Oscar – Best Picture Review

The best you will ever see – from Jackie and Dunlap

Talking About Hunting Is Verboten

Just when you think the weenie factor of Vermont couldn’t get any higher, there is this:

BENNINGTON — Saying their son was “silenced” by his teacher for talking about hunting in the classroom, the parents of a fourth-grade student at North Bennington Graded School took their son out of school and have taken their case to the local school board.

Jared Harrington’s mother, Wendy Bordwell, and his father, Martin Harrington, removed their son from school with 10 days left in the school year and home-schooled the 10-year-old boy.

I think they might be on to something about their kid being singled out by the teacher:

Bordwell said in a telephone interview that she believed her son was “singled out” by Kathleen Backus, Jared’s teacher, while talking about hunting with a schoolmate.

Bordwell said that, during snack time, Jared was discussing the recent spring turkey hunting season with a classmate when Backus interrupted the conversation, insisting that there be no talk of “killing” in her classroom.

“The breaking point for us, his parents, came when Jared was sharing a conversation during his free period snack time at school. He was talking with a friend about the recent spring 2008 turkey season. Both boys had been out hunting with their dads and Jared was asking his friend where he had gotten his first turkey.

“Jared’s teacher covered her ears, trying to block the conversation, and singing ‘la la la la.’ When asked by another school employee about her odd behavior, the teacher claimed she did not want to hear about the boys and their ‘killing.’ The boys were left feeling that they were not legitimate hunters, but ‘killers’ in the eyes of an important authority figure in their lives,” Bordwell said.

What? I can't hear you. La La La La La

What a wonderful and adult thing for a teacher to do.  Standing around with her fingers in her ears.  It seems like his parents made a good choice to home school their child.  After all, this supposed adult only retaliated against an 11 year old boy by:

After Jared’s parents decided to take up the matter with the school board, Backus assigned 137 pages of homework for the boy.

Especially with this little zinger from the school principal:

School Principal Thomas Martin said he is confident the administration and the school board “can reach a reasonable understanding” among the parties involved in the matter.

“It’s not a huge issue,” Martin said in an interview. “Marty is a good kid and Kathleen is a good teacher. The focus is on the kid. We want to try to meet his needs. Kathy cares a great deal about kids. She’s troubled a great deal about this.”

Martin said the issue is neither “black and white or right and wrong. It’s more complicated than that. It’s brushing up against a number of things that are important to a lot of people and issues relating to the classroom. Emotions start to feed into it when people’s belief systems come into play,” he said.

Defending this teacher by saying this issue isn’t right or wrong?  There’s the American education system bringing down our civilization.

Facist Feminism

Seen with Sarah Palin, seen in their absolute silence on the misogyny of Islamofacism, seen in their silence on the cultural practice of female genital mutilation (female circumcision), and on and on.

Feminism apparently means being a socialist slut to women like Jessica Valenti.

clipped from www.cassyfiano.com OK, so there are a whopping seven pharmacies certified by PFLI. It means the pharmacy won’t dispense the morning-after pill, and in some cases, any contraception at all. This is apparently very, very anti-woman… because, you know, all women care about is accessibility to the morning-after pill and easy contraception! Not only does this make these pharmacists anti-woman, but it makes them “extremist liars”… all for following their own principles and values in the workplace. Now, here’s where we get into the fun part. What Jessica, that little sweetykins, is basically saying is that pharmacists should not be allowed to run their pharmacies how they choose, all because she has a disagreement about what medicines they should and should not be dispensing. If Americans are so concerned about the accessibility of contraceptives and the morning-after pill, the pharmacies that refuse to carry them will go out of business. Modern day feminism does not stand for choice.

Europe – Person and non-Person

Thanks to Moonbattery:

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has agreed to hear the case of Matthew, a chimpanzee whom animal rights fanatics want officially declared as a person — a crucial step toward the day welfare benefits can be collected on behalf of animals, not to mention human–animal marriages.

Person

Non-Person

Men and Women Explained – Part 1

College Student Whiners

This little list of the top 5 reasons why its bad to be an engineering student sure shines a lot of light on today’s generation of snot-nosed whiners:

5. Awful Textbooks
Thick, dry, black and white manuscripts are rarely a source of inspiration and sometimes can cause loads of confusion. 

 No nice pictures to keep my attention.  Why in the world did I try to become an engineer?

4. Professors are Rarely Encouraging
During each class, a professor that would rather be tending to his research will waltz up to a blackboard or overhead projector and scribble out equations for an hour without uttering a single sentence to create some excitement.

Why won’t these people entertain me?  I’m expected to know what they are talking about without them patting my peaked little head every 2 seconds?  The horror!

3. Dearth of Quality Counseling
College students may not have a sense for how to build their resume and they might be clueless about the variety of career opportunities that await them. Unfortunately, some academic advisers do little more than post fliers about internships and hand out a checklist of classes to take.

 Here I is – a college student – and I don’t even know how to pad my resume with useless stuff that might sound good to some poor employer who will be responsible for actually educating me once I’m done with my fun-filled college days.  But these counselor people are supposed to soothe my fevered brow with individual understanding of MY situation and give ME all the answers to how the rest of my life is supposed to work out.  All those other students?  They are on their own.

2. Other Disciplines Have Inflated Grades
Brilliant engineering students may earn surprisingly low grades while slackers in other departments score straight As for writing book reports and throwing together papers about their favorite zombie films.  Many of the brightest students may struggle while mediocre scholars can earn top scores because they have a larger group of supportive friends to or more time to dedicate to studying.

I want my gold star!  This stuff is hard, and I can’t stand it any more!   I’ll tell my mommie on you.

1. Every Assignment Feels the Same
Nearly every homework assignment and test question is a math problem. Only a few courses require creativity or offer hands-on experience.

They actually expect me to learn this stuff.  What unmitigated gall.

Congratulations on Your Attempt To Murder Your Sister

As if this story couldn’t get any sicker:

A young Arab man from a small town in northern Israel was arrested on Tuesday after he shot and critically wounded his 19-year-old sister to “preserve family honor.”

According to the 24-year-old attacker’s own testimony, proudly given to police and rescue personnel that he himself called, he shot his sister twice in the head and then repeatedly kicked all parts of her body. Believing the girl to be dead, the young man went to report the deed to his family, which warmly congratulated him for preserving their honor in the context of Islamic law.

Meanwhile, the girl was rushed to an area hospital where she underwent emergency surgery. She remains in unstable and serious condition.

The girl’s crime, according to her brother and would-be killer, was that she had “befriended” other men following her divorce.

We await the outraged comments of the world feminist community.  But why wait?  This sort of thing occurs multiple times every day in the Muslim world.  The blood of these women cries out for vengeance.  They just won’t get any from Western Liberals.

Discarded Birth Control Pills Harming Environment?

Why has this science not been reported too much?

For some years now, reports have been growing from around the world that the massive amounts of synthetic birth control hormones being pumped into the water systems through sewage outflow is changing the sex of fish stocks. Recently, scientists have also begun to warn of the possible carcinogenic effects of the build-up of estrogenic chemicals in drinking water. 

As early as 2002, the UK Environment Agency warned that fish stocks in British rivers were showing signs of gender ambiguity as a result of high levels of estrogen in the water. A survey of 1,500 fish at 50 river sites found more than a third of males also displayed female characteristics.

Dr. Conrad Daniel Volz from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology, warned that the rise in steroid hormones in the drinking water in the Pittsburgh area is a threat to health. Numerous studies have shown a link between contraceptive estrogen and hormone problems and some cancers, including testicular cancer.

There are ecoNazis screaming about snowmobiles in Yellowstone, but possible cancer risks in the water and there’s no noise from the environmental activists at all.  Wonder why? 

But scientists and environmental groups are careful to avoid recommending restrictions on artificial contraceptives.

The National Catholic Register, reporting on the issue, quotes George Harden, a board member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, saying “If you’re killing mosquitoes to save people from the West Nile virus, you can count on secular environmentalists to lay down in front of the vapour truck, claiming some potential side effect that might result from the spray,” Harden said. “But if birth control deforms fish – backed by the proof of an EPA study – and threatens the drinking supply, mum will be the word.”

Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International, told the Register that people “would not take kindly” to the suggestion of banning or restricting hormonal contraceptives.

“For many people it’s an economic necessity. It’s also a personal freedom issue,” Cunningham said. 

So birth control pills are a personal freedom issue.  But having the government put restrictions on your land to keep some slimy snail in breeding territory isn’t a personal freedom issue?

Your hypocrisy is showing.

Recycling – Stuff White People Like

Wonderful new blog – Stuff White People Like.  There is a plethora of things there, but to whet your appetite – Recycling:

Recycling is a part of a larger theme of stuff white people like: saving the earth without having to do that much.

Recycling is fantastic! You can still buy all the stuff you like (bottled water, beer, wine, organic iced tea, and cans of all varieties) and then when you’re done you just put it in a DIFFERENT bin than where you would throw your other garbage. And boom! Environment saved! Everyone feels great, it’s so easy!

This Week in Judicial Idiocy

A great feature over at National Review Online. There are many idiocies from this week in history, but I highlight this one:

Feb. 23 1993—When is a quota not a quota? The St. Petersburg Times reports that Florida chief justice Rosemary Barkett, a member of the Florida Commission on the Status of Women, defends a commission report that recommends passage of legislation requiring that all of Florida’s decisionmaking boards and commissions be half male and half female by 1998. Barkett explains: “It is not in the context of a quota system. It is simply an acknowledgment that women make up one-half of the population of this state.” Oh.

Impressed by her willingness and ability to deny the obvious, President Clinton months later nominates Barkett to an Eleventh Circuit seat, where she serves with distinction (of a sort) to this day. (For more on Barkett’s egregious record, see here—and stay tuned.)