Category Archives: Education

Education

Zachary Ruff, Asst. Principal Berates Christian Students and Says “I Don’t Give a F*** what you Think Jesus Tells Me” Finally Resigns

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LOL, Ruff strutting around like a cock-o-the walk when actually he’s just a wet hen.  Thank heavens he has moved on but unfortunately he has likely gone on to warp other nascent minds.  Thank you, Downington School District!  Zachary Ruff, TURD.

From constitution.com dated 5/11/2017 by Onan Coca entitled, “Public School Principal who Berated Christians and said “I Don’t Give a F*** what you Think Jesus Tells Me” Finally Resigns”

 


 

A couple of weeks ago we brought you the harrowing story of 16-year old Conner Haines who was publicly and rudely accosted by an assistant principal at his High School.

After school one day in April, Haines and his sister were standing on the public sidewalk in front of the school holding pro-life signs when they were approached by Assistant Principal Dr. Zachary Ruff. Ruff began berating and threatening the pair and demanded that they remove themselves from near the school immediately. Undaunted, Haines replied that they were on a public sidewalk and within their rights to stand their holding their signs. This defiance sent Ruff into a rage and the entire incident was caught on tape.

When Conner tells Ruff that the babies being aborted are “image bearers” of God, the principal tells the young man that he “can go to hell, where they are, too.” Think about that, a public school official just told one of his students that he can “go to hell” while also insinuating that the murdered children are also in hell. Does that sound like the kind of thing a man in his position should say? Does this sound like the kind of man that should be in authority over our children?

Ruff [later] attacks Conner’s Christian faith. When Conner tells the principal that Jesus could forgive him of his sins, Ruff explodes in anger and begins berating the 16-year old.

“Listen here son, alright?” Ruff said with a chuckle. “I’m as gay as the day is long and twice as sunny. I don’t give a f*** what you think Jesus tells me and what I should and should not be doing.” Ruff also called the Bible a “book of fiction” and told Conner Haines that “you and Trump can go to hell.”
Ruff can be heard telling the student to “go to hell” on two different occasions, he can also be heard cursing loudly and aggressively at the young man. During the confrontation Ruff also insults the young man’s religious faith and acts so aggressively in an attempt to physically intimidate Haines that a nearby parent was forced to step in to protect the young man.

The ensuing kerfuffle terrified the school district which decided to suspend the assistant principal while they investigated the matter. Ruff defended himself by arguing that Haines posed a threat to the students safety and that the two protesters had been banging on passing cars. Through the investigation the school was able to ascertain that both of these assertions were patently untrue and Ruff had simply been lying to cover for his own bad behavior. Once the school district confronted Ruff with their findings he and his lawyer must have realized that there was simply no plausible defense for his behavior and the assistant principal chose to tender his resignation instead of allowing the school to fire him.

In a press release from the Downington Area School District the school condemned Ruff’s behavior and promised the community that their schools fully supported every student’s right to free speech and free expression.

On Thursday afternoon, May 11, 2017 Dr. Zachary Ruff, Dean of Student Life and Academics at the Downingtown STEM Academy, tendered his resignation to the Downingtown Area School District Board of Directors. Dr. Ruff, the School Board, Administration and all members of the Downingtown Area School District would like to put this terribly unfortunate incident in the past to enable everyone to move forward.

Dr. Ruff’s resignation comes following a “Loudermill” hearing that was held on Friday, May 5, 2017. This hearing is required for all tenured employees under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. During this hearing, Dr. Ruff was given notice of the allegations against him and was given an opportunity to present his version of the series of events that occurred on April 21, 2017. Dr. Ruff, his attorney Thomas Kelly, and the District’s solicitor reviewed and discussed the confrontation that was caught on a YouTube video and substantiated by DASD surveillance video. In addition, it was noted that the DASD surveillance video did not substantiate the allegation that the demonstrators were banging on cars.

After hearing his side of the story in accordance with due process, Dr. Ruff brought up the possibility that he would resign. Dr. Ruff asked for, and received, additional time to review the charges and subsequent evidence to determine whether he would resign from employment. At the conclusion of the hearing, the District suspended Dr. Ruff without pay. Today he tendered his resignation to the School Board…

In reviewing the video, Dr. Ruff knew that the conduct he displayed was not representative of who he is and was not representative of the kind of educational leader he prided himself on being. Dr. Ruff has acknowledged that the demonstrators had a right to be on a public sidewalk. He acknowledged that his conduct cannot be defended or condoned and he deeply regretted his actions as displayed on the video.

This school district will not interfere with the rights of anyone to express themselves, as those US Constitutional 1st Amendment rights are established in law. The Downingtown Area School District has policies that comply with all legal requirements, including compliance with the First Amendment. The two demonstrators had a right to be on a public sidewalk and a legal right to speak there as well.

We applaud Downington School Districts stated commitment to protecting the rights of their students and are glad to hear that Conner Haines and his sister have been vindicated in this matter. It is our hope that students across America will continue to enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers fought so hard to secure for us, but with hundred and perhaps thousands of educators like Ruff in America today… we are pessimistic about the future of our nation’s education system. Lovers of liberty, we must continue to fight fore the freedoms that the left is trying so hard to take away from us.

Education, Environment, Politics

Fewer Than 1 Percent Of Papers in “Scientific” Journals Follow Scientific Method

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I knew there was a lot of fake science out there but less than 1 percent?!  Incredible.  Forty years ago when I was doing research there was strict adherence to the scientific method, especially in referred journals.  It is incredible the road we are going DOWN.

From breitbart.com dated 3/29/2017 by Allum Bokari entitled, “J Scott Armstrong: Fewer Than 1 Percent Of Papers in Scientific Journals Follow Scientific Method”:

The World Anti-Doping Agency suspended the accreditation of the LAD laboratory in Lisbon

Fewer than 1 percent of papers published in scientific journals follow the scientific method, according to research by Wharton School professor and forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong.

Professor Armstrong, who co-founded the peer-reviewed Journal of Forecasting in 1982 and the International Journal of Forecasting in 1985, made the claim in a presentation about what he considers to be “alarmism” from forecasters over man-made climate change.

“We also go through journals and rate how well they conform to the scientific method. I used to think that maybe 10 percent of papers in my field … were maybe useful. Now it looks like maybe, one tenth of one percent follow the scientific method” said Armstrong in his presentation, which can be watched in full below. “People just don’t do it.”

Armstrong defined eight criteria for compliance with the scientific method, including full disclosure of methods, data, and other reliable information, conclusions that are consistent with the evidence, valid and simple methods, and valid and reliable data.

According to Armstrong, very little of the forecasting in climate change debate adheres to these criteria. “For example, for disclosure, we were working on polar bear [population] forecasts, and we were asked to review the government’s polar bear forecast. We asked, ‘could you send us the data’ and they said ‘No’… So we had to do it without knowing what the data were.”

According to Armstrong, forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) violate all eight criteria.

“Why is this all happening? Nobody asks them!” said Armstrong, who says that people who submit papers to journals are not required to follow the scientific method. “You send something to a journal and they don’t tell you what you have to do. They don’t say ‘here’s what science is, here’s how to do it.’”

Digging deeper into their motivations, Armstrong pointed to the wealth of incentives for publishing papers with politically convenient rather than scientific conclusions.

“They’re rewarded for doing non-scientific research. One of my favourite examples is testing statistical significance – that’s invalid. It’s been over 100 years we’ve been fighting the fight against that. Even its inventor thought it wasn’t going to amount to anything. You can be rewarded then, for following an invalid [method].”

“They cheat. If you don’t get statistically significant results, then you throw out variables, add variables, [and] eventually you get what you want.”

“My big thing is advocacy. People are asked to come up with certain answers, and in our whole field that’s been a general movement ever since I’ve been here, and it just gets worse every year. And the reason is funded research.”

“I’ve [gone through] my whole career, with lots of publications, and I’ve never gotten a research grant. And I’m proud of that now.”

Armstrong concluded his talk by arguing that scientific evidence should be required for all climate regulations.

Education

Tom Woods Book Recommendations to Understand the World

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Here are a list of books recommended by Tom Woods.  Other than all the links I clicked on taking me to Amazon (which is no friend of the Constitutionalist), they are good reads.   I have to catch up on some of them as well.  You can also find the list here.

Here’s my short list of books I would recommend to someone who is interested in the ideas on this site and wants to learn more. If you read and absorb these books you will never look at the world the same way again.

If you’re like me, you are annoyed by books that teach you three new things. My time is limited. I like books that are full of things I didn’t know, or ideas I’d never thought of.

The books I recommend below belong in that category. They teach you something new and unexpected on every page. And they are a perfect antidote to the propaganda fed to us in the ideological prison camps where most of us spent our formative years. I list them in no particular order.

Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. Important for beginners. You can read it online. Also useful for beginners is Peter Schiff’s book How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.

The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul. This is another good one for beginners. It has a good track record as a proselytizing device.

Democracy: The God that Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Just read it. Trust me on this.

The Quest for Community, by Robert Nisbet. Here is a graduate course in political philosophy. Except in this one, the state is not the glorious summit of civilization and the indispensable source of human flourishing. As the new edition explains, “Nisbet argued that the rise of the powerful modern state had eroded the sources of community—the family, the neighborhood, the church, the guild. Alienation and loneliness inevitably resulted. But as the traditional ties that bind fell away, the human impulse toward community led people to turn even more to the government itself, allowing statism — even totalitarianism — to flourish.”

The Left, the Right, and the State, by Lew Rockwell. Lew (who of course runs the indispensable LewRockwell.com) did the world an incalculable service with the founding of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, but he is grossly underrated as a thinker in his own right. He has extended Rothbardian thought in numerous ways, and has influenced my own thinking more than almost anyone in the world.

The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays. Features essays by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Gottfried Haberler, and Murray N. Rothbard. An effective introduction to the Austrian theory of the business cycle. You can read or listen to it online.

What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray N. Rothbard. An excellent little overview of the origin of money and its fate at the hands of government. You can listen to this book (along with The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar) for free.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, by Murray N. Rothbard. The quality of the essays in this book is astounding. You will not think the same way ever again after reading “Anatomy of the State” and “War, Peace, and the State,” to name just two. You can read it online.

After you read these, I recommend the following:

A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe’s books put everything together for me. You can read this one online.

The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. This book blew me away when I first read it. Its title makes it sound dull. It is one of the most intellectually exciting books I have ever read.

Man, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economic Principles, by Murray N. Rothbard. This one, and the two that follow, are for the especially ambitious. This is a systematic exposition of Austrian economics. The sheer elegance of the Austrian system is on impressive display here. The entire text is available online. A study guide is available for purchase and online.

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, by Ludwig von Mises. Available online, and as a free audiobook. See also the study guide, which can be purchased or read online. (Some disagree with me, but I favor beginning with Rothbard before moving on to Human Action.)

Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, by Jesús Huerta de Soto. Here is the Austrian theory on money, banking, and business cycles, presented in systematic fashion, and compared with the Chicago and Keynesian alternatives. I have a friend who was so impressed by this book that he learned Spanish so he could pursue his Ph.D. under the author in Spain. It is also available in pdf.

I could name other books, naturally, but to my mind these are the absolutely indispensable ones.

One of the goals of my own books, for that matter, has been to get people up to speed on various topics as quickly and with as little exertion on their part as possible. Rollback, from 2011, covers a very wide range of topics and replies to the most common objections to the free society. I was delighted to hear a student tell me just the other day, “I realized as I was reading this book that it would help me win debates.” That was part of the idea, for sure. I tried to do the same thing in some of my other titles, like The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, 33 Questions About American History, Meltdown [on the financial crisis], and Nullification.

Hope you find these helpful.

Education

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

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The Dumbing Down of America Is CompleteWOW! If these college students are representative of the country, we’re screwed.Thanks to PoliTech for letting us share this: https://www.facebook.com/politechttuVideo shared by Occupy Democrats, LIKE our page for more!

Posted by Occupy Democrats on Tuesday, February 2, 2016