My Beauty Best Teacher

Last week I wrote in my post Lessons from Economic Recessions- Introduction and Great Depression:

History teaches lessons- it allows those of us in the present to see how results in the past worked. Economic recessions are a great teaching tool for policy makers and average citizens, because they teach us how the recession may have happened and how to emerge from the recession and therefore inform us as to the policy actions that we must take and those that we as citizens must support.

In that post, I talked about the lessons from the Great Depression. The lessons that I drew from the Great Depression are based though not on just data from that event, but from other recessions that our nation has entered and exited. Most liberals simply say 'government spending got us out of the Great Depression', but when I ask them about all of the other recessions that the United States entered, they have a blank look, as they do not have any knowledge of other recessions or how we emerged from them as a nation.

One of my friends in the media should try this sometime- ask a liberal policy maker- President Barack Obama, or Nancy Pelosi, or Carl Levin, or Debbie Stabenow, or Gary Peters- ask them what lessons they have personally learned from the Great Depression. I am sure they will roll off some long-winded answer that sounds educated and learned but basically boils down to 'spend more money.' Follow-up that question with a question on what lessons they learned from the Depression of 1920-21, or The Panic of 1907, or the Long Depression of 1873–79, and you'll be sure to get blank looks from these policy makers, as they don't have any knowledge about those recessions and have learned no lessons from them. They might even snap back some response to you about how unimportant it is to learn about other recessions- but they are wrong, because if you only draw your lessons on economic policy from one recession, the Great Depression, and your lessons are wrong at that, than you are sure to be wrong about very big and important policy decisions that have real effects on our nation.

Of course, my blog should not be the source for your education- I would advise you to spend some real time studying some real economists- but at least the knowledge that I display here and the lessons that I draw here are likely more educated than those of the above policy-makers, including our Harvard-trained President of the United States. So let's discuss today the The Forgotten Depression of 1920.

The Depression of 1920–21, which was an extremely sharp deflationary recession in the United States that lasted from January 1920 to July 1921, which at 18 months in duration is longer than any of the recessions after WWII, and which saw a GDP decrease of anywhere from 3% to 7%. The recession of 1920–21 was characterized by extreme deflation- anywhere from 13% to 18% — the largest one-year percentage decline in around 140 years of data. Unemployment jumped anywhere from 4 to 6% in one year, the AT&T Index of Industrial Productivity showed a decline of 29.4%, and stocks fell dramatically during the recession. It was a very bad recession that led many in society to question the stability and future of the American system of capitalism.

At the time, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover — later President Hoover- urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover, as we all know now, was a progressive Republican who believed that active government response by government officials who were smarter than the rest of us could shorten a recession and led to economic growth. Hoover advocated the same policy responses in 1920 that he implemented in 1929- increased spending by the government, increased taxes especially on the evil rich, increased regulation of businesses, bailouts for banks and 'too big to fail' companies, continued support to labor unions, and more government agencies and boards to organize and improve our existing economic system.

As you can see, the responses that Hoover advocated in 1920 and implemented in 1929 are very nearly the same policies that President Obama implemented in 2009. The results of these policies are seen today and were seen in 1929- but not in 1920 because President Warren Harding ignored Hoover and did the exact opposite as what he recommended. Whereas Hoover pushed for more government spending, Harding decreased it; when Hoover wanted more regulation, Harding put in place less; for every board of smart elites that Hoover proposed to control human action, Harding cut boards and agencies so that the common man could be more free; and Harding ignored demands to raise taxes and instead slashed taxes.

The result of Harding's more conservative approach to the severe recession of 1920-1921? The recession ended quickly and ushered in an amazing period of robust economic activity the continued throughout the 1920's as Harding and Coolidge continued conservative policies. It is no surprise that the limited government, balanced budget, low taxes, low regulation, and unleashing of human freedom led to the Roaring Twenties, an amazing period in American history of social, artistic, and economic dynamism, while the active government, increased taxes, massive government spending, and more regulation of the progressive Hoover and liberal Roosevelt led to the Great Depression.

Thomas E. Woods (author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, and Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse) recently wrote a great post on this subject called The Forgotten Recession- I advise you to read the whole article, but here are several important pieces of it:

...It is hardly necessary to point out that Harding's counsel — delivered in the context of a speech to a political convention, no less — is the opposite of what the alleged experts urge upon us today. Inflation, increased government spending, and assaults on private savings combined with calls for consumer profligacy: such is the program for "recovery" in the 21st century.

Not surprisingly, many modern economists who have studied the depression of 1920–1921 have been unable to explain how the recovery could have been so swift and sweeping even though the federal government and the Federal Reserve refrained from employing any of the macroeconomic tools — public works spending, government deficits, and inflationary monetary policy — that conventional wisdom now recommends as the solution to economic slowdowns. The Keynesian economist Robert A. Gordon admitted that "government policy to moderate the depression and speed recovery was minimal. The Federal Reserve authorities were largely passive.… Despite the absence of a stimulative government policy, however, recovery was not long delayed."...

...There was nothing at all unusual about the pattern of American wealth in the 1920s. Far greater disparities have existed in countless times and places without any resulting disruption.

In fact, the Great Depression actually came in the midst of a dramatic upward trend in the share of national income devoted to wages and salaries in the United States — and a downward trend in the share going to interest, dividends, and entrepreneurial income. We do not in fact need the violent expropriation of any American in order to achieve prosperity, thank goodness...

...Harding's inchoate understanding of what was happening to the economy and why grandiose interventionist plans would only delay recovery is an extreme rarity among 20th-century American presidents. That he has been the subject of ceaseless ridicule at the hands of historians, to the point that anyone speaking a word in his favor would be dismissed out of hand, speaks volumes about our historians' capabilities outside of their own discipline.

The experience of 1920–1921 reinforces the contention of genuine free-market economists that government intervention is a hindrance to economic recovery. It is not in spite of the absence of fiscal and monetary stimulus that the economy recovered from the 1920–1921 depression. It is because those things were avoided that recovery came. The next time we are solemnly warned to recall the lessons of history lest our economy deteriorate still further, we ought to refer to this episode — and observe how hastily our interrogators try to change the subject....

Read the whole article- the logic, the understanding, the theories, and the explanation are all in there, and go into economic terms and theories that I am only beginning to gain an understanding of.

The lessons that I drew regarding the Great Depression are supported by the lessons that one can learn from the Recession of 1920-1921- that economic recessions are worsened and lengthened by a government that takes away human liberty, treats people as numbers to manage, takes wealth and property from those who have earned it, and that in every other way violates the Founding Principles of our nation (limited government, federalism, and separation of power). It is up to policy makers to learn those lessons and to vote accordingly on future legislation facing our nation.

Keep reading my blog regularly for future posts on this subject, and I continue becoming educated and drawing lessons from other past economic recessions that our nation faced and overcome.

History teaches lessons- it allows those of us in the present to see how results in the past worked. Economic recessions are a great teaching tool for policy makers and average citizens, because they teach us how the recession may have happened and how to emerge from the recession and therefore inform us as to the policy actions that we must take and those that we as citizens must support.

The problem is though that policymakers and citizens really only have learned about one historical economic recession, The Great Depression, and the lessons that they have been learned regarding this recession are usually the wrong lessons. There are other recessions that our nation has battled through and the lessons we can learn from them may be more instructive to policy makers and average citizens, especially in light of the current Obama recession.

The version of the Great Depression that most Americans learn is that unregulated capitalism, free trade, lax regulation, and unequal distribution of wealth led to a massive collapse of our economy in 1929, then President Hoover did nothing to intervene and help, and our nation didn't recover until FDR actively and aggressively acted with his New Deal policies of massive spending, massive debt, massive regulation, and massive changes to the American system. The problem with this version of history, and the lessons that it teaches, is that it is almost wholly false.

The Great Depression resulted from government policies- the Federal Reserve messing with rates, the regulations and taxes from the Wilson administration, etc- combined with restrictive trade policies and the collapse of a major economic power (Germany), which resulted in a recession in 1929. President Hoover then acted in a very active and ultimately destructive manner, increasing spending, regulation, and activity by the government, resulting in the recession deepening and lasting until 1932. FDR took these mistakes and expanded on them and enlarged them, and the result was that a real recovery never took place and rather the nation dropped into another recession (1937), leading us to just lump this whole time period together as the 'Great Depression.' Although the world war helped mask many of our economic problems, it wasn't until the death of FDR and the ending of his policies that our nation began to recover in any real economic normal sense, and wealth began to be created again. This is a closer version of events, with entirely different sets of lessons to learn.

But don't take my word for it- check out the following books to become more educated on the Great Depression- America's Great Depression, Great Myths of the Great Depression (this one is great- only $2, a dozen pages, and a great gift for any history teacher to receive), or Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.

In my next post I'll address other economic recessions and the lessons to learn from them.

Applauding makers, tradespeople and others like them, Matthew B. Crawford in the NYTimes:

There is good reason to suppose that responsibility has to be installed in the foundation of your mental equipment — at the level of perception and habit. There is an ethic of paying attention that develops in the trades through hard experience. It inflects your perception of the world and your habitual responses to it. This is due to the immediate feedback you get from material objects and to the fact that the work is typically situated in face-to-face interactions between tradesman and customer.

An economy that is more entrepreneurial, less managerial, would be less subject to the kind of distortions that occur when corporate managers’ compensation is tied to the short-term profit of distant shareholders. For most entrepreneurs, profit is at once a more capacious and a more concrete thing than this. It is a calculation in which the intrinsic satisfactions of work count — not least, the exercise of your own powers of reason.

more Here

From Obama's inaugural speech words that resonate for us here at Africa Unchained:

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

via Make Magazine

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Yesterday I posted "Rhee Rhee-Acts To Taking a Lashing From DC Teachers". I asked you to weigh in with your comments on the recent meetings conducted by Rhee in response to the January 16th City Council hearings. The response from DC teachers and others was overwhelming with 17 blog posts, to date. These blog posts deserve front page billing. Sounds like most DC teachers who commented here as well as the teachers that I spoke with this week and received emails from view Rhee's efforts as disingenuous. Here's what bloggers said:

Anonymous said... I attended one of the sessions this week and heard about another from a reliable coworker. One of last week's sessions was announced via email to a very selected group of teachers. Most of them were new TFA and DC Teaching Fellows. My colleague attended and said people identified themselves as such when asked for their names and schools. Very few veteran teachers were there, she reported. My coworker found out from a friend and attended, though she didn't receive an email invite. The meeting lasted around 2 hours where Rhee took teachers' questions about supplies, support, a new teacher evaluation, the discipline code and other issues on teachers' minds. It appeared as if Rhee was trying to reach out to new teachers and show them support.This week's meeting had around 50 teachers in attendance, mostly but not entirely veteran (or at least not 20-something)teachers. The first question a teacher asked was the big one. She was brave to do so. The veteran teacher asked Rhee about the perception many DC educators have that her reform efforts want to rid the system of older teachers. All around the room, teachers over 40 were nodding their heads. Rhee blamed the media for putting this perception out there. She said there is no memo or mandate that says that. But it's Rhee's own words and actions that give great credence to the so-called perception and no one challenged her. No one followed up on her preference for TFA, who are recent college grads. She said there was no mandated school quota for the 90day plan. Other topics on teachers' minds were brought up. Again, it appears that Rhee knows she has started off on the wrong foot with DCPS teachers and wants to mend some fences. As for parking, I always park in the street and use the meter. So far, I've been lucky.

Anonymous #2 said... cynic that I am, I suspect that she is taking names at the meeting - literally - to punish or reward or somehow co-opt those in attendance. If you're too outspoken - she'll find a way to get rid of you, or perhaps keep you on as a means of showing she doesn't mind outspoken people, thus encouraging others to speak up, so she can smoke out even more trouble-makers and get rid of THEM. I don't think this is paranoia on my part. I just don't think she's suddenly turning into a good person. I think she's an opportunist.

Kat said... Last week's session invitations were not limited to "new TFA and DCTFs", so please don't propagate that rumor. I've been receiving them from my PD office, and our (non-TFA) teachers received them as well.As for the veteran teacher asking in the 2/4 mtg. about the perception Rhee is trying to rid the system of older teachers, that teacher was, when asked by Rhee, completely unable to provide details about the origin of her impression. The response she gave was very vague and non-specific, and from what I could discern, could be summarized as "other people." Rhee gave her time to think more about it, but an hour later, she still had not responded (I left at 6, so maybe she did come up with something.) Brave, maybe so...but prepared would've gotten her a lot farther in my estimation.And that last explanation -- "If you're too outspoken - she'll find a way to get rid of you, or perhaps keep you on as a means of showing she doesn't mind outspoken people, thus [sic] encouraging others to speak up, so she can smoke out even more trouble-makers and get rid of THEM" -- is the craziest thing I've heard on this topic. Seriously, it ventures into conspiracy theory territory.

Anonymous #3 said... Hi, it's me again - that Anonymous saying crazy things.I already know Rhee's a liar and already know - from listening to council testimony, as well as from talking directly with teachers, that teachers have been targeted for speaking out.Go ahead and think I'm crazy, but remember what I said later when more good people get axed.As for that veteran teacher - you're right, she should have known her source, but Rhee also could have acknowledged the source - her own plan. Just because the teacher didn't know it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It looks like Rhee just used that teacher's lack of knowledge to make her look bad. Also, maybe the teacher was taken aback -- no longer sure it was in Rhee's own plan, when Rhee challenged her. Rhee is much more devious and and disingenuous than the average teacher.

Anonymous #4 said...I am the first anonymous that posted and attended the session on Wednesday evening. I am not paranoid and am the first to denounce conspiracy theories especially regarding DCPS and DC politics in general. But I AGREE WITH the notion that Rhee may well be taking names to get rid of people and I sure don't want to find out the hard way. Why am I posting anonymously if I weren't being cautious? Don't I wish I could use my name, even my blogging name, but know better.As for the meeting last week, I was told that most of the attenders, with the exception of a handful of others, were young, new white teachers, many TFA and DCTF. I didn't say so immediately because I didn't want to put that out there for some of you to jump on. Rhee herself has stated a preference for those teachers (irregardless of race or ethnicity). TFA teachers are by definition in their 20s, as opposed to veteran teachers, who are in their 40s, 50s and even 60s (and many of them excellent, dedicated career educators). I wish I knew the average age of DCPS teachers for purposes of this discussion. I have often heard of 30 year veterans. A 50-year DCPS teacher was recently honored at her church. We have the impression that Rhee wants to get rid of older teachers by reading her own words as reported magazine and newspaper interviews. There is not some media conspiracy out there putting words in Rhee's mouth. For the most part, the media is reporting what she says. And of course most telling are the words in her plan. "...too many of our teachers are not up to the demanding job of educating our youth effectively. Some teachers will be bought out of their contracts." She wants to transition those teachers out and replace them with new TFA types. Who does she want out? Veterans, to be replaced by TFA. Plus her history with TNTP gives support to the theory of what kind of teacher she wants in DCPS, not the ones she has, but new ones she wants to bring in. And thank you Jesus, that my principal recognizes me as a valuable part of our school and that I am not on the 90 day plan.

lodesterre said... I didn't attend the meeting, in large part because I didn't find out about it until it was too late and in part because I have commitments at that time to my students. I never received a notice and I am DCTF. A colleague, who is a veteran teacher, non-TFA/DCTF etc. did attend and I received information from her.What I heard from her was a lot of blaming of the media, i.e. the media did this, the media said that and the media took this out of context. The problem, as stated before, is that her 5 year plan disputes this. She can also be seen in quite a few taped sessions - the Aspen Institute, the Saint-Ex Cafe night, and others - that have been televised several times on cable. Here her words can be heard in context.I found this link on a DC Wire post that quoted a parent in Sacramento (or it might have been a teacher) who had complaints about Rhee's time out there. The letter, mistakes and all, should be read in its entirety - http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2007/07/02/rhee-hearings-liveblog/ - whether it is a disgruntled teacher or parent what is disturbing, and hard to dismiss, are the similarities between what happened in Sacramento and what is happening now in DC. This letter was dated July 2007, a good year before any of her plans were really put into effect. Most disturbing of all, and I would love to know if this is accurate, were the turnover statistics cited at the end of the post. You have to scroll down to get to this letter but don't pass a couple of other letters that are there as well. One talks about funds and misappropriation and the other is by a DC Teaching Fellow.

Old School DCPS said... BREAKING DCPS NEWS: I just read on the WaPo that Rhee has plans to close 3 ES in SE, including Draper, Webb and Birney. Candi, please set me straight. Did Rhee not say that teachers from closed (and reconstructed) schools will have their positions abolished, that there will be no memo of understanding to automatically place those teachers in vacancies in other schools for SY 09-10, as was done at the beginning of this school year for teachers from closed and restructured schools?

Anonymous #5 said... After a long, hard day at work with my little "ankle biters", all of whom I love, many times in spite of themselves; the last thing I feel like doing is fighting North Capitol Street traffic. We ALL know what a trip to headquarters is like.... I just think it's wonderful that one teacher who responded has never had any problems. Unfortunately, I've literally circled around the block quite a few times, over the years I've been with the system. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you're not. Lucky is more "not", than "often". Ms Rhee might have thought more about visiting every school, on some sort of timed schedule. She's visited some. What happened to the rest of us? It's easier, for her to get to us, than vice-versa. It would show a level of caring and concern for those of us who work long, hard hours, and probably have more to do once we get home. I have spent all of my energy during the day, educating, exhorting, collaborating, chastising, communicating, parenting, small-grouping, writing, testing, reevaluating, fussing, loving, correcting(I'm sure there are more "-ings"....)I am also a National Board Certified Teacher. There may not be any empirical evidence at the present, that directly correlates test score increases to test scores; but you can bet your bottom dollar that the time and effort one puts into this very reflective, and rigorous process, makes a teacher MUCH more aware of his/her practice, and in the long run, that's what matters. If you know better, you do better. Doctors must pass exams for medical school. Lawyers must pass the bar. Every profession has some sort of high-stakes requirement, something that says, to coin President Obama's phrase, "Yes, I(emphasis on I) can!" Should this not be the same for those of us in the "most noble profession"? Ms. Rhee should recognize that. She too, was once a child in school. Who taught her?

Anonymous #6 said...Rhee blaming the media sounds right. she was the media's darling - convincing the sophisticated WaPo editorial board of her magical powers to fix the DC schools simply by remodeling the schools and getting the right teachers in there, and denying any other problems. then the media started to turn on her - I'm sure she sees it this way -- and now it's their fault. She feels betrayed and WATCH OUT when Rhee feels betrayed. However, she doesn't have mayoral control over the media and journalists can't be cowed the way teachers can. Teachers can be fired or leave, or just try to hide. The media wants news - good or bad - and it's too late to make them go away now.

Anonymous #7 said... Rhee was there AT THE TIME this report was filed. Here's a copy. This really points to poor judgment. http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2008/04/15/21/Child_Abuse_Report.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf And to think he could have been around our children running schools. Wow ... There is no way to say he would be fit given the actions in here. I find it hard to believe the previous police report could have been fabricated.

Anonymous #8 said... link to inappropriate allegations for Kevin Johnson http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/893111.html financial deal Rhee's boyfriend cut to get out of trouble WITH A MINOR:http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/951761.html The Bee also obtained a "demand letter" sent by the teen's lawyer to Johnson after the police investigation had concluded. The letter, sent by attorney Kent E. Turley as a precursor to a civil lawsuit, outlined the girl's allegations against the then-Phoenix Suns point guard. Copy of police report on incident: http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2008/04/15/21/Phoenix_Police.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf
And she wanted this person to work with children in DC? WTF? What kind of judgment is that, particularly of a mother with young children?

Anonymous #9 said... here is an article linking Rhee in print to Johnson and his 'organization' http://www.publiceducation.org/nclb_articles/archive/20071114_Nonprofit.asp she was there when the data was allegedly cut and spliced as well as during times where accusations of fiduciary impropriety were hurled: http://www.sthope.org/press_releases/rhee1.pdf an outraged parent/citizen in Sacraremento: http://www.susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=522

Anonymous #10 said... good info: http://blog.edu-cyberpg.com/2008/12/08/THE+MICHELLE+THAT+OBAMA+SHOULD+AVOID.aspx

Anonymous #11 said... Here's the full link (assuming it prints) http://blog.edu-cyberpg.com/2008/12/08/THE+MICHELLE+THAT+OBAMA+SHOULD+AVOID.aspx
or just type in http://blog.edu-cyberpg.com/2008/12/08 and search the December archives. It's a good compilation of news stories and comments on Rhee, most of which I'd already seen. The thing that gets me the most - Rhee trying to shame/bully Obama into supporting her plan or be seen as not supporting black children. The nerve, Michelle, the nerve. he's got a combination of smarts, insight and power that dwarfs anyone you've dealt with up to now and he owes you nothing. Don't think for a minute that you can pull the wool over his eyes.

Anonymous #12 said... Again, I want to direct our focus back to the question of whether Rhee wants to rid DCPS of most of its current teaching staff, many of whom are veterans in their 40s, 50s and 60s. In one of the teachers' meetings in answering a teacher's question, she said it was the media promoting that perception. And again I maintain that Rhee's own words, rather than any media sensationalism or misquote, clearly state her position and intention regarding current DCPS teachers. Looking at the draft of the 5 Year Plan, available on line, under A.Teachers, page 26, the first heading is "Remove poor performers". The second sentence under that heading couldn't be clearer: ..."the overall quality of our teaching corps is unacceptably low." teachers are not imagining that Rhee wants many of us out. Her own words leave no doubt.

Anonymous #13 said... Yep - and she's also made it abundantly clear that she thinks the best arrangement is one in which new grads spend just a few years teaching before moving out of teaching and into educational admin positions. Thus she plans an ongoing system in which there are never any veteran teachers. Do you get it? No one with experience, no one with an organizational memory, no one with anything other than the Rhee "vision" of educational heaven in which teachers have attended a few months of intensive indoctrination and are then sent to the salt mines of the "teachers are everything" mentality that burns people out or sends them fleeing. How nice for the kids.

Anonymous #14 said...I am a DCPS parent. A fascinating read and I thank you. I would like to know, however, why "removing poor performers" as stated in Rhee's plan necessarily equates with "removing veteran teachers" as some of you say Rhee is trying to do - except that to be a poor performer one must have been around for a while in order to exhibit poor performance. Good veteran teachers should have little to worry about, in theory. The stories of good teachers being let go are worrying - but id this the norm or the exception? And is this reform about the teachers? Or the children? (Posted by The Washington Teacher).

Via Powerlineblog I discover this Wall Street Journal Story A Water Fight Over Luxury Showers:

(Government) regulators are going after some of the luxury shower fixtures that took off in the housing boom. In May, the DOE stunned the plumbing-products industry when it said it would adopt a strict definition of the term "showerhead" in enforcing standards that have been on the books—but largely unenforced—for nearly 20 years.

The showdown is a challenge to President Barack Obama and his energy secretary, Steven Chu, as they try to cajole—or compel—Americans to use water and energy more efficiently. Mr. Chu, a self-described "zealot" for energy efficiency, says he crawls around in his attic in his spare time installing extra insulation.

A 1992 federal law says a showerhead can deliver no more than 2.5 gallons per minute at a flowing water pressure of 80 pounds per square inch. For years, the term "showerhead" in federal regulations was understood by many manufacturers to mean a device that directs water onto a bather. Each nozzle in a shower was considered separate and in compliance if it delivered no more than the 2.5-gallon maximum. But in May, the DOE said a "showerhead" may incorporate "one or more sprays, nozzles or openings." Under the new interpretation, all nozzles would count as a single showerhead and be deemed noncompliant if, taken together, they exceed the 2.5 gallons-a-minute maximum.

In May, the DOE's general counsel, Scott Blake Harris, fined four showerhead makers $165,104 in civil penalties, alleging they failed to demonstrate compliance for some devices.

I particularly enjoyed how the government changed the rules, didn't inform anyone (or didn't give manufactures the years it would take to comply with the new rules), and then fined them. Those are the actions of a tyrannical government that is disconnected from law and human decency, a government that should be opposed and fought.

To summarize, in the name of 'environmentalism' (which is a religion based around a false god that demands sacrifices of energy and luxuries), the government uses a law passed by the Democrats (who controlled Congress in 1992) based on a tortured view of the commerce clause to control the kinds of showerheads that manufactures can build, with the intent on driving these manufactures out of business and stopping Americans from buying the kind of showerheads that they want.

Life less enjoyable, liberty and freedom violated (both the manufactures and the consumers), and pursuit of property denied.

Climate change (global warming) is caused by the sun. This may be a shock to you, but strangely enough, the same sun that causes the earth to grow warmer in the summer and colder in the winter also has long-term variations that cause long-term variations in the global temperature. Oh, I know what you are thinking "Humans are causing global warming by driving SUV's and being evil towards Mother Earth and the solution is to adopt Communism." But the truth of the matter is that humans and our actions are probably one of the smallest variables involved in 'climate change'. That doesn't mean that we can pollute as much as we want, but it does mean that most of what environmentalists say and do and believe isn't right either.

It's pretty simple once you become educated. Here is an article from Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, former US Senator from New Mexico, a geologist, and a former Apollo Astronaut (read his book Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space), that was found in the The Science and Environmental Policy Project weekly newsletter:

THE CENTRAL ROLE OF THE SUN IN CLIMATE CHANGE
Policy makers at the head of government in the United States and elsewhere apparently want to believe, and to have others believe, that human use of fossil fuels accelerates global warming. They pursue this quest in order to impose ever greater and clearly unconstitutional control on the economy and personal liberty in the name of a hypothetically omnipotent government. There exists no true concern by the President or Congressional Leadership about the true effects of climate change - only a poorly concealed, ideologically driven attempt to use conjured up threats of catastrophic consequences as a lever to gain authoritarian control of society.

There has been an absolute natural increase in global surface temperature of half a degree Centigrade per 100 years (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last three and a half centuries. Observational climate data and objective interpretations of those data strongly indicate that nature, not human activity, exerts the primary influence on this current long term warming and on all global climate variations. Human influence through use of fossil fuels has been and remains minor if even detectable. Claims to the contrary only find support in highly questionable climate models that fail repeatedly against the reality of nature. What, then, stimulates historically and geologically observed, sometimes slow and sometimes radical, changes in climate?

The primary alternative hypothesis to human-caused global warming is natural climate change driven by the Sun. Unfortunately, the "human-caused global warming" or “carbon dioxide forcing” hypothesis has become embedded in the minds of otherwise strong teams of observational scientists and their publication outlets. They cannot entertain any other alternative to enhance and amplify variations in the natural heating of the Earth by the Sun - nor can they prove their own hypothesis of human-caused global warming.

As many scientists have documented, the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the sun, and the Sun’s variable influence and activity, determine weather and climate. Seasons vary because of changing solar energy input in annual response to the varying orientation of Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Indeed, the Earth’s 23-degree inclination to the rays from the Sun and its annual orbit around that star guarantee large seasonal changes away from the equator. Further, variations in solar radiation received by the Earth correlate with short-term variations in Earth’s weather, based on the slow movement of loops called "Rossby waves" in atmospheric jet streams.

Observations by astronomers over the centuries, as well as studies of tree rings,stalagmite layers, and other pre-historic and geological records, have defined an 11-year sunspot cycle superposed on a number of longer climate cycles. Much modern research documents that the sunspot cycle also correlates with variations in stratospheric winds13 and ozone production, cosmic ray flux, ionospheretroposphere interactions, and the global electrical circuit that exists between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface.

Correlations of records of seasonal changes, solar activity cycles, and local and regional rainfall oscillations all confirm that in some way radiation emanating from the Sun drives changes in weather and climate. Solar interplanetary magnetic fields, whose polarity varies every 22 years or twice the sunspot cycle, may play an additional role as their strength varies directly with increases and decreases in numbers of sunspots.

As a further natural demonstration of the importance of the Sun in determining climate variation, the well-documented solar shielding effects of atmospheric ash and aerosols from volcanic eruptions document the tie between solar irradiance and at least short-term climate swings. Particularly illustrative have been eruptions such as Huaynaputina (1600), Tambora (1815), Krakatoa (1883), and Pinatubo (1991).

More broadly, geological and planetological observations show that major perturbations in climate relate to the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. For example, as Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovic pointed out in 1941, as have many others since, initiation of the major ice ages on Earth correlate with a 23,000-year precession cycle, a 41,000-year obliquity cycle, and a 100,000-year eccentricity cycle in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun. Cyclic variations measured in oxygen isotope ratios that correlate with the growth of ice sheets and biogeochemical responses closely reflect the 23,000-year precession cycle. Also, a half-precession cycle appears to be related to the dynamics of the East African Equatorial monsoon. In addition, the 41,000-year obliquity cycle shows strongly in North American marine depositional records.

Climate cycles related to internal solar activity are superposed on long-term orbital cycles. For example, the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300) and the Little Ice Age (1400-1900) correlate, respectively, with very active and very passive periods of recorded sunspot activity. As a fairly recent example of solar influence on climate, the Little Ice Age occurred during a 500-year long sequence of three deep reductions in sunspot frequency. The coldest temperatures came during the last of these minima, a 70- year period of exceptionally few sunspots (the Maunder Minimum). The Medieval Warm Period, (when the Vikings colonized Greenland, glaciers retreated, and farmers could at least survive) also correlates to repeated multi-century long, high sunspot frequency. Since the end of the early 1900s, peak values in sunspot activity rose steadily until 1960, leveling off at higher than normal values until apparently starting to fall about 2000.

The 11-year sunspot cycle repetitions are superposed on a number of long-term cycles of past highs and lows in solar activity. For example, the Gleissberg cycle has imprecisely defined periods of 90±30 years in length. More energetic sunspot activity in the Gleissberg cycle may correlate with temporary decades of warming, such as in the 1930s and 1990s with the reverse being true in the 1810s and 1910s. Analyses of tree rings, lake levels, cave deposits, tree ring variations in cosmic ray-produced isotopes (14C and 10Be), and oxygen isotope ratios record what appear to be other long period solar cycles, specifically, 2400, 1500 years, 200, as well as the Gleissberg cycle.

Many advocates of human-caused global warming agree that solar cycles show correlations with regional climate variations; but, absent a proven amplification mechanism to enhance small solar energy (irradiance) variations, they reject nature in favor of fossil fuel burning. These reviews all document broadly accepted relationships of weather and climate with many different repetition cycles in solar activity, ranging from significant but random solar flares affecting jet stream tracks, to the 11-year sunspot cycle, to the long-term Milankovic orbital repetitions discussed above.

Specifically with respect to the last 120 years, the correlation of measured solar energy input variations with global surface temperature and sea surface temperature is very strong. The statistical correlation of solar irradiance with air temperature has been about 79%. In contrast, during the last 50 years, the correlation of measured carbon dioxide increases with global surface temperature has been only about 22%. This directly contradicts the assumption that carbon dioxide has had a large influence on climate in the last 50 years.

Since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, the increase in total energy from the Sun has been about 0.6 watts per square meter, an increase of less than 0.05% over an average total of about 1367 watts per square meter. On shorter time scales, total variations reach about 3 watts per square meter, or 0.22% from the average. Considering the actual amount of possible atmospheric heating (30% ofincoming solar energy is reflected to space), this variation results in a third to a half a degree Centigrade(0.6 to 0.9 degree Fahrenheit) global temperature change over seven years, that is, a half solar cycle.

Various natural mechanisms for visible, infrared, and UV light reflection, adsorption, emission, and water vapor feedback determine the net solar heating effect on the Earth. Global atmospheric circulation moderates the short-term solar energy inputs, particularly upward convection of oceanic heat and water vapor in the large scale equatorial Hadley Cells that span latitudes from 30ºS to 30ºN . Ocean circulation overall moderates the long-term transfer of solar energy around the globe.

Evidence for the existence, if not the nature, of a means for amplifying solar energy-solar magnetic field interactions with Earth comes from the oceans. Determination of the total contribution of the oceans to heating of the atmosphere, using three independent observational measures of oceanic heat flux, shows that the oceans' heat contribution to be five to seven times larger than variations in total solar energy input.

Additional support that an amplification mechanism exists comes from recent observational data on variations in stratospheric water vapor concentrations over three decades. These data suggest that decreases in water vapor have contributed to amplified sea surface cooling since 2000 while increases between 1980 and 2000 accented surface warming. This relationship may correspond with stratospheric cooling and lower water retention due to lower than average solar energy input since 2000.

Climate change driven by the Sun constitutes a strongly competitive, purely scientific hypothesis to the climate modeling-political hypothesis of human-caused global warming advocated by climate modelers and their acolytes in the science, media, and political establishments. Solar influence ranges from significant but random solar flares affecting jet stream tracks, to the 11-year sunspot cycle, to the 22- year magnetic cycle, up to the long-term Milankovic orbital repetitions discussed above. The current decade or longer period of cold winters in the northern United States and Europe coincide with a relatively prolonged reduction in sunspot activity below even the norm for a minimum in the 11-year cycle.

Actual observations show that climate varies in response to natural forces and that human burning of fossil fuels has had negligible effect over the last 100 years. Lets us hope that State and national policy makers taking office in 2011 and 2013 will understand the facts about natural climate change and the fictions about human influence on change before taking enormous constitutional and economic risks - and before liberty and incomes suffer further erosion.

This is the whole article, although I have edited off the footnotes which document the research. You can believe this sort of logic, or buy into the pseudo-religion backed by computer modeling produced by the Al Gore's of the world.

• Create virtual tours on a google map

  Another cool tool from Larry Ferlazzo that lets you make tours.

  tags: education web2

• Tildee: Simple step by step tutorials

  I will definitely use this with my classes this year. This website guides you through making step by step tutorials.

  tags: education web2 apps

• Facebook page of A21 Campaign

  Recommended by some facebook friends that she and her church are supporting this organization. As always, do your research but do something.

  tags: education abolition

• Free Education Pack Downloads

  This website has a ton of downloads and materials you can use. Recommended to me by Jackie Gerstein, I'm going to be sharing this.

  tags: education abolition

• Free the Slaves .net

  This website has information for teachers, policy makers, etc. and is one that Jackie Gerstein, my friend on Facebook, let me know that she supports. I'm looking at their resources and what they are doing.

  tags: education learning abolition

• Disapainted

  While perusing Larry's back posts, I came across very cool website that lets you animate with stick figures. Definitely one I'm taking back to my students over break.

  tags: education fun website tool animation

• Larry Ferlazzo's most popular posts of 2011

  This excellent edtech blogger has great posts and is in my "vip" column on Twitter. Plus, he's an incredibly nice guy. Take time to peruse his top posts. I'll be sharing mine soon.His top one is tools to help you integrate blooms taxonomy into your classroom. Very nice.

  tags: education edublogging learning

• Ending Slavery: An Unfinished Business

  This is a lesson plan that you can use as a starting point if you choose to involve your classrooms in the movement to end slavery in the world.Could you imagine if we could leave a legacy of this one thing. Our job is to speak for the helpless and to encourage empathy and understanding for others in this generation of children. It isn't all about what you can get, but about what you can give.This booklet is out of the UK."The antislavery movement was the first major campaign in Britain to involve ordinary citizens across all classes (as well as the slaves themselves) in the struggle to end the practice. As such it is a good example of how change can come about when people work together for a just cause. This booklet More…intends inspire and equip young people to take a stand against the continuation of slavery and injustice in the world today."

  tags: education abolition lessonplans sschat history_teacher

• Loose Change to Loosen Chains

  This student is asking everyone to collect change to help the fight against modern slavery. Why not do this for Christmas in your house. Here is the website with the information about what to do.

  tags: education learning slavery abolition

• Create a personal video for your family this Christmas

  (Hat tip to Larry Ferlazzo for this gem) - put your pictures and house into the video and have a customized video created where Santa visits your house. Talk about a great way to excite the kids! So cool.

  tags: education christmas parenting

• Zach Hunter. me

  This boys website to further a cause he believes in. This is a worthy way to spend your life. What are you doing to make a difference in the world?

  tags: education globaled globalization slavery abolition

• This 15 year old tackles modern day slavery

  "I"m a modern day abolitionist.""It just isn't enough to have emotion."This video is a phenomenal portrayal of a boy who has taken up a cause. Loose change to loose chains is his nonprofit. Consider sharing this video with your students.Do you realize that modern day slavery exists? Come on. This is ridiculous.This holiday season, I'm asking that you give a tweet, a facebook status update a day to the cause to #endslavery. What can all the teachers do if we bring awareness to this important issue. The slaves aren't on twitter or social media -they can't speak for themselves. Speak out. Watch this video.

  tags: education slavery abolition nonprofit

• Titanic Timeline

  As you think about next year, it is great to plan deep projects with historical meaning. As I was looking up things that happened 100 years a go in 1912, one jumped out at me. The Titanic Sunk on April 11, 1912. There are a ton of resources already available on this topic but it would make for an interesting project of some sort as the fascination with the event doesn't seem to have waned much.

  tags: education history titanic history_teacher

• 100 Activities for Parents and Kids to do over the break

  Although this was designed for summer, the list has a lot of ideas that parents can do with children over the break. While I do leave time for my kids to have a break, I do try to find things that will encourage their love of learning that I sneak in there kind of like sneaking vegetables into things without them knowing. Have a great break! Teachers might want to download and share with parents headed on break.
  
  For our friends down under in Australia and the southern hemisphere who are on summer break, this is something you'll want to share.

  tags: education holiday learning parenting

• Upload and share your favorite lesson plans or powerpoints and win a vacation

  I share on this site but it is a great place to find resources. It is the largest network of English speaking teachers in the world and they are launching in the US this year. When I saw this, I thought some of you on break might like to share.I like the site because the resources are free and it is curated.

  tags: education lessonplans freeresources

• The TESiBoard Christmas Collection

  A ton of resources for the IBoard for these last few days before Christmas. Bookmark them and have them ready to go for next year. Meanwhile, parents at home with kids may find something for a child to play that reinforces a topic that kids are having trouble with at school. We always do math facts over break with my youngest.

  tags: education learning iwb games gamebasedlearning freeapp freeresources

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

What is the purpose of art? I'm not an art history or philosophy major, so I don't really know the answer to that, if there is truly one answer, but I can tell you this- I don't think the purpose of art is to promote the state's interests.

At one time, this was believed to be the purpose of art. Many regimes around the world felt that literature should serve the national interest or it had no inherent right to exist (source). These regimes felt that art should be used by a regime to promote their beliefs. In particular, these regimes felt that posters especially could be used as a way to blatantly present the beliefs of their political party party. These people felt that art should be used to convince the people of the beliefs of the state. The posters this regime wanted created were usually simple and got to the point, and it was intended to target the emotions of the people that looked at it (source).

Enough history. Today, Barack Obama is attempting to promote art that does the same thing. Recently a blogger writing at Big Hollywood was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to take part in a conference call that invited a group of rising artist and art community luminaries “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda - health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”

The call was hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!” There were approximately 75 people participating, including many well respected street-artists, filmmakers, art galleries, music venues, musicians and music producers, writers, poets, actors, independent media outlets, marketers, and various other professionals from the creative community.

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.

We were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these “focus areas” as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to “shape the lives” of those around us. The now famous Obama “Hope” poster, created by artist Shepard Fairey and promoted by many of those on the phone call, and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song and music video were presented as shining examples of our group’s clear role in the election.

Obama has a strong arts agenda, we were told, and has been very supportive of both using and supporting the arts in creative ways to talk about the issues facing the country. We were “selected for a reason,” they told us. We had played a key role in the election and now Obama was putting out the call of service to help create change.

The machine that the NEA helped to create could potentially be wielded by the state to push policy. Through providing guidelines to the art community on what topics to discuss and providing them a step-by-step instruction to apply their art form to these issues, the “nation’s largest annual funder of the arts” is attempting to direct imagery, songs, films, and literature that could create the illusion of a national consensus. This is what Noam Chomsky calls “manufacturing consent.”

So, to summarize, our President, through a group called United We Stand, is organizing artists and giving them guidelines on what sort of art to produce. The art will promote the interests of the Democrats and try to persuade voters to support their views. This is propaganda, and as the group was informed, Obama regarded propaganda as very important, perhaps even calling it "a weapon of the first order".

This website has some good ideas on the sort of posters that Obama would like created. Check it out to get a taste of what is to come under an Obama administration. Oh, and if you haven't guessed it yet, you'll have to click on the links to find out what sort of regimes of the past saw art the same way that Obama does.

My local teacher union is pretty good at making sure that school resources are not used to lobby legislators- we are frequently reminded by our local union president that we are not to use school computers for union business and are not to in any way use school resources to lobby legislators.

But many other locals are run differently and our state organization seems to encourage us to act differently, and so it is quite common in the education world that teachers use their work time, their students, and their taxpayer-provided resources to engage in lobbying government officials. This is wrong and needs to be stopped, and I'm happy to say that there is a legislator trying to do just this.

Via MLive:

Facing an onslaught of emails, faxes, letters student-signed petitions and phone calls during a recent school funding debate, a state lawmaker hopes to restrict school districts that use taxpayers dollars to lobby legislators.

Rep. Kenneth B. Horn, R-Frankenmuth, introduced the bill last week that would prevent school districts or their employees from using tax-funded school supplies, equipment, vehicles or school time to lobby or become involved in political activities. He said he wants the same restrictions nonprofits face imposed on school districts and their employees.

One of the biggest signs of our corrupt our modern day government is that government employees frequently use government resources to encourage government officials to give said employees more personal benefits. Teachers are as guilty of doing this as other groups (although the SEIU is probably the most guilty)- they use resources that are given to them for the purposes of being a better teacher- computers, pencils, pens, paper, students, time, copiers, etc- in order to put pressure on government decision makers to give them more money, better benefits, a bigger pension, shorter working hours, less supervision, more job security, etc.

Teachers and union members can still lobby on their own personal time using their own resources- this bill does nothing to restrict that kind of speech. It just reinforces that employees of school districts are public servants and should follow the same sort of rules that other nonprofits face when involved in lobbying. This is exactly the sort of bill that the MEA should be backing and supporting, if it were honest about caring about children and using resources properly and not being unethical with the use of resources.

The WSJ reports:

Western multinationals may have pioneered cross-border mergers, but the latest chapter in globalization is being written by a new breed of deal makers from places like Russia, China, Brazil and the Mideast with an appetite for acquisitions in the developed world...The recent deals mark a fundamental change from only a few years ago, when nearly all the investment flow went from the developed world to the developing one. This year could be on pace to be the first ever in which companies and investment funds based in developing countries spend more on mergers and acquisitions in the developed world than vice versa.

In The Atlantic excerpts from the Steve Daniels book Making Do:

Images by Steve Daniels

Leonard is one of millions of entrepreneurs who rely on informal mechanisms in Kenya, where the informal sector comprises a full three quarters of the non-agricultural economy and produces over 90 percent of new jobs annually. Under severe material constraints, they are forced to improvise solutions to everyday problems that, from time to time, result in game-changing innovations that better address local needs. Informal artisans who engage in the production of goods are known as jua kali (Swahili for "hot sun") and have established entire ecosystems of production, from scrap sourcing to repair. The most advanced jua kali like Leonard have designed and built capital goods, such as lathes, that propel indigenous production forward. The jua kali have been largely ignored by formal institutions, regarded as a second-rate economy. Yet their drive for innovation, understanding of indigenous networks, and ability to work under extreme constraints make them ideal agents of industrialization.

More here

Echoing my post from yesterday comes the following article by the Wall Street Journal. As I put it in my post, the ouster of Dingell in favor of Waxman was "another great day for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party of America, but probably another bad day for America," and the WSJ also has picked up that the Waxman election shows that the Democratic Party is now thoroughly a tool of the far left environmentalists. Traditional liberals (Dingell), traditional Democrats (Lieberman), moderates (increasingly marginalized), and conservatives (long gone) no longer have a home in the new Democratic Party.

Quoting from the Wall Street Journal article:

John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party. The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came of political age during the 1970s over the last lion of New Deal liberalism, and it is symbolic of the party's change in culture and policy priorities in the Barack Obama era.

That fissure neatly separates the Waxman Democrats from the old vanguard that Mr. Dingell represents. He was first elected in 1955 and has always tried to protect his hometown Detroit auto makers from the eco-mandates that ultimately helped to land them in their present predicament. Mr. Dingell's rough-hewn candor about the realities of "doing something" about climate change also helped to make him a green pariah. He knows that carbon regulation and taxes will fall most heavily on domestic manufacturing and Midwest states that rely on coal-fired power. His sympathies lie with the people who work near (or in) factories and drive Fords or Chevys.

Mr. Waxman, speaking for the upscale precincts of Beverly Hills, wants to phase out coal and cars that use gasoline. The coastal elites who now dominate Democratic politics will happily trade the blue collar for the green collar.

The irony is that Democrats have found, in Mr. Waxman, an even more extreme antibusiness tribune, who will no doubt use his new powers to go after any concern that turns a profit but refuses to pay his party the obeisance of campaign cash and regulatory submission.

Again, the removal of Dingell means that if you or anyone you know votes Democrat, they need to realize that they are empowering a party that is against industry, against Midwestern values, against energy production, and does not believe in a limited government. Voting Democrat means putting in power a party that resembles the parties of the rest of the world- a party that uses the power of government to redistribute wealth to its friends. The Democratic half of America is no longer exceptional- one can only hope that the Republican Party rediscovers its exceptionalism and the exceptionalism of America.

In the NYTimes Daniel Bergner writes about the rule of Africa's first female president.
On corruption:

“We can’t stamp it out, not yet,” Sirleaf said to me, clenching her fists in frustration over the country’s bone-deep corruption. She spoke of being torn between firing every transgressing official and keeping enough ministers and staff members at their desks so the government can go on operating, no matter how badly it is compromised. And meanwhile, unemployment in the country, whose population shifted heavily to Monrovia during the war, stands as high as 85 percent by some estimates. Instilling faith that Liberia’s economic wasteland can be redeemed, however gradually, may be the only way to ensure long-lasting peace, especially with the U.N. troops expected to start pulling out after next year’s elections. Over the radio, Sirleaf put the emphasis on gradually. “I beg you I no magician,” she said, letting a plea seep into her lecture. “I can’t just wave a magic wand.”

Regarding the country's options from a value-add perspective:

Liberia’s natural resources just aren’t in high-enough demand around the world to spur the economy and generate much public revenue. Firestone is providing the government with $4.7 million this year, Sirleaf estimated. To truly take advantage of its iron, rubber and timber, Liberia would have to manufacture things with them; it would have to export finished products rather than raw materials. And it can’t; the country is all but pre­industrial...[continue reading]

We would disagree on this last point of being "preindustrial". Liberia does have innovation assets that lie in plain view. Like every other African country its makers and innovators are largely overlooked while emphasis is placed on largely unsustainable initiatives. From building up is nascent market gardeners, training a techie workforce to building its tourist assets we dispute the uninformed claim that that salvation lies in oil based resource extraction.

• Writing Better Blog Posts: What You NEED to Know | The Edublogger

  Excellent post from Sue Waters about writing better blog posts.

  tags: education blogging

• 24 Free Kindergarten.com Apps

  24 free kindergarte apps from kindergarten.com Download all 24 of these apps. (From The Edcational Technology blog) by jonathan Wylie.

  tags: education learning

• Scholastic: Best in Tech Today | Livescribe Education

  I love my livescribe pen and agree with this review even if it is posted on the Livescribe website.

  tags: education technology innovation

• iAdvocate for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

  Free iAdvocate app to help parents who have children with learning disabilities advocate for them. It is a start and worth testing. Plus it is free!

  tags: education learning learningdisabilities

• School of Education launches new free mobile app to assist parents, advocates

  New Mobile phone app from Alan Foley of Syracuse University - called iAdvocate designed to help parents advocate for their child with learning disabilities.
  
  The app has 3 sections: strategies for parents, information and links, and simulated conversations to help guide parents. I hope that my friends who work in this area will test and post their reviews. If you do, let me know and I'll feature you in the daily spotlight! ;-)

  tags: education learningdisabilities

• QR Codes, Electronic Devices,Nonprofits, and Concert Etiquette | Beth’s Blog

  Ecellent blog post on the use of QR codes in nonprofits from social media nonprofit guru - Beth Kanter. Tons of potential here!

  tags: education nonprofit qrcodes edu_news techintegrator

• 10 Futuristic Inventions in Wearable Tech — Life Scoop

  A fun discussion topic with technology students, this blog post about futuristic inventions in wearable tech includes buttons that are really mp3 players, a dress with room for a sim card that makes it funciton as a mobile phone when you lift your wrist, and the one I want -- the Massage Me Massage Video game - that makes a game out of having someone massage your back! (Oh yeah!)
  
  This would be a great area to review and then have students invent their own.

  tags: education technology humor innovation edu_trends

• Money Lessons: A Guide to Financial-Literacy Resources | Edutopia

  Financial literacy resources. Curriculum directors and math teachers at all levels should take time to read this article from edutopia.

  tags: education math_teacher math

• Another One Bites The Dust: Yahoo To Kill Buzz On April 21

  Google video. Delicious. Now yahoo Buzz - their "digg" site. what else?

  tags: education web2.0

• Congress, Can You Spare a Dime? A Teacher Makes the Case for the National Writing Project | Edutopia

  Great things have come out of the national writing project. Their research is wonderful and many of them have taught me a lot in the hallways and byways of conferences around the world. It is a shame to see this go. Read more about this project so you can share your 10cents with congress - that is all it would take per child to keep it going.

  tags: education writing literature_teacher

• Apple Launches iPad School Donation Program - Edudemic

  Donate your "old" generation 1 ipad to schools through apple.

  tags: education

• The Evolution of Classroom Technology - Edudemic

  Fascinating Evolution of Classroom Technology over at Edudemic (hat tip Stephen Downes.) Look at how many of these technologies are still here in some forms. All I can think as I read about halfway down is the ah so lovely smell of that mimeograph paper!`

  tags: education teaching innovation change all_teachers edu_trends

• Apple Sues Samsung Over Galaxy; Are Other Tablet Makers Next?

  Apple suing samsung over galaxy! With the iPad 2 in dwindling supply because of the components made in the affected area in Japan, I guess apple is trying to keep others out temporarily while they are rushing to find another supplier.

  tags: education

• 8th Grader Merritt D. Reviews Jenny Han’s It’s Not Summer Without You: “A book teenage girls can relate to.”

  Another book review from one of our 8th graders. We are looking to add some more schools over the next few months. Fill out the info form on the bottom left of this page.
  
  This is a great website for finding books that kids like.

  tags: education learning kindle

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.