INCOMPETENCE RULES THE DAY!

Four recent pieces of evidence:

1. Contamination at NIH’s clinical pharmacy center halts operations

2. SAT's went missing from high-end school in Loudoun County, Virginia

3. Military Shipped Live Anthrax Samples to 51 Labs in U.S., Abroad

4. How did 2 killers escape from a maximum security prison?

And last year...

CDC: Smallpox found in NIH storage room is alive

Corruption and incompetence at the top trickle down. Did not Shakespeare's Hamlet make that very point centuries ago?

DEADLY DUMBING DOWN

The result of abandoning the proper teaching of geography?

With a hat tip to Barnhardt:

“He said he was from Liberia, not Africa…”

From this thread over at Lucianne.com. Emphases mine.

Reply 29 – Posted by: gone2pot, 10/3/2014 5:50:33 PM (No. 10030644)
It´s us. We are the reason for the panic. We vote for it, educate our kids with it, watch it on TV, “like” and “follow” it, and listen to its music. Here´s anecdotal evidence; my wife´s hospital is caddy corner to Dallas Presby, home of the ebola incident. The docs at her hospital left Presby to start a new, less screwed up system. So, they know Presby and keep in contact with former colleagues. Well, according to the old Presby docs, the thirty-something Dallas Presby nurse´s answer to the CDC was, “He said he was from Liberia, not Africa.” So, next time you want to believe the tin foil hat conspiracy theory answer, remember instead that we ARE that stupid and our stupidity is why we create the cases for panic.

Is the above anecdote true? I don't know, but it could be.  And I don't mean only with regard to the aforementioned nurse!  It's not out of the question that a doctor wouldn't know that Liberia is in Africa.

I myself so often see the dumbing-down — and not only among the middle-school and high-school students I teach: here we are in the Information Age with many people lacking enough sense or intellectual curiosity to look up something when the information is at their fingertips via Google search; at the same time, these same people are keen to update their Facebook status or check their email at every possible opportunity.

Now, about that triage nurse in the emergency department....

I do not blame her for not recognizing that Mr. Duncan had Ebola Virus on his first visit to the hospital.  His temperature wasn't high enough according to the protocol then in effect, and he lied to her and said that he had not been around anyone who was sick.  Let us keep in mind that Mr. Duncan lied on those forms in Liberia, too.

THE LORAX? REALLY?

Last week, I conversed with a parent concerned about the education that her seventh-grade daughter is receiving in one of the "finest" public schools in one of the "finest" school districts in the United States.

The account I received was beyond disconcerting.

It was dismaying!

The student, dedicated to learning and enrolled in the gifted and talented program, returned from a week's absence due to illness and inquired of the teacher as to what work needed to be completed.  The teacher chirped, "Oh, there's nothing to make up.  The class spent all last week watching The Lorax."

The film The Lorax, based on the book of the same title, is eighty-six minutes long.  Apparently, the class discussed the film in class, but no written work was assigned.

The situation did not involve a flu epidemic with too many absences for the teacher to forge ahead, nor die  the situation involve a substitute in charge of the class for the week.  Therefore, I have to wonder if spending an entire week on this film was part of county-approved program of studies.

These two bits of information (HERE and HERE) may provide clues as to why an "advanced" seventh-grade class spent an entire week on The Lorax.

America is turning into an idiocracy, and public education is one means to attaining that particular type of dystopia, defined as a society characterized by human misery — in this case, a dystopia characterized by miserable mindlessness.

Additional reading of possible interest: Marxism in Education: Infiltration of Our School Systems by the Common Core Standards.

YOUNG VOTERS?

Free ride mentality:

APPALLING IGNORANCE

The word "surreal" doesn't even begin to describe what one Congressman from Georgia said.

According to Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), the right to engage in the pursuit of happiness is in the United States Constitution and proves the constitutionality the individual mandate to buy health insurance (hat tip to The Pagan Temple) for the video below:



The Preamble of our Constitution reads as follows:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Fourteenth Amendment is HERE. Excerpt:

...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...

Apparently, Congressman John Lewis does not comprehend the document he took an oath to uphold.

GLOBAL WARMING DOES THE DARNDEST THINGS - RECORD LOW JUNE TEMPS IN CHICAGO

From WGN:

The cloudy, chilly and rainy open to June here has been the talk of the town. So far this June is running more than 12 degrees cooler than last year, and the clouds, rain and chilly lake winds have been persistent. The average temperature at O'Hare International Airport through Friday has been only 59.5 degrees: nearly 7 degrees below normal and the coldest since records there began 50 years ago.

More bad weather is on the way Saturday with a cold rain expected to linger through the bulk of the morning. Rainfall could be heavy -- especially north of the city, which would be a reversal of Thursday's deluge that targeted the southern suburbs.