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Three students were caught cheating on their Math 30 finals. Unsurprising, but I’m interested to see how this story develops. Three seems like a very small number compared to the amount of effort it takes to get a hold of a provincial final exam and then smuggle the answers into the examination room so one can reap the sour rewards of skulduggery.
They will be getting a small penalty, but nothing that will be particularly problematic for their overall academic careers. I’m making the assumption they have plans for further academia as that level of math exam is suitable for gaining entrance to post-secondary education.
“Why cheat” is the real question though. University level math is not going to get any easier, so why do yourself the disservice of prolonging your fated crash and burn in the cheating topic of your choice(only now its you who pay directly for the course)?
Pressure to achieve, increased competition, laziness all probably factored into the calculus these kids worked out regarding their decision to cheat. What would be interesting would be if we could interview these students to determine their reasons for cheating because I believe that our educational system has failed them, to a certain extent, because they got their wrongheaded ideas from somewhere. When do you toss away the moral path and descend into less auspicious choices?
I’ll keep an eye on the story.
Well shall miss your voice Mr. Zinn. Thank you for all you have contributed to history and progress.
Debating the Deluded, but funny. :) Full marks for another great video NonStampCollector. :)
I saw part of this discussion going on at the Drudge Retort in a thread that I sadly cannot remember. Chalk it up to the fire-hose nature of information here on the web. Anyhow, as I was looking at the thread that shall remain unnamed it turned out that a strong possibility for the lowering of the crime rate in the US was the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision based on the following wisdom:
“When a woman does not want to have a child, she usually has a good reason…” – Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J.Dubner in Freakonomics p.138 of the paperback edition. (all further quotes from the same authors).
Amazing what happens when you give women the autonomy that they deserve. But the argument is as follows.
“[…] two factors – childhood poverty and a single parent household-are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future. […] In other words, the very factors that drove millions of American women to have an abortion also seemed to predict that their children, had they been born, would have led unhappy and possibly criminal lives.” – [ibid, 139].
Factor in other sociological factors like the propensity toward of child criminal behaviour in single parent households and the effect of the level of maternal education on children one can conclude that leaving the reproductive choices in the hands of women is the right choice, not only for women, but society as a whole.
“In the early 1990’s, just as the first cohort of children born after Roe vs. Wade was hitting its late teen years-the years during which young men enter their criminal prime- the rate of crime began to fall. What this cohort was missing, of course, were the children who stood the greatest change of becoming criminals. And the crime rate continued to fall as an entire generation came of age minus the children whose mothers had not wanted to bring a child into the world. Legalized abortion led to less unwantedness;unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime.” (emphasis mine). -(ibid 139-140)
So it would seem, abortion is a good thing and a feature of societies with low crime rates. The funny thing is that in the US at the time the remarkable drop in crime was erroneously attributed several memes that received a lot of play in the media.
“Innovative policing strategies, increased reliance on prisons, changes in crack and other drug markets, aging of the population, tougher gun control laws, strong economy, increased number of police, and other (capital punishment, concealed weapons laws, gun buybacks…)” – (ibid 119)
The supply of cocaine greatly increased as well as the number of police officers these two factors did play a role in the decline of crime during the 1990’s. The rest as the authors say:
“The others [options], for the most part, figments of someone’s imagination, self-interest or wishful thinking.” – (ibid, 119)
I imagine this sort of correlation must gall the staunch reactionaries that populate the right wing these days. What? Abortion is Tough on CRIME? *head explodes*
QS makes brillaint videos. Watch now.
It is the unabashed realm of the conservative media to engage in hyperbole about issues that effect things they care about. The whole climategate nonsense is a perfect example of what happens when commentators who, being short on brain but long on wind, get a hold of a story and spin it to meet their own particular agenda.
The hacked emails from CRU seems to be the holy tinfoil jesus for climate change denialists, finally proving that it was all a lie and a hoax. Keep in mind these are some of the people that also believe that a rapture is coming and need to prepare for the coming of their lord and high-douchbag – jebus himself.
Predictably, when actual rational people look into things the picture is much different. The data in question does not contradict the last 30 years of evidence based climatological research. There is no grand conspiracy, no deliberate hoax; just much partisan grandiloquent bloviatation from ignorant people.
Thunderfoot does his usual impeccable job of describing the situation and illustrating how thick the tinfoil is for some people. Enjoy the video.
Update: More information on the ‘debate’ here and here.
Second Update June 2010 – The media admits it was wrong and prints a retraction.
I have not been on youtube for awhile. Just look at all the good things I miss. :) Thanks Thunderfoot.
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