an ObamaCare repeal bill co-sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

That bill wasn’t introduced for a vote on the Senate floor after three Republicans announced their opposition, killing its chance of passing.

A spokesperson for the House Energy and Commerce Committee said earlier this week that the committee “continue to have bipartisan negotiations” to reauthorize CHIP as it considers combining CHIP funding with money for community health centers.

Help me out here someone. Why is the House Energy and Commerce Committee deciding on public health spending?