From a tweet

(Sorry I've misplaced the source; pls let me know it, if you do.)

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

From xkcd.

Ditto re- net neutrality et al.

A Few Headlines: "Learned Helplessness" in Schools, Missing Billions, & More Media Control

1. At DU, links to info re- "CIA torture theorist working for KIPP charter schools": former American Psychological Association (APA) President Martin Seligman originated a theory re- "learned helplessness" which, if I understand correctly, involves breaking down individuals' autonomy and replacing it with uncritical compliance with authority. Seligman actively assisted in the development of the CIA’s torture techniques, and now his theories are apparently being used on students in charter schools. More at the link and at Schools Matter.

2. At The Fiscal Times, "Billions of Dollars 'Vanish' in Afghanistan." "The United States has spent more than $55 billion trying to rebuild war-torn Afganistan and win the confidence of the people, but most of that money can’t be accounted for or has been wasted on failed projects." More at the link.

3. At HuffPo, "FCC breaks Obama's promise, allows corporate censorship online with fake Net Neutrality"; more at the link.

4. The FCC and Department of Justice may be about to approve a proposed merger between Comcast and NBC Universal. Below, Al Franken explains why this would be disastrous for the rest of us and how you can help stop it.

For What It's Worth . . .

. . . i.m.h.o., Dem losses are attributable mainly to their failure to beat back conservatives w.r.t.:

1. Election integrity (both electronic voting and campaign finance, including corporate money);
2. Media integrity (the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine and restrictions on ownership consolidation); and
   
3. Public education (destruction begun long ago and currently continuing under Obama appointee Arne Duncan).
   

Americans are not stupid; they're miseducated and brainwashed. "A modern economic system demands mass production of students who are not educated and have been rendered incapable of thinking."– U.N.E.F. Strasbourg, On the Poverty of Student Life (1966).

And it's not that Dems can't message; it's that they've lost control of their own message, because it's either distorted or not reported by the media. Reality is now almost wholly overshadowed by emotional manipulation and spectacle created by a media largely controlled by the right.

Remember this from 2004 re- the term, "Reality-Based Community":

The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, The New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush (later attributed to Karl Rove): The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." . . . "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued . . . ."

(Wikipedia; footnotes deleted.)

B.t.w., there's just one state – California – in which easily-hacked electronic voting machines have been pretty much eliminated. And in that state, EVERY statewide elective office went to Dems. Probably just a coincidence.

Best Nations to Live In

. . . per a study based on "Education, Health, Quality of Life, Economic Dynamism and Political Environment." The U.S. ranks 11th, after Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Luxembourg, Norway, Canada, Netherlands, Japan, and Denmark.

Cool interactive graphic at Newsweek.

The Future Un-Inc'd

"Future Unincorporated is a consulting company created by Cassie [Thornton]. The mission of The Future Unincorporated was to create an office where very important meetings can take place. To consult is to give and take advice. Cassie developed an interrogation system that created a reason for conversation with each individual client. The goal of the interrogation is to amass information about individuals in order to discover the perfect corporation inside every person. The Future Unincorporated understands the future starts in only 5 minutes, and it goes on forever. The company would like to ask you what you will be doing then. It believes the consultations will change the future just by talking about it." Read more here.

Ignorance . . .

. . . may or may not be evolutionarily adaptive, but it apparently seeks to propagate itself. Some California schools have banned dictionaries because they define "oral sex" (the definition reads, "oral stimulation of the genitals"). More at the UK Guardian.

How quickly the search results for the same query change . . .

Last time I checked the internets, "educated populace prerequisite democracy" (w/o quotation marks) turned up Jefferson. (If you can confirm an original source for a succinct statement of this concept, please let me know!)

Jefferson thought we must provide good, public education as a support to democracy.

Tonite, the same search yields a host of hits contending that most voters shouldn't vote. See, e.g., americanthinker, newswithviews, the rationalargumentator ("argumentator"?).

Here's some of what Jefferson wrote:

"I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1810. ME 12:393

"The less wealthy people,... by the bill for a general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government; and all this would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:73

"I think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness... The tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

"The present consideration of a national establishment for education, particularly, is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible to found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to endow it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the necessary income. The foundation would have the advantage of being independent on war, which may suspend other improvements by requiring for its own purposes the resources destined for them." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:424

"The reading in the first stage, where [the people] will receive their whole education, is proposed... to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:106

"Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:423

(Emphasis supplied.) Quotations assembled by Eyler Robert Coates, Sr. at the U. of VA.

Cool Science Toy

Designed by Emil Ernerfeldt for supervisor Kenneth Bodin, HPC2N/VRlab, Umeå University, Sweden, to allow kids to create their own educational toys.

You can download the program for free here. (Sorry, it only works on PC's and Linux machines now, though a Mac version is in the works.) As a starter tip, turn gravity off when you’re attaching stuff to the background (right click after selecting “affix” tool).

(Thanks, Ben!)

Training Our Kids for War

Uh, I think this has already been happening for a while now.

Conservatives do have a work ethic. At least 30 years ago, they recognized the importance of control over the media, elections, and education. They have been busy.