Strikes in Libya

We've been talking about Libya for a couple of weeks now in class and here's the latest:

From the New York Times: Clashes in Libya

Update from today on what's going on in Libya.

Libya: the Fight for Democracy

Here's a short, two-minute video of what's going on in Libya.

Democratic Uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East

Above: Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi

We briefly discussed some of the ground-breaking events taking place in North Africa and the Middle East today.  In the New York Times, they've broken down the events into easily understandable "bite-sized" portions.  Here are some of the resources we visited in class:

• Great, brief overview of the Middle East Protests broken down by country.
• Interactive graphic that shows where the protests were happening in Egypt. Once there, click on "NEXT" to advance the timeline.
• Current state of various countries in the region, including who their leaders are.

Check the Source!

We've talked before about how important it is to check our sources of information for accuracy. This article drives that idea home. The student said, "I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up. It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

Irish student hoaxes world's media with fake quote

Irish student hoaxes world's media with florid but phony quote from dead French composer

Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press Writer
On Monday May 11, 2009, 12:07 pm EDT

DUBLIN (AP) -- When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's obituary-friendly quote -- which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 -- flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia twice caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it.

A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets they'd swallowed his baloney whole.

"I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia.

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

So far, The Guardian is the only publication to make a public mea culpa, while others have eliminated or amended their online obituaries without any reference to the original version -- or in a few cases, still are citing Fitzgerald's florid prose weeks after he pointed out its true origin.

"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack," Fitzgerald's fake Jarre quote read. "Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear."

Fitzgerald said one of his University College Dublin classes was exploring how quickly information was transmitted around the globe. His private concern was that, under pressure to produce news instantly, media outlets were increasingly relying on Internet sources -- none more ubiquitous than the publicly edited Wikipedia.

When he saw British 24-hour news channels reporting the death of the triple Oscar-winning composer, Fitzgerald sensed what he called "a golden opportunity" for an experiment on media use of Wikipedia.

He said it took him less than 15 minutes to fabricate and place a quote calculated to appeal to obituary writers without distorting Jarre's actual life experiences. He noted that the Wikipedia listing on Jarre did not have any other strong quotes.

If anything, Fitzgerald said, he expected newspapers to avoid his quote because it had no link to a source -- and even might trigger alarms as "too good to be true." But many blogs and several newspapers used the quotes at the start or finish of their obituaries.

He said the Guardian was the only publication to respond to him in detail and with remorse at its own editorial failing. Others, he said, treated him as a vandal who was solely to blame for their cut-and-paste content.

"The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the readers' editor at the Guardian, Siobhain Butterworth, in the May 4 column that revealed Fitzgerald as the quote author.

"It's worrying that the misinformation only came to light because the perpetrator of the deception emailed publishers to let them know what he'd done, and it's regrettable that he took nearly a month to do so," she wrote.

Fitzgerald said he had waited in part to test whether news organizations or the public would smoke out the quote's lack of provenance. He said he was troubled that none did.

And he warned that a truly malicious hoaxer could have evaded Wikipedia's own informal policing by getting a newspaper to pick up a false piece of information -- as happened when his quote made its first of three appearances -- and then use those newspaper reports as a credible footnote for the bogus quote.

"I didn't want to be devious," he said. "I just wanted to show how the 24-hour, minute-by-minute media were now taking material straight from Wikipedia because of the deadline pressure they're under."

U.S. History: Current Events--Voting Rights Act Still Needed?

We recently finished our Civil Rights unit in U.S. History and discussed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 along the way. This article discusses some of the continuing controversy over this decades-old court case. (from Reuters)

Left: Joseph Armstead, from the Baltimore city branch, holds a sign at the rally for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington Wednesday, April 29, 2009, as the court was hearing arguments in a Voting Rights Act case. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Supreme Court conservatives criticize voting rights law

By James Vicini James Vicini Wed Apr 29, 3:56 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court conservatives on Wednesday sharply criticized a central part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that is aimed at more than a dozen states with a history of racial discrimination.

It is the second major race case heard by the justices after Barack Obama became the nation's first black president.

The justices seemed split along conservative and liberal lines in considering a provision applying to all or parts of 16 states, mostly in the South. It requires them to get federal government approval before changing their voting procedures.

Congress adopted the Voting Rights Act, an historic piece of U.S. civil rights legislation, to make it easier for millions of blacks and other minorities to exercise their right to vote.

Congress extended it in 2006 for 25 years, with then-President George W. Bush signing it into law.

Last week the justices considered whether race still can be used as a factor for job promotions and hirings, an issue that could affect millions of employers nationwide.

Opponents of the voting rights law argue that the protections for minority voters are no longer needed after more than 40 years of progress, and they cite Obama's election as evidence of how America has changed since 1965.

Defenders of the measure say minority voters still face discrimination in some local elections.

The legal challenge was brought by a Texas municipal utility district. It says it should be exempt from the law and that it should be struck down.

'GREAT DISPARITY IN TREATMENT'

The Supreme Court in four separate previous rulings has upheld the part of the law at issue in the case. But the court in recent years has become more conservative with the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Roberts questioned whether the law would continue for too long. "I mean, at some point, it begins to look like the idea is that this is going to go on forever," he said.

Alito asked why Congress did not extend the law to the entire country. He called it odd the law covered the Bronx section of New York City, but not other boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often holds the decisive vote on the closely divided court, appeared troubled by the law.

Kennedy said defenders of the law have a "very substantial burden" in showing the continuing need for the "great disparity in treatment" between states that are covered and those that are not covered by the law.

Obama administration lawyer Neal Katyal argued the law should be upheld.

"After 16,000 pages of testimony, 21 different hearings over 10 months, Congress looked at the evidence and determined their work was not done," he said.

The court's liberals expressed support for the law.

"I don't understand ... how you can maintain as a basis for this suit that things have radically changed," Justice David Souter told an attorney who argued against the law.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Congress, in extending the law, referred to how discrimination in voting rights cases initially was blatant and overt, but now is more subtle and difficult to detect.

A ruling is expected by the end of June.

U.S. History: Current Events--Bakke in Action?

In U.S. History we've been reviewing landmark civil rights court cases in preparation for the state test. One of the cases we've discussed is the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case where a Caucasian student, Allan Bakke, sued the UC system because he was denied admission to the medical school at UC Davis and claimed that it was because he was Caucasian.

The University of California recently revised their admissions policy with changes that will take effect in three years. Some in the Asian American community claim that the revisions will reduce the number of Asian Americans accepted to the UC system and that the intent of the changes is to increase the number of Caucasian entrants to UCs, which are comprised of 40%-50% Asian Americans in the cases of UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine.

New UC admissions policy angers Asian-Americans

By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer

Friday, April 24, 2009

(04-24) 16:32 PDT San Francisco (AP) --

A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for 40 percent of all undergraduates.

University officials say the new standards — the biggest change in UC admissions since 1960 — are intended to widen the pool of high school applicants and make the process more fair.

But Asian-American advocates, parents and lawmakers are angrily calling on the university to rescind the policy, which will apply at all nine of the system's undergraduate campuses.

They point to a UC projection that the new standards would sharply reduce Asian-American admissions while resulting in little change for blacks and Hispanics, and a big gain for white students.

"I like to call it affirmative action for whites," said Ling-chi Wang, a retired professor at UC Berkeley. "I think it's extremely unfair to Asian-Americans on the one hand and underrepresented minorities on the other."

Asian-Americans are the single largest ethnic group among UC's 173,000 undergraduates. In 2008, they accounted for 40 percent at UCLA and 43 percent at UC Berkeley — the two most selective campuses in the UC system — as well as 50 percent at UC San Diego and 54 percent at UC Irvine.

Asian-Americans are about 12 percent of California's population and 4 percent of the U.S. population overall.

The new policy, approved unanimously by the UC Board of Regents in February, will greatly expand the applicant pool, eliminate the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests and reduce the number of students guaranteed admission based on grades and test scores alone. It takes effect for the freshman class of fall 2012.

Some opponents have charged that the university is trying to reduce Asian-American enrollment. Others say that may not be the intent, but it will be the result.

UC officials adamantly deny the intent is to increase racial diversity, and reject allegations the policy is an attempt to circumvent a 1996 voter-approved ban on affirmative action.

"The primary goal is fairness and eliminating barriers that seem unnecessary," UC President Mark Yudof said. "It means that if you're a parent out there, more of your sons' and daughters' files will be reviewed."

Yudof and other officials disputed the internal study that projected a drop of about 20 percent in Asian-American admissions, saying it is impossible to accurately predict the effects. "This is not Armageddon for Asian-American students," Yudof said.

At San Francisco's Lowell High School, one of the top public schools in the country, about 70 percent of the students are of Asian descent and more than 40 percent attend UC after graduation.

"If there are Asian-Americans who are qualified and don't get into UC because they're trying to increase diversity, then I think that's unfair," said 16-year-old junior Jessica Peng. "I think that UC is lowering its standards by doing that."

Doug Chan, who has a teenage son at Lowell, said: "Parents are very skeptical and suspicious that this is yet another attempt to move the goal posts or change the rules of the game for Asian college applicants."

One of the biggest changes is scrapping the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests. UC officials say the tests do little to predict who will succeed at UC, no other public university requires them, and many high-achieving students are disqualified because they do not take them.

The policy also widens the pool of candidates by allowing applications from all students who complete the required high school courses, take the main SAT or ACT exams and maintain a 3.0 grade-point average. Under the current policy, students have to rank in the top 12.5 percent of California high school graduates to be eligible.

Students still have to apply to individual campuses, where admissions officers are allowed to consider each applicants' grades, test scores, personal background, extracurricular activities and other factors but not race.

The policy is expected to increase competition for UC admission. This year the university turned away the largest number of students in years after it received a record number of applications and cut freshman enrollment because of the state's budget crisis.

"I'm getting all sorts of e-mails from parents, alumni and donors who are quite upset by the action UC took," said state Assemblyman Ted Lieu, chairman of the Legislature's 11-member Asian-American caucus.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/24/national/a131734D64.DTL

Propositions

Here's the propositions site I showed my classes. It seems to be non-partisan and gives nice short descriptions of each prop.
californiapropositions.org

Who Am I? Election Edition

Found this Who Am I? activity on the Scholastic website. It tells you where the candidates stand on major issues. I like the Scholastic Word Wizard that pops up. Double click on any word on the page and it gives you a definition.

Get Your Pin!

Found these on the Yahoo 2008 Presidential Election page.

By the way, I put the pins in alphabetical order so don't think I'm trying to push a certain candidate on you!

Polling

We've been following the presidential campaign in class and have talked about how different polling organizations are predicting Barack Obama to be the clear winner on November 4. I'm reprinting an article from today below. The article gives some insight into how polling works and provides data that seems to go against what most agencies are reporting. One interesting fact: a current poll has a 3.5 point margin of error which means Obama could be up as much as eight percentage points or down as much as six.

AP presidential poll: All even in the homestretch

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Writer 3 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.

The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord.

Three weeks ago, an AP-GfK survey found that Obama had surged to a seven-point lead over McCain, lifted by voters who thought the Democrat was better suited to lead the nation through its sudden economic crisis.

The contest is still volatile, and the split among voters is apparent less than two weeks before Election Day.

"I trust McCain more, and I do feel that he has more experience in government than Obama. I don't think Obama has been around long enough," said Angela Decker, 44, of La Porte, Ind.

But Karen Judd, 58, of Middleton, Wis., said, "Obama certainly has sufficient qualifications." She said any positive feelings about McCain evaporated with "the outright lying" in TV ads and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin, who "doesn't have the correct skills."

The new AP-GfK head-to-head result is a departure from some, but not all, recent national polls.

Obama and McCain were essentially tied among likely voters in the latest George Washington University Battleground Poll, conducted by Republican strategist Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. In other surveys focusing on likely voters, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Obama up by 9 percentage points, while a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center had Obama leading by 14. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, among the broader category of people registered to vote, found Obama ahead by 10 points.

Polls are snapshots of highly fluid campaigns. In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6. There are many reasons why polls differ, including methods of estimating likely voters and the wording of questions.

Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people.

"If they all agree, somebody would be doing something terribly wrong," he said of polls. But he also said that surveys generally fall within a few points of each other, adding, "When you get much beyond that, there's something to explain."

The AP-GfK survey included interviews with a large sample of adults including 800 deemed likely to vote. Among all 1,101 adults interviewed, the survey showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 37 percent. He was up by five points among registered voters.

A significant number of the interviews were conducted by dialing a randomly selected sample of cell phone numbers, and thus this poll had a chance to reach voters who were excluded from some other polls.

It was taken over five days from Thursday through Monday, starting the night after the candidates' final debate and ending the day after former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke with the Republican Party to endorse Obama.

McCain's strong showing is partly attributable to his strong debate performance; Thursday was his best night of the survey. Obama's best night was Sunday, hours after the Powell announcement, and the full impact of that endorsement may not have been captured in any surveys yet. Future polling could show whether either of those was merely a support "bounce" or something more lasting.

During their final debate, a feisty McCain repeatedly forced Obama to defend his record, comments and associations. He also used the story of a voter whom the Democrat had met in Ohio, "Joe the plumber," to argue that Obama's tax plan would be bad for working class voters.

"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," Obama told the man with the last name of Wurzelbacher, who had asked Obama whether his plan to increase taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year would impede his ability to buy the plumbing company where he works.

On Wednesday, McCain's campaign unveiled a new TV ad that features that Obama quote, and shows different people saying: "I'm Joe the plumber." A man asks: "Obama wants my sweat to pay for his trillion dollars in new spending?"

Since McCain has seized on that line of argument, he has picked up support among white married people and non-college educated whites, the poll shows, while widening his advantage among white men. Black voters still overwhelmingly support Obama.

The Republican also has improved his rating for handling the economy and the financial crisis. Nearly half of likely voters think their taxes will rise under an Obama administration compared with a third who say McCain would raise their taxes.

Since the last AP-GfK survey in late September, McCain also has:

_Posted big gains among likely voters earning under $50,000 a year; he now trails Obama by just 4 percentage points compared with 26 earlier.

_Surged among rural voters; he has an 18-point advantage, up from 4.

_Doubled his advantage among whites who haven't finished college and now leads by 20 points. McCain and Obama are running about even among white college graduates, no change from earlier.

_Made modest gains among whites of both genders, now leading by 22 points among white men and by 7 among white women.

_Improved slightly among whites who are married, now with a 24-point lead.

_Narrowed a gap among unmarried whites, though he still trails by 8 points.

McCain has cut into Obama's advantage on the questions of whom voters trust to handle the economy and the financial crisis. On both, the Democrat now leads by just 6 points, compared with 15 in the previous survey.

Obama still has a larger advantage on other economic measures, with 44 percent saying they think the economy will have improved a year from now if he is elected compared with 34 percent for McCain.

Intensity has increased among McCain's supporters.

A month ago, Obama had more strong supporters than McCain did. Now, the number of excited supporters is about even.

Eight of 10 Democrats are supporting Obama, while nine in 10 Republicans are backing McCain. Independents are about evenly split.

Some 24 percent of likely voters were deemed still persuadable, meaning they were either undecided or said they might switch candidates. Those up-for-grabs voters came about equally from the three categories: undecideds, McCain supporters and Obama backers.

Said John Ormesher, 67, of Dandridge, Tenn.: "I've got respect for them but that's the extent of it. I don't have a whole lot of affinity toward either one of them. They're both part of the same political mess."

___

AP Director of Surveys Trevor Tompson, AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

Make Me Proud

Do me a favor.  When you're 25 and walking down the street and some interviewer comes to you and asks you who the president of the United States is, if you do not know, PLEASE do NOT tell him that Mr. Fong was your history teacher.  If you DO know, then by all means.  Check out this article.

Americans Flunk Simple 3-Question Political Survey

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LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.com – Wed Oct 15, 5:25 pm ET

Some news audiences are more politically savvy than others, according to a new poll, with readers of The New Yorker and similar high-brow magazines being the most knowledgeable.

The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to name the controlling party of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and Great Britain's prime minister.

Overall, just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly.

More than 50 percent of Americans knew that the Democrats have a majority in the House, while 42 percent could identify the secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice). Less than 30 percent could name the prime minister of Great Britain (Gordon Brown).

Perfect scores

The best-informed news audiences crossed the ideological spectrum. Nearly half of regular readers of The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine answered all three political knowledge questions correctly.

A perfect score was obtained by 44 percent of regular listeners of National Public Radio (NPR), 43 percent of regular viewers of MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and 42 percent of the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" audience. Thirty-four percent of "The Colbert Report" audience and 30 percent of "The Daily Show" audience got all three questions correct.

While most news audiences knew that Democrats have a majority in the House, participants struggled to correctly name the current British prime minister.

Just four news audiences had a majority who correctly identified Gordon, including regular readers of The New Yorker and similar magazines such as The Atlantic, regular NPR listeners, regular readers of political magazines, such as The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, and regular viewers of "Hardball."

Just 44 percent of BBC viewers identified the prime minister correctly.

Here's a detailed breakdown of the percentage of individuals answering each of the three questions correctly from the different news audiences:

• The New Yorker/Atlantic: 71 percent (correctly identified Democrats as the majority in the House), 71 percent (correctly identified Condeleeza Rice), 59 percent (correctly identified Gordon Brown)
• NPR: 73 percent, 72 percent, 57percent
• Hannity & Colmes: 84 percent, 73 percent, 49 percent
• Rush Limbaugh: 83 percent, 71 percent, 41 percent
• Colbert Report: 73 percent, 65 percent, 49 percent
• Daily Show: 65 percent, 48 percent, 36 percent
• NewsHour: 66 percent, 52 percent, 47 percent
• O'Reilly Factor: 70 percent, 60 percent, 41 percent
• C-SPAN: 63 percent, 59 percent, 35 percent
• Letterman/Leno: 51 percent, 42 percent, 31 percent
• CNN: 59 percent, 48 percent, 29 percent
• National Enquirer: 44 percent, 32 percent, 22 percent

Education factor

In general, well-educated news audiences scored high on political knowledge. For instance, 54 percent of the regular readers of publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine are college graduates, as are 54 percent of regular NPR listeners.

However, several news audiences with relatively low proportions of college graduates also scored well on the news quiz. Just 31 percent of regular "Hannity & Colmes" viewers are college graduates. Even still, 42 percent Hannity viewers got perfect scores on the political knowledge quiz, compared with 44 percent of NPR listeners.

Nearly 40 percent of the regular audience of the news parody "The Colbert Report" are college graduates, compared with 30 percent of "The Daily Show" viewers. Both shows have younger audiences than other TV news sources, with less than a quarter of Colbert and Daily Show viewers over the age of 50, compared with more than half of "Hardball" and "Hannity & Colmes" viewers being 50 and older.

Current Events: Daddy Yankee to Host Debate

Thirty-one year old reggeaton star Daddy Yankee will serve as the moderator for a debate among four candidates for governor of Puerto Rico. The article states that it is part of an effort to get young people more involved in the political process. What's next, Jay-Z hosting Meet the Press?

United States Current Events: GOOD

Recently at Starbucks, I picked up a mini-newspaper they have near the drink-pick-up-bar called GOOD. Apparently Starbucks is sponsoring this non-partisan publication which is trying to educate the public on major issues, particularly leading up to the November elections. The current issue, on immigration, caught my eye because immigration is one of the topics we are covering right now in U.S. History. Among the interesting things I learned: the top five countries of birth for recent U.S. immigrants are (5) Vietnam (4) Philippines (3) India (2) China and (1) Mexico with 11.67 million.

John McCain's Thoughts on a Military Draft

One question I get each school year is, "Do you think we'll ever have a draft again?" Republican presidential nominee John McCain has given his opinion in this article.

Most Influential

The list of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people for 2008 just came out. Both U.S. and World History will eventually be doing a little project on one of the personalities. CHECK OUT THEIR LIST. Who would be on YOUR list?