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Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Paris Hilton
By now, you've probably seen her new "campaign ad". If you haven't, take a moment and watch the video - it's pretty good.
I don't have much to add other than this: I have never found Paris Hilton appealing in any way. But when she starts saying intelligent things about energy policy, all of a sudden, she becomes, well... hot.
Weird.
Posted by Dave at 8:08 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Monday, August 4, 2008
Random Politics
First, I was listening to McCain talk about schools the other day. He claims he wants to (a) allow students to use government funds to attend whatever school they like, and (b) eliminate teacher certification. Now, the vouchers trope is nothing new from the Republicans, but the other bit is new and more than a tad strange.
The rationale McCain gave was that under current certification rules, a rocket scientist wouldn't be able to teach high school physics without taking a few extra college courses. It sounds reasonable enough, until you realize that the whole point of certification is to make sure that you both know the field you are teaching an actually know how to teach. There are plenty of college professors who know their field quite well but who shouldn't be allowed within 500 feet of a lecture hall. Conversely, someone with a teaching certification but no math background also shouldn't be teaching calculus.
That's a good reason why we shouldn't get rid of certification. So why does McCain say he wants to? Two reasons: first, to break the back of the teacher's unions. If anyone can be a teacher, then schools can hire anyone on as a scab if the trained teachers go on strike. The second is a rather obvious sop to the religious right - they're itching to find a way to take their kids out of the public school system and put them into classes where their brand of science, literature, and history are taught. The two obstacles so far have been money and finding qualified teachers; full-ride vouchers and the ability for the average Sunday school teacher to legally instruct middle- and high-school students would solve that problem nicely.
The net result would be a lot of little, ad-hoc private, religious schools run by unqualified people, while the public schools hemorrhage both students and cash. Not generally a good thing, unless you're one of the fringe that wants to dismantle the public school system. Not coincidentally, that's the same fringe that McCain needs to come out and vote for him in the fall if he wants to have any chance of winning.
Also, Barack Obama recently suggested that keeping your tires inflated was a good way to help save gas and keep fuel costs down for people's families. He's absolutely right - it's something I've learned the hard way with my car. But for some reason, the Republicans (who are advocating policies which won't have any positive effect on fuel costs for the average family) are making fun of him for saying it. Go figure.
Posted by Dave at 3:01 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Strings in Scripting Languages
You basically never want to assemble strings piecewise in most scripting languages because each piece you tack on requires the string to be re-copied. But a lot of programs need to read in a file, do some processing on the text, and then maybe do something with that text. If you read in a file character by character or line by line and assemble a string of output in memory, you're asking for trouble.
How much trouble? Find out after the fold.
... Read all of "Strings in Scripting Languages"
Posted by Dave at 6:20 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Facts and Figures
Matt Yglesias has a chart showing what the two major party candidates' tax plans will do to after-tax income levels over the next four years. It's pretty clear that McCain is following in Bush's footsteps regarding taxes, income inequality, etc.
Posted by Dave at 7:27 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
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