And it is useful to know that it was 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Not because those facts are necessarily important in and of themselves, but because if I can assume that the overwhelming majority of my audience is familiar with it I can use phrases such as "nailing his theses to the church door" or "he presented his 95 theses" and with just a little bit of context my audience will understand that I am referring to someone challenging the accepted authority on some subject. This is not the best example of what I am talking about, however, the idea that communication in our society will be better if the majority have been immersed in the same set of classic works is definitely true.
You accuse me of pointing to the President or Congress according to who I want to blame, yet you do the same thing blaming the Republicans for budgets passed by Democrats, but approved by Bush. No, republicans in general are not fiscally responsible, but some Republicans are. Democrats don't even claim to favor reducing spending. You know, if a voter needs to choose between a politician who claims to want to reduce spending but does not do so and a politician who claims to want to increase spending and does, which one is the voter who wants the government to reduce spending better off voting for?
I would argue the former because in that case the politician cannot claim a mandate to increase spending.
That still does not change the fact that the U.S. government debt has increased more in the last two years under Obama than it did for the entire eight years under Bush. So, when the American voters voted for Republicans in 2010, Republicans were not the party responsible for the majority of the debt, since the majority of the debt had accumulated while Obama was President and Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress.
Read the bill. It isn't very long. It isn't hard to understand the language it is written in. Tell me where there is wiggle room to make it say something other than what it claims to be saying. I read the bill and don't see any place in it that it can be used to the detriment of science.
Apparently, you haven't heard all of the Democrats talking about how good a government shudown will be for them politically. The Democrats are betting that the Republicans will be blamed for a government shutdown. Of course, considering some of the recent polls I have seen, the Republicans may get credited for a government shutdown rather than blamed.
Nancy Pelosi, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." If it was actually being publicly debated, we could have known what was in it before it was passed.
There were two parliamentary tricks that were undertaken. The first was to use the reconciliation process, which was intended solely for spending bills (unless you are admitting that Obamacare is primarily about spending rather than about healthcare). The second was for the House to "deem" the Senate version passed as part of the "reconciliation" bill, rather than passing the Senate bill and then passing the ammendment to it.
The situation in Wisconsin is somewhat different, since in Wisconsin the Democrats abandoned their duties and left the legislature unable to do its job unless the majority gave in to the minority. I do not see how taking the non-financial parts out of the bill and passing them separately is any more underhanded than passing a healthcare bill as a spending bill. Of course there is another major difference, the majority of voters in Wisconsin supported the bill that the Republicans passed while the majority of voters in the entire US oppose the bill passed by the Democrats in Washington.
The scary part is that many of the organizations that oppose this bill claim to be organized to promote science. They oppose this bill because they oppose the people who produced it, or maybe they oppose it because they don't really want children taught to think critically. The position taken by the groups opposing this bill seems to me to indicate that they want people to take science on faith (in the most negative interpretation of that word) rather than think critically about subjects.
I just have one question. What is wrong with this bill as written? Go to the link and read the bill. It is amazingly clear for a law. I do not see anything in the bill that disagrees with positions taken on slashdot everyday by people from every ideological perspective. Just the other day we had a topic on here about how for most people science is something they take on faith. People were talking about how science is designed to be critiqued. This bill proposes that science teachers teach students how to do that "in an objective manner".
Forget what you think is wrong about the motivations of those who have written this bill. Evaluate this bill on the basis of what it actually says. I do not see any hidden phrases that allow it to enable some religious takeover of science education.
Have you seen Paul Ryan's budget proposal? It won't solve the problem, but it is a step towards doing so. Rand Paul has also put forward a proposal that is close to solving the problem (although that is probably not politically doable at this time). Where is the Democratic proposal that would even be a step toward solving the problem?
Uh, no. They voted for a party that is responsible for the majority of the debt.
That is not true. The Democrats controlled Congress since 2007. Most of the debt which accumulated under George W. Bush came since 2007. Even if that were not true, the Democrats have added more debt to the Federal budget since Obama took office than was added in the eight years that George W. Bush was President.
If the Democrats had proposed any spending bills during this "negotiation", you might have a point, but they haven't. All the Democrats have done is propose numbers in the press with no details. Better yet, the Democrats could have passed a budget last year when they controlled both Houses of Congress (which is the way it is supposed to be done).
Elections have consequences. The reason the government gets shutdown every time that the Republicans get the House when there is a Democratic President is that people like you blame the Republicans, so the Democrats see it as being in their interest to shut the government down. Again, it was Howard Dean who said that if he was the head of the DNC, he would be eagerly anticipating a government shutdown. What evidence do you have that the Democrats are "compromising on everything"? Oh that's right, they say they are. The facts are that the Democrats have not introduced a single piece of legislation which contains their proposals for funding the government the rest of this fiscal year.
Additionally, last year when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House, they did not pass a budget for this fiscal year. If the Democrats had done their job at that time, this situation would not exist today.
Well, what would you call it when Congress passes a major bill by using a parliamentary trick because they could not get enough votes to pass it by the traditional method?
Um you apparently are unaware that the Republicans have passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year. You are also apparently unaware that the Democrats failed to pass a budget for this fiscal year when they controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House. Finally, you apparently unaware that the Democrats have not actually proposed a spending bill to fund the government for the rest of the year.
Additionally, it has been the Democrats who have been gleefully looking forward to a government shutdown because of the political benefit they believe they will get from it. SO, who has decided to shut down the government again?
And in Libya we went in with an international coalition so that we wouldn't once again be left holding the bag. We did it right for the first time in a long time.
The international coalition that went into Iraq with us was much larger than the one that has joined us against Libya. Of course Obama had a UN resolution against Libya, in contrast with the mere 17 UN resolutions against Sadam Hussein. And then of course there is this statement about Iraq, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." That statement was made by Obama, so we know that he would never authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual attack or imminent threat to the nation...oh wait, that is exactly what he did in Libya.
No, we don't "know better now." We now know why those were good rules to live by in that day and age. If we still lived with the food storage and preparation techniques available to pre-Roman residents of the Middle East, those would still be important rules to follow.
I'm not sure your last sentence was meant the way I took it, but I thought it was important to make this point.
Guess what my Faith offers many "theories" that are useful. For example, my Faith tells me that I will be better off if I forgive those who wrong me. Guess what, in the last 50 years, psychologists/psychiatrists have done studies that show that people who carry a grudge have more health problems than those who don't.
Since WWII, federal revenue has been 18-19% of GDP, no matter what the tax rates were. This means that historical data suggests that increasing taxes will not result in any significant increase in governemnt revenue.
They haven't done any real work on the budget that is due October 2011.
Actually, that is not true. Paul Ryan has presented a budget plan for 2012. Since Paul Ryan is the Chairman of the House Budget Committee that represents a significant start on the budget that is due in October 2011.
You conveniently left out that Obama tried to negotiate a budget and the Republicans decided to change their goal from $33 billion in cuts to $40 billion, just a few days ago.
The House passed HR1 on Feb 19, 2011. HR1 would fund the Federal government for the rest of the curent fiscal year. HR1 cut federal spending from 2010 levels by $61 billion. I do not see how you get that the Republicans were at $33 billion in cuts until a few days ago, when they passed a bill in February that cuts $61 billion. Until someone actually presents a bill in Congress with another number, the starting point for negotiations is HR1. The Democrats have to date not presented an alternative to HR1.
The fact of the matter is that we would not be in this position if the Democrats had passed a budget when they controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House last fall.
The House (controlled by Republicans) has passed a Continuing Resolution that would fund the government through the end of this fiscal year. The Senate (controlled by Democrats) has not even brought it up for vote. So far, the Democrats have failed to propose a bill that would form the basis of negotiation between the Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats have thrown out numbers of how much they are willing to cut, but they have not created a detailed proposal of where and in which programs they are willing to make cuts.
Slashdot Mirror
And it is useful to know that it was 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Not because those facts are necessarily important in and of themselves, but because if I can assume that the overwhelming majority of my audience is familiar with it I can use phrases such as "nailing his theses to the church door" or "he presented his 95 theses" and with just a little bit of context my audience will understand that I am referring to someone challenging the accepted authority on some subject. This is not the best example of what I am talking about, however, the idea that communication in our society will be better if the majority have been immersed in the same set of classic works is definitely true.
You accuse me of pointing to the President or Congress according to who I want to blame, yet you do the same thing blaming the Republicans for budgets passed by Democrats, but approved by Bush. No, republicans in general are not fiscally responsible, but some Republicans are. Democrats don't even claim to favor reducing spending. You know, if a voter needs to choose between a politician who claims to want to reduce spending but does not do so and a politician who claims to want to increase spending and does, which one is the voter who wants the government to reduce spending better off voting for?
I would argue the former because in that case the politician cannot claim a mandate to increase spending.
That still does not change the fact that the U.S. government debt has increased more in the last two years under Obama than it did for the entire eight years under Bush. So, when the American voters voted for Republicans in 2010, Republicans were not the party responsible for the majority of the debt, since the majority of the debt had accumulated while Obama was President and Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress.
Read the bill. It isn't very long. It isn't hard to understand the language it is written in. Tell me where there is wiggle room to make it say something other than what it claims to be saying. I read the bill and don't see any place in it that it can be used to the detriment of science.
Right, because no other countries do this. /s
If you read the law, it in no way changes that situation from the wat it is now. If that would work after this bill was passed, it would work now.
Apparently, you haven't heard all of the Democrats talking about how good a government shudown will be for them politically. The Democrats are betting that the Republicans will be blamed for a government shutdown. Of course, considering some of the recent polls I have seen, the Republicans may get credited for a government shutdown rather than blamed.
He debated them publicly.
Nancy Pelosi, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." If it was actually being publicly debated, we could have known what was in it before it was passed.
There were two parliamentary tricks that were undertaken. The first was to use the reconciliation process, which was intended solely for spending bills (unless you are admitting that Obamacare is primarily about spending rather than about healthcare). The second was for the House to "deem" the Senate version passed as part of the "reconciliation" bill, rather than passing the Senate bill and then passing the ammendment to it.
The situation in Wisconsin is somewhat different, since in Wisconsin the Democrats abandoned their duties and left the legislature unable to do its job unless the majority gave in to the minority. I do not see how taking the non-financial parts out of the bill and passing them separately is any more underhanded than passing a healthcare bill as a spending bill. Of course there is another major difference, the majority of voters in Wisconsin supported the bill that the Republicans passed while the majority of voters in the entire US oppose the bill passed by the Democrats in Washington.
The scary part is that many of the organizations that oppose this bill claim to be organized to promote science. They oppose this bill because they oppose the people who produced it, or maybe they oppose it because they don't really want children taught to think critically. The position taken by the groups opposing this bill seems to me to indicate that they want people to take science on faith (in the most negative interpretation of that word) rather than think critically about subjects.
So, because Tennessee is in the Bible Belt, they shouldn't encourage children to think critically?
Actually, no, they can't. The law does not protect the students from receiving a bad grade for giving an answer that the teacher disagrees with.
I just have one question. What is wrong with this bill as written? Go to the link and read the bill. It is amazingly clear for a law. I do not see anything in the bill that disagrees with positions taken on slashdot everyday by people from every ideological perspective. Just the other day we had a topic on here about how for most people science is something they take on faith. People were talking about how science is designed to be critiqued. This bill proposes that science teachers teach students how to do that "in an objective manner".
Forget what you think is wrong about the motivations of those who have written this bill. Evaluate this bill on the basis of what it actually says. I do not see any hidden phrases that allow it to enable some religious takeover of science education.
Have you seen Paul Ryan's budget proposal? It won't solve the problem, but it is a step towards doing so. Rand Paul has also put forward a proposal that is close to solving the problem (although that is probably not politically doable at this time). Where is the Democratic proposal that would even be a step toward solving the problem?
Uh, no. They voted for a party that is responsible for the majority of the debt.
That is not true. The Democrats controlled Congress since 2007. Most of the debt which accumulated under George W. Bush came since 2007. Even if that were not true, the Democrats have added more debt to the Federal budget since Obama took office than was added in the eight years that George W. Bush was President.
If the Democrats had proposed any spending bills during this "negotiation", you might have a point, but they haven't. All the Democrats have done is propose numbers in the press with no details. Better yet, the Democrats could have passed a budget last year when they controlled both Houses of Congress (which is the way it is supposed to be done).
Elections have consequences. The reason the government gets shutdown every time that the Republicans get the House when there is a Democratic President is that people like you blame the Republicans, so the Democrats see it as being in their interest to shut the government down. Again, it was Howard Dean who said that if he was the head of the DNC, he would be eagerly anticipating a government shutdown. What evidence do you have that the Democrats are "compromising on everything"? Oh that's right, they say they are. The facts are that the Democrats have not introduced a single piece of legislation which contains their proposals for funding the government the rest of this fiscal year.
Additionally, last year when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House, they did not pass a budget for this fiscal year. If the Democrats had done their job at that time, this situation would not exist today.
Well, what would you call it when Congress passes a major bill by using a parliamentary trick because they could not get enough votes to pass it by the traditional method?
Um you apparently are unaware that the Republicans have passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year. You are also apparently unaware that the Democrats failed to pass a budget for this fiscal year when they controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House. Finally, you apparently unaware that the Democrats have not actually proposed a spending bill to fund the government for the rest of the year.
Additionally, it has been the Democrats who have been gleefully looking forward to a government shutdown because of the political benefit they believe they will get from it. SO, who has decided to shut down the government again?
And in Libya we went in with an international coalition so that we wouldn't once again be left holding the bag. We did it right for the first time in a long time.
The international coalition that went into Iraq with us was much larger than the one that has joined us against Libya. Of course Obama had a UN resolution against Libya, in contrast with the mere 17 UN resolutions against Sadam Hussein. And then of course there is this statement about Iraq, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." That statement was made by Obama, so we know that he would never authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual attack or imminent threat to the nation...oh wait, that is exactly what he did in Libya.
We know better now.
No, we don't "know better now." We now know why those were good rules to live by in that day and age. If we still lived with the food storage and preparation techniques available to pre-Roman residents of the Middle East, those would still be important rules to follow.
I'm not sure your last sentence was meant the way I took it, but I thought it was important to make this point.
Guess what my Faith offers many "theories" that are useful. For example, my Faith tells me that I will be better off if I forgive those who wrong me. Guess what, in the last 50 years, psychologists/psychiatrists have done studies that show that people who carry a grudge have more health problems than those who don't.
Since WWII, federal revenue has been 18-19% of GDP, no matter what the tax rates were. This means that historical data suggests that increasing taxes will not result in any significant increase in governemnt revenue.
They haven't done any real work on the budget that is due October 2011.
Actually, that is not true. Paul Ryan has presented a budget plan for 2012. Since Paul Ryan is the Chairman of the House Budget Committee that represents a significant start on the budget that is due in October 2011.
You conveniently left out that Obama tried to negotiate a budget and the Republicans decided to change their goal from $33 billion in cuts to $40 billion, just a few days ago.
The House passed HR1 on Feb 19, 2011. HR1 would fund the Federal government for the rest of the curent fiscal year. HR1 cut federal spending from 2010 levels by $61 billion. I do not see how you get that the Republicans were at $33 billion in cuts until a few days ago, when they passed a bill in February that cuts $61 billion. Until someone actually presents a bill in Congress with another number, the starting point for negotiations is HR1. The Democrats have to date not presented an alternative to HR1.
The fact of the matter is that we would not be in this position if the Democrats had passed a budget when they controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House last fall.
The House (controlled by Republicans) has passed a Continuing Resolution that would fund the government through the end of this fiscal year. The Senate (controlled by Democrats) has not even brought it up for vote. So far, the Democrats have failed to propose a bill that would form the basis of negotiation between the Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats have thrown out numbers of how much they are willing to cut, but they have not created a detailed proposal of where and in which programs they are willing to make cuts.