The All-Important Reading Lesson

A thorough lesson on the Six Types of Syllables should be taught to new readers; to poor readers; to damaged readers; to anyone wanting to speed up and improve reading and spelling skills. With deeper Code knowledge, and improved automaticity, readers of any age will decode and interpret Print with greater finesse and fluidity. When the brain is trained to automatically handle the decoding side of reading, the reader can then focus completely on drawing meaning from the print; on comprehension. Few understand the importance of the syllables for precise speech and accurate use of English in all of its expressive and receptive forms and levels.

In fact, the ability to instantly see, identify, and use the Six Syllable Types is so important that, if I was given but one opportunity to teach onereading lesson, that lesson would be "How to Use Syllables to Improve Reading and Spelling Skills."

I purposely use the structure "if I was" because some months ago, I was given the opportunity to teach that lesson. A young man, who had always struggled with reading, was here working on my computer. I suggested that we trade skills: a reading lesson for his computer assistance. During a 90 minute lesson, I taught him to spot and use the Six Types of Syllables. I have not seen him since, but he did phone to report that the one lesson has made all of the difference; that he is now reading everything he has long wished to read; and that he is reading smoothly with rapid decoding and effective comprehension.

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Reading Comprehension depends on…and is limited by…the brain’s Ability, Agility, and Fluidity as it rejects or make connections among and between: automatic Code processing; streaming thought processes; vocabulary and concept banks; language and communication skills; storage of aural and oral information; and the reader’s knowledge and experience base.

By teaching both Phonics and the Six Syllable Types to automaticity, the brain takes over the responsibility for rapid Code processing thereby vastly improving the ability of the reader to develop brain processes that are agile and fluid while interweaving thought; while checking and rechecking knowledge, experience, and language against a developing mental image.

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GOOD JOBS TO BAD JOBS TO NO JOBS

From Good Jobs To Bad Jobs To No Jobs – The Tragic Downfall Of The American Worker

There was a time in America when virtually anyone that wanted a job could go out and get one and the United States boasted the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world. Sadly, those days are long gone. Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. But now there are millions of Americans in their prime working years that cannot find a job. Millions of others are working low wage jobs or part-time jobs because that is all they can get. The other day I went to a large retail store and I got into a conversation with the lady who was checking me out. She said that she had worked professional jobs all her life, and that she had taken this job to tide her over as she searched for a new job, but now she had been there for two years with no end in sight. I felt really bad for her, because she was obviously a sharp lady with a lot of skills. But this is the new reality. Good paying manufacturing and professional jobs are being replaced by low paying service jobs. We are transitioning from an economy with plenty of good jobs to an economy with plenty of bad jobs. The next stage in our transition will be to an economy where it seems like there are no jobs for anyone. We are witnessing the tragic downfall of the American worker, and it is heartbreaking.

Many of our politicians insist that things are getting better for American workers, but that is simply not true. Just look at the chart below. Back at the start of 2008, the percentage of working age Americans with a job was sitting at about 63 percent. Since then it has fallen below 59 percent and it has stayed there for over 3 years. After every other recession in the post-World War II era the employment-population ratio has always bounced back. That has not happened this time…

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Brown, Cummings Welcome Civil Rights Leader Jackson

Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and Rep. Elijah Cummings urged members of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators on Thursday to continue fighting racial disparities in health care, voting and unemployment.

Both men were part of the panel of speakers invited to introduce the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who received the caucus’ humanitarian award in front of approximately 200 people at the opening breakfast of the group’s annual conference in the District.

Brown, a prospective front-runner to replace Martin O’Malley as Maryland’s governor in 2014, offered surprisingly low-key comments, notably brief, that focused on thanks and recognition for various attendees.
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QUID PRO QUO

Turnout Should Be Key Factor In Any Expansion Of Early Voting, Md. Elections Director Says

State Elections Administrator Linda Lamone told a seminar of state legislators and staff Thursday that any decisions to expand early voting in Maryland should be based largely on voter turnout.

“Early voting takes a lot of stress off of election day, but do you want to spend the money to have early voting when you have a very low turnout, for example in the primary elections?” Lamone said. “We should utilize our resources according to turnout.”

Lamone moderated a session on early voting at the National Conference of State Legislatures Fall Forum at the Washington Hilton Nov. 6.
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Number Of Workers Aged 25-54 Back To April 1997 Levels

When people think of the conventional battery of options the BLS applies to fudge the monthly payrolls number, the labor force participation is the first thing that comes mind: after all the thesis is that old workers are increasingly dropping out of the labor force and retiring. Nothing could be further from the truth as can be seen in this chart [6]of workers aged 55-69, i.e. the prime retirement age. But perhaps a far more important secular issue is the complete lack of pickup in the prime worker demographic, those aged 25-54, which in November dropped by 400k to 94 MM. This is a level first breached in April 1997, in other words in the past 15 years not a single incremental job has been gained in this most productive and lucrative of age groups!

Furthermore, there is absolutely no demographic reason why America, which has a substantial natural growth rate across all demographics, should not see more workers from the younger age cohorts enter this age group. We are, however, confident one will promptly be discovered as this chart becomes prevalent in the mainstream media.

 [7]

And, as a tangent, workers aged 55 and Over:

 [8]

Source: St. Louis Fed

Heroin Overdose Deaths On The Rise, Maryland Report Says

Heroin overdose deaths have climbed while prescription painkiller overdose deaths have dropped in Maryland, according to a new report by the state's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The state posted a 41 percent increase in heroin overdose deaths, to 205 in the first seven months of the year from 145 over the same period last year, according to the report. Overdose deaths from prescription drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone dropped from 208 to 177 over the same time period.

The data seem to support a trend in which experts say prescription painkiller abusers move on to heroin due to the latter's inexpensive price and potent high.
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Greenwood Man Charged After Stabbing His Parents

Location:
100 block of Broad Street, Greenwood, DE

Date of Occurrence:
Sunday, December 09, 2012, at approximately 9:00 a.m.

Victims:
80-year-old female
82-year-old male

Suspect and Charges:
Ricky A. Brewington, 51, of Greenwood, DE (no photograph available)
Attempted Murder First Degree (two counts)
Possession of a Deadly Weapon During the Commission of a Felony (two counts)
Committed to Sussex Correctional Institution on $150,000 cash bail.

Resume:
Greenwood- Troopers have arrested a Greenwood man after he stabbed his parents in the home where all three reside.

Detectives have determined that at approximately 9:00 a.m. Ricky A. Brewington, 51, of Greenwood, used a butcher knife to stab his 80-year-old mother and 82-year-old father in the kitchen of their home in the 100 block of Broad Street in Greenwood. Afterwards, the victims drove to the Greenwood Fire Department to obtain medical care, and Brewington called 911 from the home to report what had just occurred.

A Greenwood police officer arrived at the residence and took Brewington into custody without incident. The victims were transported by ambulance from the fire station to Nanticoke Hospital where they were both admitted in stable condition with multiple stab wounds.

Brewington was charged with two counts of attempted murder first degree and two counts of possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony. He was committed to Sussex Correctional Institution on $150,000 cash bail.

Florida Family Pleads For Son’s Release From Mexican Jail

A South Florida family is pleading for help after their son, a former Marine, was imprisoned in Mexico.

Jon Hammar, 27, was just driving through on his way to Costa Rica when he was stopped at the border, his parents said.

“One of the reasons we went public is because we’ve run out of answers,” Olivia Hammar said.

Hammar has not seen Jon since August, when the 27-year-old Westminster Christian School graduate decided an exotic trip would help heal some of the emotional wounds suffered during tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Denver Airport Holiday Flash Mob

Wife's First Hunt

Now that we are empty-nested, my younger son got a stable position and has moved out, I felt guilty about deserting my spouse on opening day as I have for all these years. She is absolutely thrilled to be a part of this year’s hunt and sent this note below to all her friends.

My husband invited me to go hunting with him this year. I couldn't believe it, the first time ever...after all these years. never thought he'd be willing to share his' guy time' with me and being the thoughtful man that he is he even gave me an opening day present.

He calls it “ The First Timers Lucky Hat.” ' I'm so fortunate to be married to him. have attached a picture of me in my lucky hat, and we can hardly wait until "opening day"

Small Business Owners' Hiring Intent Plunges To 2008 Lows

Don't Blame Sandy or Fiscal Cliff

A Gallup random dial poll of 607 small businesses conducted November 12-16 2012 asked the question "Over the next 12 months, do you expect the overall number of job positions at your company to increase a lot, increase a little, stay the same, decrease a little, or decrease a lot?"

The net survey results show Small-Business Owners' Hiring Intentions Plunge.

U.S. small-business owners expect to add fewer net new jobs over the next 12 months than at any time since the depths of the 2008-2009 recession, according to this November's Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey. Small-business owners' net hiring intentions for the next 12 months plunged to-4 in November, down from +10 in July and matching the previous record low recorded by the Wells

Fargo/Small Business Index of -4 in November 2008.

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The City Of Detroit Is Asking President Obama For Some Help

This week, Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson called for a financial lifeline from the White House to assist her cash-strapped city. Watson argued that 75% of Wayne County voters supported the President in his re-election bid and that in return the President should help Detroit. It's estimated that Detroit may run out of money by the end of the year, but so far the White House has no plans to bail it out. There are several cities across America like Detroit that have been devastated by three decades of Reaganomics and so-called Free Trade deals that have wiped out local manufacturing. These cities received the deathblow in 2007 when Wall Street crashed our economy. And there's a history of the federal government bailing out broke cities – President Ford loaned New York City $2 billion in 1975 to avoid going broke. Rather than spending billions – maybe trillions – on nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan – it's time to do some nation building at home, starting with Detroit.

The Revolving Door Claims Another Willing Public Official Turned Lobbyist

As Politico reported on Tuesday, the architect of Obamacare, Senator Max Baucus' health policy counsel Liz Fowler, has accepted a job as a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Not only did Fowler basically create Obamacare, but she was also put in charge by the White House of overseeing the law's implementation after it was passed. Before her gig on Capitol Hill and at the White House, Fowler was a lobbyist for health insurance giant Wellpoint. And despite a lot of good things in Obamacare like protection for Americans with pre-existing conditions, there's no doubt about it that the individual mandate, absent a public option, is a giant stimulus for the for-profit private health insurance industry. Obamacare was also a big giveaway to the big pharmaceutical industry, which defeated the importation of cheap drugs from Canada. Now for her services in protecting the pharmaceutical industry while crafting Obamacare, Liz Fowler is taking a nice cushy job with the pharmaceutical industry. This is how Washington works nowadays – quid pro quos for all policymakers if they want to make big bucks in the corporatocracy after they leave government. We need new laws to bolt tight Washington's revolving door.

Dancing With A Wounded Warrior

CLASS DOESN'T MAKE THE NEWS!  Green and white shirt, black tee shirt, gray pants and tennis shoes. He must be a grandpa…… How many know that he hosts several Wounded Warrior weekends at his ranch every year?Not what you expect to see! Dancing with a "Wounded Warrior" This man has so much class.

Like Mother Like Daughter… Malia Obama’s Spring Break Vacation Cost U.S. Taxpayers $115,500

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released records detailing the government funds expended on First Daughter Malia Obama’s March 2012 Spring Break vacation to Mexico. According to the records, obtained from the U.S. Secret Service as a result of a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on September 20, 2012, the total cost of the trip amounted to $115,500.87 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Secret Service (No. 12-cv-01562)).

The following is a breakdown of the costs as detailed in the documents:

Ground transportation: $23,964.81
Lodging: $21,682.92
Airfare: $47,767.34
“Vouchers”: $21,636.14 (not itemized)
Support Charges: $449.66 (travel for one from Mexico City to Oaxaca, not itemized)

Malia Obama’s spring break trip evoked controversy after the Obama White House reportedly ordered the removal of press reports detailing the trip. On March 19,2012, numerous online press outlets reported that the president’s 13-year-old daughter, Malia Obama, was on a Spring Break trip to Mexico accompanied by 25 U.S. Secret Service Agents and as many as 12 of her friends. However, shortly after the press reports surfaced they were quickly removed from the Internet. The trip took place shortly after the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a statement advising students on Spring Break “to avoid Mexico.”

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Drones In America? They Are Already Here

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [8] is one of the most important organizations we have in America today. While most of the country lays fast asleep to the dangers of the encroaching surveillance state, the EFF is always vigilantly at work on the front lines. In their latest article, they show that military drones are already flying all over these United States and, using information received from a FOIA lawsuit they provide important details on what is flying and where. You may be shocked at some of their conclusions. From the EFF:
These records, received as a result of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), come from state and local law enforcement agencies, universities and—for the first time—three branches of the U.S. military: the Air Force, Marine Corps, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

The records show that the Air Force has been testing out a bunch of different drone types, from the smaller, hand-launched Raven, Puma and Wasp drones designed by Aerovironment in Southern California, to the much larger Predator and Reaper drones responsible for civilian and foreign military deaths abroad. The Marine Corps is also testing drones, though it chose to redact so much of the text from its records that we still don’t know much about its programs.

Perhaps the scariest is the technology carried by a Reaper drone the Air Force is flying near Lincoln, Nevada and in areas of California and Utah. This drone uses “Gorgon Stare” technology, which Wikipedia defines as “a spherical array of nine cameras attached to an aerial drone . . . capable of capturing motion imagery of an entire city.” This imagery “can then be analyzed by humans or an artificial intelligence, such as the Mind’s Eye project” being developed by DARPA. If true, this technology takes surveillance to a whole new level.

While LIDAR can be used to create high-resolution images of the earth’s surface, it is also used in high tech police speed guns—begging the question of whether drones will soon be used for minor traffic violations.

However, once again, the records do not show that the FAA had any concerns about drone flights’ impact on privacy and civil liberties. This is especially problematic when drone programs like Otter Tail’s appear on first glance to be benign but later turn out to support the same problematic law enforcement uses that EFF has been increasingly concerned about.

It’s been over a year and a half since we first filed our FOIA request with the FAA, and we’re still waiting for more than half of the agency’s drone records. This is unacceptable.

Like with any new technology, drones can be put to good use or to evil use. Just like nuclear power can harness energy or destroy humanity altogether, drones could do a lot of good, but the problem is that the government is clearly moving more and more towards a surveillance state so we must be extra careful. Stay vigilant.
Source

'Ron Paul: The Film' By Infowars Backs Up Retiring Congressman's Points

Ron Paul's farewell speech in November 2012 made the rounds on the Internet, but due to skepticism over the Texas congressman's words, Infowars pieced together news clips and backup documentation to show that Paul speaks the truth. Hence the birth of "Ron Paul: The Film."

Paul, a 77-year-old Texas Republican who is retiring from the House in January, posed several questions. Since President Barack Obama's re-election, the White House website has filled up with tens of thousands of electronic signatures from citizens wanting their state to secede from the United States, as reported in the Allvoices article,"US indivisible?"

But on top of that, another petition has joined the secession desires, this one wanting the Obama administration to respond to several questions Paul posed in his farewell speech: Answer ALL the questions posed by Congressman Ron Paul in his final speech on the House floor, Nov. 14, 2012

In 2012, more young people became aware of the damage "big government" continues to do to our economy and civil liberties as thousands showed up to his rallies, Paul points out.

Paul begins wrapping up his speech with the five greatest dangers that the American people face to impede a goal of a free society. What are they?

1. The continuous attack on our civil liberties which threatens the rule of law and our ability to resist the onrush of tyranny.

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Meet Liz Fowler: Architect Of ObamaCare Jumps Ship To Johnson & Johnson

Following the passage of ObamaCare, several of the smartest people I know claimed that the bill was actually written by and for the drug and insurance companies rather than “the people” as Obama had claimed. My friend and orthopedic surgeon Dave Janda wrote an excellent piece that I published titled:Thoughts on Obamacare from a Surgeon and Friend.

In recent days it has emerged that Liz Fowler, who is said to have been one of the key architects of ObamaCare, is doing what any good revolving door crony capitalist would do. She is moving to the private sector to receive her payoff. Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journal Review explains that:

Herewith is a brief Fowler curriculum vitae: In 2001 she had a plum job as chief counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, which deals with healthcare bills. As Greenwald’s old Salon post notes, her biography says she “played a key role” in the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law that created a new senior drug benefit—a benefit provided via private insurers, not the government, as is the case for other Medicare benefits. A few years later she landed a position at WellPoint as a vice president overseeing the giant insurer’s lobbying activities.

Fowler then returned to Senate Finance in 2008 to work for Sen. Max Baucus, who chaired the committee, which was becoming Action Central for health reform.Fowler and Baucus pretty much wrote the bill that became Obamacare—and which, we should note, did not include a proposed “public option,” which was popular with ordinary people but not the insurance companies that lobbied hard to make sure it was out of the mix.

Then this week Politico’s Dave Levinthal and Anna Palmer had a scoop: Fowler is returning to the private world, this time to a senior level position leading global health policy at Johnson & Johnson’s government affairs and policy group.

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It's All About Jobs

Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan continues to hold the O'Malley Administration accountable for the "jobs, jobs, jobs" they promised but failed to deliver. As we head into another General Assembly session just over a month from now, we hear the same worn out policies that the vast majority of Marylander's don't want - raising the gas tax and a new tax on consumers to pay for the Governor's offshore wind mills.

These articles from just the past week or so, show what real change looks like - reforming the state's economic development office and returning its mission to attract businesses and jobs for starters.

Together, we will show the arrogant one-party monopoly just how out of touch they really are. We have grown to over 25,000. As we grow stronger, our voice gets louder. We are being heard and we are making difference. Join us in this fight to Change Maryland for the better at facecebook.com/ChangeMaryland, or atwww.changemaryland.org.