Friday, October 3, 2008

Checking the Facts

About a month ago, Senator McCain's campaign released an attack ad titled "Education" (watch the ad here) which says on the subject that, "Obama's one accomplishment? Legislation to teach sex education to kindergartners."

It seems pretty improbable, and a few days ago on NPR, Steve Inskeep asked McCain about it's accuracy. The Senator answered,

"It's factually correct. It's absolutely factually correct, and you can go on my Web site and you can see the exact language of the bill that Senator Obama sponsored."

When I saw Senator McCain reiterated this again to the editorial board of the Des Moines Register, I decided I'd take a look at what his site has to say.

As it turns, his site doesn't have the exact language of the bill after all, it's just a press release quoting a Fox News story which in turn quotes a National Review reporter.

"...It says curriculum in, quote, 'Any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV,' end quote. The Obama camp maintains the bill was intended to teach kindergarteners only about inappropriate touching, but Byron York, at the National Review after doing some reporting, writes, quote, 'the "touching" provision did not have the prominence that Team Obama has suggested it had, and certainly wasn't the bill's main purpose.'"

So what does the bill, which Senator Obama did not sponsor by the way, only voted for along party lines, say? I looked it up on factcheck.org,

"It's true that the phrase 'comprehensive sex education' appeared in the bill, but little else in McCain's claim is accurate. The ad refers to a bill Obama supported in the Illinois state Senate to update the sex education curriculum and make it 'medically accurate.' It would have lowered the age at which students would begin what the bill termed 'comprehensive sex education' to include kindergarten. But it mandated the instruction be "age-appropriate" for kindergarteners when addressing topics such as sexually transmitted diseases. The bill also would have granted parents the opportunity to remove their children from the class without question:"

The full article includes the specific provision of the bill and a link if you want to read the entire bill yourself, something you won't find on the McCain website.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Monday, September 15, 2008

Friday, September 12, 2008

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

A rainbow of iPods

I really dig the new iPod Nano design Apple introduced today. They replace the stubby ones from the generation before, which left me scratching my head at their oddly proportioned screen and clickwheel. They just didn't seem up to Apple's usual standard, even the pastel colors (gone from the iPod Shuffles too) didn't quite gel. This has been a sort of theme for Apple, which tends to have trouble keeping quality up when spreading themselves to thinly with a lot of products.

We saw that again recently with the simultaneous launch of the iPhone 3G, 2.0 Software, third-party apps and MobileMe (which still seems to be down as often as up) but this morning's revamping of the entire iPod line along with the most significant redesign of iTunes in years is hopefully a good sign of things to come.

ipod-rainbow.jpg

And speaking of iTunes, the new version includes a feature I've wanted pretty much since they added podcasts: per-podcast download settings. While I want every single episode of many audio shows like Astronomycast, I also subscribe to several audio and video (especially video) podcasts where I only want selected episodes.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Miniature on miniature action

model-mena.jpgI loved this photo Mena posted of the Randall Museum's model railroad a few weeks ago, when she was trying to track down the KFC model.

I ran across the post again saturday while I was cleaning up my bookmarks right after re-reading this Photoshop tutorial on creating a fake scale miniature effect and wondered what would happen if I tried the scale miniature effect on a photo of a miniature.

Would I create a paradox and implode the universe?

model-jamison.jpg

I tweaked the color while I was at it, I like how it turned out.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Milk

Earlier this year, my neighborhood got a retro makeover. For a couple weeks we were living in the Castro District of the 70's (minus the bathhouses though) for a film about Harvey Milk, San Francisco's first openly gay District supervisor.

Now, the trailer is online and it includes a scene I got to be an extra in.

milk2.jpg

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Thursday, August 21, 2008

The New California Academy of Sciences

As a kid, I spent a lot of time at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. The Academy offered free (or maybe it was just discounted) admission in the evenings which made it a frequent destination during the two years my sister spent going through chemotherapy at the nearby UCSF children's hospital.

Thinking back to that still chokes me up, a children's cancer ward is just not a happy place (at some point I think I realized not to ask what happened to my sister's friends in the hospital) no matter how much the staff and families try to make it fun. The Academy provided an escape from that and a peak into just how amazing the natural world could be.

Four years ago, I went back to visit the Academy one last time before the old building was closed and construction of the new Academy began, I still knew my way around 20 years later. Now construction is over and the new Acadamy is a month away from opening.

KQED's program Quest gave a preview this week. I'm looking forward to taking my brother and his kids for a visit.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

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