Category Archives: Education

Economics, Education, History, Political Commentary

The Worst And The Dumbest

3 Comments

Remember that civics test? Well, this should inspire confidence in our political “leadership”:

US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

But they did fare better. What does this say about our so-called “elites”? Forget about a literacy test for voters. How about one for candidates?

Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

I Only Missed One

50 Comments

I scored 32 out of 33 on this test (I missed the last one–Doh!). Unfortunately, most people don’t do that well.

I really think that we should bring back literacy tests for voting. They shouldn’t have gotten rid of them because they were being used to racially discriminate–they should have just ended the racial discrimination.

[Friday evening update]

I have to say that readers of my blog, even the non-USians (or at least the ones commenting), are way ahead of the curve. Nice to know.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

A Corrective

28 Comments

…to the charlatans like Jim Hansen. Here are two useful books. First, Cool It, by Bjorn Lomborg who, while he doesn’t deny the science behind global warming, he doesn’t need to, because he has actually prioritized useful government policy actions based on cost and benefit (something that the warm-mongers refuse to do, e.g., Kyoto). Second, from Chris Horner, Red Hot Lies, which is well described by its subtitle: “How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.

Yup. As many reviewers note, “climate change” isn’t really about science–it’s just the latest ideology to come along for the collectivists to use in their latest attempt to bend us to their will.

Education, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Too Much Self Esteem

13 Comments

Never before have so many been so proud of so little:

The findings, published in the November issue of Psychological Science, support the idea that the “self-esteem” movement popular among today’s parents and teachers may have gone too far, the study’s co-author said.

“What this shows is that confidence has crossed over into overconfidence,” said Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University.

She believes that decades of relentless, uncritical boosterism by parents and school systems may be producing a generation of kids with expectations that are out of sync with the challenges of the real world.

“High school students’ responses have crossed over into a really unrealistic realm, with three-fourths of them expecting performance that’s effectively in the top 20 percent,” Twenge said.

Don’t they realize that half of them are below median intelligence? Probably not, because they got an “A” in math, even though they didn’t understand it.

One of the perverse and tragic problems with incompetence is that it generally includes an inability to recognize it.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

America The Illiterate

9 Comments

I don’t generally think much of Chris Hedges, and the comments are nutty, but I largely agree with this piece:

The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.

Can democracy survive for long, with such an electorate? Of course, he doesn’t finger the primary culprit–our fascist public school system which manufactures exactly the sort of people who will keep it in power.

[Late afternoon update]

Are individualists losing the IQ war with the left?

Education, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Doing The Math

11 Comments

The Obama campaign has been lying about its donor base:

If, as Obama says, most donations are grassroots and in small amounts, the numbers do not match up. If this many people donated to his campaign he would be polling at well over 50%.

In a grassroots movement, you smell the green. He’s raised $600 million, as you say, in small donations. So divide it by ten bucks apiece and there’s 60 million donors. If 120 million people vote on Tuesday, and he gets 50% that equals …60 million voters! Honestly, you cynical rightwing losers, what’s so suspicious about that math?

On Fox Newswatch on Saturday, Jane Hall said that many of her (journalism) students couldn’t even calculate a percent. Of course, in this case, they’re not motivated to figure it out, even if they know how.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Aren’t There Any Editors Left?

10 Comments

Sarah Palin is righteously demanding that the LA Times release the tape, but look at this transcript:

…she saved her hardest criticism for the newspaper that currently holds the tape, saying they was refusing to release it to aid Obama.

“It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that,” Palin said. “In this case, we have a newspaper willing to throw aside even the public’s right to know in order to protect a candidate that its own editorial board has endorsed. And if there’s a Pulitzer Prize category for excelling in cow-towing, then the L.A. Times, you’re winning.”

I’m pretty sure that the paper has never towed a cow. And she didn’t say that it did. She said that they kowtowed. But I guess neither the writer or editor (if there was one) knew what that word meant or at least how it was spelled.

Education, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Why I Have A Blog

25 Comments

To get past the gatekeepers.

I put up a(n admittedly semi-snarky) comment at Keith Cowing’s place yesterday, and he chose not to publish it (his comments section is moderated) for whatever reason. His blog, his call.

It was in response to “NASAAstronomer’s” comment that:

…if McCain and Palin win, we’ll be teaching creationism in our science classes, so how likely is it that space science will get funded?

My (unpublished until now) response:

Yes.

Right. I’m sure that will be one of their first acts, to mandate the teaching of creationism in science classes.

Can you explain to me how that works exactly? Will it be an executive order, or what?

This kind of Palin derangement is amazing. Lileks noticed it, too:

Here’s your Sarah Palin overreaction of the day. Presumably she took out the entrails, dried them, and used them to lynch librarians. It’s really obvious, isn’t it? She wants to kill Lady Liberty and all she represents. The plane is included in the picture because she personally shoots polar bears from above, like she’s GOD OR SOMETHING. The comments have the usual reasoned evaluations – she’s a PSYCHO, a LUNATIC. That picture is so sad and so true.

I don’t know if anyone’s stated the obvious yet, but this might be the first time people have become unhinged in advance over a vice-presidential candidate. Not to say some aren’t painting McCain as something the devil blurted out in a distracted moment during his daily conference call with Cheney, but a Veep? It took a while for people to believe that Cheney commissioned private snuff films with runaways dressed up to resemble a portion of the Bill of Rights, but Palin is She-Wolf of the Tundra right off the bat. And god help us she can use email, which means she will control the government. The most Spy ever did with Quayle was stick him in a dunce hat. By the time we reach the election Oliphant will probably draw Palin sodomizing by an oil derrick with guns for arms. I have to confess: I think Palin is an interesting politician, but the people she’s driving batty are much more fascinating.

Imagine twelve years of this.

Yes.

Well, we’ve survived eight years of BDS. I suspect that we’ll pull through a swamp of PDS.