Quokkas Vote 3 Cheers for Jill

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What a cute little Quokka family this is... Rottnest Island WA ...

Here at Quokka University, we are impressed–big-time!–by Jill at Chalcedon headquarters, who not only cleaned up this blog, but did it quickly, with hardly any down time. Crikey, can you imagine how many quokkas it would’ve taken to do that job?

We hope this means you’re all going to get your email notifications from now on, that your comments will all be published, and that it will no longer be impossible to view older posts. The reblog still doesn’t work, but probably that had nothing to do with our using an old retired theme. Lee still doesn’t understand what a “theme” is. That makes two of us.

Anyway… could we please get back to business now? We are back in working order, so let’s have some readership! Our regular readers stuck with us through these past five weeks of computer-generated futility, but our casual readership went down the drain.  I’ve heard there is a spotted quoll who knows how to bring it back, but we have to find him before we can ask him.

Spotted-tail quoll | NSW Environment, Energy and Science  If you’ve seen him around, please let us know.

My Newswithviews Column, Aug. 13 (‘Teachers to Parents: Butt Out’)

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K-5 In Public Schools. A dejected and worried young girl in a classroom

I’m still dazzled by the arrogance of teachers’ unions–like, your own kids are none of your business? Really?

Teachers to Parents: Butt Out

It’s way, way, way past time we showed these pipsqueaks who’s boss.

Unless, of course, we’ve left it too late and now they’re our bosses.

Don’t say you weren’t warned. “Oh, not in our schools!”

Oh yes, in your schools.

‘This Is a Truly Stupid Idea: Free College’ (2016)

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Now that Doddering Joe has chosen his running mate, Whatsername, expect to see this inanity dragged out of the mothballs for another go-round.

https://leeduigon.com/?s=this+is+a+truly+stupid+idea%3A+free+college

What are we supposed to do with a couple million numbskulls with degrees in Gender Studies and Intersectional Political Ecology of Superheroes? And Democrats want to make more of them–lots more.

There is no room for doubt: their goal is to wreck the country.

By Request, ‘A Wonderful Savior’

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Requested by SlimJim (and I hope this is the hymn he wanted: titles can get tricky sometimes), a classic hymn by Fanny Crosby, A Wonderful Savior, sung by the Harding University Concert Choir. We also know this one as He Hideth My Soul.

Is It Workin’ Now?

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It looks like Jill has successfully revamped the blog so that everything will work–although I did try to reblog “Unashamed of Jesus” as a test, and again it disappeared somewhere between his page and mine.

But everything else looks A-OK!

Of course, that’s from my end. How does it look to you? I hope this new “theme” (I can’t define that term, it’s computer talk) results in everybody getting their notifications and all comments coming through as they should.

Let me know if you see any improvement.

Here Goes Nothin’…

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1,133 Blindfold Woman Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty ...

This blog is supposed to get a whole new look today. I have left it entirely in the hands of Jill at Chalcedon HQ. I don’t know how much time she’ll need to do it, and I don’t know what it’ll look like when she’s done.

To me it feels like diving into a pool blindfolded. (Ignore the woman in the picture above: if you look closely, you’ll see she’s cheating.) You saw it filled with water a minute ago, you expect it to be full of water now–but you don’t know for sure until after you jump off the board.

I don’t know whether I’ll be able to post our customary critter video this evening. It’ll be three hours earlier for Jill, she may still be working on it.

Pray it doesn’t turn out to be a disaster. The whole month of July was a disaster for this blog; we don’t need another one.

It’s ‘Unfair’ to Hire a Tutor for Your Kids?

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373 Dunce Cap Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

“Don’t talk to me, I only run the place.”

Do you still doubt that villains and idiots are in charge of public education? Here, here’s some more evidence!

Fairfax County, Virginia, suburb of Washington D.C., one of the richest counties in America (love them government paychecks!)–Fairfax school authorities have objected to parents hiring tutors for their children to tide them over while the schools are all closed by the coronavirus panic (http://americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/fairfax_county_virginia_public_schools_tell_parents_not_to_hire_tutors_because_it_is_unfair_to_kids_whose_parents_cant_afford_them_.html).

See, it’s “not fair”! What about parents who just don’t bother with a tutor? What about parents who can’t afford one? Not that there are likely to be many of those in Fairfax County. And no pooling your money to hire a tutor for a “homeschooling pod” serving several families–that’s not fair, either.

Sez the school district authorities, hiring a tutor, cooperating to hire a tutor, or switching over to homeschooling are all unfair because–wait for it!–“they may widen the gap in school access and equity for all students.” How about the gap between the administrator’s ears? Well, if that got any wider, his head would fall apart down the middle.

So everybody has to slow down in order to keep up with the dumbest, the laziest, the least motivated? Well, yeah–that’s exactly what they’re saying. If your kid winds up better educated than another kid–because you and your family worked to make it happen–that’s not “equity”! Boo, hiss!

And you want to send your children back to schools run by these nincompoops because __________?

So Who’s Famous, Really?

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Ruth, Babe | Baseball Hall of Fame

My editor, Susan, and I have a running argument over whether “internet celebrities” that I never heard of are truly famous.

I say fame ought to be enduring. If 15 minutes after you leave the stage you’re forgotten even by your nearest and dearest, that wasn’t fame you had. It was just noise.

So, for instance, Babe Ruth died years before I was born–but gee whiz, who never heard of Babe Ruth?

Here’s where Susan got off a shot that hit too close to home.

“Go around here and ask about Babe Ruth,” she said, “and see how many blank looks you get.” I have this terrible feeling that she’s right.

Why should that be? Maybe true fame is getting drowned out by here-today-gone-ten-minutes-later “internet celebrity.” There must be thousands and thousands of fleetingly “famous” characters inhabiting cyberspace.

Which would, I fear, lead to a kind of cultural amnesia–and a very fertile soil for tyrants: because people who can’t hang onto their culture from one minute to the next aren’t very good at hanging onto their freedom, either. That’s why communists always try to erase history. It’s why Democrats (same thing) tear down statues of our country’s founders.

If thousands upon thousands of internet celebrities are “famous” at any given moment, then no one is really and truly famous. We have lost fame. What we’ve gained in its place is… noise.

Comment Contest?

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Hello? Hello? Anybody there?

Hey, we’re having a comment contest here! At least I thought we were. Shooting for 64,000, with only 535 left to go. Crikey, I would’ve thought we could do that standing on our heads.

This is Byron the Quokka, in charge of rounding up comments, only there aren’t any to round up today and the wallabies are laughing at us, they’ve got comments up to their eyebrows.

(I told him the prize should be a bicycle…)

‘Stupid Masterminds!’ (2012)

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Prof. Moriarty, as captured in Strand Magazine

It’s pretty much a ghost town here this morning, with zero comments and just three likes, and one reader sort of standing in the empty street wondering where everybody went. Oh, well… We have not yet recovered from July.

Meanwhile, why are our real-life villains so stupid compared to fictional villains?

Stupid Masterminds!

And this was written years before anybody thought we ought to have a senile Joe Biden for our president and a Green New Deal to murder our economy–just in case any of it survives the coronavirus panic. Our villains hatch schemes that are guaranteed to fail!

But at least they all get rich, doing it. No one comes home poor from Capitol Hill.