Fox News issues memo telling Sean Hannity and other hosts to stop using online polls to suggest that Donald Trump won the debate.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

Dana Blanton, the vice president of public-opinion research at Fox News, explained in the memo obtained by Business Insider that "online 'polls' like the one on Drudge, Time, etc. where people can opt-in or self-select … are really just for fun." 

"As most of the publications themselves clearly state, the sample obviously can't be representative of the electorate because they only reflect the views of those Internet users who have chosen to participate," Blanton wrote. 

As the Fox News executive pointed out, users who participate in such polls must have internet access, be online at the time of the poll, be fans of the website in question, and self-select to participate. 

"Another problem — we know some campaigns/groups of supporters encourage people to vote in online polls and flood the results," she wrote. "These quickie click items do not meet our editorial standards." 

At least three Fox News hosts cited unscientific online polls in the hours after Monday night's presidential debate to suggest Donald Trump emerged as the winner of the political showdown.

I guess after the departure of Roger Ailes, Fox is starting to give a shit about those pesky facts.

After all they certainly did not have any problem reporting on those Unskewed polls back in 2012 which kept showing Mitt Romney trouncing President Obama.

I don't think that this means that they will necessarily start actually  practicing journalism, but clearly the new folks in charge are tired of constantly being mocked by other news outlets and late night comedy shows.

We will watch and see if this is the beginning of a new direction, or if it is just a one off for this election cycle.

Online gun store claims it sold 30,000 AR-15 semi automatic rifles in seven day period following shooting in Orlando.

Courtesy of the Independent:  

An online gun store based in the United States sold more than 30,000 AR-15 semi-automatic rifles in one seven-day period. 

Hunter's Warehouse, based in Bellevue, Pennsylvania, claims that since the killing of 49 people in the Orlando nightclub shooting, the AR-15 - or Armalite Rifle - has proved popular with buyers. 

A semi-automatic relation of the military M-16 assault rifle, the AR-15 is strikingly similar to the weapons used in the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, San Bernadino Inland Regional Centre and Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

Keep in mind this is 30,000 MORE military style semi-automatic weapons added to the millions and millions already in homes all over the country.

Millions and millions of guns, capable of firing billions and billions of bullets.

Just another example of how the 2nd Amendment makes us feel safe walking the streets of America.

Group releases study which finds that often online education is like not receiving an education at all.

Courtesy of The Washington Post:  

The study was done by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, known as CREDO, and located at Stanford University, in collaboration with the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington and Mathematica Policy Research. CREDO’s founding director, Margaret Raymond, served as project director. CREDO receives funding from the pro-charter Walton Family Foundation, which provided support for the new research. 

In its newest report, released this week, CREDO evaluated online K-12 charter schools. There are 17 states with online charter students: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia. 

The study sought to answer this question: “How did enrollment in an online charter school affect the academic growth of students?” Academic growth, as mentioned before, is measured by standardized test scores for the purpose of this study, which evaluated scores from online charter students between 2008 and 2013 and compared them to students in traditional public schools (not brick-and-mortar charters). Here are some of the findings: 

Students in online charters lost an average of about 72 days of learning in reading. 
Students in online charters lost 180 days of learning in math during the course of a 180-day school year. Yes, you read that right. As my colleague Lyndsey Layton wrote in this story about the study, it’s as if the students did not attend school at all when it comes to math. 
The average student in an online charter had lower reading scores than students in traditional schools everywhere except Wisconsin and Georgia, and had lower math scores everywhere except in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. 

Layton quoted Raymond as saying, “There’s still some possibility that there’s positive learning, but it’s so statistically significantly different from the average, it is literally as if the kid did not go to school for an entire year.”

I actually have some experience with online education as well, for the continuing education that I have to do for my job, and I can concur that what I "learn" online is often harder for me to retain than the classes that I attend in person. 

My daughter has also studied online courses, and though she always passes them with ease, her retention is not that great either. 

There is something to be said for being part of a class listening to a teacher as being superior to reading materials online or watching instructional videos.

Just another reminder that public education is USUALLY far superior to its various alternatives.