The News Thread

[rms]

Thought Maher was trying to help Bernie here and he didn't do much.

 

[Dak]

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/sep/29/majority-of-world-children-in-school-so-why-arent-they-learning

If you want to find a child who lacks education today, the place to find them is in school. That’s because nearly all children are in school. That’s the good news. Governments have built schools and hired teachers. Parents have seen that schooling is key to their child’s future and are sending their children to school. There has been more progress made in expanding schooling since the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 acknowledged education as a basic right than in all previous human history.

Five steps to achieving the goal of educating every child in the world
Pauline Rose and Benjamin Alcott
Read more
But the bad news is that hundreds of millions of children are starting school, going day after day, year after year, but not really learning. One study found that almost three-quarters of a recent cohort of youth in Zambia were innumerate and six of 10 illiterate. But only 7% of these youth had not attended school. In fact, half of those who were innumerate and a third who were illiterate had not just started school but completed grade 6. These children were being schooled but not educated. Schooling without learning is just time served. Unfortunately, Zambia is far from alone in having schooling without adequate education.

Not a bug, a feature.

 

[Dak]

@Krig

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Did ole bernie just say that the US has the highest child poverty rate?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

If one considers the entire world to be the US, Canada, and Western/Northern Europe, it's plausible.

 

[Dak]

Theres a particular UNICEF apples and oranges study from a couple of years ago that puts the US behind basically all the Euro countries.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...pare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/

I don't see how that even measures child poverty. 50% of the national median household income is a relative term; for example, apparently that means $21,500 per year in the USA, and $12,500 in Ireland. I'm going to assume that the cost of living in Ireland is at least as high as that in the USA (probably higher), so shouldn't actual household income relative to cost of living be the important thing? Of course, these studies also neglect that poor minority groups generally have disproportionately more children. Maybe with the Syrian refugee crisis we'll start to see Europe plummet by these arbitrary figures.

EDIT: Wait, I only looked at the first figure. I guess they factored that in better in 1b, where they show Ireland actually does fare poorly when compared to the poverty rate rather than median income. The rest still holds though.

 

[Dak]

Exactly. They even clearly state it in the report that each country is relative to itself - there's no equalized benchmark based on something like PPP. I already went all into this with a Sanders fan on FB so I don't feel like breaking it all down again. It's a very misleading report if you just look at the bar charts.

 

[Dak]

Am I the only one who thinks all these subscription "random stuff" boxes are like, the shark jumping product of mass consumerism?

I'm not talking about things such as beer samplers - you have a single product in different varieties that allows you to sample more broadly than you might able to do in your locale. I mean like the "Loot Crate". Just random shit with a questionable mass market theme.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Is that still a big thing? Like, Woot.com was really popular about a decade ago, and the only reason I even remember their name today is because there's a cardboard box with it near my campus' chemistry stockroom.

 

[Dak]

I see ads for new different ones occasionally, and even in my limited social circles I knew 2 Loot Crate subscribers. Like do you really need more Dr. Who and Groot knickknacks?

 

[Matt]

This Benghazi thing is getting ridiculous. The Republicans on the committee are just making themselves look terrible while making Hillary look presidential. lol

 

[Dak]

making Hillary look presidential. lol

I wouldn't go that far. Bottom line is those dudes were left to die because they were probably doing some shit that wasn't supposed to be talked about. Dead men tell no tales. Hillary is just doing her job in keeping her mouth shut.

 

[Matt]

Have any evidence for that? The idea that there wasn't anything they could do honestly seems extremely logical. Those consulates just sit there with a small group of marines and that's it.

And I say presidential because she sat there for 12 hours, precisely reciting tons of information off the top of her head and maintaining composure while fools like Gowdy and Jordan had a fit.

 

[Dak]

Have any evidence for that? The idea that there wasn't anything they could do honestly seems extremely logical.

Well it's certainly possible by the time the place was stormed there was no chopper in range or whatever. That's besides the point. For real embassies et al, when there's even a hint of problem they start taking people out. Being a little more worldly minded and surveying the totality of the situation in Libya at that time would lead one to believe the work going on in that place and time wasn't exactly "kosher". I mean, there was no legitimate reason to have had anything to do with Libya to begin with (just like every other place in the ME the US has been).

And I say presidential because she sat there for 12 hours, precisely reciting tons of information off the top of her head and maintaining composure while fools like Gowdy and Jordan had a fit.

No one ever said Hillary couldn't memorize and regurgitate. I think that's been a regular knock on her actually.

 

[CiG]

She deserves to become president as much as pretty much anybody else running right now, that's the sad part.

 

[Dak]

http://qz.com/532103/bitcoin-is-a-currency-the-eu-admits/

When it comes to bitcoin, Europe’s highest court and the US’s major tax agency don’t agree on exactly what it is.
In a decision last week, Europe’s Court of Justice effectively decided that bitcoin is a currency, and therefore transactions in which bitcoins are exchanged for other currencies are exempt from value-added taxes. All exchanges relating to bank notes, coins and currencies are exempt from value-added taxes under European law. (Full judgement is available here.)
In laymans terms, the EU’s highest court thinks that virtual currencies like bitcoin are essentially the same as other currencies.

This is pretty big.

 

[rms]

Why would the EU want to establish bitcoin as a "real" currency? Does the article go into it?

 

[Matt]

Clinton is the only real candidate in the race. And she's gonna win by a wide margin, especially if she is smart about her pick for VP.

 

[CiG]

Real in what sense?