Leading the way to the middle ages.

I'd laugh, except that I live here.

there and am really glad that i do not. live in ky now and that is almost as bad with idiot rand paul

to a few places and nothing beats home even if there are some crazies here

and I won't even set foot there anymore. I dislike that state so much that I'm not even going with my husband to his 45th class reunion in October. I was down there in 2004 for my 40th, and that was quite enough Texas to last me until I die.

what the hell has happened down there then i rememered the idiot (another one right) who is current governor

and I will NEVER attempt to teach there again, for this and a myriad of other reasons.

...it'll never be a true Idiocracy.

Like knowing about a lot of stuff is a bad thing to her. She insinuates she is disappointed by it.

You may be onto something here.

Don

"You know what your problem is Julie? You think too much."

Yeah. We never had much in common.

Julie

b4 mil
To be treated like dirt by your SO'rs parents is the worst.
I was lucky, my wife's folks have treated me pretty square.
Sorry you had to endure it.
It's so wrong on so many levels.

not from inlaws or family, more from co-workers.

because they started to open their mind for a split second. It's like, "I'm so sorry I thought of that evil thing" but they apply it to things like this:

Show this to them if you want to see brain freeze hee-hee

[IMG][/IMG]

I still think this is one of the coolest things I've come across.

on scientific matters). I really wish you would make this into an OP so everyone at GD could have a chance to see it again.

Thanks for posting, btw. Bookmarking the thread.

And a bonus, I found a you tube clip of a 3-D of the ultra deep field:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021005213

Pretty cool...

new thread to savor later (and will comment on it when I do).

Thanks again.

sorry couldnt resist.

I didnt quite name it with a catchy enough title so it sunk.
Thats cool tho, I'll bring it out later on the lounge page.

Dave

(Douglas Adams reference.)

Lyrics to the earth song, from Monty Python.

Monty Python's 'Galaxy Song'

Lyrics -

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

These links used to work, not sure if they still do.

On the line "'cause there's bugger all down here on earth" -- the image is of President Bush. LOL

=====================

This poem and the 'Galaxy Song', in the last ten years, has been put into many shorts usually using SOHO and other photos as the video. What is incredible is this was first written and performed far in advance of Bush II, and, all the facts given in musical lyrics are correct to the science, as we know it today. I wish the person I responded to could read my original post , I think he would enjoy, immensely. And, I'm happy you also had the 80's Monty Python experience. Blows against the empire, with humor.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Then select "save image as" to save it in your pictures folder or "view image info" for site link.

Trying to post a link to a graphic here now just posts the graphic, which makes it a little tricky. You have to make it unable to actually work in the post by adding spaces to break it up and then remove the spaces when you want the link to work.

Like this: http: //img. photobucket. com/albums/v220/Dbritt57/w6p3k9. gif (Remove the 3 spaces to make the link work.)

I hope this helps!

while throwing in "you think you are so much smarter than we are" because I put my self thru college.
This was a family in a long line of blue collar workers where a high school diploma was considered "higher education".

"Intelligence isn't wisdom, you know." (smirk, smirk)

Perfect! I sooo need to steal this!

don't ever under estimate stupid

but now we know why so many dumb asses live in that state! I was a teacher for 32 years. I never heard of any such thing. I was a science major so you can imagine what I taught even to the younger students.

It seems too many people in this country have receded to the years before Darwin's work. The religious do not want to believe that we have evolved from other animals. Why? I don't know. I find it very interesting how it happened. But then most of those people think the world is only 6,000 years old. Blame it on the undereducated ministers in this country.

in the hopes it could rub off some of the stupid in Texas.

They don't want to lose their meal tickets so must keep flock uneducated.

and they're determined to prove it, even if they have to use themselves as their own poster children!

Zimmy.

Basically this implies that you can't teach anything at all. You can't teach little Johnny that C.A.T. spells cat, because that could be challenging a fixed belief that it's spelled K.A.T.; nor can you ask him to share his crayons with the child next to him instead of bopping him over the head, because that's behaviour modification. And possibly his teabagger parents won't approve.

Just....yikes.

This is basically about keeping kids from questioning the authoritarian crap they are taught in church.

like I said in the other thread about this, people who are taught to think properly sometimes ask questions. If there is one thing religion cannot tolerate it is questions.

When are the republicans EVER going to balance the budget? pave roads? fix the schools ? bring the troops home from afganastan? feed the poor? NEVER.

to their own lives is one of their BIG concerns. (so I wouldn't bang Your head waiting for that!)
Welcome to DU!

Oh yeah, mommy and daddy republican will protect them and we don't need people questioning republican authority.

correct oneself. Just a potpourri of thoughts & fantasies not connected to objective/critical understanding and possible outcomes. Yes it's an easy substrate for mind/thought control!
Indeed it takes humility to really learn. It looks like humility is the underlying attribute the Repukes are running from.

cookie jar somewhere else. Private school vouchers? Legerdemain, sleight of hand at work.

comes up for a new high school. I'm generally in favor of the new school but it will never pass so I might as well have some fun. My posts or letter to the editor might be something like this.

"Just what is the new school for? Republicans don't even want to teach history or science anymore unless it's phony science or history invented in Texas! Why build a new school just to crank out some half-wit that only thinks what it gits learnt to think by FOX "News" or hate radio? Why even teach a piece of crap like that to read?"

Maybe we can have special "Jethro" schools for conservative kids? Graduate them at 12 and then the right-wingers can put them to work in the mines or maybe as a houseboy for Rush Limbaugh.

Yep, those are dangerous words and I hope Texas turns Blue again for the sake of the world.

Dallas, TX.

we must defeat the Republicans...

"The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators...they are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all... more"
~ William Graham Sumner, Folkways, 1906

would oppose others learning critical thinking. It would improve those taught to the point they were better than the legislators. Makes sense to me in a perverse kind of way.

and get the corporate treat. Any questioning of what they are pushing the pedal for or what after-effects it will leave on the planet are far above any concern they should have. Only leads to trouble like being aware of your culpability in destroying lives, killing people & ecosystems and raging against the eternal struggle of humankind to be free.

are much more easily controlled than well educated, smart people who ask too many questions and may offer better solutions to problems.
Here in Utah a Republican dominated Mormon legislature strictly controls and regulates our public education system. The system is always underfunded and the inevitable result is a dumbing down of our children who can't learn to think for themselves. This Mormon/republican theocracy is what Mitt Romney wants to bring to the whole country.

However, is it really necessary or helpful to take something that blatantly exposes the Republican party for what it is and waste it by using it instead to attack an entire state as stupid or to start bashing people's religions? Why does it always have to be this way? Are we actually trying to get people on our side or do we just want to show how superior we think we are?

specifically because of dogmatic, pious, religious adults in my life who tried to influence me when I was a young person. I was raised in a blue-collar, working class, union household and I went to public school with kids of similar backgrounds. We all got along because we respected each others beliefs even though there were certain families who thought they were superior because of their religion. My mom and dad encouraged me to read almost anything I wanted to read and I absorbed it like a sponge. My reasoning ability enabled me to have a successful engineering career. I learned to use the scientific method to solve problems; religion, with its faith and dogma, quickly turned me off. Religion has its place with certain individuals, but I choose to avoid it whenever possible. Any criticism I express is usually well deserved. I don't however, feel I'm superior to anyone.

[font size=5 color=firebrick]"and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." [/font]

That cat is out of the bag,
and he ain't going back inside.

I live in a very rural, conservative area (West/Central Arkansas),
and the churches and older parents are complaining that THEY have "lost control" of the kids!

...but it isn't the schools that have caused this.
It IS the Internet and Sat TV.
ALL "the kids" are connected,
and while the Internet offers content of questionable quality,
and it is easy to find rigid, conservative content,
it DOES provide a wide diversity of thought and exposure to a wide variety of cultures.
This has greatly reduced the cult like control of the parents and the church over the indoctrination of the youth in this area.

I am delighted by the kids in this very rural and traditionally backward area!
Some of them have chosen to follow in the closed minded paths of their parents,
and others have opened their eyes and witnessed the World outside thanks to the Internet.
The point is that they NOW have that choice.

Before this, there was ONLY the Parents, local and tightly controlled teachers, the Church, Commercial TV that HAD to be viewed in the parents living room, and Jesus Radio.

and am known as leftist faculty because, among other things, I cover the New Deal

conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative".

John Stuart Mill

"Ya know ,I don't think about him that much "

mostly because of crap like this. How to breed ignorance.

to live in places where xenophobia and backwards thinking is revered .

industrial mass control. It most definitely does NOT encourage critical thought, other than a pseudo, pre-approved form of indoctrination. Many of the people in the US who are appalled (and rightly so) by this Texan troglodytic attack on freedom of thought, are nonetheless, simply aiding and abetting the furtherance of state tyranny via a selective and massive indoctrinational methodology that emanates out of the woefully inadequate curriculum that permeates the modern US public school system.

It is simply another false dichotomy set up by the systemic controllers, ie. raving lunatic fundie Christians v. a politcally correct, but equally straight-jacketing mainstream agenda. Both are designed to control the product, the children.

Two seemingly different dialetics, two sides at each other throats, full of anger and scorn, and yet you have the very same outcome: nothing changes at the top rungs of socio-economic power.



Our Prussian model of public schooling; controlling the masses

http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2012/03/14/our-prussian-model-of-public-schooling-controlling-the-masses/

It’s curious how whenever someone questions the government-run school system; they will almost certainly be accused of opposing education itself. This is one reason why each legislative session, state legislators find themselves under tremendous pressure to properly fund and cater to the public education establishment. In most counties, as in Washington County, Utah, the largest employers are the public school districts. This translates into political power and those in power typically don’t appreciate being questioned.

Clearly, many people consider the public education system to be a sacred cow of sorts. But almost none have any concept of the origins, the history, or the goals of public education in America. Few Americans understand that our government-controlled school system was founded upon authoritarian ambitions. State-directed schools find their roots in the Prussian schools of the early 19th Century. In the 1840s, Horace Mann, then secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, traveled to Europe to study the Prussian model of public education. He was seeking a way to change what he deemed the “unruly” (meaning independent) children into disciplined citizens.

IMO one of the reasons the PTB are pushing for "education reform" is because they believe that teachers have become too independent and need to be forced to keep the the "approved curriculum". One way to do this is to make teachers poorly paid glorified babysitters who just regurgitate the textbook.

The solution is to make teachers, especially high school teachers, more independent, more like college professors, and more highly paid.

They all go to a dead page. Anyone been able to find a working link.

Here are the sites and links I tried that won't allow access to the document:

http://convention.texasgop.org/
http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012-Platform-Final.pdf
http://www.texasgopvote.com/tags/2012-state-republican-party-platform

Never mind, found one: http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Platform_Final.pdf

it is easier to teach faith-based bullshit fairy tales to non-thinking people

We can't do anything about their ethics but we can make them ignorant enough to believe we are the ethical ones.

Sadly, it seems to be working.

..the better for them to serve the Corporate Class.

And it's right in Phyllis Schlaefly's cradle of Texas.

They're not hiding it behind Orwellian doublespeak now, and this means they think this proposition is somehow respectable.

It isn't. And they will very swiftly find this out. As long as making people dumb was something obscure the could make it popular. Now that it's specific people will recoil and Repubs outside of Texas will distance themselves from it.

But are you sure this isn't from The Onion?

If I really believed that the GOP would practice what it teaches, I would celebrate, because their own kids would be doomed to an eternity in McJObs.

Sadly, I suspect that they only want minority and poor kids to lack critical thinking skills and their own kids will go to rigorous private schools.

Give this one enough coverage, and the GOP will see its base erode, the same way it does whenever it acts racist.

Sieg Heil.

The muslims used to be ahead in medicine, mathematics, science and literature until the extremest took over and destroyed their culture. We will be repeating this cycle if something does not change it. The republicans want the country to go into a great depression because they think it will only affect us working people and they will not loose anything. And with the education dumbing down they wont have to worry about any of us taking any of the jobs that is just for them or being able to go to college. And if we are kept dumb will not question authority and will not be able to invent new things and there will no longer be any competition.

Your statement is true about The SBC I made the mistake of taking my children to Baptist church when they were little thinking that it would be good for them. They had a nice children's program. They started to preach politics. We were poor I was trying to go to college and my husband worked for the railroad but would be laid off during the winter. The preacher called me in to talk to me. He wanted to know if we were drunks, drug users or gamblers since that is the only way that we could be poor. I told him no to all those and he was lost. By the way none of my children will step into a church.
When I was younger I came across an official in the GOP in my state. He told me that all jobs and openings in colleges were for their children and relatives and I had no right to be pursuing a degree. All good jobs are for them and everyone else was to serve them.

Geez, usually they're more smarmy and weasely and they don't let you know what they're really all about.

Glad you didn't get sucked into the SBC - that's a terrorist organization, if you ask me.

the greatest collection of idiots ever assembled in the US.

..."an informed and educated citizenry is the arch-enemy of tyranny." This is why the want us all down on our knees in the church of their choice.

This thread made me think of a Jewish parable I read. It is about a man who lived in the mountains and knew nothing about the city. He ate raw wheat kernels. He went to the city and was given bread to eat and he asks what it was made of and was told wheat. He then was given cakes and asks what it was made of and was told wheat. Finally he was given pastry and he asked what it was made of and they told him wheat. Then he told them he was the master of all of these because he ate the raw kernels of wheat. Because of that view the delights of the world were lost to him. Same with those who grasp the principle but do not know the delights deriving and diverging from the principle. They are missing a lot and now they want to make sure their future generations will also.

They do. I have met with some scary. Those children will not be ready for anything. But then again they are proud to be ignorant.

Maybe we should tell them that breathing is a liberal activity.

I always thank them when they call me a bleeding heart liberal. I say I''m walking in the footsteps of the original bleeding heart, Jesus. Gets them so mad.

This always reminds me of how important I am to the universe.

Never going back to that open sewer of a state...

the same old same old. This is nothing new. It's a page from the "Dumbing Down of America" around the Ray-Gun years. That's why we're where we are today. Seriously, it's paying off in spades right now so let's make a whole fucking army of them! There's a shortage on cannon fodder and underpaid labor!

WoooHooo!



Jeebus!

-p

Mostly symbolic, and I understand the bill died in Sacramento, but this was one piece of legislation I totally supported. Sen. Leland Yee gets it.

California’s Book Ban
May 3rd, 2010

State Senator Leland Yee, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, wants to bar California from adopting any new material from curriculum changes in Texas, which he and other critics view as right-wing revisionism. Though much publicized, the charge fails to stand up, but some textbooks do need correction. Those would be California textbooks, and this is not a new problem.

“They’re all horrors, and there is no reason for them.” State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said that in 1988 about California’s watered-down texts. Honig, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, duly invited scholar Diane Ravitch to revise California’s history curriculum, which had been tasked to instill pride in accredited victim groups.

“Telling publishers that their books must instill pride only guarantees a phony version of feel-good history,” Ravitch wrote. “Publishers, as a result, bend over backward to be positive, whether writing about the genocidal reign of Mao Tse-tung (presumably to avoid offending his admirers) or the unequal treatment of women in Islamic societies (to avoid offending Muslims).”

Texts should be accurate, Ravitch wrote, “but to impose contemporary political requirements on how the events are portrayed only ensures that the history we teach our students is inaccurate and dishonest.” In California, it certainly has been that.

<more>

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/public-education/california-senator-seeks-to-ban-texas-textbooks/