Saturday, October 20, 2018

From ACT to NPC and You Get AOC

Q. In a country where every year the percentage of high school graduates deemed “college ready” declines do we continue to promote the concept that everyone should go to college?

Bad news reported in the WSJ: ACT Scores Show Drop in College Readiness, Especially in Math. As usual, math and science hit hardest.

A greater percentage of U.S. high-school graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam aren’t ready for college-level coursework, with math readiness at a 14-year low.

Reading that awkward sentence makes me think English scores might not be so far behind. Oh wait!

"Readiness in English has also been trending down over the past several years, dropping from 64% in 2015 to 60% this year, the lowest level since the benchmarks were introduced," according to the report…Science remains the subject area in which students are least likely to be prepared for college coursework."

Some people are blaming Common Core for the decline, if you can believe it:

sheriff clark common core

"I think testimony we took during our attempts to eradicate Common Core showed the dumbing down of curriculum, the social justice indoctrination, the emphasis on social-emotional learning, reduced quantity and quality of reading, emphasizing screen time rather than classroom instruction," Thompson said. He explained that the "destruction of proper math" has also been a contributing factor. Common Core proponents, he said, "place a higher priority on indoctrination than education." - Ohio state Representative Andy Thompson, via PJMedia

Can the news about the children’s education get any worse? Well yes it can, there’s also a racial component to the report, although you won’t read about it anywhere in the MSM: ACT College Admissions Test Scores by Race: Asians Pulling Away. And even worser: “Hispanic and black students continue to lag behind their white and Asian counterparts.”

Average ACT scores:
Overall:  22.1
White:    23.4
Asian:     25.0
Black:     17.9
Hispanic: 19.8

No wonder Harvard had to limit the number of Asians they admitted.

But back to my original question: in a country with such a low level of high school graduates ready to handle college level work (such as it is) why do we continue to encourage everyone to go, often incurring oppressive debt in order to do so?

We might want to consider the possibility that it’s because “university” is just another big business where they respond to their market in order to stay in business. Eventually entrance requirements at all but the top tier universities will boil down to money and a pulse, and they’ll waive the latter if you can come up with the former. Learn to answer all the questions “correctly” and you too can go to college!

PublicSchool.npc

With scams like that you will get even more AOCs.

Alexandriaaoc democrath/t Dissenter

Friday, October 19, 2018

FLOTUS Friday Fluency

The week in FLOTUS: Melania and PDJT visited areas ravaged by Hurricane Michael, No word yet on whether MSM approved of her jacket and footwear on this trip.

melania-trump-style-latest-donald-trump-florida-1555298

But they did bash the President for leaving her standing in the rain when he came over to answer the questions he was shouting at him.

image

Fortunately Melania, unlike snowflakes, doesn’t melt in a little rain. And of course they would have criticized the President more had he not come over to answer the questions they were shouting at him.

Next FLOTUS was off to Pittsburg to speak at a conference of the Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Council held at Thomas Jefferson Hospital. Afterwards she toured the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit to speak with mothers and clinicians who care for newborns suffering from opioid and drug withdrawal.

AP_18290555435365-768x478

Of course the only news carried about the event was the fire aboard Melania’s plane at takeoff, forcing it to return to Andrews Joint Base and causing reporters aboard to “cover their faces with wet towels” which I must say sounds like a good idea. Subsequent headlines ran from  “FLOTUS So Hot Plane Catches Fire” to “Suspicious Fire On First Lady’s Plane Possible Work of Saudi Arabia.”

Thankfully everyone was okay and the press was free to ignore this event.

Melania-Trump-news-Donald-wife-wears-USA-cap-for-Florida-visit-1558087Maybe if she would just stop wearing those USA hats they dislike so much…

Instead they continue to mock her speech, although she’s fluent in 5 languages, while praising their newest non-white Queen, who can’t speak even one fluently.

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Meme Of The Decade

If Janice the Elder – God rest her soul – were still with us we would have been schooled on this 4chan phenomenon months ago. Gamers were the first to note the birth of the NPC meme, understand and advance the reference. As it is now running the internet - and I note some of you have posted some of the funnier memes here for our enjoyment - it is time we school ourselves thoroughly.

In a nutshell ‘NPC’ stands for non-player character – as in a video game. They serve as bots, programed with algorithms to provide canned responses in given situations in order to retain the real player’s attention and keep the game going. That programmed-response NPC’s have come to represent leftists was inevitable, and hence the basis for the meme.

Brietbart explains in more detail:

What Is the ‘NPC’ Meme? Liberals Rage at Cartoons Mocking Their Scripted Thoughts

The new "NPC" meme mocks leftists by depicting them as unthinking and reflexive automatons. The meme has upset the left so much that Twitter is now banning people posting it for "dehumanizing speech," but its humble origins are the computer-controlled characters of limited intelligence found in most video games.

The popular NPC meme trend frames its targets as non-player characters (NPCs) who reflexively spout neo-Marxist axioms in response to real-world events. Actual NPCs are computer-controlled characters in video games with limited scripted responses given the parameters of the games in which they appear. For example, NPCs may assign quests to the player in games like Skyrim, or join the player as a companion in Fallout.

Built on the long-running Wojak meme, the NPC meme mocks leftists as expressionless in appearance and bot-like in behavior. The universal standard appearance illustrates the left's political homogeneity.

Red State has an even more detailed explanation here, summing up thusly:

 While I’m in full belief that even SJWs have the capacity for rational and critical thought, the fact that they choose not to employ it, even in the face of brutal facts, earns them the label of NPC. If your entire identity revolves around the superficial, and your entire belief system revolves around instructions from someone else, then you’re about as good as a computer program. If you won’t engage in civil debate, and instead  scream tired phrases at people when you run out of things to say, then there’s no person there, just a shell that somebody else is speaking through.

NPCs are often represented as cartoon faces with programming symbols for features:

unique

The meme has garnered a lot of attention recently as Twitter has banned hundreds of right wing accounts posing as soulless, ‘nonplayable’ liberal activists (SJWs). From the NYT:

nyt-npc

As an aside, MOTUS herself got thrown off Facebook years ago for “not being a real person” whereupon I embarked on a hilarious online argument with the nameless, faceless goons who control FB.

faceberg

But I digress, apparently Twitter is busily developing a new policy aimed at NPC triggering:

banned

Zero Hedge has an amusing take on the new steps being taken to contain the insults.

1539571076929

The NPC meme essentially meant to ridicule the post-election perpetual outrage culture in which liberals simply parrot the latest talking points from their favorite pundits, who do their thinking for them.

The 4chan version is a simple greyed out, expressionless face known as "NPC Wojak" - which has triggered the left so hard that Twitter conducted a mass-banning campaign for accounts promoting the meme, and the New York Times wrote an entire article trying to figure it out.

Anything that bores so far under the left’s skin clearly deserves to be applauded and spread far and wide, so give it your best shot people. Halloween is quickly approaching and the NPC-Che costumes are selling out fast.

che t shirt

Back View:

1539735317525

Let’s make this not just the meme of the week, month, or year – this one deserves meme of the decade designation.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

“I Refuse To Be Victimized By Notions of Virtuous Behavior”

He says there's no doubt about it
It was the myth of fingerprints
I've seen them all and man
They're all the same

- You Can Call Me Al, Paul Simon

When the left embraced relativism I knew we were in trouble.

my truth relativism

Now I see how much trouble. If the New Democratic Socialists get their way 2018 will be the year that evidentiary rules are eliminated from America’s pesky judicial system. The NDS don’t feel you should have to produce evidence to substantiate your claims. After all, “my truth” is what counts. They don’t really believe in absolute truths and that should be good enough for you too. So screw the rule of law, it seems to be based on absolutes. Which they don’t believe in, did I mention that?

Its-All-Relative

A few examples of how the world would work under their new rules:

  • You wouldn’t have to produce evidence of lineage to demand minority status (which, oddly enough, provides privilege in the land of white privilege).
  • You wouldn’t have to produce any actual evidence to accuse and convict a man of sexual assault, as long as it was “your truth” that it happened.
  • You would need no evidence, other than that which you’ve manufactured of whole cloth, in order to accuse a president of Russian collusion and demand impeachment.
  • And NO ONE would have to produce evidence of persecution in their native country in order to gain asylum and entry to the United States. Because our resources are infinite and no matter how many millions of foreigners show up and demand entry to our country we must let them in. And if native born Americans have to work harder and pay more taxes to support them and provide healthcare – which is a human right – even as they re-introduce their third world illnesses to us, well so be it. We probably deserve it because we’re not special. And nobody is ILLEGAL!

stinkin-evidence

Their logic is…illogical. But that’s just my truth so I’m not going to do anything about it. I refuse to be victimized by notions of virtuous behavior.

calvin hobbes relativism

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

The Strange Case of the Undead

Things get curiouser and curiouser in the possible abduction and murder of Washington Post Muslim Brotherhood reporter. Here are a few questions I still have about the whole situation:

  • Is Khashoggi really dead?
  • If so, who dunnit, and if it was the Saudis, why did it require a 15 man assassin team?
  • Why did the WaPo have a Muslim Brotherhood reporter on staff?
  • Are we to believe our Turkish ‘allies’ or our Saudi ‘allies’?
  • Who’s trying to start WWIII?

And while the answers may be interesting they won’t help us choose sides. As Spengler points out, there are no good guys in this fight and we can’t trust our “Intelligence Establishment” to sort it for us. (H/T to the Obama administration for enabling Deep State to reach this level of lack-of-confidence.) All we do know is that anyone failed-novelist-turned-Obama-foreign-affairs-advisor, Ben Rhodes, sides with is no friend of ours. So just say nyet to Turkey and Iran, and keep Saudi Arabia on a long, strong leash.

As to the demise of Khashoggi, don’t be completely surprised if he turns up undead. It’s that time of year after all.

vote-the-hillary-zombie apocalypse

But when it comes to picking which undead team to back, the Zombies or the Vampires, our choices are somewhat limited: do you wish to have your brains eaten or your blood sucked?

While it’s tempting to just wipe them all out we must proceed with extreme caution; this may well be a quagmire, but it’s not our quagmire.

circus poster

Monday, October 15, 2018

When Words Don’t Matter Ideas Soon Follow

Crazy Eyes Cortez, leading the cheer squad, explains the team’s strategy, as she understands it:

“We take back the House, we take back the Senate, we take back the presidency, and we pack the Supreme Court of the United States of America!”

Alex Baldwin tells tells the team they have to 'overthrow the government of Donald Trump' in November - either by vote or, if that doesn’t work, coup, I guess.

The immediate cause of their rage is the appointment of Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, despite Christine Ford’s allegations of sexual abuse against him. They are particularly enraged because the Judiciary Committee and subsequent Senate vote refused to use their currently preferred definition of the term “credible” in regards to Professor Ford’s testimony. In this case “credible” does not mean “very probably true,” it means “not entirely outside the realm of possibility.”

See what happens when words no longer mean anything in particular? Ideas tend to follow suit. 

no men

Sunday, October 14, 2018

The Sun Sets On Ontario’s Left Coast

We’re still traveling in Canada - Ontario specifically -  which is beautiful despite a dearth of sunshine, a surplus of precipitation and a muted palate of autumn colors most likely due to a dryer than normal summer.

There is no Fox news here, which I know you’ll say is no great loss, but after flipping through the news programming on offer – CNN and the equally slanted Canadian version, CBC – I assure you that Fox serves a vital purpose. If Canada has a similar balancing element I’ve not seen it. As our own MSM knows, it’s much easier to keep a country brainwashed when there’s no counterpoint to their drivel.

So I leave you on your own today as we motor along Ontario’s beautiful Lake Huron shoreline.

1200px-2007.05.17_45_Road_Dyers_Head_Cabot_Head_Ontario

dune formation near Pinery Provincial Park Lake Hurongoederich sign

Consider it an open thread Sunday. But don’t miss Clarice’s take on the missing and presumed dead journalist Jamal Khashoggi: Turkish Taffy. As always, things are never as the MSM would have you believe.

Me, I’m just hoping to catch the light from the sunset side of Lake Huron this evening.

37497405-ripples-on-lake-huron-beach-at-sunset-ontario-canada