Watching tonight on television the charlatans who infest Pennsylvania Avenue gaudily pronounce their saintly motives and their deity-like powers to “guarantee world-class health care for every American” (as one creep put it to a NewsChannel 8 reporter here in DC) makes me want to vomit.
These people look like serious adults; the timber of their voices make them sound like serious adults; and their titles are ones that are assumed to be reserved for serious adults. But, in fact, these people – from Obama to Pelosi to Hoyer to Reid – are nothing of the sort.
If they really believe even a quarter of the things they say, they’re imbeciles. If they aren’t imbeciles, they’re scoundrels. No third alternative is conceivable.
Either way, they’re an utterly detestable bunch.
He’s talking about elected officials. He’s talking about the president of the United States. He calls them “utterly detestable.”
Dialogue and thought lie broken down this much? This is a rant one expects of certified lunatics like Orly Taitz.
Boudreaux, of course, comes from that class of the bourgeois where intellect is so congenital that it’s not even necessary to make a case for why one finds honorable people on the other side of an issue to be in error. To Boudreaux, they’ve gone beyond error. They are “detestable” people. You know, abominable. They are people worthy of hatred.
So, we might imagine, Boudreaux is untroubled by protesters calling Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) a “n—-r,” and spitting at him and on his colleague, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri). Such racist actions are justified, if Lewis and Cleaver are truly worthy of hatred, no? Boudreaux probably also finds victims of Parkinson’s disease “detestable,” and so would be untroubled by the mob in Columbus, Ohio, sharing Boudreaux’s views on health care, who mocked and tormented the Parkinson’s victim who expressed a different opinion and sat down. “Communist!” they called him.
Demonization. Dehumanization. Objects worthy of hatred (a definition of “detestable) are not people who deserve respect. We don’t need to offer them health care, we don’t need to listen to their views, we don’t need to honor their civil rights.
It’s conduct unbecoming. Is Boudreaux so full of hubris that he cannot even entertain the idea that the bill is a good idea, the idea that Boudreaux may be a little bit in error?
We might also imagine that Don Boudreaux might get a good night’s sleep, wake up on Monday morning and rethink.
Somebody throw them a lifeline. Maybe they can figure it out. Churchill maybe put it best: Democracy is the worst form of government conceived by the mind of man, except for all the others. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you should lose. Sometimes the people’s wisdom is greater than our own.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Lots more stuff. Which articles do you find compelling?
Odd update, January 23, 2013: The link to “List of the 100 best blogs for anthropology students” is dead; it went to a page from OnlineDegrees.net. I have an odd request from that site asking me to remove the link because it’s “over-optimized,” and they are trying to get straight with Google. It all sounds shady to me.
My apologies, Dear Reader, for having linked to such a shady source as OnlineDegrees.net. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.
It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
You’ve read the health care reform bill, and you didn’t find any creeping socialism in it, nor did you find any little Joe Stalins hiding in Section 34, nor anywhere else.
How could people make such bizarre, outlandish claims?
It’s historic, really.
Keep America Committee flyer, 1955 - courtesy of Alex Massie
That’s right! Good mental health is anathema to conservative Republicans!
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
With these new Social Studies TEKS, TX students won’t know what such a
book is about.
Small bit of humor from a truly sad situation. One of the leaders of the Texas State Soviet of Education defended the evisceration and defenestration of social studies standards saying they didn’t need to listen to liberal college professors.
In economics, the professor was a conservative, well-respected economics professor from Texas A&M University, one of the most conservative state universities in the nation (with a Corps of Cadets numbering in the thousands and tradition deeper than Palo Duro Canyon and broader than the Gulf of Mexico). Calling these people “liberal” is tantamount to complaining about the communism espoused by Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower — that is, it demonstrates a divorce from reality and rationality.
In the grand scheme of things it’s not a huge problem, but it’s more than a trifle. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to fully comprehend market economics in the U.S. without understanding what capitalism is, and how it works. Teachers will be left to find their own materials to explain “free enterprise” and, if the students ever make it into a real economics course in college, they will discover “free enterprise” is a quaint, political term that is not discussed in serious economics circles. Texas students will, once again, be pushed to the hindmost by Don McLeroy’s odd views of America and what he doesn’t want Americans to know.
For example, look at the Council for Economic Education — while “capitalism” is not the only word they use for market-based economies, you’ll have a tougher time finding any definition of “free enterprise.” Or, more telling, look at the Advanced Placement courses, or the International Baccalaureate courses. AP and IB courses are the most academically rigorous courses offered in American high schools. The Texas TEKS step away from such rigor, however (while the Texas Education Agency rides Texas schools to add rigor — go figure). IB courses talk a lot about enterprise, but they don’t censor “capitalism,” nor do they pretend it’s not an important concept.
At the very conservative and very good Library of Economics and Liberty (which every social studies teacher should have bookmarked and should use extensively), a search for “free enterprise” produces 77 entries (today). “Capitalism” produces almost ten times as much, with more than 750 listings.
Which phrase do you think is more useful in studying American economics, history and politics?
Teachers will deal with it. It’s one more hurdle to overcome on the path to trying to educate Texas students. It’s one more roadblock to their learning what they need to keep the freedom in America.
Capitalism - Warren Buffett - BusinessWeek image
Free Enterprise - Bernie Madoff
The real difference? Literature on capitalism frequently address the issue of moral investments, and the need for some regulation to bolster the Invisible Hand in producing discipline to steer markets from immoral and harmful investments. The essential history politics economic question of the 20th and 21st centuries is, can economic freedom exist without political freedom, and which one is more crucial to the other? We know from every period of chaos in history when governments did not function well, but bandits did, that free enterprise can exist without either political freedom or economic freedom. I think of it like this:
Capitalism
Free Enterprise
Adam Smith
Blackbeard the Pirate
Warren Buffett
Bernie Madoff
Investing
Spending
Building institutions
Taking profits
Retail
Robbery
Wholesale
Extortion
Save for a rainy day
debt-equity swap
Antitrust enforcement to keep markets fair
Don’t get caught, hope for acquittal
Milton Friedman
P. T. Barnum
Ludwig von Mises
Charles Ponzi
Friedrich von Hayek
Richard Cheney, “deficits don’t matter”
Paul Krugman
Kato Kaelin
Stockholders
Victims and suckers
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Social studies teacher Jeff Brazil gets his head shaved alongside Lars Schou on Thursday at Jackson Hole High School as part of St. Baldrick’s, a cancer awareness campaign and fundraiser - News&Guide Photo / Price Chambers/JACKSON HOLE DAILY
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
A friend wrote me the other day wondering what I thought about the global warming hoax. I told him I thought denialists and contrarians have acted shamefully claiming that warming is not occurring.
My friend wrote back puzzled. He had meant, what did I think about the collapse of the false claims of warming? He said he had understood that almost all the claims of warming were hoaxes cast by a cabal of conspiratorialist scientists who had gotten fat government contracts only on the condition that they claimed there is warming.
It’s actually been about two weeks since I got that message, but it’s a common thought around the world. The thieves who stole e-mails from scientists did what Shakespeare termed worse: They stole the good names of scientists. The thieves’ accomplices, especially in blogs but also in brazen journals of bias like The Australian and The Daily Mail, successfully transplanted a stick they claimed was the end of warming science, and they’ve managed to keep it spray-painted green to convince careless observers that it’s alive.
That tree won’t flower. God’s earth doesn’t care about such falsehoods, but goes on cycling as Darwin noted. In that cycling, warming continues faster than apace, burning our future and our children’s futures in bits noted only by careful scientists.
While AnthonyWatts and other denialists gloated about heavy snows — we’re still cleaning up broken trees and destroyed groves and forests here in Dallas — fact is the North American west suffered from a snow drought. You may have seen part of it if you watched the Olympics from Vancouver. It was unseasonably warm, and until the second week there was a great shortage of natural snow for snow events.
We may forget about the ecological chains that weather actually push. Over at Ralph Maughan’s Wildlife News I found a story about the annual count of elk in Wyoming/Montana/Idaho. Ralph tracks all sorts of wildlife news, but especially news about wolves and wolf reintroductions. Wolf packs prey on elk when they can. The health of elk herds affects the health of wolf packs.
In January I heard there would be no elk count this year because the lack of snow made counting pretty much impossible. I’m glad the amount of snow increased because these numbers are important. Gaps in the data are harmful.
How much have you heard about snowfall shortages in the west, other than the Olympics? The drought is pretty bad up there. Much of the Mountain west, on both sides of the Rockies, gets water from the melting snows. It doesn’t rain much in the spring and summer, but melting snows supply rivers throughout the year. One reader commented at Maughan’s blog:
I have been in the back country of Montana, Idaho and Washington in the last 3 months and I can tell you, there is no snow to really speak of, the place I stay in Montana normally has about 5-6 feet of snow on the ground in January and when I returned around the first part of January, it had about a foot, Bozeman was very low snow as was Great Falls and Billings, Sandpoint has flowers blooming already, the Columbia River Gorge area up in the Mountains above the Gorge is greening up real well, no snow and Mount Hood has not had much snow either.
Right now, it looks very bleak for river levels this year, My wife was on the phone with her cousin in Florence, MT and Her Uncle in Lincoln, MT this week and they are saying the snow is just not there this year and expects that fishing this year will be very poor due to low water levels and higher river temps, one lives on the Blackfoot and the other on the Bitterroot..
Looks like unless we have a strong spring rain season, things could get dicey this year..
Anecdotal news, just one spot of rather amorphous data, right?
Surely not all the droughts nor drought effects can be blamed on warming — but the rolling disasters of dead forests, especially from pine borers and pine bark beetles, across North America, can be fairly attributed to global warming. Average winters would kill the insects — where average winters now are a rarity, forests that have stood at least since Columbus are dying out. Many of the dying forests predate the coming of all humans to the Americas, 37,000 years ago or so.
Housing prices will rise. Wildfires will increase. Water emergencies will be declared, and restrictions on development in water-strapped counties and states will be enacted.
Humans can deny warming and human causation. But even the Rockies cry out.
Who will listen?
US Drought Monitor, March 16, 2010 – Click image for updated maps
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
“America. A country where people believe the moon landing is fake, but wrestling is real.”
And now we can add even more captions:
A country where state curriculum officials go to churches that warn against belief in ghosts, but who believe Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin came back from the grave to wrestle the quill from Jefferson and write the Declaration of Independence.
[Heh. Wouldn’t you love to see Aquinas and Calvin in the same room, trying to come to agreement on anything?]
A country with Barack Obama as president and where women’s basketball is a joy to watch during March Madness thanks to the the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title IX, but Cynthia Dunbar believes the Civil Rights Act itself was a mistake.
A country where Barbara McClintock did the research that showed how evolution works and won her a Nobel, but where Texans deny that a woman should do such work, and deny evolution.
A capitalist nation where Jack Kilby invented the printed circuit and had a good life, but where the Texas SSOE thinks “capitalism” is a dirty word.
(No, ma’am, I couldn’t make that up. They did it. They took out the word “capitalism” because they say those “liberal economists” like Milton Friedman can’t be trusted. Seriously. No, really. Go look it up.)
Home of Thomas Jefferson, whose words in the Declaration of Independence so sting tyrants and dictators that today, in the most repressive nations, even oppressive systems must pretend to follow Jefferson — hence, the “Peoples Republic of Korea,” “the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” “Peoples Republic of China,” and the provisions of the old Soviet Union’s Constitution that “guaranteed” freedom of speech and freedom of religion; but where Thomas Jefferson is held in contempt, and John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas claimed as the authors of American freedom. [I wonder what the Society of the Cincinnati have to say about that?]
Where Mark Twain’s profound, greatest American novel Huckleberry Finn made clear the case against racism and oppression of former slaves, but where school kids don’t read it because their misguided parents think it’s racist.
A nation where conservatives complain that the Supreme Court should never look at foreign laws for advice, wisdom, or precedent, but believe that Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar from Italy, and John Calvin, a French dissident who fled to Switzerland, pulled a religious coup d’etat and is infamous for executing people who disagreed with his religious views, wrote the Declaration of Independence.
I’ll wager there are more, more annoying, more inaccurate statements from the Texas SSOE members in the Texas Education Follies, which will make much briefer complaints and better bumper stickers.
Other posts at the Bathtub you should read, mostly featuring Ms. Dunbar:
Peter Sinclair takes some claims from climate denialists too seriously. I hope.
On the other hand, he thoroughly shreds some of the more hoary claims of the denialists. Plus he includes clips of everybody’s favorite movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Give it a watch, “Flogging the Scientists”:
Gee. Here in Texas we could use a Peter Sinclair film on history, economics and other social studies. Quick!
Cynthia Dunbar told Chris Matthews today that Thomas Aquinas played a more important role in the American Revolution than Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson, Texas students learn in other places, wrote the great body of the Declaration of Independence, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which is the direct forebear of religious freedom in U.S. Constitutional law.
If you hurry, you can see it tonight (at 6:00 p.m and 11:00 p.m Central, I’m told) on Chris Matthews’ “Hardball.”
Isn’t it astounding people who claim to be Christian will tell such bold lies to children? It’s as if they think Jesus said “make the children suffer” instead of what Jesus did say. Voodoo history at its most voodoo; history revisionism of the rankest sort. Where’s Mermelstein?
Remember the sage grouse? People groused because the U.S. Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service determined most populations of western sage grouse are threatened enough to earn listing as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act — but then refused to list the bird, because other plants and animals are even more threatened, and need attention sooner. (I was one of those people complaining.)
Ranchers across the west are being offered millions of dollars in aid from the federal government to make their operations more environmentally sustainable and reduce their impact on the sage grouse the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today.
“USDA will take bold steps to ensure the enhancement and preservation of sage grouse habitat and the sustainability of working ranches and farms in the western United States,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. “Our targeted approach will seek out projects that offer the highest potential for boosting sage-grouse populations and enhancing habitat quality.”
The Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service will soon begin accepting applications for two federal programs aimed at reducing threats to the birds such as disease and invasive species and improving sage-grouse habitat. The agency will have up to $16 million at its disposal for the programs.
The Wilderness Habitat Incentive Program provides up to 75 percent cost-share assistance to create and improve fish and wildlife habitat on private and tribal land.
Sage grouse face a difficult future. State wildlife management agencies face a tough future, too, in trying to save the birds. The nation needs energy resources found, often, where the sage grouse need lands to meet, mate and raise their young. It’s a difficult balancing act.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — Obama’s EPA, we can say, now — announced today it will review pet flea and tick products, to prevent abuse and errors of use.
The flea and tick lobby will be upset, of course. Will the rabid Nobamistas join them? I expect someone will complain that this is creeping socialism, unless they say it’s running communism.
Before they get too far down that road, let’s note that pet ownership, and pet protection, were not exactly a high priority of the Soviet Union, nor are they great concerns of the Peoples Republic of China, nor of the Peoples Republic of Korea, nor Cuba, nor Vietnam. On the political continuum, protecting pets from pesticide abuse is about as bourgeois as it gets, rather the opposite of socialism.
How badly do the heathen want to yowl? Watch that space.
Tuesday, March 16 was the 259th anniversary of the birth of James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, the sponsor of the Bill of Rights, the life-long campaigner for good government based on knowledge of the errors of history, especially in the area of religious freedom.
Under social studies standards proposed by the Texas State Board of Education, Texas students will never study Madison’s views, or Madison’s Constitution, without intervention by their parents or good teachers who run some risk to teach the glories of American history to students.
Newspaper stories across the nation concentrated on Madison’s birthday expressed revulsion and rejection of the crabbed and cramped views of the Texas SBOE, and the cup of revulsion runneth over.
Steve Schafersman sends along a press release; Texas college biology departments continue to advance science and education despite foggings from the State Board of Education. Odd thought: You can be relatively certain that you can avoid Don McLeroy, David Bradley or Cynthia Dunbar, by being at the Alkek Library Teaching Theatre on the evening of March 23; learning will be occurring there at that time, and so it is a cinch that the leaders of the Austin Soviet will not be there:
Evolution expert to deliver lecture at Texas State
SAN MARCOS — Jerry A. Coyne, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, will present an evening talk and book signing at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 23, at the Alkek Library Teaching Theatre on the campus of Texas State University-San Marcos.
Jerry Coyne and friend (image stolen from Larry Moran's Sandwalk; pretty sure he won't mind)
Admission is free and doors will open at 6:30 p.m. A book signing with light refreshments will take place following the lecture.
Coyne is an evolutionary biologist whose work focuses on understanding the origin of species. He has written more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject.
In addition, he is a regular contributor to The New Republic, the Times Literary Supplement, and other periodicals. He runs the popular Why Evolution is True blog, and is an internationally known defender of evolution and critic of creationism and intelligent design.
The book Why Evolution is Truehas received widespread praise for providing a clear explanation of evolution, while succinctly summarizing the facts supporting this revolutionary theory.
Coyne’s lecture is sponsored by the Department of Biology and the Philosophy Dialogue Series at Texas State. Contact Noland Martin (512) 245-3317 for more information. For more information about Coyne and his book, please visit his blog: http://www.jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu. [and Why Evolution is True]
This lecture is part of a larger series on philosophy and science, featuring a few lectures that appear designed solely to irritate P. Z. Myers:
Philosophy dialogue to take up evolution, identity
Texas State philosopher Jeffrey Gordon will be among the speakers at the university’s Philosophy Dialogue Series in the next two weeks. Texas State photograph.
STAFF REPORT
The Philosophy Dialogue Series at Texas State will present evolution and identity as its discussion topic for the next two weeks in Room 132 of the Psychology Building on campus.
Following is the schedule of events, giving the discussion titles, followed by the speakers.
March 16: 12:30 p.m. – Evolution and the Culture Wars, Victor Holk and Paul Valle (Dialogue students). 3:30 p.m. – Arabic Culture 101: What You Need to Know, Amjad Mohammad (Arabic Language Coordinator).
March 17: 2 p.m. – Phenomenology of Humor, Jeffrey Gordon (Philosophy)
March 18: 12:30 p.m. – Stayin’ Alive: Does the Self Survive? Blaze Bulla and Sky Rudd (Dialogue students).
March 19: 10 a.m. – Sustainability group, topic be announced, Laura Stroup (Geography). 12:30 p.m. – Talk of the Times, open forum.
March 23: 12:30 p.m. – Evolution: An Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion, Harvey Ginsberg (Psychology), Peter Hutcheson (Philosophy), Kerrie Lewis (Anthropology), Rebecca Raphael (Philosophy & Religious Studies). Special guest panelist, Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago (Evolutionary Biology). Evening lecture – Why Evolution is True, Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago, time and place to be announced.
March 25: 12:30 p.m. – Constructing a Masculine Christian Identity: Sex, Gender, and the Female, and Martyrs of Early Christianity, L. Stephanie Cobb, Hofstra University (Religion and Women’s Studies).
March 26: 10 a.m. – Sustainability Group: Civic Ecology, and The Human Rights of Sustainability, Vince Lopes (Biology), Catherine Hawkins (Social Work). 12:30 p.m. – Talk of the Times, open forum.
Sponsors of the Philosophy Dialogue Series include: the American Democracy Project, the College of Liberal Arts, Common Experience, the Gina Weatherhead Dialogue Fund, the New York Times, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Phi Sigma Tau, University Seminar, the University Honors Program, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Vice President for Student Affairs.
For more information about this topic, contact Beverly Pairett in the Department of Philosophy at (512) 245-2285, or email philosophy@txstate.edu. A complete schedule of discussion topics and presentations can be found at http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/dialogue-series/Dialogue-Schedule.html.
Probably can’t make it to San Marcos from Dallas on a school night. San Marcos biology and social studies students, and teachers, should plan to be there.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 