politicalpartypoop.com

 UPDATE: SHE ( Heidi Cullen) RESPONDS

 From Drudge: ABC-TV Meteorologist: I Don’t Know A Single Weatherman Who Believes ‘Man-Made Global Warming Hype’…

By Jackson Simpson - Found on the Site National Ledger

Dr. Heidi Cullen, a ‘Climate Expert’ for cable TV’s ‘The Weather Channel’ believes that the cause of global warming is man-made.  If you are a meteorologist, you too should agree.  So sayeth Dr. Cullen.

An item from EPW points to a Cullen blog entry from December, (she hosts the weekly global warming program “The Climate Code”) and she is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their “Seal of Approval” for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.

She writes:

” Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn’t agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It’s like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It’s not a political statement…it’s just an incorrect statement.”

Wait - don’t hurricanes (cyclones) rotate clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counter clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere?  Hope that question doesn’t get me ‘decertified.’ 

After slamming her critics and politicizing the process of global warming by trying to silence anyone that disagrees with her, the ‘expert’ then closes with this gem, “I agree with every meteorologist who says the topic of global warming has gotten too political. But that’s why talking about the science is so important!”

Sorry, ‘doc’ - it appears that you only wish for those that agree with you to talk ’science.’  Folks already lampoon the poor forecasting of weather folks and I’m certain I don’t wish to get a dose of propaganda with my bungled weather forecasts - can someone tell me what’s going on at the Weather Channel? 

The first response to her blog entry says it very well.  A person identified as Jordan writes:

“This is a bad idea. I am now retired but was a member of the AMS for many years. AMS could no more speak for all meteorologists than could the AMA speak for all doctors. This is another barely disguised attempt to silence the skeptics. It fits nicely with the Weather Channel’s practice of presenting only one side of the issue. If you are a good scientist you will not only welcome questions about your conclusions you will insist upon them.”

Science by consensus will always fail.  ‘The Weather Channel’ should stick to forecasts and leave the propaganda and political debates for the cable news channels. 

By Mona Charen - Townhall.com

You’ve probably never heard of Teachers College, but it has profoundly affected your life and is now affecting your children’s lives. TC is the graduate school of education at Columbia University and laboratory of most of the “reforms” that have corroded K-12 education over the past 50 years. New math, whole language, open classrooms, outcome-based education — you name the fad and it probably originated in Morningside Heights in New York.

Teachers College is the most influential graduate education program in the country, and like so many leading schools, it is probably irredeemably PC. Still, Columbia University professes to uphold free inquiry and open-mindedness, so it was heartening to see a watchdog group zing the school for its ideological rigidity.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) got hold of TC’s new “Conceptual Framework” for its students. You might ask: Why does a graduate school need a “conceptual framework”? Isn’t the point to train teachers to teach? (Actually, some skeptics think teachers colleges themselves are unnecessary, but let that pass.) Well, perhaps someone in the publicity department is being paid by the word at TC, because the Conceptual Framework is the length of a novella. Most of it is the usual boilerplate and reads like this:

“We are an inquiry-based and practice-oriented community. We and our students and graduates challenge assumptions and complacency and embrace a stance of inquiry toward the interrelated roles of learner, teacher, and leader in P-12 schools.”

Okay, but then there is this: “We see teaching as an ethical and political act. We see teachers . . . as participants in a larger struggle for social justice. . . . Schools and society are interconnected. Social inequalities are often produced and perpetuated through systematic discrimination and justified by societal ideology of merit, social mobility, and individual responsibility . . . ”

And it gets worse: “Traditionally organized schools help to reproduce social inequalities while giving the illusion that such inequalities are natural and fair. Schools purport to offer unlimited possibilities for social advancement but they simultaneously maintain structures that severely limit the probability of advancement for those at the bottom of the social scale. Research has shown that the majority of teachers in the United States are European American and middle class and that many of these teachers do not see the invisible yet profound social forces at work that bring about inequality among different cultural groups in society and in schools.”

You know, I actually agree that some of our school systems limit social mobility by failing to provide a quality education to poor and minority students. But I think the teachers unions and resistance to school choice are a big part of the problem. Somehow, I don’t think that point of view is considered legitimate at TC. Isn’t it shameful to heap scorn on teachers because they are “European American” and “middle class”? What if someone pointed out that most inner city teachers are African American and Hispanic? Is that legitimate criticism according to Teachers College?

Further, Columbia now maintains that “merit, social mobility, and individual responsibility” are mere “ideologies” used to justify discrimination. On the contrary, these are the steps on the ladder for those at the bottom. A kid who excels in school, no matter what his background, can expect to thrive in America. All too often it is the PC crowd who eschew high standards for kids from poor neighborhoods. It is they, not “the system,” who constrict the life prospects for those kids.

Students at TC, according to the Conceptual Framework, are required to endorse the view that “To change the system and make schools and societies more equitable, educators must recognize ways in which taken-for-granted notions regarding the legitimacy of the social order are flawed, see change agency as a moral imperative, and have skills to act as agents of change.”

The president of Teachers College penned a platitudinous response to FIRE, arguing that they really, truly are committed to academic freedom, and that quotes had been taken out of context. I’ve read the context — they weren’t.

Elsewhere on the Columbia campus last week, a screaming mob of students rushed the stage and shouted down a speaker invited by the College Republicans (a representative of the Minutemen). Video of the melee is available on the Columbia Spectator website. Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger has sent letters to some of the students involved suggesting they might have violated the university’s rules and might have to meet with the senior vice provost.

And so the commitment to free inquiry slides downhill.

By Larry Elder - Article Link
Is political correctness a “hate crime”? The federal government defines hate crimes as “crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage or vandalism of property.”

Consider the case of Dr. Richard Zeller, formerly a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. After 25 years of teaching at the school, Dr. Zeller retired in protest. Why? He wanted to teach a course on political correctness.

From talking to students, Zeller learned that many felt pressured to adopt politically correct views in order to get a passing grade. One student told Zeller that, in order to get a good grade, a professor virtually forced the student to agree that all whites are racist. Another student said that he felt pressured to adopt a “pro-choice” position on abortion, even though he considered himself staunchly pro-life.

Professor Zeller got an idea. What about a course on political correctness, on the tyranny within academia that forces students to conform to a prescribed set of views?

Zeller put together a proposed course curriculum. He included books like “Illiberal Education” by Dinesh D’Souza; “The Bell Curve” by Herrnstein and Murray; “Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police” by John Leo; “Inside American Education” by Thomas Sowell; “A Nation of Victims,” by Charles Sykes; and “Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action,” by S. Yates.

But Zeller’s sociology colleagues said “no” to the course. Zeller protested, and ultimately the sociology department voted on whether or not he could teach the course. Zeller lost 9-5. Zeller then attempted to teach the course in other departments, but no other department granted approval. So much for academic freedom, for diversity of thought. Not only that, Zeller found friends few and far between.

For example, one newspaper quoted BGSU’s Dr. Kathleen Dixon, the Director of Women’s Studies, who said of Zeller’s attempted course, “We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!” We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech?!

A BGSU ethnic studies professor said that Zeller’s attitude would help students ” … feel good about the ruling paradigm, which since the inception of the United States, has said that genocide is good, racism is better, and exploitation of the women and poor is the best way to go.” Gee, poor Zeller thought he was simply teaching a course on political correctness.

How about professor Gary Lee, the BGSU Sociology Department Chairman, who said, “Unfortunately, tenure protects the incompetent and malicious; Rich has tenure, so he cannot be fired without cause.” Fired? For wanting to teach a course in political correctness?

For good measure, Zeller also received death threats, and someone wrote “Zeller you die” on sanitary napkins left on the professor’s front porch at home. Weary of the battle, Dr. Zeller offered his resignation. In a letter to the school, Zeller expressed his frustration and anger. He directs his concern, said the professor, not at himself, but at the students deprived of an education that challenges assumptions and questions the status quo.

Zeller said, “But don’t cry for me. I’m doing just fine, thank you. Cry out, instead, for the students who regularly get intellectually mugged on the BGSU campus: the traditionalist who believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, but can’t say so for fear of failing; the conservative who believes in minimizing government interference in our lives and says so in a sociology class; the woman who believes that abortion is murder, but must write a pro-choice essay to pass English 111; and all of those who have “adjusted” and “self-censored” their ideas so that they can pass their classes.

Zeller also said, “BGSU has sold its soul to the thought police of political correctness. There was a time that … honorable people could disagree honorably; now, any challenge to the campus sacred cows (feminism, affirmative action, and multiculturalism) is denounced as evil.”

About Zeller’s travails, the Christian Science Monitor’s Sanford Pinsker said, “Amid all the self-congratulatory talk about diversity one hears on American campuses, it is not at all clear that intellectual diversity is alive and well. If the result of Zeller’s pressing for a course that might expose students to controversial thinkers and books had been an honest debate–rather than an exercise in character assassination–all of us might well have benefited. As it stands, however, everyone at BGSU has lost.”

Or, as BGSU’s Women’s Studies Director might have put it, BGSU prevents any discussion about any topic that suggests we prevent any discussion about any topic. Got that?

 Ok, I’m gonna play the politics game like liberals are doing on their blogs.
Is this the type of thinking you want running America? Then vote LIBERAL in November!

                 ‘Animal-rights’ promoter asserts actual birth makes no difference

An internationally known Princeton “bioethicist” and animal-rights activist says he’d kill disabled babies if it were in the “best interests” of the family, because he sees no distinction in the child’s life whether it is born or not, and the world already allows abortion.

The comments come from Peter Singer, a controversial bioethics professor, who responded to a series of questions in the UK Independent this week.

Earlier, WND reported Singer believes the next few decades will see a massive upheaval in the concept of life and rights, with only “a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists” still protecting life as sacrosanct.

To the rest, it will be a commodity to be re-evaluated regularly for its worth.

MORE CRAZY LIBERAL CRAP FROM WORLD NEWS DAILY