tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post2838295278203997562..comments2024-01-03T05:23:36.046-08:00Comments on The Citizens: Bob McDonnell, Pat Robertson and Fake EducationUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-90196521647411242042014-06-21T18:00:22.169-07:002014-06-21T18:00:22.169-07:00Wow that was strange. I just wrote an incredibly l...Wow that was strange. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but <br />after I clicked submit my comment didn't appear. Grrrr...<br /><br />well I'm not writing all that over again. Regardless, just wanted to say fantastic blog!<br /><br /><br />my web site - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUh6Dl19We4" rel="nofollow">carpet sale ottawa</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-42263685348036265562014-06-07T14:57:06.683-07:002014-06-07T14:57:06.683-07:00It's actually a great and useful piece of info...It's actually a great and useful piece of information. I'm glad that you shared this helpful info with us.<br />Please stay us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.<br /><br /><br />Also visit my blog :: <a href="https://Docs.Google.com/document/d/1ARQAacFdQ9rTjA2u7CTgS8csnLXWr1Qe7fKYG6xZlOE" rel="nofollow">world of warplanes gameplay</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-78399251595835536942009-09-03T17:05:39.883-07:002009-09-03T17:05:39.883-07:00From a purely academic/mentoring point of view, Sh...From a purely academic/mentoring point of view, Shel's observation (and my own reading of the thesis) leads me to think that this student (now Gubernatorial candidate) is unclear in his own mind about what the research question and argument of the thesis actually is. Again, this is more reason to question the overall quality of the program in question.Raised By Republicanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03461006522141969925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-29616197484929831492009-09-03T14:02:52.811-07:002009-09-03T14:02:52.811-07:00Appendix B has 2 lists for Character education. Th...Appendix B has 2 lists for Character education. The first comes from a survey that "asked business leaders what skills leads to job success."<br />Followed by a 13 point list.<br />The one I like best is #13 Understand Required Mathematics.<br /><br />This is followed by a 15 point list "This is Freedom's Code" from the American Institute for Character Enducation. As written, they're as non-controversial as mom and apple pie. The slightly unusual ones are<br />12. Understand citizen obligations 13. Fulfill citizen obligations creditably.<br />14. Stand for Truth<br />15. Defend freedom's human rights.<br /><br />Hey, wait a second, I think this list is cribbed from a Komsomol manual.<br /><br />I haven't tracked down where Appenidx B is referred to in the paper. But it's just weird and bizarre that a whole page of the thesis would be taken up with this.Shelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-44239882921495659282009-09-01T17:14:51.205-07:002009-09-01T17:14:51.205-07:00I believe that McDonnell is saying stuff like &quo...I believe that McDonnell is saying stuff like "My opinions have evolved since then" and stuff. But since one of the things he says is that social conservatives should conceal their true policy preferences to get elected, I don't think people are going to buy that all that easily.Raised By Republicanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03461006522141969925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-46277624596284332392009-09-01T17:11:58.810-07:002009-09-01T17:11:58.810-07:00Dr. S has explained my intent, exactly. :-)Dr. S has explained my intent, exactly. :-)Raised By Republicanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03461006522141969925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-33160554918446401772009-09-01T17:04:26.447-07:002009-09-01T17:04:26.447-07:00LTG, you misunderstood RbR's remark entirely! ...LTG, you misunderstood RbR's remark entirely! RbR laments that McDonnell was not required to write a thesis for his law degree--for if he had, RbR is certain it would have been pathetic and therefore you (as the resident expert lawyer on this blog) could have shredded it to pieces. It is actually a compliment to you... RbR implies that you write high-quality academic legal papers and thus you could easily tear apart any poorly written legal thesis.Dr. Strangelovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14407042105777411150noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-75483725627218678972009-09-01T14:13:34.187-07:002009-09-01T14:13:34.187-07:00What I wonder about is whether Mr. McDonnell has a...What I wonder about is whether Mr. McDonnell has apologized. I would not like to be held responsible for things I wrote when in college. Some was good. A lot was probably total crap. That's what happens when you're 20. But you see, I would disavow it. When I was a child, I spake as a child...<br /><br />If he disavows it, that's fine. Of course he won't. He still believes it, no doubt. And he probably cannot imagine why it is not scholarship.The Law Talking Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17886791396468512490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-19518424007577483072009-09-01T14:10:47.610-07:002009-09-01T14:10:47.610-07:00I'm a little disappointed by RBR's implica...I'm a little disappointed by RBR's implication that if I had written a thesis for my JD, it would have been a polemic piece of crap. I think that's the implication here about law schools. That is a bit unfair. <br /><br />Most of the "elite" law schools do require a number of papers to be written that involve original legal research, and most will write at least one "note" for a law review along the way. These are rarely empirical works, but they seek to make arguments based on the available law. They should not be pure polemic. But academic law is more akin to philosophy than a social science. Empirical legal research is a part of academic law today, but a fairly small part. And it is (often correctly) criticized for being a poor imitation of economics or social science. There is some really good work in this area, don't get me wrong, but it's not the mainstream of what legal scholars do. In general, legal scholars theorize. That this leads to a great deal of crap is readily conceded, but that is scarcely unique to law.The Law Talking Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17886791396468512490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-10705021267900803832009-09-01T04:51:55.195-07:002009-09-01T04:51:55.195-07:00Check out his citations, Dr. S. They're a jok...Check out his citations, Dr. S. They're a joke. I couldn't find any citation from a major scholarly journal or academic press. Seriously, this is a 90+ page low tech blog entry. For which the author didn't do his homework. <br /><br />But think about this. This guy presents himself as an educated, trained individual. He was awarded both a JD and an MA in public policy from this organization. One does not need to do original research to get a JD so there is no thesis for us to get LTG to shred for us. But if there were such a thesis for the JD, I'd be willing to bet it would be of similarly low quality.<br /><br />The people who are focussing on the ideological content are upset because McDonnell is trying to present himself as a post-Bush, moderate, relatively secular type Republican. This thesis makes him look like a bible thumping wing-nut.Raised By Republicanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03461006522141969925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-47713591116604339592009-09-01T00:43:26.153-07:002009-09-01T00:43:26.153-07:00Nice post! I appreciate that you focused your arg...Nice post! I appreciate that you focused your arguments and I am glad you noted that this kind of academic fraud is not unique to conservative institutions. <br /><br />I read through some of this paper and--wow--it really takes the cake! Even the facts and figures he cites are so misleading (if not outright lies) that an honest professor should have demanded corrections. Here is one whopper from page seven that leaped out at me:<br /><br /><i>"The Internal Revenue Code also wreaked havoc upon the traditional family. Dr. Allan Carlson, president of the Rockford Institute, blames heavy tax growth for giving the financial impetus for pressuring mothers into the workforce. Between 1960 and 1984, a two-parent family with four children saw its federal income tax liability increase 224%, while the social security tax increased 600%."</i><br /><br />First of all, the figures are just wrong. The average percentage of income paid in taxes by the median two-parent, two-child family rose from 7.77% to 10.25% during that tax period--far less than suggested above. Comparing raw unadjusted dollars is crap and everyone knows it.<br /><br />Second, McDonnell has it <i>completely</i> backward. The reason families paid more in taxes in the mid-80s was that women were out bringing in extra income--not the other way around! The <a href="http://tpcprod.urban.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=226" rel="nofollow">median</a> after-tax income for a typical two-parent, two child family rose 36% in <a href="http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm" rel="nofollow">real terms </a> over that period.<br /><br />Finally, what's with using an average <i>four-child</i> family as the standard yardstick here? A quick look at the data <a href="aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators00/F_A_2.PDF" rel="nofollow">evidence</a> indicates the average number of children (in a family with children) has been between two and three for at least the past half-century. And you should be using the <i>median</i> anyway.Dr. Strangelovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14407042105777411150noreply@blogger.com