Some of the enhancements in KDE 3.1 were funded by the German government as part of an effort to create an open replacement for the Microsoft ubiquiware that you know and loathe.
Some of the enhancements in KDE 3.1 were funded by the German government as part of an effort to create an open replacement for the Microsoft ubiquiware that you know and loathe.
This article about Texas Tech biology professor Michael Dini’s refusal to write recommendation letters for students who do not accept evolution over creationism is drawing a lot of attention. As far as I’m concerned, this op-ed piece on the controversy says it all. To put it simply, if you can’t put the scientific method ahead of your own personal beliefs and superstitions, then why do you want to be a scientist?
Update: As a reader points out, the opinion piece linked to above tars all Christians with the same brush. There are many Christians who have no problem at all with the scientific method, and indeed many great scientists of the past have been religious people.
Three people have referred me to John Irving’s New York Times op-ed, Wrestling With Title IX, which criticizes the proportionality requirements for Title IX that were added in 1979 and 1996. Irving’s argument against how proportionality is enforced today makes total sense to me. Not allowing men to walk on to teams to keep roster sizes down, and getting rid of sports that are fully financed by external sources (alumni and supporters) to meet some sort of proportionality goal makes no sense.
Irving makes less sense when he talks about the fact that since there are less women participating in sports, therefore proportionality isn’t important. Men have been encouraged to play sports and provided with opportunities to do so for thousands of years — women have had the same opportunties for less than a century. I wonder what the voluntary sports participation numbers are in Afghanistan?
I don’t know that equality of funding would be the right measurement, either, though. Some sports require more equipment, more coaches, and more travel than others, and so saying that men’s sports and women’s sports must receive equal funding would skew things even more. Obviously roster spots aren’t the right answer, either, though, because it gives schools an incentive to disallow walk-ons who should get the opportunity to participate if they can make it.
In other words, I don’t have a proposed solution, but I do recognize the thorniness of the problem.
I’ve been watching the debate over potential changes to Title IX with interest. If you’re not a sports fan, you probably don’t know that Title IX is a gender equity law that requires “substantial proportionality” between the percentage of females at a school and the percentage of female athletes at a school. In other words, if a school is 50% female, then 50% of the athletes at the school should be female. The upside is huge — since the law was passed in 1972, women’s participation in athletics has grown literally exponentially. The downside is that some schools have achieved proportionality by cutting minor men’s sports, like wrestling, gymnastics, and swimming. As far as I’m concerned, the bottom line is that no changes to Title IX will raise athletic budgets, so if the men’s programs that have been cut are restored, then other programs will be cut to make up the difference, and in all likelihood, they’ll be women’s sports. I’m really not sure what the answer is here, but proportionality seems like a fair requirement to me.
I comment further here.
Eight European countries have published an open letter of support for disarming Iraq, in support of the US. The most interesting to me of the bunch is Denmark, which to me is the country that is more conscience-driven than most others. If Denmark says that we need to hold Iraq’s feet to the fire, then perhaps we do. And after reading the stories on the weapons inspectors’ report to the UN, the Ken Pollack interview, and other things over the past few days, I’m in agreement with the people who say that the weapons inspections have failed, or have been proven to be ineffective. Or, to put it another way, have effectively demonstrated that Iraq has no intention of disarming. Of course, most of us already knew that Iraq had not disarmed and had no intention of doing so, but that fact has now been proven.
I don’t think that there’s much point in continuing the inspections. While the inspections may slow Iraq’s progress toward its goals, at some point they have to end, and at that point Iraq will ramp its weapons programs back up. Either we have to accept the fact that Iraq will continue to manufacture chemical and biological weapons and put its full effort toward joining the nuclear club, or we have to do something else to stop them.
Update: A reader from Denmark sent me an email indicating that the letter was signed by Denmark’s PM, who is part of a center-right party and was elected with the support of a right wing nationalist party, so perhaps Denmark’s endorsement doesn’t mean what it once did.
Regular readers know that I recommend Kenneth M Pollack’s book on our ongoing problems with Iraq, The Threatening Storm. Josh Marshall, upon whose recommendation I picked up the book in the first place, is running a two part interview with Pollack.
Maybe you should get up and walk around.
When your correspondent gets abducted and then released by Colombian paramilitary forces, you get first shot at the interview.
I didn’t watch the State of the Union address last night because frankly I can’t stand to watch President Bush give a speech. In hopes of getting an idea what was said, here’s a roundup of State of the Union articles:
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Two ships passing in the night
I read with interest today the exchange between Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) and Judge William Young, who presided over his case. Reid explained that he was at war with America because we want to destroy Islam (a ludicrous claim), and Young replied that Reid hates America because he hates freedom (also kind of silly when you read what Reid actually said).