Welcome Guest!
Teachers are welcome to read and post on Teachers.Net.
Login to access to these free features:
• Relaxed spam filters
• Post pics, links & comments
• Get notified of responses |
• Join teacher groups
• Apply to teacher jobs
• Post a resume |
Welcome Guest!
You must login to comment on posts.
Login to access to these free features:
• Relaxed spam filters
• Post links & upload pics
• Get notified of responses |
• Join teacher groups
• Apply to teacher jobs
• Post a resume |
Welcome Guest!
Your account must login to post.
Login to access to these free features:
• Relaxed spam filters
• Post, comment, & upload pics
• Get notified of responses |
• Join teacher groups
• Apply to teacher jobs
• Post a resume |
/blockquote>
Dear Sue; I can assume from your post that you would prefer
to fight terrorists here in the U.S., rather than in their
back yard; or better yet, be sympathetic to their
needs/desires and surrender our soverignty to them. You want
to pretend 9/11, with the loss of over 3000 innocent lives,
never happened....See More/blockquote>
Dear Sue; I can assume from your post that you would prefer
to fight terrorists here in the U.S., rather than in their
back yard; or better yet, be sympathetic to their
needs/desires and surrender our soverignty to them. You want
to pretend 9/11, with the loss of over 3000 innocent lives,
never happened. You don't believe it is important to fight
to preserve our freedoms, way of life, or our freedom to
worship - or not. Bush's war, is it?
by Nita Neall
Apr 5, 2005
/blockquote>
I messed up on the last post. Are all schools in AZ, or the
Oro Valley, Catalina area year round, or are there both that
and traditional?
/blockquote>
Chris,
Having taught for 38 years, 35 of those years in an urban
school district, I will tell you that NCLB is the absolute
worst law ever enacted. It punishes both teachers and
students based on the results of a single score. It has
taken the soul out of learning and teaching. With the focus
on raisi...See More/blockquote>
Chris,
Having taught for 38 years, 35 of those years in an urban
school district, I will tell you that NCLB is the absolute
worst law ever enacted. It punishes both teachers and
students based on the results of a single score. It has
taken the soul out of learning and teaching. With the focus
on raising test scores, we are failing to recognize
students as individual with unique talents and capabilities
and to build on those qualities. Children are not
receptacles to be filled with test facts. NCLB has eclipsed
what I consider a sound teaching philosopy: to question and
to distinguish among and between the concepts of education,
information and knowledge. No Child Left Behind is a
travesty. The method to this madness is to liquidate public
schools and replace them with private schools.
All teachers should be outraged that the president,
governors, legislators, those furthest removed from the
daily drama of classroom life, are touting NCLB as the
answer to the problems in education. NCLB is a facile and
impoverished solution. Under the guise of "accountability"
the president,legislators, as well as CEOs of large
companies have been complicit in relegating many students
and teachers to a "loser" status. I am happy not to be a
part of this testing frenzy any longer.
/blockquote>
Dear Republicans/Conservatives,
I have some questions for you, and I understand if you
only want to answer some or none of them. Feel free to
elaborate, or answer in any way you wish.
I'm interested in how you came to be a conservative.
Were you always a conservative, or did it happen ove...See More/blockquote>
Dear Republicans/Conservatives,
I have some questions for you, and I understand if you
only want to answer some or none of them. Feel free to
elaborate, or answer in any way you wish.
I'm interested in how you came to be a conservative.
Were you always a conservative, or did it happen over a
specific period of time?
Was there a life-changing or major event that brought it
on?
Do you get most of your news from the mainstream media
(CNN, ABC, FOX, NBC, etc.) ?
Do you get your news from some smaller outlets, "niche"
sources, or alternative news sources? (I'm not sure what
they are called) like Rush Limbaugh, FOX's Hannity and
Coombs, the Talon that made the news recently?
Were you a long time Republican? (I mean way back - like
before Reagan)
Would you consider yourself a practicing Christian?
Do you trust President Bush?
Thanks for your help!
Friend
by Laura Dang
May 7, 2005
/blockquote>
Dear teachers,
Law Week is happening May 15 - 21 2005. There's lots of
free events and interesting information sessions for
everyone, particularly your students.
Ring your local Court, visit your local LIAC library
and/or visit the website on [link removed].
Some events to take note o...See More/blockquote>
Dear teachers,
Law Week is happening May 15 - 21 2005. There's lots of
free events and interesting information sessions for
everyone, particularly your students.
Ring your local Court, visit your local LIAC library
and/or visit the website on [link removed].
Some events to take note of are:
* Screenings of "Secrets of the Jury Room" followed by
presentations by Court Officers and lawyers
* Court tours of the local and supreme Courts
* Law Week Fair at Dubbo on Sunday May 15
* Wollongong Court's Aboriginal Art display and legal
expo - May 16
* Newcastle Court's seminars on legal careers, including
forsenic science - May 17 - 19
* Seminars on buying and selling your home, wills, dispute
resolution, family and domestic violence,
/blockquote>
Sixth-grader Savannah Walters of Tampa, Fla., has a plan.
Her "Pump 'em Up!" website urges kids to bug their parents
to check their tire pressure. Properly inflated tires on
the nation's cars would save an estimated 4 million gallons
of gasoline a day.
/blockquote>
Inventing Our Evolution
We're almost able to build better human beings. But are we
ready?
Washington Post
Monday, May 16, 2005; Page A01
The surge of innovation that has given the world everything
from iPods to talking cars is now turning inward, to our
own minds and bodies. In an adaptat...See More/blockquote>
Inventing Our Evolution
We're almost able to build better human beings. But are we
ready?
Washington Post
Monday, May 16, 2005; Page A01
The surge of innovation that has given the world everything
from iPods to talking cars is now turning inward, to our
own minds and bodies. In an adaptation from his new book,
Washington Post staff writer Joel Garreau looks at the
impact of the new technology.
Some changes in what it means to be human:
· Matthew Nagel, 25, can move objects with his thoughts.
The paralyzed former high school football star, whose
spinal cord was severed in a stabbing incident, has a jack
coming out of the right side of his skull. Sensors in his
brain can read his neurons as they fire. These are
connected via computer to a robotic hand. When he thinks
about moving his hand, the artificial thumb and forefinger
open and close. Researchers hope this technology will,
within our lifetimes, allow the wheelchair-bound to walk.
The military hopes it will allow pilots to fly jets using
their minds.
· Around the country, companies such as Memory
Pharmaceuticals, Sention, Helicon Therapeutics, Saegis
Pharmaceuticals and Cortex Pharmaceuticals are racing to
bring memory-enhancing drugs to market before the end of
this decade. If clinical trials continue successfully,
these pills could be a bigger pharmaceutical bonanza than
Viagra. Not only do they hold the promise of banishing the
senior moments of aging baby boomers; they might improve
the SAT scores of kids by 200 points or more.
· At the Defense Sciences Office of the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, programs
seek to modify the metabolisms of soldiers so as to allow
them to function efficiently without sleep or even food for
as much as a week. For shorter periods, they might even be
able to survive without oxygen. Another program seeks to
allow soldiers to stop bleeding by focusing their thoughts
on the wound. Yet another program is investigating ways to
allow veterans to regrow blown-off arms and legs, like
salamanders.
Traditionally, human technologies have been aimed outward,
to control our environment, resulting in, for example,
clothing, agriculture, cities and airplanes. Now, however,
we have started aiming our technologies inward. We are
transforming our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our
personalities and our progeny. Serious people, including
some at the National Science Foundation in Arlington,
consider such modification of what it means to be human to
be a radical evolution -- one that we direct ourselves.
They expect it to be in full flower in the next 10 to 20
years.
"The next frontier," says Gregory Stock, director of the
Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at the UCLA
School of Medicine, "is our own selves."
The process has already begun. Prozac and its ilk modify
personality. Viagra alters metabolism. You can see deep
change in the basics of biology most clearly, however,
wherever you find the keenest competition. Sport is a good
example.
"The current doping agony," says John Hoberman, a
University of Texas authority on performance drugs, "is a
kind of very confused referendum on the future of human
enhancement." Some athletes today look grotesque. Curt
Schilling, the All-Star pitcher, in 2002 talked to Sports
Illustrated about the major leagues. "Guys out there look
like Mr. Potato Head, with a head and arms and six or seven
body parts that just don't look right."
Steroids are merely a primitive form of human enhancement,
however. H. Lee Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania
suggests that the recent Athens Olympics may have been the
last without genetically enhanced athletes. His researchers
have created super-muscled "Schwarzenegger rats." They're
built like steers, with necks wider than their heads. They
live longer and recover more quickly from injuries than do
their unenhanced comrades. Sweeney sees it as only a matter
of time before such technology seeps into the sports world.
Human enhancement is hardly limited to sport. In 2003,
President Bush signed a $3.7 billion bill to fund research
at the molecular level that could lead to medical robots
traveling the human bloodstream to fight cancer or fat
cells. At the University of Pennsylvania, ordinary male
mouse embryo cells are being transformed into egg cells. If
this science works in humans, it could open the way for two
gay males to make a baby -- blurring the standard model of
parenthood. In 2004, a new technology for the first time
allowed women to beat the biological clock. Portions of
their ovaries, frozen when they are young and fertile, can
be reimplanted in their sixties, seventies or eighties,
potentially allowing them to bear children then.
The genetic, robotic and nano-technologies creating such
dramatic change are accelerating as quickly as has
information technology for the past four decades. The rapid
development of all these fields is intertwined.
,,,//////
Ray Kurzweil, an artificial-intelligence pioneer and winner
of the National Medal of Technology, shrugs at the
controversy over the use of stem cells from human
embryos: "All the political energy that has gone into this
issue -- it is not even slowing down the most narrow
approach." It is simply being pursued outside the United
States -- in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Scandinavia
and Great Britain, where scientists will probably achieve
success first, he notes.
In the next couple of decades, Kurzweil predicts, life
expectancy will rise to at least 120 years. Most diseases
will be prevented or reversed. Drugs will be individually
tailored to a person's DNA. Robots smaller than blood
cells -- nanobots, as they are called -- will be routinely
injected by the millions into people's bloodstreams. They
will be used primarily as diagnostic scouts and patrols, so
if anything goes wrong in a person's body, it can be caught
extremely early.
As James Watson, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for
discovering the structure of DNA, famously put it: "No one
really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better
human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?"
Gregory Stock of UCLA sees this as the inevitable outcome
of the decoding of the human genome. "We have spent
billions to unravel our biology, not out of idle curiosity,
but in the hope of bettering our lives," he said at a 2003
Yale bioethics conference. "We are not about to turn away
from this."
Stock sees humanity embracing artificial chromosomes --
rudimentary versions of which already exist. Right now, the
human body has 23 chromosome pairs, with the chromosomes
numbered 1 through 46. Messing with them is tricky -- you
never know when you're going to inadvertently step on
unanticipated interactions. By adding a new chromosome pair
(Nos. 47 and 48) to the embryo, however, the possibilities
appear endless. Stock, in his book "Redesigning Humans: Our
Inevitable Genetic Future," describes it as the safest way
to substantially modify humans because, he says, it would
minimize unintended consequences. On top of that, the
chromosome insertion sites could have an off switch
activated by an injection if we wanted to stop whatever
we'd started. This would give future generations a chance
to undo whatever we did.
Stock offers this analysis to counter the argument offered
by some bioethicists that inheritable genetic line
engineering should be unconditionally banned because future
generations harmed by wrongful or unsuccessful
modifications would have no control over the matter.
But the very idea of aspiring to such godlike powers is
blasphemous to some. "Genetic engineering," writes Michael
J. Sandel, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard,
is "the ultimate expression of our resolve to see ourselves
astride the world, the masters of our nature. But the
promise of mastery is flawed. It threatens to banish our
appreciation of life as a gift, and to leave us with
nothing to affirm or behold outside our own will."
Stock rejects this view. "We should not just accept but
embrace the new technologies, because they're filled with
promise," he says. Within a few years, he
writes, "traditional reproduction may begin to seem
antiquated, if not downright irresponsible." His
projections, he asserts, are not at all out of touch with
reality.
Adapted from the book "Radical Evolution: The Promise and
Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It
Means to Be Human" by Joel Garreau, to be published May 17
by Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc. © 2005 by
Joel Garreau. Reprinted with permission.
/blockquote>
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
Fifteen consecutive polls conducted in France over the last
three months indicate that the French may be about to
scuttle their own brainchild.
Historically, the French have only favored the idea of a
united Europe as long as they could run it.
The EU Con...See More/blockquote>
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
Fifteen consecutive polls conducted in France over the last
three months indicate that the French may be about to
scuttle their own brainchild.
Historically, the French have only favored the idea of a
united Europe as long as they could run it.
The EU Constitution makes French dominance of a united
Europe all but impossible, and consequently, French
enthusiasm for its ratification is waning. Only three
months ago, French voters were expected to vote 'yes' to
the new EU Constitution by a comfortable margin of 60%.
As the French electorate became familiar with the document,
popular support plummeted until, according to the last
poll, a majority of French voters are now poised to
vote 'no' on the May 29 referendum vote to ratify the new
constitution.
Opponents to the EU Constitution are growing in number,
with 56 percent of those surveyed saying they would vote
against the referendum, according to a poll published in
Saturday's Le Parisien. That represented a gain of 1
percentage point.
Support for the Constitution dropped 1 point to 44 percent,
the same survey showed.
Every member state of the EU must ratify the constitution,
and if France fails to go along, the document is
potentially doomed. France is one of the six original
founders of the EU, which was born out of the six-nation
Benelux Treaty agreement of 1948.
France is not only one of the founding nations of the EU,
it is one of only ten full members of the Western European
Alliance, which serves as the EU's security and defense
establishment and can also trace its roots to the 1948
Treaty of Brussels.
Notes the Guardian UK, "The original Common Market was a
French creation, in effect, an extension of the French
state and the accompanying subordinate relationship of
capitalism."
"Now that the EU is being transmuted into a network of
European states, of which France is but one and in which
the market has a much more central role, France is losing
control of both the EU and an idea of France."
The European Constitution would essentially consolidate all
previous treaty agreements into one document governing both
the EU and WEU Alliance. It also will change the union's
voting system, removing, for example, national vetoes from
some policy areas, such as immigration, and streamlining
the union's administrative leadership.
Once it is ratified, France would no longer be the dominant
power in Europe. And French voters don't like it. Explains
Bernard Kouchner, one of France's most popular political
figures and former Health Minister under the Socialists;
"The French believe that their system is the best and that
they are the center of the universe. It's not true. They
don't realize they are like an old ship sinking slowly in
the sea."
In addition to the French, there is a growing possibility
that the Dutch may also reject the constitution in its own
referendum scheduled three days after France's.
The Netherlands, like France, is one of the EU's founding
Benelux members.
Michiel van Hulten, a former socialist member of the
European Parliament told a Dutch newspaper; "Right now we
are heading for a massive 'no' vote in Holland because no
one is making the case for the constitution. The situation
is like in Ireland before the referendum on the Nice Treaty
in 2001 -- everyone is assuming we are going to vote in
favor, despite the reality on the ground."
The 200 page proposed constitution also faces major
opposition in Britain, yet a THIRD member of the Original
Six and, like France and the Netherlands, a member of the
WEU's Ten FULL Member States.
Under the rules, the Constitution has to be ratified by all
member states, but the EU could survive even with 'no'
votes from France, the UK and the Netherlands.
Existing rules could be modified to allow for the
government of the remaining 22 states, or modifications
could be made to move the dissenting members into a
different membership status that would allow them to
participate despite rejecting the Constitution.
Writing for the Japan Times, former British cabinet
minister and current member of the British House of Lords,
Lord David Howell offered this assessment:
"Some argue that a rejection by France would be more than a
momentary setback -- it would be a catastrophe for the
whole EU. Well, it would certainly be a nasty shock for
most of the European government elites who have signed up
to the lengthy and unreadable constitution document. But
for the peoples of Europe, it would make remarkably little
difference. Existing rules could be modified. . . "
Ratifying the EU Constitution would achieve the goal set
forth by Western European Alliance Recommendation 666. That
decision noted that, under its governing treaties, complete
merger between the EU and WEU could not take place.
As a compromise, they supported a proposal to have the WEU
Secretary General and the EU's Office of the High
Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy
preside over the PSC (Political Security Committee) and
convene the council of the European Union in the event of
an emergency.
Both jobs are filled by the same person, currently Javier
Solana. That person, under the proposed Constitution, makes
Solana (or his successor) the defacto head-of-state for
BOTH entities.
The prophet Daniel had a dream one night of four great
beasts, which he interpreted as four successive world
empires.
The first three, a lion with eagle's wings, a bear, and a
leopard with four heads, correspond to the three successive
empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia and the Greek empire of
Alexander the Great.
The fourth, Daniel said, was " dreadful and terrible, and
strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it
devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with
the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that
were before it; and it had TEN horns." (Daniel 7:7)
This fourth beast corresponds to Nebuchadnezzar's vision of
the two legs of the Roman Empire and the ten toes of a
revived form of the Roman Empire in the last days. (Daniel
2:41)
As Daniel was considering the ten horns, he writes, "
behold, there came up among them another little horn,
before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up
by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the
eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." (Daniel
7:8)
That Daniel was referring to an event in the last days is
established by the next verse:
"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient
of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the
hair of His head like the pure wool: His throne was like
the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire."
Seven hundred years later, the Apostle John, recording his
vision on the Isle of Patmos, identified the 'Ancient of
Days' as Jesus Christ, Whom he described as follows:
". . . One like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment
down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden
girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool, as
white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; And
His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a
furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters. . . "
(Revelation 1:13-15)
Jesus, the 'Ancient of Days' gave John a vision of the
coming Tribulation Period, so Daniel and John are
describing the same thing from different points in history.
Having established that, we return to the 'little horn' of
Daniel 7:8.
Daniel describes the final form of the Roman Empire has
having TEN horns (like the WEU) and identifies
another 'little horn' coming up 'before' -- or in authority
over -- them.
Pulling it all together, then, we find ourselves at this
juncture in history:
Currently, the WEU, (comprised of ten FULL members and 18
associate or observer members) and the much-more diverse
(and less powerful) 25-nation European Union have come up
with a compromise, under the authority of WEU
Recommendation 666, for a shared leadership under a single
individual.
That position of power, created by WEU Recommendation 666,
will be permanently enshrined by the proposed constitution,
which so concerns three members of the Original Ten that
they may not ratify it.
That would then mean either the collapse of the greater
European unity experiment, or a compromise that would allow
the greater EU plan to move forward without these three
dissenters.
Daniel explains; "The fourth beast shall be the fourth
kingdom upon earth, which shall be DIVERSE from all
kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread
it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of
this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another
shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the
first, and he shall subdue three kings. " (Daniel 7:23-24)
There are still some missing details, not the least of
which is the Rapture of the Church, which are necessary
before the complete picture fleshes out, but in the main,
if this were a prophecy by Nostradamus or some other non-
Biblical source, it would be headline news.
Since it is a Bible prophecy, it is only of real interest
to Bible believers, which conforms with the Bible's
teaching that, "the natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned." (1st Corinthians 2:14)
In any case, it is difficult to imagine a more precise
fulfillment of Daniel's vision than that which potentially
looms before us.
"And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the
other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of
that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great
things, whose look was more stout than his fellows."
(Daniel 7:20)
I don't know if the 'little horn' with a 'look more stout
than his fellows' is Javier Solana, but the crisis that
would be created by the rejection of the EU constitution by
three of its founding members would certainly require
drastic action that could easily result in their expulsion.
And whoever the 'little horn' of Daniel is, he is certainly
the one we commonly refer to as the antichrist.
"I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and
prevailed against them." (Daniel 7:21 - see also Revelation
13:7)
Daniel says that 'same horn' will make war with the
[Tribulation] saints, "Until the Ancient of days came, and
judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the
time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." (Daniel
7:22)
As I noted, we aren't quite there yet, and there are still
a number of details that have yet to fall into place. One
of those details is the Rapture of the Church.
And if we can see the events of the Tribulation coming into
view, then the Rapture is even closer.
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump
of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we
which are ALIVE AND REMAIN shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord."
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1st
Thessalonians 4:16-18)
From the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest, Volume 43,
Issue 17
~~
next page »
« prev page
Teacher Chatboards
Hi Good to know:
Saddam was indisputably a cruel dictator, but he is certainly not
the only such despot in the world. How does this justify sending
U.S. troops into Iraq to fight, die, and/or be maimed?
Regards,
Dean
On 11/10/05, Good to know wrote:
> On 11/08/05, sue wrote:
>> R...See More