A school district in Florida that banned walking and biking to school should help out their taxpayers and charge them parking their bikes. Bike racks aren’t free. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Seventh-grader Adam Marino is getting a firsthand lesson in civil disobedience.


The 12-year-old and his mother, Janette Kaddo Marino, are defying Saratoga Springs school policy by biking to Maple Avenue Middle School on Route 9. The Jackson Street residents pedal more than four miles together each way to the middle school on nice days despite being told not to by school officials and police.

School district could backpedal on policy -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY:2997:.

In a large experiment in India results show the power of linking teacher pay to performance. How to believe that rewarding the productive works in schools like it does in the rest of the world.  

2009 Malibu vs a 1959 Bel Air

so much for being built like a tank.

Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood's children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.

Regulators who oversee child care, however, don't see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she'd be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

State to mom: Stop baby-sitting neighbors' kids - Yahoo! News.

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

A good spanking may leave a mark on a child that's worse than the red handprint. Spanking and other corporal punishments stunt children's intelligence, new research shows.

The IQs of 2- to 4-year-olds who received regular spankings from their parents dropped by more than 5 points over four years, compared with kids who were not spanked

Next study members of congress were likely to have been abused as children.

Update:

Should have considered the source before posting Prevention Research Center in Berkeley, California

National Geographic summer 2008:

Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer, report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. “We’re actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history],” David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker. …

National Geographic September 2009:

This year’s cooler-than-expected summer means the Arctic probably won’t experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, scientists say. Some models had previously predicted that the Arctic could be ice free in summer by as soon as 2013, due to rising temperatures from global warming.…

The Nanny State knows best and they will be glad to teach us how to behave.

When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons. Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. “The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is. - Wall Street Journal

This was from the energy secretary who had to be reminded that he was in charge of oil policy.

Before teaching others they should first clean up their own act and have facilities that  pass their own energy audit.

After working side by side for weeks, two coworkers discovered that they are actually siblings brought together by a series of incredible circumstances.

Gary Nisbet and Randy Joubert, who share the same parents, were adopted and raised by separate families in neighboring Maine towns, never knowing the other one existed. They attended rival high schools, moved to the same town of Waldoboro, Maine, and both wound up working for the same company, Dow Furniture.

Coworkers Find They're Long Lost Brothers | NBC New York.

It is easy to become envious of the high salaries of professional athletes but there is another darker side to the story and after doing some basic economic analysis the numbers aren’t that good.

 Previously it was reported that there was a 60% chance a pro basketball player would go bankrupt within a few years after playing. Recent reports show the odds are even harsher for a pro football player with 78% declaring bankruptcy two years after retiring.

If this data is correct, the probability of a high school athlete making it to the professional level is about 1 in 12,000. (I've heard that the probability is far more remote.) Baseball offers the most lucrative potential as well as the likelihood of having the longest career. But even that is estimated to be just three years for MLB. Doing the math, and discounting $400,000 per year for three years, beginning at age 17 and entering the big leagues at age 21 (not likely), the expected value of a career in baseball is about $86. Who's likely to pursue that?

Now, certainly it's not the average high school athlete who considers himself pro material, but It's still predominantly those with low opportunity costs of their time that pursue the professional athlete track. Even if we changed it so that a high school athlete was ten times more likely to make it to the professional level, the expected value is only about $860. That is total, not per year.

 Before being judgmental, how many of us wouldn’t be in the same boat if we were given the income for our whole life in the first 3 years after school. There is a reason the children of the rich have trust funds that dole out the money.

Wolf Blitzer only plays a smart guy on TV. The guy can barely spell CNN.

Tonight at 7 the Brandywine Community Library will be presenting a FREE showing of ElDorado in the Multi-Purpose room at the Henry Health Center.   Don’t get your hopes up that it is El Dorado from 1967 with John Wane and Robert Mitchum.  Could be damning with faint praise but it was voted the Best European Film at Canines a couple of yeas ago.

In “Eldorado,” a road movie that poignantly juggles absurdism and melancholy, the summertime landscape of the Wallonia region of Belgium is filmed to resemble a miniaturized American West. The soundtrack for this story of two mutually suspicious strangers who establish a tentative bond on a highway to nowhere echoes the twang of Ennio Morricone with a hint of parody.

when he accessed the President for lying when it concerned illegal aliens receiving ObamaCare.  Seems the President just plans on making them all legal therefore there will be no illegals to cover. 

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else. “

Its vivid colour is clearly designed to appeal to youngsters. But this watch is really aimed at their parents.

For its key selling point is a satellite positioning system that locates the wearer to within ten feet.

The makers claim the GPS tracking device will offer anxious parents peace of mind and allow children the independence to go out to play on their own.

To have a Senator that makes a courageous stand like continuing to give money to a group that supports child sex slavery.  Its not like they were going to be American kids. 

The Magnificent 7

    •    Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
    •    Roland Burris, D-Ill.
    •    Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
    •    Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
    •    Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
    •    Bob Casey, D-Pa.
    •    Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

In the House the vote was 345 to 75. Acorn staunch voter Barney Frank couldn’t be found with three members of the PA delegation that sees no problem with voter fraud, tax evasion and the child sex slaves. Just in case their names come up in any state wide campaigns.
Robert Brady D-Pa.
Mike Doyle, D-Pa.
Chaka Fattah, D-Pa.

05049 was an actual pig, raised and slaughtered on a commercial farm in the Netherlands. Rotterdam designer Christien Meindertsma was shocked to discover that she could document 185 products contributed to by the animal.

One pig, 185 different products.

The '2010 Old Farmer's Almanac,' which is now on store shelves, says it's going to be colder in the coming months, with more moisture for the spring.

"We're looking for colder-than-normal temperatures through most of the winter," Janice Stillman, editor of this year's edition, said.

Stillman is the first female editor of the 218 year old publication. These misguided simpletons actually believe the sun has an effect on the weather and use sunspots or lack there of in making their predictions. How quaint.

'2010 Old Farmer's Almanac' predicts colder winter, spring.

The idea that we might ration health care to seniors (or anyone else) is political anathema. Politicians do not dare breathe the R word, lest they be accused—however wrongly—of trying to pull the plug on Grandma. But the need to spend less money on the elderly at the end of life is the elephant in the room in the health-reform debate. Everyone sees it but no one wants to talk about it. At a more basic level, Americans are afraid not just of dying, but of talking and thinking about death. Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable.

Just Take The Little Blue Pill.

Compared to the news and tributes surrounding the passing of  Senator Kennedy who bravely helped other people using other peoples money a man who really chanced the world dies in Texas with little notice

Norman Borlaug was the father of the real Green Revolution. His work in developing higher yielding crops more than doubled the world’s food production between 1960 and 1990. His work avoid famines saving 1 billion lives.  When you consider that lack of resources is a major cause of wars how many more people even in developed nations are alive today because of his efforts.

Besides new crops he worked to develop the infrastructure and markets to bring food to those who needed it.  Starvation today is due to misguided or intentional governmental policies then lack of food.

"One of his favorite quotes was, 'Reach for the stars. Although you will never touch them, if you reach hard enough, you will find that you get a little 'star dust' on you in the process.'"

It is impressive because these are normal people not your run of the mill I'll protest anything anywhere types.

They also vote.

of events in the U.S. read a British paper.

Across the pond where there is a vast difference between the head of state and the head of government they consider American politicians a bunch of wimps. The Brits where hurling political insults is a national past time are having trouble with the tempest in the aftermath of Rep. Joe Wilson remarks. They also don't think very highly of Pres. Obama “We all make mistakes,” acceptance of his apology. Speaking in Parliament is not like speaking in church where everyone sits in rapt attention receiving word from on high through an earthly messenger. The head executive had better bring his “A” game.

Trivial though it may seem, this brouhaha highlights a great flaw in the American system: You elect a monarch.

…

Obama’s health-care address was not given in his role as head of state. It was, rather, a political speech made by—pinch yourselves—a mere politician seeking to advance his own political agenda.

…

More important, it might demand that the president lift his game. I am reminded of the story of the 18th-century radical John Wilkes, who was once heckled, “Vote for you? I’d sooner vote for the Devil,” to which he replied, “And what if your friend is not standing?”

Which, in its own way, is rather what President Obama should have said to Rep. Wilson.

Bravo, however, to Mr. Wilson for doing what he could to remind us all that the president is just a man.

Recent video was posted on YouTube showing taxpayer funded ACORN representatives advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her pimp on how to evade taxes. One tip was to treat  as under age dependents teenage age girls smuggled in from El Salvador to work in their business.  Now the State Attorney General of Maryland is threatening to bring criminal charges not against Acorn but against the couple that did the filming. Really helps to have friends in the highest of places.  Details reported on WBAL.  Good news is that ACORN has been dropped from their census work. 

When the pupil is ready to learn, a teacher will appear.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: SENATOR MICHAEL A. O’PAKE

(610) 929-2151 or (717) 787-8925

SENATOR O’PAKE STATEMENT ON
NEGOTIATED BUDGET AGREEMENT

       Reading, September 11, 2009 -- State Senator Michael A. O’Pake (D-Berks) praised the conference committee budget agreement and explained: “Without increasing the income tax or the sales tax, the negotiated budget cuts state spending substantially so that fewer state dollars will be spent than last year.  But it increases funding for basic education as an investment in Pennsylvania’s future.  An additional $300 million will be available for school districts in the basic education subsidy to continue the educational progress we’ve seen recently.  The Reading School District will receive the largest basic education funding increase of any school district in Pennsylvania except Philadelphia—- a $13.7 million, or 13.4 percent increase, to a total of $123.3 million.  The other school districts in Berks County will also see increases--to save local property taxpayers millions of dollars.”

on why we closed down an airport and almost started a panic because of something we thought we heard on a scanner.

Maybe they should have asked their Pentagon and White House reporters for confirmation. And just the other day other real journalist were saying you can’t trust information on the Internet. 

The question that has plagued mankind since the first supermarket was opened “Which Line Is Faster?” has now been solved.

Other Factors besides tne number of items:

Check is slower than credit which is slower than cash. Students are sometimes surprised that cash is faster than credit. From my observations, the fastest cash transaction will outpace the fastest credit transaction by a wide margin but there is also huge variance in credit transactions. I mean, some people have absolutely no idea what they are doing with that thing. The same can't really be said of cash.

The y-intercept is non-zero! This never fails to trip my fuses. It should take you zero seconds to purchase zero items but you can't ignore the fixed time cost of the pleasantries ("Hi. How are you doing? Do you need any help out?") and the transaction itself.

The express lane isn't faster. The manager backed me up on this one. You attract more people holding fewer total items, but as the data shows above, when you add one person to the line, you're adding 48 extra seconds to the line length (that's "tender time" added to "other time") without even considering the items in her cart. Meanwhile, an extra item only costs you an extra 2.8 seconds. Therefore, you'd rather add 17 more items to the line than one extra person! I can't believe I'm dropping exclamation points in an essay on grocery shopping but that's how this stuff makes me feel. Even using this handy chart some of us will still have the uncanny ability to pick the slowest one.

A nice tune to start off your work day to inspire you to work harder for some other guy.

Instead of having the opposition make some boring speech in rebuttal to the next give away speech, they should just play this.

All the hue and cry came afterwards with the Democrats holding hearings.

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. -- while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters."

Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "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."

President Obama will address schoolchildren around the nation today, exhorting them to have the courage and determination to achieve their educational goals, to seek out expert help when they need it, and to not allow their history to determine their destiny.

These are inspiring words that could indeed transform American education — if only the president himself would heed them.

Obama showed a glimmer of courage on education policy during the 2008 campaign. Asked if he supported private school-choice programs such as the one in Milwaukee, Obama responded, “If there was any argument for vouchers it was ‘Let’s see if the experiment works.’ And if it does, whatever my preconception, you do what’s best for kids.”

Just a few months after taking office, President Obama had the perfect opportunity to rediscover that courage in pursuit of his education goals and to seek out expert help and advice, as he counsels schoolchildren to do. This past spring, his fellow Democrats in Congress were seeking to kill the federally funded Opportunity Scholarships program, which pays private-school tuition for 1,700 low-income families in Washington, D.C. In the midst of that debate, his own Department of Education released a report saying that, after three years in the program, private-school students were reading two grade levels ahead of a randomized control group of their peers in public schools.

Did President Obama show the courage of his convictions? Did he listen to the expert advice of his Department of Education and stand up to his fellow party members, winning them over to his way of thinking? Or did he allow the preferences of the public-school unions to trump his own goals and ideals?

Alas, the president’s courage faltered, he ignored the expert findings of his own Department of Education, and he caved to pressure from the unions, killing the program as they demanded. Obama has decided that this successful, fantastically efficient initiative should accept no new students, and die when its last participant graduates from high school.

What does it say to American children, Mr. President, when you fail to follow your own advice?

— Andrew J. Coulson is director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and the author of Comparing Public, Private, and Market Schools.

Fox has the text tomorrow speech posted if you are interested.  HotAir did a word count of the text.

• 56 iterations of “I”


• 19 iterations of “school”


• 10 iterations of “education”


• 8 iterations of “responsibility”


• 7 iterations of “country”


• 5 iterations each of “parents”, “teachers”


• 3 iterations of “nation”

More I than any of the other words combined.  The last sentence may cause some angst among is biggest supporters.  

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Amazing Tom Brokaw and Tom Freedman lecturing on how they should be trusted because they are real journalist not like those people on the Internet.  Their impeccable organizations NYC and the NY Times  never mentioned any controversy surrounding departed Obama Czar Van Jones until he resigned. Somebody with his views that was in charge of $60 billion dollars should have been looked at by these guys not swept under the Hope and Change carpet. 

Tom Freedman author of “Flat Earth” is supposed to be an expert on how the technology age changed the world. This clip shows he really doesn’t understand what has happened when it is applied to his own bankrupt business.  Yes anybody on the Internet can claim anything but the truth does  bubble up from the bottom as various factions weigh in.  No longer is the news solely suppled by the priestly class to the unwashed in a manner that they can comprehend.

Update: Another story brewing not uncovered or left unreported by these two giants of the truth is the National Endowment of The Arts proposed used of taxpayer dollars to promote the President’s policies.  George Will opened up this can of worms.

"Recently there was a conference call arranged by the National Endowment for the Arts, with a representative of the White House, for potential grantees or actual grantees of the federal government, getting subsidies - the theme of it was how the arts community could advance the president's agenda. Now I don't know how many laws that breaks, but I am sure there are some."

And they wonder why people are concerned about the President classroom discussion and related homework.

If you were hoping that the new Michael Moore movie Capitalism: A Love Story, would be a celebration of the economic system that allowed someone like himself to become multi-millionaire and heavily influence a major political party read no further. 

The Rutgers gives away the ending.

Blending his trademark humor with tragic individual stories, archive footage and publicity stunts, the 55-year-old launches an all out attack on the capitalist system, arguing that it benefits the rich and condemns millions to poverty.

"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," the two-hour movie concludes.

No mention if the movie will be shown for free or if they will require real American dollars.  This is one movie that deserves to be pirated over the Internet.

This is really bad and the guy should be thrown in jail after a good butt kicking by angry moms but who hasn’t been tempted at some point.

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) - Police say a 61-year-old man annoyed with a crying 2-year-old girl at a suburban Atlanta Walmart slapped the child several times after warning the toddler's mother to keep her quiet.

A police report says after the stranger hit the girl at least four times, he said: "See, I told you I would shut her up."

 

Nothing says welcome to the neighborhood like a cannon ball through the window. Once again some people just think it others do.  Has anyone ever checked e-bay for the price of used cannons? 

UNIONTOWN, Pa. – A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home. William Maser, 54, fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away. The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities said nobody was hurt.

And to start off football season. If you were ugly green and yellow uniforms and are called the Ducks you have to expect some lip from opposing teams.

If your child is incapable of handling a 20-minute haranguing from a self-important public servant, he will be tragically unprepared for the new world. (Whom do you think he will be dealing with when he needs that hip replacement in 60 years?)

Even if you oppose the president on a political level, it is empirically evident that the more one hears his homilies the less inclined one is to trust him. And Obama's penchants to lecture us endlessly, to be the center of attention endlessly and to saturate the airwaves and national conversation are clear indications that he believes government is the answer to every societal, religious, economic, and cultural question we face. Why should your kids be immune? . . .

Why should we deny that he can elevate our schoolchildren from the abyss so they finally, after decades of neglect, can learn again? And who better to dictate the lesson plan than the president's secretary of education, Arne Duncan, a man who left Chicago's school district with a meager 40 percent dropout rate?

Honestly, if I'm going to be badgered and browbeaten by the president every day, kids should suffer a bit, as well.

A new wrinkle in European public libraries is not only can you check out mundane book by Nora Roberts or the latest DVD but in Copenhagen you can borrow a person to tell their life story.

Last weekend, Feltmann, the former stripper, was one of around 55 "human books" that could be loaned from the Living Library in Copenhagen. The event was being held in the park, entry was free and anyone who wanted to hear the talking autobiographies only had to put their name on a list. It was mostly children and teenagers who were interested in hearing the life stories of an assortment of people, including Feltmann, a Muslim woman, a hip-hop artist, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and a gay Jew. They wanted to know how these people live and how their lives have changed -- or how they'd like to change their lives.

A Harvard economist discusses how to teach your children basic economics using classic children stories.

“ The Three Little Pigs,” for example, is more than just a story about the value of better building materials. Like a whole host of fairy tales (“The Ant and the Grasshopper,” or “The Goose with the Golden Egg”), it teaches that sensible investment can yield high returns.

I’ve never been quite sure about “ Jack and the Beanstalk,” where the boy trades a cow for a handful of beans and eventually makes a fortune off the deal. I suspect that this tale is best interpreted as implying that risky enterprises can occasionally pay off, but taking on such outcome volatility also creates a nontrivial chance of being eaten by a giant.

…

As I explain this logic to my children, they respond with the glazed and distinctly annoyed looks that conveys to me their inner joy.

Power library is currently used by local and school libraries to exchange books throughout the entire commonwealth.  Anyone with a library card can obtain a book or other material regardless of where in the commonwealth it might be located. In addition Power Library has a 24/7 service providing access to online source material that would otherwise be unavailable or cost prohibitive.  By using the entire state market it helps even the playing fields for rural districts that cannot afford books and subscriptions for such a wide variety of specialized areas. Now the state in a short sighted measure is threatening to eliminate this service. 

While eliminating the service may look like a cost savings the total cost that will be passed on to the local schools and libraries will be far greater to provide an inferior service to students and other citizens with a thirst for knowledge.

Read more about the service and contact you local representative by using this easy link.

Thanks to technology they are never too old or too far away to stalk.