Mailbag mostly on education, with good stories and other comments

Mail 779 Wednesday, June 26, 2013

what to do about education

Jerry,

This guy has some thoughts, mostly on how rich kids seem to keep getting farther ahead, and why.

No Rich Child Left Behind

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/?_r=0

I think that although he identifies a key difference in why some kids are better at school than others, he misses the mark, in that he proposes that government money be spent to improve quality of home educational interaction in lower income households, plus more preschools. He misses the really simple solution:

If you covet what rich people have, you should emulate their behaviors. If you want money, do with money what rich people do with money. If you want smart kids like the rich folk, you should raise your kids like the rich folk raise their kids.

I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m comfortable and my kids are usually considered "top whatever" at whatever school they land in (military, so we move a lot). Part of that is genetics (quiz: A medical doctor and a fighter pilot get married. Their kids are a) quick b) smart c) both a and b), but I think most of it is that we interact with the kids constantly, pulling teaching experiences out of thin air all day, every day. Every night, we spend a minimum of an hour reading books with them. Not "to them", but "with them", meaning when they are very young, we ask them what the colors are or if they recognize any letters. Then we point out letters have sounds and make words. They pretty much teach themselves, and all we have to do is ask simple little questions about whatever page we are on. What does the princess have on her head? What color is the crown? Simple stuff.

And yes, we did that while we were both working, by shuffling shifts and giving up our adult leisure activities like watching TV or whatever else might keep us from paying attention to the welfare of our kids. It’s a lifestyle and our new hobby.

The results? Not to brag but to point out what happens when raising your kids is really the priority in the household – Our boy hauled me back inside at a daycare facility to show me that he could read the class roster and the names of all his classmates on a photo board… when he was only 20 months old. Our daughter doesn’t like reading as much but at age 3 she can get through most kindergarten books if she tries, and she was talking in full grammatically correct sentences so early that many people used to think she was just growth stunted and 2 years older than she is. Our boy is now 5, and his idea of fun at bedtime is to pull out a complicated cat in the hat book and try to get through the tongue twisters as fast as he can. He builds those 3-in-1 Lego sets by himself, converting the helicopter into the plane and then into a boat, without help. He’s starting 1st grade in a few months in spite of a Nevada law that tried to force him to repeat kindergarten. Both our 5 and 3 yr old kids learned the basics of ice skating before their 3rd birthdays, when we simply put skates on their feet and let go of their hands. It’s an endless source of fun, how kids learn stuff with just a little guidance.

Our 3 week old boy doesn’t do anything but scream bloody murder, but we still talk to him, because maybe Stanford or MIT wants someone with those kinds of lungs in about 17 years.

If you want your kids to be like the rich/smart kids, then emulate what the rich/smart families do. Talk to the kids, and treat ever interaction like an educational opportunity. Read WITH them, not TO them. And for crying out loud, turn off the TV. We almost never watch TV. When it is on, it is usually sesame street or world world or other kids educational show so at least it isn’t quite as mind numbing as most other popular tv shows.

Sean

Charles Murray in his Coming Apart points out that rich white people tend to be married, go to church, invest in educating their children, believe in the work ethic, and in general embody all the old American virtues that built this nation. But, he points out, they no longer preach what they practice. And the result is that the gap between rich and poor, between well off and poverty, grows greater. Those who don’t practice the old virtues descend further diwn in comparison to those who do; but no one notices that, or if they notice it they don’t say anything. It’s as if we are keeping The Protestant ethic as a secret.

Jerry,

Watts Up With Angels – link tweeted by "Sith Lord Monckton"

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/prescient-fallen-angels-a1991-satire-of-climate-alarmism/

J

Jerry,

Saw this on one of my favorite CAGW skeptic blogs.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/prescient-fallen-angels-a1991-satire-of-climate-alarmism/

73s,

Alan

It’s still a good read, too. If you haven’t read it, you’ll like it. I just wish it were not prophetic…

Subj: Most people are "too busy" to care

New Guardian article about surveillance state:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant

The Guardian releases two more US Top Secret FISA court documents which (according to their article) belie General Alexander’s and FBI Director Mueller’s testimony in Congress this week.

Links therein. Warning: your readers with security clearances should NOT open these links on work computers per current government direction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-a-procedures-nsa-document

And in computer tech: the 1000 GB DVD

Fwd: Amazing

http://tinyurl.com/opllhd7

Or Are They?

Jerry

Someone has come up with a way to make Universal Surveillance™ leave a bad taste in NSA’s mouth.

South Florida man facing bank robbery charges wants NSA phone records to defend himself:

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/31068/south-florida-man-facing-bank-robbery-charges-wants-nsa-phone-records-to-defend-himself/index.html/index.html

If I understand the law correctly, the government MUST disgorge any information it holds that may absolve someone of a crime; or the case is dropped (correct me if I’m wrong here). What a way to give NSA a huge headache.

OTOH, maybe Constitutional provisions no longer trump Universal Surveillance™. If so, the Constitution has passed from the earth.

Ed

Education: 4 stories

Dr Pournelle

Re: Education and algorithms, and a Teacher in America https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=14295

Story 1.

When I attended university back at the close of the Pleistocene epoch [1], I took a class in Differential Equations from Dr U. On a typical day, Dr U came to class; said, "Let’s get started"; and filled the front blackboard (30 ft x 6 ft) with equations. He turned to the eighteen or twenty (I don’t remember exactly) of us benighted students and asked, "Questions?" He spent a moment scanning our stunned and befuddled faces as we scribbled furiously to copy what he had drawn on the board. "Right," he said and launched into a different explication of the particular technique we were ‘studying’ that day on a different board. He rinsed-and-repeated until most of the stunned and befuddled looks faded into the glimmerings of comprehension. He always filled two boards. Sometimes three. A couple of times he filled all four (the classroom had blackboards on every wall).

When time came to take the final, Dr U advised us to come at least 15 minutes before the start. We did not need Blue Books. He provided the paper. All we had to bring were pencils and erasers.

The final exam was scheduled for 3 hours. Not academic hours. Clock hours. 180 minutes.

I got to the classroom half an hour early. I did not recognize the proctor. The college assigned him to proctor the exam. He came from another college ― liberal arts, I think.

I pulled a number from a box, penciled my name and the number I drew on a sheet on the clipboard the proctor handed me, took twelve sheets of plain typing paper from the two reams on the proctor’s desk, and sat down to write my assigned test number on each page and number the pages in the top right corner. My classmates straggled in and did as I had done.

Two minutes before the top of the hour the proctor circulated among us and laid a single sheet, face down on each desk. As he walked, he intoned, "This is your final test. Do not turn the sheet over until you are told to do so. You may not leave the room until you complete the test. When there are fifteen, ten, and five minutes remaining, I will write a notice on the blackboard at the front of the room. Write your answers on only one side of each sheet. If you need more paper, come get it. Remember to write your test number on each page and to number each page."

Finished with his task, he returned to his desk and watched the seconds tick by on the big clock at the front of the room. When Mickey’s big hand and tail stood straight up, the proctor said, "Turn your test paper over. You may begin."

I turned the test paper over. My DiffyQ final consisted of two problems. I started on the first.

I managed to squeeze my answers to the two problems into the the twelve sheets I had taken. When I finished, I sighed, collected my papers, and went to the proctor’s desk. He pointed to a stapler and whispered, "Top left corner. Then fold it and write your test number on the back." When I completed his instructions, he pointed to the box I had drawn my test number from. "Put it in there."

I turned to leave and was surprised to find the time warning "5 MINUTES" printed across the front-wall blackboard. I looked up at the clock. There were three minutes remaining in the three hours.

I was the first one to finish.

FWIW I earned an A+ from Dr U [2]. The only one in the class. [3]

Why did I tell you this story?

Patience. All will be explained in due time.

I topped the class in DiffyQ. I stood at the 95th percentile in math. [4] I expect that the low student in my DiffyQ class stood at the 90th percentile. The prerequisite for the course was successful completion of Multivariate Calculus, a course whose mere mention would cause liberal arts majors to shudder and quake.

Among college students, we were the mathematics elite. Among mathematics students, we were pushing the top tier. Not just me. All of us.

Not one of our math professors ever asked me if I knew how to ‘reason numerically.’ Not one of our math professors ever asked me if I ‘felt good’ about myself for having worked through to the solution. Not one of our math professors ever asked me "Can you add? Subtract? Multiply? Divide? Can you do those operations effectively and quickly?"

No.

They assumed that I had those skills. They assumed that I had a solid base of arithmetic fundamentals and that I performed arithmetic operations quickly and accurately. On that arithmetic base, they taught me mathematical reasoning from analytic geometry to differential calculus to integral calculus to multivariate calculus to differential equations to probability to abstract algebra to complex analysis and to mathematics that did not have a name, it was so new. I learned trigonometric substitutions, the Mean Value Theorem [5], Abelian groups, normal and skewed distributions, Dedekind cuts, and more. I discovered that I had a talent for geometry and that my talent was not enough to build a career on. I learned to think in six dimensions and work out the orthogonals in my head. For those who are interested, this is useful when you are trying to decrypt and analyze foreign telemetry. FWIW I wrote a computer program to find, identify, and catalog such telemetry using only three dimensions. Had to overload some operators in C to make the code easy to read, but, hey, what’s an overloaded operator among six dimensions?

I built my arithmetic skills in the first, second, and third grades, memorizing addition and multiplication tables and practicing those skills over and over and over again. [6] And now you post this nonsense about ‘numerical reasoning’ and drive my blood pressure to new heights.

Where I come from there’s a saying: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The old way of teaching arithmetic skills by memorization of tables and drill, drill, drill was not broken. Numerical reasoning does not fix it.

From what I read, occupational psychologists developed the term ‘numerical reasoning’ as a component of psychometrics. Am I wrong in assuming that the weenies in the various university sogenannte Schools of Education took this term and massaged it into what they called a ‘teaching concept’? No more were they to be burdened by ― shudder ― numbers. Now they could concentrate their energies on teaching ‘numerical reasoning’ and helping the piteous little kiddies feel good about folding paper in a mockery of geometric proof. No matter that little Johnny cannot add 212, 1516, and 48 and get a consistent answer. At least the little ignoramus has great self-esteem.

I topped my DiffyQ class. Regarding mathematics, I have reason to have self-esteem. And confidence in my ability. Little Johnny has no reason to have self-esteem and no reason to have confidence in his abilities. I have the skills. Little Johnny ― with his education in ‘numerical reasoning’ ― does not have the skills. When the testing comes, I shall pass and he shall fail.

The universe is not cruel, but neither is it merciful. Your self-esteem does not matter. Only results matter.

Tell you what: If numerical reasoning is the way to go, do it with Roman numerals. If all roads lead to Rome and there is no one best way to learn math skills, do all your math exercises ― if you do math exercises ― with the marks the Romans used. What difference will it make? After all, one way is as good as another. Go ahead. Reason numerically about multiplying XLIX by XXXVIII. Let me know how that works out for you.

The last formal mathematics course I took was Complex Analysis [7]. The last course you education majors took was high school algebra, and you hated that. Regarding mathematics and its instruction "My own counsel I’ll keep". [8]

If I seem contemptuous of education majors and their fitness for anything other than compost, I am.

Story 2.

I worked my way through college. The university I attended generously provided jobs to many students. One job I held was that of Computer Operator on the IBM 360/70 in the university computer center.

After my first semester working in the computer center, I worked the wake-up shift, 0600 – 0900. Many of the universities administrative computational jobs came to me to run because things were quiet at that time, and, thus, the demands on the CPU were less.

The university faculty senate had expressed some concerns about the school’s reputation, or rather the lack of it. They wanted to know why this was. So they compiled years of grades, punched them onto 80-column cards, and toted those cards down to the computer center where they spilled those data onto a tape. That took the better part of a day and all that evening which meant they did not have time to run the statistics on those data and print them out. Problem was that the computer center had promised Dr R, the president of the faculty senate, the report the following morning.

Charlie, my boss, left it to me on the morning shift to run the stats and print out the results. As soon as I woke the Beast, I ran the job. It printed out half a box of fanfold paper. I tore off the last page, picked up the printout, and took it to the counter to look through it.

Of course, I knew what this was and what it meant. I scanned to the math department. As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs, a few incompletes ― all the grades in the table. The distribution was normal but the mean was shifted slightly toward the lower end; that is, the department gave fewer As than expected and more Fs than expected.

I scanned to the physics department. Much the same story as with the math department but shifted even more toward the lower end.

I scanned to the department of education, and I said to myself, said I, "Oh, the shit’s gonna hit the fan." ED gave 80% As, 20% Bs, and nothing below a B.

This report exploded like a bomb in the faculty senate. Dr R, the president of the senate, made a motion his own self to severe the Department of Education from the rest of the university and another that admission to the School of Education would not give admission to the rest of the university. The recriminations were many and bitter. I heard that the President of the University called in the campus cops to restore order and prevent the threatened assaults.

I ran this report when I was a sophomore. When I graduated, the war was still on.

So if you are an education major and you think I have no respect for you . . . you’re right. I don’t. Moreover, I won’t.

Story 3.

In the same ‘Aspire-to-Mediocrity’ mindset as ‘numerical reasoning’ is the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). Perhaps they do some good. I don’t know. What I do know is that they do not play football; that is, soccer. The game they play is to football what gin rummy is to national-tournament-level contract bridge. The implements they play with resemble each other but the games are light-years apart.

My sister enrolled my niece in AYSO. My nephew-by-my-other-sister played winger on his high school team and showed considerable skill at the position. My niece showed no skill and no inclination to acquire any, but my sister said, "At least it’ll get her out in the fresh air and sunshine." [9]

Because my sister came late to the party, my niece got placed on a team with the name of ‘Bluebirds’. [10] The coach knew as much about football as a pig knows about opera and showed less desire to learn about the sport than the pig about opera. She had no idea how to kick a football and ― it pains me to write this ― taught her charges to toe the ball. Heading was beyond her. Practice sessions stopped when the children got winded. I swear they would have worked out more hiking to and from a picnic. But the coach knew the AYSO rules ― everybody plays ― and worked out rotations to guarantee that every player got as much time on the field as every other player. It did not matter. The only discernible difference in their skills was that some were faster than others. Not a skill they developed by coaching.

The results were predictable and predicted. The Bluebirds lost. Every game. Some by embarrassing margins. My niece finished the season thoroughly disheartened. She told her mother, "I don’t want to play anymore."

My sister dragged her to the AYSO closing ceremony.

Lo and behold, the Bluebirds were the first team called. Every Bluebird got a little loving cup inscribed ‘Participant’. My niece was ecstatic. She signed up for another season. [11]

It’s true that the first place team got a big first-place trophy. But that should have been the only trophy. If you don’t grok that, I’m not even going to try to persuade you to my position. You are too stupid to live.

Story 4.

My daughter had toddled about for some months and showed signs of developing facility with perambulation when my wife suggested to me that we think about toilet training the little tyke. My memories of toilet training consisted of crying (me) and screaming (my mother) and nothing about toilets or training. But by hook or by crook or by the grace of God, I had reached a point where I was no longer crapping in my pants. My wife’s experience paralleled mine.

This was before the days of the interwebs. My wife wanted information on ‘how to’ toilet train a toddler. Given our histories, neither of us wanted to consult our mothers. My wife searched and ― wonder of wonders ― found a thin volume that purported to make ‘Potty Training in One Day’ possible. [12] This thin volume drove our purchase of a child’s toilet to facilitate the training.

Unfortunately, we were not too diligent in the application of the method detailed in the book. We did not succeed in toilet training our daughter in a day. It took three. But no crying and no screaming.

I end with this story to let you know that I am amenable to change, but if and only if the change results in measurable improvement over previous methods.

There seems to be a pernicious notion among the denizens of our universities that conflates new with better and change with progress.

This is false. Not just wrong-headed but horribly, frighteningly false.

The reason that repetitive instruction and drill, drill, drill were used to teach arithmetic skills to children is that a thousand years of use proved that they worked. To abandon that accumulated experience and wisdom for the evanescent fad of ‘numerical reasoning’ is not just stupid, not just incompetence; it is criminal malfeasance. And, yes, by that I mean those who practice it are criminals. I recommend that they be incarcerated for an indeterminate term, to be released as soon as they can ‘numerically reason’ from the paucity of mathematical knowledge that they possess to the solutions of the differential equations on my final exam using only their own innate intelligence without resort to any texts or teachers or other guidance in the mathematical arts. I submit that this is a fitting test of the rightness of numerical reasoning.

You said in a previous post that we have lost the war over public education in this country. That this fraud is trumpeted about as the new wave of teaching mathematics saddens and angers me.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

[1] Given the theoretical age of the Earth ― 4,500,000,000 years ― the 12,000 years since the Pleistocene epoch is covered by measurement error. 😉

[2] In my entire undergraduate career, this is one of two grades that I am proud of. The other is the C I won in Nuclear Physics. There’s a story to that one, too.

[3] Like my Daddy said, "It ain’t no brag if you can back it up."

[4] Turns out that standardized tests do not distinguish well at the margins. On the GRE, I scored 800 in both the standard math portion and the optional breakout. That is, I maxed the tests. Those perfect scores placed me in the 95th percentile according to the boys in New Jersey.

[5] Why is the Mean Value Theorem always taught using Cartesian coordinates? It is much more intuitive if taught using polar coordinates.

[6] Repetition is the key to all learning.

[7] The subject of the course was complex numbers (x+yi) and devising theorems and proofs about their properties.

[8] Yoda.

[9] One can make a strong argument that sending a child out into the "fresh air and sunshine" of a Texas summer when temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit is tantamount to child abuse. One has.

[10] If this gets published, all you parents out there, know this: If your child’s team is named the Bluebirds, you’re gonna lose. A lot. Get used to it.

[11] The next season, her team went oh-and-ten again, and that put paid to her soccer career.

[12] Toilet Training in Less Than a Day <http://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Less-Than-Day/dp/0671693808> is available at Amazon.

Subject: LA Schools Buy $30M of iPads

$30Million on iPads??? I thought they were short of money. Granted, there are worse ways to spend all that money, but I never want to hear anyone say that we don’t have enough money for public schools again.

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/19/apple-scores-30-million-ipad-contract-from-l-a-unified-school-district/?utm_source=feedly

—

Dwayne Phillips

I await the result with abated breath…

The Cursive Dilemma

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I am a twice elected member of our district’s school board, and have read with great interest your essays and the materials presented by you and contributors on the state of education in the USA.

One aspect of the decline in basic education that caught me by surprise was the unanticipated result of the elimination of cursive writing courses in elementary school. Many, if not most of the children enrolled in public school, graduate to high school unable to sign their name.

There are young adults, in growing numbers, that "print" their signature on paychecks and, presumably, legal documents.

I’m wondering what a mortgage closing looks like when the buyer and seller each print their name on both of the lines?

Will the phrase "sign here" become obsolete?

Bennett Dawson

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

American education poses a dilemma for those who run the political system, namely; shall the people learn or not? If the people do not learn, then they become unproductive and the economy collapses; but if the people do learn, then they become productive but uncontrollable. Indeed, the more they learn, the more they want to take over!

Recent history gives vivid illustration of this dilemma. In the 60’s, we saw the post-Sputnik initiative. What was the result? By the end of the decade, Americans were walking on the moon, and rioting in the campuses! In 1980, an anti-intellectual was elected President, and a different attitude towards education took hold. The result? Much more political stability, but 40 years of stagnant median income.

Explosion or collapse? The ideal solution, from the 1% point of view, is a kind of golden mediocrity, where education teaches the masses just enough to work, and not enough to make trouble. The trouble is that the lines sometimes cross, and you need to know more to work than you need to make trouble; then mediocrity gives everyone trouble but no work.

60s or 80s? In the 60s, America went to the Moon. In the 80s, America went to Hell. All in all I prefer the Moon.

Snowden and Assange have taught us that there is a similar dilemma concerning secrecy. If internal communications of secretive agencies are not censored, then the agency risks exposure by leak; but if internal communications are censored, then the agency becomes stupid. As in the education dilemma, the operators and owners of the system face a choice between controlled collapse into stupidity and uncontrolled ascent into rebellion; and as in the education dilemma, golden mediocrity fails when the lines cross, and it becomes easier for a disgruntled agent to rebel than to report.

In both cases information flow is a problem. From the 1% point of view, information is a kind of explosive lubricant; if it doesn’t flow, then the system seizes up, but if it does flow, then the system explodes. Golden mediocrity fails when revolt is simpler than labor.

There is a deeper problem, and it is political. Why the rebellion of the informed public? Because knowledge gives power, and ends excuses.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel Hellerstein

Mike Johns wrote:

>I don’t think that I have ever encountered someone who did know how to solve story problems but who couldn’t perform the algorithms >without a calculator. Are there any?

Oddly, growing up in the 1970’s, I almost was such a child. I certainly learned my addition and multiplication facts, but I was bad at making use of them, mostly because I was clumsy at writing down sums, so that all too often my place-values got jumbled, and I rarely realized it in time (yes, I should have double-checked, of course).

But I understood mathematical concepts better than most of my classmates. I was obliged to take remedial Algebra II in summer school one year, and we were expected to work in small groups. That’s the only time small-group work has worked well for me. I was paired with a friendly boy who had not even a glimmer of understanding of word problems, and together the two of us shone. I would analyze the word-problem and tell him what we needed to do to solve it, and he

would unerringly work out the problems I set for us. The teacher

started giving us more advanced word-problems, and he told my mother on parents’ day that I could potentially do original work in mathematics. (I never have and presumably never will; I studied Latin

instead.)

—

Meredith Dixon

RAND study on Algebra 1 blended instruction

Dear Jerry,

Article today in Education Week on RAND study of hybrid instruction (blend of online plus in-class) of Algebra 1 “Study: Hybrid Algebra Program ‘Nearly Doubled’ Math Learning”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2013/06/government_study_finds_gains_f.html <http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2013/06/government_study_finds_gains_f.html>

I have not read the RAND study yet. Valerie teaches Algebra 1 and Algebra 2, so I will forward her comments and mine later this month.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR984.html

Jim Ransom

‘According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a petri dish in which the KGB community could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought.’

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2348191/EXCLUSIVE-KGB-operation-seeded-Muslim-countries-anti-American-anti-Jewish-propaganda-1970s-laying-groundwork-Islamist-terrorism-U-S-Israeli-targets.html>

———

Roland Dobbins

Women as Teachers

JP: "Yet when we had a splendid education system, the envy of the world, it was mostly women teachers and principals."

This was true when I entered elementary school in the early 50’s. As I progressed I came to realize that many of these women, and a number of men, were superior individuals. Years later as once again I became familiar with schoolteachers I wondered where all these superior people were, the mean seemed to be mediocre at best.

Then I realized in the 50’s working women had three choices: become a secretary, a nurse or a teacher. A good percentage of the best became teachers. Today the career field is wide open and the best seldom look to teaching as a career path.

We can struggle against it, but I don’t see a way past the present incentives. The best answer is don’t subject anyone you care about to it.

Kent Anderson

Actually, teaching the young is a rewarding experience, and is to be preferred to most cubicle jobs even if those pay more; but we have worked to make the experience as miserable for the teachers as it is disgusting to the pupils. Properly run schools don’t have teachers who hate their jobs.

‘When it’s hot, they point to Global Warming. When it’s cold, they also point to Global Warming.’

<http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-end-of-world.html>

————

Roland Dobbins

Yep. And now Obama wants to go to war with the US economy in order to save the world from Co2 pollution – at least as contributed by the United States.

Subj: Fw: THIS Is Who We Are Helping In Syria?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJfFrkzf8I&feature=em-share_video_user

I don’t honestly care what anyone thinks of Glenn Beck or on which side their political leanings lie. Don’t watch this video at your own peril. It’s gruesome, graphic, horrifying, chilling and might spoil your breakfast if you don’t have a strong stomach, but this IS Islam, and we enter Syria at our own peril. Watch what this nice Syrian Rebel does to the Syrian military man he has killed…

ChiTownDi1 <http://www.youtube.com/user/ChiTownDi1?feature=em-share_video_user> has shared a video with you on YouTube

Glenn Beck: Shocking Video- THIS Is Who We Are Helping In Syria?! SHARE WITH EVERYONE!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJfFrkzf8I&feature=em-share_video_user> by TheDailyBeck <http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDailyBeck?feature=em-share_video_user>

From the June 17, 2013 edition of "Glenn Beck" on TheBlaze TV: WARNING- This video contains DISTURBING images. The Obama administration, along with PROGRESSIVE Republicans AND Democrats are OK providing assistance to the Syrian ‘rebels’…the same ‘rebels’ who have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and who cut the heart and liver out of their enemies and eat it.WE MUST NOT GET INVOLVED IN THIS WAR!

 

Rods from God –

Jerry, I enjoyed the tungsten rod humor in the Questional Content web comic and thought I’d see if there was anything recent online about them. Found this Popular Science article from 2004 that refers to an Air Force paper from 2003 and a Rand report from 2002. Also mentions a certain science fiction author in connection with them. Can’t recall and my copies of your books are packed away since the last move, but didn’t you originate the nickname "Rods from God?" Or at least mention that nickname and who coined it?

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/rods-god

–Gary P.

Jerry,

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/how_democracies_perish_deathbed_edition.html#.UcC12GqfvyE.twitter

<snip>

Consider the example of John Dewey: a brazen propagandist for Stalinist Russia who, when the truth leaked out, turned Trotskyite without missing a totalitarian beat — and lost not one iota of public credibility in the process. He is "the father of modern education" throughout the civilized world, a world he spent a lifetime hating and attempting to undermine through an education theory built on the principle that all children must be forcibly divested of individual thought, personal initiative, and private motivation. Had the Soviet Union he admired been fully exposed without the delay effect, his own motives and credibility might have been damaged. Instead, he has been lionized as the great educator, while the educational establishment formed according to his theories has (intentionally) reduced the civilization of Shakespeare and Locke, Jefferson, and Melville, to an ahistorical, amoral, semi-literate den of dependency and submissiveness.

Jerry,

I think Martha Stewart would vehemently disagree with the Salinas vs TX ruling. You have no right against self incrimination until AFTER you have been arrested? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Maybe instead of simply not cooperating with unofficial questioning, we need to just start shooting and get it over with since the 5th amendment just got thrown out entirely.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/at-the-supreme-court-divisions-and-signs-of-trouble-to-come/276931/

They can "detain" you, not read you your rights, and then not only what you say, but what you don’t say, will be used against you in court. Our rule of law is rapidly coming to an end.

S