openeyes

I'm glad the DFL had some backbone this year and didn't let the other side railroad everything through as they did last year. The conservatives have had this pattern of setting very bullying rules from the onset ("No tax increases, that's final!" said our governor) and then they blame the other side when they don't want to play their game.

Of course the conservatives are making Yecke into a martyr, but ever since her office issued the initial science standard report with all these qualifying words around the evolution discussion which were never approved (or even considered) by the committee, which she then blamed on a "clerical" error, I lost all expectation that she was really honestly trying to do what was best (however miguided) for our kids.

I think the religious right did themselves in by hanging around the Capitol all the time praying for passage of the gay marriage ban amendment (which didn't go anywhere) and other things that the more rational types just had to clear the air of some of the lunacy. (You'd think if prayer was so powerful they could just stay home and do it. Guess that's a topic for a different forum.)

Albion

Excellent piece of news! But as Rhaedas said, unfortunately it's likely to only be temporary. The ID people are engaged in a culture war against the atheistic-materialistic religion of evolution and everything it implies for culture at large, they've got money and contacts, and they'll be back.

Godless Dave

The media are letting the Republicans get away with blaming it all on politics; no mention of Yecke's abysmal record at her previous jobs, her radical ideas about education, the science standards, or the history standards.

SEF

Not really but it is annoying me that I can't find anything. I suppose I'm not that great at web searches in the first place (I'm more of a book person, pre-dating the internet) and, since it is second-hand information, I don't really know an appropriate subset of words to google on. Meanwhile I found this completely unrelated page though:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Gina...owie6jul98.htm

Perhaps there could be an alien breeding program for humans based on ability to get lucky in web searches, ie finding the right page straight away without sufficient information to legitimately do so. As an unlucky person I would be destined for the reject pile but perhaps one could hire the lucky people to do web searches as the internet grows. In case anyone thinks they might be one of the lucky ones, here's what little I "know" (even after phoning the relevant person):

The CIA (and other government organisations on both sides of the pond) were involved in deliberately encouraging dumbed-down TV programs such as "big brother" and equivalent changes in educational policy (eg new citizenship PSE subject but the removal of such issues from all real relevant subjects - ie political correctness instead of discussion and lessons learned from history/evidence/data) after Vietnam showed that there were too many intellectuals and liberals willing to question authority and refuse to be good little mindless zombies. Apparently the BBC showed a program about this approx 3 (?) years ago. I don't think that helps much though. I'm just too vague about what it is I'm trying to find.

woodheart

Yay. :notworthy

But it is just one victory in the war of proper education. There will be more battles. Maybe this will start a chain reaction. Start a domino effect.

Lets get this creationiest crap out of our schools.