The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
Watch as kids in an elementary school class in Huntington, West Virginia have trouble identifying fresh fruits and vegetables. Huntington has been called the unhealthiest city in America where nearly half of the adults are considered obese.
“Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” premieres March 26th on ABC.
In this photo taken Feb. 28, 2010, unused space is seen in the Board of Education building in Kansas City, Mo. The district will renew efforts to sell the administration building, which is less than half used, to help cut $50 million from next years budget. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City school board narrowly approved a plan Wednesday night to close nearly half the district’s schools in a desperate bid to avoid a potential bankruptcy.
The board voted 5-4 after parents and community leaders made final pleas to spare the schools even as the beleaguered district seeks to erase a projected $50 million budget shortfall. The approved plan calls for shuttering 29 of 61 schools – a striking amount even as public school closures rise nationwide while the recession eats away at academic budgets.
“The urban core has suffered white flight post-the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. the Board of Education, blockbusting by the real estate industry, redlining by banks and other financial institutions, retail and grocery store abandonment,” Kansas City Councilwoman Sharon Sanders Brooks said to applause from a standing-room-only crowd of more than 200 people.
“And now the public education system is aiding and abetting in the economic demise of our school district,” she said. “It is shameful and sinful.”
Read moreUS: Mass School Closures Approved in Kansas City, Mo.
According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools’ administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families.
The issue came to light when the Robbins’s child was disciplined for “improper behavior in his home” and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.
If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. I don’t know about you, but I often have the laptop in the room while I’m getting dressed, having private discussions with my family, and so on. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students’ clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.
Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious.
But when schools take that personal information, indiscriminately invading privacy (and, of course, punishing students who use proxies and other privacy tools to avoid official surveillance), they send a much more powerful message: your privacy is worthless and you shouldn’t try to protect it.
Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (PDF) (Thanks, Roland!)
Read moreUS: School Used Student Laptop Webcams to Spy On Them At School And Home
Prepare for collapse.
Here is a quick roundup with a general theme of “Hard Times”.
12th Grade Optional
Utah considers cutting 12th grade — altogether
At Utah’s West Jordan High School, the halls have swirled lately with debate over the merits of 12th grade. The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade.
Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The proposal comes as the state faces a $700-million shortfall and reflects the creativity — or desperation — of lawmakers all over.
“You’re looking at these budget gaps where lawmakers have to use everything and anything to try to resolve them,” said Todd Haggerty, a policy associate with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “It’s left lawmakers with very unpopular decisions.”
“The bottom line is saving taxpayer dollars while improving options for students,” said state Sen. Howard A. Stephenson, a Republican and co-chairman of the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee. “The more options we give to students to accelerate, the more beneficial it is to students and taxpayers.”
Jordan Utah School District To Lay Off 500
Jordan District to lay off 500 employees because of $30M shortfall
The Jordan School District will lay off 500 employees by July 1 as part of an effort to make up for a $30 million shortfall.
By a 6-1 vote, the Jordan Board of Education approved options to reduce the 2010-11 budget, which include personnel cuts, programs and services cuts, transfer of expenditures to other programs, compensation adjustments, class-size increases, and possible tax increases.
Between now and the end of March, the board will determine which positions and programs will be eliminated. As many as 250 teaching positions and 250 administrative/support staff positions will be cut.
Not a single teacher need be cut. All it takes is unions to lower salary demands and/or pensions. Any cuts are the direct responsibility of the Teachers’ union.
Harrisburg Pennsylvania Heads For Bankruptcy
Harrisburg excludes debt payments from 2010 budget
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, moved a step closer to defaulting on a bond payment when its city council passed a 2010 budget that does not include $68 million in debt repayments on an incinerator.
Raw Video Footage of Monessen taser incident
Student Speaks Out Over Brawl At High School gets tasered by cop
Related information:
– US: Girl, 12, handcuffed and arrested for doodling on her desk
– Judge Seals Video in Taser Case – Police State: Cop Tasered Man to Death (9 Times in 14 Minutes)
– Police State: DRONES used to spy on AMERICANS!
– Police State: Chicago Cop Tasered Unconscious Diabetic 11 Times
– Police State: Cop threatens to taser man for trespassing on his own property
– Police State: Student Suspended And Assaulted For Handing Out ANTI-VACCINE Flyers
– Police State: Cop uses Taser on 10-year-old girl who ‘refused to take a shower’
– Police State: Cops Taser A Handcuffed And Subdued Suspect
– Police State: Cops Attack Anti-War Demonstrators In Rochester, New York
– Police State: Florida cop attempts drive-by Tasering, runs over suspect
– Police State: 14-Year-Old Girl Tasered In The Head
– Police State: Cops Taser a 76-Year-Old Tractor Driver in Parade
– Police State: Mother Watched Son Tasered To Death
– Police State: Cops pepperspray, taser mentally challenged, deaf man, while using the toilet
– Police State: Cops Taser Child 19 Times Leaving Him in a Coma
– Police State: Cop Tasers Mom In Front of Her Children
– Unedited Dash Cam Footage of Grandmother Being Tased
– Taser use to obtain DNA not unconstitutional: NIAGARA COURTS RULING
– Prison officer zaps children with 50,000-volt stun gun ‘to show them what a day at work is like’
– Top cop fired for allegedly using Taser on wife
– Ex-NFL Player Tasered For Pointing At Cop
Read morePolice State: Cops Taser 15-Year-Old Boy at Basketball Game
NEW YORK, N.Y.-A New York City junior high student has been arrested for doodling on her desk.
Alexa Gonzalez, 12, scribbled “Lex was here 2/1/10” on her desk Monday. She also wrote “I love my friends Abby and Faith.”
Moraima Tamacho says her daughter was released several hours after she was taken in handcuffs to a police station, according to the Daily News.
Education department spokesman David Cantor said the incident shouldn’t have happened, and that common sense should prevail.
Last month, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit alleging more than 20 instances of wrongful arrests and assaults by school safety officers.
Read moreUS: Girl, 12, handcuffed and arrested for doodling on her desk
Added: 6. Januar 2010
[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.]
(Christian Peacemaker Teams) — At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills On Wednesday morning, 30 December 2009, an Israeli settler from the outpost of Havat Ma’on (Hill 833) chased and threw stones at Palestinian schoolchildren from the villages of Tuba and Maghayir Al-Abeed. The Israeli army exposed the children to this attack by arriving more than ninety minutes late to escort the children to their school in the village of At-Tuwani.
The schoolchildren had been waiting for the army escort to arrive for nearly thirty minutes when an Israeli settler came out from a house within Havat Ma’on. The fourteen Palestinian children, ages six to fifteen, immediately began to move away from the settler, towards their village. Witnesses reported that when the settler saw the children moving away, he charged towards them, hurling stones at the children with a slingshot. He chased them several hundred meters, all the way back to their village. Tareq Ibrahim Abu Jundiyye, a fifteen-year-old boy from Tuba, said, regarding the experience, “The younger kids started crying as we were running away because they were afraid the settler would catch them. I mean, we had to run away. If I had stayed I would have been struck on the head by a rock.”
While the children were waiting, CPTers made calls to the local army office, urging them to send soldiers to escort the schoolchildren. The army dispatcher claimed that the soldiers thought there was no school because of the rain. The army only arrived after the mayor of At-Tuwani called the Palestinian District Coordinating Office (DCO), a Palestinian body responsible for liaising with the Israeli military regarding civilian affairs in Area C, and the DCO, in turn, spoke with the Israeli army. The army’s late arrival caused the children to miss their first two classes of the day.
The children require a military escort to and from school because of repeated attacks by Israeli settlers from Ma’on and Havat Ma’on. The children must wait for the Israeli military in an area controlled by the Israeli settlers, a location where settlers have attacked the children several times in the past.
Read morePalestinian children are stoned while walking to school
Land of the FREE!
MUST-SEE!!!
The flyers consisted of simple medical studies that disprove vaccine safety claims by the cdc. On December 16th Breckenridge High School was holding a free vaccination clinic for all willing students, I signed up on the 14th and intended to enter the science room to hand out educational fliers.
When I began handing them out I was physically pushed around by my principal, this didn’t stop me from handing out many more fliers to the waiting students, some of which changed their mind and began to leave the line. After being threatened with arrest and removal from school property, I went back to class.
When I was dismissed at 1:30 I ran back to the clinic. After being physical blocked by a public health official I slid under her arm and began peacefully offering nurses more information.
This is when my science teacher Scott Wermerskirchen Assaulted me by pushing, bumping, grabbing, and aggressively ‘bearhugging’ me in an attempt to get my video camera. The whole altercation was captured on multiple security cameras and seen by over 20 witnesses. The school is refusing to release any video footage, and has not taken action against this teacher. However, the punishment for handing out fliers was a 2 day out of school suspension which was issued to me. This is ludicrous unjust and downright fascist.
Read morePolice State: Student Suspended And Assaulted For Handing Out ANTI-VACCINE Flyers
Ruining your life for a pizza!:
– Dr. Russell Blaylock:
“No one should take the swine flu vaccine–it is one of the most dangerous vaccines ever devised. It contains an immune adjuvant called squalene (MF-59) which has been shown to cause severe autoimmune disorders such as MS, rheumatoid arthritis and Lupus. This is the vaccine adjuvant that is strongly linked to the Gulf War syndrome, which killed over 10,000 soldiers and caused a 200% increase in the fatal disease ALS (Lou Gehreg disease). This virus H1N1 kills by causing a “cytokine storm”, which means that it cause the body’s immune system to overreact and that is why it is killing young people and is a mild disease in the elderly. (The elderly have weakened immune systems.) This vaccine is a very powerful immune stimulator and carries the real possibility of making the lethality of the virus much greater.
– Boy developed Guillain-Barre syndrome within hours after swine flu vaccination, but CDC says no clear link:
Connect the Guillain-Barre syndrome (“acute, and rapidly progressive, inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy”) to Squalene: The Swine Flu Vaccine’s Dirty Little Secret Exposed and do some more research on squalene.
The swine flu vaccine contains 1 million times more squalene according to Dr. Rima Laibow and Dr. Anders Bruun Laursen, than the vaccine considered to be responsible for the Gulf War Syndrome!
Doctor: “I have more concern about the vaccine than I do about the swine flu.”
‘Vaccine has 25,000 times the level of mercury then would be considered toxic if it was food or water.’
– Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Shocking Vaccine Cover Up
Even if you could proof that a vaccination damage was caused by the swine flu vaccine, you would stand there with empty hands, because the Obama administration shielded ‘Big Pharma’ from any lawsuits:
Kathleen Sebelius has signed a decree in July 2009 granting vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that result from any new “Swine Flu” vaccine.
Source: Global Research
The swine flu vaccine destroys the brain and the immune system, even if there are no immediate side effects.
You will find a lot more information at the end of the article.
(WXYZ) – The Detroit Health Department is fighting swine flu with pepperoni. When kids return to school after the holiday break, each class has the opportunity to get a free pizza party – if they sign up for the shots.
It’s a simple fact–kids don’t like vaccinations – even when they can get them in a spray.
Their parents, like Leslie Ethridge however, are often eager to get their kids protected, “Your children get 20 some odd inoculations, this is just another one, so if it’s available you should get the shot.”
But when Detroit schools – both public and private– sent home permission slips for students to get H1N1 vaccine at school, the return rate was only about ten percent.
Dr. Walter Davis, Detroit Pandemic Flu Coordinator, told us, “talking to principals and some parents we find that a lot of them are never receiving consent forms.”
The Detroit Health Department has already been working especially hard to get the vaccine into the community.
For instance, today parents attending the Christmas program at the Foreign Language Immersion School on Outer Drive had the chance to get shots for themselves and their children before or after the program.
Mom, Kimberley Wallace said, “This is the easiest for me. This way I don’t have to take them to the doctor’s office, take them out of school or anything so it works out real well.”
But apparently not well enough. So Dr. Davis and his team came up with an innovative idea. They teamed up with Happy’s Pizza. And each class in the city that has a permission slip return rate of 80-percent or more will get a pizza party for the entire class.
Read moreSwine Flu Pizza Party: Get a shot, get a pizza for your class!
– H1N1 Swine Flu A National Emergency? Take A Close Look At This Chart
(NaturalNews) After reading about the forced vaccination of a Brooklyn schoolgirl who ended up in the hospital, many parents are concerned about how they might protect their own children from school-based vaccination schemes.
To help parents protect their children, I’ve written a letter that you may copy, modify and use as a warning to the principal of the school(s) where your own children are students. This letter will serve as a warning to the school principal that if your child is vaccinated without your permission, you will unleash a hellstorm of legal action and media attention that every school principal desperately wishes to avoid. (Feel free to modify this letter to tone down the language a bit if you already have a friendly relationship with your local school principal.)
Once you’re satisfied with the language, print and sign this letter, then have it notarized so the signing date can be proven in court. When that’s complete, mail a copy to your school using registered mail (so you have proof it was delivered), then print off another copy for your child to carry with them at all times.
As the world enters the H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic season, another possible virus emerges as 30 people in the Eastern European country of Ukraine have died from this latest flu.
Each country is dealing with their own cases of the H1N1 Swine Flu and many have even taken the vaccination but is H1N1 the only flu out there? A viral infection in Ukraine has taken the lives of 30 people and at first it seemed like an ordinary flu but after a week the symptoms became worse.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports 40,000 Ukrainians have contracted the disease and at least 100 are in the hospital. Tests are currently being conducted and all is known is that it is not the H1N1 Swine Flu. A large number of schools and childcare facilities are being shut down, especially in the city of Lvov.
Also, government agencies are handing out surgical masks and gloves to people in the western part of Ukraine.
However, Russia Today is reporting that it is A/H1N1 or Californian Flu and the total number of deaths is closer to 40. Prime Minister Timoshenko stated, “Express-tests cannot provide a hundred percent verification of the virus, they give only 50% accuracy.
That’s why blood probes of those who died were sent to special laboratories for further testing. And only this morning it was confirmed that at least 11 deaths were caused by the A/H1N1 virus.”
Read moreUkraine: 40,000 contract serious flu virus, kills at least 30
In a crime that has shocked America up to two dozen passers-by were said to have seen the crime happening and failed to report it as the girl was subjected to an ordeal lasting two-and-a-half hours.
Police Lieutenant Mark Gagan said a “mob mentality” had taken over. He said: “This was a barbaric act. I still cannot get my head around the fact that numerous people either watched, walked away or participated in her assault.
“These suspects are monsters. I don’t understand how this many people capable of such atrocious behaviour could be in one place at one time.
Many of the students feel like the people who committed such an awful crime are still among them in class.” Five suspects, aged from 16 to 21, have been arrested over the attack at Richmond High School, near San Francisco, over the weekend.
The crime was only discovered when a woman at a nearby party telephoned police to say that two of the suspects were bragging about their role in the attack, which was still going on.
Read moreGirl gang-raped outside California high school as onlookers laughed and took photographs
A south suburban Chicago police officer was caught on a security camera beating up a high school special education student, CBS2 reports.
Marshawn Pitts, 15, was walking down his school hallway when he says a Dolton, Ill. police officer went from berating him for his untucked shirt to slamming him to the ground and beating him.
“The officer was in his face because he didn’t have his shirt tucked in,” Pitts’ attorney told CBS 2’s Davis Savini. “That’s the officer put in that school to protect these kids, and instead of doing that, this officer is literally assaulting this kid.”
Neither school nor Dolton officials responded to CBS 2 about the story.
Watch video of the beating:
October 07, 2009
Source: Huffington Post
Related information:
– Police State: Florida cop attempts drive-by Tasering, runs over suspect
– Police State: 14-Year-Old Girl Tasered In The Head
– Police State: Cops Taser a 76-Year-Old Tractor Driver in Parade
– Police State: Mother Watched Son Tasered To Death
– Police State: Cops pepperspray, taser mentally challenged, deaf man, while using the toilet
– Police State: Cops Taser Child 19 Times Leaving Him in a Coma
– Police State: Cop Tasers Mom In Front of Her Children
– Unedited Dash Cam Footage of Grandmother Being Tased
– Taser use to obtain DNA not unconstitutional: NIAGARA COURTS RULING
– Prison officer zaps children with 50,000-volt stun gun ‘to show them what a day at work is like’
– Top cop fired for allegedly using Taser on wife
– Ex-NFL Player Tasered For Pointing At Cop
Related articles:
– Wireless Tasers extend the long arm of the law
– Sold as non-lethal, Tasers killed 400 in US, Canada since 2001
– Cops raise Taser safety claims; Metro officers hurt during training sue company(!)
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We had that brainwashing before.
The Obama Youth:
– US wants to enlist Girl Scouts to combat pandemics, terror attacks and other disasters
This was filmed around June 19, 2009 at the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, NJ.
Added: 6. September 2009
Lyrics
========
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand [?]
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be clear today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said Red, Yellow, Black or White
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
Yes
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
segue to
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all [do? doth??] say “hooray!”
Hooray Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first Black American to lead this great na-TION!
Hooray, Mr. President something-something-some
A-something-something-something-some economy is number one again!
Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And the same for all Americans [in?] the great Red White and Blue!
So something Mr. President we all just something-some,
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray a-something-something-some!
Hip, hip hooray! (3x)
h/t WryMouth
Three million children still live below the poverty line Britain Photo: GETTY
Some pupils from the poorest areas arrive at school unable to dress themselves or use a knife and fork, with some even unable to use a toilet properly, she said.
Lesley Ward, president of the 160,000-strong Association of Teachers and Lecturers, warned that many children were also being relied upon to raise younger brothers and sisters and lacked stable father figures in the home.
In a speech last night, Mrs Ward, a primary school teacher from Doncaster, said Labour had “tried hard on this issue” but had failed to fill the vacuum left by the death of the mining and manufacturing industries in many working-class communities.
She said it meant a “small, significant and growing minority” of children were being raised in families with low expectations and a level of poverty “mirroring the times of Dickens”.
It was “next to impossible”, she added, for schools to counter the effect of serious deprivation, family breakdown and a lack of parenting skills in many communities.
Her comments follow the publication of figures showing nearly three million children still live below the poverty line in Britain. Ministers have admitted there is little chance of hitting their target to half child poverty by 2011.
Read moreChildren in modern Britain living in poverty ‘mirroring the times of Dickens’
Oh, I see, High Chancellor Obama will speak to our children directly!
Some school districts in Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin, among other states, have decided not to show President Obama’s televised speech to students next week, the Associated Press reports. Others are still thinking it over or are letting parents have their kids opt out.
What is wrong with President Obama telling our children to be better students?
Everything: Obama Claims He Has Visited 57 States during the campaign.
Obama is also using manipulation/hypnosis techniques in his speeches.
One possible ulterior motive for this speech, besides manipulation:
Barack Obama:
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set.”.
“We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
(Source: Obama calls for Civilian National Security Force)
There is no change: Bush’s Third Term? You’re Living It.
The plans originally suggested that pupils write letters to themselves on what inspired them about Mr Obama
President Obama has been accused of trying to build a personality cult and indoctrinate America’s schoolchildren with a speech to be beamed into the nation’s classrooms next week.
Not a word of the speech has been published but it has been seized on by his opponents because of lesson plans for teachers issued by the White House to encourage discussion of the speech. Until they were hastily revised yesterday, the plans suggested that pupils write letters to themselves on what inspired them about Mr Obama and how they could help to achieve his goals.
Read moreParents demand to vet Barack Obama school speech over indoctrination fury
Don’t miss:
– Yes, you will! FORCED vaccinations, isolation & quarantine, health care interrogations and mandatory ‘decontaminations’:
(NaturalNews) The United States of America is devolving into medical fascism and Massachusetts is leading the way with the passage of a new bill, the “Pandemic Response Bill” 2028, reportedly just passed by the MA state Senate and now awaiting approval in the House. This bill suspends virtually all Constitutional rights of Massachusetts citizens and forces anyone “suspected” of being infected to submit to interrogations, “decontaminations” and vaccines.
It’s also sets fines up to $1,000 per day for anyone who refuses to submit to quarantines, vaccinations, decontamination efforts or to follow any other verbal order by virtually any state-licensed law enforcement or medical personnel. You can read the text yourself here: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/sen…
Here’s some of the language contained in the bill: ….. (MUST-READ)
AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. John Baldacci on Tuesday declared a statewide civil emergency because of the H1N1 influenza virus, paving the way for mass immunization of Maine schoolchildren and other residents.
The emergency designation protects schools and health care providers against liability claims related to their participation in school-based vaccine clinics this fall for both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 flu. “Maine has been proactive in its response to this new flu,” Baldacci said in announcing the proclamation. “But as the school year begins, we must continue our vigilance, which will require a responsible and aggressive vaccination and public education campaign. It’s our goal that every person in the state has access to vaccines for the seasonal and H1N1 flu.”
In accordance with recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials in Maine are encouraging public schools to offer on-site immunization clinics for all children, including infants over 6 months and preschoolers as well as children who are home-schooled. Participating schools will offer the seasonal influenza vaccine as soon as possible, and many also will offer the new H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available.
Read moreUS: Governor Baldacci proclaims civil emergency due to H1N1
Pupils and their families will be required to agree to the deal – setting out minimum standards of behaviour and attendance – before the start of term. Contracts, known as Home School Agreements, will also establish parents’ responsibilities for the first time.
They face court action and possible fines of up to £1,000 for repeatedly breaking rules.
The contracts will become compulsory in all English state schools under plans laid out in a Government White Paper.
Ministers suggested that “good” parents would be able to complain about other mothers and fathers who fail to ensure their children behave.
Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said the changes would help stop a single student disrupting the education of his or her classmates.
Read moreUK government will force all parents to sign ‘behaviour contracts’
Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, speaks at a news conference in Sacramento, California, July 1, 2009. Photographer: Ken James/Bloomberg News
July 21 (Bloomberg) — California lawmakers reached an agreement with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over how to close a $26 billion budget deficit that pushed the most-populous U.S. state to the brink of insolvency.
The deal, reached by legislative leaders after two months of frequently acrimonious negotiations, would slash spending for schools, public works and welfare programs amid the longest recession since the 1930s. If approved by the full Senate and Assembly, the agreement will also siphon money from municipalities, force companies and individuals to pay income taxes sooner and make it more difficult to receive state aid.
“We came to a basic agreement, a budget agreement,” Schwarzenegger told reporters outside his office last evening. “This is a budget that has no tax increases and this is a budget that is cutting spending and it deals with the entire $26 billion deficit.”
Read moreCalifornia Lawmakers, Schwarzenegger Strike Deal Over $26 Billion Deficit
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In a stunningly misguided program implemented by the British government, all children’s book authors who visit schools must register with a national database intended to protect children from pedophiles, and they must pay a fee to do so. Beginning October 12, 2009, the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will require that all adults who work with children, including authors such as J.K. Rowling and Philip Pullman if they make special visits to schools, will be required to register with the database for a fee of £64 ($105).
The Independent reports that as a result, several well-known authors will boycott schools in protest of the requirement. Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo, and Quentin Blake have all publicly stated that they object to having their names listed in the database. Pullman, author of the popular fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, called the policy “corrosive and poisonous to every kind of healthy social interaction.” He eloquently adds, “This reinforces the culture of suspicion, fear and mistrust that underlies a great deal of present-day society. It teaches children that they should regard every adult as a potential murderer or rapist.” Anne Fine, the former Children’s Laureate for the U.K. and author of over 50 children’s books, labelled the requirement “government idiocy.” “When it [the VBS] becomes essential, I shall continue to work only in foreign schools, where sanity prevails,” she said. “The whole idea of vetting an adult who visits many schools, but each only for a day, and then always in the presence of other adults, is deeply offensive. Our children will become further impoverished by this tiresome and ill-considered scheme, and yet another gulf will be created between young people and the rest of society.”
Read moreJ. K. Rowling Must Register as a Potential Pedophile
Related article:
Parents banned from taking pictures of their own children at sports day (Telegraph):
Mrs Ethelston’s Church of England Primary School, in Uplyme, Devon, prohibited photos and video filming, claiming it was due to changes in child protection and images legislation.
This is sick!
Chris Richardson, headmaster of Kings of Wessex School in Cheddar, Somerset, has told all 1,200 pupils that they face detention if caught ‘snogging’.
However, parents at the school for 13 to 18-year-olds have criticised the rule, claiming that kissing is an integral part of teenage life.
The move follows a string of disciplinary incidents at the school, including the case of a pupil who was threatened with expulsion after being caught eating an apple on school tennis courts.
Children have also been given detention in the past for undoing shirt top buttons, taking off blazers on hot days or wearing the wrong shade of black trousers.
Complaining about the kissing ban, one parent of a pupil at the Church of England Foundation School told The Sun: “Snogging is part of teenage life.
Read moreSchool bans kissing; Pupils face detention if cought snogging
Clocking in: student Sabrina Nurkoo scans her fingerprint in a lecture at the London School of Commerce
Thousands of foreign students in London are being fingerprinted before classes in a clampdown on illegal immigration.
The London School of Commerce is using US army scanners to record the details of every student on campus and is threatening to report truants to the Home Office.
Managers have ordered the college’s 3,500 students to clock in to lectures with a print from their left and right forefinger or risk being thrown out.
There is growing concern that illegal immigrants exploit private colleges as a backdoor route into Britain, with students using them to secure visas.
Home Office officials also fear they could be targeted by terrorists – 10 men arrested over a suspected bomb plot in Manchester in April were registered as students.
LSC manager Rajiv Gupta said the fingerprint system was crucial. “We want bona fide students – not people who can’t be bothered or are abusing the system. If they are mucking around we don’t want them,” he said.
“If a student misses three sessions we will send them a letter and put them on probation. If things don’t improve we will terminate [their position] and inform the Home Office.”
Read moreUK colleges to fingerprint every student using US army scanners
If you are ‘totally’ healthy you just cannot get sick. This is in accordance with TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine).
You probably haven’t heard much of the horrific studies that Adolf Hitler, Josef Wissarionowitsch Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung did in the 40ties.
Here is one study of what they did to three groups of still healthy people (translated from German):
The first group was drinking cholera water without knowing it.
The second group was told that it was cholera water, that they are drinking.
The third group was drinking clean water, but was told that it was cholera water.
The result is stunning and defies conventional thinking/doctrine/dogma and is in total accordance with what I know.
Results:
The first group: Not one died.
The second group: Almost all died.
The third group: More than 50% died!
The milieu is everything. Attitude is everything.
Healthy people that have been told that they have terminal leukemia and that chemotherapy would not work anymore (it never works anyway) died faster than people that were exposed to a deadly dose of radiation. This study was conducted to examine changes in the blood count.
If you are still afraid of swine flu consider this:
– Homeopathy Successfully Treated Flu Epidemic of 1918
Here is what you really should be afraid of, if you still want to be afraid of something:
Government:
– New flu combines pig, bird, human virus:
Unusually, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.
– CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study (2004):
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a “reassortant” virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.”
and Big Pharma:
– Baxter expects to soon begin work on flu vaccine:
BOSTON, April 29 (Reuters) – Baxter International Inc said on Wednesday that it could have the first dose of its pandemic flu vaccine ready within 12 to 16 weeks of the start of the manufacturing process for the product.
– Baxter: Product contaminated with live H5N1 avian flu virus:
The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.
The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.
Please take a closer look at vaccinations (Here) and read some books about the subject.
Related video: Ron Paul on the Swine Flu Scare
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius answers questions about health care during an AP newsmaker interview in Washington, Tuesday June 16, 2009. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Schoolchildren could be first in line for swine flu vaccine this fall — and schools are being put on notice that they might even be turned into shot clinics.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday she is urging school superintendents around the country to spend the summer preparing for that possibility, if the government goes ahead with mass vaccinations.
“If you think about vaccinating kids, schools are the logical place,” Sebelius told The Associated Press.
No decision has been made yet on whether and how to vaccinate millions of Americans against the new flu strain that the World Health Organization last week formally dubbed a pandemic, meaning it now is circulating the globe unchecked. But the U.S. is pouring money into development of a vaccine in anticipation of giving at least some people the shots.
While swine flu doesn’t yet seem any more lethal than the regular flu that each winter kills 36,000 people in the U.S. alone, scientists fear it may morph into a more dangerous type. Even in its current form, the WHO says about half of the more than 160 people worldwide killed by swine flu so far were previously young and healthy.
 California’s famed redwood forests will have to close to visitors |
The state of California is in crisis and time has almost run out. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor, has spent this week haggling with state legislators to agree cuts to basic services in one of the world’s largest economies.
The state’s top finance officials warned that unless an emergency austerity plan is agreed by Monday – and there is little chance that it will be – they will not be able to borrow the billions of dollars needed to keep the current government functioning. If California was a company, it would have gone bust months ago.
The breadth and depth of Mr Schwarzenegger’s cuts are unprecedented and no one in the state, not even its dozens of billionaires, will be unaffected. His more radical proposals include wiping billions of dollars from the education budget, with the school year shortened and larger classes.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of police and firemen will be laid off, and state employees who keep their jobs face pay cuts of at least 10 per cent.
Parks will close, shutting access to thousands of square miles of beaches, redwood forest and other attractions that draw 80 million visitors a year. Thousands of prisoners will be released early and the notorious St Quentin penitentiary will be among state buildings put up for sale.
All financial aid for university students, affecting 200,000 people from low-income families, will end.
Local governments will no longer have to provide absentee ballots in elections, nor run programmes to help infants exposed to drugs. Even stray animals will no longer be kept alive for the statutory three days.
Doormen were given jobs at a secondary school in the MidlandsTeaching union in warning over use of untrained staff
Bouncers and former military personnel are being hired by schools as “crowd control” to cover classes for teachers.
In one case, a state secondary school in the Midlands approached an agency which employed bouncers to take two doormen on to their staff. They were given full-time jobs as “cover supervisors” – standing in for teachers who are sick, on maternity leave or on courses.
Related article: Schools hiring bouncers instead of supply teachers to cover lessons (Daily Mail)
Teachers at the National Union of Teachers’ annual conference in Cardiff warned yesterday that too many heads were using untrained staff to take lessons. They voted to demand that every class should have a qualified teacher.
Andrew Baisley, a maths teacher from Camden, north London, said: “The idea is more about crowd control… than education. If you’re stern and loud, that’s all that’s necessary.”
He added: “I have nothing against a bouncer wanting to become a teacher and training for the job, but if you want to be a teacher you need training to work with children.”
Read moreSchools hire bouncers as crowd control to cover classes for teachers
