Is it ever going to be enough?

Sometimes I arrive early to my math class and watch the previous class' teacher answer individual questions after his lecture. Today he asked me what my class was covering. He was concerned to learn we were further behind than his class.

Counting Fish, the news story

"Fish as Good as College Students in Numbers Test" titles an article from National Geographic. The subtitle claiming fish count to 100 aroused skepticism in me.
There has been some discussion on the accuracy of science journalism. I address that here due to the amount of time I already dumped into this current investigation.

Of many, an initial curiosity relates the claims in the article to the actual findings and conclusion of the original scientific study. This tiny query, diligently pursued, led to a reasonable chronology of the story: do fish count?





Chronology

Quantity discrimination in female mosquitofish.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16868736

Fish can count to four--but no higher
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3326801/Fish-can-count-to-four-but-no-higher.html

Do fish count? Spontaneous discrimination of quantity in female mosquitofish.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18247068

Use of Numbers by Fish
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004786

Fish Can Count, Study Finds
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090331-fish-count.html

Unnatural Numb3r
http://dev.catalyst.rice.edu/archives/64

Can angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) count? Discrimination between different shoal sizes follows Weber’s law
http://www.springerlink.com/content/y142p56517048k76/

Ontogeny of Numerical Abilities in Fish
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0015516

Large Number Discrimination by Mosquitofish
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0015232

Fish as Good as College Students in Numbers Test
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110107-fish-count-numbers-humans-animals-science/

Riz Khan - Pakistan's violent frontier

This video focusing on Pakistan brings up some interesting questions.

Imtiaz Gul, an academic and author from Urban Pakistan fears going in to the rural parts of the country. Syed Mohd Tariq Pirzada claims FATA did not become a hub of terrorism until the Pakistani government signed itself on to US foreign policy.
This to me is an obvious example of the ongoing battle between nationalism and regional self-determination. While in my country the question was essentially decided in with the closing of the Civil War, there are many places where the question is still being debated, both with politics and with war.
Taleban in Afghanistan, and Ba'ath in Iraq were obviously, given the overall breakdown of "control" in those countries, loose national institutions developed over decades. Rough and weak balances that were as much cultural as "political". Most participants in military opposition to western interests were not fighters prior to US invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistant.
It seems that in Pakistan, as Imtiaz Gul alludes, the national government has been forcible imposed on FATA, where many people feel disenfranchised, and join Al Qaueda as a form of honoring and standing up for their attachment to their own culture and demands for self determintation.
Like in my previous article the obvious distinction between the two "sides" are more cultural than intellectual. But those differences will inevitably influence the perspective of westerners. (Although this distinction between the rural world and the urban world are pronounced in almost every country on the planet.)
Syed Mohd Tariq Pirzada later reminds us that the Bush administration, much as Obama's Clinton-dog barks at Iran, demonized Pakistan, and paved the road for forcing them to both participate in, and be the victims of US foreign policy. It was under Bush that the US began violating that country's borders.

[How many years before national borders are erased, instead replaced with a new international order where (as the US does now) it would instead legislate at an international level the overpowering and "controlling" of anyone standing in their way.]

The video closes with Riz bringing up the drone attacks on the border of Pakistan, which I alluded to earlier.

Inside Iraq - Iraq parliament's first session

Even my beloved Al Jazeera suffers many of the shortcomings of Western media. However I enjoy getting exposed to inside perspectives from Iraqi politicians discussing the future of Iraq. It's amazing to see even in that country to obvious differences in presentation from the Mainstream toward the opposition. The pro-US pro-occupation representative is well spoken, with very good command of English. The opposition is less presentable, and thus will probably come off for most people as probably irrational.
The Alliance representative even makes obviously hyperbolic claims, asserting the opposition is attempting to create a government on its own. My understanding of IRaqi politics is limited but I doubt the Kurds are any less radical than the opposition. But what is the National Alliance offering them? and does they understand what they're doing?
The opposition seems to want discourse rather than expediency. The Alliance representative says upfront that all they need is 4 more MPs to form a government and select a Prime Minister. He claims wanting the opposition to assist them in forming the government, but I heed greatly the words of the opposition representative, warning about unrealistic optimism of the new modern majority bloc.

rather encouraging

In response to this Miami Herald article, two users have already mentioned that said article contains little if no information about the subject in question, revisions to Miami 21.

Glad to not be the only show in town laughing at idiot journalism.

On Freedom

Google is leaving China.
This makes me sad. The poor chinese. Now their next best alternative is a company that is in cahoots with the government.

so you know i'm not dead

in my city of north miami beach, and actually down the street from me, a new charter school will go.
I could look it up now to make the argument seem reasonable, but instead try this on for size.

Have you heard about the charter schools in dade county being closed down due to inability to turn a profit?
Many details are lacking here, with no clear explanation of who will pay to build the school, it seems that the City of Now More Beautiful will only donate land for the project? Who knows, thanks for trying herald!

Other curiosities:
what sort of presentation did Mater Academy make to the council? How long has the council and the Academy been in dealings over this issue?
Is Mater Academy only operating the school? Who is funding its construction? and then afterwards?

From my understanding charter schools use government money, but run their schools like businesses instead of monopolies. Or that's the fantasy of it.

What's a charter school? Who knows!