Thursday, December 12, 2013
The stupification of America through Christian home schooling.
A popular curriculum used by home-schooled students has drawn criticism for inaccurate, misleading information and an over-reliance on rote memorization, but those aspects may not be the worst things about it.
A lot of the material that children are exposed to in the Accelerated Christian Education is just astonishingly stupid, according to a former Christian fundamentalist.
Blogger Jonny Scarmanga shared some of the multiple-choice questions he found in some ACE packets used by British home-school students Monday on the blog, Leaving Fundamentalism.
In one question aimed at 9- or 10-year-old fourth-graders, students are given this example: “Children played happily in the water spout.” They are then asked to define a water spout from three examples: “a stream of water,” “two dry ducks” or “playground.”
Another example shows that “Elisabeth Howard sat and listened carefully.” Students are then challenged to identify whether Elisabeth Howard is “a kind of airplane” or “a missionary.”
Still another question asks 12- or 13-year-old seventh-graders to identify whether sports coaches, piano tuners or librarians “can touch the lives of their students.”
If that sounds like a trick question, that’s because it is.
“The correct answer, for those puzzled, is piano tutors,” Scaramanga writes. “It’s not that ACE doesn’t believe that sports coaches or librarians can touch students’ lives. The point is that the exact sentence, ‘Piano tutors can touch the lives of their students,’ has previously appeared in (an ACE packet), and the student is expected to remember this. Verbatim regurgitation of previously seen material is the entire point of the ACE system.”
The ACE curriculum relies on thousands of these multiple-choice questions to imprint the materials in students’ memories.
The ACE curriculum is accredited by the Middle States Associations on Elementary and Secondary Schools and by government-funded voucher programs in 11 states.
In the past, the curriculum has drawn criticism and scorn for teaching that the existence of the Loch Ness monster disproves evolution and that humans coexisted with dinosaurs.
The materials also include a strong conservative political bias that suggests God’s own views are right-wing, while liberals are villainous, and students are taught that government programs should not be used to meet needs that can’t be filled by family members or churches.
But those biases and falsehoods pale in comparison to a stupefying curriculum that expects to engage 10-year-olds by asking them whether an envelope is “a letter holder” or “donkey supplies.”
"Is our children learning?" George W. Bush.
The now inescapable conclusion that we MUST reach in response to what we are learning about Christian homeschooling is that it has literally NOTHING to do with education, and EVERYTHING to do with indoctrination. And to that end ignorance provides fertile soil to implant faith based "truths" to replace scientifically proven facts.
At this point I simply cannot see this outside of the context of a religion that has recognized that its influence and control over the people of this planet has a shelf life, and that the expiration date is rapidly approaching. Which is forcing them to fight with everything they have to defend themselves against progress and the logic on whose wings it is fast approaching.
I recognize that it may be insulting to those of you who still have a faith, but the facts are that it is easier to attract into the fold those who feel rather than think, and those who seek comfort rather than those who seek truth.
The Sarah Palin's of this world simply cannot exist in a world without religious faith. Nor by the way can Fox News, Right Wing radio, the "Pro-Life" Movement, televangelists, faith healers, or Islamic terrorists.
That may seem like a discordant group but all of them benefit from those who have less access to scientific information, and more access to propaganda and faith based "education."
Christian homeschooling appears to be designed to protect a base of supporters that many on the Right, both religious and political, rely on, and who they are desperately afraid of losing.
Those who don't know, believe what they are told by those who claim to have "special knowledge." And that is an important part of the business model not just for religion, but also for Fox News.
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The View of Life. A matter of perspective.
I read it the first time from the top to the bottom, and did not think too much of it, but after rereading it the other direction I was struck by how deftly it represents the two disparate views of God.
I
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Reality: DPS Officer Resigns For Being Illegal Alien; Fake Or Forged Birth Certificate
Reality: DPS Officer Resigns For Being
Illegal Alien; Fake Or Forged Birth Certificate
The News 4 Tucson Investigators have uncovered exclusive information about an illegal immigrant on the job, with a badge and gun, working as a law enforcement officer in southern Arizona.
The investigation in this case began when a man applied for a visa to stay here in the United States.
Federal authorities began their own background investigation on that man.
That's when they learned he has a sister who is an officer with the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
The News 4 Tucson Investigators discovered that officer, Carmen Figueroa, has actually been working for DPS for about 13 years, possibly by using a fake or forged birth certificate. [...] Continued @ KVOA. Hat tip Falcon.
VIDEO HERE:
ABC-15 has more here.
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Another Run: Washington Times; Boehner Stop Blocking Obama Fraud Hearings
Washington Times Advert: If Lady Liberty Could Write, Here Is The "Dear John" Letter She Would Send To Speaker John Boehner
WILL SPEAKER BOEHNER EVER STOP PROTECTING OBAMA ??
Another Washington Times advert slamming John Boehner for blocking Obama ID fraud investigations...
Excerpt:
Dear John, its time to do the obvious. Stop blocking the appropriate hearings. Its within your power as Speaker to do so. Amass the evidence of wrongdoing, forcefully bring those results to the public attention and begin impeachment proceedings. Because, first and foremost you have two responsibilities as the third most powerful man in America. Protect the Constitution of the United States from the overreach and abuse of power, and protect the People of the United States of America.
FULL ADVERT HERE:
Call Boehner and tell him stop blocking investigations into Obama's document fraud; (202) 225-0600
FLASHBACK: Team Arpaio: Speaker Boehner Not Allowing Congress Investigate Obama - DETAILS HERE.
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Kenya See It: Son Of Africa In White House; Nexus Of Forgery, Fraud, Lies?
Kenya See It: Son Of Africa In White House; Nexus Of Forgery, Fraud, Lies?
What is a “Son of Africa”
Doing in the White House?
IS THIS THE NEXUS OF FORGERY,
FRAUD, AND INTERNATIONAL LIES?
By Sharon Rondeau | The Post & Email
(Dec. 11, 2013) — At the public funeral service of Nelson Mandela on Tuesday in Johannesburg, South Africa, MSNBC (h/t ORYR) reported that “most Africans” consider Barack Hussein Obama to be “a son of Africa.”
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| Is Obama more African than American? |
In 2008, following the announcement that Obama had won the U.S. presidency, Kenyans called him a “son of the soil.” Prior to the election and again in March 2010, members of the Kenyan Parliament declared Obama born in that country.
What, then, is Obama doing in the White House serving as U.S. president?
Two years before the U.S. Constitution was ratified by the states, John Jay wrote a letter to George Washington which stated:
Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government; and to declare expressly that the command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.
Jay later became the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Framers therefore wrote Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution to require that the president and commander-in-chief of the U.S. military be a “natural born Citizen,” which many scholars and constitutional attorneys interpret to mean “born in the country to two U.S-citizen parents.”
U.S. Supreme Court precedent demonstrates that the citizenship of the parents was equally important, if not more so, than the person’s birthplace in determining “natural born” status.
No hospital in the state of Hawaii claims that Obama was born there, including Kapiolani Medical Center, which Obama identified as “the place of my birth.”
Jack Maskell of the Congressional Research Service has contended since 2009 that a simple birth on U.S. soil qualifies a person for the presidency, regardless of the citizenship or allegiance of the parents, although crafted a different argument to show that Sen. John McCain also qualified.
Obama claims that his father was Barack Hussein Obama of Kenya, an economics student at the University of Hawaii and Harvard University who reportedly was expelled from the United States for womanizing while studying for his Master’s Degree at Harvard. The elder Obama was a citizen of Great Britain and later, Kenya, after that nation achieved its independence in December 1963.
Many believe that Obama’s public life story is false. Several articles state that Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia, not the United States, including one apparently written by the Associated Press.
Kenyan Kabando wa Kabando wrote in December 2010 that Obama was “our very gem.”
When Obama spoke in Mumbai, India on November 7, 2010, a “Mr. Kansagra” called Obama a “fellow Kenyan,” as reported by ABC News.
On or about July 23, 2010, The Globe reported that Obama was “born in Africa.”
Also in 2010, a member of the Kenyan Parliament asked when Obama would “repatriate” himself to that country.
The U.S. ambassador to Kenya claimed that Obama the younger was born in Kenya until he backtracked and said that he meant that the elder Obama was born there. “His birthplace there is already well-known,” said Amb. Peter Ogego on November 5, 2008.
It has been reported that funding for Obama’s college attendance was provided by a fund established for blacks to attend U.S. universities. The late Percy Sutton, who was Malcolm X‘s attorney, stated in 2008 that Obama was the “brightest, most wonderful person who has come across the starting line. I was introduced to him by a friend who was raising money for him. The friend’s name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour from Texas. He is the principal adviser to one of the world’s richest men. He told me about Obama…” Sutton stated that he wrote a letter supporting Obama’s entrance into Harvard, contending that Obama “was a genius.”
Al-Mansour has accused Christians of being the “architects of apartheid.” “The church participated in segregation,” he said while speaking in South Africa in 2007. He claimed that Christians and whites have kept blacks inferior and they “shoot people for fun.” He has a close connection to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Tatal, who offered $10,000,000 for rebuilding new York City following the September 11, 2001 attacks with the apparent caveat that “America should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause.”
ABC News found that Obama lied about other aspects of his “father’s” history. On another occasion during the 2008 campaign, while speaking in Alabama, Obama implied in a fake Southern accent that his parents had met in Selma, AL in 1965, four years after he himself was purportedly born. His original story was that they had met in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii.
In 1991, Obama’s official literary agent published a biography heralding his upcoming book, Dreams From My Father, which stated that Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”
Michelle Obama has called Kenya her husband’s “home country” and not been publicly questioned on it.
In March 2012, the World Guide tourism website identified Kisumu, Kenya as Obama’s birthplace:
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| Screenshot from “World Guide” dated March 12, 2012, but since scrubbed |
A law enforcement investigation has declared that Obama’s purported long-form birth certificate, posted on the White House website on April 27, 2011 in response to public demand by Donald Trump and others, is a “computer-generated forgery.” Moreover, the Cold Case Posse found that Obama’s Selective Service registration form and short-form Certification of Live Birth emanating from an unknown source are also fraudulent. The posse’s investigation revealed that there is no evidence Obama was ever in the state of Hawaii, where he claims he was born, before the age of five.
Former White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer called the birth certificate and Obama’s birthplace “a fake issue,” but it is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the form of a Notice of Commission in which a number of individuals are named in a sealed affidavit as aiding and abetting a conspiracy to propel Obama into the White House and maintain him there, whether or not he meets constitutional or legal qualifications.
Despite two press conferences held by the posse, the mainstream media failed to investigate the claims of forgery and fraud on the American people.
Observers have opined that Obama does not appear American in his actions, public statements, and approach toward government. At the Mandela funeral service, he unhesitatingly shook the hand of Cuban communist dictator Raul Castro, who assumed power in 2008 after his brother Fidel became infirm.
The Castros have jailed, tortured and killed an unknown number of political prisoners since 1959, when Fidel overthrew the Batista government which had formerly imprisoned the brothers, then freed them under public pressure.
Obama has his own political prisoners, and his Internal Revenue Service has silenced and threatened hundreds of other individuals and groups for voicing opposition to his policies.
Many have called Obama a dictator based on his imposition of socialized medicine and advocacy of “spreading the wealth around,” which is the practice of socialist governments around the world. Socialism does not foster wealth, but rather, takes it from those who have earned it and distributes it to the poor in the form of government entitlements such as Obamaphones, free health care, housing subsidies and government-subsidized jobs.
Marxism advocates “social revolution” in order to shift ownership of the means of production to the masses with an eventual transition to communism.
Obama has refuted claims that he is a socialist or Marxist by contending that his health plan “is based on the private marketplace,” but many large insurance carriers were exempted from Obamacare. In the wake of additional costs imposed by the rollout of Obamacare before the Healthcare.gov website was ready, many smaller insurance companies may now be forced to close.
On Tuesday, it was announced that Obama had “hired” long-time Clinton operative and arguable socialist John Podesta as his “senior counselor.”
If Obama’s health care program remains in place, he will be appointing an “Independent Advisory Board” to make life-and-death decisions in the cases of seriously ill individuals.
At the beginning of Obama’s first term, numerous Chrysler dealerships were closed as the U.S. government provided a bailout to the troubled corporation, particularly those whose operators had supported Obama’s opponents in the 2008 election.
Obama has approved spying on American citizens not suspected of involvement in terrorism; spying on the leaders of traditional foreign allies; and a “deal” with Iran on its nuclear program which excluded Israel and allowed Iran to continue to enrich uranium for nuclear purposes. He allowed four Americans to die and several more to be seriously injured by either issuing or allowing a “stand-down” order to the U.S. military on the night of September 11, 2012, when a U.S. outpost came under terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, then ordered members of his regime to lie about its cause and aftermath.
An individual close to the Cold Case Posse’s investigation reported on Monday by way of a new video that “shocking new evidence has confirmed” that “document fraud” was committed in regard to the man known as “Barack Hussein Obama” and that “witnesses will testify” to the crimes.
The citizen who filed the Notice of Commission, Douglas Vogt, claims that the forger “spelled out part of her name” while committing the forgery of Obama’s long-form birth certificate, perhaps using her own birth document as a basis.
Source link. © 2013, The Post & Email. All rights reserved.
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Final image (gif) of the day.
Except that he was apparently NOT a sign language interpreter, and clearly did NOT know sign language.
This from CNN:
To those outside the deaf community, the sign language interpreter for Nelson Mandela's memorial may have looked like he was working hard, translating the spoken words into gestures for four hours.
But he has been dubbed "a fake," and his actions outraged deaf people, according to an association for the deaf community in South Africa.
The service to commemorate the revered statesman, who died last week at the age of 95, was broadcast to millions of viewers around the world.
While dignitaries addressed the crowd Tuesday at Johannesburg's FNB stadium, the unidentified suited man with a security pass produced a series of hand signals that experts say meant nothing.
The Deaf Federation of South Africa (DeafSA) said the "interpreter" was not a recognized professional, nor was he known by the deaf community in the country.
"The so-called 'interpreter' who interpreted at the official memorial service for late former president Nelson Mandela at FNB stadium has been dubbed the 'fake interpreter' and the deaf community is in outrage," Bruno Druchen, national director of DeafSA, said in a statement.
"He is not known by the Deaf Community in South Africa nor by the South African Sign Language interpreters working in the field."
The man did not use facial expressions, which in South African sign language are an important part of communication, and the hand signals he used were meaningless, Druchen said.
"The signs (self-invented signs) the interpreter used are not used in South African Sign Language and it is a total mockery of the language," he said.
Okay at this point I am torn between very impressed that anybody had the balls to pull off such a daring prank, at such a highly publicized event, and horrified that anybody could get that close to dignitaries without a background check and screening.
If this guy had been a terrorist this could have been a very bad situation indeed.
But as a prank, this guy has really set the bar to a new high.
However he had better steer well clear of the deaf community for awhile, because if they see his ass he might get a completely silent beat down, with an actual deaf interpreter standing nearby signing curses and insults in his direction.
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The private GOP infighting goes public.
Courtesy of Politico:
The simmering feud between House Republicans and movement conservatives is finally an all-out war. The tension exploded on Wednesday morning when Speaker John Boehner and outside conservative groups traded sharp barbs over the budget deal Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) crafted with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). It only escalated later in the day when the leader of the right-wing Republican Study Committee forced out its long-time executive director for leaking private conversations about strategy to those organizations.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Boehner (R-Ohio) accused outside conservative groups of “using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals.”
Republican leaders have long accused those outside groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, to name a few — of existing solely to oppose them. Many of these organizations accuse Boehner, his leadership team and some Republican members of Congress of being a bunch of squishes willing to abandon their conservative principles in favor of compromises.
More than 50 members of conservative groups signed on to a statement Wednesday evening responding to both Boehner’s remarks and Teller’s dismissal.
“It is clear that the conservative movement has come under attack on Capitol Hill today,” the statement reads. All of that was private, relegated to fundraisers and K Street lunchroom chatter, until now.
“John Boehner has apparently decided to join Mitch McConnell in the war on conservatives,” Senate Conservatives Fund executive Director Matt Hoskins said. “McConnell called us fringe traitors who should be locked in a bar and punched in the nose, and now Boehner is lashing out at us too. Conservatives everywhere need to understand that the party’s leadership has declared war on them. If they don’t fight back, they will always regret it. We’re going to hang together or hang separately.
I watched Boehner this morning responding to those questions, and I thought he was about to have an aneurism. His face was red, his temples were throbbing, he was clearly pissed!
And already the Right Wing is accusing Paul Ryan of being Judas, the man who up until this point was considered their Messiah.
I think that we are finally seeing the first volleys of what will be a devastating war within the Republican party, that will determine their path forward, and just who is, and who is not, welcome within their ranks.
Pretty sure that the stage is set for a third party to arise. And if that happens the Republicans may find themselves with a debilitating identity crisis moving toward 2016.
Popcorn anyone?
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Pope Francis, Time's Person of the Year.
How do you practice humility from the most exalted throne on earth? Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly—young and old, faithful and cynical—as has Pope Francis. In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power.
At a time when the limits of leadership are being tested in so many places, along comes a man with no army or weapons, no kingdom beyond a tight fist of land in the middle of Rome but with the immense wealth and weight of history behind him, to throw down a challenge. The world is getting smaller; individual voices are getting louder; technology is turning virtue viral, so his pulpit is visible to the ends of the earth. When he kisses the face of a disfigured man or washes the feet of a Muslim woman, the image resonates far beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church.
I will admit to being more than a little impressed with this new Pope, and I think he is great for the image of the Catholic Church.
However when it comes to the Catholic church, and really ANY of the established religions, I am short on trust and long on skepticism.
The church is suffering immensely these days and what they need more than anything is a make over.
The question to ask is whether the new Pope is a sign of a real revisiting of their Christian roots by the church, or simply a whitewash to hide their numerous crimes and manipulate those who want so desperately to believe?
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OMGD! The Baby Jesus has been kicked off of an Air Force base! Release the Palin!
She also linked to this article from her favorite histrionic Fox News contributor Todd Starnes:
The Baby Jesus has been kicked off Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, according to an organization who relishes any opportunity to eradicate Christianity from the U.S. military.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation praised officials at Shaw Air Force Base for removing a Nativity scene located near Memorial Lake on Friday. The traditional Nativity included plastic statues of Mary, Joseph, the Baby Jesus and an assortment of animals.
Apparently, an undisclosed number of Airmen were so emotionally troubled by the sight of a manger scene that they immediately notified the MRFF.
I can only imagine the psychological damage they must have suffered as a result of glancing at the plastic statues. I hope no one needed hospitalization, God forbid.
So fair and balanced don't you think?
Of course the MRFF explained quite clearly why this was a violation of the guidelines:
The MRFF’s Paul Loebe wrote in a statement that since the display was not erected near a chapel, it was illegal.
“It was very sectarian in nature and a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution as well as a blatant violation of Air Force Instruction 1-1, Section 2.11,” he said.
But hey, who cares about rules and laws when you are dealing with the Baby Jesus?
Nor does it matter that the entire Nativity scene is a hoax added to the life of Jesus well after his death.
How can that matter? After all there is outrage to be fanned and books to be sold.
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“I just instantly burst into tears.” Woman describes her emotions when she discovered that through the ACA she would only have to pay $3.19 a month.
It took two months, weekly visits to the jammed-up federal website and a half-dozen phone calls, but JoAnn Smith finally got health insurance Monday. It’ll only cost her $3.19 a month to cover herself and her husband.
“I just instantly burst into tears,” she says.
Smith started working on getting insurance even before the federal website, HealthCare.gov, opened Oct. 1, pre-registering to get a headstart on the process. But, like millions of other Americans who tried, she was stymied by the website’s glitches.
She told NBC News her story last week, and as of Friday, a week after the federal website was supposed to have been much improved, Smith still could not get all the way through the process.
Smith, a 60-year-old medical transcriptionist in Clearwater, Fla., must use the federal website to buy health insurance because Florida opted not to run its own. She’s been without health insurance for years and had been looking forward to getting subsidized coverage for herself and her husband Eric, 56, who’s unemployed.
The 2010 Affordable Care Act aims to get health insurance to the 16 percent of Americans who don’t have any by helping some buy health insurance on new websites, and by widening Medicaid benefits to others. People have until Dec. 23 to sign up for health insurance that starts on the first possible day, Jan. 1. They have until March 31 to sign up and avoid paying a tax.
Smith’s employer doesn’t provide health insurance. “They took a vote at the company and people wanted more money in their pockets,” she says. And business has been thin. “I have had four paycuts in one year,” says Smith, who estimates she will earn $23,000 this year for her 40-hour a week job.
This makes her eligible for a hefty federal subsidy.
The current Right Wing strategy is to use horror stories about higher premiums and cancelled policies to attack Obamacare. That is why it is very important for those of us who are supporters, to promote positive anecdotes, and stories of real success for those signing up though the website and exchange.
I have to say that a few more stories like this and the Right Wing is going to have NOTHING at their disposal to convince the American people that Obamacare is a bad thing.
And as a matter of fact the President and the ACA's approval ratings are already returning to the pre-rollout levels.
Let's face it the Right Wing is fighting a losing battle here, the only question is how many bodies will they pile up before finally admitting defeat?
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