- Joy Pullmann wrote a great article for The Federalist entitled, “Top Ten Things Parents Hate About Common Core.” Under “Turning Kids Into Corporate Cogs,” she writes:
Common Core makes no promises about fulfilling public education’s purpose of producing citizens capable of self-government. Instead, it focuses entirely on the materialistic benefits of education, although human civilization has instead long considered education a part of acculturating children and passing down a people’s knowledge, heritage, and morals. The workforce talk certainly tickles the ears of Common Core’s corporate supporters. Maybe that was the intent all along. But in what world do corporations get to dictate what kids learn, instead of the parents and kids themselves? Ours, apparently.
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The latest airstrikes in Syria are targeting oil facilities controlled by ISIS, which is prompting ISIS troops to flow toward Kobani (a.k.a. Ayn al-Arab), where the Kurds are pleading for help. Germany's shipment of arms and ammunition to the Kurds is stuck on a runway in Leipzig because the Dutch Air Force DC-10 they're using to transport it broke down. Jillian Kay Melchoir reported on the Kurdish perspective on the situation in Kobani based on interviews she conducted in Irbil. The Kurdish Communities Union accused the Turkish government of supporting ISIS and suggested the ceasefire with the PKK is in jeopardy.
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It's not clear how large an effect the airstrikes against the Khorasan Group in Syria will have because Khorasan “went dark” during the summer and U.S. intelligence agencies don't know for certain where they are or what they're planning.
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An Algerian ally of ISIS, Jund al-Khilafah, executed the French citizen they kidnapped, Herve Gourdel.
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The State Department added a large number of organizations and individuals to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Among them are four al Qaeda leaders, an al Shabaab leader, and three ISIS leaders.
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Noah Rothman notes that the anti-war left has all but disappeared. Apparently they're hibernating until the next Republican administration.
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The Obama White House is in the habit of demanding changes to press-pool reports, changes that go beyond correcting facts. They get away with this because they're responsible for distributing the reports (although they need not be) and the reporters aren't standing up to them.
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The “People's Climate Rally” in Oakland, California went full Communist.
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Stella Morabito argues that with single Americans about to become the majority of Americans, the Left is on its way to the abolition of state-recognized marriage. I'd prefer that the federal government get out of the business of defining marriage, which is not the same thing as banning the institution of marriage. Morabito doesn't believe the Left will stop at that point: “The politicos in charge today are often rigid social engineers equipped with Big Data and all manner of bureaucratic machinery. They see your quaint little self-governing family as a hindrance to their agenda to centralize power.”
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Adobe shut down its China R&D center, blaming an “increasingly hostile government.”
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The New York Times published a long article on the re-emergence of anti-Semitism in Europe using examples from France, Belgium, and Germany.
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A woman in Raqqa, Syria, hid a camera under her niqab to show the world what life is like under ISIS:
