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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Complete Works of Charles Darwin Available Online

The entire works of Charles Darwin, including the original draft of Darwin's theory of evolution, is now freely available online and for free on http://darwin-online.org.uk

Quoted from the site:

They were in parcels each containing small packets of manuscript wrapped in tissue paper on which the subjects had been noted in Darwin's hand. They were presumably just as Darwin left them, and accordingly this arrangement was preserved when they were bound, the volumes now representing as closely as possible Charles Darwin's papers in the order in which he left them. Beside the original papers there were copies of a large number of letters to Darwin, collections of press-cuttings, etc.


(quote) "This is the largest ever publication of Darwin papers and manuscripts, totalling about 20,000 items in nearly 90,000 electronic images.....the papers can be found in three ways:
1. Browse through whole volumes of Darwin's papers . Click here.
2. Search the catalogue for specific items, people, dates etc. Click here.
3. Manuscripts homepage for highlights and typed items. Click here."

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Friday, April 11, 2008

Queen Rania on YouTube: "send me your stereotypes" (updated)

Queen Rania of Jordan launched a YouTube forum, titled "Send Me Your Stereotypes", in order to discuss stereotypes, starting with people's view and perception of the Arab world.



She asks everyone to reply to her on QueenRania's YouTube Channel between now and August 12, where the latter date marks the International Youth Day.

It's now April 11, 2008 and Queen Rania Responds.

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Saturday, April 05, 2008

Beirut To Bosnia : Muslims and the West (Robert Fisk)

3 part documentary by Robert Fisk of the Independent that focuses on Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and Bosnia. It tries to shed the light on why so many Muslims had come to hate the West. Check it out.

Episode 1: The Martyr's Smile




Episode 2: The Road to Palestine




Episode 3: To The Ends of the Earth

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The sick Egyptians (Egyptian chronicles blog)

Zeinobia posts the following health-related statistics for Egyptian people on her Egyptian Chronicles blog:

* 90% of the street children are threatened to carry HIV due to the homosexual practices and drug abuse
* There are 8 Million Egyptians suffering from Hepatitis mainly HCV and HBV "concentrated in Upper Egypt especially Qena"
* There are 6 Million Egyptians suffering from diabetes "I think that this number is smaller than the actual real number"
* There are 10 Million Egyptians suffering from asthma and allergy "Say hello to pollution and black cloud"
* There are 600,000 Egyptians suffering from tuberculosis "Thanks to Shisha"

She states that she collected the numbers from journals and newspapers.

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Friday, April 04, 2008

1975 message from Don Harrold

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third of Americans don't know the Pope (Pew Research)

A Pew Research Center national survey, conducted March 24-29 among 1,001 Americans (3.5% +/- error rate), found that three in ten Americans do not know enough about the Pope to offer their opinions about him. Majority of those surveyed (52%) favor Pope Benedict XVI, and unsurprisingly three-quarters (74%) of the American surveyed that are Catholics (215 out of the 1,001) favor him.

(copied from the site)

Moreover, the study shows that Pope John Paul II was more known and viewed more favorably in the 80s and 90s than Pope Benedict. Additional observations include:
* 45% of those surveyed say that Pope Benedict is conservative, down from 56% last August. 31% of the Catholics surveyed see him more liberal, compared to 22% last August; while 37% of Protestants see him moderate or conservative, compared to 47% last August.
* More Republicans (62%) favor Pope Benedict when compared to Democrats (47% in favor) and Independents (50% in favor).

An interesting observation regarding partisan views of the Pope includes and I'll quote:
Republicans also have more positive evaluations of Pope Benedict's promotion of good relations with other religions. A plurality (46%) of Republicans evaluates him positively on this question. By contrast, Democrats are more evenly divided; 39% say he is doing an excellent or good job, compared with 38% who say he is only doing a fair or poor job. Independents are the most critical of the pope's efforts to foster relations with other religions. Only about third independents (32%) rate his interfaith efforts as excellent or good, while about half (51%) rate them as fair or poor.



picture taken from "Dear Kitty. Some Blog" blog
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Dallas ISD, 44.4% graduation rate. Why?

Dallas metroplex is probably into some serious problems with education. The Dallas Morning News paper reported that a recent study by America's Promise Alliance found Dallas to have had a 44.4 percent graduation rate in 2004, placing Dallas ISD's drop out rate as seventh worst nationwide.


(chart copied from the article)

However, when metrics are calculated district or state-wide, Texas graduation rate is 80.4% for 2005-2006 school year.

District Graduation Rate '06
Arlington 78.7%
Carrollton-FB 82.3%
Dallas 68.8%
Fort Worth 77.2%
Garland 87%
Grand Prairie 71.4%
Irving 80.5%
Lewisville 90.9%
Mesquite 87.6%
Plano 92.3%
Richardson 86.3%
TEXAS 80.4%

(data copied from the article)



The state blames counting methods for such results.(quote) "State officials attributed the huge gap to different methods of computing the graduation and dropout rates, noting that the state implemented a more stringent data reporting formula last year. The new formula showed lower graduation rates of 68.8 percent for Dallas and 80.4 percent for Texas for the 2005-06 school year, the most recent year data are available." However, not everyone agrees that it's a calculation problem. The paper quotes Paul Pottinger, co-director of the Attendance Improvement Management Program at Bryan Adams High School in Dallas,
"It's an epidemic, but we don't treat it like an epidemic..People simply aren't aware of how big the problem is. It's worse than people think. The numbers are understated – well understated. The question is, why have they been understating the numbers for so long when the truth is so obvious?"

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