IUSB Vision proved correct once again – IAC: Previous IPCC Reports failed to meet basic academic standards; Participants “too political”

I have been waiting for this for a long time. When I was in college finishing my latest degree here at IUSB I was making many of these very same claims about global warming alarmist nonsense as the IAC report below. Leftist students and faculty pretty much told me that I was nuts, and I wasn’t a climate scientist so how would I know? Well it looks like I knew. It was easy. First of all it doesn’t take a genius to see when the scientific method is being ignored and second of all, what I am an expert on is politics and I know a political movement when I see one.

At the bottom of the article I posted a list of links that I wrote starting in 2007 saying many of the same things the IAC has pointed out below. I have reactivated IUSB Vision just for the purpose of posting this story. All of you PhD. laden academics who doubted me and called me all of those names behind my back should ask yourselves; why was a mere undergrad like me spot on and all of you who are supposed to be teachers wrong? And this isn’t this first time that happened is it? – Chuck Norton

President of the Heartland Institute Joseph L. Bast:

On June 27, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a statement saying it had “complete[d] the process of implementation of a set of recommendations issued in August 2010 by the Inter Academy Council (IAC), the group created by the world’s science academies to provide advice to international bodies.”

Hidden behind this seemingly routine update on bureaucratic processes is an astonishing and entirely unreported story. The IPCC is the world’s most prominent source of alarmist predictions and claims about man-made global warming. Its four reports (a fifth report is scheduled for release in various parts in 2013 and 2014) are cited by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. and by national academies of science around the world as “proof” that the global warming of the past five or so decades was both man-made and evidence of a mounting crisis.

If the IPCC’s reports were flawed, as a many global warming “skeptics” have long claimed, then the scientific footing of the man-made global warming movement — the environmental movement’s “mother of all environmental scares” — is undermined. The Obama administration’s war on coal may be unnecessary. Billions of dollars in subsidies to solar and wind may have been wasted. Trillions of dollars of personal income may have been squandered worldwide in campaigns to “fix” a problem that didn’t really exist.

The “recommendations” issued by the IAC were not minor adjustments to a fundamentally sound scientific procedure. Here are some of the findings of the IAC’s 2010 report.

Alternative views not considered, claims not properly peer reviewed

The IAC reported that IPCC lead authors fail to give “due consideration … to properly documented alternative views” (p. 20), fail to “provide detailed written responses to the most significant review issues identified by the Review Editors” (p. 21), and are not “consider[ing] review comments carefully and document[ing] their responses” (p. 22). In plain English: the IPCC reports are not peer-reviewed.

No formal criteria for selecting IPCC authors

The IAC found that “the IPCC has no formal process or criteria for selecting authors” and “the selection criteria seemed arbitrary to many respondents” (p. 18). Government officials appoint scientists from their countries and “do not always nominate the best scientists from among those who volunteer, either because they do not know who these scientists are or because political considerations are given more weight than scientific qualifications” (p. 18). In other words: authors are selected from a “club” of scientists and nonscientists who agree with the alarmist perspective favored by politicians.

Too political…

The rewriting of the Summary for Policy Makers by politicians and environmental activists — a problem called out by global warming realists for many years, but with little apparent notice by the media or policymakers — was plainly admitted, perhaps for the first time by an organization in the “mainstream” of alarmist climate change thinking. “[M]any were concerned that reinterpretations of the assessment’s findings, suggested in the final Plenary, might be politically motivated,” the IAC auditors wrote. The scientists they interviewed commonly found the Synthesis Report “too political” (p. 25).

Really? Too political? We were told by everyone — environmentalists, reporters, politicians, even celebrities — that the IPCC reports were science, not politics. Now we are told that even the scientists involved in writing the reports — remember, they are all true believers in man-made global warming themselves — felt the summaries were “too political.”

Here is how the IAC described how the IPCC arrives at the “consensus of scientists”:

Plenary sessions to approve a Summary for Policy Makers last for several days and commonly end with an all-night meeting. Thus, the individuals with the most endurance or the countries that have large delegations can end up having the most influence on the report (p. 25).

How can such a process possibly be said to capture or represent the “true consensus of scientists”?

Phony estimates of certainty

Another problem documented by the IAC is the use of phony “confidence intervals” and estimates of “certainty” in the Summary for Policy Makers (pp. 27-34). Those of us who study the IPCC reports knew this was make-believe when we first saw it in 2007. Work by J. Scott Armstrong on the science of forecasting makes it clear that scientists cannot simply gather around a table and vote on how confident they are about some prediction, and then affix a number to it such as “80% confident.” Yet that is how the IPCC proceeds.

The IAC authors say it is “not an appropriate way to characterize uncertainty” (p. 34), a huge understatement. Unfortunately, the IAC authors recommend an equally fraudulent substitute, called “level of understanding scale,” which is more mush-mouth for “consensus.”

The IAC authors warn, also on page 34, that “conclusions will likely be stated so vaguely as to make them impossible to refute, and therefore statements of ‘very high confidence’ will have little substantive value.” Yes, but that doesn’t keep the media and environmental activists from citing them over and over again as “proof” that global warming is man-made and a crisis…even if that’s not really what the reports’ authors are saying.

IPCC participants had conflicts of interest

Finally, the IAC noted, “the lack of a conflict of interest and disclosure policy for IPCC leaders and Lead Authors was a concern raised by a number of individuals who were interviewed by the Committee or provided written input” as well as “the practice of scientists responsible for writing IPCC assessments reviewing their own work. The Committee did not investigate the basis of these claims, which is beyond the mandate of this review” (p. 46).

Too bad, because these are both big issues in light of recent revelations that a majority of the authors and contributors to some chapters of the IPCC reports are environmental activists, not scientists at all. That’s a structural problem with the IPCC that could dwarf the big problems already reported.

IPCC critics vindicated

So on June 27, nearly two years after these bombshells fell (without so much as a raised eyebrow by the mainstream media in the U.S. — go ahead and try Googling it), the IPCC admits that it was all true and promises to do better for its next report. Nothing to see here…keep on moving.

Well I say, hold on, there! The news release means that the IAC report was right. That, in turn, means that the first four IPCC reports were, in fact, unreliable. Not just “possibly flawed” or “could have been improved,” but likely to be wrong and even fraudulent.

It means that all of the “endorsements” of the climate consensus made by the world’s national academies of science — which invariably refer to the reports of the IPCC as their scientific basis — were based on false or unreliable data and therefore should be disregarded or revised. It means that the EPA’s “endangerment finding” — its claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and threat to human health — was wrong and should be overturned.

And what of the next IPCC report, due out in 2013 and 2014? The near-final drafts of that report have been circulating for months already. They were written by scientists chosen by politicians rather than on the basis of merit; many of them were reviewing their own work and were free to ignore the questions and comments of people with whom they disagree. Instead of “confidence,” we will get “level of understanding scales” that are just as meaningless.

And on this basis we should transform the world’s economy to run on breezes and sunbeams?

In 2010, we learned that much of what we thought we knew about global warming was compromised and probably false. On June 27, the culprits confessed and promised to do better. But where do we go to get our money back?

Related from this old college blog:

Inconvenient Questions Global Warming Alarmists Don’t Want You to Ask – February 18, 2007 – LINK

Top Scientists Say: You Are Not the Cause of Global Warming – October 22, 2007 – LINK

Global Cooling Continues; Global Warming Alarmists Still Issuing Death Threats – December 28, 2008 – LINK

UK Telegraph: 2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved – December 28, 2008 – LINK

National Climatic Data Center: Cooling in Last 10 Years – January 10, 2009 – LINK

The Debate is Over. Global Warming Alarmism is About Achieving Central Control of the Economy and Now They Admit It Openly – March 27, 2009 – LINK

Al Gore: Climate change issue can lead to world government – July 11, 2009 – LINK

EPA Tried to Suppress Global Warming Report Admitting Skeptics Correct – October 23, 2009 – LINK

New AP Article on “Global Cooling Myth” Spins a Bad Study – UPDATED: Look where they put THIS ground station… – October 27, 2009 – LINK

Professors Paid to Plagiarize – UPDATE: Global warming scientists hacked emails show manipulation of data, hiding of other data and conspiring to attack/smear global warming skeptics! – November 19, 2009 – LINK

National Association of Scholars on the “ClimateGate” Scandal – November 28, 2009 – LINK

Examples of the “Climategate” Documents – UPDATE: BBC Had the emails and files for 6 weeks, sat on story. UPDATE II – They carried out their conspiracy threat; much of the raw data from CRU destroyed! – November 28, 2009 – LINK

Scientific American thinks you are stupid: The dissection of a blatant propaganda piece for global warming alarmism. – December 6, 2009 – LINK

The Roundup: IPCC Authors Now Admitting Fault – No Warming Since 1995 – Sea Levels Not Rising. Senator Inhofe: Possible criminal misuse of taxpayer research funds. – February 23, 2010 – LINK

OOPS AGAIN: IPCC scientists screeching about the cataclysmic effects of sea-level rises forgot to consider sedimentary deposits… – April 23, 2010 – LINK

UN IPCC Co-chair: climate policy is redistributing the world’s wealth – November 18, 2010 – LINK

More Hadley Center Global Warming Horror Claims Debunked by Real Science – December 6, 2010 – LINK

ClimateGate One Year Later. Elite Media Still Lying – December 6, 2010 – LINK

More ClimateGate One Year Later – December 7, 2010 – LINK

IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT: Most global warming models are exaggerated, many scientists in it for the grant money or treat it like a religion – December 7, 2010 – LINK

How Global Warming Propaganda Works – December 8, 2010 – LINK

NASA’s global warming evidence page filled with lies, half truths and suspect data – December 10, 2010 – LINK

Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research: Halt economic growth, start government rationing. Global Warming Alarmists Party Fat in Cancun – December 21, 2010 – LINK

Global Warming Conference Delegates Sign Petitions to Ban Water and “Destabilize U.S. Economy” – February 15, 2011 – LINK

Global Warming Alarmist Quote of the Day – Former Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart: No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.

AAUP Seeks to Limit Transparency Over Climate Science – September 19, 2011 – LINK

Montana Law School Agrees to Stop Anti-Christian Discrimination, but Only After ADF Lawyers File Suit…

Via Campus Reform:

The University of Montana School of Law has agreed to stop discrimination against a Christian group in its allocation of student funds.

Prior to this, the leftist dominated school administration and student government had denied funding to the student chapter of the Christian Legal Society on the basis of its religious and political viewpoints.

In response, the group filed a lawsuit, assisted by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group.

 

You would think that a law school would know how to follow clearly established anti-discrimination laws. The truth is that of course U of M Law knew full well what the law was as said law can be looked up in minutes, but their zeal for anti-Christian bigotry was more important to them than the law, as evidenced by the fact that they held out until they faced a lawsuit they had no chance of winning.

Now keep in mind this is the University of Montana where the people there are as traditional and religious as can be and yet look at how detached the university is from the people it is paid to serve. This is an indicator of just how completely the radical left has compromised the public education system. University departments tend to clone themselves. The only place most Americans are likely to encounter neo-Marxists and genuine ‘capital C’ communists is on a university campus. The truth is that even moderate and center/right professors are persecuted at most colleges and that includes IU South Bend.

Would a university such as the University of Montana whose entire administration engaged in obviously illegal view point discrimination and anti-Christian bigotry to the point of having a lawsuit filed against them even hesitate to not hire or drum out a traditional or conservative professor?

 

Is your group being discriminated against by your administration or student government association?  Contact your Regional Field Coordinator to learn about the legal resources you can use to ensure fair treatment for your conservative group on campus.

AAUP Seeks to Limit Transparency Over Climate Science

I have to ask. Is anyone shocked or even surprised by AAUP’s action? AAUP (American Association of University Professors) has demonstrated itself to be just slightly less ideologically corrupt than MSNBC. Politics trumps science, academic freedom, and transparency as a matter of course at AAUP. Such behavior is anti-education and anti-science.

 

Via our friends at Campus Reform: 

 

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is again demonstrating an aversion toward transparency in academia.

In a letter to University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan, the AAUP requested that the administration scale back an open-records agreement with a conservative organization seeking documents from UVa climate researchers.  They were joined by 3 other climate science advocacy organizations: theAmerican Geophysical Union, Climate Science Watch, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The university reached an agreement with the American Tradition Institute (ATI) on May 24, 2011 to hand over documents pertaining to former UVa professor Michael Mann and other climate scientists.  

Mann, a current professor at Pennsylvania State University, was widely criticized in 2009 when his global warming research was debunked in the heavily publicized “ClimateGate” scandal.

The AAUP cites academic freedom and the necessity of protecting professors from public scrutiny as reasons for scaling back the agreement.  “The university should seek to improve the agreement to better protect scientists from harassment and intimidation,” the letter says.

David Schnare, Director of ATI’s Environmental Law Center, refuted the AAUP’s claim.  “There is no adequate means to inspect the ethical standards and behaviors of the faculty of the university without public access to these records,” he said.

Schnare also points out the ATI is under a gag order regarding documents that are exempt from public disclosure according to Virginia open records law.  He asserts that ATI and UVa are, “cooperating in a professional manner to insure that the faculty and the scientists are properly protected while meeting the needs of the public.”

This is not the first time that the AAUP has sought to limit transparency in the name of “academic freedom.” In 2009, the organization opposed the public posting of course syllabi and faculty curriculum vita in public universities in Texas.

University professors across the country are given free license to espouse their left-wing ideology while under the guise of academic freedom.  Are faculty at your university using the classroom to promote a liberal worldview? 

Expose them by telling us your story.  Contact your Regional Field Coordinator for more information.

Leftist campus administrators attempt to shut down 9-11 commemorations and end up with our lawyers breathing down their necks…

Via our friends at CampusReform.org

VIDEO: Northern Arizona University (NAU) campus administration attempts to shut down 9/11 event; students hold their ground and defend the First Amendment.

Comments by Stephanee Freer:

Northern Arizona University (NAU) doesn’t want students to remember 9/11. At least that’s the message that NAU is sending to members of the Conservatives club who were interrupted and threatened by university administrators for four hours on Friday.

These actions by the administration occurred when the conservatives passed out American flags, buttons, stickers, and posters to students as part of the YAF 9/11: Never Forget Project.

The group was confronted for setting up their own table inside the university union, instead of registering with Student Life to request a space. After several administrators hassled them about the project, the club members took down the table and put it away along with the posters. In order to still remember 9/11, and comply with the administrators, Conservatives Club stood against the wall and handed out American flags to passerby.

This was not enough for the administration. They continued to go out of their way to intimidate, threaten, and interrupt the project.

Two students are currently being charged with several misconduct violations, and the club as a whole is facing suspension even though the event did not display the club’s name in any way.

The event paid reverence to the innocent victims that were lost and the broken families that were left behind. This is an example of how an act of free speech can go terribly wrong when students’ rights are infringed upon by leftist university bureaucrats.

Did administrators give you a hard time for your 9/11 memorial? Write about it on Campus Reform or contact your Regional Field Coordinator today for advice and assistance.

Read another account of the story here.

IUSB Vision Editor Chuck Norton:

Let us clear a few things up for any university admins who are viewing this page and watched that video. “Time, Place, and Manner” does not, has never and will never mean that you can set up “First Amendment zones” or “designated areas” as one administrator tried to invent in that video. Attempts to do so have always failed in the courts and universities that have enacted them have had them successfully challenged in federal court and in some cases paying damages/attorney’s fees.

“Time, Place, and Manner” comes into effect if the purpose of the demonstration is not speech, but rather to disrupt and prevent others from leaving or getting around the speech event.

Here are some examples:

One cannot hold a protest in the middle of a highway during rush hour.

One cannot have a large protest in the middle of a classroom while class is in session thus preventing the class from doing its mission.

One can have a protest in a cafeteria, but could not have one that surrounds the checkout so that people could not pay for their food.

All “Time, Place, and Manner” restrictions if proved necessary must place the minimum possible restrictions on the speech event and cannot be arbitrary.

Standing on the wall in a wide hallway or foyer doesn’t even come close to meeting the allowed “Time, Place, and Manner” legal standard, and if the university has ever let anyone set up a booth or table there than the university has already lost. If the university has bulletin boards there for people to stop and read those people would be taking up the same space as two students handing out flags on 9-11.

Under these circumstances it means that the university knew that such a small demonstration was allowable and the result would be the university suffering a humiliating defeat in court, and could also subject the administrators to a section 1983 lawsuit because they would have or should have reasonably known that they were using the color of law to selectively violate these students First Amendment rights by abusing the public trust using color of law. If a section 1983 lawsuit were successful it would mean that those students whose rights were violated could go after the personal assets of the said offending administrator (A legal strategy that FIRE and other groups who defend the First Amendment are now considering due to the gross misconduct of so many college administrators).

More From Stephanee Freer:

The administrators at Northern Arizona University are still trying to figure out what hit them. As a Leadership Institute Field Rep I worked with the NAU Conservatives to fight back after administrators tried to shut down their YAF 9/11 display.

After releasing a YouTube video that gained more than 1,500 hits exposing the NAU administrators harassing the students, local and national media outlets picked up on the story.

The Arizona Daily Sun, Drudge Report, Townhall, The Blaze, and the Daily Caller all posted stories on the absurd actions of the NAU administrators.

The media pressure became too much for the NAU administration.  They have decided to drop the charges against all the students involved in the 9/11 memorial event.

On Monday morning, following Friday’s run-in with NAU Student Life administrators, the students being tried for misconduct violations requested their hearings be extended until the next week when their attorneys could be present.

The students wanted to make sure they were familiar with all of their rights. With the help of The Leadership Institute, they contacted both the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Alliance Defense Fund for legal assistance.  Both organizations took an interest, and are providing legal support to the students.

The administration responded to the student’s request late Monday afternoon stating that they would, in fact, grant a hearing extension so that they could “review the situation more.”

Three hours later, the students were again contacted, and told that all charges were to be dropped.

More: Marietta College Attacks 9/11 Display for Being “Too American”…

Jewish Group: Grade School History Books Have Hundreds of Inaccuracies

Judicial Watch: Obama Administration Channeling Tax Dollars to La Raza

La Raza means “The Race”. La Raza calls for communist revolution in the United States, wants much of the Western United States given to Mexico (they call it Aztlan), and are so racist that they are often referred to as “The Klan with a tan”; what would one expect from a group that calls itself “the race”?

Judicial Watch:

A Judicial Watch investigation reveals that federal funding for a Mexican La Raza group that for years has raked in millions of taxpayer dollars has skyrocketed since one of its top officials got a job in the Obama White House.

The influential and politically-connected National Council of La Raza (NCLR) has long benefitted from Uncle Sam’s largess but the group has made a killing since Obama hired its senior vice president (Cecilia Muñoz) in 2009 to be his director of intergovernmental affairs.

Ignored by the mainstream media, Judicial Watch covered the appointment because the president issued a special “ethics waiver” to bring Muñoz aboard since it violated his own lobbyist ban. At the pro illegal immigration NCLR, Muñoz supervised all legislative and advocacy activities on the state and local levels and she was heavily involved in the congressional immigration battles that took place in the George W. Bush Administration.

She also brought in a steady flow of government cash that’s allowed the Washington D.C.-based group to expand nationwide and promote its leftist, open-borders agenda via a network of community organizations dedicated to serving Latinos. Among them are a variety of local groups that provide social services, housing counseling and farm worker assistance as well as publicly-funded charter schools that promote radical Chicano curriculums. Judicial Watch published a special report on this a few years ago.

This week a JW probe has uncovered details of the alarming increase in federal funding that these NCLR groups have received since Muñoz joined the Obama Administration. In fact, the government cash more than doubled the year Muñoz joined the White House, from $4.1 million to $11 million.

Not surprisingly, a big chunk of the money (60%) came from the Department of Labor, which is headed by a former Californiacongresswoman (Hilda Solis) with close ties to the La Raza movement. Since Obama named her Labor Secretary, Solis has launched a nationwide campaign to protect illegal immigrant workers in theU.S. Just this week Solis penned declarations withGuatemala andNicaragua to preserve the rights of their migrants.

The NCLR also received additional taxpayer dollars from other federal agencies in 2010, the JW probe found. The Department of Housing and Urban Development doled out $2.5 million for housing counseling, the Department of Education contributed nearly $800,000 and the Centers for Disease Control a quarter of a million.

Additionally, NCLR affiliates nationwide raked in tens of millions of government grant and recovery dollars last year thanks to the Muñoz factor. An offshoot called Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC) saw its federal funding nearly double to $18.3 million following Muñoz’ appointment.

A social service and legal assistance organization (Ayuda Inc.) that didn’t receive any federal funding between 2005 and 2008 got $600,000 in 2009 and $548,000 in 2010 from the Department of Justice. The group provides immigration law services and guarantees confidentiality to assure illegal aliens that they won’t be reported to authorities.

Related: The speech below was at a La Raza event in Los Angeles

High School Teacher Calls For Racist Communist Revolution Against U.S. Government. Praises Murderous Dictator Hugo Chavez.

May 08, 2010 — ”Where we now stand is stolen, occupied Mexico”…La Raza rally at UCLA….More gems: ‘Communist Revolution’, ‘Frail, racist white people’, ‘La Raza’ (the Race), Fidel Castro, ‘Northern Front of Latin Revolution’…”40 million…revolutionaries…in the belly of the beast”. “Our enemy is Capitalism and Imperialism”. Sedition anyone?
Sanchee H.S. history teacher Ron Gochez, La Raza Rally at UCLA

Here is his H.S. Let them know what you think of his comments:
http://www.santeefalcons.org/
Phone: (213) 763-1000
Los Angeles Unified School District
Tel: 213-241-7000
superintendent@lausd.net
Los Angeles Board of Education:
Tel: 213-241-6389
Email: steve.zimmer@lausd.net

“We are revolutionary Mexican organization here. We understand that this is not just about Mexico. Its about a global struggle against imperialism and capitalism At the forefront of this revolutionary movement is La Raza. We will no longer fall for these lies called borders. We see America as a northern front of a revolutionary movement Our enemy is capitalism and imperialism.”

A third of high school grads never studied the Constitution…

The best way to “fundamentally transform America” is to make sure new generations forget what it is all about.

Heritage:

A third of graduated and rising high school seniors – who will be voting in the 2012 elections – have never studied the U.S. Constitution.

A recent study by the National Assessment for Educational Progress reported that only 67% of all high school students have spent any time studying the nation’s founding document.  Every four years, the NAEP polls 10,000 students about their knowledge of – or even exposure to – the Constitution.  The percentage of knowledgeable students is continually decreasing and, since 2007, the numbers have fallen another five percentage points from 72%. Maybe this is obvious, but shouldn’t a responsible and informed citizenship be one of the goals of public education?

Without basic knowledge of this foundational document, these voters will be hard pressed to answer some of the most important political questions in 2012. The next election is going to depend on every voter’s understanding of constitutional authority. For instance, does Obamacare’s individual mandate fall under the commerce clause? Other recent questions – like which branches are involved in the decision to declare war – cannot be answered without a thorough understanding of the Constitution.

But a basic understanding of the Constitution is useful well beyond just the next election.  The Constitutionspells out both the powers and limitations of the federal government.  It seems that it could become rather difficult to secure the blessings of liberty without teaching the next generation how our government is designed to protect these liberties.

Dr. Thomas E. Woods’ Video: The Depression of 1920 and Why You Have Never Heard of It.

This is a 49 minute lecture that is  a very good lesson in economics and how propagandized our schools are.

Saint Augustines College in Public Smear Campaign Against One of Its Best Students….

Speaking of unhinged administrators from our last post. This story from Saint Augustines College (SAC) makes me wonder if you have to fail the Wal-Mart psych test to get hired and a school administrator.

You are not going to be pleased after you read about this injustice.

Roman Caple is the kind of student that any university would be thrilled to call one of it’s own. He was in the school band, he was in the school choir, he was involved in student government, and he was so supportive of his school’s athletic program that he had the mascot, a falcon, shaved into the side of his head. He even played on the school tennis team for three years.

The Daily Caller has much of the story and be sure to keep reading after because it gets worse.

The Daily Caller:

Facebook and college go hand and hand these days — students read up on each other, share funny videos, send messages, and publicize those embarrassing photos from the night before. At Saint Augustine’s College (SAC), however, posting the wrong thing on Facebook will land you in hot water.

The Raleigh, N.C., college prohibited senior Roman Caple from participating in his class’ graduation because of a “negative social media exchange” he had on Facebook regarding the school’s response to the April 16th tornado damage.

What Caple is being punished for is encouraging his peers on SAC’s Facebook page to go to the school’s public meeting to argue for what he thought was the best way to respond to the tornado damage.

“Here it go!!!!!” he wrote. “Students come correct, be prepared, and have supporting documents to back up your arguments bcuz SAC will come hard!!!! That is all.”

Come correct, be prepared, have documentation. There is your horrible message that must be punished according to SAC Vice President Eric W. Jackson

More –  and read carefully:

Several days later, Caple met with SAC Vice President for Student Development and Services Eric W. Jackson, who that same day informed Caple that he would not be allowed to walk with his class. In a letter to Caple, Jackson explained that the reason for his prohibition was the Facebook comments, adding that “[a]ll students enrolled at Saint Augustine’s College are responsible for protecting the reputation of the college and supporting its mission.”

While graduation has already happened, without Caple participating, the student is still fighting the decision. His attorney, Brandon S. Atwater, has sought help from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

“While it promises free speech, Saint Augustine’s College has apparently rolled out a brand new, unwritten ‘don’t challenge our decisions on Facebook’ rule that warrants keeping a student out of graduation ceremonies,” FIRE senior vice president Robert Shibley said. “It’s hard to think of a pettier way to punish a loyal, graduating student for publicly disagreeing with administrators.”

In a statement issued in response to concern about Caple’s punishment, the school explained that the decision was due to the fact that they saw Caple’s words as an attempt to stir up trouble.

“At a time when the College staff was working diligently to ensure the well being of all students, Mr. Caple, a senior, chose to attempt to create chaos,” the school wrote in a statement. “It is important to note that Mr. Caple is a student who resides off campus and therefore, was not present on campus throughout the tornado or its aftermath.”

The college added that they had had past troubles with Caple, but were not prepared to share them at this time.

“Throughout his matriculation, there were more incidents involving Mr. Caple that factored into the College’s decision, however, because of FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] constraints, that information cannot be disclosed,” the school added. “The posts to Facebook during this time left the administration with no other choice other than to exclude him from the actual commencement exercise.”

Smear Campaign

Bring documentation and have your facts correct is chaos? Was Caple going to start a riot? Was this statement so bad that the school had to prevent him from attending graduation as a matter of public safety? So urgent that they had to abandon all due process in his “punishment”?

FERPA is not that cut and dry, in every case where a school tries to hide behind FERPA when it trashes a student (Hello IUPUI) it ends up being just what it looks like. If the administrators were really interested in protecting Roman Caple’s privacy they would not even claim the student had past problems (after all it is private right?). This is an assault on his reputation now put out nationwide. In cases such as the famed Keith John Sampson case at IUPUI where the student who was persecuted and trashed in the media by unhinged administrators, when the student waved privacy and asked for the documentation under the law, the school had nothing. For a while IUPUI claimed that it had knowledge of “secret” violations that not even the student could be made aware of. All lies.

ABC News 11 has video and more details. In the video ABC shows that his other Facebook comments were very positive and supportive.

Our friends at FIRE have more details:

FIRE wrote SAC President Dianne Boardley Suber on May 18, pointing out that SAC’s punishment of Caple violated the college’s extensive promises of freedom of expression. FIRE noted that SAC’s Student Handbook states that “[s]tudents enjoy the same basic rights and are bound by the same responsibilities to respect the rights of others, as are all citizens.” These rights include “freedom of speech.” SAC’s Student Handbook also states that SAC has an “obligation to provide an open forum to present and debate public issues,” and SAC policies further explicitly note that the college is not “a setting described in the concept of in loco parentis” (emphasis in original)—that is, SAC students are to be treated as adults.

On May 24, a law firm representing SAC wrote FIRE, arguing that SAC had “legitimate reasons” to punish Caple. The firm failed to indicate any of those reasons and did not explain why SAC appeared to act entirely outside of the due process procedures that the school promises its students. [Emphasis IUSB Vision – that folks, is a smear campaign – Editor] Despite the college’s apparent breach of its contractual promises to students, the firm insisted that SAC “did not err or violate Mr. Caple’s rights.”

“If I were Saint Augustine’s College, I would have commended this student for encouraging his peers to provide documentation that supported their arguments about a contentious issue,” FIRE Vice President of Programs Adam Kissel said. “Instead, SAC did the opposite and punished Roman Caple for exercising his rights.”

In my view this looks like a deliberate attempt to sully Roman Caple’s reputation.

Reaction

This injustice has generated outrage all over the internet. At the time of this writing Google is already showing 10,200 hits on the issue.

Here is a video from Hip Hop reviewer who goes by the name “Misanthropik One”. WARNING – ADULT LANGUAGE! The language is “Hip Hop”, but the substance is solid and, in spite of the 30 second music intro that is intolerable (so just skip to the 30 second mark), the clip is strangely charismatic and entertaining.

My personal reaction is to SAC Vice President Eric W. Jackson is this video clip, which I am confident Mr. Jackson has seen many times, and yet shows no ability to grasp of whatsoever:

School Accuses Diverse Group of Students of Being White Supremacists for Wearing T-Shirts…

There are more cases of unhinged school administrators engaging in incredible foolishness than we could ever tell you about. This one is amazing.

School picture time is important for kids. The cheerleaders were all going to wear pink, the jocks were all going to wear tank tops, so another group of friends decided that they would wear white t-shirts so they could easily identify each other in the class photo.

Enter the unhinged school administrator.

He accuses the students of being a part of a white supremacist group and says that he has gotten complaints, of course he cannot substantiate that claim. So he suspends some of the students at finals time so they cannot graduate, including an Asian student. Welcome to yet another lawsuit that a school will have no chance of winning and will cost the taxpayers money.

There is also a libel/slander aspect to this. Accusing someone of being in such a group is almost the worst thing you can say about someone. The school has accused students and named them as white supremacists in the media and on the internet with no evidence to support it. Anyone who does an internet search on these students names will find this. These students have been damaged and their reputations trashed nationwide. I hope they sue the school district and, if California law allows, go after the administrator’s personal assets.

KION News:

SOQUEL, Calif. – Students banned from a Central Coast school for wearing a white t-shirt. On Wednesday, Soquel High School suspended at least two students. The students say it’s because of allegations, they’re part of a white supremacist group.

“All the girls wore pink, all the sports guys wore tank tops,” says Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly. “We were all going to wear white so that was the plan. Just wear white t-shirts to identify ourselves and look back and say that was our group of friends right there.”

Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly wore a white t-shirt for his senior class photo Tuesday. About 10 of his friends did the same. That decision may seem harmless. But Soquel High suspended Donnelly for three days because of it.

Donnelly said the school told him people were offended and intimidated by his group, claiming they’re a white supremacist gang.

“I do think this is BS,” says Donnelly. “I’m not a white supremacist in any way shape or form. If I did say white power, I would probably say it just as much as I say black power.”

He’s not the only one upset.

“I feel disrespected,” says Soquel High Senior David Mine.

Mine also wore a white t-shirt and was also suspended. He’s missing out on finals and that could jeopardize his graduation.

“I’m Asian,” says Mine. “I don’t see how I can be a white supremacist. I’m against it completely.”

Soquel High Principal Ken Lawrence-Emanuel was very tight-lipped about it, saying students’ punishments are confidential. But told me the school got several complaints about a white pride group on campus.

“Safety is always first at Soquel High,” says Lawrence-Emanuel. “We want to make sure we do everything we can to keep people from feeling and being safe on campus.”

But, the students don’t agree and are ready to fight it.

“It’s a pretty bad feeling to be labeled something you’re not,” says Donnelly.

Donnelly said nobody’s ever accused him of being a white supremacist before and plans on appealing the schools decision. He’ll even take it to court if he needs to.

MIDDLE SCHOOL YEARBOOK LIST COMPARES HITLER AND BIN LADEN TO…GEORGE W. BUSH

Who says that kids aren’t politicized by teachers, the curriculum and the public school environment. Keep in mind that this was a middle school text, meaning that President Bush took office when these kids were two.

Notice no elite media national attention? If this was Obama….

See the video and the rest of the story HERE at The Blaze.

Right here in Virginia – Islamic Saudi Academy: It is OK to kill polytheists (Christians) and those who convert

Polytheists is what Islamists call Christians. It gets better, the military contracts to have soldiers sent there to learn Arabic.

It gets better still, their 1999 valedictorian joined Al-Qeada

David Horowitz at UCLA – Palestinian Wall of Lies

Wall of Lies:

Horowitz at UCLA: 

Part 2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

David Horowitz Q&A:

 

 

 

Bigoted, Unhinged School Administrators in Plano Texas Get Themselves Sued

Via National Review:

It’s known as the candy-cane case. And it’s all about religious discrimination.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments today in Morgan v. Swanson. The case demonstrates just how badly political correctness has corrupted our public schools and illustrates the extremes to which radical school administrators will go to impose their ideological, anti-religious views on our children.

The lawsuit was filed by the families of several elementary-school students in Plano, Texas. The suit states that, although the schools hold birthday and “winter break” parties, no Christmas parties are allowed. Moreover, the schools ban all “references to and symbols of the Christian religion and the celebration of the Christian religious holiday, Christmas,” at the winter-break parties. Even “red and green Christmas colors” are banned. And students were explicitly instructed “not to write ‘Merry Christmas’ on greeting cards sent to United States soldiers [or to retirement homes] because that phrase might be offensive.”

Apparently the schools never considered that such rigorous censorship might be offensive. Indeed, they went further. Students were allowed to exchange gift bags at the winter-break parties. However, the suit alleges, “students and parents [were] interrogated by school officials . . . as to whether or not the contents of their gift or ‘goodie’ bags . . . contain any religious viewpoint, religious references or religious message.” If they did, the bags were confiscated by school officials.

One student’s bags were seized because they contained pencils inscribed with the phrase “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Another student was banned from giving his friends candy-cane-shaped pens with a laminated card entitled the “Legend of the Candy Cane,” which explained the Christian origin of candy canes. Another student, “during noncurriculum times and with no material and substantial disruption to the operations of the school,” was giving her friends tickets to a free Christian drama production at her church. Principal Jackie Bomchill ordered the tickets confiscated and destroyed because they “expressed a ‘religious’ viewpoint.”

One student’s mother asked for a meeting with Bomchill to get prior approval for her daughter to give her friends two pencils at her own birthday party during lunch recess, one inscribed with the word “moon” and the other with the phrase “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” Instead of engaging in a calm discussion, the principal handed the mother a letter threatening that “law enforcement officials” would be called to arrest her and told her that the Jesus pencils could only be distributed “outside of the school building.” However, when the daughter attempted to do just that, outside of the school building, Bomchill grabbed her, took the pencils, and berated her. Bomchill told the mother her daughter would be “kicked out of school” if she made any further attempts to distribute religious items. School officials even called the police, who pulled over the mother on her way home.

Since these events, the school district and the principals have only compounded their errors. Rather than acknowledge that they made a mistake, apologize, and change their discriminatory policies, they have spent over a million taxpayer dollars fighting this lawsuit all the way up to the federal appeals court. In fact, they claim that they did nothing wrong and should be granted “qualified immunity” because “the First Amendment does not apply to elementary school students” and the “Constitution does not prohibit viewpoint discrimination against religious speech in elementary schools.” And these are the people teaching civics to our children!

As a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit wrote in its review of the case, “It has been clear for over half a century that the First Amendment protects elementary school students from religious-viewpoint discrimination.” This issue was decided in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, a 1943 decision of the Supreme Court. The Court recognized that school officials are subject to the Constitution and that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment is no exception. Students do not “shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” As the Court pointed out in Barnette, the fact that school officials “are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.”

The Texas school district has tried to argue that the Barnette decision really doesn’t say what it says, or that it doesn’t really apply to elementary schools because supposedly there is no evidence that the plaintiffs in that case were elementary-school students. In a delicious irony, former U.S. solicitor general Ken Starr has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Barnette sisters, the plaintiffs in the 1943 case.

The two sisters, now in their seventies, were elementary-school students in West Virginia at the time. As practicing Jehovah’s Witnesses, they believed that pledging allegiance to the flag was a form of prohibited idol worship. After declining to participate in that ceremony, they were expelled from school. The sisters’ family took their challenge all the way to the Supreme Court and won. As their amicus brief says, the Plano school district is trying to “unravel decades of clearly established law” and to “unwisely turn back the clock to an era in this nation’s history when religious bigotry was often tolerated in the public schools.”

What is worrisome about this case is that the Fifth Circuit granted en banc review after its own three-judge panel clearly reached the correct decision when it ruled against the school district and these intolerant principals. We may hope that the entire court will not overturn this panel decision or grant immunity to the school officials for their biased and inequitable behavior. This case is a clear example of how the extreme liberal view that nothing may be said or done that could somehow, possibly “offend” anyone leads to gutting the First Amendment and destroying our free-speech rights.

Michelle Rhee Talks About Her Support for School Vouchers

America’s Founders Your School Will Never Tell You About: Black, Jewish, and Women Founders and War Heroes. Women Voted in the 1770’s. What Happened?

Plus, the most recognizable man of the revolution was NOT George Washington, who was he, and why has he been erased from America’s school books? [Hint he was the first evangelical preacher – Editor]

Watch this video, even if you are not a fan of Glenn Beck, what you are about to see will change you forever.

Proposed California education law would ban most any critical statement of fact in history classes

Hat Tip Dr. Clare Spark.

As if the old law wasn’t an interpretive mess before. The proposed California law is preposterous because any critique, or even statement of fact can be interpreted/deliberately misinterpreted as discriminatory. In Europe people who make accurate stateswomen about Islamic history or what is in their texts are at times prosecuted for “hate crimes”. Sometimes the prosecutors say that “the truth is no defense.” Well if the truth is no defense to history, than we have no history at all and it is all predetermined propaganda.

I will give just a couple of examples. The headline we all saw as kids form the New York Daily News,  “JAPS BOMB HAWAII” would be banned.

 

The story in the Hadith of the murder of the Jewish Merchant would be banned. Any critique about how women are treated in many Islamic countries would be out. Any WWII film that had the word “Nips” or “Krauts” would be banned.

No matter what some group will/can always cry “discriminatory”. This is a mess as it would not stop. The British Conquered – “So all British are murderers out to take your land huh why how dare you make such an ethnic slur…”  /shakes head.

No one wants overt racism for the sake of racism in any history book, but what publisher is going to make such a book and try to market it to schools anyways? What state would adopt such a book? The answer is obvious, so this is not about racism at all, this is about group politics at the expense of teaching real history, which isn’t always politically correct.

SB 48 (Leno)

Instruction: prohibition of discriminatory content

Existing law requires instruction in social sciences to include a study of the role and contributions of both men and women to the development of California and the United States.

This bill would require instruction in social sciences to also include a study of the role and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and other ethnic and cultural groups, to the development of California and the United States.

Existing law prohibits instruction or school sponsored activities that reflect adversely upon persons because of their race, sex, color, creed, handicap, national origin, or ancestry. Existing law prohibits the State Board of Education and the governing board of any school district from adopting textbooks or other instructional materials that contain any matter that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, sex, color, creed, handicap, national origin, or ancestry.

This bill would revise the list of characteristics included in these provisions by referring to race or ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, nationality, and sexual orientation, or other characteristic listed as specified.

Existing law prohibits a governing board from adopting instructional materials that contain any matter reflecting adversely upon persons because of their race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, handicap, or occupation, or that contain any sectarian or denominational doctrine or propaganda contrary to law.

This bill would revise the list of characteristics included in this provision to include race or ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, nationality, sexual orientation, and occupation, or other characteristic listed as specified.

Existing law requires that when adopting instructional materials for use in the schools, governing boards shall include materials that accurately portray the role and contribution of culturally and racially diverse groups including Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and European Americans to the total development of California and the United States.

This bill would revise the list of culturally and racially diverse groups to also include Pacific Islanders, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and other ethnic and cultural groups.

Existing law provides that there shall be no discrimination on the basis of specified characteristics in any operation of alternative schools or charter schools.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature that alternative and charter schools take notice of the provisions of this bill in light of provisions of existing law that prohibit discrimination in any aspect of their operation.

When the best teachers like Christine Simo get let go because of bad union policies, students lose.

http://studentsfirst.org/christines-story

Michelle Rhee has more:

Obama Administration to Honor ‘Green’ Schools That Teach ‘Environmental Literacy’

Oh no, the government and the activists and teachers unions don’t try to indoctrinate out kids do they….

In many public schools today a student can literally go through k-12 and never hear one good thing about capitalism and the American Way. Most parents assume that school is the same as when they went to school, it is not.

CNS News Service:

(CNSNews.com) – Next year on Earth Day, the Obama administration plans to announce which U.S. schools have been selected as “Green Ribbon Schools,” a designation that will “honor” schools for “creating healthy and sustainable learning environments” and for “teaching environmental literacy.”

The Green Ribbon Schools program was announced in late April, but details on how schools will be picked or what the honor entails have not been released.

Jo Ann Webb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education, told CNSNews.com that the program is still under development.

“The criteria have not been developed yet,” Webb said. “The plan is for the U.S. Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Council for Environmental Quality to develop the criteria this spring and summer and to issue the call for applications early this fall.

Webb said the program would recognize schools for “engaging students on environmental issues and producing environmentally literate students; increasing energy efficiency and using renewable energy technologies; and creating healthy learning environments by addressing environmental issues in the schools.”

Webb said approximately 50 Green Ribbon schools could be named on Earth Day 2012. In announcing the program, Obama administration officials touted the importance of environmentalism as part of a good education.

“Preparing our children to be good environmental citizens is some of the most important work any of us can do,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said when he announced the new program last month. “It’s work that will serve future generations and quite literally sustain our world.”

“Each day, we ask students across the nation to demonstrate excellence, integrity and leadership in the classroom, and in return, the federal government must do the same,” said Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“The Green Ribbon Schools program will recognize healthy learning spaces that promote environmental literacy and prepare our leaders of tomorrow to win a clean energy future.”

What is meant by “environmental literacy” varies, depending on the source, but in general, it includes a belief that human actions are contributing to climate change.

In announcing the Green Ribbon Schools program, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that schools taking part in the program “will help kids connect what they’re learning in science class with the world around them, allowing them to envision solutions to tomorrow’s challenges while living healthier lives today.

“By making green living a part of everyday learning, Green Ribbon Schools will prepare our children to win the future by leading our global green energy economy,” Jackson said.

‘Energy literacy’

The Education Department and EPA aren’t the only federal agencies reaching out to young people.

Separately, the U.S. Energy Department — in its 2011 Strategic Plan — says it intends to “promote energy literacy” to achieve the Obama administration’s national energy goals.

“Because today’s young generation are tomorrow’s world leaders, we will champion outreach through competitions, project-based learning, interactive gaming, and social media,” the report says on page 21.

The Energy Department says its energy literacy effort will aim for a “modest understanding of energy sources, generation, use and conservation strategies” to allow “informed decisions on topics from home energy use to international energy policy.”

The Energy Department plans to “leverage relationships with academic institutions” and other public/private groups “to improve awareness and understanding of energy issues.”

Reagan at Notre Dame 30 Years Ago. A Speech that Changed the Direction of History.

Reagan has always been close to South Bend as the film that launched his career was shot right here.

Dr. Paul Kengor at National Review:

Reagan at Notre Dame

A call to transcendence and duty

or those of us fascinated by Cold War history, the last few months have been a treat, with recognition of two 20th-century giants who played a huge role in peacefully taking down an Evil Empire and ending the longest-running conflict of a bloody century. In February, Americans marked the centennial of the birth of Pres. Ronald Reagan. This May, Catholics marked the beatification of Pope John Paul II.

Even then, that’s just the tip of the historical iceberg. We’re at the 30-year mark of a bunch of events that conservatives in particular should reflect on, instead of just hopping from news cycle to news cycle. The founders of our movement, with the founding editor of National Review among them, would want us to stand athwart history yelling “Stop”; that is, to pause and pay recognition.

In January 1981, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated president. Mere weeks later, on March 30, he was shot. On May 13, John Paul II likewise was shot. Both men, we learned only later, came perilously close to bleeding to death during emergency surgery. Those events would convince the president and the pope that God had spared them for a special — indeed, historical — purpose.

Some of this has been acknowledged in retrospectives in recent weeks. What will not get its due, however, was a special speech given by President Reagan on May 17, 1981, at Notre Dame. And here, I encourage conservatives to listen up and take notes.

The occasion was Notre Dame’s commencement, and Reagan gave the assembled undergrads a lesson to remember, including one of his first presidential predictions on the demise of Communism:

The years ahead are great ones for this country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West won’t contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. . . . It will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.

The visionary quality of Reagan’s words is evident only in retrospect. Though no one else was making such audacious predictions, and though many scoffed at Reagan, those last pages were indeed being written. Unbeknownst to the world, Communism’s grip on Eastern Europe would not survive the decade. Even the USSR would disintegrate peacefully. On Dec. 25, 1991, a helpless Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as leader of the USSR, formally turning out the lights.

For Reagan, that process was aided by an indispensable ally, John Paul II, who had been shot only four days before the Notre Dame speech. Reagan asked the Notre Dame faithful to pray for John Paul, and commended him for his recent encyclical attacking Communism.

The Notre Dame speech was crafted by chief speechwriter Tony Dolan, with a few edits from the president, as can be seen in a marked-up draft at the Reagan Presidential Library (“Presidential Speeches,” Box 1, Folder 7). As Dolan is always quick to acknowledge, the speech is “Reagan’s,” as it was written quintessentially for Reagan alone, based on his ideas, his voice, and with phrases he himself had used. Dolan could not have written such a speech for anyone but Reagan, nor would anyone but Reagan have signed off on it.

In fact, the speech as delivered was highly personal, begun with lengthy extemporaneous remarks by Reagan. It wove together quotes and anecdotes, impromptu and prewritten, establishing Reagan’s theme of a larger cause and challenge — a challenge for all of America. It was a complex, enigmatic speech that can only be fully understood today, long after Reagan’s presidency and with current knowledge of what Reagan was secretly pursuing behind the scenes. Reagan telegraphed its unorthodox nature in these opening lines:

The temptation is great to use this forum as an address on a great international or national issue. . . . Indeed, this is somewhat traditional. So, I wasn’t surprised when I read in several reputable journals that I was going to deliver an address on foreign policy and the economy. I’m not going to talk about either.

This wasn’t quite true. Or maybe it was. Reagan’s objective was much larger — yes, untraditional — as if transcending the economy and foreign policy. Reagan drew upon dramatic remarks by Winston Churchill: “When great causes are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

As Dolan knew, Reagan had first employed that Churchill quote back in the classic 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” the speech that launched his career and his crusade against the USSR. To Reagan, the obligation Americans must meet was their duty to fight expansionist, atheistic Soviet Marxism. Was America worthy of that challenge? He responded in the affirmative, citing a protracted history of Americans meeting tests.

Reagan then followed the Churchill passage with a personal story from his movie Knute Rockne, All-American. The film was always seen as a celebration of Notre Dame football, but Reagan was about to make it much more. He provided a most instructive parable, one that I’ve never seen elsewhere from Reagan. The president stated:

Now, today I hear very often, “Win one for the Gipper.” . . . But let’s look at the significance of that story. [Coach Knute] Rockne could have used Gipp’s dying words to win a game any time. But eight years went by following the death of George Gipp before Rock revealed those dying words, his deathbed wish.

And then he told the story at halftime to a team that was losing, and one of the only teams he had ever coached that was torn by dissension and jealousy and factionalism. The seniors on that team were about to close out their football careers without learning or experiencing any of the real values that a game has to impart. None of them had known George Gipp. They were children when he played for Notre Dame. It was to this team that Rockne told the story and so inspired them that they rose above their personal animosities. For someone they had never known, they joined together in a common cause and attained the unattainable.

We were told when we were making the picture of one line that was spoken by a player during that game. We were actually afraid to put it in the picture. The man who carried the ball over for the winning touchdown was actually injured on the play. We were told that as he was lifted on the stretcher and carried off the field he was heard to say, “That’s the last one I can get for you, Gipper.”

Now, it’s only a game. And maybe to hear it now, afterward — and this is what we feared — it might sound maudlin and not the way it was intended. But is there anything wrong with young people having an experience, feeling something so deeply, thinking of someone else to the point that they can give so completely of themselves? There will come times in the lives of all of us when we’ll be faced with causes bigger than ourselves, and they won’t be on a playing field.

Why this story in this speech? Reagan, of course, had played George Gipp in this movie; it was his character who uttered the unforgettable deathbed line, “Go out there and win one for the Gipper.” Throughout his political life he used that line as a kind of signature, often referring to himself as “the Gipper,” as did others. Yet here, in applying the story to a larger cause, Reagan appeared to be linking himself to Rockne, not Gipp.

Just as Coach Rockne rallied a team torn apart by “dissension and jealousy and factionalism,” Coach Reagan seemed to be rallying a team. He wanted this group to join “someone they had never known” — apparently himself, as a political leader — to “attain the unattainable,” just as that particular Notre Dame team had for a George Gipp they had never met.

This was not the first time Reagan had used a commencement address to rally a group of students to the cause. The challenge at Notre Dame was eerily similar to one he had made to the female students of tiny William Woods College way back in June 1952, whom he asked to join him in the battle, the grand ideological struggle, to “push back the darkness over the stadium of humanity.” That darkness was Soviet Communism.

Reagan was bent on motivating his young countrymen to rise above their personal animosities. A country divided and factionalized could not meet the Cold War challenge with confidence.

From the Gipp story, Reagan cast his gaze in a loftier direction:

When it’s written, the history of our time won’t dwell long on the hardships of the recent past. But history will ask . . . Did a people forged by courage find courage wanting? Did a generation steeled by hard war and a harsh peace forsake honor at the moment of great climactic struggle for the human spirit? . . . [T]he answers are to be found in the heritage left by generations of Americans before us. They stand in silent witness to what the world will soon know and history someday record: that in its third century, the American Nation came of age, affirmed its leadership of free men and women serving selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace.

Someday, Reagan believed, history would judge that America reached maturity by affirming “its leadership of free men and women serving selflessly a vision of man with God.” This was an implicit recognition and rejection of the atheistic Soviet vision. Only four paragraphs earlier in the speech, he had predicted that Communism was nearing its final days; the next three paragraphs continued that theme. Reagan concluded:

For the West, for America, the time has come to dare to show to the world that our civilized ideas, our traditions, our values, are not — like the ideology and war machine of totalitarian societies — just a façade of strength. It is time for the world to know our intellectual and spiritual values are rooted in the source of all strength, a belief in a Supreme Being, and a law higher than our own.

“The time has come.” Those values, which America should dare to show to the world, said Reagan, derive from the greatest of strengths: from God, from belief in God, and from the wisdom of God’s law.

It is interesting to note how Reagan himself viewed these remarks. Seven years later, in March 1988, he returned to Notre Dame for a final rally. He mentioned that in 1981 he had come to give “one of the first major addresses of my presidency,” and that his remarks included his prediction that the West would transcend Communism. He said America could achieve that objective because its spiritual values and inner strength were so great.

In sum, the May 1981 Notre Dame address ought to be recognized as one of Reagan’s finest and most revealing, one that conservatives especially should know and appreciate. It’s really a quite profound, poignant speech that captures the essence of Reagan’s presidency, his faith, his attack on the USSR, and his view of an exceptional America.

It is indeed, as Reagan put it, about all of us Americans — from our homes to the halls of Congress to the White House — understanding that “when great causes are on the move in the world,” as they are today as well, we learn that we’re spirits, not animals. We sense and know that there’s something going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, “whether we like it or not,” spells duty.

— Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism and the newly released Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

Welcome to “Ethnomathematics” where 2 + 2 = We Must Raise Taxes Because White People Are Bad

This is too crazy to make up folks. Ethnomathmatics….  multiculturalism (The West is evil) combined with social justice math. If a bomb costs $10,000 how many children are denied health care because Donald Rumsfeld bought a bomb?

Ethnomathmatics has its own Wikipedia entry and web sites:

http://www.ethnomath.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomathematics

http://www.radicalmath.org/main.php?id=SocialJusticeMath (watch the video as well and does anyone want to say that the left is not turning our schools into indoctrination mills while graduating students with skill levels far below what they should be?

The “Guide for Integrating Issues of Social and Economic Justice into Mathematics Classrooms and Curriculum” has been updated. Download.

The web site Moonbattery has more:

Since moonbattery is a totalitarian ideology, nothing escapes from its poisonous lies — not even mathematics. Teachers unsure how to pass off indoctrination in race-based Marxism (a.k.a. “social justice”) as a math class can find resources to assist them at Radical Math:

There are at least two related ideas behind “Social Justice Math”. The first is that you can use mathematics to teach and learn about issues of social and economic justice. The second is that you can learn math through the study of social justice issues….

A subspecies of Social Justice Math is “Ethnomathematics,” defined as:

The study and celebration of mathematical practices from various countries and cultures from both historical and contemporary perspectives, including: symbolic systems, spatial designs, games and puzzles, calculation methods, measurement in time and space, architecture and design, problem solving, etc.

With all this important material to cover, it’s no surprise if teachers don’t get around to boring stuff like multiplication tables.

The Math Skills & Social Justice Topics Chart (Word doc) offers concrete suggestions for dressing up moonbat propaganda as math. For example:

Comparing how money spent on military operations could be used to support other important causes (ex: if a bomb costs $10 million and a it costs $10,000 to provide health care for an entire family for a year, how many families could get health care for the cost of this bomb).

Here’s how geometry can be combined with “environmental justice”:

Determine the density of toxic waste facilities, factories, dumps, etc, in the neighborhood.

By now it should be obvious why moonbats cannot be left in control of education. This means prying it out of the fist of Big Government and the unions that bankroll Democrat politicians.

Global Warming Alarmist Quote of the Day

Former Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart:

No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.

Glenn Beck K-12 School Special: Talking With Teachers

Via The Daily Beck:

There was a report out this week that only 22% of 8th graders passed a basic civics test. The conclusion? Millions of young Americans will be unprepared to be informed and engaged, which is required in a healthy democracy. When the news last Sunday came out of Usama Bin Laden’s death, the number five search on Google was “Who is Usama Bin Laden?”. 25% of all searches overall came from those under 24. That, and much MORE on indoctrination tonight!

The audience is almost all teachers tonight. This is very interesting to see, as some of the teachers have bought some of their union propaganda. Some don’t understand the cultural problems in public schools that help create the larger issues, some don’t understand that a public school that isn’t very good results in the people who care and the wealth fleeing, which lowers property values and exacerbates the problem. Bad schools create bad neighborhoods, which makes bad schools worse. But some do get it.

One teacher says that it is a values problem, unions and government have drummed the values out of public education.

See what happens when Beck asks the audience if they have seen their union and such push blatantly Marxist propaganda on the kids.

This is very interesting.

Indiana takes the lead with virtual charter schools, open to all.

The Heartland Institute:

The Indiana legislature has passed a bill permitting virtual charter schools to serve students throughout the state, regardless where they live.

House Bill 1002, sponsored by Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) and Representatives Bob Behning (R-Indianapolis), Mary Ann Sullivan (D-Indianapolis), and Cindy Noe (R-Indianapolis), allows the creation of virtual charter schools in the state with no limits on enrollment. The state’s two existing virtual charter schools are limited to 500 students.

The bill passed the state Senate by a 29 to 20 vote on April 12, and the House of Representatives passed it by a 61 to 37 vote on April 27. Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) signed the bill into law on.May 5.

“Once again, Indiana is at the forefront of a growing national movement that will ensure our students receive the quality instruction they deserve,” noted Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett in a press statement. “By boldly asserting every child’s right to attend a great school, the Hoosier state has taken a powerful stand in favor of equal educational opportunities for all children.”

‘High-Quality Solution’
If a student of the proposed new statewide virtual charter school previously attended a traditional public school, funds will follow the student to the virtual charter school. The range would be $4,800 to $8,400, depending on the funds allocated to the local “bricks and mortar” school system.

“This is an issue that I and many families have been advocating for years,” said Monique Christensen, president of Indiana Virtual School Families, a coalition of about 2,000 families. “Virtual schools are but one option that can provide a high-quality educational solution for kids. Not all children thrive in the standard brick and mortar environment.”

A virtual charter school enables students to access curriculum via computer rather than going to a school “building,” but many of the other educational elements are similar or superior to traditional education, said Christensen.

‘Pace Appropriate for Learning’
“Certified teachers with student/ teacher ratios similar to traditional schools oversee the schoolwork along with a committed learning coach whether it’s a parent, mentor, aunt, uncle, or someone else,” Christensen said. “Accelerated and gifted learners are able to move at a pace appropriate for their learning, and those needing remediation and extra help are able to spend the time needed in order to comprehend the material.”

Students must pass each lesson with 80 percent mastered comprehension before they are allowed to move on to the next lesson.

Even though there isn’t a traditional classroom, “teachers are in contact with their students and families frequently,” said Christensen. “Teachers often say they develop closer relationships and are in touch more with their virtual school students than they ever were in a traditional classroom through the use of phone, email, or Web cast conferences. Students also have access to their teacher and peers, as well as educational field trips, frequent social outings, and extracurricular activities.”

Students attending charter schools in Indianapolis have fared better in math and have had mixed results in other subjects compared to their counterparts in traditional schools, according to Marisa Cannata, associate director of the National Center on School Choice (NCSC) at Vanderbilt University.

‘Seeking Better Education’
Parents who move their children to virtual and brick-and-mortar charter schools seem to be pleased with the choice, Cannata added. And other parents can’t wait to make that move.

“My husband and I have begun to look into adoption and are appalled at the education choices available to our future offspring,” said Julia Porter, who lives in Warsaw, a small town in the northern part of the state.

“When looking at alternatives to schools, the closest charter school is over an hour away,” said Porter. “I feel that this virtual charter would allow for educated individuals who have children and want more for them than the community offers to seek better education. As a former New York City teacher, I see many advantages to offering this in Indiana, as Indiana offers much fewer choices to parents than larger cities.”

Phil Britt (spenterprises@wowway.com) writes from South Holland, Illinois.

Former KGB Agent Yuri Bezmenov: How the KGB Demoralized, Propagandized and Indoctrinated Youth Using Schools

The following is part one of a 1985 interview with Ex-KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov. In this interview, Bezmenov outlines the four step systematic demoralization and indoctrination techniques utilized for decades against America.

The interview is prophetic, describing effects we can see all around us today.

The goal of demoralization: To change the perception of reality of every American so that they are unable to come to sensible conclusions for their own good and defense in spite of abundant information.  To get them in a mindset so that no amount of evidence will ever convince them that leftism is wrong. Pump their heads with the ideology of their enemy which we have done to at least three generations of students with next to nothing opposing it.  This works with them until the real Marxists come to power.

Those journalists, professors, activists, union leaders, film directors and other idealistically minded Marxists who believe in the “beauty of collectivism”; these useful idiots think that they will be coming to power, when they don’t they will become the first to become disillusioned and become the revolution’s worst enemy. They will have to be executed because revolutionaries know how to wage a counter revolution. They have to go because they know too much. Others will become disillusioned when they or their communities have to feel the boot (Hence the old saying a conservative is a liberal who got mugged).

During the demoralization process those in influential circles  who will not accept “the beauty of collectivism” will be subject to character assassination.

The full 81 minute interview can be found HERE.

Dr. Phyllis Chesler: Retirees & Alums Demand Investigation of Growing Anti-Semitic Cancer at CUNY

Having discovered Dr. Chesler’s web site I feel as if I have found a treasure trove of interesting information.  Next time I am in New York I am definitely going to offer to buy her lunch along with my good friend the soon to be Dr. Jeffery Cappella, global security consultant (Cappella is a supra-genius. A name you will be hearing you can be sure).

This letter from the CUNY Alumni Association says it all:

As alumni, professors and students of the City University of New York, we wish to comment regarding the character assassination that is now transpiring via email attack and media attacks on Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a gifted and serious CUNY Trustee who performed his duty and exercised due diligence regarding the recent vote on CUNY honorary degrees. Many who are presently impugning Mr. Weisenfeld’s character are also responsible for a very unwholesome and dangerous demagoguery that is creeping into mainstream dialogue at CUNY campuses.  We are particularly cognizant of a dangerous demagoguery at Brooklyn College where we have most recently been made aware of an anti-Israel and anti-semitic culture that is growing, aided and abetted by the campus administration.  Brooklyn College is not alone in this regard, however, and documentation is mounting regarding abuses on other campuses, supported by local CUNY administrations.

On many CUNY campuses, Muslim Student Association (MSA) clubs (sometimes dubbed Palestinian Clubs) are aided, abetted and supported by off-campus “advisors” and Imams from radical Muslim groups. They operate as virtual missionary groups, exercising tactics which are contrary to free inquiry and which seek to foment hatred towards other campus groups.  Most are also supported by a professors’ union that promotes rhetoric which encourages and promotes this hatred.

We have also been made aware that professors who are politically pro-Israel are intimidated and prevented from speaking freely, out of fear of retribution when seeking reappointment, tenure and/or promotion. There is little doubt that there are valid bases for this fear.

All this is reflected in the venom that is pouring out of the CUNY professoriate in the attempt to stifle Trustee Wiesenfeld for the simple exercise of his right and responsibility as a member of the Board of Trustees.

We ask that the Board initiate an investigation into the assault on Jews at the City University, disguised as anti-Israelism, which seeks to mask its true agenda: anti-semitism. We ask that a representative task force be established to investigate this phenomenon.

We are grateful that one member of the Board, Mr. Wiesenfeld, has the courage to speak the truth. He is a giant among men and a hero to so many. We shudder to think what will happen when his tenure on the Board is over. We fear the demise of CUNY as an institution of free speech and inquiry.

Should the Board of Trustees continue to ignore the current assault against those of free will who object to the administration’s uninspired and cowardly support of radical liberal orthodoxy and against those who are supporters of the State of Israel, then please be aware that our Association of CUNY Alumni and Retirees will assure:

• That CUNY alumni are apprised of recent events and are exhorted to reconsider donations to their alma maters – colleges which are no longer institutions which are protective of all.
• That Jewish graduates and others of good will are apprised that the colleges which were once their homes, are no longer welcoming to supporters of Israel.

We will not sit by idly and allow this cancer to continue to grow.

Members, Association of CUNY Alumni and Retirees

Dr. Phyllis Chesler: Aspiring Intern Attempts to School Me on Her Third Worldist “Feelings”

A pro-Israeli women’s studies professor and psychologist who actually has the guts to stand up and say “you know women are treated pretty badly in Islam”. I am amazed.

She is looking for an intern, and of course many universities are rife with antisemitism and the most dishonest pro-Islamic/antisemitic propaganda imaginable. Of course like the most effective “attitude change propaganda’ the victim is left short on facts and big on attitude and “feelings” as you are about to see.

Dr. Chesler:

Life is funny, life is great, but life is also strange, the way it all boils down to one’s views on only two or three subjects, namely Israel, Islam, and America.

Yesterday, I met with a potential intern sent my way by a local area college with whom I’ve happily worked before. She seemed alert, bright, interested, talented and ready to start her (unpaid) full-time summer internship almost immediately. I had already told her to visit my website and to read some of my articles and assumed that she knew my current subjects and views. She did. In fact, on the phone, she went out of her way to agree with me on my critique of the academic feminist view that the Islamic face veil and polygamy are “liberating” for women.

Just after we finished discussing hours and possible projects, she stopped, smiled smoothly, and said this:

“But I have to tell you that I take issue with your position on Israel.”

“Oh” said I. “Have you lived in Israel, do you know any Palestinians, have you read many books, written many articles, taken many courses about Israel and about the Middle East?”

“Well no,” she said, “but I feel strongly about it.”

And then I said: “So, based on your feelings and perhaps on some peer pressure, you are willing to give up an internship that you might otherwise want?”

I stressed that I had no problem with her holding a view different than my own. I asked her whether she could work with someone with whom she did not agree exactly on this one issue.

She paused. And then she said: “But I have another problem. I think it is wrong to condemn all of Islam.”

Now I looked at her for a moment without saying anything.

Then I spoke.  “But I don’t. In fact, I champion the work of some religious Muslims as well as those of secular Muslims and ex-Muslims and I work with Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents and feminists. To expose honor killings, to challenge Islamic gender apartheid practices is not the same as condemning all Muslims or all Islam.”

Again, I told her that I could work with someone with whose views I did not completely agree; could she? Although by now I was fearing that if she said yes that instead of working for me  she would force me to teach her in an unpaid tutorial.

She was not yet done.

“I also take issue with an article you wrote in which I believe you are stereotyping lesbians and Jewish lesbians.”

Friends: I actually managed not to laugh out loud.

I assured her that I was not at all biased against lesbians or against Jewish lesbians but indeed, that I had seen many lesbians, including Jews, who were “Queers for Palestine,” and who defended a toxically homophobic “Palestine” over the Jewish state when that Jewish state actually grants political asylum to Palestinian homosexuals who have been tortured and near-murdered by their Palestinian families, neighbors, and political leaders.

And then I said: “Look, if you decide that you can work for someone with whom you do not agree, call me.”

She left. Calm, cool, unruffled, almost satisfied.

This was the second time in which a young woman–no more than 20 or 21 years old–felt entitled to preach at me, rather righteously, when they were applying for a job with me. The first young woman was applying for a paid position but she did not let me speak until she first spent 15 minutes “filling me in” on her Third Worldist views. Yesterday’s cream-of-the-crop  came all the way for an interview, ultimately in order to challenge me up close and personal.

For all I know, a tape recorder might have been running in her bag because when she left my apartment she seemed strangely happy.

Why is this all important? Because these two young women (granted, they do not represent all young Ivy League women), do not seem to respect authority or at least authority with whom they do not agree. This means that, potentially, they might be willing to destroy their own civilization since they disagree with its authorities on certain key issues.  Standing on no serious knowledge base, they and others of their generation nevertheless feel absolutely entitled to stake out a position based on “feelings.”

Is this a continuation of the student uprisings in Europe and America in the 1960s?  Is this the result of the politicization of knowledge, i.e. its Stalinization and Palestinianization?

Where will this end if we do not stop it? And, how can we do that?

Dr. Thomas Sowell: Too many people coming out of even our most prestigious academic institutions graduate with neither the skills to be economically productive nor the intellectual development to make them discerning citizens and voters.

Famed Author and Economist Thomas Sowell

In a nutshell….

One of the sad and dangerous signs of our times is how many people are enthralled by words, without bothering to look at the realities behind those words.

One of those words that many people seldom look behind is “education.” But education can cover anything from courses on nuclear physics to courses on baton twirling.

Unfortunately, an increasing proportion of American education, whether in the schools or in the colleges and universities, is closer to the baton twirling end of the spectrum than toward the nuclear physics end. Even reputable colleges are increasingly teaching things that students should have learned in high school.

We don’t have a backlog of serious students trying to take serious courses. If you look at the fields in which American students specialize in colleges and universities, those fields are heavily weighted toward the soft end of the spectrum.

When it comes to postgraduate study in tough fields like math and science, you often find foreign students at American universities receiving more of such degrees than do Americans.

A recent headline in the Chronicle of Higher Education said: “Master’s in English: Will Mow Lawns.” It featured a man with that degree who has gone into the landscaping business because there is no great demand for people with Master’s degrees in English.

Too many of the people coming out of even our most prestigious academic institutions graduate with neither the skills to be economically productive nor the intellectual development to make them discerning citizens and voters.

Students can graduate from some of the most prestigious institutions in the country, without ever learning anything about science, mathematics, economics or anything else that would make them either a productive contributor to the economy or an informed voter who can see through political rhetoric.

On the contrary, people with such “education” are often more susceptible to demagoguery than the population at large. Nor is this a situation peculiar to America. In countries around the world, people with degrees in soft subjects have been sources of political unrest, instability and even mass violence.

Nor is this a new phenomenon. A scholarly history of 19th century Prague referred to “the well-educated but underemployed” Czech young men who promoted ethnic polarization there– a polarization that not only continued, but escalated, in the 20th century to produce bitter tragedies for both Czechs and Germans.

In other central European countries, between the two World Wars a rising class of newly educated young people bitterly resented having to compete with better qualified Jews in the universities and with Jews already established in business and the professions. Anti-Semitic policies and violence were the result.

It was much the same story in Asia, where successful minorities like the Chinese in Malaysia were resented by newly educated Malays without either the educational or business skills to compete with them. These Malaysians demanded– and got– heavily discriminatory laws and policies against the Chinese.

Similar situations developed at various times in Nigeria, Romania, Sri Lanka, Hungary and India, among other places.

Many Third World countries have turned out so many people with diplomas, but without meaningful skills, that “the educated unemployed” became a cliche among people who study such countries. This has not only become a personal problem for those individuals who have been educated, or half-educated, without acquiring any ability to fulfill their rising expectations, it has become a major economic and political problem for these countries.

Such people have proven to be ideal targets for demagogues promoting polarization and strife. We in the United States are still in the early stages of that process. But you need only visit campuses where whole departments feature soft courses preaching a sense of victimhood and resentment, and see the consequences in racial and ethnic polarization on campus.

There are too many other soft courses that allow students to spend years in college without becoming educated in any real sense.

We don’t need more government “investment” to produce more of such “education.” Lofty words like “investment” should not blind us to the ugly reality of political porkbarrel spending.

Dallas public school teacher runs virtual “Fight Club” in class.

I noticed this story while browsing. A teacher in Dallas sits there while students are attacked, and in another video he sits there while students make an arena with the chairs, two students casually strip to their shorts and fight while other students film it with a cell phone. The Teacher says that policy prevents him from doing anything, so he just sits there as “fight club” goes on in his class and apparently this is not uncommon.

WFAA has the story and Hotair.com has updates. Click the links to see the video and the story. So much for the effectiveness of the so called “zero tolerance policy”.

[Editor’s Note – The information and video of the “fight club” that went on in the class is at the WFAA link so be sure to watch it]

“Ever constant, never changing, ongoing harassment” is how the victim describes the situation. Of course what did the school do about this?

Now the victim is dropping out of school because he is convinced it is unsafe; which is not unusual for a state run union school and is in fact what they prefer because victims mean that there is trouble in their school that administrators do not want to admit to under their watch, so if the victim goes away, bureaucratically speaking, so does the crime.

The school is also going after the student who recorded it, after all we can’t have the outside world know what is going on in class can we?

Victims go ignored, some even kill themselves like Phoebe Prince and the story is always the same. The school claims ignorance when the kids and teachers say that everyone knew about it.  District Attorney Elizabeth  Scheibel demonstrated that the administrators, from the Superintendent on down, were lying about not knowing, as Prince’s mother had multiple meetings with the schools administrators, which proved to be fruitless. Another reason that schools tend to side with the bullies, “Both Phoebe and Tyler were targeted by high-status kids who were well-liked in the community,” said Barbara Coloroso, a prominent anti-bullying consultant. By the way, Prince’s bullies were sentenced last week (expect a civil suit to follow).

MORE STUPIDITY – A public school in Maryland had a student dragged off in handcuffs and why? Because he had a two inch folding pocket toolkit that included a pen knife which he used to maintain and repair his Lacrosse stick. He had a lighter to burn off strings and frays. The school said that the folding took kit was a deadly weapon and that the lighter was an “explosive device”. Is being a moron a requirement to getting a school administrator position paying six figures? – LINK with video.

Dept of Education is a Failure: 82 Fed Govt Programs to Improve Teachers. Billions Spent With No Results. Bill Gates Foundation Concludes that Teaching Credentials Make No Difference

University of Missouri St. Louis Labor Studies Dept. preaching violent Marxist revolution to students.

Gotta love it when the student starts taping. He put together this series of highlights.

The stuydent wrote a massive post with what he was “taught” day to day – My Introduction to Labor Studies

[Note: The video jumps around not just because of editing, the class is taught with two professors video conferencing during the class, so when another professor talks the video jumps to that person]

Chapter 4 – Bring in Communists to lecture about unions and communism.

Chapter 2 – Advanced Thuggery – Fear and Intimidation Tactics

Recently, the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) sponsored two college courses: Introduction to Labor Studies and Labor Politics and Society, to be taught simultaneously through a video conference between two campuses.

The Professors are Judy Ancel, Director of Labor Studies at UMKC and Don Giljum, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers at Ameren UE in St. Louis (Bonus: he is a member of the Communist Party).

Prof. Niall Ferguson: school history lessons ‘lack all cohesion’

Niall Ferguson is one of my very favorite academics. He creates narratives based on verifiable evidence and will not hesitate to rhetorically unravel anyone who skews history or what is obvious due to ideology or partisanship. Niall Ferguson is a site to see in a debate. Former professors of mine who thought I was too rough on people for displaying inexcusable ignorance, wait till you get a load of this man :)

Here is an example:

Interesting that Niall takes the same position that several on talk radio have (Limbaugh, Beck), as well as this web site has, that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a pro-democracy movement at all as the “establishment” insists and that is merely the organizations smiley front face. This video was from early last February. The Muslim Brotherhood is taking power, this is tantamount to 1979 in Iran and they want to break the peace treaty with Israel and impose Sharia, which will devastate their economy even more and create more instability. Notice what he says at the end, “This is a high probability scenario and the President is not even considering it.” He called it.

The Guardian:

Historian says too few pupils are spending too little time studying history, particularly in state schools.

The Harvard academic Niall Ferguson has warned that too few pupils are spending too little time studying history – and what they do study lacks a sweeping narrative.

He offers his own lesson plan to remedy what he says is a lack of cohesion, in which pupils place six “building block” events, including the Reformation and the French revolution, into the right order.

His plan aims to give pupils an overview of the years 1400 to 1914, and encourage them “to understand and offer answers to the most important question of that period: why did the west dominate the rest?”

Ferguson, who has been invited by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to play a role in overhauling the history curriculum, directs the teacher to show their class a map of the world circa 1913 “showing the extent of the western empires”.

The class then divides into groups to defend the merits of six ingredients of western success, ranging from “competition” to – perhaps more controversially — “the work ethic”.

Ferguson, who works as a consultant for a software developer that creates history-based games, encourages the class to play five rounds of the multi-player game Commerce, Conquest and Colonisation, as a supplementary activity. The plan is aimed at a mixed-ability class in year 10, the first year of a history GCSE course.

In an article for the Guardian’s education supplement, Ferguson disagrees with a recent Ofsted survey that praised history teaching in secondary schools. While Ofsted criticised “disconnected topics” in the primary history curriculum, it said that provision was good or outstanding in most secondaries they visited.

Ferguson says: “Clearly, all last year’s talk by Michael Gove, Simon Schama, myself and others about the urgent need for reform was mere alarmism, doubtless actuated by some sinister political motive.”

Ofsted’s report said it was a “popular and inaccurate myth” that students at GCSE and A-level only studied Hitler. Students were required to study a range of topics, including a substantial amount of British history, the school inspectors said.

Ferguson’s fellow celebrity historian Simon Schama has agreed to advise ministers on an overhaul of the national curriculum intended to restore a narrative “island story” of Britain.

Ferguson writes: “History is emphatically not being made available to all in English schools. Too few pupils, especially in the state sector, spend too little time doing it. And what they study lacks all cohesion.”

The academic criticises “an unholy alliance between well-meaning politicians and educationalists” for reshaping history teaching to focus more on skills such as analysing sources while neglecting facts.

“The challenge for the education secretary, Michael Gove, is to make sure that he is not the latest in a succession of politicians to see his plans for reform subverted by an educational establishment – here exemplified by Ofsted – that is still in deep denial about the damage its beloved new history has done.”

Ferguson laments the fact that England is the only country in Europe where history is not compulsory after the age of 14, and expresses concern that design and technology is a more popular subject at GCSE.

He quotes a survey of first-year undergraduates that found that around two-thirds did not know who was monarch at the time of the Armada, while 69% did not know the location of the Boer war. The survey was a quiz set by an economics lecturer at Cardiff University, which tested first years’ historical knowledge over a three-year intake.

Ferguson writes: “Such evidence should make us very sceptical indeed about Ofsted’s claim that history is ‘a successful subject in schools'”.

The historian approves of a passage in Ofsted’s report, which highlights a lack of narrative in primary school history teaching.

“The only thing wrong with this observation is that Ofsted seems to think it applies only to primary school pupils, whereas it could equally well be applied to those in secondary school – and students at a good few universities, too.”

The “long arc of time” has been replaced by “odds and sods”, Ferguson says.

Niall Ferguson’s history lesson plan is available to download from the Guardian Teacher Network.

Indiana University (Bloomington) Eliminates (Illegal) Discriminatory Funding Policy Against Religious Groups

This is a good note to read, especially for you pinheads on the Academic Senate who went after Chancellor Reck for not kicking Chick-Fil-A off campus again (that’s right, I am defending Una Mae).

The first thing the “Academic Senate” needs to do is read is the entire IU Code of Conduct, which states that the university will abide by all laws and respect the constitutional rights of all. To economically punish Chick-Fil-A because a franchisee has a Christian point of view (who demonstrated it by donating some sandwiches to a religious activist group) is illegal. It is discrimination on the basis of religion (creed), and viewpoint discrimination against a religious point of view which is a violation of federal First Amendment case law.

The IU Code of Conduct and its nondiscrimination policy must be interpreted within the bounds of the law, and the fact is that the law does not recognize a right for anyone to get married and that includes gays. Just because some may want the non-discrimination policy to apply to the marraige issue does not mean it does. IU is NOT in the marraige business and it does not discriminate against gays in hiring or who gets approved as a student etc. The non-discrimination policy cannot be construed as to be used as a weapon to censor, nor can it be used to punish people (Chick-Fil-A) for innocent associations and/or a religious/cultural point of view that is 100% constitutionally protected.

The fact that the Academic Senate took the action it did tells us several things. The most obvious is what history has shown us time and time again, like most faculty and administrators, they do not know the IU Code of Conduct worth a darn and/or simply do not care what it says and wish to push their agenda because of malignant narcissism or blind hate for Christians (until one has spent some time on campus and realized what a warped and often subversive culture it is do not discount what I just said); or they are simply intellectually incapable of reading it for context and have taken a position that cannot withstand 10 minutes of intellectual scrutiny out of ignorance amplified by an unwillingness to challenge ones own assumptions (do not discount that one either as while many professors are well educated, many are rather poor critical thinkers).

Read carefully, and that goes double for you in Student Government, who are abusing it by utilizing it as a platform for partisan/divisive ideological ends, in a complete reversal of what student government’s mission is (and where is the student life director who should be helping student government protect itself from its own foolishness).

www.thefire.org:

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) reports today that Indiana University-Bloomington (IUB) has eliminated a policy that had prevented the Christian student group Impact Movement from receiving student activity fee funds to help pay for its attendance at a national conference. Previously, groups at IUB had been excluded from receiving funds for activities that involve “religious proselytizing” or for “sectarian events.”

According to ADF’s press release:

In December of last year, Impact Movement sought activity funding to send some of its members to its national conference. The university permits partial funding of conference attendance for members of registered student groups and had approved funding for Impact Movement in previous years. Nevertheless, the IU Student Association Funding Board denied Impact Movement’s request for 2010, citing the university’s Student Organization Funding Guidelines. The director of student activities upheld the decision.

ADF wrote to the university pointing out that such discrimination is unconstitutional, citing a recent United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decision in favor of a group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that had been similarly discriminated against.

We’re glad to see this reversal at IUB.

FIRE, meanwhile, continues to fight another unconstitutional funding policy in force at Northern Illinois University, which also falls under the Seventh Circuit’s jurisdiction. At NIU, all groups classified as “religious” or “political” in nature are prevented from receiving funds from student activity fees, while groups committed to “social justice” or “advocacy” are not. In light of the Supreme Court cases Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995) and Board of Regents v. Southworth (2000), and especially in light of the Seventh Circuit’s recent ruling in this area, NIU’s unconstitutional position on student group rights is thoroughly untenable, and the university would be wise to follow IUB’s example immediately.

Dr. Robert Stadler Voice Mail

Dr. Stadler of the publicly funded State Science Institute has something to say

Rearden Alloy = global warming. It is amazing how Ayn Rand had elite American Academia pegged so long ago.

If you had not seen Atlas Shrugged Part 1 it is showing at 2701 Cassopolis Street in Elkhart.

Dr. Victor Davis Hanson: A Kingdom of Lies

This is a must read from one of the greatest minds in the country today. Much of what we are told to believe are litle more than a pack of lies.

Dr. Hanson:

I am a subject in a kingdom of lies. At 57, I have grown up with decades of untruth — advanced for the purposes of purported social unity, the noble aim of egalitarianism, and the advancement of a cognitive elite in government, journalism, the arts, and the universities.

Alger Hiss really was a communist operative, albeit an elegant and snooty sort of one. The Rosenbergs were tag-team spies. Noble Laureate Rigoberta Menchu did not really write her own memoir. I admire the lives of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, even as I sensed there were large areas of their biographies that simply could not be disclosed and that the censorship was apparently for our own good. I know that if I did what Eliot Spitzer did I would not be hosting a TV show.

I did not quite know how “witch hunt” characterized the often disreputable tactics of Joe McCarthy — cruel and obnoxious were the better adjectives. You see, there were really communists in Hollywood at a time of a dangerous global cold war against communism, in a way there were never any witches at all in Salem.

But then for some reason I sensed that a murderous, camouflaged Fidel Castro killed more innocents than a murderous, gold-braided Augusto Pinochet. I accepted that we were to be silent about the former’s crimes since his ends were said to be good, while the latter’s crimes were for the bad — though economists of no particular political affiliations have shown that Chileans escaped poverty and dictatorship while Cubans were, and are still, plagued by both.

As far as Hollywood, goes, as I have said, I do not go to the cinema at all. The choices are meager. We can watch a George Clooney, Matt Damon, or Ben Affleck — multimillionaires all of mediocre talent — uncover some corporate or CIA conspiracy that threatens the environment (their employers and distributors are not corporate?), the non-white male, or global peace — or sit through yuppie crises whose double entendres and cute repartees are known mostly only to metrosexuals between New York and D.C., or from Malibu to Newport Beach. We are told they are films, but those too are lies; they are mere transcripts of the daily psychodramas of a privileged and bored class whose efforts are spent searching for global causes that might balance — as penance if you will — their own often angst-driven quests for influence, notoriety, and the material good life.

The media is our ministry of truth of the Oceania brand: one day Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, preventive detention, Predators, the Patriot Act, and Iraq were bad; then one day in January 2009 I woke up and heard of them not all. I then recognized that they were now either good or at least necessary — or perhaps sinister IEDs of a sort left behind by the nefarious Emmanuel Goldstein administration, now too dangerous to even touch.

The Goldstone Report, I thought when I first scanned it, was worse than most undergraduate research papers I have graded — and therefore I expected it to be praised by the international community. And it was until even the author, like the rare guilty undergraduate who confesses to plagiarism, wants his signature off the report. But then long ago I got used to Israel being damned by reporters, NGOs, and the UN and EU types as apartheidists, racists, imperialists, and Nazis in direct proportion to the fact that visitors to the Middle East usually prefer to go Israeli cafes, hotels, and hospitals. Reporting on the West Bank is a 10 AM-2 PM day job, with a commute back across the green line. Half a million Jews ethnically cleansed in the 1960s from Baghdad, Cairo, and Damascus were opportunists; half a million who fled to the West Bank twenty years earlier are still recently arrived refugees. But then I don’t know why Jerusalem is a divided city and Nicosia is not; or why the Kuril Islands or East Prussia are not similarly said to be “occupied”; or why the fence in Israel is worse than the fence in Saudi Arabia.

I have no idea whether invading in preemptive fashion an oil-producing, Arab Muslim country without congressional approval is an impeachable or humanitarian act — or both. You see, it depends, in the manner that Trotsky’s photo used to, and then did not used to, appear in the snapshots of the Soviet pantheon. I suppose the same is true about prisoner abuse. I remember traveling in Europe and seeing those eerie black Klan-like hoods and capes with all sort of French, Italian and German sloganeering about the atrocious sexual humiliation that took place at Abu Ghraib, but I imagine this summer there won’t be much about supposed transgressions in Afghanistan where civilians were supposed to have been executed rather than humiliated. Things just happen, I suppose, in wars after 2009 — like now in Libya too.

I also have a sense, although it has never been quite so ordered by the Ministry, that a nut burning a bible is either artistic expression or a proper antidote to centuries of repression and so to be either applauded or ignored; but a nut burning a Koran evokes decapitations and murder and does so quite understandably — although I am never told quite why. Does it involve liberal paternalism and condescension: millions of Muslim radicals are captives of emotion and ignorant and thus not “like us,”so we must create much different standards for “them” that we don’t apply to others? We as adults laugh when symbols of Christianity are defaced in thousands of incidents; they as children naturally and understandably kill when one Koran is burned by one silly wannabe minister? Or is the Ministry’s fear that when Christ is satirized in a cartoon, no bomb shows up at the editorial office; when Mohammed is so caricatured, two do — and that because reporters are said always to be brave and publishers principled we cannot just admit to that?

I think I also understand that the support for 11 million illegal aliens arriving here from Mexico without English, legality, or education is not fueled by tribal and ethnic chauvinism. I know that to suggest that extending immigration consideration to a new cadre of 11 million Koreans, Chinese, Africans, and Europeans with graduate degrees and capital would be racist to the core. The former group from Oaxaca is diverse, the latter from almost everywhere illiberal. I have seen those demonstrating for amnesty deprecate the U.S and its flag while championing Mexico, and I think I am supposed to understand that screaming at the country you wish to stay in, while singing praises for the country you do not makes perfect non-sense, in Humpty-Dumpty word fashion. And I know I am not supposed to say that, much less explain why millions flee here from a temperate and fertile south and not from an Arctic north.

I know that UC Berkeley is worried about diversity since blacks and Latinos are underrepresented (as are whites) while Asians are vastly “overrepresented.” And I think I understand how such proportional representation will eventually be achieved by various ministries, and all contrary to state law: the underrepresented whites will be assumed to be overrepresented, the Asians will be quietly and insidiously pruned back by considering “community service” in preference to grades and test scores, and far more African-Americans and Latinos will be admitted by rejecting unfair criteria such as meaningless grades and test scores — and that all this — not science or the humane arts — will be mostly the business of the architects of undergraduate education. The alternatives? They are too ghastly to contemplate. Just let things alone, and the underrepresented communities will decide on their own why they are not going to college in sufficient numbers, and take self-help measures to the degree they see it as a problem — or shrug and admit that the ministries are using archaic neo-Confederate racial criteria in a mixed-up, intermarried world where one needs a genealogist to plot one’s precise racial ancestry.

I think I have it right that conservative Republican white guys are selfish and greedy, and therefore a liberal Bill Gates or George Soros made their billions by enlightened, or green, or socially useful methods. Did BP and Goldman Sachs really favor Barack Obama? Will they again? Were Freddie and Fannie really looted by Clintonites? Did GE pay no taxes? Is there still a revolving door in Washington where a Robert Gibbs, of no discernible talent, or a Peter Orszag, who nearly wrecked the economy with massive deficit spending, are now poised to become progressive multimillionaires?

Is making millions from Facebook, or GM, or GE now fine in a way it is not from the Koch Brothers? Again, these are just the thoughts of someone trying to read between the lines of the Oceania censors. (So we are to think the Tea Partiers are the greedy reactionary and wealthy, and the millionaire donors targeted by the Obama reelection committee merely generous?)

I don’t know what “investments” and “stimulus” mean. Do any of you? I think they refer to borrowing over $500 billion for a particular green or mass transit project. But then I don’t know what “green” means either, and for that matter don’t know what is the difference between “global warming” and “climate change” — other than earthquakes and tsunamis sometimes count under the latter, as do cyclones and hail storms. I do know that when I go to the Sierra tomorrow to shovel 15 feet of March snow off a porch I am supposed to assume these last two record winters of heavy snowfall had something to do with climate change. After all, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu warned that 90% of the Sierra snow pack will one day disappear and my farm, like all the others, will blow away — and that apparently somehow, some way, sometimes too much snow is just part of that drying out process.

As far as ‘kinetic” and “man-caused disasters” and “overseas contingency operations,” I think they have something do with killing terrorists. I also assume those who do fight the bad guys do not employ such euphemisms, which are for our, not their, consumption. We, the administered to, live in a “downright mean” country; our administers go to Costa del Sol in summer and Vail in winter on the mean country’s dime.

In this kingdom of lies, this Oceania of the mind, I, a subject of the monarchy of untruth, navigate carefully, assuming what I read and see is simply not true — and cannot be said to be untrue. Last week at the Post Office, a rather well-dressed young man in line was explaining to me that he was wondering why his unemployment check had not come to his PO Box. And then he further offered that he is now negotiating, or rather hoping, for his unemployment to be extended beyond his second year. I smiled and said, “That’s wonderful, because I know you are not working off the books for cash, and I know you are looking for a job all day long, and I know that if your benefits ever end, you will not suddenly find work.”

The odd thing was that he laughed and thought those were lies too.