DUCK DYNASTY

Willie Robertson on the

Testing of Faith and Purpose

HIGHER ED

The Top Five Ways Colleges

Waste Your Money

WORLD

Mapping the Rise of Christian

Persecution Around the Globe

ENERGY

Its Clean, Powerful and Reliable.

So Why Do We Fear Nuclear Power?

TRUTH LIVES HERE.

M AY 2 0 1 4

C L L C IV

COMMON CORES THREAT TO OUR KIDS,

OUR FREEDOM AND OUR FUTURE

W W W. T H E B L A Z E . C O M

VOL. 4, NO. 4

Dear friend,
There are some people out there who
think folks like you and me are a bit odd.
They think having a stockpile ready for a
disaster is something they can put off for
someday or never.
But those people are just hiding their
heads in the sand. They are dead wrong
-- and you are dead right.
Youve seen the evidence and you know
the situation is way too serious not to do
something about it. When a crisis hits,
youll be ready. Youll make darn sure
your family wont go hungry or get herded
into a FEMA camp.
The fact is, if you dont take action or if
you stockpile the wrong foods, you could
be setting your family up to starve. It
sounds harsh, but the truth is too many
people with good intentions are making
critical mistakes with their food stockpiles.

Well, I decided to stop worrying. Obviously,

waiting for FEMA to give me a handout in
a disaster just wasnt an option for me. And
I was completely turned off by the crazy
prices of survival food sold by most stores.
So I got in touch with my buddy Frank
Bates and put my order in for his Food4Patriots survival food kits. This is Franks
new line of survival food and there are
4 reasons why its literally fying off the
shelves:
n

MISTAKES LIKE
n

Buying MREs (meals ready to eat)

with a 5 year shelf life (depending on
where you buy them, they could be
nearly expired)

Getting gross survival foods that

taste terrible and are so high in salt,
MSG and preservatives you could
clog your arteries and get yourself
sick

Or simply buying the wrong foods

and leaving a critical hole in your
meal plan, which means your
family can become
malnourished
n

Food4Patriots is an incredible
value. This high quality survival food
is without any fllers or poor-quality
franken-food that the other guys
use to pad their survival meals. They
are made and packaged right here
in the U.S.A. You wont believe the
prices on these kits a fraction of
the price that other brands charge.
Theres no fancy packaging, its
military-grade sturdy stuff and can
stand up to the crazy things that
happen in a crisis. This food has a
shelf life of up to 25 years, so you
have complete peace of mind for the
long term. And hes using the most
compact kits so you can store them
anywhere in your home without any
extra hassle. Theyre sturdy, waterproof and stack easily. And extremely covert too.
You can make these meals in less
than 20 minutes; just add boiling
water, simmer, and serve. I tried
em and I think they taste as good
or better than any other survival
food Ive EVER had. And you get a
whole slew of choices for breakfast,
lunch and dinner so you dont get
stuck eating the same thing day-in
and day-out.
Frank has come up with some
impressive FREE bonuses that
are ONLY available to folks who purchase one of his kits on a frst-come,
frst-served basis. For example,
my 3-month kit came with 5,400+
heirloom survival seeds, 4 hard copy
books, an 11-in-1 survival tool, and
some other cool stuff.

Protect your family in a crisis with

25-year shelf life survival food from
getfood22.com

I want to make sure you dont miss out on

this because this is the #1 item to hoard
in 2014.
Heres why If you dont take action to
get your food stockpile right now, youll
be in the same boat as the brainwashed
masses who think everything is fne.
And if a crisis hits and your family asks,
What are we going to eat? your mouth
will go dry and youll feel powerless.
But what if you decide right now to secure
your food stockpile instead? Just imagine
how much better youll feel right away.
And if a crisis hits and your family asks,
What are we going to eat? youll calmly
reassure them that theyre safe and they
will have plenty to eat.
Listen, I cant predict the future. I dont
know exactly when or how a crisis will
hit. But from everything I see, it could be
soon and it could be a big one. Thats
why I really want you to get the same
peace of mind that I do.
P.S. Got a call from Frank and youll
never believe this FEMA and DHS just
tried to buy up his entire supply of food!
Can you believe that BS?

PROGRESSIVE TRACKER

Keeping an Eye on Those Guys

VOL. 4; NO. 4
MAY 2014
PUBLISHER
Glenn Beck

Kooky, but more annoying than anything else

S e n . Mar k Pr yor ,
D-Ark., one of several
vulnerable incumbents
in 2014, was asked on
Little Rocks local NBC
affiliate if, knowing
what he knows today,
he still would have
voted for ObamaCare.
Pryor responded that
he would have, claiming that, when crafting
big, difficult and
complicated legislation like this, if you
get 80 percent of this
right, youve really
done somethingwe
probably did get 80
percent of it right.

CEO
Christopher Balfe
PRESIDENT & CHIEF
OPERATING OFFICER
Carolyn Polke
PRESIDENT & CHIEF
CONTENT OFFICER
Joel Cheatwood
PRESIDENT & CHIEF
STRATEGY OFFICER
Betsy Morgan
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Scott Baker
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Chris Field
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Sharon Ambrose
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jessie Adams, T. Becket Adams,
Sara Carter, Oliver Darcy,
Billy Hallowell, Jason Howerton,
Liz Klimas, Elizabeth Kreft,
Fred Lucas, Madeleine Morgenstern,
Michael Opelka, Erica Ritz,
Sharona Schwartz, Jon Seidl,
Buck Sexton, Dave Urbanski
LAYOUT & DESIGN
AC Graphics
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY
Amber Hovey
TECH DEVELOPMENT
Kenton Jacobsen, Hamid Younessi
PRESIDENT & CHIEF
REVENUE OFFICER
Kraig Kitchin
VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES
Jeremy Price

Suspicious
Mind-bogglingly insipid
Boarding the bus to Crazy Town
Red Alert!

Democratic California state Sen. Leland

Yee, who represents ber-progressive San Francisco, has been one of
the most ardent anti-gun legislators in Americaso much so
that hes bonded closely with the
famously anti-Second Amendment former CNN primetime
bigstockphoto
host Piers Morgan. Lee was arrested in late March on arms-trafficking charges. (He also
faces corruption charges, including that he took tens of
thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and cash
in exchange for supporting contracts for clients and
influencing legislation.) According to CBS News, Lee
offered to set up meetings between arms traffickers
seeking automatic weapons and shoulder-fired missiles
and Muslim separatists in the Philippines. The senator
got pinched when a trafficker he was conspiring with
turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

Echoing the sentiments of Sen. Pryor, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,
D-Calif., declared on CNNs State of the Union that Democrats definitely will
be running on ObamaCare in the 2014 midterm. The members are proud of
what theyve done, are happy to not run away from what we have done. We are
proud of what we accomplished, she said. There may be a few [Democrats who
dont like ObamaCare], and some of them werent there to vote for the bill, some
of them were there and didnt vote for the bill, but theyre the exception. Democrats embrace the Affordable Care Act. We are very proud of it.

SALES DIRECTOR
Brad Samuel
NATIONAL ACCOUNT MANAGERS
Catherine Astalos, Cathy Deary,
Scott Kline, Stephanie Lia,
Allison Luchetti, Benjamin Pratt,
Linde Thurman
SALES ASSISTANT
Terrie Huberman

GOP Sen. Thad Cochran, Miss., is facing a

serious primary challenge this year from Tea
Party candidate Chris
McDaniel. When it was
reported that McDaniel
would be taking part in
the FreedomWorks
FreePAC event in Kentucky where Glenn Beck
and other small-government, anti-progressive
personalities would be
appearing, the Cochran
campaign attacked. Cochran, a longtime D.C.
insider, blasted his opponent for not focusing
on Mississippi.

Famously thuggish Rep.

Jim Moran, D-Va., is
feeling bad about his
and his colleagues meager salary of $174,000
he wants members of
Congress to be able to
live decently in Washington. Moran told CQ
Roll Call: The American people should know
that the members of
Congress are underpaid. I understand that
its widely felt that they
underperform, but the
fact is that this is the
board of directors for
the largest economic
entity in the world.

MANAGER, CLIENT SERVICES

Lauren Glass

POSTMASTER: Send address

changes to: The Blaze, PO
Box 16586, N. Hollywood, CA
91615-6586.
2014 All rights reserved.
Photocopying, reproduction
or quotation strictly prohibited without written permission
from the publishers. Unsolicited material cannot be acknowledged or returned.

Cover photo: bigstockphoto

The Blaze ISSN 1930-7322

is published monthly (combined
issues in Jan/Feb and July/
Aug) ten times a year for $34.95
by Mercury Radio Arts, Inc., 1133
Avenue of the Americas, 34th
Floor, New York, NY 10036. Periodicals postage paid at New York,
NY, and additional mailing offces.

MAY 2014 THEBLAZE

FIREWIRE
bigstockphoto

ENERGY

Fracking Creates Job Boom; Solar PanelsNot So Much

Recent joblessness data reveals that the lowest unemployment can be found at a natural-gas boomtown while the highest is located in a solar-panel
manufacturing community.
Midland, Texas, has a 2.9 percent unemployment
rate, the lowest in the country, reports the Washington Free Beacon. Located in West Texas, the town is
also one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the
nation thanks to its robust fracking industry.
Conversely, Yuma, Ariz., has the highest unemployment rate of any U.S. metro area at 26.1 percent. Yuma
is home of the Aqua Caliente solar plant, which is the
largest photovoltaic solar generation facility in the

world. Te facility also received a $967 million loan

guarantee from the Department of Energy in 2011.
It represents the diference between an industry
which exists of its own accord, by providing goods
and services that people actually want to buy, and an
industry that exists only by the grace of government,
which acts to mandate demand and subsidize supply,
William Yeatman, an energy policy expert with the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Beacon.
It should be intuitive that job creation is more
robust around the industry that succeeds on the
market due to its own merit, vis--vis that which
cannot succeed without favorable politics, he added.

SCIENCE

Giant Virus Frozen in Siberian Permafrost for 30,000 Years Revived

A virus, which experts say is pretty large by microbe
standards, was frozen for 30,000 years in the Siberian
permafrost, but scientists were recently able to revive
itand, yes, its still infectious.
Named Pithovirus sibericum by a team of French
scientists, the 1.5 micrometer-long virus is transmissible to unicellular protists, like amoebae.
Te revival of such an ancestral amoeba-in-

fecting virus used as a safe indicator of the possible

presence of pathogenic DNA viruses, suggests that
the thawing of permafrost either from global
warming or industrial exploitation of circumpolar
regions might not be exempt from future threats
to human or animal health, the studys abstract,
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stated.

FAITH

Christian Persecution on the Rise Worldwide

The persecution of Christians has increased over the last
10 to 15 years, said Ed Clancy, director of evangelization
and outreach at Aid to the Church in Need, in an interview with the Catholic News Agency, adding that persecution has many faces, unfortunately, and many places.
Since there is no single threat to Christians across

the world, he said, but myriad forms of oppression, it

might become more incumbent on the Catholic
Church, and Christians in general, to be aware of the
many dangers that Christians face in the world. In
other places (than the United States) theyre facing
many, many challenges.

EXTREME
HIGH TO EXTREME
HIGH
MODERATE TO HIGH

BELARUS
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

MODERATE

CUBA

AFGHANISTAN
UZBEKISTAN

TURKMENISTAN

TURKEY
ISRAEL
AND SYRIA
IRAQ
PALESTINE
EGYPT
MALI
SUDAN

NORTH
KOREA

CHINA
IRAN

SAUDI
ARABIA

PAKISTAN

INDIA

YEMEN

BURMA

ERITREA

NIGERIA

MALDIVES
TANZANIA

LAOS
VIETNAM

SRI
LANKA
INDONESIA

ZIMBABWE

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

SURVEILLANCE

Court Denounces
FAA Ban on
Paper Aircraft
Though the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) is working
on guidance that will
open up the skies for
drone use, it has been
strict on a ban against
the use of unmanned
aerial vehicles for private and commercial
purposes. But now the
National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) is
battling against this
policy.
Te NTSB court recently ruled that the
FAAs rules lead to a
conclusion that those
definitions include as
an aircraft all types of
devices/contrivances
intended for, or used
for, fight in the air. Te
extension of that conclusion would then result in the risible argument that a fight in the
air of a paper aircraf or
a toy balsa wood glider
could subject the operator to the regulatory
provisions of [the]
FAA.
The FAA is appealing the judges decision.
The agency is concerned that this decision could impact the
safe operation of the
national airspace system
and the safety of people
and property on the
ground, a FAA spokesman told TheBlaze at
the time, declining to
comment further due to
pending litigation.

FIREWIRE

SOCIETY

Doomed: NASA Study Warns of Impending Collapse

Its the end of the world as we know it, or so warns a
report sponsored by NASAs Goddard Space Flight
Center.
Te study, which has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics, says that the industrialized nations of the world have, in their pursuit of energy
resources, created an unsustainable model thats
doomed to implode on itself creating a power vacuum and chaos.
Technological change can raise the efciency
of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per
capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy efects,

the increases in consumption ofen compensate

for the increased efciency of resource use, the
study reads.
So whats the solution? Well, as summarized by
Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, executive director of the Institute
for Policy Research & Development, in the U.K.
Guardian newspaper, the fx suggested by researchers
wont be pleasant (and seems unlikely to succeed).
Te two key solutions are to reduce economic
inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable
resources and reducing population growth, Ahmed
wrote.

EDUCATION

Get Sensitive: College Lectures Staff on Heterosexual and Gender Privilege

Staff at Western Washington University (WWU)
are being trained to understand the advantages of
heterosexual privilege and gender privilege.
Campus Reform reports that performance reviews
have turned into sensitivity trainings
Put on by the dean of students, staf are expected
to sit through lessons on the topics of gender privilege, heterosexual privilege, nationality privilege and language privilege.
Te primary theme of the meetings makes
people considered privileged feel guilty and minorities feel self-pity, a WWU staf member told

Campus Reform anonymously.

Once mandatory, the meetings are now optional
afer some voiced opposition to the subject matter. Dean
of students Teodore Pratt said that, while theres always
going to be someone that may fnd some issue, the overall feedback his ofce has gotten has been positive.
What we do is if there are areas of people that are
maybe marginalized or seem to fall between the
cracks, or if youre looking at veterans, people with
disability, maybe its women, gender issues, religious
issues, we want to make our staf sensitive, Pratt told
Campus Reform.

ENVIRONMENT

Global Food Supply Triples, but Climate Alarmists

Warn of Global Mass Destruction
In the face of dire warnings from climate change doomsayers regarding the worlds food supply, crop yields are
doubling and tripling. James. M. Taylor of the Heartland Institute reports that the worlds crops are doing
just fine despite reports to the contrary. Scientific American recently ran a story titled Fortified by Global
Warming, Deadly Fungus Poisons Corn Crops, Causes
Cancer. Time claimed that Climate Change Could
Cause the Next Great Famine and argued, A new
study finds that, as the planet
warms, yields for important
staple crops like wheat
could decline sharply.
But this simply isnt true, according to Taylors research. Global corn,
rice, and wheat pro

bigstockphoto

duction have more than tripled since 1970. Te United States is experiencing a similar explosion in crop
production, with corn and rice production more than
tripling since 1970, he counters. During the past few
years, the United States has set crop production records for alfalfa, cotton, beans, sugar beets, sweet potatoes, canola, corn, faxseed, hops, rice, sorghum,
soybeans, sugarcane, sunfowers, peanuts, and wheat,
to name just a few.
Even so, politicians are not giving up. Secretary of
State John Kerry recently announced that climate
change is a top-tier diplomatic priority. Protecting our
environment and meeting the challenge of global climate change is a critical mission for me as our countrys
top diplomat, Kerry wrote in his frst Policy Guidance.
In February, Kerry also suggested climate change
was the worlds most fearsome weapon of mass
destruction.

bigstockphoto

SURVEILLANCE

Will Govt Use

Grocery Store
Discount Cards
To Spy on You?
A Canadian study recommends that health
advocates, such as governments and policy
makers, use the data
gleaned from popular
grocery store customer
discount cards to target
unhealthy communities.
Weve taken data
which most grocery and
convenience stores generate with digital scanners to identify items at
checkout. Companies
use these data and produce information for
marketing and other
purposes, said David
Buckeridge, a public
health physician and associate professor at McGill University. We
developed a way to use
these data towards a
positive public health
initiative: routine monitoring of eating habits
over time in particular
pockets of a city to reveal which populations
consume foods that can
contribute to negative
health outcomes.
The study said that
neighborhoods found
to have poor eating
habits could be targeted
by health agencies with
messaging that encouraged healthier choices.

MAY 2014 THEBLAZE

HOLLYWOOD INSIDER

Standing for Character in the Pages of Cosmo

In an unusual move, Christian principles like chastity, character and respect were endorsed on the
pages of Cosmopolitan magazine. The eldest daughters of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who are famous for having 19 children and sharing their lives
with the world on their reality TV show 19 Kids
and Counting, were recently interviewed by the
feminist publication. The girls, Jana, Jill, Jessa and
Jinger promoted their beliefs of purity until marriage and encouraged young women to have more
self-respect.
Cosmopolitan delicately asked the girls questions
like, Have you ever gotten any heat for being virgins? and So at what point do you hook up with
a guy?
Weve set our guidelines really high, and people
will not understand that, Jessa explained. Teyll
be like, Tats weird. How are you going to show you
really love the guy if youre not having sex with him
before marriage? But thats where we purpose, in
this stage of our relationship, to focus on building

Testing of
Faith and
Purpose
I loved it.
There was a
testing of the
show [last
year] Are
we just in this
for the money,
for the fame,
or is there
something
bigger?
Duck Dynasty
star Willie
Robertson in
an interview
this spring with
Breitbart News
on the dustup
surrounding
his father Phils
comments about
the gay lifestyle in
GQ last December

strong communication, because anyone can just go

out and have sex.
She added, In todays day and time, its a little bit
strange to be in your early 20s and have not had sex,
but its how our parents did it. Its how our grandparents did it. We have a self-respect where we feel confdent in who we are, even apart from having a sexual relationship.
Tey were also asked what advice they would
give to troubled young stars like Miley Cyrus and
Justin Bieber.
Its important for whoeverwhether its Miley,
Justin, anyone in the spotlightto understand they
have a whole host of people looking up to them,
Jill said. Teyre not just speaking for themselves.
Te heart of the matter is having good character
and setting an example. Lets not focus on even the
glam and sex but really encouraging good character and taking a stand for purity and respect. Because respect is last in our culture today and in pop
stars.

Rich Actress Who Could

Give More to Govt Is Apparently
Waiting To Be Forced
Sorry RNC -rich people
SHOULD pay higher taxes
because they can afford
it. End. Of. Story. xo a
rich person
Actress Kristen Bell on Twitter
bigstockphoto

MPAA Wooing Conservatives

Is Hollywood starting to shift rightward? It could be possible. The Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been lobbying hard to make
laws tougher against online piracy and is starting to court Republicans in
the process. The MPAA has a new lobbying group that strongly favors Republican candidates. The Wall Street Journal reports that Hollywood is
historically known for supporting Democrats, yet Republicans are more
philosophically inclined to side with the industrys goals of copyright protection, free trade and lower taxes.
In a report about the MPAA, Melanie Sloan, executive director of the nonproft organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said,
While Hollywoods money has typically gone to lef-leaning politicians and
causes, the MPAA has been working hard to shore up its credentials with Republicans through donations to conservative organizations and Republican
politicians.

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

D.C.
Corruption:
You Cant
Make It Up
Actress Robin Wright,
who plays Claire Underwood on the hit
Netflix production
House of Cards, proclaimed in a recent
interview with Capitol
File magazine that
D.C. is more corrupt
than Hollywood.
One of the details
that caused her to arrive at such a conclusion reportedly came
from a senior person
in the Obama administration who told her
thatlike on the hit
showreporters really
do sleep with their D.C.
sources.
That apparent ly
wasnt all she learned
while discovering what
goes on in Washington, while researching
her role as a powerful
politicians wife. She
just didnt reveal everything she was told.
D.C. is more corrupt
than Hollywood. It really is. Its more sleazy
than Hollywood
[consider ing] how
much infidelity goes
on, Wright said.

bigstockphoto

HOLLYWOOD INSIDER

No Opinions
Allowed in
Hollywood
Just Anger

Privileged Left-winger Doesnt Like Being

Called Privileged by Left-wingers
Is the Left turning on Lena Dunham? The star of HBOs Girls and outspoken feminist revealed in a podcast interview that she has been accused
of being a privileged oppressor. Dunham is well-known among conservatives for supporting President Obamas re-election with a suggestive
double entendre ad called Your First Time.
More recently, the Daily Caller reports that she is starting to feel the
heat from young progressives. She recounted a memorable experience
while talking with comedian Marc Maron on his podcast.
Dunham was asked by the student newspaper at her alma mater
Olberlin College, How does it feel to be a line item in so many peoples
stories of privilege and oppression? Tis question led Dunham to
believe that she is viewed as a privileged oppressor.
She clarifed that these questions are from people who see her oppressing others with the force of my privilege, she clarifed. She added
that some feel that Girls is not diverse enough and fails to accurately represent a cross-section of New York. Whats painful for me is
when the attacks become personal, she said. You are a privileged girl.
You are a racist. You dont understand real sufering. Like, thats when
it starts to feel like its ringing in my head and like its too hard.
bigstockphoto

NBC Sitcom To Do First Ladys Nagging for Her

The first lady is taking her Lets Move campaign to
prime time. Michelle Obama is slated to appear in the
season finale of the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. According to the network, the show was filmed
in late February in Miami where [Mrs. Obama] celebrated investments in healthier out-of-school pro-

Comedian Claims:
Pregnant Men
Would Want
Abortions
Actor Ricky Gervais is
pro-abortion and hes
not ashamed to say it.
On Twitter he said,
If right-wing Christian
men were the ones who
gave birth, there would
be abortion kits in pub
vending machines.
Among the backlash
one person retorted
and said that a childs
body belongs to the
child, and that it is the
parents job to protect
that child. Gervais response before quickly
deleting it? Youre confusing child with
bunch of cells.

grams as part of her Lets Move initiative dedicated to

solving the challenge of childhood obesity.
Obama is not the frst to politic on the comedy
other notables who have appeared on the show include Vice President Biden, Sens. John McCain, RAriz., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Maher Boosts Leno, Likens to Israel

Jay Leno got an unexpected endorsement from Bill Maher who recently inducted Leno into the TV Hall of Fame. According to Deadline.com, Maher
said at the event that Leno is a fantastic stand-up. He dubbed Lenos 20-plusyear run of hosting Te Tonight Show as a drive down a highway in some
giant gleaming pristine luxury car with the competition far in the rearview
mirrorexcept one time when NBC, driving some beat-up clunker, blindsided him
and beat the sh*t out of his beautiful car.
Maher said Leno is a victim of some bad
publicity over the years and that he did not
deserve the reputation for stealing Conan
OBriens dream, Maher opined, calling it,
the most hysterical thought Ive ever heard,
in a business known for bullsh*t.
Jay reminds me a little of Israel. He
isnt perfect, but hes held to standard I
dont think anybody in the world is expected to live up to but him. Maher continued, calling Leno the most Machiavellian and also the most morally upright
person I know in show business. He will
hide in a closet but never needs a confessional booth.
bigstockphoto

They scream
for tolerance,
they scream for
freedom of
speech, but if
you disagree at
all with what
theyre saying,
then they can
blacklist you.
They have the
power to do
that. I mean
Hollywood
doesnt owe me
anything. I get
it. I understand
that but, on the
same side, its
like OK, why
cant I have an
opinion? Why
does that cost
me jobs? I
mean theres so
much anger
in Hollywood.
Its weird. Their
arguments
arent logical.
They arent
based on fact.
They just have
an anger.
Actor Kevin Sorbo
on being an independent
in Hollywood during
an interview at
Beliefnet.com

MAY 2014 THEBLAZE

C
VAL
bigstockphoto

COVER

Witness the progressive education scheme in action. Americas education system is

being fundamentally transformed. Instead of fostering a generation of thinkers, todays
children are being indoctrinated with leftist philosophy while their privacy is being
compromised by huge data-mining systems with private interests. If fully implemented,
Common Core will serve as progressives greatest weapon against American freedom.
BY SHARON AMBROSE

tanding at the podium, George S.

Counts had his audience enraptured. The University of Chicago
professor argued that in order for
progressive education to be truly progressive it needed to come to grips with life in
all of its stark reality and fashion a compelling and challenging vision of human
destiny and become less frightened than it
is today at the bogies of imposition and
indoctrination. He argued for a change in
Americas social order through the classroom curriculum.
When Counts concluded his speech, the
room was silent. Ten there was some quiet chatter that grew into excited discussion
and support among the participants. Te
crowd had fully embraced his unfinching
philosophy. His presentation was so well

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

received that most of the remaining plans

of the 1932 Progressive Education Association meeting was suspended so that the
delegates could refect on this bold direction for progressive education. As Counts
fame grew, he was emboldened and published papers saying that there is the fallacy that man is born free and there is the
fallacy that the child is good by nature.
American progressives have long recognized the power of the American educational systemnow they have made a
huge power grab with the establishment of
the Common Core standards. Trough a
series of closed-door meetings that created
top-down policy changes, this new curriculum was quietly injected into Americas classrooms following President
Obamas 2009 stimulus bill. States were
awarded with $4.35 billion worth of Race
to the Top grants if they adopted certain

standards and requirements developed by

the U.S. Department of Education. Today,
parents, teachers and grassroots organizations throughout the country are shining
the light on the dangers of Common Core.
But progressives from government and
Big Business are doubling down. U.S.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said
that he found it fascinating that some of
the opposition to Common Core has
come from white suburban moms who
all of a suddentheir child isnt as brilliant as they thought they were. Seventytwo CEOs hailing from corporations that
usually like to stay out of the political fray,
including Harley-Davidson, General
Mills and Xerox, placed a full-page ad in
the New York Times claiming that the curriculum will meet the business communitys expectations. Which leads to the
question: Why is Common Core so im-

COVER

portant to progressives? Is Common Core

really about helping Americas kids succeed, or is it more about keeping progressives in power?
The true value of Common Core becomes apparent when considering what
progressives from today and the past have
said about their vision of the education
system and of the United States.

Language Arts Standards:

eading Isnt Funda ental
Children who know how to think for
themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where
everyone is interdependent.
John Dewey, 1899

The fundamental theme of Common

Cores English language arts (ELA) standards is a focus on non-fction informational texts. Te ELA standards were fashioned so that elementary students read no
more than 50 percent classic literature and
high school students may read only 30
percent classic literature. Te other 70 percent is comprised of informational texts.
Items on the Common Core-recommended reading list include historical documents, insulation installation manuals,
presidential executive orders, environmental programming and even Federal
Reserve documents.
The curriculum advocates a close
reading of a text in which students are
asked to analyze what theyve read strictly from the available text without a whif
of historical context. One Common Core
manual provides this explanation for
teachers giving a lesson on the Gettysburg
Address: This close reading approach
forces students to rely exclusively on the
text instead of privileging background
knowledge, and levels the playing feld for
all students as they seek to comprehend
Lincolns address.
Color teachers doubtful.
English teacher Jeremiah Chafee posted his experience with the lesson plan at
the Washington Post. He felt that the lesson
is too scripted, does not trust the students
to direct any of their own learning and
presents a narrow and shallow view of
teaching and learning.
This gives students a text they have
never seen and asks them to read it with no
preliminary introduction. Tis mimics the
conditions of a standardized test, Chafee
wrote. Asking questions about, for example,
the causes of the Civil War, are also forbidden. Why? Tese questions go outside the

text, a cardinal sin in Common Core-land.

One Washington state English teacher
who asked to remain anonymous told
TeBlaze, When I read the new Common
Core reading requirements, I told our department chair, This is ridiculous
theyre cutting out the classics. And Im
not doing it.
Close reading discourages students
from including their own views and experiences. It also narrows the scope on major
historical events. Will the Constitution have
any impact without understanding the
years of oppression the colonists endured?
Will Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have A
Dream Speech be lost without a sound
knowledge of racial segregation? Perhaps
more concerning is that this method teaches students to accept the information that
they are given without question. If students
are told that they are reading a non-fction
document from the EPA, how likely would
that same student question the validity of
man-made global warming? Being spoonfed non-fction government documents
means that a generation can grow up accepting all government documents as truth.

Institutionalizing Bias
Our major concern consequently should
be, not to keep the school from infuencing the child in a positive direction, but
rather to make certain that every Progressive school will use whatever power
it may possess in opposing and checking
the forces of social conservatism and
reaction.
George S. Counts, 1932

The Common Core curriculum has the

potential to become the most efective recruiting tool for progressives. Education
Action Group News (EAG News) reports
of a newly published Common Corealigned textbook that encourages thirdgraders to learn about rights and responsibilities from a story covering the 1985
SEIU-led janitors strike in Los Angeles.
Te Bluest Eye by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison is a Common
Core-approved book but has since been
banned from several schools because of its
explicit depiction of rape, incest, sexual
violence and pedophilia.
A Common Core-approved book for
frst-graders by the National Catholic Educational Association celebrated families headed
by same-sex couplesTe Family Book
was yanked afer an outcry from parents.
The bias even seeps into Common
Cores approved math instruction. For ex-

ample, a sixth-grade lesson plan created by

the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics asks students if they think the 2000
presidential election between George Bush
and Al Gore was fair.
And a math lesson for third-graders
instructs teachers to start the lesson by
engaging students in a discussion about the
presidents of the United States. You might
ask: What factors infuenced our last presidential race? Are there typical characteristics of a person running in any presidential race? Tere are many answers to these
questions. If no students suggest party affiliation and age at the time the person
enters office, bring these characteristics
into the discussion. Not only do these
questions appear distantly related to math,
they are also politically charged.

Math Standards: Fuzzy at Best

We want one class of persons to have a
liberal education, and we want another
class of persons, a very much larger
class of necessity in every society, to
forgo the privilege of a liberal education
and fit themselves to perform specific
diffcult manual tasks.
Woodrow Wilson, 1909
We have in the past taught algebra and
geometry to too many, not too few.
William Heard Kilpatrick, 1925

The mathematics Common Core standards apply the constructivism philosophya technique that requires students to
construct understanding of math problems. Advocates claim this will help build
critical-thinking skills. Traditional forms
of math lessons, including the tried-andtrue memorization of multiplication tables,
are not required. In fact, eighth-graders in
California are no longer required to take
an algebra class as the state moves to align
itself with the new standards.
Te math standards focuses on investigative math, which has been shown to
be a disaster, Glyn Wright, executive director of Eagle Forum, told Fox News.
With the new math standards in the
Common Core, there are no longer absolute truths. So three times four can now
equal 11 so long as a student can efectively explain how they reached that answer. Wrights comments werent some
out-of-the-blue criticism of a myth about
Common Core but were in response to
widely panned statements from an Illinois
school district ofcial.
During a Common Core town-hall
MAY 2014 THEBLAZE

COVER

meeting last summer, Amanda August, a

curriculum coordinator in a suburb of
Chicago, explained to a group of parents
that, though all students should come up
with the same correct answer regardless
how they do the math problem, theyre
less concerned with wrong answers. Under the new Common Core, even if they
said three times four was 11, said August,
if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with
their answer, really in words and in oral
explanations and they showed it in a picture, but they just got the fnal number
wrong, were more focusing on the how
and the why.
When one parent asked whether wrong
answers would be corrected, August attempted to clarify. Absolutely. Absolutely.
We want our students to compute correctly, she said. But the emphasis is really
moving more towards the explanation, and
the how, and the why, and can I really talk
through the procedures that I went
through to get this answerand not just
knowing that its 12, but why is it 12? How
do I know that?
Confrming that the emphasis on multiplication tables is out and time-consuming, multi-step processes are in (see Fuzzy
Math sidebar), August told parents, Tey
are supposed to not only be able to come
up with the same answer no matter how
they do it but theyre going to have to show,
OK, I know three times four numerically
is 12, but I can show this in a picture, I can
write a real world situation where I show
that if I put four apples into three bags
thats going to give me 12 total apples. So
theyre going to have to be able to go back
and forth between all those diferent modalities and really show that.
Stanford Prof. James Milgram, the only
mathematician on the Common Core
Validation Committee, rejected the fnal
math standards. He called the curriculum
in large measure a political document
during testimony he gave in May 2011
where he advised Texas lawmakers against
implementing the Common Core curriculum.
I had considerable influence on the
mathematics standards in the document.
However, as is ofen the case, there was input from many other sourcesincluding
state Departments of Educationthat had
to be incorporated into the standards, he
said during the testimony.
A number of these sources were mainly focused on things like making the standards as non-challenging as possible. Others were focused on making sure their

10

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

favorite topics were present and handled in

the way they liked, he said.

Co on Cores Progressive
Sugar Daddy
Education is thus a most powerful ally of
humanisim, and every American public
school is a school of humanism. What can
the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an
hour once a week, teaching only a fraction
of the children, do to stem the tide of a fveday program of humanistic teaching?
C.F. Potter, 1930

Progressives do not want to stop at Common Core. Consider what former IBM CEO
and one of the big names behind the standards, Louis Gerstner Jr., wrote in a December 2008 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
Gerstner contended that nowhere is the
progress more worthy than the crisis in our
public education system. He called for
more time in school each day, and a longer
school year. More radically he said that the
United States should abolish all local school
districts, save 70 (50 states, 20 largest cities).
Some states may choose to leave some of the
rest as community service organizations,
but they would have no direct involvement
in the critical task of establishing standards,
electing teachers and developing curricula.
Tats just the tip of the agenda for progressives business allies.
Te greatest single force behind Common Core is the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. Te Microsof founders nonproft has donated at least $150 million to
the cause, money ofered up to any stakeholderunions, colleges and universities,
state education departments, think tanks
and chambers of commerce.
Gates insists that Common Core is a
mild and reasonable approach to better
education.
In a February op-ed in USA Today, Gates
wrote, These are standards, just like the
ones schools have always had; they are not
a curriculum. Tey are a blueprint of what
students need to know, but they have nothing to say about how teachers teach that
information. Its still up to local educators to
select the curriculum.
He doubled down in March when he
told the American Enterprise Institute, To
be clear, its not [a] curriculum, its not a
textbook, its not a way of teaching. Later in
the interview he appeared bafed that Common Core has somehow gotten to be controversial.
Tough Gates likes to act incredulous at
the controversy surrounding Common

Core, critics point to his own admission

that standards are designed to create a curriculum. At the 2009 National Conference
of State Legislators (NCSL), he pronounced,
When the tests are aligned to the common
standards, the curriculum will line up as
welland that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching.
More recently, James Pellegrino, a
member of the technical advisory board
for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for College and
Career (PARCC), the consortia charged
with developing assessments aligned to the
Common Core State Standards,backed up
this claim. He told Education Week in
March, We in the assessment community
have got to get much closer to the world of
curriculum and instruction.
Just to get a grasp on Gates progressive
bona fdes, consider the unfinching endorsement of death panels the billionaire
ofered at the July 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado: Tats a trade-of society
is making because of very, very high medical costs and a lack of willingness to say,
is spending a million dollars on the last
three months of life for that patient
would it be better not to lay of those 10
teachers and to make that trade-off in
medical cost? But thats called the death
panel, and youre not supposed to have
that conversation.
Gates, who placed ahead of the Pope in
the 2010 USA Today/Gallup Poll as the ffh
most admired man in the world, has argued
against the free market. He claimed in 2010
that while capitalism does some amazing
things it has systemic problems in that the
needs of the poorest will not be prioritized
the way they would if you put a more human-values-driven system in. Government comes in for the things the market
doesnt work well on.
He also believes that children in developing countries ought to be constantly monitored and held accountable for vaccines via
tracking technology. If you could register
every birth on the cell phone, get finger
prints, get a location, then you could take the
systems where you go around and make sure
the immunizations happen, he said at the
2010 mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C.

Co on Core Database Syste s

Are Big Business
Certainly the high school must prepare
students for life. Whether, in addition, it
shall constitute itself a Public Employment Bureau, fnding positions for stu-

COVER

Co

n Cor

What is it?
Te Common Core State Standards is
the establishment of consistent K-12
education standards across the country.
Forty-fve states and the District of Columbia have adopted Common Core.
Te states that have rejected it are Texas,
Virginia, Alaska and Nebraska. Minnesota has adopted the English language
arts (ELA) standards but not the mathematics standards.

While the timelines for implementation

among the states varies, the two major
state consortia that developed assessments aligned with Common Corethe
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers (PARCC) and the
Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium
(SBAC)will be ready for full implementation for the 2014-15 school year.

How Was It Implemented?

What sub ects are impacted?

Te curriculum was buried in President

Obamas 2009 stimulus package. Cashstarved states were ofered $4.35 billion
through the Department of Educations
Race to the Top grant program if they
adopted Common Core. Even if a state did
not win a grant, it was still required to
align with Common Core, which debunks
the myth that the efort was state-led as
the programs proponents like to claim.

Currently English language arts (ELA)

and mathematics are the only subjects
covered in Common Core. Tere is, however, a special section under the ELA standards that addresses the use of fction and
nonfction in science, social studies and
other technical subjects. Te National Science Teachers Association has already
approved of the Next Generation Science
Standards (NGSS), which, according to
the NGSS website, is working toward the

dents, keeping in touch with their careers, and assisting in their advancement,
is a matter yet to be determined.
Scott Nearing, 1915

Gates-style monitoring of the health of

Americas kids would be a seamless progression with databases now made legal
and mandatory thanks to the policies
attached to Common Core.
The National Education Data Model
defnes the types of data with which states
may populate their databases and has identifed hundreds of attributes characterizing
students, including, health care plan, insurance coverage, family income range,
religious afliation and voting status.
Many other attributes including eye color
and blood type once available for inclusion
were nixed afer public outcry. Under the
law, states are mandated to store this information and are allowed to start collecting
this data when a child is in preschool and
can follow him into his working adult life.
States did not have to search long to
fnd such a database, because Gates had
one ready to take on the task. Launched in
February 2013, inBloom touts itself as a
technological tool for teachers to easily
tailor education to the needs, skill level,

When do the standards

go into effect?

and learning pace of each individual student. Te Gates organization gave $100
million to fund this massive databank designed to amass the confdential information of American school children.
Tis database is the result of a Big Business collaboration. Te inBloom tool is contracted with Wireless Generation, a New
York-based educational analytics and assessment frm that was purchased by Rupert
Murdochs News Corp for $390 million in
2010. Jefrey Bezos Amazon will host the
cloud that will store the student data.
New York City education advocate Leonie Haimson reports that inBloom has
come under attack from New York City
parents furious that their childrens personal information will be gathered by a private
company and stored on a vulnerable data
cloud. If this information leaks out or is
improperly used, it could stigmatize a child
and damage his or her prospects for life. Te
state and the city are setting themselves up
for multimillion-dollar class-action suits if
and when these data breaches occur, she
wrote in the New York Post.
In fact, the Gates Foundation has been
funding a number of new monitoring and
data-collecting technologies, which has
privacy advocates on high alert. A bioen-

integration of the NGSS and Common

Core in the classroom. Tere are also efforts to create standards that align with
Common Core in the subjects of world
languages and the arts.

Does it affect home-schoolers

or private school students?
Yes. While Common Core ofcially is
required only for public schools, there
are big implications for private and
home-school students. Standardized
tests that colleges rely on to determine
student acceptance are aligning with the
Common Core curriculum. Also, the
information of privately educated students is expected to be collected by the
statewide longitudinal databases that are
required under Common Core. At the
National Conference on Student Assessment in 2011, ofcials from Oklahoma
described the challenge of meeting the
data requirements of federal and state
education policies and explained that
they are motivated to include student
groups not now included (e.g., homeschooled) in the data system.

gineer from the University of California

at San Diego (UCSD) received a $100,000
grant from the Gates Foundation to develop a tattoo-like device that can monitor the vital signs of pregnant women in
developing countries. According to reports from UCSD, The device could
transmit signals to a mobile phone and
upload them to the cloud so that a doctor
elsewhere can review them.
Te foundation has also given $1.4 million worth of grants to select researchers to
start testing a biometric bracelet. When
worn by students, it can measure vital signals to determine how students are responding to classroom lessons. Debbie Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Gates
Foundation, told Reuters that we need
universal, valid, reliable and practical instruments such as the biosensors. Tough,
almost admitting that there are fears over
the potential risks of such technology, she
added, Its hard for one to say what people
may, at some point, decide to do with this.
Gates and other tech giants such as Apple
and Google are anticipating huge profts from
Common Core. Te Silicon Valley Business
Journal reports that the education/technology
sector is expected to more than double in size
to $13.4 billion by 2017. Tat growth is driven
MAY 2014 THEBLAZE

11

COVER

by the digital learning and testing mandates

of Common Core. Gates revealed at the 2009
NCSL, For the frst time, there will be a large
uniform base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every
teacher get better.
With the uniformity that Common
Core creates among the states, Gates knows
that companies like Microsof will be able
to deliver the only product available to the
masses for education purposes, either via
standardized tests, textbooks or digital
learning tools.
Curriculum writer and author Robert
D. Shepherd contends that inBloom alone
will reap massive revenues for Gates. Tere
were 55,235,000 K-12 public school students in the U.S. in 2010. At $5.00 apiece for
i n Bl o om , t hat wou l d amou nt to
$276,175,000 a year, he postulated on the
website of education watchdog Andrea
Garbor. And if inBloom had a large existing database, it would become a monopoly
provider. Switching from it would be next
to impossible.

y Mat
Te Common Core math standards serve to make simple mathematics more complicated. Heres one example of the types of new math many parents and teachers have
been criticizing:

Add 26 + 17 by breaking apart nu bers to ake a ten.

Use a nu ber that adds with the 6 in 26 to ake a 10.
Since 6 + 4 = 10, use 4.
Think: 17 = 4 + 13
Add 26 + 4 = 30
Add 30 + 13 = 43.
So, 26 + 17 = 43.
Parents in Atlanta, Ga., received a note from elementary school ofcials who attempted
to clarify the Common Core math philosophy. In it, moms and dads are told that their
traditional methods of doing math is part of the old language and that this new system
will create a deeper understanding of math for students. Education watch group Truth
in American Education obtained the full letterhere TeBlaze has compiled some of the
highlights:

OLD LANGUAGE

The End Ga e
A dying laissez-faire must be completely
destroyed and all of us, including the
owners, must be subjected to a large
degree of social control. The major function of the school is the social orientation
of the individual. It must seek to give him
understanding of the transition to a new
social order.
Willard Givens, 1935

A fully implemented Common Core has

huge ramifcations for America. Its agenda-driven lessons will discourage diverse
thought and opinion. Its data-mining program has the potential to virtually eliminate the notion of civilian privacy. And it
will empower Big Business progressives
who will proft from it all.
A defeat of Common Core is essential
in the fight for liberty in America. And
there is no better time than now to invalidate George Counts assessment of America when he said:
Already we live in an economy which, in
its function, is fundamentally cooperative.
Tere merely remains the task of reconstructing our economic forms and of reformulating
our social ideals so that they may be in harmony with the underlying facts of life. Te
man who would live unto himself alone is
now a public enemy; the day of individualism
in the economic sphere is gone.
Americans must choose: individuals or
the collective?

12

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

word proble

NEW LANGUAGE
ath situation

carry the one

regroup ten ones as a ten

borrow

take a ten and regroup it as ten ones

*add

increase

*subtract

decrease

* ore than/fewer than

co pare

How do you know?

evidence

*Please note that we do still use add/subtract, ore than/less than, but we interchange it with the
new language you see listed beside each of these words to create a deeper understanding.

The old way to solve

an addition proble :

The new way to solve

an addition ath situation:

TOGETHER,
WE CAN DO MORE
SO GOVERNMENT DOES LESS.
WWW.MERCURYONE.ORG

OUR F AVORITE
FEATURE

ed Turner ruined my childhood.

In 1990, Turner created a Saturday morning cartoon that made
me afraid that everything I did
hurt Mother Earth. That show, Captain
Planet and the Planeteers, was pure ecopropaganda. The general storyline was a
6-year-old Al Gores dream. Five kids are
summoned by Gaia (voiced by Whoopi
Goldberg for the frst three years) to fght
against big corporations and their devastating Earth-killing activities. When the battle
is too much for the kids to take, they can
pool their powers (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water,
Heart) together and summon Captain
Planet who, of course, saves the world from
the brink of utter environmental disaster.
Captain Planets most menacing nemesis was a character named Duke
Nukema mutated giant glowing block
of yellow yuck. Te toxic terrors goal was
to turn Earth into one big radioactive zone,
and he introduced himself as the Radiation king, at your service. Te ignorants
call me a mutant, I prefer to think of myself
as the future of mankind!
A nuclear-power-themed eco-villain the
future of mankind? In the early 90s, that
just seemed ridiculous. Everyone knew
Duke Nukem was a bad guy and, therefore,

14

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

by association, so was nuclear power.

I had nightmares of Duke setting of nuclear reactors in my bedroom, mutating my
teddy bears into gruesome fufy piles of goo.
But Duke Nukem was hardly the frst character to embody the fear of nuclear power.
A year before Captain Planet and the
Planeteers promoted childhood eco-terrorism, Te Simpsons introduced us to
Charles Montgomery Burns, Homer Simpsons excellently evil boss and owner of the
Springfeld Nuclear Power plant.
In the early 80s, DC comics introduced
a cunning adversary for Superman called
Neutron. A former security guard at a
nuclear power plant, Neutron had the misfortune of being caught in a meltdown,
turning his body into nuclear energy contained in a special suit. When battling Superman, Neutron could also call for help
from members of the supervillain Nuclear
Legion: Professor Radium, Geiger, Nuclear,
Mister Nitro and Reactron.
In 1962, Dr. No permanently etched
two distinct images in our culture forever:
Ursula Andress white bikini and hidden
island nuclear power facilities used for
world domination.
We love to hate nuclear power.
We perceive nuclear energy as some-

thing to be feared, something uncontrollable, something evil that must be combatted with our most moral (and
make-believe) do-gooders. Tat perception is so embedded in our culture that it
trumps all fact about the energy source.
When people think of nuclear power,
disastrous images are conjured upthe
rotting Ferris wheel near Chernobyl, Jane
Fonda protesting Tree Mile Island, and
little Japanese children trying to enjoy life
with medical masks on.
Most people do not think sunshine,
rainbows and lollipops when they think
nuclear power.

Whats the Truth?

For an episode of Te Wonderful World

of Stu on TeBlaze TV, we went out and
proved just how terrifying people think
nuclear power is. When asked how many
Americans have died as a result of nuclear
meltdowns at power plants, people answered from 17 to an incredible 100,000.
Te real answer? Zero.
Of course the average person is going to
think this way when organizations like
Greenpeace characterize nuclear power in
the most cartoonishly evil way possible.
When youre bombarded with images of

FEATURE

activists in gas masks carrying signs declaring, Nuclear is going to blow up the planet! youre not going to feel warm and fuzzy
about the energy source.
Te truth about nuclear power has long
been overshadowed by outlandish and false
representation. Totally uninterested in the
facts, Greenpeace even managed to completely dismiss one of its founders, Patrick
Moore, when he began sharing truth about
nuclear power instead of fearmongering.
Jane Fonda didnt have her facts straight
when she was protesting Tree Mile Island
following its 1979 partial meltdown (her
anti-nuclear propaganda flm Te China
Syndrome had been fully embraced by the
Lef earlier that year). Neither did Patrick
Moore at the time, but he later came to the
conclusion that Tree Mile Island was in
fact a success story. Te concrete containment structure did just what it was designed
to doprevent radiation from escaping into
the environment, Moore wrote in an April
16, 2006, op-ed for the Washington Post.
And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among
nuclear workers or nearby residents.
Despite what their former founder says,
the world will never see Greenpeace activists outside Tree Mile Islandwhich is
still in operation and powering 800,000
homes from its undamaged reactor today,
by the waywith posters that say Tree
Mile Island Is A Success Story! and Long
Live Tree Mile Island!
What about Chernobyl? What happened April 26, 1986, was no doubt terrible. But it was an accident waiting to happen: The Soviet reactor simply had no
containment vessel.
Greenpeace tells the story of Chernobyl
like its an NC-17 horror flm. In 2006, the
organization released its own report, Te
Chernobyl Catastrophe: Consequences on

Human Health, on the fatalities caused by

the meltdown at Chernobyl, and their fndings seemed catastrophic. Tey predicted
approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000
fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl.
The report also concluded that an additional 60,000 people have died in Russia
because of the Chernobyl accident and that
another 140,000 deaths could occur in
Ukraine and Belarus.
Tats an incredible number compared
to the World Health Organizations ofcial
estimate that up to 4,000 people could die
eventually of radiation exposure from
Chernobyl.
What is the total fatality number?
Around 50 deaths have been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster.
Granted, thats 50 deaths and 4,000 possible deaths too many, but the carnage is
not what Greenpeace purports it to be.
Its interesting that the WHO labels
mental health as the largest public
health problem created by the accident
alongside death and disease. WHO partially attributes this to a lack of accurate
informationmanifesting as negative
self-assessments of health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative and
dependency on assistance from the state.
Te truth is that Chernobyl serves another sad instance where perception of nuclear power trumps fact. Its widely considered the worst nuclear disaster of all timea
pretty amazing title considering the plant
continued to operate until 2000 and still, to
this day, employs 3,800 people. What those
people do since the remaining reactors are
decommissioned is unclear, but since damaged nuclear fuel remains on site, the plant
has to be stafed and people are happy for the
jobs. Six million people still call the area
around Chernobyl home, and it is not the
wasteland the world perceives it to be.

Oh, and the ominous iconic Ferris

wheel? Rotting from old age and neglect
not radiation.
What about Japans Fukushima? It has
been three years since the Fukushima disaster, and no one has died as a result of
radiation exposure. According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the
Effect of Atomic Radiation, Radiation
exposure following the nuclear accident at
Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health efects. It is unlikely to be
able to attribute any health efects in the
future among the general public and the
vast majority of workers.
But that declaration wont stop Greenpeace from printing posters with nuclear
skulls on them saying Save the children of
Fukushima!
Reports of a rise in the number of Japanese children being stricken with thyroid
cancer in the areas around Fukushima has
made headlines worldwide. But a piece for
National Geographic reveals the Japanese
government has stated that the increased
number cases are not a direct result of radiation released during the meltdownits
simply a result of testing a bigger pool of
children.

Trashing the Only

Viable Green Power

Why such anti-Fukushima hate from

Greenpeace then? Because they dont want
to admit that they have been vilifying the
very energy source that can accommodate
our growing energy needs in a completely
renewable and green way.
Nuclear power is the most viable green
energy source available to us at the moment. According to the EPAs Clean Energy site, nuclear power plants do not
emit carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or
nitrogen oxides.
MAY 2014 THEBLAZE

15

FEATURE

Nuclear
19.5 %

Hydroelectric
6.7%
Wind 4.1%

N atural
Gas
2 7.5%

Biomass 1.5%
Petroleum 0.7%

Coal
39.1%

Geothermal 0.4%
Other Gases 0.3%
Solar 0.2%

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

If Greenpeace truly cared about actual

deaths that can be linked directly to energy
production, they would be more concerned about the 5,000 coal-mining deaths
that occur worldwide each year instead of
the zero deaths caused by nuclear radiation
accidents in the United States. Nuclear
power could help bring those fatal coal statistics around the world down.
Most Americans would likely be surprised to learn there are currently 65 commercially operating nuclear power plants
with 104 nuclear reactors in America accounting for 20 percent of U.S. electricity
since 1990.
Solar, geothermal and wind power just
arent growing at a pace to be a realistic
competitor to coal. Wind accounted for 4.1
percent, geothermal 0.4 percent and solar
power a paltry 0.2 percent of total electricity generation in the United States in 2013.
None of these came close to coals 39.1 percent share of U.S. electricity.
Even France is getting it right: The
country has embraced nuclear power with
open arms out of necessity. And it works
for them. Nuclear accounts for 75 percent
of the countrys electricity generation.
Te French dont vilify nuclear power
the way greens do in America. Tats because the French actually worked hard to

16

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

promote positive feelings about the technology with advertising campaigns and
soliciting tours of their nuclear plants
which millions of French people have
taken them up on.
Tey like nuclear because its easily recycled and the waste is very small. Picture
this: Te waste from a French family of four
using nuclear power fueled electricity for 20
years is a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette
lighter. Cest une nouvelle incroyable!
If France isnt afraid of nuclear power,
America shouldnt be either.

Disneys Three Wishes

Tere was a time in America when one of

the most prolifc, lasting and wholesome
contributors to American culture and media sought to paint nuclear power in a
much less fearful light.
Tat person was none other than Walt
Disney.
In 1956, Disney released a tandem
book and television special called The
Walt Disney Story of Our Friend the
Atom. In the foreword, Disney boldly
states, The atom is our future. Atomic
science began as a positive, creative
thought. It has created modern science
with its many benefts for mankind. In this
sense, our book tries to make it clear to

you that we can indeed look upon the

atom as our friend.
Quite a gutsy move to reimagine nuclear power as our friend only a decade afer
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Disney was
a pioneer who didnt let stereotypes weigh
him down.
Disney used the story of Te Fisherman and the Genie to illustrate how we
could harness nuclear energy for good.
Nuclear power is the proverbial genie in
the bottle. We have found this extraordinary energy source. Its up to us how we use
it. Like the story, Disney offers up three
wishes for the atomic genie.
Disneys frst wish is for renewable power: Te coal and oil resources of our planet are dwindling, yet we need more and
more power. Te atomic Genie ofers us an
almost endless source of energy.
With power under control, Disneys
second wish is for food and health: Te
atomic Genie ofers us a source of benefcial rays. Tese are magic told of research
which can, above all, help us to produce
more food for the world and to promote
the health of mankind.
And the third and most important wish
is for peace: Te atomic genie holds in his
hands the powers of both creation and destruction. The world has reason to fear

FEATURE

those powers of destruction. Tey could

yet destroy civilization and much of humankind. So our last wish should simply
be for the atomic genie to remain forever
our friend!
Disneys three wishes for nuclear power
show us what hope there once was in
America for the energy source. He made
nuclear power sound exciting, but he also
made it clear that, like the powerful genie,
its powers need to be harnessed responsibly. He was adamant that nuclear power
was characterized as our friend. A far cry
from the villainous Dr. No and Duke
Nukem characterizations.
Walt Disney so believed in the future
of nuclear power that he outlined in
Our Friend the Atom plans to build a
Hall of Science in the Tomorrowland
section of Disneyland where we will
among other things put up an exhibit of
atomic energy.
Tis idea actually culminated in an exhibit at the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York.
Te exhibit was called Progressland (a title
surely Glenn Beck would hate). General
Electric and Disney teamed up to produce
the exhibit, which featured the frst public

demonstration of atomic fusion. It was the

climax of the Progressland visit. General
Electric described the demonstration in
full detail:
Everyone looks intently at the large
quartz tube atop the fusion equipment at
the bottom of the centerwell. Te countdown ends. Tere is a sudden brilliant burst
of light and a crash of discharging high
voltage that echoes and re-echoes through
the centerwell. You have just seen one of the
frst public demonstrations of fusionthe
energy source that may someday supply all
the electricity well ever need.
Could the Disney corporation put on
an exhibit glorifying the benefts of nuclear power today without riots and protests
from activists? Could Disney produce a
television series on atomic energy and
write a 162-page book about the subject
today?
Disneys hope for nuclear power and his
image of the atom as our friend has been
lost to misinformation and a deeply held
perception that nuclear power is inherently bad. But we must remember that
Disney was fghting an uphill battle, too,
when he introduced nuclear power to the

world as a positive force. In Our Friend

the Atom he wrote: So far, the atom is a
superb villain. Its power of destruction is
foremost in our minds. But the same power can be put to use for creation, for the
welfare of all mankind. What will eventually be done with the atom? It is up to us to
give the story a happy ending. If we use
atomic energy wisely, we can make a hero
out of a villain.
If anything, nuclear power is already a
hero, albeit the antihero. Few people currently expect nuclear to be our key to energy independence and our solution for
renewable energy. But just like the 104 reactors providing life-giving electricity to
families every day in the United States,
nuclear power will grow quietly beneath
the yowls of the critics who will one day
sing its praises.
Duke Nukem may have been right all
along: Te ignorants call me a mutant, I
prefer to think of myself as the future of
mankind!
Future of mankind, indeed.
NATASHA PASCETTA IS A PRODUCER FOR
THEBLAZE TV.

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17

WORTH 1,000 WORDS

Cant Get No Respect

U.S. spending on public schooling has soared over the last 40-plus years, and the education
bureaucracy has ballooned. In fact, according to the Cato Institute, the total cost of a public school
K-12 education for a single student on the day of his graduation, in inflation-adjusted dollars, has
increased from $56,903 in 1970 to $164,426 in 2010. What has been the return on our investment? Weak enrollment and not-so-great achievement.

A new Gallup poll shows that, for the first time, a

majority of Americans believe foreign leaders
dont respect President Obama. The soured
attitude comes not from Republicanstheyve
always doubted his international cloutbut from
independents and Democrats.

Percent (%)

What Our Education Bucks Have Bought Us

200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20

Total cost
Employees
Enrollment
Reading scores
Math scores
Science scores

1970

1976

1982

Do you think leaders of other countries

respect President Obama?
% Respect him

67

1988

1994

2000

2006

20

2012

% Do not respect him

56

52

51

51

53

39

41

44

43

41

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Sources: Cato Institute; U.S. Department of Education; and NAEP testing

2009

% Respect
him

% Do not
respect him

2013

80

14

2014

69

28

Change (pct. pts.)

-11

+14

2013

49

45

2014

34

57

Change (pct. pts.)

-15

+12

2013

21

74

2014

19

77

Change (pct. pts.)

-2

+3

Good Luck Fixing the Debt Without Serious Reform

For years now, conservatives have been pointing out that, in order to get spending under control and
reduce the debt/deficits, we must reform entitlements and address military spending. Two-thirds of all
federal expenditures last year were on mandatory spending, while Defense took up nearly one-fifth.

Democrats

Share of Federal Spending in 2013

Independents

66%

80%

Net interest 6%
Welfare programs and
other entitlements 16%

60%
40%

34%

Medicare, Medicaid, and

other health programs 22%

International
affairs 1%

All other spending 12%

20%
Social Security 22%

Education and
training 3%

Defense 18%

0%

Everything Else

Mandatory Spending
Sources: Office of Management and Budget; The Heritage Foundation

A White House in Love With Red Tape

For five years, President Obama has been exploiting regulation to implement his far-left progressive
agenda. Red Tape Rising: Five Years of Regulatory Expansion, a report from The Heritage Foundation,
reveals that the Government Accountability Offices data shows that the administration has issued 157
new major rules, costing Americans about $73 billion annuallymore than double the number of
major rules (62) and triple the cost of regulation ($22 billion) implemented during the first five years of
the George W. Bush administration. And the White House isnt slowing down: Federal agencies have
another 125 major rules they planning to work on this year.

Bush

No. of major rules issued

50

47

40

18

20
10

Obama

26

24

25

26

71

67
56
51 51

65

47 4248
33 30

27

30

% Dissatisfied

61

68 66
63 63 64 61
58

54
40
43
35 35 36 37
37 30 32

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2009

2010

Sources: Government Accountability Office; Red Tape Rising, The Heritage Foundation

18

Are you satisfied with the position of

the U.S. in the world today?

67

10

Not only are Americans negative about the

presidents respectability among world leaders,
theyre also dissatisfied with our position in the
world. HotAir.coms Allahpundit points out:
Americans satisfaction with the countrys place in
the world goes south under Bush as the Iraq War
drags onbut it never recovers. Compare the
numbers in 2007, at the height of sectarian
violence in Iraq, to the numbers today. Identical.
Nothing Obamas done, including total withdrawal
from Iraq, has moved the needle much.

% Satisfied

33

30

Republicans

THEBLAZE MAY 2014

2011

2012

2013
Source: Gallup

Visit alphapub.com to read Natural-law Essays and eBooks FREE

Ancient scriptural writings abound,

describing the
downfall of those
civilizations that
had failed to
obey the creators
behavioral laws.
For example, what are the results experienced at every multi-nation
activity? Do people behave according to the natural Law of Right
Action identied by Richard Wetherill decades ago, calling for
people to be rational and honest? No, they do not!

Just found your site. I

was quite impressed and
look forward to hours of
enjoyment and learning.
Thanks. - Frank

The fact that although for several years, the information of the Law
of Right Action has been made available to hundreds of thousands
here and abroad, irrational, dishonest behavior still prevails.
It seems that most peoples attitudes and actions still reect their
choice of whatever irrational, dishonest action they think will serve
their purposes.
Could it be that our unusual weather conditions are being used by
the creator to draw attention to the publics unchanged attitudes and
actions, lest they receive the kind of wrong results described over and
over again in the Old Testament?
Let this be the generation of those who recognize the error of
their ways and quickly resolve to do that which is naturally law-

I have nished reading

the book How To Solve
Problems. So simple, yet
so profound and powerful.
Thank you. - Alex

ful and right and also to delight in the ancient promise that such
persons will surely live and shall not die.
Visit alphapub.com for more information or for a free mailing
write to The Alpha Publishing House, PO Box 255, Royersford,
PA 19468.

This public-service message is from a self-nanced, nonprot group of former students of Mr. Wetherill.

s
e
g
e
l
l
o
C8
y
e
n
o
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ou

Top

Q5Q

Ways

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BY JOHN ZMIRAK

ill your kids work their way through college? Not likely.
Te average college graduate owes more than $27,000and one out of 10 owes more than $40,000. Tuitions have risen almost
25 percent faster than infation in just the past fve years. Now a year of college can cost more than a luxury car. No kidding: Forbes
reports that expenses at Sarah Lawrence run $62,636 annually, which is more than the price of a new C-class Mercedes.
What are colleges doing with all that money? Te Intercollegiate Review took a look. Tis lively campus magazine is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (isi.org), a network of conservative intellectuals, which also produces the acclaimed guide Choosing the Right College.
Here are the fve most egregious wastes of college cash that ISI found:

#5:

Dorms that put

spas to shame
In 2012, the Fiscal Times listed
the 10 most lavish dorms at public colleges. Here are some highlights of what these taxpayersupported schools are offering
18-year-olds:
Georgia State, University Commons: This gated community
complex ofers fully furnished
private rooms wired with highspeed Ethernet, a high-speed
voice link, and cable TVand
all this for underclassmen.
Purdue University, First Street
Towers: Tis $52 million complex offers single air-conditioned rooms with private baths,
plus plenty of student lounges
with 47-inch fat-screen TVs,
custom-designed entertainment
centers, and ceramic-tiled kitchenettes.
University of Cincinnati, Campus Recreation Center Housing:
Tis dorm comes complete with
a 40-foot climbing wall, a ftness
center with more than 200 machines, an Olympic-sized lap pool
... a suspended indoor track, and
a six-court gym, plus a convenience store and a dining hall
with seven taste stations.

#4:

Sex change operations

Joining some 37 other fashionable schools, Duke University announced

in May 2013 that it would be raising student fees to cover the cost of
gender-reassignment surgery, a controversial and irreversible procedure. A school ofcial boasted to the Duke Chronicle that Duke has one
of the most, if not the most, transgender-inclusive plans in the country.

#3:

Ideological boondoggles

In Los Angeles, the taxpayer-funded community college system wasted more than $10 million trying to take itself of the energy grid. Te
goal was nice, green energy generated from solar, wind and geothermal sources. But as the Los Angeles Times reported, these pricey projects never powered a single campus buildingand the wind turbines
couldnt even power a 60-watt light bulb.

#2:

Overpaid executives

Te median pay for presidents of public colleges was $441,392 in

2011-12, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Four presidents earned more than $1 million. Te top earner was Penn States
Graham Spanier, who collected $2.9 million the year he was fred for
bungling the Jerry Sandusky/Joe Paterno child-sex-abuse scandal.

#1:

Too many useless

administrators
and staffers
Tink tuition dollars are going
toward good classroom instruction? Tink again. As the
Washington Monthly reported,
since 1970, the number of college professors and students has
increased by about 50 percentbut the number of administrators has shot up 85
percent, and the num ber of
administrative stafers has risen 240 percent. The result is
that classes are taught by starving adjuncts, while campuses
crawl with diversity enforcement ofcers. Te University
of North Carolina at Wilmington recently increased funding
for its fve diversity-multicultural ofcesand then merged
two science departments to
save money.

Spending all this money isnt improving outcomes. Te Society for Human Resource Management polled
employers and found: Almost one-half of organizations (49 percent) believed that 2013 college graduates
are lacking the knowledge and basic skill of writing in English (grammar and spelling). Eighteen percent
believed they are lacking in math skills, and 13 percent believed they are lacking in English speaking skills.
Check out Choosing the Right College (collegeguide.org) for a savvy roadmap toward fnding an afordable, high-quality liberal arts education and surviving lefist campus madness.