Sunday, December 30th, 2012
STEPHEN M. COAN, President - Sea Research Foundation - The Huffington Post/Providence Journal
Stephan: This is what 'teaching to the test' has wrought. The tragedy of those three million unfilled positions is such a sad commentary. At the very moment that the rest of the world is coming on line, we are falling off. It is going to take a concerted effort to reverse these trends, and it must be done on the basis of facts, not ideology or theology. That is how we got into this mess.
Technology and engineering, both critical dimensions of our global economy and society, require mastery in science and advanced math.
The good news: STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) occupations are expected to grow 17 percent in 2008-2018, versus 9.8 percent for non-STEM jobs, and earn 26 percent higher wages.
The bad news: An estimated 3 million STEM-related jobs remain unfilled because of learning and skills gaps.
The U.S. Defense Department has even identified the growing shortage of American engineers as a crisis that threatens our national security.
In the U.S., education reform efforts of the past 30 years, focused largely on reading and basic math, have mostly ignored science and such advanced math topics as algebra, geometry and calculus. Furthermore, the middle and high schools overlook many students’ latent talent in these areas.
While a seventh-grade algebra whiz, for example, would probably be steered into advanced high school math, physics and chemistry, struggling classmates would be ushered into a less challenging sequence. Once on the wrong path, affected kids don’t see the way up, and learning loses excitement, meaning and relevance.
Moreover, outdated, lecture-style STEM instruction that teaches to the test and relies on textbooks, abstracts and theoretical scenarios constricts curiosity and aptitude, stunts STEM engagement […]
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Sunday, December 30th, 2012
Stephan: This could be good news. It appears that GMO Salmon may be thwarted by the processes of bureaucracy. If approval were given, inevitably as with GMO grains, some will get free and breed into the wild natural schools. No one has any idea what the implications of this might be. I have written the FDA asking that the fish not be finally approved, and I urge each of you to do likewise. The link can be found by clicking through.
The Associated Press recently published an update on Aquabounty’s GMO salmon. In case you haven’t been following this issue, Aquabounty was poised to become the world’s first company to sell fish whose DNA has been altered to speed up growth. This ‘frankenfish
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Sunday, December 30th, 2012
ALLISON YARROW, - Daily Beast
Stephan: If you thought the recent election has had much impact on the agenda of the Theocratic Right, you would be wrong, as this report demonstrates. This obsession over controlling women can only be stopped by citizen action and voting.
Michigan women will face new obstacles to legal abortion after Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law wide-ranging restrictions in the last hours of that state’s legislative session Friday.
Under the new law, private medical offices where abortions are performed will be required to be licensed as surgical facilities; women seeking an abortion must first meet with a health-care professional to ensure they aren’t being coerced into the procedure; health-care providers can refuse service if their conscience so dictates; and new regulations will be imposed on how fetal remains are disposed.
Snyder surprised many by vetoing related legislation that would only allow insurance coverage of abortions through rider policies that companies could deny. A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman called this a ‘victory
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Saturday, December 29th, 2012
STEPHEN C. WEBSTER, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Just further proof of what I keep saying to you: Assume everything that you make digital is under surveillance.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill on Friday that reauthorizes and extends the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a law that was originally meant to retroactively grant legal immunity to the Bush administration and telecoms, along with temporary authorization to wiretap non-Americans inside the United States without first having to acquire a warrant.
The law was set to expire at midnight on Friday, but the Senate’s vote means it will almost certainly be extended through December 2017.
Before passing the extension by a vote of 73-23, lawmakers blocked amendments by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (R-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) that would have narrowed the window of reauthorization, added more oversight to the program and required annual reports to Congress on the privacy impacts of the program.
The extension continues warrantless wiretapping powers that apply even in the event that one person participating in the communication is an American citizen, despite the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for court oversight. It was originally passed in 2008 as a means of granting top Bush administration officials and the telecommunications companies legal immunity against suits over wiretaps that even the former president once claimed to be illegal.
The bill amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance […]
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Saturday, December 29th, 2012
Stephan: This is the latest on the War on Women trend. Everything in this report was completely predictable. The Theocratic Right's attempt to impose its values on the nation has recreated an off-the-record abortion movement. Women alone, with no medical support, aborting children they cannot have. At least, this time, it isn't coat hangers, and enema tubes.
The New Republic’s cover headline this month is a topic that pro-choice activists speak about occasionally amongst themselves, but rarely address in public: ‘The Rise of DIY Abortions.’ The reason that it’s not much discussed in public forums is that reproductive health advocates are data-driven people, and one thing that’s nearly impossible to get data on is the prevalence of women quietly buying an ulcer medication named Cytotec from sleazy online dealers and using that to terminate pregnacies at home, far out of the reach of doctors and agencies like the CDC or the Guttmacher Institute that compile statistics on abortions. The writer of the piece, Ada Calhoun, admits that there’s no way to know how common these black-market abortions are, but points out that the rise in websites peddling Cytotec specifically to terminate pregnancy (instead for its on-label use to treat ulcers) makes it hard to deny that this is a growing trend:
Online, however, these drugs are readily available, often via suspicious-sounding sites that make claims like: ‘The Affordable Abortion Pill Will Safely, Quickly Terminate Your Undeveloped Fetus In The Privacy Of Your Home, Save You Time And Hundreds Of Dollars. It Is 100% […]
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