Archive for 2013
January 28, 2013
ALLEN WEST not so thrilled with women in combat.
WHEN EDUCATION IS INDOCTRINATION: Schools push to ‘disarm the minds’ of children: Conditioning kids to reject the Second Amendment.
POLITICIAN TELLS TRUTH, NATION IN SHOCK: France ‘totally bankrupt’, says labour minister Michel Sapin.
ED DRISCOLL: Far from Complete: Great Books Missing in the Kindle Format. “There are numerous examples of books that I’d repurchase in a second to read on my Kindle that simply aren’t there yet. Nor are they available on Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader; I’ve searched.”
JOSE MARIA AZNAR: We Need To Defend Western Values. “In another installment of his Prager University coursework on values and culture, Aznar links the abandonment of leadership on values with a rise in intolerance rather than the opposite . . . . Aznar also believes that big government is ‘unsustainable and untenable,’ and that both Europe and the US need to learn that lesson quickly. ‘A lot of interventionism is bad for societies.'”
LOWER EDUCATION UPDATE: Teachers flip for ‘flipped learning’ class model.
When Timmy Nguyen comes to his pre-calculus class, he’s already learned the day’s lesson — he watched it on a short online video prepared by his teacher for homework.
So without a lecture to listen to, he and his classmates at Segerstrom Fundamental High School spend class time doing practice problems in small groups, taking quizzes, explaining the concept to other students, reciting equation formulas in a loud chorus, and making their own videos while teacher Crystal Kirch buzzes from desk to desk to help pupils who are having trouble.
It’s a technology-driven teaching method known as “flipped learning” because it flips the time-honored model of classroom lecture and exercises for homework — the lecture becomes homework and class time is for practice.
I talk about this very thing in The K-12 Implosion. But you probably guessed that.
RAND SIMBERG: Remembering the Challenger Disaster.
BOB ZUBRIN: Why We Should Be Emitting More Carbon. Well, I’m not worrying about my carbon emissions until the prominent Greens give up their mansions and private jets.
REALISM: Irish council approves motion to allow rural drink-driving.
The motion was passed by Kerry county council on Monday by five votes to three, with the remainder of the councillors either absent or abstaining.
It supports the creation of permit that will allow rural drinkers to drive after having “two or three drinks”. It was tabled by the independent councillor Danny Healy-Rae, who has claimed it would help prevent depression and suicide in the county.
Healy-Rae said people in rural areas were “travelling very minor roads … with very little traffic” and “have never killed anyone”.
He said his proposal would bring back a social outlet for lonely people in rural areas that had been lost after stricter drink-drive laws were introduced.
Well, I guess it’ll be a while before Uber gets there.
TAX THE REVOLVING DOOR: My USA Today column expands on my proposed post-employment surtax for federal officials.
NOTICE: We’ll be doing a site upgrade in a few minutes, so don’t be shocked if things look a little funny for a bit.
A DELICIOUS GOODBYE: Man gets his last Whopper Jr. during his funeral procession. Before you make the obvious joke, note this:
A Pennsylvania man who died at age 88 was buried Saturday — but not before a stop at Burger King on the way to the cemetery for a Whopper Jr.
The York Daily Record reported that David S. Kime Jr. of West York loved those burgers — along with other fast food — so his family and friends followed the hearse through the drive-through window at the Manchester Burger King. The manager said 40 Whopper Jr. burgers were prepared, including one for Kime, who died Jan. 20.
“He always lived by his own rules,” Linda Phiel, one of Kime’s three daughters, told the Daily Record. “His version of eating healthy was the lettuce on the Whopper Jr.”
Just think, without all that fast food, he might have lived to see 89.
IT’S FREE: AMAZON STUDENT.
FROM THE NO-SUCH-THING-AS-BAD-PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT: Five Products Manti Te’o Could Endorse.
ROBERT COTTROL, famous for his work on race and gun control, has a new book out: The Long, Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race, and Law in the American Hemisphere.
YES, YOU CAN STOP THINKING ABOUT IT: How To Rid Your Mind Of Unwanted Thoughts. I always just imagine that I’m a 60 Minutes reporter with doubts about Obama — and poof! they’re gone.
LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT? Check Out Helen’s Page.
BRIDGET JOHNSON REPORTS: Gitmo Tribunals: Suspect Complains They Have No Motivation to Come to Court. “I want you to understand the situation we are in — the government does not want us to hear or understand or say anything and they don’t want our attorneys to do anything.”
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “My Boyfriend’s Brother Tried to Sleep With Me!”
SPEAKING OF IDEAS THAT THE GOP COULD OFFER, I think a series of legislative proposals aimed at implementing promises Obama made in 2008 would be fun and politically profitable: Cutting the deficit in half, closing the revolving door between government and business (my USA Today column this week will be on that one), implementing greater transparency, etc. Just send one bill after another over to the Senate. . . .
As I pointed out three years ago, many of the things the Tea Party protested for were actually the kinds of things that Obama promised in 2008, but didn’t deliver.
AS THE GOP LOOKS FOR ISSUES IT CAN WIN ON, HOW ABOUT LOWERING THE DRINKING AGE? I think it would have helped them last time around. If you’re pushing to lower the drinking age — or at least get rid of the federal mandate — it’s harder to paint you as the preacher from Footloose.