Walking it toward the stupid

Academically Adrift?

 College Kids Learnin' Not So Hot

What happens when you fail to invest in education (and no, I don't mean investment in excessive layers of school administration), the most important single item in our nation's success or failure? You end up with this result:

An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn't learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.

Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn't determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin. [...]

Forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, according to the study. After four years, 36 percent showed no significant gains in these so-called "higher order" thinking skills. Read more: link

 OK. So you haven't tortured yourself enough. From InsideHigherEd dot com we have this review of a book being published by the Univ. of Chicago Press: Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa.

<snip>

• 45 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" during the first two years of college.

• 36 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" over four years of college. 

• Those students who do show improvements tend to show only modest improvements. Students improved on average only 0.18 standard deviations over the first two years of college and 0.47 over four years. What this means is that a student who entered college in the 50th percentile of students in his or her cohort would move up to the 68th percentile four years later -- but that's the 68th percentile of a new group of freshmen who haven't experienced any college learning.

360 degree video

Jeebus: The perfect conservative

 Herman - over there at RedState - has news for you:

He led without a mandate. He taught without a script. His common sense parables filled people with promise and compassion, His words forever inspiring.
[....]
The liberal court found Him guilty of false offences and sentenced Him to death, all because He changed the hearts and minds of men with an army of 12.

His death reset the clock of time.

Never before and not since has there ever been such a perfect conservative.

Overheard on the Twitter

MOM:	I’m on twitter now. I tweet all day!
MOM:	ooo laaa laaa, JLO is making chicken parm tonight. mmmm
ME:	I hope this is a joke.
MOM:	twitter me! everyone is following me everywhere

LOL - chicken parm.

No presents this year, I guess

Germans have some issues

The genesis of the Scheisse fetish.

You know that song spinning around in your brain - but you can't remember what it is?

Move the mystery song from your head to your MP3. Finally!

<via Consumerist>

Back when - before the earth cooled - it used to be the job of radio DJs and Sam Goody employees to translate your pathetic humming and insipid descriptions of songs you like into genuine song titles, as well as the tunes' artists and albums.

Technology has teamed with capitalism to make it easy to discover the songs that drive you crazy by playing on repeat in your brain. Digital Inspiration runs down cheap and free methods to track down your lost tunes:

*Mobile apps on cell phones - Download Shazam, which will listen to a few seconds of a song on the radio, identify it and show you a prompt to buy it.

*Search engines - If you know a few words of the lyrics, you can type them in on a computer and find the song within seconds.

*Humming - Midomi doesn't even need the genuine article or any lyrics to track down songs. Just hum part of the song and the site will pull up suggestions of possible matches.

What's your favorite way to unmask mystery music?
Find the Song Name Without Knowing the Lyrics [Digital Inspiration]

This Christmas, give someone the gift of your impeccible honesty

Say it !!

Hijinks at Barney & Hobo

Today on one of my rare visits to a Barnes & Noble megastore, I was compelled to do my good deed for the day. Spotting the brand new George W. Bush memoir on 'New Arrivals' table, I thought it would be helpful to the B&N staff to put a few copies out in their rightful section. Being a professional, this seemed like an easy task.

Well. That's not right. It may be fiction but there's nothing religious about it.

 I thought this would be easy, but I can't leave him here. Recovery what? Nobody I know has yet to recover from 8 years of The Decider. Let's try...

 Yeah. It's like a metaphor. But this is serious work and we must be accurate how we shelve crap like this.

Hmmm. Getting close. One more swing around the grand concourse and...

Bingo! I have a Bingo!! Now he's right at home.

Pig-in-a-blanket Baby Jeebus!

Two weeks until we celebrate the Baby Jeebus. Time to get some decorations up. This pork inspired work of art would make a fine Nativity Diorama in the corner of my Great Room that is reserved for shrines and junk.

Would you like to hear ALL of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits played at one time?

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa

Metal Music. The INTERACTIVE Map You've Waited For

Don't ask a bunch of questions. Just click the link. You'll be busy for a few days.

Map of Metal

The glorious profane insults of the world

What are your favorite culturally untranslateable phrases? <Via Boing Boing>

* The Dutch phrase for giving too much attention to insignificant details is "ant fucking".
 

* Afrikaans: "Jou mammie naai vir bakstene om jou sissie se hoerhuis te bou Vieslik!" your mother engages in prostitution in order to raise funds for the building materials necessary to construct a brothel from which your sister will operate.

* German: "backpfeifengesicht" - a face in need of slapping

* Finnish: "Kyrpä otsassa" - a vulgar way to say you're incredibly annoyed. It means that you have a dick in your forehead (should be visualized as hanging forward, rather than actually in your forehead, for some reason).

* Finnish: "pilkunnussija" - a comma fucker; someone who corrects little or meaningless things.

* Spanish: "Está tratando de cagar mas alto de lo que le da el culo" - He's trying to shit higher than his ass can reach.

LOL: Boing Boing gets pwnd

We have a winner!

 The 2010 'Bad Sex in Fiction' award goes to The Shape of Her by Rowan Somerville.

The books that Somerville beat at being the worst are here. More bad sex scenes from The Shape of Her can be savored at The Guardian. 

They also raise a great question over there at the Guardian: Why is there not a good sex in fiction award? Rather than just snickering at embarrassing efforts like this, sexy, literate love scenes should be rewarded, too, no?

Read a very NSFW excerpt from The Shape of Her below the fold.

Presidential biographer drops the F-bomb on the teevee...calls Americans lazy, obese

It's all about the stupid. <Via Politico - the portal we love to hate>

On CBS's "Face the Nation," host Bob Schieffer, anchoring an authors roundtable discussion with the likes of Bob Woodward and Arianna Huffington, kept engaging the panelists in discussion about how America’s Founding Fathers would have felt about today’s political climate.

 “What would Teddy Roosevelt think of today’s politics, Edmund?” 

 “You keep asking these presentist questions,” said the Kenyan-born, British-accented historian. “As the immortal Marisa Tomei said in 'My Cousin Vinny,' ‘That’s a f----- up question!'” Morris said, relishing over the word as network censors bleeped him out. 

 “You cannot pluck people out of the past and expect them to comment on what’s happening today,” he continued. “I can only say that what he represented in his time is what we hope for in our presidents now, what we look for in our presidents now and what we’re increasingly disappointed by. He understood foreign culture, recognized the dignity of the United States. He was forceful yet dignified. And what I really feel these days is, we’ve become such an insular people.”

 Morris went on to criticize the American people, who he said “are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.”

Then and now

 

Click to embiggen 

Here's a cool idea: Classify 'happiness' as a psychiatric disorder!

In 1992, psychiatrist Richard Bentall wrote an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics proposing that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder.

It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type. In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains--that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.

<Link>