Politics
drorzel | June 18, 2008A bunch of academic bloggers have been talking about the American Scholar essay by William Deresiewicz. The always-perceptive Timothy Burke offers some insightful comments about the general problems of elite education.
Burke is also a lot kinder to Deresiewicz than I'm inclined to be. Because, frankly, the piece pisses me off, from the very first paragraph:
It didn't dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I'd just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a…
gregladen | June 18, 2008
Now I'm busy looking for the video that tells Obama and McCain what they should be doing.
Hat Tip: Ana
Convergent message from Fox News:
pharyngula | June 18, 2008Remember the case of John Freshwater, the Ohio science teacher who burned a cross into a student's arm and decorates his desk with Christian kitsch? He's a raving mad loon, but he's also fun and popular with the Christian kids at school (who are, naturally, a majority).
Now John Freshwater and the school district are going to court.
Freshwater's action and the administration's inaction, the lawsuit states, "have the purpose and effect of endorsing religion over non-religion and Christianity over other religious beliefs, thus violating the neutrality portion of the Establishment Clause."
In…
evolvingthoughts | June 17, 2008
Okay, so while we're bagging on Queensland, here's a couple of articles (Ars Technica, ZDNet) on a proposed and apparently non-negotiable database of Queensland students, including their
things like photos, career aspirations, off-campus activities, contact information, behavior records, attendance, and performance records.
But don't worry: the minister has declared that it won't be hackable, and we all know how well politicians understand hacking, and how well hackers behave when politely asked. And of course no hackers might want to use that information for nefarious purposes neither…
jlynch | June 16, 2008
A WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 20 nations (nearly 20,000 respondents) around the world finds that, while none of the national leaders examined inspire wide confidence, our glorious leader is one of the least trusted leaders, to such a degree as to be less trusted than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and only just beating out Pervez Musharraf. More details here. Heckofajob Bushie!
jlynch | June 16, 2008Apparently the McCain campaign sees Arizona as a "swing state" ... this despite the fact that Arizona has voted Republican in every election bar one (1996) since 1952. It says something about McCain that he can't even feel comfortable about carrying the state that he has "represented" (and I use that term loosely) for 26 years.
grrlscientist | June 16, 2008tags: Barack Obama, religion, politics, streaming video
In this video, Barack Obama talks downright lucidly about religion and politics. To all the idiots claiming the US was founded on christianity, he suggests that they read the words of John Adams because "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..." He also states that "the United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Muslim nation." Obama suggests that all these so-called christians and other religious wingnuts actually READ THEIR BIBLES -- wow, how radical…
pharyngula | June 15, 2008Oh, my. Bobby Jindal was on TV, and he got asked about evolution. Here's his answer to a question about whether he had doubts about evolution.
One, I don't think this is something the federal or state government should be imposing its views on local school districts. You know, as a conservative I think government that's closest to the people governs best. I think local school boards should be in a position of deciding the curricula and also deciding what students should be learning. Secondly, I don't think students learn by us withholding information from them. Some want only to teach…
clock | June 15, 2008I briefly noted this study yesterday, but now W. D. Craft analyzes it in great detail:
I am pessimistic that the authors' more careful conclusions and recommendations will be noticed. Instead I fear we're in for more naive calls for "abstinence education" and coerced virginity pledges.
evolvingthoughts | June 14, 2008
I don't have a very positive experience of the State of Queensland's education system. Two children I brought here from Victoria when I took up my present position were doing well until they got here. Now both left before completing school amidst confusion and boredom to my great dismay. It's not that there aren't well intentioned teachers, or that Victoria was replete with Poet's Society-type teachers, but that Queensland insists on doing things its own way, meaning that the curriculum is impenetrable to an outsider.
An example of this has come to light, as evidenced by a couple of…
clock | June 14, 2008Obligatory Reading of the Day: The crazies and Obama:
If there is a President Obama come next Jan. 20, normal folks better brace for what the right-wing crazies have in mind. Because it's becoming clear that they are winding themselves up now for a fresh spate of violence if Obama wins.
You can find the signs in the things they're saying now, both on Internet forums and in the things they say when they think no one is listening.
----------------------
In any event, a pattern is already developing, ranging from the Klan fellows who promise that Obama will be shot to the white supremacists…
j7uy5 | June 14, 2008
href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/ODD_LIGHTNING_STRIKE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-06-13-20-47-33">Girl
survives lightning strike, then wins $20
Jun 13, 8:47 PM EDT
BLANCHARD, Mich. (AP) -- No one quite understands the term "striking it
lucky" better than 16-year-old BreAnna Helsel. The Michigan teen
survived being struck by lightning and went on to win $20 in the
lottery the next day.
Funny thing, that $20 is the amount of the tax break that
href="http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/opinion/88118.php">McCain's
plan would give to the…
pharyngula | June 12, 2008Minnesota pastor Gus Booth is using his pulpit to promote candidates for political office, claiming that "God wants me to address the great moral issues of the day". Which is fine with me, even though I disagree with him on just about everything. He clearly wants to commit himself to crusading for his causes, even though (or because) he is an idiot.
How do I know that? Because he now wants to claim that he's being persecuted by the IRS and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, since they argue that such political activity is a violation of the rules governing his church's tax…
evolvingthoughts | June 11, 2008
History is one of those things that the venal mine to serve their special interests, with no concern for truth or accuracy. But it takes real stupid to say this:
Contrary to popular belief, as historian David Barton points out, the theory of evolution was around long before Charles Darwin. As far back as the 6th century B.C., Greek writers Thales and Anaximander had propounded the theory centuries before the birth of Christ. Aristotle, influenced by his intellectual forbears, also advocated a form of evolution.
Other ancient writers like Diogenes, Empedocles, Democritus, and Lucretius, all…
pharyngula | June 11, 2008I keep telling people there is a deep dangerous strain of insanity running through this country, and here's a perfect example: Bobby Jindal.
We've discovered that in an essay Jindal wrote in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, a serious right-wing Catholic journal, Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends. And not only did they cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer.
Reading the article leaves…
razib | June 11, 2008Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech:
A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States do not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.
Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.
Two members of the Canadian Islamic Congress say the magazine, Maclean's, Canada's leading newsweekly, violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up hatred against Muslims. They say the…
gregladen | June 11, 2008In Pictures.....
McCain:
Obama:
This item has been going around the intertubes for a while now, with this quote:
"Other than overleverage, bad debts, sinking home prices, no jobs, shrinking wages, cash strapped US consumers, rising oil prices, a sinking US dollar, $500 trillion in derivatives not marked to market, rampant overcapacity, underfunded pension plans, looming boomer retirements, no funding for Medicaid, no funding for Medicare, and no Social Security trust fund, everything is just fine."