Sunday, November 22, 2015

22 Nov - My Feedly!

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Popular in blogger-following

'SNL' uses Adele's 'Hello' to squash family feuds on Thanksgiving
If there's such a difference between you and your relatives (and a million miles) don't let it tear you apart (anymore). Instead, just channel Adele's "Hello." Saturday Night Live proved Adele's hit single is the ultimate unifier using it to squash family feuds about "The ISIS" and Ben Carson in a hilarious Thanksgiving sketch At least you can say that you've tried...to de
Celine Dion performs powerful tribute to Paris victims at AMAs
Celine Dion made a special appearance at Sunday night's American Music Awards to deliver a tribute to the victims of the Paris terrorism attacks Dion performed a stirring version of Edith Piaf's 1940s song "Hymne à L'Amour" as beautiful images of Paris and the city's citizens flashed behind her. Many audience members were visible moved, crying throughout Dion's performance See also:
Caring doesn’t scale. Scaling doesn’t care.
David Wiley said: Why are we hell-bent on taking the greatest communications technology ever known and making sure that no one communicates with it? Why must we replace opportunities to interact with teachers and tutors with artificial intelligence and adaptive systems? Why are we so excited by the prospect of care, encouragement, and support giving way to a “Next” button that algorithmically ch
Man wields Klingon Bat'leth during argument
A Star Trek fan brandished the deadly weapon after his wife got in to an argument with their neighbor. The ridiculous incident began when Joyce Cerutt...

The Corbett Report     

Interview 1112 – William Engdahl Explains the Context of the Paris Attacks
[audio mp3="http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2015-11-18%20William%20Engdahl.mp3"][/audio]F. William Engdahl of WilliamEngdahl.com joins us today to give his perspective on the Paris attacks. We discuss the historical background to what is taking place now in Syria, how it plays into the current geopolitical agenda of the US/NATO military powers, and what it means for France, Syria and th

The EnvironmentaList     

Combating Blast Fishing in Malaysia
Protecting healthy reefs and restoring damaged ones in the Coral Triangle
Climate-Smart Conservation in the San Francisco Bay
Integrating climate science into marsh restoration and conservation efforts
The Comeback of the Atlantic Great White Shark
Along with rising numbers, sharks are enjoying improved public perception along the US Atlantic Coast

Is the BBC biased?     

"Those people who are the so-called jihadists in France don't come from Islam. They come from misery."
It's hard not to bang on, however much you might not want to, when the BBC programmes you are listening to are also banging on relentlessly. This morning's Broadcasting House featured a lengthy report from Emma Jane Kirby on how France's young people are reacting to the massacres in Paris. At least that was how it was introduced. After a moving opening interview, however, it swiftly moved on to fo
Sunday Morning Live; curate’s egg episode
I thought today’s SML was the best SML I’ve ever seen. Not that that’s saying much. For once, many interesting points were made by all.Sian asks: Should Britain join air strikes in Syria?The whole panel were against hurriedly rushing in to bomb ISIS without properly planning for the aftermath. Even those with pacifist tendencies agreed that defeating ISIS with military force will have to happen so
Spanish affairs
This post may seem a bit random but I think I'm onto something, even if I'm not quite sure what I'm onto...You may recall hearing a lot of BBC reports last year and early this year about Spain's far-left, populist, anti-austerity answer to Greece's Syriza, Podemos, led by the pony-tailed political science lecturer Pablo Iglesias.The party was sweeping ahead in the polls and might even win the next
Andrew Marr on Donald Trump and mass immigration
Incidentally, if you were wondering where Andrew Marr's discussion with U.S. Democratic Party pollster Stan Greenberg went next, well here's the answer:Andrew Marr: Is that kind of very hardline message ringing out across America at the same time?Stan Greenberg: Well, I think it is ringing out in the Republican Party and it's really I think quite important in trying to look at what's happening in

@ the chalk face     

The adults are often the most difficult
In teaching, I often don’t have problems with students. Very little out of the ordinary. I do, however, get more stressed about the adults. Even though I first started teaching because I hated the thought of an office-type job, schools are still workplaces in a lot of ways. There are alliances and ass-kissings. There’s gossip and […]
Implementation is part of the program
In an effort to increase test scores in math and reading in so-called “struggling” schools, numerous intervention programs are purchased on our behalf. So many programs are layered on top of each other that it becomes nearly impossible to carefully consider them all. Although relatively expensive, the cheapest and most efficient interventions tend to be […]
Inescapable mediocrity of teaching
In recent days, I have been bombarded by the announcement of personal and professional achievements of colleagues and friends on social media. This is definitely a phenomenon unique to the new world of perpetual connectivity and oversharing. What isn’t new, however, is the collective, and in turn personal, perception that K-12 teaching is a career […]
Tell Pearson what you think about one of their products
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The Rules of Exposition     

Quality
From Chapter 17 ofZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenanceby Robert M. PirsigTo reinforce the idea that they already knew what Quality was he developed a routine in which he read four student papers in class and had everyone rank them in estimated order of Quality on a slip of paper. He did the same himself. He collected the slips, tallied them on the blackboard and averaged the rankings for an o
Bernanke he will Rogoff, even weather if
I don't care what your name is and who your friends are; it is careless and inconsiderate to write like this:I cannot claim—we cannot claim—to know whether Bernanke he will Rogoff or Krugman and Summers are correct here, or even weather if Bernanke he and his committee had found the nerve, and rolled double-or-nothing one more time to boost the American high-powered money stock to $9 trillion, we
Blattman on Klein on Better Communication
Chris Blattman summarizes Ezra Klein's talk on how to popularize research.Key points:1. "Tell people what’s new and surprising right away, and tell them immediately what they should walk away thinking."2. "... start telling people why they should read in the title."3. "... it helps to link your work to the broader issues that people care about."4. "People like an
"Hardly anything is known of it except its fame"
Via Orange Crate Art, two wonderful paragraphs by Alberto Manguel at the New York Times.Plato, in the “Timaeus,” says that when one of the wisest men of Greece, the statesman Solon, visited Egypt, he was told by an old priest that the Greeks were like mere children because they possessed no truly ancient traditions or notions “gray with time.” In Egypt, the priest continued proudly, “there is noth

A Closer Look: Jody Paterson     

Nicaraguans can grow their own food, but not without land
     Who has the right to own land?      In countries like Canada, we decided some time ago that it’s either government, aboriginals or people with enough money to buy their own piece of tierra firma, and many of us get by just fine without owning land. While almost 70 per cent of Canadians own their own homes, it’s not a prerequisite to happiness.      But the issue is more complex in countries l
On going viral and feeling hope: My letter to the prime minister
I have a Facebook post that is in the midst of going viral. You know, like that '70s commercial for Breck shampoo, where one woman tells two friends, and they tell two friends, and next thing you know the TV screen is full-up with people telling each other about shampoo.Anyway, I have often fantasized of going viral for some of my posts around sex work, but this wasn't one of them. This was a post
#Rolls4Strolls: Let's put an RV back on Victoria's sex-work strolls
Fundraising was never my thing in my journalist years, and I felt very awkward about it back in 2004 when I realized that as the new executive director of Peers Victoria, fundraising was going to be one of the most important parts of my job.But there quickly came a point in those early fundraising days where I realized that I didn't mind asking people for money, because I knew just how important t

A Different Perspective     

The Temple, Oklahoma UFO Occupant Sighting
It has been claimed that the only case involving occupants, creatures associated with a landed UFO that was labeled as “Unidentified” was that from Socorro, New Mexico told by Lonnie Zamora in 1964. Although somewhat hidden in the Project Blue Book files, there is another that took place almost two years later. Hynek mentioned it in his book, The Hynek UFO Report, but he doesn’t give a location an
The 1949 Roswell UFO Crash
The other day, as I was looking over some of my old files and interviews I found an interview that I had done nothing with at the time. At the risk of offending all those who get annoyed if I mention Roswell and accuse me of being obsessed with it, I thought this might be of interest. I remember nothing about this interview. It took place in late 1995 with Colonel Claude N. Burcky, who, in 1947 wa
The Marcel Pictures
While I'm not sure why it is important in a discussion of the Ramey memo, there are those who wanted to see the scans of Marcel. These are the full negative scans and the copyright, as it has been defined, still resides with the University of Texas - Arlington Special Collections. If they ask that the pictures be removed, then I will comply.These scans allow us all to see the full photograph along
The Ramey Pictures
I hadn't realized that the pictures of Ramey would become so important and there would be a few who though you can't understand this without seeing the "missing" Ramey picture. There has been an offer to share this picture with others, though it seems that permission must be obtained from another, I found this which came out of the trip to the University of Texas at Arlington in April. I

A Very Public Sociologist     

Jeremy Corbyn and Insecurity
Relax, Labour is not going to lose the Oldham by-election so there's no need to look for a bus to throw Jeremy under. It will be fine. Ish. Yes, the majority bequeathed by Michael Meacher is going to be cut, and part of that's because fewer people turn out for by-elections unless fired up by some motivating factor or another. Yet the coming performance can, should, and will be read as an early ver
iPads and Socialism
Socialism is Jeremy Corbyn in Number 10 plus superfast broadband! Okay, not as pithy as Lenin's definition involving soviet power and electrification, but John McDonnell's speech on Wednesday is a continuation of a fine tradition in left and centre left politics: the close alignment of our policy agenda with technological dynamism. Though, of course, it's more than just a nice rhetorical flourish
Understanding Social Media Solidarity
It used to be said that the lowest form of solidarity was signing a petition. Now you might argue that it's changing your social media avatars so they reflect the topical campaign of the month. It is with this jaundiced and sceptical eye that Camilla Hodgson reviews the phenomenon of millions of people giving their social media a Tricolore filter in solidarity with the French people against last F
John van de Laarschot: A Political Obituary
A week ago one of the most controversial figures ever to have graced Stoke-on-Trent politics left the stage. I'm referring to John van de Laarschot, the now ex-chief executive of the six towns' beloved City Council. For a council officer supposed to remain in the shadows, he was certainly one of the best known unelected city servant ever to have graced his office. It almost got to the point where

A Way to Live     

Planning? What planning?
When it's raining out or otherwise makes it difficult for us to appreciate the joys of getting out of our robes and into gum boots, there are other homestead-y things we can do, such as pottering about in the kitchen or sewing.Planning? What's that?Oh, actually we do have a plan. It has kind of settled in, though, and does not need much updating. Two posts ago, we talked about how the satellite vi
100 Views
100 Views of Life at Stony Run Farm Photos from 1993 to 2015 in chronological order, showing the sweep and cycle of the seasons on a small exurban homestead. It's a little heavy on the last seven years, which is when I finally had what you might call a camera. Oh, well.
Zones
We haven't talked much about zones at Stony Run Farm. Basically, the farther you have to go to get up from your rock in the cave or easy chair in your house and do something to water, feed, clothe, shelter, or remunerate yourself and yours, the higher the zone number. If you are well organized your lower-numbered zones are those closer to where you get up, and are those more frequently visited. If
One another
Here, November is doing what it does, dark and wet and broody, though a little warmer than we are used to -- still no frost, tomatoes trying to ripen under a leaden streaked with silver.Bedraggled as the garden is, it is still supplying a lot of greens for the humans and the hens. Ducks have been let in early and are high-grading the chard, but also cleaning up wheat seeds in the straw that we hav

A.E.Brain     

It was 40 years ago today....
Updating a previous post. Did I always have that haunted expression? So obvious in hindsight, but so difficult to recognise at the time? Life hasn't been easy since transition. There have been issues, medical, legal and social. But none insurmountable, and I think my expression on the latest photo says it all.Photo from the "Class of 75" 40 year reunion, which I attended on the 21st

Activist Teacher

Paris -- Who made the terror?
By Denis G. Rancourt   The US and its allies murdered one million civilians in Iraq, using indefinite sanctions and war, destroyed all public infrastructure, and gutted all institutions. Do you think that would cause some people to be pissed off and desperate? These “leaders of the free world” went on to inflict the same such “humanitarian” medicine on Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria (
AEI Award for Netanyahu Is Meant to Repair the US-Israel Split: Prof. Denis Rancourt -- Truth NGO
AEI Award for Netanyahu Is Meant to Repair the US-Israel Split: Prof. Denis Rancourt Truth NGO, 08 November 2015 06:08 The conservative Washington D.C.-based think tank American Enterprise Institute has announced that it would grant the Irving Kristol Award 2015 to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recognition of his contributions to democratic leadership and the role

Adrienne's Corner     

Michelle Obama shakes her booty in solidarity with France...
no, really - she did.From the Daily Mail:Michelle Obama brought Broadway and some of its brightest stars to the White House on Monday to host a workshop and celebrate performing arts students from around the country. Gloria Estefan, legendary composer Andrew Llyod Webber, Whoopi Goldberg, and Glee star Matthew Morrison were just some of the big names welcomed to the East Room on Monday. Estefan sa
Feast of Christ the King...
remember who is truly KingReading I  Dn 7:13-14As the visions during the night continued, I sawone like a Son of man coming,on the clouds of heaven;when he reached the Ancient Oneand was presented before him,the one like a Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship;all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.His dominion is an everlasting dominionthat shall not be taken away,his kingship
Bill Whittle: How Liberals Cause ISIS Terror Attacks...
"not fighting back is what's radicalizing the middle."
Friday: Cleanup in aisle 4...
the one that holds all the tabs.I wanted to comment on each of these, which only represent about half of the tabs I have open.  Thing is, I slept in until 9am when I am usually up at 5am.  So, here it is at 1:31pm and other than breakfast have not accomplished much of anything.  I'm not even dressed.  Arrrrgh So comments will be limited to one sentence. I've been saying this for years:Soopermexica

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)     

Russian air strikes 'killed over 400 Syrian civilians'
At least 97 children among casualties of military operations which began in late September, two monitoring groups say.
Conservative wins Argentina's presidential election
Opposition candidate Mauricio Macri defeats Christina Kirchner's preferred leftist successor in run-off vote.
Q&A: 'Muslim minorities are first victims of terror'
"Retaliatory" attacks and raids target Muslims in France, says Yasser Louati of the Collective Against Islamophobia.
Toxic sludge reaches Atlantic after Brazil dams burst
Officials say thousands of hectares of land and water affected by "country's worst environmental catastrophe ever".

Allen L Roland's Weblog     

Russia, France, Britain, United States / In Isis Blowback Syrian Death Trap
The aftermath of a barrel bomb attack in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria, earlier this month. Credit Karam Al-Masri/Agence France-Presse Syria is rapidly becoming a blowback death trap for all the major countries involved; Russia, France, Britain and the United States with Israel an active silent partner. ISIS is making it a death trap for each participant with the recent Russian Airline tra
Pthd / Post Traumatic Heart Disorder / An American Tragedy
          In my over 45 years as a heart centered consultant with emotionally devastated civilians as well as veterans with PTSD, I have discovered that most have a common symptom ~ the psychic pain of being seemingly separated from love, either at birth or in childhood, which can cause us to emotionally check out and close our hearts thus PTHD (Post Traumatic Heart Disorder). At some dark point o
Living On The Edge / Book Review: Fear Runner
                  Living on the edge was a way of life for myself as a former Naval Aviator with 150 plus carrier landings and later as an investment banker who traded on Wall Street and finally a survivor of facing my deepest fears in surrendering to love ~ but former Commodity floor trader Dale Brandon's fast paced thriller Fear Runner touches all those fear bases and more in its electrifying 36
As Greenland Melts / Gulf Stream Cools
        Greenland Ice sheet melting downFor years, scientists have studied the impact of global warming on the Greenland Ice sheets but now on the ground researchers are documenting the full impact of the melting of Greenland's ice sheet, one of the biggest and fastest-melting chunks of ice on Earth ~ which could eventually increase sea levels by about 20 feet as well as permanently alter the Gulf

AMERICAN KABUKI     

Sphere Alliance Message #115 Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
AK Note: An number of recently transitioned personalities will be returning for an encore to take down the final illusion, that of death. Outiside of the Earth realm when a body transitioned it simply went to another realm of its choosing. After the Draco/Bloodline beings took over the incarnation process, post the Jesus event (which if including time loops and time manipulations has been over 400
FRANCE: President Hollande Calls for War, But There Are No Volunteers
Ever notice how each "terrorist attack" generates more calls for "emergency powers"? The heglian dialect can be rephrased as "tension and release" political chicanery.  -AKhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lucia-annunziata/hollande-calls-for-war-bu_b_8591064.htmlHollande Calls for War, But There Are No VolunteersPosted: 11/18/2015 10:46 am EST Updated: 11/19/2015 11:59 am
China busts biggest “underground bank”
A man looks at the Pudong financial district of Shanghai © Carlos Barria / ReutersThis is one of those "hiding something in plain sight" kind of things. The underground banks are not just back alley currency operations, they are literally UNDERGROUND banks... the vast vaults of gold in the Xinjiang desert in which deposits of gold are moved from one "bin" to another within the

Angola 3 News     

Amnesty Intl. USA's "Write for Rights" campaign focuses on Albert Woodfox, calling for his immediate release
 (Amnesty International artwork)Today, in conjunction with the "Write for Rights" campaign, Amnesty International USA issued an email action alert focusing on Albert Woodfox, where Amnesty reiterated the organization's call for Albert's immediate release.Along with urging supporters to add their name to Amnesty's online petition to Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell, Amnesty is al
A3 Newsletter: Court Rules Albert Can Be Retried a Third Time
PHOTO:  A 'cardboard cutout' of Albert Woodfox is displayed in downtown London, England during a November 7 protest march organized by Amnesty International UK. If you have not yet done so, please take action by joining Amnesty's call to "Free Albert Woodfox!"MEDIA COVERAGE:  Esquire: "The Absurdity of Retrial"  II  Washington Post  II  NY Times  II  The Independent (UK)  II  T

ArmsControlWonk     

No, Oz is not an NPT Nuclear Weapon State
When I was in Washington recently, I had a very funny conversation with Matthew Harries over dinner.  It seems there is a proposal for Australia to seek nuclear-weapons state status under the NPT on rather weak claim that the UK had conducted nuclear tests down under in the 1950s. I was delighted when Matt and Hassan Elbahtimy offered to write up …
Scathe Mean in Desert Storm
A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a really interesting story from Operation Desert Storm.  Did you know the United States deployed a Ground-Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) unit in Saudi Arabia?  But, instead of being equipped with nuclear-armed BGM-109G Gryphon, the unit deployed with Navy BQM-74 Chukar drones that were used to spoof the radars associated with Iraq’s …
The Next War or the Last War in South Asia?
Two fundamentally different nuclear futures are conceivable on the subcontinent. One is surprisingly pacific, even without conflict resolution between India and Pakistan. The other is deeply tragic – the worst case of a limited conventional war crossing the nuclear threshold. This choice is worthy of discussion with Pakistan’s Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif, who is in …
More on Status-6/Kanyon
I have a new column (“Putin’s Doomsday Machine”) up on Status-6/Kanyon — the Russian underwater drone that is apparently armed with a very dirty thermonuclear weapon.  I wasn’t really able to do the science justice in the column, so I wanted to add a few thoughts here. There are really two different things going on. …

Buckdog     

"Credit where credit is due." - Oil Sands Companies Demonstrate Leadership On Climate Change
CALGARY, ALBERTA--(Marketwired - Nov. 22, 2015) - Four of Canada's largest oil sands producers have come together to demonstrate leadership on climate change. Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Cenovus Energy Inc., Shell Canada Limited and Suncor Energy Inc., support the Government of Alberta's climate plan related to the oil and natural gas industry, which includes a carbon pricing regime couple
The REAL Reason That Stephen Harper DID NOT Resign His Seat When He Resigned as PM And Party Leader ...
"Words don't mean much to Stephen."Preston ManningOur outgoing Prime Minister does not want to testify at the criminal trial of Senator Mike Duffy. He wants to use his Parliamentary 'privilege' to try and stay off the witness stand. If there is any justice in Canada, the courts will NOT allow him to flaunt parliamentary privilege in a criminal case.  (It just gets worse and worse with th
The Flotsam And Jetsam That Is The Conservative Federal Caucus ....
A defeated, yet still highly offensive group of political like minds will join together in Ottawa today. They are known as the Conservative Party of Canada Federal Caucus.  While in power they raised the debt of Canada by tens of billions. They enriched their corporate sponsors with embarrassingly huge amounts of tax dollars. They badly dented the CDN Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They are, and
A huge burden has just been lifted from the shoulders of all decent Canadians ...
Fuck off Stephen Harper, you undemocratic, arrogant, evil, deluded prick !!!

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