It really doesn’t get much dumber. I know teachers are encouraged to be creative, but common sense needs to prevail. This dude is lucky if he just gets fired. He should expect the feds at his door:
From the Daily Caller:
Read about the teacher who brought in Michael Moore’s Sicko to be analyzed as the exam. When a student objected, the teacher called her a ‘tea-bagger.’
Read about this incident in the Daily Caller. Click here for the story.
Somehow the entire question seems to look different when it is attached to a darling little face.
As the presidents addressed those in the rose garden, the 2 first ladies went to a nearby school to talk to school children. One little girl asked the show-stoppers of all show-stoppers. Hats off to Mrs. Obama for thinking fast on her feet. And good for the little girl…she was NOT going to let the first lady off the hook.
The text, from the Huffington Post:
While the two Presidents spoke about the need for immigration reformand about concerns over Arizona’s harsh new law — without saying anything new or different — down the road in Silver Spring, Maryland, First Lady Michele Obama and Mexico’s First Lady Margarita Zavala visited an elementary school to speak with a class of second graders.
ABC News’ Karen Travers reports what happened when a young girl spoke up:
The student shyly raised her hand and said, “My mom … she says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn’t have papers.”Mrs. Obama replied: “Yeah, well that’s something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That’s exactly right.”
The girl then said quietly, “But my mom doesn’t have any …” and trailed off.
Mrs. Obama replied: “Well, we have to work on that. We have to fix that, and everybody’s got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens. That’s right.”
Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out U.S. Assholes
Elena made me do it. 🙄 We found this on facebook. In all seriousness, can you only imagine one of those Mexican resort towns during Spring Break? Cinco De Mayo is probably like a Sunday School picnic.
Abstinence only seems to be both a cash cow and a political hotcake. And it got lots of headlines this week.
First off, Bristol Palin will be paid up to $30,000 per gig for her abstinence only promos. What kind of message does this send to the very audience the message is intended for? Don’t have sex before marriage. However, if you do and if you have a baby, you can make 30 grand talking about it and telling others to do as you say, not as you do? That’s a hideous message.
According to SeattlePI.com:
Opportunity knocks when you are America’s best-known teenage mom, and Bristol Palin has signed on with Single Source Speakers to give lectures at $15,000 to $30,000 a pop, more lucrative than her current job at an Anchorage doctor’s office.
The second outrage is Mark Souder and the ‘other woman’ who just happened to be his staffer, ‘starring’ in an ‘abstinence only’ video. From Politico:
Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), who will resign from Congress as a result of an affair with a female staffer, filmed a video interview about abstinence only education with that same staffer.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Souder admitted the affair took place with a “part-time member of my staff.” GOP sources identified the woman that Souder had the affair with as Tracy Meadows Jackson. Jackson has been a part-time employee on Souder’s staff since Dec. 2004, according to House financial disbursement records. Jackson could not be reached for comment Tuesday morning
Such hypocrisy. In fact, the fact that non-abstinence people are pushing abstinence is pure hypocrisy. The fact that abstinence is being pushed at all is hypocrisy. Modern life is overloaded with sexual messages from everywhere. Kids get bombarded with these messages from the time they are old enough to be aware from various multiple sources: on the news, radio, Internet, films, advertising, magazines, music, TV, politics, Madison Avenue, the clothing industry…. There is no escaping it. Kids cannot be protected but so much from sexual messages. The taboos that were in place when I was growing up are simply not there now. They won’t come back. The times they are NOT a’changing. They have changed and they will stay changed.
Young people need to be encouraged to make responsbile choices. Parents should be setting goals and behavioral expections for their children. Kids need to be know that sex has consequences and very often these consequences are life altering. Kids need to know about contraception, disease prevention and other vital information in the event that they do become sexually active.
‘Don’t do it’ only works so well. A good dose of practicality needs to be thrown in with the don’t do it. Ms. Palin is just capitalizing on glam. Souder is beneath contempt. How dare he. Maybe his wife will take him to the cleaners.
The Washington Post printed this story over a week ago. Elena and I are not sure how we missed it. We believe the parallels are important. We have reprinted the entire article by Tara Bahrampour:
By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 7, 2010
Three years after the Prince William County board approved an ordinance similar to the controversial immigration legislation passed last month in Arizona, county residents are still arguing about whether it has achieved its intended effects. The results might offer some insight into how Arizona’s new law will play out.
Special Report: The Battle Over Immigration
The Prince William ordinance, which initially required police to check the status of detainees they suspected of being undocumented immigrants, raised ire among immigrant advocates and drew sharp criticism from the county police chief, who said it would cost taxpayers more, lead to allegations of racism and erode police-community relations — predictions now being made by opponents of the Arizona law.
The Prince William ordinance was modified in 2008 amid charges that it was unconstitutional and could lead to racial profiling. In the end, rather than questioning only people they suspected of being undocumented immigrants, officers were directed to question all criminal suspects about their immigration status once an arrest was made.
The county also participates in the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement “287(g)” program, in which a cadre of police officers are trained and deputized to act as ICE officers in making status checks and referring individuals for deportation.
Per the promise, the weekly open thread. How long will the rain last this week? When will the oil spill be fixed? Who will win the primaries today? Inaquiring minds want to know.
Governor McDonnell has reiterated his position on releasing double murderer Jens Soering to his native Germany to Attorney General Holden. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch:
Last Thursday, Holder, responding to questions from Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-6th, said his office was waiting for official word for Virginia’s position on the Soering matter.
McDonnell wrote yesterday, “in light of your public comments at last week’s hearing, I want to formally reiterate that Virginia has clearly revoked authorization for a transfer of Jens Soering to Germany. Soering is currently in Virginia’s custody for state offenses and he will remain so in order to serve out his Virginia sentence for the horrendous crimes he committed in our commonwealth.”
Additionally, McDonnell has stated that he is revoking the state’s consent to any transfer of Soering who was convicted in the 1985 vicious slayings of his girlfriend’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom in their Bedford County home.
Good for Governor McDonnell. Soering needs to cool his jets in a Virginia prison. I would hope that AG Holden upholds Virginia’s wishes.
If you want to save the Rural Crescent and ensure a high-quality development area too, tonight’s Conservation Forum is the place to be.
The Rural Crescent has been threatened since it was first adopted in 1998. With development nibbling at the edges, some have said it is more like a Rural Croissant that will disappear one bite at a time.
Properties slated for development, such as Bristow Village and South Market, intrude into the boundaries of the Rural Crescent, serving as ‘set up’ parcels for sewer lines and higher densities.
But the most significant threat to the Rural Crescent may be that Prince William County offers no choices for landowners other than to sell to developers.
Although Virginia has one of the best private land conservation tax incentives in the Nation, County government does not make this information available to landowners and rarely considers conservation opportunities in land use process.
During the past four years, Virginia conserved 400,000 acres of land. To the best of our knowledge, only 302 of these acres were in Prince William County, contributed by the conservation of Merrimac Farm, which protects our public drinking water supply and provides local residents with a high quality site for hunting, fishing and wildlife watching.
This is a unique opportunity to learn how Prince William can begin to take advantage of conservation incentives to protect our rapidly vanishing natural areas. We hope you can make time in you busy schedule to join us this evening, 7:00 pm at McCoart.
NYTimes Alert:
Justices Bar Life Terms for Youths Who Haven’t Killed
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court said that sentences of
life without possibility of parole for crimes other than
homicide that were committed when the offender was under the
age of 18 are unconstitutional. The decision, in a Florida
case involving an armed burglary conviction, said such
sentences violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and
unusual punishment
Some criminals in their teens are just as vicious as adults. Why should they get a pass because of age?
Justice Kennedy was the swing vote.
According to Sciencemag.org:
Juveniles who have not committed murder should not be locked up for life, according to a U.S. Supreme Court decision today. In the case of Graham v. Florida, the court says it considered brain and behavioral science in deciding that life sentences for most young criminals amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
The decision extends a 2005 decision (Roper v. Simmons) banning the death penalty for juveniles. Amicus briefs submitted to the court by the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and others questioned whether youths should be held to the same standards of culpability as adults given research suggesting that their brains are not yet fully mature.
In its decision, the court says it took this data into consideration:
No recent data provide reason to reconsider the Courts observations in Roper about the nature of juveniles. As petitioners amici point out, developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. For example, parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence. … Juveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of irretrievably depraved character than are the actions of adults.
.
A huge thanks to our friend George for sending this video our way. It isn’t often we get to start of the week with such a great display of real class.
Just prior to the start of the Air Force-BYU football game, Sept. 22, 2009, this video was broadcast in the BYU stadium in Provo, Utah. Later, the USAF Academy Superintendent, LtGen Gould, showed this clip to the faculty and staff. He told everyone that BYU ran it minutes before the kickoff at the game. He was clearly moved by it, as were those who watched it. BYU is a class act.
BYU VS. AIR FORCE
The AFL-CIO and one of its civil rights groups has written to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano demanding that all agreements between Arizona law enforcement and DHS cease. AFL-CIO is the largest labor union in the United States. According to the Huffington Post:
On Friday, the union conglomerate AFL-CIO and the civil rights coalition, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, became the latest institutions to urge for the isolation or boycott of Arizona when they requested that Homeland Security terminate its training of local law enforcement officials in the state.
“We write to express our deep concern with the Department of Homeland Security’s continued cooperation with state and local law enforcement in Arizona pursuant to Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (‘the 287(g) program’) in the aftermath of Arizona’s passage of Senate Bill 1070, and we ask that you immediately rescind all 287(g) program agreements in Arizona,” the letter reads.
The message continues:
“We are grateful that President Obama has spoken out to correctly call the Arizona law ‘misguided.’ However, more than words are required from the federal government at this time. As we explain below, the enforcement of Arizona’s law fundamentally depends on the use of federal government resources for the implementation of its racial profiling regime. Unless DHS terminates all 287(g) program agreements in Arizona, the federal government will be complicit in the racial profiling that lies at the heart of the Arizona law. Such a result would place the DHS at odds with this Administration’s stated views on SBI070, and at odds with basic American values of tolerance and non-discrimination.”
The letter is by far the most serious effort to date to make Arizona’s new immigration law untenable for the state. Other groups have urged economic and travel boycotts as a way to target the state government’s tourism revenues. Should DHS adopt the AFL-CIO’s suggestion (and it’s a big question whether the Department will) it would deny the state the type of law enforcement expertise that the immigration law was designed to beef up in the first place.
The legislation passed by Arizona state government would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime. It would also give law enforcement officials fairly broad powers to detain those suspected of being in the country illegally.
“A review of DHS’s 287(g) program agreements in Arizona makes clear that once SB1070 becomes effective, DHS will be complicit in the enforcement of Arizona’s misguided law,” reads the letter, signed by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “We urgently request that you exercise your authority to immediately rescind all 287(g) program agreements in Arizona and, in this manner, avoid making the federal government complicit in the enforcement of Arizona’s misguided law.”
So what, you might say. PWC and City of Manassas both participate in the 287(g) program. What impact will the dust up in Arizona have on our MOU with Homeland Security?
Meanwhile things show no signs of calming down in Arizona. 9500Liberty is now being shown in Tucson per request of the community. Sarah Palin is out there saying ‘We are all Arizonans now.’ Is that sort of like being a Hokie for the day?
Quoting Huffington Post again:
Jan Brewer and Palin blamed President Barack Obama for the state law, saying the measure is Arizona’s attempt to enforce immigration laws because the federal government won’t do it.
“It’s time for Americans across this great country to stand up and say, ‘We’re all Arizonans now,'” Palin said. “And in clear unison we say, ‘Mr. President: Do your job. Secure our border.'”
The former Alaska governor appeared with Brewer at a brief news conference on Saturday. The event launched a website that Brewer said was an effort to educate America about border security and discourage an economic boycott of the state.
I hate being simple minded but did Mexicans just start coming across the border since President Obama took office? I could have sworn this was an issue before then. Silly me.
To read the full SB1070 click the blue.
Both the UVA men’s and women’s lacrosse teams have won the first round of the NCAA championship. The men’s team won Saturday evening in an 18-4 win over Mt. St. Marys. The women’s team just won a narrow 14-12 victory over Towson State. Yeardly’s mother and sister were present at the game and her mother was awarded the winning ball from the game.
Both games started with a tribute and moment of silence to Yeardly. Her number, #1 was worn on the uniforms. The teams have begun to heal. The Love family was asked about continuing the season after the tragic death of their daughter. They encouraged them to not only play but play to win–to win for Yeardly.
According to yesterday’s NYdaily.news:
“A lot of mixed emotions,” Clausen said. “The field’s provided a sanctuary. I wanted to soak it all in one last time.”
An hour later, the public address announcer requested a moment of silence for the “tragic loss” of Love, and Clausen remained still. The words “One Love” were written in orange script on the back of the players’ navy blue warm-up shirts, and black patches with Love’s initials and jersey number dotted the front of their white game uniforms. Clausen, a defenseman, wore her initials on his eye black. He embraced teammates with hugs.
The pall that has hung over the program since former midfielder George Huguely was charged with first-degree murder for his alleged attack on Love, a member of the women’s lacrosse team, 12 days ago lifted for one night. By vanquishing No. 16 Mount St. Mary’s, 18-4, Virginia (15-1) coasted to next Sunday’s quarterfinals at Stony Brook.
“You witnessed a team that was happy to be on the field again,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia.
Supportive messages were scrawled on signs and enmeshed in shirts with the words “One Team. One Heart. One Love.” Two teammates wore orange ribbons in their hair and one had the No. 1 etched on her white wristband. Eleven men’s team members, led by senior tri-captain Mikey Thompson, marched up the stands as the game started.
The same faces that followed Love’s family to the funeral last week reunited for the games. Love’s mother, Sharon Donnelly, arrived in the bleachers five minutes before the game, with her oldest daughter, Lexie, by her side. The two wore bright pink outfits and dark sunglasses. Next to them, university president John Casteen III sat among the team’s families.
The 135th Preakness Stakes will run today in Catonsville, Maryland, right outside of Baltimore at Pimlico Race Track. The length of the course is 1 3/16 miles. This will be the second leg of the coveted Triple Crown. There has not been a Triple Crown Winner since Affirmed in 1978. The 70’s was good decade for Triple Crown winners. We also got Seattle Slew in 1977 and Secretariat in 1973.
Calvin Borel will ride Super Saver, winner of the Kentucky Derby 2 weeks ago. This time Borel will not be trading horses like he did last year. Major contenders right now seem to be Lookin at Lucky who had some difficulty at the Kentucky Derby as well as other races. He has a new jockey for this race. Paddy O’Prado will also run. He finished third in the Derby. The official flower of the Preakness Stakes in the Maryland State Flower, the Black Eyed Susan.
Calvin Borel, the Cajun jockey, is quite a character. He is also the only jockey to win 2 legs of the Triple Crown on different mounts. In 2009,he won the Kentucky Derby on Mine That Bird and the Preakness on Rachel Alexandra, a filly.
Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.
The West Wing Blog csan now be found at www.whitehouse.gov/blog
According to the Washington Post:
You didn’t see this on CNN or Fox News or NBC: President Obama awkwardly introducing Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, to the Netherlands’ prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, at the recent nuclear security summit. “You know, uh, you’ve met Jan?” the president says tentatively as the other world leaders stand aside like shy kids at a dance.
Or this: Obama, playfully doing his best impression of Muhammad Ali, throwing mock punches into the midsection of a costumed Easter Bunny following the White House Easter Egg Roll.
You didn’t see it on the networks because the behind-the-scenes video was only available on “West Wing Week,” the Obama administration’s new video blog. The six- to seven-minute compilations, which appear each week on the White House’s Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov) and on such video-sharing sites as YouTube, offer what a narrator on each segment calls “your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
The West Wing blog will show video not shown by the major cable networks or nightly news that gives a bird’s eye view of what’s really going on behind the scenes.
In this video, President Obama talks with Americans about why the Wall Street reform is important to anyone who has ever used a credit card, gotten a loan, bought a car or a house, uses an ATM, has a checking account, etc. He talks to ordinary Americans who just might not have a private political agenda:
It seems that an 18 year old Potomac student has been charged with plastering swastika stickers all over Potomac High School. Apparently this vandalism happened between April 15 and May 5 and were put on a resource police cruiser as well as exit doors to the building, lockers, doors and other conspicuous places.
The student, Joseph Barnes, was named since he is 18. It makes one wonder what possesses people to do something this stupid. Did he do it on a dare? Was he bored? Is he disturbed? Was it a senior prank? Or is this kid a Nazi sympathizer?
According to the News & Messenger:
On Tuesday, police arrested 18-year-old Joseph William Barnes of 2493 Fraser Court in Woodbridge in class. He is charged with five counts of destructing and defacing property, said Hernandez.
He was released on $3,500 bond and is scheduled to appear in court June 24.
Police said he was not charged with a hate crime because the vandalism was not aimed at any single “race, religion or creed.”
In August, four teens were arrested after police found sod that had been formed into a swastika in the parking lot of Sinclair Elementary School near Manassas.
In addition to the swastika, sod was also used to form “KKK” and “white power.”
There were 263 incidents of hate crimes in the commonwealth that year, according to FBI crime statistics.
Nationwide, there were 7,783 reported cases of hate crimes in 2008, according to the FBI.
Regardless of his reason, this stunt seems like a very immature thing to do. It sounds more like something an 8 year old would do, not an 18 year old who can legally vote. Now there’s a scary thought!
