Parents: Watch out for 'Constructivist Math
(23Apr05) "The curriculum is designed to address the failure to teach mathematics to girls and ethnic minorities -- not by creating high expectations, but by abandoning standards.." Parents: Watch out for 'Constructivist Math "We have replaced elitism with dull uniformity; rigor with smile buttons; pride in accomplishment with pride in showing up...Who would you prefer to have operating on you -- a surgeon driven by perfectionism or one taught through the years that exactitude isn't everything, and that even the most miserable performance is worth a gold star and a hug?"
Pope Benedict XVI: Enemy of Jihad
(23Apr05) The new Pope seems to be aware of the grave danger Europeans face: he has called upon Europe to recover its Christian roots "if it truly wants to survive". Pope Benedict XVI: Enemy of Jihad By Robert Spencer .
"The new Pope has criticized Europe 's reluctance to acknowledge its Christian roots for fear of offending Islam's rapidly growing and increasingly influential presence in European countries.Now, through jihad terrorism and demographics Islam is threatening Europe 's survival yet again - and it looks as if now there is a Pope who has noticed. Maybe in Europe the resistance is just beginning.. "
(13Apr05) The ambition to take over the United States is hardly a new one writes Daniel Pipes in Conquering America . The first Islamic missionaries from abroad arrived in the 1920s and unblushingly declared, "Our plan is, we are going to conquer America ." Such hopes have become commonplace in recent years…. While there is no reason to suppose that the aspiration to replace the Constitution with Islamic law will succeed; the fact that this represents a not-insignificant body of opinion has major implications. It means that the existing order -- religious freedom, democracy, women's rights -- can no longer be taken for granted. It now needs to be fought for.
(13Apr05) The Gate of Hell by Alexander van Straubenzee was recently published in the Telegraph. It is an eyewitness account of the liberation of Bergen Belsen 60 years ago on April 15 th 1945.
"We were totally unprepared for what we had stumbled across,….About 30 yards into the camp, my Jeep was suddenly surrounded by a group of around 100 emaciated prisoners,…….Most of them were in black-and-white-striped prison uniforms and the rest wore a terrible assortment of ragged clothes. It was the state of these inmates that made me realise that this was no ordinary PoW camp." The Gate of Hell by Alexander van Straubenzee “But there was worse to come. Further on, Randall and his driver found a pit, 50ft square, containing a mass of semi-clothed and naked dead bodies of both sexes, lying in contorted positions, one on top of another…..”
Anorexia linked to brain defect, rather than social pressures.
(13Apr05) Many people have asked that I post this article on Anorexia: “The eating disorder anorexia nervosa could be caused by a brain dysfunction, rather than social pressures, a study shows…” Anorexia linked to brain defect, rather than social pressures. 'The biological cause has been under-emphasised and the socio-cultural pressures have been over-emphasised,' he said. 'There has to be a biological contribution otherwise everyone would be anorexic, given the socio-cultural pressures in our society ".
Global warming
(9April05) You may have missed the Michael Duffy Counterpoint program concerning global warming on Monday April 4 2005. You can listen to the program or printout the transcript. It is well worth the listen. From what I can tell the streaming only remains up for 3 weeks or a month , but the transcripts are readily available for longer.
On the same topic in the Sydney Morning Herald: “…Antarctic ice cores show that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has varied considerably over the past several million years. Interestingly, there is a relationship with temperature: warming precedes rises in carbon dioxide. This is the opposite of the panel's claim that rising levels of human-produced carbon dioxide have led to warming…..” A cold, hard look at a hot topic by Michael Duffy “…The IPCC review process is fatally flawed. The behaviour of Michael Mann is a disgrace to the profession. The scientific basis for the Kyoto Protocol is grossly inadequate…..In Germany in the late 1980s, the conservative chancellor Helmut Kohl "quite deliberately talked up climate change as a problem because he wanted to compromise the Social Democrats and the Greens… It was the ultimate political wedge and, says Kellow, typical of the way in which some with particular agendas have found the idea of human-produced and potentially catastrophic global warming useful….”
(9April05) This is worth a look. Once considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Havana is today a city in ruins. The Real Cuba. This is the Havana that the tourists don't see, because the tourists stay in compounds where Cubans are not allowed to enter, but this is the Havana where the real Cubans live!
Next time you find yourself confronted with and listening to many of the trendy, fashions and fads concerning the romance of ancient indigenous life it's well worth the remembering the Roger Sandall book The Culture Cult.
The dream “…. The Culture Cult is about romantic primitivism—the belief that traditional ethnic cultures provide a better home for humanity, more fair, more healthy, more harmonious, than today's free and open civilization ..”
The reality “… In fact, traditional cultures usually have most of the following: domestic oppression, endemic disease, poverty, clan enmity, violence, religious intolerance, and severe artistic constraints. If you want to live a full life, then modern civilization—not romantic ethnicity—deserves your thoughtful vote….”
(5Apr05) “….Even as the editorial writers fulminated and the dissident clergy fumed, the Holy Father drew the young in the tens of millions….. But what made him great? asks Pat Buchanan. “…All the churches that have drunk the Kool-Aid of modernity are dying…. While the mainstream Protestant churches shrink, the more orthodox and militant churches that make demands upon their flocks to live by Christian truths are attracting converts…”
(5Apr05) '...the suicide bomber who carried off the worst atrocity in Iraq, since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime was a 32-year-old Jordanian, Ra'ed Mansour al-Banna, who had lived for two years in California .'
“…Banna apparently loved America , reporting back to his family about the people's honesty and kindness; “They respect anybody who is sincere.” The California Suicide Bomber By Daniel Pipes
Ra'ed al-Banna's biography inspires several observations:
(1) When it comes to Islamist terrorists, appearances often deceive. That Banna was said to “love life in America ,” be “not very religious,” and be interested in “building a future for himself” obviously indicated nothing about his real thinking and purposes. The same pattern recurs in the biographies of many other jihadis.
(2) Moving to the West often spurs Muslims to despise the West more than they did before they got there. This appears to be what happened with Banna.
For other interesting features be sure to visit March 2005