Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Education Chief: Furor Over Obama Speech 'Silly'
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the furor surrounding President Barack Obama's speech this week to the nation's school children is "silly."
Duncan's department is taking heat for proposed lesson plans distributed to accompany Tuesday's speech. Duncan acknowledges that a section about writing to the president on how students 'can help the President' was poorly written and has been changed.
But Duncan added that the hubbub is something "I frankly don't pay any attention to."
[Well of course not - it's not as if parents were his customers or anything.
And that was my problem with this issue. Not that the Obama administration intends to address our kids, or even tried to slip in politicized messages - I expect that of politicians. No, the real alarm in this story should be the fact that his intentions sailed through our government Education administrators without a word of dissent -- it was the push back of concerned parents that initiated the script change, without which our 'professional' educators would have marched in lock-step to a politician's tune.
We need limit government's involvement in education to providing universal vouchers {$} and standardized performance reporting {information} only. With these two things parents would then be empowered to fix our failing education system via a consumer free market that has worked in every sector its every been honestly implemented.]
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Administration’s 'Suggestions' for Teachers
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The “corrected” lesson plans the U.S. Department of Education is suggesting that schools around the country use to turn President Obama’s speech to students today into a “teachable moment” still call for teachers to read books about Obama and to post quotations from Obama in large print on classroom walls.
The first point on the Pre-K through 6th grade lesson plan says:
“Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.”
The “menu” for 7th through 12th grade suggests that teachers post “large print” quotations from Obama’s speeches about education on their classroom walls.
“Teachers may post in large print around the classroom notable quotes excerpted from President Obama’s speeches”
The lesson plans do not suggest posting on classroom walls quotations from any other American president, living or dead...
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There they go again: MSM assails parents for speaking up...
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Just as soon as "average Americans practice their First Amendment free speech rights to protest another outrageous liberal proposal," the liberal media "immediately go into full-on attack mode - against the American people" Media Research Center President Brent Bozell argued in a statement released this morning.
"Just as with the tea party protesters, and the socialized health care town hall protesters, the media are again attacking the American people for having the temerity to speak up,"
Mr. Bozell was addressing the vicious personal attacks members of the media have been making on parents objecting to the proposed Obama administration "lesson plan," which was to accompany a speech President Obama is delivering today to American children.
President Obama is still addressing the children, but in response to public outrage has withdrawn the Department of Education "lesson plan" which recommended among other things that teachers have their students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President."
As the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol has pointed out, it is against the law for the Department of Education to hand down any sort of teaching materials. But rather than report on this, the leftist media are attacking parents...
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CNN: Obama School Address Opponents 'A Bunch of Psychopaths'
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If you don't see eye-to-eye on an issue with your ideological counterparts - rather than debate the issue, you can go on national TV and call them derogatory names like liberal talking head David Sirota has done.
Earlier on CNN's Sept. 7 "American Morning" Sirota called Fox News host Glenn Beck a "right-wing political terrorist" and added that Van Jones was "a national hero."
But this time he set his sights on Florida Republican chairman Jim Greer and "people like Jim Greer" who were concerned about President Barack Obama speaking to school children in a highly politicized environment.
"...but what is going to happen is all the parents who tuned into this speech because of the hysteria by people like Jim Greer, are going to read this [now revised] speech and realize that the Jim Greer's of the world - that the right-wing Republican base are a bunch of psychopaths...
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When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
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The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning.
Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
"The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,"
said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader.
And the National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it
"cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers' money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. "
Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable.
"If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams."
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URGENCY
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While White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today refrained from telling reporters whether President Obama in his speech Wednesday night will set a deadline for passing health care reform, sources tell ABC News that in his private meeting with Democratic congressional leaders this afternoon the key word was urgency...
[For legislation that doesn't take effect until 2013 - why?]
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Listening to a Liar
How many realize Obamacare wouldn't kick in until 2013? [You know, after the 2012 election...]
No doubt millions of people will be listening to the words of President Barack Obama Wednesday night when he makes a televised address to a joint session of Congress on his medical care plans. But, if they think that the words he says are what matters, they can be led into something much worse than being swindled out of their money.
One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess-- for a program that would not take effect until 2013!
If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years-- more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election?
If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election?
The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it.
Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be.
What Barack Obama says Wednesday night is not nearly as important as what he has been doing-- and how he has been doing it...
[I.e., 31 unconfirmed, unknown 'czars' and counting...
Its never been about improving health care.]
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How members of Congress can show they were listening
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Welcome back to the nation's capital, members of Congress. Your ears may still be ringing from those raucous town hall forums. Considering the intensity of views expressed during many of those gatherings, it is probably important that you demonstrate that you were listening to your constituents during those recess gatherings and not just going through the motions of "constituent service." Forthwith, we offer the following:
First, and probably most importantly, go back to square one on health care reform.
No matter what the president says in his speech Wednesday, it won't change the fact most Americans would rather you do nothing than impose a government-run health care program on them.
This is because the vast majority of people are satisfied with their private insurance coverage. They want no part of the long lines to see doctors and get treatments that are common in Canada, Great Britain and other countries that have government-run health care systems.
And don't even think about pulling a fast one like changing a few words here and there on one of the several legislative versions of Obamacare, then trying to pass it off as new.
The people are on to that stuff because, unlike most of you, many of them are reading the bills now...
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Yet Another Foreign-Policy Fumble
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THE Obama administration is getting ready to throw the proposed Eastern European-based US missile-defense system under the bus.
The move is a sop to the Russians (and to lefties here at home) -- but will render us increasingly vulnerable to the growing Iranian nuclear/missile threat.
It's sheer madness -- yet another major foreign-policy fumble in its Pollyanna-ish effort to make everything right with the world...
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The Emerging Obama Doctrine
[HT:MD].
American contrition has always been a central tenet of the Obama agenda. With recent news coverage focusing so heavily on domestic issues, it’s easy to forget Obama’s feverish quest for foreign forgiveness. During his first 100 days, he traveled to Europe and South America in what many aptly dubbed “apology tours.”
Similarly, during a trip to Russia in July, Obama softened U.S. stances on several important issues, effectively apologizing to Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the hard-line diplomacy of the Bush Administration. Perhaps more important than Obama’s diplomatic back-peddling, was the trip itself. The meeting needlessly re-elevated the newly hostile and expansionary Russia to a status not seen since the days of the old Soviet Union. By holding a Soviet-style summit, complete with arms negotiation, Obama stopped just short of apologizing for the U.S. victory in the Cold War.
This “transgressor” line of thinking is what makes Obama believe in direct talks with rogue states like North Korea and Iran and was the underlying strategy of his Cairo speech. It is a belief that the credibility lent by a sincere apology, coupled with the magic of the president’s oratory will change the minds of even the worst characters on the world stage.
As it has thus far manifested itself, the Obama Doctrine is a mix of contrition, petty politics and question marks about the president’s resolve in fighting what he personally described as America’s central war front. Obama’s policies are characteristic of a society in the sun-setting stage of its hegemony; a situation that, if Obama gets his way, may not be far from reality...
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West Struggles With Definition of Jihad
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t is fair to say that jihad "can be" understood in a peaceful way. However, there is huge difference between saying that "Jihad can be understood in a peaceful way" and "Jihad is a peaceful concept." The former is an honest and accurate statement, while the latter is a wrong and deceiving one that indicates a serious lack of knowledge.
Scientific honesty necessitates that we present all views about the meaning of the word jihad instead of selecting the definition that makes us feel most comfortable. The following facts MUST be addressed to understand the most dominant meaning of the word jihad in the Muslim world:
Currently, the words "jihadi Islam"* are used by the mainstream Arab media to refer to the violent form of Islam. If jihad is mainly peaceful, why do the Arab media use the word predominantly to describe violent Islam?
The word jihad is interpreted in most of the reputable traditional Islamic books in a violent manner. One of the many available examples, al-Shawkaneei's interpretation for the Quran[2] mentions for Sura 9, Verse 73 that "Jihad against the Infidels is achieved by fighting them until they submit to Islam". Why would it be that he the most reputable Islamic scholars understood jihad in such a way if it was predominantly peaceful?
Modern Islamic books written by top Islamic scholars and distributed globally still adopt the violent meaning of the word to fight the disbelievers until "Allah alone is worshiped". For example, Minhaj al-Muslim [3] states clearly that the aim of violent jihad is that "Allah alone is worshiped." If the word jihad is primarily understood in a peaceful way, why do we not hear about peaceful jihadi organizations?
The word jihad is almost always used by the violent radical groups. If the word is understood predominantly in a peaceful way, would we not see it used predominantly by peaceful Islamic organizations rather than the violent ones?
Modern Islamic scholars such as Yusuf Al-Quradawy who are considered "moderates" by many in Western media and academia mention clearly that jihad has to be conducted via wars to spread Islam and make Islam as the only religion [5]. How is it that such a knowledgeable and leading "moderate" Islamic scholar is not aware of the ['peaceful'] meaning of the word jihad while non-Arabic speakers [Westerners] somehow are?
The most effective way to know the true meaning of jihad is to simply evaluate how the word is used by the Arab street and how it is defined in Islamic texts and in the Arab media, as seen above. As Brennan wisely put it in his speech, "How you define a problem shapes how you address it," and eight years after September 11, we are still having problems defining the problem.”
Creating a Western definition for a word that does not represent how it is primarily used by native Arabic speakers and in Islamic text is both misleading and dangerous to our national security.
It would be great to convince Arabic speakers and the Muslim world to change the meaning of the word instead of deceiving ourselves. The change must occur in Muslims’ educational books rather than in the public statements they release to the West to convince it that jihad is peaceful.
[I noticed some time ago speaking with an expat Indian Muslim at work that on the topic of GWOT he never stumbled over 'terrorist' vs. 'insurgents' vs. 'extremists' ad infinitum - he simply/fluidly refers to the violence makers as 'jihadis', and he assured me that only the West doesn't.
I.e., how do we effectively address a problem we refuse to accurately recognize?]
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‘Progressive’ Islamic Group Shows Terror Support
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The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) engages in frequent interfaith programs with Jewish groups and has been embraced warmly by the Obama administration as a contact point for the American Muslim community.
In those circles, ISNA presents an open and progressive face of Islam that is led by a woman, Ingrid Mattson. Literature available at ISNA's annual convention last month in Washington, however, offers a far different vision... [snip]
Books and pamphlets obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism from ISNA's July national convention feature numerous attempts to portray U.S. prosecution of terrorists and terror supporters as anti-Muslim bigotry; dramatic revisionist history that denied attacks by Arab nations and Palestinian terrorists against Israel; anti-Semitic tracts and hyperbolic rants about a genocide and holocaust of Palestinians...
The true measure of character is determined by what is said and written when people think no one is paying attention. The literature promoted at last month's convention shows we may not really be seeing what goes on behind closed doors with ISNA...
[Taqqiyeh: "The Holy Lie" - "The Islamic principle of 'taqqiyeh' means it is a duty for a Muslim to lie and deceive unbelievers if doing so contributes to the enhancement of Islam, and that taqqiyeh may be used to infiltrate and destroy kafir (infidel) countries."
I.e., it's not a sin to lie to unbelievers - yet we chose to ignore glaring evidence of its use again and again.]
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I have another Idea
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I just saw that the Mayor of London (Boris Johnson):
has recommended that non-Muslims take the opportunity of the month of Ramadan to fast, along with their Muslim neighbors, in order to promote "understanding between cultures."
Here’s a better idea. One of my degrees is in Comparative Religion. As a result, I have read the Koran about a dozen times. (I have three copies in my library.)
Instead of fasting for Ramadan go out and buy or borrow or even look up the Koran on the Internet. Read the book. Discover for yourself if Islam is really a religion of peace. Learn for yourself if you would seriously consider converting (of your own free will) to Islam.
Enough with the pretending to be a Muslim by fasting during Ramadan … go read their book. Find out what Muslims really believe.
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Lux et Veritas
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Whenever I write about Europe and demography, I get a lot of mail on the general line of, “Oh, yeah, Steyn? When will Muslims be 50.01 per cent of the population then? 2020? 2030? C’mon, you scaremonger…”
And I usually reply that it’s not about hitting 50 per cent. It’s about the point at which mediating between the Muslim population and the broader population becomes a central and then the dominant feature of the culture...
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FCC 'Diversity' Chief Asked Liberals to Fight Limbaugh
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Obama's new 'fairness' czar FCC Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd made that argument in a 2007 report he penned for the liberal Center for American Progress, CNS News reports.
Lloyd claimed that the conservative media moguls were in league with the Supreme Court to battle liberals in the government.
“A pro-big business Supreme Court aligned with Murdoch, Limbaugh, and Zell and ready to battle a progressive in the White House begins to sound a lot like the early years of the FDR administration,”
“Will progressives sound like FDR and commit to creating a media policy that actually serves democracy and promotes diverse and antagonistic sources of news?”
Of course it’s difficult to argue that the media is under threat from conservatives when so many newspapers support Democrats on their editorial pages.
And it’s hardly accurate to call Murdoch a doctrinaire conservative. He is famous for allying himself with politicians of all stripes, including Hillary Clinton, to further his business interests.
[Another extreme appointment.]
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Did anyone run the numbers
[HT:LC]
A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline.
A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year per vehicle.
They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels of oil is about 1/4 of one day's US consumption.
And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $75/bbl.
So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion* to save $350 million.
How good a deal was that ?
They'll probably do a great job with health care though.
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WSJ: Obamanomics Could Create Depression
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It's clear that President Barack Obama's $787-billion stimulus hasn't worked as advertised, but some economists are worried it could backfire and cause something much worse.
According to a new study by economists Charles Rowley of George Mason University and Nathanael Smith of the Locke Institute and endorsed by Nobel laureate James Buchanan, the Keynesian tactics employed by Obama
"will ultimately hamper the long-term growth potential of the U.S. economy and may risk delaying full economic recovery by several years."
The study accuses the president of making Depression-era mistakes likely to have Depresson-era results...
[But it will provide the 'crisis' needed to allow real change...]
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Your Stimulus at Work
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Courtesy of Innocent Bystanders, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is the picture.
Here are some words.
"[The stimulus is] doing more, faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than most expected."Joe Biden, as reported by the Associated Press
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POLL: Most Americans see through AGW scam
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Forty-seven percent (47%) of U.S. voters say global warming is caused by long-term planetary trends rather than human activity.
However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% still blame human activity more for climate change, while five percent (5%) say there is some other reason.
Except for June when the two points of view were virtually tied, voters have been trending away from blaming human activity since January.
Most men (53%) say long-term trends are to blame, while women are closely divided on the question. Younger voters are more likely than their elders to see human activity as the root cause of global warming.
Sixty-two percent (62%) of Democrats fault humans, while 65% of Republicans and a plurality (49%) of voters not affiliated with either party say planetary trends are the culprit.
[Progress - but we're in a race, AND THEY'RE TARGETING OUR CHILDREN...]
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I Pledge to Promote Global Warming Propaganda
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How does it work? You can learn a lot by watching ACE's trailer -- steeped in global warming alarmism -- which includes representative segments of their presentation. ACE promises a "high school assembly experience that will activate, educate, inspire, your school to create a future safe from climate change."
The group has enlisted a battalion of "educators" to fan out (so far) into schools across five metropolitan areas: San Francisco/Oakland, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and Boston. Most of the hires appear to be drawn from the recently graduated and/or eco-activist ranks.
The educator featured in ACE's YouTube trailer is Ambessa Contave, described as "a ten-year veteran of The Bay Area's art, non-profit, environmental justice and activism." He is also half of a rap duo called Fiyawata, and promotes his causes via hip-hop festival called "Grind for the Green." Contave's website explains:
"you guys have lived through the ten hottest years ever recorded in history" (not true) and "we're in the middle of this planetary emergency" (a fearmongering statement designed to motivate undiscerning youth).
According to a July report in the climate paranoia publication Grist, ACE is "funded solely" by wind energy entrepreneur Michael Haas, president of Orion Energy LLC... [snip]
Now outside an election year, Haas has turned his attention to the next generation. His minions at ACE seek permission from school boards to "build on education to engage and empower students to take action" on global warming. The goal is to reach 140,000 American high school students by December 31.
Last week many parents were upset by the "I Pledge" video shown in a Utah school and by President Obama's planned speech to schoolchildren this week.
Add ACE to that indoctrination list.
[Parents, do you know what's being pushed on your children?]
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