Check It Out

Got some great links for you today:

The Story of Stuff

Idealist.org

Frontline

The Decline of Morals

No more prevalent than at American NFL games. It really is a shame. Deplorable behavior:

No Game for a Family

Jets Fans

Be Smart

Interested in how kids learn? How you learned when you were younger? Thinking of how to teach and raise children? How about guiding supervisees? Here's a few articles for you:

1) Want to raise smart, successful kids? Research suggests focusing on effort instead of intelligence or ability leads to success:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids&print=true

2) Gladwell has a New Yorker article on IQ tests and the conclusions that can be drawn about the people taking them:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/071217crbo_books_gladwell

3) For the first time since inception, girls had a clean sweep of the Siemens Math, Science and Technology competition:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/nyregion/04siemens.html

Want to get married? Plant some trees. Want to get divorced? Plant some more

A really interesting concept that I like a lot. Think it'll ever happen in the U.S.? Yeah, me either but there's always hope...

Christian Persecution...

...In Iraq. It was not surprising for me to hear the gentleman being interviewed say that Christians in Iraq were better off before the U.S.-led occupation began.

The other interesting story in the CBS 60 Minutes broadcast was the One Laptop Per Child effort. I really like this idea. I did a research report on Negroponte's organization in grad school. I do agree however with one of the men interviewed in the segment that children will need to be taught how to use the laptop and probably cannot learn to effectively utilize the laptop themselves without some sort of instruction.