Nottinghamshire batsman James Taylor has emerged as the leading candidate to replace Kevin Pietersen in the third Test against Australia if the England star fails to recover from injury. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
For the first time in 17 years, a new set of science guidelines for the nation’s government-operated school system has been released.
This time, the Next Generation Science Standards include pointed and opinionated lesson plans designed to silence any debate by those who question the facts surrounding man-caused global warming.
Naturally, leftist environmental extremists are in favor of the new plan, since the standards being retired did not address the topic at all.
Alliance for Climate Education director Matt Lappé expressed the pleasure surely felt by most leftists in the educational system and beyond.
“The hope is that standards with rigor like this, with support within states, will squash those denialist approaches to climate science teaching,” he said.
Lappé made it clear that he wants the significant portion of Americans dissatisfied with the flimsy evidence presented by climate change adherents to simply shut up and move out of the way.
Delighting in the fact that previous bills designed to provide both sides of the argument have been defeated, he predicted “we’re now in a position where we expect that to be the norm.”
Outraged at the affront on a perfectly reasonable skepticism, a number of more conservative groups spoke out against the one-sided, politically correct guidelines.
James Taylor of the Heartland Institute chided the “anti-human message” contained in the standards, while Robert Lattimer of Citizens for Objective Public Education called it “a very bad set of standards” for conservatives.
Though this new set of standards obviously constitutes a short-term loss for the conservative argument on this issue, some see the change as an overreach that will eventually backfire.
Patrick Michaels, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science, predicts “tremendous resistance” from those students forced to hear the heavily skewed data.
“Kids will become even more skeptical than they are now,” he noted, expecting them to “rebel against it in the long run.”
More than half of all states took part in drafting the set of standards; and, like all other leftist agendas perpetuated in America’s schools, parents are often at the mercy of ideologically driven instructors and administrators who have direct access to and influence on the next generation.
Traditional parents must consider the indefatigable opposition represented by public education and redouble their efforts to provide the conservative ideals purposely ignored or ridiculed in mandatory lesson plans.
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Photo credit: terrellaftermath
From: http://www.westernjournalism.com/new-school-standards-seek-to-nix-climate-dissent/
By Kevin Banet
The inauguration is over. But our reporter, Eliza Snoop, was able to catch an interesting private conversation between President Obama and Joe Biden, since she was able to disguise herself as a fly and enter the presidential limo.
“A stirring speech, Mr. Presisent,” Biden said. “I’m glad you were able to include the words ‘endowed by their Creator’ in your quote of the Declaration of Independence — this time.”
“Yep — that ought to keep the Tea Partiers quiet for a while.”
“I’m also glad we were able to get some good entertainment into this — many people think the whole day is just boring. Beyonce was great.”
“It’s Be-yon-SAY” to you old folks, Joe,” the president quipped.
“Oops. But I can pronounce James Taylor.”
“Say, I thought James Taylor was going to sing something unique. I mean, ‘America the beautiful was nice, but —”
“He was, but I just had to stop him.”
“Wha—?”
“He had something prepared to the tune of his famous ‘Fire and Rain,’ but he was going to call it ‘Fire and Brimstone.’”
“Glad you put a damper on that, Joe. We don’t want any divine condemnation.”
“Hey, I liked that line about how we expose the error that ‘All problems can be solved by government alone,’” Biden chuckled. “Just get them to believe that we think like they do, and then we can do what we want.”
Obama smiled approvingly as the car turned onto Constitution Avenue.
“Of course, we’ll put a lot of church activity and charity groups out of business, as we planned — I really like your HHS mandate where we’re going to shut down Catholic institutions. You’re a genius, Mr. President.”
“It’s all going to fall into our hands someday, Joe,” Obama quipped. “Hey, what about that Rushmore project?
“Yes, Mr. President. There’s just no more room for any other face. We’ll have to replace one of the guys up there with your awesome visage.”
“Who will we replace? Lincoln, he’s a good guy. Jefferson, nah. Hey, how about Washington? I like how he’s out front of all the others, and I never liked all those paintings of him praying.”
“Perfect. And I’ve already looked into the logistics. Seems the granite experts have had difficulty finding a grey material that will stick to the rock. In fact, there’s only one substance that will do it.
“What’s that?” Obama asked, leaning forward curiously.
“With all due respect, Mr. President, it’s Silly Putty. It will take 95,000 tons of the gummy stuff to get in your ears.”
“Do it, Joe. It’s just like our public policy. Dumb solutions, but just make it stick with the public.”
An eastern Ohio couple pleaded guilty to punishing their three children by forcing them into plastic storage boxes sealed with duct tape and only a square cut in the top for air.
A prosecutor said the children, ages 5, 6 and 8, were crammed into the boxes as punishment June 16 at the family home in Steubenville while the parents went to the grocery store and left two uncles at home with them. A friend of the family arrived at the house, got the children out of the boxes and contacted police.
Their father, James Taylor, pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of child endangerment and one count of unlawful restraint. The plea deal calls for a year in jail. His wife, Samantha Taylor, the children’s stepmother, pleaded guilty to the same charges and likely will serve two years of probation.
The clerk’s office said a sentencing date for the pair has not been set.
The two uncles pleaded guilty to unlawful restraint and were sentenced to a year of probation. Prosecutors said they helped put the children in the boxes, with one of them cutting the air holes.
Authorities said the children were in the boxes for about 15 to 30 minutes, with square holes cut out of the lids to expose the top part of their faces. There was no indication they had been put in the boxes before, but Jefferson County prosecutor Jeffrey J. Bruzzese said it was part of a cycle of abuse by the parents that included having weights dropped on their feet.
Bruzzese said it was apparent that water was dumped on top of the children while they were restrained in the totes. All the punishment was meted out at James Taylor‘s direction, the prosecutor said.
Bruzzese told WTOV-TV that the children are now living with relatives and doing well. He did not return a call to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Steubenville is on the Ohio-West Virginia border, about 150 miles east of Columbus.
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Information from: WTOV-TV, http://www.wtov9.com
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Film festivals can get off to a slow start. All that planning, all that travel booking for stars coming to pillage the gift suites, then everyone stands around waiting for a single movie, that big opening-night premiere, to get things rolling.
It’s a lot to ask of one movie to set a tone for scores of films to follow over a week and a half. The Cannes Film Festival practically put itself on suicide watch in 2008 by opening with the bleak plague drama “Blindness.” A year later, Cannes organizers lightened up and started with the warm-hearted animated tale “Up.”
The Sundance Film Festival, which begins Thursday, used to face a similar dilemma. How do you pick that one film to stand as torchbearer for the 120 movies to come?
Three years ago, Sundance founder Robert Redford and festival director John Cooper scrapped the glitzy opening-night premiere and jumped right into the competition lineup, the films that make up the heart of the independent-cinema showcase. Day one at Sundance now presents four features — one each from its main competitions of U.S. and world dramatic films and documentaries — plus a program of short films.
“It should not be one-size-fits-all. We decided we did not want everything to be centered on just the opening-night film,” Redford said. “We wanted to create as many spaces as possible to get the festival rolling. Let’s avoid a red-carpet, avoid anything that suggests this is the main event.”
Instead of one star-studded premiere, five separate screenings that give audiences a sampling of the diversity that Sundance is all about.
“We look collectively at those films to set the tone for what’s going to be unfolding over the next 10 days,” said festival programming director Trevor Groth. “It’s a pretty varied selection, so you do get a sense of the kind of different elements that make up the festival.”
Here’s a look at Sundance’s day-one feature films:
— “MAY IN THE SUMMER,” U.S. dramatic competition: Filmmaker Cherien Dabis, whose immigrant drama “Amreeka” premiered at Sundance in 2009, returns with a new star: Herself. In her acting debut, writer-director Dabis plays an American woman reuniting with her family in Jordan to plan her wedding — and rethinking marriage as she copes with dysfunctional relatives.
Dabis said that after “Amreeka,” people kept asking her if she wanted to act, and another director even cast her in a film. Unable to find just the right actress, Dabis put herself through the entire audition process and decided she was the woman to play the part.
Introducing “Amreeka” to Sundance audiences was one thing. Starting the festival is another.
Any opening-night jitters?
“Yes! I was so stunned when Cooper told me, and the first thing I thought was holy cow, day one. That’s a big responsibility. It is definitely nerve-racking,” Dabis said. “It’ll be a slightly different experience as a day-one film. It’s kind of nice, because it’s challenging me a little bit to go there and be ready to open the festival in a way, at least open the dramatic competition.”
— “TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM,” U.S. documentary competition: Morgan Neville, whose 2011 Sundance entry “Troubadours” centered on superstars such as James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell, now looks at the hired hands — backup singers whose oohs and aahs prop up the voices at center stage.
What would music be without them?
“It would be out of tune,” Neville said. “Backup singers do a lot more than they get credit for, and particularly in the pop world, backup singers paper over a lot of mistakes when it comes to singing live. To me, it’s also like a whole dimension of soul and call and response in a way. A single singer is telling a singular story, but when you have backup singers, it’s a community, so you’re dealing with a much different, more compelling dynamic.”
— “CRYSTAL FAIRY,” world dramatic competition: It’s road-trip time for writer-director Sebastian Silva — who came to Sundance with 2009’s “The Maid” and 2011’s “Old Cats” and has a second festival film this time, the midnight chiller “Magic Magic.”
Silva’s day-one premiere stars Michael Cera as a smug, judgmental American who invites a free spirit calling herself Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann) on a mescaline quest through the Chilean desert, where he learns to shed his self-righteousness and she comes to accept her real self and leave the pixie behind.
So the keys to happiness are drugs and travel?
“Calling it a crowd-pleasing druggie road trip would be a very, very superficial take on it,” Silva said. “‘Crystal Fairy‘ is a great film for opening night, because it sort of lifts up your spirits. It’s a really fresh experience, and I think it’s a non-pretentious movie. But it’s not necessarily a happy ending, things are not necessarily happy and joyful. But it feels very real, and you sort of learn to be compassionate yourself as you go through the movie.”
— “WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL?”, world documentary competition: First-time director Marc Silver and producer Gael Garcia Bernal dig into the mystery of a body found rotting in the Arizona desert, bearing a tattoo that reads “Dayani Cristal.”
Weaving between documentary segments and sequences featuring Bernal retracing the dangerous route many Mexicans take to reach the United States, they try to put a human face on a man who otherwise would have been another anonymous victim of the immigration battle.
So who is Dayani Cristal?
Something of an Everyman for millions who dream of a better life.
“What that body in the desert told me is why leave people leave home, how dangerous the journey is,” Silver said. “To rehumanize somebody who was dead and didn’t have an identity, and by the end of the film, you know him and his family, that really is the heart of the film. It’s a metaphor for many immigrants all over the planet.”
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Online:
https://www.sundance.org/festival
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
