St. Lucie County School Board and the St. Lucie County School Classroom Teachers Association in the Southern District of Florida have settled an incredible lawsuit that we previously discussed. The family of nine-year-old Alex Barton sued after teacher Wendy Portillo forced an autistic child to stand in front of the class and be criticized — and then invited the classmates to vote him out of the class. The school will now pay a $350,000 settlement — and Portillo will return to the classroom after a yearlong suspension.
Continue reading “Florida School To Pay $350K After Teacher Has Nine-Year-Old Autistic Child Voted Out of Elementary Class”
Category: Academia
The United States Senate will convene with all 100 members on Tuesday, December 7th for the final arguments in the impeachment of Judge G. Thomas Porteous. Our weekend crew of contributors has agreed to keep the shop going until after the final vote — likely on Wednesday, December 8th.
Continue reading “THE PORTEOUS IMPEACHMENT: THE CLOSING ARGUMENTS TO BE HEARD ON TUESDAY”
We usually do not track the latest STD data, but this one is quite remarkable. Alaskan officials are reporting a 69 percent increase in gonorrhea in just one year — 2008 to 2009. This is one area where viewers might not want to “follow me there” to Alaska, as touted on the Sarah Palin’s Alaska.
Continue reading “Not Coming Soon To An Episode on Sarah Palin’s Alaska”
While democracy appears on the skids in Russia as Putin expands his power, there is one sliver of good news coming out of Moscow. The Duma has finally acknowledged that it was Josef Stalin himself who ordered the murder of roughly 20,000 Polish officers, intellectuals, and leaders in the forests of Katyn.
Continue reading “Russian Duma Acknowledges That Stalin Personally Ordered Katyn Massacre”
It is that time of the year for our annual blawgletting — the ABA top blog competition. We have once again been selected as one of the top 100 legal blogs (of over 3000) and nominated for the IMHO (opinion) category and it is time to release our minions upon the field of blog battle. Vote here to defend our way of life and the future of the planet.
Finally, I can throw out that cheap atomic clock in my basement. For years, I have been complaining that, no matter how much I tweak by atomic clock, it is always off a second every billion years. Now, for that difficult to buy for family member who has everything, James Chou and his colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have developed a laser-controlled quantum logic clock that oscillates at a frequency of 1.12×10^15 times per second — a million times faster than the speed of light. The only problem is that it does not tell time and does not yet come in a wrist version. However, these researchers brilliantly released the clock before Christmas.
Continue reading “Perfect Stocking Stuffer: The New Quantum Logic Clock”
There is an amazing reported discovery of oxygen for the first time. The Cassini probe found traces of oxygen on Saturn’s moon, Rhea.
Continue reading “Rhea’s Secret: For the First Time, Oxygen Found on Another World”
Professor Richard Quinn of University of Central Florida delivered this lecture after discovering that at least one-third of the class had cheated on a midterm exam.
Continue reading “Professor Confronts Cheaters At University of Central Florida”
International physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have a photo of perhaps the most camera-shy element in the universe: anti-matter. In an incredible breakthrough, CERN was able to capture atoms of antimatter for a tenth of a second.
Continue reading “Smile! Anti-Matter Finally Isolated and Photographed”
NYU Professor Wafaa Bilal finally has the solution for all of those spit balls that come flying whenever he turns his back in class: he is having a camera implanted in the back of his head. That’s right, a camera. It is part of a project commissioned by a new museum in Qatar which will broadcast the live images to museum visitors.
Continue reading “Lens Louse: NYU Professor To Have Camera Installed In Back of His Head”
Part I
Earlier this year, the Texas State Board of Education removed children’s author Bill Martin Jr. from a proposal to include him in the third-grade curriculum section. Martin would have been put on a list of authors who had made cultural contributions—along with Laura Ingalls Wilder and Carmen Lomas Garza—until board member Pat Hardy made the motion to toss out Bill Martin’s name. You see, Hardy had learned that “Bill Martin” had written an adult book that contains “very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system” from another board member named Teri Leo.
It was while Leo was researching Bill Martin on the Borders.com Web site that she discovered that he had written a book called Ethical Marxism. Leo alerted Hardy to her discovery in an email. Hardy explained: “She said that that was what he wrote, and I said: ‘ … It’s a good enough reason for me to get rid of someone.’ ”
Continue reading “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?—I See Anti-Marxists Looking at Me!”
Researchers in Vietnam recently sat down for a simple meal and ended up with a scientific feast. They were staring at a plate of cooked lizard but they had never seen this species before. It turns out to be a unique species of female lizards who are able to reproduce themselves by cloning. The perfect radical feminist species.
Continue reading “Blue Plate Special: Scientist Finds New Lizard Species on Dinner Plate”
We have filed our post-trial brief in the Senate Impeachment Trial of United States District Court Judge Thomas Porteous. The brief, linked below, presents the factual record on each of the articles of impeachment after the conclusion of the Senate trial. We are expecting final arguments to be heard in December before all 100 Senators on the Senate floor.
Continue reading “The Porteous Impeachment: Post-Trial Brief”
Thank God, a diet I can live with. Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, has reported astonishing results in a novel diet that he created to show that losing weight is all about counting calories –not what you eat. To prove his point, he went on a “Twinkie Diet” where he only consumed junk food every three hours consisting of Twinkies, Hostess HoHos, Little Debbies, Oreos, Dorito chips and the like. He lost 27 pounds in two months. Around the world, rotund fans are raising their Twinkies and Debbies in salute to you, Professor Haub.
Continue reading “The Twinkie Diet: Professor Loses 27 Pounds on Junk Food Regimen”
The nature or nurture debate may be over for liberals: scientists have isolated what they believe to be the “liberal gene.” Yes, that’s right. Researchers believe that DRD4 affects people’s ideology. It is ironic that Republicans who oppose evolution may have an evolutionary reason for their position. Of course, this is assuming that people are evolving toward the liberal gene like the fully opposable thumb.
Continue reading “The Eugene McCarthy Gene: Scientists Say DRD4 Drives Ideology”