Disqus - Latest Comments for kurtd

Re: Kentucky Legislation Allows Discrimination Against Atheists

kurtd — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 12:01:15 -0000

Yeah, that may be the intent, but this law doesn't actually accomplish that. Read the bill. It simply doesn't do it.

Re: Kentucky Legislation Allows Discrimination Against Atheists

kurtd — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 20:04:37 -0000

Ex-federal civil rights lawyer here. Actually, I've read the bill and as far as I can determine it does none of what you say, and in fact fails to do anything at all. It appears that the whole thing, once you get past the definitions, basically says: "If you have a constitutional right not to do a thing, no law shall be construed to require you to do that thing." This is what we, in the law, call "surplusage" because it is ALREADY the case that if you have a constitutional right not to do something, no other law can compel you to do it.

The proponents may THINK that this is creating new rights of freedom of conscience to, for example, not issue a marriage license to a gay couple. But there's nothing in there to actually do that. The whole thing is an exercise in using a bunch of words to accomplish exactly zero.

Re: Meat-Eating Among the Earliest Humans

kurtd — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 23:10:43 -0000

Math error -- the zebra carcass would produce 60,000 calories, not 6,000.

Re: Can you solve the 50 cent maths exam question that is dividing the internet?

kurtd — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 10:33:52 -0000

Exactly! The solution given in the accompanying video demonstration is unnecessarily complicated.

Re: 15 Things You Were Taught In School That Are Total Lies - brainjet.com

kurtd — Thu, 21 May 2015 23:56:20 -0000

While it is true that "humans did not evolve from chimpanzees," but from a common ancestor that lived approximately 6 million years ago, the text under that item goes on to deny that humans "evolved from monkeys." Actually, humans did evolve from monkeys. Here's the deal:

The apes, including humans, emerged from a lineage of the Old World monkeys (catarrhini). The split between the "old world" and "new world" (platyrrhini) monkeys had already occurred. So if "monkey" is regarded as the common-name designation of the clade which includes all modern monkeys, what this tells us is that the creatures at the catarrhini/platyrrhini split were, in fact, monkeys. The LCA of the catarrhini and platyrrhini was a monkey. We are, in fact, descended from ancient monkeys. The point the writer of this piece was perhaps trying to get at is that we are not descended from any MODERN species of monkey, and that of course is true, just as we are not descended from chimpanzees. But we most definitely did "evolve from monkeys."

Re: Who is the British Kevin Bacon?

kurtd — Tue, 05 May 2015 23:31:41 -0000

Bill Nighy. Definitely Bill Nighy.

Re: WATCH: How to Pronounce Difficult U.K. Place Names

kurtd — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 15:31:25 -0000

I visited a town called "Trottiscliffe," in Kent. I was told it's pronounced "Trosley."

Re: How Stupid Not to Have Thought of That! Part 2

kurtd — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 23:02:48 -0000

By the way, not that it affects the general subject of the article, but: 10,000 species out of 1.7 Million is 0.6%, not 0.06% as stated....

Re: Injunction Filed on Behalf of Second Grader Who Wants to Hand Out Candy Canes with Biblical Messages on Them

kurtd — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 00:12:41 -0000

Um, legal-lingo pet peeve here. A party to a lawsuit does not "file an injunction." He files a complaint seeking an injunction, and/or a motion for an injunction. A request for an injunction is not an injunction; it's a request, which the court may grant or refuse.

Re: Scientists: this is Richard III

kurtd — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 20:32:49 -0000

I can't see how DNA testing is going to reveal a darned thing. The relative they're comparing him to is a 17-th generation descendant of his sister, which works out to them sharing something under a billionth of their DNA. Why not compare to samples from the tomb of Edward IV?

Re: Shop Blue Jeans Cable

kurtd — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:48:25 -0000

Kurt from Blue Jeans Cable here...

You said: "Monoprice sells a 1ft HDMI cable for $6.46. Beat that, Blue Jeans Cable!"

Okay. How's $2.40?

http://www.bluejeanscable.c...

Kurt

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:40:33 -0000

Not only is it a little silly, as you point out, to say that people in Ballard bought their homes because of the high school and that Magnolia/QA families didn't do the same--I think it's downright crazy. The fact is that a Magnolia or QA home purchase could just as well have been based upon the convenience of the neighborhood high school--Ballard High--as could a Ballard home purchase. It would have been a wholly reasonable assumption for a home buyer to make that, given that there is only one high school that is not in a horribly inconvenient location for a Magnolia resident, that would be the school to which the kids would get assigned.

I think that the "throwdown" mentality is, unfortunately, not limited to blogland. Ballard parents at the Ballard High School meeting were openly contemptuous toward Magnolia and Queen Anne residents. The one comment at the meeting that it was good for Magnolia and Queen Anne to finally have a neighborhood high school was met with angry jeers.

My observation, so far, has been that while Magnolia/QA residents understand very well why Ballard residents are upset, Ballard residents are frequently (not always, but disturbingly frequently) happy to tell the Magnolia/QA residents to go pound sand and stop asking to be allowed to attend "their" school. There is a sick, disturbing sense of entitlement that has developed in Ballard around the inequities of the existing assignment plan, and this entitlement can be preserved only by continuing to treat Magnolia and QA in a patently unfair manner. It has led to a willingness to endorse those inequities--over at the Ballard site people are saying things such as that Magnolia should go to Franklin or Cleveland, and other such nonsense. It does not make for friendly discourse.

We in Magnolia and QA--at least, the people I know--understand that, on the face of it, it seems wrong not to get to attend your nearest school. We get that. We get that because we have lived it for years. What we also get is that if people who want to attend Ballard High from northern Ballard or from neighborhoods north of 85th are closed out of Ballard, that is the logical result of poor facility planning on the part of the school District that has led to the QA/Magnolia/Ballard cluster having only one high school when it needs two. We have been asking for a high school to fix this problem, but in the meantime, the only equitable solution is to finally let our kids into Ballard High. If that closes some people in the north out who expected to go to Ballard High, that is unfortunate, and in my opinion it's a situation that should be fixed by better facilities planning in the future--but at present, the hardship being caused by sending Magnolia/QA kids all over the place, or that would be caused by sending them to any other school, would be much worse than the inconvenience caused by sending north Ballard and north-of-85th kids to Ingraham.

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:14:03 -0000

Sorry--I guess I wasn't reading very closely.

And yes, Briarcliff...don't get me started, either. Does the School District think that it can sell every decent-sized scrap of land it's ever owned, and then somehow magically make more land someday in the future when it needs more? We need to conserve these spots against future needs. QAHS is a perfect case in point--the old high school location would be the best possible spot to put a new high school, and now the District has made that impossible by building another school on the playfield and selling the main buildings.

Re: Packed house at Ballard school boundary meeting

kurtd — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:26:49 -0000

"Magnolia and Queen Anne have a high school, it is Franklin."

Not under the new plan, they don't. Attendance areas are to be contiguous and that excludes Franklin.

Here's a statement that's every bit as sensible as yours:

"Ballard has a high school; it is Franklin."

Like it or not, Ballard High School IS Magnolia and Queen Anne's neighborhood school. That Magnolia and Queen Anne have been denied equal access to it for decades does not negate the fact.

Re: Packed house at Ballard school boundary meeting

kurtd — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:46:45 -0000

Well, if the only reason that I "had" that great community school was that my school district had a ridiculous assignment plan that treated Ballard like it ought to drop into the sea when it was obvious to everyone concerned that Ballard ought to have access to "my" school, then I'd probably expect that this sort of good deal, where I get privileges while other people who pay the same taxes I do and are entitled to the same benefits I have eat sand, cannot last forever.

But then, that's me. I'm sure that you never thought that the school district would ever stop treating Magnolia and QA unfairly. So there you are, feeling all entitled to "your" school which is every bit as much mine as it is yours. Really--did you think the free ride would last?

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:43:01 -0000

The District--which represents the whole city--sold it. "We," as in "Magnolia and Queen Anne residents," certainly did not. We didn't want to sell it, we didn't sell it, and we didn't get the benefits of the sale. The District should--and, it seems, perhaps will--allow our kids to go to the nearest remaining school.

Re: Packed house at Ballard school assignment meeting

kurtd — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:27:32 -0000

Ballard Curmudgeon: I agree with much, though certainly not all, of what you say. I think that proximity to Garfield for southern QA is a bit of a red herring, because commuting through downtown Seattle is a real burden, especially given that there's excellent bus service from lower QA to Ballard High.

But yes, there should be a Magnolia/QA High School. I grew up in Magnolia and went to Queen Anne High, and I will never understand why the District chose to give up such a perfectly located and irreplaceable property. I think the best hope now is for some sort of large land acquisition in the Interbay area, but I sure don't see any movement on the part of the District toward doing anything about it.

I do have a different recollection of the remarks made at the "workshop" meeting than what you do (if indeed that's your source for the "moving the boundary south of 85th" remark). I don't think that it was said that the Ballard High northern border would be moved south; what I recall is that it was said that populations in the north end were "not well balanced" (whatever that means) and that this would probably result in some changes to the HS boundaries. I don't think Ballard was specifically referenced, and I don't think that there was any indication that any boundary change was expected to specifically move the boundary south of 85th. That's not to say, of course, that that's not what'll happen--who knows?--, but I do think that there was no indication that that specific outcome was expected.

Re: Packed house at Ballard school boundary meeting

kurtd — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:08:29 -0000

Hmmm....I'm betting you're not really from Queen Anne. Sounds like exactly what a shill/troll would say if he wanted people from Queen Anne to look like jerks.

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:38:10 -0000

Bravo! Exactly.

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:16:26 -0000

I don't think it's particularly worth all the fuss apart from the fact that it's the only high school that isn't hideously inconvenient to get to from QA and Magnolia. If your kids can get into the APP program at Garfield, that's probably a better option, but it's quite selective and the neighborhood is still fairly dangerous. Otherwise Seattle high schools are pretty close to six of one, half-dozen of another. Some people like the Center School, but that's pretty much only an option if your kids are planning on a lifetime of chronic unemployment.

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:49:48 -0000

I have not called you names. I have pointed out that your arguments rest upon delusion and hypocrisy.

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:10:18 -0000

Well, as I said: hypocritical and delusional. You think it's your school; it is not your school. It belongs to the District. It was paid for with my tax dollars as well as yours, and it was paid for with the revenue from multiple sources including the sale, by the District, of Queen Anne High School. You have no more right to it than do the residents of Queen Anne and Magnolia. You want to break up our community in the name of community integrity--hypocrisy.

Magnolia and Queen Anne residents: you see? This is what it is like. Now, please, make sure that you write to the staff and to the board and make sure that this sort of shrill and irrational reaction does not wind up guiding the board's final decision.

Re: School attendance area meeting tonight

kurtd — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:31:23 -0000

We did have a school: Queen Anne High School. It's still standing on Galer Street, near the TV towers, but has been converted to condos. The school district closed it in '81 and leased it out to a developer with an option to purchase, which the developer recently exercised, so it is gone forever. This was of course a horribly short-sighted decision on the board's part, but at the time the board had departed very far from the concept of neighborhood schools, and does not seem to have thought that it was important to keep a school here. While there might be a new high school in this area some day, it won't happen any time soon.

I did go to the meeting last night. I think it is fair to say that Magnolia parents should not be complacent; Ballard parents are angry as hell and will continue to raise a fuss. Most of their arguments are hypocritical, delusional or worse--for example, they want to "keep communities together" but want Magnolia and Queen Anne students to continue to be scattered to the winds as they are under the existing plan. They blame us for the closure and sale of Queen Anne High School, when of course it was the District, not the parents of Magnolia and Queen Anne, who closed and sold it. They want to keep short travel distances to schools, but they want our kids to have to travel well past our closest school to every distant corner of the district.

We need to make sure that we get written input to the District. You can write to the staff at newassign@seattleschools.org, and of course send letters to the Board. We need to let them know that we support the plan to finally, after all these years of suffering and uncertainty, give Magnolia and Queen Anne a stable high school assignment.