I am a Yankee through and through it makes it a little weird at times living in West Texas, to be honest I feel really out of place a lot of times. But if many of those living here in Texas had it their way they would control everything. The main people doing this are very much the religious right. What may come as a supprise to many is how much control Texas has over the textbooks that students around the country use. This is because when their standards are written the state itself chooses the books. Texas is the 2nd most populated state in U.S. and with all of the schools using the same books this is a huge number of books. This means that many publishers write their books to the Texas state standards and don't rewrite them for another state or school district. With this background information I figured I would pass along this article I came upon a couple of days ago showing the history of the far right's take over of textbook standards here in Texas that have been causing a stir amongst educators from over the entire U.S. This is an interesting read and shows why so many of those in higher education here in Texas are so vocal about going against what the board says. Things like this in particular:
There has already been plenty of screaming and wall pounding in the battles over standards for other subjects. In late 2007, the English language arts writing teams, made up mostly of teachers and curriculum planners, turned in the drafts they had been laboring over for more than two years. The ultraconservatives argued that they were too light on basics like grammar and too heavy on reading comprehension and critical thinking. “This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook,” grumbled David Bradley, an insurance salesman with no college degree, who often acts as the faction’s enforcer. At the bloc’s urging, the board threw out the teams’ work and hired an outside consultant to craft new standards from scratch, but the faction still wasn’t satisfied; when the new drafts came in, one adherent dismissed them as “unreadable” and “mangled.” In the end, they took matters into their own hands. The night before the final vote in May 2008, two members of the bloc, Gail Lowe and Barbara Cargill, met secretly and cobbled together yet another version. The documents were then slipped under their allies’ hotel-room doors, and the bloc forced through a vote the following morning before the other board members even had a chance to read them. Bradley argued that the whole ordeal was necessary because the writing teams had clung to their own ideas rather than deferring to the board. “I don’t think this will happen again, because they got spanked,” he added.
It is things like this along with the state standards for science and the potential ones for history that only show the US as being right in all of their decisions and founded as a christian country. Both of these are wrong ideas. The U.S. has made mistakes in foreign policy along with domestic policy. Showing these wrongs and teaching why they are wrong is what makes us a better country and better people in general. And there have been enough people that have pointed out why we are not a Christian country that I don't feel I even need to address the idea of seperation of church and state.
Anyway I def suggest that you check out the article it is important that we all know what we are up against both here in Texas and throughout the rest of the country.
I want to start by apologizing for not posting recently studying and writing has been getting in the way of that, I should be studying now but I don't want to so I'm not.
This post won't be about science like normal and while I said don't want to talk about politics in here well sometime you can't escape it. I came across this story while reading the paper this morning. Now maybe I am a masochist but whatever it I always read the opinion portion of the paper and that is when I came across this. So I read the headline and decided to go ahead and read it.
The article started to annoy me right from the start:
Among the many volatile threads common in the current administration, there is one that is especially troubling. That is the repetition of the attacks our president and his media representatives have repeatedly made against any voice that dares counter his own.
We saw this when they set up a White House Web site for citizens to report any suspicious or contrary information about health insurance during the summer. We saw it when they unleashed havoc on Fox News for daring to criticize President Barack Obama. And we saw it when the administration decided to let loose another attack. This time it battled Edmunds.com over its criticism of the cash for clunkers program.
Ok the White House did not set up a way to report people who were lying, and there were plenty of lies, during the summer they just wanted to know about misconceptions about the health debate so they could correct them in speeches etc. Next how did they unleash "havoc on Fox News"? All they did was refuse to be interviewed by Fox News I would too if they were calling me these type of things:
But you know what I'll give you a chance lets see how you summarize the Obama vs Edmunds argument:
To sum up the squabble quickly, Edmunds claims the administration failed to deliver the facts about each “clunker,” costing taxpayers $24,000, and although it boosted third-quarter sales, the fourth quarter, which is traditionally the worst season for car dealerships, will report abysmal numbers at best.
This administration reports, in contrast, the excitement of an inventive vehicle program drew in purchases that previously would not have happened. What they fail to say is this is highly unlikely for those who did not qualify, which is a greater percentage than one would initially think and during the CFC program, prices on vehicles actually rose.
Really that is it they disagree on what is going to happen in the future? And how is this silencing the opposition? Last time I checked we were allowed to say what we want and we were allowed to disagree in none of the things that you quoted did the Obama administration stop anyone from saying anything. You can speak your mind and guess what he is a citizen of the U.S. so he can...speak his mind too heaven forbid it disagrees with what you think.
I will let you read the rest of the article if you want but he pretty much goes on to say that Obama is wrong and that he doesn't let us use free speech but there is one last thing I want to discuss from the article:
The First Amendment states American citizens have liberty in the areas of the free exercise of religion, of speech, of the press, of assembly and to redress grievances before government. This is a statement that ought to take primacy in the lives of our leaders.
Guess what Obama is an American citizen and has the right to say what he thinks as well but even more so find me one instance where Obama has stopped any of these. Where the Tea party protesters allowed to protest? Yup. Are people still allowed to practice whatever religion they want? Sure. Do people call Obama a Nazi/Hitler? Yup. Has it ever been stopped? Nope. So you and he disagree on political issues, what did I expect living in West Texas, but that doesn't mean that you are being oppressed in what you can do/say.
So I know it has been a few days since my last post life has once again gotten in the way. So we all know about Louisiana's decision to allow the use of creationist material in the classroom passed their state school board earlier this year. Well a couple of weeks ago it got even worse.
That's right while they still will allow the Department of Education to review the material the local school boards do not have to listen to them should they disagree. Well considering they will probably be the ones to put the material in the classroom in the first place why should they care what that the state's experts say?
The state of science education in the state of Louisiana is down right horrible right now. And unfortunately unlike the people of Kansas who when they saw the problem elected their school board members out of office the next year I do not feel that this has been publicised enough for it to matter to most people in the State of Louisiana. This is a state that needs science and needs to listen to scientists more and they continue to ignore them. In my opinion the boycott by science organizations not coming to Louisiana is not enough people need to spread to word to others in the state and get the BESE board removed next election cycle. The only other way that I feel this will get changed is through a lawsuit. It worked in Dover and would set a clear precedent that this is the exact same thing.
[I apologize for my grammar to anyone with a respect to the English language out there I was having trouble putting my emotions into words]
So apparently William Dembski has a problem with a private organization doing something to help shine light on religion. It is a short post on the Uncommon Descent blog and you can find the post here.
The start of his post he says this:
You’ve got to wonder what an organization that touts itself for critical thinking is thinking when it sponsors a BLASPHEMY CONTEST:
I'll tell you what they were thinking they were thinking that they, the Center for Inquiry, a group of Atheists, Agnostics, and FREE THINKERS could hold a contest where people could...THINK. And that is the great thing about the US is that we are free to do that there are plenty of places in the world where this would not be allowed at all. So sure lets spread the word of this contest. Go ahead enter there are people around here in West Texas that could use a good bit of blasphemy and the opportunity will be given on September 30th when the Secular Student Society of Texas Tech University will be having a sell your soul for a cookie table. But I encourage all of you to enter this contest that includes you Bill
Since Darwin is their god, it would be interesting to submit to this contest true statements about Darwin’s less than divine attributes.
Although none of that would be novel since I am sure every supporter has heard them all before but good luck.
So a few months ago I read a story about 2 school administrators getting in trouble for saying prayer at a school event and today there was a follow-up released on CNN.com saying that these two men might actually get sentenced to jail for this. Story can be found here.
So it turns out that not only is it illegal to say a prayer in public schools because it violates that whole separation of church and state thing but there is also this:
Both parties approved the consent decree put in place January 9 under which district and school officials are 'permanently prohibited from promoting, advancing, endorsing, participating in or causing prayers during or in conjunction with school events,' the ACLU said.
Lay was a party in the initial lawsuit, and his attorney was among those approving the consent decree, according to the organization. In addition, the court required that all district employees receive a copy.
Whoops I guess they forgot about that consent decree when they did this:
But on January 28, 'Lay asked Freeman to offer a prayer of blessing during a school-day luncheon for the dedication of a new field house at Pace High School,' according to court documents.
'Freeman complied with the request and offered the prayer at the event. It appears this was a school-sponsored event attended by students, faculty and community members.'
Now you ask my friends and I can assure you they will tell you I have a bad memory but it really did seem like this consent decree was shoved down their throats.
Their attorney seems to think that just because the audience was adults it was OK to do this:
Attorneys from Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group helping defend Lay and Freeman, have said that attendees included booster club members and other adults who helped the field house project -- all 'consenting adults.'
Well sure they were but that doesn't mean that they wanted to have your religion forced on them. What if some of the parents were atheists or even Hindus, or any of the many other possible religions?
Look I am OK if you want to pray to yourself before, during, or after a public event but it cannot be sponsored by people who work for the state at a state run institution during a state run event.
Now you might be wondering why I titled this what I did. Well as much as I am for separation of church and state as the next guy I feel that putting them in jail for it would be a little too strong. Now I know what they would be put in jail for is actually not saying the prayer but is actually for contempt. But this is probably their first time in trouble with the law, they have already lost their jobs, I am assuming, and will probably have a hard time finding another teaching job again after this the least that the state could do is end it there. It would, however, be interesting to see how the prison population would react to these two men being put in jail that when asked what for they say, "We said a prayer."
So I know that over the last few days anyone who follows conservapedia a lot has noticed that they have had a lot of stuff on Global "Warming". It should as you may have noticed on some of my earlier posts be known as global climate change because while some areas will get warmer, some areas will get cooler and in the long run it effects more than just temperature as well. A few days ago they posted on some very local colder than normal days in a few locations as if a couple of days disprove that the earth is changing, I could very well point out to them that June in Baton Rouge was the 3rd warmest on record with the warmest 2nd half ever but I won't. Well today's post I decided I would comment on mostly because it is a misreading of science:
We Told You So Department: Alert Al Gore! A new peer-reviewed study may shake the foundation upon which man-made global warming fears are based. The new study discovered "something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models." The study, which was published on July 14, 2009 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience, found CO2 was not to blame for a major ancient global warming period and instead found “unknown processes accounted for much of warming in the ancient hot spell.” The press release for the study was headlined: "Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong."
"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models." [21] , [22] and [23]
Alright so here is what I really want to comment on click on link number 22 and it will take you to the abstract of the paper which says this:
The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (about 55 Myr ago) represents a possible analogue for the future and thus may provide insight into climate system sensitivity and feedbacks1, 2. The key feature of this event is the release of a large mass of 13C-depleted carbon into the carbon reservoirs at the Earth's surface, although the source remains an open issue3, 4. Concurrently, global surface temperatures rose by 5–9 °C within a few thousand years5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Here we use published palaeorecords of deep-sea carbonate dissolution10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and stable carbon isotope composition10, 15, 16, 17 along with a carbon cycle model to constrain the initial carbon pulse to a magnitude of 3,000 Pg C or less, with an isotopic composition lighter than -50. As a result, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased during the main event by less than about 70% compared with pre-event levels. At accepted values for the climate sensitivity to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration1, this rise in CO2 can explain only between 1 and 3.5 °C of the warming inferred from proxy records. We conclude that in addition to direct CO2 forcing, other processes and/or feedbacks that are hitherto unknown must have caused a substantial portion of the warming during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Once these processes have been identified, their potential effect on future climate change needs to be taken into account.
OK long yes with a lot of numbers which actually go to references. But to summarize their summary they say that global warming happened and our climate models can't completely take it into account. But the one thing I want to point out is this:
At accepted values for the climate sensitivity to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration1, this rise in CO2 can explain only between 1 and 3.5 °C of the warming inferred from proxy records.
Yes that is right contrary to what conservapedia would have you think the CO2 increase did still cause an increase in global temperatures we just can't fully explain the complete increase in temps but 1-3.5 is still a large enough temperature change to cause drastic climate change all over the world.
One last thing on this topic while I am here. You read often people who say that in the past CO2 levels where much higher than they are today you can go ahead and believe them because that is true. However, the planet was significantly warmer when that extra CO2 was in the air as well, just think of the Mesozoic era.
Finally for this post and it is a little off topic Conservapedia posted this:
More intolerance by atheists: "Lawsuit seeks to block 'In God We Trust' engraving." Congressman Steve King observed, "This lawsuit is another attempt by liberal activists to rewrite history and deny that America's Judeo-Christian heritage is an essential foundation stone of our great nation."[20]
I found the start of this post to be a little funny, more intolerance by atheists. I am sorry I am not by any means an atheist but they are one of the most looked down on groups in the US. Example:
But what really got me about the post by conservapedia was how this not wanting "In God we Trust" on public buildings denied our roots as a judeo-christian founding. This nation was founded on the freedoms of man and at its roots the founding was mostly secular. Yes, there was reference to a creator and even rarely God. But the founders of the US were for the most part deists. Their God was probably similar to the judeo-christian-islamic God because that is what Europe was for the most part and well most of them had roots back to Europe. As the article points out the whole In God We Trust was not put on money or anything until 1956 same with it being in the pledge. Most people don't remember a time without it anymore so they just assume that is the way it has always been. But prior to that most people just accepted that there was religion and then there was the Government and they were two separate things and that was the way the founder's wanted it. So who is really being the conservative here, is it the atheists demanding that it not be put up or is it the republicans demanding that it be put up? I know what I think think but I would more than willing to hear what any of the rest of you have to say on the topic.
Alright but that was a long and varied post if you made it all the way through here is something on topic but that should give you a little laugh.
Graduate of Virginia Tech with my BS in Geosciences. I will be dedicating most of my time here to refuting stupid creationist arguments but I will balance it out with a little VT football talk. This is my youtube page for anyone who might be wondering: http://www.youtube.com/user/Hochemon2008
Disclaimer: The views on this blog are mine and in no way connected to my school, employer, etc.
