Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Libruls attack! Bible true! Film at 11!

O tidings of foamy-mouthed rage and joy! Sit back and let the Fair 'n' Balanced Network remind you that everything you already know is right.

First up, just as you thought, the libruls are coming for your moppets!

It's exactly what critics of the Common Core school curriculum warned about: Partisan political statements masquerading as English lessons finding their way into elementary school classrooms.

Teaching materials aligned with the controversial national educational standards ask fifth-graders to edit such sentences as “(The president) makes sure the laws of the country are fair,” “The wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation” and “the commands of government officials must be obeyed by all.” The sentences, which appear in worksheets published by New Jersey-based Pearson Education, are presented not only for their substance, but also to teach children how to streamline bulky writing.

At least half true. The task at hand is to make sentences "less wordy" by replacing the NP/PP combination ("the job of a president," "the people of a nation") with a possessive noun phrase. Where the substance fits into "Hold the Flag High" seems to be unexplained here. But let's get back to what "critics" say:

“Parents should insist on reviewing their children’s school assignments,” said Glyn Wright, executive director of the Eagle Forum, a think tank that opposes implementation of Common Core. “Many parents will be shocked to find that some ‘Common Core-approved’ curriculum is full of inappropriate left-wing notions, disinformation, and fails to teach the truth of American exceptionalism and opportunity.”

Uh, OK.

... if the lessons are meant as a primer on the Constitution, there's another problem, note critics. The job of making sure laws are fair is not the president's, but the judicial branch's. The executive branch's duty is to administer laws. And the example that places the well-being of the nation above the "wants of an individual" appears to run counter to the basic principles of the Bill of Rights.

Good to hear it. Anyway, the Michael Moore story is there because, well, Michael Moore:

Filmmaker Michael Moore had a lot to say about guns to a paparazzo who caught up with him at LAX, the scene of a shooting last week that left a TSA worker dead.

So, right: Michael Moore!

The real prize is the last one, though:

Study suggests life began with clay, echoing Biblical story
A new study suggests clay may have been the birthplace of life on Earth.

Cornell University researchers found that clay may have served as the first breeding ground for the complex biochemicals that make life possible, a finding that may reverberate with anyone familiar with the Biblical creation story.

“We propose that in early geological history, clay hydrogel provided a confinement function for biomolecules and biochemical reactions,” said Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering and a member of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, according to Science Daily. 
  

... According to the Old Testament, God made the first man Adam from earth or clay. Adam comes from the Hebrew word adamah, which means earth. The Quaran, Greek mythology and other creation stories also say God molded man from clay.

... How the biological machines evolved remains to be explained, Luo said. Luo and his fellow researchers are still trying to figure out why clay hydrogel is such a successful material in cell-free protein production.


See? Who says Fox hates science?

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