Melania Trump will not be accompanying her husband to live in the White House. Cites family responsibilities.

Courtesy of the New York Post:  

Future First Lady Melania Trump and son Barron will not be moving to the White House after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, The Post has learned. 

The president-elect’s 46-year-old wife and their 10-year-old son are staying put at the family’s glitzy Trump Tower penthouse so that Barron can continue attending his Upper West Side private school, sources told The Post. 

“Melania is extremely close to Barron, and they have become closer during the campaign,” said a source close to Trump’s transition team. “The campaign has been difficult for Barron, and she is really hoping to keep disruption to a minimum.” 

Another source said Melania Trump will travel to the White House as needed, but that her primary focus is on Barron. 

“Melania is very supportive of her husband and is fully on board of doing everything that’s needed as first lady,” said the second source familiar with the Trump transition.

Yeah except sleep with her husband every night.

Of course doing so takes the phrase "Doing it for your country" to a whole new, and disgusting place. 

Gee moving to separate states and using a child as a shield against criticism.

Hey you little bitch, don't forget who's in charge here.

Where have I seen all of that before.

Hey perhaps I am being too suspicious and Melania Trump is NOT just looking for an excuse to spend less time with her stubby fingered, orange tinted, morbidly obese sugar daddy.

Anybody buy that?

New book claims that homework is a total waste of time. Aha! I knew it!

Courtesy of The Local: 

“I found out that teachers have been giving homework since at least 1480,” Himmelrath, an educational journalist, told The Local. 

“And there has also been research into its effects on children for the last 130 years. And in all this research I found no results which showed that it had a positive effect on them.” 

On the contrary, if his research showed any overall result, it was that children would go into school the next day unmotivated and reluctant to learn after spending the evening doing homework. 

“In the Swiss canton of Schwyz teachers didn’t give out homework at all between 1993 and 1999. Then, due to pressure from conservative parents it was then reintroduced. 

“But a comparison with a neighbouring canton showed that there was no difference between the grades in the two cantons during this period. 

"The only difference was that in Schwyz the children were much more motivated in class,” Himmelrath related.

I have been making this claim for years.

As a parent, both biological and step, I have engaged in numerous homework battles with the kids.

I have restricted privileges, set aside special time for the work, and of course sat down with them to help with a subject that I was often under qualified to teach.

It's fairly easy in the elementary grades, but once you get to high school the subjects can be pretty challenging, especially if the student claims to have no idea what the teacher is asking on the homework assignment.

And today kids sometimes have up to four hours of homework a night, and THAT is supposed to be accomplished along with any extracurricular school activities or sports they may be involved with.

It is impossible for many kids, even with very involved parents at home.

And yes that often results in kids not liking school as well as souring them on the idea of furthering their education after high school.

So I have no idea if this book is going to change any minds in the education field here in America or elsewhere, but in my opinion it certainly should.

12 year old black boy suspended for staring at white girl, which is apparently still something that happens in America in 2015.

Courtesy of Fox 19: 

A 12-year-old boy is suspended from school for 'staring' at another student. It happened in September of 2014 at St. Gabriel Consolidated School in Glendale. The parents filed suit in Hamilton County Common Pleas court to try and get the suspension erased claiming the school didn’t give their son due process. 

A Judge denied the claim, which means as of now the suspension of the 12-year-old stands. “The perception is he intimidated her,” said Candice Tolbert, his mother. 

“My son stared at a girl who was engaged in a staring game,” she said. “She giggled the entire time,” she said from her Liberty Township home. 

Court paper shows the female student "felt fearful.” The incident happened on a Monday. The school was notified by the girl’s parents on Tuesday. They allegedly notified the Tolbert’s son on Tuesday, but did not tell the Tolbert’s until Wednesday. By that time, their son had already written an apology letter, which the parents said they were unaware of until notified by the school. 

In the letter, the 12-year-old wrote, “I never knew she was scared because she was laughing.” It also read, “I understand I done the wrong thing that will never happen again. I will start to think before I do so I am not in this situation.”

When asked if she considered the actions of the school and the judge to be racist, the boy's family said they are not ready to "pull out the race card,"

Well here let me do it on their behalf.

There is NO fucking way that a white 12 year old boy in Ohio would be suspended for staring at a classmate during a staring contest. So of course this is racist!

In fact the white kid could have been standing on a desk staring down at the girl with one finger pointed at her as if to curse her for all eternity and he still would not have missed a single day of class.

And reading that letter from the boy saying that he knows he "done wrong" and it "will never happen again" is heartbreaking.

So even if this young man goes back to school, will he ever feel able to look at his white classmates, or girls ever again?

I think this family has quite a case for a discrimination lawsuit on their hands, and I hope they sue not only the school district but this judge for everything they have.

So apparently Sarah Palin is now weighing in on the Muslim teen's arrest in Texas as well. And it is even dumber than you would imagine.

So yesterday Palin decided to climb on the bandwagon along with Nancy French and Bristol. Assuming of course that Bristol even knows that she is part of this ridiculous conversation.

Here take a flashlight and wander through her Facebook post. But be careful, it is a dark and scary place:

 I Guess Muhammad's Pencil Box is Cooler Than the Palin Kids' 

"It doesn't look like a pencil box to me." I love Bristol's perspective on this. You have to read this: 

(Palin then offers the entire URL for Brancy's post because she does not yet understand how to do links.)

Talk about the dangers of a reactionary-slash-biased media! The first reports on this potential bomb-imitator were so fishy to begin with. 

Friends, consider the kids disciplined and/or kicked out of school for bringing squirt guns to school or taking bites out of a pop tart until it resembled (to some politically correct yahoo) a gun. Or the student out deer hunting with his dad early one morning who forgot he had a box of ammo in his truck when he parked in the school's lot later that day. Kids humiliated and intimidated for innocent actions like those real examples are often marked the rest of their lives and made to feel really rotten. (As much as it pains me to say it I kind of agree with Snowdrift Snooki here. This zero tolerance thing in schools is way out of control.) Whereas Ahmed Muhammad, an evidently obstinate-answering student bringing in a homemade "clock" that obviously could be seen by conscientious teachers as a dangerous wired-up bomb-looking contraption (teachers who are told "if you see something, say something!") gets invited to the White House. (Annd now I am back to finding what she says ignorant.)

By the way, President Obama's practice of jumping in cases prematurely to interject himself as the cool savior, wanting so badly to attach himself to the issue-of-the-day, got old years ago. Remember him accusing police officers doing their job as "acting stupid"; claiming if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin; claiming he needed to know who was a fault in an industrial accident so he'd "know who's a** to kick"; etc., etc. Those actions are about as presidential as his selfie stick. 

(Hang on I need to wring the jealousy out of this post before continuing.)

Here's background on Muhammad's innocent "clock" he brought to school, and his suspicious refusal to answer authorities: 

(Palin then links to Breitbart who, as you would expect, blames the incident on Ahmed and on President Obama who they claim is using it to attack Texas and paint conservatives as xenophobic. Helpful hint to Breitbart: The conservatives certainly do not need Obama's help in painting them as racist.)

Yep, believing that's a clock in a school pencil box is like believing Barack Obama is ruling over the most transparent administration in history. Right. That's a clock, and I'm the Queen of England. 

Compare Muhammad's pencil box to the ones laying around the Palin household:

 - Sarah Palin

Palin then shows pictures of what she claims are her kid's pencil boxes though I have no idea why she would still have them lying around the house. (Maybe because they never learned to use pencils?)

And then of course she offers this picture of Ahmed's pencil box to prove how terrorist like it is by comparison.

 Of course as I showed everybody yesterday, there is nothing sinister about the pencil box.

It's just a little more expensive than the cheap crap Palin bought her kids, that's all.

By the way the cops knew Ahmed's clock was not a bomb when they arrested him, but arrested him anyway.

And the school knew it was only a misunderstanding and still suspended him.

So once again, how is this Ahmed's fault? Or the President's?

Well Sarah Palin's back in Alaska spending time with her kids. Whether they want her to or not.

Hey look, she's still sporting Bristol's ring.

So yesterday's Facebook post from the Grizzled Mama features her showing up for Piper's graduation from middle school, and celebrating. Trig's last few days in kindergarten:

Celebrating the last day of school! What a GREAT day! New chapters in life, always unfolding.

Problem is of course that Trig simply cannot seem to be bothered with her attempts to use him as a prop anymore.

Jesus stop touching me, I hardly know you!

I was just remembering when we all started to notice that Trig seemed to have no connection to his "mother," and then there were those reports of him hitting her in the face.

Back then the Palin-bots were quick to jump to her defense and claim those were "liberal lies." But let's face it, all evidence points to the fact that we were well ahead of the curve on recognizing that there is no real mother-son connection between Palin and her most famous political prop.

And clearly she cannot force the little guy to fake one.

As for Bristol, well she is clearly back in Alaska and hanging out with her siblings.

Source

Notice the ring finger is still bare, which does not exactly support the wishful thinking of those who want to believe that the wedding of the century is only "postponed."

Mom attends son's class on abstinence. Sends out horrified tweets in response to what she hears.

Courtesy of As It Happens:

Every parent is curious about what their kids learn in sex education class. 

But when Michigan mom Alice Dreger found out that abstinence was the subject of her son's upcoming lesson, she was so curious, she decided to go back to school.

With her son's permission - and the school's -- she sat in the back of the class last week. 

The medical humanities and bioethics professor teaches at Northwestern University and does research on sex. The plan was to sit quietly in the back while the state-required course on abstinence was taught. 

But that all changed when the lesson started. 

"They were teaching the kids through a game....that one out of six times a man and woman have intercourse, that the condom will fail and the woman will get pregnant...and they were handed a paper baby." Eventually, the whole class had babies. (Actually when used properly condoms only fail around 2% of the time. A better use of time in a sex education class would be to demonstrate how to use them correctly.)

"Almost from the beginning...It was clear to me what they were going to impart in that classroom was the story of how you can abstain from sex and have a delightful life or you can not abstain and have a terrible life and that's exactly what went on to happen." 

A guest speaker told the class he only found happiness after he met a girl who led an "abstinence lifestyle."  (Of course I'm assuming that he banged everything with a pulse until he met this girl.)

"The lesson was...that when you meet a girl who says no that's the woman you want, basically slut-shaming the girls who might say yes," Dreger says.

Because of course it is always left up to the woman to take responsibility for the consequences of sex. Men are simply excused as being unable to control their animal like impulses.

 That's the problem with allowing parents who are educators monitor your ignorant class, they are going to notice how deep the bullshit is.

Richard Dawkins believes that children should be protected from religious indoctrination.

Courtesy of Irish Times:

Speaking to The Irish Times in advance of a public talk at Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday evening, Prof Dawkins said: “There is a balancing act and you have to balance the rights of parents and the rights of children and I think the balance has swung too far towards parents… 

“Children do need to be protected so that they can have a proper education and not be indoctrinated in whatever religion their parents happen to have been brought up in.” 

Prof Dawkins, who spent Monday in Belfast, praised the work of Atheist Ireland in campaigning to separate church and state in education. 

Warning against the “power of childhood indoctrination”, he said it was futile debating with people who put the Bible ahead of scientific evidence. “You have to write off those people” but you can try to convince younger people to avoid superstition, Prof Dawkins said. 

His plea for reform was backed by Prof Krauss who said: “Parents, of course, have concerns and ‘say’ but they don’t have the right to shield their children from knowledge. That is not a right, any more than they have the right to shield their children from healthcare or medicine.”

I don't think that my position on this is any secret, I believe that if something is worthy of our faith it should be strong enough to attract that faith when we are old enough to have developed critical thinking skills.

Do any of you disagree? And if so, why?

NRA board member says "a good paddling at school" may keep him from "having to put a bullet in him later."

Courtesy of TPM: 

An NRA board member and leader of the Texas State Rifle Association wrote on Wednesday that disciplining a child through corporal punishment may prevent him from "having to put a bullet in him later." 

Complaining of State Rep. Alma Allen's (D) bill to "prohibit the use of corporal punishment in public primary and secondary schools," NRA board member Charles Cotton took to TexasCHL Forum to vent his frustration. 

"I'm sick of this woman and her 'don't touch my kid regardless what he/she did or will do again' attitude," Cotton wrote in a thread titled "HB567: Corporal punishment in schools." 

"Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in him later," he added. 

Cotton did not immediately return a message left at his office seeking comment on Saturday.

Seriously, WTF?

So brutalizing a child in their school, is LESS likely to make them a violent person in their adulthood?

And who is the fuck thinks they "have" to put bullets in people?

I would venture guess that this POS has never shot anybody in his life, and if confronted by a gun toting criminal would more likely fill his Depends with old man excrement, rather than fill his assailant with lead.

Apparently there is a traveling Creationist Museum and these are the pamphlets they hand out.

Click to make bigger.

Evolutionism is the dominant religion in the world today. Masquerading as a scientific theory, evolutionism is an atheistic theory that random chance and matter somehow brought about the amazing variety of life that we see today, even though all of the evidence from true science makes clear that such a belief is absurd. 

I am not sure what "true science" is supposed to be, but nuh uh!

Click to enlarge.

By the way in case you are confused "Evolutionism" is a term Creationists use to relegate Evolution to the same category as every other religion.

In other words they claim it is based on faith, and not on critical thinking.

I would like to believe that even in Tennessee that most parents would refuse to sign a permission slip allowing their kids to be subjected to this garbage.

But what I would like to believe and what is in fact true, are not always the same thing.

(Click here if the images do not enlarge for you.)

P.S. This seems like a good place for this. 

Every school in America should have this proudly on display.

And yes I recognize that this is the UUA.

But a guy can dream can't he?

Sarah Palin shares an Easter greeting on Facebook, and finally remembers a certain birthday.

The Easter greeting is the same old mooseshit, but I thought this portion was worth sharing:

PS: Happy birthday to both my boys, too! Here’s the littlest one on Friday heading into school to share birthday treats with his classmates – Peeps and applesauce!

Nice try but I think it is pretty telling that she forgot to mention his birthday yesterday, when it was actually happening, and instead combined it with Track's birthday greeting, which IS actually today.

I guess it is only Palin's biological children who get a shout out on their birthdays and props get theirs whenever she damn well gets around to it.

Oh well, better late than never.

Does anybody else think this photo, and the other one on Facebook, look like they were posed in order to sell a certain message?

16 year old goes on stabbing spree in Pennsylvania high school.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

A 16-year-old student holding two knives went on a stabbing rampage in the hallways of a Pittsburgh-area high school early on Wednesday, injuring 20 people, at least nine of them seriously, officials said. 

The suspected attacker, who was not identified, was in police custody, Dan Stevens, deputy emergency management coordinator for the Westmoreland County, told reporters. 

The attacks began around 7:13 a.m. EDT in several classrooms and hallways as the classes were starting at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, 20 miles east of Pittsburgh, officials said. 

The school was evacuated quickly after a student or staff member pulled the fire alarm, said Murrysville Police Chief Tom Seefeld.

Gun rights advocates like to point out that there are a number of methods that can be used to injure or kill people, other than the use of firearms. And of course that is true.

Keeping that in mind it is worth noting that here is a case of a young man who clearly wanted to cause harm to a great number of people, and he did cause significant injuries.

What he did not do however was kill anybody.

Apparently this young man only had access to these knives, and not to handguns or assault weapons, so his violent attack did not result in the taking of a life.

One can only imagine how much worse this would have been, if instead of two knives he would have walked down the hallways spraying bullets from two military assault rifles.

Of course we really do not have to imagine, we already know how much worse it could be.

The 2nd Amendment advocates are correct, there are a number of ways to take a human life.

However for those seeking a high body count, nothing beats the assault weapon.

Fortunately for the students at this school, the angry young man was unable to exercise is constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

I imagine the NRA is quite disappointed.

Research in Canada shows that schools with a Gay-Straight Alliance dramatically cut down on the suicide rate.

Courtesy of The Star:  

In schools with GSAs (Gay-Straight Alliances) for at least three years, instances of homophobic discrimination and suicidal thoughts among lesbian, gay and bisexual students were cut by more than half. And heterosexual boys were half as likely to attempt suicide than straight boys in schools without gay-straight alliances. 

When schools had anti-homophobic policies for at least three years, instances of suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts by gay and bisexual boys were more than 70 per cent lower compared to gay and bisexual boys in schools without them. For lesbian and bisexual girls instances were two-thirds lower.

Gee who would have thought that providing a respectful atmosphere where young people are free to express themselves without  fear of ridicule or aggression, would lower the number of teens who want to end their lives?

Final image of the day.

Source

The Protector-In-Chief.

For a man who spends almost all of his time under constant and brutal attack by the Right Wing, President Obama has still not lost his innate goodness and ability to express compassion for others.

Trig Palin starts school.

No glasses and no hearing aids, because WHY make it easy on the little guy?

From the Arizona Snowbird's Facebook page:

First day of school!

Interesting, we always wondered if Trig would go to school, Now it looks like he is. 

It might be worth noting however that kindergarten in Wasilla started on the 22nd.

As for his birth certificate, I am sure he has one. After all he WAS born.

But we will never know what it says, or about any discrepancies concerning birth parents or dates, because the school would NEVER let that information get out.

No the only way we will ever have proof is if somebody makes a copy of the original birth certificate, and that would almost HAVE to be a family member, or an official who did not want to keep their job anymore.

I also think it is worth noting that while Palin spends the majority of her time in Arizona, it is left up to Todd to parent her political prop. Gee, I wonder if he knew what he was getting into when she first broached the idea of pulling off her little scam?

I bet he didn't.

Oklahoma hit by perhaps the worst Tornado in history. Update!

The tornado has destroyed two schools and there are attempts right now to rescue the students trapped under the debris.

My understanding is that some of these children are third graders.

This is going to be bad.

Update: Courtesy of CNN:

Areas of metropolitan Oklahoma City appeared to be in shreds Monday afternoon after a massive tornado moved through the region. "The houses are destroyed. ... Completely leveled," a helicopter pilot for CNN affiliate KFOR said. A school was apparently among the structures leveled by the twister.

I have not yet heard of any deaths, but I am having trouble believing that there will not be any fatalities considering the damage I am seeing on the television right now.

Update 2: According to news reports the 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes were evacuated and they are safely at a nearby church. That seems counter intuitive to me, but I don't know any details I don't know the reasoning.

There were 75 people in the school when the tornado hit.

So far they are not reporting any deaths but there is also a neighborhood all around the school and it is flattened like a pancake, so things do not look good.

Update 3: More pictures:

It looks like a war zone.

Update 4: Reports of two dozen or more fatalities in that school. They are apparently the missing school children.

Update 5: President Obama has notified FEMA to get "all available  assistance" to the area ASAP.

That is good because it is beyond clear that these people need as much assistance as possible right now.

New morality clause at Catholic school causes President of Advisory Council to resign in protest.

Newly resigned Advisory Council President Jaci Russo.

Courtesy of KATC:

The President of Our Lady of Fatima School Advisory Council has resigned in response to a new morality clause the Diocese of Lafayette has asked teachers to sign. In a letter to Principal Joni Duos obtained by KATC, Jaci Russo said the morality clause is flawed. 

"By listing these 'sins,' a number of teachers are forced to either lie about who they are, or deny the things they may have done in order to keep their jobs at Fatima," Russo wrote in her resignation letter. "This is a travesty, as I know there are teachers who have had children out of wedlock and are divorced and remarried without annulment, yet they signed the clause and continue to teach." 

Russo added, "I cannot in good conscience stand by while we prevent great teachers from doing their jobs at Fatima." 

Longtime teacher Jane Riviere, who is openly gay, said she didn't sign her contract because she couldn't "be honest to its content." The morality clause bars teachers from engaging in homosexual activity, using birth control, or being married outside the church. Riviere said Wednesday that while she does not agree with the church's position, she accepts it. 

Russo, whose children have attended Fatima for the past 10 years, questions teachers who have lied or denied things to keep their jobs. 

"What does this say about their moral fiber?" Russo asks. "Is adherence to the clause based on reality, or just what each individual is willing to admit?" 

Russo also discusses Riviere's character in the letter. She notes Riviere has touched the lives of many in the community, which she says is evident in the number of former students and co-workers who have commented about Riviere not signing her contract. 

"I don't understand how she could be such a great teacher for the past 30 years, and now be viewed as unacceptable," Russo wrote. "Isn't a woman of this quality exactly who we want to teach character to our kids?" 

Believe it or not the list of "sins" that this contract included were, non-Catholic marriages, living with a boyfriend or girlfriend, homosexual activity, becoming pregnant or fathering a child out of wedlock, and of course having an abortion or helping someone to get an abortion,

I think that it is great that people are standing up for themselves and refusing to let the church bully them into hiding who they are or judging them for who they love, or how they love.

If more people were to do this these superstitious bronze age thinking assholes would have to change their mindset or watch their schools close down from lack of teachers.

Which by the way I don't see as a bad thing.

GOP backed for profit school caught deleting "failing grades."

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A for-profit school that was hyped by Republican lawmakers as a solution to Tennessee’s education problems recently admitted deleting bad grades to “more accurately recognize students’ current progress.” 

A December email obtained by WTVF showed that Tennessee Virtual Academy’s vice principal instructed middle school teachers to delete “failing grades” from October and September. 

“After … looking at so many failing grades, we need to make some changes before the holidays,” the email says, adding that each teacher needed to “take out the October and September progress [reports]; delete it so that all that is showing is November progress.” 

“If you have given an assignment and most of your students failed that assignment, then you need to take that grade out.” 

Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson said she was horrified because the school’s instructions amounted to cheating. 

“Does it talk about we need to make changes in curriculum? Does it talk about we need to make changes in our teaching strategy? No,” Johnson told WTVF. “Those changes we need to make are deleting grades from the computer system.” 

“To come in and say ‘everybody who made failing grades the first two months, we need to delete those grades,’ to me that’s a huge issue,” she explained. “To me, this appears like it’s grade fixing.” 

The problem with for profit schools is that if their product, student's grades, is not good enough there will be less profit. So if you cannot delver the goods, you take shortcuts.

Just another reason why capitalism and education shouldn't mix.

There is more on this situation to be found here.

I don't think I have ever seen a more accurate depiction of childhood in America today.

Gone are the imaginative romps enjoyed by yesterday's children.

Today's children are mesmerized by electronics. medicated into compliance, and tested to exhaustion.

California school teachers demonstrate why arming teachers is the LAST thing this country needs to do.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

A California teacher's brave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classroom bullies allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre. 

Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom authorities say had bullied the boy for more than year at Taft Union High School. 

"I don't want to shoot you," the teen gunman told Heber, who convinced the teen gunman to drop his weapon, a high power shotgun. 

Responding to calls of shots fired, campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields arrived at the classroom and helped Heber talk the boy into giving up the weapon. 

"This teacher and this counselor stood there face-to-face not knowing if he was going to shoot them," said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood. "They probably expected the worst and hoped for the best, but they gave the students a chance to escape." 

One student, who police say the shooter had targeted, was shot. He was airlifted to a hospital and remains in critical, but stable condition, Youngblood said. He is expected to undergo surgery today. 

Two other students received minor injuries. One suffered hearing loss and another fell over a table while evacuating. Heber received a wound to his head from a stray pellet, police said.

One student shot, no deaths, and the boy with the gun lives to receive the help that he so desperately needs.

Now just imagine if instead of understanding and compassion, this young man had been met with a hail of gunfire from an armed teaching staff trained to respond to violence with an increased level of violence. Imagine how many dead bodies may have resulted from such a scenario.

EVERY circumstance is different, but in this one perhaps the worst possible choice would have been an armed response.  Instead this young man received exactly what he needed, trained professionals who valued HIS life as much as the lives of their other students, and who placed themselves in harm's way to protect both.

By the way I heard on MSNBC that his school indeed HAD an officer on duty, but he was caught in a snowstorm and was not available to deal with this potentially deadly situation. Though the armed student had no way to know that, which should put to rest the argument that people only open fire in places where there are "Gun Free Zone" signs posted.