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A big deal has been made about common core. Florida has adopted them as the standard. I must admit that I knew little about them before I began my teaching job a couple of weeks ago. Teaching biology, here is a listing of my common core benchmarks for the first unit, that is the things my students should be able to do when they pass my course:

 N.1.1: Define a problem based on a specific body of knowledge, for example: biology, chemistry, physics, and earth/space science, and do the following: 
1. Pose questions about the natural world, (Articulate the purpose of the investigation and identify the relevant scientific concepts). 
2. Conduct systematic observations, (Write procedures that are clear and replicable. Identify observables and examine relationships between test (independent) variable and outcome (dependent) variable. Employ appropriate methods for accurate and consistent observations; conduct and record measurements at appropriate levels of precision. Follow safety guidelines).
 3. Examine books and other sources of information to see what is already known, 
4. Review what is known in light of empirical evidence, (Examine whether available empirical evidence can be interpreted in terms of existing knowledge and models, and if not, modify or develop new models). 
5. Plan investigations, (Design and evaluate a scientific investigation). 
6. Use tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data (this includes the use of measurement in metric and other systems, and also the generation and interpretation of graphical representations of data, including data tables and graphs), (Collect data or evidence in an organized way. Properly use instruments, equipment, and materials (e.g., scales, probeware, meter sticks, microscopes, computers) including set-up, calibration, technique, maintenance, and storage). 
7. Pose answers, explanations, or descriptions of events, 
 8. Generate explanations that explicate or describe natural phenomena (inferences), 
9. Use appropriate evidence and reasoning to justify these explanations to others, 
10. Communicate results of scientific investigations, and 
11. Evaluate the merits of the explanations produced by others. 

N.1.3: Recognize that the strength or usefulness of a scientific claim is evaluated through scientific argumentation, which depends on critical and logical thinking, and the active consideration of alternative scientific explanations to explain the data presented. 

N.1.4: Identify sources of information and assess their reliability according to the strict standards of scientific investigation. 

N.1.6: Describe how scientific inferences are drawn from scientific observations and provide examples from the content being studied. Collect data/evidence and use tables/graphs to draw conclusions and make inferences based on patterns or trends in the data. 

N.2.1: Identify what is science, what clearly is not science, and what superficially resembles science (but fails to meet the criteria for science). Science is the systematic and organized inquiry that is derived from observations and experimentation that can be verified or tested by further investigation to explain natural phenomena (e.g. Science is testable, pseudo-science is not science seeks falsifications, pseudo-science seeks confirmations.) 

N.2.2: Identify which questions can be answered through science and which questions are outside the boundaries of scientific investigation, such as questions addressed by other ways of knowing, such as art, philosophy, and religion. Identify scientific questions that can be disproved by experimentation/testing. Recognize that pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to strict standards of science 

N.3.1: Explain that a scientific theory is the culmination of many scientific investigations drawing together all the current evidence concerning a substantial range of phenomena; thus, a scientific theory represents the most powerful explanation scientists have to offer. Explain that a scientific theory is a well-tested hypothesis supported by a preponderance of empirical evidence. 

N.3.4: Recognize that theories do not become laws, nor do laws become theories; theories are well supported explanations and laws are well supported descriptions. Recognize that theories do not become laws, theories explain laws. Recognize that not all scientific laws have accompanying explanatory theories. 

L.14.1: Describe the scientific theory of cells (cell theory) and relate the history of its discovery to the process of science. Describe how continuous investigations and/or new scientific information influenced the development of the cell theory. Recognize the contributions of scientists in the development of the cell theory. 

RST.1.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to the precise details of explanations or descriptions. 

 RST.1.3 Follow precisely a complex multistep procedure when carrying out experiments, taking measurements, or performing technical tasks attending to special cases or exceptions defined in the text. 

RST.3.7 Translate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text into visual form (e.g., a table or chart) and translate information expressed visually or mathematically (e.g., in an equation) into words. 

WHST.1.2 Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes. 

WHST.3.9 Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. 

I just don’t see what the big deal is. These are all things that kids finishing a high school science course should know.

So I had a Verizon phone. I had served out my two year contract, and wanted a new phone. The company told me that I was not eligible for a new phone. I pointed out to them that if I wanted a new phone, I was free to take my business elsewhere, since my contract had run out. They told me that I could get a new phone, but I would get a new phone number. That’s what I did.

Well, six months later, I am contacted by a collection agency, and I am told that there was a balance on the old account. Apparently, the customer service guy didn’t shut off the old phone when he opened the new one.

Verizon refuses to remove the resulting collection from my credit report, even though it was their mistake. My credit will bear this negative mark for seven years.

I am sick of companies screwing their customers just because it is legal to do so. That is why I have no problem using the law whenever I can, to screw them right back.

One of the places that we went while on our road trip was New York City. This was my first time there, and it was interesting. We spent three days there. For now, I want to touch on the attitudes of the people who live there. From my own observations, I can say that New York City residents are of the opinion that the entire world revolves around them, and that the rest of the country is a vast wasteland filled with hicks and people who wished that they could live there.

 For example, while I was there, the discussion turned to 9/11. The opinion that I expressed was that the US response of creating the TSA and all of the laws that followed the event were far out of proportion to what actually happened: To put things in perspective, a few buildings were damaged, and there were fewer people killed in the attacks than are killed in auto accidents each year. In response to this, I have to take off my shoes everywhere I go so that I can be searched, the TSA is performing checkpoints on the highways, the NSA reads all of my emails, every other government agency gets to know what books I read, movies I rent, and everywhere I go via cell phone tracking. To find those responsible, we sent our military on missions that have killed far more than the number we lost that day. We effectively became a police state, and it was for nothing, because a 9/11 attack could never work again for one simple reason: Passengers will never again sit placidly in their seats as a terrorist flies their plane into a building. They WILL fight back.

The response that I got was twofold:
1 “It doesn’t matter that the terrorists were outnumbered by 10 or 20 to one. Aircraft are too cramped for effective resistance.” Even when it was pointed out that the 44 people aboard flight 77 were able to fight back and foil the terror plot to attack Washington, DC, they would not budge on this one.

2 “You weren’t the one who had to walk across the Brooklyn bridge to get home from work.” This one surprised me. What this statement boils down to, is that the inconvenience of having to walk home once outweighs the entire nation having to be inconvenienced with the Patriot Act, the TSA, the NSA, and all of the other post 9/11 power grabs. This, more than anything else, showed me how egocentric New Yorkers actually are.

Since I was a guest, I let the conversation die at that point.

This year has been one of absolute turmoil, and of change. I went on my sabbatical by taking a 6 week, 7,200 mile road trip that took me to  15 states, one territory, four foreign countries, and returned last weekend. When I arrived home, I had a call from a school that wanted to interview me in connection with my newest career change. I had that interview on Wednesday.

They called me Wednesday night at 7 p.m. and offered me a job. The catch? The job started the following morning at 7:30 a.m.. The job was 85 miles away from my house. Students start class in less than a week. In that time, I have to complete new hire training, attend all of the staff meetings, write all of my lesson plans, the syllabus, make all of my teaching aids for at least the first couple of weeks, and attend the new student orientation to meet my new students and their parents. All while trying to relocate to a house 80 miles from my old one. I barely have time for eating and sleeping.

As I am sure that you can understand, blogging has taken a back burner. Even during the road trip, blogging was problematic because I was in an area of backwoods Maine for several weeks, where there were no cell phone towers and, in many cases, the places where I was staying were completely off the grid. No power, no phone, no television, and certainly no internet. There are some interesting stories to tell, and just as soon as I get the time, they will be told.

A man looks at a woman while jogging. She freaks out. Somehow, it is the man’s fault, and she decides that he is a threat.

I can understand increased vigilance, but the man here did nothing wrong. Women seem to feel that all men are rapists. She claims that no one believes a woman that reports an assault. That is total bullshit. Men are constantly having their lives and careers damaged by women who falsely accuse them of domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment.

She says:

I’m ashamed for feeling ashamed.
I expect more from myself. But I also expect more from that man, from any man.

What should men do? Avoid all women?

Congress, when it passed Obamacare without even bothering to read it, set up a system where people who purchased health insurance policies from exchanges that were “established by the State under section
1311″ would receive a tax subsidy to assist in deferring the cost of the policy. That subsidy would then be billed to the consumer’s employer in the form of a tax, which the supreme court ruled was completely within Congress’ taxing power to do.

Now the DC court rules that a person who does not buy their plan from an exchange that was “established by the State under section
1311,” but instead buys the policy from a Federal exchange, is not eligible for the subsidy, which in turn means that their employer is not subject to the tax.

The Democrats and the mainstream press (but I repeat myself) are incensed. This is the same party that has insisted for years that “Security of a free state” cannot be ignored is now claiming that ignoring “established by the State under section
1311″ is within the power of the IRS.

Now the case will be heard en banc by the entire 11 judge panel, and four of the additional judges are Obama appointees, meaning that there are now 5 judges who will side with Obama on this law. The mental gymnastics that are occurring here make it astoundingly obvious to me that there is no longer any interest on the part of the judiciary in maintaining a constitutional republic, but rather they seek to maintain party politics.

The Republic is dead. What is left in its place is a massive government that has rotted to its very core, where even the judges have foregone the idea of checks and balances, in favor of a system where every person is in the game only to their own benefit. A nation founded on the ideals of personal liberty is now a nation run for the financial benefit of each person at the expense of others, a massive rat race where people will do anything to win.

So this animal kills a cop, and the only thing his widow has to say about it, is that she wishes he had killed more of them before the cops shot him. This wasn’t even this crazed animal’s first murder: he had killed at least once before.

What I find most incredible is that this critter got his gun by stabbing and then beating up an armed security guard and stealing his gun, and the family of the felon are blaming the guard! This is what happens when you are living in a state where guns are illegal, the animals take over. They exploit that “beat someone up and steal their gun” loophole.

Animals like that are the reason that I carry.

After all that has happened over the past 6 months, I decided to go on sabbatical and wander the country. About a month ago, I left on a journey to see what I could see. Since that day, I have been to Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maine, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. I am in Pennsylvania now, and I am going to take a tour of Hershey this afternoon. I have traveled nearly 3,000 miles so far.
So far this summer, I have gone to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium, saw Times Square, gambled in a Maine Casino, and caught a 4 pound bass on the Canadian border. I have eaten lobster rolls, had a Maine lobster boil, eaten authentic New York pizza, Corned beef Reubens, and Coney Island hot dogs. I saw a concert in Atlanta.
I plan on visiting Tennessee and West Virginia before I head back to Florida. I have a lot of stories to tell, and they will be spelled out in this blog over the next few weeks. The three days I spent in New York City are going to be worth a few blog posts all by themselves.