Breaking Item #2 Ireland chooses death. Interesting the only group in favor of life were the wise, i.e. ages 65+. Letting the young vote (assuming a country insists on voting) is disastrous.
Breaking Item #2 Britain begins arrests of political prisoners. We now wonder they will let him defect, or will he like Kevin Crehan mysteriously die in jail?
Item British schools are removing analog clocks from classrooms because kids can’t read them
Schools in the United Kingdom are beginning to remove analog clocks from the classroom — because students are complaining that they can’t read them, reports say.
Officials have begun replacing the traditional clocks with digital ones as children have been unable to tell the correct time on analog clocks, The Telegraph reports.
“The current generation aren’t as good at reading the traditional clock face as older generations,” Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders in England, told the publication. “Nearly everything they’ve got is digital so youngsters are just exposed to time being given digitally everywhere.”…
“It is amazing the number of students I am coming across in year 10, 11 and in sixth form who do not know how to tell the time,” she began. “We live in a world where everything is digital. We are moving towards a digital age and they do not necessarily have analogue watches anymore and they have mobile phones with the time on.”
How about these alternative headlines? “British schools are removing history books from classrooms because kids can’t read them.” “British schools are removing maps from classrooms because kids can’t find north”.
There is no use being sarcastic, and no use whatsoever to explain that if kids can’t do an ordinary and necessary task they should be taught that task. At school. By teachers. Yes, it’s necessary. Look at the pic atop the post. How could the poor kiddies possibly read this non-digital gauge?
Item Where Young Europeans Aren’t Religious
God bless Poland. Bóg, Honor, Ojczyzna!
Item Are you anti-GMO? Then you’re anti-science, too.
He found the scientific consensus on climate change to be compelling. But he found the evidence for the safety of GMOs to be at least as strong. “I couldn’t deny the scientific consensus on GMOs,” he writes, “while insisting on strict adherence to the one on climate change, and still call myself a science writer.”
It was, he says, “a decisive turning point in my life.” But the public debate on GMOs turned in exactly the opposite direction. Just as scientists were becoming more confident in the safety of GMOs, global anti-GMO activists, led by Greenpeace, were making the issue a hot potato (including a genetically modified insect-resistant potato cultivated in Canada). On the strength of myths (that using genetically modified seeds somehow resulted in suicides among Indian farmers) and deception (tying GMOs to autism or cancer), supermarket chains, food companies and eventually governments were frightened into anti-GMO stances. In the developing world, anti-GMO activists spread rumors that GMO consumption resulted in homosexuality and infertility.
I do not care in the least about any of these claims. I do care about scidolatry, the worship of Science. People, non-scientists in particular, wield Science like a club. Do this: Science says so. They are no different from the Saudi religious police patrolling the streets with their billy clubs looking for people not praying.
GMOs causing homosexuality? That would be the greatest Conundrum to the Conservative Party Line since the invention of the term “Marriage Deregulation.”
And while I have decided to come out against human extinction, and even the extinction of other species at greater than the natural rate, I am ever so keen on sending out a poll those concerned with climate change, and quantify their belief and agreement on a scale of one to ten (because it is a reliable way to assure that numbers are assigned to things) with regard tp the following statement:
____ “Carbon is one of the greatest threats to life on Earth.” (1 strongly disagree, 10 strongly agree)
I do oppose GMOs. But my resistance has nothing to do with the science but the legal and diversity concerns. At least in the US a farmer can be wiped out by legal issues related cross pollination beyond his control. His neighbor plants a GMO crop next door and Monsanto then claims IP infringement. Yes that has happened. My second concern has to do with monocrop ag. What if a failure was bred into a corn crop by accident? Can you imagine the devastation that would occur?
Anti GMO equates to pro Kerry carbon tax global warming traitorous hysteria. Claiming the ideological high ground “think of the chilluns” is just the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. Anyone anywhere can be sued for anything. No farmer in the U.S. will have their livelihood destroyed because of what crop their neighbor plants. It has never happened and will never happen unless the U.S. goes full commie.
I think all the above is valid. I would add that one might consider looking at the issue of the “dying” bee population and consider them the “canary in the mine”. One of the GMO goals is to make the plant resistant to “herbicides” (Roundup, in particular) and that means that the plant should have the capacity to absorb (glyphasates, in this case) without suffering “death”. If we eat plants that contain such residues, are we not exposing ourselves (and in the case of pregnant women their unborn at very critical stage of developement as an embryo) to compounds that we have not established an effect on ourselves and those fragile, early developing embryos? Of note, I believe that Monsanto has sold that Division to Bayer (sp), a German company, so now all this is “off-shore”.
CIA World Factbook says Poland’s 2017 estimated TFR is a disastrously low 1.35. Meanwhile, agricultural practices (but maybe not so much GMOs) are causing catastrophic declines in insect and bird populations:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/insect_numbers_declining_why_it_matters
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone
It’s all part of the continued downward spiral. Brace yourselves.
I am surprised (somewhat) that after voting for Brexit that the British would tolerate this “political correctness” of arresting people for saying things the government doesn’t like. Why is May still PM? Why are the Brits still in the EU?? Now in London you have to turn in your knives….Blimey!
What if a failure was bred into a corn crop deliberately? No! Who would do that?!
“He found the scientific consensus on climate change to be compelling.”
I wasn’t aware that science was based on taking a poll.
Guess what, at least with respect to food crops, GMO is nothing more than fancy breeding; and ‘normal’ breeding has, on occasion, resulted in crops failing.
Now about glyphosate and other chemicals. Guess what: all biological bodies are sacks of chemicals and contain hundreds of them, if not thousands of them. The biological maxim, be fruitful and multiply lest ye be replaced, means that all biological species alter their local environment to enhance their own survival and that means inhibiting competitors …. with chemicals, when it doesn’t mean killing and eating them.
Dose and route make the medicine. Dose and route make the poison.
Officials have begun replacing the traditional clocks with digital ones as children have been unable to tell the correct time on analog clocks…
What’s more appalling is the tykes can’t read a sundial labeled with Roman numerals.
Edquarles – It is no doubt that we are constructed from a wide variety of chemical compounds and the glyphasates are only “chemicals”. Am I understanding you incorrectly when you make all “chemicals” equal? I would suggest that potassium cyanide is a chemical and I strongly recommend you not “ingest” it for the outcome would be less than stellar unless you intend on committing suicide. On the other hand, by way of your comment, I might be wanting to ask, “Do you work for Monsanto or Bayer (sp)? I, as a person relatively familiar with the “fragility” of the human embryo would appreciate your pointing me to the scientific studies that rule out damage to the early developing embryo. Would you please put forth your citations? Thank you.
Our daughter complained about analog clocks when she was young – she wasn’t taught in school how to read them, and thus she couldn’t. So we put up more analog clocks, the battery powered kind. She had to walk into the kitchen to check the digital clock on the microwave – inconvenient. When the power went out, which happened a lot, she had to reset the flashing 12:00 on the microwave – more inconvenient. Eventually she learned how to read the analog clocks.
BTW, reading an analog clock uses a different part of the brain than reading a digital clock. For certain occupations, there is a significant advantage to going directly from a graphic visualization of data to an abstract concept, skipping over the verbal/language intermediary translation step (aka, “thinking without words”). I don’t know if this is an innate skill, with some people more skillful at it than others, or if it is a developed skill. If the latter, perhaps teaching kids to read an analog clock helps develop that skill.
With regards to the bar chart of religiosity of European 16-29 year olds, not to worry; given current birth-rate and immigration numbers, that chart will “improve” for the next few decades, ultimately reaching 100% religiosity (Islam).
Guess what, Exring, our bodies can handle cyanide … indeed, we are exposed to cyanide every day. No, not all chemicals are equal; but, again, dose and route make the medicine and dose and route make the poison. Why? There is a dose (an amount or concentration) of cyanide that exceeds our body’s ability to detoxify it. That is the threshold. For different people, and even for different animals, that amount varies.
As far as citations go, do your own homework, Exring. No, I do not work for any chemical or pharmaceutical company; but I do have training in both. I suggest you start with dose-response relations.
Cdquarles (sorry about the mistake in reading the name). It is interesting that you attempt to deflect by suggesting that dose is an issue. You are correct, dose is an issue. I believe the dose necessary to bring death by cyanide is known, or at least that necessary to achieve that end in all individuals so a minimum required can be established. What is the dose necessary of glyphasates to effect the developing embryo? Has that been determined. What part of the GMO seed/plant complex effects bees? Do we have any information that even touches this part of the issue? Has that information been repeated by any other researchers to corroborate or debunk that which is being asked? That is a start!