Posts by Fletch

  • Dumb Design vs Intelligent design

    Well seeing as A) I'm the only person here who as lived in Kansas and b) I'm the only person here who has worked in Kansas politics, I'll explain some things surrounding this vote.

    First, almost every person in this state is pissed off about the new education standards. Every school district. Every college. Every business even tangentially connected to science. The problem is Kansas politics is dominated by one very small group with a very loud voice: far-right social conservatives. Now I'm not going to blame this on religion, because the vast majority of the state is very religious and does not agree with this first group. The problem is that this group keeps getting a big voice in almost every political decision. And it all has to do with population density.

    Go google a map of Kansas right now. It's pretty much a big rectangle. The problem is that that the population is almost all at the far eastern edge in Kansas City, KS and the surrounding suburbs. A little farther west from there you get Lawrence (where I lived and where University of Kansas is), then Topkea (the capitol), then Manhatten (where Kansas State University is). Directly south from there is Witchita. And that is about it as far as population centers go. The western 2/3rds of the state is almost all rural farm and ranch land. If you happened to visit this part of the state you would notice that is is very flat and appears to be stuck in 1950.

    Western Kansas has nothing going for it. NOTHING. Farms and ranhes don't make money like they used to, so the entire area is economically depressed. If you want a good job, you leave. If your kids want a good job, they go east to one of the state colleges, and then they leave. If you can't afford college, you go into the military and leave. Which means a lot of people are stuck their entire lives out there. The infrastructure sucks because there is no profit to be had in improving it. That means most people don't have cable TV (unless you live in one of the larger towns like Salina or Junction City), broadband internet (or 56K for that matter), or many other things a lot of us would find to be basic parts of our standard of living. So if you want something to do, you lsiten to AM radio, you go to church, or you work longer.

    So why is this imporant, and what the hell does any of this ahve to do with evolution? Well West Kansas, while comprising about 66% of the state's land, only comprises about 25% of the population. And it's all spread out. So almost all of the elected offices out there are giant districts that are incredibly hard to get around in because all the raods are shit. So if you're running for Congress, State Senate, State Rep, School Board, etc you've got to find a way to get across to a lot of people who don't watch TV or read the daily news (or catch it on cable networks or the internet). So you've got to find people where they congregate. Church. And your ads have to be in a medium they pay attention to. AM Radio. That is why conservatives win out there. Which is also why some rather extreme personailties get elected, too. Rational, well educated people who are from the area, leave. So you get bitter people who stayed and probably didn't get any education past high school.

    So the school board always gets about 3 or 4 people from that area because some districts overlay more moderate, populated sections. Those people didn't run because they care about education. They ran so they could have a bully pulpit and spew their ideology. Most of them don't really see the point in having an education past high school. Most of them have really negative views of the state universities (which are luckily not governed by them). So they don't really care whether students are prepared for college or the workplace. They're more worried about whether the kids will stay on the farm.

    So every few years, this shit happens. But in 2006, 4 of those seats are open and will most likely be replaced by some high shcool principals or other people form the area with some degree of education who will be very well funded from outside interests. They'll win the seats, take over the majority, and switch the ruling. Then in 8 or 10 years, it iwll flip again. It's Western Kansas politics, and it never changes.

    The thing that gets missed in all of this is that the local school districts actually ahve finally say over curriculum. I'd say 95% of the districts teach evolution with no problem. 5% in Western Kansas don't teach evolution, have long lectures about Creationism or ID, and it's what those towns want. The smart kids from those school end up leaving anyways.

    The people getting the shaft are the new teachers. KU's School of Education is having a hard time convincing freshly graduated teachers to go to West Kansas to teach. They know that the pay is low, the communities are hostile towards education, and the social life kind of sucks, too. So West Kansas tends to get the shittiest teachers on the market, and they don't even get enough of them, so all the classes are overcrowded.

    In the end, it keeps Education as a top issue in statewide races. The governor is actually a Democrat (the state is like 55% Republican, 25% Democrate, and 20% Independent) who is a huge backer of education. It looks like she's going to win re-election in a landslide because all of her Republican challengers are looking expectionally hostile toward Education. So in the end, the social conservatives picked a big fight over standards which are in the end optional, and the Democrats get to keep the Governor. Democrats won.

  • Paris riot Jihad

    The real irony in all of this is that violence and rioting has one of the smallest success rates in instituting lasting change. With the first confirmed death, France's government is going to be stepping up in a big way to stop riots. I would not be surprised to see a "shoot to wound" order within the next few days, followed quickly my numerou reports of rioters getting shot. That's going to end of a lot of riots dead in their tracks. The neighborhoods where these things are popping up from are going to get some major security crackdowns as this thing dies off. It's going to be the exact opposite of what the original rioters wanted in the first place.

    Now, am I saying any of that is the "right" solution? Not really. But then again, neither was rioting to begin with. This is just one of those things where both sides lose and the social fabric becomes even more split.

  • I AM VERY MUCH DISLIKING STEAM TODAY

    Quote from PhilipK

    Hmm got a problem now too...All my source stuff is stuck on updating... They are all on 91-97% done.

    And when i try to launch one it's telling me the steam ticket has expired and I have to reenter my pass. When I do and try to launch it again it says steam server is too busy to handle my request now. Been like this for 2 days now... Anyone else got this?

    That's the exact thing that happened to me that prompted this post. I tried everything, and nothing worked except uninstalling Steam and reinstalling everything. Have fun re-caching.

  • I AM VERY MUCH DISLIKING STEAM TODAY

    I really liked the point where it wouldn't let me reinstall the bulk of hl2 and cs:s from my CDs until I rooted through regedit and removed a bunch of references their "uninstall" program didn't get.

    And I finally found the culprit: I was dumb enough to "install" TFC without fully exiting Steam first. Turns out, Steam had updated in the last few days, and the new install's cache and the old one got all confused and had what I can only imagine to be a cripple fight on my hard drive.

    Luckily I was able to discern this from their clear and to the point error message: "No Steam Content Delivery Servesr Are Available Right Now. Please Try Again Later."

    Except for the fact that the content servers were only at 10% capacity... and that my actual problem had nothing at all to do with that.

    Le sigh.

  • I AM VERY MUCH DISLIKING STEAM TODAY

    You know what is an incredibly dumbfuck idea? Tying your editor to your content delivery system. I mean, it's not bad enough that you have to launch one memory hogging program just to launch the other, but hey, in case your content delivery program fucks up royally, you can't open up your editor to do any work.

    But hey, at least Valve's great customer support came to this solution after exhausting everything they already told me: "Why don't you just delete all your steam and cache files and reinstall?"

    *grumble*

  • calling all metrosexuals

    I wouldn't spray your clothes win any sort of oils Duffy. Oils really fuck up fibers in a way that you can't undo. I've seen some "luster" sprays at dress clothes stores before, but most of them are silicon based and are deisgned for you to spray on things like suit coats.