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.

Guiliani

From today's DN! broadcast:

Back in the United States, Republican Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani is facing new questions over hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable billing expenses during his time as mayor of New York City. The Politico newspaper is reporting Giuliani billed several obscure agencies for costs related to his visits to the Hamptons where he began his affair with future wife Judith Nathan. Hotel, gas and other expenses were charged to city agencies tasked with aiding the disabled, providing public defenders and regulating loft apartments. Giuliani’s campaign denies he tried to hide the expenses.

I like how the issue that was brought up was whether he denied trying to hide the expenses rather than the fact that he actually had an affair...

If You're Sick...

Then stay home. Don't think you're a hero and come into work and get everyone else sick.

A thought...

Hmmm lets see. Some of the top headlines from CNN the past couple days have been Kanye West's mom, Natallee Holloway, the divorce of Hulk Hogan, and the death of Sean Taylor, yet 1 week ago 3000 people died in Bangladesh in a cyclone that is no longer in the news. 34,500 people were injured and 1,180 are missing. And what about the people who a couple weeks ago lost all their belongings to the wildfires in California? I really find it interesting to see how much of an outpouring of support and sorrow people show for celebrities in America.

Various things...

A bit of a collection of thoughts/articles in this post: An interesting, but short article. Another unrelated but also interesting article. I'd really like try one of these. A friend sent me this and I think his message is important:

Morality Quiz

Interesting quiz. Kinda reminds me of the scenario I made up in one of my first posts. Think about it.

News

Ok so I am really fed up with mainstream media. This morning on the radio all I heard about was how busy the travel season is this year. Radio program was giving advice...give yourself extra travel time when going to the airport, follow TSA guidelines. Come on. This is news??????? For a full 30 minutes the radio program was interviewing people about their holiday travel plans. WHO CARES. That is not news. After the 30 minutes the first "news" story was to tell us that the Hollywood writers strike is still on. Thanks. First of all people don't want to talk about the real issues so they talk about holiday travel plans. Then, once that gets old they talk about entertainment news. Do you think that Americans after all the reruns start showing now that the writers are on strike will actually pick up a book and READ?

Start by listening to DN! and reading THIS.