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Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War
ideonexus writes "I've been lackadaisical when it comes to following stories about Texas schoolboard attempts to slip creationism into biology textbooks, dismissing the stories as just 'dumbass Texans,' but what I didn't realize is that Texas schoolbooks set the standard for the rest of the country. And it's not just Creationism that this Christian coalition is attempting to bring into schoolbooks, but a full frontal assault on history, politics, and the humanities that exploits the fact that final decisions are being made by a school board completely academically unqualified to make informed evaluations of the changes these lobbyists propose. This evangelical lobby has successfully had references to the American Constitution as a 'living document,' as textbooks have defined it since the 1950s, removed in favor of an 'enduring Constitution' not subject to change, as well as attempting to over-emphasize the role Christianity played in the founding of America. The leaders of these efforts outright admit they are attempting to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system that favor their evangelical Christian goals."
All it will take is a suit that the school board violates civil liberties.
I wish it could go further. I wish that provably willful violations of civil liberties were treated as treason.
In Liberty, Rene
CrazyJim said:
> Creationism does not in anyway detract from evolution.
What? If sit here all day and come up with an explanation of how Hansel & Gretel can coexist with evolution, it still doesn't make it true.
Oh, and in your "long day theory" you have a fundamental misunderstanding of "24 hours". The 24 is mere convention.
> As for interpreting the constitution, I agree that it should stay in its current form unless it gets ammended.
Sure, as long as things aren't changed, they stay the same.
And the people wanting separation of church and state are not "Christian enemies." It is this siege mentality that keeps the fundamentalists afraid to venture outside the flock, and engenders such divisive language.
And the point being covered up is that the US Constitution has well-defined mechanisms to change it. Some people consider that to be its genius.
So let's remove gravity, most of physics, and genetics from the science classroom as well. Those are all theories. You don't prove a theory. You find evidence either for or against it. As soon as you find some evidence against Evolution, we can reconsider it. But being as ALL of the evidence gathered since Darwin was pontificating points to Evolution being the mechanism by which life changes, science (and the science classroom) should stick with that.
It doesn't matter what an individual scientist believes. That's immaterial, an argument from authority which is of no worth. I can point to priests who believe in evolution. Shit, the CATHOLIC CHURCH is ok with evolution. That is NOT a reason to accept it. The reason to accept it is that the facts we have about genetics and fossils and such all point to Evolution.
The only reason you would have even posted this is because you're ignorant of science, which makes your opinion of it uninformed and therefore worthless.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
But you're the one who made the claim, and I quote:
All you said is you know some college profs who believed in God.
So, I'm asking you to back up your claim. If you can't, then why on Earth would you claim it?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And in my opinion, this is second most important part: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." For example: The right to not have your cellphones monitored by Monkeyhead Dubya Bush or Barak Corpseman Obama via the Unpatriotic Act.
Interstate Commerce.
'But', you say, 'It is a...'
Interstate Commerce.
'OK, but surely...'
Interstate Commerce.
It's the Wildcard of the Constitution, and it's current interpretation by the SCOTUS makes all the protections in the Bill of Rights and the enumeration of powers meaningless.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Asimov wrote a perfect tract on this here. A relevant quote:
Oh BS. The Prime Mover argument is, first and foremost, a philosophical and metaphysical argument, not a scientific one. Science can only go on the evidence points. At the moment, the "cause" of the Universe is not known, nor is it certain that the Universe even required one. The question "What caused the Universe" may not even actually make any sense (as Hawking said, "It's like asking 'what's north of the North Pole?'")
But if one is going to try to assert a logical necessity of a Prime Mover, then one has to deal with the logical conundrums that that claim makes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
http://www.gorgorat.com/#49
After the war, physicists were often asked to go to Washington and give
advice to various sections of the government, especially the military. What
happened, I suppose, is that since the scientists had made these bombs that
were so important, the military felt we were useful for something.
Once I was asked to serve on a committee which was to evaluate various
weapons for the army, and I wrote a letter back which explained that I was
only a theoretical physicist, and I didn't know anything about weapons for
the army.
The army responded that they had found in their experience that
theoretical physicists were very useful to them in making decisions, so
would I please reconsider?
I wrote back again and said I didn't really know anything, and doubted
I could help them.
Finally I got a letter from the Secretary of the Army, which proposed a
compromise: I would come to the first meeting, where I could listen and see
whether I could make a contribution or not. Then I could decide whether I
should continue.
I said I would, of course. What else could I do?
I went down to Washington and the first thing that I went to was a
cocktail party to meet everybody. There were generals and other important
characters from the army, and everybody talked. It was pleasant enough.
One guy in a uniform came to me and told me that the army was glad that
physicists were advising the military because it had a lot of problems. One
of the problems was that tanks use up their fuel very quickly and thus can't
go very far. So the question was how to refuel them as they're going along.
Now this guy had the idea that, since the physicists can get energy out of
uranium, could I work out a way in which we could use silicon dioxide --
sand, dirt -- as a fuel? If that were possible, then all this tank would
have to do would be to have a little scoop underneath, and as it goes along,
it would pick up the dirt and use it for fuel! He thought that was a great
idea, and that all I had to do was to work out the details. That was the
kind of problem I thought we would be talking about in the meeting the next
day.
I went to the meeting and noticed that some guy who had introduced me
to all the people at the cocktail party was sitting next to me. He was
apparently some flunky assigned to be at my side at all times. On my other
side was some super general I had heard of before.
At the first session of the meeting they talked about some technical
matters, and I made a few comments. But later on, near the end of the
meeting, they began to discuss some problem of logistics, about which I knew
nothing. It had to do with figuring out how much stuff you should have at
different places at different times. And although I tried to keep my trap
shut, when you get into a situation like that, where you're sitting around a
table with all these "important people" discussing these "important
problems," you can't keep your mouth shut, even if you know nothing
whatsoever! So I made some comments in that discussion, too.
During the next coffee break the guy who had been assigned to shepherd
me around said, "I was very impressed by the things you said during the
discussion. They certainly were an important contribution."
I stopped and thought about my "contribution" to the logistics proble
I'm hostile because people want to throw out Evolution and put forth an "alternative theory". Go ahead and believe in a God. I don't care. The point is that Evolution is a valid, well-supported scientific theory, AND THERE IS NO CREDIBLE CHALLENGE TO THE EVIDENCE. None. Whatsoever. Period, end of story.
Go ahead and pontificate about a prime mover, a God, whatever. That has NOTHING to do with teaching of the mechanism of Evolution in a science classroom. Evolution has nothing to say about the origins of life, or the universe. Don't say "teach the controversy" because there is no valid controversy. There are only idiots wanting to force the government to support their religion, and scientists.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Bush made a case for attacking Iraq? Bush tried to get others to go along with him, and when all alliances failed he attacked anyway. What Bush did was to not build a consensus and then do something anyway. War is a horrible example because it's something the commander in chief can do anytime for any reason, and then congress feels like they need to fund it because people's lives are on the line. It would be more appropriate to correlate this with Bush's prescription drug bill. Which if proposed by a Democrat would have been socialism.
The problem is that we have a Republic. Obama can do what the majority wants and still be defeated in the Senate because a bunch of small states get equal representation. Slate just did an interesting article on filibusters. It turns out that 60% of the time when Democrats have filibustered they've represented the majority of Americans. When Republicans have filibustered they represented the majority only 3% of the time. Repbulicans are better at playing politics because they rarely represent a majority.
Let's look at Gingrich's stupid ideas:
Make insurance affordable - In bill
Make health insurance portable - Already exists. Called HSA. I have one. Only saves you money if you stay well. People don't like them.
Meet the needs of the chronically ill - He seems to be in the weeds. Smells like socialism though.
Allow doctors and patients to control costs - Really? We lower prices by letting doctors charge medicare whatever they want? He obviously thinks we're morons. So doctors can charge whatever they want as long as cost to the government doesn't rise. Ok, government costs are rising currently, how does this help?
Don't cut Medicare - Really going out on a limb by saying not to cut Medicare. Also advocating Socialism. But hey, it's ok when Republicans do it.
Protect early retirees - HSA again! Hey, look we can save health insurance with an unpopular program that already exists! Because the free market is always right, unless you're talking about why no one's buying our HSAs. The best part about HSAs? You can lose it all in the stock market and then have the government either bail out millions of retirees or add them to Social Security during what would assume would be an economic downturn! How can people resist?!? I mean think about what would have happened if you had an HSA and contracted cancer during 2008! Good times!
Inform consumers - Sure. Sounds good. Might save money in the long term, but not in the short term.
Eliminate junk lawsuits - In the current health care bill. Also implemented in Texas and not doing jack, shit. But hey, just because Republican policies have failed repeatedly doesn't mean shouldn't keep trying to ram them through. Because when you're wrong you're right. Am I right? Oh, I'm a Democrat. I'm wrong. Sorry, I forgot. Which is why even though Obama put this in the bill as a concession to Republicans they're all still pretending it's not in the bill. If the bill passes they'll then say that the fact that it doesn't work is because Obama passed it. Way ahead of you guys.
Stop health-care fraud - Fraud and Waste. Waste and Fraud. Yeah. That's the problem. I'm all for this. But so is everybody. Also we should get people to stop doing drugs and to not cheat on their taxes...
Make medical breakthroughs accessible to patients - No. We're not getting rid of the FDA. They're pathetically toothless as it is. This is a horrible idea. Great idea for selling untested snake oil to the public and artificially inflating stock prices. When coupled with Bullet 8 you can bring untested treatments to market, sell them for top dollar, and cash out without any risk of monetary damages. I've got to hand it to you Republicans. You're fantastic at creating bubbles that harm the public.
Republicans have jack that is not available on the market today. And you know what the market has said? Republicans your ideas suck. Why do your ideas suck? Because they don't work.
If there's consensus about what the Founders meant when they said something, there should not be difficulty in amending the constitution if its language is thought to be ambiguous. If there's no consensus, then it must be assumed that the Constitution means what it says. So yes, nuclear weapons are "arms." If you want to amend the constitution to forbid citizens from owning nukes, it should not be difficult to do so, since it's likely there's popular consensus on that matter.