ASU Axes Naughty Sun Devils

It's not teachers getting canned this time for showing off their bods on the internet, it's cheerleaders at Arizona State University.

After racy photos of members of the university’s cheerleading squad were spotted on a campus blog called “The Dirty,” the school cut the squad completely, MyFOXPhoenix reported.

The school's athletic director, Lisa Love, made the decision Thursday evening.The pictures on the blog feature 6 of the cheerleaders posing in nothing but their bras and panties.

Although only six members of the squad are shown in the photographs, the entire 16-member squad will suffer the consequences, MyFOXPhoenix reported.

I'm really trying for some bitingly witty comment here, but it's just not hitting me.

Interspecies Animal Porn

Well, that title will certainly attract the wrong element to this blog. But what else do you call this?

An Antarctic fur seal has been observed trying to have sex with a king penguin.

And for the real pervos, there's a picture!

Hat tip to Instapundit.

An Update On Loyalty Oaths

I've written before about the loyalty oaths required of California public school teachers and professors. Now, another CSU professor has been fired for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. The linked LA Times story provides some interesting background information on the required oaths:

The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs...

UC Berkeley was the first to impose a tough anti-communist loyalty oath in 1949 and fired 31 professors who refused to sign...

Efforts to remove the oath from the state Constitution have been unsuccessful, although the matter came under scrutiny in 1998 when a congressional subcommittee held a hearing on religious freedom...

(S)he (the fired teacher) would like to see the oath eliminated for all public employees except those who deal with sensitive information. She also would like an apology and a job next year.

This bias in this article against the loyalty oath is palpable. What's interesting is that the reader is never allowed to read the oath him/herself, to judge if it merits the kind of rending of garments that's occurring. I wonder why that is.

You can find it here, in Article 20, Section 3 of the California Constitution. It doesn't seem unduly burdensome to me. On the contrary, it seems entirely reasonable.

Do you want teachers or professors who cannot live up to its dictates?

Hat tip to NewsAlert.

So How's Fox News Doing?

I don't watch Fox News, as I don't get cable. It's funny how I'm often accused of being brainwashed by them, though, because I'm relatively conservative. Keep projecting, lefties.

Remember a few months ago when the Dems were going to have a debate on Fox, and enough people squealed and got it moved to a different network? I guess their ideas can't stand up to any scrutiny at all, or that's the fear.

But something's changed.

The nation’s top Democrats are suddenly rushing to appear on the Fox News Channel, which they once had shunned as enemy territory as the nemesis of liberal bloggers.

The detente with Fox has provoked a backlash from progressive bloggers, who contend the party’s leaders are turning their backs on the base — and lending credibility and legitimacy to the network liberals love to hate — in a quest for a few swing votes...

With the party’s presidential contest reduced to hand-to-hand combat, Democrats are turning to the ratings leader among cable news channels in a clear rebuff to the liberal activists known as the Netroots...

The Democratic leaders’ new openness to Fox reflects the liberal left’s diminishing power, at least at this point in the political cycle. Once feared by the Democratic candidates, these activists are now viewed at least in part as an impediment to winning the broad swatch of support needed to clinch the nomination.

So if Fox is eeeeeeevil, and the Dems are agreeing to appear on that network more and more....

No Posting Yesterday

Why not? It was May Day, of course, and I didn't want to detract from the celebrations of all those communists out there.

=)

Let The Contortions And Head-Exploding Begin

Months after the Berkeley city council extended gracious protest privileges to Code Pink--to include a prime parking place in front of the Marine recruiting office--the Berkeley College Republicans have applied for a permit with the same privileges.

The CRs also are circulating a petition for a protected zone around the Marine recruiting center. Funny enough, the same libs who probably have no problem with speech-free zones around abortion clinics are balking at applying the idea to recruiting centers.

I'm gonna break out the popcorn and watch the little Stalinists explain why the College Republicans shouldn't be allowed a similar sweetheart deal. Surely one of them will twist so hard they'll pull a muscle.

Not Classy At All

It's hard to believe, but the girl said "yes".

The varsity lacrosse players displayed the question, "Will You Go To The Prom With Me? Yes or No?" on their bottoms, which they bared during a junior varsity game last Thursday.

Officials suspended the 13 players for an undetermined number of games and ordered them to perform 20 hours of community service. They also were suspended from school for one day.

While it's marginally funny--I mean, who doesn't enjoy a good mooning--it's not very classy at all. And it's certainly not "epic". I wonder if her parents were as impressed as she was:

Campbell accepted the invitation by patting the back of the player who displayed the word "Yes."

Race and Education, Part 8 Million

Is it "racist" for the school principal to meet with the black students prior to state testing, and to tell them that they score lower than their white peers, presumably to motivate them to do better? If it's not racist, is it just dumb?

Or is it neither? We know that American blacks, as a group, underperform compared to their white counterparts; are we not allowed to tell them that?

Perhaps one way not to have to worry about this is just to reclassify the students as white. That's right, just find the ones that are mixed race and ask their parents to reclassify them. If the school doesn't have enough students in a particular subgroup, that subgroups scores don't have to be identified--and if it's a traditionally low-performing subgroup, that subgroup will no longer count against the school if it doesn't perform well! Oh, the individual scores will count in the school's tally, but the subgroup won't officially "exist" at the school and hence cannot be broken out.

Why is this important? Because the No Child Left Behind Act states that if a particular (racial or socioeconomic) subgroup doesn't meet improvement goals, then the school is considered a failing school. No group, no failure.

This is one of those times where I need some assistance from my readers. I might be holding contradictory viewpoints here, and I could use some clarity. In general, I don't like racial classifications. I don't think skin color matters in education, or in matters before the law. However, certain groups of students consistently don't do well on standardized tests, and those groups are those with black or brown skin. Yes, culture has much to do with that gap, but even affluent black students don't score near as high as affluent white kids in the same neighborhood. In wanting to make sure we don't let these same kids fall through the cracks--in order to make sure they're not left behind by having their scores lost in the school average--I support breaking school scoring data down by subgroup.

So in general I don't like these (racial) subgroups, but I like the idea of using them to identify where we in the education business aren't doing as well as we can with certain kids. Am I being contradictory here? If not, can you explain to me how I'm not? And if I am, can you explain how I might modify my beliefs--keeping in mind that racial colorblindness is one of my bedrock beliefs--in order to ensure that schools continue to shine a light on students, whether as groups or as individuals, who don't perform as well as they could or should?

I genuinely want to reconcile these beliefs into a consistent framework.

Carnival of Education

This week's is at What It's Like on the Inside and includes my post about what freedoms teachers should have to do what they want on their own time.

Oddest Recession I've Ever Seen

When I hear people talking about how bad this current so-called recession is, I often ask them: do you know what the definition of a recession is? Of course, the vast majority do not. How, then, can they say we're in a recession? Because the news media tell them we are, and because we have a Republican president.

The definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of "negative economic growth"; in other words, it's two quarters of a contracting economy. So you can't really tell if we're in a recession until the economic numbers for two consecutive quarters are in.

And they are. 4th Quarter of last year, ending December 31st, the economy grew at an annual rate of .6%. First Quarter of this year, ending March 31st, the economy grew at an annual rate of .6%.

Now I'm not saying that this anemic growth is cause for celebration and perhaps a national holiday, but if we're to believe facts over hype, then we have to be honest.

And our friends on the left need to quit lying just to score political points.

Leave it to al-AP (the linked article above) to find the dark cloud within the silver lining:

Many analysts were predicting that the gross domestic product (GDP) would weaken a bit more — to a pace of just 0.5 percent — in the first quarter. Earlier this year, some economists thought the economy would actually lurch into reverse during the opening quarter. Now, they say they believe that will likely happen during the current April-to-June period.

How long have we been hearing these doom and gloom predictions? I'm thinking since about January 2001.

Lots of Posts

I wasn't paying attention, but I now have over 3,000 posts on this blog, going back a little over 3 years.

Talk About An Ivory Tower

Via Instapundit we learn about a Dartmouth professor who is suing her students because she didn't like their end-of-course evaluations.

Do You Need To Go To College?

This article says perhaps not.

What Does A School Do When It's Not Gang Attire?

Several students at Centennial High School have picked up on a trend to shave lines into their eyebrows. They say it's a fashion statement; school administrators, however, contend it's a gang sign.

Centennial administrators are telling students who shave the lines that they can't return to school until they take care of the problem — by shaving their eyebrows off. Four students have been sent home. One came back immediately with a bandage covering the shaved brow. The others are still out of school.

Assistant Principal Mark Porterfield said the students are not suspended, but they are not allowed in school until they cooperate.

And if one gang decides to grow their pinky fingernails an extra 1/4", are schools going to forbid that, too? What if a gang adopted an American flag logo? How far can, or should, schools go to keep gang identifications out of school?

Cause of Death: Teaching, In Saudi Arabia

Roads in Saudi Arabia are among the most dangerous in the world, with a high rate of traffic accidents. But one type of victim stands out: female teachers, who are dying at alarming rates because of long commutes through the desert to reach schools in remote locations.

And we can't say "Ugh, women drivers!" because women don't drive in Saudi Arabia. But hey, I'm multicultural enough to recognize that all cultures are equal--or at least, they're all superior to Western/US culture.

So anyway, how bad is it?

A study released in October by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology found that female teachers commuting to their jobs have about a 50 percent greater chance of getting into car accidents than average Saudi citizens. Its findings were based on figures from the late 1990s...

Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, so the teachers must hire drivers — sometimes sharing rides in minivans, leaving home as early as 3 a.m. Many of the roads leading to the remote schools are windy, unpaved and full of potholes.

"It's as if Saudi (female) teachers are doomed to bid farewell to their families every day and embark on a journey they may not return from," wrote Hasan al-Harthi in Al-Hayat newspaper.

I lived in Saudi Arabia for a few months in late 1977, when I was in 7th grade. Oh, the stories I could tell--but not in this post. This story doesn't surprise me, however.

Third Time's A Charm

A suspended middle school teacher out on bail for allegedly having sex with two students will be back in court Tuesday after police say they caught her having sex with one of them again.

Apparently they've done this a couple dozen times. He must be some stallion--apparently he was worth it, though, because she can't help but go to jail for this one. Let's hope, anyway.

Is it just me, or do a disproportionate number of these stories come out of Florida?

And she was the boy's math teacher. *sigh*

This Is What Happens When You Dispute The Church of Global Warming

An inconvenient truth:

By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting, William Gray turned a university far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca.

But last year, the long-term relationship between Gray and Colorado State University, where he has worked for nearly half a century, nearly unraveled in an episode that highlights the politically charged atmosphere that surrounds the global warming debate.

University officials told Gray that handling media inquiries related to his forecasting required too much time and detracted from efforts to promote other professors' work.

Gray, who has emerged as a leading voice of skepticism about global warming, reacted hotly, firing off a memo to Dick Johnson, head of CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and others. He didn't buy the too-much-media reasoning.

What's the problem?

Gray, an emeritus professor at CSU who has taught dozens of graduate students who populate the National Hurricane Center and other research institutions, has become increasingly vocal in his skepticism about climate change, saying the planet is warming due to natural causes.

So Dr. Gray must either go to Coventry or go to Canossa.

Fortunately, CSU has backed off--a little bit.

CSU officials said late last week that they intend to support the release of Gray's forecasts as long as they continue to be co-authored by Phil Klotzbach, a former student of Gray's who earned his doctorate last summer, and as long as Klotzbach remains at CSU.

And on a related note, here's a post about biofuels and their cheerleaders. My favorite part of it is the chart showing the greenhouse emission increases of Kyoto-signing countries vs. the US.

Shhh, Not So Loud!

Keep getting the truth about Obama out there so clearly and succinctly and he won't stand a chance of being the Democrat nominee!

Obama wants me to believe that a candidate who: (1) was utterly supine and silent for 20 years in his own church as racial hate was propagated by the pastor; (2) who refuses to condemn a prominent supporter and fundraiser for whom bombing American sites is still seen as a good thing, and (3) who has said not a single word on the campaign trail as his party heavyweights removed post-Abramoff earmark reforms... is a candidate who will stand up to Washington interests and change the way business is done. While helping get America past its racial issues, and healing its political divides. That a candidate talking up charter schools as part of the solution, who has received positive ratings from teachers unions for blocking them, is to be taken at face value.

50 bucks for that whole bridge, you say?

Yes, and here's some butter for your toast.

The Worst Kind of Cheating

Via EIA (see blogroll) comes this story from Georgia:

A Coffee County High School substitute teacher has been arrested in what police say appears to be a scheme to bilk money from students promised a trip to Disney World.

Police charged 39-year-old Christy Wise with theft by conversion after they say she collected more than $7,400 from students for their senior trip but never booked the reservations.

It just gets worse from there.

Nearly 50 students toting suitcases and bags lined up outside Coffee County High on Friday waiting to start their vacation, but the bus never came and Wise never showed up.

It takes a special kind of horrible to do that.

Pack Mentality

One problem with labor unions is that they, by their very nature, encourage a pack mentality. We're all equal, we're all the same, and they, whoever they are, are the bad guys.

People will do things in a pack that they'd never do individually. Not only does the pack provide cover, it can whip emotions into a frenzy.

I hope there aren't too many union members proud of this video.

"But Darren, these are just a few guys out of millions of union members." When you can point me to violence conducted against union members by those of us who are non-union members, trying to get those guys out of the union, let me know.

By the way, does anyone know which public sector union is the most violent? I do.