Olympics 2004

I've been so busy, I haven't had time to comment on the Olympics on this blog!

1)Iranian judo guy refused to compete with an Israeli because of Israel's human rights violations against Palestinians. Hey, Mr Iranian judo guy, look in the mirror! It's Iran that has one of the worst human rights record in the world! You don't see the USA chickening out of competing with China, Iran, Cuba or anyone else

2) Congrats to local boy Brian Clay for his silver medal in the decathlon. He is a Hawaii boy of multi-racial heritage (part black/part Japanese) so the mixed race folks have another athletic role model in addition to Tiger Woods.

3)with the gold medal win, there might be a professional softball league for the women in the USA soon. Though I think they should start small and grow gradually. The Major Leagues didn't get to where they are overnight! The expectation of overnight growth has hurt WNBA and the women's soccer league! They should've started in smaller stadiums, and gradually graduate to bigger stadiums once interest increase.

4) The biggest individual hero of this Olympics might be Michael Phelps the swimmer. He'll be the one with the biggest hype after the Olympics. Will he continue in 2008?

5)The torch will soon go from Athens (the birthplace of the Olympics) to Beijing in 2008. Will Taiwan be playing? Will there a Tibetan athletic hero or will China continue to oppress the Tibetans?

Diseases and Stress

This semester, I am taking a medical sociology class. Today's class, we were going over the history of medical care!

It brought my mind back to an idiotic thing I kept from hearing that anti-immigration fanatic talk show host Mike Savage! Savage blames immigrants from Asia and Latin America for bringing in disease!

But what Savage NEVER addresses is the fact that Europeans brought diseases to the Americas and the Pacific - diseases that ended up killing many natives.

But Savage will ignore all that! To him, diseases are bad only when they kill Euro-Americans. But if they kill non-whites, Mike Savage doesn't give a dam!

Anyways, back to that medical sociology class. The professor said that stress and going through major life changes increases vulnerability to tuberculosis (TB) He mentioned that the Irish immigrants to the US had higher rates of TB than those Irish who remained in Ireland. Same with Asians, Asian immigrants have higher rates of TB than Asians who remain in Asia. Same with Native Americans forced into reservations. The massive lifestyle changes immigrants go through can decrease their immunity to TB!

But Mike Savage will ignore those facts because his anti-immigration hysteria has NOTHING to do with saving anyone from diseases. His anti-immigration hysteria is based on hatred towards non-whites!

Race Card Pimp vs the SATs

Another race card pimp/politically-correct fanatic (Joe Rodriguez) has dumped on the SATs again

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0804/rodriguez1.asp

or

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/columnists/joe_rodriguez/9449551.htm?1c

I sent the following to Joe Rodriguez at jrodriguez@mercurynews.com
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Joe said:

And it won't make much difference today for students in schools like mine. They don't have as many advanced placement classes or experienced teachers. Nor do they have affluent parents who can pay for expensive SAT preparation courses, as they do at privileged schools. Poor schools that can't teach reading and mathematics aren't going to teach writing any better.

Pablo: I got an 1160 on my SATs (good enough for U of Hawaii) without any expensive SAT prep scores. I just borrowed a few prep materials at a public library for FREE! But asking non-whites (which I am) to go to the public library is considered "racist" by race card pimps like Joe Rodriguez. And poor schools that can't teach? Improve them, DUH! Blaming the SATs is just blaming the truth-teller! And Rodriguez cant handle the truth!

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Joe said:

Although the test has its roots in the racist eugenics movement of the early 20th century - they thought Jews and African-Americans were inherently dumb and college-incapable - the supporters of scholastic testing doggedly pursued an exam that would measure how much a student had learned in 12 years

Pablo says: Take your race card and shove it! That statement is as stupid as saying that the game of football is racist just because blacks outnumber Latinos and Asians on USC or UCLA football teams. Or calling football racist just because Polynesians outnumber Asians on the U of Hawaii football team! What next? Or we gonna call the game of basketball "racist" just because blacks outnumber Latinos in the LA Lakers?
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Joe said
A major flaw of today's SAT is that it's vulnerable to coaching and short-term improvements. How can you trust a test that, for the $800 price of a quickie prep course, can produce a gain of 100 points?

Pablo says:

So what next, do we get rid of sports camps just because it helps some kids get recruited by more college sports programs?

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Joe said:

A few years ago, plucky little Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania measured the first-semester grades of freshman with SAT scores of about 1000 against freshmen with 1200 scores or better. The results were virtually identical.

Pablo says: Thomas Sowell data found that those with higher SATs do better in college. He also mentioned that it's true not only in the US, but also in the Phillipines and Indonesia.

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Joe said:
But the absolute, worst assumption of the SAT is that any young person's potential can be reduced to a number

Pablo says:
young athlete's have their performance reduced to a number ALL THE TIME! (seen the sports page lately?) Sometimes, those numbers can make the difference between getting recruited by a NCAA Division 1 program or being ignored even by Division II programs!
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Joe said:
It assumes that, after four years of college, a 900-point student from a poor school cannot catch up to or surpass the 1400-point student from a wealthy school.

Pablo says: The politically incorrect reality is that those with low scores can hardly even keep pace, much less surpass those with higher scores. Sowell's research about the Phillipines found that rural Filipinos with low scores dont do well as urban Filipinos with high scores. The rural Filipinos who do as well as high-scoring urban Filipinos are (gasp) high scoring rural Filipinos, not low scoring rural Filipinos. The results are the same in Indonesia.

But race card pimps like Joe Rodriguez will ignore those facts, because his anti-SAT agenda are not based on facts, but on a politically correct religious faith!