Bankocracy

Common Core Exams Put on Hold

"The common core curriculum mandates a common core system of exams. Most students will flunk these exams. This is inevitable. The results in New York are the canary in the coal mine. The failure rate was 69%. Blacks and Hispanics failed at an 84% rate. Parents are up in arms. The common core curriculum will not redeem the public schools. It will instead expose the public schools as utter failures. This will not be tolerated by local politicians, who take the heat for the failures in public schools. They will demand that the educrats turn down the heat. The tests are in the first stage of a roll-back. The Obama Administration is blaming the sequestration." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCommon Core Exams Put on Hold

Attorney General hits up Donald Trump for donations while probing his school

"Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s campaign hit up Donald Trump and his pals for contributions while he was investigating the real-estate mogul’s for-profit trade school for illegal business practices. The investigation began in May 2011 and, for more than two years, Trump aides claim Schneiderman’s office told them the case was 'very weak' and would 'go away.' While the probe was under way, Trump aides said their boss, his family and his associates were repeatedly approached for thousands of dollars in campaign donations by Schneiderman’s political operation. Trump aides say now they’re being informed Schneiderman’s office is filing a civil suit against the school." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAttorney General hits up Donald Trump for donations while probing his school

Tea partier at Ted Cruz town hall: ‘Canada is not really foreign soil’

"The Texas Tribune caught up with on of those birthers, Republican voter Christina Katok, at a tea party rally where Ted Cruz was speaking earlier this week. Earlier this week, Cruz released his Canadian birth certificate to The Dallas Morning News, proving that he was definitely born in a foreign country to an American mother. But Katok told the Tribune that she wouldn’t hesitate to vote for Cruz. 'As far as I’m concerned, Canada is not really foreign soil,' she explained, adding that she was more worried about the president’s 'strong ties to Kenya.' For his part, Cruz has vowed to renounce his Canadian citizenship, which could require a security check and an eight-month waiting period." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTea partier at Ted Cruz town hall: ‘Canada is not really foreign soil’

IRS makes useless paperwork less onerous for U.S. Persons in one country

"You do the math: 190-odd other countries & territories, each with their own unique kinds of purpose savings accounts, most speaking languages other than English, and fewer than a million affected filers in each to lobby for change. How long will it be before U.S. Persons finally have the freedom to move to any country on Earth without incurring unreasonable paperwork requirements, and the folks in the District of Columbia can start figuring out what to do with all those non-filers who moved to Mars in the intervening centuries?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIRS makes useless paperwork less onerous for U.S. Persons in one country

Manufacturing of Zeppelins temporarily shut down sausage makers in World War I

"According to a new documentary, the quantity of cow intestines used in manufacturing the airships was so enormous – and the military appetite for the dirigibles so strong – that the making of sausages was temporarily outlawed in Germany and allied or occupied parts of Austria, Poland and northern France. With the guts from more than 250,000 cows needed to produce the bags that held the hydrogen gas in each Zeppelin, the German war machine had to choose between long-range bombing and wurst. It chose the former." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingManufacturing of Zeppelins temporarily shut down sausage makers in World War I

A Curious Inspiration for the First Stethoscope

"Before he assumed the position of chief of service at the teeming Necker Hospital in 1816, Laënnec became adept at a technique called percussion, which involves striking the chest with one's fingertips in search of pathologic processes. Yet neither percussion nor the time-honored technique of listening to breath sounds by placing an ear against a patient's chest satisfied Laënnec's demand for diagnostic precision. He was especially critical of physicians' inability to hear muffled sounds emerging from the chest of an obese person, and he balked at what he described as the 'disgusting' hygiene of his patients, many of whom were unwashed or lice-ridden." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA Curious Inspiration for the First Stethoscope

Egyptian iron artifacts, earliest ever found, made from meteorite

"The earliest iron artefacts ever found — funeral beads strung around bodies in a 5,000-year-old Egyptian cemetery — were made from a meteorite, archaeologists said on Monday. The nine small beads come from two burial sites dated to around 3,200 BC, where they were found in necklaces along with exotic terrestrial minerals such as lapis lazuli, agate and gold. X-ray scanners, meanwhile, showed that the meteorite iron had been repeatedly heated and hammered to make the precious jewels for the afterlife. This shows that in the fourth millennium BC, the Egyptians were already advanced in the art in smithing, say the researchers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEgyptian iron artifacts, earliest ever found, made from meteorite

Bank of America intern’s death puts banks’ working culture in spotlight

"Moritz Erhardt, 21, had won a place as a summer intern at the London city offices of the US bank and was nearing the end of his placement when he was found dead in the shower at his temporary accommodation in east London. Merrill Lynch did not comment on the length of Erhardt's working hours, and also declined to comment on whether interns – who are understood to be paid £45,000 pro rata – are routinely made to work longer than 12-hour days. A fellow intern at the bank described the aspiring student as a 'superstar', adding: 'He worked very hard and was very focused. We typically work 15 hours a day or more and you would not find a harder worker than him.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBank of America intern’s death puts banks’ working culture in spotlight

Baby Boomers Put Retirement on the Back Burner

"Demographics continue to define conflict in the Middle East. Here’s Egypt’s population by age group. In Western history, we showed in Financial Reckoning Day, the French and Russian revolutions also corresponded with epochs during which large cohorts of young people marauded about the countryside with nothing to do. Even here in the U.S., a restless band of baby boomers wreaked havoc in the 1960s… at least until the draft was abolished. If, as Auguste Comte suggested, 'demography is destiny,' we continue to wonder today what will happen to the West when hordes of those baby boomers, now old, have nothing to do… and no savings?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBaby Boomers Put Retirement on the Back Burner

Quicken Loans founder: Detroit bankruptcy a ‘step toward a better and brighter tomorrow’

"Dan Gilbert, whose affiliated companies own more than 30 buildings and 7.5 million square feet of real estate in downtown Detroit, said the city's apparent move toward bankruptcy is a 'first step toward a better and brighter tomorrow for our city.' His full statement is below. The Quicken Loans founder, a self-described optimist, has been investing in Detroit at an unrelenting clip for at least the past three years. Gilbert's umbrella company, Rock Ventures, which includes some 75 companies, now employs about 9,200 people in downtown Detroit, and has a total workforce of about 15,000 employees nationwide." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingQuicken Loans founder: Detroit bankruptcy a ‘step toward a better and brighter tomorrow’