December 10, 2025Dec 10 I was warned about quicksand in my youth: TV shows, movies, Saturday morning cartoons... But I never encountered it once in all my years of travel. It turns out quicksand does exist!
December 11, 2025Dec 11 Author @vikas83 This one popped up in my FB feed. 1995 on the way to the State championship. Do you recognize this dude? I was curious so I searched and found a vid on YouTube of the end of the final. Nutty ending.
December 11, 2025Dec 11 2 hours ago, DrPhilly said:@vikas83 This one popped up in my FB feed. 1995 on the way to the State championship. Do you recognize this dude? I was curious so I searched and found a vid on YouTube of the end of the final. Nutty ending.LOL - I was class of 1996. Knew John a little, but Alex who hit the buzzer beater at the state final was in my class. I was at the state final - insane ending.
December 11, 2025Dec 11 Author 10 minutes ago, vikas83 said:LOL - I was class of 1996. Knew John a little, but Alex who hit the buzzer beater at the state final was in my class. I was at the state final - insane ending.No idea how that prayer went in. The W Penn players must have been devastated.
December 11, 2025Dec 11 3 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:No idea how that prayer went in. The W Penn players must have been devastated.It was the only time in 4 years I thought "maybe Catholics have it right."
January 5Jan 5 Found this interesting.COMMENTARY HIGHER EDUCATIONAffluent students are gaming the disability system for advantagesAmerica’s future elite appear to be increasingly fragile.Washington Post Editorial BoardAmerica’s top universities are training grounds for the country’s elite – producing a disproportionate number of stars in politics, business, academia, medicine and more. Yet a startling trend has emerged in recent years: Increasing numbers of students at these schools are claiming disabilities. The trend is more than a little suspicious.In 2014, three percent of Harvard undergraduates received special disability accommodations. By 2024, it was 21%, according to the student paper.A similar share of undergrads at Yale, Brown, Cornell and the University of Chicago also now claim to be disabled.Stanford is illustrative. In the 2012-2013 school year, 1,570 students registered a disability with the Office of Accessible Education. Less than a decade later, in 2020-2021, that number had risen to 3,672 — 24% of undergraduates and 18% of graduate students. This year, 38% of undergrads are registering disabilities with the university and 24% have received accommodations in housing or academics as a result, according to a recent media report.COLOR US SKEPTICALSuch disabilities include traditionally understood definitions of the word: difficulty with mobility, vision, hearing and speech, along with chronic illnesses. Yet the rapid increase has been driven by students claiming mental or emotional conditions, such as anxiety around deadlines or difficulty concentrating.Why are disability accommodations exploding at elite schools while the rate at community colleges, where one would expect to see the most disabled students, has remained stable? Affluent students are registering disability designations that entitle them to significant advantages, from single dorm rooms and deadline extensions to laptops in no-laptop classes and extra time on tests. For kids who don’t need them, these perks become a crutch that hobbles their intellectual growth. Coursework is supposed to be challenging.We confess, we’re skeptical that a quarter of Stanford students — median SAT score 1540 — are unable to handle college without a bevy of special exceptions to the rules that apply to everyone else. A more reasonable explanation is that the new diagnoses are a result of "concept creep”: criteria have been progressively relaxed to the point where society now pathologizes normal human variation, or what used to be called "strengths and weaknesses.”UNDERMINING MERITOCRACYThe accommodations are often ad hoc. No one believes schools shouldn’t offer real disability-specific fixes like wheelchair ramps and braille books. But everyone benefits from having extra time on tests or a quiet single room in which to study. It makes more sense to give the most privileged students exemptions, on the grounds that they are bad at solving problems quickly and under pressure.It’s not fair to other students, and because it’s so obviously unfair, it encourages them to get their own diagnosis. This undermines the meritocracy and deepens resentments. It also means more graduates are unprepared to join the workforce.Unfortunately, federal law has made it hard for schools to contain the increase. In 2008, Congress overly broadened the definition of what counted as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.Disability policy used to aim for reasonable trade-offs. Decades ago, the Educational Testing Service flagged the standardized test scores of students who took tests under non-standard conditions, such as separate rooms or extra time, with an asterisk. While students whose scores came with an asterisk understandably worried schools might discriminate against them, that worry was also what kept non-disabled students from gaming the system.Decades of well-meaning but poorly conceived policy changes have eliminated the asterisk. It’s time to bring back those disincentives — or else just declare everyone disabled and give up on having any rules at all.
January 6Jan 6 On 12/28/2025 at 6:11 AM, DrPhilly said:RIPI bet you still remember where you were at the day she was born.
January 6Jan 6 6 hours ago, toolg said:A mentally ill person vandalized JD Vance's Cincinnati home.Uh oh, sounds like it was JD Vance's gay lover! Am I doing it right?
January 17Jan 17 A billionaire sports and real estate magnate has quietly completed the largest private land purchase in the United States in more than a decade — propelling him past other moguls to the top of the nation’s private landownership rankings.Stan Kroenke — who owns the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and England’s Premier League club Arsenal — purchased more than 937,000 acres of ranchland in New Mexico in a major off-market deal for property once owned by the heirs of Teledyne founder Dr. Henry Singleton, The Land Report first reported.
January 17Jan 17 Author 5 minutes ago, lynched1 said:A billionaire sports and real estate magnate has quietly completed the largest private land purchase in the United States in more than a decade — propelling him past other moguls to the top of the nation’s private landownership rankings.Stan Kroenke — who owns the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and England’s Premier League club Arsenal — purchased more than 937,000 acres of ranchland in New Mexico in a major off-market deal for property once owned by the heirs of Teledyne founder Dr. Henry Singleton, The Land Report first reported.That's where the camps will be built
January 17Jan 17 Just now, DrPhilly said:That's where the camps will be builtThats a good one, I like it.Head to bluesky with that, quick. You could be a hit with that.Edit:Lean into private prisons.
January 17Jan 17 Author Just now, lynched1 said:Thats a good one, I like it.Head to bluesky with that, quick. You could be a hit with that.What's bluesky? btw - You could probably get a job there.
January 17Jan 17 Just now, DrPhilly said:What's bluesky? btw - You could probably get a job there.Im certain there's a conflict
January 17Jan 17 Author Just now, lynched1 said:Im certain there's a conflictYou mean they won't let you drink 20 beers a day?
January 17Jan 17 3 hours ago, DrPhilly said:You mean they won't let you drink 20 beers a day?I don't imagine they'd care one way or another considering some of their.......lifestyle choices.
January 27Jan 27 Author ICE agents heading to Milan for the Olympics. Doesn’t seem like a well thought out move to me.
January 27Jan 27 1 hour ago, DrPhilly said:ICE agents heading to Milan for the Olympics. Doesn’t seem like a well thought out move to me.are we going to try and annex Italy next?
January 27Jan 27 13 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:are we going to try and annex Italy next?About time. Too many Sicilians. Clifford Worley!
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