| Howard's way fails school test
The panel had a one-day September workshop, emailing and phoning each other after the meeting. Eventually their draft reached Howard's office, where it was glossed up and launched by the prime minister in October as a highly prescriptive syllabus, with 40 new milestones and more than 100 biographies. Clearly, it was the product of a well-meaning committee asked to take on an unaccustomed task, and the work of a prime ministerial office that had just wanted more and more and more facts. Unpromisingly, the crucial link between primary and secondary Australian history had disappeared, the panel having briskly been informed that this was no longer on the agenda. One telling feature of the new guide was that the then prime minister's view of historical literacy was a watered-down version of the original, with "moral judgement" dropped altogether and "contention and contestability" (historiography and public debate) rewritten as the more anodyne "explain and account for difference in historical interpretations".
Retired Bosnian Serb general pleads not guilty
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina-Retired Bosnian Serb general on Monday pleaded not guilty to ordering a shelling attack in 1995 that killed 71 people and injured 240 in the northern town of Tuzla. The war crimes department of the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina indicted Novak Djukic for alleged crimes against civilians, and police arrested him in July 2007. According to the indictment, Djukic ordered his units to fire the deadly missile from the nearby mountain of Ozren on May 25, 1995, a statement from the court said. The projectile hit a square in downtown Tuzla where the city's youth had gathered in the evening in front of several cafes. Most of the victims were young people, the youngest a 3-year-old boy. It was considered one of the worst massacres of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. At the time of the shelling, Djukic was an officer of the Bosnian Serb army, the indictment said.
Academic Freedom and Evolution
I love the structure of the debate, as presented here, religion vs. Darwinian evolution. Except that the only theological option that the anti-Darwinists seem to advocate is the literalist Protestant Christian variant. Are they truly open to the inclusion of all theologies’ origin myths in the science classroom and the laboratory or just their belief system of choice? Gadfly on the Wall, at 9:30 am EST on December 10, 2007 .
Mail | What readers are saying
We watch in amazement as youngsters emulate their basketball heroes. As female fans who grew up before the passage of Title IX, watching girls stand with a basketball in the Lauren Jackson pose is revolutionary, because most of us didn't have women athletes to emulate as children. Because a Force 10 has arrived, we live in a wonderful time in the ascension of women's professional sports. We look forward to the day a "6th Woman" flag is raised over the Space Needle heralding a new day in Seattle's team spirit. Force 10 Hoops, LLC has made this vision possible. Anne, Ginny, Lisa and Dawn, you are the MVOs (Most Valuable Owners) in the WNBA. We hope the same girls emulating Jackson and Lennox choose to emulate these successful community-minded women as well. — Ann Carey & Linda Lillevik, Seattle Send us your backtalk: Letters bearing true names, addresses and telephone numbers for verification are considered for publication.
Evolution Of The Sexes
Fungi don't exactly come in boy and girl varieties, but they do have sex differences. In fact, a new finding from Duke University Medical Center shows that some of the earliest evolved forms of fungus contain clues to how the sexes evolved in higher animals, including that distant cousin of fungus, the human.A team lead by Joseph Heitman, M.D. has isolated sex-determining genes from one of the oldest known types of fungi, Phycomyces blakesleeanus, findings which appear in the Jan. 10 issue of Nature.Fungi do not have entire sex chromosomes, like the familiar X and Y chromosomes that determine sexual identity in humans. Instead, they have sex determining sequences of DNA called "mating-type loci."Mating-type loci have been found in a number of higher-level fungal species, and exhibit an unusual amount of diversity.
Race for the White House: Campaign Diary
One-time Republican national frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, below, was not letting a fifth place in Iowa and a distant fourth in New Hampshire get him down. Heading south to campaign in Florida he had a reassuring message for his supporters: "Maybe we've lulled our opponents into a false sense of confidence." Hitting the right note Mike Huckabee, bass player and candidate, hoped to strike a chord with voters in Detroit, the home of Motown, when he proclaimed that the Funk Brothers were the underrated proponents of "some of the greatest music of all time". He also tried to keep one foot in the rock and roll camp, explaining how, as governor of Arkansas, he had pardoned Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, for a reckless driving conviction earned 30 years previously. Asked whether he would do that for anybody, Huckabee replied: "Not unless they could play guitar like Keith Richards." .
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