DADvocate

Searching the web for something totally different, I came across this little tidbit on gender bias in computer software.

Providing equitable learning experiences for girls and boys is an important educational goal. Studies indicate that a gender gap exists in terms of computer use, competency, and attitudes toward computers (Kirkpatrick & Cuban, 1998; Reinen & Plomp, 1997; Wilson, 1999). For educators, this is a matter of acute concern. Computers competency is a necessary tool in any profession in today's environment. Providing computer based educational experiences that both girls and boys can relate to is vital to address the issue of gender equity (Knupfer, Rust, & Mahoney, 1997; Turkle & Papert, 1990).

....

Building upon the existing research on gender bias, this article begins with the various characteristics in software programs that alienate and marginalize girls' experiences in software programs. Reviews of the current methods of evaluating children's software either capture specific details (type of program or platform) or generic evaluation (ease of use, educational value, or kid appeal) (see Buckleitner, 1999, for a detailed review). This article provides a checklist aimed at a systematic method of evaluating children's software for gender bias. The checklist is pretested among a sample of teachers and provides indications of its utility. The article concludes with the discussion of what needs to be done next to expand on this research.

The article leaves no doubt the sole purpose is to fight against gender bias against girls in computer software. Once again, in an area where boys are out performing girls, the need is seen to "remedy" this situation.

Naturally , this means making all sorts of changes to accommodate the girls. And, naturally, helping boys to perform even better or to advance in areas that girls may out perform girls it completely ignored.

I've never seen a program of any sort aimed at helping boys catch up with girls. Rarely have I seen a program that fights against gender bias against males. Very rarely.

But, we pamper and pander to the "needs" of females on a wholesale basis. The overall affect of this is a huge number of women who expect the world to bend and break to suit them and their desires. They learn they can't compete with men on a level playing field. While men learn to overcome obstacles and tough out situations that the poor little girls aren't capable of tolerating. Plus, our society as a whole retards achievement and success because of fretting about gender bias and such. No wonder so many other countries out perform us educationally.

Yes, the attitude of the helpers hurts more than helps. They're leading us down the path to failure.

Yesterday in Washington, D.C. a union thug displayed is physical prowess and courage by hitting a 5' 1" young woman in a dress. Real touch guy. The woman was videotaping protesters in front of her place of employment.



This happened after U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano speaking at a rally in Boston said it was time to get "bloody." "Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."

Capuano also referred to a vastly outnumbered throng of Tea Party counter-protesters as “a couple of nuts in the background who want to take it all away from you,” waving his hand dismissively in their direction. Throughout the three-hour rally, rank-and-file union members traded heated barbs with the Tea Party backers. Some clashes nearly escalated into violence and resulted in police intervention. In one case, a pro-union rallier spit in the face of one of the counter-protesters, who set up camp near the rally.

Emphasis added.

Gateway Pundit covers some of the violence including the girl hitting incident.

Plus, the bad Jew incident:


And two union thugs trying to intimidate a black man (notice it takes two):


Ann Althouse posted a picture of union protesters wearing "Nazi" duct tape on their backs. They're looking more like brown shirts each day.

Watching gas prices rise almost daily, I decided it is a good time to discuss the accomplishments of the Obama administration's battle for energy independence. Being a fairly well read person who checks the news more than daily, I have no need to delve into researching these accomplishments. I can simply recall much of what I've read on the Internet and seen on cable news. Below is the extensive list.

Worst president ever.

Teachers in Wisconsin are screaming about union busting, and how they're worth every penny, blah, blah, blah. According to this article, the results of they're teaching ain't so good. Two thirds of 8th graders can't read proficiently.

In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009—the latest year available—only 32 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned a “proficient” rating while another 2 percent earned an “advanced” rating. The other 66 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned ratings below “proficient,” including 44 percent who earned a rating of “basic” and 22 percent who earned a rating of “below basic.”

.....

In 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Education, Wisconsin public school eighth graders scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. In 2009, Wisconsin public school eighth graders once again scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. Meanwhile, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil expenditures from $4,956 per pupil in 1998 to 10,791 per pupil in 2008. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator the $4,956 Wisconsin spent per pupil in 1998 dollars equaled $6,546 in 2008 dollars. That means that from 1998 to 2008, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil spending by $4,245 in real terms yet did not add a single point to the reading scores of their eighth graders and still could lift only one-third of their eighth graders to at least a “proficient” level in reading.

The $10,791 that Wisconsin spent per pupil in its public elementary and secondary schools in fiscal year 2008 was more than any other state in the Midwest.

Read the article. Unfortunately, the nearby Midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois don't do so well either. In Minnesota 39% of 8th graders read proficiently, 35% in Nebraska and the others are worse then Wisconsin.

Fire them all and start over. Can you say "vouchers?"

I guess this is part of the new civility, calling blacks "buckwheat" instead" of the n-word. Yesterday, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011, a during a political discussion on Facebook, the below happened.



Absurdly, Hagen is denying he was being racist in using the term "buckwheat."

He said the posting wasn’t racist, and the attack on him is the tea party’s attempt to make him look bad. Hahahahaha! I'm surprised he didn't claim Sarah Palin telepathically controlled his speech.

Hagan said “buckwheat” is a term he’s been using since he was a kid and that it carries no racial connotation for him.

He said he wasn’t aware of the race of any of the people involved in the discussion and that his comment was directed at Manias, not Crowther. Hahahahaha even more! There's lots of people who have used the n-word or "negra" since they were kids. Mostly because they were raised by racist parents. Is that the case with Hagan?

Then he claims he was calling a white person buckwheat. Is that any less racist? If I call a white guy the n-word, that's not less racist. I'm saying the worst thing I can call you is one of the most deprecating insults we give a black man. Which means in my mind the worst insult I can think of is to call you a black person. Racist as hell.

Many of the commenters at the newspaper claim that "buckwheat" isn't racist. I wonder what rock they've been living under the past 50 years. Buckwheat sure was racist when a politician in California referred to Obama as buckwheat.

“I have a history of supporting equal rights and civil rights,” Hagan said. So that, and the fact that Hagan is a Democrat, makes it all OK.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

TMink, commenting at DrHelen, left a link "critical" of the modern American Woman. Although slightly dated (written 9 years ago), the article quite accurately captures what it's like to date an American woman.

My favorite lines:

It was less like a romantic encounter than an extremely tough job interview. By the time the cheque arrived I was surprised they hadn't asked for a urine sample.

.....

When American women complain that there's a shortage of eligible men--and Leah McLaren is no exception--what they mean is there's a shortage of tall, unattached, rich men who still have their own hair.

.....

No man is held to possess any intrinsic value--we're all just the sum of our assets.

.....

Perhaps the biggest difference between English and North American women is that English women just seem to laugh a lot more. Wherever I look in London, I see women throwing their heads back and roaring with laughter; it's like some wonderful, Hogarthian pageant. In New York, by contrast, the women always looked anxious and uptight, their spirits as undernourished as their bodies.

Reminds me of why a Canadian group performed this song.



I believe the women described in the article to be a minority, although not a small minority. I'm sure in New York, where the author experienced American women, the women he describes are more common. In the heartland you'll find more normality.

What's interesting is, at TMink points out, the hesitance to criticize women at all in America. In writing this post, I wonder, with some fear, if I'll be labeled some sort of "pig" by simply posting this and linking to the article. Not that it matters much. I've pretty much sworn off women anyway. It's a shame that our society has come to the point where books, articles, and TV shows routinely shame and criticize men but doing the same to women is taboo.

Jesse Jackson spoke in Madison, WI today. Who knows why he spoke or why they had him speak.

But, all this reminds me of Jackson's last meaningful public statement.

(Embedding has been disabled by youtube.com.)

Thousand of teachers and public employees protested at the statehouse in Columbus, OH against a proposed bill that would "eliminate collective bargaining for public employees in Ohio." I support this bill as cost of government has gone plain ole hog wild with public employee salaries and benefits being a significant part of the problem.

A teacher in Columbus had this to say:

"This Senate bill is going to target the middle class workers, teachers, firefighters, all educators and all union employees," said Melanie Shaffer, a Columbus teacher. "It's a targeted attack."

Actually, the bill should help more middle class workers than it will hurt as it will give tax relief to taxpayers.

According to TeacherPortal.com, Ohio teacher salaries average $50,314. You won't get rich, but you're one person making more the median household income for Ohio of $47,144.

What really got me about Ms. Shaffer was one of her comments not printed in the article but reported on the radio: "We sacrifice our lives for kids in the classroom everyday." This woman is more than just a little bit prone to hyperbole.

Ms. Shaffer isn't sacrificing her life. She's getting paid to do a job. A relatively comfortable job with great benefits including lots of time off. Coal miners, ranchers, farmers, fishermen risk their lives. People in education and health services run an extremely low risk of job related death, 0.7 per 100,000 full-time employees as opposed to agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting workers at 26.0 per 100,000 or mining at 12.7 per and transportation and warehousing workers at 12.1 per. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers run a fatality rate of 57.1 per 100,000.

Sorry, Melanie, you're just a spoiled public employee wanting to be able to strong arm the rest of us into giving you more money whenever you can. Very few of us in the private realm enjoy the benefits you take for granted. Welcome to the real world.

Oh, and save the hysterics. You're not close to risking your life.

Popular Mechanics identifies Daniel Boone as the owner of a muzzle loading rifle designed in 1823. (Via Instapundit.) Daniel Boone died on September 26, 1820.



I guess fact checking is a wide ranging problem in journalism.

Note: Even Wikipedia claims Boone owned a Hawken rifle. Yet, Wikipedia does claim the earliest known Hawken rifle dates to 1823 like PM says. Something is amiss. BTW - Boone was 85 when he died. What are the odds he picked up a new rifle the last 5 years of his life if a Hawken had been made earlier than 1823?

Obama's "tough budget cuts" equal 0.0000020395 of the budget. In other words, essentially nonexistent. For an excellent visual representation of the cuts, look at the chart of the day. Invisible to the naked eye.

From Foxnews:

The family of a Virginia teen suspended for the remainder of the school year for shooting plastic "spitwads" at students in the hallway is targeting the school district's zero-tolerance policy, claiming that it's "criminalizing childish behavior."

Andrew Mikel II, a freshman honor student at Spotsylvania High School who also is active in Junior ROTC, is filling an appeal to be reinstated and have his record cleared after school officials suspended him for using what appeared to be the hollow body of a pen to blow small plastic balls at three students during his lunch period last December.

The 14-year-old initially was hit with a 10-day suspension, but the Spotsylvania County School Board later voted to extend the punishment for the rest of the school year, citing the Student Code of Conduct's requirement that a student found with "any type of weapon, or object used to intimidate, threaten or harm others" be "expelled for a minimum of 365 days" unless "special circumstances exist."

The district also referred the case to the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office, which charged him with three counts of misdemeanor assault.

As result Mikel entered a diversion program – which includes community service and substance abuse and anger management counseling – to avoid prosecution, but his father says his damaged record has shattered his hopes of attending the U.S. Naval Academy after graduation.

pt. Liz Scott Spotsylvania Sherriff's Office says while Mikel's punishment may be controversial, "assault is assault is assault."

"There were three victims that were involved in this, and I think the public needs to remember that," Scott told FoxNews.com.

Scott said those victims, two females and one male, complained of feeling a "pinch" or "sting" when they were hit with the pellets and one even had a welt on her arm as result.

"They were asking him to stop, he replied, 'No.' When they asked him, 'Why are you doing this?' he said, 'because I want to,'" she said.

Citing the school's 'zero tolerance' policy, Assistant Principal Lisa Andruss at a December 21 disciplinary hearing said that Mikel presented a danger and that the boy's behavior was indicative of a trend because he was disciplined in seventh grade for shooting rubber bands with a ruler and suspended for three days in 8th grade for bringing a comb to school that resembled a pocket knife, his father said.

Wow. It's about time the school dealt with this hardened criminal.

What a bunch of idiots. I would have been sent to juvenile and rotted in jail before I left first grade instead of getting through school and eventually earning a master's degree.

How do you make a rational argument with idiots like this? Why should you even try when it's evident they are incapable of behaving rationally or exercising sound judgment? Just another reason home schooling is the best alternative for anyone with the time and ability. With bozos like this teaching our kids, it's no wonder that the U.S. lags so far behind other developed nations in educational achievement.

A lot of people need to grow up. Andrew Mikel II isn't one of them.

At about the 2:25 point in the video below, you will hear Ed Schultz claim "There is now a direct link between what a talk show host says and the action of someone who obviously listened to him." Schultz makes this claim in regards to a threatening fax received by California State Sen. Leland Yee.

Schultz claims the sender is a fan and follower of Rush Limbaugh and that Limbaugh needs to shut up and/or be censored. The only problem is, at this time, no one knows who the sender actually is. Is it a Limbaugh fan? Or, is it an Ed Schultz flunkie creating a fuss for Ed "Fatter than Rush" Schultz to rant about? No one knows, or is saying.

Schultz then goes on to attack freedom of speech, which seems to be the latest target of lefties since they can't win the debate because of impotent, failed ideas.

Watch these guys. They want power to control everything from who can buy a squirt gun to forcing you into their health plan.

Remember, Ed Schultz shared the Air America spotlight with Randi Rhode who promoted shooting Bush on her radio show. Now, he's all upset that Limbaugh mocks the Chinese president.

My youngest son signed a letter of intent to play college football at Georgetown College in Georgetown, KY. The rest of us couldn't be more tickled. Below he has his arm around little sister and the letter of intent is his other hand.



He plans to major in kinesiology. Georgetown offers an excellent program in kinesiolgy which includes opportunities to work with the Cincinnati Bengals NFL football team which has their pre-season training camps at Georgetown College.

Apparently, my son wasn't quite tall enough to get an offer from a NCAA Division I school. (He's only 6' 3.5" and 285 lbs. The big schools seem to want everyone to be 6' 5" or better.) But, he did get some looks from them. I suspect if I had held him back a year in school like too many parents do for strictly for sports reasons, he would have gotten offers. He's still 17 years old and will probably grown some more.

The irony is that his scholarship to Georgetown College is worth more in cash dollars than what any public university in the Commonwealth of Kentucky could offer because of the tuition costs difference. If you measured worth to a football team in dollars, he's worth more than all those D-I guys going to Kentucky state universities.

His grades, 3.5 GPA, and a fairly good 26 on the ACT helped him. BTW - don't kid yourself about the big football schools. When it comes to grades, all they care about is if the kid meets the minimum requirements. After that, grades mean nothing.

Georgetown has some recent NAIA national championships under its belt and 5 All-Americans from this past season. My son and I are extremely excited he has the chance to play there. He plans on being an All-American himself.

Congratulations, Big Guy.