Ace-Garageguy

We may be running afoul of ethnic-diversity-and-sensitivity training protocols here...

Oh...wouldn't it be "where"? All the references I've read use the word "where" to indicate a place. I'm not sure you quite know "were" you're going with this.

Well dude, up to this point I've politely ignored all of your MULTIPLE syntax and spelling errors. You REALLY want to call me on a typo?

Sigh.

Ummm...Rob...those are the body paint colors; only 9 R3 cars were made. And...ummm...the "original locations" shown above weren't assembly plants, but the towns where the cars were originally delivered. Studebaker only had plants in South Bend, Indiana, and Hamilton, Ontario (Canada(. http://www.theavanti.net/paint_colors.html ...and...ummm...in a race-car, the engine can be any damm color the car or engine builder likes.

I'm seeing it now. Here you go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ7EYsYEzjQ

Joe, I clicked your "Kafka" link. It's beyond belief...but I was very pleased to note that hypothetical "math situations" used ethnically inclusive names like Faiza and Roberto. Who needs to know how to add, as long as we ensure our ignorant graduates respect ethnic diversity. Please, everyone LOOK at what is going on here... http://www.nationalreview.com/article/373840/ten-dumbest-common-core-problems-alec-torres

There's a "subtle but grand Canyon-sized difference" between thinking and critical-thinking. You can think "I'm cold", but without critical-thinking, drawing on accumulated knowledge of why you're cold and how you go about using a blanket, making a fire, or closing the frigging window, you're going to stay cold.

So, if reading and math are the highest priorities on the Common Core list, why is the implementation failing to turn out masses of graduates who can write coherently, read at a better-than-sixth-grade level, and make change without looking at the computer prompt? http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/01/03/expert-most-us-college-freshmen-read-at-7th-grade-level/ http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/06/math_learning_software_and_other_technology_are_hurting_education_.html http://disdblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/sheils_johnnycantwrite.pdf http://www.nbcnews.com/business/why-johnny-cant-write-why-employers-are-mad-2D11577444

Absolutely positively 100% correct.

Applied common sense and critical-thinking, using a toolbox full of knowledge, is the most direct method of achieving wisdom.

Absolutely.

Two points, Brian. Being a critic of nuclear energy is fine if you're INFORMED. Do you know that France makes over 80% of her electricity with nuclear plants, and that they're safe and clean for the most part? Nuclear power isn't bad. It's stupid and careless people implementing nuclear power that cause the problems. And cars have probably killed and maimed far more people than can be attributed to nuclear energy...including both A-bombs dropped in war. You just might try tapping into some of that useless accumulated knowledge you so disdain BEFORE making blanket statements about nuclear. By your logic, we should ban cars as a "scourge on life". Nah. let's somehow make it less likely that stupid and distracted people DRIVE cars. Second point...another fallacy in your arguments above is that, as (possibly too obliquely for mass consumption) posited in the OP and subsequent posts, the "3 Rs" are NOT being taught much any more, and have been replaced by a "feel-good' curriculum that strives to make kids feel all warm and politically-correctly-fuzzy at the expense of under-emphasized useful skills...like reading comprehension, knowledge of how to use arithmetic, and the ability to write and communicate in their own native language.

Kinda looks that way, doesn't it? That would sure explain a lot.

I wouldn't say I'm a fan of anyone's, but I DO agree with much of her Objectivist philosophy. When I first read her at 18, i thought to myself "holy cow...this is the way things SHOULD be..." She was a voice of logic and reason. I also DISAGREE with some of her philosophy. But Atlas Shrugged, misinterpreted by many, hated and called "elitist" by many, makes a LOT of very valid points about what's wrong with how things work...like political cronyism...and is in large part an accurate predictor of what's happening in the world today. I somewhat prefer her Fountainhead, which is about a gifted architect who works in obscurity much of his life because he refuses to design regurgitated pablum based on "classical' architecture to satisfy clients who don't want anything original and new. Her non-fiction work like the Romantic Manifesto, about artistic philosophy, is worth the time.

Accumulated knowledge is of little value? REALLY? You certainly seem to make free use of the accumulated knowledge of board members here. I'll remember that "accumulated knowledge is of little value" in your opinion next time you ask a question I just happen to have accumulated the knowledge to accurately answer. The A-bomb was seen to be a means-to-an-end, in order to put a quick finish to a global conflict...and the good guys thought the bad guys were a lot closer to perfecting and employing it. Developing and dropping the bomb was seen at the time as a way to save much of the human race from tyranny, and a vastly prolonged war. You, and many other way-after-the-fact-critics may not like it, but I'd like to know what YOU would have done differently. Asked the mean men nicely to put down their guns? A great deal of what the ignorant generations now take for granted technologically is a direct result of follow-on R&D after the A-bomb program, the space-program, etc. Without all that prior accumulated knowledge, all the fancy smart-toys wouldn't exist. Accumulated knowledge is one of the primary tools one employs when one engages in critical-thinking. Wisdom is knowing HOW to apply knowledge, not a substitute for it. Granted, not knowing (or apparently caring) that the Earth tracks around the sun won't make you a better citizen-voter per se, but as I stated earlier, it's symptomatic of widespread and simply irresponsible ignorance of just about everything except popular culture. But I agree with you 100% on one point... " it took a lot of stupid ppl to get us to this point in our history".

Well, I know this a pretty old-fashioned concept, but whatever happened to the idea that before you start breeding, it might be good to establish a stable home environment for children to be born into, and to make damm sure the income was there to care for and educate them...BEFORE having them? Oh, sorry...that sounds WAY to much like taking personal responsibility for your actions and being an adult.

I'm an old fossil. I don't have a problem with change, and I've been an early-adopter of several new technologies...when those new technologies were BETTER than what went before. I was, frankly, disappointed that the "semantic web" has taken so long to finally (almost) get here, that CAD took so long to develop (and wasn't really worth the effort until the tech matured to its present capabilities), that fully-functional AI is still on the far horizon, and that speech-recognition is just now becoming reliable enough to be actually useful for everyone who wants it. What I DO have a problem with is change-for-the-sake-of-change, especially when implemented by short-sighted bean counters, or that's just done because everybody-else-is-doing-it.

Understanding the world we live in and how it works is required to be an engaged participant and to have any valid opinions concerning ANYTHING...including who you vote for, and WHY. NOTE: This isn't anything political. No parties or individuals or policies (other than whatever passes for educational policy now) have been mentioned or alluded to.

Only two I'm after at the moment are a virgin AMT '59 Buick hardtop, and a '60 falcon.

Nice save. Netting those skirts off can be a real bear when some kid used half a tube of glue.

Pretty bizarre. I've seen this kit before...you've done a nice job with it. Do you mind if I ask what you paid, and where you found it?

Yes sir !!

But now they're idiots with a voice. It is one of the damning facts that describe humans in general...for the most part, people would rather follow someone than lead, or even follow their own path, or even think about what a good thing to do might be. A lot of people hate their jobs because it's easier to just get work doing SOMETHING rather than finding something to do that they actually LIKE. And there's that little German who was able to inspire an entire nation to follow him into destruction, or the Jonestown mass suicide. Most people WANT to follow, to be told what to do, and even if it's a really really stupid idea, if they hear it enough times, it gets traction in their brains and influences behavior. That reality is the only reason marketing works at all. And when millions of morons are all jabbering away incoherently, stupidly, about mostly nothing of any importance whatsoever, the incessant stupidity HAS to have an effect on the perceptions and behaviors of the majority that prefer to NOT think for themselves. I believe there's a very real potential for a looming critical-mass of dumbing-down. and once we hit it, we may not be able to easily recover as a "civilized" society.

Told by who? Marketing constantly screaming hysterically that you NEED this or that new-improved-same-old-same-old, the mainstream and off-center media, politicians, Limbaugh and his ilk (on either side of the fence), you-tube conspiracy idiots, flat-Earthers, masses of uninformed morons blithely content to mindlessly repeat wrong information over and over and over again on the web, ad nauseum. I agree with the rest of your statement, and I don't blame the internet for anything. I think it's a wonderful tool for communication, research, information-sharing...and I've wholly embraced it in my own life as just that...an additional tool in my box, not a replacement for everything that came before. But to go a bit farther with your thought, the net has given voice to millions upon millions of "lemmings" who otherwise wouldn't have much impact, but because of the widespread lack of critical-thinking skills and ignorance of science, math, history, politics, economics, day-to-day physics, ad infinitum, they're in a position to exert some influence, simply by the strength of their numbers.