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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 05/28/2009 : 22:01:17
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On a strict party-line vote, Don McLeroy, interim Chair of the Texas State Board of Education, failed to gain enough votes to be confirmed as Chair of the Board.
McLeroy is the Creationist dentist who is infamous for doing more than anyone (except possibly Gov. Perry) to present Texas as a Dark Age laughingstock and educational backwater.
McElroy will remain a member of the State Board of Education, but Governor Rick Perry will have to find a different wingnut on the Board to propose as the new Chair. Unfortunately, there are several members who are very qualified by their Creationist wingnuttery.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/28/2009 22:03:17
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2009 : 03:46:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
On a strict party-line vote, Don McLeroy, interim Chair of the Texas State Board of Education, failed to gain enough votes to be confirmed as Chair of the Board.
McLeroy is the Creationist dentist who is infamous for doing more than anyone (except possibly Gov. Perry) to present Texas as a Dark Age laughingstock and educational backwater.
McElroy will remain a member of the State Board of Education, but Governor Rick Perry will have to find a different wingnut on the Board to propose as the new Chair. Unfortunately, there are several members who are very qualified by their Creationist wingnuttery.
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It appears to be e glimmer of hope for science education in TX but I am not optomistic. The Bible-floggers will rebound, as they always do.
I am beginning to view this sort of thing as a source of amusement: "Bring on the clowns!"
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2009 : 09:13:38 [Permalink]
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| Good, good! |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2009 : 09:37:03 [Permalink]
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Well there is this from the NCSE:
Creationist board chair out in Texas
| Earlier, the Houston Chronicle (May 25, 2009) reported that, "there is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education Agency that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead the board" if McLeroy was not confirmed. The newspaper added, "Like McLeroy, Dunbar also holds strong Christian beliefs and recently authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square." |
It's likely that Perry, a creationist, will appoint Dunbar. On the other hand, he may not want to have another appointment not confirmed. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2009 : 15:20:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Well there is this from the NCSE:
Creationist board chair out in Texas
| Earlier, the Houston Chronicle (May 25, 2009) reported that, "there is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education Agency that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead the board" if McLeroy was not confirmed. The newspaper added, "Like McLeroy, Dunbar also holds strong Christian beliefs and recently authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square." |
It's likely that Perry, a creationist, will appoint Dunbar. On the other hand, he may not want to have another appointment not confirmed.
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If he does appoint Dunbar, well...that would just be the shits. If there's anyone worse than McLeroy, it'd be her. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2009 : 18:17:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Randy
If he does appoint Dunbar, well...that would just be the shits. If there's anyone worse than McLeroy, it'd be her. |
Yup, but at least they are headed for progressively incompetent Chairs, likely to further alienate Texans from both Creationism and the GOP. As in Dover and Kansas, experiencing the actual wacko rule of Creationists has educated electorates about how spitting-crazy they are, and has caused the overthrow of antiscience education boards.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 06/11/2009 : 03:46:29 [Permalink]
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My above prediction seems to be holding up pretty well; TX is still screwed.
Rumors began circulating earlier this spring that the faction of social conservatives controlling the Texas State Board of Education was moving to pack a key “expert” review panel for the social studies curriculum revision with like-minded ideologues (as reported in previous posts here and at TFNInsider). At last, the names of all the “expert” panelists are finally public. As with the panel of science “experts” the board appointed last year (a list that included several "intelligent design" proponents affiliated with the Discovery Institute), it appears that the social studies panel will be evenly split between mainstream academics and ideologues who advocate a "Christian nation" agenda.
The three mainstream academics on the panel are Jesus Francisco de la Teja of Texas State University, Jim Kracht of Texas A&M, and Lybeth Hodges of Texas Woman's University. The three ideologues aligned with the board's religious right faction are David Barton, the Rev. Peter Marshall, and Daniel Dreisbach.
Even a casual look at the vita for each of these “experts” makes clear grossly unequal qualifications. That examination also reveals the agenda of the board's Christian right faction: use the social studies curriculum to promote a political argument against separation of church and state.
So let's look at each of the so-called “experts” who will guide the revision of social studies standards for an entire generation of children in Texas public schools.
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Three professional academics and three intellectual hiatus'. Real nice, Texas. Well done. The Sacred Cause of Ignorance has been well served with the three scripture-soaked choices you've allowed to help form educational policy.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2009 : 08:52:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
[quote]
I am beginning to view this sort of thing as a source of amusement: "Bring on the clowns!"
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The Ol "It's so pathetic it's funny" |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2009 : 09:38:49 [Permalink]
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Yup. But it's also complex. The board's panel of six "experts" isn't so much "packed" as beset with an academically unrepresentative number of theocrats. (Even one out of the six would be unrealistic.) Neither the three real academics nor the three wingnuts can likely get a majority to endorse sweeping changes.
I suspect this will play out much like it went with the science standards: After the experts go through all the issues and submit their recommendation, the Religious Rightists on the Board will attempt to push radical, undiscussed proposals through out of the blue at the last moment.
The good part is that the radical theocrats have tipped their hand as being specifcally Christian Nationalists. The supporters of secular education now know exactly the kind of battle they have ahead, the kind of allies to mobilize (Jews, for a start!) and the kind of witnesses they need to bring.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2009 : 09:42:57 [Permalink]
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| So, the Texas School Board strikes again. And another big state standards battle will be coming soon I suppose. These people don't mind that I suppose, because, you know, they are working for God and YouTube. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Texas Senate fails to confirm McLeroy
