(no subject)

[gwydion]

* A plank of the Republican Party platform is: "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." This means outlawing science. After all forming a hypothesis, constructing an experiment, gathering data, examining evidence and judging if it supports the hypothesis or null hypothesis is pretty much all higher order thinking. That's right, they want to outlaw science in public schools. They are arguing that the rest of the curriculum should be reduced to rote memorization as any sort of analyzing of evidence is anathema. This pretty much puts an end to the good parts of social studies: the debates and discussions, the looking at evidence, the story part of history, the preparing students to become involved and informed citizens. It beats all the fun and joy ut of learning and is a good way to create a dystopia of uninformed intellectually stunted drones to follow the orders of their masters who went to private schools that excel at teaching people how to think. It's heartbreaking and scary all at once.

They want to take the learning out of education for everyone who isn't rich.

* The Renaissance is just a label: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/26251014379/the-new-crash-couse-is-here-learn-about-the

* On Conservative threats to move to Canada to escape socialized medicine: http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/06/canadians-dont-want-you-conservafools.html

* "6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying:" http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-things-rich-people-need-to-stop-saying/#ixzz1zJqgU5lU

* The Plumber came today. He not only fixed the toggle so one doesn't have to sit there holding it down to get it to drain, but he snaked our drain and got us a new spout so showers are less wasteful. The cats really did not like getting locked up, but it was so worth it.

* Moment of Zen: Bert, Doing the Pidgeon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPj3G7U-K04

* Snerk: http://cdn.thedevilspanties.com/comics/20120630.gif

Comments

[il-volpe.livejournal.com]

The Cracked thing cracks me up. Especially today.

"'Sure, it's an objectively large sum of money,' they say. 'But it is far smaller after I spend it.'"

I feel certain that Rock contrived to fudge the numbers on his financial statement so that he, making 4.5K monthly, has less left over at the end of the month than me, making 1.1K. Of course, this is because I was trying to live on $400 a month (and always going over, eating rapidly away at my savings) and now I'm trying to save so that when this temp position is over I'll be a little less close to busted than I was when I started the job.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Rock is a tool.

[il-volpe.livejournal.com]

I prefer the term 'douche nozzle,' which is a sort of psuedo-tool, with a worthless and harmful function that may cause dryness or infection.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Douche nozzle it is.

[seifaiden.livejournal.com]

I skimmed the whole platform of the Texas GOP and it was cartoonish. I like how in their bit about marriage only being between a "man and a woman" (naturally) they managed to sneak in transphobic wording too, making in clear that in their ideal world transpeople would actually be unable to marry. It was amazing among other things, the gold standard was in there, wording that implied U.N. conspiracies, pledging allegiance to the Texas flag...has it always been this way, or am I just noticing now?

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

There was always an extremist fringe. Look up "John Birch Society." What's new is that rebranded as the Tea Party and "Dittoheads" the extremist fringe and the religious right have taken over the main stream of the party. The early signs of it in the '90's broke my Father's heart as he was dying. This is why my Mother quit the party a few years before she died. President Obama's positions are where the Republicans used to be and a generation ago he would be considered a center right or moderate Republican politician based on all his policies except the LGTQ ones. Policy positions like Immigration, health care reform, and his economic policies are all things that would be considered solidly Republican in Reagan's era, for example. Compared to him, Nixon and Eisenhower were wildly far left. No really. By all objective measures, the Republicans keep going further and further right to the point of extremist fringe reactionary and the whole sale adoption of conspiracy theories.

This shit is scary and I'm not being ingenuous when I say I want a healthy, reality based Republican party as represented by people like Megan McCain. My mother's pro-choice, equal pay for equal work, sex positive, economic/tax policy aimed to to help the middle class, live and let live branch of the Republican party is nearly gone and Megan McCain is pretty much the last woman standing. I genuinely want a group of reasonable people looking at data and coming up with a wide range of solution which they debate and then compromise on. I do not want a one party system run entirely to benefit the super wealthy and fronted by extremist fringe conspiracy theorists, which is where we are actually headed.

I would move to Canada if they would take me, but they don't want impoverished folk with severe chronic degenerative illnesses.