HS Graduation Rates Go Up Even as Students and Teachers Fail to Show Up | RealClearInvestigations

HS Graduation Rates Go Up Even as Students and Teachers Fail to Show Up | RealClearInvestigations
"Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School in Washington, D.C., seemed to be doing great: A public school that enrolls only economically disadvantaged students, its graduation rate hit a recent high of 94.5 percent during the 2016-17 school year.
Yet in that same year, three-quarters of the students at Phelps were absent more than 10 percent of the time.
Phelps: Three-quarters chronically absent with a graduation rate of 94.5 percent...
...at least one-fifth of traditional public-school teachers missed more than 10 days in 32 of the 35 states studied.
According to federal data, in 2015, more than 41 percent of Rhode Island’s teachers were absent more than 10 days of the year.
..."It’s really easy to graduate more kids,” said David Griffith, a policy associate at the Fordham Institute.
“You just graduate them.” "
It gets worse.
Read on.

AM Fruitcake

History for December 3

History for December 3 - On-This-Day.com
George McClellan 1826- Union General, Joseph Conrad 1857- Author, Andy Williams 1927- Singer


Ozzy Osbourne 1948- Singer, Ozzy Osbourne Merchandise, Rick Mears 1953- Racecar driver, won Indianapolis 500-Mile Race four times, Julianne Moore 1960- Actress


1950 - Paul Harvey began his national radio broadcast.


1967 - In Cape Town, South Africa, a team of surgeons headed by Dr. Christian Barnard, performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky. Washkansky only lived 18 days.

James Comey to comply with subpoena -- as long as he can release transcript to public - Washington Times

James Comey to comply with subpoena -- as long as he can release transcript to public - Washington Times:

Former FBI Director James Comey said Sunday he plans to sit down with lawmakers this week behind closed doors, so long as he can release a transcript of the interview to the public.
GOP chairmen, who are about to lose power in the new Congress in January, are trying to bring Mr. Comey to Capitol Hill to explain his decisions related to the 2016 election, particularly investigations into Hillary Clinton’s use of her personal email and the probe into Russian activities during the campaign.

Trump’s $5B Border Wall Request Equals 0.11% of Federal Spending

Trump’s $5B Border Wall Request Equals 0.11% of Federal Spending:

To put the president’s border wall request in perspective, the federal government spent $5.587 billion in the month of October alone for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, AKA food stamps. Thus, funding food stamps for just the first month of fiscal 2019 cost more than Trump’s entire fiscal 2019 request for border wall funding.

The way we were-----Cats Musical - Memory

Boob-tube-----Robin Williams Laughs and Cooks Alongside Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart

My Puzzlement Over Climate Change Damage Estimates in New National Climate Assessment - Hit & Run : Reason.com

My Puzzlement Over Climate Change Damage Estimates in New National Climate Assessment - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 
"Implausible worst-case scenarios do not further the debate over reasonable policies for addressing climate change.

"Mass deaths and mayhem: National Climate Assessment's most shocking warnings," blares the headline at CBS News. 

The story, which discusses the government's Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), says that the document predicts "an estimated loss of up to 10 percent gross domestic product by 2100." 
This same estimate was cited by many other news outlets. 
For example, the first paragraph of The New York Times' article on the NCA4 says that "if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century's end."
Puzzled by this reporting, I did a rough calculation in my initial reporting on the NCA4. 
Today's $20 trillion GDP, growing at a 3 percent rate, would rise to $226 trillion by 2100. 
With climate change, it would instead rise to only $203 trillion. 
Americans living at the end of this century would be about 10 times richer on average than we are now, albeit in a much warmer world.
So where did those estimates come from? 
Basically from a worst-case scenario of temperature increase called in climate-speak Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP 8.5). RCPs are four different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories used by climate modelers and adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its fifth Assessment Report in 2014. imate change..."
Read all!

Al Sharpton sells life story to his own charity for $531K

Al Sharpton sells life story to his own charity for $531K
"The Rev. Al Sharpton has found an eager buyer for the rights to his life story — his own charity.
The National Action Network agreed to pay the activist preacher $531,000 for his “life story rights for a 10-year period,” according to the non-profit’s latest tax filing, which was obtained by The Post.
NAN can apparently turn around and sell those rights to Hollywood or other takers at a profit, but neither the reverend nor the charity would identify what producers are waiting for such Sharpton content.
The document does not indicate when Sharpton, who is president of NAN, gets the cash, which is above and beyond the $244,661 he already pulled down in compensation from the group in 2017.
Sharpton also wouldn’t say when the cash would come in.
"What does that have to do with anything?” he said..."
Read on.

U.S. Arrests Convicted Murderer Within Migrant Caravan | The Daily Caller

U.S. Arrests Convicted Murderer Within Migrant Caravan | The Daily Caller:

“Border Patrol agents arrested a convicted murderer from Honduras Saturday night after he illegally entered the United States with other members of the migrant caravan,” DHS said, adding that the man was arrested along with three others while trying to illegally enter the United States.

Austin Votes to Keep the Books Closed

Austin Votes to Keep the Books Closed-Austin, Texas
"It would be hard to find a better example of left-wing naiveité in municipal affairs than what transpired here in November.
Voters in the Lone Star State’s progressive bastion, overwhelmingly approved a $925 million bond package but rejected a simple ballot initiative for an independent audit of city spending.
The defeat of the audit wouldn’t be so galling if the new bonds didn’t so obviously demonstrate the need for an independent review of Austin’s books.
Spending in the Texas capital is more like what one would expect in some profligate California city. With this new bond package, Austin has been reduced to using debt to fund parks, public safety and sidewalk repair—instead of paying for them out of its $4.1 billion annual budget.
...Putting progressive ideals and special interests ahead of working people is a familiar pattern in Austin.
...As for the independent audit thwarted in the November election, Austin progressives could hardly admit they opposed accountability for their spending schemes, so they campaigned against the audit initiative as a right-wing plot funded by the Koch brothers and “dark money.”...
Lot of liberal lunacy here, read it all!

Enviro-lies!-----Scientists Skeptical of Anthropogenic Global Warming

Scientists Skeptical of Anthropogenic Global Warming

Pablo Sepulveda shared a link.

"Read the rules changed and I have to add comments.

My comment is, The UK is now at over 50% renewable which I would assume mean they reduced 50% of the carbon emissions. 

Does the localized reduced carbon emissions translate into reduce CO2 for that area? 

I understand it wouldn't be a 50% or even 25% reduction of CO2 for there area, but I'd would guess it could be measured and compared. 
Assuming there is a reduced CO2 for their area, is there going to be less growth in their vegetation and how would you measure this? 
Also I'd imagine their air should be cleaner, which should also be measurable."

CLEANTECHNICA.COM

British Renewables Hits 42 Gigawatts & Surpasses Fossil Fuels

Pushed over the line by two coal-to-biomass conversions and continuing growth in offshore wind, the British renewable energy industry finally surpassed the capacity levels of its fossil fuel predecessors, with total capacity reaching 42 gigawatts (GW) in the third quarter, beating out the fossil fue...

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Mark Breckenridge Capacity... What about the production? They're trading coal for burning trees.

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Adam E. Wirth It only takes a few minutes to verify things...
...Great Britain's energy comes from Norwegian oil and Russian coal and gas. Wind and solar provide barely anything there. What they also call renewable energies are biomass plants. They actually buy wood scraps from the United States of America and have it shipped over on giant Freighters to burn in their plants. I'm serious look it up. If you think that that is sustainable and renewable you clearly are lacking in your cognitive abilities.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/.../ukenergyhowmuchwhat.../2016-08-15

Lunch video-----Jersey Boys - Sherry (The story of The Four Seasons) HD

Noon-toon

John Hofmeister, ex-Shell president: Obama 'had nothing to do' with oil-and-gas boom - Washington Times

John Hofmeister, ex-Shell president: Obama 'had nothing to do' with oil-and-gas boom - Washington Times:

Mr. Hofmeister also criticized the former president’s opposition to drilling, his increasing of permitting regulations and his handling of the Keystone XL pipeline.
“I would say that he was not a leader when it comes to energy, other than the Clean Power Plan, when he tried to remake the power generation industry without involving Congress, and the Paris accords, again without involving Congress,” he said. “So he tried to do a lot but it was not in the direction of the kind of energy that President Trump is working on.
“[Mr. Obama] was mostly in the way when it came to any carbon-based fuel, but when it came to the actual facts of the matter, because there were areas beyond his jurisdiction, things got done. The industry and the states working together did a remarkable job, which continues to this day under Trump,” he said. “So [Mr. Obama] can take credit for all he wants, but whether people believe him or not it depends on how much history do you really know versus how much history do you want to reinvent.”

American Gestapo-----Revealed: Mueller's FBI Repeatedly Abused Prosecutorial Discretion

Revealed: Mueller's FBI Repeatedly Abused Prosecutorial Discretion:---Mollie Ziegler Hemingway 
"...The media and establishment DC who reflexively defend Mueller haven’t explained how they came to trust him so completely. 
It’s a question worth asking given the bumpy historical record of Mueller’s tenure as FBI director from 2001 to 2013.
For instance, as I noted to Allen, Mueller was also “unafraid” at completely botching the anthrax killer case, wasting more than $100 million in taxpayer dollars, destroying the lives of multiple suspects, and chasing bad leads using bad methods. 
Let’s look at that and other cases involving how Mueller and those he placed in positions of power used their authorities and decided what charges to pursue.

• The Anthrax Bungling

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in 2001, letters containing anthrax were mailed to media outlets and the offices of Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., killing five people and infecting 17 others. 
The FBI quickly focused on an innocent man named Steven Hatfill, relentlessly pursuing him for years while the real killer walked free. 
As Carl Cannon wrote about the botched case, ridiculous and aggressive methods were used to go after the wrong man:
So what evidence did the FBI have against Hatfill? There was none, so the agency did a Hail Mary, importing two bloodhounds from California whose handlers claimed could sniff the scent of the killer on the anthrax-tainted letters. These dogs were shown to Hatfill, who promptly petted them. When the dogs responded favorably, their handlers told the FBI that they’d ‘alerted’ on Hatfill and that he must be the killer.
Mueller and his deputy James Comey were certain they had the right guy. 
They didn’t, and taxpayers had to pay Hatfill $5.82 million for the error..."

• The Democrat Berger Treated Gently
• Republican Scooter Libby Charged, But Not The Leaker
• Republican Ted Stevens Railroaded
• An Israeli Spy Ring That Wasn’t
• Incompetent Supervision

Much, much more.
Read all!

Who Wants to Support a Millionaire? - WSJ

Who Wants to Support a Millionaire? - WSJ
"A number of readers responded to Monday’s column about an Illinois school superintendent who managed to snare an annual pension of nearly $300,000—and then double-dip by returning to school part-time, collecting a total annual taxpayer payout of $419,000. 
This staggering windfall for what used to be called public service amounted to nearly ten times the local median household income of $44,000. 
Several Best of the Web regulars have since urged this column to elaborate on public-sector retirement benefits and their private counterparts. 
But they probably won’t enjoy reading about it.

Thank goodness that few government workers have figured out how to soak taxpayers for more

than $400,000 annually, but as Steve Cortes noted in RealClearPolitics, “over 94,000 total public employees and retirees in Illinois command $100,000+ salaries from taxpayers.”

It’s not just an Illinois problem. 

Eric Boehm wrote last year in Reason magazine:

Two retired Los Angeles city employees—Earl Paysinger, a former deputy police chief, and Emile Mack, a former assistant fire chief—pulled down more than $1.4 million apiece in pension benefits last year, giving them the largest nest eggs across all California’s public retirement systems...

...the average person covered by CalPERS (the main pension plan for the state’s workers outside of education) who retired in 2016-2017 after at least 31 years of service receives $70,092 per year. 
Annual pension payments rise with inflation and Mr. Biggs adds via email that “most CA public employees are covered by Social Security, from which they’d probably get another $20k or so.”...

Read all!

#1 This day 1962-----Frankie Vallie and The Four Seasons Big Girls Don't Cry

EXCLUSIVE: Google Employees Debated Burying Conservative Media In Search | The Daily Caller

EXCLUSIVE: Google Employees Debated Burying Conservative Media In Search | The Daily Caller

• Google employees debated whether to bury The Daily Caller and other conservative media outlets in the company’s search function as a response to President Donald Trump’s election
• “Let’s make sure that we reverse things in four years,” one engineer wrote in a thread that included a Google vice president
• Google employees similarly sought to manipulate search results to combat Trump’s travel ban
• Google employees debated whether to bury conservative media outlets in the company’s search function as a response to President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, internal Google communications obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation reveal.

...Byer falsely labeled The Daily Caller and Breitbart as “opinion blogs” and urged his coworkers to reduce their visibility in search results.
“How many times did you see the Election now card with items from opinion blogs (Breitbart, Daily Caller) elevated next to legitimate news organizations? That’s something that can and should be fixed,” Byer wrote..."
Read on.

You ought to know!

Melania Explains The ‘Patriotic’ Christmas Decorations Throughout The White House | The Daily Caller

Melania Explains The ‘Patriotic’ Christmas Decorations Throughout The White House | The Daily Caller:

“So here we are in the Cross Hall and Grand Foyer,” the first lady stated. “This is representing — you could see the color red. It represents the bravery, heart and patriotism. So here we go to the East Room, but it’s decorated blue, and then we will see later on the State Room. And here we are, this is red, blue, and white, and it’s patriotic and it reminds us of [the] American flag.”
She added, “We have thousands and thousands of people coming through here and [seeing] the decorations. So it’s very exciting. So here we are arriving in the East Room. This represents diversity of the cities in [the] United States.”