Osama bin Laden's death

Could bin Laden’s death increase risk of domestic terrorism attacks?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110502/ts_yblog_thelookout/could-bin-ladens-death-could-increase-risk-of-domestic-terrorism-attacks
Enough said!!!

More From The Onion

I thought you guys should watch this. It's pretty funny.

American Dream Declared Dead As Final Believer Gives Up

http://www.theonion.com/video/american-dream-declared-dead-as-final-believer-giv,19846/

The Onion Review: Obama Casts National Musical

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-review-obama-casts-national-musical,19949/

San Diego Zoo Lays Off 2,000 Animals

http://www.theonion.com/articles/san-diego-zoo-lays-off-2000-animals,19933/

Teen Rebel Refusing To Purchase Yearbook

http://www.theonion.com/articles/teen-rebel-refusing-to-purchase-yearbook,19901/

I Need Feedback On My Satire Piece

MCAS Testing Is Seen More Positively

A few years ago when The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, better known as MCAS, was first instituted, few, if any, of the students and educators believed that the standardized test for Massachusetts students was beneficial and worthwhile. Now, however, more students take it seriously and the ones that have taken it before encourage the young sophomore students to prepare well for it. “I tell them that if they pass it the first time they don’t have to keep taking it over and over again,” says a two time senior who has taken it for the past three years. “I have to take it this year again, but I’ll pass it this time. It’s my last shot and I want to do well.”

Most seniors are taking upon their shoulders the task of counseling younger students. “It really shows that they care about us,” says Jorge Martinez who is one of the students expected to score advanced on this week’s English MCAS despite having failed the test before. “I want to make my senior friends proud.”

The younger students appear to look up to the older students who have taken the test before and actually listen to their advice and prepare in advance for the test. They even go to the MCAS prep classes that the school hosts once a week after school before the actual testing takes place. “You would think that they wouldn’t take the advice of the seniors and the juniors who have taken the test before since most have had to retake it more than once,” says the principal of a school that is about to be taken over by the government. “But they do and it’s really improving scores. I mean, at the rate the score are going up we might be able to keep running the show ourselves.”

However, 9th and 10th grade teachers are not optimistic. “Scores are not improving significantly, and the students are still not taking the test seriously for the right reasons. They still don’t get that if they fail it they might never get their high school diploma,” commented an MCAS prep teacher. “I still think it is a waste of time because we are still not getting the scores that we should be getting and it makes us teachers look bad. I mean it’s not as if I’m doing something wrong. So I let my MCAS prep students doodle all they want, what’s the point of trying if they’re failing anyway.”

I Called It: No Government Shutdown

11:55pm

While watching "20/20" just now (I know...a wild Friday night, huh?), I saw a banner at the bottom of the screen: Agreement Reached, No Government Shutdown.

Good thing Period A didn't have the guts to give me odds when I offered them a bet. I would be RICH right now.

I hate to use our blog to brag (actually, no, I don't) but this is news, too. Oh yeah...and I'm the teacher, so I can do whatever I want. In summary, two important points:
1. No shutdown.
2. I win!!!

Your Obsessive Love Or Hatred Of Me Means Nothing In The Grand Scheme Of Geological Time

As the undisputed No. 1 teen pop sensation in the world, I have become something of a fulcrum upon which the extremes of human emotion pivot. On one side, you have people who have vaunted me to such lofty heights it is tantamount to deification; on the other, my high-spirited song-and-dance routines elicit an almost murderous rage. But, I ask, when viewed within the context of the geologic timescale, wherein chronological development is measured by evolutionary and stratigraphic events over countless eons rather than transitory human experience, what does any of it truly matter? Quite simply put, it doesn't. Your adoration or loathing of me, a 17-year-old entertainer from Canada, is no more significant than a grain of sand on a beach, disappearing when Earth's mighty oceans rise and then retreat—as they will hundreds of thousands of millions of times until the sun is extinguished and the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Rick Ross, the Great Wall of China, and everything else even remotely related to our feeble, fleeting species are but forgotten whispers in one planet's geochronology...

I suppose we've come to the point where we should just plainly state the ugly truth of all this: If you expend any energy at all either obsessively doting on me or hating me with the very fiber of your being, then I'm sad to say you are squandering your brief window as a cognizant being in this universe. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how better to use your comically tiny duration of sentience. Perhaps tell your family you love them; ponder the intricate beauty of a dew-flecked spiderweb; listen to Nicki Minaj's very good studio debut Pink Friday. In the end, however, none of these things will matter all that much either, not in the great and widening chasm of geological time—let alone when one considers the age of the cosmos from which it has sprung. But maybe in these ways you can draw a brief moment of respite from the existential dread. Ultimately, I believe that this is all one can reasonably hope for. There is no God. Justin Bieber's new smash-hit concert film Never Say Never is now in theaters nationwide! http://www.theonion.com/articles/your-obsessive-love-or-hatred-of-me-means-nothing,19707/?utm_source=morenews

Funny Political Pictures

Google Search (Chinese Water Torture Cell)

Harry Houdini
When I was bored I went to google like many people do or facebook but in google I saw that the logo was different. I searched the cartoon in the logo and found it was Harry Houdini a famous magician. I don't know much about him so this is what I found. Cool stuff:

Chinese Water Torture Cell
The Chinese Water Torture Cell is a predicament escape made famous by Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini. The illusion consists of three parts: first, the magician's feet are locked in stocks; next, he is suspended in mid-air from his ankles with a restraint brace; finally, he is lowered into a glass tank overflowing with water and the restraint is locked to the top of the cell.

The original Chinese Water Torture Cell was built in England in 1911. Houdini first performed the escape for an audience of one person as part of a one-act play he called Houdini Upside Down. This was so he could copyright the new escape (having learned with his Milk Can escape that patents failed to stop imitators). The first public performance was at the Circus Busch in Berlin, Germany, on September 21, 1912.[1] In letters Houdini referred to the effect as "the Upside Down" or "USD". Houdini continued to perform the escape until his death in 1926. Despite two Hollywood movies depicting Houdini dying in the Torture Cell, the escape had nothing to do with his demise.[2]

After Houdini's death, the cell was willed to his brother who performed as the escape artist Theodore Hardeen. Hardeen never performed the cell himself, and despite Houdini's instructions for it to be "burnt and destroyed" upon Hardeen's death, his brother gave the cell to Houdini collector Sidney Hollis Radner in the 1940s. The cell remained in the Radner basement until 1971 when it was put on display at The Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Canada. Here the cell suffered from neglect and theft. At one point, the museum owners put a fish tank inside the cell to achieve an aquarium effect. The leaky tank caused mold and damage to the cell wood and structure.

In 1995, the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame burned to the ground. While it was initially reported that the cell was completely destroyed, but the metal frame survived and the cell was restored by illusion builder John Gaughan. In 2004, the restored cell was sold at auction to magician David Copperfield. It now resides as part of his massive private magic collection in his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 2003, an exact duplicate of the Water Torture Cell was discovered, leading to controversy over the authenticity of the restored cell.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini

A Visual of the number of nuclear tests there has been made since 1945, it goes by monthly

Chernobyl Winds Over America

Nuclear Reactor in Japan

This video shows what happened with the nuclear reactors, and how they got destroyed.

Responsible, Thoughtful Nation Decides To Ignore Charlie Sheen Situation: More From The Onion

LOS ANGELES—Calling the situation "none of our business" and "not worth a second of our time, quite frankly," a responsible and thoughtful U.S. populace uniformly decided this week to ignore Charlie Sheen's recent outbursts, saying they had far more important things to focus on than a sitcom actor's personal troubles. "When Mr. Sheen's public meltdown began, I immediately recognized how a Hollywood star's crisis could be voyeuristically appealing, which is exactly why I said to myself, 'I am better than that; Charlie Sheen's attention-seeking behavior undermines my intelligence, and the sooner I ignore it, the sooner it will go away,'" said 41-year-old Denver accounts coordinator Margaret Atkins, who along with the rest of the nation has paid no attention to Sheen's situation, and has spent the majority of her time concentrating on the unrest in Libya, the collective-bargaining debate in the Midwest, and the health and well-being of her own family. "Not only have I chosen to ignore Mr. Sheen, but thankfully so has the American media, which has once again shown journalistic decency by only reporting the news that people legitimately need to know." Charlie Sheen was not sought out for comment.

Doctor Who Fan's Version of Satire.

For those of you who don't know what Doctor Who is, it's a British television show that features a 'Doctor' as the main character. He essentially is a time-traveling alien that saves many worlds and times from destruction. He's also good looking. I think there's been around 13 different Doctors since the show was created and David Tennent is the 12th. Needless to say I found this on YouTube and thoroughly enjoyed it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtHO7W4IGUA&feature=feedrec_grec_index

Opt-in vs Opt-out

This information is important because it is helpful to understand different policies of different countries world wide. A controversial issue that I found deals with opt-in and opt-out system <-- deals with organ donations. Hopefully the bottom information clarifies my explanation. Opt In or Opt Out
The current "opt-in" system of organ donation – where individuals are asked to register their willingness to be a donor after their death – has been the subject of debate for many years.

~The United State favors this policy.

Opting out / presumed consent
Under a system of "opting out" or "presumed consent", every person living in that country is deemed to have given their consent to organ donation unless they have specifically "opted out" by recording in writing their unwillingness to give organs.

~Austria favors this policy.

Like many policies there is always Cons and Pros

Experience in other countries
Large disparities in organ donation rates exist throughout the world, despite the laws governing organ donation.

Some European countries with opt-out systems have higher donation rates than the UK. However there is no clear evidence that opt-out is the sole factor. The fact that Sweden has an opt-out law does not seem to influence the donation rate per million of population, which is lower than that of the UK, which does not. Within almost all countries, large local variations exist in donation rates, despite a common legislative background.

Opt-out systems can be "hard", as in Austria, where the views of close relatives are not taken into account, or "soft", as in Spain, where relatives' views are sought.

Different cultural attitudes to the disposal of bodies, greater provision of intensive care beds, more pro-active donation programmes and the numbers of road deaths, each play their part. However, the single most important factor so far identified is ensuring that the relatives of potential organ donors are always approached, and approached by someone specifically trained for the purpose, as happens in Spain.

In fact, while Spain is recognised as having a higher number of donors than the UK, it is acknowledged by the director of national transplant organisation in Spain himself that the increase in organ donation during the 1990s could not be attributed to a change in legislation which had remained the same since 1979. The improvements in donor rates in Spain followed the implementation of a comprehensive national procurement system.

http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/ukt/newsroom/statements_and_stances/statements/opt_in_or_out.jsp

Beckham An Inspiration To Children Who Never Get Put In Game: Courtesy of The Onion

Whether intently watching the on-field action or waving to his family in the stands, David Beckham's impressive display of bench-sitting skills and off-field techniques since joining his new team has had a major impact on both the L.A. Galaxy sidelines and the millions of children who never get playing time. "He makes sitting on the bench awesome. I can't wait to not suit up for our next game," said Jeremy Parker, 9, who is not one of his soccer team's starting 11 players or even one of the seven substitutes. "For our next match, I'm going to dress up in my church clothes and try to hold my cup of Gatorade like Beckham." Leading child psychologists have applauded Beckham's positive influence, saying that as a role model, Beckham shows that it is not whether you win or lose, but how you watch others play the game.

Explosion at nuclear plant in Japan

This is relevant news in which everyone should be aware of!

A picture says more than a thousand words

This past few days we have been writing about the purpose of certain political cartoons. This is not a cartoon but it has a similar effect.

Ahh, the wonders of technology. In this photo Obama and Palin look content with each other. I only wished that they used half as much photoshop and more truth. Obama and Palin look too fit and too attractive for my liking.

Japan earthquake: Threat of meltdowns at four nuclear power plants

JAPANESE authorities are battling the threat of multiple reactor meltdowns at four nuclear power plants.
After an explosion on Saturday and reports of partial nuclear meltdowns at the Fukishima Number One Nuclear Power Plant and the nearby Fukushima Number Two plant, authorities today reported emergencies at two more nuclear facilities.
At the Tokai No. 2 nuclear power plant, which is only 120 kilometre north of Tokyo, the cooling pump stopped working, while at the Onagawa nuclear power plant, in the Miyagi Prefecture, a state of emergency was declared because of excessive radiation levels.The incidents underlined the precipitous situation at the country's nuclear plants and particularly at the crippled Fukishima facility, where government officials admitted they feared meltdowns occurred within three of the site's reactors at the No. 1 plant and confirmed that radiation had leaked out.
Sources indicated to Fox News that the Fukishima No. 2 plant could also be in trouble with temperatures in three of its four reactors getting extremely high.
A spokesman for the Tokai plant, which suffered a nuclear accident in 1999, said that although a cooling pump had failed, a back-up pump was working and cooling the reactor.
The IAEA said that about 200,000 people had been evacuated from a 19 kilometre zone around the two Fukushima plants that house a total of 10 reactors.
The UN's nuclear watchdog also said four people were injured in a huge blast at the Fukushima No. 1 site Saturday and that one person was killed and four injured in a crane accident at the other plant nearby.
In all, 22 people were hospitalized after being exposed to radioactivity, according to AFP, although it was not immediately clear to what degree they were exposed and what their condition was. Local media cited by The Wall Street Journal said that up to 190 people might have been affected by radiation.

Tsunami in Japan

On Friday afternoon, March 11,2011 an 8.9-magnitude earthquake triggered tsunamis on the coastline north of Tokyo. The earthquake and tsunami had hit Japan in a time where Japan was struggling to get out of a recession and was pressured to curb the heaviest public debt load in the world. The earthquake was the fifth largest in the world since 1900 and nearly 8,000 times stronger. The nuclear power plant has been declared as a state of emergency because the pressure has surpassed normal levels. Thousands living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant are forced to evacuate the vicinities.



* Four trains are missing along the coast, says Japan Railways; and a ship carrying 100 people was swept away
* Fire has engulfed swathes of the coast in Miyagi prefecture's Kesennuma city, one-third of which is reportedly under water
* A major explosion hit a petrochemical plant in Sendai; further south a huge blaze swept an oil refinery in Ichihara city, Chiba prefecture
* Some 1,800 homes are reported to have been destroyed in the city of Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture
* A dam burst in north-eastern Fukushima prefecture, sweeping away homes, Kyodo news agency reports
* At least 20 people were injured in Tokyo when the roof of a hall collapsed on to a graduation ceremony


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031105407.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598

The Onion, Funny but Extremely Creepy at times

OK, so I finally checked out the stuff that's on The Onion, there was some OK stuff, some funny stuff, and some creepy stuff. They had titles like: 'Tony's Law' Would Require Marijuana Users To Inform Interested Neighbors; Embarrassed Republicans Admit They've Been Thinking Of Eisenhower Whole Time They've Been Praising Reagan; and NASA Completes 52-Year Mission To Find, Kill God (funny although creepy).
Go on and see/categorize for yourselves.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/tonys-law-would-require-marijuana-users-to-inform,1298/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/embarrassed-republicans-admit-theyve-been-thinking,19248/?utm_source=recentnews

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nasa-completes-52year-mission-to-find-kill-god,19263/?utm_source=recentnews

The Blog-gate Continues

One of the links Ms. French provided does not work. I guess they took it down already. Someone else commented on another blog and wrote the whole post. I thought it would be tedious to read all the comments to get to the to the important one so I just copied and pasted it here.

“If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say…
I’m being a renegade right now, living on the edge and, um, blogging AT work.

However, as I’m blogging about work stuff, I give myself a free pass of conscience.

I’m in the process of entering grades, and also need to enter comments for the grades. I used to take a lot of time with this procedure, choosing just the right comment(s) for my students. If I put a negative one, I’d also put a positive one to temper it. (When I was in school, I hated when I got the same 2 or 3 comments from my teachers. It felt so insincere.)

(For the record, my computer froze and had to be shut down at work; when I rebooted, I didn’t bother signing back on to finish this as other things to do came up. At present, then, I’m not being a renegade at all, as I’m writing this at my kitchen table.)

Anyway, as I was saying, when I was first teaching, I put a lot of time and effort into the comments because I felt it was a great way to communicate the students’ efforts. Then it got to be a complete pain in the ass, just one more thing standing between me and being done the report cards, and suddenly I realized why I’d always gotten the same comments from my teachers: they didn’t want to do them any more than I do. (I refuse to believe the alternative reason that I’ll explore momentarily.)

Also, as the kids get worse and worse, I find that the canned comments don’t accurately express my true sentiments about them. So now I pretty much choose “Cooperative in Class” for every kid (or, in some instances, will speak in other codes. For instance, if they talk a lot, I’ll put “is easily distracted” or “talks persistently”; if it’s a kid that has no personality, I’ll put “ability to work independently”). For some kids, though, my scornful feelings reach such fever pitch that I have a hard time even putting “cooperative in class” and have, sadly, had some kids for which none of the comments fit. (Again, this was NOT me. It couldn’t have been. I was a delight!!)

Thus, for this blog, I will list the comments I’d like to see added to the canned comment list, as an accurate reflection of what we really want to say to these parents. Here they are, in no particular order:

Concerned your kid is automaton, as she just sits there emotionless for an entire 90 minutes, staring into the abyss, never volunteering to speak or do anything.

Seems smarter than she actually is.

Has a massive chip on her shoulder.

Too smart for her own good and refuses to play the school ‘game’ such that she’ll never live up to her true potential here.

Has no business being in Honors.

A complete and utter jerk in all ways. Although academically ok, your child has no other redeeming qualities.

Lazy.

Shy isn’t cute in 11th grade; it’s annoying. Must learn to advocate for himself instead of having Mommy do it.

One of the few students I can abide this semester!

Two words come to mind: brown AND nose.

Dunderhead.

Complainer.

Gimme an A. I. R. H. E. A. D. What’s that spell? Your kid!

There is such a thing as too loud in oral presentations. We shouldn’t need earplugs.

Att-i-tude!

Nowhere near as good as her sibling. Are you sure they’re related?

I won’t even remember her name next semester if I see her in the hall.

Asked too many questions and took too long to ask them. The bell means it’s time to leave!

Has no business being in Academic.

Rat-like.

Lazy asshole.

Just as bad as his sibling. Don’t you know how to raise kids?

Sneaky, complaining, jerkoff.

Frightfully dim.

Dresses like a street walker.

Whiny, simpering grade-grubber with an unrealistically high perception of own ability level.

One of the most annoying students I’ve had the displeasure of being locked in a room with for an extended time.

Rude, beligerent, argumentative fuck.

Tactless.

Weirdest kid I’ve ever met.

Am concerned that your kid is going to come in one day and open fire on the school. (Wish I was kidding.)

I didn’t realize one person could have this many problems.

Your daughter is royalty. (The Queen of Drama)

Liar and cheater.

Unable to think for himself.

I hear the trash company is hiring…

Utterly loathsome in all imaginable ways.

I called out sick a couple of days just to avoid your son.

There’s no other way to say this: I hate your kid.

These comments, I think, would serve me well when filling out the cards. Only, I don’t think parents want to hear these truths.

Thus, the old addage… if you don’t have anything nice to say…

…say “cooperative in class.”

Natalie Munroe Suspended Without Pay For Blogging About Her Students

As you all know, I am completely obsessed with this story. I am interested in it for many reasons: for the question it brings up about the protection afforded by the first amendment, whether public employees are as at risk as private sector employees, whether this "scandal" will open up national conversations about education the way Munroe hopes it will, what the public's perception is of teachers in general, and what lessons we can learn about being better teachers, students, and parents. I am especially interested in the blog postings for which she is being lambasted. Are they as offensive to you as they are to her students? Should we be outraged? Can we read this as satire? Is she just venting, or are rhetorical strategies at work here? Does her persona, diction, or tone alienate an audience that could learn something from her criticism? Should she be fired? Should she quit?

I pulled up some links for you:

New "blog-gate" website where she is posting about post-suspension experiences (Is she defending herself well? Is she employing the rhetorical strategies she teaches to convince others that she is justified? Do you think we will be successful with her audience? This is definitely something to think about as you compare these recent postings to the ones that got her in trouble):
http://www.nataliemunroe.com/

Here are some old postings from her blog that has been taken down (I kind of think she should leave all the old postings up.  She says things are taken out of a much greater context, so, where's the context?). I admit that I could feel her pain on the post about essays:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JskrSd3fWK8J:natalieshandbasket.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html+site:natalieshandbasket.blogspot.com&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

This is one of the posts that really angered people. I admit that I haven't read the whole thing yet, so I can't offer an opinion (but you know I will eventually). I recognize parts of this that have been quoted in lots of news articles. Wondering what a student reaction is to a post like this:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3xdfvZq3_YMJ:natalieshandbasket.blogspot.com/2009/10/big-problem-today.html+site:natalieshandbasket.blogspot.com&cd=30&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

It is almost impossible to find the text of the REALLY "incriminating" (not my word) blog posting, but I am tenacious and I have it. I must caution you: this post contains profanity. But it's NOTHING compared to what her disgruntled students wrote as comments. Read at your own risk; you've been warned:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sALNOuknr30J:natalieshandbasket.blogspot.com/2010/01/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say.html+%22Where+are+we+going+and+why+are+we+in+this+handbasket%22+%22Natalie%22+%22If+you+don't+have+anything+nice+to+say%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

BTW, I am not trying to talk y'all into anything. I just think this is a fascinating current event. Go to google and search for "natalie munroe blog" and read some of the commentary about her. So many people have opinions, yet no one can even get it straight whether she was suspended WITH or WITHOUT pay. I'm hungry for someone who makes a truly salient and convincing point about whether she is in the right or in the wrong and what the legal, moral, and ethical consequences should be for her actions, if any. Comments, Young Scholars?

Police: NJ Health Worker Assaulted 91-year-old

Hidden camera catches a 91 year old Filipino lady abused & mistreated by a home caretaker in New Jersey. The family became suspicious after noticing bruises all over her body.

SATURDAY MOCK EXAM CANCELLED

THE PREP SESSION SCHEDULED FOR JANUARY 8 HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO THE FACT THAT EVERYONE IS AFRAID THAT WE'RE GOING TO GET HIT BY A HUGE SNOW STORM. EVEN THOUGH WE'LL PROBABLY ONLY GET ONE INCH OR SO, THE SESSION IS CANCELLED ANYWAY.

AGAIN, THE PREP SESSION FOR TOMORROW IS CANCELLED.

We will have to figure out what to do about taking the exam, as they will all have to be taken next week. I will let you know the answer as soon as I can.

Christmas Truce

The Christmas Truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western Front around Christmas of 1914, during World War I. Through the week leading up to Christmas, parties of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings and songs between their trenches; on occasion, the tension was reduced to the point where soldiers would walk across to talk to their opponents (sometimes carrying gifts).