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News or Not?

News used to be about informing people about important issues and stories of the day. It is now becoming a buffet of things that people want to know for whatever reason. The demand for ratings and ad revenue drive most of what we see broadcast as "news". Here is a small sampling of stories in the last week:

$15,000 of underwear was stolen from a Victoria's Secret store in the Newport Mall in Jersey City.
You bet they have brassieres on that page.

A Xenoglaux has been found in a Peruvian preserve.
Also known as the "long-whiskered owlet".

In an effort to prevent unnecessary deaths of migratory birds, two skyscrapers will turn off their lights during "peak migration hours".
You can donate money to the cause on your Minnesota State tax return form, or call the Audubon Society at 651-739-9332.

Don King attended the Pope's general audience in the front row this month.
"Afterward, King announced that the pope will be fighting George Foreman in Las Vegas for the World Boxing Organization heavyweight crown."

An eBay auction listing a George Foreman Grill owned by Manny Ramirez was pulled after reaching a high bid of $99,999,999.00.
Well, that's a relief. Too bad it wasn't Anna Nicole Smith's diaries. They sold for over $500,000 on eBay.

"Berlin Zoo's irresistibly cuddly baby polar bear made his public debut Friday."

A Man in the state of Maine that captured a mouse three times had to retrieve his dentures from behind a wall when the mouse took them as part of the most recent escape.

Gay Police told not to sway their hips, or risk being fired (in the Philippines).

Sex workers in British Columbia seek to form a co-op to provide training and health services.

Humuhumunukunukuapuaa ousted in Hawaii. (the state fish).

The list could go on. Is this stuff really news? What is the purpose of news supposed to be?

Writing sensational headlines and misleading stories were part of the newspaper wars in New York City 100 years ago. They called it "Yellow Journalism". Are things getting better or worse?

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We Need to Speak Up (and Pray)

War with Iran seems to be inevitable.

FoxNews has Sean Hannity at least accepting war with Iran as an appropriate response to the 15 hostages taken from the British Navy. It was also reported that British Sailors were told to not rescue the 15 as they were in the process of being detained by Iranian authorities. If you watch the video, notice in the bottom right corner of the screen an image calling the situation "Iran Hostage Crisis" Day 4.

The most notorious Iran Hostage Crisis was when they took control of the U.S. Embassy and held people hostage for 444 days (until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981). The embassy staffers were mostly non-military and non-combatants.

The media voices are not actively calling for war with Iran, but they are floating the notion out there like it is a good thing to do. Alan Colmes was pointing out that Iran claimed it was a territorial water dispute vs. an act of war and he was demonized as "carrying water for Iran". Some people don't even want the other side to be heard. The trends are leaning toward war with Iran.

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial that holds the U.S. Constitution in distain. That column essentially advocates for a military response to bring Iran to the negotiating table because they "respect force" and:

that Iran was at its most diplomatically pliant after the United States sank much of Tehran's navy after Iran tried to disrupt oil traffic in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s. Regimes that resort to force the way Iran does tend to be respecters of it.

They balance this part with noting that force would not guarantee Iran's complaince. According to the WSJ, actually following the U.S. Constitution is helping our enemies. From the article:

Another possibility: sufficiently bloodying Coalition forces in Iraq to hasten their withdrawal. The mullahs might even hope any fighting would embolden Democrats to do Tehran's bidding by passing legislation that forbids the Administration from attacking Iran without prior Congressional permission. Such a plank was contained in the supplemental war spending bill that passed the House last week until cooler heads removed it.

"Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War". Art. I, Sec. 8, U.S. Constitution. The President's part of war is stated in Art. II, Sec. 2:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.

So if Congress requires the President to have congressional approval to engage in an Act of War, that is doing the bidding of Iran. In one sense, that could be true. If Iran has a Constitution, hopefully they would follow it too, just like any nation should. You would like to think that constraining the power of the President to his constitutionally described powers would be doing the will of the people of the United States.

There is significant and divine wisdom in requiring Congress to declare war. The House of Representatives is answerable to their constituents every two years which is also the longest amount of time that appropriations for military spending are allowed under the Constitution. If the people do not support the war, then Congress can call the troops back or cut funding or something. If the President goes to war, he is actually more politically isolated from the people and can carry out the war with less political pressure than the House of Representatives faces with re-election only happening every four years and a limit of two terms. Careerist politicians in the House have more to lose in supporting an unpopular war when they have control over the funding and declaring of it.

Please pray for our leaders.

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Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims

On the radio the other morning the host said that he did not know (nor did he really care) the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. All he knew was that they hated and killed each other.

So, for your educational pleasure a very simplified explanation of the difference:

Sunni Muslims believe that Muhammad's proper successor was the caliph Abu Bakr, adviser to the prophet. They believe in following the Koran including other written and traditional laws. Imams offer advice and help with understanding the Koran and other laws.

Shi'ite Muslims believe that Muhammad's proper successor was Ali, a cousin of the prophet. They believe that Imams are empowered to intervene with God on the behalf of the followers.

This is similar to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The correct Church followed Brigham Young, the Reorganized Church followed Joseph Smith III. There are other doctrinal differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites as well.

What has in part led to the feuding and dislike for each other has been the politicization of their religion. When one group has power to oppress you because of your religion, you may begin to have some strong feelings of hate for people of the other religion that is in power.

In Iraq, the "sectarian violence" as it is called is based on Sunnis and Shi'ites killing each other and taking revenge for past wrongs.

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Does the Future Look So Bleak?

In a word, NO. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we have a lot to look forward to.

This column is tired of groups on any side of an issue engaging in selective truth telling and outright lies to gain support for their causes.

Mr. Leon Fisher wrote an article titled "The future looks very bleak". This post is a critical look at his article, paragraph by paragraph. The parts commented on will be in bold. In fairness to the author, one article does not a world view make. Now to the article:

The crash of the US economy has begun. Although the reasons for the now-accelerating economic fiasco have been in place for decades, the chickens are only now coming home to roost. The murder weapons used to kill the economy are "free trade," outsourcing, illegal immigration, special work visa programs, and unrestrained government spending, which have all contributed to the death of what was just a few decades ago the economic powerhouse of the world.

This does sound alarmist, and it is. The economy is dead, not only dead, but we killed it. The rest of the complaint reveals a misunderstanding of basic economics. Strangely absent from the causes of death is rampant consumerism and living beyond our means.

Free trade is good. The reason it is such a right is that we have “free trade” with countries where businesses can operate without undue governmental regulation. In the U.S., the regulations are so oppressive that it is nearly impossible for companies here to compete with companies in other countries. There are other reasons for our current difficulty as well.

Outsourcing may be good, but in a free market, you shouldn’t really stop it. Illegal immigration is bad as well as “special” work visa programs that don’t really work or only serve the purpose of allowing additional immigration. Unrestrained government spending is very bad.

The balance of trade between most of our trading partners in this so called system of "free trade" is completely lopsided. For instance, the flood of products which are imported to the US just from China alone, in contrast to US exports to China, has created a trade deficit in the trillions of dollars. This sort of one-way trade is unsustainable, and if nothing drastic is done to address this situation, America's economy will be reduced to that of a third world country.

Most people also maintain a massive trade imbalance with the grocery store, the hardware store, the clothing store, and the gasoline store even without free trade! We have a sales tax/tariff on importing goods to our homes. Where this becomes a problem on the national scale is in strategic capability. If too many clothing manufacturers are out of business and we are somehow cut off from trade with places that make our clothes, we could go naked. A trade imbalance by itself is not a problem when you make up for the difference in cash, which the United States does.

Also, without further explanation of exactly what the author means by economy of a third world country, there is not much to say. The third world is often marked by massive employment in agriculture as opposed to more industrial and service employment. Unless we run out of diesel fuel, it does not appear that the U.S. will go back to large amounts of employment in the agricultural sector.

The first indicators of economic collapse have already manifested themselves in the housing industry, and the big three American auto makers. Teetering on bankruptcy, they will be the first of the large economic dominos to fall, and the rest will follow in short order. As a consequence, something on the scale of another Great Depression may be a possibility.

Part of the problem with the current housing “collapse” was with sub-prime lenders just shoveling loans out the door to make money. There were/are many predatory lenders and loan officers writing up loans they should not have been making either. With regard to the big three auto makers, their biggest problem was their negotiations with Unions in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s. The big three did not have crystal balls and did not foresee the competition from Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, and other manufacturers. Why this is a problem now is that the big three cannot compete when they have such massive overhead costs of paying out pensions for the next several decades and their revenues are drying up.

“[A]nother Great Depression”? WAIT A MINUTE! Didn’t the author already pronounce the economy dead? There is a difference between a depression and dead.

America has been scammed big-time over the years. The corporate wheelers and dealers, with the complicity of their bought and paid for political whores in Washington, have sold the American working man down the river, and the general welfare of the entire country as well.

That one sentence only scratches the surface of what the public has been scammed about. This country has been taught lies for more than 150 years. It is only getting worse.

Reacting to mounting criticism of the present economic status quo, the corporate crooks and their political hit men blame the miserable economic situation on their victims -- the greedy American worker, the communist labor unions, the demand of Americans to have clean air and water, and worst of all the bunker mentality of the American people to put up fences against free trade, protectionism. This unenviable anti business situation, they say, was instrumental in forcing harried U.S. corporations to locate elsewhere in more business friendly areas of the world.

There is a common phrase, “they pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work”. This recognizes the greed of the worker. Most people are greedy, it is part of life. The worker tries to get as much money as possible and the employer tries to pay as little as possible. That is how it goes. Welcome to Earth.

With regard to unions and a clean environment, this has lead to so much regulation and overpayment for services that it really is difficult for businesses to turn a profit like they used to and some profit seeking companies move overseas. The Federal Government even regulates how much cheese goes on a sandwich for a firefighter engaged in fighting wildfires.

Protectionism is a very nasty thing sometimes. According to this book, protectionism in the 1800’s was the leading cause of the “Civil War”. Protectionist tariffs were passed that were used to help northern industry at the expense of the south. The south was able to trade tobacco and cotton for finished goods in Europe, but not always able to pay for the import tariffs, so individuals would settle for cash and get less value for their trading. The south was the cash cow of the north. They paid most of the taxes to the government which then used the money to benefit northern interests. The split was based on financial interests, not slavery. The war brought by the north was to secure the tax revenues. It was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. The book was written by Charles Adams.

Because these same corporations own most of the mass media in America, very little if any blame at all is placed upon the multi billion dollar corporations whose decisions, based entirely on greed, have set off these disastrous events in the first place.

The problem is much deeper than business. Government, Public Schools, Entertainment Media, and many others are to blame for our financial woes. Much of the blame lies with the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Banking System which happen to remain in the United States. Businesses have pretty much from the beginning of this nation sought government benefits to their advantage. It is nothing really new.

Coinciding with the mounting economic problems of the nation is that of a growing threat to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness by a group of unelected conspirators who have seized control of America’s highest political office. This group of traitors, with Bush crime family member and usurper of the Office of President, George Walker Bush, has ceaselessly undermined the authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

To usurp is to take something by force or without a right to it, or to take the place of another without legal authority, or to supplant. There is little or no evidence that Pres. Bush is a “usurper”. He played by the rules. The rules themselves may be unfair, but they are the rules.

President Bush and his administration have ignored the Constitution. "It’s just a G-- D----- piece of paper" after all. (Quote courtesy of Pres. Bush).

Since the installation of this cabal, a series of events have unfolded not seen since Hitler's burning of the Reichstag. The attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, followed by the anthrax threat to Congress, was carefully contrived to give the Bush Cabal the support necessary to begin military operations to secure the resources of the Mideast, and to pass the PATRIOT Act and other draconian legislation, bestowing upon this illegal regime the power to spy, arrest, and torture anyone, including American citizens, they deem as enemy combatants.

The only problem with comparing 9/11 to the burning of the Reichstag is that the author has ignored the Oklahoma City Bombing in the analysis. Both events were used to justify additional domestic spying. Pres. Bush just did it better. This makes the author appear to be a left winger more than a truth seeker.

The rest of this part is a little overwrought, but the FBI is already admitting to abuse of the USA PATRIOT Act.

With the economy failing, and the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continuing with no end in sight, the newly-elected Congress sits on its hands, unwilling to act. Nor are they moving to remove the 9/11 conspirators and war criminals from the White House.

True.

This is not only a bleak scenario for the American people but for the entire world as well. Emboldened by the timidity of the new Congress, the Bush cabal is moving ahead with their plans for war with Iran, which will not be long in coming.

*Shakes Magic 8-Ball* “all signs point to yes”.

Although I would like to end my remarks on a positive note, at this moment I do not see anything good happening in the near future. Despite the growing disenchantment and suspicion of Bush and his policies, he and his cabal are still in firm control of the Country.

Really? Nothing good happening in the near future? How sad. There will of course be some very hard times to come, but still, good things will happen.

Further, it is foolish to think that after Bush leaves office, the next occupants of the White House will set things straight. This is not going to happen.

True again.

The fact of the matter is that our Government is no longer in charge of matters, but operates as a rubber stamp for those parasitic entities which have infiltrated into the core of government. In reality, policy in Washington is not determined by the wants and needs of the American people, but by the whim of the wealthy and powerful elite whose seemingly inexhaustible riches and thirst for more riches supercedes everything else. These corrupt and treasonous individuals within the halls of power will stop at nothing, including war and murder, in order to attain their diabolical ends.

Mostly true, but missing the part about power and control, not just money. The real power brokers are more sinister than the author gives them credit for.

We should also not delude ourselves that an economic collapse will somehow quicken the removal of the cancer which is hastening the demise of our Republic. Just as they have used the threat of terrorism to cow the people, so will they use economic failure to justify a further tightening of the screws. It is going to be a long hard struggle to rid ourselves of this evil, make no mistake about it.

Some might say that the Republic was already dead once the Civil War started. Prior to the Civil War, people might say “The United States are” versus “The United State is”. The United States was a collection of independent states united for specific enumerated purposes. The States were sovereign and had the right of secession. Ever since the Civil War, the United States is the name of a very powerful and large country. It is not a collection of states any more, but a collection of political subdivisions of the National Government.

Without some focus on the problems of Big Government and focusing only on the problems caused by corporate interests and the Bush administration, the author comes off sounding more like a left-wing hack instead of a serious columnist.

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Utah Waits For a Fourth Seat

An unconstitutional bill was in the House. It would give a representative in the U.S. House to Washington D.C. and another representative to Utah. The problem is that D.C. is not a State, and members of the House of Representatives must be elected from states.

Article I, Sec. 2 of the Constitution says the Representatives are elected by the people of the several states.

Article I, Sec. 4 of the Constitution requires States to choose the manner of electing Representatives and Senators.

Article I, Sec. 8 created the District of Columbia and gave Congress the power to regulate a 10 square mile area that is now the seat of our government.

No provision for the District of Columbia to have a voting member of Congress. Although the 23rd Amendment gave them the right to an Electoral Votes for President. They now have three electoral votes.

But that is not why the bill was defeated.

The bill was defeated for the very same reason why almost anything gets done in Washington D.C., politics. According to the Washington Times, some clever parliamentary action defeated the bill in committee. This is an example that is clever, enlightening, and sickening.

In a committee meeting, a Republican representative made a motion to amend the bill to not only allow D.C. and Utah to have one more representative, but that while we are respecting notions of fairness and a right to representation we should also respect the right to bear arms. The amendment would have repealed the very heavy handed ban on firearms in Washington D.C.

This put several of the Democrats on the committee in a difficult position. Some of them were elected on a promise that they would fight for gun rights. If they vote against the amendment to repeal the gun ban, then it looks like they are anti-gun. If the vote for the amendment to repeal the gun ban, it will make the bill impassable in the House.

They decided to postpone the vote on the amendment indefinitely. The bill is dead, and because of politics, not a desire to do what is right or to follow the right procedure, or even for respect of the constitution. A win is a win.

The Constitution should be amended if they want to give representation to Washington D.C.

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The Problem of Abortion

This is a topic that is often very controversial, emotional, and difficult to discuss. This posting is an attempt to speak the truth about abortion without apologizing.

LDS Doctrine is clear on this point:

In today's society, abortion has become a common practice, defended by deceptive arguments. Latter-day prophets have denounced abortion, referring to the Lord's declaration, "Thou shalt not . . . kill, nor do anything like unto it" (D&C 59:6). Their counsel on the matter is clear: Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must not submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for an abortion. Church members who encourage an abortion in any way may be subject to Church discipline.

Church leaders have said that some exceptional circumstances may justify an abortion, such as when pregnancy is the result of incest or rape, when the life or health of the mother is judged by competent medical authority to be in serious jeopardy, or when the fetus is known by competent medical authority to have severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. But even these circumstances do not automatically justify an abortion. Those who face such circumstances should consider abortion only after consulting with their local Church leaders and receiving a confirmation through earnest prayer.

When a child is conceived out of wedlock, the best option is for the mother and father of the child to marry and work toward establishing an eternal family relationship. If a successful marriage is unlikely, they should place the child for adoption, preferably through LDS Family Services (see "Adoption").

—See True to the Faith (2004), 4–5

It is tempting as a Latter Day Saint to say that I will not have an abortion, but I cannot support banning them because of the sanctity of our agency. This is wrongheaded and addressed by Elder Dallin H. Oaks in this article, here is a part:

If we say we are anti-abortion in our personal life but pro-choice in public policy, we are saying that we will not use our influence to establish public policies that encourage righteous choices on matters God’s servants have defined as serious sins. I urge Latter-day Saints who have taken that position to ask themselves which other grievous sins should be decriminalized or smiled on by the law due to this theory that persons should not be hampered in their choices. Should we decriminalize or lighten the legal consequences of child abuse? of cruelty to animals? of pollution? of fraud? of fathers who choose to abandon their families for greater freedom or convenience?

Similarly, some reach the pro-choice position by saying we should not legislate morality. Those who take this position should realize that the law of crimes legislates nothing but morality. Should we repeal all laws with a moral basis so that our government will not punish any choices some persons consider immoral? Such an action would wipe out virtually all of the laws against crimes.

Here is an Ensign article containing 15 separate arguments to support NOT easing up on abortion restrictions.

The LDS Church is firmly against abortion except in the most extreme circumstances and even then, only after sincere prayer and counseling with your bishop. As a people we are encouraged to be "pro-life".

What is the Cost of a Society That Allows Abortion?

Ask Geraldo Flores. In Texas, it is a Felony punishable by a full life term to purposely cause a miscarriage if you are not a doctor. His girlfriend was pregnant and began to show, then decided she would have an abortion. The doctor told her she was too far along, past 23 weeks. She was also carrying twins. She tried punching her own stomach and running long distances and when that did not work, she begged her boyfriend to help her do it and he stomped on her stomach, causing her to miscarry the two babies. Geraldo Flores has been sentenced to life in prison. His girlfriend remains free to go on with her life. It is, after all a woman's right to choose.

But, Planned Parenthood was started with only the best of intentions, right? Wrong.

Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger. She was lauded as one of the "Top 100" most important people of the 20th Century in Time Magazine and as one of the pioneers of the feminist movement. It turns out that she was mostly in favor of only aborting the right kind of people, or what is known as eugenics. Her bigotry was not merely racial. She was in favor of sterilization of people with mental handicaps, people who are too religious, poor, immigrants, or anyone else considered "unfit". From blackgenocide.org:

Not to be outdone by her followers, Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as "unfit," a plan she said would be the "salvation of American civilization.: And she also spoke of those who were "irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that "there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped." That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered "unfit" cannot be easily refuted.

While Planned Parenthood's current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and many others.

Margaret Sanger is quoted extensively by Diane S. Dew and has Ms. Sanger's opinions on all sorts of topics and quotes official statements from Planned Parenthood. They are in favor of any kind of consensual sex, and against marriage in general. They are in favor of the sterilization of everyone: "[Planned Parenthood] has encouraged homosexuality and advocated compulsory sterilization of all who have two children. (Family Planning Perspectives (a PP publication), June, Oct. 1970)"

Are you convinced you should support anti-abortion efforts yet? No?

How about 50,000,000 abortions in the United States since 1973. The article was published in 2004, and with the rate of abortions, we are now over 50,000,000 aborted pregnancies. On a positive note, there has been a small reduction in the amount of abortions in the United States. In the United States alone. 1973 was significant because Roe v. Wade was decided and as voters we no longer have the ability to enforce any kind of meaningful regulation on abortion. Subsequent court decisions have only made the situation worse. In 1995, there were between 20,000,000 and 26,000,000 abortions world wide. It is a modern day tragedy.

States cannot even ban the use of perhaps the most evil "medical" procedure of all, partial birth abortion. It is a gruesome procedure and if you really want to read about it, here is a page with diagrams explaining it.

It is as close to modern day child sacrifice that we have. Completely unnecessary and unneeded. There has been no medical showing where this procedure would be necessary, ever.

Oh, and that eugenics part? Check this out:

Abortion, by the numbers, is a racist institution. How so? Because abortion kills a far greater percentage of minority children in America than it does white children. The Alan Guttmacher fact sheet, Facts in Brief, reveals that, "Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2 1/2 times as likely."

The Centers for Disease Control, which has been tracking the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions since 1969, gives us these numbers. White women, who make up 75% of the female population in the U.S., account for only 55% of all U.S. abortions. Black women, who make up 12.3% of the females in the U.S, account for 35% of all U.S. abortions. "Other races" of women fill out the remaining 12.5% of the female population and account for 10% of all U.S. abortions.

Margaret Sanger's plan is working.

Still Not Convinced?

The people who push the most for abortion rights are profiting from abortion. Not just in performing the procedure, but in the sale of the body parts after an abortion. In fact, here is what purports to be a price list from 1999.

These organizations and the people behind them are profiting from this immense tragedy and holocaust.

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Headline Writing Gone Awry

In Florida, supporters of those with hearing loss went to the state capitol to petition the government for extended services for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Advocates are pushing for state licensure of interpreters, improved educational services, better access to emergency preparedness plans, increased use of captioning for films and television broadcasts and increased funding for direct services, according to a written release.

The headline for the article: "Deaf plan silent protest at Capitol".

Aren't things always silent for the deaf?

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War With Iran

It appears that we are moving toward war with Iran. We are being conditioned for it and our naval vessels are crowding the waters near Iran. It seems to be just a matter of time. The U.S. already has plans for attacking Iran.

The U.S., on January 11, 2007 has already attacked an Iranian consulate in Iraq. This is an act of war. The U.S. is provoking Iran into further action.

It also appears that western intelligence agencies including the United States are abducting senior Iranian Military Officials. At least, Iran believes they are and Iran may retaliate.

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Why We Can't Solve The Palestinian Problem

The Arabs teach an eternal hatred for the Jews and the State of Israel.

A brief history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is contained at this page. Much of the information referenced is found there. Even though it is brief, it is a lot of reading.

In 1947, the U.N. proposed dividing the land of Palestine into Jewish and Arab areas with an international zone in Jerusalem. The Jewish people accepted the idea the Arabs did not. The "Palestinians" are Arabs that have been rejected by all of the other Arab nations.

There has been a regular state of armed conflict in the land of Palestine.

In 1948, there was a War of Independence, Israel Won. Arabs call this war the "Nakba" meaning disaster.

The Sinai Campaign began in 1954 and continued sporadically for about two years.

In 1955, Yasser Arafat formed the Fatah Party with the avowed purpose of destroying Jews and Israel.

In 1967, the 6-Day War ended with Israel seizing large areas of land that formerly belonged to Egypt and Jordan. Israel gave back the lands to Egypt for peace and kept much of the original land of Israel from Old Testament times. There was a new problem of handling the Palestinian Arabs that lived in the new land won by Israel.

The War of Attrition was begun shortly after the Six-Day war.

The Yom-Kippur (pronounce Yom-Kih-Poor) War in October 1973 led to a truce again, although Israel was not too prepared that time.

After the Yom-Kippur War, the Arabs imposed an Oil Embargo on the United State and the Netherlands because of their support for Israel.

The PLO began a civil war on Lebanon which led to attacks on Israel which led to Israel invading Lebanon in 1978. Israel withdrew shortly after when the UN passed a resolution to provide peace keepers.

After the murder of an official of Israel by Lebanese terrorists, Israel again invaded Lebanon in 1982. The PLO was driven from Lebanon before Israel brought their army back.

The PLO has also been given official recognition by the U.N.. The PLO's avowed purpose is the destruction of the State of Israel. The Fatah Party has the same purpose.

The First Intifada began in 1987 with Palestinian Arabs engaging in minor acts of violence and other ways of seeking international sympathy.

There have been several attempts at peace and they have all failed. The Second Intifada has gone on. The Oslo peace process has failed. The suicide bomber attacks continue.

The Arab society continues to teach hatred of the Jews.

Here is a video and the transcript of a television interview of two children. They are very cute and adorable to listen to in their little voices. They are both in kindergarten and the children of of Palestinian Arab (scroll down) suicide bomber Rim Al-Riyashi. She killed herself on Jan. 14, 2005 leaving behind two small children. She was 23.

The children are fine and appear to be happy about their mother's death. There is much that can be said about a society that can successfully indoctrinate a woman to kill herself and leave her two small children behind (and none of it positive). This does not seem to be a problem among the Jews.

The problem will not go away anytime soon until the Second Coming when the Arabs are killed en masse the Arabs stop teaching blind hatred of the Jews. Of course, this is what will likely continue to lead to the battle of Armageddon and the war against Israel.

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Come Fly The Scary Skies

The news last summer was about a plot hatched in the U.K. where approximately 24 co-conspirators were going to use a binary-liquid explosive to blow up many airplanes in mid-flight. The co-conspirators were arrested as they were beginning to search the internet for flights leaving at approximately the same time to coordinate the explosions.

The explosive identified was either TADP or HMTD or maybe TCAP. No one source has been definitive on the actual explosive to be used. But was it a real threat?

The FBI found that liquids on airplanes are not at dangerous as they previously thought. That revelation was September 26, 2006, when the original story was dated August 11, 2006. It is strange that the FBI explosive experts wouldn't already be aware that the liquids were not that dangerous.

Some people say the threat of mixing two liquids to blow up a plane is very real and should be guarded against. Other people say that there is no credible threat of people bringing liquids on board and mixing them into a bomb, specifically TADP, HMTD, or TCAP. Here are some of the details about what would make it so difficult:

Better killing through chemistry

Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together.

First, you've got to get adequately concentrated hydrogen peroxide. This is hard to come by, so a large quantity of the three per cent solution sold in pharmacies might have to be concentrated by boiling off the water. Only this is risky, and can lead to mission failure by means of burning down your makeshift lab before a single infidel has been harmed.

But let's assume that you can obtain it in the required concentration, or cook it from a dilute solution without ruining your operation. Fine. The remaining ingredients, acetone and sulfuric acid, are far easier to obtain, and we can assume that you've got them on hand.

Now for the fun part. Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. It's all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don't forget to bring several frozen gel-packs (preferably in a Styrofoam chiller deceptively marked "perishable foods"), a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You're going to need them.

It's best to fly first class and order Champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate - especially if you have those cold gel-packs handy to supplement the ice, and the Styrofoam chiller handy for insulation - to get you through the cookery without starting a fire in the lavvie.

Easy does it

Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

The genius of this scheme is that TATP is relatively easy to detonate. But you must make enough of it to crash the plane, and you must make it with care to assure potency. One needs quality stuff to commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," as Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson put it. While it's true that a slapdash concoction will explode, it's unlikely to do more than blow out a few windows. At best, an infidel or two might be killed by the blast, and one or two others by flying debris as the cabin suddenly depressurizes, but that's about all you're likely to manage under the most favorable conditions possible. . . .

Mrs. Satan

By now you'll be asking why these jihadist wannabes didn't conspire simply to bring TATP onto planes, colored with a bit of vegetable dye, and disguised as, say, a powdered fruit-flavored drink. The reason is that they would be afraid of failing: TATP is notoriously sensitive and unstable. Mainstream journalists like to tell us that terrorists like to call it "the mother of Satan." (Whether this reputation is deserved, or is a consequence of homebrewing by unqualified hacks, remains open to debate.) . . .

We asked University of Rhode Island Chemistry Professor Jimmie C. Oxley, who has actual, practical experience with TATP, if this is a reasonable assumption, and she tolds us that merely dumping the precursors together would create "a violent reaction," but not a detonation.

This article is not an isolated opinion on the matter either. One of the major difficulties is that any two-part liquid explosives are already unstable in their component parts. TATP was the most often identified explosive of choice in the airline plot. There are other possible binary explosives such as Binex and Kinepak, but it mixes a solid and a liquid. The chemical formulations of the compounds are a trade secret and the manufacturers are very careful about who they sell to.

This story and the subsequent restrictions on liquids showed how people are obedient to orders from their government. In a poll released Sept. 1, 2006, 61% thought the liquid ban was necessary and almost one half of adults surveyed believed the restrictions should remain in place as long as the government deems it necessary.

There was the potential for the Republican party to benefit from the story. According to the stub of this story written prior to the 2004 Election (full story requires subscription), people with a subliminal fear of death will vote for charismatic leaders at election time. This story from 2006 in Psychology Today discusses a study about political attitudes and fear of death. It showed that people just thinking about death was enough to push their point of view more conservative at least temporarily. A reminder to think rationally was enough to pull people back to their views prior to thinking about death. The same study showed that people equate "WTC" and "9/11" with death. From the article:

When people were in a benign state of mind, they tended to oppose Bush and his policies in Iraq. But after thinking about either death or 9/11, they tended to favor him. Such findings were further corroborated by Cornell sociologist Robert Willer, who found that whenever the color-coded terror alert level was raised, support for Bush increased significantly, not only on domestic security but also in unrelated domains, such as the economy.

Or even support Pres. Bush in a mid-term election? It appears that the risk of using liquids on a plane to blow it up is actually very very small due to the operational difficulty of handling the materials properly prior to detonation. Some of these opinions against the idea of the plot were written within a couple of days of the story hitting the newswires. The FBI admitted 45 days later that the risk of liquid explosives was exaggerated. 45 days after that there was a mid-term election.

This blog has covered several topics that indicate our Government is not very trustworthy, for example our government does not want us to know the unflattering truth about the War in Iraq or Afghanistan, The Treatment of Military Women, U.S. Attorneys dismissed for political reasons, Billions of Dollars Stolen in Iraq, Governmental Spying on its' citizens, and how Pres. Bush thinks the Constitution is "just a g-- d--- piece of paper".

It is a true cliche that "In war, the first casualty is truth". This has been called the "War on Terror" for over five years now. Credible scientific evidence shows that the story offered to the public for the binary liquid explosives cannot be true, but was the story purposely falsified for political reasons? The timing is certainly suspicious, being just three months out from the November elections. War coverage on the ground in Iraq has been censored for political reasons already. Is the larger war on terror next?

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It Seemed Like a Good Idea at The Time

Attorneys get in trouble too. And when they do, it can make it into many sources. Due to some inside information and some pretty well done detective work by Abovethelaw.com, there is a name associated with the attorney who got in trouble. In fact, she got fired resigned and received a written lecture from Federal District Court Judge Dale Kimball.

Angela Stander had stamped the cover page of her filing on a Friday and then filed it with the rest of her document the next Wednesday. She even had a misspelling in the titles of the documents filed with the court. According to the order from the judge, this had happened once before and the court was hoping it was merely a mistake and would not happen again. The court also previously told the attorney that they are liberal in granting extensions when additional time is needed in an order less than one month before the recent deceptive filing was attempted.

The Order related to the filings was just to correct the date of the filing, and to censure the attorney about their practice.

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Crying Wolf

But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn't come.

At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn't returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill to find the boy. They found him weeping.

"There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out, "Wolf!" Why didn't you come?"

An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.

"We'll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning," he said, putting his arm around the youth, "Nobody believes a liar...even when he is telling the truth!"

-- Aesop's Fables, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"

There are a few news stories and blogs out there about a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Decision including a World Net Daily article. The first 50 related articles of a Google Search are all singing the same tune. It is hard to tell where these things begin.

The story is that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals "has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" because that is hate speech and could scare workers." EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!! This according to the World Net Daily article. The "hate speech" angle seems to be the most popular. The stories also note that the employees were threatened with being fired if they continued to post flyers like the one removed.

The story is wrong and simply reading the 9th Circuit Court's Opinion and the Trial Court's Decision would have cleared up the matter immediately. In responding to blogs, Preacher Lawyer has read the opinions and agrees the story is wrong. In the fifth response to another blog, someone else has read the underlying opinions and found that the story is wrong.

First, here is a simplified chart about how facts get to courts to consider:
1- Something happens,
2- People see what happens with different observations and perceptions with varying degrees of accuracy and detail,
3- People tell their lawyers about what they believe happened,
4- attorneys collect the evidence as best they can with the resources at their disposal,
5- people testify about what they remember from their different observations and perceptions,
6- some testimony and evidence is excluded as unreliable or unavailable,
7- other evidentiary issues exclude evidence for reasons such as an improper search, and
8- the court's final ruling generally does not include all the facts considered.

From various news reports and the courts' decision, here is what happened. In the Oakland City offices, some employees were living a homosexual lifestyle and would send out e-mails from time to time, put up flyers, and other communications supporting their lifestyle via discussion, public meetings, or whatever. Some of the communications were offensive to Christian beliefs. Some people in the office decided to form the Good News Employee Association. They posted one flyer.

the Good News Employee Association (GNEA), called on readers to “Preserve Our Workplace With Integrity,” and explained that GNEA “is a forum for people of Faith to express their views on contemporary issues of the day.

p. 2, District Court Opinion.

GNEA’s stated purposes are “[t]o celebrate our Faith and Liberties by preserving the integrity of the Natural Family, Marriage and Family values”; “[t]o provide a forum for people of faith to express their views on contemporary issues of the day”; and “[t]o oppose all views that seek to redefine the Natural Family and Marriage.” Melaugh Decl (Doc #43) Ex D. In its “Statement of Faith,” GNEA explains that “we believe the Natural Family is defined as a man and a women their children by birth or adoption, or the surviving remnant thereof (including single parents)”; that “[w]e believe Marriage is defined by a union between a man and a woman according to California state law”; and that “[w]e believe in Family Values that promote abstinence, marriage, fidelity in marriage and devotion to our children.” Id. Plaintiffs’ deposition testimony confirms the anti-homosexual import of their definitions of “natural family,” “marriage” and the meaning of the flyer’s exhortation to “preserve our workplace with integrity.”

pp. 2-3 of the opinion. The Plaintiffs agreed and testified that there was at least an anti-homosexual element to their flyer and statements. An employee who worked there who saw the flyer spoke with one of the employees named on the flyer. This discussion left the employee feeling uncomfortable and they spoke to their supervisor. The supervisor decided to remove the one flyer. That's it.

Plaintiffs acknowledge that they have alternative channels open to them to communicate their message. For example, Rederford acknowledges that she was not restricted from expressing her views on marriage or gay rights outside the workplace, over lunch or on a break. Melaugh Decl (Doc #43) Ex A (Rederford Depo) at 141:5-18. Nor were plaintiffs prohibited from organizing GNEA, and Rederford acknowledges that she was told “she could announce [her] group” through the City’s e-mail system if she removed “verbiage that could be offensive to gay people” from her announcement.

pp. 4-5, same opinion. If they were serious about forming the group, they could send out the e-mail or talk to people and move forward with it. The parties actually named in the lawsuit had little or nothing to do with the actual removal of the one flyer. They had qualified immunity from personal liability. The court then went on to discuss the free speech implications of the workplace action.

This interest is slight, as the restriction placed on their speech under the facts at bar was quite limited: Plaintiffs were prohibited from posting a particular flyer on an office bulletin board. Plaintiffs themselves acknowledge that no restriction has been placed on their speech outside of work (by, for example, threatening them with termination if they speak outside the workplace). They further acknowledge that they can discuss their views with co-workers as they wish at appropriate times (at lunch, on a break).

p. 15, same decision. Here is the part about "threatened termination" for re-posting the same flyer:

Plaintiffs press the argument that their speech was chilled by Hicks’ circulation to all CEDA employees in late February of [Administrative Instruction] 71 and a memo reminding them that noncompliance could result in discipline.

p. 15, same decision. A simple reminder that compliance with workplace regulations is required and that violating the same regulation is not a threat of termination. Here is the discussion about "hate speech", note that the words "hate speech" do not appear in the decision, anywhere.

The interests on both sides are slight: On the one hand, defendants’ restriction of plaintiffs is far from a wholesale muzzling, but on the other hand, the suppressed speech was not patently inflammatory “fighting words.” To be sure, it caused friction in the workplace, but there is a difference between episodes of friction -- which are the daily incidents of life in a pluralistic society -- and disruption -- which impairs the government’s ability to discharge its duties to its citizens.

pp. 17-18, same decision. There was some discussion about unequal treatment under Administrative Instruction 71, the office policy that was used to justify removal of the flyer. The court held that AI71 did not bind the Federal Courts in any way and the restriction was permissible under the First Amendment. With regard to disparate treatment, the Federal Court found that it was supposed to be deferential to cities that have to enforce their own regulations. Got that? The plaintiffs can really only sue when their own rights are infringed, not when they think enforcement is unfair. Unless they sued under the Equal Protection Clause, which they did not.

Courts are often forced to make decisions for very narrow issues and questions. This razor-thin slicing can make for bad questions leading to bad answers. The court never said the flyers constituted "hate speech", just that it caused friction that the city was justified in trying to have a harmonious workplace. The employees were never threatened with termination either, at least according to court documents.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals merely upheld the lower court, it did not add any language about "hate speech".
______________________________________________________________

So why have the misleading stories?

This would have been so easy to fix in the reporting. Reading 27 pages of court decisions is not too much to ask to verify a story, is it? It appears that there is more to this than very sloppy reporting.

From World Net Daily, at the end of the article:

"The city of Oakland has interpreted this district court's ruling to mean that Christianity has no place in our society and should be subject to punishment. I want to believe that our Supreme Court will ultimately decide this case on the values and instructions set forth in motion by the nations Founders," said Ackerman.

Ackerman's' firm represents the women and said the Pro-Family Law Center and Abiding Truth Ministries have helped underwrite the thousands of dollars it has cost to fight the city's aggressive promotion of the homosexual lifestyle.

The article from World Net Daily has been copied and reposted to several blogs and other websites. From a Lifesite.net article.

Richard Ackerman, whose public-interest law firm Ackerman,Cowles & Lindsley represents the two women, said this case has drained significant financial and time resources because of the fight put up by the City of Oakland in defending its aggressive censorship of the plaintiffs. The case is also being funded by the Pro-Family Law Center and Abiding Truth Ministries.

For more information contact Ackerman and Lively's law firm:
http://www.livelyackerman.com/

From a websitetoolbox.com article:

"The city of Oakland has interpreted this district court's ruling to mean that Christianity has no place in our society and should be subject to punishment. I want to believe that our Supreme Court will ultimately decide this case on the values and instructions set forth in motion by the nations Founders," said Ackerman.

Ackerman's' firm represents the women and said the Pro-Family Law Center and Abiding Truth Ministries have helped underwrite the thousands of dollars it has cost to fight the city's aggressive promotion of the homosexual lifestyle.

And from one person who spells it out for you, from the As I See It Now blog:

If you would like to donate to the Pro-family Law Center to help defray the expenses of defending outrageous Anti-American and anti-Christian cases such as this, here is the link.

It appears to be a publicity campaign to try to color the process and make the issue what it is not. The attorney for the plaintiffs seems to have received favorable press and even has his picture with the World Net Daily article. It also seems to be drumming up business for donations to the Pro-Family Law Center and Abiding Truth Ministries.

If they are willing to allow lies/exaggerations like this, who knows what else they may lie about.

Crying 'wolf' indeed.

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Read These Please

This article is about the real school curriculum. If you want a different curriculum, find a private school or home school your children.

As a teaser:

Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion, class assignment, dulled responses, emotional and intellectual dependency, conditional self-esteem, surveillance -- all of these things are good training for permanent underclasses, people derived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And in later years it became the training shaken loose from even its own original logic – to regulate the poor; since the 1920s the growth of the school bureaucracy and the less visible growth of a horde of industries that profit from schooling just exactly as it is, has enlarged this institution's original grasp to where it began to seize the sons and daughters of the middle classes. . . .

School is like starting life with a 12-year jail sentence in which bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it.

I should know.

For the nerd in your life, this article may be useful. Another teaser:

It's important for nerds to realize, too, that school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half feral. It's all-encompassing, like life, but it isn't the real thing. It's only temporary, and if you look, you can see beyond it even while you're still in it.

If life seems awful to kids, it's neither because hormones are turning you all into monsters (as your parents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as you believe). It's because the adults, who no longer have any economic use for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Any society of that type is awful to live in. You don't have to look any further to explain why teenage kids are unhappy.

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The Inmates Are Running The Asylum Pt. 2

This is part 2 of 2.

Preston Jones of St. Louis Missouri writes this:

When my mom comes home from school, she is covered in bites, scrapes and bruises from the behavior disorder/ learning disabled high school class she teaches. If she reports a kid, they send a person to her room to tell her what SHE is doing to cause these little [jerks] to hit her.

Almost every time I go out to my moms house she has got some kind of injury and it has gotten to the point that reporting the injury to the proper authorities is a bigger pain in the a-- than going to the doctor. If she reports an injury and it is contested by a parent, she not only has to go through piles of paperwork for weeks (obviously after work) but she could gain the title of an "accused teacher" even if she is cleared, an "accused" teacher is as much of a "risk" to a school district as a teacher that actually hit a kid so then she would loose her job after 35 years of being a good, caring teacher. At this point, i wonder what kind of person would actually WANT to go to school to be a teacher.

So, while school district administration is generally liberal in their world view, it is OK to treat teachers like garbage and BLAME THE VICTIM. Wasn't that a rallying cry to defend rape victims and not blame them? I guess for teachers it is different. Very sad.

Michael Babbage of Seoul, Korea had this to say:

If a student ever threw punch at a teacher at my school here in Korea, he/she would not survive the results.

I imagine that it is the culture with student retribution, hopefully not the teachers killing students. Take it as you will.

"Keapon" from Florida notes that teachers are punished for doing too well:

Seriously though, our education system is royally screwed. She has to listen to people who literally say, if your class is doing too well, you're doing something wrong. If you think that is an exaggeration, talk to a teacher. The current system rewards failure and actively punishes success.

Calling evil, good and good, evil.

Adam Smouchier from the Philadelphia area makes these observations:

As for the schools, the one thing I hate about the liberal sort in local gov't is their willingness to experiment on the poor. Gov't housing, for example, was a total failure -- it destroyed poor-yet-repectable neighborhoods and created towers full of isolated, angry poor people.

The same with schools. We took time-tested schooling principles and replaced them with "state-of-the-art" pedagogy and it ruined them. Kids need discipline, especially if they aren't getting it home. They need to learn to read, write, and add. And, if they are not academically suited, they should be taught a trade.

Government solutions are not working, they never really have when it comes to problems with values and instilling the right ones. It works better when they just get out of the way.

"dfenstrate" of New Hampshire writes:

My take on why public schools suck, much of it repeated from this thread:

1. Parents who don't care that their children are actually educated. (including those who don't care at all, and those who call the lawyers over a 'C.'

2. High barrier to entry into the teaching profession- the requirement of years of formal 'education' schooling when a few weeks vocational classes + a BS/BA in the subject matter should be enough.

3. Requirement to take all comers and pretend to do something with them. Many thoroughly disabled kids in SpEd are just draining public resources with no bonafide development of the student.

4.Tied to #3, the inability to eject continually disruptive students.

5. The inability to discharge children early who have learned all the required material, or are incapable of learning further material. Ex: My brother, due to Development Disabilities, never got much beyond basic arithmetic and 5th grade reading. He was still in public schools until he was 21, at tremendous public cost and no benefit to him.

6. Too much administrative overhead- much of it driven by federal requirements and the need to protect yourself from lawsuit-happy parents.

7. The defective basic design of the public school system. All students of a particular age are treated the same, even though the cruel role of genetics and parentage have put them ahead or behind their age peers.
For a full discourse, read The seven lesson school teacher.

8. Tied in with 7, there's the defective social environment of public schools. Read Why nerds are unpopular for more. The petty intrigues of public school kids look like a prison system or high society wives.

9. Money. Okay, I'm kidding about this one. There's tons of money in the school systems and most of it is wasted in relation to 1- 8.

The solution? Short story: The willingness to be cold and hard, with a path for redemption later.

The cold and hard part: Toss out kids who won't or can't learn anything more in public schools. No 'alternate' education at 3x the normal cost, just out . . . for their parents to deal with. No free daycare for your incapacitated or eternally disruptive child. Not yours. Slow kids are kept in classes that match their ability. The younger kids in such classes are kept from mocking their slow bretheren through discipline.

The redemption: Bad kids get to try again every year. Adults may choose to attend free GED classes where no BS is tolerated and their attendance is a privilege.

Keep the useless kids away from those that have hope. When the trouble makers realize that education is a good idea, the door will be open.

Without introducing religion again (not A religion, just the traditional values 95% of society holds dear), this seems to be one of the best solutions to the problem. Please read the last two links, as well as this one.

The thing is, administrators know this and don't want to fix it. They want to have government indoctrination and day care (compulsory education) to enable productive citizens to keep working nobly for the good of the country.

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The Inmates Are Running The Asylum Pt. 1

Or is it "The Secular Humanists are Ruining Education"? Either way, an apt cliche.

Part 1 is about an article, Part 2 is commentary from other sources, and Philadelphia is not unique with this problem.

Today's example of Government Incompetence is from Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

There are continuing problems with violence in Philadelphia public schools where a teacher suffered a broken neck after being attacked by a student last month.

Burd's injuries drew national media attention and ignited complaints from Philadelphia teachers and their union, who contended that violence against teachers was on the rise in the 174,000-student district and underreported by some principals who want to make their schools look good.

Ugh. Principals selling out the teachers so the school "looks good". So, just how many assaults are happening, and by what age group?

District numbers show a 4 percent increase in assaults on teachers and administrators this school year, many of them committed by children in kindergarten through fourth grade.

On average last school year, three or four of the district's more than 11,000 teachers and administrators were assaulted on any given school day.

Philadelphia has had a slightly higher victimization rate than the national average for urban districts. In 2003-04, 5.5 percent of urban public school teachers reported being assaulted, compared with 8 percent in Philadelphia that year.

Three or four assaults a day. Many by kindergarten through fourth graders. Has it always been this bad? Not necessarily, but it has been bad for a long time.

Assaults on teachers, though rarely serious, have plagued the district for years, drawing public attention only when a particularly egregious attack or series of attacks occurred.

Six years ago: A second grader threatened to bring in a shotgun and kill his teacher. A high school teacher was out on workers' compensation for months after being jumped from behind, punched and kicked while trying to break up a fight. A chair was thrown at a middle school teacher, and weeks later she was threatened by the same student, who said she would pour gasoline on her and set her afire.

But certainly, all the assaults are being reported, right?

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers says the numbers are higher than the district is reporting - an accusation [District CEO Paul] Vallas disputed.

"The reason they are not accurate is that people are being discouraged from reporting," said Ted Kirsch, president of the union.

He said the union was looking into reports that teachers at one West Philadelphia elementary school must obtain permission from school officials to fill out a discipline slip. "You can't do that," he said.

If you guessed that the union leaders would recommend hiring additional staff to help fix the problem, YOU WIN THE PRIZE!!! Specifically hiring "non-teaching assistants" to help police the hallways. They would also be dues-paying union members. The District has been using volunteer trained help.

As the district has tried to fix the problem, it has gotten worse!

Within two months of his arrival in July 2002, he announced a "zero tolerance" crackdown on violence and disruption in the schools and threatened to fire principals who failed to report incidents. The policy, embraced by the union and parents, led to a large increase in reported incidents in the 2002-03 school year.

But it was no panacea.

Problems persisted: Shootings outside schools that claimed the lives of students. Large-scale fights in the big neighborhood high schools. Loaded guns found in lockers and hallways. A rape committed by a middle school youngster while classes went on around him. A kindergartner who punched a pregnant teacher in the stomach.

Each major incident prompted a new reaction from Vallas.

More security cameras, including high-power models expected to capture the scene around schools' immediate neighborhoods. More metal detectors. Special classrooms for young offenders. A more than threefold expansion of the district's outside-managed disciplinary schools, which as of Friday had 3,279 students enrolled. New schools for students who are older than average for the grades. And smaller high schools, which have shown better attendance and grades and fewer suspensions for disruptive behavior.

Vallas tried to put armed city police officers at the high schools, but Mayor Street rebuffed him.

The district also took steps to streamline its disciplinary process, hold monthly meetings to analyze attendance and school crime data, and beef up violence prevention and intervention programs - all points that drew praise from consultant Ellen Green-Ceisler in a report released March 1 that was largely critical of the district's disciplinary process.

Last week, Vallas announced a new teacher safety hotline - 215-400-STOP. It had received nearly 50 calls as of late Friday.

If the new hotline received 50 calls in 10 business days, that is 5 per day, and with 3 to 4 assaults per day, the violence may be keeping pace. There have been a lot of structural changes to address the problems, including 10 day suspensions and felony charges to be filed against students who attack teachers. Everyone agrees this is a good thing, right?

Others, however, said the move would further criminalize youths, many of them troubled and hurting.

"We're turning our schools in a lot of ways into pathways to jail," said Howard Stevenson, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.

Adults, who have "emotional power" over youth, sometimes provoke a child who already is troubled, he said.

"There are things that lead up to those aggressions. Very rarely do you have a kid who has no concern for human life or dignity that would act out," he said.

Stevenson called for a "tribunal" of adults to evaluate assault cases before punishment is meted out.

A "tribunal of adults" is already in place. It is called a court of law, the police, the District Attorney, etc... Also if the case is not that bad, the teacher can refuse to testify. After the new policies were put into place, a ninth grade student pushed an Assistant Principal which would have resulted in a ten-day suspension. The adult, the Assistant Principal found out that the student was released from a psychiatric hospital five days earlier after having been kidnapped and raped. The Assistant Principal let it slide. No need for a separate tribunal.

But how do you fix the problems on the inside? A person can try to make their house break-in proof but it is far better if the burglar doesn't want to commit the crime in the first place. How does the administration suggest they fix the problem? Why, by teaching the Ten Commandments again, and prayer in schools, and teaching traditional values that have been passed down through the ages and the common values that hold a civilized society together.

--- GOTCHA!!! Not really, here's the real suggestion:

Shelly Yanoff, executive director of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth, called for more counselors, psychologists and personnel. Her plea comes as the district, which operates on a $2.04 billion budget, faces a $37 million deficit this year and much larger shortfalls in subsequent years unless cuts are made or revenue increases.

"You can't police your way out of this. The kids are coming into the schools with issues and problems, and you need enough people there to deal with these problems," she said.

No doubt the counselors, psychologists, and personnel would be prohibited from teaching religious values of any sort. Simple appeals to etherial concepts of humanity and playing nice, and other such nonsense will fill their minds. Another problem is that they are acting like the state can fix the problems when the families need to fix them. Tough stuff.

There's an old joke about a young man arrested for stealing money donated to a church. The young man was in a room being questioned by police regarding the location of the missing cash. The minister was waiting in the hallway and a while later the police reported that they were making no progress, the young man was not talking. The minister asked if he could speak to the young man in private and five minutes later the minister had the information. The cops asked him what he said. The minister replied: "I told him that the police can send you to jail, but I can send you to HELL."

Too many youth don't believe in heaven, hell, the devil, or God. As long as kids don't understand that their actions have eternal consequences, they will refuse to be governed.

Comments Welcome

Maybe They ARE Related

What do you think? Here are two stories to think about.

From the USA Today Religion editors, a story dated 3/7/07, titled: Americans get an 'F' in religion. A study showed that Americans (from the United States, not Canada or Mexico) knew very little about the Bible. 60% of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments and about 50% of high school seniors thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

The story goes on to discuss how religion is playing a bigger role in world events and that we would all be better served if we had better knowledge of the Bible and other religions of the world. There are now some high school elective classes on the Bible in some school districts but there are ongoing controversies with the curriculum and how it is to be taught. There is concern that textbooks about the Bible would also be slanted and biased against its' teachings:

The Bible and Its Influence has been blasted by conservative Christians such as the Rev. John Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Hagee calls it "a masterful work of deception, distortion and outright falsehoods" planting "concepts in the minds of children which are contrary to biblical teaching."

Hagee wrote to the Alabama legislature opposing adoption of the text, citing points such as discussion questions that could lead children away from a belief in God. Example: Asking students to ponder if Adam and Eve got "a fair deal as described in Genesis" would plant the seed that "since God is the author of the deal, God is unfair."

Hagee prefers the Bible itself as a textbook for Bible classes, used with a curriculum created by a group of conservative evangelicals, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, based in Greensboro, N.C. The council says its curriculum is being offered in more than 300 schools.

The biggest whopper told in the article is this one:

The First Amendment Center also published a guide to "The Bible and the Public Schools," which praised a ninth-grade world religions course in Modesto, Calif., and cited a study finding students were able to learn about other faiths without altering their own beliefs. But it also said the class may not be easily replicated and required knowledgeable, unbiased teachers.

ALL teachers have a bias, it just depends on whether the bias shows in the classroom. So, Americans know very little about other religions and still know very little about the Bible and Christianity.
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The next story is about 'hooking up'. In case you are not aware, hooking up is meeting for a casual sexual encounter with no strings attached. This would go from kissing to all the way. The LDS equivalent might be a NCMO [non-committal-make-out], there is even a dating website http://www.incmo.net/.

What made this phenomenon worthy of a story is a new book that dares to say *gasp* that hooking up might be bad for young women "putting them at risk of depression and even sexually transmitted disease, and making them ill-equipped for real relationships later on." THE HORROR!!!!

For that, Laura Sessions Stepp, author of ''Unhooked,'' has been criticized as a throwback to an earlier, restrictive moral climate, an anti-feminist [WHAT?] and a tut-tutting mother telling girls not to give the milk away when nobody's bought the cow.

Ummmm. That actually sounds like sound advice. Also, who knew that feminism stood for the right to have casual sex acts whenever you want to? No wonder she is being criticized for her stance. The article quotes from some reviewers who have stumbled upon truths without acknowledging them as such.

The author ''imagines the female body as a thing that can be tarnished by too much use,'' [*true*] wrote reviewer Kathy Dobie in Stepp's own paper, the Post, and suggested that Stepp was, in one part, trying to ''instill sexual shame.'' For Meghan O'Rourke, literary editor at Slate.com, Stepp is ''buying into alarmism about women,'' and making sex ''a bigger, scarier, and more dangerous thing than it already is. [perceived to be]''

Apparently these women never had to be concerned about STD's or an unwanted pregnancy, unless they think medical cures, condoms, and abortion are the answer. They may have found a cure for the physical problems but there are still the emotional and spiritual problems to consider.

In response to criticism, the author of the book replied:

True, she regrets that ''dating has gone completely by the boards,'' replaced by group outings that lead to casual encounters. True, she regrets that oral sex ''isn't even considered sex anymore.'' But she isn't saying girls should not have sex; just that they should have it in the context of a meaningful connection: ''I am saying that girls should have choices.''

Too often, Stepp argues, girls and young women say proudly that they like the control ''hookups'' give them -- control over their emotions, their schedules, and freedom to focus on things like schoolwork and career (the students she profiles in her book are high achievers).

But she says they frequently mistake that freedom for empowerment. ''I often hear girls say things like, 'We can be as bad as guys now,''' she says. ''But I don't think that's what liberation is all about.''

LDS leaders have also lamented the lack of young people dating any more and Elder Dallin H. Oaks has encouraged young singles to get dating and quit messing around just hanging out. If the author of the book just changed her advice to wait until marriage, she would be doing better.

Of course, this advice applies to the men too.

There is of course, some disagreement about how pervasive this culture is:

The debate over hooking up -- how prevalent, how harmful -- was neatly displayed not long ago in a high school classroom in Maclean, Va. Nancy Schnog, who teaches a course in adolescence to 12th-graders, was discussing Stepp's findings.

''She hit the nail on the head,'' one girl said, according to Schnog. ''She perfectly described our social climate.'' Many agreed, but an equally vocal faction argued the opposite. ''This is totally overblown,'' said another girl. ''Why do adults always stereotype our generation so negatively?''

At the University of Maryland, Robin Sawyer, who teaches a course on sexuality, finds Stepp's book pretty much on target.

''Men have always hooked up,'' says Sawyer. ''What you are seeing now is a desire of women to act in a masculine way, without being judged a whore.'' He also finds that the ''hookup'' vocabulary softens the impact of the behavior. '''I hooked up with someone' sounds a lot better than 'I had oral sex with someone whose name I don't even know,''' says Sawyer, who is mentioned in Stepp's book.

''Can you generalize from a few women? If you can find a criticism, it is probably that,'' Sawyer said. ''But her thesis is pretty accurate. This is not your grandparents' generation.''

At least there is general agreement that there is a problem. What we call things does matter, you should not be surprised about the push for political correctness because the language used changes how we think about things.

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