Laws and politicians, and things I think are wrong.

[kyrielle]

I don't often post political stuff here, mostly because everyone else is more coherent and faster than I am. But, there are a couple things that have caught my eye lately that I do want to post.

First, for anyone who's missed it, I don't like Bush - and I don't think he is doing a good job, or even a passable one. There were times, especially early in his administration, when I was not sure. That's definitely not the case any more. He has done more damage to this country, finanancially and politically, than I wish to think about. I am not convinced the present war was necessary, and I am convinced that if it was it was mis-handled. I am very sure his economic "reforms" are a crock of manure. But here are some interesting stats if you haven't yet run across them.

They don't change my mind a bit, unsurprisingly. Though a couple are dodgy, in that they semi-compare (by placing side-by-side) values that don't compare well for one reason or another.

Then there's (not particularly related to Bush) this article about a proposal in Missouri to force teachers who teach evolution to also teach "intelligent design" (the less-religiously-tied form of Creationism, apparently). I don't know that there's much evidence for it, or any reason why intelligent design couldn't use evolution, but that aside, the quote in this article that really struck me had to do, not with the Missouri proposal, but with an earlier Kansas decision: "For instance, after science standards were changed in Kansas, a physics teacher was not allowed to teach the big-bang theory. A chemistry teacher could not teach the periodic table. "

Um. The periodic table? A list of the elements?

Guh. This country is going to go down in a morass of ignorance and self-destruction, and we will have earned it, by allowing travesties like this to occur.

Comments

[camwyn]

Um, I think you munged up an HTML tag there...

[kyrielle]

Argh. Yes, yes I did. Fixed now. Thank you.

[canyoncat.livejournal.com]

I knew about the bit in Kansas where they can't teach evolution or the Big Bang but not about the Periodic Table? What's the point of a Chemistry class at all if you cannot discuss elements? If the elements themselves are taboo what about sub-atomic particles like electrons or even the more elementary stuff like quarks?

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I agree 100%. Living abroad while this sort of thing is happening is not doing wonders for my sense of patriotism, either. :-(

[camwyn]

I liked the bit about how if you're an atheist, you can say that intelligent design is run by an extraterrestrial cosmic intelligence.

I say some enterprising teacher should get up and inform children that the universe was designed by the Monolith Builders!