News of the day

I don't see much noble about the idea. We have a system based obedience rather than education at the early levels. I think if we actually tried to educate children that we would be pretty successful. Of course that would require a lot of assumptions to be changed, and it will not happen as a result. 

Well as a, in my opinion successful (although I'm sure plenty of people disagree,) product of the education philosophy known as "unschooling," I think a large part of the problem is forcing education on kids when they aren't ready for it or interested in it. Perhaps I'm naive, but I think children encouraged to explore their interests and provided with help along the way will do a lot better than those force fed standardized facts at predetermined ages. I know I did.

I agree with you Logan, but that's not the purpose of education at that level around here. Schooling is a method of control. You could say an extension of parenting, but really calling it a substitute for parenting would be more accurate. Parents like it because their kids get fed, babysat, and taught to sit still and listen all at no additional cost to them. T

his notion, in my opinion maybe the most destructive thing, that education ends once you leave school (really this gets interpreted as education is a punishment that the adult isn't subject to), which Dean pointed out though he was speaking of something very much different, has permeated the entire country. I bring that up to say that part of the education problem in the country is that school used to be a part of a child's learning whereas now school is becoming a child's learning leading to poorer outcomes on standardized metrics which in turn causes the teachers to be blamed despite the fact that, while they are still inept in many cases, they really have no control over broad cultural shifts.

Wait a minute.  Judges in the UK still look like this?





























































Wowee.  Look at that.  If my judge looked like that, I'd get convicted of contempt of court too!







Edited by Epignosis - September 11 2012 at 20:52

Yeah - all traditional garb is ridiculous. At graduation I refused to wear cap and gown and was snubbed by many of the lecturers, but since we're all non-conformists here I guess we all did that.

Edited by Dean - September 12 2012 at 01:59

This is outrageous, unbelievable and infuriating. Radical Muslim extremists storm our embassy and murder one of our diplomats, and as a response the government issues an apology to them because the poor things had their feelings hurt.

EDIT: Upon further investigation, it seems that statement was issued by the embassy and not the white house, and it happened before the actual attack in an attempt to quell the riots, but I still think it's shameful that we continue to cow-tow to an irrational violent minority rather than stand up for our principles of free speech.


Edited by thellama73 - September 12 2012 at 09:34

Just seen the news on the BBC website.

thellama73 wrote: This is outrageous, unbelievable and infuriating. Radical Muslim extremists storm our embassy and murder one of our diplomats, and as a response the government issues an apology to them because the poor things had their feelings hurt. EDIT: Upon further investigation, it seems that statement was issued by the embassy and not the white house, and it happened before the actual attack in an attempt to quell the riots, but I still think it's shameful that we continue to cow-tow to an irrational violent minority rather than stand up for our principles of free speech.

The apology is stupid, but I believe that maintaining the idea we can peacefully establish non-militaristic facilities in volatile regions of the world which are continually perturbed by the flexing of our imperialist muscle is several orders of magnitude more idiotic.

rushfan4 wrote: thellama73 wrote: This is outrageous, unbelievable and infuriating. Radical Muslim extremists storm our embassy and murder one of our diplomats, and as a response the government issues an apology to them because the poor things had their feelings hurt. EDIT: Upon further investigation, it seems that statement was issued by the embassy and not the white house, and it happened before the actual attack in an attempt to quell the riots, but I still think it's shameful that we continue to cow-tow to an irrational violent minority rather than stand up for our principles of free speech. Our principles of free speech do not allow for an individual to yell "fire" in a movie theater when there isn't one.  Based on recent history, it really doesn't take a genius to figure out what would happen as a result of that movie being made and released.  Given it involves the same idiot who was threatening to burn the Koran on a previous September 11th, I think that he should be held responsible for the death of these Americans.  He has been warned time and time again that the only thing that he was accomplishing with his bullsh*t was endangering the lives of Americans stations overseas.  I am not condoning the action of the people who rioted and killed the Americans, but seriously, based on recent history what did you think would happen?

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. So if I threaten to kill you if you post on these boards again and you do so anyway, then any consequences are your own fault? You don't negate the rights of others by threatening to do violence if they exercise them.


Edited by thellama73 - September 12 2012 at 11:05

lazland wrote: Scott is right. The reaction from the fundamentalist nutcases was entirely predictable. His comments clearly do not excuse what happened, which was an outrage - he is merely saying that it was always going to happen. What a sad and horrible world.

Scott is wrong. The philosophy espoused in his post indicates that every two bit thug and petty tyrant should always get their way, because if they don't the resulting acts of violence are entirely predictable and therefore the fault of the victims.

I do agree with Pat, though, that we have no business being in Libya and after this we should remove all our people and let them have the whole miserable country to themselves.


Edited by thellama73 - September 12 2012 at 11:20