For the first time since forecasters began recording data — at least 132 years — the mercury did not reach 70 degrees in downtown Los Angeles for the entire month of February.At least snowfalls are a thing of the past in Britain--or are they? The paper that ran with such an outrageous headline has now disappeared the article, but the Wayback Machine (internet archive) confirms that the article was active for years. Here's a 2009 screenshot of the 2000 headline:
Many moons ago, Milo Yiannopoulos told us that the demand for hate crimes far outstrips the supply. This has been obvious to many on the Right for quite a long time now. Jussie Smollett’s hoax certainly wasn’t the first such incident, though it is unusually prominent. In this, we see the Media’s journey into a Pravda-like arm of the DNC reach its final conclusion. Like Alyssa Milano, they desperately want the image of violent MAGA hat loons running around to be true. Their desire finally trumped the last vestiges of integrity they still possessed.They don't even hate us for who we are, they hate us for who they think we are.
But beyond this, as Tom Kratman once told me, the Left does not understand us. They do not know their enemy, though we know them a bit better than they know us. Jussie’s faked hate crime smelled wrong to us from the beginning, and not just because of the lack of credible evidence, but because the Left’s conception of who and what we are is so out of touch reality. Their image of MAGA hat wearers is completely at odds with reality...
Rather, these fake hate crimes are presented in the manner a Leftist would conduct a hate campaign. Leftists are fond of indirect, symbolic tactics. PETA-tards enjoy throwing paint on people wearing leather or fur. They are fond of weird symbolism like dressing up as bloodied animals up for slaughter. See the parallels with the noose and bleach supposedly dumped on Jussie? It’s basically PETA-behavior, but staged as a Rightist thing.
No. If a Rightist is going to have a problem with you, the odds are he’s going to punch you in the face. Or follow you into a bathroom and beat you down. The Right is much more fond of directness. Does anybody really think, say, a redneck is going to dump bleach on you and run away? Do you think he cares about the symbolism of a noose, or that he’s going to go out of his way to wear a certain hat – so as to make the right fashion statement during the attack? No. If he has a problem, he’s going to get in your face, probably punch it repeatedly, and walk away when he feels his point has been made.
In this the Left betrays how little they understand us. For even their hoaxes seem like bad parodies to us. It’s what a Leftist would do, only reversed in ideological polarity. It’s not what a Rightist would do. They don’t get us.
I love me some butch female characters.She goes on to mention Wonder Woman, which skyrocketed to big bucks. And while I myself couldn't stand The Last Jedi, I thought Rogue One was excellent. Did anyone, even women, go see the Ghostbusters or the Ocean's 11 remakes?
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with more traditionally feminine characters. As a matter of fact, I think our popular culture nowadays needs to get over its fear of girly-girls and wrench its representation of womanhood into more of a My Little Pony-style balance. But since I've always been a bit more masculine in outlook, I've always felt greater affinity for the tomboyish sorts. Thus, when I took up a passion for Star Trek in junior high, for example, I basically ignored Counselor Troi but fell insanely in love with Major Kira.
What I'm trying to say here is that I'm the audience for a female superhero like Captain Marvel. And yet - and yet! - I have no interest in seeing her new movie because her marketing campaign has been a trash fire of epic proportions.
First of all, there's the deeply stupid year-zero mentality. Captain Marvel, you see, is a Very Important MovieTM because it sends the message that Girls Can Be Heroes TooTM! Okay: I was born in 1979 - the deep, dark Stone Ages, I know - and I've been hearing this message my entire life. Ripley appeared in theaters for the first time in my natal year, and Sarah Connor was a bad-ass before I hit my teens. Then there are my best girls on the small screen - the aforementioned Kira, of course, but also Susan Ivanova and Delenn on Babylon 5, Aeryn Sun on Farscape, and etc. - who accompanied me through high school and beyond. The upshot? Female heroes have been around for forty-freakin'-years (at least); they are not ImportantTM, nor are they GroundbreakingTM. Do you want to see more of them? Fair enough, but don't pretend that your generation is the first to come up with this genius idea -- or that, if not for Captain Marvel, rough-and-tumble girls would be bereft of cultural role models...
Captain Marvel is a popcorn flick, but Schoolmarm Larson is making it sound like homework. (Yuck!) Instead of the sourpuss complaining about "white male misogynists" on the internet, why not show some genuine excitement for the movie itself? Tell us - while avoiding spoilers of course - why this movie will be a joy to watch, and try to do so without referencing Captain Marvel's naughty bits. As it stands now, the constant retreat to "you just hate wahmen" makes me suspect that you put scant effort into making Captain Marvel a quality superhero film -- that, like many SJW's before you, you are using identity politics to cover up your deep mediocrity.
NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: People Maybe Shouldn’t Reproduce Due To Climate Change.You know why I don't think we're 5, or 10, or 20 years away from a so-called tipping point regarding global warming/climate change/extreme weather? Because you can only cry wolf so many times. And yes, in that story, there really was a wolf at the end--but there's no reason for me to believe it's this time. And besides, only the boy who cried wolf died, not the huntsmen who came to his faux rescue so many times before.
AOC was born in 1989, the same year that AP reported that “A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000,” and the New York Times published a column by Al Gore headlined, “An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen.” Presumably, she’s glad that her parents ignored such apocalyptic scaremongering.
My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their minds are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten it origins and aims, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference about itself.It’s difficult to gain admissions to the schools where I’ve taught – Princeton, Georgetown, and now Notre Dame. Students at these institutions have done what has been demanded of them: they are superb test-takers, they know exactly what is needed to get an A in every class (meaning that they rarely allow themselves to become passionate and invested in any one subject), they build superb resumes. They are respectful and cordial to their elders, though with their peers (as snatches of passing conversation reveal), easygoing if crude. They respect diversity (without having the slightest clue what diversity is) and they are experts in the arts of non-judgmentalism (at least publically). They are the cream of their generation, the masters of the universe, a generation-in-waiting who will run America and the world...Our students’ ignorance is not a failing of the educational system – it is its crowning achievement. Efforts by several generations of philosophers and reformers and public policy experts whom our students (and most of us) know nothing about have combined to produce a generation of know-nothings. The pervasive ignorance of our students is not a mere accident or unfortunate but correctible outcome, if only we hire better teachers or tweak the reading lists in high school. It is the consequence of a civilizational commitment to civilizational suicide. The end of history for our students signals the End of History for the West...Broadly missing is sufficient appreciation that this ignorance is the intended consequence of our educational system, a sign of its robust health and success.
A Texas mother claimed a teacher cut her son’s hair without her permission Tuesday after deeming he was in violation of school protocol.If this student's and parent's stories are true, they deserve more than an just an apology. There's an argument to be made that this is an assault.
Lane Kiesling, 16, told KXAS-TV he was told his bangs were getting long and were against Hico High School’s dress code...
Kiesling told the station the principal of the school, Shelli Stegall, told him a teacher who had a cosmetology license would cut his hair after class. However, the teenager said he was taken out of class and the teacher cut his hair.
"It looked like if I were to take the kitchen scissors and just pull it out and bluntly over and over cut, because you know it was just very choppy like Jim Carrey on ‘Dumb and Dumber’ but rounder and a little bit shorter. That's exactly what it looked like," Martin said.
Martin said she called the principal about the haircut, who apologized and said she would pay to get it fixed.
However, Martin wrote on Facebook that her son came home upset after the principal “just told him how it was his fault and belittled him the whole time.”
Between whipsaw stock market closings and grim tidings from the ongoing trade war with China, whispers have spread over the past few months of a possible recession in 2019. This month’s reports of strong hiring and wage growth have quieted Wall Street for now, but some experts warn that America’s epic expansion may be enjoying its last months.
But while no one (including education journalists) welcomes the prospect of shrinking markets, there might be a silver lining for schools: According to a recent study, teachers who begin their careers during recessions are more effective than those hired during sunnier economic times.
The study, conducted by Harvard education professor Martin West and German economists Markus Nagler and Marc Piopiunik, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Labor Economics, with a manuscript circulated online. Though it isn’t scheduled to be published until 2020, the article will offer guidance to education policymakers looking to navigate future downturns that may come sooner than that...
“[E]xisting research indicates that earnings returns are twice as large for numeracy than for literacy skills in the U.S. labor market.” In other words, the high demand for math skills in lucrative fields like engineering or computer science disproportionately draws away job candidates who would have otherwise made exceptional math teachers. In the instance of a recession, when alternative job prospects dry up, the labor market flattens out, and more are attracted to stable careers in teaching.
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124952-in-my-study-of-communist-societies-i-came-to-the
― Theodore Dalrymple
A California lawmaker has introduced a bill that would make the state part of an exclusive club: The state would become one of the rare places in the world with highways with no speed limit.A Republican proposed this? Then it will never happen in California. But but but, it's for the environment! How will a liberal make up his/her/xis mind? I know. He/she/xe will say it won't help the environment, and then he/she/xe can oppose this bill without any cognitive dissonance. Whew, glad that's all figured out.
State Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, has introduced Senate Bill 319, which would add two lanes each to the north- and south-bound lanes of I-5 and Highway 99 — those lanes would have no upper speed limit. Moorlach argued in the bill language that “traffic congestion increases the emissions of greenhouse gases as it causes automobiles to idle longer while on roadways.“
What GAO FoundI know what let's do. Let's put the feds in charge of health care!
GAO identified four key challenges the Department of Education (Education) faces in assessing K-12 program performance. Education has taken steps to mitigate these performance assessment challenges, which could improve transparency and understanding about the extent to which Educations K-12 programs are achieving their goals. Ongoing efforts to address challenges may prove particularly important given the changing education landscape under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Key Challenges in Assessing K-12 Program Performance
Oversight and monitoring. Weaknesses in Education's internal controls have hindered its oversight and monitoring of grantees and its assessments of K-12 program performance. In April 2017, GAO reported that Education's oversight of discretionary grants monitoring was limited. Some offices, including the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, did not consistently document required monitoring activities in official grant files. GAO recommended that Education establish and implement written supervisory review procedures for official grant files. In response, Education officials said they are developing a standard operating procedure for maintaining official grant records, which they plan to issue in early 2019.
Data quality. Persistent quality issues with K-12 data that grantees submit to Education have limited Education's ability to use those data to assess performance. In April 2017, GAO reported that Education lacks reasonable assurance that data submitted by grantees for its 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant program are accurate, and that these data may not be useful for decision making and reporting. GAO recommended that Education check the accuracy of federal-level data submitted by grantees. In response, Education officials said they modified and improved the agency's data system to perform these types of checks and reduce errors.
Capacity. Education's ability to oversee and monitor grantees, collect and report quality data, and use performance assessment information in decision making is directly related to its capacity and organizational resources. According to Education officials, capacity has been and remains a challenge to assessing K-12 program performance. In its 2016 report on the Rural Education Achievement Program, Education's Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded that Education's inadequate monitoring of program grantees was partly due to its limited human capital capacity. In response, Education requested additional staff and implemented a risk-based approach for selecting grantees to monitor, according to Education officials cited in the OIG report.
Methodological limitations. Education has faced methodological limitations assessing program performance, including difficulties assessing the benefits of flexible grant programs, isolating program impact, and measuring long-term outcomes. Education officials told GAO that these types of methodological challenges are difficult to address, although Education has taken steps to mitigate them. For example, GAO reported in May 2014 on the difficulty Education faces in evaluating the effectiveness of the Promise Neighborhoods program in part because the program provides certain flexibilities to grantees. Partly in response to GAO's recommendation that Education develop a plan to conduct a national evaluation of the program, Education awarded a contract in fiscal year 2018 to develop options for evaluating the program's effect on student outcomes. In November 2018, Education officials stated that they intend to award a new contract in late fiscal year 2019 to evaluate the effectiveness of the program nationwide.
Seattle has been suffering through its snowiest February in 70 years, with accumulations of up to 10 inches in some places. But all that white has meant green for one young man with a snowplow, who says he made $35,000 in four days.What's he going to do with all that money?
Holston said he plans to donate 20% to his church, buy some lawn equipment, and will save the rest to put toward his first house.Way to go, kid!
The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record.
The Trump administration is set to launch a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality in dozens of nations where anti-gay laws are still on the books, NBC News reported Monday. While on its surface, the move looks like an atypically benevolent decision by the Trump administration, the details of the campaign belie a different story. Rather than actually being about helping queer people around the world, the campaign looks more like another instance of the right using queer people as a pawn to amass power and enact its own agenda.That last sentence is some true projection, there. Liberals will squeal over something a conservative does when they fawn over a fellow liberal who did the exact same thing (see: Bill Clinton, et al., regarding southern border security).
