These should be given out for free at every library and bookstore we visit.

Ultimately it will not be the government that protects us from manipulation by the Russians, or other unsavory groups.

It will take education to inoculate ourselves from the influence of fake news.

States are now pushing for media literacy programs in public schools to battle the proliferation of "fake news."

Courtesy of the AP: 

Alarmed by the proliferation of false content online, state lawmakers around the country are pushing schools to put more emphasis on teaching students how to tell fact from fiction. 

Lawmakers in several states have introduced or passed bills calling on public school systems to do more to teach media literacy skills that they say are critical to democracy. The effort has been bipartisan but has received little attention despite successful legislation in Washington state, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Mexico. 

Several more states are expected to consider such bills in the coming year, including Arizona, New York and Hawaii. 

"I don't think it's a partisan issue to appreciate the importance of good information and the teaching of tools for navigating the information environment," said Hans Zeiger, a Republican state senator in Washington who co-sponsored a bill that passed in his state earlier this year. "There is such a thing as an objective source versus other kinds of sources, and that's an appropriate thing for schools to be teaching."

I am totally behind this effort, and see it as a complete necessity moving forward.

I think on the first day of class, lesson one should be do not listen to a damn thing this guy says.

Here is some good news to start our Friday morning.

Americans with college degrees are favoring Democrats 16 points more then they did in 2014. Nation as a whole is leaning 10 points more blue. https://t.co/r4Fa9feXzdhttps://t.co/r4Fa9feXzd pic.twitter.com/IQdsF1SODT

— G. Elliott Morris📈🤷‍♂️ (@gelliottmorris) December 27, 2017

Things are really looking good for Democrats if they don't once again somehow manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again.

Donald Trump demonstrates primitive speaking skills even by the standards of an illiterate indigenous people.

Linguist John McWhorter

Courtesy of Trump Impeachment:  

Brian Williams interviewed linguistics professor John McWorter on the 11th Hour. McWhorter elaborated on Trump’s deficiency as a communicator. 

Williams: “What is the linguistics definition of this president?” 

McWhorter: “Donald Trump is unadorned. Linguistically, he is unadorned. This is the basics, this is what language was undoubtedly like when it first emerged among people who didn’t have writing and were first getting their verbal sea legs. This is where it started and so in that way as in so many others Donald Trump is an original.” 

Williams: “That would mean that education and schooling has had no effect on his use of language. He’s quick to remind us that he went to the best schools.” 

McWhorter: “And he learned nothing in them. He speaks like someone who has paid no attention to one of the goals of education, which is refine our natural, inborn proclivities of speech, which are great for casual circumstances, but he uses those same ways of speaking in what most of us used to consider formal and important circumstances.” 

Williams: “I think in your line of work they call it a ‘tag’ when something is added at the end of a sentence. The tradition is that often he will tag a sentence with ‘believe me, believe me,’ an enforcer, something he thought was lacking in the original sentence.” 

McWhorter: “Um, hmm. It’s that he’s reinforcing ...what we’re always doing is checking to see that the other person understands what we’re saying, that they’re in the same boat that we are, so that’s what ‘you know’ is, that’s what ‘LOL’ is in texting, but once again, he’s not doing it in texting, he’s doing it in formal circumstances. What that means is that he never leaves the realm of the casual when he speaks, which is unlike — even in indigenous societies, where there is no such thing as reading or writing yet, there’s always a high way of talking and a low way of talking; the Chief just doesn’t get up and run his mouth. Ours does.

Great, we have a guy in the most important political office on the planet who communicates worse than an indigenous tribe deep in the jungles of South America. 

That's so comforting.

Personally I cannot even bear to listen to Trump for more than a minute or so at a time.

Hearing him reminds of all of those hours spent transcribing Sarah Palin speeches and interviews during which at one point I literally checked to see if my ears had started bleeding.

It is hard to imagine that there are even six American voters who listened to Trump speak and thought, "Well he sounds like the leader we need in this country," much less almost sixty three million of them.

That's Professor Hillary Clinton if you please.

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

Hillary Clinton is testing the waters on a return to academia. 

The former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential nominee is in talks with Columbia University to take on a formal role at the Ivy League — and potentially house her archives there, multiple sources told the Daily News. 

One option under discussion is an esteemed “University Professor” role that would allow Clinton to lecture across a range of schools and departments without the requirement of a strict course load, one source said. 

A former law professor, Clinton could maintain the vaunted but vague role indefinitely or decide at a later date she wants to settle at Columbia's celebrated law school or maybe the School of International and Public Affairs, the source said.

"It's all fluid. It could be a number of things. No decisions have been made, but there are talks,” a different source with knowledge of Clinton's thinking told The News.

"Professor Hillary Clinton," yeah I could see that. 

A lot of former government officials have already taken a similar path into academia, and she certainly has a wealth of knowledge to share.

I actually think that her husband, who President Obama once named "The Explainer-in-Chief," might be better suited to such a profession, but Hillary would be far more than competent.

I think I would personally enjoy taking a class from a woman with her vast experience, and I can only imagine how empowering it would be for young college age women to hear about her life and the lessons she has learned.

For profit charter schools charge taxpayers for students who do not show up for classes.

Charter schools touted by @BetsyDeVos lure at-risk students and when they stop coming, the state keeps paying. https://t.co/iB0FOeQHxC

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) October 5, 2017

Courtesy of USA Today:

Last school year, Ohio’s cash-strapped education department paid Capital High $1.4 million in taxpayer dollars to teach students on the verge of dropping out. But on a Thursday in May, the storefront charter school run by for-profit EdisonLearning was mostly empty. 

In one room, vacant chairs faced 25 blank computer monitors. Three students sat in a science lab down the hall, and another nine in an unlit classroom, including one youth who sprawled out, head down, sleeping. 

Only three of the more than 170 students on Capital’s rolls attended class the required five hours that day, records obtained by ProPublica show. Almost two-thirds of the school’s students never showed up; others left early. Nearly a third of the roster failed to attend class all week.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has championed charters and for-profit education, contending in Congressional testimony that school choice can lower absenteeism and dropout rates. But at schools like Capital, a ProPublica-USA Today investigation found, the drop-outs rarely drop in—and if they do, they don’t stay long. Such schools aggressively recruit as many students as possible, and sometimes count them even after they stop showing up, a practice that can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for empty desks.

If Betsy DeVos has her way this will be how ALL of the country's educational needs will be met.

They will just continue charging the American people for an education that nobody shows up to receive.

You ever wonder how they create more Republicans?

THIS is how they create more Republicans. 

Barack Obama's alma mater launched a scholarship program in his name.

Courtesy of Occidental College:  

Occidental College today (Actually Wednesday.) announced the launch of its Barack Obama Scholars Program to empower exceptional students committed to the public good as it honors and perpetuates the principles President Barack Obama has advanced throughout his life. 

“My years at Occidental College sparked my interest in social and political causes, and filled me with the idea that my voice could make a difference,” said President Obama, a member of the Occidental College Class of 1983. “And throughout my time in public service, I’ve tried to use my voice to bring people together, in common effort, around the idea that we could give every young person in America the chance that America gave me.” 

“That’s why I’m so humbled by the Barack Obama Scholars Program at Oxy, and proud of its mission to identify promising young people from all backgrounds—with an emphasis on first-generation students, our veterans, and community college transfers—not only to give them access to higher education, but to train the next generation of leaders and active citizens, and fill them with the conviction that they too can change the world.” 

Beginning in fall 2018, supported by donors who share the Occidental-Obama vision, Occidental will endow two scholarships and thereafter ramp up to 20 scholarships for a select group of students, providing a singular liberal arts education designed to equip them to bring about meaningful change in the world. Prior to today’s public launch, Oxy raised $7 million from a wide range of generous supporters drawn from alumni and friends of the College, including Susan DiMarco and Jeh Johnson, Glenn and Jane Hickerson, Leif and Aileen Isaksen, Ann and Bruce Blume, and Janice Gonzales.

I don't know I just thought we could use reminder that the best president ever is still having a positive impact on the world.

Could you even imagine anybody attempting to establish a Donald Trump scholarship program?

Besides Donald Trump of course.

Lt. General lowers the boom on Air Force Academy's preparatory school over racist messages.

Courtesy of NPR:

After racial slurs were scrawled outside black students' doors at the U.S. Air Force Academy's preparatory school, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria gathered all 4,000 cadets in a hall Thursday so they could hear one message: Treat people with dignity and respect — or get out. 

"That kind of behavior has no place at the prep school, it has no place at USAFA, and it has no place in the United States Air Force," Silveria said, in a speech that has found an enthusiastic reception after it was recorded and published online. "You should be outraged not only as an airman, but as a human being." 

Speaking to a crowd of some 5,500 people that included faculty, coaches, airstrip personnel, and senior officers and staff of the 10th Air Base Wing that includes the academy, Silveria urged them not to let their institution be taken away from them. 

"The appropriate response for horrible language and horrible ideas — the appropriate response is a better idea," Silveria said. "So that's why I'm here. That's why all these people are here."

Did you notice he vaguely referenced Donald Trump while talking about what's going on in this country?

Because I noticed he vaguely referenced Donald Trump while talking about what's going on in this country?

I really like the fact that they addressed what happened in Charlottesville and Ferguson, that is good leadership.

And I would hate to the be the asshole who scrawled those racist messages on the white board, because clearly this man is looking for an ass to kick. 

(Perhaps that was the guy who opened fire on campus yesterday.)

Even out of office Barack Obama continues working to make our future more hopeful.

I swear every time I hear him talk I am overcome with a wave of nostalgia.

Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:

Starting next month, the Obama Foundation will begin a series of one-day training sessions and also will host a summit aimed at promoting civic engagement among students and young adults, officials said Wednesday. 

In a video, former President Barack Obama said the programming, along with the creation of a fellowship program and the incorporation of his My Brother's Keeper Alliance into the foundation, is his way of grooming the next generation to "change the world." 

"We're bringing together hundreds of leaders from all around the world for a hands-on exchange of ideas in my hometown," Obama says in the video, which was posted to the foundation's website and emailed to followers Wednesday morning. 

"The summit will be a place to gather and learn from one another, and then go back to your communities to lead others in the hard work of change. And it will also help guide our foundation as we continue to design programs that will connect and support the next generation of young leaders here in the United States and around the globe." The announcement comes just one day before the foundation's top brass will meet with the public for the first time to discuss how the Obama Presidential Center will look and what it will offer.

This is exactly the kind of grassroots organization and education that we desperately need to insure a more knowledgeable and energetic group of future leaders.

It is also a great way to inspire and educate future voters, so that they learn to utilize their critical thinking skills and are less likely to be manipulated by social media or to be led astray by conspiracy theories.

This is just the first such training, and the foundation will offer future trainings in both Boston and Arizona as well.

Personally I hope that this program will expand because I really see a need for it all across the country.

I imagine that once Donald Trump gets wind of this he will open his own alternative foundation, only in HIS version the young people will simply be struck repeatedly in the forehead with a two by four until they can no longer form a coherent sentence.

That will make them the perfect candidate to run as a Republican for public office or to vote against their self interests in future elections.

New study finds that the reason that Brexit passed is because Britain is full of uneducated morons. They needed a study for that?

Courtesy of The Independent:  

Britain would have likely voted to remain in the European Union were its population educated to a slightly higher level, a new study has found. 

Researchers at the University of Leicester say that had just 3 per cent more of the population gone to university, the UK would probably not be leaving the EU. 

The researchers looked at reasons why people voted Leave and found that whether someone had been to university or accessed other higher education was the “predominant factor” in how they voted.

The level of higher education in an area was far more important than age, gender, the number of immigrants, or income in predicting the way an area voted, the researchers found. 

Age and gender were both significant but not as important as education level, the researchers found. Income and number of immigrants in an area were not found to be a significant factor in how people voted.

You know just back about seven or eight months ago this would be the part where I would point and laugh, "Ha ha England your country is full of  idiots."

But then this happened.

Yep, no pointing and laughing for us.

Just another opportunity to reinforce the importance of improving our educational systems and in helping our children gain access to colleges and universities.

Remember, dumb people vote for dumb policies and even dumber politicians. 

Richard Dawkins defends teaching about religion to British children, but not in a way that will make most religious people very happy.

Courtesy of the Telegraph: 

The evolutionary biologist and confirmed atheist warned that it was virtually impossible to study English literature without knowing the background of Christianity. 

Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival, he was asked whether religious studies should be abolished in schools, over fears that schoolchildren were being brainwashed. 

“I don’t think religious education should be abolished,” he said.

“I think that it is an important part of our culture to know about the Bible after all so much of English literature has allusions to the Bible, if you look up the Oxford English Dictionary you find something like the same number of quotations from the Bible as from Shakespeare. 

“It’s an important part of our history. So much of European history is dominated by disputes against rival religions and you can’t understand history unless you know about the history of the Christian religion and the Crusades and so on. 

“I would not abolish religions education, I think I would substitute it for comparative religion and Biblical history and religious history. 

“Comparative religion is very valuable partly because the child learns that there are lots of different religions not just the one they were brought up with. They learn they are all different and they can’t all be right, so maybe none of the are right. Critical thinking is what we need.”

I totally agree with Dawkins on this.

I took Comparative Religious studies in college and it was amazing.

Learning about the history of religions, how and when they were formed, and which other religious faiths they stole from allowed me to put things into a different perspective.

I was already firmly an Atheist, but after that class I had a better understanding of just how easily manipulated people were into believing things that were not only ridiculous but ultimately harmful to their well being.

In my humble opinions classes like this, could obliterate religion in only one or two generations.

A benefit to humanity which cannot be overestimated.

It's official, Jerry Falwell Jr. is part of a task force assigned to reform public education.

Courtesy of The Chronicle:

Jerry L. Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, will be part of a White House task force, an official from the White House told The Chronicle on Sunday.

The news is the first official comment from the White House on the topic since Mr. Falwell told The Chronicle in January that President Trump and others in his inner circle had asked him to head up a task force on reforming regulations related to higher education. 

Even so, information on the task force’s role, membership, purview, and timing is still scant. 

"We are working on a task force that Jerry Falwell will be involved with," was all the official would say on the topic for now. He is someone who was authorized by the White House to speak on the subject but not be named.

Damn, I can feel our children getting dumber already.

You may remember that Falwell was originally asked by Donald Trump to be the Secretary of Education. 

Falwell turned it down and Trump's second choice Betsy DeVos got the appointment instead, which taking all things into consideration was hardly any better.

With Falwell leading a task force to "reform regulation related to higher education," and alternative school advocate Devros heading up the Department of Education, our kids don't stand a fucking chance.

For the first time ever I am thinking that home schooling, not religious of course, may be the only viable alternative for educating America's children knowing that they may well end up in a public school which teaches them that man walked with the dinosaurs, global warming is a Chinese conspiracy theory, and the earth is only six thousand years old.

Trump Administration removes virtually ALL mention of climate change, and the science that backs it up, from federal government websites.

How these pages appeared when we had a real leader in charge of this country.

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

During inauguration day on 20 January, as Donald Trump was adding “American carnage” to the presidential lexicon, the new administration also took a hammer to official recognition that climate change exists and poses a threat to the US. 

One of the starkest alterations to the White House’s website following Trump’s assumption of office was the scrapping of an entire section on climate change, stuffed with graphs on renewable energy growth and pictures of Barack Obama gazing at shriveling glaciers, to be replaced by a perfunctory page entitled “An America first energy plan”. 

In the more than 100 days since, the administration has largely opted for a chisel and scalpel approach to refashioning its online content, but the end result is much the same – mentions of climate change have been excised, buried or stripped of any importance. 

Federal government websites are being combed through to apply new verbiage. The state department’s office of global change, for example, has removed links to the Obama administration’s 2013 climate action report and mention of the latest UN meeting on climate change. Text relating to climate change and greenhouse gases has also been purged.

Here is one of the worst things that this article pointed out:  

Trump’s desire to champion the coal industry is reflected in the Department of Energy’s online pages aimed at educating children. Sentences that point out the harmful health consequences of burning coal and other impacts of fossil fuels have gone.

It is one thing to remove data from websites visited by adults, who may have the wherewithal and intellect to find the right information elsewhere, but when you take it off of educational sites visited by children you are purposely misinforming them down and directly interfering in their education.

This reminded me of a scene from that very troubling "Jesus Camp" documentary in which one of the kids, Levi, is reading from home school material that purposefully minimizes global warming, and attacks Evolution.

Having a parent purchase home school materials to help misinform their children, and keep them ignorant, is bad enough, but when our own federal websites are doing the same that is indefensible.

Donald Trump thinks he has invented a new saying.

Yep, I dood a smart thing.

This is from an interview conducted by The Economist:  

President Trump: That all goes into tax reduction. Tremendous savings. 

But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit? 

Trump: It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll…you understand the expression “prime the pump”? 

Yes. 

Trump:We have to prime the pump. 

It’s very Keynesian. 

Trump: We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event? 

Priming the pump? 

Trump: Yeah, have you heard it? 

Yes. 

Trump: Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do. 

It’s… 

Trump: Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.

Is it possible to laugh hysterically while also sobbing uncontrollably?

If not I think I just invented a new emotion. 

Seriously though, how can you reach your 70's without ever having heard the expression "priming the pump?"

It should do the trick.

Training Day.

Just so you know I am in training today, which means there may be a delay before I can publish your comments.

It might be completely unnoticeable, but then again there might be an hour or two between times when I can check my phone.

I have to admit I really hate this particular training as it involves a lot of hands on instruction and requires a lot of up close and personal interactions with people I do not know.

I think I have taken this particular class around 18 or 19 times, so though it is not new to me it is still a huge pain in my ass.

I have held this job for twenty years this June and perhaps the worst part is the yearly re-certifications.

I also hate that this is happening on a Friday which is notorious as a news dump day, but if you see anything you think I should know about put it in the comments and I will hopefully get to it later on tonight or tomorrow.

I have already written multiple posts that will show up as the day progresses, so don't think I will not provide content for you to enjoy.

Have a great day, and thanks for making IM a priority to visit in your very busy lives.

This was posted on Facebook by Sarah Palin, a fervent supporter of Donald Trump, without a hint of irony.

Source

I swear that kind of cognitive dissonance is enough to give one an aneurysm.

The irony of Sarah Palin attacking college students as being dismissive of facts almost breathtaking.

But this is a real indication of what we are up against when dealing with Trump supporters.

For them up is down, black is white, and truth is whatever tumbles out of Trump's orange tinted maw.

How does one engage in reasonable discourse with people who deny the existence of facts and label everything that disagrees with their point of view as "fake news?"

Harvard students launch "Resistance School" to provide instruction on how to battle back against the Trump presidency.

Courtesy of Time Magazine:  

For more than 15,000 students across the country, Wednesday marked the first day of Resistance School — a program where the educational focus is mobilizing against President Donald Trump's administration. 

"Each one of us has people in our lives who were disturbed by the outcome of the election and saw it as a call to action," said Joe Breen, one of the Resistance School co-founders. He's a third-year student in a joint degree program at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School. "We recognized that we had the opportunity to help them develop the skills that they would need to get involved in political action." 

Resistance School organizers — a group of Harvard graduate students — said a couple hundred people participated in the first lesson in person at the Ivy League campus in Boston on Wednesday, while about 15,000 people of all ages tuned in via livestream from 50 states and 20 countries. They estimated the total participation was even larger because students were encouraged to host watch parties in groups.

I love it.

Though somehow I doubt this will help convince any of Trump's supporters that universities are not liberal tools for the indoctrination of young people.

But then again if we have more programs like this perhaps there won't BE so many damn Trump supporters.

Sarah Palin uses the Bible to attack education and smear college professors.

Palin at one of the numerous colleges she attended.

Courtesy of Sister Mary Hypocrite's Bible study page:

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. 

Matthew 6:24 

(And what does that passage have to do with college you might ask? Nothing really, but that does not stop Palin from using it as an opening for this serving of stupidity.) 

It took me five years (And five different colleges.) to graduate college, because I worked throughout to pay for it. All my siblings did; there was never a question about Dad’s teacher salary covering four kids in college at once. We did the math…we all got jobs. Nowadays, parents unload boatloads of money on a kid’s “college experience,” and that “experience” has never been costlier. (The Democrats had a plan for bringing tuition costs down dramatically, just that I should remind people of that.)

Not just financially. Modern college culture often involves nonstop efforts to unravel our children’s value systems. Self-indulgence is the name of the game, with professors blatantly attempting to indoctrinate with their liberalism. (Well facts DO have a liberal bias.) College today isn’t necessarily an incredibly rigorous experience, where students’ minds are constantly challenged and their horizons broadened. (And you would know this how?) So many courses are so politically correct they don’t even pass the straight-face test. Since really buckling down to take silly courses isn’t required, much time is dedicated to just having a good time – to partying. Many professors have cushy jobs that don’t require them to, you know, actually teach. (Also complete bullshit.) That means parents spend their hard-earned money – or, more accurately, borrow their not-yet- earned money – for grad students and adjuncts to fill the role of educator. You getting what you paid for, Pops? 

And for all of this, the student-loan debt in America is nearly $1 trillion! It’s prudent to think twice before shelling out big bucks to liberals so they can enjoy efforts to brainwash the next generation.

(Well she has a point. The best way for conservative parents to keep their kids conservative is to deny them an education.)

Today, teach kids the value of higher education, making sure they value God’s Truth over the falsehoods of man. (In this context God's Truth is superstitious nonsense from the Bible, and the "falsehoods of man" are facts.) Consider creative ways to pay for education – such as, ummm, getting a job. It teaches them the value of what they’re receiving, and even possibly keeps them from blowing cash when the keg party passes the hat.

I am sorry, HOW many of Palin's kids attended college? (And I don't mean hair or skin college.)

And HOW many of them have jobs right now? 

Last I heard Willow was working, but as for the others.......

And do we have an example of what happens to kids who do not go on to pursue higher education, and instead embrace their parent's values?

Oh that's right, we do.

Go ahead revisit the Palin family embracing their family values instead of going to college and being "indoctrinated."

Gee, if only ALL parents raised their children in a similar fashion.

Swedish school children are not only learning how to write computer code, but also how to identify fake news.

Courtesy of The Local: 

Along with programming, the moves to improve digital competence will also include teaching kids how to differentiate between reliable and unreliable sources, a subject that has been particularly hot in Sweden as of late, with everyone from comic book hero Bamse to the King emphasizing the importance of source criticism. 

"There has been some naivety when it comes to the information society. An idea that all knowledge is just a short click away and we don't need to know as much as we needed to before," Fridolin explained. 

"It's the exact opposite: we need basic knowledge in reading, writing and numeracy so we can’t be tricked, but we also need to advance our criticism of sources to the same level as we previously taught students about scientific theory for example. You already need to have your first taste of this today at about the age of ten." 

A multitude of sources is a reality of the modern digital age, the education minister added, so it is important to prepare kids to identify trustworthy outlets. 

"You need to know what you can trust, what the difference between a serious media outlet and a propaganda site is. And how certain can you be that your image of the truth is formed from facts, and not someone who wants you to think about things in a certain way?”

Well I think we should prioritize this in America as well. 

The idiots who believe, and share, fake news really fucked us up in this last election and educating future generations to avoid a similar outcome seems like it should be a priority.

And while we are at it perhaps we could offer online classes to those currently of voting age as well.

After all the Trump voters are still out there, waiting to manipulated in the next election cycle as well.