Right Wing Nation

I assume you want to add it in your sidebar, so open your sidebar.php file in your theme directory. See how the other items (archives, categories, etc.) are coded; often, they’re in list tags, so replicate the general structure.

Add the following code:

The CSS formatting for the calendar is in the classic theme directory (every Wordpress installation comes with the classic theme). Open it, copy all the calendar code to your stylesheet, then make whatever changes you want.

Do not put the calendar function call inside a loop!

Simple, eh?

I got this in a private email message, so I can’t link to it.

MEMO TO THE FAMILY CATS AND/OR DOGS

1. When I say move, it means go someplace else. It does not mean switch positions with each other so there are still two of you in the way.

2. The dishes on the floor are yours and contain your food. All other dishes are mine and contain my food. Please note: placing a paw print in the middle of my dinner does not stake your claim on it, nor do I find it aesthetically pleasing in any way.

3. The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Beating me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn’t help because I fall faster than you can run.

4. I cannot buy anything bigger than a king size bed. Locate your inner beast and remember that sleeping animals can actually curl up in a ball, so it is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible.

5. My CDs are not miniature Frisbees.

6. For the last time, humans like to use the bathroom alone. If by some miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it won’t help to claw, whine, meow, bite the knob, or get your paw under the edge and try to pull the door open. Trust me, I have been using the bathroom for years; canine or feline attendance is not mandatory.

7. When you see me asleep on the couch, it is not funny to make a sudden leap onto my stomach and drop a chew toy, bone or jingle ball on my crotch, no matter how much that makes other family members laugh.

8. Dog: Don’t think for a minute that making a sad face and whimpering pathetically will get you out of trouble when I find a puddle of pee on the carpet. The face and the whimpering only validate that you knew it was wrong when you did it.

9. Cat: My sitting down to bite into a juicy sandwich is not a signal
 for you to begin gagging loudly and then choke up the most disgusting
 hairball in history.

10. Dog and Cat: the proper order is kiss me, then go lick yourself. I
 CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

To pacify you, I have posted the following message on our front door:

MEMO TO NON-PET OWNING GUESTS

1. They live here; you don’t.

2. If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture.

3. I like them better than I like most people.

4. To you, it’s an animal. To me, it’s an adopted child who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and is speech-challenged.

5. Dogs and cats are better than kids: they eat less, are easier to train, usually come when called, don’t ask for money, never drive your car, don’t hang out with losers, don’t drink or smoke, don’t worry about the latest fashions, don’t wear your clothes, don’t need a gazillion dollars for college, and if they get pregnant you can sell the children.

I’ve blogged on this before, but there’s more to say (hat tip to Darren for the initial heads-up).

Imagine that you are a student in a mandatory course, Class 1. It is a high enrollment course, and a number of grad students are employed to teach it (in addition to faculty). All of your projects and exams are graded by programs (easy to do in an applied math course), so that there is no inconsistency across sections. You have, in addition to projects, a written and a practical midterm, and a written and a practical final. All of your numerical scores are kept on a central server, and at the end of the semester, you are assigned grades based on a strict 90-80-70-60 scale; your resulting letter grades are sent to your instructor, who is responsible for reporting them to the university. That whiny student who sits next to you and can’t be bothered to do much of anything in the class can’t go to the instructor and whine about not feeling well and get an A, as she has bragged about doing in other classes. Grading is as fair — and as standardized — as possible, and is entirely, wholly outcomes based. There is no partial credit given for how pretty you looked, or how much you did or did not contribute to the class.

If you learned the material and demonstrated that you learned it, you are rewarded. If you did not learn the material, or didn’t demonstrate that you learned it, you are not rewarded.

Now imagine that you are a student in another class, Class 2, where there are no standardized exams, where your instructor decided what grade you get based on his subjective standards. It is also a high enrollment course, and your whiny roommate is in another section of the same course (with a different instructor). You work hard, but your instructor just hands back assignments with a letter grade and next to no explanation for it. At the end of the semester, you end up with a C+, and your whiny roommate comes in and announces that her instructor just gave everybody As because they were such good kids.

Extreme, perhaps, but not uncommon (particularly in the humanities). Still, let’s propose a less extreme example. Your whiny roommate comes back to the room and tells you that even though she got nearly all low Cs on the assignments, she cried in the instructor’s office about being sexually abused when she was a child and he gave her an A. Or she comes in and says that despite the fact that she got low Cs on all her assignments, she got an A because she always talked in class and got many points for so-called class participation.

If you think that the latter example is fair, but the former is not, then you’re with the NEA and the education school groupies, the ones who are always yammering about having to “teach to the test.”

In Class 1, your grade reflects how well you mastered the material, and every student’s grade does so in exactly the same way. In Class 2, your grade reflects little other than what your instructor felt like giving you. In Class 1, your grade means something; in Class 2, your grade is meaningless.

In California, even the state board of education seems to be on the “teaching to the test” is awful page. Okay, I’m assuming the board of education is, because they wrote the high school exit exam, or at least okayed it.

The problem with the exit exam is that the math section is at its most difficult 8th grade material, and the English section, 9th grade material. It would be fine as a matriculation exam for high school, or an exit exam for junior high school, but is pointless as a high school exit exam.

After all, if in Class 1 our exams consisted of material only from the first two weeks of class, they wouldn’t be in any way useful. They would not tell us how well you mastered the class, just the first two weeks of class.

Yet — and sorry, but I just can’t get past this — some official body didn’t think this was a problem, and said, “sure, let’s use this test that tests 8th grade math skills and 9th grade English skills as our high school exit exam.”

I’m with the education moonbats on one thing: Throw out the exam. Replace it with one that tests through the whole curriculum of high school skills (I would not be with the education wackjobs on that one, btw).

It is pretty apparent that this exit exam was nothing more than politics, meant to make tax-paying voters believe that the schools would actually teach something besides gushy self-esteem exercises. It is equally apparent that there was no intention to change anything in the system.

The central issue is fairness — not that twisted, perverse meaning used by liberals, meaning equality of outcome at all costs, that “fairness” that is wholly unfair, but fairness as it is defined by rational human beings. Thousands of students who were given As in math and English classes cannot pass the exit exam. Giving those students As was unfair to them — wholly and utterly unfair. The school system cheated those students when it allowed teachers to hand out As like candy, and if their parents had any sense at all (which they do not), they would be suing the school districts and the state board of education because their children were cheated.

But it’s also unfair to those students who worked and earned the As they got. Overachievers are today’s n*gg*rs in the school system, despised by teachers who obsess on the so-called “disadvantaged” students. If their parents had any sense, they’d be suing the school system and the board of education for all the unearned As that were given out just to make little lazy Bobby feel better about himself.

It’s also unfair to the taxpayers who fund the school system (and I can’t believe that liberals are howling for even more money to be thrown away on the school system, after this). Anything but implementing a standardized grading system all instructors must use, in order to stop this trend of giving out As for nothing, is unfair. And if the taxpayers had any sense, they’d sue the school districts and the board of education.

I’m not opposed to funding education. I am, however, opposed to funding a failing education system, and the idea that more money will fix it. So far, more money has translated more often than not into more failure. Money is not the problem; PC educators (and yes, parents) are the problem. PC educators who couldn’t care less if students master material as long as they learn the PC party line and feel good about themselves, and parents who likewise couldn’t care less if their children learn the material and can’t be bothered to take an active role in their children’s education.

But this is California. The only people who are suing are doing so to force the school system to allow their underachieving kids to graduate. What a waste.

I said it once, and I’ll say it again: Teaching to the test is teaching to the curriculum. If you’re doing your job and teaching to the curriculum, you’re teaching to the test. If you’re not doing your job and teaching to the curriculum, you’re not teaching to the test. It’s every bit as simple as that, despite educators’ attempts to cloud it with faux complexity.

What is it about Presidents and the writers of 24? First, we had Palmer, that snivelling Clinton-clone who didn’t have the b*lls to make a decision and did nothing but spout liberal platitudes. Now, we have this panty-waisted, weaselly Logan — and worse, the VP who wants to declare martial law.

Don’t they have conservatives in the world of 24, or do they all work for CTU? Is there some reason the writers just cannot bring themselves to give us a President who governs by principles instead of talking points, and has the guts to make hard decisions and stand by them? Is there some reason we have to watch a President collaborate with terrorists?

Folks, this is what happens when liberal writers try to create what is essentially a conservative show.

it is entertaining to see the moonbats’ heads explode, over at the Scoop Your Uterus Out Daily Kos …

The Washington Times reports:

There are more than 50 black Republicans running for federal, statewide and local offices this year, with more announcing candidacies daily, like Ada M. Fisher, who last week announced she will challenge Rep. Melvin Watt, a Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, in North Carolina’s 12th District

I blogged about this before, but thanks to Swannblog, realized there was one major race I had not known about:

The GOP is represented by African Americans in four major races this fall: Ken Blackwell for governor of Ohio, Keith Butler for U.S. Senate from Michigan, Michael Steele for the U.S. Senate from Maryland, and Lynn Swann for governor of Pennsylvania. Matt Lewis of The Right Angle (the Human Events Online blog) ranks them, he writes, “based solely on my opinion regarding the candidates’ odds of being elected,” and Lynn Swann comes in third, ahead of only Butler.

So let’s update that map:

I know I’m going to take heat for this, but I have a very hard time trying to work up sympathy for these peacenik idiots who have been taken hostage. It’s like a bunch of PETA morons who decide to swim with sharks, then get eaten.

I just can’t work up a lot of sympathy. Actually, I can’t work up any sympathy.

I don’t want them to get beheaded, and if they are, well, these “insurgents” are savages. But I’ll save my concern for the men and women who are over there fighting, instead of these useful idiots who go over there to support the terrorists, thanks.

No doubt you’ve seen that South Dakota has banned abortion, and several other states are following suit.

I’ve been reading blogs about this South Dakota story as it has developed, and wondered if I was living in an alternate universe, or something. Then, I saw this morning that the Captain lives in the same universe I do (what a relief):

Without a doubt, the Supreme Court will not be able to avoid the reconsideration of Roe, as it has in the past. Legislatures and Congress have nibbled at the edges for thirty-three years, allowing the court to mostly avoid the direct question of judicial overstepping in 1973. These legislatures are betting that a direct challenge will not allow the court to avoid the controversy any longer. However, it remains to be seen whether this court will actually reverse Roe. Even the most optimistic votecounters predict no better than a 5-4 split, and the terms of the South Dakota law — which makes no exception for rape or incest — could be enough to tip even this court against the legislatures.

The anti-Roe activists are playing with fire; a loss at the Supreme Court could reinforce the precedent even further. However, it is clear that this battle will have to be fought at some point, and they’re betting that this court will at least be open to the argument that Roe has no basis in law or constitution and should be voided. Let’s hope the court can at least agree on that much.

Exactly. South Dakota and the other states are more than just playing with fire; they risk giving Roe more support. There is still a liberal majority on the SCOTUS, and if they do succeed in forcing the SCOTUS to re-evaluate Roe, it’s almost certain that the SCOTUS will re-affirm it.

The problem, of course, is that once re-affirmed, Roe becomes even more difficult to repeal down the road.

Bad idea, South Dakota. You should have waited until we had a constructionist majority, but it’s too late now.

Since I was watching Fox News and saw the “this just in” announcement about the SCOTUS upholding the Solomon Amendment, I would have blogged about it — except that I had no internet connection.

AcademicElephant says:

As I have argued before, I believe that at its heart, FAIR’s case is neither about free speech nor gay rights. It is about a group of radical law professors who loathe the Bush administration, and want to express their displeasure and effect military policy through this law suit (if successful, FAIR’s case would have severely limited the ability of the government to recruit soldiers among their target pool of 18-24 year-olds).

True, though aging hippie hatred of the military is the prime target. However:

Needless to say, the losing parties view this as a victory for the forces of oppression, and the press is largely reflecting their opinion. To wit, Gina Holland of the AP got this story so wrong that it is laughable. Her article entitled “Colleges must accept military recruiters” begins:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that the government can force colleges to open their campuses to military recruiters despite university objections to the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays.

It pains me to take the side of the AP, but Holland was closer to correct than AcademicElephant believes:

So thorough was the court’s rejection of FAIR’s arguments that it ruled Congress could have achieved equal access not only indirectly, by threatening a funding cutoff, but also directly, through legislation based on its constitutional power to raise military forces. In fact, the court suggested in passing, even colleges and universities that do not receive any federal funding could be compelled by Congress to allow military recruiters.

“Congress’s power in this area is broad and sweeping,” Roberts wrote, “and there is no dispute in this cases that it includes the authority to require campus access to military recruiters.”

Indeed. So today or tomorrow, I’m writing to my Congresscritters to request that they pass legislation requiring all schools to allow military recruiters.

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