gadgetlady

In California (and many other states), there are neither stop-gaps in homeschooling or in institutionalized schooling. Children can drop out / flunk out / flail through public school or graduate without knowing how to read. Homeschooled children in California and around the nation continue to do better on average than children in any instutionalized school.

Thank you. You guys are awesome. A distant family member just sent me these two scary quotes -- they gave me chills: "Children must be conditioned through gradual indoctrination, to reject the thought processes transmitted by their parents and churches, so they may be prepared for the new world social order" --- John Dewey-Father of the American School System "There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure." "...every politically controlled education system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy, sooner or later. ... A tax-supported compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state." -- Isabel Patterson, The God of the Machine, 1943

California's homeschooling laws are pretty clearly established, and this ruling just ignored all of them. It is so out of line it's ridiculous. But unfortunately, judges today don't care and do whatever they want to do, the law be damned. I'm hopeful the CA Supreme Court will overturn or depublish the decision, but it's not something anyone can be 100% sure of.

States can't even enforce good education in public schools! While you may think that to be sarcasm, I am quite serious. Our education system is a dismal failure. Even relatively uneducated parents can do wonderful things with a good whole curriculum and solid one-on-one tutoring time with their kids. On the whole, the success rate of homeschooled kids is head and shoulders above public -- and even private -- schooled kids.

April 18th. And you're welcome

Thank you so much. Every signature will help. Even our (not conservative) governor has decried this decision! I've been watching the signatures pile up and earlier today it was being signed at the rate of one every two seconds. This could not only dramatically affect homeschooling in California, but in other states as well. It's unlikely it will hold up, but I'm not going to sit on my hands and watch it happen.

It's not gory at all. There are no photos of anything abortion-related at all. It's all voice recordings and typed text. You should watch it.

I AM ASTONISHED AT THE FOLLOWING VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eygv8qEkiFE Watch all the way through. Amazing!

I have this image of "Big Al" holding an award close to his chest, back slightly turned, while someone tries to yank it out of his hands. In my mental picture, there's a toddler-like temper tantrum occurring as well. It isn't often I get to use my favorite smiley! :smile2:

Sometimes abortion kills more than the unborn babies: The Suicide Of Emma Beck - Silence No More -- Michelle Malkin -- GOPUSA

Posted without comment from DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down. Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it. Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70. Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

Hi everyone! This has been posted before but I'm trying again. We have had a cancelation of a single female LBT cruiser and are trying to find someone to take her place. Her intended roomie is very sad because she doesn't want to cancel her cruise :cry The normal rate at the heavily discounted group rates which we secured in July of last year is $771.96 per person for an outside cabin. The same category cabin now goes for $1391.96 per person -- a savings of $620!!! But wait! There's more! Order now and you'll also get . . . If we can find someone who's interested in going on this cruise, they will get this $1391.96 deal not for the $771.96 that the person who canceled would have paid, but for an additional discount of $100, bringing the 8-day/7-night total, including tax and port fees, to $671.96. (The roomie of the lady who canceled really wants to go and is willing to subsidize a new roomie) This is a steal of a deal. If there's anyone who wants to go, please PM me right away. If there's anyone already on this cruise who has a single female friend who wants to join up, that would work too -- they don't have to be banded or an LBT member, they just have to know one If you or someone you know is interested in going and money is the only issue, please PM me so we can see if there's something we can work out. I don't want to leave an LBT member sad about having to cancel her cruise. :cry For more information about the cruise, go to http://www.lapbandtalk.com/lapbandtalk-cruise-2007-t20582.html. It's a RCCL cruise on the Rhapsody of the Seas, departing Galveston (Houston area) on June 17th.

Hi Grace, This cruise took place in spring 2007. There was a single cruiser who was willing to pay a little bit of another single passenger's fare just so she could go. So the room rate was low because it was booked very early, and then it was even lower because the first passenger in the room was willing to pay an additional $100 of the new passenger's fare. Hope the clarifies. It was a great deal and someone jumped all over it :-)

:glare: Thanks for the belly laugh.

As I tell my kids, just because you've crossed the street dozens of times without getting hit by a car, doesn't mean you could never be hit by a car. Because I don't change the lightbulbs in our house (dh does), I can't speak to slippery fingers, knocked over lamps, overtightening, or dropped boxes. But I'm sure they do happen, even though they haven't happened to you. For me, the benefits don't outweigh the risks and it's not a risk I'm willing to take.

The problem with the mercury, as I see it, is not with safe disposal (although that IS an issue). The big problem is if you drop them or they otherwise break in your house. From the Boston Globe article, emphasis mine: For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken - and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted - levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times. "We found some very high levels [of mercury] even after we tried a number of cleanup techniques," said Mark Hyland, director of Maine's Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management. He said levels were the lowest if the room was well ventilated after breakage. The study recommended that if a compact fluorescent breaks, get children and pets out of the room. Ventilate the room. Never use a vacuum, even on a rug, to clean up a broken compact fluorescent lamps. Instead, use stiff paper such as index cards and tape to pick up pieces, and then wipe the area with a wet wipe or damp paper towel. If there are young children or pregnant woman in the house, consider cutting out the piece of carpet where the lamp broke as a precaution. Place the shards and cleanup debris in a glass jar with a screw top and remove the jar from the house. I can barely keep my kitchen floor clean as it is. I have enough to do in my life to worry about calling a HazMat team or worrying if I should change the carpet if (when?) I break a light bulb.

My brother, who's a both-feet-in environmentalist, greenpeace-nik, democratic, et al, believes strongly in nuclear power. It's not out of the realm of reality for environmentalists to support it.

I'm just astounded. I decided to research a bit to see if I could find that quote. What I found was amazing: Excerpted from ESR | January 28, 2002 | Do animal rights activists care more about animals than human beings? (emphasis mine) * Lee Ryan, a member of the British boy band Blue, put the comparison in stark and crude language. Ryan, who styles himself an animal rights activist, asked the British tabloid The Sun, "What about whales? They are ignoring animals that are more important. Animals need saving and that's more important . . . Who gives a f--- about New York when elephants are being killed." * To his credit, animal rights philosopher Peter Singer did criticize the idea of comparing the victims of the September 11 attacks to animals killed for food, but United Poultry Concerns' Karen Davis vigorously denounced Singer for this. According to Davis, "For 35 million chickens in the United States alone, every single night is a terrorist attack." Davis went on to suggest that since most of those who died in the terrorist attacks were likely meat eaters, the attacks may have actually resulted in a net reduction in suffering. :biggrin:

I read an article once about a well-known environmentalist. I can't remember his name. The article was in a mainstream magazine (just in case anyone accuses me of listening to conservative propaganda). There was a quote in there from him about how he basically doesn't like the human race and values animals over people. I suspect many environmentalists feel this way (not all), but he was one of the ones who's at least honest about it. If anyone wants me to try to find the article / reference / quote, let me know and I will try to find the time to hunt it down.

The problem with global-warming proponents and environmentalists is they are so frothing at the mouth to further their cause, they often propose "solutions" that have their own problems. Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break - The Boston Globe I don't know, I think I'd rather be less "environmentally conscious" and safeguard my children from mercury poisoning. But that's just me. I'm sure there are many others who care more about mother earth than they do their children.

It's my understanding from the article that the remodel was done to make the mansion more eco-friendly. Again I ask: why did it take him 5 years (mansion purchase in 2002, remodel done in 2007) to make his humble abode eco-friendly? I would think, based on his protestations about the environment, that this would be the FIRST thing he did upon moving into his 10,000 square foot mansion.

To me, that says it all. He's been on the "green" bandwagon for years. Why did it take someone exposing him for him to make improvements on his house? My dh and I put in a solar pool heater about 2 years ago and solar panels on our house just about 6 months ago. We do not fancy ourselves "green" by any stretch of the imagination. We did it to save money on our electric and gas bills. The only thing that stopped us from doing it previously was the cost. Presumably, Al Gore, who has had the funding source AND the "green" drive for many, many years, would have done it prior to now. IMO, if not for someone's exposing his hypocrisy, I doubt he would have done it at all.

Elena, as soon as I heard the news about Castro I thought of you. I was amazed at the way the mainstream media was calling him the "President" of Cuba (like he was democratically elected) and waxing on and on about all the wonderful things he did. Sad.

It was MAJOR drama. Anyone notice we haven't had any major drama on here for a while?

I just have one thing to say. ICK! I will never get beyond the ick factor.