[BULLITTCOUNTYHISTORY] This copy of the Eighth Grade Exam for Bullitt County Schools in 1912 was donated to the museum. We thought you might like to see what the test looked like more than a hundred years ago. Obviously it tested some things that were more relevant at that time than now, and it should not be used to compare student knowledge then and now.
#6
Makes sense as most people were still farmers in that day and age and most kids didn't finish school past the 8th grade as they needed to work the farms. So this was the final exam.
#7
My father was born in 1905 and never went beyond Grade 8 but was still very successful as an electrician. He specialized in electric motors and electric switchgear. His general knowledge level was incredible and was only exceeded by his knowledge of world history. He would be horrified at today's teaching.
Kalsomine
A thin whitewash composed primarily of Paris white and water. It was sometimes used instead of the more expensive paint to cover walls and fences, and was said to prevent mites when painted on the inside of chicken houses.
[NYPOST] Potentially historic flooding is underway Thursday in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, as repeated rounds of rain pummel several states in America's heartland. More than a foot of rain could fall on the region by Sunday.
This is the same part of the country that was devastated by a deadly tornado outbreak Wednesday.
A stalled front draped over the central US will bring continuous rain and storms through the weekend, causing both a flood threat and a severe weather threat.
The National Weather Service offices in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Paducah, Kentucky, have highlighted a particularly dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding situation.
FLOODING ALREADY HAPPENING
Parts of Tennessee and Kentucky have already been inundated ahead of the additional rain that is forecast.
Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was flooded early Friday. City officials told FOX Weather that approximately 60% of the downtown was underwater, and a building had collapsed due to the heavy rain. A woman had to be rescued from floodwaters in her home and another from a car.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2025 00:00 ||
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#1
And it is going again this morning.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/05/2025 8:19 Comments ||
Top||
#2
So far, Wayne County (TN) hasn't been hit hard, just one tornado off in the boonies. Tonight is supposed to be a bear tho.
[FoxNews] GNC could collect health data on U.S. troops and launch cyber intrusions, a GOP congressman warns
While much of Congress focuses on banning China from buying land near U.S. military bases, freshman Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-N.C., says the Chinese Communist Party already has a direct presence on those installations – through national nutrition chain GNC.
A bill released by Harrigan this week, the Military Installation Retail Security Act of 2025, would ban any companies of Chinese, North Korean, Iranian or Russian ownership from operating on military bases.
"This is actually a situation where the CCP is operating on our military bases. It’s even crazier [than foreign land purchases]," Harrigan told Fox News Digital.
In June 2020, vitamin retailer GNC filed for bankruptcy and was wholly acquired by Harbin Pharmaceuticals, a partially state-owned enterprise in China. Harbin had previously acquired a 40% stake in GNC in 2018.
In 2019, GNC agreed to integrate its manufacturing with International Vitamin Corporation (IVC), which has a consortium of Chinese investors.
The company, founded in Pittsburgh, had already been operating on U.S. bases for years at the time of its sale, and its potential to help with Chinese surveillance on military bases was overlooked.
Now, some 85 GNC stores operate on U.S. military bases. They operate under what are known as "long term concessions" contracts, meaning they are operated, staffed and supplied by GNC.
"This is a really ripe target for intelligence gathering," said Harrigan. "This is no joke about defending the integrity of our military, making sure that foreign adversaries who are actively seeking to undermine us don't have the opportunity to do that from within our military bases."
"You know who these people are, the customers you've got, their purchasing habits. You have access to sensitive health information based on the type of products that they're purchasing," he said.
The store could identify individuals with vulnerabilities by tracking frequent purchases of testosterone, sleep aids, or anxiety supplements, Harrigan said. It could also monitor deployment cycles based on changes in buying patterns, he added.
Harrigan warned that GNC’s access could even allow adversaries to introduce banned or harmful substances – or counterfeit products – to degrade military readiness.
The store also poses potential cyber risks, Harrigan said, noting that in-store WiFi and mobile data tracking could reveal troop geolocations. Loyalty apps and promotional materials, he warned, could be used to embed malicious links or software.
"Our systems are independently monitored and meet strict federal standards, partaking in multiple audits throughout the year," a GNC spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
"We love our military customers. Their wellbeing, whether it’s their personal health or the safety of their information, will always come first. We’re honored to be part of their communities and will continue to safeguard their information just like we do all our customers."
Lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills aimed at blocking China from buying U.S. land near sensitive military sites – a movement that gained urgency after Chinese food producer Fufeng Group purchased 370 acres near a North Dakota Air Force base in 2022.
China owned around 350,000 acres of farmland across 27 states as of last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
GNC Holdings appeared on the System for Award Management – the federal registry for government contractors – in 2023 and 2024, despite not being required to register due to its long-term concessions contract.
The company did not disclose its Chinese ownership on the website, and let its registration expire in October 2024.
As a U.S. senator from Florida, Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised alarms in 2020 over GNC’s sale to Harbin, warning that customers’ personal data could be handed over to the Chinese Communist Party. He urged the Treasury Department to launch a national security review.
Despite those concerns, Bankruptcy Judge Karen Owens approved the $770 million sale. Since then, GNC has capitalized on renewed interest in health and wellness to grow its footprint to more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and 2,000 internationally, according to the company’s website.
[FoxNews] Trump emphasized that Chinese-owned farmland “has been an issue for years"
FBI Director Kash Patel is tackling China's influence on American farmlands head-on, as both a food supply and national security concern.
Patel’s early focus on Chinese influence over American land — particularly farmland near sensitive sites — reflects a broader second-term push by the Trump administration to confront the Chinese Communist Party’s presence on U.S. soil. The effort has gained traction among Republican lawmakers and conservative allies, who say CCP-connected land ownership poses a direct threat to national security and critical infrastructure.
"FBI Director Kash Patel has made eradicating CCP interference and infiltration in the United States a relentless, uncompromising priority," Patel advisor Erica Knight told Fox News Digital.
"With his unmatched experience in counterterrorism and intelligence, Patel possesses a profound understanding of the grave threats our nation faces," Knight said. "His expertise and unwavering resolve make him uniquely equipped to lead the bureau to crush CCP infiltration and safeguard America’s national security."
Patel recently told lawmakers that the "effective resolution" of the southern border crisis has prompted adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran to shift their focus to the U.S. northern border.
As the administration ramps up its second-term focus on China, President Donald Trump was asked aboard Air Force One on Thursday what the White House is doing about Chinese-owned farmland.
Trump said he is "looking at it all the time," adding that he has "a very good relationship with China and with the president."
"I have a lot of respect for President Xi," Trump said.
Trump emphasized that Chinese-owned farmland "has been an issue for years."
In a February Fox News op-ed, Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Ric Grenell echoed growing concern on the right over Chinese-owned farmland, calling it part of a "not-so-silent takeover."
"While conservative legislators and governors across the country are taking action to stop adversarial nations from buying U.S. farmland, we must recognize that there’s a much broader issue at play here — China’s end goal is not confined to land ownership," Grenell wrote.
Capitol Hill lawmakers have already begun taking action. In early March, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., introduced the PASS Act in the Senate, which would bar entities from "covered countries" — including China — from purchasing agricultural land near military bases or other sensitive sites.
The legislation, which also has Democratic support, would allow the Department of Agriculture to submit cases to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. for review if the department suspects there is a national security concern.
Likewise, Republican senators in January also announced the Not One More Inch or Acre Act, led by Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Katie Britt of Alabama.
The legislation would require selling land owned or "influenced" by the Chinese Communist Party that is deemed to be a national security risk.
How will China change if they have their own source of petroleum?
An aside: Benar News just announced that they are going on hiatus after ten years of reporting on the region, because they are no longer being funded by the US government.
[BenarNews] The announcement came days after the U.S., Philippines, Japan staged naval training near a contested shoal.
China discovers 100 million-ton oilfield in South China Sea: report
The China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) reported it has discovered an oilfield in the South China Sea with proven reserves exceeding 100 million tons, Chinese state media said on Monday.
The oilfield in the eastern South China Sea – the Huizhou 19-6 oilfield – was about 170 km (106 miles) from the city of Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong Province, the state news agency Xinhua reported.
Test drilling of the oilfield, which sits at an average water depth of 100 meters, has yielded a daily production of 413 barrels of crude oil and 68,000 cubic meters of natural gas, it said.
Xinhua described it as “China’s first large-scale integrated clastic oilfield discovered in deep to ultra-deep layers.”
CNOOC told Xinhua that offshore oil and gas exploration in deep to ultra-deep layers faces challenges including high temperature, high pressure and complex conditions.
Xinhua cited Peng Guangrong, a geologist at CNOOC’s Shenzhen branch, as saying that 60% of the world’s newly discovered oil and gas reserves have come from deep layers.
The South China Sea is mostly underexplored because of territorial disputes, but most discovered oil and gas reserves are in uncontested areas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea – through which commerce valued at U.S. $3 trillion moves annually – overlapping with sovereignty claims by the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Brunei.
MILITARY PATROL
On Friday, the Chinese military said it conducted a patrol in the South China Sea, an exercise that came on the same day U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to Manila.
Separately, a spokesman for the Southern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army said on Saturday that the Philippines frequently enlisted foreign countries to organize “joint patrols” and “disseminated illegal claims” in the region, destabilizing the area.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth met his Filipino counterpart Gilberto Teodoro and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Friday in Manila, as part of Hegseth’s Asia tour that also included Guam and Japan.
Hegseth reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to its defense treaty with the Philippines, vowing to deploy advanced military capabilities to bolster deterrence against threats, including Chinese “aggression.”
“Deterrence is necessary around the world, but specifically in this region, in your country, considering the threats from the communist Chinese,” Hegseth said.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court has ruled to remove President Yoon Suk-yeol from office, following an impeachment decision by Parliament.https://t.co/ciAq3Qzn1d
[Epoch Times] Ford Motor Co. announced on Thursday that it will extend its employee pricing to all shoppers in the wake of widespread tariffs that were announced by President Donald Trump, including 25 percent duties on foreign-made cars that went into effect on Thursday.
Framing its announcement as a way to mitigate "uncertain times for many Americans," Ford said that it’s opening its "employee pricing to all U.S. customers, giving them access to significant savings on a wide range of 2024 and 2025 gas, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and diesel Ford and Lincoln vehicles."
However, Ford’s pricing change excludes Ford Raptor models, specialty Bronco and Mustang models, its 2025 Expedition and Navigator SUVs, and its Super Duty trucks.
[FoxNews] The layoffs come as the Trump administration continues to shrink the size of the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will slash its workforce by at least 25% beginning Friday with layoffs as the Trump administration continues to shrink the size of the federal government.
In addition to the layoffs, the agency said in a letter to employees that it is eliminating its Office of Civil Rights and Compliance, which is responsible for protecting taxpayers from discrimination, audits and investigations.
The remaining employees in the division will be transferred to other departments.
"In a stark contrast to the previous administration’s wildly unpopular plan to hire thousands of additional IRS agents, President Trump is focused on saving tax dollars, eliminating bloat, axing useless DEI offices, and increasing the agency’s efficiency," White House spokesperson Liz Huston said to Fox News Digital.
"This action is being taken to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the IRS in accordance with agency priorities and the Workforce Optimization Initiative outlined in a recent Executive Order," the letter states, referring to President Donald Trump's executive order directing the Department of Government Efficiency to get rid of wasteful spending.
The agency said it was approved to offer Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment (VSIP). Information about those programs will be shared with employees at a later date, the message said.
"This calendar year to date, approximately 5% of this office left through the Deferred Resignation Program and attrition," the message said. "An additional 75% of the office will be reduced through a RIF (Reduction in Force)."
A Treasury Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the reductions are part of, and driven by, "process improvements and technological innovations that will allow the IRS to collect revenue and serve taxpayers more effectively."
"The roll back of wasteful Biden-era hiring surges, and consolidation of critical support functions are vital to improve both efficiency and quality of service," the spokesperson said. "The Secretary is committed to ensuring that efficiency is realized while providing the collections, privacy, and customer service the American people deserve."
The layoffs were expected, as the agency announced in February its intention to slash nearly 7,000 probationary workers in Washington, D.C.
Those employees have since been reinstated by a court order.
Temporarily, anyway.
The IRS has roughly 90,000 employees in total across the United States, according to the latest IRS data.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Iranian authorities are preparing to chop off the fingers from the hands of three men convicted of robbery as part of their horrific punishment.
Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Sharfian and Mehdi Shahivand, who are being held in Urumieh Central prison, West Azerbaijan province, are waiting to undergo the 'cruel and irreversible' punishment of finger amputation as early as April 11, human rights organisation Amnesty International said today.
All three men were arrested in August 2017 and convicted of robbery in 2019 after a 'grossly unfair trial', in which the court sentenced them to have four fingers on their right hands completely cut off.
The men were reportedly denied access to lawyers and courts relied on forced 'confessions', which saw all three get beaten, kicked and flogged.
Rostami's hand was broken and interrogators threatened to rape Shahivand to get confessions out of them, which they have since retracted.
Since getting the gruesome sentence, all three have gone on multiple hunger strikes in prison to protest the inhumane conditions they have been subjected to, as well as their conviction.
In February 2021, Rostami was further tortured after Iranian authorities carried out a flogging sentence of 60 lashes for 'disrupting prison order' after he went on hunger strike. He has also attempted suicide several times, Amnesty said.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
04/05/2025 00:00 ||
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[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[BULLITTCOUNTYHISTORY] This copy of the Eighth Grade Exam for Bullitt County Schools in 1912 was donated to the museum. We thought you might like to see what the test looked like more than a hundred years ago. Obviously it tested some things that were more relevant at that time than now, and it should not be used to compare student knowledge then and now.
[Epoch Times] 
