At the Core — Human Nature vs. the Test

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Photo Credit: Newscom

Photo Credit: Newscom

Common Core – the phrase sets off a mental picture of a multitude of hungry mouths all trying to nibble off of a shriveled apple, nothing much left but cellulose and seeds. Unfortunately, that’s an apt description. I am, like all conservatives, and like many educators, appalled and concerned about this new wrinkle in our rumpled educational wardrobe. I’m concerned about its uniformity, when our pupils, our communities, our cultures are so diverse. I’m concerned about the secretive, manipulative manner in which this was developed and dispersed. I’m annoyed to see commercials trying to sell it like it was a new brand of toothpaste. I’m scared of the probability of our schools being used even more heavily as bastions of propaganda. But my main concern is that it is based on a demonstrably faulty assumption – that you can change student learning from the top down. You can’t.

This program is entirely test-driven. Now, who can argue against “standards” — the current terminology? Is it not true that we should be able to tell whether or not schools are doing their job? Of course, but no one says clearly what that job is, so the test itself becomes the definition:

What is an educated person?

One who can pass the test.

What’s in the test?

Whatever can be tested.Therefore anything that can’t be measured on a multiple-choice bubble sheet, isn’t education. Ta dum!

Read more from this story HERE.

Marines, Army Prepare Women for Combat

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Photo Credit: Marines / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Marines / Creative Commons

The military is taking steps to prepare women for combat roles in 2016.

The Marine Corps announced that it would give young female lieutenants who wash out of the grueling Infantry Officer Course a second shot, same as their male counterparts.

The Army is conducting a study to test just how fit a soldier has to be to engage in combat. The study involves 60 women and 100 men.

CBS News reported on both developments last week.

The Marine Corps announcement came after Marine 2nd Lt. Sage Santangelo took the Infantry Officer Court and wrote about her experience last month in an op-ed in The Washington Post. She didn’t make it past the first day and blamed the Marine Corps for a dual standard that sets up women to flunk the course.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Warns Russia of ‘Additional Consequences’ Over Ukraine

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Photo Credit: AFP Photo / Alexander Khudoteply

Photo Credit: AFP Photo / Alexander Khudoteply

US Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Ukraine later this month, officials said, as Washington warned Moscow of “additional consequences” if it fails to reduce tensions with Ukraine.

The announcement came just a day after Washington unveiled sanctions against six of Crimea’s breakaway leaders, including the official who signed the deal with Moscow to split the peninsula from Ukraine.

During a telephone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry “made clear that if Russia did not take steps to de-escalate in eastern Ukraine and move its troops back from Ukraine’s border, there would be additional consequences,” a senior State Department official said.

Washington has repeatedly urged Moscow to de-escalate tensions and withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine’s eastern border in the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.

A first wave of US sanctions unveiled in March had blacklisted officials and businesspeople close to Russian President Vladimir Putin to protest Moscow’s takeover of Crimea.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Sentences Man To Wear ‘I AM A BULLY’ Sign

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A man accused of harassing a neighbor and her disabled children for the past 15 years sat at a street corner Sunday morning with a sign declaring he’s a bully, a requirement of his sentence.

Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams-Byers ordered 62-year-old Edmond Aviv to display the sign for five hours Sunday. It says: “I AM A BULLY! I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in.”

The Northeast Ohio Media Group reported (https://bit.ly/1ieU3sA ) that Aviv arrived at the corner just before 9 a.m., placing the hand-lettered cardboard sign next to him as he sat in a chair. Within a couple of minutes, a passing motorist honked a car horn.

Court records show Aviv pleaded no contest in February to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. His attorney didn’t return a telephone call for comment.

Aviv has feuded with his neighbor Sandra Prugh for the past 15 years, court records show. The most recent case stemmed from Aviv being annoyed at the smell coming from Prugh’s dryer vent when she did laundry, according to court records. In retaliation, Aviv hooked up kerosene to a fan, which blew the smell onto Pugh’s property, the records said.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Koch Ness Monster

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Based upon “Rate the Oligarchs”. Illustrated by @BiffSpackle:

140331-koch-ness-monster

• Obama, Soros, Petrobras, Brazil and offshore drilling double standards

• Tom Steyer’s Bet is Paying Off: Meet one of Barack Obama’s richest green energy cronies

• Schweizer’s New Book: 80% of Energy Department’s “Green Loan” Program Went to Obama’s Backers

Pot Vending Machine Unveiled In Colorado

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Photo Credit: Theo Stroomer / Getty Images

Photo Credit: Theo Stroomer / Getty Images

An automated pot-selling machine was unveiled at an event held at an Avon, Colo., restaurant Saturday, promising a potential new era of selling marijuana and pot-infused snacks from vending machines directly to customers.

Its creators say the machine, called the ZaZZZ, uses biometrics to verify a customer’s age. The machine is climate-controlled to keep its product fresh.

You may be picturing a vending machine on a sidewalk, ready to dispense pot brownies to anyone with correct change. That’s not quite what backers of the machine have in mind. For now, at least, the ZaZZZ is aimed for use only by medical marijuana patients. And it’ll be in licensed stores, where it will serve a purpose like that of an automated checkout line at a grocery, they say…

The machine is built by American Green; its first model is geared toward selling snacks and other items at dispensary Herbal Elements in Eagle-Vail, Colo. — after the company is sure it has met all regulations.

Read more from this story HERE.

News Flash: General Bundy Defeats the FedCoats at Bunkerville!

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Photo Credit: Natural News

Photo Credit: Natural News

History was made today! The People vs. BLM: Liberty defeats govt. tyranny as feds release all cattle at Bundy Ranch

By Mike Adams.

Breaking news: The BLM, now in a full retreat against the Citizens of the United States of America, has announced a stand down and has begun releasing the Bundy family’s cattle from the BLM’s “bovine concentration camps.”

This has just been confirmed by the Bundy family on their Facebook page. Also, here’s a breaking video showing the cattle being released.

A tense standoff had taken place for several hours, where armed citizens of the United States of America — many on horseback — drew a literal line in the sand and refused to back down until BLM released the cattle.

The photo below — one of the most iconic photos of recent American history — shows armed American citizens in a standoff with BLM thugs (in the white SUVs) who engaged in the felony theft of the Bundy family cattle and committed numerous felony assaults on American citizens.

As you can see in the photo, a brigade of armed Americans — many waving American flags — blockaded the road at a strategic roadway point. BLM, a tyrannical police state gang conducting illegal, illegitimate operations, earlier ordered the FAA to ban all civilian flights over the region in an effort to enforce a media blackout (possibly in preparation for an armed assault on the protesters).

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jim Urquhart

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jim Urquhart

Victory for Cliven Bundy, Nevada rancher who challenged feds

By Robby Soave.

Citing safety concerns, federal agents are withdrawing from the Nevada cattle ranch where they had engaged in a week-long showdown with Cliven Bundy, a 67-year-old rancher who claimed the federal government had no right to tax and regulate property his family has owned since 1880.

The Bureau of Land Management had dispatcher agents, helicopters and four-wheelers to remove several hundred of Bundy’s cattle that they claimed were encroaching on federal lands–and may have posed a threat to an endangered tortoise habitat. A BLM spokesperson also claimed that Bundy owed over $1 million dollars in fines that he accrued since the early 1990s.

Bundy and his family challenged BLM’s authority to “manage my ranch out of business,” he said, according to ABC News.

Federal policies had starved out all the other cattle ranchers in the area, and Bundy saw his dispute with BLM as a challenge to destructive federal power.

Read more from this story HERE.

In Case You Missed It…GOP Lawmaker Suggests Eric Holder Should ‘Be In Jail’ — to His Face!

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

By Brendan Bordelon.

…Farenthold’s turn for questions came towards the end of a contentious hearing. The lawmaker explained that he would not exercise his right to question the witness as a protest against Holder’s refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents related to the IRS’ Tea Party targeting investigation.

“I’m committed to maintaining the constitutional balance of power and the authority this branch, this legislative branch, has,” Farenthold said. “And I just don’t think it’s appropriate that Mr. Holder be here.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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eric_holder1177Eric Holder explodes at GOP rep: ‘You don’t want to go there, buddy!’

By Caroline May.

In the midst of questions about the Justice Department’s failure to divulge documents about the Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial, Gohmert made a side comment about how the House of Representatives found Holder in contempt in 2012 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.

“I realize that contempt is not a big deal to our attorney general, but it is important that we have proper oversight,” Gohmert said.

“You don’t want to go there, buddy! You don’t want to go there, okay,” Holder shot back.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hercules Actor Kevin Sorbo: Hollywood, Media Ignoring ‘The Crime of the Century’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNS News

Photo Credit: CNS News

Although the news media and Hollywood relish telling stories about horrific crimes and serial killers, they are strangely silent about Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist who killed living, viable babies by snipping their spinal cords with scissors, and who is “America’s most prolific serial killer,” said actor Kevin Sorbo and his wife Sam Jenkins in a video to promote funding for a movie about Gosnell.

“Kermit Gosnell is America’s most prolific serial killer,” says Kevin Sorbo, who starred in the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. “For more than three decades he was an abortion doctor in Philadelphia, where he delivered live, viable babies, who cried and fought for their life before he murdered them by severing their spinal cords with a scissors. He called it snipping. It’s the crime of the century, but most of the media and Hollywood have ignored the story.”

Sorbo’s wife, Sam Jenkins, also an actor, says, “Hollywood loves serial killers. TV and movies are full of these stories, the scarier the better would seem to be the motto. CSI, Criminal Minds, Person of Interest, The Black List, The Following, Law & Order, and CIS, Dexter, and many movies follow suit.”

“Even our national and local news is dominated by the crimes committed every day in our society,” she says. “So, it’s very odd that America’s biggest serial killer has been virtually ignored, erased from history. … We need to confront and expose this story. Why did so many people do nothing for so long? Why, when Gosnell was prosecuted, did the media ignore it? Why does Hollywood want to ignore it?”

Both Sorbo and Jenkins call upon viewers to donate to gosnellmovie.com, a proposed documentary on Gosnell by filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, who are running a crowd-funding campaign to raise money for the movie through the online platform indiegogo.

Read more from this story HERE.

Angry Students Snap Photos of Lunches, Tell Michelle Obama: ‘You Call This A [expletive] Lunch?’

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Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

Students from around the nation have been taking to Twitter and other social media sites to post snapshot photos of their meager lunches — in some cases, a sad-looking sandwich with a carton of milk — and say to the first lady: Thanks a lot, Michelle Obama, for the rations.

One wrote, next to a picture of a hot dog roll that seemed spread with tomato sauce and cheese, on a tray with three small cherry tomatoes and a carton of lower-fat milk: “You call this a [expletive] lunch? @BarackObama @MichelleObama,” The Blaze reported.

And others were just as blunt in expressing disapproval.

Read more from this story HERE.