Thursday, July 7, 2016

Boston honesty


This is about half of an Associated Press "Big Story" that was published on their website July 5, 2016.
BOSTON (AP) — A man who left about $187,000 cash in a Boston taxi has been reunited with his money thanks to an honest cabbie, police said Tuesday.

Raymond "Buzzy" MacCausland, a driver for the Independent Taxi Operators Association, picked up a fare with a cast on one leg on Saturday.

"He told me he was homeless and had been living in a shelter for six months," MacCausland said.

At one point, the man got out of the cab to meet a friend intending to return, leaving a bag behind, the 72-year-old MacCausland said.  MacCausland waited about 30 minutes, but the man didn't return.  So, he drove to the man's hotel to look for him.

Unable to find the man, even with the help of the hotel staff, MacCausland looked in the bag for identification.  There he found three bundles of $50 and $100 dollar bills.  He immediately drove to police headquarters to turn in the cash.

Police found paperwork indicating that the money was part of an inheritance.

If there's anything else I can do to help increase tourism in a big city near me (I'm in a suburb), just let me know.

Hey, I heard that Chick-Fil-A is still having trouble getting a permit to open one of their very popular restaurants inside the city.  It would help tourism a lot if the tourists could have some of their delicious food to eat while they were visiting, don't you think, Mr. Mayor?

This is the complete and verbatim story that was published in the Seattle Times May 15, 2015.  It was updated April 6, 2016.
The second Chick-fil-A store in the Seattle suburbs opened in Lynnwood on Thursday morning to another long line, and a smattering of tents where people had camped to ensure their position as one of the first customers.

As is Chick-fil-A’s custom, the first 100 people to enter will receive one free Chick-fil-A Meal per week for a year.

But the store draws crowds even without that enticement.

The city of Lynnwood reportedly has developed a traffic plan to try to avoid the 30-minute backups that occurred in Bellevue after Chick-fil-A opened there in early April.  The Lynnwood Chick-fil-A is at 3026 196th St. S.W.

Bellevue has worked with the restaurant to keep lines from building, and Chick-fil-A has hired off-duty police officers to direct traffic.

A third store also has opened in Tacoma.
"Bellevue has worked with the restaurant to keep lines from building, and Chick-fil-A has hired off-duty police officers to direct traffic."

These are the fifth, sixth, and seventh paragraphs of an October 3, 2015 article on the Right Scoop website on the topic of a Chick-Fil-A restaurant that opened in Manhattan.  The boldfaced and italicized word in the first paragraph was boldfaced and italicized in the article.
The location opened at 6am this morning (at the top of this post is a video of some of the first 100 people entering the store).  People were tweeting pictures of the line as early as three in the afternoon yesterday.  That’s a long, long, but worth it, wait.

Of course, it’s not all rainbows and traditional values.  The left would never miss an opportunity to crap all over something, especially if that something is a Christian business.

You see those people lined up?  They’re excited to be in the first 100.  Because the first 100 people who waited in line for 12 hours are winning free Chick-fil-A for a year, which is slightly better than winning a million dollars.  It’s for New Yorkers, because it is a New York City store, and to keep that pure, they are checking zip codes.
"People were tweeting pictures of the line as early as three in the afternoon yesterday."

Gee, Mayor Marty Walsh, if you allowed a few Chick-Fil-A restaurants to open in Boston, they would also get long lines, your city would also have a lot of extra tax revenue, and a few off-duty Boston Police Officers would get some extra pay as a bonus.

What a shame that your immovable position on gay rights is so important to you.

It's stopping you from improving the Boston economy.

Think about it, Marty.  Think and pray about your decision to keep a popular restaurant chain out of the city.

The Mayor on the subject of a Muslim holiday.


The Mayor on the subject of a Boston holiday that is also the birthday of the U.S. Army.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

The Massachusetts Bathroom Bill


You've probably heard about those bathroom bills.  They're legislation that puts restrictions on stores, restaurants, swimming pools, and other places where the public can visit bathrooms.

These restrictions force those places of public accommodation to allow people to use the "other" bathroom, or in some cases, the "other" locker room.  That means that woman and young girls may have to watch a man entering your private, protected space.

You may even have to hear your 13-year-old girl say that a teenaged boy entered the girl's locker room at her public school, undressed, and then walked naked into the shower room while she was taking a shower.  His excuse would be that he felt like a girl that day.

Don't come in !!


I'm naked !!

A boy came into the room where I was showering.

In the past, this boy's excuse (he thought he was a girl) would not have prevented him from being suspended from school or even expelled, but some people with a radical sexual agenda want boys like this to be encouraged to take a shower with your 13-year-old girl!

This is the complete text of an April 14, 2006 story on the website of RTV6 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Police have received two complaints about a flasher exposing himself to children in Lawrence.

One of the incidents involved the Fall Creek Junior High School track team. As the team ran down East 59th Street Wednesday, police said, a man inside an SUV yelled out to them.

When the children looked, they saw that the man's pants were pulled down, 6News' Dan Spehler reported.

LaDonna Landgren is the mother of a child on the team. She said her 13-year-old's fast-moving feet might have kept the incident from ending up a lot worse.

"He kept trying to get her or her and the girls to come in the car," Landgren said.

The girls ran back to their school, where administrators called police.

"This 13-year-old girl might end up being traumatized by this," said Lawrence police chief Deputy Robert Bowser. "Most 13-year-old girls don't encounter this."

Landgren said her daughter had a tough time sleeping the night after the incident. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.

"To see my daughter upset makes me want to just pummel someone," Landgren said. "She's a good heart and for anyone to even think about taking advantage of her makes me want to kill them."

Police don't have much information to work with as they search for the flasher. Police said two men in their late teens to early 20s were in the green SUV.


These are the first six paragraphs of a February 26, 2014 Toronto Sun story.
TORONTO - A sexual predator who falsely claimed to be transgender and preyed on women at two Toronto shelters was jailed indefinitely on Wednesday.

Justice John McMahon declared Christopher Hambrook — who claimed to be a transgender woman named Jessica — was a dangerous offender.

The judge said he imposed the indefinite prison sentence because there’s a great risk that Hambrook will commit more sex crimes and require strict supervision if he returns to the community.

“I am satisfied there is no reasonable expectation that a lesser measure would adequately protect the public from Christopher Hambrook,” said McMahon.

He noted the Montreal man, 37, attacked four vulnerable females between the ages of five and 53 in Montreal and Toronto over the past 12 years.

“He has demonstrated from the age of 12 until the present an inability to control his sexual impulses,” said McMahon.

These are the first two paragraphs of a May 14, 2015 story on the website of WMUR-TV in Nashua, New Hampshire.  The video, uploaded by their television station, is about the same story.
uploaded by WMUR-TV on May 14, 2015
A man convicted of indecent exposure has been accused of violating the terms of his probation.

Jeffrey Gelinas pleaded guilty in June 2014 to exposing himself to a girl in the children's book section of a Barnes and Noble store in Nashua, and police in Salem are now investigating a similar case.

These are the first three paragraphs of an October 2, 2015 story on the wehsite of the ABC affiliate in Chicago, Illinois.
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Police are looking for a man accused of touching a female inappropriately and exposing himself at a CTA Green Line station in the Bronzeville neighborhood, police said.

The incident happened at about 11 a.m. Friday on the platform of the Green Line's 35th Street station.

Surveillance video captured images of the man, who is described as African American and between the ages of 18 and 20 years old.  He was described as between 5-feet-2-inches and 5-feet-3-inches tall and about 120 to130 pounds

This is the first paragraph of a May 29, 2016 story on the wehsite of the Atlanta Progressive News.
(APN) ATLANTA — Maya Dillard Smith, Interim Director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), says she has left the organization due to a disagreement she had over its participation in recent litigation over the use of public restrooms by transgender persons.   And at least one transgender advocate is outraged by her comments.
The rest of the article is about a dispute between the state of North Carolina and the North Carolina branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.).  This dispute is a separate matter than the resignation of a State Director in a different state.  A more thorough explanation of the incident that the Georgia State Director witnessed is offered by her personally in by the following story.

These are the first four paragraphs of a May 31, 2016 story, published by Life Site News.  The video, which shows an on-camera interview with the same person, was uploaded by Fox News on June 2, 2016.
ATLANTA, May 31, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The African-American woman who leads a state chapter of the ACLU has resigned, citing her own daughters' “frightened” reaction to biological males using the women's restroom.

The organization's increasing focus on legislating the transgender lobby's concerns pushed Maya Dillard Smith, interim director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, to tender her resignation.
“I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women’s restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults, over six feet [tall] with deep voices, entered,” she wrote.

“My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer,” she continued.

“My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer.”

The story of the incident inside the women's bathroom and her subsequent resignation was also reported on June 2, 2016 by the following news organizations.
This story also appeared on the blog of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 4, 2016.

These are the first four paragraphs of a June 15, 2016 story on the website of the NBC affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland.
Baltimore County police are looking for the man they said is responsible for exposing himself to a girl in Dundalk.

Police said the incident occurred at about 7:30 a.m. March 3 at the Big Lots store in the 1400 block of Merritt Boulevard.  The girl's mother told police that they were in the store when they noticed the man following them.

Investigators said the girl sat down on a couch in the furniture section and her mother, who did not see her sit down, continued through the store.  The man approached the girl and exposed himself, police said.

The girl then ran to find her mother and tell her, police said.  The man was seen leaving the location in a white compact car.

These are the first three paragraphs of a story, published October 18, 2016 by WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Boston, Massachusetts.  The video, uploaded by WCVB, was linked in their story.
Andover police said they're searching for a man who exposed himself Monday to elementary school students.

Police received a report just before noon about a man parked in a Main Street parking lot, which abuts the St. Augustine Elementary school property.  Students at the school were at lunch recess when some saw the man stand outside his vehicle and expose himself.
uploaded by WCVB-TV on October 18, 2016

Link to a similar story, published February 2, 2017 by the NBC affiliate in San Diego, California.  This victim was also an elementary school student.

These six videos were uploaded by television news stations.  They are about different incidents than the ones I have already mentioned.

uploaded June 20, 2010
uploaded October 10, 2012
uploaded June 24, 2015
uploaded December 13, 2016
uploaded October 8, 2013
uploaded October 25, 2013


These are the first five paragraphs of a March 19, 2019 Yahoo story.  The links in these paragraphs were in their story.
A high school student in Pennsylvania has filed a complaint against her school, claiming that her civil rights were violated, and that she was subjected to sexual harassment, when a transgender student used the same locker room as her.

An attorney working with the teen has already filed the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Division, detailing the female student’s experience in a Honesdale High School locker room earlier this year.  In a video accompanying the complaint, the unnamed 15-year-old student says she immediately became worried when she heard a “man’s voice” as she was getting dressed.  The complaint states that the transgender student in question identifies as female.

“While I was putting on my pants, I heard a man’s voice.  So I turned around and he’s standing there on the opposite aisle looking at me,” the female student said in the video.  “I glanced down and I could tell that he was wearing women’s underwear and what was underneath it.”

According to the complaint, students weren’t made aware that the transgender student was given permission to use the women’s locker room.  The complaining student’s attorney, Andrea Shaw, is now identifying the incident as a case of sexual harassment.

“Opening up restrooms and locker room facilities to members of the opposite sex is sexual harassment,” Shaw stated. “Like most forms of sexual harassment, the girls in this school have little power over their situation.”


Link to a similar story about the same student and the same lawsuit on the website of Law Enforcement Today and the website of The New American.

A reasonable question

"What do you tell ....?"
This question was directed at Chris Cuomo.  According to his website, he is the "co-anchor of NEW DAY, CNN’s flagship morning news program."  He is also the son of the late Mario Cuomo, who was a three-term Governor of New York, and a brother to Andrew M. Cuomo, the current Governor of New YorkLink to Mario's obituary in the New York Times, published January 1, 2015



An unreasonable answer



A reasonable reply by Jason to Mr. Cuomo



These paragraphs are part of the April 2006 story that was published by the Indy Channel.  I reprinted the complete text of the story, with a link to the story, earlier on this page.

LaDonna Landgren is the mother of a child on the team. She said her 13-year-old's fast-moving feet might have kept the incident from ending up a lot worse.

"He kept trying to get her or her and the girls to come in the car," Landgren said.

The girls ran back to their school, where administrators called police.

"This 13-year-old girl might end up being traumatized by this," said Lawrence police chief Deputy Robert Bowser. "Most 13-year-old girls don't encounter this."

Landgren said her daughter had a tough time sleeping the night after the incident. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.

"To see my daughter upset makes me want to just pummel someone," Landgren said. "She's a good heart and for anyone to even think about taking advantage of her makes me want to kill them."


"This 13-year-old girl might end up being traumatized by this," said Lawrence police chief Deputy Robert Bowser.  "Most 13-year-old girls don't encounter this."

Unfortunately, they will encounter this frequently, if more cities and states force those jurisdictions to allow men and women into each others' locker rooms and bathrooms.

Thirteen-year-old girls need a wall between them and any men when they undress for any reason.


Common sense from the Heritage Foundation

These are the first five paragraphs of an article that was published May 17, 2016 on a website called The Daily Signal, run by the Heritage Foundation.
It should be common sense that every person is entitled to privacy when using the restroom, changing, or showering, but unfortunately, some have eliminated common sense from the discussion.

What else can explain the decision by dozens of school districts across the country, retailing giant Target, and even the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to voluntarily adopt and promote policies that strip away privacy for everyone, allowing men into women’s restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa?

Why does privacy even matter?  Sure, our courts have recognized that it’s a constitutionally protected right.  And our society has long structured itself around the need to allow privacy for the sexes in intimate settings.  But why?

When discussing freedom of speech, one of our most precious rights, the Supreme Court has often emphasized that the right is most important for those whose speech is most vulnerable to censorship.

The majority’s views aren’t the ones that need protection.  The minority’s views, the ones that may subject the speaker to abuse, are the ones that the First Amendment was designed to protect.

A North Carolina legislator was rightfully upset at a lame-duck President, unable to be voted out of office, and struggling to find an achievement he could be proud of, who ordered public schools to make little girls uncomfortable in their own bathrooms and locker rooms.

These are the first three paragraphs of a Daily Signal article dated May 18, 2016.
Republicans are falsely being accused of instigating the transgender bathroom debate, state Rep. Dan Bishop from Charlotte, North Carolina, told The Daily Signal.

“This controversy nationwide has been a media-driven, ideological carpet bombing,” he said.  “And I think a very dishonest one across the board.  Everything that we’ve done has been distorted—so many falsehoods, outright falsehoods about what HB2 does.”

Along with the media, Bishop, a Republican, blamed a “new and dangerous kind of activism” for peddling the controversy over HB2.

Obama's drinking and drug use during college, which he continues whenever he takes a vacation, are affecting his judgement.  The first photo was taken in Joplin, Missouri, which was destroyed by a maximum-force tornado in May 2011.  He left the next day for a week-long vacation in Ireland.  The second photo was taken during that vacation in Ireland.

Hillary says I'm doing a good job,
so I must be doing a good job !
Link to my 2012 blog essay President Obama's 2011 Irish Vacation, which documented the planning for his trip and the fact that he left the United States the day after a tornado destroyed Joplin, Missouri.

The day after.

The Daily Signal website published another article on May 29, 2016.  This is the first paragraph.  The link in the first sentence was in their article.
On May 13, the Obama administration sent a letter to public schools on the topic of transgender students and where they use the restroom.  But the directive, issued as “significant guidance,” didn’t just apply to the bathrooms.  It also entered the space of locker rooms, showers, dorms, overnight hotels, and other places you might not expect.  Watch the video to see The Daily Signal break down where exactly the Obama administration’s bathroom directive applies, and where it doesn’t.

"Watch the video to see The Daily Signal break down where exactly the Obama administration’s bathroom directive applies, and where it doesn’t."

This is the video that they're referring to.
This video lasts 4 minutes, 19 seconds.


I like this political cartoon



The Massachusetts Bathroom Bill

These are the first five paragraphs of a column that was published today (June 1, 2016) on World Tribune.  This column was written by Jeff Kuhner, who is the host of a syndicated three-hour radio talk-show, which is heard in the Boston area on Boston's WRKO radio station.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is joining the transgender revolution.  The liberal Republican has said he will sign the “transgender rights” bill pushed by leftist Democrats in the state Legislature.

The legislation represents a triumph for LGBT activists.  It calls for individuals — based upon their “gender identity” or the “gender expression” they associate with at the time — to be able to use the restrooms, changing rooms or locker rooms of their choice.  In other words, grown men, with their hairy chests and exposed genitals, will be allowed to shower beside your wife or girlfriend at the local YMCA or sit in a bathroom stall next to your daughter — and there is nothing anyone can do about it.  Strange adult men can use women’s restrooms, locker rooms and changing areas with impunity.

In fact, the Massachusetts legislation goes one step further.  If anyone complains — women, female teenagers, children, parents — they will be subject to criminal prosecution for “discrimination” against transgendered individuals and denying their so-called “civil rights.”

If a woman objects to a man showering in front of her at the local YMCA’s ladies room, then she faces jail time or a big fine.  Should a young female not want to have a male stranger lurking in her high school or college women’s bathroom she must either bear it or wait outside until the coast is clear.

As state Attorney General Maura Healey told all the women who are uncomfortable sharing a bathroom with a transgender person: “Hold it.”

Jeff's Twitter account is @TheKuhnerReport.  We follow each other on Twitter.  My account is @BennyTheKite.

This link allows you to listen to whatever audio is being broadcast on WRKO.

Link to information about the Massachusetts Bathroom Bill, on the website of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which has a history of protecting Massachusetts families.

Link to a website that makes it easy to get involved with the fight to stop this legislation.

Link to State Representative Shauna O'Connell's website.  She is leading the fight to stop this legislation.  She has already helped Massachusetts voters to defeat a higher tax on gasoline, and some people are already suggesting that she would make a good Governor.

Link to her website on the website of the Massachusetts Legislature.

Governor Baker was quoted in the Washington Times today (June 1, 2016) as saying that he would sign the legislation into law, even before the Massachusetts Legislature, the representatives of the Massachusetts population, have decided on which amendments would be added to this legislation.


June 5, 2017 update

This is the first paragraph of a June 2, 2016 story on the wehsite of the ABC affiliate in Boston, Massachusetts.

A bill that would bar discrimination against transgender people in public accommodations and allow them to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with the gender they identify with won overwhelming approval in the Democratic-controlled Massachusetts House on Wednesday.
Transgender people who haven't had the necessary surgery to "correct" what they believe is a mistake made by Mother Nature should have enough common sense to know that little boys and girls can be hurt or even traumatized if they see a person of the opposite sex, naked, while they're changing their clothes.

"This 13-year-old girl might end up being traumatized by this," said Lawrence police chief Deputy Robert Bowser.  "Most 13-year-old girls don't encounter this."

Governor Baker did sign this state's Bathroom Bill.  These are the first two paragraphs of a July 8, 2016 WBZ news story.  WBZ is the Boston affiliate of CBS News.
BOSTON (CBS) —  Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker signed a bill that would bar discrimination against transgender people in public accommodations, in what is considered the final step before becoming law.

The controversial legislation allows transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their identifying gender.

These other websites have a similar story.  Unless otherwise noted, these stories were published on July 8, 2016.  I'm still adding more links as I write this.
The Atlantic Monthly, July 7, 2016 Boston.com Mass Live
Life Site News Daily Caller, July 9, 2016 Boston Globe, February 23, 2017

His signature on the legislation means that young girls will be able to see a penis when they're changing their clothes in their school locker room or in a changing room at a public swimming pool.  The only excuse that any pervert will need in order to show it to a young girl will be his verbal statement that he's a woman himself, temporarily "occupying" a male body.

It also means that he is a Republican in name only, a R.I.N.O.


Other Bathroom Bills

Remember, each one that is signed into law by a Governor allows people to declare their own gender as a reason to walk into any bathroom in a retail store, a public swimming pool, or a school locker room in a public school.

North Carolina

I published an essay on the topic of their Bathroom Bill on May 9, 2016 on another one of my blogs.  That essay is called The President and the Governor.  This essay focuses on the relationship between President Obama and Pat McCrory, the Governor of North Carolina.  That blog focuses on political science instead of partisan politics.  The relationship, good or bad, between a President and a Governor is always a legitimate subject for an essay about political science.

That blog already has a set of two essays that discuss the president's effort to force Hawaii to secede.  Political science includes the subject of a president's power as Commander-in-Chief.  Any change in the ownership of Hawaii would result in the loss of America's ability to send military forces into the joint military base in Honolulu that is shared by the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor and by the U.S. Air Force at the Hickam Air Force Base.

I wrote a sequel to that essay called The President and the Governor, Part 2 on May 18, 2016.

The sequel included this editorial cartoon, which illustrates the reason why so many people want privacy to be the most important consideration whenever legislation like this is ever discussed.

The President and his Department of Justice (DoJ) want men like this to be allowed to enter a women's locker room and even to be allowed to take showers with women in gyms including the YWCA.

DoJ regulations would require any young man who feels the same emotions as the man in this cartoon to be able to walk into the girl's locker room in every public school in the country.  When girls are showering after a physical education class, these boys would be able to undress in their part of the school's locker rooms and they would be able to take showers, naked, standing next to naked girls.

Only two things are necessary to accomplish this.  A boy who states that he believes that he's a girl, and a U.S. Government agency that won't protect the privacy of real girls.


Texas

These are the first two paragraphs of a July 24, 2015 Texas Tribune story.
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the Houston City Council must repeal or put up for public vote a 2014 ordinance that extended protections to gay and transgender residents.

The court directed the council to repeal the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, better known as HERO, by Aug. 24 or place it on the November ballot. Passed after an intense public debate, the ordinance expanded the city’s ban on discrimination to include protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity at businesses that serve the public. The protections also apply to city contractors and municipal workers.
Election day for this ordinance and other matters was November 3, 2015.  61% of the people of Houston voted no on this ordinance.  257,000 votes were recorded.

These are the first two paragraphs of a November 4, 2015 Houston Chronicle story.
Houston's controversial equal rights ordinance failed by a wide margin Tuesday, with voters opting to repeal the law that offered broad non-discrimination protections, according to incomplete and unofficial returns.

The hotly contested election has spurred national attention, drawing comment from the White House and the state's top officials.  Largely conservative opponents of the law allege that it would allow men dressed as women, including sexual predators, to enter women's restrooms.  Supporters of the law, including Mayor Annise Parker, argue that it extends an important local recourse for a range of protected classes to respond to discrimination.
Link to a similar story, also dated November 4, 2015, in the Washington Post.

Link to a similar story, dated November 6, 2015, in the Texas Observer.

These are the first four paragraphs of a United Press International story dated February 11, 2017.
Preparations for Super Bowl LI continue to take place at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas on February 3, 2017.  The New England Patriots will play the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI on Sunday at NRG Stadium.

The NFL kept a low profile on a recently introduced Texas bathroom bill during the Super Bowl week.

But now that the game and festivities in Houston are over with, the league is threatening not to award future Super Bowls to Houston or the Dallas area if the controversial "Senate Bill 6" is passed.

The law would require people to use bathrooms that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificate.  It targets transgender people and would be similar to a bill that passed in North Carolina that led to the NBA pulling its All-Star Game out of Charlotte.
"... the league is threatening not to award future Super Bowls to Houston or the Dallas area ...."


A tweet from the Governor of Texas:



These are the first two paragraphs of a February 15, 2017 article in My San Antonio.
AUSTIN – Gov. Greg Abbott is warning the NFL to “get the heck out of politics” after a league spokesman suggested passage of a so-called bathroom bill could affect whether Texas gets future events.

“The NFL is walking on thin ice right here. The NFL needs to concentrate on playing football and get the heck out of politics,” Abbott said on Glenn Beck’s radio show Tuesday.
Link to a similar story on the website of KLIF radio.

These are the first two paragraphs of a February 16, 2017 article in the Christian Post.
A coalition of pastors known as the Texas Pastor Council that spearheaded the defeat of Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance, known also as the "Bathroom Bill," is now taking aim at the National Football League after the organization threatened to make Texas pay if the state passes a proposed transgender bathroom law introduced last month.

Senate Bill 6, one of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's legislative priorities, would require everyone to use bathrooms in public schools, government buildings and public universities based on "biological sex," said The Texas Tribune.  The measure would also pre-empt local nondiscrimination ordinances that allow transgender Texans to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.


Tennessee

These are the first two paragraphs of a May 17, 2021 Breitbart story.

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill into law Friday that separates private spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms for use by individuals according to their biological sex.

The law means that individuals who are biological males cannot use restrooms for women because they “identify” as women and vice versa for women who consider themselves men.

The CNN storry about the new law and some other stories about the law were written in a way that made it seem that the law discriminates against the tiny percentage of the population that believes that God made a mistake when he assigned their gender to them.


The last words

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

- Edmund Burke, English philosopher

Link to documentation of the quote.

Edmund Burke's biography on the Biography Channel website.

Monday, March 7, 2016

My 2016 statement on Common Core


The following statement was made approximately 2pm today (March 7, 2016) at the Gardner Auditorium of the Massachusetts State House, where the Massachusetts legislature does its' business.  I testified to a Joint Committee, similar to this one, in this same room.


The occasion was an opportunity for the public to have some input on legislation that would remove the Common Core Educational Standards from Massachusetts public schools.  I testified in favor of this legislation.


I'm here to talk about the science portion of the Common Core educational standards.

Every so often in history, a person comes along who challenges the established body of scientific thought.  Sir Isaac Newton, Nicholaus Copernicus, and Albert Einstein all did it.  They used scientific instruments including telescopes and microscopes to make their discoveries, they used the language of science to tell other scientists about their discoveries, and most importantly, they used a process called The Scientific Method to ensure that they were, in fact, adding to the body of scientific knowledge in their field of expertise.

The discoveries that many of them made conflicted with the facts that were taught in the schools at that time.  When Copernicus discovered that the earth revolved around the sun, teachers all over the planet were teaching students that the earth was the center of the universe.  They were wrong, but it required the skills of a scientist to prove that they were wrong.

There is no guarantee that the scientific facts and figures that are taught in Massachusetts public schools today will still be accurate ten years from now, so it is more important than ever that today's students must be taught how to discover scientific facts and figures, rather than being told facts and figures by a teacher who passes along the facts and figures that he or she learned in a similar classroom thirty years earlier.  The Common Core Educational Standards de-emphasize the vital skill of making scientific discoveries using The Scientific Method.

There are people who have a lot of scientific knowledge.  I call them technicians.  They can take that knowledge and they can help scientists make new discoveries, but unless they know and apply The Scientific Method, they are not scientists.  Technicians cannot be trusted to find out whether a new hypothesis is true or false in their field of study.  This additional skill is what defines a scientist.

Can a new drug cure skin cancer?  A scientist can find out.

Can water be split into hydrogen and oxygen in a process called electrolysis and later recombined in a fuel cell?  A scientist can find out.

Can atoms be split in a way that produces new particles?  A scientist can find out.

In order for any of these questions to be answered satisfactorily, scientific principles and practices must be maintained, including The Scientific Method, which is in danger of disappearing in Massachusetts public schools.  If it does disappear, all future scientific knowledge will be whatever teachers tell their students.  If The Scientific Method disappears from Massachusetts public schools, due to the Common Core Educational Standards, someday a teacher will tell her students that the earth is the center of the universe, and her inadequately-educated students won't know how to prove that she is wrong.

Thank you for your time and attention.





Please read this blog page that discusses Common Core in Massachusetts.

Proposed science and technology standards for students

The statement that I made today was intended to be a summary of that blog page, although I didn't mention my blog page when I made the statement during today's public hearing.