Does Your State Suck At Science? California ranked as the best state for science curriculum. Seriously? Well that does not seem to match up with results. Is California Really Serious About Science?

When California students enter high school, they're already behind in science. Their fourth and eighth grade scores are among the nation's lowest (PDF). Should this really surprise us? After all, science is on the back burner in the state's elementary and middle schools. Large majorities of teachers in grades one through six say they spend fewer than two hours a week on science. That's less than the national average of 2.3 hours, which is hardly much to aspire to. The state's educators know that there is a problem. In a survey last year, less than half of its elementary school principals said their schools offer strong instruction in science.

Posted by: CDR M at 06:00 PM | Comments (461)
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Remember when George H. W. Bush was gobsmacked by that newfangled grocery store scanning technology?

Yeah, not so much.

Here we go again:

Posted by: andy at 05:45 PM | Comments (197)
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Wait, what?

Did you say you were standing with Catholics in support of Obama's decision to mandate Catholic charities provide free abortifacients for its employees?

“First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.”

I guess you did say that.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:01 PM | Comments (354)
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Please watch the powerful video "The Forgotten Man" by Jon McNaughton below the fold. Many of you have seen this, all of you must. Powerful barely describes its impact. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:17 PM | Comments (178)
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Pungent.

It isnÂ’t good enough for the Republican party to nominate Obama-lite. Now, let me tell you what the difference is. If youÂ’re a genuine conservative, first of all you donÂ’t say that you donÂ’t care about the poor. If youÂ’re a genuine conservative, you believe that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And we think it is the left which has abandoned and betrayed the poor because its safety net is actually a spiderweb and it traps people in dependency.
My goal – the exact opposite of Governor Romney. My goal is not to ignore or forget the poor. My goal is to turn the safety net into a trampoline to allow the poor to rise and be like the rest of us and have a job and buy a house.

He goes on to call Obama Big Food Stamp (racist) and Romney Little Food Stamp (not racist).

Video at the link.

By the way, earlier in the week I wondered why Romney didn't seem to even get what was bubbling on the Conservative stove -- why not make a major speech about Fast and Furious?

Neo-Neocon corrects me, noting he has spoken about it.

Yes, but. Yes, he said something about that.

But.

What I'm talking about is this: Conservatives have the sense that Romney isn't one of them. That he intentionally, consciously distances himself from them.

To some extent that can be excused as a general election tactic. To some extent. But even to that extent, it's worrisome for conservatives.

What I am suggesting is that Romney could at least pick a few issues in which conservatives are palpably correct -- is anyone arguing that arming up Mexican drug cartels is a good thing? -- and really channel the conservative sense of anger over these issues.

I'm not suggesting he do it with all issues. It's not in him.

I'm suggesting that in a few areas where he feels he's on the sturdiest ground, where conservative opinion is right and generally acknowledged as such by even the moderates whose votes he hopes to garner -- Fast and Furious, debt, wasted stimulus, economic mismanagement, Obama's attack on religious freedom, Obama's attack on economic freedom -- that he deliver a major speech not "for the moderates" but, for once, the conservatives.

Romney cannot forever worry about the mush-minded moderates in the middle. In case he hasn't noticed, 40% of the country identifies as conservative. And 90% of those in the Republican Primary.

I know he can't rouse himself to be a passionate, fire-breathing conservative on every issue.

How about 1-3 of them?

Is freedom not worth arguing for? Or would that, in his estimation, be impolitic?

What I don't understand is this: If the central justification for his election is "competency," can he at least get passionate when talking about competency?

Is Fast and Furious not Incompetency with a Bodycount? (If not more.)

He can't even gin up some ire about 300 murders?

If he doesn't believe that Obama is incompetent himself -- if he doesn't believe that enough to make a stink about it -- then 1, why should anyone choose Romney over Obama, whom Romney implicitly blesses as borderline competent, and 2, what does that say about Romney's own instincts about competency?

Posted by: Ace at 12:43 PM | Comments (388)
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Really?

Apparently so.

I guess it makes some business sense. To the extent American Idol matters, it makes Queen marginally more relevant with younger consumers.

Ah well. INXS survived JD Fortune, Queen can survive Adam Lambert. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (124)
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Grinning like an imbecile about her "big victory," as she termed it, Pelosi nevertheless went on to threaten that the money just might not be flowing to breast cancer as it once did.

“We certainly will be able to support them as we have in the past,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. But the extent of the public backlash, she added, is “a question of what other people in the country think about it.”

I'm glad that this is a victory "for women." I'm not sure what to make of all those pro-life women I know, though. I guess the implicit, and sometimes explicit, message is that they're not really women.

Did Komen cave? It's unclear. I think they did, but it's hard to tell, because Komen is spinning in both directions.

As a Komen Board member told Life News, the reversal is not really so much a reversal as a clarification of KomenÂ’s grants procedures, which will still impact Planned ParenthoodÂ’s future funding from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Daniel Foster writes that it's pretty repulsive that Planned Parenthood is behaving like a mob "protection" racket. They seem to believe they are entitled to dip their beaks into any money stream that vaguely involves a woman's issue, even if they're not actually providing the services that would qualify them for a voluntary contribution.

They're not doing mammograms. Period. But they and their allies have got it into their heads that if they're "pro-woman," as they define "woman" (and as they define "pro"), they're just entitled to that breast cancer money.

And they're willing to actually threaten breast cancer treatment, prevention, and research over that.

Rent Seeking Gangsterism

If you want peace, you give us our piece.

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 AM | Comments (190)
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And this can all be attributed to Obama's big Cairo Speech.

He did, after all, claim the Arab Spring began due to his powerful words.

Two American tourists were kidnapped Friday in EgyptÂ’s Sinai Peninsula by Bedouin tribesmen, security sources said.

A group of masked gunmen held up a tourist bus in south Sinai, snatching the two Americans, both women, and their guide before taking off, AFP reported.

The tourists were among a group traveling from St. CatherineÂ’s Monastery, at the foot of Mount Sinai, to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, NBC News reported.

Bedouin sources said the kidnappers were demanding the release of relatives held in Egyptian jails, AFP reported.

I hate to cast any aspersions on any victims of barbarity, but please, Americans, do not travel to politically unstable parts of the world.

Released. FoxNews just noted that 2010 was a record year for tourism in Egypt. This year it's down half. And this incident won't help.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (130)
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Gallup's conclusion:

Clearly, President Obama faces a much less favorable environment as he seeks a second term in office than he did when he was elected president.

Here's the movement. (Note that I said "net 17" in the headline because while Democrats lost 18 "solid" states, they gained one "lean" state.)

The battlefield will be the typical list of likely suspects...

Gallup notes that 2008 was a high-water mark for the Democratic Party, building upon 2006's already big Democratic year. So the shift back to the Republican Party isn't a realignment in favor of the Republican Party, so much as a realignment back to the relative parity that existed from the mid-90s through 2005 or so.

Even so, that's not good for Obama or the Democrats. Even with the most favorable partisan advantage in decades, and a financial crisis that could be pinned on the incumbent party, he still only managed a 53% vote share.

Now he's lost the partisan advantage and the current crisis (it is a crisis) sure looks like something that it was his job to fix.

Ed has more.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (101)
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Accuracy in Media has been lampooning These People in interviews and stunts. Verum Serum links their snarky goodbye to Occupy.

But I like this one, where they're asked simple questions, like how many senators are in the senate. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (111)
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