A genuine example of willful ignorance

This has been floating around for a while, but it looks like Snopes has now confirmed it. It’s real. The above is an actual science quiz given to 4th graders at Blue Ridge Christian Academy in South Carolina. Here’s page two:

This particular Christian Academy is a tiny school, it’s private, it’s got Christian right there in the name so you know where they’re coming from, and like a good portion of America’s much-heralded private schools it apparently exists to give children the shittiest possible education that your limited money can buy, the sort of education that will get them laughed at for the rest of their life. Or something. No, there’s nothing in American law that says you can’t give your children the silliest possible education—if you want, you can teach them that the sun is a 50-year-old man from Orlando who just got […]

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Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
Credit: noospheregeologic.com

Editor’s note: University of Oregon geography professor Peter Walker has just returned from Harney County, Oregon, where armed occupiers took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. He spent several weeks attending community meetings and watching the events unfold, which he describes here.

On January 2, 2016, some 300 local citizens and outside militia members marched in Harney County, Oregon, to protest the resentencing for arson of local father-and-son ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond.

At stake was far more than the fate of the Hammonds. In the works was nothing less than an armed insurrection against virtually all federal ownership of land in the United States – and even against the very existence of the federal government as we know it. Had the almost surreally audacious plan succeeded, communities and economies across the American West, and the entire country, would have been changed profoundly.

As a researcher in the politics of public land, I went to Harney County to see what was going on firsthand. Having […]

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Credit: Healthways

It’s often a split-second decision.

You’re in the produce aisle, and those organic apples on display look nice. You like the idea of organic — but they’re a few bucks extra. Ditto for the organic milk and meat. Do you splurge? Or do you ask yourself: What am I really getting from organic?

Scientists have been trying to answer this question. And the results of a huge new meta-analysis published this week in the British Journal of Nutrition adds to the evidence that organic production can boost key nutrients in foods.

The study finds that organic dairy and meat contain about 50 percent more omega-3 fatty acids. The increase is the result of animals foraging on grasses rich in omega-3s, which then end up in dairy and meats. The findings are based on data pooled from more than 200 studies, and research in the U.S. has pointed to similar benefits.

“Omega-3s are linked to reductions in cardiovascular disease, improved neurological development and function, and better immune function,” writes study co-author

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Lawrence Wilkerson, a critic of Bush administration detainee policies and a former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, gestures duirng an interview with the Associated Press in Washington, Monday, Nov. 28, 2005.
Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

WASHINGTON — Disgusted by the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, an assistant to the Bush administration now speaks out against the excesses of American empire.

“I knew that the United States had been involved in heinous activities,” explained retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, during a Dec. 11 interview with journalist Abby Martin on her TV show, “The Empire Files.”

“I never knew in any time in our history where those bad things had not only been authorized by the highest levels in the land, but encouraged by the highest levels in […]

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