Wednesday, October 9, 2013

That Puts a New Spin on Polish Jokes

For the record... I am of Polish descent and, no, I did not switch to "Polish" for the jokes... (Seinfeld reference.. sorry).

A new report from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, shows that American are not that great when it comes to understanding of math, reading and technology that surrounds them. This is of course very troublesome, because as the world gets more and more complex, it is crucial for any real democracy to be based on a society that can make informed and intelligent decisions. And when people participating in democratic decisions have trouble figuring out facts from fiction, then we get what we are observing right now in the US: a government that's unable to govern, because a small, but vocal minority that refuses to work with anyone else. And the country goes to hell fast...

Great summary of the report can be found at the Atlantic: Americans Are Way Behind in Math, Vocabulary, and Technology:
The average level of literacy in the U.S. is on par with that of Cyprus, Poland, and Austria (p. 65).
It'll be funny to start some "American" jokes now...



Thursday, October 3, 2013

Shutdown! How Stupid We Are...

So, we did shut down our government. Yes, we did, because WE voted for all the crazies that don't accept reality, reason and don't have a shred of critical thinking left in their brains... but that's no surprise. If you google some of them, they have a history of denying reality, lying and just making up "facts" as they need them to support their fringe beliefs.

I stumbled upon a few great articles on line:

THE REIGN OF MORONS IS HERE - from Esquire, that sums it up nicely:
We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government.
Also, worth reading is "Meet the Morons Who Caused the Shutdown", which is a nice primer on the point I mention at the beginning of this post: the idiots are doing it all along, we have just chosen to ignore it, and elect them again, and again.

Slate has a great post on the topic as well, and a very funny quote from the conservative Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind:
"We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is."
Finally, since the U.S. is (or at least we hope) the world largest economy, the rest of the planet is understandably worried about our stupidity. Nobody out there wants to be dragged into another global recession just because a bunch of bozos decided to left their brains at home, before heading to Washington (granted, some of them might just not be lucky enough to have them in the first place). I read foreign newspapers and magazines and the spirit is pretty much the same with all of the important ones: it's the crazy right-wing tea-baggers, who are driving us into the ground. The only question is, how can a few, fringe extremists have so much effect on the rest of the otherwise rational country.

P.S.
This article is hysterical too: If It Happened There ... the Government Shutdown

Stupid Quote of the Day

Here is a stupid quote of the day, from a pastor of a church in Texas, who encouraged her flock not to vaccinate, so they got themselves a little outbreak of measles:
"So I'm going to tell you what the facts are, and the facts are the facts, but then we know the truth. That always overcomes facts..."
Here is the whole story from NPR: Texas Megachurch At Center Of Measles Outbreak