Comments

1
Let's all just go ahead and admit that reading is Communist. Kids should be watching TV.
2
I think sirkowski's comment on Frizzelle's DADT post also applies to this situation: "How did the United States manage to be a super-power and yet be so retarded."
3
@2 We weren't bombed during WWII.

Does this make Brown Bear Car Wash communist?
4
Why the hell was the board member Googling the author of Brown Bear? What other children’s book authors was she Googling?
5
I don't understand why anyone would ban a book without reading it first. Or rather, I do understand, I just don't want to admit that such people would be working in the education industry.
6
@ 3, What the hell are you talking about? A) If Pearl Harbor wasn't a bombing, what was it? B) Either way, what does that have to do with @2's comment?
7
@4&5 the key ingredient here, you must remember, is TEXAS.
8
@6- Don't be daft. Pearl Harbor was bombed, but it's clear they're talking about the nearly complete obliteration of the industrial base of most of Europe and Asia during WW II, which allowed the USA to become the world's premier producer, exporter, and one of two military superpowers.

@Leotarded Texan school board of ed members: Bill Martin isn't exactly a rare name, WTF were you thinking? Oh right, you're the people who got Anita Bryant put in the US history textbooks. You aren't thinking, you're just watching Fox News.
9
And remember everyone, Texas is such a big market for school textbooks that these Board of Education members influence the curriculum of the whole nation.
10
Gee, I wonder what would happen if I Googled the name Pat Hardy?

Aha! My exhaustive research proves beyond a shadow of a doubt this Pat Hardy is really a filthy peddler of porn, as well as being an anti-Christian "New Age" financial councilor AND apparently, a F2M transsexual!

I wonder if "his" colleagues on the Texas Board of Education are aware of Hardy's degenerate predilections?
11
@ 8, daft? Gimme a break. I'll teach you about history, you don't teach me, okay?

Now I'll teach you about this post. A) No one mentioned bombing or WWII anywhere, not here, not on the linked interview. B) @2's comment wasn't about bombing either. C) @ 3 brought it up, apropos of nothing. D) You're apparently high, or else you wouldn't be talking about it either. E) Bombing is bombing. If @ 3 says we weren't bombed during WWII, and I come back and ask @ 3 (and not you) what he or she is talking about because, you know, there was that Pearl Harbor thingy, your answer (if it is representative of what @3 was talking about) is just mindless parsing, and @ 3 should choose better words or phrases to express what he or she means.

You're welcome for the lesson.
12
@ 8, unless you were joking. In that case, I take it all back, BUT you'll have to clarify if you were joking or not because that's not clear.
13
@Matt- You get a lot of bonus daft points.

@2 raised the question "How did the United States manage to be a super-power?"

@3 replied "We didn't get bombed during WW II."

@Daft got all huffy because obviously we did ONCE suffer a major bombing raid during WW II.

@Me pointing out that while Daft was technically correct, he was missing the point.

@Daft came back with a whole raft of daft, missing the point by an even wider margin while assuming a position of authority he obviously does not belong in.

In closing, eat my shorts.
14
Oh fer chrissake. Not getting bombed in WWII is (a) not true and (b) not why we became a world superpower.

Back on topic: "Texas Board of Education" is an oxymoron, like "jumbo shrimp" or "intelligible Will in Seattle post".
15
@ 13, sorry, ass-kicking went from me to you. You can write that the opposite happened if you want, and call me a childish name to boot, but both tend to reinforce the truth of what went down. Thanks for playing.
16
@3 - actually, you're wrong.

They firebombed the West Coast.

Almost took out the power lines to the reactor too.
17
This is one of those rare occasions where the missing quotation marks should be added: The Texas Board of "Education"
18
Didn't Billy Martin manage the Texas Rangers?
19
@14- So having the world's only functional industrial economy at the end of WW II has nothing to do with why we were a superpower? Surely it's not the only reason (life's not that simple), but it is also surely a major factor.
20
Yeah, don't mess with Texas!!
21
Christ, dwight, the reason it's stupid for you and @ 3 to be prattling on about this is that it has nothing to do with either this thread, OR with the comment @ 2.

The comment @ 2 was just a snarky comment. It wasn't a serious, let's-discuss-how-the-USA-became-a-superpower conversation starter.
22
@daft- So your point is that the whole thing about bombing is off topic? Good observation daft. I'd give you a gold star if I could slap it on your forehead from here.

And your other point is that we actually did get bombed once? Very scholarly of you, when I was in 5th grade I'd point out shit like that to try to look smart too.

You are a very smart boy and should ask your mother for a cookie.
23
@21- If you don't like the conversation, why did you reply to it?

Oh right, cause you want to look smart on the internet.

Did your mom get you the cookie yet?
24
Do Marxists shit in the woods?
25
See? I win, dwight.
26
I knew immediately what @3 meant, and dwight is right. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was not comparable to London or Dresden, or any of the other cities destroyed during the war. One was a slap to the face, the others were all repeated kicks to the balls.

27
@26:

I'm sure that thought would have been of great comfort to the families of the nearly 3,000 men who were either killed or injured at Pearl Harbor that day.
28
No, I'm sure it wouldn't. But that certainly doesn't change anything does it?

The people who pretend that Vietnam was a worthwhile endeavor simply because they lost all of their friends in the war don't change the fact that the war was a monstrous clusterfuck that won us absolutely nothing. It's a tragedy for those affected by things that kill hundreds or thousands of people, but not everything carries the same historical weight and context. There is merit to the opinion that because our industry and major cities did not suffer terribly, and that the vast majority of our civilian populace were never subjected to the horrors of war, we were left as a superpower with too little appreciation for the sacrifice of war. Arguing semantics about an attack on military base that took place before we were even involved in the war is ridiculous and obnoxious.
29
I know Bill Martin (the Maoist one not the kid's author). A great guy, and totally harmless. The Texas legislature, not so much...

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