Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

[Cybren]

To any further debate on "china vs US military":

force projectin. China does not currently have the capability of sending its military across the pacific. The US does.

[Arius]

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124930

[Cybren]

Yes, the Chinese navy is advancing.

Note, however, that that article is written in the future tense. It is obvious that the Chinese will be building their blue water capabilities in the future, but that is not now.

[Elomin Sha]

Didn't I warn you about the chinese 2 New years ago? Didn't I warn you?

Yes. Yes I did. I WARNED YOU!

[sdhonda]

Yes, the Chinese navy is advancing.

Note, however, that that article is written in the future tense. It is obvious that the Chinese will be building their blue water capabilities in the future, but that is not now.

This is presuming that:

1. The navy of the US, which has been an ocean faring nation for over one hundred years, will continue it's current stagnation (if it is even stagnant.)

2. That China, a historicly NON maritime power (the maritime power of asia being Japan) will be able to not only develop it's navy to levels on par with the US, but exceed US and Japanese capabilities.

2. B. And that China will not be facing economic problems in the not too distant future.

[sdhonda]

I tend to agree, but it goes both ways. There has been a very liberal altering of history going on lately. Indeed, a conservative idea of history, almost by definition, would be a more traditional understanding of history anyways.

Mind explaining this liberal altering of history? The only thing I can think of is Obama, a supposed liberal, recently cutting the budget for the Historic Preservation Program (About $30 million/year) that preserved things like the Lincoln Log Cabin, the Rosa Parks bus, &etc. I probably shouldn't have said Conservative as it's basically the object of both parties, what do you mean by a 'traditional understanding of history'?

[quote=:"from earlier"]Anyone who's looked at their kids' social studies textbooks in the last 40 years -- especially since the late Howard Zinn's A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES -- knows that the increasing tendency of revisionist social-studies/U.S. history writers of textbooks is to portray the United States as a sort of perpetual-motion discrimination- and oppression-machine. What started as an attempt in the 1970's to "open up" U.S. history to more recognition of minorities' contributions has led to the situation shown in recent studies where 3 out of 4 high school graduates have successfully learned all about Harriet Tubman's and Sojourner Truth's lives but can't tell us a thing about the Dead White Males named Jefferson or Madison or Washington.
[/quote]

[Arius]

2. That China, a historicly NON maritime power

Umm...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_history_of_China

The naval history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives existing since the late Spring and Autumn Period (722 BC – 481 BC) about the ancient navy of China and the various ship types used in war. China became a leading maritime power around the year 1000, when Chinese shipbuilders began to build massive oceangoing junks. In modern times, the current Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese governments continue to maintain standing navies with the People's Liberation Army Navy and the Republic of China Navy, respectively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Navy

Country People's Republic of China
Size 250,000 personnel
58 submarines
77 principal surface combatants
84 amphibious warfare ships
~387 coastal warfare vessels
~31 mine warfare vessels
~370-480 landing craft
~150 auxiliary/support vessels

Do you guys just say stuff and hope it to be true?

Oh and, US Navy:

332,000 personnel
280 ships, 3,700 aircraft

[Cybren]

The US has a blue water navy. The Chinese do not.

[Gordon Fearman]

They only have a mauve water navy.

[Deadpool]

This makes me want Texas to secede like they keep claiming they will even more now.

But Nevertheless, this is why I think politicians should not have anything to do with education. It should be a panel of educators only with no political ties and open minds to all sides and debates.

[Gordon Fearman]

It should be a panel of educators only with no political ties and open minds to all sides and debates.

Impossible.

[Gordon Fearman]

Don't get me started about how badly math is taught.

Yes, let Tom Lehrer do that. Problem is, I can't find the full version of that, so I have no idea how to do this problem in base 8.

Ooh, found it. Well, mostly. It's missing the opening speech which is in the other one. Man, why do things have to be so hard?

[evilgenius]

Don't get me started about how badly math is taught.

Yes, let Tom Lehrer do that. Problem is, I can't find the full version of that, so I have no idea how to do this problem in base 8.
Ooh, found it. Well, mostly. It's missing the opening speech which is in the other one. Man, why do things have to be so hard?

you can the whole thing in this Tom Lehrer box 4 disc set thing I have it around here somewhere its awesome

[evilgenius]

But honestly am I the only person who had a very good history education. I mean it was slightly US biased (no can honestly claim there history isn't even a little *your nation here* biased) but on the whole excellent teachers made up for that.

[Metcarfre]

I had a fantastic, fantastic high school history teacher. Got 96% on the Provincial. Learned a damn, hell-ass lot and piqued my curiosity for life too. I've often said that when I retire I'll go back to school and get a double major arts degree - philosophy and history.

The US has a blue water navy. The Chinese do not.

Exactly.

[tak197]

I know this is a wee bit off topic, but you're telling me you are ok with a major discrepancy in education between states?

I'm against socialized education too. Ever wonder why the kids coming out of high school missed some important things, but we also have the best universities in the world? Think about that.

Think about this: Mississippi and Arkansas are perpetually in the 49th and 50th spot in educational rankings in the US. Schools there are underfunded and falling apart in some places. There are even schools that are LUCKY if they get access to a single microscope. This isn't SOCIALIZED education that we are talking about, this is an interstate curriculum that says that all subjects are covered at the same age grouping in all states so that at any given time, 50 5th grade students from 50 states sampled at the end of the year will have been exposed to the same material and won't lose ground and have to play catch-up at the beginning of the next grade.

Now, this is not to say we need No Child Left Behind to be strong. Ask any education major or teacher and they'll all agree, Bush was a fuckin moron when he implemented that. It ensured that the special education kids got under rug swept, because it was either report the scores which would show that they aren't at the same level as everyone else (nor can they be measured at that same level) and get blacklisted, or hid them in a corner and get funding from the federal government. NCLB was a failure of policy and is one of the reasons I was a Hilary supporter in the primaries.

[Smeghead]

I had a fantastic, fantastic high school history teacher.

Me too, I wish i had had more classes with him because he managed to make tell you history in a way that made you laught.

But honestly am I the only person who had a very good history education. I mean it was slightly US biased (no can honestly claim there history isn't even a little *your nation here* biased) but on the whole excellent teachers made up for that.

Probebly right about the bias thing. I remember our textbooks having lot about all our kings and all the wars they went off to (but they left out all the mass murders and looting for some reason ), but then when it got to around 1820 the books sort of ebbed out sayin "And then 200 years of unimportant stuff happened. oh and we lost Norway. the end. Now lets look at teh rest of the world!"
So it seems more or less like that when the age when kings ran off to some war ended, our national history got boring and hardly worth mentioning :p

[Ed.]

All countries have their Texas.

Canada has Quebec.

Australia has Michael Atkinson (Only one person, because most people that stupid die while trying to hug kangaroos.)

Britain has Wales.

The problem is, the annoying ones are the loudest because they don't know to shut the hell up.

I'm sorry but that's out of line Wales is one of the best places going they have socialised stuff that actually works reasonably efficiently I study in Swansea and have been to a lot of place in Wales if anything its better than the rest of the UK and this is from an Englishman
They get abuse because its so heavily agricultural.

The UK has nothing like Texas our crazies tend to be at the other end of the spectrum and neither type of crazies are concentrated in one area

[Arius]

All countries have their Texas.

Canada has Quebec.

Australia has Michael Atkinson (Only one person, because most people that stupid die while trying to hug kangaroos.)

Britain has Wales.

The problem is, the annoying ones are the loudest because they don't know to shut the hell up.

I'm sorry but that's out of line Wales is one of the best places going they have socialised stuff that actually works reasonably efficiently I study in Swansea and have been to a lot of place in Wales if anything its better than the rest of the UK and this is from an Englishman
They get abuse because its so heavily agricultural.

The UK has nothing like Texas our crazies tend to be at the other end of the spectrum and neither type of crazies are concentrated in one area

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

[Ed.]

All countries have their Texas.

Canada has Quebec.

Australia has Michael Atkinson (Only one person, because most people that stupid die while trying to hug kangaroos.)

Britain has Wales.

The problem is, the annoying ones are the loudest because they don't know to shut the hell up.

I'm sorry but that's out of line Wales is one of the best places going they have socialised stuff that actually works reasonably efficiently I study in Swansea and have been to a lot of place in Wales if anything its better than the rest of the UK and this is from an Englishman
They get abuse because its so heavily agricultural.

The UK has nothing like Texas our crazies tend to be at the other end of the spectrum and neither type of crazies are concentrated in one area

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

an utter fail of one really

[Shinoki]

Why does anyone have to worry about a Chinese invasion? If Texas has taught us anything you just retcon the history textbooks to omit the facts that the Chinese occupation ever happened. Problem solved! You'll need to learn mandarin first though.

[Angnor]

(Snipped all the whining about Wales...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

an utter fail of one really

Ah yes, all's fair in making fun of places unless it's a place Ed likes. We forgot that rule.

[Snowfire]

All countries have their Texas.

Canada has Quebec.

Australia has Michael Atkinson (Only one person, because most people that stupid die while trying to hug kangaroos.)

Britain has Wales.

The problem is, the annoying ones are the loudest because they don't know to shut the hell up.

I'm sorry but that's out of line Wales is one of the best places going they have socialised stuff that actually works reasonably efficiently I study in Swansea and have been to a lot of place in Wales if anything its better than the rest of the UK and this is from an Englishman
They get abuse because its so heavily agricultural.

The UK has nothing like Texas our crazies tend to be at the other end of the spectrum and neither type of crazies are concentrated in one area

Um, I've been to Wales. Sure it's nice, but I prefer Scotland (then again coming from someone who grew up in Scotland so there's an obvious bias). Though calling Wales the UK's Texas is out of line. We used to have a place we could call our Texas but it's gotten better now. That was Northern Ireland

But yes, our crazies are spread out all over the country in little pockets. If we ever all get together though, the world is screwed

[empath]

{Arius makes the comment "All countries have their Texas." and makes a few humorous examples}

I'm sorry but that's out of line...{one long run-on sentence later...}...They get abuse because its so heavily agricultural.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

an utter fail of one really

...

yeah...so, as Arius was saying, everywhere has their share of annoying, loud crazies that just don't know to shut the hell up...


Just remember folks: one in four people are clinically insane; if your three friends are fine...*ahem*

[Gordon Fearman]

It means absolutely nothing because that's not the way statistics works.