Random News Stories

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals

Heard about this on NPR yesterday.
jesus...

As part of Virginia's waiver to opt out of mandates set out in the No Child Left Behind law, the state has created a controversial new set of education goals that are higher for white and Asian kids than for blacks, Latinos and students with disabilities.
....
Here's what the Virginia state board of education actually did. It looked at students' test scores in reading and math and then proposed new passing rates. In math it set an acceptable passing rate at 82 percent for Asian students, 68 percent for whites, 52 percent for Latinos, 45 percent for blacks and 33 percent for kids with disabilities.

Bloody hell.

HAW HAW

HAW HAW HAW

HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!

[Cain]

Damien Lewis (who plays Al-Qaeda sleeper assassin/potential Vice-President of the USA Nicholas Brody in Homeland) sends a gift to Obama with the obvious, tongue-in-cheek Birther reference message of "from one secret Muslim to another".

The internet explodes in fury.

[M. Nigel Salt]

Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals

Heard about this on NPR yesterday.
jesus...

As part of Virginia's waiver to opt out of mandates set out in the No Child Left Behind law, the state has created a controversial new set of education goals that are higher for white and Asian kids than for blacks, Latinos and students with disabilities.
....
Here's what the Virginia state board of education actually did. It looked at students' test scores in reading and math and then proposed new passing rates. In math it set an acceptable passing rate at 82 percent for Asian students, 68 percent for whites, 52 percent for Latinos, 45 percent for blacks and 33 percent for kids with disabilities.

OH, AMERICA.

[Luna]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/13/1161435/-The-People-of-Florida-move-to-Impeach-Rick-Scott

Just a change.org petition... but it's a start.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q03cWio-zjk&feature=youtu.be

Ron Paul's farewell speech.

[Eater of Clowns]

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2012/11/terry-pratchett-my-daughter-rhianna-will-take-over-discworld-when-im-gone

Future of the Discworld series left with Pratchett's daughter.

Also, saddest fucking article.

[Luna]

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2012/11/terry-pratchett-my-daughter-rhianna-will-take-over-discworld-when-im-gone

Future of the Discworld series left with Pratchett's daughter.

Also, saddest fucking article.

Damn.

Just... damn.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

http://www.vice.com/en_se/read/i-was-david-petreauss-bitch-in-the-90s-and-i-hated-every-second-of-it?Contentpage=1

I’ve detested Petraeus for a long, long time. I’ve tried writing about him for a decade, but nobody seemed to listen. He was bulletproof back then – not so anymore. Now’s the time for me to tell you all about this self-serving shithead and what it was like being his bitch for years.

Back in 1996, I was a starry-eyed West Point lieutenant in the storied 82nd Airborne Division. I had just graduated from Ranger School and the 2nd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment was my new home – my first assignment. I loved the Army back then.

When I showed up for duty, our brigade commander was a reasonable guy named John Abizaid. Morale was decent under him, because each battalion in the brigade was pretty much left alone. Colonel Abizaid let us solve our own problems. We were all competent adults and his laid-back, hands-off leadership style made us feel important and trusted.

But after a few months, Abizaid left and in came “Mr Burns”.

Mr Burns was our nickname for Petraeus, who was only a colonel back then. We called him that – in case it’s not obvious – because he looked and acted like the wiry, hand-rubbing villain in The Simpsons.

After Petraeus showed up, my life and the life of every soldier under his command went to complete shit.

[Luna]

The Freedom from Religion Foundation in Madison has filed suit against the IRS.

The group said the federal tax enforcers violated the U.S. Constitution, by letting tax-exempt religious groups and churches get involved in political campaigns.

The Madison plaintiffs specifically mentioned the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which ran full-page ads in newspapers across the country on the two Sundays before the elections. Those ads – which appeared in Wisconsin papers large and small – urged voters to consider religious values when going to the polls.

The lawsuit also mentioned that Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky required a political letter to be read in churches the weekend before the presidential contest.

By not enforcing the ban on electioneering by religious groups, the Madison foundation said the government gave preferential treatment not given to other non-profits groups – like the foundation itself.

The IRS has not commented.

Well, now... 

http://wxerfm.com/news/articles/2012/nov/15/madison-anti-religion-group-sues-irs-over-church-involvement-in-political-campaigns/

[M. Nigel Salt]

The Freedom from Religion Foundation in Madison has filed suit against the IRS.

The group said the federal tax enforcers violated the U.S. Constitution, by letting tax-exempt religious groups and churches get involved in political campaigns.

The Madison plaintiffs specifically mentioned the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which ran full-page ads in newspapers across the country on the two Sundays before the elections. Those ads – which appeared in Wisconsin papers large and small – urged voters to consider religious values when going to the polls.

The lawsuit also mentioned that Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky required a political letter to be read in churches the weekend before the presidential contest.

By not enforcing the ban on electioneering by religious groups, the Madison foundation said the government gave preferential treatment not given to other non-profits groups – like the foundation itself.

The IRS has not commented.

Well, now... 

http://wxerfm.com/news/articles/2012/nov/15/madison-anti-religion-group-sues-irs-over-church-involvement-in-political-campaigns/

  Awesome

[Juana Go?]

This should be funny.

[Luna]

The fuck?

http://www.examiner.com/article/republicans-new-york-seek-to-ban-free-speech-on-the-internet

WEB SITE ADMINISTRATOR UPON REQUEST SHALL REMOVE ANY COMMENTS POSTED ON HIS OR HER WEB SITE BY AN ANONYMOUS POSTER UNLESS SUCH ANONYMOUS POSTER AGREES TO ATTACH HIS OR HER NAME TO THE POST AND CONFIRMS THAT HIS OR HER IP ADDRESS, LEGAL NAME, AND HOME ADDRESS ARE ACCURATE.

[Cainad]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/10/02/162163801/obama-s-secret-weapon-in-the-south-small-dead-but-still-kickin

Look at this map, and notice that deep, deep in the Republican South, there's a thin blue band stretching from the Carolinas through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. These are the counties that went for Obama in the last election. A blue crescent in a sea of red.



These same counties went mostly blue in 2004 and 2000. Why? Well, the best answer, says marine biologist Craig McClain, may be an old one, going back before the Civil War, before 1776, before Columbus, back more than 100 million years to the days when the Deep South was under water. Those counties, as he writes here, went for Obama because trillions and trillions and trillions of teeny sun-loving creatures died there. He's talking about plankton. That's why the Republicans can't carry those counties. Blame plankton.

 

[Cain]

Bets on any of this being mentioned during Obama's visit to Burma?  Roughly zero.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/NK14Ae01.html

To outside observers, the carnage inflicted on the Rohingya minority - a five-month spasm of violence and de fact ethnic cleansing ostensibly stemming from the rape of a Buddhist woman by three Rohingya men - in Rakhine Province is indefensible and inexplicable.

What is even less understandable to Westerners is the virtually universal closing of ranks among local and national governments, pro and anti-government Buddhist monks, junta apologists and pro-democracy activists, President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, all uniting to deny the apparently undeniable fact that an old fashioned pogrom is taking place against Rohingya minority and other Muslims.

Friends of Myanmar are puzzled and dismayed that the progressives they have championed have joined forces with the country's most reactionary forces to deny the overwhelming evidence that Rohingya - a dark-skinned Muslim ethnic minority with cultural and linguistic ties to neighboring Bangladesh - are being driven out of their homes by a campaign of intimidation, arson, and violence in 2012 that builds upon years of marginalization and demonization.

Seventy-five thousand Rohingya IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) have been herded into camps on the outskirts of the state capital, Sittwe, and other towns.

In a sign of how bad things are, thousands of Rohingya are trying to flee to Bangladesh, even though they are not welcome there and their only possible refuge if they aren't turned back are two squalid UN-run camps surrounded by a ring of miserable unsanctioned huts.

Exasperated by Myanmar denialism, Human Rights Watch published a satellite photo showing most of the Muslim quarter of a sizable town, Kyak Pyu, burned to the ground.

Also worth noting, the darling of Western "human rights" groupies/millionaire music bands, Aung San Suu Kyi, Doesn't Care About Black Rohingya People:

The forum at Harvard's Kennedy School Thursday evening was little shy of a lovefest …Until someone mentioned the "R" word.

Thanking Suu Kyi for "being our inspiration," a student from Thailand said: "You have been quite reluctant to speak up against the human-rights violations in Rakhine State against the Rohingya … Can you explain why you have been so reluctant?"

The mood in the room suddenly shifted. Suu Kyi's tone and expression changed. With an edge in her voice, she answered: "You must not forget that there have been human-rights violations on both sides of the communal divide. It's not a matter of condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights violations."

Yes, except one of those communities has 94% of the population, the state and the army backing it up.  As the article explains, much anti-Rohingya sentiment can be traced back to fundamentalist interpretations of Theravada Buddhism and how that operates to bolster Burmese nationalism, and that exploiting such sentiments has been a mainstay of the military junta for decades.

[Cain]

Also, remember all those dopes cheering on the Burmese Buddhists for "taking on" the junta in early 2008?

Yup.  Nothing more than a factional power struggle, like I said at the time.  Not only that, religious extremists and reactionaries managed to get adoring human rights champions, who they would likely sentence to death, to back them.  Western liberals got played, again!