Topics

Okay, so we moved the board and were able to keep all the messages, PMs, etc etc. Yay.

Next, trying to rebuild the DS theme.

la la la la

vny!s://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhmZyNjKH8s

[People who tell pollsters their religion is "none" have increased to one-fourth of the U.S. population.]

By James A. Haught
Tribune News Service

Western civilization has entered the long-predicted Secular Age, when the power of religion over society gradually recedes.

Europe started the shift after World War II. Churchgoing diminished until only a fringe of Europeans attend worship today. The young especially ignore faith. The secularizing trend spread to Canada and other democracies.

Now it's occurring in America. People who tell pollsters their religion is "none" have increased to one-fourth of the U.S. population. They're expected to continue rising because one-third of Americans under 30 have ceased worshiping.

This trend has political significance, because those who don't attend church are strongly liberal. The "none" segment may decide the presidency.

"The Decline of Religion is the GOP's Real Demographic Crisis" is the title of a research report by journalist Matthew Sheffield, who is writing a book on the trend.

He points out Republican Mitt Romney won the 2012 presidential election, as far as U.S. churchgoers are concerned – but churchless voters killed Romney.

Polls show "none" voters backed Democrat Barack Obama in 2012 by huge margins: Virginia, 78 percent to 22 – Florida, 72 to 26 – etc.

"It is safe to say that the Godless Gap cost Mitt Romney the election," Sheffield concluded.

Young "nones" generally are tolerant and humane. They support the right of gays to marry and women's right to end pregnancies. They would halt the death penalty and legalize marijuana. They support universal health care. They reject most of the GOP and its fundemantalist wing's harsh Puritanism.

White evangelicals vote Republican as forcefully as "nones" vote Democratic. Both groups are now even – each comprising one-fifth to one-fourth of voters.

But white evangelicals are shrinking, while the churchless grow relentlessly. The trend bodes a brighter future for liberal politics (although many "nones" don't vote).

It's fascinating to watch the culture evolve. When I became a young reporter in Charleston, W.Va., the 1950s, Appalachian Bible Belt taboos were locked into law. It was a felony to be gay or for a desperate girl to end a pregnancy. Mixed-race marriage was against the law. It was a crime to sell a cocktail, lottery ticket or anything akin to a Playboy magazine. Schools had mandatory teacher-led prayer. It was a crime for an unwed couple to live together or even share a bedroom.

All those religion-based laws slowly vanished as society turned more secular. Few people noticed, because we all were too busy with daily life.

The secularizing trend seems unstoppable. It gradually bolsters progressive values of the Democratic Party. White evangelicals remain the heart of the GOP – but they're losing ground as "nones" slowly outnumber them.

Husband: My wife is missing. She went shopping yesterday and hasn't come home.

Sergeant: What is her height?

Husband: Gee, I'm not sure. A little over five-feet tall.

Sergeant: Weight?

Husband: Don't know. Not slim, not really fat.

Sergeant: Color of eyes?

Husband: Never noticed.

Sergeant: Color of hair?

Husband: Changes a couple times a year. Maybe dark brown.

Sergeant: What was she wearing?

Husband: Could have been a skirt or shorts. I don't remember exactly.

Sergeant: What kind of car did she go in?

Husband: She went in my truck.

Sergeant: What kind of truck was it?

Husband: Brand new 2015 Ford F150 King Ranch 4X4 with eco-boost 5.0L V8 engine special ordered with manual transmission. It has a custom matching white cover for the bed. Custom leather seats and "Bubba" floor mats. Trailer package with gold hitch. DVD with navigation, 21-channel CB radio, six cup holders, and four power outlets. Added special alloy wheels and off-road Michelins. Wife put a small scratch on the drivers door.

At this point the husband started choking up.

Sergeant: Don't worry buddy. We'll find your truck.
 

 
vny!://vimeo.com/178939743 (//vny!s://vimeo.com/178939743)

[Pew Survey: Americans giving up on God, miracles]

It's finally happening....finally. 



Pew Survey: Americans giving up on God, miracles

Half of Americans who have left their church no longer believe in God, leading a surge of nearly one quarter of the nation who have no affiliation with any religion, according to a new survey.

Pew Research Center said Wednesday that 49 percent of what they term "nones" left their church and religion because they "don't believe." Another 20 percent said they don't like organized religion. Other reasons included "common sense" and a lack of believe in miracles.

The survey is the latest from Pew that demonstrates a growing trend in America: More and more people are junking religion and many are giving up on God.

Pew interviewed several respondents to try and find a reason. Pew Said for example:

Stay abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.

"About half of current religious 'nones' who were raised in a religion (49%) indicate that a lack of belief led them to move away from religion. This includes many respondents who mention 'science' as the reason they do not believe in religious teachings, including one who said 'I'm a scientist now, and I don't believe in miracles.' Others reference 'common sense,' 'logic' or a 'lack of evidence' – or simply say they do not believe in God."


vny!://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pew-huge-surge-in-americans-who-no-longer-believe-in-god-miracles/article/2600066 (//vny!://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pew-huge-surge-in-americans-who-no-longer-believe-in-god-miracles/article/2600066)

I suppose if you let the police shoot citizens to death over and over and over without any accountability or punishment, you shouldn't be surprised if some of them start shooting back.  I don't condone what happened, but the media is as clueless as they could possibly be:

Megyn Kelly: "We do not know the motivation behind tonight's shooting in Dallas"

Yahoo: "Nor do authorities know what motivated the attack..."

Chief David Brown said, "...police don't have a motivation for the attacks"

Zero Hedge: "No specific motive has been given for the shootings at the downtown protest..."

Holy shit, I'm an old white guy and I know why EXACTLY the shootings took place.

It's no mystery, this isn't something you need to puzzle out. It's plain f*cking as day: you let cops go around shooting and killing people, mostly young black men, and you don't punish or convict them. Sooner or later someone is going to pop a gasket and start shooting at cops.

For the media to say that they "don't know why this happened" is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long, long time.

Oslo is dropping out of bidding (//vny!://deadspin.com/nobody-wants-to-host-the-2022-olympics-1582151092/1641262594/+barryap?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow) for the 2022 Winter Olympics, leaving Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing as the only remaining cities seeking to host the event. Why? One reason is that people are starting to realize that spending mega-money (//vny!://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/soccer/world-cup/white-elephants/article19064519/) to build sporting venues that may not ever be used again (//vny!://gizmodo.com/just-six-months-after-the-olympics-sochi-looks-like-a-1626519139) doesn't make economic sense.

Another is that the International Olympic Committee is a notoriously ridiculous organization run by grifters (//vny!s://www.google.com/search?q=ioc+corruption&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb) and hereditary aristocrats (//vny!://www.buzzfeed.com/bml/10-actual-hereditary-aristocrats-who-run-the-olympics#165armi). Norwegian citizens were particularly amused/outraged (amuseraged) by the IOC's diva-like demands for luxury treatment during the hypothetical Games. Here's a piece in the Norwegian media (//vny!://www.vg.no/sport/ol-2022/ioc-krever-gratis-sprit-paa-stadion-og-cocktail-fest-med-kongen/a/23306598/) about the controversy, with translation provided by a generous Norwegian reader named Mats Silberg:
   

   They demand to meet the king prior to the opening ceremony. Afterwards, there shall be a cocktail reception. Drinks shall be paid for by the Royal Palace or the local organizing committee.
Separate lanes should be created on all roads where IOC members will travel, which are not to be used by regular people or public transportation.
A welcome greeting from the local Olympic boss and the hotel manager should be presented in IOC members' rooms, along with fruit and cakes of the season. (Seasonal fruit in Oslo in February is a challenge ...)
The hotel bar at their hotel should extend its hours "extra late" and the minibars must stock Coke products.
The IOC president shall be welcomed ceremoniously on the runway when he arrives.
The IOC members should have separate entrances and exits to and from the airport.
During the opening and closing ceremonies a fully stocked bar shall be available. During competition days, wine and beer will do at the stadium lounge.
IOC members shall be greeted with a smile when arriving at their hotel.
Meeting rooms shall be kept at exactly 20 degrees Celsius at all times.
The hot food offered in the lounges at venues should be replaced at regular intervals, as IOC members might "risk" having to eat several meals at the same lounge during the Olympics.

The IOC issued a statement (//vny!://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-statement/238610) responding to Oslo's decision:

"This is a missed opportunity for the City of Oslo and for all the people of Norway who are known world-wide for being huge fans of winter sports. And it is mostly a missed opportunity for the outstanding Norwegian athletes who will not be able to reach new Olympic heights in their home country."

LOL!! Sounds like Oslo has its head on straight. f*ck the IOC, who are a bunch of predatory scumbags.

My (unmarried) friend Jim, on the subject of marriage:

"When someone is murdered, the first suspect is always the spouse, and that tells you all you need to know about marriage."

Welcome to DiscoverSeattle.

Gopher (Ovi) has suggested creating a sub-forum for you all, and I'd be glad to.

I suggested he pick a name, or better yet, create a poll topic so people can suggest and/or vote for a name for the forum.

(This is just an example of creating a poll topic.)

Edit: It might be possible to style the new forum to look similar to the Cast-Offs forum; if there's enough interest in doing that I can check.

[EU set to kill street photography]

WTF?


EU set to kill street photography

The "Freedom of Panorama" is the right to take pictures in public spaces, even if you incidentally capture copyrighted works, from building facades to public sculptures to images on t-shirts and ads -- and on July 9, the EU will vote whether to abolish it.   

Freedom of Panorama is one of the key recommendations of German Pirate MEP Julia Reda's copyright report (//vny!://boingboing.net/2015/05/29/save-copyright-reform-in-the-e.html), recommending that member-states be required to enshrine this freedom in their national laws.

The Legal Affairs committee is prepared to get rid of this, thanks to an amendment proposed by French MEP Jean-Marie Cavada, who wants people taking commercial photos to get prior permission from copyright creators for any incidental copyrighted works captured in their images.

Freedom of Panorama is under attack (//vny!s://medium.com/@owenblacker/freedom-of-panorama-is-under-attack-6cc5353b4f65)

[ing]

What happens if you add "ing" to a movie or song....

Jurassic Parking - a movie about how tough it is to find a space in the jungle.

Das Booting - a story about a German man starting up his computer.

Dude, Where's My Caring - A man wakes up to find he couldn't give a damn.

Thunderballing - James Bond finds a new calling in the adult film industry.

[Researchers Uncover an Ancient Mass Grave of 8 Million Mummified Dogs in Ancient Egypt]

Too weird.

Researchers Uncover an Ancient Mass Grave of 8 Million Mummified Dogs in Ancient Egypt

The dog catacomb in North Saqqara was first discovered in the 19th century. However, the huge extent of animal body count in this region was unearthed recently by a team of archeologists from the University of Cardiff.

According to lead researcher Paul Nicholson, the temple and the catacombs found in North Saqqara served as the burial ground, decked out with mummies of mongooses, jackals, hawks, cats, baboons, foxes, bulls, falcon, and millions of dogs.

Some of these animals lived in the main temple complex, but the majority was bred, probably, to serve the purpose of mummification. Nicholson suggests many puppies would have been kept in the tomb from birth. They were not strangled but died due to starvation or dehydration.

Full story: vny!://www.biztekmojo.com/00818/researchers-uncover-ancient-mass-grave-8-million-mummified-dogs-ancient-egypt (//vny!://www.biztekmojo.com/00818/researchers-uncover-ancient-mass-grave-8-million-mummified-dogs-ancient-egypt)

In other news, it looks like we're going to buy a nail store and my wife and her friend will manage it.

It's got a decent location and lots of traffic, hopefully this will work out well. We've sent the landlord a bunch of paperwork and are just waiting to hear back....wish us luck!

Does Ben Carson really think anyone is going to vote for him?

Republicans aren't going to vote for him cause he's black, and democrats aren't going to vote for him cause he's retarded.

[CHICAGO (CBS) —]

CHICAGO (CBS) — Police and the Lake County Coroner's office were investigating, after a Highland Park couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their home earlier this week.

A Highland Park Fire Department lieutenant found the bodies of his parents – 79-year-old Pasquale Fontanini and 76-year-old Rina Fontanini – in their home Monday morning. Pasquale Fontanini's body was on the first floor, and Rina Fontanini's body was in an upstairs bedroom.

The Lake County Coroner's office said autopsies determined both husband and wife died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Police said investigators believe Pasquale Fontanini heard the home's carbon monoxide detector going off, found the family car's keyless ignition running in the attached garage, and opened the garage door, but the deadly carbon monoxide did not dissipate quickly enough, and the couple was overcome.

Their son tried to perform CPR after finding their bodies, but could not revive them.



Hmmm, you have to wonder if an electrical glitch or other problem caused the car to start by itself....with keyless ignitions you just need to have the "key" close to the car to be able to start it, there's no actual key that has to be inserted to start the engine. Without the key near to the car the engine will not start.

If the key is nearby, however, 5 or 6 feet typically, then the car goes into a "ready" state where the engine can be started with the push-button. The engine starts by a push-button, and it's not hard to imagine an electrical spike or fault causing the car to think that the start button was pushed.

I know if I'm standing over the garage in my house the bluetooth gear in my phone will "see" and link up to the car a floor below below me, and vice-versa. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a keyless ignition key worked at a similar distance.

Ya gotta wonder if something like this happened, as there's no apparent suspicion that this might have been suicide. Maybe the keyfob was close enough to the car to put it into the "ready" state and an electrical fault of some sort started the car.

[6-10-2015EDIT:]

Two inmates, Richard Matt and David Sweat,  escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility (//vny!://www.businessinsider.com/answers-sought-in-ny-shawshank-redemption-style-prison-escape-2015-6), and to do so they "cut through the steel wall at the back of their cell, crawled down a catwalk, broke through a brick wall, cut their way into and out of a steam pipe, and then sliced through the chain and lock on a manhole cover outside the prison".

The prison officials think it may be (partly) an inside job, maybe they got help from a contractor or someone on the prison staff.

I disagree....I suspect it was mostly an outside job.

I think someone basically took their time burrowing into the prison from the outside. This would explain a lot, for example, why no one heard anything when the pipes and walls were being cut open.

A steam pipe like the one in the pic is about 1/4" thick, that's some pretty serious stuff to be cutting or breaching even with acid or something like a thermal lance (//vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance). When I cut 1/8th steel in my shop with a cutoff tool I need eye and ear protection, and it makes one HELL of a noise. There's just no way in the world to keep it quiet.

It also looks like it was cut very cleanly. That doesn't seem like it was done in a couple hours.

So, maybe acid or a oxyacetylene gas cutting torch. Both are pretty quiet overall.

Doing all this from inside without getting caught seems very unlikely. But doing it from the outside would be much easier. So I think someone likely broke into Clinton to make a path out for these guys.


6-10-2015
EDIT: And it looks like I was wrong. The news sources are saying now that it appears a staff person, Joyce Mitchell, gave the prisoners access to tools and other equipment used in the escape.  Mitchell was an industrial training supervisor in the prison tailor shop where both inmates worked.

It also appears that that Mitchell had agreed to pick up  Matt and Sweat in a getaway car, but backed out at the last minute and checked herself into a hospital for panic attacks.

Dang, I really liked my theory, it sounded so good.   lol

Brian Everstine writes at Air Force Times that U.S. intelligence officers were able to locate and bomb an Islamic State command center based on a photo and comments in social media (//vny!://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/06/04/air-force-isis-social-media-target/28473723/).

"The [airmen are] combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command," said Gen. Hawk Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command. "And in some social media, open forum, bragging about command and control capabilities for Da'esh, ISIL, And these guys go 'ah, we got an in.'

So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three JDAMS take that entire building out. Through social media. It was a post on social media. Bombs on target in 22 hours."

Friggin cool...fly to space:
vny!://www.eyesinspace.com/ (//vny!://www.eyesinspace.com/)

Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though. 

Check out the new U.S. demographic data from the Pew Research Center which show that the percentage of Americans declaring affiliation with a particular religion has declined sharply since 2007 (//vny!://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/).

Americans identifying as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014.  Those describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or simple having no affiliation took up most of the slack, rising from 16.1% to 22.8%. Members of non-Christian faiths collectively rose from 4.7% to 5.9%.

Despite the overall decline, the demographics within the Christian group are getting much more racially and ethnically diverse. The willingness of respondents to marry outside their religious affiliation is also on the rise. The median age of unaffiliated adults is dropping, while the median ages of mainline Protestants and Catholics are rising.

The study estimates that 85% of adults age 70 and over are Christian, while only 56% of adults ages 18-24 are Christian. They also say that each individual generation has shown a slight decrease in religious affiliation compared to their statistics in 2007.

[The NSA...]

(//vny!://i.imgur.com/MfJS7bc.png)

The NSA...

They sabotage encryption software, because they can:
vny!://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220 (//vny!://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220)

They wiretap internet connections, regardless if it's undersea, ground, or satellite uplinks, because they can:
vny!s://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/14/nsa-stellar/ (//vny!s://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/14/nsa-stellar/)

They search through our voicemail, because they can:
vny!s://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/05/nsa-speech-recognition-snowden-searchable-text/ (//vny!s://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/05/nsa-speech-recognition-snowden-searchable-text/)

They hacked phones of their allies political leaders, because they can:
vny!://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27695634 (//vny!://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27695634)

They do industrial espionage on a more advanced level than the Chinese, because they can:
vny!s://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/06/17/germany-nsas-largest-listening-post-europe/ (//vny!s://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/06/17/germany-nsas-largest-listening-post-europe/)

"The perversity of nature is nowhere better demonstrated by the fact that, when exposed to the same atmosphere, bread becomes hard while crackers become soft."

This Week in Science: Robot Telescopes, A Manned Station on the Moon, Predicting Cancer 13 Years in Advance, and More!

vny!://www.futurism.co/images/view/this-week-in-science-april-26th-may-3rd-2015/ (//vny!://www.futurism.co/images/view/this-week-in-science-april-26th-may-3rd-2015/)



1. Telomere Length: vny!://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/11574893/New-test-can-predict-cancer-up-to-13-years-before-disease-develops.html
Reddit: vny!://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/34hfjv/new_test_can_predict_cancer_up_to_13_years_before/

2. Artificial Skin: vny!://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/newsroom/news_releases/2015/engineers_create_chameleon-like_artificial_skin/

Reddit: vny!://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/33x0lg/engineers_create_chameleonlike_artificial_skin/

3. Blood Types:vny!://science.ubc.ca/news/researchers-closer-being-able-change-blood-types

Reddit: vny!://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/34ft6e/vancouver_researchers_have_created_an_enzyme_that/

4. Robot Telescope: vny!://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/04/28/robotic-telescope-discovers-three-super-earth-planetary-neighbors/

Reddit: vny!://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/349hkg/robotic_telescope_discovers_three_superearth/

5. Mitochondria Editing:vny!://www.bbc.com/news/health-32434347

Reddit: vny!://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/33zfs1/mitochondria_gene_editing_tried_in_mice/

6. Lunar Station: vny!://sputniknews.com/world/20150428/1021463835.html

Reddit: vny!://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3494q0/russia_invites_china_to_join_in_creating_lunar/

[Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever]

Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

"Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything."

- Matt Taibbi


vny!://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425 (//vny!://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425)

No comment....

[NOT]

Immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explain how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers.

Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and thousands of other companies are running these kinds of fake ads in Sunday newspapers across the country each week.

vny!s://youtu.be/TCbFEgFajGU

This reminds me of the "literacy tests (//vny!://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html)" that were routinely given to blacks in the South up until the 1960's...the goal was to fail the person and keep them from voting no matter what.

In short, it doesn't matter how qualified you are for the job or how good a fit it would be, if you can't be hired through an H-1b visa then you ain't gettin' no job.

[all]

I knew this was happening but I could never prove it. Now someone has proved it.

I know I rag on Facebook a lot, but it's deserved. Here's the latest revelation: Facebook collects all content that is typed into its website, even if it is not posted.

So if you're typing something into a Facebook form and then change your mind and decide not to post it, they still have it.


Facebook collects all content that is typed into its website, even if it is not posted, a tech consultant has discovered. In December 2013, it was reported (//vny!://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/12/facebook_self_censorship_what_happens_to_the_posts_you_don_t_publish.html) that Facebook plants code in browsers that returns metadata every time somebody types out a status update or comment but deletes it before posting.

At the time, Facebook maintained that it only received information indicating whether somebody had deleted an update or comment before posting it, and not exactly what the text said.

However, Príomh Ó hÚigínn, a tech consultant based in Ireland, has claimed this is not the case after inspecting Facebook's network traffic through a developer tool and screencasting software.

'I realised that any text I put into the status update box was sent to Facebook's servers, even if I did not click the post button,' he wrote on his blog (//vny!://blog.higg.im/2015/04/07/facebook-sending-nonposts-to-its-servers-and-stores-unpublished-thoughts/) yesterday.

Full story: vny!://www.information-age.com/technology/information-management/123459286/facebook-does-collect-text-you-decided-against-posting (//vny!://www.information-age.com/technology/information-management/123459286/facebook-does-collect-text-you-decided-against-posting)

A little sanity finally in the anti-vax nonsense.......


A bill that would require nearly all children in California to be vaccinated (//vny!://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/us/bill-to-require-vaccination-of-children-advances-in-california.html?_r=0) by eliminating "personal belief" exemptions advanced through the State Legislature on Wednesday, though it still has several hurdles to clear.

If approved, California would become one of only three states that require all parents to vaccinate their children as a condition of going to school, unless there is a medical reason not to do so. Under the bill, introduced after a measles outbreak that began at Disneyland, parents who refuse vaccines for philosophical or religious reasons would have to educate their children at home.

The legislation prompted a roiling debate in Sacramento, and last week hundreds of people protested at the Capitol, arguing that it infringed on their rights and that it would unfairly shut their children out of schools. Last Wednesday, the legislation stalled in the Senate Education Committee as lawmakers said they were concerned that too many students would be forced into home schooling.

This Wednesday, however, the bill passed that committee after its authors tweaked it, adding amendments that would expand the definition of home schooling to allow multiple families to join together to teach their children or participate in independent study programs run by public school systems.