U.S. Bans Mining Claims Near Grand Canyon

by The Associated Press
January 9, 2012

http://www.mining.com/wp-content/upl...wikipedia1.jpg

The Obama administration announced Monday a 20-year ban on new mining claims on more than 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon, among the most well-known and visited natural wonders in the United States. The area is known to have large reserves of high-grade uranium ore, and critics contend the ban. The decision ignored pressure from congressional Republicans and mining industry figures who wanted a policy change to open the area for additional mining claims. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the 20-year ban at an event Monday in Washington.

Temporary bans had been imposed twice by the Obama administration. Salazar said uranium remains an important part of a comprehensive energy strategy but said the Grand Canyon is a national treasure that must be protected. The vast canyon in northeastern Arizona attracts more than 4 million visitors a year and generates an estimated $3.5 billion in economic activity, Salazar said. Millions of Americans living in cities including Phoenix, the Arizona capital, and Los Angeles, California, rely on the Colorado River for clean drinking water.

"A withdrawal is the right approach for this priceless American landscape," Salazar said in a speech at the National Geographic Museum. "People from all over the country and around the world come to visit the Grand Canyon. Numerous American Indian tribes regard this magnificent icon as a sacred place, and millions of people in the Colorado River Basin depend on the river for drinking water [and] irrigation."

As Interior Secretary, he has been "entrusted to care for and protect our precious environmental and cultural resources," Salazar said, adding that he has chosen "a responsible path that makes sense for this and future generations." Conservation groups call the 20-year ban a crucial protection for an American icon. The mining industry and some Republican members of Congress say it is detrimental to Arizona's economy and the nation's energy independence.

Republican members of Arizona's congressional delegation have lambasted the temporary bans imposed by Salazar in 2009 and again last year. They say a permanent ban on the filing of new mining claims would eliminate hundreds of jobs and unravel decades of responsible resource development. Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizonan, and other Republican lawmakers had backed legislation that would prevent Salazar from moving forward with the 20-year ban.

"The secretary's decision to rule out mining on more than one million acres of federal land deprives the United States of energy and minerals critically important to its economy and does so without compelling scientific evidence that is necessary for such a far-reaching measure," said Hal Quinn, president and CEO of the National Mining Association.

Environmental groups call the ban a long-awaited but decisive victory, noting that the Colorado River, which runs through the Grand Canyon, is the source of drinking water for 26 million Americans. "Secretary Salazar has defended the Southwest's right to plentiful, clean water and America's dedication to one of our most precious landscapes," said Dusty Horwitt, senior counsel for the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy group.

"Despite significant pressure from the mining industry, the president and Secretary Salazar did not back down," said Jane Danowitz, U.S. public lands director for the Pew Environment Group. Salazar said the ban would not affect more than 3,000 mining claims already staked in the area near the Grand Canyon. The administration of former President George W. Bush had opened the land to new mining claims. Salazar reversed the Bush policy in 2009 and put in set up a two-year moratorium on new mining claims around the canyon. He followed up with a six-month extension last year.

Supporters of the ban say any increase in mining jobs is not worth risks to the Colorado River, lands considered sacred by American Indian tribes or wildlife habitat. A mining mishap also could be disastrous for tourism in a park that ranks among the nation's most-visited by Americans and foreign tourists alike.

Really. Like everyone didn't already know.

Seriously. Shocker. Not. Move along people, nothing to see here.

Gay marriage a threat to humanity's future: Pope



http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8081RM20120109

Pope Benedict said Monday that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined "the future of humanity itself."

If only gay marriage and us gay folks WERE actually that powerful.........maybe we should start really acting like we have that kind of power........

I'm shocked..............I did not know.......I am crushed.............

(did you believe the above?????)

Why Is Public Education Being Outsourced to Online Charter Schools?
Virtual charter schools are educating kids on computer screens, instead of in classrooms.
January 8, 2012 |

Virtual charter schools, which offer classes online instead of in a classroom, have become the fastest-growing segment of the charter school industry. And while data on their effectiveness is scarce, state legislators across the country are passing laws to expand cyber schools at the behest of privatization advocates and online education companies at an alarming rate, with little regulation.

The Associated Press reports that more than 200,000 kindergarten to 12th grade students are enrolled in full-time “virtual charter schools” in at least 40 states. That number soars to two million schoolchildren nationwide when one takes into account students who are enrolled in at least one course...

...Just like brick-and-mortar charter schools, online charter schools receive public education funding per each student they enroll. A recent New York Times investigation that focused specifically on K12 Inc.’s online schools revealed that the company “tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards” among other things:

"Despite lower operating costs, the online companies collect nearly as much taxpayer money in some states as brick-and-mortar charter schools. In Pennsylvania, about 30,000 students are enrolled in online schools at an average cost of about $10,000 per student. The state auditor general, Jack Wagner, said that is double or more what it costs the companies to educate those children online."

One of the more creative schemes the company employs to boost revenue is to set up shop in poverty-stricken school districts that could potentially, depending on the state, collect higher public education subsidies. The Times references a school K12 recently established in Union County, Tennessee, where 25 percent of the population is plagued by poverty.

Complete article here:http://www.alternet.org/education/15...s/?page=entire

New Study Shows Child Abuse Rate in Homes With Lesbian Parents Is Zero

On the one hand, it's an extreme shame that we have to post stories that tell people, "don't worry, queer people can raise kids -- here's the proof," but the sad truth is that queer parents are still discriminated against legally (not to mention socially) and studies like a recent one from the Williams Institute at UCLA from their U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) shows some interesting stuff.

The study is "the longest-running study ever conducted on American lesbian families (now in its 24th year)." Huff Po reports, "In an article published today in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were asked about sexual abuse, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior."

Here's what they found:

The paper found that none of the 78 NLLFS adolescents reports having ever been physically or sexually abused by a parent or other caregiver. This contrasts with 26 percent of American adolescents who report parent or caregiver physical abuse and 8.3 percent who report sexual abuse.

According to the authors, "the absence of child abuse in lesbian mother families is particularly noteworthy, because victimization of children is pervasive and its consequences can be devastating. To the extent that our findings are replicated by other researchers, these reports from adolescents with lesbian mothers have implications for healthcare professionals, policymakers, social service agencies, and child protection experts who seek family models in which violence does not occur."

Moral of the story: lesbian parents rock (but you probably already knew that).

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews...rents_is_zero/

More annoying news - last one I promise.
 

Eric Boehlert calls out media for failing to cover SOPA

Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert appeared Monday on The Young Turks to discuss the fact that the highly controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was absent from mainstream television news coverage.

Major media outlets, including ABC, CBS, Comcast/NBC, Viacom, News Corporation and Time Warner, support the legislation. It would allow authorities to block websites accused of copyright infringement.

“There’s a clear conflict of interest,” Boehlert pointed out. “And that’s fine, news companies often have to deal with these conflicts of interest.”

“They’re part of a larger corporate entity and their is going to be these conflicts. So if you have a conflict you think you’d go out of your way to tell everyone about the conflict and to report on it.”

“In this case, unfortunately what we’ve seen is basically that there has been no coverage,” he said, adding that the only coverage has appeared online.

I'm glad you posted this article about SOPA.

I bet a fav professor of mine is hot on the trail of this issue: I have a good idea why they're being so tight lipped about it but when I do a bit more research on this subject, I think I will find out some things that will piss me the f^ck off.

You know what really upsets me most about things like this?
People are in this industry for a reason; and they collect a salary that keeps them from falling off the grid in society and when your ability to earn a living is threatened, more than likely, in my estimation, the ordinary person will not call them out on what they're doing.

I'll be quiet for now, but I promise to come back when I learn a few more things. ~D

Well of course that was not the breaking news. It was how long it took her.
And in my opinion, how useless it is at this time since those she is trying to "help out" do not even know who she is/was.

Too little, too late.

I am thinking she is looking for publicity.

Court allows Texas law requiring ultrasound before abortion
 

Reuters) - A Texas law requiring that an ultrasound image be shown to a pregnant woman and the sound of the fetal heartbeat be played before an abortion is performed does not violate the Constitution, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

The appeals court overturned a federal judge's decision to block the law. The ultrasound requirements do not infringe on abortion providers' free speech rights, it said.

"The required disclosures of a sonogram, the fetal heartbeat, and their medical descriptions are the epitome of truthful, non-misleading information," Chief Judge Edith Jones wrote for the three-judge panel.

The Texas law, enacted in 2011, requires abortion providers to display the ultrasound images and describe them in detail. Women cannot decline to hear the physician's description of the image unless they qualify for an exception including rape, incest or an abnormal fetus.

A coalition of abortion providers sued to block the law in June 2011, arguing that the law made doctors a "mouthpiece" for the state's ideological message. The First Amendment includes protections against compelled speech.

The challengers, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, also argued that disclosure of the sonogram and fetal heartbeat was not "medically necessary" and therefore beyond the state's power to regulate the practice of medicine.

A federal judge in Austin granted the providers' request for a preliminary injunction, ruling that the law violated physicians' free-speech rights. But the appeals court disagreed.

The appeals court cited a 1992 Supreme Court decision allowing a law requiring abortion providers to inform pregnant women of relevant health risks and the gestational age of the fetus. The high court ruled that doctors could be required to provide information that is truthful, not misleading and relevant to the decision to have an abortion.

The president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nancy Northup, said in a statement that the appellate decision, "clears the way for the enforcement of an insulting and intrusive law whose sole purpose is to harass women and dissuade them from exercising their constitutionally-protected reproductive rights."

The Texas law is among the most detailed of the ultrasound requirements in the country. Similar laws requiring the presentation of an ultrasound image to pregnant women have been blocked in Oklahoma and North Carolina. Six other states also require abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and provide women with an opportunity to view the image, according to the Guttmacher Institute. But unlike Texas, those states don't require women to hear a description of the image.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who championed the law and is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. president, praised the ruling.

"This important sonogram legislation ensures that every Texas woman seeking an abortion has all the facts about the life she is carrying," he said.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/court-allow...191145225.html

Perhaps, but I'm inclined to be less judgemental in her case. She dropped out of the entertainment industry nearly twenty years ago in order to manage her bipolar disorder.

While it would be really nice if all the good role models, (and none of the bad ones), came out when it's ideal for the rest of us, we're each on our own journey.

I agree that we are each on our journey and I respect that. However, I do not respect coming out for the sake of being put back into the limelight, which is in my opinion, what I think she is doing.

It may be judgmental, but it is based on the many "celebrities" who have come before her and done something similar.

There were protesters there last Thursday when I drove by.
The Archdiocese is known for being relatively liberal and people are upset by their new "therapy" program.

Beware sarcasm ahead.
 

Not enough jobs to go around? Here's an idea, let's increase the labor pool. How will that help you ask? Well, since they are just kids it's legal to pay them less than minimum wage, not to mention no benefits. Also by increasing the hours kids are allowed to work they can go to their after school jobs after we have them clean their own schools. At least until we outsource it all to online charter schools.

That's how it helps. Oh did you mean how will it help the unemployed and underemployed? I thought you meant how will it help the important segment of the population, the 1%, you know the job creators.

States Attempt to Instill 'Work Ethic' by Rolling Back Child Labor Protections

http://www.thenation.com/article/165...or-protections

Doomsday Clock Updates 'Minutes To Midnight'

First Posted: 1/10/12 12:09 PM ET Updated: 1/10/12 01:38 PM ET

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/461057/thu...K-large570.jpg

UPDATE: The 'Doomsday Clock' has been moved forward. We're now 5 'minutes from midnight.' View a live stream of the announcement and rationale here.

Humanity will soon be getting an update on how close we are to catastrophic destruction, as scientists and security experts decide whether to nudge the hands of the famous "Doomsday Clock" forward toward midnight — and doom — or back toward security and safety. The clock, in use as a symbol of imminent apocalypse since 1947, now stands at six minutes to midnight. On Tuesday (Jan. 10), the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) will announce whether they will nudge the minute hand forward or backward to reflect current trends in world security. The last time the clock hand moved was in 2010, when the group moved the hand from five minutes to midnight back to six.

In making the decision, the Bulletin considers the current state of nuclear weapons, climate change and biosecurity, along with other issues that could influence humanity's survival. The closest the clock has been to midnight has been 11:57 p.m., set in 1984 when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were in a diplomatic stand-off and tensions were high. The farthest humanity has ever been from destruction, according to the clock, was in 1991, when the Doomsday Clock stood at 17 minutes to midnight. That year, the Cold War over, the U.S. and Russia began cutting their arsenals.

The clock ticked back toward midnight at the next update in 1995, however, when hopes of total nuclear disarmament began to fade. That update set the hands at 14 minutes until midnight. In recent years, the clock has ticked closer to destruction as the Bulletin has focused on concerns about nuclear terrorism and climate change. The 2010 shift away from doomsday was due to nuclear agreements between the U.S. and Russia and productive climate talks at Copenhagen. The announcement of the new "doomsday time" will come at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday. The Bulletin is expected to consider factors ranging from Iran's nuclear program to the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster to the state of policy on climate change.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1196789.html

They broke up because kd lang wants me so badly, she couldn't deny it anymore.......LOL Ok, a girl can dream, here!!! :moonstars:

Dream a little dream with me
 

:goodluck:

and Jamie's Teddy is hanging on my best post :rrose:

All in all brakups are sad, and 8 years beat 73 hours.. :tarot:

Ooooh! So, yooouu're the 'other' woman?! I wondered why she had so many Library books laying around! LOL! ;)

She's a great dream, even after 20 years! *Sigh*

Geeze! Her housekeeping must be pants, if her Teddy is still hanging on your bedpost, or are you keeping it there for sentimental reasons? LOL! ;)

"The difference between the Communist system and the Capitalist system, is that although both give you a kick in the ass, in the Communist, they kick you and you have to applaud, and in the Capitalist they kick you and you can scream, and I came here to scream". -- Reinaldo Arenas

This quote used to be true. Not so much anymore. Over the past eleven years there has been a concerted effort by those who hold and control the power and money to get us to applaud. There are so many ways to be labeled a terrorist nowadays the message is clear, if you can't applaud then you need to just shut-up.

Why You Can Be Branded a Terrorist for Fighting Animal Abuse

http://www.alternet.org/rights/15365...g_animal_abuse

Yes, very scary shit indeed. Noami Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" is as scary as any Stephen King novel.

I look back at 9/11 as the opening up of the US to this, although, economic shock doctrine has been put into practice around the world for decades. And I firmly believe, conspiracy theorist that I am, that the situations that have enabled disaster capitalism to flourish have been orchestrated by those with the power and the money to control the government. Now it's all over but the crying and the focus at this time is about taking away rights and increasing punishment. Things are changing and not for the better. I remember when torture was just something people in the US didn't believe in at all (not that the US government wasn't involved in mucho torture over in South and Central America, think Brazil and the dragon chair.) Now torture has become more acceptable. It's a sign of the times and I don't think we are going to like these times very much at all.

Really?
 

http://news.yahoo.com/reddit-admins-...062713699.html

One internet company's response to SOPA

SJC and "ministerial exception".
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a groundbreaking case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held for the first time that religious employees of a church cannot sue for employment discrimination.

But the court's unanimous decision in a case from Michigan did not specify the distinction between a secular employee, who can take advantage of the government's protection from discrimination and retaliation, and a religious employee, who can't.

It was, nevertheless, the first time the high court has acknowledged the existence of a "ministerial exception" to anti-discrimination laws — a doctrine developed in lower court rulings. This doctrine says the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the reach of such protective laws when the issue involves employees of these institutions.

The case came before the court because the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich., on behalf of employee Cheryl Perich, over her firing, which happened after she complained of discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Writing the court's opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said allowing anti-discrimination lawsuits against religious organizations could end up forcing churches to take religious leaders they no longer want.

"Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs," Roberts said. "By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group's right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments."

The court's decision will make it virtually impossible for ministers to take on their employers for being fired for complaining about issues like sexual harassment, said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

"Clergy who are fired for reasons unrelated to matters of theology — no matter how capricious or venal those reasons may be — have just had the courthouse door slammed in their faces," Lynn said.

But Douglass Laycock, who argued the case for Hosanna-Tabor, called it a "huge win for religious liberty."

"The court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own ministers and religious leaders," he said.

But since this was the first time the high court has ever considered the "ministerial exception," it would not set hard and fast rules on who can be considered a religious employee of a religious organization, Roberts said.

"We are reluctant ... to adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister," he said. "It is enough for us to conclude, in this, our first case involving the ministerial exception, that the exception covers Perich, given all the circumstances of her employment."

Perich was promoted from a temporary lay teacher to a "called" teacher in 2000 by a vote of the church's congregation and was hired as a commissioned minister. She taught secular classes as well as a religious class four days a week. She also occasionally led chapel service.

She got sick in 2004 but tried to return to work from disability leave despite being diagnosed with narcolepsy. The school said she couldn't return because they had hired a substitute for that year. They fired her and removed her from the church ministry after she showed up at the school and threatened to sue to get her job back.

Perich complained to the EEOC, which sued the church for violations of the disabilities act.

A federal judge threw out the lawsuit on grounds that Perich fell under the ADA's ministerial exception, which keeps the government from interfering with church affairs. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her lawsuit, saying Perich's "primary function was teaching secular subjects" so the ministerial exception didn't apply.

The federal appeals court's reasoning was wrong, Roberts said. He said that Perich had been ordained as a minister and the lower court put too much weight on the fact that regular teachers also performed the same religious duties as she did.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also placed too much emphasis on the fact that Perich's religious duties only took up 45 minutes of her workday, while secular duties consumed the rest, Roberts said.

"The issue before us ... is not one that can be resolved by a stopwatch," he said.

The court's decision was a narrow one, with Roberts refusing to extend the ministerial exception to other types of lawsuits that religious employees might bring against their employers. "We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct by their religious employers," Roberts said.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote a separate opinion, argued that the exception should be tailored for only an employee "who leads a religious organization, conducts worship services or important religious ceremonies or rituals or serves as a messenger or teacher of its faith."

But "while a purely secular teacher would not qualify for the 'ministerial exception,' the constitutional protection of religious teachers is not somehow diminished when they take on secular functions in addition to their religious ones," Alito said.

http://news.yahoo.com/court-judges-c...152559467.html

Homeland Security watches Twitter, social media
 

Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:15pm EST

(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.

A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards."

The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."

The document adds, using more plain language, that such monitoring is designed to help DHS and its numerous agencies, which include the U.S. Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to manage government responses to such events as the 2010 earthquake and aftermath in Haiti and security and border control related to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A DHS official familiar with the monitoring program said that it was intended purely to enable command center officials to keep in touch with various Internet-era media so that they were aware of major, developing events to which the Department or its agencies might have to respond.

The document outlining the monitoring program says that all the websites which the command center will be monitoring were "publicly available and... all use of data published via social media sites was solely to provide more accurate situational awareness, a more complete common operating pictures, and more timely information for decision makers..."

The DHS official said that under the program's rules, the department would not keep permanent copies of the internet traffic it monitors. However, the document outlining the program does say that the operations center "will retain information for no more than five years."

The monitoring scheme also features a five-page list, attached to the privacy review document, of websites the Department's command center expected to be monitoring.

CONTROVERSIAL SITES

These include social networking sites Facebook and My Space - though there is a parenthetical notice that My Space only affords a "limited search" capability - and more than a dozen sites that monitor, aggregate and enable searches of Twitter messages and exchanges.

Among blogs and aggregators on the list are ABC News' investigative blog "The Blotter;" blogs that cover bird flu; several blogs related to news and activity along U.S. borders (DHS runs border and immigration agencies); blogs that cover drug trafficking and cybercrime; and websites that follow wildfires in Los Angeles and hurricanes.

News and gossip sites on the monitoring list include popular destinations such as the Drudge Report, Huffington Post and "NY Times Lede Blog", as well as more focused techie fare such as the Wired blogs "Threat Level" and "Danger Room." Numerous blogs related to terrorism and security are also on the list.

Some of the sites on the list are potentially controversial. WikiLeaks is listed for monitoring, even though officials in some other government agencies were warned against using their official computers to access WikiLeaks material because much of it is still legally classified under U.S. government rules.

Another blog on the list, Cryptome, also periodically posts leaked documents and was one of the first websites to post information related to the Homeland Security monitoring program.

Also on the list are JihadWatch and Informed Comment, blogs that cover issues related to Islam through sharp political prisms, which have sometimes led critics to accuse the sites of political bias.

Also on the list are various video and photo-sharing sites, including Hulu, Youtube and Flickr.

While a DHS official involved in the monitoring program confirmed the authenticity of the list, officials authorized to speak for the Department did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...80A1RC20120111

A series of studies in Canada and elsewhere over the past decade has found that the children of lesbians aren't just well-adjusted – they excel. On average, kids with two moms seem to be more confident and less aggressive than those raised by a mom and a dad. They are open-minded, affectionate and less susceptible to anxiety and depression.

Hummm... wonder what "list" the Planet is on? Sometimes, I want to just cease being online at all. What was that concept of privavcy about?

Have the Super Wealthy Already Seceded from the United States?
Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it.
January 11, 2012 |

It was in 1993 during Congressional deliberation over the North American Free Trade Agreement. I was having lunch with a staffer for one of the rare Republican members of Congress who opposed the policy of so-called free trade. I distinctly remember something my colleague said: "The rich elites of this country have far more in common with their counterparts in London, Paris and Tokyo than with their own fellow American citizens."

That was just the beginning of the period when the realities of outsourced manufacturing, financialization of the economy and growing income disparity started to seep into the public consciousness, so at the time it seemed like a striking and novel statement.

At the end of the cold war, many writers predicted the decline of the traditional nation state. Some looked at the demise of the Soviet Union and foresaw the territorial state breaking up into statelets of different ethnic, religious or economic compositions. This happened in the Balkans, former Czechoslovakia and Sudan. Others, like Chuck Spinney, predicted a weakening of the state due to the rise of fourth-generation warfare and the inability of national armies to adapt to it. The quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan lend credence to that theory. There have been hundreds of books about globalization and how it would break down borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.

I do not mean secession in terms of physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens occasionally. It means a withdrawal into enclaves, a sort of internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well-being except as a place to extract loot. Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension - and viable public transportation doesn't even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call, who cares about Medicare?

To some degree, the rich have always secluded themselves from the gaze of the common herd; for example, their habit for centuries has been to send their offspring to private schools. But now this habit is exacerbated by the plutocracy's palpable animosity toward public education and public educators, asMichael Bloomberg has demonstrated. To the extent public education "reform" is popular among billionaires and their tax-exempt foundations, one suspects it is as a lever to divert the more than one-half trillion dollars in federal, state and local education dollars into private hands, meaning themselves and their friends. A century ago, at least we got some attractive public libraries out of Andrew Carnegie. Noblesse oblige like Carnegie's is presently lacking among our seceding plutocracy.

In both world wars, even a Harvard man or a New York socialite might know the weight of an Army pack. Now, the military is for suckers from the laboring classes, whose subprime mortgages you just sliced into CDOs and sold to gullible investors in order to buy your second Bentley or rustle up the cash to employ Rod Stewart to perform at your birthday party. Courtesy of Matt Taibbi, we learn that the sentiment among the super-rich toward the rest of America is often one of contempt rather than noblesse; Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, says about the views of the 99 percent: "Who gives a crap about some imbecile?"

Steven Schwarzman, the hedge fund billionaire CEO of the Blackstone Group who hired Rod Stewart for his $5 million birthday party, believes it is the rabble who are socially irresponsible. Speaking about low-income citizens who pay no income tax, he says: "You have to have skin in the game. I'm not saying how much people should do. But we should all be part of the system." But millions of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes pay federal payroll taxes. These taxes are regressive and the dirty little secret is that over the last several decades they have made up a greater and greater share of federal revenues. In 1950, payroll and other federal retirement contributions constituted 10.9 percent of all federal revenues; by 2007, the last "normal" economic year before federal revenues began falling, they made up 33.9 percent. By contrast, corporate income taxes were 26.4 percent of federal revenues in 1950; by 2007, they had fallen to 14.4 percent. Who has skin in the game now?

As is well known by now, Schwarzman benefits from the "Buffett Rule": financial sharks typically take their compensation in the form of capital gains rather than salaries, thus knocking down their income tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. But that's not the only way Mr. Skin-in-the-Game benefits: the 6.2-percent Social Security tax and the 1.45-percent Medicare tax apply only to wages and salaries, not capital gains distributions. Accordingly, Schwarzman is stiffing the system in two ways: not only is his income tax rate less than half the top marginal rate, he is shorting the Social Security system that others of his billionaire colleagues like Pete Peterson say is unsustainable and needs to be cut.

This lack of skin in the game may explain why Willard Mitt Romney is so coy about releasing his income tax returns. It would also make sense for someone with $264 million in net worth to joke that he is "unemployed," as if he were some jobless sheet metal worker in Youngstown, when he is really saying in code that his income stream is not a salary subject to payroll deduction. The chances are good that his effective rate for both federal income and payroll taxes is lower than that of many a wage slave.

The real joke is on the rest of us. After the biggest financial meltdown in 80 years - a meltdown caused by the type of rogue financial manipulation that Romney embodies - and a consequent long, steep drop in the American standard of living, who is the putative front-runner for one of the only two parties allowed to be competitive in American politics? None other than Romney, the man who says corporations are people. Opposing him, or someone like him, will be the incumbent President Barack Obama, who will raise up to a billion dollars to compete in the campaign. Much of that loot will come from the same corporations, hedge fund managers, merger and acquisition specialists and leveraged buyout artists the president will denounce in pro forma fashion during the campaign.

The super-rich have seceded from America even as their grip on its control mechanisms has tightened.

http://www.alternet.org/world/153738...s/?page=entire

This is the kind of thing an off-duty teacher pulls out the death stare for -

"Marimba" ringtone halts NY Philharmonic

(CBS/AP)

NEW YORK - It's the dreaded sound at any live performance: a ringing cellphone.

That's what happened Tuesday night at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall during the final movement of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the New York Philharmonic. Maestro Alan Gilbert stopped the orchestra until the phone was silenced. The Wall Street Journal reports that when an iPhone's distinctive "Marimba" ringtone initially went off, Gilbert turned his head to signal his displeasure. But the ringing from the first row persisted and minutes went by.

Gilbert asked that the offending noise be turned off and finally stopped the orchestra until it was. The audience gasped. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Gilbert claimed the ringtone ruined his concentration during the symphony's "most intense, most sublime, most emotional place." The man who owned the cell phone tried to ignore the noise, but eventually silenced what many think was an alarm he forgot to turn off.

"I had to ask him many times," Gilbert told the Wall Street Journal. "It was bizarre. Maybe he was just so mortified that he just shut down and was paralyzed." Though the Philharmonic refused to identify the man, many said he was a regular subscriber. Gilbert apologized to the audience for the disruption, and was greeted with applause. The Philharmonic said it was the first time the music director had ever interrupted a performance due to a cellphone or other disruption.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...-philharmonic/

Why Is Congress Redlining Our Schools?

Redlining was the once-common practice in which banks would draw a red line on a map—often along a natural barrier like a highway or river—to designate neighborhoods where they would not invest. Stigmatized and denied access to loans and other resources, redlined communities, populated by African-Americans and other people of color, often became places that lacked businesses, jobs, grocery stores and other services, and thus could not retain a thriving middle class. Redlining produced and reinforced a vicious cycle of decline for which residents themselves were typically blamed.

Today a new form of redlining is emerging. If passed, the long-awaited Senate bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) would build a bigger highway between low-performing schools serving high-need students—the so-called “bottom 5 percent”—and all other schools. Tragically, the proposed plan would weaken schools in the most vulnerable communities and further entrench the problems—concentrated poverty, segregation and lack of human and fiscal resources—that underlie their failure.

Although the current draft of the law scales back some of the worst overreaches of No Child Left Behind, the sanctions for failing to make “adequate yearly progress” that have threatened all schools under NCLB are now focused solely on the 5 percent of schools designated as lowest-performing by the states. As we have learned in warm-up exercises offered by the Obama administration’s Race to the Top initiative, these schools will nearly always be the ones serving the poorest students and the greatest numbers of new immigrants. In many states they will represent a growing number of apartheid schools populated almost entirely by low-income African-American and Latino students in our increasingly race- and class-segregated system.

In the new vision for ESEA, these schools, once identified, will be subjected to school “turnaround” models that require the schools to be closed, turned into charters, reconstituted (by firing nearly half the staff) or “transformed,” according to a complicated set of requirements that include everything from instructional reforms to test-based teacher evaluation. The proposed array of punitive sanctions, coupled with unproven reforms, will increasingly destabilize schools and neighborhoods, making them even less desirable places to work and live and stimulating the flight of teachers and families who have options.

Meanwhile, the most important solutions for these students and their schools are ignored by NCLB and the proposed new bill, as well as by current federal policy in general, leaving their most serious problems unaddressed.

There is no plan in the current or proposed ESEA or in other federal legislation to stem the rapid slide of families into poverty, homelessness and food insecurity; to address the inequitable distribution of state and local funds to schools; to improve teaching and learning conditions in underfunded, high-poverty schools; or to recruit and train expert teachers who will stay in these schools and stop the revolving door of untrained novices who leave children further behind. There are no significant investments in training to better prepare teachers to teach new English learners, students with disabilities and others with a range of needs.

There is no major investment in preschool or in wraparound services that will address the many needs of children for extended learning time, healthcare and social services so they can learn. While a recent Race to the Top initiative offers some preschool funding, it is minuscule in relation to the need and will not make up for the huge cuts in these services occurring in communities across the country. (After widespread cuts, preschool spending at the end of 2010 stood at almost $700 per pupil less than in 2001. Meanwhile, state cuts to education spending reached more than $7.5 billion this year on top of $3 billion in cuts last year.)

It’s not as though we don’t know what works. We could implement the policies that have reduced the achievement gap and transformed learning outcomes for students in high-achieving nations where government policies largely prevent childhood poverty by guaranteeing housing, healthcare and basic income security. These same strategies were substantially successful in our own nation through the programs and policies of the war on poverty and the Great Society, which dramatically reduced poverty, increased employment, rebuilt depressed communities, invested in preschool and K-12 education in cities and poor rural areas, desegregated schools, funded financial aid for college and invested in teacher training programs that ended teacher shortages. In the 1970s teaching in urban communities was made desirable by the higher-than-average salaries, large scholarships and forgivable loans that subsidized teacher preparation, and by the exciting curriculum and program innovations that federal funding supported in many city school districts.

These efforts led to big improvements in achievement and attainment from the ’60s through the ’80s. The black-white reading gap shrank by two-thirds for 17-year-olds, black high school and college graduation rates more than doubled, and, in 1975, rates of college attendance among whites, blacks and Latinos reached parity for the first and only time before or since.

Almost all the programs described above were ended or shrunk in the ’80s, targets of the Reagan revolution, which systematically sought to dismantle federal supports for urban and rural development, housing, social services and education. Poverty and homelessness increased sharply. As the federal education budget was cut in half, funding for urban and poor rural schools declined precipitously, desegregation aid was discontinued and teaching supports were reduced, leading to growing shortages when teacher demand increased in the late 1980s. Despite some modest pushback during the Clinton years, the momentum toward increasing inequality was not reversed.

The full article is here:
http://www.thenation.com/article/165...ools?page=full

If anyone wants to know what the defunding, privatization and deprioritization of American education looks like from the perspective of a community college teacher who has taught since the 1980s, let's put on a pot of coffee and talk. This is just the latest misguided piece of nonsense to send us farther down the spiral and ensure that 'separate but not equal' continues.

Since we are poised for Iraq redux, it stands to reason military cuts are of major concern, social cuts not so much.

Super Cuts! Military Budget, Not Social Spending, Prompts Media Concern

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/13

War on Iran: It’s Not A Matter of “If”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/...9Cif%E2%80%9D/

On Iran IAEA Reporting Complaints, New York Times Public Editor Rules for the Plaintiffs
Friday 13 January 2012
by: Robert Naiman, Truthout | News Analysis

Responding to complaints over a New York Times report that purported to cite "a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's nuclear program has a military objective," The New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane has written that the complaints were just, and that The New York Times should correct the story.

Brisbane wrote:

I think the readers are correct on this. The Times hasn't corrected the story but it should because this is a case of when a shorthand phrase doesn't do justice to a nuanced set of facts. In this case, the distinction between the two is important because the Iranian program has emerged as a possible casus belli.

In other words: it's important to get this right, because getting it wrong unjustly promotes the cause of war.

As of this writing - eight hours after the public editor's post, six days after the original article appeared and people first complained about it - there is still no correction.

You can't find the article, as it originally appeared, on The New York Times web site, because the Times deleted the paragraph with the offending claim from the version now on the web, without running a correction or publishing a note explaining the change. But you can see the article as it originally ran here.

Note that in other contexts - not linked to the fervent desire of some people for military confrontation with Iran - the Times purports to be quite punctilious about corrections, as when it corrected a misidentified character from an animated children's TV show.

Although it is unacceptable that the Times is still refusing to run a correction of its erroneous and dangerously misleading story, it is unquestionably a very good thing that at least there is a place associated with the Times where you can complain about its reporting and get a public response that acknowledges the justice of your complaint.

We complained to NBC's "Meet the Press" about the fact that David Gregory did not challenge Rick Santorum on his claim that there aren't UN nuclear inspectors in Iran, and did not even receive any acknowledgement of the complaint, let alone a response.

We complained to The Washington Post when it used the headline "Iran's quest to possess nuclear weapons." The Washington Post did the right thing. They corrected the headline and they added an editor's note explaining the change. In addition, The Washington Post ombudsman wrote in his column that the complaints about the headline were just and important.

So, to The Washington Post, full marks. To The New York Times, partial credit. To NBC's "Meet the Press," zero.

Now, let's engage in a little experiment. Some people see PBS and NPR as publicly funded alternatives to commercial media. Others see them as the "Pentagon Broadcasting System" and "National Pentagon Radio."

If we complain to PBS and NPR when they report allegations that Iran has a nuclear weapons program as if they are known facts, how will they respond? Will they be more like The Washington Post, The New York Times or NBC?

On Sunday, Defense Secretary Panetta told "Face the Nation" that Iran is not now trying to develop nuclear weapons. "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No."

The Associated Press reported this straight: "US: Iran has not yet decided to build nuclear bomb."

But as Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting noted, on Monday, PBS "NewsHour" deceptively edited Panetta's comments to exclude his statement that Iran is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and then used his comments to try to suggest the opposite, that Iran is now pursuing a nuclear weapon.

On NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday," reporter Tom Gjelten said, "The goal for the U.S. and its allies ... [is] to convince Iran to give up a nuclear weapons program," thereby implying that Iran already has a nuclear weapons program, which is certainly not a known fact.

Trevor Project Intern Takes His Own Life
Filed By Bil Browning | January 13, 2012 11:00 AM

Teenage Trevor Project intern, EricJames Borges, took his own life this week after years of bullying from schoolmates and his family. The young man was a budding filmmaker and had created an It Gets Better video just last month.

Borges said in the video, "I was raised in an extremist Christian household. My earliest recollections of my experience with the relentless and ongoing bullying was in kindergarten, but of course to a lesser degree....Throughout elementary, junior high and high school it got progressively worse. I was physically, mentally, emotionally and verbally assaulted on a day-to-day basis for my perceived sexual orientation...'My name was not Eric but 'Faggot'...I reached my limit when I was assaulted in a full classroom with a teacher present. I dropped out, went on independent studies, graduated early and started college...My mother knew I was gay and performed an exorcism on me in an attempt to cure me....My anxiety, depression, self-loathing and suicidal thoughts spiked...I had nowhere safe to go, either at home or school... My parents told me that, among other things, I was disgusting, perverted, unnatural and damned to Hell. About two months ago they officially kicked me out of my house."

Trevor Project spokesperson Laura McGinnis expressed sorrow at the young man's decision to end his own life. "We are deeply saddened to hear about the tragic death of EricJames Borges, and our hearts go out to his family and friends, and his community. EricJames was a dedicated, trained volunteer. Our main concern right now is that those affected by his death feel supported and can get the care they need. If you or someone you know needs support, please don't hesitate to call the Trevor Lifeline at 866-488-7386."

Obama as a "feckless liberal". Political pundits should have a field day with this one.
 

Obama seeks to revamp government, focus on exports

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama asked Congress on Friday for broad powers to overhaul the U.S. government and untangle what he called an "outdated bureaucratic maze" that makes it hard for U.S. businesses to sell their goods abroad.

Obama said he wanted to consolidate six trade and business agencies into a single export body to help the United States better compete in a 21st century economy and modernize a government he said had grown too complex.

The move could help inoculate him against charges from Republicans hoping to unseat him in November that he is a feckless liberal
who has presided over one of the largest expansions of the U.S. government in history.

Ronald Reagan, an idol of conservative Republicans, was the last U.S. president who had the authority to reorganize the government in a similar fashion. But Obama must contend with some Democrats who worry that merging the agencies will backfire and some Republicans who are unwilling to give the president wider powers. Analysts were skeptical that Congress would approve Obama's request in an election year.

The consolidation of power Obama is seeking would allow him to design structural changes to the government that lawmakers would have to approve or reject, without revisions.

Obama said he wanted to move the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and five other export bodies spread across Washington into a new trade department, giving businesses a single point of contact and trying to ensure that Washington's export promotion packs a punch.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - now part of the Commerce Department - would be absorbed by the Department of the Interior under the plan, and the Census Bureau as well as other statistical agencies would find a home in the new, yet-to-be-named department. The Commerce Department would then be closed.

A spokeswoman for Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the Republican presidential nomination race who has said he would make it a top priority to reduce the scale of government, cast Obama's proposals as campaign spin.

"It's ironic that President Obama, who has grown government beyond belief for the past three years, is calling for consolidation of government. It is unfortunate that he is only doing so now to curry political favor in an election year," spokeswoman Andrea Saul said.

EXPORT PROMOTION

In a speech delivered at the White House, Obama said the overhaul would make it easier for U.S. businesses to work with the government and boost their overseas sales, essential to his economic goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2015.

He also announced he would elevate the Small Business Administration to a Cabinet-level post - his inner circle of senior officials - with immediate effect to underscore his focus on smaller companies as an engine of job growth and recovery.

Nick Consonery, a China analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington, said there was a genuine need for the United States to strengthen its trade policy as it seeks to increase exports and also ensure other economies play by the rules.

"We are definitely entering an environment where they will take trade disputes more aggressively and this would help provide a streamlined structure for that," he said.

LAWMAKERS NOT CONVINCED

On Capitol Hill, several key lawmakers expressed concern about the plan to anchor the specialized USTR - which negotiates free trade deals and monitors for rule-breaking - in a broader bureaucracy where its work may get bogged down.

"Taking USTR, one of the most efficient agencies that is a model of how government can and should work, and making it just another corner of a new bureaucratic behemoth would hurt American exports and hinder American job creation," Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Dave Camp, who chair committees overseeing trade policy, said in a joint statement.

Representative Sander Levin, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees USTR, noted Congress established that agency "because our trade objectives were not adequately negotiated, implemented or emphasized when trade negotiators and enforcers were part of a broader agency."

The lawmakers' comments raised questions about the White House's strategy for selling Obama's plan on Capitol Hill. But even if Congress rejects it, it would still be a win for the president, who has made running against an obstructionist Congress a central theme of his election campaign.

John Murphy from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also stressed it was important to avoid hurting the USTR with a merger. "The business community would oppose its merger with the Commerce Department, whose functions are quite different," he said.

Seeking to illustrate how complex government bureaucracy had become, Obama unveiled a slide at the White House with a bubble diagram that showed a dizzying array of websites, toll-free numbers and customer service centers that were available to small business owners seeking advice on loans and how to export.

"It's a mess," Obama said, after noting his favorite example of the bureaucratic maze.

"As it turns out, the Interior Department is in charge of salmon in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in saltwater," he said.

A White House official said the goal was to save $3 billion over 10 years from streamlining the trade agencies, which may lead to the loss of 1,000 to 2,000 jobs through attrition.


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-seeks-re...000237403.html