New vs. Used

Shawn wrote:
Doug Hoffman wrote:

What concerns me is the continuing decline of technical and managerial
competence in our country. We, as a country, seem to be complacent
about this. Far too few of our kids are getting technical educations.
If they do, where shall they work?

What do you expect when every repugnican thinks taxes supporting
education, particularly college education is a sin against god? Ever
talk to a psycho-christian kid (home or private schooled) about science?
Scary, and this is what our pres. considers a good education.
This country debates the morality of teaching some of the most solid
science on the books; geology, biology, evolution, climatology,
cosmology-off the top of my head, and you think we should continue as a
technological leader? Don't be so naive. We're coasting at this point.
Whatever you do, don't blame it on the kids. They're dealing, as well
as we've equipped them (Ha!), with the world we've made for them.
Shawn

What a truckload of patronizing bull.
Ever heard of Genentech, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, My Space, Apple,
Halliburton, Exxon, You Tube, Corning, Trimble Navigation, the GPS
system, the Tomahawk, Cirrus Design, Global Hawk or the U.S. Army?
Have you ever thought about the technology that goes into an F-22, the
USS George Bush or USS Reagan, either one of which is more powerful
than the military of most countries? A day after the tsunami hit that
dope smoking paradise for European hedonists, the USS Abraham Lincoln
steamed out of Hong Kong and provided fresh water, food and rescue
choppers and saved the lives of a half million muslims, buddhists and
european pot-heads. The United States has more universities per capita
than any other country in the world and it is damn hard to get into the
engineering or science departments of every one of them. Liberals and
Dumocrats have made it simple to get degrees in naval gazing; we sure
need more ethnic studies experts, American Indian wannabes, and snotty
little leftists learning how to throw food at people they and their
esteemed but barely literate liberal arts professors don't like. "Oh,
you got her in the face with that pie, Sean, that should get you an A+
in your comparative political feelings course. That'll teach her to
spout off on that religious crap. Here is your Phi Beta Kappa key and
a job with the government. Be sure to count all those mosquitoes in
that swamp, er wetlands. They're very important, you know. Global
warming is causing their numbers to shrink and you're so highly
educated you'll believe it."
I know several kids who have graduated from religous home studies
courses, one attends Rice, another is at Carnegie Mellon and has been
accepted into Medical School, two more attend Duke and one is at U
Penn, all on academic scholarships in science. Many more attend local
universities. All of them grew up in evangelical Christian families,
they are still religous and they didn't have their time wasted studying
the liberal blather which masquerades as public education. At least not
in high school. And they will become scientists, and they are
Americans, and in the future they will work with Chinese, Indian,
Korean, Pakistani, German, English, French, and other engineers and
scientists in American companies, in America, at companies many of
them will start, because most of the world sucks and America is where
the majority of the worlds educated people want to live.

Yes. The older generations, all of us, should be doing a better job of
guiding the younger generations. I would like to see a national
effort, similar to the "space race" of the 1960's, to stimulate
technical excellence in the education of our youth.

How about requiring universities to increase their capacity for
teaching science courses and eliminate at least half of their liberal
arts faculty to pay for it. How about granting postgraduate
fellowships and money to American students and let foreign students get
funding from their own taxpayers. How about requiring that a certain
percentage of faculty positions must be filled by Americans who speak
American English. Getting a Science Phd. in America is really kind of
dumb, unless you really are a genius, because it puts you in
competition with the worlds smartest people, most of whom are trying to
get Phd. level jobs in America, and most of whom really are smarter
and more dedicated than you because that is their only way of getting
here. How about fostering a culture where we can believe that we
really are the best society on earth because the worlds people seem
desperate to come here and we don't seem all that keen to leave. How
about getting rid of the idiots at Princeton who seem to value giving
scholarship money to Afghan terriorists over American citizens.