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Monday Night Open

Monday Night Open

Just whatever you want.

It’s going to take really, really big breaking news for me to post anything.

UPDATE by Leslie Eastman:

As I read this, I suddenly realized why it was going to take “big breaking news”.

So, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish Professor Jacobson and all our Jewish “Legal Insurrectionists” a very happy Passover.

And, as an amateur Egyptologist, I will enhance my wish with a small gift of humor:

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Comments

Would you post if a new Cherokee recipe was leaked by Elizabeth Warren? Naw …. not big enough.

Henry Hawkins | March 25, 2013 at 8:28 pm

Slow news night. Let’s see… Justin Bieber is reportedly exhausted from touring, the new Lindsay Lohan movie is flopping bigtime, a few Cinderella teams have emerged in the NCAA tournament, oh and Russia and China are in the middle of a nuclear exchange.

Nighty-night, Prof. Sleep well. Back at ’em tomorrow.

    TrooperJohnSmith in reply to Henry Hawkins. | March 25, 2013 at 9:12 pm

    What if you heard that Bruce Jenner was actually able to close his surgically altered eyes without using duct tape?

    Would you post if you heard the president call a news conference to express his sorrow at being thin skinned whenever he’s criticized and for being so stridently insistent that his way is the only way?

    Neither would I. In the first case, who cares. In the second case, I’d know that I had either been surreptitiously fed a hallucinogen or had slipped into a parallel universe where everything is reversed.

I hope you are not ill.

You Tax Dollars at Work. IRS Video Spoofs Star Trek Episode…

http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/03/your-tax-dollars-at-work-terrible-irs.html

The night is young, Hot Air probably has time to post 6 more op-eds on gay marriage in the Headlines. 😀

Here’s a bit of breaking news. PPP is tweeting previews of its latest poll in South Carolina. I know folks will find this shocking but Daily Kos’ pollster is showing an early advantage for Democrats in the race to replace Tim Scott. Much as I find the idea of Mark Sanford winning any race repugnant, it is pretty laughable to suggest Elizabeth Colbert Busch could win that district. Still better safe than sorry, take this as further incentive to send Sanford back hiking the Appalachian trail in the run-off.

I hope you are enjoying a nice Passover dinner with your family.

I read that Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Mike Lee have sent a letter to Harry Reid saying they will filibuster any procedural move to bring up a gun control bill in the Senate. They need 41 votes to sustain the filibuster. Reid plans to bring up the bill this week. I suggest those who can twist their Senators arm to support the filibuster call or email, first thing tomorrow morning and put pressure on your Senator. I also read that Senator Joe Manchin has been meeting with the NRA to find a compromise to give red-state Democrats cover. Help Cruz, Paul and Lee save our second amendment rights.

9thDistrictNeighbor | March 25, 2013 at 10:05 pm

Chag Sameach, Professor.

shortwave8669 | March 25, 2013 at 10:37 pm

Sorry this is so late on Monday …

Sincere wishes for a Happy Passover

Just an interesting tidbit of history concerning Passover.
The Greek term “Passach” (Which means ‘Passover’) was incorrectly translated in the King James Bible as ‘Easter’. It is debatable if this was intentional or not, but it does mean that Christians should be celebrating ‘Passover’, and not ‘Easter’. The symbolism of Passover is just as cogent to Christian thought as to traditional orthodox Judaism. And both contributed to the advancement of our civilization, hence why we call our western values Judeo-Christian 🙂

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to Paul. | March 26, 2013 at 12:29 am

    The Celts Picts & Britons always had an Oestre – a fertility goddess thing going on around the same time. They always called it Easter as against the euro /Roman Pasches. Today one still sees Paschen festivals in Europe .

    The True Brits stuck to calling it Easter even though they were persecuted by Rome & its local bully priests including Bede. Henry 8 wiped out the Catholics bullying & therefore The King James went back to Easter.

    Your choice to call it the Pasch thing . But with all things EU they might take one of your days away . They can”t get Russian days because of the calendar thing.

    Be warned Paul.

      It’s rather sad how a mistranslation of one word can cause such hardships. That’s why I’m always nitpicking at details with regard to language usage on the internet. The one that really gets me steamed is when people use loose in the context of lose. But it is what it is. One can only sound the alarms and do what they are able to do.

        Paul, what am I missing here? I’ve always thought Easter to Christians celebrates their Lord and Savior rising from the dead after being crucified on a cross, and Passover to Jews celebrates Yahweh allowing an angel of Death to “pass over” or omit entering the homes of the Children of Israel on a tragic night when the rest of the first born sons in Egypt were slain. So you’re saying it was a misunderstanding and Christians were also commanded to celebrate Passover?

Two things:
from Psalm 35,
“If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
and
and the first verse of Psalm 95
Modern Hebrew
לכו נרננה ליהוה
נריעה לצור ישענו׃

I hope the translation I found is correct and acceptable.

A couple of weeks ago I had a miserable week as a high school teacher. The school I teach at administered the state standardized tests. Seniors were banished, Juniors were shipped out, and punishment was inflicted on Sophomores and Freshmen. While tests were in the room, students were not allowed to talk or have any electronics. Even if all the tests had been collected, and were in the teachers possession. Teachers were not allowed to sit while students were testing.

The tests are designed for a bell-curve, which means the median should be around the mean, about 50%. Thus many of the questions were beyond many of my students, as this school has about 85% receiving free or reduced lunches. The students were frustrated by questions beyond their ken.

Schools are threatened: if scores are insufficient, people will be fired, and chartered schools could be closed. To ensure student co-operation, their scores go on their official school transcripts. If a parent should opt-out their student the school will suffer statistically. Worse than being given 0’s to average in. Some charter schools write compliance into their applications; parents are not allowed to opt-out their students.

If there is a “mal-administration” then all the scores in the room are zeros. School personnel who cause mal-administrations could be dismissed. We were told that if our cell phones went off during the test we could expect immediate termination.

We were told that previously one teacher had joked around during the testing, and there had been a mal-administration declared. The teacher was told they were going to be fired. The teacher claimed that the administrator who had instructed the teachers about how to give the test had been joking around. Further investigation revealed this to be true, so both the teacher and the administrator were fired.

Teachers were not allowed to read the tests. We are not allowed to teach published test items. We are not allowed to discuss the questions, either with each other or with the students. Students are not allowed to discuss the test.

The list of odious restraints goes on. My humble opinion is that only a corrupt test and system could spawn so many severe restrictions with harsh consequences. About the same time the news came out about NYC high school graduates who couldn’t read and write well enough to enter college. We are doing all this malarkey to ensure high school graduates could read, and they still can’t. Somebody is making money here and it isn’t helping our students.

    I can understand the frustration, as I taught High School Biology for 9th graders here in Oregon for a couple of years. Have you considered that the test is structured in such a way as to incentivize teaching to the test itself, rather than the subject matter? This way students don’t learn the subjects well enough to be independent minded on the matters at hand.

    You hit around the mark when you pointed out correctly that students in NYC cannot read or write well enough for college. Progressive want to dumb our students down enough so that they are distracted by the bread and circuses (Pro sports, and water cooler gossip over last nights TV episodes), and will vote for whomever gives them the most goodies. It really is disturbing to watch this go on right before our eyes.

    This sounds like law school!

    I’m not clear on this: are you asserting the strict discipline during the exams is meant to cover a rigged test? Other than forbidding teachers to read the tests, I don’t see a problem here. Rather, I see appropriate terror.

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to Milwaukee. | March 26, 2013 at 2:30 am

    I believe Minnesota made a big effort to go up the rankings on some of the international tests. The last I read about 2009 was that they had succeeded.

    Without a doubt the protocals described by you are those that are required on theses tests also.

    Too much testing -& teaching for tests alone -is a problem but exam discipline is learnt . Children who are good at tests will be good at most things . Not brilliant but capable.

    9thDistrictNeighbor in reply to Milwaukee. | March 26, 2013 at 8:48 am

    If you thought administering standardized testing was difficult a couple of weeks ago, buckle up for Common Core testing….

Love the vid!

Give the progressive-socialist credit. They take our Federal tax dollars and then reward states for adapting the Common Core Curriculum. This is a curriculum which I think many states would not have adopted otherwise. The state tests are geared to this curriculum. In my school, and in many others, we will need to replace the traditional Algebra I in 9th Grade, Geometry in 10th Grade with a blended curriculum. Algebra and Geometry can no longer be distinct courses as the state tests at 9th and 10th Grades cover both topics. While I am sympathetic to the idea, I am not sympathetic to the way this change has come about.

Juba Doobai! | March 26, 2013 at 9:18 am

Happy Passover, everyone.

That blood on the lintel is the Blood of life. It is the Blood that says the victory of God’s people over their enemies has been already won. That Blood is the promise that, though we may backslide, nothing can separate us from the love of God. For, even if we go down into the deepest pits of hell, He is there.

Enjoy the Passover, and enjoy watching the enemies of God’s people engage in a futile struggle against us all.

Leslie
That was incredible
Good Job

and the news coverage of Passover’ pretty on target
thank you
and Blessings