WhatTheHell…? [29 July '07]

Just reached 1,000 visitors today since I moved my blog to WordPress.com on June 3rd. Doing a little basic math, that averages out to 125 visitors a week, about 18 visitors a day.

For me, that’s a lot of visitors in a short period of time. I started blogging about political stupidity on February 3rd 2007 at http://hellbroadcast.blogspot.com. Between February 3rd and June 3rd I had 402 visitors at HellBroadCast. Some more basic math: about 24 visitors a week, some 3.4 visitors a day.

I don’t know what’s changed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the growth in visitors. I’m ecstatic. But anyhow, my content has remained the same, the topic is the same, the writer has remained the same. The only things that have changed are the name, the domain, and the address.

I haven’t spent all week waiting for my blog stats to hit 1,000 visitors. Or just sitting at work. I did actually get around to finishing two posts on stupidity, which really is the theme here, isn’t it… Surprisingly, this week wasn’t on political or governmental issues. Not even on terrorism or George Bush. This week, I touched upon failings in education.

No, I’m not directly attacking the United States’ public school system, nor am I blasting the Department of Education. There are just too many factors which contribute to my first topic: 1 in 5 Americans believe the Sun revolves around the Earth and a few other idiocities.

20% of Americans allegedly believe this. Now it’s your turn to do the math. If there are some 300 million Americans, 20% is a whopping number of people…

We’re talking about failures in common sense here. For a quick rundown of contributing factors, let’s say Religion, Family, and Media.

I won’t launch off into greater discussion on the contributing factors. But I would want to hear your opinions on it! Read the post I wrote and drop some comments in my direction.

Moving on, my other post of the week, also related to school, was not on education per say, but on the learning environment that atleast one school in America has brought upon it’s kids: a middle school in Virginia has issued a “NO TOUCHING” policy at the school.

There’s too much to write here on the matter so have a read through the post and share your thoughts.

And here’s the link to the two posts of the week:
Stupidity Is All Around You
No Physical Contact In School? Huh?

And now for something else. Namely, Existential Questions.

At http://existentialquestions.wordpress.com, I’ve started a communal look into existential questions about the world we inhabit and the issues we face during our lives.

I invite all of you to participate in the discussions at the website and/or the Facebook group for the site.

Although only about a month or so old, many people have shared their opinions and thoughts on the issues we already have posted. Here’s a list of the issues we’re discussing right now:

Abortion

If Religion Matters Anymore

The Soul

Greatest Concepts

Extraterrestial Life

Perceptions of Heaven

Perceptions of Hell

Stem Cell Research

Creation vs Evolution

The Meaning of Life

Phobias and Fears

The U.S. 2008 Presidential Elections

(If any of the links don’t work right now, they will soon…)

You can see all the ongoing discussions and the polls from the links at the top panel of the website.

So go have a look, find out what it’s about, and share your thoughts, either by commenting on the topics below the posts or by sending us email with the contact form.

As a final thought, the extensive post I’m working on about the Transportation Security Administration is getting out of control… But I’ll remain strong and try to get it done. Everyday there are people searching for information on the TSA, and I want to give people what they want. Stay tuned!

No Physical Contact In School? Huh?

No punchline here, because it’s not a joke.

A middle school in Fairfax County, Virginia has banned all physical contact.

That’s right, ALL PHYSICAL CONTACT!

That means no hugging, no kissing, no handshakes, no high-fives, no group huddles, no hand-holding, no pats on the back, no bloody knuckles, and no poking. Did I forget something?

Why you ask? Well, let’s take a look…

According to the school officials at Kilmer Middle High School in Vienna, the ban “helps keep crowded hallways and lunchrooms safe and orderly, and ensures that all students are comfortable.”

No, it’ll teach kids that physical contact is frowned upon. What happened to raising kids to be normal?

If you tell kids that they can’t show affection physically, it’ll end with them either hiding their emotions, exhibiting them in private, or considering physical contact as a negative characteristic.

Now I’m not a psychologist, nor do I have any scientific facts to confirm my thoughts. Nevertheless, I do have common sense on board with me.

Teenage years are possibly the most important years of a child’s life, so restricting them from doing things which are completely normal and healthy in adult life might not be such a good idea.

So let’s look at the possible implications of a no contact ban on middle school kids.

Hand shaking
Hand shaking is in integral part of working life. Not just then, but also all through their social life.

Displays of Affection
I understand not wanting middle schoolers to go around at school making out and kissing. But middle schoolers are at the age where they are getting curious about relationships and affection, so banning such trivialities as hugging and holding hands is just going to make the kids more likely to actually act upon their new-found feelings. You remember back when you were small, and were told not to do something? What did you do? Yeah, you did it. Because you were curious.

Group Huddles, High-Fives, Pats On The Back
All three of these things are very normal behavior. And wait, don’t they all appear in sports? Come to think of it, so does hugging. And shaking hands with the opposing team after the game. I thought schools embraced sports. Wait a minute, don’t sports have a lot of physical conduct? Ok, ban sports while you’re at it, why don’t you…

Deborah Hernandez, Kilmer’s principal said that the rule makes sense in a school that was built for 850 students but houses 1,100. She said that students should have their personal space protected and that many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome.

“students should have their personal space protected and that many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome” Great, let’s downplay their intelligence while we’re at it, why don’t we? School is a place to learn, not just academics, but also about social interaction. It does no good banning them from doing something and then saying that they don’t understand what is right or wrong.

Here’s a thought: teach the kids what is the correct way to behave, instead of banning everything.

The Washington Post had an article on the school rule, highlighting how a seventh grader broke the rules by getting out of his assigned lunch room seat, sitting down next to his girlfriend, and putting his arm around her. Read it here.

Which brings me to my closing thought… Assigned lunch room seating?!

Apparently, physical contact is not the only thing the school board considers to have negative outcomes. Social interaction seems to threatened as well. Assigning lunch room seating is getting close to ludicrous.

Socializing is as important of an aspect of school life as say math or chemistry, maybe even more important. You aren’t allowed to socialize during class, which leaves you with recesses and lunch. Being assigned a seat, most likely next to someone the school randomly picked, instead of your closest friends, trumps the possibility of hanging out with you friends.

Sure, I can understand that the school officials wish to keep the cafeteria from turning into chaos, but too many rules is never good.

What do you think? Should schools be allowed to enforce these kinds of rules on kids? Or has it gone too far? If you have any personal stories of similar stupid rules from school, share your experiences in the comments section below.

Sources:
Washington Post (via Digg)

Stupidity Is All Around You

Here, read this quote from Raw Dogma. On one hand I can’t believe it, on the other hand it is completely fathomable.

“American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.”

I’ve said before that stupidity is universal. But some things (such as mentioned above) go above logical understanding. There’s stupidity, and then there’s idiotic ignorance…

Read the full article for some reasoning behind the data…

Sources:
Raw Dogma: 1 in 5 Americans believe Sun revolves around the Earth

Site Update — About

I have finally kicked myself in the behind and actually written up the About page on Hellipsis.

Be sure to check it out at http://hellipsis.wordpress.com/about. It inadvertently turned into panting and saving… Dunno why…

WhatTheHell? [22 July '07]

Another busy week…
Technically, I should take time off work and have a summer vacation, seeing as it is summer. Instead, I’m working 6 days a week… (actually at work right now, somewhat bored, and so I’m blogging, reading news and otherwise wasting time on Facebook…)

Anyhow, let’s move on… I’m a little disappointed with myself, seeing as I’ve managed what, two posts in two weeks?

It’s ok though, I’ve got plenty of excuses for my laziness. (Actually, laziness is one of the excuses…)

Mainly though, it’s work. I have very little time to blog. Most of my free time, the little that’s left after spending most of my time with my girlfriend, is spent either researching for posts which are in the works (17 at last count…), or posting to my two other blogs: Hell On Earth and Existential Questions.

My original plan was to write a short wrapup of the week’s posts every sunday. Guess you can see the dilemma I face when I haven’t written anything that week…

Then it hit me… I’m too ambitious (just a little…). So here’s my solution: Editorial + WrapUp = WhatTheHell…? (renewed)

So let’s get to it, shall we? This week I’ll focus a bit on traffic.

Having followed the statistics concerning page referrers, I noticed that there are two main search terms and tags through which people end up on Hellipsis.

Firstly, sex. Well, kinda. The most popular search engine term has been “Zahra Amir Ebrahimi”. If you’ve never heard of her, she’s an Iranian actress who allegedly starred in a leaked homemade sex tape, and is now facing charges in Iran for breaking the country’s morality laws.

Now, I don’t have the sex tape. Nor do I have link anywhere here to it. Yet, everyday people find themselves on my site when looking for that sex tape. Why?

Because I happened to mention her name and the scandal in a related post which covered Iran’s response to pornography, in accordance to said morality laws.
[Iran To Execute Porn Stars, Distributors, Directors, etc...]

Another popular path which has lead people here is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Not them directly, of course, but people searching for stuff on the TSA. I’ve noticed that either people just search for “tsa” , or they combine it with such terms as “uniform” , “funny” , and “stupid” , for example.

So, to answer the interest in the Transportation Security Administration, I’ve started work on a larger post of TSA follies, and other cockups… So stay tuned for that!
[Click here for my posts on the TSA so far]

So, where did you come from? Where did you hear about Hellipsis? Let me know by the way of comments!

WhatTheHell…? [15 July ‘07]

Most people are striving for success. But, as the Head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration found out, all means aren’t allowed. Pushing forward (or should we say surging?) to Iraq and the United States, apparently violence can be classified as sign of success. Then why is Iraq failing?

• China’s Reaction To Tainted Products
• Signs Of Success? Iraq Ranked Second On Failed States Index

Signs Of Success? Iraq Ranked Second On Failed States Index

For the past three years, Foreign Policy magazine and the non-profit Fund for Peace have ranked 177 states to create a “Failed State Index”.

In the latest report card, which ranks the nations in order of their “vulnerability to violent and internal conflict and societal deterioration”, Iraq found itself taking home the silver, losing only to Sudan.

And all this “despite billions of dollars in development and security age and the continued presence of U.S. troops”.

Last year, Iraq ranked fourth place, and has seen its position in the Index fall for a third consecutive year. And the U.S. troops have been there for what, 4 and a bit years now…

Quick look at Afghanistan, another war-torn country, and another “important” front in the War on Terror. Where was Afghanistan on the Failed States Index? In eighth place… So a little better, but not too much.

Sudan, where the United States doesn’t have a substantial number of soldiers (are there any American military personnel there?), ranked first on the list. This is attributable to the violence in the Darfur region, violence that has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced a further 2-3 million people. And this is a place that could potentially benefit from a prolonged U.S. military presence, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan where things keep going from bad to worse each year.

The violence in Darfur is worrying because it’s pulling Sudan’s neighbouring countries down with it. Actually, with the exception of Iraq and Afghanistan, all the countries in the top 10 on the list were found in sub-Saharan Africa…

So there are the facts. Now let’s spin in towards the White House…

The Bush Administration has repeatedly argued that U.S. troops are necessary in Iraq to prevent the country from becoming a failed state (well done there, maybe next year…), and also to stop Iraq from becoming a breeding ground for international terrorists.

Overall levels of violence in Iraq have actually increased throughout the country, shifting away from Baghdad to the previously “peaceful” provinces.

Does that mean that the surge is working? The main point of the surge was to clear Baghdad of insurgents, right? So having them move out to the countryside to do as they please without much interference should be considered a success, right?

“Political reconciliation has almost entirely stalled, suicide bombing have more than doubled between January and April, secretarian deaths have increased beyond pre-[surge] levels, and U.S. troop deaths are spiking.

Sound like success to you?

Let’s hand the mic to White House spokesman Tony Snow for a second to hear his thoughts on the success of the surge:

“…it does fit a pattern that we see throughout the region, which is that when you see things moving towards success, or when you see signs of success, that there are acts of violence. …we’ve seen that in Lebanon…”

On the Failed States Index, Lebanon experienced the biggest slide, ending up in 28th place. 16-17 years of progress made since the end of its 15-year-long civil war 1990, bombed to rubble (quite literally actually) by Israel last summer, driving 700,000 people out of their homes.

So, are those signs of success? Didn’t think so…

Snow also suggested that the increased violence in Iraq is a by-product of “pro-democracy movements…making some progress…”

Meanwhile, security forces in Baghdad have stated that only 40 % of Baghdad is very safe on a routine basis, with about 30% lacking control and a further 30 % suffering a high level of violence.

Signs of success, maybe?

Jordan’s King Abdullah predicted last November that three civil wars could erupt in the Middle East in 2007. He’s top three?
Palestine (check)
Lebanon (check)
Iraq (check)

I said check to all three for one simple reason: call it what you will, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq are for all sakes and purposes experiencing civil war. Wars and civil wars are named and typically classified as such by subsequent generations, not by the one fighting it. World War I, at the time, was referred to as the Great War, as it was seen as the war to end all wars.

Point is, the only reason “there is no civil war in Iraq” is because the Bush Administration doesn’t want it to be called that. Having aided in the birth of a civil war wouldn’t look so good on Bush’s legacy, would it?

Oh wait, too late…

I’ll leave you with a Q & A between reporters and White House spokesman Tony Snow:

QUESTION: “Has the war in Iraq has helped push the peace process forward in any way…?”

SNOW: “Don’t know. I mean, what I don’t think is — quite often people say, well you can’t — you’re not focusing on the Middle East because you’re focusing on Iraq. They are all related.”

QUESTION: “But before the war the president said that taking out Saddam Hussein would help stabilize the Mideast. Do you think that’s turned out to be true?”

SNOW: “Hard to say…”

Where did they find this guy…? Seriously…

For the complete Failed States Index 2007, click here.

Sources:
Salon.com: We’re No. 2!
DailyKos: On The Bright Side…
ThinkProgress.org: Iraq ranks #2 on failed state index
Reuters: Iraq now ranked second among world’s failed states
Yahoo! News: Pentagon: Iraqi violence still rising (via Digg)
Yahoo! News: US: 60 pct. of Baghdad not controlled (via Digg)
ThinkProgress.org: Snow: Intense New Levels Of Viole In Iraq Are “Signs Of Success”
Huffington Post: Iraqis Assure Bush Progress Being Made
ThinkProgress.org: Snow: “I Don’t Know” If Iraq War Has Helped Stabilize Middle East, It’s “Hard To Say”

China’s Reaction To Tainted Products

I was watching the CNN Now In The News podcast this morning and the last story provoked some thoughts from me.

The bit of news was about the tainted food and drug products from China that’ve been in the news recently. Here’s the transcript of that report: (I apologize for any inconsistencies between the transcript and the actual footage. It might not be perfect due to the fact that I was transcribing it while on the bus…)

TRANSCRIPT:

“China is vowing to improve its food and drug safety. Tainted ingredients have turned up in domestic and exported products.”

“You’ve probably heard about them earlier this year. Chinese wheat gluten tainted with melamin was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in North America.”

“Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away imports of Chinese products including toxic fish, unsafe juice and toys decorated with lead paint.”

“Today the former head of China’s Food and Drug Administration [FDA] was executed for taking bribes to approve substandard medicine for use in his country.”

Wait, go back to that last bit. They executed a government official for taking bribes? Isn’t that a little harsh?

Now there’s the offset chance that the two instances are not related (they were under two different headings, CHINA FOOD SAFETY and FOOD BOSS EXECUTED. But I doubt it… The Chinese FDA messes up, vows to clean up it’s act, and executes its former boss… Wow…

I never knew that corruption was a crime punishable by death. But then again, in 2004, China executed some 3,400 people. For a country of 1.3 billion people, that’s not too much, right? Well, that number represents 90% of all the executions carried out that year.

For a few more statistics, in 2006, China executed at least 1,010 people, although other sources say that the real number is between 7,500 and 8,000). Iran executed 177 people, Pakistan 82, Iraq at least 65, Sudan, likewise, at least 65, and in sixth place comes the United States with 53 executions. [Source]

You can subscribe to or watch the podcast at cnn.com/services/podcasting or download the episode here. [MPEG-14 16mb 2.39min]

Sources:
CNN Now In The News (Video Podcast) [Links to complete CNN podcast list]
Capital punishment – Wikipedia

WhatTheHell…? [08 July ‘07]

Yeah, nothing this week… Catching up on my reading… Got a few larger posts in the works and they’re taking up all my spare time…

WhatTheHell…? [01 July '07]

There’s a lot of hate being covered this week.

Birds don’t like Bush, TSA hates clowns, the EU has issues with fast cars, Iran wants to kill pornstars, while North Korea and mobile phones don’t mix. Oh, and China’s being having problems with variety.

Don’t worry, it’s not all about hate.

A republican wants more terrorist attacks, while Bush is at the frontlines every day, although the run for President 2008 is well under way. In the mean time, check out what the FBI had to say about grandpapa.

New Yorkers don’t really care about all this, as they’re too busy sipping absinthe.

• Nature Strikes Back: Bird Poops On President Bush During Press Conference [Video]

• GOP Chief: More Terrorist Attacks On U.S. Soil, Please. ¿Que?

• Absinthe Available In The United States, Finally

• TSA Clowning Around, Confiscates Clown’s Makeup

• EU Thinking About Banning Fast Cars

• Iran To Execute Porn Stars, Distributors, Directors, etc…

• Wanna See Your Grandparents’ FBI File?

• Poll: Who Will Be Elected President In 2008?

• President Bush On The Frontlines Of War

• North Korea: Dead Man Talking

• One Billion People, Not Enough Last Names