Thanks to Cam Edwards for pointing me to these examples of wacked out animal rights moonbattery. The first is just more of the usual animal rights stupidity:

POLICE have warned fish farmers to increase their security after 15,000 halibut were released from their cages in an attack believed to have been carried out by animal rights activists.

Thousands of dead fish are being washed up along the west coast of Scotland after the raid at Kames Marine Fish Farm, near Oban. The perpetrators are thought to have attacked last week. Detectives believe that the attack could be linked to a spate of other farm attacks throughout the country. The letters ALF (Animal Liberation Front) were spray-painted near by.

The loss is estimated to have cost the fish farm at least £500,000 as boats, cranes and offices were also vandalised. The halibut died from starvation or getting caught in seaweed. They were also being eaten by herring gulls and otters.

The fish farmer, who did not wish to be identified, said: “They claim they liberated them into the sea but sadly, as we all know, farmed animals, whether they are fish or any animals, don’t survive unless they are looked after.

And indeed, why would a bunch of spoiled upper middle class brats know anything about animals? Idiots.

However, the second is, well, I’m not sure what:

A fire that killed more than two-dozen exotic snakes, frogs, fish, and other reptiles in a Cambridge pet shop Wednesday night was deliberately set, perhaps by the person who spray-painted the message “No more exploitation of animals” on the store front, fire officials said yesterday.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re correct. Left-wingers have no respect for private property rights. But the fire was started with the animals still in the store:

Store owner Dianne San Filippo took offense at the message. “One of our largest snakes was found melted in his tank,” she said, standing outside her gutted store yesterday morning. “Is that kind of death better than exploitation? I don’t think so.”

[ . . . ]

“This case is peculiar, because there is no evidence any animals were freed, which is certainly contradictory to that message,” Cambridge Fire Captain Gerry Mahoney said. “It’s cause for alarm, because usually animal rights groups attempt to set the animals free.”

So what were these wackos thinking?

from the press conference with Karzai:

SEC. RUMSFELD: Yes?

Q Mr. Secretary, on Capitol Hill today, again, there were several retired generals who called for your resignation. Are you considering resigning at all . . .

SEC. RUMSFELD: No.

Hat tip: Elephants in Academia

Is Zawahiri getting ready to run for the Democrats (video)?

It seems it’s not just the UN Peacekeepers who need nice frilly lingerie; so do the Canuck border guards:

VANCOUVER — Dozens of federal border guards at several Canada-U.S. crossings in B.C. walked off the job yesterday, creating lengthy waits to get into Canada.

About 60 guards with the Canada Border Services Agency left their posts at four crossings in the Lower Mainland because of what they claimed to be a threat to their personal security.

CTV News reported the action by the guards occurred after Homeland Security officials in the U.S. told the RCMP that a suspected killer from California, who should be considered armed and dangerous, might try to cross the Canadian border.

The RCMP informed the border guards, who walked off first at B.C.’s Huntington crossing shortly after 2 p.m. Guards at three other crossings joined them.

Canada’s border guards are unarmed and have the right to walk off the job if they believe they are in danger. The guards exercised that right.

Or how about this?

While Labadie was undergoing secondary inspection, a computer check revealed that he had been involved in a prior incident involving an assault on officers during an inspection, Lehman said. Customs and Border Protection Officer Edward Escobar, who was present at the first incident, was called in.

When Escobar informed Labadie “that he did not believe he was a bona fide visitor for pleasure,” Labadie took exception.

“Under what authority do you have to send me back?” court documents quote Labadie asking. When Labadie was told to take a seat, he refused and asked Escobar “in a threatening manner, ‘Do you want me to put you on your ass again like last time?’ “

I’m thinking some nice Victoria Secret. Very frilly, perhaps lace. Satin works too.

is from Small Dead Animals:

The next time Arabs and/or Muslims complain about the persecution they suffer at the hands of the Americans and Israelis, remember this…

Since 1948, the number of Muslims killed by the Americans and Israelis combined is still less than the number killed by the French. And the number of Muslims killed by the French, Israelis, and Americans combined is still less than the number killed by the Soviets/Russians. And the number of Muslims killed by the Soviets, Russians, French, Israelis, and Americans, combined, is still about 1/3 of the number of Muslims who have been killed by Muslim states.

I got this from Bullwinkle Blog:

after yesterday’s list of politicians who voted against all four private property protection bills, here are the Democrats who voted for the military tribunals bill, courtesy of Big Lizards:

Tom Carper (DE, 90%)
Tim Johnson (SD, 95%)
Mary Landrieu (LA, 95%)
Frank Lautenberg (NJ, 100%)
Joe Lieberman (CT, 80%)
Robert Menendez (NJ, 100%)
Ben Nelson (NE, 55%)
Bill Nelson (FL, 80%)
Mark Pryor (AR, 90%)
John “Jay” Rockefeller (WV, 100%)
Ken Salazar (CO, 100%)
Debbie Stabenow (MI, 100%)

From ¡No Pasaran!, the latest on UN Peacekeepers:

They cannot set up checkpoints. They cannot search cars or homes or businesses. They cannot detain suspects. If they see a truck transporting missiles for example, they cannot stop it. And they cannot staff check points with the Lebanese Army because they do not know each others procedures.

I’m going to set up a Panty Fund for the UN Peacekeepers. We’ll collect lingerie and send them to the Peacekeeper forces.

Fmragtops has a new troll to kick around. This troll:

I can’t speak the truth in Amerika, Bush is moving to allow torture of political dissidents, and the government, and government sponsored JUDEOCORPORATIONS own 99 percent of Amerika.

I was going to jump in, but I just couldn’t top this response from Steve the Pirate:

Dude, go give Howard Dean a call. Maybe you can get a position on a Democratic policy committee.

The troll calls himself Amalek Prepares For War. Wackjobs are so cute.

Courtesy of the Club for Growth, here are the politicians who voted against all four private property bills to counter Kelo:

Case (HI-02)
Dingell (MI-15)
Jackson (IL-02)
Levin (MI-12)
Lowey (NY-18)
McDermott (WA-07)
Miller (NC-13)
Moran (VA-08)
Nadler (NY-08)
Pastor (AZ-04)
Rothman (NJ-09)
Stark (CA-13)
Waxman (CA-30)
Wynn (MD-04)

Guess which party all of them belong to? Go ahead, guess.

Remember when spam used to make sense? Yes, it was annoying, but at least you knew what they were trying to sell. These days, more often than not, spam makes no sense at all. I get all kinds of spam that is nothing but meaningless strings of characters. And sometimes, it has, well, just weird subject lines which are the only English in the message.

The most recent example, which I just deleted, had this subject line: Loathsome message from Destiny!

Forget the fact that the body of the message was nothing but garbled strings. Loathsome message? That’s supposed to entice me in some way?

Go figure.

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Education — when it comes to curriculum — is unaffected by normal market pressures. Certainly, if, say, you have two courses, the first a prerequisite for the second, both taught by the same department, and the faculty member who teaches the second course complains to the faculty member teaching the first that there is something he’s not covering sufficiently, the second faculty member will usually comply. Why? Three reasons. First, the first course is a prerequisite for the second, so whoever teaches the first course is professionally obligated to consider the concerns of whoever teaches the second course. Second, the two faculty members work in the same department together and must maintain a good working relationship. And third, usually, the higher level course you teach, the more power you have (lower-level courses are usually consigned to junior faculty or adjuncts).

Or take a business school, which is very sensitive to the input of recruiters. Why? Because a business school stands or falls by its placement. If businesses do not hire a business school’s graduates, the business school will die.

Other than those two, I can think of no examples where curriculum is in any way affected by market pressures, but I can think of plenty of examples where curriculum is deaf to market pressures.

For many, many years, university faculty loudly and continually complained that first-year composition classes taught by English departments were not teaching students academic writing, the skills they needed for all those other classes. English departments just went on what they were doing, having students write “reflections” and personal essays and responses to literature, because they didn’t care what faculty from outside the departments thought.

Eventually, universities across the country did “deal” with the situation, by setting up WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs to administer first-year composition courses. It wasn’t a solution, however, because the same tone-deaf faculty who administered the courses in English departments were appointed to those WAC programs, so students still learn no academic writing in first-year composition programs, and faculty complain just as loudly and continually.

Or let’s take universities and secondary schools. University faculty have been complaining quite loudly for many, many years that incoming students did not have the basic knowledge or skills for the university classroom. If market pressures had any effect, secondary schools would have responded by focusing more on the knowledge and skills students lacked. But they did not. If anything, secondary schools over the years have prepared students less well in terms of basic knowledge and skills.

Certainly, oblivion is part of the problem. In this article, I discussed the disturbing results of a Chronicle of Higher Education study, which found a rather frightening disconnection between university faculty and secondary school teachers (actually, you may want to read the whole thing; it’s pretty interesting):

Math:
83% high school teachers
36% university faculty

(That is, 83% of high school teachers felt students were either somewhat or very well prepared for college with respect to math skills, but only 36% of university faculty did.)

Writing:
85% high school teachers
53% university faculty

Reading:
82% high school teachers
58% university faculty

Research skills:
79% high school teachers
46% university faculty

Here are some more interesting results: 52% of university faculty feel that outcomes-based testing has either a slight or substantial positive impact on how well students are prepared for the university classroom, while 58% of high school teachers feel that test items do not relfect the demands expected in college. Yet 62% of high school teachers said they only somewhat understood the level of preparation colleges expect, and 31% said they did not understand at all what colleges expect.

And that leads us to the painfully obvious — and somewhat disturbing — question.

If you don’t know what colleges expect, then how do you know whether test items do or do not reflect what colleges expect?

The answer is that these educrats are agenda-driven, and are unaffected by and apathetic to what universities may or may not expect. There are no market pressures, because educrats perceive themselves in a bubble in which what they do is unrelated to what other teachers or faculty may do.

In “Educating School Teachers,” Arthur Levine reports:

WASHINGTON – September 18, 2006 – Despite growing evidence of the importance of quality teaching, the vast majority of the nation’s teachers are prepared in programs that have low admission and graduation standards and cling to an outdated vision of teacher education, concludes a new four-year study authored by Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and former president of Teachers College, Columbia University.

The report, Educating School Teachers, released today by the Education Schools Project, identifies several model programs but finds that most education schools are engaged in a “pursuit of irrelevance,” with curriculums in disarray and faculty disconnected from classrooms and colleagues. These schools have “not kept pace with changing demographics, technology, global competition, and pressures to raise student achievement,” the study says.

A majority of teacher education alumni (61 percent) reported that schools of education did not prepare graduates well to cope with the realities of today’s classrooms, according to a national survey conducted for the study. School principals also gave teacher education programs low grades, with fewer than one-third of those surveyed reporting that schools of education prepare teachers very well or moderately well to address the needs of students with disabilities (30 percent), a diverse cultural background (28 percent) or limited English proficiency (16 percent).

Further, fewer than half of principals reported that education school alumni are very well or moderately well prepared to use technology in instruction (46 percent); use student performance assessment techniques (42 percent); or implement curriculum and performance standards (41 percent).

“Teacher education is the Dodge City of the education world,” says Levine, noted author and scholar of higher education. “Like the fabled Wild West town, it is unruly and chaotic. There is no standard approach to where and how teachers should be prepared, and the ongoing debate over whether teaching is a profession or a craft has too often blurred the mission of education schools that are uncertain whether to become professional schools or continue to be grounded in the more academic world of arts and sciences.”

This may very well be part of why educrats are so oblivious and apathetic to the concerns and needs of other educators. Ed schools, despite what may be popular opinion, do not train teachers (this is the thesis of Levine’s report). Ed schools are not professional schools, like law or medical schools. Ed schools are, as I said before, moonbat hatcheries, where “theory” (that’s in the humanities perversion of the term, where anything can be called a theory, and anything called a theory usually has no evidentiary basis at all) is the focus of the curriculum, and not practice. Educrats exist in their own little world of “theory,” and ed schools train their students to likewise live in the same fantasy world. Teachers come out of ed schools truly believing that knowledge is obsolete, and that instead, students need to learn “critical thinking,” even though none of those teachers can give you an example of said “critical thinking,” or define it for you.

But whatever the reason, as long as educrats hold all the power in our nation’s education, nothing is going to change, no matter how much choice parents have.

Neither the left nor the right is going to be happy with me for writing this, but it can’t be helped. It’s time for a serious reality check — make that a hard slap in the face.

First let’s get this out of the way, so I can’t be falsely accused later on. I strongly support both vouchers and homeschooling, because choice is everything. I also support national testing for all students, though that will never happen.

Those, like John Stossel or the vouchers proponents, who believe that if parents had the choice of schools, the free market would improve education are grossly mistaken. It’s an understandable idea, but it shows a lack of knowledge about the educration bureaucracy — a lack of knowledge that is also understandable. As reasonable as most educrats sound to your average layman, it’s not obvious how nutty they are, how agenda-driven they are, or how firmly entrenched in the power structure they are.

Like I said, I support choice. I suspect, however, that if one did a nationwide study of public, charter, and private schools, looking at what happens in the classroom as well as test scores, one would find relatively little variance. Certainly, there are schools that are better than others, but overall, schools are pretty much the same.

Schools are pretty much the same precisely because it isn’t only the school that makes a difference; it’s also the teachers. And when teachers come out of ed schools which are thinly disguised moonbat hatcheries and all indoctrinate their students — the teachers in those schools — about “broad context” and “critical thinking” and sneer at “rote learning,” you can’t expect there to be a significant difference between schools. A moonbat teacher is a moonbat teacher, whether he’s burning flags in a St. Dominic Catholic classroom or a District Seventeen classroom.

But the educrat bureaucracy is much more than just ed schools, or the problem would be relatively easy to solve. The bureaucracy includes the Dept of Ed, federal and state, textbook publishers (or at least those they hire to write and edit textbooks), and everybody’s favorite, teachers’ unions — which are not unions, because they represent government employeees and are therefore government institutions with power just like any other government institution.

Educrats hold all the power, whether the school is private, public, or charter. And the source of all the problems in education today come directly from the educration bureaucracy.

No, even with vouchers, there will be no true, free market in education. There will be a severely constricted market, at least until schools start deliberately hiring teachers who do not drink the Dewey kool-aid. And that won’t happen until there are schools that aren’t being run by educrats that don’t drink the Dewey kool-aid. So while I support vouchers, I don’t believe for a second that vouchers — choice — will make a significant difference in the quality of education.

Anyway, that’s My Word (TM John Gibson)

Thanks to Right on the Left Coast and Cam Edwards for this story:

Colleges accused of failing civics test
Cal, Stanford get poor grades in study
Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Seniors at UC Berkeley, the nation’s premier public university, got an F in their basic knowledge of American history, government and politics in a new national survey, while students at Stanford University didn’t do much better, getting a D.

Out of 50 schools surveyed, Cal ranked 49th and Stanford 31st in how well they are increasing student knowledge about American history and civics between the freshman and senior years. And they’re not alone among major universities in being fitted for a civics dunce cap.

Other poor performers in the study were Yale, Duke, Brown and Cornell universities. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore was the tail-ender behind Cal, ranking 50th. The No. 1 ranking went to unpretentious Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn.

The study was conducted by the University of Connecticut’s department of public policy and the nonprofit education organization Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Researchers sampled 14,000 students at 50 schools, large and small.

The aim was to determine how well the colleges are teaching their students the basics of government, politics and history — the bedrocks of good citizenship.

However tempted I might be to think, “What do you expect, with the left-wing horseshit most history faculty are shoving down their students’ throats?” I call bullshit on this “study.”

Here are the Bachelor’s degree requirements from one major research university. The requirements specify how many credit hours you must complete, how many of those hours must be in your major and the College, and what GPA you must maintain. The university also specifies distributional requirements, that is, it requires you to take a certain number of courses from specific categories:

So in order to graduate with a BA or BS, you must complete, with a minimum grade of C, twelve credit hours of “Social and Historical Studies” courses. Note that not a single history course is required for a BA or BS; this is a crucial distinction. “Social and Historical Studies” comprises a whole range of departmental courses, and not just (or even mainly) history. You could take sociology courses, for example, or geography courses. I have some 230+ credit hours of university courses under my belt, and I did not take one history course after I graduated from high school.

The results of this “study” aren’t surprising or shocking. Few universities require history courses per se, unless you happen to be majoring in history. And considering that many of these “distributional credit” courses are the academic equivalent of recess, these are the courses most students take — and not the ones with substance.

And when did it become the university’s job — and not the primary and secondary school’s — to teach good citizenship?

Remember this New York nanny-state nonsense?

Three years after the city banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids.

The city health department unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would bar cooks at any of the city’s 24,600 food service establishments from using ingredients that contain the artery-clogging substance, commonly listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated oil.

Contrast that with this news from the Trib-Review:

County Solicitor R. Mark Gesalman said that under the state’s Clean Indoor Air statute of 1988, most local governments are pre-empted by Pennsylvania law from adopting any ordinances that prohibit smoking in public areas such as restaurants and bars.

I think I’ll stay in Pennsylvania.

Crossposted from Stop The ACLU:

In case you haven’t heard, a group of dissenters from the ACLU are rebelling and calling for a change in the current leadership of the main organization. The summary of things this new group is fed up with is hypocrisy and the ACLU is full of it. Purging the ACLU of its hypocrisy is bound to be a goliath task.

Where do we even begin with the ACLU’s hypocrisy? How about its odd stance on the Second Amendment? They have decided that the term “the people” that is contained in the Second Amendment does not apply to “the people” as it does in all of the other rights contained in the Bill of Rights. They defend even the most radical in free speech for individuals, but somehow have adopted the opposite position on the Second Amendment. Surely it couldn’t be that the Second Amendment doesn’t fall within the boundaries of their liberal agenda! Could it?

In August of 2005 the New York ACLU sued against random bag searches on the NY Subway. Ironically the NYCLU HQ has a sign warning visitors that all bags are subject to search.

The ACLU have fought tooth and nail against the Bush administration’s NSA program, a program designed to track international phone calls being made to or from suspected terrorist organizations. They have hailed themselves defenders of the right to privacy and labelled the program an illegal “secret” program of “domestic spying”. All the while the ACLU has its own “secret ” program of domestic spying of its own members and their personal financial information. This program has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with the real bottom line of fundraising. Former ACLU board member Michael Myers was shocked at this discovery.

The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has ignited a bitter debate over its leaders’ commitment to privacy rights.

Some board members say the extensive data collection makes a mockery of the organization’s frequent criticism of banks, corporations and government agencies for their practice of accumulating data on people for marketing and other purposes.

The group’s new data collection practices were implemented without the board’s approval or knowledge and were in violation of the ACLU’s privacy policy at the time, according to Michael Meyers, vice president of the organization and a frequent internal critic. He said he had learned about the new research by accident Nov. 7 during a meeting of the committee that is organizing the group’s Biennial Conference in July.

He objected to the practices, and the next day, the privacy policy on the group’s Web site was changed. “They took out all the language that would show that they were violating their own policy,” Meyers said. “In doing so, they sanctified their procedure while still keeping it secret.”

After spending 23 years on the ACLU board, the “defenders of free speech” issued gag orders to him, not to speak about the issue. Now thats free speech for you.

When it comes to free speech the ACLU claim to be its most steadfast defender. Now, I am not an absolutist on unlimited free speech. However, most people would think that an organization arguing for hate cults to protest with “God Hates Fags” signs at military funerals, neo nazis to march through Jewish neighborhoods, and that child porn distribution is protected by the First Amendment are about as absolutist as it gets. Not so!

When it comes to pro-life protesters the ACLU could care less about their free speech rights. As a matter of fact they actively fight against pro-life protesters’ free speech and have even tried RICO lawsuits on them. It is scary to see just how far the ACLU will go for its unrestricted abortion agenda. Free speech definitely takes a backseat to their pro-abortion agenda. They have even listed it as their number one priority pushing the defense of the First Amendment, the alleged heart and soul of the ACLU’s mission, down to third on the list, after civil rights.

But don’t just take my word for it, listen to the words of a former Execuitve Director:

The right to express unpopular opinions, advocate despised ideas and display graphic images is something the ACLU has steadfastly defended for all of its nearly 80-year history.

But the ACLU, a group for which I proudly worked as executive director of the Florida and Utah affiliates for more than 10 years, has developed a blind spot when it comes to defending anti-abortion protesters. The organization that once defended the right of a neo-Nazi group to demonstrate in heavily Jewish Skokie, Ill., now cheers a Portland, Ore., jury that charged a group of anti-abortion activists with $107 million in damages for expressing their views. Gushed the ACLU’s press release: “We view the jury’s verdict as a clarion call to remove violence and the threat of violence from the political debate over abortion.”

Were the anti-abortion activists on trial accused of violence? No. Did they threaten violence? Not as the ACLU or Supreme Court usually defines it, when in the context of a call for social change.

The activists posted a Web site dripping with animated blood and titled “The Nuremberg Files,” after the German city where the Nazis were tried for their crimes. Comparing abortion to Nazi atrocities, the site collected dossiers on abortion doctors, whom they called “baby butchers.” …

This is ugly, scary stuff. But it is no worse than neo-Nazi calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people, or a college student posting his rape fantasies about a fellow coed on the Web, both of which the ACLU has defended in the past.

Defending NAMBLA to print material advocating for sex between grown men and boys is the definition of defending “robust freedom of speech” in the ACLU’s book, but defending people’s right to protest against killing the unborn somehow fails to make the list.

But the hypocrisy does not end there. When it comes to protecting religious expression the ACLU has proven itself to be number one in America’s religious censors. They have consistently shown themselves to be hostile towards Christianity in particular. When the Tangipahoa Parish School Board in Louisiana opened its board meetings with a prayer like they had for 30 years the ACLU sued. After the ACLU won that case and the School Board ignored the court ruling, Louisiana ACLU chief Joe Cook called for them to be jailed and compared them to terrorists. Mr. Cook is currently leading an attack on plan for a Katrina memorial paid for with private funds to be errected on private land simply because it is in the shape of a cross and might offend some sensitive passerby. When valedictorian of Foothill High, Brittany McComb, decided to share her faith voluntarily at her graduation cermony the ACLU said it was the right call to pull the plug. Currently when the ACLU wins a case from attacking religious expression it is awarded attorneys fees, often in the millions, at the expense of the American taxpayer. The U.S. House of Representatives recognized this abuse and passed the Public Expression Of Religion Act to put a stop to it. However, the threats and abuse will continue however if we can’t convince the Senate to pass this as well.

But the hypocrisy goes even further. The ACLU’s disdain for free speech outside of its agenda extends beyond Christians and pro-lifers to its own dissenting members. Very recently the ACLU attempted to put forth a policy restricting the free speech of its own members.

Natt Hentoff, another former ACLU board member, was incredulous.

“For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members — I can’t think of anything more contrary to the reason the A.C.L.U. exists.”

After a huge controversy, media coverage, and public concern of the NY Attorney General’s office the ACLU dropped the proposal. Instead they switched to more effective measures of replacing or voting out the members that were not in line with their agenda.

When it comes to principles the ACLU has none other than lining their pocketbooks and furthering their own liberal agenda. As I said at the beggining of the article, cleansing the ACLU of hypocrisy will be a mammoth task. I don’t think its possible. I’m more hopeful that their own greed and corruption will eat them from the inside. I think we are beggining to see the cracks and hopefully enough light will shine through them to wake people up to the truth.

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

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“How do we reason with them [Borg], show them we pose no threat?”

What a panty-waist.

What could be more predictable?

Three years after the city banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids.

The city health department unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would bar cooks at any of the city’s 24,600 food service establishments from using ingredients that contain the artery-clogging substance, commonly listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated oil.

Dear health department,

What part of “Mind your own business” don’t you understand?

Ryan at Edspresso pointed me to this article, and all I have to say is when the author begins with a non sequitur, you know it’s not going to be pretty. In the pursuit of classroom alchemy:

I’m beginning my 20th year of teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and if I’ve learned anything, it is that good teaching cannot be measured quantitatively.

In the first sentence, he has set up a straw man. Good teaching isn’t meausred quantitatively; student learning is measured quantitatively. If he’s confused about the difference, that doesn’t say much for the intellectual capacities of teachers, particularly if he’s been teaching for twenty years — and neither does anything else he writes.

No doubt, you’re thinking, “He’s going to start ranting about evil testing,” and you’re quite correct (educrats and liberals are so predictable):

Every year, we hear administrators crowing or politicians moaning over student test scores as if these numbers were indisputable indicators of teaching excellence, mediocrity or failure.

Well no. Let’s try this once again: tests measure student learning. Student learning and teacher performance are not the same thing, though there is a relationship between the two. Still, test scores do not directly reflect teacher performance.

Predictably for an educrat, he has to make a statement for which there is no evidence whatsoever:

In fact, test scores (on the annual standardized state test) are like the closing prices on the stock exchange. They fluctuate for any number of reasons. A bad breakfast, a case of the jitters or skipping a line and filling in the wrong bubbles can wreak as much havoc as not knowing the difference between “abjure” and “adjure.”

There is absolutely no evidence that breakfast or any other incidental factor has a statistically significant effect on test scores. None. But this is a favorite myth of educrats.

Likewise, teaching to the test can inflate scores but, given no context, all this random information is seldom retained. As a result, evaluating a teacher based solely on student test scores is like evaluating a corporation based solely on just one day’s stock price.

And based on this myth, for which there is no evidence, he steps into another educrat cowpie: Teaching to the test. If your curriculum and the test match — which indeed they should, or something needs to be changed — teaching the curriculum is teaching to the test. Then he throws out another load of manure, with, “all this random information is seldom retained.” First, the information isn’t random if the teacher is doing his job. Second, the information is retained, provided that it is reinforced over and over and over again. There is evidence for that.

Then there’s the teacher evaluation/testing relationship he keeps mistakenly making. I’ve evaluated teachers. I’ve sat in on their classes, given them input on their teaching methods, and no, their students’ test scores are not a direct indicator of their quality as teachers. But if, as this author apparently has, one teaches for twenty years, and has a solid record of low student test scores, then yes, there’s a problem — a problem with the teacher and his methods, not the test, and not NCLB.

But he’s on a roll:

If you really want to evaluate a teacher, you have to walk into a classroom, sit down and listen. I’m convinced that when you’re listening to good teaching, you hear a familiar refrain. It goes like this: What is the connection between… and… ? So much of good teaching is about taking strands of information and looking for connections and broadening the context.

Educrats just can’t keep from throwing out meaningless statements, like, “broadening the context.” Overgeneralized, undefined, and obfuscatory, it’s sole purpose here is to make him sound like he has some authority.

Endless test preparation has the opposite effect. It shrinks the context. It reduces inquiry. It mitigates against Socratic dialogue and can drain much of the passion from teaching and learning.

Again, a meaningless, vague, and undefined statement — plus, “test preparation” isn’t what the classroom is for. Learning is what the classroom is for. Tests accurately and objectively measure how well students have mastered the material.

If we can get beyond the notion of schools as testing factories, then teachers will have the freedom to strive for a higher standard of excellence

We have been hearing this for over twenty years, yet the high schools year after year do a poorer job of preparing students for the university — because instead of teaching the material, they’re worried about “context” and “creativity” and “critical thinking” and other such nonsense. That’s precisely why we don’t take high school GPAs seriously, and look to SATs instead.

The challenge for teachers is to build on that foundation, to encourage students to seek connections between, say, fractions and percentages,

No, it is not, not until those students have thoroughly mastered fractions and percentages — and that means in their heads, without calculators. Until they have that knowledge, all the “connections” and “context” and “critical thinking” is pure equine manure.

Let us worry about their “critical thinking.” You in the high schools, have your students master the knowledge they need before they can think meaningfully about anything.

I sent this letter today to Dole, Frist, Specter, Santorum, and Ken Mehlman.

Dear Senators Dole, Frist, Santorum and Specter, and Chairman Mehlman:

Sincerely,

I got this on a mailing list, so no URL:

A Few Things The Police Would Like You to Know

Dear Citizen:

Your 5 year old kid getting pushed down by another 5 year old kid is NOT a police matter; talk to the other kid’s parents, not the police.

If your kid won’t do his homework or do his chores, 911 is not the answer.

If a cop causes a car accident we usually get a ticket, and sometimes we get suspended. When is the last time you got 3 days off (without pay) for rear-ending a guy at Wal-Mart?

We know you’ve had more than two beers. When I’ve had two beers, I didn’t hit six parked cars, drive my car through the front doors of a Toys-R-Us, pee my pants or pass out at a traffic light.

When you see an emergency vehicle behind you with its lights and sirens on, pull to the RIGHT, and stop. We are usually required to pass cars on the left.

When you’re driving in the fast lane and you see a cop behind you, don’t go 5 MPH under the speed limit. We are not impressed by how safe of a driver you can be, we’re trying to go help someone (or catch that guy in that SUV that just cut you off). Safely move over and let us pass please.

If we park our cruiser across the road with lights flashing, don’t ask if the road is closed or if there is an accident, just take an alternate route and DON’T DRIVE AROUND US!

If you get a warning instead of a ticket from a motorcycle cop, go buy a lottery ticket, because you’ve already beaten the odds.

When you see an officer conducting a traffic stop, or with a suspect in handcuffs, it is generally not a good idea to approach him and ask for directions. If you do, don’t expect the officer to be nice when he tells you to get lost, and don’t expect the officer to take the time to explain.

Here’s how to get out of a ticket…..DON’T BREAL THE LAW!

If you drive a piece of crap, that is why you’re getting pulled over.

In one week I pulled over 10 cars for minor traffic violations. 5 out of 10 had no vehicle insurance. 3 out of 10 had suspended driver’s licenses. 2 out of 10 had warrants. 1 out of 10 had felony warrants. 1 was a known sex offender with his 12 year old niece in the car without her mother’s knowledge.

If you’ve just been pulled over doing 70 in a 35, do not greet the officer with, “What seems to be the problem, officer?”

We get coffee breaks too.

When you’re the victim of a burglary, take the time you spend waiting for the officer to find the model number and the serial number of the stuff that was taken.

Some cops are just jerks, but take heart in the fact that other cops don’t like them either.

If it’s night time and you’re driving a vehicle with tinted windows and I pull you over, it’s not because of your skin color. I usually can’t tell if the vehicle even has a driver until the window’s rolled down.

Every time you hear on the news about people running away from a crazed gunman, someone’s son or daughter in a police uniform is running TOWARD that crazed gunman.

Yes, it’s true, cops usually don’t give other cops tickets. Think of it as an employee discount, perk or benefit. Other cops are family and you wouldn’t give your brother a ticket if you were a cop either.

If your local police agency has a helicopter, everyone knows it’s loud and annoying, but did you know it can cover the same area as 20 patrol officers and safely chase criminals that are driving 90 MPH through city streets. Many times the guy has no idea it’s there and slows down.

Police work is…..Writing reports.

If you rob a gas station you’re only going to get about $100, but I get to see a K9 dog use your arm as a chew toy. For all I care you can keep the $100.

In one year of patrol work in a large city, only about ten minutes would be cool enough to be on the television show “Cops.”

Every traffic stop could end in gunfire, but we have to be polite and professional until that time .

I’ve taken about the same amount of men and women to jail for domestic violence, so NO, it’s not always the man.

If the light was yellow, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Cops know you pay taxes and that your taxes pay cops’ salaries.

Cops also pay taxes, which also pay cops’ salaries so, hey, this traffic stop is on me. Now sign here; press hard. There are several copies.

Police Officers… Our job is to protect your butt, not kiss it!

Thank You,
The Police

If you haven’t heard, the Berlin Opera has cancelled a production of Mozart’s Idomeneo because one scene shows the heads of Neptune, Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha. At least the Germans have suddenly found the intestinal fortitude to call it what it is:

BERLIN (Reuters) - German politicians condemned on Tuesday a decision by a Berlin opera house to cancel performances of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” over concerns they could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

Idomeneo is not one of Mozart’s great operas: It’s not Don Giovanni, or Die Zauberflöte, or Cosi fan Tutti, or Le Nozze di Figaro, or even Die Entführung aus dem Serail. It has some charming, though not memorable, music, and if it were being done close by, I’d go, just because you don’t get the chance to see it often (there’s a reason for that). My question, however, is this: Idomeneo takes place after the Trojan War, in the Bronze Age (that would be about the 13th century BC). How a director would work the head of Mohammed into it is beyond me.

I can’t say this surprises me, however. The odd pairing of (often ridiculously) over the top productions and (again, often riduculously) political correctness has been part of the performing arts for decades. In the early 80s I saw a production of The Merchant of Venice in which every act was preceeded by a disclaimer about how Shakespeare didn’t know any Jews personally and most Europeans believed this, etc. So I’m not surprised that somebody did yet another stupid production that has nothing to do with the storyline, nor am I surprised the Deutsche Oper cancelled the production.

I am glad, however, that the Germans are objecting. That does surprise me.

This week Wictory Wednesday presents Max Burns for the US Congress for the 12th District of Georgia. He is running a tight race against Democratic incumbent John Barrow.

The Israeli war in Lebanon has shown what will happen if we pull out of Iraq… the terrorists will claim victory and emerge even stronger and more emboldened. Max Burns understands this and supports the troops to complete their mission. We should live in a society that respects and supports those who risk their lives for our benefit. Sadly, we don’t live in that society.

Max Burns understands that immigration doesn’t require reform; it requires actually enforcing the laws on the books. Not enforcing the law has led to lawlessness and before any question of guest workers can be introduced, law and order needs to return to that segment of society.

The infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” has shown us that even a GOP lead Congress can still waste money. That is why earmark reform and a line item veto is all the more necessary. When pork can be put into budgets without debate (earmarks), the line item veto allows voters to put the heat on the President to bring sense back to Congressional spending. The GOP has gotten half of the equation right in lowering taxes… now they need to cut spending. Max Burns supports this in the form of a balanced budget.

Families waste days and weeks each year trying to figure out their “fair share” of taxes. Not even the IRS can figure out the tax code… a book that is over 12 times larger than the Bible! Max Burns supports cleaning up the tax code so that families can clearly understand what the owe… and the IRS can even figure it out too.

Please consider donating or volunteering to the Max Burns campaign. Help turn this blue seat red!

This has been a production of the Wictory Wednesday blogburst. If you would like to join Wictory Wednesday, please see this post or contact John Bambenek at jcb (dot) blog [at] gmail {dot} com. The following sites are members of the Wictory Wednesday team:

by TD of The Right Track, original here

A quick and dirty search through Google News for articles, news, and editorials revealed no less than 14 pieces written in the last month regarding the FairTax. Fully 1/3 of those were editorials agreeing with the need for the FairTax.

A sampling:

From the Denver Daily News, an editorial titled “FairTax, not flat tax, needed to fix nation’s taxation woes“:

Dear editor,

The IRS needs to be eliminated and replaced with the FairTax, not the flat tax, as suggested by columnist Aaron Harber in Monday’s Denver Daily News.

The flat tax changes absolutely nothing — the IRS, tax code, regulations, 16th Amendment, corporate taxation and payroll taxes (the way Social Security is funded) stay exactly the same under the flat tax.

At best, the flat tax is temporary, the wrong direction to move towards simplification.

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, “The Fairer Tax“:

The Fair Tax (FairTax.org) will make our true tax burden — most of which is concealed in the price of goods and services — visible to all and is a necessary first step toward smaller and less-intrusive government.

We cannot allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.

So first, let’s replace the current complex and dishonest system of taxation with a fair and transparent system that will allow the people to choose how much government they can afford in full knowledge of how much it really costs.

The Raleigh/Durham News & Observer has an editorial headlined “Total Replacement“:

Our tax code has grown steadily more complex, unwieldy, expensive and out of control ever since its overhaul in 1986. The IRS is increasingly unable to cope with the tax code, and puts much of its resources to uses unrelated to raising revenue and contrary to the wishes of the Founders.

Like Icarus flying ever closer to the sun, the tax system appears to be headed for self-destruction. It is far beyond any fix and is losing respect and credibility. The only reasonable solution is to finally and completely scrap it and replace it. I support the revenue-neutral FairTax plan. (http://www.fairtax.org/ 1-800-FairTax).

This is just a sampling of what people are saying all across the country. Truly a grassroots effort, it takes people willing to step up and show public support for the FairTax to convince politicians that it’s in their best interest to support the bills.

One way to show public support is to write an editorial to your local paper, no matter how large or small. Use the FairTax category that may appear on this participant blog, visit http://www.fairtax.org/, or read the FairTax book by Boortz and Linder to learn more. Get your facts straight, then write your editorial and submit it. Many papers now have a way to submit online or via e-mail.

However you decide to do it, your public support for the FairTax is vital.

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.

The Carnival of Education is up at Education Wonks.

I think Andrew said it best in “Unreasonable Israelis Demand U.N. Forces Actually Do Their Jobs”:

I can’t possibly imagine why these obstinate Hebrews would have a problem with a peacekeeping force that openly refuses to do anything more exerting than sitting around and playing with its collective wang. I mean, the sheer gall of it.

I really don’t get it. Is the UN trying their best to demonstrate that they’re a pro-terrorist organization, is that it? It looks like they’d at least want to appear to be on the side of civilization.

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Among other things (like being sick as hell), I’ve been co-writing an article on High Tech High for Edspresso with Ken of D-Ed Reckoning fame (my earlier articles on the High Tech High fiasco can be seen here, here, and here). Edspresso says, and I quote, “You should know that this may very well be one of the cruelest, unkindest articles I’ve ever run on Edspresso.” I think that may be an overstatement (after all, I made no sneering remarks about cute little smiles) — what’s kind about calling an idiot a genius, after all?

Anyway, the article is posted on Edspresso. Shameless self-promotion, I know. And I’m really sick, so I’m signing off now.

from Kobayashi Maru (courtesy of the Anchoress):

How ironic that the man who claimed to have felt, as a child, the pain of black churches being burned in his home state (nothing of the kind actually took place, as Siggy points out) is being called to account by a black woman in power… who actually did.

Let’s hear a round of applause for Porkbusters, not only for pressuring Congress into passing the earmark reform bill, but being invited to the White House for the signing of the bill.

President Bush has invited bloggers to join him today as he signs into law a bill creating a database of federal spending — a recognition of their role in forcing the bill through Congress over the objections of senior senators and an indication of how much bloggers are changing the political process.

A coalition of bloggers from the left and the right last month did what the Senate’s Republican leadership could not: smoke out obstructing senators, bring public pressure to break their hold and move the bill to the Senate floor, where it passed by a voice vote.

“The bloggers mobilized Congress; Congress did not mobilize bloggers,” said John Hart, spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who teamed with Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, to support the bill.

“It really does represent a revival of basic democratic values: that active citizens using tools of technology really can steer the political process,” Mr. Hart said. “And what happened was profoundly subversive to the established political order.”

The legislation will establish a searchable database of all federal contracts and grants, and most other spending.

Hear, hear!

goes to Bill Cosby:

Cosby told the 450 students that they couldn’t go to jail for getting straight As, but they could get shot for selling drugs.

Hat tip: Education Wonks

from Don Surber (who in turn is commenting on an article in American Spectator that has not yet been put online):

1. Poverty Breeds Terrorism.
2. Shiite Terrorists and Sunni Terrorists Do Not Cooperate.
3. Secularists and Islamists Do Not Cooperate.
4. Hezbollah and Hamas Threaten Only Israel — Not America and Europe.
5. Iraq Had No Ties To Al-Qaeda.
6. Iraq Had No Links To Other Terrorist Organizations.
7. Saddam’s Regime Posed No Threat To The United States.
8. Pr