Author: Robert

The Religion of Submission

As Kate reported a year ago, the governor of the Pakistani Punjab province was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards. That murderer has now become a hero of sorts to many in Pakistan (audio version).
What’s often left out of reporting on this case is what precisely lead to the murder. From the aforementioned article is this interesting snippet:

So why did his bodyguard kill him?
Taseer – who had a record of protecting minority communities in Pakistan – was campaigning on a blasphemy case, that of a Christian woman called Asia Bibi.
Some Muslim women in her Punjab village accused her of defiling their well by drinking out of it and they demanded that she convert.
She refused and they accused her of blasphemy.
When he heard about the case Taseer decided he would try to get her a presidential pardon. He called a few journalists and visited her in prison and there he criticised the blasphemy law.

Remember this the next time you read a story involving Radical Islamists petitioning for more special privileges in Western countries.

Quick Reference to the Cultural Marxist Dictionary

Courtesy of SDA regular “Occam’, here’s a handy guide to help you translate the nonsensical catch phrases frequently used by talking heads these days:
Behavior Modification = Conformity instead of individualism
Community Education = Spreading propaganda
Community Grassroots = Low-income citizens, parasitic Leftist NGOs
Community Organizer = Agitator, radical, anarchist
Diversity = Race-based employment
Equality = Discrimination against majorities
Ethical Development/ Environmental Rights = Anti-development, anti-industry, anti-property, anti-technology Luddite-ism
Immigration Reform = Amnesty for illegal aliens
Inclusion = Special identity group rights
It Takes a Village = Cradle-to-grave Socialism
Judgmental, Extremist, Hate speech, Bigotry, Racist = Dissent to Socialist dogmas
Life Long Learning = Socialist propaganda saturation
Multiculturalism = Race politics
Outcome-based Education = Indoctrination disguised as education
Pregnancy Prevention = Population control, sterilization Eugenics
Progressive = Radical Leftist
Raping the Earth = The normal operation of capitalist development, hunting, fishing, private land use
Reproductive Freedom, Women’s Rights = Abortion = State-sanctioned fetal homicide
Social Solution = Expansion of government size and power
Socialization = Collectivist group-think instead of individual achievement
Sustainable Economy = Socialism, Marxism, redistribution of wealth
Unionism/Solidarity = Communism, anti-capitalism
As ‘Occam’ indicated, whenever you hear one of these terms, know with absolute certainty that the speaker (or writer) has an agenda they’re pushing.
If you know of other such terms, please mention them in the comments, along with a plain English translation.

A Second Helping of Steyn: The Left’s So-Called Empathy

If you have a friend who repeatedly tells you how open-minded he is, does his rote repetition ever reach a point where you think he’s covering up for his lack of open-mindedness? If you have a friend who constantly hints at how generous he is, but yet never seems to pick up his fair share of a restaurant bill, never seems to donate to charity, and never seems available to help you out with large or small tasks, do you begin to think he’s full of it?
In this light, Mark Steyn eviscerates the WaPo’s Eugene Robinson, who has long claimed that his column is all about empathy. After his vicious attack against the Santorum family, and by extension all families who have lost a baby right before or after childbirth, it’s little wonder why Robinson feels the need to keep reminding everyone that he’s a Man of Empathy. Fact is, he’s not. Even worse, he’s indicative of the modern Leftist mindset, which feels there’s nothing wrong with saying the vilest of things, as long as they’re against your political enemies.
The comments on this video about the Santorums and their dead child are absolutely common amongst Leftists these days. Here’s just one example:

The Santorums ought to give the Palins some tips on proper abortion methods. You think that stem cell/afterbirth/fecal matter amalgam they called Trig is ever going to amount to ANYTHING? Hey, Sarah: If you’re reading this, you can borrow my Sam’s Club Card and stock up on coat hangars if you’d like….

Such filth is typical in hate-filled Leftist echo chambers. Don’t believe me? Here’s another example from a very mainstream blog/discussion site.
Read Steyn’s column. Read every word. And you’ll get a small glimpse into the battle that all centrists & conservatives are facing this decade. The Left absolutely wants to take over every aspect of our lives. They want to control how many children you have. They want to indoctrinate your children with Radical Leftist narratives from a young age. They want to ensure that most everyone belongs to a union. They want to control the maximum amount of money you can make. They want it all. And to accomplish this, they will do & say anything . . . without ever feeling the need to apologize. You can choose to avoid this fight. But they won’t.

“Social Justice” + Math = Trouble

A few days ago, a comment by ‘chip’ to this topic on SDA contained the following:

The state of public education in BC is very poor compared to what we have experienced in Asia. And now that UBC has initiated its new teacher training program that will bring the issues of social justice into math and science classes one can expect it will get a lot worse before it gets better.

One has to wonder if the “brain trust” behind the B.C. education system might soon be emulating this example set in Georgia:

Update: Courtesy of ‘rita’, here are some instruction manuals for “educators” who wish to breathe new life into the class warfare fires and amp up animosity & distrust between the races. Bravo, Leftie Social Engineers, you’re doing such “good” for society! 🙁

Math is Hard

Yesterday Charles Adler had an interesting segment about technology in the classroom.
As sometimes happens in such discussions, I think the bigger point was missed entirely by the pundits. Here’s the crux of the e-mail I sent to Adler afterwards:

Interesting segment on your show today. If I may, I’d like to broaden the discussion somewhat. The underlying problem is that finding competent teachers in any of the “non-soft” subjects is exceptionally difficult. Whether it be Computer Science or Math or Physics or Chemistry, I have strong reasons to suspect that the competency of most high school teachers in Canada in these areas would range somewhere between “Fair” to “Poor”. When it comes to basic computer skills, I wonder if most teachers would even be qualified for the most rudimentary office job that involved word processing and spreadsheets? I suspect they would not.
Let we forget, computers have had a significant presence in our society since at least 1981 when the first IBM PC was introduced. That’s 30 years ago. The fact that any teacher of any age is now expecting formal training in the basic use of a computer is mind boggling.
I graduated high school at one of the best schools in Vancouver in 1982. We were blessed to have an excellent Physics teacher, some pretty good Math teachers, and a fairly good Computer Science teacher. Fast forward to today … what I’ve been told by my many high school teacher friends is that the competency levels in these areas has dropped significantly. Oh sure, there are undoubtedly some exceptions and the kids learning from those particular teachers are lucky. But what about the majority of kids who are being “taught” by people who really aren’t passionate about their assigned subject area?
Stop for a moment to think about how many kids steer away from going into the hard sciences or engineering because of uninspiring high school teachers. Unless there’s a role model in the form of a parent or an uncle or some adult friend of the parents, it’s unlikely that most Canadian kids will go into the fields where our country most needs them. Ooops, am I even allowed to make that last statement, that Canada needs more people in hard sciences than in soft subjects?! Or is the master plan for this century to generate oodles of wealth in our nation from sociologists and womens studies majors?!?
Just the other day a longtime friend of mine, unsatisfied with the teachers at his son’s school, asked where his son could get some mentoring in the area of Computer Science. Where he’s going to get it from is from me. As an accomplished software developer I’m going to devote some time to teach my “nephew” in this area that he has an interest in. He clearly is not going any help or inspiration from the trained “professionals” at his school.

For the record, I don’t dislike teachers. But I much prefer competence over treating every single person in the teaching profession as a hero.
Update: Useful education links for students & parents alike:
                    – Khan Academy
                    – MIT Open Courseware
                    – Berkeley
h/t Kyla, Ron in Kelowna, Fridge Logic

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