Back from Vacation

For the past week, I've been on vacation and made a concerted effort not to read or watch the news (makes a vacation much more relaxing). But I'm back and in looking at the web found an interesting piece.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-fire-and-brimstone-world-of-texas-school-propaganda/

"While attending the Texas State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) quarterly meeting to blog on behalf of TexasGOPVote.com, I learned about an example of extreme liberal bias in the form of a handout entitled “Philosophical Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives.” It was passed out by San Antonio Roosevelt High School (NEISD) teacher Barbara Geerdes to her AP U.S. government class. TexasGOPVote was later sent a copy of the handout, and I recognized it as something our community would be greatly concerned about.

According to some parents, Mrs. Geerdes did not allow the students to take the handout out of the classroom. (That charge has since been denied by the school district’s superintendent, as you’ll read in a moment.) However, one brave student grew concerned over the teacher’s repeated politicization of the classroom and managed to get his copy of the document out of the classroom so that he could show his parents at home. According to a source that followed up with the father of the student:

The Dean of Students responded that the teacher admitted that she has been distributing handouts all year without required pre-approval from the head of the social studies department. She has been giving these out to all of her classes, not just the AP class. She has always collected the handouts at the end of the class period and has never allowed the handouts to be taken home. "

Two things pop out at me when I read this. First, the fact that Ms. Geerdes would pass out unapproved handouts and second she would collect them at the end of the class period.

Now the second action could have been because she knew she hadn't gotten them approved and feared the consequences. But I think like many on the left, she didn't want to have her left wing propaganda challenged.

What ever the case, she should be severely reprimanded. Schools should not be indoctrination camps for either the right or the left. The entire purpose of education is to get people to think, not to parrot a particular political philosophy. Now you may assume that I think in a battle of ideas the right would prevail, and you are correct. While the left is a feel good philosophy, it can't stand up when you actually put facts and figures and not just anecdotal examples of injustice. The problem with the left's philosophy is that for it to actually work, you have to change human nature. Short of that, you have to impose strict laws and you strip freedom away when you do that.

Just a quick note. I placed the picture of "the thinker" on the right side of this article since a lot more thinking is done by the right than the left.

Some Observations

While many on the left like to accuse climate skeptics of being so stupid that they don't know the difference between weather and climate, it was at James Hansen's testimony over 20 year ago regarding global warming that the advocates cut off the air conditioning, opened the windows on a hot summer day to emphasis their point. It seems they must have felt that congress was stupid enough not to know the difference between climate and a hot day. And it appears they were correct.

And a companion piece to that observation is just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% disagree and say the government does not have the necessary consent. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters are not sure.

However, 63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree. Again this reinforces the reason why they opened the windows and turned off the air conditioning when they presented the idea of global warming to congress.

That helps explain why 75% of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and 63% say it would be better for the country if most members of Congress are defeated this November. Just 27% believe their own representative in Congress is the best person for the job.

Once again we are hearing in the media that America is ungovernable. The last time we heard this lamented was during Jimmy Carter's presidency. Does it strike you odd that right after that Ronald Reagan was elected and he seemed to govern America quite well? Perhaps what the MSM should say is that the people of America refused to be governed by incompetent leftists.

Embryonic Stem Cell research, touted by the left as the magic bullet that would let para and quadriplegics walk again, unlock the secrets to defeating cancer, etc. , hasn't worked out so well. Even after California funded it with 3 billion dollars and W allowed a series of lines to be used for research, not a single therapy has been found using these cells. It seems that these cells can become any type of cells in the body, but have a propensity to become tumors. And many of these tumors have actual teeth in them. In the meantime adult stem cells are continuing to used to treat diseases with a lot of success and not a single tooth growing where it shouldn't.

According to a new study released by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, some of the most liberal U.S. states rank lowest when it comes to personal freedom. …
New York is the least overall free by a considerable margin, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland. So what is the freeist state in the Union? Sarah Palin's Alaska. No wonder the MSM doesn't like her.

While Democrats lament how frequently the Republicans have used the filibuster this past year, they seem to forget that the Republicans didn't have the votes to sustain a filibuster. In fact what they are counting as an attempted filibuster by the Republicans was anytime the Democrats wanted to cut off debate and used cloture to do it. It reminds me of the child who goes crying to his mother, "Billy hit my fist with his eye."

In our poll on what will happen in the 2010 election: 51% think the Republicans will win both houses of congress; 15% think the Republicans will take the House of Representatives; 30% see the Republicans gaining seats but not taking control; and 3% think the Republicans will lose seats. I want to thank Senator Michael Bennet for casting the vote for the Republicans losing seats.