education in the USA

It is sad that leaders in the USA do not understand how important education to national security. Comparison scores declined for decades last century. Some improvement can be seen this century, but USA scores still fall shamefully behind other countries.

1995 results: "...tests showed U.S. fourth-graders performing poorly, middle school students worse. and high school students are unable to compete. By the same criteria used to say we were "average" in elementary school, "we appear to be "near the bottom" at the high school level. source

2003 comparison of more than 250,000 15-year old students from 41 countries. USA Ranks: Math: 27th, Reading: 18th, Science: 22nd. source

2010 Ranks show minor improvement, but when considering the wealth and resources available in the USA, these scores still show a sad disregard for education in the USA: Math: 25th, Reading: 14th, Science: 17th.
source

This does not address the unavailability of higher education for the majority of Americans who cannot afford $100,000+ for a basic college education and double that for an advanced degree. Government loans and long-term debt or bankruptcy is not the answer, but the only alternative for many young people.

Until Education is as high a priority as Defense, no amount of bombs/guns will protect us from the defenselessness of technological and intellectual inferiority.

caprica

the saddest thing about caprica might be that they are eventually going to glorify the judeo-christian-muslin god after introducing the concept of a monotheistic god with sarcastic scorn in phrases like ”a moral dictator called god” blamed for leading kids to terrorist acts and instead of seeing the truth in the words, people will praise the glorification of that very moral dictator concept that has been the root cause of more death and destruction in this world than any other human-made concept in the history of human-kind…

or is the attraction to the show the titillating concept of a seductively pliable fifteen year old girl touched innocently (and often) because she is in a robot body and nobody knows she is really in there as they admire her chest and tinker with her crotch… while in a simultateous scene another teenage girl is repairing a motorbike while semi-flirting with a adult-looking teenage boy who’s job it was to fix that bike and the engine goes vroom vroom as they innocently touch hands and smile…

or perhaps the child will lead us concept as the carrot is that the same nubile fifteen year old innocent dancing seductively with a boy without him or anyone seeing her (because she's trapped in a robot and nobody knows, of course) actually has some secret answer that even she doesn't know quite yet... could it be the secret to immortality as she has figured out a way to put human's mind and personality (and don't forget spirit and soul) into a robot?... oooo, back to the whole moral dilemma thing again, aye?)...

or is the attraction the oldest moral dilemma of all (in modern recorded history, that is, i mean, since the jewish bible started), the old ways against the new ways as a very jewish appearing race is made out to be poor hard working hard core eye-for-an-eye religiously superstitious, secretive, and organized-crime powerful while the white-bread waspy-looking actual rich power brokers of the culture are clueless as to their money-changing corruptions and lead of moral fiber as they take technology into a virtual world where anything goes because there is no responsibility because ot the presumptious that nothing is real and nobody really gets hurt and nobody really dies…

but did they really have to made the eastern-indian looking kid the innocent misguided mad bomber?... and it’s ok, right, because he believed in the one-god concept… and do they have to play on the stereotype of the outrageously emotionally driven thoughtless acts of bereaving mothers only to make those same mothers some sort of heroes by convoluting their actions and slithering version of love into ridiculously unrealistic gestures of generosity that somehow make their stupidity and rash actions ok?...

I wonder how long I’ll want to know how the story turns out before I get too bored or simply too repulsed by the ignorance underlying the messages behind the story… and laughing, naturally, I wonder how many of you follow anything i've said here...

I suppose I need to know more about battlestar gallactica now, though the same sour taste that I could not pinpoint turned me off to that story after watching it for a little while… and suddenly i have this powerfully giggling errily puzzling secretly smiling deja-vu feeling... irony?...

or course I don’t recall the fifteen year old girl angle in that one…

yeah, smirk and giggle and narf as I use libido to keep my own attention while mocking and perhaps even condescending to those who do, or something like that, aye? :)

barf? lol :)

irresponsible adults

adults love to call kids irresponsible, but to see how dangerously (and criminally) irresponsible adults are, just turn on the news... i try to avoid the news, but tonight, a kid goes to the bathroom after school and when he comes out, his school bus has already pulled away... his sisters tell the bus driver, who reportedly tells them he can't turn the bus around... the kid tells a crossing guard as he's starting the five mile walk home along busy roads without sidewalks, and the crossing guard does nothing... the news asks the school representative who was responsible for the safety of the children on and leaving school property, and there's no one named responsible... so the kid is picked up by his father somewhere along the wroad on the way home after his sisters got home and told their father what happened...

i detest the ambulance chasing legal system we've got in this country, but in this case, someone on the school board should be fired for not having the right answer when questioned and someone at the school should be fired for putting that child at risk... if the kid had disappeared and become one of the many missing children in this country, would there be more concern?...

check the milk cartons, probably not..