Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Jervill]

Just a warning, remember that each subsample you go down increases in margin of error quite a bit.  Especially so for small subsamples like Asian (3%).

[misko27]

If recent history is accurate this has been a great thing for Hillary Clinton, and possibly Democrats as a whole in 2016. Voters have repeatedly see-sawed between their two available choices for 6 years now, and there's good reason to believe that will continue in 2016, which is an electoral map that is basically the opposite of this one in every possible way. In addition, with Republicans in Congress, lessons from Bill Clinton's Presidency indicate that they may in fact energize Obama in a way he can't do himself, given the republican majority is now divided between the leadership with it's eye on the 2016 Congressional elections, rising stars with their eye on running for President in 2016, conservatives under the impression that the election results represent the embracing of everything conservatives stand for who want to take the fight to Obama in the loudest way possible, vulnerable blue-state republicans who want to antagonize their states as little as possible, and rank-and-file who resent any and all of the previous categories. Given the one of the main problems for democrats was low turnout, it stands to reason an active republican congress may be an asset rather then an liability.

Other news that is interesting is that, with the success of the "War on Coal" narrative, democrats don't actually have many people left in coal country to attack with it (whereas "War on Women" applies nationally), meaning much less compromise from democrats in the future on the issue. As someone concerned about the environment but unhappy with gridlock, I am not 100% sure how to feel about that.

[SalmonGod]

Teacher resigns with the statement "My profession no longer exists"

[EnigmaticHat]

Teacher resigns with the statement "My profession no longer exists"

He's not wrong.  At least at the pre-college level; I'm not sure what a college teacher would have to complain about but then I'm not going to a particularly conventional college.  A consistent trend of US education reform since Bush has been removing teacher input and freedom in favor of standardization.  Plus increasing student's workloads and adding a bunch of tests, which makes it difficult for teachers to find time for anything other than test preparation.  We're basically moving towards teachers just reading from scripts.

[Reelya]

I was reading about Finland's education system, widely seen as a role model. US educators go over there and observe / ask questions, and the Finnish people are like "you just don't get this at all, do you?". It's the kind of thing that's so alien to US thinking that they might only take a scrap here and there that can bit "fit in" to the existing US school system, and completely miss the point of why those things work so well in Finland.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/finnish-education-chief-we-created-a-school-system-based-on-equality/284427/

[Sheb]

One of the thing that always amused me is that more economically right-wing publications always showcase Sweden as an education model, while left-winger cite Finland. Sweden got pretty good results too, but they have another model, with vouchers school and stuff.

[Reelya]

If you're not tied to any "model" it makes sense to pinpoint Finland. They're #1, that's why they're noteworthy, and they're just beating out South Korea, but the South Korean model of education is basically to chain you to a desk and apply whips. Finland manages equal results without the chains and whips. Those two models are polar opposites and are competing for "best", and the non-chain/whip version is clearly more attractive.

Sweden aren't even in the running, they're just in the middle, the only reason to single them out for praise is sucking an ideological boner. Why not rave about Australia's model? We rank much higher than Sweden.

So it's not a matter of "pick your fancy": the "left wing" (probably moderates actually) media are citing the system with the best results, whereas the right-wing media are citing a mediocre system that happens to match their ideology. This is not an "either/or" question.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Sheb]

Yeah, actually it seems pretty weird, looking at the 2012 PISA results, Sweden is scoring worse than the US. Why on Earth was the Economist praising them?

Funnlily enough, no one wants to emulate the Chinese or Korean and their huge school days, despite the fact that they manage to outperform even the Finns on the 2012 results.

[scriver]

Yeah, actually it seems pretty weird, looking at the 2012 PISA results, Sweden is scoring worse than the US. Why on Earth was the Economist praising them?

Most likely, going by the name, because we had a right wing liberal government and their policies and changes had to be good! Because capitalism!

You know, regardless of research showing that everything has just gotten worse since they got into power.

[Darvi]

Yeah, actually it seems pretty weird, looking at the 2012 PISA results, Sweden is scoring worse than the US. Why on Earth was the Economist praising them?

Most likely, going by the name, because we had a right wing liberal government and their policies and changes had to be good! Because capitalism!

You know, regardless of research showing that everything has just gotten worse since they got into power.

Silly Scrib, that's not how politics work. Things only get worse when the other guys do anything.

[Reelya]

A good one is pro-corporate / libertarian TV personality John Stossel doing videos asking why USA can't copy Singapores "small government" policies. Totally ignoring the fact that the low tax rates are because it's a city state / tax haven and the government owns a 60% stake in all the corporations there.

Plus, they do corporal punishment in the form of canings if you do stuff like forget to flush the toilet. Yeah this "small government" oasis has toilet police who can issue floggings. Reading more, it looks like caning is common in drug rehab centres in Singapore too. Great system, beat the drugs out of them. They also cane you if you overstay your VISA by 90 days.

[mainiac]

I'm glad the conservatives dont look too closely at that.  They might get ideas.

[ggamer]

I'm glad the conservatives dont look too closely at that.  They might get ideas.

yeah, you know us conservatives: always looking for an excuse to let the government beat the shit out of us. Man, those don't tread on me flags are basically just us shit talking anyway

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Yeah, they are. Your sarcasm is entirely misplaced.

[smjjames]

Thread title should be changed because it isn't election night anymore.