# data[].attributes.body
Santa clause http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-you-shouldnt-lie-to-your-kids-about-santa-2010-12

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3519038

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Bullying

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the 1st amendmenthttps://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

many European countries accpect this amendment however china,north Korea,Russia, and the middle east expect isrieal do not like the amendment... James Madison Quote "if men were angels, no government would be necessary.

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capital punishment

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Abortion in the U.S. and other countries http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/06/how-abortion-is-regulated-around-the-world/

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/09/politics/ohio-abortion-bills/

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10 thing you should not do wear when traveling. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/smartertravel/seven-things-you-should-a_b_2482094.html http://www.independenttraveler.com/travel-tips/passports-and-international-travel/10-things-you-should-never-wear-when-traveling-abroad

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cat abuse is getting worse every year
http://www.straypetadvocacy.org/cruelty_laws.html

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http://www.barefootalliance.org/lawsregulations

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https://www.veganmainstream.com/.../on-hunting-is-it-really-necessary-to-kill-in-orde...

Apr 19, 2013 - I will then try to show that hunting and conservation are not mutually ... also known as trophy hunting, animals aren't hunted exclusively for food, ...

Hunting for Wildlife Population Control and Ethical Eating?

freefromharm.org › Common Justifications for Eating Animals

Jan 14, 2015 - In such cases, hunting animals for food is unnecessary, and, like farming animals, constitutes the infliction of violence and death on animals we have no need to harm at all. ... Then there is the defense that hunting animals is necessary to wildlife “population control.

www.peta2.com/blog/hunting-facts/

Jan 29, 2015 - Eight reasons why you should never support hunting. ... It is no longer necessary to hunt for food or population control, because anyone can ...

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Chinese traditional medicine is causing animal cruelty around the world.
http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2007/10/traditional-chinese-medicine-and-endangered-animals/
https://preciousjules1985.wordpress.com/tag/traditional-chinese-medicine/
https://ladyfreethinker.org/category/animal-rights/?gclid=CjwKEAiAyanCBRDkiO6M_rDroH0SJAAfZ4KLSPhLKRZXv72RC151YDO6rU7QKsX6v8F4Jq21LYVTvxoCK-7w_wcB
https://news.vice.com/article/china-outlaws-the-eating-of-tiger-penis-rhino-horn-and-other-endangered-animal-products

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Santa's counterpart around the globe.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131217-krampus-christmas-santa-devil/

mentalfloss.com/article/54184/8-legendary-monsters-christmas

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52% dont support the second amenment

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shcools across colters

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Lucélia Ribeiro
Every year, the World Economic Forum releases its Global Competitiveness Report on the state of the world's economies.

The WEF looks at data on areas as varied as the soundness of banks to the sophistication of businesses in each country. It then uses the data to compile a picture of the economy of almost every country on earth.

Countries were ranked according to the "12 pillars of competitiveness," which includes macro-economic environment, infrastructure, health and primary education, and labour market efficiency.

We have drilled down into the schooling data to look at which countries have the best education systems. Neither the US or the UK make the grade in the top 11 (3 countries are tied for 9th, making 11 the clearest cut off point.)

Here are the ones that did make the grade:

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Every year, the World Economic Forum releases its Global Competitiveness Report on the state of the world's economies. The WEF looks at data on areas as varied as the soundness of banks to the sophistication of businesses in each country. It then uses the data to compile a picture of the economy of almost every country on earth.

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Schools across colters

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The world education rankings from the OECD are out. The UK is slipping down in maths, reading and science, and has been overtaken by Poland and Norway, this major study of 65 countries reveals today.

Around 470,000 15-year-olds across the world sat a numeracy, literacy and science test last year, the results of which inform the latest Pisa study by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) is highly respected across the globe, and enables politicians and policy-makers to assess how different country's education systems compare.

It shows the UK's reputation as one of the world's best for education is at risk, and has tumbled several places since 2006.

The UK is ranked 25th for reading, 28th for maths and 16th for science. In 2006, when 57 countries were included in the study, it was placed 17th, 24th and 14th respectively. Poland has stretched ahead of the UK in maths, while Norway is now ranked higher in reading and maths.

Andreas Shleicher, head of the Pisa programme, said the picture for the UK was "stagnant at best". "Many other countries have seen quite significant improvement," he added.

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Data summary

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World education rankings: which country does best at reading, maths and science?

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The world education rankings from the OECD are out. The UK is slipping down in maths, reading and science, and has been overtaken by Poland and Norway, this major study of 65 countries reveals today.

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90% of Americans support the second amenment

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amendment 2 the right to bear arms
Thomas Jefferson"I hold it that hold a little rebellion now then is a good thing,and physical."

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American gestures are taken differently in other countries
https://blog.busuu.com/what-hand-gestures-mean-in-different-countries/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gayle-cotton/cross-cultural-gestures_b_3437653.html

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Lose your tooth in Greece? Better toss it on the roof. Here are some cultural discrepancies that might strike you as bizarre while you're abroad.

1. When kids lose their teeth in Greece (and reportedly other countries), they throw them on the roof.
According to one source:

The tooth is... thrown up on the roof of the house for a pig to take. A rhyme is chanted, which loosely translates: "Take sow my tooth and give me an iron one so that I can chew rusks."

2. Norwegians eat burgers with (gasp!) a knife and fork.
Norway's famous open-faced sandwiches are tough to eat without silverware, so they probably just decided to apply the habit to American sandwiches as well.

3. In England, you're flipping someone off when you do the peace sign backwards.
Oh, so thaaat's what we've been saying all this time.

6. Colombian schoolchildren learn there are five continents, not seven.
The specifics vary from nation to nation, but one popular interpretation lumps North and South America together as one continent called "America" and counts Europe and Asia together as "Eurasia."

The Griswolds, not so much.

These are customs we've heard and read about; if you know of others or have experienced anything different, sound off in comments below.

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Lose your tooth in Greece? Better toss it on the roof. Here are some cultural discrepancies that might strike you as bizarre while you're abroad. 1. When kids lose their teeth in Greece (and reportedly other countries), they throw them on the roof. According to one source: The tooth is...

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Should different cultures have the rights to eat dogs.
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/09/05/countries-that-eat-dogs-and-cats/
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33283694
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/616467/Eating-cats-dogs-should-be-banned-Switzerland-animal-rights-campaigners
http://animalfreedom.org/english/information/dog_food_or_friend.html
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/man-charged-after-collie-cooked-and-fed-to-pet-dog-in-northern-ireland-35280089.html

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Santa Claus
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-you-shouldnt-lie-to-your-kids-about-santa-2010-12
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-break-it-to-your-kids-that-Santa-Claus-isn/
http://www.pbs.org/parents/holidays/is-it-okay-lie-about-santa/

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Santa Claus
http://www.pbs.org/parents/holidays/is-it-okay-lie-about-santa/
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/19/opinion/santa-existence-wallis-simons/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-break-it-to-your-kids-that-Santa-Claus-isn/

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Communication Across Cultures Every country has its own way of saying things. The important thing is that which lies behind people's words.
http://www.fountainmagazine.com/Issue/detail/Cross-Cultural-Communication-A-Foreign-Language-Perspective                  http://westsidetoastmasters.com/article_reference/communicating_across_cultures.html              http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_6.htm                      http://omniglot.com/language/idioms/index.php

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Art Censorship
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/16/art-censorship_n_6465010.html

http://ncac.org/issue/visual-art

http://ncac.org/issue/higher-education

http://ncac.org/issue/books

http://ncac.org/issue/hate-speech

http://artsfreedom.org/?tag=statistics

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farming
http://movingtoireland.com/movepag/miscfarm.htm

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Schools Across Colters

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The United States places 17th in the developed world for education, according to a global report by education firm Pearson.

Finland and South Korea, not surprisingly, top the list of 40 developed countries with the best education systems. Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore follow. The rankings are calculated based on various measures, including international test scores, graduation rates between 2006 and 2010, and the prevalence of higher education seekers. (See the list of top 20 countries in the slideshow below)

Pearson's chief education adviser Sir Michael Barber tells BBC that the high ranking countries tend to offer teachers higher status in society and have a "culture" of education.

The study notes that while funding is an important factor in strong education systems, cultures supportive of learning is even more critical -- as evidenced by the highly ranked Asian countries, where education is highly valued and parents have grand expectation. While Finland and South Korea differ greatly in methods of teaching and learning, they hold the top spots because of a shared social belief in the importance of education and its "underlying moral purpose."

The study aims to help policymakers and school leaders identify key factors that lead to successful educational outcomes. The research draws on literacy data as well as figures in government spending on education, school entrance age, teacher salaries and degree of school choice. Researchers also measured socioeconomic outcomes like national unemployment rates, GDP, life expectancy and prison population.

The report also notes the importance of high-quality teachers and improving strong educator recruitment. The rankings show, however, that there is no clear correlation between higher pay and better performance. The bottom line findings:

1. There are no magic bullets: The small number of correlations found in the study shows the poverty of simplistic solutions. Throwing money at education by itself rarely produces results, and individual changes to education systems, however sensible, rarely do much on their own. Education requires long-term, coherent and focussed system-wide attention to achieve improvement.

2. Respect teachers: Good teachers are essential to high-quality education. Finding and retaining them is not necessarily a question of high pay. Instead, teachers need to be treated as the valuable professionals they are, not as technicians in a huge, educational machine.

3. Culture can be changed: The cultural assumptions and values surrounding an education system do more to support or undermine it than the system can do on its own. Using the positive elements of this culture and, where necessary, seeking to change the negative ones, are important to promoting successful outcomes.

4. Parents are neither impediments to nor saviours of education: Parents want their children to have a good education; pressure from them for change should not be seen as a sign of hostility but as an indication of something possibly amiss in provision. On the other hand, parental input and choice do not constitute a panacea. Education systems should strive to keep parents informed and work with them.

5. Educate for the future, not just the present: Many of today's job titles, and the skills needed to fill them, simply did not exist 20 years ago. Education systems need to consider what skills today's students will need in future and teach accordingly.

To be sure, South Korea's top spot doesn't come without a price. Stories of families divided in the name of education are all too common, to the extent that the phenomenon has bequeathes those families with a title of their own -- kirogi kajok, or goose families, because they must migrate to reunite.

But America's average ranking doesn't come as a surprise. A report recently published by Harvard University's Program on Education Policy and Governance found that students in Latvia, Chile and Brazil are making gains in academics three times faster than American students, while those in Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Colombia and Lithuania are improving at twice the rate. Researchers estimate that gains made by students in those 11 countries equate to about two years of learning.

What gains U.S. students posted in recent years are "hardly remarkable by world standards," according to the report. Although the U.S. is not one of the nine countries that lost academic ground for the 14-year period between 1995 and 2009, more countries were improving at a rate significantly faster than that of the U.S. Researchers looked at data for 49 countries.

The study's findings echo years of rankings that show foreign students outpacing their American peers academically. Students in Shanghai who recently took international exams for the first time outscored every other school system in the world. In the same test, American students ranked 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading.

A 2009 study found that U.S. students ranked 25th among 34 countries in math and science, behind nations like China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland. Figures like these have groups like StudentsFirst, headed by former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, concerned and calling for reforms to "our education system [that] can't compete with the rest of the world."

Just 6 percent of U.S. students performed at the advanced level on an international exam administered in 56 countries in 2006. That proportion is lower than those achieved by students in 30 other countries. American students' low performance and slow progress in math could also threaten the country's economic growth, experts have said.

BEFORE YOU GO

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Where To Find The Best Education Around The World

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The United States places 17th in the developed world for education, according to a global report by education firm Pearson. Finland and South Korea, not surprisingly, top the list of 40 developed countries with the best education systems. Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore follow.

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food.
should be able to explore tastes all over.
http://www.hellawella.com/23-dipping-sauces-around-world
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/01/hot-sauces-around-the-world.html http://www.atkinsandpotts.co.uk/products/world-sauces

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presidents and prime ministers
https://www.reference.com/government-politics/difference-between-prime-minister-president-c6f459a9b6abacd1
http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/why_are_presidents_less_effective_than_prime_ministers

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Citation: C N Trueman "President versus Prime Minister"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 27 Mar 2015. 24 Jun 2018.

The president of America is frequently referred to as the world's most powerful person. However, the federalstructure of America has put restraints on the power of the president that do not occur in Great Britain, lead by a Prime Minister. The powers of Congress and the Supreme Court are used as a balance to the power a president might accrue in his time in office. The Constitution of America ties the president down as to what he can and cannot do. This codified document can only be changed by the Supreme Court. Such a constraint does not exist in Britain though the input of the European Court on formulating some British legislation is difficult to assess but does not come into the same league as the power that that the Supreme Court of America has.

The general powers exercised by a British Prime Minister include:

the power to appoint, reshuffle or dismiss cabinet ministers

the power to create new peers to the House of Lords

the power to give out honours

the power to appoint top civil servants, ambassadors, bishops and judges

the power to determine government business and Cabinet discussions/agendas

the power to withhold information from the Houses of Parliament if deemed necessary

the power to use the media via a lobby system

the power to terminate the life of a government and call a general election

The Prime Minister clearly has an abundance of powers at his disposal. Sir Richard Crossman wrote that :

(The PM) is now the apex not only of a highly centralised political machine but also of a highly centralised and vastly more powerful administrative machine.

The PM's position as leader of the majority party in the House of Commons together with his position as head of government, thus combining legislative and executive powers, amounts to an "immense accretion of power."

Many of the PM's powers derive from the prerogative powers of the Monarch. These extensive powers are wielded independently of Parliament and effectively give every PM the power of a Head of State. These powers include the right to appoint ministers, to dissolve Parliament and so set the timing for a general election, to be in charge of the armed forces and the security services, to negotiate treaties and other diplomatic agreements and to summon and chair Cabinet meetings. The proponents of Prime Ministerial government postulate that the Cabinet is effectively the tool of the PM and that, in practice, government policy has long ceased to be decided at Cabinet meetings. PM's use Cabinet Committees (the PM chairs several of these), bilateral meetings with individual ministers, the No. 10 Policy Unit, the Cabinet Office, Think Tanks and 'kitchen cabinets' of personal aides and advisers, to shape policy and present it to the Cabinet. The Cabinet as a collective body, it has been argued, has been reduced to a clearing house and ratifier of decisions already taken.

Unlike their ministerial colleagues, the PM is not tied up with a particular department and is ultimately responsible for co-ordinating government policy across the board. The PM's potential impact on policy-making is therefore enormous and a pro-active PM like Mrs. Thatcher intervened extensively in departments and left her personal imprint on an array of policies from local government, education to privitisation.

This suggests that the PM can act like a virtual autocrat. However, this is not so as there are constraints on his power. Though a PM's power in the Cabinet is great, he cannot get himself into a situation whereby he is seen to surround himself with 'nodding donkeys'. The party he leads will not tolerate this and every five years (maximum) the PM and the party have to present themselves to the country who will vote on their record of government. A PM who is seen to be going against the British tradition of democratic government whereby the party is all-inclusive at Westminster will lose out when the party abandons its support for him. Mrs. Thatcher lost the support of both her Cabinet and the Conservative Party when she was seen as being too over-bearing and out of touch. A PM who loses support from his own party is doomed to failure even if he does have the power to reward loyalty. The current PM, Tony Blair, leads a party with a Parliamentary majority second to none. On paper, it would appear that his power as PM is unassailable. However, all he needs to do to sow the seeds of his own political downfall is to lose the support of those Labour MP's at Westminster. In this sense, the party have the power not the PM. Tony Blair has yet to have a serious challenge to his position as party leader. What happens should this occur?

Many in the current Labour Party are concerned about Tony Blair's apparent desire to make decisions by himself or with a small non-elected clique thus by-passing both the Cabinet and Westminster. A former Cabinet colleague, Mo Mowlam, has made these accusations and has also stated her belief that Cabinet meetings are a farce as they are no more than sessions whereby Blair is agreed to. If this is the case, what happens when the Labour Party tires of this?

During the current fight against terrorism, President Bush has held frequent meetings with Cabinetcolleagues, and those who air a belief that an American attack on Iraq - without an agreement from the UN Security Council - is fraught with danger, are seemingly allowed to do so. Colin Powell has been reported as voicing his concerns and the media have reported this accordingly. The President has his views while others close to him express theirs. Congress has also had an input with the Senate approving a $34.4 billion rise in defence spending to assist in the president's campaign against terrorism. The House of Commons, on the other hand, has frequently complained that it is being side-lined by not having a full debate about the issue. Therefore, the ability and opportunity for politicians to voice opposition to the PM's policies regarding this foreign policy issue are very limited. Blair has been accused of developing presidential powers.

However, the powers of the president of America are limited by Article II of the Constitution. There are many things the president can do but there are also many things that he cannot do. The House of Commons at Westminster does not formulate policy; it discusses proposed legislation and votes on them. Congress, however, has been given very real powers by the Constitution, the likes of which are not seen in Great Britain. The Senate can remove the president from office - the president cannot remove a Senator; the Senate ratifies the president's Cabinet; all financial issues have to start in the House of Representatives and Congress can reject a president's proposed budget. These clearly limit the power of a president.

In Britain, the Chancellor's budget is introduced regardless of what Parliament thinks. With the exception of a party revolt, the party in power cannot remove a PM

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President versus Prime Minister - History Learning Site

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The president of America is frequently referred to as the world's most powerful person. However, the federalstructure of America has put restraints on the power of the president that do not occur in Great Britain, lead by a Prime Minister. The powers of Congress and the Supreme Court are used as a balance to the ...

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The deceleration of independence: The pursuit of happiness. http://phys.org/news/2014-03-cultures-differ-happiness-beliefs.html

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Assignment/Prompt Pg 169
Rubric Pg 170
USE:
Elements of Argument Pg 74
AVOID:
Fallacies Pg 146 or see:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/

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Put your topic here.
Research and pick a topic that different cultures see as important and a link using the buttons below your text that provides information about the topic.