Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan insisted that he was “right seventy percent” of the time in his tenure leading up to the economic collapse. On most grading scales that would give him about a C — hardly the level of performance you want from an economic policy official.
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Category: Academia
Three Massachusetts teenagers have pleaded not guilty in the bullying of a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide after what prosecutors call months of threats and harassment. Sean Mulveyhill, 17, (shown here) with the victim Phoebe Prince is one of those charged and reportedly had a brief relationship with Prince before turning against her. Also charged are Kayla Narey, 17, and Austin Renaud, 18. They are among six teens (also including Ashley Longe, Flannery Mullins and Sharon Chanon Velazquez) charged in the bullying of Prince that led to her hanging herself on Jan. 14.
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Many civil libertarians and liberals were critical of President Barack Obama’s selection of Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter. Sotomayor voted with conservatives on the Second Circuit in key police abuse and free speech cases. (here and here and here and here. At the time, many of us opined that Obama would not dare appoint such a nominee to replace liberal icon John Paul Stevens. If the three candidates leaked by the White House on the short list is any indication, there is a two out of three chance that he will do precisely that.
Continue reading “An Uneasy Feeling: Obama’s Short List Reportedly Includes Two Controversial Possible Nominees”
Scientists have found what may be the long-sought “missing link” — a new species of hominid that was a bridge between ape and man. This week they are expected to unveil a two-million-year-old skeleton of a child. As always, we must warn that creationists like Sarah Palin and others believe that such scientists are miscalculating by around 2 million years since the Earth is only around 5000 years old.
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Sumo suits, a common sight on school campuses, have been declared prohibited racist objects by the student government of Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. The student body declared the suits to be both racist and dehumanizing toward the Japanese.
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English are quickly replacing the Russians for mindless bureaucracy. Here is the latest. The teachers at Manor School in Melksham, Wiltshire found a child had climbed a 20 foot tree. However, health and school policy barred them from rescuing the child so, under the policy, they retreated to inside the school to observe. When Kim Barrett, 38, (a mother with a six-year-old child at a different school) passed by, she immediately rescued the child. The teachers then promptly called police to have her charged with trespass.
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We have another case of English teachers accused of terrorizing students with a fake violent crime. We previously saw this curious pedagogical technique in Sheffield, here. Now, teachers at Blackminster Middle School in Evesham, Worcester are under attack for faking the killing of a teacher in front of screaming children aged 10 to 13.
Continue reading “Lock and Learn: English School Fakes Shooting Death of Science Teacher As Lesson”
Teacher Tonya Neff, 40, of Toro Canyon Middle School is the subject of a curious charge: teaching while drunk. She is accused of taking prescription drugs and alcohol before teaching.
Continue reading “California Teacher Arrested for TWI (Teaching While Intoxicated)”
A finger bone found in a cave in 2006 in Russia has scientists re-examining their assumptions about early human history. A DNA analysis would suggest that proto-humans left Africa about a million years ago and traveled as far as Siberia. Of course, now that Sarah Palin is a host on Discovery Channel, she may have her own views given that she believes scientists have forgotten that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.
Continue reading “Early Human Gives Finger To Scientists: Proto-Human Discovery Shatters Theories on Early Human History”
A recently fired teacher at a Rhode Island school left a final object lesson for high school students hanging in the classroom: an effigy of President Obama. The teacher and his colleagues were fired as part of an effort to comply with accountability standards at failing schools.
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Dwain Haggard, the superintendent of a rural Montana school district, gave students a realistic demonstration of a black powder muzzleloader when he accidentally fired the weapon in class and shot a ball through the “o” in North on the classroom map.
Two Missouri University students have been arrested for throwing cotton balls in front of a black culture center in an act that is being investigated as a hate crime.
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There is an interesting controversy brewing in Atlanta where an all-white Zeta Tau Alpha team from the University of Arkansas won this year’s step competition — a traditionally black competition. The victory unleashed a torrent of criticism from fans who felt that white teams should be barred. The controversy then grew when Sprite suddenly announced that unexplained “scoring discrepancies” resulted in a black team being elevated to a tie with Arkansas and given a co-first place standing. This is a video of “The Matrix” performance of the Arkansas team
School officials in Jeffersonville, Indiana have suspended a middle school student for touching a pill in an act that stretches the zero tolerance policies to a new extreme. Rachael Greer was suspended because she was given a pill by another student and refused it. However, the school decided that, by holding the pill, it was “possession.”
Continue reading “Zero Tolerance, Zero Intelligence: Indiana School Suspends Girl Who Touched a Pill”
In a remarkable find, archeologists have discovered tools buried by a Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago in Northern India. Of course, where scientists see evidence of humans in the 15,000 years before earlier estimates, creationists see a pile of old tools and a gross miscalculation since the Earth is only 5000 years old.
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