Article Mirror
January 28, 2013
By Anomaly
Reading, Writing & Religion II – a new report by the Texas Freedom Network — investigates public schools in Texas and the results are mind boggling. School kids are taught that the Bible gives scientific proof that the Earth is 6,000 years old, and the United States was founded as a Christian nation based on biblical Christian principles. At least one district’s Bible course includes materials suggesting that the origins of racial diversity among humans today can be traced back to a curse placed on Noah’s son in the biblical story of the flood. Such claims have long been a foundational component of some forms of racism, the report notes.
This is interesting: Astronauts have discovered “a day missing in space” that corroborates biblical stories of the sun standing still.
Mother Jones reports:
The report, written by Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University, found that more than half of the state’s public-school Bible courses taught students to read the book from a specifically Christian theological perspective—a clear violation of rules governing the seperation of church and state.
Many school districts pushed specific strains of fundamentalism in the classes:
* “The Bible is the written word of God,” proclaims a slide shown to students in suburban Houston’s Klein Independent School District (ISD). Another slide adds: “The Bible is united in content because there is no contradictions [sic] in the writing. The reason for this is because that Bible is written under God’s direction and inspiration.”
* A PowerPoint slide in Brenham ISD in Central Texas claims that “Christ’s resurrection was an event that occurred in time and space—that is was, in reality, historical and notmythological.” (emphasis in original)
* In North Texas, Prosper ISD promotes the Rapture, claiming in course materials that “the first time the Lord gathered his people back was after the Babylonian captivity. The second time the Lord will gather his people back will be at the end of the age.”
Dinosaurs and humans were besties:
Some Bible classes in Texas public school appear to double as “science” classes, circumventing limits placed on teaching creationism. Eastland ISD, a school district outside Fort Worth, shows videos produced by the Creation Evidence Museum, which claims to posess a fossil of a dinosaur footprint atop “a pristine human footprint.”
I have to go walk my pet dinosaur now, but there’s more at Mother Jones.
Image: Creative Revolution.
Article Mirror
January 23, 2013
By Anomaly
A new bill in South Carolina that would create a new high school class for gun training was introduced by Republican State Sen. Lee Bright, focusing on firearm safety and the Second Amendment. Bright told Eyewitness News that the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., made him rethink the Second Amendment. ”I believe the more guns we have the safer we are, because had there been someone in Newtown with a weapon, had it been a teacher, they could have stopped it early,” he said.
Bright further added, ”Because had there been someone in Newtown with a weapon, had it been a teacher, they could have stopped it early.”
The Huffington Post reports:
The “South Carolina Gun Safety Program” would teach students to properly use a firearm, safety techniques and the history of the Second Amendment. The course would be offered as an elective and would take place at an off-campus shooting range.
“We’ve got football, we’ve got basketball, and we’ve got baseball,” Bright told WSPA. ”I think if they had a hunting team, it would be a great idea.”
Apparently, Bright and I went to very different high schools. Somehow baseball and target shooting are now paralleled. Creationism is taught in schools over science. Our kids are being dumbed down. Welcome to 2013 where more guns = safer classrooms. Guns in high school: What could go wrong?
H/T: Mr. Sweetie aka: @ComgenKDT
Image: Raw Story.
Article Mirror
January 19, 2013
By Anomaly
Today is Gun Appreciation Day and in an ironic turn of events, Law enforcement officials have confirmed a shooting at the Dixie Gun and Knife Show at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds Saturday afternoon. The accident left three people injured. While taking their guns out on a date to show it ‘appreciation’ at a gun show, someone’s 12-gauge shotgun discharged after the gun’s owner, 36-year-old Gary Lynn Wilson, of Wilmington, unzipped its case for a law enforcement officer to check it at a security entrance. But there were other incidents at three separate gun shows.
I’m curious: Is it legal to travel about with an armed weapon? To my knowledge, it’s not. I suppose the retired Wake County Sherriff’s deputy working the show who was one of the injured parties can answer that.
Also injured: Fifty-year-old Linwood Hester, of Durham, and 54-year-old Janet Hoover, of Benson, both of which were subsequently transported to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries. Deputy Jake Alderman, 54, of Wake Forest, was treated and has since been released.
And there was damage of course. The gunshot shattered the window.
The incident forced the Dixie Gun and Knife Show to shut down for the day after the incident.
Political carnival reports:
A person who was loading a gun outside of the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show at the State Fairgrounds was accidentally shot when his gun discharged Saturday afternoon.
The incident was reported shortly after 4:15 p.m. Saturday.
Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show PIO Ashley Varner says the man had been inside at the gun show before the incident.
He was walking back to his car, was loading his semi-automatic pistol and accidentally shot himself in the hand, Varner says.
State Police responded to the scene. The man was taken to the hospital.
Think Progress reports:
Two similar incidents occurred at entirely separate gun shows in the Midwest, one in the Cleveland suburb of Medina, Ohio and the other at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana. In Ohio, the local ABC affiliate reports that one individual was brought to a hospital by EMS, and in Indiana Channel 8 WISH says that an individual shot himself in the hand while trying to reload his gun in the show parking lot. That brings the tally to 4 victims of gun violence so far at three different gun shows during the country’s first Gun Appreciation Day.
Four people were shot today on Gun Appreciation Day. Four people were shot today on Gun Appreciation Day. Sorry, I had to type that twice. I can’t get over it. Don’t judge me.
We did try to offer some advice before Gun Appreciation Day (the one where four people were shot).
Article Mirror
January 11, 2013
By Anomaly
It seems that Republicans that screech the loudest against equality are usually the ones that should be reigned in for actual sexual misconduct, and not their perceived instance of such. It’s easy to blame the FABULOUS people because their rights have been limited for quite some time. This is a prime example: A lawyer in New Hampshire is facing 25 years in prison after filming her 14 year old daughter having sex with two men on multiple occasions. Lisa Biron, 43, of Manchester was convicted by a jury yesterday. It took the jury only one hour. Oh yeah, and Biron works vigorously against gay rights with a Christian-right organization.
Salon reports:
Biron, arrested by the FBI last November, was accused of eight felony counts involving the videotaping of men having sex with a 14-year-old girl who was identified by the Associated Press as her daughter. She also allegedly made a cellphone video of herself having sex with her daughter.
Biron, who claimed on her Facebook page (which was taken down, according to the Concord Monitor) that the Bible was her favorite book, had worked with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, in defending a Pentecostal church in Concord in a tax fight against the city.
The Arizona-based ADF calls itself a “servant ministry” that seeks to transform the legal system and advocate “for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” The group issues dire warnings about “the homosexual agenda” and offers a book (available for a donation of $35) by its president, Alan Sears, and senior director Craig Osten, with that title. In the book, the authors claim that “the homosexual agenda” will destroy religious liberty and free speech. In one chapter, they claim that homosexuality on college campuses leads to pedophilia, and that homosexuality and pedophilia “are intrinsically linked,” a falsehood long perpetuated by the anti-gay right to demonize LGBT people.
(my bold)
Gosh, where have we heard that well propagated lie before? Rush Limbaugh among so many others springs to mind.
You can read more here.
Image: SabinaBecker
Article Mirror
January 7, 2013
By Anomaly
The Ohio State University student who referred to the Steubenville , Ohio rape victim while laughing as “Deader than Trayvon Martin, she is so raped her p-ssy is as dry as the sun” dropped out of school citing threats, after the video went viral.
Michael Nodianos — who I refer to as Laughing Boy — stated in the video, “Why isn’t she waking up? She’s dead,” the teenager says. “They peed on her. That’s how you know she’s dead, because someone pissed on her,” he says and, later in the video, “She is so raped right now.”
The Daily Beast reports:
Investigators interviewed the 18-year-old at length after being made aware of the video, said Nodianos’s attorney, Dennis McNamara, at a press conference Monday afternoon. McNamara said investigators determined Nodianos was not present when the alleged assault occurred.
“He had no firsthand knowledge of anything,” McNamara said. “There were three witnesses, at least at the location where the alleged crimes occurred, and all three confirmed Michael was not there. He has not been subpoenaed or asked by either side to be a witness in the pending juvenile case.”
McNamara said Nodianos did not know the alleged victim and has “since been told” he was at a house were one of the assaults allegedly occurred.
Yet Nodianos’s comments in the video have continued to haunt Nodianos. His family has received threats, and his Twitter account, email, and Facebook page were all hacked, along with the email accounts of his parents and grandparents, according to McNamara. Someone set up a fake Twitter account claiming to be Nodianos and continued to tweet offensive things about the case from it, he added.
What’s particularly disturbing in the video, is when Nodianos is asked by one of his peers how he would feel if the victim was his sister or daughter. The laughing teenager was insensitive to the reality his friend was trying to enlighten him with.
Nodianos, who was drunk when he made the video, is “ashamed” of his behavior that night, “after some sober reflection,” his attorney s“He sincerely regrets the behavior. He was not raised to act in this manner… it really is just poor judgment.”
McNamara said Nodianos still has an athletic scholarship at OSU but isn’t sure what his future plans at the university are.
It seems to me that some folks are suggesting that activists affiliated with Anonymous have vilified this kid, when actually the 12 minute talk-a-thon video which he stars in is as self-demonizing as it gets — except, no one was supposed to actually see the footage. Otherwise, Nodianos would likely still be in school with a clear lack of conscience, laughing horrifying moments off while trying to play the main role in a bad comedy routine.
I don’t feel bad for this kid. If his attorney is correct and he is truly sorry, then he can express that in a video sans the lousy comedy routine. At least Nodianos learned one lesson before dropping out: Consequences. It’s a shame that the town whose past has been embedded with corruption can’t learn the same. Time will tell. The real victim is the girl who was carted around from party to party while unconscious, then repeatedly raped.
