* Conservatives Attacking Academia: War on Good Education/ Roll Back Federal Police Powers Now!

Conservative War on Good Education

October 29, 2007

by Neal McCluskey

Neal McCluskey is a policy analyst at Cato's Center for Educational Freedom, and author of Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education.

Last month we marked one year since the U.S. Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education released a report castigating America's ivory tower and setting out a "national strategy" to overhaul it. Also in September, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI)—a conservative higher education watchdog—throttled some of America's best universities for their performance on a test that seemed designed to fail them. And in Congress right now, many Republicans are pushing for bill that would publicly shame colleges that raise their prices too fast. Conservatives, it appears, are at war with the one system of American education that actually works.

Let's start with ISI. This is the second year that it has given a U.S. history test to freshman and seniors at a sampling of American colleges and universities, and the results, by ISI's account, were both abysmal overall, and worst at prestigious institutions.

Read more...

Submitted by Prof. D. Showley

"NO END IN SIGHT"

Democrats are trying to find a way to end the occupation of Iraq, but George Bush wants to keep the occupation going... forever.

That's why it's essential for all of us to see No End in Sight, a remarkable and powerful film that will give you the facts you need to demolish Bush's latest lies.

Watch the Trailer

Recently in Salon, noted correspondent Sidney Blumenthal wrote that the film 'No End In Sight' "has the White House spooked" by the prospect of former high level officials like Colin Powell being inspired by the insiders in the film to speak out against the shortsightedness of the disastrous Iraq policy, destroying the last vestiges of the administration's credibility.

Time Magazine has called the film "Without a doubt the most important film you are likely to see this year," and it is possibly the best reviewed film of the entire year, as you can see from the selection of critic quotes below.

The film is playing in theatres in most major cities nationwide. For a list of dates and locations, visit www.noendinsightmovie.com. If you care about where we're headed as a country, you owe it to yourself to see, what the NY Times calls, "an absolutely vital" film.

"PREPARE TO BE RIVETED. NO END IN SIGHT IS WITHOUT QUESTION THE MOST IMPORTANT MOVIE YOU ARE LIKELY TO SEE THIS YEAR." - Richard Schickel,Time

"THIS POWERHOUSE OF A MOVIE SHOULD BE REQUIRED VIEWING FOR EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS. Lucid, without partisan rhetoric, and not to be missed." -David Ansen, Newsweek

"**** STAGGERING! A DAMNING POLITICAL THRILLER." - Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

* Charles Darwin ~ Born on This Day

October 24, 1809

“The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent deity.”

-- Charles Darwin (1809-1882), The Descent of Man, 1871

Wikipedia

* The Secular Society & Its Enemies ~ The 2007 Conference

November 9-11
New York Academy of Sciences overlooking
the World Trade Center Memorial

Join Christopher Hitchens, Alan Dershowitz, Peter Singer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan, Wendy Kaminer, an unannounced Very Special Guest, and many others for this historic event.

Themes will include:

• The Age of American Unreason
• The Next Islamic Enlightenment
• Science and the Public
• Student Freethinkers Speak Out
• Secularism through History: from Spinoza to JFK
• VIP Reception and Awards Presentation (with the International Academy of Humanism)
  

A Time of Challenge and Opportunity

The world is finally waking up to the dangers of religious faith. Books defending reason and religious skepticism top the bestseller lists. Secular Muslims are standing up for freedom of thought. The secular perspective has finally gained currency in the media and in cross-cultural dialogue. Young freethinkers and secularists are organizing and speaking out on campuses, ready to carry the torch of secularism into the new millennium.

Yet religious fervor in the United States and abroad remains at an all-time high. Science education suffers from the constant onslaught of creationist activists. Democratic politicians have joined Republicans in pandering to religious prejudices. The American courts are stacked with judges who openly denigrate the nation’s vital and historic separation of church and state. Islamic radicalism is on the rise in Europe as well as in the Middle East. In many ways, societies the world over face the ominous threat of de-secularization.

How do we seize this moment of opportunity to address secularism’s many challenges? How can secularists build a lasting movement? What political and rhetorical strategies should the reality-based community employ? Does vocal criticism of religion help or hinder the cause of secularism? Hear the thoughts of the world’s leading minds on these and many other questions.

Be a part of this historic event. Register today!

* Great News! Coming to your neighborhood soon!

Freedom From Religion Foundation co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor after the unveiling of the Foundation's new billboard in early October in Madison, Wis.

* Not Religion, Just Bad Politics

Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo

Director, Research Center for
Religion in Society and Culture

Religious Utopias Gone Amuck

“No” the problems of 2007 in the Middle East are not based on religion; rather, these are the results of bad politics. Doubters will howl in protest at my answer, but then some people still believe that the Protestant Reformation was mainly a religious event and not a wrenching sociological change in 15th century Europe.

Read more ...

* Electronic Rosaries!

CCTV Article

They also come with headsets!
What next?

Born on this day in 1795 ... "a path-blazer of unparalleled brilliance."

“. . . so far from entrenching human conduct within the gentle barriers of peace and love, religion has ever been, and now is, the deepest source of contentions, wars, persecutions for conscience sake, angry words, angry feelings, backbitings, slanders, suspicions, false judgments, evil interpretations, unwise, unjust, injurious, inconsistent actions. . . .”

~ Frances Wright, freethinker, "Lecture III," 1828 (Life, Letters and Lectures)

*For more about Frances Wright, see Women Without Superstition: No Gods - No Masters

gapingvoid.com