Boing Boing

Kudos to the Gates Foundation, seriously: after spending $775m on the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching, a Big Data initiative to improve education for poor and disadvantaged students, they hired outside auditors to evaluate the program’s effectiveness, and published that report, even though it shows that the approach did no good on balance and arguably caused real harms to teachers and students.

Cathy “Weapons of Math Destruction” O’Neil has given the report a close reading, and she found that the problems with the approach were pretty predictable: asking principals to rate teachers produces pretty uniform and meaningless five-star results, while the “value add” algorithms that are supposed to figure out how much of a student’s performance is attributable to a teacher are basically random number generators.   Continue reading “The Gates Foundation spent $775m on a Big Data education project that was worse than useless”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

Congresswoman Maxine Waters – who earlier this week urged her supporters to accost members of the Trump administration at restaurants and other public venues – has been forced to cancel a pair of public events after receiving a “very serious death threat.” The Congresswoman told CNN on Thursday that she’s seen an increase in threats since she made the controversial comments.

Waters canceled appearances in Alabama and Texas this week after receiving “threatening messages” and “hostile mail” at her office, including “one very serious death threat” from an individual from Texas.   Continue reading “Maxine Waters Cancels Events Following “Very Serious” Death Threats”

The Organic Prepper – by J. G. Martinez D.

I find the most difficult aspect of survival is to keep a positive mindset. Definitely, it is. The crisis is not over when you escape the collapse. While I expected when I got my family out, our struggles were over, they have just begun.  Once you have been a successful professional, with an entire life ahead of you, and a good amount of the road already left behind, and find as refugees in a foreign country…this is where you really know about how strong you can be.

Or how weak, in my case. Don’t misunderstand me, please. I have been much more fortunate than many of my people, and I give thanks to God for that.   Continue reading “What Life Is Like for Venezuelan Refugees: The Crisis Isn’t Over When You Escape the Collapse”

Yahoo News

A man who police say opened fire at a Maryland newspaper office Thursday, killing five and injuring two others, had a long, acrimonious history with the newspaper, including a lawsuit and years of harassment of its journalists on Twitter.

Jarrod Warren Ramos, swiftly arrested by police after the attack, was charged Friday with five counts of first-degree murder.   Continue reading “Shooting suspect had bitter history with Maryland newspaper”

News & Observer

CHICAGO – Chicago’s City Council on Wednesday approved a $2.5 million settlement in an excessive-force lawsuit that accused police of traumatizing a 3-year-old girl by pointing a gun at her chest and striking her handcuffed mother.

A lawyer for Aretha Simmons, the girl’s mother, says upcoming Chicago Police Department reforms don’t address how officers treat children during arrests. Attorney Al Hofeld Jr. says “it is not even on CPD’s radar.” Continue reading “Council approves $2.5M payout for girl traumatized by police”

Task & Purpose – by Jared Keller

A new poll confirms that a significant number of Americans have the health of the Union on their mind.

A national survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports indicates that a full 31% of American voters believe the U.S. “will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years,” while 59% of voters see the prospect of a nation-dividing conflict unlikely. Add in the (I assume) 10% of voters who had no opinion on the matter and that’s 69% of voters who aren’t worried — which is, you know, nice. I’m a glass half full kind of guy.   Continue reading “Nearly A Third Of Americans Believe A Second Civil War Is On The Horizon”

Business Insider – by John Haltiwanger

The Army has a new non-lethal weapon to help soldiers in Afghanistan “irritate and deter” potential adversaries with pepper-filled balls, Army Times reports.

The non-lethal launcher, known as the Variable Kinetic System (VKS), is made by PepperBall Technologies. It fires projectiles much like paintballs containing a hot pepper solution. Continue reading “The Army’s newest non-lethal weapon basically lets soldiers shoot enemies in the face with hot sauce”

Times of Israel

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson donated some $70 million this year alone to Taglit-Birthright Israel, the organization providing free ten-day trips to Israel for tens of thousands of young Jews each year, the group said.

The organization thanked the couple, who have given some $410 million in total over the years, at a gala event Wednesday marking 18 years since Birthright’s founding.  Continue reading “Birthright celebrates $70 million in donations from the Adelsons this year”

Heavy

New York City DJ is calling out Delta Air Lines after she and three other passengers were kicked off a flight and stranded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by an “irrational” and “unprofessional” flight attendant. The woman, Robyn “DJ Reborn” Rodgers, posted about the June 23 incident and shared video from the plane on Wednesday. The flight attendant works for SkyWest Airlines, which was operating as a Delta Connections flight, and Rodgers was a Delta passenger.   Continue reading “‘Irrational’ Flight Attendant ‘Unfairly’ Kicks 4 People Off Plane”

The New Observer

Michael Kadar, a joint Israeli-US citizen Jew resident in Israel, has been convicted of making over 2,000 bomb threats to Jewish organizations around the world from August 2016 to March 2017—which were all blamed on “white racists,” attributed by the Jewish controlled media to Trump’s rise, and used to justify the banning of dozens of books on Amazon.

According to a report in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Jew was convicted in the Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday on multiple counts of extortion for waging an intimidation campaign of bomb threats, including against Jewish Community Centers in the United States last year.   Continue reading “Jew Convicted of Worldwide Bomb Threat Campaign Blamed on “White Racists””

Chicago Tribune

At least five people were killed and several others were “gravely injured” in a shooting Thursday afternoon at the Capital Gazette in Anne Arundel County, authorities said.

A shooter is in custody, police said. Police would not name the suspect or say what type of weapon was used.   Continue reading “Five dead, others ‘gravely injured’ in shooting at Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis”

Capital Gazette

A shooting has occurred at the Capital Gazette in Anne Arundel County, a paper that is owned by The Baltimore Sun, according to reports from Gazette staff.

Anne Arundel County Police confirmed there was an “active shooter” at 888 Bestgate Road, where the newspaper’s offices are located. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed it was responding to a “shooting incident” at the Gazette.   Continue reading “Multiple people shot at Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis”

Breitbart – by Neil Munro

Disabled people are getting more jobs, higher pay and greater social status in President Donald Trump’s “Hire American” economy, according to the Washington Post.

The good news comes as populist Republicans shut down another business-backed amnesty push in Congress, so adding more pressure on employers to find, hire and train the millions of Americans who have been sidelined by drugs, disability, and civic chaos.   Continue reading “Disabled People Gain in Trump’s ‘Hire American’ Economy”