Chris Mooney, Environment Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: I have said it many times, but feel I need to say it again: The Theocratic Right, of whatever sect or denomination, is the most dangerous toxic social force in the world today. There are many reasons why I say this: its dysfunctional but obsessive focus on sex, the subordination of women, the cultivation of a sense of persecution, its servitude to corporate interests, but the biggest factor is its rejection of facts and disdain, if not contempt, for science. And no where is this more important than its hysterical climate change denial. Here is the data. Please note, this is not an attack on religion per se. Look at the chart and you will clearly see the distinction between say the Anglican/Episcopal Church and the Assemblies of God.
Credit: Josh Rosenau/National Center for Science Education
Last week, I blogged about a striking figure created by evolutionary biologist Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education, plotting U.S. based faiths and denominations based on 1) their members’ views about the reality of human evolution and 2) those members’ support for tough environmental laws.
The figure (left) has created much discussion, both because of what it seems to suggest about the unending debate over the relationship between science and religion, but also because of how it appears to confirm that more conservative leaning denominations harbor a form of science resistance that extends well beyond evolution rejection and into the climate change arena.
Because let’s face it — we already knew that conservative religiosity in the United States was closely tied to denying evolution. What wasn’t so obvious was why views of global warming, or the environment, would seem to so closely track views on where we humans (and the rest of all life on Earth) come from. Yet […]
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David Edwards, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Here is another story of the Theocratic Right's deleterious effect on social wellness through the medium of its creature the Republican Party. This movement's contempt for facts in general and science in particular quite naturally leads to a contempt for education. Education makes children question the absurdities of fundamentalism. As a result education beyond certain basics is not desirable particularly for girls. It is another form of social self-mutilation.
And let me be very clear here. I think the basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and such need to be taught by people trained to teach, who have also demonstrated competence in their subject area. But by the same token I think there are also subjects which do not require a college degree and where experience and competence may be much more important than a college diploma. My step-son for instance does not have a college degree but went through the English cabinet-making apprentice program and is a master furniture maker. Any student interested in woodworking would be very lucky to have him as a teacher.
When one cuts through the polemics and bloviation it becomes clear this bill is really about making it easier for profit making charter schools to hire less competent and cheaper teachers, and to let religious schools get away with not teaching things like basic science in a factual way.
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Credit: Shutterstock
Republicans lawmakers in Wisconsin have proposed a rule change that would allow high school dropouts to be licensed to teach in public schools, which critics have slammed as “breathtaking in its stupidity.”
The Journal Sentinel reported that the measure proposed by Republican state Rep. Mary Czaja was slipped into a 1:30 a.m. Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee vote last week with other K-12 budget items.
According to a statement from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the new rule would require DPI to “license anyone with a bachelor’s degree in any subject to teach English, social studies, mathematics, and science.”
And DPI would be required to “issue a teaching permit for individuals who have not earned a bachelor’s degree, or potentially a high school diploma, to teach in any subject area, excluding the core subjects of mathematics, English, science, and social studies.”
Czaja said that the new requirements were necessary to give rural school districts more leeway when hiring staff.
But Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance Jerry Fiene told the Journal Sentinel that the change […]
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Yael T. Abouhalkah , - The Kansas City Star
Stephan: Perhaps you have noticed that the corporate media very infrequently compares the social programs and the social outcomes of the various states. SR pays a lot of attention to this, because the states really are laboratories — giant sociological, psychological, and economical longitudinal studies.
We know what works. We have the data.
In Kansas as in Greece austerity economics have been employed. In both it has been a disaster. The evidence is simply overwhelming. In financial wellbeing, education, healthcare, infant mortality and a host of other markers Red value social outcomes are inferior.
Then ask yourself this question: why did the people living in Kansas re-elect this man, and those legislators?
Note, this is a Kansas paper, writing for the local market.
Gov. Sam Brownback said he hoped to add about 2,000 private sector jobs a month in Kansas during his second term, but the state has fallen far short of that figure so far in 2015.
Credit: Thad Allton/AP|
The new national jobs report for April, released Wednesday, shows Kansas now trails 44 other states and the District of Columbia in total nonfarm job creation in the first four months of 2015.
That’s an extremely dismal record, especially given that Gov. Sam Brownback has pledged previously that the huge income tax cuts he pushed in 2012 would bring a resurgence of employment to the Sunflower State.
It’s not happening.
The new report shows Brownback is falling far short of keeping his promise on job creation in Kansas.
Remember that pledge?
During his re-election campaign in 2015, the […]
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Michael Grunwald, - Politico
Stephan: Here is some more on the decline of coal. This is largely a citizen action, and it shows what the concerted power of individual choice can accomplish. This is good news for the Earth and the beings that inhabit it.
A typical strip mining in which the top of a mountain is carved off and geoforming to get at the coal begins, leaving a surreal landscape where once there were peaceful forrests and pristine springs and creeks.
Credit: www.energytrendsinsider.com
The war on coal is not just political rhetoric, or a paranoid fantasy concocted by rapacious polluters. It’s real and it’s relentless. Over the past five years, it has killed a coal-fired power plant every 10 days. It has quietly transformed the U.S. electric grid and the global climate debate.
The industry and its supporters use “war on coal” as shorthand for a ferocious assault by a hostile White House, but the real war on coal is not primarily an Obama war, or even a Washington war. It’s a guerrilla war. The front lines are not at […]
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Patrick L. Smith, - Salon
Stephan: Austerity economics has proven to be a disastrous financial model. Yet it is enormously profitable for the few, and that's why it still holds sway despite all the countervailing evidence. This essay makes a good case for this point.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 21, 2012, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the European debit crisis.
Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Fascinating to watch the International Monetary Fund as it fronts for the U.S. Treasury and international lenders in the Greek and Ukrainian debt crises. In the former, the fund pins the Syriza government to the wall because it dares to represent its electorate. In the latter, it stands by the Poroshenko government because it has no intention of representing anybody other than banks, corporations and the global strategy set.
“Fascinating” is one word for this and it holds. “Greed in action” is three but they do a better job.
Coincidentally enough, both the Greek and Ukrainian cases now near their respective denouements. Miss this and you miss a singularly plain […]
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