RUTHFULLY YOURS

A Common Core-sanctioned reading method “respected by both teachers and parents” has been ruining children’s reading ability for decades
Hundreds of websites still casually assert what is probably the most destructive sophistry in the history of education:

The Dolch Sight Words [created in the 1940s] are a list of the 220 most frequently used words in the English language. These sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text….Dolch found that children who can identify a certain core group of words by sight could learn to read and comprehend better. Dolch’s sight word lists are still widely used today and highly respected by both teachers and parents. These sight words were designed to be learned and mastered by the third grade.

It has been well confirmed that many Muslims fanatics, such as members of ISIS, al Qaeda and Boko Haram have utterly no regard for anyone not a follower of Islam. By the standards of civilized people the following sample acts are barbaric. It is estimated that Islamic terrorists have kidnapped 3700 females as young as […]

Nothing special in the air: World’s largest airline prefers Oneworld alliance that numbers carriers from Jordan, Qatar and Malaysia
Rina Rozenberg and Zohar Blumenkrantz

Citing financial considerations, American Airlines said at the end of last week it would stop flying to Israel, but sources in the aviation industry told TheMarker that the real reason is the United States carrier’s ties with Arab airlines through its Oneworld alliance.

American, the world’s largest airline by passengers flown, fleet size and revenue, said on Thursday it would end its Philadelphia-Tel Aviv route as of January. The airlines’ Israeli office was given no advanced warnings and learned about the decision from the media.

Liberals applaud the new contract designed to protect women on campus from rapacious men by insisting on consenting signatures for every step of the mating dance. They applaud the trigger warnings that have been implemented in our educational institutions to warn the young and innocent that politically incorrect words may appear in some of our greatest works of literature and traumatize them. Yet when it comes to thrusting the young into the midst of topless hustlers in a part of town that abounds in stores and entertainment designed specifically to attract children, liberals are strangely blasé. In the SundayTimes lead editorial of Aug 22nd, the writer opines: “….being shirtless in the city is perfectly legal….the people who flock around the painted women in Times Square do not seem terribly offended. And those who are can walk away.”

Those who want to limit freedom of speech are misusing Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous 1919 line about ‘shouting fire in a theater’
In any debate today about how to respond to “offensive” or “inflammatory” speech, it is only a matter of time before somebody trots out that most familiar of talking points. “There is no right,” the opiner will say, “to shout fire in a crowded theater!”

Taken from a 1919 Supreme Court decision by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the fire-in-a-crowded-theater standard seldom gets much scrutiny. It tends to shut down discussion rather than to open it up. But that shouldn’t be—it is a flame well worth extinguishing.

First, its meaning has been inflated and distorted beyond recognition.

The 1919 Supreme Court case concerned Charles Schenck, secretary of the U.S. Socialist Party, who was convicted under the Espionage Act for distributing anti-draft leaflets during World War I. The justices unanimously upheld Schenck’s conviction and dismissed his plea for free speech.
Writing for the court, Justice Holmes conceded that “in many cases and in ordinary times,” the defendant’s words would have been perfectly legal—but not in the extraordinary times of world war. The key issue, Holmes concluded, was “the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”

“A Disgrace to the Profession”: The World’s Scientists on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science

Before we start, a quick addendum to my post about “science journalist” David Appell’s false accusation that I doctored a quote in my new book. Mr Appell has now withdrawn the charge:

Fair enough. I’ll believe him. My bad. My apologies.

You might think he’d learned his lesson about making specific accusations about a book he hasn’t read. And yet, amazingly enough, he goes and does it all over again two inches down the page:

I wonder if Steyn has examined any of the other evidence for the hockey stick, some derived with independent mathematical techniques. Like Marcott et al Science 2013, PAGES 2k, or Tingley and Huybers.

I expect he hasn’t. If not, why not?

Yes, why not, Steyn? Ha! You’ve got no answer to that, have you?

In fact, there’s an entire section on other, supposedly “independent” hockey sticks, starting at page 171, and I devote pages 185-190 to Marcott et al.

Between apologizing for his previous false accusation and making his new false accusation, Mr Appell observes plaintively of himself:

Me, a poor freelancer scratching the floor for grains of wheat.

You might want to re-think your business model. Assuming people are as stupid as you wish they were doesn’t usually work out well.

The mosque fire received huge attention, while the rape epidemic is basically ignored. When a Swedish woman and her son are brutally knifed to death in the most Swedish of all places – an IKEA store – the Prime Minister has nothing to say.

The normal democratic order, where citizens can contact politicians or the media to make their voices heard, has all but evaporated in Sweden. Newspaper websites have removed the reader comment fields, and the politicians hide behind a wall of officials who brand callers expressing concern “racist,” and hang up. Sweden is governed by a power that has shut down the democratic process.

Questions flooded the social media: Who are these people that are let into Sweden? How many of them are not innocent victims of war, but in fact war criminals and other criminals, hiding among the refugees?

The most relevant question is: Why has one government after another chosen to spend Swedish taxpayers’ money to support and shelter citizens of other countries, while some of them try to kill us?

It is astounding to think that the term “peace and justice” could embrace Iranian nuclear ambitions, but these post-modern Christian groups seem to be able to make the mental adjustments in order to advance their anti-Israel agenda.

Christian organizations such as Sabeel, Christ at The Checkpoint Conference and hundreds of other Christian groups that deny Israel’s legitimate claims to the land seem totally oblivious to the existential threat Iran poses not only to Israel but to all of Western civilization.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is leading an all-out campaign against the Iran deal, in solidarity with Israel. And Hispanic Evangelicals are also raising their collective voices against the Iran deal.

“This deal is not only bad; it is very dangerous. It falls woefully short of what both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have said is acceptable. … This is not a partisan issue; it is a moral imperative. — Hispanic Christian leaders, in a statement published on July 24.

If you’re Marco Rubio, and you’ve launched your campaign on a theme of sunny optimism and cheery confidence that America’s best days are ahead of it, how do you adjust when the GOP electorate seems to be eagerly embracing the mad-as-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore style of Donald Trump?

You take it head on.

“People are rightfully angry and upset,” Rubio said to “yeah!” responses here at the Americans for Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit in Columbus, Ohio.

“It’s good to let that anger motivate us, but we can’t let that anger define us,” Rubio said. “We’re not an angry nation. We’re a hopeful nation. What nation would you trade places with? Where would you rather be? This is still a great nation. But we’re just not living up to our potential.”

Rubio began by focusing on how “the economy is changing faster than ever before. The largest retailer in America, Amazon, doesn’t own any stores. One of the biggest transportation companies in America, Uber, doesn’t own any cars. Our policies are outdated. Big government and more regulation have never worked – and they’re a disaster in the twenty-first century.”

Rubio spent a good portion talking about education reform, from the need for a refocus on vocational training, “We need to give people the skills for the best-paying jobs… I promise you this: A welder makes a lot more money than a Greek philosopher. The market for Roman philosophers has tightened significantly in the past 2,000 years, and our students need to know that.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/422942/print Toto the dog wasn’t needed in Mobile, Ala., Friday night to pull the curtain from behind The Great and Mighty Trump. Trump let his own curtain flutter open, showing to much of the audience the humbug within. In an hour-long verbal meanderthon at half-filled Ladd-Peebles Stadium, Trump allowed an atmosphere of electric excitement to […]